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JESUS CHRIST

HIS TIMES, LIFE, AND WORK.

E. DE PRESSENS&, D.D.

npot ravra rig IxavoQ; (a Cor. ii. 16.)

SECOND EDITION, REVISED.

SCRIBNER, WELFORD, & CO.

MDCCCLXVIII.

The Right of Translation is reserved to
Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton, London.
M. Waisenhaus, Halle (Prussia).
M. KEMINK, Utrecht (Netherlands).
Messrs. Scribner, New York.

UNWIN BROTHERS, PRINTERS, BUCKLERSBURY LONDON, E.C.

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

This Second Edition in English of " The Life and Times of
Jesus Christ" has been carefully compared with the latest issue
of M. Pressense's work from the French press, and corrected
by it It is hoped, therefore, it may be found free, at least,
from the minor inaccuracies of the First Edition. The trans
lator desires to acknowledge especially her obligations to the
Rev. Benjamin Davies, Ph.D., LLD., Editor of "Harmony
ofthe Gospels," founded on Dr. Robinson's "Greek Harmony,
1845," (and referred to by Dr. Farrar, in his "Bampton
Lectures," p. 173, and by Bishop Ellicott, in his Lectures on
"The Life of our Lord," p. 16), for his kind assistance in
the revision of this edition.

ANNIE HARWOOD.

London, June, 1868.

A 2

PREFACE.

This book is not the result of any particular circumstances,
nor is it an answer to any contemporary work which has left
its impress on the mind of our age. It forms a natural part of
my series of works on primitive Christianity. It was always
my intention to write it. If I have entered on the great under
taking sooner than I had purposed, it has been in obedience to
the imperative call of our day. The religious question, and
more especially the question — " What think ye of Christ? " has
come before our times with a directness which reminds us of
the sixteenth century. I do not hesitate to admit how much
the recent work of one of the most brilliant spirits of our age,
has contributed to this revival of interest. I said, candidly,
what I thought of that work on its first appearance. I retract
nothing from the judgment I then formed of M. Renan's "Vie
de Jesus ;" but it would be impossible to deny that his book
has given an impetus to thought, and fired the -public mind
with an enthusiasm for questions, which twenty years ago would
assuredly have been pronounced superannuated.
Let it be freely granted that this immense success, indicating
as it does amongst us, a great ignorance of the essential
character of Christianity and of religion in general, carries a
severe lesson to the defenders of the Gospel. Why have they
left it to their adversaries to bring Christ near to man, by repre-
A3

VI PREFACE.
senting Him in the historical setting of His age ? No doubt,
under pretext of restoring to Him His human character, these
have deprived Him of His divinity and His sanctity. But He
had been too often presented as an abstract dogma • here we
have only exaggeration carried to the opposite extreme, and a
romantic fiction substituted for a theological treatise. Let it
be our endeavour to arrive at the true history, by transporting
ourselves to the Judasa ofthe times ofthe Herods— that troubled
epoch when so much good blended with so much evil, and so
many pious aspirations clashed with low ambitions. Upon
this background of real human life, the divine and holy beauty
of the Redeemer shines forth more gloriously than from the
golden nimbus which encircles the passionless face of the con
ventional Christ.
Too often the manhood of Jesus has been entirely sacrificed
to His Godhead ¦ divines have forgotten that the latter is in
separable from the former, and that the Saviour-Christ is not
God hidden in a human form, but God made man — the Son of
God humbled and become obedient, in the bold language of
St Paul, a Christ who veritably submitted Himself to all the
conditions of human life. From this point of view alone is
it possible to attempt a history of Jesus. I venture to hope that
it will be found to harmonise, both in the minds of my readers
and my own, with that entire faith in His Divinity, which has
been the universal belief of Christians for eighteen centuries.
It may, perhaps, be asked — " What end is to be gained by a
new history of Christ ? Have we not the Gospels ? What can
be added to those incomparable narratives, so vivid and artless,
the pure and transparent mirror in which the image of Jesus is
reflected in all its gentleness and majesty ? Is it not enough
for us to have, as an historian, John, the friend and brother ofthe
Master whom he worshipped ? " None can be more ready than
I to recognise the inestimable value of this primitive testimony —
that which is authoritative, that which alone bears the impress
of the creative age of the Church. Those who have themselves.

preface. vn
attempted to depict the life of Jesus, are most prepared to appre
ciate the unique worth of the Gospels, and count themselves happy
in being able to turn from all the imperfections of their rough de
lineation, to those inspired painters who reached the climax of
art without any artistic methods, and whose perfect simplicity
brings us into direct contact with the living Saviour. And yet, I
believe, that there is a use in taking up after them, and under their
authority, a subject on which they are for ever our masters.
For, in the first place, the attacks made on Christianity vary
from time to time ; and we are therefore constrained to recon
quer, again and again, the disputed ground from the enemy.
Now the Gospel history has been one of the points most strongly
assailed, especially since the rise of criticism. Then, we must
not forget that the first historians of Jesus addressed themselves
to readers who were their contemporaries, and who were per
fectly acquainted with the scenes and circumstances amidst
which Christ lived,, with the condition of His country, and the
character of His age. A few brief indications in their writings
sufficed to enable Jews and Romans to represent to themselves
not only the drama of the Gospel history, but also the theatre
in which it was enacted. This acquaintance is absolutely
necessary in order to give anything more than a vague and
abstract idea of the ministry and work of Jesus. It is evident
that what was' then understood intuitively can now be grasped
only by a vigorous effort of mind. Knowledge is indis
pensable to restore colour to the past, because it alone enables
us to reascend the stream of time, and make ourselves, in a
manner, witnesses of the events.
Lastly, as Christ is above all the ages, no single century can
exhaust the riches of truth which are in Him. Every period
discloses some new motive for love and adoration. It is not
that any age can go beyond the Gospel • for it contains all
that we can ever know 'of Jesus ; but it is like the treasury in
the parable, from which the householder brings forth new things
after the old. Our conflicts, our griefs, our efforts, disclose to

Vlll PREFACE.
us truths hitherto unexplored, though standing in close con
nection with those previously known. It is thus that the
office of evangelist is perpetuated in the Church, and that each
new generation relates the old story of redemption from its own
point of view, with its own peculiar bias and experience. Thus
the ages repeat, each in its own tongue, " the wonderful works
of God."
Christian art has never been weary of reproducing the scenes
of Gospel history; the subject is ever the same, but it lives
again in the freshness of its youth, as the painter touches, with
his luminous pencil, one or another portion of his canvass.
Thus is it with the successive historians of Jesus. We are free,
then, to repeat the attempt of those who have gone before us ;
and our successors will have the same right, or rather will be
bound by the same duty, on the sole condition that the Gospel
remain for all and for ever the touchstone of truth and the
sovereign authority.
The plan of my book is simple. I have first treated the
preliminary questions which hold the approaches to the subject.
Is it true that the cause of the supernatural is, as is asserted, a
lost cause ? Is there no escape from the necessity of mutilating, .
from the very outset, a history which loses its proper character
as soon as it is divested of the idea of a sovereign God, capable
of interposing in our destinies by unforeseen acts ? I have en
deavoured to set reasonable arguments against the peremptory
affirmations, which are the weapons used in our day by the
adversaries of the supernatural. MM. Renan and Strauss, and
all the disciples of the Tubingen school, deny to Christianity
any character of originality; according to their version, it
is the offspring of the wedded genius of Greece and the East.
I have set aside this theory by a rapid glance over the religions
which preceded the Gospel. I have drawn a picture as com
plete as I could make it of the Judaism of the Decline in Pales-
' tine and in Egypt, and I hope to have established, that Jesus,
so far from drawing His doctrine from the schools of Jerusalem

PREFACE. IX
or from the transmitted influences of Alexandria, was the living
contradiction of all that surrounded Him. The importance of
such a result, if it is really attained, cannot be misconceived.
The preliminary questions are brought to a close with the
chapter entitled "The Gospels.'' It is very essential to vin
dicate against contemporary criticism, the credibility of the
documents from which we draw the history of Jesus. This is
the only means of laying a sure foundation of the building.
Are we dealing with legend or history? this is the grand
question. In the succeeding books, I have endeavoured to unfold the
life of Jesus, without much discursion from the thread of the
narrative, referring disputed points to cursory notes; further
than this, I have not paused in my history, to take any account
of the disputations of the schools. After treating the events
which belong to the period preceding the entrance of Jesus on
His public ministry, — the period including His infancy, His
temptation in the wilderness, and His relations with John the
Baptist, — I proceed to give an outline of His plan, His teaching,
and His miracles, before entering on the consecutive history of
His public ministry. The heads of the three books devoted
to this part of the subject will sufficiently indicate their
contents : —
I. The Time of Public Favour.
II. The Period of Conflict.
III. The Great Week. — Death and Victory.
My great aim is not so much to demonstrate any theory, as
to set forth Jesus such as I see Him, such as He appears to
me in the Gospels, such as I worship Him ; and to say to my
contemporaries — Does this image of Christ seem to you to cor
respond better with the truth of facts, than those forms under
which He has been recently represented to you from the
naturalistic point of view? Is it more in harmony with the
psychological laws, which suppose the unity of the moral being?

X PREFACE.
Have we faithfully observed the principles of the philosophy of
history, which refuses to admit effects without a cause, and to
assign as the motive power of the wide and deeji revolution,
which marks the commencement of our era, an intangible
myth, a religion without any fixed doctrine, a faith without a
God ?
It is not for me to reply. I have spared no researches which
might make me less unworthy of so great a subject. I have
journeyed through Judsea and Galilee, — not that I might garnish
my work with lavish descriptions of nature, and merge in the
dazzling radiance ofthe East, that calm and quiet beauty of the
Gospel, which belongs not- to this world, — but that I might
engrave, as deeply as possible, that seal of reality which is the
token of every true history. The reader will find in my book, at
least, entire sincerity; I have not cloaked any of the difficulties
I have met; I have faithfully given my thought, and my whole
thought, without bending to the bias of any school. I am
more and more convinced of the necessity of coming into
closer contact with the great fact of Christianity. The nine
teenth century has as full a right as the sixteenth to go back to
the fountain-head of the faith, unhindered by any tradition of
men. But this does not prevent my bowing before the ever
lasting Gospel. It is no slavish submission, it is the act of
a free man to acknowledge, on sufficient grounds, a divine
authority. I know well how this acceptance of the sublime
foolishness of the cross — which is indeed, the climax of the
supernatural — raises a smile ^of pity on the lips of those who
do not behold in it the wisdom of God and the marvellous
response to the deepest needs of man. I only ask of my
opponents not to pronounce, in my case, that judgment with
out a hearing, which is so readily awarded to the defenders
of the preternatural, and which dispenses with any impartial
examination. I appeal, by anticipation, against those summary
judgments which are unworthy of science. I demand liberty
of thought and conscience for every man. I repudiate all

PREFACE.

privilege and all coercion, especially in matter's of faith. My
whole soul yearns for the full consecration of religious liberty,
for that absolute severance of the two powers, which shall
establish the equality of all beliefs in the eye of the law. I
desire, for my own opinions, neither dole nor protection from
the civil power; for, in my view, none have more reason to
rest content with the common rights in the domain of thought,
than enlightened Christians. There is implied weakness in the
very semblance of protection.
This book has been written in troublous times, when a strong
wind is blowing the men of our generation further and further
from my most cherished convictions ; it will soon be seen that
this icy wind sows seeds of death on its passage, arid blasts all
on which it blows. Upon the shores towards which it is driving
us, we shall find none of the best blessings of life. Liberty,
social justice, generous care for the feeble and the fallen, will
all be lost on that fatal day when the cause of Christ shall suffer
shipwreck ; for — for the honour of humanity be it said — this
transitory life of earth owes all its grandeur and beauty to that
higher world whence man came. Christians hold, as their first
article of faith, that this higher world should be sought after for
itself, and that Christ's restoring and elevating work begins with
the individual who finds, at his feet alone, peace and a power
victorious over evil. They plainly avow that they are not dis
interested in this question of religion ; it involves for them all
that is worth living for. Thus, while they carefully maintain
the individuality of their personal faith, they combine, ever
more and more, in spite of all that yet divides them, in the
defence of their common standard.
I have certainly not abandoned my own peculiar beliefs in
this apology for the Gospel ; but I have rejoiced to feel the
close bond uniting me to the great company of the disciples of
Christ in all ages.
I have a firm faith in the issue of the crisis. I believe not
only in the triumph of Christianity, but in the purification of

Xll PREFACE.
the various churches, by the fire of conflict. This is my sted-
fast hope. My most ardent desire is to contribute, in my
feeble measure, to dissipate some of the misconceptions by
which the God-Man is veiled from the eyes of my contem
poraries.
EDMOND DE PRESSENSE.

Paris, Nov. 30, 1865.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Preface  '>¦¦*.  v
BOOK I.
PRELIMINARY QUESTIOM3
Chapter I. — Of the philosophical and religious bases
ofthe Life of Christ. — Ofthe supernatural ... I
-I. — Refutation of objections made to the Supernatural
from the Naturalistic point of view ... ... 5 — 18
II. — Refutation of objections made to the Supernatural
from the Theistic point of view ...  18 — 2
Chapter II. — Jesus Christ and the Religions ofthe Past 29
I. — Historical glance at ancient Paganism. — Asiatic
Paganism. — Hellenic Paganism. — Grecian Philo
sophy. — The Greco-Roman World ... - ... 34 — 44
II. — Religion of the Old Testament.— Conception of
God amongst the Israelites. — Idea of evil. —
Holiness. — Divine origin of the Old Testament. —
Israel separated from other nations. — Mosaic
institutions. — The law.- Prophecy  44 — 58
Chapter III. — The Judaism of the Decline  59
I. — Judaism under the Persians. — Temple on Mount
Gerizim ... ... ... ...  « 64 — 66
II. — Judaism under the Greeks.— Book of Jesus
Sirach. — Beginnings of Sadduceeism.— Beginnings
of Pharisaism. — The Psalter of Solomon  66 — 70
III. — The Maccabees and the Roman Empire. —
Messiah a new Maccabeus.' — Messiah of the
Sibylline oracles. — Fresh subjugation of the Jews.
— The Roman yoke. — The Books ofthe Maccabees 70 — 77

xiv CONTENTS. PAGE.
IV. — Alexandrine Judaism. — Philo. — Absolute contrast
between Philo and the Gospel. — Hellenistic Jews 77 — 84
V. — Sects and parties in Judaea. — Essenes. — Sad-
ducees. — Pharisees  84 — 88
VI. — Movement of thought in Palestine before the
birth of Jesus Christ. — Growing importance of the
rabbi. — Course of rabbinical studies. — Jewish
tribunals. — Teachings of the rabbis. — Vehemence
of Jewish prejudices. — Incomprehensibility of
God. — Tendency to place God at a distance from
man. — Pharisaic morality ; its mercenary charac
ter. — Materialism of the Jewish hopes. — Apo
calyptic dreams. — Book of Enoch. — Fourth book
of Esdras. — Contrast of the Talmud to the Gospel.
— Superstitious ideas respecting demons. — Political
agitators. — The indifferent. — True Judaism ... 88 — 109
Chapter IV. — Sources ofthe history of Jesus Christ. —
Credibility of the Gospel history ...  no
I. — General proofs of the reality ofthe Gospel history.
— Testimony of Pliny the Younger. — Testimony
of Suetonius and of Tacitus. — Testimony of
Josephus . — Testimony of the Talmud. — Testimony
of the Church. — Testimony of the Church of the
first century. — Character ofthe primitive witnesses.
— Uncontested letters of Paul. — Testimony of the
Revelation. — The Gospels recognised in the third
century   ... ... 111 — 119
II. — The first century, the date of our four Gospels. —
Testimony of the second century. — Testimony of
heretics.- — Determination of the sacred text in the
second century. — Language of the synoptics. —
Difference between the synoptics and the fourth
Gospel   119 — 126
III. — Origin of the synoptics. — Their fundamental
agreement. — Correspondences and divergences of
the synoptics. — Various explanations. — Gospel
spoken before written. — The apostles guardians
of primitive tradition. — Tradition enriched by
successive memories. — Fidelity of these memories.
— The written narratives. — Formation of one
type of narration. — Appearance of the Gospels.

CONTENTS. XV
PACE.
— Canonical Gospels. — Gospel according to
Matthew. — Hebrew and Greek Gospels. — First
Gospel not Judeo-Christian. — Gospel according
to Mark. — Testimony of Papias.— Relations
between Mark and Peter. — Gospel of Mark
written at Rome. — Relations between Mark and
Matthew. — Third Gospel : Represents the teach
ing of Paul. — Luke author of the third Gospel. —
Date of this Gospel ... ... ... ... ... 126 — 155
IV. — Fourth Gospel. — State of the Church at the close
of the first century. — Adaptation of the Gospel of
John to the requirements of the times.— Sketch of
the life of St. John. — John alone able to write the
¦ fourth Gospel. — External evidence. —Authenticity
ofthe fourth Gospel. — Unity of its plan.— Refuta
tion of objections. — Conclusion  ... 155 — 182
Chapter V. — Doctrinal bases ofthe life of Jesus ... 183—185

BOOK II.
PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. — GENERAL CHARACTER
OF HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY.
Chapter I. — Childhood of Jesus  186
I. — Birth of Jesus Christ, year of Rome 750. —
Anticipations of the great event. — Vision of
Zacharias. — The Annunciation. — Miraculous con
ception of Jesus. — Song of Mary. — Birth of John
the Baptist. — First census in Judaea. — Journey of
Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem. — Birth of Jesus
Christ— The Shepherds  186—200
II. — Childhood of Jesus. — The presentation. — Adora
tion of the Magi. — The star. — Massacre of the
children. — Childhood of Jesus at Nazareth. — The
child Jesus and the doctors of the Temple-
Development of Jesus  200 — 209

XVI CONTENTS. PAGE.
Chapter II. — John the Baptist. — Baptism of Jesus
Christ  210
I. — Preparation andfirst preachings ofthe Forerunner.
— John the Baptist the new Elias. — Preparation
of John the Baptist for his mission.— John the
Baptist in the Desert of Judaea. — Preaching of
John the Baptist. —Baptism of the Forerunner. —
Effects of his preaching. — His humility ... ... 210 — 220
II. — Baptism of Jesus Christ, year of Rome 780 ... 220 — 224
III. — John the Baptist and Herod Antipas. — Fresh
testimony of John the Baptist to Jesus. — John the
Baptist and Herod. — Doubts of John the Baptist.
— Testimony of Jesus to John the Baptist ... 224 — 228
Chapter III. — The Temptation in the wilderness. —
Jesus conqueror over temptation  229 — 236
Chapter IV. — The plan of Jesus  237
I. — Reality and unity of the plan of Jesus ... ... 237 — 240
II. — The kingdom of God. — Fulfilment of the old
covenant. — The plan of Jesus inseparable from
His person  240 — 247
III. — The titles which Jesus claims. — Son of David. —
Son of God. — Son of man ...  247 — 251
IV. — The Church and the Apostolate ... ... ... 251 — 255
CHAPTER V. — The Teaching of Jesus Christ  256
I. — The subject of Christ's teaching. — Jesus the
subject of His own teaching. — Infallibility of Jesus 256 — 259
II. — The forif! and method of the teaching of Jesus
Christ. — Calm majesty of His language. — Popu
larity of His teaching. — Its unscholastic character.
— Its moral character. — Authority of the word of
Jesus. — Variety of His teaching. — Parables. —
Conclusion-  ... ... ... 259 — 271
CHAPTER VI. — Miracles of Jesus Christ  272
I. — Miracles of Jesus Christ in general. — The
miracles inseparable from the discourses. —
Difference between miracles and prodigies. —
Miracles reveal Jesus Christ.— Divers sorts of
Miracles. — Intention of Miracles  272 — 278
II. — The healing ofthe Demoniacs. — Reality of cases
of possession. — Healing of the Possessed  278 — 281

CONTENTS. XVII
BOOK III.
FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. PAGE.
CHAPTER I. — Public Ministry of Jesus, from His baptism
to His return into Galilee after the feast of Purim.
(Year of Rome 780-782.) Three periods of the
Ministry of Jesus. Unity of His Ministry ... 282 — 284
I. — PoliticaJ. condition of Judaea  . 284 — 288
II. — Commencement of the Ministry of Jesus. — The
first Disciples. — First Miracle of Jesus. — Jesus
drives out the sellers from the Temple. — Con
versation with Nicodemus. — Jesus passes through
Samaria  ... 288 — 296
III. — Return of Jesus into Galilee. — Meeting with the
Samaritan woman. — First public Preaching. —
Jesus in the Synagogue at Nazareth  296 — 301
IV— The Feast of Purim at Jerusalem. — Healing of
the Paralytic. — Apologetic Discourse ... ... 301 — 304
CHAPTER II. — Ministry of Jesus in Galilee during the
time of public favour... ... ... ... ... 305
I. — General character of the Ministry of Jesus in
Galilee.— Early Miracles and early public Dis
courses in that country. — Call of the Disciples. —
Lake of Tiberias. — Christ's manner of life. — One
of the days of Jesus. — Healing of a Leper. — Time
of public favour. — Discontent ofthe Pharisees ... 305 — 316
II. — Choice of the Twelve apostles ... ... ' ... 316 — 320
III. — Sermon on the Mount. — The Beatitudes. — The
new Law ... ...  ... ... 320 — 325
CHAPTER III. — Preparation for the Crisis in Galilee ... 326
I. — Sojourn at Nain. — Raising of the Widow's Son.
— The Sinner of Nain. — Compassion of Jesus for
the despised. — Parable of the Prodigal Son ... 326 — 330
II. — Various Parables and Miracles. — Parables re
lating to the kingdom of God. — The Demoniac of
Gadara. — Raising of Jairus' Daughter. — First
Mission of the apostles  330 — 336
CHAPTER IV. — The Crises of the faith in Galilee ... 337
I. — The Multiplication of the Loaves at Bethsaida
Julias. — The Tempest on the Lake.— Discourse at
Capernaum   337—343

XV111 CONTENTS.
BOOK IV.
PERIOD OF CONFLICT. PAGE.
Chapter I. — Delegation sent by the Pharisees at Jeru
salem into Galilee. — Journey into the Lands of
the North. — From the Spring of the year of Rome,
782, to the Autumn of the same year ... ... 344
I. — First proceedings of the Pharisees in Galilee ... 344—348
II. — Journey into the Lands of the North. — The
Woman of Canaan. — Journey to Caesarea Philippi.
— Peter's great confession. — " Thou art Peter." —
The Transfiguration. — Healing of the Demoniac
Boy. — Various Exhortations. — The Lord's Prayer 348 — 356
Chapter II. — Sojourn at Jerusalem on the occasion of
the Feast of Tabernacles. (Autumn of the Year
of Rome, 782)  357
Attitude of Jesus during the Feast— Defence of
Jesus. — Discussion with the Members of the
Sanhedrim  357 — 366
Healing of the Man born Blind. — Inquiry of the
Sanhedrim. — The Good Shepherd and the Hireling 366 — 369
Chapter III. — Last Sojourn in Galilee. — Solemn return
to Jerusalem through Samaria. — Feast of the
Dedication. — (From October to December, 782)... 370
I.— Return of Jesus into Galilee. — The Duty of
Charity. — Mission of the Seventy. — Surrender of
Earthly Possessions. — Characteristic Sayings of
Jesus ... ...  ...  370 — 380
II. — Return to Jerusalem through Samaria. — Feast of
the Dedication  ... ... ... 380 — 382
Chapter IV.— Sojourn in Peraea.— The Family of
Bethany.— Resurrection of Lazarus ... ... 382
I.— Sojourn in Peraea. — Words of Jesus on the ques
tion of Divorce. — The Rich Young Man. — Law of
renunciation. — Compensation for Sacrifices. —
Jesus blesses Little Children  382 — 388
II. — Resurrection of Lazarus. — Deliberations of the
Sanhedrim  388 — 395

CONTENTS.

BOOK V.

THE GREAT WEEK.— ^THE CLOSE OF THE STRUGGLE..— -DEATH
AND VICTORY.
\ PAGE.
Chapter I. — Departure for the Feast.— The Journey. —
Jericho. — The Supper at Bethany. — Triumphal
Entry ...  ' ... ... ... 396
I.— ^Journey to Jericho.— Healing of blind Bartimseus.
—Jesus at the house of Zaccheus. — Parable of the
Talents... ... ... ... ... ... ... 396 — 400
II. — The Adoration of Mary of Bethany. — Indignation
of Judas ... .?. ... ... ... ... 400 — 404
III. — Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem. — The Barren
Fig-tree cursed .;. ... ... ... ... 404—409
Chapter II. — Relations of Jesus with the authorities of
His country.— The new religion and the State ... 410 — 417
Chapter III. — The day of Captious Questions  418
I. — Attempt of the Pharisees to ensnare Jesus. — His
Reply. — Attempt of the Sadducees. — Jesus' Reply.
— Indignant words of the Master. — Denunciation
of Pharisaism  418 — 429
II. — The Great Prophetic Discourse. — Jesus and the
Greek Proselytes. — Parables enjoining Watchful
ness. — The Final Judgment  429 — 432
Chapter IV. — The Scenes in the Upper Chamber ... 433
I. — Preparations for the Last Supper. — Character of
the Jewish Passover. — Jesus washes His Disciples'
feet. — The Traitor is pointed out. — The Lord's
Supper   433—440
II. — Warnings and Consolations. — The Sacerdotal
Prayer ... ...  440 — 445
Chapter V. — Passion of Jesus  446
I. — Gethsemane  446 — 448
II. — The Arrest. — First Trial. — Jesus in the house of
Annas.— Peter's Denial. — Jesus before the San
hedrim  448—452
III. — Jesus before Pilate. — Jesus before Herod Antipas.
— Return to the Praetorium. — Condemnation of
Jesus  452 — 45^
IV. — The Crucifixion and Burial. — Significance of the
Death of Jesus. — The Death of Jesus is redemption 456 — 472

XX CONTENTS. PAGE.
Chapter VI.— The Resurrection of Jesus Christ ... 473
I.^The Facts. — First Appearances. — Peter and
John at the Sepulchre. — Interview of Jesus with
Mary Magdalene. — Noli me tangere. — The
Disciples at Emmaus. — Jesus appears in the
Upper Chamber. — Doubts of Thomas. — Jesus
shows Himself by the lake of Tiberias. — Second
appearance in Galilee. — The Ascension  473 — 483
II.— Reality of the Miracle  483—488
III. — Significance of the Resurrection. — Conclusion ... 488 — 496

BOOK FIRST.
Preliminary IXuestions.

CHAPTER I.
ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL AND RELIGIOUS BASES OF THE LIFE
OF CHRIST. — OF THE SUPERNATURAL.
/~\N the very threshold of the great subject before us, we
^-^ are confronted by two commanding but opposite points
of view, between which it is necessary to choose. As the
supernatural is admitted or rejected, the whole life of Jesus
is transformed from its commencement to its close. In the
former case testimony and texts retain their evidential value ;
in the latter they are beforehand branded with suspicion, and
what is left is not fact to be verified, but fable to be interpreted.
It is impossible, therefore, to bend too careful a study to a
problem so vast and fertile in results; it is the very foundation-
stone of the whole building which has to be laid. Now we are
at once struck with one patent fact, which greatly complicates
the point at issue between the opposing partisans, or rather,
which prevents their entering closely and seriously into contro
versy at all. This is the haughty and contemptuous refusal of
the naturalistic school to put to a critical test the opinion of
its opponents ; — its claim to lay down at the outset, as an
indisputable axiom, the negation of the supernatural. This
B
9.

2 BOOK FIRST.
contempt for faith is in its essence also a contempt for science,
a limit imposed on free enquiry, and the first step in the path
of prejudice, which is but a blind adherence to a preconceived
and untested opinion. It is a flagrant deviation from those
great experimental methods which for three centuries have
been so constantly increasing the sum of human knowledge.
Bacon was right when he pointed out as a source of error
" the exaggerated and almost idolatrous respect for human
intellect ; a respect which turns men away from the contempla
tion of nature and of experience, and makes th'em revolve, as
it were, in the circle of their own meditations and reflections."
If the same peremptory method had been applied to the
natural sciences, by which the supernatural is now put out of
court without form of trial, we should find ourselves to-day
maintaining the theory of vortices with Descartes against
Newton, and treating the circulation of the blood as a fable.
Free enquiry has no worse "foe than trenchant dogmatism,
which eludes the test of proof equally in what it affirms and
denies. Are we doing injustice to our adversaries ? Let their own
words be the judges. " The countries and classes by which
the supernatural is received," says M. Renan, "are of secondary
importance."* " If we do not enter upon this discussion,"
writes M. Ha vet, "it is from the impossibility of doing so
without admitting an inadmissible proposition, namely, the
mere possibility of the supernatural. Our principle is to hold
ourselves constantly aloof from the supernatural, that is, from
the imagination. The leading principle of all true history, as
of all true science, is, that that which is not in nature is
nothing, and can be counted as nothing unless as an idea." +
"Positive philosophy," says M. Littre, "sets aside the
systems of theology which suppose supernatural action." J
* Chair of Hebrew in the College of France.
f "Revue des Deux Mondes," ist August, 1863.
\ Littre. " Conservation, revolution, et positivisme," p. 26.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 3
We ask whether it is possible to elude examination and escape
debate in a more pointed manner than by such words as
these ? A judgment without law is the only possible result of
such polemics. This revolutionary procedure is even more
convenient than, it is summary ; that which is treated thus is no
legend born of yesterday, but a mode of thought which has had
the greatest spirits for its defenders, and which has ever moved
mankind with an incomparable sway.
It can be no argument against the supernatural that miracles
have never consented to submit themselves,like dubious drugs,*
to the crucial examination of learned bodies. Such an argu
ment implies so utter an ignorance of the moral and religious
character of Christianity that it does not deserve to be met.
That handful of men who believed, eighteen centuries ago, in
the Gospel miracles, were not brought, it is true, before official
examiners, but they went down with calm conviction, in
presence of a furious populace, into the arena, and sealed with
their blood their faith in a risen Lord. Evidence thus attested
ceases to be contemptible, and deserves to be at least ex
amined. But no ; the miraculous and the incredible are bound
together at the very threshold of the enquiry. Strauss, in his
new "Life of Jesus," declares that the most direct testimony is
inadmissible when it has reference to a fact which does not
bend to the laws of nature, and he reminds us of the Roman
proverb — " I would not believe that story though Cato himself
related it ; "\ which is equal to saying with one of old, " Even
though thou shouldest persuade me, I would yet not be per
suaded." Such an attitude renders all enquiry impossible, and shuts us
up to a blind credence. These assertions tend to nothing
short of imposing upon us authoritatively a system of
* "Vie de Jesus." M. Renan ; Introduction, p. 21.
+ " Das Leben Jesu fiir das deutsche Volk bearbeitet." 1863.
MM. Nefftzer and Dolfuss have given us a very good translation
of this book. I quote, however, from the original.
B 2

4 BOOK FIRST.
philosophy which is as fairly matter for discussion as anything
which has its date within the history of human thought
In feet, this negation of the supernatural, or rather of its
possibility, springs from a fixed theory of the whole nature of
things. If this theory be justified to the reason, the cause of
naturalism is gained, but not otherwise. It is then to this
height that the debate must be carried if it is to have any real
issue. But this is not done. The appeal is made rather to
modern thought and to the results of the scientific movement —
a mode of proceeding which leaves the real question still vague,
and passes over in silence, difficulties which would have to be
met in a philosophical discussion ;— a new and striking proof
this of that enervation of the reason of which Christians are the
first to complain. We will not follow the example of our
opponents and meet them with high and trenchant affirmations;
we wish to show more respect for science ; and without entering
on a complete demonstration, which would require an entire
volume, we will give our main reasons for rejecting those
philosophical principles, ih the name of which those who differ
from us dismiss the supernatural. We will establish its* possi
bility, while the history of primitive Christianity, and its well-
attested witnesses, shall determine for us the form of its realisa
tion and its true character.
The supernatural is ousted in our day, in the name of two
opposing doctrines between which we make a wide distinction.
Naturalistic philosophy, or pantheism, rejects it, repelling with
it all order, spiritual and moral. Theism, in its different degrees,
opposes it on the ground of the very perfection of that order,
which appears to it to imply the inviolable fixity of the first
laws of nature. We shall maintain the possibility of the super
natural against the one and the other school, not hiding from
ourselves that the first has with it the rising tide of opinion ;
while the second is led, by the very gravity of its position, to
recognise ever more and more, the close bond of solidarity, which
exists between the cause of true spiritualism and that of Christianity.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 5
I. Refutation of objections made to the Supernatural from
the Naturalistic point of view.
We will remark, at the outset, that we attach very little
weight to the argument, borrowed from the development of
the sciences during the last three centuries, which deduces,
from their vast advances, the negation of the supernatural.
We ask, What are the sciences spoken of? Are they those
which bear on the knowledge of nature? We freely admit
that these have advanced with giant strides, and one of the
most incontestable glories of our age is that of having dis
covered a multitude of new phenomena in the physical order
of things, and of having classed them under demonstrated laws.
The domain of the unknown contracts its bounds day by day,
and the part which imagination has to play in the explanation
of natural facts is reduced almost to the minimum ; physics
and chemistry have slain the false magicians who cast their
spells upon nations in their childhood or their ignorance. But
how does the widest acquaintance with nature affect the belief
in the supernatural ? The very word supposes an order beyond
and above that of nature. What matters it from this point of
view that man has discovered the secret concatenation of phe
nomena of a lower order ? Does it follow that the chain may
not be broken or interrupted by a sovereign power ? When all
the links in the chain of natural causes and effects have been
brought to light, will it follow that the first link may not be in
the hands of a wise and sovereign God 1 Doubtless, if the
supernatural were confounded with the marvellous, if it implied
a capricious activity, working by perpetual prodigies, so that
there could be no fixity in the lower order, the progress of the
sciences would be fatal to it. But, rightly, understood, it pre
supposes natural order and laws, since it claims to be recog
nised precisely in the suspension and interruption of those
laws. If there were no fixed natural order, there would be,
properly speaking, no room for the supernatural ; the extra
ordinary supposes the ordinary, the exception implies the rule.

O BOOK FIRST.
Let science scrutinise as she may the secrets of nature, and go
on till she forms of nature herself a vast and admirably classi
fied , museum for the spirit of man ; faith in the supernatural
has nothing to dread from her researches. It would be other
wise if some new and considerable facts, decidedly contrary to
final causes, had been produced in support of naturalism. But
men are farther than ever from such a demonstration, so that
we have a right to affirm that the theses of naturalism appear
the less plausible, the more they are confronted with. advanced
science. What have we then to fear from its progress ?
I admit, that knowledge brings its intoxication; the intellect
which has grasped a planet in its span is fain to lay claim to
universal knowledge, to recognise no limits to its dominion,
and to ignore those which outlie it Hence the too frequent
tendency of ages of scientific discovery to narrow the horizon
of thought, to bring it within the lower sphere of things, so as
to spare itself the humiliation of acknowledging that above and
beyond all the known, stretches the region of the infinite and
the divine. Thus by a singular contradiction, an inordinate
ambition leads to an ignoble limitation of the human faculties.
It is not then the progress of science which threatens faith in
the supernatural, but the insensate infatuation of some of its
votaries, — a thing as wholly distinct as is wild enthusiasm from
rigorous logic.
The fact remains, however, that under the shelter of this
kind of scientific frenzy, naturalism has entrenched itself
strongly, not only in the domain of the natural sciences, pro
perly so called, but even in that of philosophy. It is a swelling
flood, which carries along on its rapid tide every one who
abandons the terra firma of moral truths. It behoves us to
examine carefully into its sources, and to trace its transforma
tions in our own time.
At the commencement of the century it makes its first ap
pearance in the magnificent and poetic pantheism of Schelling ;
he affirms in brilliant utterances the identity of natural and

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 7
spiritual order, clothes with delusive images a determinism as
positive as that of Spinosa, and holds up again to the dazzled
gaze the mirage of a false infinite, which does not in reality
pass the bounds of the world of natural phenomena. Hegel
gives it its most perfect form ; he pretends to find in human
reason the very formula of the absolute, which is not distinct
from the created world, but develops itself through universal life,
in an evolution regulated by fixed laws, of which logic shows
us the sequence. Thus from kingdom to kingdom in nature,
from sphere to sphere in human existence, from era to era in
history, the absolute reveals itself,, ever more perfectly, till
it arrives at the full consciousness of itself, as the idea of all
things in the reason of man. There, on the highest step of
metaphysical abstraction, is its icy throne, from which it de
scends incessantly to recommence its eternal evolution, under
the impulse of that famous dialectic method which brings ne
gation out of affirmation, and from their repeated collision
evolves new categories, to be themselves again carried along in
the vortex of a ceaseless development. Thus is the woof of
the universe and of our destinies woven under the hand of an
inflexible logic more weird and wan than the ancient Fate ;
thus does our world revolve upon itself, tightly bound within
its own limits, for its totality constitutes the absolute ; there is
nothing beyond it ; it is at once divine and circumscribed ;
there is not left one fissure, small or great, through which free
action might pass athwart the dialectic network which shuts it
in. Sound to the depths of this philosophy ; you will find no
other element ; it has been able, for a time, to make an illusive
show to superficial observers by employing Christian symbols ;
but the fatalistic and naturalistic idea, which is its essence, has
not succeeded in confining itself within a mould too narrow for
it ; it has broken it, and Feuerbach spoke candidly when he
repudiated resolutely the notion of religion. The learned struc
ture of Hegelianism was soon abandoned ; it cost too great an
effort to the modern mind, and especially to the mind of France.

8 BOOK FIRST.
This pantheism of the idea, with its ingenious method and
bold deductions, was quickly cast aside, but the influence of
the system remained no less considerable. The school of
Hegel first taught that the absolute is not beyond this world,
and then that this ever self-evolving absolute absorbs into itself
the most flagrant contradictions, and dwindles to the eternal
relative. Hence fall all marked distinctions between the false
and the true, between good and evil ; they are not ; they arise
only to be incessantly unmade and remade, for there is no
fixed type of the true, the beautiful, the good, since there is no
God. Moral freedom is crushed under the grinding wheels of
system. Hegelianism,. thus vulgarised and despoiled of the
deep and hardy speculations which made its grandeur, has crept
into our intellectual atmosphere ; we trace its influence in the
principal sections of the naturalistic school, which is only una
nimous in rejecting peremptorily the idea of supernatural order.
Thence proceeds that scepticism of the scoffer or the atheist,
which is ever repeating that everything is relative, that we are
but a shadow projected on the eternal illusion. Tt is graceful
truly in those who have reached this negation of thought, to
assume a position of proud superiority and to dispense their
scorn, as if there were in all the world of intellect a situation
more miserable and pitiable than theirs.
Positivism is only a less agreeable form of this scepticism.
It also, by its elimination of causes from the world, and primarily
of free and moral causes, has retained the great lesson of
Hegelianism, that the absolute does not exist beyond the finite ;
it thence concludes that there is nothing reliable but outward
fact, that metaphysics is but a mirage of the mind, a dangerous
relic of theology; it supposes itself to have discovered the
essential order of things because it presents a new classification
of the sciences ; it affirms with startling audacity that all which
does not come under this classification has no existence ; con
sequently, neither conscience, nor the sense of the divine, nor
the inextinguishable thirst after moral and religious truth — at

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 9
once the rack and the glory of the human soul — have any right
to be ; a creed which does not prevent it, nevertheless, from
mocking our highest needs with I know not what ridiculous
worship of humanity, upon which the present adherents of the
school voluntarily preserve a prudent silence. In vain does a
noble and vigorous mind essay to re-conquer from positivism
the realm of metaphysics, while yet maintaining that the absolute
has no personal existence ; he arrives only at an ideal which is
the contrary of the real, which vanishes when he would give
it life, which only is on condition of not being, so that the first
article of this strange theodicy might be defined thus : God is
the opposite of Being ; He is a pure abstraction. The spiritual
ism of M. Vacherot is only distinguished from positivism by
a sterile good intention, for with him the category of the ideal
is confounded with that of the nonexistent
It is not easy to grasp the Hegelian atheism amidst the
sensibilities, the lyric and mystic effusions, the prayers to the
Celestial Father, which abound in M. Renan's books; but
beneath the unction of this surface is soon perceived the hollow
void, the abyss whence we have emerged, the impersonal ideal of
which the name of God is a heavy and vulgar translation. He
has taken pains to come forth' from the gilded cloud in which
he chooses to enwrap himself with such words as these. "The
historical sciences are based on the supposition that no super
natural agent comes forth to trouble the progress of humanity ;
that there is no free existence superior to man, to whom an
appreciable share ' may be assigned in the moral conduct, any
more than in the material conduct of the universe. For myself,
I believe that there is not in the universe an intelligence
superior ' to that of man ; the absolute of justice and reason
manifests itself only in humanity ; regarded apart from humanity,
that absolute is but an abstraction. The infinite exists only
when it clothes itself in form."* Here is something definite.
Since his preface to the translation of Job, it has been well
* "Revue des Deux Mondes."— 1860, p. 383.

10 BOOK FIRST.
known that the immortality of the soul means for M. Renan
nothing more than the beneficent memory left by a noble life
upon humanity, Morality, like the rest of religion, is con
founded with aesthetics, and the worship of the beautiful is the
only serious worship. M. Taine, the brilliant rival of M. Renan,
professes naturalism with infinitely more simplicity; he does
not embarrass himself either with Hegel or with the ideal ; he
returns to the sensualism of the eighteenth century, stripping
Condillac of his periphrasis.
It was needful to show on what system of philosophy the
supernatural is in our day eliminated with so much boasting ;
nothing better proves to what an extent it is bound up with the
most elementary principles of theism. We will content our
selves with just recalling these principles to our antagonists, main
taining that they themselves demand from the reason far greater
sacrifices than any required bythe profounder mysteries of religion.
To the positivists who not only reject such or such solution of
the metaphysical and religious problem, but who suppress the
problem itself, and not content with denying supernatural order,
forbid it to intrude on the mind, we reply : You, who pretend
to explain all which is observable to man in this world, are not
consistent with yourselves ; you do not carry out your pro
gramme, for unless you recognise as positive fact only that
which is sensible and tangible, you cannot deny that there is in
humanity as well in our days of civilisation as in mythologic
ages, an all-puissant instinct which urges man to seek a moral
satisfaction beyond the temporal and finite, an unconquerable
aspiration towards that which is eternal. There is no fact more
positive than the religious sentiment. In the eloquent words
of M. Guizot, " You may interrogate the human race in all time
and in all places, in all states of society and all grades of civili
sation, and you will find man everywhere and always, believing
spontaneously in facts and causes beyond this sensible world,
this living mechanism called nature."*
* "Meditations sur la Religion," p. 95.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. II
Positivists, ye men of the outward fact, here is a positive fact,
which, of all the rest, has exercised the weightiest influence on
the destinies of our race ; here is a fact universal and incon
testable, appreciable not only in the individual but in the race,
and you take no account of it In vain you seek to substitute
it with " the astonishment of feeble and thinking humanity plunged
into the immensity ofthe universe."* This "feeble and thinking
humanity" soars perpetually beyond this immense universe
seeking its God ; your attempted substitution does not avail,
and the fact remains unexplained, or rather set aside and denied
by you. Strange positivism that, which gives no place in
science to the human yearning which has worked most mightily
on history, and has troubled and agitated the race to its depths,
not like a passing wind which swells the waves, but like that
mysterious law which day by day heaves the whole heart of ocean.
Positivism rejects supernatural and divine order, on the pretext
that it is without the world; and behold, this supernatural
order invades the world itself, at least by the passionate
longings which it excites, and thus asserts its right to be placed
in the category of appreciable facts to be verified and explained.
The school of fact is thus unfaithful to itself, and it is not need
ful in order to establish its insufficiency, to invoke the rights
of soul and conscience which it ignores ; it is enough to prove
to positivism that it sets aside the positive facts which fetter it,
and thus is untrue to its own method.
To re-conquer moral and divine order from pantheism, we
appeal to the numerous and weighty facts which are not com
patible with the explanation given by it of the universe. This
explanation is found in all , its systems, however worked out,
propped up as they may be by dialectics imposing as those of
Hegelianism, or invested with the elegance of our literary
metaphysicians ; in all comes out the declaration, that nature is
self-sufficient, that it is not the work of an intelligent, personal
* " Cours de Philosophie Positive;" par Auguste Comte. Nouvelle
Edition. 1864. Preface par M. Littre, p. 26.

12 BOOK FIRST.
cause, distinct from the world itself, and finally, that there is
no place in universal life or in history for moral freedom.
Material order is everything. Hence the impossibility of
admitting supernatural order. Well, but what if the science of
nature, metaphysics, and conscience give the lie to this solution
which only appears satisfactory because it suppresses all that
would embarrass it ?
The science of nature in its wide and mighty current sets
aside the hypothetical systems which have essayed to endow
matter with the faculty of transforming itself and originating
life. Neither the theory of natural selection, nor that of
spontaneous generation has been able to stand the test of a
close and impartial examination. Nature presents herself to
us ordered upon a uniform plan ; she forms a living ladder
upon which existences are disposed by ranks, but in such sort
that they cannot of themselves raise themselves from one step
of the ascending line to another — nay more, each species sup
poses a creative act. A plan marvellously wise is unfolded
in the general arrangement of the series, and the hand of the
Creator appears in each new link.* The work cannot, then,
be confounded with the worker, since nature is powerless to
pass alone the space comprised between any two species. It
follows that even into the domain of necessity shines the light
of the moral world — the world of freedom and of mind.
Matter only arrives at life and organisation under the action of
a free and spiritual cause. "The perfections of God are
clearly seen in creation."
Further, spirit itself appears in the world not simply in the
impress of intelligence and goodness which is reflected even in
the lower organisms, but again in a direct manifestation — I
mean in man. Here is thought, here is reason, here is moral
life. Having never succeeded in bringing a bird from a rep
tile, a mammal from a rodent, how shall we suppose that
man is developed from the lower animals ? Not a single fact
* See M. Janet's work on " Le Materialisms Contemporain."

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 1 3
has been successfully adduced in support of this abject hypo
thesis. "From all bodies together," says Pascal, ''you cannot
draw one thought"- How should spirit be born of matter?
The appearance of life in the inorganic world was a new
fact, or to speak more correctly, an act of creation, for it could
not leap from the insensate stone like the spark from fretted
pebbles. The appearance of animal life was equally a new act,
for plant never gave forth other than vegetable life. Surely
from the life of the animal to that of the spirit, the leap is more
wide and sudden still, and creative energy must have manifested
itself with greater glory to produce this higher form of life, or
rather to reproduce itself in it. Thus it is that without having
recourse to the brilliant tablets of earth and sky, by which
we are wont to be led from the admiration of a work so perfect
to the adoration of its Author; without invoking from the
shining day and starry vault, that triumphal hymn to the
Creator of which the sweet singer of Israel wakes for us an echo ;
without appealing to poetry — less false than the vulgar prose
which, while it assumes to banish the false ideal, banishes the
true idea of all things — it is enough to invoke the science oi
nature, in order to recognise even in this lower realm, the great,
free, mighty cause which we call God. Supernatural order has
set its seal on the natural which, without it, would have no
existence. The science of metaphysics is not less opposed than that of
Nature to the pantheistic idea. First, reason refuses to admit
that the perfect and infinite of which it has the conception, can
be inseparably bound to the imperfect and the finite, that the
imperfect and finite form part of God Himself!* For if it is
objected that the distinct existence of God is a limit to absolute
being, and consequently takes away that character of infinitude
which theism attributes to Him, we reply that there are two
conceptions of the infinite — one which confounds it with the
* See on this subject the able remarks of M. Jules Simon in his
book on " La Religion Naturelle."

14 BOOK FIRST.
totality of things and beings, and which destroys in the very
process of stating it ; another which makes it consist in omni
potence, omniscience, independence of all which is relative and
incomplete, in the intensity and plenitude of being and not in
its extension, in one word, in perfection. If God, after having
created the world contingent and finite, remains without and
beyond it, His will is none the less absolute ; beside and before
Him are only the creatures whom He has been pleased to call
into life. Hence the essence of being is wilL* But this is
just the redoubtable metaphysical difficulty over which pan
theism stumbles. It recognises no cause free and transcendent
to the world, to nature, and history. For it, there is no other
absolute than the universe arriving at the consciousness of it
self in our reason. But evidently, universal life does not begin
with this highest form ; it does not open with thought, which
is rather like the flower of this vast development, for it is not
the cause of it, but the product. That which is at the starting
point, at the origin of things, is not the idea, not mind, but
abstract being — an existence so vague as to be akin to non
existence. Thus the greater results from the less, life from death
or from inertia ; the immense column of universal existence
springs from sheer nonentity. For what, in definite terms, is
the abstract Being of Hegelianism, or that fathomless abyss,
whence the universe is made to arise, if it is not nonentity?
Thus the famous axiom, Ex nihilo nihil cannot be applied to
Christians, or to the spiritualistic philosophers who place
absolute being before the world, but it falls with its whole
weight on the systems of pantheism. It is idle to suppose
myriads of centuries bringing forms of existence out of this
nonentity ; time as has been well said, has nothing to do with
the question. Millions of years cannot make fruitful that
which has itself no existence. Behold then, a grand and
gorgeous effect — the world with its harmonies, humanity with

and

* See " Les Philosophes Contemporains," by M. Eugene Poitou,
,d " L'Idee de Dieu," by M. Caro.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. IS
its highest life, born not even of Thales' drop of water, but of
a void ! Reason protests against such a doctrine, and to
accept it, she must needs deny the principle of causality which
is one of her essential elements.*
The moral consciousness protests yet more loudly; it could
not survive the suppression of Divine order. It affirms it with
authority, every time that it enjoins the right on us, and
upbraids us for the wrong; for what it commands is often that
which we have no will to do, and what it condemns is
that which our inclination has prompted. It is not, then, the
simple echo of our hearts ; it speaks in the name of a law,
which is neither that of our senses, nor of our mobile and
impassioned soul ; it brings us into the presence of another
than ourselves, of one greater than ourselves, who has an
absolute right over us, and its " Thou shalt" sounds yet above
the wrecks of all our other convictions, establishing in us an
immovable certitude. The categorical imperative, to employ
the manly language of Kant, is the rock on which rests the
whole moral life of individuals and of societies, and which
sophistical speculation has no real power to fritter away, even
when it pretends to have ground it to powder. The meta
physician who has ignored conscience is compelled to lean on
it every instant; so soon as he relaxes his watchfulness over
himself, he returns to instinctive and universal beliefs; and
every time that, in view of crime or treachery, he utters a cry of
indignation, he acknowledges that moral order which he has
sought to confound with the order of necessity. Yes, the
human soul believes in liberty, in responsibility, in law, and its
sanction; man believes that there is something which is the
good, the true, the right, and some one who enjoins this upon
him, renders it possible to him, and watches over its accom
plishment Pantheism, applied truly and upon a large scale,
* See the noble remarks c. 5 in " La Raison etle Christianisijie,"
of M. Charles Secretan, and the Lectures of M. Naville on " La
Vie Eternelle."

l6 BOOK FIRST.
even by its best representatives, would cover with a plenary
indulgence all infamies, would unchain wholly the powers of
evil, and render life impossible. It would find its most
terrible refutation in its very application, which would be the
daring negation of right and duty, the justification of every
deed done, a sort of natural selection carried on in the bosom
of humanity, for the benefit ofthe violent and the froward; it
would be the reign of force over a servile and degraded race.
Thank Heaven, this frightful reductio ad absurdum of pan
theism is not needful; even should all the tribunals which rest
on the idea of responsibility and of justice be abolished, the
inward tribunal would still remain ; conscience would lift its
voice to attest that the human race is not mistaken in believing
that good is not another name for evil, and evil another name
for good; that the will is not a spring moved by the law of
necessity; that responsibility is real and earnest, and that
freedom, far from being an illusion, is the perilous and glorious
gift bestowed by Him who created man in His own image.
Everything within us proclaims His being. I ask no other
proof of it than those unquenchable aspirations, that need of an
infinite love, that boundless void which nothing avails to fill,
that holy agony so admirably expressed by the inspired
Hebrew, who spoke for the whole race when he cried, " My
soul thirsteth for God!"
Contemporary pantheism has against it not only all that is
elevated and noble in the human heart, but also the abject
position to which it is sinking so rapidly in Germany and France.
As we have already shown, the most outspoken materialism is
its natural successor and its legitimate scourge ; it cannot long
remain on the steep declivity where it is placed by its negation
of a personal God, and of Freedom; its false and artificial
idealism yields quickly to sensualism. It is enough in our days,
in order to refute those who have made of man the sole God
of the universe, to set against them those who, with M. Taine,
make him "the human beast" "Man," says he, "is an

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 1 7
animal, save in exceptional moments ; blood and instinct are
his guides ; necessity lashes and the beast goes forward — the
moral translates the physical." And this cynical and unblush
ing materialism walks as proudly as if it were not a blot on the
generation which retrogrades to it !
It has been a hundred times victoriously refuted; it has been
called upon to explain how matter, which we know only by our
perceptions, that is, by the exercise of our mind, should be
found to have greater certainty than that mind ' itself, which is
not only the first organ of knowledge, but also its most direct
object It is notorious that while the corporeal existence is
undergoing a perpetual process of renovation, molecule by
molecule, mind preserves its identity. If a close correlation
between the manifestations of thought and the physical organs,
which serve as its instruments, cannot be denied, this correlation
is never in an 'exact proportion to its development*
Let us then have it explained how the molecules which enter
day by day into the corporeal organism can suddenly be
invested with spiritual qualities, which they did not before
possess; how, from the atom, ever divisible and finite, there
should come forth the thought which has none of its attributes ;
how, if there is nothing beyond the physical, the influences of
the moral on the physical are as indisputable as are the inverse
influences ; how, finally, two orders of facts, often in contradic
tion, are to be brought into a factitious unity. But materialism
is not a doctrine, it is a ditch into which fall the spiritually
blind; it is the shallows which engulf the pretended philoso
phers, who, having first denied God in heaven, next deny Him
in man. The insoluble mystery is, that souls enamoured of
liberty,1 should be found to applaud this shameless sensualism,
which counts in our day so many adherents. Such a mental
condition reminds us of the prophecy of a philosopher at the
beginning ofthe century, "Our age will become so cultivated
* See M. Janet's article " Le Cerveau," in the " Revue des Deux
Mondes," June and July, 1865. c

1 8 BOOK FIRST.
that it will be as ridiculous in its eyes to believe in God as it
is now to believe in ghosts. Then shall the sweat of holy
conflict be dried on every brow. Then shall tears of lofty
aspiration fail to every eye; nothing but ringing laughter
shall be heard among men, for reason will have reached the
term of its work, and humanity attained its goal."*
Let us hope that many misguided spirits will recoil finally
from a theory, which makes humanity emerge from the steaming
sloughs 'of chaos only to return to them again. All whose
dignity it hurts to be the descendants of monkeys, will recog
nise what a price is paid for the surrender of supernatural
order, and will return to it. in the name of science, and of con
science, as to the sole adequate explanation of the enigma of
the universe, f The advocates of freedom will remember the
cruel lessons of history, and whoever owns a deadly disgust
with the era of the Cassars, will repel with indignation the
abject philosophy which gave it birth, remembering that, as
has been said by a great publicist, " There is a sure and secret
understanding between materialism and despotism."
II. Refutation of objections made to the Supernatural from
the Theistic point of view.
It follows from the preceding considerations that those his
torians of Jesus, who, in the name of pantheism, have at the
outset dismissed the. supernatural, without discussion and with
out examination, have started with an a priori thesis which
they have not made good. We have the right to maintain, in
opposition to them, the existence of a divine order, beyond
and above nature, which we may call the supernatural order.
This once recognised, we cannot beforehand limit its action
and intervention in nature, and it is logical to admit, at least,
* Lichtehberg. " Vermischte Schriften," I , p. 166.
t Since these pages were written, M. Ernest Naville has
published his beautiful work entitled " Le Pere Celeste." It is
needless to observe how entirely I am at one with him.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 1 9
the possibility of miracle. Here the theistic school arrests us,
and while admitting with us this divine order, pretends to
dispute the possibility of miracles, in the name of the very
perfection of order, which implies the immutability of the laws
of the world. It is to this objection that we proceed now
to reply. It will not embarrass us much.
It is necessary first to come to an understanding about these
laws. Does science permit us to confer on them an absolute
value ? Are they other than formulas designed to generalise
the sum of facts hitherto established? It is well to be careful
not to overpass the bounds of certainty, possible in this region.
Beyond this, the greater or less fixity of these laws matters
little. There are other laws, the immutability of which is
evident ih quite another manner; I allude to the very conditions
of the divine life. Absolute being, precisely because it is
absolute, distinct from the world, is sovereignly free and
independent. Now, if in creating the world it had alienated
its own liberty, enchained its independence by the very laws
which it is supposed to have given to nature, it would follow
that the divine order must have been profoundly shaken and
changed; the immutability of natural laws would involve the
transformation or rather the perturbation of the supernatural
order which is the order of absolute freedom. Divine sove
reignty recognises no limit in the order of nature, which is the
order of necessity. If the creation limited its author, He
would be enclosed and enchained by it, and theism would be
definitively compromised. Therefore has Nature been so
organised as to be in no wise closed against new interventions
of divine power. Have we not marked the trace of successive
acts of creation in the various ranks of beings, which followed
each other up to the appearance of man? And is not this
appearance itself the great miracle of creation? What is there '
to hinder creative power from manifesting itself anew for the
realisation of its designs? Above the special laws of nature,
is the law of natural life itself, which consists in absolute
c 2

20 BOOK FIRST.
dependence upon God for its maintenance. The worst of
disorders would be the abrogation of such a law. The choice,
then, is between the invariable fixity of the laws of nature and
the maintenance of the divine sovereignty.
It is of no avail to bring forward the immanency of God in
nature; we grant that we live and move in Him; but it is one
thing to believe in His incessant operation, and another to
identify Him with natural laws, as if the law of gravity or of
electricity were the necessary mode of His existence. Such a
conception of immanency leads straight to pantheism, and
implies the confusion of the Creator with the creation. If it is
objected that we ourselves impair His absolute sovereignty by
admitting that He has created beings in His own image, whose
freewill He respects, we reply that these beings belong wholly
to another domain than that of nature, and that it has pleased
God to exempt them from the passivity which characterises
the lower orders. Besides, it is from him that they hold this
liberty, in which He respects His own creative will, and He
has in nowise bound Himself not to act directly upon them and
to interpose in their moral history, while ever maintaining in
the mode of His action the marked distinction between moral
order and the order of nature.
What, then, is this talk about the overthrow of natural laws?
No one disputes that God is exalted, in virtue of His omni
presence and omniscience, above all the laws which limit
created beings, by the revolutions of time, and the divisions of
space. Why should He not be as independent of other natural
laws as of these? More than this; moral and free agents
modify ceaselessly the application of natural laws ; they com
bine and utilise them so as to call forth from them new effects,
which would not be produced by their habitual and regular
action; it may be even said that they suspend them in their
operation. When my hand throws a stone high in air, it with
draws the stone for a moment from the law of gravity, which
nails it to earth or attracts it thither. Thus is it in a multitude

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 21
of indifferent actions. What shall hinder me from admitting
that the absolute Being, who holds in His Almighty hand the
keyboard of all the forces of nature, the known and unknown,
may draw from it chords which pass our calculations ? Hence
it follows that miracles which suppose the combination of
natural forces, known or unknown, have nothing in them in
opposition to nature's laws. We go further; we admit absolute
miracle, that is, the direct manifestation of the creative power
without a medium. There is nothing impossible from that
point of view of theism which recognises a free creation, one
which is not simply the organisation of eternal matter. Are
the laws of nature violated because a fact is accomplished by
the direct exercise of divine power? Must the vine needs be
withdrawn from the laws of vegetable growth because, at Cana,
water was once changed into wine? Must the miracle of the
multiplication of the loaves hinder the sown earth from bearing,
that year, its harvest? No general law then was violated ; it
would be otherwise if it was established that divine power
could not have produced such effects: then it would follow,
that it is no more sovereignly free; it would have lost its
essential characteristics, and there would ensue a perturbation
of the order of the universe of more weighty import than the
most amazing prodigy, for — let us not forget it — the super
natural is the freedom of God, and it can only be abandoned,
or at least its possibility contested, by abandoning a personal
God.* Theism replies to these considerations by appealing to the
wisdom of the Creator. How, it asks, suppose that God,
sovereignly wise, has not realised His own idea by the best
means, and that He needs to re-touch His work as a poet
corrects his verses, because they are defective? The objection
would hold if we belonged to the world of necessity instead
of to that of freedom. Yes, if the entire creation had
* See, on this subject, the remarks of M. Rothe, in his little work,
"Zur Dogmatik," p. 66, and following.

22 FIRST BOOK.
been complete when it issued from the hands of God, and
universal life had been meant to flow on an untroubled course
between insurmountable banks, a new and extraordinary inter
vention of divine power could no more be conceived, than the
touch of an alien chisel on marble sculptured by Phidias. But,
in this sense, creation was not complete; the free creature,
man, had to determine his own destiny by an act of will,
which implies the possibility of evil being introduced into a
perfect work. Thus the divine poem of the creation, to borrow
the image of a father of the Church, has been interpolated; the
determination to be free has had fatal consequences for man
himself and for the earth, which, given to him as the theatre of
his activity, has become that of his perpetual chastisement, till
he mingles dust with dust. It is not, then, His own work that
God has to correct, as if it had been originally imperfect and
wanting; it is a helping hand which He holds out to a creature
lost and miserable through his own fault The case is thus
stated in far different terms; the divine wisdom is not the point
in question.
If the fall of mankind iss disputed, we answer that, short of
an optimism as superficial as it is untenable, it must be im
possible to contest its misery and degradation. To all whose
eyes are not blinded, man appears a being fallen and debased.
He has his joys, his grandeurs and gleams of nobility; his
miseries are the miseries of a lord of creation; he is not a
parvenu animal, but a being celestial and divine fallen from his
high estate, and still mindful of it In spite of spring with its
smile, and youth with its enchantment, in spite of short felici
ties and glowing dreams, we see the race panting under its
load of suffering, till one by one its children yield up their
breath in a last agony. For the majority of men, existence is
one long battle with hunger, in protracted ignorance and
thankless labour. Bread is a conquest always dearly bought
To all death is preceded by a long procession of bodily ills,
and to some it appears almost a remedy, so has their hfe been

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 23
smitten and wounded. One mighty groan has been rising for
six thousand years from this earth, watered with sweat and
tears. It is, as says the poet, the voice of men who weep;
they curse the day when they were bom, every time that a new
stroke of destiny recalls them to the poignant verity of their
situation. Doubtless, in the midst of all these woes, the
chariot of progress advances, but there are stains of blood on
its wheels, and we know but too well what it crushes in its
course. Vain is it to seek for it a smoother road; it must
ever leave each generation on the sepulchral field, in which the
fairest discoveries of science cannot smooth a single furrow.
Side by side with the sorrows of mankind are its crimes, its
basenesses, explosions of hatred, fevers of voluptuousness. It
is not needful to multiply deeply-coloured pictures, or to track
far the miry, bloody course of history. Is not the destructive
force ever being unchained among men, let loose by themselves,
and ever equally terrible whether assuming the guise of pleasure
causing death, or that of hatred enkindling fratricidal war?
Without widening our horizon, it is enough to contemplate the
crimes of one single city — the most brilliant let it be, and the
fairest to the eye — and to remember what one single night
there covers with its wings! It is enough to lift that othei
veil, not less dark, which hides the life of each man, to
.descend into the depths of one's own being, and to own
courageously to oneself that which none would confide to
dearest friend.
If this was the normal state of humanity, if this the primal
work of God, what, then, is that God ? and why guard with so
anxious a care a wisdom so cruelly belied ? The Christian
solution which places at the source of history, a terrible falling
away of the moral creature, appears to us, notwithstanding its
mystery, alone compatible with the conception of a God holy
and free. Original sin opened the world to evil and to sorrow;
and it is only too certain that both are ceaselessly renewed by
hereditary influence. This is a fact that can only be denied

24 BOOK FIRST.
with the denial of evil itself, and with it of good, of God, and
of moral order. All the explanations of evil given by deism,
fall before a rigorous examination; they are forced to palliate
it, to reduce it to being only a privation of the absolute, the
necessary condition of the creature; they finish always by
making it something natural and simple, to be softened down
as far as possible, and thus they fling a roseate tinge upon our
heavy shadows. But none the less does the malignant power
carry on its ravages in the heart of humanity, which, incapable
of exorcising, ceases not to curse it And were all outward
forms of suffering removed, the soul would raise to heaven a
yet more despairing cry, because she would then be devoted
wholly to the inward torture, consumed by the thirst after
"righteousness and the infinite; like Rachel, she will not be
comforted because her God is not, or rather because she is no
more her God's. All great poetry is in its essence the poetry
of sorrow.
Vain is it, as Plato beautifully expresses it, to seek to banish
from man's memory the time when, in the light, he celebrated
the divine mysteries; he remembers that he is of the race of
God; therefore he is inconsolable. This incurable regret,
mingled with an ardent though indefinite aspiration, is at the
foundation of religion as of art. It is to be traced in the fables
of all the ancient religions. All unite in proclaiming that
primitive natural order has been overthrown, not by deed of
God, but by deed of the estranged moral creature, and that it
has become an order against nature. Thenceforward the
supernatural is only the restoration of true nature, a return
to the really natural order; it loses thus all semblance of
arbitrariness. If the fall is but a delusion, if evil is only the imperfection
necessary to the harmony of the Whole, I can understand the
objections ofthe deist to miracle. But if it is true, that God's
free creature is unhappy through his own fault, and has placed
himself under the yoke of a calamity as tremendous as it is

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 25
terrible, in the name of what principle can those who recognise
a sovereign Deity set aside the supernatural? After all,
miracle, which must not be regarded exclusively in its secondary
manifestations, is ' nothing else than the intervention of the
divine freedom to save man, conformably with the laws of
moral order. What? You admit that God is free, is master
of the creation which He called out of nothing, and yet to this
free God you deny the right to arise from His -rest to restore
His fallen creature, because, to this end, He must needs break
the chain of cause and effect, and introduce a novel fact in
history? But if He cannot save, how could He then create?
Creation is apparently an act of love which reveals the depth
of His being. If you question His sovereign right to save His
creature when fallen from happiness, you refuse Him that
which is the very essence of His being; you impugn His moral
immutability, which must be in no wise confounded with
immobility or inertia. The supernatural is, then, not only
the freedom of God, it is also His love. I know no other
definition of it more rigorously exact. Of what avail
would His freedom be to God, in the sense in which it is
accorded by theism, if He were unable to use that freedom
for good ?
God is not dependent on natural order. Let it, then, be
admitted that nothing is more conceivable than His sovereign
intervention in that order, to restore it when it has been over
thrown. What more untenable, in good logic, than the incon
sistent theism which admits a free Deity, but forbids Him to
use His freedom, and compels His wisdom to restrain His
love? Such a system must either ascend or descend'; its only
refuge is above itself in Christianity, which alone realises fully
its high conception of God, or below itself in pantheism, which,
suppressing all transcendent and divine order, admits nothing
but natural law.
In deism this natural law acts as a sort of maire du palais,
governing in the name of a faineant king, who is himself

26 BOOK FIRST.
governed by it. There is nothing left but to depose such a
sovereign. " Dandum est Deo" said Saint Augustine, " eum
aliqnid facere posse quod nos investigare non possumus''' " We
must grant that God is able to do that which we are not able
to search out."
There is one school more inconsistent still than the deistic;
it is that which pretends to give us a Christianity without
miracles, and seriously maintains that the supernatural is an
indifferent element in the religion of the GospeL Such is the
confusion of spirits in our day, that theologians are to be found
who, repudiating overtly the notion of a personal God, yet
make use of the name of Jesus Christ. When the Church
shall have enlarged her borders wide enough to enclose these,
there will cease to be a Church, for she will then have cast
away that which has hitherto made her a society of Christians.
The deists who claim to belong to her, and whom we are far
from confounding with pantheists, do not less misconceive her
distinctive character. Since miracles, or, to speak more
properly, since marvels have been made to give place, as con
clusive proof, to moral evidence, they conclude that the super
natural is of no importance in the Christian creed. The con
clusion is singular, since miracle, instead of being simply the proof
of religion, is its very subject. Christianity rests entirely on
the idea, or rather on the fact, of the supernatural intervention
of divine love to save a ruined world. When the doctrine of the
fall and that of redemption have been taken away, and the system
of the simple development of human nature, reaching its per
fection in Jesus Christ, has been substituted for them, the very
foundation is sapped. Christianity is bound up with the folly
of the supernatural, and with it must either conquer or fall.
To attempt to maintain it, while robbing it of this its truly
characteristic feature, is to introduce intolerable anarchy into
the world of thought Our Christian deists are but timid
representatives of the tendency we have been withstanding;
they are bound to Jesus Christ only by a memory which,

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 27
respectable as it may be, will not be able to hold its ground
against the deeper elements of their creed — a creed which is at
the farthest pole from the Gospel.
The conclusion of this chapter then is, that the modem
historians of Jesus have unjustly set aside at the outset the
notion of the supernatural We have established its possibility
against pantheism, which only repudiates it because it denies
God; and against deism, which in rejecting it, is false to its
own principle of divine liberty. There is no justification,
therefore, for the a priori interdiction of the evidence of our
Gospels. We may approach the sources of Christianity with
out going in quest of abstruse hypotheses, to bring it within the
scope of natural order. It is not only this glorious history
which is wronged by such a course; it is history itself in its
widest acceptation. Let liberty be ignored, whether in God or
man, and there remains but the shock of blind forces, or a sort
of geometry, producing only abstract formulas, or a veritable
natural history, in which physical conditions play the foremost
part; fatalism is the universal law, and all the interest and all
the morality of the drama disappear. Under the influence of
such principles the history ofthe human race speedily becomes
a confused chronicle.
Deism doubtless rises higher than this, but it admits no other
combatants than feeble creatures. How far more beautiful and
touching is history, when it represents to us the fruitful wrest
lings of divine with human freedom, the former striving to
assimilate the latter to itself, and to bring about that positive
reconciliation, which, embraced in all its consequences, will be
the issue of this sublime conflict. I know no thought more
elevating, more satisfying than this. God in history, a free
God, a God of love, the God of conscience and of the Gospel,
God carrying on His own scheme of restoration, with man,
when man submits to Him, in spite of man when he rebels ;
this is the grand thought which should inspire these studies of
history, the purest literary glory of our age. The life of Jesus

28 JBOOK FIRST.
then fills its central place as the capital event to which all was
tending in the ages anterior to it, and from which all proceeds
in subsequent times ; it is the very key of the drama, which is
neither a miserable farce nor a tragedy without a catastrophe,
but the sublime development of a divine thought of pardon and
salvation, wrought out through the conflicts and reactions of
human freedom.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 29

CHAPTER II.
JESUS CHRIST AND THE RELIGIONS OF THE PAST.
TTTSTORY, according to the Christian statement of it,
-*"¦—*"*** opens with a grand conflict between God and man.
The free being, made king of the terrestrial creation, and de
signed to become its priest, fails under the mysterious ordeal
through which he has to pass, in order to leam that he is a free
agent, and capable of good and evil. Confounding liberty with
the -violation of the moral law, forgetting that this moral law is
the basis of the higher life, he is untrue to his destiny, and falls
under the heavy and degrading yoke of nature. His rebellion
has made him a slave, which is the fate of all false emancipation,
for the creature cannot exist in absolute independence; either
he recognises the moral law, and then is divinely free, or he
becomes the victim of his lower instincts and passions. In
alienating himself from his Creator, man severed himself from
the very principle of life ; this fact tells what must be his fate if he
is left to himself, Christianity teaches that the free love which had
called him into existence, sovereignly interposed a second time
to recover and save him. The generous pardon which covers his
offence and breaks the fatal and logical sequence, by which death
is the issue of evil, — this is the supernatural as apprehended
in the very heart of God, at its origin, and in its principle.
But moral life cannot be restored, as it was given, by a
simple act of divine omnipotence. God created a free being
with a word, but liberty once given cannot be violated even
for the accomplishment of the work of restoration ; else the
restoration would be in reality the annihilation of the moral

30 BOOK FIRST.
creature. It is necessary, then, to bring about, progressively,
a new harmony between the human will and the divine, and
this harmony will be a reconciliation not only of God with
man, but of man with God. God renounces His right to
punish, but man must renounce his false claim to belong
wholly to himself; he must retract his rebellion, and die to
himself to give himself to God. Thus the reconciliation will
be a double sacrifice, the divine sacrifice of love which
pardons, laying aside the right of irremissible punishment;
and the sacrifice of the human heart, which renounces its self-
will, breaks or makes itself an offering, penitently- confessing
past rebellions and accepting all their bitter consequences in the
present. Now Christianity tells us that humanity is incapable
by itself of this return of holy penitence. Therefore God does
not leave it to its own impotence any more than to its con
demnation ; He acts upon it from without by the stern lessons
of life, alnd by facts which serve as revelations ; He acts upon
it from within by the mysterious operations of His Spirit ; He
penetrates it more and more, till at length His eternal Word,
life and light of the moral world, descends into it and assimi
lates it to Himself, so as to be truly its representative. We
shall see later what is to be understood by this assimilation, and
by the reparative work of which it is the condition. For the
present we will content ourselves with saying, that the God-
Man is the representative of humanity not only because He
took upon Him its likeness, but also because He answers its
deepest aspirations ; confused and impure in the masses of
mankind, these appear pure and luminous in the moral elect,
who are in all ages the type of true humanity, I mean of that
whi6h alone fulfils its destiny. Hence a patient work of pre
paration precedes the coming of Christ It is carried on in
two parallel lines, that of direct revelation in Judaism, and that
of free experiment in paganism ; the point of convergence is
the universal expectation of the world at the time of the birth
of Christ. It is thus that the Redeemer deserves to be called

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 3 1
the "Desire of all nations," according to the sublime expression
of Scripture, which comprises the highest philosophy of history.
Such is the Christian statement
We are not called upon to justify, but simply to present it.
It will be admitted that it is lacking neither in grandeur nor
in respect for humanity. It does not need long dissertations to
establish that it explains, better than any other theory, the history
of our race. It alone gives an account of the general facts,
universal indeed as humanity, which are found in all the systems
of ancient civilisation, and the rudiment of which is discernible
even in extreme barbarism.
Religion is one of these universal facts ; in forms gross or
refined, it everywhere rules the life of man ; it fashions it to its
image, and no impress is to be compared with that which it
leaves upon ages and nations. By this name of religion we do
not mean simply a collection of beliefs or of ideas about the
Deity; religion is above all else an imperious instinct of the soul ¦
a need of the infinite, of peace', of pardon, of consolation, which
becomes an anguish, an all-absorbingpassion, before itis appeased.
It is not bftrn of physical fear, but of the terrors of conscience
and the dread of the unknown ; it is inspired, primarily, by the
consciousness of guilt and pollution, and thus it impels men to
sacrifices and purifications. The universal human fact is then
not a vague natural religion, consisting of two or three dogmas ;
it is the passionate endeavour to re-unite the broken link
between humanity and Deity; it is the quest of a sufficient
atonement and a certain reconciliation with heaven.
The succession or -transformation of ancient religions proves
the energy of the religious impulse ; it is a thirst too intense to
be quenched by a few drops of a troubled wave. Each
imperfect religion is only a halt in the ardent pursuit of an
end ever retreating, for which, however, it is evident that
man was made, from his inability to rest short of it. The
appearance of art, wherever a new civilisation arises, reveals
the same unrest, the same aspiration. According to the

32 BOOK FIRST.
sublime and profound interpretation of Plato, man seeks to
forget the cold and meagre reality of things to find the ideal
beauty which lives in his memory. All great poetry is a
rainbow formed of tears wrung from us by our actual miseries,
and rays of glory from our noble origin. Philosophy, especially
in the form which it wore in the ancient days of its glory, is
the search after absolute truth, lying beyond all theories in
which the true and the false are blended ; it carries into a
graver region the same regrets, the same aspirations which give
birth to art The succession, like the multiplication of schools
and of systems, evidences after its manner, the same unalloyed
thirst which we have shown in the domain of religion.
Thus we find that man, in conditions favourable to his
development, is an essentially religious being, but unsatisfied
with his actual condition, ever seeking something better,
feeling after a pacified God. Far from finding these aspirations
to b.e dependent on external circumstances, or on the progress
of civilisation, we recognise their dimmed, reflection even in
the lowest religious conceptions. Their birthplace, then, is
the soul itself. Man does not lift himself out of materialistic
sensualism to the conception of the Deity ; such a thought
would never be educed from the whole collected body of
natural phenomena ; man only infuses into these a divine
idea, because the idea was previously within him. It may be
concluded, from the universality of this divine idea, that it
formed part of the primeval treasure of the race ; not borrowed
from the outer world, it descends from a higher sphere ; it
comes from God, and leads to Him again. So far from the
first rude forms of nature-worship being the foundation of
religion, these owe all their sacred character to the pre-existence
of religion in the human heart. Assuredly, man fallen so low
as to bow to the forces of nature, would never dream of deifying
these, if the divine idea were not deeply inrooted, and if it had
not at an earlier period possessed him wholly. Natural
religions are only possible, in the degradation which is their

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 33
basis, on the supposition that man lived in the first ages of the
world a life so profoundly religious, that even in the depths of
his fall, he cannot lose the memory or the need of it.
Side by side with the religious is the moral instinct, the
consciousness of obligation, of dependence, of relation to a
higher and Divine law — conscience, in short, which convulsed
and darkened as it often appears, is nevertheless the very
foundation of social life ; supposing it wholly absent, neither
the relations of family or of state would be possible for a single
day. It is at the basis of even the most defective legislation ;
banish the idea and the feeling of moral obligation, and all human
relations become but conflicting elements of disorder. The
moral united with the religious sentiment prevents man from
living a mere animal existence, from sinking into the sleep of
sloth or sensuality ; it is a sharp double spur, which urges him
painfully onwards in the eager pursuit of pardon and of right
eousness. Man is then evidently placed under conditions
most favourable to the work of restoration, and to be per
suaded of the possibility of his recovery, it is enough to hear
his plaint, and to catch his sigh even from the very bosom of
outward prosperity.
This race thus religiously organized has a history; God is
constantly acting upon it to prepare it for perfect union with
Himself A single glance over the development of ancient
religions reveals this progressive preparation, retarded often by
the false steps of the free creature man, but carried forward no
less through his experiments and gropings after light in the
depths of paganism, than by the direct revelations lodged in
the bosom of Judaism.
Here there must be no misunderstanding. The naturalistic
school pretends that Christianity was not prepared but born of
the ancient world, that it is the product of its various elements,
and as it were the confluence of its streams, so that it can be
explained by the simple concurrence or combination of natural
causes. Christianity, on the contrary, proclaims itself a divine
D

34 BOOK FIRST.
work, a supernatural creation. Against such a claim are
adduced the ideas and sentiments of the old world which had
some analogy with its doctrine ; but it is only just to claim
these as on its side, and to find in them a proof in its favour ;
for if Christianity is not the product of humanity, it is none the
less made for humanity, and promises to respond to its inmost
needs. If this is the definitive religion, is it strange that there
should have been desires after it and presentiments of it?
These analogies adduced against it are its points of contact
with the race, which it came to raise and save. Doubtless
this could not be maintained if it had been preceded by any
thing more than a presentiment of the good it, brings ; if there
had been before it a religion or philosophy, which had been
able to give that which it promised. But there is none such;
it is found that the very epoch of loftiest aspiration is that of
most radical and degrading impotence. Christianity is then
so much the more necessary to the human soul, the more
loudly the soul cries out for it by all its aspirations and pre
sentiments. To call up before a fallen race a noble ideal,
which yet the race left to itself is powerless to realise ; this is
the whole work of preparation ; for from the moment when
man becomes conscious at once of his high destinies and of
his utter helplessness, he is prepared to receive the Deliverer.
We may not even attempt to sketch here the history of the
religions of antiquity. We will limit ourselves to marking in a
few touches, the principal stages of this long voyage of human
thought I. Historical glance at Ancient Paganism.
When man attempted to raise himself from the depth of the
dark deep into which he had fallen, after the mysterious
ordeal which precedes and inaugurates history, he began by
the worship of nature; unable to raise himself above her,
equally unable to abjure entirely the divine instinct within
him, he deifies nature and seeks in one and another of her

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 35
manifestations that higher power on which he feels himself
dependent Now, at the lowest stage of his development, he
contents himself with a roughly-hewn fetish; now he adores
the unknown power in the sun, which seems to him to pour
life and fertility into the earth, or in the moon, which bathes
the night with its serene splendours. Under this latter form,
completed by a very simple anthromorphism which applies to
the gods the law of the sexes, the religions of nature weighed
during long ages upon Western Asia. From Babylon to the
deserts of Arabia, from Tyre to Carthage, there are ever the
same divinities under the various names of Bel and Melitta,
of Baal and Baaltis, of Milcarth and Astarte ; ever the same
confusion of the kindly and severe attributes of nature, ever
the same sanguinary and voluptuous worship, mingling murder
with prostitution, to celebrate the divinity of birth and death.
Grave, immobile Egypt, by the banks of its sacred stream,
under the changeless blue of its sky, enfolds in fables of
Asiatic origin, the dream of a dim and uncertain immortality,
ever bound to the permanence of the mortal remains. She
breathes a new inspiration into the legend of the young god,
dead and made alive again, who is no longer Adonis but
Osiris. The purely natural symbolism of the rising and falling
of the Nile no more contents her ; a vague hope glimmers
in the pale realm of the dead since Osiris has penetrated it,
and there sits enthroned as judge and king of souls. But
Egypt goes no further ; she only half shakes off the fetters of
Asiatic materialism, which revives in her gross symbolism.
We rise a step higher with the religion inaugurated by Zoroaster
six centuries before Christ; we escape from the incoherent
blending of good and evil, which was fatal to the moral con
sciousness at Babylon : in nature as in human life, a great
combat is waged between two decidedly hostile powers;
religion is a holy war, and its chief manifestation is through
the noble organ of thought, — language, which by prayer
ascends to heaven; the conception of immortality and of
d 2

36 BOOK FIRST.
judgment becomes more pure. Still this noble religion hovers
between dualism and pantheism ; it has not truly passed beyond
the circle of the religions of nature, for it perpetually identifies
moral facts with those which are natural
The fatal circle of naturalism is completed in India, in the
heart of that Aryan race so richly gifted, with mind so subtle
and brilliant, which from the most remote ages, has given birth
to the metaphysics of pantheism, and pushed it to its farthest
issues. When this race awoke to the life of thought, it was at
the foot of the Caucasus, where it still clustered in a fresh
dawn, under a radiant sky, and by murmuring waters : it saw
its gods in the natural phenomena which charmed it; it praised,
under the name of Indra, the young and dazzling light ; it had
hymns for the two first rays of morning, those first-bom of the
day; hymns, too, for the dew and for the limpid, life-giving
stream. Fire is worshipped as the winged being which shines
on the hearth, as the golden bird which rests upon the earth,
as the sovereign victor who has smoke for his standard. Thus
was bom in the Vedas that naturalism which had all the fresh
ness and poetry of childhood, and which was the common source
whence the Aryan race drew their widely differing religions.
While the Gaul and the Teuton, in their sombre forests and
under often-clouded skies, are inaugurating a solemn, sometimes
even tragical worship, directed to the invisible, tinged with
thoughts of expiation and of immortality, and transfused with a
consciousness of decay ; the Indian race, nursed in the lap of
luxuriant and lavish nature, breathes an enchanted life. There
it seeks the infinite, and discerns it not in the various manifest
ations of nature, but in its hidden principle, which is Brahma,
and burns to be united to him in the heart of that silent deep,
whence streams the flood of universal life. Hence its yearning
to be lost in the vague and intangible divinity which is every
thing and yet nothing, to merge in it the consciousness of
individual being; hence its ascetism, and that ecstasy, — the
closing utterance of Brahminism and the opening word of

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 37
Buddhism — which, with its designs of reformation and purified
moral ideas, aims at annihilation, which it calls Nirvana, and
only breaks the inflexible framework of caste to plunge the
whole race into the infinite void. The later developments of
Buddhism, the most remarkable of which is the Trimurti, or
the Indian Trinity, are only varied attempts to realise this
absorption of the finite in the infinite and the absolute. The
multiplied incarnations of Vishnu, who takes now one human
form and now another, like an actor changing his part, denote
a strange contempt for moral personality ; the sparkling poetry
of Hindoo pantheism covers a wide, troubled sea of negations.
It is not less removed from Christianity than Asiatic naturalism,
and if it appeals to it by its ardent aspirations after the union
of the human with the Divine, it presents no other point of
contact than this vague sentiment
Naturalism as it touches the shores of Greece undergoes a
transformation ; we see it narrowing and contracting the vague
lines of its horizon, as it touches that wondrous land, which seems
in its very natural conformation, the worthy amphitheatre prepared
for heroic conflicts. The idea of symmetrical beauty breathes
in its pure harmonious lines," which stand out in all their clear
ness of perspective in the tender light It is there, on the
shores of that sea of countless creeks, under that heaven
brilliant but never burning, that man awakes to know himself
as more beautiful, more mighty than the outer world, and
makes gods in his own likeness. In place of engulfing him
self in an absorbing vortex of deity, he seeks to find himself
in the object of his adoration; he carves his own idealised image
in the marble, and this is his god. The heroic age had lifted
him above himself; the god was only a hero placed upon the
altar. The Hellenes worshipped themselves in the ravishing types
of marvellous beauty. Thus Greece opposes the apotheosis of the
heroic to the Indian incarnations, and solves the religious problem
in a directly inverse manner, for instead of absorbing the finite
in the infinite, she enshrines the divine in a fair but finite form.

38 BOOK FIRST.
It might seem that she was doomed by this wholly terrestrial
tendency to an ever frivolous religion. Far otherwise; the
divine shines out much more clearly in man than in nature, for
he possesses moral life, and in virtue of that, touches the higher
sphere. Hence humanism was not solely a religion of artists ;
the moral element appeared in it with greater power than in
any other worship. The conception of the Deity became more
pure. The Olympian gods represented not simply passions
but virtues. Conscience lifted her voice, and proclaimed
"those unwritten laws in which lives a God, who ages not"
In ^Eschylus she fulminated the mysterious anathema, just
meed of crime, which hangs over the most fortunate of royal
races; she showed, under the brilliant garniture of earth, that
blood shed by the murderer's hand which never congeals.
She dared even to predict, by the voice of poets, a grand
religious renovation, the victory of a young god of the
future, whose dart should transpierce Jupiter, and set free
the ancient captive of the Caucasus, the faithful image of
humanity, quivering under the bondage of a worn-out worship.
In Sophocles, conscience evoked a moral ideal full of purity
and delicacy, grand and touching as devotion — I had almost
said as charity.* This noble poetry had tones truly pro
phetic to represent the passage from life to death, which
makes our twilight shades give place to the calm glories of
eternity, f
But the true prophet of Greece was Socrates. He appears
as a reformer of thought and manners in the most brilliant, the
most active circle of civilisation, in an age corrupted by the
scepticism of the sophists. Bringing man back to himself, not
to intoxicate him with pride, but on the contrary, to show him
his weakness, he led him to find in his own conscience the basis ,
of all certainty, and the revelation of the just God veiled by so
many myths. "The soul of man," he said, "is a partaker of
the divine." If he reminded him of his obligations and his
*' See Antigone. f Close of CEdipus at Colonus.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 30
immortal destinies, he insisted on the solidarity of the true and
the good ; he exalted the moral character of learning and the
holiness of truth, in an age when philosophy was little more
than a frivolous sport Finally, he lived according to his light,
and died for his doctrine. We do not hesitate to hail in him a
precursor of Christ ; he went before preparing His way, in the
midst of much darkness and uncertainty. His teaching, inter
preted and expanded by Plato, has become at once the most
active solvent of polytheism, and the highest manifestation of
the moral idea among the ancients. But in order to hail in
this great school even the initiative of positive religion, we
must forget its blanks and above all its dualistic errors, so
marked in Plato, who could not reach the idea of a God truly
free, sovereign of the material ; and who finally confounded
Him with the abstract and impersonal unity to which he
sacrificed all individual rights, and even moral personality
itself. This philosophy was powerless to reform Greece ; by
its Hellenic and aristocratic exclusiveness it voluntarily enclosed
itself within the boundaries of a little country, and the limits of
a privileged class. The odious theory of the conquest and
subjection of the barbarians, the justification of slavery, and
even of the slave trade — did not these receive their most
exact statement in the system of Aristotle, very few years after
the death of Plato? This noble philosophy could indeed
reveal better things, but it had no power to deter from the
accomplishment of the worse. It blasted the ancient faith,
and for the honour of deity it was right ; but it substituted for
it only a high ideal and a creed incapable of enkindling the
heart. Men accepted its negations, and passed by its grand
moralities, and the sceptics reappeared, only girded with better
armour. Epicurism repeated in its manner the famous maxim,
"Know thyself," and conducted man to a merely sensuous life.
Stoicism started from the same basis to end in a life of
severity, but it never assumed in Greece that austere character
which made it so grand at Rome. In vain the troubled soul

4° BOOK FIRST.
fell back upon mysterious modes of worship, which were only a
return to the old natural religions somewhat purified ; the
mysteries of Eleusis, beautiful and touching in their recognition
of the immortality of the soul, gave no more real satisfaction
than the purifications attached to the worship of Apollo at
Delphos, or the hidden doctrines which permeated all the
mysteries, and which, under the name of Orphism, revived
oriental pantheism. Of all this grand movement of thought,
of this civilisation, so versatile and brilliant, the final utterance
in the time of Alexander was still the Socratic doctrine ; this
remained the culminating point of Hellenic development It
was a very elevated ideal, but incomplete and often contra
dictory; it superseded the popular religion without replacing
it, and without making a really powerful impression on souls,
on private or public life. It is then a vast exaggeration of the
influence and scope of the work of the great master of ancient
wisdom,- to attribute to him the honour of having laid the
foundation of Christianity. On this theory the Gospel must be
reduced, as Baur* reduces it, to a, mere return to the inner
life, and all the weak points of Platonism must be passed over
in silence as they are by Strauss, t
The conquests of Alexander had the effect of breaking, in
some measure, the narrow mould of nationality, in which till
then pagan civilisation had been held. By mingling races and
religions', by founding a city which was as a point of junction
for the different currents of human thought, he contributed to-
bring about the new era, in which the great idea of humanity
should rise above all local distinctions. The conquest of the
world by Rome, and the terrible levelling line which she
stretched over all the nations that she subjugated, tended to
the same end. We do not deny the providential character of
these events, which were to facilitate the progress of Chris
tianity, by opening a wider field to its mission ; but it must not
* Baur, " Geschichte der drei ersten Jahrh. der Kirche," p. 4.
f Strauss' " Leben Jesu," p. 182.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 41
be forgotten that the idea of the unity of the human race was
always very imperfect before the Gospel. It was favoured
under paganism, rather by the growing feebleness of the
patriotic virtues than by higher and wider views. It is certain
that Epicurism, with its desire for repose and its worship of
pleasure, corrupted while it softened manners ; and while it
stifled the fiercer passions, extinguished at the same time
the love of country. Humanism, sceptical and voluptuous,
was coincident with the loss of liberty, and the oblivion of
those manly virtues which had stirred and ennobled public life
in the democracies of Greece. It was not so much the recog
nition of a new and more exalted claim as the weak surrender
of perilous obligations.*
Energy and vigour were all on the side of the proud and
hardy race, which had patiently pursued its fixed design of
conquering the world. We must admit that the Roman
people was a strange apostle of the unity of the human
race.. Its conception of this unity was singular ; it held,
beyond question, that humanity had but a single head, but
that head was to bow under its iron yoke. It aspired to
reunite all the nations of the universe, but this aspiration was
much more the expression of its vaulting ambition than of its
expanded views. When in the Circus, crowded with the
Roman populace, the captive Gaul was made to mingle his
blood with that of the Teuton and the Parthian, it would be
hard to trace, in the brutal scene, the progress of the humani
tarian idea. No ! not in this school of fierce rapacity and
implacable severity could the ancient world learn the great
lesson of the moral unity of mankind. That a great spirit,
like Cicero, felt a presentiment of the truth, we admit, but this
did not prevent the advocate of Sicily, so eloquent against
* See, on all this movement of Greek philosophy, the beautiful
book of M. Jules Denys, on " L'Histoire des idees morales dans
l'antiquite." Convinced as the author is, that morals had already
reached their purest form at this time, his sincerity and learning
lead him to admit very important limitations.

42 BOOK FIRST.
Verres, from defending the exactions of which the pro-consul
Fonteius had been guilty to Gaul* The love ofthe human race
was a sublime utterance — a lightning gleam in the darkness ;
but in order to reach the popular conscience, such sentiments
needed other exponents than blase Epicureans, implacable
conquerors, or half-sceptical Platonists.
A refined philosophy opposes the divine unity to the fables
of polytheism ; it speaks of the rights of the slave, and makes
itself the shield of the feeble and unhappy. The ideal shines
out with all the purer radiance for being so foiled by the real.
That the games of strength had never been more bloody and
terrible, that oppression had never been heavier, and the
respect for common superstitions more loosely held, let Cicero
be the witness, who made a social necessity of the official
observance of the religion of the state, and who concealed
himself in the Gardens of Tusculum, in order to express doubts
at once bold and prudent
. Thus, on the eve of Christianity, fervent aspirations are rising
from the midst of universal impotence and degradation : de
vouring flames they are, which, having no other aliment, fall
back upon the hearts whence they spring, and consume them.
Under the load of misery, of tyranny, of scepticism and cor
ruption, which oppresses it, pagan humanity heaves a long sigh
of weariness and woe : now it seeks in material pleasures the
satisfaction of its infinite craving, and plunges into depths of
sensuality, which reveal its blind and restless intensity ; now it
curses, its gods with a sort of frenzy, and rises into an impiety
born of despair ; or, again, it sits in mourning over that
mythology, fair but futile, of which the approaching end is
foretold in poetic legends ; now, by a secret instinct, it turns
its gaze towards the east, asking deliverance from the arts of
the magician, or from mysterious oracles, the echo of which
has reached it. Thus the commencement of our era is marked
by a very peculiar condition of soul, represented in the
* Denys, ii. 44.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 43
literature of the times— a blending of degradation, morbid
voluptuousness, effete scepticism, and restless aspiration. This
attitude of the spiritual world found its most perfect symbol in
the inscription, "To the Unknown God" which Paul read at
Athens, over one of the countless altars of that idolatrous
city. If is not, in fact, a more complete doctrine, but a new
divine manifestation that the world is waiting for. We do not
deny that some few of the social reforms of the Gospel were
faintly anticipated at this time ; but of what avail is a float
ing, cloudy idea which is incapable of transfusing itself into
heart and act ? What is it, after all, but a distracting ideal
invoking a manifestation of power to realise it 1 The higher
the ancient world is lifted in an ideal point of view, without
losing sight of its uncertainties and fatal errors, the more
palpable is the need for a new religion, which with light should
bring strength.
If we press more closely this ideal, or this aspiration of
pagan humanity, we shall see that it goes far beyond the vague
intuition of the divine unity or the presentiment of some
social reforms. That which the soul asks is a reconciliation
between herself and God ; it is the restoration of the union
between the human nature and the divine. Under the most
diverse fables, and athwart gross errors, we discover the same
fixed and ardent craving for a great expiation. There is more
than this. The idea of a deliverer, of a Messiah, is not less
universal. It is found in India, in the legend of Buddha, the
saviour-reformer ; in Persia, in that of Mithra, the future
vanquisher of evil powers ; in Greece, in the fable of Prome
theus ; and in Sc'andinavia, in that god, mightier than Odin,
who is to save the world, and whose name may not be uttered.
Thus does the general aspiration of humanity find expression,
when freed from all the ancient forms of worship, and when these
old faiths were drawing near to each other in a common decay;
when to the exultant youth of valiant races succeeded a prema
ture decline, an era of slavery and decadence, though abundant

44 BOOK FIRST.
in material and intellectual riches. The Greco-Roman paganism
of this epoch might have used, to express itself in its better
tendencies, that mournful utterance of a young Roman : "Tossed
from doctrine to doctrine, I was more unhappy than ever ; and,
carried along by a whirlwind of conflicting ideas, from the
depths of my soul I sighed."*
II. The religion ofthe Old Testament.
A strange people appears in the very centre of the ancient
world, a people wholly separated from all which surrounds
it; solitary, and yet conscious of a universal mission; the
jealous guardian of its religious traditions, and yet with face
steadfastly set towards the future. Such is the people of IsraeL
It has neither the brilliant and metaphysical genius of India,
nor the artistic fecundity -of Greece, nor the conquering ardour
of Rome : it is rude and obstinate ; it becomes an object of
animadversion as soon as it is known to other nations. And
yet it has obtained, in the realm of religion, the pre-eminence
which belongs to Greece in the domain of art, and to Rome
in that of power. It has conquered mankind, of which it was
the scorn, and has cast down before its terrible and invisible
God, all those idols of marble and gold, all that graceful and
poetic paganism which had flourished in the midst of the most
favoured races. Israel, in fact, is devoted wholly to the highest
religious idea: take away that idea, and it has no longer
power even to guard its own hearths; while, proscribed and
exiled, it finds a fatherland on a foreign shore, so soon as
the great thought which constitutes its nationality revives
within it. ' The Jew is neither soldier, nor poet, nor philoso
pher: he is priest and prophet. This is his part in the old
world, and it is for this that he is made peculiarly the fore
runner, the preparer of paths for the Redeemer. Doubtless,
there is to be found moreover that blending of fear and hope
which characterises religion before Christ, when it is still a
* " Recognitions " — (chap, i.)

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 45
desire and a quest rather than a calm assurance. The work of
preparation consists, as we have seen, precisely in inflaming
this desire, and carrying it to the point at which it becomes an
intense, urgent supplication, crying out not only for divine
succour, but for God Himself, to supply an absolute need.
Hence, through all the ages, and all the civilisation of the
ancient world, in the midst of ourbursts of evil and violent con
vulsions of the outward life, that universal language of the
human heart, the cry of grief and anguish, the utterance of
hope — in a word, all that is most elevated in poetry, in art,
and in religious fable. Hence, that universal institution of
priesthood and sacrifice, which proves that mankind feel them
selves, as a body, afar off from God, and unworthy to approach
Him, but that they cherish, nevertheless, the hope of mediation.
The existence of a priesthood is the widest and strongest
expression of the desire after salvation, for it betokens at once
the natural estrangement in which man finds himself from God,
and the presentiment of a future reconciliation. Now, this
idea of priesthood is the very essence of Judaism, since
there is not one of its institutions which does not rest on
the separation of a people, chosen from the rest of mankind
for the service of the whole race. It realises, therefore,
the universal idea of the priesthood; but, in doing so, raises
it to a height at which it is freed from all which marred it
in the pantheistic and polytheistic religions. Thus Judaism is
nothing else than the general religion of the period of pre
paration, purified indeed and spiritualised, but resting on the
same ground of feeling and inspiration as all the other worship
of that age. Only, there is a difference so great between the
form, which this general religion has assumed in the holy books
of the Jews and the degraded forms under which it appears
elsewhere, that it is impossible to attribute this superiority to a
mere historical and natural development
We know what the conception of God becomes, in the reli
gions of nature, even in the more refined. Greek humanism

46 BOOK FIRST.
fails to free it from the bounds of the finite : it compromises it in
the confused and impure encounter of human passions; and
when philosophy tries to release it, it is but changed into an ab
stract idea without life. What an immeasurable distance is there
between the Jehovah of the Bible, and the Indra of the Vedas,
the Jupiter of the Iliad, or the God of Pindar and of Plato !
From its first utterance Scripture claims dominion over the
world of mind by a free creation. God is not the sun, for He
made it. He said, " Let there be light, and there was light."
He is the absolute, the free, the sovereignly wise. Is His
majesty terrible? is He called the High and Holy one? — the
Father which is in heaven appears with forgiveness even in the
midst of terrors. " And God said unto Moses, I am that I am :
and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel,
/ am hath sent me unto you. And God said moreover unto
Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, The
Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God
of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you :
this is my name for ever."* What metaphysical formula
will embrace in fewer words a more sublime idea? The Lord,
who calls Himself I am that I am, is the God of the fathers :
He is Himself the Father who punishes and who protects.
The Old Testament throughout is resplendent with His glory,
like the sanctuary which Isaiah beheld in vision; in it, too, are
heard those voices answering to one another, and crying,
" Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God of Hosts : the whole earth is
full of his glory." The Bible does not reveal to us only the one
sovereign God, but also the God of conscience, Him whose
eyes are too pure to behold iniquity, and who yet is "slow
to anger," " and pardons abundantly, knowing that we are
but dust."f
On the idea entertained of God depends the idea that will
be formed of sin and of purification. Whatever, therefore, may
be the part accorded to the intuitions of conscience, outside
* Exodus iii. 14, 15. + Psalm ciii.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 47
the bounds of Judaism, it must be admitted that they are in
variably coloured by pagan superstition. The natural religions
identify moral evil with physical; or, as in the extreme east,
they confound it with finite existence itself, so that moral puri
fication is only a magical act, to appease a maleficent power,
or a wild asceticism, designed to destroy individuality. Greece,
in spite of her fine flashes of light, and noble institutions, knew
neither the secret of a worthy repentance, nor of efficient con
solation. There can be no comparison between the moral life
of Greece and the pathetic drama which is enacted in the con
science of a pious Israelite. The conceptions of the latter of
the highest developments of holiness are still very incomplete,
but his ideal leaves far behind the best aspirations of the pagan
world. The Divine law is his absolute rule, his constant aim,
and also his torment, because he measures the distance which
separates him from it. He lives in the presence of a righteous
God, under the terror of His judgments, but with his whole
soul pervaded by a gratitude which can never equal the benefits
received. Thus a moral life, deep and earnest, is formed and
moulded, a life which is grandest in its sufferings, and in
that ardent craving for purification, which finds but an in
complete answer in the sacrifices and holocausts, through
which conscience catches a dim glimpse of a definitive satis
faction. At length, in place of vague presentiments, arises
a steadfast hope, which illuminates the future with growing
splendour. • Whence comes, then, this superiority of the religion of the
Old Testament, which is even more striking on the first glance
than that of Christianity? Judaism, in fact, by its isolation,
rears itself in the ancient world like a steep and solitary summit,
while the Gospel extends its empire over mankind far beyond
the point where positive faith ceases; for it has permeated with
its, influence the moral atmosphere which we breathe. Was it
on the barren sand of the desert, where he first pitched his tent,
that the Shemite read the name of the One Holy God? Can it

48 BOOK FIRST.
be true that it was more easy for him, to lift his soul to the
Invisible One from the arid solitudes of Syria and Arabia, than
if he had had to rise above the enchantments of a richly gifted
land ? One might conceive him led by these gloomy wastes
into a mournful pantheism; but were they more apt to declare
the God of conscience than the starry sky where the Chaldean
found only his solar God ? The desert is a blank page upon
which the soul writes that which she carries within herself;
by itself it reveals nothing to man ; rather it overwhelms him
by its vague, melancholy vastness, which could never originate
the thought of a personal God, that is of the Infinite, living and
free. If the genius of the race be invoked to solve the problem,
we ask how the Hebrew, with a mind far from supple, and
without philosophic inspiration, should have been able, at one
bound, to leave behind Plato and Aristotle, and all the subtle
dreamers of India? Again, if there is one well-attested fact, it
is the constant predisposition of the Hebrew to idolatry at the
very period when his religion was being developed; he was
only held to monotheism by constraint, and needed incessantly
the most severe chastisements to bring him back from his
idolatries. So soon as he yields to his own bent he becomes a
worshipper of Baal, and ten tribes out of the twelve go over
definitively to a modified paganism. If, then, his religion
comes to him neither from the earth which he treads, nor from
the blood which flows in his veins, it must have descended from
heaven. We recognise on it the seal of a revelation not given
all at once but progressive, adapted to the times, the ignorance
and the feebleness of the people who were to be assimilated
to it so as to be its guardians. We find then in Judaism, in a
purified and spiritualised form, the tme religion of the epoch of
preparation, of which we have traced elsewhere the crude idea;
the general action of God upon mankind at large, is con
centrated upon one privileged people, but this concentration
itself is for the good of all the other nations, who, along the
path of free experiment and by repeated gropings in the dark,

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 49
are to arrive at the same point as the chosen race under the
discipline of a more direct education.
The election of Israel expresses perfectly the normal relation
of man with God before the Redemption, and this great
religious fact, which has in it nothing arbitrary, but is founded
on the reality of things, is to contribute in an effectual manner
to develop that desire after salvation, which is the best pre
paration foir salvation itself. Israel is the priest of humanity in
the preparatory period. It is widely separated from all sur
rounding peoples, enclosed within the land of promise as in a
sanctuary, forbidden all unholy intercourse, even more positively
by the stem interdictions of its law, than by its high mountain
barrier and the inhospitable strand of its coasts.* Still this
people, accused of hating the human race, knows that in its
posterity all the nations of the earth are to be blessed, \ and it
is this grand element which constitutes its priesthood. Its
moral isolation does not prevent its acting repeatedly on the
nations of history with which it comes in contact ; thus,
despised, as it is, it exercises a considerable ascendancy,
especially towards the close of the old world ; its influence is
like leaven hidden in the universal fermentation of thoughts
and aspirations.
The priesthood of Israel is an absolute consecration to a
holy God. The chief of the race was called out from his
family by a mysterious and sovereign command; he walked
among men as a pilgrim without a country, a servant ofthe most
high God, pitching or taking up his tent upon a sign of the
Divine will. The sojourn in Egypt, thanks to the cruel perse
cutions of the Pharaohs, entailed upon the descendants of
Abraham no unholy intermingling with the heathen. They
came forth from the land of bondage, as they had entered it, ever
marked with that strange seal, which is at once their reproach
and their glory. Moses, in the desert, impresses this seal yet
more deeply upon them by the institutions which he gives,
* Exodus xxxiv. 12. f Gen. xii. 31.
E

SO BOOK FIRST.
every one tending to bind them more closely to the holy and
dreadful God. His law sounded to them like thunder from
Sinai, and its terror remained upon them. That law consists
not alone in those great general precepts, which raise to such
an elevation the moral idea, but in a thousand prescriptions of
detail and minute ritual which are to hem them round ; it
takes possession of their whole life, as well of the most
indifferent actions as of the most important, bringing the whole
within the scope of a divine consecration. Whether they are
celebrating worship or sitting at the family table, whether, they
are at their ordinary occupations, cultivating their fields and
vineyards, or paying funeral honours to their dead ; upon every
scene breaks a moral reflection like a flash from Sinai; every
where the law demands that which is not yielded to it, and
leaves in its wake dread and repentance. That which appears
small and superficial in the legal appointments, is just that
which constitutes the unity of this truly sacerdotal life.
The especial priesthood of the family of Aaron is only a
delegation of the priesthood of the entire nation, as is evidenced
by the offering of redemption which was brought to God on
the birth of every firstborn.* The erection of the Sanctuary,
the Sabbath, the solemn feasts, are all designed to set forth
still more prominently the idea of sanctity, by the redoubled
consecration, if one may so speak, of the place, and the days
in which Jehovah is especially worshipped. The centre of this
worship is sacrifice. A deep, conscious need of expiation
possesses this people, who are confronted with so stem a law,
and who walk under this terrible sentence, "Cursed is he that
continueth not in all the words of this law to do them."f
Thus the blood of bulls and of goats flows ceaselessly upon the
altar of Jehovah, without ever allaying the "thirst for pardon,
even on the great day of expiation, when, amidst magnificent
solemnities, the high priest, not content with the first slain
victim, lays the sins of the people on the scapegoat, and sends
* Exodus xiii. 13. t Deut. xxvii. 26.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 5 1
it into the wilderness. All these purifications were but symbols
and types, and served only to arouse and keep awake the want
of pardon and of an efficacious sacrifice. Thus did the law,
by troubling the conscience, fulfil its stem but salutary mission
in the work of preparation.
The 'grand prophetic thought which is the soul of Judaism is
to be found at the very basis of its permanent institutions ;
these, in fact, incompetent as they are, to satisfy the feelings
which they help to foster, can have only a symbolical or typical
value. It is needful, however, that this thought should be
constantly disengaged from the rites and forms, under which it
might else remain buried. Prophecy, properly so called, per
forms this necessary function. Like the Aaronic priesthood, it
is only the more forcible expression of a characteristic which
belongs to the entire people. Israel is the great prophet no
less than the great priest of the ancient world. It has not only
preserved, like other nations, a faint echo of the promise given
in Eden; it knows that this promise will only reach its full
accomplishment through itself; with gaze turned towards the
future, it is in an attitude of mysterious expectation, ever
asking itself if the deliverance is not at hand. Each generation
clothes the great event in the colours most familiar to it,
idealising its own present A grand hope illuminates the
oldest documents of the Hebrew religion; it goes far beyond
the temporal benedictions in which it is enwrapped; hence,
when these blessings are realised, the waiting soul is in no way
satisfied, because the more excellent promise is yet unfulfilled.
It is evident, for instance, that after the conquest of the land
of Canaan and the multiplication of the race of Abraham, the
most glorious of the prophecies made to the father of the
faithful is not yet accomplished; all the families of the earth
are not yet blessed in Abraham's seed.* Each partial accom
plishment of the promises is like the starting-point for a larger
hope, which grows in a manner on successive disappointments.
* Genesis xii. 3.
E 2

52 BOOK FIRST.
It is thus that prophecy goes hand in hand with history.
Vague and general in its beginnings, it is ever tending to
greater precision; soon it is not only a deliverance which is
looked for, but a deliverer. The hope of Messiah is the very
soul of the Old Testament ; everything in nature and in history
is made to symbolise Him. When, in the breath of Spring,
Carmel puts on his glory, when the hills, clad in their dazzling
vesture, shout for joy, when the fir-tree and the myrtle fling
their aroma on the air, when the springs from the hill-chambers
carry new verdure into the fertile plains ; by such a scene— the
full beauty of which can only be appreciated by one who knows
the mournful barrenness which goes before it — the pious
Israelite pictures to himself the new earth, wherein righteous
ness shall dwell when Messiah's great renovating work is done.*
But history has yet brighter gleams to cast upon the future.
Each of her periods furnishes a new symbol to represent the
divine deliverer. In the most ancient oracles preserved by
the holy books of the Jews, when mankind consisted of but a
single family, He calls Himself "the seed of the woman," and
it is He who is to crush the power of evilf In the patriarchal
age, a child of Abraham is promised, who is to bring deliverance
to all the nations of the earth. J
After Moses, He appears in the aspect of a prophet, like the
mighty lawgiver of Israel, "A prophet shall the Lord your God
raise up unto you like unto me; Him shall ye hear."§
In the time of the kings, Messiah is to be the King of
the future, the ideal David; to Him are. applied in a pre
eminent sense all the glorious or pathetic ascriptions with
which the royal prophet has filled his psalms, for in the
theocracy every event, trouble or triumph, is only an augury
and preparation of the definitive era. Every thing in the holy
book points to Messiah without the necessity of supposing in
the soul of the prophet a factitious double personality, which
* See Isaiah lv. 12, 13. { Genesis iii. 15.
I Genesis xii. 3. § Deut. xviii. 18.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 53
would make Him pass, without transition, from the utterance
of his own sentiments to that of an impersonal oracle. No ;
David sang truly his own joys and sorrows, but he, none the
less, spoke also in prophetic utterance for that mysterious
descendant, who alone was to realise in its perfection, the type
of the man of God. In the period which follows the full
development of the theocracy under a single sceptre — a troubled
epoch in which the worship of Jehovah was often eclipsed, and
idolatry and corruption made perpetual inroads upon the
chosen people in both its divisions — Messiah is contemplated as
the servant ofthe Lord; the righteous reformer of religion who
should restore justice and concord, should put an end to
violence, and establish universal peace on a renovated earth.
" The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him,
"The spirit of wisdom and, understanding,
"The spirit of counsel and might,
"The spirit of knowledge, and ofthe fear ofthe Lord.
"And shall make Him of quick understanding in the fear of
the Lord.
" He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes,
" Neither reprove after the hearing of His ears,
" But with righteousness shall He judge the poor,
"And reprove with equity for the meek of the earth.
"And He shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth,
"And with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked.
"And righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins,
"And faithfulness the girdle of His reins.
"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,
"And the leopard shall lie down with the kid." — Isaiah xi.
2-6. He it is, this king who shall reign in righteousness, who is to
be "as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the
tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a
great rock in a weary land." * He shall write the law of the
* Isaiah xxxii. I, 2.

54 BOOK FIRST.
Lord, not again on tables of stone, but on the heart of the tme
Israel* He shall gather all nations and set up His standard in
the midst of the people, t
When the rebellious nation is carried into exile, when the
long procession of its sons and daughters is led into a strange
land, when the captives hang their "harps on the willows by
the waters of Babylon," prophecy has but one symbol, as Zion
has but one thought — return to the beloved country. " They
shall come with weeping," says Jeremiah, "and with suppli
cations will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by the
rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not
stumble."j The second part of Isaiah is a touching and
sublime picture of the return of the exiles, but a picture so
grand that it plainly embraces a deliverance infinitely greater
than that from the captivity of Babylon. In fact, all nations
are to share in the triumph of the people of Abraham and of
David. Like doves to their windows, they shall flock from
all parts of the world, to shelter in the refuge divinely opened
for alL The desert which "shall rejoice and blossom as the
rose," is not simply the waste land of Judae; it is the forgiven
earth. The daughter of Zion stretches the covering of her
tent, and pacified heaven is the pavilion which guards the
enlarged family of God. Messiah was given for a witness to
all people ; he calls the "sons of the strangers," and opens the
fountains of life to all who are athirst § The visions of Ezekiel
no less than the strains of the later Isaiah, compel us to admire
the lofty scope of the prophecy of the exile, although they bear
the impress of a complicated and clearly Chaldaic symbolism.
The prophet insists forcibly on a moral renovation, on an
inward change, which is to replace the heart of stone by a
heart of flesh. Jeremiah has no more touching tones than
these : "As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he
is among his sheep that are scattered, so will I seek out my
* Jeremiah xxxi. 33, 34. + Isaiah xlix. 22.
t Jeremiah xxxi. 9. § Isaiah be.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 55
sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have
been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. .... I will
feed my flock, and I will cause them to lie down, saith the
Lord God." * In the whole of the Old Testament there is no
broader picture than the vision of the dry bones, — the symbol
of the spiritual resurrection of Israeli
The most important result of this prophetic period is the
new feature added to the type of Messiah, the feature of
suffering. This deliverer, this king who is to establish the
throne in. righteousness, will be at the same time that servant of
the Lord, who "shall not cry nor lift up nor cause his voice to
be heard in the street," that gentle Saviour who will not "break
the bruised reed," nor "quench the smoking flax."! He will
be the pure and spotless victim by whose sufferings we are to
be healed, the Lamb slain for His people. The royal Branch
of Isaiah will be like "a root out of a dry ground ;" Messiah
shall be called a "Man of Sorrows."§ This is the great lesson
which prophecy gathers in the school of humiliation and
suffering, and it is from these days of storm and darkness, to
employ Ezekiel's image, that the divine Spirit sends forth His
most vivid splendours. The prophets of the return only pro
long the echo of these great oracles of the seers of the exile.
The tribulations and humiliations of that period are the strongest
evidence, that in the future must be sought the realisation of
those magnificent promises, which were followed by the gradual
decline of Judaism.
The function of the prophet is not alone to bring to the
peoplethe oracles, which proclaim chastisement and deliverance.
He is the witness of God in their midst; he is not a son of the
sanctuary by hereditary priesthood ; his is a more direct call,
received sometimes on the steps of the throne, as in the case of
Zephaniah, sometimes among the sheepfolds as by Amos ; he
is raised up in Israel to breathe perennial life into that round of
* Ezek. xxxiv. 12-15. t Ezek. xxvii.
t Isaiah xiii. 1-7. § Isaiah liii.

56 BOOK FIRST.
institutions, which might easily become petrified into the
legalism of the formalist He represents the ^spirit ever
animating the letter. He is the present and living word of the
Lord, uttering His protest against all the deviations from the
theocracy. He writes down the sin of the people with a pen
of iron, and lays the axe of divine justice at the root of every
tree which Jehovah has not planted. When Israel, forgetful of
his vocation, will lean upon the stranger, the prophet interposes ;
he announces the judgments of God on idolatrous nations, and
makes them recoil in all their weight on the stiff-necked people,
whose wanderings and rebellions he depicts with burning
fervour. The prophet is thus as much the representative of
law as of mercy; he unites in his person the double office of
the old covenant which is at once fear and hope, and which
brings consolation only out of the terrors of conscience. The
national history, interpreted by the prophet, sets in full light
the abomination of sin, the wrath of God, and His mercy.
Thus a deep repentance is produced in the heart, a bitter dew
which alone can fertilise the soil, out of which shall grow the
divine Branch promised to mankind.
Prophecy is in no way hostile to the priesthood, but it marks
the insufficiency of this jealous guardian of the institutions of
Moses. When Hosea says that God "desires mercy and not
sacrifice,"* he only gives formal oracular utterance to that
which was from the first the cry of the penitent. "Thou
desirest not sacrifice," exclaims David in the bitterness of his
repentance, "else would I give it; Thou delightest not in
burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit ; a
broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise."!
Assuredly the work of preparation was far advanced when the
revelation of conscience came to confirm that of the law and
the prophets, by that agonising cry which is still the truest
expression of penitence, "Have mercy upon me, O God,
according to thy loving-kindness; according unto the multitude
* Hosea vi. 6. f Psalm li. i8, 19.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 57
of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me
thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever
before me. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned 
Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow."* The progress
was still more marked when, in the name of the whole nation,
was offered that prayer of confession, which loses none of its
value whatever may be its date. "O Lord, the great and
dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that
love him, and to them that keep his commandments ; We have
sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly,
and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and
from thy judgments: neither have we hearkened unto thy
servants the prophets, which spake in thy name to our kings,
our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. '
O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our
princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against
thee. O my God, incline thine ear, and hear; open thine eyes
and behold our desolations. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. "|
It is impossible to enter now into the controversy raised upon
the book from which these beautiful words are taken. It
cannot be questioned that in it, prophecy assumes an entirely
new character of precision, especially in its relation to the
general history of mankind, for in it, for the first time, the suc
cession of the great empires is pointed out with minute detail.
Its symbolism is less simple than that of the classic prophets;
it is complicated and sometimes fanciful The animal typology
familiar to Persia plays a great part in it. No book has been
more variously interpreted than that attributed to Daniel; it is
like the transition stage between the prophetic, properly so
called, and the apocalyptic. But the inspiration which animates
it is so pure, that we do not hesitate to give it its rank in the
truly sacred literature of the Jews; Jesus Christ explicitly
recognised its religious value by invoking its testimony.
* Psalm li. f Daniel ix.

58 BOOK FIRST.
We have endeavoured to elicit the general and dominant
thought of the Old Testament We admit that it is obscured
often by the barbarism of the times, which is depicted with an
unshrinking candour. The falls and crimes of the most
illustrious founders of theocracy are related with no prudent
reticence; but we see. also their chastisements, and witness
their poignant repentance. Thus we have a fearful and salutary
demonstration of sin. Stem severities were necessary to arouse
the stifled moral sense. Let imagination picture the mde
infancy of a fallen race, left to the wild impulse of instincts, and
we shall better understand the terrible rod, by which it was
curbed under the hand of the divine educator. The Old
Testament is not the idyl of innocence; it is the desperate
conflict between good and evil in their first collision.
Something was still wanting to the work of preparation; this
was the total ruin of all the glories of the theocracy, so that it
might be well demonstrated that the Old Testament " could
make nothing perfect," according to the expression in the
Epistle to the Hebrews.*
This decline was coincident with an extraordinary fermenta
tion of men's' minds. Thus was prepared one ofthe most amazing
eras of history, characterised by the singular blending of the
most opposite tendencies. It is important for us to form an
exact idea of it, that we may rightly comprehend the condition
in which Christianity took its rise.-)-
* Hebrews vii. 9.
+ It is not my province in this short sketch to touch any of the
critical questions raised upon the books of the Old Testament. I
can only refer readers to special works, among the first of which
I should mention Bleek's introduction on the transformations of
¦ the people during the exile. See also Ewald, " Gesch. Volkes
Israel," IV. p. 117 ; this is a broad and admirable picture.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 59

CHAPTER III.
THE JUDAISM OF THE DECLINE.
TUDAISM at the commencement of our era presented
" more points of resistance than of contact to Jesus Christ,
because He came, in fact, to contradict and oppose all
the beliefs and wishes of His contemporaries. Thus, the new
religion, so far from being simply the consummation of an anterior
development, only fulfilled the past by abolishing it. None the
less do we maintain, that it was the response to all the best
aspirations of the soul, and that the true people of God, those
who listened to its claims, in a manner outran the future, borne
onward by an ardent and exalted faith. We shall have to disT
tinguish this double current of men's minds, in the troubled
flood of an epoch of unparalleled moment. *
The moral and intellectual condition of Judaism, on the eve
of the birth of Christ, can only be understood by a knowledge
of the complex causes by which it was produced. Of these
causes the most powerful was undoubtedly the nation's exile in
Babylon, and the political and religious situation which resulted
from it This situation gave rise to one of those violent contradic-
* See the following works : Josephus' " Antiquities " and his
"Wars of the Jews-" " Histoire des Juifs," by Prideaux ; "La
Palestine," by Munck ; Ewald's " Gesch. Volkes Israel," Vol IV. ;
"LaKabbale," by Franck ; Reuss' "Histoire de la Theologie
Chretienne," Vol. I. ; Nicolas' " Les Doctrines Religieuses des Juifs
pendant les deux siecles anterieurs a l'ere Chretienne ;" Gfrcerer's
" Das Jahrhundert des Heils," Vol. II. See especially the Apocry
pha of the Old Testament . Fabricius' " Codex Pseudepigraphus
Vet. Testamenti." "Das Buch Enoch," uebersetzt und erklart
v. Dillemann, Leipzig, 1853. "Das Buch Esdras," uebersetzt
und erklart v. Volkmar, Zurich, 1864.

60 BOOK FIRST.
tions which prevent a nation from falling into a state of slumber
ous repose. It may be summed up in two words : dependence on
and hatred of the foreigner. Judas from the time of the first
destruction of Jerusalem had only brief periods of real emanci
pation ; she was absorbed in the great empires which by turns
dominated Asia. It was under the yoke, that this powerful
race rose morally to the consciousness of her high destiny ; in
the times of her kings she was always inclined to culpable
alliances and impure idolatries. From the bitter days of her
captivity it was so no longer. By the waters of exile, the Jew,
far from his beloved Zion, of which there remained only the
smoking ashes, found another holy city, not built with stones,
but with divine words, and the indestructible sanctuary
of which was the law given to his fathers. Having lost the
material, he reconquered the spiritual patrimony, by his
re-established faith ; he felt that the worship of the true God
was the very essence of his nationality. Thus, when he returned
to the land of his ancestors, as he was never able completely
to reconquer it, and had the constant grief of feeling himself
still subject to a foreign sway, he continued to bind in close
connection his religion and his patriotism ; he knew that, his
God once abjured, he was nothing more than a vile slave, like
those human herds which the conquerors of Asia dragged in their
train or trampled under foot To this feeling may be traced
that noble religious restoration undertaken by Ezra and com
pleted by Nehemiah ; the people shrank from no sacrifice, and
broke without hesitation the family ties formed during the
period of disorganisation and exile. Henceforward the Jew
was invariably attached to his faith and his rites ; the theocracy
flourished again on the rains of a political glory for ever over
thrown. It is no more under the image of a mighty king, a
new Solomon, that the people represents Messiah ; it sees in
him rather a supreme high priest, as he appears in the oracles
of the prophet Zechariah.* The reign of the saints has begun,
* Zech. iii.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 6 1
for legal sanctity is the sole superiority and the sole liberty
that can be preserved.
Assuredly this moral reconstruction is a great advance upon
the past, but it conceals one fatal germ. Piety being con
founded with patriotism, the mass of the people will be disposed
to regard it rather as a means of maintaining pre-eminence over
other nations, than as an end excellent in itself. Holiness
will then be but external legalism, a conformity to the sacred
letter without effect on the heart and conscience; then,
the law, far from fulfilling its main design, which is to break
the pride of man by placing before him a perfect ideal, will
only nourish and strengthen it. Here was the peril, the gravity
of which the future was to show. The close alliance between
patriotism and religion tended also to excite, beyond all bounds,
political passions and national pride. The Jew felt himself at
once the favourite of heaven and the sport of pagan despotism ;
he knew himself superior to the nations, whose idolatry justly
appeared to him abominable, and he was yet compelled
to submit to the mle of those whom he despised. How great
was his temptation to hold himself erect before masters — his
inferiors — and to requite them scorn, for all the outrages he
received at their hands ! He, the founder of tme religion in the
world, was forced to bow beneath an idolatrous sceptre ! Could
such a thought be entertained and not stir in his heart a wild
ferment of revolt and hate, and precipitate him into violent
attempts, even more perilous to his religious life than to his
temporal interests? Evidently the hope of the nation will
undergo a great transformation under such influences ; it will
become impregnated in this heated atmosphere with wholly
human passions ; it will tend to become itself a firebrand of
political agitation ; the horizon of the future, illumined by the
great prophets with calm and holy glories, will be coloured
with the warm and burning tints of apocalyptic visions.
The complete cessation of prophecy, a short time after the
return from the exile, contributed much to the religious decay

62 BOOK FIRST.
of Judaism. "After the death of Haggai, Zechariah and
Malachi, the last of the prophets," we read in the Talmud,
" the Spirit disappeared from the midst of Israel"* When once
this vast organisation, with its minuteness of ritual, ceased to be
constantly vivified by the breath of- prophecy often passing
over it, like a divine whirlwind, to shake its entire fabric,
its tendency was to petrify into immobility. The past was no
longer looked upon as prefiguring the future, by its magnificent
symbols. It was made itself the object of a servile attachment;
it was preserved as a dead institution, and the Jew, making
himself its jealous guardian, inaugurated the reign of the
"letter which killeth." Tradition became increasingly pre
dominant. The doctor of the law took the place of the
prophet; the rabbi became, par excellence, the guide of the
people. There was a manifest tendency to substitute know
ledge for feeling in the order of religion. Hence that apotheosis
of wisdom which appears in the earliest apocryphal writings of
the Old Testament. From these icy heights blows a withering
wind, which blasts the life of the soul, and takes the beauty
and the grandeur from revelation ; what is most touching in
it disappears under the commentary.
The dispersion of a large number of Jews in Asia Minor,
Egypt, and the West, as commercial relations multiplied,
strengthened the influence of the rabbi. Far from their sanc
tuary, unable to offer to God the Levitical worship, the Jews
who lived in foreign lands had no other means of preserving
their religion, than the study of their law. The sacred Book
was to them what the tabernacle had been to their fathers in
the wilderness, and during the period of the conquest, before
the altar of God had a splendid temple for its shelter. To read
the law, to comment upon it, to fix its meaning, to keep the
tradition of the elders, this was all that they could do in the far
countries where they dwelt. They returned, no doubt, at cer
tain intervals to the holy City, but the ordinary course of their
* '' Ablatus est Spiritus sanctus ex Israele." — Gfrcerer, I., p. 135.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 63
life was spent at a distance from it ; they were no longer under
the constant action of that great religious symbolism, which
expressed so forcibly the need of purification and redemption.
Sacrifice played but a small part in their life ; religion habitually
despoiled of those solemn ceremonies which set forth its posi
tive character, dwindled little by little to a doctrine, an idea,
a book. The temple lost in importance as the synagogue
gained. There was in all this a revolution, the import of which
was beyond calculation. The Jew of the olden time was wont
to fall with ease to a point, lower than that of the Jew at this
period ; he became ensnared by idolatry and its unholy rites ;
but when he repented at the stern voice of the prophet or under
the strokes of Divine justice, he returned to a deepened piety;
he felt an earnest need of cleansing, of expiation, and the blood
of bulls and of goats was not enough to give him peace. From
the time of the restoration under Ezra, the Jew leads a life
habitually more pure and more correct, but also he eludes more
lightly the trouble of conscience. For the sacrifice which
expresses the consciousness of sin and the hope of pardon, he
rather substitutes almsgiving, that is, the fair outside work, by
which he aims to set himself right with the divine law. In the
book of Tobit we see what paramount importance is attached
to this kind of reparation. It is not only the left hand knowing
what the righti hand does ; it is the heart which applauds itself
and imagines that it has fulfilled all righteousness.
Contact with foreigners had also a modifying effect upon
Judaism in many respects. Sometimes the Jew would imbibe
an admixture of altogether heterogeneous ideas ; sometimes he
would abandon himself to loose concessions; or again, he
would hold himself erect in his patriotism, and stiffen into a
rigid devotion and an obstinate resistance to all 'influences
from without. We have thus very early the germ of the
sharp division, which we shall find later producing themselves
and forming sects and parties. Within a very short time
after the restoration we find ourselves already confronted

64 BOOK FIRST. ,
with the elements which will clash or combine in the great final
crisis. I. Judaism under the Persians.
The Persian empire, which extends from the year 536 to the
year 332, B.C., exercised less influence over the Jews than is
often supposed. The religion of Zoroaster, at least before the
modifications to which it has been subjected, is coloured, as
we have already seen, by dualism. The idea of a God greater
than Ormuz and Ahriman, makes only a tardy appearance, and
remains but as a metaphysical idea without any real influence
on the moral life. The world of spirit is only dimly discerned;
spiritual light is confounded with the brightness of the sun,
good with fruitfulness. The good rule of Ormuz is honoured
alike in good actions and in abundant harvests.* Sin is con
stantly regarded as a simple corporeal defilement The expec
tation of a deliverer is very vague ; it is only little by little that
the part of Sosiosh, the valiant champion of Ormuz develops
into magnitude. The article of the resurrection of the body
does not seem to belong to primitive mazdeism. f The Persians
regarded corpses as the property of evil spirits ; they therefore
exposed them in desert places to be devoured by wild beasts.
This custom is little compatible with the idea of the resurrec
tion. Cyrus the First had a great sepulchre built for himself.
It is certain that mazdeism underwent great changes ; the
traces of Jewish and Christian influence are evident in the
Bundehesh, its last sacred book. The passage of Theopompus,
quoted by Plutarch, in which mention is made of the triumph
of the good over the evil god after a formidable conflict, belongs
to a late period. No one will deny that the idea of the Messiah
had taken a much more definite form among the Jews than
* The principal work on mazdeism is the commentary of Eugene
Burnouf on the Yacna.
t The fragments of Theopompus. quoted by M. Nicolas (" Doc
trine des Juifs ") are very vague. In any case they belong to a time
subsequent to the exile in Babylon.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 65
among the Persians at the epoch when the two nations were
brought into contact at Babylon. It would be idle to compare
some vague allusions with the oracles of the Old Testament.
On one point only, the Jews borrowed something from their
conquerors ; this was in reference to the doctrine of good and
evil angels. Not that this was a strange idea to them ; we need
no other proofs to the contrary than the account of the Fall, in
Genesis, and the prologue to the Book of Job; the Book of
Tobit, however, recalls in many points the minute classifica
tion of good and evil spirits in the " Avesta."* The Books of
Ezra and Nehemiah, which give us such a faithful picture of
the religious condition of the Jews on the return from Babylon,
are, like the oracles of Zechariah and Malachi, among the most
authentic productions of Hebrew inspiration. The prophets
of the exile, no doubt, borrowed new symbols from the
countries in which they lived ; but the old spirit found utter
ance in this new language, which, more laboured, was less
grand than that of earlier days. The doctrine of the resurrec
tion of the body connected itself very naturally with certain
facts recorded in the first books of the Old Testament, such as
the translation of Enoch and Elijah. It was easy to draw from
these narratives the permanence in the future life of the trans
figured corporeal element
The most important religious event under the Persian rule
was the erection of the Samaritan temple, on Mount Gerizim,
at the gates of Shechem, by Manasseh, brother of the high-
priest Jaddus, Manasseh had refused to conform to the legal
prescriptions which bound on him as a duty, the repudiation of
the strange woman he had married. He took refuge with his
father-in-law, Sanballat, governor of Samaria, and, taking ad
vantage of his priestly origin, retired to the mountain, signalised
by the blessings of Deuteronomy; to build there a rival sanc
tuary to that at Jerusalem. There he celebrated a modified
* See the remarkable pages devoted to this subject by M.
Nicolas, pp. 340-350. F

66 BOOK FIRST.
worship, and gathered around him a certain number of Jews
who were wishful to escape the austerity of the restoration
under Ezra, and *all that remained of the old Samaritan popu
lation.* The emigrants from Jerusalem brought with them
the Pentateuch, which they made their one sacred book, and
thus founded a kind of bastard Judaism, which could not fail
to excite the keenest animosity in their brethren of the holy
city. Authority to build a temple on Mount Gerizim had been
asked of the last of the Persian monarchs, and it was granted
by the conqueror of Darius.
II. Judaism under the Greeks.
With Alexander began the Greek empire, which extends
from the year 337 to 167. Judaea shares in all the revolutions
which convulse Asia under the successors of the conqueror.
This troubled political life could not fail to increase the fer
mentation of national passions. One of the first effects of the
new condition of things was the breaking down of the barriers,
which had separated the Jews from other nations, and the
development of their commercial genius. In Egypt especially
they founded an important colony. A large portion of the
people fell under the influence of Hellenic culture, without,
however, renouncing their religious traditions. The necessity
of bringing into unison the new ideas and the old customs gave
birth to that famous allegorical method, which was to render
such dangerous service, and to be the parent of so many ab
surdities. The appearance of the Greek Bible in Alexandria,
under Ptolemy Philadelphus (284-247), the illustrious patron
of letters and founder of the great library, was an important
event ; the isolated and positive genius of the Hebrews con- (
tracts, for the first time, a sort of marriage with the subtle and
brilliant genius of Greece. This new influence is betrayed in
the Septuagint version by certain systematic modifications,
* Josephus — (Arch. II., 7, 2.)

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 6,7
which indicate the presence of the Platonic notion of the cha
racter of absolute transcendence in the Deity.*
This Hellenic influence, which was to acquire increasing
importance in Egypt, is less perceptible in Judsea, though, even
there, it has left its traces, as is proved by the book of Jesus
Sirach. The author chooses, both in morals and religion, the
via media which is without greatness and without peril. He
presents the apotheosis of wisdom, that is of religion considered
solely as doctrine. He makes it utter these words :— " I came
forth from the mouth of the Most High, and covered the earth
like a cloud. I dwelt in the high places, and my throne was
on the pillar of clouds. I sought resf, and asked myself in
what heritage I should abide. Then he who created me pointed
out my dwelling-place, saying : Abide in Jacob, and let thy
heritage be in Israel. I took root in the midst of a new peo
ple : I grew like a cedar in Lebanon, like a palm-tree by the
rivers of water. All these things are the book of the Testament
of God, the law given to Moses, "f
Jesus Sirach exalts supremely the dignity of the scribes and
doctors. "As to the man," he says, "who devotes his mind
to the law of the Most High, and searches out the wisdom of
all the ancients, he exercises himself in the prophecies. The
Lord will direct his counsel and his knowledge, and will make
known to him His secrets. Many shall praise his prudence, so
that his memory shall never be blotted out nor cast away, but

* Thus the earth " without form and void" in the Hebrew text
of the account of the creation, becomes, in the translation, an earth
invisible and without form — aoparog Kai diearao-KeuaoToff. (Genesis i.
21.) In the 5th verse, the translation reads — "And God created
all the grass of the field before it existed on the earth." This trans
ports us at once into the world of ideas, types of created things —
we are in the heart of Platonic philosophy. The Septuagint trans
lation also disguises, as far as possible, theophanies, everywhere
substituting an angel for God.
f 'Eyii airb arofiaTog vipiaTOV k£rj\9ov. (c. xxiv., 5.) The last words
of this panegyric of wisdom show, that the author intends by it
nothing else than the Mosaic revelation personified.
F 2

68 BOOK FIRST.
his name shall endure from generation to generation."* Jesus
Sirach celebrates in magnificent terms the greatness of the
priesthood ; but it is evident that he has lost the deep mean
ing of the worship, and has no comprehension of that sublime
symbolism which was meant to express the need of pardon.
With him almsgiving truly expiates sin.f He exalts the autho
rity of tradition. " Abide," he says, " in the assembly of the
elders, and hold fast by the wise man ; forsake not the in
struction of the elders, for they have learned it of their fathers."
The book of Sirach may be regarded as the first rough sketch
of Sadduceeism, or of the party of the foreigner. The author
resigns himself to the sudden revolutions of empires on the
reflection that man is but dust and ashes ; and, in one signi
ficant passage, he denies the immortality of the soul. To him
the dead ceases to be anything.! Thus he is profuse in coun
sels of cowardly prudence. He advises no contest with the
powerful and rich. The consciousness of our own culpability
is to arrest on our lips, every vehement protestation against
crime.§ Jesus Sirach can conceive nothing beyond the Mosaic,
which he calls an everlasting covenant. ||
This tendency, which weakened and corrupted mercy by
making it a mere matter of policy, took a new development in
Antigonus of Socho. From him is quoted a noble, and almost
evangelical precept. " Be not," he said, " as servants, who will
serve the Lord for wages, but as servants who serve Him with
no mercenary view, and let the fear of heaven be upon you. "IF
Truly, a most beautiful maxim, and one denoting a legitimate
reaction from the legal formalism which was in process of de-
** (Chap. XXXIX., i— 13.)
t 'EXen/jioaivi) hZikuaeTai aficrprtaj. (Chap. III., 33.)
! 'A-tA vetcpov dig fir/dl ovro-; iiroWvrai. l^o/io\6yti<ng. (XVII., 26.)
§ (Chap. VIII., I).
II (XLV., 9.)
•fl- '' Pirke Aboth ; or Treatise on Principles" — (p. 483.) This is one
of the most important portions of the Talmud : in it are found the
most ancient traditions of doctrine and morals. I quote from the
ritual of " Daily Prayers," published by Anspach.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 69
velopment. Unhappily for him, Antigonus of Socho was the
master of Zadok, the founder proper of Sadduceeism. The
opinions of Zadok can only be gathered from the party which
claimed him as their leader, and which soon rallied round itself
the men of easy life, by reducing Judaism to its elementary
institutions, and setting aside the austerities and fervency of the
old prophetic epoch. Sadduceeism showed itself always dis
posed to submit to the yoke of foreign powers, while lightening
it as far as possible. It denied to God any permanent and
direct action on the human soul ; and if it vindicated with
urgency the play of free human activity in the terrestrial domain,
it closed to it the higher sphere.
Already at this epoch there arose, by a natural reaction, the
party of the chasidim, or the pious, who united passionate
patriotism with the strictest adherence to the Mosaic institu
tions. We have here the germ of Pharisaism, which will unfold
under the fires of terrible persecution in the days of Antiochus
Epiphanes. Nothing could be more adapted to inflame the national
passions in a fierce and indomitable race, than the shameless
outrages of this despot, who seemed touched with the mad
folly of boundless power, and who might be a prototype of
Caesar. What a spectacle for the Jews was that of their holy
city in ruins, of their sanctuary invaded, and the altar of
Jehovah defiled by an idol ! What indignation must have
consumed them, when they found themselves compelled to
follow the procession in honour of Bacchus, with brows crowned
with ivy. The resistance offered was that which might have
been expected from such a people' reduced to despair; but
the hand of repression was implacable ; the blood of the wor
shippers of the true God flowed in floods through' the streets
of Jerusalem. Antiochus was to the Judaism of the restoration,
what Nero was to the primitive Church, the personification of
diabolical power, the hideous image of a world at enmity with
God. We shall find him playing in the coming apocalypses

70 FIRST BOOK.
the same part as the first persecutor of the Christians in the
Revelation of St. John.
As the result of this bloody tyranny, the Jews prepared for
one supreme conflict, which was to inaugurate the definitive
era ; this is what they afterwards called the anguish of Messiah,
or the painful birth-throes of the Deliverer. An apocryphal
writing of this date is full of these sentiments ; it is the book
called the "Psalter of Solomon." After the manner of the
times, the aspirations and griefs of the pious Israelites are
placed under the protection or the sanction of an already
illustrious name. The desolation and profanation of the holy
city are depicted in vivid colours. "Jerusalem has been
trodden under foot of the nations. She has changed her vest
ment of glory for sackcloth. The blood of the sons of Israel
has been spilt like an impure stream. Strange nations have
gone up to Thine altar. A fierce wind has smitten our land
and laid it waste."*
The unknown poet protests vehemently against the cowards
who seek to please men : " Reveal thy works, O Lord ; let the
saints execute thy judgments by driving the sinners from before
thy face, and foremost the man who professes thy law deceit
fully." Thus in these terrible afflictions the party of the saints,
or the pious, lifts its voice against the party of the foreigner.
The expectation of Messiah is expressed with new fervency.
" Behold, Lord, and raise up in thine appointed time, David
thy son to reign over Israel ! Deliver Jerusalem from the
nations which oppress her ! Destroy thou the unrighteous
nations with the word of thy mouth ! Let them flee before
him ! Let him gather together thine holy people to lead them
into all righteousness."|
III. The Maccabees and the Roman empire.
The cry was heard. The deliverer was raised up ; it was not
* Fabricius " Codex Pseudepigraphus," I., pp. 918, 922, 963.
f KaOupiaov 'lepovaaXrJn 6nrb ISv&v KarairaToivTwv. . (p. 965).

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 7 1
yet the Divine Son of David who was to answer the great
desire of mankind, but one of those incomplete precursors who
after their disappearance became new types of Messiah. There
is nothing so beautiful in the history of Judaism at this period
as the war of giants, waged by the handful of patriots who
gathered round the Maccabees. The intense grief of the
faithful Jews at the sight of the abominations of the holy place,
that mixture of growing indignation and panting aspiration,
which breathes in the obscure and mutilated strains from which
we have quoted some fragments ; in these we have the inspira
tion of that heroic insurrection which sprang full armed from
the humble hamlet, where the old priest Mattathias with his
sons had kept the faith of Israel It might have been the very
lion of Judah leaping from the mountains of Ephraim. It is
not our province to describe that noble conflict, in which
material force shatters itself against the moral, in which the
vast armies of the Seleucidae melt like snow in the sun, before
the fervid courage of Judas Maccabeus and his brothers, in
which reverses and disasters only inflame resistance, and render
it more obstinate and invincible. •
This magnificent outburst of Jewish patriotism was to create
an ideal full of grandeur, but also full of peril. How could
Messiah assume any other form than that of Judas Maccabeus,
to a people possessed by the noblest of human passions ? The
pathetic symbols of Isaiah and Jeremiah paled before the
image of the young warrior, crashing the might of Antiochus
and bathing the steps of the sanctuary with the blood of the
sacrilegious. This vision of the warrior archangel was thence
forward ever to float before the eyes of the Jews. We may
judge from the portion of the Sibylline oracles which belongs to
this date and is of Hebrew origin, what was the fascination of
these first triumphs of the war of independence.* These
* " Oracula Sybillina," Alexandre's Edition. Paris : Didot,
1841-55. We may not enter here on the curious question of the
Sibylline Oracles. The Word " sibyl " is a contraction of two words,

72 BOOK FIRST.
famous oracles were composed in Alexandria about the year
115 B.C. Completely foreign to the Platonic and theosophic
tendency, which was soon to become dominant in the Egyptian
synagogues, they are thoroughly animated by the exclusive
patriotism then prevalent in Palestine. They only borrow
from the Greeks the well-known legend of the Sibyls. They
put their favourite dreams into the mouth of these prophetesses
of nature, who are thus made to confirm the great oracles of
the Old Testament, and to contribute to the glory of the people
of God in the midst of paganism. The Sibyl is, then, only the
complaisant echo of the aspirations and hopes of the Jews, at
the time of the Maccabees. It is this which gives a high
interest to this monotonous rhapsody. We find in it just that
expectation of a wholly warlike Messiah and of a purely earthly
salvation, which was the natural consequence of the events
recently transpired in Judaea.
This strange poem fulminates terrible menaces against all
idolatrous nations, and in particular against the Greeks, who
were then the dominant race oppressing Asia ; its whole theme
is Divine vengeance. The Jewish nation is distinguished by
Aibg povkri, which mean oracle of God. The origin of the myth is,
doubtless, the superstitious interpretation of certain subterranean
sounds heard in caves, and considered as bringing divine revela
tions. A kind of prophetesses of nature was placed in these caves.
We know from ancient Roman history that these were regarded as
the receivers of oracles, the rejection of which involved the greatest
misfortunes. It is easy to understand that the idea of making use
of this fable might occur to the Jews of Alexandria, who were
desirous of exalting the glory of their nation. It is certain that the
third book of the Sibylline Oracles is by a Jew ; this is convinc
ingly proved by the praises lavished on the people of Israel, and
the punishment denounced op pagan nations. The date of the
third book is not doubtful The historian Josephus makes a clear
allusion to the passage on the Tower of Babel ("Antiquities," I. 43).
The unknown author lived under the seventh Ptolemy, called
Ptolemy Physcon, that is, from the year 170 to 117 B.C., as may be
gathered from verse 618 of the third book. See the paper by M.
Alexander, Vol. II. p. 318, and M. Reuss' article on the Sibyls in
Herzog's " Encyclopaedia."

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 73
the worship of the true God, from the corrupt masses of the
Gentile world. To it alone the great God has given wisdom
in counsel, faith, and holy thoughts. Deity, outraged by an
idolatrous world, will visit it with the most fearful scourges ;
His rod will smite the king of Asia who, under the seventh
Ptolemy, desolated the earth ; like a fierce eagle, he made the
ground tremble beneath his cavalry, and the heavy tread of his
infantry carried everywhere ruin and destruction. It is easy to
recognise in this description Antiochus Epiphanes. The
Hebrew poet sees in the tragical events of his reign, the pre-
cursive signs ofthe universal deliverance of which the Jews are
to be the instruments. The earth, piled with human corpses
left to be devoured by wild beasts, and spoiled of her harvests,
bears witness by her hideous nakedness to the crimes of her
inhabitants. "Then from the land of the sun* God will send
forth a King who shall put an end to war in the whole
earth, by destroying the wicked and bringing the righteous into
his covenant." Evidently this is a warrior king, who is to
establish universal peace by his conquering sword. ,A second
Maccabeus shall achieve the work commenced by the first
The happiness of mankind when it shall have been brought
(thanks to the Jews) under his laws, is represented in lively
imagery. The people of the great God will roll in gold and
silver, will be clothed in purple, and earth and seas will pour
their treasures at their feet.f
One last conflict, announced by terrible signs from heaven,
will be waged by the jealous nations, who will seek to invade
the Temple at Jerusalem ; but God himself will interpose and
rain down fire and brimstone from heaven. After this final
triumph the nations will bring their offerings into the sanctuary,
which will be filled with the smoke of their incense ; then will
commence the eternal reign of the saints in uninterrupted
felicities. The leopard shall lie down with the kid, the olive-
* 'Atr* >}cXioto (v. 650).
f Aabg S'dv fieyakoio Oeov irepucaXkii irkovrip (v. 657 and following).

74 BOOK FIRST.
tree shall be covered with never-withering fruits, the springs
shall flow with milk whiter than snow, and the child shall play
with the serpent
We see how earthly have become the hopes of. the Jews;
they do not rise beyond an entirely material happiness, founded
on the triumph of monotheism. The part of Messiah is become
only secondary, since the supreme deliverance is ascribed to
divine power. In Judaea, the religious ideal is not more
exalted, as is proved by the Book of Judith, which breathes an
infatuated patriotism which does not recoil from murder. The
one expectation is salvation by the sword, and for that they
will perish by the sword.
The Maccabees had almost realised the dream of the pious
party, henceforward designated by the name of Pharisees,
or separatists, and forming a sort of religious aristocracy,
fanatic and disdainful. From their ranks had come forth the
first deliverers ; their party had been their stay, and by their
courage success had been achieved. But victory was fatal to
the Maccabees. To assure an ever-disputed triumph in the
midst of incessant wars, provoked by the different pretenders to
the throne of the Seleucidae, they were obliged to have recourse
to artful policy and to seek their centre of support now in one
camp, now in another. They made the high priestly office
rather a civil magistracy than a religious function. Already
under Johannes Hyrcanus, the nephew of the great Maccabeus,
they began to subordinate the cause of religion and country to
their personal ambition. It was still, however, a glorious
epoch of independence and power. But from the day when
Aristobulus, son of Hyrcanus, put on the diadem and took
the name of king, the heroic inspiration which had made the
fortunes of his family vanished. The new race of kings
underwent the same revolutions of the palace, as other Asiatic
royalties of those times. Aristobulus starved his mother to
death. Alexander Jannaeus, his brother and successor, assassi
nated his brother Antigonus on a false suspicion, and then went

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 75
over to the Sadducees. It was a cruel disenchantment to the
Pharisees when they saw the successor and heir of the Macca
bees witnessing, in the midst of his harem, the infamous torture
of eight hundred of their adherents. Such a spectacle and
such bitter experiences served only to exasperate their resist
ance. Their influence on the people continued great, in view
of the sanguinary atrocities of a divided and degraded court.
The last of the Maccabees, in their desperate rivalries,
invoked more than once the support of the great Roman
republic, towards which their illustrious ancestor had already
turned his eyes, when it seemed yet too remote to menace
the independence of Judaea. Circumstances had changed :
Roman armies had already trodden the soil of Asia. The
infallible result of so dangerous an alliance was the ultimate
subjugation of the Jews. Called in successively by the two
sons of Jannaeus Alexander — Hyrcanus and Aristobulus— who
were disputing (or power, the Romans invaded Jemsalem the
first time under Pompey, in the cause of Aristobulus ; then
they were brought over to the party of Hyrcanus, through the
artifices of his perfidious counsellor, Antipater, the Idumean,
who was artfully laying the foundation of his own greatness.
His second son, Herod, uniting the most consummate political
cunning with prowess worthy of a Roman general, and never
staggered by a crime, succeeded in manoeuvring so well in a
time of changing fortune, that after having received the crown
of Judaea from the hands of the Senate (thanks to the protection
of Antony), he saw his kingdom aggrandized by the favour of
Augustus. He had shaken off, by treason or violence, the last
of the Maccabees ; he had had drowned before his eyes the
young Aristobulus, his wife's nephew, who had a right to the
high priestly office; then he made a mock tribunal pronounce
sentence on his wife, the beautiful Mariamne, niece of the old
Hyrcanus who had been so long his protector ; soon after, he
immolated the two sons he had by her, dreading in them the
avengers of their mother. He trampled fearlessly under foot

76 BOOK FIRST.
all the national customs, built cities in honour of Augustus, and
adorned them with circuses and theatres, as if he had been the
king of a pagan country. Such was the king of the Jews at
the time when the religious and national fermentation reached
its highest point. This protege of the Romans, this descendant
of the hated race of Esau, this insolent contemner of the reli
gion of the country, this cruel despot covered with the blood
of his kindred, a debauchee and a murderer, united in himself
all that would exasperate the national party. Seated on the
throne of David which he profaned, he became to the Phari
sees, and to the people whom they animated with their passions,
an object of unutterable loathing; the Sadducees alone were
satisfied. A short time previously the account of the exploits of the
Maccabees had been written. * In it lived and acted the heroes
of the holy war. These proud and noble representatives of
victorious resistance were painted, in vivid colours, before the
eyes of a people down-trodden and fettered, but animated at
heart with the same aspirations. The contrast between so
glorious a past and a present so humiliating, contributed to de-
* We have four books in the Jewish Apocrypha which bear the
name of Maccabees. The first is like the epopceia of the glorious
revolt of Mattathias and Judas. It was written some time after the
death of Johannes Hyrcanus, for the conclusion of the book alludes
to the chronicles relating to him, thus supposing some lapse of time
since his reign (Mace. xvi. 24). The favourable manner in which
the author speaks of the Romans leads to the belief that he wrote
before their direct interference in the conflicts of Syria. The second
book of Maccabees is a letter to the Jews in Egypt, designed to
bind them to the temple at Jerusalem. It is of later date than the
first, as shown by its legendary character. It dates, however, from
an epoch anterior to Christianity, for the epistle to the Hebrews
(xi. 31) makes allusion to 2 Mace. vi. 19. The third book has no
historical value ; it is a mythical account of the miracle which pre
vented Ptolemy Philopater from penetrating into the Holy of Holies
on his journey to J erusalem. The composition of this book belongs,
perhaps, to the epoch of the impious follies of Caligula. The fourth
book of Maccabees, which continues the works of Josephus, is a
cold dissertation on the martyrdom of the seven brothers, already
recounted in the first book.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 77
velop in the mass of the nation the desire after a Messiah, but
a Messiah bearing the impress of an earthly and feverish ima
gination, as is evident from this significant passage in the first
book of Maccabees — " The Jews and their priests had con
sented that Simon should be their chief and their high-priest
for ever, till there should arise some faithful prophet ; till that
epoch they would that their general should have charge of the
holy places, and should be obeyed by all"* This was indi
cating clearly that the power of the sword was to belong later
to the Messiah, since Simon was but His precursor. The
family of Simon had disappeared, and the Great Prophet, who
was to restore the theocracy, was not yet come. The portion
of the people, therefore, who had remained faithful to the tra
dition of the fathers, was cherishing an ever-growing desire
after Him.
Now that we know the political circumstances which pressed
with so heavy a weight on the public mind, we may form some
just idea of the moral condition of the Jews in their own coun
try, and in the synagogues of foreign lands.
IV. Alexandrine Judaism — Philo.
We have seen Jewish colonies steadily multiplying in the
great centres of civilisation. The most important of these
colonies was settled in Egypt ; its first nucleus had been formed
after the conquest of Ptolemy I., 324 years before the Christian
era. From that time it had not ceased to grow. After the
murder of the high-priest Onias II., his eldest son obtained of
Ptolemy Philometor permission to build a temple at Leon-
topolis ; he did not dare to build it exactly on the model of the
sanctuary at Jemsalem, but he set up, nevertheless, an altar of
sacrifice, taking his stand on the words of Isaiah, f This new
temple gradually lost its importance, when the Maccabees had
* "Ewg tov avatrTrjvai 'TrpofrjTtjv iriarbv xai tov elvai kir* avrStv
arparriybv (i Mace. xiv. 41, 42)
t Isaiah xix. 19.

78 BOOK FIRST.
purified the holy city ; it continued, nevertheless, in high honour
in Egypt, and preserved to the Jews of that country a certain
independence. They were much happier than their brethren
in Judaea, for the protection of the Ptolemies never failed them;
they possessed the same civil rights as the Greeks. Their
schools and synagogues became flourishing, but they were also
largely influenced by Hellenism. We have already pointed out
the traces of this* in the Septuagint translation, which was itself
a powerful means of preserving and developing Greek culture
among them. They were quickly led, in Egypt, into that move
ment of universal coalition, which constituted the glory of Alex
andria. Judaism lost there the tme meaning of the religion of
the fathers ; while the Pharisees in Palestine were burying the
spirit under the dead letter, the Egyptian school lost sight of
the letter under subtle interpretations, and ended by dissolving
the positive realities of the Mosaic dispensation in the cmcible
of syncretism. Platonic philosophy was gradually substituted
for the monotheism of the Old Testament
The book of the Wisdom of Solomon, which was written at
Alexandria two centuries before Christ, bears the impress of
this metaphysical dualism. The author in vain appeals to the
most significant facts of Jewish history, he never rises above
a mere general notion of righteousness ; the spirit which ani
mates his lengthy exhortations is that of Plato rather than of
Moses. He believes in the pre-existence of souls,* in the
eternity of matter.t and is an advocate of asceticism. J Wisdom,
of which he gives such beautiful descriptions, he confounds
with the divine but impersonal prototype, upon which the
world has been modelled. It is an idea and not a person ; it
fills all things, permeates the souls of the holy, and is diffused
* MSXXoj/ Sk ayaBbg S>v iiXBov elg aii/ia ajiiavTOv (viii. 20.)
t " God is the disposer of that which is" (rex*-'"*"*-- tSiv ovtuiv, viii.
6.) ! " Blessed is the barren" (iii. 13). "The mortal body enchains
the soul" (ix. 15.)

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 79
like a luminous ether throughout the universe.* From all the
images employed to exalt it, nothing more than this can be
gathered, Messiah will have no other mission than to establish
the dominion of the Jews over the other nations, and their
Lord will reign for ever. Alexandrine Judaism took a more
decided form with Aristobulus, who sought to win honours for
it among the Greeks, by arbitrarily interpreting or re-casting
the Orphic hymns, and by leading the way in the bold use of
the allegorical method ; he hoped thus to eliminate from the
Old Testament all that would not square with his system.
The chief representative of this tendency was Philo, the
celebrated contemporary of Christ. The Old Testament, like
the Gospel, keeps to solid moral ground ; liberty plays the
first part in the destinies of our race ; it alone explains the
fall of man and his restoration. We have before us a living
history, a real drama, which had its beginning as it will have
its close. With Philo we never leave the region of metaphysics.
History is a continuation of the cosmogony ; it is nothing more
than the eternal realisation of the necessary laws, which pre
side over the formation and organisation of the world. The
two systems are thus in manifest contradiction on all the essen
tial points of religious doctrine, whether relating to the origin
of things, to the principle of evil, or the salvation of mankind.
Between Oriental dualism and Jewish or Christian theism, the
opposition is radicaL Now Philo only revived this old dual
ism, enveloping it with ingenious allegories as with a veil ; it is
easy to recognise it under the sincere homage which he pays
lavishly to the religion of his fathers. His God, let him say
what he will, is not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the
God who reveals Himself to His worshippers, and guides and
protects them while He claims their obedience and their love ;
He is an abstract Being, raised above unity itself; He is placed
* It is a breath (drfiig) of the divine virtue, an emanation (awoppoia)
of the glory of the Almighty, a reflection of His splendour. Ei£
lj/vx&g baiag peTaPaivovaa (vii. 27-30).

80 BOOK FIRST.
above the good and the true, and all the categories of thought*
He did not produce the world from nothing by a free act of
creation ; He can never cease to produce any more than the
fire can cease to burn, or the snow to chill, f Light and life
emanate from him like the beam from the star. Matter cannot
be an emanation from Him ; thus it represents the element of
diversity, disorder, passivity, which is in direct opposition to
absolute being. It exists, then, eternally in His presence, and
has, like Himself, neither beginning nor end ; He educes from
it a perfect world by a process of organisation. As God cannot
come into direct contact with matter, He uses as media the
ideas or powers which emanate from Him, and which are the
types of all the realities contained in the world ; these are the
divine seals which, impressed upon formless matter, give to it
form and beauty, and bring out of it the Cosmos.! These
ideas, these powers, are called angels, when regarded in their
multiplicity; they form, in combination, the ideal world of
archetypes, or the world of the Word. In vain Philo ascribes
to this Word the most eminent attributes, calls him the Son of
God, the Sovereign Priest ; he never for a moment lifts him
out ofthe frozen sea of abstractions^
Evil is not born of the estrangement of the will, it results
* 'O 9ebg fiovog earl xai ?j/, reraxTai Kard rd Iv xai rj)v fiovaSa ("Leg.
Alleg." ii. i). TA bv 8 xai aya9ov xpeiTrov Ioti xai ivbg eiXixpivioTepov
(" De Vita Contemplativa," i).
+ Haverai y&p oboiirore iroiuv 6 9ebg, aXX' tioirsp iSiov rb xaleiv irvpbg
Kai xiovoe to tybxeiv, oiirw Kai Beov rb iroielv (" Leg. Alleg." i. 3).
J 'E£ tKeivrig ttclvt' kysvvijffev b Oebg, ovx IfpairTOfievog'avTbg, ov ydp
riv Oifiig direipov Kai TTetpvp/iivrig iiXjjf \paieiv, ii,\X<i raXg aau/iaroig
bwdfietriVj &v i-TVfiov ovofia ai ideal, KaTexpyaaTO irpbg Tb ykvog sKaorov
rfiv apu&TTOvaav Xa/3eiv fiopipljv ("De Sacr." 13).
§ OiSkv &v sTepov rbv voijrbv elvai xdo-ftov r/ 9eov \6yov KOffitOTToiovvTog
(" De Mundi Opific," vi). The heavenly place is full of incorporeal
words (irXriprig dauipaTttiv lo-rl \6yuv) " De Somn." i. 21. These in
corporeal words are the angels who personify ideas. The one and
personal word, then, has no existence. See, on the impossibility of
assimilating the Word of Philo to that of St. John, the noble
remarks of M. Dorner, in his introduction to his great book on the
" History ofthe Doctrine and Person of Jesus Christ" (p. 27-58).

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 8 1
from the very nature of things : it is inherent in the creature,
inasmuch as the creature has in it the corporeal or material
element which does not emanate from God. Man is then made
imperfect and a sinner by his very origin ; image of the world,
he contains within himself its two essential elements; the
spiritual and ideal was communicated to him by divine forces,
and these united it in some fashion with the material element,
which itself existed from all eternity.* If it was unworthy of
the dignity of God directly to create man, how can He truly
unite Himself with him ? Man is not endowed with enough of
liberty to modify his own destiny ; all depends on the propor
tion of the elements which enter into the composition of his
being. The mass of mankind is drawn to evil by the weight
of the passive or material element. But there is at the heart
of humanity a glorious elect, a truly sacerdotal race which rises
to the region of ideas ; this is the Hebrew race to which noble
souls, like Pythagoras and Plato, link themselves f Moses is
their most illustrious representative ; following in his track,
these privileged ones may, by ecstacy and contemplation, raise
themselves to the ineffable God, or rather lose themselves in
Him. Like the cicada which feeds on the dew of heaven,
their soul is nourished by truth and adoration. !
By many artifices of interpretation does Philo essay to bring
within his system the sacred books of his people ; now he has
recourse to the symbolism of numbers, now he plays on names ;
he treats historical realities like clay which he may mould at
his pleasure ; following the example of his God, he impresses
the stamp of his ideas on formless matter. The history of
Israel becomes a pure fable of the cosmogony. Institutions
are not less changed than facts and texts. Thus the priesthood,
that dominant institution of the Mosaic dispensation, designed
* " Man is a compound being, with a 'mortal and an immortal
nature ; he was not created directly by God, but formed into what

he is by divine power." — " De Prsemiis et Poenis."
+ Ol /iiv yrjg, ot U oipavoii. ("DeGigant.,"xiii.) ! "Leg. Alleg.'

in. 14.

82 BOOK FIRST.
to express the need of pardon and expiation, is reduced, by
Philo, to a cosmical symbolism. The high priest represents
the whole of creation. His pontifical vestments correspond to
the various parts of the world.* He is priest and mediator,
just as the word is, by symbolising the world of ideas and
forces, which is the true medium between the Supreme God
and matter, for it alone frees the latter from its primal state of
confusion. The priest is not needed to appease the offended
Deity, but simply to deliver man from his ignorance by revealing
to him his relation to God, and his place in the order of the
universe. There is here no ontological mystery, the knowledge
of which is salvation ; all that is required is that man should be
brought to know his tme condition, and to realise it by means
of asceticism. Sacrifice then becomes a mere unimportant
rite. Philo declares that the purified soul of the wise is the
true altar of Deity.f If he escapes the exclusiveness of his
compatriots, if he admits that Judaism is a universal religion,
he does so, not taking his stand like the prophets on the ac
complishment of the vast designs of divine mercy, but in the
name of his system of philosophy which makes the whole world
only the eternal manifestation of ideas. According to him no
new act is necessary to remove the barriers between God and
man, or between man and man. There is no place for recon
ciliation in a system which embraces all in the immutable plan
of a creation, which has had no beginning in time. Every
time the Jewish high-priest goes up to the altar, he sacrifices •
for the whole world, for what he does is only to symbolise that
which has always existed. Of what avail is a Messiah in such
a system ? What is there to save or to heal ? If Philo speaks
of the future developments of Judaism under a glorious king,
he only gives utterance to a vague memory of the prophets-!
* (" De Monarchia," Lib. II.) t (" De Victimis offerendis.")
! " There shall arise a man according to the word of God, who,
being chief of his army and making war. shall establish his dominion
over great and populous nations. God will send succour to the
saints." (" De Prasmiis et Pcenis.")

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 83
That which is the essential feature of the Old Testament is a
mere accessory in his doctrine ; salvation, with him, reduces
itself to a knowledge of the eternal order of things and a reali
sation of the same by contemplation and asceticism. Each
man is the true Messiah and Saviour for himself; Moses is only
so highly exalted by Philo, because he sees in him the type of
the perfect ascetic.
A judgment may now be formed of the assertion so lightly
thrown out, that Philo is the elder brother of Jesus and the
inspirer of St. John. For my part, I know no contradictions
in the history of human thought, more flagrant than those
which exist between the doctrines of these two. ¦ The first rests
wholly upon the negation of moral evil ; the starting-point of
the second is the deep- and bitter consciousness of sin.
Alexandrine theosophy admits no redemption ; the Gospel is
nothing without this article. Philo proclaims the impossibility
of Deity uniting Himself directly with the human creature,
while the incarnation is the grand theme of St. John. The one
sees in the Word only the abstract generalisation of divine
ideas;' the other adores in Him the "only begotten Soii which
is in the bosom of the Father." Philo's ultimatum is this:
Deity cannot touch that which is material. The fourth Gospel
is summed up in this expression of its prologue: "The Word
became flesh." The antithesis is absolute, for that which is with
St John a capital tmth, would be to the Jew of Alexandria
appalling blasphemy. If, then, Christianity must, at all costs,
be linked with an antecedent system, this precursor must be
sought elsewhere than in the synagogues of Egypt The out
growth of these was the sect of the Therapeutics of which Philo
draws a poetic picture ; he has nothing but eulogy for that con
templative asceticism, which reminds us of the wildest excesses
of India. Between his system and the Gospel there is the
same difference, as between those silent and attenuated recluses
and the first Christians— those conquerors of the world by
their mission and their martyrdom.
G 2

84 BOOK FIRST.
Flourishing Jewish colonies had been founded at this epoch
in Asia Minor, in Babylon, in Greece, and the islands of the
Mediterranean. They were bound to the mother country by
closer ties than the Egyptian Jews, who formed as it were a
nation by themselves. They annually sent their offerings to the
Temple, and had their representatives at the great festivals.
Nothing could be more simple than the democratic organisation
of the synagogue, governed by a council of elders which elected
its president; nothing less elaborate than its worship, which
consisted of readings and explanations of the sacred books on
the Sabbath day. Thus the true religion was maintained in the
land of strangers. The Jews of the dispersion could not, how
ever, be uninfluenced by the intellectual atmosphere of their
times. The Hellenists were less narrow in spirit than the
dwellers in Palestine, although a large number of them were
little disposed to abandon their national privileges, as is proved
by the resolute hostilities which St. Paul encountered in foreign
synagogues. Each synagogue was a centre of proselytism, and
made numerous converts from the Pagan world. " Our laws,"
said- Philo, " attract all to themselves, barbarians, strangers,
Greeks, the dwellers on continents and in islands, in the East,
in the West, and in Europe."* The proselytes were divided
into proselytes of the Gate, or of the first degree, subject to
what were called the precepts of Noah, which extended only to
the proscription of all idolatrous practices, and proselytes of
righteousness, those who decidedly incorporated themselves
with the people of God.
V. Sects and Parties in Judaea.
The sect of the Essenes forms the link between the Judaism
of Palestine and that of Alexandria. It was formed under the
influence of Oriental dualism, which hovered in the atmosphere
as well of Asia as of Egypt The transcendent mysticism
which took form later in the Kabbala existed then as an
* " Vita Moysis," Lib. II.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 85
influence. The Talmud makes plain allusions to it, and its
fundamental beliefs were unquestionably very widely spread.
The theory of emanations was one of the great intellectual
currents of the age. The idea of a hidden and mysterious
Deity revealing Himself by His attributes, purely ideal hypo
stases forming in their combination the prototype of the world,
and above all of man; the assimilation of evil to matter,
exegesis reduced to allegorism, and morals to asceticism ; such
are the traits common to all the developments of Oriental theo-
sophy.* It is not surprising to find them in Judaea under a
form less philosophical than in Egypt, and rather in the state
of vague aspiration than with the rigour of a system properly
so called. "Death is the kiss of God" we read in the Kabbala.
This melancholy utterance, which so well expresses the incon
solable sadness of the finite creature aspiring to lose itself in the
infinite, may date, perhaps, from these troubled times.
It is evident to us that Essenism was the product of the
dualistic tendency. The representation given of it by Philo
and Josephus shows it to us, as not only in quest of a purer
morality, but also as devoted to practices which savour of
Pythagorism.t It is, indeed, a plant springing in the soil of
Judaea, but it unfolds under the same breath, which in so many
different soils developed an ascetic mysticism. The Essenes,
retiring to the solitudes of the Dead Sea, broke with
the national religion ; these men of the Desert condemned
it by their eagerness to place themselves beyond its
official enclosure ; they thus declared it to be at least insuffi
cient By suppressing sacrifices of blood, by forbidding to
cross the threshold of the temple, they formed in reality a new
religion over 'which presided elders who had no bond with the
priesthood. They had established a severe initiation of three
* See M. Franck's work on the Kabbala, and M. Reuss's article
in Herzog's " Encyclopaedia."
t See Philo's treatise, " De Vita Contemplativa," and Josephus,
"Bell. Judaic," II. 8.

86 BOOK FIRST.
degrees, and had been eager to abolish all distinction of rank,
so as to efface the faintest trace of slavery. Unhappily they
had at the outset rendered sterile all their reforms, by isolating
themselves from their people. The equality of a monastery
will never bear application to common life.
This was not all. Not content with having instituted a
community of possessions, they condemned marriage in itself. *
They showed clearly that they regarded matter as the source of
evil, by the extraordinary precautions which they took to
cleanse themselves from all corporeal defilement Clothed in
white, they offered their prayer to the sun with the first rays of
dawn ;f they saw, doubtless, in the pure light of the morning,
the symbol of Deity. The Essenes only acknowledged the
Pentateuch, and rejected all the prophetic developments ofthe
old covenant. What harmony could exist between Christianity
and this dualistic sect, which cut itself off, in fact, from the
religious tradition of the Old Testament, and, following the
example of the school of Philo, left to man the charge of
working out his own salvation by asceticism ? More a stranger
than any other portion of the Jewish people to the expectation
of Messiah, it deluded the high aspirations of the soul by con
ventual practices; the desert was not to it the school of sanctity
designed to gird the spirit for heroic conflicts, but the refuge to
which it fled to escape from the strife.! Thus notwithstanding
some wholly external analogies, it remained without any relations
with the new religion. Hence the silence of our Gospels with
reference to Essenism, which was weaving its solitary dream, while
at Jerusalem the destinies of the whole world were at issue.§
* Tdfiov jiiv virepo^iia Trap' airovg. (Josephus, "Bell. Jud." II. 8, 2.)
\ Ei'e airbv 6vxag. (Josephus, "Bell. Jud." II. 8, 5.)
j We are unable to subscribe to Ewald's opinions (Gesch. Israel
IV., p. 476) and to those of M. Reuss (" Histoire de la litterature
au siecle apostolique," I,, p. 115), as to the purely Hebraic origin
of Essenism.
§ We have refuted, by these observations. Strauss' idea of the
connection between primitive Christianity and Essenism. (" Leb.
Jesu fiir das deutsche Volk," p. 175.)

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 87
It requires some audacity to maintain that Sadduceeism
prepared the way for Christianity by enlarging the mind.* A
singular method, truly, of preparation for a religion of self-
renunciation, was that of perverting souls and sapping in the
conscience the basis upon which alone it could be founded.
The Sadducees found in Herod a king after their own heart, a
stranger to any tme scruples, the parasite of the foreigner, the
sworn enemy of the fervid devotion which gives birth to agitation
and, opposition, a sacrilegist never hesitating to elevate his
creatures to the priesthood. Such a ruler was well suited to
those men of pleasure, who desired only the material advantages
of power. Josephus shows at its just value the pretended
breadth of spirit of the Sadducees, when he complains of their
haughty and almost savage arrogance. None has a narrower
and harder heart than the voluptuous egotist, who looks at
humanity only with a view to the advantage he may extract
from it The Sadducees religiously followed the maxim of
their founder, Zadok — " Sever not thyself from the majority."
Not thus are religious heroes tempered.
The Pharisees, although excluded by Herod from high offices,
exercise, nevertheless, a paramount influence. They are the
direct inheritors of that severe and exalted Judaism by which
religion was restored on the return from the exile, only calcula
tion has succeeded to fervour, and dry and scenic devotion
to sincere piety ; holiness is no longer anything but a means
to success, it becomes hypocrisy by its display ; it is no longer
the life of the soul, but spends itself in vestments, gestures, and
attitudes. It founds a school, and becomes the watchword of
a religious coterie. No doubt some upright, though mistaken
souls there are among the Pharisees, but, taken as a whole,
their party is given up to the letter, to forms and ceremonies ;
it confounds interests and beliefs, and pursues earthly ends by
religious means, which is the worst of all profanations. Its
greatness is in its inflexible patriotism, which may lead it even
* " Leb. Jesu fiir das deutsche Volk," p. 178.

88 BOOK FIRST. i
to heroism, and which, meanwhile, assures tt$ it a moral authority
over a people, whose idol it is, because it shares their passions.
If we would know the opinions which prevailed in Judaea at
this, period, it is to the Pharisees we must look for the answer.
VI. The movement of thought in Palestine before the birth
of Jesus Christ*
We have seen how, from the time of the religious
restoration under Ezra, and the .extinction of the spirit of
prophecy, the doctor or rabbi became the foremost personage
of the Judaism of the decline. A complete summary of his
doctrine is given in the famous precept — " Set a hedge about the
law, and make many disciples." j; In other words, preserve the
national institutions by a rigorous tradition, and teach this
tradition in numerous schools. " Tradition is the check of the
law," say the rabbis again-! Nothing could be better adapted
* Our first source of knowledge is, of course, the New Testament ;
then Josephus, who is so rich in information as to the doctrine of
his contemporaries. The Talmud may be used, but cautiously.
We find in it a complete collection of Pharisaic tradition, under its
two forms the Mishna and the Gemara. It may be inferred, from
allusions and quotations by several of the Fathers, among others
by Origen (" De Principiis," Delarue Edition, vol. I , p 179I, that an
important part of the Mishna was in existence before the end of the
third century : we find in the Mishna an evident allusion to Adrian's
war of extermination against the Jews. Whenever we find a pre
cept which is a development of the Pharisaic doctrines, such as
they are represented to us in the Gospel, we may consider it as
going back in date to the Judaism of the time of Christ. A more
certain source of information is found in the two Targums of
Onkelos and of Jonathan. These are Aramaic translations, or rather
paraphrases, of the most important portions of the Old Testament.
Both suppose the existence of the Levitical worship, and must,
consequently be antecedent to the destruction of Jerusalem. Tal-
mudic tradition makes Onkelos a disciple of Hillel, and Jonathan of
Gamaliel. We borrow our quotations of the Talmud and the
Targums from Gfroerer (" Jahrhundert des Heils.") We have, also,
drawn largely from " Pirke Aboth, or the Books of Principles," the
summary of the moral portion of the Talmud, of which we have
already spoken.
f " Pirke Aboth," p. 483.
\ Ibid, pp. 483-5°3-

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 89
than such a maxim to exalt their own importance. This
revolution is completely achieved in the time of Herod. The
doctor boldly claims his place on the highest seat ofthe hierarchy,
and above the prophet* The Targums do not scrapie to apply
to him the glorious promises of the Old Testament. Onkelos
renders in the following terms the famous prophecy of Jacob
about Shiloh : — " Neither the prince, nor the scribe, shall depart
from Judah till the coming age." If Joseph is the favourite of
his father, it is because he is a doctor. If men are commanded
to stand before the hoary head, it is because this indicates a
man versed in the study of the law.f The rabbi declares loudly
that he wears a crown; he calls himself a king. "There are
three crowns," said Rabbi Simeon ; " the crown of the law, the
crown of the pontificate, and that of royalty."! That of the
doctor is placed in the first rank. "His crown is above that
of the king," says the Talmud. " Eternal gratitude is due to
him who has taught a single commandment, a single letter of the
law."§ , The pride of the scribe rises to such a point that it
concludes by seeing in heaven only a school of rabbis ; and God
Himself appears l>.o him clothed with the rabbinical insignia. ||
The authority of the doctor knows no bounds. His disciples
are at his feet ; h£ claims from them blind and absolute sub
mission. , — i^faKe! thy master for thy guide," says Gamaliel,
" that thou mayest not fall into doubt He who forgets a single
point of doctrine may be esteemed on the road to ruin. '"IT Soon
tradition is unhesitatingly placed above Scripture. The rabbi
declares that there is danger in reading freely the sacred books,
because the disciple may be led to place greater confidence in
them than in the words of his master. The Talmud is to be
read twice as much as the Bible. Honouring the master is the
same thing as honouring God.**
To increase their reputation, the rabbis gave their instructions
* Gfrcerer, I., p. 142. § " Pirke Aboth," p. 531.
t- " Pirke Aboth," pp. 488-531. - || Gfrcerer, I., p. 278.
t Ibid p. 5 1 1. f " Pirke Aboth," pp. 489-501.
** Gfrcerer, I., pp. 150, 151.

90 BOOK FIRST.
gratuitously; on this account it was that each of them was
bound to leam a trade. " All study of the law, not accom
panied with the exercise of a calling, is vain and leads to dissi
pation." This disinterestedness was often more apparent than
real, for these illustrious doctors found plentiful indemnification
in the large sums of money, which were voluntarily presented to
them, or in the favour of rich families, with whom they fre
quently contracted unions.
Their first care was to organise schools. Each of these had
at its head a regular master ; he was seated on a raised chair,
and his hearers ranged themselves before him in a semicircle.
" At five years of age," says the Talmud, " the sacred studies
should be commenced ; at ten, the youth should devote himself
to tradition ; at thirteen, he should know and fulfil the com
mandments of the Lord ; at fifteen, he should perfect his stu
dies." "Cease not," it says elsewhere, "the study of the law,
for everything is comprised in it ; it will give thee all true know
ledge. Continue in this study, forsake it not, for thou canst
undertake nothing better. The recompense will be propor
tioned to the toil." I
" He who devotes himself to holy studiesJ should not suffer
himself to be distracted by anything on th,e way ; he should
not say as he travels, ' This tree is gracefalY-that . tract of
country is beautiful,' but should be entirely ¦absorbed. That
which is learned in youth is like writing traced tipon new parch
ment He who is taught by an old man is like one, who eats
ripe grapes and drinks old wine."*
The disciple who had passed the first degree of learning took
his seat at the foot of the doctoral chair, and had the right to
speak. It was needful to pass the third degree of initiation to
become a rabbi. The memory had to be singularly exercised
to retain the medley of Pharisaic traditions, which were not
fixed in writing. The disciple promised not to change one
iota of that which was transmitted to him, under pain of being
* " Pirke Aboth," II., pp. 513-527.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 91
untrue to God Himself, and of drawing down the malediction
of. the chosen people. "He who gives explanations, not in
conformity with tradition, shall have no part in the future
world, even though he have well understood the law, and done
many good works." Nothing can give a just idea of the com
plicated puerility of such teaching, weaving, as it does, mere
spiders' webs in the vacuum of thought. Subtilty which knew
no bounds was the reigning genius. It spent itself in the most
absurd use of the allegorical, and turned the plainest texts into
enigmatical ciphers.
The tribunals were of three degrees. The lowest was a
small court of justice, composed of three persons, which regu
lated pecuniary difficulties in places of minor importance ; the
second was composed of twenty-three members, and judged
personal offences. The great Sanhedrim was the high court of
appeal. It consisted of seventy-one members, and sat in the
Temple : it had a president, a vice-president, and two secre
taries. It renewed itself. Its importance diminished from the
time of the annexation to the Roman Empire ; it disappeared
during the war, but was reconstituted afterwards at Tiberias.
At the time of Christ, it pronounced real decisions in matters
of doctrine and discipline, and fulminated excommunications
in sternest language.
The rabbis, not content with sitting in the tribunals, and
watching over the strict maintenance of tradition, further charged
themselves with the instruction of the people ; they multiplied
schools throughout the country ; they devoted to contempt all
who did not attend, and likened them to brute animals.* No
moral authority, then, was to be compared, at the time of Christ,
with that of the doctors of the law. It was so much the greater
that it was not confined, like the priest's, to one caste ; every
Jew might aspire to this office, or, rather, to this kingship of
divine wisdom. The scribe held minds captive in the fetters
of an entirely mechanical system. He imposed that which he
* Gfroerer, I., p. 190.

92 BOOK FIRST.
had himself passively received, and made himself the first slave
of the doctrine of death, of which he was the organ. Not in
such a school, certainly, will the meek and gentle Teacher be
formed, who is to bring to the world truth simple enough for
the understanding ofthe unlettered and the child.
If we pass from the organization of the schools to the ground
work itself of their teaching, the opposition between the new
religion and Pharisaic tradition will strike us no less forcibly.
Is the future of the chosen people in question ? The synagogue,
instead of admitting an extension of the divine covenant, which
may render it capable of embracing all mankind, ignores the
clearest oracles of the great Hebrew prophets, and exalts be
yond all bounds the national privileges of the Jews. "All
Israel," we read in the Pirke Aboth, "has part in the world to
come ; thus it is written, ' All Thy people shall have for ever
in inheritance this land of my own planting.'"* It is enough,
then, to be descended from the fathers by simple historical son-
ship, in order to share in the glories of the future. The national
pride utters itself sometimes with fierce energy, as in this ex
pression of the Talmud : — "Each Israelite is worth more be
fore God than all the people who have been or shall be."t
Truly it was hard for Christian universalism to grow in such a soil !
Pharisaism does not admit the possibility of a revelation
superior to that of Sinai ; it makes Moses a being truly divine.
He was only a man when he fled before Pharaoh, but he was
a god when he conquered him, and above all when he came
down from the Mount J Josephus does not hesitate to ascribe
to him a nature more than human. This apotheosis of Moses
was a bad preparation for the reception of a new covenant
The doctors of the law carried back their traditions to the
great day of Sinai. They pretended that the seventy elders
named by the first legislator had received the deposit of tra
dition, and had handed it down to successive sanhedrims : thus
the law was proclaimed eternal and immutable in all its parts.
* "Pirke Aboth," p. 481. t Gfrcerer, I., 214. J Ibid.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. «93
"The law," says the Talmud, "which was created for the
Israelites will endure for ever and ever.* No prophet has the
right to change anything in it"f
If there is an acknowledged fact, in our day, it is that the
idea of God had undergone a wide modification among the
Jews, in the time preceding the Christian era, not only at Alex
andria, where Platonic influence predominated, but also, in
Palestine. There was a deeper impression than ever of the
incomprehensibleness of God. He was removed to an in
accessible height. To judge from the Talmud, Gamaliel seems
to have expressed himself more decidedly than any of his pre
decessors, on the impossibility of our knowing the dwelling-
place of the Almighty. The conclusion from this incompre
hensibleness of God was, that He could not reveal Himself to,
nor have any direct communication with, man. Thus the nu
merous instances of theophany in the Old Testament became
a scandal, and the sacred narratives were unscrupulously tam
pered, with to bring them into harmony with this new theory ;
wherever the text spoke of a direct manifestation of God, an
angel was substituted, or thg sacred cloud, which was called
the Shekina.\ This tendency, so marked in the translation
of the Septuagint, is not less evident in the Targums, which
date from the first century of the Christian era. Thus when
Jacob exclaims that he has seen the Lord face to face,§ Onkelos
makes him say, " / have seen the angel of the Lord face to face."
Where the text runs, " They saw the God of Israel,|| the para
phrase renders it, " They saw the glory of God? Where it is
said that Moses beheld the face of the Lord, the Targum uses
the expression, " He saw the image, the likeness of the glory of
God." The Shekina is not to be mistaken for a direct revelation
of God. It is not God Himself, but only a partial and even
* Gfrcerer, I., p. 234. t Ibid. p. 235.
J See Nicolas. Work quoted, p. 1 16.
§ Gen. xxxii. 3. || Ex. xxiv. 10.

94 BOOK FIRST.
sensible manifestation of His existence. He is not personally
. present by it in the midst of His people ; it is a pledge of His
love, but He is not Himself in any way enshrined in the sacred
cloud. The Shekina is represented in the Targum as a cloud.
"A cloud," we read in Onkelos, "covered the tabernacle of
His glory. The Shekina of the Lord filled it" Josephus
gives the same definition of it : " It was a cloud, not heavy and
grey like the clouds of wintry and rainy days, but light and
transparent, filling the temple."*
The inference is, that the Shekina was designed to obviate
the scandal of a direct theophany.
The Targums set aside no less scrupulously all assimilation,
even the most distant, between man and Deity. Thus when
God says, after Adam had eaten of the tree of knowledge, " He
is become one of us" Onkelos modifies the text thus, "Behold
Adam is unique in the world." The commentator is scandal
ised at the words of the serpent to Eve, " Ye shall be as gods;"
and makes Him say, " You shall be happy as princes." This
marked repugnance to everything, that tends to an approxima
tion between humanity and Deity, is very significant. " The
personal and corporeal appearances of Deity," says M. Reuss,
"did not accord with a speculative theory, which was already
widely developed."! Assuredly, the distance was great between
such a point of view, and that pre-eminent instance of theo
phany — the incarnation of the Son of God. If mention is
made of the Logos, or of the Word of God in the Targums, He
is only allowed to be like the Shekina, a partial manifestation
of Deity.
The Jewish schools gave the preference in discussions to
everything that related to anthropology. The Pharisees ac
cepted the idea of original sin, which they often supplemented
by the theory of pre-existence ; they gave great scope to Divine
action in human life, and even inclined to a sort of religious
' * Josephus, " Antiquities," VI 1 1 . , 4.
t Reuss, " History of Christian Theology," I., p. 83.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 95
fatalism. With regard to morals, properly so called, more than
one admirable precept may be gleaned from the Talmud. It
lays down the rale that we should not do to others what we
would not have done to us, and that we should love our
neighbour as ourselves. Still, the spirit which animates these
mles of conduct is in perfect harmony with what we know of
Pharisaism ; the leading principle is an essentially interested
one. A man must do good like a mercenary to create merit
for himself, and to purchase his share of happiness. Whoever
shall have fulfilled the law, shall come at the last day and receive
his reward. Consider for whom thou dost work, and what is
the Master who will pay thee thy wages."* Those who feed
the poor will obtain the pardon of their sins, as if they had
brought a sacrifice to the altar. t Repentance itself is only a
means of atoning for faults. " Three things will make thee
prosper — prayer, alms, and penitence." The prayer must not
be short ; he who lengthens out his prayer will not be sent
empty away. Certain forms give a peculiar value to prayer.
Thus the holiest actions, those which ought to be the most
spontaneous are entered in this current account between man
and God, so accurately kept by the Pharisees.
Faith is regarded as a meritorious work. "What is the
cause of the joy of the saints ?" we read in the Talmud. " It is
the merit of the faith shown by our fathers during life. Great
is faith before God, for by its merit the Holy Spirit has
rriade Israel his habitation."! This faith is purely an intellec
tual act " He who forgets a single point of doctrine is
pronounced to be running to his min." The Pharisaic maxims,
those especially that are ascribed, to Hillel, are sometimes like
precious pearls, but the thread on which they are strung is a
low and unworthy thought Ceremonial is placed in the same
rank with the precepts of eternal morality. Pestilence sweeps
the universe, because the Sabbatic year has not been rigidly
observed. Exile is the punishment of idolatry, of incest,
* " Pirke Aboth," p. 495- t Ibid. p. 154- X Ibid. p. 560.

96 BOOK FIRST.
murder, and of the violation of the Sabbath.* A casuistry
descending into the smallest details, of which the gospels furnish
numerous examples, is substituted for the law of holiness.
The observance of the Sabbath pushed to the most ridiculous
exaggerations, becomes the essence of religion ; strict con
formity in this respect is enough to atone for the greatest sins.
God pardons him who keeps the Sabbath. The full observance
of two Sabbaths would have saved Israel.
A dry orthodoxy and a dead formalism — this is the summary
of Pharisaic morality. The result is hypocrisy, a pre-occupation
of soul with the external and visible to the detriment of tme
piety. Attendance at the feasts is considered an efficacious
means of salvation ; the Feast of Atonement really expiates
sin ; circumcision introduces into the kingdom of heaven.
The piety of the fathers redounds to the children, who draw
upon their supererogatory merits as upon an ever open
treasury, f The rabbis sacrifice everything to the external.
They will not have confession of sins, if it may injure their
caste ; they unscrupulously counsel dissimulation to any of their
number who may have committed a serious fault "The
rabbi," we read in a fragment of the Talmud, " should avoid
walking in haste; he should advance slightly bending, and
with bowed head. He should not converse with a woman,
not even with his wife. When the evil nature has got the
better of the man, let him go into a place where he is
unknown, let him put on sombre garments and cover him
self with a black veil, and then let him do what his heart
commands, so that he dishonours not publicly the name of
God."! Truly the founder of a spiritual worship had nothing to learn
from these men of false and empty forms; he could only pro
nounce just and solemn condemnation on the spirit of traffic in
holy things, more dangerous and more culpable when applied
* "Pirke Aboth," p. 521. + Gfrcerer, II., p. 170.
X Gfroerer, II., pp. 166, 167.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 97
to the salvation of the soul, than when instigating the most
shameless simony.
The age which saw the birth of Messiah was quivering with
mysterious expectation. The often-quoted words of Suetonius
about the universal ruler, who was to come from the East, are
only an echo of the feverish hopes of the Jews. But closely
regarded, these hopes were then more imbued than ever with a
political and theocratic character. The materialistic tendency
which we have pointed out in the apocryphal books, reached its
culminating point precisely on the eve of the great event, which
was to give them the most signal contradiction. We find it
faithfully expressed in the various passages of the gospels,
which bring before us the contemporaries of Christ; it is fully
displayed in the Targums, in the oldest portions of the Talmud,
and above all, in the great apocalypses like the book of Enoch
and the fourth book of Esdras. The expected Messiah is to
be a mighty King, the descendant of David.* The town of
Bethlehem is at once pointed out as his birth-place by the
doctors whom Herod consults,! and who are the faithful echo
of the Targums of the period. Great sorrows are to precede
the advent of the deliverer; he will have Elias or one of the
prophets as his immediate forerunner.! He is often represented
under the image of a new Moses; he is to be the prophet, like
the prophet of Sinai, whose appearance is predicted in
Deuteronomy; and miracles are looked for from him, similar
to those in the desert. § His first work will be to restore the
national glory of the Jews, to reconquer the sacred soil of
Palestine, and to restore the kingdom to Israel after having
purified the people of God by repentance. || Such are the
essential features of the picture. They are reproduced in
fhe Targums of the time. These also ascribe to Messiah
descent from David, birth at Bethlehem, a renovating
influence upon the people, and the deliverance of the ten
• Mark xii. 35. t Matt- »• 5- t Mark ix- J J > vi- JS > John >¦ 2I«
§ John vi. 31. || Acts i. 6.
H

98 BOOK FIRST.
tribes.* They add that Messiah will engage in a supreme
conflict with the power of evil, symbolised by the mysterious
names of Gog and Magog, f
The rabbis place in the second line, and as it were in the
perspective of the picture, all their apocalyptic imaginations.
They make the great crisis which is to precede the end of the
world, coincide with the era of Messiah; sometimes they
attribute to Him the resurrection of the dead, and the last
judgment; sometimes they make His reign the precursor of
the final scenes in which God will enact the principal part
They hesitate between a general resurrection, and a resurrection
ofthe just alone.J But they are unanimous in seeing in the
future only .a brilliant triumph of Judaism, in which the nations
may no doubt participate, but subordinately, and as it were in
the train of the sons of Abraham. " How beautiful is Messiah
the king!" we read in a Targum of later date, which is, how
ever, a faithful echo of Pharisaic tradition; " He has girded
His loins; He has set the battle in array against His enemies;
He has reddened the mountains with the blood of His adver
saries.'^ The Pharisees take literally the image of a new
temple and a new Jemsalem. They extol the glory of Messiah,
but wherever there is an apparent ascription to Him of pre-
existence and of Deity, we may be convinced there has been
some Christian interpolation, or, as in the fourth book of
Esdras, the trace of the indirect influence of primitive Chris
tianity. The idea of a suffering Messiah is in flagrant contra
diction with their system. The possibility of suffering is only
admitted with reference to a second Messiah, who appears in
some of their wildest traditions, and who is' to devote himself
for the deliverance of the ten tribes. i|

* Targum, Jonathan on Micah, v. 2. f Gfrcerer II., p. 215.
I Ibid, II. p. 232. § Ibid, p. 246.
|| " Morietur hie Messias." Gfrcerer II , pp. 259-261. A trace
of this idea is to be found in the words of the Jew Trypho to Justin.
(" Dial. cum. Tryph.," c. Ixviii.)

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. y9
This fundamental idea is invested with strange symbols in
that curious book of Enoch, the first outline of which may be
traced up to the time of the Maccabees, but which was enriched
and modified in the succeeding period.* The intention of the
unknown author was evidently to counteract the Sadduceean
tendency; he wished to combat that sort of, Jewish epicurism,
which removed God to the greatest possible distance from the
world, and set aside His intervention alike in nature and in
history. Desirous of filling the universe with the Divine
* " Das Buch Enoch iibersetzt und erklart," von Dillmann,
Leipzig, 1853. The Greek fragments, published by Syncellus, have
been collected in the second volume ofthe " Codex Pseudepigraphus
Vet. Testamenti " of Fabricius. It is difficult to fix the date of
the book of Enoch with certainty. The chronological data taken
from the calculation of weeks in the ninety-third chapter, are always
open to the charge of arbitrariness, as there is no fixed element for
the valuation of the symbolic numbers. Ewald and Dillmann see
in chapter xc. a clear allusion to Johannes Hyrcanus, who is the
valiant lamb with the terrible and victorious horn. But it
is quite possible that, after the manner of the prophets,
Johannes Hyrcanus was cited after, his death as a type of the
future deliverer, rather than as himself the Messiah. The son of
Maccabeus would play in such an apocalypse the part of David in
ancient prophecy. That the book was extant before Christ is
evidenced by the quotation in Jude — (v. 14 ) Some features appear
to point to the time of the Herods ; the most significant seems to
me that in chap, lvi.: — " In those days the angels shall be gathered
together, and their chiefs shall turn towards the east, towards the
Parthians and the Medes, to excite a movement among the kings
of those countries." These nations are to be stirred up to invade
Judaea. Now, the invasion of the Parthians actually took place
thirty-seven years before Christ. They drove away the high priest
Hyrcanus, with his protectors, Herod the Great and his brother.
(Gfrcerer I., p. 100. Liicke "Offenbar. Johann.," I., 251.) We are
therefore much disposed to place the book of Enoch in the very
century of Jesus Christ. It appears to us evident that chapter lxiii.
has been altered into the Christian sense. The Messiah in the
original was represented as pre-existing in the thought of God,
according to the doctrine of absolute predestination. Thence, to
attribute to him, by a few additions which were supposed to be
merely explanations, actual pre-existence was but a step. We
have, beside, clear proof of an after-touch in chapter xc. To the
description of the white bull, as an image of the Messiah, is added
—"He was the Word." (See Dillmann, p. 65.)
H 2

IOO BOOK FIRST.
activity, he gives us a sort of fantastic theory of physics, which
admits no natural causes, but multiplies everywhere the direct
agents of Deity, and peoples space with myriads of angels
charged with the various functions of nature. Enoch, the
great saint of the patriarchal age, is chosen to become the
revealer of these mysteries ofthe world; translated in a remote
age into the clouds, he is able to traverse the obscure regions
veiled from our eyes by visible appearances. The author
teaches not only the doctrine of angels, but also that of demons ;
these are the spirits of the giants sprang' from the union of
fallen angels with the daughters of men. The revelations
vouchsafed to Enoch, whether in his peregrinations through
space, or in his visions, bear principally on God's plan with
regard to man. History is only the unfolding of His eternal
designs; all that has become apparent in the course of time
existed before the ages in His thought. This ideal pre-existence
is naturally attributed first of all to Messiah, who is to be His
great representative upon earth. He is to be born in the
bosom of the Jewish people, that chosen object of Divine
favour. He is called the Son of man, and righteousness dwells
with Him. " He shall awake from their sleep the kings and
the strong ones of the earth, and overturn the mighty from
their seats : He shall break the teeth of the wicked. He shall
expel kings from their kingdoms, because they have not
hearkened to and honoured Him. He shall fill the strong
with confusion; darkness shall be their dwelling, and worms
their resting-place. They shall be driven from the habitations
of His people. Then shall the prayer of the just, and the cry
of their blood, mount up to heaven."* Messiah is not only to
preside at the last judgment, He is also to raise the dead. In
those days earth and hell shall yield up that which has been
committed to them. The Son of man will gather around Him
the just, the saints, for the day of their salvation will be come.
The mountains shall skip like rams, and the hills like lambs
* Book of Enoch, xlvi.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 101
that have been satisfied with milk. "Neither gold nor iron
shall save the wicked in presence of the great Elect of God :
they shall melt before him like honey before the fire. He will
be seated upon the throne of justice : he will judge all the acts
of the saints which are in heaven, and weigh them in his
balances. The kings and the mighty ones will own him,
seated upon the throne of glory; they will know that it is no
more possible to utter before him vain words. Then grief will
come upon them, as travail upon a woman with child. They
will look one upon another, and be in fear, when they see this
son of a woman upon the throne of glory. The angels of
justice will seize them to punish them, for having evil-entreated
the children of God and his elect, and they will be a spectacle
to the righteous. They will cry : ' O that thou wouldest give
us rest, that we might praise and magnify the King of kings.
We sigh for rest, and we find none; our light has gone out, and
darkness is our eternal habitation, because we have not believed
in him, but have put our hope in the sceptre of our royalty
and in our glory.'"* In contrast with this terrible punishment
of the great ones of the heathen, Enoch describes the bliss of
the elect, in whom we recognise the children of Israel; he
shows them to us seated at the feast of God, clothed in bright
raiment, and tasting pleasures that know no end.
The same ideas reappear under other figures in the famous
ninetieth chapter, which closes the symbolical sketch of the
history of the holy nation. Israel is likened to a flock of sheep,
led successively by seventy shepherds, who represent the foreign
kings counted from the exile. The pagan nations which
trampled on God's elect are compared to ravens and eagles.
These birds of prey wound and blind the unhappy flock, till
the day when a few of the young and valiant sheep separate
from the rest, and victoriously fight agaist their oppressors.
Here is an evident allusion to the Maccabees, who are repre
sented as the foremnners of Messiah. One of these courageous
* Book of Enoch, lxii.

102 BOOK FIRST.
sheep has a great hom, which the birds of prey endeavour, but
vainly, to break. The reign of Messiah commences, but it is
not fully described, because the author has previously sufficiently
expanded this, part of his subject: this reign is designated the
era of the sword.
The fallen angels undergo their punishment ; each sheep
receives a sword, and kills the ravenous creatures. As soon as
the "judgment begins, the Son of man writes down the names
of the sheep, and opens before God the book of life. What
other than Messiah could on such a day enact so important a
part?* The fallen angels, symbolised by stars, are the first to
be thrown into the -place of condemnation ; then the seventy
shepherds are put to death, and plunged into flaming deeps.
The unfaithful sheep share the same fate. A new temple rises
on the rains of the old; it is infinitely richer and more splendid.
The elect sheep there fix their abode, and receive the homage
of all the other animals ; they are whiter than snow, and their
eyes are opened. The sword which had been given them has
become useless; they lay it down in the sanctuary. Messiah
reappears, in this glorious era, under the form of a white bull
with large black horns. The meaning of these distorted sym
bols is plain ; they represent the triumph of the Jewish theocracy,
at the close of a terrible conflict inaugurated by Messiah ; his
reign is to be pre-eminently that of the sword. Certainly, the .
Jewish dream never found a more brilliant and passionate
expression than this.
* M. Colani will not recognise the Messiah in this portion of the
book of Enoch, the only one which appears to him positively
Jewish. (" Jesus Christ et les Croyances Messianiques." . Intro
duction, p. 22.) He takes his stand on the evident re-touchings of
the similitudes ; but these re-touchings are not sufficient to take
away all their value. He maintains that the date of these simili
tudes, is clearly indicated by the allusion to the thermal baths,
placed in volcanic spots, and where the great of the earth give
themselves up to all voluptuousness ; but the chapter to which this
passage belongs is part of a fragment subsequently interpolated,
which contains the revelation of Noah on the deluge. (Dillmann,
p. 200.)

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. IO3
The Fourth book of Esdras belongs to a later period; it dates
from the troublous times between the destruction of Jerusalem
under Titus, and the sanguinary repression of the revolt of Bar-
Cocheba.* But it may be considered as an authentic product
of the synagogue, as the faithful expression of the Pharisaic
spirit in its invariable type. Esdras is the scribe par excellence;
he has drank the fiery cup of inspiration,-)- and is the chosen
organ of rabbinism. The Pharisee endeavours to raise his
Messiah to the height of the Christ of the Gospels, and to this
end he borrows, as did in later times the paganism of the de
cline, from the religion which he anathematises. But it is in
* The fourth book of Esdras is to be found in the second volume
of the " Codex Pseudepigraphus" of Fabricius. (See especially the
explanatory edition of M. Volkmar — Zurich, 1863). The author
has very ingeniously endeavoured to fix the date of the book, by
means of the famous vision of the eagle (c. xi. and xii.) which, as
always, is the type of the Roman power. The symbolical eagle
has twice six wings, three heads, then three under-wings. By former
critics, twelve wings were counted, that is to say twelve Roman
Emperors, taking literally the words twice six wings; and there
was the utmost difficulty in not placing the fourth book of Esdras
sufficiently far on in the second century. M. Volkmar has reduced
these twice six wings to six pairs of wings, each pair representing
an emperor. We have then only six emperors. He places his
reason for this reduction, in the connection between the 26th and
27th verses of chapter xi. In verse 26, the first wing is spoken of
in these words — -prima erecta est; while the second is thus
described — et secuhda velocius quam priores non comparuenmt.
This plural explicative of the singular of verse 26, shows that two
wings were equivalent to a single pair of wings, which represents a
single emperor. This gives us the six emperors of the Julian
family, of whom the last was Nero. The three under-wings are
the three usurpers — Otho. Galba, and Vitellius. The three heads
are the three emperors, Vespasian, Titus, and Commodus. We
are thus brought back to the commencement of the second century
for the composition of the book. The two first chapters are an
interpolation in the Christian sense The Christology of the fourth
book of Esdras was conceived under the influence of the primitive
Church. M. Volkmar acknowledges this frankly. Nothing can.
better prove the importance, which had already been acquired by
the Christian metaphysics, which are said to have been invented
fifty years later.
t IV. 39-

104 BOOK FIRST.
vain; his Messiah remains fashioned after his own likeness; he
is only the representative of the implacable pride of the
Pharisee, rearing itself above the smoking walls of the temple.
The mass of mankind is represented as a multitude without
cause, that is to say without any right to be, — the worthless
dregs of the cup of creation.* Creation only exists for the
sake of the chosen people, who are the lily and the treasure of
the Lordf If this lily has been torn from its native soil and
trodden under foot, it is only for a time. " When the centuries
have revolved, my Son, the Messiah, shall be manifested with
his own, and he will give four hundred years of bliss to the
survivors. He will execute his first judgment on the heathen,
and will be to them like a consuming fire. He will bring back
the ten tribes of Israel from their dispersion, and reunite the
chosen people. 'After these years, my Son will die as well as
. all that breathe,! and the world will relapse into its ancient
silence for seven days. Then the earth will give up those who
sleep in her bosom, and the Most High will sit on his throne.
Righteousness, truth, and faith will alone endure. God will
rejoice in the little company of his elect § Here, will he say,
is my peculiar people among whom my name has been called
I will not heed the great multitude of them that perish, for they
will be justly condemned to hell. Zion shall throw off her
weeds, and shall come forth in new beauty." The Roman
power under the figure of an eagle is to be laid low in the dust.
" Thou hast troubled the meek, thou hast done violence to the
men of peace, thou hast loved liars, thou hast overthrown the
walls of those who had not wronged thee. Thy wickedness has
risen up to the Most High, and thy pride to the mighty God.
* '' Residuas gentes dixisti eas nil esseet salivae assimilatae sunt."
(VI. 56.)
f " Propter nos creatum est seculum. Populus tuus quem vocasti
unigenitum." (VI. 56, 57,) " Ex omnibus floribus eligisti tibi lilium
tuum." (V. 24.)
! " Et morietur filius meus Christus." (VII. 30.)
§ " Multi creati sunt, pauci autem salvati."

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 105
The Most High has put an end to thine haughtiness, and the
measure of thy crimes is fulfilled. Therefore shalt thou no
more be seen, thou eagle with the terrible wings, — neither thy
horrid plumes,, nor thine accursed heads, nor thy cruel talons,
nor thy body naked and despoiled. The whole earth shall be
delivered; it shall be snatched from thy violence, and shall put
its hope in the justice and mercy of Him who created it."*
The. differences between the fourth book of Esdras and the
book of Enoch are certainly many; the most important is that
in the former, the resurrection and the judgment are reserved
to God alone ; but the fanatic pride of the Pharisees, their in
solent contempt for mankind, their thirst for vengeance, their
desire of a terrible revenge on their oppressors, all have equally
left their burning mark on this strange book. It is not without
beauty, but it shows in its whole depth the chasm, which
separates the ideal of Jesus Christ from that of the Jews of His
time. The radical opposition between the two religious movements
is further evident from their definitive result. The teaching of
Christ is summed up in the Gospel, that of the rabbis in the
Talmud. On the one side we have a living history which is
wholly imbued with a new spirit, without fixed formulas and
without ritual; on the other, a body of confused traditions, a
rubric of all the forms of piety, carried into the minutest
details. Except the "Pirke Aboth," the book of principles,
which contains what may be called the spirit of Pharisaism, the
Talmud consists of a series of treatises with reference to the
hours and forms of prayer, the classification of offerings, the
observance of the feasts and of the sabbath, fasts, vows, purifi
cations, and the practices of daily life. Besides the text or the
Mishna, comprising a strange medley of traditionary regula
tions, we have the commentary or the Gemara, which is only a
reproduction of the various interpretations of the rabbis. The
Talmud never rises to a moral principle which might give an
* Esdras xii. 42-46.

106 BOOK FIRST.
impress of unity to the religious life; it confines itself to out
ward manifestations which are infinite in their diversity, and
endeavours by the multiplicity of regulations to anticipate all
imaginable cases. Generalisation and unity are only possible
when religion ascends to the first springs of the moral life.
The Talmud, which contemplated only the "outside of the
cup and the platter," loses itself in the wearisome multiplication
of isolated and successive acts. It is nothing more than a
puerile ritual, vindicated by a perverted exegesis; it is a stiff-
jointed skeleton with no breath of life — the mummification, it
might be called, of the religion of the prophets.
It is of no avail to bring forward the name of Hillel, the
famous rabbi, who lived a few years before Jesus Christ. His
contest with Shamai dwindles to very small proportions, and
yet he is one of the fathers of the Talmud. The noble maxims
cited from him are encased in the charnel-house of a dry legalism.
The chief and most beautiful are the following: — "Imitate the
disciples of Aaron; love peace, seek peace, love men, and
attach thyself to the study of the law. Do not answer for thy
virtue before the day of thy death; do not judge thy neighbour
without being able to place thyself in his position. Show thy
self a man where a man is wanting. He who seeks fame loses
it He who uses his crown of knowledge as a tool, soon
forfeits it"* On close examination the spirit of caste is very
evident in Hillel; he did not rise above the idea of earthly
retribution. He it is, who seeing a skull floating on the water,
exclaims, "Because thou hast drowned, thou hast been drowned;
and they who have drowned thee will be drowned in their
turn."f He shared the rabbinical' infatuation. "He who has
gained the knowledge of the law," he said, "has procured for
himself eternal life." A religious movement must be judged
by its general direction, and not by such and such an isolated
manifestation. Looking at the subject in this light, it would
be impossible seriously to establish a parallel between the
* " Pirke Aboth," p. 481-491. \ Ibid.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. TO7
doctrine of Christ and that of the rabbis. Between the two
influences rises the Cross of Calvary. There is kinship between
the two religions, but every attempt to melt them into one is
foredoomed to failure.
The form taken by the doctrine of good and evil angels in
Jewish theology, from the time of the exile, is well known. It
connected itself with some of the oldest portions of holy
Scripture, as for example the account of the fall in Genesis; it
was doubtless a branch of the tree of Hebraic revelations, but
its growth had become diseased under foreign influences. The
book of Enoch furnishes abundant evidence of this. The
reader is lost among minute classifications, overlaid with
absurd inventions. Every element, every part of the earth,
every nation has its guardian angel The book of Tobit gives
such a guardian to each pious Israelite. As to the bad angels,
they are supposed to be the spirits of giants sprung from the
adulterous union of the sons of God with the daughters of
men; they wander over the world, "seeking rest and finding
none." According to other rabbinical traditions, more in con
formity with the account in Genesis, demons are likened to the
fallen angels who contributed to the rain of man. Impressed
and terrified by the mysterious power of evil spirits, the Jews
multiplied forms of exorcism and incantation. They ascribed
a peculiar value to certain books attributed to Solomon.
Although the popular imagination may have greatly exaggerated
the instances of possession, it would be hard to deny that, in
these critical times, the mysterious action of evil spirits made
itself felt in an especial manner. We shall return to this
difficult subject in speaking of the miracles of Jesus. In any
case, the solemn consciousness of a formidable conflict, between
the power of good and the dark and subtle world, which
encompasses ours, is a characteristic feature of this period.
Pharisaic Judaism was not content with dreams of a brilliant
future of glory and terrestrial happiness; it endeavoured again
and again to realise its visions. Hence the ready success of

108 BOOK FIRST.
those political agitators, who sought to re-enact the part of the
Maccabees and ended as common rebels. The most notable
was Judas of Gamala in Galilee, of whom Gamaliel speaks in
his address to the Sanhedrim.* Closely united to the Pharisaic
faction, he pretended to revive theocratic piety by restoring
it to entire conformity with the Pentateuch; it was an attempt
at enfranchisement, in harmony with the prejudices of the
people, and carried out sword in hand. That which had been
undertaken with the sword perished by the sword, f Such was
also the fate of Theudas, also mentioned by Gamaliel who
tried to overthrow the golden eagle which Herod had placed
on the gate of the temple, and who stirred up a revolt at
Jerasalem which cost him his life. He was an eminent
Pharisee, who had great influence in his youth; he sought to
re-establish religion in its purity, and to break the foreign
yoke. !
Between the fanatics who endeavoured to realise by force
of arms their ardent dream of religious restoration, and the
Sadducees, ready to sell their country to the stranger, there
was a certain number of men of marked character who
avoided both extremes, and united a moderate patriotism with
great religious indifference; they are perfectly represented by
the historian Josephus, that politic Pharisee who took part in
the war of independence, but went over in time to the con
queror. He appears in the undoubted character of the citizen
of an illustrious country; he exalts its glory with complacency,
but he obliterates all the religious grandeur of Judaism, and
comprehends nothing of its distinctive character; in his history
* Acts v. 37. f Josephus, Ant. xviii. 1 — 6.
! According to Josephus ("Bell Jud." I. 332), he was called
Matthias, which may be translated by the Greek Theodas or
Theudas (Gift of God). He must not be confounded with the
Theudas of whom Josephus speaks ("Antiquities" XI. 5, 1), who
revolted under Fadus — that is, forty-four years after Christ, and
after the death of Gamaliel. There is nothing to compel us to
attribute to St. Luke a chronological error, quite inconceivable in
him.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 109
there is no breathing after the future, and the hope of Messiah
sinks into the mere ambition of a people, eager for aggrandise
ment Josephus certainly mentions the miracles — but he has
never grasped the principle of all miracle, the sovereign inter
vention of God in our destinies for the accomplishment of a
vast design. He illustrates his narrative by prodigies like
Titus Livius or Tacitus; but he does not rise above a cold,
classic history.
We have hitherto spoken only of official Judaism at the
time of Christ, the Judaism which reigned in the schools and
in the temple. The pure religion of the Old Testament had
also its representatives, even in this age of decline. More than
one heart was waiting for the fulfilment of the promises, with
out mingling in its hopes any earthly passion. We shall see
this little body of the moral elect of the nation (whom we shall
have to seek among the humble and despised, or at least in
the most obscure ranks of Jewish society), reaching the
crowning point of the religious development ofthe old covenant,
and gathering the ripened fruit of that long work of preparation
which commenced at the fall. The sufferings and bitternesses
of the time, strengthened and purified their holy aspirations.
If the work of preparation resulted in the pagan world, in dis
engaging from all religions and all philosophies one grand ideal,
not to be realised by unaided human powers, has not Judaism
the same issue? But there is here more than a simple aspira
tion; there is a glorious promise, the sacred legacy of the
fathers. The decline of Judaism proves, that it could not find
the fulfilment of the promise within itself. All attempts to
realise its ideal, within the enclosure of Judaism, deplorably
misrepresent it Therefore right hearts and pious, in the midst
of long obscurity, are panting after a great Divine manifestation.
Thus they offer to Jesus that point of contact, without which
there would be no moral link between Him and the race He
came to represent and save.

HO BOOK FIRST.

CHAPTER IV.
SOURCES OF THE HISTORY OF JESUS CHRIST.
~D EFORE tracing the life of Jesus Christ, it is necessary to
-*— determine whether the sources, from which we shall draw
our narrative, are pure or corrupted, whether what they give is
history or legend. Bold critics maintain that it is more easy
for us to know Socrates than Jesus, because, say they, we have
not, in order to reach the Greek philosopher, to traverse the
opaque medium of superstitions. Plato and Xenophon were
the immediate disciples of the Athenian sage; they did not
make a god of him, and allowed events to appear in their tme
colour.* If this be so, we must abandon the hope of forming
any just idea of the sources of Christianity. We believe, how
ever, on the contrary, that Jesus Christ is better known to us
than Socrates, and that His, disciples, bound by a respect full
of adoration for his person, have not permitted themselves the
licence so largely used by Plato, of transforming the teaching
of their master under pretext of enriching it. They saw in
Him the Son of God, and, therefore, were constrained to pre
serve intact that which He did and said. We have in this their
persuasion, a guarantee for their scrupulous exactness; for what
can be added to that which is believed to be divine ? All we
need then to know is, whether we still possess the primitive
tradition, whether what we have before us is a direct and sin
cere testimony. It will be easy to establish that no history,
our enemies themselves being judges, rests on more irrefragable
documents than the Gospel history. We ask for it but the
* Strauss, " Leben Jesu fiir das deutsche Volk bearbeitet," p. 662.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. ' III
common rights of criticism; it is enough for us that it be not
made the subject of exceptional rules, the application of which
would overthrow the best authenticated facts. To demand,
before admitting the authenticity of a writing, not only direct
quotations in a contemporary book, but also multiplied attesta
tions that these quotations are neither mutilated nor invented,
is to accept as history nothing but legal documents and official
patents.* The, " Commentaries " of Caesar and the " Annals "
of Tacitus would not stand such tests ; for there is no effective
resource against the scepticism, which is rather a diseased state
of the mind than an active exercise of the reason. Inability to
draw a conclusion ought to be carefully distinguished from free
and conscientious inquiry.
I. General proofs of the reality of the Gospel history.
In all history it is needful to distinguish the essential facts,
the main points which stand out at the first glance from the
particular facts, the details which alone give colour and life to
the narrative. There are then two distinct kinds of evidence;
first of all, a direct testimony, then one more vague and
general, which is like the echo in the distance of an important
event. Every great historical event naturally extends beyond
the narrow circle in which it originates, it has an influence on
the world and leaves traces of itself, more or less deeply marked.
This double testimony is not wanting to primitive Christianity.
Besides its adherents and apostles, who alone can make known
to us its true nature, it has from its commencement, left its
trace on Jewish and Pagan literature, so as to put beyond a
question the reality of its appearance. The men who hated
and despised it have at least guaranteed its character as history;
it will be well to hear their testimony before that of its authentic
organs. It is certain that from the first year of the second century,
the new religion had not only grown in the. land of Judaea
* Strauss, pp. 40,41.

112 BOOK FIRST.
which was its cradle, but had also spread in the Roman Empire
and had acquired sufficient importance in Asia Minor to lead
Pliny the Younger, proconsul of Bithynia, to refer to it in a
famous letter to the Emperor, in which he describes not with
out uneasiness its progress and its triumphs, and inquires of
Trajan how he is to comport himself towards this strange sect,
at once submissive to the civil laws and rebellious to the gods.
The keen eye of the governor perceives from the first, the close
bond which attaches the sect to the person of its founder; he
discerns that the memory of Christ, or rather the adoration,
pledged to Him, is the very soul of the religion which bears
His name.* Thus this high dignitary of the empire, this free
thinker, declares to his master that a new moral power, full of
victorious energy, has arisen in the old Asiatic world, and that
it owns the name of Jesus Christ Evidently a cause is needed
to explain results so mighty; it is clear that this man, whom
Pliny contents himself with naming (while admitting that to
his disciples he is a God), must have acquired an incomparable
ascendancy over them. Some great event must have happened
half a century before, in that corner of Judaea from whence
this irresistible movement sprang. It is not an exaggeration of
the import of this testimony to interpret it thus.
To it may be added the evidence of two other witnesses
which, while far less exact, is of great importance from its date.
The first is that of Suetonius. The historian of the Caesars,
while failing to distinguish the new religion from the ancient
faith out of which it arose, confirms at least the fact tliat the
name of Jesus had occasioned a ferment of agitation in the
heart of Judaism.f The second testimony is drawn from the
famous passage of Tacitus on the first of the persecutions. In
spite of the scorn which the haughty Roman lavishes on the
ignoble sect, — in which he lashes that desire for novelty and
* " Carmenque Christo quasi Deo dicere." (Pliny, lib. X.epist. 98.)
+ " Judaeos, impulsore Christo, assidue tumultuantes, Roma
expulit." (Suetonius, "Claudius." 25.)

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 113
that passion for strange religions which assail the ancient
Roman constitution and add to the anarchy of the inglorious
age, which he stigmatises as he chronicles it — it is easy to per
ceive that the Christians towards the year 65 formed, in a vast
city in which nothing could awake astonishment, a party
numerous enough to fix attention and draw down public
animadversion; the head of this party is plainly one Christ,
who was put to death under the reign of Tiberius by the pro
curator Pilate ; * from this crucified criminal the sect has taken
its name — a fact which sufficiently reveals the strength of his
authority over it. The religion of the Crucified was then
established at Rome thirty years after the date of His suffering.
Thirty years hardly suffice to explain such a progress from the
remote country of its birth to the centre of civilisation.
Evidently long before that date, the period of indefinite
elaboration must have been completed; it is not possible to
admit that a fable in process of formation could have crossed
the seas, founded a large Church in the capital of the world,
and excited the wrath of Nero.
We arrive at the same result if we turn to Jewish testimony.
No one in our day maintains any longer the entire authenticity
of the chapter, which Josephus devotes to Christ in his
" Antiquities." If this curious passage has been evidently re
touched, its essential features, which we reproduce, remain
" In those times appeared Jesus, a wise man, the author of
extraordinary acts,! having for disciples those who love truth
* " Auctor nominis ejus Christus, Tiberio imperitante, per pro
curatorem Pontium Pilatum, supplicio affectus erat." (Tacitus,
"Annals," 15,44.)
fRv yap irapaSo^uv tpywv iroiTjTrig. (" Antiq.'' XVIII. 3, 3.)
M. Renan admits the authenticity of this passage. Taking it apart
from any positively Christian features, as we have taken it, it ac
cords perfectly with the Jewish historian's point of view. He takes
a prudent position with regard to Christianity ; he confirms the
facts, while admitting that Jesus Christ was rejected by the elite of
the nation. The passage in which he speaks of the death of James,
the brother of the Lord, has not been questioned, and it refers
evidently to that which we have quoted. ("Antiquities " XIX. 9, 1.)
I

114 BOOK FIRST.
He gathered around him many Jews and Greeks. They did
not renounce the love they had pledged to him, even after
Pilate had condemned him to the cro"ss, at the demand of the
chiefs of the nation. The body of the Christians, who have
called themselves by his name, have remained faithful to him
to this day." This testimony from a writer of the first century
of our era, a stranger, and one as indifferent as possible to the
Christian movement, has a great value. Josephus guarantees
the historical character of the great events transpired at
Jemsalem, though he may misconceive their inner and divine
meaning. Even the Talmud confirms in its manner the Evan
gelical history by giving the names of three of the apostles, just
those who on the most natural supposition may have had
relations with the synagogue,* and by defaming the miraculous
power of Jesus Christ, as his contemporaries did.-)- ' One seems
to be hearing again those Pharisees who, unable to dispute his
supernatural works, ascribed them to demoniacal influence.
Jesus Christ worked miracles, and was mortally hated by the
representatives of the Jewish hierarchy; this is the evidence
of the Talmud. The testimony of the indifferent, and of
enemies, is thus in favour of the historical verity of primitive
Christianity. This twofold testimony teaches us that, on the
threshold of the modem era, Judaism and Paganism were pro
foundly agitated by a man of Galilee, who wrought marvellous
works, and miserably ended his strange life upon a cross.
This condemned malefactor reigns nevertheless over his sect,
which increases and has the formidable honour of uniting against
itself in one common hatred the synagogues and the Pagan
* Matthew, Thaddeus, and James are mentioned in the Talmud
of Babylon — (" Treatise of the Sanhedrim," f. 43, 1.)
f When the Rabbi Eliezer, the son of Damas, was bitten by a
serpent, Jacob the son of Zechanias came to him and spake these
words: " I will speak to thee in the name of Jesus the son of Pan-
dera." Then the Rabbi Israel exclaimed, " No, that is forbidden."
" It were better to die," said another, " than to hear that name." —
(Talmud of Jerusalem. " Treatise Avoda Sarah," f. 46, 4: Tholuck,
" Glaubwiirdigkeit der Evang. Geschichte," p. 72.)

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 115
powers. Our hostile or contemptuous witnesses do not speak
only of the advent of a new idea. No, that which stirs a world
is more than an idea, more than a doctrine, it is a person; His
name has become a standard, a symbol — more still, a moral
power. Who then is this Jesus, this Christ, who is at once so
worshipped and maligned ?
Let us now listen to the testimony of His friends. Pagan
historians have shown us the existence, from the close of the
first century, of a new and powerful religious body owning the
name of Jesus. This religious body we know by the testimony
of its authentic representatives ; it has expressed its beliefs and
its sentiments in unexceptionable documents. What do we gather
from all these but the memory of the Christ of the Gospels,
preserved not only in narratives full of holy love, but also in
the very life of the Christians ? Their souls feed on the great
facts of evangelic story ; more than this, they die to attest it,
and the survivors inscribe its most pathetic symbols in the dark
caves where they lay the remains of their martyrs ; this history
is the constant subject of their teaching and of their hymns.
Above all, it is written in their deepest hearts. " I have no
other holy annals," said an unknown Christian, "but Jesus
Christ, His cross, His death, and resurrection."* Such words
are the motto of the Church of the second century, which rises
in a body to be the irrefragable witness of the events of the
first. That an assurance so steadfast, so general, so heroic,
could have been born of any mere legend, is a supposition
which we cannot receive. We have still more direct testimony
of the same period in the evidence of Quadratus, the earliest
of Christian apologists, who wrote at the beginning of the
second century, and whose book appeared to Jerome full of
reason and faith. He affirms that in his time— no doubt in his
* 'E/iol S' dpxaXa ioriv 'Irjaovg XputTog. (Ignat. " Ad Philadelph.,"
c. VIII.) This passage is to be found in the apocryphal part of
the letters of Ignatius, but it has nevertheless the stamp of high
antiquity.

Il6 BOOK FIRST.
childhood — some of the sick miraculously healed by Jesus
Christ were still to be seen.*
If we go back to the first century, we are in the presence of
the immediate disciples of Christ. It is vain to take exception
to . their testimony as distorted by ignorance or that ardent
enthusiasm, which allows no place to candid investigation and
reflection. Ignorance is not want of intelligence ; the most
prejudiced cannot but admit that those old boatmen, those
fishers of the Lake of Tiberias, those tax-gatherers, displayed a
mighty genius, since no word ever uttered has shaken the
earth like their uncultured speech. It is further untrue that all
the followers of Christ lived in ignorance ; many of them shared
in the cultivation of their times, and learned to know it in the
most brilliant centres of civilisation. One of them, Saul of
Tarsus, stands in the first rank of the intellectual Hite of his
country and shows himself versed in classic literature. His
was a mind at once adorned with the flowers of noble poetry,
and armed with the most vigorous dialectics.
We do not find any of the first Christians the subjects of a
blind, impulsive faith. If they early attached themselves to
Jesus Christ, they long resisted His plainest teachings ; in the
sorrowful words of their Master, they were " slow of heart to
believe," for they shared the prejudices of their nation, and
nothing was more opposed to their original views than the
notion of a crucified and risen Messiah, whose kingdom was
not of this world. Everything around and within them pro
tested against such a doctrine. We know their consternation
and dismay on the day of the Crucifixion ; we know with what
difficulty they were brought to admit, upon evidence, that the
sepulchre had not retained the body of Jesus. The doubts of
Thomas, the dulness of the disciples walking to Emmaus who
would not accept the witness of the women ;t the persistent
and fierce incredulity of Saul of Tarsus, all show that no con-
* Routh., "Reliquiae Sacrae," I., p. 75.
t Luke xxiv. 22.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 117
dition of mind was further removed from unreflecting enthusiasm
than that of the first apostles of the new religion. Who does
not catch in their writings the inimitable accent of sincerity ?
Have they not preserved even the memory of their unfaithful
ness ? With Pascal, we are ready to believe martyr-witnesses.
Impostors live by their falsehoods, but do not die for them. A
man will die only for the cause for which he lives, never for
that on which he trades. Our witnesses are then neither blind
nor false ; such is the conviction forced upon us by the very
book which gives us their testimony. But granting them to be
intelligent and sincere, may they not be. suppositious? Were
they not brought subsequently on to the scene to meet the
necessities of the case? May we not have in the Gospel
merely a well-invented fable or legend ? The question turns,
then, on the proof of authenticity. We have already a strong
presumption in favour of the credibility of the sacred narrative,
in the scornful or virulent testimony of pagan and Jewish
writers. We have now to consider in themselves the claims
upon which the Gospel history rests.
Before approaching this grave problem, let us dispose of that
which is universally accepted. Among the letters of St Paul
there are some which have never raised a doubt, and before
which the boldest criticism has been silent. By common con
sent this category includes the first epistle to the Thessalonians,
and the letters to the Corinthians and to the Romans. These
several writings of the apostle to the Gentiles bear a date
anterior to his captivity, which took place about the year 62.
They may, therefore, be assigned to some time between the
years 50 and 60. Now they confirm at a glance all the prin
cipal facts of the life of Jesus, as these are recorded in our
Gospels. His divine origin, His humiliation, His miracles,
His death on the Cross, His resurrection, His reign in heaven ;
all these great events of Gospel history are the subject of ex
hortations, of burning appeals, of the mysterious raptures of the
apostle. He does not enter into any continuous narrative, but

Il8 BOOK FIRST.
makes perpetual allusions to the history, as if nothing was more
familiar to ,his readers ; it is evident that he draws from the
common source of primitive tradition. This tradition, then,
was so well established twenty years after Christ, that it could
be appealed to in a general manner, without explanation or
discussion. The Church 'rests upon it as on a solid foundation.
Thus we touch the rock below the shifting sands of legend
It is not possible to suppose that, in this short interval, a tra
dition so clear and positive could have been fortuitously born
of a capricious mythology. It must not be forgotten that Paul
lived in intimacy with the immediate disciples of Jesus, that he
met at Jerusalem, Peter, James, and John ;* that he frequently
returned to the metropolis of the primitive Church, and had
opportunity on the very theatre of the Gospel history to inter
rogate its first witnesses. He lived in the midst of those five
hundred Christians who saw the Risen Redeemer.*!* We are
thus carried back to the very time of Christ, and those thirty
years which are demanded for the growth of the Christian
mythology are absolutely wanting.
The most critical of the negative schools are agreed in
admitting the authenticity of the Revelation, and in placing
the date of its composition before the siege of Jerusalem.
This one book will suffice to furnish all the firm foundations
of the Gospel history. Of little moment is the Jewish colour
ing, with which it is affirmed, not without exaggeration, that
the whole book is tinged ; the fact remains, nevertheless, that
we find in every page the Christ delivered to death for the sins
of the world, and raised again for its justification. * The facts
of the Gospel are throughout taken for granted in this inspired
epopceia of the martyr. Thus, apart from our canonical writings,
the principal events in the life of Jesus are guaranteed by the
unanimous testimony of the primitive Church. The more
complete narratives, the credibility of which we are about to
examine, are not isolated; they are so linked with all the
* Gal. ii, 1 8, 19. +1 Cor. xv. 6.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 119
tradition of the first century that even if we were compelled to
surrender them, Christian truth would stand in its entirety, on
the sole basis of documents which have obtained universal
assent These documents could not indeed replace our Gospels, as
conveying a knowledge of the life of Jesus ; for if they preserve
its essential facts, they yet give only an imperfect idea of them,
for the very reason that they pre-suppose the basis of tradition
on which they were built. The Gospel, at the time of Paul's
letters was, in some sort, in all mouths ; it was not necessary,
therefore, to refer in them to written tradition, which is for us
• the only means of reaching that full fountain of information,
which flowed far and wide in the first century. Hence the
supreme importance of the authenticity and credibility of our
four Gospels, the only narratives which have stood and have
deserved to stand, among all the various accounts of the life of
Jesus which arose in the primitive Church.
II. The first century, the date of our four Gospels.*
We will pass rapidly over that which is generally admitted
by criticism. No doubt is possible as to the universal accept
ance of our four Gospels by the Church in the third century ;
this acceptance is of so much the greater- value, as it preceded
the epoch of summary decisions and was not imposed by
decrees. The canon of Scripture had as yet no other basis
than the free and unanimous adherence of Christians. The
explicit testimony in favour of our Gospels given by the great
* This paragraph was written before the publication of M. Tis
chendorf's noble work, " Wann wurden unsere Evangehen verfasst,"
Leipzic, 1865. I am glad to find in it a full confirmation of the
results at which I have arrived. I cannot, however, admit the
formation of the canon of the New Testament in the closing year
of the first century : this assertion seems to me to go beyond the
truth of fact. I need not say how much the discoveries of M. Tis-
chendorf, contained in his other works or in the prefaces to his
valuable editions of the New Testament, have aided me in this
chapter.

120 BOOK FIRST.
theologians of Alexandria has a high value, especially if the
vast exegetical labours of Origen and his long travels in the
Christian East are taken into account. Eusebius speaks in
the name of all his immediate predecessors when he says, " In
the first rank of writings accepted by all, we must place the
sacred quaternion of the Gospels."* If we turn to the latter half
of the second century, we find an assent no less unanimous
and not less exact. Tertullian agrees on this point with
Clement of Alexandria and Irenaeus.f An attempt has been
made to weaken the testimony of the Bishop of Lyons, because
he adopts a strange symbolism to explain the number of our
Gospels, which he likens to the four quarters of the world, the
four pillars of a building, the four chembim. But the use of a
doubtful metaphor does not prove that Irenaeus had not drawn
from the purest and richest springs of information. At the
same period, about the year 181, the canon of the Church of
Rome, found by Muratori in the last century, mentions the
Gospel of Luke and that of John, calling them the third and
fourth Gospels, and thus implying the existence of the two
others.J The Syriac translation, known under the name of
Peshito,% cannot be assigned to a later date : it contains our
four Gospels ; they must then have been long in circulation in
the churches. It is certain that there were numerous Latin
versions in Africa and in Italy in the course of the second
* HaKTkov iv jrpwrois ti)v ayiav tSiv eiayytXitnv TerpaKTVv. (Eusebius
"H. E.," III., 25.)
f Tertullian, "Contr. Marc," IV. 2, 5. Clement in Eusebius,
"H. E.," VI. 14. Irenaeus, "Advers. Haeres.," III. 1.
! Muratori's canon bears its date. In fact, the author tell us
that the "Pastor Hermas" had been written very recently (nuper-
rime conscriptus) at Rome, under the episcopate of Pius. Now
Pius was bishop in the year 156.
§ The Peshito belongs to a period when the canon was still far
from determined ; it does not contain the second epistle of Peter.
nor the second and third epistles of John, nor that of Jude, nor the
Revelation. This brings us to the date assigned. The idiom
employed, and the rapid diffusion of this version in the churches
of Syria, lead us to the same result.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 121
century. Augustine says that they were multiplied "in the
earliest days of the faith."* Now, Tertullian, the translator of
Irenaeus and Cyprian, always quotes the same text, which could
only be possible if one of these versions had supplanted the
rest. No one will dispute, that a certain lapse of time was
necessary for the establishment of one standard translation.
It follows then that our Gospels had been accepted in the
churches of the West, at a date long anterior to that of
Irenaeus. We are thus carried back to the middle of the
second century.
If we ascend yet higher, we may call in the testimony of
Justin Martyr, whose conversion to Christianity may be placed
about the year 132. Less bound to the letter of the text than
the Fathers of later ages, and near enough to apostolic times to
drink still at the stream of oral tradition, he cites our Gospels
with some freedom. He calls them the "Memoirs of the
Apostles," because it is his practice to translate Biblical terms,
as far as possible, into the philosophical language of Greece.
This appellation " Memoirs" would be much more lucid, than
that of " Gospels," to the readers of Xenophon. But it is
enough to give weight to these quotations of Justin, to recog
nise that they contain all the substance of the Gospel history,
with verbal resemblances so striking that they infer the existence
of our canonical textf According to Justin himself, the reading
of the "Memoirs of the Apostles" formed an integral part of
the Christian worship of his time.! It is impossible to imagine
other books than our Gospels having obtained, by the second
century, this public honour and this consecration. How can it
* Primis fidei temporibus. (Augustine, " De Doctrina Chris
tiana," II. 1). The translation ofthe various bpoks does not seem
to have been the work of a single hand.
t Convincing proof of this will be gathered from the perusal of
De Wette's " Introduction to the New Testament," which contains a
complete collection of these quotations collated with the canonical
texts § 66, and following.
J Justin, "Apol.," I., 67.

122 BOOK FIRST.
be questioned when we find Tatian, .the immediate disciple of
Justin, writing a commentary on the four Gospels, as if to,
obviate any equivocal construction of what his master intended
by the terms, "Memoirs of the Apostles?" The apostolic
Fathers, in too close proximity to the facts themselves to cling
to the words, quote the texts with still less precision than
Justin. They are primarily the men of oral tradition, as one
of them has taken pains formally to tell us. " I did not think,"
said Papias,'"to receive so much benefit from books as from
living testimony."* This avowal fully explains, how it is that
our canonical narratives occupy a much less place in the
writings of the apostolic Fathers, than the events which are
their subject. The fact nevertheless remains that the allusions
( in them to our Gospels are frequent and incontestable, and
that the letters of these Fathers rest on the same historical
foundation. Papias, of whose writings we only possess some
fragments, makes direct mention of two of our Gospels in a
passage to which we shall refer again. More than this, accord
ing to a recent discovery, the epistle of Barnabas gives the first
Gospel the rank of a sacred book, a fact which implies not the
determination of the canon as a whole, but the decided ten
dency in the first years of the second century, to set apart our
Gospels as the holy depository of apostolic tradition. It is
assuredly not a point of minor importance to read in a writing
which belongs to the year no or 115, a quotation from the
Gospel of Matthew with this prefix, "It is written." f The
* Eusebius, "H. E.," III. 39.
¦f- MtjiroTe, (is yiypairrai- " 7roXXoi cXijroi, oXi'yot it sxXexroi." These
words contain a direct quotation from Matt. xix. 30. Until lately
the formula, It is written, was only found in the Latin trans
lation of the letters of Barnabas ; it generally passed for ,a gloss.
This supposition is no longer possible since the discovery of the
" Codex Sinaiticus " Volckmar, indeed, attempts to detract from the
importance of this quotation, connecting with it a passage in the
fourth book of Esdras, already quoted by us, which runs, Multi
creati, pauci autem salvati (4 Esdras viii. 3.) But this is nothing
more than exegetical tour de force, called for by the necessities of
the case. The analogy with the passage in Matthew is self-evident.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 1 23
original text has been discovered in the Convent of Sinai, with
the famous manuscript of the New Testament. Thus, from the
dust of a monkish cell, arises a witness of the first ages, to give
us a pledge of the historical value of our Gospels at the most
critical moment of the dispute as to their origin.
Heresy itself comes forward to depose in their favour, during
the course of the second century. It perverts, no doubt, the
sacred text, and makes a Gospel in its own likeness, with which
it mingles its reveries and wild speculations. But under its
subtle webs perpetually appears the firm texture of our canoni
cal narratives. Sometimes a whole allegorical system is based
on a single point, a solitary detail, and the confirmation thus
given to these accounts is all the more decisive for its indirect
ness.* The celebrated "ClementineHomilies,"asortofheretical
romance belonging to the first half of the second century, quote
numerous passages from our four Gospels with such precision,
that it is impossible to doubt for an instant that the author had
them before him.-)- It may perhaps be objected, that in the
* Numerous instances are tobe found in Irenaeus ("Contr. Haeres.,"
1.8, 15, 18) of this allegorical interpretation of the Gospels, which
implies the existence of the sacred narrative. The Gnostics drew
indiscriminately from our four Gospels. The interview of Jesus
with the doctors at twelve years of age, the apostasy of Judas, the
healing of the demoniacs, the parable of the three measures of
meal, the words of the Saviour in Gethsemane, His meetings with
His disciples after His resurrection — all these and many other
points were made use of in their fanciful typology. We shall see
later to what an extent they confirm especially the authenticity of
our fourth Gospel.
t It is certain that the " Clementines" are anterior to the " Recogni-
tiones," which are a retouching of them. Now, this latter work
cannot be placed later than the year 162, because it quotes the book
"De Fato" of Bardesanes, which, according to Eusebius (" H. E.,"
IV. 30), was lost sight of by the middle of the second century. See
for the quotations of our Gospels in the " Clementines," the Dressel
edition :— First, for Matt, Homily XIX. 14,. quoting Matt, xxvii.
52 ; Homily XIX. 2, quoting Matt. xii. 26. Second for Mark,
Homily XIX. 2, quoting Mark ii. 13, &c, &c. Third, for Luke,
Homily XIX. 14, quoting Luke viii. 24. &c. Fourth, for John,
Homily XIX. 22, quoting John ix 2, 3. This last quotation forms
part of the text recorded by Dressel.

124 BOOK FIRST.
course of this same century, several apocryphal or heretical
Gospels were in circulation. But it must be remarked first,
that these were promptly distinguished from the canonical
Gospels, and that from the time of Irenaeus they were unani
mously set aside by the Church, although some of the fables
which they contained may have mingled in the rather confused
current of oral tradition.
A glance over them is sufficient to show that they bear the
marks of legend, that they have everywhere substituted fantastic
marvels for miracles, properly so called, and have mantled over
with their luxuriant vegetation the gaps in the Gospel history,
but without ever impairing the ground-work of the narrative.*
On the contrary, they imply and verify it after their manner,
for in a multitude of cages the legend is seen grafting itself on to
the history, like a parasitic branch on a sturdy stem. The oldest
of these apocryphal Gospels are the Protevangehum of James,
already mentioned by Justin Martyn, and the Acts of Pilate, which
bear the same date. They are at once seen to be legendary illus
trations of our sacred books ; thus they demonstrate in an irre
fragable manner, the antecedence of the latter. I As to the Gospel
of Marcion, it will be found to be nothing but an arbitrary recast
ing of our third Gospel, and thus it proves the credit which
Luke had acquired at this early period.! It has been established
beyond a doubt that- the Gospel of the Hebrews, far from being
the original of our Matthew, is a translation of the Greek
* The apocryphal Gospels abound with gross historical errors.
In the "Protevang. Jacobi," the twelve tribes of Israel are spoken of
as existing in the time of Herod, c. vi.
f See the " Evangelia apocrypha" published by Tischendorf,
Liepzic, 1863. The prologomena give us the dates very exactly.
The quotations made by Justin Martyn from these two Apocryphas
are unquestioned.
% If the Gospel of Marcion had preceded that of Luke, there should
be some trace of its use beyond the Marcionite sect, called by his
name ; but this sect alone appeals to it. Beside, the spirit of system
is obvious in the eliminations the text of St. Luke undergoes from
him. It is certain that Marcion treated in the same way Paul's Epis
tles (Irenaeus, " Contr. Haeres ,"1.29. Bleek,"EinleitinN.T.,"p.i25).

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 1 25
Gospel* which we possess, and that it consequently guarantees
its earlier date. Our four Gospels thus profit by the opposition
made to them, and come forth to us as the universally accredited
authority of the second century of the Church. Their canonical
importance is increased in proportion to their distance from
what might be called the- age of the living word, when the
written Gospel remained the sole medium between the Church
and its Divine Founder.
The study and comparison of the ancient manuscripts of our
sacred books proves, that by the middle of the second century
the text of our Gospels had undergone a purifying process, and
that it was then fixed for the Church, as the result of a critical
labour more or less protracted. This appears from a compari
son of the Sinaitic manuscript, with the readings adopted by
ancient tradition and the most eminent of the Fathers. Now
such a labour gives us a right to suppose, that the books which
were the subject of it had been for many years recognised as
authoritative. f
The most independent criticism lends its confirmation to
these general conclusions, as to the credibility of the Gospels.
All those who have not gone into this question with an in
flexible bias, have agreed to place the composition of our three
first Gospels between the years 71 — 80, and to see in our
canonical narratives the reflection of an anterior tradition.!
* See this beautifully demonstrated in Bleek's "Introduction."
The Gospel of the Hebrews contained legendary additions to our
Greek Matthew. It had borrowed from Luke. It contained errors
which implied the previous existence of the Greek text. Thus it
gave to John Baptist cakes of honey for food instead of locusts
(Epiph. " Haeres.," XXX. 13). A mistake evidently arising from the
confusion of axpiieg with iyxpiieg, which would be only possible on
the supposition of a Greek original.
t Tischendorf, " Wann Wurden unsere Evang. verfasst," p. 66,
and following.
X 'Reuss, " Gesch. der Heilig. Sehr. N. T." § 196. Reville,
" Etudes Critiques surl'Evangile de St. Matthieu," p. 245. Michel
Nicolas, ," Etudes Critiques sur la Bible." p. 6. Holzmann, " Die
Synopt. Evang." p. 412-416. Schenkel, " Characterbild Jesu,"
pp. 340-344. Renan, " Vie de Jesus," Introduction, p. 23.

126 BOOK FIRST.
The time thus allowed is very short, as it appears to us, for
such a legendary alteration of facts as should have entirely
transformed them. The importance of these concessions of
criticism will be eyident to all; by simplifying the question,
they have given an entirely new aspect to it. -
Yet one more reason for conceding to the synoptical Gos
pels, the date generally admitted in the first century, is the very
peculiar character of the idiom in which they are written.
Undoubtedly the Greek language could not have lent itself to
a syntax, so singular and so overladen with Hebraisms, except
at a period when Christianity was still enclosed in its cradle in
Palestine. This was no longer the case after the commence
ment of the second century ; the Greek or Roman element
then quickly became predominant in the Church, and to esti
mate the extent of the change thus wrought, it is only needful
to compare the letters of Polycarp and of Ignatius with our
first Gospels. These bear, then, internal evidence of their
origin. *
Every thing leads us to assign- their composition to about
the year 70. It is for the history of the first century to give us
more positive statements with reference to their appearance in
the Church.
III. Origin of the synoptics.
Our canonical narratives divide themselves, as is well known,
into two groups. On one hand we have the three Gospels of
Matthew, Mark, and Luke, known as the synoptics, because
they all present the history of Jesus under the same aspect
On the other hand, we have a single Gospel, that of John,
differing palpably from the other three. While the synoptics
make Galilee the principal scene of Messiah's ministry, the
narrative of John places the most important events of the life
of the Saviour at Jerusalem or in Judaea. The teaching of
* Thiersch, " Versuch der Herstellung des historisch. Stand-
punkts fiir die Kritik des N. T.," c. III.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 127
Christ in the synoptics is of an essentially popular character ;
it is figurative and parabolic, while in the fourth Gospel it has
a metaphysical or mystical depth, which renders it more diffi
cult to grasp. In fine, there exists between the synoptics and
St John a grave discrepancy, and one which has not yet
received a satisfactory explanation, as to the date of the death
of Jesus.
With the exception of this chronological difficulty, all the
other divergencies are easily explained by the different inten
tion and destination of the two narratives ; this explanation
will present itself to us in the history of their formation. Let
us observe again, that whether as to facts or words, the two
types of narrative, distinct as they may be in arrangement and
form, rest upon the same historical basis. The synoptics, imply
the journeys to Jemsalem. St. Luke speaks of the family of
Bethany, as bound in close friendship with Jesus.* The
lamentations over the unbelieving city to which He had so
often preached repentance in vain, can only be explained by
His having frequently resided there, -f- The resolution of the
Sanhedrim which led to the tragical close of the history, points
to a foregoing struggle. The fourth Gospel allows all the time
necessary for the ministry in Galilee, and leaves it to be in
ferred on several occasions.! The question of doctrinal har
mony we shall examine further on.
Our synoptics present a very marked uniformity of type.
As they are collated, we are struck with the resemblance which
* Luke x. 38.
f Matt, xxiii. 37 ; Luke xiii. 34.
j See further on the chronological data in connection with John
vi. 4. It is said in John vi. 2, that multitudes went with Jesus
because of His miracles. Now these miracles are not related. In
John vi. 66, it is said that many of His disciples went back from
Him. The Evangelist had not told us of the formation of a band
of disciples. In John vi . 70, mention is made of the twelve, but
there has been no account of their calling. Between chapters vi.
and vii. there is an interval of seven months. (Godet, " Examen
des principales questions critiques au sujet du quatrieme Evangile,"
p. 6).

128 BOOK FIRST.
exists, not only in the main features of the narrative, but also
in detail and even in words. In parts they are almost abso
lutely identical. And yet they show numerous differences, not
only in the arrangement of the story, but in the modes of
speech employed. Often two of the synoptics agree together,
while the third relates the same fact with very considerable
variations. * How explain these resemblances and these differ
ences ? The theory of literal inspiration cuts the knot of the
difficulty, for those at least who can accept an arbitrary system,
which does violence to the best established facts, and in reality
identifies the action of the divine Spirit with a mechanical or
magical force. We are happily not reduced to this desperate
resource. If it is needful to beware of theories which explain
nothing, it is equally necessary to be on our guard against'
those which explain too much, and multiply artificial contri
vances. The scientific spirit must know where to stop, and
reserve is as essential to it as freedom of examination. Now
the greater part of our critical systems on the origin of the
synoptics err by excess of hypotheses. Their authors seem to
be repeating, each in support of his own theory, the
assurance of the fabulist, " I was there, and so it came to
pass." * There is an excellent summary of the harmonies and differences
among the synoptics in the " Gesch. der Heilig. Schrift. N. T."
by M. Reuss. § 79. The Gospel of the childhood is omitted by
Mark, as well as the Sermon on the Mount, and several other great
discourses of Jesus. The preaching of John the Baptist, and all
that relates to his mission are related in nearly the same manner by
the three evangelists. The journey of Christ to Jerusalem before
His death is only recorded in detail in St. Luke. In the account
ofthe passion and the resurrection, many divergencies appear on a
common foundation. It has been calculated with reference to the
text, that if it were divided into a hundred sections, there would be
forty-nine common to the three first Gospels, nine common to
Matthew and Mark, eight to Matthew and Luke, three to Mark
and Luke. Mark has only two peculiar to himself, Matthew seven,
and Luke twenty-three. Of the hundred sections of the text the
proportion of Luke is eighty-two, Matthew seventy-three, and
Mark sixty- three.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 1 29
I will only briefly mention these various systems, which are
most fallacious in their most exclusive tenets.
We have first the mythical school, of which Strauss is the
strongest exponent; this is compelled, in self support, to place
the composition of the Gospels at a late date, in order to give
the length of time required for the elaboration of its complicated
legends.* It is at once set aside, if it can be proved that our
synoptics are traceable to an earlier period than the year 80.
Now we have shown that this earlier date is, in our day, almost
universally admitted. The concession of this point overturns,
at the same time, the ingenious system of developments
{tendances) inaugurated with so much eclat by Baur and his
disciples. According to this learned historian, our Gospels
were bom of the conflicts of the Judseo-Christian and the
Pauline party; they were preceded by an entire literature, since
become apocryphal, which represented the violent doctrinal
conflicts of the first century; our present Gospels bear traces
of the concessions and compromises, which were to issue in the
Catholic Church of the second century. \ The most stupendous
learning, and the most fertile ingenuity, will not make any one
in our day admit, that the Gospel of the Hebrews preceded
that of Matthew, ,and the Gospel of Marcion that of Luke.
This monstrous attempt to transport the first century of the
Church into the second, will remain the memento of one of the
hardiest efforts of theological temerity; but the mountain of
hypotheses crambles away before the conclusive results, generally
accepted by criticism, as to the date of our three first canonical
narratives. After the school of myth and that of developments, comes
the theory of a primitive Gospel officially edited by the
assembled apostles at Jemsalem, and upon which our synoptics
* See the new edition of Strauss' " Leben Jesu," vol. I.
t See the resume of Baur's system in his work : " Das Christen
thum und die christhche Kirche der drei erst. Jahrhund." p. 23
and following. K

130 BOOK FIRST.
are supposed to have been modelled.* What is wanting to
this explanation is the supposed apostolical college, sitting in
private council in the holy city. Nothing could be more alien
to the condition of the primitive Church. Further, there is
enough to quash such an hypothesis in the prologue of Luke,
which ignores it altogether. The theory most in favour in
modern times is that which holds to a sort of combination of
various primitive writings; these are supposed to be laid one
upon another in our Gospels, like the beds in an alluvial soil.
Our two first Gospels, for example, are recognised as the
fundamental text — Matthew characterised by the predominance
of discourses, Mark by that of narratives ; these two, combined
in various proportions and blended with oral tradition, give us
our synoptics. We have thus the original Matthew and the
original Mark, forming by their fusion our two first canonical
narratives; the third Gospel, which is subsequent to these, is
supposed to have profited by their successive amendments,
and to have still further enriched them. This theory,
ingeniously defended, rests upon the interpretation of an
obscure passage in Papias, according to which our first Gospel
was originally only a collection of discourses. \ But this
* Eichhorn.
+ See the admirable works of M. Reuss, summed up in his
" Gesh. der heil. Schrift." N. T., §§ 187, 188 ; the deeply studied
book of M. Reville, " Etudes Critiques sur l'Evangile de Matthieu "
(Leyde, 1861) ; M. Holzmann's important work, " Die Synoptischen
Evang." Leipzic, 1863. Bleek has presented a similar hypothesis
in his " Introduction to the New Testament." He starts with the
priority of Matthew. In his view the Primitive Gospel is a Greek
Gospel composed in Galilee from the first lesser written narratives.
(" Einl. in N. T.," p. 236). M. Weizsasker, in his late work,
" Untersuchungen ueber die Evangel. Gesch. ihre Quellen und
Jen Gang, ihrer Entwickel.," Gotha, 1814, has displayed much
erudition in the support of the theory of the two original sources
of our synoptics, which he holds to be the primitive Mark and the
Logia. He also seeks to trace in our Gospels the various layers of
tradition ; he supports this entirely by a comparison of the texts.
His argument has more clearness and vigour than that of Holz-
mann, but it is none the less arbitrary, for the a priori plays a large

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 131
interpretation encounters grave objections from the most inde
pendent criticism.*
We shall presently bring forward this very passage of Papias,
to determine the sources of our synoptical Gospels. Let us
say at once, that it appears to us absolutely chimerical to
pretend to distinguish, with any degree of certainty, the primitive
elements of our Gospels from those subsequently added. The
most eminent critics, if guided only by their individual appre
ciation of texts, and unbiassed by any tradition, come to the
most various conclusions upon the same.passages. One sees
in Matthew evident marks of its being the later composition,
while another makes the same observation on Mark. They
are not less divided when the question is, whether such and
such a narrative presents the tokens of originality or not. The
conclusion then must be, that criticism has no certain test for
distinctions so delicate; and we are convinced that such a test
it never will possess, and that on this path of critical inquiry
the arbitrary reigns unchecked.!
Antecedently to these recent hypotheses, a man profoundly
part in the determination of the approximate date of the canonical
narratives. * Michel Nicolas. "Etudes sur le Nouveau Testament," p. 120.
t M. Reville, with a view to distinguish the Logia from the
primitive Mark in the Gospel of Matthew, points out that the
framework of the discourses is often inconsistent with the dis
courses themselves, or at least does not belong to the presumed
period of their delivery. He concludes, we have here two distinct
traditions subsequently fused into one. Thus in the beatitudes,
persecution is spoken of at the time when Christ was in greatest
favour. The historical framework is then borrowed from a different
evangelical narrative from that which contained the Logia. But
such a view disallows the prophetic gift of Christ, and even the
mere prevision of the future. This prevision granted, all discord
is removed. Let us observe, likewise, that in the first Gospel we
find the same method in the arrangement of the discourses as in
that of the narratives ; both are disposed rather by order of
subjects than by order of time. It follows that the one and the
other are from the same hand. M. Renan accepts M. Reville's
theory without submitting it to any discussion. He has gracefully
edited it, and that is all.
K 2

132 BOOK FIRST.
versed in Christian antiquities had assigned a very wide scope
to oral tradition, in the determination of the form of the
synoptical narrative. Gieseler's theory is certainly that which
approaches most nearly to the true explanation, when shorn of
its exclusive and exaggerated features.* It is in the wrong,
doubtless, when it maintains that primitive tradition was fixed
by authority, and was made the compulsory catechism of the
missionaries of the apostolic age. It would be impossible, in
this point of view, to explain the discrepancies apparent in the
synoptical narratives of the death and resurrection of Jesus;
for according to Gieseler's hypothesis, this portion of the
Gospel history should have been, more than any other, cast
into a positive form. Beside, this official determination of
tradition cannot be conceived in a creative era like the pente-
costal age. But the researches of the learned historian have
thrown new light on the formation of primitive tradition, and
they have the great merit of leading criticism back to its place
in the very bosom of the apostolic Church — the living centre
where the Gospels took their rise.
The refutation of the various systems, which we have rapidly
passed under review, will be contained in the statement we are
about to give as to the origin of our Gospels. Each one of
these theories, the mythical excepted, eames its contingent of
truth, when once its exclusive pretensions are laid aside; but
we must nevertheless be prepared to give up the complete
solution of a problem, for which some of the essential data
must be always wanting.
Let us transport ourselves to Jerusalem on the day after the
feast of Pentecost Elated with the first effusion of the Holy
Spirit, f living in ardent expectation of the near return of Christ,
watching each day for his reappearance on a cloud to judge
the world, the young Church seems to have pitched her tent
* Gieseler, "Ueber die Entstehung der Schrift. Evang.," 1823.
J- " Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with
the Spirit." (Ephes. v. 8.)

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 1 33
on the mount of glorious visions; she is ready to take it up
again at the first signal. In an attitude of a holy prepared
ness, like the virgins in the parable, with loins girded and
lighted lamp, she awaits the signal of departure — that midnight
chime which is to inaugurate an everlasting day. In such a
frame of mind, nothing is less likely to occur to her, than the
thought of writing a sacred book. A fervent, appealing call is
uttered to souls; it is heard in the market-places and along
highways and hedges; to all, the message is given that the
master of the house has prepared his feast, that all things are
now ready, and men must hasten to accept his invitation.
Already they catch the joyful strains from the festal marriage-
halls, for in this first enthusiasm, the veil which separates the
visible from the invisible world is, as it were, parted. The
Gospel was at first nothing but the proclamation of the good
news of pardon, flying from mouth to mouth ; the word never
bore in those days the signification of a writing, a book; it
stood always for the divine realities of salvation, the work of
Christ, His death and His resurrection.*
All the expressions, employed in the New Testament to
designate the proclamation of the new tmth, set aside the
notion of written documents.t The Church, for a long time,
knew no other holy books than those of the Jews ; the prophets
sufficiently establish for her the rights of the new covenant.
"The apostles of Christ," says Eusebius, "pure in life and
adorned with all the virtues of the soul, but rude and uncultured
* The word Gospel is always found in the New Testament to
refer to the object itself of faith, and to pardon from God obtained
through Jesus Christ. This 'results evidently from its frequent use
in the synoptics by Jesus Christ himself: "to the poor the gospel
is preached" (Luke vii. 22). It is in this sense that Paul speaks oi
his Gospel, at a time when there was not one line written of our
canonical narratives (Gal. i. 8). These narratives themselves are
thus designated the Gospel according to St. Matthew, according to
St. Mark, according to St. Luke, according to St. John, which
means the fact of salvation recorded by Matthew, Mark, Luke and
John. f Ad-yos (Jas. i. 23). Xoyos axoijg (Heb. iv. 2). xiipvyjia (Tit. i. 3).

134 BOOK FIRST.
in speech, upheld solely by the power of Jesus Christ, by which
they worked all their miracles, proclaimed the kingdom of God
to the whole world. They were not concerned to write books,
being charged with a far grander and superhuman mission."*
It is then clear that the Gospel had been long spoken before it
was written, and that the apostolic Church, especially in its
first period, might be called the Church of the oral testimony.
This by no means implies, however, that this testimony was
uncertain and fluctuating; it was, on the contrary, fixed at a
very early stage in all its essential features. If the deposit of
tmth was entmsted to the whole Church, if it cannot be denied
that the master was addressing all His disciples when He said,
" Ye shall be my witnesses unto the ends of the earth, "t it is
yet incontestable that the apostles occupied the foremost place
among those witnesses. We require no other confirmation of
this than the care taken by Christ to attach them to His person,
and Himself to instruct them.
When it became needful to fill up the place of Judas, the
essential condition demanded of the future apostle was, that he
should have been with the eleven all the time that the Lord
Jesus went in and out among them, beginning from the baptism
of John, unto that same day that He was taken up, " so that
he might be a witness of his resurrection."! Thus in the
primitive Church the testimony which was to be the rule and
check, was that of the apostles. It is this qualification of
being an immediate and acknowledged witness of Christ, which
is the distinctive mark of an apostle. It follows that the
apostolic preaching was the nucleus of evangelical tradition.
Thus we find that tradition taking a definite form from the
very first. The discourses of St. Peter, given in the Acts of the
Apostles, set forth the great facts of the life of Jesus with a
manly simplicity, which engraves them readily on the memory.
That which he delivered in the house of the centurion Cornelius,
and of which we have only a summary, presents a sort of ,
* Eusebius, " H. E.," III. 24. f Acts i. 8. ! Act's i. 21, 22.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 135
epitomised Gospel, which reminds us of the history by St. Mark.
We have in the Acts only his apologetic discourses, those
consequently in which he kept to the most general facts. The
apostolic teaching and testimony expanded into far greater
richness of detail in the inner circle of the Church. The most
ordinary acts of the religious life had a special significance ;
if they simply broke bread among themselves, it sufficed to call
up before their memory the touching scene in the upper
chamber, with all that it imported. We see from the eleventh
chapter of St Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians, that before
the composition of a single one of our Gospels, the account of
the institution of the Lord's Supper was fixed in the remem
brance of the Church. Clearly St. Paul and St Luke drew
from the same source.
The baptism of proselytes brought before the mind the
essential facts of redemption, since from them it received its
significance; historical developments necessarily became con
nected with its formula. Yet more, apostolic tradition acquired
an ever-increasing fulness, for the promise of the Master was
fulfilled to his disciples, and the Holy Spirit brought to their
remembrance all things that Jesus had both done and taught.
Many a divine saying of His lying dormant in their minds,
waited only the sacred fire to quicken it into life again. There
was nothing mechanical or artificial in this awakening of holy
memories; the experiences of every day, the grave questions
which arose, the striking application of one and another portion
ofthe teaching of Jesus, the accomplishment of His predictions,
all contributed to revive, in the minds of His disciples, many
of the sublime utterances which had at first passed their
comprehension. We have a striking example of this purely moral impulse
given to the memory by the Holy Spirit When at Caesarea,
Peter saw the miraculous signs of the Pentecost renewed upon
the members of a pagan household, he " remembered the word
of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with

I36 . BOOK FIRST.
water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost"* The
remarkable events which signalised this first age of the Church
could not fail to multiply such recollections. And thus in the
most natural manner tradition grew and was completed.
There is no difficulty in its assuming a more and more exact
and definite form. Have we not known long poems and songs
of varied rhythm, transmitted from generation to generation ? Is
not the Jewish nation pre-eminently the nation of traditions ?
The teaching of their synagogue was preserved orally for nearly
two centuries, before being embodied in the Talmud. The
rabbis kept for nearly seven hundred years a purely gram
matical tradition. Assuredly the Gospel history would not
be too heavy a weight on the memory of men to whom it was
the one concern, and who fed upon it as their daily bread.
Simple and unsophisticated minds, not burdened with a multi
tude of acquirements or of various speculations, hearts ardent
and strong, living on the love of Christ — what safer guardians
could there have been for evangelical tradition? A noble
passage in a heretical book of the second century paints for us,
in colours evidently genuine, the general solicitude in the
primitive Church to preserve the faithful memory of Jesus.
The "Clementines" put into the mouth of St Peter the follow
ing words : — " I was accustomed to recal to mind the words of
the Lord, which I had heard, so as to engrave them on my
memory, "f Thus did Irenaeus a century later with the words
of his master Polycarp. This primitive tradition, which pre
served the historic Clirist to the Church, by impressing His
features on loving souls, finds a touching and faithful symbol
in Mary, the mother of Jesus, who according to St Luke kept
in her heart the glorious things of which she had been the
witness.! The memory of the Christians was soon aided by written
narratives. The prologue to the Gospel of Luke is explicit on
this point. " Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set
* Acts xi. 16. f " Recognitiones," Lib. III. 1. J Luke ii. 19.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 137
forth in order a declaration of those things which are most
surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us,
which from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of
the word " (Luke i. r, 2).* The evangelist distinguishes be
tween direct tradition, which is the preaching of the apostles,
and the consolidation of this tradition in the numerous writings
intended faithfully to preserve it These writings are not yet
Gospels, properly so called : they are fragmentary relations, but
have the merit of preserving, in its life and freshness, the
testimony of the apostolic witnesses. The ardent interest taken
by the primitive Christians in all that concerned the life of the
Saviour, led them to use every means not to lose any portion
of it; in preserving it in writing they only conformed to the
customs of their countrymen.
Evidently such narrations contributed to give a more positive
character to primitive tradition; they formed that common
source from which St. Paul drew largely, and which was free
from the uncertainty of a floating oral tradition. We find, in
truth, in the letters of the apostle to the Gentiles, apart from
the great features of the Gospel history, allusions to the words
of Jesus, which are almost verbal quotations, and which show
that the teaching of the Master was retained in a very exact
form. Without dwelling on the institution of the Lord's
Supper mentioned above, we find St. Paul, in his first letter to
Timothy, adducing a saying of Christ's, which is found word
for word in the third Gospel. "The labourer,'' he says, "is
worthy of his hire."f Several other texts present coincidences
no less striking. The apostle, in his first letter to the Corinth
ians, pronounces that the Christian may eat whatsoever is set be
fore him. This is a lesson of the Master's preserved by St. Luke. !
* XvToirTai xai vrnipsTai tov Xoyov.
\ 1 Tim. v. 17, 18. Cpmpare Luke x. 7. See also 1 Cor. ix. 14,
compared with Luke x. 7, 8. Oiirw Kai b xbpwg iikra^e rolg to eitayyi-
Xiov xarayytXXovaiv, ix tov evayyeXiov Zftv.
% Uav rb iraparMiievov io9ieTe (1 Cor. X. 27). Compare with
Luke X. 8, 'E<T0'fcT6 rd irapaTi9&iieva vfuv.

138 BOOK FIRST.
In the seventh chapter of the same letter, the apostle refers,
on the question of marriage, to the very words of Jesus which
we find in our Gospels. *
It follows from these significant passages that before the
composition of our canonical narratives, apostolic tradition was
in part fixed, especially as regards the words of the Master.
.The lesser writings referred to by St. Luke had no doubt an
important share in this result For our part, we see no difficulty
in admitting that at this period a nucleus of common traditions
was formed; this remained as a solid basis underlying the
diversity of relations, which circulated from Church to Church.
It is enough to compare the recitals of the same facts in the
Acts of the Apostles to perceive, that there was a marked dis
position among the first Christians to use the same form of
language, to cast the narrative into a sort of mould, which
allowed only some divergencies of detail. + We find the same
tendency in the Church of the second century. A comparison
of the different versions of the so-called apostolical constitutions
(which initiate us into the ecclesiastical organisation of those
times), shows this compound tradition forming itself in some
sort into a compact and consistent whole — a common and
permanent residuum underlying all divergencies.!
Thus, in our view, tradition was the forerunner of canonical
Scripture ; from it the latter issued, as from its fountain, while
that fountain was still flowing, pure and abundant, over the
very ground which Christ had trodden, and on which there
were enacted the great scenes of redemption. We have no
difficulty in receiving as authentic, certain words of the Saviour,
* When Paul says that the Lord says, " Let not the wife depart
from her husband" (1 Cor. vii. 10); he carries us back to Mark x.
7-9, What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. On
the question of divorce he refers to Luke xvi. 18.
+ Compare the account of Peter's vision. Acts x. 9-16, with the
account of the same fact Acts xi. 4-10. Compare also Acts ix. 1-17,
and Acts xxvi. 9-20.
! The various versions of the apostolical constitutions are to be
found in Volume II. of Bunsen's " Analecta Antenicaena."

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 139
or the relation of certain facts not given in our Gospels, on the
sole condition that they come to us with sure marks of
authenticity.* The Gospel, then, was preached and accepted in the noblest
churches intheworld, before it had received its definitive sanction.
This in no way lessens the value of our canonical narratives; we
believe firmly that without them, primitive tradition would have,
become speedily corrupted after the death of the last of the
apostles. The Church of direct witnesses could alone dispense
with written Gospels, because it possessed their equivalent in the
testimony of the apostles and their disciples. Persuaded, as we
are, that God watches over His Church, and that His Providence,
which stoops to the smallest concerns of human life, provided that
the immortal memory of the Redeemer should be preserved in
its purity, we believe assuredly in His intervention in the for
mation of the Gospels we possess, which are the definitive
Gospels. We have here more than an a priori argument; we
are confronted with a positive fact; we possess recitals, con
nected and complete, which have substituted and obliterated
the multiplied relations which preceded them, as the building
displaces the scaffolding which served for its erection. Sup
posing them to have been produced in the primitive Church in
an entirely natural manner, without anything resembling an
official proclamation, such as was given at the time of the
Mosaic revelation, they have, nevertheless, proved their ascen
dancy with so much power that the Christian conscience
recognises the seal of the divine hand upon them, and owns
in its mightiest influence that afflatus of inspiration, which was
the atmosphere of the apostolic Church. If we inquire into
the origin of their unique and sovereign character, we find it
precisely in that which distinguishes them from those minor
scriptures of which St Luke speaks. Those were mere frag-
* It is thus with some of the words of Christ collected by the
Fathers ; the account of the woman taken in adultery, which is
wanting in the oldest manuscripts, is guaranteed by the testimony
of Papias.

140 BOOK FIRST.
mentary narratives; the sheaf of primitive tradition has now
found its living band, which will save it from falling again to
earth and scattering its precious grain. Every one of these
writings has an individual impress, and corresponds to some
one of the phases and aspects of the apostolic age; only as
they are thus estimated, do they give us any adequate idea of
that incomparable unity which harmonises in itself so many
contrasts. What we have here then, is something very different
from that book of the poor man, who, " having but the one,
adds to it all that comes to his hand."* No; the noblest pro
duction in the world was not composed like the wildest legends.
History, impartially questioned, gives us far other answers.
Our canonical Gospels are not assignable to an earlier date
than the year 60. Up to this period the Church at Jerusalem
remained the centre and metropolis of the Christians. Evan
gelical tradition was there preserved in a perfectly natural
manner by the concourse of apostolic men. When this group
begins to be broken up, the Church can no longer be contented
with fragmentary relations, which only imperfectly preserve the
great teaching of primitive times. There is no official pro
ceeding ; it is the natural course of things, the consequence of
a change of circumstances. The most false idea is formed of
Christian antiquity when it is imagined, that our canonical
Gospels were composed and then brought out with eclat as
theopneustic scriptures. There was no ark of cedar in the
primitive Church, in which to enshrine the holy book, as in
the old covenant. Each canonical Gospel arose spontaneously,
as occasion called for it, as the result of circumstances in
which we see, indeed, the hand of Providence guarding the
treasure of the universal Church, but in which there is no
semblance of a divine proclamation; the charge of discerning
and asserting the incomparable value of these truly apostolic
documents, was left to the Christian conscience.
The oldest direct testimony in favour of the first canonical
* M. Renan, Introduction to the " Vie de Jesus," p. 22.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 141
nanative is found in the following passage from the epistle of
Barnabas : "When Jesus Christ chose his apostles, who were to
proclaim his Gospel, he chose the most notorious characters,
to show that he was not come to call the righteous, but
sinners."* These closing words are found verbatim in our
Matthew; they are the reply of Jesus to the reproaches of the
Pharisees, when they murmur at His going to be a guest at the
house of the tax-gatherer. f According to Eusebius, the first
Gospel is only a summary of the preaching of the apostle,
given when he was on the point of starting for his distant
missions. ! There is no valid reason for rejecting this assertion,
which is confirmed by St. Jerome, Origen, and Irenaeus.§
Matthew is that toll-taker of Capernaum named Levi, who
received his decisive call as he was sitting at the receipt of
custom, || and took his place among the twelve. IT His original
calling implied an amount of education, which rendered him
capable of relating the facts of which he was the witness. He
belonged to that despised class, which the party of the Pharisees
loaded with such contempt, that to be in the company of a
publican was of itself a scandal.** An upright and pious soul,
attached to the religion of his -fathers, the tax-gatherer Levi
had, doubtless, suffered cruelly from this species of moral
proscription; he was thus prepared to appreciate keenly the
contrast between the implacable Judaism of the Pharisees, and
* "Ore ii tovs iSiovs airoaroXovs rods peXXovrag rnipbeaeiv rb eiayykXiov
airov lltXs&wo v-mlp irdaav djiapnav avonankpovs ("Ep. Barn." i. 5.)
+ Matt. ix. 13.
% Mar9aXos irpoTtpov 'Etpaiois KtipvZas, <!>s ijieXXe xai In' krkpovg iivm,
iraTpiip yXiiirrg ypaiy irapaiobs rb xar'airbv evayyiXiov (Euseb. iii. 24.)
§ St. Jerome, " Comment, in Matth. Praefat." Origen in Euse
bius, VI. 25. Irenaeus, " Haeres." III. 1
|| Luke v. 27 ; Mark ii. 14.
IT Matt. x. 3 ; Mark iii. 18 ; Luke vi. 15. The first Gospel (x. 3)
calls Matthew o rtXiivrig, and mentions (ix. 9, 10) his calling of tax-
gatherer, and the , feast which he gave to Jesus at his house. In
Luke v. 27-29 and Mark ii. 13-15 the feast given by the publican
Levi is in the same historical connection. Evidently the reference
is to the same person.
** See Luke xv. 1.

142 BOOK FIRST.
the religion of charity which was the fulfilment of tme Judaism.
The look of holy love turned upon this noble, wounded heart
bound it for ever to the person of Jesus. Matthew, according
to the statement of Eusebius, appears to have remained at
Jerusalem later than the other apostles.* It was, therefore,
natural that he should be appealed to, to give an account of
their common preaching in the capital of the theocracy. We
have only vague information upon his mission in Arabia, and
the close of his life.
Let us turn to his Gospel, and to the rare light thrown by
Christian antiquity on its composition. We must pause before
the celebrated passage of Papias, the subject of so much con
troversy. Papias declares that he learned from John the
Presbyter, the contemporary of the apostles, that Matthew had
made a collection in Hebrew of the evangelical oracles, and
that every one interpreted them according to his ability, f
These evangelical oracles have been erroneously supposed to
consist only of a collection of the discourses of the Saviour.
The expression oracles has, however, a far wider sense, and is
applied in the Epistle to the Hebrews to the whole of the Old
Testament revelations.! It is, beside, wholly impossible to
separate the greater part of the words of Christ from the
circumstances or acts, which were the occasion of them. Papias
had himself written a book on the oracles of the Lord, which
included narratives, properly so called, as may be seen from
the fragments which remain. § It is further certain that
Eusebius, and his contemporaries who possessed his work,
applied his description to a narrative more or less complete,
and not to a simple collection of discourses.
* Eusebius, " H. E.," V., 10.
r Mar9aXog ptv ovv itpaXii biaXixrtp ra Xoyia ovvtypaipaTO, yp/trivevtn
i' avrd i>g yivvaro 'ixaarog (Eusebius, " H. E.," III. 39).
! Hebrews v. 12.
§ The xvpiaKd Xoyta included, for example, the account of the
woman taken in adultery (Eusebius III. 39). Papias, after saying
that Mark did not give the oracles ofthe Saviour in consecutive order,
defines thus this wordXoyia- XfjjKwa »j ¦Kpa%9ivra (Eusebius III. 39).

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 1 43
We believe, then, that Papias had, doubtless, heard of a
Hebrew original of our Matthew; and as there is no trace of
any such existing at the beginning of the second century, we
may suppose that it had been already supplanted by our Greek
Gospel, which was destined by its very language for a much
wider circulation. Clearly this original Hebrew would have
an especial interest for the Christians of Judaea, who might
have made it the subject of numerous modifications.* The
sort of contempt shown by Papias for written tradition, might
well explain his inexact information with reference to it; he
avows that he seeks, above all, oral tradition, and concerns
himself with this alone. In consequence of this bias of mind
it is, that he attaches so little importance to the first Greek
Gospel, and places it in the category of those numerous
translations of the original Hebrew, which were current in the
churches. The expression which he uses implies that these
translations were regarded as very inexact. "Everyone," he
says, "translated as he could." A superficial observer like
Papias, exclusively preoccupied with oral tradition, characterised
by these words the very great freedom which was used with the
original, in the Greek version of Matthew. This freedom goes
so far, that we are warranted in regarding the Gospel which we
possess as a second original
In tmth, the style is that of a first hand; it flows direct from
the fountain; it has even subtleties of meaning, and sometimes
almost a play on words, which is irreconcileable with the idea
of a translation.! Every time the evangelist quotes in his own
name from the Old Testament, he recurs to the original
Hebrew, while he borrows from the Septuagint the citations
interpolated in the discourses which he reproduces. Evidently
this is not the style of a mere translator. Christian antiquity
was then acquainted with a Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, for
* Perhaps it was not in existence in the time of Papias, except in
the imperfect and overladen form of the Gospel of the Hebrews.
¦)¦ 'ApaviZovai .... 'oirws (pavwai (Matt. vi. 16.) Kaxovg KaxQs
cnroXhei (Matt. xxi. 14.)

144 BOOK FIRST.
which was substituted in the second century our Greek Gospel,
which is rather a recasting than a translation. It has been
maintained that this Greek Gospel was equally from the hand,
of the apostle. We do not think so. In the first place, no
positive passage can be adduced in support of this assertion,
nor can we, on other grounds, suppose the first of our canonical
narratives to have been written entirely by the hand of an
apostle. Would an ocular witness have introduced such clear
and precise chronological data, in a chain of facts and dis
courses, in which there was evidently only a grouping of events
or of sayings, arranged under certain general heads? The
divergencies from the Gospel of John, though relating only to
secondary points, do not permit us to admit in our Matthew
another direct witness. An apostle who had not left Jesus
Christ, throughout His whole ministry, would not have passed
over in silence His journeys to Jerasalem; he would not have
limited to Galilee the appearances of the. Risen one, nor would
he have assigned a wrong date to the celebration of the last
Passover.* These minor inaccuracies are of no moment if only they are
not ascribed to an apostle; they have so much the less weight
because our Greek Gospel does not profess to be by Matthew.
From the conscientious examination of the question, we gather
that the apostle did indeed write a very complete account of
his preaching, as stated by Eusebius, but that this account was
not formed into a Gospel, properly so called, connected in all
its parts. The unknown author of our Greek Gospel took it
as the principal basis of his narrative, incorporating it in his
own and supplementing it.
The apostle dwelt especially on that part of the teaching of
Christ, which set in relief the true kingdom of God, in oppo-
* How could it be that an ocular witness, in giving the account
of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, should speak of two asses,
instead of one, like the other evangelists? (Matt, xxi: 2.) Evidently
he is guided here by the parallelism of Zechariah ix. 9.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 145
sition to the materialistic theocracy of his age. He collected
the discourses and events most apt for his purpose, passing by
the more exalted, less popular teaching of which Jerusalem was
the scene, and which was to be afterwards recorded by John
for the Church. His summary of preaching was a sublime
outline of the Gospel; it cannot be attacked on the ground of
omissions, since it was not the intention of the apostle to write
a complete and definite Gospel. The author of our canonical
narrative wrote the Gospel which we possess, under the most
marked Divine inspiration, embodying in it the writings of
Matthew, the substance of which was the preaching of the
twelve, only casting it into a more comprehensive form. The
errors of detail into which he has fallen, inexplicable as they
would be in the apostle, are perfectly conceivable on the part
of his disciple. What he wrote is still in truth the Gospel
according to Matthew; it represents one entire period of the
primitive Church, and was written at a date which secures to
it its high historical value. This date is inscribed in the book
itself. The manner in which the author gives the prediction
of the near advent of the Saviour, and the closing crisis of
history, connecting them immediately with the destmction of
Jerusalem, without explanation or comment, clearly places the
date of his Gospel before that tragical event, that is, before the
year 70.* This result has been gained by criticism, and its
importance cannot be mistaken.
Thus, at this remote period, we have a Greek Gospel, which
is only the definitive edition of the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew,
* HMtog it (Matt. xxiv. 29.) We have a striking proof of the
impossibility of placing the first Gospel long after the taking of
Jerusalem. This is the narrative of Hegesippus of an interview
which must have taken place between the Emperor Domitian and
some Christians from Palestine, relations of Jesus. The Emperor
questioning them upon the reign of Christ, they replied, that His
heavenly kingdom would be established at the consummation of
the age; iirl avvreXeia tov aliovos (Euseb., " H. E.," II. 320.) The
ev9sois of the first Gospel is no longer possible after the destruction
of Jerusalem.

146 BOOK FIRST.
and which preserves to us, in a methodical narrative, the
history of Jesus, presented from the point of view of the first
apostolic preaching at Jemsalem. We have here, in a manner,
the glorious testament of the Church of the upper room,
bequeathing to future ages the momentous tmth, that Jesus
Christ is indeed the Messiah expected, and heralded by the
old covenant; that He responds to all the pious aspirations of
the past, but not to the carnal expectations of a degenerate
theocracy; that he is, in fine, the King of the new people of
God, consecrated, not on Mount Zion, but with His own blood
on the hill of Golgotha. This is the fundamental idea of our
first Gospel, nit may be called the Gospel of the Fulfilment,
so much does it dwell on the correspondence of evangelical
facts with the predictions of the Old Testament. From its
commencement it points out Jesus as the great son of David,
but shows Him watched from the first by that murderous hate,
which was to end by nailing Him to the cross. The sermon
on the mount, the parables of the kingdom, the anathemas on
the Pharisees, the mournful story of His passion, all tend to
develop, in opposition to the false notions of a materialised
Judaism, the conception of the true Christ, the royal legislator
and victim. Jesus is indeed the Messiah of the prophets and
holy men of old, attested as such by the perfect harmony of
the circumstances of his life and death with the oracles of
ancient prophecy, which are quoted with such minute exactness
by our evangelist.
Nothing in Matthew bespeaks a narrow Judaeo-Christianity.
He does not write as a partisan; ever ready to recognise the
worth of the old covenant, he yet maintains the breadth of the
new. If his Gospel ascribes a permanent value to the law, it
is in a very limited sense, since he acknowledges that in several
of its ordinances it has pandered to the hardness of the heart
of man :* he rises perpetually from the letter to the spirit, from
the outward act to the moral motive. J If the twelve are en-
* Matt. xix. 8. t ch. xv. 16-20.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. ,147
joined not to- go to the heathen in their first mission, it is a
provisional injunction; for the last word of Christ is a com
mand to His disciples to baptize all nations.* The field of the
divine harvest is not merely the land of Judaea, but the world, t
The child Jesus is worshipped by the Magi as well as by the
shepherds of Bethlehem.! The condemnation of unbelieving
Judaism is solemnly pronounced.§ John the Baptist proclaims
the nothingness of descent from Abraham. || Messiah is not
only the son of David; He is, above all, the Son of God. IT If
the story of the Canaanitish woman is brought forward in
objection, we point to its conclusion, which shows the legal
barrier levelled before the faith of the pious mother. The
prophetic passages are no more Judaistic in their colouring
than those of St. Paul. Finally, Jesus proclaims boldly that
He is greater than the Sabbath and the temple.** The Gospel
according to St Matthew is not, then, a party Gospel; it
reveals, on the contrary, the deep agreement which existed
between the Church in Palestine, and that which was formed
in the Gentile world. Thus is closed and summed up the first
period of the apostolic age; the type of the preaching of the
twelve is preserved for ever to the Church in our first Gospel.
If the good news of salvation must needs sound forth first in
the midst of the Jewish nation, the relations, so numerous at
this period, of the Jews with other peoples, quickly enlarged
the sphere of Christian missions. This enlargement was
effected in fact, before it received its apology in words.
Several years before St. Paul lifted up his powerful voice in the
Church, to level all national barriers before the Redeemer of
mankind, St,. Peter opened the doors to a Gentile convert, who
' had not yet passed the gate of the temple; the centurion
Cornelius, with all his household, was baptized by him at
Caesarea. To men of this class the Gospel would need to be
presented with great simplicity as a divine history; allusions to
* Matt, xxviii. 19. f ch. xiii. 38. \ ch. ii. 2. § ch. viii. 10-12.
|| ch. iii. 9. f ch. xxii. 43. ** ch. xii. 6.
L 2

148 BOOK FIRST.
* the Old Testament would have no force with such an auditory.
The only thing to be done was to proclaim the great facts of
redemption; nothing would better commend itself to the Roman
soldier than a living, graphic narration, without exegetical ex
pansion or marked tendency. This is precisely what we find
in the address of Peter, delivered to the centurion's family, and
in our second Gospel, which reads like an expansion of that
address. One of the oldest traditions, preserved by Papias, says that
Mark was the interpreter of Peter, when the latter preached
the Gospel at Rome. " Mark," says this Father, " wrote down
with care, but without order, that which had been said and done ¦
by Jesus Christ. In truth, he had himself neither heard nor
followed the Lord; he had subsequently joined himself to
Peter ; this Apostle gave his teaching according to the needs
of his hearers, and not as if he intended to present a consecu
tive history of the oracles of the Lord. Mark wrote down
accurately the things which he remembered, aiming only to
omit nothing and to falsify nothing which he had heard."*
This passage is no less contested than the famous text of
Papias on Matthew ; does it really apply to our second Gospel,
or must we suppose it to refer to some primitive writing which
we have lost ?
We think that a comparison of the second Gospel with the
others, and especially with the fourth, renders this judgment of
high Christian antiquity perfectly natural ; to any one familiar
with the beautiful arrangement of the Gospel of Matthew and
that of Luke, both introduced with an account of the infancy
of Christ, the second Gospel, which opens with a sort of abrupt
ness, must appear a mere fragment of the evangelical history. "
It stands like a temple without a portico — defective therefore
* Mapxog fiiv Ip/irivevTrjg Jlerpov ytvo/ievog '60a lp.vt)v.6vevo-ev dxpiffUg
lypaipev oi /livroi rdjei (Euseb. " H. E.," III. 29). This testimony is
confirmed by Tertullian, "Adv. Marc," IV. 5. Hieronym., "De
Viris Illust," 8.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 149
in its construction.* The grand discourses ofthe Master were
passed over in silence. It may be further possible, according
to the testimony of the Fathers, that Mark may have written at
Rome only the first outline of his Gospel — the simple repro
duction of the preaching of Peter — and that, at a later period,
after the death of the apostle, he may have completed it,
without taking from it any of its original character of force and
vivacity. In fact, while Clement of Alexandria fixes the com
position of the second Gospel at the very period of Peter's
sojourn at Rome (about the year 64), Irenaeus attributes it to a
later date.f However this may be, it is to us certain that, in
its essential parts, the Gospel of Mark was written during the
lifetime of the apostle Peter, whose forcible preaching it repro
duces in so faithful a manner. The history of the age of the
apostles confirms fully what Papias tells us about Mark. He
was of Jewish origin ; the house of his mother was a place of
meeting for the Christians at Jerusalem. There they were
assembled for prayer at the time of Peter's deliverance.! This
fact indicates how much the apostle was beloved by Mark's
family. There seems to have been a great moral resemblance
between Mark and Peter. The young disciple shows the same
ardent and susceptible nature, before he has passed through
the refining crucible. Perhaps we may recognise in him the
unknown young man, who followed Jesus afar off at the
moment of his arrest; and who, in. his precipitate flight, left in
the hands of the first who came up with him, the garment
which he had hastily thrown around him.§ His courageous
eagerness to accompany Paul and Barnabas on their first
missionary journey, and his readiness to turn away from a
dangerous duty|| — both are traits which recal the son of Jonas.
* M. Reuss himself admits the possibility of applying the quota
tion of Papias to our actual Mark (" Gesch. Heil. Sch. N. T.," §187).
See Bleek, " Einleit."p. 116.
t Irenaeus in Eusebius, V. 8. § Mark xiv. 51, 52.
J Acts xii. 2. || Acts xii., and xv. 38.

15° BOOK FIRST.
Mark returned to Jemsalem. We find him subsequently
matured, established in faith and courage; the apostle Peter
tenderly calls him his son, in his epistle written from Babylon.*
Before rejoining the latter in this city, Mark anew attached
himself to Paul, never more to quit him even in the hour of
peril and captivity. He was with him in his prison at Caesarea.f
From thence probably it was that he went to Peter, to return
to Rome, whither St. Paul recalled him, with an urgency which
does Mark honour. Peter himself soon arrived in the great
metropolis. Who could have been better prepared than Mark
to act as his interpreter, not only to the Romans, but also to
all generations of Christians ?
If we consider his Gospel itself, we are struck at once with
certain indications that it was written for the Romans. The
author employs, for example, many Latin words.! He is care
ful to tell his readers that Simon of Cyrene was the father-in-
law of Alexander and Rufus, who were of Rome — a point which
would be interesting only to the inhabitants of that city. § The
ruling characteristics of the Christianity of Palestine find no
place in Mark's narrative. He makes scarcely an allusion' to
the Jewish oracles, and he gives explanations of Hebrew cus
toms, which would have been perfectly needless except to the
Gentile world. That which is pre-eminently noticeable is the
vivid, energetic character of his narrative and the warmth of
his colouring. This mode of relation was admirably adapted
to the practical genius of the Romans, who concerned them
selves far less with the idea and the explanation of facts, than
with the facts themselves. No narrative is so dramatic as that
pf Mark. The long discourses given in the two other synoptics
are suppressed. The narration is concise and graphic. By
unmistakeable tokens we know that we have in this Gospel the
* i Peter v. 13.
t Philemon, 24.
! Arjvapiov, Kevrvpiwv (Mark XV. 39).
§ Mark xv. 21, compared with Rom. xvi. 13.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 151
echo of a direct witness. He' calls by his name of Bartimseus,
the blind man healed at the gates of Jericho ; he tells us that
Jesus, during the storm on the lake of Tiberias, was " in the
hinder part ofthe ship asleep on a pillow." He mentions also
the look of love with which Jesus received the rich young man,
and the deep sigh which broke from Him as He verified the
unbelief of the Jews.* The scene of the passion, and especially
the account of Peter's denial, bears the dramatic stamp in full
relief and clearness.
The general tone of the narrative is opposed absolutely to
the view, that Mark was only an abbreviator of Matthew and
Luke. Such scribal processes were quite foreign to the apos
tolic age. Mark, in his long sojourns in Jemsalem, doubtless
heard the preaching of Matthew, which became subsequently
the foundation of the first Gospel ; there is nothing to prevent
our admitting that he may have preserved numerous passages
of it in writing. This was a custom already in vogue in the
primitive Church, as we have seen in the prologue to Luke's
Gospel. In conforming to it, Mark would have acted per
fectly naturally. The analogies and discrepancies of the two
Gospels would be thus explained. The omission of the por
tions especially designed for an audience of Jewish Christians,
in the preaching of Matthew, and yet more the peculiar turn
ofthe preaching of Peter at Rome, give a unique character to
Mark's narrative. That which it presents to us is, in truth, not
Messiah fulfilling the ancient covenant, but the Son of God
displaying supernatural power for the salvation of the world.
If the Gospel of Matthew is the Gospel of fulfilment, Mark's is
the Gospel of divine power manifested in Jesus Christ, f
* Mark x. 46 ; iv. 38; x. 21 ; viii. 12.
t Strauss (new " Life of Jesus," p. 133) sees in the Gospel of
Mark a writing inspired by the tendency to conciliation, which had,
according to him, its principal seat at Rome in the middle of the
second century. Taking his stand on certain verbal analogies
between the second and fourth Gospels, he assigns a later date to
Mark, as if these analogies might not as well establish the ante-

152 BOOK FIRST.
It was not enough that the preaching of the Gospel should
win the Gentile world by the simple . operation of the first
missions ; it was needful that the national barriers, lowered
under the action of an irresistible expansive impulse, should be
formally levelled to the ground, and the recognition fully made
that in Christ " there is neither Jew nor Greek." It was not
only the new religious society which was to grow and extend
itself; its doctrine was to expand or rather to free itself from
all Jewish prejudices. Many a conflict had to be passed
through before the great tmth was fully brought to the light,
that Christianity is not the religion of a people, but of man
kind. The efforts, the sufferings, the fruitful labours of St.
Paul alone assured his victory. We have seen that our two
first Gospels, far from reflecting the passions of a narrow,
Judaised Christianity, set forth with equal simplicity and
breadth, the universality of the Gospel in opposition to the
specialities of Judaism. But it was needful that this character
of universality should appear, with yet more plainness, in one
of the deposits of primitive tradition. This was accomplished
in the third Gospel, rightly called the Pauline Gospel. It is
. no more in contradiction with the first two narratives, than was
Paul himself with the twelve. It is as temperate in its univer
sality as Matthew in his Judaeo-Christianity. Luke maintains
the perpetuity of the law ;* the prophetic portion of his
writings preserves the Hebraic colouring ;\ the Jew's right of
primogeniture in the kingdom of God is explicitly recognised
in the parable of the Prodigal Son.! Clearly there is here
neither an exaggeration of Pauline doctrine, nor any desire to
tone down contrasts. Numerous and characteristic traits bring
out the broad ground taken by the third Gospel. We note the
following : the genealogy of Christ, carried back to Adam, to
cedence of Mark as the contrary. As to the theory of conciliation,
it falls, with the whole system of Tubingen, before the impossibility
of placing the date of our Gospels in the second century.
* Luke xx. 17. f ch. xxii. 30. J ch. xv. 25-31.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 153
point Him out as the Son of Man— the mission of the seventy
disciples, which number represented in Jewish symbolism the
nations not included in the theocracy — the generous part ac
corded to the Samaritans who were the first excluded from the
divine covenant — the determination of the conditions of salva
tion ascribed to the free pardoning grace of God — lastly, that
beautiful tone of merciful humanity and tender pity, which is
found so repeatedly in the parables and discourses of Jesus, as
rendered by this evangelist*
A tradition not disputed in Christian antiquity, though of
later date than that which refers to the first two Gospels,
ascribes the third to Luke,f one of the companions of St Paul,
who had followed him to Rome, and whom the apostle mentions
in his letter to the Colossians J as one of his near friends. As
Paul, in his salutations, places his name after the Jews by birth,
and between Epaphras and Demas, who were Greek prose
lytes, it is fair to suppose that Luke was ofthe same nation.
Tradition assigns Antioch as his birth-place ; he was a physician,
and consequently a person of cultivation. It is evident from
his prologue to the Acts, that he wrote Greek very correctly.
Clearly no man was better prepared to become the careful
deponent of Gospel tradition, while dwelling by preference on
the portions upon which St. Paul had founded his special
teaching. The third Gospel is addressed to a man of distinc
tion, according to a common custom of the ancients. It arose,
then, like the other canonical narratives, out of particular
circumstances, and has, like them, that seal of simplicity and
truth, which is wanting to books issued with official forms and
pretensions. As Matthew's Gospel retains the type of the
preaching of the twelve, the Gospel of Luke is the monument
* Parables of the Lost Sheep and the Prodigal Son (chap, xv.),
ofthe Good Samaritan (x. 25-37), the account of the resurrection
ofthe son ofthe Widow of Nain (vii. 12, 15).
f Irenaeus, " Haeres." III. 14. Tertul., "Adv. Marc," 145.
Origen in Eusebius, " H. E.," VI. 25.
J Col. iv. 14.

154. BOOK FIRST.
of that broader preaching of the thirteenth apostle, who had
been preceded on this track by Stephen the deacon.
It is grossly unjust to speak of Luke as a simple compiler ;
he is no more so than Mark is an abbreviator. A spirit of lofty
poetry and of simple veracity breathes in this transparent narra
tive, which is more attractive than the other two. There seems
no doubt that Luke was acquainted with Mark, whose scripture,
especially in its first form, would answer to those narratives
without definite order, by which the first evangelist had, as he
tells us, profited* The points of contact and .resemblance
between Luke and Mark ate many. By means of the second
Gospel, Luke comes in contact with Matthew, whose Gospel in
its Greek form he probably did not know ; thus are explained
the analogies and differences of our synoptics. As the book of
Acts, which conies from the same hand, closes abmptly at the
time when St Paul entered on his imprisonment in Rome, it
has been supponed that the third Gospel was concluded at the
same period, that is about the year 62. But this seems to us
incompatible with the antecedents of the Gospel of Mark. We
think it better to keep to the date inscribed in Luke's first work
In fact, we find in his prophetic portion, the same expectation
of the near return of Christ after the destruction of Jerasalem,
which we have noted in Matthew, with this difference, that the
expressions are less definite and admit the possibility of some
delay.f We are thus brought back to the period verging
on the destruction of Jemsalem : the majority of the second
Christian generation, to which, by his own avowal, the friend
of St. Paul belonged, were living at the time of the great cata
strophe. If we take into account the high antiquity of this
Gospel, and the habitual accuracy of the author, carried even
* Luke declares that he will write his gospel in order, and going
back to the very beginning of things (aKpipug KaBt^ljg) • he thus
implies that the documents he had before him were wanting in
these two features. This reminds us of the characteristic of Mark
noted by Papias, and summed up in the words, ov Tain.
t Luke xxi. 31, 32.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. ' 155
into minutiae in some portions of the Acts of the Apostles ; if
we remember all the opportunities he had, as the beloved com
panion of the great apostle, to receive information at first hand
in Jerasalem itself, we must admit that in following him we
breathe the clear, pure atmosphere of historical truth.
It is thus that the primitive tradition of the apostolic Church
was fixed for ever in our synoptics ; in them it appears in an
individual form, and with a doctrinal seal— the only form in
which it could be secured from the ever restless and legendary
fluctuations of merely oral tradition.
III. The Fourth Gospel*
The fourth Gospel transports us into a very different region
from that of the synoptics. We are carried far beyond the
special interests of the Church in Palestine, one of whose great
aims it was to clench the link which bound it to the old cove
nant, even while maintaining its own privileges, as the substitute
and fulfilment of the old. These questions, so warmly agitated
at Jerusalem before the year 70, fall into the background in John's
writings. The Pauline polemics, by which the broad human
* No book of the New Testament has given rise to more ardent
polemics than this. The history of the disputes over it is one of
the most important chapters of modern theology. The first serious
attack on the authenticity of the fourth Gospel came from Bretsch- f
neider (" Probabilia de evang. et epist. John " 1820). He retracted
his doubts. Strauss, in his first "Life of Christ," revived the con
troversy. He called forth the writings of Neander and Liicke.
The latter has dedicated to the fourth Gospel one of the noblest
theological monuments of this age. The school of Tubingen
endeavoured to place the fourth Gospel in the middle of the second
century, regarding it as the reconciliation of the Judaeo-Christian
and Pauline tendencies in a metaphysical synthesis (Schwegler,
" Nach. Apost. Zeit," II. 346. 347 ; Zeller, " Theologisch. Jahrbuch."
1855 (p. 576-656). Baron, "Gesch. der Chr. Kirche der drei erst.
Jahrh." Ritschl. at first a disciple of the Tubingen school, retracted
his first ideas about the fourth Gospel in the second edition of his
book, entitled " Die Altcatholische Kirche." Recently M. Renan
has laid down a theory of the Gospel of John, quite opposed to the
Tubingen school, but which does not at all re-establish the authen
ticity of this book, since he supposes every kind of interpolation.

156 BOOK FIRST.
character of Christianity were established, are everywhere taken
for granted : the victory is complete, and no more a matter of
controversy; the deep furrow so painfully made is covered now
with ripening grain. The work to be done is not, as in Mark's
Gospel, to trace evangelical facts ; the thought at first scarcely
indicated, comes out now like the flower from its cup. What
we have before us is nqt the Gospel of fulfilment, nor that of
power, nor of Christian universality : it is, according to the
beautiful expression of Clement of Alexandria, the Gospel of
the spirit, which starting from established data soars into the
region of sublime metaphysics ; it is the Gospel of the ideal,
but of the ideal incorporated in a living history. More exact in
his narrative, and throughout more profound in his prevailing
thought than the three other evangelists, presenting that blend
ing of pathos and speculation, of tender mysticism and doctrinal
elevation, which gives it its singular charm, it answers perfectly
to the period assigned to it by the oldest tradition, as well as to
the known character of its author.
In fact, if we contemplate the Church at the close of the
first century; in the evening of the apostolic age, we shall see
that no teaching could be more appropriate to it than that of
the fourth Gospel ; a great event has transpired ; the holy city
of Judaism is sacked; the temple is a heap of ruins. The
Strauss has taken up the polemics in his new "Vie de Jesus," with
singular bitterness. Schenkel, in his book entitled " Characterbild
Jesu," is very decided against the genuineness of the fourth Gospel
(p. 348). Weizaecker has taken in his last work a middle course;
he refers the Gospel to the close of the first century, but attributes
it to a friend of St. John (" Untersuch. ueber die Evang. Ges
chichte," p. 187.) Thus it nears the hypothesis of M. Nicolas, who
ascribes it to John the Presbyter. (" Etudes Critiques sur le N. T.,"
pp. 206, 207). We have not been able to find anything new in M.
Scholten's Work, translated by M. Reville. Among the remarkable
books on St. John by which we support our views the principal are
Liicke's " Commentary ;" the part of Bleek's " Introduction to the
New Testament," which refers to this subject, and which has been
translated into French by M. Bruston ; the noble "Commentary"
of M. F. Godet so rich and deep ; and M. Astie's important work.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 157
judgment of God has been executed with demonstration upon
the stiff-necked people ; the ancient mould into which the
Christian idea had been cast in its first form, is broken;
Christianity has shaken off its swaddling clothes, and, freed
from all the straits of Judaism, acknowledges itself the religion
of mankind It is not necessary to bring forward prophetical
texts, to declare the abolition of the national privileges ; the
will pf God is read in characters of fire on the smoking ashes
of the rained sanctuary. The Christ has not appeared on that
cloud, from whence burst the thunder-bolts, which crashed the
pride of Jerasalem. The Church knows now that it is engaged
in a long combat and a long travail. Its, centre is no longer at
Jerasalem, but at Ephesus, the metropolis of Asia Minor, the
brilliant city, where, for long, the thoughts of the east have been
meeting and blending with those of the west Ephesus is the
native soil of heresy, of the false Gnosticism which seeks to
destroy Christianity, by interpreting it, that is by fashioning it
to its own likeness. St Paul noted the first appearance of this
bold and skilful essay to fuse the truths of the Gospel in a
burning cmcible, from which were to come forth so many
strange combinations, so many wild speculations. Towards
the end of the first century, it assumed, under Cerinthus, a less
vague character, and led to a singular system, which under
Christian names reproduced the old oriental dualism, with its
extravagant idealisation. It was not enough to set in opposition
to this composite and fanciful Christ of the Gnostics, the
simple Gospel of fact — that Christian drama, which availed to
conquer the rough Romans; the moment was come when a
Gospel of the idea must be presented, or, rather, when the idea
must be disengaged from the fact, in order to set in full light
the deepest portion of the teaching of Christ — that which bears
on His nature and His work — if only this might have been
preserved in the mind and heart of some immediate disciple.
The most ancient tradition names this disciple ; it is John, the
son of Zebedee, the old man mature in faith and thought, the

,158 BOOK FIRST.
last survivor of the Apostles, the venerable saint whose strength
was renewed like the eagle's. Under this image of an eagle,
Christian antiquity loved to symbolise the fourth Gospel, so
high did it seem to soar towards the eternal light. "While
the three other evangelists," says St. Augustine, " remain below
with the man Christ Jesus, and speak but little of His Godhead,
John, as if impatient of setting his foot on the earth, rises from
the very first words of his Gospel, not only above earth, and
the span of air and sky, but above all angels and invisible
powers, till he reaches Him by whom all things were made.
Not in vain are we told in the Gospels, that John leaned on
the bosom of the Lord at the last Passover feast He drank
in secret at that divine spring. Ex illopectore in secreto bibebat."*
St. Augustine was right to connect the character of the evangel
with that of the evangelist ; for if it be tme that a man's style
is the man, there is abundant reason to conclude that none but
John could have written this incomparable Scripture.
We cannot here do more than broadly indicate the great
features of the life and character of St John. Bom on the
shores of the Lake of Tiberias, far from Pharisaic influence,
the son of an ardent and pious mother,f whose first care had
been to nourish in his heart the hopes which filled her own, he
grew up in an atmosphere most favourable to his preparation
for his future mission. The Baptist had no more faithful
disciple; Jesus Christ had none more intimate; He made John
not only His apostle but His friend. John loved Him as a
divine brother ; he could never separate the person of the
Master from His doctrine. Of a nature deep and contempla
tive, he had as much fire in his heart as the impetuous Peter
and the valiant Paul; but it was an inward fervour, which
manifested itself less by action or conflict, than as one of those
* St. August. " Tractat. 36 in Johann."
t Salome, who is erroneously supposed to be a sister of Mary,
was of the number of the women who followed Jesus to the last,
ministering to Him of their substance (Matt, xxvii. 56, comp. with
Mark xv. 40, 41).

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 1 59
absorbing affections, concentrated on one object, which are
by turns tender and terrible, because they cannot brook to see
that object insulted or misjudged. The John of the synoptics
is already the well-beloved disciple, but he is also the Son of
Thunder; it is he who would call for fire to come down and
consume the impious city that refuses to receive the Lord.*
Even after the decisive crisis of his moral life, when he has
learnt from his dying Master to what a length pardoning love
can reach, we yet find in him ebullitions of indignation against
the adversaries of Jesus, and yet more against the false friends
who could betray Him with a kiss. Thus he speaks with
peculiar bitterness of heresy, which is in his eyes the most
dangerous of foes. It is John who in his letters would not
have the propagator of false doctrine received into the house,
nor eaten with;t and who will not meet Cerinthus even at the
public bath. J He is of the race of the mystics and contempla-
tists; he speaks their language, and delights in brief sentences
not connected by dialectic links. John is the apostle of the
absolute. Everything or nothing is his motto ; the -opposition
between the friends and the enemies of Christ, appears to him
strong as that between light ahd darkness.
During the period of triumphant action and sharp polemics,
(which is that of Peter and Paul), he remains in retirement
with Mary the mother of Jesus, who is his sacred legacy from
the Cross ; he is not inactive, but he keeps in the shade, and
there matures, as he lives ever mindful of his heavenly
Friend, who is also his God. He sees Him, in vision, in the
bosom of the Father, as he himself had leaned on His breast
in an hour of sorrowful love.§ There is nothing to prevent our
supposing that in these years of calm and silence he may have,
like the other disciples, noted down in writing all the words of
Jesus, as the Holy Spirit brought them to his remembrance.
If there was one apostle called more than another to preserve
the loftiest and tenderest tones of the teaching of Christ, that
* Luke ix. 54. f 2 John, 10. J Eusebius, IV. 14. § John i. 18.

l6o BOOK FIRST.
one was assuredly the beloved disciple. The first time he
broke his long silence, men seemed to hear again the voice of
ancient prophecy. It was just after the fearful persecution of
Nero, on the rock of Patmos, that John wrote the epopoeia of
martyrdom; he recounted the sufferings and proclaimed the
triumph of the wounded and bleeding Church;* and this he
did, not as a Jew, narrow and infatuated in his prejudices, but
as a disciple of that new covenant which embraces all the
nations of the earth.t He borrowed nothing from ancient
prophecy but its sublime symbols and its tongue of fire, to
proclaim the divine judgments. The Son of Thunder reappears
in these terrible pages, but we mark also the disciple, the
worshipper of Jesus, who is presented to us at once as the Lamb
slain and as the Word of God, the Eternal one before whom
the whole heavens bow. Under this dazzling drapery, it is the
true heart of John which beats, that deep, tender heart, vehe
ment alike in its love and its reprobation.
An unchallenged tradition shows him subsequently at Ephe
sus, the Father venerated by all the Churches, presenting in
his great old age, the purest type of the spiritual priesthood in
the new covenant, f changed almost into the image of Him
whom he never ceased to contemplate, the living representa
tive of the love which stoops to save that which is lost, as is
witnessed by the touching story of the young brigand followed
* The external proof is conclusive, in our view, in favour of the
Revelation. Papias based on it his millenarian ideas, according to
Andreas (" Praefat. in comment, in Apocalyps "). Justin Martyr
quotes directly from it (" Dial, cum Tryph.," p. 179). The letter^of
the martyrs of Lyons makes constant allusions to it (Eusebius, V.
1; Irenaeus, IV. 20) ; Clement of Alexandria (" Stromat," VI. 66) ;
Tertullian ("'Adv. Marc," III., 143); Origen, Eusebius (VI. 25) :
confirm these testimonies. The doubts expressed about the Reve
lation by Denys of Alexandria are founded on doctrinal reasons.
See in my " Histoire des trois premiers siecles de PEglise," Vol. II.,
p. 491, the note in which I give my reasons for placing the com
position of this book before that of the Gospel.
¦f- Rev. vii. 9.
j TleraXov neipoprixiig. (Polycrates in Eusebius, " H.E.," III. 3).

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. l6l
by the aged apostle into the very haunt of his sin. * We see
him at issue with rising Gnosticism, and meeting it hand to
hand in his first epistle. If a Jacob Bcehme was able to rise
from the level of a workman's stall to the boldest height of
speculation, there can be no impossibility in conceiving that a
fisherman of Galilee, endowed with a great mind, and borne
on the wings of inspiration, may have seen clearly into the
speculations of his age, especially if we remember the sacred
motive which impelled him to penetrate them; he was not led
on by idle curiosity, but was seeking by all and any means, to
break the accursed spell which was mining souls. His first
epistle, the genuineness of which is generally admitted, f is
enough to prove that he had really acquired this kind of culture.
In the city of Ephesus appears a Gospel, which answers to
all the requirements of this condition of the age, a Gospel
which in its very prologue sets the true Christ of the Church in
opposition to the Christ of oriental Gnosticism, in which the
history of Jesus is invested with the charms of a tender mysti
cism, in which the contest between the powers of good and
evil forms the very basis of the narrative, in every page of
which words of pathos touch the heart to its depths, in which
more than one trait of marvellous exactness reveals the ocular
witness; — a Gospel, in short, in which the whole disposition of
events is so perfect, that it at once commends itself to the
mind. The style is much more correct than that of Matthew
and Mark, although the Hebraic element is recognisable in the
sententious turn of phrase; it is evident that the author had
long lived in a Greek atmosphere and had come to breathe it
naturally-! It is also evident from his perfect acquaintance
* Eusebius, "H.E.," III. 42.
t Papias in Eusebius, "H.E."III. 39; Polycarp,- " Ad Phillipp.,"
VII.; Irenaeus, " Contr. Hasres.," III. 16; Clement of Alexandria,
"Stromat," II. 389; Tertullian. "Ad Praxeam," XV.
! The author of the fourth Gospel is perfectly familiar with the
peculiar conditions of Judaism, with Jewish laws and feasts, and
with the text of the Old Testament (ii. 13 ; xii. 1 ; xviii. 25). He
M

162 BOOK FIRST.
with the peculiar institutions of Judaism that he was a Jew by
birth; but the great freedom with which he speaks of his
countrymen, pointing out his separation from them, shows how
entirely he had shaken off the yoke of the synagogue. Never
was there between a writer and his book, a more striking
accordance than between the fourth Gospel and the character
of John, such as the history of the first century reveals him to
us. Let us add that the author designates himself in a manner
which, though indirect, is unmistakeable. He was an ocular
witness of that which he recounts. " We beheld His glory,"
says he, speaking of Jesus Christ, " the glory as of the only
begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."* He is spoken
of more than once in the fourth Gospel, as the disciple whom
Jesus loved, and the narrative is distinctly ascribed to him.!
Now this beloved disciple can be only one of the three apostles
who were in close intimacy with the Saviour. He is distinguished
from Peter,f and he cannot be James the Greater, who was
slain by Herod Agrippa. We must then recognise in him John
the son of Zebedee.J The highest tradition of the ancient
Church confirms the authenticity of the fourth Gospel, and
attributes it to John by a body of testimony which consti
tutes valid evidence.
We will not pass in review the passages by which we are
certified of the universal and entire acceptance of our four
Gospels in the second century. But, on account of the import
ance of the point at issue, we will quote the principal passages
inserts; when occasion calls for it, the original Hebrew. See xi.
39, 40, which is a translation of Isaiah vi. 10. See also xiii. 18,
which is a translation of Psalm xii. 10. On the other hand he
gives explanations of Jewish customs which would have been need
less to his countrymen (i. 39 ; ii. 6; xi. 18 ; xix. 20). He speaks of
the Jews as of foreigners : oi 'loviaXoi (v. 1).
* Ch. i. 14. % Ch. xxi. 20, 24.
f Ch. xiii. 24 ; xx. 2 ; xxi. 20.
! John was the only one who could speak of John the Baptist,
calling him simply John, because he knew that he could not be
confounded with himself in the book which was from his own hand.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 1 63
which establish the authenticity of John's Gospel. It is well
known that in the age of Origen, of Clement of Alexandria, and
Tertullian, no doubt existed as to its genuineness.* The testi
mony of Irenaeus -is of yet more consequence to us. His millen-
arian speculations and bold allegories, of which Strauss makes so
much, do not prevent his being separated from John by only one
intermediary, viz., Polycarp at whose feet he passed his youth.
The bishop of Lyons would not express himself with such perfect
assurance upon the Gospel of John, if Polycarp had not spoken
to him of it; the silence of his master on such a book would
have been to him a reason for doubting its authenticity; it
would have withheld him from any categorical statements with
reference to it Polycarp himself came to Rome about the year
163, at a time when the fourth Gospel was accepted by that
great Church, as is proved by Muratori's canon, which expressly
recognises its admission at the centre of western Christianity.
Is it to be supposed that the friend of St. John would have
sanctioned, by his silence, a fraud so censurable as the fabrica
tion of such a work? If he uttered any protest, Irenaeus could
not" have been ignorant of it His testimony therefore carries
with it, by implication, that of Polycarp. Theophilus of
Antioch (176) furnishes us with the first explicit passage which
is wholly undisputed. + Apollinaris of Hierapolis,! interposing
in the year 170 in the dispute upon the celebration of the
Passover, points out the discrepancies of the Gospels on this
point, which implies that he was acquainted with our four
canonical narratives.
Polycrates of Ephesus speaks of John as the disciple who
leaned on the bosom of Jesus; now he could only have learned
* Iren^us, " C. Haeres.," III. 11; Tertullian, "Adv. Marc," IV.,
2, 3. Origen's " Commentary on St. John," vol. IV. of Huet
+ «09cv bibaOKOvaiv v/idg al liyiai ypatyal xai travreg oi Trvev/taTOtpopoi,
it, Siv 'liadvvriQ Xcyw 'Ev dpxg rjv 0 Xoyog (Theophil., "Ad. Antalyc,"
II. 22).
J " Chron. Paschale," p. 14. Apollinaris mentions also the
piercing ofthe side of Jesus, in evident allusion to John xix, 34.
M 2

164 BOOK FIRST.
this fact from the fourth Gospel.* Justin Martyr borrows from
him thoroughly characteristic words, such as these, "Jesus
Christ said : except ye be born again ye shall not enter into the
kingdom of Heaven." And "it is manifest to all that it is
impossible for those who have been once born to enter into the
wombs of those that bare them."f That which is more weighty
than a few quotations, is Justin's prevailing point of view; his
doctrine of the Word is entirely drawn from the fourth Gospel.
The apostolic Fathers allude to passages of St John. We
read these words in the undisputed portion of the letter of
Ignatius to the Romans : " I desire the bread of God which is
the flesh of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and I desire the drink
of God, His blood."! Polycarp, to whose testimony we have
already alluded, quotes the first epistle of John in his letter to
the Philippians.§ Papias does the same in the short fragment
of his which we possess; there is nothing to prove that in other
portions of his writings, now lost, this father may not have
quoted- the fourth Gospel. || At any rate, all testimony given to
the first Epistle reflects on this, so evident is it that the two
scriptures are by the same hand. In the apostolic Fathers, as
in Justin Martyr, there are more than texts and allusions, — there
is a peculiar mode of thought and of speech, a doctrinal type
which carries us back to St John. Whence could Ignatius,
and Polycarp, and the unknown author of the epistle to
* Eusebius, " H. E.," V. 24.
Justin; Apol., I. 61. It is pretended this quotation may be
from Matt, xviii. 18, but the second clause ofthe sentence does not
permit this interpretation. In order to hold with Strauss, that Justin
took his quotation from the " Clementines," where it is in fact found,
it would be needful to prove that* the reverse was not the case. What
would be gained, besides, on the supposition of a quotation from
the " Clementines," since it is certain that they quote directly from
the fourth Gospel ? See the dther quotations of Justin, " Apol.,"
II. 6; "Dial, c Tryph.," LXIII.
%"Aprov QeoO 9iXui, ogko-nv odp% Xpiarov, xai rb al/ia avrov wo/ia 9iX<o.
(Comp. John vi. 33-51.)
§ Polycarp, " Ep. ad. Philipp." VII. ; Eusebius. III. 39.
|| " Epiph. Haeres." LI. 3 • Irenaeus (" C. Haeres ," III. 11.)

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 165
Diognetus, have derived the doctrine of the Word — light and
life ofthe world — if not in this great school?
Heresy in the second century is not less positive than
orthodoxy, as to the authenticity ofthe Gospel of John. Alike
by the use it makes of it and the dispute it wages with it, it
implies its universal recognition. The sect of the Alogi, which
appeared about the year 150, is the only exception. But its
opposition was founded mainly on dogmatic grounds, as is
indicated by the name it chose. The Alogi gave weight indeed
to the discrepancies between the fourth Gospel and the
synoptics, but that which they principally objected to in the
narrative of St John was the doctrinal tone. They did not
dispute its high antiquity, since they attributed it to Cerinthus.
Marcion, who taught at Rome about the year 140, started' by
admitting its canonicity,* and only rejected it subsequently on
the ground of a supposed opposition between Paul and John,
which he thought he detected in the second chapter of the
Epistle to the Galatians.f Thus Marcion explicitly recognised
the fourth Gospel as the work of John; he rejected it precisely
on account of its authenticity, because he imagined that this
apostle had opposed the doctrine of Paul, whose orthodoxy
alone he admitted. The Montanist heresy, which arose about
the middle of the second century, rests entirely upon a false
interpretation of the writings of John; it borrows from the
fourth Gospel the name of the Paraclete given to the Holy
Spirit. The "Clementines," which date from the year 160,
contain a direct and indisputable quotation from this Gospel ;
it is found in the last part of the work recently discovered.
This contains word for word a well-known passage of St John.
"Therefore our Lord, in reply to those who questioned him
about the man blind from his birth, whom he had cured, and

Tertullian, " De Carne Christi."
t Marcion nactus epistolam ad Galatas, connititur ad destru-
endum statum eorum evangeliorum quae propria et sub apostolorum
nomine eduntur (" Adv. Marc," IX. 3).

1 66 ' BOOK FIRST.
who asked him, Did this man sin, or his parents, that he was
born blind? said: Neither hath this man sinned, nor his
parents, but that the glory of God might be made manifest in
him."* Tatian, the disciple of Justin, included the Gospel of
John in his work on the Four; he quoted it as holy Scripture.
The Valentinian Gnostics had it in constant use. f Heraclion
(in the year 150) the immediate disciple of Valentinus, devoted
an extensive commentary to it, from which it may be inferred
that the book had long been invested with high authority.
Valentinus used it in support of his doctrine ; the famous
manuscript discovered on Mount Athos in 1861, and known
under the name of Philosophoumena, contains two direct
allusions of the celebrated Gnostic to passages in this Gospel.
He borrows from it these words of Jesus. The Saviour said :
"All that went before me are thieves and robbers";! he calls
the devil the prince of this world. Further, Valentinus con
stantly made use of the terminology of the prologue. Basilides
preceded Valentinus; he taught at Alexandria about the year
120. Now the fragment of his works found also in the Philo
sophoumena contains two quotations from St John. " And
thus," he says, " it is said in the Gospels : that was the tme
light which lighteneth every man that cometh into the world." §
More than this, the writings of St. Hippolytus carry us back to

* " Clementines," Dressel ed. ; " Homilies," XIX. 22. (Comp.
Jo n ix. 23.)
+ Eusebius, " H. E.," XIV. 29. " Eo quod est secundum
Johannem plenissime utentes" (Irenaeus "Adv. Haeres.," III. 2).
" Philosoph," Dunker Edit., p. 284 (Comp. John x. 8.)
§ Ibid, pp. 336, 376. There is another quotation not so certain
from John ii. 4. The attempt has been made to do away with the
evidence of these quotations, on the ground that they are intro
duced with these words : — " We shall see how Basilides, how
Isidorus, and his whole school, do not simply attack St. Matthew,
but also Jesus Christ." It is inferred from these words, that no
distinction can be made in the " Philosoph." between the quota
tions of Basilides and those of his disciples. But evidently the
meaning of the author is simply that the disciples followed in the
steps of their master.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 1 67
the heretics of the beginning of the second century, to those
Ophites, who weje the direct successors of the false doctors of
the apostolic age, and who lived between the years no and
120. All appeal to the fourth Gospel. The most ancient of
them, the Naassenians, who are on the verge of the first
century, quote verbatim a passage from the third' chapter as a
biblical' declaration.* The Peratesf do the same. And
we are thus brought close up to the assumed date of our
Gospel. The most inveterate enemies of Christianity, such as Celsus,
admitted its authenticity.! The oldest apocryphal Gospels
tend to confirm it Thus, for example, the Acts of Pilate
quoted by Justin Martyr are obviously formed upon its model.§
The scene of the appearing of Jesus before Pilate is repro
duced almost word for word from John xviii. || Finally, the
fourth Gospel bears the attestation of its own origin. There is
reason for thinking that it may have closed with chap, xx., the
last words of which contain the conclusion of the narrative.
But whatever opinion may be entertained about the com
mencement of chap, xxi., it is certain that the 24th verse is not
by John, for it is wanting in all the old manuscripts. Now it
is worded thus: "This is the disciple which testifieth of these
things, and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony
is tme." Evidently these are his friends, the spiritual heirs of
the apostle, who, having received the Gospel from his hand,
appended to it this seal of assurance. IT These are surely those
* Touro io-Ti rb dptipevov, then comes John iii. 1-3. (p. 125.)
t P. 98. Quotation of John iii. 17.
! Celsus contrasted the fourth Gospel with the synoptics in his
famous pamphlet . See Origen " Contra Celsum, passim."
§ Justin, " Apolog.," I. 35, 48-
|| See Tischendorf's edition ofthe "Apocryphal Gospels."
IT Strauss maintains that the author of the fourth Gospel might
well speak so of himself, and bases his remark on an analogous
passage in the " Commentaries of Caesar." It is not necessary to
enlarge upon the differences between the proud recital of the great
Roman conqueror, in which he assumes the impersonal in order to
set his exploits in the stronger relief, and the general character of

1 68 BOOK FIRST.
presbyters of whom Irenaeus speaks, those survivors of the
great apostolic age, who surrounded the old man at Ephesus,
and received his last benedictions, when, worn out with age,
he was carried into the holy assembly to sum up all his life
and all his teaching in the words, " My little children, love one
another." From all these passages it follows not only that the Gospel ,
of John was accepted^ in the year 170, by the universal
Church in all its sections in- the east and west, but that testi
monies, conclusive by their number and value, carry us back
to Justin Martyr, and from Justin Martyr to the very confines
ofthe apostolic age. Yet more; heresy unites with orthodoxy
in guaranteeing the authenticity of this book, the traces of
which are found thoroughout the ecclesiastical literature of
that time and of all times. It appears to us that we must for
ever give up the appeal to historical proof, if it may be branded
with suspicion when it appears in such accumulation. Nothing
is more vain than to seek to evolve from the movement of
thought in the second century, that Gospel, which was itself
the impulse of the movement and its guiding force. Doubtless
the same hypothesis will yet reappear, for the human mind is
inexhaustible in its resources for self-deception, but it will not
long endure a critical examination. M. Renan has set aside
lightly, and without discussion, the conclusions of Baur — of so
little weight did they appear to him — and has assigned our
Gospel to the date indicated.
Upon the question as to what author is to be accredited
with this document of the first century, opinions are divided ;
some name John the presbyter, a mysterious personage of the
apostolic age known only by name;* they ground their opinion
the narrative of the fourth Gospel. Beyschlag (" Die Auferstehung
Christi," p. 36), remarks with justice, that the 21st chap, brings us
necessarily to a period very close to the death of the apostle, when
that event took his friends by surprise, in consequence of a false
interpretation ofthe words of Jesus (John xxi. 21, 22).
* M. Nicolas, " Etudes Critiques sur le Nouv. Test." p. 206.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 1 69
on the designation of elder, or presbyter, placed at the head of
the second epistle of John.* Others speak of the nameless
conclave around this apostle, which they call the ' school of
Ephesus.f In favour of the first hypothesis is urged the
difficulty of ascribing the fourth Gospel to the son of Zebedee.
This objection we have already met. When we are told that
no apostle is ever called an elder or presbyter, we content our
selves with citing the following text from St. Peter, " The
elders which are among you I exhort; who am also an elder
and a witness of the sufferings of Christ. " \ The advocates of
the second hypothesis complain of the excessive idealisation of
the fourth Gospel; according to them, the deeds and discourses
of the Saviour are reproduced in it with extreme freedom, or
rather they are re-fused in the crucible of the ardent enthusiasm,
fired at Ephesus by the words of John. An ocular witness, an
apostle might indeed inspire a narrative of this sort, but he
could not himself write it, and transfigure to such a degree the
history, which had been enacted before his eyes.§ To which
we reply, that in a time of scrupulous adherence to apostolical
tradition, it is impossible to suppose so bold a deviation, on
the part of John's auditors and disciples, from the teaching
delivered to them by him; nothing could be more contrary to
the custom of the time. Nor is any passage brought forward
in support of this supposition, invented only, as we shall soon
see, to establish another no less arbitrary; for we dispute the
character of exaggerated idealisation attributed to the fourth
Gospel. The same hypothesis had been already developed in France
with far less disguise. St. John, it has been pretended, in his
extreme old age, hardly recognised himself in the midst of the
* 2 John i.
t M. Renan, " Introduction to the Life of Jesus."
J 'O ovu.7rpt<rj3iTepog (1 Peter v. l).
§ Weizsaecker, " Ueber die Evangelische Geschichte," 1864. p.
289. This very remarkable work, exhibiting the loftiest intellect,
carries the arbitrary much too far in questions of criticism.

17° BOOK FIRST.-
contradictory influences by which he was assailed at Ephesus ;
but, very jealous of his credit, he dictated before he died, some
vague and incoherent narratives, semi-gnostic in substance but
tolerably correct in date, and above all very personal, he
betraying no little jealousy of his companions in labour,
especially of Peter. These recitals were so arranged as to
serve his petty rancours, and to set his own character in the
light, with that skill which never forsook him even before the
cross of his Master, and after the martyrdom of his friends.
Naturally, the disciples of the old apostle thought it no wrong
to arrange in their own method such a document, and to
introduce into it subtle metaphysics, and utterances "crade
and clumsy," such as the prayer in chap. 17.* "Pretentious,
weary, ill-written tirades," exclaims a refined critic, as he quotes
those pages before which we bow and worship ! There can be
no reply to such a judgment, for the elements of a common
appreciation are wanting. As to those petty and ignoble
passions which are said to have inspired John's most pathetic
narratives, we leave such insinuations to the conscience which
is able to distinguish the grand and the pure, from the base and
vile, and does not confound the mean rivalries of acrimonious
men of letters, with the noble fraternity of the apostles. But
that which fairly comes under a critical examination is the
unity of the work, which is demonstrated by the unity of plan
and of style, and by the perfect harmony between the thought
and the language, which betokens something very different
from the babblings of an old man, re-compiled by his disciples.
In truth, from the first chapter to the last, the history of Jesus
is unfolded in one uniform plan, descending into the minutest
detail. The fundamental idea of this Gospel is plainly set forth in
its conclusion: "These things were written that ye might
believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that believing ye
might have life through His name. "I In the prologue Jesus is
* M. Renan, " Life of Jesus." Introduction, 22. + John xx. 31.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 171
represented as the Son of God, bringing life and light to the
world He had created; He is the word "made flesh" and
dwelling among men, "full of grace and truth," received by
those who are bom of God, rejected by others. All the first
part of the Gospel, from chapter i. to xiii., traces out this
manifestation of the Word to men, and its twofold effect in a
circle ever widening till the final conflict comes. From
chapter xiii. to xviii. we have the confidential revelations of
Jesus to His disciples — all the scenes in the upper chamber.
In chapters xviii. and xix. we witness the crisis of the conflict;
even at the foot of the Cross we find the great division between
those who love and those who hate, between the children of
light and the children of darkness. Chapter xx. is devoted to
the resurrection. With this firmly-marked outline, the narra
tive proceeds in clear and consistent order ; the chronological
divisions are distinct, and the style is always uniform. It is to
us, then, an established tmth that the fourth Gospel is no mosaic
of texts proceeding from many hands, the prolix stories of an
old man, revised and completed by his friends, but a book
deeply impressed with the seal of unity. This characteristic
did not escape Strauss, who calls the author of this book
the Correggio of the evangelists, and admires his inimitable
art in distributing the light and shade, so as to produce
such impressive effects. Such an estimate is widely re
moved from that of the French critic; the two judgments
contradict each other; where the one sees clumsy meta
physics, the other recognises the finish of art. To us it is
the true sublimity of the divine, embodied in the truest human
form. Having now established the unity of the stmcture of this
Gospel (the 21st chap, always excepted), and having set aside
the hypothesis of a composite work, the produce of many
hands and of numerous emendations, we proceed to the
objections drawn from the book itself.
The inaccuracies of the narrative are urged. Their small

172 BOOK FIRST.
importance transmutes the objection into a proof in its favour,*
and we pass on to more specious arguments. In order to
deprive the fourth Gospel of its historical character, there is an
insisting upon the points in which it differs from the synoptics ;
the conclusion is drawn that there is a wide departure in this
account from primitive tradition. We have already shown that
the two forms of the narrative rest upon the same historical
basis, — that the synoptics imply the journeys to Jemsalem, as
the fourth Gospel implies the work in Galilee. There remains
no doubt one difficulty hitherto insoluble — the difference in the
date given for the death of the Saviour — which the fourth
Gospel places on the 14th of Nisan, that is to say, on the day
of preparation for the feast, while the synoptics speak of the
paschal supper as taking place on the very day of the festival,
from which it follows that the crucifixion must have taken
place on the 15 th of Nisan. t But the account of the fourth
Gospel is the most in conformity with the usages of Judaism,
which made the day of the Passover an exceptional day, on
* Objection is made to chap. i. 28 — the passage which points out
the spot where John was baptizing, under the name of Bethany —
as if the historian who has marked so exactly the locality of the
village .of Lazarus could confound it with a place so distant from
Jerusalem, and as if it were not possible to suppose a second
Bethany in Persea. Objection is again taken to John iv. 5, where
Sychar is put instead of Sychem. The mere admission of a
difference of pronunciation in the dialects of the time is enough to
obviate the difficulty. If the author calls Caiaphas the high priest
that year (xviii. 13), there is no reason to conclude that he repre
sents the high priesthood as an annual office. It is certain thai it
was subject at this period to frequent mutations. The expression
employed is in no way extraordinary (See Bleek, " Einleit. in N. T."
p. 208).
t According to the synoptics, Jesus really ate the paschal lamb
on the same day as the Jews (Matt. xxvi. 17 ; Mark xiv. 12-16;
Luke xxii. 7, 9). The day of his death would then be the 15th of
Nisan, the great day of the feast. According to John on the other
hand, the Lord was crucified on the day of preparation for the
feast, that is on the 14th of Nisan. (John xiii. 1, 29; xviii. 28 ;
xix. 14-31). The expedient proposed for evading the difficulty
appears to us insufficient, as we shall show in the account of the
Passion.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 173
which the Sabbatical regulations were enforced with an inflexible
rigour,* incompatible with the trial of a great cause by the
Sanhedrim, with the preparation of sweet spices by the holy
women attached to the Saviour, f and the return from the fields
of Simon of Cyrene. ! To allow of Barabbas being released in
time, we must suppose the Passover to have been not yet
eaten. It is in vain to urge in objection, the well-known
practice of the apostle John, who celebrated the Passover on
the 14th of Nisan, conformably to the tradition of the
synoptics. What John celebrated on that day was not the
Christian Passover properly so called, the observance of which
was not as yet either general or determined, but the Jewish
Passover; in this he only followed the decisions of the council
at Jerusalem, according to which the. Christians of Jewish
extraction were to respect the customs of their nation. These
decisions had fallen, in many points, into desuetude, but there
is nothing to show that John did not continue to act in con
formity with them. In any case, as he did not claim to be
celebrating the institution of the Lord's Supper, his practice
gives no contradiction to the narrative ascribed to him.§ It is
impossible to deny the superiority of the fourth Gospel in the
logical statement of facts. It alone gives a sufficient explana
tion of the decisive crisis, which led to the condemnation of
Christ, by tracing in broad outline His disputes with the
Sanhedrim, and by relating in detail the most astonishing of
His miracles wrought at the gates of the holy city. No
¦ * The 15th of Nisan was regarded as a feast as solemn as that
of the Sabbath. All work was forbidden, except the preparation of
the elements (Exod. xii. 16). This concession is withdrawn in
Leviticus and in Numbers (Lev. xxiii. 7 ; Numb, xxviii. 18). The
Talmud made these restrictions yet more severe. How can we
suppose, on such a day, all the judicial apparatus implied in the
synoptical account? According to Josephus, the Romans respected
the Jewish Sabbath. ("Ant1' xvi. 6, 2). See Bleek's work already
quoted, p. 182.
+ Luke xxiii. 56.
I Mark xv. 21.
§ Bleek's work, previously quoted.

174 BOOK FIRST.
argument can be drawn from the blanks observable in his
narrative. The author was acquainted with the synoptics, and
did not feel himself called to reproduce their records; there is,
beside, nothing systematic in these omissions, as if he had
intentionally, and with a set purpose avoided those circum
stances, which would bring out prominently the humanity of
Christ : he has described Him to us as overcome with weariness
and grief, and it is he who records His cry of anguish in the
temple, which is indeed the earnest of the groans of Geth
semane : " Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say?
Father save me from this hour, but for this cause came I to
this hour."*
It has been again objected to our Evangelist, that he has
suppressed all gradation in the manifestation of Messiah, while
in the synoptics Jesus reveals Himself only by degrees, and
according to circumstances, f But it must be remembered,
that John passes over in silence an important portion of the
career of Christ in Galilee, and that his great design is to give
us the highest and deepest revelations of the Master concerning
liimself. We maintain, however, that lofty as is the point
from which this evangelist starts, he does, nevertheless, bring
out a progressive revelation of the glory of Christ, from the first
discourse at Cana, to the sublime communications of the upper
chamber. It is the discourses of the fourth Gospel, however, which are
most strongly assailed. On the one hand, their anti-Judaic and
metaphysical character is exaggerated, as on the other, the
pretended Judaism of the synoptics is inordinately pressed.
There is an endeavour to establish as. marked an opposition
between our Gospel and its assumed author, as between
Gnosticism and fanatical Judaeo-Christianity. The conclusion
lies on the surface. This Gospel, it is said, could not have
come from a medium so opposed to the spirit which animates
it. It is the product of Gnosticism, and of a Gnosticism far
* John xii. 27. f Schenkel.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 175
enough advanced to treat with the opposing doctrine, as one
power with another; it is then nothing else than the treaty of
peace signed in the middle of the second century, between
Paulinism and Judseo-Christianity upon the cloudy heights of
metaphysics. We will not stay to refute this extreme opinion,
represented with so much brilliance by the development
school. Historical evidence has sufficed to set it aside.
But its main point is still held.* A pretended doctrinal
incompatibility is always asserted between the fourth Gos
pel and the synoptics; and, in consequence, between the
Scripture ascribed to John, and John himself, who was one
of the twelve. This opposition vanishes before an attentive
examination. Neither are the synoptics imbued with a Judaistic spirit to
the degree pretended, nor is the fourth Gospel as anti-Judaistic
as is affirmed We have already brought out the elements of
universality contained in our three first canonical narratives.
Matthew, like Luke, admits a wide extension of the kingdom
of God; the baptismal formula suffices to vindicate for the
gospel of the twelve, the character of a world-wide Chris
tianity and the elements of the metaphysics of the fourth
Gospel The first chapters of Matthew and Luke contain the
most explicit commentary on the famous text: "The Word
was made flesh, "f On the other hand, the Gospel assigned to
St. John fully recognises the privileges of the old covenant, as
proved by the divine words : "Salvation is of the Jews"! This
one utterance refutes absolutely the presence of even the most
modified Gnosticism. There is an attempt to make John one
of the heads of Judaeo-Christianity, in order to deprive him of
the honour of having written the Gospel of the Spirit. No one
disputes that he, like the other disciples, started with the most
materialistic ideas of the kingdom of Messiah, and that he stood
in need of a great moral transformation. But, after the
* Schenkel and Strauss have recently taken it up.
f John i. 14. ! Chapter iv. 22.

176 BOOK FIRST.
Pentecost, we do not see him taking any prominent part in the
Church of the upper chamber; he hastened to support the
proselytising movement which had declared itself in Samaria;*
at the time of the Council at Jemsalem he held out the hand
of fellowship to the apostle of the Gentiles, as we learn from
the famous passage in the Epistle to the Galatians, so contro
verted of late years, but' so plain to the unbiassed mindf
What difficulty is there in supposing that, under the teachings
of experience, and under the influence of inspiration, the great
soul of John may have gradually expanded ? Against this is
urged the ardent Judaism of the Revelation, but this we have
already reduced to its just value; we have traced in it, in a
form necessarily borrowed from ancient prophecy, the funda
mental doctrines of the fourth Gospel, namely, — adoration of
the Word, redemptive sacrifice, and salvation for all nations.
The representation of the last judgment, preceded by so many
preliminary judgments; the destription of the resurrection of
the dead, and of the glorious return of Christ, recall, doubtless,
the fervid colouring of the Hebrew prophets; but there is
nothing in these words in opposition to the Gospel which, by
the admission of the most eminent opponent of the authenticity
of the Revelation, did not stop at a purely moral conception of
judgment and the resurrection.! So far from the author pf the
fourth Gospel having borrowed from Gnosticism the terms, the
Word, the Life, the Light, the only Begotten Son; it was Gnos
ticism which took from him these metaphysical expressions;
they had, in truth, the double advaitage of lending themselves
to subtle interpretations, while they were consecrated by the
reverence of the Church. We do not deny that John spoke,
in a measure, the philosophical language of his age and his
* Acts viii. 14.
t " And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be
pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave to me
and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go unto
the heathen, and they unto the circumcision." (Gal. ii. 9).
X See Liicke's " Commentary on John," v. 28, 29.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 1 77
contemporaries. There is nothing more strange in this than in
Paul's quoting classic poetry at Athens. Only, it can never be
established, that with the words, John appropriated the thought;
for nothing is more opposed to his prologue than Platonic
dualism, or the false idealism of the East. Gnosticism was
sufficiently advanced at Ephesus, at the close of the first
century, for there to be a perfect response in the fourth Gospel
to the mental condition of the times. Through the Philosophou-
mena we watch the development of heresy, and the wild
systems, made known to us by the books of Hippolytus, carry
us back definitely to the times of St. John.*
One last question remains to be examined ; it is closely con
nected with the foregoing. Several theologians, who admit the
authenticity of the fourth Gospel, deny its historical character,
precisely on the ground of the discourses which it contains.
They regard it as only an essay of Christian metaphysics,
developing the favourite ideas of the author, t Facts are en
tirely subordinated to doctrines, and are rather symbols than
records. In support of this, the difference of language is
adduced between the synoptics and the narrative of John. In
the latter, it is said, are found neither parables nor axiomatic
sayings — nothing resembling the popular and striking tone of
Christ's discourses, as given in Matthew and Luke — nothing
that recalls that transparent clearness, that admirable adapta
tion to circumstances and to his audience ; but, on the contrary,
expositions always profound, turning on the most abstruse
points of doctrine, sententiously expressed — such, in fact, as we
meet in the Epistle of John. Let us first remark that the same
man may employ different modes of speech according to the
nature of the subjects of which he treats. Whatever share may
be assigned to invention in the dialogues of Plato, it is certain
* See the Chapter in my " Histoire des trois premiers siecles de
l'Eglise chretienne," on the " Early Gnostics," vol. ii.
\ M. Reuss is the most eminent exponent of this view. " Die
Gesch. Heil. Sehr." N. T., § 219. " Histoire de la Theolog du
Siecle Apostolique," vol. I., 2nd edition, p. 395.
N

178 BOOK FIRST. <
that they correspond to one phase of the teaching of Socrates.
Now there is assuredly as great a distance between his discourses
in Xenophon and in Plato, as between the rabbi of the synoptics
and the Christ of St. John. The fourth Gospel leaves on one
side the ministry in Galilee, which was carried on in the midst
of the common people ; it passes especially under our review
the disputes of Christ with the Pharisaic school at the centre of
the hierarchy, and it closes with the sacred revelations of the
upper chamber.
But let us not exaggerate even here; in the discourses which
John records there is many a parabolic turn familiar to Jesus ;
we instance the allusion to the living water and to the manna,
the similitude of the good shepherd and the hireling, and that
ofthe vine and the branches.*
Nor is it more correct to pretend that in the fourth Gospel the
teaching of Christ is always in a didactic form ; he does not speak
to the Samaritan woman in the same manner as to Nicodemus;
the dialogue is perfectly natural in its form, and lends itself to the
various incidents which arise. At Jerasalem, confronted with
the representatives of a formalistic tradition claiming Moses as
its founder, Jesus invokes the name of the great legislator; He
contrasts Abraham with those who pride themselves on being
his descendants, t With His disciples, at the parting hour, His
language is entirely changed, and assumes a tender mysticism
perfectly appropriate to those solemn moments. There is
nothing fictitious in the historical framework of the narrative ;
it is marvellously truthful. Geographical accuracy is not
neglected. The sacred historian recalls little incidental cir
cumstances such as would not be invented. This discourse
was uttered in Solomon's porch,! that, near the treasury in the
temple ;§ on another occasion, we are told it was night. || The
last conversation of Jesus with His disciples is broken by the
* John iv. 10-12; vi. 32, 33; x. 11-14; xv. 1-6.
f Ch. v. 45; viii. 56. ! Ch. x. 23. § Ch. viii. 20.
|| Ch. xiii. 30.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 1 79
words, " Arise, let us go hence,"* words which nothing but a
faithful recollection would have so introduced. It has been
observed, with much justice, that the author of the fourth
Gospel nowhere puts into the mouth of Jesus the metaphysical
terms, used by himself in his own name in the prologue.
Jesus never calls Himself the Word; the expressions light and
life do not retain, in the discourses, the profound and meta
physical meaning which they bear in the introduction to the
Gospel; they have simply the currrent acceptation.! Some
times the interpretation which the evangelist gives of the words
of the Master appears subtle ; he endeavours to solve a real
difficulty, and, without denying that he succeeds, it may yet be
said that he would assuredly not have brought forward such
and such a hard saying, if he had not received it from the lips
ofthe Master-!
But there is a fact more conclusive still. So little did John
draw from his own mind the sublime metaphysics of the dis
courses of Jesus, that these metaphysics were known and
admitted in the Church, before even the first line of our
synoptical Gospels was written. They form the basis of -the
teaching of St Paul in his letters to the Colossians and
Ephesians. Nearly half a century before the composition of
our fourth Gospel, the apostle of the Gentiles had declared that
all things were created by the eternal Christ, and for Him, and
that all the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Him bodily. § In
the Epistle to the Romans, the genuineness of which is uncon-
troverted, he had said that God has given us His Son, and
that after such a gift He would assuredly freely give us all
things. 1 1 The apostle Peter, in his first Epistle, written ten
years later, but nearly thirty years before the fourth Gospel,
explicitly avowed the pre-existence of Jesus, for he boldly
* Ch. xiv. 31.
t Weizsaeker, " Untersuch. iiber die Evang. Geschichte," p. 257.
The famous argument in John x. 35 would never have been invented
by the author of the prologue.
!' See John ii. 19-21. § Col. i. 16-19. II Rom. viii. 32.
N 2

l8o BOOK FIRST.
spoke of the spirit of prophecy as the " spirit of Christ"* We
have pointed out in the synoptics passages implying the same
doctrine. Thus, so far from these exalted metaphysics being
an invention of the school of Ephesus, at the close of the first
century, they formed an integral part of primitive tradition,
from the time that this comes within our grasp in a written
form. We know the reasons which made the beloved disciple
their most trusty guardian; he had laid them up in his heart,
and there is nothing to hinder the supposition that he may
have early committed his reminiscences to his tablets. In any
case, he preached his doctrine long before he composed his
Gospel. Now, I ask, whence could these metaphysics have
been drawn in the primitive Church at these remote times?
They might find some points of connection, so to speak, in the
national literature ; as, for example, in the growing personifica
tion of Wisdom, which we have noted in the Proverbs and the
Apocrypha; but they were none the less in collision with all
Jewish prejudices and all Gentile ideas. They could have had
no other source than the teaching of Jesus.
The ideal character of the Gospel of John is in no way in
compatible with its claims as a history; the psychological
insight which makes him discern and depict in the contest
between Jesus and the Jews, the opposition between light and
darkness; the sublime conception of love, which sees its ele
vation and triumph in its very humiliation ; all these lofty ideas
correspond to great realities. We should not be ready to grant
that historians, who by a powerful generalisation, evolve from
events their inner meaning, are thereby taxable with inexact
ness. Fidelity is not the monopoly of chroniclers. Has not
the title of historian been always reserved for those, who have
been able to show the concatenation of events, and to discern
their secret springs ?
If we are taxed with the analogy which exists between the
style of the first Epistle of John and that of the fourth Gospel,
* I Peter, i. 1 1.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. l8l
we ask first, if it seems more probable that Jesus should , have
moulded the mind of His disciple, or that the disciple should
have fashioned the Master in his own image, after having pro
claimed Him God ? That some part is to be assigned to John's
individuality in the reproduction of the discourses of his
Master, we are quite ready to concede; he translated and
compiled them ; he could not give them in their entirety, nor
reproduce, with perfect exactness, their original form; but, in
substance, and in all important features, these are the original
discourses, and it is Jesus and not John to whom we listen.
It is derogatory to this Gospel to regard it as simply the
supplement of the synoptics, or a refutation of the errors of the
times ; it supplements and it refutes by the simple fact, that it
recounts the evangelical history subsequently to the first
canonical narratives, and in the midst of heresies, of which it
necessarily takes note, while it yet claims to give us, in a
¦positive and individual form, all the history of Christ. We
possess in it the epitome of the teaching of the last of the
apostles: — of him who was nearest to the heart of Jesus. It
was written at the solicitation of the Christians of Ephesus,
after they had fasted and prayed to know the will of God; and
thus they received from the hands of St. John the living por
trait of Jesus, so much the more faithful because presenting
a more lofty ideal. *
We have vindicated the trustworthiness ofthe four canonical
Gospels. They are to us more than mere documents ; they are
the voice of the apostolic Church speaking at four different
periods of her development. Every narrative adds some trait
* We have the following passage, touching the Gospel of John,
in Muratori's " Canon : " " Cohortantibus condiscipulis et episcopis
suis, dixit: conjejunate mihi hodie trio et quid cuique fuerit
revelatum, alterutrum nobis enarremus. Eadem node revelatum
Andrea et apostolis, ut recognoscentibus cunctis Johannes suo
nomine cuncta describeret." St. Jerome preserves a similar tra
dition : " Coactus est ab omnibus pene Asia episcopis et multorum
ecclesiarum legationibus de divinitate Salvatoris altius scribere."
(Hieronym., " Praefat. in Matth.")

1 82 BOOK FIRST.
to the image of the Redeemer; and yet, all together, they are
still only the mirror " in which we see but imperfectly," until
the day of direct vision. They transmit to us with an extra
ordinary vitality the breath of inspiration, which animated the
Church of the apostles. This divine seal reveals itself to the
heart, and if there is mysticism in discerning it in our four
Gospels, we readily plead guilty to the charge.
Apart from this, however, we have reasons enough, based on
positive information, for concluding that our four canonical
narratives are historical documents, dating from the first century.
We are not, therefore, at liberty to alter them at our pleasure —
to treat them as a kind of mosaic, fragments of which may be
capriciously detached and rearranged in artificial combinations.
Such a method might be reasonable if our synoptics were only
a mass of doubtful traditions, with no other uniting bond than
an accidental juxtaposition. But it is not so ; they give us a
consecutive narrative, arranged on a definite plan; we are,
therefore, bound to take account of this plan, to explain the
particular by the general, and constantly to compare our four
Gospels one with another. This is our only way of escape
from that unrestrained use of the arbitrary method, so common
in reference to the Gospels, blending, dividing, and mutilating
texts the most distinct and complete; treating the Gospel
history, in a word, like a metal in fusion that may be poured at
will into any mould. Truth loses much by such methods of
dealing with her; which are deprived of all excuse, so soon as
our canonical narratives are admitted to bear the double
impress of the time of their origin, and the writers to whom we
owe them. There must be an end of that divination which
detaches texts, gently or otherwise, from the context, in order
to educe from them a preconceived idea — a sure method of
discovering everywhere one's own thought. A comparative
study of the Gospels, which respects the order of time, and
seeks to determine it with the most scrupulous care, costs more
labour, but it brings more gain to the searcher after truth.

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 183

CHAPTER V.
DOCTRINAL BASES OF THE LIFE OF JESUS.
r I THE doctrinal and strictly theological does not come within
-**- the scope of this book. It is not my province, then, to
establish here the great doctrine which is to me the central
point of Christianity — the Divinity of Christ and His Incarna
tion. Occasion will hereafter naturally arise for touching on
this in the portion of my work devoted to the teaching of Jesus ;
it will be necessary to examine whether or not He tmly asserts
Himself to be the Son of God. Apart from this, His Divinity
will shine forth from the entire history, beaming in every mani
festation of Himself in the Gospel times.
Let it suffice for me to say here that' I accept unreservedly
the prologue of John's Gospel; it is to me the necessary intro
duction to the life of Jesus. Taken in itself, apart from the
subtle commentaries of the metaphysicians of the fourth century,
it gives us a grand and simple idea of the Redeemer of the
world. By its first words it raises us to the highest conception
of God, showing Him to us before the world and before time,
in the very mystery of the divine life, the eternal realisation of
love, the union ofthe Father and the Son. " In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God." Over this relation of Father and Son hangs a sacred
veil which no human theory can pierce, for analogies are want
ing, and language is unequal to the weight of such thoughts.
The lightning gleam which illuminates these depths reveals to
us a living, loving God, who does not need to seek in the
created world the object of His love, but finds it in the Being

184 BOOK FIRST.
' like Himself, who is His perfect image. To create is not then,
a necessity with Him, as if only by producing a world could He
emerge from an inert solitude. Creation is a free act, an act
of love,' accomplished by the Word. " All things were created
by him and for him, and without him was not anything
created that was created." The moral creation is not His work
only, but also His reflection and manifestation. " In him was
life, and the life was the light of men. He is that tme light
which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." There
is, then, a natural and primordial relation between mankind
and the Word. The nobler life of man is a communication of
the Word. On this relation is based the possibility of the in
carnation of the Son of God; for it is evident that human
nature realises its ideal in Him, since in Him it finds the
plentitude of moral life.
According to the prologue of John, the uncreated light of
the Word shed some rays into the night of a world separated
from God. " The light shineth in darkness." But when the
world is to be redeemed and saved, and man lifted up to God;
then "the Word is made flesh;" which signifies, not simply
that He put on a human body, but became truly man, and
subject to all the conditions of our existence. Jesus Christ is
not the Son of God hidden in the Son of man, retaining all the
attributes of Divinity in a latent state. This would be to
admit an irreducible duality which would withdraw Him from
the normal conditions of human life. His obedience would
become illusory, and His example would be without application
to our race. No; when the Word became flesh He humbled
Himself, -He put off His glory, being "rich he became poor;
"arid was made in all points like as we are, only without sin ;"
that He might pass through the moral conflict, with all the
perils of freedom. He is the Son of God, who has voluntarily
abased himself; and this humiliation is the beginning, as it is
the condition, of His sacrifice. Of His divinity He retained
that which constitutes, in a manner, its moral essence; and He

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS. 1 85
is not the less man on that account, because man is only com
plete in God. Unless we would fall into a docetism which
would make a phantom of Christ, and an illusion of the Gospel,
we must needs admit, in all its import and with all its mystery,
this humiliation of the Word, — a truth far too much lost sight
of by the theological shool of the fourth century. In the pre
ceding age, in the midst of hesitations and uncertainties of
formula, there never ceased to be faith in Christ as truly Man;
there was no recourse to the dogma of the two natures, but a
faithful adherence to the beliefs of apostolic times, too living
and too profound to be lost in such metaphysical distinctions.
" Homo foetus est" said Irenaeus, "ut nos assuefaceret fieri del."
Thus, then, the Christ whose life we are about to trace, is
not that strange Messiah who possesses, as God, omniscience
and omnipotence; while, as man, His knowledge and power
are limited. We believe in a Christ who has become truly like
unto us; who was subject to the conditions of progress and
the gradual development of human life ; and who was " obedient
unto death, even the death of the cross." From such a point
of view, the Gospel is living and human ; it ceases to resemble
a Byzantine painting, stiff and motionless ih its frame of gold,
with all individual expression merged in conventional colouring.
"It behoved Him," says the author of the Epistle to the
Hebrews, "to be made in all points like unto His brethren, that
he might be a merciful and faithful high priest . . . . for
in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to
succour them that are tempted."* * Heb. ii. 17, 18.

BOOK SECOND.
Preparation of 3Icsus for J£>t$ motk.
GENERAL CHARACTER OF HIS PUBLIC MINISTRY.
CHAPTER I.
CHILDHOOD OF JESUS.
I. BIRTH OF JESUS CHRIST, YEAR OF ROME, 750.
ON the eve of a great religious event, souls are stirred by
strange presentiments. It is thus that, in Judaea — bowed
down and groaning under the Idumaean Herod — the hope of
Messiah manifests itself everywhere with singular vitality.
While the mass of the nation is given up to ardent visions of
vengeance and glory, a purer faith is found in all ranks of the
people, and under the most various conditions. Voices which
wake echoes in all parts of the country, declare with confidence
that the time of fulfilment is at hand ; they are heard at Jeru
salem,* under the shadow of the temple, close to those schools
in which religion is nothing more than a barren science ; they
reverberate in Samaria, where men talk together of the prophet
like unto Moses, promised in Deuteronomy.! Judging from
the success of the early ministry of John the Baptist and of
Jesus Christ in Galilee, these expectations appear to have been
very general in that province, which was called disdainfully
* See Luke ii. 25.
t John iv. 19 ; Deuteronomy xviii. 18.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 187
" Galilee of the, Gentiles,"* because it had been always less
strictly closed against foreigners than the other parts of Pales
tine, f Not from this province came illustrious rabbis and
men of power ; it was far removed from all that agitated Jeru
salem, but, for that very reason, it was more accessible" to
enlarged ideas. Far from offering to its inhabitants an asylum
of exceptional tranquillity, this province had been the theatre
of great political and religious agitation. It was on the shores
of the Lake of Genriesareth, under the humble roof of poor,
ignorant fishermen, that the expectation of Messiah had been
preserved in greatest purity. There the voice of ancient
prophets was not drowned in that of doctors of Pharisaic
tradition ; it retained its power in the midst of that grand
serenity of nature ; there the piety of mothers kindled that of
sons ; there grew up those who were to become, subsequently,
St. Peter and St. John. The tremor of expectation was com-
municatd even to the pagan world, especially in the countries
bordering on Judaea.! As the proximity of an unknown land
.is ascertained by breezes which have swept across it, so was
there, mingling with the atmosphere of the times, a breath
from the new shores, which the human soul was approaching.
To aspiration there came soon a response of positive reve
lation. For many centuries no new prophet had arisen; hence
there was a bitter consciousness of decline in the midst of that
rigid orthodoxy and faithful observance of the law, on which
men so prided themselves at Jerasalem. In vain might Herod
lavish, on the building of the temple, all the resources of an
advanced civilisation ; marble and gold could not make that
other than an empty monument, in which the presence of God
was no more revealed. " The dew of blessing falls not on us,
and our fruits are tasteless," exclaimed Rabbi Simeon, the son
* Matt. iv. 15. ¦
t Josephus speaks of the number of Greeks v.-ho dwelt there
("Vita," 12).
\ See Matthew ii. 1.

1 88 BOOK SECOND.
of Gamaliel.* The heavens must needs open again to fertilise
the parched ground, and to inaugurate a new era of moral
fruitfulness. It was in the temple that the long silence of the
voice Divine was at length broken.
Among the pious Jews of these times was a priest of the
name of Zacharias, of the family of Abia, one of those four-
and-twenty sacerdotal courses, instituted by David to attend to
the worship of God by rotation during one week.t Living in
retirement, he, with his wife Elizabeth, had kept the faith of
the ancient days, and being childless, he had known the
sharpest trial that could visit a believing Israelite, who looked
upon each new-born infant as the possible child of promise.
The holy city and the temple had preserved for him their
sacred character; thus, when his turn came to officiate for the
people, his prayer ascended to heaven with the incense that he
burnt before the altar, and bore with it a yearning sigh for the
deliverance of Israel. " Just as the muse visits only the poet,
so does inspiration descend only into the heart prepared for
it." This beautiful saying finds confirmation in the story of
Zacharias. As he was fulfilling his office, he was honoured
with a celestial vision. The angel Gabriel appeared to him on
the right side of the altar ; he told him that his aged wife
should be no longer barren, and that this second Sarah should
give to the world, a son consecrated to a glorious mission.
" He shall go before the Lord God in the spirit and power of
Elias, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." J Filled
with wonder and awe, Zacharias doubts, for a moment, the
* Gfrcerer II. p. 196.
t See 1 Chron. xxiv.
J Luke i. 17, 18. The angel restores to its true sense the text of
Malachi, which announced that Elias should be the precursor of
Messiah (Mal, iv. 5, 6). The people took it in a literal sense —
Ti ovv ot ypafifiaTUg Xsyovtnv 87-1 'HXi'av ieX IXBeXv irpwTov (Matt.
xvii. 10). The Jerusalem Targum reproduces the same tradition.
" Elias," it says, "is to be sent in the end of time to the captives of
Israel." (Gfrcerer, II. p. 228). The Jew Trypho asserted that
Elias would precede Messiah (Justin, "Op." p. 145).

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 1 89
power of God ; he is struck with dumbness till the day when
his tongue shall be unloosed, to magnify the blessed confusion
of his passing incredulity. His stay before the altar was pro
longed beyond the customary time ; the people were uneasy at
the delay, for an accident occurring at such a time to one of
the priests would have been taken as an omen of evil. Sud
denly Zacharias appears, pale with the solemn awe which takes
possession of a man brought into contact with the invisible
world. His enforced silence, his speechless gestures, all reveal
that he has been the witness of a mysterious vision. It is not
possible for us to determine its exact character; the evan
gelical narrative speaks only of a vision, and there is nothing
to constrain us to suppose a sensible manifestation of the
angel However this may be, the revelation is not the less
real, as was proved by the trembling joy of Elizabeth when
she felt that she was about to be a mother.
Six months later a similar scene was enacted ; not now in
the capital of Judaism, in the magnificent temple, and by the
altar of incense, but in the heart of Galilee, in a little city
called Nazareth, which lay buried in obscurity. There a young
virgin, named Mary, was living a humble life in the home of a
workman ; she was betrothed to one of her relatives, poor like
herself, and earning his bread by the sweat of his brow; this
was the carpenter Joseph. And yet this virgin was a daughter
of the kings of her people ; she belonged directly to the seed
royal, and could fairly claim David as her ancestor. We are
ignorant of the circumstances under which the most illustrious
of Jewish families had sunk into this low state, and had been
led to settle so far from its original home. The race of Jewish
kings was so deeply fallen, that it had not even preserved
accurately the proofs of its high degree, as is proved by the
insoluble contradiction of the two genealogies given in our
Gospels.* It is none the less certain that Mary and Joseph
* The two genealogies of Matt. (i. 1-18) and Luke (iii. 23-38)
present some notable differences. Matthew only goes back to

190 BOOK SECOND.
were the true descendants of David. St. Paul, who had been
so scrupulous a Pharisee, and who could not be mistaken on a
point of such, importance, confirms the frequently repeated
assertion of the sacred narrative.* We know, besides, that
there were yet living at the close of the first century, relations
of Christ, who were universally admitted to belong to the
family of David.f The emperor Domitian was at first uneasy
at this illustrious descent, which might lend itself to ambitious
or seditious views, but was reassured on seeing the horny hands
of these children of a king, become simple artizans.
Poor and unknown as was the virgin of Nazareth, she was
nevertheless the one "blessed among women" who was to be
the mother of the Lord. It is not needful to borrow the un-
Abraham, while Luke traces the line to Adam, agreeably to his
world-wide point of view. In this there is no serious difficulty.
The genealogy of Matthew follows Solomon's line, and Luke that
of Nathan, another son of David. But the two genealogies come
into contact twice with the nanies of Zorobabel and Salathiel
(Matt. i. 12 ; Luke iii. 27). The attempt has been made to obviate
the difficulty by supposing a marriage by the law of Levirate.
According to the Jewish law, the brother married the wife of- a
brother who had died without issue, and his first-born continued
the line of the dead (Deut. xxv. 6). This is the solution proposed
by Jul. Africanus (Eusebius, " H. E." i. 7). But we must then sup
pose three marriages of this sort, for the point is to explain the
triple difference of the two genealogies, in the father of Salathiel,
the son of Zorobabel, and, lastly, the father of Joseph, who is Jacob
in Matthew, and Heli in Luke. The explanation thus becomes too
complicated to be conclusive. As to the supposition that we have
in Matthew the genealogy of Joseph, and in Luke that of Mary,
this is incompatible with the text of Luke, which claims to give the
descent of Joseph (Luke iii. 23). It is better to admit that the
genealogical tables of the old family royal had long been very
inaccurately kept, — an added proof of the obscurity into which it
had fallen.
* 'Ex rrmpjiaTog &af3li, xard. to evayyiXwv p.ov (2 Tim. ii. 8).
According to my Gospel, signifies, according to the evangelical
traditions collected by Paul himself.
f 'Eti irepirjaav ot dirb ykvovg tov xvpiov vluvol 'Jovia, ovg kii}Xa-
rbpeyaav itg ix ykvovg bvrag Aafiib (" Hegesippus ap. Euseb. H E."
III. 20). It is, then, less absurd to admit the descent of Christ
from David than would appear from the negation of it by M. Renan
and the sarcasm of Strauss.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. I9I
real colours of legend in order to call up before the mind that
ideal type of purity, truth and artless faith, which the Gospel
limner has sketched in a few outlines, so true and tender that
Christian art has never been weary of reproducing it on its
canvas. Mary is not a sort of divinity born of clouds. She is
a true daughter of earth, and the humanity represented in her
is that feeble, fallible, suffering thing we know so well, only
she represents it in most touching humility and most assured
faith. In this virgin heart the long-drawn aspiration of man
kind — uttered as a deep plaint among the noblest of the
heathen, as a glorious oracle in Hebrew prophecy — becomes
the pure and perfect expression of the desire after salvation.
Mary appears on the old stem of Judaism like the flower on
the tree, marking the season of maturity. Let us encircle her
with no other halo than that glorious hope, which flashes out
in her song after the annunciation, and leave unlifted that veil
of heavenly modesty in which she enwraps herself when she
learns her high destiny, and of which she is never divested.
Poetry has no more beautiful creation than the scene of the
annunciation. Far are we from thence concluding , the relation
to be a myth. Why treat as, chimerical all which passes the
limit of -vulgar prose ? May we not suppose the ideal and the
real meeting in the Divine plan ? As Neander has said, when
Jesus Christ comes into the world, it is the , divine ideal be
coming a human reality.
Without entering upon any dogmatic controversy, we will
content ourselves with establishing that the miraculous con
ception of Jesus (everywhere implied in the New Testament,
even where it is not formally stated), is an essential part of
Christian doctrine.* He who is to be the head of a new race
* The Gospel of the Childhood in Matthew and Luke suffices to
establish the fundamental agreement between the synoptics and the
fourth Gospel as to the divine nature of Messiah. St. Paul implies
everywhere the miraculous conception ; how otherwise explain
Phil ii. 7, 8 ; Col. i. 15, 16. It is objected that Joseph is spoken of
more than once in our Gospels as the father of Jesus Christ. (Luke

192 BOOK SECOND.
which is to be at once divine and human — the realisation, that
is to say, of its primitive type — cannot 'be simply one of the
links of the long chain of natural generations, all tainted with
the evil which has, as it were, become incorporated in a fallen
race. It is impossible that he should save humanity if he has
to say with David, " I was conceived in sin." We must make,
as it were, a new beginning, and the second Adam cannot
destroy the work of the first, except on condition that he be
not of his descent. He must be born of a woman, and assume
a truly human nature ; but it is equally essential that the active
cause of his earthly being be not a corrupt humanity, but the
divine and creative principle. When the angel Gabriel, having
announced the miraculous conception to Mary with, that sub
lime chastity, which belongs only to a pure spirit, adds these
words, " Therefore that holy thing which shall be born of thee
shall be called the Son of God," he gives us the tme commen
tary on the grand saying of John, "The Word was made flesh."
As to explanations of this mystery, we can offer none, but such
as is contained in the words, " With God nothing is impossible;"
this will suffice for every believer in the omnipotent mercy,
which is the one foundation of the supernatural
The holy tremor of Mary, her simple and confiding accept
ance of her amazing destiny, her journey to the hill country of
Judaea, to mingle her joy with that of her cousin Elizabeth, the
first interview in which the two mothers confide to each other
their hopes — these features of Luke's narrative are fresh in
iv. 22 ; John i. 45 ; vi. 42). But this assertion is always put into
the mouth of the Jews as a sign of unbelief or of contempt, and it
is even so in the case of Nathaniel. Itdoubtless expressed thecurrent
opinion about Jesus. Luke himself removes the difficulty, when he
says in his genealogy that Jesus was supposed to be the son of
Joseph : £>v, ibg kvop.iKeTo, vlbg 'lw<ri}0 (Luke iii. 23). Objection is also
taken to Mary's uneasiness when the child remained behind in the
temple (Luke ii. 46). But this is to forget the reality of His hu
manity. As to the unbelief of His neighbours, it is easily explained,
if we consider how much less striking is continuous moral elevation
than that which is sudden and exceptional.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 193
every memory. The song of the virgin, as indeed all the utter
ances of the same nature preserved in the Gospels, retains the
character of the poetry of the Old Testament .- we find in it
both the form and spirit of the old sacred lyric. Hebrew pro
phecy, in its last manifestation, is like Elizabeth, who feels the
babe leap in her bosom, so soon as she sees the mother of the
Lord. The future about to be revealed quivers, as it were,
beneath the tissue of pregnant symbols, like a bud ready to
burst Mary's whole nature flows out in the " Magnificat," full
of fervent gratitude and deep humility.
" My soul doth magnify the Lord,
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour ;
For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden :
For behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed ;
For he that is mighty hath magnified me, and holy is his name ;
And his mercy is on them that fear him, from generation to gene
ration.
He hath showed strength with his arm ;
He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts ;
He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them
of low degree :
He hath filled the hungry with good things, but the rich he hath
sent empty away."
These words are like a foreshadowing of the first of the
beatitudes: "Blessed are the poor in spirit." Nothing can
better show that we have reached the point of contact between
God and man, than the fact that the last utterance of the old
covenant is the opening word of the Gospel.
None of all the great prophets has expressed a firmer hope
of Messiah than this daughter of Abraham, recalling, on the eve
of its actual accomplishment, the first of the promises made to
the father of her people.
" He hath holpen his servant Israel,
In remembrance of his mercy,
As he spake to our fathers,
To Abraham and his seed for ever."
Hardly had the virgin returned to her native town, when
Elizabeth brought into the world the child so long waited for,
o

194 BOOK SECOND.
who was to be John the Baptist. Zacharias recovered his
speech; the breath of inspiration touched the lips which had
been mute for so many months. As if the better to mark the
religious significance of this birth, the father is merged in the
prophet. He regards it, first of all, as the precursive sign of
the great event which was about to be accomplished for the
salvation of the world. His horizon is not wider than that of
his contemporaries ; he rejoices in the thought that Israel shall
be "delivered from the hand of her enemies;"* but this de
liverance will be a work of mercy ; its result will be the re-
establishment of holiness and righteousness, " and the remission
of sins."f It is only after having thus first spoken of Messiah,
that Zacharias describes in these beautiful words the mission
of his son : — "And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of
the Highest, for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to
prepare his ways."! This prophetic psalm winds up with an
image of truest poetry. The coming salvation is represented
as " the dayspring from on high,"- — the celestial morning which
is to break upon the darkness of the world.
Mary was the betrothed of Joseph -. the form of the latter
is but faintly outlined in the Gospel history. Nothing is less
like the methods of fable, than the account of his scruples
when he learns the condition of his future wife. Apprised in a
dream of the mystery which he had taken for her shame, he
does not hesitate to marry Mary, for he knows that the child
she bears shall "save his people from their sins." He was
awaiting the event when an unforeseen circumstance led him to
the little town of Bethlehem, whence originally he came.
King Herod was reaching the term of his long career, in
which his successes were numbered by his crimes. The old
despot owed his throne only to the favour of Augustus ; thus he
showed himself as servile towards Rome as he was implacable to
the Jews; it was not likely, at a moment when his failing powers
warned him that he must make his last stroke of policy, by
* Luke i. 71. f ch. i. 74, 75. J ch. i, 76, 77.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 1 95
assuring his power to his children, that he would refuse to lend
himself to any desire or whim of his all-powerful protector.
Now Augustus had begun just at this time to take a census of
his empire; he wished to obtain an exact statement of the
resources of each province, according to positive evidence ; he
included in this enrolment the allied kingdoms, which were in
reality dependent on his authority ; only, according to the
ancient and wise policy of Rome, he permitted a compliance
in form with the usages of the country. Nothing then need
prevent our supposing a first census in Judaea, made con
formably to the Jewish customs, which took account rather of
a man's birthplace than of his residence. Herod was not the
man to refuse Augustus a satisfaction so unimportant as this,
or to assert the independence of Judaea ; it is well known how
ready he ever was to sacrifice such considerations, when his
own interests were concerned. This first census preceded the
more general one which took place some years later under
Cyrenius, who was the governor, after Syria had been reduced
to a Roman province.* It was thus a political measure,
* We quote the much controverted text of Luke, according to
to the " Codex Sinaiticus :" — avTr] diroypapri iykvero Trpuirrj rjyefio-
vevovTog rijg 'Svpiag Kvprjviov. It is impossible not to observe the
place occupied by the word npwrri in the oldest of the manuscripts.
It is ,not, as in subsequent texts, separated from the genitive
¦nyep.ov6vovTog, but immediately precedes it ; it is then very probable
that, notwithstanding the exceptional hardness of the phrase, it
governs the words which follow it, so that we may strictly translate
thus : — " This census took place before Cyrenius was governor of
Syria." Without enumerating the various examples of similar
' phraseology which may be found in Greek literature (See Tholuck
" Glaubwiirdigkeit," p. 181), we will confine ourselves to recalling
the words of John the Baptist : wp&rog v.ov ijv, " he was before me "
(John i. 15). Evidently npwrog- here governs the genitive. If this
translation is admitted, it removes the great difficulty presented by
any other version : for the general census presided over by Cyrenius
did not take place till ten years later. I can see, on the other
hand, no difficulty in supposing that Herod may have consented to
meet the wishes of Augustus. It is certain that Augustus was
constantly occupied with the thought of adjusting the balance of
his empire, and the allied kingdoms dependent on it (Suetonius,
0 2

196 BOOK SECOND.
entirely foreign to any religious consideration, which led
Joseph and Mary to the city of David The Jewish law laid
no obligation on a woman to undertake such a journey, for the
writing of her name was enough ; but who can wonder at the
" Octavius," c. XXVI 1 1 .) Savigny, after having shown that from the
commencement of the empire there was an endeavour to introduce
the census in all the provinces, admits that the mode of taking the
census varied according to the customs of the countries in which it
was made (''Zeitschrift fiir geschischltich. Rechtwissenschaft," vol.
VI.) There is also a curious passage of Suidas which speaks
expressly of a first census made throughout the empire under
Augustus (Tholuck, " Glaubwiirdigkeit," p. 194). Herod made the
census willingly, not as a subject, but as a royal ally ; that is in
the form appropriate to the customs of his kingdom. Thus all
objections are removed. A novel attempt at explanation has met
with great success. Zumpt, in his book entitled " De Syria
Romana provincia ab C. Aug., ad T. Vespas." (1854) endeavours to
show that Quirinius was twice governor of Syria. Tacitus records
that Quirinius crushed the nation of the Homonadensians in Cilicia,
after his elevation to the consulate and before he had been sent out
as guide to C. Caesar in his expedition into Armenia ("Annals,"
III. 48). His consulate dates from the year of Rome, 742, and his
expedition into Armenia about 756. He defeated the Homona
densians, then, in this interval ; but he could only have done it as
governor of Syria, for Silicia was then a dependency of that
province. Now the names of the governors of Syria being known
up to the year 750-51 B.C., his entry upon office is brought up to
that year. It follows that he must have been for the first time
governor of Syria in the year of Rome, 750, the actual date of the
birth of Jesus Christ. Mommsen arrives at the same result by his
reading of the medal found at Tivoli, and struck in honour of a
consul, the conqueror of a valiant nation, twice governor of Syria,
and who survived Augustus. Now these designations apply only
to Quirinius, conqueror of the Homonadensians, and the only
one of the legates of Syria who lived under Tiberius. Mommsen,
on the same ground as Zumpt. places the first governorship of
Quirinius on the verge of the year 751. This result is assuredly
of great interest ; the difficulty however still remains that
in 750 Judaea was not a Roman province (see Mommsen's
" Notes on the Monuments of Ancyra"). The entire debate
has just been re-opened by the learned pamphlet of M. Henri
Lutteroth, entitled " Le Recensement de Quirinius" (Paris, 1865).
Rejecting the solution which we have accepted, and which is due
to Herwart, the author proposes to connect Luke i. 80 with Luke
ii. 1. "The child," says the Evangelist, speaking of John the
Baptist, " grew and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the desert

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 197
yoting wife, situated like Mary, accompanying her protector ?
Beside, she was not ignorant of the prophecy which pointed
out Bethlehem as the city of Messiah. From Nazareth to
Bethlehem is about four days' journey, especially for a poor
family without any vehicle at command, and treading on foot
the dusty roads of Palestine. After passing the plain of
Jezreel, and smiling Samaria, the hill country of Judaea, stony,
and often arid, has to be traversed. Joseph and Mary travelled
like poor pilgrims. Thus, on their arrival at Bethlehem they
met with no eager reception, and when they knocked at the
door of a humble inn, there was no room for them, as Luke
tells us in his simple, touching words. Mary found only a
stable for her shelter; and there, not in a cave, as says the
legend, the Redeemer was bom.* " Not only," says Bossuet,
till the time of his shewing to Israel." M. Lutteroth understands
by this "shewing to Israel" the first participation of John the
Baptist in the passover feast, which took place with young Jews1 at
twelve years of age. The following verse (Luke ii. 1) gives us the
precise date of that event, by pointing to the census under Cyrenius.
Thus the edict of Augustus was published at the time when John
celebrated his majority. Our principal objection to this explana
tion arises from the meaning which M. Lutteroth attaches to
Luke ii. 6. The Evangelist, after connecting the census under
Cyrenius with the journey of Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem, adds,
" And so it was that while they were there the days were accom
plished that she should be delivered." "'Eysvero it iv Tif elvai
abroig ixfX iirXt)a9riaav ai r)u.kpai tov tck.Xv abrriv," It appears to us
evident that the second fact is closely connected with the first.
M. Lutteroth is obliged to dissever them entirely, for according to
his theory, the birth of Jesus Christ took place twelve years before.
He is compelled to supplement Luke's text thus : — " It was there
they were also when the time came that she should be delivered."
It seems to me impossible to admit that the capital event of the
Gospels and of history should be thus casually mentioned, and
linked as an' episode to a fact so insignificant as the first participa
tion of John the Baptist in the passover.
* M. Renan denies, without any proof, the birth of Jesus at
Bethlehem (" Vie de Jesus," p. 17). Strauss does the same. There
is no real contradiction in the Gospel narrative. If Matthew says
nothing of Nazareth, as the habitual residence of Joseph ahd Mary,
he does not invalidate the evidence of Luke. It is objected, that
on the return from Egypt, Joseph and Mary do not think of first

198 BOOK SECOND.
" does He seek no human splendours, but to show how little
He accounts of such, He places himself at the farthest extreme
from them all. Hardly can he find a spot lowly enough to be
His birthplace ; He meets with a half-fallen stable, and into
this He descends. He accepts all that men shun, all that they
fear, all that they despise, all which repels their senses, in order
to show how vain and imaginary are to Him all the glories of
the world"* "Si ignobilis, si inglorius, si inhonorabilis, meus
erit Christus," \ exclaims Tertullian, in the contemplation of so
much glory in so much abasement.
This great event, the most momentous in the history of the
world — since it divides it into its two great parts, and is the
hidden pole around which gravitate all human destinies — took
place as unheeded as the most obscure.! No one marked it,
going to Nazareth (Matt, ii. 21). Nothing prevents our supposing
that after the memorable events which had been accomplished at
Bethlehem, their first intention may have been to settle there.
Against the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem, is brought forward also,
John vii. 41 , 42 But this passage gives the opinion of the ignorant
multitude, not that of the evangelist.
* Bossuet, " First Sermon on the Nativity of Jesus Christ."
+ Tertullian, " Contra Marcionem," III. 17.
X The date ofthe birth of Jesus Christ should be assigned not to the
year of Rome 754, marked by the ordinary era, but to the year 750 ;
and that for the following reasons : — First, it is clear that Jesus Christ
was born* before the death of Herod (Matt. ii. 1). Now, according to
Josephus(" Ant.," XVII. 8, §1 ; '• De Bell. Jud.," 1. 33, §8), Herod died
about the month of Nisan, 750. This may be inferred, also, from
the eclipse of the moon which, according to Josephus, took place
during the military insurrection which preceded his death by a few
months. Now Kepler has calculated that this eclipse must have
happened in the year 750 (" Le Recensement de Quirinius," par
Lutteroth, p. 5). Secondly, Kepler also assigns to the year 748
the sidereal conjunction which led to the journey of the Magi. We
shall recur presently to the explanation of this phenomenon. Now,
according to Matthew ii. 16, we see that this ought to have occurred
two years before the birth of Jesus Christ, because Herod caused
to be put to death all the children of that age as contemporaries of
Messiah ; we are thus brought to the year 750 for the birth of Jesus.
Thirdly, we shall see, further on, that the baptism of Jesus Christ
took place in the year 780, according to Luke iii. 21 ; now He was
thirty years of age at this period. The approximate expression

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 1 99
except the angels in heaven, and some shepherds who were
keeping their flocks on one of the hills which surround Beth
lehem. It was at a season of the year when the softened tem
perature sometimes made it needless to lead the sheep into the
city at evening time. It was, doubtless, one of those beautiful
oriental nights when the heavens proclaim nothing but mercy.
These simple men were chosen as the first to receive the good
tidings of great joy, because they were waiting for it Every
thing in those fields, where the young David, like themselves,
had fed his flock, reminded them of the promise made to his
race, and they, as well as the scribes at Jerasalem, had doubt
less read the mysterious oracle, which declared that the very
ground they were treading should be the cradle of Messiah.
Suddenly the startled air resounds with a mysterious choir; they
hear angelic voices, and Divine words proclaim in their ears —
" Glory to God in the highest.
Peace on earth, good will towards men."
The shepherds believed the things which were spoken ;
simple, artless men they were, who had not learnt in the schools
(ui-TEt) only refers to months and not to years. This date again
gives us 750 as the year of His birth. After the year, it has been
attempted to determine the month ; a very ingenious calculation
has been made to fix the date of the vision of Zacharias, by search
ing out the time of the year when the priestly course of Abia, to
which he belonged, commenced its service in the temple. Now
the course of Abia, should begin its office in the month of October,
if it is true, as the Talmud has it, that the order of Jajarib was in
office on the 9th of the month Ab, the day when the second temple
was destroyed. We must reckon a year and three months from
October, 748, to the birth of Christ, since the annunciation took
place in the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy. In any case,
Herod died in the month of Nisan. Jesus Christ was certainly
born before his death. The same result is reached in a surer way
than the necessarily hypothetical calculation founded on the order
of the priests' service. The, presentation in the temple was before
the month of Nisan, the date of Herod's death. Now it took place
forty days after the birth of Jesus. This brings us precisely to the
month of February, or the end of January. (See Wieseler, " Chro-
nologische Synopt. der vier Evang.,'' pp. 49-150.)

200 BOOK SECOND.
at Jerusalem to admit as possible mercy only that which a
Pharisee could comprehend. They deemed it not strange —
and we are at one with them— that angels, man's elder bro
thers, dwellers in a purer region where evil had not come,
should celebrate with their sweetest songs such an event as the
birth of the Redeemer.
Bethlehem is built on a little hill ; it is surrounded with
lesser hills which seem to rise in regular gradations, and do
not shut in the horizon. Beyond these graduated heights, a
soft and yet striking landscape stretches away to the moun
tains of Moab and the steppes of the Dead Sea. The shep
herds were encamped on one of those lovely meadows, planted
with olive and fig trees, which may still be seen ; from thence
they set out in haste to the town, and in a steep and narrow
street they found the holy child wrapped in swaddling clothes
and lying in a manger. They know His glory, and they see
His humiliation. In lowly adoration they fall at His feet
These poor men, rich in faith and love, are the first retinue of
the King of souls, as the cradle is His first throne. No. honour
could better become Him, nothing could better show over
what kingdom He came to reign. "O! with what majesty
does He appear to the spirit," exclaims Pascal. Mary looked
on, adoring with trembling so much greatness in so much
frailty ; she made of all these memories a sacred treasure which
she " kept in her heart,"* to transmit them unbroken to the
Church. II. The childhood of Jesus.
None of the observances commanded in the law was neg
lected for the child Jesus. Assuredly a fictitious history would
not have admitted rites which might seem to deny His original
purity, and which were only the signs of His complete incor
poration with His people and mankind. Eight days after His
birth He was circumcised, and solemnly received that name of
* Luke ii. 19.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 201
Jesus which found in Him alone its full signification. On the
fortieth day, after the legal purification of the mother, Joseph
and Mary brought Him into the Temple, to present the offering
which redeemed from the priesthood every first-born male child
of Israel. * The rich offered a lamb ; the poor two turtledoves.
This was the sacrifice of the family of Joseph the carpenter.
But that great contrast of humbleness and glory which per
vades the whole life of Christ appears again in this hour.
Hardly is the child borne across the threshold of the Temple,
when He is hailed by a prophetic voice. The aged Simeon
declares that he is now ready to depart in peace, since on his
closing eyes has shone the light which is to lighten all nations. t
Inspiration bears him higher still, and he foretells at what a
price this salvation of the world will be purchased. This feeble
new-born child shall divide mankind, and the thoughts of many
hearts shall be revealed. He is set apart for many sorrows, and the
soul of Mary His mother shall be pierced through with a sword. J
The double prophecy of Simeon receives a speedy confir
mation after the return of Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem,
where it would seem they then wished to fix their abode.
While the best representatives of the heathen world are bring
ing Him their homage, the life of the child is menaced by the
king who-is seated on the throne of David. His earthly career
opens under this ray of glory and this glare of hate.
A sidereal phenomenon, which consisted in the conjunction
of three planets, with which might, perhaps, be associated the
appearance of one of those passing stars, which astronomers
have marked from time to time, had drawn some devotees of
the religion of Zoroaster from the far East to Palestine. Clearly,
the precursive sign of the Messiah must first have arisen in
their hearts, or they would not have sought it in the heavens ;
if this great hope had not been illuminating their dim antici
pations, they would not have connected it with a natural ap
pearance, which had in itself no religious significance. We
* Levit. xii. 4-6. t Luke ii 31, 32. ! ch. ii. 35.

202 BOOK SECOND.
have already shown that the religion of Persia was more acces
sible than any other eastern superstition to the idea of a
Messiah ; human life was not in its creed, as in the pantheism
of India, an evil dream, which man must seek to shake off as
speedily as possible, either by asceticism or annihilation ; it
represented life as a real combat between beneficent and
maleficent powers ; it recognised the intervention of supe
rior beings in our destiny, to effect our deliverance ; it
believed in godlike ' heroes, the servants or representatives of
Ormuz. Parseeism had departed farther and farther from the
fatalistic dualism with which it started ; it had become purified
by its contact with Judaism since the exile in Babylon. The
dispersion of the Jews thoughout the East had augmented
their influence. There is nothing improbable in the supposi
tion that men like the Magi, belonging to the elite of their
nation, may have had knowledge of some of the oracles of the
Old Testament Their aspirations were confirmed by what
they learnt of the Messiah looked for in Judaea. In this atti
tude of heart and mind, a sidereal phenomenon, which we know
to have actually taken place two years before the birth of
Christ, came to animate their hopes. Doubtless they still
shared the superstitions of the ancient East as to the influence
of stars, and sought to read the future in the vault of night
But they were sincere seekers after the true God, and He would
be found of them.
The sidereal appearance which led to the journey of the
Magi was no miracle, else it would have aroused a universal
astonishment, of which some trace would have been preserved
by the historians of the time. Persian savans have confirmed
it by their observations. There is, therefore, no reason for
supposing the phenomenon to be other than the conjunction
which, according to Kepler, took place about this period.*
* Kepler arrives at this result in the following manner. At the
close of the year 1603 (Dec. 17th), he noted the conjunction of
Jupiter and Saturn, completed by Mars in the following spring ; in

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 203
' The Magi bent their steps towards Judaea, probably from' a
previous acquaintance with Jewish prophecies, or from a dis
tant echo which had reached them, to the effect that Messiah
was to be born in that country. Arrived at Jerusalem, they
are compelled to inquire were is the town in which He is
expected. The re-appearance of the star over Bethlehem con
firms the exact indications given them. Now a star could not
stand over a house ; its shining could not be thus concentrated
on one point. But it is quite possible that, after being for a
time hidden, it might re-appear at the very moment in which a
fixed spot is reached. The Gospel narrative uses popular
language, as when it speaks of the rising and setting of the
sun, and makes no pretence to scientific exactness in the
description of natural appearances. Thus the Magi were led
into Judsea primarily by their holy aspirations. What manner
of Child shall this be who attracts so far pilgrims from a strange
and heathen land ? The time is come when national barriers
are about to be thrown down ; more than a mere son of David is
here, and a kingdom greater than that of Solomon is at hand.*
the autumn of the same year, a celestial body, till then unknown.
appeared in the neighbourhood of Jupiter and Saturn, to the S.E.
of Scorpio; it ceased to be visible in March, 1606. Kepler was
anxious to ascertain whether a similar phenomenon might not have
occurred about the time of the birth of Christ. His calculation
brought him to the conclusion that such a conjunction had occurred
in the} year 748. He supposed that a celestial body of the nature
of that which he had observed, might have appeared at the same
date. Now, by a very remarkable coincidence, the chronological
tables of China show that a star which was only visible for seventy
days was noted in the year 748. (Wieseler, p. 64.) It is true that
Jesus Christ was not born till 750, but the Gospel text shows clearly
that the star must have appeared two years previously, since Herod,
after having inquired exactly what time the star appeared, had all
the children of that age put to death. 'Hxpifiuire. tov xpuvov r<»>
Qaivofikvov darkpog (Matt. ii. 7).
* Strauss (p 373) does not fail to give a mythical origin to the
star of the Magi, referring it to the star by which Balaam represents
the coming of Messiah (Numb. xxiv. 17). But there is one great
difficulty in this interpretation, namely, that what is pointed out in
the oracle of Balaam is not a precursive sign of Messiah, but

2°4 BOOK SECOND.
The Magi having been warned in a vision that Herod is
only awaiting- their tidings to put the Holy Child to death,
return privately to their own country : the king, in his wrath,
commands the massacre of all the male children of two years old
and under in the territory of Bethlehem. Such a crime has
been considered improbable, and the silence of Josephus has
been urged against it, as if the murder of a handful of children
in a little town might not be lost, in the midst of all the
atrocities which stained especially the latter years of the life of
Herod. Assuredly, he who had immolated a cherished wife, a
brother, and three sons to his jealous suspicions, and who
ordered a general massacre for the day of his funeral, so that
his body should not be borne to the earth in the midst of
universal rejoicing, — such a monster would not recoil from a
measure so insignificant in his eyes, when the object was to
prevent a dangerous explosion of religious fanaticism. What
recks he of the weeping of mothers ? A little earth soon stifles
that; but it goes up — a terrible cry — to heaven, "In Rama
was there a voice heard" says the Evangelist, quoting from
Jeremiah: " Rachel weeping for her children, and would not
be comforted, because they were not."* This pathetic per
sonification of the unhappy city is better understood when one
sees at its gates the tomb of the wife of Jacob : the name of
Rachel was thus closely linked with Bethlehem, t
Messiah Himself. This does away with all analogy between the
text brought forward and that of Matthew.
* Matt. ii. 1 8.
t We find in the literature of the Talmud a significant confirma
tion of the historical character of the Gospel of the childhood, in
fact we find the rabbis borrowing from the first chapter of Matthew
and Luke their most characteristic traits to apply to the future
Messiah, which they would not have done if the evangelical tra
dition had not acquired a great ascendency. In this respect the
following passage from the Sohar is significant : Revelabitur Mes
sias in terra Galilcza, et Stella quadam in plaga orientali existens,
absorbebit septem siellas, quando revelabitur Messias. We read
elsewhere: Orietur e plaga orientali stella quadam. (Gfrcerer II.
358). A proof that this allusion to the star which was to precede

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 205
Joseph and Mary had fled into Egypt, in consequence of a
dream in which they had been warned of God of the peril that
threatened their child. They remained there only a short
time, for Herod died a few weeks after their flight, in the
spring of the year of Rome 750. Joseph, on his return, left
Bethlehem for ever ; he feared that the direct heir of Herod
might show the same animus as his father. He settled in
Galilee, in the town of Nazareth, which had been his abode
before the great events of that memorable year had made him
desirous of dwelling in the city of David.* Apocryphal litera
ture has evinced a great predilection for this period of the
history of Jesus, just because it has been left in the shade by
the Gospel.f We shall imitate the sacred reserve. It is
Messiah goes back to a date much more ancient than the book of
Sohar is, that the famous agitator Bar Cocheba, who led the
rebellion of the Jews under Trajan, was called the Son ofthe Star.
Rabbinical literature has also preserved, in its manner^ the trace
of the massacre of the children at Bethlehem. It makes Pharaoh
issue a decree answering exactly to that of Herod, with reference
to the Israelitish children of the time of Moses. Now Moses was
more and more regarded as the type of Messiah. We will confine
ourselves to quoting the following passage : Dixerunt magi ad
Pharaonem ; Nactus est puer qui educet Israelitas ex JEgypto.
Tunc cogitavit Pharao in corde suo, et dixit ut abjicerent omnes
natos masculos in fluvium. (Gfrcerer II. 354). Evidently there
is here a modification of the original history, based on the story of
Matthew, for the prevision of the part of Moses as the deliverer of
Israel is a feature foreign to Exodus, and borrowed from the
Gospel. It is certain that at the close of the first century the
fourth book of Esdras shows a marked tendency to assign to
Messiah a supernatural origin, which reminds us of the first
chapters of Matthew and Luke.
* Whatever Schleiermacher may say (" Leben Jesu," p. 75) the
narratives of Matthew and of Luke can harmonise, for there is no
impossibility in supposing that the presentation in the temple took
place before the adoration of the Magi and the flight into Egypt.
+ The quotation made by Matthew from Hosea xi. 1 . '' I have
called my Son out of Egypt" (ch. ii. 15, i6>, applying it to the return
of the child Jesus into Judaea, is an example ,of the freedom with
which he searches the Old Testament to find everywhere types and
predictions of Messiah ; for it is certain that the prophet had only
reference, in that text, to a. past event — the exodus of the people of
Israel from Egypt — and not to a future event relating to Christ.

206 BOOK SECOND.
certain that the childhood of Christ forms no exception to the
law of slow and gradual progress. " The child," says Luke,
"grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the
grace of God was upon him."* Thus did Jesus pass through
the obscure period in which thought and consciousness are yet
dormant ; on the knees of His mother He learned to speak,
and the divine treasures hidden within were not at once dis
closed. Evil alone had no growth within Him'; nothing
tarnished the exquisite purity of His soul. He never for an
instant ceased to be one with His Father ; His heart opened
as spontaneously to the life divine, as His lungs breathed the
vital air. Then as He grew, and intelligence opened, He
became more and more conscious of the peculiar relation
which united Him to God. Externally, nothing seems to have
distinguished Him from other children, at least in the eyes of
those who did not, like Mary, lift the veil of humility which
concealed His inner life. If it had been otherwise, it would
be impossible to explain the persistent unbelief of His kinsfolk
and neighbours. He did not assume the prophetic, nor ever
assert a precocious independence. As a child, He perfectly
fulfilled the duties of His age, which may be summed up in
submission to the heads of the family. " Thus," says Irenaeus,
' He sanctified childhood by passing through it."
There is every reason to suppose that He grew up in the
workshop of Joseph, and laboured with His own hands. If
He attended the elementary schools in which the young Jews
were initiated into holy studies, He kept aloof from those of
the rabbis; to frequent these He must have quitted Nazareth;
and what would they have taught Him? What had He to do
with that scholasticism, the elaborate framework of which He
was to destroy with a breath? His teaching shows how deeply
He was versed in the sacred literature of His people ; there
We find a still more striking instance of this method of quotation
in Matt. ii. 23. It is impossible to find in the Old Testament a
text in which the word Nazarene is applied to Messiah.
* Luke ii. 40.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 207
He found, as it were, His spiritual patrimony; the divine
words were the food of His soul, and reached to its very
depths. The soft and lovely scenes of nature which surrounded
Him were also a holy book, in which He read the name of His
Father; He grasped in all its depth the harmony which exists
between the revelations of earth and heaven. Nazareth is one
of the sweetest sites in Palestine. St. Jerome rightly calls it
the flower of Galilee, and compares it to a rose opening its
corolla. It does not command a landscape like Bethlehem;
the girdle of hills which encloses it makes it a calm retreat, the
silence of which is, still in our day, broken by the hammer and
chisel of the artisan. The child Jesus grew up in the midst of
a thoroughly simple life, in which a soul like His might best
develop its harmonies. ' He had only to climb the surrounding
heights to contemplate one of the finest landscapes of the Holy
Land. At His feet lay the plain of Jezreel, tapestried with
myriad flowers, each one more beautiful than Solomon in all
his glory. Its boundaries were Tabor and Carmel, whence
echoed the voice of Elijah; Lebanon confronted Carmel, and
the chain of Hermon, joined its snowy summits to the moun
tains of Moab, while afar off glimmered the Great Sea, which,
outlying all national barriers, seemed to open to Jesus that
world which He came to save. Living in communion with
nature, He learned to know her well. From her He gathered
those expressive illustrations, which He afterwards scattered
broadcast over His discourses, and which make His parables
such fresh and living pictures.
Just as the plant does not open to the sun, till it has cast its
roots into the soil to a depth not measured by the eye, so
Jesus, by secret and intense prayer, drew the sap and life of
His soul from the very bosom of God. Some favouring cir
cumstance was all that was needed to strike from Him, before
the eyes of all, the spark divine. This was afforded by the
journey to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover feast, at the
age when the young Jews began to take part publicly in the

208 BOOK SECOND.
religious life of their people. This solemn visit to the Temple
filled the soul of Jesus with emotion not to be described; under
the symbols, He beheld the divine realities. He felt himself
truly in the house of God, and perhaps, for the first time,
became fully conscious of the greatness of His mission ; He
comprehended that He would be called to fulfil those solemn
types. When His mother, grieved at His tarrying behind,
addressed Him in words of tender reproach, He gave that deep
and mysterious reply, " How was it that ye sought me? Wist
ye not that I must be about my Father's business?"* His
precocious wisdom had been already revealed in an interview
with the doctors of the Temple; His questions showed such
riches of thought and feeling, that the illustrious masters were
themselves confounded. The questions of a child are often
more embarrassing, by their artless depth, than the arguments
of the most consummate dialectician. They go straight to the
truth by the royal road of simplicity. There was not a white-
headed rabbi in the schools of the law, who could meet the
questions of this child of Nazareth. This scene in the Temple
was of great moment in the development of Jesus, by revealing
Him to Himself. The next eighteen years He passed in the
most complete obscurity. We may not seek to penetrate their
mystery ; it is enough for us to know that they prepared Him
in solitude for His great mission. -j- He spent them in prayer
and a. holy life.!
* Luke ii. 49.
*+' M. Keim has devoted some noble pages to .the development of
Jesus during this period, in his pamphlet, entitled "Der Geschicht
liche, Christus. Erste Rede." He dwells eloquently on the influence
which must have been exerted upon Him by the reading of the
prophets and by the scenes of nature. We are not prepared to
suppose with him, that the Pharisees taught Jesus the idea of the
kingdom of God founded on righteousness. This idea is the very
soul of the Old Testament. The sect of the Pharisees showed
Him what were the elements of false devotion and of the spurious
religion which destroys souls.
X The question whether Jesus had any brothers has no religious
interest after the decisive text Matt. i. 25 (ovx tyivwaxiv aiiTijv 'iiog),

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 209
for it proves, that after the birth of Christ, Mary might yet be a
mother. TipiuroToxog cannot be translated only son without doing
violence to the language. I admit that the word brother may
sometimes signify cousin, but it is none the less surprising that the
proper expression dj-E^to-; is not once employed in the Gospels, and
that the brethren of the Lord are always in the company of Mary.
Much stress is laid on the fact that J esus leaves his mother to the
care of John, but John was nearer to Him in heart than any of His
kindred (John vii. 5), and he would be to Mary the best of sons.
It is said again that Mary, the mother of Jesus, had a sister of the
same name, married to Cleophas, and that she had two sons called
James and Joses. It is attempted to identify the former with the
James who is constantly spoken of in the New Testament as the
brother of the Lord. On this supposition we should have only two
Jameses, both of them apostles ; first, the son of Zebedee, brother to
John who was put to death by Herod ; second, the son of Cleophas
or Alphaeus. (Cleophas and Alphaeus may be regarded as two
forms of the same Hebrew name.) If this latter was the same as
James, the brother of the Lord, we should have the proof that, in
this case, brother is the equivalent of cousin. But this hypothesis
falls before the texts which clearly distinguish the brothers of the
Lord from the apostles. We quote (Acts i. 14; 1 Cor. ix. 5); and
are met by Gal. i. 19. (" Other of the apostles saw I none, save
James the Lord's brother") But in this passage the expression
apostles should be understood in a wide and not in the strict sense.
We believe then, in fine, that there was one James, son of Alphaeus
or Cleophas, and an apostle like his brother Joses, but distinct from
James the brother of the Lord. The resemblance of the names is
not more surprising in the case of the two Jameses than of the two
Marys.

BOOK SECOND.

CHAPTER II.
JOHN THE BAPTIST. BAPTISM OF JESUS CHRIST.*
I. Preparation and first Preachings of the Forerunner.
THE day was approaching when Jesus would emerge from
the obscure retirement, in which he had spent His child
hood and youth.
It was then there arose from the desert the voice of the
great prophet, whose mission was to go before and prepare
His way. John the Baptist was like those couriers who,
according to oriental custom, ran before the sovereign to
remove every obstacle out of the royal road. As, however, the
royal road for Christ was that of sacrifice and of sorrow, it
was fit that the precursor of the Crucified should be a martyr
for righteousness. No character among the prophets and
apostles is more beautiful than that of the Baptist. Ardent
and austere, deriving his force from his absolute disinterested
ness, humble as he was great, he is not merely a prophet, he is
ancient prophecy personified in the last of its representatives,
and appearing on the threshold of the gospel history, to own
and hail the Messiah of whom and in all ages it had spoken.
As Jesus Himself said, ** Among the sons of women there hath
not arisen a greater than John the Baptist." And yet he is
but the son of a woman, his greatness is not unmixed with
weakness, he has his failings. This mighty voice of the desert
has accents altogether human, which reveal a heart subject to
* I have thought it would be more interesting to present in one
chapter all that relates to John the Baptist.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 211
the same fluctuations as our own. We have not here the
fictitious type of man, but a tme and living character sketched
in a few outlines. The name of Elias, given to John the
Baptist, was not due only to the influence of the popular
superstitions of which we have spoken ; it was the expression
of a tme conviction. Everything in him recalled the great
prophet of action. Elijah did not write a single page in the
Book of God ; his book was himself, his prophecy was his life :
it was enough for him to appear, to set before degenerate
Israel the living image of holiness. Such was John the Baptist
from the commencement of his career. That which he spoke,
he lived ; this preacher of repentance was himself a penitent,
who had been the first to bend beneath the weight of divine
justice, and who trembled under it still. He might indeed be
called the power of God, but it was- power in an earthen vessel.
The prison of Machaems was to him that which Horeb was to
Elijah, when he lay down beneath the juniper tree, over
whelmed by the burden of his terrible and glorious mission.
Nothing is so touching as the tears and agony of the strong
and brave. John the Baptist was the man of a transition
period ; the son of the old covenant, he beholds the new, but
does not enter into it. Like Moses, he dies on the border of
the land of promise. He sows in tears, and hears not the
joyous song of the reapers. Such a mission costs much to
those who are charged with it ; and the perpetual contradic
tions and torturing doubts of which they are conscious, form
no small part of their peculiar trials.
The circumstances of the birth and childhood of John the
Baptist are familiar to us. Marked from his birth with the
sign of a divine consecration, he was educated in all that was
noble and true by his father Zacharias and his mother Elizabeth.
His eyes opened to the first rays of that rising sun which had
been already hailed by the pious priest. Doubtless the memo
rable events which had heralded his birth were told him from
his tenderest years; but not being elucidated then, as to us
p 2

212 BOOK SECOND.
they are, by the whole Gospel history, they would appear
somewhat obscure to him, so much the more as we can hardly
suppose Elizabeth and Zacharias to have possessed the same
depth of religious intuition, in the habitual course of their life,
as they had reached in the moment of inspiration. Again,
great realities appear more or less indistinct when they are
only beheld from a distance. The communications between
Mary and Elizabeth were doubtless rare, on account of the
distance between Nazareth and the hill country of Judaea. It
appears probable that the parents of John the Baptist had
been long dead before he entered on his active ministry, as no
mention is made of them from that time. It is not then sur
prising that the august memories of his infancy should have
been wanting in definiteness to the young prophet; nor is
there anything to prove that he had any personal acquaintance
with Jesus during this period. He knew only with certainty,
that the times of Messiah were at hand, and that he himself, at
the first signal from God, would be called to play an important
part in this great religious crisis. Such a consciousness could
not fail to give a singular fervency to his spirit
His consecration to God was to take a less positive and less
official form than the priesthood, to which his birth designed
him. It was not priests or doctors that were wanting; the
very spirit of Judaism was stifled under rites and traditions.
It was this spirit which had to be reanimated and freed from
all that oppressed it Now for this work there was needed the
free and mighty breath of prophecy. Everything was excep
tional in a vocation so grand as that of a Forerunner. From
his childhood he was a Nazarene, bound, that is, by a special
vow to abstain from all fermented liquors, and to let no razor
come upon his head : this was among the Jews a manner of
marking peculiar consecration to God.*
Nor was this all. We find, from the fragments preserved of
John's preaching, that he was overwhelmed with grief, in view
* See Numbers vi. 1-21.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 213
of the miseries and sins of his nation. Paying no regard to
appearances, he discerned in all ranks, and not least beneath
the austerity of the Pharisee, the tokens of impenitence and
impiety. Therefore he so ardently craved for a general
purification and a moral renovation; he could not rest in
the now empty solemnities of a religion, which had become
vain and degenerate, and it was not possible for him to
acquiesce patiently in the ignoble routine of life led by his
contemporaries. This conflict of his great soul drove him into the wilderness-
Nothing can be more false than to represent him as an oriental
ascetic, or disciple of the Essenes.* He was an utter stranger
to that Indian theosophy which places the principle of evil in
the body and not in the soul, and which seeks salvation in
asceticism. John the Baptist was a preacher of repentance ;
sin was, in his eyes, essentially a moral deviation, and not a
fatality of the physical nature. He hated evil with such an
intense hatred only because he saw in it' a free act : so far
from pretending to urge man to self-annihilation as the secret
of his own salvation, he never ceased to invoke and proclaim
the tme deliverer. Nor did he found in the desert a sort of
monastic order, like the Essenes, or like that Banes of whom
the historian Josephus was for a time a disciple, and who
desired his followers to be clothed like himself in the leaves of
trees, to eat only herbs,, and drink only water.* John the
Baptist sought in solitude a haven for prayer, under the secret
eye of God for his momentous mission. His austerity was no
rule, no imposed observance, it was the very expression of his
deep spiritual life. He wrapt himself in a rough mantle of
camel's hair, and fed on locusts and wild honey, only because
the great thought which absorbed him left no place for minor
considerations. * This is the opinion maintained by M. Renan, "Vie de Jesus,"
PP- 75-77-
- t Josephus, "Vita" II.

214 BOOK SECOND.
The desert of Judsea, for which John the Baptist exchanged
the smiling vineyards of Hebron, amidst which his childhood
was passed, reaches to the Dead Sea. There it assumes an
aspect of desolate grandeur. Every trace of earthly life
vanishes; one could fancy oneself beyond the world of man.
The accursed lake spreads its heavy and motionless waters
between rugged downs, arid the severe line of the mountains of
Moab. The justice of God seems alone to speak in all this
gloomy region. What a school for such a man as John the
Baptist! It was ' there, in presence of the terrible majesty of that
blasted land, that he heard the words of prophets and holy
men, not from the freezing voice of a scribe, but directly as if
they sounded for him alone. As soon as he speaks, we are
conscious that he has grasped their inner meaning, and has
been nourished on the very marrow of the Scripture. The
Old Testament lives again in him. The two great utterances
which he brings from the desert, contain the two capital
revelations, to which all the preparation for the Gospel has
been tending. Law and prophecy, denunciation of sin and
promise of pardon, the flame which consumes and the light
which consoles — is not this the whole of the covenant?
"Repent ye, the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Such was
the two-fold message of John the Baptist On his inspired
lips the law had all its terrors, and the promise all its glorious
assurance. He had read in the desert, as none had yet done
in Israel, that book at once bitter and sweet, which is the very
book of God. Doubtless he still imaged the future to himself
in the colours of the past; his spirit had not broken the
theocratic mould; but nothing was more foreign to his heart
than the dreams of political agitation, which so often stirred
his countrymen to revolt. He looked for a revolution in the
conscience, for the yoke which weighed him down was not that
of Rome, but of sin. The deliverance, in his eyes, must be of
the nature of the bondage, and assume a moral character. He

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 215
might have attained a much wider popularity if he had used
his fervent words in the service of the passions of his coun
trymen, for these had been wrought up to the last degree, since
the definite annexation of Judaea to Syria, which involved the
loss of the last shadow of independence till then retained.
But the prophet's mission never was to follow the tide of the
multitude, but to stem it. When the time comes for John the
Baptist to attack the powers that be, he will do it in the name
of the God whom they outrage; he will use no other weapon
but his word. Thus material force will have no power over
his testimony, which will stand for ever, like all that belongs to
the higher order of spirit
It is probable that John's reputation had spread even before
he came forth from the desert; the people, eager for novelties,
had gone thither seeking him.* At length the moment came
for him to quit his retirement. Doubtless he had received
direct revelations as to the near appearance of Messiah. He
himself alludes to such, when he says that God had sent him to
baptize.*)* His commission then was directly given from
heaven. The rite of baptism is the summary of his preaching
and of his whole ministry, at least when it is restored to its
true meaning, and is not regarded according to the thoroughly
Pharisaic interpretation of the historian Josephus, as setting
forth the self-purification of the soul! The originality of John's
baptism is unjustly disputed, on the ground that it was
identical with the baptism of proselytes. It is first very doubt
ful whether this ceremony was in use at this period; then John
expressly combated the exaggerated idea entertained of the
privilege of belonging to the holy nation. The rite which he
instituted connects itself with the ablutions so much observed
in the religion of Moses, but it extends their significance, by
* Krjpitro-wv iv Ty ipiipip Trjg 'loviaiag (Matt. iii. i).
f 'O mp\j/ag p.e flairTtteiv (John i. 33).
! 'E<j>' ayveiq. too auparog lire ir/ xai rjjg ij/vxyg ilKaioaivy (Josephus,
"Ant." XVIII., § 1).

2l6 BOOK SECOND.
substituting the idea of moral purification, for that which is
merely ritual. With him the question is not of such or such a
special defilement, but of that general corruption which has
befallen human nature, and which calls for a powerful and new
manifestation of Divine love. Thus his baptism represents
present repentance and coming deliverance; it is the true
sacrament of this era of preparation, the condensed utterance
of which is a cry of grief and hope, taking the form of a prayer
*of penitence and trust The later prophets had declared that
the times of Messiah would be marked by the purification of
hearts. "I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be
clean," we read in Ezekiel.* "There shall be a fountain
opened for sin and for uncleanness," says Zechariah. f Evi
dently the baptism of John only translated into an impressive
ceremonial these symbolical words. If for ablutions he has
substituted immersion, it is the better to represent the gravity of
the disease which was to be healed. His baptism is closely
connected by him with the coming of Messiah; it is the symbol
of hope no less than of repentanee; it derives its value
precisely from the approaching inauguration of the era of
salvation. John the Baptist never himself claims to introduce
this era, he only prepares it; his baptism is in the name of
Him who is to come.
The effect was immense in Judaea when the young prophet
came forth from his desert, already attended by a numerous
band of hearers. What a contrast was there between him and
the doctors of Jerusalem, puffed up with their virtues and
knowledge, wearing ostentatiously their long robes and broad
phylacteries! Habited like the simplest shepherd of the
mountains, with a girdle of rope round his loins, the Baptist
tramples under foot all the idle prejudices, all the evil passions,
all the vices of his nation. He carries truly in his hand that
axe which he says is about to be laid at the root of every
corrupt tree; for his unsparing speech strikes at the very
• Ezek. xxxvi. 25. t Zech. xiii. 1.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 21 J
foundation of evil. His preaching is perfectly adapted to the
moral condition of his age. To the formalists, who imagine
they can discharge by ceremonies their debt to heaven, he
proclaims the judgments of a God who hates their vain
solemnities. " Who hath taught you," he exclaims, "to flee from
the wrath to come?''* The national pride is carried to the
verge of idolatry. The Jews are intoxicated with the thought
of counting their genealogy from patriarchs and prophets, and
declare with Jesus Sirach — "This glorious heritage shall con
tinue to our posterity; our sons shall endure for ever, and their
glory shall never be removed. Abraham is become the father
of a great multitude; no glory is equal to his, and he has
perpetuated the divine covenant to his race."j- It is to these
proud and unworthy inheritors of the great past that the Fore
runner dares to address such words as these — "Say not ye, we
have Abraham to our father, for I tell you that God is able of
these stones to raise up children unto Abraham."! John has
a searching word for every class of his hearers. To the pub
licans he preaches scrupulous fidelity in their calling; the
soldiers he enjoins to avoid deceit and violence, and to be con
tent with their wages. If the great ones of the earth once mingle
in the rough crowd which usually surrounds him; if he sees
Pharisees and Sadducees coming to him to espy him, he has
but one word for them — "O generation of vipers!" Thus
does he purchase their complaisance or their toleration. To
all, he repeats emphatically the call — "Repent ye, the time is
fulfilled."! But he knows the human heart too Well to trust
even to the rite which he has instituted; it is not enough to be
plunged in the stream and to give tokens of a sincere sorrow.
Repentance, like sacrifice, may be a vain ceremony. It is
worth only what it costs. "Bring forth, therefore, fruits meet
for repentance," he cries : "he that hath two coats let him
impart to him that hath none, and he that hath meat let him
* Matt. iii. 7. t Matt. iii. 9.
t "Jesus Sirach," XLIV. § See Luke iii. 1-17.

2l8 BOOK SECOND.
do likewise." There is nothing in these words, whatever may
be said of them, marking the excited demagogue.* Charity
and justice may be preached without the charge of com
munism. These scenes were enacted in the country which lies between
the desolations of the Dead Sea and the oasis of Jericho, on
those low shores between which the Jordan pours its turbid
waters. John appears to have abode by preference in a small
spot on the eastern shore, called Eethany, the same name as
the village near Jerusalem.! But he frequently crossed from
one side to the other, for, according to St Luke, his ministry
was exercised throughout "all the country about Jordan." It
was but a few hours' journey from the holy city to the river.
Jericho was a flourishing town, situated in a smiling and very
populous valley bordering on Galilee. The year in which the
Baptist left the desert was a sabbatical year — a time of
universal rest, when a pause was made in all the occupations
of common life. This accounts for the extraordinary con
course of men of all ranks gathered round the Fore
runner. A large number of his hearers, impressed by his discourses,
and also by the stern sublimity of the man, were baptized, con
fessing their sins. Since the days of Ezra nothing had been
seen like it. The movement was general. Many, no doubt,
were the subjects only of a passing impression; but others,
among whom were some young Galileans, attached themselves
to the person of John the Baptist, and avowed themselves his
disciples. They aided him in his ministry and baptized the
multitudes with him. The Foremnner instructed them and
moulded their religious life; he appears even to have taught
* Renan " Vie de Jesus," p. 104. .
+ John i. 28. Origen has substituted Bethabara for Bethany.
("Comment, in Johan." VI. 24) But all the manuscripts, and
among the rest the " Sinaiticus," have Bethany. There is no
difficulty in supposing tw6 small places of the same name in
Judaea.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 219
them a form of prayer.* The shores ofthe stream resounded
with the groans of the penitent One might have deemed that
a new Israel was about to rise from those sacred floods, already
the witness of so many miracles. There could be no doubt
that this was indeed a prophet who had come forth from
the desert; this was truly a voice from heaven come to break in
upon the vain doctrines and traditions of the schools. Might
not this strange and mighty man be He who should come, or
at least might not this be Elijah, come down from his chariot
of fire to herald in Messiah ?
These rumours spread among the people with growing
rapidity. The Baptist, as soon as he heard them, disavowed
them utterly. "There cometh one after me," he cried,
" mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to
unloose; I, indeed, baptize you with water, but He shall
baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. My baptism
is only a sign of purification; He will bring you the true purifi
cation with the Divine Spirit, of which He will be the dispenser.
As says the prophet Joel, He shall be the fire that lightens,
vivifies, and purifies while it consumes. Lord of the harvest,
He will thoroughly purge His threshing floor, and gather the
wheat into His garner. He is the master; I am but the
servant "f The Sanhedrim, so much the more jealous of its
authority, because it was obliged to confine itself strictly within
the sphere of religion, was stirred by the influence acquired by
John the Baptist. It therefore sent a deputation to him to
make enquiry into his pretensions. They put to him the same
questions as the people — " Who art thou then ; the Christ or
Elias?" The reply was yet more definite. Pressed by his
interlocutors, after his earnest assertion that he is neither
Messiah nor Elias, he thus defines his mission : — " I am the
voice of one crying in the wilderness. Prepare ye the way of
the Lord." He is then only a voice, a witness. " He is not
the light, but is come to bear witness of the light" But he
* See Luke xi. 1. t Paraphrase of Luke iii. 16-18.

220 BOOK SECOND.
precedes very closely the great Unknown, who is to fulfil the
purpose of God "There standeth One among you whom ye
know not He it is who coming after me is preferred before
me, for He was before me."* Thus the revelation of Messiah,
which John had received in the desert, had shed for him a
ray of illumination upon the mystery of Messiah's external
existence. By the same supernatural teaching, he knew that
he should soon behold Him with his own eyes, and should
recognise him by a miraculous sign.f
II. Baptism of Jesus Christ Year of Rome 7 80. J
As John the Baptist was fulfilling his accustomed office,
Jesus himself appeared before him. It was the first step of His
* Ovrog f)v ov elwov, 6 biriob) p.ov ipxbu.evog, Zg 'ifiirpooQiv fiov yeyovev
Sn wpiiTog p.ov r\v (John i. 15.)
t The reality of the revelation appears from the following
words : — '0 wk/i^ag fie (SairrlZeiv iv r<f> viari, ixeivog p.01 elireV 'E(j>' oV dv
t%(Johni 33.)
X The date»of Jesus Christ's baptism may be determined by that
of the first Passover which follows that event (John ii. 13). We
read indeed (John ii. 20) " Then said the Jews, forty and six years
was this temple in building." The date then of this Passover is the
forty-sixth year from the commencement of the re-building of the
Temple under Herod. Now, according to Josephus (" Ant." XV. 1 1)
this re-building was commenced in the eighteenth year of the reign
of Herod the Great, which began in the year 717, the time of the
death of Antigonus ; we are then brought to the year of Rome 734.
The Passover celebrated forty-six years later, was therefore in the
year 781-782. The events which intervened between the baptism
of Jesus and his journey to Jerusalem, place the baptism in the
preceding year, that is the year 780, which gives us thirty as the
age of Jesus, conformably with Luke iii. 23. The date marked so
precisely in Luke iii. 1, is not in contradiction with that given by
John, jf it is regarded, as Wieseler regards it, as indicating not the
commencement of John the Baptist's preaching, but his last
¦appearance on the eve of his imprisonment, which coincides with
Christ's entrance upon His ministry. The fifteenth year of
Tiberius is the year 781-782, for Augustus died in August, 767. If,
therefore, Luke iii. 1 referred to the baptism of Jesus Christ, we
could not make the dates agree. It is otherwise if Wieseler's
hypothesis is admitted. The following are the grounds on which
he supports it: — First. There are notable differences between

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 221
public life. He had not hitherto crossed the threshold of His
dwelling at Nazareth; no disciples accompanied Him;* for
none among His countrymen had discerned the Master and
prophet in the obscure Galilean peasant. It appears evident
from the narrative in the Gospels that John had not met Him
for long years. He might easily have forgotten the features of
His countenance, even if He still preserved a vague recollection
of the events of His childhood. Yet, when Jesus approached
the shores of the river, John, by a divine intuition, recognised
on His brow the seal of spotless purity; all that he had heard
from his infancy came back to his memory, and measuring at a
glance the distance which separated this new comer from his
ordinary proselytes, he exclaimed — " I have need to be
baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?" "Thus it
becometh us to fulfil all righteousness," was the reply of
Jesus. Scarcely is He plunged in the waters of the stream
Luke iii. I and the texts of the synoptics which refer to the baptism
(Matt. iii. I ; Mark i. 9-1 1). Second. The account in Luke termi
nates with the incarceration of John the Baptist (iii. 19).
Third. Luke, in the Acts, shows clearly that according to him, this
incarceration immediately preceded the opening of the public
ministry of Jesus Christ (Acts i. 22). In Acts xiii. 25, the words of
the Baptist, given in Luke iii. 16, are evidently referred to the last
days of the preaching of the Forerunner (" as John fulfilled his
course.") This reference appears to us decisive. It has been
attempted, in .support of the contrary hypothesis, to make the
reign of Tiberius date from the time when he was associated in the
empire, in the year 765: But this calculation is quite contrary to
ancient usage. Strauss accuses the Evangelist Luke of inaccuracy,
for having made Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, while Josephus states
that a tetrarch of the same name was put to death in the year 718,
by order of Cleopatra, who had taken possession of his territory
(Josephus, " Ant." XV., 4, 1). But Dio Cassius (49, 32) tells us
that Antony did not give to Cleopatra all the territory that
belonged to the first Lysanias; that which was left might perfectly
well revert to one of his heirs. A medal confirming Luke's text has
been found (" Wieseler," p. 153).
* It is a. pure imagination of M. Renan to represent Jesus as
having for a time united his school with that of John the Baptist
(" Vie de Jesus." p. 65). He was as yet absolutely alone, according
to all the Gospel narratives.

222 BOOK SECOND.
when a glorious vision completes the illumination of the
Baptist. He sees the heavens opened, and the Spirit of God
descending upon Jesus, in the form of a dove, the gentle image
of an abiding inspiration, and a voice which is not of our
world speaks the word "This is my beloved Son, in whom I
am well pleased." * Then the Baptist exclaims in an ecstasy —
" I knew him not." It is, indeed, now, that for the first time
he knows Jesus in His glory as the only begotten Son and the
Messiah, t
The baptism of Jesus marks a great epoch in His life. It
cannot be justly brought forward as arguing anything against
His perfect holiness. It is evident from the Gospel narrative,
that this ceremony assumed in His case an exceptional
character. John shows clearly by his hesitation that he knows
he is baptizing a perfectly holy being. Why, then, did Jesus
submit to be baptized? The Baptist himself answers the
question by this significant saying, "That he should be made
manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with
* According to John, the most direct witness of the scene at the
Jordan, the vision was given to the Baptist alone (John i. 32-33).
Matthew and Mark say expressly that it was he who saw the dove
(Matt. iii. 16; Mark i. 10). If they give a direct form to the
divine words, Thou art my beloved son, there is nothing to prevent
our supposing that the Forerunner alone heard it in that form.
The manner in which the sacred record is expressed shows
abundantly that it is not a real dove which is intended (wo-ei
wepiarepdv Matt. iii. 16; awfiaTixo) eliei, iiael irepiarepav Luke iii. 22).
There is here then only a vision, but this vision is a real revelation
which has its immediate effect, corresponding with which is an
actual communication of the Holy Spirit to Jesus Christ. This is
the divine fact of which the vision is only the symbolical expression.
John the Baptist, in the fourth Gospel, makes no distinction
between the mode of the revelation which he received at the
Jordan, and that which had prepared him for it (John i., 32-33).
Another proof in favour of our assertion.
f It seems to us that this narrative-commentary of the evan
gelical story answers the objection brought forward by Strauss in
his two "Lives of Christ" (work quoted previously), and by
Schleiermacher ("Leben Jesu," p. 146). There is then no contra
diction between the Gospel of the childhood and the account of the
baptism.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 223
water."* Thus the baptism of Christ was first of all designed
solemnly to inaugurate His ministry. It was on this account it
was attended with the remarkable circumstances, which mark its
importance. To see in it only that in which it resembles an
ordinary baptism, and to pass by those points in which it differs,
is to ignore its distinctive features, and to be untrue to historical
facts. John, the representative of the old covenant, is com
missioned to proclaim in the name of the prophets and holy
men whose legitimate successor he is, that the new covenant
has begun and the promised Messiah is come. But this
kingdom of heaven, which is about to be set up on the earth,
will, have for its subjects humble and sorrowful souls and contrite
hearts. The baptism of repentance is the affecting symbol of
this whole dispensation. Is it not fit that the King of a
repentant people should Himself prepare their way? Is He
not identified with the race that He comes to represent? He
who is to die for it, may He not for it repent, and bear on His
heart the burden of its moral miseries? In the Mosaic institu
tions, defilement was not confined to the defiled person; contact
with such an one rendered purification necessary. Here we
have not simple contact with a fallen race; there is the most
absolute union with it. This mystery is the very basis of
redemption, and it is not more difficult to admit it on the banks
of Jordan, than in the garden of Gethsemane and on the Cross.
It would be erroneous to suppose that Jesus received no
grace at His baptism. He had submitted Himself wholly to
the conditions of humanity. He drew from the springs of the
divine life, as we ourselves need to draw from them, by faith
and prayer. The Holy Spirit was actually bestowed upon Him
with a new richness in this solemn moment; it was His royal
anointing for His work of sorrow and love.
The next day after, John met Jesus, and pointed Him out to
the two disciples who were with him by these significant words,
*"Iva QaveptaBy Tip'laparjX, iia tovto rjX9ov iy£> Iv Tip viari (3airTi£ti>v.
(John i. 31.)

224 BOOK SECOND.
" Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the
world."* He would be readily understood by the pious
Israelites who had been present at the morning and evening
sacrifice in the Temple at Jerusalem, and had partaken of the
paschal lamb, all the more if they had read the prophetic
oracles in which the promised Deliverer was represented under
the image of a victim, f
III. John the Baptist and Herod Antipas.
The Baptist was gone to the south of the country of Judaea,
to Enon, near to Salim, a place famous for its springs in the
midst of a parched and desert country. ! Already the favour
which first followed him had been succeeded by opposition.
The chiefs of the nation had brought his baptism§ in question,
and his disciples became so much the more jealous of his
influence ; therefore, they came to him complaining that Jesus
seemed seeking to supplant him by performing the rite which
he had instituted. This complaint elicited the beautiful testi
mony of the Baptist. He meets it first by a reference to the
special mission entmsted to him, which places him infinitely
below Messiah. Where subordination is so marked, rivalry is
impossible. He represents his relation to Jesus by a poetical
and touching figure, which shows how deeply he had drunk
into the Old Testament imagery. Messiah is the spouse of
the holy people ; he is but the friend of the bridegroom, and his
office is only to prepare the marriage feast. His joy is to hear
* John i. 19.
f See Isaiah liii.
! It has been attempted to place this spot in Samaria, according
to the " Onomasticon" of Jerome. But we consider Wieseler's
hypothesis much more plausible, which sees in Enon a contraction
of En-Rimmon, a little town situated at the southern extremity of
Judaea, according to Nehemiah xi. 29. It would be impossible to
account for John's ministry in the country of the Samaritans.
§ This may be inferred from the discussion between the disciples
of John the Baptist and the Jews about purifying. (John iii. 25.)
The opposition of the Pharisees and doctors is distinctly asserted
in Luke vii. 33.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 225
the voice of the well-beloved on the eve of the realisation of
the mystic union, and then to be lost as it were in his friend's
glory and felicity. "He must increase, but I must decrease."*
This is the motto and inspiration of the whole life of John.
This noble renunciation, this abnegation of self is the secret
of his greatness and his courage. He heeds not the praise of
man, therefore he panders to none, but speaks ever the same
bold and manly language, protesting against evil in all its
forms. This voice, which comes from the desert, is the great
voice of conscience and of right. It is in the power of none to
put it to silence, because it asks nothing of the world, and
concedes nothing to it Not from pride, but from humility,
springs that true dignity which can stand erect under threats,
because it has never yielded to caresses. John the Baptist is
only a reed of the desert, according to the figure used by Jesus,
but he is a reed which cannot be broken by the tempest of
persecution, because it has not bowed beneath the breath of
favour. This, Herod Antipas will soon learn.
The tetrarch of Galilee, a weak and passionate man, had
fallen under the power of Herodias, the step-daughter of Herod
the Great, the legitimate wife of his brother Philip Herod, who
lived in retirement at Rome, f There Herod Antipas had met
her, and conceived for her a guilty passion. The ardent and
vindictive spirit of the Herods lived in this woman. She
unhesitatingly abandoned her husband, whose fault was that he
had condemned her to a life of obscurity; she then induced
Antipas to divorce himself from his first wife, who was the
daughter of Aretas, king of Petra. The latter, on learning the
insult that was preparing for her, fled to the Castle of
* 'ExeXvov ieX a&Zdveiv, Ipi ii iXaTrova9ai (John iii. 30). The close
ofthe chapter, in spite of the ingenious observations of M. Godet,
appears to me an expansion of the Evangelist's. The ideas and
expressions evidently transcend the Baptist's point of view.
r Josephus, "Ant." XVIII. 5. The Jewish historian gives him
his patronymic of Herod. He is not thus in contradiction with
our Evangelists, as M. Renan asserts. Q

226 BOOK SECOND.
Machaerus, situated at the eastern extremity of the Dead Sea;
and taking refuge with her father, subsequently raised a war
against her unworthy husband.* Antipas was revelling in his
criminal pleasures, surrounded only with obsequious courtiers,
when an importunate voice was heard, echoing that inner voice
which none can wholly stifle. This was the voice of the son
of the desert, the new prophet, whose popularity, as Josephus
tells us, had already disquieted Herodf "It is not lawful for
thee," said John the Baptist, "to take thy brother's wife."
This invocation of the eternal law of right, which took no
account of his royal will, filled him with madness; he could not
endure this appeal to the higher power which issues its sovereign
decrees in the secret of the soul. What! should there be anyT
thing forbidden to the prince before whom all men cringed?
This importunate protest, which was all the more hurtful
because so well founded, must needs be crushed. The un
welcome censor was thrown into the depths of a gloomy
dungeon in the citadel of Machaerus. But Herod's feeble and
vacillating soul could not thus be freed from his influence ; he
felt in his deeper self that the Baptist was right; he listened
sometimes to his passion, sometimes to conscience, and some
times he even took counsel of his prisoner. But they were
only the hesitations of a nature without any moral force, and
the smiles of Herodias were more persuasive than the words of
the austere preacher. In the mad elation of a feast, celebrated
at the very castle of Machaerus, on the occasion of Herod's
birthday, the king made a rash vow to the daughter of Herodias,
to recompense her for having forgotten her royal dignity, and
charmed the assembly by a dance worthy of a courtesan. He
pledged himself to give her whatever she should ask Coun
selled by her mother, she asked the head of John the Baptist
Thus, it seemed to her, that stern voice might be stifled which
• Josephus, "Ant." XVIII. 5, 1.
f Josephus ("Ant." XVIII. 5, 2) passes over in silence the true
cause of the Baptist's imprisonment.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 227
made itself heard, even in the tumult of the feast. Though
absent, he was there, a silent and terrible guest, rebuking the
adulterous woman. But it was in vain that the noble head was
stmck off; from the blood of the prophet arose a yet more
terrible cry. Herod could never cease to hear it for a single
day, for as soon as the fame of Jesus began to be spread
abroad in Galilee, he exclaimed, with blanched cheek, " This
is John the Baptist"* Men may kill the body, but truth and
conscience they cannot kill.
To the period of John's imprisonment at Machaerus belongs
a remarkable episode, to which we shall refer again in the
history of Christ's public career, and from which very exag
gerated conclusions have been drawn. It has been asserted
that his previous testimony is branded with suspicion, by the
simple fact that, in an hour of doubt, he sent two of his
disciples to ask Jesus about His mission. J But where do we find
the life of the soul unfolding without straggle or retrogression?
It has its alternations, which will not bend to the laws of an
inflexible logic. John, as we have said, belonged to the old
covenant ; he looked for a speedy and glorious manifestation
of Messiah. This manifestation tarried ; nay more, it seemed
to recede day by day, for the more Jesus was known, the less
He was acknowledged. Here was an insoluble contradiction
for the Forerunner; it pressed heavily on him in the long
inaction of the prison life, in which his heroic heart was wearing
itself away. Is it strange to see in such circumstances a cloud
passing over his faith ? He must know little of human nature
who can so deem it.
It is not wonderful that John the Baptist left behind him a
school distinct from the little group of the apostles, traces of
which are to be found even into the middle of the first century.
His religious point of view was incomplete. The truthfulness
of the evangelical story cornes out the more saliently from
these contrasts, which are inevitable in a transition period like
* Matt. xiv. 2. f Luke vii. 18, 19.
Q 2

228 BOOK SECOND.
that of the Foreranner. Jesus Himself described the work of
John the Baptist in a manner which explains all contradictions,
" What went ye out into the wilderness for to see ? A man
clothed in soft raiment ? Behold they which are gorgeously
apparelled and live delicately are in kings' courts. But what
went ye out for to see? A prophet? Yea, I say unto you,
and much more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is
written, Behold I senfl my messenger before thy face, which
shall prepare thy way before thee. For I say unto you among
those that are born of women there hath not arisen a greater
than John the Baptist ; but he that is least in the kingdom of
heaven is greater than he."* In other words, if none among
the servants of God surpasses the Baptist in moral greatness,
he, nevertheless, does not pass the boundary line which
separates the two Testaments. Had he possessed greater Jight,
he would have been less heroic, for there is no work so noble
as his who prepares the triumph in which he does not share.
The very dimness and incompleteness of his view only the
more justifies that judgment of Christ's, which is a sufficient
recompense for all his labours and sufferings. " Verily, I say
unto you, among those that are born of woman there hath not
arisen a greater than John the Baptist."
* Luke vii. 25, 30.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 229

CHAPTER III.
THE TEMPTATION.
"DETWEEN the baptism of Christ and the last testimony
-*— ^rendered to Him by the Foreranner, occurs one of the
most momentous events of his moral life. He also passed
through that great school of the wilderness, in which Moses
and John the Baptist were moulded into the mightiest witnesses
of God When a man has to be the representative of a solemn
and holy idea, it is well to live face to face with it, and look at
it apart from all the modifications to which it is subjected in
human life. In solitude it puts on all its royalty ; there it
keeps its absolute character, conceding nothing to the compro
mises of an imperfect realisation. But the desert was not to
Jesus merely a holy retreat ; it was also the scene of His first
combat and His first victory. The Redeemer there passed
through that great trial of the free will, without which no moral
destiny is complete. Here we are compelled to accept
unreservedly the mystery of His utter humiliation. If im
peccability is claimed for Him, He is withdrawn from the tme
conditions of earthly life, His humanity remains only an
illusion, a transparent veil through which appears His impassible
divinity. Being no more like unto us, He is no more ours.
To the moving drama of a moral conflict succeeds I know not
what metaphysical phantasmagoria. He can no longer be
spoken of as the subject of temptation or trial. Instead of the
head of a new human race, we have only a mental creation
worthy of the inventions of Gnostics. Let us bring down the
Christ from this cold empyrean of theology where He is but a

230 BOOK SECOND.
dogma, and say with Irenaeus, Erat homo certans pro patribus.
" He was tmly a man fighting for his home." Let us receive
that strange and sublime text of the New Testament, "He
leamed obedience,"* which signifies that from the state of
natural and instinctive innocence, He had to raise Himself to
a holiness of choice, a perilous transit in which the first Adam
fell, but in which the second conquered by the sole arms of
faith and prayer, and not by girding on as an impenetrable
panoply His eternal Godhead.
The scene of the desert was in fact the counterpart of that
which transpired more than four thousand years before, in the
shades of Eden. Both belong to that mysterious region into
which the human mind can enter only by means of majestic
symbols; which have nevertheless corresponding moral realities.
The first father of mankind — bound to his descendants by so
close a union, that he in a manner included them in himself —
underwent the great ordeal of free existence in a sojourn of
beauty and glory ; the second Adam passed through it in a
fearful solitude, image of a world deep-graven with the brand
of the fall and of condemnation. Those denuded rocks, that
reddened soil scorched by a burning sun, that sulphurous sea
stretching like a shroud over the accursed cities, all this land
of death, mute and motionless as the grave, formed a fitting
scene for the decisive conflict of the Man of Sorrows. There
is contrast strongly marked in many points between the first
and second temptatiom ; it is no more a question of the simple
perpetuation of a happy union with God, but of the recovery
of this union under the bitter conditions which have resulted
from its rupture. It would be taking a narrow view of the
moral conflict of the life of Christ to limit it to the forty days
spent in the wilderness. In reality, His whole life was a
conflict, but its two great battles were fought at the commence
ment and the close of His ministry — in the desert of Judaea
and the garden of Gethsemane. * Heb. v. 8.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 23 1
In the temptation in the wilderness, we witness the appear
ance of that mysterious being, who is represented in the first
book of the Bible, as connected with the history of the fall.
Satan, as we have shown, is not the Persian Ahriman, who
represents the element of evil in nature as well as in moral
life ; he is a fallen angel, created in light and purity like all
God's creatures, but having failed to abide in them.* Doubt
less he also fell under the trial of moral freedom, universally
imposed on intelligent beings made in the likeness of God.
We know nothing of the nature of this trial, of the manner of
his rebellion, nor of the sphere in which it took place. It is
impossible to admit or reject with any certainty the hypothesis
so often sustained, that the gigantic wrecks on which the new
life of our planet has flourished, give evidence of a tragical
history before the human era, in which man was preceded on
the earth by beings higher than himself in their origin, who
have therefore fallen lower, and are become the natural and
desperate enemies of the race which has succeeded them. We
are bound to hold the reality of the existence of devils ; nothing
in reason opposes the possibility of moral beings, different from
man, more utterly perverted, and endowed with a subtlety of
nature which allows them wider and more rapid action. There
are times when the imperceptible barrier which divides us from
the invisible world — so far from our eyes, so near to our hearts
— seems to fall altogether. Such are the great religious crises
of humanity ; now there is no crisis comparable to the opening
of the era of Christ. We do not think then that we are
yielding to any superstition, in recognising in the temptation
the direct intervention of the chief of those evil spirits, who
are the worst enemies of man.
But what form did this intervention assume ? Evidently the
account in our Gospels cannot be taken literally. The
mountain whence are visible all the kingdoms of the world
nowhere exists' ; we are thus carried at once into the symbolical.
* See John viii. 44.

232 BOOK SECOND.
Yet we cannot see in the temptation a mere parable, translated
and amplified into popular speech by the disciples of Jesus,
the only object of which would have been to determine the
true character of His mission as Messiah. This would be to
destroy the moral fact, which is, in our view, one of capital
importance.* The temptation was real. We mean not that
the pure soul of Jesus was for a single instant drawn towards
evil, but it was unquestionably solicited by evil from without
by means of a vision, t There is no difficulty in supposing
visions which in no way suspend moral action. The tempta
tion assumes all the more importance, the more it is freed from
every lower element. The conflict would be one little worthy
of Christ if the gist of it were only the resistance of hunger,
abstinence from a presumptuous action, and the refusal of
material glory. The question proposed belongs to a far wider
sphere ; it is the moral question itself, such as it was presented
to the first Adam, such as it presents itself to every free
creature. He is directly called to decide if He will fulfil the
one supreme law of the moral world, the sum of which is
* This is Neander's idea ("Vie de Jesus," I. p. 108), who on this
point has yielded to the influence of Schleiermacher. The latter
was led by his determinism to suppress the moral conflict in the
life of Christ. As to the chronological difficulties which he raises,
they are not at all insurmountable. Nothing prevents our suppos
ing that the temptation took place before the last interview with
John the Baptist on the banks ofthe Jordan (John i. 29).
f Calvin himself admitted the possibility of this interpretation
("Comment, sur le N. T." I., p. 121). We will only mention
Lange's singular explanation, which supposes that the emissaries
of the Sanhedrim, who had interrogated John the Baptist, went
into the wilderness to propose to Jesus, to assert Himself as a
theocratic Messiah. They thus themselves played, on this occasion,
the part of the tempter, under whose influence they visibly acted
(Lange's "Leben Jesu," I., pp. 195-205). This revival of a
ridiculous hypothesis of Paulus is not happy. Strauss connects
the temptation with the sojourn of Israel in the desert ; he sees in
it only a myth, fabricated from the legends of the Old Testament
("Leben Jesu," p. 331). We recommend on this subject the
interesting and sensible pages devoted to it by M. Lutteroth in his
" Essai d'interpretation sur Saint Matthieu," pp. 41-47.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 233
obedience and love, or if He will seek His own satisfaction,
His own interest The question is not stated in a vague and
general way ; it is as Messiah that He is tempted ; that which
is aimed at is the miraculous power which He possesses, or at
least with, which He is invested by God day by day. This
power, employed for selfish and personal ends, might serve
first to procure easily for Messiah and for the people, who
would receive Him with acclaim, all material advantages. It
might then become the means of dazzling men by brilliant
signs, which would satisfy their passion for the marvellous, and
after having given possession, it would give glory. Nothing
could be easier than to obtain by its means, power and an
earthly kingdom, for no throne would be exalted enough for a
Messiah, who should multiply marvels and make plenty and
riches spring up beneath his feet. Such was the scope of the
temptations which passed before the mind of Jesus, in His
vision in the desert after His forty days' fasting.
" If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be
made bread."* In other words, place Thyself above the order
of Providence for the satisfaction of Thine hunger. Jesus is
carried in spirit into the Holy City, to the pinnacle of the
temple, the centre of that theocracy of which he might so easily
assume the sceptre. " If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself
down; for it is written, He shall give his angels charge over
thee, and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest thou dash
thy foot against a stone, "f In other words, if Thou art the
the Messiah, work brilliant miracles, prodigies the result of
which shall be to astonish and fascinate the people. Then the
world with its glory appears to Jesus from the summit of an
ideal mountain. " All this power and glory will I give thee,"
says the tempter, "if thou wilt fall down and worship me."!
* Matt. iv. 3. f Ch. iv. 5, 6.
J Matt. iv. 8, 9. The difference between Matthew and Luke in
the order of the temptation is of no moment, except on the theory
of plenary inspiration. It is at once insoluble and insignificant.
The order of the facts in Matthew appears the more logical.

234 BOOK SECOND.
In other words, the glory and power shall 'be Messiah's if He
consents to act in the spirit of the prince of this world. Under
this triple form the temptation is one. Work miracles for
Thine own advantage. Be Thine own ambassador and not
God's. Seek Thyself, instead of consecrating Thyself to the
glory of Thy Father's kingdom. In the very nature of things
temptation must always be one, for there is only one way of
violating the moral law, namely, to live to oneself and not to
God, to substitute selfishness for love.
The suggestions of the tempter are clothed in a religious
garb; he quotes text like a scribe. After all, what he does in
the desert is but to sum up, in expressive symbols, the whole
programme of the false Messianic dreams of the Jew, who only
disguised under holy words a carnal and earthly ambition. The
Christ of Hebrew apocalypses, such a Christ as the con
temporaries of Jesus desired and looked for, answered in all
points to the false Messiah whose image Satan held up before
the tme. It seems the very voice of the Jewish Sibyl of
Alexandria, vibrating with ardent and earthly desires. Is not
the deliverer painted, in these famous oracles, as a man with a
sword"' girt on, and crushing to dust every rival power? Is he
not destined to open for the land of Judaea the springs of
boundless plenty, and to make wine flow freely from the fruitful
stock? Is he not, finally, to work by great scenic effects? His
reign is represented under the brilliant colours of a theocratic
millennium. This is what popular feeling demanded at the
time of Christ; it was excited by His miracles, especially by
those which promised material gain, such as the multiplication
of the loaves. The multitudes would make Him a king; and
if He had lent himself to their will, they would have hailed Him
with enthusiasm.* He had only to go with the tide of opinion
to assure His immediate dominion. The temptation in the desert
was, then, no chimera; it was in harmony with the truth of facts.
Jesus hesitated not a moment. To each temptation pre-
* John vi. 15.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 235
sented to Him to declare Himself as the theocratic Messiah,
the idol of degenerate Judaism, He replied by a word of the
Lord, against which there was no appeal. To the suggestion
that He should change the stones into bread, He opposes His
faith in that divine and wise Providence which suffices for
every need. " It is written, man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."*
That text of Deuteronomy! had reference to the marvellous
manner in which Israel was fed with manna in the desert. He
who depends on a God so good and so mighty, has only to
commit himself to Him with entire confidence; the gift of
working miracles has been bestowed upon Him for other ends
than the supply of His bodily wants. Jesus repels with no less
determination, the proposal to invoke the divine intervention,
and to produce a striking effect by a useless prodigy. "It is
written," said He, "thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."!
To desire a miracle for such an end would be to imitate Israel,
imperiously demanding a new manifestation of the power of
Jehovah. || Finally, Jesus rejects, with holy indignation, the
infamous bargain of the tempter, who promises Him, earthly
royalty, on condition of His falling down and worshipping him.
The tempter doubtless offered, in this case, that which he in truth
possessed; for it is certain that if Jesus had fulfilled His mission
as Messiah in a spirit of selfishness and pride, the world would not
have had crowns enough to bestow upon Him. This time He used
the divine word as a sword: "Get thee hence, Satan, for it is
written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only
shalt thou serve. "§
The great declaration is now made ; Christ is come not to be
obeyed, but to obey. He has given Himself unreservedly to
God and to man. He has made His choice between selfish
ness and love; the second Adam has retracted the rebellion of
* Matt. iv. 4. f Deut. viii. 3. t Matt. iv. 7.
|| Compare Deut. vi. 16 with Exodus xvii. 2-7.
§ Matt. iv. 10. Deut. vi. 13. The quotation is not literal. Jesus
Christ refers to the great commandment of the Old Testament.

236 BOOK SECOND.
the first; He has come out conqueror from the great moral
ordeal, but the victory is itself a sacrifice, an immolation ; it
leads not to earthly glory, but to death; not to the throne, but
to the cross; for on entering on this path of obedience and
love, He will come into collision with all the prejudices of the
Jewish nation, He will belie all its hopes and kindle all its
hatred. A Messiah who will not reign in the sense in which
Jerusalem understands His kingdom, must perish; king or
victim He must be ; there is no alternative. Every time He
repelled a temptation of the Wicked One He ascended another
step of the altar of sacrifice. Nothing was wanting but the
consummation; the Son of man has already accepted in its
essence all the ignominy and all the grief that is awaiting Him.
Such is the solemn grandeur of this conflict in the desert, in
which we see Jesus victorious, but victorious according to that
mysterious law of His kingdom, which makes suffering and
death the first elements of victory. The events of His life will
be but the development and consequence of the great moral
fact, which has just been accomplished in that deep seclusion.
Thus is attested that royal liberty of the Son, to whom sorrow
and shame will be but the fulfilment of His freely accepted lot.
" No man taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself."*
That which is branded as ignominy and defeat on earth, is
glory and triumph in heaven. At the close of His vision,
therefore, Jesus sees angels coming to minister to Him, and
the wild beasts lie harmless at His feet, as in the first days of
Eden.f Paradise is born again in this desert solitude, " the
wilderness blossoms as the rose;" the seraphim who keep the
gates of paradise adore the Son of man, in token that the great
work of reparation is begun. Eden, closed and blighted by
rebellion, shall be opened again by obedience and sacrifice to
the new race of man, when its head shall have accomplished
all His work in the domain of outward fact, as He has already
accomplished it in the moral kingdom.
* John x. 18. + Mark i. 13.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 237

CHAPTER IV.
THE PLAN OF JESUS. — REALITY AND UNITY OF THE
DIVINE PLAN.
TESUS cojnes forth from the desert fully conscious of His
*-' mission. He knows not - only in what spirit it is to be
accomplished, but also in what it will consist It is this
perfect understanding of His work which we intend by His
plan. He had not wrought it out with deep and patient
meditation; He had not reached it through careful combination
and minute calculation. No ; this plan — like all which bears
the stamp of perfection and of greatness, as well in the sphere
of action as of art, — sprang up at once spontaneous and com
plete in His heart. It was rather a determination of the will
than a conception of the mind. It was the first triumph of love
over the spirit of pride and selfishness, the trophy brought from
the great conflict in the desert This plan is, in fact, precisely
the reverse of that suggested by the tempter ; it is the Messiah-
ship of the Spirit, opposed to the carnal and ambitious Messiah-
ship of the synagogue. We have now simply to mark its great
outlines; it will belong- to the history itself to unfold it before
our eyes in gradual accomplishment.
It is disputed, first of all, whether Jesus had really any in
tention of declaring Himself as Messiah, from the outset of
His public career. He was the most pious Israelite of His
generation (it is said), with soul most alive to holy influences,
but He had not at first any other purpose than to be the faith
ful servant of God It was only later that, led on by the
popular enthusiasm, and by the ardour of one of His country-

238 BOOK SECOND.
men (we dare not say one of His disciples), He allowed Him
self to be recognised and proclaimed as Messiah at Caesarea
Philippi This hypothesis is entirely contradicted by the
Gospel, and in order to maintain it, texts must be submitted to
the strangest manipulation, those only being retained, in whole
or in part, which accord with the preconceived idea.* Not
only, as we have already observed, does it become necessary to
suppress the account of the baptism of Jesus, and that of the
temptation, but the whole of the first part of His ministry has
to be interpreted against its natural sense. The glorious scene
in the synagogue of Nazareth, when the young Master applies
directly to Himself the prophecy of Isaiah concerning Messiah, f
has, on this theory, to be explained away into nothing more
than an edifying sermon. Those twelve men, leaving their
kindred and their occupation to follow Him, are moved only
by an impulse of friendship. When He expounds the Mosaic
law with authority, as in the Sermon on the Mount, He is only
an interpreter of the Old Testament, more skilful than His
predecessors.! That He forgives sins is an illusion; He only
reminds men of the goodness of God — an act in no way dis
tinguishing Him from His fellows, in spite of the scandal which
it provokes. If He demands of those who will follow Him a
devotion so entire that every natural affection is to give way
before it, He only acts as the champion of a noble cause.
Lastly, He may, without believing Himself to be the Messiah,
declare Himself to be greater than Jonah or Solomon, and
greater than the Temple, and pronounce condemnation on
entire cities for the sole sin of not having received Him.|| Such
* M . Schenkel has written all the first part of his last book from
this point of view. (" Characterbild Jesu," pp. 56-80). It requires
real feats of strength to contort the text to his meaning. The late
essay of M. Colani ("Jesus Christ et les croyances messianiques de
son temps '') belongs to the same school.
t See Luke iv. 6. ! See Matt. v. 21, 22.
|! See p. 55 of M. Colani's essay on "Jesus Christ et les croy
ances messianiques de son temps." I know no more positive

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 239
explanations cannot stand before a moment's impartial ex
amination of the texts, even if it be granted that these shall be
taken only from the synoptical Gospels, and that the early
chapters of the fourth Gospel be abandoned.
We will not, then, stay to prove that Jesus regarded Himself
as Messiah from the very commencement of His ministry.
The history of His life will be a sufficient answer. We admit
that, acting as He did, in full consciousness of His mission, He
yet rarely asserted the title which belonged to Him ; sometimes
He even enjoined a certain reserve on the sick whom He
healed, and on His disciples, in order to avoid dangerous
misconceptions. But from the first day to the last, He exercised
an authority which could have no other basis or justification
than His character of Messiah.
Some historians of Jesus do not deny His having had a
fixed plan, but they dispute its unity. While He is accused,
on the one hand, of having started with theocratic and political
views, which were modified by rude contact with men, so that
ultimate spirituality was the bitter fruit of experience ;* it is
asserted by others that a certain degree of spirituality charac
terised the opening of His career, but that it closed with the
excitement of the fanatic. f On both suppositions, He would
be the sport of circumstances, not their master, and must have
succumbed to their influence in the most essential portions of
His doctrine. He was not so moulded by circumstances,
either in the one direction or the other. The history of His
life will show us the continuous development of one single
thought, under diverse forms, and with various explanations.
Where do we find a trace of the theocrat seeking to found a ma
terial kingdom, in the divine Preacher of Nazareth, describing
refutation of his opinion than the texts which he quotes, in spite of
his endeavours to weaken their force.
* This opinion, which found favour in the Lessing school of the
18th century, has been reproduced in modern theology by De Wette
and Hase, in the first editions of his " Vie de Jesus."
f This is the fundamental point of Renan's "Vie de Jesus."

240 BOOK SECOND.
His mission by these words of Isaiah : " He hath sent me
to preach the Gospel to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted"
In His very first sermons, He proclaims Himself the king of
the poor in spirit, of thirsty and sorrowful souls, of the meek
and the persecute'd. On the other hand, we defy the most
scrupulous exegesis to discover a sensible difference between
the Galilean Christ and the Christ of Jerasalem If His
fanaticism consists in His claiming faith in Himself, and
chastising unsparingly the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, it goes
back to that same Sermon on the Mount, and it is by the
waters of the quiet Lake of Tiberias that the august figure first
appears in its majesty.
II. The Kingdom of Jesus.
Having established the reality and unity of the purpose of
Christ, we have to consider it in itself. What was it that
Jesus sought ? Was it His design to found a free brotherhood
of elect spirits, raised equally above religious ceremonies and
the uncongenial duties of public life, for the celebration of an
ideal worship in honour of some vague Divinity whom, in a
moment of enthusiastic illusion, He called His Father ? In
other words, did He seek to found a religion of enfranchised
intelligences, which should have no fixed formula or belief,
and should manifest itself by no defined mode of action? We
leave this hypothesis to any impartial reader of the Gospels.*
Or did Jesus preach only the inner life, and point man back
into himself? Was His work to consist in a simple idealisation
of Judaism, issuing in a sort of Socratic humanism ? t Evidently,
in order to sustain such a theory, a considerable portion of the
Gospel narrative must be omitted, and the Sermon on the
Mount only retained after careful pruning, for it, too, contains
* I challenge any one to find any other idea of the design of
Christ in M. Renan's book ( " Vie de Jesus," p. 91).
f Such is Baur's opinion ( " Die Christhche Kirche der drei erst.
Jahrhund.," pp. 34, 35). See also Strauss' new "Life of Jesus,"
pp. 204 and following.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 241
many other elements. Or, again, did He seek to present the
ideal type of man walking in the ways of righteousness ?*
Then His mission was simply to hold up an image of holiness,
and it is inexplicable, in such a view, why He should speak of
it as a travail of sorrow, on which hangs the salvation of the
world There is an approach to the truth, though nothing
more than this, when, with the father of modern theology in
Germany, Jesus is regarded as the founder of a new society,
truly attached to His person, because He is the only man in
whom the divine consciousness shines out in its pure splendour, f
In this theory, His one purpose is to reveal Himself to man ;
He occupies a central and unique position in the development
of the religious life. But this system takes no account of sin
and its terrible consequences. In presence of such a calamity
it is not enough to manifest the divine life ; it is necessary to
remove the obstacle which prevents its realisation and develop
ment There is a great evil to be relieved and repaired. The
redemptive aspect of the work of Christ must not, therefore, be
thus left in the shade.
If, apart from any preconceived idea, we seek to learn the
plan of -Jesus from Himself, we must not sever Him from the
conditions under which it was to be carried out. He was
nurtured and trained in the midst of Judaism ; He took the
religion of the Old Testament as the basis and starting-point
of His work, and did not hesitate to recognise, in the most
explicit manner, the legitimacy of the Mosaic institutions.
" Salvation is of the Jews," He said, at the beginning of His
ministry.! There was, then, nothing revolutionary in His
work ; He marked its close connection with what had gone
before it But he knows also that He is inaugurating the
definitive era of revelation. He does not claim to be merely
the reformer and purifier of a degenerate worship ; He claims
* This is the fundamental idea of M. Reville's writings.
t Schleiermacher ("Leben Jesu," pp. 306-317). SeeM. Bonifas'
thesis on Redemption, according to Schleiermacher's idea.
I John iv. 22. R

242 ' BOOK SECOND.
to bring to maturity a religion which, casting its roots deep
into the past, can find in Him alone its full development He
is not come to destroy, but to fulfil* He does not do away
'with the old covenant, since He is the first to proclaim its
rights • but He fulfils it by realising that which it prepared and
prefigured He frees divine truth from all the forms in which
it had been enshrouded and protected, as the ear is enclosed
in the husk, until the harvest time. This fulfilment implies
the abolition of all that is transitory and preparatory. Thus,
in the very sermon in which He declares that He is come not
to destroy, but to fulfil the law, He does not scruple to set
aside more than one Mosaic ordinance, as of limited application.
That which circumscribes, He destroys ; by spiritualising the
old, He fulfils and enlarges it. Hence that royal freedom
which He asserts, and those bold and truly divine words, in
which He proclaims Himself greater than the Temple, and
Lord even of the Sabbath day.f
There is one fundamental idea throughout the whole of the
Old Testament It is that of the kingdom of God To re
establish this kingdom in a world which has been the scene of
man's rebellion, is evidently to restore the world to its. primal
order — that is, to destroy the great moral anarchy, which has
entailed on it all the ills and woes under which it groans. In
fact, the kingdom of God is the divine sovereignty acknow
ledged by mankind ; it is the reconciliation of heaven and earth
by obedience, and this obedience cannot be other than painful,
since it must needs begin by extirpating sin, and setting against
the spirit of rebellion the spirit of sacrifice. The Old Testa
ment came to a fallen race in its rade infancy, and adapting its
revelations and institutions to the gross ignorance of men, it
* M») vofiiarfre 'on rfK9ov xaTaXvaai rbv v6u.ov T) robg **rpo0>jra"-- oiic
rp\9ov KaraXvaai, dXXd irXripG><Tai (Matt. v. 17). I entirely adopt
Neander's beautiful explanation of this text ("Vie de Jesus," I.,
pp. 132-177). See also Schleiermacher, "Leben Jesu," I., p. 313,
and all the admirable lecture devoted to this subject (pp. 310-317.)
f Matt. .xii. 6.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 243
embodied great thoughts in sensible appearances. The king
dom of God was first realised in the form of a theocracy : it
had its boundaries, like any other country, and, like an earthly
king, God made the Temple of Jerusalem His dwelling-place.
The separation between the sacred and the profane was marked
with minute care in the external life of the Jew : the law dealt
first with the life of the body, in order to rise, little by little, to
the life of the soul. In the same way, sacrifice was an essen
tially material act : the blood of bulls and of goats flowed in
streams over the altar. The divine law was itself incorporated
with a body of outward ceremonies. Thus was the kingdom
of God localised in the Mosaic institutions, so as the better to
lend itself to that gradual, religious education by which fallen
humanity must be trained. It is, nevertheless, easy to discern
the immortal spirit under the sensible form and symbol, which
only enveloped it, in order to render it in some measure appre
ciable to a people whose " heart had waxed gross." This spirit
breathes freely on the heights of prophecy. Prophecy proclaims
in clearest tones that all nations shall be blessed in the pos
terity of Abraham, that a sacrifice more worthy of God than
that of bulls and of goats shall be offered to eternal justice ; it
hails in anticipation the servant of the Lord who is to be at
once the propitiatory victim and the king of the new Israel.
Jesus Christ, in abolishing all that was still local and exclusive
in the idea of the kingdom of God, only fulfilled the old covenant,
and this was His purpose from the very beginning of His ministry.
From the outset, that theocratic kingdom of God which had
been associated with a particular people was made to give
place to the true city of God — the city of souls, entered, not
by the accident of birth, but by the renewing of the inner man.
" Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of
God,"* said Jesus, on His first sojourn in Jerusalem. Before
such words all national barriers fall; the people of "free will"
* 'Eav firi Tig yevvrj9y av<»9ev, oi bvvarai iieXv rifv fiamXeiav tov
fleoD (John iii 3..)
R 2

244 BOOK SECOND.
succeed to the people of the circumcision, the sons of Abra
ham. Entrance into the heavenly kingdom is no more an
inherited privilege, it is a moral act ; it is no more a national
and collective, but an individual fact The religious community
is distinguished from the civil and political ; moral individuality
is established by that sovereign word ; it is set free from the
institutions by which it had been fettered in the ancient world,
as well in Greek and Roman cities as in the Jewish theocracy.
Conscience, liberated from every oppressive yoke, is shown to
be the corner-stone of the spiritual temple. The kingdom of
God becomes universal in the day when it ceases to be national.
The prerogative of Israel disappears, for " the last shall be first."
We shall see with what positiveness Jesus abrogated, in the
domain of religion, that right of priority of which the Jewish
people were so proud, and with what tenderness He sought
out those who had been cut off from the synagogue, whether
they were Samaritans or Gentiles. He asserts, in like manner,
with a clearness which may be estimated by the hatred it ex
cites, that the reign of the Spirit is begun : that the hedge
planted around the law, not only by the puerile traditions of
the Pharisees, but also by the Mosaic ritual, is to be uprooted,
and that the boundless realm of the affections and the moral
life is henceforward to be open to the divine sovereignty. The
purely spiritual law which He promulgates seeks out and lays
hold of sin in its hidden germ, in the thought of covetousness
or hatred which eludes the theocratic lawgiver, but does not
escape the new legislator. He proclaims that not one stone
shall be left upon another of the Temple itself, that revered
centre of the whole Levitical worship. All worship which is
localised and attached to any sanctuary whatever, is to be
merged in worship in spirit and in truth, the only adoration
worthy ofthe God who is a Spirit*
Such is the kingdom which Jesus seeks to set up. There is
nothing chimerical in His claim, since He is Himself the king
* John iv. 24.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 245
of the new city, and is come to accomplish the work of de
liverance which alone will put an end to the old covenant In
fact, the imperfection of the first covenant arises not alone
from the necessities of the case, under which divine teaching
proportioned its light to the moral and intellectual capacity ;
its deepest source is in the lack of that real reconciliation be
tween fallen man and God, of which it gives but the promise.
Symbols and types will only cease when the links once broken
shall have been reunited The true fulfilment of the old cove
nant is actual redemption. Jesus is the Messiah only because
He is the Redeemer, and comes to consummate the work of
positive reconciliation. To found the kingdom of heaven is,
as we have said, to re-establish the sovereignty of God in the
heart The sovereignty thus asserted is not that which con
sists in crushing the rebel under the weight' of omnipotence,
and breaking him by terror and the rod This sovereignty was
maintained before Christ, and no creature, be he rebellious as
he may, can escape it. The question is now of a moral sove
reignty which is accepted and acquiesced in, and which wins
the soul to a voluntary submission. It is joined with love, and
love is only rendered possible by reconciliation ; so long as
this is incomplete, fear casts out perfect love. Everything in
this great and sublime conception of the kingdom of God points
us to the redemptive work of Messiah. This, then, occupies
the foremost place- in His plan. "God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth
in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."* In the
synoptics, as in the fourth Gospel, Jesus ever appears as the
deliverer of a fallen race, which stands in need of pardon and
restoration, and He never ceases to connect this pardon and
restoration with His own person. The profound discourses
recorded by St. John are only the expansion of the forcible
and concise words, which our three evangelists have by pre
ference reproduced. Everywhere Jesus requires faith in Him-
* John iii. 16.

246 BOOK SECOND.
self, as the one means of deliverance ; He boldly places Him
self in the centre of the religious life, and when we find Him
saying, in the fourth Gospel, "lam the way, the truth, and the
life," there is nothing more remarkable in the words than in
the multiplied acts of divine sovereignty recorded in the synop
tics. The Gospels are unanimous in attributing to Him the
foreknowledge of His death and resurrection — the two great facts
of redemption. His entire life of holiness is included in His
redeeming work, since by exhibiting in himself, from its com
mencement to its close, the man of perfect obedience, and by the
transformation of human existence into a holy sacrifice of love, He
recovers it from the curse. Therefore it is that, even before the
bloody close of His career, He acts as a Saviour, pardoning sins
and giving light and life to the penitent souls that come to Him.
Thus, to restore the kingdom of God, to disengage it from
transitory and imperfect forms, and to work out the salvation
of the world by His perfect obedience, by His sacrifice and
triumph over death — such is the plan of Jesus.
This design fulfils all the past and embraces all the future,
for it is not to find its realisation in the domain of the moral
and ideal alone, but also in renovated and glorified nature.
It is a false and bastard spiritualism which severs absolutely
the spiritual from the material world. Matter is subordinate to
spirit The earth has felt the influence of moral evil. The
victory of love will not be complete, till harmony and beauty
banish discord and pain even from this lower realm. Hence
that "regeneration"* ofthe world depicted in magnificent sym
bols by ancient prophecy, and definitely declared by Jesus in His
last discourses. These symbols may have been travestied by
millenarian dreamers, but it remains none the less tme that the
history of mankind and of the world is not destined to revolve
eternally on itself; it will have its close; the final utterance
will be that of righteousness and love ; the partial and imper
fect judgments, which are asserted from time to time, will issue
* 'H iraXiyy6veala ; of Matthew xix. 28.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 247
in the solemn decisions of the final judgment, preceded by the
universal resurrection. If this was a vain Judaistic dream,
Jesus cannot be exonerated from it, for it was assuredly His
conception. For ourselves, far from seeing in it an idle super
stition, we bow to it as the necessary sanction of the moral
law and the triumph of the true spiritual kingdom of Christ,
which may not be confounded with vague idealities.
Before the final realisation of His kingdom, Jesus shows its
progressive development in the midst of mankind. He likens
it to leaven, which little by little "leavens the whole lump,"*
a familiar image which admirably describes the purely moral
influence of the truth, which is to spread from the centre to
the circumference of human life. If Jesus is fully conscious of
His purpose, He shows no feverish haste in its fulfilment The
representative of the law of liberty, He carefully avoids pro
mulgating, under the form of juridical institutions, the new
covenant which He came to introduce. Thus He accom
plishes the transition from the one covenant to the other, with
a prudence which proves His respect for conscience. He will
not, to use his own figure, put the new wine into old bottles ;
He seeks to form new hearts and new spirits for the great
truths He brings. Therefore He submits himself to the ordi
nances and forms, of which He proclaims the abrogation. It
is wholly unjust to dispute the new character of the teaching
of Christ, on the ground of this wise reserve. Judaism was not
to be abolished judaically. Liberty and spirituality are not
bom of decretals.
III. The titles which Jesus claims.
We see how closely the foundation and growth of the king
dom of God is bound up with the person of Jesus. It rests
entirely on the manifestation of Himself, or rather on the gift
of Himself, as its basis. It is important to observe in what
light He regarded Himself from the commencement, and in
* Matthew xiii. 33.

248 BOOK SECOND.
what sense he accepted the designations, by which Messiah ,
was characterised in the Old Testament
The first of these designations was that ofthe Son of David. 1
Hebrew prophecy had proclaimed by all its voices, that the)
deliverer should descend from the father of the great national
dynasty. " There shall come forth a rod out of Jesse, and a
Branch shall grow out of his roots, and the spirit of the Lord
shall rest upon him . . . with righteousness shall he judge
the poor."* Jesus is continually called in the Gospels the Son
of David, by those who recognise in Him the Messiah.-)- We
find no trace of that sort of reserve or repugnance attributed to
Him with reference to this honourable title, as though He were
lending Himself shamefacedly to a superstition, which He had
not the courage to contradict He accepted this name for the
very simple reason that it belonged to Him, for, as we have
shown, He was actually the Son of David. There is no justice
in adducing against this assertion the saying of Jesus to the
Pharisees : " What think ye of Christ ? Whose son is he ?
They say unto him, The Son of David : He saith unto them,
How then doth David in spirit call him Lord ? ... If
David then call him Lord, how is he then his son ?"! Jesus
did not at all deny that He was the Son of David : it is cer
tain that the Evangelist who records these words saw no such
meaning in them, since he attributes to Jesus most positively
descent from the royal family. But Christ has none the less a
right to lay claim to a higher origin ; we are thus brought back
• to the mystery of His birth, which made Him at once Son of
David and Son of God. He is the Lord of Him whose de
scendant He is. This paradox is clearly marked in the very first
chapter of Matthew, which, side by side with the genealogy of
David's son, places the account of the miraculous conception.
* See Isaiah xi. 1-3. Compare with Jeremiah xxiii.
t See Matt. ix. 27 ; xv. 22. Markx.48. Luke xviii. 38. Johnvii.42.
X Matt. xiii. 42. See M. Colani's Essay, p. 69. The author
only sees in this text the affirmation of the purely spiritual Kingship
of Jesus. He does not explain how He claims to be David's Lord.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 249
Messiah is frequently designated Son of God in our first
Gospels. This title is given Him by a voice divine on the
banks of the Jordan, and on the Mount of Transfiguration.*
The disciples, filled with admiration by the glorious manifes
tation of His power, hail Him by this name.f He Himself, in
the parable of the husbandmen, marks the distance between
Himself and the prophets, by declaring that they were but the
servants of the Lord of the vineyard, while He is the Son.
The decisive ground of His ultimate condemnation is, that He
declares Himself before the Sanhedrim to be the Son of God.!
His judges could scarcely have raised the cry of blasphemy, if
He had laid claim to that incomparable dignity, only in the
modified sense ascribed to Him by our modern interpreters.
If He had simply meant to say that He reflected the divine
life more purely than any other man, that He was the most
faithful servant of God, He would not have used words so fear
fully equivqcal, and which led the Jews to commit a crime
without parallel. These paltry explanations cannot stand be
fore the words of Jesus in the first Gospel : "All things are
delivered unto me of my Father, and no man knoweth the
Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal
him."§ In order to sustain the theory of a radical difference
between the Christ of the synoptics and the Christ of St. John,
it is necessary to reject arbitrarily the beginning and the end
of this text Is it not more simple to take as its commentary
the decisive words of the fourth Gospel, " I and My Father
are One?"j| "God gave His only begotten Son unto the
world."1T It is asserted that these bold affirmations are more
* See Matt. iii. 17 ; xvii. 5. Mark ix. 7. Luke ix. 35.
f Matt. xiv. 33.
J Matt. xxvi. 63, 64. Luke xxii. 70.
§ Matt. xi. 27.
|| 'Eyi> xai 6 irarrip sv iofiev (John x. 30).
•jf John iii. 16. It is not just to bring forward in opposition to
this fundamental idea of the fourth Gospel, John x. 34-36. What
is there given is, as we shall see, only an argument a fortiori, which
may not be isolated from the whole context of John's Gospel.

2 5° BOOK SECOND.
fanatic than the famous motto ofthe despot, "L'Etat,r'est moi."
They are declared to be the signs of positive madness.* Let
it then be at least admitted that this is the madness of the whole
Christian Church, not merely the frenzy of an excited man ; it
is the insanity of an entire religion which, from its first day
until now, has found its life in this idea or this reproach ; for
this view of the divine Sonship is inherent in its very essence,
and in the whole conception of that kingdom of God of which
Jesus claimed to be, and was in reality the founder.
The name which Jesus seems to have Himself used by
preference was that of Son of man. It is impossible not to
see in this more than a mere allusion to Psalm viii., which
depicts in simple and pathetic colours the frailty of humanity :
" Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him ? or the son
of man, that thou visitest him ? Thou hast made him a little
lower than the angels ; thou hast crowned him with glory and
.honour."f It is indubitable that the designation, Son of man,
carried back the contemporaries of Jesus to the great oracles
of the book of Daniel, so popular at that period. The Son of
man, in Daniel, is not a mere personification of the people of
Israel ; it- is the title given to Israel's victorious head who is
none other than Messiah-! How can there be a doubt on this
point, when the oracle declares so positively and clearly, that
the future leader of the chosen people shall bring in the final
judgments Jesus takes to Himself this title of Son of man

Schleiermacher endeavours in vain, in his " Life of Jesus," to
reduce the divinity of Christ to a simple moral oneness with God
(p. 282).
* Strauss, " Vie de Jesus."
t Psalm viii. 5, 6.
! See Daniel vii. 13, 14.
§ Daniel ix. 24, 25. M. Colani lays stress on the question of
of Jesus to His disciples, "Whom do men *say that I, the Son of
man, am?" (Matt. xvi. 13). But is it not possible that He should
at once assert his Messiahship and ask what is thought of Him ?
Were there not diverse and contradictory ideas of Messiah among
his people ?

PREPARATION OF, JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 25 1
pre-eminently, when He is laying claim to acts of sovereignty
which belong to Messiah alone. Thus he declares that the,
Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath,* that He has autho
rity on earth to forgive sins, that He has power to save that
which is lost.J Lastly, when He proclaims His coming again
in glory to judge the world and raise the dead, He says
emphatically that the " Son of man shall be seen coming in the
clouds with power and great glory."! It follows that Jesus, in
employing this name, as distinctly points to Himself as Messiah,
as when he accepts the title of Son of David and Son of God.
No doubt he means to express by it His intimate union with
mankind; He makes Himself its representative, the second
Adam, the spiritual King of the fallen race, and partaker of all
its sufferings. He is Messiah, precisely because He has taken
on Him our nature, with all its infirmities which are not moral
blemishes. But on the other hand, He only fully realises the
human ideal, and is only, in an absolute sense, the type of
man, by virtue of His divine life; for the only full consum
mation for a being made in the likeness of God must be union
with God. Thus it may be said that Jesus was all the more
truly Son of man, because He was in a yet higher sense Son of
God. There is a real and sublime synonymy between these
two titles of honour ; they alone explain the glorious name of
Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Saviour, which He bears most
commonly, because it was to save the world it behoved Him to
be at once Son of man and Son of God. His high dignity is
then the first condition of the realisation of His plan.
IV. The Church and the Apostolate.
* Mark ii. 28.
t Matt. ix. 6. Mark ii. 10. How M. Colani can see here nothing
but a mere human fact passes comprehension (" These," p. 79).
J Matt. xxiv. 30. This is another text which is swept away with
a stroke ofthe pen. In refuting M. Colani's thesis we have at the
same time refuted the chapter on the doctrine of Jesus in the " Vorle-
sungen ueber neutestamentliche Theologie," by Baur, a posthumous
work, published in 1854. It contains the same fundamental ideas.

252 BOOK SECOND.
The new form which the kingdom of God assumed under
the teaching of Christ, implied the foundation of the Church.
What, in fact, is the Church but a religious body, external to
the body politic, its ranks recruited not by birth but by con
version, a holy family of believing souls, united by bonds
transcending all national barriers, the tme city of God, built
with living stones ? There is, however, nowhere to be found
in the Gospel a formal institution of the Church by Jesus
Christ. This spiritual city cannot be organised like Sparta by
a Lycurgus ; its institutions must be the very expression of a
new life, and this life has first of all to be created and developed.
In its origin the Church is not constituted in opposition to the
Temple ; it will detach itself from Judaism, as the result of an
inner development, as the ripe fruit falls from the branch.
Still it exists in germ from the beginning of the ministry of
Jesus.* Its foundation is laid on the day when a few disciples
attach themselves to His person in a bond of confidence and
love, and leave all to follow Him. The growing opposition of
Judaism, and excommunication from the synagogue, will draw
an ever deepening line of demarcation between the ancient theo
cratic body and the new community, which, apart from its head
is not at first fully conscious of its own nature.
That the intention of Jesus was to found a Church is
sufficiently proved by the calling of the apostles. After a
night of prayer, He chooses twelve, whom He designs to
employ in an especial manner as His ambassadors.! This
* In Matt. xvii. 17, the very word Church is used, but is still in
Its general sense of a religious assembly, and as by anticipation.
+ Luke vi. 12-16. Mark iii. 13-19. Matt. x. 1-15. Schleier-
macher will not see any definite intention in the choice of the
twelve. According to him, it is rather Jesus who was chosen by
those of His disciples who were the most strongly attached to Him.
(" Leben Jesu," pp. 370, 37 1). But the testimony ofthe fourth Gospel
gives absolute confirmation to that of the synoptics, "Ye have not
chosen me, but I have chosen you" (John xv. 16). Strauss,
Schenkel, and M. Colani vie with each other in deprecation of the
choice of the twelve.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 253
number is evidently symbolical, and points to the twelve tribes
of God's ancient people. Jesus shows clearly that He is the
founder of the true Israel. These twelve apostles will be the
spiritual patriarchs, the fathers of that peculiar people which
will only be composed of voluntary adherents alone. Gens
sine prole nata. The apostolic office is not the institution of
a new hierarchy, destined to perpetuate the Levitical and sacer
dotal tribe ; the very number of those invested with it indicates
plainly that they represent the new people of God as a whole ;
they have no peculiar authority, neither that of decreeing doc
trine nor of pardoning sins, for it cannot be established that
the power of the keys was committed to them in any exclusive
manner. It was entmsted to all the disciples, and is thus
reduced to a simple proclamation of the general terms of
pardon.* The treasury of divine grace belongs to the whole
Church. It is better than a treasury ; it is that living spring
of which Christ said : " If any man thirst, let him come unto
me and drink." What then is the apostolic office, rightly esti
mated ? It is, so to speak, the normal representation of
primitive Christianity-— of the Church which saw Christ face to
face, which directly heard His voice, and received from Him
the great commission of preserving His memory to the world.
The apostles are witnesses chosen and accredited by Jesus
Himself, and everything rests definitely on their testimony;
they are the pillars of the spiritual temple. They formed the
first nucleus of the Church, that which came closest to the
centre of all tmth and life. Hence the unwearied labours of
Jesus devoted to the spiritual education of the twelve. These
rough, uncultured natures were like precious marble, not yet

* The passage, Matt, xviii. 18, in which Jesus confers on His
followers the power of binding and loosing, forms part of the
general instructions addressed to all Christians. Yet more ; this
declaration of the right of pardoning sins was made, not to the
apostles alone, but to all the disciples, as may be verified by a
comparison of John xx". 19 ; Luke xxiv. 33.

254 BOOK SECOND.
polished, but from which the great Master would bring forth a
monument to His praise.
The apostolical commission thus defined is irreconcilable
either with direct succession in a sacerdotal body, or with a
hierarchial primacy.* It is the prototype of the Church her
self; to her will be entrusted the charge of appointing the
authorities and offices essential to every well-regulated body ;
she will create them successively in the plenitude of her liberty,
giving them, by her election, a representative value kindred to
that possessed by the apostolate, but without derogating from
the eternal priesthood and permanent kingship of Christ, with
out forgetting that the entire new Israel is a people of kings
and priests, and that since the one reparative sacrifice has been
made, no other offering is required than the freewill offering of
the heart ¦(• If, then, the appointment of apostles formed part
ofthe plan of Christ, it is none the less tme that He left to the
Church herself the charge of her own organisation under the
direction of the Divine Spirit. Except baptism and the Lord's
Supper, which were only instituted at the close of His ministry,
He imposed no form or ritual.
We see, in this sacred reserve, the same seal of spirituality
which is so marked in His entire career. His design was to
found the kingdom of God by His holy life and sacrifice, to
perpetuate it by apostolic testimony, and after shedding His
own blood, to leave to His disciples no other weapon than that
of the word. That which confers incomparable grandeur on
the apostolic office, is that it is the noblest instrument of carry
ing on the work of Jesus, and that most in harmony with His
spirit; it is a purely moral force, propagating the faith by
persuasion alone ; it is the truth unaided by any artificial and
* We shall explain in its place the famous text, " Thou art
Peter." t See on the development of the first institution of the Church,
the first volume of my " Histoire des trois premiers Siecles de
l'Eglise," pp. 312, 313; and Vol. II. chap. v.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 255
material supports ; it is, in short, the sword of the spirit wielded
in the service of the God who is a Spirit.
We have only permitted ourselves to trace the outlines of
the plan of Jesus ; it will belong to the narrative itself to give
colour to these general ideas. But before entering on this, we
must show the character of His teaching and His miracles —
the two principal methods of His operation.

256 BOOK SECOND.

CHAPTER V.
THE TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST.
I. Subject of Christ's teaching.
TTTE shall consider separately the subject and the form of
* * the teaching of Jesus. From both points of view it
presents the character of the highest originality. That which
we have said of His plan and of the central place He
necessarily gives to Himself in its realisation, is a sufficient
explanation ofthe fact that He Himself is the principal subject
of His teaching. He is the Mediator between men and His
Father ; He not only reveals God, but He also unites man to
God by the most real of all bonds, for His perfect obedience
brings the two wills into absolute agreement Everything,
then, as we have shown, centres in His person. The first
characteristic feature of His doctrine is, that it refers entirely
to Himself. He claims not only adherence, but faith in
Himself; no explanation, however ingenious, can lessen the
significance of this fact In this He is distinguished from all
the teachers who preceded Him, whether philosophers or
prophets. This is why He founded, not simply a school, but
a Church ; or, more properly speaking, a religion. This
radical difference between Him and all His predecessors is
expressed with rare precision in the prologue to the fourth
Gospel; when, in reference to John the Baptist, the last and
greatest of the seers, it is said : " He was not that light,* but
was sent to bear witness of that light. That is the true light
which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." Jesus,
then, is not the witness of the light, He is Himself the light.
* Ovx tfv ixeXvog rb ftig, John i. 8.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 257
He only.has a right to say "I am the truth."* We shall see,
by the very development of His teaching in the course of His
life, what inexhaustible riches of knowledge of God, of man
kind, of time and eternity, are comprised in that simple and
sublime declaration. The incomparable power of His doctrine
arises from this, that it is not so much a new idea as a new
fact, or rather the true realisation of all man's dim and yearn
ing anticipations. The ideas of reparation, of reconciliation,
of divine and eternal life, were not strangers to mankind ; least
of all were they so to the people who possessed the holy
oracles ; but now for the first time they take form in a holy
person, and are realised in the work of the Redeemer. Banish
all which refers to Himself in Christ's words ; reduce him to a
mere master like Plato, or a prophet like Isaiah, and it is as if
the Gospels were emptied of their meaning ; the very substance
of the doctrine is gone ; there remains only a dry husk, a
hollow, resounding shell : the teaching of Jesus is then nothing
more than a tinkling cymbal ; apart from a few gleams of
original and popular wisdom, it can scarcely be exonerated
from the charge of wearisome monotony. All that sublime
mystery which has nourished the souls of saints in all time, is
then rightly pronounced the most defective portion of His
teaching. If He is not God, the divinest side of His doctrine
becomes the most vulnerable. It can only subsist, if beneath
it is felt the pulse of a life which is truly of God.
According to our conception of the incarnation and the
voluntary humiliation which it implies, we do not ascribe
omniscience to Jesus ; He became subject to the law of
development, consequently he did not possess, at the outset,
all religious knowledge ; he attained it progressively. Let us,
however, while we admit this doctrine of His progressive
development, carefully guard against confounding the relative
imperfection of His religious knowledge with error. Infallibility
in this province is a consequence of perfect holiness; for
* John xvi. 6.
S

258 BOOK SECOND.
religious error is associated with moral defectiveness. "Tmth,"
says Schleiermacher, "is the natural heritage of man; his
faculties, in their normal condition, ought to lead him to it.
The state of ignorance or uncertainty is not error ; the latter
commences the moment the mind has arrived at a false con
clusion; for, in order to do this, it must have stopped too soon
in its search after truth, and, consequently, must either have
been wanting in the love which tmth deserves, or must have
had a secret interest in accepting an incomplete result. It is
not then possible to distinguish, absolutely, between error and
sin ; at least in relation to that order of truths which addresss
themselves to the conscience and the soul"* If it is thus
with man in his normal condition, with how much stronger
reason may we attribute this infallibility to Jesus, who presents
to us the highest ideal of humanity. With a mind upright and
pure, He discerned religious truth as it was reflected in Holy
Scripture, in nature, and, most of all, in Himself, — the most
perfect mirror of things divine. All He needed, then, was to
arrive at the full consciousness of His own being.
This infallibility need not, however, be extended beyond the
sphere of religious truth. It would be taking away from Jesus
the reality of His humanity to suppose that He possessed an
intuitive knowledge of all the laws of physics, and did not
share the current beliefs of His age as to natural phenomena.
It would be childish to suppose that while He spoke of the
setting sun, He held in mental reservation the theory of
Galileo or of Newton. No, in all that belonged not to His
mission, He was truly the man of His country and His age.
Yet more, even in the things of religion He did not possess
boundless knowledge. He Himself declares that the knowledge
of times and seasons belongs exclusively to the Father. \ The
properly scientific portion of religion, that which comprehends
questions of criticism, of chronology and ritual, did not come
* Schleiermacher, " Leben Jesu," p. 118.
f Acts i. 7.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 259
within the scope of His immediate intuition. It follows that
He was infallible only in the directly religious province of
tmth; this must be admitted without limitation or exagge
ration. Assuredly, that which He came to teach the world, by
the manifestation of Himself and the revelation of God, was
a lesson so great that it cannot be necessary to overlay it with
elements foreign to His mission. He did not come to reveal
that which science could by herself discover, but to restore
sight to those blind souls who have eyes only for earth, and to
whom the inner and invisible world is closed
II. The Form and Method of the teaching of Jesus Christ
If, from the subject of Christ's teaching, we pass to its form
and method, we cannot but recall that spontaneous declaration
of His very enemies: "Never man spake like this man."*
" Eloquence is a virtue," as has been justly said ; provided
always that by eloquence is understood, not the heated oratory
which sways men only by inflaming their passions, but that
higher art, which is the royal dominion of mind over mind, and
which addresses itself to the noblest faculties of the human
being. The most brilliant talent is insufficient to effect such a
result ; it cannot be accomplished short of the highest moral
influence. The word eloquence, even in its loftiest accep
tation, seems profane when applied to Jesus Christ, because it
is always more or less associated with a carefulness about
form, a desire for effect and love of glory. His peculiar elo
quence is derived from the ascendancy of His moral perfection ;
it is His life transfused into His teaching ; it is the constraining'
force of virtue, or rather of holiness. There is not a single
. distinctive feature of His doctrine which is not a manifestation
of one of His moral qualities, so that His teaching, considered
in its form and method, is still Himself; for His person con
stitutes its essential basis and its principal theme. Precisely
herein appears the perfection of this teaching, for the more
* John vii. 46.
S 2

-260 BOOK SECOND.
truly our words convey our thoughts and feelings, the more
perfectly do they fulfil their mission. Who then, in this sense,
ever spoke like Him beneath whose every utterance we feel,
as it were, the throb of the compassionate heart which prompted
it? Whence comes that august calm which is impressed on all
His discourses, and which makes us say as we listen, "It is
the Lord?" Is it -not from His perfect mastery of Himself;
from the constant serenity and harmony of His whole being ?
Nothing in his teaching conveys the impression of elation or
extraordinary excitement of feeling, because He is never beside
Himself or above Himself; life in God is not with Him an
exceptional state, a rapture of soul, an elevation attained rarely,
and only under the extraordinary inspiration of some favoured
hour ; it is His habitual condition, therefore it does not reveal
itself in Him as in the prophet, by burning words and bold
metaphors, glancing with lightning flash through his discourses ;
it is manifested as a bright and gentle light proceeding from a
flame burning steadily on the altar.
One most characteristic .trait of the teaching of Jesus is its
adaptation to the common people. No other master ever made
Himself so accessible to. the multitude, to the humblest and
most ignorant, no less than to the greatest minds. Nor was
this popularity purchased as popularity so often is, at the cost
of truth. He pandered to none of 'the passions of His age ;
He made no concession to current errors. On the contrary,
He never ceased for a day to combat the favourite ideas of the
men of His generation, and to trample under foot the national
prejudices of the Jews, commencing with their infatuated pride.
He in no way accommodated Himself to their false conceptions ;
and when He is either accused or commended for having
clothed immortal truths in the coarse garb of vulgar super
stition, in order to bring them within the compass of His con
temporaries, the judgment is contradicted by the best authen
ticated facts, and, most of all, by that noble and manly candour

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS .WORK. , 26 1
which characterises all His discourses. It was, then, without
any concession to the false morality of accommodation, that
Jesus became the most popular of teachers. He was so from
the same cause which endeared poverty to Him, by virtue of
that natural affinity which exists between compassionate love
and the most neglected and despised portion ofmankind. He
who made His dwelling among the poor, spoke for the igno
rant, and for children. Thus, in the popular character of His
teaching, we find the distinctive feature of His whole life, which
is ever love stooping to save.
This popular form of teaching was an entire novelty. Not
only in Judaea, but wherever mind had acquired a certain de
gree of culture, it asserted its aristocracy. The saying of the
poet, Odi profanum vulgus, was the motto of the wise. Every
philosophical school had its secret esoteric doctrine, commu
nicated only to the initiated; in this practice there was as
much prudence as pride. Under this shelter, the superstition
of the masses might be safely despised without the risk of
rousing their anger. The esoteric system had taken root in
Jemsalem as in Athens and Rome. Religion, as we have seen,
had become a thing of the schools ; the rabbis had transformed
it into a cold and complicated science ; their contempt for the
ignorant went to the length of the most sanguinary hate, as we
may judge from the saying of the Pharisees, recorded in our
Gospels, " This people which'knoweth not the law are cursed"*
These harsh words are but an echo of the malediction of the
synagogue on the Amhaarez, an opprobrious name given to any
one who held himself aloof from their school. " As well give
one's daughter to a wolf as to an ignorant man. Such an one
deserves to forfeit all his rights, to be refused all assistance,
and to be passed by without recognition by any who meet
him."t The excommunicated of the schools were the chosen
r * rO bxXog ovrog i fifi yivwaxiav tov vbfiov ImKarapaToi elai (John
vii. 49)-
t G'frqerer, " Das Jahrhundert des Heils," I., pp. 190, 191.

262 BOOK SECOND.
of Christ ; He brought Divine tmth to them in its simplicity
and purity, and it was to them, according to the scriptural ex
pression, as milk to the newborn babe. He was fully conscious
of this new character of His teaching. "I thank thee, O
Father, Lord of heaven and earth," He exclaims, " that thou
hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast
revealed them unto babes."* Assuredly, His words did not
mean that there is any incompatibility between knowledge and
the Gospel, but they did imply that the way to Jesus is not
that of dialectics and erudition, or few would be able to walk
in it. The best commentary on this sublime saying is the
following passage from Tertullian, " I call thee, human soul,
not such as thou art when thou hast been moulded in schools
and polished in libraries. I seek thee simple and rude, un
taught and ignorant as thou art found in those who have added
nothing to nature. I go to seek thee on the highway, in the
market place, in the workshop. I ask of thee only that which
thou bringest originally to man, only that which thou hast thy
self learned of thine author."! Thus the popularity of the
teaching of Jesus arises primarily from its essentially human
character. The same cause explains its freedom from all technicalities ;
never was there more thoroughly lay teaching than His.! He
does not sit in the seat of Moses, nor speak a sacred and
learned tongue ; He mixes with the people in the towns and
country; the green summit of a hill, the side of a well, the
market places, the fields where feed the flocks, are alike His
pulpit and His text, and He draws lessons the most sublime
from the commonest concerns of life. With a skilful hand He
can engraft His teachings on to the disposition of His hearers ;
He discerns at a glance the point of contact between the spirits
* 'AirexiiXv\jiag abrd vqirioig (Matt. xi. 25.)
•f- Te simplicem et rudem et impolitam compello. Ea expostula
qua tecum in hominem infero. (Tertullian, " De Testimonio
Animce"). J Ewald, " Geschichte Volks Israels," V. pp, 215, 216.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 263
He seeks to enlighten and His own exalted thoughts. No one
knows so well as Jesus how to connect new truth with the old
and familiar. Thus is He like the householder who brings
forth out of his treasury things new and old.
No thought remains in His teaching vague and abstract ; it
is at once clothed in a body, and stands forth in bold relief,
which makes it appreciable to the most unlearned. It has
been observed with justice, that His discourses are coloured
by His historical surroundings ; that is what imparts to them
that perpetual freshness, that seal of reality, which engraves
them upon every memory. The commonest features of life in
the towns and in the country, the wide and narrow gates, the
platter made clean on the outside, salt, leaven,* the new and
old pieces put into the worn garment, all assume a high signi
ficance in His teaching, and help to give it an original and
picturesque turn. We are transported into the fields where the
harvests whiten, where the herds graze, where the lily puts on,
without effort of its own, a vesture richer than Solomon's purple.
Family life in its various incidents furnishes new figures. There
is the candle which lights all the house when the darkness has
set in. The children are sleeping round the father, when he
hears again and again at the door the importunate knock of
his needy neighbour. At the midnight hour comes the thief. f
Domestic festivals, the wedding with its oriental splendours,
the birth of a child, and the joy that comes with it, all find
place in these symbolical pictures.! Social relations are used
with the same divine art. The slave, the journeyman, the
miser, the son of the house appear, each with his peculiar fea
tures, in the sermons of Jesus. § The king is enacting his
rightful part, whether he goes to war or honours his guests with
his presence. We see the rich man at his festal table robed in
purple and fine linen, and the poor perishing with hunger at
* See Luke xiii. 18-24 ; xi. 39 ; Mark ix. 50 ; viii. 15.
t See Luke xii. 35 ; xi. 7 ; Matthew xxiv. 43.
J See Matthew xxv. ; John xvi. 21.
§ See Luke xii. 45 ; xiv. 31 ; Matt. xxii. 11.

264 BOOK SECOND. -
the threshold of the palace, and the captive sighing in his
cell* Most popular then, because, most unscholastic in its form,
was the teaching of Jesus. We note this human character in
the method which He employs for communicating truth. He
always addresses man simply as man ; He aims at the heart
and conscience — that is at that which is deepest and most fun
damental in the soul. He never addresses the man of a cer
tain class, or a certain culture ; He passes rapidly by the
merely accidental and contingent, all the distractions of a day,
that which may be called" the changing vesture of the moral
being, to act on the moral being itself. Hence the world-wide
scope of His teaching ; He lays His finger directly on the
human heart, as it is found in every stage of culture and civili
sation. It is just because it is accessible to the simple and the
young that His teaching is universal as humanity. His depth
is attributable to the same cause ; there must be, in order to
reach the child arid the ignorant, a response to the tme needs
of human nature, to those which are the deepest and most im
perative, and also the least readily satisfied '; for it is the refined
and cultivated mind which is most easily beguiled and amused.
A child-like soul, upright and simple, is not so cheaply bought ;
that which is adapted for such an one is fit for mankind.
Thus everything in the teaching of Christ appeals to the
conscience. He calls in its consent as a first essential. " If
any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine whe
ther it be of God."t Ye are the children of darkness, your
deeds are evil, ye have need of the concealment of night.
Therefore ye will not come unto me that ye might have light.
What Jesus perpetually demands is repentance, conversion, the
resolute turning of the will. " The kingdom of heaven suffereth
violence, and the violent take it by force."! Thus that meek
* See Luke xvi. 19. On the real character of the teaching of
Jesus, see Holzmann. (" Die Synopt. Evang." pp. 461-464.)
t John vii. 17. I Matt. xi. 12.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 265
and gentle teaching is in its essence also a sword, a messenger
of war, and a divider of mankind. It will execute terrible
judgments. " The word that I have spoken, the same shall
judge you."* "Take heed how ye hear."t Jesus never dis
guises, the consequences of a refusal to accept the truth ¦; His
merciful appeals have a terrible sanction.! Whoever rejects
these seeds of eternal life, becomes like an accursed land bring
ing forth thorns and thistles.
The teaching of Christ, precisely on account of its moral
character, could not carry the same evidence to all His hearers.
Religious tmth appeals to the sense of the divine, and to con
science ; it cannot, therefore, find an immediate response in a
fallen race, which is without exception under the influence of
evil, only in different degrees. Truths of this order belong.
to the invisible world ; they cannot, therefore, be discerned by
those whose inward eye remains closed. Beside, these truths
claim to reform and rule the life ; it is impossible to accept
them and at the same time to exclude the often stern obli
gations which flow from them. Thus they repel all whom
they do not draw into subjection. The mind, skilful in self-
deception, thinks its interest is engaged in disputing them. It
requires an act of the will to enter into and receive teaching like
that of Jesus ; the truth which He brings to the world must be
grasped at once by the heart and the intellect. Hence the reason
why the most perfect of masters so soon encountered opposition.
It was not that He did not use all means to rouse and
stimulate those moral powers, without which His doctrine
remains a dead letter. If He did not set forth the tmth at
once in its fulness, it was because the human eye could not
endure the sudden burst of the pure and dazzling light from
heaven. He softened its glory and shaded it beneath a veil of
transparent symbols, which had the advantage of awakening
the attention of men, still too carnally minded to look in the
face invisible realities. These symbols exciting a desire to dis-
* John xii. 48. t Luke viii. 18. J See Matt. xi. 21, 22.

266 BOOK SECOND.
cover their hidden meaning, aroused the mind, and led men to
make a salutary effort to grasp the tmth. Such a view removes
the difficulties which present themselves at first sight in the
memorable conversation between Jesus and His disciples, as to
the end of His parables. The apostles questioning Him on
the meaning of one of His similitudes, took their place in the
first rank of the children of light, who seek to have their eyes
opened. " Unto you," says the Master, " it is given to know
the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but unto them which
are without, all these things are done in parables ; that seeing
they may see and not perceive ; and hearing they may hear and
not understand; lest at any time they should be converted,
and their sins should be forgiven .them."* Let us not forget
that the inner circle which gathered around Jesus was closed to
none, and was composed of all those who, hungering and
thirsting after truth, found in His words the first response to
their panting desires, and showed by their eagerness to question
Him, that the sense of the divine had- awoke within them
None is excluded, but by his own fault or hardness of heart
How should men with eyes that will not see, participate in the
blessings of salvation? Under such conditions, tmth could
not be communicated to them without degrading and mate
rialising herself ; it would be a reproach to her, w-ere she as
ready to disclose herself to a carnal heart at enmity with her,
as to a humble and contrite spirit yearning after her. God
makes " the day-spring from on high" to shine like His sun on
the evil and the good : but the superiority of the moral over the
physical light is manifest in this, that it enlightens only those
who are willing to be enlightened. " If any man hath ears, let
him hear. To him that hath shall be given, but from him that
hath not shall be taken away, even that which he hath."f In
* "Iva pXsirovng fiXeTrwai, xai /xi) iiu>n (Mark iv. 12).
+ "Oc yip dv txv io9t]ircTai airol, xai ig ovx ?x«, xai o i'^tt, dp9nacrai
dir'airov. (Mark iv. 25). See the noble remarks of Neander on
the subject " Life of Christ," I. 145-148.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 267
other words, divine truth finds no door of entrance where the
conscience is asleep and the will feeble, and especially where
the sense of the divine is deadened. And it can be preserved
only on the same terms as it is acquired. To secure it, it needs
to be perpetually reconquered ; the slothful soul will soon lose
even the lingering memory of it. Here again comes out the
perfection of Jesus, which is inseparable from his moral per
fection. The Divine Master bore no resemblance to the doctors
of tradition who sought to subdue all minds, and fashion them
at their will. They required passivity in their disciples, and
were satisfied if these repeated the lesson, learnt without adding
anything to it. They treated the human soul as a parchment
upon which they traced their thoughts, and were afraid of any
thing which might give indication of a living organ of tmth,
because in reality they were far more desirous of exalting
themselves as the masters of the truth, than of exalting truth
itself. They pursued selfish and interested ends; they were
ambitious souls who could not endure that their disciples
should grow up to the same height as themselves. There is
nothing like this in Jesus. What He seeks is not His own
glory and personal authority ; He lives not for Himself, but for
His disciples ; He seeks to emancipate them and to raise them
to a moral manhood. Therefore His method of teaching aims
first of all to quicken heart and mind into fruitfulness, and to
arouse the will to decision. He does not impose truth upon
men, He proposes it to them, and sets no value on any but a
voluntary adherence, which He nevertheless requires to be
absolute and unreserved. In fine, moral authority is asserted
as that which alone possesses a tme and permanent ascendancy
over man. A tradition learnt and imposed from without has
no tme influence, it is only a vain show, a dead letter. The
conviction which springs from contact with Christ, and which
grows in the soul like a living seed, under the combined action
of the Holy Spirit and the human will, is called faith, and

268 BOOK SECOND.
becomes one of those beliefs for which men can suffer and die.
A consenting will is then the only true security for authority,
and Jesus seeks no other. Thus the Gospel tells us with great
justice that He taught the people as one having authority, and
not as the scribes,* — a bold and' profound saying, which shows
how the best organised system of traditional authority, one
which in its proud scom refused even to acknowledge , the
existence of the Gospel, must needs fall before moral authority,
asserted with the largest regard to human freedom,
Jesus displayed the richest variety in His teaching, in order to
adapt it to every need of the heart and every grade of culture.
In the synagogue where He spoke to the people assembled
on the Sabbath day, He took His subject according to the
wonted custom of the Jews, from the portion of Scripture
which had been read for the day.f The Old Testament always
occupied a large portion of his teaching.! It is impossible to
estimate too highly His method of interpretation, infinitely
superior to that of His first disciples, and entirely free from
the influence of the rabbinical schools of the time. Nowhere do
we find in His discourses, subtle contortion of texts, or multi
plication of artificial analogies. Himself the living commen
tary of that old covenant which He came to fulfil, He sets in
relief the one great thought which constitutes its unity. He
shows how all tends to His own work, to His person, His
sufferings and triumph. He constantly makes most happy use
of the history of Israel ; He is so perfectly master of the whole
sacred literature that it weaves itself naturalty into the thread
of His discourse, and He breathes a fresh inspiration into it
from His own life. " Never," says Ewald, " was there brought
to the interpretation of the holy Scripture a deeper intuition, a
more luminous discernment, a more penetrating intelligence.
* Matt. vii. 29. t Luke iv. 16-20.
% " And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded
to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself."
(Luke xxiv. 8).

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 269
He always knew where to find that which was most striking,
and to give it the most admirable application."*
Parable, as we have said, is one of the chosen forms of the
teaching of Jesus. It is distinguished from apologue and fable,
in that it is not a transposition of human actions into a region
to which they do not belong, as to the animal or vegetable
kingdom, but a picture, complete in itself, of some scene
of social or working life, from which is evolved a great moral
lesson or religious truth. The parable does not put words into
the mouth of the wolf, the lamb, or the ant ; it leaves natural
objects as they are. Every agent brought forward acts con
formably to the laws of his being. The similitude is to be
taken as a whole, and not pressed in detail. Nature is full of
tender and sublime symbolism. It is irradiated by the higher
and ideal world; all human language is coloured by these
reflections, for looked at closely it is but one perpetual meta
phor; every- spiritual idea is clothed in an image borrowed
from the lower world. Who can appreciate better than Jesus
these deep harmonies between the two worlds ? He stood at
the luminous focus whence all light proceeded. He is at home
in the midst of nature and the revelations of Scripture, as in
His Father's house. He is not one of the servants entrusted
with a portion of the goods, he is the Son to whom all belongs.
He has a royal understanding of nature and Scripture ; it goes
beyond mere knowledge, beyond poetry; it is a deep and
divine intuition.
Jesus is pleased frequently to give point to His thought by
casting it into the form of an aphorism, or a striking and
original maxim. These sayings of His go deep into the mind
Uke the sharp point of an arrow. Paradoxes are common in
His discourses. How should it be otherwise ? Is not all that
He says, all that He does, a protest against the ordinary course
of men's lives ? Does He not come to change the centre, to
*Ewald, "Gesch. Volks Israels,"V. p. 216, See also Holzmann,
" Die Synopt," p. 460 ; and Schleiermacher, "Leben Jesu," p. 264.

270 BOOK SECOND.
alter the pole ? He who shows what love is by laying down
His life for His brethren, cannot speak without coming in
collision with all the prejudices and all the received ideas of a
world ruled by selfishness and pride. What can be more
absurd in current opinion than the idea of a man's losing his
life to save it ? And yet this principle embraces all Christianity
, and all the life of Christ.
In the discourses recorded in the synoptics, we find a great
variety of tones and forms in the sayings of the Master. As
Clement of Alexandria remarks, " The Saviour, in order to
save man, employs all accents and gives infinite variety to His
language. Now He threatens and warns, now He is wrath,
now His pity melts in tears over all"* What a difference is
there between the Sermon on the Mount and the anathemas
hurled against the Pharisees. When He changes His hearers,
as He does in passing from Galilee to Jerasalem, Jesus
necessarily varies His mode of address. His ministry, at
its commencement, is a merciful call addressed to the scattered
sheep of the house of Israel ; at its close, before a proud and
hypocritical hierarchy, it sounds like thunder from Sinai. It is
ever perfect love, whether under the form of pity or of holy
indignation, which cannot tolerate evil. We have already
dwelt on the circumstances which explain the polemical and
metaphysical tone of the discourses of Jesus in the fourth
Gospel. They show the same spirit of adaptation, in form and
substance, to the incidents of the time. The miracle of the
multiplication of the loaves furnishes the theme of His profound
discourse in the synagogue of Capernaum ; He makes use in a
similar way of the various ceremonies of the feast of Taber
nacles. The allegory of the Good Shepherd recalls the most
touching parables. If, in the upper chamber at Jemsalem, on
the eve of His death, His words become sublime mystical
utterances, can we marvel at it in such a moment and at such
a farewell ? * epnviiv i\ttl. (Clem., "Protrept," I. 8).

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 27 1
It would be a great misconception to compare the dialectics
of Jesus with those of ordinary philosophy. Nothing has less
affinity than His teaching with the chain of rigorous logic,
which links thought to thought in a close series. Jesus con
stantly suppresses the intermediate links, because He knows
intuitively those depths of the human soul, where intertwine
the fibres of moral being,' and surveys them from the height
where all truths unite, like divergent lines at an extreme
point1 of elevation. This in no way detracts from the clearness
of His teachings, which habitually take a direct and popular
form. Whether, then, we consider His teaching in its subject, its
form, or its method, it presents the same invariable aspect of
perfection. There have been only two men who have ever
known how, in any degree, to speak that living language which
appeals to all. The most popular teachers of mankind, next to
Jesus, have certainly been Socrates — at least the Socrates of
Xenophon — and Luther ; the first laid aside all false formality,
and dared to take the text of his lessons from the incidents of
common life; the second might have said with reason that the
heart of the common people beat with his, for he gave form to
its thought and possessed the art of those bright and pithy
sayings, which become household words. But without dwelling
on the inadequacy of the best philosophy of the ancients, and
without recalling all the imperfections of the great reformer, we
ask who would dare for a moment to compare the uncertain
and often frigid teachings of Socrates; or the impetuous torrent
of Luther's speech, to the words of Jesus, as we have described
them? In this respect, as in every other, He stands alone.

*72 BOOK SECOND.

CHAPTER VI.
THE MIRACLES OF JESUS CHRIST.
JESUS did not limit Himself to teaching tmth to man; He
also worked miracles. It is not possible, as has been
often attempted, to separate these two parts of His work,
which concur equally in the realisation of His design. His
miracles form, indeed, a part of His teaching, for He constantly
appealed to them as the proof of His divine commission. His
words are closely connected with the wonderful works which
He performed; the miracles repeatedly give occasion to the
discourses, and form their theme. The teachings and the
miracles are intertwined, as it were, in the fabric of the Gospel
narrative, and, except by the most arbitrary mutilation of that
narrative they must be accepted or rejected together. It is,
then, a vain attempt to seek to distinguish between the Master
of wisdom and him who is called the Thaumaturgus. If the
miracles are false or fabulous, the sayings of Jesus which rest
on them lose all authority. It is vain to attempt a dubious
explanation, which attributes to Jesus a half-designed, half-
involuntary connivance in the superstitious ideas of His age.
According to this theory, He must have shared, to a certain
extent, the childish notions of His people as to the marvellous;
He could have had no clear discernment of the boundary
between natural and supernatural order, and yet He must have
been conscious of an instinctive repugnance to prodigies; He
must only have lent Himself to them in order to assure the
success of His cause, pushing His concessions, however, so far

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 273
that he must have played more than once the part of a common
magician, if we may not say impostor.*
This explanation shatters itself on the rock of an inevitable
contradiction; for, if Jesus was Himself .deceived as to the
line of demarcation between the natural and supernatural order
of things, He was under no necessity to practise the convenient
system of pious frauds. As to the first point, it is certain that
He always perfectly recognised the marked distinction between
the ordinary course of events and the exceptional manifestations
of divine power. This is abundantly evident from the manner
in which He appeals to His miracles as the attestation of His
mission. Upon the second point — that veiled imputation of
imposture, so much the more perfidious that it assumes the
garb of eulogy — we can enter into no discussion. The spirit
which confesses in Jesus the Holy One of God, the great and
solemn Witness of the truth, repels with indignation the charge,
and still more the apology. The moral sense is not different
in the East and the West ; under every sky it condemns false
hood, and cannot suffer without a shudder the casting of such
a blemish on the purest moral image the world has ever seen.
The school of fable has been constrained to have recourse to
these dubious subtleties; it commenced by the negation of all-
miracles, but its position has become less easy, since criticism
has come to an almost unanimous conclusion, that our three
first Gospels must have appeared between the years 70 and 80.
We will not dwell on the strange modifications of the sacred
story, by which it has been attempted to reduce the miraculous
action of Jesus Christ to a mere moral influence. This can
only be done by rejecting all the facts which absolutely refuse
to lend themselves to such an interpretation— the miracles, for
instance, wrought on inert nature;! and even the other miracles
* See the slight and curious chapter on the miracles in M.
Renan's " Vie de Jesus," p. 255.
f This is the great gap in Schleiermacher's " Life of Jesus." He
admits only the cures, attributing them to the moral action ofthe
T

274 BOOK SECOND.
need to be capriciously handled to fit the hypothesis. We
shall not pass in review again the general principles which lead
us to admit the possibility of the supernatural ; we have not
now to treat the question in the abstract, but only in its
application to the ministry of Jesus, enquiring what was the
aim, and what the character of His miracles.
Let us, first of all, make a distinction between a miracle and
a prodigy. A prodigy is only a manifestation of power, an
astonishing fact, which arrests the attention, and elicits admira
tion and amazement quite apart from its moral character.
Clearly, it has no religious value ; it appeals to the eye, and
not to the heart and conscience ; it cannot serve to establish
either a divine mission or a new truth, for evil itself may have
extraordinary manifestations, and we read in Scripture of
prodigies aiding and abetting error. Besides, if power belongs
to God, it is but one of His attributes ; it is not in it that we
must seek the essence of His being, since that is pre-eminently
holiness and love. The greatest displays of power would not
truly reveal Him. Hence the sterility of prodigy left to itself.
The Jews, in their carnality and earthliness of mind, sought
after a sign, and demanded it urgently of Jesus ; and, had He
satisfied them, they would have worshipped Him, or, rather
they would have hailed in Him the gratification of their most
cherished ideas. Therefore He always refused the miracles
they asked so eagerly. To the Pharisees seeking of Him a
sign from heaven, He replied that there should no sign be
given them, but the sign of the prophet Jonas, whose very
appearance was in itself a miracle in a city corrupt as Nineveh. *
It follows that a miracle is not a mere prodigy ; it implies a
manifestation of holiness and love. It is a sign, a revelation
of the invisible ; it is designed to raise those who witness it,
Redeemer. As to the instances of resurrection of which the Gospel
speaks, he supposes death to have been only apparent (" Leben
Jesu," pp. 205-220). M. Schenkel has carried these explanations
to the point of absurdity .-
* Luke xi. 29, 30.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 275
from the merely external to the higher and moral sphere; it is,
in fine, a work, and it is by this name that Jesus most fre
quently designates it.* A work implies the development of
moral activity ; it is the manifestation not only of a particular
force, but of the worker himself. " The works that I do," said
Jesus, " they bear witness of me."t Each individual miracle is,
then, a revelation of the Saviour, a reflex of His moral per
fection, a sensible expression of His character. Jesus is Him
self the great miracle, for He represents at its culminating
point, the saving and special intervention of Divine love for
the redemption of the world He breaks the chain of natural
causes and effects, to make a new beginning. He is the
incarnation of redeeming love ; and we recognise in Him the
supreme manifestation of the pity of the Father, remedying the
rain of the fall Particular miracles are only emanations from
. this living and central miracle.
Peculiarly, by the simple fact that they are the suspension of
natural laws, miracles denote the extraordinary character of the
mission and work of Jesus ; they mark Him as the great
Ambassador of God, who restores the kingdom of heaven with
power ; the special and local supernatural springs from the
general and permanent supernatural element of the work of
redemption. Then the very manner in which Jesus performs
His miracles bears witness of the condition of lowliness and
abasement to which He had voluntarily stooped ; He does not
directly assert divine power ; He asks it as a communication
from His Father ; He prays before healing the sick, and raising
the dead ; ahd the lifting up of His eyes to heaven testifies that
He has come down from heaven, and has .lowered Himself to
the level of finite and human existence. Lastly, He never
works wonders for Himself, for His own glory or well-being ;
He who could multiply the loaves to feed hungry thousands,
* There is a clear distinction to be observed between rkpag
(portentum) and aiifiuov, tpyov.
¦j- Aird rd ipya'd iyi) ttom, paprvpei nepl ipov (John v. 36).
T 2

276 BOOK SECOND.
lived by charity; He, who. could call floods from the flinty
rock, quenched His own thirst only at the well digged by
human toil. He suffers Himself to be taken by His enemies ;
He endures spitting and scourging, who might, if He would,
call down legions of angels to do His bidding. But He works
no miracles for Himself; He does not refuse His aid to the
poor paralytic bringing only his prayer of faith, nor to the
blind beggar sitting at the city gates ; He lays His hand, with
tender healing, on the darkened eyes ; He touches the leper ;
and, with one sovereign word, gives back her son to the widow
weeping over his bier. Thus His miracles are so many acts of
compassionate love; like His words, they describe Himself,
and make a yet more impressive appeal to the hearts and
consciences of those around Him. Here is indeed a moral
power, claiming the surrender of the will. Nothing could have
less analogy with the magical arts which seek to fascinate men.
Does any one question this ? let him compare with the Gospels
the wild romance which gives us the life of the most famous
magician of antiquity, the celebrated Apollonius of Tyana, who
has been compared with Jesus — not, it must be confessed,
without the aid of many features borrowed from our sacred
narratives, to place the comparison on a more equal footing.
Only one thing was forgotten in this borrowing process : the
holy sobriety and the spirit of love which characterise the
miracles of Jesus. On the one side, we have marvels, cold
and scenic, designed only to glorify the person of the magician ;
on the other, the works of a compassionate love which, in its
unreserved bestowment, is wholly self- forgetful*
The miracles of Jesus may be divided into those wrought
upon nature, and those of which men were the subjects. From
the point of view we have taken, the first seems no more
difficult to admit than the second. Why should nature present
more obstacles to divine power than the human body, which,
after all, is a part of nature ? Nor have we any objection to
* See the " Life of Apollonius of Tyana," by Philostratus.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 277
raise against miracles wrought at a distance, such as the
healing of the centurion's servant* The free intervention of
divine power to suspend, for a religious object, the laws of
nature, once admitted, all these difficulties disappear. The
two classes of miracles differ, however, as to the manner of
their accomplishment Nature can offer no resistance to God :
it is passive* before Him. It is otherwise with the moral
creature ; he cannot be dealt with like inert matter, even in
the case of a mere temporal deliverance. He must, to a
certain degree, concur in the miracle. Not that the disposition
of the soul, even when formed under the influence of the
words of Jesus, is ever the effective cause of the cure : in
certain cases it may contribute to it, but always in a low degree.
If, in nervous maladies, the state of the mind influences the
body, there can be no real connection between the cure of
blindness, deafness, or leprosy, and an act of faith and
submission. Yet, without this act of submission and faith,
the cure would not have taken place : faith is not the cause,
but the condition of healing. Thus a miracle possesses a
doubly moral character, for it creates a holy relation between
Him who works it and the subject of it.
The miracles of Jesus proceeded, then, always from a super
natural power, even on the rare occasions when He made use
of some outward medium for their accomplishment. No one
will maintain that when He anointed the eyes of the blind man
with a littje moistened clay, and sent him to wash in the pool
of Siloam, or when He laid His hands on the sick, these acts
were in themselves enough to produce effects so marvellous.
The primary design of miraculous cures was to awaken the
desire after moral healing. Physical evil, without being in each
individual case correlative to particular guilt, as Jesus affirms,
in opposition to the prejudices of His disciples,! is none the
* Strauss, in his " Life of Jesus," has made a nomenclature of the
miracles, trying to establish a sort of progression in the absurd.
f J ohn ix. 2.

278 BOOK SECOND.
less the consequence of moral evil It would not exist but for
sin; it is its bitter fruit and punishment Sickness, which is
the precursor of death, re-echoes the sentence of condemnation
under which the race of Adam lies. By His healing power,
Jesus showed that He was come to triumph over evil in all its
forms; if He assailed it first in its visible consequences, it was
to prepare those whom He relieved for a greatA deliverance;
thus He never failed to remind the sufferers who sought His
aid, that bodily evil was as nothing compared with that of the
soul, and at once to offer them pardon. " Go and sin no
more " was the conclusion of all His miracles.
II. The healing of the demoniacs.
One of the maladies which Jesus most frequently relieved
was that mysterious visitation of possession, which raged at
this period with great intensity, and attacked body and soul at
once. It has been denied that it presented any extraordinary
character, because it was accompanied with symptoms which
are common to all ages, such as epileptic seizures, mental
alienation, morbid excitement of the nervous organism, deaf
ness, and paralysis.* We do not question that ordinary madness
bears some resemblance in these respects to possession. It is
certain that possession grafted itself in some way on to madness,
and that, in order to its development, it required certain moral
and physical predispositions. But it is not a sufficient ex
planation of the strange phenomenon described in our gospels,
to represent it as the simple effect of popular superstition acting
upon the diseased in the shape of a fixed idea. We cannot
admit that Jesus would have carried accommodation to an
erroneous belief so far as to speak of devils as He has spoken,
if their influence had nothing to do with this terrible malady.
It is of no avail to bring forward the manner of treating the
* This is the erroneous opinion of Neander, " Life of Christ,"
V. 1. It is set aside by Luke x. 20, where the gift of casting out
evil spirits is recognised in the disciples.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 279
insane, which commences by entering into the delusion of the
sufferer with a view to his cure, and which does not acknow
ledge the obligation of trathfulness towards the unhappy
individual, for whom words have no longer their proper value.
Jesus spoke to the demoniacs in the presence of His disciples
and fellow countrymen. Now He could not have lawfully
used this language if He had not shared the opinion of His
contemporaries. This opinion then was, at least in part, true.
The Gospel does not stand alone in the mention of cases of
possession. Josephus speaks of them repeatedly, while ex
plaining them altogether erroneously. He sees in the demons,
the wandering souls of the wicked, and affirms that they were
cast out by pronouncing over the possessed particular forms of
words taken from the books ascribed to Solomon, and by
making the sufferers inhale certain medicinal herbs.* Let us
leave these gross superstitions; they do not touch the fact
itself. We find traces of it in heathen nations : St. Paul, at
Philippi in Macedonia, cured an unhappy slave who was the
victim of evil spirits, f There is no reason why the same
general causes, which had prepared the way for the outbreak of
this evil in Judaea, should not have equally propagated it else
where. These possessions cannot possibly be identified with
the sacred frenzy, the religious madness of the Pythonesses,
because it is well-known that this was brought on at will, and
it was regarded by the Greeks as an intervention of the divinity,
not as the influence of evil spirits. Why not admit that in this
critical age, which saw the close of a world, a new and strange
form of evil was called forth? or at least that madness then
assumed a terrible and exceptional character? This com
plication the Gospel explains by possession, and Jesus confirmed
this explanation by His words and acts. To a believer in the
* The principal passage in Josephus upon demoniacs is found in
"Bell. Jud "VII. 6, 3.
f See Acts xvi. 16, 17. Justin confirms the fact. " Dial, cum
Tryph.," I.

2 8o

BOOK SECOND.

existence of a kingdom of evil, peopled with malignant spirits,
there is no difficulty in supposing diverse manifestations of its
influence. The part played by devils in temptation is a great
mystery, and yet it is the subject of both faith and experience.
In a great crisis of history, may not this terrible influence have
made itself felt in an altogether special manner, upon individuals
whose mind is already diseased ? Psychology has its mysteries,
as well as metaphysics, and its facts often pass explanation.
There is no reason against supposing possession to be a kind
of exceptional mental alienation, that is to say, the substitution
of a foreign influence for the moral being which lies fettered
and bound.
In magnetic phenomena we see the magnetiser holding in
absolute subjection the sleeping subject, dictating to him his
own thoughts, and suspending in him for the time all moral
freedom. There is a Satanic magnetism, which so takes pos
session of the sick man, that he becomes the organ of an occult
power. The audible voice is his, but it is another who speaks
by him; he is no more his own; his nervous system, his mind,
his whole being is at the service of that other whose sport he is.
Hence his extraordinary clearness of perception, and also his
blasphemous violence. Whether this influence, which may be
compared to transcendent animal magnetism, is to be ascribed
to one devil or to many, does not change the character of the
case. It is supposed that the moon in its phases exercises a
strange influence on some nervous maladies; may not the king
dom of darkness, from which we are separated only by an
invisible and intangible boundary, react with additional force
upon unhappy beings, rendered accessible to such influences
by a diseased condition, and often by their own depravity ?
It is not possible, so far as we see, to go beyond this in de
ciding what possession really was. It is enough for us to know
that it was something apart from ordinary disease, and that it
implied the direct action of evil spirits. This. is sufficient
justification of the words addressed by Jesus to the demoniacs.

PREPARATION OF JESUS FOR HIS WORK. 28 1
He healed them, not by vain exorcism, but by a word of power
which banished the evil spirit, and restored the equilibrium of
the moral being. It is plain that others tried like Him to cure
the possessed: the Pharisees made it their endeavour, as He
himself admits.* It is possible that in certain cases the word
of faith and piety may have had some success/but these cures
must have been very imperfect and precarious, judging from
the number of demoniacs brought to Christ. Evidently He
alone was able to work an effectual cure. No miracles came
more directly than these within the scope of His mission of
mercy, which was in its sum and substance, a triumphant con
test with the power of evilf
* " But if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons
cast them out? " (Matt. xii. 27).
t A review of the whole discussion on the subject of demoniacs
may be seen in the " Biblisches Realwoerterbuch " of Winer, who
maintains the naturalistic opinion, and in Ebrard's article in
Herzog's " Real Encyclopaedie." See also Lange's " Leben Jesu,"
II , p. 285.

BOOK THIRD.
jFtrst PcnoD of t&e a^mistrp of 3fesus Christ

CHAPTER I.
PUBLIC MINISTRY OF JESUS FROM HIS BAPTISM TO HIS
RETURN TO GALILEE AFTER THE FEAST OF PURIM.* YEAR
OF ROME (780-782).
WE divide the ministry of Jesus into three periods, which
are closely connected. From the very commencement
of His public life the young Galilean Teacher declares His
Messiahship, but the revelation of Himself is gradual, and as
the severer aspects of His mission only appear little by little,
it excites at first but slight opposition. But in proportion as
Jesus makes Himself known in His tme character, as the
founder of a spiritual kingdom, and not as the theocratic
Messiah looked for by His contemporaries, the popular
sympathy is perceptibly alienated from Him. Neglect, not
* I bear in mind in my narrative, the recent works of MM.
Renan, Strauss, Schenkel, and Schleiermacher's Series on the
" Life of Christ," lately published by Riitenik. I do not slight any
of the objections raised in these books, though I do not feel myself
under obligation to discuss every point. Beside the wealth of
literature contained in Liicke, Olshausen, De Wette and Godet,
Astie and Bonnet's commentaries, &c, I would refer to the older
works on the life of Christ, by Neander, Lange, Hase and Ewald.

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 283
unaccompanied with hatred, is the result of the first period of
His ministry. The second is an open contest with the chiefs
of the nation, the principal scene of which is the holy city.
Lastly comes the inevitable close, shame and death, but also
the eternal victory in the seeming defeat. Corresponding with
the development of unbelief in the mass of the Jewish people,
is the growth of faith and love in the small circle of the
disciples of Jesus. While the Master is combating degenerate
Judaism, He is forming the first nucleus of the Church, which
will, at the appointed time, sever itself gradually from the
bonds of the synagogue and communicate to the world the
results of its work.
The holy life of Jesus bears, from its commencement to its
close, a redemptive character, because it is one long sacrifice
of obedience and love. Human life is thus restored to its
normal condition ; thenceforward the bitter consequences of
the fall freely accepted, are transformed into acts of reparation;
wherever the first Adam introduced rebellion, the Son of man,
the head of the new race, substitutes entire submission and
perfect holiness : He brings reconciliation out of the punish
ment itself; for, while we who have merited it must needs
endure it, He voluntarily accepts it, and submits Himself to it,
thus raising it to the height of a holy sacrifice. He thus
restores the harmony between God and man, and re-unites the
moral link which was broken at the fall. Therefore, that
which is of highest import in the ministry of Jesus is neither
the contest with His enemies, nor even the education of His
apostles, but His life itself — that human life, like that of other
men, save for the defilement of sin, but transformed into one
continual sacrifice. " My meat and my drink," He said, " is
to do the will of him that sent me."* This is the motto and
the epitome of His whole career.
This principle of obedience, which is the comprehensive
motive of His ministry, is not manifested only by His
* 'Efibv ppuipa ionv, 'iva Totw rb 9kXt)fia tov mv.\pavTog fit (John iv. 34-)

284 BOOK THIRD.
acceptance of suffering and death, but also by His constant
readiness to follow, day by day, and, as it were, step by step,
the directions of Providence. He, will neither hasten nor
retard the hour for which He came — the hour in which His
sacrifice was to be consummated ; He Himself might be
regarded as the first to apply the principle : " Sufficient unto
the day is the evil thereof." Nothing is more heroic than
patience like this ; it' is that absolute self-renunciation, which
does not wait to be called forth by great crises, but colours
the whole life.
His ministry bears the seal of unity. The simple statement
of facts dispels, as a poetical illusion, the whole hypothesis
which has been fancifully built up as to His first appearances
in Galilee. Nowhere, in reality, do we find any trace of that
pastoral, coarse in spite of its poetical adorning, which is said
to have been once enacted on the flowery shores of the sea of
Tiberias. We shall see that He, over whose very cradle
swooped a murderous sword, never ceased to awaken hatred.
No doubt, His day of labour had its dawn and its noon, before
it set in blood ; but even the morning sky was red with the
precursive signs of the storm. As soon as He opens His lips,
He words are by turns gentle and severe. The fire which He
lights upon earth does not simply kindle adoration ; it is a
consumer of evil. It was enough for it to appear in the midst
of mankind to trouble it to its depths, and to give rise to the
most absolute contradictions. This is the sign of His power,
and of the solemn sublimity of His ministry. From the first
day to the last, love and hate grow and strengthen side by side :
in place of an unaccountable change in his character and modes
of thought, transforming Him from a fair David into a fierce
Goliath, we have a continuous progression ; the laws of spiritual
sequence without which the unity of His personality would be
destroyed, are inviolably maintained.
v I. Political condition of Judaea.

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 285
Let us recall, in a few outlines, the political situation of
Judaea at the exact moment when Jesus appeared before His
countrymen. The shadow of independence, which had been
left to it under the vassal kingdom of Herod the Great, had
long vanished. Augustus had annexed Judaea to the Roman
Empire, not by making it one of those senatorial provinces
governed by proconsuls, but as a direct dependent on his -
authority. He associated it with the government of Syria, the
capital of which was Antioch, the residence of the imperial
legate. In consequence, however, of its importance, and the
difficulties presented by the complete subjection of such a
people, the. procurator oi Judaea enjoyed a certain latitude in
his administration • he at the same time managed the affairs of
Samaria, but as a second department, distinct frorh the first
Faithful to the wise policy which it had pursued with so much
success for centuries, Rome interfered as little as possible with
the usages and institutions of the conquered province. The
Sanhedrim was, therefore, allowed to continue side by side
with the procurator, but its'power was necessarily very limited.
Its jurisdiction was confined to matters of religion and small
civil causes: the procurator alone had the right of decreeing
capital punishment. The high-priestly office had lost much of
its importance. The Asmoneans and Herods had reduced it
to a subordinate magistracy, of which they made a tool for
their own purposes. Herod the Great had constituted himself
guardian of the sacerdotal vestments, under pretext that he
had had them restored to their first magnificence, on the
Levitical model; he bestowed them only on the men of his
choice. The Romans hastened to follow his example, and
thus to keep in their hands an office which might become
perilous to them.
The procurator of Judaea resided at Caesarea. He only
came to Jerusalem for the solemn feasts, or in exceptional
cases, to administer justice. His praetorium stood near the
citadel of Antonia. The Roman garrison in the whole of

286 BOOK THIRD.
Palestine did not exceed one legion. The levying of imposts
on movable property, and pn individuals, led to perpetual
difficulties; no such objection was raised to the tribute of two
drachms for the temple, which was levied by the Sanhedrim.
The taxgatherers in the service of the Romans were regarded
as the representatives of a detested rule; thus the publicans —
for the most part Jews by birth — were the objects of universal
contempt. The first rebellion of any importance took place
on the occasion of the census under Cyrenius.
At the period at which we have arrived, Judaea was governed
by Pilate, the third procurator since the annexation to the
empire; he had found in the high-priestly office John surnamed
Caiaphas, son-in-law of Annas, the son of Seth, who had for a
long time filled the same office under Valerius Gratus. Pilate
had an ally rather than a rival in the Sadducee Caiaphas, who
acted on no higher principle than the interest of his order, and
the maintenance of his power. Pontius Pilate was wanting in
the political tact which knows how to soften in form the
severities of a foreign rule; he was a man of vulgar ambition,
or, rather, one of those men without patriotism, who think only
of using their authority for their own advantage. He took no
heed of the peculiar dispositions and aversions of tire people
whom he was to govern. Thus he sent to Jerusalem a Roman
garrison with standards; the Jews regarded this as a horrible
profanation, for the eagles were worshipped as gods. Assailed
in his praetorium at Caesarea by a suppliant crowd, which no
violence could disperse, the procurator was compelled to yield
to prayers, which might soon be changed into desperate
resistance. From that moment his influence was gone, in
Judaea; he compromised it still further when he caused shields
of gold, bearing his name engraved beside that of the emperor
Tiberias, to be suspended from the outer walls of the citadel of
Antonia, This flattery to the sovereign, which might have
been unaccompanied with peril elsewhere, was received at
Jerusalem as a gratuitous provocation, and he was obliged to

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 287
recall a measure, persistence in which would have led to a
terrible tumult. Having thus made himself an object of general
aversion, he could not even do good without danger : his plan
to build an aqueduct, a thing peculiarly needed on the
burning soil of Judaea, created opposition so violent, that it
could only be put down by force. Under such a governor, the
national passions were in a perpetual state of agitation. This
increase of patriotic fanaticism created great obstacles to a
purely spiritual work like that of Jesus.*
Gaulonitis, Peraea, and Galilee still belonged, at this time, to
the family of Herod. The tetrarch Philip governed the north
west of the country for thirty-seven years, and was distinguished
for his moderation. He built the town of Banias, or Caesarea-
Philippi, near the sources of the Jordan, and also Bethsaida
Julias, on the eastern shore of the Lake." Galilee and Peraea
were the portion of Herod Antipas, the murderer of John the
Baptist His divorce from the daughter of Aretas, after his
marriage with Herodias, his brother's wife, had brought war
upon the wide provinces which he governed. He was about
soon to undergo a humiliating defeat Like his brother, he
was childless. Under the influence of such a prince, surrounded
by a licentious court, evil propensities had free play, and the
corruption of manners was a bad preparation for a religion of
purity and self-denial. In the lowness of the times, the
Herods, though of the family of the vile despots who had sold
the independence of the Jews, were regarded as in some
measure a national dynasty. Theyjiad a party which bore
their name, and which, in religious matters, combined, after
the example of Herod the Great, Pharisaism and Sadduceeism.
Such were the political circumstances in the midst of which
Jesus was placed They contributed, no doubt, to bring about
the catastrophe which terminated his career; but great as was
the tyranny which oppressed Judaea, it did not resemble the
administrative despotism of modem times. In this all is pre
* See Ewald (vol. I., pp. 10-55).

288 BOOK THIRD.
ven tion; the system of legal provisions checks all original, new,
and energetic action. On the contrary, in the old world, in
those lands of the sun where external life expands so freely,
great liberty of action is enjoyed up to the day of terrible and
final repression; the masses maybe freely addressed without an
accorded, and consequently limited, right; toleration is large,
even if tyranny is great and redoubtable. There is no security
under such an arbitrary government ; but so long as no
particular cause awakens distrust, there are fewer bonds in such
a state of society than in one of softer manners, but encaged in
the network of universal prescription.*
II. Commencement of the ministry of Jesus.,
The ministry of Jesus commences with His return from the
desert, after the temptation ; but, careful to follow the direction
of Providence, he does not wholly emerge from private life till
an iniquitous captivity has brought to a close the preaching of
His Forerunner. Even then, the circle of familiar disciples is
small, but among them He reveals Himself without reserve,
and acts openly as Messiah.
We have seen that John the Baptist greeted Jesus, as he
returned from the wilderness, with these words: "Behold the
Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world" This
saying brought to Christ His two first disciples. One was
Andrew, the son of Jonas ; the other, who, with the reserve of
holy love, does not name himself, was John, the son of Zebedee.
The words exchanged between them were brief and simple:
" Master, where dwellest thou? He saith unto them, Come
and see."t After this short dialogue, they went back no more
to the Baptist — the end of their life was attained— the
triumphant " Eureka " of Archimedes burst from their joyful
* See my " Histoire des trois premiers siecles de l'Eglise,"
vol. III., p, 24. M. Renan makes some very just reflections on this
subject in his " Vie de Jesus."
t John i., 38, 39.

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 289
hearts. " We have found the Messiah," said Andrew to his
brother Simon the day after this interview. * The aspect of
Jesus was even more impressive than His words. We have no
description of His countenance, but we know that it was radiant
with holiness and love. The inward light, which lighteth every
man, shone in His face : nothing is so telling as that involuntary
and spontaneous expression of the moral life. The pure gaze
of Jesus went down to the depths of the conscience; it was
enough for Him to turn and look upon a poor sinner to break
his heart f Simon, the son of Jonas, felt the power of that
glance from the first day, when he was brought to Jesus by his
brother Andrew. The Master discerned immediately the
distinctive features of that strong character. " Thou shalt be
called Cephas, which is by interpretation a stone,"! said He to
the son of Jonas. Under the rough exterior of the young
Galilean boatman, Jesus marked the spirit of hardy zeal which,
purified by contact with Himself, would fit him for his great
initiative mission among the apostles. These words in no way
convey an official primacy; their character is entirely a moral
one, for the positive institution of the apostolic office did not
take place till long afterwards. Before making apostles, Jesus
wished to make disciples. The first impression received by
these young men was ineffaceable, but it needed to be
confirmed; thus we shall find them returning to their ordinary
occupations; for this first call must be carefully distinguished
from the definitive call which they afterwards received. They
were already, no doubt, sincerely attached to Jesus, and might
call themselves His disciples, § but they were not yet ripe for
the exceptional vocation to which they were destined. ||
* Evpr}xafiiv tov Mtoatav (John i. 41).
t " And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter : and Peter went
out and wept bitterly."
J Si xXri9riay KriQag (John i. 43).
§ John ii. 2.
|| These observations do away with all the contradictions between
the fourth Gospel and the synoptics, which give us a very different
U

290 BOOK THIRD.
To this small, scarcely-formed group, two men soon
voluntarily joined themselves. The first, the countryman and
friend ofthe Galilean who had followed John the Baptist, was
Philip of Bethsaida. He, like them, was waiting for " Him of
whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write." * Arrested
by a sovereign word of the carpenter of Nazareth, who was as
yet to him only the son of Joseph, he in his turn exclaimed, " I
have found Him." A missionary, as soon as a disciple, he
carries the great news to another countryman, Nathanael of
Cana, who was on his way back to his own city. He had
already perceived the dawn ofthe new day; he was a man of
pious expectation and holy desire, " an Israelite indeed." The
Master saw him, as, according to the habit of the time, he was
reading the Scripture under one of the fig-trees which bordered
the road to Cana.f He knew that this was to Nathanael one of
the hallowed hours of life. " When thou wast under the fig
tree," said He, " I saw thee." These simple words, which con
tained, no doubt, an allusion to the most sacred secret of His
soul, brought Nathanael to the feet of Jesus; he forgot the
humble origin of the Messiah, which had for an instant
staggered him; the poor hamlet of Nazareth vanished from his
eyes before the glorious vision of heaven, opened by the Son of
man, and brought down to earth by the mystic ladder, which
Jacob had beheld in his dream at Bethel! He was destined
subsequently to take his place among the Apostles, under the
name of Bartholomew. § Jesus rejoined His mother at
account of the calling of the apostles (Matt, x.; Mark iii. 13-19;
Luke vi. 12-16). The synoptics only relate the final call ; to John,
the great day is that, on which he for the first time saw Jesus. The
spiritual fact eclipses to him the official.
* John i. 46.
t It was a Jewish custom for the traveller to read the holy
Scriptures under the shade of wayside trees.
! John i. 51.
§ The identity of Nathanael and Bartholomew is proved first by
the fact that Bartholomew is always placed next to Philip in the
list of the apostles. (Matt. x. 3; Mark iii. 18; Luke vi. 14); and

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 291
Cana,* in the house of a friend, where a wedding was being
celebrated. Mary, who had faithfully kept in her heart the
great memories of Bethlehem, and who was not unapprised of
the solemn scene at Jordan, was ardently impatient to see her
Son inaugurate His kingdom with power. Thus she seized
the first opportunity that presented itself to ask a miracle of
Jesus. The wine ran short at the feast, and she thought to
repay, on a magnificent scale, the hospitality she had received
under that roof. She desired a miracle for the ' glory of her
Son, and also for the satisfaction of her own maternal heart.
Such motives must needs be set aside. Mary leams with what
a seal of severity her relations will henceforward be marked
with Him, whom she bore in her bosom ; she has to prove how
much a great mission costs to natural affection. Thus her
heart begins to feel the point of the sword which is to pierce it
through. If no mother was ever so happy and blessed as Mary,
none ever suffered more from the terrible exigencies of such a
mission as that of Jesus. " Woman, what have I to do with
thee?" said He, " Mine hour is not yet come." In other
words — It is not for thee to direct Me ; I obey only a sign
from My Father; the hour of outward glory for which thou dost
fondly look is still far distant Jesus set aside the human
impulse to the miracle; the miracle itself He did not withhold.
Wrought as it was in the midst of a small circle, and in private,
it was well adapted to produce a divine assurance in the hearts
of his disciples, without exciting their national hopes. It serves
thus to mark the difference between Jesus and the Baptist.
The Foreranner spoke only of austerity and sadness, because

second by John xxi. 2: " There were together Simon Peter, and
Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and
the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his disciples."
* The Cana of the Gospel is not Kefer Kena, situated at two
hours' distance from Nazareth, but Kana el Djelil, or Cana of
Galilee, three leagues to the north-east of Nazareth. We have in
this ancient Arab designation a confirmation of the Gospel text.
(Raumer, "Palestine," p. 130). U 2

292 BOOK THIRD.
his mission was to preach repentance. He who brings salva
tion to the world does not dry the spring of holy tears, but He
adds an element of joy and gladness: He speaks not only of
death to self, but of new life.*
After a short stay at Capernaum, where He wrought several
miracles,t Jesus repaired to the holy city to keep the feast of
the Passover, always accompanied by the young Galileans who
had attached themselves to His person His first public act
was an open protest against the profanation of the sanctuary.
Men saw in Him a new Pharisee, a devotee eaten up with
zeal for the house of God-! No doubt it was lawful that the
victims required for sacrifice might be bought in the proximity
of the temple. It was also needful to have recourse to the
money changers, that the two denarii levied for the charge of
the altar might be paid in Jewish money, free from any approach
to forbidden images. But instead of confining themselves to
that which was strictly necessary, the venders had opened a
noisy market. It was not wonderful that the court was given
up to mercenaries, when the sanctuary had became the hgr-
bour of religious cupidity,, and worship itself was turned into a
means of trading, by men eager for power or credit When
the spiritual portion of the service was profaned to such a
degree, what could be expected of the material? Jesus, in
chastising these gross abuses, inaugurated a work of reformation,
which in its progress would soon attack the hypocritical
solemnities of the Temple. Taking a whip of small cords, He
drives out the buyers and sellers, and overthrows the tables of
* The mythical explanation of Strauss, which sees in this
miracle a counterpart of that of Elisha when he healed the waters
of the spring, will not bear examination. There is no analogy
between the two.
t This is proved by the words of Nicodemus, "No man can do
these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him"
(John iii. 2) ; and the request of the inhabitants of Nazareth, when
He abode in that city, that He would do the same works they had
heard done at Capernaum (Luke iv. 23).
X John ii. 17. Compare Numb. xxv. 11-13.

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 293
the money-changers. " Take these things hence," He exclaims,
in words of stern rebuke, " Make not my Father's house an
house of merchandise."* His very tone indicates His right to
speak such royal words. This majestic and sudden expression
of righteous anger strikes all the beholders with awe. The
chiefs of the hierarchy alone are unmoved by the general
feeling; their only thought is how they may defend them
selves against this rising influence. The representatives of
external authority never belie themselves. Even when the
most incontestable moral power asserts itself before their eyes,
they still demand an official warrant for its operation. " What
sign showest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things ? "
It does not befit the dignity of Jesus to give them a direct
reply; by a bold enigma He asserts His truly divine right to
reform the abuse of religion. "Destroy this temple, and in
three days I will raise it up. "f In other words, continue to
destroy by your sins the worship, which has as its visible centre
this sanctuary of stone ; I will build up the true faith in three
days by my resurrection. In reality, the Jewish religion fell to
the ground on that day when He whom it set forth by so many
types and ceremonies, was put to death by its adherents.
Thenceforward the Temple was as nought ; it was an empty
monument; spiritually it was overthrown. By His resurrec
tion from the dead, Jesus brought from the tomb the definitive
religion of the world, and thus He rebuilt the true sanctuary.
This saying went far beyond the comprehension of those who
heard it, but Jesus.no less truly asserted His prerogative by
this appeal to what the future would declare. He could not
more strongly vindicate His mission as a reformer than by
testifying to the Jews of the Decline, that they were destroying
their own religion, while He alone was capable of restoring the
worship of the true God.
* John ii. 16.
¦"¦ Avaare tov vabv tovtov, xai iv rpiaiv v/fikpatg iyepia avrov (John
ii. 19.)

294 BOOK THIRD.
Many of the beholders of this scene were vividly impressed
by it ; but between transitory impression and a true faith the
difference is great, as none knew better than Jesus* Towards
evening, however, a learned doctor, a member of the San
hedrim, named Nicodemus, was seen coming into the house to
which Jesus had retired. The deportment of the young
teacher had filled this ruler with admiration ; that which he had
heard of His miraculous power inclined him to think that here
must be a prophet indeed. But he dared not compromise his
dignity by an open interview with the Galilean. Therefore he
came to Jesus in secret. His excessive prudence showed that
he was as yet but little prepared to sacrifice to truth the
advantages of his position ; this tenacious clinging to his
privileges was a veil over his eyes. Jesus, therefore, according
to His wont, replied less to the question of the Pharisee than
to his secret thoughts: "Except a man be born again, he
cannot see the kingdom of God." He, the doctor revered and
consulted, believes himself to have reached the highest stage
of the religious life, and to be of all persons the most capable
of receiving new revelations. So far from this, the new teacher
tells him he has not even eyes to see. Nicodemus would not
have been staggered by the mention of a new birth, if the
words had been addressed to one of those Gentiles who
knocked daily at the gate of the synagogue, and who were
bound to break with all their past life. But the mystery is how
a member of the Sanhedrim can be placed in the same rank
with such. He does not hesitate to interpret the words of
Jesus in a gross and material sense. How can an old man be
born again? " Can he enter a second time into his mother's
womb and be born ? " He would rather turn the thought of
his interlocutor into ridicule, than admit for an instant that
such a man as he could be a stranger to the kingdom of
heaven. It is not the first time that pride has led to spiritual
dulness. " Verily, verily I say unto you," is the reply of Jesus,
* John ii. 25.

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 295
" except a man be bom of water and of the Spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of heaven : that which is born of the
flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."*
In order to penetrate into the region of the divine, a new sense
is necessary. The baptism of John prepares for this new birth,
but more is needed yet, — even the supernatural operation of
the Spirit, by which the soul is born to the life divine. His
mysterious influence is like that of the wind ; f invisible, it is
yet real. ¦ The sceptical interrogations of the Pharisee, Jesus
meets by his own testimony ; he asks the less, Jesus gives the
greater; he seeks to know how effects so amazing can be
produced among men on earth, Jesus opens to his view the
heavenly horizon. He himself comes down from that celestial
region, whose fruitful influences on earth He has been
describing. When He speaks of heaven He speaks of that
which He has seen, for He is the Son. And now He is about
to be .lifted up before men, as was the serpent of brass in the
wilderness. This lifting up, which is in tmth the sacrifice of
Himself, will save all who look on it in faith, for God has
given His Son to the world, that whosoever believeth in Him
might be saved. A great and terrible gift ! The secrets of all
hearts are to be revealed by the mere appearance of Christ, for
there will be no difficulty in distinguishing those who love the
light and those who seek to bury their evil deeds in darkness.
Let us not forget that while Jesus spoke thus of the invisible
world, the glory, of that world itself perceptibly irradiated His
whole being. He was Himself the living commentary on His
discourses. In converse with a scholar and man of learning,
He could not speak in the same tones as to the ignorant
multitude. He produced His credentials as the Master of
divine wisdom, and He brought them from the highest heaven
* Ti yeytvvrffikvov ix rrfg aapxbg, aap% Ian' xai rb yeyevvrifikvov ix tov
irvevfiaTog irvevfid ion (John iii. 6). 1
t Such is the connection of thought in this wonderful discourse
(John iii. 1-21).

296 BOOK THIRD.
for He had learned with His Father the things which He spoke
unto men.
III. Return of Jesus into Galilee. Meeting with the
Samaritan woman. First public preaching.
During several months, Jesus yet remained in the neighbour
hood of Jerusalem, rather carrying on the preparatory work of
John the Baptist than commencing His own. We have already
noticed the nqble testimony given to Him by the Forerunner,
on the occasion of the baptism administered by the disciples
of Jesus. The Pharisaic party, irritated against Him since the
scene in the Temple, began to manifest their opposition, in a
manner which decided Jesus to return into Galilee. He was
confirmed in His resolution by the news of the imprisonment
of John the Baptist. Jesus chose to go through Samaria; this
road is particularly barren as far as Bethel, where it reaches the
smiling hills of Ephraim. From this point it is only a winding
mountain path, picturesquely wooded. It is reckoned three
day's journey from Jerusalem to Sychar, the modem Nablous.
Travelling on foot, under the burning sun of Syria, Jesus, about
the middle of the third day, reached the well which Jacob had
digged before Sychem. Near it is the tomb of Joseph ; the
surrounding country has in no way changed since the sacred
hour; like the poor pilgrims who may be met at the same spot
to-day, returning from Nazareth, the Saviour of the world sat
down by it to rest The well is now dry, but its depth -can be
easily measured All around are still the waving corn-fields.
Before the traveller rise the two mountains of Ebal and Gerizim;
on the latter a heap of stones marks the place where stood the
Samaritan temple, built by Manasseh to rival the sanctuary at
Jerasalem. The flat roofs of the neighbouring city are dis
cernible through the olive trees. In its whole general aspect
the place is unchanged; no page of the Gospel story bears a
more clear seal of historical reality.
It is veil known that a mortal hatred divided the Jews and

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 297
the Samaritans; the former regarded the latter as apostates and
traitors; they lavished on them terms of contempt, and received
a large return. This animosity had deepened, since, under the
government of Coponius, some years before, a band of
Samaritans had made a sudden descent upon Jerasalem during
the feast of the Passover, and had profaned the sanctuary by
throwing into it human bones. Their design was to render
impossible for that year, the celebration of the grandest
solemnity of the Jews.* The latter regarded it as an abomina
tion to hold any, intercourse with a Samaritan. The rabbis,
by a false austerity, held equal scruples about speaking to any
woman whatever. This explains the astonishment of the
woman, when Jesus opened the conversation with her. She
had come, according to eastern custom, with her pitcher upon
her head to draw water. This woman united in herself all
that could excite the contempt of a Jew, not only by her
extraction, but also by her antecedents. But the redeeming
love which seeks that which is lost, is neither held back by
prejudice nor repelled by shame. Forgetful of his weariness
Jesus fixes His pitying gaze on this degraded and ignorant
creature. By a special revelation he reads the dark secret of
her life; He sees also within her the vague aspirations, which
so many sins have not wholly stifled. The interview opens
with perfect simplicity. The Master makes- the commonest
incident of daily life the basis of His highest lesson. The well,
on the edge of which He is sitting, becomes an expressive
emblem of the divine life, which He will cause to flow like a
perennial spring of living water.-)- The teaching becomes more
direct when Jesus aims like a pointed dart at the conscience of
this sinning woman, the stem remark, "Thou hast had five
husbands, ahd he whom thou now hast is not thine husband."
" Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet," she instantly exclaims,
overwhelmed and subdued by this revelation of herself. She
at once submits to this Stranger, who can read so well the
* Josephus, "Ant." XVIII. 2, § 2. t John iv. 4.

298 BOOK THIRD.
secrets of her heart, the great question debated between her
people and the Jews: "Where should men worship? Is it
at Gerizim or at Jerusalem?" Jesus tells her that hence
forward there shall.be no more one consecrated place. "God
is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in
spirit and in truth." Thus, this poor despised woman is the
first to receive the revelation of that glorious truth, of which
St. Paul was to assure the triumph in the world and in the
Church, at the cost of so many heroic conflicts. Nothing can
show more clearly that Christianity did not wait for the great
apostle to assert her independence.
Just as Jesus has answered this woman's question about
Messiah with the words, " I that speak unto thee am He," the
disciples came back from the town, bringing the food they had
gone to seek to recmit His wearied body. But all bodily wants
are forgotten when the whole soul is absorbed in a work of
obedience and love. " My meat," replied Jesus, when they
pressed Him to eat, " is to do the will of Him that sent me,
and to finish His work."* Already the harvest was whitening
in the field of the fathers, where so many holy labourers
had sown and toiled under the old covenant. What
were the , cravings of the lower nature, compared with the
ardent impatience of the reaper called to gather these ripening
ears?f By one of those rapid transitions so common with
Him, Jesus passes from His own mission to that of His dis
ciples. After all, they have but to enter on a field already
prepared and fertilised-. Let them not forget the sterner work
which has gone before their glorious task, and let the reapers
associate the sowers in their joy.
Hardly has He finished this conversation with His disciples,
when a number of Samaritans are seen coming from the city,
attracted by what the woman of Sychar had told them of the
great prophet who was come into their country. They gather
round Him, they listen, and their growing faith expresses itself
* John iv. 34. f Chap, iv.36.

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 299
in these beautiful words, " Now we believe, not because of thy
testimony: for we have heard Him ourselves, and know that
this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour' of the world."* Assuredly
such a result was in itself a demonstration that the harvest of
souls was ripening. Every event in this holy life was a new
revelation. It was not only as a measure of prudence, and in order not
to hasten the moment of final conflict between Himself and
the chiefs of the nation, that Jesus went back into Galilee on
learning the imprisonment of John the Baptist; this event was
to Him a new reason for entering in a more decided manner
on His public ministry. Hitherto, with the exception of the
purification of the Temple, which was rather a strong protest
against the profanation of divine service, than the inauguration,
properly speaking, of His own work, He had acted in a private
sphere. The baptism administered by His disciples was not
distinguished in any marked manner from that of the Fore
ranner. But now that John's voice was silenced, the moment
has come for Messiah to stand forth before the people.
Jerasalem is not a favourable place for such a manifestation;
His cause would there be foredoomed to failure, for His
enemies have in their hands all the means to arrest it from the
first step. The holy city will be His scene of conflict; it can
not be the sphere of His habitual activity. The true Israelites
are not to be found there, or at least, the city is completely
dominated by the heads of the hierarchy. Galilee lends itself
much more readily to His design, not because it is more
ignorant than Judaea, but because it is less subservient to the
theocracy, and more accessible to unofficial teaching. This
province was, nevertheless, strongly attached to the religion of
the Old Testament, and, like the border provinces, it was
remarkable for tried fidelity to the national cause, without the
intractable fanaticism of Judaea.
Jesus goes again to Cana. This visit is marked by a second
* John iv. 42.

300 BOOK THIRD.
miracle, accorded to the faith of an employe of the royal house
of Herod Antipas,* who came to entreat Christ to heal his
son, lying sick unto death at Capernaum. This strong faith
received immediate confirmation; the child recovered at the
very hour in which the father had implored Jesus to come and
heal him.! Three hours' walking from Cana brought Jesus to
Nazareth. It was a bold step to assert His Messiahship in
the very town in which He had grown up as the supposed son
of Joseph the carpenter. There He passed the Sabbath, and
repaired to the synagogue, where the people were assembled
to listen to the customary reading of a portion of the holy
books. The passage for the day was that sublime chapter of
Isaiah, which describes the promised deliverer of Israel, not as
a triumphal king, but as the friend of the poor and lowly, open
ing the eyes of the blind, giving liberty to the captives, and
bringing in the eta of mercy, the great jubilee of pardoned
humanity.! In the midst of the rapt silence of the assembly,
Jesus exclaims, "This day is this scripture fulfilled in your
ears." Then He proceeds to comment with divine unction on
the sacred text§ His hearers, remembering His obscure origin
and childhood, are not less moved than astonished, but, faith
ful to the Jewish spirit, they imperiously demand a miracle at
His hands, as if it was a debt of which He must acquit Him
self to the town where He had been brought up. His reply is
justly severe. He asserts the sovereign freedom of divine
* EaaiXixbg (John iv. 46, 47).
+ This miracle is wrongly regarded by Ewald, De Wette, and
Baur, as identical with the healing of the centurion's servant
related by Matthew and Luke. (Matt. viii. 5 ; Luke vii. 1-10.) The
two miracles are wholly different. One is worked at Cana, the
other at Capernaum ; on the one hand, we have an employe of the
king, a Jew by birth, on the other, a Roman centurion ; in the
former case the request is preferred on behalf of a son, in the latter,
of a servant. Lastly, while the father entreats Jesus to come into
his house, the centurion deprecates His doing so.
! Luke iv. 18.
§ Tldvrei i9aifiaZ,ov iirl rots Xoyocs rfjs x&PlTOS ro's ixiropevofiivois Ix
roil oToftaTos airov (Luke iv. 22.)

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 3OI
grace, which then, as in the days of Elijah and Elisha, acknow
ledged no other claim to its gifts than humble faith. Had not
a poor Phoenician widow at Sarepta, and a Syrian general at
Damascus, been preferred of old to the proud and unbelieving
Jews? At this saying all their evil passions were aroused; they
thrust Jesus out of their city, but He, "passing through the
midst of them, went his way." Thus a murderous cry was
raised against Him from His first appearance in Galilee.
IV. The Feast of Purim at Jerusalem. Healing of the
paralytic. Apologetic discourse.
In the month of March, Jesus repaired to Jerusalem to be
present at the feast of Purim, instituted in commemoration of
the deliverance of the Jews by Esther and Mordecai.* This
festival brought large numbers of people into the holy city, and
was distinguished by its popular and joyous character. To the
north-east of the Temple, not far from the Sheep Gate, now
St Stephen's Gate, was situated the great pool of Bethesda;
here the sick and paralytic came to seek relief for their maladies
in its waters, which had the property of being intermittent f
* It is of great importance, for the chronology of the New
Testament, to determine what is the feast spoken of in John v. 1..
In the majority of the manuscripts the article is wanting, and we
have simply £opn) tSiv 'loviaiuiv. An argument was drawn from
this in favour of the Feast of Purim rather than the Passover feast.
The article re-appears in the " Sinaiticus." In spite of this, the
reasons again the Feast of the Passover seem to us to preponderate.
We will point out the principal. First, John always mentions by
name the great Jewish feasts, and especially the Passover. (John ii.
I3> 23 ; vi. 4; xi, 55 ; xii. I, 2.) Second, if the feast here intended
was the Passover, Jesus, having celebrated one Passover in Galilee
(John vi. 4), would not have gone up to Jerusalem till the next
Feast of Tabernacles, in the month of Nisan, 783. He would then
have been absent from the holy city a year and a half, which seems
improbable. Third, on this hypothesis we should have an entire
year of the ministry of Jesus, that between the Passover at
Jerusalem and the Passover in Galilee, of which the fourth Gospel
would say nothing ; a thing wholly unlikely.
f The verse John v. 4 , which speaks of the angel troubling the
water, is wanting in the most ancient MSS., and the Sinaiticus.

302 BOOK THIRD.
The pool formed a kind of circular portico, from which a
narrow staircase led down to the pool. On a marble bench
were crowded the sick and the impotent, presenting a lament
able spectacle, which could not fail to move the compassionate
heart of Jesus. According to His wont, He addressed Himself
first to the poorest and most hopeless. An unhappy paralytic
lay by the pool, who could never find a friendly hand to lift
him into the water. " Wilt thou be made whole?" Jesus says
to him; "Arise, take up thy bed, and walk." The paralytic
believed the word; he arose as in the days of his strength.
Never did the Pool of Bethesda better merit its beautiful name
of House of Mercy than on this day. In this scene, so grand
and touching, the Pharisees saw but one thing — a violation of
their tradition. In presence of that healed and pardoned
man, they raised a cry of scandal, because a miracle had been
wrought on the Sabbath day. Ultra-Sabbatarianism was the.
very genius of the Pharisaic religion; in defending this it
defended its essential principle and end; in openly attacking
it, or rather, in simply placing Himself above its absurd restric
tions in order to do good, Jesus founded the religion of the
Spirit, and abolished that of the mere letter. One touch of
His compassionating love sufficed to break the galling network
of narrow precepts ; at one breath of His lips, the so carefully
embalmed corpse of Judaism cmmbled into dust. To do a
deed of mercy on the Sabbath day was to oppose eternal and
divine morality to that which was merely artificial and conven
tional The Pharisees were right, from their point of view, in
commencing the conflict on this ground; they were fighting
verily pro aris, profocis.
The excitement was great in Jerusalem when it was known
that the new teacher had dared to violate the Sabbath, in order
to heal an immortal creature made in the image of God. He
was assailed with violent recriminations, and a determined
purpose was formed to bring the offender to justice.* Jesus
* John v. 1 6.

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 303
does not condescend to justify His deed. He raises the ques
tion to a higher sphere. He appeals to His eternal relation
with God, to that entire subordination of the Son to the Father,
which results in a profound harmony of purpose and a com
munity of power. The activity of divine love is ceaseless ; it
knows no rest, no Sabbath. Hence its right to intervene at all
times for the good and salvation of men. This conformity
between Jesiis and God has just been manifested in the miracle
for which He is reprobated ; it will be manifested yet far more
gloriously in the judgment of the world and the resurrection of
the dead at the last day. These truly divine works are even
now begun. The words of Jesus condemn the hearts which
reject them, and give eternal life to those by whom they are
received. Thus, even now He is the Judge, and His voice
bids the dead to live. Do they call upon Him to prove these
bold assertions which rouse the cry of blasphemy ? He invokes
other testimony than His own ; He has a witness greater than
that of John the Baptist; it is God Himself who speaks by
these miraculous works of His ambassador, and who makes
Himself heard with yet greater power in the depths of the
heart by the secret voice of conscience, — a truly divine utter
ance to those who receive it. " Ye have not His word abiding
in you, for whom He hath sent, Him ye believe not." It is
utterly false to bring forward holy scripture against this inward
witness ; they do but confirm each other. The real cause of
the alienation of the Jews from Jesus is a moral cause. " Ye
will not come unto me that ye might have life," and why will
you not ? Because between your life and mine there is a fun
damental discord. I seek not my own glory ; I represent
self-sacrificing love, and you are proud seekers of human
praise. This constitutes the incompatibility between us; it
is on this account you have not the faculty to comprehend Me.
You, the pretended disciples of Moses, know not how to read
the books which you teach, and which are full of Me. You

3°4 BOOK THIRD.
believe not in your own oracles, how then should you receive
my words?*
Such is in substance the first apology of Jesus, so admirably
appropriate to the occasion, and so conclusive; it soars straight
to the heights of heaven, and descends again into the deepest
recesses of the human heart, there to seek and find the broken
ring to which should be fastened the golden chain of tmth. Thus
Jesus points out in the perverted or deadened conscience, the
principle of the opposition which He encounters. This oppo
sition is far more of a moral than an intellectual character,
since it has against it the resplendent witness of the miracles,
and that of Scripture from Moses to John the Baptist The
demonstration is complete and decisive, but it only serves the
more to exasperate those who will not be convinced. Jesus is
obliged to leave Jerasalem, where He possibly intended to
remain till the next Passover.
* John v. 17-47. See Liicke and Godet's commentaries.

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 305

CHAPTER II.
MINISTRY OF JESUS IN GALILEE DURING THE TIME OF PUBLIC
FAVOUR.
I. General character of the ministry of Jesus in Galilee.
Early miracles and early public discourses in that country.
TTTE have seen a few young Galileans attaching themselves
^ ' to Jesus from the commencement of His ministry,
accompanying Him in His journeys to Jerasalem, and living
in intimate association with Him. They already called them
selves His disciples, and were indeed such, in the affection
and respect with which they regarded Him, but there was as
yet nothing definite in the relation which bound them to the
Saviour. On their return with Him into Galilee they resume
their customary labours; but they are ripening for a more
positive vocation. Ignorant as they yet are, they have learned
to know and love Jesus, and have a vague consciousness of
His exalted dignity. Their hearts are His. There is nothing
to hinder the Master's forming a yet closer tie between them
'and Himself. The first whom He definitely called were James
and John, the sons of Zebedee. These were simple fishers,
living on- the shores of the lake of Gennesaret, and maintaining
themselves by their craft. Jesus joins them one day at dawn,
just as they are drawing up their net on, the strand, having
toiled all night and taken nothing. He enters into one boat,
which is Simon's; this serves Him as an extempore pulpit,
from which to address the people who crowd upon the shore.
When His discourse is finished He bids Simon throw his net
again ; and now it can hardly be drawn in for the multitude of

306 BOOK THIRD.
fishes. The miracle touches the ardent and impressible soul
of Simon to its depths. This manifestation of supernatural
power flashes a new light on all that he has already seen and
heard; he feels himself in the presence of a holy being, and
falls at His feet exclaiming, "Depart from me, for I am a
sinful man, O Lord."* No moment is more favourable for
the great call than the moment of humiliation, for it is best
received on the knees. "Fear not," says Jesus, "from hence
forth thou shalt catch men."f The four disciples hesitate not
a moment ; they leave their boat and their nets. This call is
not yet the institution of the apostolic office, but it is the first
condition of it, for, before being an apostle, it is necessary,
like the sons of James and Zebedee, to have left all to follow
Jesus. The individuality of the first disciples will come out
gradually before us, and we shall sketch their principal traits
when they receive their definitive commission.
Of all the provinces of Palestine, the most beautiful is that
in which Jesus now lived for several months, scattering every
where, as He passed through it, the seed of divine truth.
Galilee is distinguished from Judaea by its fertility and the
softness of its landscapes. It has not the wild grandeur of
the environs of Jerusalem ; plentifully irrigated by numerous
watercourses, it spreads before the eye a brilliant carpet of
enamelled verdure, encompassed by mountains. Tabor is a
grassy dome, the outlines of which seem chiselled against the
sky. It is especially in contrast with the stem aspects of
Judaea, that the soft, smiling scenes of Galilee impress the
traveller. If Christianity was to be the offspring of mere
beauty , of nature, it might certainly have found a more
enchanting birthplace — such as the golden shores of Ionia, or
* Luke v. 8, 9. The words of Peter imply a previous relation
with Jesus, for the miraculous draught would not have in itself
sufficed to reveal to him the holiness of the Master. The narrative
of John ,is implied in that of Luke.
f 'Atto tov vvv dv9pii>Trovg lay ZiaypZv (Luke v. 10; compare Matt.
iv. 18-22 ; Mark i. 16-20).

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 307
those magic isles which rise out of a sea of azure on the shores
of Asia Minor. The most striking feature of that part of
Galilee which was the principal scenes of the ministrations of
Jesus, is an air of quietness and serenity not to be met with
elsewhere. The Lake of Tiberias, even after so many wars
and ravages, still bears the impress of pure and peaceful
beauty. Its western shore is reached by the last slopes of a
chain of green hills, which sink undulating to the water's edge.
Oleanders fringe the blue waters; opposite, on the eastern
shore, the flood beats against rugged rocks, the last ramparts
of the wild country of the Gadarenes. At the northern
extremity, the Jordan loses itself in the Lake, to re-appear in
a foaming sheet at the southern end. In the distance, towards
the north-west, Hermon lifts its snowy peaks, which stand out
against the intense blue of the Syrian sky ; while a little further,
to the south-west, the mountain of Safed closes in the horizon.
In the radiant hours of early morning, or those of an em
purpled twilight, the lake reproduces with exquisite charms in
its still mirror all the accidents of light A golden haze some
times hangs over it like a heavenly veil. One would fain wake
from the surrounding hills the echo of the. holy words of the
Master. If there was ever under heaven a temple not made
with hands, it is surely this country, the true land of the
Gospel, on which we as plainly read the history of the
Redeemer as in the pages of our sacred books. The thoughts
of Christ were cast in the mould of this tender scene of nature,
and from it He drew His chosen emblems.
No doubt, in order to form a just idea of the country, it
should be seen animated and peopled as it was eighteen cen
turies ago, instead of as it now is — branded with the curse of
Islamism. Formerly, on the shores of the lake rose numerous
towns, inhabited by an active population ; the inhabitants of
the little plain of Gennesaret gave themselves up to agriculture,
while the dwellers on the shore lived by fishing and trading.
In the time of Christ, the towns on the western shore were,
x 2

3°8 BOOK THIRD.
first, Magdala, now Mejdel ; Chorazin, recognisable by a spring
overshadowed by a fig-tree ; Bethsaida (Kan-Minieh), of which
there remains only a ruined aqueduct and a fishing hamlet ; and
last, not far from the embouchure of the Jordan, Capernaum
(Tell-Hum), which was the habitual abode of Jesus, now nothing
but a heap of stones. Standing between the plain of Genne-
saret and the Lake, this town became a mart of considerable
trade.* On the eastern shore stood a second Bethsaida, built
by Philip, tetrarch of Iturea and Gaulonitis. These little cities
enjoyed much prosperity, owing to their excellent situation ;
they were, however, regarded rather as villages than towns ;
they had few men of mark among their inhabitants, on account

* The situation of Magdala and that of Bethsaida present no
difficulty. It is otherwise with respect to Chorazin and Capernaum.
Robinson places the first of these towns at Tell-Hum, and the
second at Kan-Minieh, reversing the names as we have given them.
He takes his stand, first, on the vague testimony of pilgrims, who
had not themselves visited this part of the lake of Tiberias ;
secondly, on a passage in Josephus, which says that Capernaum
owed its name to the fountain which spread fertility over the Plain
of Gennesaret (Josephus, "Ant." III. 10, 8). Robinson supposes
this spring, which is called, accordingto him, fountain oj consolation,
or Kafer Naum, to be the spring which flows under the fig-tree of
Kan-Minieh. Wilson and Ritter dispute this opinion on very
strong grounds ; the following are the principal : First, the spring
of Kan-Minieh rises from the ground, quite close to the Lake, into
which it falls. This then cannot be the stream which watered the
plain. Secondly, Josephus tells us ("Vita'' LXXII.) that having
been severely wounded near the embouchure of the Jordan during
the war of independence, he was carried by soldiers to a village
called Capernaum, where he lay for a day prostrate with fever.
Now Tell-Hum is two hours nearer to the embouchure of the Jordan
than Kan-Minieh. There can be no doubt that it was to this village
the sufferer was carried. From John vi. 23, we learn that Caper
naum was not far from the Bethsaida on the eastern coast, where,
accordingto Luke ix. 10, the multiplication of the loaves took place.
Now, Tell-Hum is opposite this second Bethsaida, which is situated
at the northern end of the Lake. The name of Tell-Hum is a synonym
of Capernaum. Kaphar-Nahum, signified the village of Nahutn.
Hum is a contracted form of Nahum, and Tell means hill ; this
designation answers perfectly to the situation of Capernaum. (See
this whole question in Ritter's " Erdkunde," XV. p 339).

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 309
of their distance from the capital. Each of them had its syna
gogue and representatives of the various Jewish schools. The
Pharisees and Sadducees strove for influence here as at Jeru
salem, but their credit was far less than in the immediate
neighbourhood of the Temple. The population would be
tolerably dense in so rich a district The Lake was perpetually
furrowed by the boats of the fishermen ; nothing was more
easy than to gather a multitude in the open air in this fine
climate. Such was the land in which Jesus led the itinerant life of a
missionary ; He had no fixed abode, and except occasional
sojourns in Capernaum, He passed His days in going about
doing good. Endowed with a heart pre-eminently loving, a
son so tender, that in a dying hour His thoughts were of minis
tering consolation to His mother, Jesus yet allows himself to
be restrained by none of the ties of natural affection. In order
to accomplish His especial work, He must needs live aloof
from all the social conditions of ordinary life. The birds of
the air have their nests, the foxes their holes, and the sons of
men their homes, but the Master might not have where to lay
His head, when He came to fulfil His mission as founder of
the true religion for man. The period of foundation has pecu
liar exigencies, which do not belong to those of preservation
and development. Jesus' first disciples were themselves obliged
to share in these stern necessities. When He called therrt to
leave all and follow Him, He was only bidding them do what
He Himself had done. Yet let us make no mistake; this
demand of complete self-renunciation was not an exceptional
one in their case ; it has never ceased to be made of God's
labourers, and it is for ever tme that he who puts his hand to
the plough must cast no look backward. Only the extraordinary
is more blended in our day with the ordinary current of life,
than could be the case in the beginnings of Christianity.
Jesus lived chiefly with His spiritual family, freely using
their hospitality, as did the rabbis of the time. He voluntarily

310 BOOK THIRD.
remained the poorest of all ; if He accepted the assistance of
His followers,* He never rose above the humblest condition of
life. He was surrounded by the disciples whom He had en
lightened, by pious women who had found pardon and con
solation in His words ; so far from repelling the fallen, He
drew them to Him by the powerful attraction of compassion.
Jesus sought out the feeble, the forsaken, all who . needed .suc
cour and pity, the beggar on the highway, the leper by the city
gates, and the little child in its mother's arms. His ministra
tions were divided between the multitudes to whom He preached
the Gospel, and the familiar circle of His disciples, whom He
taught with a solicitude only equalled by his patience. Then
at evening, after so many labours, and often such painful con
flicts, He ascended the nearest hill, and there renewed His
strength from its eternal source by solitary prayer. It was
from these sacred heights, to which His soul fled for refuge,
, that His word came down like a living stream to spread its full
floods over the thirsty land of Israel.
The Judaean year was divided by various festivals. Jesus
owned the obligation of their observance, but without taking
any heed of the traditions of the Pharisees. Every Sabbath
He repaired to the synagogue in the town where He was, and,
with a single exception, He always went up to Jerasalem to
the solemn feasts.
We shall best enter into the manner of His ordinary life by
following Him through one of the days of which the narrative
is given us in the second Gospel. It was a Sabbath, f As
soon as it was day, Jesus repaired to the synagogue, and founded
His teaching on the portion of Scripture which was read. The
impression produced by His words was profound ; the listeners
felt at once the difference between this Teacher and the rabbis
to whom they were accustomed. Instead of an impersonal
organ of tradition, they heard a living voice which went down
into the depths of their heart ; it was spiritual authority taking
* Luke viii. 2. 3. f See Mark i. 21-39.

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 311
the place of dead dogmatism ; they were conscious at once
that in His teaching there was an extraordinary virtue. A
poor man possessed with a devil was present in the assembly,
and was seized with convulsions. The devil which exercised a
mysterious influence over him threw him into a frenzy of excite
ment; with a look and a word Jesus rebuked the evil spirit,
and the sufferer was healed and in his right mind. The wit
nesses of this astonishing scene were filled with admiration, and
went out of the synagogue to spread in the city the news of
the miracle.
Jesus retired to the house of Peter and Andrew, where He
healed Peter's wife's mother of an attack of fever. The hours
of the day were spent under this hospitable roof, the meal was
taken in common, and the disciples received doubtless from
the lips of the Master the explanation of His discourse in the
synagogue. We at least know that such was the wont of Jesus
in the familiar circle of His friends. But the events of the
morning had produced a strong sensation in the city. The
mmour had spread that the new prophet worked mighty
miracles, and that His mercy was as large as His power. The
whole population gathered at the gate at Capernaum. The
gate of an eastern city is the great place of public resort; it
occupies the same position as the agora of Greek cities. Under
the ardent sky of Syria, the cool hours of evening are chosen
by the inhabitants for coming out of their houses ; then begins
a singularly noisy stir of life — the women go to the fountain
with their pitchers on their heads, the men gather in groups
about the gates of the city to talk over the events and interests
of the day. That evening, the report of the miracles of Jesus
banished every other theme at Capernaum. Every family
brought out its sick ; all these sufferers were assembled at the
gate — some bedridden, some tossing in the terrible agony of
possession. A melancholy spectacle, the epitome in this little
corner of the world of all the world's sufferings ! But the scene
was soon changed. Jesus with tender pity "laid his hand

312 BOOK THIRD.
upon the sick folk and healed them." The enraptured crowd
followed His retreating footsteps with shouts of acclaim. The
next morning, before the sun was up, while all was silent in
Capernaum, He sought a solitary place by the shores of the
lake, and spent long hours in prayer.* Thus did He hide
himself from glory and fame, and, ever at hand to succour and
save, was sought for in vain in the hour of popular enthusiasm.
A day like this may be regarded as the epitome of the entire
life of Jesus. Public and private teaching, works of mercy,
intense and solitary prayer, drawing heaven down into his
heart — these are the elements of His daily course.
From the break of day the inhabitants of Capernaum began
to seek for Jesus, to hear Him again, and yet more to receive
fresh tokens of His miraculous mercy. The Master never
repulsed the crowds who came to Him ; He needed this great
concourse of hearers to make His name known to His people.
But He carefully avoided remaining long in one place, so as to
give no pretext for enthusiasm to take the form of political
agitation. He goes through the country, returning from time
to time to Capernaum, to the house of Bar Jonas ; everywhere as
He goes He sows the seeds of holy words and works of mercy.
During this period His miracles make a more impressive appeal
to the multitude than His words ; the admiration for Him is
universal and unreserved, because it is not yet tempered by
the austerity and spirituality of a teaching, which passes their
comprehension and their desires ; they have eyes only for His
works. His name passes from mouth to mouth ; Judaea is
stirred by hearing what is passing on the borders of the Lake
of Gennesaret ; Peraea and Decapolis echo the acclamations of
Galilee. Glory goes before Him who never sought it And
what does He do 1 With sublime simplicity Luke tells us,
" So much the more went there a fame abroad of him ....
- but he withdrew himself into the wilderness and prayed ."t
One of the cures wrought by Jesus specially arrested public
* Mark i. 35. t Luke v. 15, 16.

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 313
attention. In one of the Gallilean towns, He was met by one
of those wretched lepers, outlaws from all social life, who still
hover about the gates of the towns of Judaea, exhibiting their
hideous sores and uttering heartrending cries. Jesus healed
the sufferer by laying His hands upon him. In spite of His
express command, the man who had been delivered from so
terrible a woe went about everywhere publishing this great
miracle,* and the enthusiasm about Jesus rose above all bounds.
It was founded in part on a misunderstanding which could
not last long, and which the humility of the new prophet was
always tending to dispel. A Messiah who seeks seclusion and
flees from royal honour is not the Messiah looked for in Judaea.
As soon as the people are disabused of their mistake, hatred
will, quickly succeed to favour. The men of the schools and
the rulers do not share the general enthusiasm. We are about
to see the Pharisaic party, even in Galilee, assuming an attitude
hostile to Jesus. The first symptom of this disposition was
manifested on the occasion of the healing of a paralytic at
Capernaum, during one of the short sojourns of Jesus in that
city. One day when He was surrounded by a crowd gathered
from all the country round, He entered into a house to teach.
A palsied man was brought to be healed ; his bearers, unable
to reach the entrance because of the densely pressing throng,
thought of the expedient of opening the movable trapdoor often
found in the roofs of oriental houses ; by this bold stroke they
succeeded in placing their sick friend at the feet of the prophet.
Touched with this act of faith, Jesus begins His work of healing
first on the soul. " Son," He says to the paralytic, "thy sins
are forgiven thee." , The Pharisees exclaim at the blasphemy,
and their irritation is increased when they see the impotent
man rise and take up his bed. Nothing could make them more
* Luke v. 12-16; Mark i. 40-45; Matt. viii. 1-4. M.
Schenkel has made a wonderful discovery that the leper must
have been half cured when he came to Jesus. " Characterbild,"
P- 73-

3J4 BOOK THIRD.
indignant than this claim of the new Teacher to effect direct
reconciliation with God, without any respect to their traditions
and their rights. They were yet more incensed against Him
when, two days after, He openly called Levi, the tax-gatherer,
a man in whom they saw the hireling of the oppressors of their
country, into the ranks of His disciples. * When the Pharisees
murmured at Him for sitting at meat with a publican, He met
them with the wonderful answer, " They that are whole have no
need of a physician, but they that are sick. I came not to call
the righteous, but sinners to repentance." f The old adver
saries of the Baptist did not hesitate now to bring forward his
example, and to reproach Jesus by the asceticism of this son of
the desert. " Can the children of the bridechamber fast while
the bridegroom is with them?" He rejoins. With Messiah
begins the holy union between the soul and God, so often
declared by the prophets. The first hour of spiritual espousals
must needs be one of joy. ' A sorrowful moment will soon
come ; there are sure tokens of it already in the malice of the
rulers of the hierarchy, ready to break forth on every occasion.
Besides, Jesus in His delicate and skilful teaching, proportions
His precepts to the capacity of His disciples. To summon
them at once to all the severities of a crucified life would be to
pour the new wine into the old bottles. !
The question of Sabbath observance could not fail to present
itself in Galilee as in Judaea, The disciples are denounced
with much indignation as violators of the law of God, because
they pluck some ears of corn to appease their hunger on the
day of rest. Jesus appeals from this fastidious and hypo
critical legislation to the spirit of the law itself; He adduces
the example of David, who did not scruple to give his com
panions the sacred bread from the altar to eat. " The Sabbath
* See in the Introduction the proofs ofthe identity of Levi with
Matthew. + Luke v. 31, 32.
{ See Luke v. 33 ; Matt. ix. 14-17 ; Mark ii. 18-22.

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 315
, was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath."* The
Pharisees, by their narrow interpretation of the fifth command
ment, made a sort of idol of it, to which they voluntarily
sacrificed human life without any profit to the soul, for in reality
their insistance on the literal observance led to the moral vio
lation of the divine law contained in the great declaration, " I
will have mercy and not sacrifice." f If the Sabbath was made
for man, it belongs to the representative head of the new
humanity so to regulate its observance, that it shall not be
diverted from its proper end. " The Son of Man is Lord even
of the Sabbath day."! All the theology of St Paul lies in germ
in these profound words, to which the Sermon on the Mount is
to form the admirable commentary.
Jesus does more than offer an apology for His disciples ;
He boldly asserts His right as Master of the Sabbath. In a
full synagogue, at the very hour of the reading of the sacred
books, a paralyzed man is placed in the middle of the assembly,
and Jesus heals him publicly. That His meaning may not be
mistaken, He affirms His right with singular energy, not
unmixed with grief and indignation. Surely if it is permitted
to draw an ass out of a pit on the Sabbath day, it cannot be
unlawful to heal a man made in the image of God. He was
indeed right ; such an argument was irrefragable. The
Pharisees could not evade it ; so, leaving the ground of open
discussion, they had recourse to artifice and plots. In Galilee
they sought allies in the parjy of the Herodians, with whom
they had some political affinities, because the latter upheld a
power different from that of the Romans. From this moment
the popularity of Jesus is on the wane. Without abandoning
His public work among His countrymen, He begins to devote
Himself increasingly to His disciples. The further the old
* T6 odpfiaTov iid tov av9pumov iykvtro, oix 0 dv9pmirog iui to
odfifiaTov (Mark ii. 27 ; Luke vi. 1-5).
t Matt, xii., 7.
! Luke vi. 5.

316 BOOK THIRD.
theocracy is estranged from Him, the closer He draws to that
new religious body which He has instituted. To this period
belong the choice of the apostles and the Sermon on the Mount
II. Choice of the Twelve Apostles.
It is not needful for us to enter again on an explanation of
the true meaning of the apostolic office ; let us content
ourselves with seeking out the motives which guided Jesus in
the selection of these twelve men, destined to become the first
nucleus and the ideal representation of the Church.* An
apostle was not simply called to be the disseminator of a doc
trine ; his mission was to lay the foundations of a religion.
Neither personal attachment nor mere courage was enough for
such a task ; it needed that the apostle should have the very
mind of Jesus — that absolute disinterestedness which makes
the life one great self-sacrifice. The office of an apostle has in
it the very essence of martyrdom. Nothing can exceed the
beautiful simplicity of i its appointment Its grandeur was
purely spiritual ; it was not therefore inaugurated with pomp
like the Levitical priesthood. And yet what magnificence of
the ancient worship could surpass the solemnity of that sacred
hour, when Jesus, after passing the night in prayer, on one of
the hills which surround Capernaum, called His twelve
apostles 1 He did not choose them from the high orders ofthe
hierarchy, or among the representatives of the religious learning
of His time ; He took them from the common people, rough,
ignorant, more accustomed to work with their hands than to
use their intellect, but characterised by the childlike freshness
and uprightness of simple souls. No doubt He found in them
more than one prejudice to be destroyed, but at least their
moral being had not been falsified and corrupted by artificial
culture ; their conscience was not stifled under the heavy
armour of Pharisaic tradition; these truthful natures could
readily receive the impress of the teaching, and yet more of the
* Matt. x. 1-15; Mark iii. 13-19; Luke vi. 12-16.

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 317
personal character of Jesus. About to lay the foundation of
the great edifice designed to shelter so many generations, He
sought as it were in the midst of the masses of the people, the
block of virgin marble to be fashioned to His will. Apart
from this, the most remarkable gifts of heart and mind had
been dispensed to these twelve men.
We are already acquainted with the principal of them, in the
first rank of whom stand the two sons of Jonas, Simon, sur-
named Peter, and Andrew, both natives of Bethsaida. They
had been twice called by the Master before this august day.
If the figure of Andrew fades into dimness beside that of his
brother, he retains, nevertheless, the honour of having been the
first to hail Jesus,* and he ever shows himself zealous in His
service.|- Peter's is a nature ardent, sincere, impressible,
capable of passing in an instant from enthusiasm to depression ;
in him is found that bold spirit of the pioneer which, when
purified in the crucible of trial and repentance, will make him
the man of action and preponderating influence in the first
period of the apostolic age. He comes fresh from his fisher
man's boat, though both he and his brother have been disciples
in the school of John the Baptist. The sons of Zebedee come
to Jesus in the same way. They have yet much to leam, and,
first of all, the humility which renounces all eagerness for pre
cedence, alike in the church and in the world;! they are yet
very far from that charity which can pardon all things, even
insult offered to the Master. Their love for Jesus is some
times ready to break into violence; but, when purged from
this human admixture, it will burn with purest light James
will be the first to shedTiis blood for the Gospel,. and John will
be the beloved disciple. His development will be the more
rich for being so long and gradual ; we know already that it is
he who, in the evening of the apostolic age, utters the closing
words of revelation — those words of love which are the epitome
of the whole, and which he leamt in the very bosom of his
* John i. 40. t Matt. xiii. 3 ; John xii. 22. J Mark x. 35-37.

318 BOOK THIRD.
Lord. Philip, and Nathanael sumamed Bartholomew, are also
disciples from the first. Matthew, called only a few days
before from the receipt of custom, is still wholly imbued with
the piety of a Jew of the old dispensation, and his great
concern will always be to find out the relation between the two
covenants. Thomas bears some resemblance to Peter; we
mark in him the same impetuosity, the same devoted affection,
sometimes capable of rising into heroism ; but he is often at
fault, and only recovers himself by his ardent impulses.* We
know nothing definite about Judas, who appears to be the
same as Thaddeus or Lebbaeus, and who was probably the
brother of James, the son of- Alphaeus. f Neither of these takes
any marked position in the church of the first century. The
surname of Zelotes given to Simon, leads to the supposition
that this apostle had already shown that ardent zeal which,
some years later, was to give birth to a new party in Galilee.
He was a native of Cana.
The name of Judas Iscariot stands out with lurid distinctness
in this catalogue of the apostles. If he was chosen by Jesus, it
was assuredly not that he might be made the fatal instrument
of a mysterious decree. Never could a human soul be thus
lowered without the complete overthrow of moral order. Let
us not forget that Jesus did not inherently possess omniscience :
assuredly when He made Judas an apostle He did not foresee
what He would become.! He perceived in him, as in His
other disciples, a commixture of good and evil tendencies.
He might hope that under His influence the good would over
come the evil ; the balance depended on Judas himself. The
twelfth apostle appears to have been of a strong and passionate
* John xi. 16. t Jude I.
X Strauss sets against this assertion the text (John vi. 70) where
Jesus expresses Himself with severity against Judas. But this was
not spoken till a considerable time after the choice of the twelve,
and when the, searching eye of the Master had been able to read
what was passing in the heart of the apostle. The passage in
John ii., 25, " He knew what was in man," cannot be taken in an
absolute sense.

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 319
nature, as is proved by his tragical end. Probably he had
attached himself to Jesus with extraordinary ardour, hoping to
find in Him the Messiah of his theocratic dreams, and uniting
ambitious views with a sincere attachment to His person. It
was for the future to show if the dark passions latent within
him would yield to the influence of Jesus. In the heart of
every man a demoniacal force lies dormant ; it is for him to
quell or unloose it. The higher he has been raised in spiritual
privilege, the more terrible will be his fall. He who is not
transformed by contact with perfect holiness, sinks to the
depths of the abyss, and no man could be more akin to a devil
than a perverted apostle.*
The twelve were not all in indigence. The mother of John
ministered to Jesus of her substance;! Peter and Andrew had
a house at Capernaum ; * Matthew gave a feast to the Master.§
But it is clear, nevertheless, that the apostles belonged to the
lower class, and were to the Jews at Jerusalem despised pro
vincials, whose very speech was open to ridicule. They were
accounted unlearned. and ignorant men.|| Celibacy was plainly
not required of them, for it is certain that Peter was married,
and this may have been the case with others. In the company
of pious women who followed Jesus, even to the foot of the
cross, were Salome, the mother of James and John, and Mary,
the mother of James the Less. Thus, in the very dawn of the
new religion, appears that type of the Christian mother, one of
the most beautiful creations of the Gospel.
There must be no misconception as to the spiritual state of
these young men at the time they were chosen ; they were still
very ignorant, infected with Jewish prejudices, incapable of
rising to the sublime thoughts of their Master. They were
" fools and slow of heart to believe ;" **| thus they often saddened
the heart of Jesus, though they could not exhaust His patience
in the work of their religious education. This work was not to
* John vi. 70. t Luke viii. 3. J Mark i. 29.
5 Matt. ix. 10. || Acts iv. 13. 1T Luke xxiv. 25.

320 BOOK THIRD.
be fully accomplished till He should have gone away from
them, and the Holy Spirit should have come upon them,
accompanied with the chastening influence of trial*
III. Sermon on the Mount.
It was a few days after the choice of His apostles that Jesus
delivered the discourse generally known as the Sermon on the
Mount. Although it was primarily addressed to the twelve
apostles, they were not the only hearers, for both Matthew and
Luke mention a great multitude seated listening at His feetf
It is impossible, therefore, to make out a clear distinction
between the two recorded discourses, as if the first was spoken
by Jesus in the small circle of His friends, while the second
was addressed to the multitude.! The audience is, clearly,
one, and the only difference between the two Gospels is, that
the one gives us the sermon in full, while the other has pre
served it in brief and vivid outline.§ In Matthew, there is an
observable interpolation of words spoken on other occasions;
while, in Luke, there are obvious gaps and omissions. || The
* It is not necessary to point out that there is no trace of a
hierarchy in the choice of the apostles. The words Thou art Peter,
which we shall explain in their place, belong to a much later date.
* Matt. vii. 28: "The people were astonished at his doctrine."
Compare Luke vi. 19, 20.
I This is Lange's idea ("Leben Jesu," III., p. 576 )
§ Matthew speaks of the sermon as delivered on the mountain,
Luke on a plain (km toirov weiivov, vi. 17.) But this expression
might very well stand for one of the plateaus of the Galilean moun
tains. [Compare my Note in " Robinson's Harmony of Gospels "
on p. 32, published by Religious Tract Society. — B.D.]
|| Lange and M. Lutteroth have, each in his manner, established
the unity of the sermon recorded by Matthew. We do not deny
that a sufficiently close connection may be shown from the begin
ning to the end. It is because of their affinity that these sayings
of Jesus have been thus collected. In our opinion, it is just this
logical order which has suspended the chronological order ; but it
seems evident to us that Luke places in their true historical setting
many of the words introduced by Matthew in this discourse.
M. Lutteroth, in order to explain the length of the discourse as
given in the first Gospel, translates the opening words of chap, v.,

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 32 1
Sermon on the Mount is the charter of the kingdom of God, as
it was set up by Jesus Christ. Between the legislation of Sinai
and this new legislation the contrast is complete ; and yet the
latter was the legitimate outgrowth of the former.
We are no more in the burning desert, at the foot of light
ning-crowned Horeb, in a land of terror, where the divine
voice reverberates like thunder among the naked rocks. Jesus
is seated on a grassy slope, which by a gentle incline sinks
down to the Lake of Tiberias. The gorges of Hattin, to which
tradition assigns this great Gospel scene, command the en
chanting landscape of the country of Gennesaret. Every
utterance of nature is peace and love, and nothing is more
easy than to picture to one's self the Master in such a scene,
surrounded by His twelve apostles, and addressing the multi
tude seated on the flowery grass. His first word is not a threat,
but a blessing. The new law is not, like the old, a terrible
manifestation of divine holiness, flashing on the eyes of men in
condemnatory and unapproachable purity. No, it is in its
very essence grace and pardon; He who proclaims it is the
Saviour of mankind And yet the beatitudes must needs
have been preceded by the terrors and thunders of the old
covenant; they stand in necessary connection with the work of
Moses, Elias, and John the Baptist — with the stern teaching of
those great preachers of repentance, tliemselves great penitents;
they commend themselves only to men whose hearts have
been broken beneath the rod, and who have been disabused of
the illusions of pride in the stern school of Sinai. These calm
and holy words are, in their essence, a declaration of war
against degenerate Judaism, for they overthrow all its idols,
and set aside all its aims. Every beatitude has a corresponding
anathema. Matthew restricts himself to the benedictions,
because he knows well that they were sufficient in themselves
"Jesus was settled on the mountain" (xaSiaavrog airov.) We
should thus have rather a period of instruction than a sermon.
(See also Ewald, work quoted, p. 308.)

322 BOOK THIRD.
to condemn Pharisaism. The Sermon on the Mount is not
the opening of an idyl; it is the prelude of a drama, of a con
flict; thus from its commencement it is transfused with a
solemn foreboding. On these enchanted shores of the Sea of
Galilee we see again the burning bush, out of which speaks the
High and Holy One. The God of sovereign compassion is
also a consuming fire.
The plan of the discourse is as simple as it is sublime.
Jesus declares the conditions of entrance into the new kingdom.
It opens not its gates to riches, nor to noisy mirth, nor to
proud self-complacency, nor to hardness and acerbity of soul.
Poverty of spirit, penitential tears, hunger and thirst after
righteousness, the sweetness which exhales from a broken
heart, like the perfume from a crashed flower, the mercy which
makes peace, the simple uprightness of pure souls — such are
the dispositions of the children of this kingdom. In other
words, that which constitutes the right of entrance, that which
gives a share in its consolations, in its triumphs, in its plenitude
of life, in its forgivenesses, that which ensures the vision of
God, and makes us His children and His heirs, is just that
which is most opposed to the cherished dreams of the Jews.
Instead of the pride which numbers its good works, self-abasing
humility is alone acceptable with God. " Blessed are the poor
in spirit; blessed are they that weep, for they shall be com
forted." Such words are tmly kingly in their surprising bold
ness. He who dares so to speak in a world of sorrow must be
a madman or a God. The opposition between such a doctrine
and current ideas is so absolute, that he who accepts it must
needs resign himself at once to opprobrium and persecution.
" Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you,
and say all manner of evil against you, falsely, for my name's
sake." Thus the beatitudes begin with weeping, and are
sealed with blood. These small and weak ones of the earth
are called to the most terrible conflict, to the most heroic
endurance; their only crown on earth will be the crown of the

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 323
martyr. Such is this octave of beatitudes, as Bossuet beauti
fully expresses it.
After pointing out the conditions of entrance into His
kingdom, Jesus traces, in a few words, the noble mission of the
new Israel; it is to be the light to lighten the world, and the
salt to preserve it from corruption. Then He declares the law
of His kingdom, showing that, far from destroying the old
covenant it truly accomplishes it, by supplementing all its
imperfections. Instead of lessening moral obligation, He
extends it, carrying it into the inner region of the hearj. Thus
He severs Himself from the Pharisees, whose constant en
deavour was to multiply outward observances, so as the better
to evade the law of inward holiness. Jesus not only sets aside
the traditions of the schools, but, by a truly divine act, He
modifies the Mosaic code itself. This interdicted the act of
murder and adultery. Jesus ascends to the principle of these
' crimes, and reveals it to the conscience in those stirrings of
hatred and of lust, which the rigorous observer of the letter
indulged without scruple. He puts lying on the same level
with perjury, and condemns all those forms of speech which
would sdem to countenance the idea that strict truthfulness is
not always a sacred duty. For the law of retaliation, He sub
stitutes the great commandment of true charity, which returns
benefits for injuries and wrongs. "Whosoever shall smite thee
on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any
man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him
have thy cloak also. Love your enemies. Bless them that
curse you. Pray for them that despitefully use you and per
secute you." The new law is formed on the eternal type of
good; it springs from this as from its source. "Be ye there
fore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect;
that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven :
for He maketh His sun to shine upon the evil and the good,
and sendeth rain upon the just and the unjust" This divine
principle puts to flight all the sophisms of Pharisaic casuistry.
Y 2

324 BOOK THIRD.
Spurious devotion is denounced as unsparingly as spurious
righteousness. The noisy aljnsgiving which seeks applause, the
long prayers which are only vain forms, the ostentatious act
' which receives its reward in the admiration it calls forth ; all
these mendacities of a hypocritical religiousness are brought to
the light This wonderful picture abounds in sketches to the
life. They were' well known in Jerusalem — those hypocrites —
who made a show of their piety in the synagogue and in the
streets, sounding before them the trumpet of their pretended
good works. How inimitable in force and originality are the
directions of Jesus as to the exercise 6f true piety ! " When
thou doest thine alms, let not thy left hand know what thy
right hand doeth. When thou prayest, use not vain repetitions
as the heathen do : When thou fastest, anoint thine head and wash
thy face." No man cast a more scornful glance on the whole
world than the Jew ; he avenged himself for his state of servi
tude by the implacable hatred with which he regarded the rest
of mankind. Tacitus was not wrong when he reproached the
Jew with being a hater of the human race. " Thou hypocrite,''
said Jesus, "first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and
then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy
brother's eye."
The latter part of His Sermon on the Mount is characterised
by growing severity ; after painting in one stroke the false
prophet, who, under the sheep's clothing, is a devouring wolf,
Jesus puts His finger on the mortal unsoundness of that false
Judaism which He is come to abolish. Its condemnation is
that it is no longer anything but a form and a formula, and
does not carry out in reality the truth which it proclaims. It
is not enough to say Lord, Lord ; he must do the will of God,
who would dare to stand in the judgment at the last day.
Houses built upon a rock can alone resist the tempest. All
those who having heard the word of God do not conform their
lives to it, have built their houses upon the sand, and will see
them fall at the first shock of the storm. Thus everything in

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 325
the Sermon on the Mount points to a living and spiritual law.
It contains the most emphatic protest against the falsehoods
and fictions of Pharisaism ; it inaugurates the true spiritual
worship which is alone worthy of God. By that which it over
throws, and that which it establishes, this sermon, which has
been said to preach only a purified Judaism, unfurls the standard
of the new covenant; the sovereign authority with which it
accredits Jesus is compatible only with His incomparable dignity
as Son of Man and Son of God*
* The original sermon appears to me to comprehend the
following passages in Matthew : First, Matt, v., vi. 1-9. The
passage, Matt. vi. 9-16, is evidently interpolated here on account of
the analogy of the subject. It is found in its true historical con
nection in Luke ix. 1-4. Second, vi. 16-19. The passage on
worldly possessions interrupts the thread of the discourse ; it also
is in its right place in Luke xi. 14-36, and xii. 15-34. Third, vii.
1-6. The two following passages, vii. 7-13, and vii. 13-15 are
brought in more naturally in Luke xi. 5-13, and xiii, 23-25.
Fourth, vii. 15-28. It is incorrect to charge the condensed record
of Luke with a tone of exaggerated ascetis.m. Evidently the re
ference is to those poor and afflicted who realise the precepts com
prised in the same chapter, that is to say, who are merciful, meek
and lowly. Poverty must be that of the spirit, to draw down the
blessing. Besides, we find in Luke the words '' Give to every man
that asketh of thee" (vi. 30). This precept could have no meaning
unless the right of property was recognised. It is certain, however,
that the Gospel showed a strong preference for the poor, and that
it was in fact among them that it found its first adherents. But it
is widely removed from ascetic rules like those of the Essenes.

326 BOOK THIRD.

T

CHAPTER III.
PREPARATION OF THE CRISIS IN GALILEE.
I. Sojourn at Nain.
HE Sermon on the Mount would have of itself sufficed to

render impossible any reconciliation between Jesus Christ
and the official representatives of religion. Every step of His
progress will now hasten the moment when the people in their
turn will abandon Him, because He never panders to their
prejudices. Touched by the unfeigned faith of a centurion of
Capernaum, whose servant He heals, He declares that the
Gentiles will soon press before the children of Abraham into
the kingdom of God. (Matt viii. n). The coming of the
messengers whom John the Baptist, in an hour *of depression
and doubt, sends to Jesus from the depths of the prison, leads
him to describe the mission of the Forerunner in the words we
have already noticed ; He concludes by addressing a severe
rebuke to the men of His generation, who had shown equal
indifference to the stern and thrilling appeal of the Baptist and
to the gentle message of the Gospel ; and had turned away alike
from the merciful Comforter and the ascetic prophet of the
desert. "But wisdom is justified by all her works."* Divine
tmth bears its own witness, and can dispense with the approval
of men. Such words leave a sting of irritation in the hearer's
hearts. * 'EiiKai<ii9ti 1) ampia arrb tSiv Ipyurv avrffg iravriav (Luke vii. 35).
The reading hitherto received has been, Wisdom is justified of all
her children. The new reading, beside being confirmed by Justin
Martyr, is found in the " Sinaiticus."

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 327
In the eyes of the Pharisee, infatuated with his own virtues
and merits, pardon granted to great sinners is a personal
offence, for it seems to him to derogate from his high rank,
and puts on a level with him those whom he regards with scorn.
Jesus encountered this odious prejudice face to face on one
memorable occasion. He was spending a few days in the
little city of Nain,* situated at the foot of Tabor, in a fertile
and smiling plain. His arrival at this spot was at once
signalised by a great miracle. He met at the gates of the city
one of those funeral processions, which are as often to be seen
under the brilliant blue of an eastern heaven, as under our pale
western skies. This time it combined all the elements of
sorrow ; the mortal remains of a young man, the only son of
a widow, cut off in the flower of his days, were being carried
to the tomb ; behind the bier came the weeping mother, bowed
down under her heavy grief. Touched with divine compassion,
Jesus gave back the son to his mother, f This miracle
naturally produced an immense sensation. A large crowd was
present at its performance, and the scenes already witnessed
at the gates of Capernaum were re-enacted at Nain, as the
whole town ran thither bringing the sick and the possessed
To this motley group a woman joined herself who had no
need of bodily healing ; she was a sinner whose beauty had
been her bane. The look of Jesus touched her to the soul ;
perhaps she was present when with sorrowful pity in His eyes
He bent over the bier of the dead, and the same glance fell
upon her, full of reproach and sadness, but also of pardon.
The cold and obtrasive virtue of the Pharisee irritated her
without kindling the blush of shame, but under the pure and
pitiful gaze of Jesus, her burden became intolerable ; she
sounded the depths of the abyss into which she had fallen, and
felt herself at the same time irresistibly drawn to that Holy
One, who she ' knew would not repulse her. Listening to
* It was there He was met by the messengers of John the Baptist.
+ 'EairXayxvla9i] (Luke vii. 13).

328 BOOK THIRD.
nothing but the cry of her conscience and the impulse of her
heart, she resolves, through- all difficulties and at any cost, to
go to Jesus. Little does it matter to her that at this very
moment he is seated at the table of a stony-hearted Pharisee,
who may perchance drive her from his doors ; she braves all
scom, and throws herself at the feet of Jesus ; she bathes them
with very precious ointment, washes them with her tears, and
wipes them with the hairs of her head. This unhappy woman
repents with all the passionate fervour of her soul, and thirsting
for pardon, restoration and purity, she seeks them at the feet
of Jesus. Host and Saviour appear, each in his true character;
the Pharisee murmurs, while Jesus welcomes this blighted but
broken heart ; He reserves His severity for the man of credit
and distinction, well knowing the dead heart within him.
Simon had received the Saviour with cold condescension,
without offering Him any of the tokens of respect and affection
which comported with eastern hospitality : his one design was
to observe Jesus with an eye of malice, as is proved by his
readiness to conclude, from His gentleness to the "woman
which was a sinner," that He was no prophet This woman,
on the other hand, has crossed the threshold of that home,
profoundly conscious of her degradation, and earnestly eager
to break with sin. Her gratitude is proportioned to the great
ness of her repentance, as the Master shows in His wonderful
parable of the two creditors. It is easy to perceive, from the
example of the Pharisee, that the man to whom little has been
forgiven loves little; he repels pardon as an insult, and abides
in his impotent pride. Penitent hearts, on the contrary, break
and flow forth at the feet of Jesus, like the box of ointment
which has just been poured over them. In this short hour,
the sinner has loved much, for she knows what she is — a
woman erring and justly despised — and she knows too who He
is, who, instead of repulsing, deigns to lift her up. Therefore,
according to the words of the Saviour, she has much forgiven.
This pardon granted to a courtesan, and in such a house, is a

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 329
crying scandal to all the Pharisaic party, and it will be deeply
avenged.* There must be a singular delight in the profanation of holy
things, when a slur can be cast on such a scene, and this
sinner in tears can be represented as one of a train of "beautiful
women," whom Jesus drew after Him, in order to make His
cause agreeable and popular. Where do we find these beautiful
women ? Must we place in the category Salome, the mother
of James and John, or Mary, the wife of Cleophas, mother of
the two apostles,t or, forsooth, Mary of Magdala, who was
delivered from the most terrible possession ? Let us go no
further. The very refutation of such a charge is itself an
impiety. That which happened at Nain recurred again and again.
Jesus attracted those whom the world rejected. The despised
and degraded came to Him in throngs, because they knew
that He would welcome the sinner while he rebuked the sin.
Nothing better marks the contrast between this infinite
compassion and the harshness of the Pharisee, than the simple
words of Luke, " Then drew near unto him all the publicans
and sinners for to hear him ; and the Pharisees and scribes
murmured."! Jesus answered these murmurs by His most
touching parables. To go into the wilderness, seeking in
weariness and pain the poor lost sheep, and forgetting in care
for it the ninety and nine which had stayed iri the fold — is not
this the very work of Christ? Under this tender and beautiful
image the early Church loved to represent Him, and when she
would epitomise the Gospel in one eloquent symbol, she
sketched on the sombre walls of the catacombs the figure of
* Strauss erroneously identifies this scene with that which,
according to the fourth Gospel, transpired at Bethany, (ch. xiii.
1-8). The differences between the two narratives are wide. At
Bethany the woman was not a sinner, but Mary, the sister of
Lazarus, who had long known Jesus, and is commended by Him.
t Luke viii. 3.
X Luke xv. 1, 2.

33° BOOK THIRD.
the Good Shepherd. The similitude of the lost piece of money
expresses the same idea. The parable of the prodigal son is
the most pathetic representation of repentance, and offers the
very ideal of Fatherhood. It closes with a severe rebuke
to Pharisaic Judaism ; it was impossible not to recognise its
likeness in the elder son, of correct life but cold heart, the
envious observer of the scene of reconciliation. The parable
remarkably widens its horizon at its conclusion, for it intimates
the return of the Gentile races to the Father's- house, and the
abrogation of the privileges of the chosen people. The faithful
type of the latter was given in that proud and self-complacent
virtue, which could count its merits and closely calculate its
returns, while beside it flowed the tears of holy penitence.
II. Various Parables and Miracles.
The animosity of the Pharisees was displayed on all occasions.
Thus, after the cure of a blind and deaf demoniac, they
endeavoured, under the influence of some allies from Jemsalem,
to throw discredit on the miracles of Jesus by ascribing them
to the occult influence of devils ; they were met by this
unanswerable question, " How can Satan cast out Satan 1 A
house divided against itself cannot stand, but is brought to
nought"* From self-defence Jesus passes to direct attack
So to misconstrue His character and work, as to make Him the
agent of devils, is to insult God in Him, and actually to
blaspheme the divine Spirit who animates all His holy life.
If there be an unpardonable sin, it is assuredly this ; for to
attribute to devils the very work of salvation is to show an
absolute incapacity for understanding or appreciating the
blessing. The refusal of God's pardon can take no more
fearful form ; it is the very consummation of perdition.
In spite of the malice which would soon assume a form of
fierce opposition, Jesus pursued His ministry, healing and
instructing the multitudes, but reserving for His disciples those
* See Matt. xii. 24, 25 ; Luke xi. 14-20.

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 33 1
deeper teachings, which demanded a more earnest and thought
ful attention than would be given by a moving crowd. To
this period belongs His series of parables on the kingdom pf
God, the main idea of which we have pointed out in treating of
the plan of His ministry. The similitude of the sower describes
the various effects of the preaching, which is designed to lay
the foundation of the kingdom. The divine word is sown like
grain, which fructifies or remains unfruitful according to the
nature of the soil which receives it. Everything depends on the
moral disposition ; the soul, according to the manner in which
it listens, may resemble the stony ground, or the trodden high
way where no seed can germinate, or the field of thorns and
thistles, or the good ground which from a single grain brings
forth a hundredfold.* The kingdom of God, thus founded by
the word, may at any time be invaded by evil influences ; tares
are but too often sown in the field of God while the servants of
the Father are slumbering and sleeping.! If the tares are not
at once uprooted, it is because it does not appertain to man to
distinguish with perfect certainty between the tares and the
wheat. Both must await the time of harvest and the unerring
eye of the Master. The parable of the net which gathers of
all sorts from the sea, carries on the same thought under a new
figure, and having especial reference to the final judgment.
Those fishers, throwing back into the water the stones and the
sand, enact the same part as the reapers in the previous parable
(chap. xiii. 47-53). In spite of this inevitable and temporary
admixture of good and evil, the kingdom of God is destined to
a glorious development, like the grain of mustard seed, which
is in its beginning the least of all seeds, but grows to a great
and wide tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in
the branches of it (chap. xiii. 31, 32). The parable of the
leaven, leavening little by little the whole lump, into which it
has been cast, gives us the most faithful conception of the
* See Matt. xiii. 3 ; Mark iv. 3 ; Luke viii. 5.
t Matt. xiii. 25.

332 BOOK THIRD.
irresistible and pervasive influence of truth, which works only
by persuasion, never by recourse to force and pressure from
without. The truth, destined to so great a triumph, is worth
its price; it is the pearl, or the hidden treasure, to gain which
a man goes and sells all that he has (chap. xiii. 44-46).
The education of the disciples could not be properly com
pleted without the teachings of experience; thus one of the
principal means employed by Jesus to prepare them for their
future mission was to make them the companions of His
journeys. Practical lessons arose from each new incident ; the
most precious of all was the sight of His unwearying love and
entire devotedness to His high vocation. Wishing to go over
the eastern shores of the sea of Galilee, He entered into a
fishing boat with the twelve. The weather is very changeable
on this mountain-girt lake, over which storms often sweep
down suddenly. Jesus was lying asleep " in the hinder part of
the ship," when a violent tempest broke without warning upon
the waters; awaked by the cries of His disciples, He rebuked
the waves.* No sooner had He set foot on the coast than the
occasion of a new miracle presented itself.
On the eastern shore the landscape wears an entirely new
aspect ; there is no longer a level, flowery path skirting smiling
hills ; abrupt and rocky, the shore rises from the margin of the
lake ; numbers of natural caves are hollowed out in the moun
tain sides. The whole country is wild and stern ; its inhabi
tants then, as now, owned little subjection to law. They
carried on without scruple a forbidden traffic, keeping herds of
swine on their hills. -f* It was here that Jesus encountered the
most terrible instance of possession, with which He had yet
come in contact. The unhappy man, believed himself the
victim of a multitude of demons. Hence the strange name of
Legion, by which he designated them. His hair and beard-
hung long and dishevelled in the agony of his terrible delusion ;
he went about unclothed, seeking refuge in the caverns and
* Luke viii. 22-25. t Luke viii. 32.

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 333
among the tombs, which seemed to him the natural abode of
devils. He had doubtless learned from his contemporaries to
identify the powers of darkness with the wandering spirits of the
dead. In vain had he been "bound with chains and in fetters;
he brake' the bands and was driven of the devil into the wilder
ness." The cure of this man is attended with circumstances
wholly inexplicable. According to our evangelists, his mad
ness was communicated to a herd of swine, which were feeding
by the lake.* It has been conjectured that in the last con
vulsion the unhappy man may have thrown himself upon these
animals. In short, there can be no doubt that it was the
demoniacal power of which he was the passive instrument,
which by his means precipitated them into the lake. Just as
the devil had before spoken by his mouth, it now acted by his
hands. This convulsion appears to have been the final crisis,
and the commencement of the cure. I In any case we must
admit, that the inhabitants of this region deserved the punish
ment which they received for pursuing an illicit traffic. In
their sordid avarice they did not hesitate to repel Jesus from
their shores, and thus from the very first day forfeited all the
blessings of His presence.
The eagerness of the Galilean people to welcome His return
was a well-timed consolation for the mournful result of this
enterprise. His popularity had not yet begun to ebb; He
still had adherents among the highest ranks of the nation. A
ruler of the synagogue of one of the little coast towns, named
Jaims, came to seek Him by the shore of the lake, and was not
afraid to ask of Him urgently and openly the recovery of his
little daughter. As Jesus was going with him, a poor woman,
* Luke viii. 26-29 > Mark v. 1-20 ; Matt. viii. 28-34. Matthew
speaks of the healing of two demoniacs at Gadara instead of one.
f That these devils literally entered into the body of the swine
is an inadmissible supposition ; a developed intellect could not be
enclosed in a lower organism. Let us not forget that cases of
possession carry us into an abnormal region ; this is a case of mad
ness under demoniacal influence.

334 BOOK THIRD.
who had been a sufferer many years, came behind Him, and
with a trembling hand touched His garment Her trust in His
power was so strong, that she believed it would be enough to
approach Him and she should be healed. Jesus, looking at
her faith rather than at her ignorance, which was still great and
mingled with much superstition, suffered her to be healed by
the means she had chosen, but laid stress at the same time on
the moral act* When he reached the house of Jairas, the
rites over the dead had already begun ; the court resounded
with funereal hymns and noisy lamentations, according to the
wont of those southern lands, where all the feelings of the soul
are expressed with scenic display. "Why make ye such ado,
and weep?" said Jesus, to those who were standing round,
" she is not dead, but sleepeth." f In spite of the derision of
the mourners, who knew beyond a question that the young girl
had breathed her last, He ascended with His three most
intimate disciples into the upper room where the child was
laid, already habited for the tomb ; He bade her arise, and
restored her to her father, who himself had never doubted since
the Master bade him fear nothing, only believe. "According
to his faith it was done unto him."
The apostles now know enough of their Master, of His
doctrine, and His power, for Him to submit them to a severe
ordeal. He sends them forth as His representatives to declare
to their countrymen that the time is fulfilled. He does not
desire them to go beyond the national circle, by which their
thoughts are still bounded. If He sent them among the
Gentiles, or even among the Samaritans, He would be giving
them a commission .to which they were as yet wholly unequal.
For the present they have to learn by their own experience to
what the witnesses of Christ are called, and the manner of
their mission is laid down in imperishable outline by the
* "Thy faith hath saved thee" (Luke viii. 48).
t It is most unjust to extort from these words any intimation of
merely apparent death. (Schleiermacher, " Leben Jesu," p. 233).

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 335
directions of the Master. An apostle is to go forth without
money and without a sword; he is the champion of the
invisible world, the soldier of a cause which asks no earthly
weapons for its warfare. And yet he is invested with incom
parable power. When he enters a house, he brings peace to
it, but he leaves a blessing or a curse, according as his message
is received or rejected. Woe to the towns against which he is
bidden to shake off the dust of his feet.* All unarmed as he
is, he is none the less sent forth into a terrible conflict. He is
a lamb in the midst of wolves. Such a testimony as his must
needs be sealed by suffering and often by death. " Men shall
deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in
their synagogues ; and ye shall be brought before kings and
rulers for my name's sake, and for a testimony against them and
the Gentiles. f" The servant is not greater than his lord ; and
they have called the master of the , house Beelzebub. " Ye
shall be hated of all men for my name's sake." Yet more, it is
not necessary for the condemnation of the servants of Christ
that they should have kings and councils against them ; they
will find hatred seated by their own hearths ; the sword of the
Spirit severs the most tender and sacred ties ; a great fire has
just been kindled to consume iniquity, and no man shall be
able to quench. it It is not peace, but a sword, which Jesus
brings to the world.! Those who enrol themselves under
such a leader must be ready to sacrifice the most cherished
affections. The cross must be borne daily by the tme disciple,
before it is planted in the earth to be watered by his blood.
Yet let the witnesses of Christ go forth fearing nothing. They
are His representatives ; whatever istdone to them is done to
Himself, and He will repay a glass of water given to them, as
though it had refreshed His own thirsty lips. § The Spirit of
God rests upon them ; He will speak through their mouth when
* Matt. x. 9-15.
t Qg Trp6(3aTa iv fiiaip Xvxuiv (Matt. x. 16).
! Matt. x. 34. § Matt. x. 41-42.

336 BOOK THIRD.
they are brought before tribunals and the great ones of the
earth ; a tender Providence watches over their lot ; not a hair
of their head shall fall without permission; and when they have
confessed Jesus before men, He will confess them before His
Father, and shame and suffering shall be exchanged for eternal
glory. An army thus recruited is indeed worthy of the divine
Head, of whom it has been truly said that He is stronger than
all they that can be against Him. St. Paul epitomises in his
own manner the whole of this charge of Jesus to His disciples
when he says, "The weapons of our warfare are not camal."*
The execution of John the Baptist, which took place at this
time, confirmed all that Jesus had said as to the cost of being
a faithful confessor of the truth. If it was needful to suffer so
much in order to prepare the way for Christ, what must be
looked for by His own disciples ?
The apostles did not indeed, on this first journey, endure
much reproach or persecution. The mission with which Jesus
had charged them had been proportioned to their weakness ;
they were not called to combat with any strong prejudices,
since they addressed only Jews by birth, and did not go
beyond a general announcement that Messiah had appeared.
This first mission, however, incomplete as it was, taught them
to proclaim without fear what they knew of truth. As their
knowledge deepened, their testimony would become more
fraught with peril. Let us admire the wisdom of the Master in
thus preparing them for their mission gradually, and by divine
methods, adapted to their moral condition. We do not know
how long this first journey lasted, but we know that during its
progress the apostles wrought various miracles ;t that they
were received everywhere with eager welcome, and returned
full of joy and confidence. No doubt to their preaching may
be attributed the revival of enthusiasm in favour of Jesus,
which is noticeable at this period in Galilee. It was, however,
of short duration, and we are approaching a decisive crisis.
* 2 Cor. x. 4. t Mark vi. 13 ; Luke ix. 6.

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 337

CHAPTER IV.
THE CRISIS OF FAITH IN GALILEE.
I. The Multiplication of the Loaves at Bethsaida Julias.
"VXTE know already with what feelings the Pharisees regard
* ' the new doctrine. If the mass of the Galilean popu
lation is not yet unfavourable to Jesus, there is more than one
indication that it may easily become so. Are not the multitude
ever unstable as water, and blown about by the most variable
winds ? In one city Jesus already meets with violent oppo
sition ; this is in the town where He passed His childhood.
In vain does He make a fresh appeal to His countrymen in the
same synagogue, where He had before been so ill received.
His fellow-townsmen are always stumbled by His obscure
origin ; they cannot believe that from the workshop of the poor
carpenter Joseph, and from the midst of that humble family of
artisans, known to all the town, Messiah could arise, as though
the excellency of divine power was not enhanced by these very
contrasts. Jesus withdrew from them sorrowfully, repeating
the often-verified proverb, " A prophet is not without honour
save in his own country." * Capernaum, the city of His
adoption, became only too soon the rival of Nazareth in in
gratitude. Jesus sought to retire into a desert place with His
apostles, soon after their return from their triumphant mission.
He desired no doubt to teach them by what means the servant
ofthe tmth escapes the pride of success, and girds himself in
retirement for new conflicts. He crossed with them to the
* Matt. xiii. 57.
z

338 BOOK THIRD.
other side of the lake, into the neighbourhood of the second
Bethsaida, or Bethsaida Julias. The country was much less
populous on this shore than in the rich district of Gennesaret
Jesus ascended a mountain with His disciples.* He might
have been about to confirm them in their apostolic office, now
they better knew what was involved in it. But Soon there
arrived from the opposite shore a great number of people who
had not hesitated to follow Jesus on foot,t so eager were they
to hear His word, and yet more to see His miracles. It was a
mingled multitude of men, women and children, with the
ordinary contingent of sufferers in various need of healing.
It was spring time, for the Passover was nigh at hand, J and
the crowd sat down on the springing grass. Jesus was moved
with compassion for the multitudes whom He saw "scattered
abroad as sheep having no shepherd" Words of mercy flowed
freely from His lips. § " He laid hands upon the sick and they
recovered." Hours passed away, a very day of heaven upon
earth ; no one thought of the necessities of the body, and when
the evening was come and it was too late to recross the lake,
the disciples became aware of a hungry, exhausted crowd,
without the means of supplying their wants. What are the
five barley loaves and two small fishes, which a lad has brought
in his basket, among five thousand men ? It is too late to
think of going into the towns and villages to buy bread ; beside,
the money is wanting. The disciples would gladly send away
the multitude ; but Jesus, so tender over the miseries of the
soul, cannot be callous to the claims of the body ; no suffering
is indifferent to Him: His love deserves truly that beautiful
name of humanity, which implies sympathetic succour for all
human griefs. Thus He does not hesitate to work a miracle to
appease the hunger of the famished crowd. He who refused in
the wilderness to change stones into bread for His own support,
multiplies with a touch the five loaves and two fishes, till the
* John vi. 3. \_ UeZy (Matt. xiv. 13). J John vi. 4.
§"Hjo£aj-o Sibdaxeiv airovg -roXXa (Mark vi. 34.)

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 339
vast concourse is satisfied. None of the miracles of Jesus is
more full of tender significance than this. It is the brilliant
inauguration of that fruitful miracle of Christian charity, which
has ever since gone on multiplying bread to the hungry. The
heart of man, once touched, like the rock in the desert struck
by the rod of Moses, has gone on pouring over thirsty crowds
the inexhaustible stream of generosity.
The multitudes are ravished, enthusiastic ; now indeed they
believe they have found the Messiah after their own heart —
Him, who according to the brilliant representation of their
apocalypses, is to make Judaea an earthly paradise, flowing
literally with milk and honey, its trees bending under the
marvellous weight of fruit The people would " take him by
force and make him a king ; " * but He withdraws Himself from
their fanatic enthusiasm, and retires into a mountain alone.
He will not have even the company of His disciples ; iri silent
communion He will prepare Himself for striking that great
blow, which will dispel all these popular illusions. The
apostles re-enter their boat alone, while He treads the deserted
shore. But the wind begins to rise, and tosses the waves
around the little vessel; the disciples are already alarmed by
the storm, when they see Jesus coming to them on the waters ;
they are terrified, and suppose it is a spirit, till they catch the
reassuring word — " It is I, be not afraid ! " Then Peter,
yielding to an impetuous feeling, sets his foot too upon the
wave to go to meet the Master, but having more fervour than
faith, he would assuredly have sunk if a helping hand had not
been timely stretched out to hold him up.f Perhaps this
memorable event came back to his mind in that other night,
when his presumption would have led him to a yet deeper fall
if the same hand had not arrested him. This tempest-wrought
lake, this tiny, tossing boat, the Master appearing to make a
great calm within and without — what a sublime parable in
* John vi. 15.
t Matt. xiv. 27. Compare Mark vi. 45-54 ; John vi. 15-21.
z 2

34° BOOK THIRD.
action ! It is the very history of the Church in all ages. How
often, at the moment when her bark has seemed to be
foundering, driven by the rade wind of persecution, has she not
heard again the divine voice, mightier in its gentleness than all
the thunders of the storm !
On the morrow, from the dawn of day, the lake was seen
covered with a multitude of boats come from Tiberias and
Bethsaida to bring back the people, who the day before had
followed Jesus by such toilsome marches; these eagerly entered
into any vessels they could secure, so as to arrive at the same
time with Him in the country of Gennesaret Since the
miracle of the loaves, their ardent impatience knew no bounds.
They found the divine prophet in the synagogue at Capernaum,
for the Sabbath had begun.
The occasion was favourable for dispelling the carnal and
dangerous illusions of a mistaken multitude. That such was
the intention of Jesus is evident from His first words. ¦ " Ye
seek me not because ye saw the miracles (the signs of my
mission), but because ye did eat ofthe loaves and were filled."*
It was not possible to aim a blow more bold and direct at
the materialism disguised under the semblance of religion.
Founding His teaching for the day on the miracle of which all
minds were full, Jesus endeavours to raise His hearers to the
great spiritual realities. "Labour," He says, "not for the
meat that perisheth, but for that which endureth to everlasting
life, which the Son of man shall give unto you, for him hath
God the Father sealed."! Miracle is a divine seal designed to
make Him known ; there must then be no stopping short at
the material advantage which it procures, but a recognition of
it sa the august sign of the mission of the Son of man, who
alone is able to satisfy the hunger of the soul, and to give unto
it eternal life. Upon this commences a brief and perfectly
natural dialogue between Jesus and the people, in which the
Jews give clearer expression than they have yet done to their
* "On ixopr&o9tirs (John vi. 26;. f John vi. 27.

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 341
dissatisfaction. Their objections strike, as it were, from the
words of the Master a light growing ever more intense, but
also more insufferable to their darkened eyes. They ask in
what the work is to consist, which has eternal life for its
reward. They understand the words of Christ in a mercenary
sense, and imagine that the question is one of good works,
alms-giving, and rites scrupulously observed. What a scandal
is it to be told that saving work is simply faith in Christ, the
humble surrender of the soul to Him.* Let Him then, at
least, work a dazzling miracle to attest His right to such
confidence. Moses brought down miraculous bread from
heaven. Let Him who pretends to be the prophet like unto
Moses vindicate His claim by a similar prodigy !| It is clear
that those present are still engrossed with the event of the
previous everiing.
Jesus takes hold of this incident in the history of Israel.
The manna nourished only the body, and could not preserve
it from death. The true bread from heaven is that which God
gives to the world ; and it may be known by this, that it comes
down from heaven and gives eternal life. " Evermore give us
this bread," exclaim the Jews, snatching at some vague camal
hope. Jesus replies, " I am the bread of life."J Then He
goes on to describe, in a few words, His mission to souls.
Whoever obeys the divine instinct which is in him, and by
which God Himself draws him to the Son ; whoever looks upon
the Saviour with the eye of faith, has even now everlasting life,
and awaits only the resurrection. §
The indignant murmuring of the Jews shows that they under
stood what was the supreme dignity thus claimed by this Jesus,
in whom they persist in seeing the son of Joseph. Even the
natural light of the mind seems darkened in them ; but what
* TofJro iari rb ipyov tov 9eov, "wa maTevatfTe eig 'bv dttkaTeCKev ixeXvog
(John vi. 29).
t Deut. xviii. 18.
X 'Ey<i elfu b dprog Trig £<nrjg (John vi. 35).
§ John vi. 37-58.

342 BOOK THIRD.
marvel ? Does it not need a higher sense to behold divine
things ? God must be taken for the guide, and His voice be
heard in -the secret of the heart, before men come to Him who
is His representative. But when His teaching is refused, He
cannot be known in His highest manifestation. " No man
hath seen the Father, save he which is of God ; he hath seen
the Father."* Again Jesus repeats, in a still more offensive
form, the saying which had already exasperated His hearers,
" I am the living bread which came down from heaven, and
the bread which I will give is my flesh, which I will give for
the life of the world." In reply to a fresh murmuring of the
Jews, He insists yet more emphatically on the same thought
The bread to be eaten is His immolated flesh ; the drink to be
drunk is His blood. Thus, He who gives life is not only a
meek and lowly Messiah, -but also a Messiah crucified ; and
this is He who must be received and appropriated by faith, as
intimately as the body assimilates the bread which becomes
part of its proper substance. " He who eateth my flesh and
drinketh my blood hath eternal life."t
These bold metaphors, so closely interwoven with the inci
dents of the dialogue, and with the miracle itself which called
them forth, cannot be taken in a material sense. Jesus sets
aside every such interpretation, when He adds, "It is the
spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing."! The
thought which He presents is in its very essence an occasion
of scandal and irritation. Men are asking for signs of power
from Him ; and here is humiliation and sacrifice. They desire
to see the kingdom of God set up with sudden glory, and
behold a victim-Messiah. The work of salvation is not to
* John vi. 46.
f ' 0 rp&ywv jiov ti)v aapxa xai irivoiv fiov rb al/ia, ixel K<»r)v aioiviov
(John vi. 54),
£ T6 irveiifid Ian rb Zuoiroiovv, 7) adp% oix unbeXcX oiikv (John vi. 63 .
Clearly it is quite incorrect to see in the preceding words any
allusion to the Lord's supper. They refer to the great fact of which
that is the symbol, that is to say, to the thing signified and not to the
sign. An absurd inversion is involved in the contrary supposition.

FIRST PERIOD OF THE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST. 343
consist in lofty deeds, wrought to deliver the theocracy from
its oppressors ; heaven is not to be won by the boasted merits
of legal sanctity ; no, salvation is faith in this " Man of sor
rows," and participation in His utter humiliation. It is true
that He says He is come down from heaven, and will return to
heaven again ; but this glory must needs be discerned by faith
beneath the sanguinary veil of a broken body ; and this asser
tion of a grandeur not to be perceived by carnal eyes, is as
hard to be received as the humiliation and suffering. Assuredly
it was not possible to sweep away more unsparingly the delu
sions of the people, or more effectually to crush all their carnal
expectations. We are not surprised, then, to hear the excla
mation of the listeners, " This is a hard saying ! " They felt
the point of the sword which Jesus came to bring into the
world. No doubt they had only a cloudy comprehension of
the profound doctrine He uttered, but they understood enough
to be offended at it. Jesus is left standing alone, while the
multitude retreat like an ebbing tide. Only one little group
remains and to this He turns, asking with an unutterable
sadness in His voice, "Will ye also go away?" "Lord, to
whom shall we go ?" Peter exclaims; "Thou hast the words
of eternal life." A noble declaration from the depth of that
manly, though yet unstable heart. Thus tme faith grows and
strengthens in the very crisis in which all merely seeming faith
succumbs. And yet at this very hour Jesus utters the gloomy
prophecy, " Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is
a devil ?"* It is probable that Judas-himself has begun, with con
sternation, to see his ambitious dreams fading away, and to feel
the first stirring of bitter hatred against the Master by whom he
fancies himself deceived. However this may be, the hour of
darkness has sounded; the time of public favour is over; hence
forward Jesus will meet with but passing returns of popularity.
We now enter upon the second period of His ministry, which
is that of declared conflict. * John vi. 67-71.

BOOK FOURTH.
PertoD of Conflict.
CHAPTER I.
DELEGATES SENT BY THE PHARISEES AT JERUSALEM INTO
GALILEE. JOURNEY INTO THE LANDS OF THE NORTH. FROM
THE SPRING OF THE YEAR OF ROME 782 TO THE AUTUMN
OF THE SAME YEAR.
I. First Intrigues of the Pharisees in Galilee.
After the late events in Nazareth and Capernaum, Jesus
could not as heretofore, go about Galilee. He would not again
make a regular sojourn there, but would only pass through the
country, avoiding large gatherings of the people (Markix. 30.)
The Pharisees did not fail to take advantage of this new
mood ofthe people; throughout the length and breadth ofthe
country, their adherents were united in close fellowship, and
communications were frequent between Jerasalem and Galilee.
The chiefs of the party had sent emissaries to the shores of the
Lake of Gennesaret to act as spies upon Jesus (Mark vii. 1).
These knew well how to work with rare skill, upon the first symp
toms of popular disfavour. To serve the ends of religious hatred,
the Pharisees violated without scrapie the rights of hospitality
so universally respected in the East. That which the Arab
brigand would not do under his tent, they practised in their
consecrated dwellings. They only invited Jesus to be their

PERIOD OF CONFLICT. 345
guest in order to lay snares for Him. Once, when He was
sitting at table with them, they expressed clamorous indignation .
on seeing that He and His disciples dispensed with the absurd
ceremonies, with which they had overlaid the laws concerning
ablutions.* Here again their insistance upon the outward form
of religion was the more resolute in proportion to the disregard
of tme piety. It was not enough for them to wash their hands
before meat; they must needs plunge the arm up to the elbow
in water, and in like manner purify all the domestic utensils.
They were bound to repeat these practises every time theyretumed
from the street or market, lest they should have involuntarily
contracted any defilement It well becomes these contemners of
the law to set themselves as its defenders. With great severity
Jesus says to them, " Ye make the commandment of God of
none effect by your tradition." f
Contrasting eternal morality with the artificial morality of
these false devotees, He takes up the defence of those natural
feelings which they unjustly accuse Him of sacrificing. Have
they not taught children to fail in their first duty, authorising
them to divert for the service of the altar, the consecrated gold
which ought to provide for the needs of parents ? With re
ference to ablutions, Jesus sets forth with a manly simplicity the
great fact, that true defilement comes not from without, but
from within — from the impure fountains of the human heart,
whence proceed lusts and all evil thoughts. He closes by
painting in colours of fire the hypocrisy of his constant adver-
* I have brought together here all that relates to the plotting of
the Pharisees against Jesus in Galilee. The incidents are recorded
with some confusion in the synoptics We take as a foundation, the
narrative in Mark vii. 1-23, which evidently relates to this period,
The discussion concerning ablutions is reproduced with some varia
tions in Luke xi. 39-41. We have then the demand for a sign, (Mark
viii. n, 12), which has its parallel in Luke xi. 29-32. We find an
analogous account in Matthew xii. 38-42. It is possible that
the scene occurred twice. In any case the reply of Jesus was the
same. f TLaXiog a9iTtiTi tt)v ivToXrjv tov 9iov, "iva rr)v irapaioaiv v/idv Ttipi)aijTt.
(Mark vii. 9).

346 BOOK FOURTH.
saries. We shall meet with this immortal picture of Pharisaism,
in a form yet more complete and terrible, in the last discourses
of Jesus. One feature, however, appears to belong positively
to this period; it is that which closes the discussion on ablutions,
" Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and
the platter; but your inward part is full of ravening and
wickedness. Ye fools, did not he that made that which is without
make that which is within also ? "*
Some time after, the same emissaries from Jerusalem pre
sented themselves anew before Jesus to ask of Him a decisive
sign of His mission. The Sanhedrim thus played the part
which is now demanded of our learned bodies ; they required
a miracle wrought before their delegates. " Jesus sighed deeply
in spirit," records the most exact of the Evangelists, f Such a
demand showed in truth an utter and arrant misconception
of His whole character and mission. He is ready, indeed, to
respond to the cry of the sick and the suffering who supplicate
His power to heal; He listens to the voice of tears, and grants
a miraculous answer of love to the appeal of faith; but He will
never consent to work a prodigy in order to establish His
authority before a proud hierarchy, and a people hungering
only for the marvellous ; such a concession might befit a magi
cian or an impostor, but Jesus never confounds lowliness with
degradation ; He ever maintains the royal dignity of truth.
He knows, beside, that the simply marvellous is a dazzling veil
which conceals, more than it reveals the divine, while the
miracle, by its moral character, touches the well-affected heart
Therefore He refuses with indignation the request thus presented
to Him. " There shall no sign be given to this generation but
the' sign of the prophet Jonah." Did not the mere preaching
of that prophet suffice to bring Nineveh to repentance?
" Behold a greater than Jonah is here " — One greater even than
the pacific king, who drew the Queen of Sheba from the far
East to the holy city to listen to his wisdom. The pre-eminent
* Luke xi. 39, 40. j- 'AvaanvdZag Tip wveifiari (Mark viii. 12).

PERIOD OF CONFLICT. 347
sign is the character of Jesus Himself. Those who have eyes
. to see and ears to hear, and hearts in which the sense of the
divine is not quenched, will by this sign acknowledge Him.
We are thus led into the deep truths propounded in the fourth
Gospel. The history of Jonah is to Jesus the type of his own
destiny. He also is to go down into the deep places of the
earth, and to come back again to the light of day.
He appeals to this coming sign as the confirmation of all His
teaching, and the setting as it were of the seal of God on His
work. His death and resurrection do not in truth come into
the category of purely external signs ; they are great redemptive
acts, the highest manifestation of His being. Thus the reply
of Jesus Christ to the demand for a miracle was the sariie in
Galilee, as in the temple of Jemsalem at the opening of His
ministry. In both cases He gives His resurrection as the
ultimate seal of His mission. It is certain that He could not
be perfectly understood by his hearers ; but it must not be for
gotten that He was speaking not for the passing hour alone, but
for all time. If He had used only words immediately intel
ligible to the circle which surrounded Him, His teaching would
have been singularly contracted.*
Scenes like those which have just been narrated, were soon
known throughout the country. The family of Jesus was un
easy at the growing opposition of the Jews, and at the
prolonged labours which seemed likely to exhaust Him. His
relatives imagined that he was losing the mastery of Himself,
and that His enthusiasm was verging on madness. In tmth
Jesus was infected with that generous madness of love which
takes no reckoning of either pain or danger. One day when
* There has been much dispute as to the authenticity of the
passage in Matt. xii. 40, which alludes to the resurrection. It is
certain that it breaks to some extent the thread of thought, but as
it raises no critical difficulty, it may not be withdrawn without
admitting altogether arbitrary distinctions. It must be regarded
as a sublime parenthesis, which carries its own commendation to
the mind, as we have remarked before in reference to John ii. 19.

348 BOOK FOURTH.
His brethren endeavoured with ill-judged persistency to drive
Him from His customary activities, He exclaimed, pointing to
those who surrounded Him, and who appear to have been
intently receiving the divine word, " Behold my mother and
my brethren."*
The Master draws two lessons for the disciples from the
events which have just past. " Beware," He warns them, " of
the leaven of the Pharisees, "f Then, he adds, as though to
re-assure the hearts of his timid followers, who might tremble
at the thought of breaking openly with so powerful a party, "I
say unto you, my friends, fear not them which kill the body,
and after, that have no more which they can do. But I will
forewarn you whom ye shall fear : fear him which after he
hath killed hath power to cast into hell ; yea I say unto you,
fear him. "J
II. Journey into the lands of the North.
After the events just narrated, Jesus retired for a time into
the parts of Tyre and Sidon. These two cities, so long
eminent in commerce and in war, were to the Jewish people
like the advanced posts of pagan civilisation ; in their wealth
and luxury they formed the strongest contrast with the Jewish
nationality, inclosed within narrow boundaries, and cut off
from other nations by severest restrictions. Tyre and Sidon
had been great capitals of commerce ; there had been de
veloped the adventurous genius of the Phoenicians, whose
vessels furrowed all known seas, to pour the treasures of the
world at the feet of their monstrous idols. These cities were
much fallen into decay at the time of Christ. They had lost
their independence. Tyre had never recovered from the ter-
* "lie r) fii]Trip fiov xai ot disXfol fiov (Mark iii. 34).
t Mark viii. 15.
j Luke xii. 4, 5. It is doubtless on this text that Renan founds
his assertion, that Jesus never observed a distinction between body
and soul.

PERIOD OF CONFLICT. 349
rible siege laid against it by Alexander ; Sidon, which yielded
sooner, had suffered less. These two cities (held, like all
Eastern Asia, under the yoke of Rome,) still retained some
splendour, thanks to their noble situation on the shores of the
Mediterranean ; and the relations between them and the Jews
became frequent. Asiatic paganism, the worship of infamous
and cruel divinities, still exercised over them its corrupting
influence. Their inhabitants were not yet ripe for the great
evangelical call ; Jesus only passed through their country, but
His passage was marked by a miracle, which was in itself a
declaration that national barriers were about to be levelled.
It was not wrought, like that at Capernaum, on behalf of a
Roman centurion, already a proselyte of the synagogue, and
almost incorporated with the holy nation : we are no longer in
Samaria, on ground half-consecrated, and still owning the
worship of the one God. No, everything in these spots speaks
of unblushing paganism ; impure sanctuaries in honour of the
Phoenician Hercules stand on all sides. By acting as Messiah
on this unholy soil, Jesus makes a decisive advance, the
importance of which is yet more enhanced by the attendant
circumstances. A poor woman of Canaan, who has doubtless heard the
rumours of the great events which have been transpiring in
Judaea, throws herself at His feet. She is a mother, suppli
cating for her daughter who is grievously vexed with a devil.
"Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David!" is her
piteous cry. The Master keeps silence, till His disciples grow
- impatient at the importunity of the woman. Yet more and
more urgently she pleads, and receives for only answer the
words, "It is not meet to take the children's bread and to
cast it to the dogs."* It seems as though Jesus would show
the ancient privilege of the Jew in all its inflexible rigour, to
prove this daughter of an idolatrous people, and to give yet
more solemn emphasis to the act He is about to perform.
* Matt. xv. 26.

35° BOOK FOURTH.
Never did faith show more holy hardihood than in this un
happy mother. "Truth, Lord:" she replies, "yet the dogs
eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table." Here
is, indeed, a prayer which, as has been eloquently said, is
stronger than God Himself.* Thrilled by so touching a con
fidence in His love, Jesus no longer delays to work the desired
cure. Thus is the door of the Gentile world opened to the
Gospel by the suppliant hands of a poor woman. This was a
great day in the evangelical annals.
From Sidon, Jesus repairs to the north-east of the Lake of
Gennesaret, into Decapolis. This province was so called from
the number of its towns, which had formed themselves into a
confederation, according to the Greek custom. The Gospels
assign to this journey the healing of one deaf and dumb, and a
second multiplication of the loaves, occurring in circumstances
similar to those which led' to it on the previous occasion.
Jesus then repairs to Bethsaida Julias, where He heals a blind
man.f From thence He goes northward, near the sources of
the Jordan, as far as Csesarea Philippi. All around this city
extends the fertile plain of Hiileh, enclosed between the wooded
mountains of Naphtali and the slopes of snowy Hermon. The
Jordan divides itself into numerous streamlets, which flow
among the oleanders; it then loses itself wholly in the beautiful
sheet of the Lake Merom. The two principal sources of the
river are at Dan and Caesarea Philippi, the modern Banias.
The imposing ruins of the latter city attest its ancient great
ness. An idea may be formed of what it was in the times of
Christ, by uncovering with the foot the mural fragments, which
lie overgrown with luxuriant vegetation at the foot of the
ravine. The tetrarch Philip greatly embellished it, and gave
* Adolphe Monod, " Sermon sur la Cananeenne."
t Matt. xv. 32, Mark viii. I-9. There is no confusion in the
synoptics about the two miracles of the loaves. Jesus clearly dis
tinguishes them (Mark viii. 19). They differ in the locality in
which they were wrought, in their date, and in the circumstances
accompanying them.

PERIOD OF CONFLICT. 35 1
to it his own name ; it was previously called Paneas, because
the neighbouring mountain was consecrated to the god Pan.
Its population was in great part pagan.
Jesus took advantage of this quiet time with His disciples, to
ask them what were men's thoughts about Him, in the countries
through which they had just passed. The apostles replied that
the people saw in Him one of the old prophets, whose return
was looked for at the epoch of Messiah.* "And whom say ye
that I am?" asked the Master. "Thou art the Christ of
God,"-f- exclaims Peter, in one of those ecstasies of faith which
raise him for the moment above himself, and reveal that ardent
courage which characterises all the mighty men of action
and enthusiasm. It is now that he receives for the second
time that name which so admirably describes him; "Blessed
art thou, Simon Bar-jona : for flesh and blood hath not re
vealed it unto thee, but my father which is in heaven. And I
say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I
will build my church ; and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom
of heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be
bound in heaven ; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth
shall be loosed in heaven." !
This is the first mention of the Church ; its foundation was
in truth laid in this recognition of the exalted dignity of Christ.
Peter has spoken the word or the truth, which is its foundation,
its keystone and bulwark; this word binds or looses, saves
or condemns ; it possesses the power of the divine life which
it reveals. It preserves the same character by whatever mouth
it is spoken. Therefore it is, that in this same Gospel, the
power of the keys, the privilege of binding and loosing is
confided, not to Peter only, but to all the disciples,§ for is not
to be supposed that a discourse, which throughout treats of
the most elementary duties .of the Christian life, was not
* Matt. xvi. 14. t Tbv Xpiardv tov 9eov (Luke ix. 20.)
X Matt. xvi. 18-20. § Matt, xviii. 18.

35 2 BOOK FOURTH.
addressed to all believers. Thus is wholly set aside anything
like the institution of an official primacy, which would make a
man the sovereign dispenser of God's pardons. To Peter
belongs, nevertheless, the honour of having been the first to
give utterance to the creative word of the Church, and of
having displayed in action, that great quality of conquering
energy, which procured for him a moral supremacy at Jem
salem. Hardly has the son of Jonas made this declaration, which
called forth the signal approval of the Master, when mistaken
words succeed to this noble testimony on his lips. At the
first allusion of Jesus to His approaching sufferings and humi
liation, the apostle protests with indignation, and draws down
on himself the terrible rebuke, "Get thee behind me, Satan,"*
If the Church had no more stable basis than the impulsive
heart of a man, it is evident how frail would be her foundation.
It is a distinctive feature ofthe greatness of Christ that,, at the
very moment when His glory is proclaimed, he speaks of His
sacrifice. The amazement of His disciples proves how much
they have need of this teaching, for if they were dimly con
scious of the dignity of their Master, they were very far from
comprehending by what a path of sorrow it was to be attained.
This is the sole reason why He prohibits them from proclaim
ing Him as Messiah. t He alone is able to assert His rightful
title without conceding anything to the superstitions of His
nation. To the north of Caesarea Philippi, the magnificent chain of
Great Hermon rears itself to heaven ; it commands the whole
country. It was on one of the mountains which form part of
* Matt. xvi. 23.
t I will not repeat what I have already said in reference to
Baur, Schenkel, and Colani's notion as to the time when Jesus
knew Himself to be Messiah. I have shown that we have no proof
of such a fact in the conversation at Caesarea Philippi. It does
not follow, because Jesus forbade His disciples to proclaim a truth
which they did not clearly comprehend, that He might not Himself
proclaim it, as He had certainly not the same cause for silence.

PERIOD OF CONFLICT. 353
this range, that the mysterious scene of the Transfiguration
took place.* Every sound of earth dies at the foot of this
lofty retreat, so truly worthy of the prayer of Christ. On all
sides ragged peaks are seen rising from the middle of the
plain, through which, half hidden by the tall herbage, flows
the sacred stream — the witness of so many miracles. It was,
probably, in the calm, still hour that comes before evening
that Jesus ascended the mountain. He was accompanied by
three of His disciples — Peter, James, and John. Suddenly
His form and His raiment were enwrapt in so glistening a
brightness that, in the simple expression of St. Mark, no fuller
on earth could produce its like. Here is something more than
the radiance of a heavenly soul occasionally seen on a human
countenance, more than one of those glances, which, like
lightning-flashes of the soul, reveal its moral beauty. The
Transfiguration was a manifestation of a higher order. In this>
marvellous light, Moses and Elias appeared, and talked with
Jesus of His decease, which He should accomplish at Jerusalem,
Thus, while false Judaism rejects the Messiah, the true owns
and adores Him in the persons of its two most illustrious
representatives. The old covenant and the new meet together
on the gldrious mount, as righteousness and peace shall soon
meet on that other hill which is already before the eye of
Jesus. The laws which govern the world of blessed spirits lie too
wholly beyond our comprehension, for us to attempt any expla
nation of this appearance of Moses and Elias. The apostles,
doubtless, heard on their awaking, some words of this myste
rious interview ; they were thus enabled to recognise the two
great prophets.! Peter would fain prolong this hour of heaven
* Tradition erroneously places the Transfiguration on Mount
Tabor. Jesus was at this time in the neighbourhood of Caesarea
Philippi (Matt. xiv. 13 ; comp. xvii. 1). A fortress stood upon the
summit of Tabor, which would ill accord with the scene described.
\ We observe that the conversation takes place before the three
disciples recognise Moses and Elias (Luke ix. 31).
A A

354 BOOK FOURTH.
upon earth, and set up tents on that shining summit, but a
cloud descended upon the three disciples, and they feared as
they entered into it, for now it was no more Moses or Elias
whom they heard, but a divine voice, saying, " This is my
beloved Son, hear ye him."*
In what manner these ineffable things were seen and heard
it is impossible to say ; to the three apostles might be applied
the words of St. Paul on his visions of the third heaven,
"Whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether out of the
body I cannot tell : God knoweth."! For the disciples, the
Transfiguration was intended to illuminate with a ray of glory
the dark days that were about to begin ; it was designed also
to strengthen Jesus for His conflict It was His first wateh
before the battle, the second would be passed in Gethsemane.
This sacred scene was to be kept secret by the three apostles
till after His resurrection.
After a short conversation in which He tells them that John
the Baptist was indeed " Elias which was to come," He descends
the mountain with them. How strong is the contrast awaiting
them ! Above, they had seen heaven coming down to earth ;
below, in the plain, they beheld one of the most fearful con
sequences of sin ; a poor child was there, writhing in demoniac
frenzy, more terrible, perhaps, in its symptoms even than that
of the sufferer of Gadara, and beside him stood a despairing
father, who had vainly sought aid from the disciples. They
had essayed to cure the child, but could not Hence the grief
and holy indignation of the Master at their culpable impotence,
" O faithless generation," He exclaimed " how long shall I be
with you?"! Even the most sacred words cannot alone exor
cise the power of evil ; prayer and fasting, the holy elevation
of the soul which seeks its strength in God, this is the secret of
victory. A glorious deliverance was granted to the still tremu-*
lous, but humbly trustful faith of the poor father, who spoke
that day for every troubled, trembling heart of man when he
* Luke ix. 35. f 2 Cor. xii. 3. X Mark ix. 19.

PERIOD OF CONFLICT. 355
exclaimed with tears, "Lord, I believe, help Thou mine un
belief."* Immediately on the conclusion of the miracle, Jesus
gave a second intimation of His approaching end : "Let these
sayings sink down into your ears ; for the Son of man shall be
delivered into the hands of men."f Thus the most various
scenes succeed each other ; suffering follows glory, and some
times goes hand and hand with it. Such is the rhythm of the
Gospel history.
A few other incidents belong to this period, in which Jesus
devotes Himself with redoubled care to the education of His
apostles. In their simple pride, they dispute about priority of
place. The Master sets a little child in the midst of them.!
Such an one is in His eyes the type of that tme greatness which
consists in transparent simplicity and artless affection. With
humility He also inculcates breadth of spirit ; He will not suffer
the man to be condemned who, though not walking with His
followers, yet works miracles in His name, for the allegiance
of the soul is of more value in His eyes than outward adherence. §
He is not come to form a sect, but a church. Large hearts
are full of kindness and pity ; He desires His disciples to take
especial heed lest they despise or offend one of the little ones. ||
The pardon extended should not be meted by scantier measure
than the pardon freely received. What right has the servant,
to whom his master has forgiven a mighty debt, to insist mer
cilessly on the payment of a few pence from his fellow-servant?1T
Life thus regarded is one long conflict with sin, from which the
soldiers come out scarred and maimed, for the very eye must
be plucked out, and foot or hand be cut off, if they cause us to
stumble or fall** These bold images are designed to set forth
that crucifixion of the inner man which St. Paul urges in no
less emphatic language. Such a work cannot be accomplished
without preternatural strength. Jesus revealed the secret of
this strength to His disciples. One day, as they watched Him
* Mark ix. 24. t Luke ix. 44. X Luke ix. 47.
§ Mark ix. 38-40. || Matt, xviii. 10. IT Matt, xviii. 21-35.
** Matt, xviii. 8, 9.
AA 2

35^ BOOK FOURTH.
in prayer, they felt that they did not yet tmly know what it was
to pray, and asked Him to impart to them this divine lesson.
It was then that He gave them, not a formulary, but a perfect
model of prayer in that universal petition, which for eighteen
centuries has carried to heaven so many aspirations, and
wrought so many deliverances in the earth.* The Lord's
Prayer is unapproachable in its simplicity and completeness ;
it embraces all the necessities of renewed man, from the
sublime need of blessing the heavenly Father, and of con
curring by obedience and holiness in the advancement of His
kingdom, to the lower need of daily bread. Pardon for past
transgression, strength to overcome in present temptation ; all
is included. Humble supplication and wrestling entreaty melt
into the one final ascription of worship, " Thine is the kingdom,"
the power, and the glory, for ever and ever." Such a prayer is
like the viaticum of the Christian traveller amidst all the perils
of the way. * Luke xi. 1-5

PERIOD OF CONFLICT. 357

CHAPTER II.
SOJOURN AT JERUSALEM ON THE OCCASION OF THE FEAST OF
TABERNACLES. (AUTUMN OF YEAR OF ROME, 782.)
TESUS had not revisited Jerasalem since His return into
-^ Galilee at the beginning of the year. If He had gone
thither sooner the final crisis would have been hastened, and
He would not have been able to sow the seed of the word in,
so many towns and villages. But now He was kept back by
no consideration of popular favour; open conflict would be
better than slow alienation, paving the way for hatred. There
is no reason for supposing that this stay at Jerasalem effected
any change in His mind and purpose. It was not the first
time He had visited the holy city, and contemplated the solemn
landscape around it. Let us not exaggerate the gloom of this
prospect. Doubtless, the high country of Judaea never arrayed
itself in glory like Carmel and Tabor ; it was never vocal with
the murmuring of waters like the valley of the Jordan ; but it
was far from wearing, at the time of Christ, the aspect of wild
desolation which it presents in our day. The Cedron was not
then a dry, stony bed ; it diffused fruitfulness all around. The
Mount of Olives, which rose facing the Temple, had many a
concealed retreat of verdure ; its summit commanded one of
the grandest landscapes of Palestine, terminated on the south
by the glimmering of the Dead Sea, and on the east by the
blue-grey heights of Moab, often enkindled by the fiery splen-

35 8 BOOK FOURTH.
dours of the sun. The numerous tombs, scattered over the
hill in its decline to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, did not rise
then from the midst of heaps of accumulated rains, overgrown
with briars and weeds. Their white outlines dotted the ver
dure of the slope. Jemsalem itself was a noble city, into
which a large population crowded, and which was crowned by
the grand and severe proportions of the Temple. There was,
then, nothing in the external circumstances calculated to effect
a radical change in the mind of Jesus, even were it admitted
that the soul could ever be degraded into such abject subjection
to natural influences. Let it be remembered, too, that the
ministry of Christ began on the desolate shores of the Dead
Sea, and that it was from the burning deserts of Judaea He
came forth to inaugurate the year of goodwill. We know
already that Jesus had not restrained till now the manifestation
of what is called His mad excitement ; for in Galilee He had
already declared Himself to be the bread from heaven — the
immortal food of the soul ; already had he begun that insistance
upon the virtue of His own person which is made the reproach
of this closing period.
The Feast of Tabernacles, which took place in October, was
approaching; it was one of the great religious festivals of
Judaism. In memory of the wandering life of the desert, the
people set up leafy booths in the streets of Jerasalem, and
dwelt in them seven days. With palm branches in their hands,
they walked in long processions, magnifying the goodness of
God to their forefathers. Jesus did not arrive in Judaea at the
commencement of the feast. He had refused to yield to the
urgency of His brethren, when, in accordance with their national
prejudices, they pressed Him to seize this opportunity to show
Himself with power. He knew well that His enemies would
be exasperated at seeing Him arrive with the caravans from
Galilee, which would not fail to form a cortege around Him.
His brethren could not foresee anything to fear in such con
tingencies, sharing as they did in the carnal expectations of

PERIOD OF CONFLICT. 359
their nation.* The Master, therefore, allows Himself to be
preceded at Jerusalem by His kinsfolk arid disciples, while He
himself follows as it were in secret, t
The feast had already lasted some days when He arrived.
The people were in a state of extraordinary excitement ; Jesus
was the subject of conversation in every group ; His character
and works were discussed, and according to the animus of the
speakers He was pronounced to be a good man or a deceiver
of the people-! Excitement reached its height when He sud
denly appeared in the Temple.§ His very first words were
marked by that tone of authority peculiar to Him, and which
was supremely impressive in this centre of vain disputations
and empty words. , A dialogue commences between Him and
those around Him, which indicates the various attitudes of
mind, and the diverse and fluctuating impressions of His
hearers. The paramount feeling is astonishment. Such divine
wisdom is incomprehensible in a man who has not passed
through the rabbinical schools. Jesus tells them that His is
no human and acquired learning ; His doctrine is of God, and
He speaks only the words of Him who sent Him. This celes
tial wisdom does not manifest itself by means of laboured
argument ; it reveals itself directly to the conscience. The
man who will do the will of God shall know that the doctrine
is of God, for the absolute disinterestedness of Him who pro
claims it, proves that He is not seeking Himself, nor doing His
own work, but that He is indeed the organ of divine love.
Jesus appeals, according to His invariable wont, from the tor-
* Jesus, in consequence of His tardy arrival, could not celebrate
the feast according to the customary rites.
f 'Ev xpvirrip (John vii. 10). This solitary journey does not seem
to agree with that mentioned in Luke ix. 51, which has a certain
publicity about it (Luke ix. 52). The account of the third Gospel
better suits the next journey, in which Jesus took solemn leave of
the lands through which He had so often passed. We agree en
tirely on this point with Neander, Lange, and M. Godet, in oppo
sition to Wieseler.
X John vii. 12, 13. § John vii. 14

360 BOOK FOURTH.
tuous scholasticism of the doctors to the tme intuition of the
soul. *
The Master probably discerns in the crowd some of those Jews
who had been scandalised by the miracle wrought at Bethesda.
He knows that in opposition to the verdict of the upright
conscience which He claims, they set His pretended violation
of the Sabbath ; they dispute His true holiness in the name of
artificial and conventional piety. He meets their thoughts in
a direct and pointed manner. These pretended defenders of
the law have not truly understood the law. Did not Moses
authorise circumcision on the Sabbath day, thus placing a
patriarchal institution above a formal command of the Deca
logue ? There are, then, laws paramount to legal observance ;
now all that contributes to the good of man forms part of this
eternal code. Who will dare to dispute that it is more im
portant to make a man altogether whole than to circumcise
him ?-|- This bold and searching speech astonishes the listeners
all the more, because they know what issues are pending : will
the rulers indeed believe that this is the very Christ, and cease
seeking to kill Him ? But conviction is only transitory ; the
objection to His low and obscure origin at once recurs. They
know too well whence He comes : " Ye both know me and ye
know whence I come," replied Jesus, with solemn irony ; and
to these men who look only at earthly things, and are offended
by the workshop of Nazareth, He shows the heaven whence
He descends. Some are moved by so much dignity, but the
majority remain hostile. The Pharisees are assembled in the
council-chamber, for it must be decided whether this Galilean
Teacher is to be suffered to supplant them in the very midst
of the feast ; they hasten to take advantage of the variable
mood of the crowd; their emissaries are prepared to seize
Jesus at the first favourable moment. He, meanwhile, pre
serving His royal serenity, declares to the people that the light
* These observations are a paraphrase of John vii. 16-19.
¦j- John vii. 22, 23. See Godet.

PERIOD OF CONFLICT. 36 1
which had been granted for a time was soon to be withdrawn,
and that the day would come when they would bitterly repent
having rejected their Deliverer.* His warnings are no better
understood than His promises.
Every morning, during the feast, a priest came down from
the holy mountain, with a golden vessel in his hand, to draw
water from the famous fountain of Siloam, at the foot of
Moriah ; he returned in the midst of a great concourse of
people, to the sound of psalms and trumpets, and concluded
the ceremony by pouring the water from his golden vessel over
the altar.-f- This rite was designed to commemorate the
miraculous stream, which flowed from the rock beneath the rod
of Moses. But in Israel every memory was a hope and
symbol of that which was to come. The work of Messiah was
described in the prophets under the figure of floods of living
water, fertilising the thirsty ground. " With joy shall ye draw
water out of the wells of salvation," had said the prophet
Isaiah.J The prophet Joel had foretold that a fountain should
" come forth out of the house of the Lord."§ Ezekiel had
used similar images.|| Jesus was, then, certain of being under
stood by the people when He said, " If any man thirst let him
come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, out of
his belly shall flow rivers of living water. "IT He likened
Himself to the rock in the desert which had given life to
Israel. But the spiritual reality far surpasses the type ; Jesus
* John vii. 33, 34.
t The last day of the feast of Tabernacles was properly the
seventh, but the eighth was also kept as the conclusion of the
solemnities. The people left their leafy tents and repaired to the
Temple. The ceremony of bringing the water from the spring of
Siloam did not take place on this day ; but it was present to all
minds, and nothing could be more natural than an allusion to it.
At the time of the conclusion of the feast, Jesus addresses to the
crowd gathered in the Temple an urgent appeal, founded on one of
the ceremonies of the previous days. Nothing is more conceivable.
X Isaiah xii. 3. § Joel iii. 18.
|| Ezek. xxxvi. 25. IT John vii., 37, 38.

362 BOOK FOURTH.
not only quenches thirst, He opens in the soul a "well of
water springing up into everlasting life," — a magnificent image
of the expansive force of the divine life, freely given that it
may be freely diffused.*
The more clearly Jesus reveals Himself as Messiah in the
exalted sense in which He uses the word, the more His hearers
are divided about Him. Everything points to a decisive crisis
at hand ; the people are by turns attracted and repelled One
part is almost ready to believe in Him, or at least to take Him
for the prophet who was to go before Messiah ;t but the
favourable impression passes away at the ready suggestion, by
an adversary, of His origin in the despised province of Galilee.
This is the favourite argument of the Sanhedrim. The council
was still sitting, and awaiting with impatience the return of
those whom they had sent to take this troublesome agitator, who
moved the crowd in another sense. What was their indignation
when the officers returned alone, saying, in self-defence, " Never
man spake like this man." Thus, on the first encounter with
Jesus, material force .flinched, as if by an instinct of its future
defeat. This haughty religious aristocracy gives the measure
of its insolent pride in the significant words : " Have any of
the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on Him?" In vain
Nicodemus lifts a timid voice to invoke that first law of
universal justice, according to which the accused cannot be
condemned without a hearing ; his mouth is shut by the con
temptuous rejoinder: "Art thou also of Galilee ? Search and
see, for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet"! Thus does passion
* The evangelist rightly refers the full realisation of this promise
to the gift ofthe Divine Spirit (John vii. 39). It is clear how much
the fourth Gospel takes account of the Old Testament, and how
broadly it is distinguished in this respect from the Gnostic move
ment of the second century, from which it is said to have sprung.
Perpetual allusion is made to the great facts of the history of Israel
in the discourses recorded by St. John. t John vii. 40-42.
! In their anger the members of the Sanhedrim spoke with a dis
regard of fact when they said no prophet came out of Galilee, for
this was the country of Jonah.

PERIOD OF CONFLICT. 363
stifle all remonstrance. The fate of Jesus is already decided.
The last day of the Feast of Tabernacles may, then, be con
sidered as a great epoch in His life.
Shortly afterwards, perhaps the day following,* we see some
of the members of the Sanhedrim themselves coming on the
scene. t It is not enough for them to set spies upon Jesus;
they will make a direct attack upon Him. They find Him in
the court of the women, which adjoined their council hall, and
was called also the Treasury, because in it were placed the
coffers of brass destined for receiving alms. It was the custom
to light, during the Feast of Tabernacles, two great candelabra,
which shed -light over the whole city; this ceremony was per
formed before all the people to the sound of instraments of
music. Perhaps it was intended to recall to mind the bright
cloud which was the torch of Israel during the nights of the
desert The candelabra must have been extinguished at the
time Jesus entered the court, for the feast was at an end ; but
He was doubtless alluding to the ceremony when He ex
claimed, " I am the light of the world." J It may be affirmed
of these great statements concerning Himself that they are
everything or nothing ; if He is not truly what He says, no
words can be more idle, for He gives no demonstration of His
assertion; but if He is indeed the light, He needs but to show
Himself. The simple manifestation of Himself will then be
the most conclusive arguments. A fool or an impostor may
make the same claims, but then he is after all only a madman
or a rogue, while Jesus Christ is Jesus Christ. Unquestionably,
another than He may say, " I am the light of the world,"
but He only "gives light to the world."
He meets the objections of the members of the Sanhedrim,
who, according to their judicial notions, demand witnesses to
* We have said elsewhere why we question the authenticity of
the narrative of the woman taken in adultery, while fully admitting
the reality of the fact.
+ John viii. 13. J John viii. 23

364 BOOK FOURTH.
verify His assertions, by a transcendent method peculiarly His
own. The law of Deuteronomy requires two witnesses in every
cause.* Jesus sets forth Himself and His Father as the two
witnesses demanded. Jesus may be heard as to Himself,
because He alone knows whence He comes, and whither He
goes f such a mystery eludes every human eye ; He is not
alone, He is with Him who sent Him, and His judgment of
men rests on that of His Father; while His adversaries,
instead of elevating their judgment to this divine point of
view, judge only by the appearance. + By this witness of His
Father Jesus does not intend merely His miracles, but also
that inner voice, that sense of the divine, to which He con
stantly appeals. He touches the very root of the incredulity of
His opponents in that grand utterance : " I am from above, ye
are from beneath ; ye are of this world, I am not of this
world."! This radical incongmity of nature is the reason why
they cannot comprehend Him, and why they will put Him to
death, and themselves die in their sins.§ His hearers stupidly
imagine that He has formed some purpose of suicide ; He then
explains His true meaning : His death will be His elevation, for
it will prove to His enemies, by the very punishment which it
will draw down upon them, that He is indeed sent of God, and
has done nothing of Himself. || Pressed by His opponents, He
declares, in the same breath His deepest humiliation and His
supreme dignity : " If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall
die in your sins."
Once again a revulsion is produced in His favour, not,
indeed, among' the Pharisees, but among the surrounding
throng ; some Jews seem convinced by His words, but He will
have no doubtful or wavering adherents. Fugitive impres
sions are of little worth, and He declares that those only are
His disciples who continue in His word. IT Then saith He,
* Deut. xvii. 6. j John viii. 14-18.
J 'YfieXg ix tHiv xdrui iari, iyu> ix twv dvot eifii (John viii. 23).
§ John viii. 21-24. II John viii. 27, 28. f John viii. 31.

PERIOD OF CONFLICT. 365
" Ye shall know the tmth, and the truth shall make you free."*
This is a direct insult to the haughty pride of the Jews, who
glory in being of the seed of Abraham. The hearers indignantly
remind Jesus of this their illustrious descent. He reduces
their boast to its true worth, showing that at heart they are
bowed beneath the yoke of the most degrading slavery — the
slavery, not of Rome (which might by a strong effort be
broken), but of sin. He maintains His position against their
murmurs by setting forth their unworthy treatment of Himself ;
they call themselves the children of Abraham, and yet they
seek to kill Him, the tme Isaac, the holy revealer of truth. f
He tells them plainly who is their father, even the great enemy
of God, the murderer of souls : are they not partakers in his
hatred of truth ? is not the true cause of their repugnance to
Jesus His divine holiness? "Which of you," He asks, "con-
vinceth me of sin?"! Those who reject in Him the highest
manifestation of the divine cannot be of God ; § whence then
are they but of Satan? The exasperated Pharisees affect to
regard Him as one possessed ; but He repels their scorn, and
asserts His true prerogative; though He seeks not His own
glory, yet He is none the less the Prince of Life dispensing
eternal benefits. He who believeth in Him shall never die.
" Thou art mad," they say ; " for even Abraham himself is
dead" Jesus accepts the imputation, and goes on to affirm
His pre-existence in terms yet more unequivocal. " Before
Abraham was, I am." The Jews, who that day took up stones
to stone Him, were traer interpreters of His sacred word than
the commentators, who ' despoil it of all its transcendent
significance ; they had truly grasped its meaning, and if they
raised the cry of blasphemy it was because this was no
vain and empty saying. It is better for the supernatural to
* 'H dXr)9eia iXev9epdaci vfidg (John viii. 32).
t John viii. 34-42.
! Tig ii, ifiwv tXkyxu /*6 irepl dfiapTtag (John viii. 46)
§ 'Ex tov 9eoi ois iark (John viii. 47).

366 BOOK FOURTH.
be* admitted, even with a curse, than to be cast out with show
of reverence.
No reconciliation was now possible between Judaism and
Jesus. The smallest occasion might bring events to a crisis.
Such an occasion arose in a new miracle, wrought on the
Sabbath day. Jesus loved to use His holy liberty, and to
mark the broad distinction between the traditions of men and
the law of God. Near, the Temple, He met a man blind from
his birth : He healed him, not directly by a word, but bidding
him go to the pool of Siloam, and wash his eyes, which He
had covered with a little moistened clay.* Ancient prophecy
had made this famous spring a symbol of divine grace ;f its
softly flowing waters were tenderly contrasted with the rushing
torrent — the image of the noisy power of pagan nations. This
Hebrew typology, from which Jesus had borrowed so many
allusions at the Feast of Tabernacles, was certainly not absent
from His thoughts when He sent the blind man to the fountain
of Siloam. No sooner had he returned, seeing, to his house,
than the rumour of the miracle spread abroad through all the
city. The Sanhedrim, who were on the watch for every
proceeding of Jesus, were aroused immediately. An enquiry
commenced, conducted under the influence of the most
iniquitous passions. Such a miracle, augmenting the credit of
a dangerous adversary, could not be admitted, and investiga
tions were set on foot. The Sanhedrim summon to their bar
the blind man who had been healed, hoping to extort from him
a denial of the miracle ; they obtain only a confirmation of it
Then the parents are cited to be confronted with their son ;
they will do nothing more than declare that this is their son,
who was blind, and can now see ; but so much are they under
the dominion of fear that they refuse to give any other infor
mation. The subject of the miracle is examined again. The
judges play the most contemptible part : they endeavour to
constrain him to lie against his conscience. To all their
* John ix. 6. t Isaiah viii. 6.

PERIOD OJF CONFLICT. 367
solicitations the poor man replies, with unshaken firmness, that
" one thing he knows, that whereas he was blind, now he sees."
Let them say what they will, they cannot persuade him that
what is, is not The judges tremble with anger ; since the fact
cannot be denied, they will blacken it. They think to stop
the mouth of this inconvenient witness, by telling him that
Jesus is a violator of the law, and a sinner. But they have left
out of their reckoning the great voice of conscience, which
rises above all their craft and violence. " We know," says the
healed man, " that God heareth not sinners ; but if any man be
a servant of God, and do His will, him He heareth." No
antagonism is so formidable to sophists, making a traffic of
tmth and religion, as the holy simplicity of an upright heart.
The blind man foils the false calculations of his questioners ;
these return to the charge by asking him to tell them once
again that which they already know. He darts at them this
shaft of cutting irony : " I have told you already, and ye did
not hear ; wherefore will ye hear it again ? Will ye also be
his disciples?"
Frustrated in all their schemes, the Sanhedrim close the
inquiry with a summary act of authority, which .was itself a
confession of weakness ; for to strike a blow instead of giving
an answer is, in a spiritual court, an admission of defeat. The
sentence of lesser excommunication, which lasted thirty days,*
was pronounced against this bold heretic who had baffled both
arguments and threats. It is clear that Jesus took the blow as
aimed at Himself; it was for His sake the poor man was con-
deriined, and this sentence securedihim that sublime compensa
tion reserved for the outcasts from every synagogue. He
receives the approval of the Master, who reveals Himself to
him as the Son of God, and at the feet of Messiah, the
banished one esteems his shame to be his glory. Jesus
immediately draws a great lesson from the late occurrence.
" I am come," He says, " a light into the world, that they who
* This is the punishment intended in John ix. 34.

368 BOOK FOURTH.
see not might see, and that they who see might be made
blind."* The humility which seeks light receives it, and the
pride which thinks it see, remains in darkness.
Before leaving Jerusalem Jesus pronounces His excommuni
cation on the unfaithful hierarchy, but it is the excommunication
of divine love, which does not seek its own revenge in the
perdition of souls. What infinite pity dwells in this indignation
of the Saviour ! That which grieves Him most is not the
offence which He Himself has received; it is the scattered
flock, which instead of faithful shepherds has worthless hirelings,
ready to flee the moment the wolf approaches, or the thief
comes to steal and destroy.f They have not entered into the
sheepfold by that door which the porter openeth ; they have
not received their commission from God, and have not accepted
the grand condition of entrance into His kingdom, which is
faith in Him whom He hath sent. In this sense Jesus is the
door of the sheepfold. But He is also Himself the Good
Shepherd; how great is the contrast between Him and the
hireling ! First of all, the soul which is His hears His voice,
while it has no response for that of the impostor or the hypo
crite ; He feeds instead of neglecting His sheep ; He defends
instead of fleeing from them. Finally, He gives His life for
them, the generous and sovereignly free gift of self-sacrificing
love, constrained only by its own compassion-! It seems as
though at the thought of His death, the horizon open to His
gaze widens, for scarcely has He spoken of His sacrifice, when
He sees the old enclosure of the fold thrown down, and those
other sheep of all nations entering, who are to form part of
His flock. " One flock under one shepherd," such is the future
that He foresees. §
Such was the farewell which Jesus bade to the city which had
rejected Him, before taking for the last time His journey into
Galilee. His name was still tossed to and fro between insult
* John ix. 29. t John x. 9-12.
J John x. 17, 18. § John x. 16.

- PERIOD OF CONFLICT. 369
and applause, but the approving voices grew fewer and fewer,
and were chiefly heard among the lowest ranks of the people.
His foes were not despicable men of Galilee ; they were the
great, the rich, the powerful. But He was not alone, for God
was with Him.

BB

37° BOOK FOURTH.

CHAPTER III.
LAST SOJOURN IN GALILEE.* SOLEMN RETURN TO JERU
SALEM THROUH SAMARIA. FEAST OF THE DEDICATION. (FROM
OCTOBER TO DECEMBER, 782.)
I. Last Sojourn in Galilee.
JESUS will once more visit Galilee before quitting it for
ever ; He had left it abruptly, so as to arrive at Jerasalem
during the Feast of Tabernacles, and He desires to take yet one
solemn farewell of this people of His love and care. He finds
the country just as He had left it ; the multitude, variable as
the wind, is ready to flock around Him one day if He works a
miracle, and to fall away the next into the most unreasoning
prejudice ; the higher classes are averse or indifferent. Herod
Antipas, who hitherto has looked with contempt on the new
religious movement, or been aroused only to curiosity about
it, now begins to treat it with declared hostility, perhaps inten
tionally exaggerated by those who are its organs. Jesus, who
knows that He is to be put to death at Jerusalem, is in no way
disquieted by the movements of Herod, whose character He
epitomises in a word. This cunning and cruel fox will have no
power to hinder the accomplishment of His mission. f
His activities are still divided between His disciples, whose
education He carries on with unwearying patience, and the
mass of the people, whom He endeavours to enlighten as to
His mission. But His appeals now take a more direct form ;
He mingles severe reproaches with words of mercy ; His very
* It is not possible to present the facts connected with this period
in strict chronological order. We must be satisfied with grouping
them. t Luke xiii. 32.

PERIOD OF CONFLICT. 37 1
love bids Him strike with importunate blows the proud hearts
so hard to break. The position of both parties is now declared;
overt war has begun, neutrality is no longer possible ; His
hearers must choose their side. In the early days of His
ministry, He suffered the crowd to follow His footsteps without
addressing to them such urgent personal appeals, because He
was desirous first of all to make Himself known to them. Now
they know enough of Him to choose between Him and His
adversaries. Thus He does not hesitate to hold up before His
present hearers the severe ideal of the true disciple. He
demands an absolute self-surrender, which will not hesitate to
break the tenderest and most sacred ties, and to subordinate
the most legitimate family affections to the Fulfilment of the
divine will. This is what He intends by hating father and
mother.* The best commentary on these declarations is the
reply which He makes to the two men who are willing to follow
Him, but on their own terms ; the one desires to bid farewell
to them which are at his house, the other to go and bury his
father, t No ; there can be no condition, no delay. When
Jesus calls, every other consideration must be set aside ; there
can be no duty paramount to absolute obedience. It is then a
perilous undertaking to become His disciple, and one that must
be seriously contemplated ; before starting on this warfare, the
conduct of the king must be imitated, who measures his forces'
against the forces of his enemy ; before beginning to build this
tower, it is needful to count the cost, and see whether there be
enough to finish it J "He that taketh not up his cross and
followeth me, cannot be my disciple. "§ Assuredly such words
were well calculated to alienate all who were not prepared to
enrol under this banner of renunciation. And yet, if there was
one lowly and willing heart, one sorrowful soul needing conso
lation, how could it resist such an appeal as this, " Come unto
* Luke xiv. 26. t Luke ix. 67-52. J Luke xiv. 28-30.
§ "Oang oi f3aardZei rbv aravpbv avTov xai ipx^Tai birioio fiov, ov
ivvarai fiov elvai fiaBrfTrfg (Luke xiv. 27.)
B B 2

37 2 BOOK FOURTH.
me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you
rest. Take my yoke upon you and leam of me, for I am meek
and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls ; for
my yoke is easy and my burden is light"*
There is no moire certain hindrance to coming to Jesus than
the love of wealth. What a striking picture is that of the rich
man falling asleep satisfied when he has filled his granaries
with his plentiful harvests, and waking suddenly beyond the
grave under the eye of that God who has not been in all his
thoughts.f " What shall a man give in exchange for his soul ?
What advantageth it a man though he gain the whole world
and lose his own soul?" The parable of the king's feast
belongs to the same class. Already the table is spread to
receive the guests ; the servants of the house bid them hasten
to it, but they one after another make excuse. One has
bought a piece of land, and must needs go and take possession.
Another is proving a yoke of oxen. A third cannot leave his
new-made wife. All these excuses reveal an idolatrous love for
the things of this world. The master of the house is wrath at
these temporisings, which are disguised refusals. He sehds -
out his servants into the highways and hedges, and brings in
the poor, the halt, and the blind. Thus were the natural
guests of God shut out from His covenant. The rejection of
the Jews as a people, and the calling of the Gentiles, appear in
the background of this parable. The gate of heaven is narrow;
there must be an earnest striving to enter in.! Let there be
no reliance on forms and ceremonies ; in vain shall be the cry,
"Lord, Lord!" "I know you not who you are," will the
King of heaven answer to the descendants of patriarchs and
prophets. The door shall be shut upon them, while it shall be
open to the multitudes coming from the east and the west.
The first shall be last and the last first§ Jesus constantly
* Matt, xi 28-30. f Luke xii. 16-21. J Luke xxiv. 24-30.
§ 'Hob, eiatv iaxaroi, o« taovTai n-piuroi xai efol wpwroi 01 laovrai
iaxaroi (Luke xiii. 30).

PERIOD OF CONFLICT. 373
points to this conclusion, because the sole possibility of salva
tion that remains to this generation is to cease from their
obstinate rejection, and to profit by this dying beam of Messiah's
day, before it is hidden from their eyes in night.
The same merciful severity is observable in the words which
He uttered, onlearning that some Galileans had been put to death
by Pilate at Jerasalem, in the disturbances which had arisen there,
on the occasion ofthe construction of a great aqueduct. "Think
you," said He, "that these Galileans were sinners above all the
Galileans, because they suffered such things 1 I tell you nay,
but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish."* ' These
solemn words are like the last appeal to that favoured Galilee
which had eaten and drunk in Messiah's presence, , and had
heard his most touching teachings. If the mood of the people
is unyielding, we may judge what is that of the Pharisees. The
old leaven of pride and hypocrisy is ever working in their
hearts. The endless disputation on the manner of observing
the Sabbath is renewed on every fresh occasion. Jesus is ever
infringing the absurd decree implicitly issued against Him by
the men of tradition : "It is not lawful to heal and to save on
the Sabbath day." He continues to use His royal liberty in
this respect, as shown by the healing of the poor woman
bowed down by "a spirit of infirmity, "f He chastises the pride
of the Pharisee by drawing his likeness in ineffaceable colours ;
He shows him standing before God in the Temple, himself the
object of his own adoration at the foot of the altar, lifting to
heaven a prayer which in its pride is a challenge, and blessing
the most High and Holy One that he is not like other men.
Contrasted with him is the weeping publican, who, not daring
to lift so much as his eyes to heaven, smites on his breast, and
says, " God be merciful to me a sinner." This is the man who
goes down to his house justified-! The parallel was a mortal
outrage to the haughty enemies of Christ.
Thus from the highest ranks to the lowest, Jesus is met by
* Luke xiii. 3. f Luke xiii. 10- 14. ! Luke xviii. 14.

374 BOOK FOURTH.
opposition and unbelief. The kingdom of God has come
without observation, and in spite of the miracles and teachings
of Messiah, it has failed to arrest attention.* Men can mark
in the blowing of the south wind the sign of a sunny day, but
they cannot read the heavenly signs which announce that the
new times are come.f On the eve of leaving for ever this land
through which He has gone from place to place doing good,
He pronounces its merited sentence. " Woe unto thee, Cho
razin ; woe unto thee, Bethsaida ; for if the mighty works
which have been done in you had been done in Tyre and
Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth
and ashes. But I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for
Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. And
thou, Capernaum, which are exalted to heaven, shall be thrust
down to hell, for if the mighty works which have been done in
thee had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until
this day. But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable
for Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee." J
Thus the ministry in Galilee, which opened with beatitudes,
closed with a sound of woe. The names of Sodom and Go
morrah fell like a prophecy of evil upon those charming cities,
which then animated the borders of the lake, and of which the
very ruins have now disappeared. This terrible sentence of
Christ woke the echoes, not of the desolate rocks which sur
round Jerusalem, but of those fresh and verdant hills on which
the listening people once sat at His feet. It was the summing
up of His Galilean ministry, — the conclusion of so many un
availing miracles, and rejected appeals. Thus the moral unity
of the life of Jesus is maintained. Hearts have been revealed;
He has never belied Himself. That which has changed is the
disposition of the people, but He, whether men would hear or
whether they would forbear, has never ceased to show to the
world the love of God. At this very period, He urges with
increasing emphasis the duty of the second great command-
* Luke xvii. 20-21. f Luke xii. 54-56. J Luke x. 12-16.

PERIOD OF CONFLICT. 375
ment There is no approach to the fanaticism which leads to
intolerance, closes the heart to tenderness, and, under pretext
of entire devotion to the cause of God, shows no pity for human
suffering. Jesus seizes the opportunity of a feast in the house of a
leading Pharisee to recommend, not only the humility which
chooses the lowest place, but also the generous hospitality
which bids to its board not kinsfolk and rich friends, but the
poor and needy. Clearly what is thus given is only a special
application of the rule which should govern the whole life, and
ever substitute the free gift for the simple exchange of benefit
or service.* The parable of the Good Samaritan belongs to
the same date.f This draws, in all its breadth, the contrast
between barren and selfish religiousness, and that Christian
charity which for eighteen centuries has been bearing the bur
dens of humanity. The former passes proudly by the dying
traveller in order to repair to the holy city, and offer to God,
in His temple, a hypocritical worship ; the latter sees God in
His creature, and recognises no act of piety as more binding
than to pour oil and wine into the sufferer's wounds, and to
carry him to the hospitable inn. This was the sublime reply of
Jesus to the scribe who asked Him — " Who is my neighbour?"
" Thy neighbour is every suffering fellow man," is the general
burden of the parable. But the Saviour goes yet further ; He
makes Himself one with the poor man ; the sufferer is Him
self It is He who is visited in the prisoner's cell — He who is
fed with the bread given to the hungry. The glass of water
held to the thirsty lips He owns with gratitude, as if Himself
had drunk it " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the
least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." But no
less does He take to Himself the reproach and wrong endured
¦ by the least of His followers ; no vain repetition of holy words
will avail to avert the sentence of unloving hearts. The parable
of Lazarus and the rich man supplements that of the Good
* Luke xiv. 7-14. + Luke x. 25-37.

37^' BOOK FOURTH.
Samaritan, by declaring the chastisement which will await those
rich men clothed in purple and fine linen, who suffer the needy
to perish with hunger at the door of their splendid dwellings.
The veil which hides the future life is withdrawn for a moment,
and we witness the terrible reversal, which awaits the great
of this world, who have trampled under foot the humble and
the weak ; in the very hour when earth is honouring them with
a costly funeral, they learn how widely the judgment of God
differs from that of their flatterers, while angels carry Lazarus
into the abode of glory.*
It is unjust to represent these parables and discourses as the
excited expression of a sort of communism, as if Jesus had
sought to found the religion of the poor. He laid no ban on
riches in themselves, as is proved by the parable of the un
faithful steward, which concludes with a charge to make friends
of the mammon of unrighteousness, thus implying that wealth
may be made subservient to a noble endf
The instructions given to the disciples during this period are
in perfect harmony with the gravity of the circumstances ; they
are addressed, not to the apostles alone, but to all who had
attached themselves to their little group. Jesus chose seventy
from among them, whom He sent forth, as He had sent the
twelve, to accomplish a mission, very elementary if only the
simplicity of the message is regarded, but very glorious in the
supernatural effects which accompany it The seventy dis
ciples, like those who have gone before them, are to learn in
the school of experience, what is the demand Jesus makes on
His witnesses, and what the extraordinary aid He grants to
them. J
The striking resemblance which exists between the two great
commissions of the Gospel witnesses, deprives the first of any
sacerdotal character. The apostolic office, in its moral obliga
tion, extends to all the true followers of Christ, since the
Master gave the same commission indiscriminately to His
* Luke xvi. 19-31. f Luke xvi. 9-12. J Luke x. 1-11.

PERIOD OF CONFLICT. 377
messengers, whether they were of the number of the twelve or
not The number seventy, as is well known, represented, in
Jewish symbolism, the Gentile nations, as the number twelve
was associated with the tribes of Israel. This second charge
implies, then, an extension of the evangelical mission ; we have
no repetition ofthe restrictions by which the first was limited
to the Jewish people. St. Paul, who represented in so many
respects this second apostolate, wider than that of the twelve,
should subsequently find an argument in favour of the world
wide character of Christianity in this choice of the seventy
disciples, as we may gather from the careful record of the event
by his friend and companion Luke.
The seventy disciples appear to have made a rapid journey;
they returned much elated at the great power with which they
had found themselves entrusted ;. even the devils were subject
to them.* They needed to be cautioned against pride, for the
human soul easily lets itself become intoxicated, even with the
gifts of God, and is ever ready to confound the feeble instru
ment of the miracle with the sovereign hand which works by it.
Hence the warning words of Jesus addressed to them : " Re
joice not that the devils are subject unto you, but rather rejoice
because your names are written in heaven."f It is not the
prodigy wrought, but the pardon received, which should fill the
heart with joy unutterable.
Every saying of the Master is a watch:word for the great
battle. His exhortations may be thus summed up : " Gird up
your loins," as travellers gather up their flowing garments. Lay
aside every earthly care, in reliance upon Him who clothes
the lilies of the field, and feeds the fowls of the air. The
exceptional character of the first apostolic mission implies an
absolute surrender of earthly goods — " Sell that ye have, and
give alms." Let your heart and your treasure be on high.
Have your lamps lighted, for the solemn vigil is about to begin;
you must be on the watch, like servants whose master is absent,
* Luke x. 17. t Luke x. 20.

378 BOOK FOURTH.
but may return at any moment. Woe to that servant who,
knowing his master's will, shall not be ready to receive him.
This return of the Messiah, which will be the close of history,
is depicted in a few rapid and terrible strokes, piercing like
lightning-flashes the vast obscure. Jesus gives a kind of solemn
summary of the Divine judgments which will precede the final
judgment. * The same thoughts will soon be further developed
in the great prophetic discourse spoken at Jemsalem.
This holy vigil, this solemn hour of expectation, must be
spent in prayer ; for whence shall come the strength for such
perilous duties 1 Imitate, then, the widow whose importunity
compels the unjust judge to see her righted. If persevering
urgency triumphs over unrighteousness itself, what will it not
obtain from the God of mercies, when it knocks at those
heavenly gates which are ever ready to open ?t If the father,
who is in bed with his children, rises to give bread to his im
portunate friend, what will not He give who, ever watching
over His people, slumbers not nor sleeps?! The disciples, con
scious of their insufficiency for the great task entrusted to them,
exclaim: "Lord, increase our faith." "If ye have faith as a
grain of mustard seed," Jesus replies, " ye shall say unto this
mountain, Remove hence, and it shall remove, and nothing
shall be impossible unto you."§ Faith, in truth, is power;
and he who believes absolutely shares in the divine omni
potence. But in all times, however critical, the ruling spirit of the
believing heart is to be love, the love which can forgive a
brother, not seven times, but seventy times seven, that is, with
out limit or end.|| Jesus joins example to precept. As He
passes through Samaria, James and John, in the impetuosity of
their hearts, ask the Master that fire may be called down from
heaven to destroy a village of the Samaritans which has refused
to receive Him. Jesus rebukes them sternly. IT Thus, whether
* Luke xii. 33, 34. f Luke xviii. 1-8. ! Luke xi. 5.
§ Matt, xvii 20. || Matt, xviii. 22. «tf Luke ix. 5 1-56.

PERIOD OF CONFLICT. 379
He is addressing the people, or instructing His disciples, love
occupies the first place in His teaching.
The evangelists have preserved many sayings of Jesus which
belong to this phase of His life, and which give us an insight
into His heart. On the return of the seventy disciples, He
exclaims, " I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven."*
What doubt, then, can there be of His triumph, since His
power is transmitted to His ambassadors ? They have cast out
devils in His name, they are thus invested with His might ; He
may die and return to heaven, in them He lives again, and the
kingdom of evil is already vanquished. Jesus rejoices with a
sublime joy in seeing these ignorant men, whom He has made
His disciples, thus beginning to discern the truth which He
had brought to the world, while it still eluded the great men
and the wise. " I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and
earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent,
and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it
seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered unto me
by my Father, and no man knoweth who the Son is but the
Father, neither knoweth any man who the Father is but the
Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him."f This
emotion of happiness is so strong, that He will fain make His
disciples sharers in it. "Blessed are the eyes that see the
things that ye see ; for I say unto you, many prophets and
kings have desired to see these things that ye see, and have
not seen them ; and to hear these things that ye hear, and have
not heard them."! Never has Jesus a more full and joyful
faith in His work than at this moment when He knows that
no further immediate success is awaiting Him. His soul soars
calmly above all present difficulties. This confidence, unshaken
in the midst of so many discouragements, reveals a much higher
greatness than enthusiasm in a cause which is at once crowned
with success. It is not coloured by any illusive expectations ;
* Luke x. 18. t Matt. xi. 25-27.
! Luke x. 23, 24.

3^0 BOOK FOURTH.
so far from shrinking from that which is before Him, Jesus
anticipates it with holy eagerness. " I come to send fire upon
the earth, and what will I if it be already kindled ? I have a
baptism to be.baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be
accomplished."* This coming baptism is not to be like that
which He received in the waves of Jordan, beneath the heavens
opened to bless Him. This mysterious baptism is a bleeding
sacrifice; and now that the appointed hour is at hand, He
desires it with an earnest desire, for it is the consummation of
His work, and the condition of victory.
Thus, in these plains of Samaria, which border on Judaea, as
before on the summit of the Mount of Transfiguration, His
heart is divided between the prospect of glory and that of
sacrifice. Those quick thrills of joy, those eager impulses to
reach the cross, all the changing emotions which betray them
selves, show how far was the real Christ from an imaginary,
impassive, abstract being. His was indeed a living soul, sensi
tive and responsive, but ever rising above circumstances, de
riving from them neither its majestic calm nor its ardent love,
but simply revealing through them all that inherent grace, which
could neither be given nor taken away.
It is evident, from the Gospels, that this last journey through
Galilee was accomplished with a certain publicity, and in the
midst of a great concourse of people. Thus the Master seems
to have gone over once more the whole field of His early
mission. II. Return to Jemsalem by Samaria. Feast of the Dedi
cation. In Samaria, in spite of the daring hostility to which we have
alluded, Jesus gained at least one new disciple. Of the lepers
whom He healed on the confines of Judaea, one was a Samaritan;
and he alone evinced a true gratitude by coming to join him
self to the followers of Christ as soon as he had fulfilled the
* Luke xii. 49, 50.

PERIOD OF CONFLICT. 38 1
rites appointed by the law.* Winter had begun ; it was the
middle of December, the time for celebrating the Feast of the
Dedication, in memory of the purification of the Temple by
Judas Maccabaeus.f These heroic recollections excited the
patriotism of the Jews beyond bounds. It was a perilous step
for Jesus to reappear in the holy city at such a moment. He
repaired to the Porch, which was called Solomon's, because
tradition assigned to it a date as old as the first temple. His
presence at once caused a strong agitation. He recognised
among those who gathered around Him, many of His oppo
nents at the Feast of Tabernacles — so at least it may be inferred
from the allusion He makes to the previous discourse.! After
so many divine manifestations, the Jews yet dare to ask Him
if He is truly Messiah ; to such hardened hearts He will deign
no further assurance. He confines Himself to one emphatic
affirmation, appealing to His miracles. If they will not admit
these, they set themselves against evidence, and are not of the
number of the sheep who hear the voice of the Good Shepherd.
He will bring forward no other argument ; everything comes
back to this ; this is the root of the matter.
He contrasts with these obstinate unbelievers', who will lend
no ear to the voice within, the teachable spirits which have
entered into His fold and to whom He gives eternal life. "My
Father which gave them me is greater than all, and no man is
able to pluck them out of my Father's hand. I and my
Father are one."§ At this assertion of His Godhead they take
up stones to stone Him. " For what good work do ye stone
me?" Jesus asks. "For a good work we stone thee not, but
* Luke xvii. 1 1-19.
t The feast took place about the 20th of December (Josephus
"Ant" XII. 7.6.
J Tohn x 24-40.
§ 'Eyu> xai b ¦waTtfp iv iapcv (John x. 30I. The question is not here
that of the moral harmony between Jesus and God, for the point
here is not about the holiness, but about the power necessary to guard
the sheep. This necessarily carries us into the region of the meta
physical.

382 BOOK FOURTH.
for blasphemy," reply the Jews. It is erroneous to regard the
words which follow as a modification of His former avowal.
Jesus contents Himself with bringing forward the testimony of
Holy Scripture itself, which, in its boldness of speech, even
calls those gods who executed justice among the chosen
people;* He does not liken Himself to these imperfect repre
sentatives of deity ; for He — the sent of the Father — has
declared Himself to be infinitely higher than they. He retracts
nothing from what He has said ; He merely presents an argu
ment a fortiori.
The conclusion of the discourse is altogether in harmony
with its commencement "If I do not the works of my Father,
believe me not ; but if I do, though ye believe not me, believe
the works, that ye may know and believe that the Father is in
me and I in him."t The unbelief of the Jews, carried to its
height, availed only to call forth the highest manifestations of
the divinity of Messiah. But the time for words was over
already the synagogue showed itself prepared to have recourse
to force, and Jesus must needs hide Himself in haste from the
fury of His enemies.! Murder is the last argument of the
power of evil ; but this will only serve to prepare new triumphs
for the power of good. Love is stronger than death and
hate. * The quotation is taken from Psalm lxxxii. 6.
t John x. 58. ! John x. 39.

PERIOD OF CONFLICT. 383

CHAPTER IV.
SOJOURN IN PERAEA. THE FAMILY OF BETHANY. RESUR
RECTION OF LAZARUS.
I. Sojourn in Peraea.
T)ER^EA comprehended the country stretching along the
-*- eastern shore of the Jordan, from the foot of Hauran to
to the borders of the desert, on the south of the Dead Sea.
The waters of the river spread over it a marvellous fertility ;
the summits of Gilead and Moab stood out against the eternal
azure ; the climate was celebrated for its salubrity. Peraea,
inhabited by a mixed population, was sufficiently distant from
Jerusalem to be a stranger to the religious passions raging
around the Temple ; it offered to Jesus the quiet retreat which
He could no longer find in Galilee. Such as He had appeared
to the dwellers at Capernaum and in the plain of Gennesaret,
at the commencement of His ministry, such He now showed
Himself to the people of this country — as merciful, as helpful,
as attractive, healing the sick, binding up the broken-hearted.
But even in these quiet spots the spirit of disputation came to
trouble Him. There was a division among the rabbis upon
the question of divorce. The text of Deuteronomy ran that a
man might be parted from his wife, if " she found no favour in
his eyes, or if he found some jincleanness in her."* The
school of Shamai took these words in the strict sense, and
permitted divorce only in case of adultery. Hillel, on the
contrary, gave them a dangerous latitude of interpretation, and
admitted all kinds of motives for breaking the conjugal tie.
This question was submitted to Jesus. In His reply He goes
* Deut. xxiv. 1-4.

384 BOOK FOURTH.
back to the original idea of marriage, as it appears in the story
of creation, thus elevating the primeval law above the law of
Moses, which, on this point, had made a concession to the
hardness of the human heart. According to this law of creation,
marriage implies an indestructible union, for it creates a one
ness of existence between the man and woman. This idea of
oneness is lost so soon as the marriage bond is made preca
rious. Divorce is then forbidden, except in case of adultery,
when the union is already morally destroyed ; but the guiltless
husband is alone permitted to contract a new marriage.* The
rule laid down by Jesus is the best safeguard for the human
Tfamily, for it is equally removed from a culpable latitudi-
narianism which puts marriage at the mercy of caprice, and
from the extreme rigour which would maintain it even when it
has been profaned and morally violated — a sure method of
introducing a corruption of manners.
Further than this, He declares marriage itself to be subordi
nate, like the whole of the human life, to the accomplishment
of a higher will. Celibacy is no dishonour, as it was esteemed
by Jewish prejudice ; it may be a heavenly vocation.!
The duty of absolute renunciation comes out with terrible
clearness in the words addressed by the Master to the young
man, rich in great possessions on these fruitful plains of the
Jordan, who came to Him. He had every virtue ; he was a
faithful observer of the law ; perhaps a ruler of the synagogue.
Sincerely pious, he was attracted to Jesus by a strong impulse
of sympathy. These dispositions were manifest from his first
words, "Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit
eternal life ?" "Why callest thou me good?" was the reply;
"none is good save God."! It is not that Jesus disclaims
perfect holiness, but that while He is passing through the
struggle and ordeal of human life, good has not in Him the
absolute character it has in God ; His purity is spotless, but it
* Matt. xix. 3-9. t Matt. xix. 12.
J Ti fie Xkyeig dya96v ; oiSelg dya96g ei fii) elg 0 8cog (Luke xviii. 19).

PERIOD OF CONFLICT. 385
is maintained so only by a free choice. This is the natural
consequence of His humiliation, and of His real acceptance
of the conditions of man's existence.*
To this exemplary Jew, Jesus recalls the well-known con
ditions of the righteousness of the law, which are summed up
in the observance of the Ten Commandments. "All these
have I kept," the young man replies. But the keeping of the
law consists not only in observing such and such appointments,
but in a readiness to fulfil the whole will of God, whatever that
will may. be ; that is, in having made obedience the ruling
principle- of the whole life. To this, the young nobleman has
not attained, for when Jesus, who has read his heart and discerned
its master passion, says to him, " Sell thy goods and distribute
to the poor," he goes away very sorrowful ; he has not truly
given himself to God, but still prefers his riches. His conduct
calls forth the hard saying, "It is easier for a camel to go
through a needle's eye than for a rich man to enter into the
kingdom of God."t
There is no foundation for supposing that Jesus, under the
influence of growing excitement, sought at this time to make
impossible claims on His disciples, requiring of them celibacy
and voluntary poverty. He made no such demand ; the
injunction He laid upon the young man was in principle that
which He lays upon all who are called by His name ; what He
required of him is what He requires of each one of us, namely,
the sacrifice of self and the surrender of the favourite idol.
This is the universal law of the kingdom ; it may vary in its
* This is, in our view, the only way of explaining this text. We
cannot admit that Jesus places himself at the point of view of His
querist, for the affirmation is direct and precise. Matthew seems
to have felt the difficulty, for he thus renders the commencement
ofthe interview — " Master, what good thing shall I do to inherit
eternal life?" ti dya9bv iroiy\aii), "wa ox<3 Z^VV aitiiviov (Matt. xix. 16).
Jesus said to him "Whyaskest thou me what is good?" (xix. 17).
The question is then, not whether the attribute of goodness belongs
to Jesus, but in what it consists ?
f Luke xviii. 25 C C

386 BOOK FOURTH.
applications, according to individual cases ; here it may be
fulfilled in celibacy ; there in the bosom of the family, under
the burden of domestic cares and sorrows ; now it may, as in
the case of Zacchseus, leave the rich man his riches while it
makes him poor in spirit ; again it may require the wealth itself
to be made a sacrifice, as in the present instance. Special
vocations differ, but the essential vocation is one, under all
diversities; the holiness which implies entire consecration to
God is the universal law ; there are no Gospel precepts for
creating a sort of spiritual aristocracy in the church, while
tolerating a level of mediocrity. Jesus founded no society of
latter-day saints ; what He founded was a church not devoted
to wild chimeras, but realising in every day life the sublime
folly of holiness unto the Lord. There are circumstances in
which the abnegation of self is only possible in connection with
the complete denuding of the outer life, but in this form the
sacrifice is of no higher order than the lowly renunciation which
finds its unobtrusive expression in the " daily round, the com
mon task ;" that which is of price in the sight of God is the
spirit of surrender pervading all the life.
The ideal of the tme disciple rises ever higher and higher
before the eyes of the apostles. " Who then can be saved? "
they exclaim. " With man it is impossible," replies the Master,
"but not with God, for with God all things are possible."
Hardly yet reassured, they ask, by the mouth of Peter, what
they shall receive in exchange for the sacrifice they have made
for Jesus. The compensation, he declares, will infinitely sur
pass the sacrifice ; they shall receive ten-fold for every good
thing they have forsaken for His name— houses, fields, brothers,
sisters, wife, father, mother. They will understand in time
what is the nature of this compensation ; they will learn that
the best recompence of love is more love, for it enriches itself
by all that it surrenders, and its sufferings become its highest
joys. As the last term of this tenfold felicity,* persecution is
* Merd hmyfiiuv (Mark x. 30).

PERIOD OF CONFLICT. 387
promised to the apostles. We are reminded of the words of
the beatitude, " Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and
persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely
for my sake." The twelve thrones promised to the apostles
must be crosses first ; but all reproaches endured for Christ
will be turned into glory, and the unbelieving nation which has
rejected Him and those who are His, will read its condemnation
in the triumph of the long-persecuted Church. This promise of
the twelve thrones, wrongly understood by the mother of James
and John, leads her to prefer a most unseemly request. She asks
the highest place for her two sons. "Ye know not what ye ask,"
says the Master. " Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of ? "
" We can," reply the sons of Salome. " Ye shall indeed drink of
the cup that I drink of, and with the baptism that I am baptized
withal, shall ye be baptized." In other words, he that will reign
with Christ, must also suffer with Him. The kingdom of God is
not governed like the kingdoms of the earth, by kings and great
men. " Whosoever will be great among you let him be your
minister, and whosoever will be chief among you let him be your
servant — for even the Son of man came not to be ministered
unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many."*
Assuredly there was no equivocal sound in such words as these.
These grave discourses were interrupted by the most touching
scene. The hearts of mothers were yearning for an assurance
that this matchless kindness embraced their little ones. Some
women of Peraea, moved by an irresistible impulse, brought
their young children to the new prophet. They felt instinctively
that between Jesus and these tender and pure lives, there
would be a natural affinity. "The disciples rebuked those
that brought them;" but the Master uttered the gentle
words which have ever since thrilled the hearts of mothers :
"Suffer the little children to come unto me." He took them
up in His arms and blessed them, and exalted childhood as the
faithful type of the humility which alone opens the gate of
* Mark x. 41-43.
c c 2

388 BOOK FOURTH.
heaven.* What a picture is here ! The highest effort of art
cannot reproduce its exquisite beauty. Behold the truly celes
tial idyl of charity !
II. The Resurrection of Lazarus.
Jesus was recalled to the neighbourhood of Jemsalem by
sorrowful tidings, brought to Him, of a beloved family whose
hospitality He had often shared. The village of Bethany is
situated at a little distance from the Holy City, to the east of
the Mount of Olives. Its white houses are still to be seen in
the midst of the olive and carob trees which form its leafy shade ;
it is surrounded by hills which shut it out from the world ; it is
ari abode of peace and quiet, and as such, all the more attractive
from the nearness of the noisy city. Here the eye no more
sweeps the wide luminous horizon, which spread before it from
the neighbouring height, whence its glance could rest now on
the solemn precincts of the Temple, now on the scorched plains
of the Dead Sea. There is nothing to recall either the glories
or the terrors of the theocracy. Bethany is a retired spot, fit
to become the sanctuary of a divine mysticism. But it was not
only as a calm seclusion for prayer that Jesus sought it, as He
did the desert hills of Galilee ; He had found at Bethany hearts
that could respond to His own. There dwelt one of those
Israelites indeed who became His disciples as soon as they heard
His words. Lazarus lived with his two sisters, Martha and Mary,
both equally attached to Jesus according to their peculiar dis
positions ; Martha's was a prompt and energetic nature, finding
its natural expression in active service ; Mary's, a deep and
contemplative spirit It would seem that Mary had anticipated
even John himself in that close relation which fitly unites the
true disciple to Jesus, for she received from the Master a word
of unreserved commendation on that day, when she sat adoringly
at His feet and heard His word. For her the first of all duties
is to feed on his teachings ; this unreserved affection in which
* Luke xviii. 15-17 ; Markx. 13 ; Matt' xix. 13-15.

PERIOD OF CONFLICT. 389
reverence is blended with ardour, this giving up of her whole
being to Him who is at once her brother and her God, — this
is the good part which shall never be taken away from her ; in
this lies her superiority to her busy and distracted sister, whose
loyal heart nevertheless owns the influence of the divine guest
Luke in a few words makes us comprehend what comfort the
Master must have found in this house, which he so often honoured
with His presence.* After the barren disputations of Jerasalem,
He went to rest under the fig-trees of Bethany, well knowing
that there He was loved not for His miracles or His gifts, but
for Himself. If he may be called blessed who gives a cup of
cold water to a disciple, what must have been the blessedness
of those who welcomed Jesus to their hearth and ministered to
Him, in the midst of irritation and outrage, the consolation of
their reverent sympathy ?
Sickness had entered this home where the bonds of affection
were so strong and tender. Lazarus was laid upon a bed of
suffering; his sickness increased, and Jesus was in Peraea; it
must be a journey of many hours before He could reach
Bethany. A messenger was despatched in haste by the two
sisters. Instead of turning His steps at once to their relief,
Jesus merely makes answer in the prophetic words, "This
sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the
Son of God may be glorified thereby."! Evidently He speaks
under- the influence of a special revelation ; the event which is
about to take place is to have a sufficiently weighty effect on
His own destiny, to be made known to Him beforehand.
After two days He declares His purpose of returning into
Judaea. But Judaea is the place of greatest peril to Him; it
may be death to go. To these objections, urged by mistaken
affection, He replies, that in fulfilling his vocation, a man
walks ever in the light, beneath the sunshine of God; while he
* Luke x. 38-42. The narrative of Luke shows that the relations
with the family of Bethany had been formed before the fact he relates.
f John xi. 4, 5.

39° BOOK FOURTH.
who seeks- to escape it walks in the night, and must needs
stumble. The only tme peril is in disobeying a holy call.
"Are there not twelve hours in the day? If any man walk in
the day he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this
world; but if any man walk in the night he stumbleth, because
there is no light in him."* " Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; I
go that I may awake him out of sleep, "f By this tender and
sublime image He represents that which the Scripture calls the
king of terrors. Wheri the disciples understand of what sleep
He speaks, they hesitate no longer, and Thomas exclaims,
" Let us also go that we may die with him."
The scenes which follow are described by the evangelist
with so faithful and graphic a pencil, that they pass with living
distinctness before our eyes. Lazarus is dead, and has lain
four days already in his rocky sepulchre, according to Jewish
custom. The friends of the family have come from Jeru
salem, and are making great lamentations over the deceased,
while Martha and Mary sit plunged in a mighty grief, with
which mingles a secret pang of wounded affection, which they
will not own even to themselves. Why was not Jesus there
in those hours of woe? Is His all-powerfull succour withheld
only from those He loves? Suddenly they hear that He is
coming. Martha, with her natural impetuosity, rises and goes
at once to meet Him. " Lord, if thou hadst been here, my
brother had not died." These are her first words. Then her
ardent soul passes in an instant from grief to hope. " But I
know that even now whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God
will give it thee." Jesus will not grant a miracle to a simple
impulse of natural affection; He requires faith in its loftiest
exercise, and His first aim is to revive this in the wounded
heart. Martha must understand that what she asks is less than
is already prepared for the whole race of man. The special
miracle of a partial and anticipated resurrection is a small
* John xi. 9, io.
¦\ Ad'Capoc o QiXog ijpwv KtKoiptj-at (John xi. II.)

PERIOD OF CONFLICT. 391
thing in comparison to the general resurrection, "Thy brother
shall rise again," says Jesus. " I know that he shall rise again
in the resurrection at the last day," replies Martha. The
triumph' of Jesus over death does not wait that final hour of
manifestation; it is declared already, "I am the resurrection
and- the life." He resumes, "Whosoever believeth in me,
though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth
and believeth in me shall never die." "To die in the fulness
of light, in the calm glory of the life which is in Jesus, is no
longer that which human language calls by the name of
death."* Martha declares her faith in Christ with a stedfast
assurance which places her testimony by that of Peter, whom
in so many features she resembles. "I believe," she says,
"that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come
into the world." If the scene had ended here, Jesus would
even then have ministered sure consolation to the bereaved
family of Bethany — such consolation as comes now to Chris
tian homes into which death has entered, and which avails
not only to stay the stream of tears, but to fill the darkened
chamber with a cloud of glory. Faith grasps the great
miracle; the interval is longer between the promise and its
ultimate fulfilment, but it is only a question of time. Wher
ever He has trod, who is the Resurrection and the Life, death
has been vanquished.
Yet the bleeding heart yearns for a present relief. Martha,
still in tears, goes to seek for Mary, who, in the characteristic
intensity of her grief, had not found strength to follow her.
Bidden by her sister, she too goes to meet Jesus, who is still
on the outskirts of the village. The friends of the family rise
and accompany her, thinking she is going to the grave to weep
there. When Jesus saw the melancholy train, and heard the
¦ plaintive voice of Mary echoing Martha's words (for the same
thought had been uppermost in both their hearts), " He
groaned in spirit, and was troubled," and coming to the grave,
» Godet II., p. 334.

39 2 BOOK FOURTH.
He wept* Let those look on amazed, who speak lightly of
death as a thing in the ordinary course of nature. "It is
terrible," says Pascal, " that man dies, and knows that he must
die." That a free and intellectual being made for eternal life
dies, and, like the lower animals, mingles dust with dust; this
is an unnatural thing. It is a confusion in the order of
creation, and none more deeply groaned over it than the Son
of man, who saw in it the fearful traces of sin. With His great
pity for fallen humanity mingled a tender and intimate sym
pathy with the bitter suffering of separation. Standing by the
grave of Lazarus, He bears on His heart the burden of all
mourners. He knows what it is to see a beloved form brought
down to the silence and stillness of the tomb. In this solemn
moment all present appear in their tme characters. The
envious Jews aire not disarmed by the tears of Jesus; they
reproach Him with having withheld His miraculous power, t
When the stone is rolled away from the sepulchre, Martha,
recognising the tokens of mortal decay, yields to the impression
of the moment, and expresses a doubt. Jesus confirms her
faith by these words, "Said I not unto thee that if thou
wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God?" Lifting
His eyes to heaven, He gives thanks to His Father, even
before the miracle is performed, so sure is He that what He
asks is according to His will. Had He not received a positive
revelation, even before Lazarus was dead, of that which was to
come to pass? Under such circumstances His prayer is rather
a public act of homage paid to God before the people, than a
prayer properly so called, since He knows that this resurrection
is willed of God. "I thank thee, O Father, that thou hast
heard me, and I know that thou hearest me always, but because
of them that stand by I said it, that they may know that thou
* 'Eiaxpvoev 6 'Jr/aovg (John xi. 35.)
f John xi. 37, 38. The Jews mention the healing of the blind
because these miracles were wrought at Jerusalem, and they had
witnessed them. This is no argument against previous instances
of the raising of the dead.

PERIOD OF CONFLICT. 393
hast sent me." Then stooping over the sepulchre He speaks
to the dead in a loud voice, "Lazaras, come forth!" and he
that was dead rises, a living man, still wrapped in the shroud,
which is quickly laid aside. Such is this simple and pathetic
drama, for which men have dared to substitute a low comedy.*
* The resurrection of Lazarus is one of the Gospel facts most
called in question. The silence of the synoptics is first urged
against it. Strauss, in his sarcastic pamphlet, " Die Halben und
die Ganzen," lays especial stress on this objection. This silence
is unquestionably a difficulty, but it can be understood, if our three
first Gospels are regarded as not the writings of'eye-witnesses, and
as mainly intended to record the events in Galilee. Lange's ex
planation ("Leben Jesu," III. p. n, 132), which considers the
silence of the synoptics as dictated by policy, for the safety of
Lazarus, appears to us too ingenious. It would have been neces
sary to carry such precautions much further, and to have withheld
.all proper names. But if in the synoptics we have no account of
the resurrection of Lazarus, we have allusions to the facts im-
mediately connected with it. Thus Mark (xiv. 3-9), records the
act by which Mary of Bethany expresses her hearty gratitude for
the resurrection of her brother. Still further, all the Gospels agree
in relating the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, and the
implacable determination of the Sanhedrim to strike a decisive
blow. Apart from the resurrection of Lazarus, neither this en
thusiasm nor this outburst of hate is accounted for. There was
nothing to suggest either, in the sojourn in Peraea. Some great
event must have transpired between the previous visit of Jesus to
the holy city and His triumphal entry. John alone bridges over
the gap. The very tone of the narrative has a ring of genuineness
which at once strikes the unbiassed reader. The explanations
given by those who dispute its veracity are, to us, so many con
firmations of the truth. I shall not refer again to'thatof M. Renan,
alluded to above ; it has been doomed to ridicule. Baur, and after
him, M. Reville, regard the account of the miracle as a symbolical
illustration of the words, I am the Resurrection and the Life. But
this is a gratuitous supposition, which does not explain the crisis
which follows, and which is opposed to the character of the narra
tive. Strauss, faithful to his system, regards it not as a philo
sophical myth, but as the reflection of the legendary miracles of
Elijah and Elisha. He makes the narrative of.the fourth Gospel
the result of the most artificial combination that can be conceived.
This Gospel, according to him, has taken from St. Luke the
Lazarus of the parable, and has fulfilled the desire of Dives by
raising Lazarus from the dead (Luke xvii. 27). (See " Nouvelle
Vie de Jesus," p. 470.) A marvellous theory ! We find in this
hypothesis the same confusion as in the popular legend. At

394 BOOK FOURTH.
The resurrection of Lazarus produced an immense sensation,
and none were more deeply stirred by it than the Sanhedrim.
The chiefs of the hierarchy comprehended that such a miracle,
wrought at the gates of Jerusalem, would necessarily occasion
an irresistible movement in favour of Jesus, if this were not at
once checked by peremptory measures; one step alone seemed
adequate to the crisis — the condemnation of Jesus. The feast
of the Passover was approaching; who could tell to what
lengths the enthusiasm of a populace, ever eager for the mar
vellous, might go, when the rumour spread of such a miracle.
The Sanhedrim met in the council chamber, which formed part
of the Temple. The deliberation was, from the first, of that
stormy and sinister character which precedes extreme measures
in times of danger. The question of justice was at once set
aside, or rather it was never brought forward; the discussion
turned only on the public safety — a method which is sure to
lead to violence and wrong. The growing influence of Jesus
was set forth as endangering the first interests of the nation.
A possible insurrection was spoken of, which would draw
down terrible retribution from the Romans. " They will take
away both our place and nation," said the pale lips of these
priests and doctors, who guarded the sanctuary of the true
God, as the silversmiths of Ephesus defended the temple of
Diana, for the honour and profit it yielded them.* This
argument, worthy of the Sadducees, ought to have stirred to
indignation the patriotic party. But the Pharisees were more
Bethany the traveller is shown, opposite the house of Lazaras, that
of the rich man. Thus overstrained criticism blends with vulgar
fable. We will not discuss the theory of apparent death maintained
by Schenkel. Martha's observation with reference to the state of the
corpse conclusively sets this aside. Schleiermacher, in his remarks
on the " Life of Jesus," seems to shrink from his own theory of the
mere semblance of death. He distinguishes this resurrection from
the others, ascribing it directly to the divine power invoked by Jesus
(" Leben Jesu," p, 233.) Ewald admits the authenticity of the nar
rative, but reproduces it without comment (Vol. V. 405-407.)
* John xi. 48.

PERIOD OF CONFLICT. 395
jealous of their authority than of the independence of their
nation; they dreaded Jesus more than the Romans. Thus
they withheld the protest which under other circumstances they
would assuredly have made. The Sadducee Caiaphas mled
the decision. Valerius Gratus, before leaving Judaea, had
raised him to the high priesthood, which had grown to be
nothing more than a precarious magistracy subservient to the
policy of Rome. Thus the sacred historian designates him
with reason the high priest for that year.* Caiaphas was- in
reality the docile instrument of Annas, his father-in-law and
predecessor, an artful politician sold to the foreigner, though
holding all the prejudice of his caste. He proposed simply a
summary judgment, without further discussion. "It is ex
pedient that one man should die for the people, and that the
whole nation perish not''t Through these iniquitous words
the evangelist catches a flash of prophetic light; they seem to
him, in the mouth of the high priest, one of those unconscious
oracles which the divine Spirit has more than once wrung
from godless lips. Did not Christ, in truth, die for His nation
and for mankind ? No thought had Caiaphas of such a new
found meaning, and his crime remains in its blackness. No
voice invoked the eternal law of justice; the condemnation of
Jesus was decided, though not officially proclaimed, for the
Sanhedrim could not carry out its own decree, since the Roman
governor alone held the power of capital punishment.
* 'Apxiepeig S>v tov iviavrov ixeivov (John xi. 49-)
t John xi. 50.

BOOK FIFTH.
€&e <Sreat Mittk.
THE CLOSE OF THE STRUGGLE. DEATH AND VICTORY.

CHAPTER I.
DEPARTURE FOR THE FEAST. THE JOURNEY. JERICHO. THE
SUPPER AT BETHANY. TRIUMPHAL ENTRY.
I. Journey to Jericho.
TMMEDIATELY after the resurrection of Lazaras, Jesus
retired to Ephraim, a little town lying near Bethel, to the
north-west of Jerusalem. There He awaited the caravans
travelling, from all directions, towards the holy city for the
celebration of the Passover. The time for caution was past ;
He recognised in the concurrence of events the sure indication
of the will of His Father. The fanaticism which courts danger
is not obedience, for it proceeds from an untempered zeal
which does violence to events; it places the impulse of the
heart above the divine order; it is the assertion of self. True
wisdom awaits the clear manifestation of a higher will. The
noblest heroism is that of the combatant, who stands motion
less on the field of battle rather than fail in the charge
he has received from his chief. Such was the heroism of
Jesus, until His hour was come; we shall see the same prin
ciple of obedience manifested now in the holy boldness of His
acts and words.
His first decisive step was to repair from Ephraim to

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 397
Jericho.* The distance between the two towns was small.
Jericho was one of the most flourishing cities of Judeea, and
stood on the great caravan road, in a plain of luxuriant fruit-
fulness, irrigated by the Jordan and by the famous watercourse
miraculously healed by the prophet Elisha, A delicious fresh
ness tempered the intensity of the tropical sky, which scorched
the neighbouring steppes of the Dead Sea. Thus this district
formed a delicious oasis, adorned with the most variegated and
brilliant vegetation of this land of the sun. The mountains of
Judaea, wrapt in sunset-glory, enclosed it to the west, while to
the east the Jordan ran low beneath the tall reeds, and flowed
on unseen to its last bed in the accursed lake. Jericho, stand
ing as it were in the midst of a garden of palms and fruit trees
of every description, was called the city of perfumes. In place
of the miserable hovels which now disfigure the plain, it pre
sented the appearance of a populous and wealthy city, and the
pilgrims who came from the north found a welcome halting-
place in the midst of such marvellous fruitfulness. The
melancholy contrasts of human life were, however, to be met
with there as elsewhere ; the groans of poverty and sickness
were heard in the midst of luxury and wealth. But what
matters the outward condition ? The man with hands full of
gold has no less need of Jesus than the beggar ; in the high
places of the social scale no less than at its foot, there are
secret wounds of the heart which need a divine- healer. The
rich publican was impelled to seek Jesus no less than the blind
beggar ; He showed Himself as full of grace to the one as to
the other, only according to the heavenly mode and measure
which reverses the earthly, beginning always with the poor.
Compassionate love has its hierarchy, and its preferences are
ever for the forsaken and the despised.
As Jesus entered the city, a multitude gathered around Him,
and all eyes were fixed upon Him. Everywhere He was
greeted with hatred or acclamation; indifference was impos-
* Luke xviii. 35-43 ; Mark x. 46-52.

398 BOOK FIFTH.
sible. No doubt His disciples exulted in this triumphal train,
and were in expectation of some great miracle. A blind beggar,
named Bartimaeus — well known to the inhabitants of Jericho,
who had listened for years to his plaintive monotone — sat, as
was the wont of such sufferers, by the gate of the city. What
he had already heard of Jesus had led him to recognise Him
as Messiah ; his heart was drawn out to the Deliverer, who, in
his melancholy condition, was his only hope. Doubtless he
had heard of that blind man whom Jesus had healed at Jeru
salem, and of the many others in Galilee, to whom he had
restored sight. Thus, when it was told him that Jesus passed
by, he breathed out all his ardent desire, all his simple faith, in
the one importunate cry, "Thou son of David, have mercy oh
me!" The disciples tried to silence him; this ragged sup
pliant was an annoyance to them. They forgot that the voice
of suffering "was that which awoke the readiest echo in the
heart of the Master ; no sigh escaped Him ; nothing in His
eyes is more important or more honourable than to answer the
cry of the imploring beggar. He stops, and at once places His
miraculous power at the behest of the poor man. "What wilt
thou that I should do unto thee?" He asks. "Lord, that I
may receive my sight." "Receive thy sight; thy faith hath
saved thee ! " Wonderful dialogue, repeated from age to age,
between the utter weakness which trusts, and the love which
saves ! Glorious arms of Christ, offered to whomsoever will
consent to supplicate for that which he has no power to earn !
The healed Bartimaeus enters with Jesus into the city, amid
the acclamations of the people, who to-day bless God, and in a
few more days will curse Him whom God hath sent*
Hardly had He passed the gate of the city, when the pro-
* Matthew mentions the healing of two blind men at Jericho
(Matt. xx. 29-34). It has been supposed that a similar case of
healing may have occurred on Christ's leaving the town at the
other gate. But the repetition ofthe dialogue renders this unlikely.
It seems to us evident that the same fact is referred to ; the
precision of Mark's narrative gives him the advantage.

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 399
cession was arrested again by a scene of a very different kind.
Zacchaeus was the chief of the publicans * of Jericho ; this post
must have been one of .considerable importance in so pros
perous a city. But the wealth it procured was more than
balanced by the scorn which it drew down from the Jews.
Zacchasus was branded by public opinion, in spite of such
noble and scrupulous disinterestedness that, as he said to Jesus,
he gave half of his goods to the poor, and if he had taken any
thing from any man by false accusation, he restored him four
fold. He was not infatuated with his own virtues ; perhaps
the unjust ostracism, of which he was the victim preserved him
from the pride, which was fatal to his countrymen. He desired
earnestly to see the divine Master; he knew that Jesus did not re
pulse publicans, that one indeed was found among his immediate
disciples. He dared not, however, in face of an ill-affected crowd,
approach Jesus, but he was resolved at least to look on His
face, and being little of stature he climbed into a sycamore
tree, planted, as is common in the East, in the middle of the
road. Jesus read the wish of the noble, fretted heart, and at
once promised to honour the house of Zacchaeus with a visit.
He went, according to His own beautiful expression, bringing
salvation with Him, for He had found a true son of Abraham.
"The Son of Man," He said in one of those words so inimit
ably descriptive of His mission, " is come to seek and to save
that which is lost"
The prospect of entering Jerasalem amidst the concourse of
a great festival, once more aroused false hopes in the minds of
the disciples ; in spite of all that their Master had told them of
the tragical issue of this journey, the welcome He had received
at Jericho revived all their cherished illusions. The parable of
the pounds was indeed of a nature to dissipate them once and
for ever.f It was easy to recognise Jesus Himself in the man
* 'ApxirtXiivrfg (Luke xix. 2.)
f " They (the disciples) thought that the kingdom of God should
immediately appear" (Luke xix. n).

4°° BOOK FIFTH.
of lofty birth, who, in order to take possession of the kingdom
which has been entrusted to him, must needs repair to the
sovereign of a far country, because his subjects have rejected
him. Rejected by the Jews, Messiah will be in truth only
invested with His royal dignity in the heavens, whence He will
afterwards return.* Instead of looking for a speedy triumph at
Jerusalem, there must be a long period of patient waiting,
during which each one is bound faithfully to administer the
trust which he has received of God. The talent committed to
the ten servants represents that divine life, of which every
Christian is to make a wise use, and from which he is to derive
all possible gain for the glory of his Master and the success
of His cause. He will be judged according to the increase
of the capital confided to him, and the slothful servant, who
has "hid his lord's money in the earth," — who has supposed
that is, that religion would take care of itself without any
effort of the soul — will be brought to certain condemnation
and his talent will be given to the disciple who has made the
best use of his holy trust " To every one that hath shall be
given, and from him that hath not even that he hath shall be
taken away from him. "I Nothing is more just than the appli
cation of this law, which is a permanent law of the moral world
The heart perishes in inaction, and becomes incapable, not
only of adding to, but even of retaining the best gifts. The
parable closes with the sentence of condemnation pronounced
on the ungrateful nation, which has rejected its king.J Now
the little company may start for Jerasalem, for they know what
awaits them there.
II. The Adoration of Mary of Bethany.
* Luke xix. 12. t Luke xix. 26.
X Luke xix. 27. This parable is clearly distinguished from that
of the talents, in Matthew xxv. 14-30, which unfolds another
thought, that of the degree of responsibility corresponding with the
measure of the gifts. In the first Gospel, it is not one sum given
alike to all the servants, but an unequal distribution of talents.

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 40I
The direct road from Jericho to the holy city passes through
Bethany. We may judge what were now the feelings of Lazaras
and his sisters for Jesus ; there would be ever present to their
minds not only the miracle, but also the tender sympathy and
tears of their divine friend. It would not be possible for Him
to pass by the place without pausing at the dwelling of these
faithful hearts; beside, the Sabbath was at hand, the last which
He was to pass on earth before that one in Joseph's sepulchre;
where could it be better kept than at Bethany, in preparation
for those days of sorrow and anguish which were to follow it ?
The next day, which was the first day of the week, Simon, sur-
named the Leper, who had probably been healed by Jesus,*
made Him a feast at his house. Lazarus was seated beside
Him, the living monument of His saving power. The women,
in the East, do not sit at the same table as the men. Martha
served, evincing, in the manner most natural to her, her lively
gratitude. In the midst of the feast Mary entered. This quiet
woman, who in the ordinary course of life would have shrunk
from anything which might attract attention, brought an ala
baster box of very precious ointment. She anointed the head
* John xii. 1-9 ; Mark xiv. 3-9; Matthew xxvi. 6-16. John fixes
the date of Jesus' arrival at Bethany ; it took place, according to
him, six days before the passover (xii. 1). The passover began on
the 14th of Nisan,. the day on which the lamb was slain. We shall
see presently that this day coincides with the Friday, conformably
to John's narrative. Clearly, John does not include it in his cal
culation. It is needful, then, to go back six days from the 13th of
Nisan, which brings us to Saturday 7th ; but as the Sabbath com
menced on the preceding evening, we may suppose that Jesus
arrived precisely at the hour when rest became obligatory, that is,
before sunset on the Friday. He thus violated no prescription of
the law. The order of events is then as follows : on Friday He
arrives at Bethany, Saturday is the rest of the Sabbath, on Sunday
a feast is given by Simon the Leper. He cannot have started again
for Jerusalem on the previous day, which was the Sabbath. Beside,
the Jews, who from John's account repaired from Jerusalem to
Bethany, could not have made the journey on that day, because
the distance between the two places, which was fifteen stadia, was
more than the lawful Sabbath day's journey.
D D

402 BOOK FIFTH.
of Jesus, then broke the vase over His feet, and wiped them
with her hair ; the impulse of her heart was as impetuous, as
oblivious of the judgment of men, as that which had drawn the
weeping sinner of Nain to the same feet. Gratitude and re
pentance burn with a kindred flame on the altar of deep and
ardent hearts. It is, beside, of the very essence of adoration
to ignore conventional limits ; it breaks in a manner the common
forms of human speech, like another alabaster vase, acd finds
its fittest expression in the groanings which cannot be uttered.
Adoration pours out the soul before God in words and burning
tears : it throws us on our knees, overwhelmed with his great
ness, blinded with ineffable glory ; it calls forth glad sacrifices
and unmeasured gifts, and can find nothing precious enough to
make an offering to Jesus. Mary, the sister of Lazarus, remains
for ever its most beautiful and touching type. It is the glory
of adoration that it is madness in the eyes of dry and selfish
souls, which count the cost of an impulse of holy love, and
carry into divine things their utilitarian prudence. " To what
purpose is this waste?"* say some of the disciples, moved
by the inspiration of Judas, t To no purpose, ' in truth, but
to express that which is inexpressible. This objection, repeated
in all ages of the Church, has not withheld the sacred muse
from multiplying her hymns, which are neither law nor doc
trine; the splendid spire of the cathedral, which serves no
purpose of shelter, still springs aloft into the air, and the pencil
of holy art ceases not to translate the soul's ideal and to lavish
its useless marvels ; in short, the Christian heart will never be
restrained from pouring out its treasures before God, with no
other purpose than its own unburdening. The vase of oint
ment is perpetually broken over the feet of Jesus, and "this
waste " serves to show that direct utility, even in a religious
point of view, is not the whole of piety ; that, beside the doc-
* Eig ti r) dir&Xeia avTi\ ; (Matthew xxvi. 8).
f Ibid. This may be inferred from the narrative of Matthew,
who speaks of the disciples while John speaks only of Judas.

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 403
trine which points out the right way, the correct faith which
walks in it, and the practical activity which sows the good seed,
there is in the soul a deep need of love for its own sake, which
requires infinite expansion. The plea on behalf of the poor,
urged against Mary, is a sophism. The case is one in which the
words especially apply, " This should ye have done, and not
have left the other undone." Assuredly He who made Himself
one with the poor, and said that whatever was done to them
was done to Himself, sufficiently guaranteed their interests.
Piety cannot be limited to the form of almsgiving; it must
needs ascend directly to God in Christ, or it will soon cease to
recognise Him under the veil of poverty, and will fulfil nothing
more than an act purely human. The poor have everything
to gain from this adoration ; it is when the precious spike
nard has been poured forth that the hands open for their
most generous succour. He who is miserly towards God will
be miserly also to God's creatures ; calculation is incompatible
with love. "The poor ye have always with you," said Jesus,
"but me ye have not always. Let her alone, against the day
of my burying hath she kept this." In other words, side by
side with the daily and permanent calls of charity, which must
not be neglected, there are extraordinary occasions on which
piety must be manifested in an exceptional manner, and follow
freely its own impulse. Has not Jesus just foretold to His
own His approaching death ? This vase of sweet perfume is
the funeral honour prepared for Him in anticipation, by the
sister of Lazarus, on the eve of those crowning ignominies.
This feature gives to the scene an unapproachable pathos, tell
ing as it does of the debt which every Christian owes to Jesus.
For this immeasurable debt of love it is that the whole church,
like the house at Bethany, is constantly filled with the odour,
which rises from the vase of adoration broken at his feet. *
* We have already shown, in speaking of the sinner of Nain,
how widely the present scene differs from that recorded in Luke vii.
36-50. The narratives of Matthew and Mark harmonise perfectly
with that of John. Strauss in vain tries to confound them all.
D D 2

404 BOOK FIFTH.
We have already pointed out the part which Judas plays on
this occasion. He is the mouthpiece of those disciples who
share, at least in some degree, his ungenerous sentiments. It
is he who calculates the number of pence wasted ; and if he
speaks of the poor, it is but to cloak his avarice. " He kept the
purse," says John, "and he was a thief."* Does the evangelist
intend to speak of some positive larceny, or of the hidden dis
position of this ignoble soul, consumed by the love of money?
The bitterness which characterises the words of John has been
observed. It affords no cause for astonishment ; we know that
there could be no common ground between the sinner who has
sold his Lord and the well-beloved disciple. The former was
no more capable of comprehending the latter, than of admiring
the act of Mary. This antipathy was drawn from the Master
Himself, for it was He who kindled by contact with His own
heart, the pure and ardent devotion of love which appears in
the sister of Lazarus, and fills the whole soul of John. The
more the spirit which animates Jesus is manifested the more
the illusion vanishes which had attached Judas to Him. The
evil has overcome the good in the soul of the disciple ; the
gloomy prophecies to which he has just listened as to the
approaching crisis, the hatred of the rulers, the posture of the
Sanhedrim, all show him that his carnal dream of an earthly
triumph is at an end. He is ready to repudiate a lost cause,
which he can no longer serve without danger, and which, beside,
has become odious to him since he has learnt that it demands
everything and gives nothing — none, at least of those material
gifts which he covets ; but in forsaking it, he will at least gratify
in some way his greed of gain. Hence it is, that after the
impressive scene at Bethany, his resolution is irrevocably taken.
Probably the parleyings between him and the Sanhedrim com
mence the following day.
III. — Triumphal Entry into Jemsalem.
* John xii. 6.

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 405
Hardly was the feast concluded when a large company of Jews
arrived at Bethany, who, having come up to Jerasalem to the
festival, had heard the marvellous story of the resurrection of
Lazarus. These men, unbiassed by the intrigues and passions
of the heads of the hierarchy, brought to Jesus the same favour
able dispositions, which had been so general at the commence
ment of His ministry, and renewed for one brief moment the
period of public favour. Their zeal was so great that the
hostile party betrayed serious uneasiness, and even spoke of
putting Lazarus to death.* Jesus was not unprepared for the
triumphal procession of the morrow, for the caravans of pilgrims
which he left behind were close at hand, and one spark would
suffice to kindle the hearts, already impressed by what they
had seen at Jericho, into a flame of enthusiasm. Through all
the periods of His life, Jesus'needed only to go with the stream
in order to be treated as a king. We know why He had so
persistently declined these honours ; but on the eve of His
suffering, He did not hesitate to accept them, nay more, He
even prepared for them by sending two of His disciples to bring
Him the ass's colt, on which He was to ride.f The Orientals,
for solemn occasions, prefer this quiet animal to the fiery horse.
From early dawn, the crowd coming from Jericho, pressed into
the little village,- eager to see the house signalised by the miracle,
the sepulchral cave, whence at one mighty word, the dead had
come forth, and above all, Lazarus and Jesus Himself. The
whole body of His disciples, among them many who were but
disciples of a day, gathered around Him and mingled with the
Jews from Jerusalem. Garments were spread as a royal saddle
cloth upon the ass which Jesus was to ride ; boughs were cut down
from the neighbouring trees, and long robes were stretched upon
the ground as a carpet of honour, and with palms in their hands
the enraptured multitude intoned one of the noblest hymns of
the sacred psalter, that which was wont to be sung on great
festival days, " Hosanna, blessed be the King that cometh in
* John xii. 9-1 1. t Luke xix. 30.

4Q6 BOOK FIFTH.
the name of the Lord."* For one moment the people were
lifted out of themselves, and caught one of those inspirations of
enthusiasm which give an intuition of truth. A breath from
heaven passed over the crowd, and swayed it as the wind bows
the waving corn ; it was but the rapture of an hour, but that
hour was sacred.
When some of the Pharisees murmured at the tumult, Jesus
answered them, " I tell you that if these should hold their
peace, the stones would- cry out." He thus signified his
acquiescence in this royal progress, and proved that it was no
accident of circumstance, but a part of His fixed plan. The
moment was come for him to give an exalted affirmation of His
dignity as Messiah, for the near approach of the great sacrifice
set aside the possibility of any prolonged misconception ; this
King was so soon to be made a victim, that no earthly and
political hopes could be built upon Him. But it was well for
His disciples that this token of glory should so closely precede
His humiliations, that they might be assured that He submitted
to these only of his own good pleasure. He must leave them a
pledge of the triumph which was in store ; otherwise the world
would deem that truth was finally devoted to disgrace and failure.
So far from this, its destiny is a glorious victory ; it is meet
that one prophetic ray should glance upon the brow so
soon to be crowned with thorns. The Day of Palms is
bright with that glorious promise, which is the consolation
of the witnesses of Christ in hours of darkness and apparent
defeat The path which leads from Bethany to Jemsalem is for a
time enclosed, as it were, by the wooded hills which surround
it. Then it turns abruptly, and joins the eastern slopes of the
Mount of Olives at a spot where in our day the searcher seeks
in vain for the ruins of Bethphage, " the village of fig-trees."
The horizon at once opens before the eye ; beyond the deep
Valley of Jehoshaphat, through which flowed the Cedron,
* Luke xix. 38.

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 407
Mount Moriah rears its height. At the time of Jesus, it was
crowned with the majesty of the Temple, and the white buildings
of the holy city marked out the parallel lines of the hills on
which it was built. Jerasalem in its entire proportions stood
out against the blue heaven. Such was the scene of which
Jesus suddenly came in view. Forgetting His own momentary
glory, He beheld only the mighty misery of the rebellious
people; He knew what lay beneath that fair exterior; the
queenly city, overflowing at that very hour with streams of
pilgrims, that Zion of the prophets, was an accursed city, which
had not "known the day of her visitation." " Oh, if thou hadst
known," Jesus exclaimed, with accents of unutterable sorrow,
" if thou hadst known, even thou, in this thy day, the things
that belong to thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes."
He foresaw the terrible destruction which would chastise this
obstinate unbelief; He saw the smoking mins, and the Roman
eagle swooping down upon a people scattered and spoiled. Of
all these glories there should not remain one stone upon another
that should not be thrown down, and Jesus wept over the nation
which was about to cracify Him. Such was the vengeance of
love, rejected and maligned. This agonizing pity forms part of
the passion of Jesus ; glory and suffering are with Him always
inseparable, and in this triumphant king of Zion we behold the
Man of Sorrows !
This memorable day closed as it had begun. Jesus wrought
His last miracles in the Temple, healing divers sick and lame.*
Upon this the clear voices of the children in the Temple rang
their hosannas through its desecrated arches. It was insuffer
able to the priests and doctors to be thus braved in the very
sanctuary which was their domain. Jesus answered their
words of indignation by a touching quotation from the Old
Testament, which showed what a price He put upon the
homage of these artless, upright hearts : " Have ye never read,
Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected
* Matt. xxi. 14.

4°8 BOOK FIFTH.
praise?"* After this short appearance in Jerusalem, Jesus
returned for the night to Bethany. On the morning of the
following day, He repaired again to the Temple, in order to
affix His seal to His public teaching. He no longer hoped to
persuade the people, but He would, at least, set in full light
their impious rejection of Him. Everything in His words and
actions tended to thisend. As He approached the town, absorbed
in these . sorrowful thoughts, he saw a fig-tree rich in leafage,
but barren of fruit How striking the image of that theocracy
of solemn form, proudly displaying its ceremonials of worship,
while the very heart of the nation was become dry as dead and
sapless wood ! The malediction with which the barren fig-tree
was visited, was one of those parables in action, so frequently
found in the old prophets. To speak of injustice towards a
tree is to push the love of equity to a ridiculous extreme, and
to forget that unintelligent nature was created for the good of
man, and has fulfilled its highest destiny when it has served to
express a moral truth; assuredly a great honour is put upon it,
when, instead of simply nourishing .the body, it is made to
'nourish the soul. For Israel,- as for the fig-tree, the time of
fruit-bearing was passed. Only with the free creature the
barren season is not inevitable, and the barrenness is a judg
ment, f
* Matt. xxi. 14. It seems to us very difficult to suppose that
Jesus a second time expelled the sellers from the Temple This
would have been to furnish a plausible pretext to His enemies for
laying hands on Him, and with a semblance of right His con
troversy with the Jews bore on far more important points. Having
begun by pointing out the most gross abuses, He ascended to the
very principles of the moral decay of the people. The date given
by John for this act appears to us more in harmony with historical
analogy; the strict theopneustic system alone compels the admis
sion of continual duplicata in the Gospel history.
t Mark xi. 12-14. Matt. xxi. 18-22. In this narrative, as in
the parables, the general intention, and not the details, must be
regarded. Beside, if even the season of fruit was past, as the
second evangelist remarks, it would have been, nevertheless,
possible for Jesus to find fruit on this tree, for the spring fig was
. often gathered in March. (Wiener, "Real Wcerterbuch').

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 409
The priests and great men of Jerasalem were to show hearts
hardened as that of Pharaoh, before signs yet more convincing
than those of Moses. They were about to give the most fear
ful evidence of this obduracy, in the mingled perfidy and
desperation of their last conflict with Jesus.

410 BOOK FIFTH.

CHAPTER II.
RELATIONS OF JESUS WITH THE AUTHORITIES OF HIS COUNTRY.
THE NEW RELIGION AND THE STATE.
r I 1HE Sanhedrim, after the famous deliberation which ensued
-*- on the resurrection of Lazarus, had given a commandment
that any one knowing where Jesus was might take Him. * The
enthusiasm of the pilgrims, come up to the feast, enforced more
cautious proceedings. The new comers were less easily led
than the habitual population of Jerusalem. This explains how
it was that violent measures were not carried out, as might
have been expected. Jesus, when He appeared in the Temple,
upborne, in a manner, on the popular tide, was not an enemy
to be crushed at a single blow. It was needful to temporise,
and have recourse to artifice. There are the clear indications
of a set purpose in the questions proposed to Him on this and
the following day. All religious parties united to . lay snares
for Him, and forgot their mutual enmities in hatred of a com
mon foe. The Herodians, the Pharisees, the Sudducees,
appear by turns on the scene, and endeavour to draw from
Jesus some word which may compromise Him with the people,
and serve as the ground of a plausible accusation.
The Sanhedrim commenced by a true master-stroke, which '
might succeed in one of two ways, either in rendering Jesus
odious to His countrymen, or in placing Him in the light of a
rebel against the Romans. The Pharisees, joined with the
Herodians, asked Him with hypocritical circumlocution whether
it was lawful to pay tribute unto Caesar or not. No question
* John xi. 57.

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 41I
was more critical; a reply in the affirmative would ran counter
to every popular prejudice, a negative answer would place
Jesus in the rank of rebels liable to death. This two-edged
sword was handled with diabolic skill. But once more cunning
was to be foiled; Jesus surmounts the difficulty by rising to
the commanding height of eternal truth. He solves with a word
the hard problem of the relation between the civil and religious
powers, and while He eludes a perfidious snare, He lays down the
infrangible boundary between the domain of conscience and
that of the civil authority. Let us pause a moment over this
great decision, so fraught with principles for the renovation of
society, and so instinct with light on the conduct of Jesus in
the terrible conflict, in which He was to triumph or succumb.
"Why tempt ye me?" He says to His questioners, "show
me the tribute money. Whose is this image and superscription?
They -say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render
therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto
God the things which are God's."* This sublime saying
stamps a perpetual reproach on that convenient though tran
scendent disdain of all mean affairs, which leads men to with
draw from the conflict of right and leave the world to itself,
indifferent alike to the good and evil of the social sphere.
There is no sanction for such conduct in the teaching of Jesus,
as He expressed it in words and symbolic actions.
The tribute represented dependence on the State; to pay it
was to recognise the legitimacy of the civil powers in itself. It
was of vast moment that the religion of the Gospel should
make this recognition, and thus admit one ofthe essential con
ditions of the normal development of humanity. . Had it
assumed an attitude of opposition and rebellion, it would have
forfeited its permanency; instead of a new star shedding light
on the whole modern world, we should have had but a passing
meteor crossing a burning sky.
* 'AirbioTt ovv rd Kaiaapog Kaiaapf xai rd tov &eov Tif 0E-p (Matt.
xxii. 21.)

412 BOOK FIFTH.
But it would be a grave error to suppose that Jesus gave His
sanction not only to the State in itself, but also to all the forms
of iniquity and tyranny which it may assume. A new State was
gradually to be formed under the influence of the Gospel, and
to replace the pagan state by hallowing the first rights of man.
Of the State, as of the Sabbath, it had to be learned, that it
was made for man, not man for it. Thus that tyrannous control
which characterised the heathen city was to cease, and to give
place to the modern State, which is — at least in its more and
more widely accepted ideal — the protector of right and liberty.
In this new order of things, that which was palled Cassar in the
time of Christ is called law; to render to the law that which is
the law's, often involves resisting with manly energy de facto
rulers. In the modern world, the Christian, as a citizen, has
manly duties which were almost unknown- in a heathen state.
If Jesus had sought to transform the latter by other means than
moral influence, He would have been constrained to employ
force in the service of religious truth. This would have been
to venture the salvation of humanity on the most hazardous of
all stakes ; it would have further rendered impossible the very
reform designed to be accomplished, one of the great intentions
of which was to withdraw conscience from the thraldom of the
civil power, and to enfranchise the individual from a crushing
yoke. To attempt a religious reform by acts of violence is
simply to add to that inextricable confusion of religion and the
State, which constitutes the most fatal despotism. Thus it may
be said that liberty was born into the world on the. day when
Jesus, having spoken the words, " Render unto Caesar the
things which are Caesar's," added, "and unto God the things
which are God's."
There is then something in man which belongs not to the
State, and which is beyond the grasp of any tyranny; there is
a region in which God rales alone, and at the threshold of
which the civil power is bound to stay its foot It is not true
that faith, like tribute money, is to be imposed by the sovereign,

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 413
be he who he may; it is a matter for the individual soul alone.
The State has no right of inquisition into our relations with
God; it can neither form nor break the sacred bond; so soon
as it traspasses on this holy ground, it loses its claim to obedi
ence, and the meanest slave is then bound to resist Caesar,
that he may render to God that which is God's alone. The
Gospel does not elevate piety alone into this higher region of
the life, but the whole moral being and all the springs and
issues of conscience. Thus, at the voice of Christ rises, amidst
the overthrow of all despotisms, the everlasting rock against
which they shall dash themselves in pieces, and which shall be
the holy bulwark of moral freedom. The theocratic and the
pagan city will fall together. The time is past when the repre
sentative of the civil power was also the representative of God,
and when creeds and ceremonies were imposed by decree like
the ordinances of public safety. The sword for the State, per
suasion for religion ; force for the one, free utterance for the
other; thus is laid down the first condition of religious liberty.
The two spheres are distinct, but there is constant communi
cation between them by means of influence. Thus the State
is to be entirely transformed under the leavening action of the
new principles. Its progress will be in -exact proportion to its
respect for conscience in all which concerns religion. The
Christian State, by pre-eminence, is that which, most thoroughly
imbued with the spirit of the Gospel, intermeddles the least
with directly religious interests. Long and severe lessons of
experience were needed before these great truths, contained
germinally in the maxim of Jesus, triumphed over the
prejudices of the ancient world. But they have been, never
theless, the true inspiration of all the noble battles of con
science and of truth. Martyrdom has ever been a sublime
demonstration of the impotence of material force at issue
with faith. The martyr's superiority to torture has vindicated
the liberty of souls. '"How," said Tertullian, "shall I not
render to God that which is God's? I, who in so much as

4^4 BOOK FIFTH.
I am a Christian, am His image; a medal stamped with His
likeness."* Assuredly he is a free man who feels himself made in the
image of God, and belonging to God alone. His independence
towards Caesar assumes a religious character, and his rights are
inviolable because they are founded upon his duties.
The crucifixion of Christ is the great martyrdom. We shall
see Jesus sealing with His blood the rights of conscience, for He
was made a victim because He would fulfil the will of God to
the uttermost, in spite of the opposition of the representatives
of the State. Jesus is the chief of rebels against impious laws.
His cross is like the sacred landmark, standing between the
realm of Caesar and that of God. His attitude at the bar of the
Sanhedrim, and before the proconsul's tribunal, is the noblest
exposition of His reply to the Pharisees and the Herodians.
We have reserved for this chapter a few incidents belonging
to different periods in the public life of Jesus, which are in
perfect harmony with the principle He has just uttered in the
very stronghold of the theocracy. The indignation so fervidly
expressed by Him, when James and John desired to call down
fire from heaven upon the Samaritans who rejected Him, proves
how entirely He repudiated the intervention of force and con
straint in purely spiritual matters. Subsequently, when the
impetuous spn of Jonas drew a sword to smite the emissaries
of the Sanhedrim, Jesus rebuked his zeal with the stem words,
" Put again thy sword into its place, for all they that take the
sword shall perish with the sword. Thinkest thou that I can
not now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me
more than twelve legions of angels."! ' The use of the sword
is not interdicted absolutely; St Paul declares that the prince
bears it as the safeguard of justice. J Jesus was speaking then
* "De fuga in persecutione," c. XII. f Matt, xxvi, 52, 53.
J " He beareth not the sword in vain, for he is the minister of
God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil."
(Romans xiii. 4.)

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 415
only of the domain of religion ; tmth, in its highest personifica
tion, in its purest form, repudiates everything which bears the
semblance of compulsion, and should heaven itself take up
arms in its behalf, it would even then be dishonoured and
degraded by the intervention of force. Taking the sword, it
descends in a manner from the sphere of its own eternity into
that troubled, fluctuating region, in which right is with the
mightiest, in which all depends on a changing fortune, and the
issue of a cause is decided by the breaking of a sword. That
which takes the sword perishes by the sword, or at least so it
may and so it deserves to perish; there is no guarantee for its
security. A divine cause cannot accept such chances and
subject itself to such contingencies. Truth may be loaded
with fetters, branded with insults, treated by men of power as
the offscouring of .the world; it retains unblemished its inherent
nobleness, so long as, faithful to itself, it fights with no other
weapons and uses no other means than those which alone are
worthy of it — holiness and love. "I, when I am lifted up,"
said Jesus, speaking of His death, " will draw all men unto
me." His only throne was "the accursed tree," and He was
a victor because a victim.
If we go further back in the history of Jesus we see Him, at
the time of His return from Syro-Phcenicia, paying the tribute
of two denarii levied for the service of the Temple. It was on
this occasion that the miracle of the stater took place. Peter
having cast his net into the lake of Gennesaret, drew out a
fish, in the mouth of which was found that little piece of
money, required by the Jewish taxgatherers. * If it is
asked why Jesus, instead of simply paying this tribute like that
which was due to Caesar, works a miracle for so small a sum,
the answer is that this related to His heavenly and not to His
* Matt. xvii. 24-27. The miracle here consists in the preter
natural knowledge of a fact entirely eluding obsei vation. I do
not know on what a priori ground it is to be classed among the
myths, if it is authenticated as the other miracles.

4r6 BOOK FIFTH.
earthly citizenship. Now He is king in this region, and cannot
acknowledge in the Temple of God an authority higher than
His own. This is the explicit declaration He makes to Peter,
" What thinkest thou, Simon ? , Of whom do the kings of the
earth take tribute, of their own children or of strangers ? Peter
saith, Of strangers. Jesus saith unto him, Then are the
children free." Jesus, the Son of God, cannot be a tributary
to the house of His Father. Therefore it is that, consenting
to pay the temple dues in order to avoid a useless scandal, He
accompanies the payment with a royal act which asserts His
dignity. His conduct then is not contradictory to itself. On
another occasion, He declined most emphatically any inter
ference in temporal matters. Two brothers came to consult
Him on a question of inheritance. " Man, who made me a
judge or a divider over you1?" was His reply.* On the same
principle, when the Pharisees brought to Him a woman taken
in adultery, asking Him if she was to be stoned according to
the law or not, He placed the question at once in a purely
religious aspect, and refused to act as a judge ; He silenced
the accusers of the unhappy woman with the words, " Let him
that is without sin among you first cast a stone at her."-)- It is
not that He abrogates the express laws of His people ; He
knows well that in social order, justice must have its' course,
but He will not substitute Himself for the competent authori
ties. His order is the moral and religious, in which the
official judges are often lower than the accused ; to speak
truth,' there is in this domain but one judge, and that is God,
of whose decisions conscience is the voice. It is to the bar of
the divine tribunal that He calls the Pharisees, and from it they
retire confounded and self-condemned, while the guilty woman
receives a word of pardon, which is at the same time a seed of
moral renovation. " Go and sin no more," says Jesus to her.J
* Luke xii. 14. t John viii. 7,
X It is well known that the account ofthe woman taken in adultery
is wanting in the oldest manuscripts of the fourth Gospel. It is also

THE GREAT WEEK — DEATH AND VICTORY. 417
This touching scene can only be understood on the principle
of a marked line of severance, drawn between religion and the
State. On any other supposition, the very foundations of
social order would be shaken, "for public justice would be dis
armed by a mistaken application of mercy.
All these deeds and words of the Master then point to the
entire separation of the two kingdoms, so clearly declared
before Pilate in the decisive words, My kingdom is not of this
world. Thus Was the great emancipation of the human con
science inaugurated not by violence, but by gentleness and
submission; and spiritual liberty — the mother of all other
liberty — received in its very infancy the baptism of suffering.*
evident that it breaks the thread of the narrative between the two
passages — John vii. 52, and viii. 12, which are closely connected.
Verse 13, which tells us that Jesus is addressing Himself to the
Pharisees is not reconcilable with verse 9, which says that the
Pharisees had retired to their homes. If this touching story forms
no part in the Gospel of John, it is yet no less authentic in sub
stance. It is clear from the writings of Papias, that it formed part
of the earliest traditions of the church-
* A learned writer, M. d'Eichtal, in his book entitled, "Les E van
ities," Paris, Hachette,, 1863, has given an interpretation of the
famous text, " Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's,
and unto God the things which are God's," which does not suffi
ciently maintain the distinction between the two powers, and
inclines too much to the side of a Christianity rather social than
individual. (See Preface, pp. 4, 5.)

E E

4J8 BOOK FIFTH.

CHAPTER III.
THE DAY OF CAPTIOUS QUESTIONS.
I. Dispute with the doctors at Jerusalem.
" rnHE intellect," says a great writer, "is the most perverse
-"-*- of all instraments when it is not under the control of
conscience." We will £0 further and say that, when at issue
with the conscience, it is the feeblest of all weapons. There
is a full confirmation of this two fold assertion in the closing
interviews between the Jews in the Temple and Jesus Christ.
His opponents display rare subtlety and the most practical
dialectics ; the intellectual instrument has been polished and
sharpened with consummate skill, but it breaks nevertheless in
its first contact with the word of Jesus. He never descends to
the battle-ground on which they wish to engage Him ; He
removes scholastic questions into the searching light of humanity
and religion; while His adversaries are skirmishing in the
empty spaces of sophistry, He constantly grapples with moral
realities, and strikes home to the heart. His skill has no
analogy with the prudence which evades a difficulty. No, He
fights with uncovered breast, openly and without subterfuge,
meeting captious questionings now with the silence of offended
dignity, now with bold interrogations which confound His
would-be judges, now with parables fraught with terrible con
demnation to His ensnarers, till at length the cup overflows in
a burning stream of indignation. Yet, if He finds among the
doctors who surround Him, a man not yet perverted by the
spirit of caste, and asking questions with at least a measure of
sincerity, He replies with benignity. Thus He receives the
scribe who asks Him, which is the greatest commandment of

THE GREAT WEEK — DEATH AND VICTORY. 419
the law ; He points him to the sublime epitome of the deca
logue given in Deuterbnomy, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy
God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself."*
But when a difficulty is proposed in bad faith, Jesus baffles the
artifice, and leaves the hypocrite worsted ; He will not suffer
Himself to be interrogated by such. In vain the Pharisees
press Him to tell them on what He founds His authority. He
contents Himself with asking them what they think of the
baptism of John, knowing well the perplexity into which He
throws these dissemblers, who dare not offend the people by
charging their favourite prophet with imposture, and are still
less willing to recognise the mission of the Baptist, which
would involve that of the Galilean. " We cannot tell," said
they. " Neither do I tell you," replies Jesus, " by what autho
rity I do these things, "t But He will not, therefore, abstain
from using this contested authority ; if He does not deign to
vindicate, He will yet assert and manifest it.
The parable of the two sons sent into the vineyard, the one
of whom is obedient in words only, while the other, rebellious
at first against his father's commandment, yet in the end fulfils
his task, contrasts in language as forcible as it. is brief, the
repentance of the publicans and harlots, with the false religious
ness of the chiefs of the nation. The voice of John the
Baptist found an echo only among the former, and the sinners
of yesterday press into the kingdom of God before the zealots
of to-day. I
The colouring is deeper in another word-painting given on
the same day. The wicked husbandmen were not content with
neglecting their work, though nothing was wanting to render
* Mark xii. 28-32 ; Luke x. 25. Luke supposes that this scribe
was actuated by an envious spirit. There appears no such indica
tion in the narrative of Mark, which rather leads to the conclusion
that he had been favourably impressed by the previous answers of
Jesus. f Matt. xxi. 23-27 ; Luke xx. 1-8. t Matt. xxi. 28-32.
E E 2

420 BOOK FIFTH.
their labour fruitful — neither tower nor overseer, neither wine
press nor hedge ; they killed the messengers whom the Lord of
the vineyard sent to them, and they were ready to sacrifice
even his son, the heir ofthe inheritance. Already the murderous
plan was whispered, and the shameless plot laid in secret. What
result was to follow those words, spoken but a few days before
in the hall of the Sanhedrim, where Caiaphas had demanded
the death of Jesus ? The parable closes with a declaration of
the price Jerusalem would pay for this iniquitous sentence.
Those who pronounced it were pronouncing in reality the doom
of themselves and their nation, for the enclosure of the vine of
Jehovah would be laid low, and the vineyard given to other
husbandmen. Another temple would arise on the rains of the
sanctuary of Jemsalem, and its comer-stone would be the
doctrine rejected by the Jews.*
The same thoughts are conveyed by the parable of the
marriage, which has many points of analogy with that in Luke,
of the feast given by the master of the house. The times of
Messiah are clearly pointed out under the figure of the marriage
of the king's son. The guests have not only refused the invi
tation, but they have slain the servants who bore it. This
punishment is depicted in vivid imagery. Their city is to be
burned and the murderers put to death. No one may sit at
the royal table unless clothed in a wedding garment The rash
guest who has failed so to array himself is cast into outer
darkness. The leading idea of this parable is again the merited
condemnation of the ancient people of God The significance
of these sayings is comprehended by the hearers, and their
rage stops little short of giving immediate realisation to the
most tragical portion of the parable, by laying forcible hands
on Jesus in the sanctuary, t
Recourse to violence in religious controversy is the certain
signal of defeat. The Pharisees show by their impotent fury
* See Matt. xxi. 33-46 ; Mark xii. 1-12 ; Luke xx. 9-19.
t Matt. xxi. 1-12.

THE GREAT WEEK — DEATH AND VICTORY. 42 1
that they are worsted. They have succeeded no better alone,
than when leagued with the Herodians. The Sadducees, their
allies for a day, now follow them in the field. What amazing
reconciliations are wrought by a common hatred ! The Phari
sees allow their most cherished convictions to be outraged
without a protest, when they see any hope that by such means
Jesus may be entangled. They, the sworn defenders of the
doctrine of the resurrection, open not their mouths, while the
Sadducees turn this belief into open ridicule, asking, with
scarcely dissembled irony, what would be in a future life the
case of a woman, who^according to the law ofthe Levirate, should
have married successively seven brothers. Jesus silences this
gross objection, so worthy of the materialists by whom it is
presented, by declaring the new conditions of the angelic life
of heaven ; but he goes further, He assails those abject doubts
of our immortal destinies which lurk under all such absurd
hypotheses, and scatters them with an unanswerable argument
" Have ye not read that which was spoken to you by God,
saying, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the
God of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead but of the
living."* Having quenched this fire of malignant queries, Jesus be
comes in His turn the questioner. He asks of those present
whose son, according to the prophets, Christ should be ?
" They say unto him, The Son of David," for no interpretation
of the Old Testament oracles was more unanimously accepted
than this. " How then doth David in spirit call him Lord?"
replies Jesus, quoting the psalm in which Messiah, represented
under the image of a victorious king, is saluted with this divine
title. " If David then call him Lord, how is he then his
son?"t Clearly Messiah's descent from David is not set aside
in these gospels, which imply it on every page. Jesus sought
to show that this nobility, the most illustrious of all in the
theocratic point of view, was insufficient for Him, and that He
* Matt. xxii. 32. t Matt. xxii. 41-46.

42 2 BOOK FIFTH.
traced a yet higher descent.* We see then how in this saying,
as in the parable of the murderous husbandmen, and in His
public discourses, recorded by St. John, He affirms His incom
parable dignity, and asserts Himself to be the Son of God with
so much the more power and clearness, the more He is loaded
with ignominy by the heads of the hierarchy. The question
which raises the most violent storms is much rather that of His
person than of His doctrine ; it is He Himself who is the
cause of offence, and not His teaching. Why should we marvel
at this ? Is He not the Tmth, and is not the religion which
He founds altogether one with Him?
These closing colloquies sufficiently reveal the wilful obtuse-
ness of the priests and doctors. The time was come to lash
their pride and hypocrisy before the eyes of the people whom
they despised. The accused, raising Himself to His full height,
becomes in His turn the accuser ; like the hero of the Old
Testament, He breaks like tow the interwoven bonds in which
perverse sophists have sought to bind Him, and crashes His
foes with words more terrible than thunderbolts, which strike
sudden light into the dark crevices of their hearts, and tear in
shreds the veil of their mendacious pretences. The gaze of the
divine eye is not blinded by wrath ; it pierces to the hidden
principle and secret roots of Pharisaism. It is not alone the
hypocrisy of Jerusalem which is denounced ; in this marvellous
picture, every line of which is drawn in ineffaceable colours, the
Pharisaism of every age sees its own image. Wherever are
found formal worship, false devotion, proud scorn of the small
ones of the world, inordinate self-estimation, — wherever virtue
is only a fiction, the holy imprecations of Christ resound with
all their solemn severity. It is not offended holiness only
which speaks, it is also love — the true charity which cannot
* There is here a striking proof of the antiquity of the first and
third Gospels. The first chapters, which the sceptical would fain
represent as later legendary addenda, are implied in this declara
tion of Jesus ; they form then an integral part of the narrative of
Matthew and Luke.

THE GREAT WEEK — DEATH AND VICTORY. 423
suffer that which kills the soul The shepherd of the sheep
feels burning indignation against the hireling who leaves the
flock a prey to the wolf, or sells them for his own profit.
Nothing is further from the comic vein of the satirist, who
turns to ridicule the misery and folly of humanity. Ridicule is
unknown to compassionate love, for the broad contrasts which
are food for the scoffer, are in truth the token of vast calamities,
marking the lamentable disproportion between what we are and
what we might have been. Thus we shall find this terrible
discourse closing with a tender lament !
From its very first words, the characteristic trait of Phari
saism is brought to the light in a way that cannot be forgotten :
saying instead of doing, putting ritual and form in place of
feeling, seeming instead of being — this is its essence. " They
say but do not." They bind heavy burdens grievous to be
bome, and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves
will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their
works they do to be seen of men.* In other words, they
play a farce of piety to win applause. Who does not see the
Pharisee as Jesus has described him, proudly mounting to his
doctoral chair, training his flowing robe, to which he has added
fringes of purple, to mark his dignity as the son of Abraham,!
wearing on his brow those little boxes or phylacteries, within
which were inscribed sacred texts, choosing the uppermost seat
in the synagogue, and desiring to be called of all men by the
venerable name of Rabbi ? All these fair appearances are but
a solemn lie. A lie is that proud claim to open the gate of
heaven ! Woe to those who enter not in themselves, and who
hinder those who are entering in. J They have in their hands
the key of knowledge, but they use it only to lock up the
treasure. § A lie lurks' in their prayers and pretended charity.
* Akyovai ydp xai ov iroiovoi (Matt, xxiii. 3).
\ Numbers xv. 38.
I See for this discourse the whole 23rd chapter of Matthew.
§ Luke xi, 52. We find in this chapter of Luke a large portion
of the discourse given in Matt, xxiii. It is probable that Jesus

424 BOOK FIFTH.
" Woe to those who devour widows' houses, and for pretence
make long prayers." A lie is in their ardent proselytism, for
they do not convert, biit pervert, and seek not the good of
souls but the honour of a sect ! A lie is their morality, which
sets at nought the word of God, by unworthy casuistry and
hypocritical traditions ! A lie is their devotion, which lays
stress only on trifles, which pays scrupulously the tithe of mint
and cummin, while it passes by the eternal laws of justice and
the love of God. Is not this straining at a gnat and swallowing
a camel 1 All is fair without, but dark within, like the whited
sepulchre which covers dead men's bones and all uncleanness.
A lie, finally, is their feigned reverence for the saints and
prophets of the past Those who to-day build their sepulchres,
had they lived in their time would have slain them, as they will
soon slay the new messenger whom God has sent "Some of
them ye shall kill and crucify, and some of them shall ye
scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to
city ; that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed
upon the earth from the blood of Abel unto the blood of
Zacharias, whom they slew between the temple and the altar."*
Truly it was not possible to tear away with a more unspairing
hand the mask of false devotion. At heart it hates God and
those who are His with a hatred which does not stop short of
murder. The Pharisee's long priestly vestment is stained with
the blood of the righteous ; his interminable prayers scarcely
drown the death-cry which is lifted against importunate
Truth. delivered two discourses of the same nature, one under the charac
teristic circumstances mentioned by Luke, the other in the Temple.
Matthew, according to his custom, has embraced in that which he
gives, several passages which belonged to the previous discourse.
The passage, Matt, xxiii. 4, is found again in Luke xi. 39, with pre
cise details which mark its true date.
* Matt, xxiii. 33. There is a confusion here between Zechariah,
the son of Jehoiada (2 Chron. xxiv. 20), and Zechariah, the prophet,
the son of Barachiah, who was not put to death. All attempts to
remove this slight inaccuracy have been abortive.

THE GREAT WEEK — DEATH AND VICTORY. 425
Pharisaism has never recovered from the wound it received
that day in the Temple of Jerusalem ; formalistic hypocrisy,
ever since that memorable discourse, has walked the world
under a tattered veil. All the judgments pronounced against
Jesus in the synagogue fail to counterbalance that terrible
sentence with which He branded it, and which He left with
it as His last farewell. ¦ But this inflexible Judge is no less the
merciful Saviour ; once again He weeps over the unhappy city
as He had wept on the day of His triumph ; His grief takes tones
yet more touching; the familiar image which He adopts
expresses the liveliest and most pathetic tenderness. " O
Jerasalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and
stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have
gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her chickens
under her wings, and ye would not. Behold, your house is left
unto you desolate !"* Does it not seem as if Jesus already be
held the Roman eagle hovering high in air ready to swoop down
upon the sacred city, to crush and destroy it in its cruel talons?
" I say unto you," He adds, " ye shall not see me henceforth
till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cpmeth in the name of the
Lord." The demonstration of love has not- availed to bring
you to believe in Me; the demonstration Xf punishment will
soon lay upon you its constraint
On this same day, two other scenes of a very different
character, brought some consolation to the wounded and indig
nant heart of Jesus. As He was entering the Temple, some
Hellenist Jews, who were perhaps only Greek proselytes,!
sought to see Him ; they addressed themselves to Philip of
Bethsaida, who brought them to the Master. In these repre
sentatives ofthe nations afar off, Jesus beheld an earnest ofthe
ultimate triumph of His work "The hour is come," He
exclaimed "when the Son of man shall be glorified."J He
saw the world opening to Him as the broad field for the Gospel
seed ; He saw the wide, whitening harvest of souls, but He
* Matt, xxiii. 37, 38.. ! John xii. 23. J John xii., 28.

426 BOOK FIFTH.
remembered what a price must be paid for so glorious an issue.
Death alone is fruitful. "Except a corn of wheat fall into the
ground and die, it abideth alone ; but if it die it bringeth forth
much fruit"* Now this com of wheat, appointed to death
that it may give birth to eternal life, is Himself. The sacrifice
is the condition of the victory. Such words would be readily
understood by these sons of Greece, who had probably assisted
at the great mysteries of Eleusis, which represented the immor
tality of the soul under the image of the grain of wheat, buried
in the earth to germinate. Only Jesus gives a wide extension
to the significance of the figure. If a man must needs hate
his own soul that he may save it, what will be the cost of the
redemption of the world ? The chill shiver of approaching
death passes over Him ; He tastes its bitterness, and passing
from joy to sadness with that sensitiveness of impression,
which bespeaks the full reality of His humanity, He closes the
paean of triumph with a cry of anguish. " Now is my soul
troubled, and what shall I say? Father save me from this
hour? But for this cause came I to this hour."t This is the
earnest of the soul-agony of Gethsemane. It is clear then
that the fourth Gospel does not give us, any more than the
synoptics, an impassive Christ ; if, after recording the first
sorrowful straggle, John does not speak of the subsequent
agony in the garden, it is because there was nothing to add to
the picture drawn by those who had gone before him. There
can be nothing incredible in the repetition of a spiritual crisis,
unless we treat human nature as an abstract quantity governed
by the laws of inflexible logic : the victory of to-day does not
avert the combat of to-morrow, and the triumph is only final
when all is fulfilled and we have rendered up our breath.
" Father," Jesus cries, " glorify thy name." Scarcely has He
given utterance to this unreserved submission to the will of
God, when a mysterious voice is heard. The people said that
it thundered, but to Jesus it conveyed an answering assurance
* John xii. 24. f John xii. 27.

THE GREAT WEEK — DEATH AND VICTORY. 427
of holy approbation from the Father. " I have both glorified
it and will glorify it again." Evidently these divine words were
spoken only to the soul, and were audible to the spiritual sense
alone ; they did not strike on the outward ears, else the whole
people would have caught them. An outward sign accom
panied the inward token, but this was a providential coinci
dence.* All agitation passes at once from the heart of Jesus.
This wicked world which is about to condemn Him, He sees
already judged,! and its prince ignominously cast out, while
the cross rises before His eyes as the symbol of victory, and the
sacred magnet which shall draw all men to Him."j:
These bold assertions provoke the murmurs of the Jews ;
they venture again to ask who is this Son of man ? Jesus' only
reply is one more appeal to them to profit by the last hours
of day yet granted to them. He — the brilliant sun sent to
enlighten them — is about to set, and then will come the night§
But the calls of the eleventh hour are no more heeded than
those of the first, the people persevere in their unbelief; their
present blindness is the chastisement of their obstinate refusal
of the light, and, according to the terrible oracle of the prophet,
"their heart is waxed gross, so that they cannot see with their
eyes, nor convert, and be healed." The divine word spoken
in their midst, remains as an accusing witness and a terrible
judge. The commandment of Christ was life eternal;
degenerate Judaism would not submit itself to it, therefore it
chose death. Such, according to St. John, was the conclusion
of the public ministry of Jesus.|| Thus was justified the sorrow
ful saying, inscribed on the frontispiece of the fourth Gospel,
" He came unto his own, and his own received him not"
* John xii. 28. There is here something more than that which
the Jews call Bathkol, for this was not simply a natural phenomenon,
to which those who witnessed it ascribed a divine significance.
The heavenly voice was beyond doubt a real message to the heart
of Jesus.
t John xii. 31. J John xii. 32. § John xii. 35, 36.
|| From verse 24 to verse 50, we have in the form of a direct dis
course a simple summary of the teaching of Jesus.

428 BOOK FIFTH. ,
The second consolatory incident of this day affords a touching
proof of the individual character of true religion; for even
among a people who in their national character have cut them
selves off from the kingdom of God, he yet preserves a moral
elect, usually hidden and invisible in the surrounding darkness,
who do not share in the same condemnation. The Master
was on the point of quitting for ever with His disciples the
desecrated sanctuary. As He passed the treasury, where large
chests were placed to receive alms, He saw the rich men casting
in their gold with a loud ring that attracted attention ; while
behind them, timid and trembling, a poor woman cast in the
two mites which were all her living.* It seems as if the last
teachings of Jesus had embodied themselves in these two types
of piety passing before Him. Nothing could be a stronger
expression of the broad contrast He had established between
true religion and false. On the one hand was Pharisaism doing
its good works to be seen of men, and worshipping and serving
only itself, under the show of the service of God ; on the other
hand, the religion of the heart, the religion of love, sweet and
lowly charity. The humble offering of the widow is royal in
the eyes of Jesus, because she has given of her penury — she
has given herself. In the one case, all is pomp and vanity, in
the other all is simplicity and truth. " Blessed are the poor in
spirit : " unblessed the rich, who are rich in their own eyes.
Thus the last public words of Jesus are a confirmation of the
first of the beatitudes. The loving soul, which makes itself a
willing sacrifice, is the true temple of God, the altar whence
pure incense rises to heaven. Compared with this spiritual
beauty, what are those sumptuous marble porticoes,! which draw
forth admiring exclamations from the disciples as they pass
beneath them ? " As for these things which ye behold," replies
the Master, " the days will come in the which there shall not
be left one stone upon another that shall not be thrown
down ;'' while the holy deed of this poor widow shall endure
* Luke xxi. 1-5. ! Luke xxi. 1-5.

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 429
to those eternal ages, when faith and hope themselves shall
cease. Taking this incident as a starting point, Jesus unrolls the
scroll of the future before the dazzled eyes of His disciples,
incapable as they are yet of reading aright its various portents.
This solemn converse is held on the Mount of Olives, just as
the last fires of day are glowing on the ramparts of Jemsalem.
II. The Great Prophetic Discourse. Parables enjoining
Watchfulness. We have already explained, in speaking of the plan of Jesus,
the general intention of this great prophetical discourse, pro
testing against that false idealisation, which will not admit that
the sanctions of eternal justice may be carried beyond the realm
of the purely mental and spiritual. Such a theory ignores the
fact that evil has not confined itself within these bounds, but
has stalked abroad boldly in the external world, as if its triumph
there were assured and final ; it has laid hold of tbe springs of
natural and social life. By what right and by what philosophy
can good be proscribed from having its revenge and justification
in the very sphere, where it has seemed to be stifled and over
come ? Human history without a climax loses all its moral
character, and becomes nothing but a strange and confused
medley of incidents, a monstrous phantasmagoria passing across
a shifting scene. It is idle to pretend that behind the curtain
which falls over the melancholy spectacle, each individual
receives due punishment or reward. Under such conditions,
justice would never be vindicated in human affairs, and genera
tions would succeed each other without learning any wisdom
from the past, or expecting any issue from the future. God has
not suffered it so to be. ¦ Every period of history had its own
decisive event, and receives its own solemn sentence. These
partial judgments foretell the great final judgment, which is to
close that which may be called the terrestrial economy. They
are no sudden surprises of fate, or to speak more correctly,

43° BOOK FIFTH.
no coups aVitatoi Providence, making violent assaults on liberty.
No, nothing can better assure us of the value God sets on human
freedom, than to see the history of society and of nature itself
so suspended on moral decisions, that heaven and earth may be
moved to carry out the awards of divine justice. We know
no spiritualism bolder than this so-called materialism.
The main idea of the prophetical discourse of Jesus is to
make all these partial judgments of history lead on to the final
and decisive judgment, which is to close this economy, but
there is no marked line of distinction anywhere drawn between
impending events and the issues of the last times. The de
stmction of the theocracy is confounded with those great final
throes, out of which will come forth the new earth wherein shall
dwell righteousness. Prophecy gives its broad survey without
perspective ; the destruction of the sanctuary by foreign armies,
the precipitate flight of the disciples, the first persecutions of
the Church, the appearance of false Christs — all this prophetic
painting of the events which will accompany the destruction of
Jerusalem is set in a wider picture, which is nothing less than
that of the catastrophe of human history.* These wars,
pestilences, and earthquakes, which are but the beginning of
sorrows, this preaching of the gospel throughout the whole
world, which is to be witness to all nations, are so many signs
carrying us onward to the last times, no less than the conclusion
of the discourse which represents the sun and moon veiled with
sudden darkness, the stars falling from heaven, the Son of man
appearing before the trembling tribes of earth, and the elect
rising at the sound of the archangel's trumpet This confusion
of historic periods is open to two explanations. First, the final
judgment really commenced with the destruction of the faithless
theocracy ; the first terrible manifestations of divine justice
were not only the signs, but the prelude of the end. Next,
Jesus subsequently avowed that the ' knowledge of times and
seasons belonged not to Him. "Of the day and the hour
* Matthew xxiv. 15-31.

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 43 1
knoweth no man, but my Father only," for it needs absolute
prescience to be able to determine the date of events, which
may be retarded or hastened by an infinitude of acts which are
free, inasmuch as they are the consequence of moral determina- -
tions. Now Jesus, in his humiliation, laid aside this prescience.
He Himself warns us not to seek to know the succession of
times and seasons in His prophetic discourses.* His disciples
then could not give chronological exactness in their record :
vagueness as to time was inevitable. We do not hesitate to
admit that in their ardent expectation of the immediate return
of Jesus, they applied to this return words which really bore
reference only to the destmction of Jemsalem. Thus they
connected with the last times, a saying of their master, which
evidently had no such relation, and was applicable solely to the
destruction of the temple and the holy city; we refer to the
famous passage thus rendered, "I tell you that this generation
shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled"}
The truth which comes forth from all these grand images is
the certain announcement of Christ's return, and His triumph on
this very earth which has rejected Him and which will share in
the judgment by one last revolution of the Cosmos. It is not to
inflame the imagination of His disciples that Jesus paints the
future in such vivid colours, but to enforce His last charge to
them on the eve of those mighty conflicts which were about to
commence. "Watch therefore," He says, "that ye may discern
the signs of the times, as the husbandman knows that summer
is near when he sees the branch of the fig-tree tender and
putting forth leaves."! Watch, that ye be not surprised and
taken unawares, for judgment will smite the earth more rapidly
, than the lightning which cleaves the cloud, or than those waters
of the flood which overwhelmed a heedless generation who
* Acts i. 7.
! Matt. xxiv. 34. All the explanations designed to lessen this
difficulty avail only to shift, not to remove it. We find it in Luke
xxi. 32.
X Matt. xxiv. 32.

432 BOOK. FIFTH.
were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage.''
"There shall be two in the field; one shall be taken and the
other left.* Two women shall be grinding at the mill, one shall
be taken and the other left." The parable of the Ten Virgins
presents, in an impressive form, this solemn charge to vigilance.
Woe to the soul which has suffered the pure oil of faith and
love to dry up within it ! At the midnight cry, " Behold the
bridegroom cometh," the unwise virgin will have but a lamp
" gone out," and the doors of the heavenly marriage feast will be
shut against her.f The parable of the talents, which differs from
that of the pounds, in that it gives the exact proportion of
Christian responsibility to grace received, marks in outline the
use that must be made of those short and precious hours which
precede the awful midnight call. The prophetical discourse
closes with a sublime representation of the supreme court of
heaven, before the bar of which every one shall be judged by
Him who "tries the reins and the heart." In vain does mock
ing scepticism jeer at this high decree ; it cannot still the terrors
of conscience. After all, the doctrine of rewards and punish
ments is inseparable from the very conception of justice.
Under what impressions of holy awe and ardent hope must
the disciples have returned to Bethany that evening, when they
left the green slope of Olivet, from which they had seen the
scroll of the world's history unfolded beneath the awful light of
divine justice.
The public ministry of Jesus is over ; He will devote to His
disciples the last few hours which remain before His sacrifice.
* Matt. xxiv. 37-41. f Matt. xxv. 1-14.

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 433

CHAPTER IV.
THE SCENES IN THE UPPER CHAMBER.
I. The Preparation for the Passover. The Last Supper.
A LL things are now ready for the catastrophe. The Sanhe-
-*---*- drim hold one last meeting before the Passover, not in their
ordinary place of convocation in the Temple, but in the house
of the high priest, Caiaphas, to consult on the best means of
striking the final blow. These magistrates, high in station, set
themselves to plot the death of the innocent, like brigands
laying a dark train of violence; they are unanimous in the
decision that it will be needful to use cunning to destroy Jestis ;
they are fully conscious that the deed they are about to
commit is a crime, and they prepare for it without any of those
false semblances of justice, to which deliberative assemblies
generally have recourse in order to deceive themselves.
Carried to such a height as this, hatred can no longer wear a
mask; its vehemence makes it barefaced. The intrigues,
already commenced with Judas, are resumed; only a final
parley is required before proceeding to the arrest. The mem
bers of the Sanhedrim desire that all may be completed before
the feast, so as to avoid a tumult of the people.
Thus passes the Wednesday.
On the Thursday evening, the eve of the Passover, Jesus
sends to bid one of His disciples at Jerasalem to make ready
his house for the celebration of the Paschal supper. Thither
He then repairs, having decided to anticipate the solemn feast
by one day. He who is Lord of the Sabbath has unquestion-
F F

434 BOOK FIFTH. '
ably the right to choose His own hour. He knows that the
Sanhedrim have decided to put Him to death before the feast.
Is it not meet that this Passover— the last of tme Judaism and
the first of Christianity — should be celebrated on the very day,
when the Lamb which taketh away the sins of the world is
slain? To observe a scrupulous conformity with national
customs would be to sacrifice the spirit to the letter. There is
a striking harmony with the whole tone of the ministry of Jesus
in this free modification of Jewish ritual for a higher end.*
* We have'already shown the discrepancy between the synoptics
and St. John on this point. None of the proposed methods of
harmonising the two narratives appear to us satisfactory. Let us
mention the principal. First, we have mere hypotheses invented
to meet the necessities of the case. There is no passage to warrant
Strauss's supposition that there were notable differences of opinion
among the Jewish contemporaries of Jesus as to the determination
of the feast day ; or, Ebrard's, that in consideration of the large
number of lambs, to be sacrified, the Paschal supper was not cele
brated by all the Jews on the same day ; or Calvin's theory, that
when the 15th of Nisan, the legal day for the feast, fell on a Friday,
they deferred its observance till' the following evening, as is done
by the Jews of our day. Second, Olshausen maintains that the
words faysiv to irdaxa (John xviii. 28) should be taken- in an ex
tended sense, and that they may be applied to all the meals which
accompanied the numerous sacrifices offered during the feast.
These sacrifices were named 'Passah, as may be shown from Deut.
xvi. 1-3. This explanation would be admissible, if the text upon
which it bears were the only one which presented any difficulty, but
it cannot be denied that the whole of the narrative is against it.
Olshausen maintains further that the precautions taken by the
Jews against defiling themselves on the day of preparation were
only in view of the Sabbath of the morrow, and do not show that
the Friday was the great day of the feast. This is to derogate too
much from this great Jewish solemnity which, as we have already
shown, was more scrupulously observed than any Sabbath. Third,
M. Lutteroth borrows the whole argument by which he seeks to
harmonise our Gospels from the word irapaaxevi). ("Le jour de-la
preparation. Lettres sur la Chronologie pascale." Paris, -1858.)
He places this day of preparation on the 10th of Nisan, the day
when, according to the law, they set apart the Paschal lamb (Exod1.
xii. 3-6.) On his system Jesus passed the nth, 12th, and 13th of
Nisan in the tomb, and rose on the 14th. But this hypothesis
passes by altogether Matt. xxvi. 16. The first day of unleavened
bread could not by possibility be the 10th of Nisan. What

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 435
The little company meet in an upper chamber. This
humble resort becomes the most glorious of sanctuaries, for
nowhere in the world has the divine presence so made itself
felt as within those common walls. There is to be sought the
cradle of the Church; there the spiritual family appears gathered
around its head, receiving from Him consolation and strength,
and above all, those mysterious communications of His divine
life, which are to the mystical body what the blood is in our
veins. For the first time, Jesus belongs exclusively to His
own, and reveals to them how deep and strong may be that
holy intimacy between Him and them, which is heaven on
earth, or rather which is heaven in the heart He does not
receive as at Bethany the hospitality of devoted friends; He is
Himself the host, and in this last supper enacts the part of the
master of the house. Thus, while in the town of Lazaras all
the honours were done to Him, here it is He Himself who
presides over the meal; the words He speaks are the deepest
expression of His divine love. It is as though He, in His
turn, broke the box of precious spikenard over His disciples.
" Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved
them unto the end." These words. of John bring to mind the
becomes also of Mark xiv. 12: When they killed the Passover;
and of Luke xxii. 7, Then came the day of unleavened bread, when
the Pasiover must be killed! We feel it absolutely impossible to
take these last words as an anticipation of the resurrection.
Fourth, M. Godet, taking his ground on the commencement of the
Jewish day in the evening, supposes it was really on the evening of
Thursday, 13th of Nisan, which was at the same, time the begin
ning of the 14th, that the disciples said to Jesus, Where wilt thou
that we go and make ready the Passover ? The preparations were
then made by them for the feast of the morrow, but were made use
of by Jesus the same evening ; and thus the accounts would be
reconciled. It seems to us impossible to harmonise this explana
tion with Matt. xxvi. 20. When the even was come. The pre
paration for the feast had then been made earlier in the day, and
consequently on the 13th of Nisan, and not at the commencement
of the 14th, which was the day of unleavened bread. lip. fine, we
regard the contradiction as hitherto insoluble, while we give our
entire assent to the narrative of St. John.
F F 2

43^ BOOK FIFTH.
glowing setting of the eastern sun, which reserves for the part
ing hour its most glorious beams, and enpurples the mountains
of Judaea before it sinks in night
Every circumstance tends to lend an incomparable pathos to
this scene. We are on the eve of the cracifixion; afar off
we hear the din of the city multitude, who to-morrow will
raise the death-cry; the disciples are gathered around the
Master. He sees them as sheep fallen among wolves, and the
traitor is in their midst. In view of anguish and perils unutter
able, the pitying love of Jesus flows forth in tender words.
The feast of the Passover, or of the Deliverance, was marked
by that simple and sublime solemnity which characterised the
Old Testament worship. The lamb slain for each Israelitish
family, recalled the deliverance and exodus from the land of
slavery on that awful night, when the firstborn of the Hebrews
escaped the death-doom which fell upon the Egyptians. From
the time of the prophet Isaiah, this meek and quiet victim had
prefigured a deliverance of an infinitely higher order. The un
leavened bread and bitter herbs symbolised the hasty flight of
the chosen people and the hardships of the desert life. Each
family assembled on the 14th of Nisan. The father, after a
short prayer, passed round again and again a cup of wine
mixed with water; every time it passed from hand to hand, a
psalm of adoration was sung. During this ceremony the son
of the house asked why the feast was kept, and then followed a
short recital of the exodus from Egypt; then the lamb was
eaten with unleavened bread. The feast concluded with the
passing round of a fifth cup and with a hymn of praise. The
father, at a certain moment, dipped a morsel of bread in the
bitter herbs; it was in reference to this ceremony that the
Passover was called also "the feast of unleavened bread"*
We find the main features of these solemn observances in
the repast of the upper chamber. Hardly has Jesus entered
* Olshausen. " Comment. Biblique sur l'histoire de la Passion,"
p. 12.

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 437
with His disciples when He takes the cup, saying, "With desire
I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer, for
I say unto you that I will no more eat thereof until it be ful
filled in the kingdom of God."* These words are the touching
expression of a purely human feeling; it is a friend addressing
his friends at the moment of parting from them. But the Son
of God is none the less manifest, for at the very moment when
He thus yields to the pathos of the farewell, He points to a
glorious reunion with His disciples in the life eternaL Then,
after the wonted prayer, He passes the cup.
All present stand at this opening of the 'feast; then comes
the moment for them to recline. The disciples, even in this
hour of holy sadness, dispute about the first place by their
Master, with an eagerness which springs as much from rivalry
as from ardent affection. Jesus brings to their memory that
singular order of the hierarchy of His kingdom, which reverses
the ranks of human life, and gives the highest place to the
lowliest: the Christian is not to be ministered unto, but to
minister like his Master. The more deeply to engrave this
precept on their hearts, Jesus takes a towel and performs the
meanest offices of hospitality, washing His disciples' feetf
He makes Himself in reality their servant. How could the
disciples desire to reign and rule after such an example? This
symbolic act gathers a new significance from the resistance of
Peter, who, ever a man of sudden impulses and rapid action,
would not consent to this condescension of his Master. He
learns first that He must yield an unquestioning obedience,
and then that the general purification of the soul obtained by
pardon, does not dispense with the daily cleansing; for the
pilgrim bound for heaven cannot pursue his journey without
the dust of the way cleaving to his feet. " He who is washed
needeth not save to wash his feet" But this teaching is only
as it were a passing episode; the great lesson of this solemn
hour is that the servants of a God who has humbled Himself,
* Luke xxiii. 15, 16. \ John xiii. 4, 5.

438 BOOK FIFTH. ,
should seek their glory in humilty and love, and that all pre
eminence should be transformed into a generous service to
humanity. The disciples, according to custom, have taken their places
on couches arouhd the table. John, in an impulse of sorrowful
and anxious affection, leans on the bosom of Jesus. He can
not endure the thought of losing so soon his divine friend, and
his still feeble faith only dimly discerns the future triumph
through the darkness of the present Then the Master's voice
is heard, saying, "One of you shall betray me." * The disciples
are filled with astonishment; on a sign from Peter, John asks
which of them is capable of so black a crime. Jesus replies
that the traitor is he whom He will point out by handing him,
according to the order of the Paschal meal, the sop dipped in
the bitter herbs. These words are exchanged in an under
tone; none of those present, except Peter and John, know the
terrible significance of the act about to be peformed. No
doubt the reproachful and indignant glance of Jesus is under
stood by Judas. It is a last appeal — the decisive hour of his
destiny is come; there is no middle way for him now between
full repentance or a final fall. The unhappy man gives himself
up to the devilish powers of which he is now only the tooL
" What' thou doest, do quickly," said Jesus to him, as He read
in his cold resolution that the end was sealed. Judas quitted
that sacred chamber to go and close his bargain with the San
hedrim. " It was night," adds St John, establishing a kind of
parallel between that soul, in which the last spark of good had
just been extinguished, and the darkness of the world without.
With the departure of the traitor a weight seems lifted from
all hearts. Jesus speaks of the glory which awaits Him, which
is also the glory of His Father. He points to His death by
these words, " Little children, yet a little while I am with you.
A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one
another."! The moment is come for the institution ofthe great
* Matt. xxvi. 21. ! John xiii. 33, 34.

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 439
sacrament of love. Still conforming to the customary usages
of the feast, Jesus takes unleavened bread and distributes it,
saying, "Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you;
this do in remembrance of me."* The second cup, blessed
by the master of the house, becdmes the' solemn token of His
blood shed for the world. ^'This cup," said He, "is the new
covenant in my blood, which is shed for you."! The mean
ing of these words, which have aroused so much stormy con
troversy, is simple and clear. The bread and the wine of the
first Eucharist could not by any possibility contain the very
body and very blood of the Christ, seated at the table and
Himself dispensing them. We are thus shut up to a symbolic
meaning, but the symbol contains a living and spiritual reality.
To ask and to take the solemn tokens of redemption, is to confess
before the world and before the Church, faith in this great fact,
and a resolve, like St Paul's, " to know nothing among men
save Jesus Christ and him crucified;" it is to express X desire
after a moral assimilation of His divine life, as positive as the
physical assimilation, which transmutes the material bread into
a part of our very substance; and as in the order of Christianity,
to ask is to receive, the disciple who participates in this sacred
feast, obtains a glorious confirmation of his faith in exchange
for his feeble testimony, for Christ gives Himself to the penitent
and believing soul. At the table of the Lord's supper, man
and God meet together — man with his best aspirations, God
with His richest gifts. The Eucharist is the most solemn and
most intense expression of the need of salvation, and is, in
consequence, the most real communication of the divine life.
It concentrates and unites all the elements of piety, and may
be called the sacrament of the Christian life. Yet more, it is
also the mystical feast of the Church, blending all hearts in
one common adoration. The sacred memorial of the free
* Toiiro can rb aSifid fiov, rb vwip vfidv iiiofievov (Luke xxii. ig.)
t ToSro rb voTrfpiov, r) xaivr) iidBrtxi] iv Tif a'tfiari fiov, ro virip ifi&v
'tKXwbfitvov (Luke xxii. 20.)

44° BOOK FIFTH.
pardon of God, it brings with it the spirit of pardon and of
mercy. This holy table is the meeting-point between the
mighty love which comes down from heaven, and the humble
and fervent love which rises from earth. There is no need to
seek in it any other mystery than the central mystery of the
GospeL It is to misrepresent the Lord's supper to make it
not the memorial, but the renewal of a sacrifice which could
only need to be repeated if it had been incomplete. Christ
did not say, "I will make myself again and again a sacrifice
upon the altar," but simply, "This do in remembrance of me."
" Nor yet that he should offer himself often," says the author
of the Epistle to the Hebrews, " but now once in the end of
the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself."* II. — Warnings and Consolations. The Sacerdotal Prayer.
The bread and the wine vividly typify the approaching
sacrifice. This day of trouble will be doubtless a day of
triumph for Jesus, but how can He forget the sadness and
despondency of His weak disciples ? They will be shaken by
the tempest like corn iri the sieve. Jesus foretells their de
fection. Peter protests with indignation, not having yet learned
to distinguish between natural ardour and stedfast faith; he
declares that he at least will continue faithful to his Master,
and that though all others should be scattered, he will remain
firm as a rock. Alas ! in this very night, before the cock crow,
he will have belied himself ! Jesus predicts his denial positively,
for He knows that presumption infallibly goes before a fallf
The disciples have no adequate idea of the gravity of the
impending crisis. To awaken them to a consciousness of it,
Jesus uses the symbolical method peculiar to Him. He ad
dresses them as soldiers about to enter on a campaign. " He
that hath no sword," He says, "let him sell his garment and
* Hebrews ix. 25, 26.
t Matthew xxvi. 34 ; John xiii. 36-38.

THE GREAT WEEK.— DEATH AND VICTORY. 441
buy one."* The apostles take literally the counsel which is only
intended to be figurative, and show Jesus two swords. The
petty number of combatants gathered round Him might suffice
of itself to dispel such a carnal illusion. Jesus' meaning is
simply this : " The hour of peril is come ; prepare yourselves to
meet it"
The last words of the Master fill the disciples with alarm ;
they feel that indescribable anguish which precedes heart
rending separations. And what a separation is that which is
awaiting them ! No more to see, no more to hear Jesus; to
be abandoned to those terrible temptations, which He had just
foretold; can there be any sorrow like theirs? Jesus seeks to
present to them consolation equal to their need, and He puts
it with that divine art which belongs only to perfect love.
" Let not your heart be troubled," He says, " ye believe in
God, believe also in me."! Such is the commencement of this
discourse, which is devoted to an enumeration of all His titles
to their confidence. He opensi first to them the most glorious
perspective; He speaks of that home of the blessed, whither
He is going to prepare a place for them. This is to be the sure
goal of all their labours and sufferings. " I will come again,"
He says, " and receive you unto myself." The return of Christ
is, in truth, the only efficient consolation for His departure.
Where He is, they shall be also ; this promise makes heaven to
them a home; it wears no more to their minds an aspect of
vague and terrible immensity. If Jesus is to be found again at
the end of the way, He is also the very way itself which leads
to God; nay more, he who hath seen Him hath already seen
God. " Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he
will give it you."]; But He gives them a yet more immediate
consolation. Nothing so raises and rejoices the heart as a
great mission, and the work which is appointed to them is one
which knows no limit, for they are called to gather the fruits of
their Master's labour; they shall do greater works than His,
* Luke xxii. 36. f John xiv. 1. \ John xv. 16.

442 BOOK FIFTH.
though their works will still be His, as consequences belong to
the producing principle Strength adequate for this sublime
mission shall be granted them. The Spirit of God Himself,
the Paraclete, the Comforter, shall be their efficient helper, the
light of their intellects, the fire of their hearts, the revealer to
them of all tmth. This Spirit will subdue the world, by means
of that which seemed to the Prince of this world the assured
pledge of his success. The cross will, in truth, prepare this
crowning victory, for the world, in setting it up, will manifest
its shameful unbelief in the Crucified. The glory which is to
follow His suffering will be the divine vindication of His name.
Finally, the accursed tree will become the pillory in which the
powers of evil will be exposed, for they have judged themselves
by nailing to it the Holy and Just One. Such is the meaning
of those controverted words, "When the Comforter is come he
will convince the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment
to come : of sin, because they believe not in me ; of righteous
ness, because I go to my Father; of judgment, because the
Prince of this world is judged."* If the operation of the divine
Spirit is wonderful without the Church, it is still more wonderful
within it. Through Him, Jesus will dwell in His own. Thus
will be realised that touching promise, the precious pledge of
an unalterable peace, which the world can neither give nor take
away, "I will not leave you comfortless, I will come unto
you."t The beautiful similitude of the vine and the branches
sets forth in all its intimacy and fruitfulness, the relation which
unites the disciple to the Master.]:
No mere sentiment of enthusiastic and ecstatic affection will
suffice — nothing but that holy love which finds expression in
obedience. " Ye are are my friends if ye do whatsoever I
command you."§ The first commandment of love is love.
Doubtless such love as this will imperil ease and earthly
happiness. " If they have persecuted me, they will also
* John xvi. 8—12. t John xiv. 18. t John xv. I— 6.
§ John xv. 14.

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 443
persecute you, but all these things will they do unto you for my
name's sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you, that ye shall weep
and lament, but the world shall rejoice; and ye shall be sorrow
ful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when
she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come, but when
she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the
anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And ye
now therefore have sorrow, but I will see you again, and
your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh
from you."* Assuredly it is expedient, as He says, that the
Master should go away, since He will certainly come again,
no more clothed in feeble flesh, which confines His presence to
one place, but invested with glory and power, so that He can
bestow Himself undividedly upon each disciple. Then He
will no more need to speak unto them in parables, for the full
daylight will have succeeded to the dawn.! Well may He who
has such promises and such consolations for His disciples, close
this pathetic exhortation with words of triumph: "Behold, the.
hour is coming, and now is, when ye shall be scattered every
man to his own, and shall leave me alone, and yet I am not
alone, because the Father is with me. In the world ye shall have
tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."]:
Thus, final victory in heaven at the end of the way, and in
the present life a glorious mission with the all-powerful aid of
the Holy Spirit, and the continual presence of Christ with His
own ; sufferings crowned with more abundant consolations and
with' the peaceable fruits of righteousness ; glorious persecutions
leading to more glorious triumphs; peace and joy abiding and
unutterable; — such is the bequest which Christ makes to His
disciples. These last discourses, so wonderfully adapted to
their weakness and sadness, are broken often by their anxious
questions, and so far from being, as they are represented, an
elaboration of transcendental theology, they lend themselves
naturally to all the incidents of a free colloquy.
* John xvi. 20-23. ! John xvi. 23-28. ] vevixtjxa (John xvi. 33.)

444 BOOK FIFTH.
When the last cup has gone round, and the hymn of thanks
giving has been sung, Jesus, leaving the upper chamber, turns
His steps with His disciples to His favourite retreat at the foot
of the Mount of Olives. But, before crossing the Cedron, He
lifts His eyes to heaven, and utters more than words of con
solation. He invokes His Father on behalf of His Church, in
that prayer, justly called His sacerdotal prayer, in which,
embracing at one glance all its perils, all its sorrows, and all its
needs, from that hour to its final consummation, He places
underneath it as it were, " the everlasting arms." To every
believer in the invisible world, this prayer must seem the
loftiest effort of the human spirit to rise to it. It seems like
the steady soaring of the eagle into the eternal light " Father,
the' hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify
thee. As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he
should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.
And this is life eternal, that they may know thee, the only tme
God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. I have glorified
thee on the earth, I have finished the work which thou gavest
me to do; and now, O Father, glorify thou, me with the glory
which I had with thee before the world was."* This glory
which He asks is, in fine, the full realisation of His work of
love ; He returns to heaven to carry on there what He has
begun in shame and humiliation upon earth. His desires
centre on the few disciples who are around Him ; they have
believed in Him, they have attached themselves to Him. It
is for them He prays at this hour, and not for the world, for
they are His, given Him by His Father, and won at the cost of
so much suffering. " And now I am no more in the world, but
these are in the world. While I was with them in the world I
kept them in my name; and now come I to thee. I have
given them thy word, and the world hath hated them because
they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world."!
Their loneliness, their temptations, their dangers are all re-
* John xvii. 1-5. ! John xvii. 14.

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 445 ,
membered. "I pray not that thou shouldest keep them from
the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth." How
great is their need of sanctification ! They are the sent of
Christ, as Christ is the sent of God, and they are to carry on
His work of redemption upon earth. "For their sakes I
sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified through the
tmth." The Priest of the new covenant thus offers to God, in
His person, the whole of that new humanity which He repre
sents in His sacrifice. It is not only for this handful, of
disciples that He prays, He sees in them the Church of every
age exposed to the same conflicts and trials. He will bear her
with Him into His glory, and introduce her, as it were, into
the mysterious unity of the Godhead. " That they all may be
one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also
may be one in us. Father, I will that they also whom thou
hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold
my glory. I have declared unto them thy name, and will de
clare it, that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in
them, and I in them."*
Thus does this prayer of Christ first cover His disciples as
with a shield in the day of battle, and then b,ear them up on
mighty wings into the very presence of the eternal glory. The
work of redeeming love is only then fulfilled, when, having
stooped to the lowest depths to seek the lost, it rises again with
the saved into the highest heavens, even into the inaccessible
light in which dwelleth God.
* John xvii. 24-26.

44$ , BOOK FIFTH.

CHAPTER V.
THE PASSION OF JESUS.
I. Gethsemane.*
A CROSS the Cedron, just at the foot of the Mount of
¦**"*- Olives, was a garden named from the oil press. Under
the heavy shade of its trees there was unbroken solitude; only
the rash of the brook was to be heard; of Jerasalem nothing
could be seen but the white sepulchres on the edge of the
ravine, which overhung the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and the lofty
porches of the Temple on Moriah. Here again and again
Jesus had sought and found a sure retreat. Thither He goes
once more with His apostles. He leaves them at the entrance
of the garden, except His three most familiar disciples, Peter,
James, and John.
There remain but a few hours now before His last humilia
tion and final sufferings. The Prince of Life is brought face to
face with death — a shameful death, instigated by all the fury of
devilish malice ! His murderers are the children of that be
loved Jerusalem which He has freely enriched with His
benefits, and over which He has wept burning tears of com
passion ; it had been enough that they belonged to mankind to
fill His soul with grief at such a crime. His death will be the
most complete manifestation of evil, for in it sin will display its
utmost power. We have already shown, in speaking of the
resurrection of Lazarus, how abnormal a fact death was to the
perfectly holy Being, who was also the supremely merciful and
* See Matt. xxvi. 36-46 ; Mark xiv. 32-42 ; Luke xxii. 39-46.

THE GREAT WEEK.  DEATH AND VICTORY. 44?
pitiful One. Thus, whether in His own person, or by a
sympathy so close as to be a complete appropriation of our
shame and griefs, Jesus is about to taste all the bitter con
sequences of the fall, concentrated in His agony; this is the
cup which to-morrow He will drink, and the bitterness of which
He tastes in anticipation in this solitary night. The sleeping
of His disciples, who cannot watch one hour with Him, gives
the presage of their flight, and of that utter loneliness which is
awaiting Him. The will of God for Him at this decisive
moment of His career is that terrible death, at once the full
manifestation and the full punishment of the sin of mankind.
He has accepted the will of His Father in all the various cir
cumstances of a life in which has already mingled much of
sorrow and reproach; by virtue of this obedience, He has
never ceased a single day to carry on His work of redemption,
but this moment brings Him face to face with , surpassing grief
and ignominy. He has, doubtless, already accepted all that
awaits Him; but the prospect, more or less remote, of sacrifice
is another thing from the sacrifice itself. Therefore it is that
He who found His meat and drink in doing the will of His
Father, must yet " leam obedience '' in that garden of agony
" with strong crying and tears."* Herein appears the reality
of His humanity.
This night in Gethsemane is a veritable agony. Sweat, like
great drops of blood, gathers on His brow; three times He
falls on His face with the prayer that, if it is possible, this cup of
bitterness may pass from Him. But it is not possible, and three
times over He repeats that supreme expression of obedience,
" Father, not my will, but thine be done."! These words, the
echo of His broken but submissive heart, inaugurated the era
of salvation for man, for in Christ they brought man back de
finitively into the paths of obedience.
At the close of this victorious conflict, an angel appeared by
* Hebrews v. 8.
t Mi) Tb 9iXt]fid jiov, dXXti. ro abv yevka9ia (Luke xxii, 42.)

448 BOOK FIFTH.
the side of Jesus, a messenger of peace and reconciliation;
heaven and earth were united on this spot, watered by the tears
and bloody sweat of the second Adam. The soul had over
come in the fulness of its freedom.
The silence of John as to the agony in Gethsemane furnishes
no ground for surprise, when it is once admitted that his is not
intended to be a complete narration. He, no less than the
other evangelists, presents to us, as we have seen, a Christ, the
sharer of our griefs and woes. To see irreconcilable con
tradiction between the majestic calmness of the last discourses
in the upper chamber and the groans of Gethsemane, is to
misconceive entirely the true character of humanity, ever sus
ceptible to different impressions ; it is to forget that the death
of Christ has a double aspect, that it unites suffering and glory,
shame and victory. Let us hold fast the blessed fact of the
full humanity of the Son of God.
II. The arrest. First trial.
At the first dawning of the day — less brilliant than the
heavenly light which flooded the soul of Jesus — a noisy troop
crossed the threshold of the lonely garden. It was led by one
who knew well the ways of the Master. Judas had promised
to point Him out to the rude subalterns who knew Him not
His aid had become indispensable since it had been decided to
use cunning rather than violence in striking the great blow, and
to avoid all popular agitation. Jesus was to be surprised at a
time and in a place in which He was sure not to be surrounded
by a crowd, and for this end it was needful to know his
habitual retreats. One of His familiar friends could alone
supply such information. All was to be done as quietly as
possible ; the sign agreed upon for the arrest was the kiss of the
traitor. "Judas," said Jesus, "betrayest thou the Son of man
with a kiss?" This poignant reproach awoke his conscience;
he drew back affrighted before the quiet majesty of Him whom
he had only consented to betray by stifling his scruples. The

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 449
rude men whom he led became suddenly conscious of the
power of Jesus; terrified and confounded by His effulgent dignity
they fell at His feet in spite of themselves. " Be ye come out
as against a thief, with swords and staves?" said Jesus. "When
I was daily with you in the temple, ye stretched out no hands
against me; but this is your hour and the power of darkness."*
As Soon as they had recovered from their first terror, the
emissaries of the Sanhedrim laid hold of Jesus. It was then
the impetuous son of Jonas drew his sword, and wounded the
servant of the high priest. Jesus wrought His last miraculous
cure upon this man, and the rash zeal of Peter called forth for
the Church that sublime declaration, which sets the might of
invincible truth against the power of the sword and of force.
"Put up thy sword into thy sheath; for all they that take the
sword shall perish by the sword."!
Jesus was led back a prisoner into the still silent city. He
was brought in haste to the house of Annas, the ex-high priest,
and father-in-law to the actual high priest ; his house appears
to have been adjoining that of Caiaphas. J Although dis
possessed of the tiara, he had preserved a great influence over
the Sanhedrim, which was full of his relations and creatures.
Jesus had no more deadly enemy than this cunning head of a
priestly family, inured to the intrigues of the Temple, and as a
Sadducean and a priest animated with a double hatred to the
Saviour. His intention probably was to prepare for the formal
audience ofthe Sanhedrim. He plays in the trial of Jesus the
part of an examining magistrate^ In the absence of any
clearly defined points of accusation, it was needful to take ex
ceptional precautions to ensure the sentence. Annas asks
Jesus of His disciples and His doctrine. Jesus replies, "I
spake openly to the world ; I ever taught in the synagogue, and
* Luke xxii. 52, 53. t Matt. xxvi. 52.
J This may be inferred from the fact that John is introduced into
the house of Annas through his relations with Caiaphas (John xviii.
13). See Godet II., p. 585.
§ John alone mentions the examination before Annas.
6G

45° BOOK FIFTH.
in the temple, whither the Jews always resort, and in secret
have I said nothing. Why askest thou me ? Ask them which
heard me what I have said unto them; behold they know what
I said." Nothing is more irritating to men of passion than
calm like this. One of those present strikes the accused in
the face. Jesus says meekly, " If I have spoken evil, bear
witness ofthe evil; but if well, why smitest thou me?" Such
is His attitude under this vile outrage. He does not even
betray the natural indignation, which on a similar occasion
draws an anathema from St. Paul. The distance is vast
between the greatest of the disciples and the Master. What
majesty is there in such meekness !
As soon as .the Sanhedrim could be assembled, Jesus was
led away to the palace of Caiaphas. Just as He was leaving
the house of Annas, He heard Peter declaring with oaths and
curses, "I know not the man." It was his third deniaL The
first had been uttered in the vestibule of the palace, upon a
remark of the portress who recognised him. The unhappy
disciple had then taken refuge in the court, where the servants
had lighted a great fire to warm themselves. Another maid
servant called forth his second denial. His provincial accent
, then made him the butt of the raillery of those present, who
taunted him as a Galilean; it was on this provocation he
uttered the cowardly denial which grieved the heart of his
Master. At the same moment the cock crew. Peter remem
bered the prophetic warning which had so roused his ire, but
above all he was melted by that look, full of sorrow and love,
which Jesus cast upon him. He went out and wept bitterly.*
He was to come forth from this depth of humiliation a new
man. The fate of Judas was widely different: tortured by the
* The narrative of John, xviii. 15-19, alone bears the character of
ocular testimony. In the synoptics we have no mention of the
examination before Annas, and Peter's denial is not inserted at the
true time and place. The discrepancies of detail are unimportant.
Luke speaks of a servant man (xxii. 58), while Matthew and Mark
speak of a maid (Matthew xxvi. 71 ; Mark xiv. 69.)

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 45 1
memory of his crime, he threw down in the Temple the terrible'
wages of his treachery, and then ended his accursed life on the
field of Aceldama.*
The trial of Jesus was gone through according to form in
presence of the Sanhedrim, presided over by Caiaphas. The
endeavour was to establish, if possible, a ground of accusation
which might ensure a sentence of capital punishment from the
Roman governor, in whom alone was vested the power of life
and death. The sitting was tumultuous. Jesus was arraigned
not before judges but before implacable enemies, eager only to
be avenged on Him. In order to give some foundation, to the
charge of sedition, two false witnesses were brought forward,
who affirmed that they had heard Him say that He would
destroy the Temple, and rebuild it in three days.! They in
terpreted these words in the most material sense, to educe from
them a design of revolt against the national religion. The high
priest himself urged Jesus to disown all claim to divine Son-
ship. Upon this, He rose to the full height of His dignity.
At this decisive hour He did not hesitate to assume, in all its
majesty, that title of Son of God, which was about to cost Him
His life, precisely because His death would deprive it of all
theocratic significance. "What further need have we of
witnesses," exclaimed the high priest, rending his clothes in
indignation; "behold now ye have heard his blasphemy."
"Then," as St. Luke tells us, "said they, Art thou then the
Spn of God? And he said unto them, ye say that I am."*
* According to the narrative of St. Peter, in the Acts, Judas him
self bought the field in which he committed suicide (Acts i. 18);
while according to Matthew xxvii. 6, 7, it was the Sanhedrim which 1
purchased the field after his death with the price of his treason, and
set it apart for the burial of strangers.
! M. Renan maintains that the same mode of procedure in trials
of this kind is found point for point in the Talmud ("Vie de Jesus,"
p. 39-41). In our view, it is this very trial of Jesus Christ which
has furnished this mode of procedure, the drawing up of which is of
much subsequent date to His condemnation.
J Luke xxii. 70, 71. G G 2

45 2 BOOK FIFTH.
Then said they, " He is guilty of death." The judges sent out
the accused that they might take counsel together. It was
during this interval that the menials of the temple heaped on
Him their insults, spitting in His face, blindfolding and smiting
Him, and in bitter irony calling on Him to use His prophetic
gift and declare who was the smiter. The Sanhedrim decided
to bring Him without delay before the tribunal of the propraetor,
who was present at Jerusalem for the feasts. Horrible beyond
comparison is this spectacle of the boasted sons of Abraham,
dragging before a heathen judge the descendant of their kings,
the subject of so many aspirations, of so many oracles. He is
brought to the praetorium like the vilest criminal, by a fanatical
crowd, headed by the chief magistrates qf the nation.
III. Jesus before Pilate.
In front of the praetorium was a court paved with mosaic,*
where waited the soldiers on duty. The Jews would not cross
its threshold, lest they might be defiled by contact with any
thing profane on the eve of their greatest feast! The governor
before whom Jesus appeared was that same Pontius Pilate, of
whose policy we have spoken as so ill-judged rii ,a land agitated
by strong religious passions. He was one of those magistrates,
by turns yielding and violent, who estimate nothing but force,
and seek nothing but their personal interest. Such men are
not cmel by nature, but they show themselves ready to sacrifice
justice and the blood of the innocent, to the meanest gain or
the slightest fear ; without any fixed principle, they sometimes
obey a good impulse, but there is no guarantee for the motive-
power of the next hour. Pilate is a worthy representative of a
society which has lost faith in religion, in morality, in every
thing. Up to this day those who have come before him have
been all courtiers or men of faction; now for the first time he
meets with a living conscience; he is confronted with that
moral power against which Rome, the city of might, has made
* Hence the name Gabbatha (John xix. 13.) ! John xviii. 28.

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 453
no provision, and which will snatch from her the world which
she thinks she has enchained for ever. The character of Pilate
is drawn with marvellous trathfulness in the story of our
Gospels. He is a true Roman of the age of Tiberius, without
faith in the gods, yet troubled by a dream, a man at once
sceptical and superstitious, turning pale at the mere mention of
disloyalty to Caesar, and yet, through the judicial instinct of
his race, recovering the sense of justice so soon as he mounts
his tribunal. A veritable epicurean, he manifests impatient
disdain at what appears to him a theological quarrel ; no charge
can be more ridiculous and frivolous in his eyes than one which
bears upon religion; he would willingly throw the cause back
upon the Sanhedrim, but he soon perceives that this door of
escape is closed to him, since the case is one which may lead
to capital punishment. He finds himself compelled to proceed
with the trial, for, by a shameless equivocation, the enemies
of Jesus accuse Him of rebellion against Caesar for asserting
His claim as Messiah. Now it is indubitable that they brought
Him to that bar, solely because He had refused to lend Him
self to any political action.
Then commenced that examination which brings out so
signally the weakness of the representative of the sword, when
confronted with the representative of truth. Mounted on his
seat of honour, robed in his toga, surrounded by his soldiers,
the judge appears as the miserable tool of the populace. The
accused, on the other hand, preserves His dignity because He
relies on God alone. The free man here is not the proud
magistrate; it is the condemned at the bar. To the fierce in
vectives of the Jews, Jesus deigns no reply but silence. He
does not pay them the honour of exculpating Himself. He
will only answer Pilate, when He has been assured that his
question is not a mere echo of the synagogue.
This first part of the examination was conducted in the outer
tribunal, where the governor gave his decisions from an elevated
seat, raised upon a richly-decorated marble platform. Desirous

454 . • BOOK FIFTH.
to enquire more minutely into the case, Pilate retires into an
inner hall, which was used for purposes of enquiry. There he
asks Jesus, "Art thou the king ofthe Jews?"— "Speakest
thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell it thee of me?"
— ' ' Am I a Je w ? " replies the Roman disdainfully. " Thine own
.people and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me.
What hast thou done V . " My kingdom is not of this world,"
answered Jesus.* "If my kingdom were of this world, then
would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the
Jews; but now is my kingdom not from hence." The rough
Roman soldier knows not how to conceive of a kingdom which
owns no sword to guard it " Art thou a king then 1" he asks.
" Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I bom, and
for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness
unto the truth." "What is truth?" replies Pilate, with the
smile of that foolish wisdom which believes only in things
visible.! He knows no more what is tmth than what is justice,
and therefore his good will, based only on a passing impres
sion, will not stand against the popular clamour. He is im
pressed, however, by the simple majesty of Jesus, and his wife
at the same moment sends him a warning message, that she has
Suffered many things in a dream because of the Galilean.]
Pilate would willingly release Jesus if he could only devise any
means for appeasing the Jews. Tired of their noisy imprecations,
he seeks to escape a responsibility of which he feels a vague
dread, and sends Jesus to Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee,
then staying in Jerasalem for the feast, and who might be
* 'H f3aaiXeia r) ifirf oix tariv ix tov xoafiov tovtov (John xviii. 36).
! The scepticism of Pilate recalls the famous saying of Pliny ;
"Ut .solum certum sit, nihil esse certi nee miserius quidquam
homine nee superbius."
X This incident confirms the minute accuracy of the Gospel
record. The historians of the time tell us, that the prohibition
issued by Augustus against proconsuls taking their wives into their
provinces, had fallen into desuetude in the time of Tiberius (Tacitus,
"Annals" I. 40; II . 54).

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 455
regarded as His natural judge.* Jesus gives no reply to the
questions put to Him in idle curiosity by this vile tyrant,
stained with the blood of the Baptist. , Herod having in vain
sought to see some miracle done by Him, delivers Him to the
soldiers. These array Him in a white robe and smite Him
with their hands ; then they bring Him back to the praetorium,
where the final decision must be given.
Pilate tries one last expedient to save the accused. He
proposes to release Him in honour of the approaching feast,
conformably to a custom established by his predecessors, of
granting an act of pardon to one Jewish prisoner at each
Passover. The people, at the instigation of their religious
leaders, clamour for the release of a vile murderer named
Barabbas, and exclaim in one voice against Jesus, " Crucify
him, crucify him!" Pilate sentences Jesus to be scourged,
which was sometimes the method of putting the accused to
torture, sometimes the preliminary of cracifixion. He hopes'
that the Jews will feel themselves sufficiently avenged by this
degrading punishment. The soldiers treat Jesus with refined
cruelty. As if to carry on Herod's horrible mockery, they
clothe Him in a purple robe, put a crown of thorns on His1
brow, and a reed in His hand, then scourge Him without pity.
When the propraetor brings Him forth to the people, bleeding
and insulted, saying, " Behold the man!" the cries of " Crucify
him!" rise again with redoubled force. Feeling the case despe
rate, Pilate says to the Jews, " Take ye him and crucify him, fori
find no fault in him." The judge re-enters the praetorium ioi
a morrient ; he is troubled ; the truth flashes a lightning gleatri
across his heart ; he feels that this prisoner is unlike any he has1
ever known. As though catching a gliinpse of His divine
greatness, he asks Jesus, "Whence art thou?" As Jesus keep$
silence, the Roman magistrate asserts his discretionary power.
* The tetrarch, according to Josephus, was in the habit of rer
pairing to the holy city on the occasion of the solemn feasts
("Ant.," XVIII. 5,3). ¦¦'<¦¦•;

45 6 BOOK FIFTH.
" Speakest thou not unto me 1 knowest thou not that I have
power to cracify thee and have, power to release thee 1" The
only answer he receives is the sublime defiance of the material
power by the moral. " Thou could'st have no power at all
against riie except it were given thee from above : therefore, he
that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin." If Pilate
had listened but to his own heart, he would have immediately
released Jesus, but his feeble impulses to right were not proof
against the pressure from without ; conscience alone stands like
a rock against the strong floods of an infuriated crowd. Pilate
is swayed most of all by that artful insinuation of the accusers,
" If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend. Who
ever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar." The
Caesar of his day was that Tiberius, under whom, according to
Tacitus, the accusation of treason was almost always fatal*
Pilate openly sacrifices Jesus to his ambition, knowing that he
is condemning an innocent man ; in vain is it for him to wash
his hands ; the stain of blood remains indelible upon his fore
head and upon his name ; by his connivance he has given to
this awful crime of the synagogue the concurrence of the
heathen world ; he has made it the crime of humanity, a crime
the awful weight of which rests upon a whole fallen race.
IV. The Execution.
As soon as the condemnation had been pronounced, Jesus
was delivered to the soldiery to be led to the place of execu
tion. No punishment equalled in horror and infamy that of
death by crucifixion ;! it was only inflicted on the lowest of
the people, on slaves or captives of war — those, in fact, who
were considered beyond the pale of the law. ] It was not per
mitted to sentence a Roman citizen to such a death, for how-
* " Majestatis crimen omnium accusationum complementum
erat'' (Tacitus, "Annals" III. 38).
t " Crudelissimum teterrimumque supplicium" (Cicero in " Verr."
V. 64).
J " Servile supplicium" (" Id." 66).

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY., 457
ever great might -have been his crime, the judges were bound
to recognise in him the dignity of that proud city, which
respected herself in the least of her children. Crucifixion,
entirely foreign to the Jewish code, had been introduced into
Jerasalem by the proconsuls. They sentenced to this most
shameful death, political agitators and criminals of the lower
orders. Crosses had been planted at the same time as the
Roman eagles on the soil of Judaea, and were the tokens of a
detested rule. * But we have already seen how enmity against
Jesus overmastered hatred of the foreigner, in the hearts of the
Pharisees. Thus they did not hesitate to demand for the
Galilean a sentence of death, the very thought of which, on
other occasions, would have roused all their indigna
tion. A great procession was formed. The crowd pressed behind
the Roman soldiers charged with the execution of the sentence ;
these were headed by a mounted centurion.! The disciples
were scattered ; some of the pious women who had followed
Jesus during the days of His ministry lingered on the skirts of
the crowd, ready to seize the first opportunity of giving Him
some fresh proof of their holy love. The condemned was pre
ceded, according to Roman custom, by an inferior officer of
the praetorium, who bore before him the block of white wood,
on which the sentence of condemnation was written in large
characters. ] According to usage the prisoner carried his own
cross ;§ but Jesus, worn out by His night-watch of agony, by
the long examinations He had undergone, by the cruel treat
ment and outrage He had received, fainted under the burden.
The Roman soldiers, who regarding Judaea as a "conquered
country, did not hesitate at any time to demand onerous ser-
* Josephus, "Ant." XVII. 10, io ; XX. VI., 2.
t Mark xv. 39. The centurion who took the oversight of the
execution was called exactor mortis, or supplicio propositus (Tac,
"Annals," III. 14 ; Sen., "De Ira" I, 16).
X Suetonius, "Caligula" 32 ; Eusebius, " H. E.," V. I. 19.
§ Plutarch, " Ser. num. vind.," c. IX.

458 book "fifth.
vices of its inhabitants,* stopped on his way a certain Simon, of
Cyrene,! coming out of the country ; him they compelled to
bear the cross of Christ, little dreaming that they were con
ferring on him the highest of all honours; for what glory can
be compared with that of sharing such reproach ? The Cyrenian
was probably won to Jesus on this day; his sons, doubtless
trained under his influence, stood forth subsequently among
the distinguished members of the Church of Rome. J How
would this Christian household rejoice to record, in their
holiest ancestral annals, this bearing of the cross for Jesus !
The way which led from the praetorium to the place of
execution was not long ; it lay to the north-west of the Temple
At the gate of Jerusalem, which opened on this side, rose a
little bare elevation called the hill of the skull, or Golgotha ;
it had been chosen as the place for executions, because, while
lying beyond the walls, § it was yet sufficiently near the town to
allow spectators.
Just as the procession reached the fatal spot, the crowd
opened, and Jesus saw close beside Him the group of pious
women who had been following ; they were accompanied by
some Jews who had been, the witnesses, perhaps even the sub
jects of His miracles ; they had not had courage to protest in
the praetorium against the false accusation of the Pharisees, but
they could not restrain their emotion at this sorrowful moment
Their tears flowed as they beheld the preparations for death.
Jesus alone rose above all these things. He would die as He
had lived, forgetful of self; that over which he wept in this
bitter hour was the woe of the unhappy city which had
* The philosopher Arrian has described, in a few words, these
brutal proceedings of the Roman soldiery : " When a heavy task is
imposed upon thee," he says, "accept if without a murmuring, else
thou wilt only receive blows, without being able to help thyself "
(Tholuck, " Glaubwiirdigkeit," p. 362).
+ A city of Lybian Africa.-
X Mark xv. 21. Compare Rom. xvi. 13.
§ The punishment of crucifixion was always inflicted beyond the
walls (Plautus, " Miles Gloriosus," Act II., Scene IV'.

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 459
rejected Him. He knew tliat these timid friends who offered
Him a tardy pity would be involved in the coming catastrophe.
"Daughters of Jerasalem," He exclaimed, "weep not forme,
but weep for yourselves and for your children, for behold the
'days are coming in the which they shall say* Blessed are the
barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps that
never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say to the moun
tains, Fall on us, and to the hills, cover us ; for if they Ho these
things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry ?"* In
other words, if the innocent and the just are thus treated, how
shall it be with the guilty ? As a fact, before , many years had
passed away, the Romans could not find room enough on the
soil of Jerasalem to set up the crosses, on which they put to
death the rebel Jews.!
The instrument of torture was not of great height, since the
lips of Jesus could be reached by a soldier offering Him vinegar
to drink from a sponge placed on a reed. ] The cross was in
the form of a T. A sort of block placed in the centre was
intended to support the sufferer. § The hands, and probably
the feet of the crucified, were fastened with nails, after having
been tightly bound. ||
Three crosses were set up at the same time, for two thieves
had been brought from their cell to be put to death with Jesus.
The writing placed above the bead of Christ, bore in Hebrew,
Greek, and Latin, the words, This is the King of the JewsMi
* Luke xxii, ; 28-38.
! Josephus, "Bell. Jud." V. 11, 1.
j Matt, xxvii. 48.
§ In quo requiescit qui clavis affigitur (Irenaeus, "Adv. Haer."
II. 42)
|| The whole ancient Church applied to Jesus the 16th verse of
Psalm xxii., They pierced my hands and my feet. No doubt the
application was founded on an old tradition. The passage, Luke
xxiv. 39, Behold my hands and my feet, seems decisive on this
point. In support of this opinion the lines of Plautus may be
adduced ("Mostell" II. 1, 13). Ut affligantur bis pedes bisbrachia.
fl Luke xxiii. 38.

460 BOOK FIFTH.
They expressed the bitter irony of the Roman governor for the
subject people, whom he delighted to irritate, even at the
moment when against his conscience he was giving them
satisfaction. It was a method of avenging himself for the
violence they had done to him, in compelling him to deliver
Jesus to their will. He did not know that this contrast
between so low an origin and so glorious a title, which seemed
to him only a cause, for mockery, was the distinctive character
of the new religion, and that there is no higher revelation of
the free and sovereign power of the divine Spirit, than this
independence of all the material conditions of greatness. He
silences the remonstrances of the Jews with the haughty words,
so characteristic of the Roman, " That which I have written, I.
have written." " Quod scriptum est, est scriptum!"
The preparations for death are completed ; the moment is
come to bind the sufferers and nail them to the accursed tree.
According to Jewish custom, they offer Jesus a bitter draught,
intended to stupify the sufferer, and to some degree to deaden
the agony. * But Jesus will not draw calm and peace from a
narcotic. He will win them in full conflict ; His death is to be
a free sacrifice ; and far from seeking to deaden His moral
vigour, He is about rather to gather up all its force. His death
is a voluntary immolation. Jesus is at once victim and priest,
since He offers up Himself. Thus He refuses the stupifying
cup, that He may drink to the last drop the cup of suffering.
The soldiers who act as His executioners fasten Him to the
cross ; their countenances bespeak a mixture of scorn and cruel
hardness : they fulfil their task as they have done a hundred
times before. In sooth, what care they for the execution of
one criminal more or less in a conquered country ? Are they
not accustomed to shed blood like water at the command of
* Matt, xxvii. 34. We find the following words in the Talmud :
"When a man was led out to death, a cup was given in which were
some drops of wine mingled with incense, to deaden his sensibility
{Gemara Cod. Sanhedrim). See Tholuck, " Glaubwiirdigkeit," p. 362.
Myrrh produced the same effect.

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 46 1
their generals? Jesus, self-forgetful even in such a moment,
pities the bratal ignorance, which hides from the very actors in
this dark drama the bearing of their deeds. " Father," He
cries, "forgive them; they know not what they do."* Thus,
even in the hour which seems to belong to the powers of
darkness, love is stronger than hate. The victory is with
Jesus, for in pardoning such a crime He shows how fully He
possesses His soul The very vapours of the pit can bring no
allqy to His divine charity ; He loves in spite of all ; those
whom He pardons are conquered by this infinite and triumphant
love, which, expressing itself in prayer, is a manifestation of
His abiding oneness with the Father. And yet sorrow and
shame go on gathering and thickening around Him !
He undergoes the slow and terrible torture of crucifixion,
which does not cut life off at a stroke, but exhausts it drop by
drop, and produces fearful agony in the nervous system.
Wherever His eye turns, He sees only objects of grief and
shame. On His right hand and on His left, are the two
thieves crucified with Him. At the foot of the cross, the
soldiers, using their privilege of sharing the poor spoils of the
condemned, are parting His garments among them; and,
blending coarse tavern play with their bmtal sport, are casting
lots for His seamless vesture.! Around the gate of the city is
a tumultuous crowd, whose fierce and cruel clamour falls upon
His ears. The greater number, doubtless, watch His agony
only as one of those spectacles which amuse the vulgar multi
tude; but in the foremost rank are the creatures of the.
Sanhedrim. These wretches pass before Him, wagging their
heads in token of disdain,] and casting in His teeth the very
words which formed the basis of the false charge on which He
had been condemned in the morning. Probably the hirelings,
who had born false witness against Him at the bar of the
* TlaTtp, atjieg airoXg- oi ydp oiiaai ri iroiovai (Luke xxiii. 34)-
! John xix. 23, 24; Matt, xxvii. 35 ; Luke xxiii. 34.
J TLivovvTeg Tdg Ktj>aXdg airiov, xai Xeyovreg (Matt, xxvii. 39).

462 BOOK FIFTH.
Sanhedrim, were found again before the cross to which they
had helped to bring Him. " O, thou that destroyest fhe temple
and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son
of God come down from the cross."* The soldiers stupidly
repeat taunts which are without meaning to them, which they
only know are words of outrage. But it is not enough for the
heads of the hierarchy to insult Jesus through their instraments;
their hatred burns to find yet more direct and free expression
against the bleeding Galilean. Judges, priests, doctors as they
are, men most scrupulous in the observance of forms in
common life, they yet join with the rude populace in heaping
insult on their dying foe. Nothing could more clearly betray
their furious rage against Him, and the terror with which He
had inspired them. With an infernal refinement of cruelty,
possible only to degraded souls, in which evil has taken the
gigantic proportions peculiar to religious crimes, they taunt
Jesus with His own miracles. " He saved others, himself he
cannot save."! They cannot find words of irony enough for
this pretended King of Israel suffering between two thieves, for
the Son of God on the point of death ; and they in their turn
repeat the, mocking cry, " Come down from the cross."] Thus,,
while the pardoning love of Jesus comes forth triumphant from
the terrible ordeal of suffering, the hatred of the Pharisees is
not disarmed even by the sight of the cross. Their bitter
malice is the satanic reverse of the prayer of the victim for His
murderers. In tmth, the members of. the Sanhedrim re-enact
at Calvary the scene of the morning ; they repeat before the
Crucified that which they said to the Accused. Can we wonder?
Not for an instant did they act as judges, they were throughout
implacable enemies using the brutal right of might
It would not be possible, however, that in presence of this
supreme manifestation of the love of Christ, impiety alone
* Matt, xxvii. 40.
t "A\\ow£ lauioev, iavrbv ob ivvarai adaai (Matt, xxvii. 42),
X Kara/Sana vvv <i"rd tov aravpov (Mark XV. 32).

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 463
should lift its head. Of the two robbers at His side, one
mingled his broken voice with the blasphemies of the Jews ;
the other, touched by the holy calm of Jesus, and more still by
that expression of heavenly love which beamed upon His brow,
yielded to the mysterious awe from which even Pilate himself
could not escape. For the first time he felt himself in contact
with perfect holiness, and he beheld it mocked and crucified !
Reproving his comrade, he said, "Does thou not fear God,
seeing that thou art in the same condemnation? And we,
indeed, justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds, but
this man hath done nothing amiss."* The language of the
penitent thief forbids us to suppose him to have been (as has
been said) one of those fanatics, who like Theudas and
Barabbas, had set up the standard of revolt If he had acted
such a part, he would have gloried in it instead of confessing
his guilt, and would have died as an enthusiast. No ; he was
only a common malefactor, and it was for this he was chosen,
so as to throw the more dishonour on the death of Jesus. But
defiled with crimes as he was, his conscience was not dead, and
awaking, it did homage to perfect holiness. " Lord, remember
me when thou comest into thy kingdom." "This day," replies
Jesus, "shalt thou be with me in paradise."! A sublime re
sponse to the defiance hurled at Him by the scribes ! He
comes not down from the cross at their challenge, but He
hangs there to pardon and save ; the pierced hands of the
sufferer open heaven to an immortal soul. Never was His
divine power more manifest than at this hour.
Suddenly, in the midst of the crowd, appeared a little group
who had crept through it unobserved. It consisted of three
women and one disciple. There was Mary, the mother of
Jesus, her heart pierced through with the sword which the
venerable Simeon had predicted ; the depths of her agonized
love are expressed in those words of the ancient hymn :
* Luke xxiii. 40, 41.
t 'Afir)v Xiyia aoi, ai)fiepov fter' ifiov lay iv Tip irapaieiaip (Luke xxiii. 43).

4°4 BOOK FIFTH.
Stabat mater juxta crucem,
Dum pendebat filius.
Her sister Mary, the wife of Cleophas, was with her, as also Mary
Magdalene, who brings to the Crucified the tribute of her tears, as
the other Mary of Bethany had brought her precious ointment.
The disciple was John, the friend of the Master. Touching
heroism of love which nothing could arrest, nothing terrify,
even in that hour of universal desertion and extreme agony !
With what consolation must the eye of Jesus have rested on
those faces, full of intense and tender sympathy ! Possibly
Mary and John were better comforters to Him at Calvary than
the angel had been in Gethsemane. But even in that dying
moment, He did not dwell on that which affected Himself.
" Woman," He said to His mother, who was leaning on the
beloved disciple, "Woman, behold thy son."*
Two hours had passed since the nailing to the cross. Death
was approaching. In the case of Jesus it was not caused so
much by the actual suffering of the crucifixion, as by all which
had preceded and accompanied it Thick darkness veiled the
light of day ; this was the indication not of an eclipse (which
would not have been possible then, as the moon was at the
full), but of an earthquake.! God permitted this coincidence
the better to mark the greatness of the event. It was at this
extreme moment, when passing through that unutterable anguish
which precedes the breaking of the tie between body and soul,
at least in every case of conscious dissolution, that Jesus uttered
the piercing cry, " Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani ! My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me?"] The cry ofthe psalmist
thus broke naturally from His lips. Most unjust is it to regard
these words as a proof of the divine curse resting upon the
holy victim. The forsaken need not be the accursed; an
* rbvai, iioi b vibg aov (John xix. 26).
t Julius Africanus had observed this. It appears that at the
same time an earthquake overthrew a great part of the city of
Nicea (Neander, "Vie de Jesus" II. p. 447).
J Mark xv. 34.

THE GREAT WEEK — DEATH AND VICTORY. 4.65
accursed man does not call God his God, does not dispose of
heaven, does not commend his spirit into the hands of his
Father. But it remains true, nevertheless, that death is the
wages of sin, and a fearful anomaly in God's creation. What
must it not have been in the eyes of Him, whose rightful title
is the Prince ; of Life, and who had done nothing to merit
death ? To His view it was inseparable from an awful crime,
in which were unchained all the powers of evil. The soul, no
doubt, dies not, but at the moment when it is about to break
its tenement of clay, it is conscious of the transitory but terrible
suffering of ceasing to be ; it is, as it were, separated for an
instant from the principle and active cause of life, since the
organs which are its actual instruments of thought begin to fail.
Can it be conceived what such an experience must have been
to the only and well-beloved Son of the Father ? His failing
consciousness could no longer grasp with clearness the eternal
object of its love ; the face, which is fulness of joy, was veiled
from Him. How should He not exclaim, " My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me ?" It is not necessary, in order to
explain this bitter cry, to suppose that the indignation of the
Father was kindled against His Son at the moment when He
was fulfilling the most holy act, and drinking the last drops of
the cup which the flesh had trembled to take. The anguish of
such agony for a being like Jesus, sufficiently explains the
piercing accents that burst from His lips.
The Jews imagined that He was calling for Elias, an idea
accounted for by the wide-spread belief, that this great prophet
was about to re-appear to prepare the way for Messiah. A
feeling of terror spread with the deepening darkness. Again
Jesus cried, "I thirst"* Such words are a convincing proof
that there is no resemblance between Jesus and the Messiah of
eastern Asia. Buddha would have felt it a dishonour to
utter such a cry. But Jesus did not die to annihilate the body ;
He died, not to destroy the physical life, but to renew the
* Auj/iZi (John xix. 28).
H H

466 BOOK FIFTH.
spiritual life by His sacrifice. Thus He affected none of that
false impassibility which is the highest ideal of India. Between
the Crucified, who asks that His burning thirst may be allayed,
and the fakir who allows himself to be crashed beneath the
chariot of his god, there is all the distance which separates a
free and holy sacrifice of love from a deed of frantic suicide.
When Jesus had moistened His lips with the sponge dipped
in vinegar, which seems to have been at hand for the purpose,*
He felt that His last moment was come. " Father," He
exclaimed, "into thy hands I commend my spirit ;" then came
the closing utterance, "It is finished."! In truth, this death
was the great consummatum est of the religious history of man
kind. " It hath pleased the Father," says St. Paul, " by the
blood of his cross to reconcile all things unto himself, whether
they be things on earth or things in heaven."
The evangelists, especially St. John, in relating the last
moments of Jesus, seem struck with the coincidence of many
circumstances of this great scene with the features of ancient
prophecy. They take pleasure in bringing these forward with
a minuteness which cannot be attributed to Jesus Himself.
His spirit soared high above all such considerations. We have
already seen that the Old Testament may be regarded through
out as one great type of Redemption ; every event of the
sacred history had a reference to the future, and to the believing
Jews the future was always the kingdom of the Messiah. The
evangelists are not then mistaken in the correspondence they
establish between the texts of the sacred books and the facts
which were accomplished on Calvary. But it would be dero
gating from the dignity of this incomparable drama, to regard
it as the mere carrying out of a scriptural programme minutely
laid down beforehand.
* This vinegar was perhaps the posca, or bitter draught, that the
Roman soldiers carried about with them.
f Ilorep eig %6ipas aov irapari9efiai rb rrvevfid fiov (Luke xxiii. 46).
TeTsKeorat (John xix. 30).

THE GREAT WEEK — DEATH AND VICTORY. 467
At the very moment of Jesus' death, occurred the earthquake
of which the deepening darkness had been the sign. The veil
which divided the Temple sanctuary was rent in twain,* as if
to declare that the time of a particular priesthood had come to
an end, and the era of a universal priesthood had commenced.
Long-buried bodies of the saints arose and appeared to some
of the disciples. Many of the people who were come together,
beholding the things that were done, seemed to have been
struck with awe, and returned smiting their breasts. The cen
turion, who had commanded the company charged to attend
the crucifixion, was among the foremost to own himself van
quished, and to exclaim, "Surely this was a righteous man."!
He had, in tmth, never beheld such a spectacle ; he had seen his
comrades in arms die boldly in the day of battle ; he had probably
witnessed the reckless temerity of the gladiator giving his life
to the sword, but he had never known till that day the
heroism of self-immolating obedience and the holy grandeur of
sacrifice. In Judaea the crucified were not left for an indefinite time
upon the cross. It was the practice to hasten their death, and
then to bury them.] This usage would be the more strictly
observed on the eve of a great feast The soldiers broke with
a club the legs of the two thieves. They would have inflicted
the same treatment on Jesus, but perceiving that He was
dead already, they pierced His side with a spear, and forthwith
there came thereout blood and water — a circumstance explained
by the fact that He had but just expired. § The evangelist
* Matt, xxvii. 5 1-56.
f "Ovriiig b dv9pui7rog oirog iixaiog r)v (Luke Xxiii. 47.)
X According to the Roman custom the corpse was left to rot on
the cross, and left to the birds of prey (Juvenal xliv. 77). Plautus,
" Miles Gloriosus," II. 4-19. Respect for the mortal remains of man
had modified this usage in Judaea (Josephus, "Bell. Jud." IV. 5, 2.
Compare Deuteronomy xxi. 22, 23).
§ John xix. 35-37. This explanation appears to be the best
answer to the objections made to the sacred narrative from a physio
logical point of view, according to which nothing is more rare than
the decomposition of blood in a corpse.
nnz

468 BOOK FIFTH.
lays great stress on this incident, doubtless in order to establish
the reality of the human nature of Jesus in opposition to the
Gnostics, who in their wild theories attributed to him a body of
subtle and ideal substance.*
Joseph of Arimathaea obtained from Pilate leave to lay the
corpse in his own sepulchre, which was hollowed out in a rock
close to the place of execution. He wrapped it in linen and
sweet spices, according to Jewish custom.! Nicodemus, for
getting his pmdence in the solemn sadness of the day, boldly
joined himself to Joseph.] A great stone was rolled to the mouth
of the sepulchre. Mary Magdalene and Mary, the wife of
Cleophas, sat weeping beside the tomb where the Lord was laid.
The other women, who had followed Him from Galilee, hastened
to prepare spices before the commencement of the Sabbath, so
that as soon as it was over, they might pay Him the last honours
of the dead.
Soon, at the request of the members of the Sanhedrim,
who feared the body might be taken away, soldiers were set
in the garden of Joseph of Arimathsa to keep a diligent
watch. §
* " This is he that came by water and by blood, even Jesus
Christ" (1 John v. 6). It is difficult to harmonise the synoptics
and John's Gospel as to the precise hour ofthe crucifixion. Accord
ing to John, the sentence was pronounced at the sixth hour, that is
at noon. Now according to Mark xv. 25, Jesus was crucified at
nine in the morning. It has been supposed that John reckoned
the hours according to the Roman method, which made the day
begin at midnight The sixth hour would then be not noon, but
six o'clock in the morning. But how can all that preceded the
crucifixion be supposed to have taken place between the rising of
the sun and six o'clock ? We are much inclined to admit the expla
nation given by Lange and M. Godet. Both day and night were
simply divided into four parts, of three hours each. The evangelists
kept to the general divisions, without binding themselves to minutely
exact observations, which would not have been compatible with the
emotion of such a day. We may add that with Matthew and Mark
the scourging is the beginning of the punishment. (See- Godet II.
606-607) r Matt, xxvii. 59-60 ; Luke xxiii. 50-56. J John xix. 38-42.
§ Matt, xxvii. 62-66. ,

THE GREAT WEEK — DEATH AND VICTORY. 469
V. The significance of the death of Jesus.
Jesus is- laid in the deep stillness of the grave, among the
voiceless and unhearing dead, over whom we call and weep
and lament in vain. And yet at this very hour the angels who
proclaimed His birth with songs of praise are raising a hymn
of triumph ; for this death, in its dark reality, is nevertheless
the redemption of the world ! It is the crown and consumma
tion of that holy life, which from the first day to the last was a
free offering to God. We have not now to vindicate its spot
less sanctity. If this is not self-evident from our narrative,
nothing that we can add will avail to prove it It is vain to
tell us that our knowledge of Jesus is limited, and that the
documents from which we draw it are incomplete. The entire
spiritual life is revealed in certain characteristic actions; and
when it appears absolutely pure in its great manifestations, it is
impossible that it should have been previously stained by sin.
The water which has flowed over a sandy or muddy bed does
not regain at any point in its course perfect transparency.
Sin leaves its trace and its stigma on us even when its has
had no human witness. In the Christ of the Gospel, conscience
recognises the realisation of its ideal. Beside, it is not correct
to assert that we possess no information as to that portion of
His life which was passed in obscurity ; we may fairly invoke,
as to the period preceding His ministry, the implied testimony
of His mother and His brethren, who were also His disciples.
They had seen Him not only in the official and public fulfilment
of His mission, but had gathered around Him in the hours of
repose and retirement. Hence their faith in His perfect
holiness rested on the deepest conviction ; had they doubted it
for a single day they would not have braved for Him so many
perils and reproaches. St. John speaks in their name to all,
when he exclaims, " We beheld his glory ; the glory as of the
only begotten of the Father,"* His enemies paid Him the
most striking, though the most involuntary homage, when, in
* John i. 14.

47° BOOK FIFTH.
the deadliness of thejr hatred they could find no accusation
against Him but one single saying, distorted from its tme
sense, and were compelled to purchase false witnesses to bring
even this shadow of a charge.
But beyond these testimonies of friends and enemies, we
have the testimony of Jesus Himself " The prince of this
world," He said, "hath nothing in me."* "Wiiich of you con-
vinceth me of sin?"f Thus He, the humblest of men, the
least desirous of personal glory, affirms without hesitation His
perfect holiness. And yet no one has a higher estimate than
He of the moral law ; no one is less satisfied with appearances.
Assuredly [the Preacher of the Sermon on the Mount could
not content Himself with mere legal piety or correct formalism;
He never ceased for a single day to wage war on hypocrisy,
and to require spiritual before external purity. Thus when,
after such declarations, He is heard to proclaim His own
perfect holiness, He must be regarded either as an impostor
worse than the Pharisees, or adoringly recognised as the Holy
One of God. That which we know of His life forbids us to
hesitate between the two suppositions.
His holiness is one with His love ; for the law of love is the
supreme moral law, that which brings us nearest to the very
type of good, or rather to the essential and eternal good, which
is God.* Now we have seen every act and word of Jesus during
His whole career marked with this divine seal ; He gave Him
self to His Father and to mankind in one great self-sacrifice
up to the day of final offering. This love, which shone in the
mild majesty of His words, and sometimes kindled them to
holy indignation, which diffused itself around in deeds of
mercy and prevented His recoiling from any fatigue, or toil, or
danger, — this love, infinite, inexhaustible, which gave harmony
to His whole moral life, blending meekness with power,
humility with heroism — how it shone forth on the accursed
* '0 tov xoapov apxa>v, iv ifiol ovx t^a ovikv (John xiv. 30).
! Tig ii ifiSiv iXkyxei fis wepi dfiapriag (John viii. 46).

THE GREAT WEEK — DEATH AND VICTORY. 47 1
tree — the bloody altar on which the flame of the sacrifice burnt
in all its ardour, consuming the victim !
It is just this perfect holiness which raises His death to the
height of a free sacrifice. When sinful man expires, he under
goes the punishment he has merited ; he pays his debt to
eternal justice. But Jesus, in dying, bears the punishment of
others; He suffers for the race with which He has identified.
Himself, and this generous suffering voluntarily accepted, is an
act of love and obedience. Hence its redemptive and repara
tive character. We see Him at Calvary as we have seen Him
in the desert of temptation and in Gethsemane, and throughout
the whole course of His career, fulfilling the great law of
creation, which is to do the will of God. But on this day,
that will presents itself to Him in its severest form, since it
involves the acceptance of the most bitter consequences of the
Fall. It is thus that in the name of mankind He retracts the
rebellion of Eden ; He brings back the heart of man to God ;
but He brings it back a willing sacrifice, and thus renews the
broken link between the fallen race and the Father, who
waits only the return of the lost to open wide His arms of
welcome. Let us beware of setting up at the cross a sort of opposition
between Jesus and God. In saving the world by His sacrifice,
Jesus fulfils the purpose of His Father. " God so loved the
world that he gave his only-begotten Son."* " God was in
Christ reconciling the world unto himself."-)- His justice is
only the holy majesty of His love, which demands a response
at any cost. Here at last is the response so long waited for,
given in this sacrifice which exhausts, by accepting them, all
the consequences of sin. Jesus is indeed under the stroke of
the Father's anger, since death is the punishment God has
pronounced on a rebel race ; in entering our world, He has
entered an accursed region ; and pre-eminently in the passage
through the dark valley of death must He feel the weight of
* John iii. 16. ! 2 Cor. v. 19.

47 2 BOOK FIFTH.
actual malediction, — the desert of sin not His own. But by
His obedience and love, He. transforms and disarms the curse,
since in death itself He remains one with God His Father, and
reconciles us with Him. There is then nothing in His suffer
ings resembling a direct curse from God resting on Himself.
Jesus dies not as one of the lost ; all He knew of hell was the
diabolical hatred which nailed Him to the tree.
If the cross is not a simple manifestation of divine love,
neither is it an act of retaliation, or the vengeance of heaven
upon earth, as if God waited to pardon till the sufferings of
His Son equalled in immensity the greatness of our rebellion, —
a thing in itself impossible, for an infinite penalty could not be
exhausted in a few hours. The cross is the means of recon
ciliation ; it is by it man, in the person of a holy victim; comes
back to the God who has been waiting to receive him since
the world began. If this holy Being, who represents the human
race, suffers more than any of His brethren, it is as we have
shown in speaking of the agony in Gethsemane, precisely
because of His holiness and His love ; He suffers not alone
for Himself, but for all generations of mankind ; in the strength
of His sympathy, He bears in Himself all the shame and all
the misery of sin. He repents for us, and in the crime of
which He is the victim, He sees and bewails the darkest
exhibition of human depravity. His compassion fills up the
measure of His sufferings by making Him acquainted with
such bitterness as remorse, which His own sinless nature could
never have known. It is in this sense that He descends into
hell to save us. Stephen could die joyful and triumphant ; the
feeblest Christian may so die; but Jesus could not, because
infinite love, in conflict with infinite evil, could not escape
unutterable anguish.
But this death is itself redemption, and its necessary con
sequence is a triumphant resurrection.

THE GREAT WEEK — DEATH AND VICTORY. 473

CHAPTER VI.
RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST.
I. The Facts.
TT70RDS cannot describe the consternation in which the
^ * friends of Jesus were plunged, during the long hours
which elapsed between the crucifixion and the resurrection.
The disciples were assembled, perhaps, in that very upper
chamber in which had passed the touching scenes of the last
farewell, and which still seemed to echo with the voice they
thought never to hear again.* Nothing was further from their
expectation than the resurrection; they imagined that all was
ended for earth, and felt nothing but the vast void created by
such a separation. Their hearts remained tenderly attached to
Jesus, but their love at such an hour could not but be full of
sorrow and dismay. They talked together of the things which
He had suffered, and of the ingratitude of His people, of their
own weakness ; but his death, considered in itself, without the
prospect of approaching triumph, was to them a cause of
despair. It was as though the great stone of His sepulchre
had been rolled upon their feeble faith. They were like men
crashed The pious women who had followed Jesus to the
foot of the cross were about to pay Him the last funeral
honours, by bringing the spices which they had prepared by
the dying light of the day of crucifixion, and which proved
alike their incomprehension of His words and their tender
* The apostles and disciples were evidently together in one
place, for the women brought them the news immediately (Luke
xxiv. 9-1 1).

474 BOOK FIFTH.
attachment to His person. They waited with impatience the
legal end of the Sabbath to complete their mournful task.
At break of day they went to the sepulchre. What a scene
awaited them there ! The great stone was rolled away, the
tomb was empty; two angels in white raiment appeared to
them, saying, "Why seek ye the living among the dead? He
is not here, he is risen." Extreme joy overwhelms the spirit
as completely as great sorrow ; it was hard to these women to
pass from utter despondency to surpassing happiness : such a
sudden transition from dark night to perfect day could not be
accomplished without a shock. In the first confusion of im
pressions, trembling with joy and affright, they were unable to
carry the great tidings to the apostles. One of them appears
to have left the rest, as soon as one glance into the rocky tomb
had convinced her, that the body she sought was not there.
This was Mary Magdalene, " out of whom Jesus had cast seven
devils." She gives herself no time to look closer into the
empty grave, therefore she does not see the vision of angels,
and believes that His body has been stolen away. Excited at
the thought of such a profanation she runs to tell the disciples.
At the first words, Peter ahd John set out for the sepulchre.
John outruns Peter, and stooping down, looks in ; Peter, more
bold, enters, and sees the linen clothes lying, and the napkin
that was about His head wrapped together in a place by itself
— clear tokens that the body had not been violently taken
away. " Then went in also that other disciple which came first
to the sepulchre, and he saw and believed."*
The other apostles, attaching no importance to what was
told them, did not follow Peter and John. The possibility of
a resurrection did riot enter their minds. Soon after Mary
Magdalene had left the other women, Jesus Himself appeared
to them. This meeting dispelled the terror which had sealed
their lips as they stood by the empty grave, and they repaired
to the apostles, to whom Peter and John had not yet returned.
* John xx. 8.

THE GREAT WEEK — DEATH AND VICTORY. 475
They found them still plunged in deepest grief, and the testi
mony they brought, so far from being relieved, was regarded as
an idle tale.*
While the disciples were weeping tears of despair which faith
might soon have dried, the Risen Saviour made Himself known
to Mary Magdalene in a manner well adapted to dispel all her
doubts, for never was stronger proof given of moral identity.
She had returned to that sepulchre which was to her the
dearest and most sacred spot on earth. The angels who had
spoken to her companions were there again, and put to her the
sarne question as to the rest; she had for answer only the same
sad words she had spoken to the disciples, " They have taken
away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him."
Not even this bright appearance of white-robed angels could
distract her an instant from her grief. What was this glorious
vision to her? What she sought was the dead body of the
Crucified. Suddenly Jesus stood by her, but through her tears
she did not, on the first glance, recognise Him ; she took Him
to be the gardener of Joseph of Arimathasa ; and, absorbed in
her tender, eager anxiety, she replied to the Master's question,
"Why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?" "Sir, if thou
hast borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I
will take him away." Touching and artless love, profoundly
true and human, and atoning for its blindness by its strength !
"Mary," said Jesus, and the cloud was scattered, and she knew
the voice which once brought her a miraculous deliverance.
It was indeed He, and she fell at his feet, exclaiming, " Rab-
boni !" Triumphant faith sprung up from the exchange of
these two words.! But this faith needed yet to be purified.
Jesus would be loved henceforth not only as the most perfect
friend, but supremely as the Son of God ; the era of the in-
* Matt, xxviii. 9. The appearance of Jesus to these women can
only have taken place after the departure of Peter and John, on the
news brought by Mary Magdalene.
! John xx. 11-16.

47° BOOK FIFTH
visible Christ was to succeed to the days of the Christ visible,
whose look might be returned, whose hand might be pressed.
Mary, who but a moment ago was so absorbed in anxiety about
the mortal remains of her Master, and who was ready at thi*
moment to lavish on Him tokens of an affection too humar
even in its exquisite purity, was as yet far from this exalted
spirituality. She needed to leam that the risen Redeemer
stood on the threshold of that elevated region which is only
reached by prayer. The Noli me tangere was a prophetic pro
test against all the miserable forms which mistaken devotion
has invented in the course of ages. "Touch me not," exclaims
Jesus, " for I am not yet ascended to my Father. But go to
my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and
your Father, unto my God and your God."* The piety which
is worthy of Christ unites holy reverence with holy familiarity,
and does not make a fetish of Him who has inaugurated the
reign of the Spirit upon earth.
Mary bore her message faithfully, but she was no more
successful than her companions in convincing those of the
apostles who had not been to the tomb, of the tmth of her
story.! While the friends of Jesus were finding it so hard to believe
the event, which ought to have filled them with joy, the Jews,
according to the first Gospel, were in consternation at the
rumour. The iniquitous judges who had not feared to suborn
false witnesses, had no more hesitation in bribing the guard at
the tomb; these mercenaries agreed. to accuse the disciples of
having stolen away the body of the Master, in order to declare
that He was not risen from the dead. ] A new proof have we here
of the powerlessness of mere prodigies to produce any true
change of heart. The earth shaken to its foundations, the
sepulchre suddenly opened, the appearance of the celestial
messengers, — none of these marvellous events had produced
any effect on these sordid souls. A few pieces of money could
* John xx. 17. ! Mark xvi. 11. X Matf. xxviii. 11-15.

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 477
outweigh them all. Amazement only startles the spirit, does
not subdue it Of what avail would it have been then for
Jesus to show Himself openly to the people who had crucified
Him? The mental condition of the disciples, after what they had
heard in the morning, is perfectly described in the words of two
of them, who towards the evening of that great day walk to
Emmaus,* a little village situated at sixty stadia from Jerusa
lem, on the borders of the country of Benjamin, at the foot of
the hill Mizpeh, the famous abode of Samuel. Perhaps they
are natives of that place ; perhaps they seek to escape the
noise of the city for quiet meditation. Absorbed in their own
thoughts, they pursue the lonely way. One thing alone seems
certain to them — -the shameful death of their Master ; what
has been told them of the empty tomb, and the vision of angels,
has not availed to dispel their grief, or to dry their tears over
the ruin of all their hopes. " We thought that it had been he
which should have redeemed Israel ; and beside all this, to-day
is the third day since these things were done !" These words,
which express so bitter a disappointment, are spoken to -the
very one best able to refute them. The two, disciples have
been joined by a stranger who has asked them the reason of
their sadness. So far are they from believing in the great
miracle of the resurrection that they do not recognise Him.
The veil which covers their eyes begins to fall, while the
Master expounds to them in all the Scriptures, the mystery so
amazing to the Jews, of glory inaugurated by suffering and
death. Without yet comprehending this lofty teaching, they
ire profoundly moved, and as they draw near to Emmaus,
they press Him to remain with them on the simple plea ;
"Abide with us, for the day is far spent." When the Master,
seated at the same table with them, lifts His eyes to heaven to
bless the bread mev hesitate no longer, and as He vanishes
from their sight, they exclaim, " Did not our hearts burn within
* Now El-Kubeibeh. (Robinson III. p. 281.) ! Luke xxiv. 21.

478 BOOK FIFTH.
us while he talked with us by the Way and while he opened to
us the Scriptures ?" Then, as ever, it was the light of the soul
which scattered the darkness of the understanding. Now they,
like Mary, believe in the resurrection, for they have seen and
heard the Risen One. The two disciples, one of whom only
is named,* at once returned to Jerusalem, feeling indeed that
they could not keep to themselves such tidings of great joy.
Joy and sorrow, both are shared in the family of Christ. The
very foundation of the Church is this spiritual communion.
The two disciples had hardly reached the upper chamber,
where their brethren were assembled with closed doors for fear
of the Jews, when Jesus suddenly appeared in their midst!
Bewildered with surprise and joy, they durst hardly believe in
the glad reality, and were ready to suppose it was His spirit
But they were constrained to yield to the force of evidence.
"Behold my hands and my feet," said the Master to them.
" Handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as
ye see me have." Jesus gave them even more convincing
proof : He ate before them a piece of a broiled fish and of an
honeycomb. It was indeed Himself. Who could doubt it as
those sublime words were uttered — " Peace be unto you. As
my Father hath sent me, even so I send you." Then he
breathed on them and said, " Receive ye the Holy Ghost"
This was not yet the great effusion of the Pentecost ; but for
* Cleopas (Luke xxiv. 18). Tradition supposes the other to be
Luke. t Luke xxiv. 36. There is no reason, therefore, for supposing
Jesus to have traversed the distance in any extraordinary manner,
since the two disciples arrived before Him. As to the opinion that
He entered the room by passing through the wall or the unopened
door, there is nothing in the text to warrant it. Such a prodigy
seems to us made unlikely by the palpable proof Jesus gives of
His corporeal substance (Luke xxiv. 39-43 ; John xx. 20). Calvin,
in his commentary, strongly opposes such an explanation. The
miracle might have consisted in the doors opening of themselves
to admit Him. We cannot describe its nature ; only it is needful
to beware of every theory which would fancifully idealise the bodily
life of Jesus.

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 479
the Son of God to promise is to give, and there is no hindrance
to our supposing a partial communication of the Spirit in this
hour. Thomas was absent at the time of this sacred scene,
and would not be convinced by the testimony of his friends.
"Except I thrust my hand into his side I will not believe."
Merciful condescension of Christ ! He grants even this demand
to His apostle, because He knows him to be honest and sincere,
but He mingles a reproach with the unmerited favour. J' Thomas,
because thou hast seen me thou hast believed. Blessed are
they which have not seen and yet believed." * Blessed are
those who have rested satisfied with a divine word of assurance,
and who have seen with the eye of faith ! Thomas speaks for
the believers of every age when he exclaims, " My Lord and
my God." His is the faith of the primitive Church, the faith
of the Church universal, the tme apostolic creed, not elaborated
in councils or fashioned by traditions, but the spontaneous
credo of the Christian soul, adoringly uttered on the knees
before Christ.
The apostle Paul mentions one appearance of the risen
Redeemer to James, the brother of the Lord.! May we not
venture to suppose that Mary, the mother of James and of
Jesus, felt in that day that the sword which had pierced through
her soul was withdrawn for ever ? Glorious must have been
her consolation after agonies so unutterable.
Galilee was the great meeting place appointed for the disci
ples with the risen Saviour. It was in this favoured scene of
His public ministry, that He would show Himself to the largest
number of them. The Gospels mention two of these appear
ances in Galilee. The first took place on the shores of the
Lake of Tiberias, where He had known some days of glory,
in the midst of an enthusiastic multitude. But what was such
brief, transitory glory, born of precarious popular favour, com
pared to that which He brought back from the grave, after over
coming sin and death ? Seven of His apostles were gathered
* John xx. 27-29. J 1 Cor. xv. 7.

480 BOOK FIFTH.
by the shores of the lake ; those of them who had long lived
by the fishing craft, and among whom were Peter and John,
had spent the night in their boat on the deep, toiling for their
daily bread. During all these long hours they had taken
nothing. In the morning Jesus stood on the shore ; but they
did not recognise Him till at His suggestion the net was thrown
on the right side of the ship, and enclosed at once a great
multitude of fishes. . Then John exclaimed, " It is the Lord."
Peter, who had laid aside his garment, filled with a wild, fear
ful joy, threw himself into the lake — and swam to the shore.
The boat was drawn to the strand, and, as in former days, the
Master and the disciples sat down to eat together. Peter
dared hardly lift his eyes to the face of Him whom he had
denied ; doubtless he asked himself what right he had to take
his place among the apostles of the Lord. But Jesus restored
him to his office by a word which called forth at once bitter
memories and earnest aspirations — a truly divine word which
laid low and lifted up at the same moment " Simon, son of
Jonas," said Christ, " lovest thou me more than these?" Three
times this sacred sword, wounding, and saving while it wounded,
was plunged into the heart of the disciple, as if to recall his
three-fold denial, and the debt he had contracted in the court
of the high priest. Three times Peter replied with a full pur
pose of soul, which was no longer a presumptuous reliance on
himself, " Yea, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee." Truly
humbled and repentant, he was anew invested by the Master
with his office, " Feed my sheep ; feed my lambs." None is
more fit to be the bearer of the message of mercy to men than
he who has just recovered from a fall, and has his own sin
covered by divine forgiveness. " Follow me," Jesus said to
Peter, repeating the call given long before on those same
shores, at the commencement of His ministry. The disciple
knows now what it is to follow a crucified Master ; could he
have forgotten, he would have been speedily recalled to the
reality by the enigmatical words which, in after years, were to

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 48 1
find their sanguinary solution at Rome. "When thou wast
young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou
wouldest ; but when thou shalt be old, another shall gird thee,
and carry thee whither thou wouldest not." This was a pre
diction of captivity and death for the impetuous son of Jonas.
But it was also an assurance to him that he was counted
worthy to suffer for Jesus; no restoration to fellowship with
Him could be more complete than this. The ardent and proud
disciple was warned of his approaching fall ; while faithfulness
even in bonds and on the cross was predicted of the contrite
heart. Peter would fain know what future is in store for John.
" If I will that he tarry till I come," says Jesus, "what is that
to thee? follow thou me." This saying, wrongly understood,
gave rise to the superstitious idea that John should not die;
nothing was further from the real meaning of the Master. He
would grant no satisfaction to idle curiosity. We are to pass
through the uncertain conditions of human life, contenting
ourselves with the blessed certainties of eternity. Such was
this interview by the Lake of Tiberias; the quiet, peaceful
scene of the early days of His ministry is unchanged, but the
freshness of morning has given place to the calm glories of the
evening hour.
The second appearance of Jesus in Galilee took place on
one of the mountains bordering the lake, in presence of a
numerous company, for it was doubtless there He was seen by
above five hundred brethren at once. He spoke as the Son
of God. " All power is given to me in heaven and on earth.
Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
And lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the
world."* Thus all national barriers are levelled, for these
disciples are sent forth to conquer the whole world. The rite
of baptism is instituted. This is neither the baptism of Jewish
proselytes, nor that of the Forerunner' administered in the
* Matt, xxviii. 16-20.
1 1

482 ' BOOK FIFTH.
name ofthe coming Messiah; it is baptism in the name of the
finished salvation; it is the sacred sign ofthe renewed life, the
sacrament of that conversion by which we are buried with Christ
crucified for us, that we may rise with the risen Christ, as the
Lord's supper is the sacrament of the holy life, which is only
conversion continued and confirmed. Now Jesus may ascend
to heaven, for He lives in His Church, and through her the
work of redemption will be carried on in the earth.
Forty days after His resurrection, the Master took leave of
His disciples at Bethany near Jerusalem. It is easy to perceive
from His last words, that the faith He left with them was not a
somewhat spiritualised Judaism, but in truth the religion of
mankind, with no other boundaries than the ends of the world.
There was no reference in His mind to that kingdom of Israel,
which was still the cherished dream of His disciples,* but to
that kingdom of tmth which, through the inspired word of His
witnesses, should be established among all nations. " Ye shall
receive power from on high, and shall be witnesses unto me to
the uttermost parts of the earth."-)- As He spoke these words
He was withdrawn ftom their sight to enter into the conditions
of a higher life, free from all the limitations, of human existence,
a life truly divine at the right hand of the Father in the abode
of glory, where He is preparing a place for us.
The ascension, recorded by Luke only, is implied by all the
sacred writers, for none of them gives place to the idea that
the risen Saviour might die a second time, which is the only
alternative possible, apart from the mysterious fact authenticated
by Gospel tradition. The glorification of Jesus commenced
from the day when he rose from the grave ; His body was no
phantom ; it retained its reality, since it could be handled and
felt, could eat and drink ; but it was nevertheless invested with
new properties which distinguished ifr from its former condition.
Jesus was no(t at once recognised by His disciples ; He seemed
able to trapspqrt Himself with strange rapidity from place to
* Acts i. 6. ! Acts i. 8.

THE GREAT WEEK.— DEATH AND VICTORY. 483
place. In the ascension He resumed all the glory which
belonged to Him, and in that glory those divine attributes, by
virtue of which He governs His Church and gives Himself by
His Spirit to be the life of each believing soul. The ascension
was the crown of His work ; His final elevation was as needful
as His first abasement
II. — Reality of the Miracle.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is a truth of such central
importance to Christianity, that we cannot content ourselves
with a simple statement of the facts, but feel bound to answer
the principal objections brought against it. In the first place,
there has been a very exaggerated statement of the discrepancies
among the Gospel narratives of the event.* We do not dispute
these discrepancies, and we make no claim to do away with
them on any preconceived system ;- but estimated at their proper
value, they never assume the importance of irreconcilable con
tradictions. They are perfectly naturally explained when it is
remembered, that only one of the accounts which we possess
is entirely by the hand of an eye witness. These very
differences serve to establish the genuineness of the fourth
Gospel, by discovering to us the evident traces it bears of a
truly primitive account. If it is indeed John (as everything
* The following may be pointed out as the principal : — First,
difference between Matthew and Mark, who speak of only one
angel at the sepulchre, and Luke and John, who mention two
(Matthew xxviii. 2 ; Mark xvi. 5; Luke xxiv. 4; John xx. 12).
Second, according to Mark (xvi. 8), the women were terrified into
silence ; according to Lukp xxiv. 9. they ran to bring the great
tidings to the apostles. Third, according to Luke, Mary Magdalene
saw the angelic vision before speaking to the apostles (Luke xxiv.
10) ; according to John, not till afterwards (John xx. 12). Fourth,
the appearances are, according to Matthew, all in Galilee, accord
ing to Luke all at Jerusalem. We have already endeavoured to do
away with some of these discrepancies, by the very manner in which
we have reproduced the facts. We are glad to see our young
theologians making a serious study of the miracle of the|resurrection.
We may mention two recent publications on the subject, the one
by M. Henri Gambini, the other by M. P. Valloton.
112

484 BOOK FIFTH.
tends to show) who relates that which he saw, we possess an
irrefragable testimony, so much the more conclusive, that in all
essential facts it is confirmed by the synoptics. From all our
four Gospels it appears that Jesus rose from the tomb on the
morning of the third day ; all agree in speaking of a vision of
angels, of the doubts of the pious women on the morning of
this great day, and of the persistent unbelief of the disciples.
The fourth Gospel, like the two first, mentions a meeting in
Galilee ; only while those who have preceded him confound dis
tinct events, John distinguishes them, and reconciles Matthew's
story, which speaks onlyof Galilee, with Luke's, which speaksonly
of Jemsalem. The incontestable discrepancies of our canonical
narratives are proofs of their perfect honesty, and are readily
accounted for by the strange agitation into which the disciples
were thrown in consequence of so unexpected an event*
Beside the objections of criticism, we must notice three
principal explanations of the resurrection, all tending to
repudiate the miracle. First of all, there has been the repetition
of the odious calumny spread by the Sanhedrim against the
the first Christians, that they stole the body of Jesus in order
to spread a belief in his resurrection.! Our age would blush to
take up such an argument, resorted to in one of the passionate
reactions against truth in the eighteenth century. As has been
* Everything proves that in the fourth Gospel we have a narrative
by an eye witness. Let there be a comparison of that which relates
to Mary Magdalene in Matthew and in John. In the first Gospel
everything is recorded, but indefinitely ; in the fourth everything
follows in natural connection. So also with the appearances of
Jesus in Jerusalem. In Luke they are all united in one, which
immediately precedes the ascension. No mention is made of the
doubts of Thomas. John alone tells us how Jesus showed His dis
ciples the marks ofthe nails in His hands and feet, especially after
the apostles had greeted the disciples from Emmaus with the words,
The Lord is risen indeed. In Matthew, who makes Galilee alone
the scene of the resurrection life, mention is made of the doubts
of the disciples (xxviii. 17) ; but this brief indication needs to be
supplemented by the story of the unbelief of Thomas.
! Reimarus, " Fragments de Wolfenbiittel."

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 485
well said, it is infinitely easier to admit that the Christian
Church is the offspring of a miracle, than to imagine it bom of
a lie.* The most violent enemies of Christianity repel such an
insinuation, which, even if received, would explain nothing, for
the fact which has to be accounted for is the change wrought
in the disciples after the death of their Master, and the rejoicing
confidence which succeeds to their despair. Now an act of
roguery never raised the courage of any man.
The second explanation is open to the same objection. It
starts with the supposition that the death of Jesus was apparent
only, and leads of course to the negation of the resurrection.
Such a theory receives no support from the fact quoted from
the historian Josephus, that two crucified persons had by
strenuous endeavours been brought back to consciousness.-)-
The extraordinary sufferings of Jesus, His agony of soul, the
spear wound in His side, the long interment — all are opposed
to the admission of a hypothesis invented for the necesities of
the case. Beside, what vitality could He have retained after
such physical ordeals ? It could not have been more than a
living death, and the greatest precaution would have been
necessary to preserve even an artificial existence. Truly, a
man snatched, at the point of death, from the mortal hatred of
his enemies, and mysteriously brought back to some measure
of languishing life, could have possessed little power to trans
form timid lambs into lions.
The third theory, which has recently found many advocates,
is that of visions. In France the morbid condition of Mary
Magdalene has been insisted upon, and the birth of a religion
has been boldly attributed to the hallucination of a nervous
woman. In Germany more show of reason has been observed ;
the last historian of Jesus has prepared his argument with
peculiar care.] He lays especial stress on texts taken from
St. Paul. " I delivered unto you first of all," writes the great
* Beyschlag, "Die Auferstehung Christi." p. 14.
t Josephus, "Vita" 75. ] Strauss's New " Life of Jesus."

486 BOOK FIFTH.
apostle to the Corinthian Christians, " how that Christ died
for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried,
and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,
and that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve; after that
he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom
the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen
asleep. After that he was seen of James, then of all the
apostles, and last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born
out of due time."* Paul, it is said, puts in the same category
the appearance of the risen Redeemer to the disciples present
at Jerusalem, and that to himself, on the road to Damascus,
which was the beginning of his new life. Now that this last
appearance was simply and purely a vision, is considered to be
proved by the declaration made in his Epistle to the Galatians,
"It pleased God to reveal his Son in me."! It is concluded
that the various appearances of Jesus after His resurrection,
belong to the realm of imagination, and not of fact. The
apostles believed indeed, that Jesus was risen; they were no
rogues, but visionaries. Such is the argument recently put
forth in a very ingenious form.
We may give it an emphatic answer. It is certain that Paul
in his letter to the Corinthians intends to speak of an actual
appearance. " He was seen," he says, " of James, then of the
apostles, then of me." In order to maintain that he con
founded an actual appearance with a vision, it would be neces
sary to prove that he was ignorant of the true character of a
vision. Now these things were perfectly familiar to the Jews;
holy Scripture repeatedly draws the distinction between
miraculous manifestations of Deity in the world, and simple
visions which are quite apart from real facts. It was impossible,
for instance, for a J ew to confound the divine visitation, with which
Abraham was honoured in his tent on the eve of the destruction
* i Cor. xv. 3-8.
t 'AwoxaXitpai rbv v'ibv avrov iv ifioi (Gal. i. 16.) See Glider and
Beyschlag's " Lectures on the Resurrection."

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 487
of Sodom, with the visions of Jeremiah or Ezekiel, beholding
with the spiritual eye "the rod of an almond-tree" or sym
bolical animal forms.* A vision, properly so called, is dis
tinguished from an appearance, in that it exists for the mind
only. Such was that which Peter beheld in the city of Joppa,
when the messengers of the centurion Cornelius stood knocking
at the door of his house. " He fell into a trance," as he says,
"and saw heaven opened." Yet further, St Paul himself
had visions; he speaks of being caught up into the third
heaven, " whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether out of
body I cannot tell"! It is evident that he was under no miscon
ception as to the value of the terms, and that recognising fully
the difference between a vision and an actual appearance, he
could not confound the two. When he says that he saw Jesus
on the road to Damascus, he means that he, like his fellow
apostles, saw Him in real person : on this very ground he pro
claims himself their equal. If he adds that Jesus was revealed
in him, it is simply because external revelations have no value,
unless they are so perceived by the eye of the soul as to
become spiritual experiences. Paul would have been untrue
to himself if he had not spoken of this inner and spiritual fact,
which so far from excluding the outward and historical, implies
it, as sight implies the object to be seen. Let us not forget
that in the chapter of the Epistle to the Corinthians, in which
Paul declares that he has seen the risen Christ, that which is
spoken of is the bodily resurrection of believers. His argument
would fall to the ground if what was intended was a mere
vision, not an actual manifestation of Jesus. The testimony
of the apostle to the Gentiles, instead of invalidating that of
the other disciples, confirms it and transmutes objection into
proof. Thus is the resurrection of Christ, on the third day,
certified by a tradition older than that of our first three
Gospels. This tradition is not only contained in texts,
but is incorporated into the very worship of the Church,
* Jer. i. 12-17,. ! 2 Cor. xii. 2, 3.

488 BOOK FIFTH.
by -the setting apart of the first day of the week as the
Lord's day.
The hypothesis of visions clashes with the most elementary
principles of psychology. How can we suppose the repetition
of the same hallucination in so many different minds ? Such a
coincidence would be conceivable only in a heated atmosphere,
charged with fanatical expectation of a particular event. Now
it is indisputable, from all evidence, that despondency was
deep and general in the young Church. It was from that
upper chamber, the doors of which were closed for fear of the
Jews, in which was heard only the voice of sighs and lamenta
tion, that the assurance of this greatest of miracles burst forth
spontaneously. How could those who were so slow to believe
in the event have been its inventors?
And yet they did believe, and this faith in the resurrection
became their lever to move the world. What will account for
such a change? "Christ is risen," replies the Church; and
unless we are prepared to abandon the principle of causality,
we feel driven to the same conclusion; for in attestation of the
fact, she shows us not only the disciples at Jerusalem elevated,
confirmed, transformed, and sealing their faith in this event
with their blood, but Judaism and Paganism vanquished, one
world crumbling away, another arising; she shows us all
generations of Christians coming in succession to derive
strength and consolation from this eternal fact. The Christian
Church, as young, as living to-day, as eighteen centuries ago,
does not rest upon a vision or a lie. Whether we contemplate
the circumstances which preceded this day, or the great events
which have followed it, it is not possible to place anything less
than the great fact of the resurrection between the blank
despair of the evening and the exultant joy of the morning,
with all its mighty results for mankind,
III. Significance of the fact.
"The resurrection of Christ," says our most skilful adversary,

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 489
" is the Shibboleth by which the most widely differing views
are tested." We do not deny the statement, which is, indeed,
absolutely tme. Is the world, or is it not, governed by a
sovereign God who makes the natural law bend before the
moral, and before the holy purposes of His merciful love, or
does hard and inflexible necessity govern all the universe? In
other words, is there a living and personal God, or is that
which we call by this sacred name, out of respect to popular
superstition, nothing else than inexorable fate, or rather, mere
natural law? This is the question which must find an answer
at the grave of Jesus. In truth, if He remained in the grave,
we must conclude that death is stronger than perfect holiness,
that the divine life itself is subject to it, and that that, which
we have regarded as a result and a punishment of the abuse of
moral freedom, is an irremediable physical fatality. Then
natural are stronger than moral agencies, and we must needs
bury our noblest aspirations with the body of Jesus. Whoever
beholds in the Gospel mirror,* the spotless perfection of Jesus,
and again, sees in death the pre-eminent sign of maris con
demnation, must exclaim with the apostle Peter, " It was not
possible that he should' be holden of it." If He did, in truth,
remain in the grave, it is, we repeat, a victory of natural over
moral law, and we are driven from the theistic conception of
order to the apotheosis of nature.
The resurrection of Christ is further the only adequate proof
of the achievement of redemption. Withdraw it, and we have
upon the cross suffering nobly endured, at which our tears
may well flow forth, but suffering which has no healing virtue,
and does not avail to revoke the sentence of condemnation,
which has weighed upon all the race of Adam since it was said
to the first rebel, "Thou shalt surely die." In such a case
Christ's mission on earth closes with ignominy and death.
Man can trace it no further; and yet its closing utterance
becomes the victorious watchword of a little army of disciples,
which combining in itself every element of human weakness, is

49° BOOK FIFTH.
yet strong to battle with and overthrow all the mighty ones of
the earth. How can these things be ?
It avails nothing to assert that it is enough to believe in the
immortality of the soul. Was man indeed so fully assured
even of this before Christ? Had not the purest of ancient
sages stopped short at a perhaps, on the threshold of the dark
regions which lie beyond the grave ? Jesus alone brought to
light that immortality, the dim consciousness of which lies deep
in every soul of man, when He proved by a dazzling miracle
that beyond the doors of the tomb is life and not annihilation.
Against the terrible realities of the grave to which the human
body is consigned, He set a glorious reality of consolation.
We are not of the number of the great spirits who despise such
evidences, in the agonising hours of mortal separation. Jesus
came forth from the tomb as the head of a new humanity;
St. Paul rightly calls Him "the first fruits of them that sleep."
His resurrection is fhe certain pledge of that immortality which
is neither absorption in the absolute, nor a succession of manifold
and changing existences in which individuality is lost, but the
full retention of personal identity in conditions of purity and
blessedness unknown to life on earth.
Nor is this all. Supposing that we could, apart from the
resurrection of Jesus, gain an assurance of immortality, the
fact would nevertheless remain that He had entered that
mysterious abode which thought visits only with tears, and
where the divine life has not attained the full fruition which is
in store for it, after the great consummations of the future. In
any case, the relations are very incomplete, if not broken,
between these departed souls and the survivors. All that can
be said or imagined concerning them is easily chargeable with
superstition. Can it be supposed that such an existence is
His, who is to be the Head of His Church, and the divine
Brother of us all? If His work consisted only in giving a
model of virtue, His abiding influence might be reduced to
that of a simple memory. But the supposition is inadmissible

THE GREAT WEEK. — DEATH AND VICTORY. 49 1
if He is indeed the Redeemer of the world. The work of the
invisible Christ continues that of the Christ visible; it is
neither less active' nor less direct, while it is more universal.
He must then have attained the plenitude of spiritual life, and
passed beyond that intermediate state, which is indeed a con
dition of rest and happiness, but yet is not the consummation
of human destiny, according to the teaching of Scripture. Thus
the resurrection forms part of the redemption.
It must be evident how far we are from regarding this great
fact as only an external buttress of Christianity. It is, indeed,
the confirmation of all the teaching of the Master, and without
it that teaching would be smitten with barrenness, and would
be open to the charge of falsity. Apostolic testimony would
be equally deprived of all value ; for unless we deny the evi
dence altogether, it must be admitted that the teaching of the
apostles rests entirely on the affirmation of this miracle. But
the resurrection is more than a prop of the Christian faith, even
if that prop were an indestructible pillar ; it forms part of the
very subject matter of religion ; it is the last of the great facts
of redemption, so that to reject it is to remove not one of the
pillars of the building, which would be sufficiently serious, but
one of its very foundations. We can conceive the rejection of
Christianity on account of this miracle, but that there should
be a pretence of receiving the Gospel, while this is set aside,
or contemptuously treated as of secondary importance, passes
our comprehension and offends our common sense. In short,
the empty tomb of Christ has been the cradle of the Church ;
and if in this foundation of her faith the Church has been mis
taken, she must needs lay herself down by the side of the
mortal remains, I say not of a man, but of a religion.

49 2 BOOK FIFTH.

CONCLUSION.
We have sought, in the simple narratives of primitive Chris
tianity, the faithful and living image of Christ. Our four
Gospels have given us a type of perfection such as the world
has never before or since seen equalled. This high ideal is
found not as one of those bold generalisations, which are the
fugitive and brilliant dreams of the spirit, but in the perfectly
simple form of a human life unfolded before our eyes. The
great ascetic of India comes forth, with his doctrine of death,
from the depths of mysterious forests, and lays hold of the
imagination by the very strangeness of his appearance. Not
so with Jesus. The humble village in which He was brought
up is known to all ; He lived the common life of the lower
classes of His people ; He was despised because He sat at
meat with publicans. He sought no distinction by extravagant
self-mortification, nor did He make any appeal, like Mahomet,
to the warlike passions. He bequeathed to His disciples, not
the scimitar and its conquests, but the cross and its reproach.
In the conditions of every- day life was displayed that moral
perfection which is without a parallel, because it united all the
qualities elsewhere found apart.
Can it be supposed that such a type as this, so human in its
divine beauty, was formed from the combination of the most
diverse elements of religion and philosophy, in an age of
universal fusion? Without dwelling again on the argument
resting on facts, which we have drawn from the history of other
religions, to set aside this explanation, we will only ask whether
such a form as that of Jesus resembles the statue of gold, brass,
and clay, which the king of Babylon beheld in the famous

conclusion. 493
dream interpreted by Daniel. Such a mingling of heteroge
neous elements could have resulted only in a monstrous idol,
for which a pagoda could scarcely have been found. The
Christ of the Gospels did not come forth from the crucibles of
Alexandrine philosophy ; He lived, and lived as He is made
known to us by His apostles. He satisfies at once our aspi
rations after the ideal by His perfect holiness, and our deep
needs of consolation and restoration by His sufferings and
sacrifice. He meets us in our greatness and our misery, and
therefore He is called the Saviour of the world. Such is our
conclusion. If it needed to be established now by fresh argu
ments, this book would have been in vain ; and nothing which
we might add would bring conviction.
We will limit ourselves to one further remark. Beside our
four Gospels, there is a fifth which has been eighteen centuries
in writing : this is the j,work of Christ among mankind. It
bears witness to miracles as great as. those of our canonical
narratives. The track of His footseps is seen wherever there
has been any real progress in good, in love, in right, in the
moral elevation of men. No revolution in the history of the
world can be compared with that which placed the Cross as
the boundary between two entirely different ages, and which
caused to flow forth from the rock of Calvary a river of life,
which though at times troubled in its course, rapidly purifies
itself again, and goes on fertilising the most barren soil. At
the basis of our modem civilisation lies the thought of Jesus.
It is this, and this alone, which has given to our modern West
its vast superiority and irresistible impulse to progress. We
marvel, therefore, at the strange attempt of those of our con
temporaries who, under the pretext of renovation, seek to
bring us back to the materialistic doctrines, under the weight
of which the East still sleeps its heavy sleep, haunted by impure
dreams, and broken by bloody crises.
But we can invoke another testimony even more decisive
than the social results of Christianity. The Gospel itself is

494 BOOK FIFTH.
written in the hearts of Christians : it is not in their eyes the
sacred scroll which preserves the annals of a dead past ; it is
for them the renewal of that past, which belongs to the present
and to every age, because it is eternal. This Christ of the
Gospels is known to every Christian now in a living and per
sonal relation, as He was known to the sick whom He healed,
and the sinners whom He pardoned in Judasa and Galilee.
Every one of us who possesses more than a religion of form and
habit, has a right to stand up and say, like the blind man at
Jerusalem, " I was blind, but now I see." Every one of us,
like the disciple in the hour of denial, has been arrested by
that look which pierces the heart and conscience, and has risen
up at the words, " Go in peace, thy sins are forgiven thee."
The scenes of the upper chamber, at the Last Supper, are daily
renewed. Christian worship is nothing else than a mystic
communion between the worshipping soul and the redeeming
Saviour. Jesus bends over all the beds of sickness and of death
where His followers languish ; He enters the dwellings of the
poor, to break to them their daily bread. These experiences
have gone on from the foundation of the Church ; the Christian
heart of the nineteenth century responds to that of St Peter
and St. John. One divine life flows through this great body
like the blood in the veins, and all those who have shared in it,
and who share in it still, trace it back to that Jesus who died
in the year of Rome 783. For Him have suffered and perished
the confessors of ages of persecution, all declaring, like the
proto-martyr, that they saw Him with the eye of faith. For
Him thousands of heroic hearts in all lands and ages have
throbbed and bled, and have made great sacrifices, and sacri
fices unknown to fame. In every rank of society, in all stages
of culture and civilisation, from the burning sands of Africa to
the heart of our brilliant cities, the same results have been
produced, and the same hymn of adoration has ascended in
honour of the Crucified.
Against the boldest negations, these confessors of every age

conclusion. 495
and condition set this triumphant saying of St. John : " That
which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you. " Assuredly,
whatever may be said, we have a right to appeal to this fifth
Gospel ; it brings weighty confirmation to the four canonical
narratives. Idle mysticism let it be called ! To us there are
other realities beside those which can be touched and handled;
and we cannot be persuaded that this great accord of Christian
souls is founded on either myth or legend.
At the close of this long contemplation of the divine model
on which I have been gazing, in the earnest endeavour to repro
duce some of its features, I feel overwhelmed with the sense of
my powerlessness. " I would fain, O divine Son of Mary," to
use the words of one of Thy noblest confessors, " feeble as I
am, have said something great of Thee."* At times I have
seemed, in the brief illumination of some blessed hour, to see
Thee in Thy divine Majesty — Thy brow radiant with love and
grief, and crowned with that spotless purity which has terrors
only for the proud, because it is inseparable from Thy sovereign
love. I have seemed to see Thee on the shore of fhe lake
Thou lovedst, or in the villages of Galilee, in the midst of that
retinue of the afflicted and despised, who formed Thy guard of
honour in Thy royal progress of mercy? But when I have
sought to fix the holy vision, the pencil has trembled in my
unskilful hands, and I have only been able to give a dim out
line of that which had bowed me in the dust in adoration
before Thee. What are we to describe Thy holiness ?
The distance is too great from us to Thee ! How can we,
from the lowness of our common lives, rise to the inspiration
of that life which was consumed by one single thought of love,
and which, from its commencement to its close, was one offer
ing to God and man ! Plunged in petty vanities and mean
ambition, how can we comprehend Thine utter scorn for human
glory, O King crowned with thorns ! Upon us falls that word
* Justin Martyr, "Account of his Martyrdom."

49*-1 BOOK FIFTH:
spoken in Thy just indignation : " Ye are from beneath, I am
from above." Therefore it is, 'that for this very work itself, I
crave Thy forgiveness. My hope, my consolation, is that Thou
wilt surely disperse the clouds with which, in ignorance or
weakness, I may have darkened Thine adorable countenance,
and manifest Thyself plainly to the willing heart in which I
may have awakened a desire to know Thee better.

FINIS.

UK-WlN BROTHERS, THE GRESHAM STEAM PRESS, BUCkLERS&URV.