THE DAUGHTERS OF JERUSALEM
There are many legends clustering round this portion of our Lord's
history.
It is narrated, for example, that, when the divine Sufferer, burdened
with the cross, was creeping along feebly and slowly, He leaned against
the door of a house which stood in the way, when the occupier, striking
a blow, commanded Him to hurry on; to which the Lord, turning to His
assailant, replied, "Thou shall go on and never stop till I come
again;" and to this day, unable to find either rest or death, the
miserable man still posts over the earth, and shall continue doing so
until the Lord's return. This is the legend of the Wandering Jew,
which assumed many forms in the lore of other days and still plays a
somewhat prominent part in literature. It is, I suppose, a fantastic
representation, in the person of an individual, of the tragic fate of
the Jewish race, which, since the day when it laid violent hands on the
Son of God, has had no rest for the sole of its foot.
To another story of the _Via Dolorosa_ as distinguished a place has
been given in art as to the legend of the Wandering Jew in literature.
Veronica, a lady in Jerusalem, seeing Christ, as He passed by, sinking
beneath His burden, came out of her house and with a towel washed away
the blood and perspiration from His face. And lo! when she examined
the napkin with which the charitable act had been performed, it bore a
perfect likeness of the Man of Sorrows. Some of the greatest painters
have reproduced this scene, and it may be understood as teaching the
lesson that even the commonest things in life, when employed in acts of
mercy, are stamped with the image and superscription of Christ.
In Roman Catholic churches there may generally be seen round the walls
a series of about a dozen pictures, taken from this part of our Lord's
life. They are denominated the Stations of the Cross, because the
worshippers, going round, stop to look and meditate on the different
scenes. In Catholic countries the same idea is sometimes carried out
on a more imposing scale. On a knoll or hill in the neighbourhood of a
town three lofty crosses stand; the road to them through the town is
called _Via Calvarii_, and at intervals along the way the scenes of our
Lord's sad journey are represented by large frescoes or bas-reliefs.
But we really know for certain of only two incidents of the _Via
Dolorosa_--that in which our Lord was relieved of His cross by Simon
the Cyrenian and that, which we are now to consider, of the sympathetic
daughters of Jerusalem.
I.
The reader of the history of our Lord in its last stages is sated with
horrors. In some of the scenes through which we have recently
accompanied Him we have seemed to be among demons rather than men. The
mind longs for something to relieve the monstrous spectacles of fanatic
hate and cold-blooded cruelty. Hence this scene is most welcome, in
which a blink of sunshine falls on the path of woe, and we are assured
that we need not lose faith in the human heart.
It was, indeed, a surprising demonstration. It would hardly have been
credited, had it not there been made manifest, that Jesus had so strong
a hold upon any section of the population of Jerusalem. In the capital
He had always found the soil very unreceptive. Jerusalem was the
headquarters of rabbinic learning and priestly arrogance--the home of
the Pharisee and the Sadducee, who guided public opinion; and there,
from first to last, He had made few adherents. It was in the
provinces, especially in Galilee, that He had been the idol of the
populace. It was by the Galilean pilgrims to the Passover that He was
convoyed into the capital with shouts of Hosanna; but the inhabitants
of the city stood coldly aloof, and before Pilate's judgment-seat they
cried out, "Crucify Him, crucify Him!"
Yet now it turns out that He has touched the heart of one section at
least even of this community: "There followed Him a great company of
people and of women, which[1] also bewailed and lamented Him." Some
have considered this so extraordinary that they have held these women
to be Galileans; but Jesus addressed them as "daughters of Jerusalem."
The Galilean men who had surrounded Him in His hour of triumph put in
no appearance now in His hour of despair; but the women of Jerusalem
broke away from the example of the men and paid the tribute of tears to
His youth, character and sufferings. It is said that there was a
Jewish law forbidding the showing of any sympathy to a condemned man;
but, if so, this demonstration was all the more creditable to those who
took part in it. The upwelling of their emotion was too sincere to be
dammed back by barriers of law and custom.
It is said there is no instance in the Gospels of a woman being an
enemy of Jesus. No woman deserted or betrayed, persecuted or opposed
Him. But women followed Him, they ministered to Him of their
substance, they washed His feet with tears, they anointed His head with
spikenard; and now, when their husbands and brothers were hounding Him
to death, they accompanied Him with weeping and wailing to the scene of
martyrdom.[2]
It is a great testimony to the character of Christ on the one hand and
to that of woman on the other. Woman's instinct told her, however
dimly she at first apprehended the truth, that this was the Deliverer
for her. Because, while Christ is the Saviour of all, He has been
specially the Saviour of woman. At His advent, her degradation being
far deeper than that of men, she needed Him more; and, wherever His
gospel has travelled since then, it has been the signal for her
emancipation and redemption. His presence evokes all the tender and
beautiful qualities which are latent in her nature; and under His
influence her character experiences a transfiguration.[3]
It has, indeed, been contended that there was no great depth in the
emotion of the daughters of Jerusalem; and we need not deny the fact.
Their emotion was no outburst of faith and repentance, carrying with it
revolutionary effects, as tears may sometimes be. It was an overflow
of natural feeling, such as might have been caused by any pathetic
instance of misfortune. It was not unlike the tears which may be still
made to flow from the eyes of the tender-hearted by a moving account of
the sufferings of Christ; and we know that such emotions are sometimes
far from lasting. Our nature consists of several strata, of which
emotion is the most superficial; and it is not enough that religion
should operate in this uppermost region; it must be thrust down,
through emotion, into the deeper regions, such as the conscience and
the will, and catch hold and kindle there, before it can achieve the
mastery of the entire being.
But this response of womanhood to Christ was a beginning; and therein
lay its significance. It was to Him a foretaste of the splendid
devotion which He was yet to receive from the womanhood of the world.
It was as welcome to Him in that hour of desertion and reproach as is
the sight of a tuft of grass to the thirsty traveller in the desert.
The sounds of sympathy flowed over His soul as gratefully as the gift
of Mary's love enveloped His senses when the house was filled with the
odour of the ointment.
Thus in the _Via Dolorosa_ Jesus experienced two alleviations of His
suffering: the strength of a man relieved His body of the burden of the
cross, and the pain of His soul was cooled by the sympathy of women.
Is it not a parable--a parable of what men and women can do for Him
still? Christ needs the strength of men--the strong arm, the vigorous
hand, the shoulders that can bear the burden of His cause; He seeks
from men the mind whose originality can plan what needs to be done, the
resolute will that pushes the work on in spite of opposition, the
liberal hand that gives ungrudgingly what is required for the progress
and success of the Christian enterprise. From women he seeks sympathy
and tears. They can give the sensibility which keeps the heart of the
world from hardening; the secret knowledge which finds out the objects
of Christian compassion and wins their confidence; the enthusiasm which
burns like a fire at the heart of religious work. The influence of
women is subtle and remote; but it is on this account all the more
powerful; for they sit at the very fountains, where the river of human
life is springing, and where a touch may determine its entire
subsequent course.
II.
It has been allowed to condemned men in all ages to speak to the crowds
assembled to witness their death. The dying speech used in this
country to be a regular feature of executions. Even in ages of
persecution the martyrs were usually allowed, as they ascended the
ladder, to address the multitude; and these testimonies, some of which
were of singular power and beauty, were treasured by the religious
section of the community. It is nothing surprising, therefore, that
Jesus should have addressed those who followed Him or should have been
permitted to do so. No doubt He was at the last point of exhaustion,
but, when He was relieved of the weight of the cross, He was able to
rally strength sufficient for this effort. Pausing in the road and
turning to the women, whose weeping and wailing were filling His ears,
He addressed Himself to them.
His words are, in the first place, a revelation of Himself. They show
what was demonstrated again and again during the crucifixion--how
completely He could forget His own sufferings in care and anxiety for
others. His sufferings had already been extreme; His soul had been
filled with injustice and insult; at this very moment His body was
quivering with pain and His mind darkened with the approach of still
more atrocious agonies. Yet, when He heard behind Him the sobs of the
daughters of Jerusalem, there rushed over His soul a wave of compassion
in which for the moment His own troubles were submerged.
We see in His words, too, the depth and fervour of His patriotism.
When He saw the tears of the women, the spectacle raised in His mind an
image of the doom impending over the city whose daughters they were.
Jerusalem, as has been already said, had always been extremely
unresponsive to Him; she had played to Him an unmotherly part. None
the less, however, did He feel for her the love of a loyal son. He had
shown this a few days before, when, in the midst of His triumph, He
paused on the brow of Olivet, where the city came into view, and burst
into a flood of tears, accompanied with such a lyric cry of affection
as has never been addressed to any other city on earth. Subsequently,
sitting with His disciples over against the temple, He showed how well
He foreknew the terrible fate which hung over the capital of His
country, and how poignantly He felt it. The city's doom was nigh at
hand: less than half a century distant: and it was to be unparalleled
in its horror. The secular historian of it, himself a Jew, says in his
narrative: "There has never been a race on earth, and there never will
be one, whose sufferings can be matched with those of Jerusalem in the
days of the siege." It was the foresight of this which made Jesus now
say, "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves
and for your children."
His words, still further, reveal His consideration for women and
children. The tears of the women displayed an appreciation and
sympathy for Him such as the men were incapable of; but well did He
deserve them, for His words show that He had a comprehension of women
and a sympathy with them such as had never before existed in the world.
With the force of the imagination and the heart He realised how, in the
approaching siege, the heaviest end of the misery would fall on the
female portion of the population, and how the mothers would be wounded
through their children. In that country, where children were regarded
as the crown and glory of womanhood, the currents of nature would be so
completely reversed by the madness of hunger and pain that barrenness
would be esteemed fortunate; and in a country where length of days had
been considered the supreme blessing of life they would long and cry
for sudden and early death.
So it actually turned out. An outstanding feature of the siege of
Jerusalem, according to the secular historian, was the suffering of the
women and children. Besides using every other device of warfare, the
Romans deliberately resorted to starvation, and the inhabitants endured
the uttermost extremities of hunger. So frenzied did the men become at
last that every extra mouth requiring to be filled became an object of
delirious suspicion, and the last morsels were snatched from the lips
of the women and children. One is tempted to quote some of the stories
of Josephus about this, but they are so awful that it would be scarcely
decent to repeat them.
This was what the quick sympathy of Jesus enabled Him to divine; and
His compassion gushed forth towards those who were to be the chief
sufferers. Women and children--how irreverently they have been thought
of, how callously and brutally treated, since history began! Yet they
are always the majority of the human race. Praise be to Him who lifted
them, and is still lifting them, out of the dust of degradation and
ill-usage, and who put in on their behalf the plea of justice and mercy!
Finally, there was in the words addressed to the daughters of Jerusalem
an exhortation to repentance. When Jesus said, "Weep for yourselves
and for your children," He was referring not merely to the approaching
calamities of the city, but to its guilt. This was indicated most
clearly in the closing words of His address to them--"For if they do
these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?"
He could speak of Himself as a green tree. He was young and He was
innocent; to this the tears of the women testified; there was no reason
why He should die; yet God permitted all these things to happen to Him.
The Jewish nation ought also to have been a green tree. God had
planted and tended it; it had enjoyed every advantage; but, when He
came seeking fruit on it, He found none. It was withered; the sap of
virtue and godliness had gone out of it; it was dry and ready for the
burning; and, when the enemy came to apply the firebrand, why should
God interpose? Thus did Jesus attempt once more to awaken repentance.
He wished to thrust the impressions of the daughters of Jerusalem down
from the region of feeling into a deeper place. They had given Him
tears of emotion; He desired, besides these, tears of contrition; for
in religion nothing is accomplished till impression touches the
conscience.
Whether any of them responded in earnest we cannot tell. Not many, it
is to be feared. Nor can we tell whether by repentance the destruction
of the Jewish state might still have been averted. At all events, the
fire of invasion soon fell on the dry tree, and it was burnt up. And
since then those who would not weep for their sins before the stroke of
punishment fell have had to weep without ceasing. Visitors to
Jerusalem at the present day are conducted to a spot called the Place
of Wailing, where every Friday representatives of the race weep for the
destruction of their city and temple.[4] This has gone on for
centuries; and it is only a symbol of the cup of astonishment, filled
to the brim, which has during many centuries been held to the lips of
Israel. Sin must be wept for some time--if not before punishment has
fallen, then after; if not in time, then in eternity. This is a lesson
for all. And has not that final word of Jesus a meaning for us even
more solemn than it had for those to whom it was first addressed--"If
these things be done in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?"
If woe and anguish fell, as they did, even on the Son of God, when He
was bearing the sins of the world, what will be the portion of those
who have to bear their own?
[1] The participle refers to the women alone.
[2] "How slow we have been to ask our _sister_ members to help
us!--although we read of deaconesses in the early Church, and although
we do not read of a single woman who was unkind and unfaithful to the
Saviour while here upon earth. Men were diabolic in their cruelty to
Him, but never did a woman betray Him, mock Him, desert Him, nor spit
in His face. Many of them cheered Him on His way to the Cross, washing
His feet with tears before men pierced them with nails, anointing His
head with precious perfume in anticipation of the thorns with which men
crowned Him. They wept with Him on the way to Calvary, and were true
to Him to the very end. And are they not devoted and true to Him
still? Why, then, have we been so long in calling for their
services?"--E. HERBERT EVANS, D.D.
[3] Brace, _Gesta Christi_.
[4] Striking description in Baring-Gould, _The Passion of Jesus_, p. 75.