When contemplating the Passion and the Resurrection of Christ, we have
little attention to spare for the subordinate personages in the scene. The
effects of these manifestations, in working changes in the hearts and
minds of the witnesses, are put out of sight by the brilliancy and
intrinsic grandeur of the manifestations themselves, and by the momentous
character of their direct consequences, universally affecting mankind. But
the transformation in temper, in views, and in habits of mind which
converted the Apostles of the Gospels into the Apostles of the Acts—a
transformation to me otherwise inexplicable—was consummated and clenched
by the hours of hard trial and bitter anguish of that Sabbath day, when
there was nothing to be done but to mourn and to wonder; as well as by the
burst of gladness when the Risen Lord appeared to the eleven. Throughout
all the Post-Resurrection interval, during which the Apostles felt that He
was close by and might at any time appear—indeed that any stranger
accosting them might turn out to be He—the changes which had been wrought
were taking lasting hold.
The data for the history of that Passover season of A.D. 30 must have been
furnished by the Apostles, yet we find in it scarcely any mention of
themselves; all personal thought was driven from their minds; the
narrators, like ourselves, had eyes for the Saviour alone.
From the hour of cockcrow on the Thursday night to the time when it “began
to dawn toward the first day of the week” all that we hear of the
Apostles, and that comes out incidentally, is that John stood at the foot
of the Cross. There is not a word to explain their flight at Gethsemane,
they do not tell us, that they stood in the crowd or followed to Golgotha;
neither have we, what for my purpose would be invaluable, any word of how
they passed that Sabbath day of enforced inaction, which—in accordance
with our Lord’s way of letting intervals of quiet alternate with times of
stress and strain—followed on the violent perturbation and intense dismay
of the Crucifixion.
The Apostles could not be perfected for the part that awaited them, unless
they encountered some great desolation of soul. Acute suffering, which
searches the innermost nature, works after the law which has become so
trite to my readers, it gives to those who have. There are some who under
its pangs learn that they possess a kind of strength of which they did not
know, and find that when some, seemingly more robust, break down in
trouble, resource and tenacity are still left in them. This kind of
strength the Apostles possessed; they stood the test of being apparently
forsaken and were the better for it. Each individual after the trial felt
surer that he could rely on himself than he had been before, and each then
knew for certain that he could rely on the rest.
They might, as soon as the Sabbath was over, have taken their northward
journey, going every man to his own; and, as they did not feel safe where
they were—for they had to close their doors for fear of the Jews—and must
have been grievously bewildered, this is what some out of the eleven at
any rate might have been expected to do. It is the steadfastness of _the
whole number_ that is so surprising.
The trial to which the Apostles were subjected, during those six and
thirty hours, was excessively severe. They were left as sheep without a
shepherd, with no rallying point, no organised rule; and not only were
they in the deepest anguish, owing to their personal affection for their
Master, but the lodestar of their lives, the hope of the Restoration of
the Kingdom to Israel, seemed suddenly and totally withdrawn.
The Jewish notion of a Messiah, who would inaugurate a golden age of
national glory and material enjoyment, was so engrained in the Israelite
nature that only facts could drive it out. Our Lord never argues against
it; if He beheld, in the course of coming events, a fact approaching,
which would do more to dispel error than all the arguments in the world,
this would explain His silence on these points. The awakening would not be
without dangers. It is a perilous moment for a man, when the one dream,
the one exalted hope, that has lifted him above selfish considerations is
rudely dispelled; and God, whom he had thought to serve, seems to
disregard him altogether.
Then self and the world say, “We told you so; now give yourself to us? Our
votaries will be found to have taken the right road after all.” Of all the
temptations that assailed the Apostles this was perhaps the direst; but
their loyalty to their Master, born of nearly two years’ daily fellowship,
held fast. Even if He _were_ gone they could be true to His memory still,
and that was something left.
One lesson, which the Apostles could hardly help learning, would arise, in
this way, out of the discomfiture of their hopes. They might ask
themselves, on what this confident expectation of theirs, of a Messianic
kingdom, rested by way of grounds. They would have to own that Christ had
never spoken of it, but, indeed, had often given hints of what had really
come to pass—hints which they had always quickly brushed aside. They had
believed in this material Kingdom because everybody around them had done
so. They had not formed any notion about it of their own selves; no
movement of their own minds had gone towards forming the belief. They had
imbibed it and that was all. Hence finding themselves deceived by trusting
to a popular belief, there may have arisen in them a healthy mistrust of
positiveness about the ways of God. Again, their disappointment might put
them in a better direction for finding their way. “Some hope,” they might
say, “assuredly Christ did hold out to us,” and the search after this hope
might lead them to recollect that latterly they had heard little from Him
of the Kingdom, and much of the future Life; He had told them that because
He lived they should live also; and the conception of a Kingdom, not of
this world, might arise in their minds, and take the place of that of the
expected Supremacy of Israel, which was dissolving out of sight.
Another effect of their affliction was that it drew them closer together.
When a family, is orphaned by a heavy blow, what they first feel may be
helplessness, but soon follows the feeling that they must cling together
and be true to one another, and each in his degree supply the help that is
lost. Soon the elder brothers, if there is good in them, learn what duty
is, and this new responsibility draws capacity out. Now the Apostles stood
in the position of elder brethren to all the family of Christ’s disciples.
It is a striking feature of the change worked in the Apostles, that, after
the Resurrection, all thoughts of self disappeared. The Apostles, as the
History shews us, had been originally no less prone to wrangle as to
“which should be greatest” than the average of men. We find in the Gospel
the self-regard that we might naturally expect: sometimes it is of a
healthy sort, as when Peter says, “We have left all and followed thee;”
and sometimes it is unhealthy, like that soreness on points of precedence,
which we mark even just before the Last Supper; but in the Acts we find
among the Apostles no trace of self-regard at all. The history in our
hands will account for this change satisfactorily enough; for these men
were called to a Work, so transcending all human interests, so absolute,
that it would leave no room for any personal thought in their souls. They
were to be fellow-workers with the living God. What could be the worth of
the difference between this office or dignity in God’s service and that,
compared with being counted worthy to take a conscious part in God’s
service at all? Some powerful impression must have been employed to bring
about such a moral change as this; and what could better account for such
an impression, than to have witnessed Christ upon the Cross? How could
they, the servants, cavil about social consideration or dignity, when
their Master had spurned all dignity and cast away all that common men
hold dear, and that too, when by speaking a word, all that earth could
bestow might have been His. Lastly, the sense that Christ was present with
them and knew their hearts, was made so real and effectual by the
Post-Resurrection intercourse, that it afterwards dominated their lives.
This feeling would still the disposition to rivalry, if any such lingered
in their hearts; for, being convinced that their Master knew what went on
in them, they would know that He grieved over anything that was wrong, as
He had done when He was by their side; and they would shrink from causing
Him pain.
The story of the Apostles is unique in History in another way. No one of
them endeavoured to draw a following about himself, or to claim succession
to the Master’s place. Little differences of view and little disagreements
as to the course to be followed now and then there were; if, indeed, our
records did not speak of such we should suspect that something was kept
back. We have cases enough of causes passed on to a company of successors
from the dying leaders’ hands, but in no instance, that I recollect, have
these successors remained united as the Apostles did (p. 414). Monarchs
have sometimes left empires in trust to their generals, whose quarrels
have finally torn them to bits. Philosophers have left their systems or
their discoveries to their favourite pupils, who, taking hold of them by
different ends, have set up new philosophies of their own. Kingly
dynasties and political parties have bequeathed causes claiming to be
sanctioned by Divine right, or to embody immutable principles, and the
inheritors have so fallen out over points of policy, that the broad
principle, broken up into branching channels, has lost its momentum and
disappeared in the sands.
I pass on to the lessons which our History of the Resurrection conveys.
The different narratives relate our Lord’s appearances, with differing
circumstances of persons and place. Herein I find that loophole for
disbelief which may be discovered in every miraculous manifestation of our
Lord. If the fact of our Lord’s Resurrection had been so attested that no
sane person could doubt of the fact; if He had appeared in public, and
appalled Pilate on his judgment seat or Herod on his throne, then—strange
as it may appear—by the very fact of the historical certainty being thus
established, the moral significance of the Resurrection would be impaired,
for the acceptance of it would be independent of that which I have so
often said is essential to religious belief, the concurrence of the free
human will.
Although, as to the occasions and circumstances of the appearances, we
find in the different accounts rather more than their customary diversity;
yet in the _nature_ of the appearances the agreement is so singular, and
the conception involved is so unexampled, that it is impossible for
different writers to have lighted at the same time on the idea, and I can
find no explanation for the phenomena, except by supposing that the
picture was taken from life. The appearances themselves, as we should
expect from their nature, leave on the mental retina an impression
indelible and distinct; but the traditions about _when_ and _how_ they
occurred, undergo variation as they pass from mouth to mouth.
The character of our Lord’s appearances, in all the Gospels, is alike.
Most commonly He is not recognised at first, and does not appear in His
own form, when other than disciples are by; only to those, who had already
mastered the words of eternal life, was it given to see Him Risen from the
dead. He comes men know not how, when they are sitting with fastened doors
He appears in the midst; He goes they know not where, and the disciples
who beforetime were so full of curiosity, do not venture to ask whither He
goes or where He abides. But, what bears most of all on my subject, is the
mode in which our Lord assuages that dread of a disembodied spirit, which
would have paralysed the Apostles’ minds. This terror, reasonable or not,
certainly existed, and Christ always deals with the fact He finds.
There were lessons still to be taught and for the right learning of them
it was needful that the old confidence between Master and learners should
still subsist. Could the disciples have listened to the Lord, as their old
Master, receiving his direction to go back to Jerusalem and tarry there
till they were “endued with power;”—could they have rested gladly on the
assurance that He would appear and help them in any need that came, if
they had regarded Him as a spectre belonging to another world?
In order to calm their instinctive terror of a spirit, and be again in
some degree what He had been on the Lake shore of Galilee, it was
necessary for our Lord to assure the Apostles that He had a body even as
they. The deep doctrinal significance of this lies beyond the limited
purpose of my book, but the point which is within my range—the effect on
the Apostles themselves of the conviction of our Lord’s existence in the
body—is important and full of instruction. It was essential that
confidence should be restored, and the course actually adopted did restore
it in a wonderful way. Men thought that a spirit might be seen and heard
but only a body could be _felt_. Our Lord therefore at once appeals to
touch—He eats and drinks before them. He tells them that He has flesh and
bones. He suffers them to “handle Him and see.” To this corporal presence
as a crowning fact St John recurs, saying “That which we beheld and our
hands handled;”(331) and St Peter says
“Him God raised up the third day, and gave him to be made
manifest, not to all the people, but unto witnesses that were
chosen before of God, _even_ to us, who did eat and drink with him
after he rose from the dead.”(332)
Our Lord would not Himself establish a visible Church. I have amply set
out, p. 236, the difficulties that would have ensued if He had so done;
but it was essential that the Apostles should receive some
indication—though only so much as was essential to the lines upon which
they were to build; and this being a matter of human cognisance was to be
given by Christ in His human guise. A phantom, or a voice from Heaven,
would have seemed an agency of a different order from the intervention of
the Son of Man.
Here I will stop for a moment, to consider these narratives of the
Resurrection under a purely literary point of view. These accounts present
us with the same general aspect of the risen Lord, and they remain true to
the primary conception in unnoticeable points of detail such as no one
would have introduced out of purposed imitation. Inasmuch as we cannot
suppose that the same wondrous creation of fancy presented itself to
different writers at the same time, we are driven to suppose, either that
the accounts relate actual facts, as Christians generally believe; or else
that they were imagined by one person who disseminated the story. But who
this writer can have been is not only a mystery but a mystery embodying
almost a miracle, for here we have a genius compared with whom—in point of
dealing naturally with the supernatural—Shakespeare is thrown into the
shade; and further this genius, we must suppose, never invented or wrote
anything else in that particular line in which he so wondrously surpassed
the rest of mankind. The Orientals delighted in tales. Did they suffer the
greatest imaginative genius of the world to live and die unknown?
There was nothing in Literature to furnish a hint for the portraiture of
the risen Lord; the idea of the Resurrection body must have been due to
one man’s imagination and have been presented with extraordinary literary
skill at a time when imaginative narration was wholly unknown. The writers
of the age in which the Gospels appeared could set down events and record
colloquies, and depict living personalities with truth and force; but they
were no more capable of conceiving a character, of making him act, and
putting into his mouth words which should seem to be his own; or of
imagining a new supernatural phenomenon, and keeping their account always
true to itself; than they were of conceiving the vibrations of an elastic
medium. That this phenomenon also, exactly met the requirements of a most
singular condition of things adds greatly to the wonder, but in another
way.
If the Christian records had been thrown aside and forgotten, while the
world, passing on its way, reached a mental culture such as we now
possess; and then, in some exploration, the Gospels had been brought to
light: would they not have been regarded by the critics of that day as
wholly anomalous, and as refusing to fit in with any theory of the growth
and progress of the literary faculty in mankind? The surprise caused by
the discovery would have been like that of excavators at Mycenae, if they
had found a watch in the treasury of Agamemnon. This aspect of the matter
belongs to the realm of critical literature rather than to mine, and I
only note it for a hint. The literary aspect of the History of the
Resurrection has yet to be written; it would be curious to see it treated
from the point of view of one, who, shut out from a knowledge of the
religious history of mankind, lighted on it as a mere literary treasure.
There is one point on which I cannot forbear to touch. Our Lord never
mentions His persecutors, He never touches on the past. The apparition of
a legend usually either reveals a burning secret, or embodies resentment
for the past; frequently it personifies hatred or foretells destruction,
and its fateful whispers make the blood of enemies run cold. But in all
the utterances of the Risen Lord not a word is said of the coming
destruction of Jerusalem, not a syllable is breathed of the treason of
Judas, or of the persistent malice of the scribes. There is an ineffable
grandeur—so unconscious that we may fail to mark it—in the utter oblivion
that is passed on the foes who had beset the path of the Son of Man. He no
more resents the ills that men had wrought Him on His way through life,
than the traveller, who has reached his home, resents the insect plague of
the desert or the tempests he has met with at sea. The past is lost to
sight, and our Lord displays but one thought and one interest, and that is
for the disciples and their work. He has now done with the rest of the
world and He belongs wholly to them. He is lifted above all human
contention into that serene atmosphere, which we feel ourselves to be
breathing, when, reading the story, we seem to find ourselves in the
presence of the Risen Lord.
I will now quote St Paul’s account of the chief occasions when our Lord
appeared; but I can only discuss one or two points of the History.
“And that he appeared to Cephas; then to the twelve; then he
appeared to above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the
greater part remain until now, but some are fallen asleep; then he
appeared to James; then to all the apostles; and last of all, as
unto one born out of due time, he appeared to me also.”(333)
I take the view, that within a few days of the Resurrection, the Apostles,
by our Lord’s command, returned to Galilee. If the Resurrection had been
immediately followed by a time of agitation—one of persecution for
instance—so that the Apostles could not have let their minds dwell on what
had happened, the lessons of that period would have been soon effaced; but
our Lord, as we have seen, is ever careful to provide seasonable
opportunity for reflection, and it was not likely that He would suffer it
to be wanting now.
The Apostles in Galilee, engaging again in their old callings, would have
leisure to review, not only the last few days, but the whole of the two
eventful years since they had been called from their work to follow
Christ. It was probably here in Galilee that the Apostles received a
command to return to Jerusalem; for we cannot account for the presence
there of all the eleven, at the time of the Ascension, together with the
mother and brethren of our Lord, except by special direction of our Lord.
They would not, without some injunction, have remained at Jerusalem after
the Resurrection,(334) neither would they have gone up thither for
Pentecost, having been so lately at the Passover. Whether the appearance
to the “five hundred brethren at once”(335) be, as I think it was,
identical with that on the mountain in Galilee recorded in St Matthew’s
Gospel, c. xxviii., v. 16, is a matter of discussion.
But where else, except in Galilee could five hundred disciples have been
got together? It could not have been at Jerusalem, at the Ascension,
because the brethren there only numbered one hundred and twenty
souls.(336) St Matthew, it is true, only speaks of the eleven disciples as
going “into Galilee unto the mountain,” but others must have been present
because we are told that “some doubted,” and the eleven would not have
doubted. This admission shews that when the writer drew up his account, he
felt no eagerness to strengthen the evidence for the Resurrection; and
that He had no fear of its being disbelieved by those for whom he wrote.
The eagerness that St Matthew does shew is to find instances of the
fulfilment of Scripture, not to support his statements of fact. It seems
to me likely, that, in Galilee, among His earliest followers, our Lord
should have appeared more publicly than He did elsewhere; here only could
He find a _body_ of believers who should serve as witnesses, and, inasmuch
as among these five hundred, there must have been men in different states
of belief, it falls in with our Lord’s way, so often noted, that He should
appear in a form, not indisputably recognisable at once and by all, but
with His aspect so changed, by some glorification perhaps, that those who
were half-hearted in their belief might remain in doubt or disbelief if
they chose; while the faithful and loving would be in no uncertainty about
their Master’s lineaments and voice.
The appearance “to James” which is related by St Paul alone, is important,
and calls for special notice.
There are three persons called “James” in the sacred books, and there may
be a question which of these it is of whom St Paul speaks. I am of opinion
that it is James the brother of our Lord. The Corinthians, to whom St Paul
is writing, would hardly know of any other; he was the head of the church
at Jerusalem and when Paul speaks of “James” simply, as in Galatians ii.
9, 12, he means always the brother of the Lord. “James, the son of
Zebedee,” Acts xii. 2, is designated “the brother of John” for
distinction’s sake, and of James the son of Alphaeus we never hear. Every
disciple however in the Church at Corinth had heard of James, the “pillar”
of the Church at Jerusalem.(337)
Nothing is heard of our Lord’s brethren during the week of the Passion;
possibly, they were not in Jerusalem, but, from the Acts, as has been just
said, we find that they were present there at the time of the Ascension.
“These all with one accord continued steadfastly in prayer, with
the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.”
Acts i. 14.
This adhesion of the brethren falls in with the supposition that our Lord
appeared to His brother James after the Resurrection in Galilee. It was
natural that James and the younger brethren should have found difficulty
in comprehending that their elder brother, who had played among them as a
child was of a nature essentially different from their own; and that this
exceptional hindrance to belief should be counterpoised by an exceptional,
but not absolutely decisive, revelation is what we might expect. It is not
inconsistent with our Lord’s treatment of doubt; for the difficulty arose
out of circumstances and not from adverse will. Of James, our Lord may
have felt sure; and Joses and Jude and Simon,(338) no one of whom could
have been much over thirty years of age, while one or two of them must
have been quite young men, may have been brought to full discipleship by
what they heard from James.
From what St Paul says, “Am I not an Apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our
Lord?”(339) it seems likely that to have beheld the Risen Lord was held to
be a condition of the status of an Apostle. St Paul must have meant “seen
the _Risen_ Jesus,” for to have cast eyes on the bodily presence of Jesus,
as He journeyed and taught, would have been a distinction shared with
thousands.
Without some recognition of James by our Lord, such as is related by St
Paul, it is hard to account for his being placed at the head of the
Church. We hear of no election or form of appointment, but we find him in
this position about ten years after this time. It would have been at
variance with our Lord’s repeated injunctions to the Apostles not to seek
authority one over the other, if the primacy had been made a matter of
contest.(340)
Organisation and graduation of authority grew up in the Church, not after
any plan settled and declared, but as the need of it arose. It agreed in
this respect with the history of those human institutions that have proved
the most enduring. In this, as in all matters, our Lord, wherever it was
possible, left His followers free; not but what, when these same followers
turned to their Master and prayed for guidance, as in the election of
Matthias, they found in their hearts an answer positive and plain.
St Peter, in the earliest days of the Church, stands forth as the foremost
personage; but this influence rests on personal qualities and not on any
formal appointment. He, as I have said (pp. 248, 344), was the man of
action, the person who in every juncture addressed himself at once to the
question, “What is to be done?” It was Peter, who took immediate steps to
fill up the vacancy which the apostacy of Judas had left. He was the
speaker on the day of Pentecost, and he it was who in the case of Ananias
sternly repressed falsehood unto God. But the impetuosity of Peter, and
his disposition to give himself up completely to the impression of the
moment, though it served well to carry forward a great movement at its
outset, may have made him ill adapted for the ruler of an infant Church,
in which discordant elements had to be welded into one; while the
well-poised judgment of James the Just(341) and his practical sense fitted
him particularly for this kind of rule. That this admirable selection,
this putting of each in his right place, should have come about without
dispute; and that those who had “borne the burden and heat of the day”
should have admitted to equality—or something more—in outward dignity, one
who was “of the eleventh hour,” bears out what I have said of the
phenomenal subordination of self displayed by the Apostles. It shews that
outward dignity and authority—that which I have taken to be the “false
mammon” of the parable—was as nothing in their eyes compared to the true
riches, the priceless feeling that their work great or small, as men might
count it, was all done for God and all accepted by God.
The Ascension.
What was said of the Resurrection we may say of the Ascension too. The
changes it brought about in the position and characters of those few “men
of Galilee” who stood “gazing up into heaven,” seem small matters compared
with the immensity of its import for the Human Race. But, that our Lord
did not leave out of sight the effect on the Apostles of the change in
their condition which His departure would cause, is clear from words
spoken to the Twelve, which are preserved to us by St John, and on which
there is something to say.
“Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I
go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto
you; but if I go, I will send him unto you.”(342)
This saying the Apostles may have found hard to comprehend; for it must
have seemed to them impossible that it could ever be for their good for
their Master to leave them; and, why the Comforter should not come, while
they all continued together, would by no means be clear to their minds.
Neither here nor elsewhere does our Lord explain to the Apostles either
the reason of His regimen or the way in which it was to work. He tells
them simply the fact, without a word as to _how_ or _why_. He never leads
them to examine into the _modus operandi_ of His treatment, He would have
awakened—what He carefully avoids—self-consciousness, if He had so done.
That they could not learn, at the same time, from Him in the body and also
from the Comforter in their own souls, arose, not from any “determinate
counsel of God,” but because the mind cannot perform two operations at
once. It rested on the positive psychological fact that we cannot walk by
Sight and by Faith at the same time; that we cannot turn one ear to an
earthly monitor, and keep the other open to the whispers of a spiritual
guide. The posture of our minds when we are hanging on the lips of a
living Master, is different from that in which we set ourselves to listen
for the Comforting Voice from within. The Apostles would not have learned
to hearken to the promptings of the Spirit so long as they could turn to
Christ by their side; and it was therefore “expedient for them” that
Christ should go away. They would not otherwise have reached full
communion with the Spirit on high.
Instances in the Acts shew us in what way the Spirit acted in the hearts
of believers. Sometimes, when human judgment and inclination seemed to
agree, an unaccountable inward reluctance to follow their dictates was
nevertheless felt—a repugnance, not resting on a new argument, but simply
saying “No.” When men experienced such feelings, some might overbear them
by will; but Paul and Silas recognised in them the voice of the Spirit.
For we hear that they “went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia,
having been forbidden of the Holy Ghost to speak the word in Asia; and
when they were come over against Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia;
and the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not.”(343)
Again Christ’s Church was to be everlasting and universal, and this it
could only become by changing outward and visible for inward spiritual
rule. So long as the Lord was in bodily presence among them, the disciples
naturally looked only to Him. Where He was, there and there only to their
minds was His Kingdom and His Church. For His sway to become universal it
was essential that He should go away, for it is only Spiritual influence
that can be everywhere at once. The fire had to be set alight at a
particular spot and at a particular time, but it was then to be left to
spread over the earth and to go on burning, seemingly all of itself.
All through the Gospel we mark how men cling to the Letter, and how
Christ, with tender hand extricates the Spirit from it and tells His
hearers, that it is this which gives the Letter its worth. A law such as
that of Moses has its place in the Schooling of a race at a certain epoch
of national life; but a code or a creed that cannot be expanded must at
last be outgrown. If however a Divine and living Spirit be enshrined in a
Church, it may direct its development, and transform the outward tenement
as inward need requires.
Christ came to set men spiritually free; but, strange to say, men are slow
to take this freedom up. Among some African races, a man set free from a
master at once goes and sells himself to another, he cannot be troubled
with managing for himself. This is like the way in which men liberated
from one absolute and infallible authority have so often handed themselves
over to another. They must have something or somebody to take their
beliefs and consciences in charge. Fancying that they are to be saved by
holding proper opinions—for by belief they often mean no more than taking
up and maintaining opinion—they come, asking, “What are we to believe?”
just as the Scribe asked, “What am I to do?” Christ’s answer to him
practically was, that he possessed already grounds enough to frame for
himself a rule of conduct such as he required. Might He not answer the
others nearly in the same strain?
Belief, in Christ’s sense of the word, is not the acceptance of a theory,
it is something that will actuate the man’s whole being, and which
requires the concurrence of an emancipated will. Now this emancipation
brings with it a responsibility—a call to mental effort—which a large
proportion of mankind steadfastly abhor.
Thus the Israelitish party in St Paul’s time and after, hugged the chains
of the Jewish Law; then, after turbulent ages of fierce doctrinal
dissension, when combative spirits found in polemics the strife which
their temperaments required, the Churches of Greece and of Rome took
charge of the consciences of men. A revolt at length took place against
the external authority of the Church, but there was no more religious
freedom under the new regimes than under the old. Confessions of Faith
came into vogue, and men tried to tie down after ages to the ways in which
the controversialists of the sixteenth century had, with much giving and
taking, agreed to regard the insoluble problems of existence. The Bible
was now often held up, not to reveal God’s will and ways, but to yield
texts for weapons in disputes. Christ’s care to guard against a bondage
unto written matter is apparent in the whole form of His teaching; and
especially in His leaving no writings of His own, and no directly
accredited record of His life; but the craving of men after an unerring
touchstone of truth has wrapped them again in bonds like those from which
Christ would have set them free; and the Canonical books have been
invested with a character of literal inspiration, not unlike what would
have attached to writings of our Lord Himself.
The verses of John, Chap. xvi. 9, 10 which follow that of which I have
been speaking, while leading us to the profoundest Theology, bear on the
change from a visible teacher to a spiritual one, and so far they come
within my scope. I have only to do with them so far as they illustrate
this change. The reason given for the intervention of the Spirit is, that
Christ, in the body, will no longer bring home to the world the sense of
sin and of righteousness and of judgement.
“And he, when he is come, will convict the world in respect of
sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement: of sin, because they
believe not on me; of righteousness, because I go to the Father,
and ye behold me no more; of judgement, because the prince of this
world has been judged.” John xvi. 8-11.
I should place the emphasis on the pronouns—He and I. The Spirit is to
take the place of the departed Lord. So long as Christ was in the world He
Himself brought home to the men who believed on Him the sense of sin; He
presented the ideal of righteousness, and He enforced the conviction that
moral evil brought doom and destruction upon men. Henceforth the witness
to all this would no longer be Christ in the body, whose contact with the
world was necessarily limited to one point, but the Holy Spirit, which
could speak to the hearts of all mankind at once. It would lead me too far
from my province if I enlarged on the topic of _Judgment_; and I turn to
another matter.
It may be asked, Why did this Post-Resurrection state last as long as it
did and not longer? God’s _reasons_ we leave aside, but this we can say,
Christ never hurries forward processes in the Apostles’ mind, and these
processes, in this case, needed all the time allowed; also, since a state
of watchfulness involves a nerve-strain, it agrees with Christ’s
carefulness for the body that this condition should not last too long. The
_durations_ of the different stages of our Lord’s teaching—that while He
was in the flesh, and that while He wore the body of the Resurrection—seem
to me just as wisely ordered for the end in view, as are the other
circumstances of the case.
Christ’s way of teaching is the very opposite of that which would make the
learner a mere reflection of his Master. In the Mission to the cities and
in the ministrations of their every-day life, Christ had left the Apostles
to act very much for themselves, He had kept their self-helpfulness alive
in various ways; we find them bold to question, and not slow to murmur,
and both questions and murmurs are readily tolerated by our Lord. But,
even with all these precautions, if they had remained too long in
attendance on Him, we can imagine that they would have got confirmed in
the habit of looking constantly to their Master and of, at once, carrying
to Him every difficulty without considering it themselves, and they would
thus have lost capacity both to think and to act. They might also have
fallen into habits of mind which, serviceable so long as they were
subordinates, would stand in their way when they had to take the lead.
They might have become faithful to execute, but helpless to plan. When
subordinates, or young people, are too long deprived of opportunity for
judging and acting for themselves, their minds are apt to become passive
and purely receptive; they become slow to start a notion or suggest an
expedient; ideas of theirs, they fancy, are not wanted, and so they soon
cease to have ideas at all.
Our Lord guarded against this by restricting the period of the Apostles’
pupilage. As soon as the ground plan of their characters was marked out,
He left them to rear the superstructure for themselves. He was so tender
in preserving every line of individuality that He would not shackle
freedom of growth in His disciples, even by prolonging His own
companionship and instruction beyond the proper time.
But, if the period of our Lord’s stay on earth in the body, served its
educational purpose all the better from being no longer than it was; so
did that also of the forty days after the Resurrection (supposing that we
accept the traditional chronology) for the opposite reason, from its being
extended so long. Four days would have served as well as forty for the
manifestation of the Risen Lord, for the conclusive witness to His Divine
nature, and for ratifying the hope of immortality in the bosoms of
mankind; within this time He could have given His final charge to the
infant Church, and have set it on its way. A higher work however remained
which could not be perfected all at once. The Apostles were now to receive
the crowning lesson of the course. They were about to pass out of the
training ground into the real arena of danger and of toil. They were to be
gradually fitted to exercise authority, and to feel trust in the presence
with them of a Spiritual Guide.
It took time for their faculties to grow into shape and adapt themselves
to the change. Christ always brings His scholars on by gradual progress;
He moulds them as nature moulds organic forms; there are with Him no sharp
or sudden turns, no jerks in the movements, but all proceeds along one
even curve. If the forty days of this transitional condition had not
intervened, but the Apostles had been suddenly transformed from disciples
into the rulers of a community; if, more than this, they had found
themselves all at once exalted into the accredited ministers of the
Almighty in the most express and patent of His dispensations, what human
beings could have stood the strain? Gradually, during those forty days,
they got used to possessing authority. It was not formally conferred; but
the other disciples took it for granted that they were to look to them for
direction or advice. In this season also, the Apostles acquired a habit of
watchfulness over themselves, knowing that Christ was looking into their
hearts, and might at any moment appear by their side.
The framing of a society in which Christ’s word should be the outer Law
and Christ’s spiritual presence be the sustaining life, was to be the work
of men, because it was to be adapted to human needs. It does not derogate
from man’s free agency, that he should own and follow the promptings of
God, for to do this is part of his proper nature; these promptings are not
an alien influence, but belong to his own self as he was intended to be.
With the descent of the Holy Spirit at the end of the forty days, the
outward visible training of the Apostles, which it has been my business to
trace, was brought to an end; and the guidance of God’s Spirit, working in
men to will and to do of His good pleasure, came in its place.(344)
The fire which Christ had come into man’s world to kindle, was now alight,
and the special need for Christ’s presence on earth did not longer exist.
What was it, we may ask, that He left behind? The chief visible outcome of
His work was the little band of Apostles; but the mightiest of His
influences were imponderable and unseen. Our Lord’s sojourn on earth had
changed the world in which He had dwelt, so that all subsequent History
reads differently from that which goes before. By what means was this
change wrought? Christ left no new code of regulations for men to live by.
He introduced no changes into Human Society or into any of the forms of
Government which He found upon earth. If men might not be left to frame
such things for themselves, what had freedom and faculties been given to
them for? What Christ did leave, was infinitely more than a reorganisation
of Society or a scheme for the reformation of men. On that day of
Pentecost a new faculty—that of communing with God’s Spirit—came to the
birth. And a new force—that of living religion—sprang into existence as a
fresh agent in the affairs of the world—a force which Emperors and
sacerdotal castes and schools of philosophers had soon to reckon with.
This fire has now and then burned low, but at such times some
“circumstance” has often come about, which, answering to some expression
of our Lord—perhaps one which seemed till then obscure—has opened out a
vista in the minds of men. People say, “Now we see what that hard saying
meant,” or “Christ must have had this in view when He spoke.” Or else—what
has sometimes happened—an idea has sprung up in men’s hearts, seemingly
everywhere at once, and Christ’s words have caught a fuller meaning, read
by the light of this.
So far we have traced the steps by which the Apostles were taught Faith in
the unseen. First by confidence in a Master at their side, next by the
assurance that, though unseen, He was close by, and could, if needed,
appear and help as of old; and now, lastly, when seeing Him no more, there
comes in their hearts an assurance that He is with them to the end of the
world.
When I say that the Apostles were _taught_ Faith, I use the word _taught_
in a different sense from that which it has when applied to the subjects
of knowledge. I mean that through wise moral treatment, a quality existing
only as a rudiment was so developed as to fit the disciples for communion
with God; and not only did they in this sense learn Faith, but—what also
need learning, more than we suppose—Love and Hope as well.
I spoke casually just now of the joy which, as appears by the Book of
Acts, illumined the Apostles’ lives. This came greatly of Love; not merely
from the affection of the brethren for each other, but from a general
Lovingness, a capacity for Love, which, on coming into action, made them
look differently on all they saw. This, like their Faith, had grown up
from their being in their Master’s company. They felt how He loved them;
and if ever one among them was disposed to think lightly or unkindly of a
brother disciple, he might recollect how dear that brother—faults and
all—was to Christ; and then he could hardly help feeling that if his
Master bore with him he might do so too. They marked also Christ’s
beneficence, His eagerness to render kindness, His readiness to use His
wondrous power for the good of those who had no claim upon Him, His
gentleness in rebuke, His never recurring to a bygone fault. And this
sense of being beloved, this living in an atmosphere of affection,
generated in them the capacity for Loving, just as the Home Love that is
round a child, not only awakens in it affection to those who shew
affection towards it, but teaches it what Love is; and engenders in it a
great outcome of Lovingness which it strews broadcast, and bestows, not on
persons only, but on animals, and even on inanimate things.
We have had sight of the Apostles at a time when this Love was only half
fledged among them, and did not understand itself. It was yet in this
state in St Peter when he asked: How often he must forgive the brother who
sinned against him.(345) Love with him was then only unfolding in his
mind, it was still a thing of bounds and measures; later on he learnt—and
his Master’s sacrifice crowned the lesson—that it is in essence infinite.
By the time when the Apostles had to stand alone and labour for their
charge, they had learnt what Love was. From that came the unity and
harmony of which I have spoken above. A common interest or even common
devotion to a cause would not have gone deep enough down to have quenched
all rivalries. Even if paramount interests had put self out of sight for a
while, it would still have been there, ready to reappear when opportunity
came. Impatience would have come out now and then. It is Love only which
brings others as close to a man as his own self. This lesson of Love was
perfected, for the Apostles, by their witnessing Christ’s death upon the
cross—a death not for friends, not for those under His protection, but for
men “while they were yet sinners.”(346) They saw, too, that when He rose
from the dead in absolute might Divine, He breathed not a word shewing
that He remembered His wrongs, but quietly put the past away. All this
filled the Apostles’ hearts with Lovingness; they could not have gone on
with their work, with so little return to shew, unless they had loved the
brethren and the converts. The joy which we note in the Apostles, resting
like a halo upon them, comes of their feeling sure that God loves them,
and of their loving all God’s creatures in return. It was this Love that
fascinated their hearers; when the words of Paul, notwithstanding that his
speech—so they said—was contemptible, went to the hearts of Greeks and
Barbarians, as we know they did, what he touched them by was this magic of
Love.
A word about the nature of that Hope which nestled in the Apostles’ hearts
must end my book. If their Master doubted, whether, when He should come at
the last, “He should find Faith upon the earth;” what, it may be asked,
could this Hope of the Apostles have been? Now, that these words of Christ
were not spoken in despondency is clear enough for many reasons, but this
one reason, that they caused no despondency to the hearers would, to my
mind, be sufficient of itself.
What this saying tells us is, that we are not to look for Christ’s Kingdom
in the shape of a perfected community existing at the last upon the earth.
Science and observation seem to point in the same way. Men are never so
selfish and so regardless of others as when they are pushing for place in
a crowd. Now this globe can only yield food for a time, it must be
exhausted of its stores, and even, it would seem, of its reproductive
powers, at last; and a half-regenerated humanity would be apt to
degenerate back again when they were struggling for standing room and for
bread.
To take another point; though science has not settled the future of this
planet of ours, yet opinion leans greatly towards our system’s having an
end. But, if we accept Christ’s teaching, Man need not come to an end
together with the fabric of the world. The earth is only the spot upon
which he is reared and put to proof. Those who come out of the trial we
believe to be removed, perhaps after an interval, to another kind of life
elsewhere; so that, though this outer fabric of the world may perish, Man,
we may believe, will survive, not in a material but in “a spiritual
body”(347) whose nature of course we cannot know. Thus the Human episode
in the great Epic of Existence, may, as far as life upon this planet goes,
come to an end, but the Humanity for which the Christian labours and for
which Christ died, will exist for ever; for the Spirits of just men made
perfect will have been garnered from age to age into abodes prepared for
them from the first. And though Christ, in His wisdom, be sparing of
utterances about that which is winnowed away, yet there are not wanting
analogies justifying hope.
The education of human souls to fitness for everlasting spiritual life, is
of all God’s purposes the one which we can most continuously discern. No
reign of peace and bliss upon this earth could be of indefinite
continuance; a perfected Humanity could only endure for a time.
Consequently, if we limit our Love to a Humanity visibly existing on the
earth, we give up our hearts to something which must necessarily come to
an end: if we make a Deity of this we shall serve but a temporary God.
But—although the earth should be calcined to powder, or fly off into
regions of space where the temperature is fatal to life—still that
Humanity which has the Son of Man for its central and presiding figure may
abide with Him for ever, in some of the many mansions of His Father’s
House.
CHRONOLOGICAL APPENDIX.
It will be of service to readers to have a summary of the actions and
movements of our Lord, in the order in which they are treated of in the
Text. Few of the dates can be fixed with any certitude and it remains a
matter of opinion in what order many of the events occurred. The only
dates which can be historically determined are those of the death of
Herod, and of the beginning (A.D. 25) and end (A.D. 36) of the
Governorship of Pilate; with these latter I am not now concerned. When St
Luke names the fifteenth year of Tiberius (A.D. 28, A.U.C. 781 beginning
on August 19), it is not quite certain whether he means to fix the time
when John began to preach, or when Jesus was baptised, or when John was
cast into prison. The grounds for fixing the dates of our Lord’s birth,
His appearance in public, and the duration of His Ministry are given in
Tischendorf’s “Synopsis Evangelica.” I assume, as sufficiently admitted
for my working hypothesis, (1) that our Lord was born early in the year
B.C. 4, A.U.C. 750, In which, shortly before the passover, as we learn
from Josephus, Herod the Great died; and also (2) that the Baptism of our
Lord took place in the very beginning of A.D. 28.
I propose to exhibit the order of events, taken month by month, as I
suppose them to have occurred. In the greater number of cases I am
supported by the authority of Dr Edersheim in his work on the “Life and
Times of Jesus the Messiah,” and also frequently by Bishop Ellicott, from
the Notes to whose Historical Lectures on the Life of our Lord, delivered
1860, I have obtained much help in forming this Appendix.
A.D. 28. _January._ A.U.C. 781.
I place the Baptism of our Lord near the close of the month. This was
immediately followed by His withdrawal into the wilderness.
A.D. 28. _February._
The whole of this month I suppose to have been passed by our Lord in the
wilderness.
A.D. 28. _March._
About the 10th or 12th of March our Lord appears “in Bethany (or
Bethabarah) beyond Jordan where John was baptizing.” John i. 28.
On the next day, John, Simon and Andrew come to our Lord, and on that
which follows our Lord “findeth Philip,” and “Philip findeth Nathanael.”
John i. 43, 45.
Indications in the Gospels of the season of the year in which the events
happened are so rare that we catch even at slight matters—one such occurs
here—Nathanael is seen “sitting under the fig tree,” John i. 48; and as he
would hardly have done so if the tree had been bare, it is probable that
at this time the fig tree was already in leaf. It might have been so by
March 10th; for the climate of the Jordan valley, in the deep cleft of the
limestone rocks, far beneath the level of the Mediterranean and three
thousand feet lower than the hills of Judæa, was almost tropical; and fig
trees, which on the high ground about Jerusalem were not in leaf till
April, would be at least a month earlier at this “Peræan Bethany,” as the
place is called by Bishop Ellicott
I suppose our Lord to have left “the place where John was baptizing” not
later than March 10th and to have been present at the marriage at Cana on
or near the 14th. The Passover in this year fell on the 30th of March,
and, assuming that our Lord reached Jerusalem on the 28th March, a
fortnight has to be accounted for. I have explained, p. 165, what I
suppose to have happened in the meanwhile, viz. that our Lord returned
with His family to Nazareth, which was 4 miles from Cana, and that, owing
to the displeasure shewn by the inhabitants, either at His pretensions or
at His having performed His first miracle at another place, He and His
mother, His brethren and His disciples removed to Capernaum—“there they
abode not many days,” John ii. 12. Our Lord then went to Jerusalem, and
His family, though not mentioned, may have gone there also. Whether they
ever settled again at Nazareth is uncertain. They were at Capernaum in
March, A.D. 29, Mark iii. 21, 32. Observe that the sisters of our Lord are
not named: they remained at Nazareth, where they were probably married. We
read, “Are not His sisters here with us?” (implying that the brothers were
not so), Mark vi. 3.
A.D. 28. _April._
Our Lord during this month was with His disciples at Jerusalem; the events
are related in St John, Chap. ii. 13 to Chap. iii. 21.
A.D. 28. _May._
Henceforth the Chronology depends greatly on the time at which we suppose
our Lord’s journey through Samaria to have taken place. I place it in May
A.D. 28, but many authorities put it in the December of that year. We
read,
“After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judæa;
and there he tarried with them, and baptized. And John also was baptizing
in Ænon near to Salim, because there was much water there: and they came,
and were baptized.”—John iii. 22, 23.
This choice of Ænon on account of there being “much water there” points to
water having already become somewhat scarce elsewhere. There are in the
North-eastern part of Judæa only a few springs which never fail. These are
much valued, and one such spring at least was found at Ænon; its site is
doubtful (see Bishop Westcott, “St John’s Gospel”). If, as some have
supposed, it was late in the Autumn when our Lord made this journey, water
would be abundant enough in many places, as the streams become full in
November. I speak of this because it bears out my view that our Lord’s
journey through Samaria took place in the May and not in the December of
A.D. 28.
In the latter half of the former month, I suppose that our Lord left Judæa
and passed, with only a few disciples, through Samaria into Galilee (see
pp. 171, 174, 176, 179).
The verse—
“Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh the
harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on
the fields, that they are white already unto harvest,” John iv.
35,
is important in determining the dates.
Some regard the above saying as having been spoken soon after seed time;
and think that the first sentence refers to the state of the corn at that
moment, when it would have been just coming up, it being then four months
from harvest: this would agree with the view that the journey was taken at
the end of December,(348) and that the “whiteness to harvest” referred
metaphorically to the harvest of conversions the Apostles were to reap.
Others, among whom is Dr Edersheim, regard the country as being _at the
time of speaking_ white (that is _bright_) with harvest, and consider the
words to have been spoken in May and to bear a literal sense. This latter
view seems to me to agree best with the incidents of the journey, many of
which—our Lord’s weariness, His resting at the fountain(349) and His
asking for drink—wear, to my mind, an aspect of summer; moreover, the
words “Say ye not” apply better to a maxim of husbandry lying in the minds
of the people, than to such an indisputable fact as the time of year when
they were spoken. It would have seemed more natural to say “Are we not
four months now from harvest?” It was a fact which was in every
husbandman’s mouth, that the interval between seed time (December), and
barley harvest (April) was four months, and our Lord’s meaning is, “The
husbandman has to wait four months for his harvest, you begin at once to
reap; law-givers and prophets and agencies unseen have sown for you.”
A.D. 28. _June._
Our Lord arrives at Cana in Galilee. A “certain nobleman” comes to Him
from Capernaum; our Lord heals his son, John iv. 46. The words “whatsoever
we have heard done at Capernaum,” Luke iv. 23, refer I think to this, if
so, they help to fix the date of the Preaching at Nazareth related in St
Luke’s Gospel, chap. iv. 16-30. For additional reasons for placing the
Sermon in the synagogue at Nazareth at this time instead of after John’s
imprisonment, see above, pp. 164, 165, 179, and also Dr Edersheim, “Life
and Times of Jesus,” vol. 1. p. 430.
It should be noted that we hear nothing of our Lord’s mother and brethren.
If they had been in Nazareth, they would probably have interposed as they
subsequently did at Capernaum where we find them living, Mark iii. 31.
The few disciples who came with our Lord through Samaria probably went to
their homes when He reached Galilee, for St John does not speak of them
afterwards.
This account of the Preaching at Nazareth is peculiar to St Luke, I
conceive it to have come into his hands as an isolated piece of
information, which he fits into the history to the best of his judgment.
The events at Capernaum, which in the Gospel of St Luke (iv. 31-44) are
related immediately after this sermon, took place after our Lord had come
preaching the Kingdom (see Mark i. 21-39). In the Sermon at Nazareth there
is no mention of the “Kingdom of God,” nor do the disciples seem to have
been in attendance. This favours the view that the public Ministry in
Galilee had not yet begun.
A.D. 28. _July, August._
I believe our Lord to have spent this summer preaching in the synagogues,
not only of Galilee but also of Judæa. With regard to the verse (Luke iv.
44), “and he was preaching in the synagogues of Galilee,” we have in the
margin of the Revised Version “very many ancient authorities read
_Judæa_.” We can understand Judæa being altered into Galilee, to suit the
mention of Capernaum, but it is not easy to comprehend a change from
Galilee into Judæa (see also Acts x. 37). It agrees with my view of our
Lord’s course that He should at this time have been exploring the tempers
of the people both in Judæa and in Galilee; and I believe the summer of
A.D. 28 to have been passed in this work. The Lord may have gone about
unattended or nearly so, He had as yet bidden no one to follow except
Philip (John i. 43). The 15th year of Tiberius began in this August, but
possibly St Luke might speak of the whole year, from Jan. 1st, by this
name.
A.D. 28. _September._
The feast of John v. which, both by Bishop Westcott and Dr Edersheim, is
spoken of as “the unknown feast,” I believe to have taken place in this
month. I am inclined to identify it with the feast of Tabernacles, see p.
181. It was, as I think, in this month that John was imprisoned by Herod
Antipas, who may have feared that the great influence of the prophet would
be especially dangerous when the country would be thronged with visitors
to the great feast. The Feast of Tabernacles in A.U.C. 781 began on Sept.
18, and lasted till Sept. 29. Josephus, “Antiquities of the Jews,” Bk.
xviii. Chap. v, Whiston’s translation, gives the following account: “Now,
when [many] others came in crowds about him, for they were greatly moved
[or pleased] by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great
influence John had over the people might put it into his power and
inclination to raise rebellion (for they seemed to do any thing he should
advise), thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief
he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties, by sparing a man
who might make him repent of it when it should be too late. Accordingly he
was sent a prisoner, out of Herod’s suspicious temper, to Macherus, the
castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death.” The Gospel account
is not at variance with this, for if John denounced Herod’s intentions
with regard to Herodias as a violation of Law, this would be likely to
increase the disaffection of the people. When the news reaches our Lord
(probably in Judæa) He goes at once into Galilee (Matth. iv. 12, 13; Mark
i. 14; Acts x. 37) and His public preaching of the Kingdom of God begins.
A.D. 28. _October_, _November_, _December_.
Early in October our Lord comes to the sea of Galilee and calls Simon and
Andrew and James and John. Matth. iv. 18; Mark i. 16-19; Luke v. 4.
Following this, comes His residence at Capernaum, and the events of Mark
i. 14-45, and Mark ii.
A.D. 29. _January_, _February_. A.U.C. 782.
The events of Mark iii. may be placed here.
The call of the Twelve (Mark iii. 13, 14; Luke vi. 13) probably took place
early in February. Neither St Matthew nor St John gives an express account
of the calling, but both refer to it, “And he called unto him his twelve
disciples,” Matt. x. 1; and, “Jesus said therefore unto the Twelve,” John
vi. 67. I suppose it to have been near the end of the month when the two
disciples sent by John the Baptist came to Christ. Matth. xi. 2; Luke vii.
18.
A.D. 29. _March._
In this month I should place the following events in the order given
below:
(1) The teaching by parables. Matth. xiii. 3; Mark iv. 1; Luke viii. 4.
(2) The visit to the country of the Gerasenes (or Gadarenes). Matth. viii.
28; Mark v. 1; Luke viii. 26.
(3) The raising of Jairus’ daughter. Matth. ix. 18; Mark v. 21-41; Luke
viii. 41.
(4) The second visit to Nazareth. “And he went out from thence; and he
cometh into his own country; and his disciples follow him;” Mark vi. 1,
also Matth. xiii. 54. This mention of “disciples” is one of many
circumstances which distinguish this visit to Nazareth from that of Luke
iv. 15.
(5) The sending out of the twelve two by two. Matth. x. 1; Mark vi. 7;
Luke ix. 1.
(6) Execution of John the Baptist. Tischendorf is inclined to think that
Herod was celebrating not his birthday but his accession, which took place
on the death of Herod the Great about ten days before the Passover, which
in A.U.C. 750 fell on April 2. This conjecture is doubtful. Matth. xiv. 2;
Mark vi. 21; Luke iii. 19.
A.D. 29. _April._
The order of events in this month I take to have been, approximately, as
follows:
(1) Herod’s misgiving that John had risen from the dead. Matth. xiv. 2;
Mark vi. 16.
(2) Our Lord, on the return of the twelve, crosses the lake. Matth. xiv.
13; Mark vi. 32; Luke ix. 10.
(3) The Passover was now at hand, John vi. 4. Feeding of the five
thousand, Matth. xiv. 15; Mark vi. 35; Luke ix. 12; John vi. 5. The
walking on the sea, Matth. xiv. 25; Mark vi. 48; John vi. 19.
The day of the passover A.D. 29 was the 18th of April. What is mentioned
by St Mark, viz. that the multitude sat down on “the green grass,” agrees
with this indication of the season. It was only during a short time in
spring, and then only in a few places, that green grass was found in
Palestine. This impressed itself on the narrator, and is an indication of
eye-witness work; it is what critics call “autoptic.” There is no mention
of green grass in the feeding of the 4000 which was in the late summer.
This miracle was followed by the return to Capernaum (Discourse on the
bread of life, John, chap, vi.) and the controversy with the Pharisees on
traditions, Matth. xv. 1, 20; Mark vii. 1-23.
A.D. 29. _May_, _June_, _July_, _August_.
(1) Journey to the borders of Tyre and Sidon, Matth. xv. 21; Mark vii. 24.
(2) Return from thence.
“And again he went out from the borders of Tyre, and came through Sidon
unto the sea of Galilee and through the midst of the borders of Decapolis”
(on the east of the sea of Galilee), Matth. xv. 29; Mark vii. 31.
(3) There the feeding of the four thousand takes place (see under April).
Matth. xv. 32; Mark viii. 1.
(4) Our Lord crosses the lake “into the borders of Magadan,” Matth. xv.
39; or “into the parts of Dalmanutha,” Mark viii. 10, this was on the
western coast. He then proceeds to the north of the lake; there He heals
the blind man at Bethsaida Julias.
(5) “And Jesus went forth, and his disciples into the villages of Cæsarea
Philippi,” Mark xiii. 33. Confession of Peter, Matth. xvi. 13; Mark viii.
29; Luke ix. 20.
(6) The Transfiguration; Matth. xvii. 1; Mark ix. 2; Luke ix. 28.
(7) Return of our Lord with Peter, James and John from the Mount, to the
place where He had left the disciples. Mark ix. 9.
A.D. 29. _September._
“They went forth from thence and passed through Galilee; and he would not
that any man should know it,” Mark ix. 30, “and they came to Capernaum,”
Mark ix. 33.
The miracle of the stater in the fish’s mouth (Matth. xvii. 24) is usually
placed at this point of the narrative. We have no other account than that
given in St Matthew’s Gospel, where it seems to be related as happening at
this time. But the evidence as to chronology is not conclusive. This
stater or half-shekel was the payment for the Temple service, and we know
that this was levied in March. That the demand should be made in September
is explained by saying that our Lord’s absence since April might have
prevented the collection of the tax. It is however possible that this
event may have taken place in March, A.D. 30, see below.
Our Lord, leaving Capernaum, made the journey through Samaria to
Jerusalem, John vii. 3, Luke ix. 51, 56, arriving there about the 18th of
September, which in this year was the middle of the Feast of Tabernacles.
The sending out of the Seventy took place soon afterwards, Luke x. 1.
A.D. 29. _October._
Our Lord takes up His residence in Judæa, possibly at Bethany, see p. 370.
Incident of woman taken in adultery, John viii. 1. Our Lord in the house
of Martha, Luke x. 38-40.
_November._
Our Lord probably passed this month in Judæa. Many of the events of Luke,
chapters xi., xii., xiii. may have occurred at this time, but we must not
conclude for certain from St Luke’s account that the events of these
chapters all fell together in one short period. Some of them are related
by St Matthew in a different connexion; it seems impossible to place them
in order.
A.D. 29. _December._
The Feast of dedication (encaenia), John x. 22, fell in this year on the
20th of December, and lasted eight days. At the end of our Lord’s
discourse at this feast, St John says “They sought again to take him: and
he went forth out of their hand. And he went away again beyond Jordan into
the place where John was at first baptizing, and there he abode.” John x.
39, 40.
A.D. 30. _January._ A.U.C. 783.
Our Lord may have remained at the place just mentioned, “the Peræan
Bethany” (see A.D. 28, March), during this month, having probably only a
few followers with Him.
“And many came unto him; and they said, John indeed did no sign: but all
things whatsoever John spake of this man were true.” John x. 41.
The people contrast Him with John. This agrees with what is said of the
place, viz. that John had baptized there; the people recollected him. The
teaching of our Lord in Peræa, of which we have an account only in Luke,
chaps, xv., xvi., was probably given about this time.
A.D. 30. _February._
Early in this month our Lord leaves Peræa, where He had been travelling
about, being warned by the Pharisees—
“And he went on his way through cities and villages, teaching, and
journeying on unto Jerusalem.” Luke xiii. 22.
“In that very hour there came certain Pharisees, saying to him, Get thee
out, and go hence: for Herod would fain kill thee.” St Luke xiii. 31.
A.D. 30. _March._
While on this progress the news of the sickness of Lazarus reaches our
Lord. He seems then to have been little more than a day’s journey from
Jerusalem, but outside the limits of Judæa:
“The sisters therefore sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou
lovest is sick. But when Jesus heard it, he said, This sickness is not
unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified
thereby.”(350) John xi. 3, 4.
“When therefore he heard that he was sick, he abode at that time two days
in the place where he was. Then after this he saith to the disciples, Let
us go into Judæa again.” John xi. 6, 7.
After the raising of Lazarus, the chief priests and Pharisees “from that
day forth took counsel that they might put him (Jesus) to death: Jesus
therefore walked no more openly among the Jews, but departed thence into
the country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim; and there
he tarried with the disciples.” John xi. 53, 54.
From Ephraim, the position of which is uncertain, (Dr Edersheim, as I
understand him, thinks it may have been near the north end of the sea of
Galilee, in Decapolis,) our Lord passes through “the midst of Samaria and
Galilee”—St Luke xvii. 11.
This would seem, from the order in which the places are named, to refer to
the journey on the way north to Ephraim, but no certain conclusion can be
drawn. Towards the end of the month, our Lord joins the company of people
on their way from Galilee to Jerusalem, passing by Jericho. The incidents
of the journey and the important discourses on the way are related in
Mark, chap, x., and in the parallel passages of Matthew and Luke.
The question arises, Where did our Lord join this company? I incline to
think that after a short stay at Capernaum, He went with the Galilean
company up to the Passover. During the stay at Ephraim, the disciples
would have had leisure to turn over in their minds what they had seen and
heard; especially the raising of Lazarus, and the words to Martha on
eternal life, the plainest our Lord ever spoke; John xi. 25. It is our
Lord’s way, as I have often pointed out, to leave intervals for
reflection. On the way south (supposing that Ephraim was to the north),
with His small company of disciples, He may have made a short stop at
Capernaum, where, according to my view (see p. 372), St Peter may have
partly resided since the feast of Tabernacles, joining from time to time
the disciples in attendance on our Lord. Jesus would, on this supposition,
be in St Peter’s house in the month of March when the officers, in due
course, called for the Temple contribution, and in this way we avoid the
hypothesis of a payment overdue (see under Sept A.D. 29). It may be noted
that the officers make no question about _Peter’s_ paying the half-shekel;
he was a regular resident and their claim was undoubted, but our Lord had
been long absent and was only passing through the place, so that in His
case the payment was less obligatory. This is one view of the matter, but
I am inclined to think from the form of the collector’s question, “Your
Master, does not He pay?” (Matth. xvii. 24) that they half expected an
objection on higher grounds. The internal evidence, that is to say the
tone of doctrine, which appears in the words, “Then are the children
free,” favours the adopting the later period, inasmuch as it reminds us of
the later discourses in chaps, xv., xvi., xvii. of John.
A.D. 30. _April._
Our Lord may have made His entry into Jerusalem on Sunday, April 2. He
returned that night to Bethany after looking “round about upon all
things.” Mark xi. 11.
Monday, April 3. Cursing of fig tree on the way to Jerusalem (see March,
A.D. 28), Matth. xxi. 19; Mark xi. 13. Cleansing of Temple, Matth. xxi.
12; Mark xi. 15; Luke xix. 45. Return to Bethany, Mark xi. 19. Either on
this day or the next, the Greeks seek Jesus, John xii. 20.
Tuesday, April 4. Tree is found withered. Parables delivered in Temple.
Controversies with Pharisees, Herodians and Sadducees. Our Lord takes
leave of the Temple; Mark xi. 20 and chaps, xii., xiii. and parallel
passages in Matthew and Luke.
Wednesday, April 5. Treason of Judas.
Thursday, April 6. Last Supper. Our Lord’s apprehension.
Friday, April 7. The Crucifixion.
Sunday, April 9. The Resurrection.
I should place the journey of the Apostles to Galilee in the subsequent
week. This change would do the Apostles good in many ways. It would
relieve the strain on their minds, and was medicine for the shock they had
received. For our Lord’s care for the physical and mental health of His
followers, see text, p. 302, on the words, “Come ye yourselves apart into
a desert place and rest a while.”
During this stay in Galilee, there took place the appearance of our Lord
on the mountain, which I take to be that named, 1 Cor. xv. 6 (see text,
last chapter), and at this time I also place the important interview of
our Lord with James, our Lord’s brother, 1 Cor. xv. 17, and probably with
the rest of His brethren, see below.
A.D. 30. _May._
The appearance at the sea of Tiberias (but see Mr Sanday on the
“Authorship of the Fourth Gospel,” chap. xvii.) may have taken place in
this month, as also the return of the Apostles from Galilee to Jerusalem
with the women and Mary the Mother of Jesus, and the brethren of our Lord.
The latter, possibly, had not been in Jerusalem at the Crucifixion, but
had at last learned, perhaps through James, the fulness of their brother’s
greatness. The Apostles as well as the relations of our Lord must have
been enjoined to return to Jerusalem, or they would not without exception
have gone thither. The Feast of Pentecost was not a sufficiently
imperative call to account for their presence. This injunction must have
been given in Galilee. If we had only St Luke’s account, we should suppose
that the Apostles never left Jerusalem; but this would in itself be
unlikely and is contradicted by the other Evangelists. The day given for
the Ascension by Wieseler, “Chronologie des Apostolischen Zeitalters,”
1848, is May 18.
The Ascension was followed by the choice of Matthias.
The day of Pentecost, as fixed by Wieseler, was May 27, A.D. 30.
INDEX OF TEXTS.
GENESIS.
iii. 18, 19; 44
xxviii. 12; 161
DEUTERONOMY.
xviii. 15; 94
xix. 16; 396
18; 396
II SAMUEL.
xii. 13; 420
JOB.
xiii. 4; 396
PSALMS.
cxix. 162; 232
PROVERBS.
vi. 19; 396
xii. 17; 396
ISAIAH.
vi. 10; 321
xi. 1; 160
JEREMIAH.
vi. 31; 396
S. MATTHEW.
iii. 5; 189
iv. 1; 117
1-11; 114
20; 186
vi. 25; 404
vii. 17; 259
viii. 19; 375
ix. 14-17; 220
36-38; 234
x. 2-6; 162
5-15; 290
xi. 2-6; 262
12; 232
21; 106
xii. 28; 83
30; 358
46; 180
xiii. 10; 321
xiv. 17; 22
23; 229
xvi. 13-20; 327
xvi. 22; 126
23; 329
24, 25; 340
xvii. 12; 348
25; 133
xviii. 1-11; 356
21; 469
21, 22; 358
xix. 6; 408
xxii. 42, 43; 415
xxiv. 24; 75
25; 413
xxv. 14-30; 316
xxviii. 16; 451
19; 250
xxviii. 20; 69
S. MARK.
i. 12, 13; 114
14; 188
14, 15; 83, 195
16-20; 195
20; 305
22; 202
ii. 16-22; 220
iii. 5; 19
6, 7; 233
13, 14; 239
14, 15; 229
17-19; 161
20, 21; 261
26; 126
32; 288
iv. 11; 30
11, 12; 321
24; 323
35; 283
35-40; 274
37-40; 283
v. 1; 48
17; 286
19; 84
30; 351
37; 287
vi. 1-6; 180
2; 362
3; 288, 454
7-13; 289
30-32; 302
30; 300
34; 307
38; 305
39, 40; 278
45, 46; 307
47-52; 308
50; 310
vii. 14, 15; 331
24; 333
33; 427
33-35; 91
vii. 33-36; 334
viii. 5-7; 305
11; 335
14; 306
16, 17; 306
23-25; 90
23-26; 334
ix. 1; 340
2-8; 94
7; 94
9; 345
17-29; 350
30; 351, 354
31; 227
33; 354
35; 355
40-50; 360
x. 1; 227, 361
17-22; 381
24; 383
30; 384
xi. 10; 427
12-14; 96
20-22; 96
xii. 35-37; 415
xiii. 22; 75
xiv. 9; 400
50; 240
xv. 31; 139
xvi. 20; 84
S. LUKE.
ii. 4; 415
35; 52, 161
iv. 1-13; 115
13; 339
14, 15; 179
v. 4; 200
8; 202
17; 218
33; 155
vi. 12; 239
17-19; 253
20; 253
22, 23; 254
23; 79
24-26; 255
27; 257
39, 40; 257
43; 259
vii. 18-23; 266
20; 107
21-23; 108
23; 264
29, 30; 265
35; 264
viii. 1-3; 276
3; 166
26; 48
ix. 27; 93
31; 324
37; 348
51, 52; 279
51-56; 366
52; 296
48; 355
55; 138
x. 1-11; 290
4-11; 379
9-11; 300
11; 68, 83
13; 106
18; 126
21; 300
21, 22; 178, 302
22; 73
xi. 1; 155, 221, 415
20; 83
27; 376
29; 428
xii. 14; 403
16-20; 404
36; 404
41; 372
41-46; 368
49, 50; 150
xiii. 23; 428
xiv. 15; 376
xv. 10; 178, 389
xvi. 1-12; 391
8; 389
30; 144
31; 63
xvii. 5; 397
xviii. 8; 27
19; 428
xix. 11-27; 316
26; 319
29; 297
xx. 35; 68
35, 36; 410
41; 415
xxi. 19; 414
xxii. 8; 297
24-30; 423
28; 178
33; 376
35-38; 291
xxiv. 36; 240
48; 241
S. JOHN.
i. 32, 33; 109
43; 156, 182
45; 156
46; 156
48, 49; 160
51; 161
ii. 11; 152, 163
12; 152, 164, 180
16; 167
17; 152
23; 153, 167
24; 176, 246
24, 25; 167
iii. 2; 148
22; 153
22, 23; 170
25; 155, 330
26; 170
iv. 1, 2; 171
2; 153
27; 409
31; 175
35-38; 177
43-45; 164
45; 179
47; 105
48; 76, 104
v. 1; 179, 181
15-18; 182
17; 183
26; 89
35; 189
43; 184, 300
vi. 4, 5; 303
5; 306
8; 157
9; 304
15; 23, 307
25-65; 328
44; 338
60-63; 332
66; 168, 329
vii. 2; 181
2-10; 363
14; 369
35; 369
53; 370
viii. 1; 370
ix. 1-3; 46
x. 16; 269
40; 119, 372
xi. 16; 245, 372, 430
48; 183
xii. 20-22; 158
xiii. 1-14; 420
xiv. 4-11; 101
6; 73
9; 159, 415
11; 102
19; 428
xv. 15; 176
23, 24; 106
27; 241
xvi. 4; 352
7, 8; 457
8-11; 462
12; 69
xvii. 3; 68
xvii. 6; 68
xxi. 2; 156
25; 420
ACTS.
i. 8; 216, 241
14; 362, 453
15; 452
22; 241
ii. 32; 241
41; 199
iii. 15; 241
iv. 32; 385
35; 383
x. 40, 41; 143, 447
34, 35; 95
41; 241
xii. 139
2; 369, 453
xiii. 31; 241
xvi. 6-8; 459
xviii. 21; 100
ROMANS.
v. 8; 470
1 CORINTHIANS.
i. 12; 174
14-15; 155
ix. 1; 454
xiv. 24; 71
xv. 5-8; 450
6; 451
44; 471
GALATIANS.
i. 13; 97
ii. 9-12; 453
11-14; 433
iv. 6; 68, 72
vi. 1, 2; 425
PHILIPPIANS.
ii. 13; 466
1 TIMOTHY.
vi. 17; 396
2 TIMOTHY.
iv. 2; 173
13; 119
HEBREWS.
xi. 1; 273
JAMES.
i. 20; 245
1 PETER.
ii. 23; 167
1 JOHN.
i. 1; 446
GENERAL INDEX.
Address to newly chosen Apostles, 253-261
Advent of our Lord into Galilee, 188, 189
Andrew, 157
Animosity of people of Nazareth, when first shewn, 165
Apologue, 125, 126
Apostles (The), named in pairs by Matthew, reason suggested, 162;
must have been directed to return to Jerusalem for the Ascension, 194,
451;
not fit men to promulgate Theological doctrines, 230;
general characteristics of the, 247;
not men whom the Founder of a policy would have chosen, 249;
the chosen three, 325, 327;
the crowning lesson of, 465;
steps by which they learnt Faith in an unseen presence, 467;
taught Love, 468; taught Hope, 470
Ascension, 457;
expedient that Christ should go away, 457;
Holy Spirit swaying human action, 459
Astonishment produced by our Lord’s teaching, 202
Authority manifested by Christ, 167, 203-206
Baptist (The) and his disciples, 153-155;
competition with, shunned by our Lord, 173
Baptist’s (The) messengers, their arrival, 262;
their question and their answer, 268
Bartholomew, 159, see Nathanael
Bethany in Peræa (Bethabara), 119, 161, 168, 189 note
Bethany in Judæa, when did our Lord first resort thither? 370
Bethsaida Julias, 334
Brethren of our Lord, 362, 453
Christ leaves disciples independent, 5;
with them after the Resurrection, 9, 274;
influence of His Personality, 16, 17;
did He from the first see all that lay before Him? 140;
explores the tempers of different classes of men, 148;
His return from the wilderness, 151;
calls to him certain disciples, 151;
at Cana and Capernaum, 152;
leaves time for impressions to fix themselves, 185;
arrives at the Lake of Galilee and calls the brethren, 195-198;
His way of proceeding positive, 208;
enjoins no system of religious observance, 222;
why did He not found a church Himself? 236;
lays stress on what men are, as well as on what they do, 259;
ceases to have a stationary abode, 270;
educational effects of the change of place, 275-279;
journey to borders of Tyre and Sidon, 333;
at Cæsarea Philippi, 336-338 (see Transfiguration);
returns to Capernaum after the Transfiguration, 354;
sets out for the feast of Tabernacles, 359-362;
refusing to judge, 399;
upholds sanctity of marriage, 409;
disclaims for the Messiah the title of Son of David, 415;
does not look to visibly converting the world, 416;
the washing the disciples’ feet, an acted parable, 419;
always endeavours to set men free, 460;
calls the conscience into play, 467;
His Kingdom not upon earth, 471
Christian revelation centred in a Fact, 230
Demoniac in country of Gadarenes, 285
Didrachma, paying of, 406
Disciples not in attendance at first visit to Nazareth, 180;
doubtful if present at feast, John v., 181;
early Judæan, 188
Dives and Lazarus, parable of, 62
Ecce Homo, quoted, p. 412.
Edersheim, Dr, life and times of Jesus the Messiah, quoted, 139, 140, 329,
334, 394;
on our Lord’s conversing with the woman at Sychar, 409
Eloquence, its small part in the Divine economy, 250
Erskine of Linlathen, quotation, 40
Evil, existence of, 29;
functions of, in the world, 43-51
Family, description of a, restrained from knowing evil, 30-36
Feast of the Jews, John v. 1, 181
Five (The) first called, John, Andrew, Peter, Philip, Nathanael, 156
Form of Christ’s Teaching, 209
Free Will, 29;
implies liberty to go wrong, 41
Galilæans receive our Lord, 179
Galilee, why suited for cradle of movement, 169
Gospel of St John, surely written by a disciple, 151, 157
Gospels, advantages of narrative form, 13, 461
Herodians, 233
Inheritance, The disputed, 403
James, our Lord’s brother, 452-454
James and John, the sons of thunder, 365, 368
Jerusalem, not a favourable spot for the schooling of the apostles, 190;
not desirable that the Christian community should originate there, 192
Judas Iscariot, 246
Laws of our Lord’s conduct—sense in which term is used, 2, 18-20, 306
Lazarus, raising of, 429
Levi (see also Matthew), 214
Levitical Law, 207
Mammon of unrighteousness, 395-397
Matthew, 214-216;
his call a proof that Christ was no respecter of persons, 217
Messiah, what the people expected him to be, 329
Milton, “Paradise Regained,” 124
Miracle of feeding of the 5000, 304;
of Christ walking on sea, 308;
of feeding of the 4000, 305
Miracles, standing, not to be expected, 65;
use of, 75;
Laws of, 112;
as works of beneficence, 333
Miraculous draught of fishes, 198, 202
Mission (The) to the cities, 8, 288;
referred to by our Lord, 291-293;
effects of these mission journeys, 295;
directions given, 295-300
Mission of Seventy, 289, 301-302
Moses, 207
Nathanael, 159, 161
Natural Selection, 26, 314
Nazareth, preaching in synagogues at, 79;
second visit of Christ to, 287
Negative characteristics of Christ’s teaching, 10
Nicodemus, 148, 169, 172
Parables, 312;
that of the talents, 317;
that of the pounds, 318;
intended not to hide truth but to show it, 323;
of the unjust steward, 388 and preface
Passover, 2nd, at time of feeding of the 5000, 303;
see Teaching
Peter, with our Lord at the Passover, A.D. 28, probably returned to
Galilee, 166;
how far in attendance before call, 166;
his giving himself up on a sudden, to one impression, 244;
was he in constant attendance during the winter, A.D. 29, 30? 372 note;
his practical character, 248, 455;
denials of, 433
Pharisees, their hostility and that of the Sadducees contrasted, 218
Philip, 158, 306
Preparatio Evangelica, 153-194
Preparation, noted in our Lord’s ways, 80, 94
Prospective action of our Lord, 411
Receiving a hundred fold “with persecutions,” 381
Resurrection, grandeur in the conception of the Risen Christ, 450;
appearance of Christ to 500 brethren at once, 451;
appearance to James, 453;
literary aspect of the history of, 449;
duration of post Resurrection period, 464
Revelation, 52-73;
“should be written in the skies,” this demand considered, 59
Ruler, the young, 381
Sabbath, its value, 219;
our Lord’s practice in relation to, 220
Samaria, 1st journey through, 175
Sanday, Mr, authorship and historical character of the fourth Gospel,
references, 105, 328
Satan, 120, 125
_Seed thoughts_, 212;
see Sermon on the Mount
Sermon on the Mount, not a Code of Laws, 210, 211;
contains _seed thoughts_, 212
Sex ceases with life upon earth, 410
Signs and Wonders: their laws, 21;
distinguished, 75;
functions of, to attract hearers, 77;
for selection, 79;
for preparation, 80;
for setting forth the kingdom, 82;
for general teaching, 84;
they shew that God does not respect persons, 87;
they do not wholly supersede the processes of nature, 88, 89;
practical lessons furnished by them to disciples, 91;
Laws of, recapitulated, 112
Signs, sparingly displayed after the Feast of Tabernacles, 425;
absence of public and notable signs during the Passion week, 430
Silas, 139
Simon the Zealot, 245
Spiritual order, how far analogous to natural selection, 314, 315
Storm on sea of Galilee, 283
Successors inheriting a cause, 414, 443
Suffer me first to bury my father, 377
Synoptists, term explained, 157 note
Tabernacles, Feast of, 181
Teaching in parables, 12, 280-282, 321
Teaching of Christ, its form, 209;
that for the multitudes and that for the disciples, 225
Temptation, to turn stones into loaves, 127-135;
on the Mount, 134-139;
on the pinnacle of Temple, 139-141
Temptations in the wilderness, form of the narrative, 113-117;
where communicated to disciples, 119;
whether literal history, 119
Transfiguration, 93, 341-348
Trench, Archbishop, on demoniacs, 284;
on the miracles, 396
Tribute to Cæsar, 406
Twelve, the, their call, 239;
their fitness for the work which fell to them, 239;
their character as witnesses, 241-243
Universality of Christ’s Kingdom, 10, 415
Wisdom justified of all her children, 264-269
Withering of fig-tree, 95, 432
Witnessing to Christ the first function of the Apostles, 216, 241
Woman taken in adultery, 405
FOOTNOTES
1 Matth. xiii. 12.
2 Mark iii. 5.
3 St Matth. xiv. 17.
4 John vi. 15.
5 Luke xviii. 8.
6 Mark iv. II.
7 Gen. iii. 18, 19.
8 John ix. 1-3.
9 St Luke viii. 26; St Mark v. 1.
10 Luke ii. 35.
11 Luke xvi. 31.
12 Trench, Parables, 4th Edition, p. 453. “The rebuke of unbelief is
the aim and central thought of the parable.”
13 Galatians iv. 6.
14 John xvii. 6.
15 Luke x. 11.
16 John xvii. 3.
17 Luke xx. 35.
18 Matth. xxviii. 20.
19 John xvi. 12.
20 1 Cor. xiv. 25. This is commonly referred to a sense of guilt, which
is included, no doubt, but the words bear a wider meaning.
21 Galatians iv. 6.
22 Luke x. 22.
23 John xiv. 6.
24 Mark xiii. 22; Matth. xxiv. 24.
25 John iv. 48.
26 Luke vi. 23.
27 A friend recalls to me St Augustine’s words, “Deus patiens est quia
æternus.”
28 Luke xi. 20.
29 Luke x. 11.
30 Mark i. 14, 15.
31 Mark xvi. 20.
32 Mark v. 19.
33 John v. 26.
34 Mark viii. 23-25.
35 Mark vii. 33-35.
36 Mark ix. 1. Luke ix. 27.
37 Mark ix. 2-8.
38 Mark ix. 7. Compare Deuteronomy xviii. 15, “Unto him ye shall
hearken.”
39 Acts x. 34, 35.
40 Mark xi. 12-14.
41 Mark xi. 20-22.
42 ὁ Ἰουδαϊσμός, Gal. i. 13.
43 Acts xviii. 28.
44 See next chapter.
45 John xiv. 4-11.
46 John xiv. 11.
47 John iv. 48.
48 Matt. xii. 39.
49 John iv. 47. Mr Sanday considers this miracle to be identical with
the healing of the centurion’s servant, and that the “ye see” is
addressed to the elders who stand by. With this I am not prepared to
agree. See the Authorship of the Fourth Gospel, W. Sanday, M.A.,
Macmillan and Co., a well-known and excellent book.
50 Matth. xi. 21; Luke x. 13.
51 John xv. 23, 24.
52 Luke vii. 20.
53 Luke vii. 21-23.
54 John i. 32, 33.
55 Matth. iv. 1-11.
56 Mark i. 12, 13.
57 Luke iv. 1-13.
58 Matth. iv. 1.
59 2 Timothy iv. 13.
60 Dec. 20, a.d. 29.
61 John x. 40.
62 Luke x. 18.
63 Mark iii. 26.
64 Matth. xvi. 22.
65 Matth. xvii. 25.
66 Luke ix. 55.
67 Mark xv. 31.
68 Acts xii. 7, 8. Acts xvi. 26.
_ 69 The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah._ Dr. Edersheim, i. p. 304.
70 See pp. 23, 24, and pp. 57, 58.
71 Dr Edersheim.
72 Acts x. 40, 41.
73 Luke xvi. 30.
74 John iii. 2.
75 Luke xii. 49, 50.
76 John ii. 11.
77 John ii. 12.
78 John ii. 17.
79 John ii. 23.
80 John iii. 22, iv. 2.
81 “I thank God that I baptized none of you save Crispus and Gaius;
lest any man should say that ye were baptized into my name.” 1 Cor.
i. 14, 15. This, with the context, illustrates the notion of a
personal tie established by baptism. St Paul is combating the charge
of establishing a sect of his own.
82 Luke xi. 1.
83 Luke v. 33.
84 John iii. 25.
85 John i. 43.
86 John i. 45; xxi. 2.
87 τὸν ἀπὸ Ναζαρέτ. John i. 46.
88 A fragment of a very ancient account of the Canon of the N. Test.
has been preserved by Muratori. I will quote the translation of it
from Professor Westcott’s work. (Prof. Westcott, _Gospel of St
John_, p. xxxv.) “The fourth Gospel [was written by] John, one of
the disciples (_i.e._ Apostles). When his fellow-disciples and
bishops urgently pressed (_cohortantibus_) him, he said, ‘Fast with
me [from] to-day, for three days, and let us tell one another any
revelation which may be made to us, either for or against [the plan
of writing] (_quid cuique fuerit revelatum alterutrum_)’. On the
same night it was revealed to Andrew, one of the Apostles, that John
should relate all in his own name, and that all should review [his
writing].” If we accept this authority, John and Andrew were
together in their age as they had been in their youth. Philip also
was at Hierapolis not very far off.
89 John vi. 8.
_ 90 I.e._ the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
91 John xii. _vv._ 20-22.
92 John xiv. 9.
93 Bartholomew = son of Tolmai, so that Nathanael son of Tolmai or (as
Dr Edersheim writes it) of Temalgon, would be the full name.
94 Tacitus speaking of Lugdunum and Vienna on opposite sides of the
Rhone, tells us that they regarded each other with the animosity
which “serves as a link between those whom only a river separates”
(“unde aemulatio et invidia et uno amne discretis connexum odium”).
Tac. _Hist._ i. c. 65.
St Matthew speaks of that “which was spoken by the prophets, He
shall be called a Nazarene.” This prophecy, in the words given, is
not found in our canonical books. The Evangelist is supposed to
refer to Is. xi. 1. The Hebrew word for a Branch, there used, is
_Natsar_.
95 John i. 48, 49.
96 Luke ii. 35.
97 Genesis xxviii. 12.
98 John i. 51.
99 Mark iii. 17-19.
100 Matth. x. 2-6.
101 If a party of young men were in the habit of separating for
excursions and going two by two, and one of the party were
afterwards asked for a list of the company; it would help his memory
to recall them, pair by pair. The Evangelist is going to tell us of
our Lord’s directions to the twelve about their mission. It then
strikes him that he must record their names.
102 John ii. 11.
103 John ii. 12.
104 John iv. 43-45.
105 The tone of His discourse delivered there, after His visit to
Jerusalem, falls in with this view.
106 It must be recollected that there is no mention in St John’s Gospel
of any disciple _by name_, after the first chapter, until we come to
the sixth.
107 It may be asked, How were the disciples maintained during several
weeks at Jerusalem? Though not of the poorest class they could not
have lived long without labour. John may have been spared because
James remained to help his father in his work. But if Peter and
Andrew had both stayed at Jerusalem through all the early summer, it
is hard to see how they, and Peter’s wife, could have been
supported. I should conjecture therefore that if Peter went to
Jerusalem to the first passover, he only made a brief stay. There
were, at this time, apparently no contributions such as we hear of
afterwards (Luke viii. 3).
108 1 Peter ii. 23.
109 John ii. 16.
110 John ii. 23.
111 John ii. 24, 25.
112 John vi. 66.
113 John iii. 22, 23.
114 John iii. 26.
115 John iv. 1, 2.
116 2 Tim. iv. 2.
117 1 Cor. i. 12.
118 John iv. 31. They press Him to take bodily support about which they
thought Him careless. This must be an eye-witness’s account.
119 John xv. 15.
120 John ii. 24.
121 John iv. 35-38. See Chronological Appendix.
122 Luke x. 21, 22.
123 Luke xxii. 28.
124 Luke xv. 10.
125 Mark x. 33, 34.
126 John v. 1.
127 Luke iv. 14, 15.
128 John iv. 45.
129 If a body of disciples had accompanied our Lord to Nazareth, they
would probably have offered some opposition to the Nazarenes. The
absence of all mention of disciples in St Luke, chap. iv. gives
reason for supposing that the visit to Nazareth here recorded is not
the same with that related in St Matthew and St Mark; for the
disciples were then present. See Mark vi. 1-6, Matth. xiii. 53.
130 I incline to the old view which identified this feast with the feast
of Tabernacles; the time suits well with my chronological scheme.
This was “_the_ feast” of the Jews, it caused great stir. Now
Josephus tells us, that Herod put John in prison because men came to
him in crowds. This was more likely to happen when men were set free
from their work by the holiday than at other times. It is true that
in ch. vii. 2, John calls the feast of tabernacles by name. But he
is there writing his own account, while here he is only recasting,
as I believe, what he has received from an eye-witness. This may
account for the difference of expression. Some MSS. but not the
weightiest, read “_the_ feast,” in John v. 1. If this were received
it would go far to settle the point.
131 John i. 43.
132 The historical part of John Chap. 5, vv. 1-18 has the air of an
account condensed from materials furnished by another. We are told
that Philip was bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia. He may therefore
have kept up communication with John at Ephesus.
133 John v. 15-18.
134 John xi. 48.
135 John v. 17.
136 Matth. v. 45.
137 John v. 43.
138 Matth. iv. 20.
139 I place this advent of our Lord into Galilee at the end of September
A.D. 28, but the evidence is insufficient for a positive opinion. My
reasons for supposing that John was not imprisoned till after this
feast are as follows. The Synoptists say that after John’s
imprisonment our Lord came into Galilee preaching the Kingdom. Now
when He returned through Samaria He did _not_ begin to preach the
Kingdom, and therefore the advent of Mark i. 14 refers to some other
occasion; I believe to a subsequent one. In St John’s Gospel chaps.
iv. and v. we hear nothing of “the Kingdom” and no disciples are
mentioned as attending our Lord. I think therefore that the events
related in these chapters occurred before the advent into Galilee;
this is one argument for placing this visit to the feast, where I
do. Moreover it is hard to find another place for it. The Synoptical
narrative is fairly continuous from the advent (Mark i. 14) up to
the journey to the Feast of Tabernacles, and there is in it no
mention either of a visit to Jerusalem, which must have occupied
several days, or of our Lord’s quitting His disciples. All proceeds
consistently if we suppose, as I have done, that John was put in
prison at the time of this feast or soon after. But there is one
difficulty about this. Our Lord says of the Baptist John v. 35, “He
_was_ the lamp that burneth and shineth, and you were willing for a
season to rejoice in his light.” The use of the imperfect tense is
supposed to show that John was in prison when this was said, but
surely if it is to be pressed rigorously it would mean that he was
_dead_: for he received his disciples in prison and could give
counsel and direction to those without. He did not cease to shine
for _them_. I take these words to mean that he was no longer a light
to the Priests and Levites. They had gone to him when he was
preaching in the wilderness of Judæa, Matth. iii. 5, and afterwards
they had sent to him in Bethany beyond Jordan: he was now in the
territory of Herod, and there he was out of sight, and with the
Priests and Levites he was out of mind. They could not make him a
partisan or an ally and they had given him up. If John was in prison
at this time, his imprisonment must have been a recent event, and we
should expect our Lord to allude to it when He speaks of him.
140 Mark i. 14, 15.
141 Mark i. 16-20.
142 For instance, if the separate probability of each of two events is
1/10, that of the joint event is 1/10 x 1/10 or 1/100, or there are
ninety-nine chances to one against it.
143 Acts ii. 41.
144 Luke v. 4.
145 Luke v. 8.
146 Mark i. 22.
147 By comparing the Sermon on the Mount with the parallel passages in
St Luke we find that much of it must have been spoken after the call
of the Apostles: this applies particularly to the latter half of the
discourse.
148 Matt. v. 38-41.
149 Acts i. 8.
150 Luke v. 17.
151 Matth. ix. 14-17. I here adopt St Matthew’s version in preference to
that of St Mark ii. 16-22. St Matthew was not likely to forget any
circumstance of his call, least of all the words then used by our
Lord; and the quotation “I will have mercy and not sacrifice” which
he alone relates, is exactly in our Lord’s manner. The passage
printed above differs also from St Mark’s version in this, that in
the latter the _disciples of the Pharisees_ put the question
together with John’s disciples. Some disciples of John may have
belonged to the Pharisees as their religious party.
152 Luke xi. 1.
153 St Mark distinguishes between these two objects of our Lord’s care,
the multitude and the disciples. When our Lord after His journey to
the North is passing through Galilee we read that “He passed through
Galilee, and would not that any man should know it, for he taught
His _disciples_.” Mark ix. 31. And soon after, when he is beyond
Jordan, we have “and _multitudes_ came together unto him again; and,
as he was wont, he taught _them_ again.” Mark x. 1.
154 viz. after the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand. Matth.
xiv. 23.
155 viz., “that they might be with him and that he might send them forth
to preach and to have authority to cast out devils.” Mark iii. 14,
15.
156 βιασταὶ ἀρπάζουσιν αὐτήν, Matth. xi. 12. “ἄρπαγμα especially with
such verbs as ἡγεῖσθαι etc. is employed to denote ‘a highly prized
possession, an unexpected gain.’ ” Bishop Lightfoot’s _Philippians_,
p. 111. Compare Ps. cxix. 162. “I am as glad of thy word as one that
findeth great spoils.”
157 Mark iii. 6, 7.
158 Matth. ix. 36-38.
159 p. 234.
160 Luke vi. 12.
161 Mark iii. 13, 14.
162 Mark xiv. 50.
163 Luke xxiv. 36.
164 John xv. 27.
165 Acts i. 8.
166 Acts i. 22.
167 Acts x. 41. For other instances see Luke xxiv. 48; Acts ii. 32; iii.
15; xiii. 31.
168 John xi. 16.
169 James i. 20.
170 John ii. 24.
171 Matt. xxviii. 19.
172 Luke vi. 17-19.
173 Luke vi. 20.
174 Luke vi. 22, 23.
175 Luke vi. 24-26.
176 Luke vi. 27.
177 Luke vi. 39, 40.
178 Luke vi. 43, also Matth. vii. 17 where the converse is added.
179 Mark iii. 20, 21.
180 Matt. xi. 2-6. See also Luke vii. 18-23.
181 Luke vii. 23.
182 Marginal rendering, _was_.
183 Luke vii. 35.
184 Luke vii. 29, 30.
185 John x. 16.
186 p. 265.
187 Heb. xi. 1.
188 Mark iv. 35-40.
189 Luke viii. 1-3.
190 Mark vi. 39, 40.
191 Possibly Philip had this charge, see page 306.
192 Luke ix. 51, 52.
193 Mark iv. 35.
194 Mark iv. 37-40.
195 In “Trench on the Miracles” this miracle and the question of the
demoniacs in the New Testament are thoroughly discussed. I purposely
confine myself to what bears on the education of the Apostles. See
also above Chap. 2, p. 48.
196 See above, p. 49.
197 Mark v. 17.
198 Mark v. 37.
199 Compare Mark iii. 32 and Mark vi. 3.
200 Mark vi. 7-13.
201 Luke x. 1-11.
202 Matth. x. 5-15.
203 Luke xxii. 35-38.
204 Luke ix. 52.
205 Luke xix. 29.
206 Luke xxii. 8.
207 Luke x. 9-11.
208 Mark vi. 30.
209 John v. 43.
210 Luke x. 21.
211 Luke x. 21, 22.
212 Mark vi. 30-32.
213 John vi. 4, 5.
214 See p. 22.
215 John vi. 9.
216 Mark i. 20.
217 Mark vi. 38.
218 Mark viii. 5-7.
219 That the disciples habitually carried loaves with them on their
journey is clear from Mark viii. 14.
220 Mark viii. 16, 17.
221 John vi. 5.
222 Mark vi. 34.
223 John vi. 15.
224 Mark vi. 45, 46.
225 Mark vi. 47-52.
226 See pp. 199, 200.
227 Mark vi. 50.
228 Matth. xxv. 14-30; Luke xix. 11-27.
229 Luke xix. 26.
230 Matth. xiii. 10.
231 Mark iv. 11, 12. See also Isaiah vi. 10.
232 Mark iv. 24.
233 Luke ix. 31.
234 Three it would seem is the number adopted for _witnesses_ just as
two is that for missionaries on their way.
235 John vi. 25-65.
236 W. Sanday, “Authorship and Historical character of the Fourth
Gospel.”
237 Speaking of the beliefs of the Rabbis as to the days of the Messiah,
Dr Edersheim, quoting from the Rabbis, says: “In that vast new
Jerusalem (not in heaven but in the literal Palestine) the windows
and gates were to be of precious stones, the walls of silver, gold,
and gems, while all kinds of jewels would be strewed about, of which
every Israelite was at liberty to take.... The land would
spontaneously produce the best dresses and the finest cakes.” “Jesus
the Messiah,” Book v. p. 438.
238 John vi. 66.
239 Cf. John iii. 25.
240 Mark vii. 14, 15.
241 John vi. 60-63.
242 Mark vii. 24.
243 Mark vii. 33-36.
244 Bethsaida means Fishertown; many places were so named. Dr Edersheim.
245 Mark viii. 23-26.
246 Mark viii. 11.
247 Matth. xvi. 13-20.
248 John vi. 44.
249 Matth. xvi. 23.
250 Luke iv. 13.
251 Matth. xvi. 24, 25.
252 Mark ix. 1.
253 Mark ix. 9.
254 Matthew xvii. 12.
255 Luke ix. 37.
256 Mark ix. 17-29.
257 See page 95.
258 Mark v. 30.
259 Mark ix. 30.
260 John xvi. 4.
261 Mark ix. 33.
262 Mark ix. 30.
263 Mark ix. 35.
264 Luke ix. 48.
265 Matt. xviii. 1-11.
266 This incident shews that the Apostles even while journeying along
with our Lord were sometimes out of His sight and acted
independently. Perhaps they were in some degree dispersed when they
halted for the night. This forbidding cannot have taken place while
our Lord was in the Mount because John was there with Him.
267 Matthew xii. 30.
268 xviii. 21, 22.
269 Compare the Revised Version with that of 1611.
270 Mark ix. 49, 50.
271 Mark x. 1.
272 Luke ix. 51, 52.
273 John vii. 2-10.
274 Acts i. 14, “with his brethren.”
275 Mark vi. 2.
276 Luke ix. 51-56.
277 Luke xii. 41-46.
278 Acts xii. 2.
279 John vii. 14.
280 That our Lord spoke Greek when required is inferred from His being
understood by the Syro-Phœnician woman and by Pilate, who probably
knew no Hebrew, see John xviii. 33-38. See also John vii. 35,
Revised Version.
281 Page 191.
282 John vii. 53; viii. 1.
283 The third is preserved only by Luke.
284 Matthew viii. 19.
285 Luke xi. 27.
286 Luke xxii. 33.
287 See also Luke xiv. 15. The exclamation, “Blessed is he that shall
eat bread in the kingdom of God” is met by the parable of the Great
Supper.
288 Luke x. 4-11.
289 Mark x. 17-22.
290 Articles of Religion, XIII.
291 Acts iv. 35.
292 Mark x. 24.
293 Mark x. 30.
294 Acts iv. 32.
295 Luke xv. 10.
296 Luke xvi. 8.
297 Luke xvi. 1-12.
298 “Life and times of Jesus the Messiah,” p. 267.
299 “The use of ἄδικος for ‘false’ runs through the whole Septuagint.
Thus, Deut. xix. 16, μάρτυς ἄδικος, a false witness; and ver. 18,
ἐμαρτύρησεν ἄδικα, he hath witnessed falsely. See Prov. vi. 19; xii.
17; Jer. v. 31, ‘The prophets prophesy falsely’ (ἄδικα), and many
more examples might be adduced. So here the ‘_unrighteous_’ mammon
is the false mammon, that which will betray the reliance which is
placed on it (1 Tim. vi. 17). Thus ἰατροὶ ἄδικοι (Job xiii. 4),
‘physicians of no value.’ ” Trench, “On the Parables,” The unjust
Steward.
300 Luke xvii. 5.
301 It is clear that “unrighteous,” in verse 10 means “superficial” and
“unreal,” because it is contrasted with “true.” The opposite of
ἄδικος is here ἀληθινός.
302 Mark xiv. 9.
303 Luke xii. 14.
304 Luke xii. 16-20.
305 Luke xii. 36. Matt. vi. 25.
306 Matthew xix. 9.
307 On the conversation of our Lord at Sychar with the woman of Samaria,
Dr Edersheim says: “That Jesus should converse with a woman was so
contrary to all Jewish notions of a Rabbi that they wondered.” The
disciples “marvelled that he was speaking with a woman,” John iv.
27; and in a note Dr Edersheim has: “Readers know how thoroughly
opposed to Jewish notions was any needless converse with a woman.”
308 Luke xx. 35, 36.
309 Matth. xxiv. 25.
310 Luke xxi. 19.
311 Luke ii. 4.
312 Matth. xxii. 42, 43. Mark xii. 35-37. Luke xx. 41.
313 See John xiv. 9.
314 Luke xi. 1.
315 See Edersheim, vol. I. p. 440.
316 John xiii. 1-14.
317 John xxi. 25.
318 2 Sam. xii. 13.
319 Dr Edersheim, who takes the view that this is the Paschal meal, says
that it was usual for the head of the company to wash the hands of
the guests. The washing of the feet would therefore only be an
extension of a common practice and would excite no great attention.
“Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah,” vol. II. pp. 495-498.
320 Luke xxii. 24, 30.
321 Galatians vi. 1, 2.
322 Mark vii. 33. See p. 333.
323 Mark xi. 10.
324 Luke xi. 29. See p. 104.
325 Luke xiii. 23; xviii. 19.
326 John xiv. 19.
327 John xi. 16, see p. 372.
328 pp. 95, 96, 97.
329 Galatians ii. 11-14.
330 See Preface.
331 1 John i. 1.
332 Acts x. 40, 41.
333 1 Cor. xv. 5, 6, 7, 8.
334 See Chronol. Append., May A.D. 30.
335 1 Cor. xv. 6.
336 Acts i. 15.
337 I would point out that in the passage from 1 Cor. xv. quoted p. 450,
we have “then to the _Twelve_,” and later, “then to _all the
Apostles_.” May not St Paul have meant the latter term to be a wider
one than the former, and, possibly, to include James?
338 Mark vi. 3.
339 1 Cor. ix. 1.
340 “Clement of Alexandria says that Peter, James and John after our
Lord’s ascension were not ambitious of dignity, honoured though they
had been by the preference of their Master, but chose James the Just
as Bishop of Jerusalem.” Dr Salmon, “Introduction to the New
Testament,” p. 565.
341 “This James whom the ancients ... surnamed the Just.” Eusebius,
_Eccl. Hist._ 6, ii. c. 1.
342 John xvi. 7, 8.
343 Acts xvi. 6-8.
344 Philippians ii. 13.
345 Matth. xviii. 21.
346 Romans v. 8.
347 1 Cor. xv. 44.
348 The harvest in Palestine ripens at different times in different
localities; but as a general rule the barley-harvest may be
considered as taking place from the middle to the close of April,
and the wheat-harvest about a fortnight later; see Robinson,
_Palestine_, Vol. 1. p. 431 (ed. 2), and compare Stanley,
_Palestine_, p. 240, note (ed. 2). Note taken from Bishop Ellicott’s
Historical Lectures on the “Life of our Lord,” page 106.
349 John iv. 6. The marginal rendering of the Revised Version is “Jesus
... sat _as he was_ by the well.” The words in italics answer to
“thus,” οὕτως. This means that He did not call for His cloke and
wrap it round Him, as in winter He would have done. This is clearly
eye-witness narration.
350 This _glorifying_ consisted not in its gaining Him glory in the
common sense but in its being an event leading Him to the Cross, to
the fullest abandonment to His Father’s will. This is the true
glory. Compare John xii. 28, xxi. 19.