3.

Commencement of the Public Life of Jesus.

 

Nearly thirty years had passed away since the birth in Bethlehem, during which period there is but one incident recorded, which could direct the public attention to the Son of Mary. All religious Jews made their periodical visits to the capital at the three great festivals, especially at the Passover. The more pious women, though exempt by the law from regular attendance, usually accompanied their husband or kindred. It is probable that, at the age of twelve, the children, who were then said to have assumed the rank of “Sons of the Law,” and were considered responsible for their obedience to the civil and religious institutes of the nation, were first permitted to appear with their parents in the metropolis, to be present, and, as it were, to be initiated in the religious ceremonies. Accordingly, at this age, Jesus went up with his parents at the festival to Jerusalem; but on their return, after the customary residence of seven days, they had advanced a full day’s journey without discovering that the youth was not to be found in the whole caravan, or long train of pilgrims, which probably comprised all the religious inhabitants of the populous northern provinces. In the utmost anxiety they returned to Jerusalem, and, after three days, found Him in one of the chambers, within the precincts of the Temple, set apart for public instruction. In these schools the wisest and most respected of the Rabbis, or teachers, were accustomed to hold their sittings, which were open to all who were desirous of knowledge. Jesus was seated, as the scholars usually were; and at his familiarity with the Law, and the depth and subtilty of his questions, the learned men were in the utmost astonishment: the phrase may, perhaps, bear the stronger sense—they were “in an ecstasy of admiration.” This incident is strictly in accordance with Jewish usage. The more promising youths were encouraged to the early development and display of their acquaintance with the Sacred Writings, and the institutes of the country. Josephus, the historian, relates, that in his early youth he was an object of wonder for his precocious knowledge with the Wise Men, who took delight in examining and developing his proficiency in the subtler questions of the Law. Whether the impression of the transcendent promise of Jesus was as deep and lasting as it was vivid we have no information; for without reluctance, with no more than a brief and mysterious intimation that public instruction was the business imposed upon him by his Father, he returned with his parents to his remote and undistinguished home. The Law, in this, as in all such cases, harmonising with the eternal instincts of nature had placed the relation of child and parent on the simplest and soundest principles. The authority of the parent was unlimited, while his power of inflicting punishment on the person, or injuring the fortunes of the child by disinheritance, was controlled; and while the child, on the one hand, was bound to obedience by the strongest sanctions, on the other the duty of maintaining and instructing his offspring was as rigidly enforced upon the father. The youth then returned to the usual subjection to his parents; and, for nearly eighteen years longer, we have no knowledge that Jesus was distinguished among the inhabitants of Nazareth, except by his exemplary piety, and by his engaging demeanour and conduct, which acquired him the general good-will. The Law, as some suppose, prescribed the period of thirty years for the assumption of the most important functions; and it was not till he had arrived at this age that Jesus again emerged from his obscurity; nor does it appear improbable that John had previously commenced his public career at the same period in his life.

During these thirty years most important revolutions had taken place in the public administration of affairs in Judaea, and a deep and sullen change had been slowly working in the popular mind. The stirring events which had rapidly succeeded each other, were such as no doubt might entirely obliterate any transient impressions made by the marvellous circumstances which attended the birth of Jesus, if indeed they had obtained greater publicity than we are inclined to suppose. As the period approached, in which the new Teacher was to publish his mild and benignant faith, the nation, wounded in their pride, galled by oppression, infuriated by the promulgation of fierce and turbulent doctrines more congenial to their temper, became less and less fit to receive any but a warlike and conquering Messiah. The reign of Archelaus, or rather the interregnum, while he awaited the ratification of his kingly powers from Rome, had commenced with a bloody tumult, in which the royal soldiery had attempted to repress the insurrectionary spirit of the populace. The Passover had been interrupted—an unprecedented and ill-omened event!—and the nation, assembled from all quarters, had been constrained to disperse without the completion of the sacred ceremony. After the tyrannical reign of Archelaus as ethnarch, for more than nine years, he had been banished into Gaul, and Judaea was reduced to a Roman province, under a governor (procurator) of the equestrian order, who was subordinate to the President of Syria. But the first Roman governors, having taken up their residence in Herod’s magnificent city on the coast, Caesarea, the municipal government of Jerusalem had apparently fallen into the hands of the native authorities. The Sanhedrin of seventy-one, composed of the chief priests and men learned in the Law, from a court of judicature, to which their functions were chiefly confined, while the executive was administered by the kings, had become a kind of senate. Pontius Pilate, the first of the Roman governors, who, if he did not afflict the capital with the spectacle of a resident foreign ruler, seems to have visited it more frequently, was the first who introduced into the city the “idolatrous” standards of Rome, and had attempted to suspend certain bucklers, bearing an image of the emperor, in the palace of Herod. In his time, the Sanhedrin seems to have been recognised as a sort of representative council of the nation. But the proud and unruly people could not disguise from itself the humiliating consciousness that it was reduced to a state of foreign servitude. Throughout the country the publicans, the farmers or collectors of the tribute to Rome, a burden not less vexatious in its amount and mode of collection than offensive to their feelings, were openly exercising their office. The chief priest was perpetually displaced at the order of the Roman prefect, by what might be jealous or systematic policy, but which had all the appearance of capricious and insulting violence. They looked abroad, but without hope. The country had, without any advantage, suffered all the evils of insurrectionary anarchy. At the period between the death of Herod and the accession of his sons, adventurers of all classes had taken up arms, and some of the lowest, shepherds and slaves, whether hoping to strike in with the popular feeling, and if successful at first to throw the whole nation on their side, had not scrupled to assume the title and ensigns of royalty. These commotions had been suppressed; but the external appearance of peace was a fallacious evidence of the real state of public feeling. The religious sects which had long divided the nation, those of the Pharisees and Sadducees, no longer restrained by the strong hand of power, renewed their conflicts: sometimes one party, sometimes the other, obtained the high priesthood, and predominated in the Sanhedrin; while from the former had sprung up a new faction, in whose tenets the stem sense of national degradation which rankled in the hearts of so many, found vent and expression.

The sect of Judas the Gaulonite, or as he was called, the Galilean, may be considered the lineal inheritors of that mingled spirit of national independence and of religious enthusiasm, which had in early days won the glorious triumph of freedom from the Syro-Grecian kings, and had maintained a stern though secret resistance to the later Asmoneans, and to the Idumean dynasty. Just before the death of Herod, it had induced the six thousand Pharisees to refuse the oath of allegiance to the king and to his imperial protector, and had probably been the secret incitement in the other acts of resistance to the royal authority. Judas the Galilean openly proclaimed the unlawfulness, the impiety of God’s people submitting to a foreign yoke, and thus acknowledging the subordination of the Jewish theocracy to the empire of Rome. The payment of tribute which began to be enforced on the deposition of Archelaus, according to his tenets, was not merely a base renunciation of their liberties, but a sin against their God. To the doctrines of this bold and eloquent man, which had been propagated with dangerous rapidity and success, frequent allusions are found in the Gospels. Though the Galileans slain by Pilate may not have been of this sect, yet probably the Roman authorities would look with more than usual jealousy on any appearance of tumult arising in the province which was the reputed birthplace of Judas; and the constant attempts to implicate Jesus with this party appear in their insidious questions about the lawfulness of paying tribute to Caesar. The subsequent excesses of the Zealots, who were the doctrinal descendants of Judas, and among whom his own sons assumed a dangerous and fatal preeminence, may show that the jealousy of the rulers was not groundless; and indicate, as will hereafter appear, under what unfavourable impressions with the existing authorities, on account of his coming from Galilee, Jesus was about to enter on his public career.

Towards the close of this period of thirty years, though we have no evidence to fix a precise date, while Jesus was growing up in the ordinary course of nature, in the obscurity of the Galilean town of Nazareth, which lay to the north of Jerusalem, at much the same distance to the south John had arrived at maturity, and suddenly appeared as a public teacher, at first in the desert country in the neighbourhood of Hebron; but speedily removed, no doubt for the facility of administering the characteristic rite, from which he was called the Baptist, at all seasons, and with the utmost publicity and effect. In the southern desert of Judaea the streams are few and scanty, probably in the summer entirely dried up. The nearest large body of water was the Dead Sea. Besides that the western banks of this great lake are mostly rugged and precipitous, natural feeling, and still more the religious awe of the people, would have shrunk from performing sacred ablutions in those fetid, unwholesome, and accursed waters. But the banks of the great national stream, the scene of so many miracles, offered many situations, in every respect admirably calculated for this purpose. The Baptist’s usual station was near the place, Bethabara, the ford of the Jordan, which tradition pointed out as that where the waters divided before the ark, that the chosen people might enter into the promised land. Here, though the adjacent region towards Jerusalem is wild and desert, the immediate shores of the river offer spots of great picturesque beauty. The Jordan has a kind of double channel. In its summer course the shelving banks, to the top of which the waters reach at its period of flood, are covered with acacias and other trees of great luxuriance; and amid the rich vegetation and grateful shade afforded by these scenes, the Italian painters, with no less truth than effect, have delighted to represent the Baptist surrounded by listening multitudes, or performing the solemn rite of initiation. The teacher himself partook of the ascetic character of the more solitary of the Essenes, all of whom retired from the tumult and licence of the city; some dwelt alone in remote hermitages, and not rarely pretended to a prophetic character. His raiment was of the coarsest texture, of camel’s hair; his girdle (an ornament often of the greatest richness in Oriental costume, of the finest linen or cotton, and embroidered with silver or gold) was of untanned leather; his food the locusts and wild honey, of which there is a copious supply both in the open and the wooded regions, in which he had taken up his abode.

No question has been more strenuously debated than the origin of the rite of baptism. The practice of the external washing of the body, as emblematic of the inward purification of the soul, is almost universal. The sacred Ganges cleanses all moral pollution from the Indian; among the Greeks and Romans even the murderer might, it was supposed, wash the blood “clean from his hands”; and in many of their religious rites, lustrations or ablutions, either in the running stream or in the sea, purified the candidate for divine favour, and made him fit to approach the shrines of the gods. The perpetual similitude and connexion between the uncleanness of the body and of the soul, which ran through the Mosaic Law and had become interwoven with the common language and sentiment, the formal enactment of washing in many cases, which either required the cleansing of some unhealthy taint, or more than usual purity, must have familiarised the mind with the mysterious effects attributed to such a rite; and of all the Jewish sects, that of the Essenes, to which no doubt popular opinion associated the Baptist, were most frequent and scrupulous in their ceremonial ablutions. It is strongly asserted on the one hand, and denied with equal confidence on the other, that baptism was in general use among the Jews as a distinct and formal rite; and that it was by this ceremony that the Gentile proselytes, who were not yet thought worthy of circumcision, or perhaps refused to submit to it, were imperfectly initiated into the family of Israel. Though there does not seem very conclusive evidence in the earlier Rabbinical writings to the antiquity, yet there are perpetual allusions to the existence of this rite, at least at a later period; and the argument, that after irreconcileable hostility had been declared between the two religions, the Jews would be little likely to borrow their distinctive ceremony from the Christians, applies with more than ordinary force. Nor, if we may fairly judge from the very rapid and concise narrative of the Evangelists, does the public administration of baptism by John appear to have excited astonishment as a new and unprecedented rite.

For, from every quarter, all ranks and sects crowded to the teaching and to partake in the mystic ablutions performed by the Baptist. The stream of the Jordan reflected the wondering multitudes of every class and character, which thronged around him with that deep interest and high-wrought curiosity, which could not fail to be excited, especially at such a crisis, by one who assumed the tone and authority of a divine commission, and seemed, even if he were not hereafter to break forth in a higher character, to renew in his person the long silent and interrupted race of the ancient prophets. Of all those prophets Elijah was held in the most profound reverence by the descendants of Israel. He was the representative of their great race of moral instructors and interpreters of the Divine Will, whose writings (though of Elijah nothing remained) had been admitted to almost equal authority with the Law itself, were read in the public synagogues, and with the other sacred books formed the canon of their Scripture. A mysterious intimation had closed this hallowed volume of the prophetic writings, announcing, as from Malachi, on which the fire of prophecy expired, a second coming of Elijah, which it would seem popular belief had construed into the personal reappearance of him who had ascended into heaven in a car of fire. And where, and at what time, and in what form was he so likely to appear as in the desert, by the shore of the Jordan, at so fearful a crisis in the national destinies, and in the wild garb and with the mortified demeanour so frequent among the ancient seers. The language of the Baptist took the bold, severe, and uncompromising tone of those delegates of the Most High. On both the great religious factions he denounced the same maledictions, from both demanded the same complete and immediate reformation. On the people he inculcated mutual charity; on the publicans, whom he did not exclude from his followers, justice; on the soldiery : humanity and abstinence from all unnecessary violence and pillage. These general denunciations against the vices of the age, and the indiscriminate enforcement of a higher moral and religious standard, though they might gall the consciences of individuals, or wound the pride of the different sects; yet, as clashing with no national prejudice, would excite no hostility, which could be openly avowed; while the fearless and impartial language of condemnation was certain to secure the wonder, the respect, the veneration, of the populace.

But that which no doubt drew the whole population in such crowds to the desert shores of the Jordan, was the mysterious yet distinct assertion, that the “kingdom of Heaven was at hand”—that kingdom of which the belief was as universal as of the personal coming of the Messiah; and as variously coloured by the disposition and temperament of every class and individual, as the character of the sovereign who was thus to assume dominion. All anticipated the establishment of an earthly sovereignty, but its approach thrilled the popular bosom with mingled emotions. The very prophecy which announced the previous appearance of Elijah, spoke of the “great and dreadful day of the Lord,” and, as has been said, according to the current belief, fearful calamities were to precede the glorious days of the Messiah: nor was it till after a dark period of trial, that the children of Abraham, as the prerogative of their birth, the sons of God, the inheritors of his kingdom, were to emerge from their obscurity; their theocracy to be reestablished in its new and more enduring form; the dead, at least those who were to share in the first resurrection, their own ancestors, were to rise; the solemn judgement was to be held; the hostile nations were to be thrust down to hell; and those only of the Gentiles, who should become proselytes to Judaism, were to be admitted to this earthly paradisiacal state.

The language of the Baptist at once fell in with and opposed the popular feeling ; at one instant it raised, at the next it crossed their hopes. He announced the necessity of a complete moral change, while he repudiated the claims of those who rested their sole title to the favours of God on their descent from the chosen race, for “God even of the stones could raise up children to Abraham.” But, on the other hand, he proclaimed the immediate, the instant coming of the Messiah; and on the nature of the kingdom, though he might deviate from the ordinary language, in expressly intimating that the final separation would be made not on national but moral grounds—that the bad and good, even of the race of Israel, were to be doomed according to their wickedness or virtue—yet there was nothing which interfered with the prevailing belief in the personal temporal reign of the Son of David.

The course of our History will show how slowly Christianity attained the purely moral and spiritual notion of the change to be wrought by the coming of Christ, and how perpetually this inveterate Judaism has revived in the Christian Church, where, in days of excitement, the old Jewish tenet of the personal reign of the Messiah has filled the mind of the enthusiast. Nor were the Jews likely to be more embarrassed than mankind in general by the demand of high moral qualifications; for while one part would look on their own state with perfect complacency and satisfaction, another would expect to obtain from Heaven, without much effort or exertion on their own part, that which Heaven required. God who intended to make them happy would first make them virtuous.

Such was the general excitement at the appearance, the teaching, and the baptizing of John. So great was the influence which he had obtained throughout the country, that, as we shall speedily see, a formal deputation from the national authorities was commissioned to inquire into his pretensions, and to ascertain whether he limited himself to those of a prophet, or laid claim to the higher title of the Christ. And the deep hold which he had taken upon the popular feeling is strongly indicated by the fact, that the rulers did not dare, on the occasion of a question proposed to them at a much later period, by Jesus, openly to deny the prophetic mission of John, which was not merely generally acknowledged, but even zealously asserted by the people.

How long the preaching of John had lasted before the descent of the Son of Mary to the shores of the Jordan, rests on somewhat uncertain evidence. We can decide with as little confidence on some other more interesting questions. There is no precise information, whether any or what degree of intercourse had been kept up between the family of Zachariah and that of Joseph, who resided at a considerable distance from each other, and were not likely to meet, unless at the periodical feasts; nor how far John might be previously acquainted with the person of Jesus. But it is undoubtedly a remarkable fact in the history of Christianity, that from the very first appearance of Jesus on the shores of the Jordan, unquestionably before He had displayed his powers, or openly asserted his title to the higher place, John should invariably retain his humbler relative position. Such was his uniform language from the commencement of his career; such it continued to the end. Yet at this period the power and influence of John over the public mind were at their height; Jesus, humanly speaking, was but an unknown and undistinguished youth, whose qualifications to maintain the higher character were as yet untried. John, however, cedes at once the first place: in the strongest language he declares himself immeasurably inferior to him, who stood among the crowd, unmarked and unregarded; whatever his own claims, whatever the effects of his initiatory rite, Jesus was at once to assume a higher function, to administer a more powerful and influential baptism. This has always appeared to me one of the most striking incidental arguments for the truth of the Evangelic narrative, and consequently of the Christian faith. The recognition appears to have been instant and immediate. Hitherto, the Baptist had insisted on the purification of all who had assembled around him; and, with the commanding dignity of a Heaven-commissioned teacher, had rebuked, without distinction, the sins of all classes and all sections. In Jesus alone, by his refusal to baptize him, he acknowledges the immaculate purity, while his deference assumes the tone of homage, almost of adoration.

Jesus, however, perhaps to do honour to a rite which was hereafter to be that of initiation into the new religion, insists on submitting to the usual ablution. As he went up out of the water, which wound below in its deep channel, and was ascending the shelving shore, a light shone around with the rapid and undulating motion of a dove, typifying the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Son of Man; and a voice was heard from Heaven, which recognised him as the Son of God, well pleasing to the Almighty Father of the Universe. This light could scarcely have been seen, or the voice heard, by more than the Baptist and the Son of Mary himself, as no immediate sensation appeals to have been excited among the multitudes, such as must have followed this public and miraculous proclamation of his sacred character; and at a subsequent period, Jesus seems to have appeared among the followers of John,unrecognised, or at least unhonoured, until He was pointed out by the Baptist, and announced as having been proclaimed from Heaven at his baptism. The calmness and comparatively unimposing peacefulness of this scene, which may be described as the inauguration of this “greater than Moses,” in his office as founder of a new religion, is strikingly contrasted with the terrific tempests and convulsions of nature at the delivery of the Law on Sinai, and harmonises with the general tone and character of the new faith. The image of the Dove, the universal symbol of innocence and peace, even if purely illustrative, is beautifully in keeping with the gentler character of the whole transaction.

The Temptation of Jesus is the next event in the history of his life; and here, at the opening, as it were, oh his career, appears shadowed out the sort of complex character under which Christianity represents its Divine Author, as a kind of federal representative of mankind. On the interpretation of no incident in the Gospels, do those who insist on the literal acceptation of the Evangelists’ language, and those who consider that, even in the New Testament, much allowance is to be made for the essentially allegoric character of Oriental narrative, depart so far asunder. While the former receive the whole as a real scene, the latter suppose that the truth lies deeper; and that some, not less real, though less preternatural transaction, is related, either from some secret motive, or, according to the genius of Eastern narrative, in this figurative style. As pretending to discover historical facts of much importance in the life of Christ, the latter exposition demands our examination. The Temptation, according to one view, is a parabolic description of an actual event; according to another, of a kind of inward mental trial, which continued during the public career of Jesus. In the first theory, the Tempter was nothing less than the high priest, or one of the Sanhedrin, delegated by their authority to discover the real pretensions of Jesus. Having received intelligence of the testimony borne to Jesus by John, this person was directed to follow him into the wilderness, where he first demanded, as the price of his acknowledgment by the public authorities, some display of miraculous power, such as should enable him, like Moses, to support the life of man by a preternatural supply of food in the wilderness. He then held out to him the splendid prospects of aggrandisement, if he should boldly place himself, as a divinely commissioned leader, at the head of the nation; and even led him in person to the pinnacle of the Temple, and commanded him to cast himself down, as the condition, if he should be miraculously preserved, of his formal recognition by the Sanhedrin. To this view, ingenious as it is, some obvious objections occur; —the precise date apparently assigned to the transaction by the Evangelists, and the improbability that, at so early a period, he would be thought of so much importance by the ruling powers; the difficulty of supposing that, even if there might be prudential motives to induce St. Matthew, writing in Judaea, to disguise, under this allegoric veil, so remarkable an event in the history of Christ, St Luke, influenced by no such motives, would adopt the same course. Though, indeed, it may be replied, that if the transaction had once assumed, it would be likely to retain its parabolic dress; still, it must seem extraordinary that no clearer notice of so wonderful a circumstance should transpire in any of the Christian records. Nor does it appear easily reconcileable with the cautious distance at which the authorities appear to have watched the conduct of Jesus, thus, as it were, at once to have committed themselves, and almost placed themselves within his power.

The second theory is embarrassed with fewer of these difficulties, though it is liable to the same objection, as to the precise date apparently assigned to the incident. According to this view, at one particular period of his life, or at several times, the earthly and temporal thoughts, thus parabolically described as a personal contest with the Principle of Evil, passed through the mind of Jesus, and arrayed before him the image constantly present to the minds of his countrymen, that of the author of a new temporal theocracy. For so completely were the suggestions in unison with the popular expectation, that ambition, if it had taken a human or a worldly turn, might have urged precisely such displays of supernatural power as are represented in the temptations of Jesus. On no two points, probably, would the Jews have so entirely coincided, as in expecting the Messiah to assume his title and dignity, before the view of the whole people, and in the most public and imposing manner; such, for instance, as, springing from the highest point of the Temple, to have appeared floating in the air, or preternaturally poised upon the unyielding element; any miraculous act, in short, of a totally opposite character to those more private, more humane, and, if we may so speak, more unassuming signs, to which he himself appealed as the evidences of his mission. To be the lord of all the kingdoms, at least of Palestine, if not of the whole world, was, according to the same popular belief, the admitted right of the Messiah. If then, as the history implies, the Saviour was tried by the intrusion of worldly thoughts, whether according to the common literal interpretation, actually urged by the Principle of Evil, in his proper person, or, according to this more modified interpretation of the passage, suggested to his mind, such was the natural turn which they might have taken.

But, however interpreted, the moral purport of the scene remains the same—the intimation that the strongest and most lively impressions were made upon the mind of Jesus, to withdraw him from the purely religious end of his being upon earth, to transform him from the author of a moral revolution to be slowly wrought by the introduction of new principles of virtue, and new rules for individual and social happiness, to the vulgar station of one of the great monarchs or conquerors of mankind; to degrade him from a being who was to offer to man the gift of eternal life, and elevate his nature to a previous fitness for that exalted destiny, to one whose influence over his own generation might have been more instantaneously manifest, but which could have been as little permanently beneficial as that of any other of those remarkable names, which, especially in the East, have blazed for a time and expired.

From the desert, not improbably supposed to be that of Quarantania, lying between Jericho and Jerusalem, where tradition, in Palestine unfortunately of no great authority, still points out the scene of this great spiritual conflict, and where a mountain, commanding an almost boundless prospect of the valleys and hills of Judaea, is shown as that from whence Jesus looked down unmoved on the kingdoms of the earth, the Son of Man returned to the scene of John’s baptism.

In the meantime the success of the new prophet, the Baptist, had excited the attention, if not the jealousy, of the ruling authorities of the Jews. The solemn deputation appeared to inquire into his pretensions. The Pharisees probably at this time predominated in the great council, and the delegates, as of this sect, framed their questions in accordance with the popular traditions, as well as with the prophetic writings: they inquire whether he is the Christ, or Elijah, or the prophet. John at once disclaims his title to the appellation of the Christ; nor is he Elijah, personally returned, according to the vulgar expectation; nor Jeremiah, to whom tradition assigned the name of “the prophet,” who was to rise from the dead at the coming of the Messiah, in order, it was supposed, to restore the tabernacle, the ark, and the altar of incense, which he was said to have concealed in a cave on the destruction of the Temple by Nebuchadnezzar, and which were to be brought again to light at the Messiah’s coming.

The next day John renewed his declaration that he was the harbinger described in the Prophet Isaiah, who, according to the custom in the progresses of Oriental monarchs, was to go before, and cutting through mountains and bridging valleys, to make a wide and level way for the advance of the Great King. So John was to remove some of the moral impediments for the reception of Christ. At the same time, as Jesus mingled undistinguished among the crowd, without directly designating him, the Baptist declared the actual presence of the mightier teacher who was about to appear. The next day, in the more private circle of his believers, John did not scruple to point out the more distinctly the person of the Messiah. The occasion of his remarkable speech (it has been suggested with much probability) was the passing of large flocks of sheep and lambs, which, from the rich pastoral districts beyond the river, crossed the Jordan at the ford, and were driven on to the metropolis, to furnish either the usual daily sacrifices or those for the approaching Passover. The Baptist, as they were passing, glanced from them to Jesus, declared him to be that superior Being, of whom he was but the humble harbinger, and described him as “the Lamb of God”, which taketh away the sins of the world. Unblemished and innocent as the meek animals that passed, like them he was to go up as a sacrifice to Jerusalem, and in some mysterious manner to “take away” the sins of mankind. Another title, by which he designated Jesus yet more distinctly as the Messiah, was that of the “Son of God,” one of the appellations of the Deliverer most universally admitted, though, no doubt, it might bear a different sense to different hearers.

Among the more immediate disciples of John this declaration of their master could not but excite the strongest emotions; nor can anything be more characteristic of the feelings of that class among the Jews than the anxious rapidity with which the wonderful intelligence is propagated, and the distant and awestruck reverence with which the disciples slowly present themselves to their new master. The first of these were, Andrew, the brother of Simon (Peter), and probably the author of the narrative, St. John. Simon, to whom his brother communicates the extraordinary tidings, immediately follows, and on him Jesus bestows a new name, expressive of the firmness of his character. All these belonged to the same village, Bethsaida, on the shore of the lake of Gennesaret. On the departure of Jesus, when He is returning to Galilee, He summons another, named Philip. Philip, like Andrew, hastens away to impart the tidings to Nathanael, not improbably conjectured to be the apostle Bartholomew (the son of Tolmai or Ptolemy), a man of blameless character, whose only doubt is whether the Messiah could come from a town of such proverbial disrepute as Nazareth. But the doubts of Nathanael are removed by the preternatural knowledge displayed by Jesus of an incident which he could not have witnessed; and this fifth disciple, in like manner, does homage to the Messiah under his titles “the Son of God, the King of Israel.” Yet this proof of more than human knowledge, Jesus declares to be as nothing in comparison with the more striking signs of the Divine protection and favour, which he asserts, under the popular and significant image of the perpetual intervention of angels, that his chosen followers are hereafter to witness.

Jesus had now commenced his career: disciples had attached themselves to this new master, and his claim to a divine mission must necessarily accompanied by the signs and wonders which were to ratify the appearance of the Messiah. Yet even his miraculous powers had nothing of the imposing, the appalling, or public character, looked for, no doubt, by those who expected that the appeal would be made to their senses and their passions, to their terror and their hope, not to the more tranquil emotions of gratitude and love. But of this more hereafter.

The first miracle of Jesus was the changing the water into wine, at the marriage feast at Cana in Galilee. This event, however, was not merely remarkable as being the first occasion for the display of supernatural power, but as developing in some degree the primary principles of the new religious revelation. The attendance of Jesus at a marriage festival, his contributing to the festive hilarity, more particularly his sanctioning the use of wine on such occasions, at once separated and set him apart from that sect with which he was most likely to be confounded. John, no doubt, passed with the vulgar for a stricter Essene, many of whom, it has been before said, observed the severest morality, and, in one great point, differed most widely from all their brethren. They disregarded the ceremonies of the Law, even the solemn national festivals, and depreciated sacrifices. Shut up, in short, in their own monastic establishments, they had substituted observances of their own for those of the Mosaic institutes. In all these points, John, who nowhere appears to have visited Jerusalem, at least after his assumption of the prophetic office (for his presence there would doubtless have excited much commotion), followed the Essenian practice. Like them he was severe, secluded, monastic, or rather eremitical in his habits and language. But among the most marked peculiarities of the Essenian fraternity was their aversion to marriage. Though some of the less rigid of their communities submitted to this inevitable evil, yet those who were of higher pretensions, and doubtless of higher estimation, maintained inviolable celibacy, and had fully imbibed that Oriental principle of asceticism, which proscribed all indulgence of the gross and material body as interfering with the purity of the immaculate spirit. The perfect religious being was he who had receded to the utmost from all human passion; who had withdrawn his senses from all intercourse with the material world, or rather had estranged his mind from all objects of sense, and had become absorbed in the silent and ecstatic contemplation of the Deity. This mysticism was the vital principle of the Essenian observances in Judaea, and of those of the Therapeutae, or Contemplatists, in Egypt, the lineal ancestors of the Christian monks and hermits. By giving public countenance to a marriage ceremony, still more by sanctioning the use of wine on such occasions (for wine was likewise proscribed by Essenian usage), Jesus thus, at the outset of his career, as he afterwards placed himself in direct opposition to the other prevailing sects, so he had already receded from the practice of these recluse mystics, who formed the third, and though not in numbers, yet in character and influence, by no means unimportant religious party.

After this event in Cana, Jesus, with his mother, his brethren, and some of his disciples, took up their abode, not in their native town of Nazareth, but in the village of Capernaum, which was situated not far from the rising city of Tiberias, on the shore of the beautiful lake, the Sea of Gennesaret. It was called the Village of Comfort, or the Lovely Village, from a spring of delicious water, and became afterwards the chief residence of Jesus, and the great scene of his wonderful works.

The Passover approached the great festival which assembled not only from all parts of Palestine, but even from remoter regions, the more devout Jews, who at this period of the year constantly made their pilgrimage to the Holy City: regular caravans came from Babylonia and Egypt; and, as we shall explain hereafter, considerable numbers from Syria, Asia Minor, and the other provinces of the Roman empire. There can be no doubt that at least vague rumours of the extraordinary transactions which had already excited public attention towards Jesus of Nazareth, must have preceded his arrival at Jerusalem. The declaration of the Baptist, although neither himself nor many of his immediate disciples might attend the feast, could not but have transpired. Though the single miracle wrought at Cana might not have been distinctly reported at Jerusalem—though the few disciples who may have followed him from Galilee, having there disseminated the intelligence of his conduct and actions, might have been lost in the multitude and confusion of the crowded city—though, on the other hand, the impressions thus made, would be still further counter­balanced by the general prejudice against Galilee, more especially against a Galilean from Nazareth—still the Son of Mary, even at his first appearance in Jerusalem, seems to have been looked on with a kind of reverential awe. His actions were watched; and though both the ruling powers, and, as yet apparently, the leading Pharisees kept aloof, though he is neither molested by the jealousy of the latter, nor excites the alarm of the former, yet the mass of the people already observed his words and his demeanour with anxious interest. The conduct of Jesus tended to keep up this mysterious uncertainty so likely to work on the imagination of a people thus ripe for religious excitement. He is said to have performed “many miracles,” but these, no doubt, were still of a private, secret, and unimposing character; and on all other points he maintains the utmost reserve, and avoids with the most jealous precaution any action or language which might directly commit him with the rulers or the people.

One act alone was public, commanding, and authoritative. The outer court of the Temple had become, particularly at the period of the greatest solemnity, a scene of profane disorder and confusion. As the Jews assembled from all quarters of the country, almost of the world, they were under the necessity of purchasing the victims for their offerings on the spot; and the rich man who could afford a sheep or an ox, or the poor man who was content with the humbler oblation of a pair of doves, found the dealer at hand to supply his wants. The traders in sheep, cattle, and pigeons, had therefore been permitted to establish themselves within the precincts of the Temple in the court of the Gentiles; and a line of shops (tabernae) ran along the outer wall of the inner court. Every Jew made an annual payment of a half-shekel to the Temple; and as the treasury, according to ancient usage, only received the coin of Palestine, those who came from distant provinces were obliged to change their foreign money, the relative value of which was probably liable to considerable fluctuation. It is evident from the strong language of Jesus, that not only a fair and honest, but even a questionable and extortionate traffic was conducted within the holy precincts. Nor is it impossible, that even in the Temple courts trade might be earned on less connected with the religious character of the place. Throughout the East, the periodical assemblages of the different tribes of the same descent at some central temple is intimately connected with commercial views. The neighbourhood of the Holy Place is the great fair or exchange of the tribe or nation. Even to the present day, Mecca, at the time of the great concourse of worshippers at the tomb of the Prophet, is a mart for the most active traffic among the merchant pilgrims, who form the caravans from all quarters of the Mahometan world.

We may conceive how the deep and awful stillness, which ought to have prevailed within the inner courts, dedicated to the adoration of the people—how the quiet prayer of the solitary worshipper, and the breathless silence of the multitude, while the priests were performing the more important ceremonies, either offering the national sacrifice, or entering the Holy Place, must have been interrupted by the close neighbourhood of this disorderly market. How dissonant must have been the noises of the bleating sheep, the lowing cattle, the clamours and disputes, and all the tumult and confusion thus crowded into a space of no great extent. No doubt the feelings of the more devout must long before have been shocked by this desecration of the holy precincts when Jesus commanded the expulsion of these traders out of the court of the Temple, from the almost unresisting submission with which they abandoned their lucrative posts, at the command of one invested with no public authority, and who could have appeared to them no more than a simple Galilean peasant, it is clear that this assertion of the sanctity of the Temple must have been a popular act with the majority of the worshippers. Though Jesus is said personally to have exerted himself, assisting with a light scourge probably in driving out the cattle, it is not likely that if he had stood alone, either the calm and commanding dignity of his manner, or even his appeal to the authority of the Sacred Writings, which forbade the profanation of the Temple as a place of merchandise, would have overpowered the sullen obstinacy of men engaged in a gainful traffic, sanctioned by ancient usage. The same profound veneration for the Temple, which took such implacable offence at the subsequent language of Jesus, would look with unallayed admiration on the zeal for “the Father’s House.” That House would not brook the intrusion of worldly pursuits or profane noises within its hallowed gates.

Of itself, then, this act of Jesus might not amount to the assumption of authority over the Temple of God: it was, perhaps, no more than a courageous zealot for the Law might have done; but, combined with the former mysterious rumours about his character and his miraculous powers, it invested him at once with the awful character of one in whose person might appear the long-desired, the long-expected Messiah. The multitude eagerly throng around him, and demand some supernatural sign of his divine mission. The establishment of the Law had been accompanied, according to the universal belief, with the most terrific demonstrations of Almighty power—the rocking of the earth, the blazing of the mountain. Would the restoration of the Theocracy in more ample power, and more enduring majesty, be unattended with the same appalling wonders? The splendid images in the highly figurative writings of the Prophets, the traditions, among the mass of the people equally authoritative, had prepared them to expect the coming of the Messiah to be announced by the obedient elements. It would have been difficult, by the most signal convulsions of nature, to have come up to their high-wrought expectations. Private acts of benevolence to individuals, preternatural cures of diseases, or the restoration of disordered faculties, fell far beneath the notions of men, blind, in most cases, to the moral beauty of such actions. They required public, if we may so speak, national miracles, and those of the most stupendous nature. To their demand, Jesus calmly answered by an obscure and somewhat oracular allusion to the remote event of his own resurrection, the one great “ sign ” of Christianity, to which it is remarkable that the Saviour constantly refers, when required to ratify his mission by some public miracle. The gesture, by which he probably confined his meaning to the temple of his body, which, though destroyed, was to be raised up again in three days, was seen, indeed, by his disciples, yet even by them but imperfectly understood; by the people in general his language seemed plainly to imply the possible destruction of the Temple. An appalling thought, and feebly counterbalanced by the assertion of his power to rebuild it in three days!

This misapprehended speech struck on the most sensitive chord in the high-strung religious temperament of the Jewish people. Their national pride, their national existence, were identified with the inviolability of the Temple. Their passionate and zealous fanaticism on this point can scarcely be understood unless after the profound study of their history. In older times, the sad and loathsome death of Antiochus Epiphanes, in more recent, the fate of Crassus, perishing amid the thirsty sands of the desert, and of Pompey, with his headless trunk exposed to the outrages of the basest of mankind on the strand of Egypt, had been construed into manifest visitations of the Almighty, in revenge for the plunder and profanation of his Temple. Their later history is full of the same spirit; and even in the horrible scenes of the fatal siege by Titus, this indelible passion survived all feelings of nature or of humanity. The fall of the Temple was like the bursting of the heart of the nation.

From the period at which Herod the Great had begun to restore the dilapidated work of Zorobabel, forty-six years had elapsed, and still the magnificence of the king, or the wealth and devotion of the principal among the people, had found some new work on which to expend those incalculable riches, which, from these sources, the tribute of the whole nation, and the donations of the pious, continued to pour into the Temple treasury. And this was the building of which Jesus, as he was understood, could calmly contemplate the fall, and daringly promise the immediate restoration. To their indignant murmurs, Jesus, it may seem, made no reply. The explanation would, perhaps, have necessarily led to a more distinct prediction of his own death and resurrection than it was yet expedient to make, especially on so public a scene. But how deeply this mistaken speech sunk into the popular mind, may be estimated from its being adduced as the most serious charge against Jesus at his trial; and the bitterest scorn, with which he was followed to his crucifixion, exhausted itself in a fierce and sarcastic allusion to this supposed assertion of power.

Still, although with the exasperated multitude the growing veneration for Jesus might be checked by this misapprehended speech, a more profound impression had been made among some of the more thinking part of the community. Already one, if not more members, of the Sanhedrin, began to look upon him with interest, perhaps with a secret inclination to espouse his doctrines. That one, named Nicodemus, determined to satisfy himself by a personal interview, as to the character and pretensions of the new Teacher. Nicodemus had hitherto been connected with the Pharisaic party, and he dreaded the jealousy of that powerful sect, who, though not yet in declared hostility against Jesus, watched, no doubt, his motions with secret aversion; for they could not but perceive that he made no advances towards them, and treated with open disregard their minute and austere observance of the literal and traditionary law, their principles of separation from the “unclean” part of the community, aid their distinctive dress and deportment. The popular and accessible demeanour of Jesus showed at once that he had nothing in common with the spirit of this predominant religious faction. Nicodemus, therefore, chooses the dead of the night to obtain his secret interview with Jesus; he salutes him with a title, that of Rabbi, assumed by none but those who were at once qualified and authorised to teach in public; and he recognises at once his divine mission, as avouched by his wonderful works. But, with astonishment almost overpowering, the Jewish ruler hears the explanation of the first principles of the new religion. When the heathen proselyte was admitted into Judaism, he was considered to be endowed with new life: he was separated from all his former connexions; he was born again to higher hopes, to more extended knowledge, to a more splendid destiny. But now, even the Jew of the most unimpeachable descent from Abraham, the Jew of the highest estimation so as to have been chosen into the court of Sanhedrin, and one who had maintained the strictest obedience to the law, required, in order to become a member of the new community, a change no less complete. He was to pass through the ceremony emblematic of moral and spiritual purification. To him, as to the most unclean of strangers, baptism was to be the mark of his initiation into the new faith; and a secret internal transmutation was to take place by divine agency in his heart, which was to communicate a new principle of religious life. Without this, he could not attain to that which he had hitherto supposed either the certain privilege of his Israelitish descent, or at least of his conscientious adherence to the Law. Eternal life, Jesus declared, was to depend solely on the reception of the Son of God, who, he not obscurely intimated, had descended from heaven, was present in his person, and was not universally received, only from the want of moral fitness to appreciate his character. This light was too pure to be admitted into the thick darkness which was brooding over the public mind, and rendered it impenetrable by the soft and quiet rays of the new doctrine. Jesus, in short, almost without disguise or reservation, announced himself to the wondering ruler as the Messiah, while, at the same time, He enigmatically foretold his rejection by the people. The age was not ripe for the exhibition of the Divine Goodness in his person; it still yearned for a revelation of the terrible, destructive, revengeful Power of the Almighty—a national deity which should embody, as it were, the prevailing sentiments of the nation. Nor came He to fulfil that impious expectation of Jewish pride—the condemnation of the world, of all Gentile races to the worst calamities, while on Israel alone his blessings were to be showered with exclusive bounty. He came as a common benefactor—as an universal Saviour—to the whole human race. Nicodemus, it may seem, left the presence of Jesus, if not a decided convert, yet impressed with still deeper reverence. Though never an avowed disciple, yet, with other members of the Sanhedrin, he was only restrained by his dread of the predominant party: more than once we find him seizing opportunities of showing his respect and attachment for the teacher whose cause he had not courage openly to espouse; and, perhaps, his secret influence, with that of others similarly disposed, may, for a time, have mitigated or obstructed the more violent designs of the hostile Pharisees.

Thus ended the first visit of Jesus to Jerusalem since his assumption of a public character. His influence had, in one class probably, made considerable, though secret, progress; with others, a dark feeling of hostility had been more deeply rooted; while this very difference of sentiment was likely to increase the general suspense and interest, as to the future development of his character. As yet, it appears, unless in that most private interview with Nicodemus, he had not openly avowed his claim to the title of the Messiah: in expression of St. John, “he did not trust himself to them,” seems to imply the extreme caution and reserve which He maintained towards all the converts which He made during his present visit to Jerusalem.

 

4

Public Life of Jesus from the First to the Second Passover.