6.

Third Year of the public Life of Jesus.

 

The third Passover had now arrived since Jesus of Nazareth had appeared as a public Teacher, but, as it would seem, “his appointed hour” was not yet come; and, instead of descending with the general concourse of the whole nation to the capital, he remains in Galilee, or rather retires to the remotest extremity of the country; and though he approaches nearer to the northern shore of the lake, never ventures down into the populous region in which he more usually fixed his residence. The avowed hostility of the Jews, and their determination to put him to death; the apparently growing jealousy of Herod, and the desertion of his cause, on one hand, by a great number of his Galilean followers, who had taken offence at his speech in the synagogue of Capernaum, with the rash and intemperate zeal of others who were prepared to force him to assume the royal title, would render his presence at Jerusalem, if not absolutely necessary for his designs, both dangerous and inexpedient. But his absence from this Passover is still more remarkable, if, as appears highly probable, it was at this feast that the event occurred which is alluded to in St. Luke as of general notoriety, and at a later period was the subject of a conversation between Jesus and his disciples,—the slaughter of certain Galileans in the Temple of Jerusalem by the Roman governor. The reasons for assigning this fact to the period of the third Passover appear to have considerable weight. Though at all times of the year the Temple was open, not merely for the regular morning and evening offerings, but likewise for the private sacrifices of more devout worshippers, such an event as this massacre was not likely to have occurred, even if Pilate was present at Jerusalem at other times, unless the metropolis had been crowded with strangers, at least in numbers sufficient to excite some apprehension of dangerous tumult. For Pontius Pilate, though prodigal of blood if the occasion seemed to demand the vigorous exercise of power, does not appear to have been wantonly sanguinary. It is, therefore, most probable, that the massacre took place during some public festival; and if so, it must have been either at the Passover or Pentecost, as Jesus was present at both the later feasts of the present year, those of Tabernacles and of the Dedication: nor does the slightest intimation occur of any disturbance of that nature at either. Who these Galileans were, whether they had been guilty of turbulent and seditious conduct, or were the innocent victims of the governor’s jealousy, there is no evidence. It has been suggested, not without plausibility, that they were of the sect of Judas the Galilean; and, however they may not have been formally enrolled as belonging to this sect, they may have been, in some degree, infected with the same opinions; more especially, as properly belonging to the jurisdiction of Herod, these Galileans would scarcely have been treated with such unrelenting severity, unless implicated, or suspected to be implicated, in some designs obnoxious to the Roman sway. If, however, our conjecture be right, had he appeared at this festival, Jesus might have fallen undistinguished in a general massacre of his countrymen, by the direct interference of the Roman governor, and without the guilt of his rejection and death being attributable to the rulers or the nation of the Jews. Speaking according to mere human probability the Saviour of mankind might have been swept away by a stem act of Roman despotism.

Yet, be that as it may, during this period of the life of Jesus, it is most difficult to trace his course; his rapid changes have the semblance of concealment. At one time He appears at the extreme border of Palestine, the district immediately adjacent to that of Tyre and Sidon; he then seems to have descended again towards Bethsaida, and the desert country to the north of the Sea of Tiberias; he is then again on the immediate frontiers of Palestine, near the town of Caesarea Philippi, close to the fountains of the Jordan.

The incidents which occur at almost all these places coincide with his singular situation at this period of his life, and perpetually bear almost a direct reference to the state of public feeling at this particular time. His conduct towards the Greek or Syro-Phoenician woman may illustrate this. Those who watched the motions of Jesus with the greatest vigilance, either from attachment or animosity, must have beheld him with astonishment, at this period when every road was crowded with travellers towards Jerusalem, deliberately proceeding in an opposite direction; thus, at the time of the most solemn festival, moving, as it were, directly contrary to the stream which flowed in one current towards the capital. There appears at one time to have prevailed, among some, an obscure apprehension which, though only expressed during one of his later visits to Jerusalem might have begun to creep into their minds at an earlier period; that, after all, the Saviour might turn his back on his ungrateful and inhospitable country, or at least not fetter himself with the exclusive nationality inseparable from their conceptions of the true Messiah. And here, at this present instant, after having excited their hopes to the utmost by the miracle which placed him, as it were, on a level with their lawgiver, and having afterwards afflicted them with bitter disappointment by his speech in the synagogue—here, at the season of the Passover, He was proceeding towards, if not beyond, the borders of the Holy Land; placing himself, as it were, in direct communication with the uncircumcised, and imparting those blessings to strangers and aliens, which were the undoubted, inalienable property of the privileged race.

At this juncture, when He was upon the borders of the territory of Tyre and Sidon, a woman of heathen extraction having heard the fame of his miracles, determined to have recourse to him to heal her daughter, who was suffering under diabolic possession. Whether adopting the common title, which she had heard that Jesus had assumed, or from any obscure notion of the Messiah, which could not but have penetrated into the districts immediately bordering on Palestine, she saluted him by his title of Son of David, and implored his mercy. In this instance alone Jesus, who on all other occasions is described as prompt and forward to hear the cry of the afflicted, turns, at first, a deaf and regardless ear to her supplication: the mercy is, as it were, slowly and reluctantly wrung from him. The secret of this apparent, but unusual indifference to suffering, no doubt lies in the circumstances of the case. Nothing would have been so repugnant to Jewish prejudice, especially at this juncture, as his admitting at once this recognition of his title, or his receiving and rewarding the homage of any stranger from the blood of Israel, particularly one descended from the accursed race of Canaan. The conduct of the Apostles shows their harsh and Jewish spirit. They are indignant at her pertinacious importunity; they almost insist on her peremptory dismissal. That a stranger, a Canaanite, should share in the mercies of their Master, does not seem to have entered into their thoughts: the brand of ancient condemnation was upon her: the hereditary hatefulness of the seed of Canaan marked her as a fit object for malediction, as the appropriate prey of the evil spirits, as without hope of blessing from the God of Israel. Jesus himself at first seems to countenance this exclusive tone. He declares that he is sent only to the race of Israel; that dogs (the common and opprobrious term by which all religious aliens were described) could have no hope of sharing in the blessings jealously reserved for the children of Abraham. The humility of the woman’s reply, “Truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table,” might almost disarm the antipathy of the most zealous Jew. That the Gentiles might receive a kind of secondary and inferior benefit from their Messiah, was by no means in opposition to the vulgar belief; it left the Jews in full possession of their exclusive religious dignity, while it was rather flattering to their pride than debasing to their prejudices, that, with such limitation, the power of their Redeemer should be displayed among Gentile foreigners. By his condescension, therefore, to their prejudices, Jesus was enabled to display his own benevolence, without awakening, or confirming if already awakened, the quick suspicion of his followers.

After this more remote excursion, Jesus appears again, for a short time, nearer his accustomed residence; but still hovering, as it were, on the impartial borders, and lingering rather in the wild mountainous region to the north and east of the lake, than descending to the more cultivated and populous districts to the west. But here his fame follows him; and even in these desert regions, multitudes, many of them bearing their sick and afflicted relatives, perpetually assemble around Him. His conduct displays, as it were, a continual struggle between his benevolence and his caution. He seems as if he could not refrain from the indulgence of his goodness, while at the same time he is aware that every new cure may reawaken the dangerous enthusiasm from which he had so recently withdrawn himself. In the hill country of Decapolis, a deaf and dumb man is restored to speech; he is strictly enjoined, though apparently without effect, to preserve the utmost secrecy. A second time the starving multitude in the desert appeal to his compassion. They are again miraculously fed; but Jesus, as though remembering the immediate consequences of the former event, dismisses them at once, and crossing in a boat to Dalmanutha or Magdala, places, as it were, the lake between himself and their indiscreet zeal, or irrepressible gratitude. At Magdala he again encounters some of the Pharisaic party, who were, perhaps, returned from the Passover. They reiterate their perpetual demand of some sign which may satisfy their impatient incredulity, and a third time Jesus repels them with an allusion to the great “sign” of his resurrection.

As the Pentecost draws near, he again retires to the utmost borders of the land. He crosses back to Bethsaida, where a blind man is restored to sight, with the same strict injunctions of concealment. He then passes to the neighbourhood of Caesarea-Philippi, at the extreme verge of the land, a modern town, recently built on the site of the older, now named Paneas, situated almost close to the fountains of the Jordan.

Alone with his immediate disciples in this secluded region, he begins to unfold more distinctly, both his real character and his future fate, to their wondering ears. It is difficult to conceive the state of fluctuation and embarrassment in which the simple minds of the Apostles of Jesus must have been continually kept by what must have appeared the inexplicable, if not contradictory, conduct and language of their Master. At one moment he seemed entirely to lift the veil from his own character; the next, it fell again and left them in more than their former state of suspense. Now, all is clear, distinct, comprehensible; then again, dim, doubtful, mysterious. Here their hopes are elevated to the highest, and all their preconceived notions of the greatness of the Messiah seem ripening into reality; there, the strange foreboding of his humiliating fate, which He communicates with more than usual distinctness, thrills them with apprehension. Their own destiny is opened to their prospect, crossed with the same strangely mingling lights and shadows. At one time they are promised miraculous endowments, and seem justified in all their ambitious hopes of eminence and distinction in the approaching kingdom; at the next, they are warned that they must expect to share in the humiliations and afflictions of their Teacher.

Near Caesarea Philippi, Jesus questions his disciples as to the common view of his character. By some, it seems, he was supposed to be John the Baptist restored from the dead; by others, Eliahs, who was to reappear on earth previous to the final revelation of the Messiah ; by others, Jeremiah, who, according to a tradition to which we have before alluded, was to come to life: and when the ardent zeal of Peter recognises him under the most sacred title, which was universally considered as appropriated lo the Messiah,” the Christ, the Son of the Living God”, his homage is no longer declined; and the apostle himself is commended in language so strong, that the preeminence of Peter over the rest of the twelve has been mainly supported by the words of Jesus employed on this occasion. The transport of the apostles at this open and distinct avowal of his character, although at present confined to the secret circle of his more immediate adherents, no doubt before long to be publicly proclaimed, and asserted with irresistible power, is almost instantaneously checked; the bright, expanding prospects change in a moment to the gloomy reverse, when Jesus proceeds to foretell to a greater number of his followers his approaching lamentable fate, the hostility of all the rulers of the nation, his death, and that which was probably the least intelligible part of the whole prediction—his resurrection. The highly-excited Peter cannot endure the sudden and unexpected reverse; he betrays his reluctance to believe that the Messiah, whom he had now, he supposed, full authority to array in the highest temporal splendour which his imagination could suggest, could possibly apprehend so degraded a doom. Jesus not only represses the ardour of the apostle, but enters at some length into the earthly dangers to which His disciples would be exposed, and the unworldly nature of Christian reward. They listened, but how far they comprehended these sublime truths must be conjectured from their subsequent conduct. It was to minds thus preoccupied, on one hand full of unrepressed hopes of the instantaneous revelation of the Messiah in all his temporal greatness, on the other, embarrassed with the apparently irreconcilable predictions of the humiliation of their Master, that the extraordinary scene of the Transfiguration was presented. Whatever explanation we adopt of this emblematic vision, its purport and its effect upon the minds of the three disciples who beheld it remain the same. Its significant sights and sounds manifestly announced the equality, the superiority of Jesus to the founder, and to him who may almost be called the restorer of the Theocracy, to Moses the lawgiver, and Eliahs the representative of the prophets. These holy personages had, as it were, seemed to pay homage to Jesus; they had vanished, and he alone had remained. The appearance of Moses and Eliahs at the time of the Messiah was strictly in accordance with the general tradition; and when, in his astonishment, Peter proposes to make there three of those huts or cabins of boughs which the Jews were accustomed to run up as temporary dwellings at the time of the Feast of the Tabernacles, he seems to have supposed that the spirits of the lawgiver and the prophet were to make their permanent residence with the Messiah, and that this mountain was to be, as it were, another sacred place, a second Sinai, from which the new kingdom was to commence its dominion and issue its mandates.

The other circumstances of the transaction, the height on which they stood, their own half-waking state, the sounds from heaven (whether articulate voices or thunder, which appeared to give the Divine assent to their own preconceived notions of the Messiah), the wonderful change in the appearance of Jesus, the glittering cloud which seemed to absorb the two spirits, and leave Jesus alone upon the mountain—all the incidents of this majestic and mysterious scene, whether presented as dreams before their sleeping, or as visions before their waking senses, tended to elevate still higher their already exalted notions of their master. Again, however, they appear to have been doomed to hear a confirmation of that which, if their reluctant minds had not refused to entertain the humiliating thought, would have depressed them to utter despondency. After healing the daemoniac, whom they had in vain attempted to exorcise, the assurance of his approaching death is again renewed, and in the clearest language, by their roaster.

From the distant and the solitary scenes where these transactions had taken place, Jesus now returns to the populous district about Capernaum. On his entrance into city, the customary payment of half a shekel for the maintenance of the Temple, a capitation tax which was levied on every Jew, in every quarter of the world, is demanded of Jesus. How, then, will he act, who but now declared himself to his disciples as the Messiah, the Son of God? Will he claim his privilege of exemption as the Messiah? Will the Son of God contribute to the maintenance of the Temple of the Father? or will the long-expected public declaration at length take place? Will the claim of immunity virtually confirm his claim to the privileges of his descent? He again reverts to his former cautious habit of never unnecessarily offending the prejudices of the people; he complies with the demand, and the money is miraculously supplied.

 But on the minds of the apostles the recent scenes are still working with unallayed excitement. The dark, the melancholy language of their Master appears to pass away and leave no impression upon their minds; while every circumstance which animates or exalts is treasured with the utmost care; and in a short time, on their road to Capernaum, they are fiercely disputing among themselves their relative rank in the instantaneously expected kingdom of the Messiah. The beauty of the significant action by which Jesus repressed the rising emotions of their pride, is heightened by considering it in relation to the immediate circumstances. Even now, at this crisis of their exaltation, He takes a child, places it in the midst of them, and declares that only those in such a state of innocence and docility are qualified to become members of the new community. Over such humble and blameless beings, over children, and over men of childlike dispositions, the vigilant providence of God would watch with unsleeping care, and those who injured them would be exposed to his strong displeasure. The narrow jealousy of the apostles, which would have prohibited a stranger from making use of the name of Jesus for the purpose of exorcism, was rebuked in the same spirit : all who would embrace the cause of Christ were to be encouraged rather than discountenanced. Some of the most striking sentences, and one parable which illustrates, in the most vivid manner, the extent of Christian forgiveness and mutual forbearance, close, as it were, this period of the Saviour’s life, by instilling into the minds of his followers, as the time of the final collision with his adversaries approaches, the milder and more benignant tenets of the evangelic religion.

The Passover had come, and Jesus had remained in the obscure borders of the land; the Pentecost had passed away, and the expected public assumption of the titles and functions of the Messiah had not yet been made. The autumnal Feast of Tabernacles is at hand; his incredulous brethren again assemble around him, and even the impatient disciples can no longer endure the suspense : they urge him with almost imperious importunity to cast off at length his prudential, his mysterious reserve; at least to vindicate the faith of his followers, and to justify the zeal of his partisans, by displaying those works, which he seemed so studiously to conceal among the obscure towns of Galilee, in the crowded metropolis of the nation, at some great period of national assemblage. In order to prevent any indiscreet proclamation of his approach, or any procession of His followers through the country, and probably lest the rulers should have time to organize their hostile measures, Jesus disguises under ambiguous language his intention of going up to Jerusalem; he permits his brethren, who suppose that he is still in Galilee, to set forward without him. Still, however, his movements are the subject of anxious inquiry among the assembling multitudes in the capital; and many secret and half-stilled murmurs among the Galileans, some exalting his virtues, others representing him as a dangerous disturber of the public peace, keep up the general curiosity about his character and designs. On a sudden, in the midst of the festival, he appears in the Temple, and takes His station as a public teacher. The rulers seem to have been entirely off their guard; and the multitude are perplexed by the bold and, as yet, uninterrupted publicity with which a man, whom the Sanhedrin were well known to have denounced as guilty of a capital offence, entered the court of the Temple, and calmly pursued his office of instructing the people. The fact that he had taken on Himself that office was of itself unprecedented and surprising to many. As we have observed before, He belonged to no school, He had been bred at the feet of none of the recognised and celebrated teachers, yet he assumed superiority to all, and arraigned the whole of the wise men of vainglory rather than of sincere piety. His own doctrine was from a higher source, and possessed more undeniable authority. He even boldly anticipated the charge, which he knew would be renewed against him, his violation of the Sabbath by his works of mercy. He accused them of conspiring against his life ; a charge which seems to have excited indignation as well as astonishment. The suspense and agitation of the assemblage are described with a few rapid but singularly expressive touches. It was part of the vague popular belief that the Messiah would appear in some strange, sudden, and surprising manner. The circumstances of his coming were thus left to the imagination of each to fill up, according to his own notions of that which was striking and magnificent. But the extraordinary incidents which attended the birth of Jesus were forgotten, or had never been generally known; his origin and extraction were supposed to be ascertained: he appeared but as the legitimate descendant of an humble Galilean family; his acknowledged brethren were ordinary and undistinguished men. “We know this man whence he is; but when Christ come no man know whence he is”. His mysterious allusions to his higher descent were heard with mingled feelings of indignation and awe. On the multitude his wonderful works had made a favourable impression, which was not a little increased by the inactivity and hesitation of the rulers. The Sanhedrin, in which the Pharisaic party still predominated, were evidently unprepared, and had concerted no measures either to counteract his progress in the public mind, or to secure his person. Their authority in such a case was probably, in the absence of the Roman prefect, or without the concurrence of the commander of the Roman guard in the Antonia, by no means clearly ascertained. With every desire, therefore, for his apprehension, they at first respected his person, and their non-interference was mistaken for connivance, if not as a sanction for his proceedings. They determine at length on stronger measures; their officers are sent out to arrest the offender, but seem to have been overawed by the tranquil dignity and commanding language of Jesus, and were, perhaps, in some degree controlled by the manifest favour of the people.

On the great day of the feast, the agitation of the assembly, as well as the perplexity of the Sanhedrin, is at its height. Jesus still appears publicly; he makes a striking allusion to the ceremonial of the day. Water was drawn from the hallowed fountain of Siloah, and borne into the Temple with the sound of the trumpet and with great rejoicing. “Who”, say the rabbins, “has not seen the rejoicing on the drawing of this water, hath seen no rejoicing at all”. They sang in the procession, “with joy shall they draw water from the wells of salvation”. In the midst of this tumult, Jesus, according to his custom, calmly diverts the attention to the great moral end of his own teaching, and, in allusion to the rite, declares that from himself are to flow the real living waters of salvation. The ceremony almost appears to have been arrested in its progress; and open discussions of his claim to be considered as the Messiah divide the wondering multitude. The Sanhedrin find that they cannot depend on their own officers, whom they accuse of surrendering themselves to the popular deception, in favour of one condemned by the rulers of the nation. Even within their council, Nicodemus, the secret proselyte of Jesus, ventures to interfere in his behalf ; and though, with the utmost caution, he appeals to the law, and asserts the injustice of condemning Jesus without a hearing (he seems to have desired that Jesus might be admitted publicly to plead his own cause before the Sanhedrin), he is accused by the more violent of leaning to the Galilean party—the party which bore its own condemnation in the simple fact of adhering to a Galilean prophet. The council dispersed without coming to any decision.

On the next day, for the former transactions had taken place in the earlier part of the week, the last, the most crowded and solemn day of the festival, a more insidious attempt is made, whether from a premeditated or fortuitous circumstance, to undermine the growing popularity of Jesus; an attempt to make him assume a judicial authority in the case of a woman taken in the act of adultery. Such an act would probably have been resisted by the whole Sanhedrin as an invasion of their province; and as it appeared that he must either acquit or condemn the criminal, in either case he would give an advantage to his adversaries. If he inclined to severity, they might be able, notwithstanding the general benevolence of his character, to contrast their own leniency in the administration of the law (this was the characteristic of the Pharisaic party which distinguished them from the Sadducees, and of this the Rabbinical writings furnish many curious illustrations) with the rigour of the new teacher, and thus to conciliate the naturally compassionate feelings of the people, which would have been shocked by the unusual spectacle of a woman suffering death, or even condemned to capital punishment, for such an offence. If, on the other hand, he acquitted her, he abrogated the express letter of the Mosaic statute; and the multitude might be inflamed by this new evidence of that which the ruling party had constantly endeavoured to instil into their minds, the hostility of Jesus to the law of their forefathers, and his secret design of abolishing the whole long-reverenced and heaven-enacted code. Nothing can equal, if the expression may be ventured, the address of Jesus in extricating himself from this difficulty; his turning the current of popular odium, or even contempt, upon his assailants; the manner in which, by summoning them to execute the law, he extorts a tacit confession of their own loose morals : “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her” (this being the office of the chief accuser); and finally shows mercy to the accused, without in the least invalidating the decision of the law against the crime, yet not without the most gentle and effective moral admonition.

After this discomfiture of his opponents, Jesus appears to have been permitted to pursue his course of teaching undisturbed, until new circumstances occurred to inflame the resentment of his enemies. He had taken his station in a part of the Temple court called the Treasury. His language became more mysterious, yet, at the same time, more authoritative; more full of those allusions to his character as the Messiah, to his Divine descent, and at length to his preexistence. The former of these were in some degree familiar to the popular conception; the latter, though it entered into the higher notion of the Messiah, which was prevalent among those who entertained the loftiest views of his character, nevertheless, from the manner in which it was expressed, jarred with the harshest discord upon the popular ear. They listened with patience to Jesus while he proclaimed himself the light of the world : though they questioned his right to assume the title of “Son of the Heavenly Father” without farther witness than he had already produced, they yet permitted him to proceed in his discourse : they did not interrupt him when he still farther alluded, in dark and ambiguous terms, to his own fate : when he declared that God was with him, and that his doctrines were pleasing to the Almighty Father, a still more favourable impression was made, and many openly espoused his belief; but when he touched on their rights and privileges as descendants of Abraham, the subject on which, above all, they were most jealous and sensitive, the collision became inevitable. He spoke of their freedom, the moral freedom from the slavery of their own passions, to which they were to be exalted by the revelation of the truth; but freedom was a word which to them only bore another sense. They broke in at once with indignant denial that the race of Abraham, however the Roman troops were guarding their Temple, had ever forfeited their national independence. He spoke as if the legitimacy of their descent from Abraham depended not on their hereditary genealogy, but on the moral evidence of their similarity in virtue to their great forefather. The good, the pious, the gentle Abraham was not the father of those who were meditating the murder of an innocent man. If their fierce and sanguinary dispositions disqualified them from being the children of Abraham, how much more from being, as they boasted, the adopted children of God; the spirit of evil, in whose darkest and most bloody temper they were ready to act, was rather the parent of men with dispositions so diabolic. At this their wrath bursts forth in more unrestrained vehemence; the worst and most bitter appellations by which a Jew could express his hatred, were heaped on Jesus; he is called a Samaritan, and declared to be under daemoniac possession. But when Jesus proceeded to assert his title to the Messiahship, by proclaiming that Abraham had received some intimation of the future great religious revolution to be effected by him; when he was “not fifty years old” (that is, not arrived at that period when the Jews, who assumed the public offices at thirty, were released from them on account of their age), declared that he had existed before Abraham; when he this placed himself, not merely on a equality with, but asserted his immeasurable superiority to the great to the father of the race; when He uttered the awful and significant words which identified him, as it were, with Jehovah, the great self-existent Deity, “Before Abraham was, I am,” they immediately rushed forward to crush without trial, without further hearing, him whom they considered the self-convicted blasphemer. As there was always some work of building or repair going on within the Temple, which was not considered to be finished till many years after, these instruments for the fulfilment of the legal punishment were immediately at hand; and Jesus only escaped from being stoned on the spot by passing (we know not how), during the wild and frantic tumult, through the midst of his assailants, and withdrawing from the court of the Temple.

But even in this exigency he pauses at no great distance to perform an act of mercy. There was a man notoriously blind from his birth, who seems to have taken his accustomed station in some way leading to the Temple. Some of the disciples of Jesus had accompanied Him, and perhaps, as it were, covered his retreat from his furious assailants; and by this time, probably, being safe from pursuit, they stopped near the place where the blind man stood. The whole history of the cure of this blind man is remarkable, as singularly illustrative of Jewish feeling and opinion, and on account both of the critical juncture at which it took place, and the strict judicial investigation which it seems to have undergone before the hostile Sanhedrin. The common popular belief ascribed every malady or affliction to some sin, of which it was the direct and providential punishment—a notion, as we have before hinted, of all others, the most likely to harden the bigoted heart to indifference, or even contempt and abhorrence of the heaven-visited, and therefore heaven-branded, sufferer. This notion, which however was so overpowered by the strong spirit of nationalism as to obtain for the Jews in foreign countries the admiration of the heathen for their mutual compassion towards each other, while they had no kindly feeling for strangers, no doubt, from the language of Jesus on many occasions, exercised a most pernicious influence on the general character in their native land, where the lessons of Christian kindliness and humanity appear to have been as deeply needed as they were unacceptable. But how was this notion of the penal nature of all suffering to be reconciled with the fact of a man being born subject to one of the most grievous afflictions of our nature—the want of sight. They were thus thrown back upon those other singular notions which prevailed among the Jews of that period—either his fathers or himself must have sinned. Was it, then, a malady inherited from the guilt of his parents? or was the soul, having sinned in a preexistent state, now expiating its former offences in the present form of being? This notion, embraced by Plato in the West, was more likely to have been derived by the Jews from the East, where it may be regularly traced from India through the different Oriental religions. Jesus at once corrected this inveterate error, and having anointed the eyes of the blind man with clay, sent him to wash in the celebrated pool of Siloam, at no great distance from the Street of the Temple. The return of the blind man, restored to sight, excited so much astonishment, that the bystanders began to dispute whether he was really the same who had been so long familiarly known. The man set their doubts at rest by declaring himself to be the same. The Sanhedrin, now so actively watching the actions of Jesus, and indeed inflamed to the utmost resentment, had no course but, if possible, to invalidate the effect of such a miracle on the public mind; they hoped either to detect some collusion between the parties, or to throw suspicion on the whole transaction: at all events the case was so public, that they could not avoid bringing it under the cognisance of their tribunal. The man was summoned, and, as it happened to have been the Sabbath, the stronger Pharisaic party were in hopes of getting rid of the question altogether by the immediate decision, that a man guilty of a violation of the Law could not act under the sanction of God. But a considerable party in the Sanhedrin were still either too prudent, too just, or too much impressed by the evidence of the case, to concur in so summary a sentence. This decision of the council appears to have led to a more close investigation of the whole transaction. The first object appears to have been, by questioning the man himself, to implicate him as an adherent of Jesus, and so to throw discredit upon his testimony. The man, either from caution or ignorance of the character assumed by Jesus, merely replied that he believed him to be a prophet. Baffled on this point, the next step of the Pharisaic party is to inquire into the reality of the malady and the cure. The parents of the blind man are examined; their deposition simply affirms the fact of their son having been born blind, and having received his sight; for it was now  notorious that the Sanhedrin had threatened all the partisans of Jesus with the terrible sentence of excommunication; and the timid parents, trembling before this awful tribunal, refer the judges to their son for all further information on this perilous question.

The further proceedings of the Sanhedrin are still more remarkable: unable to refute the fact of the miraculous cure, they endeavour, nevertheless, to withhold from Jesus all claim upon the gratitude of him whom he had relieved, and all participation in the power with which the instantaneous cure was wrought. The man is exhorted to give praise for the blessing to God alone, and to abandon the cause of Jesus of Nazareth, whom they authoritatively denounce as a sinner. He rejoins, with straightforward simplicity, that he merely deposes to the fact of his own blindness, and to his having received his sight: on such high questions as the character of Jesus, he presumes not at first to dispute with the great legal tribunal, with the chosen wisdom of the nation. Wearied, however, at length with their pertinacious examination, the man seems to discover the vantage ground on which he stands; the altercation becomes more spirited on his part, more full of passionate violence on theirs. He declares that he has already again and again repeated the circumstances of the transaction, and that it is in vain for them to question him further, unless they are determined, if the truth of the miracle should be established, to acknowledge the divine mission of Jesus. This seems to have been the object at which the more violent party in the Sanhedrin aimed; so far to throw him off his guard, as to make him avow himself the partisan of Jesus, and by this means to shake his whole testimony. On the instant they begin to revile him, to appeal to the popular clamour, to declare him a secret adherent of Jesus, while they were the steadfast disciples of Moses. God was acknowledged to have spoken by Moses, and to compare Jesus with him was inexpiable impiety—Jesus, of whose origin they professed themselves ignorant. The man rejoins in still bolder terms, “Why, herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, but yet he hath opened mine eyes.” He continues in the same strain openly to assert his conviction that no man, unless commissioned by God, could work such wonders. Their whole history, abounding as it did with extraordinary events, displayed nothing more wonderful than that which had so recently taken place in his person. This daring and disrespectful language excites the utmost indignation in the whole assembly. They revert to the popular opinion, that the blindness with which the man was born, was a proof of his having been accursed of God. “Thou wast altogether born in sin, and dost thou teach us?” God marked thy very birth, thy very cradle, with the indelible sign of his displeasure; and therefore the testimony of one branded by the wrath of Heaven can be of no value”. Forgetful that even on their own principle, if, by being born blind, the man was manifestly an object of the divine anger, his gaining his sight was an evidence equally unanswerable of the divine favour. But while they traced the hand of God in the curse, they refused to trace it in the blessing; to close the eyes was a proof of divine power, but to open them none whatever. The fearless conduct, however, of the man appears to have united the divided council; the formal and terrible sentence of excommunication was pronounced, probably for the first time, against any adherent of Jesus. The Evangelist concludes the narrative, as if to show that the man was not as yet a declared disciple of Christ, with a second interview between the blind man and Jesus, in which Jesus openly accepted the title of the Messiah, the Son of God, and received the homage of the now avowed adherent. Nor did Jesus discontinue his teaching on account of this declared interposition of the Sanhedrin ; his manifest superiority throughout this transaction rather appears to have caused a new schism in the council, which secured him from any violent measures on their part, until the termination of the festival.

Another collision takes place with some of the Pharisaic party, with whom he now seems scarcely to keep any measure: he openly denounces them as misleading the people, and declares himself the “ one true Shepherd.” Whither Jesus retreated after this conflict with the ruling powers, we have no distinct information—most probably however into Galilee; nor is it possible with certainty to assign those events, which filled up the period between the autumnal Feast of Tabernacles and that of the Dedication of the Temple, which took place in the winter.

Now, however, Jesus appears more distinctly to have avowed his determination not to remain in his more concealed and private character in Galilee: but when the occasion should demand, when, at the approaching Passover, the whole nation should be assembled in the metropolis, He would confront them, and at length bring his acceptance or rejection to a crisis. He now, at times at least, assumes greater state; messengers are sent before him to proclaim his arrival in the different towns and villages; and as the Feast of Dedication draws near, He approaches the borders of Samaria, and sends forward some of his followers into a neighbouring village to announce his approach. Whether the Samaritans may have entertained some hopes from the rumour of his former proceedings in their country, that, persecuted by the Jews, and avowedly opposed to the leading parties in Jerusalem, the Lord might espouse their party in the national quarrel, and were therefore instigated by disappointment as well as jealousy; or whether it was merely an accidental outburst of the old irreconcileable feud, the inhospitable village refused to receive him. The disciples were now elate with the expectation of the approaching crisis; on their minds all the dispiriting predictions of the fate of their Master passed away without the least impression; they were indignant that their triumphant procession should be arrested; and with these more immediate and peculiar motives mingled, no doubt, the implacable spirit of national hostility. They thought that the hour of vengeance was now come; that even their gentle Master would resent on these deadliest foes of the race of Israel, this deliberate insult on his dignity; that, as He had in some respects resembled the ancient prophets, He would now not hesitate to assume that fiercer and more terrific majesty, with which, according to their ancient histories, these holy men had at times been avenged; they entreated their Master to call down fire from heaven to consume the village. Jesus simply replied by a sentence, which at once established the incalculable difference between his own religion and that which it was to succeed. This sentence, most truly sublime and most characteristic of the evangelic religion, ever since the establishment of Christianity has been struggling to maintain its authority against the still-reviving Judaism, which, inseparable it would seem from uncivilised and unchristian man, has constantly endeavoured to array the Deity, rather in his attributes of destructive power than of preserving mercy : “The Son of Man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” So speaking He left the inhospitable Samaritans unharmed, and calmly passed to another village.

It appears to me probable that He here left the direct road to the metropolis through Samaria, and turned aside to the district about Scythopolis and the valley of the Jordan, and most likely crossed into Peraea. From hence, if not before, He sent out his messengers with greater regularity, and, it might seem, to keep up some resemblance with the established institutions of the nation, He chose the number of Seventy, a number already sanctified in the notions of the people, as that of the great Sanhedrin of the nation, who deduced their own origin and authority from the Council of Seventy, established by Moses in the wilderness. The Seventy after a short absence returned and made a favourable report of the influence which they had obtained over the people. The language of Jesus, both in his charge to his disciples and in his observations on the report of their success, appears to indicate the still approaching crisis; it would seem that even the towns in which He had wrought his mightiest works, Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, at least the general mass of the people, and the influential rulers, now had declared against him. They are condemned in terms of unusual severity for their blindness; yet among the meek and humble He had a still increasing hold—and the days were now at hand, which the disciples were permitted to behold, and for which the wise and good for many ages had been looking forward with still baffled hopes.

It was during the absence of the Seventy, or immediately after their return, that Jesus, who perhaps had visited in the interval many towns and villages both of Galilee and Peraea, which his central position near the Jordan commanded, descended to the winter Festival of the Dedication. Once it is clear that He drew near to Jerusalem, at least as near as the village of Bethany; and though not insensible to the difficulties of this view, I cannot but think that this village, about two miles’ distance from Jerusalem, and the house of the relations of Lazarus, was the place where He was concealed during both his two later unexpected and secret visits to the metropolis, and where He in general passed the nights during the week of the last Passover. His appearance at this festival seems to have been, like the former, sudden and unlooked-for. The multitude probably at this time was not so great, both on account of the season, and because the festival was kept in other places besides Jerusalem, though of course with the greatest splendour and concourse in the Temple itself. Jesus was seen walking in one of the porticoes or arcades which surrounded the outer court of the Temple, that to the east, which from its greater splendour, being formed of a triple instead of a double row of columns, was called by the name of Solomon’s. The leading Jews, whether unprepared for more violent measures, or with some insidious design, now address him, seemingly neither in a hostile nor unfriendly tone. It almost appears, that having before attempted force, they are now inclined to try the milder course of persuasion; their language sounds like the expostulation of impatience. Why, they inquire, does He thus continue to keep up this strange excitement? Why thus persist in endangering the public peace? Why does He not avow himself at once? Why does He not distinctly assert himself to be the Christ, and by some signal, some public, some indisputable, evidence of his being the Messiah, at once set at rest the doubts, and compose the agitation of the troubled nation? The answer of Jesus is an appeal to the wonderful works which he had already wrought; but this evidence the Jews, in their present state and disposition of mind, were morally incapable of appreciating. He had already avowed himself, but in language unintelligible to their ears; a few had heard him, a few would receive the reward of their obedience, and those few were, in the simple phrase, the sheep who heard his voice. But as he proceeded, his language assumed a higher, a more mysterious, tone. He spoke of his unity with the great Father of the worlds. “I and my Father are one.” However understood, his words sounded to the Jewish ears so like direct blasphemy, as again to justify on the spot the summary punishment of the Law. Without further trial they prepared to stone him where he stood. Jesus arrested their fury on the instant by a calm appeal to the manifest moral goodness, as well as the physical power, of the Deity displayed in his works. The Jews in plain terms accused him of blasphemously ascribing to himself the title of God. He replied by reference to their sacred books, in which they could not deny that the divine name was sometimes ascribed to beings of an inferior rank; how much less, therefore, ought they to be indignant at that sacred name being assumed by him, in whom the great attributes of divinity, both the power and the goodness, had thus manifestly appeared! His wonderful works showed the intercommunion of nature, in this respect, between himself and the Almighty. This explanation, far beyond their moral perceptions, only excited a new burst of fury, which Jesus eluded, and, retiring again from the capital, returned to the district beyond the Jordan.

The three months which elapsed between the Feast of Dedication and the Passover were no doubt occupied in excursions, if not in regular progresses, through the different districts of the Holy Land, on both sides of the river, which his central position, near one of the most celebrated fords, was extremely well suited to command. Wherever he went, multitudes assembled around him; and at one time the government of Herod was seized with alarm, and Jesus received information that his life was in danger, and that he might apprehend the same fate which had befallen John the Baptist if he remained in Galilee or Peraea, both which districts were within the dominions of Herod. It is remarkable that this intelligence came from some of the Pharisaic party, whether suborned by Herod, thus peacefully, and without incurring any further unpopularity, to rid his dominions of one who might become either the designing or the innocent cause of tumult and confusion (the reflection of Jesus on the crafty character of Herod may confirm the notion that the Pharisees were acting under his insidious direction), or whether the Pharisaic party were of themselves desirous to force Jesus, before the Passover arrived, into the province of Judaea, where the Roman government might either, of itself, be disposed to act with decision, or might grant permission to the Sanhedrin to interpose its authority with the utmost rigour. But it was no doubt in this quarter that he received intelligence of a very different nature, that led to one of his preternatural works, which of itself was the most extraordinary, and evidently made the deepest impression upon the public mind. The raising of Lazarus may be considered the proximate cause of the general conspiracy for his death, by throwing the popular feeling more decidedly on his side, and thereby deepening the fierce animosity of the rulers, who now saw that they had no alternative but to crush him at once, or to admit his triumph.

We have supposed that it was at the house of Lazarus, or of his relatives, in the village of Bethany, that Jesus had passed the nights during his recent visits to Jerusalem. At some distance from the metropolis he receives information of the dangerous illness of that faithful adherent, whom he seems to have honoured with peculiar attachment. He at first assures his followers in ambiguous language of the favourable termination of the disorder; and after two days’ delay, notwithstanding the remonstrances of his disciples, who feared that he was precipitately rushing, as it were, into the toils of his enemies, and who resolve to accompany him, though in acknowledged apprehension that his death was inevitable, Jesus first informs his disciples of the actual death of Lazarus, yet, nevertheless, persists in his determination of visiting Bethany. On his arrival at Bethany the dead man, who according to Jewish usage had no doubt been immediately buried, had been four days in the sepulchre. The house was full of Jews, who had come to console, according to their custom, the afflicted relatives; and the characters assigned in other parts of the history to the two sisters, are strikingly exemplified in their conduct on this mournful occasion. The more active Martha hastens to meet Jesus, laments his absence at the time of her brother’s death, and, on his declaration of the resurrection of her brother, reverts only to the general resurrection of mankind, a truth embodied in a certain sense in the Jewish creed. So far Christ answers in language which intimates his own close connexion with that resurrection of mankind. The gentler Mary falls at the feet of Jesus, and with many tears expresses the same confidence in his power, had he been present, of averting her brother’s death. So deep, however, is their reverence, that neither of them ventures the slightest word of expostulation at his delay; nor does either appear to have entertained the least hope of further relief. The tears of Jesus himself (for Jesus wept) appear to confirm the notion that the case is utterly desperate; and some of the Jews, in a less kindly spirit, begin to murmur at his apparent neglect of a friend, to whom, nevertheless, he appears so tenderly attached. It might seem that it was in the presence of some of these persons, by no means well disposed to his cause, that Jesus proceeded to the sepulchre, summoned the dead body to arise, and was obeyed.

The intelligence of this inconceivable event spread with the utmost rapidity to Jerusalem. The Sanhedrin was instantly summoned, and a solemn debate commenced, finally to decide on their future proceedings towards Jesus. It had now become evident that his progress in the popular belief must be at once arrested, or the power of the Sanhedrin, the influence of the Pharisaic party, was lost for ever. With this may have mingled, in minds entirely ignorant of the real nature of the new religion, an honest and conscientious, though blind, dread of some tumult or insurrection taking place, which would give the Romans an excuse for wresting away the lingering semblance of national independence, to which they adhered with such passionate attachment. The high priesthood was now filled by Caiaphas, the son-in-law of Annas or Ananus; for the Roman governors, as has been said, since the expulsion of Archelaus, either in the capricious or venal wantonness of power, or from jealousy of his authority, had perpetually deposed and reappointed this chief civil and religious magistrate of the nation. Caiaphas threw the weight of his official influence into the scale of the more decided and violent party; and endeavoured, as it were, to give an appearance of patriotism to the meditated crime, by declaring the expediency of sacrificing one life, even though innocent, for the welfare of the whole nation? His language was afterwards treasured in the memory of the Christians, as inadvertently prophetic of the more extensive benefits derived to mankind by the death of their Master. The death of Jesus was deliberately decreed; but Jesus for the present avoided the gathering storm, withdrew from the neighbourhood of the metropolis, and retired to Ephraim, on the border of Judaea, near the wild and mountainous region which divided Judaea from Samaria.

 

7

The last Passover.—The Crucifixion.