{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_13335/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_13335","id":"gutenberg_13335","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13335","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Religious","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Christianity","Jesus Christ -- Historicity"],"text":"Contributed by Jonathon Love\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE JESUS OF HISTORY\n\nFOREWORD\n\nI regard it as a high privilege to be associated with this volume.\nMany who know and value Mr Glover's work on The Conflict of\nReligions in the Early Roman Empire must have wistfully desired to\nsecure from his graphic pen just such a book as is here given to the\nworld. He possesses the rare power of reverently handling familiar\ntruths or facts in such manner as to make them seem to be almost\nnew. There are few gifts more precious than this at a time when our\nfamiliarity with the greatest and most sacred of all narratives is a\nchief hindrance to our ready appreciation of its living power. I\nbelieve that no one will read Mr Glover's chapters, and especially\nhis description of the parable-teaching given by our Lord, without a\nsense of having been introduced to a whole series of fresh and\nfruitful thoughts. He has expanded for us, with the force, the\nclearness, and the power of vivid illustration which we have learned\nto expect from him, the meaning of a sentence in the earlier volume\nI have alluded to, where he insists that, \"Jesus of Nazareth does\nstand in the centre of human history, that He has brought God and\nman into a new relation, that He is the present concern of every one\nof us and that there is more in Him than we have yet accounted\nfor.\"[1]\n\nIn accordance with its title, the single theme of the book is \"The\nJesus of History,\" but the student or exponent of dogmatic theology\nwill find abundant material in its pages.\n\nI commend it confidently, both to single students and to those who\nnowadays, in happily increasing numbers, meet together for common\nstudy; and I congratulate those who belong to the Student Christian\nMovement upon this notable addition to the books published in\nconnection with their far-reaching work.\n\n  RANDALL CANTUAR\n        LAMBETH\n  Advent Sunday, 1916\n\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\nThis book has grown out of lectures upon the historical Jesus given\nin a good many cities of India during the winter 1915-16. Recast and\ndeveloped, the lectures were taken down in shorthand in Calcutta;\nthey were revised in Madras; and most of them were wholly\nre-written, where and when in six following months leisure was\navailable, in places so far apart as Colombo, Maymyo, Rangoon,\nKodaikanal, Simla, and Poona. The reader will not expect a heavy\napparatus of references to books which were generally out of reach.\n\nHere and there are incorporated passages (rehandled) from articles\nthat have appeared in The Constructive Quarterly, The Nation, The\nExpositor, and elsewhere.\n\nThose who themselves have tried to draw the likeness attempted in\nthis book will best understand, and perhaps most readily forgive,\nfailures and mistakes, or even worse, in my drawing. The aim of the\nbook, as of the lectures, is, after all, not to achieve a final\npresentment of the historical Jesus, but to suggest lines of study\nthat will deepen our interest in him and our love of him.\n\n    T. R. G.\nPOONA, August 1916\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE JESUS OF HISTORY\n\nCONTENTS\n\n             CHAPTER I\n  THE STUDY OF THE GOSPELS\n    Modern study of religion\n    Historicity of Jesus\n    The gospels as historical sources\n    Canons for the study of a historical figure\n    A caution against antiquarianism here\n\n              CHAPTER II\n  CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH\n    References in Gospels\n    Utilisation of the parables to reconstruct the domestic life\n    Nature. The city. The talk of the market\n\n              CHAPTER III\n  THE MAN AND HIS MIND\n    Words and looks, as recorded in the gospels\n    Playfulness of speech\n    Movements of feeling\n    Habits of thought: e.g. Quickness. Feeling for fact.\n            Sympathy. Imagination\n    His use of the Old Testament\n\n              CHAPTER IV\n  THE TEACHER AND THE DISCIPLES\n    THE BACKGROUND\n      Hardness of the human life in those times\n      Uncertainness as to God's plans for the nation--specially\n            as to His purposes for the Messiah\n      Uncertainty as to the immortality of the soul, and its destinies\n      Re-action of all this upon life\n    THE PROBLEM BEFORE THE TEACHER\n      To induce people to try to re-think God\n      To secure the re-thinking of life from its foundations in view\n            of the new knowledge\n    THE TEACHER AND THE DISCIPLES\n      His personality, and his genius for friendship\n      The disciples--the type he prefers\n      Intimacy, the real secret of his method\n      His ways of speech\n      His seriousness\n      The transformation of the disciples\n\n              CHAPTER V\n  THE TEACHING OF JESUS UPON GOD\n    JESUS' OWN GOD-CONSCIOUSNESS\n      The Nearness of God\n      God's knowledge and power\n      God's throne\n      Jesus emphasizes mostly God's interest in the individual--the\n            love of God\n    THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD\n      The discovery of God\n      Parables of the treasure finder and the pearl merchant\n      Faith in God\n      Prayer\n      Life on the basis of God\n\n              CHAPTER VI\n  JESUS AND MAN\n    Jesus' sympathy with men and their troubles\n    His feelings for the suffering and distressed\n    His feeling for women and children\n    His emphasis on tenderness and forgiveness\n    The characteristics which he values in men\n    The value of the individual soul\n    Jesus and the wasted life\n    Zacchaeus. The woman with the alabaster box. The penitent thief\n\n              CHAPTER VII\n  JESUS' TEACHING UPON SIN\n    The problem of sin\n    John the Baptist on sin\n    Jesus' psychology of sin more serious\n    The outstanding types of sin which, according to Jesus,\n            involve for a man the utmost risk:\n      (a) Want of tenderness\n      (b) The impure imagination\n      (c) Indifference to truth\n      (d) Indecision\n    Jesus' view of sin as deduced from this teaching\n    Implication of a serious view of redemption\n\n              CHAPTER VIII\n  THE CHOICE OF THE CROSS\n    What the cross meant to him\n    HIS REFERENCES TO THE GOSPEL AND ITS RESULTS\n      The kingdom of heaven\n      The call for followers\n      His announcement of purpose in his life and death\n      What he means by redemption\n    FACTORS IN HIS CHOICE OF THE CROSS\n      His sense of human need\n      His realization of God\n      His recognition of his own relation to God\n      His prayer life\n    VERIFICATION FROM THE EVENT\n      The Resurrection\n      The new life of the disciples\n      The taking away of the sin of the world\n    RE-EXAMINATION OF HIS CHOICE OF THE CROSS\n      As it bears on the problem of pain\n        and of sin\n        and on God\n      How a man is to understand Jesus Christ\n\n              CHAPTER IX\n  THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE\n    THE ROMAN EMPIRE\n      One rule of many races\n      General peace and free intercourse the world over\n      Fusion of cultures, traditions, religions\n      \"The marriage of East and West\"\n    THE OLD RELIGION\n      (1) Its strength:\n        in its ancient tradition\n        in its splendour of art, architecture and ceremony\n        in its oracles, healings and theophanies\n        in its adaptability in absorbing all cults and creeds\n      (2) Its weakness:\n        No deep sense of truth\n        No association with morality\n        Polytheism\n        The fear of the grave\n      (3) Its defence:\n        Plutarch--the Stoics--Neo-Platonism--the Eclectics\n    THE VICTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH\n      (1) Its characteristics\n      (2) Persecuted because it refused to compromise\n      (3) The Christian \"out-lived\" the pagan\n                                  \"out died\" him\n                                  \"out-thought him\"\n\n              CHAPTER X\n  JESUS IN CHRISTIAN THOUGHT\n    The impulse to determine who he is, and his relation to God\n    The records of Christian experience\n    The Study of the personality of Jesus Christ\n      (a) The Gospels\n      (b) Christological theory a guide to experience\n      (c) The new experience of the Reformation period\n    Knowledge gained by the experiment comes before explanation\n  JESUS TO BE KNOWN BY WHAT HE DOES\n    The forgiveness of sin, and the theories to explain it\n    Is a Theology of Redemption possible which shall not be\n            mainly metaphor or simile?\n  THE PROBLEM OF THE INCARNATION\n    The approach is to be \"a posterioria\"\n      In fact, God and man are only known to us in and by Jesus\n      Only in Christ is the love of God as taught in N.T. tenable\n    To know Jesus in what he can do, is antecedent to theory about him\n\n              APPENDIX\n  Suggestions for study circle discussions\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE JESUS OF HISTORY\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE STUDY OF THE GOSPELS\n\nIf one thing more than another marks modern thought, it is a new\ninsistence on fact. In every sphere of study there is a growing\nemphasis on verification. Where a generation ago a case seemed to be\nclosed, to-day in the light of new facts it is reopened. Matters\nthat to our grandfathers were trivialities, to be summarily\ndismissed, are seriously studied. Again and again we find the most\nfruitful avenues opened to us by questions that another age might\nhave laughed out of a hearing; to-day they suggest investigation of\nfacts insufficiently known, and of the difficult connexions between\nthem. In psychology and in medicine the results of this new tendency\nare evident in all sorts of ways--new methods in the treatment of\nthe sick, new inquiries as to the origin of diseases and the\npossibilities of their prevention, attempts to get at the relations\nbetween the soul and body, and a very new open-mindedness as to the\nspiritual nature and its working and experiences. In other fields of\nlearning it is the same.\n\nTo the modern student of man and his history the old easy way of\nexcluding religion as an absurdity, the light prediction of its\nspeedy, or at least its eventual, disappearance from the field of\nhuman life, and other dogmatisms of the like kind, are almost\nunintelligible. We realize that religion in some form is a natural\nworking of the human spirit, and, whatever place we give to religion\nin the conduct of our own lives, as students of history we reckon\nwith the religious instinct as a factor of the highest import, and\nwe give to religious systems and organizations--above all, to\nreligious teachers and leaders--a more sympathetic and a profounder\nstudy. Carlyle's lecture on Muhammad, in his course on \"Heroes and\nHero Worship,\" may be taken as a landmark for English people in this\nnew treatment history.\n\nThe Christian Church, whether we like it or not, has been a force of\nunparalleled power in human affairs; and prophecies that it will no\nlonger be so, and allegations that by now it has ceased to be so,\nare not much made by cautious thinkers. There is evidence that the\ninfluence of the Christian Church, so far from ebbing, is\nrising--evidence more obvious when we reflect that the influence of\nsuch a movement is not to be quickly guessed from the number of its\nactual adherents. A century and a quarter of Christian missions in\nIndia have resulted in so many converts--a million and a quarter is\nno slight outcome; but that is a small part of the story. All over\nIndia the old religious systems are being subjected to a new study\nby their own adherents; their weak points are being felt; there are\nreform movements, new apologetics, compromises, defences--all sorts\nof indications of ferment and transition. There can be little\nquestion that while many things go to the making of an age, the\nprime impulse to all this intellectual, religious, and moral\nupheaval was the faith of Christian missionaries that Jesus Christ\nwould bring about what we actually see. They believed--and they were\nlaughed at for their belief--that Jesus Christ was still a real\npower, permanent and destined to hold a larger place in the affairs\nof men; and we see that they were right. Jesus remains the very\nheart and soul of the Christian movement, still controlling men,\nstill capturing men--against their wills very often--changing men's\nlives and using them for ends they never dreamed of. So much is\nplain to the candid observer, whatever the explanation.\n\nWe find further, another fact of even more significance to the\nhistorian who will treat human experience with seriousness and\nsympathy. The cynical view that delusion and error in a real world\nhave peculiar power in human affairs, may be dismissed; no serious\nstudent of history could hold it.\n\nFor those who believe, as we all do at heart, that the world is\nrational, that real effects follow real causes, and conversely that\nbehind great movements lie great forces, the fact must weigh\nenormously that wherever the Christian Church, or a section of it,\nor a single Christian, has put upon Jesus Christ a higher\nemphasis--above all where everything has been centred in Jesus\nChrist--there has been an increase of power for Church, or\ncommunity, or man. Where new value has been found in Jesus Christ,\nthe Church has risen in power, in energy, in appeal, in victory.\n\nPaul of Tarsus progressively found more in Christ, expected more of\nhim, trusted him more; and his faith was justified. If Paul was\nwrong, how did he capture the Christian Church for his ideas? If he\nwas wrong, how is it that when Luther caught his meaning,\nre-interpreted him and laid the same emphasis on Jesus Christ with\nhis \"Nos nihil sumus, Christus solus est omnia\"[2], once more the\nhearts of men were won by the higher doctrine of Christ's person and\npower, and a new era followed the new emphasis? How is it that, when\nJohn Wesley made the same discovery, and once more staked all on\nfaith in Christ, again the Church felt the pulse of new life?\n\nOn the other hand, where through a nebulous philosophy men have\nminimized Jesus, or where, through some weakness of the human mind,\nthey have sought the aid of others and relegated Jesus Christ to a\nmore distant, even if a higher, sphere--where, in short, Christ is\nnot the living centre of everything, the value of the Church has\ndeclined, its life has waned. That, to my own mind, is the most\nstriking and outstanding fact in history. There must be a real\nexplanation of a thing so signal in a rational universe.\n\nThe explanation in most human affairs comes after the recognition of\nthe fact. There our great fact stands of the significance of Jesus\nChrist--a more wonderful thing as we study it more. We may fail to\nexplain it, but we must recognize it. One of the weaknesses of the\nChurch to-day is--put bluntly--that Christians are not making enough\nof Jesus Christ.\n\nWe find again that, where Jesus Christ is most real, and means most,\nthere we are apt to see the human mind reach a fuller freedom and\nachieve more. There is a higher civilization, a greater emphasis on\nthe value of human life and character, and a stronger endeavour for\nthe utmost development of all human material, if we may so call the\nsouls and faculties of men. Why should there be this correspondence\nbetween Jesus of Nazareth and human life? It is best brought out,\nwhen we realize what he has made of Christian society, and contrast\nit with what the various religions have left or produced in other\nregions--the atrophy of human nature.\n\nIn fine, there is no figure in human history that signifies more.\nMen may love him or hate him, but they do it intensely. If he was\nonly what some say, he ought to be a mere figure of antiquity by\nnow. But he is more than that; Jesus is not a dead issue; he has to\nbe reckoned with still; and men who are to treat mankind seriously,\nmust make the intellectual effort to understand the man on whom has\nbeen centred more of the interest and the passion of the most\nserious and the best of mankind than on any other. The real secret\nis that human nature is deeply and intensely spiritual, and that\nJesus satisfies it at its most spiritual point.\n\nThe object before us in these pages is the attempt to know Jesus, if\nwe can, in a more intimate and intelligent way than we have done--at\nleast, to put before our minds the great problem, Who is this Jesus\nChrist? and to try to answer it.\n\nOne answer to this question is that Jesus was nothing, never was\nanything, but a myth developed for religious purposes; that he never\nlived at all. This view reappears from time to time, but so far it\nhas not appealed to any who take a serious interest in history. No\nhistorian of the least repute has committed himself to the theory.\nDesperate attempts have been made to discredit the Christian writers\nof the first two centuries; it has been emphasized that Jesus is not\nmentioned in secular writers of the period, and the passage in\nTacitus (\"Annals\", XV:44) has been explained away as a Christian\ninterpolation, or, more gaily, by reviving the wild notion that\nPoggio Bracciolini forged the whole of the \"Annals\". But such\ntrifling with history and literature does not serve. No scholar\naccepts the theory about Poggio--and yet if the passage about Christ\nis to be got rid of, this is the better way of the two; for there is\nnothing to countenance the view that the chapter is interpolated, or\nto explain when or by whom it was done--the wish is father to the\nthought. Christians are twice mentioned by Suetonius in dealing with\nEmperors of the first century, though in one passage the reading\n\"Chrestus\" for \"Christus\" has suggested to some scholars that\nanother man is meant; the confusion was a natural one and is\ninstanced elsewhere, but we need not press the matter. The argument\nfrom silence is generally recognized as an uncertain one. Sir James\nMelville, living at the Court of Mary, Queen of Scots, does not, I\nlearn, mention John Knox--\"whom he could not have failed to mention\nif Knox had really existed and played the part assigned to him by\nhis partisans,\" and so forth. It might be as possible and as\nreasonable to prove that the Brahmo Samaj never existed, by\ndemonstrating four hundred years hence--or two thousand--that it is\nnot mentioned in In Memoriam, nor in The Ring and the Book, nor in\nGeorge Meredith's, novels, nor (more strangely) in any of Mr.\nKipling's surviving works, which definitely deal with India. None of\nthese writers, it may be replied, had any concern to mention the\nBrahmo Samaj. And when one surveys the Greek and Roman writers of\nthe first century A.D. which of them had any concern to refer to\nJesus and his disciples, beyond the historians who do? Indeed, the\ndifficulty is to understand why some of these men should have\nwritten at all; harder still, why others should have wanted to read\ntheir poems and orations and commonplace books. One argument,\nadvanced in India a few years ago, against the historical value of\nthe Gospels may be revived by way of illustration. Would not Virgil\nand Horace, it was asked, have taken notice of the massacre at\nBethlehem, if it was historical? Would they not? it was replied,\nwhen they both had died years before its traditional date.\n\nBut the distinction between Christian and secular writers is not one\nthat will weigh much with a serious historian. Until we have reason\nto distinguish between book and book, the evidence must be treated\non exactly the same principles. To say abruptly that, because Luke\nwas a Christian and Suetonius a pagan, Luke is not worthy of the\ncredence given to Suetonius, is a line of approach that will most\ncommend itself to those who have read neither author. To gain a real\nknowledge of historical truth, the historian's methods must be\nslower and more cautious, he must know his author intimately--his\nhabits of mind, his turns of style, his preferences, his gifts for\nseeing the real issue--and always the background, and the ways of\nthinking that prevail in the background. An ancient writer is not\nnecessarily negligible because he records, and perhaps believes,\nmiracles or marvels or omens which a modern would never notice. It\nis bad criticism that has made a popular legend of the unreliable\ncharacter of Herodotus. As our knowledge of antiquity grows, and we\nbecome able to correct our early impressions, the credit of\nHerodotus rises steadily, and to-day those who study him most\nclosely have the highest opinion of him.\n\nWe may, then, without prejudice, take the evidence of Paul of Tarsus\non the historicity of Jesus, and examine it. If we are challenged as\nto the genuineness of Paul's epistles, let us tell our questioner to\nread them. Novels have been written in the form of correspondence;\nbut Paul's letters do not tell us all that a novelist or a forger\nwould--there are endless gaps, needless references to unknown\npersons (needless to us, or to anybody apart from the people\nthemselves), constant occupation with questions which we can only\ndimly discover from Paul's answers. The letters are genuine\nletters--written for the occasion to particular people, and not\nmeant for us. The stamp of genuineness is on them--of life, real\nlife. The German scholar, Norden, in his Kunstprosa, says there is\nmuch in Paul that he does not understand, but he catches in him\nagain after three hundred years that note of life that marks the\ngreat literature of Greece. That is not easily forged. Luther and\nErasmus were right when they said--each of them has said it, however\nit happened--that Paul \"spoke pure flame.\" The letters, and the\ntheology and its influence, establish at once Paul's claim to be a\nhistorical character. We may then ask, how a man of his ability\nfailed to observe that a non-historical Jesus, a pure figment, was\nbeing palmed off on him--on a contemporary, it should be marked--and\nby a combination of Jesus' own disciples with earlier friends of\nPaul, who were trying to exterminate them. Paul knew priests and\nPharisees; he knew James and John and Peter; and he never detected\nthat they were in collusion, yes, and to the point of martyring\nStephen--to impose on him and on the world a non-historical Jesus.\nTo such straits are we brought, if Jesus never existed. History\nbecomes pure nonsense, and knowledge of historical fact impossible;\nand, it may be noted, all knowledge is abolished if history is\nbeyond reach.\n\nBut we are not dependent on books for our evidence of the\nhistoricity of Jesus. The whole story of the Church implies him. He\nis inwrought in every feature of its being. Every great religious\nmovement, of which we know, has depended on a personal impulse, and\nhas behind it some real, living and inspiring personality. It is\ntrue that at a comparatively late stage of Hinduism a personal\ndevotion to Shri Krishna grew up, just as in the hour of decline of\nthe old Mediterranean paganism we find Julian the Apostate using a\ndevotional language to Athena at Athens that would have astonished\nthe contemporaries of Pericles. But Jesus, Buddha, and Muhammad\nstand on a very different footing from Krishna and Athena, even if\nwe concede the view of some scholars that Krishna was once a man,\nand the contention of Euhemerus, a pre-Christian Greek, that all the\ngods had once been human. If we posit that Jesus did not exist, we\nshall be involved other difficulties as to the story of the Church.\nMr. F. C. Conybeare, an Oxford scholar avowedly not in allegiance to\nthe Christian Church, has characterized some of the reconstructions\nmade by contemporary anti-Christian writers as more miraculous than\nthe history they are trying to correct.\n\nWe come now to the Gospels; and in what follows, and throughout the\nbook, we shall confine ourselves the first three Gospels. Great as\nhas been, and must be, the influence of the Fourth Gospel, in the\npresent stage of historical criticism it will serve our purpose best\nto postpone the use of a source which we do not fully understand.\nThe exact relations of history and interpretation in the Fourth\nGospel--the methods and historical outlook of the writer--cannot yet\nbe said to be determined. \"Only those who have merely trifled with\nthe problems it suggests are likely to speak dogmatically upon the\nsubject.\"[3] This is not to abandon the Fourth Gospel; for it is a\ndocument which we could not do without in early Church History, and\nwhich has vindicated its place in the devotional life in every\nChristian generation. But, for the present, the first Three Gospels\nwill be our chief sources.\n\nThe Gospels have, of course, been attacked again and again. Sober\ncriticism has raised the question as to whether here and there\ntraces may be found of the touch of a later hand--for example, were\nthere two asses or one, when Jesus rode into Jerusalem? has the\nbaptismal formula at the end of Matthew been adjusted to the creed\nof Nicaea? In the following pages the attempt will be made to base\nwhat is said not on isolated texts, which may--and of course may\nnot--have been touched, but on the general tenor of the books. A\nsingle episode or phrase may suffer change from a copyist's hand,\nfrom inadvertence or from theological predilection. The character of\nthe Personality set forth in the Gospels is less susceptible of\nalteration.\n\nThis point is at once of importance, for the suggestion has been\nmade that we cannot be sure of any particular statement, episode,\nincident or saying in the Gospels--taken by itself. Let us for the\nmoment imagine a more sweeping theory still--that no single episode\nincident or saying of Jesus in the Gospels is authentic at all. What\nfollows? The great historian, E. A. Freeman of Oxford, once said\nthat a false anecdote may be good history; it may be sound evidence\nfor character, for, to obtain currency, a false anecdote has also to\ntrue; it must be, in our proverbial phrase, \"if not true, well\ninvented.\" Even if exaggeration and humour contribute to give it a\ntwist, the essence of parody is that it parodies--it must conform to\nthe original even where it leaves it. A good story-teller will\nhardly tell the same story of Mr. Roosevelt and the Archbishop of\nCanterbury--unless it happens to be true, and then he will be\ncautious. \"Truth,\" to quote another proverb, \"is stranger than\nfiction\"; because fiction has to go warily to be probable, and must\nbe, more or less, conventional. The story a man invents about\nanother has to be true in some recognizable way to character--as a\nlittle experiment in this direction will show. The inventor of a\nstory must have the gift of the caricaturist and of the bestower of\nnicknames; he must have a shrewd eye for the real features of his\nvictim. Jesus, then, was a historical person; and about him we have\na mass of stories in the Gospels, which our theory for the moment\nasks us to say are all false; but they have a certain unity of tone,\nand they agree in pointing to a character of a certain type, and the\ngeneral aspects and broad outlines of that character they make\nabundantly clear. Even on such a hypothesis we can know something of\nthe character of Jesus. But the hypothesis is gratuitous, and\nabsurd, as the paragraphs that follow may help to show. The Gospels\nare essentially true and reliable records of a historical person.\n\nA survey of some of the outstanding features of the Gospels should\ndo something to assure their reader of their historical value. But\nthere is a necessary caution to be given at this moment. When\nAristotle discusses happiness, he adds a curious limitation--\"as the\nman of sense would define.\" He postulates a certain intelligence of\nthe matter in hand. Similarly Longinus, the greatest of ancient\ncritics, says that in literature sure judgement is the outcome of\nlong experience. In matters of historical and literary criticism, a\ncertain instinct is needed, conscious or unconscious, perhaps more\noften the latter, which without a serious interest and a long\nexperience no man is likely to have.\n\nThe Gospels are not properly biographies; they consist of\ncollections of reminiscences--memories and fragments that have\nsurvived for years, and sometimes the fragment is little more than a\nphrase. Such and such were the circumstances, and Jesus spoke--a\nstory that may occupy four or five verses, or less. Something\nhappened, Jesus said or did something that impressed his friends,\nand they could never forget it. The story, as such impressions do,\nkeeps its sharp edges. Date and perhaps even place may be forgotten,\nbut the look and the tone of the speaker are indelible memories. In\nthe experience of every man there are such moments, and the\nreminiscences can be trusted. The Gospels are almost avowedly not\nfirst-hand. Peter is said to be behind Mark; Mark and at least one\nother are behind Matthew and Luke. Luke in his preface explains his\nmethods. They are collectors and transmitters; and the\nindications--are that they did their work very faithfully. There is\na simplicity and a plainness about the stories in the Gospels, which\nfurther guarantees them. It is remarkable how little of the\nadjective there is--no compliment, no eulogy, no heroic touches, no\nsympathetic turn of phrase, no great passages of encomium or\ncommendation. It is often said about the Greek historian,\nThucydides, that, among his many intellectual judgements, he never\noffers a criticism of any act that implies moral approbation or\ndisapprobation; that he says nothing to show that he had feelings or\nthat he cared about questions of right and wrong. Page after page of\nThucydides will make the reader tingle with pity or indignation;\nthere is hardly in literature so tragic a story as the Syracusan\nexpedition--and the writer did not feel! Is it not the sternest and\ndeepest feeling, after all, when a man will not \"unpack his heart\nwith words\"? Something of this kind we find in the Gospels. There is\nnot a word of condemnation for Herod or Pilate, for priest or\nPharisee; not a touch of sympathy as the nails are driven through\nthose hands; a blunt phrase about the soldiers, \"And sitting down\nthey watched him there\" (Matt. 26:36)--that is all. (From a literary\npoint of view, what a triumph of awful, quiet objectivity! and they\nhad no such aim.) Luke indeed has one slight touch that might be\ncalled irony[4]--\"And he released unto them him that for sedition\nand murder was cast into prison, whom they had desired; but he\ndelivered Jesus to their will\" (Luke 23:25)--and yet the irony is in\nthe story itself. \"Why callest thou me good?\" So it is recorded that\nJesus once answered a compliment (Matt. 19:17); and it looks as if\nthe mood had passed over to his intimates, and from them to their\nfriends who wrote the Gospels. He meant too much for them to seek\nthe facile relief of praise. The words of praise die away, yes, and\nthe words of affection too; and their silence and self-restraint are\nin themselves evidence of their truth; and more winning than words\ncould have been.\n\nHere and there the Gospels keep a phrase actually used by Jesus, and\nin his native Aramaic speech. The Greek was not apt to use or quote\nforeign phrases--unlike the Englishman who \"has been at a great\nfeast of languages and stolen the scraps.\" Why, then, do the\nEvangelists, writing for Greek readers, keep the Aramaic sentences?\nIt looks like a human instinct that made Peter--if, as we are told,\nhe had some part in the origination of Mark's Gospel--and the rest\nwish to keep the very words and tones of their Master, as most of us\nwould wish to keep the accents and phrases of those we love. Was\nthere no satisfaction to the people who had lived with Jesus, when\nthey read in Mark the very syllables they had heard him use, and\ncaught his great accents again? Is there not for Christians in every\nage a joy and an inspiration in knowing the very sounds his lips\nframed? The first word that his mother taught him survives in Abba\n(Father)--something of his own speech to let us begin at the\nbeginning; something, again, that takes us to the very heart of him\nat the end, in his cry: Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani (Mark 15:34).\nIs it not true that we come nearer to him in that cry in the\nlanguage strange to us, but his own? Would not the story, again, be\npoorer without the little tender phrase that he used to the daughter\nof Jairus (Mark 5:41).\n\nFrom time to time we find in the Gospels matters for which the\nwriters and those behind them have felt that some apology or at\nleast some explanation was needed. His friendship for sinners was a\ntaunt against him in his lifetime; so was his inattention to the\nSabbath (Mark 2:24, 3:2), and the details of ceremonial washing\n(Mark 7:1-5). The faithful record of these is a sound indication\nboth of the date[5] and of the truth of the Gospels. But these were\nnot all. Celsus, in 178 A.D., in his True Word, mocked at Jesus\nbecause of the cry upon the cross; he reminded Christians that many\nand many a worthless knave had endured in brave silence, and their\nGreat Man cried out. It was from the Gospels that his knowledge came\n(Mark 15:37). Even during his lifetime the Gospels reveal much about\nJesus that in contemporary opinion would degrade him--sighs and\ntears and fatigue, liability to emotion and to pain, friendship with\nwomen.\n\nWith these revelations of character we may group passages where\nthe Gospels tell of Jesus surprising or shocking his\ndisciples--startling them by some act or some opinion, for which\nthey were not prepared, or which was contrary to common belief or\npractice--passages, too, where he blames or criticizes them for\nconventionality or unintelligence.\n\nIt has been remarked that the frequency and fidelity of Jesus' own\nallusions to country life, his illustrations from bird and beast and\nflower, and the work of the farm, are evidence for the genuineness\nof the tradition. Early Christianity, as we see already in the Acts\nof the Apostles, was prevailingly urban. Paul aimed at the great\ncentres of population, where men gathered and from which ideas\nspread. The language of Paul in his epistles, the sermons inserted\nby Luke in the Acts, writings that survive of early Christians, are\nall in marked contrast to the speech of Jesus in this matter of\ncountry life. When we recall the practice of ancient historians of\ncomposing speeches for insertion in their narratives, and weigh the\nsuggestion that the sermons in the Acts may conceivably owe much to\nthe free rehandling of Luke or may even be his own compositions,\nthere is a fresh significance in his marked abstention from any such\ntreatment of the words of Jesus. It means that we may be secure in\nusing them as genuine and untouched reproductions of what he said\nand thought.\n\nThis leads us to another point. The central figure of the Gospels\nmust impress every attentive reader as at least a man of marked\npersonality. He has his own attitude to life, his own views of God\nand man and all else, and his own language, as we shall see in the\npages that follow. So much his own are all these things that it is\nhard to imagine the possibility of his being a mere literary\ncreation, even if we could concede a joint literary creation by\nseveral authors writing independent works. Indeed, when we reflect\non the character of the Gospels, their origin and composition, and\nthen consider the sharp, strong outlines of the personality\ndepicted, we shall be apt to feel his claim to historicity to be\nstronger than we supposed.\n\nFinally, two points may be mentioned. The Church from the very start\naccepted the Gospels. Two of them were written by men in Paul's own\npersonal circle (Philemon 24; Col. 4:10, 14). All found early\nacceptance and wide use,[6] and after a century we find Irenaeus\nmaintaining that four Gospels are necessary, and are necessarily\nall--there are four points of the compass, seasons and so forth;\ntherefore it is appropriate that there are four Gospels. The\nargument is not very convincing; but that such an argument was\npossible is evidence to the position of the Gospels as we have them.\nWe must remember the solidarity of that early Church. The\nconstituency, for which the Gospels were written, was steeped in the\ntradition of Jesus' life, and the Christians accepted the Gospels,\nas embodying what they knew; and there were still survivors from the\nfirst days of the Gospel. When Boswell's Life of Johnson was\npublished, the great painter, Sir Joshua Reynolds, a lifelong friend\nof Johnson, said it might be depended upon as if delivered upon\noath; Burke too had a high opinion of the book. In the same way the\nGospels come recommended to us by those who knew Jesus, though, it\nis true, we do not know their names.\n\nThe Gospels do not tell us all that Christians thought of Jesus, but\nthey imply more than they say. The writers limited themselves. That\nLuke, for years a friend of Paul's, so generally kept his great\nfriend's theology, above all his Christology, out of his Gospel, is\nsignificant. It does not mean divergence of view. More reasonably we\nmay conclude something else: he held to his literary and other\nauthorities, and he was content; for he knew to what the historical\nJesus brings men--to new life and larger views, to a series of new\nestimates of Jesus himself. He left it there. In what follows, we\nmust not forget in our study that behind the Gospels, simple and\nobjective as they are, is the larger experience of the ever-working\nChrist.\n\nThere are three canons which may be laid down for the study of any\nhuman character, whether of the past or of to-day. They are so\nsimple that it may hardly seem worth while to have stated them; yet\nthey are not always very easy to apply. Without them the acutest\ncritic will fail to give any sound account of a human character.\n\nFirst of all, give the man's words his own meaning. Make sure that\nevery term he uses has the full value he intends it to carry,\nconnotes all he wishes it to cover, and has the full emotional power\nand suggestion that it has for himself. Two quite simple\nillustrations may serve. The English-born clergyman in Canada who\nspoke of a meeting of his congregation as a \"homely gathering\" did\nnot produce quite the effect he intended; \"home-like\" is one thing\nin Canada, \"homely\" quite another, and the people laughed at the\nslip--they knew, what he did not, that \"homely\" meant hard-featured\nand ugly. My other illustration will take us towards the second\ncanon. I remember, years ago, a working-man of my own city talking a\nswift, impulsive Socialism to me. He was young and something of a\npoet. He got in return the obvious common sense that would be\nexpected of a mid-Victorian, middle-aged and middle-class. And then\nhe began to talk of hunger--the hunger that haunted whole streets in\nour city, where they had indeed something to eat every day, but\nnever quite enough, and the children grew up so--the hunger that he\nhad experienced himself, for I knew his story. With his eyes fixed\non me, he brought home to me by the quiet intensity of his\nspeech--whether he knew what he effected or not--that he and I gave\nhunger different senses. He gave the word for me a new meaning, with\nthe glimpse he gave me of his experience. Since then I have always\nfelt, when men fling theories out like his--schemes, too, like\nhis--wild and impracticable: \"Ah, yes! what is at the heart of it\nall? What but this awful experience which they have known and you\nhave not--the sight of your own folk hungering, life and faculty\nwasted for want of mere food, and children growing up atrophied from\nthe cradle\"? It is not easy to dissociate the language and the terms\nof others from the meaning one gives to them oneself; it means\nintellectual effort and intellectual discipline, a training of a\nstrenuous kind in sympathy and tenderness; but if we are to be fair,\nit must be done. And the rule applies to Jesus also. Have we given\nhis meaning to his term--force, value, emotion, and suggestion? In a\nlater chapter we shall have to concentrate on one term of\nhis--God--and try to discover what he intends that term to convey.\n\nThe second canon is: Make sure of the experience behind the thought.\nHow does a man come to think and feel as he does? That is the\nquestion antecedent to any real criticism. What is it that has led\nhim to such a view? It is more important for us to determine that,\nthan to decide at once whether we think him right or wrong. Again\nand again the quiet and sympathetic study of what a man has been\nthrough will modify our judgement upon his conclusions; it will\noften change our own conclusions, or even our way of thinking. We\nhave, then, to ask ourselves, What is the experience that leads\nJesus to speak as he does, to think as he does? In his case, as in\nevery other, the central and crucial question is, What is his\nexperience of God? In other words, What has he found in God? what\nrelations has he with God? What does he expect of God? What is God\nto him? Such questions, if we are candid and not too quick in\nanswering, will take us a long way. It was once said of a man, busy\nwith some labour problem, that he was \"working it out in theory,\nunclouded by a single fact.\" Is it not fair to say that many of our\ncurrent judgements upon Jesus Christ are no better founded? Can we\nsay that we have any real, sure, and intimate knowledge of his\nexperience of God? The old commentator, Bengel, wrote at the\nbeginning of his book that a man, who is setting out to interpret\nScripture, has to ask \"by what right\" he does it. What is our right\nto an opinion on Jesus Christ?\n\nThe third canon will be: Ask of what type and of what dimensions the\nnature must be, that is capable of that experience and of that\nlanguage. One of the commonest sources of bad criticism is the\nemphasis on weak points. The really important thing in criticism is\nto understand the triumphs of the poet or painter, let us say, whom\nwe are studying. How came he to achieve poem or picture, so profound\nand so true? In what does he differ from other men, that he should\ndo work so fundamental and so eternal? Lamb's punning jest at\nWordsworth--that Wordsworth was saying he could have written Hamlet,\nif he had had the mind--puts the matter directly. What is the mind\nthat can do such things? The historian will have to ask himself a\nsimilar question about Jesus.\n\nHere we reach a point where caution is necessary. Will the Jesus we\ndraw be an antiquary's Jesus--an archaic figure, simple and lovable\nperhaps, but quaint and old-world--in blunt language, outgrown? A\nGalilean peasant, dressed in the garb of his day and place, his mind\nfitted out with the current ideas of his contemporaries, elevated,\nit may be, but not essentially changed? A dreamer, with the clouds\nof the visionaries and apocalyptists ever in his head? When we look\nat the ancient world, the great men are not archaic figures. Matthew\nArnold found in Homer something of the clearness and shrewdness of\nVoltaire. There is thing archaic about Plato or Virgil or Paul--to\nkeep abreast of their thinking is no easy task for the strongest of\nour brains, so modern, eternal, and original they are. They have\nshaped the thinking of the world and are still shaping it. How much\nmore Jesus of Nazareth! When we make our picture of him, does it\nsuggest the man who has stirred mankind to its depths, set the world\non fire (Luke 12:49), and played an infinitely larger part in all\nthe affairs of men than any man we know of in history? Is it a great\nfigure? Does our emphasis fall on the great features of that\nnature--are they within our vision, and in our drawing? Does our\nexplanation of him really explain him, or leave him more a riddle?\nWhat do we make of his originality? Is it in our picture? What was\nit in him that changed Peter and James and John and the rest from\ncompanions into worshippers, that in every age has captured and\ncontrolled the best, the deepest, and tenderest of men? Are we\nafraid that our picture will be too modern, too little Jewish? These\nare not the real dangers. Again, and again our danger is that we\nunder-estimate the great men of our race, and we always lose by so\ndoing. That we should over-estimate Jesus is not a real risk; the\nstory of the Church shows that the danger has always been the other\nway. But not to under-estimate such a figure is hard. To see him as\nhe is, calls for all we have of intellect, of tenderness, of love,\nand of greatness. It is worth while to try to understand him even if\nwe fail. God, said St. Bernard, is never sought in vain, even when\nwe do not find Him. Jesus Christ transcends our categories and\nclassification; we never exhaust him; and one element of Christian\nhappiness is that there is always more in him than we supposed.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nCHILDHOOD AND YOUTH\n\nIt has been remarked as an odd thing by some readers that the\nGospels tell us so little of the childhood of Jesus. It must be\nremembered, however, that they are not really biographies, even of\nthe ancient order--still less of that modern kind, in which the main\nconcern is a tracing of the psychological development of the man.\nPlutarch, the prince of ancient biographers, put fact and eulogy\ntogether, cited characteristic sayings or doings of his hero, quoted\ncontemporary judgements, and wove the whole into a charming\nnarrative, good to read, pleasant to remember, perhaps not without\nuse as a lesson in conventional morality; but with little real\nhistorical criticism in it, and as little, or less, attempt at any\neffective reconstruction of a character. His biography of Pericles\nillustrates his method and his defects.\n\nThe writers of the Gospels did not altogether propose biography as\ntheir object either in the ancient or the modern style. They left\nout--perhaps because it did not survive--much about the life of\nJesus that we should like to know. The treatment of Mark by Matthew\nshows a certain matter-of-fact habit, which explains the obvious\nwant of interest in aspects of the life and mind of Jesus that would\nto a modern be fascinating. They are dealing with the earthly life\nof the Son of God--and they deal with it with a faithfulness to\ntradition and reminiscence, which is, when we really consider it,\nquite surprising. But it is the heavenward side of the Master that\nmattered to them most, and it is perhaps not a mere random guess\nthat they were not in any case so aware of the interest of childhood\nand of children as Jesus was. Matthew and Luke record the miraculous\nbirth, and each adds a story, that has never failed to fascinate\nmen, of the Magi or the Shepherds who came to the manger cradle.\nLuke gives one episode of Jesus' childhood. That is all.\n\nThe writers of the Apocryphal Gospels did their best to fill the gap\nby inventing or developing stories, pretty, silly, or repellent,\nwhich only show how little they understood the original Gospels or\nthe character of Jesus.\n\nBut when we turn to the parables of Jesus, and ask ourselves how\nthey came to be what they are, by what process of mind he framed\nthem, and where he found the experience from which one and another\nof them spring, it is at once clear that a number of them are\nstories of domestic life, and the question suggests itself, Why\nshould he have gone afield for what he found at home? If we know\nthat he grew up in the ordinary circle of a home, and then find him\ndrawing familiar illustrations from the common scenes of home, the\ninference is easy that he is going back to the remembered daily\nround of his own boyhood.\n\nIn stray hints the Gospels give us a little of the framework of that\nboyhood in Nazareth. The elder Joseph early disappears from the\nstory, and we find a reference to four brothers and several sisters.\n\"Is not this the carpenter?\" people at Nazareth asked, \"the son of\nMary, the brother of James and Joseph, and of Judah and Simon? and\nare not his sisters here with us?\" (Mark 6:3); Matthew adds a word\nthat may or may not be significant \"his sisters are they not all\nwith us?\" (Matt. 13:56). In ancient times a particular view of the\nIncarnation, linked with other contemporary views of celibacy and\nthe baseness of matter, led men to discover or invent the\npossibility that these brothers and sisters were either the children\nof Joseph by a former wife, or the cousins of Jesus on his mother's\nside.[7] That cousins in some parts of the world actually are\nconfused in common speech with brothers may be admitted; but to the\nordinary Greek reader \"brothers\" meant brothers, and \"cousins\"\nsomething different. No one, not starting with the theories of St.\nJerome, let us say, on marriage and matter and the decencies of the\nIncarnation, would ever dream from the Greek narrative of the\nepisode of the critical neighbours at Nazareth, who will not accept\nJesus as a prophet because they know his family--a delightfully\nnatural and absurd reason, with history written plain on the face of\nit--that Jesus had no brothers, only cousins or half-brothers at\nbest. When History gives us brothers, and Dogma says they must be\ncousins--in any other case the decision of the historian would be\nclear, and so it is here.\n\nWe have then a household--a widow with five sons and at least two,\nor very likely more, daughters. Jesus is admittedly her eldest son,\nand is bred to be a carpenter; and a carpenter he undoubtedly was up\nto, we are told, about thirty years of age (Luke 3:23). The dates of\nhis birth and death are not quite precisely determined, and people\nhave fancied he may have been rather older at the beginning of his\nministry. For our purposes it is not of much importance. The more\nrelevant question for us is: How came he to wait till he was at\nleast about thirty years old before he began to teach in public? One\nsuggested answer finds the impulse, or starting-point, of his\nministry in the appearance of John the Baptist. It is a simpler\ninference from such data as we have that the claims of a widowed\nmother with six or seven younger children, a poor woman with a\ncarpenter's little brood to bring up, may have had something to do\nwith his delay. In any case, the parables give us pictures of the\nundeniable activities of the household.\n\nA group of parables and other allusions illustrate the life of woman\nas Jesus saw it in his mother's house. He pictures two women\ngrinding together at the mill (Luke 17:35), and then the heating of\nthe oven (Matt. 6:30)--the mud oven, not unlike the \"field ovens\"\nused for a while by the English army in France in 1915, and heated\nby the burning of wood inside it, kindled with \"the grass of the\nfield.\" Meanwhile the leaven is at work in the meal where the woman\nhid it (Matt. 13:33), and her son sits by and watches the heaving,\npanting mass--the bubbles rising and bursting, the fall of the\nlevel, and the rising of other bubbles to burst in their turn--all\nbubbles. Later on, the picture came back to him--it was like the\nKingdom of God--\"all bubbles!\" said the disappointed, but he saw\nmore clearly. The bubbles are broken by the force of the active life\nat work beneath--life, not death, is the story. The Kingdom of God\nis life; the leaven is of more account than any number of bubbles.\nAnd we may link all these parables from bread--making with what he\nsays of the little boy asking for bread (Matt. 7:9)--the mother\nfired the oven and set the leaven in the meal long before the child\nwas hungry; she looked ahead and the bread was ready. Is not this\nwritten also in the teaching of Jesus--\"your heavenly Father knoweth\nthat ye have need of all these things\" (Matt. 6:32)? God, he holds,\nis as little taken aback by his children's needs as Mary was by\nhers, and the little boys did not did not confine their demands to\nbread--they wanted eggs and fish as well (Matt. 7:10; Luke 11:11,\n12; and cf. John 6:9)--there was no end to their healthy appetites.\nIt is significant that he mentions the price of the cheapest flesh\nfood used by peasants (Luke 12:6). They also wanted clothes, and\nwore them as hard as boys do. The time would come when new clothes\nwere needed; but why could not the old ones be patched, and passed\ndown yet another stage? And his mother would smile--and perhaps she\nasked him to try for himself to see why; and he learnt by experiment\nthat old clothes cannot be patched beyond a certain point, and later\non he remembered the fact, and quoted it with telling effect (Mark\n2:21). He pictures little houses (Luke 11:5-7) and how they are\nswept (Luke 11:25)--especially when a coin has rolled away, into a\ndusty corner or under something (Luke 15:8); and candles, and\nbushels (Matt. 5:15), and beds, and moth, and rust (Matt. 6:19) and\nall sorts of things that make the common round of life, come into\nhis talk, as naturally as they did into his life.\n\nThe carpenter's shop, we may suppose, was close to the house--a shop\nwhere men might count on good work and honest work; and what\nmemories must have gathered round it! Is it fanciful to suggest that\nwhat the churches have always been saying, about \"Coming to Jesus,\"\nbegan to be said in a natural and spontaneous way in that shop?\nThose little brothers and sisters did not always agree, and tempers\nwould now and then grow very warm among them (cf. Luke 7:39). And\nthen the big brother came and fetched them away from the little\nhouse to the shop, and set one of them to pick up nails, and the\nother to sweep up shavings--to help the carpenter. They helped him.\nLike small boys, when they help, they got in his road at every turn.\nBut somehow they slipped back to a jolly frame of mind. The big\nbrother told them stories, and they came back different people. I\ncan picture a day when there was a woman in the little house, weary\nand heavy-laden, and the door opened, and a cheery, pleasant face\nlooked in, and said, \"Won't you come and talk to me?\" And she came\nand talked with him and life became a different thing for her. Are\nthese pictures fanciful--mere imagination? Are we to think that all\nthe tenderness of Jesus came to him by a miracle when he was thirty\nyears of age? Must we not think it was all growing up in that house\nand in that shop? Or did he never tell a story--he who tells them so\ncharmingly--till he wanted parables? We have to note, at the same\ntime, some elements of criticism of the elder brother in the family\nattitude, some defect of sympathy and failure to understand him,\neven if kindness prompted their action in later days (Mark 3:21,\n31).\n\nNazareth lies in a basin among hills, from the rim of which can be\nseen to the southward the historic plain of Esdraelon, and eastward\nthe Jordan valley and the hills of Gilead, and westward the\nMediterranean. On great roads, north and south of the town's girdle\nof hills, passed to and fro the many-coloured traffic between Egypt\nand Mesopotamia and the Orient. Traders, pilgrims, Herods--\"the\nkingdoms of the world and the glory of them\" (Matt. 6:8)--all within\nreach, and travelling no faster as a rule than the camel cared to\ngo--they formed a panorama of life for a thoughtful and imaginative\nboy. More than one allusion to king's clothes comes in his recorded\nteaching (Matt. 6:29, 11:8), and it was here that he saw them--and\nnoticed them and remembered. One is struck with the amount of that\nunconscious assimilation of experience which we find in his words,\nand which is in itself an index to his nature. We are not expressly\ntold that he sought the sights that the road afforded; but it would\nbe hard to believe that a bright, quick boy, with genius in him,\nwith poetry in him, with feeling for the real and for life, never\nwent down on to that road, never walked alongside of the caravans\nand took note of the strange people \"from the east and from the\nwest, from the north and from the south\" (Luke 13:29)--Nubians,\nEgyptians, Romans, Gauls, Britons, and Orientals.[8] In the one\nanecdote that survives of his boyhood, we find men \"astonished at\nhis understanding\" (Luke 2:47), his gift for putting questions, and\nhis comments on the answers; and all life through he had a genius\nfor friendship.\n\nWhen we consider how Jesus handles Nature and her wilder children in\nhis parables, another point attracts attention. Men vary a great\ndeal in this. To take two of the Old Testament prophets, we find a\nmarked difference here between Ezekiel and Jeremiah. Ezekiel \"puts\nforth a riddle and speaks a parable\" about an eagle--a frankly\nheraldic eagle, that plants a tree-top in a city of merchants (Ezek.\n17:2-5). Jeremiah is obviously country-bred. He might have been\nsurprised, if he had been told how often he illustrates his thought\nfrom bird and beast and country life--and always with a certain\nlife-like precision and a perfectly clear sympathy.\n\nIn the Gospels we find again the same faithfulness to living nature,\nanother country-bred boy with the same love for bird and beast and\nthe wild, open countryside.\n\n                       The Earth\n    And common face of Nature spake to me\n    Rememberable things.[9]\n\nNature is enough for Jesus as for Jeremiah; she needs no\nremodelling, no heraldic paints--\"long pinions of divers\ncolours\"--she will do as she is; she is just splendid and lovable\nand true as God made her; and she slides into his mind whenever he\nis deeply moved. Think of all the parables he draws from Nature--the\nsimiles, metaphors, and illustrations; every one of them will bear\nexamination, and means more the nearer we look into it, and the\nbetter we know the living thing behind. The eagle, in Jesus'\nsentence, plants no trees, but it has the living bird's instinct for\ncarrion; the ancient Greek historian and Lord Roberts at Delhi in\n1858 remarked that \"wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles\nbe gathered together\" (Luke 17:37). In India that year, it was said,\nthey gathered from all over to Delhi. What brought them? Instinct,\nwe say; and we find Jesus, in that rather dark sentence, suggesting\nsomehow that there is an instinct which knows \"where.\" And sheep and\ncows and asses, and hens and sparrows, and red sunsets, fill men's\nreminiscences of his talk; and we may safely conclude that, when\nallusions are so many in fragments of conversation preserved as\nthese are, the man's speech and mind were attuned to the love of\nbird and beast.\n\nIs there another teacher of those times who is at all so sure that\nGod loves bird and flower? The Greek poet Meleager of Gadara--not so\nvery far removed from Jesus in space of time--has a good deal to say\nabout flowers, but not at all in the same sense as Jesus, not with\nany feeling such as his for the immortal hand and eye that planned\ntheir symmetry, and their colours and sweetness. St. Paul is\nconspicuously a man of the town--\"a citizen of no mean city\" (Acts\n21:39), and he dismisses the animals abruptly (1 Cor. 9:9); he has\nhardly an allusion to the familiar and homely aspects of Nature, so\nfrequent and so pleasant in the speech of Jesus. He finds Nature, if\nnot quite \"red in tooth and claw\", yet groaning together, subject to\nvanity, in bondage to corruption, travailing in pain, looking\nforward in a sort of desperate hope to a freedom not yet realized\n(Rom. 8:19-24). Nature is far less tragic for Jesus, far\nhappier--perhaps because he knew nature on closer terms of intimacy;\nNature, as he portrays things, is in nearer touch with the Heavenly\nFather than we should guess from Paul[10], and there is no hint in\nhis recorded words that he held the ground to be under a curse. If\nwe are to use abstract terms and philosophize his thought a little,\nwe may agree that the four facts Jesus notes in Nature are its\nmystery, its regularity, its impartiality, and its peacefulness[11].\nWhat he finds in Nature is not unlike what Wordsworth also finds--\n\n                         A Power\n    That is the visible quality and shape\n    And image of right reason; that matures\n    Her processes by steadfast laws; gives birth\n    To no impatient or fallacious hopes,\n    No heat of passion or excessive zeal,\n    No vain conceits; provokes to no quick turns\n    Of self-applauding intellect; but trains\n    To meekness, and exalts by humble faith;\n    Holds up before the mind intoxicate\n    With present objects, and the busy dance\n    Of things that pass away, a temperate show\n    Of objects that endure?[12]\n\nThis is not a passage that one could imagine the historical Jesus\nspeaking, or, still less, writing; but the essential ideas chime in\nwith his observation and his attitude \"for the earth bringeth forth\nfruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full\ncorn in the ear\" (Mark 4:28). Man can count safely on earth's\nco-operation. From it all, and in it all, Jesus read deep into God's\nmind and methods.\n\nIt has often been remarked how apt Jesus was to go away to pray\nalone in the desert or on the hillside, in the night or the early\ndawn--probably no new habit induced by the crowded days of his\nministry, but an old way of his from youth. The full house, perhaps,\nwould prompt it, apart from what he found in the open. St.\nAugustine, in a very appealing confession, tells us how his prayers\nmay be disturbed if he catch sight of a lizard snapping up flies on\nthe wall of his room (Conf., 10:35, 57). The bird flying to her\nnest, the fox creeping to his hole (Luke 9:58)--did these break into\nthe prayers of Jesus--and with what effect? Was it in such hours\nthat he learnt his deepest lessons from the birds and the lilies of\nthe field? Why not? As he sat out in the wild under the open sky,\ndid the stars never speak to him, as to Hebrew psalmist and Roman\nVirgil?\n\n    When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers.\n    The moon and the stars which thou hast ordained;\n    What is man, that thou art mindful of him?\n    And the son of man, that thou visitest him?\n                                                (Psalm 8:3-4.)\n\nIt is a question men have to meet and face; and if we can trust\nMatthew's statement, an utterance of his in later years called out\nby the sneer of a Pharisee, shows how he had made the old poet's\nanswer his own:--\n\n    Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise\n                                                (Matt. 21:16).\n\nIf this were a solitary utterance of his thought upon Nature, it\nmight be ranked with one or two pointed citations he made of the\nletter of the Old Testament; but it is safe, perhaps, to take it as\none of many indications of his communion with God in Nature. The\nwind blowing in the night where it listed--must we authenticate\nevery verse of the Fourth Gospel before we believe that he listened\nto it also and caught something? At any rate, in later years, when\nhis friends are over-driven and weary, quiet and open-air in a\ndesert place are what he prescribes for them and wishes to share\nwith them--surely a hint of old experience (Mark 6:31).\n\nBut now let us turn back to Nazareth, for, as the Gospel reminds us,\nthere he grew up. \"The city teaches the man,\" said the old Greek\npoet Simonides; and it does, as we see, and more than we sometimes\nrealize. Jesus grew up in an Oriental town, in the middle of its\nlife--a town with poor houses, bad smells, and worse stories,\ntragedies of widow and prodigal son, of unjust judge and grasping\npublican--yes, and comedies too. We know at once from general\nknowledge of Jewish life and custom, and from the recorded fact that\nhe read the Scriptures, that he went to school; and we could guess,\nfairly safely, that he played with his school-fellows, even if he\nhad not told us what the games were at which they played:--\n\n    At weddings and at funerals,\n    As if his life's vocation\n    Were endless imitation.\n\nSometimes the children were sulky and would not play (Luke 7:32).\nHow strange, and how delightful, that the great Gospel, full of\nGod's word for mankind, should have a little corner in it for such\nreminiscences of children's games! We cannot suppose that he had\naccess to many books, but he knew the Old Testament, well and\nfamiliarly--better and more aptly than some people expected. Traces\nof other books have been found in his teaching, not many and some of\nthem doubtful. Generally one would conclude that, apart from the Old\nTestament, his education was not very bookish--he found it in home\nand shop, in the desert, on the road, and in the market-place.\n\nIt is interesting to gather from the Gospel what Jesus says of the\ntalk of men, and it is surprising to find how much it is, till we\nrealize how very much in ancient times the city was the education,\nand the market-place the school, where some of the most abiding\nlessons were learnt. Is it not so still in the East? Here was a boy,\nhowever, who watched men and their words more closely than they\nguessed, on whose ears words fell, not as old coinages, but as new\nminting, with the marks of thought still rough and bright on\nthem--indexes to the speaker.\n\nProverbs of the market every people has of its own. \"It is nought,\nit is nought, saith the buyer, but, after he is gone his way, then\nhe boasteth.\" And the seller has all the variants of caveat emptor\nready to retort. In antiquity, and in the East to-day, apart from\nmachine-made things, we find the same uncertainty in most\ntransactions as to the value of the article, the same eagerness of\nboth seller and buyer to get at the supposed special knowledge of\nthe other, and the same preliminary skirmish of proposal, protest,\noffer, refusal, and oath. Jesus stands by the stall, watching some\nsmall sale with the bright, earnest eyes which we find so often in\nthe Gospels. The buyer swears \"on his head\" that he will not give\nmore than so much; then, \"by the altar\" he won't get the thing. \"By\nthe earth\" it isn't worth it; \"by the heaven\" the seller gave that\nfor it. So the battle rages, and at last the bargain is struck. The\nbuyer raises his price; the seller takes less than he gave for the\nthing; neither has believed the other, but each, as the keen eyes of\nthe onlooker see, feels he has over-reached the other. Heaven has\nbeen invoked--and what is Heaven? As the words fell on the\nlistener's ears, he saw the throne of God, and on it One before\nwhose face Heaven itself and earth will flee away--and be brought\nback again for judgement. And by Heaven, and by Him who sits on the\nThrone, men will swear falsely for an \"anna\" or two. How can they?\nIt is because \"nothings grow something\"; the words make a mist about\nthe thing. In later days Jesus told his followers to swear not at\nall--to stick to Yes and No.\n\nThen a leader in the religious world passes, and the loiterers have\na new interest for the moment. \"Rabbi, Rabbi,\" they say, and the\ngreat man moves onward, obviously pleased with the greeting in the\nmarketplace (Matt. 23:7). As soon as he is out of hearing, it is no\nlonger \"Rabbi\" he is called; talk turns to another tune. How little\nthe fine word meant! How lightly the title was given! Worse still,\nthe title will stand between a man and the facts of life. Some will\nuse it to deceive him; others, impressed by it, are silent in his\npresence; one way and another, the facts are kept from him. Seeing,\nhe sees not, and he comes to live in an unreal world. How many men\nto-day will say what they really think before a man in clerical\ndress, or a dignitary however trivial? \"Be not ye called 'Rabbi,'\"\nwas the counsel Jesus gave to his followers, and he would accept\nneither \"Rabbi,\" nor \"Good Master,\" nor any other title till he saw\nhow much it meant. \"Master!\" they said, \"we know that thou art true,\nand teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any\nman; for thou regardest not the person of men\" (Matt. 22:16). But as\nthe evangelist continues, Jesus \"perceived their wickedness\"--he had\nheard such things before and was not trapped. \"Hosanna in the\nhighest!\" (Mark 11:10)--strange to think of the quiet figure, riding\nin the midst of the excited crowd, open-eyed and undeceived in his\nhour of \"triumph\"--as little perturbed, too, when his name is cast\nout as evil. How little men's praise and their blame matter, when\nyour eyes are fixed on God--when you have Him and His facts to be\nyour inspiration! On the other hand, when you have not contact with\nGod, how much men's talk counts, and how easy it is to lose all\nsense of fact!\n\nBy and by the talk veers round to what Pilate had done one to the\nGalileans--if the dates fit, or if for the moment we can make them\nfit, or anticipate once for all, and be done with the bazaar talk\nwhich never stopped. Pilate had killed the Galileans when they went\nup to Jerusalem--yes! mingled their own blood, you might say, with\nthe blood of their sacrifices (Luke 13:1). What would he do next?\nThere was no telling. What was needed--some time--it was bound to\ncome--and the voice sank--a Theudas, or a Judas again (Acts 5:36,\n37)--it would not be surprising. ... There were no newspapers, no\napproved and reliable sources of news such as we boast to have from\nour governments and millionaires; all was rumour, bazaar talk--\"Lo!\nhere!\" and \"Lo! there!\" (Mark 13:21). \"Prohibiti sermones ideoque\nplures\", said Tacitus of Rome--rumours were forbidden, so there were\nmore of them. The Messiah _must_ come some time, said one man who\nmight be a friend of the Zealots. In any case, reflected another,\nthose Galileans had probably angered Heaven and got their deserts;\nill luck like that could hardly come by accident; think of the tower\nthat fell at Siloam--anybody could see there was a judgement in it.\nMight it not be said that God had discredited John the Baptist, now\nhis head was taken off? So men speculated (cf. John 9:2). Jesus saw\nthrough all this, and was radiantly clear about it.\n\nSo they chattered, and he heard. Then the talk took another turn,\nand tales were told--bad eyes flashed and lips smacked, as one\nstory-teller eclipsed the other in the familiar vein. The Arabian\nNights are tales of the crowd, it is said, rather than literature in\ntheir origin, and will give clues enough to what might be told.\nJesus heard, and he saw what it meant; and afterwards he told his\nfriends: \"From within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil\nthoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders ... foolishness; all\nthese evil things come from within, and defile the man\" (Mark\n7:21-23). The evil thought takes shape to find utterance, and gains\nthereby a new vitality, a new power for evil, and may haunt both\nspeaker and listener for ever with its defiling memory.\n\nBy and by he intervened and spoke himself. Every one was shocked,\nand said, \"Blasphemy!\" They were not used to think of God as he did,\nand it seemed improper.\n\nThen the whole question of human speech rises for him. What did they\nmean by their words? What could their minds be like? God dragged in\nand flung about like a counter, in a game of barter--but if you\nspeak real meaning about God it is blasphemy. \"Rabbi, Rabbi\" to the\ngreat man's face--he turns his back--and his name is smirched for\never by a witty improvisation. Why? Why should men do such things?\nThe magic in the idle tale--ten minutes, and the memory is stained\nfor ever with what not one of them would forget, however he might\nwish to try to forget. The words are loose and idle, careless, flung\nout without purpose but to pass the moment--and they live for ever\nand work mischief. How can they be so light and yet have such power?\n\nLater on he told his friends what he had seen in this matter of\nwords. They come from within, and the speaker's whole personality,\nfalse or true, is behind what he says--the good or bad treasure of\nhis heart. There are no grapes growing on the bramble bush. No\nwonder that of every idle word men shall give account on the day of\nJudgement (Matt. 12:36). The idle word--the word unstudied--comes\nstraight from the inmost man, the spontaneous overflow from the\nspirit within, natural and inevitable, proof of his quality; and\nthey react with the life that brought them forth.[13]\n\nSo he grows up--in a real world and among real people. He goes to\nschool with the boys of his own age, and lives at home with mother\nand brothers and sisters. He reads the Old Testament, and forms a\nhabit of going to the Synagogue (Luke 4:16). All points to a home\nwhere religion was real. The first word he learnt to say was\nprobably \"Abba\", and it struck the keynote of his thoughts. But he\nknew the world without as well,--turned on to it early the keen eyes\nthat saw all, and he recognized what he saw. Knowledge of men, but\nwithout cynicism, a loving heart still in spite of his freedom from\nillusions--these are among the gifts that his environment gave him,\nor failed to take away from him.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nTHE MAN AND HIS MIND\n\nIt is a commonplace with those who take literature seriously that\nwhat is to reach the heart must come from the heart; and the maxim\nmay be applied conversely--that what has reached a heart has come\nfrom a heart--that what continues to reach the heart, among strange\npeoples, in distant lands, after long ages, has come from a heart of\nno common make. The Anglo-Saxon boy is at home in the Odyssey; and\nwhen he is a man--if he has the luck to be guided into classical\npaths--he finds himself in the Aeneid; and from this certain things\nare deduced about the makers of those poems--that they knew life,\nlooked on it with bright, keen eyes, loved it, and lived it over\nagain as they shaped it into verse.\n\nWhen we turn to the first three Gospels, we find the same thing.\nHere are books with a more worldwide range than Homer or Virgil,\ntranslated again and again from the first century of their existence\non to the latest--and then more than ever--into all sorts of\ntongues, to reach men all over the globe; and that purpose they have\nachieved. They have done it not so much for the literary graces of\nthe translators or even of the original authors, though in one case\nthese are more considerable than is sometimes allowed. That the\nGospels owe their appeal to the recorded sayings and doings of our\nLord, is our natural way of putting it to-day; but if for \"our Lord\"\nwe put a plainer description, more congenial to the day in which the\nGospels were written, we shall be in a better position to realize\nthe significance of the worldwide appeal of his words. Thus and\nthus, then, spoke a mere provincial, a Jew who, though far less\nconspicuous and interesting, came from the region of Meleager and\nPhilodemos--not from their town of Gadara, nor possibly from their\ndistrict, but from some place not so very far away.\n\nIt was not to be expected that he should win the hearts of men as he\ndid. He had not the Greek culture of the two Gadarenes. Celsus even\nfound his style of speech rather vulgar. But he has, as a matter of\ncommon knowledge--so common as hardly to be noted--won the hearts of\nmen in every race and every land. The fact is familiar, but we have\nas historians and critics to look for the explanation. What has been\nhis appeal? And what the heart and nature, from which came this\nincredible power and reach of appeal? \"Out of the abundance (the\noverflow) of the heart the mouth speaketh,\" he said. (Matt. 12:34).\nThis he amplified, as we have seen, by his insistence on the weight\nof every idle word (Matt. 12:36)--the unstudied and spontaneous\nexpression or ejaculation--the reflex, in modern phrase--which gives\nthe real clue to the man's inner nature and deeper mind, which\n\"justifies\" him, therefore, or \"condemns\" him (Matt. 12:37). The\noverflow of the heart, he holds, shows more decisively than anything\nelse the quality of the spring in its depths.\n\nHere is a suggestion which we find true in ordinary life as well as\nin the study of literature. If we turn it back upon its author, he\nat least will not complain, and we shall perhaps gain a new sense of\nhis significance by approaching him at a new angle, from an outlook\nnot perhaps much frequented. How did he come to speak in this\nmanner, to say this and that? To what feeling or thought, to what\nattitude to life, is this or the other saying due? If he, too, spoke\n\"out of the overflow of his heart\"--and we can believe it when we\nthink of the freshness and spontaneity with which he spoke--of what\nnature and of what depth was that heart?\n\nWe can very well believe that much in his speech that was\nunforgettable to others, he forgot himself. They remembered, they\ncould not help remembering, what he said; but he--no! he said it and\nmoved on, keeping no register of his sayings; and so much the more\nnatural and characteristic they are. Nor would he, like smaller\npeople, be very careful of the form and turn of his speech; it was\nnever set. Certainly he gave his followers the rule not to study\ntheir language (Mark 13:11). Whether or no he had consciously\nthought it all out; we can see the value of his rule, and how it\nfits in with his way of life and safeguards it. Under such a rule\nspeech will not be stereotyped; no set form of words will impose\nitself on the free movement of thought, the mind can and will move\nof itself unhampered; and when the mind keeps and develops such\nfreedom of movement, it commonly breaks new ground and handles new\nthings. Not to be careful of our speech means for most of us\nslovenly thinking; but when a man thinks in earnest and takes truth\nseriously, when he speaks with his eye on his object, his language\nwill not be slovenly, his instinct for fact will keep his speech\npure and true. This is what we find in the sayings of Jesus; there\nis form, but living form, the freedom and grace which the clear mind\nand the friendly eye communicate insensibly and inimitably to\nlanguage.\n\nOur task in this chapter is primarily a historical one. From the\nwords of Jesus we have to work back to the type of mind from which\nthey come. There is always danger in such a task. We may forget the\nwide and living variety of the mind we study; our own minds may not\nbe large enough, nor tender enough, not various, quick and\nsympathetic in such a degree as to apprehend what we find, to see\nwhat it means, and to relate it to itself, detail to whole. How much\ngreater the danger here! While we analyse, we have to remember that\nthe most correct analysis of features or characteristics may easily\nfail to give us a true idea of the face or the character which we\nanalyse. The whole is more than the sum of its parts. The face and\nthe character have an \"integrity,\" a wholeness. The detail may be of\nimmense value to us, studied as detail; but for the true view the\ndetail, familiar as it may be to us, and dear to us, must be sunk in\nthe general view. Especially is this true of great characters. The\n\"reconstruction of a personality\"--to borrow a phrase from some\npsychologists--is a very difficult matter, even when we are masters\nof our detail. There is a proportion, a perspective, a balance, a\npoise about a character--my terms may involve some mixture of\nmetaphors, but if the mixture brings out the complexity and\ndifficulty of our task, it will be justified. Above all there is\nlife, and as a life deepens and widens, it grows complex,\nunintelligible, and wonderful. It is more so than ever in the case\nof Jesus. Yet we have to grapple with this great task, if we are to\nknow him, even if here as elsewhere we realize quickly that the\nbeginning of real knowledge is when we grasp how much we do not\nknow, how much there is to know. Attempted in this spirit, a study\nof the mind of Jesus and his characteristics should help us forward\nto some further intimacy with him.\n\nThe Gospels do not, like some biographies ancient and modern, give a\nplace to the physical characteristics of Jesus. Suetonius in a very\nshort sketch adds the personal aspect of the poet Horace, who, it is\ntrue, had led the way by such allusions (Epist. i. 4, 15-16), and\ntells us how Augustus said he was \"a squat little pot\" (sessilis\nobba). The \"Acts of Thekla\" in a similar way describe St. Paul's\nshort figure with its suggestion of quickness. But the only personal\ntraits of this sort that I recall in the New Testament are the eyes\nof Jesus and Paul's way of stretching out a hand when he spoke. In\nview of this reticence, it is rather remarkable how often the\nGospels refer to Jesus \"looking.\" He \"looked round about on\" the\npeople in the Synagogue, and then--with some suggestion of a pause\nand silence while he looked, \"he saith unto the man\" (Mark 3:5).\nWhen Peter deprecated the Cross, we find the same; \"when he had\nturned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter\" (Mark\n8:33). When the rich young ruler came so impulsively to him to ask\nhim about eternal life, Jesus, \"looking upon him, loved him\"--and we\ntouch there a certain reminiscence of eye-witnesses (Mark 10:21).\nThere are other references of the same kind in the narratives--the\nlook seems to come into the story naturally, without the writers\nnoticing it. There must have been much else as familiar to his\nfriends and companions. They must have known him as we know our\nfriends--the inflections of his voice, his characteristic movements,\nthe hang of his clothes, his step in the dark, and all such things.\nDid he speak quickly or slowly? or move his hand when he spoke? The\nteaching posture of Buddha's hand is stereotyped in his images. We\nare not told such things about Jesus, and guessing does not take us\nvery far. Yet a stanza in one of the elegies written on the death of\nSir Philip Sidney may be taken as a far-away likeness of a greater\nand more wonderful figure--and not lead us very far astray:--\n\n    A sweet, attractive kind of grace;\n        The full assurance given by looks;\n    Perpetual comfort in a face;\n        The lineaments of Gospel books.\n\nIf we are not explicitly told of such things by the evangelists,\nthey are easily felt in the story. The \"paradoxes,\" as we call\nthem--a rather dull name for them--surely point to a face alive with\nintellect and gaiety. The way in which, for instance, the leper\napproaches him, implies the man's eyes fixed in close study on\nJesus' face, and finding nothing there to check him and everything\nto bring him nearer (Mark 1:41). When Mark tells us that he greeted\nthe Syro-Phoenician woman's sally about the little dogs eating the\nchildren's crumbs under the table with the reply, \"For the sake of\nthis saying of yours ...,\" we must assume some change of expression\non such a face as that of Jesus (Mark 7:29).\n\nWe read again and again of the interest men and women found in his\npreaching and teaching--how they hung on him to hear him, how they\ncame in crowds, how on one occasion they drove him into a boat for a\npulpit. It is only familiarity that has blinded us to the \"charm\"\nthey found in his speech--\"they marvelled at his words of charm\"\n(Luke 4:22)--to the gaiety and playfulness that light up his\nlessons. For instance, there is a little-noticed phrase, that grows\nvery delightful as we study it, in his words to the seventy\ndisciples--\"Into whatsoever house ye enter, first say, Peace to this\nhouse (the common \"salaam\" of the East); and if a son of peace be\nthere, your peace shall rest upon it; if not, your \"salaam\" will\ncome back to _you_\" (Luke 10:6). \"A son of peace\"--not _the_ son of\npeace--what a beautiful expression; what a beautiful idea too, that\nthe unheeded Peace! comes back and blesses the heart that wished it,\nas if courteous and kind words never went unrewarded! Think again of\n\"Solomon in all his glory\" (Matt. 6:29)--before the phrase was\nhackneyed by common quotation. Do not such words reveal nature?\n\nA more elaborate and more amusing episode is that of the Pharisee's\ndrinking operations. We are shown the man polishing his cup,\nelaborately and carefully; for he lays great importance on the\ncleanness of his cup; but he forgets to clean the inside. Most\npeople drink from the inside, but the Pharisee forgot it, dirty as\nit was, and left it untouched. Then he sets about straining what he\nis going to drink--another elaborate process; he holds a piece of\nmuslin over the cup and pours with care; he pauses--he sees a\nmosquito; he has caught it in time and flicks it away; he is safe\nand he will not swallow it. And then, adds Jesus, he swallowed a\ncamel. How many of us have ever pictured the process, and the series\nof sensations, as the long hairy neck slid down the throat of the\nPharisee--all that amplitude of loose-hung anatomy--the hump--two\nhumps--both of them slid down--and he never noticed--and the\nlegs--all of them--with whole outfit of knees and big padded feet.\nThe Pharisee swallowed a camel--and never noticed it (Matt. 23:24,\n25). It is the mixture of sheer realism with absurdity that makes\nthe irony and gives it its force. Did no one smile as the story was\ntold? Did no one see the scene pictured with his own mind's eye--no\none grasp the humour and the irony with delight? Could any one, on\nthe other hand, forget it? A modern teacher would have said, in our\njargon, that the Pharisee had no sense of proportion--and no one\nwould have thought the remark worth remembering. But Jesus'\ntreatment of the subject reveals his own mind in quite a number of\naspects.\n\nWhen he bade turn the other cheek--that sentence which Celsus found\nso vulgar--did no one smile, then, at the idea of anybody ever\ndreaming of such an act (Matt. 5:39)? Nor at the picture of the kind\nbrother taking a mote from his brother's eye, with a whole baulk of\ntimber in his own (Matt. 7:5)? Nor at the suggestion of doing two\nmiles of forced labour when only one was demanded (Matt. 5:41)? Nor\nwhen he suggested that anxiety about food and clothing was a mark of\nthe Gentiles (Matt. 6:32)? Did none of his disciples mark a touch of\nirony when he said that among the Gentile dynasties the kings who\nexercise authority are called \"Benefactors\" (Luke 22:25)? It was\ntrue; Euergetes is a well-known kingly title, but the explanation\nthat it was the reward for strenuous use of monarchic authority was\nnew. Are we to think his face gave no sign of what he was doing? Was\nthere no smile?\n\nWe are told by his biographer that Marcus Aurelius had a face that\nnever changed--for joy or sorrow, \"being an adherent,\" he adds, \"of\nthe Stoic philosophy.\" The pose of superiority to emotion was not\nuncommonly held in those times to be the mark of a sage--Horace's\n\"nil admirari\". The writers of the Gospels do not conceal that Jesus\nhad feelings, and expressed them. We read how he \"rejoiced in\nspirit\" (Luke 10:21)--how he \"sighed\" (Mark 7:34) and \"sighed\ndeeply\" (Mark 8:12)--how his look showed \"anger\" (Mark 3:5). They\ntell us of his indignant utterances (Matt. 23:14; Mark 11:17)--of\nhis quick sensitiveness to a purposeful touch (Mark 5:30)--of his\nfatigue (Mark 7:24; Luke 8:23)--of his instant response, as we have\njust seen, to contact with such interesting spirits as the\nSyro-Phoenician woman and the rich young ruler. Above all, we find\nhim again and again \"moved with compassion.\" We saw the leper\napproach him, with eyes fixed on the face of Jesus. The man's\nappeal--\"If thou wilt thou canst make me clean\"--his misery moves\nJesus; he reaches out his hand, and, with no thought for contagion\nor danger, he touches the leper--so deep was the wave of pity that\nswept through him--and he heals the man (Mark 1:40-42). It would\nalmost seem as if the touching impressed the spectators as much as\nthe healing. Compassion is an old-fashioned word, and sympathy has a\nwide range of suggestions, some of them by now a little cold; we\nhave to realize, if we can, how deeply and genuinely Jesus felt with\nmen, how keen his feeling was for their suffering and for their\nhunger, and at the same moment reflect how strong and solid a nature\nit is that is so profoundly moved. Again, when we read of his happy\nway in dealing with children, are we to draw no inference as to his\nface, and what it told the children? Finally, on this part of our\nsubject, we are given glimpses of his dark hours. The writer to the\nHebrews speaks of his \"offering up prayers and supplications with\nstrong crying and tears\" and \"learning obedience by the things that\nhe suffered\" (Heb. 5:7, 8), and Luke, perhaps dealing with the same\noccasion, says he was \"in agony\" (Luke 22:44), a strong phrase from\na man of medical training. Luke again, with the other evangelists,\nrefers to the temptations of Jesus, and in a later passage records\nthe poignant and revealing sentence--\"Ye are they that have\ncontinued with me in my temptations\" (Luke 22:28). Finally, there is\nthe last cry upon the Cross (Mark 15:37). So frankly, and yet so\nunobtrusively, they lay bare his soul, as far as they saw it.\n\nFrom what is given us it is possible to go further and see something\nof his habits of mind. His thought will occupy us in later chapters;\nhere we are concerned rather with the way in which his mind moves,\nand the characteristics of his thinking.\n\nFirst of all, we note a certain swiftness, a quick realization of a\nsituation, a character, or the meaning of a word. Men try to trap\nhim with a question, and he instantly \"recognizes their trickery\"\n(Luke 20:23). When they ask for a sign, he is as quick to see what\nthey have in mind (Mark 8:11-13). He catches the word whispered to\nJairus--half hears, half divines it, in an instant (Mark 5:36). He\nis surprised at slowness of mind in other men (Matt. 15:16; Mark\n8:21). And in other things he is as quick--he sees \"the kingdoms of\nthis world in a moment of time\" (Luke 4:5); he beholds \"Satan fallen\n(aorist participle) from heaven like lightning\" (Luke 10:18)--two\nvery striking passages, which illuminate his mind for us in a very\nimportant phase of it. We ought to have been able to guess without\nthem that he saw things instantly and in a flash--that they stood\nout for him in outline and colour and movement there and then. That\nis plain in the parables from nature, and here it is confirmed. Is\nthere in all his parables a blurred picture, the edges dim or the\nfocus wrong? The tone of the parables is due largely to this gift of\nvisualizing, to use an ugly modern word, and of doing it with\nswiftness and precision.\n\nSeveral things combine to make this faculty, or at least go along\nwith it--a combination not very common even among men of genius--an\nunusual sense of fact, a very keen and vivid sympathy, and a gift of\nbringing imagination to bear on the fact in the moment of its\ndiscovery, and afterwards in his treatment of the fact.\n\nOn his sense of fact we have touched before, in dealing with his\nclose observation of Nature. It is an observation that needs no\nnote-book, that is hardly conscious of itself. There is, as we know,\na happy type of person who sees almost without looking, certainly\nwithout noticing--and sees aright too. The temperament is described\nby Wordsworth in the opening books of \"The Prelude\". The poet type\nseems to lose so much and yet constantly surprises us by what it has\ncaptured, and sometimes hardly itself realizes how much has been\ndone. The gains are not registered, but they are real and they are\nnever lost, and come flashing out all unexpectedly when the note is\nstruck that calls them. So one feels it was with Jesus' intimate\nknowledge of Nature--it is not the knowledge of botanist or\nnaturalist, but that of the inmate and the companion, who by long\nintimacy comes to know far more than he dreams. \"Wise master\nmariners,\" wrote the Greek poet, Pindar, long before, \"know the wind\nthat shall blow on the third day, and are not wrecked for headlong\ngreed of gain.\" They know the weather, as we say, by instinct; and\ninstinct is the outcome of intimacy, of observation accurate but\nsub-conscious.\n\nIt chimes in with this instinct for fact, that Jesus should lay so\nmuch emphasis on truth of word and truth of thought. Any hypocrisy\nis a leaven (Matt. 16:19; Luke 12:1); any system of two standards of\ntruth spoils the mind (Matt. 5:33-37). The divided mind fails\nbecause it is not for one thing or the other. If it is impossible to\nserve God and mammon, truth and God go together in one allegiance;\nand a non-Theocentric element in a man's thought will be fatal\nsooner or later to any aptitude he has by nature for God and truth.\n\nWe find this illustrated in Jesus' own case. At the heart of his\ninstinct for fact is his instinct for God. He goes to the permanent\nand eternal at once in his quest of fact, because his instinct for\nGod is so sure and so compelling. Bishop Phillips Brooks noted in\nJesus' conversation \"a constant progress from the arbitrary and\nspecial to the essential and universal forms of thought,\" \"a true\nfreedom from fastidiousness,\" \"a singular largeness\" in his\nintellectual life. The small question is answered in the\nlarger--\"the life is more than meat and the body is more than\nraiment\" (Luke 12:23). When he is challenged on divorce, he goes\npast Moses to God (Matt. 19:4)--\"He which made them at the beginning\nmade them male and female.\" Every question is settled for him by\nreference to God, and to God's principles of action and to God's\nlaws and commands; and God, as we shall see in a later chapter, is\nnot for him a conception borrowed from others, a quotation from a\nbook. God is real, living, and personal; and all his teaching is\ndirected to drive his disciples into the real; he insists on the\nopen mind, the study of fact, the fresh, keen eye turned on the\nactual doings of God.\n\nWhen life and thought have such a centre, a simplicity and an\nintegrity follow beyond what we might readily guess. \"When thine eye\nis single, thy whole body also is full of light, ... if thy whole\nbody therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole\nshall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth\ngive thee light\" (Luke 11:34-36). It is this fullness of light that\nwe find in Jesus; and as the light plays on one object and another,\nhow clear and simple everything grows! All round about him was\nsubtlety, cleverness, fastidiousness. His speech is lucid, drives\nstraight to the centre, to the principle, and is intelligible. We\nmay not see how far his word carries us, but it is abundantly plain\nthat simple and straightforward people do understand Jesus--not all\nat once, but sufficiently for the moment, and with a sense that\nthere is more beyond. His thought is uncomplicated by distinctions\ndue to tradition and its accidents. His whole attitude to life is\nsimple--he has no taboos; he comes \"eating and drinking\" (Matt.\n11:19); and he told his followers, when he sent them out to preach,\nto eat what they were given (Luke 10:7); \"give alms,\" he says, \"of\nsuch things as ye have; and, behold, all things are clean unto you\"\n(Luke 11:41). If God gives the food, it will probably be clean; and\nthe old taboos will be mere tradition of men. He is not interested\nin what men call \"signs,\" in the exceptional thing; the ordinary\nsuffices when one sees God in it. One of Jesus' great lessons is to\nget men to look for God in the commonplace things of which God makes\nso many, as if Abraham Lincoln were right and God did make so many\ncommon people, because he likes them best. The commonest\nflowers--God thinks them out, says Jesus, and takes care of them\n(Matt. 6:28-30). Hence there is little need of special machinery for\ncontact with God--priesthoods, trances, visions, or mystical\nstates--abnormal means for contact with the normal. When Jesus\nspeaks of the very highest and holiest things, he is as simple and\nnatural as when he is making a table in the carpenter-shop. Sense\nand sanity are the marks of his religion.\n\n\"Sense of fact\" is a phrase which does not exclude--perhaps it even\nsuggests--some hint of dullness. The matter-of-fact people are\nvaluable in their way, but rarely illuminative, and it is because\nthey lack the imagination that means sympathy. Now in Jesus' case\nthere is a quickness and vividness of sympathy--he likes the birds\nand flowers and beasts he uses as illustrations. They are not the\n\"natural objects\" with which dull people try to brighten their pages\nand discourses. They are happy living things that come to his mind,\nas it were, of themselves, because, shall we say? they know they\nwill be welcome there; and they are welcome. His pity and sympathy\nare unlike ours in having so much more intelligence and\nfellow-feeling in them. He understands men and women, as his gift of\nbright and winning speech shows. After all, as Carlyle has pointed\nout in many places, it is this gift of tenderness and understanding,\nof sympathy, that gives the measure of our intellects.[14] It is the\nfaculty by which men touch fact and master it. It is the want of it\nthat makes so many clever and ingenious people so futile and\ndistressing.\n\nThe sense of fact and the gift for sympathy and the foundations, so\nto speak, of the imagination which gives their quality to the\nstories and pictures of Jesus. He thinks in pictures, as it were;\nthey fill his speech, and every one of them is alive and real.\nThink, for example, of the Light of the world (Matt. 5:14), the\nstrait gate and the narrow way (Matt. 7:14), the pictures of the\nbridegroom (Mark 2:19), sower (Matt. 13:3), pearl merchant (Matt.\n13:45), and the men with the net (Matt. 13:47), the sheep among the\nwolves (Matt. 10:16), the woman sweeping the house (Luke 15:8), the\ndebtor going to prison accompanied by his creditor and the officer\nwith the judge's warrant (Luke 12:58), the shepherd separating his\nsheep from the goats (Matt. 25:32), the children playing in the\nmarket-place pretending to pipe or to mourn (Luke 7:32), the fall of\nthe house (Matt. 7:27)--or the ironical pictures of the blind\nleading the blind straight for the ditch (Matt. 15:14), the\nvintagers taking their baskets to the bramble bushes (Matt. 7:16),\nthe candle burning away brightly under the bushel (Matt. 5:15; Luke\n11:33), the offering of pearls to the pigs (Matt. 7:6)--or his\ndescriptions of what lay before himself as a cup and a baptism (Mark\n10:38), and of his task as the setting fire to the world (Luke\n12:49). There is a truthfulness and a living energy about all these\npictures--not least about those touched with irony.\n\nThere are, however, pictures less realistic and more\nimaginative--one or two of them, in the language of the fireside,\nquite \"creepy.\" Here is a house--a neat, trim little house--and for\nthe English reader there is of course a garden or a field round it,\nand a wood beyond. Out of the wood comes something--stealthily\ncreeping up towards the house--something not easy to make out, but\nweary and travel-stained and dusty--and evil. A strange feeling\ncomes over one as one watches--it is evil, one is certain of it.\nNearer and nearer to the house it creeps--it is by the window--it\nrises to look in, and one shudders to think of those inside who\nsuddenly see _that_ looking at them through the window. But there is\nno one there. Fatigue changes to triumph; caution is dropped; it\ngoes and returns with seven worse than itself, and the last state of\nthe place is worse than the first (Luke 11:24-26). Is this leaving\nthe real? One critic will say it is, \"No,\" says another man, in a\ngraver tone and speaking slowly, \"it's real enough; it's my story.\"\nBut have we left the text too far? Then let us try another passage.\nHere is a funeral procession, a bier with a dead man laid out on it,\n\"wrapped in a linen cloth\" (Matt. 27:59), \"bound hand and foot with\ngrave-clothes\" (John 11:44)--a common enough sight in the East; but\nwho are they who are carrying him--those silent, awful figures,\nbound like him hand and foot, and wound with the same linen cloth,\nmoving swiftly and steadily along with their burden? It is the dead\nburying the dead (Luke 9:60). Add to these the account of the three\nTemptations--stories in picture, which must come from Jesus himself,\nand illustrate another side of his experience. For to the mind that\nsees and thinks in pictures, temptation comes in pictures which the\nmind makes for itself, or has presented to it and at once lights\nup--pictures horrible and once seen hard to forget and to escape. No\nwonder he warns men against the pictures they paint themselves in\ntheir minds (Matt. 5:28; cf. Chapter VII, p. 154). Add also the\nother pictures of Satan fallen (Luke 10:18) and Satan pushing into\nGod's presence with a demand for the disciples (Luke 22:31). Are we\nto call these \"visions\"--the word is ambiguous--or are they\nimaginative presentments of evil, as it thrusts itself on the soul,\nwith all its allurements and all its ugliness? \"Visions\" in the\nsense that is associated with trance, we shall hardly call them.\nThey are pictures showing his gift of imagination.\n\nLastly, on this part of our subject, let us remind ourselves of the\nmany parables and pictures and sayings which put God himself before\nus. Here is the bird's nest, and one little sparrow fallen to the\nground--and God is there and he takes notice of it; he misses the\nlittle bird from the brood (Matt. 10:29; cf. Luke 12:6). Here again\nis quite another scene--the rich and middle-aged man, who has\nprospered in everything and is just completing his plans to retire\nfrom business, when he feels a tap on his shoulder and hears a voice\nspeaking to him, and he turns and is face to face with God (Luke\n12:20). And there are all the other stories of God's goodness and\nkindness and care; is not the very phrase \"Our Father in heaven\" a\npicture in itself, if we can manage to give the word the value which\nJesus meant it to carry? When one studies the teaching of Jesus, and\nconcentrates on what he draws us of God, God somehow becomes real\nand delightful, in a most wonderful way.\n\nWith all these faculties brought to bear on all he thinks, and\nlucent in all he says, there is little wonder that men recognized\nanother note in Jesus from that familiar in their usual teachers.\nRabbi Eliezer of those times was praised as \"a well-trough that\nloses not a drop of water.\" We all know that type of teacher--the\ntank-mind, full, no doubt, supplied by pipes, and ministering its\ngifts by pipe and tap, regulated, tiresome, and dead. \"The water\nthat I shall give him,\" days Jesus in the Fourth Gospel (John 4:14),\n\"shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting\nlife.\" The water metaphors of the New Testament are not of trough\nand tank. Jesus taught men--not from a reservoir of quotations, like\na scribe or a Rabbi, \"but as possessed of authority himself\" (Matt.\n7:29). Who gave him that authority? asked the priests (Matt. 21:23)?\nWho authorizes the living man to live? \"All things are delivered\nunto me of my Father\" (Matt. 11:27). \"My words shall not pass away\"\n(Mark 13:31).\n\nHe has proved right; his words have not passed away. The great \"Son\nof Fact,\" he went to fact, drove his disciples to fact, and (in the\nstriking phrase of Cromwell) \"spoke _things_.\" And we can see in the\nrecord again and again the traces of the mental habits and the\nnatural language of one who habitually based himself on experience\nand on fact. Critics remark on his method of using the Old Testament\nand contrast it with contemporary ways. St. Paul, for instance, in\nthe passage where he weighs the readings \"seeds\" and \"seed\" (Gal.\n3:16), is plainly racking language to the destruction of its real\nsense; no one ever would have written \"seeds\" in that connexion; but\nin the style of the day he forces a singular into an utterly\nnon-natural significance. St. Matthew in his first two chapters\nproves the events, which he describes, to have been prophesied by\nciting Old Testament passages--two of which conspicuously refer to\nentirely different matters, and do not mean at all what he suggests\n(Matt. 2:15, 23). The Hebrew with the Old Testament, like the Greek\nof those days with Homer, made what play he pleased; if the words\nfitted his fancy, he took them regardless of connexion or real\nmeaning; if he was pressed for a defence, he would take refuge in\nallegory. A fashion was set for the Church which bore bad fruit. The\nOld Testament was emptied of meaning to fortify the Christian faith\nwith \"proof texts.\" When Jesus quotes the Old Testament, it is for\nother ends and with a clear, incisive sense of the prophet's\nmeaning. \"Go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy and\nnot sacrifice\" (Matt. 9:13 and 12:7, quoting Hosea 6:6). He not\nmerely quotes Hosea, but it is plain that he has got at the very\nheart of the man and his message. Similarly when he reads Isaiah in\nthe Synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4:17), he lays hold of a great\npassage and brings out with emphasis its value and its promise. He\ntouches the real, and no lapse of time makes his quotations look odd\nor quaint. When he is asked which is the first commandment of all,\nhe at once, with what a modern writer calls \"a brilliant flash of\nthe highest genius,\" links a text in Deuteronomy with one in\nLeviticus--\"Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord, and thou\nshalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy\nsoul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength\" (Deut.\n6:4-5), and, he adds, \"the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt\nlove thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment\ngreater than these\" (Levit. 19:18; Mark 12:29-31). Thus his instinct\nfor God and his instinct for the essential carry him to the very\ncentre and acme of Moses' law. At the same time he can use the Old\nTestament in an efficient way for dialectic, when an \"argumentum ad\nhominem\" best meets the case (Mark 7:6; Luke 20:37, 44).\n\nGoing to fact directly and reading his Bible on his own account, he\nis the great pioneer of the Christian habit of mind. He is not idly\ncalled the Captain by the writer to the Hebrews (Heb. 2:10, 12:2).\nAuthority and tradition only too readily assume control of human\nlife; but a mind like that of Jesus, like that which he gave to his\nfollowers, will never be bound by authority and tradition. Moses is\nvery well, but if God has higher ideas of marriage--what then? The\nScribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat (Matt. 23:2), but that\ndoes not make them equal to Moses; still less does it make their\ntraditions of more importance than God's commandments (Mark 7:1-13).\nThe Sabbath itself \"was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath\"\n(Mark 2:27).\n\nWhere the habit of mind is thus set to fact, and life is based on\nGod, on God's will and God's doings, it is not surprising that in\nthe daily round there should be noted \"sanity, reserve, composure,\nand steadiness.\" It may seem to be descending to a lower plane, but\nit is worthwhile to look for a moment at the sheer sense which Jesus\ncan bring to bear on a situation. The Sabbath--is it lawful to heal\non the Sabbath? Well, if a man's one sheep is in a pit on the\nSabbath, what will he do? (Matt. 12:11), or will he refrain from\nleading his ox to the water on the Sabbath (Luke 13:15)? Such\nquestions bring a theological problem into the atmosphere of\nsense--and it is better solved there. He is interrupted by a demand\nthat he arbitrate between a man and his brother; and his reply is\nvirtually, Does your brother accept your choice of an arbitrator?\n(Luke 12:14)--and that matter is finished. \"Are there few that be\nsaved?\" asks some one in vague speculation, and he gets a practical\nanswer addressed to himself (Luke 13:23). Even in matters of\nordinary manners and good taste, he offers a shrewd rule (Luke\n14:8). Luke records also two or three instances of perfectly banal\ntalk and ejaculation addressed to him--the bazaar talk of the\nGalilean murders (Luke 13:1)--the pious if rather obvious remark of\nsome man about feasting in the Kingdom of God (Luke 14:15)--and the\nwoman's homey congratulation of Mary on her son (Luke 11:27). In\neach case he gets away to something serious.\n\nAbove all, we must recognize the power which every one felt in him.\nEven Herod, judging by rumour, counts him greater than John the\nBaptist (Matt. 14:2). The very malignity of his enemies is a\nconfession of their recognition that they are dealing with some one\nwho is great. Men remarked his sedative and controlling influence\nover the disordered mind (Mark 1:27). He is not to be trapped in his\ntalk, to be cajoled or flattered. There is greatness in his\nlanguage--in his reference of everything to great principles and to\nGod; greatness in his freedom from ambition, in his contempt of\nadvertisement and popularity, in his appeal to the best in men, in\nhis belief in men, in his power of winning and keeping friends, in\nhis gift for making great men out of petty. In all this we are not\nstepping outside the Gospels nor borrowing from what he has done in\nnineteen centuries. In Galilee and in Jerusalem men felt his power.\nAnd finally, what of his calm, his sanity, his dignity, in the hour\nof betrayal, in the so-called trials, before the priests, before\nPilate, on the Cross? The Pharisees, said Tertullian, ought to have\nrecognized who Christ was by his patience.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE TEACHER AND HIS DISCIPLES\n\nIt was as a teacher that Jesus of Nazareth first began to gather\ndisciples round him. But to understand the work of the Teacher, we\nmust have some general impression of the world to which he came. The\nbackground will help us understand what had to be done, and what it\nwas he meant to do.\n\nBishop Gore, in a book recently published, suggested that the belief\nthat God is Love is not axiomatic. Many of us take it for granted,\nas the point at which religion naturally begins; but, as he\nemphasized, it is not an obvious truth; it is something of which we\nhave to be convinced, something that has to be made good to men.\nUnless we bear this in mind, we shall miss a great deal of what\nJesus has really done, by assuming that he was not needed to do it.\n\n\"Out of a darker world than ours came this new spring.\" We must look\nat the world as it was, when Jesus came. In a later chapter we shall\nhave to consider more fully the religions of the Roman world. One or\ntwo points may be anticipated. First of all, we have to realize what\na hard world it was. Men and women are harder than we sometimes\nthink, and the natural hardness to which the human heart grows of\nitself, needed more correction than it had in those days.\n\nAmong the many papyrus documents that have been found in late years\nin Egypt--documents that have pictured for us the life of Egypt, and\nhave recorded for us also the language of the New Testament in a\nmost illuminative way--there is one that illustrates only too aptly\nthe unconscious hardness of the times. It is a letter--no literary\nletter, no letter that any one would ordinarily have thought of\nkeeping; it has survived by accident. It was written by an Egyptian\nGreek to his wife. She lived somewhere up the country, and he had\ngone to Alexandria. She had been expecting a baby when he left, and\nhe wrote a rough, but not an unkind, letter to her. He writes:\n\"Hilarion to Alis . . . greetings.... Know that we are still even\nnow in Alexandria. Do not fidget, if, at the general return, I stay\nin Alexandria. I pray and beseech you, take care of the little\nchild, and as soon as we have our wages, I will send you up\nsomething. If you are delivered, if it was a male, let it live; if\nit was a female, cast it out . . . . How can I forget you? So don't\nfidget.\"[15]\n\nThe letter is not an unkind one; it is sympathetic, masculine,\ndirect, and friendly. And then it ends with the suggestion,\ninconceivable to us to-day, that if the baby is a girl, it need not\nbe kept. It can be put out either on the land or in the river, left\nto kite or crocodile. The evidence of satirists is generally to be\ndiscounted, because they tend to emphasize the exceptional; and it\nis not the exceptional thing that gives the character of an age, or\nof a man. It is the kind of thing that we take for granted and\nassume to be normal that shows our character or gives the note of\nthe day; and what we omit to notice may be as revealing.\n\nIn the plays of the Athenian comic poets of the third and fourth\ncenturies B.C. we find, to wearisomeness, one recurring plot. The\nheroine turns out to be, not just a common girl, but the daughter of\nthe best family in Athens, exposed when she was a baby. When Plato\nsketched his ideal constitution, in addition to the mating of\nsuitable pairs to be decided by government, he added that, if the\noffspring were not good enough, it should be put away where it would\nnot be found again. Aristotle allowed the same practice. The most\ncultured race on earth freely exposed its infants; and this letter\nof Hilarion to Alis--a dated letter by the way, of September or\nOctober in the year 1 A.D.--makes it clear that the practice of\nexposure of children still prevailed; and there is other evidence\nwhich need not now detain us. It is a hard world, where kind people\nor good people can think of such things as ordinary and natural.\n\nEvidence of the character of an age is given by the treatment of\ncriminals; and that age was characterized by crucifixion. They would\ntake a human being, spread him out on a cross on the ground, drive\nnails through his hands and feet; and then the cross was raised--the\nagony of the victim during the movement is not to be imagined. It\nwas made fast; and there the victim hung, suspended between heaven\nand earth, to live or die at his leisure. By and by crows would\ngather round him. \"I have been good,\" said the slave. \"Then you have\nyour reward,\" says the Latin poet, \"you will not feed the crows on\nthe cross.\"[16] There is a very striking phrase in St. Matthew: \"And\nsitting down they watched him there\" (Matt. 27:36). The soldiers\nnailed three men to crosses, and sat down beneath them to dice for\ntheir clothes. Our tolerances, like our utterances, come out of the\nabundance of the heart, and stamp us for what we are.\n\nWe cannot easily realize all that slavery meant. When we read in the\nFourth Gospel that \"the Lamb of God taketh away the sin of the\nworld\" (John 1:29), that was written before Jesus Christ had\nabolished slavery; for, we remember, it was done by his people\nagainst the judgement of the business experts. Slavery meant robbing\nthe man of every right that Nature gave him; and, as Homer said long\nago, \"Farseeing Zeus takes away half a man's manhood, when he brings\nthe day of slavery upon him.\"[17] He became a thief, a liar, dirty,\nand bad; and with the woman it was still worse. The slave woman was\na little lower than the animal; she might not have offspring. It was\n\"natural,\" men said; \"Nature had designed certain races to be\nslaves; slavery was written in Nature; it was Nature's law.\" These\nwere not the thoughts of vulgar people, but of some of the best of\nthe Greeks--not of all, indeed; but society was organized on the\nbasis of slavery. It was an accepted axiom of all social and\neconomic life.\n\nAs to the spiritual background, for the present let us postpone the\nheathen world and consider the Jews, who represented in some ways\nthe world's highest at this period. Modern scholarship is shedding\nfresh light on the literature and ideas that were prevalent between\nthe end of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New. But what\nuncertainty about God! Why some people should think that it was\neasier to believe in God in those days than now, I do not see. Far\nless was known of God; the record of his doings was not so long as\nit is for us, and it was not so well known. No one could understand\nwhat God meant, if he was quite clear himself. Look at what he did\nwith the nation. He chose Israel, he established the kingdom of\nDavid. They did not get on very well, and at last were carried away\ninto Captivity in Babylon. So much he did for his people; and when\nhe brought them back again to the Promised Land, it was to a very\ntrying and difficult situation; and worse still followed after\nNehemiah's day. Alexander the Great's conquest of the East left a\nMacedonian dynasty ruling those regions, and one of their great\nkings, Antiochus Epiphanes, tried to stamp out the religion of\nJehovah altogether. The Book of Daniel is a record of that\npersecution about 166 B.C. The Maccabeean brothers delivered Israel,\nand rescued the religion of Jehovah; and a kingdom of a sort was\nestablished with them; but the grandsons of the liberators became\ntyrants. What did God mean? Out of all the promises to Israel, to\nthe House of David, this is what comes. Herod follows--a foreign\nking and an Edomite; and the Romans are over all, suzerains and\nrulers.\n\nIn despair of the present men began to forecast the future. A time\nwill surely come, they said, when God will give an anointed one, the\nMessiah; he will set all Israel free, will make Israel rule the\nworld instead of the Romans; he will gather together the scattered\nof Israel from the four winds, reunite and assemble God's people in\ntriumph in Palestine. And then, when the prophet paused, a plain man\nspoke: \"I don't care if he does. My father all his life looked\nforward to that. What does it matter now, if God redeems his people,\nor if he does not? My father is dead.\" The answer was, why should\nyour father not come with the redeemed Israel? But what evidence is\nthere for that? Does God care for people beyond the grave? Is there\npersonal immortality?--that became the anxious question.[18]\n\nBut is this kingdom of the Messiah to be an earthly or a heavenly\nkingdom? Will it be in Jerusalem or in heaven? Are you quite sure\nthat there is any distinction in the other world between good and\nbad, between Jew and Gentile? Some people thought the kingdom would\nbe in Jerusalem; others said it would be in heaven, and added that\nthe Jews will look down and see the Gentiles in hell--something\nworth seeing at last. But, after all, it was still guesswork--\n\"perhaps\" was the last word.\n\nWhen the question is asked, \"Was Jesus the Messiah?\" the obvious\nreply is, \"Which Messiah?\" For there seems to have been no standard\nidea of the Messiah. The Messiah was, on the whole, as vague a term\nas, in modern politics, Socialism or Tariff Reform. Neither of them\nhas come; perhaps they never will come, and nobody knows what they\nwill be till they do come. Jesus is not what they expected. A Jewish\ngirl, at an American Student Conference a year or two ago, said\nabout Jesus: \"I do not think he is the Messiah, but I do love him.\"\nOf course he was not in her Jewish sense. The term was a vague one.\n\nThe main point was that men were uncertain about God. God was\nunintelligible. They did not understand his ideas, either for the\nnation or for the individual; God's plans miscarried with such\nfatality. Or if he had some deeper design, it was still all\nguesswork. It seemed likely, or at least right, that he should\nachieve somehow the final damnation of the Gentiles--the Romans, and\nthe rest of us--but nothing was very clear. In the meantime, if God\nwas going to damn the Gentiles in the next world, why should not the\nJews do it in this? Human nature has only too ready an answer for\nsuch a question--as we can read in too many dark pages of history,\nin the stories of wars and religious persecutions.\n\nThe uncertainty about God in Judaism reacted on life and made it\nhard.\n\nEven the virtues of men were difficult; they were apt to be\nnerveless and uncertain, because their aim was uncertain, and they\nwanted inspiration. Of course there are always kindly hearts; but a\nman will never put forth quite his best for an uncertainty. There\nwas a want of centre about their virtues, a want of faith, and as a\nresult they were too largely self-directed.[19]\n\nA man was virtuous in order to secure himself in case God should be\nawkward. There was no sufficient relation between man and God. God\nwas judge, no doubt; but his character could be known from his\nattitude to the Gentiles. Could a man count on God and how far?\nCould he rely on God supporting him, on God wishing to have him in\nthis world and the next? No, not with any certainty. It comes to a\nfundamental unbelief in God, resting, as Jesus saw, on an essential\nmisconception of God's nature; and this resulted in the spoiling of\nlife. Men did not use God. \"Where your treasure is, there will your\nheart be also,\" Jesus said (Luke 12:34); and it was not in God.\nMen's interest and belief were elsewhere.\n\nNow the first thing that Jesus had to do, as a teacher, was to\ninduce men to rethink God. Men, he saw, do not want precepts; they\ndo not want ethics, morals or rules; what they do need is to rethink\nGod, to rediscover him, to re-explore him, to live on the basis of\nrelation with God. There is one striking difference between\nChristianity and the other religions, in that the others start with\nthe idea that God is known. Christians do not so start. We are still\nexploring God on the lines of Jesus Christ--rethinking God all the\ntime, finding him out. That is what Jesus meant us to do. If Jesus\nhad merely put before men an ethical code, that would have been to\ndo what the moralists had done before him--what moralists always do,\nwith the same naive idea that they are doing a great deal for us.\nHis object was far more fundamental.\n\nThe first thing was to bring people on to the very centre and to get\nthere at once--to get men away from the accumulation of occasional\nand self-directed virtues, from the self-sustained life, from\nself-acquired righteousness, and to bring them to face the fact of\nGod, to realize the seriousness of God and of life, and to see God.\nWhen he preached self-denial, he did not mean the modern virtue of\nself-denial with all its pettinesses, but a genuine negation of\nself, a total forgetfulness of self by having the mind set entirely\non God and God's purposes, a readjustment of everything with God as\nthe real centre of all. This is always difficult; it is not less\ndifficult where the conception of God is, as it was with Jesus,\nentirely spiritual. The whole experience of mankind was against the\nidea that there could be a religion at all without priest,\nsacrifice, altar, temple, and the like. There is a very minimum of\nsymbol and cult in the teaching of Jesus--so little that the ancient\nworld thought the Christians were atheists, because they had no\nimage, no temple, no sacrifice, no ritual, nothing that suggested\nreligion in the ordinary sense of the word. We shall realize the\ndifficulty of what Jesus was doing when we grasp that he meant\npeople to see God independently of all their conventional aids. To\nlead them to commit themselves in act to God on such terms was a\nstill more difficult thing. To believe in God in a general sort of\nway, to believe in Providence at large, is a very different thing\nfrom getting yourself crucified in the faith that God cares for you,\nand yet somehow wishes you to endure crucifixion. How far will men\ncommit themselves to God? Jesus means them to commit themselves to\nGod right up to the hilt--as Bunyan put it, \"to hazard all for God\nat a clap.\" Decision for God, obedience to God, that is the prime\nthing--action on the basis of God and of God's care for the\nindividual.\n\nHis purpose that this shall not be merely the religion of choice\nspirits or of those immediately around him, but shall be the one\nreligion of all the world, makes the task still vaster. He means not\nmerely to touch the Jews. Whether he says so in explicit terms or\nnot, it is implied in all that he says and does, that the new\nmovement should be far wider than anything the world had ever seen;\nit was to cover the whole of mankind. He meant that every individual\nin all the world should have the centre of gravity of his thinking\nshifted.\n\nAgain, he had to think of a re-creation of the language of men, till\nGod should be a new word. Our constant problem is to give his word\nhis value, his meaning. He meant that men should learn their\nreligious vocabulary again, till the words they used should suggest\nhis meanings to their minds. Something of this was achieved, when\nsome of his disciples came to him and said: \"Teach us to pray, as\nJohn also taught his disciples\" (Luke 11:1). Further, he had to\nsecure that men should begin the rethinking of all life--personal,\nsocial, and national--from the very foundations, on new lines--what\nis called a transvaluation of all values. With a new centre,\neverything has to be thought out anew into what St. Paul calls the\nfullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13). Then finally the question comes, how\nto secure continuity? Will the movement outlast his personal\ninfluence? These are his problems--large enough, every one of them.\nHow does he face them?\n\nThe Gospel began with friendship, and we know from common life what\nthat is, and how it works. Old acquaintance and intimacy are the\nheart of it. The mind is on the alert when we meet the\nstranger--quick and eager to master his outlook and his ways of\nthought, to see who and what he is--it is critical, self-protective,\nrather than receptive. But, as time goes on, we notice less, we\nstudy the man less as we see more of him. Yet, in this easier and\nmore careless intercourse, when the mind is off guard, it is\nreceiving a host of unnoticed impressions, which in the long run may\nhave extraordinary influence. Pleasant and easy-going, a perpetual\nsource of interest and rest of mind, the friendship continues, till\nwe find to our surprise that we are changed. Stage by stage, as one\ncomes to know one's friend, by unconscious and freely given\nsympathy, one lives the other man's life, sees and feels things as\nhe does, slips into his language, and, by degrees, into his\nthoughts--and then wakes up to find oneself, as it were, remade by\nthe other's personality, so close has been the identification with\nthe man we grew to love. This is what we find in our own lives; and\nwe find it in the Gospels.\n\nA sentence from St. Augustine's Confessions gives us the key to the\nwhole story. \"Sed ex amante alio accenditur alius\" (\"Confessions\",\niv. 14, 911). \"One loving spirit sets another on fire.\" Jesus brings\nmen to the new exploration of God, to the new commitment of\nthemselves to God, simply by the ordinary mechanism of friendship\nand love. This, in plain English, is after all the idea of\nIncarnation--friendship and identification. Jesus has a genius for\nfriendship, a gift for understanding the feelings of men. Look, for\nexample, at the quick word to Jairus. As soon as the message comes\nto him that his daughter is dead, Jesus wheels round on him at once\nwith a word of courage (Mark 5:36). This quickness in understanding,\nin feeling with people, marks him throughout. An instinctive care\nfor other people's small necessities is a great mark of friendship,\nand Jesus has it. We find him saying to his disciples: \"Come ye\nyourselves apart privately into a desert place, and rest awhile\"\n(Mark 6:31). What a beautiful suggestion! He himself, it is clear\nfrom the records, felt the need of privacy, of being by oneself, of\nquiet; and he took his quiet hours in the open, in the wild, where\nthere was solitude and Nature, and there he would take his friends.\nThere were so many coming and going, that they had no leisure to\neat, and Jesus says to them in his friendly way: \"Let us get out of\nthis--away by ourselves, to a quiet place; what you want is rest.\"\nWhat a beautiful idea!--to go camping out on the hillside, under the\ntrees, to rest--and with him to share the quiet of the lonely place.\nIt is not the only time when he offers to give people rest--\"Come\nunto Me ... and I will give you rest\" (Matt. 11:28). How strange,\nwhen one thinks of the restless activity of Christian people to-day,\nwith typewriters and conventions, and every modern method of\nconsuming energy and time! How sympathetic he is!\n\nWe may notice again his respect for the reserve of other people. On\nthe whole, how slowly Jesus comes to work with men! He never\n\"rushes\" the human spirit; he respects men's personalities. Men and\nwomen are never pawns with him. He does not think of them in masses.\nThe masses appeal to him, but that is because he sees the individual\nall the time. To one of his disciples he says, \"I have prayed for\nthee\" (Luke 22:32). What a contrast to the conventional \"friend of\nman\" in the abstract! With all that hangs upon him, he has leisure\nto pray intensely, for a single man. It gives us an idea of his\ngifts in friendship. His faith in his people is quite remarkable,\nwhen we think of it. He believes in his followers; he shares with\nthem some of the deepest things in his life; he counts them fit to\nshare his thought of God. He makes it quite clear to them how he\ntrusts them. He puts before them the tremendous work that he has to\ndo--work more appalling in its vastness the more one studies it; and\nthen he tells them that he is trusting the whole thing with them.\nWhat a faith it implies in their moral capacity! What acceptance of\nthe dim beginnings of the character that was to be Christian!\nSomeone has spoken of his \"apparently unjustified faith in Peter.\"\nWhat names he can give to his friends as a result of this faith in\nthem! \"Ye are the light of the world,\" he says (Matt. 5:14), \"the\nsalt of the earth.\" When we remind ourselves of his clear vision,\nhis genius for seeing fact, how much must such praises have meant to\nthese men!\n\nThink how he gives himself to them in earnest; how he is at their\ndisposal. He is theirs; they can cross-question him at leisure; they\ntell him that the Pharisees did not like what he said (Matt. 15:12),\nthey doubt with Peter the wisdom of his open speech (Mark 8:32);\nthey criticize him (Matt. 13:10). If they do not understand his\nparable, they ask what he means (Matt. 15:15) and keep on asking\ntill he makes it plain. He is in no hurry. He is the Master and\ntheir Teacher, and he is at the service of the slowest of them.\n\nBut there is another side to friendship; for one great part of it is\ntaking what our friends do for us, as well as doing things for them.\nHow he will take what they have to give! He lets them manage the\nboat, while he sleeps (Mark 4:38), and go and prepare for him (Luke\n9:52), and see to the Passover meal (Mark 14:13). The women, we\nread, ministered to him of their substance (Luke 8:3). There is a\nvery significant phrase in St. Luke (22:28), where he says to them\nat the end: \"Ye are they that have continued with me in my\ntemptations.\" He tells them there that they have helped him. How?\nApparently by being with him. Is not that friendship? In the same\nchapter (Luke 22:15) we find an utterance that reveals the depth of\nhis feeling for his friends: \"With desire I have desired (a Greek\nrendering of a Semitic intensive) to eat this Passover with you\nbefore I suffer.\" They are to help him again by being with him, and\nhe has longed for it, he says. The Gospel of John sums up the whole\nstory in a beautiful sentence: \"Jesus, having loved his own which\nwere in the world, loved them unto the end\" (John 13:1). Augustine\nis right. \"One loving spirit sets another on fire.\"\n\nNote again the word which he uses in speaking to them (\"Tekna\": Mark\n2:5, 10:24). It is a diminutive, a little disguised as \"children\" in\nour English version. It reappears in the Fourth Gospel in even more\ndiminutive forms (\"Teknia\", 13:33; Paidia, 21:5) with a peculiarly\ntender suggestion. The word of Mark answers more closely than\nanything I know to \"Boys,\" as we used it in the Canadian\nUniversities. \"Men,\" or \"Undergraduates,\" is the word in the English\nUniversities; \"Students,\" in Scotland and in India; in Canada we\nsaid \"Boys\"; and I think we get nearer, and like one another better,\nwith that easy name. And it was this friendly, pleasant word, or one\nvery like it, that he used with them. Nor is it the only one of the\nkind. \"Fear not, little flock!\" he said (Luke 12:32). Do not the\ndiminutives mean something? Do they not take us into the midst of a\ngroup where friendship is real? And in the centre is the friendliest\nfigure of all.\n\nLook for a moment at the men who followed him; at the type he calls.\nThey are simple people in the main--warm hearts and impulsive\nnatures. The politics of Simon the Zealot might at one time have\nbeen summed up as \"the knife and plenty of it,\" a simple and direct\nenough type of political thought, in all conscience, however\nhopeless and ineffectual, as history showed; but he gave up his\npolitics for the friendship of Jesus. Peter, again, is the champion\nexample of the impulsive nature. Why Jesus called James and John\n\"the sons of thunder\" (Mark 3:17) I am not sure. Dr. Rendel Harris\nthinks because they were twins; other people find something of the\nthunderstorm in their ideas and outlook. The publican in the group\nis of much the same type; he is ready to leave his business and his\ncustom-house at a word--once more the impulsive nature and the\nsimple. It is possible that Jesus looked also to another type of\nwhich he gained very little in his lifetime; for he speaks of \"the\nscribe who has turned disciple again, and brings out of his treasure\nthings new and old\" (Matt. 13:52)--the more complicated type of the\ntrained scholar, full of old learning, but open to new views. In the\nmeantime he draws to him people with the warm heart--yes, he says,\nbut cultivate the cool head (cf. Matt. 10:16). Again and again he\nwill have men \"count the cost\" (Luke 14:28)--know what they are\ndoing, be rid of delusions before they follow him (Mark 8:34). What\ndid they expect? They had all sorts of dreams of the future. When we\nfirst find them, there is friction among them, which is not\nunnatural in a group of men with ambitions (Mark 9:33. 10:37). Even\nat the Last Supper their minds run on thrones (Luke 22:24). They are\nhaunted by taboos. Peter long after boasts that nothing common or\nunclean has entered his lips (Acts 10:14). They fail to understand\nhim. \"Are ye also without understanding?\" he asks, not without\nsurprise (Mark 8:17, 21). At the very end they run away.\n\nThere, then, is the group. What is to be the method? There is not\nmuch method. As Harnack says about the spread of the early Church,\n\"A living faith needs no special methods\"--a sentence worth\nremembering. \"Infinite love in ordinary intercourse\" is another\nphrase of Harnack in describing the life of the early Church. It\nbegan with Jesus. He chose twelve, says Mark (3:14), \"that they may\nbe with him.\" That is all. And they are with him under all sorts of\ncircumstances. \"The Son of Man hath not where to lay his head\" (Luke\n9:58). They saw him in privation, fatigued, exhausted. With every\nchance to see weaknesses in his character, they did not find much\namiss with him. That is surely significant. They lived with him all\nthe time, in a genuine human friendship, a real and progressive\nintimacy. They were with him in popularity and in unpopularity; they\nwere with him in danger, when Herod tried to kill him and he went\nout of Herod's territory. But friendship depends not only on great\nmoments; it means companionship in the trivial, too, it means idle\nhours together, partnership in commonplace things--meals and\ngarden--chairs as well as books and crises. Ordinary life, ordinary\ntalk, gossip, chat, every kind of conversation about Herods and\nRoman governors, and the Zealots--custom-house memories, tales of\nthe fishermen's life on the lake, stories of neighbours and\nhome--rumours about the Galileans who were murdered by Pilate (Luke\n13:1-4)--all the babbling talk of the bazaar is round Jesus and his\ngroup, and some of it breaks in on them; and his attitude to it all\nis to these men a constant revelation of character. They are with\nhim in the play of feelings, with him in the fluxes and refluxes of\nhis thought--learning his ways of mind without realizing it. They\nslip into his mind and mood, by a series of surprises, when they are\nimagining no such thing. Anything, everything serves to reveal him.\nThey tramp all day, and ask some village people to shelter them for\nthe night. The villagers tell them to go away. The men are hungry\nand fatigued. \"What a splendid thing it would be, if we could do\nlike Elijah and burn them up with a word!\" So the hot thought rose.\nHe turned and said, \"You know not what manner of spirit you are\nof.\"--What a gentle rebuke! \"The Son of Man is not come to destroy\nmen's lives, but to save them\" (Luke 9:51-56). Then follows one of\nthe wonderful sentences of the Gospel, \"they went unto another\nvillage\"--very obvious, but very significant. A missionary from\nChina told me how, thirty years ago or more, he was driven out of\nthe town where he lived; how the gentlefolk egged on the mob, and\nthey wrecked his house, and hounded him out of the place. He told me\nhow it felt--the misery and the indignity of it. Jesus took it\nundisturbed. He taught a lesson in it which the Church has never\nforgotten.\n\nTheir life was full of experiences shared with him. He has his\nreserve--his secret; yet, in another sense, he gives himself to them\nwithout reserve; there is prodigality of self-impartation in his\ndealings with them. He lets them have everything they can take. He\nbecomes theirs in a great intimacy, he gives himself to them. Why?\nBecause he believes, as he put it, in seed. Socrates saw that the\nteacher's real work, his only work, is to implant the idea, like a\nseed; an idea, like a seed, will look after itself. A king builds a\ntemple or a palace. The seed of a banyan drifts into a crack, and\ngrows without asking anyone's leave; there is life in it. In the end\nthe building comes down, but for what the banyan holds up. The\nleaven in the meal is the most powerful thing there. There is very\nlittle of it, but that does not matter; it is alive (Matt. 13:33).\nLife is a very little thing but it is the only thing that counts.\nThat is why the farmer can sow his fields and sleep at nights\nwithout thinking of them; and the crop grows in spite of his\nsleeping, and he knows it (Mark 4:26). That is why Jesus believes so\nthoroughly in his men, and in his message; God has made the one for\nthe other, and there is no fear of mischance.\n\nLook at his method of teaching. People \"marvelled at his words of\ncharm\" (Luke 4:22)--\"hung about him to hear him\" (Luke 19:48). He\nsaid that the word is the overflow of the heart. \"Out of the\nabundance of the heart the mouth speaketh\" (Matt. 12:34; Luke 6:45).\nWhat a heart, then, his words reveal! How easy and straightforward\nhis language is! To-day we all use abstract nouns to convey our\nmeaning; we cannot do without words ending in -ality and -anon. But\nthere is no recorded saying of Jesus where he uses even\n\"personality.\" He does not use abstract nouns. He sticks to plain\nwords. When he speaks about God he does not say \"the Great First\nCause,\" or \"Providence,\" or any other vague abstract. Still less\ndoes he use an adverb from the abstract, like \"providentially.\" He\nsays, \"your heavenly Father.\" He does not talk of \"humanity\"; he\nsays, \"your brethren.\" He has no jargon, no technical terms, no\nscholastic vocabulary. He urges men not to over-study language;\ntheir speech must be simple, the natural, spontaneous overflow of\nthe heart.[20] Jesus told his disciples not to think out beforehand\nwhat they would say when on trial (Mark 13:11)--it would be \"given\"\nto them. He was perfectly right; and when Christians obeyed him,\nthey always spoke much better than when they thought out speeches\nbeforehand. They said much less for one thing, and they said it much\nbetter. Take the case of the martyr--an early and historical\none--whose two speeches were during her trial \"Christiana sum\" and,\non her condemnation, \"Deo gratias\".\n\nWith this, remark his own gift of arresting phrase; the freshness of\nhis language, how free it is from quotation, how natural and how\nextraordinarily simple. Everything worthwhile can be put in simple\nlanguage; and, if the speech is complicated, it is a call to think\nagain. \"As a woman, over-curiously trimmed, is to be mistrusted, so\nis a speech,\" said John Robinson of Leyden, the minister of the\nPilgrim Fathers. The language of Jesus is simple and direct, the\ninevitable expression of a rich nature and a habit of truth. You\nfeel he does not strain after effect--epigram, antithesis, or\nalliteration. Of course he uses such things--like all real\nspeakers--but he does not go out of his way for them. No, and so\nmuch the more significant are such characteristic antitheses as: \"Ye\ncannot serve God and mammon\" (Luke 16:13), and \"Whosoever will save\nhis life shall lose it\" (Matt. 16:25), coming with a spontaneous\nflash, and answering in their sharpness to the sharp edges of fact.\nHis words caught the attention, and lived in the memory; they\nrevealed such a nature; they were so living and unforgettable.\n\nRemark once again his preference for the actual and the ordinary.\nThere are religions in which holiness involves unusual conditions\nand special diet. Some forms of mysticism seem to be incompatible\nwith married life. But the type of holiness which Jesus teaches can\nbe achieved with an ordinary diet, and a wife and five children. He\nhad lived himself in a family of eight or nine. It is perhaps\nharder, but it is a richer sanctity, if the real mark of a Saint is,\nas we have been told, that he makes it easier for others to believe\nin God. In any case the ordinary is always good enough with Jesus.\nOnly he would have men go deeper, always deeper. Why can you not\nthink for yourselves? he asks. Signs were what men demanded. He\npictures Dives' mind running on signs even in hell (Luke 16:27).\n\"What could you do with signs? Look at what you have already. You\nread the weather for to-morrow by looking at the sky to-day. The\nsouth wind means heat; the red sky fair weather. Study, look, think\"\n(Luke 12:55). His animals, as we saw, are all real animals; it is\nreal observation; real analogy. When he speaks of the lost sheep, it\nis not a fictitious joy that he describes or an imaginary one; it is\nreal. The more we examine his sayings with any touch of his spirit,\nthe more we wonder. Of course it is possible to handle them in the\nwrong way, to miss the real thought and make folly of everything.\nThus, when he says he is the door, the interpreter may stray into\nsilly detail and make faith the key, and--I don't know what the\npanels and hinges could be. That is not the style of Jesus. The soul\nof the thing, the great central meaning, the real analogy is his\nconcern. Seriousness in observation, seriousness in reflection, is\nwhat he teaches. Men and women break down for want of thinking\nthings out. Many things become possible to those who think\nseriously, as he did--and, so to speak, without watertight\ncompartments.\n\nJesus is always urging seriousness in reflection. Seriousness in\naction, too, is one of his lessons--an emphasis on doing, but on\n_doing_ with a clear sense of what one is about, and why. A part of\naction is clear thought; always exactness, accuracy; you must think\nthe thing out, he says, and then act or let it alone. The artistic\ntemperament, we all know, is very much in evidence to-day. In \"The\nComments of Bagshot\" we are told that the drawback is that there is\nso much temperament and so little art. Why? Because the artistic\ntemperament means so little by itself. It is one of the secrets of\nJesus, that it is action that illuminates. What is it that makes the\npoem? The poet sees beggar children running races, or little Edward\nand the weather-cock, or something greater if you like--the light on\na woman's hair, or a flower; and you say, he has his poem. He has\nnot. He must work at the thing. When we study the great poets, we\nrealize how these things are worked out to the point of nerve-strain\nand exhaustion. The poet devotes himself heart and soul to the work;\nhe alters this and that, once and again; he sees a fresh aspect of\nthe thing, and he alters all again; he writes and rewrites, getting\ndeeper and deeper into the essential values of the thing all the\ntime. Where in all this is the artistic temperament? It gave him the\nimpulse, but something else achieves the work of art. I have a\nfeeling that the great works of art are achieved by the shopkeeper\nvirtues in addition to the artistic temperament that sees and feels\nthem at the beginning. It is action that gives the value of a\nthought. Jesus sees that. He says that frankly to his disciples. If\nyou want to understand in the long run, it is carrying the cross\nthat will teach you the real values.\n\nI have been treating him almost as if he were an authority on\npedagogy. Fortunately, he never discussed pedagogy, never used the\nterms I have been using. But he dealt with men, he taught and he\ninfluenced them, and it is worth our study to understand how he did\nit--to master his methods. \"One loving spirit sets another on fire.\"\nAs for the effects of his words at once, as Seeley put it, they were\n\"seething effervescence . . . broodings, resolutions, travail of\nheart.\" Men were brought face to face with a new issue; it was a\ntime of choice; things would not be as they were men must be \"with\nhim or against him\"--must accept or reject the new teaching, the new\nteacher, the new life. As he said, \"I came to send fire on the\nearth\" (Luke 12:49), to divide families, to divide the individual\nsoul against itself, till the great choice was made; and so it has\nalways been, where men have really seen him. We have to notice\nfurther the transformation of the disciples, who definitely accepted\nhim. \"Very wonderful to me,\" wrote Phillips Brooks, \"to see how the\ndisciples caught his method.\" The promise was made to them that they\nshould become fishers of men (Mark 1:17), and it was fulfilled.\nJesus made them strong enough to defy the world and to capture the\nworld. There is something attractive about them; they have his\nsecret, something of his charm; they are magnetic with his power. A\nnew impulse to win men marks them, a new power to do it, a new faith\nwhich grows in significance as you study it--the faith of William\nCarey, a hundred years ago, was the same thing--a perfectly\nincredible faith, that they actually will win men for God and\nChrist. And they did--and along his lines and by his methods of\nlove--even for Gentiles. \"Woe is me, if I preach not the Gospel,\"\nsays St. Paul (1 Cor. 9:16), who to preach the Gospel shipwrecked\nhis life and suffered the loss of all things (Phil. 3:8). But these\nmen are sure that it is worthwhile. They have a new passion for men\nand women--an interest not merely in the saving of their souls but\nin every real human need. The early Church made a point of teaching\nmen trades when they had none. They learnt all this from him. The\ngreatest miracle in history seems to me the transformation that\nJesus effected in those men. Everything else in Christian or secular\nhistory, compared to it, seems easy and explicable; and it was\nachieved by the love of Jesus.\n\nThe Church spread over the world without social machinery. The\nGospel was preached instinctively, naturally. The earliest\nChristians were persecuted in Jerusalem, and were driven out. I\npicture one of them in flight; on his journey he falls in with a\nstranger. Before he knows what he is doing, he is telling his fellow\ntraveller about Jesus. It follows from his explanation of why he is\non the road; he warms up as he speaks. He never really thought about\nthe danger of doing so. And the stranger wants to know more; he is\ncaptured by the message, and he too becomes a Christian. And then\nthis involuntary preacher of the Gospel is embarrassed to learn that\nthe man is a Gentile; he had not thought of that. I think that is\nhow it began--so naturally and spontaneously. These people are so\nfull of love of Jesus that they are bound to speak (Acts 8:4). \"One\nloving heart sets another on fire.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE TEACHING OF JESUS UPON GOD\n\nIt is worth taking some trouble to realize how profoundly Jesus has\nchanged the thinking of mankind about God. \"Since Jesus lived,\" Dr.\nFairbairn wrote, \"God has been another and nearer Being to man.\"\n\"Jesus,\" writes Dr. Fosdick, \"had the most joyous idea of God that\never was thought of.\" That joyous sense of God he has given to his\nfollowers, and it stands in vivid contrast with the feelings men\nhave toward God in the other religions. Christianity is the religion\nof joy. The New Testament is full of it.\n\nWe know the general character of Jesus' attitude to God, his feeling\nfor God, his sense of God's nearness. How immediate his knowledge of\nGod is, how intimate! Of course, here, as everywhere, his teaching\nhas such an occasional character--or else the records of it are so\nfragmentary--that we must not press the absence of system in it; and\nyet, I think, it would be right to say that Jesus puts before us no\nsystem of God, but rather suggests a great exploration, an intimacy\nwith the slow and sure knowledge that intimacy gives. He has no\ndefinition of God,[21] but he assumes God, lives on the basis of\nGod, interprets God; and God is discovered in his acts and his\nrelations. He said to Peter, in effect--for the familiar phrase\ncomes to this in modern English: \"You think like a man; you don't\nthink like God\" (Mark 8:33). Elsewhere he contrasts God's thoughts\nwith man's--their outlooks are so different \"that which is highly\nesteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God\" (Luke 16:15;\nthe Greek words are very interesting). In other words, he would have\nmen see all things as God sees them. That we do not so see them,\nremains the weak spot in our thinking. What Luther said to Erasmus\nis true of most of us: \"Your thoughts concerning God are too human.\"\n\"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall _see_ God,\" said\nJesus (Matt. 5:8), and throughout he emphasizes that the vision of\nGod depends on likeness to God--it is love and a glowing purity that\ngive that faculty, rather than any power of intellect apart from\nthem. Jesus brings men back to the ultimate fact. Our views are too\nshort and too narrow. He would have us face God, see him and realize\nhim--think in the terms of God, look at things from God's point of\nview, live in God and with God. In modern phrase, he breaks up our\ndogmatism and puts us at a universal point of view to see things\nover again in a new and true perspective.\n\nHow and where did he begin himself? Whence came his consciousness of\nGod, his gift for recognizing God? We do not know. The story of his\ngrowth, his inward growth, is almost unrevealed to us. We are told\nthat he learnt \"by the things which he suffered\" (Heb. 5:8), and\nthat he \"increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and\nman\" (Luke 2:52). Where does anyone begin, who takes us any great\ndistance? It is very hard to know. Where did our own thoughts of God\nbegin? What made them? How did they come? There is an inherited\nelement in them, but how much else? Whence came the inherited\nelement? How is it that to another man, with the same upbringing as\nours, everything is different, everything means more? Remark, at any\nrate, in the teaching of Jesus, that there is no mysticism of the\ntype so much studied to-day. There is nothing in the least\n\"psychopathic\" about him, nothing abnormal--no mystical vision of\nGod, no mystical absorption in God, no mystical union with God, no\nabstraction, nothing that is the mark of the professed mystic. Yet\nhe speaks freely of \"seeing God\"; he lives a life of the closest\nunion with God; and God is in all his thoughts. A phrase like that\nof Clement of Alexandria, \"deifying into apathy we become monadic,\"\nis seas away from anything we find in the speech of Jesus. That is\nnot the way he preaches God. He is far more natural; and that his\nfollowers accepted this naturalness, and drew him so, and gave his\nteaching as he gave it, is a fresh pledge of the truthfulness of the\nGospels.\n\nAgain, his knowledge of God is not a matter of quotation, as ours\nvery often tends to be. He is conscious always of the real nearness\nof God. He seems to wonder how it is that man can forget God. We do\nforget God. Augustine in his \"Confessions\" (iv. 12, 18) has to tell\nus that \"God did not make the world and then go away.\" The practical\nworking religion of a great many of us rests on a feeling that God\nis a very long way off. Our practical steps betray that we half\nthink God did go away, when he had made the world. Prayer to us is\nnot a real thing--it is not intercourse face to face; far too often\nit is like conversation over a telephone wire of infinite length\nwhich gets out of order. Even if words travel along that wire, there\nis so much \"buzzing\" that they are hardly recognizable. No, says\nJesus, God is near, God is here--so near, that Jesus never feels\nthat men have any need of a priesthood to come between, or to help\nthem to God; God does all that. There is no common concern, no\nmatter of food or clothing, no mere detail of the ordinary round of\ncommon duty and common life--father and mother, son, wife,\nfriend--nothing of all that, but God is there; God knows about it;\nGod is interested in it; God has taken care of it; God is enjoying\nit. How is it that men can \"reject the counsel of God,\" refuse God's\nplans and ideas (Luke 7:30)? How is it that they forget God\naltogether? Jesus is surprised at the dullness of men's minds (Mark\n8:17); it is a mystery to him. The rich fool, as we call him, though\nit is hard to see why we should call him a fool, when he is so like\nourselves, had forgotten God somehow, and was startled when God\nspoke, and spoke to him. That story, seen so often among men,--the\nstory of the thorns choking the seed (Matt. 13:22)--makes Jesus\nremark on the difficulty which a rich man finds in entering into the\nkingdom of God.\n\nGod knows--that is what Jesus repeats, God cares; and God can do\nthings; his hands are not tied by impotence. The knowledge of God is\nemphasized by Jesus; \"Even the very hairs of your head are all\nnumbered\" (Matt. 10:30); \"your Father knoweth\" (Luke 12:30); \"seeth\nin secret\" (Matt. 6:4); \"knoweth your hearts\" (Luke 16:15); knows\nyour struggles, knows your worries, knows your worth; God knows all\nabout you. And \"all things are possible with God\" (Matt. 19:26).\nThere is nothing that he cannot do, nothing that he will not do, for\nhis children. Will a father refuse his child bread; will God not\ngive what is good? (Matt. 7:11). Is it too big a thing for the Giver\nof Life to give food--which is the more difficult thing to give?\n(Luke 12:23). Look at God, as Jesus draws him--interested in\nflowers; God takes care of them, and thinks about their colours, so\nthat even \"Solomon in all his glory\" is not equal to them (Matt.\n6:30). God knows the birds in the nest--knows there is one fewer\nthere to-day than there was yesterday (Matt. 10:29). God cares for\nthem; how much more will he care for you (Matt. 6:26)? \"Ye are of\nmore value than many sparrows\" (Matt. 10:31). And God thinks out\nman's life in all its relations, and provides for it. Society moves\non lines he laid down for it; his plans underlie all. Thus, when\nJesus is challenged on the question of marriage and divorce, with\nthat clear thought and eye of his, he goes right back to God's\nintent--not to man's usage, not to the common law and practice of\nnations, but to God's intent and God's meaning. God ordained\nmarriage; he thought it out (Matt. 19:4). Marriages will be better,\nif we think of them in this way. God gave men their food, does\nstill, and all things that he gives are clean (Luke 11:41). We\ncannot have taboos at our Father's table.\n\nOver all is God's throne (Matt. 23:22). That idea, it seems to me,\nlapses somehow from our minds to-day. When Luther had to face the\nhostility of the Kaiser, the Emperor Charles V., he wrote to one of\nhis friends: \"Christ comes and sits at the right hand--not of the\nKaiser, for in that case we should have perished long ago--but at\nthe right hand of God. This is a great and incredible thing; but I\nenjoy it, incredible as it is; some day I mean to die in it. Why\nshould I not live in it?\" So Luther wrote--in not quite our modern\nvein. We hardly calculate on God as a factor; we omit him. Jesus did\nnot. God's rule is over all; and in all our perplexity, doubt, and\nfear, Jesus reminds us that the first thing is faith in God. The\nfact is that \"Thine is the Kingdom\" means peace; it is a joyous\nreminder. For if he speaks of the Kingdom of God, the King is more\nthan the Kingdom. It is the Kingdom, the rule, of the God whom Jesus\nteaches us to trust and to love. The Father is supreme. But that has\nmore aspects than one. If our Father is supreme for us, he is\nsupreme over us. Jesus emphasizes the will of God--God's commandment\nagainst man's tradition, God's will against man's notions (Mark\n7:8). What a source of rest and peace to him is the thought of God's\nwill! When Dante writes: \"And His will is our peace,\" it is the\nthought of Jesus. And at the same time God's judgements are as real\nto Jesus' mind. \"I will tell you,\" he says, \"whom to fear, God--yes,\nfear him!\" (Luke 12:5). He feels the tenderness and the awfulness of\nGod at once.\n\nIn speaking of God, it is noticeable that Jesus chiefly emphasizes\nGod's interest in the individual, as giving the real clue to God's\nnature. On the whole, there is very little even implied, still less\nexplicit, in the Gospels, about God as the great architect of\nNature--hardly anything on the lines familiar to us in the Psalms\nand in Isaiah--\"The sea is his, and he made it; and his hands formed\nthe dry land\" (Psalm 95:5)--\"He taketh up the isles as a very little\nthing\" (Isaiah 40:15). There is little of this in the Gospels; yet\nit is implied in the affair of the storm (Matt. 8:26). The disciples\nin their anxiety wake him. He does not understand their fear. Whose\nsea is it? Whose wind is it? Whose children are you? Cannot you\ntrust your Father to control his wind and his sea? Of course it is\npossible that he said more about God as the Author of Nature than\nour fragmentary reports give us; but it may be that it is because\nthe emphasis on God's care and love for the individual is hardest to\nbelieve, and at the same time best, gives the real value of God,\nthat Jesus uses it so much. Perhaps the Great Artificer is too far\naway for our minds. He is too busy, we think; and yet, after all, if\nGod is so great, why should he be so busy? If he is a real Father,\nwhy should not he be at leisure for his children? He is, says Jesus;\na friend has leisure for his friends, and a father for his children;\nand God, Jesus suggests, always has leisure for you.\n\nThe great emphasis with Jesus falls on the love of God. Thus he\ntells the story of the impossible creditor with two debtors (Luke\n7:42). One owed him ten pounds, and the other a hundred. When they\nhad nothing to pay, they both came to him and told him so. The\nordinary creditor, at the very best, would say: \"Well, I suppose I\nmust put it down as a bad debt.\" Jesus says that this creditor took\nup quite another attitude. He smiled and said to his two troubled\nfriends: \"Is that all? Don't let anything like that worry you. What\nis that between you and me?\" He forgave them the debt with such a\ncharm (\"echarisato\"), Jesus says, that they both loved him. One\nfeels that the end of the story must be, that they both paid him and\nloved him all the more for taking the money. What a delightful story\nof charm, and friendship and forgiveness! And it is a true picture\nof God, Jesus would have us believe, of God's forgiveness and the\nresponse it wakes in men.\n\nIf we do not definitely set our minds to assimilate the ideas of\nJesus, we shall make too little of the heart of God. With Jesus this\nis the central and crucial reality. He emphasizes the generosity of\nGod. God makes his sun rise on the good and on the bad; he sends\nrain on the just and the unjust (Matt. 5:45). God's flowers are just\nas beautiful in the bad man's garden. God knows what his child\nneeds, and gives it, whether it is a very good child or a very bad\none. The Father is the same great wise Friend in either case. The\npeacemakers are recognized as the children of God, because of their\nfamily likeness to God (Matt. 5:9). They come among people, and find\nthem in discord with one another, and their presence stills that; or\nthey come into a man's life, when it is all in disorder and pain,\nand they bring peace there. They may not quite know it, but they do\nthese things almost without meaning to do them. And Jesus says that\nthis is a family likeness by which men know they are God's children.\nBut it is not every teacher, pagan or Christian, who lays such\nstress on God's gift of peace, or is so sure of it. He uses Hosea's\ngreat saying about God--\"I will have mercy and not sacrifice\" (Hosea\n6:6), as giving the truth about God. Matthew represents him as\nquoting it twice (Matt. 9:13, 12:7); and we can well believe that he\nfound in it the real spirit of God and often referred to it. His own\nheart has taken him to the tenderest of the utterances of the Old\nTestament spoken by the most suffering of the Prophets. \"Love your\nenemies,\" he says (Matt. 5:44); yes, for then you will be the real\nchildren of God. Or he speaks of the great patience of God, how God\ngives every man all the time and all the chance that he\nneeds--sometimes, he half suggests, even a little more. Look at the\nparable of the fig tree, how the gardener pleads for the tree, begs\nand obtains another chance for it (Luke 13:8); that is like God,\nsays Jesus.\n\nIt is easy enough to talk in a vague way about the love of God. But\nthe love of God implies surely the individual; love has little\ncontent indeed if its object is merely a collective noun, an\nabstract, a concept. But that God loves individual men is very\ndifficult for us to believe in earnest. The real crux comes when the\nquestion rises in a man's own heart, \"Does God love me?\" Jesus says\nthat he does, but it is very hard to believe, except in the company\nof Jesus and under his influence. Jesus throughout asserts and\nreasserts the value of the individual to God. Look, for example, at\nthe picture he draws, when he tells of the recovery of the Lost\nSheep, and brings out the analogy. At the end of the Book of Job\n(ch. 38) the poet carries his reader back to the first sight of a\nworld new-made, and tells how God, like the real artist and\ncreator--we might not have thought of all this, but the poet\ndid--loves his work so much that he must have his friends sharing it\nwith him. He calls them; he shows them the world he has made--\"the\nbeauty, and the wonder, and the power,\" as Browning says. The poet\ntells us that what followed was that \"the morning stars sang\ntogether, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.\" The sight was so\ngood that song and shout came instinctively, almost involuntarily.\nIs it not the same picture which Jesus draws of \"joy in heaven in\nthe presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth\"?\nWe can believe in such joy when God made the world; but can we\nbelieve that there was the same joy in the presence of God yesterday\nwhen a coolie gave his heart to God? Jesus does. That is the central\nthing, it seems to me, in his teaching about God--that God cares for\nthe individual to an extent far beyond anything we could think\npossible. If we can wrestle with that central thought and assimilate\nit, or, as the old divines said, \"appropriate\" it, make it our own,\nthe rest of the Gospel is easy. But one can never manage it except\nwith the help, and in the company, of Jesus.\n\nJesus goes a step further, and believes in the possibility of a man\nloving God and God enjoying that too. If he speaks of prayer, must\nwe not think he means that God wants it as much as his child can\nwant it? How much is involved in the name \"Father,\" which Jesus so\nuniformly gives to God? Something less than the word carries in the\ncase of a human father, or more? What is the attitude of a father to\nhis child? Jesus, as we have seen, uses this illustration to bring\nout God's care for the actual needs of his children. But is that\nall? What is the innermost thing in a father's relation to his\nchildren? Surely something more than the bird's instinct to feed her\nyoung, or to gather them under her wings (Luke 13:34). Is not one of\nthe most real features of parenthood enjoyment of the child? Do not\nmen and women frankly enjoy the grappling of the little mind with\nbig things? Is there not a charm, as says one of the Christian\nFathers (Minucius Felix), about the \"half-words\" that a child uses,\nas he learns to talk and wrestles with a grown-up vocabulary? About\nthe extraordinary pictures he will draw of ships or cows--the quaint\nstories he will invent--the odd ways in which his gratitude and his\naffection express themselves? Is it a real fatherhood where such\nthings do not appeal? Jesus' language about God, his whole attitude\nto God, implies throughout that God is as real a Father as anybody,\nand it suggests that God loves his children the more because they\nare real; because they are not very clever; because they do make\nsuch queer and imperfect prayers; because, in short, they need him;\nand because they fill a place in his heart.\n\nWe have to remark how firmly Jesus believes in his Gospel of God and\nman needing each other and finding each other--his \"good news,\" as\nhe calls it. He bases all on his faith in what has been called\n\"Man's incurable religious instinct\"--that instinct in the human\nheart that must have God--and in God's response to that instinct\nwhich he himself implanted, and which is no accident found here and\nmissing there, but a genuine God-given characteristic of every man,\nwhatever his temperament or his range in emotions may be, his\nswiftness or slowness of mind. The repeated parables of seed and\nleaven--the parables of vitality--again and again suggest his faith\nin his message, his conviction that God must have man and man must\nhave God--that, as St. Augustine puts it, \"Thou hast made us for\nThyself, and our heart knows no rest till it rests in Thee\" (Conf.,\ni. 1). That is the essence of the Gospel.\n\nHow this union of the soul with God comes about, Jesus does not\ndirectly say, but there are many hints in his teaching that bear\nupon it. \"The Kingdom of Heaven cometh not with observation,\" he\nsaid (Luke 17:20). Religious truth is not reached by \"quick turns of\nself-applauding intellect,\" nor by demonstrations. It comes another\nway. The quiet familiarity with the deep true things of life, till\non a sudden they are transfigured in the light of God, and truth is\na new and glowing thing, independent of arguments and the strange\nevidence of thaumaturgy--this is the normal way; and Jesus holds by\nit. The great people, men of law and learning, want more; they want\nsomething to substantiate God's messages from without. If Jesus\ncomes to them with a word from God, can he not prove its\nauthenticity preferably with \"a sign from the sky\" (Mark 8:11)? For\nthe signs he gives, and the evidence he suggests, are\nunsatisfactory. \"And he sighed deeply in his spirit, and saith, `Why\ndoth this generation seek after a sign? Verily I say unto you, there\nshall no sign be given unto this generation.' So he left them and\nwent up into the ship again and went away.\" That scene is drawn from\nlife.\n\nBut why no sign? In the parallel passage we read: \"`The wicked\ngeneration and adulterous seeketh a sign, but there shall no sign be\ngiven it, but the sign of the prophet Jonah'; so he left them and\ndeparted\" (Matt. 16:4). The real explanation of this reference to\nJonah is given by Luke (11:32), and missed or misdeveloped in\nMatthew (Matt. 12:40). Nineveh recognized instinctively the inherent\ntruth of Jonah's message, and repented. Truth is its own\nevidence--like leaven in the meal, like seed in the field, it does\nits work, and its life reveals it. God is known that way. When the\nchief priests demand of Jesus to be told plainly what is his\nauthority (Mark 11:27), he carries the matter a stage further: Was\nthe baptism of John, he asks, from heaven, i.e. from God, or was it\nof men? Does God make His message clear, does He properly\nauthenticate Himself? And the uneasy weighing of alternatives,\nsummarized by the evangelist, leads to the answer that they could\nnot tell whence it was; and Jesus rejoins that he has nothing to say\nto them about his authority. He had taken what we might call an easy\ncase--where it was evident that God had spoken; and this was all\nthey made of it--they \"could not tell.\" It was plain, then, either\nthat these men did not recognize the obvious message of God (\"the\nword of God came upon John,\" Luke 3:9,), or that, if they did\nrecognize it, they thought it did not matter. For the insincere and\nthe trivial there is no message from God, no truth of God--how\nshould there be?\n\nIf we pursue this line of thought, we can see how, in Jesus'\nopinion, a man may be sure of God and of God's word for him. If a\nman be candid with himself, if he face the common facts of life with\nseriousness and in the doing of duty, perplexities vanish. Such a\nman is prepared for the Great Fact, by faithfulness to the little\nfacts, and then God dawns on him in them. This is put directly in\nthe Fourth Gospel (7:17), and in parable in the Synoptists. The\nleaven works, till the whole is leavened; the uneasy process is over\nand the result achieved. Or, it comes more quietly still--the seed\ngrows while the farmer sleeps and rises, night and day; the blade\nsprings up and the ear forms on the blade, the seed grows in the\near; and the end is reached and God's Kingdom is a reality. Or, the\nknowledge of God comes like a lightning flash--sudden, illuminative,\ndecisive. \"The Son reveals\" God to the simple, Jesus said (Matt.\n11:27). The Son of Man may be a disputable figure--\"Whosoever\nspeaketh a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him\"\n(Matt. 12:32)--but there is no forgiveness in this world, or in any\npossible real world where God counts at all, for the refusal of the\nspirit of Truth. So he taught, and all history shows he was\nright--the refusal of truth is fatal. \"Jesus,\" wrote Matthew Arnold,\n\"never touches theory, but bases himself invariably upon\nexperience.\" It is to experience that Jesus goes to authenticate his\nmessage. The real facts of life lead you to God, as the red sky, and\nthe south wind, teach you to foretell the weather (Matt. 16:2; Luke\n12:55).\n\n\"Eyes and ears,\" said the Greek thinker, Heraclitus, long before,\n\"are bad witnesses for such as have barbarian souls.\" The Pharisees\ndiscredited Jesus--he \"cast out devils by Beelzebub.\" Did he, he\nasked, or was it \"by the finger of God\" (Luke 11:20)? Is there no\nevidence of God in restored sanity? But the strength of his position\nlies in the good news for the poor (Matt. 11:5), for those who\nlabour and are heavy--laden (Matt. 11:28)--news of rest and\nrefreshment--as if the intuition of God, with the peace it brings,\nwere its own proof. Truth is reached less by ingenuity than by\nintensity. To the simple mind, to the true heart, to the pure soul\n(Matt. 5:8), to those whose gift is peace, Truth comes flooding\nin--new light on old fact, and new light from old fact--and God is\nevident. So Jesus judged; and here again, before we decide for or\nagainst his view, we have to make sure that we know his meaning, and\nrealize the experience by which he reached his thought. And then,\nperhaps, God will be more evident to us in our turn. \"The Kingdom of\nGod cometh not with observation\" (Luke 17:20)--it is \"within\" (Luke\n17:21); so quietly it comes, that we may not guess how in any\nparticular instance the realization of God came to a soul; but if we\nare candid and truth-loving we can know it when it has come to\nourselves, and we can recognize it when it comes to another. We can\nrecognize it in its power and peace, we can see the greatness of the\nnew knowledge in the new man it makes, in the new life, the man of\nthe great spirit, of the great action, the man of the great quiet,\nthe man who has the peace of God.\n\nWhat does the discovery of God mean? Jesus himself speaks of a man\nturning right about, being converted (Matt. 18:3); of the revision\nof all ideas, of all standards, of all values. He gives us two\nbeautiful pictures to illustrate what it means; and it repays us to\nlinger over them. First, there is the Treasure Finder. He is in the\ncountry, digging perhaps in another man's field, or idling in the\nopen; and by accident he stumbles on a buried treasure. Palestine\nwas like Belgium--a land with a long history of wars fought on its\nsoil by foreigners, Babylon or Assyria against Egypt, Ptolemies\nagainst Seleucids. It was the only available route for attack either\non Egypt by land, or on Syria or Mesopotamia or Babylon from the\nSouthern Mediterranean. In such a land when the foreign army marched\nthrough, a man had best hide his treasure and hope to find it again\nin better times, and again and again the secret of its place of\nburial died with him. The Treasure Finder had no lord of the manor\nto think of, no Treasury department. He made a great discovery, and\nmade it initially for himself, and his own--\"and for joy thereof he\ngoeth and selleth all that he hath and buyeth that field.\" We can\nsee him full of his discovery, full of eagerness and trying to hide\nhis inner joy, as he realizes every penny he can manage, and\nachieves the great transaction which gives him the field and the\ntreasure. The salient points are a sudden and great joy, an instant\nresolution, a complete sacrifice of everything, and a life\nunexpectedly and infinitely enriched. And so it is, says Jesus, with\nthe Kingdom of God (Matt. 13:44).\n\nThe Pearl Merchant is a more interesting figure. Perhaps we may\npicture him middle-aged, a trifle worn, somewhat silent, a man of\nkeen eyes. He has been in his trade for years, and he is a master at\nit. By now he has a knowledge which years give to a man in\nearnest--a knowledge more like instinct than anything acquired. A\nglance at pearls on a table--this, and this, and this he will take\nthe other, perhaps; he would look at that one--the rest? he shook\nhis head and did not look at them--he saw without looking. One day\nhe is told of a pearl--a good one. He is not surprised, for pearls\nare always good when they are offered for sale. But again a glance\nis enough. The price? Yes, it is high, but he will take the pearl,\nbut he must be allowed till evening to get the money. He goes away\nand sells his stock--the little collection of pearls in his wallet,\nrepresenting \"the experience of a life-time,\" all of them good, as\nhe very well knows; and he sells them for what he can get--at a\nloss, if it must be. Yesterday's bargainer cuts down his price for\nthis and that pearl, and he is taken up; he never expected to do so\nwell against the old dealer, and he laughs. But the merchant is\ncontent, too; he has sold all his pearls for what they would\nfetch--lost money on them, yes, and been laughed at behind his back.\nBut he owns the one pearl of great price; it is his, and he is\nsatisfied. There is no reference to joy here or exultation; but\nthere is the same instant recognition of the opportunity, the same\nresolve, the same sacrifice, and the same great acquisition (Matt.\n13:45).\n\nBoth parables begin with a reference to the Kingdom of God--to that\nRule and Kingship of God, the knowledge of which makes all the\ndifference to a man. A small grammatical difference points us beyond\nminutiae to the common experience of the two men. Each makes a great\ndiscovery, and takes action in a great and urgent resolve; and they\nare both repaid. If we are to understand the two parables in the\nsense intended by Jesus, the term \"God\" must become alive to us with\nall the life and power and love that the name implies for him. Then\nto grasp that this Father of Jesus is King--that the God of his\nthoughts, of his faith, with all the tenderness and the power\ncombined that Jesus teaches us to see in Him--rules the universe,\ncontrols our destiny and loves us--this is the experience that Jesus\ncompares with that of the Treasure Finder and the Pearl\nMerchant--worth, he suggests, everything a man has, and more than\nall.\n\nIn passing, we may notice that these stories suggest that this\nexperience may be reached in different ways. In the parables of the\nseed and the leaven he indicates a natural, quiet and unconscious\ngrowth, a story without crisis, though full of change. To the\nTreasure Finder the discovery is a surprise--how came Jesus so far\ninto the minds of men as to know what a surprise God can be, and how\njoyful a surprise? The Pearl Merchant, on the other hand, has lived\nin the region where he makes his discovery. He is the type that\nlives and moves in the atmosphere of high and true thought, that\nknows whatsoever things are pure and lovely and of good report, of\nhelp and use; he is no stranger to great and inspiring ideas. And\none day, in no strange way, by no accident, but in the ordinary\nround of life, he comes on something that transcends all he has been\nseeking, all he has known--the One thing worth all. There is little\nsurprise about it, no wild elation, but nothing is allowed to stand\nin the way of an instant entrance into the great experience--and the\ngreat experience is, Jesus says, God.\n\nTo see God, to know God--that is what Jesus means--to get away from\n\"all the fuss and trouble\" of life into the presence of God, to know\nhe is ours, to see him smile, to realize that he wants us to stay\nthere, that he is a real Father with a father's heart, that his love\nis on the same wonderful scale as every one of his attributes, and\nin reality far more intelligible than any of them. That is the\npicture Jesus draws. The sheer incredible love of God, the wonderful\nchange it means for all life--that is his teaching, and he\nencourages us, in the words of the Shorter Catechism, \"to enjoy God\nfor ever,\" as Jesus himself does. Those who learn his secret enjoy\nGod in reality. Wherever they see God with the eyes of Jesus, it is\njoy and peace. And they realize with deepening emotion that this\nalso is God's gift, as Jesus said (Luke 8:10; 12:39).\n\nJesus entirely recast mankind's common ideas of holiness. It is no\nlonger asceticism, no longer the mystical trance, no longer the\n\"fussiness,\" with which the early Christian reproached the Jew,\nwhich still haunts all the religions of taboo and merit, and even\nChristianity in some forms. Where men think of holiness as freedom\nfrom sin, the negative conception reacts on life. They begin at the\nwrong end. Solomon Schechter, the great Jewish scholar, once said of\nOxford, that \"they practice fastidiousness there, and call it\nholiness.\" Unfortunately Oxford has no monopoly of that type of\nholiness. But with Jesus holiness is a much simpler and more natural\nthing--as natural as the happy, easy life of father and child, and\nit rests on mutual faith. It is Theocentric, positive, active rather\nthan passive--not a state, but a relation and a force. Holiness with\nhim is a living relation with the living God. That is why the first\nfeature in it that strikes us is Courage. \"Be of good cheer; be not\nafraid\"; that note rings through the Gospels, and how much it means,\nand has meant, in sweet temper and cheerfulness in the very\nchequered history of the Church! His is the great voice of Hope in\nthe world. \"The Lord Jesus Christ, who is our Hope,\" Paul said (1\nTim. 1:1). Even on the Cross, according to one text, Jesus said to\nthe penitent thief: \"Courage! To-day thou shalt be with me in\nparadise\" (Luke 23:43). We may not know where or what paradise is,\nbut the rest is intelligible and splendid: \"Courage; to-day thou\nshalt be with me.\" Look at the brave hearts the Gospel has made in\nevery age; how venturesome they are! and we find the same\nventuresomeness in Jesus--for instance, as a German scholar\nemphasizes, in that episode of the daughter of Jairus. The messenger\ncomes and says she is dead. Anybody else would stop, but Jesus goes\non. That is a great piece of interpretation. Look again at his\nventuresomeness in trusting the Gospel to the twelve and to us--and\nin facing the Cross. \"It was his knowledge of God,\" says Professor\nPeabody, \"that gave him his tranquillity of mind.\"[22]\n\n\"Jesus,\" says Dr. Cairns, \"said that no one ever trusted God enough,\nand that was the source of all the sin and tragedy.\" Look at his\nemphasis again and again on faith; and the language is not that of\nguesswork; they are the words of the great Son of Fact, who based\nhimself on experience. \"Have faith in God\" (Mark 11:22). \"Be not\nafraid, only believe\" (Mark 5:36). \"All things are possible to him\nthat believeth\" (Mark 9:23). When he criticizes his disciples, it is\non the score of their want of faith--\"O ye of little faith\"--it has\nbeen taken as almost a nickname for them. In the hour of trial and\ndanger they may trust to \"the Spirit of your Father\" (Matt. 10:20).\nIt is remarkable what value he attaches to faith even of the\nslightest--\"faith as a grain of mustard seed\" (Matt. 17:90)--it is\nlittle, but it is of the seed order, a living thing of the most\nimmense vitality with the promise of growth and usefulness in it.\n\nThis brings us to the question of Prayer. Some of us, of course, do\nnot believe very much in prayer for certain philosophical reasons,\nwhich perhaps, as a matter of fact, are not quite as sound as we\nthink, because our definition of prayer is a wrong one, resting on\ninsufficient experience and insufficient reflection. What is prayer?\n\nWe shall agree that it is the act by which man definitely tries to\nrelate his soul and life to God. What Jesus then teaches on prayer\nwill illuminate what he means by God; and conversely his conception\nof God will throw new light upon the whole problem of prayer. It is\nplain history that Jesus, the great Son of Fact, believed in prayer,\ntold men to pray, and prayed himself. The Gospels and the Epistle to\nthe Hebrews lay emphasis on his practice. Early in the morning he\nwithdrew to the desert (Mark 1:35), late at night he remained on the\nhillside for prayer (Mark 6:46). Wearied by the crowds that thronged\nhim, he kept apart and continued in prayer. He prays before he\nchooses the disciples (Luke 6:12). He gives thanks to God on the\nreturn of the seventy from their missionary journey (Luke 10:21).\nPrayer is associated with the confession of Caesarea Philippi (Luke\n9:18), with the Mount of Transfiguration (Luke 9:29), with\nGethsemane (Luke 22:41). The writer to the Hebrews speaks of his\n\"strong crying and tears\" (Heb. 5:7) in prayer. The Gospels even\nmention what we should call his unanswered prayers. The prayer\nbefore the calling of the Twelve does not exclude Judas; and the cup\ndoes not pass in spite of the prayer in Gethsemane. It is as if we\nhad something to learn from the unanswered prayers of our Master.\nCertainly the content of the Gospel for us would have been poorer if\nthey had been answered in our sense of the word; and this fact,\ntaken with his own teaching on prayer, and his own submission to the\nFather's will, may help us over some of our difficulties. But Jesus\nhad no doubt or fear about prayer being answered. \"Ask, and it shall\nbe given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened\nunto you\" (Luke 11:9)--are not ambiguous statements in the least;\nand they come from one \"who based himself on experience.\" It is\nworth thinking out that the experience of Jesus lies behind his\nrecommendation of prayer. All his clear-eyed knowledge of God speaks\nin these plain sentences.\n\n\"As he was praying, they ask him, Teach us to pray, as John also\ntaught his disciples\" (Luke 11:1). It looks as if at times his\ndisciples caught him at prayer or even overheard him, and felt that\nhere was prayer that took them out beyond all they had ever known of\nprayer. There were men whom John had taught to pray; was it they who\nasked Jesus to teach them over again? There may have been some of\nthem who had learnt the Pharisee's way in prayer, and some who stuck\nto the simpler way they had been taught in childhood. In each case\nthe old ways were outgrown.\n\nWe can put together what he taught them. In the first place, the\nthing must be real and individual--the first requirement always with\nJesus. The public prayer of ostentation is out of the reckoning; it\nis nothing. Jesus chooses the quiet and solitary place for his\nintercourse with his Father. The real prayer is to the Father in\nsecret--His affair. And it will be earnest beyond what most of us\nthink. We are so familiar with Gospel and parable that we do not\ntake in the strenuousness of Jesus' way in prayer. The importunate\nwidow (Luke 18:2) and the friend at midnight (Luke 11:5) are his\ntypes of insistent and incessant earnestness. Do you, he asks, pray\nwith anything like their determination to be heard? The knock at the\ndoor and the pleading voice continue till the request is granted--in\neach case by a reluctant giver. But God is not reluctant, Jesus\nsays, though God, too, will choose his own time to answer (Luke\n18:7). It does not mean the mechanical reiteration of the heathen\n(Matt. 6:7)--not at all, that is not the business of praying; but\nthe steady earnest concentration on the purpose, with the deeper and\ndeeper clarification of the thought as we press home into God's\npresence till we get there. It was so that he prayed, we may be\nsure. It is not idly that prayer has been called \"the greatest task\nof the Christian man\"; it will not be an easy thing, but a\nstrenuous.\n\nOne part of the difficulty of prayer is recognized by Jesus over and\nover again. Men do not really quite believe that they will be\nanswered--they are \"of little faith.\" But he tells them with\nemphasis, in one form of words and another, driving it home into\nthem, that \"all things are possible with God\" (Mark 10:27)--\"have\nfaith in God\" (Mark 11:22). One can imagine how he fixes them with\nthe familiar steady gaze, pauses, and then with the full weight of\nhis personality in his words, and meaning them to give to his words\nthe full value he intends, says: \"Have faith in God.\" To see him and\nto hear him must have given that faith of itself. If the friend in\nthe house to your knowledge has the loaves, you will knock till you\nget them; and has not God the gifts for you that you need? Is he\nshort of the power to help, or is it the will to help that is\nwanting in God?\n\nOnce more the vital thing is Jesus' conception of God. Here, as\nelsewhere, we sacrifice far more than we dream by our lazy way of\nusing his words without making the effort to give them his\nconnotation. To turn again to passages already quoted, will a father\ngive his son a serpent instead of the fish for which he asks, a\nstone for bread? It is unthinkable; God--will God do less? It all\ngoes back again to the relation of father and child, to the love of\nGod; only into the thought, Jesus puts a significance which we have\nnot character or love enough to grasp. \"Your Father knoweth that ye\nhave need of these things,\" he says about the matters that weigh\nheaviest with us (Luke 12:30). Even if we suppose Luke's reference\nto the Father giving the Holy Spirit to those who ask (Luke 11:13),\nto owe something to the editor's hand--it was an editor with some\nChristian experience--it is clear that Jesus steadily implies that\nthe heavenly Father has better things than food and clothing for his\nchildren. How much of a human father is available for his children?\nThen will not the heavenly Father, Jesus suggests, give on a larger\nscale, and give Himself; in short, be available for the least\nsignificant of His own children in all His fullness and all His\nFatherhood? And even if they do not ask, because they do not know\ntheir need, will he not answer the prayers that others, who do know,\nmake for them? Jesus at all events made a practice of\nintercession--\"I prayed for thee,\" he said to Peter (Luke\n22:32)--and the writers of the New Testament feel that it is only\nnatural for Jesus, Risen, Ascended, and Glorified, to make\nintercession for us still (Rom. 8:34; Heb. 7:25).\n\nWe have again to think out what God's Fatherhood implies and carries\nwith it for Jesus.\n\n\"The recurrence of the sweet and deep name, Father, unveils the\nsecret of his being. His heart is at rest in God.\"[23] Rest in God\nis the very note of all his being, of all his teaching--the keynote\nof all prayer in his thought. \"Our Father, who art in heaven,\" our\nprayers are to begin--and perhaps they are not to go on till we\nrealize what we are saying in that great form of speech. It is\ncertain that as these words grow for us into the full stature of\ntheir meaning for Jesus, we shall understand in a more intimate way\nwhat the whole Gospel is in reality.\n\nThe writer to the Hebrews has here an interesting suggestion for us.\nUsing the symbolism of the Hebrew religion and its tabernacle, he\ncompares Jesus to the High Priest, but Jesus, he says, does not\nenter into the holiest alone. \"Having therefore, brethren, boldness\nto enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living\nway, which he hath consecrated for us ... let us draw near with a\ntrue heart in full assurance of faith\" (Heb. 10:19). In the previous\nchapter he discards the symbol and \"speaks things\"--\"Christ is not\nentered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures\nof the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence\nof God for us\" (Heb. 9:24). There he touches what has been the faith\nof the Church throughout--that in Christ we reach the presence of\nGod. Without saying so much in so many words, Jesus implies this in\nall his attitude to prayer. God is there, and God loves you, and\nloves to have you speak with him. No one has ever believed this very\nmuch outside the radius of Christ's person and influence. It is,\nwhen we give the words full weight, an essentially Christian faith,\nand it depends on our relation to Jesus Christ.\n\nJesus was quite explicit with his friends in telling them they did\nnot know what to ask, but he showed them himself what they should\nask. \"Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness\" (Matt.\n6:33), he says, and tells us to pray for the forgiveness of our sins\nand for deliverance from evil. Pray, too, \"Thy kingdom come.\" \"Pray\nye the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into\nhis harvest\" (Matt. 9:38). This is perhaps the only place where he\nasked his disciples to pray for his great work. Identification with\nGod's purposes--identification with the individual needs of those we\nlove and those we ought to love--identification with the world's sin\nand misery--these seem to be his canons of prayer for us, as for\nhimself. For both in what he teaches others and in what he does\nhimself, he makes it a definite prerequisite of all prayer that we\nsay: \"Thy will be done.\" Prayer is essentially dedication, deeper\nand fuller as we use it more and come more into the presence of God.\nObedience goes with it; \"we must cease to pray or cease to disobey,\"\none or the other. If we are half-surrendered, we are not very bright\nabout our prayers, because we do not quite believe that God will\nreally look after the things about which we are anxious. We must\nindeed go back to what Jesus said about God; we had better even\nleave off praying for a moment till we see what he says, and then\nbegin again with a clearer mind.\n\n\"Ask, and ye shall receive,\" he says; and if we have no obedience,\nor love, or faith, or any of the great things that make prayer\npossible, he suggests that we can ask for them and have them. The\nGospel gives us an illustration in the man who prayed: \"Lord, I\nbelieve; help thou mine unbelief\" (Mark 9:24). But it is plain we\nhave to understand that we are asking for great things, and it is to\nthem rather than to the obvious little things that Jesus directs our\nthoughts. Not away from the little things, for if God is a real\nFather he will wish to have his children talk them over with\nhim--\"little things please little minds,\" yes, and great minds when\nthe little minds are dear to them--but not little things all the\ntime. There is a variant to the saying about seeking first the\nKingdom of Heaven, which Clement of Alexandria preserves. Perhaps it\nis a mere slip, but God, it has been said, can use misquotations;\nand Clement's quotation, or misquotation, certainly represents the\nthought of Jesus, and it may give us a hint for our own practice:\n\"Ask,\" saith he, \"the great things, and the little things will be\nadded unto you\" (Strom. i. 158).\n\nThe object of Jesus was to induce men to base all life on God.\nShort-range thinking, like the rich fool's, may lead to our\nforgetting God; but Jesus incessantly lays the emphasis on the\nthought-out life; and that, in the long run, means a new reckoning\nwith God. That is what Jesus urges--that we should think life out,\nthat we should come face to face with God and see him for what he\nis, and accept him. He means us to live a life utterly and\nabsolutely based on God--life on God's lines of peacemaking and\nministry, the \"denial of self,\" a complete forgetfulness of self in\nsurrender to God, obedience to God, faith in God, and the acceptance\nof the sunshine of God's Fatherhood. He means us to go about things\nin God's way--forgiving our enemies, cherishing kind thoughts about\nthose who hate us or despise us or use us badly (Matt. 5:44),\npraying for them. This takes us right back into the common world,\nwhere we have to live in any case; and it is there that he means us\nto live with God--not in trance, but at work, in the family, in\nbusiness, shop, and street, doing all the little things and all the\ngreat things that God wants us to do, and glad to do them just\nbecause we are his children and he is our Father. Above all, he\nwould have us \"think like God\" (Mark 8:33); and to reach this habit\nof \"thinking like God,\" we have to live in the atmosphere of Jesus,\n\"with him\" (Mark 3:14). All this new life he made possible for us by\nbeing what he was--once again a challenge to re-explore Jesus. \"The\nway to faith in God and to love for man,\" said Dr. Cairns at Mohonk,\n\"is, as of old, to come nearer to the living Jesus.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nJESUS AND MAN\n\nWhen, on his last journey, Jesus came in sight of Jerusalem, Luke\ntells us that he wept (Luke 19:41). There is an obvious explanation\nof this in the extreme tension under which he was living--everything\nturned upon the next few days, and everything would be decided at\nJerusalem; but while he must have felt this, it cannot have been the\ncause of his weeping. Nor should we look for it altogether in the\nappeal which a great city makes to emotion.\n\n    Dull would he be of soul who could pass by\n    A sight so touching in its majesty.\n\nYet it was not the architecture that so deeply moved Jesus; the\ntemple, which was full in view, was comparatively new and foreign.\nThere is little suggestion in the Gospels that Art meant anything to\nhim, perhaps it meant little to the writers. As for the temple, he\nfound it \"a den of thieves\" (Luke 19:46); and he prophesied that it\nwould be demolished, and of all its splendid buildings, its goodly\nstones and votive offerings, which so much impressed his disciples,\nnot one stone would be left upon another stone (Mark 13:9; Luke\n21:5). But the traditions of Jerusalem wakened thoughts in him of\nthe story of his people, thoughts with a tragic colour. Jerusalem\nwas the place where prophets were killed (Luke 13:34), the scene and\ncentre, at once, of Israel's deepest emotions, highest hopes, and\nmost awful failures. \"O Jerusalem! Jerusalem!\" he had said in\nsadness as he thought of Israel's holy city, \"which killest the\nprophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I\nhave gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood\nunder her wings, and ye would not!\" (Luke 13:34).\n\nAnd now he is in sight of Jerusalem. The city and the temple\nsuddenly meet his view, as he reaches the height, and he is deeply\nmoved. Any reflective mind might well have been stirred by the\nthought of the masses of men gathered there. Nothing is so futile as\nan arithmetical numbering of people, for after a certain point\nfigures paralyse the imagination, and after that they tell the mind\nlittle or nothing. But here was actually assembled the Jewish\npeople, coming in swarms from all the world, for the feast; here was\nJudaism at its most pious; here was the pilgrim centre with all it\nmeant of aspiration and blindness, of simple folly and gross sin.\nThe sight of the city--the doomed city, as he foresaw--the thought\nof his people, their zeal for God and their alienation from God--it\nall comes over him at once, and, with a sudden rush of feeling, he\napostrophizes Jerusalem--\"If thou hadst known, even thou, at least\nin this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! But now\nthey are hid from thine eyes . . . . Thou knewest not the time of\nthy visitation!\" (Luke 19:42-44).\n\nIt is quite plain from the Gospels that crowds had always an appeal\nfor Jesus. At times he avoided them; but when they came about him,\nthey claimed him and possessed him. Over and over again, we read of\nhis pity for them--\"he saw a great multitude and was moved with\ncompassion toward them\" (Matt. 14:14)--of his thought for their\nweariness and hunger, his reflection that they might \"faint by the\nway\" on their long homeward journeys (Mark 8:3), and his solicitude\nabout their food. Whatever modern criticism makes of the story of\nhis feeding multitudes, it remains that he was markedly sensitive to\nthe idea of hunger. Jairus is reminded that his little girl will be\nthe better for food (Mark 5:43). The rich are urged to make feasts\nfor the poor, the maimed and the blind (Luke 14:12). The owner of\nthe vineyard, in the parable, pays a day's wage for an hour's work,\nwhen an hour was all the chance that the unemployed labourer could\nfind (Matt. 20:9). No sanctity could condone for the devouring of\nwidows' houses (Matt. 23:14).\n\nThe great hungry multitudes haunt his mind. The story of the rich\nyoung ruler shows this (Mark 10:17-22). Here was a man of birth and\neducation, whose face and whose speech told of a good heart and\nconscience--a man of charm, of the impulsive type that appealed to\nJesus. Jesus \"looked on him,\" we read. The words recall Plato's\npicture of Socrates looking at the jailer, how \"he looked up at him\nin his peculiar way, like a bull\"--the old man's prominent eyes were\nfixed on the fellow, glaring through the brows above them, and\nSocrates' friends saw them and remembered them when they thought of\nthe scene. As Jesus' eyes rested steadily on this young man, the\ndisciples saw in them an expression they knew--\"Jesus, looking on\nhim, loved him.\" Their talk was of eternal life; and, no doubt to\nhis surprise, Jesus asked the youth if he had kept the commandments;\nhow did he stand as regarded murder, theft, adultery? The steady\ngaze followed the youth's impetuous answer, and then came the\nrecommendation to sell all that he had and give to the poor--\"and,\nCome! Follow me!\" At this, we read in a fragment of the \"Gospel\naccording to the Hebrews\" (preserved by Origen), \"the rich man began\nto scratch his head, and it did not please him. And the Lord said to\nhim, `How sayest thou, \"The law I have kept and the prophets?\" For\nit is written in the law, \"thou shalt love thy neighbour as\nthyself\"; and behold! many who are thy brethren, sons of Abraham,\nare clad in filth and dying of hunger, and thy house is full of many\ngood things, and nothing at all goes out from it to them.' And he\nturned and said to Simon, his disciple, who was sitting beside him:\n`Simon, son of John, it is easier for a camel to go through a\nneedle's eye than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of\nHeaven.'\" We need not altogether reject this variant of the story.\n\nBut it was more than the physical needs of the multitude that\nappealed to Jesus. \"Man's Unhappiness, as I construe,\" says\nTeufelsdr\u00f6ckh in \"Sartor Resartus\", \"comes of his Greatness, it is\nbecause there is an Infinite in him, which with all his cunning he\ncannot quite bury under the Finite. Will the whole Finance Ministers\nand Upholsterers and Confectioners of modern Europe undertake, in\njoint-stock company, to make one Shoeblack happy?\" We read in a\npassage, which it is true, is largely symbolic, that one of Jesus'\nquotations from the Old Testament was that \"Man shall not live by\nbread alone\" (Luke 4:4). Hunger is a real thing--horribly real; but\nit is comparatively easy to deal with, and man has deeper needs. The\nShoeblack, according to Teufelsdr\u00f6ckh, wants \"God's infinite\nuniverse altogether to himself.\" In the simpler words of Jesus, he\nis never happy till he says, \"I will arise and go to my Father\"\n(Luke 15:18).\n\nThis craving for the Father the men of Jesus' day tried to fill with\nthe law; and, when the law failed to satisfy it, they had nothing\nfurther to suggest, except their fixed idea that \"God heareth not\nsinners\" (John 9:31). They despaired of the great masses and left\nthem alone. They did not realize, as Jesus did, that the Father also\ncraves for his children. When Jesus saw the simpler folk thus\nforsaken, the picture rose in his mind of sheep, worried by dogs or\nwolves, till they fell, worn out--sheep without a shepherd (Matt.\n9:36). Every one remembers the shepherd of the parable who sought\nthe one lost sheep until he found it, and how he brought it home on\nhis shoulders (Luke 15:5). But there is another parable, we might\nalmost say, of ninety and nine lost sheep--a parable, not developed,\nbut implied in the passage of Matthew, and it is as significant as\nthe other, for our Good Shepherd has to ask his friends to help him\nin this case. The appeal that lay in the sheer misery and\nhelplessness of masses of men was one of the foundations of the\nChristian Church. (The Good Shepherd, by the way, is a phrase from\nthe Fourth Gospel (John 10:11), but we think most often of the Good\nShepherd as carrying the sheep, and that comes from Luke, and is in\nall likelihood nearer the parable of Jesus.)\n\nIt is worth noticing that Jesus stands alone in refusing to despair\nof the greater part of mankind. Contempt was in his eyes the\nunpardonable sin (Matt. 5:22). How swift and decisive is his anger\nwith those who make others stumble! (Luke 17:2). The parable of the\nlost sheep reveals what he held to be God's feeling for the hopeless\nman; and, as we have seen, his constant aim is to lead men to \"think\nlike God.\" The lost soul matters to God. He sums up his own work in\nthe world in much the same language as he uses about the shepherd in\nthe parable: \"The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which\nis lost\" (Luke 19:10). The taunt that he was the \"friend of\npublicans and sinners\" really described what he was and wished to be\n(Luke 7:34). God was their Heavenly Father. The sight, then, of the\nmasses of his countrymen, like worried sheep, worn, scattered, lost,\nand hopeless, waked in him no shade of doubt--on the contrary, it\nwas further proof to him of the soundness of his message. Changing\nhis simile, he told his disciples that the harvest was great, but\nthe labourers few, and he asked them to pray the Lord of the harvest\nto thrust forth labourers into His harvest (Matt. 9:38). The very\nname \"Lord of the harvest\" implies faith in God's competence and\nunderstanding. From the first, he seems to have held up before his\nfollowers that this wide service was to be their work--\"Come ye\nafter me,\" he said, \"and I will make you to become fishers of men\"\n(Mark 1:17)--men, who should really \"catch men\" (Luke 5:10).\n\nLike all for whom the world has had a meaning, Jesus, as we have\nseen, accepted the necessary conditions of man's life. Human misery\nand need were widespread, but God's Fatherhood was of compass fully\nas wide, and Jesus relied upon it. \"Your heavenly Father knows,\" he\nsaid (Matt. 6:32), and \"with God all things are possible\" (Mark\n10:27). The very miseries of the oppressed and hopeless people added\ngrounds to his confidence. People who had touched bottom in sounding\nthe human spirit's capacity for misery, were for him the \"ripe\nharvest\" (Matt. 9:37), only needing to be gathered (Mark 4:29). He\nunderstood them, and he knew that he had the healing for all their\ntroubles. With full assurance of the truth of his words, he cried:\n\"Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will\ngive you rest\" (Matt. 11:28). He spoke of a rest which careless\nfamiliarity obscures for us. What understanding and sympathy he\nshows, when he adds: \"My yoke is easy, and my burden is light!\"\nMisery, poverty and hunger, he had found, taught men to see\nrealities. The hungry, at least, were not likely to mistake a stone\nfor bread--they had a ready test for it, on which they could rely.\nPoverty threw open the road to the Kingdom of God. The clearing away\nof all temporary satisfactions, of all that cloaked the soul's\ndeepest needs, prepared men for real relations with the greatest\nReality--with God. So that Jesus boldly said: \"Blessed are ye poor\";\n\"Blessed are ye that hunger now\"; \"Blessed are ye that weep now\"\n(Luke 6:20, 21); but he had no idea that they were always to weep.\nIf it was his to care for men's hunger, it was not likely that he\nwould have no comfort for their tears--\"Ye shall find rest unto your\nsouls\" (Matt. 11:29)--\"They shall be comforted\" (Matt. 5:4).\n\nIt was in large part upon the happiness which he was to bring to the\npoor that Jesus based his claim to be heard. There is little\nreasonable ground for doubt that he healed diseases. Of course we\ncannot definitely pronounce upon any individual case reported; the\ndiagnosis might be too hasty, and the trouble other than was\nsupposed; but it is well known that such healings do occur--and that\nthey occurred in Jesus' ministry, we can well believe. So when he\nwas challenged as to his credentials, he pointed to misery relieved;\nand the culmination of everything, the crowning feature of his work,\nhe found in his \"good news for the poor.\" The phrase he borrowed\nfrom Isaiah (61:1), but he made it his own--the splendid promises in\nIsaiah for \"the poor, the broken-hearted, captives, blind and\nbruised,\" appealed to him. Time has laid its hand upon his word, and\ndulled its freshness. \"Gospel\" and \"evangelical\" are no longer words\nof sheer happiness like Jesus' \"good news\"--they are technical\nterms, used in handbooks and in controversy; while for Jesus the\n\"good news for the poor\" was a new word of delight and inspiration.\n\nThe centre in all the thoughts of Jesus, as we have to remind\nourselves again and again, is God. If, as Dr. D. S. Cairns puts it,\n\"Jesus Christ is the great believer in man,\" it is--if we are\nreading him aright at all--because God believes in man. Let us\nremind ourselves often of that. \"Thou hast made us for Thyself,\"\nsaid Augustine in the famous sentence, of which we are apt to\nemphasize the latter half, \"and our heart knows no rest till it\nrests in Thee\" (Confessions, i. 1). Jesus would have us emphasize\nthe former clause as well, and believe it. The keynote of his whole\nstory is God's love; the Father is a real father--strange that one\nshould have to write the small f to get the meaning! All that Jesus\nhas taught us of God, we must bring to bear on man. For it is hard\nto believe in man--\"What is man that thou shouldest magnify him? and\nthat thou shouldest set thine heart upon him?\" quotes the author of\n\"Job\" in a great ironical passage (Job 7:17; from Psalm 8:4). The\nelements and the stars come over us, as they came over George Fox in\nthe Vale of Beavor; what is man? Can one out of fifteen hundred\nmillions of human beings living on one planet matter to God, when\nthere are so many planets and stars, and there have been so many\ngenerations? Can he matter? It all depends on how we conceive of\nGod. Here it is essential to give all the meaning to the term \"God\"\nthat Jesus gave to it, to believe in God as Jesus believed in God,\nif we are to understand the fullness of Jesus' \"good news.\" It all\ndepends on God--on whether Jesus was right about God; and after all\non Jesus himself. \"A thing of price is man,\" wrote Synesius about\n410 A.D., \"because for him Christ died.\" The two things go\ntogether--Jesus' death and Jesus' Theocentric thought of man.\n\nIt is a familiar criticism of idealists and other young hearts, that\nit is easy to idealize what one does not know. \"Omne ignotum pro\nmagnifico\" is the old epigram of Tacitus. It is not every believer\nin man, nor every \"Friend of man,\" who knows men as Jesus did. Like\nBurns and Carlyle and others who have interpreted man to us to some\npurpose, he grew up in the home of labouring people. He was a\nworking man himself, a carpenter. He must have learnt his carpentry\nexactly as every boy learns it, by hammering his fingers instead of\nthe nail, sawing his own skin instead of the wood--and not doing it\nagain. He knew what it was to have an aching back and sweat on the\nface; how hard money is to earn, and how quickly it goes. He makes\nit clear that money is a temptation to men, and a great danger; but\nhe never joins the moralists and cranks in denouncing it. He always\ntalks sense--if the expression is not too lowly to apply to him. He\nsees what can be done with money, what a tool it can be in a wise\nman's hands--how he can make friends \"by means of the mammon of\nunrighteousness\" (Luke 16:9), for example, by giving unexpectedly\ngenerous wages to men who missed their chances (Matt. 20:15), by\nfeeding Lazarus at the gate, and perhaps by having his sores\nproperly attended to (Luke 16:20). That he understood how pitifully\nthe loss of a coin may affect a household of working people, one of\nhis most beautiful parables bears witness (Luke 15:8-10). With work\nhe had no quarrel. He draws many of his parables from labour, and he\nimplies throughout that it is the natural and right thing for man.\nTo be holy in his sense, a man need not leave his work. Clement of\nAlexandria, in his famous saying about the ploughman continuing to\nplough, and knowing God as he ploughs, and the seafaring man,\nsticking to his ship and calling on the heavenly pilot as he sails,\nis in the vein of Jesus.[24] There were those whom he called to\nleave all, to distribute their wealth, and to follow him; but he\nchose them (Mark 3:13, 14); it was not his one command for all men\n(cf. Mark 5:19). But, as we shall shortly see, it is implied by his\njudgements of men that he believed in work and liked men who \"put\ntheir backs into it\"--their backs, eyes, and their brains too.\n\nPain, the constant problem of man, and perhaps more, of woman--of\nunmarried woman more especially--he never discussed as modern people\ndiscuss it. He never made light of pain any more than of poverty; he\nunderstood physical as well as moral distress. Nor did he, like some\nof his contemporaries and some modern people, exaggerate the place\nof pain in human experience. He shared pain, he sympathized with\nsuffering; and his understanding of pain, and, above all, his choice\nof pain, taught men to reconsider it and to understand it, and\naltered the attitude of the world toward it. His tenderness for the\nsuffering of others taught mankind a new sympathy, and the\n\"nosokomeion\", the hospital for the sick, was one of the first of\nChristian institutions to rise, when persecution stopped and\nChristians could build. \"And the blind and the lame came to him in\nthe temple, and he healed them,\" says Matthew (21:14) in a memorable\nphrase. I have heard it suggested that it was irregular for them to\ncome into the temple courts; but they gravitated naturally to Jesus.\n\nThe mystic is never quite at leisure for other people's feelings and\nsufferings; he is essentially an individualist; he must have his own\nintercourse with God, and other people's affairs are apt to be an\ninterruption, an impertinence. \"I have not been thinking of the\ncommunity; I have been thinking of Christ,\" said a Bengali to me,\nwho was wavering between the Brahmo Samaj and Christianity. The\nblessed Angela of Foligno was rather glad to be relieved of her\nhusband and children, who died and left her leisure to enjoy the\nlove of God. All this is quite unlike the real spirit of the\nhistorical Jesus. \"Himself took our infirmities and bare our\nsicknesses,\" was a phrase of Isaiah that came instinctively to the\nminds of his followers (Matt. 8:17, roughly after Isaiah 53:4).\nPerhaps when we begin to understand what is meant by the\nIncarnation, we may find that omnipotence has a great deal more to\ndo than we have supposed with natural sympathy and the genius for\nentering into the sorrows and sufferings of other people.\n\nOne side of the work of Jesus must never be forgotten. His attitude\nto woman has altered her position in the world. No one can study\nsociety in classical antiquity or in non-Christian lands with any\nintimacy and not realize this. Widowhood in Hinduism, marriage among\nMuslims--they are proverbs for the misery of women. Even the Jew\nstill prays: \"Blessed art thou, O Lord our God! King of the\nUniverse, who hast not made me a woman.\" The Jewish woman has to be\ngrateful to God, because He \"hath made me according to His will\"--a\nthanksgiving with a different note, as the modern Jewess, Amy Levy,\nemphasized in her brilliant novel, where her heroine, very like\nherself, corrected her prayerbook to make it more explicit \"cursed\nart Thou, O Lord our God! Who hast made me a woman.\" Paul must have\nknown these Jewish prayers, for he emphasized that in Christ there\nis neither male nor female (Gal. 3:28). Paul had his views--the\nfamiliar old ways of Tarsus inspired them[25]--as to woman's dress\nand deportment, especially the veil; but he struck the real\nChristian note here, and laid stress on the fact of what Jesus had\ndone and is doing for women. There is no reference made by Jesus to\nwoman that is not respectful and sympathetic; he never warns men\nagainst women. Even the most degraded women find in him an amazing\nsympathy; for he has the secret of being pure and kind at the same\ntime--his purity has not to be protected; it is itself a purifying\nforce. He draws some of his most delightful parables from woman's\nwork, as we have seen. It is recorded how, when he spoke of the\ncoming disaster of Jerusalem, he paused to pity poor pregnant women\nand mothers with little babies in those bad times (Luke 21:23; Matt.\n24:19). Critics have remarked on the place of woman in Luke's\nGospel, and some have played with fancies as to the feminine sources\nwhence he drew his knowledge--did the women who ministered to Jesus,\nJoanna, for instance, the wife of Chuza (Luke 8:3), tell him these\nilluminative stories of the Master? In any case Jesus' new attitude\nto woman is in the record; and it has so reshaped the thought of\nmankind, and made it so hard to imagine anything else, that we do\nnot readily grasp what a revolution he made--here as always by\nreferring men's thoughts back to the standard of God's thoughts, and\nsupporting what he taught by what he was.\n\nMark has given us one of our most familiar pictures of Jesus sitting\nwith a little child on his knee and \"in the crook of his arm.\" (The\nGreek participle which gives this in Mark 9:36 and 10:16 is worth\nremembering--it is vivid enough.) Mothers brought their children to\nhim, \"that he should put his hands on them and pray\" (Matt. 19:13).\nMatthew (21:15) says that children took part in the Triumphal Entry;\nand Jesus, clear as he was how little the Hosannas of the grown\npeople meant, seems to have enjoyed the children's part in the\nstrange scene. Classical literature, and Christian literature of\nthose ages, offer no parallel to his interest in children. The\nbeautiful words, \"suffer little children to come unto me,\" are his,\nand they are characteristic of him (Matt. 19:14); and he speaks of\nGod's interest in children (Matt. 18:14)--once more a reference of\neverything to God to get it in its true perspective. How Jesus likes\nchildren!--for their simplicity (Luke 18:17), their intuition, their\nteachableness, we say. But was it not, perhaps, for far simpler and\nmore natural reasons just because they were children, and little,\nand delightful? We forget his little brothers and sisters, or we\neliminate them for theological purposes.\n\nJesus lays quite an unexpected emphasis on sheer tenderness--on\nkindness to neighbour and stranger, the instinctive humanity that\nhelps men, if it be only by the swift offer of a cup of cold water\n(Matt. 10:42). The Good Samaritan came as a surprise to some of his\nhearers (Luke 10:30). \"It is our religion,\" said a Hindu to a\nmissionary, to explain why he and other Hindus did not help to\nrescue a fainting man from the railway tracks, nor even offer water\nto restore him, when the missionary had hauled him on to the\nplatform unaided. Not so the religion of Jesus--\"bear ye one\nanother's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ,\" wrote Paul\n(Gal. 6:2)--\"pursue hospitality\" (Rom. 12:13; the very word runs\nthrough the Epistles of the New Testament). And, as we shall see in\na later chapter, the Last Judgement itself turns on whether a man\nhas kindly instincts or not. Matthew quotes (12:20) to describe\nJesus' own tenderness the impressive phrase of Isaiah (42:3), \"A\nbruised reed shall he not break.\"\n\nIf it is urged that such things are natural to man--\"do not even the\npublicans the same?\" (Matt. 5:46)--Jesus carries the matter a long\nway further. \"Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him\ntwain\" (Matt. 5:41). The man who would use such compulsion would be\nthe alien soldier, the hireling of Herod or of Rome; and who would\nwish to cart him and his goods even one mile? \"Go two miles,\" says\nJesus--or, if the Syriac translation preserves the right reading,\n\"Go two _extra_.\" Why? Well, the soldier is a man after all, and by\nsuch unsolicited kindness you may make a friend even of a government\nofficial--not always an easy thing to do--at any rate you can help\nhim; God helps him; \"be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father\nwhich is in heaven is perfect\" (Matt. 5:48). Ordinary kindness and\ntenderness could hardly be urged beyond that point; and yet Jesus\ngoes further still. He would have us _pray_ for those that\ndespitefully use us (Matt. 5:44)--and in no Pharisaic way, but with\nthe same instinctive love and friendliness that he always used\nhimself. \"Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do\"\n(Luke 23:34). There are religions which inculcate the tolerance of\nwrong aiming at equanimity of mind or acquisition of merit. But\nJesus implies on the contrary that in all this also the Christian\n_denies_ himself, does not seek even in this way to save his own\nsoul, but forgets all about it in the service of others, though he\nfinds by and by, with a start, that he has saved it far more\neffectually than he could have expected (Mark 8:35; Matt. 25:37,\n40). The emphasis falls on our duty of kindness and tenderness to\nall men and women, because we and they are alike God's children.\n\nWith his emphasis on tenderness we may group his teaching on\nforgiveness. He makes the forgiving spirit an antecedent of\nprayer--\"when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against\nany; that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your\ntrespasses\" (Mark 11:25). \"If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and\nthere rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee; leave\nthere thy gift before the altar, and go thy way, first be reconciled\nto thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift\" (Matt. 5:23, 24).\nThe parable of the king and his debtor (Matt. 18:23), painfully true\nto human nature, brings out the whole matter of our forgiveness of\none another into the light; we are shown it from God's outlook. The\nteaching as ever is Theocentric. To Peter, Jesus says that a man\nshould be prepared to forgive his brother to seventy times seven--if\nanybody can keep count so far (Matt. 18:21-35). He sees how quarrels\ninjure life, and alienate a man from God. Hence comes the famous\nsaying: \"Resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy\nright cheek, turn to him the other also\" (Matt. 5:39). He would have\nmen even avoid criticism of one another (Matt. 7:1-5). Epigrams are\nseductive, and there is a fascination in the dissection of\ncharacter; but there is always a danger that a clever\ncharacterization, a witty label, may conclude the matter, that a\npossible friendship may be lost through the very ingenuity with\nwhich the man has been labelled, who might have been a friend. It is\nnot a small matter in Jesus' eyes, he puts his view very strongly\n(Matt. 5:22); and, as we must always remember, he bases himself on\nfact. We may lose a great deal more than we think by letting our\nlabels stand between us and his words, by our habit of calling them\nparadoxes and letting them go at that.\n\nIt is worth while to look at the type of character that he admires.\nModern painters have often pictured Jesus as something of a dreamer,\na longhaired, sleepy, abstract kind of person. What a contrast we\nfind in the energy of the real Jesus--in the straight and powerful\nlanguage which he uses to men, in the sweep and range of his mind,\nin the profundity of his insight, the drive and compulsiveness of\nhis thinking, in the venturesomeness of his actions. How many of the\nparables turn on energy? The real trouble with men, he seems to say,\nis again and again sheer slackness; they will not put their minds to\nthe thing before them, whether it be thought or action. Thus, for\ninstance, the parable of the talents turns on energetic thinking and\ndecisive action; and these are the things that Jesus admires--in the\nwidow who will have justice (Luke 18:21)--in the virgins who thought\nahead and brought extra oil (Matt. 25:4)--in the vigorous man who\nfound the treasure and made sure of it (Matt. 13:44)--in the friend\nat midnight, who hammered, hammered, hammered, till he got his\nloaves (Luke 11:8)--in the \"violent,\" who \"take the Kingdom of\nHeaven by force\" (Matt. 11:12; Luke 16:16)--in the man who will hack\noff his hand to enter into life (Mark 9:43). Even the bad steward he\ncommends, because he definitely put his mind on his situation (Luke\n16:8). As we shall see later on, indecision is one of the things\nthat in his judgement will keep a man outside the Kingdom of God,\nthat make him unfit for it. The matter deserves more study than we\ncommonly give it. You must have a righteousness, he says, which\nexceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees (Matt. 5:20)--and the\nPharisees were professionals in righteousness. His tests of\ndiscipleship illumine his ideal of character--Theocentric\nthinking--negation of self--the thought-out life. He will have his\ndisciples count the cost, reckon their forces, calculate quietly the\nrisks before them--right up to the cross (Luke 14:27-33)--like John\nBunyan in Bedford Gaol, where he thought things out to the pillory\nand thence to the gallows, so that, if it came to the gallows, he\nshould be ready, as he says, to leap off the ladder blindfold into\neternity. That is the energy of mind that Jesus asks of men, that he\nadmires in men.\n\nOn the other side, he is always against the life of drift, the\nhalf-thought-out life. There they were, he says, in the days of\nNoah, eating and drinking, marrying, dreaming--and the floods came\nand destroyed them (Luke 17:27). So ran the old familiar story, and,\nsays Jesus, it is always true; men will drift and dream for ever,\nheedless of fact, heedless of God--and then ruin, life gone, the\nsoul lost, the Son of Man come, and \"you yourselves thrust out\"\n(Luke 13:28, with Matt. 25:10-13). It is quite striking with what a\nvariety of impressive pictures Jesus drives home his lesson. There\nis the person who everlastingly says and does not do (Matt.\n23:3)--who promises to work and does not work (Matt. 21:28)--who\nreceives a new idea with enthusiasm, but has not depth enough of\nnature for it to root itself (Mark 4:6)--who builds on sand, the\n\"Mr. Anything\" of Bunyan's allegory; nor these alone, for Jesus is\nas plain on the unpunctual (Luke 13:25), the easy-going (Luke\n12:47), the sort that compromises, that tries to serve God and\nMammon (Matt. 6:24)--all the practical half-and-half people that\ntake their bills quickly and write fifty, that offer God and man\nabout half what they owe them of thought and character and action,\nand bid others do the same, and count themselves men of the world\nfor their acuteness (Luke 16:1-8). And to do them justice, Jesus\ncommends them; they have taken the exact measure of things \"in their\ngeneration.\" Their mistake lies in their equation of the fugitive\nand the eternal; and it is the final and fatal mistake according to\nJesus, and a very common one--forgetfulness of God in fact (Luke\n12:20), a mistake that comes from _not_ thinking things out. Jesus\nwill have men think everything out to the very end. \"He never says:\nCome unto me, all ye who are too lazy to think for yourselves\" (H.\nS. Coffin). It is energy of mind that he calls for--either with me\nor against me. He does not recognize neutrals in his war--\"he that\nis not against us is for us\" (Luke 9:50)--\"he that is not with me is\nagainst me\" (Matt. 12:30).\n\nWhere does a man's _Will_ point him? That is the question. \"Out of\nthe abundance, the overflow, of the heart, the mouth speaketh\"\n(Matt. 12:34). What is it that a man _wills_, purity or impurity\n(Matt. 5:28)? It is the inner energy that makes a man; what he says\nand does is an overflow from what is within--an overflow, it is\ntrue, with a reaction. It is what a man _chooses_, and what he\n_wills_, that Jesus always emphasizes; \"God knoweth your hearts\"\n(Luke 16:15). Very well then; does a man choose God? That is the\nvital issue. Does he choose God without reserve, and in a way that\nGod, knowing his heart, will call a whole-hearted choice?\n\nSt. Augustine, in a very interesting passage (\"Confessions\", viii.\n9, 21), remarks upon the fact that, when the mind commands the body,\nobedience is instantaneous, but that when it commands itself, it\nmeets with resistance. \"The mind commands that the mind shall\nwill--it is one and the same mind, and it does not obey.\" He finds\nthe reason; the mind does not absolutely and entirely (\"ex toto\")\nwill the thing, and so it does not absolutely and entirely command\nit. \"There is nothing strange after all in this,\" he says, \"partly\nto will, partly not to will; but it is a weakness of the mind that\nit does not arise in its entirety, uplifted by truth, because it is\nborne down by habit. Thus there are two Wills, because one of them\nis not complete.\"\n\nThe same thought is to be traced in the teaching of Jesus. It is\nimplied in what he says about prayer. There is a want of faith, a\nhalf-heartedness about men's prayers; they pray as Augustine says he\nhimself did: \"Give me chastity and continence, but not now\" (Conf,\nviii. 7, 17). That is not what Jesus means by prayer--the utterance\nof the half-Will. Nor is it this sort of surrender to God that Jesus\ncalls for--no, the question is, how thoroughly is a man going to put\nhimself into God's hands? Does he mean to be God's up to the cross\nand beyond? Does he enlist absolutely on God's terms without a\nbargain with God, prepared to accept God's will, whatever it is,\nwhether it squares with his liking or not? (cf. Luke 17:7-10). Are\nhis own desires finally out of the reckoning? Does he, in fact,\ndeny--negate--himself (Mark 8:34)? Jesus calls for disciples, with\nquestions so penetrating on his lips. What a demand to make of men!\nWhat faith, too, in men it shows, that he can ask all this with no\nhint of diminished seriousness!\n\nJesus is the great believer in men, as we saw in the choice of his\ntwelve. To that group of disciples he trusts the supremest task men\never had assigned to them. Not many wise, not many mighty, Paul\nfound at Corinth (1 Cor. 1:26); and it has always been so. Is it not\nstill the gist of the Gospel that Jesus believes in the writer and\nthe reader of these lines--trusts them with the propagation of God's\nKingdom, incredible commission? Jesus was always at leisure for\nindividuals; this was the natural outcome of his faith in men. What\nelse is the meaning of his readiness to spend himself in giving the\nutmost spiritual truth--no easy task, as experience shows us--even\nto a solitary listener? If we accept what he tells us of God, we can\nbelieve that the individual is worth all that Jesus did and does for\nhim, but hardly otherwise. His gift of discovering interest in\nuninteresting people, says Phillips Brooks, was an intellectual\nhabit that he gave to his disciples. We think too much \"like men\";\nhe would have us \"think like God,\" and think better of odd units and\nitems of humanity than statesmen and statisticians are apt to do. It\nhas been pointed out lately how fierce he is about the man who puts\na stumbling-block in the way of even \"a little one\"--\"better for him\nthat a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into\nthe sea\"; no mere phrase--for when he draws a picture, he sees it;\nhe sees this scene, and \"better so--for him too!\" is his comment\n(Mark 9:42). There was, we may remember, a view current in antiquity\nthat when a man was drowned, his soul perished with his body, though\nI do not know if the Jews held this opinion. It is not likely that\nJesus did. What is God's mind, God's conduct, toward those people\nwhom men think they can afford to despise? \"Be ye therefore perfect,\neven as your Father in heaven is perfect\" (Matt. 5:48). And to whom\ndid he say this? To the most ordinary people--to Peter and James and\nJohn; for all sorts of people he held up this impossible ideal of a\nperfection like God's. What a faith in man it implies! \"All things\nare possible to him that believes\" (Mark 9:9.3). Why should not\n_you_ believe? he says.\n\nHis faith in the soul's possibilities is boundless, and in marked\ncontrast with what men think of themselves. A man, for instance,\nwill say that he has done his best; but nine times out of ten it\nmeans mere fatigue; he is not going to trouble to do any more. How\n_can_ a man know that he has done his best? The Gospel of Jesus\ncomes with its message of the grace of God, and the power of God, to\npeople who are stupid and middle-aged, who are absolutely settled in\nlife, who are conscious of their limitations, who know they are\nliving in a rut and propose to stick to it for the remainder of\ntheir days; and Jesus tells them in effect that he means to give\nthem a new life altogether, that he means to have from them service,\nperfectly incredible to them. No man, he suggests, need be so inured\nto the stupidity of middle age but there may be a miraculous change\nin him. A great many people need re-conversion at forty, however\nChristian they have been before. This belief of his in the\nindividual man and in the worth of the individual is the very\ncharter of democracy. The original writings of William Tyndale, who\nfirst translated the New Testament from Greek into English, contain\nthe essential ideas of democracy already in 1526--the outcome of\nfamiliar study of the Gospel. Jesus himself said of Herod: \"Go and\ntell that fox\" (Luke 13:32). Herod was a king, but he was not above\ncriticism; and Christians have not failed at times to make the\ncriticism of the great that truth requires.\n\nJesus had no illusions about men; he sees the weak spots; he\nrecognizes the \"whited sepulchre\" (Matt. 23:27). He is astonished at\nthe unbelief of men and women (Mark 6:6). He does not understand why\nthey cannot think (Mark 8:21), but he notes how they see and yet do\nnot see, hear and do not understand (Matt. 13:13). He is impressed\nby their falsity, even in religion (Matt. 15:8). He knows perfectly\nwell the evil of which the human heart is capable (Matt. 15:19). A\nman who steadily looks forward to being crucified by the people he\nis trying to help is hardly one of the absent-minded enthusiasts,\nmis-called idealists. There never was, we feel, one who so\nthoroughly looked through his friends, who loved them so much and\nyet without a shade of illusion. This brings us to the subject of\nthe next chapter.\n\nIn the meantime let us recall what he makes of the wasted life. \"In\nthinking of the case,\" said Seeley. \"they had forgotten the\nwoman\"--a common occurrence with those who deal in \"cases.\" It was\nonce severely said of the Head of a College that \"if he would leave\noff caring for his students' souls and care for them, he would do\nbetter.\" Jesus does not forget the man in caring for his soul--he\nlikes him. He is \"the friend of publicans and sinners\" (Luke 7:34);\nhe eats and drinks with them (Mark 2:14). Let us remember again that\nthese were taunts and were meant to sting; they were not\nconventional phrases. See how he can enter into the life of a poor\ncreature. There is the wretched little publican, Zacchaeus (Luke\n19:1-10)--a squalid little figure of a man, whom people despised. He\nwas used to contempt--it was the portion of the tax-collector\nenlisted in Roman service against his own people. Jesus comes and\nsees him up in the tree; he instantly realizes what is happening and\ninvites himself to the house of Zacchaeus as a guest; something\npasses between them without spoken word. The little man slides down\nthe tree--not a proceeding that makes for dignity; and then, with\nall his inches, he stands up before the whole town, that knew him so\nwell, in a new moral grandeur that adds cubits to his stature. \"Half\nmy goods,\" he says, \"I give to the poor. If I have taken anything\nfrom any man by false accusation, he shall have it back fourfold.\"\nThat man belonged to the despised classes. Jesus came into his life;\nthe man became a new man, a pioneer of Christian generosity. Again,\nthere is the woman with the alabaster box, the mere possession of\nwhich stamped her for what she was. It was simply a case of the\nwasted life. I have long wondered if she meant to give him only some\nof the ointment. A little of it would have been a great gift. But\nperhaps the lid of the box jammed, and she realized in a moment that\nit was to be all or nothing--she drew off her sandal and smashed the\nbox to pieces. However she broke it, and whatever her reasons,\nMark's words mean that it was thoroughly and finally shivered (Mark\n14:3). Something had happened which made this woman the pioneer of\nthe Christian habit of giving all for Jesus. The disciples said they\nhad done so (Matt. 19:27), but they were looking for thrones in\nexchange (Mark 10:37); she was not. The thief on the cross himself\nbecomes a pioneer for mankind in the Christian way of prayer.\n\"Jesus, remember me!\" he says (Luke 23:42). How is it that Jesus\ncomes into the wasted life and makes it new? \"One loving heart sets\nanother on fire.\"\n\nWith all his wide outlook on mankind, his great purpose to capture\nall men, Jesus is remarkable for his omission to devise machinery or\norganization for the accomplishment of his ends. The tares are left\nto grow with the wheat (Matt. 13:30)--as if Jesus trusted the wheat\na good deal more than we do. Alive as he is to the evil in human\nnature, he never tries to scare men from it, and he seems to have\nbeen very little afraid of it. He believed in the power of\ngood--because, after all, God is \"Lord of the Harvest\" (Matt. 9:38).\nHe invents no special methods--a loving heart will hit the method\nneeded in the particular case; the Holy Spirit will teach this as\nwell as other things (Matt. 10:19, 20). How far he even organized\nhis church, or left it to organize itself if it so wished, students\nmay discuss. Would he have trusted even the best organized church as\nsuch? Does not what we mean by the Incarnation imply putting\neverything in the long run on the individual, quickened into new\nlife by a new relation with God and taught a new love of men by\nJesus himself? The heart of friendship and the heart of the\nIncarnation are in essence the same thing--giving oneself in\nfrankness and love to him who will accept, and by them winning him\nwho refuses. Has not this been the secret of the spread of the\nGospel? The simplicity of the whole thing, and the power of it, grow\nupon us as we study them. But after all, as Tertullian said,\nsimplicity and power are the constant marks of God's\nwork--simplicity in method, power in effect (\"de Baptismo\", 2).\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nJESUS' TEACHING UPON SIN\n\n\"For clear-thinking ethical natures,\" writes a modern scholar, \"for\nnatures such as those of Jesus and St. Paul, it is a downright\nnecessity to separate heaven and hell as distinctly as possible. It\nis only ethically worthless speculations that have always tried to\nminimize this distinction. Carlyle is an instance in our times of\nhow men even to-day once more enthusiastically welcome the\nconception of hell as soon as the distinction between good and bad\nbecomes all-important to them.\"[26]\n\nHere in strong terms a challenge is put to many of our current\nideas. Is not this to revert to an outworn view of the Christian\nreligion--to reassert its dark side, better forgotten, all the\nhorrible emphasis on sin and its consequences introduced into the\nsunny teaching of Jesus by Paul of Tarsus, and alien to it? Before\nwe answer this question in any direct way, it is worth while to\nrealize for how many of the real thinkers, and the great teachers of\nmankind, this distinction between good and evil has been\nfundamental. They have not invented it as a theory on which to base\nreligion, but they have found it in human life, one and all of them.\nIf Walt Whitman or Swami Vivekananda overlook the difference between\nvirtue and vice, and do honour to the courtesan, it simply means\nthat they are bad thinkers, bad observers. The deeper minds see more\nclearly and escape the confusion into which the slight and quick,\nthe sentimental, hurl themselves. Above all, when God in any degree\ngrows real to a man, when a man seriously gives himself not to some\nmere vague \"contemplation\" of God but to the earnest study of God's\nways in human affairs, and of God's laws and their working, the\ngreat contrasts in men's responses to God's rule become luminous.\n\nWhen God matters to a man, all life shows the result. Good and bad,\nright and wrong stand out clear as the contrast between light and\ndarkness--they cannot be mistaken, and they matter--and matter for\never. They are no concern of a moment. Action makes character; and,\nuntil the action is undone again, the effect on character is not\nundone. Right and wrong are of eternal significance now in virtue of\nthe reality of God.\n\nGautama Buddha, for instance, and the greater Hindu thinkers, in\ntheir doctrine of Karma, have taught a significance inherent in good\nand evil, which we can only not call boundless. Buddha did this\nwithout any great consciousness of God; and many Indian thinkers\nhave so emphasized the doctrine that it has taken all the stress\nlaid on \"Bhakti\" by Ramanuja and others to restore to life a\nperspective or a balance, however it should be described, that will\nsave men from utter despair. Nor is it Eastern thinkers only who\nhave taught men the reality of heaven and hell. The poetry of\nAeschylus is full of his great realization of the nexus between act\nand outcome. With all the humour and charm there is in Plato, we\ncannot escape his tremendous teaching on the age-long consequences\nof good and evil in a cosmos ordered by God. Carlyle, in our own\ndays, realized the same thing--he learnt it no doubt from his\nmother; and learnt it again in London. In Mrs. Austen's\ndrawing-room, with \"Sidney Smith guffawing,\" and \"other people\nprating, jargoning, to me through these thin cobwebs Death and\nEternity sate glaring.\" \"How will this look in the Universe,\" he\nasks, \"and before the Creator of Man?\" When someone in his old age\nchallenged him with the question, \"Who will be judge?\"--(it is\ncurious how every sapient inanity strikes, as on an original idea,\non the notion that opinions differ, and therefore--apparently, if\ntheir thought has any consequence--are as good one as another)--Who\nwill be judge? \"Hell fire will be judge,\" said Carlyle, \"God\nAlmighty will be the judge now and always.\" There is a gulf between\ngood and evil, and each is inexorably fertile of consequence. There\nis no escaping the issue of moral choice. That is the conclusion of\nmen who have handled human experience in a serious spirit. As\nphysical laws are deducible from the reactions of matter and force,\nand are found to be uniform and inevitable, fundamental in the\nnature of matter and force, so clear-thinking men in the course of\nages have deduced moral laws from their observation of human nature,\nlaws as uniform, inevitable and fundamental. In neither case has it\nbeen that men invented or imagined the laws; in both cases it has\nbeen genuine discovery of what was already existent and operative,\nand often the discovery has involved surprise.\n\nIf Jesus had failed to see laws so fundamental, which other teachers\nof mankind have recognized, it is hardly likely that his teaching\nwould have survived or influenced men as it has done. Mankind can\ndispense with a teacher who misses patent facts, whatever his charm.\nBut there never was any doubt that Jesus was alive to the difference\nbetween right and wrong. His critics saw this, but they held that he\nconfused moral issues, and that his distinctions in the ethical\nsphere were badly drawn.\n\nJesus could not have ignored the problem of sin and forgiveness,\neven if he had wished to ignore it. To this the thought of mankind\nhad been gravitating, and in Jewish and in Greek thought, conduct\nwas more and more the centre of everything. For the Stoics morals\nwere the dominant part of philosophy; but for our present purpose we\nneed not go outside the literature of the New Testament. Sin was the\nkeynote of the preaching of John the Baptist. It is customary to\nconnect the mission of Jesus with that of John, and to find in the\nBaptist's preaching either the announcement of his Successor (as is\nsaid with most emphasis in the Fourth Gospel), or (as some now say)\nthe impulse which drove Jesus of Nazareth into his public ministry.\nWhatever may be the historical connexion between them, it is as\nimportant for us at least to realize the broad gulf that separates\nthem. They meet, it is true; both use the phrase \"Kingdom of God,\"\nboth preach repentance in view of the coming of the Kingdom; and we\nare apt to assume they mean the same thing; but Jesus took some\npains to make it clear, though in the gentlest and most sympathetic\nway, that they did not.\n\nOn the famous occasion, when John the Baptist sent two of his\ndisciples to Jesus with his striking message: \"Art thou he that\nshould come? or look we for another?\" (Luke 7:19-35; Matt. 11:1-19),\nJesus, when the messengers were gone, spoke to the people about the\nBaptist. \"What went ye out into the wilderness for to see? A reed\nshaken with the wind? A man clothed in soft raiment? A prophet? Yea,\nI say unto you, and much more than a prophet. Among those that are\nborn of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist,\nbut he that is least in the Kingdom of God is greater than he.\" I am\nnot sure which is the right translation, whether it is \"he that is\nless, least, or little,\" and I do not propose to discuss it. The\njudgement is remarkable enough in any case, and the words of Jesus,\nas we have seen, have a close relation to real fact as he saw it.\nWhy does he speak in this way? Our answer to this question, if we\ncan answer it, will help us forward to the larger problem before us.\nBut, for this, we shall have to study John with some care.\n\nThere is a growing agreement among scholars that there is some\nconfusion in our data as to John the Baptist. There are gaps in the\nrecord--for instance, how and why did the school of John survive as\nit did (Acts 18:25, 19:1-7)? And again there are, in the judgement\nof some, developments of the story. The Gospel, with varying degrees\nof explicitness, and St. Paul by inference (Acts 19:4) tell us that\nJohn pointed to \"him which should come after him.\" Christians, at\nany rate, after the Resurrection, had no doubt that this was Jesus.\nWhether John was as definite as the narratives now represent him to\nhave been, has been doubted in view of his message to Jesus. But\nthat is not our present subject. We are concerned less with John as\nprecursor than as teacher and thinker.\n\nEven if our data are defective, still enough is given us to let us\nsee a very striking and commanding figure. We have a picture of him,\nhis dress, his diet, his style of speech, his method of action--in\nevery way he is a signal and arresting man. The son of a priest, he\nis an ascetic, who lives in the wilderness, dresses like a peasant,\nand eats the meanest and most meagre of food--a man of the desert\nand of solitude. And the whole life reacts on him and we can see\nhim, lean and worn, though still a young man, a keen, rather\nexcitable spirit--in every feature the marks of revolt against a\ncivilization which he views as an apostasy. Luke, using a phrase\nfrom the Old Testament, says, \"The word of God came upon John in the\nwilderness\" (Luke 3:2). Luke leans to Old Testament phrase, and here\nis one that hits off the man to the very life. Jesus himself\nconfirms Luke's judgement (Mark 11:29-33). The Word of the Lord has\ncome on this ascetic figure, and he goes to the people with the\nmessage; he draws their attention and they crowd out to see him. He\nmakes a great sensation. He is not like other men--for Jesus quotes\ntheir remark that \"he had a devil\" (Luke 7:33)--a rough and ready\nway of explaining unlikeness to the average man. When he sees his\ncongregation his words are not conciliatory; he addresses them as a\n\"generation of vipers\" (Luke 3:7); and his text is the \"wrath to\ncome.\"\n\nJesus asks whether they went out to see a reed shaken by the wind,\nor someone dressed like a courtier--the last things to which anyone\nwould compare John. There was nothing supple about him, as Herod\nfound, and Herodias (Mark 6:17-20); he was not shaken by the wind;\nthere was no trimming of his sails. The austerity of his life and\nthe austerity of his spirit go together, and he preached in a tone\nand a language that scorched. He preached righteousness, social\nrighteousness, and he did it in a great way. He brought back the\nminds of his people, like Amos and others, to God's conceptions and\naway from their own. Crowds of people went out to hear him (Mark\n1:5). And he made a deep impression on many whose lives needed\namendment (Matt. 21:26, 32; Luke 20:6).[27] We have the substance of\nwhat he said in the third chapter of St. Luke; how he told the\ntax-collectors to be honest and not make things worse than they need\nbe; the soldiers to do violence to no man and accuse no man falsely,\nand to be content with their wages; and to ordinary people he\npreached humanity: \"He that hath two coats, let him impart to him\nthat hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise.\" It may\nbe remarked of John, and it is true also of Jesus, that neither\nattacked the absent nor inveighed against economic conditions, as\nsome modern preachers do with, let us say, capitalists and the\nmorality of other nations. Neither says a word against the Roman\nEmpire. Slavery is not condemned explicitly even by Jesus, though he\ngave the dynamic that abolished it. The practical guidance that John\ngave, he gave in response to men's inquiries.\n\nLike an Old Testament prophet (cf. Amos 3:2), John tore to tatters\nany plea that could be offered that his listeners were God's chosen\npeople, the children of Abraham. Does God want children of\nAbraham?--John pointed to the stones on the ground, and said, if God\nwanted, he could make children of Abraham out of them; a word and he\ncould have as many children of Abraham as he wished. It was\nsomething else that God sought.\n\n\"John,\" writes the historian Josephus a generation later, \"was a\ngood man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue both in justice\ntoward one another and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism;\nfor so baptism would be acceptable to God if they made use of it,\nnot to excuse certain sins, but for the purification of the body,\nprovided that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by\nrighteousness.\"[28] This interpretation of John's baptism makes it\nlook very like the baptisms and other purificatory rites of the\nheathen. The Gospels attribute to John a message, richer and more\npowerful, but essentially the same; and the criticism of Jesus\nconfirms the account. The great note in his preaching is judgement;\nthe Kingdom of God is coming, and it begins with judgement. Again,\nit is like Amos--\"The axe is at the root of the tree,\" \"His fan is\nin His hand.\" And as men listened to the man and looked at him--his\nintense belief in his message, backed up by a stern self-discipline,\na whole life inspired, infused by conviction--they believed this\nmessage of the axe, the fan, and the fire. They asked and as we have\nseen received his guidance on the conduct of life; they accepted his\nbaptism, and set about the amending of character (Matt. 21:32).\n\nJesus makes it quite clear that he held John to be an entirely\nexceptional man, and that he had no doubt that John's teaching was\nfrom God (Matt. 21:32; Luke 7:35, 20:4; and, of course, Luke\n7:26-28). It was all in the line of the great prophets; and the\nFourth Gospel shows it us once more in the work of the Holy\nSpirit--\"when he is come, he will reprove (convict) the world of\nsin, and of righteousness, and of judgement\" (John 16:8). And yet,\nas Jesus says, there is all the difference in the world between his\nown Gospel and the teaching of the Baptist.\n\nIn Mark's narrative (2:18) a very significant episode is recorded.\nJohn inculcated fasting, and his disciples fasted a great deal\n(\"pykna\", Luke 5:33); and once, Mark tells us, when they were\nactually fasting, they asked Jesus why his disciples did not do the\nsame? Jesus' answer is a little cryptic at first sight. \"Can the\nchildren of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with\nthem?\" Who fasts at the wedding feast, in the hour of gladness? And\nthen he passes on to speak about the new patch on the old garment,\nthe new wine in the old wine skins; and it looks as if it were not\nmerely a criticism of John's disciples but of John himself. John,\nindeed, brings home with terrific force and conviction that truth of\nGod which the prophets had preached before; but he leaves it there.\nHe emphasizes once more the old laws of God, the judgements of God,\nbut he brings no transforming power into men's lives. The old\ncharacters, the old motives more or less, are to be patched by a new\nfear.\n\n\"Repent, repent,\" John cries, \"the judgement is coming.\" And men do\nrepent, and John baptises them as a symbol that God has forgiven\nthem. But how are they to go on? What is the power that is to carry\nJohn's disciples through the rest of their lives? We are not in\npossession of everything that John says, but there is no indication\nthat John had very much to say about any force or power that should\nkeep men on the plane of repentance. It is our experience that we\nrepent and fall again; what else was the experience of the people\nwhom John baptised? What was to keep them on the new level--not only\nin the isolation of the desert, but in the ordinary routine of town\nand village? In John's teaching there is not a word about that; and\nthis is a weakness of double import. For, as Jesus puts it, the new\npatch on the old garment makes the rent worse; it does not leave it\nmerely as it was. If the \"unclean spirit\" regain its footing in a\nman, it does not come alone--\"the last state of that man is worse\nthan the first\" (Luke 11:24-26). Jesus is very familiar with the\ntype that welcomes new ideas and new impulses in religion and yet\ndoes nothing, grows tired or afraid, and relapses (Mark 4:17).\n\nAgain, in John's teaching, as far as we have it, there is a striking\nabsence of any clear word about any relation to God, beyond that of\ndebtor and creditor, judge and prisoner on trial, king and subject.\nGod may forgive and God will judge; but so far as our knowledge of\nJohn's teaching goes, these are the only two points at which man and\nGod will touch each other; and these are not intimate relations.\nThere is no promise and no gladness in them; no \"good news.\" John\ntaught prayer--all sorts of people teach prayer; but what sort of\nprayer? It has been remarked of the Greek poet, Apollonius Rhodius,\nthat his heroes used prayers, but their prayers were like official\ndocuments. Of what character were the prayers that John taught his\ndisciples? None of them survive; but there is perhaps a tacit\ncriticism of them in the request made to the New Teacher: \"Teach us\nto pray, as John taught his disciples\" (Luke 11:1). One feels that\nthe men wanted something different from John's prayers. Great and\nstrenuous prayers they may have been, but in marked contrast to the\nprayers of Jesus and his followers, because of the absence in John's\nmessage of any strong note of the love and tenderness of God.\n\nFinally, the very righteousness that John preaches with such fire\nand energy is open to criticism. Far more serious than the\nrighteousness of the Pharisees, stronger in insight and more\ngenerous in its scope, it fails in the same way; it is\nself-directed. It aims at a man's own salvation, and it is to be\nachieved by a man's own strength in self-discipline, with what\nlittle help John's system of prayer and fasting may win for a man\nfrom God. John fails precisely where his strength is greatest and\nmost conspicuous. His theme is sin; his emphasis all falls on sin;\nbut his psychology of sin is insufficient, it is not deep enough.\nThe simple, strenuous ascetic did not realize the seriousness of sin\nafter all--its deep roots, its haunting power, its insidious charm.\nSt. Paul saw far deeper into it \"I am carnal, sold under sin. What I\nhate that do I. The good that I would, I do not; but the evil which\nI would not, that I do. I see a law in my members bringing me into\ncaptivity to the law of sin. O wretched man that I am! Who shall\ndeliver me from the body of this death?\" (Rom. 7:14-24). Sin, in\nJohn's thought, is contumacy or rebellion against the law of God; he\ndoes not look at it in relation to the love of God--a view of it\nwhich gives it another character altogether. Nor has John any great\nconception of forgiveness--a man, he thinks, may win it by \"fruits\nworthy of repentance\" (Luke 3:8). Here again Paul is the pioneer in\nthe universal Christian experience that fruits of repentance can\nnever buy God's forgiveness. That is God's gift. That forgiveness\nmay cost a man much--an amended life, the practices of prayer and\nfasting and almsgiving--John conceives; but we are not led to think\nthat he thought of what it might cost God. John has no evangel, no\nreally good news, with gladness and singing in it (1 Peter 1:8).\n\nWhen we return to the teaching of Jesus, we find that he draws a\nclear and sharp line between right and wrong. He indicates that\nright is right to the end of all creation, and wrong is wrong up to\nthe very Judgement Throne of God (Matt. 25). He views these things,\nas the old phrase puts it, \"sub specie aeternitatis\", from the\noutlook of eternity. Right and wrong do not meet at infinity. There\nis no higher synthesis that can make them one and the same thing.\nEverything with Jesus is Theocentric, and until God changes there\nwill be no very great change in right and wrong. Partly because he\nuses the language of his day, partly because he thinks as a rule in\npictures, his language is apt to be misconstrued by moderns. But the\ncentral ideas are clear enough. \"How are you to escape the judgement\nof Gehenna?\" he asks the Pharisees (Matt. 23:33; the subjunctive\nmood is worth study). It is not a threat, but a question. There\nyawns the chasm; with your driving, how do you think you can avoid\ndisaster? He warns men of a doom where the worm dies not and the\nfire is not quenched; a man will do well to sacrifice hand, foot or\neye, to save the rest of himself from that (Mark 9:43-48). But a\nmore striking picture, though commonly less noticed, he draws or\nsuggests in talk at the last supper. \"Simon, Simon, behold Satan\nasked for you to sift you as wheat, but I prayed for thee, that thy\nfaith fail not; and thou, when thou comest back, strengthen thy\nbrethren\" (Luke 22:31, 32). The scene suggested is not unlike that\nat the beginning of the Book of Job, or that in the Book of\nZechariah (chap. 3). There is the throne of God, and into that\nPresence pushes Satan with a demand--the verb in the Greek is a\nstrong one, though not so strong as the Revised Version suggests.\nSatan \"made a push to have you.\" \"But I prayed for thee.\"\n\nTo any reader who has any feeling or imagination, what do these\nshort sentences mean? What can they mean, from the lips of a thinker\nso clear and so serious, and a friend so tender? What but\nunspeakable peril? The language has for us a certain strangeness;\nbut it shows plainly enough that, to Jesus' mind, the disciples, and\nPeter in particular, stood in danger, a danger so urgent that it\ncalled for the Saviour's prayer. So much it meant to him, and he\nhimself tells Peter what he had realized, what he had done, in\nlanguage that could not be mistaken or forgotten. To the nature of\nthe danger that sin involves, we shall return. Meanwhile we may\nconsider what Jesus means by sin before we discuss its consequences.\n\n\"The Son of Man,\" says Jesus, in a sentence that is famous but still\ninsufficiently studied, \"is come to seek and to save that which is\nlost\" (Luke 19:10). Our rule has been to endeavour to give to the\nterms of Jesus the connotation he meant them to carry. The scholar\nwill linger over the \"Son of Man\"--a difficult phrase, with a\nliterary and linguistic history that is very complicated. For the\npresent purpose the significant words are at the other end of the\nsentence. What does Jesus mean by \"lost\"? It is a strong word, the\nvalue of which we have in some degree lost through familiarity. And\nwhom would he describe as \"lost\"? We have once more to recall his\ncriticism of Peter--that Peter \"thought like a man and not like God\"\n(Mark 8:33)--and to be on our guard lest we think too quickly and\ntoo slightly. We may remark, too, that for Jesus sin is not, as for\nPaul and theologians in general, primarily an intellectual problem.\nHe does not use the abstraction Sin as Paul does. But the clear,\nsteady gaze turned on men and women misses little.\n\nThere are four outstanding classes, whom he warns of the danger of\nhell in one form or other.\n\nTo begin, there is the famous description of the Last Judgement\n(Matt. 25:31-46)--a description in itself not altogether new. Plenty\nof writers and thinkers had described the scene, and the broad\noutlines of the picture were naturally common property; yet it is to\nthese more or less conventional traits that attention has often been\ntoo exclusively devoted. Jesus, however, altered the whole character\nof the Judgement Day scene by his account of the principles on which\nthe Judge decides the cases brought before him. On the right hand of\nthe Judge are--not the Jews confronting the Gentiles on the\nleft--nor exactly the well-conducted and well-balanced people who\nget there in Greek allegories--but a group of men and women who\nrealize where they are with a gasp of surprise. How has it come\nabout? The Judge tells them: \"I was an hungered and ye gave me\nmeat,\" and the rest of the familiar words. But this does not quite\nsettle the question. Embarrassment rises on their faces--is it a\nmistake? One of them speaks for the rest: \"Lord, when saw we thee an\nhungered and fed thee?\" They do not remember it. There is something\ncharacteristic there of the whole school of Jesus; these people are\n\"children of fact,\" honest as their Master, and they will not accept\nheaven in virtue of a possible mistake. And it appears from the\nJudge's answer that such instinctive deeds go further than men\nthink, even if they are forgotten. Wordsworth speaks of the \"little\nnameless unremembered acts of kindness and of love\" that are \"the\nbest portion of a good man's life.\"[29] The acts of kindness were\nforgotten just because they were instinctive, but, Jesus emphasizes\nthe point, they are decisive; they come, as another of his telling\nphrases suggests, from \"the overflow of the heart,\" and they reveal\nit. With the people on the left hand it was the other way. They were\nfairly well in possession of their good records, but they had missed\nthe decisive fact--they were instinctively hard. Such people Jesus\nwarns. So familiar are his words that there is a danger of our\nlimiting them to their first obvious meaning. Eighty years ago\nThomas Carlyle looked out on the England he knew, and remarked that\nit was strange that the great battle of civilized man should be\nstill the battle of the savage against famine, and with that he\nobserved that the people were \"needier than ever of inward\nsustenance.\" Is there a warning in this picture of the people on the\nleft hand that applies to deeper things than physical hunger? A\nwarning to those who do not heed another's need of \"inward\nsustenance,\" of spiritual life, of God? It looks likely. Otherwise\nthere is a risk of our declining upon a \"Social Righteousness\" that\nfalls a long way short of John the Baptist's, and does less for any\nsoul, our own or another's.\n\nThe second class warned by Jesus consists of several groups dealt\nwith in the Sermon on the Mount--people whose sin is not murder or\nadultery, but merely anger and the unclean thought--not the people\nwho actually give themselves away, like the publicans and\nharlots--but those who would not be sorry to have that ring of Gyges\nwhich Plato described, who would like to do certain things if they\ncould, who at all events are not unwilling to picture what they\nwould wish to do, if it were available, and meanwhile enjoy the\nthought (Matt. 5:21, 22, 27-29). Here St. Paul can supply commentary\nwith his suggestion that one form of God's condemnation is where he\ngives up a man to his own reprobate mind (Romans 1:28--the whole\npassage is worth study in the Greek). The mind, in Paul's phrases,\nbecomes darkened (Rom. 1:21), stained (Titus 1:15), and cauterized\n(1 Tim. 4:2), invalidated for the discharge of its proper functions,\nas a burnt hand loses the sense of touch, or a stained glass gives\nthe man a blue or red world instead of the real one. Blindness and\nmutilation are better, Jesus said, than the eye of lust (Matt.\n5:28). How different from the moralists, for whom sin lies in\naction, and all actions are physical! The idle word is to condemn a\nman, not because it is idle, but because, being unstudied, it speaks\nof his heart and reveals, unconsciously but plainly, what he is in\nreality (Matt. 12:36). Thus it is that what comes out of the mouth\ndefiles a man (Matt. 15:18)--with the curious suggestion, whether\nintended or not, that the formulation of a floating thought gives it\nnew power to injure or to help. That is true; impression loose, as\nit were, in the mind, mere thought--stuff, is one thing; formulated,\nbrought to phrase and form, it takes on new life and force; and when\nit is evil, it does defile, and in a permanent way. Marcus Aurelius\nhas a very similar warning (v. 16)--\"Whatever the colour of the\nthoughts often before thy mind, that colour will thy mind take. For\nthe mind is dyed (or stained) by its thoughts.\" \"Phantazesthai\" and\n\"phantasiai\" are the words--and they suggest something between\nthoughts and imaginations--mental pictures would be very near it.\n\nThe third group whom Jesus warned, the most notorious of all, was\nthe Pharisee class. They played at religion--tithed mint and anise\nand cumin, and forgot judgement and mercy and faith (Matt. 23:23).\nJesus said that the Pharisee was never quite sure whether the\ncreature he was looking at was a camel or a mosquito--he got them\nmixed (Matt. 23:24). Once we realize what this tremendous irony\nmeans, we are better able to grasp his thought. The Pharisee was\nliving in a world that was not the real one--it was a highly\nartificial one, picturesque and charming no doubt, but dangerous.\nFor, after all, we do live in the real world--there is only one\nworld, however many we may invent; and to live in any other is\ndanger. Blindness, that is partial and uneven, lands a man in peril\nwhenever he tries to come downstairs or to cross the street--he\nsteps on the doorstep that is not there and misses the real one. He\nis involved in false appearances at every turn. And so it is in the\nmoral world--there is one real, however many unreals there are, and\nto trust to the unreal is to come to grief on the real. \"The\nbeginning of a man's doom,\" wrote Carlyle, \"is that vision be\nwithdrawn from him.\" \"Thou blind Pharisee!\" (Matt. 23:26). The cup\nis clean enough without; it is septic and poisonous within--and from\nwhich side of it do you drink, outside or inside? (Matt. 23:25). As\nwe study the teaching of Jesus here, we see anew the profundity of\nthe saying attributed to him in the Fourth Gospel, \"The truth shall\nmake you free\" (John 8:32). The man with astigmatism, or myopia, or\nwhatever else it is, must get the glasses that will show him the\nreal world, and he is safe, and free to go and come as he pleases.\nSee the real in the moral sphere, and the first great peril is gone.\nNothing need be said at this point of the Pharisee who used\nrighteousness and long prayers as a screen for villainy. Probably\nhis doom was that in the end he came to think his righteousness and\nhis prayers real, and to reckon them as credit with a God, who did\nnot see through them any more than he did himself. It is a mistake\nto over-emphasize here the devouring of widow' houses by the\nPharisee (Matt. 23:14), for it was no peculiar weakness of his;\npublicans and unjust judges did the same. Only the publican and the\nunjust judge told themselves no lies about it. The Pharisee\nlied--lying to oneself or lying to another, which is the worse? The\nmore dangerous probably is lying to oneself, though the two\npractices generally will go together in the long run. The worst\nforms of lying, then, are lying to oneself and lying about God; and\nthe Pharisee combined them, and told himself that, once God's proper\ndues of prayer and tithe were paid, his treatment of the widow and\nher house was correct. Hence, says Jesus, he receives \"greater\ndamnation\" (A.V.)--or judgement on a higher scale (\"perissoteron\nkrima\").\n\nThe Pharisees were men who believed in God--only that with his\nworld, they re-created him (as we are all apt to do for want of\nvision or by choice); but what is atheism, what can it be, but\nindifference to God's facts and to God's nature? If religion is\nunion with God, in the phrase we borrow so slightly from the\nmystics, how can a man be in union with God, when the god he sees is\nnot there, is a figment of his own mind, something different\naltogether from God? Or, if we use the phrase of the Old Testament.\nprophet and of Jesus himself, if religion is vision of God, what is\nour religion, if after all we are not seeing God at all, but\nsomething else--a dummy god, like that of the Pharisees, some\ntrifling martinet who can be humbugged--or, to come to ourselves, a\nmajestic bundle of abstract nouns loosely tied up in impersonality?\nFor all such Jesus has a caution. Indifference to God's facts leads\nto one end only. We admit it ourselves. There are those who scold\nBunyan for sending Ignorance to hell, but we omit to ask where else\ncould Ignorance go, whether Bunyan sent him or not. Ignorance, as to\ngerms or precipices or what not, leads to destruction \"in pari\nmateria\"; in the moral sphere can it be otherwise? This serves in\nsome measure to explain why Jesus is so tender to gross and flagrant\nsinners, a fact which some have noted with surprise. Surely it is\nbecause publican and harlot have fewer illusions; they were left\nlittle chance of imagining their lives to be right before God. What\nJesus thought of their hardness and impurity we have seen already,\nbut heedless as they were of God's requirements of them, they were\nnot guilty of the intricate atheism of the Pharisees. Further,\nwhether it was in his mind or not, it is also true that the frankly\ngross temptations do bring a man face to face with his own need of\nGod, as the subtler do not; and so far they make for reality.\n\nThe fourth group are those who cannot make up their minds. \"No man,\nhaving put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the\nKingdom of God\" (Luke 9:62). The word is an interesting one\n(\"euthetos\"), it means \"handy\" or \"easy to place.\" (The word is used\nof the salt not \"fit\" for land or dunghill (Luke 14:35), and the\nnegative of the inconvenient harbour (Acts 27:12).) This man is not\nadapted for the Kingdom of God; he is not easy to place there. Like\nthe man who saved his talent but did not use it (Matt. 25:24), he is\nnot exactly bad; but he is \"no good,\" as we say. Jesus conceives of\nthe Kingdom of God as dynamic, not static; state or place, condition\nor relation, it implies work, as God himself implies work. He holds\nthat truth is not a curiosity for the cabinet but a tool in the\nhand; that God's earnest world is no place for nondescript, and that\nthere is only one region left to which they can drift. What part or\nplace can there be in the Kingdom of Heaven--in a kingdom won on\nCalvary--for people who cannot be relied on, who cannot decide\nwhether to plough or not to plough, nor, when they have made up\ntheir mind, stick to it? Jesus cannot see. (What a revelation of the\nforce and power of his own character!)\n\nThese, then, are the four classes whom Jesus warns, and it is clear\nfrom the consideration of them that his view of sin is very\ndifferent from those current in that day. Men set sin down as an\nexternal thing that drifted on to one like a floating burr--or like\npaint, perhaps--it could be picked off or burnt off. It was the\neating of pork or hare--something technical or accidental; or it\nwas, many thought, the work of a demon from without, who could be\ndriven out to whence he came. Love and drunkenness illustrated the\nthing for them--a change of personality induced by an exterior force\nor object, as if the human spirit were a glass or a cup into which\nanything might be poured, and from which it could be emptied and the\nvessel itself remain unaffected. Jesus has a deeper view of sin, a\nstronger psychology, than these, nor does he, like some quick\nthinkers of to-day, put sin down to a man's environment, as if\ncertain surroundings inevitably meant sin. Jesus is quite definite\nthat sin is nothing accidental--it is involved in a man's own\nnature, in his choice, it comes from the heart, and it speaks of a\nheart that is wrong. When we survey the four groups, it comes to one\ncentral question at last: Has a man been in earnest with himself\nabout God's dealings with him? Hardness and lust make a man play the\nfool with human souls whom God loves and cares for--a declaration of\nwar on God himself. Wilful self-deception about God needs no\ncomment; to shilly-shally and let decision slide, where God is\nconcerned, is atheism too. In a word, what is a man's fundamental\nattitude to God and God's facts? That is Jesus' question. Sin is\ntracked home to the innermost and most essential part of the\nman--his will. It is no outward thing, it is inward. It is not that\nevil befalls us, but that we are evil. In the words of Edward Caird,\n\"the passion that misleads us is a manifestation of the same ego,\nthe same self-conscious reason which is misled by it,\" and thus, as\nBurns puts it, \"it is the very 'light from heaven' that leads us\nastray.\" The man uses his highest God-given faculties, and uses them\nagainst God.\n\nBut this is not all. Many people will agree with the estimate of\nJesus, when they understand it, in regard to most of these classes;\nperhaps they would urge that in the main it is substantially the\nsame teaching as John the Baptist's, though it implies, as we shall\nsee, a more difficult problem in getting rid of sin. Jesus goes\nfurther. He holds up to men standards of conduct which transcend\nanything yet put before mankind. \"Be ye therefore perfect,\" he says,\n\"even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect\" (Matt. 5:48).\nWhen we recall what Jesus teaches of God, when we begin to try to\ngive to \"God\" the content he intended, we realize with amazement\nwhat he is saying. He is holding up to men for their ideal of\nconduct the standard of God's holiness, of God's love and\ntenderness. Everything that Jesus tells us of God--all that he has\nto say of the wonderful and incredible love of God and of God's\nactivity on behalf of his children--he now incorporates in the ideal\nof conduct to which men are called. John's conceptions of\nrighteousness grow beggarly. Here is a royal magnificence of active\nlove, of energetic sympathy, tenderness, and self-giving, asked of\nus, who find it hard enough to keep the simplest commandments from\nour youth up (Mark 10:20). We are to love our enemies, to win them,\nto make peace, to be pure--and all on the scale of God. And that\nthis may not seem mere talk in the air, there is the character and\npersonality of Jesus, embodying all he asks of us--bringing out new\nwonders of God's goodness, the ugliness and evil of sin, and the\npositive and redemptive beauty of righteousness.\n\nThe problem of sin and forgiveness becomes more difficult, as we\nthink of the positive ideals which we have not begun to try to\nreach. Let us sum up what it involves.\n\nJesus brings out the utter bankruptcy to which sin reduces men. They\nbecome \"full of hypocrisy and lawlessness\" (Matt. 23:28), so\ndepraved that they are like bad trees, unproductive of any but bad\nfruit (rotten, in the Greek, Matt. 7:17); the very light in them is\ndarkness, and how great darkness (Matt. 6:23). They are cut off from\nthe real world, as we saw, and lose the faculties they have\nabused--the talent is taken away (Matt. 25:28); \"from him that hath\nnot, shall be taken away even that which he hath\" (Matt. 25:29). The\nnature is changed as memory is changed, and the \"overflow of the\nheart\" in speech and act bears witness to it. The faculty of choice\nis weakened; the interval in which inhibition--to use our modern\nterm--is possible, grows shorter. The instincts are perverted and\nthe whole being is disorganized. In a word, all that Jesus connotes\nby \"the Kingdom of God\" is \"taken from them\" (Matt. 21:43), and\nnothing left but \"outer darkness\" (Matt. 22:13). The vision of God\nis not for the impure (Matt. 5:8). Meanwhile sin is not a sterile\nthing, it is a leaven (Matt. 16:6). If our modern medical language\nmay be applied--and Jesus used the analogy of medicine in this very\ncase (Mark 2:17)--sin is septic. In the first place, all sin is\nanti-social--an invasion \"ipso facto\" of the rights of others. The\nman who sins either takes away what is another's--a man's goods, a\nwidow's house, or a woman's purity--or he fails to give to others\nwhat is their due, be it, in the obvious field, the aid the Good\nSamaritan rendered to the wounded and robbed man by the roadside\n(Luke 10:33), or, in the higher sphere, truth, sympathy, help in the\nmaintenance of principle, or in the achievement of progress and\ndevelopment (cf. Matt. 25:43). Sin is the repudiation of the\nconcepts of law, duty, and service, in a word, of the love on God's\nscale which God calls men to exercise. And its fruits are, above\nall, its dissemination. Injustice, a historian has said, always\nrepays itself with frightful compound interest. If a man starts to\ndebauch society, his example is quickly followed; and it comes to\nhatred.\n\nWhat, we asked, did Jesus mean by \"lost\"? This, above all, that sin\ncuts a man adrift from God. In the parable of the Prodigal Son this\nis brought out (Luke 15:11-32). There the youth took from his father\nall he could get, and then deliberately turned his back on him\nforever; he went into a far country, out of his reach, outside his\ninfluence, and beyond the range of his ideas, and he devoted his\nfather's gifts to precisely what would sadden and trouble his father\nmost. And then came bankruptcy, final and hopeless. There was no\nfather available in the far country; he had to live without him, and\nit came to a life that was not even human--a life of solitude, a\nlife of beasts. Jesus draws it, as he does most things, in picture\nform, using parable. Paul puts the same in directer language; sin\nreduces men to a position where they are \"alienated from the life of\nGod\" (Eph. 4:18; Col. 1:21), \"without God in the world\" (Eph. 2:12),\n\"enemies of God\" (Rom. 5:10; Col. 1:21); but he does not say more\nthan Jesus implies. Paul's final expression, \"God gave them up\"\n(thrice in Rom. 1:24, 26, 28), answers to the Judge's word, in\nJesus' picture, \"Depart from me\" (Matt. 25:41).\n\n    O Wedding-guest, this soul hath been\n        Alone on a wide, wide sea:\n    So lonely 'twas, that God himself\n        Scarce seem\u00e9d there to be.\n\nSo Jesus handles the problem of sin, but that is only half the\nstory, for there remains the problem of Redemption. The treatment of\nsin is far profounder and truer than John the Baptist or any other\nteacher has achieved; and it implies that Jesus will handle\nRedemption in a way no less profound and effective. If he does not,\nthen he had better not have preached a gospel. If, in dealing with\nsin, he touches reality at every point, we may expect him in the\nmatter of Redemption to reach the very centre of life.[30] How else\ncan he, with his serious view of sin, say to a man, \"Thy sins are\nforgiven thee\"? (Mark 2:5). But it is quite clear from our records\nthat, while Jesus laid bare in this relentless way the ugliness and\nhopelessness of sin, he did not despair: his tone is always one of\nhope and confidence. The strong man armed may find a stronger man\ncome upon him and take from him the panoply in which he trusted\n(Luke 11:21, 22). There is a great gulf that cannot be crossed (Luke\n16:26)--yes, but if the experience of Christendom tells us anything,\nit tells us that Jesus crossed it himself, and did the impossible.\n\"The great matter is that Jesus believed God was willing to take the\nhuman soul, and make it new and young and clean again.\" But the\nhuman soul did not believe it, till Jesus convinced it, and won it,\nby action of his own. \"The Son of Man came to seek and to save that\nwhich was lost\"; and he did not come in vain.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nTHE CHOICE OF THE CROSS\n\nBy what they said, I perceived that he had been a great warrior, and\nhad fought with and slain him that had the power of death (Hebrews\n2:14), but not without great danger to himself, which made me love\nhim the more--\"Pilgrims Progress\", Part I\n\nThe subject before us is one of the greatest difficulty. Why Jesus\nchose the cross has exercised the thought of the Christian world\never since he did so. He told his disciples beforehand of what lay\nbefore him, of what he was choosing, but it was long before they\nrealized that he meant any such thing. The cross was to them a\nstrange idea, and for a long time they did not seriously face the\nmatter. Once the cross was an accomplished fact, Christians could\nnot, and did not wish to, avoid thinking out what had meant so much\nto their Master; but it has mostly been with a sense of facing a\nmystery that in some measure eluded them, with a feeling that there\nis more beyond, something always to be attained hereafter.\n\nA very significant passage in St. Mark (10:32) gives us a glimpse of\na moment on Jesus' last journey to Jerusalem. It is a sentence which\none could hardly imagine being included in the Gospel, if it did not\nrepresent some actual memory, and a memory of significance. It runs\nsomething like this: \"And they were in the way, going up to\nJerusalem, and Jesus was moving on before them; and they began to\nwonder; and as they followed they began to be afraid.\" He is moving\nto Jerusalem with a purpose. They do not understand it. He is\nwrapped in thought; and, as happens when a man's mind is working\nstrongly, his pace quickens, and they find themselves at a distance\nbehind him. And then something comes over them--a sense that there\nis something in the situation which they do not understand, a\nstrangeness in the mind. They realize, in fact, that they are not as\nnear Jesus as they had supposed. And, as they follow, the wonder\ndeepens into fear.\n\nAnyone who will really try to grapple with this problem of the cross\nwill find very soon the same thing. The first thing that we need to\nlearn, if our criticism of Jesus is to be sound, is that we are not\nat all so near him as we have imagined. He eludes us, goes far out\nbeyond what we grasp or conceive; and I think the education of the\nChristian man or woman begins anew, when we realize how little we\nknow about Jesus. The discovery of our ignorance is the beginning of\nknowledge. Plato long ago said that wonder is the mother of\nphilosophy, and he was right. John Donne, the English poet, went\nfarther, and said: \"All divinity is love or wonder.\" When a man then\nbegins to wonder about Jesus Christ in earnest, Jesus comes to be\nfor him a new figure. Historical criticism has done this for us; it\nhas brought us to such a point that the story of these earliest\ndisciples repeats itself more closely in the experience of their\nfollowers of these days than in any century since the first. We\nbegin along with them on the friendly, critical, human plane, and\nwith them we follow him into experiences and realizations that we\nnever expected. It may be summed up in the familiar words of the\nEnglish hymn,\n\n    Oh happy band of pilgrims,\n       If onward ye will tread\n     With Jesus as your fellow,\n       To Jesus as your head.\n\nThese men begin with him, more or less on a footing of equality; or,\nat least, the inequality is very lightly marked. Afterwards it is\nemphasized; and they realize it with wonder and with fear, and at\nlast with joy and gratitude.\n\nWe may begin by trying steadily to bring our minds to some keener\nsense of what it was that he chose. To say, in the familiar words,\nthat he chose the cross, may through the very familiarity of the\nlanguage lead us away from what we have to discover. We have, as we\nagreed, to ask ourselves what was his experience. What, then, did\nhis choice involve? It meant, of course, physical pain. There are\nnatures to whom this is of little account, but the sensitive and\nsentient type, as we often observe, dreads pain. He, with open eyes,\nchose physical pain, heightened to torture, not escaping any of the\nsuffering which anticipation gives--that physical horror of death,\nthat instinctive fear of annihilation, which nature suggests of\nitself. He took the course of action that would most severely test\nhis disciples; one at least revolted, and we have to ask what it\nmeant to Jesus to live with Judas, to watch his face, to recognize\nhis influence in the little group--yes, and to try to win him again\nand to be repelled. \"He learnt by the things that he suffered\" that\nJudas would betray him; but the hour and place and method were not\nso evident, and when they were at last revealed--what did it mean to\nbe kissed by Judas? Do we feel what he felt in the so-called\ntrials--or was he dull and numbed by the catastrophe? How did he\nbear the beating of triumphant hatred upon a forsaken spirit? How\ndid the horrible cry, \"Crucify him! crucify him!\" break on his\nears--on his mind? When \"the Lord turned and looked upon Peter\"\n(Luke 22:61), what did it mean? How did he know that Peter was\nthere, and what led him to turn at that moment? Was there in the\nPassion no element of uneasiness again about the eleven on whom he\nhad concentrated his hopes and his influence--the eleven of whom it\nis recorded, that \"they all forsook him, and fled\" (Mark 14:50)? No\nhint of dread that his work might indeed be undone? What pain must\nthat have involved? What is the value of the Agony in the Garden, of\nthe cry, \"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani\" (Mark 15:34)? When we have\nanswered, each for himself, these questions, and others like them\nthat will suggest themselves--answered them by the most earnest\nefforts of which our natures are capable--and remembered at the end\nhow far our natures fall short of his, and told ourselves that our\nanswers are insufficient--then let us recall, once more, that he\nchose all this.\n\nHe chose the cross and all that it meant. Our next step should be to\nstudy anew his own references to what he intends by it, to what he\nexpects to be its results and its outcome. First of all, then, he\nclearly means that the Kingdom of Heaven is something different from\nanything that man has yet seen. The Kingdom of Heaven is, I\nunderstand, a Hebrew way of saying the Kingdom of God--very much as\nmen to-day speak of Providence, to avoid undue familiarity with the\nterm God, so the Jews would say Heaven. There were many who used the\nphrase in one or other form; but it is always bad criticism to give\nto the words of genius the value or the connotation they would have\nin the lips of ordinary people. To a great mind words are charged\nwith a fullness of meaning that little people do not reach. The\nattempt has been made to recapture more of his thoughts by learning\nthe value given to some of the terms he uses as they appear in the\nliterature of the day, and of course it has been helpful. But we\nhave to remember always that the words as used by him come with a\nnew volume of significance derived from his whole personality.\nEverything turns on the connotation which he gives to the term\nGod--that is central and pivotal. What this new Kingdom of God is,\nor will be, he does not attempt fully to explain or analyse. In the\nparables, the treasure-finder and the pearl merchant achieve a great\nenrichment of life; so much they know at once; but what do they do\nwith it? How do they look at it? What does it mean to them? He does\nnot tell us. We only see that they are moving on a new plane, seeing\nlife from a new angle, living in a fuller sense. What the new life\nmeans in its fullness, we know only when we gain the deeper\nknowledge of God.\n\nHe suggests that this new knowledge comes to a man from God\nhimself--flesh and blood do not reveal it (Matt. 16:17). \"Unto you\nit is given,\" he says on another occasion, \"to know the mystery of\nthe Kingdom of Heaven\" (Mark 4:11), and he adds that there are those\nwho see and do not see; they are outside it; they have not the\nalphabet, we might say, that will open the book (cf. Rev. 5:3). He\nmakes it clear at every point in the story of the Kingdom of God\nthat there is more beyond; and he means it. It is to be a new\nbeginning, an initiation, leading on to what we shall see but do not\nyet guess, though he gives us hints. We shall not easily fathom the\ndepth of his idea of the new life, but along with it we have to\nstudy the width and boldness of his purpose. This new life is not\nfor a few--for \"the elect,\" in our careless phrase. He looks to a\nuniversal scope for what he is doing. It will reach far outside the\nbounds of Judaism. \"They shall come from the east and from the west,\nand from the north and from the south, and shall sit down in the\nKingdom of God\" (Luke 13:29). \"Wheresoever this gospel shall be\npreached throughout the whole world,\" he says (Mark 14:9). \"My words\nshall not pass away\" (Luke 21:33). All time and all existence come\nunder his survey and are included in his plan. The range is\nenormous. And this was a Galilean peasant! As we gradually realize\nwhat he has in mind, must we not feel that we have not grasped\nanything like the full grandeur of his thought?\n\nHe makes it plain, in the second place, that it will be a matter for\nfollowers, for workers, for men who will watch and wait and\ndare--men with the same abandonment as himself. He calls for men to\ncome after him, to come behind him (Mark 1:17, 10:21; Luke 9:59). He\nemphasizes that they must think out the terms on which he enlists\nthem. He does not disguise the drawbacks of his service. He calls\nhis followers, and a very personal and individual call it is. He\ncalls a man from the lake shore, from the nets, from the custom\nhouse.\n\nIn the third place, he clearly announces an intention to achieve\nsomething in itself of import by his death. There are those who\nwould have us believe that his mind was obsessed with the fixed idea\nof his own speedy return on the clouds, and that he hurried on to\ndeath to precipitate this and the new age it was to bring.\nReferences to such a coming are indeed found in the Gospels as we\nhave them, but we are bound to ask whence they come, and to inquire\nhow far they represent exactly what he said; and then, if he is\ncorrectly reported, to make sure that we know exactly what he means.\nThose who hold this view fail to relate the texts they emphasize\nwith others of a deeper significance, and they ignore the grandeur\nand penetration and depth of the man whom they make out such a\ndreamer. He never suggests himself that his death is to force the\nhand of God.\n\nHe himself is to be the doer and achiever of something. We have been\napt to think of him as a great teacher, a teacher of charm and\ninsight, or as the great example of idealism, \"who saw life steadily\nand saw it whole.\" He lived, some hold, the rounded and well-poised\nlife, the rhythmic life. No, that was Sophocles. He is greater. Here\nis one who penetrates far deeper into things. His treatment of the\npsychology of sin itself shows how much more than an example was\nneeded. Here, as in the other chapters, but here above all we have\nto remember the clearness of his insight, his swiftness of\npenetration, his instinct for fact and reality. He means to do, to\nachieve, something. It is no martyr's death that he incurs. His\ndeath is a step to a purpose. \"I have a baptism to be baptised\nwith,\" he says (Luke 12:50). \"The Son of Man,\" he said, \"is come to\nseek and to save that which was lost\" (Luke 19:10).\n\nIn discussing in the previous chapter what he meant by the term\n\"lost,\" our conclusion was that for Jesus sin was far more awful,\nfar more serious, than we commonly realize. We saw also that so\nprofound and true a psychology of sin must imply a view of\nredemption at least as profound, a promise of a force more than\nequal to the power of sin--that \"violence of habit\" of which St.\nAugustine speaks. If the Son of Man is to save the lost, and if the\nlost are in danger so real, it follows that he must think of a\nthoroughly effective salvation, and that its achievement will be no\nlight or easy task. \"To give one's life as a ransom for many,\" says\na modern teacher, \"is of no avail, if the ransom is insufficient.\"\nWhat, then, and how much, does he mean by \"to save,\" and how does he\npropose to do it? When the soul of man or woman has gone wrong in\nany of the ways discussed by Jesus--in hardness or anger, in\nimpurity, in the refusal to treat God and his facts seriously--when\nthe consequences that Jesus recognized have followed--what can be\ndone to bring that soul back into effective relation with the God\nwhom it has discarded and abandoned? That is the problem that Jesus\nhad to face, and most of us have not thought enough about it.\n\nFirst of all, how far does Jesus understand salvation to take a man?\nThe ancient creed of the Church includes the article of belief in\n\"the forgiveness of sins.\" There are those who lightly assume that\nthis means, chiefly or solely, the remission of punishment for evil\nacts. This raises problems enough of itself. The whole doctrine of\n\"Karma\", vital to Buddhism and Hinduism, is, if I understand it\naright, a strong and clear warning to us that the remission of\npunishment is no easy matter. Not only Eastern thinkers, but Western\nalso, insist that there is no avoidance of the consequences of\naction. Luther himself, using a phrase half borrowed from a Latin\npoet, says that forgiveness is \"a knot worthy of a God's\naid\"--\"nodus Deo vindice dignus\".[31] But in any case escape from\nthe consequences of sin, when once we look on sin with the eyes of\nJesus, is of relatively small importance. There are two aspects of\nthe matter far more significant.\n\nWe have seen how Jesus regards sin as at once the cause and\nconsequence of a degeneration of the moral nature, and as a\nrepudiation of God. Two questions arise: Is it possible to recover\nlost moral quality and faculty? Is it possible for those\nincapacitated by sin to regain, or to enjoy, relation with God?\n\nWhen we think, with Jesus, of sin first and foremost in connexion\nwith God, and take the trouble to try to give his meaning to his\nwords, forgiveness takes on a new meaning. We have to \"think like\nGod,\" he says (Mark 8:33); and perhaps God is in his thoughts\nneither so legal nor so biological as we are; perhaps he does not\nthink first of edicts or of biological and psychological laws. God,\naccording to Jesus, thinks first of his child, though of course not\noblivious of his own commands and laws. Forgiveness, Jesus teaches\nor suggests, is primarily a question between Father and son, and he\ntries to lead us to believe how ready the Father is to settle that\nquestion. Once it is settled, we find, in fact, Father and son\nsetting to work to mend the past. The evil seed has been sown and\nthe sad crop must be reaped, the man who sowed it has to reap\nit--that much we all see. But Jesus hints to us that God himself\nloves to come in and help his reconciled son with the reaping; many\nhands make light work, especially when they are such hands. And even\nwhen the crop is evil in the lives of others, the most horrible\noutcome of sin, God is still in the field. The prodigal, when he\nreturns, is met with a welcome, and is gradually put in possession\nof what he has lost--the robe, the shoes, the ring; and it all comes\nfrom his being at one with his Father again (Luke 15:22ff.). The Son\nof Man, historically, has again and again found the lost--the lost\ngifts, the lost faculties, the lost charms and graces--and given\nthem back to the man whom he had also found and brought home to God.\n\nLet us once more try to get our thoughts Theocentric as Jesus' are,\nand our problems become simpler, or at least fewer. God's generosity\nin forgiveness, God's love, he emphasizes again and again. Will a\nman take Jesus at his word, and commit himself to God? That is the\nquestion. Once he will venture on this step, what pictures Jesus\ndraws us of what happens! The son is home again; the bankruptcy, the\nhideous solitude, the life among animals, bestial, dirty and empty,\nand haunted with memories--all those things are past, when once the\nFather's arms are round his neck, and his kiss on his cheek. He is\nno more \"alienated from the life of God\" (Eph. 4:18; Col. 1:21),\n\"without God in the world\" (Eph. 2:12), an \"enemy of God\" (Rom.\n5:10); he was lost and is found, and the Father himself, Jesus says,\ncries: \"Let us be merry\" (\"Euphranthomen\"). If we hesitate about it,\nJesus calls us once more to \"think like God,\" and tells us other\nstories, with incredible joy in them--\"joy in the presence of the\nangels of God over one sinner that repenteth.\" We must go back to\nhis central conception of God, if we are to realize what he means by\nsalvation. St. Augustine (Conf., viii. 3) brings out the value of\nthese parables, by reminding us how much more we care for a thing\nthat has been ours, when we have lost it and found it again. The\nshepherd has a new link with his sheep lost and found again, a new\nstory of it, a shared experience; it is more his than ever. And\nJesus implies that when a man is saved, he is God's again, and more\nGod's own than ever before; and God is glad at heart. As for the\nman; a new power comes into his heart, and a new joy; and with God's\nhelp, in a new spirit of sunshine, he sets about mending the past in\na new spirit and with a new motive--for love's sake now. If the\nfruit of the past is to be seen, as it constantly is, in the lives\nof others, he throws himself with the more energy into God's work,\nand when the Good Shepherd goes seeking the lost, he goes with him.\nChristian history bears witness, in every year of it, to what\nsalvation means, in Jesus' sense. Punishment, consequences, crippled\nresources--no, he does not ask to escape them now; all as God\npleases; these are not the things that matter. Life is all to be\nboundless love and gratitude and trust; and by and by the new man\nwakes up to find sin taken away, its consequences undone, the lost\nfaculties restored, and life a fuller and richer thing than ever it\nwas before.\n\nSomehow so, if we read the Gospels aright, does Jesus conceive of\nSalvation. To achieve this for men is his purpose; and in order to\ndo it, as we said before, his first step is to induce men to\nre-think God. Something must be done to touch the heart and to move\nthe will of men, effectively; and he must do it.\n\nWith this purpose in his mind--let us weigh our words here, and\nreflect again upon the clearness of his insight into life and\ncharacter, into moral laws, the laws of human thought and feeling,\nupon his profound intelligence and grasp of what moves and is real,\nhis knowledge (a strong word to use, but we may use it) of God--with\nthis purpose in his mind, thought out and understood, he\ndeliberately and quietly goes to Jerusalem. He \"steadfastly set his\nface to go to Jerusalem\" (Luke 9:51). \"I must walk,\" he said,\n\"to-day and to-morrow and the day following; for it cannot be that a\nprophet perish out of Jerusalem\" (Luke 13:33). To Jerusalem he goes.\n\nWe may admit that with his view of the psychology of sin, he must\nhave a serious view of redemption. But why should that involve the\ncross? That is our problem. But while we try to solve it, we must\nalso remember that behind a great choice there are always more\nreasons than we can analyse. A man makes one of the great choices in\nlife. What has influenced him? Ten to one, if you ask him, he does\nnot know. Nothing else, he will say, seemed feasible; the thing was\nborne in on me, it came to me: reasons? He cannot tabulate reasons;\nthe thing, he says, was so clear that I was a long way past reasons.\nAnd yet he was right; he had reasons enough. What parent ever\nanalysed reasons for loving his children, or would tabulate them for\nyou? Jesus does not explain his reasons. We find, I think, that we\nare apt to have far more reasons for doing what we know is wrong,\nthan we have for doing what we know is right. We do not want reasons\nfor doing what is right; we know it is right, and there is an end of\nit. Once again, Jesus, with his clear eye for the real, sees what he\nmust do. The salvation of the lost means the cross for himself. But\nwhy? we ask again. We must look a little closer if we are to\nunderstand him. We shall not easily understand him in all his\nthoughts, but part of our education comes from the endeavour to\nfollow him here, to \"be with him,\" in the phrase with which we\nbegan.\n\nFirst of all we may put his love of men. He never lost the\nindividual in the mass, never lost sight of the human being who\nneeded God. The teacher who put the law of kindness in the great\nphrase, \"Go with him twain\" (Matt. 5:41), was not likely to limit\nhimself in meeting men's needs. He was bound to do more than we\nshould expect, when he saw people whom he could help; and it is that\nspirit of abounding generosity that shows a man what to do (Luke\n6:38). Everywhere, every day, he met the call that quickened\nthought and shaped purpose.\n\nHe walked down a street; and the scene of misery or of sin came upon\nhim with pressure; he could not pass by, as we do, and fail to note\nwhat we do not wish to think of. He knows a pressure upon his spirit\nfor the man, the child, the woman--for the one who sins, the one who\nsuffers, the other who dies. They must be got in touch with God. He\nsits with his disciples at a meal--the men whom he loved--he watches\nthem, he listens to them. Peter, James, John, one after the other,\nbecomes a call to him. They need redemption; they need far more than\nthey dream; they need God. That pressure is there night and day--it\nbecomes intercession, and that grows into inspiration. Our prayers\nsuffer, some one has said, for our want of our identification with\nthe world's sin and misery. He was identified with the world's sin\nand misery, and they followed him into his prayer. It becomes with\nhim an imperative necessity to effect man's reconciliation with God.\nAll his experience of man, his love of man, call him that way.\n\nThe second great momentum comes from the love of God, and his faith\nin God. Here, again, we must emphasize for ourselves his criticism\nof Peter: \"You think like a man and not like God\" (Mark 8:33). We do\nnot see God, as Jesus did. He must make plain to men, as it never\nwas made plain before, the love of God. He must secure that it is\nfor every man the greatest reality in the world, the one great\nflaming fact that burns itself living into every man's\nconsciousness. He sees that for this God calls him to the cross, so\nmuch so that when he prays in the garden that the cup may pass, his\nthoughts range back to \"Thy will\" (Matt. 26:42). It is God's Will.\nEven if he does not himself see all involved, still God knows the\nreason; God will manage; God wishes it. \"Have faith in God,\" he used\nto say (Mark 11:22). This faith which he has in God is one of the\nthings that take him to the cross.\n\nIn the third place, we must not forget his sense of his own peculiar\nrelation to God. If it is safe to rely on St. Mark's chronological\ndate here, he does not speak of this until Peter has called him the\nMessiah. He accepts the title (Mark 8:29). He also uses the\ndescription, Son of Man, with its suggestions from the past. He\nforgives sins. He speaks throughout the Gospels as one apart, as one\ndistinct from us, closely as he is identified with us--and all this\nfrom a son of fact, who is not insane, who is not a quack, whose\neyes are wide open for the real; whose instinct for the ultimate\ntruth is so keen; who lives face to face with God. What does it\nmean? This, for one thing, that most of us have not given attention\nenough to this matter. I have confined myself in these chapters to\nthe Synoptic Gospels, with only two or three references to the\nFourth Gospel, and on the evidence of the Synoptic Gospels, taken by\nthemselves, it is clear that he means a great deal more than we have\ncared to examine. He is the great interpreter of God, and it is\nborne in upon him that only by the cross can he interpret God, make\nGod real to us, and bring us to the very heart of God. That is his\npurpose.\n\nThe cross is the outcome of his deepest mind, of his prayer life. It\nis more like him than anything else he ever did. It has in it more\nof him. Whoever he was, whoever he is, whatever our Christology, one\nfact stands out. It was his love of men and women and his faith in\nGod that took him there.\n\nWas he justified? was he right? or was it a delusion?\n\nFirst of all, let us go back to a historic event. The resurrection\nis, to a historian, not very clear in its details. But is it the\ndetail or the central fact that matters? Take away the resurrection,\nhowever it happened, whatever it was, and the history of the Church\nis unintelligible. We live in a rational world--a world, that is,\nwhere, however much remains as yet unexplained, everything has a\npromise of being lucid, everything has reason in it. Great results\nhave great causes. We have to find, somewhere or other, between the\ncrucifixion and the first preaching of the disciples in Jerusalem,\nsomething that entirely changed the character of that group of men.\n\nSomething happened, so tremendous and so vital, that it changed not\nonly the character of the movement and the men--but with them the\nwhole history of the world. The evidence for the resurrection is not\nso much what we read in the Gospels as what we find in the rest of\nthe New Testament--the new life of the disciples. They are a new\ngroup. When it came to the cross, his cross, they ran away. A few\nweeks later we find them rejoicing to be beaten, imprisoned and put\nto death (Acts 5:41). What had happened? What we have to explain is\na new life--a new life of prayer and joy and power, a new\nindifference to physical death, in a new relation to God. That is\none outcome of the cross and of what followed; and as historians we\nhave to explain it. We have also to explain how the disciples came\nto conceive of another Galilean--a carpenter whom they might have\nseen sawing and sweating in his shop, with whom they tramped the\nroads of Palestine, whom they saw done to death in ignominy and\nderision--sitting at the right hand of God. Taken by itself, we\nmight call such a belief mere folly; but too much goes with it for\nso easy an explanation. The cross was not the end. As Mr. Neville\nTalbot has recently pointed out in his book, \"The Mind of the\nDisciples\", if the story stopped with the cross, God remains\nunexplained, and the story ends in unrelieved tragedy. But it does\nnot end in tragedy; it ends--if we can use the word as yet--in joy\nand faith and victory; and these--how should we have seen them but\nfor the cross? They are bound up with his choice of the cross and\nhis triumph over it all. Death is not what it was--\"the last line of\nall,\" as Horace says. Life and immortality have been brought to\nlight (2 Tim. 1:10). \"The Lamb of God taketh away the sin of the\nworld.\" So we read at the beginning of the Fourth Gospel, and the\nhistorical critic may tell us that he does not think that John the\nBaptist said it. None the less, it is a wonderful summary of what\nJesus has done, especially wonderful if we think of it being written\nfifty or sixty years after the crucifixion. For, as we survey the\ncenturies, we find that the Lamb of God has taken away the sin of\nthe world--to a degree that no one can imagine who has not studied\nthe ancient world. Those who know the heathen world intimately will\nknow best the difference he has made. All this new life, this new\njoy, this new victory over death and sin is attached to the living\nand victorious Son of God. The task of Paul and the others is, as\nDr. Cairns says, \"re-thinking everything in the terms of the\nresurrection.\" It is the new factor in the problem of God, so to\nspeak--the new factor which alters everything that relates to God.\nThat is saying a great deal, but when we look at Christian history,\nis it saying too much?\n\nBut still our first question is unanswered; why should it have been\nthe cross? One thinker of our day has suggested that, after all,\nsuffering is a language intelligible to the very simplest, while its\nmeaning is not exhausted by the deepest. The problem of pain is\nalways with us. And he chose pain. He never said that pain is a good\nthing; he cured it. But he chose it. The ancient world stumbled on\nthat very thing. God and a Godlike man, their philosophers said, are\nnot susceptible to pain, to suffering. That was an axiom, very\nlittle challenged. Then if Jesus suffered, he was not God; if he was\nGod, he did not suffer. The Church denied that, just as the Church\nto-day rejects another hasty antithesis about pain, that comes from\nNew England. He chose pain, and he knew what he was choosing. Then\nlet us be in no hurry about refusing it, but let us look into it. He\nchose it--that is the greatest fact known to us about pain.\n\nAgain, the death of Christ reveals sin in its real significance, in\nits true perspective, outside the realm of accident and among the\ndeepest things of God, \"sub specie aeternitatia\". Men count\nthemselves very decent people; so thought the priests and the\nPharisees, and they were. There is nothing about them that one\ncannot find in most religious communities and in all governing\nclasses: the sense of the value of themselves, their preconceptions\nand their judgements--a strong feeling of the importance of the work\nthey have to do, along with a certain reluctance to face strange\nfacts, and some indifference as to what happens to other people if\nthe accepted theory of the Cause or the State require them to\nsuffer. There is nothing about Pilate and Herod, and the Pharisees\nand the priests, that is very different from ourselves. But how it\nlooks in front of the cross! We begin to see how it looks in the\nsight of God, and that alters everything; it upsets all our\nstandards, and teaches us a new self-criticism.\n\n\"You think like man, and not like God,\" said Jesus (Mark 8:33). The\ncross reveals God most sympathetically. We see God in the light of\nthe fullest and profoundest and tenderest revelation that the world\nhas had. \"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?\" that is the\ncry of Jesus on the cross. I have sometimes thought there never was\nan utterance that reveals more amazingly the distance between\nfeeling and fact. That was how he felt--worn out, betrayed, spat\nupon, rejected. We feel that God was more there than ever. As has\nbeen said, if it is not God, it is nothing. \"God,\" says Paul, \"was\nin Christ, reconciling the world unto himself\" (2 Cor. 5:19). He\nchose the cross; and in choosing it, Christians have always felt, he\nrevealed God; and that is the centre of the great act of Redemption.\n\nBut there is a condition antecedent to understanding the cross. We\nhave, as we agreed, to ask ourselves, what is the experience which\nled him to think as he did? In the simpler language of the Gospels,\nquite plain and easy to understand, the call to follow comes\nfirst--the call to deeper association with Jesus Christ in his love\nfor men. Do not our consciences tell us that, if we really loved\npeople as Jesus does, if we understood them as sympathetically and\ncared as much for them, the cross would be far more intelligible to\nus? But if, in plain fact, we do not see why we should bear the\ncross for others, why we should deny and obliterate self on this\nscale for the salvation of men--how, I ask, to people of such a mind\nshould Jesus be intelligible? It is not to be expected. In no other\nsphere would one dream of it. When a man avows that he does not care\nfor art or poetry, who would wish to show him poem or picture? How\nshould a person, who does not care for men, understand the cross?\nDeeper association, then, with Jesus in his love of men, in his\nagony, in his trust in God--that is the key to all. As we agreed at\nthe very beginning, we have to know him before we can understand\nhim.\n\nIt all depends in the long run on one thing; and that we find in the\nverse with which we started: \"And as they followed, they began to be\nafraid.\" But they followed. We can understand their fear. It comes\nto a man in this way. If Jesus crucified means anything like what\nthe Church has said, and has believed; if God is in that man of\nNazareth reconciling the world to Himself; if there is real meaning\nin the Incarnation at all; if all this language represents fact;\n\"then,\" he may say, \"I am wholly at a loss about everything else.\" A\nman builds up a world of thought for himself--we all do--a scheme of\nthings; and to a man with a thought-out view of the world, it may\ncome with an enormous shock to realize this incredible idea, this\nincredible truth, of God in Christ. Those who have dwelt most on it,\nand value it most, may be most apt to understand what I mean by\ncalling it incredible. Think of it. It takes your breath away. If\nthat is true, does not the whole plan of my life fall to pieces--my\nwhole scheme of things for the world, my whole body of intellectual\nconceptions? And the man to whom this happens may well say he is\nafraid. He is afraid, because it is so strange; because, when you\nrealize it, it takes you into a new world; you cannot grasp it. A\nman whose instinct is for truth may hesitate--will hesitate about a\nconception like this. \"Is it possible,\" he will ask himself, \"that I\nam deluded?\" And another thought rises up again and again, \"Where\nwill it take me?\" We can understand a man being afraid in that way.\nI do not think we have much right _not_ to be afraid. If it is the\nincarnation of God, what right have we not to be afraid? Then, of\ncourse, a man will say that to follow Christ involves too much in\nthe way of sacrifice. He is afraid on lower grounds, afraid of his\nfamily, afraid for his career; he hesitates. To that man the thing\nwill be unintelligible. The experience of St. Augustine, revealed in\nhis \"Confessions\", is illuminative here. He had intellectual\ndifficulties in his approach to the Christian position, but the rate\nof progress became materially quicker when he realized that the\nmoral difficulties came first, that a practical step had to be\ntaken. So with us--to decide the issue, how far are we prepared to\ngo with Jesus? Have we realized the experience behind his thought?\nThe rule which we laid down at the beginning holds. How far are we\nprepared to go in sharing that experience? That will measure our\nright to understand him. Once again, in the plainest language, are\nwe prepared to follow, as the disciples followed, afraid as they\nwere?\n\nWhere is he going? Where is he taking them? They wonder; they do not\nknow; they are uneasy. But when all is said, the figure on the road\nahead of them, waiting for them now and looking round, is the Jesus\nwho loves them and whom they love.\n\nAnd one can imagine the feeling rising in the mind of one and\nanother of them: \"I don't know where he is going, or where he is\ntaking us, but I must be with him.\" There we reach again what the\nwhole story began with--he chose twelve that they might \"be with\nhim.\" To understand him, we, too, must be with him. What takes men\nthere? After all, it is, in the familiar phrase, the love of Jesus.\nIf one loves the leader, it is easier to follow him. But, whether\nyou understand him or whether you don't, if you love him you are\nglad that he chose the cross, and you are glad that you are one of\nhis people.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nTHE CHRISTIAN CHURCH IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE\n\nImperial Rome governed the whole of the Mediterranean world,--a\nlarger proportion and a greater variety of the human race than has\never been under one government. So far as numbers go, the Russian\nEmpire to-day, the Chinese and the British, each far exceed it; for\nthe population of the world is vastly larger than it was in Rome's\ndays. But there was a peculiar unity about the Roman Empire, for it\nembraced, as men thought, all civilized mankind. It was known that,\nfar away in the East, there were people called Indians, who had\nfought with Alexander the Great, but there was little real knowledge\nof them. Beyond India, there were vague rumours of a land where silk\ngrew on the leaves of the trees. But civilized mankind was under the\ncontrol of Rome. It was one rule of many races, many kingdoms,\nprincedoms, cities, cantons, and tribes--a wise rule, a rule that\nallowed the maximum of local government and traditional usage: Rome\nnot merely conquered but captured men all over the world; ruled\nthem, as a poet said, like a mother, not a queen, and bound them to\nherself. Men were eager, not so much to shake off her yoke, as to be\nRomans; and from the Atlantic to the Euphrates men, not of Roman\nblood, were proud to bear Roman names and to be Roman citizens. \"I\nwas free born,\" said St. Paul, not without a touch of satisfaction\n(Acts 22:25-28). A general peace prevailed through the Roman\nworld--a peace that was new to mankind. There was freedom of\nintercourse; one of the boasts made by the writers of the Roman\nEmpire is of this new freedom to travel, to go anywhere one pleased.\nPiracy on the sea, brigandage on the land, had been put down, and\nthere was a very great deal of travel. The Roman became an\ninveterate tourist. He went to the famous scenes of Asia Minor, to\nTroy above all--to \"sunny Rhodes and Mitylene\"--to Egypt. Merchants\nwent everywhere. And there was a fusing of cultures, traditions, and\ncreeds, all over the Mediterranean world. Centuries before,\nAlexander the Great had struck out the splendid idea of the marriage\nof East and West. He secured it by breaking down the Persian Empire,\nand making one Empire from the Adriatic to this side of the Sutlej\nor Bias. He desired to cement this marriage of East and West in a\nway of his own. He took three hundred captive princesses and ladies,\nand married them in a batch to Macedonian officers--a very\ncharacteristic piece of symbolism. But his idea was greater and\ntruer than the symbol.\n\nThe Roman marriage of the East and West was a more real thing, for\nbehind it lay three centuries of growing intercourse and knowledge\nalong Alexander's lines. In the sphere of religion we find it most\nclearly. There rises a resultant world-religion--a religion that\nembraces all the cults, all the creeds, and at last all the\nphilosophies, in one great system. That religion held the world. It\nis true, there were exceptions. There was a small and objectionable\nrace called Jews; there were possibly some Druids in Southern\nBritain; and here and there was a solitary atheist who represented\nno one but himself. These few exceptions were the freaks amongst\nmankind. Apart from them mankind was united in its general beliefs\nabout the gods. The world had one religion.\n\nFirst of all, let us try to estimate the strength of this old\nMediterranean Paganism. It was strong in its great traditions.\nPlutarch, who lived from about 50 A.D. to 117 or so, is our great\nexponent of this old religion. To him I shall have to refer\nconstantly. He was a writer of charm, a man with many gifts.\nPlutarch's Lives was the great staple of education in the\nRenaissance--and as good a one, perhaps, as we have yet discovered,\neven in this age when there are so many theories of education with\nforeign names. Plutarch, then, writing about Delphi, the shrine and\noracle of the god Apollo, said that men had been \"in anguish and\nfear lest Delphi should lose its glory of three thousand years\"--and\nDelphi has not lost it. For ninety generations the god has been\ngiving oracles to the Greek world, to private people, to kings, to\ncities, to nations--and on all sorts of subjects, on the foundation\nof colonies, the declaration of wars, personal guidance and the hope\nof heirs. You may test the god where you will, Plutarch claimed, you\nwill not find an instance of a false oracle. Readers of Greek\nhistory will remember another great writer of as much charm, five\nhundred years before, Herodotus, who was not so sure about all the\noracles. But let us think what it means,--to look back over three\nthousand years of one faith, unbroken. Egyptian religion had been\nunchallenged for longer still, even if we allow Plutarch's three\nthousand years. The oldest remains in Egypt antedate, we are told,\n4000 B.C., and all through history, with the exception of the\nsolitary reign of Amen-Hotep III., Egypt worshipped the same gods,\nwith additions, as time went on. Again an unbroken tradition. And\nhow long, under various names, had Cybele, Mother of Gods, been\nworshipped in Asia? By our era all these religions were fused into\none religion, of many cults and rites and ancient traditions; and\nthe incredible weight of old tradition in that world is hard to\noverestimate.\n\nThe old religion was strong in the splendour of its art and its\narchitecture. The severe, beautiful lines of the Greek temple are\nfamiliar to us still; and, until I saw the Taj, I think I should\nhave doubted whether there could be anything more beautiful.\nArchitecture was consecrated to the gods, and so was art. You go to\nDelphi, said Plutarch, and see those wonderful works of the ancient\nartists and sculptors, as fresh still as if they had left the chisel\nyesterday, and they had stood there for hundreds of years, wonderful\nin their beauty. Think of some of the remains of the Greek art--of\nthat Victory, for instance, which the Messenians set on the temple\nat Olympia in 421 B.C. She stood on a block of stone on the temple,\nbut the block was painted blue, so that, as the spectator came up,\nhe saw the temple and the angle of its roof, and then a gap of blue\nsky and the goddess just alighting on the summit of the temple. From\nwhat is left of her, broken and headless, but still beautiful, we\ncan picture her flying through the air--the wind has blown her dress\nback against her, and you see its folds freshly caught by the\nbreeze. And all this the artist had disentangled from a rough block\nof stone--so vivid was his conception of the goddess, and so sure\nhis hand. There are those who say that the conventional picture of\nGod of the great artists is moulded after the Zeus of Pheidias.\nEgypt again had other portrayals of the gods--on a pattern of her\nown, strange and massive and huge, far older. About six hundred\nyears before Christ the Egyptian King, Psammetichos (Psem Tek),\nhired Greek soldiers and marched them hundreds of miles up the Nile.\nThe Greek soldiers, one idle day, carved their names on the legs of\nthe colossal gods seated at Abu Symbel. Their names are found there\nto-day. So old are these gods.\n\nThe religion was strong in the splendour of its ceremony. Every year\nthe Athenian people went to Eleusis in splendid procession to\nworship, to be initiated into the rites of the Earth-Mother and her\nvirgin daughter, who had taught men the use of grain and the arts of\nfarming-rites linked with an immemorial past, awful rites that gave\nmen a new hope of eternal life. The Mother of the Gods, from Phrygia\nin Asia Minor, had her rites, too; and her cult spread all over the\nworld. When the Roman poet, Lucretius, wants to describe the wonder\nand magic of the pageant of Nature in the spring-time he goes to the\npomp of Cybele. The nearest thing to it which we can imagine is\nBotticelli's picture of the Triumph of Spring. Lucretius was a poet\nto whom the gods were idle and irrelevant; yet to that pageant he\ngoes for a picture of the miraculous life of nature. More splendid\nstill were the rites of the Egyptian Isis, celebrated all over the\nworld. Her priests, shaven and linen-clad, carried symbols of an\nunguessed antiquity and magical power. They launched a boat with a\nflame upon it--on the river in Egypt, on the sea in Greece. All\nthese cults made deep impressions on the worshippers, as our records\ntell us. The appeal of religious emotion was noticed by Aristotle,\nwho remarked, however, that it was rather feeling than intellect\nthat was touched--a shrewd criticism that deserves to be remembered\nstill.\n\nThe gods were strong in their actual manifestations of themselves.\nApollo for ninety generations had spoken in Delphi. At Epidauros\nthere was a shrine of Asclepias. Its monuments have been collected\nand edited by Dr. Caton of Liverpool. There sick men and women came,\nlived a quiet life of diet and religious ceremony, preparing for the\nnight on which they should sleep in the temple. On that night the\ngod came to them, they said, in that mood or state where they lay\n\"between asleep and awake, sometimes as in a dream and then as in a\nwaking vision--one's hair stood on end, but one shed tears of joy\nand felt light-hearted.\" Others said they definitely saw him. He\ncame and told them what to do; on waking they did it and were\nhealed; or he touched them then and there, and cured them as they\nlay. Some of the cures recorded on the monuments are perhaps strange\nto our ideas of medicine. One records how the god came to man\ndreadfully afflicted with dropsy, cut off his head, turned him\nupside down and let the fluid run out, and then replaced his head\nwith a neat join. Some modern readers may doubt this story; but that\nthe god did heal people, men firmly believed. We, too, may believe\nthat people were healed, perhaps by living a healthy life in a quiet\nplace, a life of regimen and diet; and perhaps faith-healing or\nsuggestion played as strong a part as anything else. Even the\nChristians believed that these gods had a certain power; they were\nevil spirits.\n\nNot only the gods of the temples would manifest themselves of their\ngrace. Every man had a guardian spirit, a \"genius\"; and by proper\nmeans he could be \"compelled\" to show himself visibly. The pupils of\nPlotinus conjured up his \"genius\", and it came--not a daemon, but a\ngod. The right formula (\"mantram\") and the right stone in the\nhand--and a man had a wonderful power over the gods themselves. This\nwas called \"theurgy\".\n\nBut the great strength of this old religion was its infinite\nadaptability. It made peace with every god and goddess that it met.\nIt adopted them all. As a French scholar has said, where there is\npolytheism there are no false gods. All the religions were fused and\nthe gods were blended. The Roman went to Greece and identified\nJupiter with Zeus; he went to Egypt and found him in Amun (Ammon);\nhe went to Syria and found him in Baal. If the Jew had not been so\nfoolish and awkward, there might have been a Jupiter Jehovah as\nwell. It was a catholic faith, embracing everything--cult and creed\nand philosophy--strong in all the ways we have surveyed and in many\nmore, above all because it was unchallenged.\n\nAnd yet, where is that religion to-day? That, to me, is one of the\nmost significant questions in history--more so, the longer I stay in\nIndia. Men knew that that religion of Greece and Rome was eternal;\nyet it is utterly gone. Why? How _could_ it go? What conceivable\npower was there, I do not say, to bring it down, but to abolish it\nso thoroughly, that not a soul in Egypt worships Isis--how many even\nknow her name?--not a soul in Italy thinks of Jove but as a fancy,\nand Pallas Athene in Athens itself is a mere memory? That is the\nproblem, the historical problem, with which we have now to deal.\n\nFirst of all, let us look again, and more closely, at that old\nreligion--we shall find in it at least four cardinal weaknesses.\n\nFirst, it stands for \"the unexamined life,\" as Plato called it. \"The\nunexamined life,\" he says, \"is not liveable for a human being.\" A\nman, who is a man, must cross-examine life, must make life face up\nto him and yield its secrets. He must know what it means, the\nsignificance of every relation of life--father and child, man and\nwife, citizen and city, subject and king, man and the world--above\nall, man and God. We must examine and know. But this old religion\nstood by tradition and not reflection. There was no deep sense of\ntruth. Plutarch admired his father, and he describes, with warm\napproval, how his father once said to a man: \"That is a dangerous\nquestion, not to be discussed at all--when you question the opinion\nwe hold about the gods, and ask reason and demonstration for\neverything.\" Such an attitude means mistrust, it means at bottom a\nfundamental unfaith. The house is beautiful; do not touch it; it is\nriddled by white ants, by dry rot, and it would fall. That is not\nfaith; it is a strange confession; but all who hesitate at changes,\nI think, make that confession sooner or later. There is a line of\nKabir which puts the essence of this: \"Penance is not equal to\ntruth, nor is there any sin like untruth.\" This was one of the\nessential weaknesses of that old religion--its fear, and the absence\nof a deep sense of truth.\n\nIn the next place, there is no real association of morals with\nreligion. The old stories were full of the adventures of Jupiter, or\nZeus, with the heroines, mortal women, whom he loved. Of some 1900\nwall paintings at Pompeii, examined by a German scholar and\nantiquary, some 1400 represent mythological subjects, largely the\nstories of the loves of Jupiter. The Latin dramatist Terence\npictures the young man looking at one of these paintings and saying\nto himself, \"If Jupiter did it, why should not I?\" Centuries later\nwe find Augustine quoting that sentence. It has been said that few\nthings tended more strongly against morality than the stories of the\ngods preserved by Homer and Hesiod. Plato loved Homer; so much the\nmore striking is his resolve that in his \"Republic\" there should be\nno Homer. Men said: \"Ah, but you don't understand; those stories are\nallegories. They do not mean what they say; they mean something\ndeeper.\" But Plato said we must speak of God always as he is; we\nmust in no case tell lies about God \"whether they are allegories or\nwhether they are not allegories.\" Plato, like every real thinker,\nsees that this pretence of allegory is a sham. The story did its\nmischief whether it was allegory or not; it stood between man and\nGod, and headed men on to wrong lines, turned men away from the\nmoral standard.\n\nThere was more. Every year, as we saw, men went to be initiated into\nthe rites of Demeter at Eleusis, a few miles from Athens. And we\nread how one of the great Athenian orators, Lysias, went there and\ntook with him to be initiated a harlot, with whom he was living, and\nthe woman's proprietress--a squalid party; and they were initiated.\nTheir morals made no difference; the priests and the goddesses\noffered no objection. In the temple of Aphrodite at Corinth there\nwere women slaves dedicated to the goddess, who owned them, and who\nreceived the wages of their shame. With what voice could religion\nspeak for morality in Corinth? At Comana in Syria (we read in Strabo\nthe geographer, about the time of Christ) there was a temple where\nthere were six thousand of these temple slaves. I say again, that is\nthe unexamined life. God and goddess have nothing to say about some\nof the most sacred relations in life. God, goddess, priest,\nworshipper, never gave a thought to these poor creatures, dedicated,\nnot by themselves, to this awful life--human natures with the\ncraving of the real woman for husband and child, for the love of\nhome, but never to know it. That was associated with religion; that\nwas religion. There was always a minimum of protest from the Greek\ntemples against wrong or for right. It is remarked, again and again,\nthat all the great lessons came, not from the temples, not from the\npriests, but from the poets and philosophers, from the thinkers in\nrevolt against the religion of their people. Curiously enough, even\nin Homer himself, it is plain that the heroes, the men, are on a\nhigher moral plane than the gods; and all through Greek history the\ngods are a drag on morality. What a weakness in religion! The sense\nof wrong and right is innate in man; it may be undeveloped, or it\nmay be deadened, but it is instinctive; and a religion which does\nnot know it, or which finds the difference between right and wrong\nto lie in matters of taboo or ceremonial defilement, cannot speak to\none of the deepest needs of the human heart, the need of\nforgiveness. There is no righteousness, in the long run, about these\ngods.\n\nIn the third place, the religion has the common weakness of all\npolytheism. Men were afraid of the gods; there were thousands and\nthousands, hosts of them. At every turn you ran into one, a new one;\nyou could never be certain that you would not offend some unknown\ngod or goddess. Superstition was the curse of the day. You had to\nmake peace with all these gods and goddesses--and not with them\nalone. For there was another class of supernatural beings, dangerous\nif unpropitiated, the daemons, the spirits that inhabited the air,\nthat presided over life and its stages, that helped or hated the\nhuman soul, spiteful and evil half-divine beings, that sent illness,\nbad luck, madness, that stole the honours of the gods themselves and\ninsisted on rituals and worship, often unclean, often cruel, but\ninevitable. A man must watch himself closely if he was to be safe\nfrom them all, if he was to keep wife and child and home safe.\n\nSuperstition, men said, was the one curse of life that made no truce\nwith sleep. A famous Christian writer of the second century, Tatian,\nspeaks of the enormous relief that he found in getting away from the\ntyranny of ten thousand gods to be under a monarchy of One. A modern\nJapanese, Uchimura, said the same thing: \"One God, not eight\nmillions; that was joyful news to me.\"\n\nFourthly, this religion took from the grave none of its terrors.\nThere might be a world beyond, and there might not. At any rate, \"be\ninitiated,\" said the priests; \"you will have to pay us something,\nbut it is worth it.\" Prophets and quacks, said Plato, came to rich\nmen's doors and made them believe that they could rid them of all\nalarm for the next world, by incantations and charms and other\nthings, by a series of feasts and jollifications. So they said, and\nmen did what they were told; but it did not take away the fear of\ndeath.\n\nFrom the first century onwards men began systematically to defend\nthis old paganism. Plutarch wrote a series of books in its behalf.\nHe brings in something like love of god for man. He speaks of \"the\nfriendly Apollo.\" But the weakness of Plutarch as an apologist is\nhis weakness as biographer--he never really gets at the bottom of\nanything. In biography he gives us the characteristic rather than\nthe character. Here he never faces the real issue. It is all\ndefence, apology, ingenuity; but he defends far too much. He admits\nthere are obscene rites; there had been human sacrifices; but the\ngods cannot have ordained them; daemons, who stole the names of\ngods, imposed these on men--not the gods; men practised them to\navert the anger of daemons. The gods are good. Waiving the fact that\nhe had not much evidence for this in the mythology, how was a man to\ndistinguish god from daemon, to know which is which? He does not\ntell us. Again he speaks of the image of Osiris with three\n\"lingams\". He apologizes for it; he defends it; for the triplicity\nis a symbol of godhead, and it means that God is the origin of all\nlife. Yes, but what that religion needed was a great reformer, who\nshould have cut the religion clear adrift from idols of every kind,\nfrom the old mythology, from obscenity. It may very well be that\nsuch a reformer was unthinkable; even if he had appeared, he would\nhave been foredoomed to fail, as the compromise of the Stoics shows.\nPlutarch and his kind did not attempt this. They loved the past and\nthe old ways. At heart they were afraid of the gods and were afraid\nof tradition. Culture and charm will do a great deal, but they do\nnot suffice for a religion--either to make one or to redeem it.\n\nThe Stoics reached, I think, the highest moral level in that Roman\nworld--great men, great teachers of morals, great characters; but as\nfor the crowd, they said, let them go on in the religions of their\nown cities; what they had learnt from their fathers, let them do. So\nmuch for the ignorant; for us, of course, something else. That seems\nto be a fundamentally wrong defence of religion. It gets the\nproportions wrong. It means that we, who are people of culture, are\na great deal nearer to God than the crowd. But if we realize God at\nall, we feel that we are none of us very far apart down here. The\nmost brilliant men are amenable to the temptations of the savage and\nof the dock labourer. There was a further danger, little noticed at\nfirst, that life is apt to be overborne by the vulgar, the ignorant,\nif there is not a steady campaign to enlighten every man. The Roman\nhouse was full of slaves; they taught the children--taught them\nabout gods and goddesses, from Syria, from Egypt, and kept thought\nand life and morals on a low plane. An ignorant public is, an\nunspeakable danger everywhere, but especially in religion.\n\nThe last great system of defence was the New Platonism. It had not\nvery much to do with Plato, except that it read him and quoted him\nas a great authority. The Neo-Platonists did not face facts as Plato\ndid. They lived on quotations, on authority and fancy, great\nthinkers as some of them were. They pictured the universe as one\nvast unity. Far beyond all things is God. Of God man can form no\nconception. Think, they would say, of all the exalted and wonderful\nand beautiful concepts you can imagine; then deny them. God is\nbeyond. God is beyond being; you can conceive of being, and\ntherefore to predicate being of God is to limit him. You cannot\nthink of God; for, if you could think of God, God would be in\nrelation with you; God is insusceptible of relation with man. He\nneither wills, nor thinks of man, nor can man think of him. A modern\nphilosopher has summed up their God as the deification of the word\n\"not.\" This God, then, who is not, willed--no! not \"willed\"; he\ncould not will; but whether he willed or did not will, in some way\nor other there was an emanation; not God, but very much of God; very\ndivine, but not all God; from this another and another in a\ndescending series, down to the daemons, and down to men. All that\nis, is God; evil is not-being. One of the great features of the\nsystem was that it guaranteed all the old religions--for the crowd;\nwhile for the initiated, for the esoteric, it had something more--it\nhad mystic trance, mystic vision, mystic comprehension. Twice or\nthree times, Plotinus, by a great leap away from all mortal things,\nsaw God. In the meantime, the philosophy justified all the old\nrites.\n\nSide by side with this great defence were what are known as the\nChristian heresies. They are not exactly Christian. Groups of people\nendeavoured to combine Christianity with the old thought, with\nphilosophy, theosophy, theurgy, and magic. They were eclectics; they\ncompromised. The German thinker, Novalis, said very justly that all\neclectics are sceptics, and the more eclectic the more sceptic.\nThese mixtures could not prevail.\n\nBut religions have, historically, a wonderful way of living in spite\nof their weaknesses--yes, and in spite of their apologetics. A\nreligion may be stained with all sorts of evil, and may communicate\nit; and yet it will survive, until there is an alternative with more\ntruth and more dynamic. The old paganism outlived Plato's criticisms\nand Plutarch's defences. For the great masses of people neither\nmight have written.\n\nInto this world came the Christian Church. I have tried to draw the\npicture of the great pagan religion, with its enormous strength, its\nuniversal acceptance, its great traditions, its splendours of art\nand ceremony, its manifest proofs of its gods--everything that, to\nthe ordinary mind, could make for reality and for power; to show how\nabsolutely inconceivable it was that it could ever pass away. Then\ncomes the Christian Church--a ludicrous collection of trivial\npeople, very ignorant and very common; fishermen and publicans, as\nthe Gospels show us, \"the baker and the fuller,\" as Celsus said with\na sneer. Yes, and every kind of unclean and disreputable person they\nurged to join them, quite unlike all decent and established\nreligions. And they took the children and women of the family away\ninto a corner, and whispered to them and misled them--\"Only\nbelieve!\" was their one great word. The whole thing was incredibly\nsilly. Paul went to Athens, and they asked him there about his\nreligion; and when he spoke to them about Jesus rising from the\ndead, they sniggered, and the more polite suggested \"another day.\"\nEverybody knew that dead men do not rise. It was a silly religion.\nCelsus pictured the frogs in symposium round a swamp, croaking to\none another how God forsakes the whole universe, the spheres of\nheaven, to dwell with us; we frogs are so like God; he never ceases\nto seek how we may dwell with him for ever; but some of us are\nsinners, so God will come--or send his son--and burn them up; and\nthe rest of us will live with him for eternity. Is not that very\nlike the Christian religion? Celsus asked. It has been replied that,\nif the frogs really could say this and did say this, then their\nstatement might be quite reasonable. But our main purpose for the\nmoment is to realize the utterly inconceivable absurdity of this\nbunch of Galilean fishermen--and fools and rascals and\nmaniacs--setting out to capture the world. One of them wrote an\nApocalypse. He was in a penal settlement on Patmos, when he wrote\nit. The sect was in a fair way of being stamped out in blood, as a\nmatter of fact; but this dreamer saw a triumphant Church of ten\nthousand times ten thousand--and thousands of thousands--there were\nhardly as many people in the world at that time; the great Rome had\nfallen and the \"Lamb\" ruled. Imagine the amusement of a Roman pagan\nof 100 A.D. who read the absurd book. Yet the dream has come true;\nthat Church has triumphed. Where is the old religion? Christ has\nconquered, and all the gods have gone, utterly gone--they are\nmemories now, and nothing more. Why did they go? The Christian\nChurch refused to compromise. A pagan could have seen no real reason\nwhy Jesus should not be a demi-god like Herakles or Dionysos; no\nreason, either, why a man should not worship Jesus as well as these.\nOne of the Roman Emperors, a little after 200 A.D., had in his\nprivate sanctuary four or five statues of gods, and one of them was\nJesus. Why not? The Roman world had open arms for Jesus as well as\nany other god or demi-god, if people would be sensible; but the\nChristian said, No. He would not allow Jesus to be put into that\npantheon, nor would he worship the gods himself, not even the\n\"genius\" of the Emperor, his guardian spirit. The Christian\nproclaimed a war of religion in which there shall be no compromise\nand no peace, till Christ is lord of all; the thing shall be fought\nout to the bitter end. And it has been. He was resolved that the old\ngods should go; and they have gone. How was it done?\n\nHere we touch what I think one of the greatest wonders that history\nhas to show. How did the Church do it? If I may invent or adapt\nthree words, the Christian \"out-lived\" the pagan, \"out-died\" him,\nand \"out-thought\" him. He came into the world and lived a great deal\nbetter than the pagan; he beat him hollow in living. Paul's Epistles\nto the Corinthians do not indicate a high standard of life at\nCorinth. The Corinthians were a very poor sort of Christians. But\nanother Epistle, written to the Corinthians a generation later,\nspeaks of their passion for being kind to men, and of a broadened\nand deeper life, in spite of their weaknesses. Here and there one\nrecognizes failure all along the line--yes, but the line advances.\nThe old world had had morals, plenty of morals--the Stoics\noverflowed with morals. But the Christian came into the world, not\nwith a system of morality--he had rules, indeed--\"which,\" asks\nTertullian, \"is the ampler rule, Thou shalt not commit adultery, or\nthe rule that forbids a single lustful look?\"--but it was not rules\nso much that he brought into the world as a great passion. \"The Son\nof God,\" he said, \"loved me and gave himself for me. That man--Jesus\nChrist loved him, gave himself for him. He is the friend of my best\nFriend. My best Friend loves that man, gave himself for him, died\nfor him.\" How it alters all the relations of life! Who can kill or\nrob another man, when he remembers whose hands were nailed to the\nCross for that man? See how it bears on another side of morality.\nTertullian strikes out a great phrase, a new idea altogether, when\nhe speaks of \"the victim of the common lust.\" Christ died for\nher--how it safeguards her and uplifts her! Men came into the world\nfull of this passion for Jesus Christ. They went to the slave and to\nthe temple-woman and told them: \"The Son of God loved you and gave\nhimself for you\"; and they believed it, and rose into a new life. To\nbe redeemed by the Son of God gave the slave a new self-respect, a\nnew manhood. He astonished people by his truth, his honesty, his\ncleanness; and there was a new brightness and gaiety about him. So\nthere was about the woman. They sang, they overflowed with good\ntemper. It seemed as if they had been born again. As Clement of Rome\nwrote, the Holy Spirit was a glad spirit. The word used both by him\nand by St. Augustine is that which gives us the English word\n\"hilarious.\" There was a new gladness and happiness about these\npeople. \"It befits Truth to laugh, because she is glad--to play with\nher rivals because she is free from fear,\" so said Tertullian. Of\ncourse, there were those who broke down, but Julian the Apostate, in\nhis letters to his heathen priests, is a reluctant witness to the\nhigher character of Christian life. And it was Jesus who was the\nsecret of it.\n\nThe pagan noticed the new fortitude in the face of death. Tertullian\nhimself was immensely impressed with it. He had never troubled to\nlook at the Gospels. Nobody bothered to read them unless they were\nconverted already, he said. But he seems to have seen these\nChristian martyrs die. \"Every man,\" he said, \"who sees it, is moved\nwith some misgiving, and is set on fire to learn the reason; he\ninquires and he is taught; and when he has learnt the truth, he\ninstantly follows it himself as well.\" \"No one would have wished to\nbe killed, unless he was in possession of the truth.\" I think that\nis autobiography. The intellectual energy of the man is worth\nnoting--his insistence on understanding, his instant resolution;\nsuch qualities, we saw, had won the admiration of Jesus. Here is a\nman who sacrifices a great career--his genius, his wit, his humour,\nfire, power, learning, philosophy, everything thrown at Christ's\nfeet, and Christ uses them all. Then came a day when persecution was\nbreaking out again. Some Christians were for \"fleeing to the next\ncity\"--it was the one text in their Bible, he said. He said: \"I stay\nhere.\" Any day the mob might get excited and shout: \"The Christians\nto the lions.\" They knew the street in which he lived, and they\nwould drag him--the scholar, the man of letters and of\nimagination--naked through the streets; torn and bleeding, they\nwould tie him to the stake in the middle of the amphitheatre and\npile faggots round him, and there he would stand waiting to be burnt\nalive; or, it might be, to be killed by the beasts. Any hour, any\nday. \"I stay here,\" he said. What does it cost a man to do that?\nPeople asked what was the magic of it. The magic of it was just\nthis--on the other side of the fire was the same Friend; \"if he\nwants me to be burnt alive, I am here.\" Jesus Christ was the secret\nof it.\n\nThe Christians out-thought the pagan world. How could they fail to?\n\"We have peace with God,\" said Paul. They moved about in a new\nworld, which was their Father's world. They would go to the shrines\nand ask uncomfortable questions. Lucian, who was a pagan and a\nscoffer, said that on one side of the shrines the notice was posted:\n\"Christians outside.\" The Christians saw too much. The living god in\nthat shrine was a big snake with a mask tied on--good enough for the\npagan; but the Christian would see the strings. Even the daemons\nthey dismissed to irrelevance and non-entity. The essence of magic\nwas to be able to link the name of a daemon with the name of one's\nenemy, to set the daemon on the man. \"Very well,\" said the\nChristian, \"link my name with your daemons. Use my name in any magic\nyou like. There is a name that is above every name; I am not\nafraid.\" That put the daemons into their right place, and by and by\nthey vanished, dropped out, died of sheer inanition and neglect.\nWherever Jesus Christ has been, the daemons have gone. \"There used\nto be fairies,\" said an old woman in the Highlands of Scotland to a\nfriend of mine, \"but the Gospel came and drove them away.\" I do not\nknow what is going to keep them away yet but Jesus Christ. The\nChristian read the ancient literature with the same freedom of mind,\nand was not in bondage to it; he had a new outlook; he could\ncriticize more freely. One great principle is given by Clement of\nAlexandria: \"The beautiful, wherever it is, is ours, because it came\nfrom our God.\" The Christian read the best books, assimilated them,\nand lived the freest intellectual life that the world had. Jesus had\nset him to be true to fact. Why had Christian churches to be so much\nlarger than pagan temples? Why are they so still? Because the sermon\nis in the very centre of all Christian worship--clear, definite\nChristian teaching about Jesus Christ. There is no place for an\nignorant Christian. From the very start every Christian had to know\nand to understand, and he had to read the Gospels; he had to be able\nto give the reason for his faith. He was committed to a great\npropaganda, to the preaching of Jesus, and he had to preach with\npenetration and appeal. There they were loyal to the essential idea\nof Jesus--they were \"sons of fact.\" They read about Jesus,[32] and\nthey knew him, and they knew where they stood. This has been the\nessence of the Christian religion. Put that alongside of the pitiful\ndefence which Plutarch makes of obscene rites, filthy images,\nfoolish traditions. Who did the thinking in that ancient world?\nAgain and again it was the Christian. He out-thought the world.\n\nThe old religion crumbled and fell, beaten in thought, in morals, in\nlife, in death. And by and by the only name for it was paganism, the\nreligion of the back-country village, of the out-of-the-way places.\nChrist had conquered. \"Dic tropoeum passionis, dic triumphalem\nCrucem\", sang Prudentius--\"Sing the trophy of the Passion; sing the\nall-triumphant Cross.\" The ancients thought that God repeated the\nwhole history of the universe over and over again, like a cinema\nshow. Some of them thought the kingdoms rise and fall by pure\nchance. No, said Prudentius, God planned; God developed the history\nof mankind; he made Rome for his own purposes, for Christ.\n\nWhat is the explanation of it? We who live in a rational universe,\nwhere real results come from real causes, must ask what is the power\nthat has carried the Christian Church to victory over that great old\nreligion. And there is another question: is this story going to be\nrepeated? What is there about Shiva, Kali, or Shri Krishna that\nessentially differentiates them from the gods of Greece and Rome and\nEgypt? Tradition, legend, philosophy--point by point, we find the\nsame thing; and we find the same Christian Church, with the same\nideals, facing the same conflict. What will be the result? The\nresult will be the same. We have seen in China, in the last two\ndecades, how the Christian Church is true to its traditions; how men\ncan die for Jesus Christ. In the Greek Church--a suffering\nChurch--on the round sacramental wafer there is a cross, and in the\nfour corners there are the eight letters, IE, XE, NI, KA, \"Jesus\nChrist conquers.\" That is the story of the Christian Church in the\nRoman Empire. That is the story which, please God, we shall see\nagain in India. \"Jesus Christ conquers.\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nJESUS IN CHRISTIAN THOUGHT\n\nJesus Christ came to men as a great new experience. He took them far\noutside all they had known of God and of man. He led them,\nhistorically, into what was, in truth, a new world, into a new\nunderstanding of life in all its relations. What they had never\nnoticed before, he brought to their knowledge, he made interesting\nto them, and intelligible. In short, as Paul put it, \"if any man be\nin Christ, it is a new creation\" (2 Cor. 5:17). The aspects of\nthings were different; the values were changed, and a new\nperspective made clear relations that were obscure and tangled\nbefore. Why should it have been so? Why should it be, that, when a\nman comes into contact, into some kind of sympathy with Jesus\nChrist, some living union with him, everything becomes new, and he\nby and by begins to feel with St. Paul: \"To me to live is Christ\"\n(Phil. 1:21)? Why has Jesus meant so much? Why should all this be\nassociated with him?\n\nPlato, in the sentence already quoted, tells us that \"the unexamined\nlife is unliveable for a human being, for a real man.\" Here, then,\ncame into man's life a new experience altogether, like nothing known\nbefore altering everything, giving new sympathies, new passions, new\nenthusiasms--a new attitude to God and a new attitude to men. It was\ninevitable that thought must work upon it. Who was this Jesus that\nhe should produce this result? Men asked themselves that very early;\nand if they were slow to do so, the criticism of the outsider drove\nthem into it. The result has been nineteen centuries of endless\nquestion and speculation as to Jesus Christ--the rise of dogma,\ncreed, and formula, as slowly all the philosophy of mankind has been\nre-thought in the light of the central experience of Jesus Christ.\nIn spite of all that we may regret in the war of creeds, it was\ninevitable--it was part of the disturbance that Jesus foresaw he\nmust make (Luke 12:51). Men \"could do no other\"--they had to\ndetermine for themselves the significance of Jesus in the real\nworld, in the whole cosmos of God; and it meant fruitful conflict of\nopinion, the growth of the human mind, and an ever-heightened\nemphasis on Jesus.\n\nAn analogy may illustrate in some way the story before us. One of\nthe most fascinating chapters of geography is the early exploration\nof America. Chesapeake Bay was missed by one explorer. Fog or\ndarkness may have been the cause of his missing the place; but he\nmissed it, and, though it is undoubtedly there, he made his map\nwithout it. Now let us suppose a similar case--for it must often\nhave happened in early days--and this time we will say it was the\nHudson, or some river of that magnitude. A later explorer came, and\nwhere the map showed a shore without a break, he found a huge inlet\nor outlet. Was it an arm of the sea, a vast bay, or was it a great\nriver? A very great deal depended on which it was, and the first\nthing was to determine that. There were several ways of doing it.\nOne was to sail up and map the course. A quicker way was to drop a\nbucket over the side of the ship. The bucket, we may be sure, went\ndown; and it came up with fresh water; and the water was an instant\nrevelation of several new and important facts. They had discovered,\nfirst of all, that where there was an unbroken coast-line on the\nmap, there was nothing of the kind in reality; there was a broad\nwaterway up into the country; and this was not a bay, but the mouth\nof a river, and a very great river indeed; and this implied yet\nanother discovery--that men had to reckon with no mere island or\nnarrow peninsula, but an immense continent, which it remained to\nexplore.\n\nJesus Christ was in himself a very great discovery for those to whom\nhe gave himself, and the exploration of him shows a somewhat similar\nstory. Men have often said that they see nothing in him very\ndifferent from the rest of us; while others have found in him, in\nthe phrase of the Apocalypse (Rev. 22:1), the \"water of life\"; and\nthe positive announcement is here, as in the other case, the more\nimportant of the two. The discovery of the volume of life, which\ncomes from Jesus Christ, is one of the greatest that men have made.\nMerely to have dipped his bucket, as it were, in that great stream\nof life has again and again meant everything to a man. Think of what\nthe new-found river of the New World meant to some of those early\nexplorers after weeks at sea--\n\n    Water, water everywhere,\n    Nor any drop to drink--\n\nand they reach an immense flood of river-water. It was new life at\nonce; but it did not necessarily mean the immediate exploration of\neverything, the instant completion of geographical discovery. It was\nlife and the promise of more to follow. The history of the Church is\na record, we may put it, both of the discovery of the River of Life\nand of the exploration of its course and its sources, and of what\nlies behind it. But the discovery and the exploration are different\nthings, and the first is quicker and more certain than the second.\nMost of us will admit that we have not gone very far up into that\nContinent. The object of this chapter is not to attempt to survey or\ncompendiarise Christian exploration of Jesus, but to try to find for\nourselves a new approach to an estimate of the historical figure who\nhas been and remains the centre of everything.\n\nWe may classify the records of the Christian exploration roughly in\nthree groups. In the early Christian centuries, we find endless\nthought given to the philosophical study of the relation of Christ\nand God. It fills the library of the Early Church, and practically\nall the early controversies turn upon it. The weak spot in all this\nwas the use of the \"a priori\" method. Men started with\npreconceptions about God--not unnaturally, for we all have some\ntheories about God, which we are apt to regard as knowledge. But\nknowledge is a difficult thing to reach in any sphere of study; and\nmen assumed too quickly that they had attained a sound philosophical\naccount of God. They over-estimated their actual knowledge of God\nand did not recognize to the full the importance of their new\nexperience. This may seem ungenerous to men, who gave life and\neverything for Jesus Christ, and to whose devotion, to whose love of\nJesus, we owe it that we know him--an ungenerous criticism of their\nbrave thinking, and their independence in a hundred ways of old\ntradition. Still it is true that the weakness of much of their\nChristology--and of ours--is that it starts with a borrowed notion\nof God, which really has very little to do with the Christian\nreligion. To this we shall return; but in the meantime we may note\nthat here as elsewhere preconceptions have to be lightly held by the\nserious student. Huxley once wrote to Charles Kingsley: \"Science\nseems to me to teach in the highest and strongest manner the great\ntruth that is embodied in the Christian conception of entire\nsurrender to the will of God. Sit down before the fact as a little\nchild, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow\nhumbly wherever and to whatever end Nature leads, or you shall learn\nnothing .... I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind\nsince I have resolved at all risks to do this.\" So Huxley wrote\nabout the study of natural science. In this great inquiry of ours we\nhave to learn to be patient enough--we might say, ignorant\nenough--to do the same. The Early Church had a faith in Greek\nphilosophy, which stood in its way, brave and splendid as its\nthinkers were.\n\nOur second group is represented roughly by the Hymn Book. The\nevidential value of a good hymn book will stand investigation. Of\ncourse a great many hymns are mere copies, and poor copies; but the\nHymn Book at its best is a collection of first-hand records of\nexperience.[33] In the story of the Christian Church doxology comes\nbefore dogma. When the writer of the Apocalypse breaks out at the\nvery beginning: \"Unto him that loved us and washed[34] us from our\nsins in his own blood . . . be glory and dominion for ever and ever\"\n(Rev. 1:5), he is recording a great experience; and his doxology\nleads him on to an explanation of what he has felt and known--to an\nintellectual judgement and an appreciation of Christ. The order is\nexperience,--happiness and song--and then reflection. The love and\nthe cleansing, and the joy, supply the materials on which thought\nhas to work. We have always to remember that thought does not\nstrictly supply its own material, however much it may help us to\nfind it. Philosophy and theology do not give us our facts. Their\nfunction is to group and interpret them.\n\nOur third group of records is given to us by the men of the\nReformation. We have there two great movements side by side. There\nis Bible translation, which means, in plain language, a decision or\nconviction on the part of scholars and thinkers, that the knowledge\nof the historical Jesus, and of men's first experiences of him, is\nof the highest importance in the Christian life. The whole\nReformation follows, or runs parallel with, that movement. It is\nessentially a new exploration of what Jesus Christ can do and of\nwhat he can be.\n\nIn dealing with all these three groups of records, we have to note\nthe seriousness of the men who made the experiments, their energy of\nmind, their determination to reach real facts and, in Cromwell's\ngreat phrase, to \"speak things.\" They will have the truth of the\nmatter. Intricate and entangled as is the history, for instance, of\nthe Arian controversy--that controversy which \"turned on a\ndiphthong,\" as Carlyle said in his younger days--it represented far\nmore than mere logomachy, as Carlyle saw later on. It followed from\na determination to get at the real fact of who and what Jesus Christ\nis; and the two words, that differed by a diphthong, embodied\ndiametrically opposite conceptions of him. With all the\nsuper-subtlety that sometimes characterizes theologians, these men\nhad a passion for truth. It led them into paths where our minds find\na difficulty in following; but the motive was the imperative sense\nthat thinking men must examine and understand their supreme\nexperience--a motive that must weigh with men who are in earnest\nabout life. The great hymns of the Church--such as the \"Dies Irae\"\nof Thomas of Celano, or Bernard's \"Jesu dulcis memoria\", or\nToplady's \"Rock of Ages\"--are transcripts from life, made by\ndeep-going and serious minds. The writers are recording, with deep\nconviction of its worth, what they have discovered in experience. A\nman who takes Christ seriously and will \"examine life,\" will often\nfind in those great hymns, it may be with some surprise, an\nanticipation of his own experience as Bunyan did in Luther's\nCommentary on Galatians. Livingstone had \"Jesu dulcis memoria\"--the\nLatin of it--ringing in his head as he travelled in unexplored\nAfrica. Men who did such work--work that lasts and is recognized\nagain and again to be genuine by others busy in the same\nfield--cannot have been random, light-hearted creatures. They were,\nin fact, men tested in life, men of experience of wide and deep\nexperience--men with a gift for living, developed in heart as well\nas in brain. The finest of Greek critics, Longinus, said that, \"The\ngreat style (\"hupsos\") is an echo of a great soul.\" Neander\nsaid--and it is again and again true--that \"it is the heart that\nmakes the theologian.\" Where we find a great hymn or a great\ntheology, we may be sure of finding a great nature and a great\nexperience behind it.\n\nLet us sum up our general results so far. First of all, whatever be\nthe worth of the consensus of Christian opinion--and we have to\ndecide how much it is worth, bearing in mind the type of man who has\nworked and suffered to make it in every age; and, I think, it runs\nhigh, as the work of serious and explorative minds--the consensus of\nChristian opinion gives the very highest name to Jesus Christ. Men,\nwho did not begin with any preconception in his favour, and who have\noften had a great deal of difficulty in explaining to others--and\nperhaps to themselves--the course by which they have reached their\nconclusions, claim the utmost for Jesus--and this in spite of the\nmost desperate philosophical difficulties about monotheism. With a\nstrong sense of fact, with a deepening feeling for reality, with a\ngrowing value for experience, and with bolder ventures upon\nexperience, men have found that their conception of Jesus deepens\nand grows; he means more to them the more they are. And, as was\nnoted in the first chapter, in a rational universe, where truth\ncounts and error fails, the Church has risen in power with every\nreal emphasis laid on Jesus Christ. What does this involve?\n\nSo far our records. To-day we are living in an era when great\nscientific discoveries are made, and more are promised. Geology once\nunsettled people about Genesis; but closer study of the Bible and of\nscience has given truer views of both, and thinking people are as\nlittle troubled about geology now as about Copernican astronomy. At\npresent heredity and psychology are dominating our minds--or,\nrather, theories as to both; for though beginnings have been made,\nthe stage has not yet been reached of very wide or certain\ndiscovery. There is still a great deal of the soul unexplored and\nunmapped. No reasonable person would wish to belittle the study\neither of evolution or of psychology; but the real men of science\nwould probably urge that lay people should take more pains to know\nthe exact meaning and scope of scientific terms, and to have some\nmore or less clear idea in their minds when they use them. However,\nall these modern discoveries and theories are, to many men's minds,\na challenge to the right of Christians to speak of Jesus Christ as\nthey have spoken of him, a challenge to our right to represent the\nfacts of Christian life as we have represented them--in other words,\nthey are a challenge to us to return to experience and to see what\nwe really mean. If our study of Jesus in the preceding chapters has\nbeen on sound lines, we shall feel that the challenge to face facts\nis in his vein; it was what he urged upon men throughout.\n\nThe old problem returns upon us: Who and what is this Jesus Christ?\nWe are involved in the recurrent need to re-examine him and\nre-explore him.\n\nThere are several ways of doing so. Like every other historical\ncharacter Jesus is to be known by what he does rather than by \"a\npriori\" speculation as to what he might be. In the study of history,\nthe first thing is to know our original documents. There are the\nGospels, and, like other historical records, they must be studied in\nearnest on scientific lines without preconception. And there are\nlater records, which tell us as plainly and as truthfully of what he\nhas done in the world's history. We can begin, then, with the\nserious study of the actual historical Jesus, whom people met in the\nroad and with whom they ate their meals, whom the soldiers nailed to\nthe cross, whom his disciples took to worshipping, and who has,\nhistorically, re-created the world.\n\nThe second line of approach is rather more difficult, but with care\nwe can use Christological theories to recover the facts which those\nwho framed the theories intended to explain. We must remember here\nonce more the three historical canons laid down at the beginning. We\nmust above all things give the man's term his meaning, and ask what\nwas the experience behind his thought. When we come upon such\ndescriptions of Jesus as \"Christ our Passover\" (1 Cor. 5:7), or find\nhim called the Messiah, we must not let our own preconceptions as to\nthe value of the theories implied by the use of such language, nor\nagain our existing views of what is orthodox, determine our\nconclusions; but we must ask what those who so explained Jesus\nreally meant to say, and what they had experienced which they\nthought worth expressing. These people, as we see, were face to face\nwith a very great new experience, and they cast about for some means\nof describing and explaining it. A slight illustration may suggest\nthe natural law in accordance with which they set about their task\nof explanation. A child, of between two and three years old, was\nwatching his first snow-storm, gazing very intently at the flying\nsnow-flake, and evidently trying to think out what they were. At\nlast he hit it; they were \"little birds.\" It is so that the mind,\ninfant or adult, is apt to work--explaining the new and unknown by\nreference to the familiar. Snow-flakes are not little birds; they\nare something quite different; yet there is a common element--they\nboth go flying through the air, and it was that fact which the\nchild's brain noticed and used. To explain Jesus, his friends and\ncontemporaries spoke of him as the Logos, the Sacrifice, \"Christ our\nPassover,\" the Messiah, and so forth. Of those terms not one is\nintelligible to us to-day without a commentary. To ordinary people\nJesus is at once intelligible--far more so than the explanations of\nhim. Historically, it is he himself who has antiquated every one of\nthose conceptions, and, so far as they have survived, it has been in\nvirtue of association with him. They are the familiar language of\nanother day. \"No one,\" said Dr. Rendel Harris, \"can sing, 'How sweet\nthe name of Logos sounds.'\" Synesius of Cyrene did try to sing it,\nbut most human beings prefer St. Bernard or John Newton.\n\nThe inner significance of each term will point to the real\nexperience of the man using it. He employs a metaphor, a simile, or\na technical term to explain something. Can we penetrate to the\nanalogy which he finds between the Jesus of the new experience and\nthe old term which he uses? Can we, when we see what he has\nexperienced, grasp the substance and build on that to the neglect of\nthe term? When we look at the terms, we find that the essence of\nsacrifice was reconciliation between God and man (we shall return to\nthis a little later), and that the Messiah was understood to be\ndestined to achieve God's purpose and God's meaning for mankind and\nfor each man. We find, again, that the inner meaning of the Logos is\nthat through it, and in it, God and man come in touch with each\nother and become mutually intelligible. Reconciliation, the victory\nof God, the mutual intelligibility of God and man--all three terms\ncentre in one great thought, a new union between God and man. That,\nso far as I can see, is the common element; and that is, as men have\nconceived it, the very heart of the Christian experience.\n\nIn the third place, we can utilize the new experiments made upon\nJesus Christ in the Reformation and in other revivals. They come\nnearer to us; for the men who report are more practical and more\nscholarly in the modern way; they are more akin to us both in blood\nand in ideas. Luther, for example, is a great spirit of the explorer\ntype. He went to scholarship and learnt the true meaning of\n\"metanoia\"--that it was \"re-thinking\" and not \"penance\"--and he\ngrasped a new view of God there. From scholarship he gained a truer\nview of Church history than he had been taught; and this too helped\nto clear his mind. Above all, as \"a great son of fact\" (Carlyle's\nname for him), his chief interest was the exploration of Jesus\nChrist--would Christ stand all the weight that a man could throw\nupon him without assistance? And Luther found that Christ could; and\nhe at once turned his knowledge into action, as the world knows.\n\"Justification by faith\" was his phrase, and he meant that we may\ntrust Jesus Christ with all that we are, all that we have been, and\nall that we hope to be; that Jesus himself will carry all; that\nJesus himself is all; that Jesus is at once Luther's eternal\nsalvation, and his sure help in the next day's difficulty--his\nSaviour for ever from sin, and his great stand-by in translating the\nBible for the German people and in writing hymns for boys and girls.\n\"Nos nihil sumus\", he wrote, \"Christus solus est omnia\".[35] In the\ncase of every great revival--the Wesleyan revival, and the smaller\nones in the United States, in the north of Ireland, in Wales--in\nevery one we find that, where anything is really achieved, it is\ndone by a new and thoroughgoing emphasis on Jesus Christ. It may be\nput in language which to some ears is repulsive, in metaphors\nstrange or uncouth; but whatever the language, the fact that\nunderlies it is this--men are brought back to the reality, the\npresence, the power, and the friendship of Jesus Christ; they are\ncalled to a fresh venture on Jesus Christ, a fresh exploration: and\nagain and again the experience of a lifetime has justified the\nventure.\n\nThis brings us to the most effective and fundamental method in the\nexploration of Jesus, in some ways the most difficult of all, or\nelse the very simplest. The Church has been clear that there is\nnothing like personal experiment, the personal venture. It is the\nonly clue to the experience. The saying of St Augustine (Sermon 43,\n3), \"Immo Credo ut intelligas,\" is to many of our minds offensive--I\nthink, because we give not quite the right meaning to his \"Credo\".\nBut, if the illustrations are not too simple, swimming and bicycling\noffer parallels. A man will never understand how water holds up a\nhuman body, as long as he stays on dry land. In practical things,\nthe venture comes first; and it is hard to see how a man is to\nunderstand Christ without a personal experience of him. All parents\nknow how much better bachelors and maiden sisters understand\nchildren than they do; but as soon as these great authorities have\nchildren of their own, the position is altered a little.\n\nThe change that Jesus definitely operates in men, they have\ndescribed in various ways--rebirth, salvation, a new heart, and so\nforth. What they have always emphasized in Jesus Christ, is that\nthey find he changes their outlook and develops new instincts in\nthem, and that in one way and another he saves from sin; and they\nhave been men who have learnt and adopted Jesus' own estimate of\nsin. When, then, we remember that, with his serious view of sin, he\nundertook man's redemption from it; when we add to this some real\nreflection upon how much he has already done, as plain matter of\nhistory, to \"take away the sin of the world,\" we surely have\nsomething to go upon in our attempt to determine who he is. The\nquestion will rise, Have Christians overstated their experience, or\neven misunderstood it? Has forgiveness been, in fact, achieved--or\nsalvation from sin? Can sin be put away at all? What will the\nevidence for this be? I do not know what the evidence could be,\nexcept the new life of peace with God, and all the sunshine and\nblessing that go with it. This new life is at all events all the\nevidence available; and how much it means is very difficult to\nestimate without some personal experience.\n\nHere again the great theories of Redemption will help us to recover\nthe experience they are to explain; and once more we may note that\nthey are not the work of small minds or trivial natures, however\nbadly they have been echoed. Substitution implies at any rate some\nserious confession of guilt before God, some strong sense of a great\nindebtedness to Christ. The theory of Sacrifice implies the need of\nreunion with God. Robertson Smith, in his \"Early Religion of the\nSemites\" brings out that the essence of ancient sacrifice was that\nthe tribe, the sacrificial beast and the god were all of one blood;\nthe god was supposed to be alienated; the sacrifice was offered by\nthe party to the quarrel who was seeking reconciliation, namely, the\ntribe. When we look at the New Testament, we find that the emphasis\nalways lies on God seeking reconciliation with man (cf. 2 Cor.\n5:19). The theory of ransom--a most moving term in a world of\nslavery--implies the need of new freedom for the mind, for the heart\nand the whole nature, from the tyranny of sin. All these are\nsimiles; and tremendous structures of theory have been built on\nevery one of them--and for some of these structures, simile, or, in\nplainer language, analogy, is not a sufficient foundation. It is\nprobably true that all our current explanations of the work of\nChrist in Redemption have in them too large an element of metaphor\nand simile. Yet Christian people are reluctant to discard any one of\nthem; and their reluctance is intelligible. There is a value in the\nold association, which is found by new experience. Every one of\nthese old similes will contribute to our realization of the work of\nChrist, in so far as it is a record of experience of Christ,\nverified in one generation after another. We shall make the best use\nof them, when we are no longer intimidated by the terminology, but\ngo at once to what is meant--to the facts.\n\nWe come still closer to the facts in the less metaphorical terms of\nthe New Testament. For example, there is the New Covenant. The\nwriter of the Epistle to the Hebrews went back to a great phrase in\nJeremiah, and by his emphasis on it he helped to give its name to\nthe whole New Testament--\"I will make a new covenant with the house\nof Israel and the house of Judah\" (Heb. 8:8-12; Jer. 31:31-34).\nUsing this passage, he brings out that there is a new relation, a\nnew union, between God and man in Jesus. He speaks of Jesus as a\nmediator bringing man and God together (Heb. 8:6)--language far\nplainer to us than the terminology of sacrifice, which he employed\nrather to bring home the work of Jesus with feeling and passion to\nthose who had no other vocabulary, than to impose upon Christian\nthinkers a scheme of things which he clearly saw to be exhausted.\nThen there is Paul's great conception of Reconciliation (2 Cor.\n5:18-20). Half the difficulties connected with the word \"Atonement\"\ndisappear, when we grasp that the word in Greek means primarily\nreconciliation. As Paul uses the noun and the verb, it is very plain\nwhat he means--God is in Christ trying to reconcile the world to\nhimself. These attempts to express Christ's work in plain words take\nus back to the great central Christian experience--to the great\ninitial discovery that the discord of man's making between God and\nman has been removed by God's overtures in Christ; that the\nobstacles which man has felt to his approach to God--in the unclean\nhands and the unclean lips--have been taken away; and that with a\nheart, such as the human heart is, a man may yet come to God in\nJesus, because of Jesus, through Jesus.\n\nThe historical character of Christian life and thought is surely\nevidence that Jesus Christ has accomplished something real; and when\nwe get a better hold of that, the problem of his person should be\nmore within our reach. The splendid phrase of Paul--\"Therefore being\njustified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus\nChrist\" (Rom. 5:1)--or that of 1 Peter: \"In whom ye rejoice ... with\njoy unspeakable and full of glory\" (1 Pet. 1:8)--gives us the\nkeynote. The gaiety of the Early Church in its union with Jesus\nChrist rings through the New Testament and the Christian fathers\nfrom Hermas to Augustine. The Church has come singing down the\nages.[36] The victory over sin--no easy thing at any time--is\nanother permanent feature of Christian experience. The psychological\nvalue of what Dr. Chalmers called \"the expulsive power of a new\naffection\" is not enough studied by us. Look at the freedom, the\ngrowth, the power of the Christian life--where do they all come\nfrom? We cannot leave God out of this. At any rate, there they are\nin the Christian experience; and where does anything that matters\nflow from but from God? There is again the evidence of Christian\nachievement; and it should be remarked that the Christian always\ntells us that he himself has not the power, that it comes from God,\nthat he asks for it and God gives it. As for the easy explanation of\nall religious life by \"auto-suggestion,\" we may note that it\ninvolves a loose and unscientific use of a more or less scientific\ntheory--never a very safe way to knowledge. In any case, it has been\npointed out, the word adds nothing to the number of our facts; nor\nis it quite clear yet that it eliminates God from the story any more\nthan the term \"digestion\" makes it inappropriate to say Grace before\nmeat. All these things--peace, joy, victory, and the rest--follow\nfrom the taking away of sin, and imply that it no longer stands\nbetween God and man. All this is the work of the historical Jesus.\nIt is he who has changed the attitude of man to God, and by changing\nit has made it possible for God to do what he has done. If God, in\nPaul's phrase, \"hath shined in our hearts\" (2 Cor. 4:6), it was\nJesus who induced men to take down the shutters and to open the\nwindows. It is all associated, historically, with the ever-living\nJesus Christ, and with God in him.\n\nThis brings us to the central question, the relation of Jesus with\nGod--the problem of Incarnation. After all that has been said, we\nshall not approach it \"a priori\". We are too apt to put the\nIncarnation more or less in algebraic form:\n\n  x+y=a,\n\nwhere a stands for the historical Jesus Christ, and x and y\nrespectively for God and man. But what do we mean by x and y? Let us\nface our facts. What do we know of man apart from Jesus Christ?\nSurely it is only in him that we realize man--only in him that we\ngrasp what human depravity really is, the real meaning and\nimplications of human sin. It is those who have lived with Jesus\nChrist, who are most conscious of sin; and this is no mere morbid\nimagination or fancy, it rests on a much deeper exploration of human\nnature than men in general attempt. Not until we know what he is do\nwe see how very little we are, and how far we have gone wrong. It is\nhis power of help and sympathy that teaches us the hardness of our\nown hearts, our own fundamental want of sympathy. Again, until a man\nknows Jesus Christ, he has little chance of even guessing the\ngrandeur of which he himself is capable. A man has, as he says, done\nhis best--for years, it may be, of strenuous endeavour; and then\ncomes the new experience of Jesus Christ, and he is lifted high\nabove his record, he gains a new power, a new tenderness, and he\ndoes things incredible. We do not know the wrong or the right of\nwhich man is capable, till we know Jesus Christ. The y of our\nequation, then, does not tell us very much.\n\nWhen it comes to the x, is it not very often a mixture--an\nill-adjusted mixture--of the Father of Jesus, with the rather\nnegative \"beyond all being\" of later Greek speculation, and perhaps\nthe Judge of Roman law? The exact proportions in the mixture will\nvary with the thinker. But, in fact, is it not true now that we\nreally only know God through Jesus? For it is only in and through\nJesus that we take the trouble, and have the faith, to explore and\ntest God, to try experiments upon God, to know what he can do and\nwhat he will do. It is only in Jesus that the Love of God (in the\nNew Testament sense), is tenable at all. It is evanescent apart from\nJesus; it rests on the assurance of his words, his work, his\npersonality. A vague diffused \"love of God\" for everything in\ngeneral and nothing in particular, we saw to be a quite different\nthing from the personal attachment, with which, according to Jesus,\nGod loves the individual man. That is the centre of the Gospel; it\nis belief in that, which has done everything in a rational world, as\nwe saw at the beginning; and it is a most impossible belief, never\nlong or very actively held apart from Jesus. Only in him can we\nbelieve it. Only in him, too, is the new experience of God's\nforgiveness and redemption possible, in all its fullness and\nsureness and power. \"Dieu me pardonnera,\" said Heine, \"c'est son\nm\u00e9tier\";--but he had not the Christian sense of what it was that God\nwas to forgive. It is only in Jesus that we can live the real life\nof prayer, in the intimate way of Jesus. All this means that we have\nto solve our x from Jesus--not to discover him through it. The plain\nfact is that we actually know Jesus a great deal better than we know\nour x and our y, the elements from which we hoped to reconstruct\nhim. What does this mean?\n\nIt means, bluntly, that we have to re-think our theories of\nIncarnation on \"a posteriori\" lines, to begin on facts that we know,\nand to base ourselves on a continuous exploration and experience of\nJesus Christ first. The simple, homey rule of knowing things before\nwe talk about them holds in every other sphere of study, and it is\nthe rule which Jesus himself inculcated. We begin, then, with Jesus\nChrist, and set out to see how far he will take us. Experience comes\nfirst. \"Follow me,\" he said. He chose the twelve men \"that they\nmight be with him,\" and he let them find out in that intercourse\nwhat he had for them; and from what he could give and did give they\ndrew their conclusions as to who and what he is. There can be no\nother way of knowing him. \"Luther's Reformation doctrines,\" says\nHermann, in his fine book, \"The Communion of the Christian with God\"\n(p. 163), \"only countenance such a confession of the Deity of Christ\nas springs naturally to the lips of the man whom Jesus has already\nmade blessed.\" Melanchthon said the same: \"This it is to know\nChrist--to receive his benefits--not to contemplate his natures, or\nthe modes of his incarnation.\" \"Come unto me, all ye that labour and\nare heavy laden, and I will give you rest.\"\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX\n\nSUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY CIRCLE DISCUSSIONS\n\n1. The book is obviously written for private reading, and these\nsuggestions are added, at the author's request, for those who would\nlike to study the book in groups. Circles on it, however, will not\nbe very profitable unless members of them are also carefully reading\nthe Gospels and come to the circles with copies of the New\nTestament. Some acquaintance with the main outlines of New Testament\ncriticism will be a help. Readers who want to know how the New\nTestament was written are referred to Principal Selbie: \"The Nature\nand Message of the Bible\" (S.C.M., IS. 6d.), especially ch. iv. and\nv.\n\n2. The questions suggested for discussion are only a selection of\nthe many important questions which the book raises. Circles should\nnot feel bound to follow them, or to try to cover them all at one\nmeeting. There are many subsidiary questions, which some circles\nmight pursue With profit.\n\n3. The circle should try as far as possible to get away from the\ntext of the book to the text of the Bible; to study and verify the\nauthor's method of exposition. The Leader should give much thought\nto this.\n\n4. A Bible with the marginal references of the R.V.\nshould be used--also a note-book. The author's clear preference for\nthe A.V. may be remarked (cf. p. 224).\n\n5. While the method of the book is historical, its object is\npractical. The circles should have the same objective.\nExperience comes before theology. Theology is worthless which cannot\nbe verified in experience. \"He that doeth His will, shall know of\nthe doctrine.\"\n\n6. One chapter a week will be as much as a circle can profitably manage. .\n\n\n\nQUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION IN CIRCLES\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nI. Does the writer overdo the importance of history?\nWould not \"spiritual religion\" suffice without a \"historical basis,\"\nas some Indians and others suggest?\n\n2. What would our evidence be for\" spiritual religion\" if we had not\nthe record of actual history to check fancy and support the ventures\nof faith?\n\n3. Does the writer underestimate the actual impress made on his age\nby Jesus? Was he not probably more widely known?\n\n4. How can ordinary people\" make sure of the experience behind the\nthought of Jesus?\" Does this belittle him?\n\n5. What becomes of ordinary simple people untrained in historical\nresearch, who are not experts and merely want help in living and\ndying? Could not the whole presentation of Christ be much simpler?\nWhere does \"revelation to babes\" come in?\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n1. Look up and verify at the circle meeting the references to the\nGospels in the chapter and see if they bear the interpretations put\nupon them.\n\n2. Was Jesus fond of life and Nature? Give instances.\n\n3. Does intercourse with Nature make communion with God more real?\n\n4. \"Jesus showed and taught men the beauty of humility, tenderness\nand charity, but not of manliness and courage.\" Is there any truth\nin this charge as regards (a) the portrait in the Gospels, or (b)\nthe presentation of Jesus in the teaching of the Church?\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n1. \"One of Jesus' great lessons is to get men to look for God in the\ncommon-place things of which God makes so many.\" Discuss this.\n\n2. Had Jesus a sense of humour? Give instances.\n\n3. \"The Son of Fact,\"--do you think this a true epithet?\n\n4. What characteristics of the mind of Jesus does this chapter\nemphasize as principal? Do you agree that they are the principal\nones?\n\n(5. What do you imagine Jesus looked like? What do you think of the\nconventional figure of modern Art?)\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nI. To what extent was the hardness of the world during the early\nRoman Empire due to current conceptions of God?\n\n2. What was the secret of Jesus' attractiveness, and what kinds of\nmen and women did he attract?\n\n3. How do you picture the life he lived with his disciples? E.g. Can\nyou reconstruct a typical day in the life of Jesus (cf. pp. 81, 82).\n\n4. Had he a method of teaching: if so, what was it? Give\nillustrations.\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\n1. How would you state to a non-Christian the three principal\nelements in Jesus' teaching about the character of God? Illustrate\nfully from the three Gospels.\n\n2. What elements in the teaching of Jesus and the relation of God to\nthe individual would be new to a Jew who knew his Old Testament?\n\n3. What did Jesus teach his disciples concerning prayer?\n\n4. \"If the friend in the house to your knowledge has the loaves, you\nwill knock until you get them; and has not God the gifts for you\nthat you need? Is he short of the power to help, or is it the will\nto help that is wanting in God?\" Do we pray in order to change the\nwill of God? Why did Jesus pray?\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n1. \"There is little suggestion in the Gospels that Art meant\nanything to him.\" Would you admit this? Or has the writer too\nnarrow a conception of the nature of Art?\n\n2. \"The appeal that lay in the sheer misery and helplessness of\nmasses of men was one of the foundations of the Christian Church.\"\nDiscuss this and illustrate from the ministry of our Lord.\n\n3. \"I have not been thinking about the community: I have been\nthinking about Christ,\" said a Bengali. Do you find this sort of\nantithesis in the Gospels?\n\n4. \"Jesus' new attitude to women.\" What is it? Was it continued in\nthe Apostolic Church? Did it differ from St Paul's? Cf. St John\n4:27.\n\n5. What type of character does Jesus admire? Does your reading of\nthe Gospels incline you to agree with the writer? Is it the same\ntype of character which is exalted by Christian piety, stained-glass\nwindows, and the calendars of Saints?\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\n1. \"There is no escaping the issue of moral choice.\" \"One opinion\nis as good as another.\" Discuss these two contradictory statements.\n\n2. \"Jesus says there is all the difference in the world between his\nown Gospel and the teaching of the Baptist.\" What is John's teaching\non sin and righteousness (in the Synoptic Gospels), and in what ways\ndoes it differ (a) from the Pharisaic, and (b) from our Lord's\nteaching?\n\n3. What are the modern parallels to \"the four outstanding classes\nwhom Jesus warns of the danger of hell?\"\n\n4. Wherein does Jesus' standard of sin differ from the standard of\nsin current to-day?\n\n5. \"The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost\"\n(Luke 19:10). What does \"lost\" mean?\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\n1. What is the connection between the Kingdom of Heaven and the\nCross in the teaching of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels?\n\n2. How does Jesus conceive of salvation? Illustrate from the\nGospels. Do you agree with the writer's exposition?\n\n3. Why should the salvation of the lost (i.e. redemption) mean the\nCross for Jesus?\n\n4. \"In choosing the Cross, Christians have always felt, Jesus\nrevealed God: and that is the centre of the great act of\nRedemption.\" In what way?\n\n5. Do you think the paragraph on p. 179 beginning: \"In the third\nplace . . .\" does justice to the apocalyptic passages in the Gospels\n(Mark 13ff, Matt. 24, etc.), or to the interpretation of this\nteaching by scholars of the apocalyptic school? (It is no use\ndiscussing this question unless members of the circle have made some\nstudy of apocalyptic thought.)\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\n1. \"Into this world came the Church!\" With what aspects of the\nreligion and life of the early Roman Empire, as outlined in the\nchapter, would the Church find itself in conflict?\n\n2. How would you introduce the Christian faith to one who believed\nand took part in the Eleusinian cult of Demeter? (Cf. 1 Corinthians\nand St Paul's method of dealing with a similar situation, and notice\nthe things he stresses--e.g. elementary morality.)\n\n3. \"Christ has conquered and all the gods are gone.\" Why did they go?\n\n4. But have they gone? What resemblances are there between the world\nto-day (in the West and in the East) and the problem of the Church\nto-day and the Roman world and the problem of the Church then?\n\n5. It was often remarked in India that, point by point, the writer's\ndescription of religion in the Roman world is true to the letter of\nHinduism to-day. Work out this parallel. (See Dr J. N. Farquhar,\nCrown of Hinduism and Modern Religious Movements in India.)\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\n1. \"It is the heart that makes the theologian.\" Where does\nyour theology come from?\n\n2. The doctrine of the Atonement has often been stated as an attempt\nto reconcile Jesus and an un-Christian conception of God.\n\"God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.\" \"The Cross\nis the revelation in time of what God is always.\" Discuss.\n\n3. What are the three ways of answering the question:\n\"Who and what is this Jesus Christ?\" Why must people make up their\nminds about him?\n\n4. Does the writer make Jesus too human? Or has the reading of this\nbook made you feel his divinity more strongly just because he was so\nperfectly human?\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n[1] The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire, p. 157.\n\n[2] \"We are nothing; Christ alone is all.\"\n\n[3] Canon Streeter in Foundations\n\n[4] Cf. the foreigner's touch at Athens (Acts 17:21).\n\n[5] because, later on, the Sabbath and Jewish ceremony were not among\nthe most living issues, after the Church had come to be chiefly\nGentile.\n\n[6] On this point see R. W. Dale, \"The Living Christ and the Four\nGospels\"; and W. Sanday, \"The Gospels in the Second Century.\"\n\n[7] The reader will see that I am referring to Bishop Lightfoot's\narticle on \"The Brethren of the Lord\" in his commentary on\n\"Galatians\", but not accepting his conclusions.\n\n[8] That this is not quite fanciful is shown by the emphasis laid by\nmore or less contemporary writers on the increased facilities for\ntravel which the Roman Empire gave, and the use made of them.\n\n[9] Wordsworth, Prelude, i. 586.\n\n[10] Cf., F. G. Peabody, \"Jesus Christ and Christian Character\", pp.\n57-60.\n\n[11] H. S. Coffin, Creed of Jesus. pp. 240-242.\n\n[12] \"Prelude\" xiii. 26 ff.\n\n[13] See further, on this, in Chapter VII., p.168\n\n[14] E.g., in his essay on \"Mirabeau\": \"The real quantity of our\ninsight ... depends on our patience, our fairness, lovingness\"; and\nin \"Biography\": \"A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.\"\n\n[15] Cf. Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, p. 154. I have\nomitted one or two less relevant clauses--e.g. greetings to friends.\n\n[16] Horace, \"Epistles\", i. 16, 48.\n\n[17] Homer, \"Odyssey\", xvii. 322.\n\n[18] It is only about four times that personal immortality comes with\nany clearness in the Old Testament: Psalms 72 and 139; Isaiah 26;\nand Job 16:26.\n\n[19] Cf. A. E. J. Rawlinson, Dogma, Fact and Experience, p. 16. \"All\nthe virtues in the Aristotelian canon are self-contained states of\nthe virtuous man himself .... In the last resort they are entirely\nself-centred adornments or accomplishments of the good man; and it\nis significant of this self-centredness of the entire conception\nthat the qualities of display (megaloprepeia) and highmindedness, or\nproper pride (megalopsychia), are insisted on as integral elements\nof the ideal character. On the other hand, the three characteristic\nChristian virtues--faith, hope and charity--all postulate Another.\"\n\n[20] Cf. Chapter II\n\n[21] A French mystic is quoted as saying, \"Le Dieu d\u00e9fini est le Dieu\nfini.\"\n\n[22] Peabody, Jesus Christ and Christian Character, p. 97.\n\n[23] H. R. Mackintosh, \"The Doctrine of the Person of Jesus Christ\",\np. 399.\n\n[24] Clement, \"Protrepticus\", 100, 3, 4\n\n[25] The more or less contemporary Greek orator, Dio Chrysostom,\nrefers to the old-fashioned ways of the Tarsiots, especially\nmentioning their insistence on women wearing veils.\n\n[26] Wernle, \"Beginnings of Christianity\", vol. i. p. 286, English\ntranslation.\n\n[27] So too says Josephus, who gives this as the reason of Herod's\nsuspicion of him.\n\n[28] \"Antiquities of the Jews\", xviii. 5, 8, 117, cf. what Celsus\nsays of righteousness as a condition of admission to certain\nmysteries that offer forgiveness of sins (Origen, c. \"Celsum\", iii.\n59). The \"purification of the body\" has a ritual and ceremonial\nsignificance.\n\n[29] Lines Composed above Tintern, 34.\n\n[30] That he did so is emphasized again and again, in striking\nlanguage, by St. Paul--e.g. Rom. 5:15-16, 20; 1 Tim. 1:14.\n\n[31] Horace, \"Ars Poetica\", 191, \"Nec deus intersit nisi dignus\nvindice nodus inciderit\".\n\n[32] Daily reading of the Scriptures is recommended by Clement of\nAlexandria (\"Strom\". vii. 49).\n\n[33] Perhaps one may quote here, not inappropriately, the famous\nsaying of Aristotle in his \"Poetics\", that \"poetry is a more\nphilosophic thing than history, and of a higher seriousness.\" The\nlatter term means that the poet is \"more in earnest\" about his work,\nand puts more energy of mind into it than the historian. If the\nreader hesitates about this, let him try to write a great hymn or\npoem.\n\n[34] Do not let us be misled by the thin pedantries of the Revised\nVersion here, or in Romans 5:1 shortly to be cited. In both places\nliterary and spiritual sense has bowed to the accidents of MSS.\n\n[35] If my readers do not know his Christmas hymn for children, they\nhave missed one of the happiest hymns for Christmas.\n\n[36] What Carlyle says in \"The Hero as a Poet\" (\"Heroes and Hero\nWorship\") on the close relation of Song and Truth is worth\nremembering in this connexion.","title":"The Jesus of History","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":71048}