nation—those whose possession of the highest station seemed, in a great degree, to prove their designation for such eminence by the Almighty. "Have any of the rulers believed in him (1)?" was the contemptuous, and, as they conceived, conclusive argument against his claims, adduced by the Pharisees. Jesus not only did not condescend to favour, he ran directly counter to this prevailing notion. He announced that the kingdom of Heaven was peculiarly prepared for the humble and the afflicted; his disciples were chosen from the lowest order; and it was not obscurely intimated, that his ranks would be chiefly filled by those who were undistinguished by worldly prosperity. Yet, on the other hand, there was nothing in his language to conciliate the passions of the populace, no address to the envious and discontented spirit of the needy to inflame them against their superiors. Popular, as he was, in the highest sense of the term, nothing could be farther removed than the Prophet of Nazareth from the demagogue. The "kingdom of Heaven" was opened only to those who possessed and cultivated the virtues of their lowly station-meekness, humility, resignation, peacefulness, patience; and it was only because these virtues were most prevalent in the humbler classes, that the new faith was addressed to them. The more fierce and violent of the populace rushed into the ranks of the zealot, and enrolled themselves among the partizans of Judas the Galilean. They thronged around the robber chieftain, and secretly propagated that fiery spirit of insurrection which led, at length, to the fatal war. The meek and peaceful doctrines of Jesus found their way only into meek and peaceful hearts; the benevolent character of his miracles touched not those minds which had only imbibed the sterner, not the humaner, spirit of the Mosaic law. Thus it was lowliness of character, rather than of station, which qualified the proselyte for the new faith-the absence, in short, of all those fierce passions which looked only to a conquering, wide-ruling Messiah and it was in elevating these virtues to the highest rank, which to the many of all orders was treason against the hopes of Israel and the promises of God, that Jesus departed most widely from the general sentiment of his age and nation. He went still further; he annihilated the main principle of the theocracy the administration of temporal rewards and punishments in proportion to obedience or rebelliona notion which, though, as we have said, by no means justified by common experience, and weakened by the growing belief in another life, nevertheless still held its ground in the general opinion. Sorrow, as in one sense the distinguishing mark and portion of the new religion, became sacred; and the curse of God was, as it were, removed from the afflictions of mankind. His own disciples, he himself, were to undergo a fearful probation of suffering, which could (1) John, vii, 48. Its universality. only be secure of its reward in another life. The language of Jesus confirmed the truth of the antisadducaic belief of the greater part of the nation, and assumed the certainty of another state of existence, concerning which, as yet, it spoke the current language; but which it was hereafter to expand into a more simple and universal creed, and mingle, if it may be so said, the sense of immortality with all the feelings and opinions of mankind. II. Nor was it to the different classes of the Jews alone, that the universal precepts of Christian morality expanded beyond the narrow and exclusive notions of the age and people. Jesus did not throw down the barrier which secluded the Jews from the rest of mankind, but he shook it to its base. Christian morality was not that of a sect, a race, or a nation, but of universal man: though necessarily delivered at times in Jewish language, couched under Jewish figures, and illustrated by local allusions, in its spirit it was diametrically opposite to Jewish. However it might make some provisions suited only to the peculiar state of the first disciples, yet in its essence, it may be said to be comprehensive as the human race, immutable as the nature of man. It had no political, no local no temporary precepts; it was, therefore, neither liable to be abrogated by any change in the condition of man, nor to fall into disuse, as belonging to a passed and obsolete state of civilisation. It may dwell within its proper kingdom, the heart of man, in every change of political relation in the monarchy, the oligarchy, the republic. It may domesticate itself in any climate, amid the burning sands of Africa, or the frozen regions of the North; for it has no local centre, no temple, no Caaba, no essential ceremonies impracticable under any conceivable state of human existence. In fact it is, strictly speaking, no Law; it is no system of positive enactments; it is the establishment of certain principles, the enforcement of certain dispositions, the cultivation of a certain temper of mind, which the conscience is to apply to the ever-varying exigencies of time and place. This appears to me to be the distinctive peculiarity of Christian morals, a characteristic in itself most remarkable, and singularly so when we find this free and comprehensive system emanating from that of which the main-spring was its exclusiveness. III. The basis of this universality in Christian morals was the Its origial prin- broad and original principles upon which it rested. If we were to ciples. glean from the later Jewish writings, from the beautiful aphorisms of other Oriental nations, which we cannot fairly trace to Christian sources, and from the Platonic and Stoic philosophy, their more striking precepts, we might find, perhaps, a counterpart to almost all the moral sayings of Jesus. But the same truth is of different importance as an unconnected aphorism, and as the groundwork of a complete system. No doubt the benevolence of the Creator had awakened grateful feelings, and kindled the most exquisite poetry of expression in the hearts and from the lips of many before the coming of Christ; no doubt general humanity had been impressed upon mankind in the most vivid and earnest language. But the Gospel first placed these two great principles as the main pillars of the new moral structure: God the universal Father, mankind one brotherhood; God made known through the mediation of his Son, the image, and humanised type and exemplar of his goodness; mankind of one kindred, and therefore of equal rank in the sight of the Creator, and to be united in one spiritual commonwealth. Such were the great principles of Christian morals, shadowed forth at first, rather than distinctly announced, in condescension to the prejudices of the Jews, who, if they had been found worthy of appreciating the essential spirit of the new religion-if they had received Jesus as the promised Saviour - might have been collectively and nationally the religious parents and teachers of mankind. of Jesus with re gard to his coun trymen. Such was the singular position of Jesus with regard to his coun- Conduct trymen, the attempt to conciliate them to the new religion was to be fairly made; but the religion, however it might condescend to speak their language, could not forfeit or compromise, even for such an end, its primary and essential principles. Jesus therefore pursues his course, at one time paying the utmost deference, at another unavoidably offending the deep-rooted prejudices of the people. The inveterate and loathsome nature of the leprosy in Syria, the deep abhorrence with which the wretched victim of this disease was 1 cast forth from all social fellowship, is well known to all who are even slightly acquainted with the Jewish law and usages. One of Healing these miserable beings appealed, and not in vain, to the mercy of the leper. Jesus (1). He was instantaneously cured; but Jesus, whether to authenticate the cure, and to secure the readmission of the outcast into the rights and privileges of society from which he was legally excluded (2), or more probably lest he should be accused of interfering with the rights, or diminishing the dues of the priesthood, enjoined him to preserve the strictest secrecy concerning the cause of his cure; to submit to the regular examination of his case by the appointed authorities, and on no account to omit the customary offering. The second incident was remarkable for its publicity, as Second having laken place in a crowded house, in the midst of many of the miracle. scribes, who were, at this period at least, not friendly to Jesus (3). The door of the house being inaccessible on account of the crowd, the sick man was borne in his couch along the flat terrace roofs of (1) Matt. viii. 2-4.; Mark, i. 40-45; Luke, V. 12-16. I have retained what may be called the moral connection of this cure with the Sermon on the Mount; if the latter is inserted, as in St Luke, after the more solemn inauguration of the Twelve, this incident will retain, perhaps, its present place, but lose this moral connection. See Luke, V. 12-15. (2) I am inclined to adopt the explanation of Grotius, that "the testimony" was to be obtained from the priest, before he knew that he had been healed by Jesus, lest, in his jealousy, he should declare the cure imperfect. (3) Matt. ix. 2-8. Mark, ii. 1—12, Luke, v. 18-28. The publi cans. Close of the adjacent buildings (for in the East the roofs are rarely pointed or shelving) and let down through an aperture, which was easily made, and of sufficient dimensions to admit the bed, into the upper chamber (1), where Jesus was seated in the midst of his hearers. Jesus complied at once with their request to cure the afflicted man, but made use of a new and remarkable expression," Thy sins are forgiven thee," which, while it coincided with the general notion that such diseases were the penalties of sin, nevertheless as assuming an unprecedented power, that which seems to belong to the Deity alone, struck his hearers, more especially the better instructed, the scribes, with astonishment. Their wonder, however, at the instantaneous cure, for the present, overpowered their indignation, yet no doubt the whole transaction tended to increase the jealousy with which Jesus began to be beheld. The third incident (2) jarred on a still more sensitive chord in the popular feeling. On no point were all orders among the Jews so unanimous as in their contempt and detestation of the publicans. Strictly speaking the persons named in the evangelists were not publicans. These were men of property, not below the equestrian order, who farmed the public revenues. Those in question were the agents of these contractors, men, often freed slaves, or of low birth and station, and throughout the Roman world proverbial for their extortions, and in Judæa still more hateful, as among the manifest signs of subjugation to a foreign dominion. The Jew who exercised the function of a publican was, as it were, a traitor to the national independence. One of these, Matthew, otherwise called Levi, was summoned from his post as collector, perhaps at the port of Capernaum, to become one of the most intimate followers of Jesus; and the general astonishment was still farther increased by Jesus entering familiarly into the house, and even partaking of food with men thus proscribed by the universal feeling; and though not legally unclean, yet no doubt held in even greater abhorrence by the general sentiment of the people, Thus ended the first year of the public life of Jesus. The fame first year of his wonderful works, the authority with which he delivered his of public life. doctrines, among the meeker and more peaceful spirits the beauty of the doctrines themselves; above all the mystery which hung over his character and pretensions, had strongly excited the interest of the whole nation. From all quarters, from Galilee, Peræa, Judæa, and even the remoter Idumea, multitudes approached him with eager curiosity. On the other hand, his total secession from, or rather his avowed condemnation of, the great prevailing party, the Pharisees, while his doctrines seemed equally opposed to the less numerous yet rival Sadducaic faction; his popular demeanour, (1) Or they may merely have enlarged the door of communication with the terrace roof. (2) Matt. ix. 9.; Mark, ii. 13, 14.; Lake, v. 27, 28. which had little in common with the ascetic mysticism of the Essenes; his independence of the ruling authorities; above all, notwithstanding his general deference for the law, his manifest assumption of a power above the law, had no doubt, if not actively arrayed against him, yet awakened to a secret and brooding animosity, the interests and the passions of the more powerful and influential throughout the country. CHAPTER V. SECOND YEAR OF THE PUBLIC LIFE OF JESUS. A. D. 28. Jesus in sentiment. THE second year of the public life of Christ opened, as the first, with his attendance at the passover (1). He appeared again amidst Passover. the assembled population of the whole race of Israel, in the place Jerusalem. where, by common consent, the real Messiah was to assume his office, and to claim the allegiance of the favoured and chosen people of God (2). It is clear that a considerable change had taken place in Change the popular sentiment, on the whole, at least with the ruling party, in popular unfavourable to Jesus of Nazareth. The inquisitive wonder, not unmingled with respect, which on the former occasion seemed to have watched his words and actions, had turned to an unquiet and jealous vigilance, and a manifest anxiety on the part of bis opponents to catch some opportunity of weakening his influence over the people. The misapprehended speech concerning the demolition and restoration of the temple probably rankled in the recollection of many; and rumours no doubt, and those most likely inaccurate and misrepresented, must have reached Jerusalem, of the mysterious language in which he had spoken of his relation to the Supreme Being. The mere fact that Galilee had been chosen, rather than Jerusalem or Judæa, for his assumption of whatever distinguished character he was about to support, would work, with no doubtful or disguised animosity, among the proud and jealous inhabitants of the metropolis. Nor was his conduct, however still cautious, without further inevitable collision with some of the most inveterate prejudices of his countrymen. The first year the only public demonstration of his superiority had been the expulsion of the buyers (1) My language on this point is to be taken with some latitude, as a certain time elapsed between the baptism of Jesus and the first pass over. I adopt the opinion that the feast, in the 5th chapter of St. John (verse 1.), was a passover, This view is not without objection, namely, the long interval of nearly a whole year, which would be overleaped at once by the narrative of St. John. But if this Gospel was intended to be (2) John, v. 1-15. |