cincts of the Temple in the court of the Gentiles (1); and a line of shops (tabernæ) ran along the outer wall of the inner court. Every Jew made an annual payment of a half-shekel to the Temple; and as the treasury, according to ancient usage, only received the coin of Palestine (2), those who came from distant provinces were obliged to change their foreign money, the relative value of which was probably liable to considerable fluctuation. It is evident from the strong language of Jesus, that not only a fair and honest, but even a questionable and extortionate traffic was conducted within the holy precincts. Nor is it impossible, that even in the Temple courts trade might be carried on less connected with the religious character of the place. Throughout the East, the periodical assemblages of the different tribes of the same descent at some central temple, is intimately connected with commercial views (3). The neighbourhood of the Holy Place is the great fair or exchange of the tribe or nation. Even to the present day, Mecca, at the time of the great concourse of worshippers at the tomb of the Prophet, is a mart for the most active traffic among the merchant pilgrims, who form the caravans from all quarters of the Mahometan world (4). We may conceive how the deep and awful stillness, which ought to have prevailed within the inner courts, dedicated to the adoration of the people-how the quiet prayer of the solitary worshipper, and the breathless silence of the multitude, while the priests were performing the more important ceremonies, either offering the national sacrifice, or entering the Holy Place, must have been interrupted by the close neighbourhood of this disorderly market. How dissonant must have been the noises of the bleating sheep, the lowing cattle, the clamours and disputes, and all the tumult and confusion thus crowded into a space of no great extent. No doubt the feelings of the more devout must long before have been shocked by this desecration of the holy precincts; and when Jesus com- Expulsion manded the expulsion of all these traders out of the court of the of these Temple, from the almost unresisting submission with which they abandoned their lucrative posts, at the command of one invested in no public authority, and who could have appeared to them no more than a simple Galilean peasant, it is clear that this assertion of the sanctity of the Temple must have been a popular act with the ma (1) John, ii. 14. 25. (2) According to Hug, "the ancient imposts which were introduced before the Roman dominion were valued according to the Greek coinage; e.g. the taxes of the temple, Matt. xvii. 24. Joseph. B. J. vii. 6. 6. The offerings were paid in these, Mark, xii. 42. Luke, xxi. 2. A payment which proceeded from the Temple treasury, was made according to the ancient national payment by weight, Matt. xxvi. 15. [This is very doubtful.] But in common business, trade, wages, sale etc., the assis and denarius and Roman coin were Burckhardt, Travels in Arabia. traders. Expecta jority of the worshippers (1). Though Jesus is said personally to have exerted himself, assisting with a light scourge probably in driving out the cattle, it is not likely that if he had stood alone, either the calm and commanding dignity of his manner, or even his appeal to the authority of the Sacred Writings, which forbade the profanation of the Temple as a place of merchandise, would have overpowered the sullen obstinacy of men engaged in a gainful traffic, sanctioned by ancient usage. The same profound veneration for the Temple, which took such implacable offence at the subsequent language of Jesus, would look with unallayed admiration on the zeal for "the Father's House," which would not brook the intrusion of worldly pursuits, or profane noises within its hallowed gates. Of itself, then, this act of Jesus might not amount to the assumptions tion of authority over the Temple of God: it was, perhaps, no raised by this event. more than a courageous zealot for the law night have done (2); but combined with the former mysterious rumours about his character and his miraculous powers, it invested him at once in the awful character of one, in whose person might appear the longdesired, the long expected Messiah. The multitude eagerly throng around him, and demand some supernatural sign of his divine mission. The establishment of the Law had been accompanied, according to the universal belief, with the most terrific demonstrations of Almighty power-the rocking of the earth, the blazing of the mountain. Would the restoration of the Theocracy in more ample power, and more enduring majesty, be unattended with the same appalling wonders? The splendid images in the highly figurative writings of the Prophets, the traditions, among the mass of the people equally authoritative, had prepared them to expect the coming of the Messiah to be announced by the obedient elements. It would have been difficult, by the most signal convulsions of nature, to have come up to their high-wrought expectations. Private acts of benevolence to individuals, preternatural cures of diseases, or the restoration of disordered faculties, fell far beneath the notions of men, blind, perhaps, to the moral beauty of such actions. They required public, if we may so speak, national miracles, and those of the most stupendous nature. To their demand, Jesus calmly answered by an obscure and somewhat oracular allusion to the remote event of his own resurrection, the one great "sign" of Christianity, to which it is remarkable that Christ constantly refers, (1) I think these considerations make it less improbable that this event should have taken place on two separate occasions, and under similar circumstances. The account of St. John places this incident at this period of our Lord's life; the other Evangelists during his last visit to Jerusalem. I confess, indeed, for my own part, that even if it be an error in chronological ar rangement in one or other of the Evangelists, my faith in the historical reality of the event would not be in the least shaken. (2) Legally only the magistrate (i.e. the Sanhedrin), or a Prophet, could rectify abuses in the Temple of God. A Prophet must show his commission by some miracle or prediction. Grotius and Whitby. when required to ratify his mission by some public miracle (1). The gesture, by which he probably confined his meaning to the temple of his body, which though destroyed, was to be raised up again in three days, was seen, indeed, by his disciples, yet, even by them, but imperfectly understood; by the people in general his language seemed plainly to imply the possible destruction of the Temple. An appalling thought, and feebly counterbalanced by the assertion of his power to rebuild it in three days! of the Jews for the Tem ple. This misapprehended speech struck on the most sensitive chord in the high-strung religious temperament of the Jewish people. Their national pride, their national existence, were identified with the inviolability of the Temple. Their passionate and zealous fana- Reverence ticism on this point can scarcely be understood but after the profound study of their history. In older times, the sad and loathsome death of Antiochus Epiphanes, in more recent, the fate of Crassus, perishing amid the thirsty sands of the desert, and of Pompey, with his headless trunk exposed to the outrages of the basest of mankind on the strand of Egypt, had been construed into manifest visitations of the Almighty, in revenge for the plunder and profanation of his Temple. Their later history is full of the same spirit; and even in the horrible scenes of the fatal siege by Titus, this indelible passion survived all feelings of nature or of humanity: the fall of the Temple was like the bursting of the heart of the nation. From the period at which Herod the Great had begun to restore the dilapidated work of Zorobabel, forty-six years had elapsed, and still the magnificence of the king, or the wealth and devotion of the principal among the people, had found some new work on which to expend those incalculable riches, which, from these sources, the tribute of the whole nation, and the donations of the pious, continued to pour into the Temple treasury. And this was the building of which Jesus, as he was understood, could calmly contemplate the fall, and daringly promise the immediate restoration. To their indignant murmurs, Jesus, it should seem, made no Their exreply. The explanation would, perhaps, have necessarily led to a disap more distinct prediction of his own death and resurrection, than it was yet expedient to make, especially on so public a scene. But how deeply this mistaken speech sunk into the popular mind, may be estimated, from its being adduced as the most serious charge against Jesus at his trial; and the bitterest scorn, with which he was followed to his crucifixion, exhausted itself in a fierce and sarcastic allusion to this supposed assertion of power. Still, although with the exasperated multitude the growing veneration of Jesus might be checked by this misapprehended speech, a more profound impression had been made among some of the (1) Compare Matt. xii. 40. pectations pointed. mus. more thinking part of the community. Already one, if not more members, of the Sanhedrin, began to look upon him with interest, perhaps with a secret inclination to espouse his doctrines. That Nicode one, named Nicodemus, determined to satisfy himself by a personal interview, as to the character and pretensions of the new Teacher (1). Nicodemus had hitherto been connected with the Pharisaic party, and he dreaded the jealousy of that powerful sect, who, though not yet in declared hostility against Jesus, watched, no doubt, his motions with secret aversion; for they could not but perceive that he made no advances towards them, and treated with open disregard their minute and austere observance of the literal and traditionary law, their principles of separation from the "unclean" part of the community, and their distinctive dress and deportment. The popular and accessible demeanour of Jesus showed at once that he had nothing in common with the spirit of this predominant religious faction. Nicodemus, therefore, chooses the dead of the night to obtain his secret interview with Jesus; he salutes him with a title, that of rabbi, assumed by none but those who were at once qualified and authorised to teach in public; and he recognises at once his divine mission, as avouched by his wonderful works. But, with astonishment almost overpowering, the Jewish ruler hears the explanation of the first principles of the new religion. When the heathen proselyte was admitted into Judaism, he was considered to be endowed with new life he was separated from all his former connections; he was born again to higher hopes, to more extended knowledge, to a more splendid destiny (1). But now, even the Jew of the most unimpeachable descent from Abraham, the Jew of the highest estimation, so as to have been chosen into the court of Sanhedrin, and who had maintained the strictest obedience to the law, in order to become a member of the new community, required a change no less complete. He was to pass through the ceremony emblematic of moral purification. To him, as to the most unclean of strangers, baptism was to be the mark of his initiation into the new faith; and a secret internal transmutation was to take place by divine agency in his heart, which was to communicate a new principle of moral life. Without this, he could not attain to that which he had hitherto supposed either the certain privilege of his Israelitish descent, or at least of his conscientious adherence to the law. Eternal life, Jesus declared, was to depend solely on the reception of the Son of God, who, he not obscurely intimated, had descended from heaven, was present in his person, and was not universally received, only from the want (1) John, iii. 1. 21. (2) A gentile proselyted, and a slave set free, is as a child new born; he must know no more of his kindred. Maimonides. Lightfoot. Harm. Ev. This notion of a second moral birth is by no means uncommon in the East. The Sanscrit name of a Brahmin is dwija, the twice born. Bopp. Gloss. Sanscr. of moral fitness to appreciate his character. This light was too pure to be admitted into the thick darkness which was brooding over the public mind, and rendered it impenetrable by the soft and quiet rays of the new doctrine. Jesus, in short, almost without disguise or reservation, announced himself to the wondering ruler as the Messiah, while, at the same time, he enigmatically foretold his rejection by the people. The age was not ripe for the exhibition of the Divine Goodness in his person; it still yearned for a revelation of the terrible, destructive, revengeful Power of the Almighty-a, national deity which should embody, as it were, the prevailing sentiments of the nation. Nor came he to fulfil that impious expectation of Jewish pride-the condemnation of the world, of all Gentile races, to the worst calamities, while on Israel alone his blessings were to be showered with exclusive bounty (1). He came as a common benefactor-as an universal Saviour-to the whole human race. Nicodemus, it should seem, left the presence of Jesus, if not a decided convert, yet impressed with still deeper reverence. Though never an avowed disciple, yet, with other members of the Sanhedrin, he was only restrained by his dread of the predominant party more than once we find him seizing opportunities of showing his respect and attachment for the teacher, whose cause he had not courage openly to espouse; and, perhaps, his secret influence, with that of others similarly disposed, may, for a time, have mitigated or obstructed the more violent designs of the hostile party. Thus ended the first visit of Jesus to Jerusalem since his assumption of a public character. His influence had, in one class probably, made considerable, though secret, progress; with others, a dark feeling of hostility had been more deeply rooted; while this very difference of sentiment was likely to increase the general suspense and interest, as to the future development of his character. As yet, it should seem, unless in that most private interview with Nicodemus, he had not openly avowed his claim to the title of the Messiah an expression of St. John (2), “he did not trust himself to them," seems to imply the extreme caution and reserve which he maintained towards all the converts which he made during his present visit to Jerusalem. (1) Quæ sequuntur inde a versiculo decimo septimo proprie ad Judæos spectant, et haud dubie dicta sunt a Domino contra opinionem illam impiam et in genus humanum iniquam, cum existimarent Messiam non nisi Judaicum populum liberaturum, reliquas vero gentes omnes suppli ciis atrocissimis affecturum, penitusque perditurum esse. Titman. Mel. in Joan. p. 128. (2) John, ii. 24. οὐκ ἐπίστευεν ἑαυτόν; he did not trust himself to them, he did not commit himself. |