b с BOOK I. least, not friendly to Jesus. 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 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, 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." This phrase, while it coincided with the general notion that such diseases were the penalties of sin, nevertheless as assuming to the Lord 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" jarred on a still chord in the popular feeling. The publi cans. were all orders among the Jews more sensitive On no point 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 b Matt. ix. 2-8; Mark i. 1-12; | terrace roof. Luke v. 18-26. • Or they may merely have enlarged the door of communication with the Matt. ix. 9; Mark ii. 13, 14. Luke v. 27, 28. CHAP. IV. CLOSE OF FIRST YEAR OF PUBLIC LIFE. 197 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. year of Thus ended the first year of the public life of Jesus. The fame of his wonderful works; the authority Close of first with which he delivered his doctrines; among public life. 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, 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. 198 SECOND YEAR - JESUS IN JERUSALEM, Book 1, CHAPTER V. Second Year of the Public Life of Jesus. THE second year of the public life of Christ opened, as the first, with his attendance at the Passover. A. D. 28. Passover. Change in popular sentiment. He appeared again amidst the assembled population of the whole race of Israel, in the place 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. It is clear that a considerable change had taken place in the popular sentiment, on the whole, at least with the ruling party, 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 his 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 My language on this point is to be | narrative of St. John. But if this taken with some latitude, as a certain time elapsed between the baptism of Jesus and the first Passover. 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 Gospel was intended to be generally supplementary to the rest, or, as it seems, intended especially to relate the transactions in Jerusalem, omitted by the other Evangelists, this total silence on the intermediate events in Galilee would not be altogether unaccountable. b John v. 1-15. CHAP. V ACCUSED OF BREAKING THE SABBATH. 199 doubt, and those most likely inaccurate and misrepre sented, must have reached Jerusalem, of the mysterious language in which he had spoken of his relation to Jehovah, 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 and sellers from the Temple, and his ambiguous and misinterpreted speech about that sacred edifice. His conversation with Nicodemus had probably not transpired, or at least not gained general publicity ; for the same motives which would lead the cautious Pharisee to conceal his visit under the veil of night, would induce him to keep within his own bosom the important and startling truths, which perhaps he himself did not yet clearly comprehend, but which at all events were so opposite to the principles of his sect, and so humiliating to the pride of the ruling and learned oligarchy. During his second visit, however, at the same solemn period of national assemblage, Jesus gave a new cause of astonishment to his followers, of offence to his adversaries, by an act which could not but excite the highest wonder and the strongest animadversion. This was no less than an assumption of autho- Breach of rity to dispense with the observance of the Sabbath. Of all their institutes, which, after reverence having infringed or neglected for centuries of Sabbath. the Sabbath Jewish for the 200 JEWS' REVERENCE FOR THE SABBATH. Book I. cold and faithless service, the Jews, on the return from the Captivity, embraced with passionate and fanatical attachment, none had become so completely identified with the popular feeling, or had been guarded by such minute and multifarious provisions, as the Sabbath. In the early days of the Maccabean revolt against Antiochus, the insurgents, having been surprised on a Sabbath, submitted to be tamely butchered, rather than violate the sanctity of the day, even by defensive warfare. And though the manifest impossibility of recovering or maintaining their liberties against the inroads of hostile nations had led to a relaxation of the Law as far as self-defence, yet during the siege of Jerusalem by Pompey, the wondering Romans discovered, that although on the seventh day the garrison would repel an assault, yet they would do nothing to prevent or molest the enemy in carrying on his operations in the trenches. Tradition, "the hedge of the Law," as it was called, had fenced this institution with more than usual care: it had noted with jealous rigour almost every act of bodily exertion within the capacity of man, arranged them under thirty-nine heads, which were each considered to comprehend a multitude of subordinate cases, and against each and every one of these had solemnly affixed the seal of Divine condemnation. A Sabbath day's journey was a distance limited to 2,000 cubits, or rather less than a mile; and the carrying any burthen was especially denounced as among the most flagrant violations of the Law. This Sabbatic observance was the stronghold of Pharisaic rigour; and enslaved as the whole nation was in voluntary bondage to these minute regulations, in no point were they less inclined to struggle with the yoke, or wore it with greater willingness and pride. |