regarded of equal authority, so long as they were not offensive or injurious to his moral sense. We must observe, also, that his own teaching was entirely free from doctrinal tendencies. If we put these two facts together, we shall conclude that the first collision between Jesus and the popular religion would be in no way of his own seeking, but would be provoked without any direct intention on his part by the line of conduct he pursued; and again, that he would never express an opinion about the Law and the tradition unless he had special occasion to do so, which would generally be when he was expressly challenged to declare his opinions. Now, among other matters, he was questioned or attacked in this way on the subjects of fasting and the observation of the Sabbath.

The fact that he prescribed no fasts to his disciples could not fail in the long run to attract attention. The great day of atonement and the other general fasts were held binding on every Jew, and were doubtless observed by Jesus and his associates; but it had become the established custom for every one who laid claim to a religious character to observe extra fasts from time to time. To do so was considered a sign of earnestness and a proof of piety. The strict Pharisees chose for this purpose Thursday, the day on which Moses was supposed to have ascended Sinai, and Monday, the day on which he came down. John had been very exacting in this respect; and his followers continued faithfully to observe his injunctions as an act of penance on behalf of their people, in view of the great judgment to come. They, above all others, must have noticed with surprise that he who had taken up the work of John had adopted such a different course. On a certain day, accordingly, they came to him and asked, "Why do we and the Pharisees constantly fast, but your disciples not?" In his answer Jesus gave them clearly to understand that, so far from attaching the smallest value to fasting in itself, he condemned it as an unnatural constraint whenever it was practised as a religious duty, as a meritorious deed, by those who were not spontaneously inclined to observe it. "Can the wedding guests mourn," he said, "while the bridegroom is with them?" The bridegroom's friends would never think of mourning during the seven days of the wedding feast, and no more would his disciples so long as they could rejoice in his presence. "But the days will come," he added, when the bridegroom has been taken away from them, and then they will fast." The wedding is a type

of the Messianic kingdom; and if Jesus compared himself to the bridegroom and referred to his separation from his disciples, apparently by death, it must have been at a late period in his public life. It is possible, however, that the words have been slightly altered to suit the event; and that originally the stress fell upon the difference between the disciples of John, who had lost their master, and his own disciples, who rejoiced in the presence of theirs. But this is unimportant. The gist of the whole thing is that Jesus only sanctioned fasting when it was the natural expression of the sorrow of the heart. This principle not only changes the whole aspect of the special observance in dispute, but deprives all religious observances whatever of their meritorious character. We must observe them if the needs of our own hearts urge us to do so, but not otherwise.

For if

Jesus well knew that he had enunciated quite a new principle. He knew that it was impossible for any one who was still a slave to the old conception of the religious life to accept it. "No one would take a scrap of a new and unshrunk piece of cloth to mend an old garment with. he did, then, as soon as the new patch got wet and shrunk, it would draw up the old cloth and make a worse rent than ever." No more can we force those who have accepted new principles to adhere strictly to old forms. "Nor do we put new wine that is still fermenting into old skins that have lost their elasticity and toughness. For if we did, then, as the camels carried the wine-skins on their backs, and the sun shone upon them, the wine would begin to work and the skins would burst. Then the wine would flow away, and the skins would be spoiled. But we put new wine into new skins, and both are preserved."

Jesus expresses himself as clearly and strongly as possible, though he makes use of figurative language. He draws a sharp contrast between old and new, and definitely declares that the two cannot be combined, and that every attempt to unite them is not only futile but destructive to them both. He demands emphatically that form and spirit shall be brought into perfect harmony. The third Evangelist, to whom this passage must have been specially acceptable, adds (skilfully enough though without authority) several details of his own. In the first place, he makes the question addressed to Jesus include a reference to the long and numerous prayers which the disciples of John and the Pharisees were commanded to repeat, and to which exactly the same principles would

apply. Then he observes that if a man took a piece of a new garment to mend an old one, not only would the effect on the old one be incongruous, but it would be a great pity to spoil the new one. Finally, he concludes with the words, "And no one who has been drinking the old and mellowed wine desires the hot, new wine; for he says, 'The old is good!'" This remark shows profound knowledge of human nature; and as an apology for those who are attached to the old order of things it is equally humorous in form and kindly in spirit. Perhaps the words were never uttered by Jesus; but they certainly breathe his spirit, and are quite worthy of him.

Here Mark and Luke neglect the order of time in favor of similarity of subject, and add at once an account of a twofold violation of the Sabbath by Jesus. Soon after the Passover, as the ripe corn stood in the fields, Jesus and the Twelve were on their way to a neighboring village. The path led across some fields, but at a certain point the way was barred by some tangled ears of corn that lay across the path. Without much thinking what they were doing the disciples began to pull up some of the ears and clear the path. But certain Pharisees observed it, and at once turned to Jesus, whom they held responsible for it, saying, "What does this mean? They are doing an unlawful deed, and on the Sabbath too!" Jesus met them at once. He might have simply replied, "Necessity has no law;" but he preferred to silence his critics once for all by following the recognized style of argument of those days, and clothing his reply in the form of an appeal to a scriptural precedent: "Have you never read in the Scripture what David did in his necessity? How, when Abiathar was high priest, he took the shew-bread to satisfy his hunger and that of his companions, though it was not lawful for any one to eat it but the priests?" We may remark, in passing, that here the Evangelist or Jesus himself makes a slight mistake; for it was not Abiathar but his father Ahimelech who was chief priest when the event referred to took place, and David had no one with him at the time. Jesus went farther. After fully exculpating his disciples, he went on boldly to lay down the rule, "The Sabbath is made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath day."

But

We must remember with what scrupulous care the stricter 1 1 Samuel xxi. 1-6; compare vol. i. pp. 513, 516.

Jews observed the Sabbath; how, for instance, they long abstained from even defending themselves in time of war on this day; and how they determined, with ludicrous minuteness, the exact extent and nature of the actions that might and might not be performed on the Sabbath. When we think of all this, we shall plainly see that Jesus was putting himself into direct opposition to the religion of his people, and even to the fourth commandment, when he announced the principle that the Sabbath was meant to serve man, not man the Sabbath; that the commandment must not be made a burden, but in case of need or in the cause of duty might and must be neglected. It is true that one of the later Jewish Scribes uttered a saying that closely resembles that of Jesus: "The Sabbath is given to you, and you are by no means given to the Sabbath." This was not the current Jewish doctrine, however, but a very remarkable exception to the general rule. Moreover, Jesus not only declared the principle, but unhesitatingly put it into practice.

So Jesus took the same view of the Sabbath as he did of fasts, and was equally bold in carrying out his views in either case. To observe the Sabbath was in itself of no consequence whatever. If it helped a man to reach his true destiny, let him abide by it; if not, he was at liberty to neglect it.

According to Matthew and Luke, the disciples were not clearing the pathway, but plucking the ears and rubbing out the grains to eat because they were hungry. Matthew makes Jesus appeal, in defence of his disciples, not only to the example of David, but to the practice of the priests, who desecrated every Sabbath by offering the sacrifices ordained for the day, and yet were guiltless. In like manner Hillel, the most renowned of all the Jewish theologians, who had now been dead some thirty years, had maintained the people's right to slaughter the paschal lamb even when the eve of the Passover fell on the Sabbath; and it is not impossible that Jesus may have borrowed this argument from him. But whereas Hillel's purpose was to defend the priestly prerogative of the whole people, which was quite in the spirit of the Pharisees, Jesus gives the argument quite another turn by adding, "If the priests, as servants of the temple, are above the commandment, there is more than the temple here." He did not mean so much that he was personally of more importance than the temple, as that his own vocation and that of his disciples-their work for the kingdom of God was

1 Numbers xxviii. 9, 10.

more than the temple. But most likely these words were uttered on some other occasion.

There was no lack of such occasions, for several attacks were made upon Jesus with special reference to the observance of the Sabbath. He would not pause on the day of rest in his efforts to save sinners. To do so would, in his opinion, have been equivalent to hurling them to destruction; for he felt that to leave a good deed undone was as bad as to do a man a direct injury. This idea is expressed in immediate connection with the preceding narrative in the following emblematic form:

Once, on a Sabbath day, Jesus entered a synagogue. There was a man present who had a shrunken hand. The "Gospel of the Hebrews". which, like our three Gospels, understands the story literally - says that this man was a stonemason, and that he besought Jesus to heal him, and so save him from beggary. Ancient and modern commentators, on the other hand, have explained the story to mean that before the coming of Jesus the hand of the pious Jew was made powerless by the Law to do the works of God. But let us hear the story out! The Pharisees, in their anxious dread of trespasses against the Law, watched Jesus to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath. They must have known already that he was not "sound" upon this point, and if he now committed an act of inexcusable desecration they would accuse him before the council of the elders. But Jesus saw through their intent. "Go and stand in the middle of the synagogue," he said to the sufferer. Then he asked those present, and especially the guardians of the Law, "What may we do on the Sabbath? - good, or evil? — save a soul, or kill it?" There was deep silence. Jesus cast a glance of mingled wrath and sadness upon those in whom prejudice had so darkened and obscured the natural sense of right and wrong, and then turning to the man, who was still standing in the midst of the assembly, he cried, "Stretch out your hand!" and immediately it was restored, and was as strong and supple as the other. Doubly embittered by their own inability to answer the question Jesus had put to them, the Pharisees went out to take counsel how best to inflict upon the Sabbath-breaker the punishment he had incurred.1

According to Matthew, Jesus said on this occasion, “Suppose one of you had a single sheep and it fell into a hole on

1 Numbers xv. 32-36.