declared to his disciples, he fully expected that his preaching would find no entrance and wake no echo in the hearts of the great majority; that his efforts would meet with no sympathy and no support; and that when once rejected, and accused by the authorities of attacking the ancestral religion, he would pay for his failure with his life.

1

He tried in many ways to show them how probable it was that such a fate was impending over him. Jerusalem was the great school of orthodoxy; and the hostile encounter he had already had with the Scribes who came thence to Galilee to observe and question him, showed him distinctly enough. what he had to expect in the capital itself, and its significance could hardly have been missed by the disciples. As for the Sadducees, who held the helm of the state, they were so selfishly and doggedly conservative that they would certainly do their best to put the reformer, with his promise of God's kingdom, as quickly as possible out of the way. The general public, alas! was too shallow and fickle to be in any way relied upon. And were not his recent experiences -the repeated necessity of retreat, and the threats to which his very life had been exposed a significant prelude to what was yet in store? Above all, did not his predecessor's fate foreshadow his own? And did not sacred history show by the common fate of the prophets of old that such an issue of his labors, such a reception of the word of God he uttered, was but natural?2 Let them consult the Scripture, and they would find that the servant of the Lord would be scorned by every one, that the shepherd would be smitten, and much more that pointed in the same direction. Would it not prove to be the will of God that the Messiah should go to the City of the Temple, that he should join in open conflict with the established powers, and that he, being the weaker, should fall?

Yes, fall! but not for ever.

Such, we imagine, was the drift of many long discourses addressed by Jesus to his faithful friends. He wished to lead them by the way which he had trodden to the conclusion he had reached. He could not give up all hopes that when the crisis came the assembled people might yet make the blessed choice; that God might incline their hearts to him and bring wondrous things to pass: but he felt that he must firmly push these hopes into the background, and on his own account, as well as that of his friends, accurately observe and resolutely 1 Compare pp. 124, 275 ff. 2 See pp. 48, 292.

insist upon the gloomy prospect of defeat. Not that he was shaken for a moment in his determination to go up to Jerusalem! On that point he was resolved, though he must walk right into the lion's den. Nay, even if he had had no single gleam of hope, if he had known with infallible certainty that it would cost his life, even then he must and would have gone. Where duty commanded, where God called, there he knew no fear or hesitation; there no sacrifice was too heavy for him. He had always taken every reasonable precaution against danger, and had on several occasions retreated to avoid his enemies; but it was for the Messianic kingdom and not for his own sake that he had spared his life, and now he was ready to risk it in that same cause. He commended the resuit to God, and knew that it was in good hands.

He had not the shadow of a doubt that if his blood must be poured out it would only be as the price that must be paid for the establishment of the kingdom and the inauguration of the blessed age. The obstinate resistance offered to the truth he preached would put an end to itself at the moment that it struck him down, and his rejection would lead to his supremacy. And so, however sad the subject of which he spoke to his friends might sometimes appear, the conclusion was never a gloomy one. Let the clouds gather never so darkly, there was always light behind them. Whatever vicissitudes and conflicts awaited him, his triumph would be sure and speedy! God, the almighty Father, was faithful; and if for a moment he appeared to be defeated, it would soon be seen that his apparent defeat was his real victory. After three days' he would rise again from his fall.

Such was ever the conclusion of his discourses on this subject. Trodden under foot he would soon rise again, and rise victorious. But this was not enough to reconcile his friends to the prospect of a temporary defeat. A Messiah rejected by his people was an idea that flatly contradicted all their opinions and beliefs; was an insoluble riddle, an inexplicable contradiction, a simple impossibility. Their Messiah

and there was no other! was to be a king; and God, the Lord, would make all his adversaries bow before him, or would crush them to powder! But though they exchanged perplexed and astonished glances, none of them dared to speak but one. It was the same who a short time before had made himself the mouthpiece of them all, and had been the first to take the name of Messiah on his lips. Had Simon,

1 Compare p. 275, and Hosea vi. 2; 2 Kings xx. 5, 8; Matthew xxvi. 61..

listening intently to his Master, caught something in his tone, some indescribable indication in his manner, that gave him courage to speak? Did he feel by a kind of inspiration, he knew not how, that Jesus himself had had great difficulty in believing and accepting it as a fact that suffering and death in all probability awaited him, the future Messiah? At any rate he could not let such words pass unchallenged, and took the first opportunity of endeavoring to bring Jesus to other thoughts. He drew him aside, and, forgetting even the respect he owed to him, began to take him seriously to task. "God forbid it!" he cried. 66 No, Lord! this shall not be ; indeed it shall not!" He was far from wishing Jesus to abandon his intention of going to Jerusalem, but he wished him to banish these gloomy forebodings. Why should he keep forcing himself to think that he might have to sacrifice his life in the good cause? He was not only giving himself needless pain, but was showing a want of trust that might produce disastrous results. He must look for better things, and as the Anointed of the Lord must prepare himself for a very different fate from that But Jesus would not let him finish. He shook him off impetuously, and turning his back upon him cried, "Out of my sight, Satan! You are a stumbling-block to me, for you seek not the will of God, but the things desired by men."

Why all this vehemence? When have we ever seen him so severe before? It was in self-preservation that he spoke. He felt that, unless he flung away the thought at once with all the power he could muster, the temptation might become too strong for him. For his conception of the future was but new even to himself, and he had only gained it at the cost of a hard-won victory over himself. And so when Simon, overlooking the demands of a stern sense of duty, overlooking God's call to self-sacrifice for the kingdom's sake, threw in his voice with the selfish longing for life, for power, for enjoyment, and would confirm the national prejudices of the Jews as to the Messiah and his kingdom, it seemed to him as though the Evil One himself had crept up to his side to seduce him into falsehood to himself and disobedience to God. And his apprehension of the toilsome, painful task that he expected was so great, his natural inclinations were pleading so strongly with him already, that he feared the unhallowed counsel of his friend might draw him but too easily aside should he permit himself to hear it. So by one firm, quick stroke he silenced the tempter's voice, and was rescued!

He was safe for ever against the danger that had threatened him at that moment. Never again would any of his disciples strive to divert the current of his thoughts. Once more, while still in Galilee, he spoke in the same strain of dark presentiment. The first Gospel says that the disciples were sad, the other two that they could not understand him; but in either case they dared not question him again.' And so what seemed but now to be his vulnerable point was covered against all future attacks by that one brief but glorious effort. His apprehension rather increased than diminished ; but after his victory over what was perhaps the severest temptation of his life, his self-surrender to the Father's will was more complete than ever.

We need not wonder that even when Jesus was no longer with the Twelve alone, but was addressing a wider circle of his followers, his preaching henceforth bore the unmistakable impress of what had occurred within the closer circle. He was more urgent than ever in his demand for complete selfconsecration and self-sacrifice, and at the same time he opened out the prospect of the richest compensation and the fulfilment of the fairest hopes in the immediate future. "If any one will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me! For whosoever seeks to save his life shall lose it, but whosoever loses his life shall find it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world if he lose his own soul in gaining it? Or what can a man give in ransom for his soul? For if any one is ashamed of me and of my words in the midst of this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man shall be ashamed of him when he comes with the light of his Father's glory shining about him and surrounded by the holy angels!" When he comes! And when would he come? "I tell you of a truth there are some here present who shall witness it; some who shall see with their own eyes the Son of Man coming in all his kingly splendor!" It was a glorious promise to his faithful followers!

These sayings of Jesus to his trusted companions, or to the wider circle of his followers, are preserved with varying degrees of accuracy by the several Gospels. Thus Matthew, instead of simply making the Son of Man refuse to recognize as his own those who dare not declare in his favor now, makes him appear as the judge of all the world and “ recom 1 Matthew xvii. 22, 23 (Mark ix. 30-32; Luke ix. 43–45). 2 See pp. 176, 187-190.

pense every man according to his works." This ascription of the office of judge to the Messiah is of later origin, and is entirely foreign to the ideas of Jesus himself. Luke and Mark, on the other hand, substitute the coming of the kingdom of God for that of the Son of Man. In all alike the form of the sayings is affected by subsequent events. Thus they speak of "bearing the cross;" they understand the expectation which Jesus expressed of a final triumph as though it were a prophecy of his own resurrection from the realm of shades, which is certainly a misconception; and above all they make Jesus not only anticipate sufferings in general, but specifically and emphatically predict his condemnation by the Sanhedrim; and they make him not only look upon his death as possible, but announce it as irrevocably decreed by God. Now we know that as a fact he cherished to the very last some faint hopes, though ever fainter, that such a sacrifice might not be required of him. Indeed the constant recurrence of these hopes furnishes the only possible explanation of the complete failure of all his warnings to produce any real impression on his friends, who magnified the hopes, set aside the apprehensions, and to the very last fully expected a brilliant victory. It is even possible that we have ourselves represented the Master's anticipations as mote uniformly gloomy than they really were; and at any rate we may safely assume that brighter expectations and more cheerful hopes from time to time relieved his sad forebodings. But all this affects little more than the form of these sayings. Their substance is certainly genuine.

But what does all this mean? We are told in the same breath that Jesus is the Messiah, and that in all probability sufferings and death await him! The disciples might well be amazed; and we too may ask with them, Can these two things by any possibility be reconciled? What comes of the Messiahship of Jesus? Is it a mere phantom? The kingdom of heaven, as we know, was to be established here on earth. Was it, after all, to have no human king? In that case there would be no Messiah; and how could Jesus be the Messiah if there was none?

Our Gospels offer a solution of this riddle which appears to us when first we hear it so strange as to be absolutely impossible to accept. We have come across it in the lastmentioned utterances of Jesus, in which he is made to say,

1 See p. 189