upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of a beast of burden." We may note in passing that one of the earliest ecclesiastical Fathers, running off upon the sound, actually quotes a verse from Jacob's blessing to prove that the ass was bound to a vine-tree; and after all this is only carrying out the practice, habitual to the Jewish-Christian Evangelist himself, of using the Scriptures of the Old Testament as materials for the life of Jesus. We need therefore pay no further attention to the details given in Matthew; but, on the other hand, the coincidence between this prophecy of the Messiah as the Prince of Peace and the mode in which Jesus entered the city is sufficiently remarkable to suggest the question whether he himself had the words of Zechariah in his mind. Did he enter the city upon an ass expressly to show that, though he claimed to be the Messiah, it was not as an earthly potentate who would more fitly ride a war-horse, but rather as a peacebearer? This is not impossible, but neither does it seem very probable; for riding on an ass was so very common a mode of travelling that Jesus can hardly have calculated on those who saw him thinking of the prophecy in question and divining his meaning. Nor is it even certain that his disciples expressly greeted him as the Messiah in person upon this occasion; for though Matthew makes them cry, "Hosanna to the son of David!" it is doubtful whether Jesus was ever really addressed by this title during his lifetime; and the Evangelist himself appears to contradict his own account immediately afterwards, when he makes the exultant disciples answer the question of the people of Jerusalem by saying — not "This is the Messiah!" but "This is the prophet from Nazareth!"

In a word, the whole thing seems to have happened quite simply. The ass a much finer and more swift-footed animal and far more highly esteemed in the East than with ourselves was the animal ordinarily ridden in Palestine, as the horse is here; and, though we cannot tell how Jesus came to have the opportunity or the wish to ride into Jerusalem, there is nothing in the least extraordinary in either the one or the other. Perhaps he thought this mode of entry more suitable to the dignity of the occasion than walking. In the same spirit he refrained from checking his disciples' cries of triumph. Nothing could be more natural than for the latter to sing a few lines of the hundred and eighteenth psalm in his honor, for it was often sung at the Feast of Tabernacles and 1 Genesis xlix. 11. 2 See p. 37. 8 See p. 38.

other festivals. "Hosanna," in verse 25 (properly hoshianna, i.e. "Help, then!" or "Save us!"), was a form of invoking a blessing or expressing joy, and the following verse was originally a greeting offered by the priests to the visitors of the temple. But, after all, even if Jesus was not expressly called the Messiah, it was nevertheless a Messianic entry into Jerusalem; for at any rate he was conducted into the City of the Temple, amidst the acclamations of his followers, as the prophet who would bring the Messianic kingdom. The Twelve, of course, would look upon him in that case as the Anointed of the Lord himself, whereas the rest may have formed the same conception in some cases and divergent ones in others.1 It is not without reason, therefore, that the Christian Church attaches great importance to this event, and consecrates the Sunday before Easter to its memory. The day is fixed in accordance with the indications of the fourth Gospel, and is called Palm Sunday after the commemorative palm branches with which the churches are decorated. Finally, when Matthew says that "the whole city was moved," we must look upon his words as a natural exaggeration, and need not be surprised to find that this triumphal entry does not seem to have been so much as mentioned at the trial of Jesus; for, though it made a deep impression upon his followers at the time, the great majority of the people of Jerusalem would not pay the least attention to it.

So Jesus, of Nazareth in Galilee, had entered Jerusalem at the head of his followers, and they had greeted him as the prophet who came to inaugurate the kingdom of God. They themselves, of course, made straight for the temple; but the question was whether their enthusiasm would infect the people of God's city, and force them to join their procession and take up their cries of joy, while Jesus advanced towards Isael's sanctuary and finally entered its gates? It can hardly surprise us that nothing of the kind took place. The people of Jerusalem looked on in surprise, or ran together here and there, in half-contemptuous curiosity to witness these demonstrations of Galilæan excitement, but that was all. No doubt this was a great disappointment to the friends of Jesus, if not to himself; but the future might make up for the present, they thought.

To the temple, then! They had only a few streets to pass through before reaching one of the gates that opened into the 1 Compare pp. 312, 313, and Acts iii. 22 ff.

consecrated area. Here Jesus dismounted. What were hus thoughts as he stood there? His foot was now to rest upon the spot which, as his contemporaries thought, had been for thousands of years the sole earthly abode of the Eternal, the Lord of heaven! It was not, indeed, for the first time. He had doubtless visited the temple more than once in early life. The impression he received on the first occasion must have been overwhelming. National reminiscences and the force of tradition added impressiveness to the grand proportions and the magnificent architecture and adornments of the temple; and when the devout young Galilæan entered the court of the heathen, and cast his eye over the extended area, surrounded by double and triple rows of columns, each four-andthirty feet in height, each hewed from a single block of the whitest marble, and wainscoted with cedar; when he gazed on the tessellated pavement that covered the whole open space, and on the terrace in the centre, that none but the sons of the chosen people might ascend; when he looked yet further and beheld the second terrace, upon which stood the court of the priests and the sanctuary itself; when he saw what inestimable treasures had been lavished upon every thing, how exquisitely each detail had been executed, and with what marvellous art the whole had been blended together, must not his senses have almost reeled? But his subsequent visits would produce an ever-growing sense of want and dissatisfaction, in proportion as his own religious life developed; and his aversion to the formality which reigned uncontrolled in the temple must have constantly risen. It was perhaps a long time now since he had been there; and, as he raised his foot once more over the consecrated threshold, he felt afresh that, in opening the treasure-house of his spirit to the people and bringing them true salvation, he must in appearance act the part of a destroyer, and in the name of Moses and the prophets pronounce the sentence of condemnation upon this dead religion. He could not look upon the temple with the indifferent eye of a stranger. He, if any one, felt the inseparable tie of a common faith with the pious generations who had worshipped there. His heart overflowed with mingled and conflicting emotions. In this primeval seat of Israel's worship he must appear as the messenger of the Lord, must demand an absolute renovation; must announce the approaching judgment; must preach the gospel of the kingdom.

In sacred transport he entered the temple, with gait erect and beaming eye, followed by his disciples!

What a scene it was that met him! Not only the press of coming and going pilgrims, here approaching with their beasts for sacrifice, here pushing their way one against another, and here raising their songs of praise, all which he could have borne, - but the clatter and chaffer of a fair! The jostling and shouting of the market-place had drowned the voice of devotion! For here in the outer court stood the booths of the cattle-dealers, of the traders in wine, oil, corn, incense, salt, and other requisites for sacrifice, and of the money-brokers who changed the coins of the various districts from which the faithful had streamed to the temple, for the didrachma of the temple duty or for Greek and Roman coins. It was vain to expect any feeling for the sanctity of the place in these men. They simply came there to make what they could, and too often deliberately reckoned upon cheating the pilgrims by demanding extortionate prices for their wares, or taking advantage of their ignorance of the exchange value of the coinage. And, even when there was no cheating, the clatter of voices, clinking of money, bleating and lowing of beasts filled the court! Maybe the dealers and money-changers lcoked for more business yet from the arrival of another caravan of pilgrims, with the sacred chant upon their lips. Now Jesus knew what always went on here. He had been distressed by this temple-market before. But when we remember the mood in which he now entered the temple, we can well believe that the scene made him boil with indignation as it had never done before. The impulse to put an end to it rose strong within him. Had not God set him his task that moment? He did not check the impulse, but gave it rein. Irresistible in his sacred wrath, he drove the hucksters and dealers through the gate, overturned the tables of the moneychangers, while their coins rolled along the ground, and threw down the seats of the dove-sellers.

Never yet, we may be sure, had his followers seen him with that flashing eye, that arm extended in command, as one of the prophets of old! And to make the resemblance more striking yet, to prove that he was consciously treading in the footsteps of the prophets and was urged by their spirit, he seconded his deeds by words taken from two well-known prophetic sayings of the ancient times: "It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves!"

This last expression obviously refers to the dishonest prac

1 Isaiah Ivi. 7; Jeremiah vii. 11

tices to which the love of gain gave rise. But it may well be asked how Jesus could possibly cleanse the temple in this way single-handed. Why did all these people tamely submit to being expelled? How came it that the temple-guard, who had to keep order within the sacred precincts, did not intervene, and put the disturber of the peace under restraint, or at least expel him? Now, it is perfectly true that a fortnight later, in the week before the Passover, such a proceeding would have been simply and utterly impossible; for at that season there was an indescribable crush of visitors, and we may gain some idea of the amount of trade that was carried on from the fact that the lambs alone were counted by the thousand; but when Jesus expelled the traders, they may not have been so numerous as one might at first suppose. Then we must remember that the hallowed zeal which carried him away so suddenly extorted such submission, at any rate for the moment, that resistance was impossible; and besides, his commanding personality borrowed at least the appearance of material support from his numerous followers; for, though they took no direct part in the work, their presence rendered any attempt at violent resistance inadvisable.

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As for the action itself, its purport was not confined to the removal of offensive and inharmonious surroundings from the temple, and the maintenance of its sanctity, - for it had a wider and symbolical significance, and in this respect again resembled the actions of the ancient prophets. It was, in the fullest sense, an open declaration of war upon the formal worship of the times. The priests, who had a very substantial interest in the temple-market, took an actual pride in the press of business in the court; for the number of tradesmen and the amount of their wares indicated the number of purchasers, and that, in its turn, was the gauge of Jewish piety, fidelity, and zeal. This last consideration influenced the Pharisees also to the same effect. This was but natural, for such abuses were the necessary result of looking for religion in a host of ceremonies and externalities; and in later ages the same addiction to formalities produced analogous excesses in the Roman and Greek churches, without shocking the faithful in the least. This cleansing of the temple involved by necessary implication the condemnation of the whole system of sacrifice, which really required a market to support it; nor was Jesus the first of the men of God to condemn the sacrificial system. It was not against Moses and the prophets that Jesus now advanced as a religious reformer,