is not a spiritualist; for to him everything looks to a practical end. But he is a thoroughgoing idealist : matter is to him but the sign of the idea, and the actual is but a vivid type of the invisible.

To whom shall we appeal, upon whom shall we rely, to found the kingdom of God? Jesus never wavered upon this point. "That which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God" (Luke xvi. 15). The founders of the kingdom of God will be the simple,-not the rich, the doctors, or the priests; but women, common people, the humble, little children.1 The one chief sign of the Messiah is, "The poor have the gospel preached to them" (Matt. xi. 5). The idyllic and gentle nature of Jesus is here uppermost. A vast social revolution, in which rank should be levelled and all authority brought low, was his dream. The world will not believe him, the world will kill him; but his followers will not be of the world: they will be a small band of the lowly and humble, who will conquer by their very humility. The sentiment which made "worldly" the antithesis of "Christian" is completely justified by the thought of the Master himself."

2

1 Matt. v. 3, 10; xviii. 3; xix. 14, 23, 24; xx. 16; xxi. 31; xxii. 2–14. Mark x. 14, 15, 23-25. Luke i. 51-53; iv. 18, 19; vi. 20; xiii. 30; xiv. 11; xviii. 14, 16, 17, 24, 25.

2 John xv. 19; xvii. 14, 16.

See, above all, John xvii., which contains, not a real discourse spoken by Jesus, but a sentiment profoundly felt by his disciples, which flowed legitimately from his teaching.

CHAPTER VIII.

AT CAPERNAUM.

1

HAUNTED by an idea more and more imperious, Jesus henceforth follows calmly, as if under a certain doom, the path marked out for him by his astonishing genius and the extraordinary circumstances in which he lived. Till now, he has only imparted his thoughts to a few persons secretly drawn toward him; henceforward his teaching becomes public, and follows a fixed plan. He was now about thirty years of age. The small group of hearers who went with him to John was undoubtedly increased, and perhaps he had been joined by some of John's disciples. With this first nucleus of a church, on his return into Galilee he boldly proclaimed the "glad tidings of the kingdom of God." This kingdom was at hand; and he, Jesus, was that "Son of Man whom Daniel in his vision had beheld as the divine herald of the final and supreme revelation.

We must remember that to the Jewish mind, averse as it was to art and mythology, the simple human form was nobler than that of Cherubim, or those creatures of fancy which the imagination of the people,

1 Luke iii. 23; Ebionite Gospel (Epiph. Adv. hær. xxx. 13); Valentinus (Iren. Adv. hær. I. i. 3; II. xxii. 1, 2. Epiph. ibid. li. 28, 29). John viii. 57 has no bearing here, "fifty years" being a general expression of age. Irenæus (ibid. xxii. 5, 6) does little more than echo John, though claiming to rest on the tradition of the "elders" of Asia.

2 John i. 37-43.

since it had been under the influence of Assyria, conceived as grouped about the Divine Majesty. Already in Ezekiel,' the Being seated on the supreme throne, far above the monsters of the mysterious chariot, the great revealer of prophetic visions, has the countenance of a man. In the Book of Daniel, amidst the vision of empires represented by the apocalyptic "beasts," at the moment when the great assize begins, and when the books are opened, a Being "like a Son of Man" comes before the Ancient of Days, who bestows on him the power to judge the world and to govern it forever. "Son of Man," in the Semitic languages, especially in the Aramæan dialects, is a mere synonym of "man." But this chief passage of Daniel struck the mind: the phrase "Son of Man" became, at least in certain schools," one of the titles of the Messiah, regarded as judge of the world and as king of the new era about to open. The application made of it by Jesus to himself, accordingly, proclaims his messiahship, and affirms the coming catastrophe in which he was 1 Chap. i. 5, 26-28.

2 In John xii. 34 the Jews appear unfamiliar with this meaning of the phrase.

Matt. x. 23; xiii. 41; xvi. 27, 28; xix. 28; xxiv. 27, 30, 37, 39, 44; xxv. 31; xxvi. 64. Mark xiii. 26; xiv. 62. Luke xii. 40; xvii. 24, 26, 30; xxi. 27, 36; xxii. 69. Acts vii. 55. But the most decisive passage is John v. 27 [“ He hath given him authority to exercise judgment also, because he is the Son of Man"], when put beside Rev. i. 13 and xiv. 14. Compare Book of Enoch xlvi. 1–4; xlviii. 2, 3; lxii. 5, 7, 9, 14; lxix. 26, 27, 29; lxx. 1 (Dillmann's arrangement): also 4 Esdras xiii. 2 et seq., 12, 13, 25, 32 (Ethiopic, Arabic, and Syriac versions, eds. of Ewald, Volkmar, and Ceriani), Ascension of Isaiah (Venetian Latin text of 1522, col. 702, Migne's ed.), and Justin, Tryph., 49, 76. The expression "Son of woman," denoting the Messiah, is found once in Enoch lxii. 5. It is to be remarked that the entire passage of Enoch, chapters xxxii. to lxxi., is suspected to be interpolated. The Fourth Book of Esdras was written in the reign of Nerva [A. D. 68], by a Jew under the influence of Christian ideas.

to appear as Judge, invested with the full powers delegated to him by the Ancient of Days.

The teaching of the new prophet had this time a marked success. A group of men and women, all filled with the same spirit of youthful candour and simple innocence, thronged to him and said, "Thou art the Messiah!" As the Messiah was to be the Son of David, this appellation, synonymous with the other, was naturally conferred upon him; and he accepted it with pleasure, though it caused him some embarrassment, since his origin was well known. For himself, he preferred the title "Son of Man," one apparently humble, but connected directly with the messianic hopes. This was the name by which he designated himself;1 so that in his mouth "Son of Man was a synonym of the pronoun "I," which he avoided using. But no one ever addressed him thus, doubtless because the title did not quite apply to him until the day of his second coming.

seems

The centre of Jesus' action, at this period of his life, was the little town Capernaum, situated on the shore of the lake of Gennesareth. The name "Capernaum into which enters the word caphar, "village" to denote a small town of the old style, in contrast to the great cities built in the Roman fashion, such as Tiberias.2 The name was so little known that Josephus, in one passage of his writings, takes it for the name of a fountain, the fountain having more celebrity than the village close to it. Like Nazareth, Capernaum

1 It occurs 83 times in the Gospels, always in his own discourses.

2 It is true that Tell-Hum, commonly identified with Capernaum, shows some ruins of quite handsome monuments; but the identification is doubtful, and these may belong to the second or third century after Christ. 8 Josephus, Wars, III. x. 8.

had no history, and had not shared in the profane movement favoured by the Herods. Jesus was much attached to this town, and made it a second home.1

Shortly after his return, Jesus made an experiment of little success at Nazareth:2 as one of his biographers naïvely remarks, he could do "no mighty work" there. His family were of small account, and the knowledge that was had of them was hurtful to his authority. People could not regard as the son of David one whose brother, sister, and brother-in-law they were meeting every day. Besides, it is to be noted that his family strongly opposed him, refusing outright to believe in his divine mission. At one time his mother and brothers maintained that he had lost his senses, and treated him as an excited dreamer, attempting to restrain him by force. The Nazarenes, still more violent, desired (it is said) to kill him by throwing him down from a steep rock. Jesus pointedly retorted that this risk was common to him with all great men, and applied to himself the proverb, "A prophet hath no honour in his own country."

This check was far from discouraging him. He returned to Capernaum, where he found the people

1 Matt. ix. 1; Mark ii. 1. Capernaum appears in the Talmud as the town of heretics (minim), who are here evidently Christians. Midrash, Koheleth (Eccl.), vii. 26.

2 Matt. xiii. 54–58; Mark vi. 1-6; Luke iv. 16-30; John iv. 44.

8 Mark vi. 5; comp. Matt. xiii. 58; Luke iv. 23.

4 Matt. xiii. 57; Mark vi. 4; John vii. 3-5.

5 Mark iii. 21, 31-35, noting the connection of the verses 20, 21, 31, even if we read in 31 καὶ ἔρχονται instead of ἔρχονται οὖν.

This is probably the sharp cliff near Nazareth, above the present Maronite church; not the so-called "mount of precipitation," at an hour's distance from Nazareth (see Robinson, ii. 335 et seq.).

7 Matt. iv. 13; Luke iv. 31; John ii. 12.