home. CONDEMNATION OF IMPENITENCE. But they had led to no general penitence. With a CHAP. XXXIX. voice of unspeakable sadness, mingled with holy wrath, He denounced such wilful perversity. "Woe unto thee, Chorazin, woe unto thee, Bethsaida, for if the mighty works I have done in you had been done even in Tyre and Sidon, the types of besotted heathenism, they would have repented It unto you, long ago, in sackcloth and ashes. But I say will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the Day of Judgment than for you. And thou, Capernaum, exalted to heaven by my dwelling and working in you, shalt be thrust down to Hades, at the Day of Judgment; for if the mighty works I have done in thee had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you, It will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom, in the Day of Judgment, than for thee!" It would seem as if at this point, some communication that pleased Him had been made to Jesus. Perhaps His disciples had told Him of some success obtained among the simple crowds to whom they had preached the New Kingdom. Whatever it was, He broke forth on hearing it into thanksgiving: "I praise Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hid the things of Thy Kingdom from those who are thought, and who think themselves wise, and qualified to judge the Rabbis, and Priests, and Phariseesand hast revealed them to simple souls, unskilled in the wisdom of the schools. I thank Thee that what is wellpleasing to Thee has happened thus!" The New Kingdom was not to rest on the theology of the schoolmen of the day, or on official authority, or on the sanction of a corrupt Church, or on the support of privileged classes, but upon child-like faith and humble love. It was not to spread downwards, from among the powerful and influential, but to rise from among the weak and ignoble, the poor and lowly, who would receive it in love and humility. It was to spread upwards by no artificial aids, but by the attractions of its own heavenly worth alone. It was a vital condition of its nature that it should, for it can only be received in sincerity, where its unaided spiritual beauty wins the heart. CHAP. XXXIX. 18 Schenkel, i. 166. Among the "babes" were doubtless included the confessors to be won from the world at large, and not from Israel alone, for the law of growth from below upwards, is that of religious movements in all ages and countries. All reformations begin with the laity, and with the obscure. Jesus had nothing to hope but everything to fear from the privileged classes, the learned guilds, the ecclesiastical authorities, and the officials of the Church generally. It sounds startling to read of His thanking God that these all-powerful classes showed neither sympathy for the New Kingdom founded by Him, nor even the power of comprehending it, and that it was left to the simple and child-like minds of the common people, in their freedom from prejudice, to embrace it with eagerness. It was because He saw in the fact, the divine law of all moral and religious progress. New epochs in the spiritual history of the world always spring like seeds, in darkness and obscurity, and only show themselves when they have already struck root in the soil. The moral and religious life, finds an unnoticed welcome in the mass of the people, when the higher ranks of lay, and even of ecclesiastical society, are morally and spiritually effete, unfit to introduce a reform, and bound by their interests to things as they are. 18 The overflowing fulness of heart, which had found utterance in prayer, added a few sentences more, of undying interest and beauty. It might be feared that, if old guides were forsaken, those who took Him for their leader might find Him unequal to direct them aright. To dispel any such apprehension He draws aside the veil from some of the awful mysteries of His nature and His relation to the Eternal, in words which must have strangely comforted the simple souls who heard them first, and which still carry with them a spiritual support, intensified by their awful sublimity as the words of one, in outward seeming, a man like ourselves. "All things concerning the New Kingdom are delivered unto me of my Father-its founding, its establishment, its spread. I am, therefore, the king and leader of the new people of God-the head of the new Theocracy, divinely commissioned to rule over it. All that I teach I have received from my Father. I speak, in all things, the mind CHAP. XXXIX. of God, and thus you are for ever safe. No one knows fully what I am, and what measure of gifts I have received as Messiah, but the Father, who has commissioned and sent me forth-Me, His Son. Nor does any man know the Father, in His counsels for the salvation of man, as I His Son do, and those to whom I make Him known. I am the true Light, who alone can lighten men, the one true Teacher, who cannot mislead.19 "Come unto me, therefore, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden with the burden of rites and traditions of men, which your teachers lay on you-you, who can find no deliverance from the misery of your souls, by all these observances, and I will give your spirits rest. Cast off their heavy yoke and take mine, and learn of me, for I am not hard and haughty like your Rabbis, but meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest for your souls. For the yoke I lay on you the law I require you to honour-is not like that which you have hitherto borne, but brings health to the spirit, and my burden is light, for it is the Law of love."20 19 Kuinoeli Comment. in loc. 2) Meyer, in loc. Language like this, briefly expanded, for greater clearness, demands reverent thought. Who does not feel that such words could not fall from the lips of a sinful man, but only from those of one whose nature and life lay far above all human imperfection? Who, even of the highest, or wisest, or best, of human teachers, could invite all, without exception, to come to Him, with the promise that He would give them true rest for their souls? 21 And who, in doing so, 21 Ullmann, could speak of it as a thing apparent to all who heard Him, that He was meek and lowly in heart? Who would think of claiming the stately dignity of sole representative of the Unseen God, and who could speak of God as His Father, in the same way as Jesus? And who would dare to link HimCommunion so awful and an inter self with the Eternal in a 73, 74. Hillel, u. Jesus, 17. Schenkel, 169. Keim's Christus, 40, 41. Weidemann, Darstell ungen, 5. CHAP. XL. ! Jost, i. 202. 1 Sam. 20. 5, 24. 1 Kings 13. 20. Prov. 23. 1. THE CHAPTER XL. DARKENING SHADOWS.-LIFE IN GALILEE. HE rupture with the hierarchical party was not as yet so pronounced as to prevent a more or less friendly intercourse between Jesus and some of its members. An incident connected with one happened about this time. A Pharisee of the name of Simon, who seems to have been in good social position, had met with Jesus in some of the Galilæan towns, and had been so attracted by Him that he invited Him to his house, to eat with him. This was a mark of high consideration from one of a party so strict, for a Pharisee was as careful as a Brahmin is, with whom he ate. Defilement was temporary loss of caste, and neutralized longcontinued effort to attain a higher grade of legal purity, and it lurked, in a thousand forms, behind the simplest acts of daily life and intercourse.1 To invite one who was neither a Pharisee, nor a member of even the lowest grade of legal guilds, was amazing liberality in a Jewish precisian. It would seem as if the courtesy had already excited timid fear of having gone too far, when Jesus accepted the invitation,― and had given place to a cold patronizing condescension, which fancied it had conferred, rather than received, an honour by His presence. In the earlier ages of the nation it had been the habit to Judges 19. 6. sit at meals2 on mats, with the feet crossed beneath the body, as at present in the East-round a low table-now, only about a foot in height. But the foreign custom of reclining on cushions, long in use among the Persians, Greeks, and Romans, had been introduced into Palestine Amos 6.4, 7. apparently as early as the days of Amos,3 and had become general in those of Christ. Raised divans, or table couches, (cir. B.C. 790). provided with cushions and arranged on three sides of a CHAP. XL. square, supplied a rest for guests, and on these they lay on their left arm, with their feet at ease behind them, outside. The place of honour was at the upper end of the right side, which had no one above it, while all below could easily lean back on the bosom of the person immediately behind. Hospitality among the poor was prefaced by various courtesies and attentions to the guest, more or less peculiar to the nation. To enter a house except with bare feet was much the same as our doing so without removing the hat, and, therefore, all shoes and sandals were taken off, and left at the threshold. A kiss on the cheek, from the master of the house, with the invocation "The Lord be with you," conveyed a formal welcome, and was followed, on the guest taking his place on the couch, by a servant bringing water and washing the feet, to cool and refresh them, as well as to remove the dust of the road and give ceremonial cleanness. The host himself, or one of his servants, next anointed the head and beard of the guests with fragrant oil, attention to the hair being a great point with Orientals. Before eating, water was again brought to wash the hands, as the requirements of legal purity demanded, and from the fact that the food was taken by dipping the fingers, or a piece of bread, into a common dish. "To wash the hands before a meal,' says the Talmud, "is a command; to do so during eating is left matter of choice, but, to wash them after it, is a duty."4 4 Tract. Cholin. 105. With all Jews, but especially with scrupulous formalists Luke 7.36–50. like the Pharisees, religious observances formed a marked feature in every entertainment, however humble, and, as these were duly prescribed by the Rabbis, we are able to picture a meal like that given to Jesus by Simon." Houses in the East are far from enjoying the privacy we prize so highly. Even at this time, strangers pass in and out at their pleasure, to see the guests, and join in conversation with them and with the host. Among those who did so, in Simon's house, was one at whose presence in his dwelling, under any circumstances, he must have been equally astonished and disturbed. Silently gliding into the |