spiritual religion, and took His place on the couch with- CHAP. XLI. out any ceremonial purification. The host and his guests were astonished, and betrayed, at least in their looks, their real feelings towards Him; bitter enough before, but now fiercer than ever, at this defiant affront to their cherished usages. Roused by their uncourteous hostility, He instantly took His position of calm independence and superiority, for He feared no human face, nor any combination of human violence. Knowing perfectly that He was alone against the world, He felt that the Truth required Him to witness for it, come what might to Himself. 54. “I see,” said He, ," said He, "what you are thinking. You Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and the platter,31 but you fill Luke 11. 37— both, within, with the gains of hypocritical robbery and wickedness; you cleanse the outside of a cup, and think nothing of your own souls being full of all evil." Fools! did not He who made the outside of a cup make the inside as well? As He made all outward and visible things, has He not also made all inward and spiritual? How absurd to take so much care of the one, and to neglect the other! Let me tell you how you may attain true purification. Give with willing, loving hearts, what you have in your cups and platters, as alms, and this will make all your ceremonial washings of the outside superfluous, and cleanse both the vessels and your hearts. The Rabbis have told you that 'charity is worth all other virtues together, 32 but your 32 Bava Bathra, covetousness is a proverb, for you devour widows' houses, and have invented excuses for a son robbing even his father for your good.33 But woe to you, Pharisees! for it is vain to expect this of you, who know nothing of true love. You lay stress on external trifles, and neglect the principles and duties of the inner life-you tithe petty garden herbs, like mint, and rue, and all kinds besides, and are indifferent to right and wrong, and to the love of God. If you wish to tithe the garden herbs,34 it is well to do so, but you should" Tristram, 419, be as zealous for what is much more important. Your vanity is as great as your grasping hypocrisy! Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye love the chief seats in the synagogues, and 9. 1. Matt. 23. 14. Mark 7. 11. Nork, 141. 471, 478. CHAP. XLI. to be flattered by men rising up as you pass in the crowded market-place, and greeting you with reverend salutations 35 Schürer, 443. of Rabbi, Rabbi, your reverence, your reverence.35 Woe unto you! you are like graves sunk in the earth, over which men walk, thinking the ground clean, and are defiled when they least suspect it. Men think themselves with saints if in your company, but to be near you is to be near pollution!" A Rabbi among the guests here interrupted Him. "Teacher," said he, "you are condemning not only the common lay Pharisees, but us, the Rabbis." The interruption only directed Jesus against the "lawyers" specially. "Woe to you, lawyers, also!" said He, "for ye burden men with burdens grievous to be borne, while ye, yourselves, touch not these burdens with one of your fingers to help the shoulders to bear them. Ye sit in your chambers and schools, and create legal rules, endless, harassing, intolerable, for the people, but not affecting yourselves,-shut out as you are from busy life. Woe unto you! for ye build the tombs of the prophets, but your fathers, in whose acts you glory, killed them. Shame for their having done so might make you wish those sacred tombs forgotten; but you have no shame, and rebuild these tombs to win favour with the people, while in your hearts you are ready to repeat to the prophets of to-day the deeds of your fathers towards those of old! Your pretended reverence for these martyrs, shown in restoring their sepulchres, while you are ready to repeat the wickedness of their murderers, makes these tombs a witness against you. The Holy Spirit had this in view, when He said by Me, sometime since, 'I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will persecute and kill; that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation-from the blood of Abel to that of Zachariah, who perished between the altar and the Temple.' Yes, I say unto you, it will be required of this generation. Under the guidance of you lawyers it was, that the people treated them as they did! Woe to you! you have taken away from the nation the key to the temple of heavenly knowledge-have made them incapable of recognizing the truth,-by your CHAP. XLL teaching. You, yourselves, have not entered, and you have hindered those from entering who were on the point of doing so!" The die was finally cast. Henceforth Jesus stood consciously alone, the rejected of the leaders of His nation. There was before Him only a weary path of persecution, and, at its end, the Cross. An incident, recorded by St. Luke, seems to belong to this period. The multitudes thronging to hear the new teaching were daily greater, in spite of the hostility of the Rabbis, for their calumnies and insinuations had not yet abated the general excitement. “An innumerable multitude" waited for the reappearance of Jesus, and hung on His lips to catch every word. He might be attacked and slandered in the house of the Pharisee, but, as yet, the crowd looked on Him with astonishment and respect. Opinions differed only as to the scope of His action that He was a great Rabbi, was felt by all. It was the custom to refer questions of all kinds to the Rabbis for their counsel and decision, which carried great weight, though it might be informal and extra-judicial. Their words were virtually law, for to dispute or oppose them was well-nigh criminal.36 To get the support of one so great as 30 Eisenmenger. Jesus, therefore, in any matter, would, as it seemed, decide a point at once in his favour whom He supported. i. 331, 332. One of the crowd, reasoning thus, chose an opportunity to solicit His weighty interference in a question of inheritance, 37 in which there was a strife with a brother. 37 Luke 12. 13. ff "Teacher," said he, "speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me." But he had utterly misconceived Christ's spirit and sphere. In the briefest and most direct words, the idea that He had anything to do with "judging" or "dividing" in worldly affairs was repudiated. It was not His province. The question, however, gave an occasion for solemn warning against the unworthy greed and selfishness which lie at the root of all such strife, on one side or the other. Addressing the crowd, who had heard the request, He gave them a caution against all forms of covetousness, or CHAP. XLI. excessive desire of worldly possessions, in the following parable. "Watch," said He, "and keep yourselves from all covetousness. For, though a man may abound in riches, his life does not depend on his wealth, but on the will of God, who can lengthen or shorten his existence, and make it happy or sad, at His pleasure. Let me show you what I mean. "The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully. And he reasoned within himself, saying, 'What shall I do, because I have no room to stow away my crops?' And he said, 'This will I do. I will pull down my barns and build greater, and I will gather together into them all my crops and my property, and will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much property laid up for many years; take thine ease, cat, drink, and be merry.' 66 But God said unto him, 'Fool, this night thy soul is required of thee, and whose will those things be which thou hast prepared?"" "So," added Jesus, "is he who heaps up treasures for himself, and is not rich towards God. Death, coming unexpectedly, and, at latest, soon strips him of all, if he has only thought of himself and of this world. The true wisdom is to use what we have so as to lay up treasures, by its right employment, in heaven, that God may give us these, after death, in the kingdom of the Messiah." THE CHAPTER XLII. AFTER THE STORM. HE meal in the house of the Pharisee was a turning CHAP. XLII. point in the life of Jesus. The fierceness of His enemies 1 had broken out into open rage, so that, as He left, He was followed by the infuriated Rabbis, gesticulating, as they Luke 11. 53. pressed round Him, and provoking Him to commit Himself by words of which they might lay hold. A vast crowd had meanwhile gathered,2 partly on His side, partly turned Luke 12. 1. against Him by the arts of His accusers. The excitement had reached its highest. With such a multitude before Him, it was certain that He would not let the opportunity pass of proclaiming afresh the New Kingdom of God. It had been called a kingdom of the devil, and it was meet that He should turn aside the calumny. His past mode of teaching did not, however, seem suited for the new circumstances. It had left but small permanent results; and a new and still simpler style of instruction, specially adapted to their dulness and untrained minds and hearts, would at least arrest their attention more surely, and force them to a measure of reflection. Pressing through the vast throng, to the shore of the Lake, He entered a fishing-boat, and, sitting down at its prow, the highest part of it, began, from this convenient pulpit, as it lightly rocked on the waters, the first of those wondrous parables, in which He henceforth so frequently embodied His teachings. The Parable or Mashal was a mode of instruction already familiar to Israel since the days of the Judges, and was in familiar and constant use among the Rabbis. Its characteristic is the presentation of moral and religious truth in a more Judges 9. 7. Isaiah 5. 1. |