father, then? Do you mean that Sarah, our mother, was unfaithful to Abraham, and that he was only our father in name, not in fact? We have only one father, not two, as they who are born from adultery, and if you deny it is Abraham, it must be God."

"If God were your father, you would love ME," quietly replied Jesus, "for I am the Very Son of God, proceeding, in my Being, from Him, and descending from heaven to mankind. I have not come from any personal and private act of my own, but as the Messiah sent forth by the Father. You cannot understand what I say, because your hearts are so gross that you have no ears for my teaching; it is dark to you because you are morally blind. So far from being the spiritual children of Abraham, far less of God, you are children of the devil; and, true to your nature, ye copy your father. From the beginning of the human race he was a murderer, and put away the truth from him, because there is no truth in him. The devil is a liar by nature, and lives in lies, and knows nothing of truth, and his children are liars like their father-that is, they thrust away the truth from them, as you are doing now.

"Because I speak the truth, and do not seek, like Satan, to win you to evil, by flattering your self-deception and sins, you do not believe me. Yet would I deceive you ? Who of you can convict me of sin? But if I be sinless, I can have no untruthfulness, no lie, in me, and, therefore, what I speak must be truth and truth only. Hence I am right in saying you cannot be the children of God, for he that is of God hears God's words, that is, hears me, for I speak the words of God. That you are not really the children of God, though you call yourselves such, explains why you do not believe in Me." 1

"That proves what we said of you," interrupted some of the crowd. Such language about your own nation shows that we were right in saying that you were a Samaritan,a an enemy of the true people of God, and possessed with a devil." "I honour my Father

"I have not a devil," replied Jesus; by these very words, for they tend to the glory of God. As He has taught me, so I teach you, when I say that the wicked are servants and children of the devil. Yet, though I speak not from my own authority, but that of God, you do

1 Ullmann, p. 166.

BEFORE ABRAHAM WAS, I AM.”

289 me, His messenger, the great dishonour of saying I have a devil. But I shall not attempt to refute the slander, for I care nothing for either your approval or praise. There is one here my Father-who cares for my honour, and will judge those who contemn Me. Would that none of you expose yourselves to His wrath! May you rather receive from Him life eternal! Once more, let me repeat, He that believes in me, and obeys my words, shall never taste death."

As usual, the hearers put a material sense on these words, and understood them of natural death; taking it as a proof of their assertion as to His having a devil, that He could promise any one that He should never die. "Even Abraham died," said they, "and so did the prophets. Whom do you make yourself? You put yourself above all men, even the greatest. Abraham could not ward off death, nor could the prophets. Do you claim to be greater than they?"

"Were I, for mere desire of glory," replied Jesus, "to boast of being greater than Abraham, such glory would be idle. If what I have said tend to exalt me, it is not I who honour myself, but my Father, by whose authority I act and speak, that honours me-my Father, of whom you say He is your God. If you fail to see that He constantly does so, it is because, in spite of your calling yourselves His people, you have not known Him. But I know Him, as only His Son can. If I were to say that I did not know Him, and speak His words, I should be, like yourselves, untruthful; but I both know Him, and keep all His commands, for my whole life is obedience to Him.

"But that you may know that I really am greater than even Abraham, the Friend of God; let me tell you that Abraham, when he received, with such joy, the promise that the Messiah should come from his race, and bless all nations, was rejoicing that He would, hereafter, from Heaven, see My day, and He has seen My appearing, from His abode in Paradise, and exulted at it."

The crowd, gross as usual, understood these words to refer to Abraham's earthly life, and fancied that Jesus was now claiming to have been alive so long ago as the time of Abraham, and to have known him.

"It is two thousand years ago since Abraham's day," broke in a voice, "and you are not fifty years old yet; do you mean to say you have seen Abraham?

"I mean to say," replied Jesus, "far more than even that.

VOL. II.

U

Let Me tell you, with the utmost solemnity, before Abraham was born, I AM."

This was the very phrase in which Jehovah had announced Himself to Israel in Egypt.1 It implied a continuous existence from the beginning, as if the speaker, Himself, claimed to be the Uncreated Eternal. Abraham had come into being, but He had independent existence, without a beginning.

His hearers instantly took it in this august meaning, and Jesus, the Truth, made no attempt, then or afterwards, to undeceive them. Utterly turned against Him, they rushed hither and thither, in wild fanaticism, for stones, with which to put Him to death as a blasphemer. Many of those used in the building of parts of the Temple, still incomplete, lay in piles at different spots.3 But Jesus hid Himself among the crowd, some of whom were less hostile, and, in the confusion, passed safely out of the sacred precincts.

1 Exod. iii. 14.

2 Lücke and Meyer in loc., Winer, p. 250. Ullmann, p. 179.
3 Ant., xvii. 9. 3.

CHAPTER LI.

THE LAST MONTH OF THE YEAR.

PRUDENCE demanded that Jesus should for a time with

draw from Jerusalem, after the outbreak of murderous fanaticism in the Temple courts, and He would be the more inclined to this because Judea had, as yet, enjoyed so small a share of His ministry. The unmeasured religious pride, which had resisted any impression in His first lengthened visit, might possibly yield, in some cases, after the incidents of His work in Galilee and Jerusalem, and doubtless did so; perhaps in more instances than we suspect. But whatever the success, He could not leave the special home-land of Israel without one more attempt to win it to the New Kingdom of God. Hence the next months, till after the Feast of Dedication in December, were spent either in Jerusalem or Judea.

In these last weeks of His life Jesus found a home, from time to time, in the bosom of a village family in Bethany, on the east side of the Mount of Olives. When He first came to know them is not told; perhaps they were among the few fruits of his former sojourn in Judea; possibly the family of him who is known in the Gospels as Simon the Leper;1 whom Christ had cured during His early Judean labours, and thus won to the Faith. Bethany is easily reached from Jerusalem. The flight of steps on the east side of the Temple, before the Golden Gate, led to the quiet valley of the Kedron. A bridge over the sometimes dry channel of the stream opened into a camel path, rising, past Gethsemane, in a slow and gentle ascent, over the brow of the hill which lies between the Mount of Olives and that which Pompey had defiled by his camp,-called, from this, the Hill of Offence. To save distance, however, a footway ran from Gethsemane over the top of Olivet, and this, travellers like Jesus for the most part preferred to the other, easier, but more circuitous

1 Mark xiv. 3. Matt. xxvi. 2. John xii. 1.

road. Descending the eastern slope, a few steps led from the bare hill-side, with its scattered, prickly shrubs, to a sweet hollow, rich in fig, almond, and olive trees, through which wound a road, here and there cut out in the side of the hill. Ascending the east end of this dell, Bethany lay close in sight, only three-quarters of an hour's distance from Jerusalem, but hidden from it by a spur of the Mount of Olives. The ruins of a tower rise, now, over the highest point of the village, but they are of later date than the days of our Lord. The houses, whitewashed and flat-roofed, lie hidden among the surrounding heights, amidst green fields and trees of many kinds; all the more charming, as the eastern side of Mount Olivet, the background to the picture, is much more barren and dreary than the western.

In this sequestered spot, on the edge of the great wilderness of Judea, Jesus found a delightful retreat in the vinecovered cottage of Martha and Mary and their brother Lazarus. Loving and beloved, it always offered a peaceful retirement from the confusion and danger of the Temple courts, or the still more exhausting circuits of His wider southern journeys. It was the one spot, so far as we know, that He could call home in these last months, but it was apparently the sweetest and best loved, He had ever had.

The household consisted of two sisters and a brotherMartha, Mary, and Lazarus-names which mark the transition character of the times; for, while "Martha was the unchanged native equivalent of "lady," "Mary" and "Lazarus" were Greek forms of the old Hebrew "Miriam and "Eleazer." May we trace, in this superiority to narrow conservatism, a liberality in their parents, which led both them and their children to receive the Galilæan teacher so readily and so fondly? They had evidently been disciples before this last stay in Judea; probably from the time of their now dead father, who must often have talked over with them his reasons for loving trust in Christ.

Martha appears to have been the head of the little household, and may have been, as many have believed, a widow.1 The family seems to have had a good social position, and to have been above the average in circumstances. The character of the two sisters shows itself vividly in the first notice.3

1 Ewald thinks that Mary was the elder. Geschichte, vol. v. p. 481. 2 John xi. 38. Matt. xxvi. 7. John xii. 2, 3. John xi. 33. 3 Luke x. 38-42.