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in Jesus. To Jesus it was nothing else than the Messianic era; but (and it is here that he is incomparably great) it was he who prepared for the conception of the disciples by raising high the notion of the kingdom, accepting all that his people taught on the subject, and entirely transforming it.

CHAPTER VII

THE KINGDOM PREPARED FOR BY THE LOWLY AND THE POOR

LET us now see Jesus preparing for the coming of the kingdom.

His first object was to communicate to men that sense of divine sonship which he himself fully possessed; he desired to create it in men's souls. To experience this feeling, one must become "humble," humble in rank, in money, in influence, and humble in happiness. Therefore he declares those happy who weep and who suffer.

Jesus made the most of the fact that the interpretations by his contemporaries of certain passages in Daniel concerning the fifth empire were very diverse, to give another, which was exceedingly spiritual but not at all revolutionary. Everything in Judaism was to be retained, but it was to be transformed, and this transformation

was to be effected by a change in hearts.1 It was nothing else than piety, true piety, taking the place of rites and external acts. This piety would have its foundation in humility, renunciation, a profound sense of poverty of spirit.

This was why Jesus preached a new righteousness, which he opposed to that of the Scribes and Pharisees. In their view, alms, fasts, prayers, works, make a man righteous and confer merit upon him. Jesus preached a higher righteousness.2 Man must humble himself, become lowly, poor in spirit, contemplative, must hunger and thirst, cry earnestly for mercy, - for the Father is merciful, he is full of compassion, he remits the debt, he forgives those who forgive. The beginning of the new life, then, is the desire to attain to it. To be conscious of our shortcomings is already, in some sort, to receive it.3

Yet Jesus never said that hunger and thirst after righteousness carry their satis

1 It is always the same method, - destroy nothing, fulfil all things.

2 Matt. v. 20.

8 It has been said, and with reason, that to be conscious of one's limitations is already in some degree to have overpassed them

faction in themselves. The kingdom of God is in no sense realized by the fact of being sought after, desired, aspired unto. It is not hunger that nourishes, nor thirst that refreshes. To desire righteousness is not to obtain it; otherwise the kingdom would have been founded by the very fact that Jesus was preparing for it. And he never said so. The kingdom was to come, and righteousness was to be obtained only at a later time, at its coming. Then those who now hunger and thirst for it shall be satisfied. One does not answer his own prayers because he prays, and, in the same way, one does not enter the kingdom because he seeks for it; but one prepares himself for it and he will enter it. A change of hearts and minds (repentance, "for the kingdom is at hand")1 is, then, only the preparation for the kingdom, and not the kingdom itself.

As we have said, Jesus expected the kingdom on earth. The transformation of society and of the world was to be accomplished here, as soon as the Jews should be converted.

Every one would

then acclaim Jesus as Messiah; the king

1 Mark i. 15 and parallel passages.

dom would appear, and the spiritual domination of the Christ would begin upon the earth. The Father would accord the promised rewards, those of some would be great;1 and an era of universal felicity would begin.

What was to take place at the beginning of this era? How would the kingdom be inaugurated? By a sudden change. The contrary of that which is would be. The world to come would be the present world reversed. The first would be last, and the last first.2 At the present time good and evil are mingled, like the tares and the wheat in a field. Then there would be a great separation; 'it would be like a great drawing of the net.3 Jesus often referred to the surprise which this sudden reversal of things would occasion. No one would be expecting it, and when this transformation should have been made it would be final.

One of the most unexpected reversals which would take place would be the

1 Matt. v. 12, 19, x. 42; Luke vi. 23, 35; Mark ix. 41.

2 Matt. xix. 30, xx. 16; Mark x. 31; Luke xiii. 30. 8 Matt. xiii. 24 f., 31, 33, 47 f.; Mark iv. 11 f.

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