knowledge, his language, is of his own time and country. But in him there reigns an intense religiosity, a profound and unalterable sense of the continual presence of God, which transforms everything, sees through everything, and gives to each a special reality and value. He has no preconceived ideas, whether critical, literary, historical, or metaphysical. He has nothing to do with such things. He makes no use of the distinctions of modern thought, and he accepts all the concrete and realistic terms of his time and people. He accepts, without the least idea that it is open to discussion, all that relates to angels and Satan. He admits the fact of demoniac possession; he could not do other than admit it, or he would not be of his own time. The same may be said of eschatological notions and of all the old Judaism. It comes from God, he says; the Torah is the code of a divine religion. But he spiritualizes everywhere, because his religious consciousness is always alive, and it assimilates the contents of the book only by virtue of its affinity with the contents. If a text has authority with him by virtue of It is written, and that because he is a Jew and of his time, the text also and especially enjoys a higher authority, that which it holds in virtue. of the sentiment which it expresses. To his mind the arbitrary precepts of the Law undoubtedly came from God as well as all the others, and yet he pays no attention to them because he sums up the whole Law in love to God and to one's neighbor. This continual spiritualization is, then, the proper character of Jesus' language. If the maxim "The style is the man” is not always true, it is absolutely so of Jesus, because there is an entire harmony between his thought and the language of which he made use in expressing it. This is why the study of Jesus' method of teaching has an exceptional importance, which springs out of the very heart of his teaching. Jesus had not a doctrine like the philosophers, like Plato or Aristotle. He did not come to demonstrate new truths as destined to supersede the old truths; but he did come to draw a new life out of the old forms, while keeping the forms such as they had been; and his language was always thoroughly Judaic and Oriental, although we hear it only through the Greek translations of the disciples. Such, then, was the language of Jesus, and such were the beginnings of that ministry which was so soon to end in the disaffection of the multitude, the hatred of the Pharisees, unpopularity. It began in hope and joy. Jesus by his word exercised an extraordinary, an immense, ascendancy over the people. His renown was great, and the sympathy of the multitudes became absolutely his. If it was a limited circle in which he was active, if he was almost unknown in Jerusalem, still his Galilean discourses were fully accepted and aroused general approbation. His only weapon was the word, inviting the consent of the heart. No doubt he attacked the official representatives of Judaism, but the people approved, and true Pharisees approved also. - a What a unique appearance was that of this gentle and compassionate Rabbi, sort of Pharisee, to be sure, but a very new, very liberal Pharisee, who spiritualized everything he said, and transformed everything he touched! A sort of Essene, no doubt, but only in appearance, for no one was more irreconcilably than he the adversary of narrow legalism and exterior purifications. We picture to ourselves the Master and his disciples going about in Galilee, or perhaps in the common room of their little house; there they sit after the Eastern manner, squatting close together upon a rug, turban on head, and wrapped about with their long mantles. Sometimes they talk and put questions one to another : sometimes after a long silence Jesus slowly utters a sententious saying and then is again silent. The disciples, with eyes half closed and intent manner, listen and remember. Their impeccable, faultless memories will never lose a word. The Master's utterance is now as if graven on their hearts; more than that, it may well be that he will often repeat it. At last the Master speaks again; this time to whisper softly the explanation of the parable which a little while before he had spoken at the lakeside, under the brilliant light of the noonday sun; and he adds, "What I say unto you in secret, that proclaim upon the housetops. 1 Matt. x. 27; Luke xii. 3. CHAPTER III THE EARLIEST TEACHINGS OF JESUS ESUS began his work as a Rabbi, as an itinerant preacher, as a physician of soul and body; such were already a certain number of his contemporaries. One is at first tempted to say that there is nothing more than this in the words of Jesus and the acts which he did. He seemed to have no fixed plan. He lived from day to day. The cares of each day were sufficient for him; he performed the work which presented itself, replying to the questions that were asked him, and uttering the sayings which were suggested by the circumstances of the moment. People often came to consult him, as they would have consulted a Doctor of the Law. He laid down the law; he spoke with authority: his opinions were good to know, and he gave his views exactly as Hillel or Shammai might have done and actually did. |