CHAPTER II:
JOHN THE BAPTIST AND JESUS
HOME | Contents | the time of salvation | The mission and preaching of John the Baptist | 19.At His baptism Jesus is proclaimed the Son of God | 21.Jesus is tempted | 22-24.The witness of John the Baptist. The calling of the first disciples | 25.Jesus returns to Galilee | 26.The marriage-feast at Cana | 27.Jesus at Capharnaum | 28-29.Jesus drives the traders out of the Temple | 30.Discussion with Nicodemus | 32.The Baptist's last witness to Jesus.
The time of Salvation.
AFTER the long years of His hidden life at Nazareth Jesus is now to begin
His ministry in Israel.
It is as though the gospel were beginning all over
again,
and, indeed, in the words of St. Mark,
it is actually
'the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God.'
However, this is in accordance
with the ideas of the period,
for as we have already said it was the custom
to ascribe a double epiphany to the deified monarchs of the ancient world.
Their first manifestation to the world was on the day of their birth according
to the supposition that they were of divine origin;
their accession to the
throne was their second manifestation.
Now, it was not until the day of His
Resurrection that Jesus was to be shown to the world as the King of Glory;
it was fitting, therefore, that He should be enthroned by His Father in some
fashion at the very beginning of His public life.
Such is the significance
of the events which took place at His baptism.
Furthermore, His dignity as Son of God made it fitting that He should have
a forerunner to prepare the way before Him, and it is in this connection that
we take up again the threads of that divine plan which has already brought
together the son of Zachary and the Son of Mary.
We hear no more of angelic
visitations to those divinely chosen souls to whom such divine communications
seem customary.
Now we hear a mighty voice resounding through all the land
of Israel by which the hearts of all are stirred to emotion.
It has already been pointed out that this land of Israel which gave birth
to Jesus and John was no longer united under the government of a single ruler.
Judaea had been incorporated into the Roman Empire, the heir of all the
civilizations of antiquity.
Successor of the great empires of the East, Rome
had been more successful than they in setting up a stable form of government
over the numerous and diverse nations beneath her sway.
To those who lived
at that time, at least to such as belonged to the governing class, it might
have seemed that the summit of perfection had been reached, and that there
was nothing more to be done except to let the laboriously established civilization
of Rome spread over the rest of the world.
For, apart from Athens, whose
beauty and art still exercised their spell, there was no city in the world
to be compared to the City of the Seven Hills with her Capitol, her Forum,
and her Palatine Hill.
She no longer relied on force of arms, but on the
higher authority of reason.
Henceforth the world, or what was then called
' the inhabited earth,' was to be one organic whole, animated like the very
Universe itself by one spirit, a power guided by reason ; and no one would
dream of refusing allegiance to such an authority.
No one, that is to say, but the Jew.
It would have seemed ridiculous to draw
a comparison between Athens, Rome, Alexandria -
those cities set by the sea
as if in order to send forth over the whole world their commands and their
ideas -
and Jerusalem, a mediocre city seated all alone on the top of the
Judaean hills,
looking out over the desert instead of over the sea.
And yet
this little city had her own aristocracy and her own history.
Nay, more than
that, she was conscious of the fact that in comparison with her,
Athens knew
nothing of the solution of that great, that unique problem -
the question of
man's destiny,
of the world's origin,
and of its relationship with God.
As
for the fortune of Roman arms,
she was not impressed by that;
and for the divine charm of Homer she had naught but contempt.
To her mind
the statues of Phidias, with their austere grandeur, were as much to be condemned
as the voluptuous Aphrodites of Praxiteles;
neither one nor the other had
any claim upon the homage of men in whom alone was reflected the faithful image
of God.
It was her conviction -
and she was convinced with the certainty that
belongs to divine knowledge,
for had not God revealed to her His secrets? -
that
all the glory of this world is but a fragile treasure.
It was true that evil
seemed to reign triumphantly in the world;
but she felt assured,
precisely
because the triumph of evil means that disorder has reached
its full measure,
that God would now manifest His kingdom upon earth.
So far, however, no one had begun to speak in the name of God, in order to
resume the long interrupted series of reproaches, threats and terrible judgements
which the prophets had declared to be hanging over the heads of mankind, nor
did anyone proclaim anew those distant hopes for the future which are like
sunshine after the storm.
It was hard to endure the yoke of the foreigner,
but the violated honour of God was an outrage far more unbearable than the
insolence of the foreign tax-gatherer.
Why was God so long-suffering?
For
what was He waiting?
In the midst of questionings like these
suddenly was heard the voice of John,
the son of Zachary, in the desert.
top
The Mission and Preaching of John the Baptist.
Luke iii.1-18; Mark i.1-8; Matt. iii.1-12.
'Now in the fifteenth year of the government of Tiberius Caesar,
Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea,
Herod tetrarch of Galilee,
Philip his brother tetrarch of Iturea and the country of Trachonitis,
and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene,
under the high priest Annas and (under the high priest) Caiaphas,
the word of God was addressed to John the son of Zacharias in the desert.'
[Luke iii.1-2.]
It is a remarkable kind of comparison
to put Tiberius, the all-powerful emperor,
alongside Lysanias an unknown princeling.
We shall not understand how the evangelist
has come to do this unless we view the situation from the spot whither he has
led us, namely, in the desert near the banks of the Jordan.
At the place in
question the valley is wide and forms a sort of amphitheatre between lofty
hills.
There is no other place on the surface of the earth which reaches such
a depth, it being no less than eleven or twelve hundred feet below sea-level.
Away on the northern horizon stands the Old Man's Mountain,
Jebel
esh-Sheikh,
as the Arabs call it,
or Hermon in the language of the Jews.
In winter and
in spring its summit glitters with the sun-lit snows.
You would think that
the world ended there with this mountain of the northern region where, the
Semites used to say, was the abode of the gods.
To the south lies
the Dead Sea, its banks sprinkled with pitch and sulphur instead of flowers.
It is often covered by a light mist which grows heavier towards midday,
the remains, one might say, of the cloud which rained down destruction
on Sodom and Gomorrha.
Unlike other rivers, the Jordan does not form a
Frontier:
it is rather a point of union between the inhabitants of either
bank,
as it is for the waters which descend from the two opposite lines of
hills.
Both sides of the river had been given to the Children of Israel at
their entrance into the Land of Promise.
It is for this reason that Luke first gives us the name of the master of
the Roman world,
the official year of whose reign provides a means of dating other
events,
and then enumerates the small principalities on either side of the
Jordan,
keeping Jerusalem on the western side as his centre of outlook.
There
it was that Judaea was situated, David's own kingdom
where the Chosen People,
after the Captivity, had renewed their religious and national life,
with the
result that the returned Israelites came to be known as Judaeans or, as we
say, Jews.
But, not only was that land the very home of the national spirit
of the Jews;
it was also a country over which Rome exercised the strictest
surveillance.
Indeed, she had determined to keep it under her own particular
care, and at this time its administration was in the hands of a Roman official
named Pontius Pilate.
To the north lay Galilee
which, with Peraea on the farther bank of the Jordan,
was ruled by Herod,
who enjoyed a sort of independent sovereignty.
But the
title of king was considered too dignified for him; he was a tetrarch.
This
means, literally, one who rules the fourth part of a country,
although the
title had come to be used in cases where there was no such actual division.
In the present instance, for example, we find two other tetrarchs only,
Philip
the ruler of the region next to Herod's on the north-east beyond Jordan,
and
Lysanias whose little state lay to the north and formed the limit of the land
over which Israel had claimed domination.
But along with these temporal princes
Luke names the high-priest, reserving
for him the place of honour:
for it was the high-priest alone who formed the
bond of union which bound together all the scattered descendants of Israel.
The high-priest was Caiaphas,
a man who owed his elevation to the favour
of Valerius Gratus a former
Roman Procurator of Judaea.
Nevertheless, it was to Annas,
the high-priest
whom Valerius had deposed,
that men still paid the honour due to the successor
of Aaron.
Even Caiaphas, who was son-in-law of Annas, had no choice but to
show him consideration.
There is not one of these political details that is not solidly established
on the firm ground of historical evidence.
Certain scholars of our own day
have cavilled at Luke's mention of Lysanias,
but two inscriptions recently
discovered in the district of Abil,
the ancient Abilene, have proved him to
be in the right. [Revue Biblique, 1912, p. 533
ff.]
And though scholars are not quite agreed about the reckoning
of the reign of Tiberius,
still it is by no means unreasonable to estimate
the fifteenth year of that emperor
as beginning on October the first in the
year 27 of the Christian era.
It was probably within a very short while after
this date that John made his appearance
when he began to preach in all the
district round the Jordan.
'He was dressed in (a garment of) camel-hair
with a kilt of skin about his waist,
and he fed on locusts and wild honey.'
[Mark i. 6.]
The toga-clad Roman recognized the disciples of the Greek philosopher by their
cloak.
Similarly, a Jew upon seeing the garb of John immediately had a vision
in his mind of the most fervent of the prophets.
In the days of old the messengers
of King Ochozias had said to their master:
'A certain man met us ...
a hairy man with a kirtle of skin about his loins.'
[4 Kings i.6-8.]
The king had immediately replied:
'It is Elias the Thesbite.'
For centuries
had people paid honour to this ascetic garb;
but times had changed and many
false prophets had brought discredit upon it and upon themselves also.
Hence
it had come to pass that to dress in garments of hair-cloth was only to invite
sarcasm:
it was the dress of an impostor.
'It shall come to pass,'
says Zacharias,
'that if there shall arise any more a man who utters prophecies,
his father and mother who begot him shall say to him:
Thou shalt not live,
for thou utterest lies in the name of Jahweh. ...
And it shall come to pass in that day that the prophets shall every one of them be ashamed of his own vision when he shall prophesy, and none shall any longer put on the hair-garment so as to utter lies.'
[Zacharias xiii.3-4.]
Thus the voice of prophecy was heard no more in the land,
and consequently there were no false prophets to contradict it with their lies.
After centuries of silence the voice of a prophet was heard again,
and
this time in circumstances which rendered it all the more remarkable.
It was
a time of culture and even elegance of manners.
Near to Jericho was a place
which Antony had bestowed on Cleopatra because of its delightful balsam trees.
There Herod had afterwards built himself a winter palace.
At such a time and
in such a place,
luxury on the one side and wilderness on the other,
did John
arise clothed like a new Elias
and no less daring than Elias in the freedom
of his language.
Such was the power of his words that the very desert was excited,
while rumour of him reached as far as the towns in the higher districts.
Was
God about to intervene? men asked one another.
Everybody had known since the days of Amos that
'the Lord Jahweh does nothing without making known his secret to his servants the prophets.
When the lion roars, who would not be afraid?
When Jahweh speaks, who would not break forth in prophecy?'
[Amos iii.7-8.]
And, indeed, John was saying:
'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'
[Matthew iii.2.]
Once upon a time the people had gathered together when this call to repentance
burst forth from the lips of a prophet.
It was the whole nation that had sinned,
either by adoring strange gods or by mingling profane rites in the worship
of the most holy God.
Then the pillars were broken down that had been set up
in honour of Baal,
Astarte's groves were burnt,
the sanctuary was purified;
Jahweh granted pardon and the people was saved.
But times had changed.
Never
until the days of Alexander the Great had the world seen such a strange sight
as that of a people who refused to fall down and worship before the gods of
the conqueror.
But the Machabees had refused and had thrown the gods of Greece
into the sewer.
In return God had given them freedom from the yoke of the foreigner
and had set them as rulers over their brethren.
From the day of the rededication
of the Temple,
ritual worship had been carried on there according to the sacred
ordinances,
the priests offering up the daily sacrifice
and celebrating the
solemn rites with
fitting dignity.
The nation had no cause for self-reproach.
Why, then, this
call to repentance?
Nevertheless there were a few souls who understood,
for religion had taken
on a much more individual character even if it was not much more spiritual
than before.
Men had begun to think more of their own personal responsibility
in the sight of God;
and the religion of Israel possessed this undeniable
superiority over all others,
that neither prosperity on the one hand nor violence
on the other had ever been able to corrupt its moral standards.
Furthermore,
it was always traditional among the ancient prophets to lay emphasis,
not so
much on the question of bringing herds of victims to the Temple,
as upon the
effort to stir up the hearts of the Israelites to sentiments of repentance
and filial fear;
and even more, perhaps, they had endeavoured to move them
to charity towards their neighbour.
'Know ye not the fast that I love?
Saith the Lord Jahweh.
To share one's bread with the starving,
To give a home to the poor that are shelterless;
If any be naked to clothe them,
Not to shun thy brother.
Then shall thy light break forth like the dawn. ...'
[Isaias Iviii.6-8. Condamin's translation.]
Great numbers of the children of Israel were sufficiently awakened in their
conscience to perceive the sense of words like these, and such of them as felt
guilty saw the consequent need of repentance.
Their spiritual leaders were
well aware, and were the first to declare, that repentance was the one condition
of all others necessary in preparation for the coming of the Messiah, who was
to come for the purpose of establishing the kingdom of God.
The figure of this
son of the prophets of old, austere in external appearance, carrying asceticism
so far as to deny himself the very modest luxury of ordinary bread, declaring
sadly his forebodings of the future, the signs of which he saw in the present
-
all these are traits which bring a smile perhaps to the lips of many of our
contemporaries, be they indifferent or sceptical;
nevertheless they are a
natural and spontaneous expression of the very spirit of ancient prophecy in
Israel.
All the same, it is quite possible that the townspeople took John for a madman.
He frightened, stirred and dumbfounded them as he lifted up his voice amidst
those barren sand-hills or among the tamarisk trees on the banks of the
Jordan, where the hurrying waters of the river recalled to their minds
a remembrance of old-time miracles.
He was making the traditional call to repentance
for the last time before God Himself appeared on the scene.
Much, however, as John reminded people of the past, there was nevertheless
something new in what he said and did;
he invited them to come and be
baptized.
In other words, they were to begin the work of repentance with an
external sign which he would help them to perform.
The sign was immersion in
water in such a fashion as to make it appear that John was washing them.
To
be baptized means to bathe the whole body.
Those modern scholars wlio are so
fond of attributing everything to the process of slow and natural development
that they make no allowance for the initiative that comes from natural
genius, do not know what to think of the origin of this rite of baptism practised
by John.
It is, of course, beyond question that the ancients were familiar
with the idea of ritual purification by water.
Water cleanses, takes away stains
and bestows on the body a sort of purity;
and moral innocence is naturally
compared with bodily purity.
Hence washing is the natural symbol of a return
to innocence of life.
Repentance does for the soul what baptism does for the
body.
'Come, then,' said John, 'and be baptized as a sign that you take God
and man to witness that you repent of your Sins.'
Both Jews and Gentiles would
naturally understand this in the same fashion.
But the Jews would go further,
for they were accustomed to the practice of washing utensils, even food, and
their bodies
with the idea of putting themselves in a state of ceremonial
purity.
Being a holy nation, they thought it their duty to avoid every sort
of defilement,
not merely of the grosser kind,
but also every contamination
of the soul which is caused by contact with profane tilings.
Further than this
they do not seem to have gone tilong the way of symbolism.
The proselyte was
washed In preparation for his circumcision.
But in the official rites of Judaism
baptism seems never to have been adopted as an external sign of repentance
and a changed life.
However, alongside those who stood for orthodoxy, certain groups had been
formed outside the scope of the
Law who attached great importance to a more perfect purity of body and soul.
They were called Essenes.
The old commentators imagined that, while he was
in the wilderness of Judaea, John had followed the teachings and adopted
the ideas of this sect. [See p. 27.]
The modern critics ridicule the idea;
but they make a still greater mistake in supposing that there was a sect of
Baptists before the time of John the Baptist.
According to them, in this sect
we find the origin of the Mandeans [Cf. Revue Biblique,
1927-28, La gnose mandéenne.]
who to-day live on the banks of the Tigris
above Basra,
spending a great part of their lives in the waters of the river.
The sect of Baptists is supposed to have paid the honours of worship to water,
being persuaded that it partook of divine nature and therefore possessed the
power to restore to the soul its original purity which it had lost through
the body's defiling contact.
John, it is said, was a disciple of theirs, such
an important disciple, too, that he rose to the rank of chief leader and became
the reformer, if not the founder, of their religion;
and from that religion
Christianity is supposed to have borrowed the rite of baptism.
This is nothing more or less than a piece of theorizing which two different
witnesses prove to be wrong:
the New Testament and Josephus.
We shall shortly
see what sort of portrait the gospels paint of John:
the portrait of an Israelite
who is true to the Law of Moses.
It is thus that Josephus also describes him,
adding that Herod Antipas was wrong in fearing that the movement set afoot
by John was of a revolutionary character.
As for the baptismal ceremony practised
by John,
the Jewish historian tells us that the Baptist made no claim that
it was in any way efficacious for the forgiveness of sin,
but recommended it
merely as a symbol of that purification of the soul which is brought about
by righteousness.
[Antiquities, XVIII, v, 2.]
Here is a definite and precise account of the character
of John's baptism which agrees with what we shall see of the Baptist's own
account.
This baptism, however, though it had no power in itself for the remission
of sin, was nevertheless a definite step in the way of repentance, for it was
an indication of that interior sorrow which obtains pardon of God.
Moreover,
it was accompanied by a confession of the sins one had committed, and this
again was something new.
To acknowledge oneself a sinner,
not only before God in the secret of one's
soul,
but also before him who came forward boldly as the divine minister of
the repentance which he preached,
was good proof of the seriousness of a man's
intentions in turning back to God.
When a man confesses his failures in the
observance of the divine law,
it is as though he promises to keep the law for
the future;
and there was good ground for the hope that God would show mercy
on account of the obedience men showed to His voice spoken through the prophet,
when John bade them perform this outward ritual of purification accompanied
by a confession and detestation of their sins.
God calls sinners only to bring
them back to Him and pardon their offences.
But what of the sacrifices for sin which were commanded to be offered in the
Temple?
Were they of no more use?
We know that the purpose of these sacrifices
prescribed for particular cases was to atone for crime and to restore the balance
of offended justice.
John gave no instructions concerning the offering of such
sacrifices, or if he did so we have no record of them;
but neither did he
condemn such practices.
The carrying out of ceremonies and prescriptions was
one thing;
quite other was the turning of the heart to God in order to beseech
Him to set up his reign upon earth.
The kingdom of heaven preached by the Baptist
was nothing else but the kingdom or reign of God.
Kingdom of heaven, an expression
peculiar to St. Matthew, is what a pious Israelite would say, for his piety
forbade him to make too frequent a use of the name of God, even of that divine
name which is common to all nations.
As for the divine name which was proper
to the God of Israel, the Lord Jahweh, that the Jew was strictly forbidden
to pronounce at all.
In Latin we used the expression regnum caelorum,
because
the Hebrew word for heaven is in the plural.
This Jewish usage of substituting
the name of licaven for the name of God finds its parallel in our own custom
of saying:
'Good heavens,' or 'Heaven's will be done.'
It is more difficult, however, to seize the meaning of the first term of
the expression, kingdom of heaven, or kingdom of God.
In English the word kingdom
has taken on a concrete sense and is generally used to denote the place or
country in which a ruler exercises his authority.
But formerly the word kingdom
meant the same thing as reign
or rule, and denoted the power or authority or kingship of the king.
We find
the same thing in Greek and Hebrew, each of which have but one word to represent
both the act of reigning and the place where rule is exercised.
Hence, in
the New Testament as in the Old, we have to determine each time the word
is used which of these meanings it bears.
Sometimes, indeed, such fine shades
of meaning are attached to the word that it is wellnigh impossible to translate
them into our tongue.
There is no doubt, however, about the significance
of the word in the preaching of John the Baptist.
He announces that God is
on the point of inaugurating His reign, and that is precisely what the Jews
were waiting for.
History recalled to them that there was once a time when
they no longer wanted to have God as their king.
It was in the days when
Samuel unfolded to them the holy will of God, and Israel then had small reason
for complaint about God's rule whether in peace or war.
But the people had
become discontented when they saw all the other nations round about them
with kings of their own.
It was the same in mediaeval times when every petty
duchy wanted to be a kingdom.
And though God complained that His people no
longer wanted Him as their king, still He granted their request. [l
Kings viii.1-22.]
What they wanted was a king to march at their head and lead them in war.
In
the time of David their wars had been waged with great success,
but afterwards
they generally met with defeat and Israel had often been put to shame.
Moreover,
the king had not only taken the place of God:
he had sometimes taken sides against Him, thinking it good politics to pay
homage to the seemingly powerful gods of the great empires.
David's dynasty
disappeared together with the nation's independence:
Juda became a vassal
of Persia and afterwards was in servitude to the Greeks, first to the Hellenistic
kings of Egypt, and then to those of Syria.
From these last the Jews were saved
by the Machabees whose heroism won for them the royal diadem.
The new dynasty
of the Machabees, which owed its origin to the enthusiastic revival of Judaism
in the second century before Christ, made no alliances with strange gods;
but almost unconsciously the Machabean kings began to take on the demeanour
of secular princes and ceased to be so desirous as at first they had been of
seeing that the rights of God were
respected.
The consequence was that they had to stand aside and give place
to a man of doubtful origin,
that Herod whose god was the emperor Augustus,
for Augustus was in truth the master of Herod's destiny.
But God had not forsaken His people.
Many a time He had promised, through
the mouth of prophet and psalmist, to set up His own kingdom.
The day should
come when the house of David was to ascend the throne once again in the person
of one of David's descendants whom they called the Messiah or the Anointed
of the Lord;
he should be a king like David and his successors,
but a king whose sole
purpose would be to introduce the reign of the Lord over His people.
This promise
was an object of faith for the chosen few of Israel.
In order to measure the
height of moral perfection to which the aspirations of Israel had been raised
by a long series of revelations and merciful punishments, by the fidelity of
pious families and the licroism of their latest martyrs, we have only to set
this ideal alongside the ideals conceived by the wisest men among the more
civilized races.
Plato, for instance, dreamed of a state so well organized tliat moral goodness
would prevail;
he had even the courage to undertake three voyages to Sicily
with the idea of bringing this dream about.
But he came back beaten nnd no
longer presumed to feel so sure of his dream, which, in truth, was as incoherent
as all dreams are.
Henceforth no one looked to the philosophers for the moral
reformation of the state.
It was the business of the state to introduce peace
and good order,
a thing great enough in Itself and quite as much as ought to
be expected.
God could have done much more;
for instance,
He might have revealed
Himself as the origin of all holiness and justice,
the source of just laws,
the supreme reason of all moral living.
Such was what everybody felt.
But to
say with the Pythagoreans:
'Imitate and follow God,'
and at the same
time to go on paying worship to pagan deities,
was the last word in mockery
if it was not a use of words without any understanding of their meaning.
How much clearer everything was in Israel!
God who had created the
world was the world's sole lord;
He it was whom men had to serve as the
true King.
But as men were deaf to His voice,
it was necessary for Him to
show Himself
that they might know Him and in order that He
might take possession of His kingdom.
This is what they prayed Him to do.
It was not until after the fall of Jerusalem that the formula of the Eighteen Blessings was drawn up;
but these words of the prayer:
'Reign over us, O Lord,
Thou alone,'
had been on the lips of every Israelite for more than a hundred years before.
[Cf. Le Messianisme, by M. J. Lagrange, p. 153.]
Those pious Jews, then, who listened to John the
Baptist, were longing for the kingdom of God with all their hearts.
The 'Thou alone,' however, was not altogether sincere on the lips of most of
them, for every good Israelite lived in the hope of reigning with God over
the nations whom He was to chastise and bring into subjection.
They were ready
to grant that it is God who reigns and that He alone has the right to reign.
But, then, He needs ministers, for He is so far away in His unapproachable
glory.
At present, it was solely due to the fact that Israel had accepted
His domination and had made it known that God could be said to reign in the
world, even in the modest degree in which He did reign.
It would be the same,
and more so, when the day came in which those who now wrongfully ruled over
Israel would be brought to their knees.
Such were Jewish ideas on the subject;
the Baptist was well aware of it and he could not endure it.
When a crowd of people gathers together it will generally be found that the
elements of which it is composed are animated by very different sentiments;
it is the ideas of the leaders which count for most, though as a general rule
the leaders are by no means the best of the crowd in all respects.
When there
is a question of some course of action which demands self-sacrifice, generosity,
enthusiasm, and courage, we do not find that they are the most spontaneous,
the most sincere or the most disinterested.
According to the gospel narrative
it is to the leaders of the people that John the Baptist first addresses himself;
to the Pharisees, in other words.
Gradually the gospels introduce these Pharisees
along with the Sadducees into the place which they occupy in the narrative.
At their very first entrance on the scene they are saluted with insult, we might almost say.
'Race of vipers!
Who hath taught you to flee from the wrath that is to come?
Bring forth, then, fruits worthy of repentance,
and do not look as if you were saying within yourselves:
We have Abraham for our father!
For I tell you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these very stones.'
[Matthew iii. 7-9.]
His annoyance springs from his desire to save them.
The viper is an animal
whose presence is unsuspected, but which stings and kills.
It is pity for
its victims which rouses animosity against the serpent.
Now the Pharisees
were looked on by the common people, whom they despised, as the authorized
interpreters of the law of God.
The people had no suspicion at all that
they were wrong in so thinking, and were therefore at the mercy of the venom
which was contained in the teaching of the Pharisees.
This venom, which John
denounced, was their arrogance in putting themselves forward as indispensable
instruments of God.
'We are the sons of Abraham,'
they said,
'and to Abraham
God gave the promises which were made for our benefit.
The omnipotence of
God is therefore bound up with us.'
Such a claim is intolerable to a religious
man who has sounded the depths of his own poverty and sinfulness in the sight
of the Infinite.
Abraham, for instance, had put his faith in the promises
of God, but in his humility he had cast himself down with face to the earth. [Genesis xvii.3.]
But the Pharisees thought themselves indispensable, and such foolish pride
railed down the chastisements of God upon their heads.
Fully persuaded that
God could not allow them to perish tor fear that He should be left without
true worshippers upon the earth, they were about to commence a desperate
struggle for supremacy in which they were doomed to perish.
Either John had a foreboding of this or it had been revealed to him by God.
'Already the axe is laid to the root of the trees,
and every tree which does not bring forth good fruit
shall be cut down and cast into the fire.'
[Matthew iii.10.]
It was high
time then to repent,
and the first step in the path of repentance is self-humiliation
by which a man puts himself into his proper place before the infinite power
of God.
From these stones lying about the rocky hill-sides God could easily
raise up genuine sons of Abraham, not Indeed sons by carnal generation, but
sons in so far as they Imitated the faith of Abraham, a faith that was both
humble and trusting.
One might have been tempted to believe while listening to this violent onslaught
that John, hypnotized by the
threatened judgements of God, absorbed in his mission as the last of the prophets
and carried out of himself by the excesses of his fasts and vigils, was going
to ask the bystanders to join him in some extraordinary course of action.
There was the well-known case of Judas the Galilean who would have none
but God as his lord and master,'
[Josephus, Antiquities, XVIII, i, 6.]
and he had drawn many of the Jews after
him into revolt.
There were others who cither were not ready to run the risk
of incurring cruel measures of repression or else preferred to leave matters
to God alone, and were content with recommending a three days' fast.
Such
was the advice of Taxo who said to his seven sons, after the fast, 'we will
go into a cave and die.'
[Assumption of Moses. Cf. Revue Bibllque,
1905, p. 483.]
Perhaps John was about to invite them to embrace
a life of extraordinary asceticism and bodily penance.
Such were the questions which must have occurred to the minds of the listeners
who had confessed their sins and were prepared to begin a life pleasing to
God.
But this man, whom Renan has compared to an Indian fakir,
[Vie
de Jésus, p. 99.
He talks also of the gurus of the Brahmins and of the
munis of India (p. 102).
Either he is making fun or else he has been taken in by the facile classifications
of shallow scholarship.]
replied to
such questions with the discretion of a wise spiritual director.
One had to
beware, on the one hand, of trying to anticipate the hour determined by God,
which was folly;
and on the other, of sitting down to wait for it with a feeling
of discouragement.
The only thing to be done was to persevere in the practice
of charity and justice.
The first and most urgent duty was that of charity.
'If anyone has two coats,
let him share with him who has none,
and he that has food to eat let him do likewise.'
[Luke iii.11.]
In his own personal asceticism he goes
without coat at all, and his food is the food that comes by chance.
What he
demands is not for himself but for his brethren, in the true spirit of the
prophets. [Isaias Iviii.7.]
But there were certain professions that seemed to be unavoidably exposed to
the danger of sin.
The publicans, for instance, came forward:
'Master, what
ought we to do?'
Public opinion would have been quick to give an unequivocal
answer:
'Give up your thieving trade! '
It was indeed a fact that the publican's
temptation to theft was a strong and permanent one.
The State was accustomed
to farm out to individuals the collection of certain indirect taxes, such as
the customs.
The great contractors, farmers-general of the revenue
as they
were called under the old French regime,
in their turn employed subordinates
whose business it was to collect the tax.
These, whether as a return for
their labour or else as a means of robbing both the public and their employers,
often demanded the payment of sums in excess of the fixed tax.
In the case
where these collectors were of Jewish birth, they were exposed to the
additional sin of defilement through contact with non-Jews.
Even the country-folk, whom
the Pharisees despised for their ignorance of the Law, were considered lo
be not so contemptible as the tax-gatherers.
It is true that princes and rulers made some effort to prevent glaring abuses
of the existing system by setting up a public tariff, such as we see, for
example, in the tariff inscription not long ago discovered at Palmyra dating
from AD. 137.
With the help of precautions of this kind, tradesmen were as
well protected then against abuse as they are in our own days when taxes are
paid directly into the public treasury.
But after all, not everybody knew how
to read, and it is doubtful whether the system of taxation in Palestine was
as well organized in gospel times as it was later.
Fraud was easy while supervision
was powerless to remedy the evil.
It was rare that one found a good publican,
and the whole class of them was considered to be a disgrace to Israel.
Not to a single one of them,
however, did John say:
'Follow me,'
for it was not his mission to make disciples in that fashion.
He merely said to them:
'Demand nothing in excess of that which has been fixed for you.'
After the publicans come a group who are generally considered to have been
soldiers.
But although soldiers can easily be accused of violence, robbery
and pillage, they are not generally guilty of false witness such as St.
Luke attributes to these men who appear before John.
Hence they are not
so much soldiers in our sense of the word as police agents employed to compel
people, by force of arms if necessary, to pay their taxes;
or else they were
used as an armed guard, either in the government service or in the service
of the publicans themselves.
There is no doubt that they were Jews, for foreigners
would not have been called to repentance by John, nor would they have desired
to know whether it was necessary for them to give striking proofs of their
repentance, as did the persons in question.
To them John said:
'Molest no man;
denounce nobody falsely, and be content with your pay.'
[Luke iii.14.
Cf. Jaussen, Naplouse, p. 324 ff.,
for an account of the manner in which the police lent their help to the extortions of the tax-gatherers in Palestine under the Turkish regime.]
In the days of old, Moses, before whose angry countenance the people trembled
with fear, could show himself the meekest of men when it was his own personal
reputation and not the honour of God which was at stake. [Numbers
xii.3.]
It was the same with
John the Baptist.
Terrible as were his threats, he was kindness itself to those
who were well-disposed;
and the honour that he felt did not belong to him he could refuse with meekness.
They came to him from all the Jordan valley, both those who inhabited the
villas of Jericho and the dwellers in tents at the foot of the mountains of
Moab.
They came to him from all Judaea, from Jerusalem even, where all this
excitement was bound to give rise to the portentous question:
Is not John the Messiah?
His remarkable austerity could not but strike the
imagination, causing people to wonder whether he was in truth no more than
Zachary's son.
Had he not appeared with suddenness, coming from the wilderness
like one sent by God?
Perhaps he had come down from above.
It was true that
he worked no miracles;
but it was not miracles that were expected from the
Messiah so much as the deliverance of the nation from the yoke of the foreigner.
As his mighty voice shook the people from their state of listlessness, they
could not help wondering whether he was about to give them the signal for combat
and for victory.
Such were the conjectures that were formed and then cast aside
in the minds of the people, and finally drawn up in the form of a questionnaire
by the official religious teachers.
The crowd had first of all asked the question about John's baptism:
Was not
that the way the Messiah would begin His mission?
Was not John himself the
Messiah?
He was quick to undeceive them;
but in the same voice he proclaimed
that the coming of the kingdom of God signified that the Messiah was near at
hand:
'There cometh after me One that is mightier than I,
and I am not worthy to stoop before His feet
to undo the thong of His sandals.
I have baptized you in water;
but He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit.'
[Mark i.7-8.]
St. Matthew and St. Luke say:
'In the Holy Spirit and by fire.'
The mention of fire simply provides imagery,
for we cannot suppose that there is a baptism which is more perfect than that
in the Holy Spirit.
In other words, baptism in the Holy Spirit is compared
to baptism by fire.
Water cleanses, but it has not the power to take away every
kind of stain.
On the other hand, that which passes through fire is either
burnt up or else is like gold, which comes forth from the furnace perfectly
purified.
Baptism in the Holy Spirit, therefore, is a more perfect kind of
baptism,
a cleansing which penetrates to the very depths of the soul;
for
the soul, purified by repentance, is like something created anew by the Holy
Spirit.
[Psalm l [Heb., li].12-13.]
Quickly changing his metaphors, after the fashion of the true oriental,
John
next uses the work of the thresher as an image of the work of purification.
It is taken for granted that in the kingdom of the Messiah none but the just
shall reign with him.
But how are the just to be separated from the rest?
In the same way as the reaper cleanses his threshing-floor.
He takes up in
his large wooden shovel the mingled grains and chaff which have been trodden
out by the cattle on the threshing-floor.
This he shakes about in such
a fashion that the heavy grains remain
while the light chaff is carried
away by the wind.
The scattered chaff is then swept up and burnt,
while the
good grain is gathered into the barn.
But the fire that burns the chaff is no
longer a purifying fire,
and it is a fire that will never be extinguished.
This
brings us to a complete change of scene,
the image of fire, rather than any
logical connection of thought, providing the link with what has gone before.
Still, there is the idea of succession of time in the progress of the thought:
if we are not purified by the fire of the Holy Spirit,
then we must become fuel
for a fire like unto that which burns up the chaff.
Moreover, it is He who
baptizes in the Holy Spirit
that shall also later on separate the good from the
bad;
to attibute the latter work to the Messiah without the former would be
to destroy the whole chain of ideas.
It is the Messiah who is in question all
the time.
The scene closes with him, after having opened with a picture of that
period of unspecified duration which may be described as the messianic time when
the Spirit of God shall be given to men.
top
At His baptism Jesus is proclaimed to be the Son of God (19).
Luke iii.21-22; Mark i.9-11; Matt. iii.13-17.
'Now it came to pass in those days
that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee
and was baptized by John in the Jordan.'
[Mark i.9.]
The Christian conscience realizes the importance of this event,
which, however,
would have been hardly noticed but for John's foreboding concerning the character
of Jesus:
a foreboding which was turned into supernatural certitude by means of a manifestation
from heaven.
Jesus came from Nazareth;
rumour had then reached as far as Galilee.
Son
of Mary, the widow of Joseph, He naturally passed for Joseph's son.
To be sure
no one had ever seen anything in His behaviour which seemed to require of Him
the duty of repentance.
Men knew Him as a good Israelite,
brought up by His
parents in the fear of God and respect for religious observances,
His piety
continually enlivened by pilgrimages to the Holy City.
He had, therefore, no
sins to confess.
But it was the case then, as it is now;
it is not those whose
consciences are the most heavily laden who are the first to come to confession.
The holier people were, the more anxious they showed themselves to take a share
in that general attitude of repentance which would hasten the day of salvation.
At all events, such was the reputation for piety enjoyed by Jesus,
such the
modesty of His demeanour and His manifest sincerity,
that John, warned by an
interior voice or possibly by some emotion which recalled memories of his childhood,
said to Him:
'It is I who ought to be baptized by Thee,
and comest Thou to me?'
[Matthew iii.14 ff.]
Still John does not cast himself at the feet of Jesus,
as we might have expected after the things we have just heard him say;
and when Jesus replied:
'Suffer it now,
for thus it becometh us to fulfil all justice,'
he gave way and performed upon Him his office as Baptist.
How his hand would have trembled had he been sure that he was baptizing the Messiah!
But as yet he did not possess this certainty that had been promised him:
'He on whom thou shalt see the Spirit coming down and remaining,
He it is that shall baptize in the Holy Ghost.'
[John i.33.]
This divine signal was not given to him until he had showed himself obedient to the request made by Jesus.
Then, says St. Mark,
'at that moment when He came up out of the water,
Jesus saw the heavens torn open
and the Spirit coming down upon Him like a dove;
and there was a voice from heaven:
Thou art My beloved Son.
In Thee I am well pleased.'
[Mark i.10 ff.]
For those who saw nothing of these things the baptism of Jesus was a very
simple affair;
it was a manifestation of good will on the part of Jesus,
a
mark of His respect for John,
showing Jesus to be an Israelite who was eager
to go beyond the demands of the Law
when a prophet of God pointed out a way
of pleasing Him.
To seek baptism was in no way a thing that was expected of
the Messiah.
But one wonders whether there were some who were privileged to
see the dove and hear the voice;
and the evangelists suggest as much without
positively affirming it.
For instance, the Holy Ghost appeared under an external
form;
but, on the other hand, there was nothing particularly supernatural
about the appearance of a dove,
and only those could perceive its significance to whom God had given the grace
of so doing.
Certainly John was one of these, for this sign was meant for
liim.
He had announced that one greater than he would baptize in the Holy Ghost;
and the coming of the Spirit which remained on Jesus after His baptism was
the sign exactly appropriate to this.
The dove recalled the mysterious way
in which the spirit of God had hovered over the primeval waters as though to
make them fruitful. [Genesis i.2.]
John understood that baptism in the Holy Spirit was instituted from henceforth;
he knew that Jesus was the Elect or Son of God, the Messiah. [John
i.32 ff.]
But even though
the revelation was made to John,
it remains true that these events at the baptism
were meant primarily for Jesus Himself.
It is to Him that the dove flies;
to Him the voice is addressed, according to the accounts of St. Mark and St.
Luke.
St. Matthew has written: 'This is My Son,' instead of 'Thou art My
Son';
but this slight change,
[It is not certain that St. Matthew's reading is authentic,
for certain
ancient authorities give the other reading in the first gospel also.]
even if it establishes the fact that the voice
was addressed to others besides Jesus, by no means proves that it was heard
by all.
Many modern critics belonging to the Liberal Protestant school have
drawn a remarkable conclusion from this heavenly manifestation to Jesus.
According
to them, this was the occasion when He received for the first time consciousness
of His messianic dignity,
or, as they put it, when He first felt that He
was much more the Son of God than other men.
Clearly the text says no such
thing.
If we want to understand what it does say,
we must compare it with
those other texts which bring the Spirit of God on the scene.
There we learn
that it is the office of the Spirit of God
to set in motion and to excite
the will or the intelligence of certain men,
in order to lead them on to
heroic action for the salvation of the people.
[Judges iii.10; vl.34; xi.29; xiii.25.]
It is the same in the present
case.
Jesus comes to baptism like other men,
for He certainly possessed human
nature like them.
But now the time had come when He had to set about a mission
which was so difficult that it demanded heroism even to the limits of self-sacrifice.
It is to give Him the signal to begin that the Spirit comes down from heaven.
And as He has taken upon Himself the lowly attitude of one being baptized,
a thing more likely to hinder the beginning of His messianic mission than
to draw attention to it,
the voice of His Father comes to bear witness of
the Father's pleasure and to affirm that He is always with His Son,
His well-beloved
Son.
Jesus thus receives the signal for His mission,
while the bystanders
behold Him invested with the rights which He receives from His Father.
This first public action of Jesus gives us reason for saying
that He has not
come to destroy the Law and the Prophets,
but to bring them to perfection.
[Matthew v.16 ff.]
He receives from the last of the prophets a baptism which is no more than
a symbol;
but by His death it will become full of the grace of the Holy Ghost.
John's
baptism called the Jews to repentance;
the baptism of Jesus will be offered
to all nations
as the means by which, through their faith,
they may receive
initiation into the divine life of His resurrection.
It will be given
in the
name of the Father,
of the Son
and
of the Holy Ghost;
[Matthew xxviii.19.]
of the Father who at the baptism of Jesus named Him His beloved Son,
and of
the Holy Ghost who flew to Him with love.
The historian who strives to convey
some appreciation of an historical event,
by carefully reconstructing it according
to the manner in which it would have been understood when it took place,
cannot
neglect the light that is thrown on certain events by their consequences;
these consequences are undeniable proofs of the significance of the events
and of their importance.
Even an unbeliever cannot fail to see that the baptism of Jesus was a very
important event.
As for the Church,
she celebrates the feast of the Baptism
on the octave day of the Epiphany,
for it was in truth the second public
manifestation of Jesus,
the first having taken place at the epiphany of His
birth,
when He was manifested to the wise men from the east.
As we have already
said, this was after the fashion of that time,
when it was the custom of kings
to boast of their divine origin.
To-day we can understand all this better than
ever before.
As for the faithful,
to them the wonderful designs of God have always appeared
manifest in this incident of the baptism of Jesus.
There is nothing surprising
for them in the fact that the voice of the Father
which sounds throughout eternity
was heard by His incarnate Son on the banks of the Jordan;
or that the Holy
Spirit,
who is the eternal Love uniting Father and Son,
should appear on the
scene as a link between heaven and earth.
top
Jesus is tempted (21).
Luke iv.1-13; Mark i.12-13; Matt. iv.1-11.
The temptation of Jesus is not a part of His public ministry.
The scene took
place between Him and Satan alone:
there were no witnesses.
Thus it could
have had no influence at all on the opinion people formed
of the person, character,
and mission of Him who came to preach the kingdom of God.
In the mind of the
first three evangelists, however,
especially of St. Matthew and St. Luke,
the
event throws a certain light over the whole of the ministry,
and there is no
doubt that this is precisely the reason why Jesus told His disciples of the
incident.
We must examine it, therefore, in order the better to understand
the way in which the task of establishing the kingdom of God .ippeared to the
minds of the first disciples.
In this temptation, which Jesus overcomes,
pious minds see a proof of the
way in which Jesus stoops to our level,
as well as an evidence of the reality of His human nature like to our own.
He becomes an example and an encouragement for us.
The thought is as profitable
as it is true, and is presented to us by the Epistle to the Hebrews:
'It is because He Himself hath suffered and been tried
that He is able to succour them that are tried.' ...
'For we have not a high-priest who cannot have compassion on our infirmities;
in order to be like unto us
He hath been tried in every way,
yet without sin.'
[Hebrews ii.18 and iv.15, according to Crampon's translation.]
There is no doubt that Jesus gave Himself to be our model and humbled Himself
to our level in thus allowing Satan to tempt Him in His human nature.
But at
the same time, one fact emerging from this conflict is this:
that He won victory
after a very remarkable fight.
Satan had seen Him preparing to establish the
kingdom of God,
and he was afraid lest this might mean the end of his own reign.
But he did not think it impossible to turn Jesus aside from His task;
or at
any rate he did his best to draw Him aside into those paths which would only
lead to the strengthening of the satanic empire over mankind.
These are strange
ideas to the mind of the modern world.
Yet it is a fact that, even after so
many centuries of Christianity,
evil exercises a tremendous influence in the
world,
according at least to those who call evil all that is contrary to the
will of God.
The ancient Persians, and their successors the Manicheans, had
such a strong realization of the spread of evil through the world that they
conceived the idea of two almost equal powers, the God of Good and the God
of Evil, the world being the stake for which they struggled with one another.
First one power gained the victory and then the other;
so it would go on until
the end, in the far-distant future, when Good should finally triumph completely.
Are we to suppose that the Jews shared in this belief,
which is so patently
irreconcilable with even the most elementary notions
of God
considered as the
Infinite Good, sole Creator,
only Lord,
sole possessor of Being
which is shared
by others only in a participated and diminished form?
Yet there are those
to-day who maintain that the Jews had adopted this dualism of the Persians,
making God to be the Sovereign Master of heaven,
Satan the king of the earth.
But the fact is that the Jews,
taught by the revelation
which had been committed to their care,
had a true idea of God as the sole
Master of the whole world.
At the same time, however, they believed in the
existence of a world of spirits,
some of whom were good,
others were
bad angels or demons of whom Satan was the master.
He was the tempter-in-chief,
the one who had seduced Eve and thus brought about the fall of Adam.
Having
gained this first victory,
he had never ceased thenceforth from his efforts
to draw men from God and lead them into evil.
The measure of the dominion
which he exercised in the world was the success he obtained by his efforts.
Wherever men worshipped false gods,
there Satan ruled supreme.
It is not the place here to prove the truth of this belief, wliich is common
to Christians also.
To deny the influence of evil spirits, especially in the
sphere of idol worship, would put one under the necessity of finding some explanation
of the actual degradation of the people of ancient times with respect to all
that concerned religion.
How else can we explain the tyranny of those Carthaginian
deities, whose existence none could prove, yet who demanded that children should
be burnt alive?
What other reasonable explanation is there of the fact that
the Greeks, even during the golden age of Pericles, paid divine honours
to gods who were no better than scoundrels, whom their worshippers sometimes
went so far as to make the subject of comic plays?
Though these different kinds of religious worship were not all of such a cruel
or shameful character, and were indeed sometimes full of a human charm that
is beyond c.ompare, yet in the eyes of the Israelites they were all to be condemned,
for the tyrant Satan was responsible for them all.
Satan prowled around this
little kingdom of God, the land of Israel;
he even entered it and fought violently
for its possession.
But it was there that the announcement had been made that
God should reign over the whole world.
First, however, there was to come one
who was to be the means of establishing this reign, a Messiah, a Son of God,
an Elect of God, or called by some such name.
Jesus appeared to be the one
destined to fulfil that role, and Satan thought it high time to interfere.
Is there not something of symbolic significance,
containing a secret of great
importance for us,
in this temptation of Jesus which is presented like the
prologue of a play in two voices?
The scene is laid in the mysterious atmosphere
of the desert with Satan as one of the principal characters.
From what happens
there we may gather what will be the issue of that earthly drama which is
played among men;
it foreshadows the way in which the enemy of mankind will be defeated by the
work of salvation.
In a similar way, though the comparison necessarily falls
short, Euripides sometimes introduces into the prologues of his plays some
divinity whose part it is to explain beforehand the incidents of the tragedy
and to point the moral.
Jesus, then, according to the synoptic presentation of the gospel story, is led by the Spirit into the desert immediately after His baptism and before commencing His ministry.
Note that it is the Spirit which drives Him on to action;
according to St. Matthew,
'Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert in order to be tempted by the devil.'
[Matthew iv.1.]
That remark leaves us in no doubt about
the outcome, for it cannot but be that the Spirit will obtain the victory.
But there is no hint that it is the intention of the evangelists to hold the
devil up to ridicule;
at the same time, neither do they set him up as God's
rival.
His temptations are formidable,
but man's will is beyond the reach of
his power.
We know that as long as the will refuses its complicity the devil
remains completely powerless over us.
But he does his best to attract and to
draw us on to the slope where we slip before we fall.
He knows quite well that
if Jesus be really the Son of God no temptation can take hold of Him or move
Him in the slightest degree.
But suppose that Jesus falsely believes Himself
to be the Son of God:
then is He not already the victim of pride?
Let Him
be drawn out by a clever question and He will surely reply with an answer that
will at once show what sort of power He has with God.
The matter for temptation is at hand.
The temptations described for us are
only the last of a series of diabolical attacks,
and Jesus, like a hardy athlete,
had entered the contest fasting.
After forty days without food He was hungry.
It was then that the tempter said to Him:
'If Thou be the Son of God,
command that these stones be made bread.'
Too passionate a desire to satisfy a need
that was in itself quite lawful,
or the resorting to a supernatural power for
His own personal advantage,
or eagerness to defend Himself in the face of unreasonable
provocation:
in such ways did the tempter seek to persuade Jesus to display His miraculous
power and so inaugurate the kingdom of God merely to get the better of the
eternal adversary.
But such motives were imperfect:
hence Jesus replies:
'It is written that not by bread alone doth man live.' The reply is enigmatic,
as the texts of Scripture quoted by the rabbis often are:
their application is at first sight obscure.
St. Matthew throws a little light on the enigma by continuing the quotation:
'but (he lives) by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God.'
Man must not obtain his food by
any and every means:
he must first conform himself to that order of things
by which the divine will is manifested.
Jesus, therefore, gives a blunt refusal.
He declines to act unreasonably by making His divinely Riven power subservient
to His own particular advantage, whether it be for the satisfaction of His
appetite or for vainglory.
Jesus quotes the Scriptures.
But what does that matter?
The devil knows
Scripture too,
and quotes it in order to see if he cannot force Jesus to show
His hand.
He leads Him up to the pinnacle of the Temple
and, as it were, invites the crowd assembled in the courts to see a thrilling sight :
a man throwing himself down from that dizzy height into the Kedron valley below.
'If Thou be the Son of God,'
says the devil,
'cast Thyself down.
For it is written:
He shall give His angels charge over Thee,
and in their hands shall they bear Thee up
lest Thou dash Thy foot against a stone.'
A
declaration of God's tender care for His children, the Children of Israel.
How much greater, then, will be His solicitude for the one who is His most
beloved Son!
True:
but all the same,
kind as God is to those who abandon
themselves to His guidance,
He can show Himself exceedingly harsh to those
who rashly demand that He shall exert Himself to prove that He is on their
side.
Scripture can be quoted for that also:
'Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.'
This reply of Jesus was admirably to the point.
Yet, after all, how clever
the rabbis were at this play of texts!
The devil had twice challenged Jesus
to give some sign of His power,
and Jesus had replied with a certain air
of timidity.
Perhaps His caution was nothing more than a proof that He possessed
no extraordinary powers.
However, since He was afraid to risk anything of the
nature of a prodigy in order to prove that He was endowed with the power of
the kingdom of God, perhaps He might be willing to accept for Himself sovereignty
over all the kingdoms of the world.
How limited is Satan's psychological insight!
He has no power of reading the
heart, nor can he force it to give up its secrets, so long as it hides itself
beneath the protection of God's word.
But he is so blinded by self-confidence that he makes this proposal to Jesus:
'Prostrate Thyself before me,
and I will give Thee all this wealth and glory.'
Is Satan not the lord of the kingdoms of the world if he can thus make them appear as if by magic?
For the third time Jesus brings His opponent to the ground:
'Begone, Satan!
For it is written:
The Lord thy God shalt thou adore,
and Him only shalt thou serve.'
Jesus has not come on earth to reign Himself,
but
to work that God may reign and so bring Satan's reign to an end.
Then the devil departs,
but only, as St. Luke adds,
'til the appointed time ';
that is to say, until the day when permission will be granted him to seek
the death of his vanquisher by stirring up all the powers of the land against
Him.
Till that moment comes Jesus has a clear field for His work of preaching
the kingdom of God.
And now, as a sign that the victory just won was gained in the superhuman sphere,
'angels came and ministered unto Him ':
those angels who were not allowed to render Him this service during the course of His ministry.
We naturally desire to know what was the place where this fast of forty days
took place,
and on what mountain the great battle was won.
The mountain has
since received the name of Jebel Quarantal,
the Arabic rendering for 'the
mountain of the forty days';
and the hermits of the fifth century chose an
excellent situation for it on the edge of the hills which towards the west
shut in the plain of Jericho like a wall.
These hermits kept a perpetual fast
during the time they spent in the caves which honeycomb the hill, the solitary
summit of which looks down into the valley where gardens form an oasis of green
among the desert sands.
Over to the east lies the plain of Moab,
a vast stretch
of country leading towards Babylon,
that mistress of ancient empires which
imagination pictures to itself at the further end of the plain.
In the opposite
direction, behind us to the west, lies the city of Rome,
which had at this
time assumed the sceptre of the world.
Thus, in a certain sense it is true
to say that all the kingdoms of the earth could be seen from this mountain,
as St. Luke says 'in a moment of time.'
One might say that the whole of this episode of the temptation is enveloped
in a sort of cloud,
so that the precise details are not clearly visible;
but
its reality is none the less visible.
And it can also be said that the truths
most profitable to the mind and the heart
are not always those which are most
patient of minute analysis.
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The witness of John the Baptist.
The calling of the first disciples (22-24).
According to the order of the synoptic narrative it is now time for Jesus
to begin His ministry:
hence the synoptists lead Him back to Galilee.
St.
John, however, has further information concerning the sojourn of Jesus in the
neighbourhood of the Jordan.
Ancient commentators were so much perplexed by
this divergence that difficulties were raised against the value of
John's narrative.
Whatever may be said in answer to these objections, they
serve at any rate to show that the faithful in those early days were very much
on their guard against insertion among the Scriptures of writings that were
not fully authorized.
In this case, however, the authority of the beloved disciple
was held to be miuicient to guarantee the truth of his gospel: moreover, the
difficulties raised are such as to be patient of easy solution.
Had Jesus so wished,
He might have chosen His first disciples from among those
who had not come under the influence of John the Baptist.
But we have it on
the authority of the writer of the fourth gospel,
who prefers to
hide himself behind a sort of anonymity,
that some of John's own disciples
were influenced by the witness he gave to Jesus:
a thing that might have
been expected.
Further, It is but natural that men coming from Galilee should
have established contact with Jesus of Galilee, especially while they
were under the influence of that religious fervour which had led them to take
so solemn a step as submitting to John's baptism.
There, away from home, it
was only natural that they should attach themselves to Him as a
preliminary stage before that complete surrender to His call which was later
to take place on the shores of lake Tiberias.
It may be said, then, that
the author of the fourth gospel has in an admirable manner put the finishing
touches to what we may call the period of preparation, consisting in the
transition from the Law to the Gospel.
The Baptist's witness to Jesus is
his method of proclaiming the good news, and there is nothing to be surprised
at if his own certitude about Jesus was sufficient to win over his own disciples.
We remain, therefore, in the neighbourhood where John was baptizing.
Now Jesus,
we are told, was baptized in the Jordan.
But we are not to look for anything
of a sacred character or for any special quality in the water of that river.
Indeed, during the winter season, so sodden does the rain render the chalky
soil through which the river flows that access to it is hardly possible;
and
even were one to reach the river bank at such a time, it would be difficult
to enter or leave the water without slipping and getting covered with mud.
It was for this very prosaic reason, if for no other, that John readily chose
some other place for his baptisms, some stream, perhaps, that followed a more
or less artificial channel.
One of these places was at Bethany beyond the Jordan,
possibly just below the present ruined village called Khirbet et-Tawil.
It
was here that the Baptist was found by the priests and levites, some of them
belonging to the pharisaical party, who had been sent to him by the religious
authorities at Jerusalem.
It is commonly held that the Sanhedrin enters on the scene here, and that
this intervention is the result of an official meeting of that council.
But
it is to be remembered that we are dealing with Judaism and not with the Christian
Church.
In the Church, of course, the rights and prerogatives of the hierarchy
are absolute.
Had the religious organization of Judaism been of the same character,
then certainly we should have reason for surprise at the fact that John had
presumed to preach without permission.
But the people of Israel did not constitute
a Church, and their men of God had never considered themselves subject to the
authority of the priesthood.
If there was question of distinguishing false
prophets from true, there was only one means according to the teaching of the
Law, [Deuteronomy xviii.22.] and til at was to see
whether or not their predictions came true.
If they turned out to be false
prophets, then it was for the authorities to punish them,
and the Mishna [Cf. Sanhedrin i, 5.] teaches
that the competent authority for passing judgement on false prophets was the
Sanhedrin.
But even granting that, at the time of which we are speaking, the
Sanhedrin was admitted to be the supreme tribunal in this matter, it would
still remain true that its office was merely to pass
judgement on the accusations brought to its notice.
It is a far cry from that
to the notion that the Sanhedrin was a sort of watch committee whose duty
it was to keep an eye on the various movements that stirred the minds of the
people.
On the contrary, it was a complicated organization consisting of
members
drawn first from the high priests,
secondly from those who were recognized
as rabbis,
and thirdly from the group of the aristocracy,
and its authority
could be invoked only on occasion of some well-defined complaint.
In the
present case, the fourth gospel suggests that we have to do with a small group
of ringleaders who have taken upon themselves the business of seeing that
the authority of their own party is preserved.
Indeed, it is the first move
of that group whom this gospel simply names the Jews,
so called because,
as religious Ieaders of the people,
they were its representatives;
and
to them belongs the responsibility for the hostility with which the
populace regarded its Saviour.
John, they held, was disturbing the accepted customs of piety and good
religious order by his new ceremony of baptism, by these manifestations
of repentance, and by the precision with which he foretold the coming of the
Messiah.
Moreover, he showed but scant respect for the Pharisees nnd had even
abused them.
What would become of priestly privilege and the reputation of
the masters in Israel if every person of no consequence were to be allowed
to raise such a commotion, even though it were over such a matter
as repentance?
John, however, was a person of
some consequence seeing that he was a son of Zachary the priest.
It
was thought necessary, therefore, to interrogate him in such a
way as to avoid the appearance of making any accusation.
They simply demanded:
'Who art thou?'
But, considering the state
of excitement that prevailed,
it was evident that this question was merely
the cloak for
another,
namely:
'Dost thou make claim to put thyself forward as the Messiah?'
With that frankness of his which was at times somewhat rough,
John made the
direct reply:
'I am not the Messiah.'
Then was he the one whose business
it was to prepare the way for the Messiah by bringing about a revival of religious
and moral life in Israel in preparation for the reign of justice?
In a word,
was he the prophet Elias come back to earth?
Elias, as the Scripture taught,
had been caught up to heaven in a fiery chariot [4 Kings
(2 Kgs.) ii.11.], and it was expected that
he would one day return in order to manifest the Messiah and anoint him.
Trypho
the Jew, when St. Justin disputed with him during the following century, was
still looking for Elias to return and perform that mission.
Now, as a matter
of fact, it was true that John had been charged with the duty of fulfilling
that mission of Elias;
but all the same he declares plainly that he is not
Elias in person.
Then was he perhaps the Prophet?
Unless they came to the conclusion that
John had received no mission from God at all, the Jews could hardly refuse
to regard him as a prophet;
for they were accustomed to receive God's commands
at the mouth of men inspired by the Spirit of God, and these men had so often
preached the duty of turning back to God, or, in other words, of doing penance.
But here the questioners speak of 'the' prophet, that is the great prophet
for whom they had waited so long, who was to be charged with a most high mission,
a prophet like Moses [Cf. Deuteronomy xviii.15.], the Elect of God above all others, perhaps destined
to be anointed as the Messiah Himself.
'No,' replies John,
for such a person
as that seemed far beyond his measure.
Surely a man like John, they argued, the son of a priest who had fulfilled
his sacred functions with honour, a man, too, who showed such boldness in stirring
up people's minds, ought to be aware of what he was or, at least, of what he
claimed to be.
The priests and levites sent by the Jews apologize for their
insistence and plead their duty of rendering an account of their mission to
those who have commissioned them.
But the answer was staring them in the face:
John was a preacher of repentance,
and he told them so in words borrowed from Isaias:
'I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness:
Make straight the way of the Lord.'
He was a voice, therefore, announcing that the Lord was about to come along
the way now that it was made passable.
The ways of the Lord are his own, it
is true:
but He is pleased lo make use of man in order to make ready His way.
Some of the envoys who were Pharisees then took up the enquiry on their own
account.
They admitted that all good Israelites had the right to preach repentance
if they liked:
but if John was not the Christ, nor Elias, nor the Prophet,
then by what authority had he introduced this totally new rite of baptism
in connexion with repentance, calling all men to be baptized?
Beneath this
question there was concealed an evil design,
but John does not refuse to reply.
This time, however, his reply takes the form of an act of homage to Him
whose forerunner he is:
'As for me, I baptize with water, and merely by way of
preparation.
But there is one greater than I, and He will do greater works.'
It is surprising that the curiosity of the Pharisees rests content with this
answer, for they could not have been satisfied.
But perhaps they did not wish
to confuse the issue by concerning themselves with this unknown personage,
who might, after all, be no more than a creation of John's over-excited
imagination.
It was John himself about whom information was required, and he
appeared to be taking shelter behind someone else.
He would say nothing more,
and they would have to be satisfied with what they had got.
When John spoke those solemn words about the mysterious one who was already
among them, whom men could see
and to whom they were able to speak, it appears that he already realized
the significance of what had taken place at the baptism of Jesus.
He declined
to point Him out more plainly to the agents of the Jews;
but on the following
day, when he happened to be with his own followers or else in the company
of certain persons whom he could trust, he saw Jesus coming towards him and
the great secret escaped his lips:
'Behold the Lamb of God,
who taketh away the sin of the world.'
It was as though he said that there was the innocent holiness which
was come to cleanse the world from sin.
The words he went on to speak serve
as a commentary on the scene at the baptism which took place between himself,
Jesus, and the Spirit of God.
There are some who maintain that the fourth gospel
omits all mention of the baptism of Jesus, because its author considered
that the event had been sufficiently described by the earlier evangelists.
But there is a very clear allusion to it in these words of the Baptist:
'I saw the Spirit coming down like a dove from heaven and remaining upon Him,'
It was by this sign that John was enabled to recognize who Jesus was;
and
the real relation between the sign and the thing signified shows that the meaning
is that Jesus is to baptize with the Holy Ghost.
John had been surnamed the Baptist because he was considered as the baptizer
par excellence.
Yet the chief thing that he sees in the person of the Messiah
is that the Messiah possesses a pre-eminence even in the matter of baptizing;
for He is to baptize in a better way than John, since He will take away the
sins whose wickedness John condemns.
The next day after that (it was of importance to give the count of these days, and the evangelist here gives us a hint that he is in a position to do so), two of John's disciples are struck by hearing him call out again:
'Behold the Lamb of God,'
and their hearts are stirred at seeing the loving reverence with which he looks at Jesus.
They follow Him.
But He had not asked them to do so, and when He turns round to say:
'What seek you?'
they answer with a certain embarrassment:
'Rabbi (or Master)!
Where dwellest Thou?'
The
good fellows knew no more flattering mode of address than to call a man by
the name of Rabbi;
for it was beyond their conception that anyone could be great in the sight
of God were he not at the same time a doctor in Israel, a master in the knowledge
of the Scriptures.
Jesus replied:
'Come and see.'
They went, therefore,
to see the place where He dwelt -
we are told that the time was about ten hours
after sunrise -
and they learnt that Jesus was indeed the Messiah.
One of these
two was Andrew, the brother of Simon,
and we can only infer that the other
was none but the narrator of this scene
which remained in his mind as the most
precious memory of his youth.
Andrew then goes to look for his brother,
and
when Simon appears the Master, fixing His eyes upon him,
changes his name to
Peter.
It is not until later [Matthew xvi.17 ff.] that we
are told the reason for this change of name, but we understand even now that
this mark of affectionate care is a sign that Jesus takes possession of Peter
as of one who is already His own.
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Jesus returns to Galilee (25).
Simon and Andrew lived by the shores of the Lake of Galilee, and that unnamed
disciple, whom we believe to be John the son of Zebedee, was a fellow-countryman
of theirs.
After Jesus had thus attached them to Himself it was only
natural that He should join them on their way back to Galilee.
The shortest
way home from the banks of the Jordan for those who dwelt by Lake Tiberias
was to follow the river, passing through Archelais and Scythopolis, as far
as the southernmost point of the lake.
[Nothing is left of Archelais but ruins;
Scythopolis is the modern Bet She'an, which was the biblical Beth-shan.
It has become famous on account of recent excavations there which have revealed
some Egyptian stele and, chief of all, the temple of Astarte. (Cf. I Kings xxxi.10.)]
From there to Bethsaida, a fishing village
at the north end of the lake by the mouth of the Jordan, it was a few hours'
journey by boat.
There it was, doubtless, that Jesus met Philip who, like Simon
and Andrew, belonged to Bethsaida.
Philip is called by Jesus, and he obeys
the call with such enthusiastic conviction that he starts his apostolic work
immediately by calling upon Nathanael to acknowledge Jesus of Nazareth, the
son of Joseph, as the Messiah.
The expression 'son of Joseph' comes naturally
to his lips, for he, like everyone else, knows nothing of the divine origin
of Jesus.
And such a designation is not without interest, for it serves to
show that we are getting near the little country where Jesus was brought up
and where everybody knows everybody else.
Nathanael also was of that district,
coming from Cana [John xxi.2.], which was not far
from Nazareth.
Cana is almost certainly
the modern village of Kefr Kenna, about five miles from Nazareth;
we have
this on the authority of an ancient tradition reported by St. Jerome.
Certainly
the village is of great antiquity, for an Aramaic inscription has been discovered
there in its original position.
But neighbours are not always the most charitable of people:
the people of
Thebes, for instance, owed their reputation for clumsiness chiefly to their
neighbours at Athens.
Thus Nathanael's answer to Philip is the objection:
'Can anything good come from Nazareth?'
[Cf. John i.46.]
Eventually,
however, he yields to his friend's entreaties;
whereupon he learns that Jesus
has the power of reading the secrets of the heart, though He shows no resentment
at Nathanael's scepticism, as He indicates by the words:
'Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile.'
But Nathanael's misgivings are not yet banished, for it is easy to pay compliments.
'Whence knowest Thou me? '
he asks.
Jesus replies:
'Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.'
We might feel tempted to ask what he was
doing under the fig tree.
But it was surely nothing reprehensible since Jesus
calls him a good Israelite.
Was he dreaming of the redemption of Israel?
At any rate, amazed by this power which Jesus showed of seeing what was hidden,
Nathanael cries out:
'Rabbi! Thou art the Son of God:
Thou art the King of Israel.'
He meant to say that Jesus was the Messiah:
but this time, instead
of being too hesitant he goes too fast, as Jesus gives him to understand.
Turning to His first friends who are standing by,
Jesus says:
'Amen, amen, I say to you:
you shall see the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.'
Everyone in Israel knew how at Bethel Jacob had seen a vision of a ladder reaching up to heaven with angels going up and down [Cf. Genesis xxviii.10-17.], a pledge to the traveller that God would be with him:
'Neither will I leave thee till I shall have accomplished all that I have said.'
Jesus declared that God's promise to the
patriarch would be fulfilled in His own case also;
and the truth of this would
be so manifest that the sight of what Jesus was to accomplish would convince
His disciples of the divinity of His mission.
This conviction would not be
a mere short-lived belief produced by surprise at what He was to do:
it would
be a conviction based on the evidence of His supernatural works.
This conversation, then, was of great significance, and we can understand why
it is that the evangelist has made it the starting point of a period of three
days, at the end of which we find ourselves at Cana, the home of Nathanael.
[John makes no mention of Bartholomew, always associated with Philip in the
synoptic gospels.
But it is most probable that he is the same as Nathanael
and bore both names.
Indeed the commentator Ichodad, who flourished in the
middle of the ninth century, takes this for certain.]
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The marriage-feast at Cana (26).
John ii.1-11. [Cana = modern Kafr kanna]
The narrative leads us to think that Nathanael conducted his friends to his
native village of Cana for a wedding-feast In which he had some concern.
Among
those friends Jesus was doubtless also included since we find that His Mother
had been invited.
There is no authority, however, for supposing that Nathanael
himself was the bridegroom, still less for concluding that it was John the
son of Zebedee, the author of the gospel.
These are only unprofitable conjectures,
and modern historians of the life of Christ take scarcely any notice of them.
It seems to be suggested by the evangelist that Mary had come from Nazareth
to Cana, having been invited beforehand, and was there met by her Son.
As
He had been detained on his way home with His disciples He could not be invited
until it was heard that He had returned.
St. John relates very few miracles, only seven in all;
but he has been careful
to give a very special prominence to the first of them.
The presence of
Jesus at a wedding-feast is of itself very significant.
More than once in
the history of the Church has the false zeal of heretics striven to banish
marriage from the Christian life;
such heretics took the name of Cathari
or 'the pure.'
But orthodox Christians found no difficulty in taxing them
with heresy, seeing that Christ had given divine approval to the lawful union
of liusband and wife by His presence at Cana.
And there are many others in
our own day, far more numerous than the heretics of old, who want to abolish
what they style the untiquated institution of marriage;
they too are faced
with the example of the wise and zealous prophet, Jesus of Nazareth.
He
chose to take part in the rejoicings of a wedding-feast because, in God's
name, it consecrates that common life embarked upon by two individuals who
love one another, a common life in which they take upon themselves the obligation
that devolves on parents of bringing Up well the children given them by God.
Marriage is an occasion for rejoicing among people of all races and times.
In Israel [Judges xiv.10.], as in all other places,
the principal festivity was
a feast at which the two families, formerly not acquainted with one another,
sat down together.
The Hebrew name for the feast is the same as that for
a drinking-party (but without the connotation generally attached to that
expression), for wine serves as a bond of friendship when used in moderation
to rejoice the heart of man.
Galilee was a land of vineyards almost as much
as Judaea.
At the wedding-feast of Cana the wine ran short, though the hosts must have
saved it up in preparation for a long time before.
This may have been due to
the fact that more guests arrived than had been expected.
Seated at the table
near her Son, Mary was foremost in noticing the embarrassment, and sure that
He shared her feeling, she turned to Him in her pity and said simply: 'They
have no wine.'
It was a request of extreme gentleness, and could hardly be
called a suggestion, much less the expression of a wish.
Hence there seemed
nothing to call for a direct refusal in case Jesus did not agree.
Nevertheless
He does refuse to accede to this touching suggestion,
and replies:
'Woman, what is that to thee and to Me?
My hour is not yet come.'
[John ii.4.]
Which of us would
address his mother as 'Woman!'?
But the word in Hebrew usage, and even
when translated into Greek, is expressive of honour:
far from having the air
of unbecoming familiarity, it has rather the character of solemnity.
Thus we
find Eliezer addressing the mother of Rebecca.
[Cf. Josephus, Antiquities, I, xvi, 3; and Dion
Cassius, LI, 12, etc.]
And the reply as a whole has
to be interpreted by Semitic usage, for this expression:
'What is that to
thee and to me? ' is of frequent use among the Semites and has a clearly defined
meaning.
[It is gradually being admitted that an Aramaic source lies
behind our fourth gospel, especially with regard to the sayings it contains.]
Were we to consider the Greek alone we should be inclined to translate
the words as meaning:
'What is there between thee and me?' [As Fillion has done.]
Not only would
that be very harsh, but, if we consider the relations between a son and his
mother or the circumstances of this situation, where there is no occasion for
a family quarrel, such a translation would be absolutely meaningless.
Moreover,
even to this day the Palestinian Arabs constantly use the word malesh, meaning
'What to thee?',
when they wish to say something equivalent to our 'Don't
worry!', or the more colloquial 'Never mind!'
All that Jesus says, therefore, to His Mother is that there is no occasion
for either of them to intervene in the matter;
to do so would cause a sensation, and the time has not yet arrived
for Him to draw attention to Himself.
It was not His intention to appear on
the scene until the Baptist had finished his mission, as we shall see later
on.
But, strange as it may seem, Mary, probably reading His looks rather
than His words, understands that because of her request His first intention
is to be somewhat modified.
Expecting something out of the ordinary, she says
to the waiters:
'Whatsoever He shall say to you, do ye.'
Six great vessels of stone stood there, just like many that h.ive been discovered
near to springs or wells in Palestine, of the sort that could easily serve
when the Jews were performing their ritual ablutions.
At a word from Jesus
lliese vessels were filled up with water, and the water became wine.
Such was
the circumspection with which the miracle was performed that the steward,
whom his duties kept in the room where the guests were drinking, was at first
unaware of what had taken place.
But concealment was impossible and the disciples
learnt of it.
Thus was the glory of Jesus made manifest;
His true glory was
still invisible, but it shone through these deeds of divine origin.
Thereafter
the disciples believe in Him, not now merely as a Teacher of doctrine but as
One in whom is deposited the power of God. It is the miracle which has just
taken place that decides them:
Jesus has power over the elements.
But they
must be still more amazed by His gooness.
This Son, who has the
power of determining the hour of his own destiny, does not disdain to
anticipate that hour out of reverence for His Mother.
Doubtless some might
think that it was a waste of divine power to use it thus for so trifling
a cause.
But surely men have no ground for complaint if God, in His condescension,
is so kind as to grant them a favour even for the satisfaction of their material
needs.
John's former disciples, at any rate, find in this incident a higher
lesson than that, seeing in the miracle a figure of that great transformation
which was to be brought about by the Messiah. In the water changed Into the
wine of healing and strengthening could they not see a figure of John's
baptism transformed into baptism by the Spirit?
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Jesus at Capharnaum (27).
John ii.12. [Capernaum | Capharnaum = modern Kefer Nahum]
The only incident recorded by the evangelist between the wedding-feast at
Cana and the Pasch at Jerusalem is a visit by Jesus to Capharnaum.
It is likely
enough, however, that during this time He had gone back to Nazareth, especially
as it is only in passing that He calls at Capharnaum with His Mother, His brethren,
and His disciples.
As for these brethren of Jesus, it has been the constant
belief of Christian tradition that they were not the children of Mary, who
remained always a virgin.
Later on we shall find them mentioned again in connection
with Nazareth.
Here the evangelist has no intention of suggesting that they
put themselves at the head of Jesus' disciples;
on the contrary, we find later
how little belief they have in Him. [John vii.5.]
But for the moment as He has not yet declared
Himself to be the Messiah, their old relations with Him remain unaltered.
The
circumstances of the narrative indicate that the group is on a journey rather
than definitely settled in a fixed place:
and, indeed, Gapharnaum was a natural place of call for Galileans on their
way to Jerusalem, for few were desirous of going by way of Samaria.
Perhaps,
too, we might conclude from St. John's very brief notice of the visit that
Peter, Andrew, and Philip, who came from Bethsaida, had arranged to meet the
rest at Capharnaum.
We must allow of a certain lapse of time between the baptism of Jesus and
the Pasch, for it is hardly likely that He would have returned to Galilee merely
for a few days;
nor can we suppose that the fishermen of Bethsaida had already forsaken their
nets so as to be permanently with Jesus.
The evangelist passes from one incident
to another like a giant who marches along by stepping from one hill-top to
another.
It is left for us to fill in the silences where necessary if we wish
to form such a complete narrative of the events as is postulated by the bird's-eye
view left us by the evangelist.
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Jesus drives the traders out of the Temple (28-29).
John ii.13-22; Luke xix.45-46; Mark xi.15-17; Matthew xxi.12-13.
St. John tells us that Jesus went down to Capharnaum, and he goes
on to say with equal accuracy that He went up to Jerusalem. The Pasch was near
at hand, and it was the duty of every Israelite to appear before the Lord
to offer vows and sacrifices in the Temple where God had His chosen
dwelling-place.
From every quarter of the Holy
Land went groups of people, driving before them flocks of sheep destined
to provide the paschal lamb.
Some even drove bulls and heifers intended for more costly sacrifices;
for many Jews also came to Jerusalem from the great cities of the Roman
world, such as Antioch and Alexandria, Cyrene and Rome itself, some
of whom were very rich and desired to offer numbers of cattle in public sacrifice
for Caear's preservation, hoping by this means to ingratiate ilicmselves
with him.
It was necessary, therefore, to have ready a large number of cattle,
great and small, for sale to these strangers who bought what they required
on the spot, applying to the money-changers for the necessary currency;
from these also they obtained the Jewish half-shekel which the Law ordered
to be paid by all as the sacred tax.
All this trafficking was carried on within the Temple.
We, who are accustomed
to look upon our churches as God's own house,
where we are admitted
to intimacy with Him,
find it difficult to tolerate traders even at the doors
of the church.
But we are to observe, however, that the actual Holy Place
or sanctuary (ναός) of the God of Israel was strictly reserved to God Himself
and the few priests who went in from time to time to fulfil their duties.
But
the name of Temple (ἱερόν, sacred place) was extended to include also
the courts which surrounded the Holy Place, these courts in their turn
being encircled by an enormous wall.
The whole composed what was called 'the house of God.'
It was in these courts
that were crowded together (he herds of oxen and flocks of sheep, along with
the sellers of doves and the money-changers,
seated at little tables like writing-desks on which lay glittering heaps of
gold and silver roin.
Moslems who have made the pilgrimage to Mecca and
have seen the tremendous haram or enclosure with the famous black stone housed
in its centre would be more at home than we in such a scene as that just
described.
The Moslem, clamouring for a lower price when being shamefully
exploited by the sellers of the sacrificial sheep at Mecca, furnishes us
with a picture to the life of the Jewish contemporaries of Jesus.
How could
anyone pray in such an uproar?
How could he offer to the Lord with a contented
mind the gifts which had been bought with such haggling?
Nor were the imperfections
of the faithful made up for by the priests,
who alone were licensed to slay
the victim,
when the priests also calculated how much profit each victim
would bring to them.
Jesus cannot tolerate such profanation.
With no other authority than that
conferred upon Him by His title of Son,
He determines that the house of His
Father shall no longer be a market.
Arming Himself with a whip made of cords
hastily gathered together in His hand,
He drives them all out -
and they are
so quick to take flight that He reaches only the laggards of the crowd that
runs before Him -
overturning the tables left there by the moneychangers with
their heaps of small coinage.
So quickly did He go about it that His disciples, amazed to begin with, never
thought of helping Him.
When they came to think of it afterwards, perhaps very
long afterwards, they saw the meaning of His zeal and bethought themselves
of what the Scriptures said concerning zeal for the house of God:
'The zeal of Thy house hath eaten Me up.'
[Psalm Ixviii [Heb. lxix].10.]
These words of the psalmist were very applicable
to Jesus,
who, like Elias before Him [3 Kings (1 Kgs) xix.10.],
was consumed with zeal,
and like Elias
He had a foreboding that this zeal would cost Him dear.
In fact the Jews -
it
was those influential and suspicious Jews whom we have already seen interfering
with the Baptist -
demand of Jesus some sign of His authority in thus upsetting
the established order.
He replies:
'Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.'
As we shall soon
see, He was already working miracles,
but He does not now quote these as His
authority.
He remains true to the biblical tradition [Exodus iii.12;
Isaias vii.10 ff.; xxxvii.30.] according to which the
sign put forward by God or by His prophet is some future event which must be
believed now.
This type of sign still leaves room for faith and trust in God:
God who has time on His side, and in whose hands lies the future.
But we have to confess that this reply of Jesus was obscure;
even
the disciples failed to understand it at the nine and, indeed, did not see
its meaning until the resurrection of Jesus had provided them with
the key.
The Master, however, was fully entitled to give an enigmatic mswer
to these Jewish rabbis who laid such claims to subtlety:
or, rather, He
had already settled that His resurrection
was to be the principal sign of His authority and mission.
Understanding would
come in due time.
And the enigmatic form of His answer preserved for us by
the evangelist guarantees the fact that later events were not responsible
for putting this prophecy on the lips of Jesus;
that is to say neither were the facts of the fulfilment copied from the
prophecy, nor was the prophecy made up afterwards when the death and resurrection
of Jesus had already taken place.
The scene took place in the Temple,
and the comparison is borrowed from the Temple:
'Destroy this Temple,
and in three days I will raise it up.'
But He was speaking of the temple that was His body, says the evangelist, who perceived this fact only long afterwards.
The Jews, however, look for no mystery in the reply and are only too quick to see absurdity in it:
'Six and forty years was this Temple in building,
and wilt Thou raise it up in three days? '
Further discussion, they thought,
was useless.
Ordinary sensible people had grown accustomed to the wild
follies of the Zealots:
was it possible that Jesus belonged to that desperate
band?
So the leaders of the prople leave their enquiries for the time being,
but with the determination to keep Jesus under observation.
When the Jews spoke
of the six-and-forty years spent in building the Temple they had in mind
the building operations set on foot by Herod the Great in the eighteenth
year of his reign [Josephus, Antiquities, XV, xi,
i.], and still incomplete.
The workmen were not discharged
until the procuratorship of Albinus [Ibid., XX, ix, 7.] in
AD 63.
THis detail of the gospel
narrative, set down apparently without design, provides a very useful means
of dating the present event.
Herod's eighteenth year corresponds with
the year 20-19 BC;
forty-six years from that date brings us to the year
AD 27-28.
That would be the fifteenth year of Tiberius,
the date given
by the gospel for the beginning
of John the Baptist's preaching.
[Cf. Lagrange, Comm. on St. Luke iii, I.]
And if his preaching began at the commencement
of the fifteenth year of Tiberius,
that is to say in October or November,
therefore, seeing that Jesus was baptized in January according to liturgical
tradition,
the Pasch of which the evangelist here speaks must be that of
the year AD 28.
The three synoptists have put the expulsion of the traders from the Temple
during the Pasch which immediately preceded the Passion;
and this seems to
be demanded by their plan for they mention but that one Pasch.
The fourth gospel,
however, goes into greater detail.
Still, the main thing is what Jesus did
rather than when He did it, and its significance remains whatever be the date
of its occurrence.
The Son of God in the house of His Father breaks out into
a spontaneous burst of zeal, because He cannot endure to see the holiness of
the place so profaned.
But the Temple is His own house also.
True, He had been
there before but that was at the beginning of His career.
His coming there
was the coming of God;
as Malachias, the last of the prophets, proclaims:
'Behold I am about to send My messenger,
and he shall clear the way before Me;
and immediately the Lord shall come to His Temple,
the Lord for whom you long and the angel of the covenant whom you desire.
Behold He cometh, and who shall endure the day of His coming,
and who shall be able to stand before Him?'
[Malachias iii.1-2; translation of Van Hoonacker.]
First was to come the forerunner and after Him the angel of the covenant,
the Messiah, who is the Lord Himself.
top
Discussion with Nicodemus (30).
John ii.23-iii.15.
[It looks very much as though this scene is out of place
and as if it ought to come during the last Pasch of Jesus.
We read in v.23 that Jesus works many miracles,
while further on (iv.54) John speaks of his second miracle.
Again, the teaching about the way in which the Son of Man is to be lifted up
appears again during the last Pasch (xii.31 ff.).
Further, ancient gospel harmonies such as the Diatessaron of Tatian and that
of the Codex Fuldensis place the discussion after Christ's last entry into Jerusalem.
But the evangelist has quite deliberately placed it thus early (cf. vii.50):
he means it to provide an explanation of that baptism with the Spirit which shows
the pre-eminence of Jesus over John the Baptist.]
Many believed in the name of Jesus because of the miracles He worked during
His sojourn at Jerusalem.
But the Scribes, who were the teachers of the Law, were less ready than
the humbler folk to surrender themselves to Him.
Faith is easier where there
is docility of mind, and that it is not so easy to find in those whose business
it is to teach others.
Nevertheless, some of them felt disquieted, wondering
whether they were not resisting a voice from heaven.
At any rate, they felt
bound to make enquiries:
They did not wish to give a rash assent to His teaching, but at the same
time they were unwilling to condemn Him unheard.
But the step was a delicate
one, for the religious leaders of the people had been ill-disposed towards
Jesus since He had been guilty of what they considered an act of foolish zeal.
To take this man seriously would only be lo compromise one's self;
hence Nicodemus,
one of these Jewish rabbis, came to Jesus by night.
He was evidently a man of good will, but, as is often the rase with those
who are considered to be very intelligent, he finds it difficult to make
up his mind through the very habit of weighing the pros and cons and of considering
all the probabilities of the case.
He was lacking in the natural impulse
of simple souls towards the mysteries which satisfy the cravings of the
human heart.
Most of all is he afraid of being taken in by grand words for
which he cannot find a reasonable meaning.
There is hence a brusque tone
ubout the conversation.
But it is impossible for us here to romment on it word
by word;
it lasted part of the night, though only its general theme has been
preserved for us.
But that theme shines luminous in the darkness.
It was Jesus' method to discuss subjects of deep import with the Jerusalem
rabbis, while in Galilee He adapted His teaching to the simple capacity of
the country folk.
Thus He opens before the gaze of Nicodemus a view which reaches
right up into heaven, but He shows him only the things which have a relation
with man's salvation.
The first step necessary for entrance into the kingdom
of God is to be born again or to be born from on high:
the Greek word used
by St. John will stand either meaning.
There was much for Nicodemus to be surprised
at here, for the Old Testament said nothing about this.
It is true that
the Idea is to be found in the writings of Philo, the Alexandrine Jew who was
living at this time, but it is hardly likely that the philosophical speculations
of the Alexandrine Jews had reached as far as Judsea.
Philo was desirous
of attracting
the attention of educated Gentiles to the Law of Moses.
He spoke of a rebirth
that was to come, by which he meant that the soul left the body at death
in order to be born again;
that is to say, it became a being endowed with
simplicity, no longer joined with a body;
and the soul in that state required
no mother, having a Father only, and that Father was its Creator.
[Quaet. in Exod., II, 46; cf. De Vita Moysis,
II, 288.]
But Philo
had no notion of the new birth spoken of by Jesus, who meant such a transformation
of our very inward being, even while the soul was still united with the body,
that it could aptly be called a new life altogether.
The cause of this rebirth
was the Holy Ghost;
the waters of baptism were the means to it.
John the
Baptist had pointed to such a baptism as the special work of the Messiah.
When this point was reached it was time for Nicodemus to begin at least to
understand, for had not the prophets spoken of the days when the Spirit of
God should be poured out in order to change men's hearts and make them docile
and pure?
'O God! '
the psalmist had cried,
'create in me a clean heart
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from Thy face
and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me.'
[Psalm l [Heb. li].12 ff.; cf. Ezechiel xi.19; xxxvi.26 ff.]
The transformation brought about by this rebirth, though deep within us and
spiritual in character, is none the less real.
The spirit is like the wind,
invisible but none the less active.
We find Socrates, the first of the Greek
philosophers to insist expressly on the real existence of spiritual beings,
employing a similar comparison:
'The winds themselves are not seen,
though we see the effects which they produce and we feel them when they blow.'
[Xenophon, Memorabilia, IV, iii, 14.]
So
it is with spiritual things like the soul whose reality can be grasped by the
mind alone.
Jesus, however, was referring to a supernatural effect produced
by the Holy Ghost in the souls of men, such as cannot be perceived by natural
reason alone.
But as the Spirit is quite free to do what He wills He can make
Himself felt when it so pleases Him, even though we do not clearly know whence
He comes and whither He goes:
that is, we do not clearly understand what He
has in view.
So it is in the case of men quickened by Him, born of the Spirit:
we see the
working of the Spirit in them though we do not see Him.
Since the action of
the Spirit
is supernatural
it follows that none can rightly teach us iliriit it but
He who is familiar with heavenly things.
Jesus declares that He Himself is
the revealer:
He knows these secrets for He has come down from heaven.
But
He reveals only such heavenly secrets as are connected with the things
of earth;
that is to say, He teaches what things a man must believe if he
wishes to be saved.
If baptism is to merit the name of rebirth it must be preceded by
a sort of death.
To be reborn in a mystical fashion a man must really die,
though not by a death that consists in the separation of body and
soul.
The new life of the Christian, which he will live while continuing his
existence on this earth, is to be the beginning of a life that is divine preceded
by a mystical death, a death brought about by union through faith with the
death of Christ.
St. Paul was to explain this more fully in the time to come;
all that Jesus does at present is to give Nicodemus a glimpse of the fate
that awaited the Son of Man, who is no other than Jesus Himself,
the Revealer.
He must be lifted up.
This might be thought to signify His
return to heaven whence He has come;
but no:
He is to be lifted up like the
brazen serpent in the desert, fastened to a stake:
'Whoever being struck (by a serpent) shall look upon it,
he shall live,'
[Numbers xxi.8.]
provided, however, that
he puts his trust in God who has willed to heal him by this sign.
So,
when the Son of Man is lifted up in that manner -
by this was meant the Crucifixion -
eternal
life shall be to them that believe in Him.
These different stages of the supernatural life, hitherto unknown to men, were
thus revealed to Nicodemus:
birth by means of baptism and the Holy Ghost,
along with belief in Him who has come down from heaven,
these things lead men
to life with God.
But this was only to sow the first seed in the mind of one
who was Himself a teacher.
Nicodemus was a master in Israel,
and it was his
business to try to fathom these words and to ask for further enlightenment
if he did not fully understand.
He held his peace:
Perhaps dawn was now breaking and he did not wish to be seen by others.
Everything,
however, points to the conclusion that on this night light began to dawn upon
him.
The evangelist evidently sees in this discussion with Nicodemus a welding
of the New Testament on to the Old by means of the doctrine of the Spirit.
Was it not while
speaking to Nicodemus of the Spirit that Jesus had said to him:
'Art thou a master in Israel,
and knowest not these things?'
Jesus was conscious
of borrowing from no other source than the Scriptures.
Was it not from Israel,
through the revelation given to John the Baptist, that had come knowledge
about the Spirit bestowed at baptism?
Based, then, on these foundations,
the mystery of spiritual birth and spiritual life was revealed by the authority
of the Son of Man, from that time forward the Author of our faith.
But there are many critics of the gospel who declare as a certainty that the
doctrine of baptismal rebirth or regeneration has been borrowed from the pagan
mystery religions.
It is a mere commonplace among scholars of the science of
comparative religions that the rite of initiation into these mysteries was
held to be a regeneration, a birth into a new and divine life.
No one, however,
ventures to pretend that this was the meaning of initiation into the ancient
Greek mysteries, for they had so little connection with any question of moral
betterment that Socrates refused to be initiated precisely on that account.
And it is hardly likely that the comparison of initiation to moral reformation
originated in the mystery religions of the East.
The principal of these were
the mysteries of Cybele and of Attis, and they were of so vile a character
that for a long time the authorities were reluctant to countenance them in
Rome.
These scholars ought to take account of the unquestionable fact that, in theory
at least, the morality of the ancient philosophers was of a higher order than
that of the pagan religious sanctuaries:
and if any notion of a better life
attached to initiation this was due to the influence of philosophy.
Instead
of borrowing from the mystery religions Seneca led the way for them when he
described the change wrought in himself due to a sudden strong resolution.
[Seneca, Epist. IV:
'Intellego, Lucili, non emendari me tantum sed transfigurari.
I feel myself not merely changed but transformed.'
What was changed was his resolve;
he understands what a lot there is for him to do:
nec hoc promitto jam aut spero, nihil in me superesse quod mutandum sit.
He would like to explain this sudden change to Lucilius:
tam subitam mutationem, but he cannot.
All this is merely the reflections of a philosopher and has nothing to do with
the mysteries.]
And though he calls it a transfiguration or transformation, there is nothing
to be surprised at in his use of this word considering how much talk there
was at the time about the process of metamorphosis;
the word transfiguration
in his mouth has nothing of the sublime meaning attached to it since the Transfiguration
of Christ.
About the beginning of the Roman Empire those mystery rites, by
which it was intended that certain privileged persons should be brought into
union with the deities whose business it was thenceforward to take care of
their welfare, were also given the signification of moral renovation;
but
again this was due to the influence of the philosophers.
These rites represented
the initiated person joining the society of the goddesses after death;
thus
initiation had come to be looked on as a sort of rebirth following upon death.
But no mention of this has been discovered, in spite of the most persistent
research, in any writing earlier than that of Apuleius, dating from about
AD 150;
[Metamorphoses, XI, 6.
The people cry:
'Hunc omnipotentis hodie deae numen augustum reformavit ad homines (has
restored him to his human form):
felix hercules et ter beatus qui vitae scilicet praecedentis innocentia
fideque meruerit tam praeclarum de caelo patrocinium, ut renatus quodam modo
statim sacrorum obsequio despoderetur.']
and there, in a work that shocks even those who make no claim
to moral fastidiousness, we find only a meagre resemblance between its doctrine
of regeneration and the mystical reality of rebirth which is represented
by the New Testament in so clear and definite a manner.
In fact the only
intention of the pagan author has been to give an air of charm to his grossness
by clothing it in the deceptive garb of a false mysticism.
Far from the expression 'born anew ' or 'reborn ' being reserved to denote
the state of a person after initiation, we find that Apuleius first uses it
of the occasion when his hero, having been changed by metamorphosis into
an ass, is by the favour of Isis changed back into human form. [Ibid.,
XI, 16.]
He speaks
of him as now 'in some sort born anew' although he has not yet received the
rite of initiation:
he is merely betrothed, as it were, to the service of
the sanctuary -
a new metaphor which Apuleius considers as appropriate as the
former one.
When at last he is initiated he is again 'in some sort born anew,'
and it is here that the author explains the comparison. [Metamorphoses,
XI, 21.]
At the moment
when the mysteries are revealed to the one being initiated he is considered
to be standing at the gates of death:
he is dead by a sort of fiction, and
it is for this reason that it is safe to entrust him with the secret, for the
dead speak no more.
But at the same time, and by a similar fiction, he is considered
to be saved from death by the mercy of the goddess.
Nevertheless this salvation
or restoration to health is of an uncertain nature, says Apuleius;
it lasts
but a moment, and hence the initiated one must run the race of salvation
all over again.
In all this we see the manner in which this African writer,
fifty years later than St. John's gospel, fumbles about until at last he
finds suitable words to express his meaning:
the man who again receives his human form after having been changed into an
ass is, as it were, born again, and so is the man who is considered to be
dead as a preliminary to initiation.
Moreover, Apuleius is speaking only of the
mysteries of lsis;
there is no sign of the use of this expression at so early
a date in the other mystery rites.
It is also to be particularly observed that in St. John
the comparison denoted
by the expression 'born again,'
an expression which is so clearly defined
and reappears more than once in the pages of the New Testament [Titus
iii.5; I Peter i.3; I John iii.],
is a comparison
between two different forms of life,
the life of this world and that spiritual
life which is divine.
To those who are of the faith it is evident that the
latter form of life is necessarily more perfect than the other;
but of this
there is no sign in the mystery religions.
No promise is there made that the
one who is initiated will receive a new share of divine being;
the mysteries
merely consecrate him to the tutelary deities.
Not even by way of metaphor
does Apuleius say that initiation turns this hero Lucius into the goddess's
son:
Lucius is, and remains, the son of the priest who accepts him as partner
in the service of the goddess, the mistress of them both.
In conclusion, then, we may say that a doctrine like that of the gospel,
so definite and so rich,
with such well-defined origins and such immense fruits,
cannot be explained by making it dependent on a number of vague symbolic rites,
unconnected with one another and unproductive of any fruit in the form of spiritual
life.
That is the essential thing, the life of the spirit, and it was a thing
unknown to the mystery religions:
the teaching and the death of Jesus have
revealed it.
There is matter for nothing but mere literary curiosity in the
similarity of metaphorical expressions found in writings which owe their origin
to such different principles as the religion of Christ and the mystery religions.
top
The Baptist's last witness to Jesus (32).
St. John, the only one of the evangelists to tell us what Jesus did before
officially commencing His ministry of preaching, now says that He came into
the land of Juda along with His first disciples.
As a matter of fact He was
already in Judaea, since He was at Jerusalem, its capital;
but now we find Him going to some unnamed place in that country.
As He baptized
in that place it must have been somewhere in the Jordan valley,
not far from
the spot given by the evangelist as the scene of the first baptisms;
otherwise
St. John would surely have told us that it was a different place.
But it was
John who had gone to another place, as the gospel expressly states:
'he was
baptizing at Ennon, near Salim.'
Ennon or Ainon, according to an
ancient tradition, preserved for us by Eusebius who was Bishop of
Caesarea in Palestine at the beginning of the fourth century, was about eight
miles south of Scythopolis, the modern Beisan.
In that neighbourhood are
still to be seen a number of pools, natural or artificial, particularly
near ed-Deir, where the ruins of a Byzantine church doubtless mark
the site of Ennon. [Cf. Revue Biblique, 1895, pp.
506 ff., and 1913, p. 223.]
Ainon, in the Aramaic tongue poken by Jesus, signifies 'fountains.'
A place now called Tell-Sarem, about four miles to the north, evidently
represents
the name of Salem.
We have here a sign of the care shown by the evangelist
to establish his facts.
John and Jesus could not have been very far apart, for we are told that
John's disciples took offence when they heard what the disciples of Jesus
were doing.
[It is surprising to find M. Fouard supposing that Jesus
is now in Idumaea.
He relies for that on Mark iii.8.]
With singular simplicity the evangelist first of all says that Jesus was
baptizing, and then proceeds to correct it by saying that it was not
He but His disciples who did the baptizing. [Cf. iii.22
and iv.2.]
He clearly relies on the intelligence
of the reader to seize his meaning which, after all, is plain enough;
in other
words, Jesus
merely by His presence allowed or authorized others to baptize, although
He Himself did not administer baptism.
This is enough to suggest to a reader
of intelligence
that the baptism which Jesus was to give, that is baptism with the Holy Ghost,
has not yet been inaugurated.
Baptism with the Spirit clearly supposes the
gift of the Spirit, and the Spirit had not yet been bestowed; [John
vii.39.]
nor could
baptism mean initiation into a new life before the Christian had been united
to Christ's death on the cross.
It is not difficult to gather what the author of the fourth gospel wishes
to convey by means of these allusions which, though not very explicit, are
still perfectly coherent.
If Jesus had already instituted His baptism in the
Spirit then there would have been no occasion for John to go on administering
his own type of baptism.
Yet in fact John was not to lay down the mission he
had received until the Messiah gave him the sign to do so;
he showed no dissatisfaction,
however, when he saw some of his disciples turning towards Jesus.
As for Jesus
Himself, at present He left His own disciples free to gather together such
new recruits as showed themselves disposed to learn His teaching and willing
to become disciples themselves when He should call them to follow Him.
Such
must have been the character of this transitional stage of the gospel history.
The author of the fourth gospel is often accused of substituting a Divine Word
of transcendent character in place of the altogether human Jesus depicted for
us by the synoptists:
yet it is he who has preserved for us this picture of
Jesus following a course of action which, though it can hardly be called tentative
because it is so consistent, yet conveys at least an atmosphere of caution.
At any rate, there is nothing of brilliant display about it.
But in spite
of the way in which Jesus refrained from beginning more completely his own
mission,
in spite of the humble docility with which the Baptist awaited
the sign for his own to cease,
a clash arose owing to certain remarks made
by one of the Jews on the subject of purification,
remarks which the disciples
of John could not tolerate.
We cannot be sure whether the question was about
the ceremony of baptism or about the reason of those ceremonial purifications
to which the Jews thought themselves obliged.
This Jew made a show of zeal
and claimed to speak on behalf of Jesus, though in truth he had not understood
what was the spirit of Jesus.
But at any rate John's disciples hold Jesus responsible,
seeing in Him one who has put Himself up as a rival of their master
and has been guilty of the fault of drawing to Himself more followers than
John.
It seemed to them ungrateful on His part to draw followers from the very
man who had borne witness to Him.
It is the very loyalty of John's disciples
which leads them astray.
But if John, being only the forerunner of the Messiah,
had borne
witness to Him,
was that not a sign that he was ready lo confine himself
to the part that had been committed to him by God?
They do not recognize
their master's true greatness.
That zealous soul, with his austere but loving
heart, could not rest content with a mere melancholy resignation at having
to give way before Jesus.
His own decline makes him thrill with joy, for
after all is he not the I'rlcnd of the Bridegroom?
Now that he has heard
the voice of the Bridegroom his soul overflows with gladness.
Painted as it were with one stroke of the brush, but a stroke inspired with
divine love, there is here presented to us the picture of the Divine Bridegroom
joined to a mysterious bride in a marriage that outstrips description.
In
the past God had testified to His love for Israel, likening His covenant with
her to a betrothal that should be followed by an everlasting union.
But the
virgin daughter of Juda, chosen out of thousands, had proved herself unfaithful;
the tender-hearted prophet Osee had felt in his heart and even in his
flesh the sorrow of the Heavenly Bridegroom who had been betrayed by her.
God
had repudiated the guilty woman.
What, then, is the meaning of this new marriage
bond?
Is it now the human race that the Messiah seeks to wed?
John the Baptist
does not say, and perhaps he does not know;
all he knows is that the Bridegroom
is here and that he is the friend of the Bridegroom.
All attention, therefore,
must be fixed on the Bridegroom, and John joyfully withdraws into the background.
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