REESE LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 */yiaSb u / 
 
 - Accessions No. leffl^ /. 
 
 CA/s.s No. 
 
JESUS AS A TEACHER 
 
 AND 
 
 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
 
 BY 
 
 B. A. H1NSDALE. 
 \\ 
 
 CMETHE ^N 
 
 (XTNIVERSITT) 
 
 ST. Louis: 
 CHRISTIAN PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 
 1895. 
 
COPYRIGHTED, 895, 
 
 by 
 CHRISTIAN PUBLISHING COMPANY. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 PURSUING, as I have done for many years, the practice of 
 the Art of Teaching, I have naturally been led to study this art 
 on its reflective side, and also the related science of teaching, 
 together with the history of education . This has been particu- 
 larly true since, several years ago, it became my professional 
 duty to teach these subjects. My studies in the historical field 
 have embraced, not merely educational doctrine, or pedagogical 
 subject -matter, but also educational method and spirit as illus- 
 trated by some of the great teachers of the world Long ago I 
 had given incidental attention to these last -mentioned elements 
 in Jesus of Nazareth , while studying His lessons ; but now I 
 came to study Him distinctly from the professional point of view. 
 I found myself at a loss which to admire most, what He taught 
 or how He taught it. In time I began to write on the subject, 
 and soon what I had written took the form of a series of articles 
 bearing the title, JESUS AS A TEACHER, which appeared in ' 'The 
 Christian - E vangelist. " My original purpose was to put the 
 formal elements in the foreground, and to use doctrine only for 
 the sake of illustration ; and if, as time wore on, the relation of 
 the two factors began somewhat to change , the reader will have 
 no difficulty in discovering the reason why. However, when 
 the series was finished the formal, art, or professional side had 
 received the emphasis. Methods of teaching depend intimately 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 upon the matter taught ; more than once I have had occasion to 
 remark that the teacher of science or philosophy, mathematics 
 or history, could not possibly handle his subjects as Jesus handled 
 His spiritual lessons ; while I may now observe that it is impos- 
 sible to keep the lessons of Jesus out of sight while dealing with 
 Him as a professional teacher. The series of chapters that give 
 this book its leading title are largely composed of these earlier 
 articles. At the same time, they have all been thoroughly 
 reorganized and revised ; considerable additions have been made 
 to nearly all of them, while many new topics have been intro- 
 duced. The chapter entitled, "How Jesus used the Scrip- 
 tures," as well as considerable portions of the one called 
 ' ' The Education of Jesus , ' ' appeared in nearly the same form 
 as here in ' ' The New Christian Quarterly. ' ' 
 
 To the leading series of chapters, a second one has been added 
 on a somewhat related theme : THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTA- 
 MENT. These chapters are a reproduction , with the necessary 
 revision and enlargement, of a series of articles bearing the 
 same title that appeared in ' ' The Disciple of Christ ' ' in 1884. 
 That publication is not now living, but the thanks of the author 
 are tendered to its publishers for permission to use these 
 articles for the present purpose. The object and point of view 
 of this second series of chapters are adequately stated in the 
 introduction. 
 
 It may not be amiss to state that neither of the works making 
 up this volume (if works they may be called) is, or pretends to 
 be, a treatise on its subject. The reader will form the truest 
 conception of the first one when he regards it as composed of a 
 series of studies, more or less imperfect and disconnected, deal- 
 ing with many of the most important phases that Jesus pre- 
 sents to us as a teacher. Other phases could have been sim- 
 ilarly treated, and these could have been treated much more 
 thoroughly. While more systematic in plan and treatment, the 
 
PREFACE. v 
 
 second work is but an outline of a great subject. In writing 
 these last chapters I had two classes of persons in mind 
 those who are content with an outline, and those who seek a 
 scheme that they may follow, and more or less fill out by sub- 
 sequent reading and study. But impefect as the two series 
 are , they are now published in the belief that the things done , 
 as done, were distinctly worth doing. 
 
 I shall take formal leave of the volume with earnestly recom- 
 mending all readers who are occupied with, or interested in, 
 the function of teaching, no matter what the subject-matter, to 
 study Jesus as a Teacher, and especially teachers of morals and 
 religion. He is the great Master of ethical method. 
 
 B. A. HINSDALE. 
 The University of Michigan, March 31, 1895. 
 
 LTT 
 
3e0u0 as a fteacber 
 
 ^x, 
 ITT; 
 
 
4UFORNlA>^ 
 
 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. AN INTRODUCTORY VIEW .... 1 
 
 II. THE EDUCATION OF JESUS. 1 15 
 
 III. THE EDUCATION OF JESUS. II 25 
 
 IV. His INSIGHT INTO MIND AND CHARACTER . . 42 
 V. His RELATION TO TRADITION AND LEGALISM . 54 
 
 VI. How JESUS USED THE SCRIPTURES ... 65 
 
 VII. His HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS .... 90 
 
 VIII. His INSTITUTIONS 104 
 
 IX. His AUTHORITY 113 
 
 X. His USE OF ACCOMMODATION .... 124 
 
 XI. His METHODS OF TEACHING. 1 135 
 
 XII. His METHODS OF TEACHING. II. . . .145 
 
 XIII. His METHODS OF TEACHING. III. . . .158 
 
 XIV. His RECOGNITION OF APPERCEPTION . . .169 
 XV. His USE OE THE DEVELOPING METHOD . .176 
 
 XVI. His RECOGNITION OF MORAL PERSPECTIVE . .184 
 
 XVII. How HE HANDLED CASES . . . . . 190 
 
 XVIII. His SEVERITY 201 
 
 XIX. JESUS AND THE CHILD . . . . . 213 
 
 XX. His THEORY OF TEACHING 227 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 CHAPTER PAO* 
 
 I. OBJECT AND POINT OF VIEW STATED . . 249 
 
 II. THE MINISTRY OF JESUS 254 
 
 III. THE PREACHING OF THE APOSTLES . . .256 
 
 IV. THE EPISTLES 265 
 
 V. THE GOSPELS 273 
 
 VI. THE EVANGELICAL TRADITION . . . .285 
 
 VII. SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DOCUMENTS . 291 
 
 VIII. THE CANON IN ITS FIRST STAGE . . . . 300 
 
 IX. THE CANON IN ITS SECOND STAGE . . . 309 
 
 X. FURTHER HISTORY OF THE CANON 317 
 
SE 
 \ 
 PIS IT Y) 
 * 
 
 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY VIEW. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY consists of a Gospel and a discipline. 
 Out of this fundamental distinction arise the two 
 distinctive functions of the Christian ministry. One 
 is to preach this Gospel, the other to teach this dis- 
 cipline: preaching and teaching. These two func- 
 tions, which we constantly tend to blend and confuse, 
 The New Testament as constantly keeps distinct and 
 separate. 
 
 The noun keerux is found in the Greek Testament 
 three times: it means an embassador, a public mes- 
 senger, a herald. The verb keerusso is found sixty 
 times : its meaning is to make proclamation, to an- 
 nounce publicly or proclaim some message, generally 
 of a public or official character. Keerugma is used 
 eight times: it means what is announced, made pub- 
 lic, or proclaimed. In civil affairs the Grecian keerux 
 summoned the public assembly, and in military af- 
 fairs he carried messages between hostile armies. 
 These are the words that are rendered "preacher," 
 "preach," and "preaching" in the English Testament. 
 
 The words well harmonize with uangelion, the good tid- 
 2 (1) 
 
2 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 ings. As De Presseuse has said: "All the expressions 
 employed in The New Testament to designate the 
 proclamation of the new truth set aside the notion 
 of written documents;" "The Gospel was at first 
 nothing but the proclamation of the good news of 
 pardon flying from mouth to mouth."* The central 
 idea is well expressed in the well-known passage of 
 Isaiah that Jesus appropriated to Himself. 
 
 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, 
 
 Because Ha anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor : 
 
 He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives , 
 
 And recovering of sight to the blind, 
 
 To set at liberty them that are bruised, 
 
 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, f 
 
 In the four Gospels alone didaskalos is applied to 
 Jesus about fifty times: it is sometimes translated 
 teacher, but commonly master. Didasko is found 
 even more frequently: it means to instruct, to in- 
 form, to teach. Didaskalia and didachee, found less 
 frequently, signify doctrine or teaching. These are 
 the words that the Greeks commonly applied to the 
 corresponding pedagogical facts. Not only in the 
 Gospels, but also in The Acts and the Epistles the 
 leading words of this family abound. 
 
 Such are the words that express the two primal 
 functions of the Christian ministry, and such the 
 ideas that these words convey. The word "minis- 
 try" itself is generic, including both preaching and 
 teaching, and in fact all other forms of Christian 
 service. 
 
 * Jesus Christ: Times, Life, and Work. London, 1868, p. 133. 
 t Luke iv. 
 
AN INTRODUCTORY VIEW. 3 
 
 The prophets of The Old Testament were preach- 
 ers rather than teachers. The Hebrew word nabi is 
 derived from the verb naba, which means, in its re- 
 ligious sense, to speak, or to sing, under a divine affla- 
 tus or impulse. "Prophet" is derived from the 
 Greek preposition pro and the verb phemi, to say or 
 to speak. The force of the word is well expressed by 
 Dean Stanley in this passage : 
 
 The Greek preposition pro, as compounded in the word 
 ' 'Pro-phet, ' ' has, as is well known, the three -fold meaning of 
 ' 'beforehand, " "in public, ' ' and ' 'in behalf of" or * 'for. ' ' 
 It is possible that all these three meanings may have a place in 
 the word. But the one which unquestionably predominates in 
 its original meaning is the third, "one who speaks for, " or 
 as "the mouthpiece of another." As applied, therefore, by 
 The Septuagint, in The Old Testament, and by the writers of The 
 New Testament, who have taken the word from The Septuagint, 
 it is used simply to express the same idea as that intended in the 
 Hebrew Nabi; not foreteller, nor (as has been said more truly, 
 but not with absolute exactness), forth-teller , but "spokes- 
 man, ' ' and (in the religious sense in which it is almost invari- 
 ably used) "expounder" and "interpreter" of the Divine 
 Mind.* 
 
 The original idea of preaching is well exemplified 
 in John the Baptist. t He came preaching in the wil- 
 derness of Judea. His whole habit, character, and 
 mission made him a preacher. He is never called a 
 teacher, and is never said to teach. His utterances 
 that most nearly approach teaching are his replies to 
 the people, the publicans, and the soldiers when they 
 ask him, "What shall we do?" He was the herald 
 
 * History of the Jewish Church. Lect. xix. 
 t Matt, iii.; Marki.; Luke iii. 
 
 NIVERSITTJ 
 
 
4 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 or harbinger sent before the Teacher to make ready 
 the way. He said to the multitudes that resorted to 
 him from Jerusalem and all Judea: " Repent ye; for 
 the kingdom of heaven is at hand." He was the 
 voice of one crying in the wilderness, "Prepare ye 
 the way of the Lord, make His paths straight." To 
 the Pharisees and Sadducees he said, "O generation 
 of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath 
 to come?" Thus the very urgency of his mission 
 the very burden of his message made John a 
 preacher. 
 
 But there is a third family of words that affiliate 
 more naturally with "teacher" and "teach" than 
 with "preacher" and "preach." These words are 
 suggested by pastoral life. Poimeen means a shep- 
 herd or pastor; poimnee, a flock; poimnion, a little 
 flock; poimaino, to feed, to tend a flock, to shepherd. 
 Poimeen and poimaino imply oversight or watch-care. 
 These words are applied to Jesus. They bring Him 
 before us in what has been called His best known and 
 most loving office. He is the Good Shepherd who 
 knows His sheep and lays down His life for them.* It 
 is interesting to observe that the first conception of 
 Jesus to be expressed in art was as the Good Shepherd 
 returning from the wilderness, shepherd's crook in 
 hand, bowed in form, with the lost sheep lying upon 
 His shoulders. The Christian mind was slow to 
 express its conceptions in the form of art; but when 
 the time came for such expression, it was natural, as 
 Mrs. Jameson has said, that "art should embody our 
 
 * John x. 10-15. 
 
AN INTRODUCTORY VIEW. 5 
 
 Lord under that form in which He directly imaged 
 Himself, or rather in that among the many types by 
 which He explained His mission and character to our 
 comprehension which were most adapted to art." Of 
 all the symbols and metaphors applied to Him in The 
 New Testament, this one was probably best adapted 
 to artistic expression. "No wonder, then, that the 
 figure of the Good Shepherd should have been one of 
 the earliest, as it was certainly the most popular and 
 comprehensive, of Christian symbols." * From the 
 third century we find this symbol sculptured in relief 
 on sarcophagi, and painted in the ceilings of the cata- 
 combs, as well as figured on lamps, seals, and gems. 
 
 While these are not the only titles conferred upon 
 Jesus, they are the most characteristic and familiar. 
 He is a preacher, teacher, and pastor. He preaches, 
 evangelizes, teaches, and feeds His flock. However, 
 He does not come before us with the habit or manner 
 of Christian ministers who now bear the same titles. 
 He did not travel about the country holding revival 
 meetings. He was not the pastor of a local congre- 
 gation, or the bishop of a diocese. He had no church 
 and controlled no pulpit. He does not fill the 
 conventional idea of a missionary. His like is not 
 found in the great orators who have adorned Chris- 
 tian eloquence and shed luster on the annals of the 
 pulpit. He corresponds neither to the Jewish scribe 
 nor to the Greek philosopher. The scribe loved the 
 synagogue, and perhaps still more the seminary or 
 
 * The History of Our Lord as Expressed in Works of Art, Vol. II., pp. 
 40, 341. 
 
6 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 college standing near it where scribes were trained, 
 while the philosopher had his school. But Jesus had 
 no synagogue or college like the scribe; no Academy 
 like Plato, no Lyceum like Aristotle, no Porch like 
 Zeno. He had nothing in common with the great 
 university teachers of the Middle Ages or of recent 
 times. He was not reproduced by the great preach- 
 ing orders of the Catholic Church. We find elements 
 that He combined appearing in some or other of these 
 V men or orders, but He had a character all His own. 
 
 If these remarks have somewhat stripped our 
 minds of conventional furniture and awakened curi- 
 osity, let us see what real and positive ideas we can 
 form of His ministry. To do this we must glance 
 along the whole line of His preaching and teaching, 
 and gather up and throw into one picture the charac- 
 teristic facts and descriptions. His first recorded 
 utterances upon subjects connected with His work are 
 the conversations with John, Andrew, and Simon, 
 Philip and Nathanael, found in the Fourth Gospel;* 
 but His public ministry began at Capernaum, on His 
 return to Galilee after His baptism. The following 
 are some of the facts and descriptions to which refer- 
 ence has just been made; no attempt is made to fol- 
 low a chronological order: 
 
 "From that time Jesus began to preach" (Matt, 
 iv. 17); "And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching 
 in their synagogues and preaching the Gospel" 
 (iv. 23); "And seeing the multitudes, He went up 
 into a mountain: and when He was set, His disciples 
 
 * John i. 35-51. 
 
fa 
 
 tn 
 
 AN INTRODUCTORY VIEW. 7 
 
 came unto Him : and He opened His mouth and taught 
 them" (v. 1, 2); "He taught them as one having 
 authority, and not as the scribes" (vii. 29); "Jesus 
 went about all the cities and villages, teaching in 
 their synagogues and preaching" (ix. 35); "When 
 Jesus had made an end of commanding His twelve dis- 
 ciples, He departed thence to teach and to preach in 
 their cities" (xi. 1); "The poor have the Gospel 
 preached to them" (xi. 5); "Coming into His own 
 country, He taught them in their synagogue" 
 (xiii. 54) ; " When He was come into the temple, the 
 chief priests and the elders of the people came unto 
 Him as He was teaching " (xxi. 23) ; "Jesus said to the 
 multitudes, ... I sat daily with you teaching in 
 the temple" (xxvi. 55); "On the Sabbath day, He 
 entered into the synagogue and taught " (Mark i. 21) ; 
 "He preached in their synagogues throughout all 
 Galilee" (i. 39); "He went forth again by the sea- 
 side; and all the multitude resorted unto Him, and He 
 taught them " (ii. 13); "And He began again to teach 
 by the seaside: and there was gathered unto Him a 
 great multitude, so that He entered into a ship, and 
 sat in the sea; and the whole multitude was by the sea 
 on the land. And He taught them many things by para- 
 bles " (iv. 1, 2); "And Jesus, when He came out, saw 
 much people, and was moved with compassion toward 
 them, .... and He began to teach them many 
 things" (vi. 34); " He began to teach them [the dis- 
 ciples] that the Son of man must suffer" (viii. 31); 
 "He taught His disciples" (ix. 31); "And the people 
 resort unto Him again ; and, as He was wont, He taught 
 
8 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 them again" (x. 1); "I was daily with you in the 
 temple teaching" (xiv. 49); "He sat down and taught 
 the people out of the ship " (Luke v. 3) ; " He taught 
 daily in the temple " (xix. 47) ; "One of those days, as 
 He taught the people in the temple, and preached the 
 Gospel" (xx.. 1); "And in the daytime He was teach- 
 ing in the temple" (xxi. 37); "He stirreth up the 
 people, teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from 
 Galilee to this place" (xxiii. 5); "Now about the 
 midst of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and 
 taught" (John vii. 14); "Then Jesus cried in the 
 temple as He taught," etc. (vii. 28); "Early in the 
 morning He came again into the temple, and all the 
 people came unto Him; and He sat down and taught 
 them" (viii. 2); "I spake openly to the world; I ever 
 taught in the synagogue, and in the temple, whither 
 the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said 
 nothing" (xviii. 20). 
 
 The foregoing are perhaps one-half of the passages 
 in the Gospels in which Jesus is said to preach and 
 teach. He who studies them in their connections will 
 see that they describe a singularly wide and active 
 ministry. Jesus went about preaching and teaching 
 in synagogues; He sat on the top of a mountain and 
 taught ; He went through the cities and villages of Gal- 
 ilee, preaching; He taught in the temple; He taught as 
 He sat in a boat on the sea; He taught His disciples pri- 
 vately; He taught throughout all Judea from Galilee 
 to Jerusalem. But wide and active as these passages 
 prove His ministry to have been, they fail to show its 
 full extent. Many of the utterances of Jesus are 
 
AN INTRODUCTORY VIEW. 9 
 
 introduced with words less formal than the words 
 44 preach 7 ' and "teach." He "spoke," He <<~said," 
 He "answered," He "asked," He "showed," He 
 "cried," etc. A large share of His teachings was 
 never put in formal discourses at all. He taught in 
 houses as well as in synagogues ; by sick-beds as well 
 as in the temple; He appears in monologue and in 
 dialogue; He teaches small companies; He teaches 
 single individuals. If we limit our survey to public 
 addresses and audiences only, we shall exclude some 
 of His most admirable instruction. We shall find no 
 place for the conversations with Nicodemus, the 
 woman of Samaria, and Mary and Martha. Much 
 time was given to preparing His disciples for their 
 future work. We find Him explaining to them such 
 of His public lessons as they did not understand. A 
 phrase sometimes points to a lengthy interview. 
 Thus, John and Andrew heard their master testify of 
 Jesus, and they followed Him. His invitation to 
 "come and see" where He dwelt led them to the 
 place, and they staid with Him the remainder of the 
 day.* 
 
 We must not omit to sketch the geographical range 
 of this ministry of teaching and preaching. It begins 
 with Capernaum, in Galilee. From Capernaum Jesus 
 goes to Cana and the wedding supper. Then He 
 ascends to Jerusalem and to the temple. He attends the 
 passover, and holds the conversation with Nicodemus. 
 His visit to the Holy City over, He goes to .ZEnon near 
 Salim, the theater of John's labors; there we listen to 
 
 * John i. 35-39. 
 
10 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 the last testimony of the Baptist. Returning to Gali- 
 lee through Samaria, He holds the remarkable inter- 
 view with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. 
 Now there begins a much larger ministry in Galilee; 
 Capernaum becomes a center of labor and influence. 
 The embassy from John is received, and the appro- 
 priate reply returned. The period is marked by His 
 first use of parables. Again He goes to Jerusalem, 
 and is found by the pool of Bethesda. Returning to 
 Galilee, He again visits the towns of that province; we 
 hear the Sermon on the Mount; it is the time of the 
 trial mission of the Apostles. Next He journeys to 
 Csesarea Philippi and Syro-Phcenicia, and comes back 
 to Capernaum. It is the period of Peter's confession. 
 Jesus now goes the third time to Jerusalem; He 
 attends the Feast of Tabernacles, and is brought into 
 strenuous collision with the Sanhedrim. He returns 
 to Capernaum for the last time. Almost immediately 
 He goes again to the Capital, traveling through Sama- 
 ria; the time is marked by the mission of the Seventy. 
 After the Feast of Dedication, He goes to Bethabara-, 
 beyond Jordan, where He blesses the little children. 
 He is called away to Bethany by the death of Lazarus. 
 His mission here performed, he spends a few days in 
 the wilderness village of Ephraim, a little north of 
 Jerusalem. His respite from labor over, He journeys 
 by Jericho and Bethany to the Capital, that He may 
 attend the Passover. He makes His triumphal entry 
 into the city, and closes His ministry of teaching and 
 preaching. He eats His last Passover, institutes the 
 Supper, and offers His intercessory prayer. Then f ol- 
 
AN INTRODUCTORY VIEW. 11 
 
 low His arrest and trial, condemnation and death; the 
 Garden of Gethsemane, the Judgment Hall, and 
 Mount Calvary.* 
 
 The immediate effects of His ministry were most 
 extraordinary. Men came to Jesus singly, and in 
 multitudes ; they sought Him out in His retreat, and 
 in public places. They thronged to the temple and 
 the synagogue to hear Him. They crossed the sea in 
 boats, and spent whole days in desert places. They 
 stood on the mountain-side, and on the seashore while 
 He taught them out of the ship. Nicodemus, the 
 ruler, came, and Mary Magdalene; Zaccheus, and the 
 Syro-Phcenician woman. ''And all bare him witness, 
 and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded 
 out of His mouth" (Luke iv. 22). Men asked: "From 
 whence hath this man these things? And what wis- 
 dom is this which is given unto Him?" (Mark vi. 2). 
 "The common people heard Him gladly" (Mart 
 xii. 37). Even the Samaritans "besought Him that He 
 would tarry with them" (John iv. 40). The hearts 
 of the disciples going to Emmaus burned within them 
 as He talked with them by the way (Luke xxiv. 32). 
 When John's disciples had taken up the body of 
 their master and buried it, they "went and told 
 Jesus" (Matt. xiv. 12). 
 
 One fact that is most important has been held in 
 the background. Jesus taught in oral words. Only 
 once is He said to have written anything, and then 
 upon material as changing as the sand. He stooped 
 
 * This is the succession of events as given by Neander: The Life of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
12 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 down, and with His finger wrote on the ground.* 
 He was the greatest of the great oral teachers of men 
 teachers who write nothing, but depend upon what 
 would seem to be the most transient means of 
 influence. Their instrument of power is the rod of 
 their mouth, the breath of their lips. Nor was Jesus 
 accompanied by any scribe or reporter. He left 
 behind him no "autobiography" or "journal," but 
 only pictures and voices in the hearts of men. He 
 spoke, He wept, He wrought, He kept silent; but so 
 powerfully had He impressed Himself upon His disci- 
 ples that lengthy discourses, as well as personal 
 remarks which cling closer to the brain, were repro- 
 duced, after the lapse of years, in a way to prove 
 their own genuineness. He contemplated the future 
 with a sublime confidence, and still a multitude both 
 of words and deeds never became matter of record. f 
 fc a secondary, as well as in a primary, sense Jesus is 
 the Sower of His own parable. Some seeds fell by the 
 wayside and were caught up by the birds ; some fell 
 among the thorns and were choked; some fell into 
 thin soil and were burned up by the sun; some fell 
 into good ground and were reproduced in writing by 
 evangelist and apostle. 
 
 Such are some of the more striking external aspects 
 of the public ministry of Jusus. Again it may be said 
 that Ha had a character all His own. In so saying, no 
 account is taken of the matter of His teaching. 
 While He constantly accommodated Himself to His 
 
 * John viii. 6. t John xx. 30, 31; xxi. 25. 
 
AN INTRODUCTORY VIEW. 13 
 
 times, He was as unconventional and original as 
 Nature herself. We catch glimpses of Him in a mul- 
 titude of teachers. He had something in common 
 with the Jewish prophets, and with John the Baptist. 
 Socrates, in the publicity of his life, in the elevation 
 of his spirit, and in the familiarity and commonness 
 of his teaching, approaches Him much more nearly 
 than any other of the Greeks. He was the first 
 teacher and preacher of the Christian Church, but no 
 section of that Church has preserved, or could have 
 preserved, His external type. He is not more unique 
 in His subject-matter than in the forms and methods 
 of His teaching. 
 
 While preaching and teaching are separate and dis- 
 tinct, they are still closely related. First, in respect 
 to matter. The preacher announces the Gospel with 
 a view of making converts or disciples; the teacher 
 instructs or builds up the disciples in Christian doc- 
 trine or discipline. Secondly, in respect to method. 
 Both the message of the preacher and the doctrine of 
 the teacher are addressed to man's mental nature, the 
 main difference, from a pedagogical point of view, 
 being that the message appeals more directly to the 
 active or motive powers of the mind. Both the 
 preacher and the teacher strive to influence conduct 
 with reference to the same great end, and their work 
 cannot be wholly separated. The modern Church has 
 its evangelists and pastors, and so had the ancient 
 Church. Evangelist and pastor differ mainly in the 
 placing of the emphasis. The New Testament idea 
 combines the two elements in one minister. Jesus 
 commanded the Twelve: "Go ye therefore and 
 
14 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 
 teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have 
 commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even 
 unto the end of the world." * So Paul was appointed 
 a preacher and a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and 
 love. And so it was with Jesus Himself; He preached 
 and He taught, and in these chapters it will suffice to 
 permit the two functions to flow together. 
 
 This sketch, all too faintly drawn, will serve as an 
 introduction to a series of studies of Jesus as a 
 Teacher. 
 
 * Matt, xxviii. 20. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE EDUCATION OF JESUS. I. 
 
 THE two main qualifications of a teacher, pedagog- 
 ically considered, are native aptitude and acquired 
 preparation. Perhaps it will offend the sensibilities 
 of some even to suggest that Jesus possessed the sec- 
 ond of these qualifications. Their habitual view of 
 Him may repel the application of the words "train- 
 ing," "education," "cultivation." However that 
 may be, tests that apply to other minds apply to Him 
 also ; and the cause of religion has nothing to gain but 
 much to lose by seeking to withdraw Him from com- 
 petition with other teachers. The manner in which 
 the Evangelists treat His childhood forbids such a 
 method. Their treatment is justly considered a mark 
 of verisimilitude. Even their silence becomes ex- 
 pressive when we consider what writers following 
 their own fancies would have said. The difference 
 between tjie true Gospels and the false ones, in this 
 regard, has often been remarked upon. The true 
 contain a few incidents that please by their simple 
 and natural beauty; the false abound in those that 
 offend by their grotesque absurdity. As is well 
 known, Luke is the only Evangelist who connects the 
 infancy and the manhood of Jesus by even so much 
 as a general statement or characterization. And all 
 
 LlBR^jN. 
 
 TTNIVERSIT 
 
16 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 that he tells us is contained in thirteen verses .* 
 Moreover, it is easy to read into these verses what 
 was never in the mind of their author. The words, 
 "And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled 
 with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon Him," 
 are paralleled by the account given of John the Bap- 
 tist, "And the child grew and waxed strong in 
 spirit." f 
 
 Neither is it necessary to see too much in the per- 
 sonal incidents connected with the visit to Jerusalem. 
 Twelve was an important age under the Jewish econ- 
 omy. "It was the age at which," says Canon Farrar, 
 "according to Jewish legend, Moses had left the 
 house of Pharaoh's daughter; and Samuel had heard 
 the voice which summoned him to the prophetic 
 office; that Solomon had given the judgment which 
 first revealed his possession of wisdom; and Josiah 
 had first dreamed of his great reform." J Probably 
 these stories were myths, generated by ideas and 
 images current among the Jews. Oriental children 
 are precocious; both the climate and social customs 
 stimulate early development; and so it was in ancient 
 times. Jewish education bore strongly in that direc- 
 tion. The Jewish boy must now have a trade for his 
 own support; his parents could no longer sell him for 
 a slave; he was no longer called "little," but "grown 
 up," and had become "a son of the law. " Boys of 
 twelve or thirteen were found in the army, and 
 that was a suitable age at which to contract a mar- 
 riage. It must therefore have been a time to which 
 
 * Chap. ii. 40-52. t Chap. i. 80. 
 
 J The Life of Christ, Vol. I. , pp. 67, 68. London. 
 
THE EDUCATION OF JESUS. 17 
 
 the Jewish boy looked forward with great interest and 
 expectation, and that could not fail powerfully to 
 impress his mind. Instances of extraordinary pre- 
 cocity are met with all through the Jewish history; 
 their appearance was welcome, for the Rabbis, with 
 all their faults, welcomed wisdom in the child. The 
 conduct of Jesus does not appear to have struck the 
 doctors as remarkable in itself ; it was the character 
 of His understanding and answers that filled them 
 and the bystanders with astonishment. Josephus 
 speaks of his own early great memory and under- 
 standing. "Moreover, when I was a child," he says, 
 "and about fourteen years of age, 1 was commended 
 by all for the love I had to learning; on which ac- 
 count the high priests and principal men of the city 
 came then frequently to me together, in order to know 
 my opinion about the accurate understanding of 
 points of the Law."* When we dwell upon such 
 facts as these ; when we add to them other facts in 
 regard to the course and nature of Jewish education ; 
 when we consider the character of Jesus's own train- 
 ing, and reflect that the visit to Jerusalem, occurring 
 at this time, could not fail deeply to impress Him, 
 we shall see that His tarrying behind in Jerusalem, 
 and His seeking out the doctors, while extremely in- 
 teresting and suggestive events, are not such surpris- 
 ing facts as many make them. Undoubtedly, the 
 most prescient incident was His reply to His mother, 
 "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's busi- 
 ness?" but even its significance may be exaggerated. 
 Strongly prophetic sayings are heard in the mouths of 
 
 * Life, V. 
 
18 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 children not unfrequently. Certainly, differ as any 
 one may from the trend of these remarks, he must 
 admit that the Jerusalem story derives its principal 
 interest from the whole life of which it is a part, and 
 that it affords no reason why we should not as freely 
 inquire what influence formed the character of the 
 Christ-child as the character of other children. 
 
 There are two relations under which education may 
 be regarded. One is its relation to nature and life, 
 the other to the schools. One is general and one 
 specific, and each has its own interest. We shall look 
 at the education of Jesus from both of these points 
 of view. 
 
 What the mind is no one has been able to tell us ; 
 we know only its manifestations or phenomena, and 
 some of its laws. We know that it is self-active, that 
 its activity leads to expansion or growth, and that this 
 expansion is education. But the mind can act only as 
 it acts upon something, and so its growth depends 
 upon its being brought into relation with some object 
 or objects. All our knowledge, feeling, and will flow 
 directly or indirectly from the establishment of con- 
 tact between the self-active principle and external 
 nature, the facts of human life, and, reflexively, the 
 mind itself. The cultivation of the race dates from 
 these points of contact, and so does the cultivation of 
 every individual that is born into the world. Not 
 only is education older than the school historically, 
 fmt it is essential to its existence practically. Then as 
 soon as men began to observe, to think, and to ac- 
 cumulate experience, there began the development of 
 tradition a transmitted body of experience that soon 
 
THE EDUCATION OF JESUS. 19 
 
 came to be, and that has always continued to be, a 
 powerful, though a secondary, source of education. 
 Thus nature, society, life, and the mind itself are the 
 primordial sources of human training. Tradition 
 comes later, and literature last of all. 
 
 It is well understood that natural 'factors climate, 
 soil, and particularly the external aspects of the 
 world exert a great influence upon our life, charac- 
 ter, and destiny. "Our earliest impressions of the 
 external world," it has been said, "become, uncon- 
 sciously to us, the prism by which everything is after- 
 wards colored." In a great degree individuals and 
 races are fashioned by natural factors. Nowhere is 
 this more observable than in the Orient; the repose, 
 conservatism, meditative or reflective habit, and po- 
 etic-ethical communion with Nature that are so char- 
 acteristic of Oriental life, are no doubt ultimately 
 traceable to natural causes. More narrowly, the 
 human spirit, working under the conditions which 
 Nature imposed, created the fundamental elements of 
 that civilization which forms the background of the 
 history of the Chosen People. Still more narrowly, 
 these conditions were potent forces in the history of 
 the Chosen People itself. Renan gives us this picture 
 of the situation of Nazareth: 
 
 The horizon of the town is limited, but if we ascend a little 
 to the plateau swept by a perpetual breeze , which commands the 
 highest houses, the prospect is splendid. To the west are un- 
 folded the beautiful lines of Carmel , terminating in an abrupt 
 point which seems to plunge into the sea. Then stretch away 
 the double summit which looks down upon Megiddo, the moun- 
 tains of the country of Shechem with their holy places of the 
 patriarchal age , the mountains of Gilboa, the picturesque little 
 
20 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 group with which are associated the graceful and terrible mem - 
 oriesof Solam and of Endor, and Thabor with its finely -rounded 
 form, which antiquity compared to a breast. Through a de- 
 pression between the mountains of Solam and Thabor are seen 
 the valley of the Jordan and the high plains of Peraea, which 
 form a continuous line in the east. To the north, the moun- 
 tains of Safed, sloping toward the sea, hide St. Jean d'Acre, 
 but disclose the Gulf of Khaifa. Such was the horizon of 
 Jesus. This enchanted circle, the cradle of the kingdom of 
 God, represented the world to Him for years. His life even 
 went little beyond the limits familiar to His childhood. For, 
 beyond, to the north, you almost see upon the slopes of Her- 
 mon, Cesarea Philippi , His most advanced point into the Gentile 
 world, and to the south, you feel behind these already less 
 cheerful mountains of Samaria, sad Judea, withered as by a 
 burning blast of abstraction and of death. * % 
 
 Also this one of the group of companions that 
 Jesus first called about Him : 
 
 The beautiful climate of Galilee made the existence of these 
 honest fishermen a perpetual enchantment. They prefigured 
 truly the kingdom of God, simple, good, happy, rocked gently 
 upon their delightful little sea, or sleeping at night upon its 
 shores. We cannot conceive the intoxication of a life which 
 thus glides away in the presence of the heavens, the glow, mild, 
 yet strong, which this perpetual contact with nature gives, the 
 dreams of these nights passed amid the brilliancy of the stars, 
 beneath the azure dome of the illimitable depths. It was during 
 such anight that Jacob, his head pillowed upon a stone, saw in 
 the stars the promise of an innumerable posterity, and the mys- 
 terious ladder by which the Elohim came and went from heaven 
 to earth. In the time of Jesus the heavens were not yet closed, 
 nor had the earth grown cold, f 
 
 But this is not all. Wherever men live in imme- 
 diate contact with nature, they also live in immediate 
 contact with one another. Renan thus felicitously 
 
 * Life of Jesus, Chap. ii. t Ibid, Chap. iii. 
 
THE EDUCATION OF JESUS. 21 
 
 marks one difference between Eastern and Western 
 life: 
 
 The education of the schools marks among us a wide distinc- 
 tion, in the relation of personal worth, between those who have 
 received it and those who have been deprived of it. It was not 
 thus in the East, nor generally in the good old ages. The crude 
 condition in which, among us, in consequence of our isolated 
 and entirely individual life, he remains who has not been to the 
 schools, is unknown in these forms of society where moral cul- 
 ture, and especially the general spirit of the time, are trans- 
 mitted by perpetual contact with men. The Arab who has had 
 no schoolmaster is often highly distinguished nevertheless ; for 
 the tent is a kind of school always open, where the meeting of 
 well-bred people gives birth to a great intellectual and even lit- 
 erary movement. Delicacy of manners and acuteness of mind 
 have nothing in common in the East with what we call educa- 
 tion. On the contrary, the schoolmen are considered pedantic 
 and ill-bred. In this state of society, ignorance, which among 
 us condemns a man to an inferior rank, is the condition of great 
 deeds and of great originality. * 
 
 The East seems to lend itself with peculiar ease and 
 effect to the ends of the ethical and religious teacher. 
 Markedly was this the case with Palestine in the days 
 of Jesus. It was the land of proverbs, psalms, and 
 parables. It had long been touched with the beauty 
 of poetry. Although an old country, its civilization 
 was yet primitive in many of its features. Its cara- 
 vans and tabernacles, its flocks and vintages, its 
 threshing-floors and wine-presses, its very geography 
 and history, idealized by prophet and psalm-writer, 
 furnished an abundant stock of striking and beautiful 
 images. Nay, those objects are there to-day to explain 
 the constant allusions to them in both the Testaments. 
 Its air of repose, so well adapted to serious contem- 
 
 * Life of Jesus, Chap. x. 
 
22 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 plation, is strikingly different from the busy energy of 
 the West. It is the land of strong contrasts and 
 striking effects. According to Renan, the inequality 
 of men is more marked than in the West. He says 
 that even to this day " it is not rare to see rising there, 
 in the midst of an atmosphere of general wickedness, 
 characters whose grandeur astonishes us." We look 
 at the figure of Jesus through the vista of eighteen 
 centuries. The time and country in which He lived, 
 and the whole of Jewish antiquity, furnish a most 
 impressive background to the picture. No one can 
 doubt that the whole effect is in some degree due 
 to the admirable setting. The Gospels were written 
 by plain men ; the only trace of literary art is its total 
 absence ; but no man of real feeling can read even the 
 plainest of these compositions without deep emotion. 
 We cannot think of the story of Jesus as having been 
 written in the speech of the scientific and commercial 
 West, without a loss of both power and beauty. 
 
 It may be added that, aside from districts like 
 Judea, life in Palestine was free and unconventional. 
 This was particularly the case in Galilee. Rabbinical 
 influence was slight in Nazareth. Joseph and Mary 
 belonged to the common people. They were poor. 
 Joseph was a carpenter. Jesus Himself was a carpen- 
 ter. Thus He dignified and ennobled honest toil. 
 But His station and occupation in life did not cut 
 Him off from the great influences that in the East 
 form character. He must be blind indeed who does 
 not see in the Gospels abundant traces of the effects 
 upon Him of both the natural and social factors that 
 made up His environment. The natural scenery and 
 
THE EDUCATION OF JESUS. 23 
 
 the social life that He saw about Him are woven, not 
 merely into the form, but also into the texture of His 
 teaching. Evidence of His intimate relations with 
 the natural world, and of His humble estate, are 
 found in greatest abundance. The Divine mind, the 
 human heart, and nature, are closely united. One 
 proof of this is the fact that the Teacher who has 
 best expounded the first, has also best met the needs 
 of the second, and made the best ethical use of the 
 third. 
 
 NOTE. Reference has been made above to the permanency of 
 Oriental life, and to the idealization, or symbolic use, of its his- 
 tory and geography. Few Christians stop to think how largely 
 their spiritual vocabulary is drawn from these sources. I quote 
 two paragraphs from Dean Stanley that well illustrate these 
 thoughts. 
 
 In one respect the site and description of Eastern countries 
 lends itself more than that of any other country to this use of 
 historical geography. Doubtless there are many alterations, 
 so me of considerable importance, in the vegetation, the climate, 
 the general aspect of these countries, since the days of the Old 
 and New Testament. . But, on the other hand, it is one of the 
 great charms of Eastern traveling, that the framework of life, 
 of customs, of manners, even of dress and speech, is still sub- 
 stantially the same as it was ages ago : Something, of course, 
 in representing the scenes of The New Testament, must be 
 sought from Roman and Grecian usages now extinct ; but the 
 Bedouin tents are still the faithful reproduction of the outward 
 life of the patriarchs the vineyards , the cornfields , the houses , 
 the wells of Syria still retain the outward imagery of the teach- 
 ing of Christ and the Apostles ; and thus the traveler ' s mere 
 passing glances at Oriental customs, much more the de- 
 tailed accounts of Lane and of Burckhardt, contain a mine of 
 scriptural illustration which it is an unworthy superstition 
 either to despise or to fear. 
 
 Finally, there is an interest attaching to sacred geography 
 hard to be expressed in words, but which cannot be altogether 
 overlooked, and is brought home with especial force to the East- 
 ern traveler. It has been well observed that the poetical events 
 of the Sacred History, so far from being an argument against 
 its Divine origin, are striking proofs of that universal Provi- 
 
24 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 dence by which the religion of The Bible was adopted to suit, 
 not one class of mind only, but many, in every age of time. 
 As with the history, so also is it with the geography. Not only 
 has the long course of ages invested the prospects and scenes of 
 the Holy Land with poetical and moral associations , but these 
 scenes lend themselves to such parabolical adaptation with sin- 
 gular facility. Far more closely as in some respects the Greek 
 and Italian geography intertwines itself with the history and 
 religion of the two countries; yet, when we take the proverbs , 
 the apologues, the types furnished even by Parnassus and Heli- 
 con, the Capitol and the Rubicon, they bear no comparison 
 with the appropriateness of the corresponding figures and 
 phrases borrowed from Arabian and Syrian topography, even 
 irrespectively of the wider diffusion given them by our greater 
 familiarity with the Scriptures. The passage of the Red Sea 
 the ' 'wilderness' 7 of life the "Rock of Ages" Mount Sinai and 
 its terrors the view from Pisgah the passage of the Jordan 
 the rock of Zion, and the fountain of Siloa the lake of Gennes- 
 areth, with its storms, its waves, and its fishermen, are well 
 known instances in which the local features of the Holy Land 
 have naturally become the household imagery of Christendom. 
 Sinai and Palestine, pp. 2 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE EDUCATION OF JESUS. II. 
 
 EDUCATION suggests to most minds a school, and we 
 are only too apt to forget that there is an older, a 
 more comprehensive, and a more valuable culture. 
 The human spirit first took hold of the natural world, 
 then of the facts of human life, and last of all of itself. 
 Tradition dates from the dawn of human experience; 
 letters and literature came much later; and it is prob- 
 able that the school came later still. " The House of 
 the Book" is the appropriate name that the Jews 
 gave to the school. We are now to see what the 
 school did for Jesus. Still we cannot separate the 
 school from the family and the synagogue. 
 
 The effect of politics, religion, and social institu- 
 tions upon schools and education is very great. That 
 the Roman government was one of written laws, 
 courts, and records; that there was a regular census 
 and various colleges, priests, and magistrates; that 
 much stress therefore attached to writing, documents, 
 and archives, these are facts which strongly influ- 
 enced education at Rome. The Jews furnish a still 
 more striking example. Their national history began 
 in 1491 B. C. (according to Usher's chronology) at 
 Sinai. Then and there the Law of Moses was given, 
 
 (25) 
 
26 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 one of the most comprehensive, powerful, and per- 
 manent bodies of legislation ever enacted. It was a 
 political, civil, religious, and domestic code all in one. 
 It was definite and absolute, and was enforced by the 
 strongest sanctions. It regulated the whole life of 
 the Jew his house, dress, food, employments, domes- 
 tic arrangements, the distribution of his property, 
 politics, and civil and religious life. Furthermore 
 and the significance of this fact cannot well be exag- 
 gerated the Law was from the first reduced to writ- 
 ing. It is noteworthy that writing, books, and read- 
 ing are first met with in The Bible in connection with 
 the giving of the Law and the events immediately 
 leading to it.* The material upon which the Deca- 
 logue was written fitly symbolizes the enduring char- 
 acter of its substance, and of the whole legislation of 
 which it is a part. Goethe has fitly said that the 
 Hebrew race is the strongest, the most steadfast, the 
 most persistent race ; t and the causes are found, not 
 so much in its original qualities, as in the character of 
 its legislation and the course of its history. The legal 
 discipline of the nation was enforced by the most 
 powerful agencies. 
 
 1. It was enjoined upon parents in the most im- 
 pressive manner that they should teach the history, 
 the precepts, and the ordinances of the Law to their 
 children. Thus the national history and institutions 
 became a part of domestic discipline.! 
 
 2. Domestic discipline was re-enforced by ecclesi- 
 astical discipline. Moses made the Jewish priest a 
 
 *Exod. xvii. 14; xxiv. 4-7. 
 
 t Wilhelm Meister, Chap. Ix. 
 
 1 Exod. xii. 25-28; Deut. vi. 5-15; 20-25. 
 
THE EDUCATION OF JESUS. 27 
 
 teacher. The holy order instructed the people, not 
 only in the details of the temple service and in cere- 
 monial casuistry, but also to some extent in the Law 
 itself.* 
 
 3. The kings of a religious turn enjoined the teach- 
 ing of the Law to the people, and took measures to 
 have their directions carried out.f 
 
 4. The prophets dwelt upon the teaching of the 
 Law, as well as spiritualized it and delivered new 
 revelations. 
 
 These were the educational agencies that worked 
 previous to the carrying away to Babylon. The Baby- 
 lonian exile wrought a great transformation in Israel. 
 " During the seventy years of captivity on the banks 
 of the Euphrates," it has been said, "a profound 
 change occurred in the character of the Hebrew 
 nation. Prophecy had ceased. The priest had lost 
 all his authority. The man of importance henceforth, 
 the man who is heard and obeyed with respect, is the 
 scribe, the man of the book, the scholar, who knows 
 the ancestral records, and can teach the principles of 
 the Law, the violation of which had brought upon the 
 nation such great trials." Ezra led the exiles back to 
 the fatherland; he brought forth the book of the 
 Law and read it to the people ; but Ezra stands for 
 the beginning of the new order of things, rather than 
 the restoration of the old order. That system of 
 instruction, discipline, and worship the various phases 
 of which are represented by the words "scribe," 
 "rabbi," "rabbinism," "doctor," "teacher," " eld- 
 
 * Deut. xxi.5; xvii. 8-13, 18; xxxi. 10-13. 
 
 t 2 Kings xxii. 8-14; 2 Chron. xvii. 7-9; Neh. viii. 1-8. 
 
28 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 er," "reader," "lawyer," "tradition,'' "synagogue," 
 " sanhedrim," and "Talmud," dates from the time of 
 Ezra. To describe this system would lead us too far 
 from our path ; but we must not fail to observe that 
 the new organization made Judaism, as a system, 
 firmer and stronger than it had ever been before; 
 that in time it included a cycle of schools coextensive 
 with the nation, and that it exalted the teacher. First 
 came the school or the college of the Law connected 
 with the synagogue; afterwards the school consid- 
 ered as "The House of the Book." The new system, 
 superinduced upon the old one, constituted the most 
 efficient organization of human training that the world 
 has ever seen. Looking merely to strength and per- 
 manency of results, better educational material than 
 lay at the hand of the Jewish teachers can neither be 
 found nor imagined. The Law was clear and positive, 
 admirably adapted to cut deeply into the memory. 
 The national history stimulated and energized the 
 mind and molded the life to the highest possible 
 pitch. Considered as instruction, the Jewish system 
 strongly appealed to every faculty of the soul at every 
 stage of its development. Its impressive ordinances 
 did their work long before the words of the Law 
 could be understood, or the inspiration that the his- 
 tory breathed could be received. 
 
 Jewish education began with the mother. What 
 the true Jewish mother, considered as a teacher, was, 
 we know from both the Testaments and from many 
 other sources. The very household duties that she 
 performed molded her children in accordance with 
 
THE EDUCATION OF JESUS. 29 
 
 the national discipline. "The Sabbath meal, the 
 kindling of the Sabbath lamp, and the setting apart 
 of a portion of the dough from the bread for the 
 household these are but instances with which every 
 * Taph,' as he clung to his mother's skirts,, must have 
 been familiar." The bit of parchment fastened to 
 the door post, on which the name of the Most High 
 was written, and which was reverently touched by 
 those who came and went with fingers that were then 
 borne to the lips, would be among the first things to 
 arrest his attention. Long before the child could go 
 to school or synagogue, the private and united prayers 
 and the domestic rites, whether of the weekly Sab- 
 bath or of festive seasons, would indelibly impress 
 themselves upon his mind. In mid-winter there was 
 the festive illumination in each home, with its sym- 
 bolic meaning. Then there was the cycle of public 
 feasts and fasts, most of which lay within the obser- 
 vation of the child : The Feast of Esther, the Pass- 
 over, the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of the New Year, 
 the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles. 
 These early sense-elements of education associated 
 themselves with the mother. More than this, it was 
 in the school of the mother's knee that the stories 
 of patriarchs and prophets, of statesmen and war- 
 riors, of poets and sages, of kings and judges, wise men 
 and patriots, and of the great Lawgiver himself the 
 whole forming the very best body of material for the 
 purposes of child-nurture found in any language were 
 told and retold until they became parts of the mind 
 itself. It was not strange, but quite the contrary, 
 that Timothy, although the son of a Gentile and liv- 
 
30 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 ing at a distance from any school or synagogue, should 
 have thoroughly known the* Holy Scriptures from his 
 infancy. As teachers of their children, the women of 
 every country may learn lessons from the matrons of 
 Israel. 
 
 Still it was the father who was bound to teach his 
 son. To impart to the child the knowledge of the 
 Law was as great a spiritual distinction as to have 
 received it from Moses could have been. To this 
 paramount duty all engagements must give way. As 
 soon as the child could speak his religious education 
 began. First came verses of Scripture that made up 
 the Shema, or the creed; next came other passages 
 from the same source, short prayers, selected sayings, 
 and psalms. He was early taught his birthday text 
 some verse beginning with, ending with, or at least 
 containing the letters of his Hebrew name. Like all 
 the Orientals, the ancient Jews paid the greatest 
 attention to the cultivation of the memory. Forget- 
 fulness was as reprehensible as ignorance. Large 
 portions of the Scriptures were cast in the forms 
 most likely to be remembered, as rhythm and prov- 
 erb. The words of the wise that is, the true wisdom 
 teaching, the gnome, or the maxim are like nails 
 fastened by masters of assemblies, as well as like 
 goads. 
 
 The child was sent to school at the age of five or 
 six years. His regular education now began. From 
 the teaching of the alphabet, or of writing in the pri- 
 mary school, to the farthest limit of instruction in 
 the academies of the Rabbis, all was marked by* 
 extreme care, wisdom, accuracy, and moral and relig- 
 
THE EDUCATION OF JESUS. 31 
 
 ious purpose as the ultimate object. The children 
 were gathered for instruction in the synagogues and 
 school-houses, where the teacher, generally the Chaz- 
 zan, or officer of the synagogue, "imparted to them 
 the precious knowledge of the Law, with constant 
 adaptation to their capacity, with unwearied patience, 
 intense earnestness, strictness tempered by kindness, 
 but, above all, with the highest object of their train- 
 ing ever in view. To keep children from all contact 
 with vice ; to train them to gentleness, even when bit- 
 terest wrong had been received; to show sin in its 
 repulsiveness, rather than to terrify by its conse- 
 quences ; to train to strict truthfulness ; to avoid all 
 that might lead to disagreeable or indelicate thoughts; 
 and to do all this without showing partiality, without 
 either undue severity or laxity of discipline, with 
 judicious increase of study and work, with careful 
 attention to thoroughness in acquiring knowledge all 
 this and more constituted the ideal set before the 
 teacher, and made his office of such high esteem in 
 Israel." The Rabbis often gathered their disciples 
 about them in the open air, in the fields and groves ; 
 as, indeed, Oriental teachers are in the habit of doing 
 to this day. 
 
 Up to ten years of age The Bible was the sole text- 
 book; from ten to fifteen tha Mischna, or traditional 
 law, was used ; and after that the pupil was admitted 
 to the discussions of the Rabbinical schools. So 
 extensive a course of study, however, was taken only 
 by those who showed decided aptitude for learning. 
 Bible study began with the Book of Leviticus ; then 
 came other parts of the Pentateuch ; next the Proph- 
 
32 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 ets, and finally the Hagiography. The Talmud was 
 taught only in the higher schools. 
 
 Jewish education was conducted on what is now 
 called the intensive plan. The home, the school, and 
 the synagogue reinforced one another. The public 
 services of religion the readings, prayers, recita- 
 tions, psalms, and sermons of the synagogue deep- 
 ened the channel that was made by the teacher's 
 efforts. The Scriptures, owing to their cost, could 
 not be found in the homes of the middle classes and 
 the poor; but a copy belonged to every school and 
 synagogue. To preserve the integrity of the text, 
 copies of portions of the Holy Books were deemed 
 unlawful; but exceptions were made of certain sec- 
 tions that were expressly used in the teaching of chil- 
 dren. The history of the period from the creation 
 to the flood, Leviticus i.-ix., and Numbers i.-x. are 
 especially mentioned. * 
 
 The mechanical arrangements of the synagogue, as 
 well as of the worship, were well calculated to 
 impress the mind of an Oriental. The lowest of the 
 officers of the synagogue was the Ghazzan, or minis- 
 ter, who sometimes acted also as schoolmaster. Then 
 there were the elders, or rulers of the synagogue, with 
 their Archi-synagogos, or chief, forming a local coun- 
 cil or sanhedrim. The chief ruler superintended the 
 service, choosing those who participated. To these 
 regular officials we have to add those who officiated 
 during the service, the Schdiach, Tsibbur, or dele- 
 
 * The above account of Jewish education is drawn mainly from Eder- 
 sheim: The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Book II. , Chapter ix. See 
 also the same writer's Sketches of Jewish Social Life in the Days of Christ. 
 Chaps, vii., viii. 
 
THE EDUCATION OF JESUS. 33 
 
 gate of a congregation, who, as its mouthpiece, con- 
 ducted the devotions; the interpreter, or Methurge- 
 man, and those who were called on to read in the Law 
 and the Prophets, as also to preach. It was as 
 Schdiach (Tsibbur) that Jesus acted at Nazareth, as 
 related in Luke iv. At the opening, the /Scheliach 
 ascended to the reading desk that stood on the bema, 
 and first uttered two prayers. Then followed the 
 recitation of the /Shema, or creed, from Sherrta, 
 "peon," with which it began. Then came another 
 prayer from the desk, followed by the eulogies or 
 benedictions, the one who officiated standing before 
 the ark. Next came prayers especially suited to the 
 day, followed by a second group of eulogies. Then 
 the priests, if any were present, spoke the blessing, 
 elevating their hands to their shoulders ; if no priests 
 were present, the leader repeated the benediction. 
 Next ensued the final eulogy, followed sometimes by 
 still other prayers, fixed or free. The liturgical part 
 of the service over, the minister brought forth a roll 
 of the Law from the ark. On the Sabbath at least 
 seven persons read portions of the Law, none less 
 than three verses. After the Law followed a section 
 from the Prophets. "As the Hebrew was not gener- 
 ally understood, the Methurgeman, or interpreter, 
 stood by the side of the reader, and translated into 
 the Aramaean verse by verse, and in the section from 
 the Prophets, or Haphtarah, after every three verses. 
 But the Methurgeman was not allowed to read his 
 translation, lest it might popularly be regarded as 
 authoritative. This may help us in some measure to 
 understand the popular mode of Old Testament quo- 
 
84 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 tations in The New Testament. So long as the 
 substance of the text was given correctly, the Methur- 
 geman might paraphrase for better popular under- 
 standing. Again, it is but natural to suppose that the 
 Methurgeman would prepare himself for his work by 
 such materials as he might find at hand, among which, 
 of course, the translation of the LXX. would hold a 
 prominent place. This may in part account alike for 
 the employment of the LXX., and for its Targumic 
 modifications, in The New Testament quotations." 
 The reading over, an address or sermon followed, pro- 
 vided some person was present who was capable of 
 instruction. The preacher was called Amora. It 
 was common to close the sermon with a reference to 
 the Messianic hope of Israel. The service closed 
 with a short prayer. * 
 
 How thorough the Jewish discipline was, is well 
 avouched by familiar passages in The New Testament. 
 Witness thosef relative to Saul of Tarsus and Timo- 
 thy. Susannah was taught by her parents the Law 
 of Moses. I Josephus bears this deserved testimony 
 to his countrymen: 
 
 Our principal care of all is this, to educate our children well ; 
 and we think it to be the most necessary business of our whole 
 life to observe the laws that have been given us , and to keep 
 those rules of piety that have been delivered down to us. . . 
 For there are two ways of coming at any sort of learning and a 
 moral conduct of life ; the one is by instruction in words , the 
 other by practical exercises. Now other lawgivers have sepa- 
 
 * This account is also drawn from Edersheim, Book III. , Chapter x. An 
 extremely interesting account of Jewish preaching is found in this chapter. 
 See also Sketches of Jewish Social Life, Chaps, xvi. , xvii. 
 
 t Actsxxii, 3; 2 Tim. iii. 15. 
 
 I See the Apocryphal book of that name. 
 
THE EDUCATION OF JESUS. 35 
 
 rated these two ways in their opinions, and choosing one of 
 those ways of instruction , or that which best pleased any one of 
 them, neglected the other. . . . But for our legislator, he 
 very carefully joined these two methods of instruction together ; 
 for he neither left these practical exercises to go on without 
 verbal instruction , nor did he permit the hearing of the law to 
 proceed without the exercises for practice. . . And, indeed, 
 the greatest part of mankind are so far from living according to 
 their own laws, that they hardly know them. . . . But for 
 our people , if anybody do but ask any one of them about our 
 laws, he will more readily tell them all than he will tell his 
 own name , and this in consequence of our having learned them 
 immediately as soon as we became sensible of anything, and of 
 our having them, as it were, engraven on our souls. * 
 
 And similarly Phiio: "Since the Jews look on 
 their laws as revelations from God, and are taught 
 them from their earliest childhood, they bear the 
 image of the Law on their souls. They are taught, so 
 to speak, from their very swaddling-clothes, by their 
 parents, masters, and teachers, in the holy laws, and 
 in the unwritten customs, and to believe in God, the 
 one Father and Creator of the world. "t 
 
 In no other country has teaching ever been so much 
 magnified as it was in Judea. In no other country has 
 the teacher ever attained to such an exalted position. 
 Few priesthoods, if any, have ever attained to such 
 unquestioned mastery over the minds of men as the 
 Rabbis gained. This is attested both by facts and by 
 maxims. "The people which knoweth not the law is 
 accursed." "A town in which there is no school 
 must perish.'* "Jerusalem was destroyed because 
 the education of children was neglected." " Get thy- 
 
 * Against Apion, i. 12; ii. 17, 18, 19. 
 
 t Quoted by Dr. Geike: Life and Words of Christ. Vol. I. , p. 173. 
 
36 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 self a teacher." " Make the study of the Law thy 
 special business." "An ignorant man cannot be truly 
 pious." "The more teaching of the Law, the more 
 life; the more school, the more wisdom; the more 
 counsel, the more reasonable action." "A bastard 
 who knows the Law takes precedence of a high priest 
 if he be ignorant." The honor due to a teacher bor- 
 dered on that due to God. The common discourse of 
 the Rabbi was as much to be revered as the Law 
 itself, and even more. To dispute with a Rabbi, or to 
 murmur against him, was as sinful as to murmur 
 against God. The Jew was to prefer his teacher to 
 his father; the one had given him temporal life, the 
 other eternal life. If his father and a Rabbi were 
 both carrying burdens, he must assist the Rabbi to the 
 exclusion of his father; if they were both confined in 
 prison, he must redeem them in the same order. It is 
 related that on one occasion as the high priest was 
 returning from the Temple on the day of atonement, 
 two Rabbis passed by, when the crowd, that had been 
 following the priest, forsook him and paid reverence 
 to the two teachers.* Farther than this the glorifica- 
 tion of the teacher cannot go. 
 
 Such was the compass and thoroughness of the sys- 
 tem of training under which the Jewish boy passed at 
 birth. The subjection of Jesus to His parents at 
 Nazareth involved His subjection to this system. 
 While we are not told that He ever went to school, it 
 cannot be doubted that He did go. How fully the 
 
 * See SchUrer: The Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ. Div. II. , 
 Vol. II. , Par. 27; and Geike: Life and Words of Christ. Vol. I. , Chaps, xii. 
 and xvii. 
 
THE EDUCATION OF JESUS. - 37 
 
 Jewish system of schools was developed in His 
 time, is indeed somewhat uncertain. Edersheim says 
 there can be no reasonable doubt that then the pri- 
 mary school existed throughout the land. Later on, 
 tradition ascribes to Joshua son of Gamaliel the intro- 
 duction of schools in every town, and compulsory 
 education in them for children above the age of six. 
 "In all probability," he says, "there was such a 
 school in Nazareth; " but learned Rabbis were not in 
 Nazareth either then or afterwards.* Schiirer says, 
 " It appears that even in the age of Christ care was 
 also taken for the instruction of youth by the erec- 
 tion of schools on the part of the community." Of 
 Joshua son of Gamaliel he says: "As his meas- 
 urers presuppose a somewhat longer existence of 
 boys' schools, we may without hesitation refer them 
 to the age of Christ, even though not as a general and 
 established institution. Joshua was high priest 64, 
 65 A. D."t The attainments of Jesus that suggest the 
 school may be thus summed up: 
 
 1. He was a master of the art of reading, for we 
 are told that it was His custom to read in the syna- 
 gogue at Nazareth. The question in John viii. 15, 
 " How knowest this man letters, having never 
 learned?" is not an expression of surprise at His abil- 
 ity to read, because that was perfectly well known, 
 but rather at the range and depth of His knowledge. 
 It is similar in meaning to another question that was 
 once asked about Him, "Whence hath this man this 
 wisdom?"| 
 
 * Vol. I., pp. 230, 233. T Div. II., Vol. II., pars. 48, 49. 
 
 \ Matt. xiii. 54. 
 
38 . JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 2. The art of writing was far less common in 
 Judea than that of reading; still it is certain that 
 Jesus could write. His allusions to the forms of the 
 Hebrew letters, and His writing with His finger on 
 the ground, according to Oriental usage, are conclu- 
 sive evidence on that point.* 
 
 3. He spoke the Aramaic dialect, which was then 
 the vernacular of Judea. Long before Hebrew had 
 become a dead letter; still He must have read that 
 language fluently, unless, indeed, we are to suppose 
 that there was an Aramaic version of the Scriptures 
 then extant, which is a very improbable supposition. 
 Nor is it likely that He read in the synagogue from 
 The Septuagint. There can be no doubt, therefore, 
 that He read the Scriptures in the original Hebrew. 
 
 4. He was profoundly versed in the Scriptures, not 
 only in the Law, but also in the Prophets and the 
 Psalms. Often He was able to confute the Rabbis, 
 well read as they were, with His pungent question, 
 "Have ye not read?" following up the words with 
 some appropriate quotation. "That His knowledge 
 of the Sacred Scriptures was deep and extensive," 
 says Canon Farrar, "that in fact He must almost have 
 known them by heart, is clear, not only from His 
 direct quotations, but also from the numerous allu- 
 sions which He made to the Law and to the Hagi- 
 ography, as well as to Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Joel, 
 Hosea, Micuh, Zechariah, Malachi, and above all to 
 the Book of Psalms." The learned Canon also 
 thinks that He was acquainted with the uncanonical 
 books, and adduces some evidence to support that 
 opinion. 
 
 * Matt. v. 18; John viii. 6. 
 
THE EDUCATION OF JESUS. 39 
 
 5. He was also familiar with the traditions of the 
 Elders that time had gathered about the Law, and 
 that, as He declared, made it of none effect. Still 
 there is no evidence to show that He was ever the dis- 
 ciple of any Rabbi, as Saul was of Gamaliel, but 
 rather the contrary. 
 
 6. He was also familiar with the Rabbinical modes 
 of interpretation or exegesis. Moreover, He was a 
 consummate master of all the methods of teaching 
 that were current in His country at the time. This fact 
 will engage our attention hereafter. These methods, 
 however, He no doubt acquired by reading, observa- 
 tion, and reflection, and not by study in the schools. 
 
 So much is certain. Canon Farrar supposes that 
 Jesus also knew Greek, and draws the inference from 
 the fact that many of His quotations appear t5 have 
 been made from The Septuagint version. The Canon 
 thinks it possible, also, that He was acquainted with 
 Latin. He may be right or wrong in these views, 
 but he is unquestionably right when he says that these 
 languages exercised little or no influence on Jesus' s 
 development. There is not in all His teaching a 
 single indisputable allusion to the literature, philos- 
 ophy, or history of Greece or Rome.* There is "not 
 the slightest reason to think that the preparation of 
 the Great Teacher was due in any part to facts or 
 influences existing outside of His own country. In 
 education He was a true son of Israel. 
 
 NOTE. Mention has been made of the teaching function that 
 Moses committed to the Jewish priest. It is not sufficiently 
 understood, perhaps, that this was an innovation. The priest 
 
 * The Life of Christ, Vol. I. , p. 89-92. 
 
40 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 per se is not a teacher. He is the man of the altar or temple, 
 intrusted with ritualistic, ceremonial, and mystical duties. 
 The Greek hierus means a sacrificer, and hieruo means to 
 slaughter for sacrifice. The priest's position is a legal, not a 
 moral one. So machine -like was the Pagan conception of re- 
 ligion, that little, if any, attention was paid to his character. 
 Julius Caesar was high priest at Rome. Neither were the Jew- 
 ish priests, primarily, teachers. A graphic description of their 
 principal duties will be found in Stanley ' s ' ' History of the 
 Jewish Church, ' ' Lecture XXXVI. Still, Moses did commit a 
 limited teaching function to them. Jesus went still further ; 
 He appointed teachers and preachers, but no priests. Writing 
 from the rationalistic standpoint, Mr. Lecky thus describes the 
 difference between Paganism and Christianity in this regard : 
 
 It is common with many persons to establish a comparison 
 between Christianity and Paganism , by placing the teaching of 
 the Christians in juxtaposition with corresponding passages 
 from the writings of Marcus Aurelius or Seneca, and to regard 
 the superiority of the Christian over the philosophical teaching 
 as a complete measure of the moral advance that was effected 
 by Christianity. But a moment ' s reflection is sufficient to dis- 
 play the injustice of such a conclusion. The ethics of Paganism"] 
 were part of a philosophy. The ethics of Christianity were part I 
 of a religion. The first were the speculations of a few highJ^ 
 cultivated individuals, and neither had nor could have had any 
 direct influence upon the masses of mankind. The second were 
 indissolubly connected with the worship, hopes, and fears of a 
 vast religious system, that acts at least as powerfully on the 
 most ignorant as on the most educated. The objects of the 
 Pagan systems were to foretell the future, to explain the uni- 
 verse, to avert calamity, to obtain the assistance of the gods. 
 They contained no instruments of moral teaching analogous to 
 our institution of preaching, or to the moral preparation for the 
 reception of the sacrament, or to confession, or to the reading 
 of The Bible, or to religious education, or to united prayer for 
 spiritual benefits. To make men virtuous was no more the 
 function of the priest than of the physician. On the other 
 hand, the philosophic expositions of duty were wholly uncon- 
 nected with the religious ceremonies of the temple. To amal- 
 gamate these two spheres, to incorporate moral culture with 
 religion, and thus to enlist in its behalf that desire to enter, by 
 means of ceremonial observances, into direct communication 
 with Heaven, which experience has shown to be one of the most 
 universal and powerful passions of mankind, was among the 
 
THE EDUCATION OF JESUS. 41 
 
 most important achievements of Christianity. Something had 
 no doubt been already attempted in this direction. Philosophy, 
 in the hands of the rhetoricians, had become more popular. 
 The Pythagoreans enjoined religious ceremonies for the purpose 
 of purifying the mind, and expiatory rites were common, 
 especially in the Oriental religions. But it was the distinguish- 
 ing characteristic of Christianity, that its moral influence was 
 not indirect, casual, remote, or spasmodic. Unlike all Pagan 
 religions, it made moral teaching a main function of its clergy, 
 moral discipline the leading object of its services, moral dispo- 
 sitions the necessary condition of the due performance of its 
 rites. By the pulpit, by its ceremonies, by all the agencies of 
 power it possessed, it labored systematically and perseveringly 
 for the regeneration of mankind. Under its influence, doc- 
 trines concerning tne nature of God, the immortality of the soul, 
 and the duties of men , which the noblest intellects of antiquity 
 could barely grasp, have become the truisms of the village 
 school, the proverbs of the cottage, and of the alley. History 
 of European Morals, etc. , Chap. IV. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 HIS INSIGHT INTO MIND AND CHARACTER. 
 
 A SUCCESSFUL teacher must combine in somethiug 
 like harmony four different qualifications, and a 
 great teacher must combine them in an eminent de- 
 gree. 
 
 1. A knowledge of the mind, its capabilities and 
 functions, its laws of activity and modes of growth. 
 
 2. An ideal, model, or pattern of mind and char- 
 acter to which teaching shall conform.. 
 
 3. A body of knowledge, doctrine, or teachipg 
 adapted to the mind and chosen with reference to the 
 ideal. 
 
 4. Practical skill that will enable the teacher to 
 use knowledge or doctrine in a manner that will 
 work out the ideal. In The New Testament a person 
 who has such skill is said to be " apt to teach," and 
 it is made one of the qualifications of a pastor. * 
 
 Obviously, these elements are more or less related. 
 Knowledge of mind, in connection with the facts of 
 environment, suggests the educational ideal. Such 
 knowledge again conduces to skill in teaching. The 
 same may be said of knowledge or doctrine ; one can- 
 not teach what he does not know. Once more, a 
 clearly defined idea in relation to what is to be done 
 
 *1 Tim.iii. 2. 
 (42) 
 
INSIGHT INTO MIND AND CHARACTER. 43 
 
 conduces to practical skill and success. Still it must 
 be said that the four elements are not necessarily 
 found associated togther. Good scholars, for exam- 
 ple, sometimes fail as teachers because they lack apti- 
 tude, while persons who have aptitude succeed beyond 
 what their attainments in knowledge and doctrine 
 would justify us in expecting. No doubt the first and 
 the last of the four elements present as close a rela- 
 lation as any of the four, if not indeed the closest 
 one. In fact, teaching skill is absolutely dependent 
 upon knowledge of the mind. While argument to 
 show this is not deemed necessary, it still seems desir- 
 able to offer some observations upon the kind of 
 knowledge that causes skill. 
 
 First, this knowledge must relate to mind in its 
 general character and attributes. When everything 
 has been said about the mental peculiarities of races, 
 nations, families, and individuals, the human mind 
 still remains one. All men know, feel, and resolve ; all 
 perceive, remember, and imagine; all are susceptible 
 to mystery and wonder, to awe and reverence ; all 
 have some sense of right and obligation; all believe 
 in some power or cause superior to themselves. These 
 facts are the strongest proofs of the spiritual unity of 
 the race. 
 
 Secondly, the teacher cannot be content with this 
 general knowledge. The Greek mind was specula- 
 tive, the Latin mind practical. The same may be 
 said of the German and English minds respectively. 
 The Southern races of Europe are moved more 
 by their senses and feelings than the Northern races. 
 Communities of the same country differ in men- 
 
44 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 tal tone and color. One is critical, exact, and cold; 
 another warm and demonstrative. And so it is 
 with individuals. All men are built on what may 
 be called the same ground plan. They all have 
 intellect, sensibility and will, consciousness and con- 
 science, the natural and moral affections, the relig- 
 ious emotions, the intuitions, perceptive knowledge, 
 memory, imagination, and thought; all have the ideas 
 of pain and pleasure, of good and ill, of personality 
 and responsibility. But two houses quite different in 
 construction may be built on the same foundation 
 and of the same materials. So it is with men. The 
 world of man presents a variety equal to the variety of 
 nature. No two individuals are exactly alike. One 
 is strong in intellect, but deficient in sensibility or in 
 purpose ; a second has strong feelings, but is weak in 
 one or both of the other faculties; a third has a 
 sluggish imagination, but much argumentative power; 
 a fourth, warm affections and generous impulses com- 
 bined with a small sense of duty. One man will 
 listen to argument, but cannot be moved by exhorta- 
 tion ; another will weep at some picture of distress, 
 but cannot see the logical relation of two thonghts; a 
 a third will give money to a beggar, but leave his 
 debts unpaid; a fourth is as just as Rhadamanthus, 
 and also as unfeeling. Accordingly, the knowledge 
 of the mind that is found in books of psychology does 
 not answer the teacher's purpose. It may qualify 
 him to teach a man rather than a horse or a dog, but 
 not one man rather than another man, not John rath- 
 er than James. The teacher must know men in their 
 individual characters, as well as in their general con- 
 
INSIGHT INTO MIND AND CHARACTER. 45 
 
 stitutioii. He must, in other words, know minds, as 
 well as mind. 
 
 Thirdly, the teacher must have a large first-hand, 
 practical, and concrete knowledge of the mind. He 
 cannot depend upon the abstract knowledge of books 
 their analyses, classifications, and critical discus- 
 sions. This has much value, and no teacher should 
 be without it, but for practical purposes knowledge 
 that comes from personal observation and reflection, 
 that roots in experience, that springs from contact 
 with men, is of much greater value. It suggests life 
 rather than books, aptitude rather than learning. 
 Many persons well read in books of mental science 
 lack the teacher's skill ; while a still larger class who 
 are strangers to such books possess this skill. 
 
 Fourthly, a good deal depends upon the manner 
 in which the knowledge comes. Some persons learn 
 a good deal about the mind and minds, but they learn 
 it slowly and painfully. They accumulate valuabb 
 facts, they work out sound conclusions, but they do 
 not make a practical application of their knowledge, 
 or they do it in a halting or bungling manner. They 
 know men as abstractions, not as concrete personali- 
 ties. They lack tact or native aptness. Other per- 
 sons are quick and penetrative ; they see at once the 
 meaning and bearing of facts; they seem to carry 
 their minds in their eyes and fingers, and they are 
 said to read character at a glance. The processes of 
 feeling are quicker, though perhaps less sure, than 
 those of logic, and these persons seem almost to feel 
 rather than think their way. It is common to de- 
 scribe them as "intuitive": but their so-called intu- 
 
46 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 ition is nothing but a very rapid process of thought. 
 
 Lastly, this so-called intuitive intelligence in most 
 cases is causally related to sympathy, both intellec- 
 tual and moral. Persons who have one are likely to 
 have the other, and persons who are deficient in one 
 are likely to be deficient in the other. Perhaps the 
 two are but different ways of saying the same thing. 
 A large measure of this power is essential to the 
 critic of literary productions and to the historian, as 
 well as to the teacher. We cannot understand an au- 
 thor unless we get at his point of view, see things as 
 he saw them, feel somewhat as he felt, think and ar- 
 gue as he thought and argued; that is, come into a 
 sympathetic relation with him. Women are more apt 
 to possess the intelligence that feels and the feeling 
 that knows than men; and this is why, for some pur- 
 poses, they surpass men as teachers. All teachers, to 
 be successful, must be able to appreciate the difficul- 
 ties and trials of their pupils, and to graduate their 
 instruction to their ability, furnishing them also the 
 needed encouragement, and particularly in the case 
 of the young and weak. The most successful teachers 
 are characterized by a certain simplicity of character; 
 they are in league with human nature. 
 
 A competent knowledge of men is even more neces- 
 sary to teachers of morals and religion than to teach- 
 ers of the branches of secular education. A distin- 
 guished writer has said: " The difficulties of moral 
 teaching exceed in every way the difficulties of in- 
 tellectual teaching. The method of proceeding is 
 hampered by so many conditions that it barely ad- 
 mits of precise demonstration or statement." * The 
 
 * Dr. Alexander Bain : Education as a Science, p. 399. 
 
INSIGHT INTO MIND AND CHARACTER. 47 
 
 secular teacher is, or should be, much more than a 
 former of intellect; he should look after the moral 
 principles, sentiments, and conduct of his pupils, 
 especially in schools of lower grade; but, after all, 
 hl.-j task is simple and easy compared with the teacher 
 whose main function is to form the moral character. 
 A great preacher has something of the gift of the 
 prophet, seeing things by a sort of gaze. 
 
 We do not always stop to think how God's knowl- 
 edge differs from our knowledge. God is said to 
 think and to reason, and His eye is said to be on them 
 that fear Him. "Come now, and let us reason to- 
 gether." * This is what is technically called anthro- 
 pomorphic language; it is used in accommodation to 
 human modes of speech and thought. But God does 
 not reason or think in the sense that He collects facts 
 or data, and then draws conclusions from them, in 
 the sense that He discovers what He did not know. 
 The Almighty is not an inductive philosopher. He 
 does not proceed by ratiocination, or in fact " pro- 
 ceed " at all. He reasons with men for their enlight- 
 enment, but not for His own enlightenment. We do 
 not think of Him as learning by experience or as 
 working out problems. The language that best fits 
 the case is that suggested by the sense of vision. God 
 sees, perceives, beholds. His knowledge is intuitive. 
 Nor is the eye of the Lord upon men that He may find 
 out something about them. "Neither is there any crea- 
 ture that is not manifest in His sight : but all things are 
 naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we 
 have to do."t Men also see and perceive, and have 
 
 * Isa. i. 18. t Heb. iv. 13. 
 
48 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 intuitions, but only in a limited sense. We observe 
 and register phenomena, classify facts, deduce con- 
 clusions and laws, and build up systems; but in sci- 
 ence and philosophy we return to the subject again 
 and again; we seek to verify our facts and test our 
 conclusions ; and when we have finished we are not 
 sure, save in a limited sphere, of our results. Some 
 of the best known sciences have been largely reorgan- 
 ized within the last few years. We have the " new 
 chemistry," the "new astronomy," the " new political 
 economy," and even the "new mathematics." Par- 
 ticularly in the field of human conduct, where man's 
 will is the governing faculty, we are often uncertain 
 of our way, and sometimes are wholly lost. 
 
 Still it is easy to exaggerate the value of what is 
 commonly called " proof." To a deep-thinking mind 
 it is often, if not commonly, a shallow matter. Par- 
 ticularly is this true in ethics and religion. It does 
 not reach the primary ideas upon which belief rests. 
 Mr. Emerson, who never attempted to prove his teach- 
 ings, and frankly admitted that he could not do so, 
 once replied to an objector: "I am sorry if I have 
 been betrayed into saying anything that requires 
 proof." With him learning was intuition or insight, 
 and he thought that other men should see things as he 
 saw them. Proof is indeed the method of science, 
 including theology; it has, no doubt, a function in 
 religious teaching; but it is not the method of the 
 highest form of religious teaching. The fundamental 
 truths of religion are directly revealed to the human 
 consciousness, and are not argued out or logically 
 established. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned. 
 
INSIGHT INTO MIND AND CHARACTER. 49 
 
 Thus the presuppositions upon which The Bible rests 
 are assumed, never established. It is asserted that 
 God created the heavens and the earth, but no attempt 
 is made to prove His existence. The Bible starts with 
 the assumption that this is already known. Here I 
 recall nothing that comes nearer to proof than the 
 words of the Psalmist: "The heavens declare the 
 glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handi- 
 work."* Or the words of the Apostle: "For the 
 invisible things of Him from the creation of the world 
 are clearly seen, being understood by the things that 
 are made, even His eternal power and God-head. "f 
 The greatest religious truths lie deeper than formal 
 reasoning. This is the reason why the greatest religious 
 teachers have worked below the proposition-and-proof 
 level; as said before, they have something of the pro- 
 phetic gift. It may be added that no preacher who 
 works mainly on this line will attract the most relig- 
 ious minds; he will not attract even those who have 
 the piety of the intellect, to say nothing of the piety 
 of the affections and the will. He may develop log- 
 ical acumen, critical ability, and controversial power, 
 but he will prove unequal to the generation of spiritu- 
 ality. He has nothing to draw with, and the well is 
 deep. Such a minister will be sure to lead his flock 
 into the error that is now far too common, the error 
 of assigning a disproportionate place in religious 
 faith and life to the understanding, to the partial 
 exclusion of the heart. 
 
 * Psa. xix. 1. t Rom. i. 20. 
 
50 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 These observations lead directly to our subject. We 
 read in the fourth Gospel: "Now when He was in Je- 
 rusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believ- 
 ed in His name, when they saw the miracles which He 
 did. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, be- 
 cause He knew all men, and needed not that any should 
 testify of man; for He knew what was in man."* 
 The Gospels abound in illustrations of this state- 
 ment. "And Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, 
 Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts? " t "And 
 Jesus knew their thoughts." | "But He, knowing 
 their hypocrisy," etc.|| "But when Jesus perceived 
 their thoughts, He answering said unto them." 
 "But he knew their thoughts. "U "And Jesus, per- 
 ceiving the thought of their hearts, took a child," 
 etc.** "For Jesus knew from the beginning who they 
 were that believed not, and who should betray Him." tt 
 These terms suggest, what the circumstances con- 
 firm, that Jesus's knowledge of men was direct, sure, 
 and penetrating. The Divine knowledge shone out in 
 Him. He read men, saw what was in their hearts, 
 and needed not that any should testify to Him of 
 man. From a pedagogical standpoint, His intuition 
 was the first condition of His marvelous power as a 
 teacher. It gives the clue to His sure appeals to the 
 human heart, and to His triumphant handling of cases 
 involving the elements of character. 
 
 Coming to practical tests, we may first speak of 
 Jesus in relation to His countrymen. He fully under- 
 stood the Jewish mind. Hence, as we shall see here- 
 
 * Chap. ii. 23, 25. t Matt. ix. 4. J Matt. xii. 25. || Mark xii. 15. 
 Luke v. 22. 1 Luke vi. 8. ** Luke ix. 47. tt John vi. 64. 
 
INSIGHT INTO MIND AND CHARACTER. 51 
 
 after, He employed the methods of teaching that were 
 best suited to the national genius and that were sanc- 
 tioned by usage. There is a certain suggestiveness in 
 Kenan's characterization of Him as "the charming 
 Eabbi." 
 
 He perfectly understood the state of the national 
 religion in its existing form, the character of the cur- 
 rent religious teaching, and the sects, parties, and 
 factions into which the nation was divided. With 
 the Hellenistic side of Judaism, He did not much come 
 into contact; the Palestinian side He knew altogether. 
 He exhibited equal skill and power in handling the 
 Pharisees, with their hypocrisy, ritualism, conven- 
 tional piety, and self-righteousness; the Sadducees, 
 with their worldliness, materialism, and rationalism; 
 and the Herodians, those selfish and unscrupulous poli- 
 ticians. Fully equal to His handling of the ritualist, 
 the rationalist, and the politician, but of a very differ- 
 ent kind, was His handling of the inquirer after truth, 
 of the man with a troubled conscience, of the heart- 
 broken penitent seeking forgiveness of sins. No mat- 
 ter how times and places and circumstances may 
 change, He meets them all with absolute prescience, 
 self-command, and mastery. As Rousseau says of Him 
 in T/ie Emile, " What an affecting gracefulness in His 
 instructions! What sublimity in His maxims! What 
 profound wisdom in His discourse ! What presence 
 of mind, what subtlety, what fitness in His replies!" 
 
 How fitting the grave discourse with Nicodemus: 
 "That which is borji of the flesh is flesh; and that 
 which is born of the Spirit is spirit." * How perfect 
 
 * John iii. 1-15. 
 
52 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 in character the interview in the house of Simon: 
 "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she 
 loved much."* How consummate the conversation 
 with the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well: "The 
 water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of 
 water springing up to everlasting life." f 
 
 How universal and complete was His adaptation to 
 time, place, and circumstance is well shown by the 
 wide circle of testimony given to Him. At the close 
 of the Sermon on the Mount, "the people were aston- 
 ished at His doctrine." I The officers sent to arrest 
 Him on one occasion, gave as a reason for not exe- 
 cuting their commission, "Never man spake like this 
 man." || While Nicodemus said, "We know that 
 thou art a teacher come from God." 
 
 This sure reading of mind and character was also 
 the first requisite to that perennial freshness and in- 
 terest that marked the teaching of Jesus. The peo- 
 ple were subsisting, or rather famishing, upon the dry 
 traditions, the wire-drawn distinctions, the ensnaring 
 subtleties, the sophistic casuistry, the feeble exposi- 
 tion, and the ritualistic observances which the Rabbis 
 meted out to them. The hungry sheep looked up 
 and were not fed. He saw them hungry for the bread 
 of life, thirsty for the waters of salvation, and He 
 met their needs by pouring into their minds the sim- 
 ple yet beautiful words that are so fitly called "the 
 words of eternal life." Waiting upon the teaching 
 of the Rabbi was eating the husks on which the swine 
 fed. Waiting upon His teaching was sitting down 
 at the feast that the prodigal's father spread. 
 
 * Luke vii. 36-50. t John iv. 1-26. t Matt. vii. 28. 
 
 || John vii. 46. John iii. 2. 
 
INSIGHT INTO MIND AND CHARACTER. 53 
 
 Finally, His matchless power to reveal men to 
 themselves sprang from the same source. Such 
 power is a prime qualification of the spiritual teacher. 
 Nothing is more common than for men to be ignorant 
 of themselves. Paul said to the council, "I have 
 lived in all good conscience before God until this 
 day."* Jesus said to James and John, "Ye know 
 not what manner of spirit ye are of." f Hence the 
 thoughts of men's hearts must be revealed; they 
 must be made acquainted with the real ends to which 
 they aspire, the principles that guide, and the mo- 
 tives that incite their action. 
 
 As we shall see hereafter, Jesus sometimes argued 
 or adduced proofs. Still, this was not His habitual, 
 or even His customary, method of teaching. It 
 would be impossible to resolve His teachings into a 
 series of reasonings. In the Sermon on the Mount, 
 He simply asserted or announced things as directly 
 and clearly as He saw them, and this calm announce- 
 ment was the substance of that authority which so 
 charmed the multitude. 
 
 * Acts xxiii. 1. t Luke ix. 56. 
 
CHAPTEK V. 
 
 HIS RELATION TO TRADITION AND LEGALISM. 
 
 IT may sound paradoxical to say that the Jewish 
 Rabbis were at once great legalists and great tradition- 
 alists. Jesus sets tradition over against the Law. 
 The truth is, however, that this is a very common 
 combination, and even a necessary one under cer- 
 tain conditions. Previous to the Captivity the Jews 
 were quite disposed to play fast and loose with the 
 Law. After that time they became as intense legal- 
 ists as the world has seen. How this came about, and 
 how legalism necessitated tradition, Dean Milman has 
 explained in a passage that may well be quoted. 
 
 The Jews who returned f rorri. the Captivity brought with them 
 a reverential, or rather a passionate, attachment to the Mosaic 
 Law. This it seems to have been the prudent policy of their 
 leaders, Ezra and Nehemiah, to encourage by all possible 
 means, as the great bond of social union, and the unfailing prin- 
 ciple of separation from the rest of mankind. The consecra- 
 tion of the second Temple, and the re -establishment of the State, 
 was accompanied by the ready and solemn recognition of the 
 Law. By degrees attachment to the Law sank deeper and 
 deeper into the national character ; it was not merely at once 
 their Bible and their Statute Book, it entered into the most 
 minute detail of common life. But no written law can provide 
 for all possible exigencies ; whether general and comprehensive, 
 or minute and multifarious , it equally requires the expositor to 
 adapt it to the immediate case which may occur, either before 
 
 (54) 
 
RELATION TO TRADITION AND LEGALISM. 55 
 
 the public tribunal, or that of the private conscience. Hence 
 the Law became a deep and intricate study. Certain men rose 
 to acknowledged eminence for their ingenuity in explaining, 
 their readiness in applying, their facility in quoting, and their 
 clearness in offering solutions of the difficult passages of the 
 written statutes. Learning in the Law became the great dis- 
 tinction to which all alike paid reverential homage. Public and 
 private affairs depended on the sanction of this self -formed 
 spiritual aristocracy. In an imperfect calendar the accurate 
 settling of the proper days for the different fasts and festivals 
 was of the first importance. It would have been considered as 
 inevitably tending to some great national calamity, if it had 
 been discovered that the new moon, or any other movable festi- 
 val, above all if the Passover, had been celebrated on a miscal- 
 culated day. The national sacrifice, or that of the individual, 
 might be vitiated by an inadvertent want of conformity to the 
 strict letter of the ritual. Every duty of life, of social inter- 
 course between man and man, to omit its weightier authority as 
 the national code of criminal and civil jurisprudence, was regu- 
 lated by an appeal to the Book of the Law. Even at every 
 meal the scrupulous conscience shuddered at the possibility, 
 lest by some neglect, or misinterpretation of the statute, it 
 might fall into serious offense. In every case the learned in the 
 Law could alone decide to the satisfaction of the inquirer. * 
 
 It is easy to follow the successive steps of this de- 
 velopment. First, there was an intense legality; sec- 
 ond, attempts were made to adapt the old Law, by 
 means of commentary and exposition, to new condi- 
 tions and needs; third, this commentary and exposi- 
 tion were clothed with authority, thus making in 
 effect a new law ; next came the oral transmission of 
 the new law side by side with the old one, thus form- 
 ing a tradition, and finally the repetition of this pro- 
 cess to meet constantly changing conditions and 
 needs. Thus the tradition-process tended to lengthen 
 
 * History of the Jews, Book XVIII. 
 
56 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 itself out interminably. It was greatly assisted by 
 that love of subtlety and refinement which roots in 
 man's pride of intellect, and in love of superiority. 
 At an early stage in the development, the idea that 
 anything new was being produced was cast off, and 
 high antiquity was claimed for the new law. Long 
 before the time with which we are dealing, it had be- 
 come an article of faith that the Pentateuch con- 
 tained "no precept and no regulation, ceremonial, 
 doctrinal, or legal, of which Grod had not given to 
 Moses all explanations necessary for their application, 
 with the order to transmit them by word of mouth." 
 It is written in the Mischna: "Moses received the 
 oral law from Sinai, and delivered it to Joshua, and 
 Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, 
 and the prophets to the men of the Great Syna- 
 gogue." * 
 
 The general effect of the tradition-system was, as 
 Jesus said, to make the Law of none effect. f Still, we 
 need not suppose that this was the conscious, deliber- 
 ate intention of the authors of tradition. For the 
 most part their intention was, no doubt, quite the 
 contrary. The Rabbis were not unlike many other 
 commentators and system-makers. They went on re- 
 fining, commenting, combining; the finished work of 
 one became the raw materials of another; starting 
 from different points in the original system, they 
 reached divergent and contradictory conclusions. 
 Thus, the commentary-system grew and grew until the 
 Law itself was buried almost out of sight, and por- 
 
 * Smith, Dictionary of the_Bible, "Pharisees." 
 t Matt. xv. ; Mark vii. 
 
RELATION TO TRADITION AND LEGALISM. 57 
 
 tions of it were repealed by a class of men who 
 claimed to hold it in the highest esteem. In fact, 
 they always professed that their sole object was to 
 safeguard the Law; and the name "fence," which they 
 gave to their commentaries, is extremely significant. 
 In a sense the Rabbis, like all other men engaged in 
 the same work, were the victims of their own system ; 
 they became enmeshed in webs of their own spinning, 
 and from which they were unable to extricate them- 
 selves ; moreover, their efforts tended strongly to the 
 trampling down and destruction of what they sought 
 to "fence" about and protect. Jewish history ad- 
 mirably illustrates how a tradition-system necessarily 
 leads to the. subversion of the law of which it is an 
 outgrowth. The development along one line comes 
 into collision with the development along another line, 
 involving in the end the foundations of the system 
 itself. 
 
 A well-known case, reported in two of the Gospels, 
 is an illustration of how the Rabbinical method de- 
 voured its own children. 
 
 We read* that certain Scribes and Pharisees who 
 were of Jerusalem, observing that some of the disci- 
 ples partook of food without first washing their 
 hands, and so incurred defilement according to their 
 notions, entered a complaint to Jesus. The nature 
 of their complaint is fully shown by the facts which 
 Mark inserts in his narrative: " For the Pharisees, 
 and all the Jews, except they wash their hands oft, 
 eat not, holding the tradition of the Elders. And 
 
 * Matt, xv.; Markvii. 
 
58 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 when they come from the market, except they wash, 
 they eat not. And many other things there be, which 
 the} 7 have received to hold, as the washing of cups 
 and pots, brazen vessels and of tables." The griev- 
 ance of the Rabbis is not that the disciples have com- 
 mitted a breach of etiquette or of good manners, but 
 a breach of religion. Still further, there is no pre- 
 tention that the broken rule is a part of the ceremo- 
 nial law; it is merely a tradition, a commandment of 
 men. The question is, "Why do thy disciples trans- 
 gress the commands of the Elders?" Wholly ignoring 
 for the time their question, Jesus demands of them, 
 "Why do you transgress the commandments of God 
 by your traditions?" following up the question by 
 giving them a pointed instance in which they do so. 
 God had commanded, "Honor thy father and thy moth- 
 er," and "He that curseth his father or his mother, 
 shall be put to death."* To these commandments, of 
 course, the complainants must assent. He then pro- 
 ceeds to show how they have both been practically 
 nullified by the Rabbinical development of another 
 part of the original Law. 
 
 The Law of Moses required gifts or offerings for 
 various purposes, as in fulfillment of a vow, and laid 
 down rules governing them. There were rules where- 
 by persons, animals, and property devoted to God 
 were redeemable in money; also rules whereby per- 
 sons denied themselves, or were denied by their par- 
 ents, the use of things that were in themselves per- 
 fectly lawful, as, for example, wine. In effect this was 
 laying one's self under, or being laid under, an inter- 
 
 * Ex. xx. 12; xxi. 17. 
 
RELATION TO TRADITION AND LEGALISM. 59 
 
 diet not to use the prohibited articles. Out of these 
 negative rules the Rabbis developed what is known as 
 the "Corban system," according to which "a man 
 might interdict himself by vow, not only from using 
 for himself, but from giving to another, or receiving 
 from him, some particular object, whether of food or 
 any other kind whatsoever. The thing thus interdicted 
 was considered as Corban, and the form of interdiction 
 was virtually to this effect : 'I forbid myself to touch, 
 or be concerned in any way with the thing forbidden, 
 as if it were devoted by law, that is, let it be Corban.' ' 
 "A -person might thus exempt himself from assisting, 
 or receiving assistance from, some particular person or 
 persons, as parents in distress; and in short from any 
 inconvenient obligation under plea of Corban, though 
 by a legal fiction he was allowed to suspend the re- 
 striction in certain cases." * Corban means "gift," 
 and the name was given to the gift-treasury. The 
 person uttering the word, it appears, might obtain a 
 dispensation permitting him to devote the thing de- 
 clared a gift to his own uses; or if not, the one act 
 exempted him from further payment on account of 
 his father. It does not appear that the Corban sys- 
 tem had an exclusive relation to the Jew's duties to 
 his parents, or that it was invented for the purpose of 
 enabling him to shun those duties. It was rather a 
 development, general in character, that proceeded 
 along its own lines, and that came into conflict with 
 the Law in relation to parents, as it were, accidently. 
 It is therefore an excellent illustration of the way in 
 which the Rabbinical method might abrogate the 
 
 * Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, "Corban." 
 
60 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 Law itself, although the men who invented and used 
 that method never contemplated anything of the 
 kind, and would certainly have shrunk from it had 
 they clearly foreseen its inevitable consequences. 
 Words are hardly necessary to show that such a sys- 
 tem, sanctioned by the highest authority, put into the 
 hand of the selfish, the hypocritical, and the heart- 
 less, would lead to the most monstrous results, mak- 
 ing void not merely the Law of Moses, but also the 
 law of natural affection. Farrar justly remarks that 
 such an "iniquitous diversion of natural charities into 
 the channels of pious ostentation would of course 
 undermine all parental authority." Apparently, a 
 man might in the same way avoid paying his debts, or 
 excuse himself from performing any of the most 
 sacred obligations of life. It is plain that a more 
 tremendous engine of hypocrisy could not easily be 
 invented. 
 
 Jesus first quotes the two commandments in relation 
 to parents, and then proceeds to show how the Corban 
 system makes them both nugatory. In effect He tells 
 the Scribes and Pharisees that any Jew, having some- 
 thing in his possession that his father or his mother 
 may need, or that would profit his parents, and the 
 giving of which to them would be comprehended by 
 the commandment to honor them, has only to say 
 "Corban" over it, that is, "it is a gift or sacrifice de- 
 voted to the Temple or to God," and he shall be free 
 from all obligations as a son to render the needed as- 
 sistance, and shall not be required, or even suffered, 
 to do anything more for his father or his mother. Jesus 
 declares that in this way the Rabbis have made the 
 
RELATION TO TRADITION AND LEGALISM. 61 
 
 commandments of God of none effect by their tra- 
 ditions. He says, moreover, that Isaiah's words: 
 "This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, 
 and honoreth me with their lips; but their heart is 
 far from me," are fulfilled in them. The further 
 words of the quotation, "But in vain do they worship 
 me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of 
 men," seem to imply that already, in the time of 
 Isaiah, tradition was beginning to bear its appropriate 
 fruit. Mark introduces into the account these par- 
 ticulars: "Full well ye reject the commandment of 
 God, that ye may keep your own tradition," and 
 "many such like things do ye;" in other words, 
 the nullification of the Law iri relation to parents by 
 the Corban system was only one of the many ways in 
 which the Law was set aside. 
 
 The two narratives that we have been following are 
 of the deepest interest for another reason. They 
 show how the Scribes and Pharisees demanded that 
 Jesus should Himself conform, and require His dis- 
 ciples to conform, to the traditions of the Elders; and 
 also how He caused them emphatically to understand 
 that He would do nothing of the kind. He not only 
 repels the particular tradition to which they direct 
 attention, but He shows how the Rabbinical method 
 sets at naught the very Law that it seeks to conserve, 
 and that they profess to reverence, giving the Cor- 
 ban system as an example. He gives only a single 
 illustration, but His condemnation extends to the 
 whole method. Nor is this all. He calls the multi- 
 tude to Himself, and expounds to them the real law 
 in relation to defilement. Perhaps we shall return to 
 
62 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 this teaching again ; but we must not fail here to set 
 down its conclusion : "To eat with unwashen hands 
 defileth not a man." 
 
 The mode in which Jesus handled the Sabbath 
 question of His day illustrates another point, and is 
 equally marked and significant. The celebrated epi- 
 sode of the corn-fields is related by three of the four 
 Evangelists. * As they went through the corn on the 
 Sabbath, the hungry disciples began to pluck some of 
 the ears, to rub out the kernels in their hands, and to 
 eat them. The Pharisees, ever on the watch, imme- 
 diately preferred a charge against them to their Mas- 
 ter. This was not that they had taken what was not 
 their own ; in fact the Law expressly permitted such 
 use when it was caused by the cravings of hun- 
 ger;! but it was rather, " Behold, thy disciples do 
 that which is not lawful to do upon the Sabbath 
 day." Jesus had already incurred the charge of be- 
 ing a Sabbath-breaker, and the incident had led to 
 the plot already formed to compass his death, j The 
 fourth Commandment was as express and definite as 
 language could make it; around it the Rabbis had 
 woven their familiar webs ; but the charge, as they now 
 made it, involved the Law itself and not the commen- 
 tary. Jesus does not stop to show that they have 
 misconceived the letter of the Law ; He charges rath- 
 er that they are sacrificing its spirit to the letter; 
 that they are in fact making an unlawful use of law. 
 His argument consists in the citation of precedents 
 that they cannot pass by. David and his company, 
 
 * Matt. xii. 1-9 ; Mark ii. 23-28; Luke vi. 1-5. 
 
 t Deut. xxiii. 25. J John x. 1, 16. Ex. 20. 8-12. 
 
RELATION TO TRADITION AND LEGALISM. 63 
 
 when they were hungry, had entered the tabernacle 
 and eaten the shew bread, which it was unlawful 
 for any but the priests to eat. The priests them- 
 selves performed their official duties on the Sabbath, 
 and were blameless, although the Law made no excep- 
 tion in their favor. Having put them to silence with 
 these precedents, He gave utterance to one of His 
 most far-reaching teachings. " The Sabbath was 
 made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. There- 
 fore, the Son of Man is lord also of the Sabbath." And 
 so of other ordinances or other institutions of relig- 
 ion. On no point was the warfare that Jesus made 
 upon Rabbinism keener than at the point brought to 
 our attention in this paragraph, viz. : the persistent 
 exaltation by the Jews of the letter that killeth over 
 the spirit that giveth life. 
 
 From what an intolerable burden of puerility and 
 oppressive observance Jesus sought to free the Jewish 
 mind and life, slight reading of the history of the 
 Pharisees will suffice to show. The Law provided, 
 " Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk "; 
 which tradition interpreted to mean that the flesh of 
 quadrupeds, or even of fowls, should not be mixed 
 with milk in food preparations, or be eaten at the 
 same time. It became a grave question between the 
 schools, whether an egg laid on a festival might be 
 eaten. The precept that an Israelite should " love 
 his neighbor as himself," was construed to mean an 
 Israelite as himself, and a Jewish midwife was for- 
 bidden to assist a heathen woman in the labors of 
 childbirth. Such facts as these throw light on the 
 burdens that were declared to be too heavy for men 
 
64 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 to bear, and on the bondage to the elements of the 
 world that were described as weak and beggarly. 
 
 NOTE. The phrase "unlawful use of law'' seems paradox- 
 ical. Paul suggests it, ' 'But we know the law is good, if a man 
 use it lawfully." 1 Tim. i. 8. See F. W. Robertson's ser- 
 mon, "The Lawful and the Unlawful Use of Law, ' ' based on 
 that text. A question had arisen at Ephesus concerning the re- 
 lation of the Christian believers to Jewish rites. ' 'He does not, 
 like a vehement polemic , say Jewish ceremonies and rules are 
 all worthless, nor some ceremonies are worthless and others es- 
 sential ; but he says the root of the whole matter is charity. If 
 you turn aside from this , all is lost; here at once the contro- 
 versy closes . So far as any rule fosters the spirit of love , that 
 is, is used lawfully, it is wise, and has a use. So far as it does 
 not , it is chaff . So far as it hinders it , it is poison . 
 
 ' 'Now observe how different this method is from that which 
 is called the sober, moderate way the via media. Some would 
 have said, the great thing is to avoid extremes. If the question 
 respects fasting, fast only in moderation; if the observance of 
 the sabbath day, observe it on the Jewish principle, only not so 
 strictly. 
 
 "St. Paul, on the contrary, went down to the root ; he said, 
 The true question is not whether the law is good or bad , but on 
 what principle ; he said, You are both wrong you, in saying 
 that the observance of the law is essential, for the end of it is 
 charity, and if that begot, what matter how; you, in saying 
 rules may be dispensed with entirely and always, 'for we know 
 that the law is good. ' ' ' 
 
 So far as the lesson is concerned, it matters not whether the 
 Apostle refers to the Mosaic Law or to law in its essence, that 
 is, the principle of constraint. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HOW JESUS USED THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 NEVER since the Western world first accepted the 
 Hebrew and the Greek Scriptures as the supreme and 
 final source of religious truth, have those books been 
 the subject of so much inquiry as to-day. The critics 
 cast forth theory after theory to account for their 
 origin and to explain their nature. Slowly but surely 
 apologists change the direction of the lines of defense 
 that they throw up about them. Slowly but surely 
 preachers modify the methods in which they use them 
 in preaching and teaching. Slowly but surely Chris- 
 tian scholars change their ideas of Biblical inspira- 
 tion and Biblical authority. More and more the most 
 cultivated Christian people seek for the real grounds 
 of faith, and for the best ideas as to the uses and 
 authority of Scripture. Meanwhile the printing 
 presses print the books, and the depositories and 
 bookstores sell them, in unexampled quantities, 
 while they are read by constantly increasing numbers 
 of people. These facts are an abundant justification 
 for examining somewhat carefully the way in which 
 Jesus, the incomparable master of religious method, 
 used the Jewish Scriptures. In so doing, I hope to 
 render at least a small service to some sincere and 
 
 earnest students. 
 
 5 (65) 
 
66 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 The common orthodox opinion of to-day is that 
 the writings which we call sometimes The Old Testa- 
 ment and sometimes the Hebrew Scriptures were all 
 originally considered of equal value and authority. 
 Such, however, was not the understanding of the 
 ancient Jews. The New Testament recognizes a 
 three-fold division of these writings: The Law, the 
 Prophets and the Psalms.* Moreover the Jewish 
 theory was that the Law of Moses the Torah con- 
 tained the whole revelation of God's goodness and 
 grace which had been given, or that could be given; 
 it "was accounted the pre-existent and eternal law, 
 comprising within itself the sum of all wisdom and all 
 possible revelation." The Prophets and the Psalms, 
 and the whole Hagiography, were regarded only as 
 "inspired -and authoritative interpretations of the 
 Law of Moses, and nothing more." They were his- 
 tory, tradition, literature. The Pentateuch was 
 styled "five-fifths of the Law;" it alone was 
 accounted "reading" or Scripture; and the Jews, 
 such was the hold of formal legality upon their 
 minds, never suffered the Law and the Prophets to 
 be written upon the same roll, while money received 
 for a copy of the Law might not be used to purchase 
 
 * This division corresponded in general to the arrangement of the Jewish 
 Canon in its final form, viz: 1. The Pentateuch or Law. 2. The Prophets, 
 including (1) the Earlier Prophets, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, and 
 (2) the Later Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve Minor 
 Prophets considered as one book. 3. The Hagiography (literally, "Sacred 
 Books,") Psalms, Proverbs, and Job; Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Ec- 
 clesiastes, and Esther; Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles. The 
 Prophets, the Psalms, and the rest of The Old Testament, in common with the 
 oral tradition of the Scribes, are mere kabbala or traditional doctrine. See 
 Professor Robertson Smith's well known work, The Old Testament in the 
 Jewish Church, Lecture VI. 
 
HOW JESUS USED THE SCRIPTURES. 67 
 
 a copy of the Prophets or the Psalms. However, 
 those remarkable writings together constituted a 
 national literature in the fullest sense of the word . 
 They were the peculiar strength, glory, mark, and 
 permanence of the nation. The Lawgiver, while liv- 
 ing before most of them were written, took good care 
 to secure the continued ascendency of these writings, 
 and the teaching of the national history. Never were 
 the youth of a nation brought up more exclusively, 
 or more thoroughly, on the national literature and 
 history than the Jewish youth. This is the source 
 of the remarkable patriotism that has characterized 
 Israel. This feature of the subject, however, has 
 been dealt with in a previous chapter. * 
 
 Jehovah was thus the center both of the Jewish 
 Law and of Jewish education. Faith in Him was the 
 source of the national discipline. The strength and 
 glory promised as rewards for obedience, and the 
 weakness and disaster threatened as penalties for dis- 
 obedience, no doubt implied the direct intervention of 
 the Most High in the course of history; but they can 
 in great part be explained on rational grounds. 
 
 Coming to closer quarters with our subject, one fact 
 that is sometimes overlooked, and still more fre- 
 quently undervalued, must be set out in the strongest 
 and clearest light. The Jewish Scriptures, like the 
 Greek Scriptures, are practical in character; their 
 end is ethical. It may be said of them all, as John 
 said of his Gospel in a specific sense, "These are 
 written that ye might believe." Sacred history is 
 something quite different from secular history. Its 
 
 * See Chap. iii. 
 
68 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 aim is not the enlargement of the understanding. Its 
 motive is not the gratification of an intelligent curi- 
 osity. It looks to faith and life. The historical 
 books of The Old Testament are the history of God's 
 dealings with the antediluvians, with the patriarchs, 
 with the Chosen People. The Mosaic Law is a relig- 
 ious code that seeks to regulate the whole life in statu- 
 tory terms, and it is impossible to imagine a more prac- 
 tical body of instruction. The Prophets are still more 
 religious. Foretelling prophecy as commonly un- 
 derstood holds a subordinate place in these books. 
 Still more, such as there is relates mainly to the 
 prophetic nation. Not often does the vision of the 
 prophet rest directly upon the distant horizon of the 
 world. And so with the Wisdom literature and the 
 Psalms. Finally, whatever may be the true theory of 
 poetry, there is no room for question as to the He- 
 brew theory. Never for a moment did an Israelite 
 indeed look upon the national poetry as being prima- 
 rily works of literary art. The national poems were 
 the Songs of Zion. In one significant saying Jesus 
 suggests this unity of purpose, and also illustrates the 
 Hebrew use of the words "prophesy" and "prophecy : " 
 "For all the prophets and the Law prophesied until 
 John."* 
 
 It will be remembered that the Jews, in classifying 
 The Old Testament books, did not recognize any dis- 
 tinction between history and prophecy; they grouped 
 the two classes of books together under the head of 
 "The Prophets." This fact is significant, for it 
 shows that the Jews regarded the two classes of books 
 
 * Matt. xi. 13. 
 
s*& ^x^ 
 
 HOW JESUS USED THE SCRIPTURES. 69 
 
 as having one fundamental object, viz., to teach relig- 
 ion; and in this they were right. We shall never 
 understand The Old Testament writers and par- 
 ticularly the Prophets until we conceive of them as 
 preachers and teachers above all else, some in prose 
 and some in verse. A better account of the spirit of 
 The Old Testament could not possibly have been given 
 than the one that Paul gave to Timothy: " All Scrip- 
 ture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable 
 for doctrine, for reproof, for correction,' for instruc- 
 tion in righteousness : that the man of God may be 
 perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works."* 
 Such being the Jew's view of the Scriptures, he 
 would never subject them, and could never subject 
 them, to critical inquiry or to historical investigation. 
 He was a thorough Oriental in mind, and the Oriental 
 mind is anything but scientific. The whole cycle of 
 Sacred Books preached and taught, and the Jew re- 
 garded them as instruments of preaching and teach- 
 ing. "The Greek words which designated belief or 
 faith," says Dr. Hatch, "are used in The Old Testa- 
 ment chiefly in the sense of trust, and primarily trust 
 in a person. They expressed confidence in his good- 
 ness, his veracity, his uprightness. They are as much 
 moral as intellectual. They implied an estimate of 
 character. Their use in application to God was not 
 different from their use in application to men. Abra- 
 ham trusted God. The Israelites also trusted God 
 when they saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore. 
 In the first instance there was just so much of intel- 
 lectual assent involved in belief, that to believe God 
 
 * 2 Tim. ill. 16, 17. 
 
70 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 involved an assent to the proposition that God exists. 
 But this element was latent and implied rather than 
 conscious and expressed."* Greece created the intel- 
 lect that has critically investigated the literature 
 which Judea produced. 
 
 Jesus occupied in general the same attitude 
 towards the Scriptures. He was not a higher critic. 
 He was not a critic of any kind or name. In this re- 
 gard He was as thoroughly Jewish as the Jew was 
 thoroughly Oriental. From first to last, there is not 
 an intimation of scientific method in His teaching. 
 He accepted the Scriptures as His countrymen ac- 
 cepted them, and applied them to similar purposes. 
 In this respect, again, He was a true son of Israel. 
 The whole cycle of Sacred Books He accepted as of 
 divine origin. He actually did what the Rabbis pro- 
 fessed to do, but failed to do, owing to their equal or 
 higher reverence for tradition. Furthermore, He ac- 
 cepted the primary fact of revelation without any 
 inquiry, so far as the reports show, into the secondary 
 causes concerned in making it. He had nothing to 
 say about method, and propounded no theory of in- 
 spiration. What Dr. Hatch says of a single discourse 
 is true of all His teaching. "The Sermon on the 
 Mount is the promulgation of a new law of conduct; 
 it assumes beliefs rather than formulates them; the 
 theological conceptions which underlie it belong to the 
 ethical rather than the speculative side of theology; 
 metaphysics are wholly absent, "t This emphatic in- 
 sistence upon the central fact, viz., that Jesus's pur- 
 
 * The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, 
 Lecture XI. t Ibid, Lecture I. 
 
HOW JESUS USED THE SCRIPTURES. 71 
 
 pose was ethical rather than speculative or theological, 
 is necessary to put us in right relation with the sub- 
 ject. At the same time, the fact that He never inves- 
 tigated the sources of the books that He used as in- 
 struments of teaching, can be no reason why we 
 should not do so. 
 
 The use that Jesus made of the Scriptures presents 
 the following interesting aspects : 
 
 I. He always speaks of them with perfect respect 
 and reverence. He declared in the best known of 
 His public addresses: " Think not that I am come to 
 destroy the Law or the Prophets : I am not come to 
 destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till 
 heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no 
 wise pass from the Law, till all be fulfilled. Whoso- 
 ever therefore shall break one of these least com- 
 mandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called 
 the least in the kingdom of heaven : but whosoever 
 shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great 
 in the kingdom of heaven." * This passage is a strik- 
 ing one in two particulars. It recognizes the pres- 
 ent authority of the Law in its full integrity; it 
 implies that it will be fulfilled or come to an end, and 
 that this fulfillment consists in its development into 
 another system. Fulfillment of the Law is a subject 
 about which He has much to say. In this sense, as in 
 some others, He is an evolutionist. One of the most 
 interesting historical aspects under which Christianity 
 can be viewed is as an outgrowth of Judaism. At the 
 heart, it is a question of the relation of Jesus to 
 Moses. 
 
 * Matt. v. 17-19. 
 
72 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 II. He quotes the Holy Books freely in the course 
 of His teachings. Sometimes He points out the ful- 
 fillment of a prophecy; sometimes applies a portion 
 of the Law or other Scripture to some practical ques- 
 tion ; sometimes explains the true meaning of a com- 
 mandment or other passage, and sometimes quotes to 
 confute a gainsayer or discomfit an opponent. Script- 
 ure furnishes the basis of His teaching. The lan- 
 guage of the Sacred Writers had so passed into the 
 religious vocabulary of the times, the current methods 
 of quotation were so loose and inaccurate, and quota- 
 tion and allusion are so blended, that it is impossible 
 to say how many distinct recognitions of Scripture are 
 found in His teachings, but the number and range are 
 both large. 
 
 III. While Jesus always speaks of the Scriptures 
 with deepest respect, and charges the Rabbis with set- 
 ting them at naught, He nevertheless handles them 
 in a free and liberal spirit. Not only does He break 
 down the " fences ". that the Rabbis have set about 
 the Law, tear them to shreds, and trample them 
 under His feet, but He treats the Law itself with a 
 freedom and originality that fill them with terror. In 
 spiritualizing the Law, He goes farther than even the 
 boldest of the prophets had gone. His method ap- 
 pears in many particulars. One of the most interest- 
 ing of these is His constant habit of expanding Script- 
 ure, or, as we might say, of reading into it new mean- 
 ings. He thus treats not merely prophetic passages, 
 but also dogmatic passages ; moreover, His meanings 
 are sometimes new, not merely to the Jewish teachers, 
 but also to the authors of the passages themselves. 
 
HOW JESUS USED THE SCRIPTURES. 73 
 
 He reads into passages of the Law senses that the 
 Lawgiver had never intended, thus showing that 
 Moses had builded better than he knew. For exam- 
 ple, there are the incomparable expansions of the old 
 teaching found in the Sermon on the Mount.* Six 
 subjects does He here treat in His own inimitable 
 manner. 
 
 Moses had said, " Thou shalt not kill," and to this 
 the Kabbis had added, " Whosoever shall kill shall be 
 in danger of the judgment." Jesus quotes these say- 
 ings, and then proceeds to show that murder does not 
 consist in the act of killing, but rather in the state of 
 the heart. "But I say unto you, That whosoever is 
 angry with his brother without a cause shall be in 
 danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to 
 his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: 
 but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in dan- 
 ger of hell fire." Moses had also said, " Thou shalt 
 not commit adultery," and this Jesus changed into the 
 following: "Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust 
 after her hath committed adultery with her already in 
 his heart." The Lawgiver had said that for unclean- 
 ness the husband might put away his wife, provid- 
 ing: "Whosoever shall put away his wife, let 
 him give her a writing of divorcement." The Rab- 
 bis, by their comments on uncleanness, had resolved 
 the Mosaic statute into an almost universal license of 
 divorce. The most shocking violations of the mar- 
 riage contract were of frequent occurrence. Jesus 
 not only cut away the later tradition, but He expanded 
 the original law by making fornication the only ground 
 
 * Matt v. 21-48. 
 
74 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 for divorce. He touched the subject more than once ; 
 He declared that Moses had made his legislation lax 
 because of the hardness of the Jewish heart, but that 
 the original law, which dated from the creation, and 
 which He reaffirmed, was of a more stringent charac- 
 ter.* In the fourth place he treated in the same 
 spirit the blending of law and tradition that regulated 
 the subject of oaths. Then in many cases the law 
 recognized the principle of jus talionis; "eye for eye, 
 tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning 
 for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe, "t All 
 this Jesus swept away. He commanded not to resist 
 evil, but to recompense it with good. Finally, to the 
 command that Moses had given, " Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbor," which meant the Jew, the Rabbis had 
 added the gloss, " Hate thine enemy," or the Gentile. 
 Jesus sweeps away the gloss and goes far beyond 
 Moses himself. " Love your enemies, bless them that 
 curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray 
 for them which despitefully use you and persecute 
 you; that ye may be the children of your Father 
 which is in heaven : for he maketh His sun to rise on 
 the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just 
 and on the unjust." 
 
 Still another reference may be made. Should any 
 one question whether Jesus gave the Law a new shap- 
 ing, or read into the commandments a new meaning, 
 let him consider his treatment of the Sabbath. In 
 nothing was the Mosaic teaching more express and 
 definite, more absolute and unqualified, than in refer- 
 ence to the Holy Day. The inquirer searches the 
 
 * Mark x. 2-12. t Exod. xxi. 24, 25. 
 
HOW JESUS USED THE SCRIPTURES. 75 
 
 statutes of the Lawgiver in vain for any recognition, 
 or even intimation, of the invaluable principle, "The 
 Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the 
 Sabbath." 
 
 Thus did Jesus expand old texts. Thus did He pour 
 into the old bottles the new wine. Thus did He spir- 
 itualize the Jewish Law. We have a striking proof of 
 the strength of His touch in the fact that His new 
 commandments have superseded the old ones. 
 
 We have seen that the Rabbis put the Prophets and 
 the Psalms far below the Law. This marks their 
 exaltation of literalism and legalism above the spirit 
 and life. Jesus does nothing of the kind. He treats 
 all the books that He quotes with equal respect and 
 reverence, but, being Himself a prophet, He intui- 
 tively recognizes the superiority of the prophetic 
 spirit to the legal spirit. He handles the Law as the 
 Prophets had handled it; He strives to bring to the 
 surface the principles on which its commands and 
 observances rest, that is, to spiritualize the Law.* 
 
 IV. Jesus always quotes the Scriptures with a 
 teaching purpose in view, either positive or negative. 
 
 * Prof. Smith declares that the Jewish view of the superiority of the Law 
 cannot be accepted by a Christian. "It was refuted, once for all, by the 
 Apostle Paul when he pointed out, in answer to the Pharisees of his time, 
 that the permanent value of all revelation lies, not in Law, but in Gospel. 
 Now it is certain that the prophetical books are far richer than the Law in 
 evangelical elements. They contain a much fuller declaration of those spir- 
 itual truths which constitute the permanent value of the Old Testament reve- 
 lation, and a much clearer adumbration of the New and Spiritual Covenant 
 under which we now live. There is more of Christ in the Prophets and the 
 Psalrns than in the Pentateuch, with its legal ordinances and temporary pre- 
 cepts adapted to the hardness of the people's hearts; and therefore no Chris- 
 tian can for a moment consent to accept that view of the pre-eminence of the 
 Law, which was to the Jews the foundation of their official doctrine of the 
 canon." Lecture VI. 
 
76 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 Still His direct object changes with time, place, and 
 circumstances. It will answer our purpose to 
 describe two classes of quotations. 
 
 Sometimes He quotes a passage as an argument, 
 some fact or saying. He quotes Moses, the Prophets, 
 or the Psalms to fortify some position, as we would 
 say. Matt. xxii. 41-46 is an example. Reference may 
 also be made to the numerous citations from the 
 Prophets to prove His Messiahship. In dealing with 
 this subject we must always remember one great 
 change that time has worked: Jesus has changed 
 places with the Lawgiver and the Prophets. He and 
 His first disciples went to The Old Testament writers 
 for witness to Him; we go to Him for witness to 
 them. 
 
 We are now in a position to understand why it is 
 that Jesus makes a larger, and particularly a sharper 
 and more dogmatic, use of the Scriptures in His con- 
 troversies than He does in ordinary teaching. Most 
 of these controversies were with the Rabbis. The 
 Rabbis professed to reverence Scripture, while in fact 
 making it null and void; and He delighted, if we may 
 use the expression, to show how ignorant they were, 
 or how regardless of its teachings. His great object 
 was to vindicate the truth, and to rescue it from the 
 hands of those who perverted it; but to do this in- 
 volved a concrete personal element. The Rabbis sat 
 in Moses's seat, and taught with the authority that the 
 position gave them ; they were the representatives of 
 the national religion and the guides of the people; 
 they prided themselves above measure upon their 
 learning and piety. They set " fences" about the 
 
HOW JESUS USED THE SCRIPTURES. 77 
 
 Law, and declared all men who did not know the Law 
 accursed; they bound heavy burdens and grievous to 
 be borne, and laid them upon men's shoulders; they 
 made broad their phylacteries and enlarged the bor- 
 ders of their garments; they loved the uppermost 
 rooms at feasts, the chief seats in synagogues, greet- 
 ings in the markets, and to be called Rabbi, Rabbi. 
 They were blind leaders of the blind; and the progress 
 of truth required that Jesus should expose their pride, 
 their hypocrisy, and their ignorance. They were His 
 antagonists, and He must overwhelm them. Hence 
 the vigor with which He exposed their pretensions to 
 superior knowledge and wisdom. He often demanded, 
 and especially when they had been charging Him or 
 His disciples with some violation of tradition or of 
 the Law, " Have ye not read? " following up the 
 question with some reference or quotation that, if 
 they had known or regarded it, would have saved 
 them from their mistake.* Thus He said to those 
 who complained about His disciples' plucking the ears 
 of corn on the Sabbath, "If ye had known what this 
 meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice, ye would 
 not have condemned the guiltless. "t It is impossible 
 to read these thrusts, the point of which we wholly 
 miss unless we take all the facts into account, without 
 thinking of the effect with which the great Athenian 
 teacher used his irony on a class of men having some 
 points of likeness to the Rabbis, and of the similar 
 result. 
 
 More frequently, and particularly in His ordinary 
 
 * Matt. xii. 3; xix. 4; xxi. 16, 42; xxii. 31; Mark ii. 25; xii. 10, 26. 
 t Matt. xii. 1, 7. 
 
78 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 discourses, the purpose of Jesus in quoting Scripture 
 is not argumentative or probative at all, or at least 
 not dogmatic. It is rather moral, and in these cases 
 His handling is marked by all the freedom of the 
 spirit. He quotes passages that commend themselves 
 to men's spiritual sense, passages that " find men," 
 and so carry their own authority with them. He does 
 not quote them because they are better statements of 
 truth than His own would be, but because they are 
 well known, and because, coming from revered sources, 
 they carry with them an associated force, sentiment, or 
 beauty that cannot belong to any words newly spoken. 
 It is impossible not to recognize in these quotations a 
 large literary or rhetorical factor. He aims to illus- 
 trate and to enforce truth, and resorts to the same 
 methods that other teachers use for that purpose. 
 His object is to point a moral, if not to adorn a tale. 
 Some of His quotations from the Prophets, if not in- 
 deed the larger number of them, come under this 
 head. He does not quote them so much to prove dis- 
 puted points of doctrine or of history as to render 
 more effective His own teaching. Sometimes it is a 
 mere allusion, and not a quotation at nil. 
 
 For example, He capped the climax of His refu- 
 tation of the Corban system with the words: " Ye 
 hypocrites, well did Isiiiuh prophesy of you, saying, 
 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, 
 and honoreth me with their lips; but their heart is 
 far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teach- 
 ing for doctrines the commandments of men." * "We 
 are not to suppose that Isaiah had primarily in mind 
 
 * Matt. xv. 7,9. 
 
HOW JESUS USED THE SCRIPTURES. 79 
 
 the particular men whom Jesus is now addressing; 
 the language and all the circumstances attending the 
 utterance of the prophecy forbid absolutely such a 
 supposition. Nor, secondly, is it probable that the 
 prophet had these men in mind at all. The Speaker's 
 Commentary thus analyzes Isaiah xxix., in which the 
 passage is found: " 1. In verses 1-6 the prophet 
 paints the humiliation of literal Zion in the presence 
 of her enemies, and then in verse 7 passes suddenly to 
 the overthrow of those enemies (whoever they may 
 be). 2. In verses 9-17 he tells the worldly Jews that 
 they must be punished as God's enemies. 3. In verses 
 18-24 he shows what the effect of this punishment 
 would be. The chaff would be scattered away, and 
 the true Israel come forth to view." Undoubtedly 
 the prophet was preaching to the people immediately 
 before him. Still Dean Alford's words are perfectly 
 true: "The portion of Isaiah from which this cita- 
 tion is made (Chaps, xxiv.-xxxv.) sets forth, in alter- 
 nate threatenings and promises, the punishment of 
 the mere nominal Israel, and the salvation of the true 
 Israel of God. And, as so often in the prophetic 
 word, its threats and promises are for all times of the 
 Church the particular event then foretold being but 
 one fulfillment of those deeper and more general 
 declarations of God, which shall be ever having their 
 successive illustrations in His dealings with men." A 
 third writer puts the case thus: " The traditionalists 
 (Scribes and Pharisees) to whom Jesus speaks, were 
 open to the same charge as Isaiah's contemporaries; 
 their reverence for the oral tradition had blinded them 
 to the deeper spirit and meaning of the Law. Jesus, 
 
80 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 like Isaiah, attacks the men and the opinions that 
 were held in highest regard by the people in His 
 day."* The prophetic denunciation was equally 
 suited to the traditionalists whom Jesus addressed and 
 to the traditionalists whom Isaiah addressed; more- 
 over, it is equally suited to traditionalists at all times 
 and in all places, Christians as well as Jews, ministers 
 as well as Rabbis. Isaiah did not prophesy of men 
 who rendered lip-service in the time and country of 
 Jesus any more than he prophesied of those who 
 render lip-service in our time and country. 
 
 Another example of quotation made by way of 
 application or illustration, and a very interesting one, 
 is found in Matt. xiii. 14, 15: "And in them is ful- 
 filled the prophecy of Isaiah, which saith, By hearing 
 ye shall hear, and shall not understand ; and seeing ye 
 shall see, and shall not perceive; for this people's 
 heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, 
 and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they 
 should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, 
 and should understand with their heart, and should 
 be converted, and I should heal them." Isaiah had 
 used this language with immediate reference to his 
 country and his time. What he said is perpetually 
 true, and is therefore of universal application under 
 similar circumstances. In Isaiah's time, in the time 
 of Jesus, and in our own time, we meet men who do 
 not hear in hearing or see in seeing, but are gross of 
 heart, and so are not converted and are not healed ; 
 but it can not be shown that there is anything in the 
 passage which makes it more applicable to the time 
 
 * Toy: Quotations in the New Testament, p. 44. 
 
HOW JESUS USED THE SCRIPTURES. 81 
 
 of Jesus than to our own time, unless, indeed, this class 
 of men was relatively larger or more perverse then 
 than now. 
 
 The various formulae of quotation found in the 
 Gospels, "That it might be fulfilled," "Thus it is 
 written," "That it might be fulfilled that was spoken 
 of by the prophet," etc., have provoked much con- 
 troversy. Into these discussions it is needless here to 
 enter. It is obvious that just what they mean is a 
 difficult question ; that there is no reason to suppose 
 that they always mean the same thing; that the pre- 
 cise meaning in a given case must be determined from 
 the nature of the passage quoted and the manner in 
 which the quotation is made, and that extreme theo- 
 ries on either side should be avoided. Sometimes it 
 seems clear that the prophecy quoted has a distinctly 
 definite sense, but in other cases it is only illustrative 
 and emphatic. No possible reason can be assigned 
 why many of the passages that Jesus quotes as "ful- 
 filled" in Himself, or that the Eva'ngelists quote as 
 fulfilled in Him, may not be equally fulfilled in men 
 now living. The fact is they are so fulfilled, and per- 
 haps not least strikingly so in the very men who deny 
 such a possibility. "It does not appear that Jesus 
 considered it necessary for an ancient prophecy to 
 have been primarily written of Himself (much less to 
 have been understood by its writer as referring to any 
 one precisely like Jesus), in order that such prophecy 
 might be fulfilled in Himxelf. He taught that every- 
 thing which the ancient inspired seers of the nation 
 had said concerning the redemption of the people by 
 
 the servant of Jehovah, concerning the character and 
 6 
 
82 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 work, the reign, sufferings, death, and final triumph 
 of the Lord's Redeemer for the nation, was now to 
 be completely fulfilled." * 
 
 V. The form of Jesus's quotations is a topic of 
 much interest and significance. It is a part of the 
 larger subject of quotations in the New Testament. 
 The following are the principal elementary facts that 
 are to be considered in dealing with the subject: 
 
 1. Save a few passages and scattered words, The 
 Old Testament was written in the original Jewish 
 vernacular, the Hebrew language. 
 
 2. Some centuries prior to the age of Jesus Hebrew 
 became a dead language, giving place to Aramaic, a 
 cognate Semitic tongue. One result of this change 
 was that the Jews, with the exception of the scholars, 
 were now unable to read or understand their Script- 
 ures in the original language. f 
 
 3. To a great extent, but not wholly so, The Sep- 
 tuagint, the Greek version made in Alexandria in the 
 second and third centuries B. C., took the place of 
 the Hebrew original. In some degree this was the 
 case even in Palestine, where conservatism reigned 
 almost unchecked. Furthermore, the Greek Bible 
 differed more or less in parts from the Hebrew Bible 
 now existing, and also from the one existing in the 
 
 * George T. Ladd: "What is the Bible?" p. 81. 
 
 t "Before the time of Christ, people who were not scholars had ceased 
 to understand Hebrew altogether; and in the synagogue, when the Bible was 
 read, a Meturgeman, as he was called, that is, a dragoman, or qualified 
 translator, had to rise and give the sense of the passage in the vulgar dialect. 
 The Pentateuch was read verse by verse, or in lessons from the Prophets 
 three verses were read together, and then the Meturgeman arose, and did not 
 read, but gave orally in Aramaic the sense of the original. The old Hebrew, 
 then, was by this time a learned language, acquired not in common life, but 
 from a teacher. "Smith, Lecture II. 
 
HOW JESUS USED THE SCRIPTURES. 83 
 
 time of Jesus; the result being that the two Bibles 
 offered many discrepancies in matter and many more 
 in form. 
 
 4. The Greek version, no more than the Hebrew 
 original, met the popular needs of Palestine, for the 
 spoken language was the Aramaic. Accordingly ver- 
 sions or paraphrases of portions of the Scriptures 
 called Targums were made into that language, which 
 circulated first in an oral and afterwards in a written 
 form. Whether there were written Targums as early 
 as the time of Jesus, seems to be uncertain. Some 
 have supposed that there was a complete Aramaic 
 version extant in His time, either oral or written. In 
 Palestine at least it was the Hebrew original that was 
 read in synagogues, a fact which made the services of 
 an interpreter indispensable. 
 
 5. The considerable cost and comparative rarity of 
 the Hebrew and Greek versions, and the inconvenient 
 form which they had in common with all ancient 
 books, caused the memory to be far more trusted in 
 quotation and in teaching than at the present time. 
 
 Putting the three main facts together the variety 
 and the variations of the versions and the large use 
 made of the memory we should antecedently expect 
 that the quotations found in The New Testament, 
 those made by Jesus included, would offer many 
 points of difficulty to seekers after agreement of 
 either form or matter. And such is the fact. The 
 complete indifference that Jesus was wont to show 
 towards the letter or form, and His thorough devo- 
 tion to substance or spirit, to say nothing of the other 
 causes, would naturally lead us to expect that He 
 
84 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 would exercise great freedom in respect to the letter 
 and form of His quotations. And so it is. The lit- 
 erary habits of the writers of The New Testament 
 were those of the time in which they lived. Modern 
 quotations together present innumerable inaccura- 
 cies; ancient quotations relatively a much greater 
 number. 
 
 VI. Another fact should be at least mentioned. 
 Jesus often refers to books of Scripture by name. 
 We are not to suppose, however, that these refer- 
 ences settle the fact of authorship. Here comes in 
 the principle of accommodation, which will form the 
 subject of a future chapter. To make a particular 
 application of this principle, some critics argue from 
 its contents that the book called Isaiah must have 
 been the work of more than one writer, and to them 
 it is replied, "But Jesus calls it Isaiah." The re- 
 ply is worthless. Jesus applied familiar names to 
 familiar things, and His calling any book by the name 
 that it universally bore proves only the currency of 
 the book and the name. His respectful mention of a 
 book, and His use of it in teaching, prove the esti- 
 mate in which He held it. 
 
 It is hard for one who has fully caught the spirit of 
 The Old Testament in its nobler portions, or the spirit 
 in which Christ handled it, to appreciate the impor- 
 tance that is accorded to certain controversies. 
 What matters it whether there was one Isaiah or 
 more? The meaning and the value of the book 
 intrinsically are in no way affected by its authorship. 
 Is not the prophecy there all the same, whichever 
 view we accept? The question is indeed a perfectly 
 
HOW JESUS USED THE SCRIPTURES. 85 
 
 proper one for scholars to investigate; but the great 
 contention about Isaiah now going on, in a religious 
 point of view, does not make one hair white or black. 
 That will be a happy day for the cause of true relig- 
 ion when men come to see the difference between 
 religious and scholastic questions. 
 
 Differ as students may on minor points, the princi- 
 pal views advanced in this chapter hardly admit of 
 doubt or disputation. Jesus always handled The Old 
 Testament with filial reverence. He valued its books, 
 not on account of their historical, critical, or theolog- 
 ical interest, but on account of their practical or 
 ethical interest. He was anxious about the life or 
 spirit, and indifferent to the form or letter. He pro- 
 pounded no theory of inspiration, and attacked none ; 
 but He could not have ground the formal, verbal, or 
 mechanical theory to finer powder than He did had 
 He made the effort. This He did indirectly, both by 
 the genius of His teaching and by the habitual form 
 in which He quoted The Old Testament. The want of 
 agreement between His quotations and the originals 
 is a source of difficulty only to those who seek in The 
 New Testament what it makes no claim to contain. 
 His plain intimation that the "jots" and "tittles" 
 of the Law should pass away, while He clung tena- 
 ciously to its moral or ideal element, is a plain recog- 
 nition of the antithesis between the letter that killeth 
 and the spirit that maketh alive. His discrimination 
 between the legal tithes of mint, anise, and cummin, 
 and the weightier matters of the Law justice, mercy, 
 and faith shows as conclusively that He firmly 
 grasped the great principle of moral perspective. 
 
86 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 I have said that while Jesus propounded no theory 
 of inspiration, and attacked none, He yet ground the 
 formal, verbal, or mechanical theory to fine powder. 
 If the word and letter of Scripture were originally 
 inspired, we must suppose it was for some great and 
 even necessary reason; but no such reason can be 
 seen, or even imagined, so long as Jesus, who came 
 to fulfill Scripture, treated the word and letter as 
 though they were things of no value. No teacher has 
 shown more indifference to the form than He who 
 was so careful of the substance. Again, while Jesus 
 propounded no theory of inspiration, He always 
 taught according to one. A theory is implicitly con- 
 tained in the matter and the manner of His teaching. 
 His theory is that the substance, the reality, the con- 
 tent of Scripture, is inspired, not the word and letter. 
 We may call it the dynamical theory in contradistinc- 
 tion to the mechanical one. 
 
 Some further conclusions from the premises before 
 us are not less certain. There is in the Church that 
 Jesus planted no place for any fixed, set, and uni- 
 versal form of creed or system of theological teach- 
 ing. There is no place for any rigid, inelastic, and 
 universal system of ecclesiastical polity or govern- 
 ment. There is no place for any final and authorita- 
 tive interpretation of Scripture. The Rabbis indeed 
 thought and many since them have repeated the 
 mistake that they could fix things forever. Jesus 
 came and set at naught their work. Moreover, the 
 very process in which they were engaged should have 
 taught them better. The science of Biblical exegesis, 
 if exegesis be a science, is progressive. It depends on 
 
HOW JESUS USED THE SCRIPTURES. 87 
 
 the human mind and on time as well as on subject 
 matter. It has been demanded that men should come 
 to the Bible with minds vacant and uncolored. This 
 never was. This never will be. The men of any age 
 or country read the Bible as they read other books, 
 through the prism of their own cultivation. Men 
 cannot get away from themselves. There is in 
 Scripture no euphrasy and rue that effectually purge 
 the visual nerve. Hence it is, as has been said, that 
 "no permanent change takes place in the religious 
 beliefs or usages of a race which is not rooted in the 
 existing beliefs and usages of that race. The truth 
 which Aristotle enunciated, that all intellectual teach- 
 ing is based upon what is previously known to the 
 person taught, is applicable to a race as well as to an 
 individual, and to beliefs even more than to knowl- 
 edge. A religious change is, like a physiological 
 change, of the nature of assimilation by, and absorp- 
 tion into, existing elements. The religion which our 
 Lord preached was rooted in Judaism. It came 'not 
 to destroy, but to fulfill.' It took the Jewish concep- 
 tion of a Father in heaven, and gave it a new mean- 
 ing. It took existing moral precepts, and gave them 
 a new application. The meaning and the application 
 had already been anticipated in some degree by the 
 Jewish prophets. There were Jewish minds which 
 had been ripening for them ; and so far as they were 
 ripe for them, they received them." * But neither 
 the individual nor the race stands still. The human 
 mind expands; moral experience accumulates; forms 
 of thought and organization become old and vanish 
 
 * Dr. Hatch, Lect. I. 
 
88 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 away ; men see farther and farther into the heart of 
 things; society works out new ideals, and throbs with 
 a new spirit. The letter of Scripture remains the 
 same, but men read into it new meanings. Let any 
 man of intelligence study in succession the concep- 
 tions of Christianity that are found in the Fathers, in 
 the Middle Age doctors, in the controversial writers of 
 the modern era, and finally the conceptions of the 
 most enlightened Christian men of to-day and he 
 will have the most striking proof that history affords 
 that Christianity is essentially a spirit, and not a letter, 
 or a form, or -a dogma. The assumption that any 
 formulation of religious belief, or any cast of church 
 government, can forever bind the intelligence and the 
 will of man, is without support in either reason or 
 experience, in either science or Scripture. The word 
 of the Lord shall endure forever. But the spirit and 
 the life, they are the word of the Lord. 
 
 NOTE. An abridgment of the admirable excursus in which 
 Canon Farrar deals with the Quotations of The New Testament 
 is subjoined. 
 
 These quotations have been examined and tabulated with 
 great care by Mr. D. C. Turpie, in ' 'The Old Testament in the 
 New . ' ' He establishes the following remarkable results : 
 There are in The New Testament 275 passages which may be 
 regarded all but a very few of them quite indisputably as 
 quotations from the Old ; of these there are only 53 in which the 
 Hebrew, The Septuagint, and The New Testament agree, i.e., 
 in which the Hebrew is correctly rendered by the LXX, and 
 quoted from the LXX by the Apostles and Evangelists. Besides 
 these .there are 10 passages where the incorrect version of the 
 LXX has been altered into accordance with the Hebrew; 76 
 where the version of the LXX is correct, but has been varied by 
 The New Testament writers ; 37 where a faulty version of the 
 LXX has been accepted ; and no fewer than 99 where The New 
 Testament differs alike from the Hebrew and from the LXX. 
 This result may be tabulated as follows: 
 
HOW JESUS USED THE SCRIPTURES. 89 
 
 Passages in which the LXX version is correctly accepted, 53 
 
 altered, - - - - 10 
 
 incorrectly accepted, 37 
 
 altered, - 76 
 
 Passages in which the Hebrew, the LXX, and The New Testament all differ, 89 
 
 In this tabulation (1) many of the differences are extremely 
 minute, and (2) the words ' 'correct' ' and ' 'incorrect' ' merely 
 mean an inaccurate agreement or disagreement with the original 
 Hebrew. To these must be added three passages (John vii. 38, 
 42, and Eph. v. 14), which can only be classed as doubtful 
 allusions. 
 
 The bearing of these facts on the letter -worshiping theory of 
 "inspired dictation" will be seen at once. While they leave 
 untouched the doctrine of a Divine grace of inspiration and 
 superintendence, they shatter the superstitious and anti- script- 
 ural dogmatism which asserts that every ' ' word and letter ' ' of 
 The Holy Book is supernaturally inspired. To hold the theory 
 of inspiration in this latter form is , in the first place, to deny 
 the plain language of Scripture itself, the plain teaching of 
 Christ, and the plain indications deducible from apostolic and 
 prophetic usage ; and, in the second place, to incur the guilt of 
 setting up a colossal and perilous stumbling-block in the path of 
 all rational godliness. It may warn insufficiently educated 
 readers from uncharitable attacks upon such views [as the Canon 
 holds] , to know that these views are also those of not a few of 
 those living, as well as of former theologians, whose names 
 stand highest and whose authority is the most deservedly- 
 respected in the Church of England. Conspicuous among the 
 latter are the names of Luther and Calvin. Anyone who will 
 read the comment of Luther on Psalm xx. , and that of Calvin 
 on Psalms viii. , xl. and xlviii. , will perhaps be surprised to see 
 the freedom with which they have expressed on this subject the 
 common -sense and honest view which may startle the support- 
 ers of a mechanical theory of inspiration, but would not have 
 startled, on the one hand, an Origen, a Jerome, an Augustine, a 
 Gregory of Nyssa; or, on the other, the leading intellects 
 among the great Reformers. Life of Christ, EXGUTSUS XI, 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HIS HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS. 
 
 IT is common for men to call Jesus the most origi- 
 nal of teachers. None are more given to pronounc- 
 ing upon Him this eulogium than some of those who 
 do not accept the traditionary Christian view of His 
 nature and character. 
 
 " He unites in Himself," says Theodore Parker, 
 " the sublimest precepts and divinest practices, thus 
 more than realizing the dream of prophets and sages ; 
 rises free from all prejudice of His age, nation, or 
 sect; gives free range to the spirit of God, in His 
 breast; sets aside the Law, sacred and true, honored 
 as it was, its forms, its sacrifice, its Temple, its 
 priests; puts away the doctors of the Law, subtle, ir- 
 refragable, and pours out a doctrine beautiful as the 
 
 light, sublime as heaven, and true as God 
 
 Try Him as we try other teachers. They deliver their 
 word, find a few waiting for the consolation who ac- 
 cept the new tidings, follow the new method, and 
 soon go beyond their teacher, though less mighty 
 minds than he. Though humble men, we see what 
 Socrates and Luther never saw. But eighteen centu- 
 ries have passed since the sun of humanity rose so 
 high in Jesus; what man, what sect, has mastered 
 
 (90) 
 
HIS HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS. 91 
 
 His thought, comprehended His method, and so fully 
 applied it to life." * 
 
 " A man belongs to his age and race," says Renan, 
 " even when he reacts against his age and his race. 
 Far from being the continuator of Judaism, Jesus 
 represents the breaking off with the Jewish spirit. 
 
 . . . The general progress of Christianity has 
 been to separate more and more from Judaism. Its 
 perfection will be in returning to Jesus, but certainly 
 not in returning to Judaism. The great originality 
 of the Founder, therefore, remains complete; His 
 glory admits no rightful sharer." t 
 
 And these encomiums are true and deserved in 
 much more than the relative sense in which discrim- 
 inating minds use such language. 
 
 Still, men are coming more and more to see that 
 history is continuous, not discontinuous; that, with 
 all its so-called epochs, periods, and eras, it is a unit; 
 and that, great as those are whom we call the crea- 
 tors, men, ideas, institutions, doctrines, and systems 
 must be taken in relation to what went before them, 
 and in relation to their own time. 
 
 Were a typical scholar of the last century to return 
 to the earth, he could not fail to be surprised by the 
 far greater range and compass that human thought 
 has attained in every subject that relates to man or 
 nature. Sometimes the vast accumulations of new 
 knowledge are mentioned as the characteristic intel- 
 lectual fact of -the century; the truth is, however, 
 that the new aspect under which knowledge is consid- 
 
 * Discourses of Religion, pp. 294, 303. 
 t Life of Jesus, Chapter xxviii. 
 
92 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 ered the new attitude of the human mind to the 
 materials upon which it works is quite as remarkable. 
 In natural history genera and species are no longer 
 the rigid things that once they were. The lines that 
 separate class from class and group from group are 
 less tightly and straightly drawn ; and in the room of 
 the words "create," "creation," and "made," "de- 
 velop," " evolution," and "become" are used. In 
 human history the hand of the evolutionist has round- 
 ed off the sharp corners and quick turns that the old 
 writers made so prominent; transition has largely 
 usurped the place of revolution; the new scholars 
 glide gracefully around the easy curves ; while epochs, 
 eras, ages, and periods, although too important to be 
 thrown aside, are used in senses that do not interfere 
 with the wonted unity and continuity of history. So- 
 cial organs and functions, like those of nature, grow 
 and are not made; nay, some tell us_that society it- 
 self is an organism. To discuss the new way of look- 
 ing at things is no part of my purpose. The imagined 
 visitant from the eighteenth century would soon dis- 
 cover that it does not explain, and does not assume 
 to explain, the origin of things; it embraces only 
 the movement when once it has begun. Still, having 
 adjusted his mind to the new method, he could not 
 fail to see that it has made the old artificial and me- 
 chanical theories of nature and history impossible to 
 thinking men. 
 
 "On us a new light has come. I do not for a mo- 
 ment hesitate to say that the discovery of the Compar- 
 ative Method in philology, in mythology let me add 
 in politics and history and the whole range of human 
 
HIS HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS. 93 
 
 thought marks a stage in the progress of the human 
 mind at least as great and memorable as the revival 
 of Greek and Latin learning. The great contribu- 
 tion of the nineteenth century to the advance of hu- 
 man knowledge may boldly take its stand along side 
 of the great contribution of the fifteenth. Like the 
 revival of learning, it has opened to its votaries a new 
 world, and that not an isolated world, a world shut 
 up within itself, but a world in which times and 
 tongues and nations which before seemed parted 
 poles asunder, now find each its own place, its own 
 relation to every other, as members of one common 
 primeval brotherhood." * So says a great historical 
 scholar, who might, had it lain in his way, have also 
 named ethics and religion as fields in which the new 
 habit of mind has worked out important results. 
 
 "The present is the fruit of the past and the germ 
 of the future. No work can stand unless it grows 
 out of the real wants of the age, and strikes firm root 
 in the soil of history. No one who tramples on the 
 rights of a past generation can claim the regard of 
 its posterity. History will disregard him who disre- 
 gards her." So says a distinguished church histo- 
 rian, t 
 
 The religion of a given country at a given time is 
 relative to its whole mental attitude at that time, as 
 Dr. Hatch tells us in a passage quoted in the last 
 chapter. 
 
 It would be sheer forcing things even to intimate that 
 
 * Dr. E. A. Freeman : The Unity of History. The Rede Lecture, read 
 before the University of Cambridge, May 29, 1872. 
 t Dr. Philip Schaff . 
 
94 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 Jesus used the Comparative Method. Still, we come 
 upon frequent proofs, and decisive proofs, that He 
 rejected the mechanical conception of the human 
 mind, of life, and of nature, and that He always 
 worked from the dynamical conception outward. Je- 
 sus is no exception to the law of development, either 
 in Himself or in the method of His work. He had 
 His antecedents and environments, both of which 
 profoundly affected both the manner and the matter 
 of His teaching. He stands indeed for a new era; but 
 we can no more separate Him from what went be- 
 fore that from what came after. Let us therefore 
 glance at some of these antecedents. 
 
 Those writers who deal understandingly with the 
 subject lay great stress upon three factors in the 
 preparation of the world for Christianity, the Gre- 
 cian philosophy and literature, the Roman jurispru- 
 dence and political organization, and the Jewish Law. 
 The direct influence of the two first upon the Author 
 of Christianity is slight, if indeed it be appreciable, 
 but that of the third was very great. In the passage, 
 " But when the fullness of the time was come, God 
 sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under 
 the Law,"* the words " made under the law," are 
 equally significant with the words " made of a 
 woman." The whole passage marks, not merely the 
 completion, and so the end, of an antecedent prepa- 
 ration of the world, but also the distinctive Jewish 
 element that it contained. The influence of the Law 
 upon Jesus, which is the topic now in hand, came 
 
 *Gal. iv. 4. 
 
HIS HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS. 95 
 
 through two channels, one direct and one indirect. 
 
 The Mosaic law combined two kinds of elements, 
 the moral and the positive ; or those that rested upon 
 internal authority, and those that rested upon exter- 
 nal authority. It was a body of moral and religious 
 doctrine, as well as an objective political, ecclesiastic- 
 al, and religious system. It abounded in both affirm- 
 ative and negative commands. While Moses looked 
 closely to the perpetuation of the Law, he assigned 
 the sole public teaching function to the priesthood, 
 and this function pertained more to rites and ceremo- 
 nies than it did to the higher religious truths and du- 
 ties. Moses provided a ministry of the letter that 
 killeth, but not of the spirit that maketh alive. In 
 time, however, there appeared a supplementary min- 
 istry that for many centuries supplied this lack. The 
 reference is to the Prophets. While there was. an 
 older prophecy, notably exemplified in Moses himself, 
 the Jews were accustomed to say that Samuel was the 
 first of the prophetic order. * Since a living inspira- 
 tion is the very life and soul of prophecy, the Law- 
 giver was unable to establish a succession of prophets 
 as he did of priests. The Jewish idea was that holy 
 men spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. 
 Still it must be said that at a later time there was 
 something of an organization of that nature. The 
 evidence of this is found in the "schools of the 
 prophets" mentioned in several of The Old Tes- 
 tament books. 
 
 Very naturally, the priests, considered as teachers, 
 and the prophets, moved on divergent lines. The 
 
 *Actsiii. 24; xiii. 20; Heb. ii. 32. 
 
96 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 priests emphasized ceremonial duties, ritualistic 
 casuistry, the ipsissima verba of the Law ; the proph- 
 ets emphasized spiritual truths and ethical duties, 
 and constantly strove to counteract the powerful 
 legal tendency of the priests, and to spiritualize the 
 national religion. Such familiar passages as the fol- 
 lowing are clothed with a new meaning when we dis- 
 cern that they are aimed at the very state of things 
 which the priestly influence constantly tended to 
 create : 
 
 Samuel. To obey is better than sacrifice, and to 
 hearken than the fat of rams. * 
 
 David. Thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I 
 give it: Thou delightest not in burnt offering. The 
 sacrifices of God are a broken spirit : a broken and a 
 contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise, t 
 
 Micah. He hath showed thee, O man, what is 
 good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to 
 do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with 
 thy God? | 
 
 Isaiah. Wash ye, make you clean; put away the 
 evil of your doings from before mine eyes ; cease to 
 do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the 
 oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. 
 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord : 
 though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white 
 as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall 
 be as wool. 
 
 Still, so strong is the machine tendency in human 
 nature, so much easier is it to offer sacrifice than to 
 
 * 1 Sam. xv. 22. t Psa. li. 16, 17. 
 
 J Chap. vi. 8. Chap. i. 16-18. 
 
HIS HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS. 97 
 
 render obedience, and so powerful was the sacerdotal 
 organization, that the priesthood more and more pre- 
 vailed, until at last prophecy came to an end alto- 
 gether. "After the death of Haggai, Zechariah, and 
 Malachi, the last of the prophets," says the Talmud, 
 "the spirit disappeared from Israel." Nor did it 
 return until John the Baptist came preaching in the 
 wilderness of Judaea. 
 
 Long before the prophetic lamp burned out a new 
 light had been kindled. The Jews returned from 
 the Captivity passionately attached to the Law. But 
 circumstances had changed ; what was once possible 
 was possible no longer; and the new order that was 
 now set up, was hardly more like the old order than 
 the new Temple was like the old Temple. In fact, the 
 more impossible it became fully to restore their an- 
 cient institutions, the more attached to them the Jews 
 became. In these general circumstances originated 
 the order that extinguished the prophets and eclipsed 
 the priesthood. However, some further facts should 
 also be mentioned. The original precepts of the Pen- 
 tateuch alone were six hundred and thirteen, to say 
 nothing of the far larger number of traditions that 
 had gathered about them ; they were now found in a 
 dead language ; while a large majority of the Jewish 
 people were husbandmen, closely engaged in severe 
 daily toil, and wholly incompetent to deal with the 
 vast system of law and commentary that was extant in 
 the time of Jesus. Hence the obvious truth, that the 
 people were compelled to fall back upon the assist- 
 ance of a class of professional men who made the 
 7 
 
98 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 study of the Law and tradition the supreme business 
 of their lives. These were the Rabbis. 
 
 It is probable that what in the Gospels are called 
 "the traditions of the elders" and "the command- 
 ments of men," had begun to accumulate around the 
 Law as a nucleus before the Exile; at all events, 
 owing to lapse of time and changing conditions, such 
 accumulations went on ceaselessly after that time, 
 until at last they assumed permanent forms in the 
 Talmuds. 
 
 How the facts now stated the priests, the proph- 
 ets, and the Rabbis conditioned the teaching of Jesus 
 is dealt with in other chapters. Attempts have 
 been made to decry the originality of Jesus. Some 
 have put forth the theory that seems almost to in- 
 volve the generation of the teachings attributed to 
 Him by the mere commingling of the elements of 
 Grecian, Roman, and Jewish civilization. The 
 theory is at war with the facts of the case; no teach- 
 ings ever more plainly bore the unmistakable mark of 
 an individual creative mind. Others have supposed 
 that He borrowed ideas from the Buddhists, but 
 Renan tells us that it is difficult to believe that a 
 Buddhist influence could have reached Him. The 
 claim advanced by some that His teaching was a mere 
 eclectic system, borrowed from various sects and 
 teachers of His time, Canon Farrar has thus forcibly 
 set aside: 
 
 And from whom could Jesus have borrowed? From Oriental 
 gymnosophists or Greek philosophers? No one, in these days, 
 ventures to advance so wild a proposition. From the Pharisees? 
 The very foundations of their system, the very idea of their re- 
 
HIS HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS. 99 
 
 ligion, was irreconcilably alien from all that He revealed. 
 From the Sadducees? Their epicurean insouciance , their "ex- 
 pediency" politics, their shallow rationalism, their polished 
 sloth, were even more repugnant to true Christianity than they 
 were to sincere Judaism. From the Essenes? They were an 
 exclusive, ascetic, and isolated community, with whose discour- 
 agement of marriage , and withdrawal from action , the Gospels 
 have no sympathy, and to whom our Lord never alluded, unless 
 it be in those passages where He reprobates those who abstain 
 from anointing themselves when they fast, and who hide their 
 candle under a bushel. From Philo, and the Alexandrian 
 Jews? Philo was indeed a good man, and a great thinker, and 
 a contemporary of Christ ; but (even if his name had ever been 
 heard which is exceedingly doubtful in so remote a region as 
 Galilee) it would be impossible, among the world's philoso- 
 phies, to choose any system less like the doctrines which Jesus 
 taught, than the mystic theosophy and allegorizing extrava- 
 gance of that ' ' sea of abstractions ' ' which lies concealed in 
 his writings. From Hillel and Shammai? We know but little 
 of them ; but although, in one or two passages of the Gospels, 
 there may be a conceivable allusion to the disputes which agi- 
 tated their schools, or to one or two of the best and truest max- 
 ims which originated in them , such allusions , on the one hand , 
 involve no more than belongs to the common stock of truth 
 taught by the Spirit of God to men in every age; and, on the 
 other hand, the system which Shammai and Hillel taught was 
 that oral tradition, that dull, dead Levitical ritualism, at once 
 arrogant and impotent, at once frivolous and unoriginal, which 
 Jesus both denounced and overthrew. The schools in which 
 Jesus learned were not the schools of the Scribes , but the school 
 of holy obedience, of sweet contentment, of unalloyed simplic- 
 ity, of stainless purity, of cheerful toil. The lore in which He 
 studied was not the lore of Rabbinism , in which to find one just 
 or noble thought we must wade through masses of puerile fancy 
 and cabalistic folly, but the Books of God without Him, in 
 Scripture, in nature, and in life ; and the Book of God within 
 Him, written on the fleshly tables of the heart. * 
 
 * Life of Christ, Vol. I., pp. 87-89. 
 
100 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 Jesus was the most original of teachers ; but at the 
 same time His teachings and institutions were histor- 
 ical outgrowths of what had gone before, and of what 
 He saw around Him. In fact, His success depended 
 upon such a relation; without it He must have failed. 
 No teacher, not even the most creative, is absolutely 
 superior to his times. Jesus was a Jew; furthermore, 
 as a Jew he was an Oriental, and how significant this 
 fact is we shall see in another place. 
 
 In the last chapter it was shown that much of the 
 originality of Jesus consisted in expounding, elevating, 
 and spiritualizing the Law. Still further illustrations 
 of the same fact are here in point. Early in His 
 career He declared that He had not come to destroy 
 the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill them. He im- 
 plied a time when the Law, at least in its existing 
 form, would pass away; but this would be by fulfill- 
 ment and not by abolition. He came to fulfill the 
 Law. The Evangelists caught the note, and often 
 spoke of the Law and the Prophets as being fulfilled 
 in Him. 
 
 Teaching by precepts may be thorough and effective, 
 but it is slow, and reposes little confidence in the 
 human mind. The constant assumption of the 
 teacher who deals in precepts is, that men require to 
 be told in every case, or at least in every class of 
 cases, what to do and what not to do. Hence the 
 "Thou shalts" and "Thou shalt nots" of the Ten 
 Commandments. Teaching by principles is some- 
 thing wholly different. The teacher assumes some 
 insight and stability on the part of the pupil as- 
 sumes that he can make his own applications, for the 
 
HIS HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS. 101 
 
 most part, when he is once put in possession of the 
 principle. The difference between the two methods 
 could not be more happily illustrated than they are 
 by the Law and the Gospel, Moses and Jesus. Jesus 
 was a consummate master of the art of seizing the 
 principle behind the precept, and in reducing formal 
 rules to unity. When the lawyer asked, "Master, 
 what is the great commandment of the Law?'' He 
 answered: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
 all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy 
 mind. This is the first and great commandment. 
 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments 
 hang all the Law and the Prophets." * Thus did He 
 reduce the whole Decalogue, in fact the whole Old 
 Testament system, to two simple truths. 
 
 No better example of His method of expanding old 
 ideas can be given than these very truths. He devel- 
 oped them out of current Jewish conceptions. His 
 idea of the Father in heaven was the Jewish concep- 
 tion of Jehovah expanded, elevated, and brought into 
 touch with human sympathies. The prophets had 
 done something to universalize and refine the idea, 
 but He completed the work. Jehovah was a national 
 divinity; the Father in heaven belongs to the race. 
 Beyond the conception of a God who causes the sun 
 to shine on the evil and on the good, and sends the 
 rain on the just and the unjust, it is impossible for 
 the human mind to go. Again, the old Jewish idea of 
 brotherhood was also limited to the Chosen People. 
 Here the prophets had also led the way in expanding 
 
 * Matt. xxii. 34-40. 
 
102 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 the idea, but Jesus pushed it to its limits, as before. 
 The parable of the good Samaritan has probably done 
 more than any other lesson of equal length ever 
 spoken to break down mere regard for nation and 
 order, and to bring in the conception of the brother- 
 hood of man. 
 
 Once more Jewish history furnished Jesus the grand- 
 est of all His themes. If we take the Book of Daniel 
 literally, it was in the midst of the disasters and humil- 
 iations of the Captivity, as well as at the culmination 
 of Eastern power and splendor, that the vision of a 
 kingdom of God first distinctly arose on the Jewish 
 mind. " And in the days of these kings," said the 
 seer, " shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, 
 which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom 
 shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in 
 pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall 
 stand forever."* "It was," says Dean Stanley, "the 
 first announcement of 'a kingdom of heaven/ that is 
 of a power not temporal, with the rule of kings or 
 priests, but(piritual, with the rule of mind and con- 
 science}' cut out of the mountain without hands/ " f 
 This was the beginning. As time wore on, and the 
 national history became more and troubled, the 
 prophetic vision became brighter and brighter. It 
 became a distinct national aspiration, and was merged 
 into the reign of the Messiah. The last of the 
 Prophets repeated the promise,} and John the Bap- 
 tist made it the burden of his preaching. " Repent 
 ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand," was his 
 
 * Chap. ii. 44. 
 
 t History of the Jewish Church, Lect. xlii. 
 
 jMalachiiii. 1; iv. 2. 
 
HIS HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS. 103 
 
 cry. Jesus also took up the call. He preached the 
 Gospel of the kingdom of God, and taught his disci- 
 ples to pray, "Thy kingdom come." The vision that 
 Daniel saw was a stone cut out of the mountain 
 without hands; nevertheless the Jews transmuted 
 it into the reign of a temporal military monarch. 
 John associated it with repentance and reformation. 
 Jesus made it the symbol of all His grandest ideas 
 and inspirations. The stone was a kingdom of the 
 spirit. " And when He was demanded of the Phar- 
 isees, when the kingdom of God should come, He an- 
 swered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh 
 not with observation : neither shall they say, Lo here ! 
 or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is with- 
 in you." * 
 
 Thus the Law was fulfilled, not merely in the formal 
 or promissory sense of abrogation, but in the fuller 
 sense of a development or unfolding into something 
 higher and better. 
 
 * Luke xvii. 20, 25. 
 
CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 HIS INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 THE main thought presented in the last chapter is 
 still further illustrated by the history of the institu- 
 tions that Jesus established. It is the thought of his- 
 torical relation and continuity. 
 
 Jesus did not lay great stress upon institutions. He 
 preached the Kingdom of God, but this kingdom was 
 without observation and dwelt in men. Its main fea- 
 ture was its righteousness. Still, He realized that 
 some sort of organization and co-operation were 
 essential to righteousness, and this led Him to found 
 the Church as the pillar and support of the truth. 
 But here He kept as far as possible from formal and 
 legal ideas, for He rested the Church upon a purely 
 moral basis. It was the declaration of His own offi- 
 cial character. * Political and military founders, as 
 well those who followed as those who preceded Him, 
 would think this a very unsubstantial foundation. 
 He builded better than they knew. Kingdoms that 
 rest upon moral ideas may . defy time and death, but 
 those that rest on force are sure some time to come to 
 an end. 
 
 Jesus was regardless of novelty or originality as 
 such; nay, He knew full well that institutions, to be 
 
 * Matt. xvi. 13-20. 
 (104) 
 
HIS INSTITUTIONS. 105 
 
 useful and lasting, must be in touch with present 
 ideas and feelings. The synagogue was centuries old; 
 it had stood the test of time and usage; and so, fol- 
 lowing His usual method of borrowing and adapta- 
 tion, He modeled the Church after it. The longer 
 His course is scrutinized, the wiser will it appear to 
 be. "Throughout the country, in town and village, 
 increasing since the time of Ezra," says Stanley, 
 "had sprung up a whole system of worship, which to 
 the Pentateuch and the Prophets and the early 
 Psalmists was unknown. The main religious instruc- 
 tion and devotion of the nation was now carried on, 
 not in the Temple, but in the synagogues." He says 
 further : 
 
 It is obvious how important a link this institution estab- 
 lished between the Jewish settlements throughout the world. 
 At Alexandria, at Rome, at Babylon, there was no Temple. 
 But in every one of those cities, and by many a tank or river- 
 side in Egypt, Greece, or Italy, there was the same familiar 
 building, the same independent organization, the same house for 
 the mingled worship and business of every Jewish community. 
 And thus, inasmuch as the synagogue existed where the Temple 
 was unknown, and remained when the Temple fell, it followed 
 that from its order and worship, and not from that of the Tem- 
 ple, were copied, if not in all their details, yet in their general 
 features, the government, the institutions, and the devotions of 
 those Christian communities, which, springing directly from 
 the Jewish , were in the first instance known as ' ' synagogues , ' ' 
 or "meeting-houses," and afterwards by the adoption of an 
 almost identical word, ' 'Ecclesia, ' ' ' 'assembly -house ! " * 
 
 The imitation of the old society by the new one 
 was extensive indeed, embracing its essential features 
 both of organization and service. From an early time 
 
 * History of the Jewish Church, Lect. 1. 
 
106 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 had descended that democratic element which is so 
 marked a feature of the ancient Church. In the time 
 of Ezra and Nehemiah, Stanley tells us, " We stumble 
 on the first distinct notice of that popular element 
 which, deriving, in later times, its Grecian name from 
 the Athenian assemblies, passed into the early Chris- 
 tian community under the title of Ecdesia and thus 
 became the germ of that idea of the 'Church' in which 
 the voice of the people or laity had supreme control 
 over the teachers and rulers of the society an idea 
 preserved in the first century in its integrity, retained 
 in some occasional instances down to the eleventh 
 century, then almost entirely superseded by the 
 mediaeval schemes of ecclesiastical polity, until it re- 
 appeared, although in modified and disjointed forms, 
 in the sixteenth and following centuries." * 
 
 The first mention of Christian ministers other than 
 the Apostles and the Seven, is found in Acts xi. 30. 
 The relief that was raised in Antioch for the Church 
 in Jerusalem was sent to the elders by the hands of 
 Barnabas and Saul. A more significant mention is 
 met with a little later. | On their first journey into 
 Asia Minor, Paul and Barnabas ordained elders in 
 every city where they established churches. But 
 these are by no means the first cases in which we meet 
 the name in The New Testament. "Elder" is the 
 title by which the rulers of the synagogue are com- 
 monly known in the Gospels. Consideriflg the way 
 in which Jesus denounced the Jewish elders, we might 
 have imagined that the Apostles would choose anoth- 
 
 * History of the Jewish Church, Lect. xliv. 
 f Chap. xiv. 
 
HIS INSTITUTIONS. 107 
 
 er name for the chief ministers of the local church. 
 Nothing of the kind; the name is the only one in use 
 in the first years of the Church, and was never wholly 
 dropped. 
 
 As showing the extent to which the principle of 
 conformity to existing forms and usages was carried, 
 we may follow the history a little farther. When the 
 time came for the Greek influence to assert itself, 
 elder ceased to be an exclusive term. We now 
 read of " bishops." The word is found only once in 
 The Acts,* but it is more characteristic of the pastoral 
 Epistles than elder itself. To what cause are we 
 to ascribe the introduction of the new word ? Cer- 
 tainly not to the reorganization of the Church, or to 
 a change in the duties of the minister. Nothing is 
 more certain than that the elder, bishop, and pastor 
 of the Primitive Church were the same officer. On 
 this point the usage of language is decisive. No 
 change of functions marks the introduction of the 
 new name, although in course of time a change was 
 made ; on the other hand, the new word was due to 
 the same principle that dictated the old one. 
 
 Presbuteros, " elder," was a title as familiar to the 
 Jew as the name of the synagogue itself; and, should 
 he find the old name given to a new officer, he 
 would naturally suppose that the new society was like 
 the old society, and that the new officer was expected 
 to do work similar to the work that the old officer had 
 done. To make choice of the word was merely con- 
 sulting economy of time and mental force wherever 
 Jewish ideas and usages prevailed. But to the Greeks 
 
 * Chap. xx. 35. 
 
108 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 presbuteros was merely a general appellative, having no 
 special or official meaning. It would convey to them 
 no specific or definite idea whatever. Accordingly, the 
 same sense of fitness that, in the first case, had sug- 
 gested presbuteros now suggested episkopos, " bishop." 
 This word meant (1) one who watched over some 
 charge, an overseer, a guardian; (2) a scout or 
 watch; (3) a superintendent or intendant whom the 
 Athenians placed over the subject states. The gener- 
 ic meaning of " watcher " or " overseer " well de- 
 scribes the office, but it is not improbable that the nar- 
 rower political meaning was uppermost in the minds 
 of those who brought in the new word. At least, the 
 old word became less prominent when the special 
 causes that made it significant ceased to exist, and a 
 new word, which was more significant, was introduced. 
 The two words, in their broadest meaning, suggest 
 very different ideas. Presbuteros means an "older 
 man," and names the officer with reference to his 
 personal character; episkopos means a superintendent, 
 and names him with reference to his functions. Poi- 
 meen, "pastor," follows the analogy of the second; it 
 means a shepherd of a flock. 
 
 In view of these facts it is impossible to suppose 
 that the Founder expected that the Church would re- 
 tain a rigid, inelastic organization under all circum- 
 stances, or that its ministers would necessarily be 
 known by the same names. This obvious adaptation 
 to time and place implies that the objects of the 
 Church, its spirit, and the duties that its officers are 
 to perform, are of far greater consequence, than its 
 formal organization. 
 
HIS INSTITUTIONS. 109 
 
 While much less elaborate, ceremonial, and ritual- 
 istic than the synagogue service, the Church service 
 nevertheless has many points in common with it. The 
 scriptural readings, the prayers, the sermon, the ex- 
 hortation, the hymn, and the benediction of the nine- 
 teenth century all go back to the synagogue. The 
 Jews were the authors of preaching. Here " we have 
 the origin of the ' homily/ the * sermon, 'says Stan- 
 ley, " that is, the serious * conversation ' which has 
 now struck so deep a root in the Jewish, the Mus- 
 sulman, and the Christian communities that we can 
 hardly imagine them to have existed without it."* 
 The Greek intellect profoundly influenced both the 
 form and the substance of Christian teaching; but the 
 great outlines of the Christian Church were boldly 
 traced in the Jewish development long before the 
 Christian community began to exist. 
 
 No society can endure without ordinances. There 
 must, at least, be a formal initiation. Jesus, although 
 He placed a relatively low valuation upon positive 
 appointments, recognized the necessity, and gave 
 such appointments to the Church. And here again, 
 at least in respect to the ordinance that finally marked 
 the formal admission of the disciple into the spiritual 
 society, He borrowed a rite that had long been in use, 
 certainly in Judaea, and no doubt far beyond its bor- 
 ders. The Law had prescribed that the Jew who had 
 become levitically defiled should baptize himself be- 
 fore offering sacrifice.! At a later day proselytes of 
 righteousness, or proselytes of the covenant, were ad- 
 
 * History of the Jewish Church, Lect. 1. 
 t Exodus xix. 10, 14. 
 
110 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 mitted to full participation in the privileges of the 
 Chosen People on condition of their being circum- 
 cised and baptized and offering sacrifice. Immersion 
 in water was the formal acknowledgment of moral 
 defilement that was thus symbolically washed away. 
 Baptism had now become a recognized religious insti- 
 tution. The next step was taken by John: he called 
 upon the whole nation to be baptized, and at the same 
 time distinctly elevated the character and significance 
 of the rite. " Then went out to him Jerusalem, and 
 all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan, and 
 were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their 
 sins." * Henceforth water baptism was associated 
 symbolically with moral regeneration. John also 
 hinted that the rite should take on a higher signifi- 
 cance. "I indeed baptize you with water unto repent- 
 ance : but He that cometh after me is mightier than 
 I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall 
 baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire."t 
 When Jesus Himself submitted^to baptism "to fulfill 
 all righteousness," He gave the rite the most univer- 
 sal character. One of the Gospels informs us that He 
 employed baptism Himself from the beginning of 
 His ministry, or rather authorized His disciples to 
 baptize the converts whom He had made. { The ex- 
 act significance of this baptism is nowhere pointed 
 out, but it was perhaps accompanied with a profes- 
 sion of faith in Him as the Messiah. The commis- 
 sion marks the widest extension and loftiest meaning 
 that baptism could attain. "Go ye, therefore, and 
 
 * Matt. Hi. 5,6. fMatt. iii. 11. 
 
 J John iv. 1,2. 
 
HIS INSTITUTIONS. Ill 
 
 teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the 
 Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." 
 
 The early history of baptism is shrouded in obscur- 
 ity. Renan connects it with the ancient Sabianism, 
 which he declares to have been a religion of frequent 
 baptisms. "It is very difficult," he says, "to follow 
 out these vague analogies. The sects floating between 
 Judaism, Christianity, Baptism, and Sabianism, which 
 we find in the region beyond Jordan during the first 
 centuries of our era, present to the critic, from the 
 confusion of the accounts which have come to us, 
 the most singular problem. We may believe, in any 
 event, that many of the external practices of John, 
 of the Essenes, and of the Jewish spiritual preceptors 
 of the time, came from a recent influence of the 
 upper East. The fundamental rite which character- 
 ized the sect of John, and which gave him his name, 
 has always had its center in Lower Chaldea, and there 
 constitutes a religion which has been perpetuated to 
 our day." * According to Stanley, the Essenes, who 
 came near to confounding cleanliness and godliness, 
 were the first to recognize the rite as a universal one. 
 This is his description: 
 
 ' ' The badges of initiation were the apron or towel for wiping 
 themselves after the bath, the hatchet for digging holes to put 
 away filth. Some Churches in later days have insisted on the ab- 
 solute necessity of immersion once in a life . But not only did 
 the Essenes go through the bath on their first admission , but day 
 by day the same cleansing process was undergone ; day by day it 
 was held unlawful even to name the name of God without the 
 preliminary baptism ; day by day fresh white clothes were put 
 on ; day by day, after the slightest occasion, they bathed again. 
 
 * Life of Jesus, Chap. vi. 
 
112 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 Down to the minutest points cleanliness was the one sacramental 
 sign. The primitive Christians had their daily communion ; the 
 Essenes had their daily baptism. In the deep bed of the neigh- 
 boring Jordan, in the warm springs and the crystal streams of 
 Engedi, in the rivulets and the tanks of Jericho, they had ample 
 opportunities for this purification which in the dry hills and 
 streets of Jerusalem they would have lacked. * 
 
 It is well known that water has had a most exten- 
 sive cleansing and symbolical use in connection with 
 religion, and particularly in the Orient. There is 
 nothing strange in the fact that baptism should as- 
 sume the place that it did in Jewish history. The 
 important fact for us to note, as Stanley puts it, is 
 that "the ordinance of baptism was founded on the 
 Jewish we may say the Oriental custom which, both 
 in ancient and modern times, regards ablution, cleans- 
 ing of the hands, the face, and the person, at once as 
 a means of health and as a sign of purity." f For 
 Jesus to adopt the rite and adapt it to His purpose, 
 was strictly in accord with His usual method of pro- 
 cedure; or, as the author just quoted remarks: 
 "Here, as elsewhere, the Founder of Christianity 
 chose rather to sanctify and elevate what already ex- 
 isted than to create and invent a new form for Him- 
 self." 
 
 It is equally obvious that the Lord's Supper and 
 the Lord's Day are outgrowths of the Jewish passover 
 and the Jewish Sabbath. The new institutions are 
 changed in form and in meaning; but it is manifest 
 that the distinctively Christian ideas have been devel- 
 oped from the older Jewish ideas. 
 
 * History of the Jewish Church, Leot. 1. 
 t Christian Institutions, chap. I. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 HIS AUTHORITY. 
 
 AT the close of the Sermon on the Mount, as re- 
 ported by Matthew, we read: "And it came to pass, 
 when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people 
 were astonished at His doctrine : for He taught them 
 as one having authority, and not as the scribes." And 
 well might the people be astonished ! Such sayings 
 they had not before heard, such authority not seen. 
 The nature and source of the authority that distin- 
 guishes Jesus so strongly from the Scribes constitute 
 the subject of the present chapter. 
 
 And first, it will hardly do to state the difference 
 between Jesus and the Scribes in this manner: He 
 taught with authority, while they did not. The truth 
 is that they did teach with authority, and a great deal 
 of it. Jesus Himself recognized this fact, recognized, 
 moreover, the authority itself. He said to His disci- 
 ples: "The Scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses's 
 seat: all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, 
 that observe and do ; but do not ye after their works : 
 for they say, and do not. For they bind heavy bur- 
 dens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's 
 shoulders; but they themselves will not move them 
 with one of their fingers." * This is an unmistakable 
 
 Matt, xxiii. 2-4. 
 8 (113) 
 
114 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 recognition of the Rabbis as the official representa- 
 tives of the existing system of teaching. The disci- 
 ples were to do what they said, even to the extent of 
 bearing the burdens that they imposed, because they 
 sat in Moses's seat, the seat of authority. We must, 
 therefore, search more closely to discover what it was 
 that so widely separated Jesus from the Scribes. We 
 shall find it in the kind of authority that they re- 
 spectively exercised. 
 
 1. There is the authority of testimony. Every 
 man of intelligence knows a multitude of things that 
 transcend his own personal experience, as facts of 
 science, travel, and history. He receives these facts 
 either at first or second hand from those whom he re- 
 gards as competent witnesses. Against authority such 
 as this there is nothing to be said. It is plainly nec- 
 essary to the progress of knowledge, if not indeed to 
 its very existence. The point to be guarded is the 
 character of the testimony to be received. 
 
 2. There is the authority of opinion or judgment. 
 A man who has mastered a given subject becomes an 
 authority in respect thereto, and on occasion renders 
 expert opinions; a physician in relation to disease, a 
 lawyer in relation to the law, a merchant or banker in 
 relation to business matters. In such testimony as 
 this, two elements blend one of fact and one of in- 
 ference or reason; and the value of the expert's opin- 
 ion, supposing him to be honest, depends upon his 
 acquaintance with the facts of the case and the 
 soundness of his judgment. Plainly, this kind of 
 authority is also indispensable in every practical walk 
 of life. Children must depend upon the superior 
 
HIS AUTHORITY. 115 
 
 knowledge and judgment of their parents and teach- 
 ers, ami the unlearned or unpracticed in any subject 
 upon those who are learned or practiced. Pushed to 
 an extreme, however, the authority of opinion be- 
 comes the source of great harm, as the history of 
 science, morals, politics, and religion abundantly 
 shows. It begets arrogance and oppression on the 
 one part, weakness and slavishness on the other. No 
 bounds can be set to its proper exercise, so much de- 
 pends upon circumstances. In the religious sphere, 
 its extreme exercise is the antithesis of soul-liberty. 
 It is also to be observed that the authority of opinion 
 and the authority of witness often blend; facts fur- 
 nish the basis of judgment, while judgment is exer- 
 cised in the acceptance of facts. 
 
 3. There is the authority of position or station. 
 Reference is not now made to power over men's bod- 
 ies, but to power over their minds. The authority of 
 position is perhaps commonly accompanied by the 
 authority of opinion, but by no means uniformly so. 
 Weighty are the words that fall from the chair (ex 
 cathedra). The words of a teacher, or of a physician, 
 are sometimes accepted as valuable when they are 
 worthless, merely because he is a teacher or a physician. 
 So it is with the preacher and the judge in fact, with 
 everybody who holds a position of authority. While 
 we cannot deny that this species of authority has a 
 legitimate place, we should not fail to overlook the 
 fact that it plays in the world a part greatly dispro- 
 portionate to its value. 
 
 Authority in the academical sense is a blending of 
 opinion and position. It centers in a person ulti- 
 
116 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 mately. Mallem cum Platone errare, says the 
 proverb. Time lends its powerful reinforcement. 
 Age gives weight and dignity to a man, to an institu- 
 tion, to an opinion, to a faith, or system. The result 
 is the establishment of a tradition, which derives its 
 authority partly from its supposed author and partly 
 from its age. This was the authority of the School- 
 men. Aristotle had legislated for philosophy, the 
 Fathers for theology. When Scheiner, the monk who 
 contests with Galileo the honor of having been the 
 first to observe spots on the disc of the sun, told the 
 superior of his order what he had seen, he received 
 the solemn reply: "I have searched through Aristo- 
 tle, and can find nothing of the kind mentioned: be 
 assured, therefore, that it is a deception of your 
 senses or of your glasses." * Church authority was 
 opposed to the discoveries of Galileo. It would be 
 hard to measure the mischief that the principle of 
 authority has worked in either science or religion, or 
 to state in which sphere it has been the greater. 
 
 4. There is the authority -of intuition. The word 
 may not be well chosen, but I can think of none bet- 
 ter. There is such a thing as an immediate insight 
 into truth, an insight that is not at least directly de- 
 pendent upon the slow and laborious process of gath- 
 ering facts and deducing conclusions from them. The 
 proper field of intuition is the field of the spirit. It 
 exists in men in very different degrees; but every 
 man of real reason has something of it, has some- 
 thing that he holds as truth, the origin of which, in 
 his own mind, he cannot fully explain, or which he 
 
 * Fowler's Inductive Logic, p. 270. 
 
HIS AUTHORITY. 117 
 
 i 
 
 cannot defend, except to say: " I see it to be so." 
 Women are said to surpass men in such insight. In- 
 tuition has been the cause of vast harm to the world; 
 at the same time, if men had refused to follow the 
 great intuitive minds of history, there could hardly 
 have been such a thing as progress. 
 
 The higher manifestations of spiritual intuition we 
 call inspiration and revelation. These are exempli- 
 fied in the Hebrew prophets. We do not think of 
 Isaiah or Jeremiah as toilsomely thinking out his 
 prophecies. They flash upon him he sees them he 
 has a vision; he speaks the vision, he writes it, makes 
 it plain; his book is the book of the vision. Where- 
 in the vision of the prophet differs from the vision 
 of the seer, has never been satisfactorily explained, 
 and perhaps cannot be; we recognize the difference, 
 but cannot fully analyze it. We say the range of the 
 prophet is higher and broader; but if we have any 
 spiritual discernment, and are not blinded by preju- 
 dice, we frankly acknowledge that the greatest of the 
 seers have stood near to the border-land of inspira- 
 tion. 
 
 Still another fact must be recognized : the intuitive 
 perception of truth gives a man clearness and cour- 
 age. The man who slowly thinks his way to a conclu- 
 sion will hardly be able to divest his mind of the fear 
 that he may have overlooked some fact, may have 
 laid upon it too much stress, or have committed some 
 other fault; but the man who sees is not similarly 
 haunted. Seeing is believing. How clear and full 
 the stream flows in The Old Testament prophets! 
 We feel that they enjoyed an open vision of truth. 
 
118 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 And it is in these facts that the authority of intuition, 
 or, let us now say, of inspiration, originates. This 
 fourth kind of authority may or may not stand alone. 
 In some repects the authority of intuition is very like 
 the authority of witness. 
 
 With these thoughts before us, we shall have no 
 difficulty in understanding the strikingly different im- 
 pressions that Jesus and the Scribes made upon the 
 minds of the Jewish multitude. 
 
 First, the authority of the Scribes was compounded 
 of opinion and position. They sat in Moses's seat, 
 and so spoke ex cathedra; they studied the Law, and 
 the existing body of tradition, and so spoke with the 
 authority of scholarship. ''The wisdom of the 
 learned men cometh by opportunity of leisure," says 
 Ecclesiasticus, "and he that hath little business shall 
 become wise." Their teachings lacked spontaneity 
 lacked freshness and vigor lacked originality, free- 
 dom, and force ; lacked indeed everything that can 
 commend moral or religious discourse to the hearts of 
 earnest men. They exemplified refinement and sub- 
 tlety, endless analysis, inference, legal fiction, and 
 splitting of hairs, much as the Schoolmen did cen- 
 turies after. No doubt they taught some good max- 
 ims and enforced them ; but on the whole a banquet 
 at the table that the Rabbis spread was little more 
 than a barmecide feast. "Narrow, dogmatic, mate- 
 rial;" "cold in manner, frivolous in matter, second- 
 hand, iterative in its very essence ; with no freshness 
 in it, no force, no fire; servile to all authority, op- 
 posed to all independence; at once erudite and fool- 
 ish, at once contemptuous and mean ; never passing a 
 
HIS AUTHORITY. 119 
 
 hair's breadth beyond the carefully-watched boundary 
 line of commentary and precedent, full of balanced 
 inference and orthodox hesitancy, and impossible lit- 
 eralism; intricate with legal pettiness and labyrinthine 
 system; elevating mere memory above genius, and rep- 
 etition above originality; concerned only about priests 
 and Pharisees, in Temple and synagogue, or school, or 
 Sanhedrim, and mostly occupied with things infinite- 
 ly small;" * 'occupied a thousandfold more with 
 Levitical minutiae about mint, and anise, and cum- 
 min, and the length of fringes, and the breadth of 
 phylacteries, and the washing of cups and platters, 
 and the particular quarter of a second when new 
 moons and Sabbath days began," such is Farrar's 
 characterization of the teaching of the Scribes.* Or 
 to give Dr. Geike's summing up: 
 
 ' 'No wonder that when He had finished such an address, the 
 multitude were astonished at His teaching. They had been ac - 
 customed to the tame and slavish servility of the Rabbis, with 
 their dread of varying a word from precedent and authority ; 
 their cobwebbery of endless sophistries and verbal trifling ; their 
 laborious dissertations on the infinitely little ; their unconscious 
 oversight of all that could affect the heart ; their industrious 
 trackings through the jungles of tradition and prescription ; 
 and felt that in the preaching of Jesus, they, for the first time, 
 had something that stirred their souls , and came home to their 
 consciences. One of the Rabbis had boasted that every verse of 
 the Bible was capable of six hundred thousand different expla- 
 nations , and there were seventy different modes of interpretation 
 current, but the vast mass of explanations and interpretations 
 were no better than pedantic folly, concerning itself with mere 
 insignificant minutiae which had no bearing on religion or mor- 
 als. Instead of this, Jesus had spoken as a legislator, vested 
 with greater authority than Moses. To transmit, unchanged, 
 
 * The Life of Christ, Vol. I. , pp. 266, 267. 
 
120 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 the traditions received from the past, was the one idea of all 
 other teachers ; but He, while reverent, was not afraid to criti- 
 cise, to reject, and to supplement. To venture on originality 
 and independence was something hitherto unknown. ' ' * 
 
 At every point Jesus opposed a bold contrast to the 
 Rabbinical method. He was not as the Scribes. His 
 authority borrowed nothing from opinion and nothing 
 from position. There was in it no voice from the 
 chair, no learning of the schools. 
 
 It was a blending of testimony and intuition. 
 There is no delay or hesitation ; no feeble reasoning 
 or cautious inference; no trace of doubt or uncer- 
 tainty. He spoke what He had seen in an open vis- 
 ion. His teaching was as spontaneous as new. His 
 story about the spiritual world ran as freely as the 
 tale of the traveler who returns from a distant land. 
 He did not copy the Rabbis or use their dreary learn- 
 ing; He said nothing about Moses and the Prophets, 
 but to expand and apply their teaching. Six times in 
 the Sermon on the Mount He opposes to the current 
 perversion of the Law, or to the tradition of the 
 Elders, that impressive formula, "But I say unto 
 you," with which the new era begins. There were in 
 His teachings, as Farrar says, "no definitions," or 
 "explanations, or 'scholastic systems,' or philosophic 
 theorizing, or implicated mazes of difficult and 
 dubious discussion. . . . Springing from the 
 depths of holy emotions, it thrilled the being of every 
 listener as with an electric flame. In a word, its au- 
 thority was the authority of the Divine Incarnate; it 
 was a Voice of God, speaking in the utterance of 
 
 *Life and Words of Christ, Chap, xxxvii. 
 
HIS AUTHORITY. 121 
 
 man ; its austere purity was yet pervaded with tender- 
 est sympathy, and its awful severity with an unut- 
 terable love." * 
 
 It has been well said that, in the earlier time, proph- 
 ets and righteous men looked for their guidance in 
 times of religious need, not to a written book and its 
 scholastic interpretation, but to a fresh word of rev- 
 elation, t The history of the Chosen People justified 
 this expectation. But after the time of Ezra the 
 Jews had a dim sort of consciousness that the age of 
 revelation was past, and that the age of tradition had 
 begun. In time the Spirit wholly departed from 
 Israel/ Creative power, or spiritual originality, gave 
 way to criticism and commentary. The difference 
 between the prophet and the scribe was too unmis- 
 takable not to be felt. The teaching of Jesus revived 
 the earlier period, and the authority that the multi- 
 tude found in His words flowed from the demonstra- 
 tive power of revelation. 
 
 Those are very significant passages in the Gospels 
 in which men query whether the new Prophet were 
 not an old one come back to earth. Some said He 
 was Elijah, some Jeremiah, some one of the other 
 prophets. There were even those who believed Him 
 to be John the Baptist. Similar questions had been 
 asked about John himself. Prophecy had become so 
 completely extinct the Spirit had so utterly de- 
 parted from Israel that it was apparently assumed 
 by many that a new prophet was an impossibility. 
 But there was no mistaking the decisive note that the 
 
 * Life of Christ, Vol. I. , p. 268. 
 
 t Smith: The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, Lect. VI. 
 
122 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 Prophets, that John, and that Jesus all struck. It 
 was the note of conscious power and of a Divine mis- 
 sion. This note it was that, most of all, made the 
 men who heard the Master wonder and question who 
 He could be. It constituted His authority, as it had 
 constituted the authority of Moses and Samuel, and 
 the long line of prophets who succeeded them. 
 
 Such was the authority of Him who spake as man 
 never spake. It has been said of the Gentiles, that 
 Christianity was helped forward by the current re- 
 action against pure speculation the longing for cer 
 tainty. The mass of men were sick of theories.. They 
 wanted certainty. The current teaching of the 
 Christian teachers gave them certainty. Something 
 so it was with the Jews who heard Jesus gladly. 
 They were sick of the Rabbinical scholasticism ; they 
 had thereby been led away from the personal trust 
 that had constituted the primitive faith. They 
 heard much about religion, and desired to see the 
 thing itself; they longed to hear one who, like the 
 Prophets, had had an open vision of truth, and Jesus 
 met and satisfied the want. The sad thing about it all 
 is that, notwithstanding the pains which He constant- 
 ly took to fortify His disciples and forefend the 
 Church which He founded, they have to a great 
 degree repeated the old mistake. 
 
 In reflecting upon the passage that has suggested 
 this chapter, we must remember that the standpoint 
 of the men who heard the Sermon on the Mount was 
 quite different from the standpoint of Christian be- 
 lievers who read that sermon to-day. Jesus was not 
 
HIS AUTHORITY. 123 
 
 then invested with the authority that He now wields 
 over the Christian mind. The present object is to 
 explain the authority that the men who heard the 
 sermon actually found in it, and not the authority 
 that we may find, or that we ought to find, in it. I s^" 
 deal with facts, and not with views or theories. Still 
 more broadly, the reader must remember that my aim 
 is to explain some phases of the Master's chafacter 
 and teaching as they appeared to men who saw and 
 heard Him, and not to explain the creeds or views of 
 Christians in a distant century. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 HIS USE OF ACCOMMODATION. 
 
 This is one of Dr. Neander's titles. How sugges- 
 tive and significant it is, how much of the philosophy 
 of real teaching it contains, we shall see in part as we 
 proceed with the topic. Those who desire a fuller 
 view are referred to Neander's own treatment. 
 
 "When truth takes the form of mediating, " says 
 Dr. Lange, "it becomes teaching (doctrine). The 
 teacher as such is a mediator between the light that is 
 intrusted to him and the eyes of the spirit which he 
 has to illuminate with this light. He must construct a 
 bridge between the heights of knowledge and the low 
 level of germinating thought. But as Christ is gen- 
 erally the Mediator between God and humanity, so is 
 He also specially, as a teacher, the Mediator between 
 the Divine counsels and human thought. He is the 
 Teacher: this is involved in His whole character; this 
 He proves by His ministry and operations." * 
 
 Obviously any successful attempt at mediation be- 
 tween the truth on the one side and a human mind on 
 the other, implies that the teacher shall make use of 
 accommodation. An effort to communicate anything 
 to a man in any language, as the Hebrew or Greek, is 
 
 * Life of Christ, Vol. II. , p. 172. 
 (124) 
 
HIS USE OF ACCOMMODATION. 125 
 
 an act of accommodation. This is as true of a relig- 
 ious teacher as of any other teacher. It is in this 
 spirit that The Bible speaks of the head, the arm, and 
 the eye of God, and makes use of other anthropo- 
 morphic language. More than this, successful com- 
 munication from God to man involves, on the part of 
 His minister or mediator, the use of all our familiar 
 laws and methods of teaching. As Dr. Neander 
 states the case : 
 
 We must mention Christ's adaptation of His instruction to 
 the capacity of His hearers, as one of the peculiar features of 
 His mode of teaching. Without such accommodation, indeed, 
 there can be no such thing as instruction. The teacher must 
 begin upon a ground common to his pupils, with principles pre- 
 supposed as known to them, in order to extend the sphere of 
 their knowledge to further truths. He must lower himself to 
 them, in order to raise them to himself. As the true and the 
 false are commingled in their conceptions, he must seize upon 
 the true as his point of departure , in order to disengage it from 
 the encumbering false. So to the child the man becomes a 
 child, and explains the truth in a form adapted to its age, by 
 making use of its childish conceptions as a veil for it. * 
 
 This was the more necessary, as the same writer 
 points out, because it was not the purpose of Jesus 
 "to impart a complete system of doctrine as a mere 
 dead tradition, but rather to stimulate men's minds 
 to a living appropriation and development of the 
 truth which He revealed, by means of the powers with 
 which God had endowed them." All His methods of 
 teaching were chosen with this necessity in mind. 
 The process of teaching is not in reality a process of 
 imparting or conveying ideas and thoughts from one 
 mind to another; it is, rather, as Socrates considered 
 
 * Life of Jesus Christ, p. 113. N. Y. , 1863. 
 
126 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 it, a process of giving birth and development to ideas 
 and thoughts already existing in germ and rudiment 
 in the pupil's own mind. Or, to change the figure, it 
 may be likened to the process of grafting; a new idea 
 or truth is set like a cion in the stock of an old idea 
 or truth. Accommodation assumes two different 
 forms. 
 
 1. Intellectual accommodation. This recognizes 
 the intellectual limitations of the pupil and strives to 
 meet them. It is the selection of subject-matter and 
 of methods of instruction with reference to his capa- 
 bilities. It is a point where great scholars sometimes 
 fail. For example, the late Dr. Andrew P. Peabody, 
 in his "Harvard Reminiscences," * gives a sketch of 
 Professor Benjamin Peirce, perhaps the greatest 
 mathematician that our country has produced. He 
 relates in a pleasing manner how he and Peirce, when 
 young tutors, divided between them for a year the 
 mathematical instruction given in the college. The 
 following extract well illustrates how a teacher's very 
 mastery of his subject may in a measure stand in the 
 way of his success, even in dealing with college stu- 
 dents : 
 
 He took to himself the instruction of the Freshmen. The 
 instruction of the other three classes we shared, each of us 
 taking two of the four sections into which the class was divided, 
 
 and interchanging our sections every fortnight In 
 
 one respect I was Mr. Peirce 's superior, solely because I was so 
 very far his inferior. I am certain that I was the better in- 
 structor of the two. The course in the Sophomore and Junior 
 years, embracing a treatise on the Differential Calculus, with 
 references to the calculus in the text -books on mechanics and 
 
 * Pp. 182-184. 
 
HIS USE OF ACCOMMODATION. 127 
 
 other branches of mixed mathematics, was hardly within the 
 unaided grasp of some of our best scholars ; and, though no stu- 
 dent dared to go to a tutor's room by daylight, it was no un- 
 common thing for one to come furtively in the evening to ask 
 his teacher's aid in some difficult problem or demonstration. 
 For this purpose resort was had to me more frequently than to 
 my colleague, and often by students who belonged for the fort- 
 night to one of his sections. The reason was obvious. No one 
 was more cordially ready than he to give such help as he could ; 
 but his intuition of the whole ground was so keen and compre- 
 hensive, that he could not take cognizance of the slow and 
 tentative processes of mind by which an ordinary learner was 
 compelled to make his step -by -step progress. In his explana- 
 tions he would take giant strides, and his frequent ' 'You see' ' 
 indicated what he saw clearly, but that of which his pupil could 
 get hardly a glimpse. I, on the other hand, though fond of 
 mathematical study, was yet so far from being a proficient in 
 the more advanced parts of the course, that I studied every les- 
 son as patiently and thoroughly as any of my pupils could have 
 done. I, therefore, knew every short step of the way that they 
 would be obliged to take, and could lead them in the very foot- 
 steps which I had just trodden before them. 
 
 This is an excellent illustration of a not unfrequent 
 mistake. Over-estimating the pupil's ability, the 
 teacher sometimes gives him too much matter, or 
 matter that he is not capable of receiving in any 
 quantity. Like Mr. Peirce, he says, "You see," 
 " You see," when the pupil sees nothing but the rapid 
 disappearance of the enthusiastic instructor in the 
 distance. A "dropper" is a better instrument than 
 a hose-pipe with which to fill a wine-glass. 
 
 It is interesting to observe how Jesus guards this 
 point of danger. By selection of matter, by choice of 
 methods, by repeating lessons in new forms, by vary- 
 ing illustrations, by explaining to the interested in- 
 
128 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 quirer in private what has been said in public, by 
 estimating the capability of the hearer and adapting 
 Himself to it, He accommodates Himself to both the 
 casual hearer and to the disciple who waits on His 
 ministry. How significant to the experienced teacher 
 are such passages as these: " I have yet many things 
 to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now."* 
 "With many such parables spake He the word unto 
 them, as they were able to hear it." f Numerous are 
 the intimations of His withholding truth until, by 
 reason of fuller knowledge and larger growth, His 
 disciples should be able to receive it. Nor are these 
 intimations the least significant things in the story. 
 He also fully recognizes the fact that not all hearers 
 can accept His teaching. "All men cannot receive 
 
 this saying, save they to whom it is given 
 
 He that is able to receive it, let him receive it." j 
 
 Neander makes a very important distinction be- 
 tween what he calls positive or material accommoda- 
 tion and negative or formal accommodation. The 
 first involves a yielding of substance, the second of 
 form only. Positive accommodation cannot be de- 
 fended on the ground that the end sanctifies the 
 means. Such accommodation as this was utterly re- 
 pugnant to the holy nature of Him who called Him- 
 self The Truth, and there is no trace of it in His 
 teachings. But while He never sanctioned error, or 
 taught it because it would be readily received, He 
 never adopted the principle that all truth must be 
 taught at all times, at all places, or to all persons. 
 On the other hand, He fully recognized the principle 
 
 * John xvl. 12. t Mark iv. 33. J Matt. ilx. 11, 12. 
 
HIS USE OF ACCOMMODATION. 129 
 
 of relativity or opportuneness. In respect to calling 
 things their common names, to using words in their 
 accepted acceptation, and to conforming to all the 
 ordinary modes of speech, He allowed Himself the 
 fullest liberty. To quote Neander again: 
 
 It is quite a different thing with the negative and formal 
 accommodation. As Christ's sole calling as a teacher was to 
 implant the fundamental truths of the kingdom of God in the 
 human consciousness, He could not stop by the way to battle 
 with errors utterly unconnected with His object, and remote 
 from the interests of religion and morality. Thus He made use 
 of common terms and expressions without entering into an 
 examination of all the false notions that might be attached to 
 them. He called diseases, for instance, by the names in com- 
 mon use ; but we should not be justified in concluding that He 
 thereby stamped with His Divine authority the ordinary notions 
 of their origin, as implied in the names. Nor does His citation 
 of the books of The Old Testament by the accustomed titles im- 
 ply any sanction on His part of the prevalent opinions in regard 
 to their authors. We must never forget that His words, as He 
 Himself has told us, are Spirit and Life; and that no scribe of 
 the old Rabbinical school, no slave to the letter, can rightly 
 comprehend and apply them.* 
 
 The fact that Jesus mentions a book called Isaiah, 
 and quotes from it, proves that such a book was in 
 use in His time; but it no more proves that Isaiah 
 wrote the book in whole, or even in part, than the 
 phrases, "the sun rose" and "the sun set," sprink- 
 led so liberally over the pages of The Bible, prove 
 that the sun does actually rise and set. There could 
 not possibly be a greater mistake than to suppose that 
 The Bible is written in scientific language. The truth 
 is that no book in the world makes more liberal use 
 
 * Page 114. 
 
130 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 of the principle of intellectual relativity or accommo- 
 dation. 
 
 2. Accommodation to the feelings. The impor- 
 tance of such accommodation, which professional 
 pedagogists, to say nothing of practical teachers, do 
 not always fully recognize, Jesus understood most 
 profoundly. 
 
 First, He recognized and taught the fact that the 
 acceptance of religious truth depends upon the moral 
 disposition, or the spiritual tone of the hearer. He 
 said: "If any man will do His will (or is willing to 
 do His will), he shall know of the doctrine, whether 
 it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." * 
 "Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on 
 Him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disci- 
 ples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth 
 shall make you free." f These passages mean that 
 acceptance of the teachings of Jesus depends upon a 
 certain personal relation or adjustment to Him. 
 Doing the will, or willingness to do the will, is a con- 
 dition of knowing the doctrine; or, as that great 
 preacher, F. W. Robertson, put the thought in the 
 title of one of his sermons, "Obedience is the Organ 
 of Spiritual Knowledge." 
 
 That Jesus makes this demand is sometimes urged 
 as an objection to Him. " How can the personal rela- 
 tion of the hearer to the speaker," it is asked, " affect 
 the truth or the reception of truth?" Abstractly, 
 it is not so; concretely, it is so. The mental attitude 
 of the pupil to the teacher is an important factor in 
 all study, and particularly in those studies which have 
 
 * John vii. 17. t Ibid viii. 31, 32. 
 
HIS USE OF ACCOMMODATION. 131 
 
 immediately to do with the direction of conduct or 
 the shaping of character. Authority involves per- 
 sonal confidence, while willingness to see things 
 through a writer's or actor's eyes, or a sort of sympa- 
 thy with him, is essential to right interpretation. The 
 construction that we put upon a man's words and 
 acts, and therefore our view of the man himself, de- 
 pends materially upon the state of our mind towards 
 him, whether well disposed or otherwise. There is 
 much more than poetry in the line, 
 
 Truths divine came mended from that tongue. 
 
 Speaking of literary appreciation and criticism, 
 Carlyle has well said: 
 
 We have not read an author till we have seen his object, 
 whatever it may be, as he saw it. Is it a matter of reasoning, 
 and has he reasoned stupidly and falsely? We should under- 
 stand the circumstances which , to his mind , made it seem true , 
 or persuaded him to write it, knowing that it was not so. In 
 any other way we do him injustice if we judge him. Is it of 
 poetry? His words are so many symbols, to which we ourselves 
 must furnish the interpretation; or they remain, as in all 
 prosaic minds the words of poetry ever do, a dead letter: 
 indications they are, barren in themselves, but, by following 
 which, we also may reach, or approach, that Hill of Vision 
 where the poet stood, beholding the glorious scene which it is 
 the purport of his poem to show others. * 
 
 But this is not all; there is still another fact that is 
 more important for the teacher to see. There are 
 three phases of consciousness, three forms of mental 
 activity: knowing, feeling, and willing. While these 
 are inseparably bound together, they are not all 
 equally prominent in any state of consciousness. On 
 
 * Critical and Miscellaneous Essays. "Goethe's Helena. " 
 
132 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 the other hand, any one of the three may be so 
 strongly developed that we give its name to the whole 
 state of the mind, as knowledge, feeling, or will. 
 Still further, a very energetic development of any of 
 them renders a very energetic development of either 
 of the others impossible; a man cannot know and feel 
 and will with great energy all at the same time. Now, 
 gentle and pleasurable extitement of the feelings con- 
 duces to intellectual activity, and so to growth in 
 thought and knowledge; while violent excitement, or 
 a tone of feeling that runs strongly in the minor key, 
 is a hinderance. As we all know by experience, cer- 
 tain emotional states render study and reflection im- 
 possible. Furthermore, the feelings that should reign 
 in the school-room are courage, cheerfulness, gratifi- 
 cation; not anger, grief, disappointment, or despair. 
 Hence the regulation of the feelings of the pupil and 
 of the school the control of the emotional nature 
 is one of the delicate duties that the teacher is called 
 upon to perform. How much wisdom there is in 
 these words of a distinguished writer on psychology: 
 
 Those ' 'strong-minded' ' teachers who object to these modes 
 of ' ' making things pleasant , ' ' as an unworthy and undesirable 
 ' 'weakness, ' ' are ignorant that in this stage of the child -mind, 
 the will that is, the power of self-control is weak; and that 
 the primary object of education is to encourage and strengthen , 
 not to repress, that power. Great mistakes are often made by 
 parents and teachers , who , being ignorant of this fundamental 
 fact of child -nature, treat as willfulness what is in reality just 
 the contrary of will -fulness ; being the direct result of the want 
 of volitional control over the automatic activity of the brain. 
 To punish a child for the want of obedience which it has not the 
 power to render, is to inflict an injury which may almost be 
 said to be irreparable. For nothing tends so much to prevent 
 
HIS USE OF ACCOMMODATION. 133 
 
 the healthful development of the moral sense , as the infliction 
 of punishment which the child feels to be unjust ; and nothing 
 retards the acquirement of the power of directing the intel- 
 lectual processes so much as the emotional disturbance which 
 the feeling of injustice provokes. Hence the determination 
 often expressed to "break the will" of an obstinate child by 
 punishment, is almost certain to strengthen these reactionary 
 influences. Many a child is put into "durance vile" for not 
 learning "the little busy bee," who simply cannot give its 
 small mind to the task whilst disturbed by stern commands and 
 threats of yet severer punishment fora disobedience it cannot 
 help ; when a suggestion kindly and skillfully adapted to its 
 automatic nature, by directing the turbid current of thought 
 and feeling into a smoother channel, and guiding the activity 
 which it does not attempt to oppose, shall bring about the de- 
 sired result, to the surprise alike of the baffled teacher, the pas- 
 sionate pupil, and the perplexed bystanders. * 
 
 The objections to violent disturbances of the child's 
 feelings in school are two in number: First, he can- 
 not learn while his mind is full of turbulence and 
 excitement; secondly, such stimulus excites his moral 
 nature to abnormal activity and growth. 
 
 How beautiful is the teaching of Jesus when meas- 
 ured by these criteria! How gently does He handle 
 those whom He hopes to win! With what conde- 
 scension and tenderness He treats the ignorant and 
 those who have gone out of the way! With what 
 forbearance and sympathy He looks upon the people ! 
 When He sees the multitude He is moved with com- 
 passion on them because they faint, and are scattered 
 abroad as sheep having no shepherd, f It is true that 
 He sometimes denounces with terrific force; but His 
 denunciations are heaped upon the leaders and rulers 
 
 * Dr. W. B. Carpenter's Mental Physiology, pp. 134, 135. 
 t Matt. ix. 36. 
 
134 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 of the people whom He has failed to awaken from 
 their self-satisfaction or carnality, and whom it is 
 necessary to expose, in order to destroy their influence. 
 But the best examples of His spirit of accommo- 
 dation are found in the history of His relations with 
 His disciples. Their slowness to learn seems incred- 
 ible, until we remember how remote His teaching is 
 / from the channels of the common Jewish mind. He 
 is compelled to repeat His lessons, and to multiply 
 illustrations. They have their Messianic ideas and 
 hopes; they come finally to accept Him as the Mes- 
 siah; still He is constantly dashing their expectations 
 and frustrating their plans by pointing out to them 
 their errors. Yet when He chides them He does so 
 in gentle language. " Have I been so long time with 
 you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?"* His 
 strongest reproof to them was the words spoken after 
 His resurrection: **Oh fools, and slow of heart to 
 believe all that the prophets have spoken. " And 
 then, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He 
 expounds unto them once more in all the Scriptures 
 the things concerning Himself, t 
 
 * John xiv. 9. f Luke xxiv. 25-27. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 HIS METHODS OF TEACHING. I. 
 
 EVERY true teacher stands between men and truth 
 in a mediatorial capacity, and this was emphatically 
 true of Jesus. He was the Truth, as well as the way 
 and the light. In Him truth itself became a medi- 
 ator. But this did not make method the less impor- 
 tant, but rather the more important. Method now 
 involved, not the means of intercommunication be- 
 tween men and abstract study or science, but between 
 men and The Truth. In this case method may be 
 less scholastic, but only because it is more vital and 
 more practical. 
 
 The wise teacher always chooses his methods with 
 reference to the ends that he wishes to accomplish. 
 His ideas control his procedure. This is true of 
 Jesus. His teachings look to a practical end; they 
 lead to growth in knowledge and in grace. The con- 
 ception of a completed circle of ideas, or of lessons 
 that may be mastered by repetition and be conformed 
 to by habit, is wholly foreign to His mind. He 
 expects progress. The law of His kingdom is the 
 law of development. "The earth bringeth forth fruit 
 of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the 
 full corn in the ear." * To effect His object He seeks 
 
 * Mark iv. 28. 
 (135) 
 
136 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 to arrest the attention of men, to set them to think- 
 ing, and through their own mental activity to influ- 
 ence their characters and lives. 
 
 Dr. Neander finds in the words of Jesus, "There- 
 fore every scribe, which is instructed unto the kingdom 
 of heaven, is like unto a man that is a householder, 
 which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new 
 and old" (Matt. xiii. 52), an intimation of the prin- 
 ciples of His mode of teaching and the grounds on 
 which He adopted it. "As a householder shows his 
 visitors his jewels; exhibits, in pleasing alternation, 
 the modern and the antique, and leads them from the 
 common to the rare, so must the teacher of Divine 
 truth, in the new manifestation of the kingdom of 
 God, bring out of his treasures of knowledge truths 
 old and new, and gradually lead his hearers from the 
 old and usual to the new and unaccustomed." * 
 
 "In discharging His office of Teacher," says Lange, 
 "He employs various forms of teaching as they suited 
 the various relations in which He stood to His hearers, 
 and the inner constitution of these hearers them- 
 selves, "t In general the stage of instruction that His 
 hearers had reached, and their mental disposition 
 toward Him, determined the method of discourse. If 
 the men whom He addressed had already entered the 
 circle of intimate discipleship, that was one thing; 
 if they had not entered that circle, but were willing 
 and eager to be taught, and so were well affected in 
 their minds, that was another thing; if they were dis- 
 putatious and captious, and particularly if they were 
 hostile in spirit', that was still another thing; the same 
 
 * Life of Jesus Christ, page 101. t Life of Christ, Vol. II., page 173. 
 
HIS METHODS OF TEACHING. 137 
 
 may also be said if they were indifferent and spirit- 
 ually dull. 
 
 Whatever the moral status and attitude of those 
 whom He was called upon to address, Jesus found all 
 the pedagogical instruments that He needed already 
 familiar to His countrymen. He invented nothing 
 in method, but used old methods with perfect free- 
 dom and efficiency. His surprising originality appears 
 in His mastery of these methods, in the spirit in which 
 He used them, and in His subject matter. Perhaps 
 nothing more completely marks His identification 
 with the Jewish nation, nay more, with the Oriental 
 world, than His adoption and exclusive use of the 
 modes of teaching that were in constant employ about 
 Him. What these methods were we are now to 
 inquire. 
 
 1. The declaratory didactic discourse. Dr. Lange 
 defines this as "the simple declaration or preaching 
 of the Gospel, which accompanied the facts of the 
 Gospel such as the proclamation of the kingdom of 
 God, of forgiveness of sins, the call to discipleship, 
 the bestowal of a new name, or of power and author- 
 ity, special promises, special injunctions,"* etc. It will 
 be seen at once that this is peculiarly a preaching 
 method. It is the method that Jesus commonly used 
 in the early part of His ministry, particularly in deal- 
 ing with multitudes or large congregations. The long 
 unbroken addresses found in the Gospels are examples. 
 Particular mention may be made of the Sermon on 
 the Mount, which is the greatest and best known of 
 them all. 
 
 * Commentary on Matthew, chap, xiii: "The Parables of Christ." 
 
138 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 When we take up one of these sermons for exam- 
 ination, we soon see that it has a peculiar structure 
 and texture. It is wholly unlike what now passes for 
 a sermon. It often contains quotations from the 
 Hebrew Scriptures, or allusions to them, but it is not 
 our familiar expository discourse. It is not an argued 
 or reasoned address. It does not, like the Greek or 
 Latin orations, conform to the conventional rules for 
 the construction of public addresses. It cannot be 
 -said to have a formal unity, and is scarcely a system- 
 atic treatment of a distinct subject. Learned com- 
 mentators do indeed seek to discover underlying unity 
 and system in these discourses: but their efforts are 
 not very successful. In fact, it would be difficult to 
 find any body of teaching or doctrine that shows less 
 external trace of the system-maker than they do. 
 Furthermore, this was due in great part to the internal 
 structure of the sermon itself. What this structure 
 was, we shall soon make the subject of investigation. 
 
 2. The didactic dialogue. Admirable as the de- 
 claratory discourse is when a speaker addresses a 
 multitude, it is too formal and unwieldy for use when 
 he deals with a single person or a few persons. A 
 more familiar, direct, and confidential method is nec- 
 essary. Under such circumstances, Jesus laid the ser- 
 mon aside and took up the didactic dialogue. There 
 are now two or more speakers, questions are asked 
 and answered, difficulties are propounded and efforts 
 made to remove them, all of which gives to the teach- 
 ing greater variety and animation. Reference may be 
 made to the conversations with Nicodemus, Simon, 
 and the woman of Samaria. This is the common 
 
HIS METHODS OF TEACHING. 139 
 
 form of instruction when Jesus was dealing with his 
 disciples. As Dr. Lange says, in the presence of 
 His intimate disciples the dialogue "assumed the form 
 of the most direct address, at once instructing the . 
 mind and moving the heart. So especially in the part- 
 ing discourses of the Savior as recorded by St. John." 
 Some of the most characteristic teaching some of 
 the most interesting and beautiful is given in this 
 form. "Disciple" is a word that covers relations 
 which "hearer" does not embrace. Particularly was 
 this the case with Jesus. Many of His thoughts were 
 so remote from the common mind, His lessons had 
 applications so many and so various, that He often 
 found it necessary to preach His sermons over again 
 to His disciples, explaining what had been left ob- 
 scure. More than this, He was fitting the Twelve for 
 their ministry, and this made the private duty all the 
 more urgent. He foretold His own death, pointed 
 out what they would be called upon to suffer, and 
 strengthened them with special promises. When we 
 come to deal with the parables, we shall have occasion 
 to consider one or more of these didactic dialogues. 
 Still, the dialogue and the sermon have much in 
 common, as we see when we look into their interior 
 texture. The call to meet difficulties and answer 
 questions in the dialogue required as plentiful a use 
 of proverbs as the sermon itself. Such discussions 
 often followed the more public teaching, and especial- 
 ly the parables. Remarking that the attainment of 
 His end depended upon the susceptibility of the 
 hearers, Dr. Neander observes: 
 
140 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 So far as they hungered for true spiritual food, so far as the 
 parable stimulated them to deeper thought, and so far only, it 
 revealed new riches. Those with whom this was really the 
 case were accustomed to wait until the throng had left their 
 Master, or, gathering round Him in a narrow circle, in some 
 retired spot, to seek clearer light on points which the parable 
 had left obscure. Tha scene described in Mark iv. 10, shows 
 us that others besides the twelve Apostles were named among 
 those who remained behind to ask Him questions after the crowd 
 had dispersed. Not only did such questions afford the Savior 
 an opportunity of imparting more thorough instruction, but 
 those who felt constrained to offer them were thereby drawn 
 into closer fellowship with Him. He became better acquainted 
 with the souls that were longing for salvation.* 
 
 The second of these methods, under certain circum- 
 stances, passed readily into the third one. 
 
 3. Questioning or disputation. " When confronted by 
 enemies and accusers," says Dr. Lange, "Christ adopt- 
 ed the method of questioning (disputation), following 
 it up by a warning, or by what would serve to silence 
 an opponent the ultimate mode of dealing with such 
 persons being either open rebuke or else solemn testi- 
 mony.'* These disputations were controversial in 
 form, and many of them were very searching in char- 
 acter. Many of the encounters between Him and the 
 Pharisees and Sadducees may be given as examples. 
 If one were looking for the surest evidence of Jesus's 
 ability to hold His own in dealing with men, to over- 
 whelm an opponent, to put to silence the captious, 
 and to expose the pretentious and the arrogant, he 
 would find it in these contests. It is in the dialogues 
 and disputations that Jesus approaches nearest to the 
 Greeks. The dialogue with friendly auditors may be 
 
 * The Life of Jesus Christ, p. 103. 
 
nJNi 
 
 HIS METHODS OF TEACHING. 141 
 
 likened to the Socratic maieutics, the disputation to 
 the Socratic irony. The controversial dialogue, as 
 well as the didactic dialogue, had certain elements in 
 common with the sermon or declaratory discourse. 
 It was a foregone conclusion that Jesus and the 
 Jewish teachers and rulers could not get on together. 
 It is true that at first He did not denounce them pub- 
 licly, or at all events that His most powerful denun- 
 ciations belong to a later period. On their part they 
 appear to have listened to Him, or to reports of Him, 
 with wondering curiosity. Like the High Priest, the 
 captain of the Temple, and the chief priests at a later 
 day, they doubted whereunto this thing would grow. 
 Some of them looked upon Him with no little favor. 
 But the majority soon discovered that His teaching 
 involved a subversion of the existing religious order; 
 they were at first awakened and then alarmed, and 
 they saw that something must be done to counteract 
 His influence. One of the methods that they adopted 
 was to ask Him " hard questions," to suggest difficul- 
 ties, to file objections. Sometimes these grew imme- 
 diately out of His teaching; sometimes they were 
 made up with consummate art, care being taken to 
 arrange the whole scheme beforehand. Never does 
 He lose self-command, never is He taken unawares, 
 never does He appear at a disadvantage. In every 
 instance, He remains master of the field. Nor can it 
 be said that the reports have been tampered with, for 
 their verisimilitude attests their genuineness. A sin- 
 gle example will suffice. 
 
 Then went the Pharisees, and took connsel how they might 
 entangle Him in His talk. And they sent out unto Him their dis- 
 
142 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 ciples with the Herodians, saying, Master, we know that thon 
 art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest 
 thou for any man: for thou regardest not the person of men. 
 Tell us, therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give 
 tribute unto Caesar or not?* 
 
 Observe the art with which the plot is laid and the 
 characters are cast. The purpose of the Pharisees is 
 to entangle Him in His talk, or, more definitely, to 
 extort from Him an answer that will bring upon Him 
 the enmity either of the nation or of the public au- 
 thorities. They do not appear themselves, but send 
 their disciples, in order not to arouse suspicion. Still 
 further to veil their purpose, the actors address Him 
 in flattering words ; they call Him by the honorable 
 title of Master; they tell Him that He teaches the 
 way of God in truth, and that He does not regard the 
 person of men. Will He therefore settle the vexed 
 question of paying tribute? It must be remembered 
 that the Jews were intense patriots, and were then 
 chafing under the Roman domination; also that the 
 Pharisees were national in feeling, as hostile as they 
 dared to be to Rome and to everything Roman. The 
 Herodians were not a religious sect, but a political 
 party that took its name from the house of Herod. 
 They were devoted to the family that was then reign- 
 ing in parts of Palestine, and so to the Roman dom- 
 ination, upon which the fortunes of the Herods de- 
 pended. The combination has been called one of 
 priests and politicians, and it would be hard to say 
 which party to it was the more unscrupulous and dan- 
 gerous. The question of tribute was practically tho 
 
 * Matt. xxii. 15-22. 
 
HIS METHODS OF TEACHING. 143 
 
 test of a man's relation to the existing order of 
 things, the lawfulness of paying tribute, from a Jew- 
 ish point of view, being not a little discussed. Now, if 
 Jesus should answer the skillfully framed question in 
 the affirmative, the Pharisees would certainly report 
 among the people that He had ranged Himself on the 
 side of the Romans; but if He should answer in the 
 negative, the Herodians would denounce Him to the 
 authorities as a political agitator and a dangerous 
 man. Such were the millstones between which 
 they hoped to see Him ground to powder. But, with 
 His ready intuition, He perceived their wickedness, 
 denounced them as hypocrites, and demanded to 
 know why they should tempt or try Him. He asked 
 to be shown the tribute money; and when they 
 handed Him a denarius, He asked whose was the 
 image and superscription stamped on the coin. They 
 replied that it was Caesar, the Emperor's. Seeing is 
 believing; here was an object lesson teaching them 
 what was, or whose was, the established political au- 
 thority. The circulation of the denarius proclaimed 
 the Roman supremacy as plainly as the eagles on 
 the walls of Jerusalem could do. So when they had in 
 effect answered their own question, He said: "Ren- 
 der therefore unto Caesar the things which are 
 Caesar's, and unto Grod the things that are Grod's." 
 The scene was over. He had taught them three les- 
 sons: that the constituted authority was to be re- 
 spected; that He was not an agitator dealing with 
 political questions; and that men owe service and 
 duty to God as well as to the State. He had so han- 
 dled the case as to make it teach a great spiritual 
 
144 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 truth. No wonder that the discomfited Pharisees and 
 Herodians, when they heard these words, marveled 
 and left Him and went their way. No wonder that 
 we read at the close of a similar unsuccessful effort 
 to entrap Him: "And no man was able to answer 
 Him a word, neither durst any man from that day 
 forth ask Him any more questions." * This topic 
 may be dismissed with the remark that never was the 
 superiority of genuineness, simplicity, and truth over 
 craft, artifice, and hypocrisy more clearly evinced 
 than in the controversies and disputations of the 
 Gospels. 
 
 Thus far we have been dealing with the methods of 
 Jesus under an external or formal aspect. It will now 
 become our duty to look into their interior structure. 
 Dr. Lange says, however, that the silence of Jesus 
 also "should be ranked among the forms of His 
 teaching viewing, as we do, each of them not merely 
 as a speech, but as a fact." 
 
 * Matt. xxii. 46.. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 . .HIS METHODS OF TEACHING. II, . ... 
 
 THE last chapter dealt with the forms or modes of 
 teaching that Jesus employed, viewed under an exter- 
 nal aspect, the formal didactic discourse, the didactic 
 dialogue, and the disputation. We are now to take a 
 deeper look into the subject. 
 
 Speaking of the first of these modes of teaching; 
 Dr. Lange has said: "When addressed to a sympa- 
 thetic audience, this declaration of the Gospel was de- 
 livered in a regular didactic manner in the form of 
 maxims, or gnomes, as, for example, the Sermon on 
 the Mount. The use of proverbs, gnomes, or senten- 
 tious maxims, . . . was a favorite mode of 
 teaching among the Jews, after the example of Sol- 
 omon in the Book of Proverbs." "The proverb,';' 
 he continues, "is a short, epigrammatic, pointed sen- 
 tence, frequently figurative and concrete, occasion- 
 ally paradoxical and hyperbolical, at other times 
 poetical, but always vivid, and sharply outlined, 
 so as to present in a transparent and significant 
 form a deep, rich, and pregnant idea, which shines 
 in the light of truth, and burns in the fire of per- 
 sonal application bright and brilliant like a true 
 gem." A glance beneath the surface of the Sermon 
 
 on the Mount, or of any similar discourse, suffices to 
 10 (145) 
 
146 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 show that it consists, not of connected reasonings or 
 of sustained argumentation, but largely of these 
 expressive sayings, sometimes units separate and dis- 
 tinct in themselves, sometimes more or less connected, 
 but all tending to awaken, to inspire, and to guide the 
 hearer. Hence one of these discourses has a some- 
 what oracular appearance and effect. A glance, too, 
 will show that such a mode of teaching would be 
 wholly unsuited to any subject that demands scientific 
 treatment. The facts and principles of science, his- 
 tory, mathematics, and philosophy cannot be com- 
 pressed into maxims. At the same time it is a mode 
 of teaching admirably adapted to the ends of practical 
 ethics and of religious conduct. 
 
 Dr. Lange speaks of the currency of this mode of 
 teaching among the Jews, and mentions Solomon. 
 He might have given a far wider horizon to his 
 remark. From a very early time, if not indeed from 
 the earliest of which we have any record, the East has 
 exhibited traits of mental character and modes of 
 thought and expression that are not properly native 
 to the West. Not merely the Jews, but the Arabs, 
 the Persians, the Indians, and the Chinese have 
 showed a decided propension to moral reflection, to 
 prudential wisdom, and to gnomic or aphoristic utter- 
 ance. What the ultimate sources or causes of these 
 tendencies may be, I have not seen explained; for 
 myself, I associate them with that air of repose and 
 spirit of meditation which so strongly characterize 
 Eastern life. They are tendencies quite inconsistent, 
 for the most part, with the ceaseless energy and prac- 
 
HIS METHODS OF TEACHING. 147 
 
 tical spirit of the West.* Whatever the explanation 
 may be, they are characteristic features of all the 
 Oriental literatures. In Eastern books it is com- 
 mon to find the loftiest maxims and moral reflections 
 in the mouths, not merely of sages and poets, but 
 of tyrants, conquerors, and voluptuaries. As Alp 
 Arslan, the Seljook Sultan, fell at the foot of his 
 throne from the dagger of an assassin, he explained 
 before he breathed his last: "In my youth I was ad- 
 vised by a sage, to humble myself before Grod; to dis- 
 trust my own strength; and never to despise the most 
 contemptible foe. I have neglected these lessons; 
 and my neglect has been deservedly punished. Yes- 
 terday, as from an eminence I beheld the numbers, 
 the discipline, and the spirit of my armies, the earth 
 seemed to tremble under my feet; and I said in my 
 heart, ' Surely thou art the king of the world, the 
 greatest and most invincible of warriors.' These 
 armies are no longer mine; and in the confidence of 
 my personal strength, I now fall by the hand of an 
 assassin."! It matters not whether the words are gen- 
 uine or not, they are in perfect character. But we 
 
 * This is Aristotle's famous characterization of the East and the West: 
 "Those who live in a cold climate and in [Northern] Europe are full of spirit, 
 but wanting in intelligence and skill; and therefore they keap their freedom, 
 but have no political organization, and are incapable of ruling over others. 
 Whereas the natives of Asia are intelligent and inventive, but they are want- 
 ing in spirit, and therefore they are always in a state of subjection and slav- 
 ery. But the Hellenic race, which is situated between them, is likewise 
 intermediate in character, being high-spirited and also intelligent. Hence it 
 continues free, and is the best governed of any nation, and, if it could be 
 formed into one State, would be able to rule the world. There are also simi- 
 lar differences in the different tribes of Hellas, for some of them are of a 
 one-sided nature, and are intelligent or courageous only, while in others 
 there is a happy combination of both qualities..'.' Poetics, VII. , 7. 
 
 t Gibbon, Chapter LVII. 
 
148 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 cannot conceive of Caesar's dying with a similar hom- 
 ily in his mouth. The combination of wisdom and 
 profligacy found in Solomon is by no means an uncom- 
 mon one in the East; and were we always to remem- 
 ber the peculiar moral genius of the Orient, the 
 marked contradiction seen in the character of the 
 Wise King would appear to us less extraordinary. It 
 is no accident that from early times men have looked 
 to the East for wisdom. 
 
 It is certain that wisdom and gnomic teaching did 
 not originate with the Jews. Nor do they appear to 
 have been prominent in the early history of the Chosen 
 People. While anticipations are met with at an ear- 
 lier date, the splendid outburst of Wisdom that shines 
 so conspicuously in certain books of The Old Testa- 
 ment did not come until the age of Solomon. Such 
 writers as Ewald and Dean Stanley connect this out- 
 burst with the great enlargement of the Jewish horizon 
 and the general reign of peace that coincided with the 
 reign of the Wise King. A new world of thought 
 had been opened to the Israelites. The curtain which 
 divided them from the surrounding nations was sud- 
 denly rent asunder. The wonders of Egypt, the com- 
 merce of Tyre, the romance of Arabia became visible. 
 Prophets and psalmists now retire into the background, 
 and their places are occupied by what is henceforth 
 called " Wisdom,'* a word that must be taken, if we 
 would understand its force, in a somewhat technical 
 sense. We read of the "Wisdom of Egypt" and 
 of the " Wisdom of the children of the East." Four 
 renowned sages appear as its exponents. We read in 
 
HIS METHODS OF TEACHING. 149 
 
 the First Book of Kings* of Ethan the Ezrahite, and 
 Heman, and Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol. 
 We read in Proverbs of a House of Wisdom on seven 
 pillars, t A class of men sprang up distinct from both 
 priest and prophet bearing the name of "The Wise," 
 whose teaching and manner of life were unlike that of 
 either of those two orders. The thing and the name 
 had been almost unknown before ; but from this time 
 forward the word occurs in the Sacred Writings at 
 least three hundred times, t 
 
 We cannot follow the Dean in his admirable analy- 
 sis of Solomon's wisdom, except to say that he finds 
 it to comprise discernment of justice and largeness of 
 heart. But we are not to think of wisdom as 
 peculiar to Solomon. While he exemplified it in its 
 highest form, he nevertheless shared it with many of 
 his contemporaries. It is in fact a kind of teaching 
 in which the Eastern mind has always been fond of 
 expressing itself. The Queen of Sheba did not come 
 to Jerusalem from the uttermost parts of the earth to 
 hear wisdom, but the wisdom of Solomon. 
 
 Again, as marking these large and interesting rela- 
 tions, Solomon expressed himself in common Oriental 
 forms of speech. " The chief manifestation in writ- 
 ing of Solomon's wisdom," says Stanley, "was that 
 of proverbs, parables, or by whatever other name we 
 translate the Hebrew word mashal. The inward 
 spirit of his philosophy (for such it might be called, 
 and was the nearest approach to the Western idea 
 which the Hebrew mind ever attained,) consisted in 
 
 * Chap. iv. 30. f Chap. ix. 1. 
 
 I See Stanley: History of the Jewish Church, Lect. XXVIII. 
 
150 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 questionings about the ends of life, propounding and 
 answering the difficulties suggested by human experi- 
 'ences. Its form was either that of similitudes or 
 short homely maxims." 
 
 Solomon cultivated science as well as wisdom. He 
 spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Leba- 
 non even into the hyssop that springeth out of the 
 wall: he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of 
 creeping things, and of fishes.* These studies the 
 more fully qualified him for parabolic and gnomic ex- 
 pression. The East is the land of apologues, alle- 
 gories, and fables. To use the whole round of nat- 
 ural objects as symbols of thought, and particularly 
 trees and animals, is a habit dating from high antiq- 
 uity. In the Orient, man seems to come into a close 
 poetic sympathy with Nature, with the result that the 
 natural symbols of ethical thought are here often used 
 with admirable effect and grace. 
 
 I have said that gnomic thought and utterance were 
 current in the East in Solomon's day. Stanley tells 
 us that, "The climax of the definition of wisdom is 
 'the understanding of a proverb, and the interpreta- 
 tion; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.' ! 
 The kings and chiefs around seem to have been stim- 
 ulated by his example, or by their example to have 
 stimulated him, to carry on this kind of Socratic dia- 
 logue with each other. The Dean refers especially to 
 the Wise King's contests in riddles with Hiram of 
 Tyre. These are some of the riddles that were hurled 
 back and forth in this game of royal wits: " What 
 are the six things that the Lord hated?" " What are 
 
 * 1 Kings iv. 33. 
 
HIS METHODS OF TEACHING. 151 
 
 the two daughters of the horse-leach?" " What are 
 the three things that are never satisfied?" " The 
 three things that are too wonderful?" "The three 
 things that disquiet the earth?" "The four things 
 that are little and wise?" "The four things that are 
 comely in going?" Not alone in The Old Testament, 
 but also in other Oriental books, are riddles like these 
 to be found. Solomon was not alone; it was his pre- 
 eminence merely that led the Queen of Sheba to say: 
 "Happy are thy wives, happy are these thy servants, 
 who stand continually before thee and hear thy wis- 
 dom." Like so many others of the Oriental teachers, 
 Solomon was also a poet. His songs were a thousand 
 and five. He spoke three thousand proverbs. * His 
 pedagogical maxims circulate wherever his name is 
 known. From this time 'on there was among the 
 Jews a flowing stream of proverbial teaching, down to 
 the time of Jesus. Some of this is preserved in The 
 Old Testament, some in the Apocrypha, and some in 
 the Talmud. Much of it is seen in books not out- 
 wardly proverbial, as in Job, the Song of Solomon, 
 and in some of the Psalms, as well as in Proverbs and 
 Ecclesiastes. The Apocryphal books called Wisdom 
 and Ecclesiasticus are also books of proverbs. For 
 the purposes of prudential conduct, it was a most 
 effective form of teaching. "The words of the wise 
 are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of 
 assemblies." Here the reference is to the proverbial 
 wisdom; and when we consider how well adapted this 
 teaching was to impress the mind and to remain in 
 the memory, we shall understand the figures. 
 
 * 1 Kings iv. 32. 
 
152 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 In making the large use that He did of the maxim 
 or the gnome, Jesus was merely conforming to the 
 habit of his country and age. As Renan puts the 
 case: " Like all the Rabbis of the time, Jesus, little 
 given to consecutive reasoning, compressed His doc- 
 trine into aphorisms concise and of an expressive 
 form, sometimes strange and enigmatical. . . . The 
 synagogues are rich in maxims very happily expressed, 
 which formed a sort of current proverb literature. 
 Jesus adopted nearly all this oral instruction, infusing 
 into it a loftier meaning." * We may therefore view 
 Jesus under the aspect of one of The Wise. In fact 
 the word personified is twice applied to Him in The 
 New Testament, t To quote the Dean of Westmin- 
 ster again: 
 
 Not only was Christ the subject in which the name of The 
 Wisdom of Solomon found its last and highest application, but 
 His teaching was the last and highest example of the thing it- 
 self. If we look back to the older Scriptures for the models on 
 which, in form at least, our Lord's discourses are framed, it is, 
 for the most part, not the Psalms, nor the Prophecies, nor the 
 Histories, but the works of Solomon. Not only do the short, 
 moral and religious aphorisms resemble in general form the 
 precepts of the Proverbs and of Ecclesiasticus, but the very 
 name by which the greater part of His teaching is called is the 
 same as that of the teaching of Solomon. He spoke in ' 'para 
 bles' ' or ' 'proverbs. ' ' The two Greek words are used promis- 
 cuously in the Evangelical narratives, and are in fact represent- 
 atives of one and the same Hebrew word. It is, we might say, 
 an accident, that the Proverbs of Solomon are not called the 
 ' 'Parables,'' and that the teachings of The New Testament are 
 called the ' 'Parables, ' ' and not the ' 'Proverbs, ' ' of the Gos- 
 pels. The illustrations from natural objects, the selection of 
 the homelier instead of the grander of these, are not derived 
 
 * Life of Jesus, Chap. v. T Lukevii.35; xi. 49. 
 
HIS METHODS OF TEACHING. 153 
 
 from the Prophets, or from the Psalmists, but from the wise 
 Naturalist, "who spake of trees, and beasts, and fowls, and 
 creeping things, and fishes;" "of the singing -birds, of the 
 budding fig-tree, of the fragrant vine. ' ' The teaching of Solo- 
 mon is the sanctification of common sense in The Old Testament , 
 and to that sanctification the final seal is set by the adoption of 
 the same style and thought in The New Testament by Him who , 
 with His Apostles, taught in "Solomon's porch,' 1 and expressly 
 compared His wisdom to the wisdom which gathered the 
 nations round Solomon of old. * 
 
 These facts add interest to Jesus's own words: "The 
 queen of the South shall rise up in .the judgment with 
 this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came 
 from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wis- 
 dom of Solomon; and behold a greater than Solomon 
 is here."t 
 
 Jesus grew up in an atmosphere charged with the 
 gnomic wisdom. It was no doubt that form of teach- 
 ing with which he was best acquainted. Dr. Geikie, 
 in a pleasing but imaginary sketch of His youthful 
 life at Nazareth, suggests that Joseph, like all Orient- 
 als, was given to speaking in proverbs and parables. 
 "One sheep follows another," he might have said. 
 "As is the mother, so is the daughter." "A man 
 without friends is like the left hand without the 
 right." "The road has ears, and so has the wall." 
 "It is no matter whether a man have much or little, 
 if his heart be set on heaven." "A good life is*better 
 than high birth." "The bread and the rod came from 
 heaven together." "Seeking wisdom when you are 
 old, is like writing on water; seeking it when you are 
 young, is like graving on stone." "Every word you 
 
 * Lect. XXXVII. t Matt. xii. 42. 
 
154 JESUS AS A TEACHER 
 
 speak, good or bad, light or serious, is written in a 
 book.'* "Fire cannot keep company with flax with- 
 out kindling it." "In this world a man follows his 
 own will; in the next comes the judgment." "With 
 the same measure with which a man measures to 
 others, it will be measured to him again." "Patience, 
 and silence in strife, are the sign of a noble mind." 
 "He who makes the pleasures of this world his por- 
 tion, loses those of the world to come; but he who 
 seeks those of heaven, receives also those of earth." 
 "He who humbles himself will be exalted by God; 
 but he who exalts himself, him will God humble." 
 "Whatever God does is right." "Speech is silver; 
 silence is worth twice as much." "Sin hardens the 
 heart of man." "It is a shame for a plant to speak 
 ill of him who planted it." "Two bits of dry wood 
 set a moist one on fire." All these are Jewish sayings, 
 which Jesus may well have heard in his childhood. * 
 
 It will be seen from the foregoing examples that, in 
 the hands of the Rabbis, the proverb took on a hard- 
 er and dryer form than in the hands of Solomon. 
 Still fuller illustrations of the same fact may be 
 found in the Book of Ecclesiasticus, as in chapter 
 xxxviii. 
 
 Jesus did not adopt the gnomic form of teaching 
 solely because it was so popular. Its adaptation to 
 ethical teaching, as well as its non-adaptation to scien- 
 tific teaching, have already been remarked upon. The 
 proverb is by no means an exclusive possesssion of the 
 Orient; but, wherever found, seizing, as it does, some 
 sharp angle of truth, and expressing it in a terse and 
 
 * Life and Words of Christ, Vol. I. , pp. 182, 183. 
 
HIS METHODS OF TEACHING. 155 
 
 pointed form, sometimes with paradox or exaggera- 
 tion, it is a very effective form of didactic discourse. 
 It holds the attention, it sticks in the memory. It 
 was with reason that the greatest of all the teachers 
 who used it, save alone Jesus Himself, compared it 
 to the goad with which oxen are urged forward, and 
 to the nail or spike driven by the builder of a house. 
 We cannot fail to see the great superiority of the 
 gnomic teaching of Jesus to the similar teaching of 
 those who went before Him. The wisdom of Solo- 
 mon even was of a worldly, prudential nature, evinc- 
 ing discernment of judgment and largeness of heart 
 in respect to man's worldly estate, but not rich in 
 spiritual content or sounding the depths of the soul. 
 Stanley calls it the philosophy of practical life. It is 
 a sign, he says, "that The Bible does not despise com- 
 mon sense and discretion. It impresses upon us in 
 the most forcible manner the value of intelligence 
 and prudence and of a good education." It is this 
 prudential quality that commends the Book of Prov- 
 erbs so strongly to the practical man. The proverbial 
 literature of the Jews was the only philosophy that 
 the nation developed in ancient times. In the words of 
 Schiirer: "There is nothing that shows so clearly the 
 practical character of the Palestinian Jewish literature 
 of our period, as the fact that even in the merely theo- 
 retical speculations of the time there was always an 
 eye to the practical aims and tasks of life. A theo- 
 retical philosophy, strictly so called, was a thing en- 
 tirely foreign to genuine Judaism. Whatever it did 
 happen to produce in the way of philosophy (wis- 
 dom) either had practical religious problems as its 
 
156 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 theme (Job, Ecclesiastes), or was of a directly prac- 
 tical nature, being directions based upon a thoughtful 
 study of human things for so regulating our life as to 
 insure our being truly happy."* Some of the 
 Oriental nations have produced philosophers, but they 
 commonly have this practical, prudential character. 
 The wisdom of Jesus is of a far higher order. He 
 touches heights and sounds depths that the Wise King 
 never reaches; and this because He deals with the 
 spiritual, and not with the merely prudential elements 
 of life. Even Renan, who claims that Jesus appro- 
 priated the maxims current in the synagogues in His 
 time, expressly declares that He infused into them a 
 higher meaning. Nowhere in the Proverbs or Ec- 
 clesiastes, not to speak of other wisdom literature, 
 will you find maxims to compare with the Beatitudes 
 of the Sermon on the Mount. How hard and dry the 
 maxims of even Solomon seem when brought into re- 
 lation with these: "Blessed are the poor in spirit," 
 "Blessed are they that mourn," "Blessed are the 
 meek," "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after 
 righteousness," "Blessed are the merciful," "Blessed 
 are the pure in heart," "Blessed are the peacemak- 
 ers," "Blessed are they that are persecuted for right- 
 eousness' sake," "Blessed are ye when men shall re- 
 vile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner 
 of evil against you falsely for my sake!" 
 
 No great discernment is needed to see that the 
 gnomic sermons reported in the different Gospels dif- 
 fer somewhat among themselves. Those found in 
 Matthew, Mark, and Luke are more practical, objec- 
 
 * The Jewish People in the Time of Christ: Division II., Vol. III. , pp. 23, 24. 
 
HIS METHODS OF TEACHING. 157 
 
 live, and matter-of-fact; those found in John, more 
 subjective, more ideal. The explanation is the well 
 known fact that the Evangelists differed in capacity 
 to receive and report their Master's teachings. 
 
CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 HIS METHODS OF TEACHING. III. 
 
 JESUS impressed His personality on every form and 
 mode of teaching that He used. It is impossible to 
 mistake His touch. However, He is most widely 
 known by His parables. These are even more char- 
 acteristic than the gnomic sermons. We shall in- 
 quire, first, what the parable is; second, how it 
 originated; and third, why Jesus used it. 
 
 While the numerous definitions of the parable vary 
 in minute points, they are about the same in sub- 
 stance. Dr. Lange is content to call it a similitude, 
 adding that under special circumstances Jesus ex- 
 tended the parable into the parabolic discourse, i. e. 9 
 a discourse which assumed the form of a parable or 
 parables to which the interpretation was added. Dr. 
 Neander says the parables are representations 
 through which the truths pertaining to the kingdom 
 of God are vividly exhibited by means of special rela- 
 tions of common life, taken either from nature or the 
 world of mankind. Those parables which are derived 
 entirely from the sphere of nature are grounded on 
 the typical relations that exist between nature and 
 spirit. Dean Alford says a parable is a serious nar- 
 ration within the limits of probability of a course of 
 
 (158) 
 
HIS METHODS OF TEACHING. 159 
 
 action pointing to some moral or spiritual truth; and 
 derives its force from real analogies impressed by the 
 Creator of all things on His creation. The Dean 
 quotes another writer who says a parable is a story of 
 that which purports to have happened, has not act- 
 ually happened, but might have happened. Arch- 
 bishop Trench does not give a definition, but distin- 
 guishes the parable, as other writers do, from the 
 fable, the myth, the proverb, and the allegory. Into 
 these distinctions we need not go ; but may content 
 ourselves with observing that the parable belongs to 
 the kind of teaching called example, that it is an in- 
 vented or fictitious example, not real or historical, 
 that it is distinctly probable, is founded on some 
 resemblance between nature and life, and looks to a 
 moral or a religious end. It may be further remarked 
 that the words paroimia, proverb, smdparabolee, par- 
 able, are used interchangeably in the Greek Testa- 
 ment, and are representatives of one and the same 
 Hebrew word. As Stanley remarks, the proverbs of 
 Solomon might have been called his parables, and the 
 parables of Jesus might have been called His prov- 
 erbs. Still, we have no trouble in separating the two 
 forms of teaching as they occur in the Gospels 
 
 In the East man seems to live in closer relations 
 with Nature than in the West. He perceives poetic 
 and ethical elements in her various objects that are 
 but faintly revealed to the duller vision of his West- 
 ern brother. In Oriental literature, plants and ani- 
 mals are used as instruments of teaching with won- 
 derful effect and beauty the fable, the apologue, and 
 
160 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 the parable. Admirably adapted as all these forms 
 of teaching are to ethics and religion, they are even 
 less capable of expressing scientific truth than prov- 
 erbs. What could be more admirable, from the 
 merely literary standpoint, than the apologue of 
 Jotham, found in the ninth chapter of the Judges? 
 
 The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them ; 
 and they said unto the olive tree, Reign thou over us. But the 
 olive tree said unto them, Should I leave my fatness, wherewith 
 by me they honor God and man , and go to be promoted over the 
 trees? And the trees said to the fig tree, Come thou, and reign 
 over us. But the fig tree said unto them, Should I forsake my 
 sweetness, and my good fruit, and go to be promoted over the 
 trees? Then said the trees unto the vine, Come thou, and reign 
 over us . And the vine said unto them , Should I leave my wine , 
 which cheereth God and man , and go to be promoted over the 
 trees? Then said all the trees unto the bramble, Come thou, 
 and reign over us . And the bramble said unto the. trees , If in 
 truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and put your trust 
 in my shadow: and if not, let fire come out of the bramble, and 
 devour the cedars of Lebanon. 
 
 The parable was in familiar use in Judaea from the 
 time of the Judges to the time of Jesus. The Rabbis 
 used it constantly, although their parables are hard 
 and jejune compared with those of the Great Master. 
 Jesus was, therefore, familiar with this mode of 
 teaching, and it was entirely natural that He should 
 resort to it. Then, besides its adaptation to ethical 
 and spiritual purposes, the parable is admirably 
 adapted to that stage of human development when 
 the mind feeds directly upon the stores of memory. 
 It is a form of teaching that is even more likely to be 
 remembered than the proverb; and it is not unlikely 
 that the parables of Jesus have been more fully re- 
 
HIS METHODS OF TEACHING. 161 
 
 ported by the Evangelists than any other form of His 
 teaching. In fact, He used the parable with such 
 extraordinary effect as to make it peculiarly His own. 
 In the words of Renan: "It was especially in para- 
 bles that the Master excelled. Nothing in Judaism 
 had given Him the model of this delightful style. 
 He Himself created it." The last statement, how- 
 ever, is not strictly true, except in the sense that He 
 appears to have created the parabolic sermon. 
 
 In view of the evident adaptation of the parable to 
 His use, it may seem strange that He did not use it 
 from the beginning of His ministry. At least it is the 
 fact that He did not. His earlier teachings were con- 
 veyed in declaratory discourses and in dialogues. He 
 seems to have taken up the parable suddenly. It 
 was in the presence of the great multitude gathered 
 on the shore of the sea, as we read in Matthew xiii. 
 Dr. Geikie supposes that its employment sprang im- 
 mediately out of the meager results that had thus far 
 attended His ministry. His past mode of teaching 
 did not seem suited to the new circumstances. It had 
 left small permanent results; and a new and simpler 
 style of instruction, specially adapted to the dullness 
 and untrained minds and hearts of His auditors, 
 would at least arrest their attention more surely, and 
 force them to a measure of reflection. "Pressing 
 through the vast crowd to the shore of the Lake, He 
 entered a fishing-boat, and, sitting down at its prow, 
 the highest part of it, began, from this convenient 
 pulpit, as it lightly rocked on the waters, the first of 
 those wondrous parables in which He henceforth so 
 frequently embodied His teachings."* The parable of 
 
 11 * Life and Words of Christ, Vol. II. , p. 153. 
 
 f 
 
 (tJNIVERSITY 
 
162 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 the sower was the first one that He uttered ; but from 
 this time on He used this mode of instruction so fre- 
 quently that we read: "But without a parable spake 
 He not unto them: and when they were alone, He ex- 
 pounded all things to His disciples." * As a teacher 
 Jesus has ennobled and dignified the things of com- 
 mon life. He has shown that, for the ends of spirit- 
 ual teaching, nothing is common or unclean. He 
 struck this note in the parable of the sower. The 
 imagery is furnished by the scene spread out before 
 Him as He sat in the boat by the side of the sea; the 
 sown fields, the grain in various stages of growth, the 
 hard-trodden paths running through the fields, the 
 stony places in which life made an unequal struggle, 
 the thorns, and the deep, rich soil which produced 
 grain in the greatest abundance. Dr. Geikie has thus 
 portrayed the more striking features of the new mode 
 of teaching: 
 
 Its characteristic is the presentation of moral and religious 
 truth in a more vivid form than is possible by mere precept, or 
 abstract statement, use being made for this end of some inci- 
 dent drawn from life or nature , by which the lesson sought to 
 be given is pictured to the eye, and thus imprinted on the mem- 
 ory, and made more emphatic. Analogies hitherto unsuspected 
 between familiar natural facts and spiritual phenomena; les- 
 sons of duty enforced by some simple imaginary narrative or 
 incident; striking parallels and comparisons, which made the 
 homeliest trifles symbols of the highest truths, abound in all the 
 discourses of Jesus, but are still more frequent from this time. 
 Nothing was henceforth left unused. The light, the darkness, 
 the houses around, the games of childhood, the sightless way- 
 side beggar, the foxes of the hills, the leathern bottles hung up 
 from every rafter, the patched or new garment, and even the 
 
 * Mark iv. 34. 
 
HIS METHODS OF TEACHING. 163 
 
 noisy hen amidst her chickens, serve, in turn, to illustrate some 
 lofty truth. The sower on the hillside at hand, the flaming 
 weeds among the corn, the common mustard plant, the leaven 
 in the woman's dough, the treasure disclosed by the passing 
 ploughshare, the pearl brought by the traveling merchant from 
 distant lands for sale at Bethsaida or Tiberias, at Philip's 
 court or that of Antipas, the draw -net seen daily on the Lake, 
 the pitiless servant, the laborers in the vineyards around any 
 detail of every -day life was elevated, as the occasion de- 
 manded, to be the vehicle of the sublimest lessons. Others 
 have uttered parables; but Jesus so far transcends them, that 
 He may justly be called the creator of this mode of instruction.* 
 
 What has been said will suffice for an external view 
 of the parables. So far the subject presents no diffi- 
 culties. The one hard question is now to be dealt 
 with. 
 
 This one hard question suggests to our minds a 
 number of phases. Why did not Jesus use the para- 
 ble from the beginning? Why did He at last intro- 
 duce it? In what relation does its introduction stand 
 to the progress of His ministry? What was His pur- 
 pose, or what were His purposes, in introducing it? 
 The one central question herein involved, the histori- 
 ans of Jesus and the commentators have treated at 
 great length. It will be my purpose to state the diffi- 
 culty and to suggest the answer, rather than to discuss 
 the subject thoroughly. 
 
 There can hardly be a doubt that a great majority of 
 the readers of the Gospels, on being asked the ques- 
 tion, would say that they have obtained their clearest 
 and most satisfactory ideas of Jesus 's teaching from 
 His parables. Neither can there be doubt that this 
 
 * Life and Words of Christ, Vol. II. , pp. 153, 154. 
 
164 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 answer would represent the real facts. The inculca- 
 tion of ethical truth is so dependent upon the use of 
 similitudes, analogies, symbols that is, the ethical 
 use of Nature and Jesus is such a consummate mas- 
 ter of this mode of teaching, that the parables have 
 long been looked to as the most effective teaching 
 found in The New Testament. " Behold a sower went 
 forth to sow; " "the kingdom of heaven is like unto 
 a man which sowed good seed in his field;" "the 
 kingdom of heaven is like unto a grain of mustard 
 seed; " " the kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven; " 
 "the kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hid in 
 a field; " " the kingdom of heaven is like unto a mer- 
 chantman seeking goodly pearls;" "the kingdom of 
 heaven is like unto a net cast into the sea; " " the king- 
 dom of heaven is like unto a certain king which would 
 take account of his servants; " "the kingdom of 
 heaven is like unto a man that is a householder; " "a 
 certain man had two sons, and he came to the first; " 
 "there was a certain householder which planted a 
 vineyard; " "the kingdom of heaven is like unto a 
 certain king, which made a marriage for his son; " 
 "the kingdom of heaven shall be likened unto ten 
 virgins; " "the kingdom of heaven is as a man trav- 
 eling into a far country; " " so is the kingdom of God 
 as if a man should cast seed into the ground; " 
 "there was a certain creditor which had two debt- 
 ors; " "a certain man went down from Jerusalem to 
 Jericho and fell among thieves; " " which of you shall 
 have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight? " 
 "the ground of a rich man brought forth plenti- 
 fully; " "a certain man had a fig-tree planted in his 
 
HIS METHODS OF TEACHING. 165 
 
 vineyard; " " a certain man made a great supper; " 
 " if a man have a hundred sheep and one of them be 
 gone astray; " "what woman having ten pieces of sil- 
 ver, if she lose one piece; " "a certain man had two 
 sons, and the youngest said to his father; " "there 
 was a certain rich man which had a steward;" " there 
 was a certain rich man which was clothed in purple 
 and fine linen; " "which of you having a servant 
 plowing or feeding cattle; " "there was in a city a 
 judge which feared not Grod neither regarded man; " 
 " two men went up into the Temple to pray, the one a 
 Pharisee, and the other a publican;" "a certain 
 nobleman went into a far country to secure for him- 
 self a kingdom; " the thirty parables introduced 
 with these words do indeed present many points of 
 difficulty to the interpreter, but they still hold up the 
 one central object in lights so numerous, so varied, so 
 striking, that even the dullest mind cannot fail to 
 obtain instruction and inspiration from them. They 
 are a kaleidoscope, exhibiting to the mind in the most 
 effective manner the most important aspects of the 
 kingdom of heaven. And still, they by no means 
 exhaust the wonderful mastery that Jesus exerted 
 over nature and common life for the purposes of 
 ethical teaching. 
 
 Again, were the readers of the Gospels asked why 
 Jesus made use of the parable, the majority would 
 doubtless say that it was owing to its clearness and 
 beauty as a mode of teaching. This is indeed a part 
 of the answer, but only a part. Were this all, the 
 parables would present no difficulty. But it is not 
 all. Jesus had made use of similitude and analogy 
 
166 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 from the beginning of His ministry, as in the Sermon 
 on the Mount; but He takes up the parable with a 
 suddenness that attracts the attention of every 
 thoughtful reader, who asks at once, " Why not be- 
 fore? " "Why now?" The new mode of teaching 
 made the same impression upon the minds of the dis- 
 ciples that it makes upon our minds, and led at once 
 to a deeply interesting conversation between them 
 and the Master. 
 
 One evidence that the parable of the sower was the 
 first one that Jesus uttered, is the fact that the dis- 
 ciples, as soon as they could find an opportunity, 
 came and asked Him, " Why speakest thou unto 
 them in parables?" * His answer discloses a double 
 motive. While His main purpose was, as Trench 
 states, "either to illustrate or prove, and thus to 
 make clearer the truths which He had in hand," a 
 " minor purpose was to withdraw from certain of His 
 hearers the knowledge of truths which they are un- 
 worthy or unfit to receive." He tells His disciples 
 that to some it is given to know the mysteries of the 
 kingdom of God, while to others it is not given. He 
 speaks to the second class in parables, because they 
 do not see in seeing or hear in hearing, neither under- 
 stand ; for in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah 
 in regard to grossness of heart, dullness of ears, and 
 blindness of eyes. In the course of the conversation, 
 He explains to them some of the deepest truths of the 
 spiritual life. One of these is that the operations and 
 results of the intellect are dependent upon the state 
 of the heart; men spiritually deaf, blind, and gross 
 
 * Matt. xiii. 10. 
 
HIS METHODS OF TEACHING. 167 
 
 cannot hear, see, and understand spiritual things. 
 The reception of the kingdom of God, like the recep- 
 tion of all other spiritual truth, is limited by the 
 moral disposition. Still another lesson is that some 
 spiritual knowledge is essential to the increase of 
 knowledge. This is expressed in both a positive and 
 a negative form, the second being strongly paradox- 
 ical. "For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, 
 and he shall have more abundantly; but whosover 
 hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he 
 hath." The lesson is the same that is taught in the 
 parable of the talents. The dread sentence, " Take 
 therefore the talent from him," * is executed 
 through the inevitable operation of spiritual law, and 
 is in full accord with the profoundest educational 
 philosophy. It is only through activity, or use, that 
 any talent, gift, or power makes increase ; and it is 
 only through neglect or disuse that it diminishes and 
 is finally lost. This is what the pedagogist calls the 
 law of self-activity. 
 
 It is as plain that Jesus used the parable to obscure 
 truth, as that He used it to illuminate truth. This is 
 clearly implied in His own words. Why He should 
 desire to obscure it, is a question that would lead us 
 far deeper into the philosophy of spiritual things 
 than we are prepared to go. It is by no means the 
 only question of the kind that The Bible presents to 
 our understanding. If mystery it be, it is one that 
 often comes to our attention. 
 
 But, on the whole, the parables have contributed 
 wonderfully to the moral and religious education of 
 
 * Matt. xxv. 28. 
 
168 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 the world. They have entwined themselves around 
 the hearts of men. They have become interlaced 
 with the experiences of practical life. They have 
 irradiated minds that otherwise were confused and 
 dark. They have touched feelings that have re- 
 sponded to no other stimulus. They have set the 
 most valuable truths in the clearest and most striking 
 lights. They have energized feeble wills. Think for 
 a moment of the mission in the world of the parable 
 of the Good Samaritan, or of the Prodigal Son. Such 
 being the case, we may at first be surprised that the 
 parables should ever have been blocks of stumbling. 
 But we must remember that light and darkness are 
 relative terms, depending upon the point of view of 
 the individual or of the age. Canon Farrar presents 
 this view of the subject in a few sentences with which 
 this chapter may fitly close. 
 
 To us, who from infancy have read the parable [of the Sower] 
 side by side with Christ's own interpretation of it, the meaning 
 is singularly clear and plain, and we see in it the liveliest images 
 of the danger incurred by the cold and indifferent, by the im- 
 pulsive and shallow, by the worldly and ambitious, by the pre- 
 occupied and luxurious, as they listen to the Word of God. 
 But it was not so easy to those who heard it. Even the dis- 
 ciples failed to catch its full significance, although they reserved 
 their request for an explanation till they and their Master 
 should be alone. It is clear that parables like this, so luminous 
 to us, but so difficult to these simple listeners, suggested 
 thoughts which to them were wholly unfamiliar. * 
 
 * Vol.1., pp. 323,324. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 HIS RECOGNITION OF APPERCEPTION. 
 
 APPERCEPTION is comparatively a new word in the 
 vocabulary of mental science; or, if not so, the stress 
 that is now laid upon the thing for which it stands is 
 new. We must seek to gain a clear idea of what the 
 term means. 
 
 A child's mind at birth is not, as some philosophers 
 have supposed, an inert and powerless substance, 
 capable only of passively receiving impressions. It is 
 not a ball of wax, a sheet of blank paper, a cabinet of 
 drawers, or a block of marble. Ideas are not mere 
 reflections of phases of the world, similar to pictures 
 resulting from the exposure of human faces to the 
 sensitive plate of the camera. The mind is power or 
 energy, capable of action whenever it is brought into 
 relation with the world; and our earliest ideas result 
 from the establishment of such points of contact. 
 From the moment that it begins to act, the mind be- 
 gins to accumulate a store of materials, variously 
 named " ideas," "images," "perceptions," "concep- 
 tions," "facts," "events," and "thoughts." To 
 discriminate these terms would be far from my pur- 
 pose, but we may say that a perception proper is an 
 idea of an object known in itself, and that a concep- 
 tion proper is an idea of an object known in its rela- 
 
 (169) 
 
170 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 tions. The one is a single or particular idea, and 
 therefore concrete; the other is general, and therefore 
 abstract. When once the mental current has set in, this 
 store of material plays the most important part in its 
 onward flow. We gain knowledge through knowledge ; 
 or, as one has said, "apperception means the grasping 
 of new ideas by the aid of present similar ones. The 
 child's perceptions," says this writer, " are not heaped 
 up like dead treasures, but almost as soon as acquired 
 they become living forces that assist in the assimila- 
 tion of new perceptions, thus strengthening the power 
 of apprehension. They are the contents of the soul 
 that now permanently assert themselves in the act of 
 perception. For wherever it is at all possible, the 
 child refers the new to the related older ideas. With 
 the aid of familiar perceptions, he appropriates that 
 which is foreign to him, and conquers with the arms 
 of apperception the outer world which assails his 
 senses."* And not the outer world alone, but the 
 inner world as well. Thus, a girl two years old called 
 a picture of spectral forms of women with floating 
 garments, birds; cornstalks, trees; swimming swans, 
 fishes, and mistook a flag that floated from the top of 
 a house for a white horse. A child brought up in the 
 South coming North called snowflakes butterflies. 
 Similarly any child calls, or is likely to call, every 
 man his papa, and every woman his mamma. Chil- 
 dren six years of age taken to a zoological garden for 
 the first time have been known to call buffaloes cows, 
 ibexes goats, and tigers kittens. In this way the 
 process of assimilation goes on by relating the new 
 
 * Lange: Apperception, p. 55. 
 
HIS RECOGNITION OF APPERCEPTION. 171 
 
 objects to the most closely related old ideas; only, as 
 experience widens and judgment grows, we become 
 more and more wary in referring new objects to 
 familiar categories. 
 
 The word "object," as here used, must embrace 
 ideas and thoughts. In learning we proceed from the 
 known to the unknown; in thinking we can reason 
 only from what we know. A distinguished authority 
 has said: "When we know a new object we identify 
 the object, or those features of it which were familiar 
 to us before; we recognize it; we explain it; we inter- 
 pret the new by our previous knowledge, and thus are 
 enabled to proceed from the known to the unknown, 
 and make new acquisitions; in recognizing the object 
 we classify it under various general classes; in identi- 
 fying it with what we have seen before, we note also 
 differences which characterize the new object and 
 lead to the definition of new species or varieties. 
 It is not what we see and hear and feel, 
 but what we inwardly digest, or assimilate, what we 
 apperceive that really adds to our knowledge."* 
 Thus, it is the inner eye that sees, and the inner ear 
 that hears. 
 
 The rapidity of assimilation depends directly on the 
 abundance of the mental store and the closeness of 
 the resemblance existing between the new objects and 
 the old ones. It is said that certain sailors persuaded 
 a company of Esquimaux to sail with them to London. 
 They anticipated much enjoyment in seeing the aston- 
 ishment and admiration that the men of the North 
 would exhibit when they were introduced to the wor- 
 
 * Dr. W. T. Harris. 
 
172 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 ders of the great city. Their astonishment was great 
 when they saw the Esquimaux walking through the 
 streets utterly indifferent to everything about them. 
 Says the writer to whom I am indebted for the inci- 
 dent: "The explanation is simple. These inhab- 
 itants of the frozen North had no store of related 
 predicates with which to interpret the wonders about 
 them. We have no interest in that for which we have 
 no understanding, no related concepts.''* One advan- 
 tage that an educated man enjoys over an ignorant 
 one is his greater store of images, ideas, and thoughts 
 that facilitate the process of assimilation. The man 
 who knows most can learn most; experience is a 
 mental factor that nothing else can compensate for; 
 and this is why the most intelligent people who visited 
 the Columbian Exposition derived from the visit the 
 greatest benefit, and why a scholar is the man who 
 sees most in a great library. Thus, in science as in 
 religion, to him that has is given, and he has an 
 abundance. The case of the Esquimaux is in no 
 sense strange, but what might have been expected. 
 An American visiting the Orient, especially if he is 
 ignorant, is at first confused, and perhaps even, 
 stunned, by the new life that he sees about him; 
 everything is new and strange; he is not able to refer 
 the new objects to old classes, or if he does he is com- 
 pelled to correct his classification; the result being 
 that he must begin, in a sense, his mental life over 
 again and readjust himself to the world. 
 
 Still more, in the history of mental growth the will 
 plays an important part. We must not liken the 
 
 * De Garmo: Essentials of Method, p. 30. 
 
HIS RECOGNITION OF APPERCEPTION. 173 
 
 mind to a magnet, which causes objects to cling to it; 
 on the contrary, the will turns the intellect to this side 
 and to that; it brings this and that object into rela- 
 tion to the knowing power; and it measureably re- 
 moves from the field of consciousness what are 
 deemed undesirable objects and undesirable ideas. 
 Moreover, the feelings play their part; they furnish 
 motives, contribute interest, and impart to ideas their 
 own color. Very important is the influence that the 
 tone of the mind exerts on the formation of individ- 
 ual ideas, and the general view that is taken of a sub- 
 ject or of the world. 
 
 There are numerous reasons why the application of 
 the foregoing ideas to morals and religion is import- 
 ant. In the formation of moral and religious ideas, 
 the feelings and the will are particularly potent. 
 What Bacon calls their "suffusion" invades the 
 domain of the intellect and puts out the "dry light" 
 of reason. The affections and the will also are po- 
 tent in the sphere of moral conduct, the will in truth 
 holding the central place. Furthermore, scientific 
 ideas, since they are so different, aid in the formation 
 of spiritual ideas only indirectly; a fact, it may be 
 remarked, which goes far towards accounting for the 
 poverty of many intellectual men on the spiritual 
 side. 
 
 We shall now look at some of the facts that we 
 meet in the life of Jesus on which the doctrine of ap- 
 perception throws a clear, strong light. 
 
 There was the woman of Samaria, who, when Jesus 
 spoke of living water, could at first think of nothing 
 but the water in the well, and at last was unable to 
 
174 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 rise above the conception of water that should slake 
 her thirst once for all, and so make it unnecessary for 
 her to come to the well again to draw. 
 
 There was Nicodemus, who, when Jesus spoke of a 
 second birth, could think of nothing but a new birth 
 of the body. How can a man be born when he is old? 
 Nor did the ruler succeed better when Jesus illus- 
 trated the birth of the Spirit by the blowing of the 
 wind. Then there is a distinct recognition of the cen- 
 tral idea in apperception in the question that Jesus 
 puts to Nicodemus: "If I have told you of earthly 
 things and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if I 
 tell you of heavenly things?" 
 
 There were the disciples, who made their way slow- 
 ly in understanding the new ideas because they 
 were so unlike the ideas that they had received 
 from the current teaching and the current religious 
 life; these were so formal, so material, and so legal 
 that the profoundly spiritual truths which Jesus 
 brought them were assimilated but slowly and imper- 
 fectly. When the Master spoke to them of His king- 
 dom, they thought of a throne and a sceptre, and of 
 a place at His right hand or at His left. A greatness 
 that consisted in being a minister, and a chieftianship 
 manifested in a life of serving, were conceptions that 
 long passed their comprehension. Pedagogically 
 speaking, Jesus used no small part of the time that 
 He gave to their personal instruction in correcting 
 their false classifications of His ideas; and they were 
 never brought into true relations with Him until they 
 saw a new meaning in the word "kingdom." 
 
 Finally, there were the Jewish people, upon whom 
 
HIS RECOGNITION OF APPERCEPTION. 175 
 
 His teachings were largely lost because they really 
 could not understand them. They believed in a Mes- 
 siah to come; they believed that he would be like 
 David, and the material elements of David's charac- 
 ter had so excluded from their minds the spiritual 
 element, that they thought the Messiah would be a 
 temporal king, and they would have no other. 
 
 No teacher has more clearly seen how potent the 
 state of the mind is in learning than Jesus. He de- 
 plores the hearts that are gross, the ears that are dull, 
 the eyes that are closed ; and blesses the eyes that see 
 and the ears that hear. He uttered a profound truth, 
 and one that reaches much farther than the immediate 
 subject, when He said that whosoever should will to 
 do the will of God should know whether the doctrine 
 He taught was true. He understood perfectly why it 
 was that the world knew Him not, and also why it 
 was that His own, when He came to them, received 
 Him not. 
 
CHAPTEE XV. 
 
 HIS USE OF THE DEVELOPING METHOD. 
 
 ON NOTHING do modern educationalists more pride 
 themselves than on their so-called "developing meth- 
 od." It is, no doubt, the most valuable of modern 
 contributions to educational progress. The following 
 are its leading characteristics : 
 
 1. The fundamental fact in all mental life is the 
 self-activity of the mind. To teach, or, more broadly, 
 to educate, is to awaken and direct this activity. You 
 cannot put facts and ideas into a child's mind as you 
 can put marbles into his pocket; his mind is not a 
 box or storehouse that can be mechanically filled. 
 Nor can you convince a man of any truth or proposi- 
 tion by merely loading him with arguments ; his mind 
 is not a pair of scales that inclines this way or that 
 way according as the heavier weights are thrown into 
 this or that scale-pan. A child can acquire facts and 
 ideas only through his powers of perception and ap- 
 perception, and a man can be convinced of a proposi- 
 tion only as he thinks out, or, what amounts to the 
 same thing, weighs the arguments that go to prove 
 its truth. All that you can do for the child or the 
 man is wisely to select and skillfully to present to his 
 mind the ideas, facts, and arguments in question. 
 
 (176) 
 
HIS USE OF THE DEVELOPING METHOD. 177 
 
 2. Due respect must be paid to the order of men- 
 tal growth; instruction must be graduated to the abil- 
 ity of the mind to receive and to assimilate it. Babes 
 cannot digest strong meat, and men cannot live on 
 milk. Then, as we saw in the last chapter, what the 
 pupil already knows is the most* important factor in 
 learning what he does not know. The more he 
 knows, relatively speaking, the more he can learn; 
 and for the reason that the larger his store of facts, 
 ideas, and thoughts, the more rapidly and completely 
 can the process of apperception go on. The larger 
 the lump of leaven that is put in the meal, the more 
 quickly will the whole be leavened. The man who 
 has read most books finds most to interest him in a 
 library, and the man who has seen most of the world 
 is the most appreciative traveler. Still further, one 
 thing leads to another, both in respect to the features 
 of single objects and in respect to combinations of 
 objects. Hence the current teaching maxim, to pro- 
 ceed from the known to the unknown. 
 
 3. In the presentation of any subject, free use 
 must be made of objects, examples, and illustrations, 
 and especially in the early stage of mental progress. 
 In particular will the skillful teacher of abstract sub- 
 jects, such as moral and religious truths, search out 
 analogies between the natural and the spiritual 
 worlds. 
 
 These ideas are in no sense new; the developing 
 method is the method of the human mind; it is as old 
 as teaching itself, and all that modern educators can 
 fairly claim is that they have thought out these ideas 
 
 more clearly than the ancients, that they have given 
 12 
 
178 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 them a more systematic form, and that they have ap- 
 plied them more consistently and on a larger scale. 
 No teacher has more fully met these conditions than 
 Jesus; some of them He has stated in terms, and all 
 of them He has illustrated in practice. 
 
 
 First, it is His constant endeavor to stir the mind 
 
 to vigorous action; to enlist the intellect, the feelings, 
 and the will. Hence His rejection of all mere tradi- 
 tionalism, formalism, and mechanism; hence His 
 efforts to get men out of their ruts and routine into a 
 vigorous and healthy spiritual life. No teacher has 
 more clearly seen the difference between the accept- 
 ance of a dogma or the performance of a rite, and 
 real faith. He demanded, "Why call ye me Lord, 
 Lord," and do not the things which I say? " * and He 
 followed up the question with the declaration that the 
 hearer and the doer of the Word is like a man who 
 builds his house on a rock, while he who hears and 
 does not do is like a man who builds on the sand. 
 The distinction is so fundamental that to miss it re- 
 veals an incapacity to deal effectively with moral and 
 religious training. Precepts are directed to the intel- 
 lect, while spiritual life flows from the heart. It is 
 very generally assumed that formal moral teaching is 
 the greatest factor in moral training, whereas it is the 
 least factor. It is a mistake into which moral and 
 religious teachers are peculiarly liable to fall. 
 
 Secondly, Jesus fully recognizes, both in theory and 
 in practice, that there is an order or growth in grace, 
 as in nature. "For the earth bringeth forth fruit of 
 
 * Luke vi. 46. 
 
HIS USE OF THE DEVELOPING METHOD. 179 
 
 herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the 
 full corn in the ear." * How far a progress of doc- 
 trine can be traced in the Gospels as a whole, is too 
 large a question for these papers ; but we shall no- 
 where find better examples of a wise and skillful lead- 
 ing of the mind from thought to thought than Jesus 
 has furnished. 
 
 Thirdly, He also recognizes that the contents and 
 state of the mind play an important part in the 
 growth of knowledge and of grace. This is the great 
 lesson of the parable of the talents. t The man to 
 whom five talents were given, and the man to whom 
 two, are commended because they have been faithful 
 in what has been entrusted to them ; and the man to 
 whom one was given is condemned because he has 
 not been faithful. The great lesson is that of use or 
 activity. The Lord says to the unfaithful servant, 
 "You ought to have put my money to the bankers; 
 and at my coming I should have received back my 
 own with interest." His sentence is, "Take there- 
 fore the talent from him, and give it unto him that 
 hath ten talents." The talents of increase that are 
 given to the two faithful men, and the talent of cap- 
 ital that is taken from the unfaithful man, are not 
 given and taken by the arbitrary command of superior 
 authority. The giving and taking are alike the re- 
 sults of the operation of a law that is as wide as hu- 
 man nature. Faculties that are exercised or used 
 increase in power, while those that are not exercised 
 or used waste away and are finally lost. This is the 
 law that doubles the capital of the two men, and that 
 
 * Mark iv. 28. t Matt. xxv. 14-30. 
 
180 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 takes away the capital of the third one. "For unto 
 every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have 
 abundance; but from him that hath not shall be 
 taken away even that which he hath." The conclu- 
 sion is the more emphatic by reason of the paradox 
 
 that is involved in the final clause. The words are 
 Jesus's formulation of the pedagogical law, that ac- 
 tion leads to increase of power, and inaction to the 
 waste and final loss of power. 
 
 y Fourthly, no teacher has surpassed Jesus in the use 
 of illustrations drawn from nature and common life. 
 He had more than the Oriental insight in detecting 
 the analogies that exist between material and spir- 
 itual things. There has appeared in the world no 
 \s greater master of the art of illustrative teaching. 
 This is a fact that continually presses upon the man 
 who studies the four Gospels. 
 
 We shall search in vain for a better example of 
 skillful teaching than the conversation of Jesus with 
 
 J the Samaritan woman at Jacob's well.* As He, 
 weary with His journey, sat on the well about noon- 
 day, while His disciples were gone into the town to 
 buy food, the woman, according to the Oriental cus- 
 tom that has doomed women to this hard service, 
 came to draw water. He was a Jew, she a Samaritan ; 
 and between the two nations the enmity was so bitter 
 that the common commerce of life was rarely carried 
 on. The statement of the Evangelist is, "The Jews 
 have no dealings with the Samaritans." He was 
 thirsty from heat and exercise, but His great object, 
 no doubt, was to draw the woman into conversation. 
 
 * John iv. 5-30. 
 
HIS USE OF THE DEVELOPING METHOD. 181 
 
 He asked her for water to drink. Surprised, she 
 asked how it was that He, a Jew, asked drink of her, 
 a Samaritan. He makes no answer to this question ; 
 more intent on the woman than on the water, He re- 
 plies, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is 
 that asks you for water to drink, you would have 
 asked of Him and He would have given you living 
 water. The deeply significant words mean nothing 
 to her; she is fully absorbed by the water lying at the 
 bottom of the well and the means by which it must 
 be raised to the surface; and so she says, You have 
 nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. From 
 what spring do you have this living water of which 
 you speak? Are you greater than Jacob, who dug this 
 well, and drank of it, himself, his children, and his 
 cattle? No impression has been made upon her 
 hardened mind, and the Master tries again : He who 
 drinks of the water in the well shall thirst again; but 
 he who drinks of the water that I shall give him shall 
 never thirst, for it shall be in him a well of water ris- 
 ing into everlasting life. The woman's interest now 
 begins to kindle, but in a manner that plainly shows 
 how darkened is her mind. She thinks, perhaps, of 
 the long succession of women who, from the time of 
 Jacob, have come to this well with pitchers attached 
 to a long cord to draw water; she thinks certainly of 
 the many visits that she herself has made for this 
 purpose; she desires to be released from the painful 
 drudgery, and so she says: Give me this living 
 water, that I shall thirst no more, and so shall no 
 longer be compelled to come here to. draw. Plainly, 
 she is still thinking of the water, so cool and refresh- 
 
182 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 ing, in the depths of the well ; she feels no need of 
 the water of life. Perceiving that He has failed to 
 reach His purpose through the ideas which He has 
 thus far used, Jesus now approaches the woman on 
 quite another side: Go and call your husband, and 
 come here. She replies that she has no husband. 
 Jesus says to the woman: You have well said that 
 you have no husband; you have had five husbands, 
 but he whom you now have is not you husband; you 
 have told the truth. The poor woman, beginning now 
 to discover what had thus far been hidden from her 
 vision, replies: I see that you are a prophet. A truth 
 that she has wholly failed to perceive while it was 
 wrapped up in the beautiful discourse about spiritual 
 things that has since delighted multitudes, is revealed 
 to her through His knowledge of a prosaic fact in her 
 own history. Desiring to make the most of her op- 
 portunity, she appeals to Him to settle an old ques- 
 tion between her people and His people. The Sa- 
 maritans worshiped in Mount Gerizim, while the 
 Jews said that Jerusalem was the place where men 
 ought to worship; would He please to settle the con- 
 troversy? His reply, which ranks among the noblest 
 of His utterances, will engage our thought in another 
 chapter. But it leads the woman to say, I know that 
 Messiah, when He comes, will tell us all things. To 
 which He replies, I that speak unto you am He. 
 
 All in all, the Gospels contain no more instructive 
 and beautiful discourse than this one; and it is the 
 more noteworthy because it was spoken to a Samar- 
 itan, and to a woman of doubtful character, and be- 
 cause it illustrates how a truth that has failed to 
 
HIS USE OF THE DEVELOPING METHOD. 183 
 
 enter a human heart through a high door sometimes 
 enters through a low one. Apparently, Jesus might 
 have discoursed to the woman of the water of life for 
 hours, and made no impression, while a fact about 
 herself, and one that is by no means creditable to her, 
 effects the purpose. How permanent or lasting the 
 impression was, we cannot say; but for the time, at 
 least, she was lifted above the absorbing cares jof her 
 daily material life. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 HIS RECOGNITION OF MORAL PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 BY PERSPECTIVE, in the literal sense of that term, 
 we understand the art of making such a representa- 
 tion of an object, or a group of objects, upon a plane 
 surface as shall present precisely the same appear- 
 ance that the object itself would present to the eye 
 situated at that particular point. This art involves 
 seeing the several parts of the object, or of the group, 
 in their true relations, as they exist in nature, and 
 then in fixing these parts and relations on paper. By 
 moral perspective, we understand bringing the various 
 moral factors or elements into such a conspectus as 
 shall show them to the mind as they really are in 
 themselves, and in their relations to one another. It 
 implies a normal view of the moral world, or of some 
 considerable part of it. It involves, therefore, a 
 sound standard of moral measurement, and its judi- 
 cious application to the facts that the view combines. 
 And this, again, requires the possession, on the part 
 of the one applying the measure, of experience, ob- 
 servation, and justness of mind. 
 
 While the ability to see the moral world in proper 
 perspective is of great value to every person, it is ab- 
 solutely indispensable to the equipment of a moral 
 
 (184) 
 
UTNI J;TT 
 
 HIS RECOGNITION OF MORAL PERSPECTIVE. 185 
 
 teacher; apart from personal character it is, in fact, 
 the most essential part of him. We shall try Jesus 
 by this criterion. The best way to set forth His un- 
 equaled merits in this relation will be to consider Him 
 in connection with certain tendencies of human 
 nature, and particularly in contrast with teachers of 
 His own time and country. 
 
 Man's tendency to routine and habit is very strong. 
 Habit both saves and enlarges power, and is abso- 
 lutely essential to man's strength and efficiency, phys- 
 ical, mental, and moral, but it has its unpleasant 
 compensations. One of these is that it tends to nar- 
 row the mind, or to give intension at the expense of 
 extension. Habit tends to become a test of truth, a 
 standard of right and propriety, beyond what is rea- 
 sonable; hence, the enslavement of custom, the 
 tyranny of fashion. It tends to destroy spontaneity 
 and freedom, and to dry up the very fountains of the 
 emotional life. It appears in the field of morals and 
 religion. It is indeed essential there, since a man 
 without moral and religious habits is a man without 
 moral and religious character. Religion is also pecu- 
 liarly spontaneous, since free thought, free spirit, 
 and free activity are of the very essence of true relig- 
 ion. Without habituation, that uniformity of faith 
 and practice which is essential to all co-operation 
 could not exist, to say nothing of well regulated and 
 orderly life; with an excess of habituation, freedom 
 of individual opinion and belief is suppressed, the 
 energy of individual arid social activity diminished, 
 and the slavery of a dead uniformity established. 
 
 Habituation is the foundation stone of theological 
 
186 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 systems. It is the mainstay of lifeless ritualism and 
 ceremonialism. It is the sanction of tyrannous eccle- 
 siastical organizations. Nothing else is so fatal to 
 genuine religion and spirituality on its subjective 
 side. Certain nations of the Himalaya Mountains, it 
 is said, construct praying machines and mills. They 
 first select an eligible site by the side of some stream, 
 where they set up a water-wheel, and connect it by a 
 belt with a cylinder that is adjusted to revolve on an 
 axis; they place in the cylinder some prayers written 
 on bits of paper or other material, and consider that 
 at every revolution of the cylinder every bit of paper 
 utters a prayer. And who shall say that some Chris- 
 tian practices are more re sonable or more religious? 
 The wide prevalence of the machine tendency in 
 religion is due, of course, to the ease and cheapness 
 with which the machine runs, compared with the 
 great expenditure of power that genuine religion calls 
 for, intellectual, emotional, and practical. The an- 
 cient Jews, for example, found it far easier to come 
 before God with burnt offerings, with calves, with 
 rams, and oil than they did to deal justly, to love 
 mercy, and to walk humbly before God; far easier to 
 tread His courts, to bring oblations, to burn incense, 
 to observe new moons, Sabbaths, and feasts, to call 
 assemblies, to spread forth their hands, to make 
 many prayers than they did to wash them, to make 
 them clean, to put away the evil of their doing, to 
 cease to do evil, to learn to do well, to seek judg- 
 ment, to relieve the oppressed, to judge the father- 
 less, to plead for the widow. 
 
HIS RECOGNITION OF MORAL PERSPECTIVE. 187 
 
 How carefully Jesus guarded His system on this 
 side, all who are readers of the Gospels know full 
 well. He made a good life His ideal. He laid a min- 
 imum of stress upon rites and ordinances, and a 
 maximum of stress upon moral teaching. He disre- 
 garded the formal and merely intellectual aspects of 
 teaching, and strove to purify and energize the heart 
 through faith and love. He insisted upon personal 
 faith, personal obedience, and personal consecration. 
 No teaching can be found in which the energy of the 
 individual soul plays a more important part than in 
 His teaching; properly speaking, it plays the only 
 part. "Then shall two be in the field; the one shall 
 be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be 
 grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the 
 other left." * The idea that there is, or that there 
 can be, a family religion, or a national religion, in any 
 sense that does not involve the individuals who make 
 up the family or the nation, has no place in The New 
 Testament. More than this, He seeks to safeguard 
 His disciples against the peculiar weakness of the 
 Mosaic system. He, more impressively than any 
 other teacher, has laid His finger on the weak spot in 
 all religions, their tendency to formalism, to distor- 
 tion of moral truth, and so to spiritual death. 
 
 We need not deny all truth and virtue to the 
 Rabbis, but the principal questions that occupied 
 their minds were the rights of priests, the dignities of 
 teachers, the proprieties of the synagogue, the width 
 of phylacteries, the forms of tradition, the rating of 
 tithables, the length of prayers, and the ecclesiastical 
 
 * Matt. xxiv. 40, 41. 
 
188 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 cases that arose out of the application of the ancient 
 law and the ever-growing commentary to the events 
 of life. But this was not the worst. The energy 
 that a man can give to religion is practically a fixed 
 quantity, at least at any given time; and if he gives 
 this energy to minima he cannot give it to maxima. 
 The man who is long absorbed in little things loses 
 the power, if he ever had it, to grasp large things; 
 the great and the small are equalized to him; they ex- 
 change places; the great are disregarded or forgotten. 
 Such are some of the distortions that follow. A man 
 whose mind is fixed upon the weightier matters of 
 the law may attend to the lighter, but the converse 
 proposition is negatived both by experience and by 
 the laws of the human mind. The Jewish Rabbis 
 who so scrupulously tithed mint, anise, and cummin, 
 thereby incapacitated themselves for observing jus- 
 tice, mercy, and faith. 
 
 Still further, the exaggeration of the little involves 
 practical disregard, as well as theoretical disregard, 
 of the great. That is a sound instinct in human na- 
 ture which leads us to suspect serious defects of 
 character or life in the man who is excessively scru- 
 pulous in regard to minor matters. Experience proves 
 that there is a causal relation between the petty tith- 
 ings of the moral life and its grave obliquities, and 
 psychology gives us the reason. Men who pay tithes 
 of mint, anise, and cummin by habit, omit the weight- 
 ier matters of the law by habit. He who makes long 
 and ostentatious prayers, naturally devours the wid- 
 ow's house; and he who is anxious to appear out- 
 
HIS RECOGNITION OF MORAL PERSPECTIVE. 189 
 
 wardly righteous before men, becomes filled with 
 hypocrisy and iniquity. 
 
 A few of the many illustrations that Jewish history 
 furnishes of the sad consequences which flow from 
 defective spiritual perspective, have been given 
 above. Equally impressive, and more numerous, 
 illustrations could be drawn from Christian history. 
 How logical conceptions and creeds displaced the 
 primal Christian faith; how opinion crowded out con- 
 duct and the creed life, has already been remarked 
 upon. These changes involved enormous loss of spir- 
 itual power. The doctor stood to the new develop- 
 ment in the same relation that the rabbi had stood to 
 the old development. As the rabbi had said that sal- 
 vation depended upon the attenuated traditions of 
 the elders, so the doctor said that it depended upon 
 the equally attenuated definitions of the councils. 
 The rabbi had wholly lost sight of things important 
 in his absorption in things unimportant; so the doc- 
 tor. The rabbi had suffered the people to be scat- 
 tered as sheep having no shepherd, while he tithed 
 his mint; so the doctor. The rabbi had sometimes 
 fallen into gross wickedness while paltering about 
 jots and tittles; so the doctor. It is hard to say 
 which one is the greater offender; but before we con- 
 clude that it is the rabbi, we should at least remem- 
 ber that he had a legal and ceremonial system to 
 begin with, while the doctor began with an ethical 
 system. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 HOW HE HANDLED CASES. 
 
 THE teacher's privilege to ask questions has its com- 
 pensation in the duty to answer questions. It is a 
 compensation that may subject him to the severest 
 strain which he encounters. A weak man, or even 
 a charletan, may for a time maintain himself in 
 monologue, or even in dialogue, if he be permitted 
 to ask all the questions, but he can not long hold his 
 own if his auditors have full liberty to question him 
 and to criticise his replies. The ability to ask ques- 
 tions is of a high order. The skillful question, Bacon 
 said, is the half of knowledge (prudens quaestio di- 
 midium scientice,) and the other half is the ability to 
 answer them. The two are not necessarily combined, 
 but in combination they are extremely effective. Wit- 
 ness Socrates, who proved himself alike formidable 
 in both relations. 
 
 The questions that arise in morals are of two kinds, 
 scientific or abstract, ethical or practical. To an- 
 swer the first calls for speculative thought; to answer 
 the second, for practical wisdom. 
 
 Again, the same question may be answered in dif- 
 ferent ways, and yet be rightly answered. First, it 
 
 may be answered in the terms or within the limits of 
 
 (190) 
 
HOW HE HANDLED CASES. 191 
 
 the question itself, without any statement or intima- 
 tion of reasons why the answer is given. This is 
 authority to the one who seeks guidance. Such an 
 answer has only an immediate present value, since it 
 applies only to the question directly in hand and to 
 those that are like it. Here the answer is the only 
 thing. Secondly, a reason may be asigned, but only 
 within the limits of the question at issue. Such an- 
 swers are better than the former ones, but they are 
 still narrow and unsatisfactory. The answer is now 
 the main thing. Thirdly, the answer may dispose of 
 the pending question, and of all similar questions; 
 nay, more, it may irradiate the whole subject-matter 
 to which it relates, the whole field or tract of conduct 
 and life, with light and truth. Now the case is not a 
 single one. Furthermore, the question is lifted out of 
 its own category to be considered in the light of prin- 
 ciples, and to be answered with reference to the 
 broadest relations. The particular question or case is 
 lost sight of in whole or in part. It is remembered 
 at most as the question that called forth the utterance 
 of some deep thought, some broad truth, some far- 
 reaching principle. 
 
 Manifestly, we have here an excellent gauge of the 
 mental power of a teacher. The first class of an- 
 swers mark the small man, who answers single ques- 
 tions without reasons in their own narrow terms. 
 Those of the second class mark the broader man, who 
 gives reasons, but reasons that are limited to the case 
 or the class of cases. While the third class marks 
 those luminous intelligences that grasp truth in its 
 broadest relations, and who think it more important 
 
192 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 to set forth a rule or principle than to settle the case 
 immediately in hand. In fact, there are but few bet- 
 ter measures of a man than the way in which he an- 
 swers questions. It is a measure that we are now to 
 apply to Jesus. 
 
 Ranking as a Rabbi, and commanding, as He did 
 for a time, the deference of the multitude a teacher 
 of authority Jesus was naturally resorted to by those 
 who wished Him to interfere in the settlement of 
 practical questions. Such a case we have in Luke 
 xii. 13-15. " And one of the company said unto Him, 
 Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheri- 
 tance with me." The case is brought before us in its 
 leading features in an instant. A man had died, and 
 a controversy had followed in relation to the distribu- 
 tion of his property, which Jesus was thus impor- 
 tuned by one of the claimants to settle. His answer, 
 " Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you," 
 is an affirmation that He does not sit as an adminis- 
 trator on dead men's estates, or as a judge to adjudi- 
 cate the rights of property. While His mission 
 will, in the end, reach and influence such cases, it is 
 immediately concerned with matters of far greater 
 importance. But He improves the occasion to utter 
 one of the profoundest truths. "Take heed, and 
 beware of covetousness: for a man's life consist- 
 eth not in the abundance of the things which he 
 possesseth." The man of small mind under such 
 circumstances would have been content to waive 
 jurisdiction of the case. Jesus found an opportunity, 
 in addition, to deliver a special admonition to the 
 
HOW HE HANDLED CASES. 193 
 
 complainant, and to assert the superiority of the 
 spiritual to the natural life. It is one of the lessons 
 of the Temptation in a new form. " Man shall not 
 live by bread alone, but by every word that proceed- 
 eth out of the mouth of God." 
 
 A somewhat similar case is found in Matt. xix. 16- 
 22 and in Mark x. 17, " And behold, one came and 
 said unto him," (or, as the parallel passage runs, 
 "There came one running, and kneeled to him," 
 such was his apparent eagerness), " Good Master, 
 what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal 
 life?" After telling the man that God is the only 
 good one, Jesus adds: " If thou wilt enter into life, 
 keep the commandments." Asked what command- 
 ments, He particularizes: "Thou shalt do no mur- 
 der; Thou shalt not commit adultery; Thou shalt not 
 steal ; Thou shalt not bear false witness ; Honor thy 
 father and thy mother; and Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbor as thyself." The young man said unto Him, 
 "All these things have I kept from my youth up; 
 what lack I yet?" On his making this reply Jesus, 
 beholding him, loved him. And yet the Master per- 
 ceived that one thing the young man lacked. " If 
 thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast and 
 give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in 
 heaven: and come and follow me." This was the 
 experimenlum crucis ; when the young man heard 
 it "he went away sorrowful, for he had great pos- 
 sessions." Jesus had revealed the questioner, the 
 seeker after guidance, to himself ; with all his cor- 
 rectness of formal life, he still loved his wealth. 
 
 But still more, Jesus made the occasion a pulpit for 
 13 
 
194 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 another of his far-reaching thoughts: " A rich man 
 shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven/' 
 
 A different case is found in Matt. xxii. 23-33. Cer- 
 tain Sadduccees, who denied the resurrection of the 
 dead, came to Him with a question by which they 
 hoped both to show the impossibility of the resurrec- 
 tion, and to confound and put Him to silence. They 
 began with citing Moses, who taught that if a man 
 should die, leaving no children, his brother should 
 marry his widow, and raise up children to his brother. 
 "Now there were with us seven brethren," they said: 
 " and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, 
 and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother. 
 Likewise the second also, and the third, unto the sev- 
 enth. And last of all the woman died also. Therefore 
 in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven, 
 for they all had her." A more ingenious puzzle than 
 this they could hardly have produced. It bears evi- 
 dence of service in the theological controversies of 
 the two leading Jewish sects. It reminds one of the 
 ingenuity of the logical puzzles of the Greek schools, 
 although it relates to very different subject-matter. 
 With one masterful stroke Jesus disposes of the 
 question, and teaches the spirituality of the other 
 life. " Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor 
 the power of God. For in the resurrection they 
 neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as 
 the angels of God in heaven." Nor is He satisfied 
 with disposing of the case, and asserting this great 
 spiritual truth, and thus by implication telling them 
 that they are wrong in their dispute with the Phari- 
 sees. He follows up His advantage: " But as touch- 
 
HOW HE HANDLED CASES. 195 
 
 ing the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read 
 that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, 1 am 
 the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the 
 God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but 
 of the living." Thus the futile attempt to ensnare 
 Him in a puzzle led to the forcible assertion of the 
 spirituality and immortality of man. Again we read : 
 " And when the multitude heard this, they were 
 astonished at his doctrine." Also that "the Sad- 
 ducees were put to silence." 
 
 Still another example will be given. The conversa- 
 tion held at Jacob's well, which led the woman of 
 Samaria to the discovery, "Sir, I perceive that thou 
 art a prophet," has a far profounder meaning than as 
 an illustration of the developing method. There was 
 an old and bitter controversy between the Jews and 
 the Samaritans as to the relative merits and claims of 
 Mt. Moriah and Mt. Gerizim. Jerusalem had become 
 the capital of David. On the Holy Mountain Solo- 
 mon had built the first Temple, and on the same sum- 
 mit all subsequent temples and restorations had been 
 made. To every pious Jew, the place was hallowed 
 by centuries of history and by a thousand associations. 
 The royal poet had but voiced the national inspiration 
 when he sang: 
 
 I was glad when they said unto me , 
 
 Let us go unto the house of the Lord. 
 
 Our feet are standing 
 
 Within thy gates , O Jerusalem ; 
 
 Jerusalem , that art builded 
 
 As a city that is compact together : 
 
 Whither the tribes go up, even the tribes of the Lord, 
 
 For a testimony unto Israel, 
 
196 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 To give thanks unto the name of the Lord. 
 
 For there are set thrones for judgment, 
 
 The thrones of the house of David . 
 
 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem : 
 
 They shall prosper that love thee. 
 
 Peace be within thy walls, 
 
 And prosperity within thy palaces. 
 
 For my brethren and companions' sakes, 
 
 I will now say, Peace be within thee. 
 
 For the sake of the house of the Lord our God 
 
 I will seek thy good. 
 
 And if possible the flight of time had only added 
 to the intensity of feeling. Never were men more 
 strongly attached to a shrine than the Jews were to 
 Mt. Zion. But in the days of Nehemiah, Sanballat 
 had built a rival temple on Mt. Gerizim, and there or- 
 ganized a rival priesthood and worship. This temple 
 had been destroyed two hundred years before the 
 time of this conversation; but the Samaritans still 
 resorted to the old seat of piety to pray and to sacri- 
 fice, and we are told that even to-day the few Samar- 
 itans residing in Naplus, the ancient Sychar, call Ger- 
 izim a holy mountain, and turn their faces to it in 
 prayer. With the place, too, is associated an ancient 
 form of the Pentateuch. The Jews regarded the 
 claims of the Samaritans in behalf of Gerizim as pre- 
 posterous and even impious. They looked upon its 
 temple, its priesthood, and its worship as a profane 
 mimicry of the Temple, the priesthood, and the wor- 
 ship of Jerusalem. Hence arose a dispute which was 
 an important factor in the refusal of the Jews to have 
 dealings with the Samaritans. But on two cardinal 
 points the Jews and the Samaritans agreed. They 
 
HOW HE HANDLED CASES. 197 
 
 both believed that religion was a national matter, and 
 both looked upon worship as affected by locality. To 
 the Jew, Jehovah was the God of the Jews, not of the 
 Gentiles, or of the Samaritans. To the Jew, the holi- 
 est services were strictly localized. Solomon had 
 built the Lord a house. Daniel had prayed with his 
 face toward Jerusalem. In captivity the Jews had 
 sung: 
 
 By the rivers of Babylon, 
 
 There we sat down, yea, we wept, 
 
 When we remembered Zion. 
 
 Upon the willows in the midst thereof 
 
 We hanged up our harps. 
 
 For there they that led us captive required of us songs , 
 
 And they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, 
 
 Sing us one of the songs of Zion. 
 
 How shall we sing the Lord ' s song 
 
 In a strange land? 
 
 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, 
 
 Let my right hand forget her cunning. 
 
 Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, 
 
 If I remember thee not ; 
 
 If I prefer not Jerusalem 
 
 Above my chief joy. 
 
 Remember, O Lord, against the children of Edom 
 
 The day of Jerusalem, 
 
 Who said, Rase it, rase it, 
 
 Even to the foundation thereof. 
 
 O daughter of Babylon, that art to be destroyed ; 
 
 Happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee 
 
 As thou hast served us. 
 
 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones 
 
 Against the rock. 
 
 But much more was involved in the matter than 
 sentiment. The Jewish worship, consisting largely of 
 fleshly ordinances, could be conducted only in a house 
 
198 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 with suitable appointments of an elaborate descrip- 
 tion. Moreover, this worship, as well as the national 
 faith itself, was a most precious national inheritance. 
 We may imagine, therefore, the depth of feeling with 
 which the Jews looked upon the Samaritans' challenge 
 of the exclusiveness of Jerusalem. 
 
 The moment the woman perceives that she is talk- 
 ing with a prophet, she suggests rather than asks, 
 the old question. She says: " Our fathers worshiped 
 in this mountain; and ye [that is the Jews] say that in 
 Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." 
 He does not answer her question directly, and yet He 
 far more than answers it. Jesus saith unto her: 
 
 "Woman, believe me. The hour cometh, when 
 ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jeru- 
 salem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know 
 not what: we know what we worship; for salvation 
 is of the Jews. But the hour cometh and now is, 
 when the true worshipers shall worship the Father 
 in spirit and in truth ; for the Father seeketh such to 
 worship Him. God is spirit: and the}' that worship 
 Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." 
 
 It is very certain that the woman did not see far 
 into this reply; indeed, she may not have thought 
 that she had been answered at all; and it is impossi- 
 ble that all disciples of Jesus living to-day understand 
 its full import. We shall first glance at some of the 
 things that the answer does not mean. 
 
 First, Jesus does not mean that the time should 
 come when this particular woman should worship in 
 neither of these seats of ancient piety. Neither, sec- 
 ondly, does He mean that in the future her country- 
 
HOW HE HANDLED CASES. 199 
 
 men, the Samaritans, should not worship in these 
 places. Nor, thirdly, does He assert that Jerusalem 
 and Gerizim shall be deserted; and still less, that they 
 should become impossible or unfit places for worship. 
 He makes no allusion to the woman or to the Samari- 
 tans. He lays no interdict on either of the old tem- 
 ples. To put any one of these meanings into His 
 mouth, would be to lose His thought, to misunder- 
 stand the nature of the dispensation that the hour is 
 ushering in, and to fall below the level of the occa- 
 sion. 
 
 He means, rather, that the question about Gerizim 
 and Moriah has lost its interest, because these places 
 have been equalized, one with the other, and with all 
 other places; that Jewish exclusiveness is at an end; 
 that the Temple at Jerusalem ceases to be more holy 
 than any other place ; that the days of localized wor- 
 ship and of fleshly ordinances are gone, and that a 
 genuinely spiritual worship is at hand. More than 
 this even, He means that the old ethnic religions and 
 national faiths shall now make room for the one true 
 religion and faith that is as broad and free as the soul 
 of man. The dispensation of the letter gives way to 
 the dispensation of the Spirit. Moses makes room 
 for Christ. An end is put to all constraint and com- 
 pulsion. God is spirit, and they that worship Him 
 must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Accord- 
 ingly, since that day any spot in the wide world the 
 depths of the mine, the heart of the forest, the top of 
 the mountain, the seclusion of the closet, the privacy 
 of the fireside, and the bosom of the sea is as accept- 
 able a place of worship as the grandest church or the 
 
200 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 most glorious temple. Everything depends upon the 
 instructed mind and the earnest heart. The act con- 
 secrates the place, not the place the act. The wom- 
 an's question was answered; but it was answered by 
 being taken up into the most elevated and compre- 
 hensive principle that marks the kingdom of God. 
 
 Many other examples could be given. These, how- 
 ever, suffice to show the consummate ability that 
 Jesus manifested in dealing with men and in putting 
 controversialists to silence; and also how He lifted 
 questions and cases up to the level of great princi- 
 ples, and made them occasions for the impressive and 
 telling assertion of central religious truths. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 HIS SEVERITY. 
 
 FALSE ideas of the character of Jesus, both as a 
 person and as a teacher, are not uncommon. They 
 arise by excluding from view certain elements or fac- 
 tors that belong to Him. Furthermore, the elements 
 that are thus excluded are generally of the same class. 
 His common mode of address is so winning; His 
 benedictions fall so delightfully upon the ear; He is 
 so tender in His invitations; so interested in the mul- 
 titude; so full of compassion for the poor and ignor- 
 ant; so patient with the dull and slow-minded; so 
 anxious to bring back to the right way those who have 
 strayed from it; He is so kind and gracious, that we 
 sometimes forget that He also turned to the world 
 another and very different side, or, if we do not for- 
 get the fact, we underestimate its importance. 
 
 There are two classes of moral qualities, which may 
 be generally described as the harder and the softer, the 
 more rugged and the more gentle, the stronger and 
 the more gracious. Under the one category we bring 
 courage, truth, justice, and righteousness; under the 
 other, compassion, purity, tenderness, and innocence. 
 The first give character its firmness and permanence; 
 
 the second, its grace and loveliness. It would be too 
 
 (201) 
 
202 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 much to say that the qualities put in the two classes 
 are opposed each to each. There is no opposition, 
 for example, between strength and purity, but rather 
 the reverse. Sir Galahad's strength is as the strength 
 of ten because his heart is pure. At the same time 
 the two groups of qualities do present an antinomy 
 more or less complete. 
 
 There are justice and compassion. Justice demands 
 that men shall fulfill the law; Compassion condones 
 the offences of those who do not. Justice shuts her 
 eyes and holds aloft her symbolic scales; Compassion 
 weeps at the misery and suffering which she sees 
 around her. Justice lays judgment to the line and 
 righteousness to the plummet; Compassion has neith- 
 er line nor plummet, and knows not their use. Jus- 
 tice sometimes sends men to prison; Compassion 
 opens prison doors and bids prisoners go free. Jus- 
 tice often condemns ; Compassion always pities. In 
 an absolute sense the two qualities cannot be harmon- 
 ized, and in practice one must often give way to the 
 other. 
 
 The man who is merely just may command our re- 
 spect and admiration, but he never calls out our af- 
 fections and sympathies. He dwells in a region too 
 cold for those flowers to bloom. The man who is 
 merely compassionate may draw out our affections 
 and sympathies, but he will not command our full re- 
 spect and admiration. He dwells in an atmosphere 
 too warm for the hardier plants to grow. 
 
 The harm that has been done by men of these op- 
 posite types is very great. Those of the first type 
 sometimes discourage and crush human beings, be- 
 
HIS SEVERITY. 203 
 
 cause they will permit no relaxation of the law; the 
 others encourage men to grow up weak and dependent, 
 because they refuse to permit them to come into rela- 
 tion with the law. The first say the discipline of 
 life comes through our learning that we must reap 
 what we sow, and that the only way to learn this in- 
 valuable lesson is to reap our own harvests; and that, 
 therefore, it is a great mistake to intervene between 
 the sufferer and the consequences of his own foolish 
 or inconsiderate act. The second say that experience 
 is a dear school, that her discipline is hard to bear, 
 and that the law should not be allowed to do her 
 strange work. The conflicts of the two principles 
 make up no small part of the moral life of the world. 
 The prophet prayed, "In wrath remember mercy." 
 In The New Testament we read of the acceptable will 
 of the Lord ; also of the day of vengeance of our God. 
 But the Psalmist wrote of a delightful state or period 
 in which mercy and peace should meet together, and 
 righteousness and peace kiss each other; * and we are 
 led to seek for the common ground on which this 
 reconciliation is effected. The answer to this ques- 
 tion is, benevolence or love. Benevolence does not 
 ask primarily what is just or what is merciful, but 
 what is best, what will promote good or well-being. 
 She wishes men well, and seeks to realize her wish. 
 Justice declares that a man now lying in prison shall 
 remain there, because this would be just ; Mercy says he 
 should be released, because this would be merciful ; 
 Love says that should be done which, taking all facts 
 into account, will be for the best, because we should 
 be benevolent. 
 
 * Psalms Ixxxv. 10. 
 
204 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 The sterner and the milder traits meet and blend 
 in the perfect character. The man who realizes the 
 ideal is both just and compassionate; neither word, 
 however, sums up his character; love alone does that. 
 But even this word is unfortunately abused; it is 
 sometimes understood in the sense of mercy; where- 
 as, it looks only to the true end or good of men. 
 
 These observations bring us to a class of passages 
 in the life of Jesus that offer a striking contrast to 
 the Beatitudes, and to the invitations addressed to the 
 weary and heavy-laden. Such a passage is that re- 
 counting how Jesus found in the Temple those that 
 sold oxen, sheep, and doves, and money-changers; and 
 how, first making a scourge of cords, He drove them 
 all out together men, sheep, and oxen poured out 
 the changers' money, and overthrew their tables, pro- 
 testing that His father's house should not be made a 
 house of merchandise. * Here we see His moral in- 
 dignation rising to a white heat. Still we miss much 
 of the effect if we forget that the Jesus who wields 
 the terrible scourge is the same Jesus who teaches 
 His disciples the Lord's prayer, and looks upon the 
 multitude with tenderest compassion. 
 
 Another such passage is the address that Jesus 
 poured out of his burning heart upon the Scribes and 
 Pharisees, following their final discomfiture in argu- 
 ment, as related in the twenty-third chapter of Mat- 
 thew. Canon Farrar justly calls it "The Great De- 
 nunciation;" and we shall not find its equal else- 
 where in literature. Beginning with the declaration, 
 " The Scribes and the Pharisees sit in^Moses's seat," 
 
 * John II. 13-17. 
 
HIS SEVERITY. 205 
 
 he rushes on through a series of woes, the most ter- 
 rific that were ever pronounced upon men. They do 
 all their works to be seen of men ; they shut up the 
 kingdom of heaven, neither entering themselves nor 
 suffering others to enter; they devour widows' houses, 
 and for a pretense make long prayers ; they compass 
 sea and land to make one proselyte, who, when he is 
 made, is tenfold worse than themselves; they are 
 blind guides, misleading the people with respect to 
 oaths; they pay tithes of mint, anise, and cummin, 
 and neglect the weightier matters of the law, justice, 
 mercy, and faith; they make clean the outside of the 
 cup and platter, but are full of extortion and excess ; 
 they are whitewashed sepulchres, which are clean 
 without, but within are full of dead men's bones and 
 of uncleanuess ; they build the tombs of the proph- 
 ets, garnish the sepulchers of the righteous, and yet 
 testify that they are the children of them which 
 killed the prophets, thus He pours over them the 
 torrents of this terrific denunciation until, as if to re- 
 mind us that He is still the same Jesus who spoke the 
 Sermon on the Mount and the parables, He closes 
 with the lament: "O, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou 
 that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are 
 sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy 
 children together, even as a hen gathereth her chick- 
 ens under her wings, and ye would not." * 
 
 These passages suggest reflections that are practi- 
 cally instructive. 
 
 1. We should not fail to observe the conditions 
 under which Jesus turned His severe side towards 
 
 * Matt, xxiii. 13-39. 
 
206 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 men. It was not when He was addressing the poor, 
 the ignorant, and the weak, but when He dealt with 
 the wicked, the rich, and the strong. 
 
 In the first instance, the sellers of sheep, oxen, and 
 doves, and the money changers, choked up that part 
 of the Temple precincts called the Court of the Gen- 
 tiles; the abuse was an inveterate one, carried on 
 with the knowledge, and even in the interest, of men 
 in high ecclesiastical position; the house of prayer 
 was made a den of thieves, which conduct in a Jew 
 was more profane than it was for a Pagan soldier to 
 sprinkle the sanctuary with swine's broth. The very 
 Temple was filled with the tumult and stench. Such 
 sacrilege could be corrected only by resorting to severe 
 measures; and how perfectly reasonable and proper 
 Jesus's action was, is attested by the fact that the 
 men whom He expelled offered no resistance, and 
 that there was no intervention in their behalf. There 
 could be no better examples of the cowardice that 
 flows from an evil conscience, and of the strength of 
 indignant virtue. 
 
 In the other case there was no reason to suppose 
 that gracious words would ever make any impression 
 upon the Scribes and Pharisees. Stern words might. 
 At least Jesus owed it to His disciples, and to the 
 multitude, to expose the hollowness and corruption 
 of these men; for "they shut up the door of the 
 kingdom of God, neither entering in themselves nor 
 suffering others to enter." Canon Farrar has well 
 caught the spirit of the occasion. 
 
 And they loved their blindness; they would not acknowl- 
 edge their ignorance ; they did not repent them of their faults ; 
 the bitter venom of their hatred to Him was not driven forth 
 
HIS SEVERITY. 207 
 
 by His forbearance ; the dense midnight of their perversity was 
 not dispelled by His wisdom. Their purpose to destroy Him was 
 fixed, obstinate, 'irreversible; and if one plot failed, they were 
 but driven with more stubborn sullenness into another. And, 
 therefore, since Love had played her part in vain, "Justice 
 leaped upon the stage ; ' ' since the Light of the World shone for 
 them with no illumination, the lightning flash should at last 
 warn them of their danger. There could now be no hope of 
 their becoming reconciled to Him ; they were but being stereo- 
 typed in unrepentant malice against Him. Turning, therefore, 
 to His disciples , but in the audience of all the people , He rolled 
 over their guilty heads , with crash upon crash of moral anger, 
 the thunder of His utter condemnation. * 
 
 2. These passages appear to make small impression 
 on some persons' minds. Their thoughts and feelings 
 run so habitually in the other channel, and they are 
 so much more fully in sympathy with the gentle side 
 of Jesus's character, that they flinch when they see 
 Him wielding His knotted scourge, and turn aside 
 when He pours out the torrent of His hot denunci- 
 ation. While these persons would regard the propo- 
 sition to cut these passages out of the Gospels as sacri- 
 lege, they would never have missed them had they 
 originally been omitted. We need not go over the 
 ethical argument again, to show that the ruggeder 
 moral qualities are as important as the softer ones, 
 and that they are never wanting in the highest char- 
 acters; but we may inquire why they are so often 
 undervalued. 
 
 We have to go back only a little way in the history 
 of society to find a time when the severer moral traits 
 appear to have reigned almost supreme. Justice, or 
 what was called such, was administered with merciless 
 
 * Vol. II., page 244. 
 
208 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 rigor. The roll of capital crimes was a long one, and 
 prisons were little better than the dens of wild beasts. 
 Charity was but feebly organized. The unfortunate, 
 the weak, the ignorant, and the poor were almost 
 abandoned to make the hard struggle for exist- 
 ence alone. The regimen to which children were 
 subjected was so stern that heavy tasks, cruel teach- 
 ers, frequent beatings, and much misery, are things 
 indissolubly associated with the school. Current re- 
 ligious and moral teaching dwelt on the harsher side 
 of moral and religious truth. 
 
 We often fail to appreciate the enormous social 
 changes or ameliorations that have taken place within 
 recent years. For example, I cut the following from 
 a review of a book that has but recently appeared : 
 
 Everybody has heard of Rowland Hill who, in 1840, achieved 
 his daring idea of penny postage. A life of him has been writ- 
 ten by his nephew, Dr. Birkbeck Hill, the editor par excellence 
 of Boswell. His oldest brother was Matthew Davenport Hill, 
 whose life has also been written; his youngest brother (save 
 one who died early) was Frederic, the subject of the present 
 memoir, and now the sole survivor of five very remarkable 
 men, Edwin and Arthur being the other two brothers. Mr. 
 Frederic Hill is now in his ninety -first year. We realize his 
 age when we read that he well remembers his great -uncle, 
 John Hill, who enrolled himself as a volunteer against the Pre- 
 tender in 1745, and that he himself has shared in two royal 
 jubilees that of George III. in 1810, and that of Queen Vic- 
 toria in 1887. He remembers also his maternal grandfather, 
 William Lea, who rescued a reputed witch from a moat into 
 which she had been flung by a mob ; and he was a boy of four- 
 teen when a murder was committed in Birmingham for which 
 impunity was secured by the murderer's appealing to the wager 
 of battle before Lord Ellenborough and the full Court of 
 Queen's Bench. He saw the pillory in use, he had a hand in 
 abolishing the treadmill in prisons , and that not so very long 
 
HIS SEVERITY. 209 
 
 ago. He tells of one of his acquaintances ' 'who was subject to 
 occasional fits of insanity. When these occurred he was taken 
 to the lunatic asylum of his district, and there bound to a seat 
 on a pivot, which was whirled round and round till he became 
 insensible." "Within my lifetime," he reminds us, "men 
 were hanged for stealing five shillings' worth of goods. ' ' Born 
 in the midst of the Napoleonic wars, ' 'Boney' ' was a terror to 
 him, and not less the press-gang, which caused the boy to run 
 at night through the streets of Birmingham, though in no dan- 
 ger on account of his youth. * 
 
 But some time ago society took a new trend. The 
 humane sentiment and feeling the affectional nature 
 of men has been developed as never before. A new 
 moral type has appeared; or, if not so, it is much more 
 admired and imitated. What a distinguished writer 
 once called "the enthusiasm of humanity" has 
 wrought a transformation in society that we count 
 among the marvels of the age. 
 
 That the new spirit was greatly needed, I need not 
 take space to show. The evidence is spread thickly 
 upon the pages of every book that deals adequately 
 with the facts of social history in the olden time. 
 There is far more need to inquire whether, in recoil- 
 ing from the one scheme, we are not going too near 
 the other. The question is not whether there is too 
 much benevolence or love, but whether mercy has 
 not appropriated that blessed name. Is it true, 
 as we are sometimes told, that crime is only a 
 disease to be cured and not punished? Or that 
 men differ only in inherited qualities, and in an envi- 
 ronment over which they have no control? Is it not 
 true that what is called charity is too indiscriminately 
 
 * The Nation, Vol. LVIII. , page 140. 
 14 
 
210 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 bestowed, and that we tend to forget the command 
 that if anyone will not work neither shall he eat? 
 Does not much of the so-called benevolence of the 
 time tend to obliterate differences that God recog- 
 nizes among men? Does it not tend to a practical 
 denial of the law that whatsoever a man sows, that 
 shall he also reap? Does not the current Gospel of 
 Environment tend to blunt the sense of responsibility, 
 and to fill those who accept it with a sense of self- 
 complacency? 
 
 If anyone doubts what should De the answers to 
 these questions, he should ask himself the meaning of 
 much current sentimentalism. Why is so much con- 
 sideration shown to criminals? Why is it often so 
 hard to secure the conviction of brutal murderers? 
 And why is it so easy for them to secure respite from 
 deserved punishment? Why do tender ladies send 
 flowers and dainty food to their prison cells? Why 
 do defaulters and bankrupts often receive sympathy 
 that rather belongs to their victims? Why is dishon- 
 esty so often condoned, especially if the man who is 
 guilty of it has a reputation for liberality? Why, at 
 last, has family discipline become so relaxed that in 
 many cases the likes and dislikes of children are 
 practically the only law? It cannot be doubted by 
 those competent to deliver judgment, that the stern 
 passages in the life and teaching of Jesus would 
 prove a helpful tonic if they could be more read and 
 more pondered. They would lead men to see that 
 somewhat of our current benevolence is born of sen- 
 timentality. That is a weak and flaccid morality 
 which omits or undervalues the stern and rugged vir- 
 tues. 
 
HIS SEVERITY. 211 
 
 3. How far a teacher may now go in imitation of 
 these sterner passages in the life of Jesus, is a ques- 
 tion that admits of no definite answer. Much depends 
 upon time and place, mental and moral conditions, 
 and particularly the character and standard of the 
 teacher himself. What will do good at one time and 
 place, will do harm at another. What will do some 
 men good, will do others harm. Words that would 
 be received as merited rebukes coming from one man, 
 would provoke only derision and contempt coming 
 from another man. Weak men cannot take the high 
 hand that Nathan took with David, Ambrose with 
 Theodosius, and John Knox with Mary Queen of 
 Scots. None but those like Jesus have credentials to 
 cleanse the Temple; and as for the woes of the Great 
 Denunciation, they would be profane upon lips less 
 pure and holy than His own. It is not mere senti- 
 ment to say with Shakespeare : 
 
 What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted 1 
 Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just, 
 And he but naked, though locked up in steel, 
 Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted. 
 
 Or with Tennyson : 
 
 My good blade carves the casques of men, 
 
 My tough lance thrusteth sure, 
 My strength is as the strength of ten, 
 
 Because my heart is pure. 
 
 But this strength inheres in men, and not in ab- 
 stractions. However, there is one rule of universal 
 application. No teacher of morals or religion should 
 palter with men in a double sense. No office is more 
 contemptible than that of a seer who sees not, or of a 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
212 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 prophet who prophesies not unto the people right 
 things, but speaks unto them smooth things, and 
 prophesies deceits. More than this, there are times 
 when we ^may well listen to Milton's grand thunder- 
 roll. 
 
 For in times of opposition, when either against new heresies 
 arising, or old corruptions to be reformed, this cool,unpassionate 
 mildness of positive wisdom is not enough to damp and astonish 
 the proud resistance of carnal and false doctors, then (that I may 
 have leave to soar awhile, as we poets use) Zeal, whose sub- 
 stance is ethereal, arming in complete diamond, ascends his 
 fiery chariot , drawn with two blazing meteors , figured like beasts , 
 but of a higher breed than any the zodiac yields, resembling two 
 of those four which Ezekiel and St. John saw ; the one visaged like 
 a lion, to express power, high .authority, and indignation; the 
 other of countenance like a man, to cast derision and scorn upon 
 perverse and fraudulent seducers : with these the invincible war- 
 rior, Zeal, shaking loosely the slack reins, drives over the heads 
 of scarlet prelates and such as are insolent to maintain tradi- 
 tions, bruising their stiff necks under his flaming wheels. Thus 
 did the true prophets of old combat with the false ; thus Christ 
 Himself, the fountain of meekness, found acrimony enough to be 
 still galling and vexing the prelatical Pharisees. But ye will 
 say, these had immediate warrant from God to be thus bitter; 
 and I say, so much the plainer is it proved that there may be a 
 sanctified bitterness against the enemies of the truth.* 
 
 * Apology for Smectymnuus. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 JESUS AND THE CHILD. 
 
 THE author of a suggestive and pleasant volume 
 that has recently appeared from the press introduces 
 his theme as follows : 
 
 There was a time, just beyond the memory of men now living, 
 when the Child was born in literature. At the same period 
 books for children began to be written. There were children, 
 indeed, in literature before Wordsworth created Alice Fell and 
 Lucy Gray, or breathed the lines beginning, 
 
 ' ' She was a phantom of delight, ' ' 
 
 and there were books for the young before Mr. Day wrote Sand- 
 ford and Merton ; especially it is to be noted that Goldsmith, who 
 was an avant- courier of Wordsworth, had a very delightful per- 
 ception of the child, and amused himself with him in the Vicar 
 of Wakefield, while he, or his double, entertained his little 
 friends in real life with the Renowned History of Goody Two | 
 Shoes. 
 
 Nevertheless, there has been, since the day of Wordsworth, 
 such a succession of childish figures in prose and verse that we 
 are justified in believing childhood to have been discovered at 
 the close of the last century. The child has now become so 
 common that we scarcely consider how absent he is from the 
 earlier literature. Men and women are there , lovers, maidens, 
 and youths, but these are all with us still. The child has been 
 added to the dramatis personse of modern literature. * 
 
 "Childhood in Art and Literature, with some Observations on Literature for 
 Children. A Study. By Horace E. Scudder. 
 
 (213) 
 
214 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 The central thought here presented is little likely to 
 be disputed by men of competent knowledge. There 
 can be no doubt either that the child is more promi- 
 nent in literature now than formerly, or that he appears 
 in a different manner and is differently regarded. Nor 
 is the immediate reason hard to explain. It is the 
 new sense of childhood that has been developed in the 
 last one hundred years. The child has been added to 
 the dramatis personoe of modern literature, because he 
 has been added to modern life. Children have indeed 
 always been in the world. They have also always 
 been objects of interest and affection. Ancient times 
 can show cases of parental solicitude for children, as 
 the yearning of the heart for the erring or the dead 
 child, that modern times cannot surpass. Excellent 
 examples are found in The Bible. How David loved 
 the child of Bathsheba ! How he mourned for Ab- 
 solom ! Still, it is a fact that the child now holds a 
 place in the thoughts, feelings, and activities of men 
 that he did not hold in ancient or mediaeval times, or 
 even in modern times until a recent date. The view 
 of childhood, and in consequence of child-discipline, 
 has been greatly changed. 
 
 In antiquity the father often had the power of life 
 and death over his child. The Roman father's child 
 was a part of his property, and could be sold to satisfy 
 his debts. The munificent provision now made for 
 the health, comfort, and pleasure of children, and 
 their improvement the games and amusements, the 
 books and papers, the pictures and toys relatively is 
 a thing of modern times. It will, perhaps, be said 
 that similar additions have been made to the scale of 
 
JESUS AND THE CHILD. 215 
 
 adult comforts and pleasures; that these things are 
 due to the vast progress that has been made in wealth 
 and invention ; but these obvious considerations do not 
 fully explain the matter. When all is said and done, 
 the advantage is still with the child as against the 
 man. Or, if there can be any doubt as to the home, 
 we may compare the modern school with the ancient 
 or mediaeval one. What labor is given to the study of 
 child nature ! With what zeal are its stages of growth 
 marked out ! And with what care are studies chosen 
 and courses of study organized with reference to this 
 nature and these stages of growth ! Observe, too, the 
 books, the apparatus for illustrative teaching, the ma- 
 terial appointments of the school, the libraries, 
 museums, laboratories, the methods of teaching and 
 governing, and above all the pains that are taken in the 
 selection of teachers. No doubt under this last head 
 much is yet to be desired; but we have certainly made 
 great progress as compared with earlier times. It 
 would not do to say that antiquity was indifferent to 
 the character of the teacher; still, Plutarch tells us 
 that men of his time, when they took account of their 
 slaves, finding some better and some worse, sent some 
 to husbandry, some to navigation, some to merchan- 
 dise, some to be stewards in their own houses, and 
 some, lastly, to put out their money to usury for them ; 
 while if they found any slave that was a drunkard, or 
 a glutton, and unfit for any other business, to him 
 they assigned the government of their children.* That 
 teachers, and still more frequently pedagogues, were 
 often slaves, is well known to all students of 
 educational history. The school is in a good measure 
 
 * The Training of Children. 
 
216 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 a reflection of the home. As a rule, kind parents* and 
 cruel teachers are not likely to be found together. For 
 example, Martin Luther informs us that schoolmasters 
 in his youth were tyrants and executioners. The 
 schools were prisons and hells, and, in spite of blows, 
 trembling, fear, and misery, taught nothing. He had 
 been whipped himself fifteen times one morning with- 
 out any fault of his own, having been called on to re- 
 peat what he had never been taught. Luther bears 
 ample testimony to the affection of his father and 
 mother, still he relates how severely they punished 
 him. His father once flogged him so severely that he 
 fled from him and bore him a temporary grudge. His 
 mother once whipped him till the blood came because 
 he had taken a paltry little nut. Luther himself says 
 children should not be chastised for an offense about 
 nuts or cherries as if they had broken open a money- 
 box; and he recommends that "the apple be placed 
 beside the rod. ' '* Coming down to a later day,Macaulay 
 gives us a striking picture of the insensibility of Eng- 
 lishmen to suffering in the second half of the seven- 
 teenth century. "Nowhere could be found that 
 sensitive and restless compassion which has, in our 
 time, extended a powerful protection to the factory 
 child, to the Hindoo widow, to the negro slave, which 
 pries into the stores and water-casks of every emigrant 
 ship, which winces at every lash laid on the back of 
 the drunken soldier, and which will not suffer the 
 thief in the hulks to be ill-fed or overworked, and 
 which has repeatedly endeavored to save the life of a 
 murderer." t 
 
 * KOstlin's Life, page 11, 12. t History of England, Chap. iii. 
 
JESUS AND THE CHILD. 217 
 
 For our purposes an inquiry into the causes of that 
 vast amelioration of which the new sense of childhood 
 is only a part is more important than the fact itself. 
 However, we cannot here institute so broad an in- 
 vestigation. We may, however, in the first place, 
 emphasize the fact that the new sense of childhood 
 is but a part of a broader movement of thought, 
 feeling, and activity. Man's inhumanity to man, of 
 which the poet sings, is appreciably wearing away. 
 Human nature is coming to be invested with a new 
 sense of worth and dignity. Life is held more dear, 
 and suffering is more regarded. 
 
 Various causes have contributed to this remarkable 
 change. However, the grand cause is the life and 
 ministry of the Teacher of Nazareth. He taught the 
 sacredness of human life. He taught the dignity of 
 the human soul. He gave men a new measure of 
 character and worth. In particular, He showed men 
 how blessed a thing is sympathy, and taught them 
 the duty of sympathizing with the poor, the weak, 
 and the wretched. Above all, He it was who assigned 
 to the child the place that he is now coming to hold 
 in the thoughts, feelings, and activities of men. 
 Into this phase of the subject, we must now inquire 
 more closely. 
 
 First. He made the entrance of the child into the 
 world typical of the entrance of the individual soul 
 into the Kingdom of Heaven. As there is a birth, so 
 there is a new birth. He said to Nicodemus: " Verily, 
 verily, I say unto you, Except a man be born again, he 
 cannot see the kingdom of God." And when Nico- 
 demus asked Him how a man could be born when he 
 
218 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 was old, he received the significant reply: " Verily, 
 verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water, 
 and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of 
 God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and 
 that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not 
 that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." * Here 
 is an excellent illustration of the method so often met 
 with in The New Testament of basing ethical lessons 
 on physical analogies. It is, indeed, the only method 
 by which such lessons can be conveyed. Witness the 
 use of the family and of other human relations. God 
 is the Father in Heaven, every man born of woman is 
 a child of His by descent and natural birth, every dis- 
 ciple of Jesus is a child by regeneration or spiritual 
 birth. The Church is a family, Jesus is elder brother, 
 and all others are brethren. To give objective im- 
 pressiveness to the second birth, it is symbolized in 
 the rite of baptism. It is a birth of water as well as 
 of the Spirit. 
 
 This mode of putting the central idea is both natural 
 and beautiful. Similar modes of speech have been 
 widely used for similar purposes. "The words of 
 prophets and psalmists," says Mr. Scudder, " had 
 again and again found in the throes of a woman in 
 labor a symbol of the struggle of humanity for a 
 new generation. By a bold and profound figure, it 
 was said of the great central Person of humanity: 'He 
 shall see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied.' "f 
 Socrates likened the origin of thoughts in the mind to 
 birth, and, borrowing a figure from his mother's pro- 
 fession, called himself the midwife of tyis pupils. We 
 
 * John iii. 1-7. t Pp. 51, 52. 
 
JESUS AND THE CHILD. 219 
 
 speak of the birth of ideas, of causes, of movements, 
 of the state; we call the great intellectual revival of 
 the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the Renaissance, 
 or the New Birth of the human mind : but the pro- 
 foundest use to which the analogy has ever been put, 
 or ever can be put, was when Jesus told men that they 
 must be born again. 
 
 Secondly, Jesus made the child-life typical of the 
 Christian life. Stirred by feelings of ambition and 
 rivalry, the disciples once came to the Master with the 
 question: " Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of 
 Heaven?" They showed the same gross misappre- 
 hension that was manifested by the mother of James 
 and John, when she came with her two sons asking 
 that one of them might sit on His right hand, and the 
 other on His left, in His kingdom. His impressive 
 reply is in these words : 
 
 " And Jesus called a little child unto Him, and set 
 Him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto 
 you, except ye be converted and become as little chil- 
 dren, ye shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. 
 And whoso shall receive one such little child in my 
 name, receiveth me. But whoso shall offend one of 
 these little ones, which believe in me, it were better 
 for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, 
 and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."* 
 
 This is what modern pedagogists call an object 
 lesson. The words used point to some mental quality 
 that is exemplified in the child which must also be 
 exemplified in the citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven. 
 Men must become little children. What is this mental 
 
 * Matt, xviii. 2-6. 
 
220 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 quality? In what respect must men become like chil- 
 dren? 
 
 Evidently not in the vigor and content of the intel- 
 lect, for we are exhorted to put away childish things 
 and to be men in understanding. These exhortations 
 come indeed from another teacher, but still from a 
 teacher who well understood his Master. What then? 
 Evidently the likeness consists in that freedom from 
 personal bias, that humility of character, and that 
 teachability of mind which are so characteristic of 
 childhood. The greatest man is he who humbles him- 
 self as a little child. This is one of the paradoxes 
 that Jesus introduced into the world: greatness is 
 humility. In substance, it is the same lesson that was 
 taught to the ten when they were moved with indig- 
 nation against James and John. 
 
 " But Jesus called them unto Him and said, Ye know 
 that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over 
 them, and they that are great exercise authority upon 
 them. But it shall not be so among you: but whoso- 
 ever would be great among you, let him be your minis- 
 ter; and whosoever would be chief among you, let him 
 be your servant; even as the Son of Man came not to 
 be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His 
 life a ransom for many." * 
 
 Both psychology and history suggest a genetic rela- 
 tion between virgin mind and new ideas and causes. 
 Men of knowledge and mental maturity, of power and 
 standing, are more or less bound 'by pride of opinion 
 and social connections. Their minds are made up, 
 and to change them would seem to argue instability; 
 
 *Matt. xx, 25, 26. 
 
JESUS AND THE CHILD. 221 
 
 moreover, their minds have taken on a certain artifici- 
 ality that defies change. These are natural tendencies, 
 and they are commonly wholly unknown to those 
 who respond to them. How perfectly in character is 
 the question that the Pharisees ask the officers : "Have 
 any of the rulers or Pharisees believed on him? But 
 this people, who knoweth not the Law, is accursed.*" 
 This people are the common people who heard Jesus 
 gladly. Paul's declaration that not many wise men 
 after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are 
 called, that is, to preach the Gospel, points at once to 
 those conservative forces which, under similar circum- 
 stances, declare themselves the world over, f New 
 ideas are apt to be brought forward by new men. New 
 causes as a rule find their apostles, prophets, evangel- 
 ists, and teachers outside the pale of tradition and 
 convention. Moreover, the great reason why new 
 causes often prove to be so powerful, is the fact that 
 they open the doors of opportunity to undiscovered 
 talent and genius, which never would have been, or 
 could have been, awakened to life and activity by the 
 old custom or tradition. It was when Jesus had be- 
 come discouraged about Chorazin and Bethsaida, that 
 he uttered the familiar words, so rich in spiritual phi- 
 losophy: " I think thee, O Father, Lord of heaven 
 and earth, because thou hast hid these things from 
 the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto 
 babes." J The trouble is not so much that the wise 
 and prudent will not receive the new word, as that 
 they are unable, to do so. Their minds have taken on 
 a certain form or cast, and cannot the second time 
 
 * John vii. 47, 48. t 1 Cor. i. 28. \ Matt. xi. 25. 
 
 
222 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 become plastic. Equally significant is another familiar 
 passage. When the chief priests and scribes were dis- 
 pleased as they heard the children crying in the Temple, 
 "Hosannah to the Son of David," Jesus asked them: 
 "Have ye not read, Out of the mouth of babes and 
 sucklings thou hast perfected praise? " * And these 
 further words, which have given the commentators no 
 little trouble, also point to that openness and inno- 
 cency of the young mind which make it so susceptible 
 to influence: " Take heed that ye despise not one of 
 these little ones ; for I say unto you, that in heaven 
 their angels do always behold the face of my Father 
 which is in heaven." In another sense, perhaps, than 
 Wordsworth meant it, 
 
 Heaven lies about us in our infancy. 
 
 The character of the early converts to the Christian 
 faith is too well known to call for formal description. 
 The words of contempt with which the opponents of 
 Jesus were in the habit of referring to his followers 
 are thickly scattered through the Gospels. When 
 Nicodemus pleaded that the Law did not condemn a 
 man before he was heard, it was a sufficient reply to 
 ask, " Are ye also a Galilean?" When the Pagans 
 finally consented to argue with the adherents of the 
 new faith, they commanded, generally speaking, the 
 learning, philosophy, and literature of the times. The 
 learned and literary classes of the Roman world saw 
 no deeper into the great movement of the ages than 
 Tacitus saw when he wrote: " The originator of that 
 name was one Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, 
 suffered death by sentence of the Procurator, Pontius 
 
 * Matt. xi. 15, 16. 
 
JESUS AND THE CHILD. 223 
 
 Pilate. The baneful superstition, thereby repressed 
 for the time, again broke out, not only over Judaea, the 
 native soil of that mischief, but in the City also, where 
 from every side all atrocious and abominable things 
 collect and flourish." This celebrated passage, it may 
 be observed, called out from Carlyle the observation: 
 " To us it is the most earnest, sad, and significant pas- 
 sage that we know to exist in history." And again: 
 * 'Tacitus was the wisest, most penetrating man of his 
 generation; and to such depth, and no deeper, has he 
 seen into this transaction, the most important that 
 has occurred, or can occur, in the annals of man- 
 kind."* 
 
 It must not be supposed that the ideas now advanced 
 are confined to ethics and religion. They meet us 
 again in the history of science and philosophy. It is 
 a well-known saying that no English physician more 
 than forty years old at the time when Harvey 
 discovered the circulation of the blood, ever accept- 
 ed that discovery. Pestalozzi, the great reformer 
 of primary education, at one time passed for an 
 ignoramus. When it was charged that he was no 
 scholar, he admitted the fact, and declared that it 
 worked to his advantage. He says himself that for 
 thirty years he did not read a single book. "My 
 incapacity in those respects," he says, " was certainly 
 an indispensable condition for my discovery of the 
 simplest method of teaching." Perhaps some minds 
 will scoff at such a claim; but had Pestalozzi been 
 a well-equipped scholar, had his mind been walled 
 about with learning, had he been a logician, it is im- 
 
 * Essay on Voltaire. 
 
224 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 probable that he would have had that nearness to 
 childhood, that sympathy with mind before it is 
 conventionalized, and that sure intuition without 
 which he would have been unknown in the annals 
 of education. 
 
 It is well known that Lord Bacon approached Nature 
 in the same spirit that Jesus approached God. He 
 wrote: " Man is the servant and interpreter of nature ; 
 we can only conquer nature by first obeying her. " 
 And once more: " The kingdom of man, which was 
 founded on the sciences, cannot be entered other- 
 wise than the Kingdom of God, that is, in the spirit of 
 a little child." 
 
 Thirdly, Jesus always showed a deep personal 
 interest in children. Some of His most notable mira- 
 cles are suggested by the word. He healed Jairus's 
 daughter, delivered the boy possessed with devils, 
 restored to health the nobleman's son, and listened to 
 the plaint of the Syrophcenician woman. It was per- 
 fectly in character that there should be brought unto 
 Him little children, "that He should put His hands on 
 them and pray." It was also natural that the dis- 
 ciples should rebuke those who brought them. No 
 doubt their view was that the Master was weary or oc- 
 cupied, and that they must protect Him against annoy- 
 ance. When He saw what the disciples did, He was 
 much displeased, and said unto them: " Suffer the 
 little children to come unto me, and forbid them not ; 
 for of such is the Kingdom of God. Verily I say unto 
 you, Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God 
 as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And he 
 took them up in His arms, put His hands upon them, 
 
JESUS AND THE CHILD. 225 
 
 and blessed them." * And this brings us back to the 
 former thought the child as a type of the disciple. 
 The same chord is struck again in this familiar pas- 
 sage: " And whosoever shall give to drink unto one 
 of these little ones a cup of cold water only, in the 
 name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in 
 no wise lose his reward." t 
 
 It was impossible that such a Spirit should not live 
 close to Nature. His perfect naturalness and simplic- 
 ity have commanded the widest and most unbounded 
 admiration. Jesus moved among the traditions, con- 
 ventions, and proprieties of an old civilization, and 
 one in some respects that was highly artificial; but 
 His mind was as fresh, and His character as simple, 
 as though He had come in the very morning of the 
 world. Moreover, His simplicity and naturalness were 
 the main cause of His unfailing touch in dealing with 
 the human heart. 
 
 It is almost needless to observe that the ideas which 
 have been presented are anticipations of modern 
 pedagogy. The relation of the child-life to the adult- 
 life; the need of understanding the child-nature; the 
 necessity of getting close to that nature; the value 
 of naturalness, simplicity, and sympathy; freedom 
 from mechanism, routine, and authority; spontaneity 
 and individuality these are fundamental ideas in our 
 educational philosophy. Rousseau was deeply inter- 
 ested in the child, although he sent his own children 
 to the foundling hospital ; and it has been remarked 
 " that there is nothing sadder than that page of ' The 
 
 * Matt. xix. U, 15; Mark x. 15, 16. t Matt. x. 42. 
 
 15 
 
226 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 Confessions ' in which he relates how he often placed 
 himself at the window to observe the dismissal of 
 school in order to listen to the conversation of children 
 as a furtive and unseen observer." The writer to 
 whom we are indebted for this remark has himself 
 said: " Like the psychology of the child, pedagogy 
 itself, at least in its first chapter, ought to be conceived 
 and written near a cradle." The great superiority 
 of the new education to the old consists mainly in the 
 farther advance that it has made along the path where 
 the Great Teacher pioneered the way. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 HIS THEORY OF TEACHING. 
 
 IN some quarters this heading may create surprise. 
 "Did the Teacher who was always practical," it may 
 be asked, "who said nothing about theories of any 
 kind, and who kept as far as possible from all art and 
 self-consciousness, did He have a theory of teach- 
 ing?" The answer to this question must be distinctly 
 in the affirmative. Moreover, this answer is part of 
 a fact so general and so important that space may 
 well be taken to give it emphatic formal statement. 
 
 The Greek word theoria, from which we have de- 
 rived "theory," came from the verb theorein, "to 
 view," "to look at," "to consider philosophically," 
 and means "a general view," a mode of regarding any 
 subject, or of "carrying on" any kind of activity. As 
 applied to teaching, speaking, or governing, theoria 
 means simply the facts and ideas relating to the art 
 reduced to system or order. This is the proper mean- 
 ing of our word "theory." It is therefore a mistake 
 to confound theory with conjecture, assumption, or 
 unsupported speculation. If a theory is bad, it is be- 
 cause facts have been wrongly excluded or included 
 in its formation, or because they have been wrongly 
 interpreted. All intelligent action is conducted ac- 
 
 (227) 
 
228 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 cording to some facts or ideas properly understood ; 
 and for a man to proclaim himself without theories 
 is to proclaim himself without guiding intelligence. 
 The superiority of the self-styled "practical man' 7 
 over him whom he scornfully calls " the book man," 
 consists largely in his assumed freedom from theo- 
 ries. However, the fact is that the practical man 
 is as much a theorist as anybody else. No man 
 who has ideas is without theories. A learned Ox- 
 ford professor, writing on the subject of political 
 economy, after observing "that all men at all times 
 have occupied themselves with the creation of wealth 
 according to certain rules and ideas," very pertinently 
 remarks : 
 
 No laborious employment can be extensively carried on 
 without the existence of some notions as to the right way of 
 working, and the most fitting methods for attaining the end de- 
 sired. It is a mistake, though a very common one, to suppose 
 that practical men, as they are called, are destitute of theory. 
 The exact reverse of this statement is true. Practical men 
 swarm with theories, none more so. They abound in views, in 
 ideas, in rules which they endow with the pompous authority of 
 experience ; and when new principles are proposed, none are so 
 quick as practical men to overwhelm the innovator with an 
 array of the wisdom which is to be found in prevalent prac - 
 tice. 
 
 The difference between men is, rather, that some 
 have good theories and others bad ones, or that some 
 have formed their theories with care while others 
 have not, than that some have theories while others 
 have none. Even the savage has his explanations of 
 natural phenomena. He says, for example, that an 
 eclipse of the moon is caused by a big fish trying to 
 swallow the moon, and so he makes a great noise for 
 
HIS THEORY OF TEACHING. 229 
 
 the purpose of driving off the fish. The writer just 
 quoted further observes : 
 
 The difference which ^separates the man of science from the 
 man of practice does not consist in the presence of general 
 views and ideas on one side, and their absence on the other. 
 Both have views and ideas. The distinction lies in the method 
 by which those views have been reached, in the breadth and 
 completeness of the investigation pursued, in the rigorous ques- 
 tioning of facts, and the careful digestion of the instruction 
 they contain, in the co-ordination and the logical cohesion of 
 the truth established.* 
 
 The theories of the quack or charlatan grow out of 
 his own narrow experience, and are limited by it: the 
 theories of the scientific physician are based on the 
 experience of the medical profession. 
 
 As to methods, there is a wide difference of opin- 
 ion. Talleyrand called methods masters' masters. 
 4 'They are to teachers themselves," he said, "what 
 teachers are to their pupils." Pestalozzi, the great 
 educational reformer, made the method everything, 
 the teacher nothing; a text-book, he declared, was 
 worthless unless it could be used by a person who was 
 ignorant of the subject, as well as by one who was 
 instructed. Jacotot, the French educational reform- 
 er, made the same mistake. He declared "that every 
 one can teach, and, moreover, can teach that which 
 he does not know himself." These extreme opinions 
 need not be formally confuted. Educational theories 
 and methods are not machines that can take the 
 place of individual thought and feeling. Important 
 as they are, they can never be accorded a first rank. 
 Compayoe says the wisdom of the ages on this point 
 
 * Bonamy Price : Principles of Currency. Lect. I. 
 
230 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 is summed up in the proverb, "As is the master, so is 
 the method." 
 
 Jesus said nothing about a theory of mental 
 growth, or of didactic method. Not a word can be 
 found in the Gospels on either topic. Still a theory 
 and method are nevertheless implicitly contained in 
 all His teaching. In this respect, however, He is not 
 singular. The greatest teachers say little or nothing 
 about the principles or rules upon which they act. 
 They are too intent on using their art to make it 
 prominent; nay, more, they know perfectly well that 
 to make it prominent would defeat their ends. That 
 highest art which conceals art is not conscious but 
 spontaneous; those who show it are implicitly guided 
 by principle and rule, but they are too much absorbed 
 in what they are doing to discourse on the principle 
 and rule according to which they do it. Moreover, 
 this is likely to be peculiarly true of moral and relig- 
 ious teachers, owing to the engrossing nature of their 
 subjects. 
 
 Following the course that He did, Jesus left an in- 
 valuable lesson to all who should come after Him in 
 the same succession. What one receives as religious 
 truth, and his formulation of it, often turns in whole 
 or part upon that scheme or system of thought which 
 he calls his philosophy. Theology is but an ordered 
 arrangement of what is accepted as religious truth, 
 and is largely influenced by one's view of human na- 
 ture. Philosophy and theology have their place, and 
 an important one too, but this is not the preacher's 
 pulpit or the moralist's platform. Hungry men come 
 to the table for bread, not to read some recipes for 
 
HIS THEORY OF TEACHING. 231 
 
 the preparation of dishes, or to look at some kitchen 
 furniture. Waiting souls do not care to look into the 
 inside of the minister's study. Processes and tools 
 are absolutely necessary, but they are not for public 
 use. An educated minister will have a theology 
 that will regulate, in a general way, his thinking, and 
 so his teaching; but the proper rule for him to fol- 
 low is to preach according to a theology, but not to 
 preach a theology. His audience want fruits or re- 
 sults. He will not waste his time in proving that men 
 have souls, but will assume it, as Jesus did, and act 
 accordingly. He will not dispute about the con- 
 science or the will, but will deal directly with men of 
 conscience and will. He will not consume his energy 
 in explaining his theories and methods, but use them 
 in a practical prosecution of his work. He will fol- 
 low an order in preaching, but not make the mistake 
 of devoting himself to proving that this order is the 
 true one. The wise teacher of secular studies pre- 
 pares and conducts his work according to certain ped- 
 agogical principles, but he does not carry these princi- 
 ples into the school-room and substitute them for the 
 subject-matter that he is to teach. The preacher 
 should conform to the same rule, as Jesus Himself, 
 did. And still it should be observed that, in one re- 
 spect, the analogy of the school does not hold in the 
 church. Sometimes a false philosophy, or wrong 
 ideas of method, may stand in the preacher's way, 
 while such a state of things is rarely or never found 
 in the school. Materialistic views of man's nature, 
 or wrong notions of the value of means or agents 
 employed in influencing men, may stand in the way of 
 
232 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 the preacher's success; and if so, he may find it nec- 
 essary to grapple with these errors directly, and, if 
 possible, overcome them. 
 
 The theory of teaching that Jesus conformed to 
 may be considered under three heads. 
 
 1. His view of human nature. 
 
 2. His ideal or purpose. 
 
 3. His choice of means to accomplish His ideal or 
 purpose. 
 
 These ideas are closely connected by their very 
 nature. The first is formed with primary reference 
 to the second, and then the two determine the third. 
 We go at once to His view of human nature to find 
 the ground or the basis of His whole system. 
 
 The most important question that can be asked 
 about a religious founder relates to his personal char- 
 acter. The next most important one relates to the 
 basis or foundation of his system. Upon what does 
 he ground it? How does he distribute his emphasis? 
 Man has a physical and a mental nature, and the first 
 question that can arise is whether the founder makes 
 his appeal to the one or to the other. Does he at- 
 tempt to control men through their bodies or through 
 their minds? If through their minds, then the sec- 
 ond question is whether he emphasizes the ceremo- 
 nial, the doctrinal, or the practical elements of re- 
 ligion. Does he throw his stress upon rites, upon 
 teaching or doctrine, or upon life and conduct? If 
 the answer be teaching or doctrine, the third question 
 is whether the teaching is mainly of a philosophical 
 or scientific cast, or of a practical cast. Does he 
 seek mainly to energize the intellect, or to move the 
 
HIS THEORY OF TEACHING. 233 
 
 affections and the will? Or, if the answer be life or 
 conduct, then the next question will relate to the 
 means by which he shall control or regulate it. 
 While this is not a fully wrought-out analysis, it will 
 assist us in our attempt to place Jesus as a religious 
 founder. 
 
 We are first to observe that He wholly excludes 
 from His system the element of external force. He 
 never resorts to material means, to physical pains and 
 penalties. His kingdom is a kingdom of the mind, 
 His reign a reign of the spirit. Still, this exclusion of 
 the physical element is affected negatively rather than 
 affirmatively; He never entertains the thought of 
 using compulsion even to the extent of making a for- 
 mal denial. The calm confidence with which He rests 
 on moral means, is the grandest tribute that has ever 
 been paid to human nature. 
 
 But, in strict conformity to His method, He pro- 
 pounded no theory of the mind, and engaged in no 
 psychological discussions. He used the terms that 
 were commonly applied to mental facts, and used 
 them, no doubt, in their currently accepted mean- 
 ing. I shall not make these terms the subject of 
 criticism. To enter upon the question of dichotomy or 
 trichotomy, or even to attempt definitions of "soul," 
 "spirit," "mind," and "heart," would take me far 
 from my path. It suffices to observe that the words 
 are not used in The New Testament with scientific 
 accuracy, but are rather employed in general or liter- 
 ary senses, and that, accordingly, they are but different 
 names for the same thing, or at least more or less 
 overlap. When we hear Jesus say: " Thou shait love 
 
234 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy 
 soul, and with all thy mind " (or, as another Evangel- 
 ist puts it, " With all thy heart, and with all thy soul, 
 and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind ") * 
 we cannot draw from the saying a true analysis of 
 man's spiritual nature, but only that man is to bring 
 all the powers of that nature to this service of love. 
 However, while there is no formal trace of a division 
 of the mind in His teaching, such a division is still 
 implied throughout. 
 
 Jesus never says anything about the intellect, or the 
 organ of knowledge ; but He constantly assumes that 
 men are capable of knowing and understanding, and 
 accordingly addresses them as rational beings. He 
 never mentions the sensibility; but He ever appeals 
 to men as possessed of feeling, and so as capable of 
 being moved. He is silent as to the faculty of choice 
 and volition; but the assumption that men can decide 
 and act lies at the root of all His teaching. He 
 always speaks to men as thinking, feeling, and acting 
 beings. 
 
 He assigns a central place to the will. This be- 
 comes clear the moment that we consider His educa- 
 tional ideal. His aim is practical, not speculative. 
 He strove to produce worthy characters and noble 
 lives, and not men of great intellectual powers and at- 
 tainments. Men are known by their fruits. Not 
 every one that says unto Him, Lord, Lord, shall enter 
 into the kingdom of heaven, but he that does the will 
 of the Father who is in heaven. To many who say to 
 Him that they have prophesied and done many won- 
 
 * Matt. xxii. 27; Luke x. 27. 
 
ITT 
 HIS THEORY OF TEACHING, 235 
 
 derful works in His name, He will declare that He 
 never knew them, and command them to depart from 
 Him. Whosoever hears His sayings and does them, 
 is like a wise man who builds on a rock, while every 
 one that hears them and does not do them, is like a 
 foolish man who builds on the sand. The man who 
 will do the will of God, or who wishes to do that will, 
 is the man who shall know the doctrine. He de- 
 manded of certain persons who rendered Him lip- 
 service, "And why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not 
 the things which I say? " One day as He was talking 
 to the people, one of their number told Him that His 
 mother and brethren stood without desiring to speak 
 with Him. Jesus answered: " Who is my mother? 
 and who are my brethren? And He stretched forth 
 His hand toward His disciples, and said, Behold my 
 mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the 
 will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my 
 brother, and sister, and mother." When he was 
 asked what was the great commandment in the Law, 
 He replied. " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
 all thy heart, and with alt thy soul, and with all thy 
 mind. This is the first and great commandment. 
 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments 
 hang all the law and the prophets." Again, to a law- 
 yer who asked Him what he should do to inherit eter- 
 nal life, He replied that if he would do these command- 
 ments he should live; and when the lawyer, seeking to 
 justify himself, demanded, " Who is my neighbor? " 
 Jesus answered with the parable of the Good Samari- 
 tan. And finally, there is the pathetic lament over 
 
236 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 Jerusalem in the same tenor: "How often would I 
 have gathered thy children together, even as a hen 
 gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would 
 not!" He has certainly read the Gospels to little 
 purpose who does not see that the object which Jesus 
 constantly holds before Him is wholly ethical. 
 
 There are two views of human nature, directly op- 
 posed to one another, that men have espoused. One 
 is the optimistic view, the other the pessimistic. The 
 first emphasizes the good that is seen in man, the sec- 
 ond the evil. Abundant facts can be gathered to sup- 
 port either view; and whichever one a man adopts 
 depends largely on his mental habit and tone, which 
 again depends upon heredity and previous experience. 
 When one broods on the whips and scorns of time, 
 the oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, 
 the pangs of disprized love, the law's delay, the inso- 
 lence of office, the spurns that merit takes of the un- 
 worthy, man's inhumanity to man, the weakness and 
 moral cowardice in the world, the thrift that follows 
 fawning, the self-seeking, the simulated humility, the 
 feigned superiority, he does not wonder that the 
 Juvenals, the Rabelais, and the Swifts should be 
 moved to scorch and blast humanity with the fires of 
 satire. But this is not the view of Jesus. He recog- 
 nizes evil men and evil-doing, and rebukes them, as in 
 the Great Denunciation. He tells men that they are 
 lost, that they are estranged from God, that they can 
 not rescue or help themselves, and that He has come 
 to seek and to save the lost. Still He is profoundly 
 optimistic. If men are bad, they can become better. 
 He sees great possibilities in human nature, and His 
 
HIS THEORY OF TEACHING. 237 
 
 estimate of these possibilities is measured by the sac- 
 rifice that He is glad to make in order that they may 
 be realized. He speaks to men of regeneration, of a 
 higher life, and of salvation from sin. Beholding 
 the ignorance, the weakness, and the wickedness in 
 which men are plunged, He does not condemn or de- 
 spise them, but His compassion is the more deeply 
 moved. His soul travails for the lost, as a woman in 
 labor. He never spurns the publican or spits upon 
 the harlot. He never satirizes human nature, or 
 holds its limitations up to mockery. No pessimist 
 would have said, or could have said: "Come unto me, 
 all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give 
 you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; 
 for I am meek and lowly at heart ; and ye shall find 
 rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my 
 burden is light." His heart was the fountain-head 
 of the modern enthusiasm of humanity. 
 
 What has been said of the will calls for a fur- 
 ther word or two. As we have seen in a former 
 chapter, Jesus recognized a state of heart that is be- 
 yond His reach. He gave as a reason for speaking in 
 parables, that in seeing men saw not, and in hearing 
 heard not, neither did they understand; for in them 
 was fulfilled the prophecy, " By hearing ye shall hear, 
 and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and 
 shall not perceive." He did not speak to men answer- 
 ing to this description, in order to render His teaching 
 more intelligible, but the contrary. In a word, His 
 explanation of His use of parables brings us to the 
 line where man's free will and God's sovereign power 
 meet. With this old problem I shall not deal, except 
 
238 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 to say that both The Testaments recognize its exis- 
 tence, and that they never solve it. God is sovereign 
 and man is free. But bother ourselves over the 
 speculative problem as we may, we should not forget 
 that Jesus always approaches the subject on its prac- 
 tical side, and deals with men as beings capable of 
 thought, feeling, and action. 
 
 But we must not forget that right living or good 
 conduct is an effect or end following from certain 
 causes. Neither must we fail to inquire what were 
 the causes or means that Jesus used to accomplish 
 that effect or end. 
 
 These causes were His teachings. Jesus ever re- 
 garded His teachings as a means, not an end. He 
 strove to regenerate men's hearts that He might reach 
 their lives. As has been said, His salvation consists 
 in internal regeneration and reformed life. He 
 sought to mold character and shape life from the 
 inside, not the outside. Hence He preached faith 
 and love, but the faith that He preached was of a 
 very simple and direct kind. A learned writer, who 
 has explained how the primary faith passed into the 
 secondary or speculative Christian faith, has said in a 
 passage a part of which has already been quoted: 
 
 The Greek words which designate belief, or faith, are used in 
 The Old Testament chiefly in the sense of trust, and primarily 
 trust in a person. They expressed confidence in his goodness, 
 his veracity, his uprightness. They are as much moral as 
 intellectual. They imply an estimate of character. Their use 
 in application to God was not different from their use in appli- 
 cation to men. Abraham trusted God. The Israelites also 
 trusted God when they saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea- 
 shore. In the first instance there was just so much of intel- 
 
HIS THEORY OF TEACHING. 239 
 
 lectual assent involved in belief, that to believe God involved 
 an assent to the proposition that God exists. But this element 
 was latent and implied rather than conscious and expressed. 
 It is not difficult to see how, when this proposition became to 
 be conscious and expressed, it should lead to other propositions. 
 The analysis of belief led to the construction of other proposi- 
 tions besides the bare original proposition that God is. Why 
 do I trust God? The answer was: Because He is wise, or 
 good, or *ust. The propositions followed: I believe that God is 
 wise, that He is good, that He is just. Belief in God came to 
 mean the assent to certain propositions about God.* 
 
 And so in the Gospels, faith is primarily trust in 
 God, and not intellectual belief in certain proposi- 
 tions or dogmas; or, as the author before quoted, 
 says: 
 
 In the first instance the intellectual element of belief was 
 subordinated to the ethical purpose of the religion. Belief 
 was not insisted upon in itself, and for itself, but as the ground 
 of moral reformation. The main content of the belief was that 
 men are punished for their sins and honored for their good 
 deeds ; the ground of this conviction was the underlying belief 
 that God is, and that He rewards and punishes. The feature 
 which differentiated Christianity from philosophy was, that this 
 belief as to the nature of God had been made certain by a reve- 
 lation. The purpose of the revelation was salvation, regener- 
 ation, and amendment of life. By degrees stress came to be 
 laid on this underlying element. 
 
 It is very true that Christian faith soon began 
 to pass from confidence in an unseen Person to confi- 
 dence in an intellectual ground upon which this 
 primal confidence rested; or to pass beyond the moral 
 stage into the metaphysical stage, or belief in certain 
 propositions or technical definitions concerning Him, 
 
 * Dr. Hatch: The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages on the Christian 
 Church, Lect. XI. 
 
240 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 His nature, relations, and activities. While Jesus 
 has been the cause of more theologizing than all other 
 teachers put together, He was the farthest possible 
 removed from being a theologizer Himself. It is the 
 absence of the theological element, and the subordi- 
 nation of the intellectual element to the moral ele- 
 y ment, that constitute in great part the simplicity, the 
 directness, the effectiveness, and the charm of Jesus 
 considered as a teacher. The channels in which His 
 teachings flow are never clogged up with logical defi- 
 nitions and divisions, with metaphysical subtleties 
 and refinements. He assumes without argument the 
 fundamental facts of religion, as God, human free- 
 dom, responsibility, and immortality; assumes them 
 so completely that He never even mentions them as 
 assumptions, and then makes His appeal direct to the 
 spiritual intuitions. The greatest mark of His 
 teaching is the power with which it takes hold of the 
 unconventional, universal, spiritual nature of man, 
 and this is really the ground of His authority, as has 
 been shown in another chapter. 
 
 He will go hopelessly wrong in dealing with the 
 teaching of Jesus who does not grasp these funda- 
 mental ideas. Jesus did not make any use whatever 
 of scientific or philosophical truth. He relied upon 
 moral truth, on the simple substance of that, and so 
 excluded its formal and intellectual elements. He had 
 nothing to say about learning and wisdom, as men 
 count learning and wisdom, and He pronounced no 
 beatitudes upon the learned and wise more t-han upon 
 the rich and the powerful. He says rather: " Blessed 
 are the poor in spirit;" "blessed are they that 
 
HIS THEORY OF TEACHING. 241 
 
 mourn;" "blessed are the meek;" * 'blessed are they 
 that do hunger and thirst after righteousness;" 
 * 'blessed are the merciful;" "blessed are the pure in 
 heart;" blessed are the peacemakers;" "blessed are 
 they who are persecuted for righteousness' sake." 
 
 As already intimated, the basis of Christian faith 
 was progressively changed. Intellectual conviction 
 took the place of trust in a person. Three hundred 
 years sufficed to effect the transformation that Dr. 
 Hatch thus describes : 
 
 It is impossible for any one, whether he be a student of his- 
 tory or no, to fail to notice a difference of both form and con- 
 tent between the Sermon on the Mount and the Nicene Creed. 
 The Sermon on the Mount is the promulgation of a new law of 
 conduct ; it assumes beliefs rather than formulates them ; the 
 theological conceptions which underlie it belong to the ethical 
 rather than to the speculative side of theology ; metaphysics 
 are wholly absent. The Nicene Creed is a statement partly of 
 historical facts and partly of dogmatic inferences ; the meta- 
 physical terms which it contains would probably have been un- 
 intelligible to the first disciples ; ethics have no place in it. The 
 one belongs to a world of Syrian peasants, the other to a world 
 of Greek philosophers.* 
 
 Faith, then, is the lever with which Jesus proposed 
 to move the world. There is indeed a sense in which 
 faith, as a fully completed state of mind, follows, 
 and so is conditioned upon repentance ; but this is 
 not the primary view, according to which faith or be- 
 lief leads to repentance and obedience. Moreover, if 
 we were to examine the repentance and obedience of 
 the Gospels, we should find that they are as unlike 
 the repentance and obedience of the schools as the 
 
 *Lect. I. 
 16 
 
242 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 faith of the Gospels is unlike the faith of the schools. 
 Every great religious reform has been an effort more 
 or less conscious and intelligent to cut loose from the 
 theological development, and to move back towards 
 the ancient simplicity of Christian teaching and life. 
 In few things has the Christian world made a great- 
 er mistake than in attaching an exaggerated import- 
 ance to theological doctrines, or to faith in the spec- 
 ulative sense. The spiritual engine that moves the 
 life is a very simple one. It is not composed of ab- 
 stract articles or creeds, of formal dogmas and defin- 
 itions. Moral conduct flows directly from the will, 
 which is conditioned upon the feelings, which again 
 depend upon the understanding. But this is not the 
 whole understanding. There are many valuable facts 
 and truths lying in the field of proper religious in- 
 struction that have little, if any, direct effect upon 
 the spiritual life. The fact is, the number of truths 
 that immediately influence the conduct of the major- 
 ity of men is extremely small. DeQuincy tells us 
 that in that great social organ which, collectively, we 
 call literature, there may be distinguished two sepa- 
 arate offices that sometimes blend and that are some- 
 times found in a severe insulation. "There is, first, 
 the literature of knowledge; and, secondly, the liter- 
 ature of power. The function of the first is to 
 teach ; the function of the second is to move : the 
 first is a rudder, the second an oar or a sail. The 
 first speaks to the mere discursive understanding ; t'le 
 second speaks ultimately, it may happen, to the 
 higher understanding or reason, but always through 
 affections of pleasure and sympathy. Remotely, it 
 
HIS THEORY OF TEACHING. 243 
 
 may travel towards an object seated in what Lord 
 Bacon calls dry light; but proximately it does and 
 must operate, else it ceases to be a literature of power, 
 on and through that humid light which clothes it- 
 self in the mists and glittering iris of human pas- 
 sions, desires, and genial emotions." Moral and re- 
 ligious teaching must take hold of the active princi- 
 ples of human nature, rather than of the scientific 
 understanding; and no intelligent reader can proceed 
 far with the Gospels without discovering that they 
 belong to the literature of power rather than to the 
 literature of knowledge. 
 
 Ethical religions are attended by one danger 
 from which non-ethical religions are free. It is that 
 the disciple will fall into ostentation, hypocrisy, and 
 self-consciousness. It is so easy for the reformer to 
 advertise himself as one who is reformed. How 
 carefully Jesus guards the first two points, is seen in 
 the passage in which He commands His disciples to 
 take heed that they do not their alms before men, 
 to be seen of them; that when they do their 
 alms they shall not sound a trumpet before them, as 
 the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, 
 that they may have glory of men. "But when thou 
 doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right 
 handdoeth; that thine alms may be in secret; and 
 thy Father which seeth in secret Himself shall reward 
 thee openly." Similarly when they pray, they shall 
 not be as the hypocrites, who love to pray standing 
 in the synagogues, and at the corners of the streets, 
 that they may be seen of men. " But thou, when 
 thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou 
 
244 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 hast shut the door, pray to thy Father which is in se- 
 cret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall re- 
 ward thee openly." Self-consciousness, which is even 
 a more subtle danger than ostentation, is warded off 
 in another well-known passage. It is the description 
 of the gathering of the nations upon His right hand 
 and upon His left, when He comes in His glory. 
 When He says to those on His right hand, "Come, ye 
 blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared 
 for you from the foundation of the world; for I was 
 an hungered, and ye gave me meat," etc., they make 
 answer, saying, "Lord, when saw we thee an hungered 
 and fed thee? or thirsty and gave thee drink? when 
 saw we thee a stranger and took thee in? or naked 
 and clothed thee? or when saw we thee sick or in 
 prison and came unto thee?" Here is no claim of 
 worth or merit, nor even consciousness of good 
 desert. The plain implication is that the good man is 
 so intent upon living a good life that he does not take 
 knowledge of the fact that he is living one. Nothing 
 could possibly be farther removed from the ideal of 
 Jesus than the man who parades his goodness and vir- 
 tue, unless it be the man who parades the correctness 
 of his religious views and the soundness of his the- 
 ological opinions. Far indeed from the spirit of the 
 Gospel is the vaunt of orthodoxy. 
 
 What has been said about self-consciousness is par- 
 ticularly applicable to the subject of rewards and pen- 
 alties. Jesus promises heaven and threatens hell, but 
 He never commands men to labor with the direct end 
 in view of winning the one or of gaining the other. 
 What I conceive to be the true function of the re- 
 
HIS THEORY OF TEACHING. 245 
 
 wards and punishments of the Gospel is well stated 
 by Mr. Ruskin in a passage which I quote. 
 
 The essential idea of real virtue is that of a vital human 
 strength, which instinctively, constantly, and without motive, 
 does what is right. You must train men to this by habit, as 
 you would the branch of a tree ; and give them instincts and 
 manners (or morals) of purity, justice, kindness, and courage. 
 Once rightly trained, they act as they should, irrespectively of 
 all motive, of fear or of reward. It is the blackest sign of 
 putrescence in a national religion , when men speak as if it were 
 the only safeguard of conduct; and assume that, but for the 
 fear of being burned, or for the hope of being rewarded, every- 
 body would pass their lives in lying, stealing, and murdering. 
 I think quite one of the notablest historical events of this cen- 
 tury (perhaps the very notablest) was that council of clergy- 
 men, horror-struck at the idea of any diminution in our dread 
 of hell, at which the last of English clergymen whom one 
 would have expected to see in such a function, rose as the 
 devil's advocate to tell us how impossible it was we could get 
 on without him. [Men] should be afraid of doing wrong, and 
 
 of that only Otherwise, if they only don't do 
 
 wrong for fear of being punished, they have done wrong in 
 their hearts already. [God] never would be pleased with us if 
 [our desire to please Him should be our first motive] . When a 
 father sends his son out into the world suppose an apprentice 
 fancy the boy's coming home at night, and saying, ' 'Father, I 
 could have robbed the till to-day, but I didn't, because I 
 thought you wouldn't like it." Do you think the father 
 would be particularly pleased? He would answer, would he 
 not, if he were wise and good, ' ' My boy, though you had no 
 father, you must not rob tills?" And nothing is ever done so 
 as really to please our Great Father, unless we would also have 
 done it, though we had no Father to know of it. And how vain 
 both [threatenings and rewards] with the Jews, and with all 
 of us 1 But the fact is , that the threat and promise are simply 
 statements of the Divine Law, and of its consequences. The 
 fact is truly told you , make what use you may of it ; and as 
 collateral warning, or encouragement, or comfort, the knowl- 
 
246 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 edge of future consequences may often be helpful to us; but 
 helpful chiefly to the better state when we can act without 
 reference to them. And there is no measuring the poisoned in- 
 fluence of that notion of future reward on the mind of Christian 
 Europe in the early ages. Half the monastic system rose out of 
 that, acting on the occult pride and ambition of good people 
 (as the other half of it came out of their follies and misfortunes) . , 
 There is always a considerable quantity of pride , to begin with , 
 in what is called ' 'giving ourself to God. " As if we had ever 
 belonged to anybody else. * 
 
 In the place that Jesus expects self-forgetfulness to 
 occupy, self-consciousness is often found. When 
 humility takes account of itself, it ceases to be hu- 
 mility. It has been said that whether honesty is the 
 best policy or not, depends upon the condition of the 
 police; also, that the man who is honest because it 
 is the best policy, is at least half a rogue. 
 
 * The Ethics of the Dust. The passage is changed from the dialogue 
 form to the didactic form. 
 
Cbe flDafcing of tbe IRew Testament. 
 
THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OBJECT AND POINT OF VIEW STATED. 
 
 BEFORE entering upon the general subject an- 
 nounced above, I must first state my object and de- 
 fine my point of view. 
 
 My object is to explain the main causes that led to 
 the writing of the books of The New Testament, the 
 general conditions under which they were written, 
 and, particularly, the processes by which they were 
 preserved, verified, and finally brought together into 
 the collection called The New Testament Canon. 
 This I shall attempt with an audience of plain peo- 
 ple all the time in mind, and not an audience of schol- 
 ars. The facts, of course, are the same in either case, 
 but the statement that would best suit the one might 
 not best suit the other. 
 
 My point of view is that of history pure and simple. 
 I shall treat the writings that make up The New Tes- 
 tament as literature -in the fullest sense of the word, 
 and shall handle them just as though no claim of 
 Divine inspiration had ever been made in their behalf. 
 
 This is not because I do not believe in their inspira- 
 
 (249) 
 
250 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 tion, but because, first, inspiration is rather a theolog- 
 ical than a historical question, and because, second, 
 there are manifest advantages in sometimes treating 
 these writings from a strictly human point of view. 
 In some ways, it is a fresher and more interesting line 
 of study. The habit of denying or belittling what is 
 called the "human element" in The New Testament 
 the habit of denying or ignoring the fact that these 
 writings are, after all, the works of their authors the 
 habit of separating them from all other writings, and, 
 in a word, of refusing them a place in real literature 
 tends to rob them of their human interest, and to 
 place them in a region transcending ordinary experi- 
 ence. 
 
 The method of some apologists cannot be too much 
 reprehended. They start out on the historical path ; 
 the Scriptures are to be handled, they say, like other 
 books; but when the facts become few or uncertain, 
 and the path obscure, they fall back upon the assump- 
 tions of inspiration and providential oversight, thus 
 bringing into the argument as a premise what should 
 be left as the conclusion. This is reasoning in a cir- 
 cle, and a small circle at that. The end of Apologet- 
 ics of what we call Christian Evidences is the value 
 of the Christian Writings ; and the apologist is untrue 
 to his work who brings in that end to help him out 
 in the argument. The Scriptures have so long been 
 accorded prescriptive rights, that it is hard for many 
 who receive them to realize that they must be sub- 
 jected to the same historical and critical tests as other 
 similar books. 
 
 To define my point of view more closely, we will 
 
OBJECT AND POINT OF VIEW STATED. 251 
 
 suppose that Socrates wrote nothing, but gave his 
 teachings to the world in oral words (which is a true 
 supposition) ; that his principal disciples went forth 
 after his death to teach men their master's sayings 
 and doings; that some of those who had a perfect 
 understanding of all things from the first, some years 
 later, wrote accounts of his life, which accounts by and 
 by became the accepted and revered originals of their 
 doctrine and practice; that one of their number 
 wrote a partial history of his own teaching and ex- 
 perience; that these disciples, in carrying on their 
 work, found it expedient and necessary to write let- 
 ters to the disciples whom they made, for their 
 further instruction and guidance; that these teachers 
 founded a widely-extended Socratic Society or fellow- 
 ship, extending to many cities and countries, the 
 whole bound together by a common doctrine, a com- 
 mon work, and a common sympathy; that they left 
 in this Society or fellowship a well-defined and well- 
 established Socratic tradition, one part of which was 
 their own writings; that, after their death, the ex- 
 panding society, guided by its best lights, collected 
 these writings, thus forming a body of Socratic Me- 
 morials, which received the sanction of the body as 
 genuine and authentic; suppose all these things, and 
 then add the further supposition that, many centuries 
 later, the origin of the Socratic discipline and socie- 
 ty, and its earliest literary monuments, are brought 
 under discussion, and we have an inquiry exactly 
 like the method that I intend to make. 
 
 Manifestly this is an attempt to get back among the 
 original facts of our religion. To succeed in this at- 
 
 TT) 
 
252 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 tempt even measurably is not easy, but difficult, owing 
 to a number of facts that are often overlooked. One 
 is our remoteness from the country and the time in 
 which these facts are found. A second is our feeble 
 power of reproducing scenes and events so different 
 from those that make up modern Western life. Still a 
 third is the enormous change that has passed over the 
 Christian religion and Church since the first century. 
 For example, we Protestants are accustomed to find 
 our religion in a book; our Christianity claims to be 
 the religion of The New Testament; while Christianity 
 began with persons and with oral teaching, and no 
 writings are found, much less a Testament, until the 
 Gospel had made considerable progress. We shall 
 wholly fail in our attempt, therefore, unless we lay 
 aside some of our most familiar religious and eccles- 
 iastical ideas, and restore, by the historical imagina- 
 tion, forms and figures and facts that live only in the 
 memorials of a distant and almost perished world. 
 
 A still further observation should be offered. Full 
 treatment of the subject is not contemplated. Only 
 those facts will be presented that are essential to a 
 good understanding of the matter. My aim is not, 
 properly speaking, to present even an outline of 
 Christian Evidences, so called ; it is rather to help the 
 reader to see to imagine, if you will the processes 
 that are summed up in the phrase, "Making of The 
 New Testament." Unfortunately, the part that the 
 imagination plays in history, not to speak of argumen- 
 tation, is not properly understood. How it is erro- 
 neously resorted to as a source of facts or information, 
 we may all understand ; but we do not always see its 
 
OBJECT AND POINT OF VIEW STATED. 253 
 
 great value as an instrument of arrangement and 
 interpretation. History does not become real to us 
 unless the facts presented are such as we can distinctly 
 perceive, and unless their organization into a story is 
 such as we can clearly imagine. Much the same may 
 be said of argument. The office of the imagination 
 in logic is even less understood than in history. 
 Why this is so, has been made plain upon earlier 
 pages. Here, as always, the mind imposes upon the 
 subject-matter its own ways of looking at things, and 
 so its own limitations. Accordingly, the Christian 
 Writings have nothing to lose, but everything to gain, 
 by being brought into the closest possible connection 
 with the facts of human experience. I shall make 
 no attempt at delicate strokes or careful painting; 
 my hope is rather that I may throw upon the canvas 
 a half dozen outline pictures marked by boldness, 
 clearness, and verisimilitude. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE MINISTRY OF JESUS. 
 
 FORTUNATELY, the most important facts concern- 
 ing the origin of those doctrines, institutions, influ- 
 ences, and tendencies that make up Christianity and 
 the Christian Church are wholly free from dispute. 
 It is not denied or doubted that the founder was a 
 Jew named Jesus, Christ, and Jesus Christ; that He 
 lived in Palestine in the first years of the Christian 
 era, which was named for Him and begins with the 
 supposed year of His birth; that, after a public minis- 
 try of a few years devoted to teaching and good deeds, 
 He came to His death in Jerusalem; and that He 
 created and left behind Him a small body of disciples 
 charged with instructions to carry on the work that 
 He had begun. It is agreed that He originated the 
 first Christian teaching, that He founded the first 
 Christian society, and that He breathed into the world 
 the Christian spirit. 
 
 But this ground has been traversed in the previous 
 chapters of this volume entitled, JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 If the reader will turn back to the first of those chap- 
 ters, and mentally bring it into this place, we shall 
 
 then be ready to go forward. The ministry of Jesus is 
 
 (254) 
 
THE MINISTRY OF JESUS. 255 
 
 the only standpoint from which we can profitably con- 
 sider the making of The New Testament. In particu- 
 lar, must the reader remember that Jesus wrote noth- 
 ing, that He left no books or memorials behind Him, 
 that He was purely an oral teacher, and that no re- 
 ports of His words and works were reduced to writ- 
 ing until many years after His death. 
 
 The remarks made in the first of the above para- 
 graphs do not mean, of course, that anything ap- 
 proaching absolute unanimity has been reached con- 
 cerning the origin, truth, and value of the Christian 
 religion. Only this is asserted that there is substan- 
 tial unanimity as to the existence of Jesus, and the 
 emanation of the Christian movement from Him. 
 Once it was the fashion for those who rejected Chris- 
 tianity to reject it altogether. The reality of Jesus 
 was denied, or that he was an impostor was asserted. 
 These old and crude theories have given away to new 
 ones that are more refined. It is not now the fashion 
 to deny the reality of the Founder, or to attribute to 
 Him deliberate imposture. The most noteworthy 
 theories of recent years are the myth, propounded by 
 Strauss, and the legend propounded byRenan; and 
 both of these concede that at the heart of The New 
 Testament there lies a large mass of undeniable fact 
 and truth. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE PREACHING OF THE APOSTLES. 
 
 FEW things in the life of Jesus are more significant 
 than the calm confidence with which He looked to 
 the future. To prepare for that future, He gave 
 good heed. From the days immediately follow- 
 ing His baptism, we hear of His disciples. The 
 abandonment of John the Baptist by John and An- 
 drew, and their cleaving to Jesus, was a part of the 
 "decrease" of the old preacher, and of the "in- 
 crease" of the new one, which John himself foretold. 
 Fluctuating as were his fortunes, there was always a 
 number of true disciples whenever "went away;" and 
 this group served as a nucleus for a larger and less 
 stable body, goers and comers, whose relation to the 
 Teacher was determined by a variety of influences. 
 Within this company of true disciples was gradually 
 formed the band called "The Twelve" and "The 
 Apostles," who were marked out for their particular 
 work by their relative fitness, as well as by their Mas- 
 ter's choice. To them He gave constant attention. 
 He taught his disciples: "The Comforter . . shall 
 teach you all things, and bring all things to your re- 
 membrance ;" "Go ye, therefore, and make disciples 
 
 of all the nations . . . teaching them to observe all 
 
 (256) 
 
THE PREACHING OF THE APOSTLES. 257 
 
 things whatsoever I have commanded you;" "Go ye 
 into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every 
 creature." Before they went out, however, under 
 this commission, the Apostles had already done some 
 preaching. The Twelve had made a trial mission 
 under the commission, "As ye go, preach;"* and the 
 Seventy had, at a later day, executed a similar com- 
 mand.! These earlier commissions had been carried 
 out under the Master's eye ; on their return those who 
 were sent "told Him all that they had done." The 
 time finally came for the Apostles to act under their 
 final and larger commission. 
 
 In one particular The Acts of the Apostles reads 
 like the Gospels : it is a record of teaching, preaching, 
 and exhortation. The Apostles " entered into the 
 temple about daybreak, and taught;" "And every 
 day, in the Temple and at home, they ceased not to 
 teach and to preach;" "Philip went down to the city 
 of Samaria, and preached Christ unto them." Peter 
 and John, after testifying and speaking the word of 
 the Lord in Samaria, "preached the Gospel to many 
 villages of the Samaritans." Philip preached to the 
 eunuch, as they rode in the eunuch's chariot. After- 
 wards the same evangelist preached in all the cities 
 from Azotus to Caesarea. Saul proclaimed Jesus in 
 the synagogue of Damascus. At Csesarea, in the 
 house of Cornelius, Peter referred to the publication 
 of the good tidings that was made by Jesus through- 
 out all Judaea, beginning from Galilee; and declared 
 that the same Jesus had charged His disciples to tes- 
 
 * Mark ix. 30; John xiv. 20; Matt, xxviii. 20; Markxvi. 15. 
 f Matt. x. 7; Luke x. 1. 
 17 
 
258 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 tify unto the people. Certain disciples who went to 
 Antioch, after the martyrdom of Stephen, spoke unto 
 the Greeks of Antio.ch, and preached. And later 
 Barnabas and Saul met with the church of the same 
 city for a whole year, and taught much people. They 
 also preached in Antioch, Lystra, Derbe, and Perga, 
 cities of Asia Minor. A second time they tarried in 
 the Syrian Antioch, teaching and preaching. Paul 
 dwelt a year and a half in Corinth, and taught. 
 Apollos spake and taught in Ephesus. In the same 
 city, Paul "went into the synagogue, and spake boldly 
 for the space of three months, disputing and persuad- 
 ing;" he "declared unto the people all things that 
 were profitable for them, and taught publicly, and from 
 house to house." The Acts closes in a way to recall 
 most impressively the giving of the commission. 
 "And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired 
 house, and received all that came in unto him, preaching 
 the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which 
 concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, 
 no man forbidding him."* The Epistles reflect a 
 similar testimony. The Apostles preached, taught, 
 spoke, bore witness, testified, disputed, and exhorted 
 The great impulse that Jesus originated thus moves 
 on with undiminished power. 
 
 Attention has been drawn to the important fact 
 that Jesus was an oral teacher, and not a writer of 
 books. He spoke, He did not write. The Apostles 
 come before us in the same way. They did indeed 
 write books, as we shall soon see, but no trace of the 
 
 * The Acts, v. 2; v. 42; viii. 3; viii. 33; viii. 40; ix. 20; x. 37, 42; xi. 20; 
 xi. 26; xiii. 13, 14; xiv. 7, 11, 25; xv. 35; xviii. 11; xviii. 25; xix. 8; xx. 20; 
 xxviii. 30, 31. 
 
THE PREACHING OF THE APOSTLES. 259 
 
 fact is found in The Acts. It is never said that at 
 Antioch, or Perga, or Berea, Paul wrote an epistle. 
 This silence may be due in part to the brevity of the 
 record, but it also well comports with the character 
 of the Apostles' work. Their great office was preach- 
 ing. Bossuet caught this characteristic feature of 
 the original Gospel when he said in his famous "Ex- 
 position," "Christ Jesus laid the foundation of the 
 Church upon the authority of preaching." De Pres- 
 sense caught the same when he said, "All the expres- 
 sions employed in The New Testament to designate 
 the proclamation of the new truth, set aside the 
 notion of written documents;" "The Gospel was at 
 first nothing but the proclamation of the good news 
 of pardon flying from mouth to mouth." The thing 
 preached is the Word: Christ Himself is the Word. 
 It pleases God by the foolishness of preaching to save 
 them that believe. The Gospel is good tidings, pub- 
 lished, proclaimed; a word spoken and heard. The 
 agents in doing the work are heralds, proclaimers, 
 teachers, preachers. It is as though the glad tidings 
 were too glad to wait upon a slower messenger than 
 the loving voice and a personal herald. Emphasis is 
 laid upon this fact because it is such an important one 
 in the history of the primitive Church. 
 
 It is impossible for a careful student whose eyes are 
 not blinded by preconceived opinions to pass from the 
 Gospels to The Acts without observing striking dif- 
 ferences. I do not now refer to those differences that 
 mark the fuller development of the Christian faith 
 and institutions, but to changes of a more significant 
 character. 
 
260 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 The record of Jesus is much fuller than the record 
 of the Apostles. He was one, they many; He 
 preached in Judaea only, they all over the Roman 
 world; He crowded His work into three or four years, 
 they filled a whole generation with theirs : and yet 
 there are four Gospels and one Acts of the Apostles. 
 Concerning Him we have, considering the times, an 
 abundance of interesting detail; concerning them, 
 with the exception of two or three of the most im- 
 portant, we know almost nothing. Of no Apostle 
 save Paul is it possible to write an extended life, and 
 it is possible in his case largely because he has himself 
 left such full literary memorials. This disparity in 
 our knowledge is perfectly natural. The theologian 
 will justify it with an abundance of arguments; but 
 he may not include among them the great superiority 
 of Jesus to any and all of His disciples. Such is, 
 nevertheless, the plain, literal fact. The old theory 
 of inspiration tends to equalize in men's minds the 
 various parts of the Bible; while if they would cut 
 loose from that theory, and study Scripture more from 
 the human point of view, they could not fail to rec- 
 ognize the fact that inspiration is a thing of degrees, 
 could not fail to see that there are great differences 
 as respects the forms of discourse, the elevation of 
 language, and ' the depth and fullness of thought. 
 Such are the differences that we notice in passing 
 from the Gospels to The Acts: a little space will be 
 given to their exposition. 
 
 First, the disciples are much more limited and con- 
 fined in forms of discourse than their Master. In the 
 transition we see at once that the parable has wholly 
 
THE PREACHING OF THE APOSTLES. 261 
 
 disappeared. We never read of an Apostle, "A para- 
 ble spake he unto them." When we consider the 
 admirable adaptation of the parable, in the hand of 
 Jesus, to the ends of religious instruction; when we 
 remember how much of His noblest and most charac- 
 teristic teaching is conveyed in that form, we cannot 
 fail to see how great a loss its disappearance implies. 
 Moreover, the proverb, or sententious maxim the 
 gnomic wisdom in which the longer discourses of 
 Jesus so abound, can hardly be detected in The Acts of 
 the Apostles. Of disputation, there is an abundance ; 
 but there is slight trace of that method of question- 
 ing which Jesus handled with such mastery. Familiar 
 preaching survives; there is still teaching in homes 
 as well as in synagogues and in the Temple; there is 
 preaching from house to house as well as in public 
 places; but The Acts furnish few glimpses of that 
 admirable conversational eloquence which gives the 
 Gospels so much of their charm and power. No 
 doubt the scantiness of the record here has something 
 to answer for, but it does not account for the full dif- 
 ference. It is undeniable that the preaching of The 
 Acts has more of the forensic tone, more of the tone 
 of the public assembly, and less of prophetic author- 
 ity. 
 
 Secondly, this difference reaches beyond power and 
 methods to substance. The teachings of Jesus have 
 more freedom, more spontaneity, more depth and full- 
 ness. His teachings are the teachings of a creator 
 and master. They are new and original utterances. 
 Jesus indeed used old methods and old materials, 
 since preaching righteousness is ever much the same, 
 
262 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 but He so used them as to stamp Him a great original. 
 Those who witnessed His work wondered how He 
 could do the things that He did, having never learned. 
 They thought that study, learning, scholarship, are 
 the great matters, as indeed they sometimes are; they 
 did not grasp the idea of a teacher standing so close 
 to truth, to life, and to God, that he spoke of an 
 original knowledge. But it was this very quality of 
 His teaching that constitutes the "authority" that so 
 astonished the multitude. With authority the Jews 
 were familiar enough, but not with such authority as 
 this. Their Scribes taught with the authority of 
 theological learning and ecclesiastical position; Je- 
 sus taught with the authority that comes from look- 
 ing into the open vision of truth and seeing the heart 
 of things. He read character and life in the same 
 way. He knew all men; He needed not that any 
 should testify of man, for He knew what was in man. 
 It is indeed written that He read and quoted the 
 Scriptures, and commented upon them; but it should 
 be said that He read and quoted as a matter of ac- 
 commodation to His hearers, and that He rarely read 
 or quoted that He did not, by his manner, arrange- 
 ment, or comment, throw new and unexpected mean- 
 ing into old texts. He who needed not that any 
 should testify of man, needed not that any should tes- 
 tify of truth. Such is the note of His teaching; it is 
 not the note of study or preparation, but of intuition. 
 But the common note of the Apostolic teaching is 
 very different. It is the note of the learner, and not 
 of the master. The Apostolic teaching lacks the 
 boldness and confidence that are so characteristic of 
 
THE PREACHDsG OF THE APOSTLES. 263 
 
 Jesus. There is a certain imitation that, as well as 
 their own constant profession, proclaims them disci- 
 ples. Compare, for example, the Pentecostal sermon 
 with the Sermon on the Mount. The second need 
 not be again characterized; but the first is an argu- 
 ment, a logical discourse, constituted by binding to- 
 gether with appropriate comment old texts, and sup- 
 plementing them with declarations of fact based on 
 personal testimony. Its conclusion is, "Know ye 
 therefore" in consequence of this reasoning and tes- 
 timony "that God hath made this same Jesus both 
 Lord and Christ." 
 
 Reviewing these points of difference, I see no rea- 
 son to dissent from these words of Renan: "Far 
 from having been created by His disciples, Jesus ap- 
 pears in all things superior to His disciples." Hence 
 the great superiority of the Gospels among the writ- 
 ings of The New Testament. Dr. Neander calls the 
 abrupt transition from the Apostles to the Apostolic 
 Fathers "a phenomenon singular in its kind." "In 
 other cases," he says, "transitions are wont to be 
 gradual; but in this instance we observe a sudden 
 change. There are here no gentle gradations, but all 
 at once an abrupt transition from one style of lan- 
 guage to another; a phenomenon which should lead 
 us to acknowledge the fact of a special agency of the 
 Divine Spirit in the souls of the Apostles."* This is 
 all very true. In fact, the great historian might have 
 marked a similar transition in tone and substance. 
 But there is an earlier transition, though one easier 
 and less precipitate ; the transition from Jesus to the 
 
 * History of the Christian Religion and Church, Vol. I. , pp. 656, 657. 
 
264 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 Apostles. If the latter change points to a special 
 agency of the Divine Spirit in the souls of the Apos- 
 tles, the earlier one must point to a closer relation of 
 Jesus to the unseen and the spiritual world. And 
 this is what Jesus and the Apostles all tell us. He is 
 Master, they disciples. 
 
 As preparatory to the next step forward, it will be 
 well to restate these two facts : 
 
 1. The Apostles were teachers and preachers, like 
 their Master. 
 
 2. They depended in the first place, as He did al- 
 together, upon oral discourses. 
 
 The nature of the primitive preaching the sources 
 whence it was drawn, and from which it derived its 
 authority, its method, its relation to The New Testa- 
 ment writings are topics that will receive attention in 
 the next two chapters. For the present it will suffice 
 to say that, whereas we go to The New Testament to 
 find the sermons of the Apostles and of Jesus, we go 
 to the sermons themselves to find the origins of The 
 New Testament. 
 
-HE **" 
 
 "CTKIVERSITY 
 
 CHAFER IV. 
 
 THE EPISTLES. 
 
 IN the preceding chapters it has been shown that 
 oral preaching and teaching were the source of histor- 
 ical Christianity, that our religion originated in the 
 spoken words of Jesus. There is not, either in the 
 Gospels or in The Acts, a trace or an intimation 
 that any other instrument or agency would be employed 
 in spreading the faith, the use of The Old Testament 
 in preaching to the Jews always excepted. Jesus wrote 
 no books, He said nothing to His disciples about writ- 
 ing books. He told them to go and preach. Excluding 
 the short epistle quoted in Chapter XV., and the ref- 
 erence to the "former treatise" made in the introduc- 
 tion, I recall nothing in The Acts that shows that any 
 Apostle or evangelist ever wrote a single word. But 
 while the Gospel began with preaching, it did not, and 
 could not, long continue in that exclusive form . Books 
 were a necessary outgrowth of the second half of the 
 Apostolic Age. Except the short one just referred 
 to, there is no epistle now extant that antedates the 
 year 50. At least, Dean Howson holds that our oldest 
 epistle (so-called) is the First Thessalonians, and that 
 it was written at Corinth, in Paul's second missionary 
 
 (265) 
 
266 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 journey, in the year 52.* There had now been twenty 
 years of continuous preaching. Hitherto writings 
 were uncalled for, and would have been out of place; 
 now they are urgently needed, and are the most natu- 
 ral things in the world. Let us glance at what had 
 been accomplished up to this time. 
 
 The Gospel had passed beyond Jerusalem to Judaea, 
 beyond Judaea to Samaria, beyond Samaria to Syria, 
 beyond Syria to Asia Minor, and beyond Asia Minor 
 to Macedonia, Greece, and Italy. Jerusalem, Samaria, 
 Caesarea, Antioch, Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens, 
 Corinth, and scores of other places, great and small, 
 had received the new religion. The wide field stretch- 
 ing from Antioch to Corinth may be called Paul's field. 
 Within this field, disciples multiplied and labor in- 
 creased. The conquests made must be held, and new 
 conquests must be won. Both of these objects, to say 
 nothing of the discipline of believers, made the organ- 
 ization of local societies necessary, and these, again, 
 called for ministers. The nature of the Apostolic 
 office, as well as the number of congregations, pre- 
 vented the Apostle himself from doing this work. 
 Local ministers must be provided. Accordingly, from 
 the time that Paul made his first missionary journey 
 into Southern Asia Minor, we read of such ministers. 
 One class were called elders, bishops, and pastors, 
 indifferently; another class were called deacons. 
 Moreover, there grew up around Paul a group of able 
 and active young ministers called evangelists, whom 
 we may think of as lieutenants or sub-apostles, some 
 of them in immediate attendance upon himself, and 
 
 * Life and Travels of St. Paul, Chap. xi. 
 
THE EPISTLES. 267 
 
 some on detached duty. These helpers, again, ap- 
 pointed pastors and deacons. All this time, remem- 
 ber, oral teaching was the sole reliance, not only for 
 evangelization, but also for Christian discipline. But 
 all these ministers together could not accomplish the 
 work that needed to be done. The calls for help that 
 came up from every quarter were more than Paul and 
 his helpers could respond to. In one way, the em- 
 ployment of bishops and evangelists even added to his 
 work and responsibility, since these ministers needed 
 to be instructed in their peculiar duties. Witness the 
 letters to Timothy and Titus. 
 
 As we have seen, the primitive Gospel was orally 
 delivered and orally transmitted; it was a tradition in 
 the original sense of that word. This is true of the 
 lessons taught by Jesus; He delivered them orally, 
 and they were orally repeated. But the preaching of 
 the Apostles covered more ground than that of Jesus. 
 Their preaching consisted in telling what Jesus had 
 done and suffered and who He was, as well as in repeat- 
 ing the lessons that He had taught them. To a great 
 degree their sermons were narratives, their preaching 
 story-telling. They told the things that they had seen, 
 as well as the things that they had heard.* They 
 spoke of Jesus, who went about doing good, and offer- 
 ed themselves as witnesses of all things which He did 
 both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem, f 
 One of them described their work more fully: 4 'That 
 which was from the beginning, which we have heard, 
 which we have seen with our eyes, which we have look- 
 ed upon, and our hands handled, of the word of life; 
 
 * Acts iv. 20. f Ibid, x. 38,39. 
 
268 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 . . . that which we have seen and heard, declare we 
 unto you."* Those who were not able to tell the story 
 from an original or first-hand knowledge, told it as 
 they received it from others. Thus, to use a form of 
 expression common to Catholic and Anglican writers, 
 the deposit of the faith was confided to the Church. 
 The treasure that is now in writings was then in living 
 preachers. The older ministers intrusted it to the 
 younger, with the command to hand it on to still oth- 
 ers in the same manner. It is noteworthy that while 
 not one of the Epistles contains a particle of evidence 
 showing that the Gospel or the Evangelical Tradition 
 then existed in a written form, they all abound in 
 references to an oral or preached Gospel. It was 
 natural that Epistles should be written before Gos- 
 pels. The principal Gospel facts and teachings could 
 very well be propagated during one generation by a 
 ministry whose leading members had companied with 
 Jesus; but in the young churches, although their 
 members had a firm grasp of the cardinal Gospel 
 truths, questions of vital importance would constantly 
 arise, questions of spiritual life, of ecclesiastical dis- 
 cipline, of gifts and ordinances, that only the author- 
 ity of an Apostles could settle. So much doctrine as 
 sufficed to convert men and qualify them for church 
 membership, left a thousand things unsettled. Young 
 Timothy was not the only disciple who had to be 
 taught how to conduct himself. The relations of 
 Christianity to Judaism and Paganism had to be de- 
 termined, and the law of love applied to the varied 
 phases of human life. No doubt the Apostles did 
 
 * I. John i. 1-3. 
 
THE EPISTLES. 269 
 
 much of this work in their personal ministrations; no 
 doubt pastors and evangelists did much more; but the 
 proper evangelical work of the Apostles prevented 
 their becoming local pastors, and they were compelled 
 to make up for their absence by writing letters. In 
 these considerations, in great part, the Epistles find 
 their explanation. From first to last, it is taken for 
 granted that the churches are in firm possession of the 
 Evangelical Tradition, or oral Gospel, so that the 
 Epistles make no pretensions to being the funda- 
 mental books of our religion. Nor must it be forgot- 
 ten that writing letters was a small part of the Apos- 
 tles' labors, much smaller than preaching the Gospel. 
 Thus do we reach an answer to our question as to 
 the form that Paul's writings assumed. He might 
 have written a Gospel; he might have written a 
 "Scheme of Salvation," a formal treatise upon Chris- 
 tianity. He could have set forth in order a full ex- 
 position of the faith, practice, and organization of 
 the Church. How much disputation he might have 
 prevented if he had written the last ! But he did noth- 
 ing of the kind. It did not lie in his way to do any 
 one of these things. Such was not the call of the 
 hour. He became a letter-writer, and thus used the 
 most direct, the most personal, and one of the least 
 formal kinds of composition to promote his purpose. 
 Except that to the Hebrews, his letters conform to 
 the antique model, according to which the name of 
 the writer comes first. The address, "Paul an Apos- 
 tle of Christ Jesus, etc., unto Timothy," will serve as 
 an example. It may be added that without these 
 addresses other Epistles would have shared the 
 
270 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 fate of the Hebrews: their authorship would be in 
 question. 
 
 One relation of the Apostolic Epistles to Apostolic 
 preaching is reflected in the difficulty that scholars 
 find in fixing the time and the order of the Epistles. 
 The Acts mentions no letters; the Epistles themselves 
 are not dated; and we are left to make out their 
 dates, and the order in which they appeared, by log- 
 ical inference from facts, often slight in themselves, 
 scattered through the primitive writings. There is 
 only one document the date of which is fixed beyond 
 all dispute what Dean Howson calls " The first doc- 
 ument presented to us from the acts of the primitive 
 Church," the letter from the Apostles and elders 
 written at Jerusalem unto the brethren which were of 
 the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia. For the 
 rest, the reader will find a good example of the rea- 
 soning by which the dates are fixed, in the argument 
 of the same writer to show that the First Thessaloni- 
 ans was written at Corinth, and is the first of Paul's 
 epistles. 
 
 The Epistles then, although the oldest New Testa- 
 ment books, are not the originals of our religion. 
 The Gospels, the composition of which is certainly 
 later than the oldest Epistles, if not later than all of 
 them, reveal to us the first and formative period. 
 Moreover, the Epistles are in no sense expositions of, 
 or treatises on, Christianity. They are partial at best, 
 dealing with phases of the subject, not with the whole 
 subject; they are occupied with parts of the faith and 
 practice, and do not pretend to thorough treatment. I 
 speak of them now individually and collectively. 
 
THE EPISTLES. 271 
 
 There are indeed differences in the Epistles; some 
 are more like expositions and treatises than others. 
 They grew out of particular circumstances and condi- 
 tions, and deal with immediately practical, and even 
 personal, questions. 
 
 One other topic should receive brief mention. Be- 
 cause the Epistles are not the originals of our religion ; 
 because they do not formally deal with the first age of 
 Christianity, but with the second age, it must not be 
 supposed that they do not bear witness to the first 
 age, or that their witness is of small value. On both 
 points the exact opposite is the truth. These writ- 
 ings assume the existence of the Christian tradition; 
 nay, more, they tell us what this tradition was. The 
 genuineness and authenticity of the Gospels have been 
 often challenged on the theory, apparently, that if 
 their authority can be broken down the historical 
 basis of Christianity is sapped. There could not be a 
 greater mistake. The Gospel is in the world, and its 
 origin must be accounted for. More than this, it was 
 in the world at the middle of the first century. This 
 the Epistles, the first of which began to appear about 
 that time, conclusively establish. That there is a 
 group of Epistles, including some of the greater ones, 
 whose genuineness has not been seriously disputed, but 
 is rather universally admitted, is a capital fact in deal- 
 ing with the origin of Christianity. It is a capital 
 fact because these writings assume the contemporary 
 existence of all the essential Christian facts; the sto- 
 ry of Jesus, His words and works, His doctrines and 
 commands, His institutions and ordinances, His prom- 
 ises and warnings. Thus, were the Gospels as docu- 
 
272 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 ments put out of the way, the Church, the Gospel, and 
 Jesus would still remain. Instead of the problem be- 
 ing solved, the student would find that it had become 
 more difficult. The facts of the year 60, or even 50, 
 call for such a story as the one that the Gospels tell 
 us quite as imperatively as the facts of 1895. We 
 might possibly imagine that the human mind had in- 
 vented the Church in the course of nineteen centu- 
 ries; but we cannot think it possible that it could 
 have invented in the course of half a century. The 
 Epistles call for the Gospels much as the second act 
 of a Shaksperian drama calls for the first act, or as 
 the Constitution of the United States calls for the 
 Declaration of Independence. 
 
 How vast a change in the resources and methods of 
 the Church has been wrought since the primitive age ! 
 So accustomed are we Protestants to finding our re- 
 ligion in The New Testament, and nowhere else, that 
 we have difficulty even in imagining a time when the 
 the same religion was preached, and believed, and 
 practiced, and there was no Testament. For us the 
 book is everything, the oral preaching nothing. For 
 the first Christians the oral preaching was everything, 
 while the book did not exist. In one respect Catho- 
 lics have an unquestionable advantage over us. Their 
 habit of drawing immediately upon a so-called living 
 tradition handed down in the successions of the bish- 
 ops whatever else may be said of it makes them the 
 better able to understand some features of the primi- 
 tive Church. In fact, there is a measure of truth in 
 their view, that The New Testament is a sort of history 
 which the Church made of itself. 
 
CHAPTEK V. 
 
 THE GOSPELS. 
 
 THE writer of the Third Gospel says that, since 
 many had taken in hand to draw up narratives con- 
 cerning those matters which had been fulfilled among 
 the disciples, it seemed good to him also to write unto 
 the excellent Theophilus, that he might know the cer- 
 tainty of the things in which he had been instructed.* 
 The writer of the Fourth Gospel says he wrote that 
 men might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of 
 God; and that believing they might have life in His 
 name.t In neither the First nor the Second Gospel does 
 the personality of the author appear even for a single 
 moment, and in neither one is there any avowal of an 
 aim or purpose on the part of the writer. However, 
 there can be no doubt on this latter point in either 
 case. The four Gospels all agree in this they look 
 to certainty and belief; their purpose is evangelical, 
 and they are often appropriately called "The Four 
 Evangelists." Thus they had the same purpose that 
 Jesus Himself had, His words and works; His contin- 
 ued appeal to men was that they should believe. 
 Written after the Epistles (at least after most of 
 
 * Luke i. 1-3. f John xx. 31. 
 
 18 ( 273 ) 
 
274 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 them), the Gospels furnish accounts of events in the 
 same line of history without which the Epistles would, 
 in our day, be largely unintelligible. Hence all the 
 Gospels may be described in the same words that 
 Mark uses to introduce his narrative, " The beginning 
 of the Gospel of Jesus Christ." 
 
 All Christians recognize a dependence of the written 
 Gospel upon the spoken Gospel, but this recognition 
 does not seem to embrace more than an identity of 
 subject-matter. How the stream of oral testimon} r 
 flowed into and filled the Gospel, how preaching be- 
 came Scripture, is a question that has occupied so 
 little attention that it does not seem to be generally 
 understood that such is the case. The former theory, 
 which perhaps is the one now generally entertained, 
 is that the four Gospels were struck off at different 
 times and places by single impulses of Divine power; 
 that they were written much as the Tables of the Law 
 are said to have been produced ; and that they are, to 
 all intents and purposes, Divine compositions. With- 
 out pausing to show how far this theory is false or 
 true, I shall go on to connect the written and the oral 
 Gospels. No other writer known to me has so well 
 set forth this connection as DePressens^, and I shall 
 attempt little more than to condense his general 
 sketch.* 
 
 On the days following the feast of Pentecost, the 
 young Church seems to have pitched her tent on the 
 mount of glorious vision, ready to strike it again at 
 the first signal. Nothing is less likely to occur to her 
 in this frame, than the thought of writing books. 
 
 * Jesus Christ: Life, Times, and Work. 
 
THE GOSPELS. 275 
 
 The Gospel is a fervent, appealing call; it is the good 
 news of pardon flying from mouth to mouth; it is the 
 oral word, and means the work, death, and resurrec- 
 tion of Jesus. The Church has for a long time no 
 other holy books than those of the Jews. Charged 
 with the mission of proclaiming the Kingdom of God 
 to the whole world, the Apostles were not concerned 
 to write books; they were charged with a far grander 
 mission. In this period the Church maybe called the 
 Church of the Oral Testimony. However, this testi- 
 mony was not uncertain and fluctuating. If the whole 
 Church were to be witnesses unto the end of the 
 earth, the Apostles were to occupy the foremost place 
 among those witnesses. This explains the great care 
 that Jesus took to instruct them and attach them to 
 His person. It explains, also, the care taken to fill 
 the place of Judas with a witness of the resurrection, 
 chosen of the men who had companied with the dis- 
 ciples all the time that Jesus went in and out among 
 them, from the baptism of John unto the day of His 
 ascension.* Thus, the testimony that was to be the 
 rule and the check and the canon, in the primitive 
 Church, was the testimony of the Apostles. The dis- 
 tinctive mark of an Apostle was to be an immediate 
 and acknowledged witness of Jesus. Hence the Apos- 
 tolic preaching became the nucleus of the Evangelical 
 Tradition the core of the oral Gospel. 
 
 This tradition began to take a definite form from 
 the very first. Peter's sermons in The Acts set forth 
 the great facts of the life of Jesus. The sermon 
 delivered in the house of Cornelius, especially, is 
 
 * Actsi. 21. 
 
276 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 an epitomized Gospel, which reminds us of Mark's 
 history. The apologetical discourses delivered to un- 
 believers kept to the most general facts; while in the 
 inner circle of the Church, the Apostolic teaching and 
 testimony expanded into far greater richness of detail. 
 Ordinary acts of religious life had a special signifi- 
 cance. The frequent breaking of bread would call up 
 before the memory the scene of the last supper 
 words and acts with all that the scene imported. 
 The eleventh chapter of the First Corinthians, written 
 before a single Gospel had appeared, shows that the 
 account of the institution of the supper was fixed in 
 the remembrance of the Church. Paul, in writing 
 that chapter, and Luke, in writing the account in his 
 Gospel, drew from the same source, viz., the certain 
 and permanent tradition, or account, of that event 
 which was in the full possession of the disciples. The 
 baptismal formula was a center around which material 
 facts were naturally grouped. The oral Gospel in- 
 creased in fullness. Many a saying or act lying dor- 
 mant in the minds of the Apostles was called into life 
 by the events of history. The experience of every 
 day the grave questions which arose; the striking 
 applications of one and another portion of the teach- 
 ing of Jesus; the accomplishment of his predictions 
 all contributed to revive in the minds of His disciples, 
 and to fill with meaning, many of the sublime utter- 
 ances which had at first passed their comprehension 
 and been forgotten. How this would be, is illustrated 
 to every man of thought by his own experience. We 
 have an excellent example in the case of Peter at 
 Caesarea. When he saw the signs of Pentecost re- 
 
THE GOSPELS. 277 
 
 newed upon the members of a Pagan household, he 
 remembered "the word of the Lord, how that He 
 said, John indeed baptized with water, but ye shall be 
 baptized with the Holy Ghost." * Than this nothing 
 could be more natural or more beautiful. Nor were 
 such experiences infrequent; they may be said to 
 have occurred almost every day. And thus, in the 
 most natural manner, tradition grew and was com- 
 pleted. 
 
 Tradition tended to assume a form more and more 
 exact and definite. Long poems and songs have been 
 transmitted from generation to generation in oral 
 forms. The Jews are pre-eminently the nation of tradi- 
 tions. The traditions of the Elders were thus preserved 
 for generations before they were embodied in the Tal- 
 mud. The Rabbis kept a purely grammatical tradition 
 for nearly seven hundred years. Assuredly, the Gospel 
 history could be, and would be, carried in the memo- 
 ries of men to whom it was the one great concern. 
 This primitive tradition, which preserved the historic 
 Christ of the Church by impressing His features on 
 loving souls, finds a touching and faithful symbol in 
 Mary, the mother of Jesus, who, according to Luke, 
 kept in her heart the gracious things of which she had 
 been the witness. To preserve the faithful memory 
 of the past, was the general solicitude of the primi- 
 tive Church. This is illustrated in a passage found in 
 a book of the second century, which puts into the 
 mouth of the Apostle Peter the words: "I am accus- 
 tomed to recall to mind the words of the Lord, which 
 I had heard, so as to engrave them on my memory." 
 
 * Acts xi. 16. 
 
278 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 Such was the mental habit of the first disciples. Ire- 
 naeus, in the next century, says he did the same thing 
 with the words of his teacher Polycarp. 
 
 By and by written narratives began to come to the 
 aid of the Christians. This is shown by the introduc- 
 tion to the Third Gospel. The narratives there 
 spoken of are not the Canonical Gospels; they are 
 not, properly speaking, Gospels at all; they are rather 
 fragmentary relations; but they preserved, in its life 
 and freshness, the testimony of the Apostolic wit- 
 nesses. These narratives gave a more positive char- 
 acter to the primitive tradition; they formed that 
 common stream from which Paul drew, which was in 
 no sense a floating oral tradition. The allusions in 
 the Epistles to the words of Jesus, which are almost 
 verbal quotations, show that the teaching of the Mas- 
 ter was preserved in a very exact form. Such a text as 
 this, " The laborer is worthy of his hire," * presents a 
 striking coincidence with a well-known Gospel pas- 
 sage, t Such passages show that before our present 
 Gospels were written, the Apostolic testimony, espec- 
 ially as to words and teaching, was assuming a fixed 
 form. To this end, the narratives mentioned by Luke 
 no doubt contributed. Familiar passages of The 
 Acts show that there was a marked tendency among 
 the first Christians to use the same forms of language, 
 to cast the Evangelical narrative into one mold, which, 
 however, allowed divergences of detail. The same 
 tendency in respect to other things is found in the 
 second century. 
 
 Accordingly, tradition was the fountain of Canonical 
 
 * 1 Tim. v. 18. t See Luke x. 7. 
 
THE GOSPELS. 279 
 
 Scripture; from it the Gospels issued while the foun- 
 tain was still flowing, pure and abundant, over the 
 very ground which Jesus had trodden. This view ex- 
 plains certain words attributed to Jesus, found in 
 early Christian literature, which are no doubt authen- 
 tic, as the words quoted by Paul: "It is more 
 blessed to give than to receive." * Our New Testa- 
 ment does not contain all that was in Apostolic 
 tradition. 
 
 Our Gospels are not older than the year 60 A. D. 
 Up to this time, Jerusalem is the Christian center and 
 metropolis. The concourse of Apostolic men there 
 naturally tended to preserve the Gospel story. When 
 the Jerusalem group is broken up, the Church can no 
 longer be contented with oral tradition, or the imper- 
 fect narratives that have thus far appeared; there are 
 no official proceedings ; all is done naturally, in con- 
 sequence of a change of circumstance. Our Gospels 
 were not, as some seem to suppose, brought out with 
 eclat as inspired Scriptures. The second Church was 
 unlike the first in this, it had no ark of cedar in 
 which to enshrine a holy book. Each Gospel arises 
 spontaneously, as occasion calls it forth; it appears 
 without observation, and is not ushered in with a 
 proclamation. 
 
 Omitting the inspirational or providential element, 
 the above is an outline of DePressens^'s general con- 
 struction of this part of the Evangelical history. 
 This omission is made because it is inconsistent with 
 the purely historical and human standpoint of this 
 essay. The eloquent historian then takes up the 
 
 * Acts xx. 35. 
 
280 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 books one by one, showing that Matthew is the com- 
 position of Levi, the publican, and that it appeared 
 first in Palestine; that Mark is the composition of 
 John the Evangelist, and that it is in substance the 
 compendium of facts and discourses that Peter used 
 in his preaching; that Luke is the composition of the 
 physician of that name, and that it tells the Gospel 
 story as Paul was wont to tell it; and that John is the 
 composition of the beloved disciple, who wrote it to 
 supplement the others, towards the close of the first 
 century. Through these particular constructions I 
 can not follow him; nor is it necessary. My aim is 
 not to give a history of the Gospels, but only to pre- 
 sent a general view of the human causes and condi- 
 tions that led to their production. Perhaps the more 
 material facts can be so grouped as to make a still 
 stronger impression. 
 
 The sermons reported in The Acts may be divided in- 
 to two classes Jewish sermons and Gentile sermons. 
 These differ from one another, not in aim, but to a de- 
 gree in the circles of ideas through which the aim is 
 realized. The Law was a schoolmaster to bring the 
 Jew to Christ, but the Gentile had no such school- 
 master. But through Jewish and Gentile sermons 
 alike, there runs the 'common evangelical element 
 that is the characteristic feature of The New Testa- 
 ment. To both nationalities the Apostles preached 
 the Gospel, and taught all things whatsoever the Mas- 
 ter had commanded them. Hence they became nar- 
 rators tellers of the new story. Fragments of narra- 
 tive or allusions to narrative are found in every ser- 
 mon that is mentioned. In their first recorded meeting 
 
THE GOSPELS. 281 
 
 after the disciples were finally parted from the Master, 
 mention is made of the time that Jesus went in and 
 out among them, beginning from the baptism of John 
 until the day of His ascension. On Pentecost, Peter 
 spoke of Jesus of Nazareth as a man approved of 
 God by miracles and wonders and signs. In Solo- 
 mon's porch he returned to the same theme. The 
 next day before the Council it was the same way, 
 and even when the Apostles had been beaten and for- 
 bidden to speak, they ceased not to teach and to 
 preach Jesus Christ. Stephen followed their exam- 
 ple.* And so at Samaria, at Damascus, on the road 
 to Gaza, at Caesarea, at Antioch, at Miletus, and be- 
 fore Agrippa the burden of the story was the same. 
 These sermons are never fully reported; but no mat- 
 ter how meagre the report may be, the great theme is 
 always mentioned. In one instance we have a con- 
 densed evangelical narrative. When Peter had recov- 
 ered from his surprise in the house of Cornelius, he 
 went on to say: 
 
 The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preach- 
 ing peace by Jesus Christ : He is the Lord of all : That word, I 
 say, ye know, which was published throughout all Judaea, and 
 began from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached; 
 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and 
 with power : who went about doing good , and healing all that 
 were oppressed of the devil ; for God was with Him. And 
 we are witnesses of all things which He did, both in the land of 
 the Jews , and in Jerusalem ; whom they slew and hanged on a 
 tree : Him God raised up the third day , and shewed Him openly ; 
 not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, 
 even to us, who did eat and drink with Him after He rose 
 from the dead. And He commanded us to preach unto the peo- 
 
 * Acts i. 21, 22; ii. 22; iii. 12; iv. 10; v. 40-43; vii. 55. 
 
282 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 pie, and to testify that it is He which was ordained of God to 
 be the judge of quick and dead. To Him gave all the prophets 
 witness, that through His name whosoever believeth in Him 
 shall receive remission of sins. * 
 
 This report is of great interest, both because it is 
 the first one of the kind found in The Acts, and be- 
 cause it illustrates how the Evangelical story tended 
 to assume a definite form. The historian gives us 
 but a rapid summary of an elaborate discourse; still 
 this summary is a little gospel in itself. Beyond ques- 
 tion, we may see similar gospels back of such expres- 
 sions as, "He preached Christ" and "He preached 
 Jesus." This is what it was to preach Christ. We 
 have a similar gospel, and a still earlier one, in the 
 fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians, while the Epis- 
 tles abound in references to others that are not for- 
 mally presented. These are to be regarded not only 
 as summaries of doctrine, but also as epitomies of the 
 life of Jesus. 
 
 We come therefore to the conclusion that the first 
 gospels, or first evangelical narratives, were oral com- 
 positions given to the world in the sermons of the 
 Apostles. For years no other gospels were known. 
 Still more, these gospels constantly tended to greater 
 fullness of matter, and greater definiteness of form. 
 Beginning with such a syllabus as those used by 
 Peter and by Paul, the preacher would naturally go on 
 to amplify in the directions that he was led by his own 
 knowledge. Still more, the preacher would naturally 
 seek to enlarge the store of materials that he could 
 use to enforce and illustrate the different propositions 
 
 *Actsx. 34-43. 
 
THE GOSPELS. 283 
 
 of the summary. Different sermons preached by the 
 same man would deal with different parts of the Evan- 
 gelical story, and much more different sermons by dif- 
 ferent preachers; so that we may imagine that, in 
 time, such a church as that in Antioch would come 
 into the possession of a large part of the whole tra- 
 dition. There can be no reasonable doubt that the 
 principal churches within a generation or two were in 
 possession of a large portion of the matter now found 
 in the Four Gospels. 
 
 Thus, the elaboration of the materials out of which 
 our familiar Gospels were formed, began in the teach- 
 ing and preaching of the Apostles. There is nothing 
 extreme in the assumption that these Gospels them- 
 selves, or at least the first three of them, thus began 
 to take on their shaping. The process was carried on 
 by those most familiar with the facts. On this point 
 the ancient tradition that Mark and Luke merely com- 
 mitted to writing the Evangelical story as Peter and 
 Paul respectively were accustomed to tell it, is most 
 suggestive. 
 
 Admirable as oral Gospels were in their time, they 
 could not in the long run suffice; the Christian mind 
 longed for something more certain and permanent, 
 and it was not only natural, but inevitable, that writ- 
 ten gospels or narratives should appear. Who pro- 
 duced the first ones, and at what times, we have no 
 means of knowing; but there can be little question 
 that Luke, in his introduction, refers to narratives 
 that had been produced in just this way. The work 
 of composition would be assisted by causes that we 
 are too apt to overlook or undervalue. There was 
 
284 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 first the retentiveness of the ancient memory, while 
 the forms into which Jesus had thrown much of his 
 teaching, the maxim, the parable, and the parabolic 
 discourse, took fast hold of the mind. 
 
 I have sought to throw light on the origin of our 
 Gospels particularly to explain how the written 
 Evangelical narratives grew out of the sermons of the 
 Apostles. If nothing more has been done, perhaps 
 the subject has been brought into the field of com- 
 mon human life and interest, and so been shorn of 
 some of its mystery. As I have used the word "tra- 
 dition," I should add that I use it, not in the received 
 ecclesiastical sense, but in the sense of the highest 
 Christian antiquity. I mean by it the body of ac- 
 cepted Evangelical teaching growing immediately out 
 of the life and person of Jesus. It is the same thing 
 as the Gospel story. 
 
 To this chapter may very properly be appended a 
 paragraph touching The Acts of the Apostles. The 
 writer begins with referring to the former treatise 
 that he has made concerning all that Jesus began both 
 to do and to teach, just as though he were about to 
 add, "And I shall now take up the story and carry it 
 forward;" but, as though hurried by the very impetu- 
 osity of his subject, he rushes on, without making a 
 formal connection, to the later matters with which he 
 is to deal. The book stands to the Apostles in a rela- 
 tion similar to that in which the Gospels stand to 
 Jesus. It is the Gospel in the second stage of its his- 
 tory. In some measure, it was the composition of an 
 eye witness of the things recorded; for the rest, any 
 explanation that applies to the First and Third Gospels 
 will apply to this book. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 CHARACTER OF THE EVANGELICAL TRADITION. 
 
 IN the foregoing discussion some use has been made 
 of the word "tradition;" and as the word is occasion- 
 ally found in The New Testament, and frequently in 
 Church literature, it may not be amiss to review 
 the leading facts that have been presented in the 
 last three chapters under the aspect that the word 
 suggests. We should at least try to form a definite 
 and correct notion of what the original Christian tra- 
 dition was. 
 
 The meanings of the Greek verb paradidonai and 
 the Latin verb tradere run parallel throughout. 
 Their first meaning is to give up, to deliver over, to 
 transmit, without any reference to what is delivered 
 or transmitted; their second meaning, to deliver over, 
 or transmit, some mental thing, a product of the 
 mind. Paradosis and traditio, the conjugate nouns, 
 have three meanings, also parallel: (1) The act of 
 giving up, handing down, or transmitting; (2) The 
 act of transmitting some product of the iniud, a 
 legend, saying, or doctrine, without regard to the 
 means of communication, whether oral or written 
 language; (3) The thing delivered, as the product of 
 
 (285) 
 
286 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 the mind that is transmitted or handed down. The 
 English language has no word that is the equivalent 
 of paradidonai and tradere, but the noun "tradition" 
 has the three meanings expressed by paradosis and 
 Iraditio. It is to be observed, however, that the 
 English word is narrower than the Greek or Latin 
 word. It makes the instrument of transmission 
 oral language; while they apply to oral and writ- 
 ten language indifferently, the Latin, in fact, rather 
 preferring the written form. Still it should not 
 be supposed that the channel of transmission in 
 a given case must forever remain oral speech, or 
 that the tradition must always continue in an un- 
 written form : this element relates rather to the orig- 
 inal act of delivery, and to the early stages of the 
 transmitting process. 
 
 Jesus delivered his teachings in oral, not in written, 
 words. He gave to the Apostles the commission: 
 "Preach the Gospel to every creature;" "Teach them 
 to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded 
 you;" and under this commission they went forth 
 and preached everywhere what they remembered of 
 His life and teachings. Wherever they went, they 
 called to their assistance evangelists, and also bishops 
 or pastors, whom they entrusted with the ministry of 
 preaching and teaching. Paul wrote to Timothy: 
 Keep that which is committed to thy trust; hold fast 
 the form of sound words which thou hast heard of 
 me in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus; and the 
 things that thou hast heard of me among many wit- 
 nesses, the same commit thou to faithful men who 
 shall be able to teach others also. The great salva- 
 
THE EVANGELICAL TRADITION. 287 
 
 tion began to be spoken by the Lord, and was con- 
 firmed unto men by them that heard him. Paul said 
 to the Corinthians: I have received of the Lord that 
 which also I delivered unto you; I delivered unto you 
 first of all that which I also received. Such was the 
 nature of all teaching and all instruction in the early 
 days of the Church. 
 
 But in course of time, as has been already ex- 
 plained, these forces became inadequate. The fuller 
 instruction of believers, the discipline of the Church, 
 and even the propagation and permanence of the 
 Gospel rendered written documents an imperative 
 necessity. What had been delivered and received as 
 an oral tradition now became, as the usage of words 
 fully justifies Us in saying, a written tradition. 
 
 We are now in position to understand the word 
 "tradition" as applied in The New Testament to the 
 doctrine of Jesus. It is found in three passages, two of 
 which are in the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians. 
 Paul says in one of them: "Now we command you, 
 brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that 
 ye withdraw yourselves from every brother that walk- 
 eth disorderly, and not after the tradition which he 
 received of us;"* and in the other: "Therefore, 
 brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which 
 ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epis- 
 tle, "f Some writers lay stress on these passages as 
 proving that the "tradition" here referred to was 
 something not found in The New Testament. What 
 the passages mean, is clear enough in the light of 
 the preceding discussion. The traditions are the very 
 
 * Chap. iii. 6. t Chap. ii. 
 
288 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 substance of the Gospel, not something supplemental 
 to it. They are what the Apostle had taught the 
 Thessalonians of Christ; facts, doctrines, precepts, 
 and examples. More specifically, what these tradi- 
 tions were can be gathered from the Thessalonian 
 Epistles themselves. Paul says, for example : "But 
 as touching brotherly love, ye need not that I write 
 unto you, for ye yourselves are taught of God to love 
 one another."* That is, they were already in pos- 
 session of the Christian tradition on that subject. 
 Again, when he says, "Study to be quiet, and to do 
 your own business, and to work with your own hands, 
 as we commanded you,"t he is refreshing their 
 minds in a tradition that had been previously com- 
 municated. What is more, these traditions had been 
 delivered in written as well as in spoken language : 
 "whether by word or our epistle." In the hands of 
 Paul, paradosis means what it does in other Greek 
 writings, something delivered, whether orally, or in 
 written language. The traditions in the hands of the 
 Thessalonians were Paul's discourses and letters, no 
 more and no less. Jeremy Taylor, in illustration, 
 cites Irenaeus to the effect that Apostolical traditions 
 were such as these : That Christ took the cup and 
 said it was His blood; that men should believe in one 
 God, and in Christ, who was born of a virgin. 
 
 The passages in the Second Thessalonians are the 
 only ones where the Common Version renders 
 paradosis as referring to the Gospel by "tradi- 
 tion." But the word is found with that meaning 
 in First Corinthians xi. 2. The passage reads: "Now 
 
 * 1 Thess. iv. 9. t 1 Thess. iv. 11, 12. 
 
THE EVANGELICAL TRADITION. 289 
 
 I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in 
 all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered 
 them to you. "Ordinances" should read "tradi- 
 tions;" that is, to quote Dean Alford on the passage, 
 "the Apostolic maxims of faith and practice, deliv- 
 ered either orally or in writing." The Corinthians 
 had kept the things delivered as Paul had delivered 
 them. 
 
 Paradosis is found thirteen times in The New Tes- 
 tament. Nine times it refers-to the traditions of the 
 Jews, which both Jesus and the Apostles denounced 
 in no measured terms. Three times it refers to the 
 doctrine of Jesus, as has been noted above. In 
 Colossians ii. 8, where we read, "Beware lest any 
 man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, 
 after the traditions of men, after the rudiments of 
 the world, and not after Christ," the word may pos- 
 sibly refer to Jewish tradition, but seems to have a 
 broader meaning. The verb is found one hundred 
 and nineteen times, generally in the sense of giving 
 or delivering over something. It occurs in the well- 
 known expression, "That form of doctrine which 
 was delivered you,"* which should rather read, "Unto 
 which ye were delivered." 
 
 The writing and publication of the books compos- 
 ing The New Testament is an event of the first im- 
 portance in the history of the Church. Their circula- 
 tion greatly changed the methods of propagating the 
 Gospel, and of disciplining believers. And yet the 
 immediate change was far less than any one who has 
 not studied the subject would suppose. The Epistles 
 
 * Rom vi. 17. 
 19 
 
290 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 did not supersede, and did not aim to supersede, the 
 oral Gospel. Their very nature made this impossible. 
 On the other hand, they abound in exhortations to the 
 disciples to continue in the things that had been de- 
 livered; they build on the foundation that the oral 
 Gospel furnishes. No more do The Acts and Revela- 
 tion assume to set that Gospel aside. They, too, are 
 supplemental to the Evangelical Tradition. Not until 
 the publication of the Canonical Gospels did anything 
 authoritative appear which could take the place of 
 that tradition. The circulation of these books is an 
 event second in importance only to the primitive 
 preaching. It is, in fact, a republication of the Gos- 
 pel in a new form. To suppose, however, that the 
 old form immediately gave way to the new, that oral 
 tradition at once yielded to written memorials, would 
 be to commit a very great mistake. For a consider- 
 able period after the publication of The New Testa- 
 ment writings, the oral Christianity flowed on in a 
 stream almost as broad and deep as before. 
 
 NOTE. The writer has examined the subject of Tradition 
 much more thoroughly in a work entitled, ' 'Ecclesiastical Tra- 
 dition" (Cincinnati, 1879). In this chapter he has drawn 
 freely upon this book for both matter and language. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DOCUMENTS. 
 
 SEVERAL facts of great importance in the history of 
 the Primitive Church have been stated in the previous 
 chapters. The Church had its rise in oral preaching; 
 literary documents devoted to the new religion did not 
 begin to appear until twenty or more years after the 
 death of Jesus; Epistles appeared before Gospels; 
 the latter, when they came, were drawn from the 
 stream of oral testimony, or tradition; these writ- 
 ings, both Epistles and Gospels, appeared spontane- 
 ously, as they were called out by existing wants, their 
 authors, whatever may have been their ideas of the 
 future, writing for the immediate present; all the 
 writings existed and circulated as separate documents 
 long before there was any New Testament. From this 
 time on, our question is the question of the Canon; 
 but before taking this question up, we must glance at 
 several features that the several books have in com- 
 mon. And first, the propositions that they appeared 
 spontaneously, and that they were written to meet 
 immediate wants, need further elaboration. 
 
 The New Testament documents are twenty-seven in 
 
 number; four Gospels, one Apostolic History, twen- 
 
 (291) 
 
292 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 ty-one Epistles, and an Apocalypse. There is evi- 
 dence that there was a consultation between Paul and 
 Barnabas, on the one hand, and the " Pillar Apos- 
 tles " on the other, as to the fields in which they 
 should respectively preach; * but there is not the 
 slightest evidence that there was ever any agreement 
 or consultation among the Apostles, or any of them, 
 as to writing either Epistles or Gospels. Difficult as 
 it is to prove negatives, one need not hesitate to say 
 that there was nothing of the kind. That is, these 
 books were not written according to a scheme or pro- 
 gramme. The twenty-seven documents were written 
 by eight different men; and, with two exceptions, I 
 can not recall, either in Scripture or in the early 
 Church tradition, any intimation that any one of these 
 writers wrote what he did on account of what any 
 other one had, or had not, written. Peter says the 
 Epistles of Paul contain some things hard to be under- 
 stood, and that the unsteadfast wrest them to their 
 own destruction.! Eusebius says that the Apostle 
 John approved the first three Gospels, and then, 
 recognizing their incompleteness, wrote his own Gos- 
 pel to supplement the mosi important omissions, t 
 And this is all. Moreover, there is slight evidence of 
 scheme or programme on the part of the individual 
 writers. Luke wrote the Third Gospel and The Acts; 
 that he forecasted a plan before writing the Gospel 
 we do not know; but The Acts is a continuation of the 
 Gospel, and we may concede design. Peter's two 
 Epistles are wholly independent of each other; they 
 are as separate and distinct as any two letters upon 
 
 * Gal. ii. 9. f II. Pet. ill. 16. J Eccl. Hist. lii. 24. 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DOCUMENTS. 293 
 
 the same general subject, by the same writer, could 
 be. The same may be said of the three Epistles of 
 John. Paul was the best trained thinker of all the 
 Apostles; he had the most logical mind, was the most 
 of a theologian, and came nearer than any other one 
 to being a system-maker; but how his epistles arose 
 out of exigent demands and duties, has been shown in 
 a previous chapter. In no scientific sense are his let- 
 ters parts of an " exposition of the faith." Quite the 
 contrary. He did not write what he wrote to the 
 Corinthians on account of anything that he had writ- 
 ten, or proposed to write, to the Romans. There is 
 no logical or theoretical connection between the Grala- 
 tians and the Ephesians. Accordingly, if his fourteen 
 letters should be collected into a volume by them- 
 selves, the volume would not be characterized by 
 either unity or completeness. It would not form a 
 "system" or, properly speaking, even a book. In 
 fact, the Apostles' letters have much of the spon- 
 taneity, freedom, unpremeditativeness, that marked 
 their sermons. They are a part of the same great 
 work; they strengthen and supplement each other; 
 they are filled with the same knowledge and warmed 
 with the same spirit; they are the writings of men 
 taught of the same Master and working for the same 
 end: but they were written at different times and 
 places, without concert of action or comparison of 
 views; they sprang out of different circumstances and 
 looked to particular ends, and there is no intimation 
 that their authors ever contemplated a second volume 
 of Scripture that should equal or surpass the Jewish 
 
294 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 Writings, no intimation that they ever contemplated 
 a volume of Scripture at all. 
 
 The reader who has followed me this far has no- 
 ticed, no doubt, that slight attention has been paid to 
 dates, and to the order in which The New Testament 
 books appeared. I have not thought it necessary even 
 to raise the question answered with so much ability by 
 Tischendorf, "When were our Four Gospels writ- 
 ten? " I deal rather with the manner in which the 
 books appeared than with the time of their appear- 
 ance. But there is one general fact bearing on the 
 chronological question that I wish to set forth, the 
 fact, viz. : That, so far as we can, either by a priori 
 construction or by following other lines of historical 
 inquiry, picture to ourselves what the periods in the 
 history of the Church covered by the Christian Writ- 
 ings were, our ideas are met by the Gospels, The Acts, 
 and the Epistles. The hypothesis is this: Granting 
 the essential parts of the story, Jesus and His minis- 
 try, the Apostles and their preaching, and the Church; 
 granting these forces at work in the Jewish and Gen- 
 tile fields of the first century, the evolution traced 
 in the Gospels, in The Acts, and in the Epistles is 
 consistent, harmonious, and natural. Some illustra- 
 tion of this thought will fill out this chapter. 
 
 Touching the Gospels, the great question is not so 
 much their dates, or even their authors, as it is their 
 truth and reality. Stated in due form it is this : Do 
 the Gospels give us a true picture of the first age of 
 the Church? Touching the other Christian Scriptures 
 the question is, Do they truly represent the subjects 
 with which they deal? Hardly a thought can be men- 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DOCUMENTS. 295 
 
 tioned that is made more prominent in the Christian 
 Writings than the thought of growth, progress, devel- 
 opment, both in relation to the individual life of the 
 disciple and to the collective life of the Church. The 
 kingdom of heaven is like unto a grain of mustard 
 seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; it is 
 like unto leaven, which a woman took and hid in three 
 measures of meal. First the blade, then the ear, 
 then the full corn in the ear, this is the law of 
 nature, and the closer one studies The New Testament, 
 the more will he see the moral and ecclesiastical de- 
 velopment there traced conforming to it. 
 
 Much has been written about the Gospels' contain- 
 ing notes of controversies and traces of tendencies 
 that followed the times of the Apostles by fifty or one 
 hundred years. They present us doctrines, it is said, 
 in a form more developed than that in which Jesus 
 left them. In particular is it insisted that the meta- 
 physical elements found in the Fourth Gospel could 
 not have existed until a consideraole time after the 
 last Apostle had died. In opposition to this view, I 
 contend that had the Gospels been written as late as 
 the middle of the second century, they would almost 
 certainly have contained elements that are not now 
 found in them. The teachings are ethical and spirit- 
 ual rather than theological and controversial. The 
 facts are plainly told. We find no trace of the critic 
 or systematic theologian. We find the words of a new 
 and most original Teacher, thrown out in the most 
 spontaneous manner, and not a "scheme" or "sys- 
 tem." The Gospels are rich in virgin ore. 
 
 From one point of view, the great theme of the 
 
296 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 Christian Scriptures is the Church. Objectively, this 
 passes through four or five minor stages of develop- 
 ment in the period reaching from the baptism of 
 Jesus to the death of John the Apostle. First is the 
 Church of Jesus in the strictest sense the Church as 
 it was during His own life. It is in an inchoate, un- 
 formed state, but its material is undergoing elabora- 
 tion. Jesus speaks of His Church, but He speaks al- 
 most always from the subjective standpoint. He is, 
 in fact, wholly silent touching organization and office- 
 bearers. Second is the Church of the Apostles in the 
 period immediately following" Pentecost. The Apos- 
 tles form the only organization, and are the only offi- 
 cers. Next succeeds the Church of the third period, 
 ushered in by the appointment of the Seven ; the period 
 in which it becomes manifest that a more elaborate 
 organization is called for, and in which steps are taken 
 to furnish such an organization. Before the ministry 
 was homogeneous, consisting of Apostles alone, who 
 combined all offices and functions in themselves ; but 
 now the first step towards differentiation is taken. 
 Fourthly, we are brought to the Church of local pas- 
 tors and deacons; the period of which we obtain such 
 full views in the later chapters of The Acts and in 
 Paul's epistles. Last of all succeeds the Revelation, 
 in which we seem to get a glimpse of the bishops of 
 later times. All of this is as natural as natural can 
 be. We may perhaps say that it was a necessary or- 
 der of development. But the noteworthy thing is, 
 that the pictures of the stages of this evolution are as 
 natural as the stages themselves. Nothing is dislocat- 
 ed or out of place. The Gospels give no f orecastings. 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DOCUMENTS. 297 
 
 They leave the unfolding of the ministry and govern- 
 ment of the Church to the books that follow in the 
 order of events, as absolutely as Jesus left it to the 
 Apostles. Similarly, the first differentiation of the 
 ministry came unheralded. And so on to the end. 
 
 Special attention may be paid to the history of the 
 Lord's Supper. Three stages in the development of 
 this institution are presented in the first age. Jesu.s 
 made it an appendage of the Passover. He left the 
 single command, " This do in remembrance of me." * 
 Immediately succeeding the Pentecost, the disciples 
 celebrated the Supper daily, and in their own houses. f 
 It was a private commemoration. But by and by, 
 when the Church took on a more regular and settled 
 form as congregations grew the celebration became 
 a weekly public commemoration, held on the first day 
 of the week.J 
 
 Thus there is an ecclesiastial progress. Moreover, 
 the manner in which this progress is reflected in the 
 several books is an excellent witness to their faithful- 
 ness. We have the Church of the Gospels, the Church 
 of the earlier chapters of The Acts, the Church of 
 the later Acts and of the Epistles, and the Church 
 of the Revelation. In short, so far as ecclesiastical 
 order is concerned, any man may be challenged to 
 show that there is the slightest confusion or displace- 
 ment. Lord Bacon called one of the parts of his 
 great philosophical scheme, "Prodomi sive anticipa- 
 tiones;" that is, " f orerunnings or anticipations " of 
 what would result from the adoption of his philoso- 
 phy. The Christian Writings contain ' ' f orerunnings ' ' 
 
 * Luke xxii. 19. f Acts ii. 46, 47. J Acts xx. 7. 
 
293 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 and "anticipations" as respects spiritual develop- 
 ment; but the absence of anticipations in doctrinal or 
 in Church development shows how strictly things are 
 kept in their places, and furnishes admirable proof of 
 the general faithfulness of the reports found in the 
 books themselves. It has often been urged that the 
 Gospels must have been written before the downfall 
 of Jerusalem in the year 70, because if they had ap- 
 peared afterwards (the argument runs) their authors 
 would have claimed that their Master's predictions 
 had been fulfilled. This argument, somewhat changed 
 in application, may be applied in a more sweeping 
 way. The Gospels contain no notes of admiration, 
 and but slight commentaries; it is not claimed that 
 the words or the acts of Jesus had been justified by 
 subsequent history; the developments of the second 
 and third ages are not anticipated. Even in the sec- 
 ond century, professed believers of all kinds appealed 
 to the memorials of the first age in proof of their sev- 
 eral doctrines and practices. Heretics did not fall 
 behind Catholic Christians in this regard. And so it 
 has ever been. The very universality and confidence 
 with which this appeal has been made, and is still 
 made, to the earliest literature of Christian antiquity, 
 is evidence that the pictures of antiquity are natural, 
 and are not the work of men whose aim was to fix 
 "tendencies." This reasoning is not conclusive 
 as to the precise date at which the books were writ- 
 ten, but it is conclusive as to their general faithful- 
 ness. 
 
 Finally, it may be stated that the character of The 
 New Testament documents has a very important bear- 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DOCUMENTS. 299 
 
 ing on their interpretation. A s} r stematic treatise, the 
 work of one mind, is one thing; a collection of let- 
 ters and narratives, the work of several minds, is quite 
 another thing. However, the development of this 
 suggestion does not belong to this monograph. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE CANON IN ITS FIRST STAGE. 
 
 THERE was a Gospel and a Church years before 
 there were Gospels and Epistles. There were Epis- 
 tles and Gospels decades before there was a New Tes- 
 tament. The making of The New Testament in- 
 volved two steps wholly separate and distinct; the 
 composition of the writings that compose it, and the 
 collection of these writings into one authenticated 
 body. The writings were produced separately and 
 spontaneously; the collection was made slowly, pro- 
 gressively, and almost equally spontaneously. The 
 New Testament had no editor or publisher in any 
 sense known to literature. How the books were col- 
 lected and authenticated that is, how the Canon was 
 made up I shall in this and two succeeding chapters 
 attempt to show. 
 
 First of all, we must divest our minds wholly of 
 the idea conveyed by the name "New Testament;" 
 we must start from the time when there was no such 
 book in existence, but only the materials out of which 
 it was afterwards made. In studying historical ques- 
 tions, we are only too apt to forget chronology. 
 
 Looking at a man whose life is finished, especially if 
 
 (300) 
 
THE CANON IN ITS FIRST STAGE. 301 
 
 he lived many centuries ago, we forget that he was a 
 growth, and see him, or seem to see him, as he was at 
 the culmination of his career. We make similar mis- 
 takes in dealing with systems of doctrine and bodies 
 of literature. 
 
 Secondly, The New Testament contains twenty- 
 seven distinct documents, attributed to eight differ- 
 ent writers. Each of these documents is complete in 
 itself; not complete, indeed, in the sense that it ex- 
 hausts the subject, but in the sense that it is not a 
 part of a larger whole. We are able to throw them, 
 with two or three exceptions, into groups: books ad- 
 dressed to single individuals, books addressed to sin- 
 gle churches, books addressed to groups of churches, 
 and books addressed to classes of persons. 
 
 1. The books addressed to single individuals are 
 the Third Gospel, The Acts, the Epistles to Timothy, 
 to Titus, and to Philemon, and Second and Third 
 John, seven in all. 
 
 2. The books addressed to single churches are the 
 Epistles to the Romans, to the Corinthians, to the 
 Ephesians, to the Philippians, to the Colossians, and 
 Thessalonians, eight in number. 
 
 3. The books addressed to groups of churches are 
 Galatians, First Peter, First John, and E-evelation. 
 Gralatians and Revelation are formally dedicated, the 
 one to the Churches of Galatia, the other to the Seven 
 Churches of Asia; but in the other two cases we are 
 left to infer the fact from the character of the 
 books themselves. 
 
 4. It is the ancient tradition that Matthew wrote 
 for the immediate use and benefit of Jewish disciples 
 
302 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 in Palestine, and that idea is supported by internal 
 evidence. Similar evidence shows that Mark wrote 
 for Gentile Christians. The Epistle to the Hebrews 
 was immediately intended for Hebrew disciples, and 
 the Epistle of James is addressed to them in terms. 
 Hence we may say they were all addressed to particu- 
 lar classes of persons. 
 
 This grouping takes in all the twenty-seven books 
 but the Fourth Gospel and Second Peter. It is im- 
 possible to determine with certainty what special des- 
 tination these books originally had. Second Peter is 
 classed as a "general" epistle. 
 
 From the very nature of the case, these writings 
 would soon begin to get into circulation, at first lo- 
 cally, then generally. No doubt this was anticipated 
 by their authors. In fact, those books that were 
 addressed to churches in great cities, like the Epistle 
 to the Romans, or to groups of churches, like that 
 to the Galatians, may be said to have had a "circula- 
 tion" from the beginning. Copies would assuredly be 
 made from the autographs, and, for the same reason, 
 collections of documents would be made. The same 
 impulse that would lead believers and groups of be- 
 lievers, such as congregations, to desire single books, 
 would lead them to make up collections of books. 
 
 However, this impulse was less strong in both di- 
 rections than we would at first suppose. First, the 
 literary spirit was exceedingly feeble in ancient times 
 as compared with modern times. Few men, relative- 
 ly, read books, and the mass of men were dependent 
 upon oral instruction. Moreover, the first churches 
 were planted by Apostles or by Apostolic men. These 
 
THE CANON IN ITS FIRST STAGE. 303 
 
 were the churches of the Oral Testimony. They 
 knew only the Gospel that had been preached unto 
 them. Apostles and Apostolic men stood out in 
 grand proportions before a book had been written. 
 Churches prized most highly books that had been writ- 
 ten to themselves, and next, books written to other 
 churches by men with whom they were acquainted. 
 But, naturally, in the estimation of churches, no 
 books took, or could take, the places of the men who 
 had planted or watered them. By and by, however, 
 the well known Apostle or Evangelist ceased to make 
 his visits ; the older members of the churches passed 
 away, and writings became invested with a new inter- 
 est. However, the equalization of writings and men 
 was slow in coming; even slower, perhaps, was the 
 equalization of the new Scriptures and the old ones, 
 at least in the estimation of the Hebrew disciples, 
 who were devoted to the Hebrew writings, and who, 
 antecedently, never thought of a second canon of 
 Scripture. Still further, we must not overestimate 
 the length that the desire to possess collections of 
 Epistles and Gospels carried the disciples of that 
 day. To say that they desired collections is one thing; 
 to say that they desired full collections is quite anoth- 
 er. In fact, the idea of a Canon took shape in the 
 Church consciousness slowly, the idea, namely, that 
 writings of such and such a character were authorita- 
 tive, like the preaching of Jesus and the Apostles, 
 that there was a definite number of such writings, 
 that these writings could be separated from all others 
 into one whole, the developed idea of The New Tes- 
 tament. How early this thought was fully formed 
 
304 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 how early its practical realization became an object of 
 desire and effort we cannot tell; but, certainly, it 
 was not until great numbers of small collections of 
 books had been made. It may trouble us to conceive 
 of a Christian who is without the conception of a 
 New Testament, even if he is not the possessor of 
 one; but it is clear that several generations of 
 Christians must have passed away before that concep- 
 tion became fully and clearly defined. Accordingly, 
 we must not expect too much in our first search for 
 collections of Gospels and Epistles. 
 
 Taken in connection with our knowledge of the 
 writers, the descriptions of the books given above tell 
 us at what points the books were first published, and 
 the regions in which most of them first circulated. It 
 is reasonably certain that Matthew and the Epistle of 
 James first circulated in Palestine; Mark and the 
 Epistle to the Romans, in Italy; the Epistles to the 
 Corinthians and the Thessalonians, to Timothy and 
 to Titus, in the cities of Greece and Asia Minor; 
 the Epistle to the Galatians and First Peter, in 
 Central and Northern Asia Minor; the writings of 
 the Apostle John, in the vicinity of Ephesus. Taking 
 either Corinth or Ephesus as a center, three-fourths 
 of The New Testament documents lay within a com- 
 paratively narrow compass. To form the Canon was 
 to bring all the books into one collection, and to 
 stamp both the books and the Canon with the ap- 
 proval of the general body of believers. As pointed 
 out before, partial and imperfect Canons long pro- 
 ceeded a complete and final one; besides, these imper- 
 fect collections differed considerably in different parts 
 
THE CANON IN ITS FIRST STAGE. 305 
 
 of the Roman Empire. This, too, was natural, in 
 fact unavoidable. 
 
 Two of The New Testament books contain allusions 
 to other books. One allusion is made by the author 
 of The Acts to "the former treatise" which he had 
 addressed to Theophilus. The other is made by the 
 author of Second Peter, and is for our purpose much 
 more significant. It is this: "And account that the 
 long-suffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our 
 beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom 
 given unto him hath written unto you; as also in all his 
 epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which 
 are some things hard to be understood, which they that 
 are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the 
 other Scriptures, unto their own destruction."! This 
 passage proves, (1) That the writer of the epistle is 
 addressing an audience that Paul had before ad- 
 dressed in the same manner; (2) That he is 
 acquainted with a number of Paul's epistles; (3) 
 That these epistles are also in the hands of those to 
 whom he is writing, and that they have, therefore, 
 attained a considerable currency; (4) That these 
 epistles are regarded as Scripture. We cannot in- 
 need fairly infer that all of Paul's epistles had been 
 gathered into one collection, or even that they had all 
 been written. The clause, "as they do also the other 
 Scriptures," is exceedingly suggestive; for theJJewish 
 disciples held the Jewish Scriptures in the same rev- 
 erence as the other Jews, and they did not readily 
 take up the idea that there could be Scriptures not 
 found in The Old Testament. 
 
 t Chap. iii. 15, 16. 
 20 
 
306 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 The Christian writings that next followed the 
 books of The New Testament are those known as 
 "The Apostolic Fathers," filling the period 70 
 120 A. D. They are the Epistles of Clement, Poly- 
 carp, Barnabas, Ignatius, the Epistle to Diognetus, 
 Hermas, and Papias. Three or four of these men- 
 tion New Testament documents. Clement refers to 
 First Corinthians, Ignatius to Ephesians, Polycarp to 
 Philippians, Papias to Matthew and Mark. Much 
 more, these writings abound in allusions to New Tes- 
 tament books, and in quotations from them. For ex- 
 ample, the "Index of Texts" in the Apostolic Fath- 
 ers found in the Ante-Nicene Christian Library con- 
 tains fully four hundred references to such quota- 
 tions, allusions, or coincidences, including all The 
 New Testament books but a few of the shortest Epis- 
 tles. These references, allusions, and quotations 
 prove conclusively that the Apostolic Fathers, and 
 the Church of their time, were familiar with at least 
 two-thirds of the documents now found in the Chris- 
 tian Canon, and with much more than two thirds of 
 the material. But while the writings of this age are 
 so satisfactory as to the existence and currency of The 
 New Testament books, they contain no reference or 
 allusion to collections of such books. Accordingly, 
 they throw no light whatever upon the progress that 
 had been made in making up the Canon. Here it may 
 be observed that while the name of a book, an allu- 
 sion to it, or a'quotation from it, proves its currency 
 in the time of the one writing it, the absence of these 
 marks does not prove the contrary. No more does 
 the silence of the Apostolic Fathers prove that an 
 
THE CANON IN ITS FIRST STAGE. 307 
 
 incipient Canon did not exist. The most skeptical 
 can claim no more than that we are left in darkness. 
 But while these writers mention no collections of 
 books, it is clear that such collections had been made, 
 imperfect ones of course, and that some of them had 
 access to them. If this were not the case, these 
 writings would not abound, as they do abound, in 
 quotations and allusions. It is manifest that collec- 
 tions would begin to be formed just as soon as the 
 books began to get into circulation. 
 
 NOTE ON THE WORD "CANON. "The Greek lexicons define 
 the word kanon as any straight rod or pole. It is used espec- 
 ially to keep a thing upright or straight, to regulate and order 
 it. Liddell and Scott give four cases: (1) The rods of a 
 shield those to which the rim is fastened, or those to which the 
 handle is attached; (2) A rod or bar used in weaving; (3) 
 Any rod used for measuring, as a carpenter's rule, a testing - 
 rod, or a plumb-line ; (4) The beam of a balance. Metaphoric- 
 ally, a kanon is anything that serves to fix, regulate, deter- 
 mine, other things, that is, a rule. In this sense, the Greeks 
 had their canons, (kanones) of ethics, music, and art. With 
 the exception of those found in The Septuagint, all the strictly 
 ecclesiastical uses are metaphorical . 
 
 The word occurs three times in the Epistles : ' ' And as many 
 as walk according to this rule" (kanoni) Gal. vi. 16; 
 ' ' Whereunto we have already attained, let us walk by the same 
 rule," (kanoni) Phil. iii. 16. In the first of these passages, 
 the Gospel rule of faith is signified; in the second, the rule 
 determined by the spiritual attainments of those addressed. 
 The other passage will be presently cited. 
 
 Kanon is found in early Christian literature. We read of 
 "the sound rule of the saving proclamation;'' "the Rule of 
 Christian Teaching;" the Rule of Truth, of Faith, of the 
 Church. "At one time," says Westcott, "it is an abstract 
 ideal standard, handed down to successive generations, the 
 inner law, as it were, which regulated the growth and action 
 
308 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 of the Church, felt rather than expressed ; realized rather than 
 defined. At another time it is a concrete form, a set creed, 
 embodying the great principles which characterized the doctrine 
 and practice of the Catholic Church. ' ' On the Canon of the 
 N. T., Appendix A. 
 
 But kanon had a definite passive meaning ; that is , it meant 
 the thing measured, ruled, determined, as well as the measure 
 or the rule. The third passage in the Epistles illustrates this 
 use: "To preach the Gqspel in the regions beyond you, and 
 not to boast in another man's line of things, (kanoni,) made 
 ready to our hand. ' ' 2 Cor. x. 16. 
 
 "Canonical" and "canonize," derivations from kanon, 
 also have this double meaning. An object that was canonized, 
 and was therefore canonical, was one that had been measured 
 or approved. 
 
 It follows, therefore, that the Canonical Scriptures may have 
 been so-called, (1) Because they contain the Christian standard 
 of faith and practice a rule to be applied ; or (2) Because they 
 had been canonized that is, approved or ratified by the 
 Church. Both views are held. Westcott decides in favor of 
 the second, and his arguments seem to be decisive. Kanon was 
 first applied to the Scripture, so far as can be determined, by 
 Athanasius ; but Origen had used the derivatives ' ' canonical ' ' 
 and "canonize" in the same connection in the previous 
 century. 
 
 Toward the close of the fourth century, Amphilochius, Bishop 
 of Iconium, gives a catalogue of the books of The Old and New 
 Testaments and adds: "This would be the most unerring 
 Canon of the inspired Scripture. ' ' He means that the index or 
 catalogue which he has just given is a rule or measure to deter- 
 mine what is Scripture and what is not. This is the earliest use 
 of the word in this sense found in ancient literature. Three 
 uses of the phrase ' ' Canon of Scripture ' ' have now been 
 pointed out: 1. The Scriptures themselves, as a Rule of Faith 
 and Practice; 2. The Scriptures collectively, as sanctioned 
 by the Church ; 3. The list or catalogue of sacred books. The 
 present aim is to show how the collection was made up how 
 the list was formed. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE CANON IN ITS SECOND STAGE. 
 
 THE precise nature of the present inquiry must be 
 kept steadily in mind. It is not so much to discover 
 what documents existed and circulated as Christian 
 Scriptures in the times with which we are dealing, as 
 it is to discover what progress had been made in mak- 
 ing up The New Testament. The last chapter brought 
 us to the second quarter of the second century. 
 
 "It is a very significant fact," says Bishop West- 
 cott, "that the first quotation of a book of The New 
 Testament as Scripture, the first commentary on an 
 Apostolic writing, and the first known Canon of The 
 New Testament, come from heretical authors." * The 
 reference made in the last item is to Marcion, the 
 famous heretic, who is so prominent a figure in the 
 second century. We first hear of Marcion in Pontus, 
 on the southern shore of the Black Sea, where his 
 father was a bishop. We are not concerned with his 
 life, his doctrines, or with his influence, but only with 
 his relation to our topic. 
 
 About the year 150 Marcion came from Pontus to 
 Rome, bringing with him the first New Testament 
 
 *0n the Canon of the N. T., p. 282, Note. 
 (309) 
 
310 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 canon of which there is any trace in literature. This 
 canon consists of two parts: "The Gospel" and 
 "The Apostolicon." The first was a recension of 
 Luke, the second a collection of ten of Paul's Epis- 
 tles. The Pauline Epistles that were omitted were 
 First and Second Timothy, Titus, and Hebrews. Mar- 
 cion claimed that the doctrine of the Church had be- 
 come greatly corrupted, and he proposed to be a 
 purifier and restorer. He denied that he was an inno- 
 vator in any other sense than this he aimed to bring 
 back the pure doctrine of earlier and happier times. 
 He considered Paul the only true Apostle, and he con- 
 structed his canon from that point of view. He accept- 
 ed Luke, or a form of Luke, because this could be con- 
 nected with the preaching of Paul, and all the other 
 Gospels he rejected. History throws no light upon 
 the question why he rejected The Acts and the Pas- 
 toral Epistles, and we need not resort to conjecture. 
 The remaining books were thrown aside, of course, 
 because they were not Pauline. In the estimation of 
 what now began to call itself the Catholic Church, 
 Marcion was a heretic. He spent most of his active 
 life in conflicts with men of the Catholic faith, and 
 proved himself a most courageous and formidable 
 controversialist. In carrying on their contentions, 
 both parties must appeal to some authority. As all 
 the Apostles and Apostolic men were now dead, the 
 appeal could be made to only two sources, the oral 
 tradition handed down in the churches, and Christian 
 Scriptures. As there was no accepted canon the Can- 
 on then being in course of formation nothing was 
 more natural than that the appeal to Scripture should 
 
THE CANON IN ITS SECOND STAGE. 311 
 
 raise the question, " What is Scripture? " To a con- 
 siderable degree, the controversies started by Marcion 
 raged around this question. Mansion's own answer 
 was given in his "Gospel" and "Apostolicon." It 
 does not appear that any of his contemporary antago- 
 nists answered by producing a definite list. Two 
 things are, however, evident: (1) That all parties 
 believed in genuine, authentic, and authoritative New 
 Testament Scriptures; (2) That all parties admitted 
 that these Scriptures should be identified. It has 
 been conjectured that the canon which Marcion 
 brought to Rome was the nucleus of the Catholic 
 Canon of later times; and the conjecture is sup- 
 ported, it is said, by the fact that Marcion's is the 
 first formal canon of which we have any knowledge. 
 However, the facts point to the conclusion that Mar- 
 cion's canon was an innovation. In the early ages of 
 the Church, when so much depended on tradition and 
 general understanding, innovations were commonly 
 put in definite literary forms sooner than the doc- 
 trines and practices from which they were departures. 
 Heterodoxy commonly found literary expression 
 earlier than orthodoxy. The first creeds, for exam- 
 ple, were the replies of the Church to heretics and 
 heresies. Thus, the articles of the Apostolic Creed, 
 the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, were an- 
 swers to the principal Gnostic doctrines; just as the 
 expansion of the same articles put forth at Nicea 
 were answers to the views of Arius. Bishop West- 
 cott therefore says it should not be forgotten that 
 the adversaries of Marcion " always charge him with 
 innovating something which already existed, and not 
 
312 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 with endeavoring to impose a test which was not gen- 
 erally received."* All in all, it seems safe to conclude 
 with the learned Bishop, that, although a definite 
 canon of the Apostolic Writings had not been pub- 
 lished in Asia Minor, it "was yet implicitly deter- 
 mined by the practice of the Church." Still this 
 "implicitly determined" canon must have been in- 
 complete, as we shall see hereafter. 
 
 The Christian literature produced in the period 120- 
 170, both Catholic and heretical, is full of evidence 
 to the existence and currency of most of The New 
 Testament, but they contain no mention of any 
 canon save Marcion's. It should be remarked, how- 
 ever, that the absence of such mention does not prove 
 a negative. 
 
 The literature of the second half of the second 
 century throws a flood of light upon our inquiry. It 
 is the age of Clement, Irenseus, and Tertullian, of 
 the Muratori Fragment and the Peshito Version. 
 This chapter will take account only of the two last. 
 
 The Muratori Fragment? is a fragment of a manu- 
 script written in Latin about the year 170. It is found 
 in Rome, and is peculiarly interesting in connection 
 with the Western Church. The Peshito Version is a 
 translation of The New Testament into Syriac that 
 was made, no doubt, in the region of the Euphrates 
 about the same time. The Fragment is incomplete, 
 as its name suggests. The catalogue of books that it 
 contains begins with Luke, which is called "the third 
 book of the Gospel;" but there is no room to doubt 
 
 * On the Canon of the New Testament, p. 281, et. seq. 
 
THE CANON IN ITS SECOND STAGE. 
 
 313 
 
 that it originally began with Matthew followed by 
 Mark. The following lists contain the books found 
 in the two documents, though not in this order. 
 
 MURATORI FRAGMENT. 
 
 Luke. 
 John. 
 Acts. 
 Romans. 
 
 I. Corinthians. 
 
 II. Corinthians. 
 G-alatians. 
 Ephesians. 
 Philippians. 
 Colossians. 
 
 I. Thessalonians. 
 
 II. Thessalonians. 
 
 I. Timothy. 
 
 II. Timothy. 
 Titus. 
 Philemon. 
 
 II. John. 
 
 III. John. 
 Jude. 
 Revelation. 
 
 PESHITO VERSION. 
 Matthew. 
 Mark. 
 Luke. 
 John. 
 Acts. 
 Romans. 
 
 I. Corinthians. 
 
 II. Corinthians. 
 Galatians. 
 Ephesians. 
 Philippians. 
 Colossians. 
 
 I. Thessalonians. 
 
 II. Thessalonians. 
 
 I. Timothy. 
 
 II. Timothy. 
 Titus. 
 Philemon. 
 Hebrews. 
 James. 
 
 I. Peter. 
 
 I. John. 
 
 These lists suggest some interesting remarks : 
 
 1. The Fragment mentions several books not here 
 
 named, which were not finally received by the 
 
 Church; also an Apocalypse of Peter, " which," it 
 
 says, "some of our body will not have read in the 
 
314 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 Church." The Peshito contains no book not found 
 in our canon. 
 
 2. The two lists contain eighteen books in 
 common. 
 
 3. Together the two lists contain all the books 
 found in our New Testament except Second Peter ; 
 and it should be remarked that no other book rests on 
 such slender historical evidence. 
 
 4. Found, the one in Italy, the other Syria, these 
 two documents speak for the Western and Oriental 
 Churches in the second half of the second century. 
 They show what was read in the West and East as 
 Christian Scripture. The Fragment speaks through- 
 out of "received and general opinion," and often re- 
 fers to "the Catholic Church." 
 
 Again, these two lists suggest some interesting ques- 
 tions, as, for example, this one: "How are we to ex- 
 plain the omissions from them, on the theory that the 
 books omitted circulated as Scripture in the second 
 half of the second century?" A full answer to this 
 question would embrace two classes of facts; facts 
 that are peculiar to these documents, and facts that 
 relate to all similar catalogues of the second and third 
 centuries. Only the first branch of the inquiry will 
 be touched in this place. 
 
 The omission of Matthew and Mark from the 
 Fragment has already been explained. Bishop West- 
 cott says the character of the other omissions help 
 to explain them. First John is not mentioned, but 
 is quoted in the early part of the manuscript. There 
 is no evidence that First Peter was ever disputed, 
 and the Epistle to the Hebrews and the Epistle of 
 
THE CANON IN ITS SECOND STAGE. 315 
 
 James were well known in Rome, as we know from 
 other evidence. Hence the cause of the omissions (the 
 Bishop argues) can not have been ignorance or doubt. 
 It must be sought in the original character of the 
 writing, or in the condition of the existing text. On 
 either supposition it is easy to explain the omissions; 
 even as the Fragment now stands, we may perhaps 
 find traces of books which it does not notice. The 
 learned writer, however, leans to the theory that the 
 document was not complete or continuous in the first 
 place, but was made up of different passages from 
 some unknown author. He also holds that the omis- 
 sions of the Peshito admit of easy explanation. For 
 this purpose he refers to the inconclusive character 
 of the historical evidence of Second Peter; the 
 Apocalypse, which was little known in the East, rests 
 chiefly on the authority of the Western Church; and 
 the two shorter and private letters of John could 
 hardly have obtained currency in Mesopotamia in the 
 second half of the second century.* 
 
 It must all the time be borne in mind that our aim 
 is merely to show the Canon in process of formation, 
 and not to exhibit the evidence relative to the cur- 
 rency of The New Testament documents. Were the 
 latter our object, we should be obliged to find large 
 room for the testimony of such writers as Clement,' 
 Turtullian, and Irenseus. 
 
 Clement, for instance, makes quotations from, or 
 allusions to, the Gospels, Acts, Romans, 1 and 2 
 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colos- 
 sians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, 
 
 * On the Canon of The New Testament, pp. 190, et aeq.; pp. 213, et seq. 
 
316 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 Hebrews, 1 Peter, 1 John, Jude, Revelation. His quo- 
 tations and allusions are nearly one thousand in num- 
 ber. So accurate is Clement that his quotations are 
 of great value for critical purposes. In his " Against 
 Marcion," Tertullian quotes from nineteen books of 
 The New Testament, sometimes naming them. They 
 are the four Gospels, Acts, Romans, 2 Corinthians, 
 Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and 2 
 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 1 Peter, 1 John, and Rev- 
 elation. In this single work his quotations and allu- 
 sions are more than seven hundred in number, some 
 of them slight, others including several verses. He 
 makes two hundred and seventy-five from John's 
 Gospel alone. In "Against Heresies" and in the 
 fragments of his lost writings, Irenseus recognizes in 
 the same way twenty-five books, viz. : the four Gos- 
 pels, Acts, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, 
 Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, 1 and 2 Thessa- 
 lonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Hebrews, James, 
 1 and 2 Peter, 1 and 2 John, and Jude. His quo- 
 tations and allusions are even more numerous than 
 Tertullian's. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 FURTHER HISTORY OF THE CANON. 
 
 IN the last chapter it was shown that, in the second 
 half of the second century, the Canon of The New 
 Testament had reached a high degree of complete- 
 ness. I mean the collecting and authenticating of the 
 books, in contradistinction to their composition. It 
 was shown that the Muratori Fragment and the 
 Peshito Version, in the form in which they come 
 down to us, each contain the titles of sixteen of the 
 books found in The New Testament, and that in the 
 original form of the Fragment they contain each 
 eighteen titles, viz. : Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, 
 Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Gala- 
 tians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessa- 
 lonians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, 
 Titus, and Philemon. It was shown, also, that the 
 Fragment contains 2 John, 3 John, Jude, and Rev- 
 elation, which' are not found in the Peshito, and 
 that the Peshito contains Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, 
 and 1 John, which are not found in the Fragment. 
 Only Second Peter therefore is missing from both 
 lists. If we should pursue the inquiry through the 
 
 remaining literature of the period, we should find 
 
 (317) 
 
318 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 abundant confirmatory evidence of these conclusions. 
 Thus, Clement makes quotations from or allusions to 
 twenty-two New Testament books; in one of his 
 works alone Tertullian quotes from nineteen, while 
 Irenseus recognizes twenty-five books in a single work. 
 Here, as before, a writer's failure to recognize a book 
 does not prove that it did not exist and circulate. 
 
 One proposition is therefore clear, viz. : That the 
 list of New Testament writings that is, The New 
 Testament Canon was substantially agreed upon as 
 early as the second half of the second century. To 
 put the thought in another form, fully three-fourths 
 of the writings now found in The New Testament had 
 then attained a general currency and authority 
 throughout the widely-extended Church. In a few 
 cases the Church had not yet made up its mind ; a 
 few books were still in doubt; but it cannot be said 
 that, if all the books that were doubtful or disputed 
 were rejected, the historical basis of the Christian re- 
 ligion would be in any way weakened. By this time, 
 too, the idea of a New Testament that is, the idea 
 of a complete collection of Christian Scriptures was 
 clearly defined in the Christian mind. Terms expres- 
 sive of this idea began to appear. We find the names 
 Novum Instrumentum and Novum Test amentum, the 
 "New Instrument" and the "New Testament, " in 
 Tertullian. Both seem to have been current in his 
 time; the second being, he says, more commonly 
 used. "Testament" is a literal translation of the 
 well-known Greek word diatheke, and was no doubt 
 suggested by Second Corinthians iii. 6. This name had 
 superior merits to "Instrument," and quickly becui:: 
 
FURTHER HISTORY OF THE CANON. 319 
 
 the only name applied to the Christian Canon. 
 About the middle of the third century, Origen speaks 
 of the "Canonical Books," and about the close of the 
 fourth, Chrysostom gave to the two Testaments, now 
 brought together and equalized in the minds of Chris- 
 tians, the name they have since borne, THE BIBLE. 
 It has been stated that the Church had not, in a 
 few cases, made up its mind at the close of the second 
 century. As I here deal with a method or a process, 
 and with specific facts only for illustration, I am not 
 called upon to trace the history of these books one 
 by one. Nor must it be supposed that any attempt 
 has been made to present all the evidence showing 
 the currency of the other books, and the fact of their 
 acceptance as Scripture. Far from it; in fact, only 
 a few of the many witnesses that might be called have 
 been even named. 
 
 By and by the Canon naturally began to attract the 
 attention of the Church Councils. Passing by the 
 Council of Laodicea, the history of which in connec- 
 tion with this subject is in doubt, we come to the 
 Third Council of Carthage, which sat in the year 397, 
 and which promulgated a Canon of Scripture, Old 
 and New. "Of the New Testament: Four books of 
 the Gospels, one book of The Acts of the Apostles, 
 thirteen Epistles of the Apostle Paul, one Epistle of 
 the same [writer] to the Hebrews, two Epistles of the 
 Apostle Peter, three of John, one of James, one of 
 Jude, one book of the Apocalypse of John."* 
 
 It cannot be said that this decree put an end to 
 controversy, for the question of the Canon has been 
 
 * Westcott, p. 408. 
 
320 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 since opened by individual writers time and again, 
 but the great body of Christian believers has ever 
 clung to the Canon as it was finally agreed upon 
 towards the close of the fourth century. Councils 
 later than the Third of Carthage have reaffirmed the 
 catalogue of Sacred Books, even down to our own 
 day. This has not been done, however, so much to 
 settle disputes as to declare what had been handed 
 down and received as Scripture from earlier times. 
 In fact, the decree of Carthage only declares the 
 Church consensus, and settles the one or two ques- 
 tions that are still in doubt. 
 
 Frequent mention has been made of the Church. 
 This term has been used as synonymous with the body 
 of believers. When it is said such and such books 
 "were received by the Church," the meaning is, T)y 
 the great mass of Christians. The term is not used, 
 therefore, in the corporate sense of Catholic and 
 High Church writers. Manifestly no authority but that 
 of the Church, as thus defined, was competent to pass 
 upon the Christian Writings. The Gospels, the Epis- 
 tles, etc., were written to Christians, and for Chris- 
 tians; they were understood and appreciated, in their 
 history and doctrine, by Christians; and they alone 
 could authenticate them. It was just as it would 
 have been in the analogous case of the supposed 
 Socratic Society mentioned in the introduction. 
 
 By what rules was the Church guided in making up 
 its judgment? The answer to this all-important ques- 
 tion is given by Dr. Davidson in these words: 
 
 ' ' The preceding observations show that the formation of the 
 New Testament Canon was gradual. The collection was not 
 
FURTHER HISTORY OF THE CANON. 321 
 
 made by one man, one council, at one time, or in one place. 
 The adherents of the Christian religion in different lands came 
 to agree in the same conclusion progressively, and by tacit con- 
 sent. They did so independently to a great extent, in countries 
 remote from one another. They judged by internal evidence , 
 by tradition, by the fact of the writers being Apostles or Apos- 
 tolic men. Some relied on one criterion, some on another ; the 
 majority perhaps on ecclesiastical tradition ; the most reflecting 
 and critical on internal evidence. Slowly and surely did they 
 arrive at the entire separation of the Sacred Scriptures from the 
 spurious imitations which were then current. And in the result 
 of their judgment modern scholars commonly acquiesce. ' ' * 
 
 This statement cannot be improved upon: "The 
 adherents of the Christian religion in different lands 
 came to agree in the same conclusion progressively 
 and by tacit consent. 77 The main questions concerning 
 a book, from the very beginning, were these: " Did it 
 have an Apostle or an Apostolic man for its author? " 
 and " Has the book had currency in the churches 
 from the first age?" Thus Tertullian declared: "Mar- 
 cion's Gospel is not known to most people, and to 
 none whatever is it known without being at the same 
 time condemned." 
 
 Surprise has sometimes been expressed that the 
 Canon was so long in forming that books were in 
 dispute, and that disputes lasted to so late a day; and 
 the authority of the Canon has sometimes been object- 
 ed to on this ground. The surprise and the objection 
 argue a failure to understand the Primitive Church, 
 and the world in which it existed. When we remem- 
 ber that the Gospel was at first oral preaching; that 
 the books were widely scattered; that they had to 
 prove themselves to a widely scattered Church, and 
 
 * A Treatise on Biblical Criticism. Vol. II., pp. 36, 37. 
 
322 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 that the means of comparing documents and weighing 
 evidence were scanty, there is no room for either 
 surprise or objection. It should be remembered, too, 
 that by far the larger share of The New Testament, 
 both in number of books and in volume, never was 
 in dispute, save as it may have been disputed by 
 heretics. Moreover, the man who will to-day care- 
 fully follow the history of the Ancient Church in its 
 dealing with the Canon, and seek to do what the 
 Ancient Church did, will find himself repeating its 
 mental history at every step. If he will set aside all 
 decrees and canons of Councils, and seek from the 
 original evidence to construct a canon for himself 
 using the very evidence that the Church used so far 
 as it now exists he will advance boldly where the 
 Church advanced boldly, and where the Church hesi- 
 tated he will hesitate. This has been the uniform 
 experience of those who have honestly made the 
 effort. Than this, the caution and the wisdom of the 
 Ancient Church can have no better vindication. As 
 Dr. Davidson says, in the judgment of the Ancient 
 Church modern scholars commonly acquiesce. 
 
 Surprise is also sometimes expressed that it should 
 have been for some time an open question whether 
 certain writings not found in our Testament were not 
 also canonical. Mention may be made of the Epis- 
 tles of Clement of Rome and of Barnabas. There is 
 nothing in the facts that should create surprise. 
 These writings were accepted as genuine, but the 
 question of the standing to be accorded to their 
 authors only time could settle. 
 
 That plenty of time was taken to settle the various 
 
FURTHER HISTORY OF THE CANON. 323 
 
 points in dispute, was honorable to the Church rather 
 than otherwise. On the whole subject the wildest 
 statements are sometimes made. It is charged, for 
 instance, that the status of every book in the Canon 
 was determined by the votes of councils, often by 
 small majorities, and that books which were thrown 
 aside had claims to an Apostolic character quite as 
 strong as other books that were admitted. Much has 
 been said and written upon the absurdity of settling 
 by yea and nay votes, in a great assembly, whether a 
 given book was "Scripture" or not. So far from 
 these representations dealing fairly with the facts, 
 they are wholly false to the facts, and to the spirit 
 which in the progressive settlement was made. 
 
 One point further may be urged. In respect to 
 much the larger number of books, there was never 
 any question at all as to whether they should be ad- 
 mitted to the Canon. So far as existing evidence 
 shows, there was unanimity, practically so, concerning 
 these books from the very beginning. For the sake 
 of argument, we will suppose that in cases of doubt 
 or hesitation the decision reached was as often wrong 
 as right. What then? We are still left with three- 
 fourths of the New Testament books, and more than 
 three-fourths of the matter, substantially unaffected 
 by internal disputes. Still more, several of the most 
 important of the books go back to the middle of the 
 first century; and if all others should be thrown 
 aside, we should still have the most ample evidence to 
 the existence, at that time, of the cardinal Christian 
 teachings and institutions. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 Aramaic, language of Jesus, 82. 
 
 Accommodation, intellectual, Jesus recognizes, 126-130; to the feelings, 
 
 130-134. 
 
 Aristotle, see philosophers, The Greek. 
 
 Alford, Dean, on the meaning of prophecy, 79; parable defined by, 158, 159. 
 Apperception, defined, 169-172; made use of by Jesus, 173-175. 
 Authority, Jesus taught with, 113-117; of intuition, 117, 118; of scribes, 118- 
 
 126. 
 
 Bacon, on the skillful question, 190; his manner of approaching nature, 224. 
 Baptism, 109-111; founded on the Oriental rite, 112. 
 Babylon, exile of Jews to, changed their character, 27. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, quoted on literary criticism, 131. 
 
 Child, The, as a type of the disciple, 225; relation of life of to adult life, 225. 
 
 Children, more prominent in literature than formerly, 214-217; causes for 
 
 change, 217; attitude of Jesus to, 217-224. 
 Christianity, a gospel and a discipline, 1; stress laid upon these factors in 
 
 preparation of the world for, 94. 
 Church, how founded by Jesus, 104-108; origin of name, 106; spirit of the, 
 
 108, 109. 
 
 Compayr^, quoted on method, 229, 230. 
 Corban, the Rabbinical system of, 59-61; exposed by Jesus, 78. 
 
 De Pressense, on the Gospel, 2. 
 
 De Quincy, quoted on the offices of literature, 242, 243. 
 
 Education, two relations under which it may be regarded, 18, 19; suggests to 
 most minds a school, 25; facts that influenced, at Rome, 25; Jewish, be- 
 gan with the mother, 28-30; the duty of the father, 30, 31; manner of, 
 32; thoroughness of , 34-38; superiority of the new over the old, 226. 
 
 Emerson, R. W. , never attempted to prove his teaching, 48. 
 
 Faith, the kind Jesus preached, 238; Dr. Hatch quoted in regard to, 238-240. 
 
 Farrar, Canon, on Oriental children, 16, 17; on Jesus's knowledge of the 
 Sacred Scriptures, 38; of the Greek and Latin languages, 39; how he 
 deals with the quotations of the New Testament, 88, 89; sets aside the 
 (325) 
 
326 INDEX. 
 
 theory that Jesus borrowed from sects and teachers of his time, 98, 99; 
 
 on the severity of Jesus, 204-207. 
 Feasts, The Jewish, of Esther, of the Passover, of Weeks, of the New Year, 
 
 of Tabernacles, 29. 
 Feelings, The, influence of, 173. 
 
 Geikie, Dr., on the teaching of the Rabbis compared with that of Jesus, 
 
 119, 120. 
 
 Gnomes, or maxims. See Proverbs. 
 Goethe, on the Hebrew nice, 26. 
 Greece, created the intellect that has critically investigated the literature of 
 
 the Jews, 70. 
 Hatch, Dr., quoted on manner of Jesus's teaching, 70; on the Christian 
 
 faith, 238-240. 
 Hill, Dr. Birkbeck, quotation from the Life of Rowland Hill by, 208, 209. 
 
 Inspiration, higher manifestation of spiritual intuition, 117. 
 Isaiah, see Prophets, The Hebrew. 
 
 Jacotot, quoted on teaching, 229. 
 
 Jameson, Mrs., early Christian art embodies our Lord under that form in 
 
 which he imaged himself, 4,5. 
 Jerusalem, Jesus's first visit to, 16, 17. 
 
 Josephus, on the Jewish child, 17; on manner of Jewish education, 34, 35. 
 Judaism, the beginning of our religion, 87. 
 
 Keerux, herald, The Greek, 1. 
 
 Lange, Dr., Christ a teacher and mediator, 124; Christ's forms and methods 
 of teaching, 136, 137, 139, 145, 146; definition of parable, 158; definition 
 of proverb, 145; on currency of teaching by proverbs among the Jews, 
 146. 
 
 Law, The Roman, 25; The Jewish, characteristics of, enjoined upon parents 
 to teach to their children, 26, 27; its adaptation to the wants of the peo- 
 ple, 28; spirit of, sacrificed to the letter, 62-64; Jehovah, center of 
 Jewish, 67; The Mosaic, a religious code, 68; influence of, upon Jesus, 
 94-98. 
 
 Lecky, W. E. H., describes the difference between Pagan and Christian 
 teaching, 40. 
 
 Milman, Dean, shows how legalism necessitated tradition, 54, 55. 
 
 Ministers, Christian, 106. 
 
 Ministry, The, Christian; functions of, 1; of Jesus, began at Capernaum, 6; 
 
 kind of , 7-9; range of , 9-11; immediate effects of, 11; manner of , 11,12; 
 
 unique character of, 12, 13; qualifications for, 38-41. 
 Method, Jesus's, of teaching, 125-146; developing defined, 176-178; recognized 
 
 by Jesus, 178. 
 Method, comparative, marks a stage In the progress of the human mind, 
 
 92, 93; a wide difference of opinions in regard to, 229; Compayr^ quoted 
 
 in regard to, 229; Jesus says nothing about, 230; greatest teachers say 
 
 little or nothing of, 230. 
 
INDEX. 327 
 
 Neander, Dr., on Jesus' adaptation, 125-129; on His method of teaching, 
 136-140. 
 
 Ordinances, Jesus recognized the necessity of, 109, 110; the Lord's supper, 
 
 112; baptism, 109. 
 Orient, The, characteristics of, 19; customs of , 23, 24; literature of , 147-151. 
 
 Paul, the Apostle, a preacher to the Gentiles, 13; quoted, 221. 
 
 Parable, used by Jesus in teaching, 158-168; defined, 158, 159; used in Judaea 
 
 from the time of the Judges to Jesus, 160; adapted to the teaching of 
 
 Jesus, 161-163; most effective mode of teaching in New Testament, 
 
 163-165; why Jesus used, 165-168, 237. 
 Peabody, Dr. A. P., on methods of teaching, 126, 127. 
 Pentateuch, The, precepts of, 97. 
 Perspective, defined, 184-186; Jesus recognized it in His teaching, 187-189; 
 
 consequences of defects in, 189. 
 
 Pharisees, The, sit in Moses's seat, 113; attempt to entangle Jesus in argu- 
 ment, 142-144. 
 
 Philo, quoted in relation to the Law, 35. 
 Philosophers, The Greek, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, teachers unlike Jesus, 6; 
 
 Socrates, ability to ask and answer questions, 190; Aristotle, about 
 
 teaching, 87; his characterization of the East and West, 147. 
 Philosophy, scheme or system of thought, 230; has its place, 230; Jesus a 
 
 guide as to teaching, 231. 
 Poimcen, pastor, applied to Jesus, 4, 108; preacher, contrasted with teacher, 
 
 13; Jesus the first, of the Christian Church, 13. 
 Prophecy, extinct, 121. 
 Prophets, The, of Old Testament, preachers and teachers, 68, 69; how, and 
 
 for what purpose quoted by Jesus, 79-82; spiritual truth emphasized by 
 
 Micah,96; by Isaiah, 96. 
 Proverbs, or gnomes, a favorite mode of teaching among the Jews, 145; used 
 
 by all Oriental peoples, 46; used by Solomon, 148, 153; in the hands of 
 
 Jesus, 155, 157. 
 Presbuteros, elder, use of term in the early Church, 107, 108. 
 
 Qualities, moral, courage, truth, justice, righteousness, give character its 
 firmness, 201; compassion, pity, tenderness, innocence, give character 
 its grace and loveliness, 201; justice compared with compassion, 202; all 
 unite in Jesus, 204, 205; severe, of Jesus, 204-212; emphasis placed on 
 the gentler, in recent times, 209, 210; naturalness and simplicity of 
 Jesus, 225. 
 
 Questions, ethical and practical, in morals, 190; different answers to, narrow 
 and broad, 190, 191; manner of answering, a guage of mental power of 
 the teacher, 191; Jesus in respect to, a teacher of authority, 192-200. 
 
 Rabbis, legalists and traditionalists, 54-56; effect of teaching, 56-62; Jesus 
 expanded the teaching of, 72-77; work of, set at naught by Jesus, 86; 
 succeeded the prophets and priests as teachers, 97, 98; official repre- 
 sentatives of Jewish system of teaching, 114. 
 
828 INDEX. 
 
 Rousseau, J. J., quoted on Jesus 's teaching, 51; his interest in the child, 225. 
 Ruskin, John, quoted on morality, 245, 246. 
 
 Sabbath, meaning of, 62, 63; Jesus 's treatment of, 74, 75. 
 
 Sadducees, The, questioned by Jesus, 194, 195. 
 
 Scribes, The, unlike Jesus in methods of teaching, 67; demanded that Jesus 
 
 should conform to their rule, 61; authority of, 118, 119. 
 Scripture, books of, referred to by Jesus, 84; how handled by Him, 84-86; 
 
 letter of, remains the same but with new meanings, 88. 
 Scriptures, The, subject to criticism, 65; not all of equal authority, 66, 67; 
 
 Jewish, like Greek, practical and ethical, purpose of Jesus in quoting, 
 
 78-80. 
 
 Scudder, H. E. , quoted on the child, 213. 
 Septuagint, The, Greek version of Scriptures, 82, 83. 
 
 Shepherd, The Good, the first conception of Jesus to be expressed in art, 4. 
 Socrates, see Greek philosophers. 
 Stanley, Dean, on the word "prophet," 3; Oriental life described by, 23, 24; 
 
 on the synagogue, 105; gives origin of the name Ecclesia, 106; on origin , 
 
 of the sermon, 109; on baptism, 111, 122; likens Christ's teaching to 
 
 Solomon's, 152; likened to Jesus by, 152, 153. 
 
 Teacher and teachers, qualifications of, Jesus possessed them in a high 
 degree, 15, 42-47; Jewish, generally the chazzan of the synagogue, 31; 
 position in Judea, 35, 36; the greatest religions, assume and do not 
 attempt to prove fundamental truth, 48, 49, 50; intuition of Jesus as a, 
 50, 51; adaptation as a, 52, 53; priests and prophets considered as, 95-97; 
 Jesus most original of, 100-103; a model, for those who should come 
 after Him, 230; the wise, conducts his work according to certain peda- 
 gogical principles, 237. 
 
 Teaching, Lecky describes difference between Pagan and Christian, 40, 41; 
 Jesus 's manner of, 70-75, 232-236; formed no system of theological, 86; 
 method of, 125-168; like Solomon's, 153-157; employed questioning in, 
 140-144; maxims, gnomes, or proverbs in, 145-157; use of the parable 
 in, 158-168; use of illustrations drawn from common life in, 180-183; 
 perspective in, recognized by Jesus, 187-189; imitation of the sterner 
 passages in the life of Jesus, 211, 212; Jesus's theory of, 227; under 
 three heads, 232; Jesus's manner of, 238; moral and religious, must 
 take hold of the active principles of human nature, 243; characteristics 
 of Jesus's, 243-245; Ruskin quoted on, 245. 
 
 Text-books, Jewish, the Bible, 15; the Mischna, 31; the Talmud, 32. 
 
 Titles, of Jesus, 5. 
 
 Theology, defined, 230; its place, 230; proper use of, 231; mistakes of Chris- 
 tian world in regard to, 242, 243. 
 
 Theory, proper meaning of, 227; no man of ideas without, 228; good and bad, 
 228; of the quack, 229; of the scientific physician, 229; educational, 
 229, 230; not a machine, 229. 
 
 "Will, The, part of, in mental growth, 172, 173. 
 
INDEX. 329 
 
 THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 Apostles, Acts of, different kind of writing from the Gospels, 259-262; reads 
 like the Gospels, 257, 258. 
 
 Apostles, The Twelve, fitness of, how taught by Christ, 256, 257; oral teach- 
 ers and preachers, 264; preaching of, covered more ground than that of 
 Jesus, 267, 268; planted the first churches, 302, 303. 
 
 Bacon, his "anticipations," 297. 
 
 Bossuet, quoted on foundation of the Church, 259. 
 
 Canon, The, how made up, 300-304, 312-314; complete and final, 304, 305; defi- 
 nition of the word, 307, 308; of Marcion, 311; determined by the practice 
 of the Church, 312; agreed upon, 318-320; question of admitting certain 
 books to, 323. 
 
 Causes that led to the writing of the New Testament, 249. 
 
 Christianity, important facts concerning, free from dispute, 254. 
 
 Church, The, the great theme of the Christian Scriptures, 296; differentiation 
 of, 2%, 297; meaning of word, 320; how guided in judging books, 320, 
 321; history of, in relation to the Canon, 322. 
 
 Councils, The Church, reaffirmed the Canon, 319, 320. 
 
 Creeds, The, first replies of the Church to heretics, 311. 
 
 Davidson, Dr. , quoted on the formation of the Canon, 320, 321. 
 
 De Presess6, on origin of the Gospels, 204-207. 
 
 Disciples, followers of Jesus, 286; ceased not to preach, 281, 282. 
 
 Epistles, The, written before the Gospels, 268; origin of , 269; characteristics 
 of, 270-272; supersede the oral Gospel, 290; regarded as Scripture, 305; 
 of Apostolic Fathers, 306; written to and for Christians, 320; of Clement 
 and Barnabas, 322. 
 
 Fathers, The Apostolic, 306, 311, 3f2, 315, 316, 321. 
 
 Gospel, The, began with preaching, 265; spread of, 266; views of the history 
 
 of, 280. 
 Gospels, The, differ from the Acts, 259-261; reasons for writing, 273-276; age 
 
 of, 279; the first, sermons of the Apostles, 282, 283; need of, 283, 284; 
 
 origin of, 284; how written, 292, 293; give true history of the first age of 
 
 the Church, 294, 295; teaching of, ethical and spiritual, 295; faithfulness 
 
 of, 293; written for Christians, 320. 
 
 Howson, Dean, quoted on first Epistle, 265, 266. 
 Inspiration, old theory of, 260. 
 
 Literature, New Testament treated as, 249-251; Christian, relating to the 
 Canon, 312-314. 
 
 Ministry, The, of Jesus, starting point in considering making of New Testaa- 
 
 ment, 255. 
 Muratori Fragment, The, 312-314. 
 
330 INDEX. 
 
 Neander, Dr. , quoted on Apostolic Fathers, 263. 
 
 Paradidonai, paradosis, 285, 286, 288, 289. 
 Peshito Version, The, 312-314. 
 
 Preaching, oral, source of historical Christianity, 268; adaptation of, to early 
 Christians, 272. 
 
 Renan, author of legendary theory, to account for Jesus, 255. 
 
 Scriptures, The, to be subjected to the same tests as other similar books, 250; 
 illustrated by assumed Socratic writings, 251; difficulties in the way of, 
 252; full treatment of, not contemplated, 252; other, than those of the 
 Old Testament. 305. 
 
 Strauss, Dr. , author of myth theory to account for Jesus, 255. 
 
 Teacher and teachers, Jesus an oral, 258; Apostles also, 258; Jesus as a, 
 compared with the Scribes, 262; with the Apostles, 262, 263. 
 
 Theories, The, to account for Jesus, changed, 255; Strauss and Renan pro- 
 pounded most important ones in recent years, 255. 
 
 Tischendorf , Dr. , in regard to age of four Gospels, 294. 
 
 Tradition, growth of, 276, 277; original Christian, defined, 285-288. 
 
 Westcott, Bishop, on the Canon, 309-315. 
 
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