teach the Gentiles? What is this saying that he hath said: You shall seek me, and shall not find me; and where I am you cannot come?"

MYSTIC WATER.-EFFUSION

CHAPTER XXXV.

OF THE HOLY GHOST. THE JEWS DIVIDED AMONGST THEMSELVES.-COUNCIL OF THE PRIESTS.-OPPOSITION OF NICODEMUS.-THE WO

MAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY.

A RELIGIOUS ceremony which the Jews practised during the feast of tabernacles may have given occasion for the last words which the Saviour addressed to them during this solemnity. They went to draw water from the fountain of Siloe, and then poured it upon the altar, beseeching God to bless them with an abundance of the fruits of the earth. There is every appearance that, on the subject of this water, he spoke to them, as to the Samaritan, of a more wondrous and more desirable water. It was the last and greatest day of the festivity. (a) "Jesus stood, and cried, saying: If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink. He that believeth in me (this explains the word' drink'), as the Scripture saith, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. This he said of the Spirit which they should receive who believed in him; for as yet the Spirit was not given, because Jesus was not yet glorified (1)."

"Of that multitude, therefore, when they had heard these words of his, some said: This is the prophet indeed. Others said: This is

(a) St. John, vii. 37-53.

(1) The Holy Ghost had been given to the holy sage, Simon, to Zachary, to John the Baptist, and to some others; but they were few in number. It was not until after the Lord Jesus had been fully glorified-that is to say, after his ascension, and upon Pentecost-day-that the Holy Ghost was given to all the disciples, and in such plenitude as served to diffuse the Spirit over all the earth. This diffusion, proceeding from this plenitude, is signified by the preceding words: shall flow rivers of living water.

Out of his belly

the Christ. But some said: Doth the Christ come out of Galilee? Doth not the Scripture say that Christ cometh of the seed of David, and from Bethlehem, the town where David was? So there arose a dissension among the people, because of him; and some of them would have apprehended him. But no man laid hands upon him." These were the priests' ministers or officers, who were in hopes of executing on that day what they were unable to accomplish on the preceding days. His divine eloquence was the charm which tied up their hands. "They came, therefore, to the chief priests and the Pharisees. And they said to them: Why have you not brought him? The ministers answered: Never did man speak like this man. The Pharisees answered them: Are ye also seduced? Hath any one of the rulers believed in him, or of the Pharisees? But this multitude that knoweth not the law are accursed [of God]. Nicodemus, he that came to Jesus by night, who was one of them, said to them: Doth our law judge any man unless it first hear him, and know what he doth?" It was easy for them to answer: When we have him in our power we shall interrogate him, and we shall hear what he has to say. There is, therefore, every reason to believe that their de sign was to put the Saviour to death without any form of trial, be cause, instead of making this answer, which would have silenced Nic odemus, they were reduced to answer him with offensive language: "Art thou also a Galilean (2) ?" they answered to him. Search the Scriptures, and see that out of Galilee a prophet riseth not. every man returned to his own house (3)."

And

(2) They all start from this principle-He is a Galilean. The Jews-properly speaking, that is to say, those of the province of Judea, and principally those of Jerusalemregarded the Galileans with contempt. This is the reason why the enemies of the Saviour affectedly pointed him out by this name. They were persuaded, and with some justice, that a disreputable name is the shortest and surest means of lowering in popular estimation even the most respectable persons. Subsequently the Jews continued to designate Jesus Christ by this name, and it was from them that Julian the Apostate borrowed it. Perhaps this same Julian had the most disordered brain which was ever encircled with a diadem, no matter what his panegyrists may say, who could never have been led to culogize such a man unless their own intellects had also been unsettled. (3) A good man parleying in counsel with the wicked will never reclaim them back to reason and equity: but by representing reason and equity to them in so clear a light that they cannot elude the evidence thereof, he disconcerts their projects, and, at all

True it is we do not find in Scripture that a prophet ever came forth from Galilee; but much less do we find it said that there never should be one from thence. What, then, should hinder God from raising up one in that country as in others? Thus, without cavilling about country, the only thing to be done was to examine whether this was or was not a prophet. Yet this reason-so bad, that a man's contenting himself with it was tantamount to an avowal that he rejected Jesus Christ without any reason-this reason, I say, was more than sufficient for hearts transported with passion; and in this regard no difference can be drawn between the enlightened and the unenlightened mind. Those who alleged this reason were, without contradiction, the most polished and the most learned class amongst the Jews. Nevertheless, of all those who refused to acknowledge the Saviour, they are those who give the most absurd reason for their refusal-one, in fact, that a child could refute. For that ignorant populace, who maintained that it was not known whence the Messias should come, appeared to think so, on the faith of sundry texts of Scripture, which seemed, at first sight, to present this meaning to the mind. Those who said that he should spring from the race of David, and be born at Bethlehem, said the truth; and they only erred in thinking that the second of these two marks did not belong to Jesus Christ: an error against which they only could secure themselves by a minute research into the entire life of the Saviour, who, being removed from Bethlehem to Egypt immediately after his birth, and brought thence into Galilee, where he dwelt after his return from Egypt until the commencement of his mission, gave ground for thinking that he was a native of that province. They deceived themselves, therefore; and what rendered their error inexcusable before God is, that the miracles of Jesus Christ obliged them to subscribe to the truth of all he advanced concerning himself, and forced them to seek in him the characters of the Messias, which they did not at once perceive, but which were easily ascer

events, suspends the execution thereof. Injustice is disarmed when stripped of all color of justice. A good man cannot always succeed in securing this result; but whenever he can, he ought to do so; and the apprehension, or even the certainty, of encountering their hatred, ought never to deter him from doing his duty.

tained if they had only set about examining the subject. But, after all, their error was not without some appearance of reason, whereas that of the Pharisees had not the slightest excuse; for to reject Jesus Christ, merely because no prophets had heretofore appeared in Galilee, was tantamount, as we have already said, to maintaining that God could not, or never would, raise one from that country. The first position is notoriously false: how did they know the second? This would establish, by consequence, that they should reject as false prophets all those who were the first prophets of their country. What could be more absurd! Yet this is the groundwork on which the masters and doctors in Israel found their opposition: which shows, as we have already stated, that even by the most enlightened persons, when, unhappily, they have allowed themselves to be biased, the most palpable blunders are converted into demonstration; for the reproach of ignorance wherewith they taunt Nicodemus only springs from the fact that he cannot feel as they do the force of this reasoning: There never was a prophet of Galilee; therefore there never shall be such.

(a) In the mean time [as it grew late], Jesus went unto Mount Olivet," so called on account of an olive plantation, with which it was covered. It lies beyond the torrent of Kedron, east of Jerusalem, and as far distant from that city as a man was allowed to travel on the Sabbath-day, that is to say, two Italian miles. When Jesus sojourned at Jerusalem, he was accustomed to pass the night there in prayer, and the traitor Judas knew this but too well. Adjacent to this lay Bethania, where Mary and Martha resided, with their brother Lazarus. We know how dear this family was to the Saviour, and their vicinity may, indeed, have been one of the reasons for the preference which he had given to this place. After having passed the night there, according to his custom, "early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came to him. Sitting down, he taught them," when he was interrupted by a new machination, which his enemies set in motion against him, but which he easily turned against themselves.

"The Scribes and the Pharisees bring unto him a woman taken in

(a) St. John, viii. 1-11.

adultery (4), and they set her in the midst [of the assembly]. Mas ter, they said to Jesus, this woman was even now taken in adultery. Now, Moses in the law commanded us to stone such a one. But what sayest thou? This they said, tempting him, that they might accuse him," either of prevarication, if he undertook to moderate the rigor of the law, or of contradicting himself, if he was of opinion that they should enforce the extreme rigor of the law-he who hitherto had always evinced the greatest indulgence and compassion for sinners. Jesus, who knew their designs, and who did not wish to answer them, did at first what is customary whenever any one wishes to elude an importunate or captious question: it is usual on such an occasion to seem inattentive, as if the mind were occupied by some other thought. It was, therefore, with this intention, "bowing himself down, he wrote with his finger on the ground (5).” His ene

(4) This narrative is not found in most of the Greek manuscripts; yet it is found in some of very great antiquity, and in almost all the ancient Latin manuscripts. If we were merely to consult the rules of criticism, it would be questionable enough whether or not the passage is truly part of the Scripture. Calvin thinks he recognizes here the Spirit of God—which Beza denies. It is optional with their disciples to credit which of the two they like best. Not so with the Catholics. The Church hath fixed their belief upon this point by the decree of the Council of Trent, which makes it obligatory to receive as books of Scripture all those that the Council enumerates, and to receive them in all their parts, just as they are found in the ancient Vulgate. Now the Gospel of Saint John is one of these books; and in the Vulgate the narrative referring to the adulteress constitutes part of the Gospel of Saint John. We, therefore, know what we are to believe, because we know whom we are to believe. (5) We do not know what he wrote. We scarcely know whether he formed characters, or whether he merely traced lines, although the first conjecture is most probable, because it is said that he wrote. Nevertheless, some have asserted not only that he did write, but even what he wrote. A great many individuals assure us that he wrote the secret sins of the accusers of the adulteress. Where have they learned this? They add, that it was this disclosure which obliged these sinners when thus unmasked to fly off one after the other. This does not appear to have been the case; for the evangelist doth not say that they withdrew after having seen what Jesus wrote, but after having heard what he said. Other interpreters think that the Saviour confined himself to the writing of some short, energetic sentence, calculated to confound these rash accusers-for instance, these words of Jeremias, xxii., 29, 30: 0, earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord: Write this man barren. Or else these words, which he had already pronounced upon another occasion (Matthew, vii. 5): Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thy own eye, and then shalt thou see to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. One thing alone is certain, viz., that we are ignorant of what he wrote.