and explains it by a natural comparison, which he immediately adds: "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit."

Thus Jesus, descended from heaven to the earth, would have enjoyed, even if he had not suffered death, all the rights and preroga tives attached to the quality of Man-God. This precious wheat never lost its properties or its excellence; but it would have remained unproductive; and that long and lasting posterity, which was promised to him by the divine oracles, was only promised upon condition that he would (a) lay down his life for the expiation of sin. It was to be the same with those who should believe in him, and more especially his first disciples. The death which they were to suffer for his sake would be fruitful even as his; and the astonishing multipli cation which was to follow should force their astonished executioners to exclaim that the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians: a pow erful motive for not fearing death, but rather desiring it, since its effects are to be so admirable. This motive is, after the glory of God, the only one which Jesus Christ had or could have had; but not so with the rest of men. With reference to them, all is at stake, inasmuch as the question is of their eternal salvation, which they secure by dying for the cause of God, and which they renounce if they refuse, when called upon, to sacrifice to him this short and miserable life. Those to whom the Saviour spoke were then more susceptible of this interested motive than of a charity as generous as his own. It is on that account that he proposes it to them, by repeating to them, on this occasion, that maxim which he had already taught them: () "He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life everlasting."

To this principal reason the Saviour adds two other motives, very proper to excite their emulation and to sustain their courage. One is the example which he gives them; the other is the reward which he reserves for them. If the road be rough, he will walk before them: if the end be inconceivable glory, he will share it with them. This is what he declares to them in the following words: "If any man minister to me, let him follow me; and where I am, there also (a) Isaiah, liii. 10. (b) St. John, xii. 25.

shall my minister be. If any man minister to me, him will my Father honor."

It may strike us that no answer could be made to the example of a God. But are excuses ever wanting to our cowardice? It might say, further, that human weakness cannot be compared to the strength of a God, and that what is easy to one is impossible to the other; that a divine model is, therefore, more to be admired than followed. Jesus Christ deprives us of even this last excuse, by mak ing it apparent, in his person, that it was humanity, with all its weakness, that was about to be exposed to the shafts of death. At this moment, whilst he surveyed death with a steady eye, he suffered the apprehension to agitate his great soul, and to make him feel, as it were, a foretaste of the agony which he was to suffer when regarding it face to face in the garden of Olives. We see here a miniature representation of that doleful scene, in those words which express at the same time his emotion, his prayer, and his resignation: "Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. But for this cause I came unto this hour." Do not, therefore, spare me; and, since you must be glorified by my death, whatever it may cost me, "Father, glorify thy name."

Jesus, whom we have already heard saying to his Father, "I know that thou hearest me always," could not fail to be heard on this occasion. It is true that he could not obtain both these requests, which are contradictory, one being for death, and the other that he might not die. But the latter was only conditional; and it was not heard: the other, which was absolute, was heard, for at that instant "a voice, therefore, came from heaven: I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again."

The Father had already glorified his name by the incarnation of his Son; he was to glorify it still more by his death, and this glory was, at the same time, the glory of the Son inseparable from that of the Father. This is what was meant by that heavenly voice, whose sound produced such a startling effect, that "the multitude, therefore, that stood and heard, said that it thundered." Those who spoke thus had not distinguished the words, perhaps because they were strangers who did not understand the language of the country, in which it is very probable that the voice had spoken. Others

who had understood the sense of them, said: "An angel spoke to him." As the Father speaks in his own name, it is more likely that the voice was immediately from himself. But it was not then neces sary that the people should be made acquainted with this circumstance. Wherefore, confining himself to that which it was more important to know, "Jesus answered: This [miraculous] voice came not because of me, but for your sakes."

He then declares in what manner the Father and the Son are about to be glorified. "Now is [he said] the judgment of the world:" a judgment not of justice and of rigor, but of mercy and of grace; since in consequence, "now shall the prince of this world be cast out" (9), and the world, delivered from the oppression of its ty rant, shall fall again under the domination of its legitimate king. The manner of effecting this great revolution is that which he has already pointed out. For "I," he added, "if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself. Now this he said signifying what death he should die."

Whether the term employed was the popular expression for the punishment of the cross--whether his discourse was longer and more fully developed than we have it reported (we have already remark

(9) The demon having become the master, or rather the tyrant of men. Man, having allowed himself to be drawn into sin by the devil, deserved to be subjected to him, according to that maxim of the apostle Saint Peter to which we have already referred : he who allows himself to be vanquished, becomes the slave of him who has vanquished. Not that Satan thereby deserved to become his master; but God had abandoned guilty man to Satan, in the same way as human justice delivers criminals to the executioners. God could deliver man from his tyranny without doing him any injustice, as the prince, when he grants a pardon to the criminal, does not wrong the executioner; but God wished that the devil should deserve to be deprived of his empire, even although he had justly acquired it. The devil has deserved this by exercising over Jesus Christ, who is the just by excellence, the right of death, which he only possessed over sinIn consequence, God has decreed that he should forfeit all the rights which he previously held over mankind. It is this judgment passed against Satan in favor of the world, which is here termed the judgment of the world.

ners.

The devil has now no longer any more power over men than they are willing to let him assume; and those who, before the coming of Jesus Christ, emancipated themselves from his tyranny, were only enabled to do so by virtue of the retrospective virtue of the death of Jesus Christ. This explains in two words why the devil has still power over men, although his empire has been destroyed; and why, even before the destruction of his empire, some men were free from his domination.

ed that there is ground for believing that Saint John often gives no more than an abridgment of the Saviour's words); whatever be the reason, it is certain that his words were understood; for "the multitude answered him: We have heard out of the law that Christ abideth forever: and how sayest thou, the Son of man (10) must be lifted up? Who is this Son of man?"

These people spoke the truth, but not the whole truth. The death of Christ is not less clearly predicted than his temporal reign. The Holy Ghost, when he spoke to the prophets, had revealed to them his sufferings, as well as the glory which was to succeed them. But the Jews, solicitous to gather from Scripture everything which was glorious to their Messiah, were ever unwilling to notice the humiliations so often predicted for him. It was this blindness which caused their incredulity and their reprobation. Jesus had said sufficient to them on this point, supposing they had been willing to listen to him. He did not choose to repeat it to them again. He exhorted them in a general way to profit by present grace, because they were not to have it long, and that then they were to be delivered over to their own reprobate sense. He therefore said to them: "Yet a little while the light is among you. Walk whilst you have the light, that the darkness overtake you not. darkness knoweth not whither he goeth. light, believe in the light, that you may be the children of light. These things Jesus spoke; and he went away and hid himself from them."

He that walketh in Whilst you have the

(10) These words, the Son of man, are not found in the discourse of the Saviour, which we have just given. However, the Jews repeat the phrase as if he had just pronounced it. A convincing proof that Saint John does not report all his words.

CHAPTER LIII.

INCREDULOUS.—

INCREDULITY OF THE JEWS. THE TIMID CONDEMNED WITH THE
FROM WHENCE CAME THE BAPTISM OF JOHN.-PARABLE OF THE TWO SONS.-
PARABLE OF THE VINEYARD AND THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN.

DURING the few days which still remained to him, Jesus retired every evening to Bethania, where he passed the night, and returned in the morning to Jerusalem. This he did, lest his enemies should anticipate the time he had marked out to be betrayed into their hands. He knew that they dared not arrest him during the day, for fear of raising an insurrection amongst that portion of the people who were attached to him. The night was more favorable to their designs; and it was, therefore, under cover of the darkness that they did lay hold of him; for once they had formed the resolution of arresting him, nothing could induce them to lay it aside. Their hatred had caused their incredulity, and their incredulity increased with their hatred. (a) “And whereas he had done so many mira cles before them, they believed not in him, that the saying of Isaias the prophet might be fulfilled (1): Lord, who hath believed our hearing? And to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed!

(a) St. John, xii. 37-50.

(1) The Jews were not incredulous because Isaias had foretold their incredulity; but Isaias had foretold that they would be incredulous because they were to be so. The same case occurs here as in prescience, which is not the cause of the events which are to occur on the contrary, the events which are to happen are the causes of the foreknowledge. We have already noticed how it frequently occurs in Scripture that the particle that ("ut") signifies, not that one thing has been the cause of the other, but that one has occurred after the other: hoc post hoc, and not hoc propter hoc. Heretics have, notwithstanding, construed that ("ut") to the very rigor of the letter, and have maintained, consequently, that the prophecy of Isaias was the cause of the incredulity of the Jews; that, by not believing, they had insured the truth of the Divine oracles. These men had only one step more to take, viz., to assert that, by rendering this sort of service to God, they performed a laudable and meritorious work; nay, they even went beyond this step. There is no extravagance which men do not make even Scripture put forward, when they wish to explain it by private judgment, and not according to the sense of the Church.