dipped and bore it to the ruler of the feast, who, when he had tasted it, not knowing whence it was, called his friend the bridegroom, and pleasantly reminded him that it was customary to produce the best wine at first, and when men had rather cloyed their palates by frequent potations, then to produce the inferior wine. "But," said he, "you have kept the good wine until now," until the very last.

The historian pronounces this a miracle. It certainly is, or it is a contemptible farce played out by cunning collusion, or the whole history is false. We have no more right The miracle. to suspect this history than most of Caesar's Commentaries on the War in Gaul, or the Annals of Tacitus. We must accept this, or reject almost every line of these histories. Accepted, the narrative shows that John, who seems to have been present, believed, so far from this being a trick, that it was really a miracle.

Palliative explanations.

There is nothing gained by any explanations of the palliative class, such as Neander's idea that Jesus "intensified (so to speak) the powers of water into those of wine." Nor by Augustine's idea that such a miracle is wrought in our vineyards yearly, and Jesus simply hastened the processes of nature by which water becomes wine.t This view is indorsed by Trench (On Miracles, p. 91), when that usually judicious writer compares this to "the unnoticed miracle of every-day nature," and speaks of the difference lying in "the power and will by which all the intervening steps of these tardier processes were overleaped and the result obtained at once." There is no comparison. There is in this act of Jesus in Cana no such basis as soil and germ, vine and grape, through which to propel the wine. It was a clear and sheer miracle, the simple basis being water and the result being wine. It was a miracle or nothing. We do no credit to our intellects by dodges or subterfuges.

sent forth waters like wine--intoxicating waters." We cannot wonder that Dr. Strauss laughs at Dr. Neander for such passages.

* One cannot ridicule so respectable and good a man as Neander; but the pressure of the spirit of German criticism upon his excellent mind may be measured by a note, in which he says: His words (in Ev. Joh., Tract. 8) Compare as analogies the mineral are: "Illud autem non miramur quia springs, in which, by natural processes, omni anno fit: assiduitate amicit adnew powers are given to water; and mirationem."

the ancient accounts of springs which

Trouble is given some commentators by the abundance of wine which Jesus made. It looks like "putting temptation in men's way," it is said. But does not the All-Father do that perpetually and plentifully? There is nothing about us which is not open to that objection.

The abundance of the wine.

Why does God allow grapes to grow? Why did God give men appetites? All life is a submitting of the human spirit to the discipline of trial.

The lesson to the disciples and to the world is wholesome. They had been in the ascetic school of John. In the very opening of his public career Jesus teaches them that

all the courtesies of life are to be respected; that

The lesson.

no man is to be so great as not to give a portion of his time to the demands of society; that indulgence in innocent pleasures should have the sanction of the loftiest and grandest natures; that marriage is not to be discouraged because the work of some men in the world forbids them-as his forbade him-to partake the blessed sweetnesses of married love; and that he came not to destroy but rectify, not to sadden but to transfigure all life by heightening the spiritual part of man and connecting his ordinary drudgery with the highest hopes; by turning the water of ordinary existence into the wine of a generous, rich, and exhilarating life. "And his disciples believed on him." (John ii. 11.)

After this Jesus, with Mary and her other sons, the half-brothers of Jesus, accompanied by the disciples, went down to Caperwhich lay on the western side of the Sea

naum,

of Galilee, a place where we shall find him doing many of his mighty works, and which, according

Visit to Caper

naum.

to his prediction, has been lost from human geography so thoronghly that no ecclesiastical tradition ventures to fix its site. Dr. Robinson

exposes the views of all previous travellers in their at tempts to identify the locality. (See Bibl. Researches, iii. 288294) The "not many days" seems to signify his eagerness to be about his work, rather than to indicate any chronological space.

PART III.

FROM THE FIRST TO THE SECOND PASSOVER IN THE PUBLIC LIFE OF JESUS.

ONE YEAR-PROBABLY FROM APRIL OF A.D. 27 TO APRIL OF A.D. 28.

CHAPTER I.

John ii.

CLEANSING THE TEMPLE.

A PASSOVER approached. This great festival drew Jews to the Temple not only from all parts of Palestine, but from distant lands. Jesus went up to Jerusalem. On entering the Temple he found in the Court of the Gentiles persons selling oxen, sheep, and doves, for sacrifices, and near them sat brokers making exchange of money for those who wished to purchase offerings. Perhaps these brokers also changed the foreign money of Jews from a distance into the sacred halfshekel, which alone was allowed to be paid in for the Temple capitation-tax, levied annually on every Jew of twenty years old and upwards. (Compare Matt. xvii. 24 with Exod. xxx. 13; 2 Kings xii. 4; 2 Chron. xxiv. 6, 9.)* Jesus had witnessed this dese

* According to Hug, "the ancient | mon business, trade, wages, sale, etc., imposts which were introduced before the assis and denarius and Roman coin the Roman dominion were valued ac- were usual. cording to the Greek coinage, e. g., the taxes of the Temple. Matt. xvii. 24; Joseph., B. I., vii. 6, 6. The offerings were paid in these. Mark xii. 42; Luke xxi. 2. A payment which proceeded from the Temple treasury was made according to the ancient national payment by weight. Matt. xxvi. 15. [This is very doubtful.] But in com

Matt. x. 29; Luke xii. 6; Matt. xx. 2; Mark xiv. 5; John xii. 5; vi. 7. The more modern state taxes are likewise paid in the coin of the nation which exercises at the time the greatest authority. Matt. xxii. 19; Mark xii. 15; Luke xx. 24."—Vol. i. p. 14. After all, however, some of these words may be translations.

cration of God's house every year from his early boyhood. He had seen that the secularized and demoralized priesthood allowed it. To him it had become intolerable. He had entered upon his mission. Probably rumors of him increased the crowd at this festival. Eighteen years before, in that very spot, he had said that he must be about his Father's business, and he certainly meant the work of God. This was the house of God. He would not endure the sight of its desecration longer. The cattle may have stood by in pairs, and rope-such rope as they were accustomed to use in leading beasts to the slaughter-lay near. spirit of the old prophets was upon him. IIe did not speak. He arted. Seizing the rope he made a scourge, and drove these desecrators out of the Temple. Whether he actually applied the lash to their backs we do not know. His presence, his act, so like that of one of their old prophets, may have exerted such a moral force upon their guilty consciences that they fled before the blow. He ordered the animals away, overturned the tables of the moneychangers, and cleared the Temple.

The

Lights and shadows! We have seen him all sweetness at a wedding, beneficently turning away the shame of a poor but loving bridegroom by a miraculous supply of wine. We now behold him terrible to evil-doers. Among the holy poor he is all gentleness; in the presence of merchants and rulers and multitudes he is the stern rebuker of the great wrong. The effect of this act on the disciples was to deepen the impression of his Messiahship. Perhaps they recalled the words of John, "whose fan is in his hands." They certainly did recollect what David had sung in his sorrowful exile: "The zeal of thy house has eaten me up." (Ps. lxix. 9.)

His authority demanded.

The Jews demanded his authority for this amazing act. The demand is to be regarded as coming from two classes. The more devont among the people must have long regarded this proximity of the mart to the Temple a nuisance which should be abated. When this extraordinary young man, of whom they had heard vague but interesting statements, performed the act so boldly, it must have been agreeable to them, and probably increased their expectations of what he should do hereafter. They hoped he would by greater deeds of national importance furnish authority for believing that he did this as a Messianic act. The worldly and secular hated

him for it, but could not resent, as he placed it upon a religious ground and had some good people near who approved. All the traders could do was to make sullen demand for his authority, which they had a right to do, as only the Sanhedrim or a prophet could correct abuses in the Temple-worship, and the latter was always expected to demonstrate his prophetic authority by a mir

acle.

His reply to that demand was enigmatical. It was: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." Reply of Jesus. In order to appreciate the effect of this speech upon his hearers there are several things to be done. In the first place, we must remember that the disciples themselves did not understand the meaning of the saying until after the death of Jesus, and that neither they nor the Jews were furnished with the interpretation of this dark speech, which John gives in ii. 21, 22. Then we must, as far as practicable, reproduce the state of feelings in the hearts of the Jews against which Jesus seems to have hurled this speech as a courageous reply to their defiance. Towards him personally they had no kind feelings. He had been associated with the denunciatory John the Baptist. He had made no overtures to ecclesiastical power or popular favor. His first public act seemed the deed of a zealot. But their Temple had become their idol. He himself intimated as much in a rebuke contained in one of his speeches.

The Temple was the central figure among their national ideals. It had stood, in one form or another, on the same spot through the centuries, collecting around itself all the tenderThe Temple. est and sublimest associations of devotion and patriotism. It was the visible residence of the invisible Jehovah. It imparted a solemn sanctification to the whole land. It was the heart through which all the national blood flowed. It held those who were resident, and attracted Jews from every clime. Their co-religionists, dispersed among the nations, having no more place of business in Jerusalem, no more home there, no living associates of their youth there, nothing but sad memories in the city of the sepulchres of their fathers, saw, in the vision of the night, THE TEMPLE rise and stretch its arms like a great Mother, and heard a voice as from the Holiest of IIolies call them back, in sounds more solemn than the thunder and more thrilling than a lovewhisper-and they rose, and at whatever sacrifice of business or