VII. the work of God; of those guests who had been CHAP. first invited to the nuptial banquet; and the substitution of meaner and most unexpected guests or subjects in their place. day. The fourth day* arrived; and once more Jesus The fourth appeared in the Temple with a still increasing concourse of followers. No unfavourable impression: had yet been made on the popular mind by his adversaries; his career is yet unchecked; his authority unshaken. His enemies are now fully aware of their own desperate situation; the apprehension of the progress of Jesus unites the most discordant parties into one formidable conspiracy; the Pharisaic, the Sadducaic, and the Herodian factions agree to make common cause against the common enemy: the two national sects, the Traditionists and the Antitraditionists, no longer hesitate to accept the aid of the foreign or Herodian faction.† Some suppose The the Herodians to have been the officers and attendants on the court of Herod, then present at Jerusalem; but the appellation more probably includes all those who, estranged from the more inveterate Judaism of the nation, and having, in some degree, adopted Grecian habits and opinions, considered the peace of the country best secured by the govern *There is considerable difficulty in ascertaining the events of the Wednesday. It does not appear altogether probable that Jesus should have remained at Bethany in perfect inactivity or seclusion during the whole of this important day: either, therefore, as some suppose, the triumphant entry into Jerusalem took place on the Mon- + Matt. xxii. 15—22.; Mark, Herodians. CHAP. ment of the descendants of Herod, with the sanction and under the protection of Rome.* They were the foreign faction, and as such, in general, in direct opposition to the Pharisaic, or national party. But the success of Jesus, however at present it threatened more immediately the ruling authorities in Jerusalem, could not but endanger the Galilean government of Herod. The object, therefore, was to implicate Jesus with the faction, or at least to tempt him into acknowledging opinions similar to those of the Galilean demagogue, a scheme the more likely to work on the jealousy of the Roman government, if it was at the last Passover that the apprehension of tumult among the Galilean strangers had justified, or appeared to justify, the massacre perpetrated by Pilate. The plot was laid with great subtlety; for either way Jesus, it appeared, must commit himself. The great test of the Galilean opinion was, the lawfulness of tribute to a foreign power; which Judas had boldly declared to be not merely a base compromise of the national independence, but an impious infringement on the first principles of their theocracy. But the independence, if not the universal dominion of the Jews was inseparably bound up with the popular belief in the Messiah. * Of all notions on the muchcontested point of the Herodians, the most improbable is that which identifies them with the followers of the Galilean Judas. The whole policy of the Herodian family was in diametrical hostility to those opinions. They maintained their power by foreign influence, and, Jesus, then, would either, with the elder Herod, had systematically attempted to soften the implacable hostility of the nation by the introduction of Grecian manners. Their object accordingly was, to convict Jesus of the Galilean opinions, which they themselves held in the utmost detestation. on the question of the lawfulness of tribute to Cæsar, confirm the bolder doctrines of the Galilean, and so convict himself, before the Romans, as one of that dangerous faction; or he would admit its legality, and so annul at once all his claims to the character of the Messiah. Not in the least thrown off his guard by the artful courtesy, or rather the adulation of their address, Jesus appeals to the current coin of the country, which, bearing the impress of the Roman emperor, was in itself a recognition of Roman supremacy. * CHAP. VII. ducees. The Herodian or political party thus discomfited, The Sadthe Sadducees advanced to the encounter. Nothing can appear more captious or frivolous than their question with regard to the future possession of a wife in another state of being, who had been successively married to seven brothers, according to the Levirate law. But, perhaps, considered in reference to the opinions of the time, it will seem less extraordinary. The Sadducees, no doubt, had heard that the resurrection, and the life to come, had formed an essential tenet in the teaching of Jesus. They concluded that his notions on these subjects were those generally prevalent among the people. But, if the later Rabbinical notions of the happiness of the renewed state of existence, were current, or even known in their general outline, * The latter part of the sentence, "Render therefore unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's," and "to God the things that are God's," refers, in all probability, to the payment of the Temple tribute, which was only received in the coin VII. CHAP. nothing could be more gross or unspiritual* : if less voluptuous, they were certainly not less strange and unreasonable, than those which perhaps were derived from the same source the Paradise of Mahomet. The Sadducees were accustomed to contend with these disputants, whose paradisiacal state, to be established by the Messiah, after the resurrection, was but the completion of those temporal promises in the book of Deuteronomy, a perpetuity of plenty, fertility, and earthly enjoyment. † The answer of Jesus, while it declares the certainty of another state of existence, carefully purifies it from all these corporeal and earthly images; and assimilates man, in another state of existence, to a higher order of beings. And in his concluding inference from the passage in Exodus, in which God is described as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the allusion may perhaps be still kept up. The temporal and corporeal resurrection of the common Pharisaic belief was to take place only after the coming of the Messiah; yet their reverence for the fathers of the race, would scarcely allow even the Sadducee to suppose their total extinction. The actual, the pure beatitude of the Patriarchs, was probably an admitted point; if not formally decided by their teachers, implicitly admitted, and fervently embraced by the * It is decided, in the Sohar on Genesis, fol. 24. col. 96., "that wonan,who has married two husbands in this world, is restored to the first in the world to come." Schoetgen in loco. +Josephus, in his address to his countrymen, mingles up into one splendid picture the Metempsychosis and the Elysium of the Greeks. In Schoetgen, in loco, may be found extracts from the Talmud, of a purer character, and more resembling the language of our Lord. But if, CHAP. religious feelings of the whole people. But if, according to the Sadducaic principle, the soul did not exist independent of the body, even Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had shared the common fate, the favour of God had ceased with their earthly dissolution; nor in the time of Moses could he be justly described as the God of those, who in death had sunk into utter annihilation. Although now engaged in a common cause, the hostility of the Pharisaic party to the Sadducees, could not but derive gratification from their public discomfiture. One scribe of their party is so struck by the superiority of Jesus, that, though still with something of an insidious design, he demands in what manner he should rank the commandments, which in popular belief were probably of equal dignity and importance.* But when Jesus comprises. the whole of religion under the simple precepts of the love of God and the love of man, he is so struck with the sublimity of the language, that he does not hesitate openly to espouse his doctrines. VII. Pharisees. Paralysed by this desertion, and warned by the The discomfiture of the two parties which had preceded. them in dispute with Jesus, the Pharisees appear. to have stood wavering and uncertain how to speak or act. Jesus seizes the opportunity of still further weakening their authority with the assembled multitude; and, in his turn, addresses an embarrassing question as to the descent of the Messiah. The Messiah, according to the universal belief, would be * Matt. xxii. 34-40.; Mark, xii. 28—40.; Luke, xx. 39, 40. + Matt. xxii. 41–46.; Mark, xii. 35-37.; Luke, xx 39-44. |