former, on account of the overbearing confidence with which the rival people announced their hour of triumph, when the Great King should erect his throne on Sion, and punish all the enemies of the chosen race, among whom the "foolish people," as they were called, "who dwelt at Sichem *," would not be the last to incur the terrible vengeance. A Messiah who would disappoint the insulting hopes of the Jews would, for that very reason, be more acceptable to the Samaritans. CHAP. Sanhedrin. The Samaritan commonwealth was governed, Samaritan under the Roman supremacy, by a council or sanhedrin but this body had not assumed the pretensions of a divinely inspired hierarchy; nor had they a jealous and domineering sect, like that of the Pharisees, in possession of the public instruction, and watching every new teacher who did not wear the garb, or speak the Shibboleth of their faction, as guilty of an invasion of their peculiar province. But, from whatever cause, the reception of Jesus among the Samaritans, was strongly contrasted with that among the Jews. They listened with reverence, and entreated him to take up his permanent abode within their province; and many among them distinctly acknowledged him as the Messiah and Saviour of the world. Still a residence, longer than was necessary in the infected air, as the Jews would suppose it, of Sama * There be two manner of nations which my heart abhorreth, and the third is no nation. They that sit upon the mountain of Sa maria, and they that dwell among IV. racle in Ca pernaum. CHAP. ria, would have strengthened the growing hostility of the ruling powers, and of the prevailing sect among the Jews. After two days, therefore, Jesus proceeded on his journey, re-entered Galilee, and publicly assumed, in that province, his office as the Second mi- teacher of a new religion. The report of a second, a more public, and more extraordinary miracle than that before performed in the town of Cana, tended to establish the fame of his actions in Jerusalem, which had been disseminated by those Galileans who had returned more quickly from the passover, and had excited a general interest to behold the person of whom such wonderful rumours were spread abroad.* The nature of the miracle, the healing a youth who lay sick at Capernaum, about twenty-five miles distant from Cana, where he then was; the station of the father, at whose entreaty he restored the son to health (he was probably on the household establishment of Herod), could not fail to raise the expectation to a higher pitch, and to prepare the inhabitants of Galilee to listen with eager deference to the new doctrines.t Nazareth. Inhospitable recep One place alone received the son of Mary with cold and inhospitable unconcern, and rejected his tion of claims with indignant violence - his native town of Nazareth. The history of this transaction is singularly true to human nature. ‡ Where Jesus was Jesus. *Matt. iv. 13. 17.; Mark, i. 14, John, iv. 46-54. pears to be an allusion (John, iv. 44.) to this incident, which may have taken place before the second miracle. IV. unknown, the awe-struck imagination of the people, CHAP. excited by the fame of his wonderful works, beheld him already arrayed in the sanctity of a prophetical, if not of a divine, mission. Nothing intruded on their thoughts to disturb their reverence for the commanding gentleness of his demeanour, the authoritative persuasiveness of his language, the holiness of his conduct, the celebrity of his miracles: he appeared before them in the pure and unmingled dignity of his public character. But the inhabitants of Nazareth had to struggle with old impressions, and to exalt their former familiarity into a feeling of deference or veneration. In Nazareth he had been seen from his childhood; and though gentle, blameless, popular, nothing had occurred, up to the period of his manhood, to place him so much above the ordinary level of mankind. His father's humble station and employment had, if we may so speak, still farther undignified the person of Jesus to the mind of his fellow-townsmen. In Nazareth Jesus was still "the carpenter's son." We think, likewise, that we discover in the language of the Nazarenes something of local jealousy against the more favoured town of Capernaum. If Jesus intended to assume a public and distinguished character, why had not his native place the fame of his splendid works? why was Capernaum honoured, as the residence of the new prophet, rather than the city in which he had dwelt from his youth? the syna It was in the synagogue of Nazareth, where Jesus Jesus in had hitherto been a humble and devout listener, that gogue. IV. CHAP. he stood up in the character of a Teacher. According to the usage, the chazan or minister of the synagogue, whose office it was to deliver the volume of the law or the prophets appointed to be read to the person to whom that function had fallen, or who might have received permission from the rulers of the synagogue to address the congregation, gave it into the hands of Jesus. Jesus opened on the passage in the beginning of the 16th chapter of Isaiah t, by universal consent applied to the coming of the Messiah, and under its beautiful images describing with the most per fect truth the character of the new religion. It spoke of good tidings to the poor, of consolation in every sorrow, of deliverance from every affliction :“He hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken hearted; to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind; to set at liberty them that are bound." It went on, as it were, to announce the instant fulfilment of the prediction, in the commencement of the "acceptable year of the Lord;" but before it came to the next clause, which *It is said that on the Sabbath the law was read in succession by seven persons -a priest, a Levite, and five Israelites-and never on any other day by less than three. The prophets were read by any one; in general one of the former readers, whom the minister might summon to the office. + It is of some importance to the chronology of the life of Christ, to ascertain whether this perioche or portion was that appointed in the ordinary course of reading, or one selected by Jesus. But we cannot decide this with any certainty; nor is it clear that the distribution of the lessons, according to the ritual of that period, was the same with the present liturgy of the Jews. According to that, the 16th chapter of Isaiah would have been read about the end of August. Macknight and some other harmonists lay much stress on this point. IV. harmonised ill with the benign character of the new CHAP. faith, and spoke of "the day of vengeance, he broke off and closed the book. He proceeded, probably at some length, to declare the immediate approach of these times of wisdom and peace. The whole assembly was in a state of pleasing astonishment at the ease of his delivery, and the sweet copiousness of his language; they could scarcely believe that it was the youth whom they had so often seen, the son of a humble father, in their streets, and who had enjoyed no advantages of learned education. Some of them, probably either by their countenance, or tone, or gesture, expressed their incredulity, or even their contempt, for Joseph's son; for Jesus at once declared his intention of performing no miracle to satisfy the doubts of his unbelieving countrymen :-"No prophet is received with honour in his own country." This avowed preference of other places before the dwelling of his youth; this refusal to grant to Nazareth any share in the fame of his extraordinary works, embittered perhaps by the suspicion that the general prejudice against their town might be strengthened, at least not discountenanced, as it might have been, by the residence of so distinguished a citizen within their walls-the reproof so obviously concealed in the words and conduct of Jesus, mingled no doubt with other fanatical motives, wrought the whole assembly to such a pitch of frenzy, that they expelled Jesus Violence from the synagogue. Nazareth lies in a valley, Nazarenes. from which a hill immediately rises; they hurried of the |