Jesus on this ground, notwithstanding his extraordinary works, as a false pretender to the character of the Messiah. At all events they saw clearly that it was a struggle for the life and death of their authority. Jesus once acknowledged as the Christ, the whole fabric of their power and influence fell at once. The traditions, the Law itself, the skill of the scribe, the subtilty of the lawyer, the profound study of the rabbi, or the teacher in the synagogue and in the school, became obsolete; and the pride of superior wisdom, the long-enjoyed deference, the blind obedience with which the people had listened to their decrees, were gone by for ever. The whole hierarchy were to cede at once their rank and estimation to an humble and uninstructed peasant from Galilee, a region scorned by the better educated for its rudeness and ignorance*, and from Nazareth, the most despised town in the despised province. Against such deep and rooted motives for animosity, which combined and knit together every feeling of pride, passion, habit, and interest, the simple and engaging demeanour of the Teacher, the beauty of the precepts, their general harmony with the spirit, however they might expand the letter of the law, the charities they breathed, the holiness they inculcated, the aptitude and imaginative felicity of the parables * See in the Compendium of the Talmud by Pinner of Berlin, intended as a kind of preface to an edition and translation of the whole talmudical books, the curious passage (p. 60.) from the Erubin, in which the Jews and Galileans are VOL. I. contrasted. The Galileans did not CHAP. IV. IV. CHAP. under which they were couched, the hopes they excited, the fears they allayed, the blessings and consolations they promised, all which makes the discourses of Jesus so confessedly superior to human morality, made little impression on this class, who in some respects, as the most intellectual, might be considered as in the highest state of advancement, and therefore most likely to understand the real spirit of the new religion. The authority of Jesus could not coexist with that of the Scribes and Pharisees; and this was the great principle of the fierce opposition and jealous hostility, with which he was in general encountered by the best instructed teachers of the people. In Capernaum, however, no resistance seems to have been made to his success: the synagogue was open to him on every Sabbath; and wonderful cures, that of a demoniac in the synagogue itself, that of Simon's wife's mother, and of many others within the same town, established and strengthened his growing influence.* From Capernaum he set forth to make a regular progress through the whole populous province of Galilee, which was crowded, if we are to receive the account of Josephus, with flourishing towns and cities, beyond almost any other region of the world. † According to the statements of this author, the number of towns, and Populous- the population of Galilee, in a district of between Galilee. fifty and sixty miles in length, and between Progress through Galilee. ness of * Mark, i. 23-28.; Luke, iv. 33-37.; Matt. viii. 14, 15.; Mark, i. 29—31.; Luke, iy. 28—39. Matt. iv. 23-25.; Mark., i. 32-39.; Luke, iv. 40-44. IV. sixty and seventy in breadth, was no less than CHAP. 204 cities and villages, the least of which contained 15,000 souls.* Reckoning nothing for smaller communities, and supposing each town and village to include the adjacent district, so as to allow of no scattered inhabitants in the country, the population of the province would amount to 3,060,000; of these, probably, much the larger proportion were of Jewish descent, and spoke a harsher dialect of the Aramaic, than that which prevailed in Judæa, though in many of the chief cities there was a considerable number of Syrian Greeks and of other foreign races.† Each of these towns had one or more synagogues, in which the people met for the ordinary purposes of worship, while the more religious attended regularly at the festivals in Jerusalem. The province of Galilee with Peræa formed the tetrarchate of Herod Antipas, who, till his incestuous mar- Herod riage, had treated the Baptist with respect, if not with deference, and does not appear at first to have interfered with the proceedings of Jesus. Though at one time decidedly hostile, he appears neither to have been very active in his opposition, nor to have entertained any deep or violent animosity against the person of Jesus, even at the time of his final trial. No doubt Jerusalem and its adjacent province were the centre and stronghold of Jewish *Josephi Vita, ch. xlv. B. J. 111-111. 2. + According to Strabo, Galilee was full of Egyptians, Arabians, and Phoenicians, lib. xvi. Josephus states of Tiberias in particular, that it was inhabited by many strangers; Scythopolis was almost a Greek Hist. of the Jews, Antipas. IV. CHAP. religious and political enthusiasm; the pulse beat stronger about the heart than at the extremities. Nor, whatever personal apprehensions Herod might have entertained of an aspirant to the name of the Messiah, whom he might suspect of temporal ambition, was he likely to be actuated by the same jealousy, as the Jewish Sanhedrin, of a teacher, who confined himself to religious instruction. His power rested on force, not on opinion; on the strength of his guards and the protection of Rome, not on the respect which belonged to the half religious, half political pre-eminence of the rulers in Jerusalem. That which made Jesus the more odious to the native government in Judæa, his disappointment of their hopes of a temporal Messiah, and his announcement of a revolution purely moral and religious, would allay the fears and secure the indifference of Herod; to him Christianity, however imperfectly understood, would appear less dangerous than fanatical Judaism. The Pharisees were in considerable numbers, and possessed much influence over the minds of the Galileanst; but it was in Judæa that this overwhelming faction completely predominated, and swayed the public opinion with irresistible power. Hence the unobstructed success of Jesus in this remoter region of the Holy Land, and the wisdom of selecting that part of the country where, The supposition of Grotius, adopted by Mr. Greswell, that Herod was absent at Rome during the interval between the imprisonment and the death of John, and there- CHAP. IV. unmolested Galilee. for a time at least, he might hope to pursue unmolested his career of blessing. During this first progress he seems to have passed from town to Jesus town uninterrupted, if not cordially welcomed. passes Either astonishment, or prudent caution, which through dreaded to offend his numerous followers; or the better feeling which had not yet given place to the fiercer passions; or a vague hope that he might yet assume all that they thought wanting to the character of the Messiah, not only attracted around him the population of the towns through which he passed, but as he approached the borders, the inhabitants of Decapolis (the district beyond the Jordan), of Judæa, and even of Jerusalem, and the remoter parts of Peræa, thronged to profit both by his teaching, and by the wonderful cures which were wrought on all who were afflicted by the prevalent diseases of the country.' * How singular the contrast (familiarity with its circumstances, or deep and early reverence, prevent us from appreciating it justly) between the peaceful progress of the Son of Man, on the one hand healing maladies, relieving afflictions, restoring their senses to the dumb or blind; on the other gently instilling into the minds of the people those pure, and humane, and gentle principles of moral goodness, to which the wisdom of ages has been able to add nothing; and every other event to which it can be compared, in the history of human kind. Compare the men who have at different periods Compariwrought great and beneficial revolutions in the *Matt. iv. 25. son with |