V. prohibited by their master, they could not have CHAP. kept silence on so wonderful an occurrence) would inflame still farther the intense popular agitation. While the Apostles were passing the lake in their boat, Jesus had appeared by their side, walking upon the waters. When therefore Jesus entered the synagogue Jesus in the of Capernaum, no doubt the crisis was imme- synagogue diately expected: at length he will avow him- naum. self; the declaration of his dignity must now be made; and where with such propriety as in the place of the public worship, in the midst of the devout and adoring people.* The calm, the purely religious language of Jesus was a death-blow to these high-strung hopes. The object of his mission, he declared in explicit terms, was not to confer temporal benefits; they were not to follow him with the hope that they would obtain without labour the fruits of the earth, or be secured against thirst and hunger-these were mere casual and incidental blessings. The real design of the new religion was the improvement of the moral and spiritual condition of man, described under the strong but not unusual figure of nourishment administered to the soul. During the whole of his address, or rather his conversation with the different parties, the popular opinion was in a state of fluctuation; or, as is probable, there were two distinct parties, that of the populace, at first more favourable to Jesus; and that of the Jewish leaders, who were altogether hostile. The former appear more humbly + Ibid. 26-29. * John, vi. 22—71. CHAP. V. to have inquired what was demanded by the new Teacher in order to please God: of them Jesus required faith in the Messiah. The latter first demanded a new sign*, but broke out into murmurs of disapprobation when "the carpenter's son" began in his mysterious language to speak of his descent, his commission, from his Father, his reascension to his former intimate communion with the Deity; still more when he seemed to confine the hope of everlasting life to those only who were fitted to receive it; to those whose souls would receive the inward nutriment of his doctrines. No word in the whole address fell in with their excited, their passionate hopes: however dark, however ambiguous his allusions, they could not warp or misinterpret them into the confirmation of their splendid views. Not only did they appear to discountenance the immediate, they gave no warrant to the remote, accomplishment of their visions of the Messiah's earthly power and glory.† At all events the disappointment was universal; his own adherents, baffled and sinking at once from their exalted hopes, cast off their unambitious, their inexplicable Leader; and so complete appears to have been the desertion, that Jesus demanded of the Twelve, whether they too would abandon his cause, and leave him to his fate. In the name of the Apostles * John, vi. 30. There is some difficulty in placing the conversation with the Pharisees, (Matt. xv. 1-20.; Mark, vii. 1-23.), whether before or after the retreat of Jesus to the more remote district. The inci dent, though characteristic, is not of great importance, and seems rather to have been a private inquiry of certain members of the sect, than the public appeal of persons deputed for that purpose. V. Peter replied, that they had still full confidence in CHAP. his doctrines, as teaching the way to eternal life; they still believed him to be the promised Messiah, the Son of God. Jesus received this protestation of fidelity with apparent approbation, but intimated that the time would come, when one even of the tried and chosen Twelve would prove a traitor.* Thus the public life of Jesus closed its second year. On one side endangered by the zeal of the violent, on the other enfeebled by the desertion of so many of his followers, Jesus, so long as he *The wavering and uncertainty of the Apostles, and still more of the people, concerning the Messiahship of Jesus, is urged by Strauss as an argument for the later invention and inconsistency of the Gospels. It has always appeared to me one of those marks of true nature and of inartificial composition, which would lead me to a conclusion directly opposite. The first intimation of the deference and homage shown to him by John at his baptism, grows at once into a welcome rumour that the Christ has appeared. Andrew imparts the joyful tidings to his brother. "We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ;" so Philip, verse 46. But though Jesus in one part of the Sermon on the Mount speaks of himself as the future judge, in general his distinct assumption of that character is exclusively to individuals in private, to the Samaritan woman (John, iv. 26-42), and in more ambiguous language, perhaps, in his private examination before the authorities in Jerusalem (John, v. 46.). Still the manner in which he assumed the title, and asserted his claims, was so totally opposite to As a corrective to Strauss on V. CHAP. spoke the current language about the Messiah, might be instantly taken at his word, and against his will be set at the head of a daring insurrection; immediately that he departed from it, and rose to the sublimer tone of a purely religious teacher, he excited the most violent animosity even among many of his most ardent adherents. Thus his influence at one moment was apparently most extensive, at the next was confined to but a small circle. Still however it held the general mind in unallayed suspense; and the ardent admiration, the attachment of the few, who were enabled to appreciate his character, and the animosity of the many, who trembled at his progress, bore testimony to the commanding character and the surprising works of Jesus of Nazareth. CHAPTER VI. THIRD YEAR OF THE PUBLIC LIFE OF JESUS. CHAP. THE third Passover had now arrived since Jesus of Passover. Nazareth had appeared as a public Teacher, but, as it should seem, "his appointed hour" was not yet come; and, instead of descending with the general concourse of the whole nation to the capital, he remains in Galilee, or rather retires to the remotest extremity of the country; and though he approaches nearer to the northern shore of the lake, never ventures down into the populous region in which he more usually fixed his residence. The avowed hostility of the Jews, and their determination to put him to death; the apparently growing jealousy of Herod, and the desertion of his cause, on one hand, by a great number of his Galilean followers, who had taken offence at his speech in the synagogue of Capernaum, with the rash and intemperate zeal of others who were prepared to force him to assume the royal title, would render his presence at Jerusalem, if not absolutely necessary for his designs, both dangerous and inexpedient.* But his absence from this Passover is still more remarkable, if, as appears highly probable, it was at this feast that the event occurred which is alluded to in St. Luket as reference to his absence from this *The commencement of the 8th chapter of St. John's Gospel, appears to me to contain a manifest Ꭱ Ꮞ + John, vii. 1. |