town that had seen many vicissitudes.

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As "Laish,"

it had been the possession of the careless Sidonians. As Dan," it had been the chief refuge of a warlike tribe of Israel, the northern limit of the Israelitish kingdom, and the seat of the idolatry of the golden calf. Colonised by Greeks, its name had been changed into Paneas, in honour of the cave under its towering hill, which had been artificially fashioned into a grotto of Pan, and adorned with niches, which once contained statues of his sylvan nymphs. As the capital of Herod Philip, it had been re-named in honour of himself and his patron Tiberius. The Lord might gaze with interest on the noble ranges of Libanus and Anti-Libanus; He might watch the splendid and snowy mass of Hermon glittering under the dawn, or flushed with its evening glow; He might wander round Lake Phiala, and see where, according to popular belief, the Jordan, after his subterranean course, bursts rejoicing into the light: but He could only have gazed with sorrow on the city itself, with its dark memories of Israelitish apostacy, its poor mimicry of Roman imperialism, and the broken statues. of its unhallowed and Hellenic cave.

But it was on His way to the northern region that there occurred an incident which may well be regarded as the culminating point of His earthly ministry.2 He was alone. The crowd that surged so tumultuously about Him in more frequented districts, here only followed Him at a distance. Only His disciples were near Him as He stood apart in solitary prayer. And when the prayer was over, He beckoned them about

1 On Cæsarea Philippi see Jos. Antt. xv. 10, § 3; B. J. i. 21, § 3; and for a description of its present state, Thomson, Land and Book, II., ch. xvi. 2 Matt, xvi. 13-28; Mark viii. 27-ix. 1; Luke ix. 18-27.

THE MOMENTOUS QUESTION.

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Him as they continued their journey, and asked them those two momentous questions on the answers to which depended the whole outcome of His work on earth.

First He asked them

"Whom do men say that I the Son of Man am?"

The answer was a sad one. The Apostles dared not and would not speak aught but the words of soberness and truth, and they made the disheartening admission that the Messiah had not been recognised by the world which He came to save. They could only repeat the idle guesses of the people. Some, echoing the verdict. of the guilty conscience of Antipas, said that He was John the Baptist; some, who may have heard the sterner denunciations of His impassioned grief, caught in that mighty utterance the thunder-tones of a new Elijah; others, who had listened to His accents of tenderness and words of universal love, saw in IIim the plaintive soul of Jeremiah, and thought that He had come, perhaps, to restore them the lost Urim and the vanished Ark: many looked on Him as a prophet and a precursor. None-in spite of an occasional Messianic cry wrung from the admiration of the multitude, amazed by some unwonted display of power-none dreamt of who He was. The light had shone in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.

"But whom say ye that I am?”

Had that great question been answered otherwise -could it have been answered otherwise the world's whole destinies might have been changed. Had it been answered otherwise, then, humanly speaking, so far the mission of the Saviour would have wholly failed, and Christianity and Christendom have never been. For the work of Christ on earth lay mainly with His disciples.

He sowed the seed, they reaped the harvest; He converted them, and they the world. He had never openly spoken of His Messiahship. John indeed had borne witness to Him, and to those who could receive it He had indirectly intimated, both in word and deed, that He was the Son of God. But it was His will that the light of revelation should dawn gradually on the minds of His children; that it should spring more from the truths He spake, and the life He lived, than from the wonders which He wrought; that it should be conveyed not in sudden thunder-crashes of supernatural majesty or visions of unutterable glory, but through the quiet medium of a sinless and self-sacrificing course. It was in the Son of Man that they were to recognise the Son of God.

But the answer came, as from everlasting it had been written in the book of destiny that it should come; and Peter, the ever warm-hearted, the coryphaeus of the Apostolic choir,1 had the immortal honour of giving it

utterance for them all

"THOU ART THE CHRIST, THE SON OF THE LIVING GOD!"

Such an answer from the chief of the Apostles atoned by its fulness of insight and certitude of conviction for the defective appreciation of the multitudes. It showed that at last the great mystery was revealed which had been hidden from the ages and the generations. The

1 ὁ πανταχοῦ θερμὸς, ὁ τοῦ χοροῦ τῶν ἀποστόλων κορυφαῖος (Chrys. Hom. liv.). He says, not "we say," but "THOU ART" (Alford, ad loc.). St. Peter was primus inter pares"-a leader, but among equals. Had he been more than this-had Christ's words been intended to bestow on him the least shadow of supremacy-how could James and John have asked to sit on the right hand and on the left of Christ in His kingdom? and how could the Apostles on at least two subsequent occasions have disputed who among them should be the greatest?

Apostles at least had not only recognised in Jesus of Nazareth the promised Messiah of their nation, but it had been revealed to them by the special grace of God that that Messiah was not only what the Jews expected, a Prince, and a Ruler, and a Son of David, but was more than this, even the Son of the living God.

With awful solemnity did the Saviour ratify that great confession. "Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon, son of Jonas: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.2 And I say unto thee, that thou art Peter (Petros), and on this rock (petra) I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.3 And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom. of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

Never did even the lips of Jesus utter more memor

1 So, too, Jesus addressed him on other solemn occasions (John xxi. 15-17).

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2 Not the common Jewish abinu, our Father," but "my Father" (ὁ πατήρ μου).

* Similar plays on words, founded on very deep principles, are common among deep thinkers in all tongues. Our Lord was probably speaking in Aramaic, in which language the phrase "gates of hell" (bing g shaare sheol) presents a pleasing assonance. If so, He probably said, "Thou art Kephas, and on this Kepha I will," &c. Many commentators, from the earliest ages downwards, have understood "this rock" to be either the confession of Peter, or Christ himself (see abundant authorities for these opinions in the elaborate note of Bishop Wordsworth); it is difficult, however, in either of these cases to see any force in the "Thou art Peter." On the other hand, to speak of a man as the rock" is unlike the ordinary language of Scripture. "Who is a rock save our God?" (2 Sam. xxii. 32; Ps. xviii. 31; lxii. 2; Isa. xxviii. 16; and see especially 1 Cor. iii. 11; x. ). The key was a common Jewish metaphor for authority (Isa. xxii. 22; Luke xi. 52). (Gfrörer, i. 155, 283; Schöttg., Hor. Hebr. ii. 894.) I shall speak further on the passage in a subsequent note, but do not profess to have fully solved its difficulties.

It

able words. It was His own testimony of Himself. was the promise that they who can acknowledge it are blessed. It was the revealed fact that they only can acknowledge it who are led thereto by the Spirit of God. It told mankind for ever that not by earthly criticisms, but only by heavenly grace, can the full knowledge of that truth be obtained. It was the laying of the cornerstone of the CHURCH OF CHRIST, and the earliest occasion on which was uttered that memorable word, thereafter to be so intimately blended with the history of the world.1 It was the promise that that Church founded on the rock of inspired confession should remain unconquered by all the powers of hell. It was the conferring upon that Church, in the person of its typical representative, the power to open and shut, to bind and loose, and the promise that the power faithfully exercised on earth should be finally ratified in heaven.

"Tute haec omnia dicuntur," says the great Bengel, "nam quid ad Romam ?" "all these statements are made with safety; for what have they to do with Rome?"2 Let him who will wade through all the controversy necessitated by the memorable perversions of this memorable text, which runs as an inscription round the interior of the great dome of St. Peter's. But little force is needed to overthrow the strange inverted pyramids of argument which have been built upon it. Were it not a matter of history, it would have been deemed incredible that on so baseless a foundation should have been rested the fan

1 It is a remarkable fact that the word èккλnola occurs but once again in the Gospels (Matt. xviii. 17).

2 The following texts are alone sufficient to prove finally that St. Peter in no way exercised among the Apostles any paramount or supreme authority-Matt. xviii. 1; Eph. ii. 20; Rev. xxi. 14; 2 Cor. xi. 5; xii. 11; Gal. ii. 9, 11; Luke xxii. 24, 26; John xxi. 19-23, &c.