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THE TEMPLE CONTRIBUTION.

45

our rights. The Christian will always love rather to recede from something of his privilege-to take less than is his due. And so He, in whose steps all ought to walk, calmly added, "Nevertheless, lest we should offend them" (put a difficulty or stumbling-block in their way), "go thou to the sea and cast a hook, and take the first fish that cometh up; and opening its mouth thou shalt find a stater: that take and give unto them for Me and for thee." In the very act of submission, as Bengel finely says, "His majesty gleams forth." He would pay the contribution to avoid hurting the feelings of any, and especially because His Apostle had promised it in His behalf: but He could not pay it in an ordinary way, because that would be to compromise a principle. In obeying the law of charity, and of self-surrender, He would also obey the laws of dignity and truth. pays the tribute, therefore," says Clarius, "but taken from a fish's mouth, that His majesty may be recog nised."3

"He

When Paulus, with somewhat vulgar jocosity, calls this "a miracle for half-a-crown," he only shows his own entire misconception of the fine ethical lessons which are involved in the narrative, and which in this, as in every other instance, separate our Lord's miracles from those

1 A stater equals four drachmas; it was a little more than three shillings, and was exactly the sum required for two people. The tax was not demanded of the other Apostles, perhaps because Capernaum was not their native town. The shulchaním, or bankers to vrhom it was ordinarily paid, sat in each city to receive it on Adar 15. (Our information on the subject is mainly derived from the Mishna tract Shekalîn.)

2 avrl, "instead of "--because the money was redemption money; "for me and for thee "-not "for us," because the money was paid differently for each. Cf. John xx. 17. (Alford.)-An interesting parallel of a king paying his own tax is adduced by Wetstein.

3 Trench, On the Miracles, p. 406. His entire treatment of this miracle is suggestive and beautiful.

of the Apocrypha. Yet I agree with the learned and
thoughtful Olshausen in regarding this as the most diffi-
cult to comprehend of all the Gospel miracles-as being
in many respects, sui generis-as not falling under the
same category as the other miracles of Christ. "It is
remarkable," says Archbishop Trench, " and is a solitary
instance of the kind, that the issue of this bidding is not
told us."
He goes on, indeed, to say that the narrative
is evidently intended to be miraculous, and this is the
impression which it has almost universally left on the
minds of those who read it. Yet the literal translation
of our Lord's words may most certainly be, " on opening
its mouth, thou shalt get, or obtain,1 a stater;" and
although there is no difficulty whatever in supposing
that a fish may have swallowed the glittering coin as it
was accidentally dropped into the water, nor should I
feel the slightest difficulty in believing-as I hope that
this book, from its first page to its last, will show-that
a miracle might have been wrought, yet the peculiarities
both of the miracle itself and of the manner in which it
is narrated, leave in my mind a doubt as to whether, in
this instance, some essential particular may not have
been either omitted or left unexplained.

This is a thoroughly classical and largely substantiated use of cipiokw. See Liddell and Scott, s. v.; and for New Testament instances, see Heb. ix. 12; Luke i. 30; xi. 9; John xii. 14; Acts vii. 46.

2 Of this there are abundant instances. There is no need to refer to the story of Polycrates (Herod. iii. 42), or to Augustine, De Civ. Dei, xxii. 8. Mackerel are to this day constantly caught by their swallowing a glittering piece of tin.

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CHAPTER XXXIX.

JESUS AT THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES.

"Ecce Innocens inter peccatores; justus inter reprobos; pius inter improbos."-LUDOLPHUS, Vita Christi, p. 118.

Ir was not likely that Jesus should have been able to live at Capernaum without the fact of His visit being known to some of the inhabitants. But it is clear that His stay in the town was very brief, and that it was of a strictly private character. The discourse and the incident mentioned in the last chapter are the only records. of it which are left.

But it was now autumn, and all Galilee was in the stir of preparation which preceded the starting of the annual caravan of pilgrims to one of the three great yearly feasts-the Feast of Tabernacles. That feastthe Feast of Ingathering-was intended to commemorate the passage of the Israelites through the wilderness, and was celebrated with such universal joy, that both Josephus and Philo call it "the holiest and greatest feast," and it was known among the Jews as "the Feast" pre-eminently.1 It was kept for seven consecutive

12. Jos. Antt. viii. 4, §1; xi. 5, §5. See on the details of this Feast, Numb. xxix. 12-38; Neh. viii. 15; 2 Macc. x. 6,7 Exod. xxiii. 16; Lev. xxiii. 34, seqq.; Deut. xvi. 13-15.

days, from the 15th to the 21st of Tisri, and the eighth day was celebrated by a holy convocation. During the seven days the Jews, to recall their desert wanderings, lived in little succóth, or booths made of the thicklyfoliaged boughs of olive, and palm, and pine, and myrtle, and each person carried in his hands a lulab, consisting of palm-branches, or willows of the brook, or fruits of peach and citron. During the week of festivities all the courses of priests were employed in turn; seventy bullocks were offered in sacrifice for the seventy nations of the world; the Law was daily read, and on each day the Temple trumpets sounded twenty-one times an inspiring and triumphant blast. The joy of the occasion was doubtless deepened by the fact that the feast followed but four days after the awful and comforting ceremonies of the Great Day of Atonement, in which a solemn expiation was made for the sins of all the people.

On the eve of their departure for this feast the family and relations of our Lord-those who in the Gospels are invariably called His "brethren," and some of whose descendants were known to early tradition as the Desposyni-came to Him for the last time with a wellmeant but painful and presumptuous interference. They -like the Pharisees, and like the multitude, and like Peter-fancied that they knew better than Jesus Himself that line of conduct which would best accomplish His work and hasten the universal recognition of His

"citron

1 Lev. xxiii. 40, marg. (perî etz hadar almost certainly means tree;" see Dr. Royle s. v. Tappuach in Kitto's Bibl. Cycl.); Jos. Antt. iii. 10, § 4, τοῦ μήλου τοῦ τῆς Περσέας προσόντος; xiii. 13, § 5, κίτρια.

2 Thirteen bullocks the first day, twelve the second, eleven the third, and so on.

3 Neh. viii. 18. Cf. John vii. 19.

JESUS AND HIS BRETHREN.

49

claims. They came to Him with the language of criticism, of discontent, almost of reproaches and complaints. "Why this unreasonable and incomprehensible secrecy? it contradicts thy claims; it discourages thy followers. Thou hast disciples in Judæa: go thither, and let them too see Thy works which Thou doest? If Thou doest these things, manifest Thyself to the world." If they could use such language to their Lord and Masterif they could, as it were, thus challenge His power to the proof-it is but too plain that their knowledge of Him was so narrow and inadequate as to justify the sad parenthesis of the beloved Evangelist-"for not even His brethren believed on Him." He was a stranger unto His brethren, even an alien unto His mother's children.1

Such dictation on their part-the bitter fruit of impatient vanity and unspiritual ignorance-showed indeed a most blameable presumption; yet our Lord only answered them with calm and gentle dignity. "No; my time to manifest myself to the world-which is your world also, and which therefore cannot hate you as it hates me is not yet come. Go ye up to this feast. choose not to go up to this feast, for not yet has my time been fulfilled." So he answered them, and stayed

in Galilee.

"I go
not

I

up yet unto this feast" is the rendering of the English version, adopting the reading ourw, "not yet;" but even if cuk, "not," be the true reading, the meaning

1 Ps. lxix. 8; John vii. 1–9.

* As Stier remarks, the μeráßŋoɩ évreûlev, “depart hence," of John vii. 3, is a style of bold imperative which those only could have adopted who presumed on their close earthly relationship; and they seem almost ostentatiously to exclude themselves from the number of His disciples.

3 The avaßalve has the sense so frequently found in the present: "I am not for going up;" "I do not choose to go up."

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