ONE WITH THE FATHER.

147

claim.1 Had they been sheep of His flock-and He here reminds them of that great discourse which He had delivered at the Feast of Tabernacles two months before they would have heard His voice, and then He would have given them eternal life, and they would have been safe in His keeping; for no one would then have been able to pluck them out of His Father's hand, and he added solemnly, "I and my Father are

one."

His meaning was quite unmistakable.

In these

words He was claiming not only to be Messiah, but to be Divine. Had the oneness with the Father which He claimed been nothing more than that subjective union of faith and obedience which exists between all holy souls and their Creator-His words could have given no more offence than many a saying of their own kings and prophets; but "ecce Judaei intellexerunt quod non intelligunt Ariani!"-they saw at once that the words meant infinitely more. Instantly they stooped to seize some of the scattered heavy stones2 which the unfinished Temple buildings supplied to their fury, and, had His hour been come, He could not have escaped the tumultuary death which afterwards befell His proto-martyr. But His undisturbed majesty disarmed them with a word: "Many good deeds did I show you from my Father: for which of these do ye mean to stone me?" Not for any good deed, they replied, "but for blasphemy, and because thou, being a mere man, art making thyself God." The reply of Jesus is one of those broad gleams of illumination which

1 See John v. and viii. passim.

.

2 John x. 31, eßáoтaσav. The word in John viii. 59 is pay.

3 John x. 32, AOάČETE.

4 aveрanos (ver. 33). See Lev. xxiv. 10-16.

He often sheds on the interpretation of the Scriptures: "Does it not stand written in your Law," He asked them, "I said, Ye are gods?" If he called them gods (Elohim) to whom the Word of God came-and such undeniably is the case in your own Scriptures do ye say to Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, 'Thou blasphemest,' because I said, 'I am the Son of God?"" And He appealed to His life and to His works, as undeniable proofs of His unity with the Father. If His sinlessness and His miracles were not a proof that He could not be the presumptuous blasphemer whom they wished to stone-what further proof could be given? They, nursed in the strictest monotheism, and accustomed only to think of God as infinitely far from man, might have learnt even from the Law and from the Prophets that God is near-is in the very mouth and in the very heart of those who love Him, and even bestows upon them some indwelling brightness of His own eternal glory. Might not this be a sign to them, that He who came to fulfil the Law and put a loftier Law in its place-He to whom all the prophets had witnessed-He for whom John had prepared the way

He who spake as never man spake-He who did the works which none other man had ever done since the foundation of, the world-He who had ratified all His words, and given significance to all His deeds, by the blameless beauty of an absolutely stainless life— was indeed speaking the truth when He said that He was one with the Father, and that He was the Son of God?

The appeal was irresistible. They dared not stone Him; but, as He was alone and defenceless in the midst of them, they tried to seize Him. But they could not.

1 Ps. lxxxii. 6.

BETHANY BEYOND JORDAN.

149

His presence overawed them. They could only make a passage for Him, and glare their hatred upon Him as He passed from among them. But once more, here was a clear sign that all teaching among them was impossible. He could as little descend to their notions of a Messiah, as they could rise to His. To stay among them was but daily to imperil His life in vain. Judæa, therefore, was closed to Him, as Galilee was closed to Him. There seemed to be one district only which was safe for Him in His native land, and that was Peræa, the district beyond the Jordan. He retired, therefore, to the other Bethany -the Bethany beyond Jordan, where John had once been baptising-and there He stayed.

What were the incidents of this last stay, or the exact length of its continuance, we do not know. We see, however, that it was not exactly private, for St. John tells us that many resorted to Him there,1 and believed on Him, and bore witness that John-whom they held to be a Prophet, though he had done no miracle-had borne emphatic witness to Jesus in that very place, and that all which He had witnessed was true.

1 1 John x. 41, 42. For Bethany, v. supra, Vol. I., p. 140.

CHAPTER XLVI.

THE LAST STAY IN PEREA.

"At evening time it shall be light.”—ZECH. xiv. 7.

WHEREVER the ministry of Jesus was in the slightest degree public, there we invariably find the Pharisees watching, lying in wait for Him, tempting Him, trying to entrap Him into some mistaken judgment or ruinous decision. But perhaps even their malignity never framed a question to which the answer was so beset with difficulties as when they came to "tempt" Him with the problem, "Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?"1

The question was beset with difficulties on every side, and for many reasons. In the first place, the institution of Moses on the subject was ambiguously expressed. Then this had given rise to a decided opposition of opinion between the two most important and flourishing of the rabbinic schools. The difference of the schools had resulted in a difference in the customs of the nation. Lastly the theological, scholastic, ethical, and national difficulties were further complicated by political ones, for the prince in whose domain the ques

1

LAW OF DIVORCE.

151

tion was put was deeply interested in the answer, and had already put to death the greatest of the prophets for his bold expression of the view which was most hostile to his own practice. Whatever the truckling Rabbis of Galilee might do, St. John the Baptist, at least, had left no shadow of a doubt as to what was his interpretation of the Law of Moses, and he had paid the penalty of his frankness with his life.

Moses had laid down the rule that when a man had married a wife, and "she find no favour in his eyes because he hath found some uncleanness (marg., 'matter of nakedness,' Heb., ervath dabhar) in her, then let him write a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife." Now in the interpretation of this rule, everything depended on the meaning of the expression ervath dabhar, or rather on the meaning of the single word ervath. It meant, generally, a stain or desecration, and Hillel, with his school, explained the passage in the sense that a man might "divorce his wife for any disgust which he felt towards her;"2 even - as the celebrated R. Akiba ventured to say-if he saw any other woman who pleased him more; 3 whereas the

1 Deut. xxiv. 1, 2. Literally, ervath dabhar is "nakedness of a matter" (blösse im irgend etwas). (Ewald, Hebr. Gram., § 286, f.)

2 The κатà mãσav airíav of Matt. xix. 3 is a translation of the (al col dabhar), which was Hillel's exposition of the disputed passage. (See Buxtorf, De Syn. Jud. 29.) Almost the identical phrase is found in Jos. Antt. iv. 8, § 23, kal' äs dŋtoтoûv airías. Cf. Ecclus. xxv. 26, "If she go not as thou wouldest have her, cut her off from thy flesh."

3 The comments of the Rabbis were even more shameful: e.g., "If she spin in public, go with her head uncovered," &c.; "Even if she have oversalted his soup" (Gittin, 90) (Selden, De Ux. Heb. iii. 17). This, however, is explained away by modern commentators (Jost, Gesch. Jud. 264). Yet it is not surprising that it led to detestable consequences. Thus we are