UNDER SENTENCE. 177 lasted we are not told, nor can we lift the veil of silence that has fallen over its records. If the decision at which the Beth Din in the house of Caiaphas had arrived was regarded as a formal sentence of death, then it is not impossible that these scrupulous legists may have suffered forty days to elapse for the production of witnesses in favour of the accused.1 But it is very doubtful whether the destruction intended for Jesus was not meant to be carried out in a manner more secret and more summary, bearing the aspect rather of a violent assassination than of a legal judgment. Such is the supposition of Sepp, II. iii. 31, and it derives some support from the turbid legend of the Talmud, which says that forty days before His death (the legal time for the production of witnesses) Jesus was excommunicated by Joshua Ben Perachiah, to the blast of 400 trumpets. FROM the conical hill of Ephraim Jesus could see the pilgrim bands as, at the approach of the Passover, they began to stream down the Jordan valley towards Jerusalem, to purify themselves from every ceremonial defilement before the commencement of the Great Feast.1 The time had come for Him to leave his hiding-place, and He descended from Ephraim to the high road in order to join the great caravan of Galilæan pilgrims.2 And as He turned His back on the little town, and began the journey which was to end at Jerusalem, a prophetic solemnity and elevation of soul struggling with the natural anguish of the flesh, which shrank from that great sacrifice, pervaded His whole being, and gave a new and strange grandeur to every gesture and every look. It was the Transfiguration of Self-sacrifice; and, like that previous Transfiguration of Glory, it filled those who beheld it with an amazement and terror which 1 Numb. ix. 10; 2 Chron. xxx. 17; Jos. Antt. xvii. 9, § 3. GOING TO JERUSALEM. 179 they could not explain. There are few pictures in the Gospel more striking than this of Jesus going forth to His death, and walking alone along the path into the deep valley, while behind Him, in awful reverence, and mingled anticipations of dread and hope their eyes fixed on Him, as with bowed head He preceded them in all the majesty of sorrow the disciples walked behind and dared not disturb His meditations. But at last He paused and beckoned them to Him, and then, once more -for the third time-with fuller, clearer, more startling, more terrible particulars than ever before, He told them that He should be betrayed to the Priests and Scribes ; by them condemned; then handed over to the Gentiles ; by the Gentiles mocked, scourged, and-He now for the first time revealed to them, without any ambiguity, the crowning horror-crucified; and that, on the third day, He should rise again. But their minds were full of Messianic hopes; they were so pre-occupied with the conviction that now the kingdom of God was to come in all its splendour, that the prophecy passed by them like the idle wind; they could not, and would not, understand. There can be no more striking comment on their inability to realise the meaning of what Jesus had said to them, than the fact that very shortly after, and during the same journey, occurred the ill-timed and strangely unspiritual request which the Evangelists proceed to record. With an air of privacy and mystery, Salome, one of the constant attendants of Jesus, with her two sons, James and John, who were among the most eminent of His Apostles, came to Him with adorations, and 1 Mark x. 32. Tischendorf, Meyer, &c., accept the reading of , B, C, L, &c., oi dè áкoλoveouvres, as though there were two sets of the Apostles, of whom some in their fear had fallen behind the rest. 2 Matt. xx. 20-28; Mark x. 35-45; Luke xviii. 32-34. begged Him to promise them a favour. He asked what they wished; and then the mother, speaking for her fervent-hearted ambitious sons, begged that in His kingdom they might sit, the one at His right hand, and the other at His left.1 Jesus bore gently with their selfishness and error. They had asked in their blindness for that position which, but a few days afterwards, they were to see occupied in shame and anguish by the two crucified robbers. Their imaginations were haunted by twelve thrones; His thoughts were of three crosses. They dreamt of earthly crowns; He told them of a cup of bitterness and a baptism of blood. Could they indeed drink with Him of that cup, and be baptised with that baptism? Understanding perhaps more of His meaning now, they yet boldly answered, "We can ;" and then He told them that they indeed should do so, but that to sit on His right hand and on His left was reserved for those for whom it had been prepared by His Heavenly Father. The throne, says Basil, "is the price of toils, not a grace granted to ambition; a reward of righteousness, not the concession of a request." 2 The ten, when they heard the incident, were naturally indignant at this secret attempt of the two brothers to secure for themselves a pre-eminence of honour; little knowing that, so far as earth was concerned-and of this alone they dreamt-that premium of honour should only 1 In Jos. Antt. vi. 11, § 9, Jonathan sits at Saul's right hand, Abner at his left. In the Midrash Tehillin, God is represented with the Messiah on His right and Abraham on His left (Wetstein ad loc.). Comp. 1 Kings ii. 19 (Bathsheba); xxii. 19. 2 John xviii. 11; Rev. xiv. 10; Ps. lxxv. 8. "Lavacrum sanguinis" (Tert. Scorp. 12). (Keim, iii. 43.) 3 The English version is here not very happy in interpolating "it shall be given" (Matt. xx. 23), for the meaning is "not Mine to give except to those for whom it is prepared of My Father." Comp. Matt. xxv. 34; 2 Tim. iv. 8. THE TRUE EXALTATION. 181 be, for the one a precedence in martyrdom, for the other a prolongation of suffering. This would be revealed to them in due time, but even now Jesus called them all together, and taught them, as He had so often taught them, that the highest honour is won by the deepest humility. The shadowy principalities of earth3 were characterised by the semblance of a little brief authority over their fellow-men; it was natural for them to lord it, and tyrannise it over their fellows: but in the kingdom of heaven the lord of all should be the servant of all, even as the highest Lord had spent His very life in the lowest ministrations, and was about to give it as a ransom for many. As they advanced towards Jericho, through the 1 Acts xii. 2; Rev. i. 9. 2 Matt. xviii. 4; xxiii. 11. 3 Mark x. 42, of doкoûvтes aρxew, those who profess to govern. The Kaтακυριεύουσι and κατεξουσιάζουσι have a slightly unfavourable sense (1 Pet. v. 3). 4 Matt. xx. 30-34; Mark x. 46-52; Luke xviii. 35-43. Those who have a narrow, timid, superstitious, and unscriptural view of inspiration may well be troubled by the obvious discrepancies between the Evangelists in this narrative. Not only does St. Matthew mention two blind men, while the others only mention one, but St. Matthew says that the miracle was performed "as they departed from Jericho," while St. Luke most distinctly implies that it took place before He entered it. But no reasonable reader will be troubled by differences which do not affect the truthfulness-though of course they affect the accuracy-of the narrative; and which, without a direct and wholly needless miraculous intervention, must have occurred, as they actually do occur, in the narratives of the Evangelists, as in those of all other truthful witnesses. Of the fourteen or fifteen proposed ways of harmonising the discrepancies, most involve a remedy far worse than the supposed defect; but Macknight's suggestion that the miracle may have been performed between the two Jerichos-the ancient site of the Canaanite city, and the new semi-Herodian city-is at least possible. So, indeed, is the supposition that one of them was healed on entering, and the other on leaving the city. I believe that if we knew the exact circumstances the discrepancy would vanish; but even if it did not-if, for instance, Matthew had spoken of Bartimæus and his guide as "two blind men," or, in the course of time, any trivial inaccuracy had found its way into the early documents on which St. Luke based his Gospel-I should see nothing distressing |