THE BLIGHTING OF THE FIG-TREE.Having thus, by his public and triumphant entrance into Jerusalem, defied and provoked the spite of the higher orders, while he secured an attentive hearing from the common people, when he should wish to teach them,——Jesus retired at evening, for the sake of quiet and comfort, to the house of his friends, Lazarus, Mary and Martha, at Bethany, in the suburbs. The next morning, as he was on his way with his disciples, coming back from this place to Jerusalem, hungry with the fatigues of his long walk, he came to a fig-tree, near the path, hoping to find fruit for his refreshment, as it seemed from a distance flourishing with abundance of leaves, and was then near the season of bearing. But when he came near, he found nothing but leaves on it, for it was somewhat backward, and its time of producing figs was not yet. And Jesus, seizing the opportunity of this disappointment to impress his disciples with his power, personifying the tree, denounced destruction against it. “May no man eat fruit of thee hereafter, forever.” And his disciples heard it. They returned to Bethany, as usual, that evening, to pass the night,——but as they passed, probably after dark, they took no notice of the fig-tree. But the next morning, as they went back to the city, they saw that it had dried up from the roots. Simon Peter, always ready to notice the instances of his Master’s power, called out in surprise to Jesus, to witness the effect of his malediction upon its object. “Master, behold, the fig-tree which thou didst curse, is withered away.” Jesus noticing their amazement at the apparent effect of his words, in so small a matter, took occasion to turn their attention to other and higher objects of faith, on which they might exert their zeal in a spirit, not of withering denunciation and destroying wrath,such as they had seen so tremendously efficient in this case, but in the spirit of love and forgiveness, as well as of the holy energy that could overthrow and overcome difficulties, not less than to uproot Mount Olivet from its everlasting base and hurl it into the sea.THE DISCUSSIONS WITH THE SECTARIES.The disciples steadily remained the diligent and constant attendants of their heavenly teacher, in his long and frequent seasons of instruction in the temple, where he boldly met the often renewed attacks of his various adversaries, whether Herodians, scribes, Pharisees or Sadducees, and in spite of their long-trained subtleties, beat them out and out, with the very weapons at which they thought themselves so handy. The display of genius, of taste, of learning, of ready and sarcastic wit, and of heart-searching acuteness, was so amazing and super-human, that these few days of open discussion established his divinely intellectual superiority over all the elaborate science of his accomplished opponents, and at the same time secured the fulfilment of his destiny, by the spite and hatred which their repeated public defeats excited in them. Imagine their rage. Exposed thus before the people, by whom they had hitherto been regarded as the sole depositaries of learning, and adored as the fountains of right, they saw all their honors and power, to which they had devoted the intense study of their whole lives, snatched coolly and easily from them, by a nameless, untaught pretender, who was able to hold them up, baffled and disgraced, for the amusement of the jeering multitude. Here was ground enough for hatred;——the hatred of conceited and intolerant false learning, against the discerning soul that had stripped and humbled it;——the hatred of confident ambition against the heroic energy which had discomfited it, and was doing much to free a long enslaved people from the yoke which formal hypocrisy and empty parade had long laid on them. And again, the intolerable thought that all this heavy disgrace had been brought on the learned body of Judaism by a Galilean! a mere carpenter of the lowest orders, who had come up to Jerusalem followed by a select train of rude fishermen and outcast publicans;——and who, not being able to command a single night’s lodging in the city, was in the habit of boarding and lodging in a paltry suburb, on the charity of some personal friends, from which place he quietly walked in for the distance of two miles every morning, to triumph over the palace-lodged heads of the Jewish faith. Fromsuch a man, thus humbly and even pitiably circumstanced, such an invasion and overthrow could not be endured; and his ruin was rendered doubly easy by his very insignificance, which now constituted the chief disgrace of their defeat. Never was cause more closely followed by its effect, than this insulted dignity was by its cruel vengeance.THE PROPHECY OF THE TEMPLE’S RUIN.In preparing his disciples for the great events which were to take place in a few years, and which were to have a great influence on their labors, Jesus foretold to them the destruction of the temple. As he was passing out through the mighty gates of the temple on some occasion with his disciples, one of them, admiring the gorgeous beauty of the architecture and the materials, with all the devotion of a Jew now visiting it for the first time, said to him, “Master, see! what stones and what buildings!” To him, Jesus replied with the awful prophecy, most shocking to the national pride and religious associations of every Israelite,——that ere long, upon that glorious pile should fall a ruin so complete, that not one of those splendid stones should be left upon another. These words must have made a strong impression of wonder on all who heard them; but no farther details of the prophecy were given to the disciples at large. Not long afterwards, however, as he sat musingly by himself, in his favorite retirement, half-way up the Mount of Olives, over against the temple, the four most loved and honored of the twelve, Peter, James, John and Andrew, came to him, and asked him privately, to tell them when these things should be, and by what omen they should know the approach of the great and woful ruin. Sitting there, they had a full view of the enormous pile which rose in immense masses very near them, on the verge of mount Moriah, and was even terraced up, from the side of the slope, presenting a vast wall, rising from the depths of the deep ravine of Kedron, which separated the temple from mount Olivet, where they were. It was morning when the conversation took place, as we may fairly guess, for this spot lay on the daily walk to Bethany, where he lodged;——the broad walls, high towers, and pillars of the temple, were doubtless illuminated by the full splendors of the morning sun of Palestine; for Olivet was directly east of Jerusalem, and as they sat looking westward towards the temple, with the sun behind them, the rays, leaving their faces in the shade, would shine full and bright on all which crowned the highth beyond. It was at such a time, asthe Jewish historian assures us, that the temple was seen in its fullest grandeur and sublimity; for the light, falling on the vast roofs, which were sheeted and spiked with pure gold, brightly polished, and upon the turrets and pinnacles which glittered with the same precious metal, was reflected to the eye of the gazer with an insupportable brilliancy, from the million bright surfaces and shining points which covered it. Here, then, sat Jesus and his four adoring chosen ones, with this splendid sight before them crowning the mountain, now made doubly dazzling by contrast with the deep gloom of the dark glen below, which separated them from it. There it was, that, with all this brightness and glory and beauty before them, Jesus solemnly foretold in detail the awful, total ruin which was to sweep it all away, within the short lives of those who heard him. Well might such words sink deep into their hearts,——words coming from lips whose perfect and divine truth they could not doubt, though the things now foretold must have gone wofully against all the dreams of glory, in which they had made that sacred pile the scene of the future triumphs of the faith and followers of Christ. This sublime prophecy, which need not here be repeated or descanted upon, is given at great length by all the first three evangelists, and is found in Matthewxxiv.Markxiii.and Lukexxi.The view of the temple.——I can find no description by any writer, ancient or modern, which gives so clear an account of the original shape of Mount Moriah, and of the modifications it underwent to fit it to support the temple, as that given by Josephus. (Jewish War, bookV.chapterv.) In speaking of the original founding of the temple by Solomon, (Antiquities bookVIII.chapteriii.section 2,) he says, “The king laid the foundations of the temple in the very depths, (at the bottom of the descent,) using stones of a firm structure, and able to hold out against the attacks of time, so that growing into a union, as it were, with the ground, they might be the basis and support of the pile that was to be reared above, and through their strength below, easily bear the vast mass of the great superstructure, and the immense weight of ornament also; for the weight of those things which were contrived for beauty and magnificence was not less than that of the materials which contributed to the highth and lateral dimension.” In the full description which he afterwards gives in the place first quoted, of the later temple as perfected by Herod, which is the building to which the account in the text refers, he enters more fully into the mode of shaping the ground to the temple. “The temple was founded upon a steep hill, but in the first beginning of the structure there was scarcely flat ground enough on the top for the sanctuary and the altar, for it was abrupt and precipitous all around. And king Solomon, when he built the sanctuary, havingwalled it outon the eastern side, (εκτειχισαντος, that is, ‘having builtouta wall on that side’ for a terrace,) then reared upon the terraced earth a colonnade; but on the other sides the sanctuary wasnaked,——(that is, the wall was unsupported and unornamented by colonnades as it was on the east.) But in the course of ages, the people all the while beating down the terraced earth with their footsteps, the hill thus growing flat, was made broader on the top; and having taken down the wall on the north, they gained considerable ground which was afterwards inclosed within the outer court of the temple. Finally, having walled the hill entirely around with three terraces, and having advanced the work far beyond any hope that could have been reasonably entertained at first, spending on it long ages, and all the sacred treasures accumulated from the offerings sent to God from the ends of the world, they rearedaround it, both the upper courts and the lower temple, walling the latter up, in the lowest part, from a depth of three hundred cubits, (450 feet,) and in some places more. And yet the whole depth of the foundations did not show itself, because they had greatly filled up the ravines, with a view to bring them to a level with the streets of the city. The stones of this work were of the size of forty cubits, (60 feet,) for the profusion of means and the lavish zeal of the people advanced the improvements of the temple beyond account; and a perfection far above all hope was thus attained by perseverance and time.“And well worthy of these foundations were the works which stood upon them. For all the colonnades were double, consisting of pillars twenty-five cubits (40 feet) in highth, each of a single stone of the whitest marble, and were roofed with fretwork of cedar. The natural beauty of these, their high polish and exquisite proportion, presented a most glorious show; but their surface was not marked by the superfluous embellishments of painting and carving. The colonnades were thirty cubits broad, (that is, forty-five feet from the front of the columns to the wall behind them;) while their whole circuit embraced a range of sixstadia, (more than three-quarters of a mile!) including the castle of Antonia. And the wholehypethrum(ὑπαιθρον, the floor of the courts or inclosures of the temple, which was exposed to the open air, there being no roof above it) was variegated by the stones of all colors with which it was laid,” (making a Mosaic pavement.) Section 1.“The outside of the temple too, lacked nothing that could strike or dazzle the mind and eye. For it was on all sides overlaid withmassy plates of gold, so thatin the first light of the rising sun,IT SHOT FORTH A MOST FIERY SPLENDOR, which turned away the eyes of those who compelled themselves (mid.βιαζομενους) to gaze on it, as from the rays of the sun itself. To strangers, moreover, who were coming towards it, it shone from afar like a complete mountain of snow: for where it was not covered with gold it was most dazzlingly white, and above on the roof it had golden spikes, sharpened to keep the birds from lighting on it. And some of the stones of the building were forty-five cubits long, five high, and six broad;”——(or sixty-sevenfeetlong, seven and a half high, and nine broad.) Section 6.“The Antonia was placed at the angle made by the meeting of two colonnades of the outer temple, the western and the northern. It was built upon a rock, fifty cubits high, and precipitous on all sides. It was the work of king Herod, in which, most of all, he showed himself a man of exalted conceptions.” Section 8.In speaking of Solomon’s foundation, he also says, (Antiquities bookVIII.chapteriii.section 9,)“But he made the outside of the temple wonderful beyond account, both in description and to sight. For having piled up huge terraces, from which, on account of their immense depth, it was hardly possible to look down, and reared them to the highth of four hundred cubits, (six hundred feet!) he made them on the same level with the hill’s top on which theshrine(ναος) was built, and thus the open floor of thetemple(ἱερον, or the outer court’s inclosure) was level with theshrine.”I have drawn thus largely from the rich descriptions of this noble and faithful describer of the old glories of the Holy Land, because this very literal translation gives the exact naked detail of the temple’s aspect, in language as gorgeous as the most high-wrought in which it could be presented in a mere fancy picture of the same scene; and because it will prove that my conception of its glory, as it appeared to Christ and the four disciples who “satover againstit upon the Mount of Olives,” is not overdrawn, since it is thus supported by the blameless and invaluable testimony of him who saw all this splendor in its most splendid day, and afterwards in its unequaled beauty and with all its polished gold and marble, shining and sinking amid the flames, which swept it utterly away from his saddening eyes forever, to a ruin the most absolute and irretrievable that ever fell upon the works of man.This was the temple on which the sons of Jonah and Zebedee gazed, with the awful denunciation of its utter ruin falling from their Lord’s lips, and such was the desolation to which those terrible words devoted it. This full description of its location shows the manner in which its terraced foundations descended with their vast fronts, six hundred feet into the valley of Kedron, over which they looked. To give as clear an idea of the place where they sat, and its relations to the rest of the scene, I extract from Conder’s Modern Traveler the following description of Mount Olivet.“The Mount of Olives forms part of a ridge of limestone hills, extending to the north and the south-west. Pococke describes it as having four summits. On the lowest and most northerly of these, which, he tells us, is calledSulman Tashy, the stone of Solomon, there is a large domed sepulcher, and several other Mohammedantombs. The ascent to this point, which is to the north-east of the city, he describes as very gradual, through pleasant corn-fields planted with olive-trees. The second summit is that which overlooks the city: the path to it rises from the ruined gardens of Gethsemane, which occupy part of the valley. About half way up the ascent is a ruined monastery, built, as the monks tell us, on the spot where the Savior wept over Jerusalem. From this point the spectator enjoys, perhaps, the best view of the Holy City. (Here Jesus sat, in our scene.)“The valley of Jehoshaphat, which lies between this mountain and the hills on which Jerusalem is built, is still used as a burial-place by the modern Jews, as it was by their ancestors. It is, generally speaking, a rocky flat, with a few patches of earth here and there, about half a mile in breadth from the Kedron to the foot of Mount Olivet, and nearly of the same length from Siloa to the garden of Gethsemane. The Jews have a tradition, evidently founded on taking literally the passage Joeliii.12, that this narrow valley will be the scene of the final judgment. The prophet Jeremiah evidently refers to the same valley under the name of the valley of the Son of Hinnom, or the valley of Tophet, the situation being clearly marked as being by the entry of theeastgate. (Jeremiahxix.2, 6.) Pococke places the valley of Hinnom to the south of Jerusalem, but thinks it might include part of that to the east. It formed part of the bounds between the tribes of Benjamin and Judah, (Joshuaxv.8.xviii.16,) but the description is somewhat obscure.” [Modern Traveler Palestine,pp.168, 172.]MOUNT MORIAH.THE LAST SUPPER.Meanwhile the offended and provoked dignitaries of Judaism were fast making arrangements to crush the daring innovator, who had done so much to bring their learning and their power into contempt. Some of the most fiery spirits among them, were for defying all risks, by seizing the Nazarene openly, in the midst of his audacious denunciations of the higher orders; and the attempt was made to execute this act of arbitrary power; but the mere hirelings sent upon the errand, were too much awed by the unequaled majesty of the man, and by the strong attachment of the people to him, to be willing to execute their commission. But there were old heads among them, that could contrive safer and surer ways of meeting the evil. By them it was finally determined to seize Jesus when alone or unattended by the throngs which usually encompassed him,——to hurry him at once secretly through the forms of law necessary for his commitment, and then to put him immediately into the hands of the Roman governor, as a condemned rioter and rebel, who would be obliged to order his execution in such a way as that no popular excitement would rescue the victim from the grasp of the soldiery. This was the plan which they were now arranging, and which they were prepared to execute before the close of the passover, if they could get intelligence of his motions. These fatal schemes of hate could not have been unknown to Jesus; yet the knowledge of them made no difference in his bold devotion to the cause for which he came into the world. Anxious to improve the few fast fleeting hours that remained before the time of his sufferings should come on, and desirous to join as a Jew in this great national festival,by keeping it in form with his disciples, he directed his two most confidential apostles, Peter and John, to get ready the entertainment for them in the city, by an arrangement made with a man already expecting to receive them. This commission they faithfully executed, and Jesus accordingly ate with his disciples the feast of the first day of the passover, in Jerusalem, with those who sought his life so near him. After the supper was over, he determined to use the brief remnant of time for the purpose of uprooting that low feeling of jealous ambition which had already made so much trouble among them, in their anxious discussions as to who should be accounted the greatest, and should rank as the ruler of the twelve. To impress the right view upon their minds most effectually, he chose the oriental mode of a ceremony which should strike their senses, and thus secure a regard and remembrance for his words which they might fail in attaining if they were delivered in the simple manner of trite and oft spoken oral truisms. He therefore rose after supper, and leaving his place at the head of the table, he laid aside his upper garments, which, though appropriate and becoming him as a teacher in his hours of public instruction, or social communion, were yet inconvenient in any active exertion which needed the free use of the limbs. Being thus disrobed, he took the position and character of a menial upon him, and girding himself with a towel, he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet in it, wiping them with his towel. He accordingly comes to Simon Peter, in the discharge of his servile office; but Peter, whose ideas of the majesty and ripening honors of his Master were shocked at this extraordinary action, positively refused to be even the passive instrument of such an indignity to one so great and good,——first inquiring “Lord, dost thou wash my feet?” Jesus in answer said to him, “What I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.” That is, “this apparently degrading act has a hidden, useful meaning, at this moment beyond your comprehension, but which you will learn in due time.” Peter, however, notwithstanding this plain and decided expression of Christ’s wise determination to go through this painful ceremony, for the instruction of those who so unwillingly submitted to see him thus degraded,——still led on by the fiery ardor of his own headlong genius,——manfully persisted in his refusal, and expressed himself in the most positive terms possible, saying to Jesus, “Thou shalt never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “If I wash thee not, thouhast no part with me.” This solemn remonstrance had the effect of checking Peter’s too forward reverence, and in a tone of deeper submission to the wise will of his Master, he yielded, replying however, “Lord, wash not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.” Since so low an office was to be performed by one so venerated, he would not have the favor of his blessed touch confined to the baser limbs, but desired that the nobler parts of the body should share in the holy ablution. But the high purpose of Jesus could not accommodate itself to the whims of his zealous disciple; for his very object was to take the humblest attitude before them, by performing those personal offices which were usually committed to slaves. He therefore told Peter, “He that is washed needs not save to wash his feet, but is clean in every part;”——a very familiar and expressive illustration, alluding to the circumstance that those who have been to a bath and there washed themselves, will on their return find themselves wholly clean, except such dust as may cling to their feet as they have passed through the streets on their return. And any one may feel the force of the beautiful figure, who has ever gone into the water for the purposes of cleanliness and refreshment, on a warm summer’s day in this country, and has found by experience that after all possible ablution, on coming out and dressing himself, his wet feet in contact with the ground have become loaded with dirt which demands new diligence to remove it; and as all who have tried it know, it requires many ingenious efforts to return with feet as clean as they came to the washing; and in spite of all, after the return, an inspection may forcibly illustrate the truth, that “he that is washed, though he is clean in every part, yet needs to wash his feet.” Such was the figure with which Jesus expressed to his simple-minded and unlettered disciples, the important truth, that since they had been already washed, (baptized by John or himself,) if that washing had been effectual, they could need the repurification only of their feet——the cleansing away of such of the world’s impure thoughts and feelings as had clung to them in their journeyings through it. So, after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments and sat down again, he said to them, “Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord; and ye say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you this as an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Truly the servant is not greater thanhis lord, neither is he that is sent greater than him that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.”——A charge so clear and simple, and so full, that it needs not a word of comment to show any reader the full force of this touching ceremony.Shortly after, in the same place and during the same meeting, Jesus speaking to them of his near departure, affectionately and sadly said, “Little children, but a little while longer am I with you. Ye shall seek me; and as I said to the Jews, ‘whither I go, ye cannot come,’——so now I say to you.” To this Simon Peter soon after replied by asking him, “Lord whither goest thou?” Jesus answered him, “Whither I go thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterwards.” Peter, perhaps beginning to perceive the mournful meaning of this declaration, replied, still urging, “Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake.” Jesus answered, “Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? I tell thee assuredly, the cock shall not crow till thou hast denied me thrice.”——Soon after, at the same time and place, noticing the confident assurance of this chief disciple, Jesus again warned him of his danger and his coming fall. “Simon! Simon! behold, Satan has desired to have you (all) that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed forthee(especially) thatthyfaith fail not; and whenthouart converted, strengthen thy brethren.” Never before had higher and more distinctive favor been conferred on this chief apostle, than by this sad prophecy of danger, weakness and sin, on which he was to fall, for a time, to his deep disgrace; but on him alone, when rescued from ruin by his Master’s peculiar prayers, was to rest the task of strengthening his brethren. But his Master’s kind warning was for the present lost on his immovable self-esteem; he repeated his former assurance of perfect devotion through every danger, “Lord, I am ready to go with thee into prison and to death.” Where was affectionate and heroic devotion ever more affectingly and determinedly expressed? What heart of common man would not have leaped to meet such love and fidelity? But He, with an eye still clear and piercing, in spite of the tears with which affection might dim it, saw through the veil that would have blinded the sharpest human judgment, and coldly met these protestations of burning zeal with the chilling prediction again uttered, “I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day, before thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me.” Then making a sudden transition, to hint to them the nature of the dangers which would soon trytheir souls, he suddenly reverted to their former security. “When I sent you forth without purse, or scrip, or shoes, did ye need any thing?” And they said “Nothing.” Then said he to them “But now, let him that has a purse, take it, and likewise his scrip; and let him that has no sword sell his cloak and buy one.” They had hitherto, in their wanderings, every where found friends to support and protect them; but now the world was at war with them, and they must look to their own resources both for supplying their wants and guarding their lives. His disciples readily apprehending some need of personal defense, at once bestirred themselves and mustered what arms they could on the spot, and told him that they had two swords among them, and of these it appears that one was in the hands of Peter. It was natural enough that among the disciples these few arms were found, for they were all Galileans, who, as Josephus tells us, were very pugnacious in their habits; and even the followers of Christ, notwithstanding their peaceful calling, had not entirely laid aside their former weapons of violence, which were the more needed by them, as the journey from Galilee to Jerusalem was made very dangerous by robbers, who lay in wait for the defenseless traveler wherever the nature of the ground favored such an attack. Of this character was that part of the road between Jerusalem and Jericho, alluded to in the parable of the wounded traveler and the good Samaritan,——a region so wild and rocky that it has always been dangerous, for the same reasons, even to this day; of which a sad instance occurred but a few years ago, in the case of an eminent English traveler, who going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, fell among thieves and was wounded near the same spot mentioned by Christ, in spite of the defenses with which he was provided. It was in reference to such dangers as these, that two of his disciples had provided themselves with hostile weapons, and Peter may have been instigated to carry his sword into such a peaceful feast, by the suspicion that the danger from the chief priests, to which Christ had often alluded, might more particularly threaten them while they were in the city by themselves, without the safeguard of their numerous friends in the multitude. The answer of Jesus to this report of their means of resistance was not in a tone to excite them to the very zealous use of them. He simply said, “It is enough,” a phrase which was meant to quiet them, by expressing his little regard for such a defense as they were able to offer to him, with this contemptible armament.Some have conjectured that this washing of feet (page97) was a usual rite at the Paschal feast. So Scaliger, Beza, Baronius, Casaubon and other learned men have thought. (See Poole’s Synopsis, on Johnxiii.5.) But Buxtorf has clearly shown the falsity of their reasons, and Lightfoot has also proved that it was a perfectly unusual thing, and that there is no passage in all the Rabbinical writings which refers to it as a custom. It is manifest indeed, to a common reader, that the whole peculiar force of this ablution, in this instance, consisted in its being an entirely unusual act; and all its beautiful aptness as an illustration of the meaning of Jesus,——that they should cease their ambitious strife for precedence,——is lost in making it anything else than a perfectly new and original ceremony, whose impressiveness mainly consisted in its singularity. Lightfoot also illustrates the design of Jesus still farther, by several interesting passages from the Talmudists, showing in what way the ablution would be regarded by his disciples, who like other Jews would look upon it as a most degraded action, never to be performed except by inferiors to superiors. These Talmudic authorities declare, that “Among the duties to be performed by the wife to her husband, this was one,——that she should wash his face, his hands and his feet.” (Maimonides on the duties of women.) The same office was due from a son to his father,——from a slave to his master, as his references show; but he says he can find no precept that a disciple should perform such a duty to his teacher, unless it be included in this, “The teacher should be more honored by his scholar than a father.”He also shows that the feet were never washed separately, with any idea of legal purification,——though the Pharisees washed their hands separately with this view, and the priests washed their hands and feet both, as a form of purification, but never the feet alone. And he very justly remarks upon all this testimony, that “the farther this action of Christ recedes from common custom, the higher its fitness for their instruction,——being performed not merely for an example but for a precept.” (Lightfoot’s Horae Hebraica in Gospel of Johnxiii.5.)Laid aside his garments.——The simple dress of the races of western Asia, is always distinguishable into two parts or sets of garments,——an inner, which covered more or less of the body, fitting it tightly, but not reaching far over the legs or arms, and consisted either of a single cloth folded around the loins, or a tunic fastened with a girdle; sometimes also a covering for the thighs was subjoined, making something like the rudiment of a pair of breeches. (See Jahn Archaeologia Biblica § 120.) These were the permanent parts of the dress, and were always required to be kept on the body, by the common rules of decency. But the second division of the garments, (“superindumenta,” Jahn,) thrown loosely over the inner ones, might be laid aside, on any occasion, when active exertion required the most unconstrained motion of the limbs. One of these was a simple oblong, broad piece of cloth, of various dimensions, but generally about three yards long, and two broad, which was wrapped around the body like a mantle, the two upper corners being drawn over the shoulders in front, and the rest hanging down the back, and falling around the front of the body, without any fastenings but the folding of the upper corners. This garment was called by the Hebrewsשמלהorשלמה, (simlahorsalmah,) and sometimesבגד; (begedh;)——by the Greeks,ἱματιον. (himation.) Jahn Archaeologia Biblica. This is the garment which is always meant by this Greek word in the New Testament, when used in the singular number,——translated “cloak” in the common English version, as in the passage in the text above, where Jesus exhorts him that has no sword to sell hiscloakand buy one. When this Greek word occurs in the plural, (ἱματια,himatia,) it is translated “garments,” and it is noticeable that in most cases where it occurs, the sense actually requires that it should be understood only of the outer dress, to which I have referred it. As in Matthewxxi.8, where it is said that the people spread theirgarmentsin the way,——of course only their outer ones, which were loose and easily thrown off, without indecent exposure. So in Markxi.7, 8: Lukexix.35. There is no need then, of supposing, as Origen does, that Jesus took off all his clothes, or was naked, in the modern sense of the term. A variety of other outer garments in common use both among the early and the later Jews, are described minutely by Jahn in his Archaeologia Biblica,§122. I shall have occasion to describe some of these, in illustration of other passages.My exegesis on the passage “He that is washed, needs not,”&c.may strike some as rather bold in its illustration, yet if great authorities are necessary to support the view I have taken, I can refer at once to a legion of commentators, both ancient and modern, who all offer the same general explanation, though not exactly the same illustration. Poole’s Synopsis is rich in references to such. Among these, Vatablus remarks on the need of washing the feet of one already washed, “scil. viae causa.” Medonachussays of the feet, “quos calcata terra iterum inquinat.” Hammond says, “he that hath been initiated, and entered into Christ,&c.iswhole clean, and hath no need to be so washed again, all over. All that is needful to him is the daily ministering of the word and grace of Christ, to cleanse and wash off the frailties, and imperfections, and lapses of our weak nature, those feet of the soul.” Grotius says, “Hoc tantum opus ei est, ut ab iis se purget quae ex occasione nascuntur. Similitudo sumpta ab hisqui a balneo nudis pedibus abeunt.” Besides these and many others largely quoted by Poole, Lampius also (in commentary in Gospel of John) goes very fully into the same view, and quotes many others in illustration. Wolfius (in Cur. Philology) gives various illustrations, differing in no important particular, that I can see, from each other, nor from that of Kuinoel, who calls them “contortas expositiones,” but gives one which is the same in almost every part, but is more fully illustrated in detail, by reference to the usage of the ancients, of going to the bath before coming to a feast, which the disciples no doubt had done, and made themselves clean in all parts except their feet, which had become dirtied on the way from the bath. This is the same view which Wolf also quotes approvingly from Elsner. Wetstein is also on this point, as on all others, abundantly rich in illustrations from classic usage, to which he refers in a great number of quotations from Lucian, Herodotus, Plato, Terence and Plutarch.Sift you as wheat.——The wordσινιαζω(siniazo) refers to the process ofwinnowingthe wheat after threshing, rather thansiftingin the common application of the term, which is to the operation of separating the flour from the bran. In oriental agriculture the operation of winnowing is performed without any machinery, by simply taking up the threshed wheat in a large shovel, and shaking it in such a way that the grain may fall out into a place prepared on the ground, while the wind blows away the chaff. The whole operation is well described in the fragments appended to Taylor’s editions of Calmet’s dictionary, (Hund. i.No.48, inVol. III.) and is there illustrated by a plate. The phrase then, was highly expressive of a thorough trial of character, or of utter ruin, by violent and overwhelming misfortune, and as such is often used in the Old Testament. As in Jeremiahxv.7. “I will fan them with a fan,”&c.Also inli.3. In Psalmcxxxix.2. “Thou winnowest my path,”&c.; compare translation “Thoucompassestmy path.” The same figure is effectively used by John the Baptist, in Matthewiii.12, and Lukeiii.17.Galilean pugnacity.——Josephus, who was very familiar with the Galileans by his military service among them, thus characterizes them. “The Galileans are fighters even from infancy, and are every where numerous, nor are they capable of fear.” Jewish War, bookIII.chapteriii.section 2.From Jerusalem to Jericho.——The English traveler here referred to, is Sir Frederic Henniker, who in the year 1820, met with this calamity, which he thus describes in his travels,pp.284–289.“The route is over hills, rocky, barren and uninteresting; we arrived at a fountain, and here my two attendants paused to refresh themselves; the day was so hot that I was anxious to finish the journey, and hurried forwards. A ruined building situated on the summit of a hill was now within sight, and I urged my horse towards it; the janissary galloped by me, and making signs for me not to precede him, he rode into and round the building, and then motioned me to advance. We next came to a hill, through the very apex of which has been cut a passage, the rocks overhanging it on either side. Quaresmius, (bookvi.chapter 2.) quoting Brocardus, 200 years past, mentions that there is a place horrible to the eye, and full of danger, called Abdomin, which signifies blood; where he, descending from Jerusalem to Jericho, fell among thieves. I was in the act of passing through this ditch, when a bullet whizzed by, close to my head; I saw no one, and had scarcely time to think, when another was fired some distance in advance. I could yet see no one,——the janissary was beneath the brow of the hill, in his descent; I looked back, but my servant was not yet within sight. I looked up, and within a few inches of my head were three muskets, and three men taking aim at me. Escape or resistance were alike impossible. I got off my horse. Eight men jumped down from the rocks, and commenced a scramble for me; I observed also a party running towards Nicholai. At this moment the janissary galloped in among us with his sword drawn.“A sudden panic seized the janissary; he cried on the name of the Prophet, and galloped away. As he passed, I caught at a rope hanging from his saddle. I had hoped to leap upon his horse, but found myself unable;——my feet were dreadfully lacerated by the honey-combed rocks——nature would support me no longer——I fell, but still clung to the rope. In this manner I was drawn some few yards, till, bleeding from my ancleto my shoulder, I resigned myself to my fate. As soon as I stood up, one of my pursuers took aim at me, but the other casually advancing between us, prevented his firing; he then ran up, and with his sword, aimed such a blow as would not have required a second; his companion prevented its full effect, so that it merely cut my ear in halves, and laid open one side of my face; they then stripped me naked.“It was now past mid-day, and burning hot; I bled profusely,——and two vultures, whose business it is to consume corpses, were hovering over me. I should scarcely have had strength to resist, had they chosen to attack me. At length we arrived about 3 P. M. at Jericho.——My servant was unable to lift me to the ground; the janissary was lighting his pipe, and the soldiers were making preparations to pursue the robbers; not one person would assist a half-dead Christian. After some minutes a few Arabs came up and placed me by the side of the horse-pond, just so that I could not dip my finger into the water. This pool is resorted to by every one in search of water, and that employment falls exclusively upon females;——they surrounded me, and seemed so earnest in their sorrow, that, notwithstanding their veils, I almost felt pleasure at my wound. One of them in particular held her pitcher to my lips, till she was sent away by the Chous;——I called her, she returned, and was sent away again; and the third time she was turned out of the yard. She wore a red veil, (the sign of not being married,) and therefore there was something unpardonable inherattention to any man, especially to a Christian; she however returned with her mother, and brought me some milk. I believe that Mungo Park, on some dangerous occasion during his travels, received considerable assistance from the compassionate sex.”THE SCENES OF GETHSEMANE.After much more conversation and prayer with his disciples in the supper-room, and having sung the hymn of praise which usually concluded the passover feast among the Jews, Jesus went with them out west of the city, over the brook Kedron, at the foot of the Olive mount, where there was a garden, called Gethsemane, to which he had often resorted with his disciples, it being retired as well as pleasant. While they were on the way, a new occasion happened of showing Peter’s self-confidence, which Jesus again rebuked with the prediction that it would too soon fail him. He was telling them all, that events would soon happen that would overthrow their present confidence in him, and significantly quoted to them the appropriate passage in Zechariahxiii.7. “I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.” Peter, glad of a new opportunity to assert his steadfast adherence to his Master, again assured him that, though all should be offended, or lose their confidence in him, yet would not he; but though alone, would always maintain his present devotion to him. The third time did Jesus reply in the circumstantial prediction of his near and certain fall. “This day, even this night, before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice.” This repeated distrustful and reproachful denunciation, became, at last, too much for Peter’s warm temper; and in a burst of offended zeal, he declared the more vehemently, “If I should die with thee, I will not deny thee in any wise.” To this solemn protestation against the thought of defection, all the other apostles present gave their word of hearty assent.VALLEY OF THE BROOK KEDRONbetween Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives.Johnxviii.1.They now reached the garden, and when they had entered it, Jesus spoke to all the disciples present, except his three chosen ones, saying, “Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder.” He retired accordingly into some recess of the garden, with Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John; and as soon as he was alone with them, begun to give utterance to feelings of deep distress and depression of spirits. Leaving them, with the express injunction to keep awake and wait for him, he went for a short time still farther, and there, in secret and awful woe, that wrung from his bowed head the dark sweat of an unutterable agony, yet in submission to God, he prayed that the horrible suffering and death to which he had been so sternly devoted, might not light on him. Returning to the three appointed watchers, he found them asleep! Even as amid the lonely majesty of Mount Hermon, human weakness had borne down the willing spirit in spite of the sublime character of the place and the persons before them; so here, not the groans of that beloved suffering Lord, for whom they had just expressed such deep regard, could keep their sleepy eyes open, when they were thus exhausted with a long day’s agitating incidents, and were rendered still more dull and stupid by the chilliness of the evening air, as well as the lateness of the hour of the night; for it was near ten o’clock. At this sad instance of the inability of their minds to overcome the frailties of the body, after all their fine protestations of love and zeal, he mildly and mournfully remonstrates with Peter in particular, who had been so far before the rest in expressing a peculiar interest in his Master. And he said toPeter, “Simon! sleepestthou? What! could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Well might he question thus the constancy of the fiery zeal which had so lately inspired Peter to those expressions of violent attachment. What! could not all that warm devotion, that high pride of purpose, sustain his spirit against the effects of fatigue and cold on his body? But they had, we may suppose, crept into some shelter from the cold night air, where they unconsciously forgot themselves. After having half-roused them with this fruitless appeal, he left them, and again passed through another dreadful struggle between his human and divine nature. The same strong entreaty,——the same mournful submission,——were expressed as before, in that moment of solitary agony, till again he burst away from the insupportable strife of soul, and came to seeif yet sympathy in his sorrows could keep his sleepy disciples awake. But no; the gentle rousing he had before given them had hardly broken their slumbers. For a few moments the voice of their Master, in tones deep and mournful with sorrow, might have recalled them to some sense of shame for their heedless stupidity; and for a short time their wounded pride moved them to an effort of self-control. A few mutual expostulations in a sleepy tone, would pass between them;——an effort at conversation perhaps, about the incidents of the day, and the prospect of coming danger which their Master seemed to hint;——some wonderings probably, as to what could thus lead him apart to dark and lonely devotion;——very likely too, some complaint about the cold;——a shiver——a sneeze,——then a movement to a warmer attitude, and a wrapping closer in mantles;——then the conversation languishing, replies coming slower and duller, the attitude meanwhile declining from the perpendicular to the horizontal, till at last the most wakeful waits in vain for an answer to one of his drowsy remarks, and finds himself speaking to deaf ears; and finally overcome with impatience at them and himself, he sinks down into his former deep repose, with a half-murmured reproach to his companions on his lips. In short, as every one knows who has passed through such efforts, three sleepy men will hardly keep awake the better for each other’s company; but so far from it, on the contrary, the force of sympathy will increase the difficulty, and the very sound of drowsy voices will serve to lull all the sooner into slumber. In the case of the apostles too, who were mostly men accustomed to an active life, and who were in the habit of going to bed as soon as it was night, whenever their business allowed them to rest, all their modes of life served to hasten the slumbers of men so little inured to self-control of any kind. These lengthy reasons may serve to excite some considerate sympathy for the weakness of the apostles, and may serve as an apology for their repeated drowsiness on solemn occasions; for a first thought on the subject might suggest to a common man, the irreverent notion, that those who could slumber at the transfiguration of the Son of God on Mount Hermon, and at his agony in Gethsemane, must be very sleepy fellows. On this occasion these causes were sufficient to enchain their senses, in spite of the repeated exhortations of Jesus, for on his coming to them the second time, and saying in a warning voice, “Rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation; why sleep ye?” they wist not what to answer him, for their eyeswere very heavy, and they slept for sorrow. Still again he retired about a stone’s throw from them, as before, and there, prone on the ground, he renewed the strife with his feelings. Alone and unsympathized with by his friends, did the Redeemer of men endure the agonies of that hour, yet not wholly alone nor unsupported; for as Luke assures us, there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. At last the long struggle ceased. Distant voices coming over the glen through the stillness of the night, and the glare of torches flashing from the waters of the Kedron through the shades of the garden, gave him notice that those were near who came to drag him to a shameful death. Yet the repugnance of nature with which his late strife had been so dreadful, was now so overcome that he shrank not from the♦approaching death, but calmly walked to meet it. Coming forward to his sleeping disciples, he said to them, “Sleep on now and take your rest; behold, the time is at hand when the son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Arise, let us be going.” The rush of the armed bands of the temple guards followed his words, and when the apostles sprung to their feet, their drowsiness was most effectually driven off by the appalling sight of a crowd of fierce men, filling the garden and surrounding them. As soon as the villainous leaders of the throng could overcome the reverence which even the lowest of their followers had for the majestic person of the Savior, they brought them up to the charge, and a retainer of the high priest, by name Malchus, with the forward officiousness of an insolent menial, laid hold of Jesus. Now was the time for Galilean spunk to show itself. The disciples around instantly asked, “Lord, shall we smite with the sword?” But without waiting for an answer, Peter, though amazed by this sudden and frightful attack, as soon as he saw the body of his adored Master profaned by the rude hands of base hirelings, foremost in action as in word, regardless of numbers, leaped on the assailants with drawn sword, and with a movement too quick to be shunned, he gave the foremost a blow, which, if the darkness had not prevented, might have been fatal. As it was, there could not have been a more narrow escape, for the sword lighting on the head of the priest’s zealous servant, just grazed his temple and cut off his ear. But this display of courage was after all, fruitless; for he was surrounded by a great body of men, armed in the expectation of this very kind of resistance; and in addition to this, the remonstrance of Jesus must have been sufficient todamp the most fiery valor. He said to his zealous and fierce defender, “Put up thy sword again into its sheath, for they that take the sword shall perish by the sword. The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink? Thinkest thou that if I should now pray to my Father, he would not instantly send me twelve legions of angels at a word? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, which say that it must be thus?” Having thus stopped the ineffectual and dangerous opposition of his few followers, he quietly gave himself up to his captors, interceding however for his poor, friendless and unprotected disciples. “I am Jesus of Nazareth: if therefore you seek me, let these go their way.” This he said as it were in reference to a literal and corporeal fulfilment of the words which he had used in his last prayer with his disciples,——“Of them whom thou gavest me I lost none.” The disciples after receiving from Jesus such a special command to abstain from resistance, and perceiving how utterly desperate was the condition of affairs, without waiting the decision of the question, all forsaking him, fled; and favored by darkness and their familiar knowledge of the grounds, they all escaped in various directions.
THE BLIGHTING OF THE FIG-TREE.Having thus, by his public and triumphant entrance into Jerusalem, defied and provoked the spite of the higher orders, while he secured an attentive hearing from the common people, when he should wish to teach them,——Jesus retired at evening, for the sake of quiet and comfort, to the house of his friends, Lazarus, Mary and Martha, at Bethany, in the suburbs. The next morning, as he was on his way with his disciples, coming back from this place to Jerusalem, hungry with the fatigues of his long walk, he came to a fig-tree, near the path, hoping to find fruit for his refreshment, as it seemed from a distance flourishing with abundance of leaves, and was then near the season of bearing. But when he came near, he found nothing but leaves on it, for it was somewhat backward, and its time of producing figs was not yet. And Jesus, seizing the opportunity of this disappointment to impress his disciples with his power, personifying the tree, denounced destruction against it. “May no man eat fruit of thee hereafter, forever.” And his disciples heard it. They returned to Bethany, as usual, that evening, to pass the night,——but as they passed, probably after dark, they took no notice of the fig-tree. But the next morning, as they went back to the city, they saw that it had dried up from the roots. Simon Peter, always ready to notice the instances of his Master’s power, called out in surprise to Jesus, to witness the effect of his malediction upon its object. “Master, behold, the fig-tree which thou didst curse, is withered away.” Jesus noticing their amazement at the apparent effect of his words, in so small a matter, took occasion to turn their attention to other and higher objects of faith, on which they might exert their zeal in a spirit, not of withering denunciation and destroying wrath,such as they had seen so tremendously efficient in this case, but in the spirit of love and forgiveness, as well as of the holy energy that could overthrow and overcome difficulties, not less than to uproot Mount Olivet from its everlasting base and hurl it into the sea.THE DISCUSSIONS WITH THE SECTARIES.The disciples steadily remained the diligent and constant attendants of their heavenly teacher, in his long and frequent seasons of instruction in the temple, where he boldly met the often renewed attacks of his various adversaries, whether Herodians, scribes, Pharisees or Sadducees, and in spite of their long-trained subtleties, beat them out and out, with the very weapons at which they thought themselves so handy. The display of genius, of taste, of learning, of ready and sarcastic wit, and of heart-searching acuteness, was so amazing and super-human, that these few days of open discussion established his divinely intellectual superiority over all the elaborate science of his accomplished opponents, and at the same time secured the fulfilment of his destiny, by the spite and hatred which their repeated public defeats excited in them. Imagine their rage. Exposed thus before the people, by whom they had hitherto been regarded as the sole depositaries of learning, and adored as the fountains of right, they saw all their honors and power, to which they had devoted the intense study of their whole lives, snatched coolly and easily from them, by a nameless, untaught pretender, who was able to hold them up, baffled and disgraced, for the amusement of the jeering multitude. Here was ground enough for hatred;——the hatred of conceited and intolerant false learning, against the discerning soul that had stripped and humbled it;——the hatred of confident ambition against the heroic energy which had discomfited it, and was doing much to free a long enslaved people from the yoke which formal hypocrisy and empty parade had long laid on them. And again, the intolerable thought that all this heavy disgrace had been brought on the learned body of Judaism by a Galilean! a mere carpenter of the lowest orders, who had come up to Jerusalem followed by a select train of rude fishermen and outcast publicans;——and who, not being able to command a single night’s lodging in the city, was in the habit of boarding and lodging in a paltry suburb, on the charity of some personal friends, from which place he quietly walked in for the distance of two miles every morning, to triumph over the palace-lodged heads of the Jewish faith. Fromsuch a man, thus humbly and even pitiably circumstanced, such an invasion and overthrow could not be endured; and his ruin was rendered doubly easy by his very insignificance, which now constituted the chief disgrace of their defeat. Never was cause more closely followed by its effect, than this insulted dignity was by its cruel vengeance.THE PROPHECY OF THE TEMPLE’S RUIN.In preparing his disciples for the great events which were to take place in a few years, and which were to have a great influence on their labors, Jesus foretold to them the destruction of the temple. As he was passing out through the mighty gates of the temple on some occasion with his disciples, one of them, admiring the gorgeous beauty of the architecture and the materials, with all the devotion of a Jew now visiting it for the first time, said to him, “Master, see! what stones and what buildings!” To him, Jesus replied with the awful prophecy, most shocking to the national pride and religious associations of every Israelite,——that ere long, upon that glorious pile should fall a ruin so complete, that not one of those splendid stones should be left upon another. These words must have made a strong impression of wonder on all who heard them; but no farther details of the prophecy were given to the disciples at large. Not long afterwards, however, as he sat musingly by himself, in his favorite retirement, half-way up the Mount of Olives, over against the temple, the four most loved and honored of the twelve, Peter, James, John and Andrew, came to him, and asked him privately, to tell them when these things should be, and by what omen they should know the approach of the great and woful ruin. Sitting there, they had a full view of the enormous pile which rose in immense masses very near them, on the verge of mount Moriah, and was even terraced up, from the side of the slope, presenting a vast wall, rising from the depths of the deep ravine of Kedron, which separated the temple from mount Olivet, where they were. It was morning when the conversation took place, as we may fairly guess, for this spot lay on the daily walk to Bethany, where he lodged;——the broad walls, high towers, and pillars of the temple, were doubtless illuminated by the full splendors of the morning sun of Palestine; for Olivet was directly east of Jerusalem, and as they sat looking westward towards the temple, with the sun behind them, the rays, leaving their faces in the shade, would shine full and bright on all which crowned the highth beyond. It was at such a time, asthe Jewish historian assures us, that the temple was seen in its fullest grandeur and sublimity; for the light, falling on the vast roofs, which were sheeted and spiked with pure gold, brightly polished, and upon the turrets and pinnacles which glittered with the same precious metal, was reflected to the eye of the gazer with an insupportable brilliancy, from the million bright surfaces and shining points which covered it. Here, then, sat Jesus and his four adoring chosen ones, with this splendid sight before them crowning the mountain, now made doubly dazzling by contrast with the deep gloom of the dark glen below, which separated them from it. There it was, that, with all this brightness and glory and beauty before them, Jesus solemnly foretold in detail the awful, total ruin which was to sweep it all away, within the short lives of those who heard him. Well might such words sink deep into their hearts,——words coming from lips whose perfect and divine truth they could not doubt, though the things now foretold must have gone wofully against all the dreams of glory, in which they had made that sacred pile the scene of the future triumphs of the faith and followers of Christ. This sublime prophecy, which need not here be repeated or descanted upon, is given at great length by all the first three evangelists, and is found in Matthewxxiv.Markxiii.and Lukexxi.
THE BLIGHTING OF THE FIG-TREE.
Having thus, by his public and triumphant entrance into Jerusalem, defied and provoked the spite of the higher orders, while he secured an attentive hearing from the common people, when he should wish to teach them,——Jesus retired at evening, for the sake of quiet and comfort, to the house of his friends, Lazarus, Mary and Martha, at Bethany, in the suburbs. The next morning, as he was on his way with his disciples, coming back from this place to Jerusalem, hungry with the fatigues of his long walk, he came to a fig-tree, near the path, hoping to find fruit for his refreshment, as it seemed from a distance flourishing with abundance of leaves, and was then near the season of bearing. But when he came near, he found nothing but leaves on it, for it was somewhat backward, and its time of producing figs was not yet. And Jesus, seizing the opportunity of this disappointment to impress his disciples with his power, personifying the tree, denounced destruction against it. “May no man eat fruit of thee hereafter, forever.” And his disciples heard it. They returned to Bethany, as usual, that evening, to pass the night,——but as they passed, probably after dark, they took no notice of the fig-tree. But the next morning, as they went back to the city, they saw that it had dried up from the roots. Simon Peter, always ready to notice the instances of his Master’s power, called out in surprise to Jesus, to witness the effect of his malediction upon its object. “Master, behold, the fig-tree which thou didst curse, is withered away.” Jesus noticing their amazement at the apparent effect of his words, in so small a matter, took occasion to turn their attention to other and higher objects of faith, on which they might exert their zeal in a spirit, not of withering denunciation and destroying wrath,such as they had seen so tremendously efficient in this case, but in the spirit of love and forgiveness, as well as of the holy energy that could overthrow and overcome difficulties, not less than to uproot Mount Olivet from its everlasting base and hurl it into the sea.
THE DISCUSSIONS WITH THE SECTARIES.
The disciples steadily remained the diligent and constant attendants of their heavenly teacher, in his long and frequent seasons of instruction in the temple, where he boldly met the often renewed attacks of his various adversaries, whether Herodians, scribes, Pharisees or Sadducees, and in spite of their long-trained subtleties, beat them out and out, with the very weapons at which they thought themselves so handy. The display of genius, of taste, of learning, of ready and sarcastic wit, and of heart-searching acuteness, was so amazing and super-human, that these few days of open discussion established his divinely intellectual superiority over all the elaborate science of his accomplished opponents, and at the same time secured the fulfilment of his destiny, by the spite and hatred which their repeated public defeats excited in them. Imagine their rage. Exposed thus before the people, by whom they had hitherto been regarded as the sole depositaries of learning, and adored as the fountains of right, they saw all their honors and power, to which they had devoted the intense study of their whole lives, snatched coolly and easily from them, by a nameless, untaught pretender, who was able to hold them up, baffled and disgraced, for the amusement of the jeering multitude. Here was ground enough for hatred;——the hatred of conceited and intolerant false learning, against the discerning soul that had stripped and humbled it;——the hatred of confident ambition against the heroic energy which had discomfited it, and was doing much to free a long enslaved people from the yoke which formal hypocrisy and empty parade had long laid on them. And again, the intolerable thought that all this heavy disgrace had been brought on the learned body of Judaism by a Galilean! a mere carpenter of the lowest orders, who had come up to Jerusalem followed by a select train of rude fishermen and outcast publicans;——and who, not being able to command a single night’s lodging in the city, was in the habit of boarding and lodging in a paltry suburb, on the charity of some personal friends, from which place he quietly walked in for the distance of two miles every morning, to triumph over the palace-lodged heads of the Jewish faith. Fromsuch a man, thus humbly and even pitiably circumstanced, such an invasion and overthrow could not be endured; and his ruin was rendered doubly easy by his very insignificance, which now constituted the chief disgrace of their defeat. Never was cause more closely followed by its effect, than this insulted dignity was by its cruel vengeance.
THE PROPHECY OF THE TEMPLE’S RUIN.
In preparing his disciples for the great events which were to take place in a few years, and which were to have a great influence on their labors, Jesus foretold to them the destruction of the temple. As he was passing out through the mighty gates of the temple on some occasion with his disciples, one of them, admiring the gorgeous beauty of the architecture and the materials, with all the devotion of a Jew now visiting it for the first time, said to him, “Master, see! what stones and what buildings!” To him, Jesus replied with the awful prophecy, most shocking to the national pride and religious associations of every Israelite,——that ere long, upon that glorious pile should fall a ruin so complete, that not one of those splendid stones should be left upon another. These words must have made a strong impression of wonder on all who heard them; but no farther details of the prophecy were given to the disciples at large. Not long afterwards, however, as he sat musingly by himself, in his favorite retirement, half-way up the Mount of Olives, over against the temple, the four most loved and honored of the twelve, Peter, James, John and Andrew, came to him, and asked him privately, to tell them when these things should be, and by what omen they should know the approach of the great and woful ruin. Sitting there, they had a full view of the enormous pile which rose in immense masses very near them, on the verge of mount Moriah, and was even terraced up, from the side of the slope, presenting a vast wall, rising from the depths of the deep ravine of Kedron, which separated the temple from mount Olivet, where they were. It was morning when the conversation took place, as we may fairly guess, for this spot lay on the daily walk to Bethany, where he lodged;——the broad walls, high towers, and pillars of the temple, were doubtless illuminated by the full splendors of the morning sun of Palestine; for Olivet was directly east of Jerusalem, and as they sat looking westward towards the temple, with the sun behind them, the rays, leaving their faces in the shade, would shine full and bright on all which crowned the highth beyond. It was at such a time, asthe Jewish historian assures us, that the temple was seen in its fullest grandeur and sublimity; for the light, falling on the vast roofs, which were sheeted and spiked with pure gold, brightly polished, and upon the turrets and pinnacles which glittered with the same precious metal, was reflected to the eye of the gazer with an insupportable brilliancy, from the million bright surfaces and shining points which covered it. Here, then, sat Jesus and his four adoring chosen ones, with this splendid sight before them crowning the mountain, now made doubly dazzling by contrast with the deep gloom of the dark glen below, which separated them from it. There it was, that, with all this brightness and glory and beauty before them, Jesus solemnly foretold in detail the awful, total ruin which was to sweep it all away, within the short lives of those who heard him. Well might such words sink deep into their hearts,——words coming from lips whose perfect and divine truth they could not doubt, though the things now foretold must have gone wofully against all the dreams of glory, in which they had made that sacred pile the scene of the future triumphs of the faith and followers of Christ. This sublime prophecy, which need not here be repeated or descanted upon, is given at great length by all the first three evangelists, and is found in Matthewxxiv.Markxiii.and Lukexxi.
The view of the temple.——I can find no description by any writer, ancient or modern, which gives so clear an account of the original shape of Mount Moriah, and of the modifications it underwent to fit it to support the temple, as that given by Josephus. (Jewish War, bookV.chapterv.) In speaking of the original founding of the temple by Solomon, (Antiquities bookVIII.chapteriii.section 2,) he says, “The king laid the foundations of the temple in the very depths, (at the bottom of the descent,) using stones of a firm structure, and able to hold out against the attacks of time, so that growing into a union, as it were, with the ground, they might be the basis and support of the pile that was to be reared above, and through their strength below, easily bear the vast mass of the great superstructure, and the immense weight of ornament also; for the weight of those things which were contrived for beauty and magnificence was not less than that of the materials which contributed to the highth and lateral dimension.” In the full description which he afterwards gives in the place first quoted, of the later temple as perfected by Herod, which is the building to which the account in the text refers, he enters more fully into the mode of shaping the ground to the temple. “The temple was founded upon a steep hill, but in the first beginning of the structure there was scarcely flat ground enough on the top for the sanctuary and the altar, for it was abrupt and precipitous all around. And king Solomon, when he built the sanctuary, havingwalled it outon the eastern side, (εκτειχισαντος, that is, ‘having builtouta wall on that side’ for a terrace,) then reared upon the terraced earth a colonnade; but on the other sides the sanctuary wasnaked,——(that is, the wall was unsupported and unornamented by colonnades as it was on the east.) But in the course of ages, the people all the while beating down the terraced earth with their footsteps, the hill thus growing flat, was made broader on the top; and having taken down the wall on the north, they gained considerable ground which was afterwards inclosed within the outer court of the temple. Finally, having walled the hill entirely around with three terraces, and having advanced the work far beyond any hope that could have been reasonably entertained at first, spending on it long ages, and all the sacred treasures accumulated from the offerings sent to God from the ends of the world, they rearedaround it, both the upper courts and the lower temple, walling the latter up, in the lowest part, from a depth of three hundred cubits, (450 feet,) and in some places more. And yet the whole depth of the foundations did not show itself, because they had greatly filled up the ravines, with a view to bring them to a level with the streets of the city. The stones of this work were of the size of forty cubits, (60 feet,) for the profusion of means and the lavish zeal of the people advanced the improvements of the temple beyond account; and a perfection far above all hope was thus attained by perseverance and time.
“And well worthy of these foundations were the works which stood upon them. For all the colonnades were double, consisting of pillars twenty-five cubits (40 feet) in highth, each of a single stone of the whitest marble, and were roofed with fretwork of cedar. The natural beauty of these, their high polish and exquisite proportion, presented a most glorious show; but their surface was not marked by the superfluous embellishments of painting and carving. The colonnades were thirty cubits broad, (that is, forty-five feet from the front of the columns to the wall behind them;) while their whole circuit embraced a range of sixstadia, (more than three-quarters of a mile!) including the castle of Antonia. And the wholehypethrum(ὑπαιθρον, the floor of the courts or inclosures of the temple, which was exposed to the open air, there being no roof above it) was variegated by the stones of all colors with which it was laid,” (making a Mosaic pavement.) Section 1.
“The outside of the temple too, lacked nothing that could strike or dazzle the mind and eye. For it was on all sides overlaid withmassy plates of gold, so thatin the first light of the rising sun,IT SHOT FORTH A MOST FIERY SPLENDOR, which turned away the eyes of those who compelled themselves (mid.βιαζομενους) to gaze on it, as from the rays of the sun itself. To strangers, moreover, who were coming towards it, it shone from afar like a complete mountain of snow: for where it was not covered with gold it was most dazzlingly white, and above on the roof it had golden spikes, sharpened to keep the birds from lighting on it. And some of the stones of the building were forty-five cubits long, five high, and six broad;”——(or sixty-sevenfeetlong, seven and a half high, and nine broad.) Section 6.
“The Antonia was placed at the angle made by the meeting of two colonnades of the outer temple, the western and the northern. It was built upon a rock, fifty cubits high, and precipitous on all sides. It was the work of king Herod, in which, most of all, he showed himself a man of exalted conceptions.” Section 8.
In speaking of Solomon’s foundation, he also says, (Antiquities bookVIII.chapteriii.section 9,)
“But he made the outside of the temple wonderful beyond account, both in description and to sight. For having piled up huge terraces, from which, on account of their immense depth, it was hardly possible to look down, and reared them to the highth of four hundred cubits, (six hundred feet!) he made them on the same level with the hill’s top on which theshrine(ναος) was built, and thus the open floor of thetemple(ἱερον, or the outer court’s inclosure) was level with theshrine.”
I have drawn thus largely from the rich descriptions of this noble and faithful describer of the old glories of the Holy Land, because this very literal translation gives the exact naked detail of the temple’s aspect, in language as gorgeous as the most high-wrought in which it could be presented in a mere fancy picture of the same scene; and because it will prove that my conception of its glory, as it appeared to Christ and the four disciples who “satover againstit upon the Mount of Olives,” is not overdrawn, since it is thus supported by the blameless and invaluable testimony of him who saw all this splendor in its most splendid day, and afterwards in its unequaled beauty and with all its polished gold and marble, shining and sinking amid the flames, which swept it utterly away from his saddening eyes forever, to a ruin the most absolute and irretrievable that ever fell upon the works of man.
This was the temple on which the sons of Jonah and Zebedee gazed, with the awful denunciation of its utter ruin falling from their Lord’s lips, and such was the desolation to which those terrible words devoted it. This full description of its location shows the manner in which its terraced foundations descended with their vast fronts, six hundred feet into the valley of Kedron, over which they looked. To give as clear an idea of the place where they sat, and its relations to the rest of the scene, I extract from Conder’s Modern Traveler the following description of Mount Olivet.
“The Mount of Olives forms part of a ridge of limestone hills, extending to the north and the south-west. Pococke describes it as having four summits. On the lowest and most northerly of these, which, he tells us, is calledSulman Tashy, the stone of Solomon, there is a large domed sepulcher, and several other Mohammedantombs. The ascent to this point, which is to the north-east of the city, he describes as very gradual, through pleasant corn-fields planted with olive-trees. The second summit is that which overlooks the city: the path to it rises from the ruined gardens of Gethsemane, which occupy part of the valley. About half way up the ascent is a ruined monastery, built, as the monks tell us, on the spot where the Savior wept over Jerusalem. From this point the spectator enjoys, perhaps, the best view of the Holy City. (Here Jesus sat, in our scene.)
“The valley of Jehoshaphat, which lies between this mountain and the hills on which Jerusalem is built, is still used as a burial-place by the modern Jews, as it was by their ancestors. It is, generally speaking, a rocky flat, with a few patches of earth here and there, about half a mile in breadth from the Kedron to the foot of Mount Olivet, and nearly of the same length from Siloa to the garden of Gethsemane. The Jews have a tradition, evidently founded on taking literally the passage Joeliii.12, that this narrow valley will be the scene of the final judgment. The prophet Jeremiah evidently refers to the same valley under the name of the valley of the Son of Hinnom, or the valley of Tophet, the situation being clearly marked as being by the entry of theeastgate. (Jeremiahxix.2, 6.) Pococke places the valley of Hinnom to the south of Jerusalem, but thinks it might include part of that to the east. It formed part of the bounds between the tribes of Benjamin and Judah, (Joshuaxv.8.xviii.16,) but the description is somewhat obscure.” [Modern Traveler Palestine,pp.168, 172.]
MOUNT MORIAH.
MOUNT MORIAH.
MOUNT MORIAH.
THE LAST SUPPER.Meanwhile the offended and provoked dignitaries of Judaism were fast making arrangements to crush the daring innovator, who had done so much to bring their learning and their power into contempt. Some of the most fiery spirits among them, were for defying all risks, by seizing the Nazarene openly, in the midst of his audacious denunciations of the higher orders; and the attempt was made to execute this act of arbitrary power; but the mere hirelings sent upon the errand, were too much awed by the unequaled majesty of the man, and by the strong attachment of the people to him, to be willing to execute their commission. But there were old heads among them, that could contrive safer and surer ways of meeting the evil. By them it was finally determined to seize Jesus when alone or unattended by the throngs which usually encompassed him,——to hurry him at once secretly through the forms of law necessary for his commitment, and then to put him immediately into the hands of the Roman governor, as a condemned rioter and rebel, who would be obliged to order his execution in such a way as that no popular excitement would rescue the victim from the grasp of the soldiery. This was the plan which they were now arranging, and which they were prepared to execute before the close of the passover, if they could get intelligence of his motions. These fatal schemes of hate could not have been unknown to Jesus; yet the knowledge of them made no difference in his bold devotion to the cause for which he came into the world. Anxious to improve the few fast fleeting hours that remained before the time of his sufferings should come on, and desirous to join as a Jew in this great national festival,by keeping it in form with his disciples, he directed his two most confidential apostles, Peter and John, to get ready the entertainment for them in the city, by an arrangement made with a man already expecting to receive them. This commission they faithfully executed, and Jesus accordingly ate with his disciples the feast of the first day of the passover, in Jerusalem, with those who sought his life so near him. After the supper was over, he determined to use the brief remnant of time for the purpose of uprooting that low feeling of jealous ambition which had already made so much trouble among them, in their anxious discussions as to who should be accounted the greatest, and should rank as the ruler of the twelve. To impress the right view upon their minds most effectually, he chose the oriental mode of a ceremony which should strike their senses, and thus secure a regard and remembrance for his words which they might fail in attaining if they were delivered in the simple manner of trite and oft spoken oral truisms. He therefore rose after supper, and leaving his place at the head of the table, he laid aside his upper garments, which, though appropriate and becoming him as a teacher in his hours of public instruction, or social communion, were yet inconvenient in any active exertion which needed the free use of the limbs. Being thus disrobed, he took the position and character of a menial upon him, and girding himself with a towel, he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet in it, wiping them with his towel. He accordingly comes to Simon Peter, in the discharge of his servile office; but Peter, whose ideas of the majesty and ripening honors of his Master were shocked at this extraordinary action, positively refused to be even the passive instrument of such an indignity to one so great and good,——first inquiring “Lord, dost thou wash my feet?” Jesus in answer said to him, “What I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.” That is, “this apparently degrading act has a hidden, useful meaning, at this moment beyond your comprehension, but which you will learn in due time.” Peter, however, notwithstanding this plain and decided expression of Christ’s wise determination to go through this painful ceremony, for the instruction of those who so unwillingly submitted to see him thus degraded,——still led on by the fiery ardor of his own headlong genius,——manfully persisted in his refusal, and expressed himself in the most positive terms possible, saying to Jesus, “Thou shalt never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “If I wash thee not, thouhast no part with me.” This solemn remonstrance had the effect of checking Peter’s too forward reverence, and in a tone of deeper submission to the wise will of his Master, he yielded, replying however, “Lord, wash not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.” Since so low an office was to be performed by one so venerated, he would not have the favor of his blessed touch confined to the baser limbs, but desired that the nobler parts of the body should share in the holy ablution. But the high purpose of Jesus could not accommodate itself to the whims of his zealous disciple; for his very object was to take the humblest attitude before them, by performing those personal offices which were usually committed to slaves. He therefore told Peter, “He that is washed needs not save to wash his feet, but is clean in every part;”——a very familiar and expressive illustration, alluding to the circumstance that those who have been to a bath and there washed themselves, will on their return find themselves wholly clean, except such dust as may cling to their feet as they have passed through the streets on their return. And any one may feel the force of the beautiful figure, who has ever gone into the water for the purposes of cleanliness and refreshment, on a warm summer’s day in this country, and has found by experience that after all possible ablution, on coming out and dressing himself, his wet feet in contact with the ground have become loaded with dirt which demands new diligence to remove it; and as all who have tried it know, it requires many ingenious efforts to return with feet as clean as they came to the washing; and in spite of all, after the return, an inspection may forcibly illustrate the truth, that “he that is washed, though he is clean in every part, yet needs to wash his feet.” Such was the figure with which Jesus expressed to his simple-minded and unlettered disciples, the important truth, that since they had been already washed, (baptized by John or himself,) if that washing had been effectual, they could need the repurification only of their feet——the cleansing away of such of the world’s impure thoughts and feelings as had clung to them in their journeyings through it. So, after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments and sat down again, he said to them, “Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord; and ye say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you this as an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Truly the servant is not greater thanhis lord, neither is he that is sent greater than him that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.”——A charge so clear and simple, and so full, that it needs not a word of comment to show any reader the full force of this touching ceremony.Shortly after, in the same place and during the same meeting, Jesus speaking to them of his near departure, affectionately and sadly said, “Little children, but a little while longer am I with you. Ye shall seek me; and as I said to the Jews, ‘whither I go, ye cannot come,’——so now I say to you.” To this Simon Peter soon after replied by asking him, “Lord whither goest thou?” Jesus answered him, “Whither I go thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterwards.” Peter, perhaps beginning to perceive the mournful meaning of this declaration, replied, still urging, “Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake.” Jesus answered, “Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? I tell thee assuredly, the cock shall not crow till thou hast denied me thrice.”——Soon after, at the same time and place, noticing the confident assurance of this chief disciple, Jesus again warned him of his danger and his coming fall. “Simon! Simon! behold, Satan has desired to have you (all) that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed forthee(especially) thatthyfaith fail not; and whenthouart converted, strengthen thy brethren.” Never before had higher and more distinctive favor been conferred on this chief apostle, than by this sad prophecy of danger, weakness and sin, on which he was to fall, for a time, to his deep disgrace; but on him alone, when rescued from ruin by his Master’s peculiar prayers, was to rest the task of strengthening his brethren. But his Master’s kind warning was for the present lost on his immovable self-esteem; he repeated his former assurance of perfect devotion through every danger, “Lord, I am ready to go with thee into prison and to death.” Where was affectionate and heroic devotion ever more affectingly and determinedly expressed? What heart of common man would not have leaped to meet such love and fidelity? But He, with an eye still clear and piercing, in spite of the tears with which affection might dim it, saw through the veil that would have blinded the sharpest human judgment, and coldly met these protestations of burning zeal with the chilling prediction again uttered, “I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day, before thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me.” Then making a sudden transition, to hint to them the nature of the dangers which would soon trytheir souls, he suddenly reverted to their former security. “When I sent you forth without purse, or scrip, or shoes, did ye need any thing?” And they said “Nothing.” Then said he to them “But now, let him that has a purse, take it, and likewise his scrip; and let him that has no sword sell his cloak and buy one.” They had hitherto, in their wanderings, every where found friends to support and protect them; but now the world was at war with them, and they must look to their own resources both for supplying their wants and guarding their lives. His disciples readily apprehending some need of personal defense, at once bestirred themselves and mustered what arms they could on the spot, and told him that they had two swords among them, and of these it appears that one was in the hands of Peter. It was natural enough that among the disciples these few arms were found, for they were all Galileans, who, as Josephus tells us, were very pugnacious in their habits; and even the followers of Christ, notwithstanding their peaceful calling, had not entirely laid aside their former weapons of violence, which were the more needed by them, as the journey from Galilee to Jerusalem was made very dangerous by robbers, who lay in wait for the defenseless traveler wherever the nature of the ground favored such an attack. Of this character was that part of the road between Jerusalem and Jericho, alluded to in the parable of the wounded traveler and the good Samaritan,——a region so wild and rocky that it has always been dangerous, for the same reasons, even to this day; of which a sad instance occurred but a few years ago, in the case of an eminent English traveler, who going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, fell among thieves and was wounded near the same spot mentioned by Christ, in spite of the defenses with which he was provided. It was in reference to such dangers as these, that two of his disciples had provided themselves with hostile weapons, and Peter may have been instigated to carry his sword into such a peaceful feast, by the suspicion that the danger from the chief priests, to which Christ had often alluded, might more particularly threaten them while they were in the city by themselves, without the safeguard of their numerous friends in the multitude. The answer of Jesus to this report of their means of resistance was not in a tone to excite them to the very zealous use of them. He simply said, “It is enough,” a phrase which was meant to quiet them, by expressing his little regard for such a defense as they were able to offer to him, with this contemptible armament.
THE LAST SUPPER.
Meanwhile the offended and provoked dignitaries of Judaism were fast making arrangements to crush the daring innovator, who had done so much to bring their learning and their power into contempt. Some of the most fiery spirits among them, were for defying all risks, by seizing the Nazarene openly, in the midst of his audacious denunciations of the higher orders; and the attempt was made to execute this act of arbitrary power; but the mere hirelings sent upon the errand, were too much awed by the unequaled majesty of the man, and by the strong attachment of the people to him, to be willing to execute their commission. But there were old heads among them, that could contrive safer and surer ways of meeting the evil. By them it was finally determined to seize Jesus when alone or unattended by the throngs which usually encompassed him,——to hurry him at once secretly through the forms of law necessary for his commitment, and then to put him immediately into the hands of the Roman governor, as a condemned rioter and rebel, who would be obliged to order his execution in such a way as that no popular excitement would rescue the victim from the grasp of the soldiery. This was the plan which they were now arranging, and which they were prepared to execute before the close of the passover, if they could get intelligence of his motions. These fatal schemes of hate could not have been unknown to Jesus; yet the knowledge of them made no difference in his bold devotion to the cause for which he came into the world. Anxious to improve the few fast fleeting hours that remained before the time of his sufferings should come on, and desirous to join as a Jew in this great national festival,by keeping it in form with his disciples, he directed his two most confidential apostles, Peter and John, to get ready the entertainment for them in the city, by an arrangement made with a man already expecting to receive them. This commission they faithfully executed, and Jesus accordingly ate with his disciples the feast of the first day of the passover, in Jerusalem, with those who sought his life so near him. After the supper was over, he determined to use the brief remnant of time for the purpose of uprooting that low feeling of jealous ambition which had already made so much trouble among them, in their anxious discussions as to who should be accounted the greatest, and should rank as the ruler of the twelve. To impress the right view upon their minds most effectually, he chose the oriental mode of a ceremony which should strike their senses, and thus secure a regard and remembrance for his words which they might fail in attaining if they were delivered in the simple manner of trite and oft spoken oral truisms. He therefore rose after supper, and leaving his place at the head of the table, he laid aside his upper garments, which, though appropriate and becoming him as a teacher in his hours of public instruction, or social communion, were yet inconvenient in any active exertion which needed the free use of the limbs. Being thus disrobed, he took the position and character of a menial upon him, and girding himself with a towel, he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet in it, wiping them with his towel. He accordingly comes to Simon Peter, in the discharge of his servile office; but Peter, whose ideas of the majesty and ripening honors of his Master were shocked at this extraordinary action, positively refused to be even the passive instrument of such an indignity to one so great and good,——first inquiring “Lord, dost thou wash my feet?” Jesus in answer said to him, “What I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.” That is, “this apparently degrading act has a hidden, useful meaning, at this moment beyond your comprehension, but which you will learn in due time.” Peter, however, notwithstanding this plain and decided expression of Christ’s wise determination to go through this painful ceremony, for the instruction of those who so unwillingly submitted to see him thus degraded,——still led on by the fiery ardor of his own headlong genius,——manfully persisted in his refusal, and expressed himself in the most positive terms possible, saying to Jesus, “Thou shalt never wash my feet.” Jesus answered, “If I wash thee not, thouhast no part with me.” This solemn remonstrance had the effect of checking Peter’s too forward reverence, and in a tone of deeper submission to the wise will of his Master, he yielded, replying however, “Lord, wash not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.” Since so low an office was to be performed by one so venerated, he would not have the favor of his blessed touch confined to the baser limbs, but desired that the nobler parts of the body should share in the holy ablution. But the high purpose of Jesus could not accommodate itself to the whims of his zealous disciple; for his very object was to take the humblest attitude before them, by performing those personal offices which were usually committed to slaves. He therefore told Peter, “He that is washed needs not save to wash his feet, but is clean in every part;”——a very familiar and expressive illustration, alluding to the circumstance that those who have been to a bath and there washed themselves, will on their return find themselves wholly clean, except such dust as may cling to their feet as they have passed through the streets on their return. And any one may feel the force of the beautiful figure, who has ever gone into the water for the purposes of cleanliness and refreshment, on a warm summer’s day in this country, and has found by experience that after all possible ablution, on coming out and dressing himself, his wet feet in contact with the ground have become loaded with dirt which demands new diligence to remove it; and as all who have tried it know, it requires many ingenious efforts to return with feet as clean as they came to the washing; and in spite of all, after the return, an inspection may forcibly illustrate the truth, that “he that is washed, though he is clean in every part, yet needs to wash his feet.” Such was the figure with which Jesus expressed to his simple-minded and unlettered disciples, the important truth, that since they had been already washed, (baptized by John or himself,) if that washing had been effectual, they could need the repurification only of their feet——the cleansing away of such of the world’s impure thoughts and feelings as had clung to them in their journeyings through it. So, after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments and sat down again, he said to them, “Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord; and ye say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you this as an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Truly the servant is not greater thanhis lord, neither is he that is sent greater than him that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.”——A charge so clear and simple, and so full, that it needs not a word of comment to show any reader the full force of this touching ceremony.
Shortly after, in the same place and during the same meeting, Jesus speaking to them of his near departure, affectionately and sadly said, “Little children, but a little while longer am I with you. Ye shall seek me; and as I said to the Jews, ‘whither I go, ye cannot come,’——so now I say to you.” To this Simon Peter soon after replied by asking him, “Lord whither goest thou?” Jesus answered him, “Whither I go thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterwards.” Peter, perhaps beginning to perceive the mournful meaning of this declaration, replied, still urging, “Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake.” Jesus answered, “Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? I tell thee assuredly, the cock shall not crow till thou hast denied me thrice.”——Soon after, at the same time and place, noticing the confident assurance of this chief disciple, Jesus again warned him of his danger and his coming fall. “Simon! Simon! behold, Satan has desired to have you (all) that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed forthee(especially) thatthyfaith fail not; and whenthouart converted, strengthen thy brethren.” Never before had higher and more distinctive favor been conferred on this chief apostle, than by this sad prophecy of danger, weakness and sin, on which he was to fall, for a time, to his deep disgrace; but on him alone, when rescued from ruin by his Master’s peculiar prayers, was to rest the task of strengthening his brethren. But his Master’s kind warning was for the present lost on his immovable self-esteem; he repeated his former assurance of perfect devotion through every danger, “Lord, I am ready to go with thee into prison and to death.” Where was affectionate and heroic devotion ever more affectingly and determinedly expressed? What heart of common man would not have leaped to meet such love and fidelity? But He, with an eye still clear and piercing, in spite of the tears with which affection might dim it, saw through the veil that would have blinded the sharpest human judgment, and coldly met these protestations of burning zeal with the chilling prediction again uttered, “I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day, before thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me.” Then making a sudden transition, to hint to them the nature of the dangers which would soon trytheir souls, he suddenly reverted to their former security. “When I sent you forth without purse, or scrip, or shoes, did ye need any thing?” And they said “Nothing.” Then said he to them “But now, let him that has a purse, take it, and likewise his scrip; and let him that has no sword sell his cloak and buy one.” They had hitherto, in their wanderings, every where found friends to support and protect them; but now the world was at war with them, and they must look to their own resources both for supplying their wants and guarding their lives. His disciples readily apprehending some need of personal defense, at once bestirred themselves and mustered what arms they could on the spot, and told him that they had two swords among them, and of these it appears that one was in the hands of Peter. It was natural enough that among the disciples these few arms were found, for they were all Galileans, who, as Josephus tells us, were very pugnacious in their habits; and even the followers of Christ, notwithstanding their peaceful calling, had not entirely laid aside their former weapons of violence, which were the more needed by them, as the journey from Galilee to Jerusalem was made very dangerous by robbers, who lay in wait for the defenseless traveler wherever the nature of the ground favored such an attack. Of this character was that part of the road between Jerusalem and Jericho, alluded to in the parable of the wounded traveler and the good Samaritan,——a region so wild and rocky that it has always been dangerous, for the same reasons, even to this day; of which a sad instance occurred but a few years ago, in the case of an eminent English traveler, who going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, fell among thieves and was wounded near the same spot mentioned by Christ, in spite of the defenses with which he was provided. It was in reference to such dangers as these, that two of his disciples had provided themselves with hostile weapons, and Peter may have been instigated to carry his sword into such a peaceful feast, by the suspicion that the danger from the chief priests, to which Christ had often alluded, might more particularly threaten them while they were in the city by themselves, without the safeguard of their numerous friends in the multitude. The answer of Jesus to this report of their means of resistance was not in a tone to excite them to the very zealous use of them. He simply said, “It is enough,” a phrase which was meant to quiet them, by expressing his little regard for such a defense as they were able to offer to him, with this contemptible armament.
Some have conjectured that this washing of feet (page97) was a usual rite at the Paschal feast. So Scaliger, Beza, Baronius, Casaubon and other learned men have thought. (See Poole’s Synopsis, on Johnxiii.5.) But Buxtorf has clearly shown the falsity of their reasons, and Lightfoot has also proved that it was a perfectly unusual thing, and that there is no passage in all the Rabbinical writings which refers to it as a custom. It is manifest indeed, to a common reader, that the whole peculiar force of this ablution, in this instance, consisted in its being an entirely unusual act; and all its beautiful aptness as an illustration of the meaning of Jesus,——that they should cease their ambitious strife for precedence,——is lost in making it anything else than a perfectly new and original ceremony, whose impressiveness mainly consisted in its singularity. Lightfoot also illustrates the design of Jesus still farther, by several interesting passages from the Talmudists, showing in what way the ablution would be regarded by his disciples, who like other Jews would look upon it as a most degraded action, never to be performed except by inferiors to superiors. These Talmudic authorities declare, that “Among the duties to be performed by the wife to her husband, this was one,——that she should wash his face, his hands and his feet.” (Maimonides on the duties of women.) The same office was due from a son to his father,——from a slave to his master, as his references show; but he says he can find no precept that a disciple should perform such a duty to his teacher, unless it be included in this, “The teacher should be more honored by his scholar than a father.”
He also shows that the feet were never washed separately, with any idea of legal purification,——though the Pharisees washed their hands separately with this view, and the priests washed their hands and feet both, as a form of purification, but never the feet alone. And he very justly remarks upon all this testimony, that “the farther this action of Christ recedes from common custom, the higher its fitness for their instruction,——being performed not merely for an example but for a precept.” (Lightfoot’s Horae Hebraica in Gospel of Johnxiii.5.)
Laid aside his garments.——The simple dress of the races of western Asia, is always distinguishable into two parts or sets of garments,——an inner, which covered more or less of the body, fitting it tightly, but not reaching far over the legs or arms, and consisted either of a single cloth folded around the loins, or a tunic fastened with a girdle; sometimes also a covering for the thighs was subjoined, making something like the rudiment of a pair of breeches. (See Jahn Archaeologia Biblica § 120.) These were the permanent parts of the dress, and were always required to be kept on the body, by the common rules of decency. But the second division of the garments, (“superindumenta,” Jahn,) thrown loosely over the inner ones, might be laid aside, on any occasion, when active exertion required the most unconstrained motion of the limbs. One of these was a simple oblong, broad piece of cloth, of various dimensions, but generally about three yards long, and two broad, which was wrapped around the body like a mantle, the two upper corners being drawn over the shoulders in front, and the rest hanging down the back, and falling around the front of the body, without any fastenings but the folding of the upper corners. This garment was called by the Hebrewsשמלהorשלמה, (simlahorsalmah,) and sometimesבגד; (begedh;)——by the Greeks,ἱματιον. (himation.) Jahn Archaeologia Biblica. This is the garment which is always meant by this Greek word in the New Testament, when used in the singular number,——translated “cloak” in the common English version, as in the passage in the text above, where Jesus exhorts him that has no sword to sell hiscloakand buy one. When this Greek word occurs in the plural, (ἱματια,himatia,) it is translated “garments,” and it is noticeable that in most cases where it occurs, the sense actually requires that it should be understood only of the outer dress, to which I have referred it. As in Matthewxxi.8, where it is said that the people spread theirgarmentsin the way,——of course only their outer ones, which were loose and easily thrown off, without indecent exposure. So in Markxi.7, 8: Lukexix.35. There is no need then, of supposing, as Origen does, that Jesus took off all his clothes, or was naked, in the modern sense of the term. A variety of other outer garments in common use both among the early and the later Jews, are described minutely by Jahn in his Archaeologia Biblica,§122. I shall have occasion to describe some of these, in illustration of other passages.
My exegesis on the passage “He that is washed, needs not,”&c.may strike some as rather bold in its illustration, yet if great authorities are necessary to support the view I have taken, I can refer at once to a legion of commentators, both ancient and modern, who all offer the same general explanation, though not exactly the same illustration. Poole’s Synopsis is rich in references to such. Among these, Vatablus remarks on the need of washing the feet of one already washed, “scil. viae causa.” Medonachussays of the feet, “quos calcata terra iterum inquinat.” Hammond says, “he that hath been initiated, and entered into Christ,&c.iswhole clean, and hath no need to be so washed again, all over. All that is needful to him is the daily ministering of the word and grace of Christ, to cleanse and wash off the frailties, and imperfections, and lapses of our weak nature, those feet of the soul.” Grotius says, “Hoc tantum opus ei est, ut ab iis se purget quae ex occasione nascuntur. Similitudo sumpta ab hisqui a balneo nudis pedibus abeunt.” Besides these and many others largely quoted by Poole, Lampius also (in commentary in Gospel of John) goes very fully into the same view, and quotes many others in illustration. Wolfius (in Cur. Philology) gives various illustrations, differing in no important particular, that I can see, from each other, nor from that of Kuinoel, who calls them “contortas expositiones,” but gives one which is the same in almost every part, but is more fully illustrated in detail, by reference to the usage of the ancients, of going to the bath before coming to a feast, which the disciples no doubt had done, and made themselves clean in all parts except their feet, which had become dirtied on the way from the bath. This is the same view which Wolf also quotes approvingly from Elsner. Wetstein is also on this point, as on all others, abundantly rich in illustrations from classic usage, to which he refers in a great number of quotations from Lucian, Herodotus, Plato, Terence and Plutarch.
Sift you as wheat.——The wordσινιαζω(siniazo) refers to the process ofwinnowingthe wheat after threshing, rather thansiftingin the common application of the term, which is to the operation of separating the flour from the bran. In oriental agriculture the operation of winnowing is performed without any machinery, by simply taking up the threshed wheat in a large shovel, and shaking it in such a way that the grain may fall out into a place prepared on the ground, while the wind blows away the chaff. The whole operation is well described in the fragments appended to Taylor’s editions of Calmet’s dictionary, (Hund. i.No.48, inVol. III.) and is there illustrated by a plate. The phrase then, was highly expressive of a thorough trial of character, or of utter ruin, by violent and overwhelming misfortune, and as such is often used in the Old Testament. As in Jeremiahxv.7. “I will fan them with a fan,”&c.Also inli.3. In Psalmcxxxix.2. “Thou winnowest my path,”&c.; compare translation “Thoucompassestmy path.” The same figure is effectively used by John the Baptist, in Matthewiii.12, and Lukeiii.17.
Galilean pugnacity.——Josephus, who was very familiar with the Galileans by his military service among them, thus characterizes them. “The Galileans are fighters even from infancy, and are every where numerous, nor are they capable of fear.” Jewish War, bookIII.chapteriii.section 2.
From Jerusalem to Jericho.——The English traveler here referred to, is Sir Frederic Henniker, who in the year 1820, met with this calamity, which he thus describes in his travels,pp.284–289.
“The route is over hills, rocky, barren and uninteresting; we arrived at a fountain, and here my two attendants paused to refresh themselves; the day was so hot that I was anxious to finish the journey, and hurried forwards. A ruined building situated on the summit of a hill was now within sight, and I urged my horse towards it; the janissary galloped by me, and making signs for me not to precede him, he rode into and round the building, and then motioned me to advance. We next came to a hill, through the very apex of which has been cut a passage, the rocks overhanging it on either side. Quaresmius, (bookvi.chapter 2.) quoting Brocardus, 200 years past, mentions that there is a place horrible to the eye, and full of danger, called Abdomin, which signifies blood; where he, descending from Jerusalem to Jericho, fell among thieves. I was in the act of passing through this ditch, when a bullet whizzed by, close to my head; I saw no one, and had scarcely time to think, when another was fired some distance in advance. I could yet see no one,——the janissary was beneath the brow of the hill, in his descent; I looked back, but my servant was not yet within sight. I looked up, and within a few inches of my head were three muskets, and three men taking aim at me. Escape or resistance were alike impossible. I got off my horse. Eight men jumped down from the rocks, and commenced a scramble for me; I observed also a party running towards Nicholai. At this moment the janissary galloped in among us with his sword drawn.
“A sudden panic seized the janissary; he cried on the name of the Prophet, and galloped away. As he passed, I caught at a rope hanging from his saddle. I had hoped to leap upon his horse, but found myself unable;——my feet were dreadfully lacerated by the honey-combed rocks——nature would support me no longer——I fell, but still clung to the rope. In this manner I was drawn some few yards, till, bleeding from my ancleto my shoulder, I resigned myself to my fate. As soon as I stood up, one of my pursuers took aim at me, but the other casually advancing between us, prevented his firing; he then ran up, and with his sword, aimed such a blow as would not have required a second; his companion prevented its full effect, so that it merely cut my ear in halves, and laid open one side of my face; they then stripped me naked.
“It was now past mid-day, and burning hot; I bled profusely,——and two vultures, whose business it is to consume corpses, were hovering over me. I should scarcely have had strength to resist, had they chosen to attack me. At length we arrived about 3 P. M. at Jericho.——My servant was unable to lift me to the ground; the janissary was lighting his pipe, and the soldiers were making preparations to pursue the robbers; not one person would assist a half-dead Christian. After some minutes a few Arabs came up and placed me by the side of the horse-pond, just so that I could not dip my finger into the water. This pool is resorted to by every one in search of water, and that employment falls exclusively upon females;——they surrounded me, and seemed so earnest in their sorrow, that, notwithstanding their veils, I almost felt pleasure at my wound. One of them in particular held her pitcher to my lips, till she was sent away by the Chous;——I called her, she returned, and was sent away again; and the third time she was turned out of the yard. She wore a red veil, (the sign of not being married,) and therefore there was something unpardonable inherattention to any man, especially to a Christian; she however returned with her mother, and brought me some milk. I believe that Mungo Park, on some dangerous occasion during his travels, received considerable assistance from the compassionate sex.”
THE SCENES OF GETHSEMANE.After much more conversation and prayer with his disciples in the supper-room, and having sung the hymn of praise which usually concluded the passover feast among the Jews, Jesus went with them out west of the city, over the brook Kedron, at the foot of the Olive mount, where there was a garden, called Gethsemane, to which he had often resorted with his disciples, it being retired as well as pleasant. While they were on the way, a new occasion happened of showing Peter’s self-confidence, which Jesus again rebuked with the prediction that it would too soon fail him. He was telling them all, that events would soon happen that would overthrow their present confidence in him, and significantly quoted to them the appropriate passage in Zechariahxiii.7. “I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.” Peter, glad of a new opportunity to assert his steadfast adherence to his Master, again assured him that, though all should be offended, or lose their confidence in him, yet would not he; but though alone, would always maintain his present devotion to him. The third time did Jesus reply in the circumstantial prediction of his near and certain fall. “This day, even this night, before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice.” This repeated distrustful and reproachful denunciation, became, at last, too much for Peter’s warm temper; and in a burst of offended zeal, he declared the more vehemently, “If I should die with thee, I will not deny thee in any wise.” To this solemn protestation against the thought of defection, all the other apostles present gave their word of hearty assent.VALLEY OF THE BROOK KEDRONbetween Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives.Johnxviii.1.They now reached the garden, and when they had entered it, Jesus spoke to all the disciples present, except his three chosen ones, saying, “Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder.” He retired accordingly into some recess of the garden, with Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John; and as soon as he was alone with them, begun to give utterance to feelings of deep distress and depression of spirits. Leaving them, with the express injunction to keep awake and wait for him, he went for a short time still farther, and there, in secret and awful woe, that wrung from his bowed head the dark sweat of an unutterable agony, yet in submission to God, he prayed that the horrible suffering and death to which he had been so sternly devoted, might not light on him. Returning to the three appointed watchers, he found them asleep! Even as amid the lonely majesty of Mount Hermon, human weakness had borne down the willing spirit in spite of the sublime character of the place and the persons before them; so here, not the groans of that beloved suffering Lord, for whom they had just expressed such deep regard, could keep their sleepy eyes open, when they were thus exhausted with a long day’s agitating incidents, and were rendered still more dull and stupid by the chilliness of the evening air, as well as the lateness of the hour of the night; for it was near ten o’clock. At this sad instance of the inability of their minds to overcome the frailties of the body, after all their fine protestations of love and zeal, he mildly and mournfully remonstrates with Peter in particular, who had been so far before the rest in expressing a peculiar interest in his Master. And he said toPeter, “Simon! sleepestthou? What! could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Well might he question thus the constancy of the fiery zeal which had so lately inspired Peter to those expressions of violent attachment. What! could not all that warm devotion, that high pride of purpose, sustain his spirit against the effects of fatigue and cold on his body? But they had, we may suppose, crept into some shelter from the cold night air, where they unconsciously forgot themselves. After having half-roused them with this fruitless appeal, he left them, and again passed through another dreadful struggle between his human and divine nature. The same strong entreaty,——the same mournful submission,——were expressed as before, in that moment of solitary agony, till again he burst away from the insupportable strife of soul, and came to seeif yet sympathy in his sorrows could keep his sleepy disciples awake. But no; the gentle rousing he had before given them had hardly broken their slumbers. For a few moments the voice of their Master, in tones deep and mournful with sorrow, might have recalled them to some sense of shame for their heedless stupidity; and for a short time their wounded pride moved them to an effort of self-control. A few mutual expostulations in a sleepy tone, would pass between them;——an effort at conversation perhaps, about the incidents of the day, and the prospect of coming danger which their Master seemed to hint;——some wonderings probably, as to what could thus lead him apart to dark and lonely devotion;——very likely too, some complaint about the cold;——a shiver——a sneeze,——then a movement to a warmer attitude, and a wrapping closer in mantles;——then the conversation languishing, replies coming slower and duller, the attitude meanwhile declining from the perpendicular to the horizontal, till at last the most wakeful waits in vain for an answer to one of his drowsy remarks, and finds himself speaking to deaf ears; and finally overcome with impatience at them and himself, he sinks down into his former deep repose, with a half-murmured reproach to his companions on his lips. In short, as every one knows who has passed through such efforts, three sleepy men will hardly keep awake the better for each other’s company; but so far from it, on the contrary, the force of sympathy will increase the difficulty, and the very sound of drowsy voices will serve to lull all the sooner into slumber. In the case of the apostles too, who were mostly men accustomed to an active life, and who were in the habit of going to bed as soon as it was night, whenever their business allowed them to rest, all their modes of life served to hasten the slumbers of men so little inured to self-control of any kind. These lengthy reasons may serve to excite some considerate sympathy for the weakness of the apostles, and may serve as an apology for their repeated drowsiness on solemn occasions; for a first thought on the subject might suggest to a common man, the irreverent notion, that those who could slumber at the transfiguration of the Son of God on Mount Hermon, and at his agony in Gethsemane, must be very sleepy fellows. On this occasion these causes were sufficient to enchain their senses, in spite of the repeated exhortations of Jesus, for on his coming to them the second time, and saying in a warning voice, “Rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation; why sleep ye?” they wist not what to answer him, for their eyeswere very heavy, and they slept for sorrow. Still again he retired about a stone’s throw from them, as before, and there, prone on the ground, he renewed the strife with his feelings. Alone and unsympathized with by his friends, did the Redeemer of men endure the agonies of that hour, yet not wholly alone nor unsupported; for as Luke assures us, there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. At last the long struggle ceased. Distant voices coming over the glen through the stillness of the night, and the glare of torches flashing from the waters of the Kedron through the shades of the garden, gave him notice that those were near who came to drag him to a shameful death. Yet the repugnance of nature with which his late strife had been so dreadful, was now so overcome that he shrank not from the♦approaching death, but calmly walked to meet it. Coming forward to his sleeping disciples, he said to them, “Sleep on now and take your rest; behold, the time is at hand when the son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Arise, let us be going.” The rush of the armed bands of the temple guards followed his words, and when the apostles sprung to their feet, their drowsiness was most effectually driven off by the appalling sight of a crowd of fierce men, filling the garden and surrounding them. As soon as the villainous leaders of the throng could overcome the reverence which even the lowest of their followers had for the majestic person of the Savior, they brought them up to the charge, and a retainer of the high priest, by name Malchus, with the forward officiousness of an insolent menial, laid hold of Jesus. Now was the time for Galilean spunk to show itself. The disciples around instantly asked, “Lord, shall we smite with the sword?” But without waiting for an answer, Peter, though amazed by this sudden and frightful attack, as soon as he saw the body of his adored Master profaned by the rude hands of base hirelings, foremost in action as in word, regardless of numbers, leaped on the assailants with drawn sword, and with a movement too quick to be shunned, he gave the foremost a blow, which, if the darkness had not prevented, might have been fatal. As it was, there could not have been a more narrow escape, for the sword lighting on the head of the priest’s zealous servant, just grazed his temple and cut off his ear. But this display of courage was after all, fruitless; for he was surrounded by a great body of men, armed in the expectation of this very kind of resistance; and in addition to this, the remonstrance of Jesus must have been sufficient todamp the most fiery valor. He said to his zealous and fierce defender, “Put up thy sword again into its sheath, for they that take the sword shall perish by the sword. The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink? Thinkest thou that if I should now pray to my Father, he would not instantly send me twelve legions of angels at a word? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, which say that it must be thus?” Having thus stopped the ineffectual and dangerous opposition of his few followers, he quietly gave himself up to his captors, interceding however for his poor, friendless and unprotected disciples. “I am Jesus of Nazareth: if therefore you seek me, let these go their way.” This he said as it were in reference to a literal and corporeal fulfilment of the words which he had used in his last prayer with his disciples,——“Of them whom thou gavest me I lost none.” The disciples after receiving from Jesus such a special command to abstain from resistance, and perceiving how utterly desperate was the condition of affairs, without waiting the decision of the question, all forsaking him, fled; and favored by darkness and their familiar knowledge of the grounds, they all escaped in various directions.
THE SCENES OF GETHSEMANE.
After much more conversation and prayer with his disciples in the supper-room, and having sung the hymn of praise which usually concluded the passover feast among the Jews, Jesus went with them out west of the city, over the brook Kedron, at the foot of the Olive mount, where there was a garden, called Gethsemane, to which he had often resorted with his disciples, it being retired as well as pleasant. While they were on the way, a new occasion happened of showing Peter’s self-confidence, which Jesus again rebuked with the prediction that it would too soon fail him. He was telling them all, that events would soon happen that would overthrow their present confidence in him, and significantly quoted to them the appropriate passage in Zechariahxiii.7. “I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered.” Peter, glad of a new opportunity to assert his steadfast adherence to his Master, again assured him that, though all should be offended, or lose their confidence in him, yet would not he; but though alone, would always maintain his present devotion to him. The third time did Jesus reply in the circumstantial prediction of his near and certain fall. “This day, even this night, before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice.” This repeated distrustful and reproachful denunciation, became, at last, too much for Peter’s warm temper; and in a burst of offended zeal, he declared the more vehemently, “If I should die with thee, I will not deny thee in any wise.” To this solemn protestation against the thought of defection, all the other apostles present gave their word of hearty assent.
VALLEY OF THE BROOK KEDRONbetween Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives.Johnxviii.1.
VALLEY OF THE BROOK KEDRONbetween Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives.Johnxviii.1.
VALLEY OF THE BROOK KEDRON
between Jerusalem and the Mount of Olives.Johnxviii.1.
They now reached the garden, and when they had entered it, Jesus spoke to all the disciples present, except his three chosen ones, saying, “Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder.” He retired accordingly into some recess of the garden, with Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John; and as soon as he was alone with them, begun to give utterance to feelings of deep distress and depression of spirits. Leaving them, with the express injunction to keep awake and wait for him, he went for a short time still farther, and there, in secret and awful woe, that wrung from his bowed head the dark sweat of an unutterable agony, yet in submission to God, he prayed that the horrible suffering and death to which he had been so sternly devoted, might not light on him. Returning to the three appointed watchers, he found them asleep! Even as amid the lonely majesty of Mount Hermon, human weakness had borne down the willing spirit in spite of the sublime character of the place and the persons before them; so here, not the groans of that beloved suffering Lord, for whom they had just expressed such deep regard, could keep their sleepy eyes open, when they were thus exhausted with a long day’s agitating incidents, and were rendered still more dull and stupid by the chilliness of the evening air, as well as the lateness of the hour of the night; for it was near ten o’clock. At this sad instance of the inability of their minds to overcome the frailties of the body, after all their fine protestations of love and zeal, he mildly and mournfully remonstrates with Peter in particular, who had been so far before the rest in expressing a peculiar interest in his Master. And he said toPeter, “Simon! sleepestthou? What! could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Well might he question thus the constancy of the fiery zeal which had so lately inspired Peter to those expressions of violent attachment. What! could not all that warm devotion, that high pride of purpose, sustain his spirit against the effects of fatigue and cold on his body? But they had, we may suppose, crept into some shelter from the cold night air, where they unconsciously forgot themselves. After having half-roused them with this fruitless appeal, he left them, and again passed through another dreadful struggle between his human and divine nature. The same strong entreaty,——the same mournful submission,——were expressed as before, in that moment of solitary agony, till again he burst away from the insupportable strife of soul, and came to seeif yet sympathy in his sorrows could keep his sleepy disciples awake. But no; the gentle rousing he had before given them had hardly broken their slumbers. For a few moments the voice of their Master, in tones deep and mournful with sorrow, might have recalled them to some sense of shame for their heedless stupidity; and for a short time their wounded pride moved them to an effort of self-control. A few mutual expostulations in a sleepy tone, would pass between them;——an effort at conversation perhaps, about the incidents of the day, and the prospect of coming danger which their Master seemed to hint;——some wonderings probably, as to what could thus lead him apart to dark and lonely devotion;——very likely too, some complaint about the cold;——a shiver——a sneeze,——then a movement to a warmer attitude, and a wrapping closer in mantles;——then the conversation languishing, replies coming slower and duller, the attitude meanwhile declining from the perpendicular to the horizontal, till at last the most wakeful waits in vain for an answer to one of his drowsy remarks, and finds himself speaking to deaf ears; and finally overcome with impatience at them and himself, he sinks down into his former deep repose, with a half-murmured reproach to his companions on his lips. In short, as every one knows who has passed through such efforts, three sleepy men will hardly keep awake the better for each other’s company; but so far from it, on the contrary, the force of sympathy will increase the difficulty, and the very sound of drowsy voices will serve to lull all the sooner into slumber. In the case of the apostles too, who were mostly men accustomed to an active life, and who were in the habit of going to bed as soon as it was night, whenever their business allowed them to rest, all their modes of life served to hasten the slumbers of men so little inured to self-control of any kind. These lengthy reasons may serve to excite some considerate sympathy for the weakness of the apostles, and may serve as an apology for their repeated drowsiness on solemn occasions; for a first thought on the subject might suggest to a common man, the irreverent notion, that those who could slumber at the transfiguration of the Son of God on Mount Hermon, and at his agony in Gethsemane, must be very sleepy fellows. On this occasion these causes were sufficient to enchain their senses, in spite of the repeated exhortations of Jesus, for on his coming to them the second time, and saying in a warning voice, “Rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation; why sleep ye?” they wist not what to answer him, for their eyeswere very heavy, and they slept for sorrow. Still again he retired about a stone’s throw from them, as before, and there, prone on the ground, he renewed the strife with his feelings. Alone and unsympathized with by his friends, did the Redeemer of men endure the agonies of that hour, yet not wholly alone nor unsupported; for as Luke assures us, there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. At last the long struggle ceased. Distant voices coming over the glen through the stillness of the night, and the glare of torches flashing from the waters of the Kedron through the shades of the garden, gave him notice that those were near who came to drag him to a shameful death. Yet the repugnance of nature with which his late strife had been so dreadful, was now so overcome that he shrank not from the♦approaching death, but calmly walked to meet it. Coming forward to his sleeping disciples, he said to them, “Sleep on now and take your rest; behold, the time is at hand when the son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Arise, let us be going.” The rush of the armed bands of the temple guards followed his words, and when the apostles sprung to their feet, their drowsiness was most effectually driven off by the appalling sight of a crowd of fierce men, filling the garden and surrounding them. As soon as the villainous leaders of the throng could overcome the reverence which even the lowest of their followers had for the majestic person of the Savior, they brought them up to the charge, and a retainer of the high priest, by name Malchus, with the forward officiousness of an insolent menial, laid hold of Jesus. Now was the time for Galilean spunk to show itself. The disciples around instantly asked, “Lord, shall we smite with the sword?” But without waiting for an answer, Peter, though amazed by this sudden and frightful attack, as soon as he saw the body of his adored Master profaned by the rude hands of base hirelings, foremost in action as in word, regardless of numbers, leaped on the assailants with drawn sword, and with a movement too quick to be shunned, he gave the foremost a blow, which, if the darkness had not prevented, might have been fatal. As it was, there could not have been a more narrow escape, for the sword lighting on the head of the priest’s zealous servant, just grazed his temple and cut off his ear. But this display of courage was after all, fruitless; for he was surrounded by a great body of men, armed in the expectation of this very kind of resistance; and in addition to this, the remonstrance of Jesus must have been sufficient todamp the most fiery valor. He said to his zealous and fierce defender, “Put up thy sword again into its sheath, for they that take the sword shall perish by the sword. The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink? Thinkest thou that if I should now pray to my Father, he would not instantly send me twelve legions of angels at a word? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, which say that it must be thus?” Having thus stopped the ineffectual and dangerous opposition of his few followers, he quietly gave himself up to his captors, interceding however for his poor, friendless and unprotected disciples. “I am Jesus of Nazareth: if therefore you seek me, let these go their way.” This he said as it were in reference to a literal and corporeal fulfilment of the words which he had used in his last prayer with his disciples,——“Of them whom thou gavest me I lost none.” The disciples after receiving from Jesus such a special command to abstain from resistance, and perceiving how utterly desperate was the condition of affairs, without waiting the decision of the question, all forsaking him, fled; and favored by darkness and their familiar knowledge of the grounds, they all escaped in various directions.