6 them, "O brood of vipers, who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth fruits worthy of repentance; and say not to yourselves, • We have Abraham for our father,' for I tell you that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Now the axe is laid to the root of the trees and every lous character; but they were regarded as of vital importance, and their violation was attended with the most severe religious penalties. An egg, laid on a festival day, they held, could not be eaten, and an animal slaughtered by a heathen, was as unfit for food as one which had died of disease. They were proud, formal, and self-righteous; but not generally wealthy or given to luxury. Their besetting sin appears to have been hypocrisy, and their affectation of extreme sanctity, no doubt, gave them their great influence among the Jewish people, whose religion had educated them in formalism. According to Josephus, they believed in the immortality of the soul, and the resurrection of the body at the last day. They held, too, that the soul of a good man, might pass (transmigrate) into another body; but that the soul of the bad underwent eternal torment; and that some, but not all, things are the work of fate that angels, good and bad, interfere in human affairs, and that they were justified by their own observance of the law, and by the merits of Abraham, who, by his obedience had secured the peculiar favor of God to his descendants. The Sadducees, are supposed to have originated with Zadok, a Jewish doctor, who lived about two hundred and fifty years before Christ, and their leading tenet seems to have been the denial of all that the Pharisees affirmed; they, however, accepted the five books of Moses. They were few in number; but powerful from their wealth and social position. The axe is laid to the root of the trees. The fellaheen of Palestine at the present day, in felling trees, clears away the earth, and lays the axe at the very roots; and he values only such trees as bear fruit. All others he cuts down as cumberers of the ground. THE MINISTRY OF JOHN. 51 tree which brings not forth good fruit will be cut down, and cast into the fire." And they said to him, "What then must we do?" He answered, "Let him that has two tunics, give to him that has none; and let him that has food, do likewise. Even tax-gatherers came to him to be baptized, and they said, "Master, Tax-gatherers. As early as the second Punic War, the Roman senate found it convenient to farm the direct taxes and customs of the empire to capitalists, who undertook to pay a given sum into the treasury, and so received the name of publicani. These capitalists generally resided in Rome, and had subordinates living in the provinces, who had under them customs officers employed in the actual collection of the taxes from the people. These latter were generally, natives of the districts in which they lived. The capitalists were an influential class, and demanded severe laws for the enforcement of levies, and put every such law in execution. Their agents were encouraged in the most fraudulent and vexatious exactions, and a remedy was next to impossible. The underlings of these agents also overcharged systematically (Luke iii. 13), brought false charges of smuggling in hopes of obtaining hush-money (Luke xix. 8), and resorted to every possible mode of extortion. All this brought them into universal disfavor, and in Judea and Galilee, there were peculiar circumstances of exaggeration. The Jews bore the Roman yoke with great impatience, and were told by many of the Scribes, that the paying of tribute was unlawful, (Matt. xxii. 17.) The native tax-gatherer was therefore held in great detestation. He was not only an extortioner, but a traitor and apostate, defiled by intercourse with the heathen, and the willing tool of the Roman oppressor, and so was cast out of society, and classed with sinners,-thieves, adulterers, and other abandoned characters. He is said by some, to have been forbidden to enter the temple, or any synagogue, and not to have been allowed to engage in public prayer, to hold judicial office, or to give evidence in courts of Justice. In Persia, at And he said to them, "Exact what must we do?" no more than is appointed you.” And the soldiers also demanded, "What must we do?" He said to them, "Do violence to no one, nor accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages." And while the people were in expectation, and all were questioning whether John were the Christ, or not; he said to them, "I indeed am baptizing with water; but One comes after me who is mightier than I, his sandals I am not worthy to bear: he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire; for his fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his floor, and the present day, the same system of farming taxes is practised, and under it the same abuses exist. Soldiers. Herod Antipas was at this time at war with Aretas, King of Arabia Petræa, and these may have been Jewish soldiers; but as Judea was garrisoned by the Roman legions, they were more likely Romans. The wages of this class were about three cents a day, with a meagre ration, in addition. His sandals I am not worthy to bear. - Allusion is here made to the custom for servants to remove their master's sandals, on his entering his dwelling. The same custom still exists among the Mohammedans. His Fan.-Threshing, among the Jews, was done in an open space, without walls or covering, trodden down as hard as a floor, and usually on elevated ground to take advantage of the wind in winnowing. The grain was trodden out, by oxen, or beaten with flails; and was then separated from the chaff by a fan a fork with several prongs, - which was held in the hand, and used to throw up the mingled heap against the wind, when the chaff, being lighter than the wheat was blown away. The chaff, owing to the scarcity of wood, was afterwards gathered, and burned in ovens as fuel. THE BAPTISM OF JESUS. 53 gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire."* Thus, with many other exhortations, he published the glad-tidings to the people. Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. But John refused him, saying, “I have need to be baptized by you, and come you to me?" But Jesus answered, " Permit it to be so now: for thus must we do to fulfil all righteousness." Then John baptized him. And as Jesus came up out of the water, lo! while he was praying, the heavens were opened, and John saw the Spirit of God descending in a bodily shape, like a dove, and lighting on him and lo! a voice from heaven said: "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." And Jesus at this time was about thirty years of age.† Then Jesus being full of the Holy Spirit, was led into the Desert to be tempted by the devil. And being there forty days and forty nights with the wild beasts, and eating nothing, he afterwards hungered. Then the tempter came to him and said, "If thou art the Son of God, command these stones to become bread." But Jesus answered, it is written, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." Then the devil took him to The heavens were opened. Stephen speaks of a similar appearance in Acts vii. 56. Livy, in speaking of a supposed like phenomenon, says (Lib. xxii. c. 1.) "the heaven appeared to be rent with a wide chasm, and where it was opened, a great light appeared." * Matt 3: 1-12. Mark 1: 2-8. Luke 3: 1-18. 6 the holy city, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, "If thou art the Son of God, cast thyself down for it is written, He will give his angels charge over thee, and in their hands they will bear thee up, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.' Jesus said to him, "It is also written, Thou shalt not make trial of the Lord thy God." Again the devil took him up to a very high mountain, and showing him all the kingdoms of the world, and their glory, in a moment of time; said to him, "All this will I give thee for it is committed to me, and to whom I will I give it, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus answered him, "Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”” Then the devil The Temptation. Commentators have vexed themselves to determine the precise part of the temple referred to as the pinnacle, and to locate the “exceeding high mountain,” from which Jesus was shown "all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; " but all such inquiries would seem to be unnecessary. It cannot be supposed that Jesus was transferred by the Evil One to Jerusalem, and from no mountain in Judea could he have seen a tenth part of the then Roman Empire. The account therefore, cannot be taken literally; but must be understood as a symbolic representation of Christ's mental experience in the Desert. Viewed in this light, it is not only divested of all improbability; but presents internal evidence of being historically true. What more suitable than this silent, solitary preparation for the great work before him a work no less than the re-creation of a world? and what more natural than his trial by the powers of Evil - powers which every man, even if he deny a personal devil, knows must exert an active and powerful influence in all human affairs. |