part of his instruction found expression in the rhythmic forms of Hebrew prophets and psalmists. This is so apparent, even in the Greek version in which alone his sayings have come down to us, that it is a marvel how the fact could have escaped notice for centuries. Only that a supposed reverence for the words of Jesus prevented men from studying them as literature can account for such prolonged failure of perception. Among men of "serious" mind and "religious" temperament there used to be, and perhaps still lingers, a scarcely concealed distrust and contempt of all forms of artistry. To such, "poet" is little more than synonym for "fool." Men are still living who can remember when reading of "Paradise Lost" was just tolerated among pious people, because the poem had a "sacred" theme. Even so, the "Pilgrim's Progress," as plain prose, was much more favored; while to read Wordsworth was to be looked at askance, and to read Byron or Shelley was to be anathema. People so constituted would have received almost with horror the suggestion that Jesus was a poet; it would have seemed to them near kin to blasphemy.

And yet, how can it be denied or doubted that such sayings as these have all the characteristics of Hebrew poetry?

Again, you have heard that it was said by the ancients, "Thou shalt not swear falsely,

But shalt perform to the Lord thine oaths."

But I say to you,

Swear not at all.

Not by the Heaven,

For it is God's throne;

Nor by the earth,

For it is the footstool of his feet;

Nor by Jerusalem,

For it is the Great King's city;

Nor shall you swear by your head,

For you cannot make one hair white or black.

But let your word be Yes or No;

What is more than these is of the Evil One. (1)

Or again, what could be more nicely balanced, after the parallelism of the Hebrew poetry, than these triplets:

Ask and it will be given you,

Seek and you will find,

Knock and the door will open to you.

For every one that asks, receives,

And he that seeks, finds,

And to him that knocks the door is opened. (2)

The discourses of Jesus are not poetic in form merely; his style is a poet's. It has the qualities of imagination, elegance, elevation, repose, power, that we demand in all poets and find only in the great. Equally at home with things high and low, with themes homely and themes sublime, his mind pours forth a rich variety of thought. And his diction as well repays study as his thought: it is always beautiful in its simplicity, wholly without ornature, often illumined by a delicate play of fancy. In the case of Jesus, speech is perfect in adaptation to occasion and circumstance, and consequently rich in variety and charm. If any doubt what has been said, let him ask himself, Could any but a poet have spoken these words?

Observe the lilies, how they grow;
They toil not, they spin not,

Yet not even Solomon in all his splendor
Was robed like one of these.

Now if God so clothes grass,
Which to-day is in the field,

And to-morrow is cast into the oven,

How much more you, men of little trust!(3)

Speaking once more of form, every attentive reader of the Gospels must have noted sayings of Jesus that fall

(1) Matt. 5:33-37.

(2) Matt. 7:7, 8.

(3) Matt. 6:28-30; cf. Luke 12:27, 28.

into the couplets of the Proverbs, sententious, crisp, pithy, argute. Instances are:

He that finds his life will lose it,

And he that loses his life for my sake will find it. (1)

He that is not with me is against me,

And he that does not gather with me, scatters. (2)

Every one that exalts himself will be humbled,
But he that humbles himself will be exalted. (3)

So the last will be first,

And the first, last. (*)

The Sabbath was made for man,

Not man for the Sabbath. (5)

What I tell you in the dark, speak in the light;
And what you hear in whispers, shout on housetops. (*)

I am sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves,
So become wise as serpents and guileless as doves. (7)

Because he is poet and speaks in the vocabulary of poetry-language "thrown out at an idea," as Matthew Arnold calls it, not formal scientific definition-it requires imagination to understand and interpret the teaching of Jesus. There is nothing fixed and stereotyped about his words; they are fluid, almost volatile; "they are spirit."() This is why his interpreters have in so many cases made a sad mess of their work: they have persisted in treating his poetry as prose, in regarding his airy dic

(1) Matt. 16:25; Mk. 8:35; Luke 9:24; 17-33.

(2) Matt. 12:30.

(8) Matt. 23:12.

(*) Matt. 20:16; Mk. 10:31; Luke 13:30.

(5) Mk. 2:27.

() Matt. 10:27; Luke 12:3.

(7) Matt. 10:16.

(9) Jn. 6:63.

And so

tion as exact statement or accurate exposition. exegetes have made hay of his delicate flowers and fresh grass. They have treated his poetic mirrorings of truth as if he were a mathematician or a professor of ethics, giving us rigid formulae or precise statement of abstract principles. So to understand Jesus is to misunderstand him. So to interpret him is to read out of his words all life and vigor, and make of them jejune and spiritless things.

III

Jesus was not only poet, but he was the people's poet. By birth, breeding and deepest instincts he was the mouthpiece of the world's workers. Everywhere we find him the Galilean peasant, artisan rather than farmer, none poorer or more obscure, none knowing better the life of those who toil patiently and hard for daily bread. Sympathy with the poor was the very stuff of life in one who spent all his days among them, shared their lot, gave his life to them and for them. (1) It is true that in his days of public ministration, Jesus was patronizingly invited to the houses of a few rich, since he was the "lion" of the day. But he was among the rich, not of them. Sometimes he seems to have been treated with scant courtesy by these condescending patrons of the higher circle, where he was tolerated at all only because he was reputed to be a prophet. On one occasion he rather pointedly rebuked his entertainer for failing in attentions that any host was then expected to show a guest:

(1) Jesus offers as one of the chief proofs of his Messianic work the fact that "the poor have the Good News proclaimed to them" (Matt. 11:5; Luke 7:22). "It is a new thing that the poor, whom the Greek despised and the Roman trampled on, and whom the priest and the Levite left on one side, should be invited into the Kingdom of God." Plummer, Commentary on Luke, p. 203.

When I came into your house,

Water for my feet you gave me not,
But she has bathed my feet with her tears,
And wiped them with her hair.

A kiss you gave me not,

But she, ever since I came in, has not left off tenderly kissing my feet.

With oil you did not anoint my head,

But she with perfume has anointed my feet. (1)

Such recognition of Jesus by "society" doubtless did not at all surprise or flatter him, since it was a tradition of his race that "the word of Jehovah" might come to the lowliest. Revelations from God were no special privilege of the high and mighty among the Jews. Almost the reverse had ever been true. Amos and Micah were peasants, and probably Isaiah also; Samuel was the son of peasants; Moses was a slave by birth, and David was a tender of sheep in youth. It was quite in harmony with Jewish ideas and Jewish history that "the carpenter's son" of Nazareth should be prophet of God and teacher of his people. The chief reason why his peasant birth and artisan training should be emphasized is that they so deeply colored every sentence that fell from the lips of Jesus. No plainer marks of heredity and environment are found in the words of any religious teacher. He was not ashamed to be known as a man of the common people. Racy of the soil, instinct with the spirit and life of the Syrian folk, are all his sayings.

Very striking is the interest shown by Jesus in the world about him. His love of nature was inborn and deep, as we might expect of a child of the fields and the open air. His teaching is redolent of earth and sky. He does not seek painfully for illustrations in nature, they spring spontaneously to his lips. The peasant-poet has an infallible eye for the picturesque and dramatic, and equally (1) Luke 7:44-46,