echoes of the description (Exodus 19) of the mountain from which the Law was proclaimed. Yet once more will I make to tremble not the earth only but also the heaven: a free quotation from Haggai, verses 6 and 22 of Chapter 2 being put together.

St. James

Essay 1. Here a very subtle argument is conveyed by a succession of images. (1) The keynote to the whole is the idea of Temptation, which implies possibilities of both Good and Evil. (2) The source of Evil in us is expressed by the image of childbirth: one parent being individual lust. This image of childbirth is carried forward to a second generation to express development of evil: lust, sin, death. On this sentence of St. James Milton has founded his great allegory of Satan, Sin and Death, in the latter part of the second book of Paradise Lost. (3) For the origin of Good in us the same image of childbirth is employed, the parent now being the will of God, and the offspring is an inborn word in each individual. (4) For the development of this germ of Good the imagery changes to that of listening, suggested by inborn word. (5) But a further stage is necessary: doing as well as hearing; and the imagery changes to that of a mirror. This has a twofold application. Hearing apart from doing is compared to a reflection in a mirror, which vanishes as the beholder goes away. For hearing accompanied with doing the mirror is the law: the beholder sees his action reflected in the law. But this perfect mirror is the law of liberty: the fixed N. T. idea that Christian liberty is an inspiration far more exacting than the law made up of ordinances. Compare Galatians, page 313.

Essay 3. This deliverance of St. James has frequently been attacked, as if it was a depreciation of faith. It is rather an exaltation of works:

faith itself is not faith unless it shows itself in corresponding works.

Page 365. Ye have laid up your treasure in the last days . . . the coming of the Lord is at hand. This discourse of St. James, and still more the epistles which follow, illustrate the intensifying belief of the primitive church that the end of the world was close at hand.

St. Peter and St. Jude

Page 372. We were eyewitnesses of his majesty. The reference, of course, is to the Transfiguration. No prophecy of scripture is of private interpretation. This passage has been variously explained. But the drift of the whole seems to be that no scriptural prophecy is to be interpreted as the saying of a private individual: the prophets spoke as inspired by the Holy Ghost.

Epistles of St. John

Prologue and Epilogue. These should be read together. The first insists that the writer has received his message of "The Word" directly from the visible presence of Christ on earth. Then the message follows, in a succession of "Thoughts." Then the Epilogue sums up the foundation of the message under three heads: a triple We know. All else is the vanity of idols as contrasted with the true God.

The Revelation of St. John

The general significance has been fully explained in the Summary. It may be added here that throughout the book the details are largely echoes of ideas of the Old Testament. The following parallel columns will illustrate this.

GENERAL NOTES

1. Unclean Spirits

To the ancient mind abnormal physiological manifestations, especially those accompanied with violence or excitement, were believed to indicate that the individual was "possessed" by supernatural beings. There are two different modes of such possession.

I. It applied to disease: especially such things as epilepsy and delirium. Among the Jews there were professional exorcists (Acts, page 283), who claimed to free the individual from the demons; compare the words of Jesus (Matthew, page 160), If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast them out? He says again to the disciples attempting unsuccessfully such a cure, This kind can come out by nothing save by prayer (Mark, page 57). What the multitude recognised was that the healing power of Jesus was more potent in this matter: And amazement came upon all . . . What is this word? for with authority and power he commandeth the unclean spirits, and they come out (Mark, page 40, etc.). A similar “possession" was recognised even for animals: when a panic-stricken herd of swine ran down a precipice they were supposed to be animated by demons just exorcised from a human being (Luke, page 99). One probable etymology of the word Beelzebub makes the word mean lord of the dwelling": as if chief

of the spirits that occupied human bodies.

To the ancients

2. It applies also to inspiration in the good sense. madness and divine inspiration were expressed by the same words. Hence among the higher gifts of the church was the discerning of spirits (I Corinthians, page 320). The oracles of the Greeks were incoherent words spoken by a prophet in a state of ecstasy; the point lay in the interpretation. So with the Philippian girl (Acts, page 279), her words of delirium would be interpreted by her masters, and this was used as a means of making money.

2.

It is repeatedly noted in the gospel how Jesus restrains people from publishing his deeds: especially compare (Mark, page 41), he sternly charged him. It is the fixed purpose of Jesus to avoid unsettling men's minds by appeals to wonder and excitement, which leads Matthew (page 160) to apply to him the Isaiahan prophecy, He shall not strive nor cry. His appeal is to spiritual evidence: hence (Mark, page 40, etc.) he checks the acknowledgment from demons, and (Matthew, page 161) he indignantly refuses the

demand for a sign from heaven. He even commands the disciples (page 171) to tell no man the wonders of the Transfiguration until after his resurrection he will not have the revelation of his glory stand apart from the revelation of his sufferings.

A widespread tradition has prevailed in religious circles, that Jesus has indicated some one single sin as beyond all forgiveness; and many sensitive minds have wondered whether by inadvertence this sin may have been committed. All this is out of keeping with the discourse of Jesus (Luke, page 109; Mark, page 44; Matthew, page 160). Jesus regularly makes his works of healing the great credentials of his ministry. When opponents suggest that he casts out demons by aid of the prince of demons, this draws from our Lord, not a burst of indignation, but rather an outburst of despair for those making the monstrous suggestion: what hope can there be of healing men while they are in antagonism to the spirit of healing itself? In the striking phrase of Mark, such people have an eternal sin.

4. The Word " Mystery"

Wherever this word is used in the N. T. there is allusion, direct or indirect, to the popular Mystery Religions, made up of an outward ritual open to the public and an interpretation of this ritual carefully guarded from all but "the initiated." (1) Application of this idea is made to the Parables of Jesus (Matthew, page 162; Luke, page 97): the Parable is a wonder story which makes appeal as such to the multitude; the inner circle of disciples are the initiated" to whom the interpretation is committed — of course, with the understanding that they will pass it on. (2) In Ephesians (pages 338, 339), the whole visible course of events since the creation is pronounced an outer show: the initiated have grasped the significance of the whole to be Jesus Christ. (3) The words in I Corinthians (page 324), Behold, I tell you a mystery, do not mean that what follows is something difficult to understand; but rather that it is a new revelation, that moment made to the followers of Jesus. (4) At the turning point in the Book of Revelation (page 388), the sounding of the seventh trumpet, Then is finished the mystery of God . . . which he declared to his servants the prophets means that the whole of prophecy is made the outer sign, and the revelation to the initiated follows in the shout of heaven, The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ.

5. The Herods

While for all practical purposes the Holy Land in New Testament times was part of the Roman Empire, the administration being in the hands of Roman " governors," like Pontius Pilate, yet it was the policy of Rome to

secure influence by distinguishing eminent personages among the Jews by grant of local sovereignty, more or less complete [tetrarch literally means ruler of a fourth part], with the honorary title of king. The Herods were a distinguished Jewish (or Idumæan) family marked by personal gifts and immoral family relations.

I. Herod the Great had been made by the Roman Senate "King of Judæa " before the birth of Christ. The great work of his life was the rebuilding of the Temple at Jerusalem, thus often described as the Temple of Herod. The family horrors of his later life have been the theme of much secular literature. This is the Herod visited by the Wise Men from the East (Matthew, page 140); and he caused the "Massacre of the Innocents at Bethlehem.

2. His sons were Herod Antipas (the Herod of page 133) and Herod Philip. The wife of Herod Philip was Herodias, and their daughter was Salome. Herodias forsook her husband, and entered into immoral relations with Herod Antipas. John the Baptist's rebuke of this sin led to his execution as related in three gospels (pages 49, 100, 165).

3. Herod Agrippa I was grandson of Herod the Great. For his services at Rome he was granted the rule of Judæa and Samaria. His policy was ostentatious zeal for Jewish law: it is this Herod who executed James and attempted the execution of Peter (Acts, page 271).

4. Herod Agrippa II (son of the preceding) was brought up at Rome, and in the final war fought on the side of Romans against Jews. It was he who, with his sister Bernice, made a visit of ceremony to the Roman governor Festus at Cæsarea, in which Paul appeared before them. This is fully discussed in Introduction, pages 258-9.

5. The Herodians is the name given to a political party among the Jews, who, under the leadership of the Herod family, sought to maintain Jewish nationality amid the general fusion of nations in the Roman empire. Hence they are mentioned in connection with the Pharisees, who had the same purpose from motives of religion. (E.g. Mark, page 54.)

6. Sign from Heaven

The importance of the word sign in the New Testament has been discussed under two heads: (1) For the general use of the word see Note (page 401) on Matthew, page 160; (2) for the special use in St. John see Introduction, page 29, and Notes to St. John, passim.

7. Judas Iscariot

Long tradition has associated the betrayer of Jesus with the idea of an infinitely wicked man. Such a conception would be hard to reconcile with the fact that Jesus, who "knew what was in man," chose him as one of his twelve followers. It is impossible to think of him as deteriorating in character under companionship with our Lord.