"this multitude which knoweth not the law, and are accursed." Their own teaching had dwindled, as all religiosity tends to dwindle, into scholastic pettinesses, elaborate ritual, and endless repetitions. The contemporary Rabbis scarcely ever ventured to pronounce a judgment without appealing to the decisions of many Rabbis before them. Christ's method at once swept aside all this second-handness, and with intense bitterness the long-robed teachers, with their blue fringes and large phylacteries, saw the multitudes desert them and their schools to listen to a young man preaching from a boat or seated among the mountain lilies. What was it ye went out to hear, By sea and land, from far and near? What is it that ye came to note ?— A prophet? Boys and women weak, Whence is it he hath learned to speak? And not as do the scribes. ii. Another character of our Lord's teaching was its absolute originality. Well might the astonished hearers exclaim, "What is this? A new teaching!" Judaism, since the days of Ezra, had dwindled more and more into mere Halachoth-rules of ceremonialism-many of them based on preposterous deductions from untenable propositions. A famous Rabbi on being asked, "Which is the greatest commandment?" had answered, "The law about fringes." Christ's teaching was exclusively moral and spiritual. Not one Halachah could claim Him for its author. For fringes, phylacteries, ablutions of cups and platters, vain repetitions, sham fasts twice in the week, long praying, and the whole paraphernalia of con ventional and cumbrous ceremonial, He expressed a profound contempt. Living in the miasma of hypocritical Pharisaic ordinances, His one rule was, "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments," and those Ten Commandments He reduced to their essential principle in the one Law of Love. In a single sentence He abolished the agelong distinction between clean and unclean meats which lay at the root of all Jewish exclusiveness. He said that what came from within, not from without, defiles the man; and this He said, “making all meats clean" (Mark vii. 19). Pure Christianity has been again and again defiled by turbid alien influxes of Eastern superstition-Mariolatry, unnatural self-maceration, false views of what God requires, priestly usurpation, and the miserable, unctuous, effeminate artificiality of mere external religiousness. Against all these the Church, whenever it desires to be wise and sincere, will find the effectual antidote in the pure and unsophisticated words of Him who came that all who see Him should have seen the Father. iii. Again-as is shown by this little volume, in which all the actual words of Christ might be printed on a few pages-the teaching of the Son of God was unique in the amazing power of its compression. If we read any theological treatise, we shall find thousands of pages given to the verbal accuracies of theological distinctions. The vast folio of St. Thomas Aquinas was not regarded as at all too long for his Summa Theologia. But on ninetenths of the questions treated in the interminable and ponderous volumes of the Schoolmen our Lord Jesus Christ had nothing to say. He went to the heart of conduct and life, with which the nice technicalities of scholastic orthodoxy have, for the vast majority of the human race, little or no concern. His Divine power of compression is seen most of all in the Parables. They are absolutely unique among the utterances of human language. Fables and apologues are found in endless abundance, especially in the literature of the East. But is there one among them all to be compared for infinite instructiveness to the shortest and humblest of our Lord's parables? Was so much ever revealed in one brief story as in the Parable of the Prodigal Son? Were such worlds of meaning ever compressed into utterances which scarcely occupy five minutes as we find in the Parables of the Good Samaritan or of Dives and Lazarus? If the choice had to be between these brief stories and all the theological treatises ever written, who would hesitate for one instant to make his selection? In our own day the sacred volumes of the East have for the first time been translated into English. In two respects do they differ fundamentally from the eternal truths revealed in this little volume: their immeasurable inferiority is apparent, first, from their large admixtures of error, superstition, endless frivolities, and worse; secondly, from the fact that, after we have read whole volumes of these through, we find so little of permanent value, so little that we can carry away,-whereas the very briefest and slightest of the sayings of Jesus seems to go to the very heart of human life, and to be "rarely mixed of sorrows and joys, and studded with mysteries as with emeralds." iv. It is because of this thrilling and indescribable accent of Divinity in Christ's words that they have been so universally precious, so intensely penetrative. The Qur'an seems to reach the minds of Arabs, but to all except Mohammedans it is of little import. The Chinese venerate the writings of Confucius; to most other nations they seem indescribably arid. But Christ's words reach and influence alike the highest and the lowestmen of the most consummate genius, and men in the depths of ignorance and dulness. The emperor reads them in his cabinet, and the aged pauper spells them out in the workhouse. The philosopher in his university does not grudge a lifetime spent in the minutest study of them, yet not the less do the Esquimaux love to hear of them in their snow-built huts, and the Red Indian in his wigwam on the bleak shores of Hudson's Bay, and the negro slave in the African forest, and the Fuegian in his storm-swept island. Of all the words ever uttered, they alone have proved themselves powerful to move the universal heart of man. Spoken nineteen long centuries ago in despised provincial Galilee by One who ranked as a peasant, who was called the Carpenter of Nazareth-by One of whom the people said that He had a devil, and whom the Jews called a Samaritan and the priests a deceiver, and whom the Romans crucified as a malefactor between two thieves-they alone throw one ray of Heaven's Eternal Light upon the dark secrets of Life and Death, of Time and Eternity-they alone enable us to know the Father and the Son, and to receive the unction of the Holy Spirit. Being, as they are, the revelation of the Word who was from the beginning, and was with God and was God, of them alone it will remain true for ever, "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, they are life." F. W. FARRAR. THE DEANERY, CANTERBURY, PREFACE BY S. JOHN. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. John bare witness of him, and cried, saying: "This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me. And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." |