The other point is that in which every critical estimate of the life of Jesus must culminate,- the real motive and significance of his death. At first sight, and from the naturalistic point of view (which the author unwaveringly holds), this is not so easy a matter to decide. That it was determined by supernatural influences, on purpose to bring about an atonement through sacrifice, was an easy enough explanation, when dogmatic consistency was all men asked for: though, even then, they rather illogically insisted on the guilt of the human actors in the divine tragedy.* But as soon as we depart from the dogmatic or "pragmatic" view, and come to deal with human motives and instruments, we have to take a wide sweep of thought before we find ourselves again, on our new plane, in harmony with accepted facts. Some help as to this the most critical and fundamental part of the whole investigation-we shall find in the remarkably full and original study of it contained in the chapter on the "Trial and Death of Jesus." The thing which appears to us to be lacking in this portion of the volume is, in the main, the mere book-learning, the apprehension of historical facts, which would enable the author to present the positive as well and thoroughly as he has done the critical side of his inquiry. For it is evident that, as soon as we cease to regard the death of Jesus as a divine drama acted out by human agents, on a stage and with a plot arbitrarily predetermined for special providential ends,—as soon as we consistently and intelligently give it a place among the events of human history, we find ourselves in the sphere not simply of moral emotions or personal antipathies and hates (as seems often to be assumed), but in a world of political passions and alarms, among those sombre overhanging destinies which appear from time to time in sharp crises of national existence. To estimate adequately such a world of passion, to take due account of the premonitions of such a crisis, above all, to allow for them as we ought in summing up our judgment of an individual character or destiny cast *Abelard gave great offence by questioning their gullt. in the midst of them,- is one of the most difficult tasks of historical criticism. It is a task not even attempted here, and seems therefore to need a few words of further illustration. We do, however, find more than one indication here, which may put us on the right way to it. As this remarkable analysis of that remarkable trial shows, again and again, the point on which the condemnation of Jesus turned was his acceptance of the title "King of the Jews." This made both the burden of the indictment and the inscription on the cross. The anxious interrogation by Pilate appears to have had for its motive to elicit from Jesus some form of denial, or of evasion which could be construed as denial, that would avert the sentence the governor was so reluctant to pronounce. His anxious effort was in vain. Jesus distinctly asserted and consistently claimed that title as his own. It is true, the writers themselves do not seem to have understood that this was the real brunt of the accusation. On the contrary, they show us the trial as proceeding upon a charge of "blasphemy," and the conductors of it as only on the watch for something that will sustain that charge. But, in the first place, they give but a distant hearsay report of the trial at best,- how brief and imperfect we do not often stop to consider. Eight verses in Matthew, ten in Mark, and six in Luke, cover it all; while John gives us not the trial at all (as our author shows), but a parley conducted by Pilate between Jesus and his accusers (who do not see each other once), ending with the most irrelevant decision, "Take ye him and crucify him, for I find no fault in him." In the second place, it appears from the trial and death of Stephen, four or five years later, that the Jewish court was competent not only to pass sentence of death for blasphemy, but to put it in execution under the Old Testament code. Crucifixion, moreover, was not the penalty of blasphemy it was a Roman punishment, executed for a political offence. Pilate did not yield complacently to the ostentatious loyalty of the Jewish accusers, so as to inflict : it for a religious offence, to him perfectly unintelligible: he clearly felt himself compelled to take notice of something very different, which was a real or fancied invasion of the public peace. And, finally, the imaginary charge of blasphemy is sustained by evidence that Jesus had made use of expressions, and had asserted claims (which he repeats before his judges), that make the charge against him distinctly a political one, and only incidentally religious. Now, the title "King of the Jews" had to the mind of that time a meaning perfectly distinct and well understood, -as much so as, for example, the title "King of England," asserted by the son of James II., or the title "King of France," asserted by the last of the Bourbons. It is not true that Jesus was put to death because he was better or braver or truer than other men. No more is it true that he was hunted to death by the rulers of the synagogue because of his boldly denouncing hypocrisy, oppression, or immorality against them,- an offence which the Roman governor could not possibly have recognized. That he was braver and truer than other men kept him steady to his conviction in the face of torment and death. That he was unsparing in his passionate denunciation gave a fresh motive of personal malice and wrath to back the political charge. But that would have been impotent and futile, unless the charge had been political, and had been believed, and had been consented to by Jesus himself. In other words, he was not, in a general way, a "martyr of truth and righteousness," as we sometimes say; but, in a very special way, the martyr of a patriotic hope and a political idea. And it makes no difference, either, when we say that the charge against him turned on a misconception, or a wilful perversion, of what he meant by the phrase "kingdom of heaven." We see, or think we see, that he had in mind all along the triumph of pure justice, humanity, love, in the souls of men. But, to his contemporaries, it is perfectly clear that his language meant also something very different. And necessarily. If we try for a moment to realize the situation, we shall see that, looked at from the outside, to the most friendly of his contemporaries he would appear not the gentle moralist we think of, but a fervid enthusiast, gradually becoming the victim of a generous illusion, and at length a dangerous fanatic, with a highly revolutionary idea. We are ourselves saved from this judgment of Jesus, because we appreciate better the purely "ethical passion" of his discourse; because we know something of his tenderness, his compassion, his quick helpfulness, his recoil from impurity, cruelty, and injustice; and because we see, as most of his contemporaries could not, how he aimed to soften away and (as we call it) spiritualize the crude messianic conception of his followers. As a moral and religious teacher, he was -as Rabbi Gottheil told us so convincingly in Providence, a few years ago never rejected by his countrymen. If we can only manage to look through the mist of circumstance, we shall see that he was put to death to use the most intelligible terms at our command-in a spasm of political terror; and that that terror was most likely real, and not at all affected, as we perhaps might think. The critical act which made this result (humanly speaking) inevitable was unquestionably the triumphant entrance into Jerusalem on "Palm Sunday." This was doubtless understood (whether meant or not) as a political manifesto; followed immediately, as it was, by those acts in the temple -scourging out the money-changers and denunciation of the rulers which were doubtless construed (whether meant so or not) as the assumption of kingly, or messianic, authority. Nay, the very cry by which he was welcomed, "Hosanna to the Son of David," was, as Rabbi Gottheil again tells us, a recognized messianic war-cry, the proper rendering of it being "Son of David to the rescue!" It was, in short, what it would have been to march into Paris singing the Marseillaise under the Second Empire. And, as Matthew relates, "the city was shaken as by an earthquake (ioeioon) when he entered it." In short, the whole picture, which is mostly covered by a deceitful haze of tradition and dim sentiment, as soon as the curtain is lifted, shows us a scene of conservative alarm or passion ate terror on one side, of popular enthusiasm on the other, with all its vague possibilities of a furious outbreak; and in the midst of it a figure pitying and very human, but resolute and stern, the figure of one who sees that all this can end only in one way. The generous enthusiasm must have its course: "If these should hold their peace, the very stones would cry out." But, "it is impossible that a prophet should perish, save at Jerusalem!" This scene, full as it is of tragic passion and terror, is mostly hidden from us, as we just said, by a mist of sentiment. But it is only one among many scenes of this era, any one of which, still more the combination of them all, might suggest to us a different interpretation, more human, more tragical, more instructive, than what the reader commonly finds. The hundred and forty years' history of Palestine, counting from the death of Herod and ending with the destruction of the Jewish nation, are as full of violence. and horror as the hundred years of the civil war which made the slow death of the Roman Republic. During this period, it has been said,* as many as fifty "Messiahs" appeared; and, of most, the proclamation or manifesto, declaring the nation's deliverance after the manner of the Maccabees, meant at least a spurt of bloody and hopeless rebellion, -possibly, an agony prolonged for months. The contemporaries of Jesus were walking on a volcanic soil, hot to their feet, and liable any moment to an eruption. The more sagacious among them knew it, and dreaded anything that might hurry on the explosion that was sure to come. It did with what accumulation of horror we all know-in less than forty years. That reprieve of forty years, some of them may well have thought, as Caiaphas certainly did think, was prudently purchased by stifling in the birth one enthusiasm more, which already (to their eyes) was threatening an upheaval of the soil and an outburst of volcanic flame. come What made this particular messianic fervor different from all the rest, was an element in it which naturally they did By Gfrörer: I do not know on what authority. |