Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/697

 JESUS 667 to stone Him, and when He left Jerusalem it was under the direct ban of excommunication. Under these circum stances He returned for one more brief visit to Galilee. The news which He received of the murder of some Galilfcans in the temple by Pilate, and of Herod s designs against His safety, show how surrounded by perils was His human life. But He now calmly ended His work in Galilee by the mission of seventy disciples to prepare for His great last journey southwards. His words of farewell to the cities which had rejected Him were full of sadness and solem nity, as He started from the land which had refused His mission to the city in which He was to be crucified. We now enter on the last great phase of His work, the incidents of His final journey and the close of His ministry. First He was refused shelter by the rude villagers of En- gannim, and had to change his route. Next came, the healing of the ten lepers, of whom but one showed gratitude, and he was a Samaritan. The Sabbath healings of the bowed woman and of the man with the dropsy are the two chief miracles of the journey, during which He also delivered many most memorable discourses, and some of His divinest parables such as those of the good Samaritan and the prodigal son. So we trace His steps to the house of Martha and Mary at Bethany, and to Jerusalem, which He visited at the Feast of the Dedication. His appearance in the temple was always the signal for the fiercest opposition of Sadducees and Pharisees, who watched with jealousy and hatred the eagerness of the multitude to hear Him. After serious conflicts He retired to the other Bethany, beyond Jordan. Among the few recorded incidents of His stay in Peraea are the attempts to entangle Him with Herod and the Jewish schools by questions about divorce, the beautiful scene of blessing the little children, and the discourse about riches on the occasion of the test which He applied to the rich young ruler who &quot; made the great refusal.&quot; The death of Lazarus summoned Him to Bethany, and the most signal miracle which He there wrought by raising Lazarus from the dead excited such notice that the Sanhedriu now met under the pre sidency of Caiaphas, and came* to the deliberate conclusion that they must put Him to death, lest the populace should raise tumults on His behalf which might precipitate the final intervention of Rome in the affairs of their nation. But, as His time was not yet come, Jesus avoided the peril of public arrest or private assassination by retiring to an ob scure village called Ephraim, on the edge of the wilderness. (6) He did not leave Ephraim till He could join the great caravan of Galiltean pilgrims with whom He could proceed in safety to His last passover. His apostles, both from His own warnings and from the visible grandeur of His transfiguration of self-sacrifice, were well aware that a crisis of His career had now arrived ; and nothing can show more clearly the mistaken character of their Messianic hopes than ths fact that, though He now distinctly told them the crowning horror that He should be crucified, the sons of Zebedee came with their mother Salome to beg for places at His right hand and His left in His kingdom. Jesus made their ambitious request a theme for rich and solemn teachings on the beatitude of suffering for the cause of God and man. As they approached Jericho, accompanied by excited multitudes, He healed the blind Bartimaeus, and in Jericho He excited the murmurs of the crowd by accepting the hospitality of the publican Zacchseus. On the road between Jericho and Bethany He delivered the parable of the pounds. He arrived at Bethany probably on Friday, Nisan 8, A.U.C. 783 (March 31, 30 A.D.), six days before the passover, and before the sunset had begun the Sabbath honrs. The Sabbath was spent in quiet. In the evening Martha and Mary gave him a banquet in the houso of Simon the leper, at which Mary, in her devotion and gratitude, broke the alabaster of precious ointment over His head and feet, and so awoke the deadly avarice of Judas that he seems on that very evening to have communed with the Jewish priests for the paltry blood-rnoney of thirty pieces of silver (less than 4) for which he was willing to betray Him. On the morning of Palm Sunday Jesus made His triumphant entry into Jerusalem amid the palm-waving throngs, who shouted &quot; Hosanna to the son of David,&quot; and at the point of the road where the city first bursts upon the view He paused to weep over it and prophesy its doom. After once more cleansing the temple, and protect ing from the anger of the priests and Pharisees the children who still shoutsd Hosanna, He spoke to Philip about the Greeks, (probably from Edessa) who wished to see Him, and, strengthened by a voice from heaven, spent the rest of the clay in teaching. At evening He retired for safety with the twelve outside the city walls in the direction of Bethany. On the Monday morning, as He went to Jeru salem, He pronounced the symbolic doom upon the fig-tree which had only leaves. On entering the temple He was met by a formidable deputation of priests, scribes, and rabbis, who demanded &quot; by what authority He was acting,&quot; a question which He declined to answer until they proved their right to ask it, by giving a definite opinion respecting the baptism of John. Their confession of inability to do this was so marked a proof of their incompetence to claim the function of religious teachers, that He refused to meet their challenge. The day may be called &quot; a day of parables,&quot; for during His teaching He spoke the parables of the two sons, the rebellious husbandmen, the builders and the corner stone, and the marriage of the king s son. These parables were so obviously aimed at the hypocrisy, malevolence, and presumption of the Jewish authorities that fear alone restrained them from immediately seizing Him. At even ing He again retired from the city. The next day, the Tuesday in Passion week, may be called the day of temp tations, for it was marked by three deliberate attempts to undermine His authority by involving Him in some difficulty either with the rulers or the people. In the morning walk to Jerusalem He taught to His disciples a lesson of faith from the withered fig-tree. In the temple He was first met by the plot of the Herodians and Pharisees to embroil Him either with the Romans or the populace by a question as to the lawfulness of paying tribute, then by a piece of poor casuistry on the part of the Sadducees con cerning the resurrection, then by the question of a Scribe as to the great commandment of the law. In each instance the divine and ready wisdom of His answers not only entirely defeated the stratagems of the Sanhedrists, but showed His immeasurable superiority to them in knowledge and insight. Then, to prove how easily He might have turned the tables on them, had He desired their humilia tion, He exposed their complete ignorance respecting the very subject on which they claimed the fullest knowledge by reducing them to a confession of their inability to explain why David in the spirit had given the name of Lord to the Messiah who was to be his son. And then, knowing that the time had come when their degradation of religion into a mere tyranny and semblance should be set forth, He delivered the terrible denunciation which, with its eightfold &quot; Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,&quot; was intended to leave them utterly inexcusable. The Jewish authorities felt that this was a final rupture, that they must now, at all costs, bring about His immediate death. Before He left the temple for ever He taught the lesson of true charity as illustrated by the widow s mite, and then went and sat on the green slopes of the Mount of Olives. There He pronounced to His disciples that great eschato- logical discourse which was suggested by their admiration of the temple buildings, destined so soon to sink in blood