PUBLIC-DOMAIN CHRISTIAN BOOK
A Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels — Volume 2
James Hastings · 1,290,716 words · 1269 reading sections
Section 421
Palestine as an oasis. — It is shut oft" from the rest of the world by a complete ring of natural barriers. Mountains on the north ; a vast desert on the east, with the deep and long trench of the Jordan Valley set as a second and inner barrier like a moat ; desert again on the south ; and the west wholly bounded by th…
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The Roman conquest of Syria had brought into inunediate and hostile contact two nationalities whose whole history and thought placed them irreconcilabl.y apart. Rome's ideal of secular empire confronted the Jewish hope of the uni\'ersal reign of Messiah. Down to the minutest detail of life the two ideals were opposed. …
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One fact of great signiflcance in the life of Pales- tine was that it had to be lived in constant view of the desert tribes to the east of it. Kinglake has described the Jordan as the boundary-line between roofs and tents ; and besides the tents of nomad tribes there Avere also those cities of Edom and the Hauran, wher…
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The Jews of the time were always ready for vigorous hatreds, and in their relations with the Samaritans they showed that extreme rancour which religious bigots keep, not for upjiosition, but for compromise. The attitude of Jesus to Samari- tans is one of the most illuminative of all the side- lights throAATi upon His …
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By gathering these and other considerations together,*we may gain a fairly accurate idea of the feeling of Jesus towards the Gentiles, who played so important a part in the Syrian world of His time. Around Him there was the Herodian atti- tude of Romanizing, and the Pharisaic and patri- otic attitude which delighted in…
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The explanation must be found in His further doctrine of the Kingdom of God, and the methods of its coming. There are two ways of opposing heathenism. The Pharisaic way was the negative one of denouncing it and withstanding its encroach- ment. Jesus chose the positive method of supplanting it by the Kingdom of heaven. …
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' Great God ! I'd rather be A Pagan, suckled in a creed outworn. So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glinapses that would make me less forlorn ; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea ; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathfed horn." Wordsworth, Miscellaneous Sonnets. The age of Jesus was divided between …
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fied rather than softened by sparse and dingy olives. Along the sides of many valleys the strata run in many-coloured parallel bands, giving the effect of a gigantic but faded mural decoration ; while the plateau on the heights round Jerusalem and on to the north lies bare in whitish grey. Galilee has more woodland, an…
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Yet the message of the open field was not for Himself alone. In contrast with modem views of Nature, the freedom and the beauty of the world filled Him with the most childlike and delightful thoughts. There was no shadow of separation between the Creator and His works, no sense of cruelty or savagery, no philosophizing…
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One more note must suffice for this brief account of His connexion with Nature as Palestine showed 302 PALESTINE PALESTINE it to Him. We have already referred in passing to some of His parables. It is very noteworthy that in so many of them He saw and used the symbol- ism of Nature. It would seem as if for Him ever…
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The villages are charming at a distance, but full of disillusion as one approaches. Tlie difference between the distant view and the interior reminds one of the Avords of Jesus about the outAvard and iuAvard appearances of Avhited sepulchres (Mt 23-''). They are usually Avell set, on picturesque heights or hillsides, a…
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Worship, too, was an ancient and ineradicable feature of town life. Many towns owed their first origin to some holy place, whose associations were lost in the most remote antiquity, and many were glorified by historical associations of the religiouspast. Such holy places were scattered up and liowu the land, but the hi…
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304 PALESTIXE PALESTINE a garment or a piece of coloured pottery, and throws the rafters and -walls into shadows of the ricliest brown and indigo, while all recesses and much of the floor are in clarkness unrelieved. That this was the state of matters with which Jesus was familiar, is strikingly borne out by His par…
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Such Avere the A'illages Avith Avhich Jesus Avas familiar, although their life Avas then more pro- sperous, and at least some of their homes more habitable. To their inhabitants He spoke His parables of simple life, such as that of the Friend at JNIidnight (Lk IP). In one of them He blessed the children A\'hom village …
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Such was the change in His own feeling as He approached the capital. Not less striking is the expression of His thought of its meaning and its fate. For the pious Jew, Jeru-salem was L'topia ; and the mediaeval view, expresssed in such enraptured poems as • Pearl' (cf. Gollancz's tr.j and the Crusading dreams of Gerus'…
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We have noted in the toA\Tas of Syria those moral defects of petty quarrelsomeness and provincial self-importance which appear constantly in the records of Jesus' ministry. The metropolitan pettiness which confronted Him at Jerusalem — the tenfold proA-incialism of the capital city, whose modem counterpart is so famili…
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It was this aspect of Jerusalem which one might have expected Jesus to be most greatly influenced by. One of the most famous of the many would-be Messiahs, some years after this, went with a multi- tude of followers to blow his trumpets as the priests had blown their horns at Jericho. Jesus acted on principles directly…
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From all these points of view, Jerusalem had become a place of sinister prospects for Jesus. From the populace He had to expect the usual recei)tion given to all provincials, and if more powerful enemies should require their aid, thej' might be counted on for darker deeds. By the orthodox religionists He would be treat…
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The palm tree is amongst the foremost both in beauty and in utility. It grows with uniform trunk straight like the mast of a ship. The trunk is in some kinds smooth, in others clearly annu- lated, in others rough with the roots of former fronds. At the top the leaves (or fronds) spring out in a spreading circle or crow…
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PALM.— The word occurs (Mk 1465. j^ jgL^^ cf. 19*) in the tr. of pdwLa/xa, a blow with the open hand. It refers to the stroke on the cheek (Mt 5*^, Lk 6-^), one of the affronts and indignities that may have to be borne cheerfully in representing and serving the Kingdom of heaven. In ]SIt 26*', Mk 14*5, a distinction is…
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310 PAPIAS PAPIAS ences between it and the Petrine Gospel by Mark. To meet some such difficulty,* which was perhaps meant to lower the authority of both Gospels (since Mark also had Jewish features of the kind in ques- tion), Papias cites a tradition derived from a man of the first Christian generation, 'the Elder' …
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(b) Papias' relation to ' the Elders,' t/ie prime wit- nesses to the meaning of the Oracles. — So much for the true text of such Oracles of the Lord as he chooses for comment. But what guarantee can he otter that his own exegesis of their meaning is pre- ferable to that of other Christian teachers about him, abler perh…
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With this agrees also the internal evidence, as it seems to emerge from a comparison of the erroneous tendencies implied by his work, on the one hand, and, on the other, the Epistles of Ignarius and Polycarp, which fall about a.d. 115. The af- finities with Polycarp, whom Irenaeus makes Papias' comrade at one time, are…
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Some not only see in the phraseology of Papias* apolocj' for ' Mark's Gospel traces of the influence of Lk li-s, but aJso^infer * Papias' very archaic use of u ■r;=s-i--T£^., for the men of the first generation, particularly Christ's personal disciples, is I anc^er indication of eariy date. In Irenxus this phrase alwa…
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Veknon Baktlet. **PARABLE.— 1. Definition and Classification.— The word ' parable ' is an oft-recurring one in the Synoptic Gospels, appearing altogether 48 times. Otherwise it is found in the NT only in He 9^ llis (RV), where it has the meaning of 'type' or 'symbol' (AV 'figure'). The Evangelists" use of it suggests…
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At times the comparison is expressly made by some formula, or by some word or particle (e.g. Snoiov, uxTirep, or d>j). Attention is in this way directed to the resemblance between two di.stinct relationships. The writer makes his readers aware that a concrete experience is being used to teach some moral or spiritual le…
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The Gospel of Lk. contains at least four sections differing in character from any previously con- sidered. They have the narrative form, but the illustration is taken, not from a different realm, but from that to which the truth under discussion belongs. A specific instance wherein this is ex- emplified is recited to w…
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In addition to these passages there are numerous others where little doubt can exist that the Evangelists understood some details alleg-orically, for they suggest, even if they do not give, such an interpretation. By Avay of illustration the refer- ence to the whole and the sick "(Mk 2i') may be cited, so also PARABLE…
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2. Purpose. — W^^y did Jesus make use of par- ables ? It would I ccur to hardly any reader of the Gospels to-day to be in doubt as to their purpose, were it not for ^Jie statements of the Synoptists. Parables have bf.en used by teachers of all ages to unfold and enforce their instruction. Was it other- wise with Jesus…
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Professor Jiilicher, together with other recent writers, accepts the verses in their most obvious meaning, but assigns them to the Evangelists. When Jesus' words were collected after His death, the large proportion of parabolic material attracted attention. An explanation was sought, and it was found in the character o…
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It is not improbable that oftenti oes the illustrative half of a parable alone was prese ved by tradition. In such cases we can speak of intt rpretation if we mean thereby the discovery of the original setting PARABLE PARACLETE 3i: and application, whether this service is performed by the Evangelists or undertaken …
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LiTEP.ATrRE. — The most important work of recent date on the Parables and their exposition is A. JQlicher's Die GUichi>>*rr'':/en Jesu, Freiburg. 1S99. See also C. A. Bnffge, Die /fa 11 pi- Pa rn- hein Jej'U. Giessen, 1903 : Heinrich Weinel. Die Bilderxprac/ie Jesiii in iJirer Bedeuiungfiirflie Erforschung Keine* inner…
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On the other hand, the Spirit is the Paraclete of God with and in man, sent to carry on His cause and to make perfect the surrender to Him and the service of His people. The term ' .sent ' is used officially of the Spirit, as of the Incarnate in regard to His historical manifestation. The distinction must not be unduly…
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PARADOX PARALYSIS 319 Literature. — As bearing upon Christ's use of the word, special ref. niav be made to Salmond, Christian Doct. of Immortalitif, 346 ff. fEdersheim, LT ii. 600 f. ; W. H. BrookJBeld, Sennoiu, 13ff. ; Cairns, Christ the Morninfj Star, 270 5.; Maclaren, Sermons Preached in Manchester, i. 160 ff. ; …
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The case of the Centurion's serA-ant (Mt 8'"^^, Lk 7"-""') is marked by one feature Avhich is significant. The patient Avas 'grievously toiniented' (5et;'wj 320 PAEENTS PARENTS ^aa-avii'dfievos), wliere, however, the description is not given by Luke, but b}- Mattliew. Tiie indica- tion may therefore not be medicalJ…
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Tliere the narrative of the early life of Jesus breaks off" ; of Gospel record of the next eighteen years there is none. With the resumption of the narrative Jesus has arrived at manhood ; Joseph disappears from the scene, and attention accord- inglj' centres on the relations of Jesus Avitli the Avidowed mother. No lon…
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* Winer in his NT Grammar (tr. Moulton, 1S82, pp. 79.3-796) disting-uishes between /)rtr()HO(»as(« and annominatio, defining- the former as 'a combination of like-sounding words' (e.g. Lk 2111, Mt 21-»i), and the latter as ' having respect to the meaning of the words as well as to their similarity in sound' (e.g. Mt 16…
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With the purport of these latter passages, indi- cating a possible delay in the coming, there are several other sayings of Jesus that distinctly agree, as, e.g., the two parables already mentioned (Mt 251-12 and Lk 12^2-46)^ and also the parable of the Unjust Judge (Lk 18'"'^). We find, besides, that in a particular gr…
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Thus (4) the Kingdom shall be exalted to its triumph and perfection. It shall be cleansed of all things that offend, and them that do iniquity (Mt 13*'i) ; the supremacy of righteousness shall be vindicated by the elevation of the godly to salva- tion, the ingathering of all elect souls (24^3), and the exclusion of the…
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Nor is Mk.'s enumeration of the days between the decision of the Sanhedrin and the Last Supj^er quite explicit. If we regard 14'- Kai t-q TrpwTrj iipLepq. tQv d^vpLwv, 6t€ to wda-xa- ^dvov as referring to the 14th Nisan, then in all probability 14' synchronizes with the 12th Nisan, and 14'"'- with, say, the 13th. But t…
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* A similar tendency enier(»-es in the two miracles of liealingf reported by Mk. alone, in which the spittle of Jesus conies to the aid of His omnipotence (7-« 823) ; ;„ the healing of the blind, t^e narrator pictures to himself a gradual advance towards perfect vision (82-1. 25). redactor of Mk. to give a sharper dis…
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One month before the feast, preparations for the same were put in hand. Roads and bridges were repaired for the companies of pilgrims, and burying- places which were lying in the way, and likely to be unnoticed, were whitened, that the travellers might avoid defilement. Flocks and herds were tithed, and persons ceremon…
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The preparation of tlie sacrifice now took place. The lambs were hung on iron hcK)ks fastened to the walls and pillars of the court, and when these were all in use, ujwn .staves which rested on the shoulders of two men ; if the day were a Sabbath, the use of staves was not permitted, and two otterers laid one the left …
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After a second Avashing of hands, one of the tAvo unleavened cakes Avas broken, and pieces contain- ing betAveen them bitter herbs Avere, after dipping in t\\e haroseth, lianded toeach one in the company. This Avas probably the sop Avhich Judas Iscariot received (Jn 13^^). After this the Paschal lamb Avas eaten, the ha…
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Criticisms like these seem trivial at the best. And it must be remembered, on the other hand, tliat those who deny that there is any outward connexion between the Passover and the Lord's Supper have to meet difficulties of the most pressing kind, and above all the difficulty of ac- counting for the unanimous testimonj^…
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(2) If the Lord's Supper in its external relations sprang out of an immediately preceding Passover meal, and if that meal had for those who partook of it some such meaning as has just been described, the spiritual connexions between the two are evident. The thought cf the Jewish Passover underlies the Supper, helping u…
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W. B. Frankland. r PATIENCE PAVEMENT 329 PATIENCE (viroixovi), Lk 8i« 2V^, and throughout NT ; iJ.aKpodv/j.ia, ' long-sufiering,' only in Epp. ; verbal form appears Mt 18-'^- ^^, with bignificance 'Give me time'). — The moral attribute which enables men to endure afflictions and to employ strength wisely. It is es…
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(3) l7i its limitations. The patience of Christ had its limits, as every noble patience has. Those limits were not where, at first, we might expect to find them ; He was patient with His disciples' dulness, though it grieved Him (Lk 24^^'-). He never lost patience under the opposition of His enemies (IP^ 20-'"-). But w…
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Literature. —Hastings' DB, art. 'Gabbatha'; EBi, art. •Pavement.' r, ^y. MOSS. PEACE. — 1. The Avord frequently occurs in the Gos^jels in the idiomatic phrase ' to hold one's peace,' i.e. to keep silence, representing (both in RV and AV) no feAver than four different verbs in the original — •:7cri'xdfw, cnydw, utoiTrd…
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(2) Peace loas a quality of Christ's character. — The words ' Peace I leave A^"ith you ; my peace I give unto you' (Jn 14-") strike one of the funda- mental notes of His personal being as that is re- vealed to us in the Gospels. Men have been known to make bequests when they had notliing to leave ; but peace was a bles…
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PELEG. — Mentioned as a link in our Lord's genealogy (Lk 3^, A\' Phalec). PENITENCE.— See Repextance. PENNY.— See Moxey. PENTECOST (t7 TTiVT-qKoffT-i}) was one of the three I great national festivals of Israel at which all the j males of the people were required to present them- 1 selves eveiy year before the Lor…
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3. Historical reference. — Whilst the notices in the OT, mainly in the Pentateuch, regard Pente- cost simply as a harvest festival, it came to be regarded among the later Jews as commemorating the giving of the Law at Sinai. The Book of Jubilees, in the 1st cent. A.D. (Schiirer, GJV^ iii. 277), makes the Feast of Weeks…
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These manifestations must be briefly noticed. Wind and lire are elemental emblems of the Spirit occurring from time to time in the OT. ' He shall baptize 3'ou with the Holy Ghost and with fire' (]\lt 3^') was the Baptist's prediction concerning the Messiah, now clearly fulfilled. ' The wind blowetli where it listeth . …
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Literature.— Besides the works mentioned above, see the Comm. on Ac 2, the articles 'Pentecost,' 'Feasts,' ' Pfingstfest,' * Wochenfest ' in the Encyclopaedias and Bible Dictionaries ; Benzinger's Heb. Arch. ; Mackie's Bible Manners and Customs ; Farrar, St. Paul, i. 83-104 ; Expositor, i. i. [1875], 393-408 ; William…
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But the adoption of this course did not entail any compromise of those truths of moral unity and universality that are of the essence of the relations in which God stands to His people and they to Him. He showed His sense of the greatness and validity of these as well as of other moral truths, and secured the interests…
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Mukaddasi (c. 985 a.d.) says that the Belka district is rich in grain and flocks, and has many streams which work the mills. He divides Sj'ria into four belts, from the Mediterranean east- wards. Of the third and fourth he writea : ' The Third Belt is that of the valleys of the Ghaur (the Jordan valley), wherein are fo…
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In B.C. 20, Herod the Great obtained permission to appoint his brother Pheroras tetrarch of Persea [Ant. XV. X. 3 ; BJ, I. xxiv. 5). Pheroras after- wards incurred the enmity of Herod, and retired or was driven to Pera;a, where he died, not im- probably by poison (BJ, I. xxix. 4). At his death (B.C. 4) Herod left Galil…
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vol.. II. — 22 in the story of the children who will play neither at funerals nor at weddings ! What ileepercriticism of a prudential morality is there than in the words ' he that savetli his life" shall lose it ' ? what clearer perception of the hopelessness of a man's attemi>t at self-deliverance than the parable of…
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3. The law of His life, its ultimate value. — It is objected that an essential imperfection cleaves to the individual, however balanced the elements of humanity in him may be. He belongs to one age and people ; and the ideal of his day, which is only in a state of becoming, and is surely passing away into some higher, …
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Renunciations are the lowly gateways on the narrow road of obedience. They are a measure of a man's moral sagacity, his clearness of vision both of his duty and of the means of realizing it, his simplicity of spirit and freedom from vanity or self-will. Men are readily drawn aside, the lower sort by suggestions of vani…
1,048 wordsSource & rights
Public-domain historical reference work (1906–1908); OCR text from Internet Archive. Historical scholarship and terminology reflect its era; OCR may contain errors. Verify quotations and current scholarly claims independently.
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Historical Christian writing; not Scripture.