No. 4. The Baptism: ‘J¢ came to pass when the Lord had ascended out of the water, the whole foun- tain of the Holy Spirit came down and rested upon him, and said to him, My son, in all the prophets I was looking for thee, that thou shouldest come, and that I should rest in thee. For thow art my rest ; thou art my firstborn son, who reignest to eternity.’ Here more distinctly than in any of the canonical Gospels the baptism is the act by which Jesus is made acquainted with His destiny to bring about the highest revelation of God. The dove is not mentioned; the Holy Spirit itself descends on
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. the Lord says, a table and bread... .
342 HEBREWS, GOSPEL
HEBREWS, GOSPEL
SS ee eee eee
Him. The heavenly voice is that not of the Father but of the Spirit, afterwards spoken of as feminine, and is addressed as in Mark, not to the bystanders or to John but to Jesus Himself. The Spirit is to dwell with Him, not as in the prophets occasionally and provisionally, but in full and ultimate manner ; He is firstborn of the Spirit, and is to have an endless reign. This passage also can scarcely be thought to be in- vented. It has the appearance, like the next extract, of a communication made by Jesus Him- self to His intimate friends, and setting forth His experience, as does also that of the Temptation, in a symbolic narrative.
No. 5. The Flight to Mount Tabor: ‘ The Holy Spirit, my mother, took me just now by one of my hairs, and carried me away to the great Mount Labor.’ This extract occurs 5 times in Origen and Jerome; it must have made a great impression. Jesus appears to be telling of an experience He has just had ; it seems scarcely possible to connect it with either the Temptation or the Transfigura- tion, though early tradition held Tabor to be the scene of the latter : Jesus has been carried off, not as in the former by the devil, or as in the latter with any companions. The Holy Spirit, the Heb. word for which (57) is usually feminine, has taken Him (ef. Ezk 8?, Bel and the Dragon v.**) for some communication which He alone is to hear.
No. 7. The man with the withered hand (Mt 12°18) is in this Gospel said to be a builder, and to entreat help in such words as these: ‘I was a builder, seeking my living with my hands 3 I pray thee, Jesus, restore to me my health, that I may not basely beg my bread.’ The R.C. commentator Stapula states, when dealing with this story in Matthew, that the man with the withered hand made a strong appeal to Jesus’ compassion ; accepting this as a fact from Jerome citing this Gospel. The story reads awkwardly without this feature ; in its absence the energy of Jesus appears to be called forth by His indignation against the Pharisees, or by the desire to establish the view that cures may be wrought on the Sabbath: neither alternative is very satisfactory.
The simple freedom which is apparent in these narratives meets us also in the Christophanies recorded in the Gospel. In one of them (No. 18) we are told how ‘the Lord after handing over the linen cloth to the servant of the high priest (the guard at the tomb is accordingly not Roman but Jewish), went to James and appeared to him (ef, 1 Co 15’); for James had sworn that he would eat no bread from the hour at which the Lord had drunk the cup (of death), til he should see him rising again from those who are asleep... . Bring, And then it goes on : ‘ He took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to James the Just, and said to him: My brother, eat thy bread, Sor the Son of Man is risen from those who are asleep.’ Here, as in the former pieces, the embellishing touches of a later time are unmistakable, while the tradition itself has a look of originality, and is independent of our NT,
The narratives from the ministry also present surprising variations from those of our NT, as when we hear the Lord (No. 11) addressing the second rich man with the exhortation to part with his possessions, and showing him that he has not kept the Law, since there are people dying of hunger about his gates and no supplies are sent them out of his well - furnished house. The parable of the Talents (No. 14) had three types of service, not only two ag in our NT, and the
hard sentence was directed not to him who hid his lord’s talent in the earth, but to the servant who substance with harlots
had devoured his lord’s
and. flute-players. It was not the veil of the temple that was rent at the Crucifixion, but the lintel (No. 17), a stone of immense size, that was broken in two ; in which, however we may compare the two physical facts, we see at least a different symbolism.
We find, lastly, a number of sayings of the Lord not recorded in the canonical Gospels, but which are accepted by scholars as not unfit to stand with those formerly known tous. It is reckoned among the greatest crimes ‘ that one should have saddened the spirit of his brother’ (No. 20). * Never be glad but when you have looked upon your brother in charity’ (No. 21). The following is more difficult : ‘I will choose for myself the well-pleasing ; the well- pleasing are those whom my Father in heaven gave me’ (No. 22; from a work of Eusebius in Syriac ; the translation is disputed ; ef. below, p. 346"), Could this come from the same mouth which said, ‘I came not to call the righteous, but sinners’? It speaks at least of a more Jewish colouring in this tradition. Yet the same Gospel contained the story of the woman accused to the Lord of se sins, which, whether parallel to Jn 8!" or to L 7°6-, or a different story, must have had a lesson of compassion for human infirmity.