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the qualities sjioken of; the mission of Christians as the light of the world and the salt of the earth is touched on ; and then our Lord proceeds to contrast the perfect requirements of the Law of God as understood by Himself with the requirements of that Law as contained in the OT or as sanctioned by tradition ; after which He illustrates the true nature of .almsgiving, fasting, and pr.\ver, .and of devotion to the will of God. See Sermon on THE Mount below, and in Hastings' DB, Ext. Vol. 1 ff.
It would have been most instructive had any record of the effect produced on the Apostles by this Sermon "been preserved. Their suri>rise must have equalled their admiration. The severe requirements, the strictures on the Law, the novelty of the interpreUtions, the .apparent paradoxes, must have astonished It is doing them no injustice to say that beyond their comprehension. They may i seen tnal me qualities required of them were embodied in Lord's own life, and that the temper of the Beatitudes was exactly His temper. They may have felt that the sphere of the
and perple
■ life V
I life, and that the 1
less properly the sphere of law than that of
speech and conduct. They may have discerned that the 1
Sreatness of man is to live not merely as God enjoins, but as God himself lives. But they could hardly grasp what our Lord meant by the fulfilment of the Law. A fiufilment which was at the same time an abolition was a mystery to them. Nor would they perceive that He had transfonned morality by reducing it to the principle of life according to Got! ; the one supreme rule of duty being to love God and man. The paradoxical expressions, too, would be as puzzling to them as they have proved to thousands since. In their discussions there would be champions of literal- ism, but these would soon be brought to acknowledge that a perfectly literal obedience to the commands given was im- practicable.
4. Training of tlw Apostles.— -From the call of the Apostles the mission of our Lord was more a mission to them than to His fellow-countrymen at large. He had waited until the time that a proper selection from His disciples could be made : now that the choice had taken place He devoted Him- self to their instruction and training. The Apostles were to accompany Jesus from place to place ; they were to be with Him continually. This implied the relinquishment of their means of living. It was not possible for them to continue at their occupations and be Apostles of Jesus. The sacrifice
made by each Apostle in obeying the i apostleship has seldom been adequately appre ated. In some instances the property left
sold, the income abandoned, might not be great intrinsically, but a man's all is great to liim, hence the moral courage needed of every Apostle was not slight. How then were their wants sup- plied? Whence did they obtain money to meet their daily expenses? The arrangement followed was probaoly devised by our Lord, and formed one of the earliest lessons He intended them to master. In a sense this first lesson is the supreme and even the sole lesson which He sought to teach, that of absolute reliance on Himself for everything. Trust in the Father, trust in Himself, was the lesson which Jesus sought to inculcate at all times. The Twelve and our Lord formed, as it were, a single household, of which He was the head. He presided at the common meals, He gave directions as to their movements. The cost of their maintenance was borne by a common purse. One of the Twelve was the treasurer of the company (Jn 13^). The food needed was either carriecf with them, or pur- chased, or provided by the hospitality which is so characteristic of the East. The company could not only supply their own wants, but could minister to those of the poor (Jn IS'^). The sources from which their supplies were drawn were doubtless various. Some among them had had or still had property, and the proceeds, contributed to the common stock, helped to defray the charges of each day. It is almost certain that presents were made to our Lord and the company from time to time by grate- ful friends and neighbours. But the principal source seems to have been the generosity of several women who accompanied them on some of their journeys, and placed their means and services at the command of our Lord. The names of some of these women have been preserved in a most in- structive passage in St. Luke's Gospel (8'- '), which is the chief authority on the subject under con-
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sideratioii. Among these are mentioned Mary of Magdala, Joanna (possibly a widow whose husband had been a steward of Herod Antipas), and Susanna. It is evident from St. Luke's statement that the number of such women was large, and it was prob- ably owing to their generosity that our Lord and the Twelve were able to devote themselves untroubled and untrammelled to their task. It should be noticed that the kind of life lived by the Twelve was itself a practical illustration of some of the cardinal lessons which Jesus desired to teach. The subordinate value of earthly possessions could not have been more ettectively taught than by the life of depend- ence on the liberality of others. Their journeys, too, from place to place had also their value. They were stimulated by new scenes and new persons ; new conditions had to be faced, new duties per- formed. They had leisure to ponder on what was said to them ; they were not distracted from the great work of their life, the knowledge of their Master. This was their duty, and it became their glory. For in understanding Him they came to resemble Him. The education of the Twelve, the transformation of them from the men they were into the men they became, is one of the greatest of our Lord's achievements. The Apostles were to be our Lord's witnesses, but the witnessing of which He thought demanded insight, sympathy, courage, self-command, tolerance, patience, charity. It was inseparable from the highest moral endow- ments. It involved great receptive and assimilative power, issuing in vigorous and unceasing obedience and service.