On the other hand, it is not to be inferred, from the somewhat disparaging terms in which Jesus appears to have alluded to the building operations of His time, that He was insensible to the beauties of arcliitecture, or that there was an iconoclastic strain in His nature. It would be easy to marshal passages from the Gospels with the object of show- ing tliat He was indifferent to, and even evinced contempt for, sacred places and ediliees. But such a conclusion would be contrary to all that we know of His many-sided sympathy and genial tolerance. Rather was the case this — that, like St. Paul amid the temples of Athens, or like St. Francis of Assisi, careless of cathedrals in an age of cathedral-builders, He found His contemporaries so smitten with the love of outward magnificence, so absorbed in the thought of the material edifice, that He bent His whole effort to the task of em- phasizing the inward and spiritual si !U(t>ni\ It is therefore in this direction that .ill the un'at say- ings of Christ about buikliii;,' Iciuk. On each occasion when He is led to .speak <jf a temple, wliether at Jerusalem or in Samaria, He takes the opportunity of insisting that the only true Temple is one not made with hands.
It may De suggested that some of His sayings of this kind are lost, but that the reminiscence or influence of them is to be traced in the remarkably frequent use by the NT writers of the term ' build- ing' in a spiritual .sense, wliether applied to t!ie individual believer or to the company of the faithful (see, e.g., Ac 20^-, 1 Co 3^ Col 2', 1 'P 2= etc.). And just as Jesus said, ' Ye are a city set on a hill,' He may well have said, ' Ye are the temple of God.'
2. Figurative. — The actual passages in which Jesus spiritualizes the term ' building ' may be grouped under three heads.
(1) In two remarkable passages Christ speaks of Himself as a Builder, (a) The first of these (Mt 26"', Mk 14°*, Jn 2"), while it is certainly a genuine saying of Christ's, has come down to us in a form which leaves us doubtful as to the exact connexion in which it was first uttered. The general sense, however, is clear enough. The buildings of the
• Furrer (Wanderunaen, p. 77) and Fergusson (The Ti-mples of the Jews, p. 142 f.) think that the Tomb of Zecluirias in tlie V'alley of Jehoshaphat, ' a lovely little temple, with . . . ]>iil;irs of the Ionic order," belongs to the first years of the Ist cent, of
Temple might be razed to the ground, but Christ, by His presence among His people, would per- petuate the true sanctuary (cf. Mt IS™, Jn 4="). Had the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews this saying in his mind when he referred to Christ (He 3^) as the 'builder of the house'? (6) The second passage is that in which Christ contem- plates Himself as the Builder of His Church (Mt 16'"). That with which He is concerned is not the material edifice reared on the rocky summit of Mount Moriah, but the spiritual building — the body of believers — founded on a common faith in Himself.
(2) In one passage, cited from the OT, Jesus varies the metaphor. In the 'germ -parable' of the Re- jected Stone (Mt 21«, Mk 12'", Lk 20") He is no longer the Builder, but the Foundation. In the original passage (P.s 118--) the Rejected Stone is Israel, but Christ appropriates the image to Him- self, and once more draws attention to the fact that the work of God proceeds on lines not to be anticipated by a type of mind which is governed by worldly considerations.
(3) In two minor parables Jesus uses the art of building to illustrate the principles which must animate His followers, (a) In Mt 7", Lk 6'" He shows that, as the stability of a house depends on the nature of its foundation, so stability of char- acter can be attained only when a man uniformly makes the word of truth which he has received the basis of his behaviour. Doing is the condition of progress. Christian attainment is broad-based upon obedience (cf. Jn 7"). (6) In Lk 14"-8 He checks a shallow enthusiasm, apt quickly to eva- porate, by reminding impulsive disciples that for great woAs great pains are required. The parable is the Gospel equivalent of our saying, ' Rome was not built in a day,' with special reference, however, to the necessity of the individual giving himself up, in absolute devotion, to his task (cf. Shak- speare, 3 Henry IV. I. iii. 41).
The foregoing passages exhaust the sayings, as reported in the Evangelic tradition, in which our Lord employed the image of building. But, we may ask, whence did St. Paul derive his favourite expression, applied both to the Church and to the individual, of edifying 1 (see Ro 15=, 1 Co 14«, Eph 4'= etc. ). It does not appear that oUoSoiieiv was ever used by classical writers in this sense. Fritzsche (Ep. ad Rom. iii. p. 205) thinks that St. Paul derived it from tlie OT usage, nj; being sometimes used, with the accusative of the person, in the signification of blessing (see Ps 28^, Jer 24"). But is it not at least as likely that St. Paul derived the metaphorical use from the custom of Christ, who so often and with such emnhasis applied building terms to the spiritual condition alike of tlie individual and of the company of believers ? If Christ did not Himself use the expression ' edify,' all His teaching pointed that way.