Nehemiah that there should be an annual pay- 2nent of a third of a shekel for the temple service (Neh lO^^-^'^). The temple itself, Christ predicted, would be destroyed. Howev^er we ma^" explain the saying, ' Destroy this temple, and I will build it up in three days' (Jn 2^'-'), He certainly foretold in His eschatological discourse (Mt 24-) the over- throw of the literal temple, and therewith naturally the cessation of the Jewish cultus.
It is not improbable tliat the saying, ' Destroy this temple,' should be similarly interpreted. The authenticity of the utter- ance iiy guaranteed by the use made of it in the trial of Jesus (Jlk 115»), and the similar accusation at the trial of Stephen (Ac 01-*), as well as the taunt addressed to Jesus on the cross (Mk 16''^'-i). It is true that the author of the Fourth Gospel interprets the saying as a reference to the body of Christ, fulfilled in the death and the resurrection. But this inter- pretation did not at the time occur either to the Jews or to the discii^les. The retort of the former showed that they under- stood the reference to be to the literal temple, while tlie Evan- gelist e.\])ressl.y says that the interpretation he adopts occurred to the disciples only after the resurrection. It is, in fact, very ditlicult to believe that the saying referred to the death and resurrection of Jesus. In its connexion with the desecration and cleansing of the actual temple the allusion could naturally be nothing less than to its destruction, unless Jesus made His meaning clear b.v pointing to His body. But in that case the misunderstanding on the part of the Jews and the disciples would have been impossible, even if we leave aside the objection that so unveiled an allusion to His death and resurrection at this early period is most unlikelj'. Jloreover, the contrast witli the temple made with hands (Mk 115*) does not at all suit tiie human bod^-. A difficulty, however, is raised by the Johannine version of the sajing. We maj, i^erhaps, assume that the latter is to be preferred to the version of the witnesses at the trial, in that it refers the work of destruction not to Jesus Himself, but to the Jews. Their present course of desecration, if they persist in it, will lead to the destruction of the temple. But it is not easy to believe that Jesus can have said that He would rebuild the temple that had been destroyed. Here the version of the witnesses is intrinsically the more credible, that He would build another temple in its place. And the contrast between the temple made with hands and the temple made without hands bears also the stamp of authenticity ; the new is not simply to be a reproduction of the old, it is to be not a material, but a spiritual, structure. We maj' therefore conclude with some confidence that Jesus definitely anticipated the de- struction of the centre of Jewish worship and the substitution of a spiritual temple in its place.
In the conversation with the woman of Samaria
(Jn 4), Je.sus is represented as dealing .specifically with the question of the legitimate .sanctuary as against the Samaritan temple (vv.-""^). He gives His verdict in favour of the temple at Jerusalem, but He asserts that the hour has already come for both sanctuaries to lo.se whatever exclusive legitimacy they may possess. The true worsliip of God transcends all local limitations ; for God is spirit, and as such cannot be localized ; and the worship He desires is a worship in spirit and in truth. There is no reason whatever for supposing that here the Evangelist is jiutting his own doc- trine into the mouth of Jesus. Tlie pregnant aphoristic form and penetrating insight of the saying stamp it as authentic. Moreover, it is quite in the line of the other teachings of Jesus with reference to the temple. He recognizes that the temjile is His Father's house, and yet looks forward to its destruction ; and similarly here He asserts the legitimacy of the Jewisli as against the Samaritan temple, and j^et looks forward to the speedy termination of worship in it.
5. It is certainly a very striking fact, in view of the immense importance attached in Judaism to the rite, that Jestis nowhere raises tlie question of the permanence of Circumcision. Had He pro- nounced upon it, the bitter controversy excited by the question in the primitive Church could hardly have arisen. But, naturally, occasion for discussing it did not so readily arise, and it Avas part of tlie method of Jesus to leave questions of practice to be settled by His disciples under the guidance of the Spirit and in the light of principles with which He had imbued them. There can be no reasonable doubt that St. Paul dreAV the true Christian inference. The great principle, that
the external was unimportant in comparison with the inward, expressed in the abolition by Jesus oJ the Levitical laws as to unclean food, and in His doctrine that for worsliip in the material temple there was to be sub.stituted worsliip in spirit and ill truth, carried with it the conclusion that as a purelj^ external rite circumcision could have . no place in the religion of the spirit. Moreover, it was the sign of the Old Covenant ; but Je.sus knew that His blood consecrated a New Covenant. Tiiis implied the abolition of the Old Covenant, and naturally the abolition of circumcision, Mliich was its sign. Indeed, the Old Testament itself Avas on the way to this, not simply in Jeremiah's predic- tion (31^"''-) of the New Covenant, but in the pro- phetic demand for a circumcision of the heart ( Jer 4^ 92« ; cf. Ezk 44^ Lv 26«). Here, as el.se- Avliere, the attitude of Jesus linked itself closelj" to that previously taken bj' the prophets. Nor must we forget that Jesus contemplated that His religion Avould become universal. This in itself sugge-sted the abolition of a rite which po.s.sessed no .spiritual value, and was at tlie same time an almost insuperable barrier to the wide acceptance among the cultured of a religion that required it for full membership. See, further, art. CIRCUM- CISION.