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 conscious- ness of the tormenting questions of scientific doubt. In all simplicity, with the eyes of a chUd, He saw in Nature the"^ handiwork of the Father. The heaven is God's throne, and the earth His footstool (5*^ etc.). Across the whole field of the world the Father's care is lavished, on birds (lO-^) and beasts and the children of men. As to tlie mysteries of Providence, Jesus refused to admit the popular view of God's interference in such accidents as the fall of a tower in Siloam (Lk 13^). On the con- trary, though without pxu'suing the subject to further consequences. He reminds us that the Father makes His sun to rise upon the evil and the good, and sends rain upon the just and the unjust (Mt 5^').
Tliere is a mysterious fact of sympathetic re- sponse between Nature and Humanity which has been variously explained, and yet never satisfac- torily understootl. It would seem as if Nature and Humanity had some mysterious understanding with one another, some subtle and occult system of signalling to one another across the gulf which separates the living world from the dead. In all the ancient religions of Asia this was a familiar idea. Baal-worship, in all it« varieties, spread it across the Semitic world. The OT is full of references to spiritual presence associated especially with certain places or natural object.s, or spiritual agency pass-
* For a very full set of examples of this, see Hausrath, i. 9, 10 ; ii. 134, 135, 136, 13S, 139, 140, 191, 223, etc.
ing over from the deeds of man to the locality associated with them. The ground is cursed for mans sake in the story of Eden (Gn 3^") ; the place on whicli Moses stands is holy ground (Ex 3^). A ' hill of Jehovah ' may often \\A\e been so called in rhetorical religious speech when all that was in- tended was empha.sis on height or greatness ; yet there can be no doubt that the words originally were meant of literal .and peculiar possession. The whole ritual concerning clean and unclean animals is an instance of the same habit.
It would be enough, to prove that Jesus felt and utilized this strange and intimate con- nexion between Nature and the supernatural, to point to the miracles which He openly per- formed and professed. Tlie Jews have a name for Him which is very significant in this connexion. By many of them He has been called • The Good Magician.' This interesting fact throws light on the taunt of His enemies that He was a Samaritan, and had a devil (Jn S*). Samaria was famous for its magicians, who were for the most part addicted to sorcery and necromancy. Such mistaken interfusion of the material and spiritual world was regarded by His enemies a> of the same kind as that which they saw and heard in Him. His prophecies of future judgment (Mt 25^^ etc.) mingle the material facts of the world with spiritual forces and thoughts in very much the same fashion as they are blended in those flame-jiictures which so interested Him in the Book of Daniel. His miracles involved the blending of the two spheres in every instance. On the other hand, He cut through the doctrines of 'clean and unclean' with a rnthlessness which stirred up the animos- ity of His enemies (Mt 15^^ etc.). Regarding the food provi;<ions of the Jewish law. He said notiiing, though it is unmistakably His spirit that we recognize in the vision of Peter a few years after His death (Ac lO'*"'*). But as for the curse of un- cleanness which the Pharisees saw e\ eiywhere fall- ing like a shadow over the whole life of man, He would have none of it, and (proclaiming eloquently His belief in the fresh wholesomeness of Nature) declared all things clean (Lk IP').
Galilee was very superstitious, though in a more naive and less repulsive form than the necromancy of Samaria. On two occasions we hear of the dis- ciples mistaking Jesus for a spirit (Mt 14*, Lk 24*^), — in the former, apparently for the angiy spirit of the Lake. On both these occasions Jesus reassures them, but says nothing to dispel or ridicule their ^dews. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that He accepted the universal belief in demons, who haunted not men onlv, but places as well (Mt 1243 [-.dry places'], cf. Mt S^^, Mk 5=).
Thus for Jesus Nature was indeed ' haunted.' The worlds of spirit and matter were, in His thotight, full of interchange. Yet it is very remark- able how entirely He ditiers from the spirit of con- temporary magic, as we know its development in the Rabliinical doctrines of the time, and in the later Asiatic and Egyptian schools. There is at once a reserve and a freshne.ss about the narratives of the miracles of Jesus. They are not the dark ultimate result of fearsome dealing with the occult. They are the inevitable ett'ect of the Divine love set free on the earth and in full play upon the facts of Nature — that same love which in less startling fashion He has already recognized in sunrise and rainfall (Mt 5^). Consequently in Him the un- wholesomeness of magic and spiritualism is entirely absent. He calls the dead as simply, and they obey as naturally, as we call the living and they'come. He heals the sick just as a mother might caVe-ss her child.