We have noted in the toA\Tas of Syria those moral defects of petty quarrelsomeness and provincial self-importance which appear constantly in the records of Jesus' ministry. The metropolitan pettiness which confronted Him at Jerusalem — the tenfold proA-incialism of the capital city, whose modem counterpart is so familiar in many lands to-day — was a much more serious matter. All the dreams of Utopia, religious and secular, had run into personal pride and vanity ; all those Divine promises and guarantees on which the glorification of Jerusalem rested were interpreted by the citizens as a species of flattering Divine favouritism showTi to themselves.
In spite of much disappointment, there were still many things which must have seemed in some sort the fulfilment of the ancient hopes for Jerusalem. ' The dromedaries of Midian and Ephah ' had come to her, indeed, and they from Sheba bringing gold and incense. The flocks of Kedar and the glory of Lebanon were swelling her trade. Ships were flying as a cloud and as doves to their Avindows, making for her seaport with wealth for her (Is 60**). And -wdth that wealth came men also from east and west, from north and south. Tlie Dispersion of the Jews had already made her Passover feasts
almost as cosmopolitan as Mecca afterwards be- came. The Roman road, while it brought humilia- tion, brought also much else to Jerusalem. Feeling its way inland from the sea across the mountains of Judaea, it ended in the Jaffa Gate. It was but one of many roads from all points of the compass which, as they approached the citj^, grew broader and more thronged with passengers. From the account of Pentecost given in the Acts (23-"), we can see that at certain times tlie j^olyglot crowds must have been like those which are now seen in the Meidan of Damascus to welcome the return of the Haj.
The wealthy and luxurious inhabitants were obviously spoiled by all this grandeur, and in all the shamelessness of Eastern cities paraded it in the face of the poverty they should have sought to help. Those who favoured the Roman domination, and sought to make capital out of it, like the Herodians, prided themselves openly in Jerusalem as a Roman city, and did all they could to make it so. Those who simply acquiesced, like the Sadducees, in what their superior intelligence com- vinced them was inevitable, found enough in their wealth and in their pride in their old city and family connexions to keep alive their aristocratic spirit. Those who, like the Pharisees, stood for the ancient religious and national claims, fostered a still more bitter fashion of bigotry and exclusiveness. From Jerusalem they too, in their surreptitious way, tried to manage the world. They spent their strength in making proselytes (Mt 23^''), and they sent out deputations to interfere in local questions as' far off" as Capernaum (Mk 7S Jn P^). The crowd, who watched and copied the great ones from below, readily caught their tone, and, in an ignorant sense of superiority, were ready at any moment to raise a tumult at their instigation, and to shout for the crucifixion of a selected victim (Mk 15^^ etc.). Altogether, so mighty was the self- importance of this little metropolis, that for its inhabitants the rest of the world was practically non-existent ; and, as happens in all poorly equipped moral natures, their consciousness of their own better privileges and good fortune ran neither to interest nor to compassion, but only to scorn.
Of the more vulgar aspects of this metropolitan superciliousness the narratives present abundant examples. The contempt of Jerusalem for Galilee is everywhere apparent. It was not only on the ground of Messianic tradition, asking whether it were likely that Christ should come out of Galilee (Jn 7^-). The proverb was ready on their lijis about no good thing coming out of Nazareth (l^** 7^'). The facility for inventing opprobrious names, and the unsparing use of them, had developed with them into a fine art (%^). A man was an ignoramus, a blasphemer, a lunatic, if he brought any new thing among them from the provinces. The maid in the palace of the high priest did not show any originality in laughing at the accent of country people (Mt 26'^). If a provincial gathered crowds of a morning to hear his preach- ing, and men felt in him the advent of the Spirit of God, Jerusalem coarsely explained it all by the supposition that he was intoxicated (Ac 2'^). Any traveller might have retorted that while they were managing the world from a distance, they were neglecting it at their own doors. The fisher- men of Galilee were probably far less rude, either in speech or manner, than the semi-barbarous shep- herds of the Judsean mountains. But that was no concern of theirs. Their world was within their walls, and the curious and shameful result of their extravagant exclusiveness was that every Israelite was a foreigner in the capital city of his own country. Not Jesus of Nazareth alone, but every countryman was in Jerusalem ' despised and re-
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jected of men ' ; and every son of man felt home- less when he entered the Holy City's gates.
The hrst impression made upon a sti'anger visit- ing the city in those days must have been that of an extraordinarily Roman citj\ Herod, the greatest of Romanizers, had utterly disregarded the lessons of past history, and rejieated the mistaken policy of Solomon, which neglected the land to fjlorify the city. His architecture must have been as extrava- gant in costliness as it Avas poor in art. One of the grandest of all his palaces crowned the hill of Zion ; his temple blazed forth its splendours from the grand platform on which it stood along the hillside of Moriah. The famous Tyropceon way spanned the ravine between the two, entirely Roman in its construction and design. Here stood a theatre whose Roman audiences listened to l)lays on such themes as Susanna and the Elders ; there an amphitheatre at whose games rich prizes were offered. There was much barbaric splendour of a kind in the aspect of the city, but it was Roman splendour ; and everything that caught the eye as impressive, led it back to the barracks and the courthouse near the tower of Antonia.