It may Avell be doubted if any presentation of the Passion Avhich moves our pity is in accordance Avith the Gospel (see, for a strong indictment against such, Kuskin's Lectures on Art, ii. §§ 56, 57) ; but
L
PLACE OF TOLL
PLAN
3G9
even if we hesitate to accept this, we must confess tliat unless we are led through pity to understand love, the message of pity has failed. ' We must look through the suffering to the triumph. . . . The crufiri.x with the dead Christ obscures our faith. Our thoughts rest not upon a dead, but upon a living Christ. The closed eye and the howetl head are not the true marks of Him^who reigns from the Cross, who teaches us to see through every sign of weakness the fullilment of His own words, /, if I be lifted up from the earth, ici/l (Irniv all men unto myself (Westcott, I'hc Victory of the Cross, vi., which see throughout).
IjTKRATiRE.— Trench, ST Siinonfi, ItlOH-, 361; Westcott on He W^*\ Lisrlitfoot on Ph !» and 21 ; Liddell and Scott, s.vv. ; also -Maclear on Mk ;?5 {Cambr. Dibit' fur Schools) ; Butler, Serm. V. vi. ; T. U. Selby, The God of the Frail (1902), p. 1.
J. B. Bkistow. PLACE OF TOLL.— See Receipt of Custom.
PLAGUE. — The word ' i)lague ' is used in the (iospels to render the Greek word fidcTi^, which means a whip or scourge (cf. Ac 22-^ He IP®). In tlie Apocalypse the word ir\r)yq, from which the Knglish word is formed, is e.\clusi\elj' used. In the (iospels the word occurs only four times (Mk 3^" 5-*^- ^^ and Lk 7^'). In each of these passages it is used of distressing bodily disease, and carries the implication that such atiiictions are Divine chas- tisements. The wonl is therefore used in a figura- tive sense, and there is no reference to the bubonic disease which is the scourge of Inilia to-day. See art. Disease. W. W. Holdsworth.
PLAN. — 1. Did Jesus enter on His ministry ivith " deliberate plan? — If so, what was its nature, and lu)\v far was it subsequently modihed by the pres- sure of events? These questions, of tlie lirst importance for a right understanding of the (lospel story, are doublj' complicated by the in- ^utliciency of our records and by the mystery in \\ liich our Lord's self-consciousness is shrouded.
The Fourth Evangelist, looking back on the S.nviour's life when it had now receded into the distance, .sees in it, from Hrst to last, the unfolding of a vast design. He represents Jesus as bending outward circumstances to His will, and moving- forward, without haste and without rest, towards the .set 'hour 'in which His purpose would fulfil itself. He assumes, in like manner, that the future development of the Church was foreseen and directed by Jesiis Himself. All had happened in accordance with a Divine plan, already de- termined on before the Word became flesh. This Johannine view is largely the result of theological reriexion, but it also arises in part from a feeling which still impresses itself on every reader of the (iospel narrative. There is a harmony and com- ])leteness in tiiis Life by which it is distinguished from all others. The events appear to follow each other in inevitable sequence, as if they had all been ordered beforehand in a conscious jdan.
It cannot be assumetl, however, that this inward necessity which we now discern in the life of Jesus was clearly present to His own mind. Such an assumption seems to be precluded l)y the prayer •n Gethsemane, which appears to imply that our Lord Mas uncertain, almost to the very end, of the Father's will concerning Him. The absolute faith in God which finds its highest expression in that prayer Avas at all times the chief motive in the life of Je.sus. In the face of a great darkness He surrendered Himself utterly to the will of God, assured that it would leail Him wisely. What- ever may have been the programme which He had set before Him, He was prepared at any moment to change or abandon it, if God should so direct Him. This must always be borne in mind in any
VOL. n. — 24
attempt to discover His inward purposes. The dogmatic conception that Jesus knew the end from the beginning, and gave mechanical fulhlment to a j)rearranged plan, is not only untrue to facts, but destro3-s the M-hole moral worth and significance of the Divine life.
At the same time it is at least equally unwarrant- able to construe the life as nothing but the un- foreseen result of fortuitous circumstances. It has been argued from tiie notices which describe tlie beginning of the ministry (and more iiarticularly from Mt 4^"), that Jesus at the outset iiad no dis- tinctive plan. As a di.sciple of John, He took up the Baptist's work after he had been cast into prison, and awoke gradually to a new conception of the Kingdom of God and to a sense of His own special calling. According to this view, His Messi- anic work was in a manner thrust upon Him, and was never followed out deliberatelj' except perhaps for a brief season at the very close. Granting, however, that the appearance of John may have given the immediate impulse to the ministiy of Jesus, we have no ground for supposing that it, in any sense, produced it. The connexion between John and Jesus appears to have been at most a casual one. There is no indication that the two teachers ever met before the Baptism, and Johns imprisonment must have followed almost immedi- ately afterwards. From the beginning, moreover, the contrast between the work of Jesus and that of John was the subject of common remark. It was recognized that the new Teacher was not merely continuing the movement of His prede- cessor, but had begun another movement, different in its aim and character. The facts of the narra- tive ail bear out the only conjecture which is psychologicallj' probable, that Jesus in His years of retirement had already planned out an inde- pendent mission. What He owed to the Baptist was merely the occasion of declaring Himself and carrying His purpose into action.