His biographers are poets. The Gospel which gives us by far the most intimate glimpses into His inner life is Avritten by a man who was a poet to the very heart of liim. Matthew, himself less poetical, interpolates his narrative with long swing- ing quotations from the poets of his native land, such as those recorded in 4'-"^^, or that tender and appropriate fragment from Isaiah concerning the bruised reed, introduced with so great a pathos in 12-'^. Even Mark, the most prosaic and almost curtly practical of them, is turned into a poet Avhen he is writing the life of Jesus. The simple patlios of such a Avord as ' When he thought thereon he Avept' (14"-), or the sudden reminder that Jesus in the wilderness of His temj^tation had for His com- panions the wild beasts and the angels {V^), are inimitable.
It has been wisely said that all children are poets, and indeed there is no poetry so pure as that of the naivete of the little child. Of the childhood of Jesus we know practically nothing but what He retained of its spirit through later years. In a very true sense the childhood of Jesus lasted to the end, and He retained a child's heart through all His years. Children knew this Avhen He Avas near them, and seem to have come to Him without hesita- tion (Mt IS-) as to one of themselves. No doubt one bond betAveen them and Him Avas that direct- ness of vision and of thought and speech Avhich characterized both. But tlie poetry of their minds and hearts must also be remembered.
Thus it came to pass that the Kingdom of God Avhich He established Avas proclaimed as the King- dom of the child (Mt 19'^) ; He quoted a prophetic verse in confirmation of His saj'ing that the praise of God Avas made perfect by passing through infant lips (Ps 8-, Mt 21i«) ; He thanked His Father speci- ally for revealing to the instinctive minds of babes, truths Avhich Avere unattainable bj" the Avise and prudent (Lk 10-') ; and, in the finest reference of all. He told hoAv the angels of the children dAvell in heaven, ahvays beliolding the face of the Father (Mt 18"^*). When to these utterances Ave jidd the
fact that He was interested in the veiy human chil- dren who played and quarrelled in the market- place at their games of marriages and funerals (Mt 11'^), we have said enough to show very plainly His sympathy with the poetry of childhood.
Arrived at manhood, and having thoughts within Him that had long been struggling for utterance, and had now come to their hour, Jesus delibewitelj' chose poetic forms of language as the medium of His speech. The characteristic mould in which Hebrew poetry was cast, was not rhythm as in the Greek and Roman poems, nor rhyme in the later Western fashion. It was a kind of measured anti- thesis, in which, in each saj'ing, there was a fall balancing the rise. This antithetic balancing is seen in most of Jesus' saj'ings. Each of the Beati- tudes in Mt 5 illustrates this mode, while v.^^ Qf the same chapter adopts the more complex form of the balanced triplet instead of couplet.*
It is true that poetry, and art in general, are very far indeed from being wholly matters of expression. There is to-day a renewal of the thoroughly unreasonable fashion of exaggerating the importance of manner in art, until the matter has come to be considered a negligible quantity. While both elements must be recognized, it will eventually be found that Johnson was far nearer the truth when he said that it was impossible for a man to be ' the good poet without first being the good man,' than those for whom style is e\erything and matter wholly unimportant. You do not make poetry out of prose by dividing it into anti- thetic or other kinds of couplets. There is, besides the form, the subtle spirit, and much more, that really determines the classification. Yet, when all this is admitted, it remains true that form has much effect on matter, and there is an inevitable and strong reaction of the style upon the thought expressed. Thus when Jesus chose the poetic forms of His day and nation for the utterance of His speech. He drew it more and more com- pletely within the line of poetry.
If it be true that it is not the form alone that distinguishes poetic literature from prosaic, it is equally true that it is not the matter alone. .Apart from what is said, and from the liter- ary medium through which it is expressed, there is what we have called a ' subtle spirit ' which emanates from the tempera- ment of a writer and gives the poetic quality of the writing. It is an elusive spirit to those who would define it in scientific terms, and it can only be appreciated in concrete example by those who are themselves in sympathy with it. All poets write for poets and for poets only : they count upon the poetic intel- ligence of their readers, and shrink back into silence when in the society of those in whom that sense is deficient. Yet there are two elements which certainly are never absent from the spirit in question, and which may be taken as essential to the building up of poetic work. These are a certain kind of emotion and of imagination, not (as we have said) definable, but un- mistakable by all who are in sympathy with the poetic mood of mind.