These proofs of Christ's emotion are very familiar, but His imagination has received less attention, and to it we shall devote a somewhat more minute study. That it Avas strongly in evidence is suffi- ciently proved by the fact that some of the Jews
on one occasion took Him to be a devil-possessed Samaritan (Jn 8'**). Nothing could be a surer tribute to imagination than this judgment of the un- imaginative. His actual experiences, His memories of past events, and His thoughts about even ab- stract truth, alike presented themselves in images to His mind. Generally tlie images were visual, and sometimes they were extremely vivid in out- line. He thought in pictures, which rose either from what He had actually seen, or spontaneously in His imagination.
Scenes from the life — plant and animal — of nature occur in all His parables, and in very many sayinjrs, which show the exactness and sympathy of His observations. The whitening harvest fields of the fertile valley of Samaria (433), sparsely dotted with the few labourers whose brilliant fjarments shone like flowers among the corn, is one of the very few instances of landscape in His descriptions of nature. The mountain-lands of both the north and south attracted Him, and it is strilcing to find Him making straight for the higlilands of Galilee when His task of life was over (Mt •28"'-i'J). But more frequently it is a clear-cut piece of detail that He sees, sharp-edged and com- plete in itself. A spring of living water (Jn 4i'*), the trackless mj'stery of the night wind (3"^), salt shining white upon the offal heap where it had been thrown out as savourless (Lk H^-i- So^, two sparrows sold for a farthing (Mt 11/-^), are wayside pictures which He has engraved on the imagination of the world. His favourite image was characteristic of that land where there were few forests, but where the single tree was so precious, either for shadow or for fruit (cf. W. R. Smith, lielirjiun of the. Semites). His images of singletrees, — the vine, the fig, and the olive, — with their roots, branches, leaves, all seen as it were in detail, will occur to every reader (Mt 1233 etc., Jn 1.5i etc., Sit 21i9, Mk ISZ'*, Lk ISS). One of the finest and tenderest of all His imaginative descriptions is that mere touch of artistry which gives us in a flash the life of the reeds bending before desert winds (Mtll").
The picturesqueness of His metaphors is very great. From the peaceful joy of the children of the bridechamber (9'') to the storming of the Kingdom by the violent (11^-), we jmss through a wonderful gallery of vivid scenes. Who can tell what great tableaux were before His mind's eyes as He said such words as these — ' the Son of Man is come to give his life a ransom for many' (20-'^) ; ' for crisis have I come into the world ' (Jn 9^**) ; ' I have overcome the world'? (16^^). One figure has become so familiar through His use of it tliat we have almost forgotten that it is a metaphor — the figure of the cup {.Mt 202^, Lk 222»- *^ Jn IS^^). Three times He saw His appointed destiny in life under the image of a cup held to His hands or lips by the Father's hand ; and Christendom, and indeed the world, has taken over the beautiful and great symbol.
No finer instances of His visual intensity of imagination could be quoted than those which refer to the play of light and darkness. Sucli references recur like a sort of chorus from begin- ning to end of His work ; and it is not without .significance that the stories of the healing of the blind are told in such detail. This imagination blazes out in full splendour in the magnificent sentence, ' I am the light of the world ' (Jn 8^^), and the figure is sustained and strengthened by the assurance that those who believe in the light be- come 'children of light' (12^^) — i.e. themselves radiant, their tipturned faces having caught and reflected the light to which they were turned. This is rendered all the more brilliant by the in- tense consciousness of darkness to whicli it is in opposition. John, in his description of the de- parture of Judas from the upper room (13^"), sig- nificantly adds, ' and it was night.' In the same way Jesus utilizes the sudden contrast between the flashing lamps of the banquet-room, reflected from the vessels and from the white garments of the guests, with the ' outer darkness ' of the unlit street (Mt 253»). To realize the full brilliance of this contrast we must remember that the rooms had windows only into tlie courtyard, and the street walls were of blank unpierced masonry. The thought of darkness always moved Christ to a kind of horror. No condition was described by
Him with such frequency or with such depth of feeling as that of those who ' had no light in them ' (Jn 11'"), or who deliberately loved and chose darkness in preference to light ( Jn 3"). ' How great is that darkness ! ' (Mt 6-^) He exclaims with a shuddering pause. He hastened men's work by the reminder of the night coming ' when no man can work ' ( Jn 9''), and as we read we feel the help- lessness of hands folded in the dark. AVhen His captors and their traitor guide had come upon Him, looking through the torchlight upon their faces. He .said that this was ' the power of dark- ness ' (Lk 2253).