The person of the devil is very frequently present to the mind of Jesus, and generally he is addressed or spoken of Avithout imagery. At other times, hoAvever, he is portrayed as a princely figure — ' prince of this Avorld ' — Avho A-ainly comes to find his OAvn in Him (Jn 14^**), and Avho is, by the Cross, cast out from his dominion (12'^^). There is one picture, from Avhich Bunyan probably drcAV some of the imagery of his Holy War, of an attack by the Lords of Hell upon the fortress of the Church (Mt 16'"). And once, in an hour of triumph, Jesus ' saAv Satan fall as lightning from heaven ' (Lk 10^").
Yet no A'ictory of Good OA'er Evil is ever complete on earth, and a deep horror remains, haunting the mind as it thinks of those Avho persistently refuse the Good and choose the Evil. NoAvhere has this horror been more manifest than in the speech of Christ, Avho tells men to ' fear him that hath poAver to destroy both soul and body in hell, yea, fear him ! ' (12^). He uses several figures to express this horror, all of them borroAved from the OT and its concep- tions. NoAv it is ' the outer darkness ' (Mt 8^-) of the unlit street Avhich serves for an image of it ; again, it is the oft'al-heaps of the valley of Jehosha- phat, and the fires which Avere ahvays consuming them (Mk 9'*'* etc.). But, for the most part. His imagination pictures the abyss of Sheol, Avith the 'great gulf fixed' (Lk 16-**) betAveen it and the home of Abraham. It is an image closely con- nected Avith that of the ' nether deep,' into Avhose dreary vastness the demons pray that they may not be sent (8^'). It is suggestive of the homeless, empty spaces beyond the ramparts of the Avorld,
■where in the thick darkness there is the sound of ' weeping and gnashing of teeth ' (Mt 8'^ etc.). The words are repeated again and again until we seem to hear the low sound of that wailing which Dante heard within the gates of the Inferno. It is the undertone of horror which, even among merely human poets, is ever heard beneath the laughter and the voices of the world. But none has heard it and told the sound with the mingled pity and horror of the words of Jesus.
Hitherto we have noticed only the clear-cut char- acter of the imaginative work of Jesus. But there is another side to this — a vagueness and a sense of transcending all limits and detinitions — which is, as it were, the poetic obverse of the clear edge. This also enters into the true conception of the mind of Christ.
Both in regard to space and time His delig^ht in room, and the spaciousness of His thought are evident. The most familiar example in regard to time is the much disputed word aiuvio; (Mt 192s 25-16 etc.). The whole point of that phrase is taken from it when it becomes a pawn in the game of theological disputation. It neither fixes the furthest limit at eternitj', nor denies that the stretch is eternal. In it the mind simply flings itself out into the future, and is aware of the flowing river of the ages. It is the poetic and didactic, but not the dogmatic, purpose that is aimed at and that is accomplished. The sense of enormous duration is given with almost aching realization. The hope or the denial of a terminus ad queiii is not given.
His allusions to vague and immense spaces are so numerous as to reveal a strongly marked and favourite habit of imagina- tion. He seems to delight in the width of the world for the mere feeling of its roominess. The sound of a trumpet (Mt 24^1) is heard, and a flash of lightning seen (Lk 172J) from one end of heaven to the other. Even in His reference to the birds and the lilies, already fiuoted (Mt 6-8), He is not satisfied till He has added ' of the air ' and ' of the field ' (820). In these mere touches the whole expanse of sky and earth opens and broadens to the horizon as we read. They are the subtle touches which only a poet's mmd would give. Again, one feature of the Kingdom to which He frequently alludes is the journeying of ancient people and of those of later days across huge distances of the world (8U). 'They shall come from the east and from the west,' to sit down at the table of Abraham, and the elect shall be gathered from the four winds of heaven (243'). His memories of the OT recall remote nooks and crannies of the world — the far - off home of the Queen of the South (12-''-), Sodom and Gomorrah, Tyre and Sidon (Lk lOi'^- 13), and Nineveh (Mt 12-»). Many of the people of His parables are travellers who go long di-stances and return (Mk 13*1 etc.), and He speaks of Himself, in one of the most wistful of all His utterances, as ' a man going a journey into a far country ' (Mt 2,51-'). These allusions are not of so nmch significance in themselves as in their revelation of the stretch and travel instinct in the mind of Jesus. They become splendidly significant when we remember them in con- nexion with such other sayings as that about the Father who ' maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust ' (5^-5) ; and that also about the other sheep which the Good Shepherd has which ' are not of this fold,' which also He must bring, that there may be one flock and one shepherd (Jn lOiS). In that promise there is the whole breadth of His heart, who looks across the world and counts it all His pasture ground. This whole habit of His mind throws out into strong relief the spirituality of Jesus, to which it offers a sort of parallel in the region of the physical as against the literalism and preciseness of the Pharisees. While He was out among ' the ages,' they were wrangling as to the number of stars visible which marked the hour of evening ; while they were settling the inches permissible for a Sabbath-day's journey. His heart was gathering disciples from the ends of the earth.