t See Lightfoot on Jn 1828, Mk 1525.
§ Dt 162, 2 Ch 301- 23. 24 351. 8-19, Ezk 4521-24. Lightfoot on
II Cf. 213- 23 64 1155 121 131. Contrast Mt 2617 =Mk 14i2=Lk 227. 8.
Literature. — Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. (see references in foot- notes); Strauss, LeO. Jes. ui. ii. § 121, and New Life of Jesus, ii. § 85 ; Keim, Jesus of Sazara, vi. pp. 195-219 ; Caspar!, Chron. and Geor/. Introd. §§ 151-164 ; Farrar, Life of Christ, Exc. X. ; Andrews, Life of our Lord, pp. 457-481 ; Westcott, Study of the Gospels, p. 43 ; Du Bose, The Gospel in the Gospels, p. 28. For the contrary view that Tcufia.a-y.iu-f, does not mean Friday in both the S,\noptics and the Fourth Gospel, see Sanday in Hastings' DB, ii. 634 ; Godet in his Comm. on Lk. and Jn. ; Lobstein, La doctrine de la sainte cine, p. 51 f. ; Zockler in PRE^, ix. pp. 32, 42 ; Chwolson, Das lelzte Passamahl Christi.
David Smith.
PRESENCE.— The ordinary word in the Gospels for ' before ' ( =in the presence of) is ^ixirpoadev. Lk. also uses ivdnriov, which, with the exception of Jn 20*'*, is not in the vocabulary of the other three Evangelists. He nearly always uses it of the presence of God. Other prepositions era- ployed are iiri, (dTr)evavTi., and ivavriov). — 1. The value of a religion is the pledge it can give of the presence of God. In the heathen lands round Israel the Divine Being was localized in sacred places with the aid of idols. But the religion of Jehovah was rid of such a tendency through the work of the prophets, with the result that, when all other religions in the Roman Empire were vulgarized and eviscerated of power, Judaism remained like a Samson with locks unshorn, with a God who could keep His own secret, and with a faith still pregnant with possibility. True, the Divine presence had been manifested, according to the OT, in cloudy pillar and burning bush, had, indeed, been localized in the ark of tlie covenant. But steadily the conception of God had been clari- fied from material associations, and the way in which this was done may be gathered from Jer 7. So thoroughly did the moral view of God prevail, that ' the Law became God's real presence in Israel' (Schultz, OT Thcol. i. p. 354). The 'angel of Jehovah,' so frequently mentioned in the OT, was simply 'the messenger' (^N^.t), so did all intermediaries dwindle in the blaze of the only God. But with this transcendence came aloofness. On the one hand, the Law became a very barrier between God and His people. Even those who followed hard after it, like Saul of Tarsus and the rich young ruler, thirsted onl.y the more for the living God (Mk 10", cf. Ro 7^-l^ Gal 2;-^-'-% On the other hand, Greek modes of thought, already affected by Oriental dualism, represented fully in Pliilo, but also anticipated in Palestinian theology (cf. Schiirer, II. iii. § 33), bridged the seeming gulf by theosopliical and Gnostic speculations. At the very moment when Judaism had its opportunity, it failed to give that abiding pledge of the presence of God which should satisfy heart, mind, and con- science. Even the religions of ISIithras and Isis, impure though tlie latter was, had a vogue in the Empire because they did something to meet the need which arose between the barren speculations and brutal superstitions of the age.
2. At this psychological moment came Jesus with His gospel as a cliallenge to the world of the presence of God. St. John himself expresses this thought no more decidedly, though much more fully, than St. Mark, even though in Mk P wos Oeov is a secondary reading. The common testi- mony of the Apostolic circle may be summed up in He i^ ' God . . . hath in these last days spoken unto us in his Son.' But nowhere is the thought that Jesus Christ was the presence of God set forth witli such sublime effect as in tlie Prologue to John's Gospel : ' We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth' (v."). No need was there now of an impersonal Word or impersonated Wisdom, as between God and us (Ph 2^ Col 2^-^^) ; or of sacri- fices and ceremonies, as between us and God (He 9^-*, Gal 2-^) ; for the entire gulf between God the holy and us the sinful has been bridged in Jesus
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Christ our Lord (2 Co o'", Eph •>•-'). Thus through Chri^^t our access to the Father is immeiliate (Ro 5-) bj' one Spirit (Eph 2'*). 'There were to be no more tinite mediators between God and man ; no temple of Jerusalem, where alone men must wor- ship ; no necessity for interposing angels to inter- pret between the Divine and the liuman. ' Man was iiimself to be brought into immediate contact with God, and was to experience the deep con- viction that heaven and earth had met together' (Matheson, Growth of Spirit of Christianity, i. 78). This faith that through Christ a man is alwaj's in the presence of God as a child in his father's house was based on (1) the testimony, and ("2) the teach- ing of Jesus.