LiTERATHEE. — Besides reff. in the art., see Dale, Living Christ and Four Gospels ; Hare, Mission of the Comforter ; Stearns, Evid. of Chr. Exper. ; Smeaton, Doct. of Holy Spirit ; Forrest, Christ of Hist, and of Exper. ; Brace, Gesta Christi ; R. J. Knowlirig, The Witness of the Epistles, and The Witness of St. Paul to Christ ; Herrmann, Warum. bedarfunser Glaube gesch- ichtl. Thatsachen? ; H. Scott Holland, Creed and Character, 1, 19 ; C. Wordsworth, Primary Witness to the Truth of the Gospel ; Th. Zahn, Bread and Salt from the Word of God, 185 ; T. H. Green, The Witness of God ; Bapt. Rev. and Expos. i. [1904] 321 ; Kahler, Zur Bibelfrage (1907).
J. R. VAN Pelt. WOE. — The word oval (in LXX for the most part the tr. of 'iN and 'in) was spoken by our Lord in virtue of His prophetic office. He was ' the prophet that cometh into the world ' ( Jn B^*), the decisive exponent of God's will (Dt Igi^t-, Ac 3-f-, He l^- 2). As in the mouth of the OT prophets, so in His, ' the word of Yahwfe must of necessity be a
word of woe to a sinful people' (Encyc. Bibl. iii. 3875). Like them, He was ' full of power by the spirit of the Lord, and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin' (Mic 3^). Two characters He speci- ally abhorred — those of the seducer and the hypocrite. His language respecting the Jewish leaders is ' part of the judicial language of the first Advent' (Mozley, University Serm. 29). Other Woes He utters with a sob of pity ; but His indictment of the scribes and Pharisees is spoken with the wrath of love (cf. Rev 6'®). His ' prophetic plain- ness ' is a trait that must not be left out of view in studying ' the mind of Christ,' and in contem- plating His work as Priest and King. 'As well as meekness there Avas anger, and besides tender- ness there was strength ' (Hall Caine, Illus. Lond. News, 7th Mar. 1891 ; cf. Tennyson, Memoir by his Son, i. 326 ; Ecce ffomo\ 272, 276).— St. Mark reports only two instances of our Lord's using the word ouai. It does not occur in St. John. But St. John reports many stern utterances respecting those who sinned against light.
The Woe of Mk 13^'' (|| Mt 24i9, Lk 2p3) was spoken by Christ with deep commiseration ; at the same time the passage in which it occurs is a prophetic one relating to the doom of Jerusalem which had re- jected Him (cf. Lk 2S-^- ^s). Eusebius {HE iii. 5) and Epiphanius (de Mens. 15) mention the flight of the Christians. Mt 1 pi (|| Lk lO'^)— where the mention of Chorazin shows how much of our Lord's work is left unrecoi-ded (Plummer) — is part of a farewell lamentation over the three cities by the Lake which had seen His manifestations of Divine power but had not repented, and agi-ees with other fore- warnings that judgment will be most woeful for those who have thrown aAvay the highest oppor- tunities (Mt 12«-« II Lk 1131-32; cf. Lk 12«-n_ In Mt 18^ (II Lk n\ cf. Mk 9*^), the first Woe is spoken in pity, but the second in wrath. As is shown by the dvdyKT] yap and the corresponding words in Lk., as well as by the context, oM t^ Kocr/xiiJ is a lamentation over the ills brought on mankind by ambitious and selfish passions. The egotist and ambitionist (to use a word of Carlyle's) becomes the oppressor of the weak, and he also becomes their seducer,^ — a character for which Christ had such a loathing that He said ' it were better for him [who bears it] that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.' The second Woe, intro- duced by TrXrjv (on which word see Plummer, St. Luke, 182), is directed against a man of this sort (t(^ dvdpdjTTui iKeivo}, the latter word putting him outside the pale of sympathy and respect), who, in our Lord's view, has committed the most heinous crime against the law of love (cf. Bruce, Expos. Gr. Test. 237 ; Wendt, Teaching of Jesus, i. 344 ; Carr, Expositor, 1898 (ii.), 348; Hastings' DB iii. 586»).
Of the two passages in which our Lord pro- nounces woe against the contemporary leaders of Judaism, the one in Lk 11 is an early utterance, and was spoken in the house of a Pharisee who had asked Him to dine with him (v.^^), while the other in Mt 23 is a late and public denunciation of them in Jerusalem on the eve of His death. It was spoken when they were present, and for the purpose of warning the multitudes and His dis- ciples to beware of them : hence, the real parallel to Mt 23 in Mk. and Lk. is ih be found in the brief sayings reported in Mk \2^-*'^ and Lk 20*^-".
In Lk 11«- «• *»• *«• «■ s2 there are two indictments containing three Woes apiece, and addressed to Pharisees and laAvyers (wh. see) respectively. Sentence is first pronounced upon the Pharisees for being so punctilious about matters of a sub- ordinate nature, which should be kept in their VOL. II. — 53