Thirdly: Of the prevailing ideas around, with which He was brought in contact, some have already been mentioned. Surely, the earnestness of His Shammaite brother, if such we may venture to designate him; the idea of the Kingdom suggested by the Nationalists, only in its purest and most spiritual form, as not of this world, and as truly realising the sovereignty of God in the individual, whoever he might be; even the dreamy thoughts of the prophetic literature of those times, which sought to read the mysteries of the coming Kingdom; as well as the prophet-like asceticism of His forerunner and kinsman, formed at least so many points of contact for His teaching. Thus, Christ was in sympathy with all the highest tendencies of His people and time. Above all, there was His intimate converse with the Scriptures of the Old Testament. If, in the Synagogue, He saw much to show the hollowness, self-seeking, pride, and literalism which a mere external observance of the Law fostered, He would ever turn from what man or devils said to what He read, to what was written.' Not one dot or hook of it could fall to the ground - all must be established and fulfilled. The Law of Moses in all its bearings, the utterances of the prophets - Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Micah, Zechariah, Malachi - and the hopes and consolations of the Psalms, were all to Him literally true, and cast their light upon the building which Moses had reared. It was all one, a grand unity; not an aggregation of different parts, but the unfolding of a living organism. Chiefest of all, it was the thought of the Messianic bearing of all Scripture to its unity, the idea of the Kingdom of God and the King of Zion, which was the life and light of all. Beyond this, into the mystery of His inner converse with God, the unfolding of His spiritual receptiveness, and the increasing communication from above, we dare not enter. Even what His bodily appearance may have been, we scarcely venture to imagine. [1273] It could not but be that His outer man in some measure bodied forth His Inner Being.' Yet we dread gathering around our thoughts of Him the artificial flowers of legend. [1274] What His manner and mode of receiving and dealing with men were, we can portray to ourselves from His life. And so it is best to remain content with the simple account of the Evangelic narrative: Jesus increased in favour with God and Man.' __________________________________________________________________
[1183] Ps. ixxxvii. 5-7.
[1184] Ps. cxxii. 1-5.
[1185] Ab. v. 21.
[1186] Yoma 82 a.
[1187] Comp. also Maimonides, Hilkh. Chag. ii. The common statement, that Jesus went to the Temple because He was a Son of the Commandment,' is obviously erroneous. All the more remarkable, on the other hand, is St. Luke's accurate knowledge of Jewish customs, and all the more antithetic to the mythical theory the circumstance, that he places this remarkable event in the twelfth year of Jesus' life, and not when He became a Son of the Law.'
[1188] We take as the more correct reading that which puts the participle in the present tense (nabainnton), and not in the aorist.
[1189] Jer Kidd. 61 c.
[1190] From 4 b.c.to 6 a.d.
[1191] The Romans were tolerant of the religion of all subject nations - excepting only Gaul and Carthage. This for reasons which cannot here be discussed. But what rendered Rome so obnoxious to Palestine was the cultus of the Emperor, as the symbol and impersonation of Imperial Rome. On this cultus Rome insisted in all countries, not perhaps so much on religious grounds as on political, as being the expression of loyalty to the empire. But in Judæa this cultus necessarily met resistance to the death. (Comp. Schneckenburger, Neutest. Zeitgesch. pp. 40-61.)
[1192] 6-11 (?) a.d.
[1193] Acts v. 37; Jos. Ant. xviii. 1. 1.