Once more, and more empatic than ever, was the final appeal to His Mission by the Father. [5166] From first to last it had not been His own work: what He should say, and what He should speak, the Father Himself' had given Him commandment. Nay, this commandment, and what He spoke in it, was not mere teaching, nor Law: it was Life everlasting. And so it is, and ever shall be, eternal thanks to the love of Him Who sent, and the grace of Him Who came: that the things which He spake, He spake as the Father said unto Him.
These two things, then, are the final summary by the Apostle of the History of the Christ in His public activity. On the one hand, he shows us how Israel, hardened in the self-chosen course of its religious development, could not, and, despite the clearest evidence, did not, believe. And, on the other hand, he sets before us the Christ absolutely surrendering Himself to do the Will and Work of the Father; witnessed by the Father; revealing the Father; coming as the Light of the world to chase away its moral darkness; speaking to all men, bringing to them salvation, not judgment, and leaving the vindication of His Word to its manifestation in the Last Day; and finally, as the Christ, Whose every message is commanded of God, and Whose every commandment is life everlasting - and therefore and so speaking it, as the Father said unto Him.
These two things: concerning the history of Israel and their necessary unbelief, and concerning the Christ as God-sent, God-witnessed, God-revealing, bringing light and life as the Father's gift and command - the Christ as absolutely surrendering Himself to this Mission and embodying it - are the sum of the Gospel-narratives. They explain their meaning, and set forth their object and lessons. __________________________________________________________________
[5103] St. Mark xi. 20.
[5104] St. Matt. xxv. 46; St. Mark xiii. 37; St. Luke xxi. 36-38.
[5105] St. Matt. xxvi. 1; St. Mark xiv. 1; St. Luke xxii. 1.
[5106] St. Matthew.
[5107] St. Luke.
[5108] St. Mark.
[5109] For these Levite chorister-boys, comp. The Temple and its Services,' p. 143.
[5110] St. Mark.
[5111] There is no evidence of a formal meeting of the Sanhedrin, nor, indeed, was there any case which, according to Jewish Law, could have been laid before them. Still less can we admit (with Dean Plumptre), that the Chief Priests, Scribes, and Elders represented the then constituent elements of the Sanhedrin.'
[5112] Otherwise the greatest liberty of utterance was accorded to all who were qualified to teach.
[5113] Sanh. iv. 4.
[5114] Jer. Sanh. 19 a; lines 29 &c. from bottom.
[5115] Sanh. i. 3.
[5116] Sanh. 7 b.
[5117] These involved points of special difficulty in cannon-law.
[5118] Comp. Hamburger, Real-Encycl. ii. pp. 883-886. But he adds little to the learned labours of Selden, De Synedriis, ed. Frcf. pp. 681-713. How the notion can have arisen that in early times a key was handed at ordination (Dean Plumptre and many others), it is difficult to say - unless it be from a misunderstanding of St. Luke xi. 52, or from a strange mistake of Lightfoot's meaning ad loc.
[5119] St. Matt. xxi. 23-27; St. Mark xi. 27-33; St. Luke xx. 1-8.
[5120] St. Luke xiii. 7.
[5121] Acts. v. 37; Jos. Ant. xviii. 1. 1; xx. 5. 2.
[5122] St. Luke xxiii. 2.
[5123] St. Matt. xxii. 15-22; St. Mark xii. 13-17; St. Luke xx. 19-26.
[5124] St. Luke.
[5125] St. Matthew.
[5126] Comp. for example, St. Mark iii. 6.
[5127] Jos. Jew. War ii. 16. 4.
[5128] Babha K. 113 a and the instance of Abigail pleading with David that Saul's coinage was still in circulation. Jer, Sanh. 20 b.
[5129] For fuller particulars on this point see Book II. ch. x.
[5130] Some might have even religious scruples about handling a coin of Cæsar. Such an instance is mentioned in Ab. Zar. 6 b, where a Rabbi is advised to throw it into the water, and pretend it had accidentally dropped from his hand. but probably that instance refers to the avoidance of all possibility of being regarded as sharing in idol-festivities.