Deeper - farther out into the night! to its farthest bounds - where rises and falls the dark flood of death. The wild howl of the storm has lashed the dark waters into fury: they toss and break in wild billows at his feet. One narrow rift in the cloud-curtain over-head, and, in the pale, deathlike light lies the Figure of the Christ, so calm and placid, untouched and unharmed, on the storm-tossed waters, as it had been that night lying on the Lake of Galilee, when Judas had seen Him come to them over the surging billows, and then bid them be peace. Peace! What peace to him now - in earth or heaven? It was the same Christ, but thorn-crowned, with nail-prints in His Hands and Feet. And this Judas had done to the Master! Only for one moment did it seem to lie there; then it was sucked up by the dark waters beneath. And again the cloud-curtain is drawn, only more closely; the darkness is thicker, and the storm wilder than before. Out into that darkness, with one wild plunge - there, where the Figure of the Dead Christ had lain on the waters! And the dark waters have closed around him in eternal silence.
In the lurid morn that broke on the other shore where the flood cast him up, did he meet those searching, loving Eyes of Jesus, Whose gaze he knew so well - when he came to answer for the deeds done in the flesh?
And - can there be a store in the Eternal Compassion for the Betrayer of Christ? __________________________________________________________________
[5549] I take leave to introduce a term which has become naturalised in German theological literature. There is no other single word which so expresses the ideas.
[5550] An attempt has been lately made, with great ingenuity, by the Rev. B. S. Clarke of Boxted, to show that only the weekly Sabbath and the Day of Atonement, but not the other festive, nor yet the natural days, began with the evening. The admission in regard to Sabbaths and the Day of Atonement is, in the absence of any qualifying remark in regard to them, a primâ facie argument against the theory. But there is more than this. In Chull. 83 a it is noted, in connection with offerings, that as in the history of the Creation the day always belonged to the previous night (one day'), it was always to be reckoned in the same manner. Again, in Pes. 2 a it is stated that the day lasted till three stars became visible. Lastly, and most important in regard to the Passover, it is distinctly stated (Jer. Pes. 27 c, below), that it began with the darkness on the 14th Nisan.
[5551] St. John ii. 19.
[5552] iii. 14.
[5553] St. Matt. ix. 15.
[5554] x. 38.
[5555] St. Matt. xii. 40.
[5556] St. John vi. 51.
[5557] St. John x. 11, 15.
[5558] St. Matt. xxi. 38.
[5559] St. Matt. xvi. 21.
[5560] St. Matt. xvii. 22.
[5561] St. Matt. xx. 17-19.
[5562] On the evidential force of the narrative of the Crucifixion, I must refer to the singularly lucid and powerful reasoning of Dr. Wace, in his work on The Gospel and its Witnesses' (London, 1883, Lecture VI.). He first refers to the circumstance, that in the narratives of the Crucifixion, written by Apostle, or by friends of Apostles, the writers do not shrink from describing their own conduct, or that of their Master,' with a truthfulness which terribly reflects on their constancy, courage, and even manliness. Dr. Wace's second argument is so clearly put, that I must take leave to transfer his language to these pages. Christ crucified was, we are told by St. Paul, "unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness." It was a constant reproach to Christians, that they worshipped a man who had been crucified as a malefactor. The main fact, of course, could not be disguised. But that the Evangelical writers should have so diligently preserved what might otherwise have been forgotten - all the minute circumstances of their Master's humiliation, the very weakness of His flesh, and His shrinking, in the garden, from the cup He had to drink - all those marks, in fact, of His human weakness which were obliterated by His Resurrection - this is an instance of truthfulness which seems at least incompatible with any legendary origin of the narratives, at a time when our Lord was contemplated in the glory of His Ascension, and of His session at the right hand of God. But whatsoever impression of truthfulness, and of intense reality in detail, is thus created by the history of the Passion, must in justice be allowed to reflect back over the whole preceding history.' The argument is then further carried out as to the truthfulness of writers who could so speak of themselves, and concerning the fate of the Christ. But the whole subject should be studied in the connection in which Dr. Wace has presented it.