Section I

the journey of Jesus to Jericho, and his association with the pilgrims to the Passover. the renewed prediction of his death on the cross. the wish of the family of Zebedee. the healing of the blind at Jericho. Zaccheus. the parable of the ten servants and the ten pounds entrusted to them

(Mat 20:17-34; Mar 10:32-52; Luk 18:31-43; Luk 19:1-28)

ABOUT three years previously, after His baptism, Jesus had wandered for forty days in the rocky desert near Jericho, with the definite feeling and consciousness that He must not yet surrender Himself to the Messianic expectation and enthusiasm of His people; because in this popular cry He recognised every temptation of the world and the devil. And He had then come out from the wilderness with the full determination,—while He unfolded His Messianic life among the people in the most abundant blessings,—to veil His Messianic dignity with a holy reserve, as the circumstances of the time required. And now once again He had retired into the same wilderness at its north-western borders, and once again He is occupied with the same question, whether now at length He should yield Himself to His people’s Messianic hope; and as, at that time, He had at once resolved to withhold Himself from the acknowledgment of His people, as they were then disposed towards Him, so now He decided that He could no longer reject the desire, the enthusiasm, the homage of His people; and that the time had now come when He must needs publicly confide Himself to the aspiration of Israel after its Messiah. In this opposition between the necessity for Christ’s entire withdrawal of Himself from His people’s homage three years before, and the necessity for His entire surrender of Himself to their allegiance now, are involved profound problems of the divine wisdom,—problems which can only gradually be solved in endless approximation, as in them are concentrated the deepest enigmas of the whole world’s history. We can only hint at guesses and beginnings of the determination of these problems.

We must, first of all, consider the decision of Christ as accomplished. When He the first time came out of the wilderness, He turned Himself to the most distinguished among the people, in order gradually to unfold His abundant divine life to them. Now He comes forth from the wilderness to the people themselves, and allows the supposition to gain ground among them that He is the King of Israel, and that He intends soon to take possession of His kingdom. In the adoption of these distinct plans, however, the Lord was influenced altogether by the circumstances of the time. Had He, three years before, confided Himself to the people, He must have announced Himself by the name of the Messiah; in which case the people in their carnal enthusiasm would have attributed to Him the Messianic dispositions, undertakings, works, and signs, which would accord with such expectations as had been illustrated in the three great temptations. But now He had unfolded the genuine Messianic spirit, the truly Messianic purpose, in its works and signs. He had authenticated and revealed Himself as Messiah, conformably to His own will, in His Spirit, i.e., in the Spirit of God. And when the people now greeted Him by the name of Messiah, it was not done in a Jewish chiliastic sense, but with the dim presentiments, at any rate, of the higher Christologic recognition.

For this reason also, the consequence of His surrender of Himself to the people was entirely different now from what it would have been three years before. At that time, the first result would have been the breaking out of a tremendous popular disturbance. An unutterable confusion would have followed thereupon; and if Christ had opposed Himself to this terrible intoxication, He would have been sacrificed to the hatred of the people. Then, however, there would have been no society which could at all have understood the meaning of His sacrifice, or could have received it with heartfelt appreciation. It was otherwise now. His life had already originated a separation between the more noble and the more ignoble elements in the Jewish expectation of the Messiah. The palm-procession was the expression of the better hopes of His people; and therefore it presented an appearance so sublime, and was so dignified by the spiritual consecration of His presence, as if it had been a pure and beautiful vision of heaven,—a spirit procession of blissful men to the feast of their Lord, appearing here for a moment in the midday-light of earthly reality, and then passing away. The worldly spirit, that was the special evil in the Jewish hope of the Messiah, had already fallen away from this heavenly vision, and had placed itself in direct opposition to it; so that the palm-procession also was ignorantly hushed up by the foreboding of the opposed hostile power, while, on the contrary, the tears of the grief of Christ hallowed it. Yes! this noble eagerness for the Messiah in Israel was so little beside desire, hope, and longing, so much of a womanly cry (bridelike cry of the people, perhaps), that it was not able to protect the Lord against the designs of the hostile power opposed to Him; so that almost immediately upon the ‘Hosanna,’ followed the ‘Crucify Him!’ But in this weakness of the growing society of Christ lay also its power. The Lord had now trained for Himself a company of disciples, who could allow His crucifixion to occur without obscuring its pure influence with fanatical deeds of violence; who could see Him die on the cross without altogether despairing of His truth and dignity, and of His kingdom; and who, after all, were altogether matured for the purpose of adopting in themselves the faith in the crucified Saviour of the world.

And this leads us to the most real and substantial solution of the question, Why Jesus could not yield to the allegiance of the people three years before, and yet could do so now? We should neither be able, nor do we wish, to conceive what would have been the result, had there been at that earlier time a Messianic entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. But we know this, from this procession now followed the crucifixion, and from the crucifixion issued the salvation of the world.

Here, however, the inquiry might be suggested, Why did Jesus surrender Himself to the homage of His people, if He foresaw that this homage would prove a failure, and that from it would proceed the treason of the people against His life and the crucifixion? And this question brings us to the probable historical cause which induced the Lord to yield Himself in this public manner to His people. It is certain He could no longer refuse them this surrender now. His nation’s most intense expectation called Him to the holy city and to the holy place. In accordance with the laws of the life of the Israelitish people,—in accordance with the predictions of the prophets,—He must now for once respond to this expectation, if He would fulfil all righteousness. Only thus could the authentication of His righteousness, and its testimony to His people and to humanity, be accomplished. It must be manifested how the Jewish nation, and how the whole of humanity in its earthly blindness, could treat, and actually does treat, all its ideals,—all beautiful bright forms of its carnal hope; yes, even its most deeply inspired expectation, the entire kingdom of heaven it had longed for, and its actual and glorious divine heritage. But as Christ must meet the expectation of His people in general, so also must He meet the claims of His foes. They had published the order, that whoever knew His place of abode should declare it. Now it was His care publicly to give account to the spirit of enmity which pursued Him with this mandate, certainly not with nervous haste, but at such an hour as was fitting for His princely dignity. But, finally, He must confide Himself fully for once to the hopeful heart of His own friends, to their anticipations, and to their faithful vows. It must be seen how they would defend their Christ, or how they would suffer with Him. Thus, therefore, a threefold necessity summoned Him to this public arena. Once Satan had called Him thrice to the stage, and He did not appear. Now the Father called Him by His name,—thrice, it may be said, since He called Him by a threefold motive,—and Jesus came forth at once out of the wilderness to accomplish His will.

When Jesus with His disciples now departed from Ephraim, it was evident that He was going with them to meet the last crisis of His destiny. It was then at once declared that He would give Himself up to His people, and be publicly honoured as Messiah. But that was just the moment to which the disciples had looked with all the aspiration and hope of their hearts, from the first hour in which they had devoted themselves to Him. It is easily conceived, therefore, that now all their Messianic hopes revived again more mightily than ever.

But the misgivings also which Jesus had suggested to them by His repeated warnings of His suffering, and which the terribly evident hostile relation of the hierarchy had already so often confirmed, must now have awakened in their full strength. And thus they were thrown into a state of extraordinary agitation and suspense, which the Evangelist Mark has depicted in clear strong lines (chap. 10:32). They were full of astonishment and terror (ἐθαμβοῦντο) at the tremendous solution of the vast problem behind which they expected death and life, hell pains and heavenly glory, suddenly standing before them so closely. With glad excitement and devotion, but also with trembling, they followed the Lord (ἀκολουθοῦντες ἐφοβοῦντο). But Jesus found it needful once again to predict to them His end with the greatest accuracy; and not only His suffering, but also His resurrection. For it was necessary for them also to know what glory they had to expect, that they might not mistake His dignity and royalty, and in order that they might not be perverted by doubts in the night of the tempest of His tribulation (Kreuzes-sturms). Thus, therefore, the prediction was at this time more definite than ever. Especially the Lord now brings forward from the earlier announcement of His rejection, that the Son of man should be delivered into the hands of sinful men, the two terrible features, that one (of the company of His own disciples) should deliver Him to the high priests and scribes; and that these, after they had condemned Him to death, should abandon Him to the Gentiles,—abandon their Messiah to the Gentiles,—for complete temporal destruction. Moreover, He particularized the three chief modes of this destruction, when He announced that He should be delivered to the Gentiles for mockery (amidst insults and spitting), for scourging, and for crucifying; and that He would thus incur a threefold worldly destruction, of which, according to human justice, the first form ought in reason to exclude the second, and the second the third, since it is an especial outrage to scourge Him who is already degraded by mockery, and to add crucifixion to Him who is degraded by scourging, or inversely to execute Him who is destroyed in the third manner, in either of the other two modes.

Although, however, Jesus announced to His disciples as clearly as possible His resurrection on the third day, they could not even now acquiesce in another announcement, which seemed so sharply to cross their high anticipations. The Evangelist Luke again puts it forward very expressively, how utterly incapable they were in their state of mind of clearly understanding the declaration of Jesus, and accommodating themselves inwardly to it. This want of understanding was of a threefold character, as is generally the case under similar circumstances. They did not readily enter into the meaning of the word of Jesus (οὐδέν συνῆκαν). The consequence was the judicial award of God, that therefore from them also the meaning of the saying of Jesus should be hidden (ἦν τὸ ῥῆμα κεκρυμμένον), and that resulted now in their not comprehending effectually the sense of what was said by Jesus (οὐκ ἐγίνωσκον).¹

That the disciples did not perfectly receive into their hearts the prediction of the Lord, is manifest in the clearest manner from the solicitude of the children of Zebedee, James and John, which was brought under His notice about this time by Salome. Before we consider this desire, the question presses upon us, How comes Salome at this time into the company of Jesus? We know that she was among the women who had already, at an earlier period, begun to accompany and to care for the Lord. And thus it may be conjectured, that she has still continued to be among His followers. Only, on the other hand, the circumstance might seem to contradict this, that Jesus had of late sought to live as far as possible concealed in Ephraim, and therefore would not safely retain in His company more disciples than the twelve. And thus it is probable, that during the concealment of Jesus, Salome had not been among His followers. But from the circumstance, that Jesus had already a considerable attendance when He entered into Jericho, we are led to the supposition, that His special friends and dependants in Galilee, travelling through Samaria, had already met with Him in Ephraim, and were approaching Jericho in His company. Doubtless the enthusiastic and courageous woman Salome was also in this procession. And on the way to Jericho she had time, with her sons, to mature the petition which she desired to lay before the Lord. According to the representation of the Evangelist Mark, it must be supposed that the presentation of this petition occurred while they were still on their way to Jericho, perhaps immediately before Jesus fell in with the larger companies of pilgrims.

There is no real difficulty in the fact that Matthew relates, that the mother of Zebedee’s children had come forward with them, had cast herself down before Jesus, and had besought a favour from Him; while, on the other hand, the Evangelist Mark places this address in the mouth of the two aspirants themselves. Mark declares, that the urgent motive of the request substantially existed in the disciples; while Matthew more accurately gives us the form in which they preferred the request, namely, through the mother, who certainly, in accordance with her ambitious character, was at one with her sons in their desire. But the statement of the request is characteristic. Here, first of all, Salome was treating the Lord as the Messianic Prince of the kingdom. Prostrating herself at His feet, she besought of Him a favour; and to the simple question of Jesus, ‘What would ye that I should do for you?’ followed the request, that He would grant to her sons to occupy the places at His right hand and at His left in His kingdom. How would the Lord sadly smile at this request! They had no sort of presentiment what terrible places of honour they would have shortly attained if their wish had been accorded them, namely, the places of the two thieves who were crucified with Jesus, at His right hand, and at His left. ‘Ye know not what ye ask!’ said the Lord, doubtless with a shudder in His soul at the absence of foreboding with which His beloved disciples could ask a thousand times for that which was perilous, or even destructive, and still oftener for that which was unreasonable. For not only the want of foreboding with which they asked for themselves the places of the thieves, but also the arrogant regardlessness with which they aspired above all the other disciples, deserved a repulse. Yet Jesus had in view chiefly that unconscious desire for misfortune in their request when He continued His address: ‘Can ye drink of the cup which I shall drink of,² and be baptized with the baptism that I shall be baptized with?’³ They utter the bold word, ‘We can.’ And therewith it was at that time declared, that in their desire they were in any case prepared for sorrows—that they would gladly be ready to share with the Lord His tribulation, in order to enter with Him into His glory. For it could not escape these disciples, especially John, that He now referred to a cup of sorrow that He should be compelled to drink, and to a baptism of tribulation with which He must be baptized, before His entrance into glory. And if their declaration, ‘We can,’ be estimated according to its real worth, it cannot be mistaken that our Lord acknowledges in some measure the truth of their declaration. He does not at all announce to them, as to Peter, that in the hour of affliction they would deny Him. He acknowledges that these Sons of Thunder, in their eager attachment to Him, in their fiery enthusiasm and magnanimity, and possessing the germs of the Spirit, could already accomplish something considerable. That they could not yet, however, die with Him, in the power and in the meaning of His Spirit, and are not yet called upon to die with Him, according to the spirit of their conduct—this He gently intimates; whilst He announces to them that they shall surely one day drink His cup with Him—share His baptism with Him. And surely this was true as well of John as of James; for although the former died a natural death, the latter, on the contrary, under the executioner’s sword, as a martyr, still John had no small share of inward sympathy with the suffering and with the death of Jesus. Yes, in proportion to his deeper life, he could even take a deeper draught out of the cup of Christ’s sorrow than the martyr James himself. After the Lord had in this manner promised to the disciples that they should share with Him His cup and His baptism, He nevertheless returns to them their request with the words, ‘but to sit on My right hand and on My left hand is not Mine to give, but to them for whom it is prepared of My Father (it shall be given).’ This depends not merely on the decree of earthly destiny which comes from the Father, and according to which the two thieves were crucified with Christ, but rather on the everlasting pre-appointment of eternal arrangements in the kingdom of God, which was established upon the endowment with eternal gifts, as this pre-appointment always specially belongs to the control of the Father. It is deeply to be weighed here, how accurately Christ distinguishes between the sphere of His own rule and that of His Father’s.

The question might here arise, If Jesus at all intended to correct the two disciples in their desire, wherefore He should, as it were, upbraid them with the counter-question, whether they could drink His cup, and be baptized with His baptism? The difficulty, however, is solved, when we remember the double meaning alluded to already, which, unconsciously to the disciples, was hidden in their request. They wished at once to occupy the places at His right hand and at His left. Herein they had unwittingly asked for the lot of the two thieves. And it is in this sense that Jesus says to them, Ye know not what ye ask. Can ye share My sufferings? When they in reply assure Him that they can, their words assume another meaning, which the Lord partially acknowledges, in promising them that they should surely undergo with Him all His sufferings. But from such sympathy does not result the place at His right hand and at His left, either here in His deepest humiliation, or hereafter in His highest glory.

The desire of the sons of Zebedee was probably not merely an ambitious effort after dignity; it was inspired by a nobler motive. Rather their wish was, now that the Lord had spoken so plainly of His suffering, and perhaps some of the band of disciples might be terribly discouraged thereby, to express in the strongest way the confidence with which they, on their part, anticipated His glorification. Without undervaluing the significance of His sorrowful predictions, they were desirous, in their noble and magnanimous nature, of making known that they nevertheless were ready, and counted it the highest happiness of their life, to partake in the most intimate manner with Jesus, in His future circumstances and destiny, and to associate their future altogether with His. Certainly they did not forebode how soon and how sadly His career would descend into the death of the cross. At all events, however, it is probable that their request was not free from the elements of an ambitious aspiration. And thus there appears in this scene a marked contrast with the great prediction of suffering that so immediately preceded it. But this contrast is most peculiar, precisely at the moment when Jesus warns His disciples that He should die on the cross, amid all possible worldly ignominy, and when immediately thereupon the mother Salome advances, and asks for her sons the two places on the right and on the left hand of Jesus.

When the ten disciples of Jesus were aware of the application of the two brothers and its refusal, and the explanation of Jesus, they were indignant at them. This was not the first time that the question had been raised among them, who should be the greatest? According to the positions which Peter and John usually occupied in relation to Jesus, it was natural, upon their old principles of life, that they should seek to obtain precedence of one another, and that not only factions should be formed in the band of disciples for the one and the other, but, moreover, that special claims should be alleged of third persons besides. But only lately the Lord had most strongly discountenanced these emulations of the disciples. Probably since that time they had not allowed any more of their endeavours to transpire. Therefore it seemed a double wrong done to the company of disciples, that these two, with the help of their mother, should at once seek to carry away this distinction. Their pretensions easily kindled the eagerness of the pretensions of the rest again. Moreover, the absolute refusal which they met with from Him, might seem to authorize some among the rest to entertain new hopes. At any rate, they appeared entitled to be much displeased with the attempts of the two. But Jesus discountenanced this indignation just as much as He had all old and new pretensions of the kind, by a decided reprimand. He called them together, and in the assembled circle of disciples—shall we say, in the council of apostles—He spake thus: ‘Ye know that the acknowledged princes of the peoples⁴ rule over them from above,⁵ and that the great ones among them from above exercise power over them.⁶ (That the acknowledged visible powers from a high throne exercise their dominion, and that the still unacknowledged mighty ones masterfully attain dominion over princes and peoples.) But so it ought not to be among you! But whosoever among you will be great, let him be your minister; and whosoever among you will be the first, let him be your servant.’ Thus, therefore, there is recognised no ascendancy of power in the kingdom of Christ other than that which proceeds out of loving ministry, and no ascendancy of lawful dignity other than that which proceeds from the real service of the individual on behalf of the community. These negative and positive instructions of Christ are just as strict as they are full, just as precise as they are unlimited. They find their complete illustration only in the fullest life of the Spirit, the meekness, love, and liberty of the faithful. Moreover, they are not at all to be considered as mere paradoxes, which would abrogate the rightful relations in the congregation, but as the most delicate outlines by which they ought to be regulated; above all, there should be no manner of unqualified supremacy in the congregation which does not stand to the community on terms of continual modification and reciprocity.⁷ No dignity in the congregation ought to have any value as ordained over it in the abstract, but only such as is renewed from time to time by the free acknowledgment of the people. And in this connection the imperious psychic tyranny of the illegitimate powers of heresiarchs and leaders of sects of all kinds, ought to be rejected not less than the overbearing rule of legitimately established visible powers of a spiritual kind. But that control which proceeds out of the service of love towards the members of the community, ought to prevail as power and greatness in the congregation, according to the measure of its ability, and of the popular right subsisting therein; and that office which proceeds on the surrender of oneself as a servant to the Spirit and Lord in the congregation ought to be accounted a priority, a government in the community, just in consequence of the fact that the bearer of the office becomes a servant of the Lord of the congregation, in conformity with the authority which the Lord has given to Him, and which the congregation have given to Him. But when individuals in the community claim a power and an authority contrary to the Spirit, the privilege, the life, and will of the congregation, the people are instructed to degrade them in the same degree in which they would exalt themselves. They must in such a case be recognised as symbolical taskmasters for Christ, and therefore be degraded into ministers and servants of the free community in the legal sense.

No man ought to seek to rule over the people of God, since, as the Lord says in conclusion, ‘the Son of man Himself is not come to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom (λύτρον) for many.’ He Himself has established this church by ministry, by the great service of love. Therefore it cannot be built up by the lordly rule of His servants over it, but only by a service of love like to His own. Yea, He has redeemed it from all service with the costly purchase-money of His life and blood, and formed it into a free society. Such a society of such redeemed ones made free by such a ransom is the free community in the highest sense; it should never be enslaved, least of all by a horribly despotic effusion of the blood of its members.

So long as the world needs visible powers and dominions, it finds them, according to the counsel and will of God, among the princes and mighty ones of the peoples. The apostles of the Lord, in their peculiarly symbolical pזdagogic control, ought neither to wish to emulate them, nor to supplant and restore them, nor yet to complete them.

When Jesus came to Jericho from Ephraim, in order there to join a large festal procession, He would not perhaps in any case make His entry and His exit through the two gates of the city that are placed opposite to one another. He did not come from Jordan through the eastern gate, which leads out upon the road to Peræa, but He approached the city from the north-west, while He would leave it again in a south-westerly direction, on the way to Jerusalem. It is possible, also, that He might have entered the city through the same gate by which He left it again later; possibly, also, He might have approached through a road of the Jordan valley, and have cut through part of Jericho, and so have pursued His journey with the festal caravan on the rocky road towards Jerusalem.

It is confessedly a difficult problem to reconcile with one another the several accounts of the Synoptic Evangelists of the cure of the blind men which Jesus performed at Jericho. Matthew, for instance, relates that Jesus had given sight to two blind men on His departure from Jericho. Mark informs us only of the healing of one blind man, which, in conformity with Matthew’s account, occurred as Jesus left Jericho. On the other hand, Luke speaks of the healing of one blind man, which the Lord performed at His entrance into that city. At the same time, however, it is worthy of note that the circumstances under which, according to the various descriptions, these several cures occurred, very much accord with one another.

It might be possible to seek to throw light on this difficulty, by supposing that Jesus entered and left Jericho by one and the same gate. The order of events might be conceived of somewhat after the following manner. The blind man sat near the gate through which Jesus at first entered, and afterwards left, the city. He began even at the entrance of Jesus to cry to Him for help. Being, however, at some distance from the procession, he was threatened and put to silence by some who would now suffer no delay, and thus his prayer did not reach the ear of Jesus. But now, when the Lord was returning through the same gate, he prosecutes his appeal, and presses through the opposition of those who would restrain him with his cry, the rather that the right time had arrived for the Lord to help him. It is at this point that Mark has taken up this history, and has represented it in a close and lively manner. It may be seen that he was accurately acquainted with the facts; he names the blind beggar, he is called Bartimæus. But he took up the circumstance, that the beggar had already sought help and been checked at the entrance of Jesus, into the representation of this moment. On the other hand, Luke heard tell that the beggar had already cried to Jesus before His entry. Perhaps this fact was made clear to him by an indication of the place where the beggar had been seated when Jesus drew near to the city. In the meantime, it escaped his notice that the cure itself did not occur till the departure of Jesus. Thus Luke was induced to place the miracle before the entrance of Jesus; Matthew, on the contrary, transposed it, with Mark, to the departure of Jesus from Jericho. But when the later Greek reviser of the Hebrew Matthew met with the narratives of the other two Evangelists, he combined them, and thence would arise his representation, according to which there occurred the cure of two blind men.

That which most commends this hypothesis is the extraordinary similarity that may be observed between the account of the healing of the blind which Mark relates to us, and that which Luke relates. The striking character of this resemblance cannot in fact be so easily got over, if we suppose, with Ebrard,⁸ that two cures occurred, one at the entrance, another at the departure of Jesus. But the circumstance would indeed become the more peculiar if actual variations should be found in the two accounts, which would suggest a difference in the individual behaviour of the two blind men. Such a variation Ebrard discovers in the fact, that the blind man of Mark, ‘at the mere call, throws away his garment, rises, and in manifest eagerness comes forward to Jesus, while the blind man of Luke is led to Jesus.’ This latter circumstance, however, is not quite so certain. According to Luke, Jesus commanded the blind man to be brought to Him. But it is not therefore said that the blind man actually allowed himself to be led to Him, and that he did not, at this call, in joyous excitement throw away his garment and follow the sound of the voice of Jesus, as one that through faith was already half-endowed with sight.

It must by all means be observed, that it is not quite determined that Jesus went in and out of Jericho by the same gate. He might, however, have entered the city from the Jordan valley by a northern gate. On the other hand, the blind beggar might have found it to his interest on this occasion to have changed his position. At all events, the healing of the blind man which Luke relates, so nearly resembles the cure of Bartimæus in Mark, in the characteristic features of its treatment, that it is easier to suppose that an inaccuracy has occurred in reference to the statement of the time, than that the narrative of Luke has been in some degree coloured up to the tradition of Mark, as must, at least according to appearances, have been the case otherwise in this place.⁹

But even if the cure of the blind man which Luke relates should, on the grounds specified, be identical with that of Mark, there is on that account no necessity to refer the cure of a second blind man, which Matthew in his narrative includes with the great characteristic healing of the blind, to a misunderstanding of the later reviser. Rather it is extremely probable that the Evangelist here also, after his custom of bringing together contemporary miracles of a similar kind,¹⁰ combined a cure of the blind which occurred of smaller importance with the greater one, which the Evangelic memory especially retained. In accordance with these observations we must return to the cure of the blind by Jesus, at the narrative of the departure of Jesus from Jericho.

Already at His entrance Jesus was surrounded, according to Luke, by a crowd of people. This crowd consisted, as has been already observed, partly of Galilean friends who had joined Him on the direct way through Samaria, partly perhaps, besides, of Passover pilgrims and inhabitants of Jericho, who had come out of Jericho to meet Him.

The city of Jericho, characterised by its name as the city of Fragrance,¹¹ was the famous palm-city of the Jews, whose neighbourhood was peculiarly celebrated as an exquisite region of heaven. The land ‘wherein flowed milk and honey,’ presented in that valley, which is watered by the wonderful spring of Elisha, the most perfect illustration of His blessing in spite of the poisonous serpents that were bred by the hot temperature of that deep valley, shut in by high rocks and permeated by warm mists from Jordan. There bloomed the princely plants, the palm, the balsam-tree, and the rose-tree, in the midst of a luxuriant and fragrant vegetable kingdom.¹² In the history before us, however, this natural glory of Jericho is not represented by the rose of Jericho, but by a sycamore-tree, which just at this time bore a wonderful fruit of the noblest kind.

Jericho was, above many others, a city of priests and of publicans. It might perhaps be pleasing to the priests to lead a life of contemplative quiet here, in the fulness of the blessing of their land, under the palm which was the symbol of their country. But it was in consequence of the commercial relations of the land, that, in contrast to its numerous priesthood, it numbered just as many publicans. It was not only that there was much custom to pay here, because the produce of the neighbourhood of Jericho was abundant, but also because the city lay on the road from Peræa to Jerusalem, near to one of the fords of Jordan.

But now it happened that in this hasty, it may be said brief,¹³ passage through Jericho, our Lord did not abide at the house of one of the many priests who dwelt there, but at the house of a publican.¹⁴ This history, which tradition has spared, formed part of those which Luke with the greatest delight collected. He relates it with joyous excitement (καὶ ἰδοὺ) At Jericho dwelt an important citizen, Zaccheus by name, a superior collector of taxes,¹⁵ who was known as a wealthy man. This person earnestly wished to see Jesus as He passed through, that He might have some idea of His appearance (τὶς ἐστι). But as he was little of stature, and the people crowded round the Lord, he could not get a sight of Him. But he would and must see Him; that was evident in his determination to forego all the propriety of a person of consequence; so he ran forward and climbed up on a sycamore-tree (such as grew in abundance on the roads in Palestine), in a place where Jesus must needs pass by. Possibly, perhaps, he may in his haste have offended some who saw him run, and his name may have been mentioned among them, coupled with scoffing remarks. At any rate, Jesus may easily have learned his name somewhere. When he came near to the tree He looked up, and the glance of the Saviour of mankind met that of a soul that needed salvation. Thus the Lord finds out His own people everywhere, even in the most peculiar circumstances. But this man did not perhaps know how it befell that Jesus knew him by name, when He called him down from the tree, and invited Himself to his house as a guest, announcing that to-day He would abide at his house for a time. Zaccheus quickly left his position and joyfully welcomed his dignified guest.

At this moment it is once more made manifest how little of true attachment was mingled with the homage that Jesus received from those who accompanied Him. There spread through the crowd a considerable murmur at His seeking refreshment at the house of so notorious a sinner. Zaccheus appeared to them a sinner with reference to the Jewish community; therefore Jesus seemed to them, by the confidential intercourse into which He entered with such a man, to compromise the whole body of His companions in its social purity and consideration. But the fault-finders were soon shamed by the grand act of Zaccheus, which manifested that now his heart was celebrating the birth-hour of a new life. He came forward to the Lord, and uttered the vow, ‘Behold the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have at all over-reached anybody at any time, I will repay it fourfold.’¹⁶ Certainly this man was no real deceiver: for he knew by sure calculation that he could, first of all, bestow half of his possessions on the poor; that he then, moreover, of the other half, could repair fourfold every fraud of which he might have incurred the guilt; and that, after all, there would probably still be left a sufficiency for his maintenance. Thus this filling up of His offer indicates most strongly the consciousness of the upright man in a commercial sense. And yet just thus is defined the consciousness of the sinner. He does not conceal that he may have fallen into sin, at least through some more subtle fraud, for he feels now that his former gains have become vanity. He represents this as being very probable, although it is not evident to him what responsibility might fall upon him in this respect. It was a great moment of trial for him when he came before Jesus so confidently with this bold undertaking. If his deed had been a mere act of appearance, of selfishness, or of self-righteousness, he could not have stood before the eyes of Jesus. Jesus looked through him, and found that the act was an expression of his enfranchisement. The form of His answer indicates as much. Just for that reason, because this day is salvation come to this house. On that day the house had become poorer in earthly possessions by one-half, and perhaps a great deal more; but Jesus, nevertheless, considers the house fortunate, because on that day it had found the true heavenly treasure. Zaccheus had done to the poor a great and glorious benefit; but Jesus does not call the poor fortunate, but considers him blessed: and that not so much for the good that he did, as for the salvation that he received. In fact, he perceived, from the offering that Zaccheus made, that salvation had come to him-that he had experienced the power of grace to the regeneration of his life. Then He turned to the accusers of the man thus blessed, with the words, ‘for that he also is a son of Abraham.’

They had not considered that the publican was a son of Abraham according to race, when they wanted to abandon him without love, as incapable of becoming better; and they did not anticipate that he might even in a higher sense become a son of Abraham by his soul’s need of salvation, and by faith. But now they must know, that in the fullest sense he is Abraham’s son: so that for the future, they must no longer prevent his receiving grace by their narrow-hearted judicial restraints. Precisely because he was Abraham’s son, he was, in virtue of his sinful publican’s life, a lost one; and because he was a lost one, because he had sunk below his original worth and destiny, and was capable of a restoration and return to a higher life, therefore Christ has sought him. For just therein, says He, consists His entire mission, that He might seek and save that which is lost.

The Lord thus charges those who had blamed Him, first of all, with having, in the publican, despised the Jew—then, the man who was in need of salvation—and finally, the man desirous of salvation, and the man actually visited and taken possession of by salvation. And whilst He declared to them that it was, and continued to be, His mission to seek the lost, He gave them to understand how they themselves must be found, if they would have a share in his salvation.

The greater the distance between the original and historical destination of a man and his actual sinfulness, the more is he a subject for the seeking compassion of Christ. And the more heartfelt has been a man’s sense of this distance, the nearer is his salvation to him. But those who conceive that their actual condition is at one with their destination, or even beyond it in excellence, these are entirely alienated from it. They are prone to see only outcasts in the prodigals; and they attribute this kind of consideration also to the Lord. They would reduce the Saviour of the world always to a Prince of the Pharisees; but He would rather be crucified with the thieves than abandon the lost. For Him the two are identical. They are Abraham’s sons; just for that reason (that they are so) they are lost. They are lost (they feel themselves so in their deep degradation from their destination); for that very reason they are Abraham’s sons.

With this declaration, and the visit to Zaccheus on which it was founded, the Lord had again come into direct opposition to the Pharisaic spirit. Moreover, He found it necessary once more decidedly to repulse, not only the legal Pharisaism which wished again to obtrude itself on Him, but also the chiliastic Pharisaism. For His hearers thought, that when He was now so near to Jerusalem as Messiah, the kingdom of heaven would manifestly appear. Therefore He added (προσθεὶς), to what had been said, the parable of the ten servants, who were to trade with ten pounds in the absence of their lord. That feature of the parable, especially, would serve for a reproof of those enthusiastic chiliasts, according to which the Lord was just on the point of going into a strange country to receive there the dominion over His citizens, while they purposed utterly to reject His claims. He could not more plainly say to them that they would find themselves disappointed in their expectations. And when, moreover, He described the apparently small traffic wherein, in the meantime, His true servants would seek to further His cause by peaceable gains, as if that revolution were nothing to them, He told them plainly how remote was the vocation of His people from political enterprises, which would seek as their result to force upon the world a political and external acknowledgment of Christ—so remote indeed, that a certain critic could see, even in the genuine endeavour of the faithful in the world, and in the political agitation of the world itself, to get rid of the dimly anticipated dominion of Christ, two independent parables.¹⁷

Nevertheless, however, that the Lord allowed Himself now to be publicly acknowledged as Messiah, was the result of the history of the cure of the blind man, which He performed at His departure from Jericho. Once He attended, not publicly, to the cry of the blind man who wished to proclaim Him prematurely as the Son of David. But now He stood still when He noticed the call of Bartimזus, the son of Timזus, who besought Him, ‘Jesus, Thou Son of David, have mercy upon me.’ Although now great crowds surrounded Him, and although many sought to silence the blind man, some perhaps because such a public glorification of Jesus was grievous to them, others because they might think that the time for these single miracles of healing of Jesus was now gone by, and that the progress of the great King ought not to be checked any more by the case of blind beggars. But when Jesus stood still, and commanded that he who cried for help should be brought to Him, the beggar immediately found sympathisers enough.

Many were in the company around Jesus who bade fair to become supple courtiers in the service of the great Son of David: they first wished proudly to dismiss the beggar, because the eminence of Jesus appeared to them to require that course; but as soon as He declared Himself in his behalf, they were even courteous to him, and now they say, ‘Be comforted, rise; He calleth thee.’ Still it was truly the genuine disciples of the Lord who in the best sense encouraged the blind man in such a manner to come forward. Then he threw away his beggar’s cloak, arose, and came forward to Jesus, as if in the marvellous light of the promise of Jesus he had been at once made to see clearly. ‘What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?’ asked the great King of the poor beggar; and he answered, ‘Lord, that I may be made to see;’ and he received the miraculous help, with the word, ‘Receive thy sight; thy faith hath saved thee.’ Then he looked up, and saw. He looked upon a wonderful world, a picture of heaven upon earth, on the Lord surrounded by the great festal company. And now his heart burst forth in praise and thanksgiving; and at once he joined the procession, in which he believed that he saw with his eyes the special resting-place of his faith.

The other healing of the blind, which, according to Matthew, occurred nearly about the same time, seems to have been performed in another form, namely, by laying of the hand on the eyes of the sick man. By the combination of the narratives, this form was then referred to both cures.

The procession of festal pilgrims now moved towards the rocky desert of Judæa, which separates Jericho from Jerusalem-that desert in which, according to the narrative of the Lord, the traveller who came from Jerusalem fell among the thieves, and was delivered by the merciful Samaritan.¹⁸ Probably this desert was traversed on this day. But as the solitude begins gradually to decrease, about two leagues distant from Bethany,¹⁹ it may be supposed that the procession only reached Bethany. Here, probably, Christ separated for a while from the company, which would encamp in the neighbourhood of the Mount of Olives, to turn in to the house of his friends at Bethany.

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Notes

1. Neander also supposes that Jesus went out from Ephraim to meet the Galilean caravan towards Jericho.

2. On the various explanations of the differences in the Synoptic Gospels in respect of the healing of the blind man at Jericho, compare Strauss, ii. 55. [Upwards of twelve explanations are given in Andrews, Life of our Lord, p. 341. But between the opinion of Augustine, that there were three men, and that of Alford, that there was a discrepancy in the sources from which the Evangelists drew their narratives, there is no logically unassailable position. The difficulties against supposing three men are most unduly magnified by Trench, p. 429. Is it so unusual a thing for blind beggars to use the same words? or is it very improbable that the man of whom Luke speaks should have told the others how he had been healed, and that they should conceive it safe to use the same words as he had done. That Jesus should in both cases have stood still, and demanded what they wanted, is so far from being ‘unnatural and improbable,’ that it is impossible to conceive how else he could have acted in the circumstances. If there was not one man healed at the entrance to Jericho, and two healed at the departure from it, then one or other of the Evangelists is in error; and his statement must be not only supplemented, but corrected, by the statements of the others. The refutation which Trench very fairly gives of Grotius’ view applies with equal justice to his own.—Ed.]

1) Luke ix. 45. See above, II. v. 13

2) Jer. xlix. 12.

3) Luke xii. 50

4) (Οί δοκοῦντες ἄρχειν.) In this expression we may observe an allusion to the symbolic meaning in the earthly power of princes, and translate: The princes in the world of appearances ; or, The phenomenal-world-princes.

5) Κατακυριευούσι.

6) Κατεξουσιάζουσι.

7) The intention of Jesus, that in this respect it should not be in His Church as it is in the visible world, where the government of dignity and power is more or less only symbolical, is expressed in the fact that every hierarchy is allied with despotism, every despotism with the hierarchy.

8) Gospel History, p. 364

9) The supposition of Neander, that Luke has rightly stated the time of the miracle, and Mark wrongly, is rendered very unlikely by the circumstance, that in this case Matthew is on the side of Mark.

10) Compare what is said above on the healing of the Gadarene demoniacs.

11) Sepp, iii. 160.

12) ['Jericho, where is the garden of Abraham, is ten leagues from Jerusalem, in a land covered with trees, and producing all kinds of palms and other fruits. There is the well of the prophet Elisha, the water of which was most bitter to drink, and productive of sterility, until he blessed it and threw salt into it, when it became sweet. This place is surrounded on every side by a beautiful plain.' Sæwulf's Travels, p. 45. [Bohn.] 'The "rose of Jericho" is not a rose, and does not grow near Jericho. Kitto, Land of Promise, p. 37, where an interesting description of the fertility of the plain is given.—ED.]

13) Schleiermacher, in his work über den Lukas (p. 237), and Hug in his Gutachten, &c. (ii. 91), suppose that Jesus passed the night in Jericho at the house of Zaccheus. But this supposition is not altogether justified by the expressions, δεῖ με μεῖναι and εἰσῆλθε κατᾷλῦσαι; whilst the εἰσελθών διήρχετο leaves us to infer a passing through. Moreover, in such a case we must well consider that, according to John xii. 12, Jesus made His triumphal entry into Jerusalem not from Jericho, but from Bethany. But we can hardly suppose that before His public entry into Jerusalem, He had already entered privately. After His departure from Jericho, too, He can at the most have reached Bethany on the same day. But the procession might travel over this distance, even although it did not actually journey from Jericho through the mountain wilderness in the early morning.

14) Rauschenbusch, das Leben Jesu, p. 286.

15) On this designation see Stier, iv. 314. [Also Jahn's Biblical Antiq., sec. 242 ; and Smith's Diet, of Antiq., art. Publicaui.]

16) The highest restitution which the lawgiver appointed for stolen property (Exod. xxiii. 37 (?) ). Whoever acknowledged his own sin, paid only the sum stolen, and a fifth part (Num. v. 6). De Wette, Lukas, p. 96. Compare Exod. xxii. 1, et seq.

17) See above; compare Strauss, Leben Jcsu, i. 636.

18) Read the lively picture of this desert in Von Schubert's Reise in das Morgenland, iii. 72

19) Von Schubert, iii. 71.