THE ASCENT: FROM THE RIVER JORDAN TO THE MOUNT OF TRANSFIGURATION

THE STORY OF THE BAPTIST, FROM HIS LAST TESTIMONY TO JESUS TO HIS BEHEADING IN PRISON

CHAPTER XXVIII

(1. St. John iii. 25-30. 2 St. Matt. ix. 14-17; St. Mark ii. 18-22; St. Luke v. 33-39. 3. St. Matt. xi. 2-14; St. Luke vii. 18-35. 4. St. Matt. xiv. 1-12; St. Mark vi.14-29; St. Luke ix. 7-9.)

WHILE the Apostles went forth by two and two on their first Mission, [1 This is the only occasion on which they are designated as Apostles in the Gospel by St. Mark.] Jesus Himself taught and preached in the towns around Capernaum. [a St. Matt. xi. 1.] This period of undisturbed activity seems, however, to have been of brief duration. [2 Their mission seems to have been short, probably not more than two weeks or so. But it seems impossible, in consistency with the facts, to confine it to two days, as Bishop Ellicott proposes (Hist. Lect. p. 193).] That it was eminently successful, we infer not only from direct notices, [b St. Mark vi. 12, 13; St. Luke ix. 6.] but also from the circumstance that, for the first time, the attention of Herod Antipas was now called to the Person of Jesus. We suppost that, during the nine or ten months of Christ's Galilean Ministry, the Tetrarch had resided in his Paraean dominions (east of the Jordan), either at Julias or at Machaerus, in which latter fortress the Baptist was beheaded. We infer, that the labours of the Apostles had also extended thus far, since they attacted the notice of Herod. In the popular excitement caused by the execution of the Baptist, the miraculous activity of the messengers of the Christ, Whom John had annonced, would naturally attract wider interest, while Antipas would, under the influence of fear and superstition, give greater heed to them. We can scarcely be mistaken in supposing, that this accounts for the abrupt termination of the labours of the Apostles, and their return to Jesus. At any rate, the arrival of the disciples of John, with tidings of their master's death, and the return of the Apostles, seem to have been contemporaneous. [c St. Matt xiv. 12, 13; St.Mark vi. 30.] Finally, we conjecture, that it was among the motives which influenced the removal of Christ and His Apostles from Capernaum. Temporarily to withdraw Himself and His disciples from Herod, to give them a season of rest and further preparation after the excitement of the last few weeks, and to avoid being involved in the popular movements consequent on the murder of the Baptist, such we may venture to indicated as among the reasons of the departure of Jesus and His disciples, first into the dominions of the Tetrarch Philip, on the eastern side of the Lake, [a St. John vi. 1.] and after that 'into the borders of Tyre and Sidon.' [b St. Mark vii. 24.] Thus the fate of the Baptist was, as might have been expected, decisive in its influence on the History of the Christ and of His Kingdom. But we have yet to trace the incidents in the life of John, so far as recorded in the Gospels, from the time of His last contact with Jesus to his execution.

1. It was [c St. John iii. 22 to iv. 3.] in the late spring, or rather early summer of the year 27 of our era, that John was baptizing in AEnon, near to Salim. In the neighbourhood, Jesus and His disciples were similarly engaged. [1 Comp. chapter vii. of this Book. For the sake of clearness and connection, some points formerly referred to have had to be here repeated.] The Presence and activity of Jesus in Jerusalem at the Passover [d St. John ii. 13 to iii. 21.] had determined the Pharisaic party to take active measures against Him and His Forerunner. John. As to the first outcome of this plan we notice the discussions on the question of 'purification,' and the attempt to separate between Christ and the Baptist by exciting the jealousy of the latter. [e St. John iii. 25 &c.] But the result was far different. His disciples might have been influenced, but John himself was too true a man, and too deeply convinced of the reality of Christ's Mission, to yield even for a moment to such temptation. Nothing more noble can be conceived than the self-abnegation of the Baptist in circumstances which would not only have turned aside an impostor or an enthusiast, but must have severely tried the constancy of the truest man. At the end of a most trying career of constant self-denial its scanty fruits seemed, as it were, snatched from Him, and the multitude, which he had hitherto swayed, turned after Another, to Whom himself had first given testimony, but Who ever since had apparently neglected him. And now he had seemingly appropriated the one distinctive badge of his preaching! Not to rebel, nor to murmur, but even to rejoice in this as the right and proper thing, for which he had longed as the end of his own work, this implies a purity, simplicity, and grandeur of purpose, and a strength of conviction unsurpassed among men. The moral height of this testimony of John, and the evidential force of the introduction of this narrative, utterly unaccountable, nay, unintelligible on the hypothesis that it is not true, seem to us among the strongest evidences in favour of the Gospel- history.

It was not the greatness of the Christ, to his own seeming loss, which could cloud the noonday of the Baptist's convictions. In simple Judaean illustration, he was only 'the friend of the Bridegroom' (the 'Shoshebheyna'), with all that popular association or higher Jewish allegory connected with that relationship. [1 Comp. 'Sketches of Jewish Social Life,' pp. 152, 153.] He claimed not the bride. His was another joy, that of hearing the Voice of her rightful Bridegroom, Whose 'groomsman' he was. In the sound of that Voice lay the fulfilment of his office. And St. John, looking back upon the relation between the Baptist and Jesus, on the reception of the testimony of the former and the unique position of 'the Bridegroom', points out the lessons of the answer of the Baptist to his disciples (St. John iii. 31 to 36 [2 These verses contain the reflections of the Evangelist, not the words of the Baptist, just as previously vv. 16 to 21 are no longer the words of Christ but those of St. John.]) as formerly those of the conversation with Nicodemus. [a St. John iii. 16 to 21.]

This hour of the seeming abasement of the Baptist was, in truth, that of the highest exaltation, as marking the fulfilment of his office, and, therefore, of his joy. Hours of cloud and darkness were to follow.

2. The scene has changed, and the Baptist has become the prisoner of Herod Antipas. The dominions of the latter embraced, in the north: Galilee, west of the Jordan and of the Lake of Galilee; and in the south: Peraea, east of the Jordan. To realise events we must bear in mind that, crossing the Lake eastwards, we should pass from the possessions of Herod to those of the Tetrarch Philip, or else come upon the territory of the 'Ten Cities,' or Decapolis, a kind of confederation of townships, with constitution and liberties, such as those of the Grecian cities. [3 Comp. Caspari, Chronolog. Georgr. Einl. pp. 83-91.] By a narrow strip northwards, Peraea just slipped in between the Decapolis and Samaria. It is impossible with certainty to localise the AEnon, near Salim, where John baptized. Ancient tradition placed the latter a few miles south of Scythopolis or Bethshean, on the borders of Galilee, or rather, the Decapolis, and Samaria. But as the eastern part of Samaria towards the Jordan was very narrow, one may well believe that the place was close to, perhaps actually in, the north- eastern angle of the province of Judaea, where it borders on Samaria. We are now on the western bank of Jordan. The other, or eastern, bank of the river would be that narrow northern strip of Peraea which formed part of the territory of Antipas. Thus a few miles, or the mere crossing of the river, would have brought the Baptist into Peraea. There can be no doubt but that the Baptist must either have crossed into, or else that AEnon, near Salim, was actually within the dominions of Herod. [1 AEnon may even have been in Peraea itself, in that case, on the eastern bank of the Jordan.] It was on that occasion that Herod seized on his person, [a St. John iii. 24.] and that Jesus, Who was still within Judaean territory, withdrew from the intrigues of the Pharisees and the proximity of Herod, through Samaria, into Galilee. [b St. John vi. i.]

For, although Galilee belonged to Herod Antipas, it was sufficiently far from the present residence of the Tetrarch in Peraea. Tiberias, his Galilean residence, with its splendid royal palace, had only been built a year or two before; [2 Comp. Schurer, Neutest. Zeitgesch. p. 233. As to the name Tiberias, comp. p. 635, note 1.] and it is impossible to suppose, that Herod would not have sooner heard of the fame of Jesus, [c St. Matt. xiv. 1.] if his court had been in Tiberias, in the immediate neighbourhood of Capernaum. We are, therefore, shut up to the conclusion, that during the nine or ten months of Christ's Ministry in Galilee, the Tetrarch resided in Peraea. Here he had two palaces, one at Julias, or Livias, the other at Machaerus. The latter will be immediately described as the place of the Baptist's imprisonment and martyrdom. The Julias, or Livias, of Peraea must be distinguished from another city of that name (also called Bethsaida) in the North (east of the Jordan), and within the dominions of the Tetrarch Philip. The Julias of Peraea represented the ancient Beth Haram in the tribe of Gad, [d Numb. xxxii. 36; Josh. xiii. 27.] a name for which Josephus gives [e Ant. xviii. 2. 1.] Betharamphtha, and the Rabbis Beth Ramthah. [f Jerus. Shev. 38 d.] [3 Comp. the references in Bottger, Lex. zu Jos. p. 58.] It still survives in the modern Beit-haran. But of the fortress and palace which Herod had built, and named after the Empress, 'all that remains' are 'a few traces of walls and foundations.' [4 See the description of the site in Tristram, Land of Moab, p. 348.]

Supposing Antipas to have been at the Peraean Julias, he would have been in the closest proximity to the scene of the Baptist's last recorded labours at AEnon. We can now understand, not only how John was imprisoned by Antipas, but also the threefold motives which influenced it. According to Josephus, [g Ant. xviii. 5, 2.] the Tetrarch was afraid that his absolute influence over the people, who seemed disposed to carry out whatever he advised, might lead to a rebellion. This circumstance is also indicated in the remark of St. Matthew, [h St. Matt. xiv. 5.] that Herod was afraid to put the Baptist to death on account of the people's opinion of him. On the other hand, the Evangelic statement, [i St. Matt. xiv. 3, 4; St. Mark vi 17, 18.] that Herod had imprisoned John on account of his declaring his marriage with Herodias unlawful, is in no way inconsistent with the reason assigned by Josephus. Not only might both motives have influenced Herod, but there is an obvious connection between them. For, John's open declaration of the unlawfulness of Herod's marriage, as unlike incestuous and adulterous, might, in view of the influence which the Baptist exercised, have easily led to a rebellion. In our view, the sacred text gives indication of yet a third cause which led to John's imprisonment, and which indeed, may have given final weight to the other two grounds of enmity against him. It has been suggested, that Herod must have been attached to the Sadducees, if to any religious party, because such a man would not have connected himself with the Pharisees. The reasoning is singularly inconclusive. On political grounds, a Herod would scarcely have lent his weight to the Sadducean or aristocratic priest- party in Jerusalem; while, religiously, only too many instances are on record of what the Talmud itself calls 'painted ones, who are like the Pharisees, and who act like Zimri, but expect the reward of Phinehas.' [a Sot. 22 b.] Besides, the Pharisees may have used Antipas as their tool, and worked upon his wretched superstition to effect their own purposes. And this is what we suppose to have been the case. The reference to the Pharisaic spying and to their comparisons between the influence of Jesus and John, [b St. John iv. 1, 2.] which led to the withdrawal of Christ into Galilee, seems to imply that the Pharisees had something to do with the imprisonment of John. Their connection with Herod appears even more clearly in the attempt to induce Christ's departure from Galilee, on pretext of Herod's machinations. It will be remembered that the Lord unmasked their hypocrisy by bidding them go back to Herod, showing that He fully knew that real danger threatened Him, not from the Tetrarch, but from the leaders of the party in Jerusalem. [c St. Luke xiii. 31-33.] Our inference therefore is, that Pharisaic intrigue had a very large share in giving effect to Herod's fear of the Baptist and of his reproofs.

3. We suppose, then, that Herod Antipas was at Julias, in the immediate neighbourhood of AEnon, at the time of John's imprisonment. But, according to Josephus, whose testimony there is no reason to question, the Baptist was committed to the strong fortress of Machaerus. [d Ant. xviii. 5, 2.] [1 A little before that it seems belonged to Aretas. We know not, how it again passed into the hands of Antipas, if, indeed, it ever was fully ceded by him to the Arabs. Comp. Schurer, u.s. p. 239, and Wieseler, Chron. Syn. p. 244, Beitr, pp. 5, &c., whose positions are, however, not always quite reliable.] If Julias lay where the Wady of the Heshban debouches into the Jordan, east of that river, and a little north of the Dead Sea, Machaerus is straight south of it, about two and a half hours north-west of the ancient Kiriathaim (the modern Kureiyat), the site of Chedorlaomer's victory. [a Gen. xiv. 5.] Machaerus(the modern M'Khaur) marked the extreme point south, as Pella that north, in Peraea. As the boundary fortress in the south-east (towards Arabia), its safety was of the greatest importance, and everything was done to make a place, exceedingly strongly by nature, impregnable. It had been built by Alexander Jannaeus, but destroyed by Gabinius in the wars of Pompey. [b Jewish War i. 8.5.] It was not only restored, but greatly enlarged, by Herod the Great, who surrounded it with the best defences known at that time. In fact, Herod the Great built a town along the shoulder of the hill, and surrounded it by walls, fortified by towers. From this town a farther height had to be climbed, on which the castle stood, surrounded by walls, and flanked by towers one hundred and sixty cubits high. Within the inclosure of the castle Herod had built a magnificent palace. A large number of cisterns, storehouses, and arsenals, containing every weapon of attack or defence, had been provided to enable the garrison to stand a prolonged siege. Josephus describes even its natural position as unassailable. The highest point of the fort was on the west, where it looked sheer down into a valley. North and south the fort was equally cut off by valleys, which could not be filled up for siege purposes. On the east there was, indeed, a valley one hundred cubits deep, but it terminated in a mountain opposite to Machaerus. This was evidently the weak point of the situation. [1 Here Bassus made his attack in the fast Jewish war (Jos. War vii. 6. 1- 4).]

A late and very trustworthy traveller [2 Canon Tristram Land of Moab, pp. 255-265; comp. Baedeker (Socin) Palastina, p. 195 and, for the various passages in Josephus referring to Machaerus, Bottger, u.s. pp. 165-167.] has pronounced the description of Josephus [c War vii. 6 1,2.] as sufficiently accurate, although exaggerated, and as probably not derived from personal observation. He has also furnished such pictorial details, that we can transport ourselves to that rocky keep of the Baptist, perhaps the more vividly that, as we wander over the vast field of stones, upturned foundations, and broken walls around, we seem to view the scene in the lurid sunset of judgment. 'A rugged line of upturned squared stones' shows the old Roman paved road to Machaerus. Ruins covering quite a square mile, on a group of undulating hills, mark the site of the ancient town of Machaerus. Although surrounded by a wall and towers, its position is supposed not to have been strategically defensible. Only a mass of ruins here, with traces of a temple to the Syrian Sun-God, broken cisterns, and desolateness all around. Crossing a narrow deep valley, about a mile wide, we climb up to the ancient fortress on a conical hill. Altogether it covered a ridge of more than a mile. The key of the position was a citadel to the extreme east of the fortress. It occupied the summit of the cone, was isolated, and almost impregnable, but very small. We shall return to examine it. Meanwhile, descending a steep slope about 150 yards towards the west, we reach the oblong flat plateau that formed the fortress, containing Herod's magnificent palace. Here, carefully collected, are piled up the stones of which the citadel was built. These immense heaps look like a terrible monument of judgment.

We pass on among the ruins. No traces of the royal palace are left, save foundations and enormous stones upturned. Quite at the end of this long fortress in the west, and looking southwards, is a square fort. We return, through what we regard as the ruins of the magnificent castle-palace of Herod, to the highest and strongest part of the defences, the eastern keep or the citadel, on the steep slope 150 yards up. The foundations of the walls all around, to the height of a yard or two above the ground, are still standing. As we clamber over them to examine the interior, we notice how small this keep is: exactly 100 yards in diameter. There are scarcely any remains of it left. A well of great depth, and a deep cemented cistern with the vaulting of the roof still complete, and, of most terrible interest to us, two dungeons, one of them deep down, its sides scarcely broken in, 'with small holes still visible in the masonry where staples of wood and iron had once been fixed'! As we look down into its hot darkness, we shudder in realising that this terrible keep had for nigh ten months been the prison of that son of the free 'wilderness,' the bold herald of the coming Kingdom, the humble, earnest, self-denying John the Baptist. Is this the man whose testimony about the Christ may be treated as a falsehood?

We withdraw our gaze from trying to pierce this gloom and to call up in it the figure of the camel-hair-clad and leather- girt preacher, and look over the ruins at the scene around. We are standing on a height not less than 3,800 feet above the Dead Sea. In a straight line it seems not more than four or five miles; and the road down to it leads, as it were, by a series of ledges and steps. We can see the whole extent of this Sea of Judgment, and its western shores from north to south. We can almost imagine the Baptist, as he stands surveying this noble prospect. Far to the south stretches the rugged wilderness of Judaea, bounded by the hills of Hebron. Here nestles Bethlehem, there is Jerusalem. Or, turning another way, and looking into the deep cleft of the Jordan valley: this oasis of beauty is Jericho; beyond it, like a silver thread, Jordan winds through a burnt, desolate-looking country, till it is lost to view in the haze which lies upon the edge of the horizon. As the eye of the Baptist travelled over it, he could follow all the scenes of His life and labours, from the home of his childhood in the hill-country of Judaea, to those many years of solitude and communing with God in the wilderness, and then to the first place of his preaching and Baptism, and onwards to that where he had last spoken of the Christ, just before his own captivity. And now the deep dungeon in the citadel on the one side, and, on the other, down that slope, the luxurious palace of Herod and his adulterous, murderous wife, while the shouts of wild revelry and drunken merriment rise around! Was this the Kingdom he had come to announce as near at hand; for which he had longed, prayed, toiled, suffered, utterly denied himself and all that made life pleasant, and the rosy morning of which he had hailed with hymns of praise? Where was the Christ? Was He the Christ? What was He doing? Was he eating and drinking all this while with publicans and sinners, when he, the Baptist, was suffering for Him? Was He in His Person and Work so quite different from himself? and why was He so? And did the hot haze and mist gather also over this silver thread in the deep cleft of Israel's barren burnt-up desolateness?

4. In these circumstances we scarcely wonder at the feelings of John's disciples, as months of this weary captivity passed. Uncertain what to expect, they seem to have oscillated between Machaerus and Capernaum. Any hope in their Master's vindication and deliverance lay in the possibilities involved in the announcement he had made of Jesus as the Christ. And it was to Him that their Master's finger had pointed them. Indeed, some of Jesus' earliest and most intimate disciples had come from their ranks; and, as themselves had remarked, the multitude had turned to Jesus even before the Baptist's imprisonment. [a St. John iii. 26.] And yet, could He be the Christ? How many things about Him that were strange and seemed inexplicable! In their view, there must have been a terrible contrast between him who lay in the dungeon of Machaerus, and Him Who sat down to eat and drink at a feast of the publicans.

His reception of publicans and sinners they could understand; their own Master had not rejected them. But why eat and drink with them? Why feasting, and this in a time when fasting and prayer would have seemed specially appropriate? And, indeed, was not fasting always appropriate? And yet this new Messiah had not taught his disciples either to fast or what to pray! The Pharisees, in their anxiety to separate between Jesus and His Forerunner, must have told them all this again and again, and pointed to the contrast.

At any rate, it was at the instigation of the Pharisees, and in company with them, [1 Thus viewed there is no contradiction, not even real variation, between St. Matt. ix. 14, St. Mark ii. 18, and St. Luke v. 33.] that the disciples of John propounded to Jesus this question about fasting and prayer, immediately after the feast in the house of the converted Levi-Matthew. [a St. Matt. ix. 14-17 and parallels.] We must bear in mind that fasting and prayer, or else fasting and alms, or all the three, were always combined. Fasting represented the negative, prayer and alms the positive element, in the forgiveness of sins. Fasting, as self-punishment and mortification, would avert the anger of God and calamities. Most extraordinary instances of the purposes in view in fasting, and of the results obtained are told in Jewish legend, which (as will be remembered) went so far as to relate how a Jewish saint was thereby rendered proof against the fire of Gehenna, of which a realistic demonstration was given when his body was rendered proof against ordinary fire. [b B. Mez. 85 a, 2 towards the end.]

Even apart from such extravagances, Rabbinism gave an altogether external aspect to fasting. In this it only developed to its utmost consequences a theology against which the Prophets of old had already protested. Perhaps, however, the Jews are not solitary in their misconception and perversion of fasting. In their view, it was the readiest means of turning aside any threatening calamity, such as drought, pestilence, or national danger. This, ex opere operato: because fasting was self-punishment and mortification, not because a fast meant mourning (for sin, not for its punishment), and hence indicated humiliation, acknowledgment of sin, and reprentance. The second and fifth days of the week (Monday and Thursday) [3 Thus a three day's fast would be on the second, fifth, and again on the second day of the week.] were those appointed for public fasts, because Moses was supposed to have gone up the Mount for the second Tables of the Law on a Thursday, and to have returned on a Monday. The self-introspection of Pharisaism led many to fast on these two days all the year round, [c Taan. 12a; St. Luke xviii. 12.] just as in Temple-times not a few would offer daily trespass-offering for sins of which they were ignorant. Then there were such painful minutiae of externalism, as those which ruled how, on a less strict fast, a person might wash and anoint; while on the strictest fast, it was prohibited even to salute one another. [a Taan i. 4- 7.] [1 Comp. 'The Temple, its Ministry and Services,' pp. 296-298.]

It may well have been, that it was on one of thoses weekly fasts that the feast of Levi-Matthew had taken place, and that this explains the expression: 'And John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. [b St. Mark ii. 18.] [2 This is the real import of the original.] This would give point to their complaint,' 'Thy disciples fast not.' Looking back upon the standpoint from which they viewed fasting, it is easy to perceive why Jesus could not have sanctioned, not even tolerated, the practice among His disciples, as little as St. Paul could tolerate among Judaising christians the, in itself indifferent, practice of circumcision. But it was not so easy to explain this at the time of the disciples of John. For, to understand it, implied already entire transformation from the old to the new spirit. Still more difficult must it have been to do it in in such manner, as at the same time to lay down principles that would rule all similiar questions to all ages. But our Lord did both, and even thus proved His Divine Mission.

The last recorded testimony of the Baptist had pointed to Christ as the 'Bridegroom.' [c St. John iii. 29.] As explained in a previous chapter, John applied this in a manner which appealed to popular custom. As he had pointed out, the Presence of Jesus marked the marriage-week. By universal consent and according to Rabbinic law, this was to be a time of unmixed festivity. [d Ber. 6 b.] Even in the Day of Atonement a bride was allowed to relax one of the ordinances of that strictest fast. [e Yoma viii. 1.] During the marriage-week all mourning was to be suspended even the obligation of the prescribed daily prayers ceased. It was regarded as a religious duty to gladden the bride and bridegroom. Was it not, then, inconsitent on the part of John's disciples to expect 'the sons of the bride-chamber' to fast, so long as the Bridegroom was with them?

This appeal of Christ is still further illustrated by the Talmudic ordinance [f Jer. Sukk. 53 a, near the middle.] which absolved 'the friends of the bridegroom,' and all 'the sons of the bride-chamber,' even from the duty of dwelling in booths (at the Feast of Tabernacles). The expression, 'sons of the bride-chamber' ( ), which means all invited guests, has the more significance, when we remember that the Covenant-union between God and Israel was not only compared to a marriage, but the Tabernacle and Temple designated as 'the bridal chambers.' [a Jer. Megill. 72 d 1.] [1 'And all bride-chambers were only within the portions of Benjamin' (the Tabernacle and the Temple). Hence Benjamin was called 'the host of the Lord.'] And, as the institution of 'friends of the bridegroom' prevailed in Judaea, but not in Galilee, this marked distinction of the 'friends of the bridegroom,' [2 Strangely, the two designations are treated as identical in most Commentaries.] in the mouth of the Judaean John and'sons of the bride-chamber' in that of the galilean Jesus, is itself evidential of historic accuracy, as well as of the Judaean authorship of the Fourth Gospel.

But let it not be thought that it was to be a time of unbroken joy to the disciples of Jesus. Nay, the ideas of the disciples of John concerning the Messianic Kingdom, as one of resistless outward victory and assertion of power, were altogether wrong. The Bridegroom would be violently taken from them, and then would be the time for mourning and fasting. Not that this necessarily implies literal fasting, any more than it excludes it, provided the great principles, more fully indicated immediately afterwards, are contrary to the spirit of the joyous liberty of the children of God. It is only a sense of sin, and the felt absence of the Christ, which should lead to mourning and fasting, though not in order thereby to avert either the anger of God or outward calamity. Besides the evidential force of this highly spiritual, and thoroughly un-Jewish view of fasting, we notice some other points in confirmation of his, and of the Gospel-history generally. On the hypothesis of a Jewish invention of the Gospel-history, or of its Jewish embellishment, the introduction of this narrative would be incomprehensible. Again, on the theory of a fundamental difference in the Apostalic teaching, St. Matthew and St. Mark representing the original judaic, St. Luke the freer Pauline development, the existence of this narrative in the first two Gospels would seem unaccountable. Or, to take another view, on the hypothesis of the much later and non- Judaean (Ephesian) authorship of the Fourth Gospel, the minute archaeological touches, and the general fitting of the words of the Baptist [b St. John iii. 29.] into the present narrative would be inexplicable. Lastly, as against all deniers and detractors of the Divine Mission of Jesus, this early anticipation of His violent removal by death, and of the consequent mourning of the Church,proves that it came not to him from without, as by the accident of events, but that from the beginning He anticipated the end, and pursued it of set, steadfast purpose.