THE CROSS AND THE CROWN

THE THIRD DAY IN PASSION-WEEK, THE LAST CONTROVERSIES AND DISCOURSES, THE SADDUCEES AND THE RESURRECTION, THE SCRIBE AND THE GREAT COMMANDMENT, QUESTION TO THE PHARISEES ABOUT DAVID'S SON AND LORD, FINAL WARNING TO THE PEOPLE: THE EIGHT 'WOES', FAREWELL.

CHAPTER IV.

(St. Matt. xxii. 23-33; St. Mark xii. 18-27; St. Luke xx. 27-39; St. Matt. xxii. 34-40; St. Mark xii. 28-34; St. Matt. xxii. 41-46; St. Mark xii. 35-40; St. Luke xx. 40-47; St. Matt. xxiii.)

THE last day in the Temple was not to pass without other 'temptations' than that of the Priests when they questioned His authority, or of the Pharisees when they cunningly sought to entangle Him in His speech. Indeed, Christ had on this occasion taken a different position; He had claimed supreme authority, and thus challenged the leaders of Israel. For this reason, and because at the last we expect assaults from all His enemies, we are prepared for the controversies of that day.

We remember that, during the whole previous history, Christ had only on one occasion come into public conflict with the Sadducees, when, characteristically, they had asked of Him 'a sign from heaven.' [a St. Matt. xvi. 1.] Their Rationalism would lead them to treat the whole movement as beneath serious notice, the outcome of ignorant fanaticism. Nevertheless, when Jesus assumed such a position in the Temple, and was evidently to such extent swaying the people, it behoved them, if only to guard their position, no longer to stand by. Possibly, the discomfiture and powerlessness of the Pharisees may also have had their influence. At any rate, the impression left is, that those of them who now went to Christ were delegates, and that the question which they put had been well planned. [1 There seems some reference to this question put to Christ in what we regard as covert references to Christianity in that mysterious passage in the Talmud (Yoma 66 b) previously referred to (see pp. 193, 194). Comp. the interesting dissertation of Tottermann on R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanos (pp. 16-18).]

Their object was certainly not serious argument, but to use the much more dangerous weapon of ridicule. Persecution the populace might have resented; for open opposition all would have been prepared; but to come with icy politeness and philosophic calm, and by a well-turned question to reduce the renowned Galilean Teacher to silence, and show the absurdity of His teaching, would have been to inflict on His cause the most damaging blow. To this day such appeals to rough and ready common-sense are the main stock-in-trade of that coarse infidelity, which, ignoring alike the demands of higher thinking and the facts of history, appeal, so often, alas! effectually, to the untrained intellect of the multitude, and, shall we not say it?, to the coarse and lower in us all. Besides, had the Sadducees succeeded, they would at the same time have gained a signal triumph for their tenets, and defeated, together with the Galilean Teacher, their own Pharisaic opponents. The subject of attack was to be the Resurrection [1 In regard to the denial of the Resurrection by the Sadducees, and to their views generally, we refer to the sketch of the three sects in Book III. ch. ii.], the same which is still the favourite topic for the appeals of the coarser forms of infidelity to 'the common sense' of the masses. Making allowance for difference of circumstances, we might almost imagine we were listening to one of our modern orators of materialism. And in those days the defence of belief in the Resurrection laboured under twofold difficulty. It was as yet a matter of hope, not of faith: something to look forward to, not to look back upon. The isolated events recorded in the Old Testament, and the miracles of Christ, granting that they were admitted, were rather instances of resuscitation than of Resurrection. The grand fact of history, than which none is better attested, the Resurrection of Christ, had not yet taken place, and was not even clearly in view of any one. Besides, the utterances of the Old Testament on the subject of the 'hereafter' were, as became alike that stage of revelation and the understanding of those to whom it was addressed, far from clear. In the light of the New Testament it stands out in the sharpest proportions, although as an Alpine height afar off; but then that Light had not yet risen upon it.

Besides, the Sadducees would allow no appeal to the highly poetic language of the Prophets, to whom, at any rate, they attached less authority, but demanded proof from that clear and precise letter of the Law, every tittle and iota of which the Pharisees exploited for their doctrinal inferences, and from which alone they derived them. Here, also, it was the Nemesis of Pharisaism, that the postulates of their system laid it open to attack. In vain would the Pharisees appeal to Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, or the Psalms. [1 Hamburger (Real Encykl. vol. i. p. 125) has given the Rabbinic argumentation, and Wunsche (ad St. Matt. xxii. 23) has reproduced it, unfortunately, with the not unnatural exaggerations of Hamburger.] To such an argument as from the words, 'this people will rise up,' [a Deut. xxxi. 16.] the Sadducees would rightly reply, that the context forbade the application to the Resurrection; to the quotation of Isaiah xxvi. 19, they would answer that that promise must be understood spiritually, like the vision of the dry bones in Ezekiel; while such a reference as to this, 'causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak,' [b Cant. vii. 9.] would scarcely require serious refutation. [c See Sanh. 90 b, about the middle.] Of similar character would be the argument from the use of a special word, such as 'return' in Gen. iii. 19, [d Ber. R. 20.] or that from the twofold mention of the word 'cut off' in the original of Num. xv. 31, as implying punishment in the present and in the future dispensation. [e Sanh, 90 b lines 9 &c. from bottom.] Scarcely more convincing would be the appeal to such passages as Deut. xxxii. 39: 'I kill and make alive, [f Sanh. 91 b.] or the statement that, whenever a promise occurs in the form which in Hebrew represents the future tense, [2 It is well known that the Hebrew has no future tense in the strict sense.] it indicates a reference to the Resurrection. Perhaps more satisfactory, although not convincing to a Sadducee, whose special contention it was to insist on proof from the Law, [g Sanh, 90 b lines 10 and 9 from bottom.] might be an appeal to such passages as Dan. xii. 2, 13, [h Sanh. 92 a.] or to the restoration of life by certain of the prophets, with the superadded canon, that God had in part prefiguratively wrought by His prophets whatever He would fully restore in the future.

If Pharisaic argumentation had failed to convince the Sadducees on Biblical grounds, it would be difficult to imagine that, even in the then state of scientific knowledge, any enquiring person could have really believed that there was a small bone in the spine which was indestructible, and from which the new man would spring; [3 Hence called the os sacrum (see again in the sequel).] or that there existed even now a species of mice, or else of snails, which gradually and visibly developed out of the earth. [i Sanh. 90 b.] Many clever sayings of the Pharisees are, indeed, here recorded in their controversies, as on most subjects, and by which a Jewish opponent might have been silenced. But here, especially, must it have been felt that a reply was not 'always an answer, and that the silencing of an opponent was not identical with proof of one's own assertion. And the additions with which the Pharisees had encumbered the doctrine of the Resurrection would not only surround it with fresh difficulties, but deprive the simple fact of its grand majesty. Thus, it was a point in discussion, whether a person would rise in his clothes, which one Rabbi tried to establish by a reference to the grain of wheat, which was buried 'naked,' but rose clothed. [a Sanh. 90 b.] Indeed, some Rabbis held, that a man would rise in exactly the same clothes in which he had been buried, while others denied this. [b Jer. Keth. 35 a.] On the other hand, it was beautifully argued that body and soul must be finally judged together, so that, in their contention to which of them the sins of man had been due, justice might be meted out to each, or rather to the two in their combination, as in their combination they had sinned. [1 This was illustrated by a very apt Parable, see Sanh. 91 a and b.] Again, it was inferred from the apparition of Samuel [c 1 Sam. xxviii. 14.] that the risen would look exactly as in life, have even the same bodily defects, such as lameness, blindness, or deafness. It is argued, that they were only afterwards to be healed, lest enemies might say that God had not healed them when they were alive, but that He did so when they were dead, and that they were perhaps not the same persons. [d Ber. R. 95, beginning.] In some respects even more strange was the contention that, in order to secure that all the pious of Israel should rise on the sacred soil of Palestine, [e Is. xlii. 5.] there were cavities underground in which the body would roll till it reached the Holy Land, there to rise to newness of life. [f Ber. R. 96 towards the close.]

But all the more, that it was so keenly controverted by heathens, Sadducees, and heretics, as appears from many reports in the Talmud, and that it was so encumbered with realistic legends, should we admire the tenacity with which the Pharisees clung to this doctrine. The hope of the Resurrection-world appears in almost every religious utterance of Israel. It is the spring-bud on the tree, stript by the long winter of disappointment and persecution. This hope pours its morning carol into the prayer which every Jew is bound to say on awakening; [g Ber. 60 b.] it sheds its warm breath over the oldest of the daily prayers which date from before the time of our Lord; [2 It forms the second of the eighteen Eulogies.] in the formula 'from age to age,' 'world without end,' it forms, so to speak, the rearguard to every prayer, defending it from Sadducean assault; [3 It is expressly stated in Ber. ix. 5, that the formula was introduced for that purpose.] it is one of the few dogmas denial of which involves, according to the Mishnah, the loss of eternal life, the Talmud explaining, almost in the words of Christ, that in the retribution of God this is only 'measure according to measure;' [h Sanh. 90 a line 4 from bottom.] nay, it is venerable even in its exaggeration, that only our ignorance fails to perceive it in every section of the Bible, and to hear it in every commandment of the Law.

But in the view of Christ the Resurrection would necessarily occupy a place different from all this. It was the innermost shrine in the Sanctuary of His Mission, towards which He steadily tended; it was also, at the same time, the living corner-stone of that Church which he had builded, and its spire, which, as with uplifted finger, ever pointed all men heavenwards. But of such thoughts connected with His Resurrection Jesus could not have spoken to the Sadducees; they would have been unintelligible at that time even to His own disciples. He met the cavil of the Sadducees majestically, seriously, and solemnly, with words most lofty and spiritual, yet such as they could understand, and which, if they had received them, would have led them onwards and upwards far beyond the standpoint of the Pharisees. A lesson this to us in our controversies.

The story under which the Sadducees conveyed their sneer was also intended covertly to strike at their Pharisaic opponents. The ancient ordinance of marrying a brother's childless widow [a Deut. xxv. 5 &c.] [1 The Talmud has it that the woman must have no child at all, not merely no son.] had more and more fallen into discredit, as its original motive ceased to have influence. A large array of limitations narrowed the number of those on whom this obligation now devolved. Then the Mishnah laid it down that, in ancient times, when the ordinance of such marriage was obeyed in the spirit of the Law, its obligation took precedence of the permission of dispensation, but that afterwards this relationship became reversed. [b Bekhor. i. 7.] Later authorities went further. Some declared every such union, if for beauty, wealth, or any other than religious motives, as incestuous, [c Yebam. 39 b.] while one Rabbi absolutely prohibited it, although opinions continued divided on the subject. But what here most interests us is, that what are called in the Talmud the 'Samaritans,' but, as we judge, the Sadducees, held the opinion that the command to marry a brother's widow only applied to a betrothed wife, not to one that had actually been wedded. [d Jer. Yebam. i.6. This seems also to have been the view of the School of Shammai.] This gives point to the controversial question, as addressed to Jesus.

A case such as they told, of a woman who had successively been married to seven brothers, might, according to Jewish Law, have really happened. [2 Jer. Yebam. 6 b, relates what I regard as a legendary story of a man who was thus induced to wed the twelve widows of his twelve brothers, each widow promising to pay for the expenses of one month, and the directing Rabbi for those of the 13th (intercalatory) month. But to his horror, after three years the women returned, laden with thirty-six children, to claim the fulfilment of the Rabbi's promise! On the other hand it was, however, also laid down that, if a woman had lost two husbands, she should not marry a third, according to others, if she had married three, not a fourth, as there might be some fate ( ) connected with her (Yeb. 64 b). On the question of the Levirate, from the modern Jewish standpoint, see an interesting article by Gutmann in Geiger's Wiss. Zeitschr. f. Jud. Theol. vol. iv. (1839), pp. 61-87.] Their sneering question now was, whose wife she was to be in the Resurrection. This, of course, on the assumption of the grossly materialistic views of the Pharisees. In this the Sadducean cavil was, in a sense, anticipating certain objections of modern materialism. It proceeded on the assumption that the relations of time would apply to eternity, and the conditions of the things seen hold true in regard to those that are unseen. But perchance it is otherwise; and the future may reveal what in the present we do not see. The reasoning as such may be faultless; but, perchance, something in the future may have to be inserted in the major or the minor, which will make the conclusion quite other! All such cavils we would meet with the twofold appeal of Christ to the Word [1 The reproach 'Ye err, not knowing the Scriptures,' occurs in almost the same form in the discussions on the Resurrection between the Pharisees and the Sadducees which are recorded in the Talmud.] and to the Power of God, how God has manifested, and how He will manifest Himself, the one flowing from the other. In His argument against the Sadducees Christ first appealed to the power of God. [a St. Matt. xxii. 29, 30, and parallels.] What God would work was quite other than they imagined: not a mere re- awakening, but a transformation. The world to come was not to be a reproduction of that which had passed away, else why should it have passed away, but a regeneration and renovation; and the body with which we were to be clothed would be like that which Angels bear. What, therefore, in our present relations is of the earth, and of our present body of sin and corruption, will cease; what is eternal in them will continue. But the power of God will transform all, the present terrestrial into the future heavenly, the body of humiliation into one of exaltation. This will be the perfecting of all things by that Almighty Power by which He shall subdue all things to Himself in the Day of His Power, when death shall be swallowed up in victory. And herein also consists the dignity of man, in virtue of the Redemption introduced, and, so to speak, begun at his Fall, that man is capable of such renovation and perfection, and herein, also, is 'the power of God,' that He hath quickened us together with Christ, so that here already the Church receives in Baptism into Christ the germ of the Resurrection, which is afterwards to be nourished and fed by faith, through the believer's participation in the Sacrament of fellowship with His body and Blood. [2 Through the Resurrection of Christ resurrection has become the gift of universal humanity. But, beyond this general gift to humanity, we believe that we receive in Baptism, as becoming connected with Christ, the inner germ of the glorious Resurrection-body. Its nourishment (or otherwise) depends on our personal relationship to Christ by faith, and is carried on through the Sacrament of His Body and Blood.] Nor ought questions here to rise, like dark clouds, such as of the perpetuity of those relations which on earth are not only so precious to us, but so holy. Assuredly, they will endure, as all that is of God and good; only what in them is earthly will cease, or rather be transformed with the body. Nay, and we shall also recognise each other, not only by the fellowship of the soul; but as, even now, the mind impresses its stamp on the features, so then, when all shall be quite true, shall the soul, so to speak, body itself forth, fully impress itself on the outward appearance, and for the first time shall we then fully recognise those whom we shall now fully know, with all of earth that was in them left behind, and all of God and good fully developed and ripened into perfectness of beauty.

But it was not enough to brush aside the flimsy cavil, which had only meaning on the supposition of grossly materialistic views of the Resurrection. Our Lord would not merely reply, He would answer the Sadducees; and more grand or noble evidence of the Resurrection has never been offered than that which He gave. Of course as speaking to the Sadducees, He remained on the ground of the Pentateuch; and yet it was not only to the Law but to the whole Bible that He appealed, nay, to that which underlay Revelation itself: the relation between God and man. Not this nor that isolated passage only proved the Resurrection: He Who, not only historically but in the fullest sense, calls Himself the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, cannot leave them dead. Revelation implies, not merely a fact of the past, as is the notion which traditionalism attaches to it, a dead letter; it means a living relationship. 'He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live unto Him.'

The Sadducees were silenced, the multitude was astonished, and even from some of the Scribes the admission was involuntarily wrung: 'Teacher, Thou hast beautifully said.' One point, however, still claims our attention. It is curious that, as regards both these arguments of Christ, Rabbinism offers statements closely similar. Thus, it is recorded as one of the frequent sayings of a later Rabbi, that in the world to come there would be neither eating nor drinking, fruitfulness nor increase, business nor envy, hatred nor strife, but that the just would sit with crowns on their heads, and feast on the splendor of the Shekhinah. [a Ber. 17 a, towards the end.] This reads like a Rabbinic adaptation of the saying of Christ. As regards the other point, the Talmud reports a discussion on the Resurrection between 'Sadducees,' or perhaps Jewish heretics (Jewish-Christian heretics), in which Rabbi Gamaliel II. at last silences his opponents by an appeal to the promise [a Deut. xi. 9.] 'that ye may prolong your days in the land which the Lord sware unto your father to give unto them', 'unto them,' emphasises the Rabbi, not 'unto you.' [1 The similar reference to Exod. vi. 4 by a later Rabbi seems but an adaptation of the argument of Gamaliel II. (See both in Sanh. 90 b.)] Although this almost entirely misses the spiritual meaning conveyed in the reasoning of Christ, it is impossible to mistake its Christian origin. Gamaliel II. lived after Christ, but at a period when there was lively intercourse between Jews and Jewish Christians; while, lastly, we have abundant evidence that the Rabbi was acquainted with the sayings of Christ, and took part in the controversy with the Church. [2 We also recall that Gamaliel II. wasthe brother-in-law of that Eliezer b. Hyrcanos, who was rightly suspected of leanings towards Christinaity (see pp. 193, 194). This might open up a most interesting field of inquiry.] On the other hand, Christians in his day, unless heretical sects, neither denied that Resurrection, nor would they have so argued with the Jewish Patriarch; while the Sadducees no longer existed as a party engaging in active controversy. But we can easily perceive, that intercourse would be more likely between Jews and such heretical Jewish Christians as might maintain that the Resurrection was past, and only spiritual. The point is deeply interesting. It opens such further questions as these: In the constant intercourse between Jewish Christians and Jews, what did the latter learn? and may there not be much in the Talmud which is only an appropriation and adaptation of what had been derived from the New Testament?

2. The answer of our Lord was not without its further results. As we conceive it, among those who listened to the brief but decisive passage between Jesus and the Sadducees were some 'Scribes', Sopherim, or, as they are also designated, 'lawyers,' 'teachers of the Law,' experts, expounders, practitioners of the Jewish Law. One of them, perhaps he who exclaimed: Beautifully said, Teacher! hastened to the knot of Pharisees, whom it requires no stretch of the imagination to picture gathered in the Temple on that day, and watching, with restless, ever foiled malice, the Saviour's every movement. As 'the Scribe' came up to them, he would relate how Jesus had literally 'gagged' and 'muzzled' [3 (St. Matt. xxii. 34). The word occurs also in St. Matt xxii. 12: St. Mark i. 25; iv. 39; St. Luke iv. 35: 1 Cor. ix. 9; 1 Tim. v. 18; 1 Peter. ii 16.] the Sadducees, just as, according to the will of God, we are 'by well-doing to gag the want or knowledge of senseless men.' There can be little doubt that the report would give rise to mingled feelings, in which that prevailing would be, that, although Jesus might thus have discomfited the Sadducees, He would be unable to cope with other questions, if only properly propounded by Pharisaic learning. And so we can understand how one of the number, perhaps the same Scribe, would volunteer to undertake the office; [a Comp. the two accounts in St. Matthew xxii. 34-40 and in St. Mark xii. 28-34.] and how his question was, as St. Matthew reports, in a sense really intended to 'tempt' Jesus.

We dismiss here the well-known Rabbinic distinctions of 'heavy' and 'light' commandments, because Rabbinism declared the 'light' to be as binding as 'the heavy,' [b Ab. ii. 1; iv. 2.] those of the Scribes more'heavy' (or binding) than those of Scripture, [c Sanh. xi. 3.] and that one commandment was not to be considered to carry greater reward, and to be therefore more carefully observed, than another. [d Deb. R. 6.] That such thoughts were not in the mind of the questioner, but rather the grand general problem, however, himself might have answered it, appears even from the form of his inquiry: 'Which [qualis] is the great, 'the first' [e St. Mark xii. 28.], commandment in the Law?' So challenged, the Lord could have no hesitation in replying. Not to silence him, but to speak the absolute truth, He quoted the well- remembered words which every Jew was bound to repeat in his devotions, and which were ever to be on his lips, living or dying, as the inmost expression of his faith: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.' And then continuing, He repeated the command concerning love to God which is the outcome of that profession. But to have stopped here would have been to propound a theoretic abstraction without concrete reality, a mere Pharisaic worship of the letter. As God is love, His Nature so manifesting itself, so is love to God also love [1 Meyer rightly remarks on the use of here, implying moral high estimation and corresponding conduct, and not, which refers to love as an affection. The latter could not have been commanded, although such of the world is forbidden (St. James iv. 4) while the of one's own (St. John xii. 25) and the (1 Cor. xvi. 22) are stigmatised.] to man. And so this second is 'like' 'the first and great commandment.' It was a full answer to the Scribe when He said: 'There is none other commandment greater than these.'

But it was more than an answer, even deepest teaching, when, as St. Matthew reports, He added: 'on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.' [f St. Matt. xxii 4.] It little matters for our present purpose how the Jews at the time understood and interpreted these two commandments. [2 The Jewish view of these commands has been previously explained.] They would know what it meant that the Law and the Prophets 'hung' on them, for it was a Jewish expression. He taught them, not that any one commandment was greater or smaller, heavier or lighter, than another, might be set aside or neglected, but that all sprang from these two as their root and principle, and stood in living connection with them. It was teaching similar to that concerning the Resurrection; that, as concerning the promises, so concering the commandments, all Revelation was one connected whole; not disjointed ordinances of which the letter was to be weighed, but a life springing from love to God and love to man. So noble was the answer, that for the moment the generous enthusiasm of the Scribe, who had previously been favorably impressed by Christ's answer to the Sadducees, was kindled. For the moment, at least, traditionalism lost its sway; and, as Christ pointed to it, he saw the exceeding moral beauty of the Law. He was not far from the Kingdom of God. [a St. Mark xii. 33, 34.] Whether or not he ever actually entered it, is written on the yet unread page of its history.

3. The Scribe had originally come to put his question with mixed motives, partially inclined towards Him from His answer to the Sadducees, and yet intending to subject Him to the Rabbinic test. The effect now wrought in him, and the silence which from that moment fell on all His would-be questioners, induced Christ to follow up the impression that had been made. Without addressing any one in particular, He set before them all, what perhaps was the most familiar subject in their theology, that of the descent of Messiah. Whose Son was He? And when they replied: 'The Son of David,' [1 This also shows that the later dogma of Messiah the Son of Joseph had not yet been invented.] He referred them to the opening words of Psalm cx., in which David called the Messiah 'Lord.' The argument proceeded, of course, on the two-fold supposition that the Psalm was Davidic and that it was Messianic. Neither of these statements would have been questioned by the ancient Synagogue. But we could not rest satisfied with the explanation that this sufficed for the purpose of Christ's argument, if the foundation on which it rested could be seriously called in question. Such, however, is not the case. To apply Psalm cx., verse by verse and consistently, to any one of the Maccabees, were to undertake a critical task which only a series of unnatural explanations of the language could render possible. Strange, also, that such an interpretation of what at the time of Christ would have been a comparatively young composition, should have been wholly unknown alike to Sadducee and Pharisee. For our own part, we are content to rest the Messianic interpretation on the obvious and natural meaning of the words taken in connection with the general teaching of the Old Testament about the Messiah, on the undoubted interpretation of the ancient Jewish Synagogue, [2 Comp. Appendix IX.] on the authority of Christ, andon the testimony of History.

Compared with this, the other question as to the authorship of the Psalm is of secondary importance. The character of infinite, nay, Divine, superiority to any earthly Ruler, and of course to David, which the Psalm sets forth in regard to the Messiah, would sufficiently support the argument of Christ. But, besides, what does it matter, whether the Psalm was composed by David, or only put into the mouth of David (David's or Davidic), which, on the supposition of Messianic application, is the only rational alternative?

But we should greatly err if we thought that, in calling the attention of His hearers to this apparent contradiction about the Christ, the Lord only intended to show the utter incompetence of the Pharisees to teach the higher truths of the Old Testament. Such, indeed, was the case, and they felt it in His Presence. [a St. Matt. xxii. 46.] But far beyond this, as in the proof which He gave for the Ressurection, and in the view which He presented of the great commandment, the Lord would point to the grand harmonious unity of Revelation. Viewed separately, the two statements, that Messiah was David's Son, and that David owned Him Lord, would seem incompatible. But in their combination in the Person of the Christ, how harmonious and how full of teaching, to Israel of old, and to all men, concerning the nature of Christ's Kingdom and of His Work!