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04 - Jesus of History by Terrot R. Glover · Jesus of History

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Speaker 1: Chapter three of The Jesus of History by t our Glover.
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Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter three,
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Speaker 1: The Man and his Mind. It is a commonplace with
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Speaker 1: those who take literature seriously, that what is to reach
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Speaker 1: the heart must come from the heart, And the maxim
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Speaker 1: may be applied conversely, that what has reached a heart
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Speaker 1: has come from a heart. That what continues to reach
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Speaker 1: the heart among strange peoples in distant lands after long ages,
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Speaker 1: has come from a heart of no common make. The
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Speaker 1: Anglo Saxon boy is at home in the Odyssey, And
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Speaker 1: when he is a man, if he has the luck
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Speaker 1: to be guided into classical paths, he finds himself in
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Speaker 1: the Enid. And from this certain things are deduced about
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Speaker 1: the makers of those poems, that they knew life, looked
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Speaker 1: on it with bright keen eyes, loved it, and lived
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Speaker 1: it over again as they shaped it into verse. When
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Speaker 1: we turned to the first three Gospels, we find the
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Speaker 1: same thing here. Our books, with a more world wide
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Speaker 1: range than Homer or Virgil, translated again and again from
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Speaker 1: the first century of their existence on to the latest,
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Speaker 1: and then more than ever, into all sorts of tongues
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Speaker 1: to reach men all over the globe, and that purpose
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Speaker 1: they have achieved. They have done it not so much
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Speaker 1: for the literary graces of the translations, or even of
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Speaker 1: the original authors, though in one case these are more
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Speaker 1: considerate than is sometimes allowed. That the Gospels owe their
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Speaker 1: appeal to the recorded saying and doings of our Lord
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Speaker 1: is our natural way of putting it today. But if
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Speaker 1: for our Lord we put a plainer description, more congenial
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Speaker 1: to the day in which the Gospels were written, we
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Speaker 1: shall be in a better position to realize the significance
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Speaker 1: of the world wide appeal of his words. Thus, and
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Speaker 1: thus then spoke a mere provincial, a Jew, who, though
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Speaker 1: far less conspicuous and interesting, came from the region of
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Speaker 1: Meliaga and Philodemus, not from their town of Gadara, nor
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Speaker 1: possibly from their district, but from some place not so
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Speaker 1: very far away. It was not to be expected that
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Speaker 1: he should win the hearts of men as he did.
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Speaker 1: He had not the Greek culture of the two gaderins.
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Speaker 1: Celsus even found his style of speech rather vulgar. But
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Speaker 1: he has, as a matter of common knowledge, so common
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Speaker 1: is hardly to be noted, won the hearts of men
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Speaker 1: in every race, and every land. The fact is familiar,
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Speaker 1: but we have, as historians and critics to look for
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Speaker 1: the explanation. What has been his appeal, and what the
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Speaker 1: heart and nature from which came this incredible power and
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Speaker 1: reach of appeal? Out of the abundance the overflow of
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Speaker 1: the heart, the mouth speaketh. He said this he amplified,
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Speaker 1: as we have seen by his insistent on the weight
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Speaker 1: of every idle word, the unstudied and spontaneous expression or ejaculation,
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Speaker 1: the reflex in modern phrase, which gives the real clue
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Speaker 1: to the man's inner nature and deeper mind, which justifies
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Speaker 1: him therefore or condemns him. The overflow of the heart
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Speaker 1: he holds, shows more decisively than anything else, the quality
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Speaker 1: of the spring in its depths. Here is this suggestion,
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Speaker 1: which we find true in ordinary life as well as
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Speaker 1: in the study of literature. If we turn it back
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Speaker 1: upon its author, he at least will not complain, and
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Speaker 1: we shall perhaps gain a new sense of his significance
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Speaker 1: by approaching him at a new angle, from an outlook
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Speaker 1: not perhaps much frequented. How did he come to speak
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Speaker 1: in this manner, to say this and that to what
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Speaker 1: feeling or thought, to what attitude? To life? Is this
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Speaker 1: or the other saying due if he too spoke out
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Speaker 1: of the overflow of his heart, And we can believe
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Speaker 1: it when we think of the freshness and spontaneity with
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Speaker 1: which he spoke, Of what nature and of what depth
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Speaker 1: was that heart, we can very well believe that much
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Speaker 1: in his speech that was unforgettable to others he forgot himself.
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Speaker 1: They remembered, they could not help remembering what he said,
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Speaker 1: but he no, He said it and moved on, keeping
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Speaker 1: no register of his sayings. And so much the more
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Speaker 1: natural and characteristic they are. Nor would he, like smaller people,
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Speaker 1: be very careful of the form and turn of his speech.
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Speaker 1: It was never set. Certainly, he gave his followers the
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Speaker 1: rule not to study their language, whether or no he
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Speaker 1: had consciously thought it all out. We can see the
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Speaker 1: value of his rule and how it fits in with
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Speaker 1: his way of life and safeguards it. Under such rule,
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Speaker 1: speech will not be stereotyped. No set form of words
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Speaker 1: will impose itself on the free movement of thought. The
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Speaker 1: mind can and will move of itself unhampered. And when
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Speaker 1: the mind keeps and develop such freedom of movement, it
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Speaker 1: commonly breaks new ground and handles new things. Not to
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Speaker 1: be careful of our speech means for most of us
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Speaker 1: slovenly thinking. But when a man thinks in earnest and
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Speaker 1: takes truth seriously, when he speaks with his eye on
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Speaker 1: his object, his language will not be slovenly. His instinct
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Speaker 1: for fact will keep his speech pure and true. This
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Speaker 1: is what we find in the sayings of Jesus. There
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Speaker 1: is form, but living form, the freedom and grace which
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Speaker 1: the clear mind and the friendly eye communicate insensibly, add
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Speaker 1: iniritably to language owur a task in this chapter is
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Speaker 1: primarily a historical one. From the words of Jesus, we
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Speaker 1: have to work back to the type of mind from
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Speaker 1: which they come. There is always danger in such a task.
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Speaker 1: We may forget the wide and living variety of the
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Speaker 1: mind we study. Our own minds may not be large enough,
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Speaker 1: nor tender enough, not various, quick and sympathetic in such
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Speaker 1: a degree as to apprehend what we find, to see
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Speaker 1: what it means, and to relate it to itself, detail
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Speaker 1: to whole. How much greater the danger here. While we analyze,
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Speaker 1: we have to remember that the most correct analysis of
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Speaker 1: features or characteristics may easily fail to give a true
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Speaker 1: idea of the face or the character which we analyze.
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Speaker 1: The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
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Speaker 1: The face and the character have an integrity, a wholeness.
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Speaker 1: The detail may be of immense value to us studied
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Speaker 1: as detail, but for the true view, the detail, familiar
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Speaker 1: as it may be to us and dear to us,
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Speaker 1: must be sunk in the general view. Especially is this
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Speaker 1: true of great characters. The reconstruction of a personality, to
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Speaker 1: borrow a phrase from some psychologists, is a very difficult matter.
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Speaker 1: Even when we are masters of our detail. There is
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Speaker 1: a proportion, a perspective, a balance, a poise about a character.
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Speaker 1: My terms may involve some mixture of metaphors. But if
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Speaker 1: the mixture brings out the complexity and difficulty of our task,
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Speaker 1: it will be justified. Above all, there is life, and
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Speaker 1: as a life deepens and widens, it grows complex, unintelligible,
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Speaker 1: and wonderful. It is more so than ever in the
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Speaker 1: case of Jesus. Yet we have to grapple with this
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Speaker 1: great task if we are to know him, even if
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Speaker 1: here as elsewhere. We realize quickly that the beginning of
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Speaker 1: real knowledge is when we grasp how much we do
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Speaker 1: not know, how much there is to know attempted in
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Speaker 1: this spirit. A study of the mind of Jesus and
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Speaker 1: his characteristics should help us forward to some further intimacy
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Speaker 1: with him. The Gospels do not, like some biographies ancient
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Speaker 1: and modern, give a place to the physical characteristics of Jesus. Suetonius,
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Speaker 1: in a very short sketch, adds the personal aspect of
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Speaker 1: the poet Horace, who it is true, had led the
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Speaker 1: way by such allusions, and tells us how Augustus said
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Speaker 1: he was a squat little pot sicilisova. The acts of Theckler,
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Speaker 1: in a similar way described Saint Paul's short figure with
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Speaker 1: its suggestion of quickness. But the only personal trait of
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Speaker 1: this sort that I recall in the New Testament are
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Speaker 1: the eyes of Jesus and Paul's way of stretching out
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Speaker 1: a hand when he spoke. The view of this reticence,
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Speaker 1: it is rather remarkable how often the Gospels refer to
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Speaker 1: Jesus looking. He looked round upon on the people at
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Speaker 1: the synagogue, and then, with some suggestion of a pause
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Speaker 1: and silence while he looked, he saith unto the man.
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Speaker 1: When Peter deprecated the cross, we find the same when
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Speaker 1: he had turned about and looked on his disciples. He
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Speaker 1: rebuked Peter when the rich young ruler came so impulsively
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Speaker 1: to him to ask about eternal life. Jesus, looking upon him,
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Speaker 1: loved him, and we touched there a certain reminiscence of eyewitnesses.
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Speaker 1: There are other references of the same kind in the narratives.
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Speaker 1: The look seems to have come into the story naturally,
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Speaker 1: without the writer's noticing it. There must have been much
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Speaker 1: else as familiar to his friends and companions. They must
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Speaker 1: have known him as we know our friends. The inflections
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Speaker 1: of his voice, his characteristic movements, the hang of his clothes,
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Speaker 1: his step in the dark, and all such things. Did
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Speaker 1: he speak quickly or slowly, or move his hand when
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Speaker 1: he spoke? The teaching posture of Buddha's hand is stereotyped
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Speaker 1: in his images. We are not told such things about Jesus,
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Speaker 1: and guessing does not take us very far. Yet a
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Speaker 1: stanza in one of the energies written on the death
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Speaker 1: of Sir Philip Sidney may be taken as a far
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Speaker 1: away likeness of a greater and more wonderful figure, and
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Speaker 1: not lead us very far astray. A sweet, attractive kind
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Speaker 1: of grace, the full assurance given by looks perpetual comfort
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Speaker 1: in a face. The lineaments of Gospel books, if we
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Speaker 1: are not explicitly told of such things by the evangelists,
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Speaker 1: they are easily felt. In the story. The paradoxes, as
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Speaker 1: we call them, a rather dull name for them, surely
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Speaker 1: point to a face alive with intellect and gaiety. The
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Speaker 1: way in which, for instance, the leper approaches him implies
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Speaker 1: the man's eyes fixed in close study on Jesus's face,
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Speaker 1: and finding nothing there to check him, and everything to
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Speaker 1: bring him nearer. When Mark tells us that he greeted
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Speaker 1: the Siroh Phoenician woman sally about the little dogs eating
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Speaker 1: the children's crumbs under the table, with the reply, for
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Speaker 1: the sake of this saying of yours, we must assume
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Speaker 1: some change of expression on such a face as that
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Speaker 1: of Jesus. We read again and again of the interest
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Speaker 1: men and women found in his preaching and teaching, How
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Speaker 1: they hung on to him to hear him, how they
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Speaker 1: came in crowds, how on one occasion they drove him
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Speaker 1: into a boat for a poor bit. It is only
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Speaker 1: familiarity that has blinded us to the charm they found
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Speaker 1: in his speech, they marveled at his words of charm,
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Speaker 1: to the gayety and playfulness that light up his lessons.
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Speaker 1: For instance, there is a little noticed phrase that grows
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Speaker 1: very delightful as we study it in his words to
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Speaker 1: the seventy Disciples, into whatsoever house he enter, first, say
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Speaker 1: peace to this house, the common Salam of the east.
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Speaker 1: And if a son of peace be there, your peace
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Speaker 1: shall rest upon it. If not, your Solam will come
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Speaker 1: back to you a son of peace, not the son
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Speaker 1: of peace. What a beautiful expression, What a beautiful idea too,
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Speaker 1: that the unheeded peace comes back and blesses the heart
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Speaker 1: that wished it, as if courteous and kind words never
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Speaker 1: went unrewarded. Think again of Solomon in all his glory,
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Speaker 1: before the phrase is hackneyed by the common question, do
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Speaker 1: not such words reveal nature? A more elaborate and more
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Speaker 1: amusing episode is that of the pharisees drinking operations. We
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Speaker 1: have shown the man polishing his cup elaborately and carefully,
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Speaker 1: for he lays great importance on the cleanness of his cup,
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Speaker 1: but he forgets to clean the inside. Most people drink
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Speaker 1: from the inside, but the Pharisee forgot it dirty as
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Speaker 1: it was and left it untouched. Then he sets about
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Speaker 1: straining what he is going to drink, another elaborate process.
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Speaker 1: He holds a piece of muslin over the cup and
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Speaker 1: pause with care. He pauses, he sees a mosquito. He
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Speaker 1: has caught it in time, and flicks it away. He
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Speaker 1: is safe and he will not swallow it, And then
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Speaker 1: adds Jesus, he swallowed a camel. How many of us
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Speaker 1: have ever pictured the process and the series of sensations
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Speaker 1: as the long, hairy neck slid down the throat of
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Speaker 1: the pharisee, all that amplitude of loose hung anatomy, the hump,
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Speaker 1: two humps, both of them slid down and he never noticed.
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Speaker 1: And the legs, all of them, with the whole outfit
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Speaker 1: of knees and great padded feet. The pharisee swallowed a
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Speaker 1: camel and never noticed it. It is the mixture of
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Speaker 1: sheer realism with absurdity that makes the irony and gives
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Speaker 1: it its force. Did no one smile as the story
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Speaker 1: was told. Did no one see the scene pictured with
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Speaker 1: his own mind's eye. No one grasped the humor and
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Speaker 1: the irony with delight. Could any one, on the other hand,
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Speaker 1: forget it. A modern teacher would have said, in our
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Speaker 1: jargon that the Pharisee had no sense of proportion, and
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Speaker 1: no one would have thought the remark worth remembering. But
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Speaker 1: Jesus' treatment to the subject reveals his own mind in
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Speaker 1: a number of aspects. When he bad turned the other
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Speaker 1: cheek that sentence which Celsus found so vulgar, did no
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Speaker 1: one smile then at the idea of anybody ever dreaming
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Speaker 1: of such an act, Nor at the picture of the
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Speaker 1: kind brother taking a boat from his brother's eye with
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Speaker 1: a whole bulk of timber in his own, Nor at
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Speaker 1: the suggestion of doing two miles of forced labor when
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Speaker 1: only one was demanded. Nor when he suggested that anxiety
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Speaker 1: about food and clothing was a mark of the gentiles.
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Speaker 1: Did none of his disciples mark a touch of irony?
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Speaker 1: When he said that among the gentile dynasties, the kings
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Speaker 1: who exercise authority are called benefactors. It was true, you
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Speaker 1: agtes is a well known kingly title, but the explanation
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Speaker 1: that it was the reward for strenuous use of monarchic
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Speaker 1: authority was new. Are we to think his face gave
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Speaker 1: no sign of what he was doing. Was there no smile.
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Speaker 1: We are told by his biographer that Marcus Aurelius had
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Speaker 1: a face that never changed for joy or sorrow. Being
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Speaker 1: an adherent, he adds of the Stoic philosophy, the pose
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Speaker 1: of superiority to emotion was not uncommonly held in those
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Speaker 1: times to be the mark of a sage. Horace's no admirai.
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Speaker 1: The writers of the Gospels do not conceal that Jesus
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Speaker 1: had feelings and expressed them. We read how he rejoiced
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Speaker 1: in spirit, how he sighed and sighed deeply, how his
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Speaker 1: look showed anger. They tell us of his indignant utterances,
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Speaker 1: of his quick sensitiveness to a purposeful touch, of his fatigue,
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Speaker 1: of his instant response, as we have just seen to
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Speaker 1: contact with such interesting spirits as the Saraphoenician woman and
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Speaker 1: the rich young ruler. Above all, we find him again
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Speaker 1: and again moved with compassion. We saw the leper approach
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Speaker 1: him with eyes fixed on the face of Jesus. The
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Speaker 1: man's appeal, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean?
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Speaker 1: His misery moves Jesus. He reaches out his hand, and
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Speaker 1: with no thought for contagion or danger, he touches the leper,
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Speaker 1: So deep was the wave of pity that swept through him,
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Speaker 1: and he heals the man. It would almost seem as
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Speaker 1: if the touching impressed the spectators as much as the healing.
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Speaker 1: Compassion is an old fashioned word, and sympathy has a
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Speaker 1: wide range of suggestions, some of them by now a
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Speaker 1: little cold. We have to realize if we can how
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Speaker 1: deeply and genuinely Jesus felt with men, how keen his
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Speaker 1: feeling was for their suffering and for their hunger, and
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Speaker 1: at the same moment reflect how strong and solid a
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Speaker 1: nature it is that is so profoundly moved. Again, when
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Speaker 1: we read of his happy way in dealing with children,
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Speaker 1: are we to draw no inference as to his face
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Speaker 1: and what it told the children. Finally, on this part
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Speaker 1: of our subject, we are given glimpses of his dark hours.
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Speaker 1: The writer to the Hebrews speaks of his offering up
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Speaker 1: prayers and supplications with strong crying in tears, and learning
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Speaker 1: obedience by the things that he suffered, and Luke, perhaps
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Speaker 1: dealing with the same occasion, says that he was in agony,
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Speaker 1: a strong phrase from a man of medical training. Luke,
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Speaker 1: again with the other evangelists, refers to the temptations of Jesus,
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Speaker 1: and in a later passage records the poignant and revealing sentence,
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Speaker 1: he are they that have continued with me in my temptations.
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Speaker 1: Finally there is the last cry upon the cross. So
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Speaker 1: frankly and yet so unobtrusively they they bear his soul
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Speaker 1: as far as they saw it. From what is given us,
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Speaker 1: it is possible to go further and see something of
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Speaker 1: his habits of mind. His thoughts will occupy us in
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Speaker 1: later chapters. Here we are concerned rather with the way
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Speaker 1: in which his mind moves and the characteristics of his thinking.
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Speaker 1: First of all, we note a certain swiftness, a quick
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Speaker 1: realization of a situation, a character, or the meaning of
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Speaker 1: a word. Men try to trap him with a question,
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Speaker 1: and he instantly recognizes their trickery. When they ask for
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Speaker 1: a sign, he is as quick to see what they
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Speaker 1: have in mind. He catches the word whispered to Gyrus
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Speaker 1: half years half divines it in an instant. He is
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Speaker 1: surprised at the slowness of mind in other men, and
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Speaker 1: in other things. He is as quick. He sees the
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Speaker 1: kingdoms of this world. In a moment of time, he
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Speaker 1: beholds satan falling aorish principle from heaven like lightning, Two
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Speaker 1: very striking passages which illuminate his mind for us in
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Speaker 1: a very important phase of it. We ought to have
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Speaker 1: been able to guess without them that he saw things
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Speaker 1: instantly and in a flash, that they stood out for
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Speaker 1: him in outline and color and movement. There and then
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Speaker 1: that is plain in the parables from Nature, And here
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Speaker 1: it is confirmed. Is there in all his parables a
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Speaker 1: blurred picture, the edges dim, or the focus wrong. The
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Speaker 1: tone of the parables is due largely to this gift
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Speaker 1: of visualizing, to use an ugly modern word, and of
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Speaker 1: doing it with swiftness and precision. Several things combined to
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Speaker 1: make this faculty, or at least go along with it,
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Speaker 1: a combination not very common even among men of genius.
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Speaker 1: An unusual sense of fact, a very keen and vivid sympathy,
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Speaker 1: and a gift of bringing imagination to bear on the
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Speaker 1: fact in the moment of its discovery and afterwards in
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Speaker 1: his treatment of the fact, on his cener fact we
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Speaker 1: have touched before in dealing with this close observation of nature.
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Speaker 1: It is an observation that needs no notebook. That is
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Speaker 1: hardly conscious of itself. There is, as we know, a
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Speaker 1: happy type of person who sees almost without looking, certainly
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Speaker 1: without noticing, and sees a right too. The temperament is
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Speaker 1: described by words Worth in the opening books of the Prelude.
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Speaker 1: The poet type seems to lose so much, and yet
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Speaker 1: constantly surprises us by what it has captured, and sometimes
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Speaker 1: hardly itself realizes how much has been done. The gains
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Speaker 1: are not registered, but they are real, and they are
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Speaker 1: never lost, and come flashing out all unexpectedly when the
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Speaker 1: notice struck that calls them. So one feels it was
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Speaker 1: with Jesus intimate knowledge of nature. It is not the
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Speaker 1: knowledge of botanist or naturalist, but that of the inmate
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Speaker 1: and the companion, who by long intimacy comes to know
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Speaker 1: far more than he dreams. Wise master manners, wrote the
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Speaker 1: Greek poet Pindar. Long before know the wind that shall
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Speaker 1: blow out on the third day, and are not read
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Speaker 1: for headlong greed of gain. They know the weather, as
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Speaker 1: we say, by instinct and instinct is the outcome of intimacy,
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Speaker 1: of observation, accurate but self conscious. It chimes in with
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Speaker 1: this instinct for fact that Jesus should lay so much
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Speaker 1: emphasis on truth of word and truth of thought. Any
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Speaker 1: hypocrisy is eleven. Any system of two standards of truth
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Speaker 1: spoils the mind. The divided mind falls because it is
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Speaker 1: not one thing or the other. It is impossible to
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Speaker 1: serve God and Mammon. Truth and God go together in
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Speaker 1: one allegiance, and a non theocentric element in a man's
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Speaker 1: thought will be fatal sooner or later to any aptitude
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Speaker 1: he has by nature for God and truth. We find
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Speaker 1: this illustrated in jesus'sa own case. At the heart of
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Speaker 1: his instinct for fact is his instinct for God. He
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Speaker 1: goes to the permanent and eternal at once in his
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Speaker 1: quest of fact because his instinct for God is so
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Speaker 1: sure and so compelling. Bishop Phillips Brooks noted in Jesus'
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Speaker 1: conversation a constant progress from the arbitrary and special to
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Speaker 1: the essential and universal forms of thought, a true freedom
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Speaker 1: from fastidiousness, a singular largeness in his intellectual life. The
25:36
Speaker 1: small question is answered in the larger. The life is
25:39
Speaker 1: more than meat, and the body more than raiment. When
25:45
Speaker 1: he is challenged on divorce, he goes past Moses to God,
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Speaker 1: he which made them at the beginning made them male
25:54
Speaker 1: and female. Every question is settled for him by reference
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Speaker 1: to God, and to God's principles of action, and to
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Speaker 1: God's laws and commands. And God, as we shall see
26:08
Speaker 1: in a later chapter, is not for him a conception
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Speaker 1: borrowed from others, a quotation from a book. God is real, living,
26:19
Speaker 1: and personal, and all his teaching is directed to drive
26:24
Speaker 1: his disciples into the real He insists on the open mind,
26:29
Speaker 1: the study of fact, the fresh keen eye turned on
26:33
Speaker 1: the actual doings of God. When life and thought have
26:40
Speaker 1: such a center, a simplicity and an integrity follow beyond
26:44
Speaker 1: what we might readily guess. When then eye is single,
26:49
Speaker 1: thy whole body is also full of light. If thy
26:52
Speaker 1: whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark,
26:56
Speaker 1: the whole shall be full of light, as when the
26:59
Speaker 1: bright shine of a candle doth give thee light. It
27:03
Speaker 1: is this fullness of light that we find in Jesus.
27:08
Speaker 1: And as the light plays on one object and another,
27:11
Speaker 1: how clear and simple everything grows all round him. Was subtlety, cleverness, fastidiousness.
27:21
Speaker 1: His speech is lucid, drives straight to the center, to
27:25
Speaker 1: the principle, and is intelligible. We may not see how
27:30
Speaker 1: far his word carries us, but it is abundantly plain
27:34
Speaker 1: that simple and straightforward people do understand Jesus, not all
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Speaker 1: at once, but sufficiently for the moment, and with a
27:43
Speaker 1: sense that there is more beyond. His thought is uncomplicated
27:48
Speaker 1: by distinctions due to tradition and its accidents. His whole
27:53
Speaker 1: latitude to life is simple. He has no taboos. He
27:57
Speaker 1: comes eating and drinking, and he told his followers when
28:00
Speaker 1: he set them out to preach, to eat what they
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Speaker 1: were given. Give arms. He says, of such things as
28:05
Speaker 1: he have, and behold, all things are clean unto you.
28:10
Speaker 1: If God gives the food, it will probably be clean,
28:14
Speaker 1: and the old taboos will be mere tradition of men.
28:19
Speaker 1: He is not interested in what men call signs in
28:23
Speaker 1: the exceptional thing. The ordinary suffics when once he's God
28:28
Speaker 1: in it. One of Jesus's great lessons is to get
28:33
Speaker 1: men to look for God in the commonplace, things of
28:36
Speaker 1: which God makes so many, as if Abraham Lincoln were right,
28:40
Speaker 1: and God did make so many common people because he
28:43
Speaker 1: likes them best, the commonest flowers. God thinks them out,
28:48
Speaker 1: says Jesus, and takes care of them. Hence there is
28:52
Speaker 1: very little need of special machinery for contact with God, priesthoods, trances, visions,
28:58
Speaker 1: or mystical states. Abnormal means for contact with the normal.
29:03
Speaker 1: When Jesus speaks of the very highest and holiest things,
29:07
Speaker 1: he is as simple and natural as when he is
29:11
Speaker 1: making a table in the carpenter's shop. Sense and sanity
29:15
Speaker 1: are the marks of his religion. Center fact is a
29:21
Speaker 1: phrase which does not exclude, perhaps it even suggests some
29:26
Speaker 1: hint of dulness. The matter of fact, people are valuable
29:30
Speaker 1: in their way, but rarely illuminative, and it is because
29:34
Speaker 1: they lack the imagination that means sympathy. Now, in Jesus's case,
29:39
Speaker 1: there is a quickness and vividness of sympathy. He likes
29:42
Speaker 1: the birds and flowers and beasts he uses his illustrations.
29:47
Speaker 1: They are not the natural objects with which dull people
29:50
Speaker 1: try to brighten their pages and discourses. They are happy,
29:54
Speaker 1: living things that come to his mind, as it were,
29:57
Speaker 1: of themselves. Because how shall we say, they know that
30:01
Speaker 1: they will be welcome there, and they are welcome. His
30:05
Speaker 1: pity and sympathy are unlike ours, in having so much
30:09
Speaker 1: more intelligence and fellow feeling in them he understands men
30:15
Speaker 1: and women, as his gift of bright and winning speech shows.
30:20
Speaker 1: After all, as Carlyle has pointed out in so many places,
30:25
Speaker 1: it is this gift of tenderness and understanding of sympathy
30:29
Speaker 1: that gives the measure of our intellects. It is the
30:32
Speaker 1: faculty by which men touch fact and master it. It
30:38
Speaker 1: is the want of it that makes so many clever
30:41
Speaker 1: and ingenious people so futile and distressing. The Sense of
30:47
Speaker 1: fact and the gift for sympathy are the foundations, so
30:51
Speaker 1: to speak, of the imagination, which gives their quality to
30:55
Speaker 1: the stories and pictures of Jesus. He thinks in pictures,
30:59
Speaker 1: as it were, They fill his speech, and every one
31:02
Speaker 1: of them is alive and real. Think for example, of
31:07
Speaker 1: the light of the world, the straight gate in the
31:10
Speaker 1: narrow way, the pictures of the bridegroom, sewer, pearl, merchant,
31:15
Speaker 1: and the men with the net, the sheep among the wolves,
31:18
Speaker 1: the woman sweeping the house, the debtor going to prison
31:21
Speaker 1: accompanied by his creditor, the officer with the judge's warrant,
31:25
Speaker 1: the shepherd separating the sheep from the goats, the children
31:28
Speaker 1: playing in the market place, pretending to pipe or to
31:32
Speaker 1: mourn the fall of the house, or the ironical pictures
31:36
Speaker 1: of the blind leading the blind straight for the ditch,
31:39
Speaker 1: the vintagers taking their baskets to the bramble bushes, the
31:43
Speaker 1: candle burning away brightly under the buttele the offering of
31:46
Speaker 1: pearls to the pigs, or his description of what labor
31:50
Speaker 1: for him as a cup and a baptism, and of
31:54
Speaker 1: his task as the setting fire to the world. There
31:58
Speaker 1: is a truthfulness and a living energy about all these pictures,
32:03
Speaker 1: not least about those touched with irony. There are, however,
32:08
Speaker 1: pictures less realistic and more imaginative, one or two of them,
32:13
Speaker 1: in the language of the fireside quite creepy. Here is
32:18
Speaker 1: a house, a neat, trim little house, and for the
32:22
Speaker 1: English reader, there is of course a garden or a
32:25
Speaker 1: field round it, and a wood beyond. Out of the
32:29
Speaker 1: wood comes something stealthily creeping up towards the house, something
32:34
Speaker 1: not easy to make out, but weary and travel stained
32:39
Speaker 1: and dusty and evil. A strange feeling comes over one
32:45
Speaker 1: as one watches. It is evil, One is certain of it.
32:49
Speaker 1: Nearer and nearer to the house it creeps. It is
32:52
Speaker 1: by the window it rises to look in, and one
32:55
Speaker 1: shudders to think of those inside who suddenly see that
32:59
Speaker 1: looking at them through the window. But there is no
33:03
Speaker 1: one there. Fatigue changes to triumph, caution is dropped, It
33:08
Speaker 1: goes and returns with seven worse than itself, and the
33:12
Speaker 1: last state of the place is worse than the first?
33:17
Speaker 1: Is this leaving the real one? Critic will say? It
33:21
Speaker 1: is no, says another man, in a graver tone and
33:25
Speaker 1: speaking slowly. It's really enough, it's my story. But have
33:30
Speaker 1: we left the text too far? Then let us try
33:34
Speaker 1: another passage. Here is a funeral procession, a bier with
33:39
Speaker 1: a dead man laid out on it, wrapped in a
33:42
Speaker 1: linen cloth, bound head and foot with grave clothes, A
33:47
Speaker 1: common enough sight in the east. But who are they
33:50
Speaker 1: who are carrying him? Those silent, awful figures, bound like him,
33:55
Speaker 1: hand and foot and wound with the same linen cloth,
33:59
Speaker 1: moving swiss and steadily along with their burden. It is
34:03
Speaker 1: the dead burying the dead. Add to these the account
34:09
Speaker 1: of the three temptations, stories and picture, which must come
34:13
Speaker 1: from Jesus himself and illustrate another side of his experience.
34:19
Speaker 1: For to the mind that sees and thinks in pictures,
34:22
Speaker 1: temptation comes in pictures which the mind makes for itself
34:26
Speaker 1: or has presented to it, and at once lights up
34:30
Speaker 1: pictures horrible and once seen, hard to forget and to
34:34
Speaker 1: escape no wonder, He warns men against the pictures they
34:38
Speaker 1: paint themselves and their minds. Add also the other pictures
34:44
Speaker 1: of Satan fallen and Satan pushing into God's presence with
34:48
Speaker 1: the demand for the disciples. Are we to call these
34:51
Speaker 1: visions the word is ambiguous? Or are they imaginative presentments
34:57
Speaker 1: of evil as it thrusts itself from soul with all
35:01
Speaker 1: its allurements and all its ugliness? Visions in the sense
35:06
Speaker 1: that is associated with trance, we shall hardly call them.
35:10
Speaker 1: They are pictures showing His gift of imagination. Lastly, on
35:17
Speaker 1: this part of our subject, let us remind ourselves of
35:20
Speaker 1: the many parables and pictures and sayings which put God
35:24
Speaker 1: himself before us. Here is the bird's nest and the
35:30
Speaker 1: one little sparrow fallen to the ground, and God is there,
35:35
Speaker 1: and he takes notice of it. He misses the little
35:38
Speaker 1: bird from the brood. Here again is quite another scene,
35:44
Speaker 1: the rich and middle aged man who has prospered in
35:47
Speaker 1: everything and is just completing his plans to retire from
35:51
Speaker 1: business when he feels a tap on his shoulder and
35:55
Speaker 1: hears a voice speaking to him, and he turns and
36:00
Speaker 1: face to face with God. And are there all the
36:06
Speaker 1: other stories of God's goodness and kindness and care? Is
36:12
Speaker 1: not the very phrase how a father in heaven a
36:16
Speaker 1: picture in itself? If we can manage to give the
36:19
Speaker 1: word the value which Jesus meant it to carry. When
36:24
Speaker 1: one studies the teaching of Jesus and concentrates on what
36:28
Speaker 1: he draws us of God, God somehow becomes real and
36:32
Speaker 1: delightful in a most wonderful way. With all these faculties
36:38
Speaker 1: brought to bear on all he thinks, and loosened to
36:41
Speaker 1: all he says, There is little wonder that men recognized
36:45
Speaker 1: another note in Jesus from that familiar in their usual teachers.
36:50
Speaker 1: Rabbi Eliezer of those times was praised as a well
36:54
Speaker 1: trough that loses not a drop of water. We all
36:58
Speaker 1: know that type of teacher, the tank, mind full no doubt,
37:03
Speaker 1: supplied by pipes, and ministering its gifts by pipe and tap, regulated,
37:09
Speaker 1: tiresome and debt The water that I shall give him,
37:15
Speaker 1: says Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, shall be in him
37:19
Speaker 1: a well of water springing up to eternal life. The
37:25
Speaker 1: water metaphors of the New Testament are not of trough
37:29
Speaker 1: and tank. Jesus taughtmen, not from a reservoir of quotations,
37:35
Speaker 1: like a scribe or a rabbi, but possessed of authority itself.
37:40
Speaker 1: Who gave him that authority? Asked the priests, who authorizes
37:44
Speaker 1: the living man to live? All things are delivered unto
37:49
Speaker 1: me of my father. My words shall not pass away.
37:54
Speaker 1: He has proved right, his words have not passed away.
37:59
Speaker 1: The great son of fact, he went to fact, drove
38:03
Speaker 1: his disciples to fact, and in the striking phrase of Cromwell,
38:07
Speaker 1: spoke things. And we can see in the record again
38:12
Speaker 1: and again the traces of the mental habits and the
38:15
Speaker 1: natural language of one who habitually based himself on experience
38:21
Speaker 1: and on fact. Critics remark on his method of using
38:26
Speaker 1: the Old Testament and contrast it with contemporary ways. Saint Paul,
38:32
Speaker 1: for instance, in the passage where he weighs the readings
38:35
Speaker 1: seeds and seeds is plainly racking language to the destruction
38:39
Speaker 1: of its real sense. No one would ever have written
38:43
Speaker 1: seeds in that connection, but in the style of the day,
38:47
Speaker 1: he forces a singular into an utterly non natural significance.
38:52
Speaker 1: Saint Matthew, in his first two chapters proves the events
38:56
Speaker 1: which he describes to have been prophesied by citing Old
39:01
Speaker 1: Testament passages, two of which conspicuously refer to entirely different
39:06
Speaker 1: matters and do not mean at all what he suggests.
39:11
Speaker 1: The Hebrew with the Old Testament, like the Greek of
39:15
Speaker 1: those days with Homer made what play he pleased. If
39:20
Speaker 1: the words fitted his fancy, he took them, regardless of
39:24
Speaker 1: connection or real meaning. If he was pressed for a defense,
39:29
Speaker 1: he would take refuge. In allegory, a fashion was set
39:34
Speaker 1: for the church which bore bad fruit. The Old Testament
39:38
Speaker 1: was emptied of meaning to fortify the Christian faith with
39:42
Speaker 1: proof texts. When Jesus quotes the Old Testament, it is
39:48
Speaker 1: for other ends and with a clear incisive sense of
39:52
Speaker 1: the prophet's meaning. Go ye and learn what that meaneth
39:57
Speaker 1: I will have mercy and not sacrifice. He not merely
40:02
Speaker 1: quotes Husir, but it is plain that he has got
40:05
Speaker 1: at the very heart of the man and his message. Similarly,
40:11
Speaker 1: when he reads Isaiah in the synagogue at Nazareth, he
40:14
Speaker 1: lays hold of a great passage and brings out with emphasis,
40:18
Speaker 1: its value and its promise. He touches the real, and
40:23
Speaker 1: no lapse of time makes his quotations look odd or quaint.
40:29
Speaker 1: When he is asked, which is the first commandment of all,
40:32
Speaker 1: he at once, with what a modern writer called a
40:35
Speaker 1: brilliant flash of the highest genius, links a text in
40:39
Speaker 1: Deuteronomy with one in Leviticus hire Israel. The Lord, our
40:44
Speaker 1: God is one Lord. And thou shalt love the Lord
40:47
Speaker 1: thy God, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
40:51
Speaker 1: and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.
40:56
Speaker 1: And he adds the second is like namely this, thou
41:01
Speaker 1: shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other
41:04
Speaker 1: commandment greater than these. Does his instinct for God and
41:10
Speaker 1: his instinct for the essential carry him to the very
41:13
Speaker 1: center and acme of Moses's law. At the same time,
41:19
Speaker 1: he can use the Old Testament in an efficient way
41:22
Speaker 1: for dialectic when an argumentum ad hominem best meets the case.
41:30
Speaker 1: Going to fact directly and reading the Bible on his
41:33
Speaker 1: own account, he is the great pioneer of the Christian
41:37
Speaker 1: habit of mind. He is not idly called the captain
41:42
Speaker 1: by the writer to the Hebrews. Authority and tradition only
41:46
Speaker 1: too readily assumed control of human life. But a mind
41:51
Speaker 1: like that of Jesus, like that which he gave to
41:53
Speaker 1: his followers, will never be bound by authority and tradition.
41:59
Speaker 1: Moses is very well well. But if God has higher
42:01
Speaker 1: ideas of marriage than what the scribes and the Pharisees
42:06
Speaker 1: sit in Moses's seat, but that does not make them
42:10
Speaker 1: equal to Moses. Still less does it make their traditions
42:13
Speaker 1: of more importance than God's commandments. The Sabbath itself was
42:19
Speaker 1: made for man and not man. For the Sabbath, where
42:25
Speaker 1: the habit of mind is thus set to fact, and
42:28
Speaker 1: life is based on God, on God's will and God's doings,
42:33
Speaker 1: it is not surprising that in the daily round there
42:36
Speaker 1: should be noted sanity, reserve, composure, and steadiness. It may
42:43
Speaker 1: seem to be descending to a lower plane, but it
42:46
Speaker 1: is worthwhile to look for a moment at the sheer
42:49
Speaker 1: sense which Jesus can bring to bear on the situation
42:54
Speaker 1: the Sabbath. Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? Well,
42:58
Speaker 1: if a man's sheep is in a pit to the Sabbath,
43:00
Speaker 1: what will he do or will he refrain from leading
43:04
Speaker 1: his ox to the water on the Sabbath? Such questions
43:08
Speaker 1: bring a theological problem into the atmosphere of sense, and
43:12
Speaker 1: it is better solved there. He is interrupted by a
43:17
Speaker 1: demand that he arbitrate between a man and his brother,
43:20
Speaker 1: and his replies, virtually, does your brother accept your choice
43:24
Speaker 1: of an arbitrator? And that matter is finished? Are there
43:28
Speaker 1: few that can be saved? Asks someone in vague speculation,
43:32
Speaker 1: and he gets a practical answer addressed to himself. Even
43:38
Speaker 1: in matters of ordinary manners and good taste, he offers
43:42
Speaker 1: a shrewd rule. Luke records also two or three instances
43:47
Speaker 1: of perfectly banial talk and ejaculation addressed to him. The
43:52
Speaker 1: bizarre talk of the Galilean murders, the pious if rather
43:56
Speaker 1: obvious remark of some man about feasting in the Kingdom
43:59
Speaker 1: of God, and the woman's homely congratulation of Mary on
44:03
Speaker 1: his son. In each case he gets away to something serious.
44:11
Speaker 1: Above all, we must recognize the power which everyone felt
44:15
Speaker 1: in him. Even herod, judging by rumor, counts him greater
44:21
Speaker 1: than from the Baptist. The very malignity of his enemies
44:26
Speaker 1: is a confession of their recognition that they are dealing
44:29
Speaker 1: with someone who is great men, remarked his sedative. In
44:34
Speaker 1: controlling influence over the disordered mind, he is not to
44:40
Speaker 1: be trapped in his talk, to be controlled or flattered.
44:44
Speaker 1: There is greatness in his language, in his reference of
44:48
Speaker 1: everything to great principles and to God. Greatness in his
44:53
Speaker 1: freedom from ambition, in his contempt of advertisement and popularity,
44:59
Speaker 1: in his appeal to the best in men, in his
45:02
Speaker 1: belief in men, in his power of winning and keeping friends,
45:06
Speaker 1: in his gift for making great men out of petty.
45:10
Speaker 1: In all this, we are not stepping outside the gospels,
45:15
Speaker 1: nor borrowing from what He has done in nineteen centuries.
45:20
Speaker 1: In Galilee and in Jerusalem, men felt his power. And
45:28
Speaker 1: so finally, what of his calm, his sanity, his dignity
45:34
Speaker 1: in the hour of betrayal in the so called trials
45:38
Speaker 1: before the priests? Before pilot on the cross? The Pharisees
45:45
Speaker 1: said Tertullian ought to have recognized who Christ was by
45:52
Speaker 1: his patients. End of Chapter three,