might heal them. This work of mercy and power closed the day. On the following morning, long before the dawn, He rose from His bed, and went out of the town to a secluded place for prayer. There, at a later hour, Peter and his associates found Him. So, in all the towns of Galilee, as the Evangelists tell us, He taught, proclaiming the near presence of the Kingdom, and healing those afflicted with disease.1

A sketch of the beginning of the ministry of Jesus may properly close with a notice of the death of John the Baptist. When John crossed the Jordan, he came into the country of Herod Antipas, who, by the last change in the will of his father, Herod "the Great," was Tetrarch of Galilee and Perea. This Prince had the cruelty, the cunning, and the sensuality, but lacked the energetic virtues, of his father. While on a visit to Rome, he became enamored of Herodias, the wife of his half-brother, Herod Philip I. She was herself the daughter of Aristobulus, one of the sons of Herod the Great, so that Herod Antipas, whom she deserted her husband to marry, was her step-uncle. To effect this adulterous and incestuous union, Herod Antipas was obliged to separate from his wife, who was a daughter of Aretas, the Emir of Arabia, and who fled from his household to her father. His marriage with Herodias brought upon him the calamities of his reign. Aretas, indignant at the repudiation of his daughter-there was also a dispute concerning boundariesmade war upon him, and inflicted upon him a crushing defeat. At a later day, at the instigation of Herodias, he repaired to Rome to obtain from Caligula the title of king; but he was opposed by the agents of Herod Agrippa, was banished to Lugdunum, and ended his life in exile.

What was the ground of the arrest of John? Josephus

Mark i. 39.

says that, seeing the crowds that flocked after him, Herod apprehended a rebellion, which a leader of so great influence could easily excite, and determined to forestall the danger by taking the life of the prophet.' The Evangelists attribute the seizure and death of John to his bold rebuke of Herod on account of his marriage to Herodias, and to her enmity. . These two grounds are quite consistent with each other. That John should condemn Herod, in his public discourses, and even privately to his face, was entirely in keeping with the character of the Prophet, with the denunciations that he uttered to the Pharisees, and with the Old Testament examples of the courage and faithfulness of such men as Samuel and Elijah, in dealing with iniquitous princes. Luke states that John rebuked Herod, not only for marrying his brother's wife, but also "for all the evils" which he had done. This being the attitude of the Prophet, the fear of a rebellion on the side of Herod, and the mortal hatred of Herodias, might well co-exist, and conspire to effect the destruction of John. He was cast into the Castle of Machærus,3 situated eastward from the Jordan, and at once a splendid palace and an impregnable fortification. Matthew says that Herod desired to put him to death, but feared that the popularity of the Prophet might lead to the avenging of his death. Mark says that Herod "feared John," knowing that he was a just and holy man; that the King (as he was called by courtesy 5) frequently had interviews with him, listened to him, and in many things followed the directions of John; so that when Herodias, obeying the instruction of her mother, Salome, demanded the Prophet's head, Herod was extremely sorry. But Matthew, also, says that Herod was sorry (on), when this bloody forfeit was exacted; and Matthew states that Antiq. xviii. 5, 3.

1 Antiq. xviii. 5, 2.

Luke iii. 19.

4 Matt. xiv. 5. 5 Mark vi. 25. 6 Mark vi. 20.

7 Matt. xiv. 9.

1

when the fame of Jesus and of His miracles in Galilee, reached the ears of the tyrant, he exclaimed: "this is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead!" Such an exclamation could spring only from a terrified conscience. That he had a divided mind with reference to the murder of John, is probable. Anger at the Prophet's rebuke of his crime, and dread of a popular rising, had urged him to the deed. At the same time, a secret homage for so holy a man, which he could not extinguish in his mind, and, in certain moods, a disposition to hear him, and to obey his counsels-a kind of fascination which the Prophet cast over him at moments when a sense of guilt was awakened-held him back from so dreadful a crime. The pledge to Herodias which, in the presence of all his guests at the festival, he was called upon to redeem, compelled him to a decision. The disciples of John took up his corpse, which was, perhaps, thrown outside the wall of the fortress, and buried it; and "went and told Jesus." Herod's attention was called to what Jesus was doing, apparently shortly after the murder of John, and while the twelve disciples of Jesus were on the mission upon which He had sent them. 3 On being informed of these circumstances by the Apostles on their return, Jesus who was on the Galilean side of the Lake, crossed to some retired place near Bethsaida, lying on the north-east of the Lake, in the dominion of another prince, the Tetrarch Philip. The grand figure of John the Baptist disappears from the history, eclipsed only by One immeasurably Greater, of whom John had said: "He must increase, but I must decrease!" 4

1 xiv. 2. 2 Matt. xiv. 12.

Luke ix. 1 seq.

4 John iii. 30.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE PLAN OF JESUS AND HIS MEANS OF ACCOMPLISHING IT.

IT is clear that from the outset of His public ministry, Jesus presented Himself to His Disciples as the Christthe predicted Messiah of the Old Testament. His reserve and caution in proclaiming Himself in this character are not difficult of explanation. They do not militate against the statement above made, but rather serve to confirm the truth of it. It has been pretended by some that, whatever may have been His own conviction on this point, the Apostles at least were not at first instructed as to the real nature of the office which He was to assume, but regarded Him as a prophet, with no defined view as to His particular function and rank. This theory is supposed to be sustained by a conversation of Jesus with the Disciples (Matt. xvi. 13 seq.) at a time when they had long been associated with Him. "Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am ?" The answer was that by some He was taken for John the Baptist, risen from the dead-which was also the conjecture of Herod Antipas, under the prompting of a frightened conscience by others He was thought to be Elijah, who was expected to re-appear as the immediate precursor of the Messiah; by others still He was supposed to be Jeremiah, or some other great prophet, returning to the earth to discharge a similar office. Having heard their report of the opinions entertained by others, Jesus turns to them with the inquiry: "But whom say ye that I am?" In response to Peter's

:

exclamation: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," Jesus pronounced his confession of Faith, or him as making this confession, the rock on which the Church was to be built. It contained the substance of the Christian faith. This conversation is far from implying that Peter and his fellow-disciples now for the first time recognised their Master as the Christ, as if they had been previously ignorant or doubtful on this point. The same Evangelist who records it, affords full proof to the contrary. In the Sermon on the Mount, the date of which is fixed by the contemporaneous selection of the Disciples, Jesus presents Himself in the most unmistakable manner as the Messiah. In the conference with the messengers who had been sent by the Baptist, Jesus sends back to the prophet, who for the moment was wavering in his faith, an enumeration of the works done by Himself, all of them the well understood proofs and badges of the Messiah (Matt. xi. 4 seq.). The same Evangelist records (xi. 25 seq.) the thanksgiving of Jesus that not the wise and prudent, but the humble and ignorant, had been brought to discern the things of the Gospel; and this expression He accompanied by a declaration respecting his relation to the Father, such as a prophet lower than the Christ could never make: "All things are delivered unto me of my Father, and no man knoweth the Son but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him." He was styled the Son of God by the demoniacs (Matt. viii. 29), and, on another occasion, by those who witnessed His miraculous power on the Sea of Galilee (Matt. xiv. 33). 1 At the very beginning, he was recognized in this character

1 Among other passages in Matthew which distinctly involve a profession of Messiahship on the part of Jesus, see viii. 21, ix. 1-8, x. 32, xii. 1-9.