1

lowing directions: 'Exact no more than that which is appointed you'-than the legal contribution. Finally, to the soldiers his instructions were, 'Oppress no man, either with rude violence or by secret denunciations; but be content with your wages.' In these, and many similar directions, we recognise the Christian character of his ethics. His doctrine was not less in its substance christological. Amongst the people great expectations were formed regarding his person. All hearts were occupied with the thought-Possibly he may announce himself as the Messiah. But John gave to all the frankest declaration : 'I inindeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire; whose fan is in His hand, and He will throughly purge His floor, and will gather the wheat into His garner; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.' This, and much besides, formed his announcements to the people, which he accompanied with suitable exhortations.

Therefore, in his sufferings also it was needful for him to be a forerunner of Christ. Herod the tetrarch had been rebuked by him in reference to Herodias, his brother's wife; and now, to all the evil which he had otherwise done, he added this also, that he cast John into prison.

Thus was Christ in His whole character accredited by His forerunner John. This general attestation was turned into a personal testimony at His baptism.

Besides the historical testimony of John, a second and higher testimony was vouchsafed. When all the people were being baptized, and Jesus also received baptism, whilst He prayed, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape, like a dove, upon Him; and a voice came from heaven, which said, 'Thou art My beloved Son; in Thee I am well pleased.' Thus He was accredited by His Father in heaven, not only by the voice from heaven, but also by the revelation of the Holy Ghost, of whose presence a visible sign gave witness, -accredited in His divine nature.

With this second testimony corresponded also the third, which lies in His human nature and descent ;-in His age, as in His genealogy.

1 Μηδένα διασείσητε, μηδὲ συκοφαντήσητε.

Jesus was then about thirty years of age, when He began-to appear publicly, and was, as was supposed,' the son of Joseph, the son of Eli, the son-as this noblest line of ancestry proceeds -of Matthat, of Levi, of Melchi, of Janna, of Joseph, of Mattathias, of Amos, of Naum, of Esli, of Nagge, of Maath, of Mattathias, of Semei, of Joseph, of Juda, of Joanna, of Rhesa, of Zorobabel, of Salathiel, of Neri, of Melchi, of Addi, of Cosam, of Elmodam, of Er, of Jose, of Eliezer, of Jorim, of Matthat, of Levi, of Simeon, of Juda, of Joseph, of Jonan, of Eliakim, of Melea, of Menan, of Mattatha, of Nathan, of David, of Jesse, of Obed, of Booz, of Salmon, of Naasson, of Aminadab, of Aram, of Esrom, of Phares, of Juda, of Jacob, of Isaac, of Abraham, of Thara, of Nachor, of Saruch, of Ragau, of Phalec, of Heber, of Sala, of Cainan, of Arphaxad, of Sem, of Noe, of Lamech, of Mathusala, of Enoch, of Jared, of Maleleel, of Cainan, of Enos, of Seth, of Adam, who had his descent from God.

This most ancient and noble extraction, the true humanity of Christ, as it is seen, in its descent from Adam, running in a sacred line of ancestry through the whole human family, is the third attestation with which Christ makes His appearance as the Redeemer of mankind. The third attestation, however, does not lie beyond the limits of the second, but is parallel to it. It was necessary that Christ should be truly the Son of man, as well as truly the Son of God, in order to His being the Saviour of men. It was necessary that the unity of Godhead and manhood should appear in a personal form. As, however, He was in a real sense the Son of man, before all others, in virtue of His anointing by the Holy Ghost, or as the Son of God; He was, on the other hand, also the Son of God, not only in the sense of His immediate descent from the Father, but likewise because of His historical descent from Adam-as the heir of the divine relationship, and of the divine and human mission, with which the latter was invested-as the inheritor of his blessing.

The second and third attestation given to Christ may therefore be comprehended in one, as each requires and implies the other. They form together the essential or natural, as distinguished from the historical attestation, which was imparted to Him by John the Baptist.

1 Because men were not acquainted, as the Evangelist was, with His true origin.

NOTES.

1. Dr A. Schweizer, in his essay, 'Das Verhältniss der evangelischen Vorgeschichte, zur Bestimmung des Jahres der Geburt Christi' (in Zeller's theol. Jahrb., 1847), arrives at the conclusion, that the chronological statement, Luke iii. 1, 2, 23, is at variance, first with the chronological statement of the same Gospel, ii. 1,-further, with the statement, i. 3,-and finally, with the statement, Matt. ii. 1 (see p. 19). The critic has, however, attained this result only by ignoring a very important consideration, which has been urged in connection with this subject,-viz., the position maintained by Kuinoel in reference to the fixing of the commencement of the reign of Tiberius, Luke iii. 1, that Luke may have dated it from the beginning of his co-regency with Augustus, which took place two years before the death of the latter (see above, vol. ii. p. 4). The reasoning of Kuinoel is not disposed of by the parenthetical remark: It is not customary to reckon the short co-regency of Tiberius with Augustus.' Besides, the hypothesis that, Luke ii. 2, avrǹ should be read instead of avтŋ, and that the first verse describes only the preliminary arrangements made with a view to the tax, is not confuted by the author, when he remarks, that in this case Joseph went ȧπoуpáþeσlai, but not to the aπoypapn! There is undoubtedly a difference between the ἀπογράφεσθαι and the completed ἀπογραφὴ, which immediately appears, when one attempts to form a conception of the facts of the case. For registration with a view to taxation necessarily precedes the imposition of the tax itself, and, according to circumstances, may anticipate the latter even by years. Such a picturing of the incidents, as well as of the manner, in which Luke, according to Schleiermacher's opinion, so carefully handled the documents which were in his possession, as to be enabled here in the second verse, with a soft touch of the hand, to introduce a correction of a (woman's1) inexact statement, without changing the expression of it, are not perhaps, after all, to be reckoned among the critical artifices which the author professes to discover, especially on the part of apologetic criticism. At all events, it is a much smaller specimen of the kind, to suppose that Luke retained the word aroурáþεσÐαι 1 See above, vol. i. p. 376.

in spite of its liability to misconstruction, than that he adopted three contradictory chronological statements, through a blind veneration of tradition. In other respects also the criticism which has occupied itself with the unity of the Gospels, has for the author laboured in vain. He still finds the parents of Jesus living, before His birth, in Bethlehem, according to Matthew. The star of the wise men is still, according to Matthew, a geographical landmark, in the literal sense of the term. Herod must still have effected the slaughter of the children in an official manner, if indeed he did so at all, etc. And as regards the principles of criticism, the author still sees 'an unworthy dread of the negative criticism' to prevail, whilst many have got to the stage of avowed indignation against the moral obliquities of the negative criticism, without the least alarm on account of the thing itself.

2. The reference by Luke, ver. 2, to the priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, is without doubt intended to indicate the sad decay of the high-priestly office by the specification of actually existing irregularity, in a similar way as when John speaks of the high priest that same year.'-See above, vol. ii. p. 8.

3. Schleiermacher is of opinion, that when the sign was given, with which our Lord was honoured at His baptism, John must have been alone with Him, as every trace is wanting of the great effect it must have produced, had the occurrence taken place in the presence of a great multitude. It is not, however, taken into account, that divine events of this kind may happen in the midst of a large assemblage, without being clearly or deeply apprehended by the multitude (comp. John xii. 28). There is certainly no ground which compels us to believe in the presence of a multitude on that occasion.

4. From the importance which Luke attaches to the human descent of Jesus from Adam, we must suppose that he has communicated His real and not His legal genealogy, that is, the genealogy of Mary, not that of Joseph. Schleiermacher has not discerned the significance of the position given by Luke to the genealogy of Jesus, and has therefore supposed that the Evangelist had received this genealogy apart, that he had previously found no suitable opportunity for communicating it, and now from necessity, and with no small difficulty, assigned it the only place which still remained.

SECTION VII.

THE PERSONAL PROBATION OF THE LORD IN THE WILDERNESS.

(Chap. iv. 1-13.)

The testimony which the Lord received in divers manners had to be confirmed, by Himself affording a practical demonstration that He was the Christ, by His approving Himself victorious over the temptations of Satan, and thus opening for Himself a free path to His public ministration.

The history of His temptation appears to us here in the form of a single journey from the Jordan into the desert, and from the desert over the mountainous region to Jerusalem. According to this order are the successive temptations represented. The first temptation takes place in the desert, the second on the top of a high mountain, the third on a pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem.

We must distinguish, however, from these three great temptations, which the Lord had to endure at the end of His sojourn in the wilderness, a general temptation which occupied Him during the time of His residence there.

After His baptism, Jesus returned from the Jordan full of the Holy Ghost. The Spirit, however, led Him into the solitude of the desert. Here He remained forty days, all the while occupied with temptations of the devil. In those days He did eat nothing; and when they were ended-along with their temptation-He afterward hungered.

Now, however, occurred the three last temptations, as conclusive acts, in which the previous more general temptation was terminated and completed. If, perhaps, the form assumed by the latter was, that He should withdraw Himself from mankind and the world (as eremite), inasmuch as Satan seemed to obstruct every way of access to men (see above, ii. 57, etc.), the character in which the temptation now presented itself was that of a threefold incitement to worldly enjoyment. The tempter sought a point of attachment for these allurements in the circumstance of His manifest indigence-in the fact of His hunger.

The first temptation was in these terms: Command this