The careers of neither John nor Jesus are intelligible without an understanding of the ex pectant attitude of the Jewish people in the first century. The ancient prophets of the nation had centuries earlier foretold a renaissance of the Hebrew kingdom under a descendant of David, through the generations this hope smoul dered in the hearts of the people, only fanned to a brighter flame by blasts of persecution and national disaster, and the whole influence of the sect of the Pharisees (q.v.), popular and powerful out of proportion to their numbers, increased its intensity under Herod and his suc cessors. The people were ready to be fired by the proclamation so strikingly made by the gaunt desert-dweller that the fulfilment of the national hopes and dreams was near: The kingdom of heaven is at hand.• The preaching of John was, however, no less moral and reli gious than patriotic. His message was *Re let the nation prepare by penitence to meet the king coming in his kingdom. This prophetic voice set the country in a blaze. Throngs gathered to listen to the new preaching and by a striking symbol, a plunge in the rush ing Jordan, to pledge themselves to the new movement. After a time Jesus joined the crowds which attended the ministry of John. It is impossible to say what connection may have existed between John and Jesus. Not only were their families related, but there may have been constant intimacy. John, however, based his later testimony as to Jesus, not at all on his own knowledge of him, but entirely on the divine revelation which was his commission. Jesus offered himself for baptism, insisting that the reluctant preacher should perform the rite, and thus pledged himself to the Coming King dom. While it is not claimed that the wonders which attended the baptism were known to others than John and Jesus himself, the story of the Gospels is that a heavenly voice asserted the Messiahship of Jesus, and that with the appearance of a dove the Divine Spirit came to him. The conviction of his mission to his na tion and the world was no new thought to the carpenter of Nazareth, and it was with this thought in mind that he recognized the signifi cance of the Baptist's public appearance, joined his auditors, and submitted to the ordinance which he administered. Yet it is not surprising, on the other hand, that he felt constrained, when his own conviction was confirmed, to seek the desert of Judea that alone he might adjust himself to the new responsibilities and burdens of the mission which he must undertake. Amid the solitude of the barren rocks and gloomy caves of that desolate region he meditated and struggled. Of this period we know only the story, necessarily autobiographic in origin, in which he depicts the struggles which he underwent as due to Satan's influence. Temptations thus forced in upon him to selfish use of his power, to sensational fanaticism and to compromise with evil in order to advance his ends, were successively resisted, and at the end of 40 days he came forth the victor in all these spiritual conflicts, ready to enter actively on his ministry.
The Ministry.— Jesus returned to the Jor dan where John was still at work, and aided by his testimony associated with himself a little group who instinctively recognized in him a future leader of the nation. He went from there first to his home district, where he and his companions were guests at a wedding at Cana, a little town which has been hallowed in all the Christian centuries by John's report of the changing of the water into the wine needed for the entertainment of the company in the prolonged merrymaking incident to such an occasion. Then, as it was near the Pass over time, Jesus, accompanied by his mother and brothers as well as his few followers, after staying a short time at Capernaum, went on to Jerusalem. How long he remained in or near the capital city must continue a matter of inference from a few doubtful phrases, but it seems most probable that he remained in Judea for some months, perhaps from April to December. The chief events ascribed to this period are the first cleansing of the Temple and the night interview with the influential rabbi, Nicodemus, and while the effect on city or nation was not great, it was presumably at this time that Jesus formed the strong friend ships in Judea, to which incidental reference is often made afterward. The closing of this
portion of his ministry seems to have been due on the one side to the hostile jealousy of the dominant Pharisees which would hinder success in Judea, and, on. the other, to the im prisonment of John the Baptist which made it possible for Jesus to work in Galilee without what might have seemed competition, and, in deed, made it advisable for him to take up the work which John had been obliged to drop.
On his return to Galilee Jesus soon recalled his disciples, who, if they had accompanied him throughout his work in Judea, had scattered for a time to their homes, and associated him self with them in a companionship which was thereafter unbroken till his death. He made Capernaum the central point of his ministry, returning thither from each of his repeated tours throughout the many scores of cities and villages which then existed in Galilee. Wher ever he went the keynote of his preaching was the same as John's had been, °Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at but as time passed his instructions, exhortations and warn ings swept throughout the whole scale of human experience and touched every note of religious and moral truth. The keynote of his teaching about God was his love, infinite, untiring, eter nal. On the ground of this love he proclaimed pardon to every penitent, even though a harlot or an outlaw. But this certainty and freeness of forgiveness was not allowed to diminish the loftiness and imperativeness of the standard of duty which he held up. Indeed, the high moral tone of his teaching, accompanied as it was by a constant and insistent demand for absolute sincerity, and his disregard for all mere forms, without the spirit in particular, his teachings and practice in reference to fast ing, ceremonial purifications and Sabbath keep ing, combined to set against him the Pharisees and through their influence the leaders and of ficials of the nation.
Popularity.— For a long time his popularity was great and throngs gathered to see and hear him, attracted in part by the reports of his miracles. Far and wide the stories were told that diseases yielded to his command, that the fevered, the palsied, the blind, the deaf and dumb, the lepers, the demonized, were restored to soundness, and, later that on repeated occa sions he brought the dead to life. But these great works were distinctly secondary. He was first and foremost the Prophet of Nazareth, the Preacher. As such he spoke with peculiar attractiveness and power. His style was simple and direct, and his discourse was frequently adorned with unequaled parables, illustrations drawn from nature or common life, which, though sometimes veiling the truth from the thoughtless, sometimes added immensely to its clearness and effectiveness. His activity as a preacher at first won him steadily increasing popularity among the people at large, until about two years after his work began, 5,006 men, whose hunger had been satisfied by his power on the lakeside, determined to make him king. But in this purpose they lacked all real sympathy with the character and aims which Jesus exemplified. The kingdom which cen turies before the prophets of the nation had foretold was a kingdom to be sure, but a king dom which should be based on a right rela tion of its subjects to God and existing only to serve the divine ends. The Jews as they read these prophecies had seen in them, only something political, worldly and selfish. Now when Jesus in fulfilment of prophecy had come to offer himself to the nation as its promised king, he would be king only as his kingdom might be the expression and instrument of a religious people, deeply, purely, unselfishly reli gious. So at the very climax of popular favor his clear vision instantly recognized how widely their ideals and purposes differed from his.