Chapter XXI: Part 21

Now that we have reconstructed in outline this early account of the Lord Jesus, so far as it has been used by both the later evangelists, we may attempt to compare the picture which it presents to us with that which was offered by St Mark. But in doing so we must remember that we know it only in fragments. There can be little doubt that much more of it is embedded in St Luke's Gospel, and something more also in St Matthew's; but in order to stand on firm ground we have considered thus far only those portions which both of these writers elected to use in composing their later narratives. To go beyond this is a work of delicate discrimination. It can only be effected by a close examination of the style and language of the document, which may enable us in some instances to identify with comparative security certain passages which are found in St Luke, but which St Matthew did not regard as suitable for his purpose. Among these we may venture, quite tentatively, to mention the sermon at Nazareth which opened with a passage from the Book of Isaiah, the raising of the widow's son at Nain, and the parable of the good Samaritan. These are found in St Luke, but not in St Matthew. On the other hand, it is not improbable that the wonderful words which begin, "Come unto Me all ye that labour," were drawn by St Matthew from the same document, though they are not recorded by St Luke. But here we have entered upon a region of less certainty, in which critical scholarship has still much to do; and these passages are mentioned here only as a reminder that the document must have contained more than what St Matthew and St Luke each independently determined to borrow from it. Looking, then, at the portions which we have indicated as having this two-fold testimony, we see that in their fragmentary condition we cannot trace the clear historical development which was so conspicuous a feature of St Mark's Gospel; yet we need not conclude that in its complete form it failed to present an orderly narrative. Next, we see that wherever we are able to observe its method of relating an incident, as in the case of the healing of the centurion's servant, we have the same characteristics of brevity and simplicity which we admired in St Mark. No comment is made by the narrator; he tells his tale in the fewest words and passes on. Again, we note that it supplies just what we feel we most need when we have reached the end of St Mark's story, a fuller account of the teaching which Jesus gave to His disciples and to the people at large. And we see that the substance of that teaching is in complete harmony with the scattered hints that we found in St Mark. If the fatherhood of God stands out clearly, we may remember a passage of St Mark also which speaks of "the Heavenly Father" as forgiving those who forgive. If prayer is encouraged, we may also remember that the same passage of St Mark records the saying: "All things whatsoever ye pray for and ask, believe that ye have received them and ye shall have them." If in one mysterious passage Jesus speaks of "the Father" and "the Son"--terms with which the Gospel of St John has made us familiar--St Mark also in one passage uses the same impressive terms--"the Son" and "the Father." There are, of course, many other parallels with St Mark, and at some points the two documents seem to overlap and to relate the same incidents in somewhat different forms. There is the same use of parables from nature, the same incisiveness of speech and employment of paradox, the same demand to sacrifice all to Him and for His cause, the same importunate claim made by Him on the human soul.

The Element of Warning.

But the contrast between the two writers is even more important for our purpose. No one can read through the passages to which we have pointed without feeling the solemn sternness of the great Teacher, a sternness which can indeed be traced here and there in St Mark, but which does not give its tone to the whole of his picture. Here we see Christ standing forth in solitary grandeur, looking with the eyes of another world on a society which is blindly hastening to its dissolution. It may be that if this document had come down to us in its entirety, we should have gathered from it an exaggerated idea of the severity of our Lord's character. Certain it is that as we read over these fragments we are somewhat startled by the predominance of the element of warning, and by the assertion of rules of conduct which seem almost inconsistent with a normal condition of settled social life. The warning to the nation sounded by the Baptist, that God could raise up a new family for Abraham, is heard again and again in our Lord's teaching. Gentile faith puts Israel to shame. The sons of the kingdom will be left outside, while strangers feast with Abraham. Capernaum shall go to perdition; Jerusalem shall be a desolate ruin. The doom of the nation is pronounced; its fate is imminent; there is no ray of hope for the existing constitution of religion and society. As to individuals within the nation, the despised publicans and sinners will find God's favour before the self-satisfied representatives of the national religion. In such a condition of affairs it is hardly surprising to find that the great and stern Teacher congratulates the poor and has nothing but pity for the rich; that He has no interest at all in comfort or property. If a man asks you for anything, give it him; if he takes it without asking, do not seek to recover it. Nothing material is worth a thought; anxiety is folly; your Father, who feeds His birds and clothes His flowers, will feed and clothe you. Rise to the height of your sonship to God; love your enemies even as God loves His; and if they kill you, God will care for you still; fear them not, fear only Him who loves you all.

Here is a new philosophy of life, offering solid consolation amid the ruin of a world. We have no idea who the disciple may have been who thus seized upon the sadder elements of the teaching of Jesus; but we may well think of him as one of those who were living in Palestine in the dark and threatening years of internecine strife, when the Roman eagles were gathering round their prey, and the first thunder was muttering of the storm which was to leave Jerusalem a heap of stones. At such a moment the warnings of our Lord would claim a large place in a record of His teaching, and the strange comfort which He had offered would be the only hope which it would seem possible to entertain.

The Earlier Narratives.

4. _Additions by the Gospel according to St Matthew._--We have now examined in turn the two earliest pictures which have been preserved to us of the life of Jesus Christ. The first portrays Him chiefly by a record of His actions, and illustrates His strength, His sympathy, and His freedom from conventional restraints. It shows the disturbing forces of these characteristics, which aroused the envy and apprehension of the leaders of religion. The first bright days of welcome and popularity are soon clouded: the storm begins to lower. More and more the Master devotes Himself to the little circle of His disciples, who are taught that they, as well as He, can only triumph through defeat, succeed by failure, and find their life in giving it away. At length, in fear of religious innovations and pretending that He is a political usurper, the Jews deliver Him up to die on a Roman cross. The last page of the story is torn away, just at the point when it has been declared that He is alive again and about to show Himself to His disciples. The second picture has a somewhat different tone. It is mainly a record of teaching, and the teaching is for the most part stern and paradoxical. It might be described as revolutionary. It is good tidings to the poor: it sets no store on property and material comfort: it pities the wealthy and congratulates the needy. It reverses ordinary judgments and conventional maxims of conduct. It proclaims the downfall of institutions, and compares the present blind security to the days of Noah and of Lot: a few only shall escape the coming overthrow. Yet even in this sterner setting the figure portrayed is unmistakably the same. There is the same strength, the same tender sympathy, the same freedom from convention: there is the same promise to fulfil the highest hopes, the same surrender of life, and the same imperious demand on the lives of others. No thoughtful man who examines and compares these pictures can doubt that they are genuine historical portraits of a figure wholly different from any which had hitherto appeared on the world's stage. They are beyond the power of human invention. They are drawn with a simplicity which is their own guarantee. If we had these, and these only, we should have an adequate explanation of the beginnings of Christianity. There would still be a great gap to be filled before we reached the earliest letters of St Paul; but yet we should know what the Apostle meant when he wrote to "the Church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ," and reminded them how they had "turned from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivereth us from the wrath to come."

If these two narratives served the first needs of Christian believers, it is easy to see that they would presently stimulate further activity in the same direction. For, to begin with, they were obviously incomplete: many incidents and teachings known to the earliest disciples found no place in them; and they contained no account of the life of Jesus Christ before His public ministry, no record of His pedigree, His birth or His childhood. Secondly, their form left much to be desired; for one of them at least was rude in style, sometimes needlessly repetitive and sometimes brief to obscurity. Moreover the very fact that there were two challenged a new and combined work which perhaps should supersede both.

The Gospel of St Matthew.

Accordingly, some years after the fall of Jerusalem--we cannot tell the exact date or the author's name--the book which we call the Gospel according to St Matthew was written to give the Palestinian Christians a full account of Jesus Christ, which should present Him as the promised Messiah, fulfilling the ancient Hebrew prophecies, proclaiming the kingdom of heaven, and founding the Christian society. The writer takes St Mark as his basis, but he incorporates into the story large portions of the teaching which he has found in the other document. He groups his materials with small regard to chronological order; and he fashions out of the many scattered sayings of our Lord continuous discourses, everywhere bringing like to like, with considerable literary art. A wide knowledge of the Old Testament supplies him with a text to illustrate one incident after another; and so deeply is he impressed with the correspondence between the life of Christ and the words of ancient prophecy, that he does not hesitate to introduce his quotations by the formula "that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet."

His Hebrew instinct leads him to begin with a table of genealogy, artificially constructed in groups of fourteen generations--from Abraham to David, from David to the Captivity, and from the Captivity to the Christ. The royal descent of the Messiah is thus declared, and from the outset His figure is set against the background of the Old Testament. He then proceeds to show that, though His lineage is traced through Joseph's ancestors, He was but the adopted son of Joseph, and he tells the story of the Virgin-birth. The coming of the Child draws Eastern sages to his cradle and fills the court of Herod with suspicious fears. The cruel tyrant kills the babes of Bethlehem, but the Child has been withdrawn by a secret flight into Egypt, whence he presently returns to the family home at Nazareth in Galilee. All this is necessarily fresh material, for the other records had dealt only with the period of public ministry. We have no knowledge of the source from which it was drawn. From the historical standpoint its value must be appraised by the estimate which is formed of the writer's general trustworthiness as a narrator, and by the extent to which the incidents receive confirmation from other quarters. The central fact of the Virgin-birth, as we shall presently see, has high attestation from another early writer.

Discourses and Parables.

The next addition which St Matthew's Gospel makes to our knowledge is of a different kind. It consists of various important sayings of our Lord, which are combined with discourses found in the second document and are worked up into the great utterance which we call the Sermon on the Mount. Such grouping of materials is a feature of this Gospel, and was possibly designed for purposes of public instruction; so that continuous passages might be read aloud in the services of the Church, just as passages from the Old Testament were read in the Jewish synagogues. This motive would account not only for the arrangement of the material, but also for certain changes in the language which seem intended to remove difficulties, and to interpret what is ambiguous or obscure. An example of such interpretation meets us at the outset. The startling saying, "Blessed are ye poor," followed by the woe pronounced upon the rich, might seem like a condemnation of the very principle of property; and when the Christian Church had come to be organized as a society containing rich and poor, the heart of the saying was felt to be more truly and clearly expressed in the words, "Blessed are the poor in spirit." This interpretative process may be traced again and again in this Gospel, which frequently seems to reflect the definite tradition of a settled Church.

Apart from the important parables of the tares, the pearl and the net, the writer adds little to his sources until we come to the remarkable passage in ch. xvi., in which Peter the Rock is declared to be the foundation of the future Church, and is entrusted with the keys of the kingdom of heaven. The function of "binding and loosing," here assigned to him, is in identical terms assigned to the disciples generally in a passage in ch. xviii. in which for the second time we meet with the word "Church"--a word not found elsewhere in the Gospels. There is no sufficient ground for denying that these sayings were uttered by our Lord, but the fact that they were now first placed upon record harmonizes with what has been said already as to the more settled condition of the Christian society which this Gospel appears to reflect.

The parables of the two debtors, the labourers in the vineyard, the two sons, the ten virgins, the sheep and goats, are recorded only by this evangelist. But by way of incident he has almost nothing to add till we come to the closing scenes. The earthquake at the moment of our Lord's death and the subsequent appearance of departed saints are strange traditions unattested by other writers. The same is to be said of the soldiers placed to guard the tomb, and of the story that they had been bribed to say that the sacred body had been stolen while they slept. On the other hand, the appearance of the risen Christ to the women may have been taken from the lost pages of St Mark, being the sequel to the narrative which is broken off abruptly in this Gospel: and it is not improbable that St Mark's Gospel was the source of the great commission to preach and baptize with which St Matthew closes, though the wording of it has probably been modified in accordance with a settled tradition.

The work which the writer of this Gospel thus performed received the immediate sanction of a wide acceptance. It met a definite spiritual need. It presented the Gospel in a suitable form for the edification of the Church; and it confirmed its truth by constant appeals to the Old Testament scriptures, thus manifesting its intimate relation with the past as the outcome of a long preparation and as the fulfilment of a Divine purpose. No Gospel is so frequently quoted by the early post-apostolic writers: none has exercised a greater influence upon Christianity, and consequently upon the history of the world.

Yet from the purely historical point of view its evidential value is not the same as that of St Mark. Its facts for the most part are simply taken over from the earlier evangelist, and the historian must obviously prefer the primary source. Its true importance lies in its attestation of the genuineness of the earlier portraits to which it has so little to add, in its recognition of the relation of Christ to the whole purpose of God as revealed in the Old Testament, and in its interpretation of the Gospel message in its bearing on the living Church of the primitive days.

5. _Additions by St Luke._--While the needs of Jewish believers were amply met by St Matthew's Gospel, a like service was rendered to Gentile converts by a very different writer. St Luke was a physician who had accompanied St Paul on his missionary journeys. He undertook a history of the beginnings of Christianity, two volumes of which have come down to us, entitled the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. His Gospel, like St Matthew's, is founded on St Mark, with the incorporation of large portions of the second document of which we have spoken above. But the way in which the two writers have used the same materials is strikingly different. In St Matthew's Gospel the original sources are frequently blended: the incidents of St Mark are rearranged and often grouped afresh according to subject matter: harsh and ambiguous sentences of both documents are toned down or interpreted. St Luke, on the contrary, chooses between parallel stories of his two sources, preferring neither to duplicate nor to combine: he incorporates St Mark in continuous sections, following him alone for a time, then leaving him entirely, and then returning to introduce a new block of his narrative. He modifies St Mark's style very freely, but he makes less change in the recorded words of our Lord, and he adheres more closely to the original language of the second document.

In his first two chapters he gives an account of the birth and childhood of St John the Baptist and of our Lord Himself, gathered perhaps directly from the traditions of the Holy Family, and written in close imitation of the sacred stories of the Old Testament which were familiar to him in their Greek translation. The whole series of incidents differ from that which we find in St Matthew's Gospel, but there is no direct variance between them. The two narratives are in agreement as to the central fact of the Virgin-birth. St Luke gives a table of genealogy which is irreconcilable with the artificial table of St Matthew's Gospel, and which traces our Lord's ancestry up to Adam, "which was the son of God."

The opening scene of the Galilean ministry is the discourse at Nazareth, in which our Lord claims to fulfil Isaiah's prophecy of the proclamation of good tidings to the poor. The same prophecy is alluded to in His reply to the Baptist's messengers which is incorporated subsequently from the second document. The scene ends with the rejection of Christ by His own townsfolk, as in the parallel story of St Mark which St Luke does not give. It is probable that St Luke found this narrative in the second document, and chose it after his manner in preference to the less instructive story in St Mark. He similarly omits the Marcan account of the call of the fishermen, substituting the story of the miraculous draught. After that he follows St Mark alone, until he introduces after the call of the twelve apostles the sermon which begins with the beatitudes and woes. This is from the second document, which he continues to use, and that without interruption (if we may venture to assign to it the raising of the widow's son at Nain and the anointing by the sinful woman in the Pharisee's house), until he returns to incorporate another section from St Mark.

Characteristic Section of St. Luke's Gospel.

This in turn is followed by the most characteristic section of his Gospel (ix. 51-xviii. 14), a long series of incidents wholly independent of St Mark, and introduced as belonging to the period of the final journey from Galilee to Jerusalem. Much of this material is demonstrably derived from the second document; and it is quite possible that the whole of it may come from that source. There are special reasons for thinking so in regard to certain passages, as for example the mission of the seventy disciples and the parable of the good Samaritan, although they are not contained in St Matthew's Gospel.

For the closing scenes at Jerusalem St Luke makes considerable additions to St Mark's narrative: he gives a different account of the Last Supper, and he adds the trial before Herod and the incident of the penitent robber. He appears to have had no information as to the appearance of the risen Lord in Galilee, and he accordingly omits from his reproduction of St Mark's narrative the twice-repeated promise of a meeting with the disciples there. He supplies, however, an account of the appearance to the two disciples at Emmaus and to the whole body of the apostles in Jerusalem.

St Luke's use of his two main sources has preserved the characteristics of both of them. The sternness of certain passages, which has led some critics to imagine that he was an Ebionite, is mainly, if not entirely, due to his faithful reproduction of the language of the second document. The key-note of his Gospel is universality: the mission of the Christ embraces the poor, the weak, the despised, the heretic and the sinful: it is good tidings to all mankind. He tells of the devotion of Mary and Martha, and of the band of women who ministered to our Lord's needs and followed Him to Jerusalem: he tells also of His kindness to more than one sinful woman. Zacchaeus the publican and the grateful Samaritan leper further illustrate this characteristic. Writing as he does for Gentile believers he omits many details which from their strongly Jewish cast might be unintelligible or uninteresting. He also modifies the harshness of St Mark's style, and frequently recasts his language in reference to diseases. From an historical point of view his Gospel is of high value. The proved accuracy of detail elsewhere, as in his narration of events which he witnessed in company with St Paul, enhances our general estimation of his work. A trustworthy observer and a literary artist, the one non-Jewish evangelist has given us--to use M. Renan's words--"the most beautiful book in the world."

6. _Additions by St John._--We come lastly to consider what addition to our knowledge of Christ's life and work is made by the Fourth Gospel. St Mark's narrative of our Lord's ministry and passion is so simple and straightforward that it satisfies our historical sense. We trace a natural development in it: we seem to see why with such power and such sympathy He necessarily came into conflict with the religious leaders of the people, who were jealous of the influence which He gained and were scandalized by His refusal to be hindered in His mission of mercy by rules and conventions to which they attached the highest importance. The issue is fought out in Galilee, and when our Lord finally journeys to Jerusalem He knows that He goes there to die. The story is so plain and convincing in itself that it gives at first sight an impression of completeness. This impression is confirmed by the Gospels of St Matthew and St Luke, which though they add much fresh material do not disturb the general scheme presented by St Mark. But on reflection we are led to question the sufficiency of the account thus offered to us. Is it probable, we ask, that our Lord should have neglected the sacred custom in accordance with which the pious Jew visited Jerusalem several times each year for the observance of the divinely appointed feasts? It is true that St Mark does not break his narrative of the Galilean ministry to record such visits: but this does not prove that such visits were not made. Again, is it probable that He should have so far neglected Jerusalem as to give it no opportunity of seeing Him and hearing His message until the last week of His life? If the writers of the other two Gospels had no means at their disposal for enlarging the narrow framework of St Mark's narrative by recording definite visits to Jerusalem, at least they preserve to us words from the second document which seem to imply such visits: for how else are we to explain the pathetic complaint, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thee, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings; but ye would not"?

St John's Gospel meets our questionings by a wholly new series of incidents and by an account of a ministry which is concerned mainly not with Galileans but with Judaeans, and which centres in Jerusalem. It is carried on to a large extent concurrently with the Galilean ministry: it is not continuous, but is taken up from feast to feast as our Lord visits the sacred city at the times of its greatest religious activity. It differs in character from the Galilean ministry: for among the simple, unsophisticated folk of Galilee Jesus presents Himself as a healer and helper and teacher, keeping in the background as far as possible His claim to be the Messiah; whereas in Jerusalem His authority is challenged at His first appearance, the element of controversy is never absent, His relation to God is from the outset the vital issue, and consequently His Divine claim is of necessity made explicit. Time after time His life is threatened before the feast is ended, and when the last passover has come we can well understand, what was not made sufficiently clear in the brief Marcan narrative, why Jerusalem proved so fatally hostile to His Messianic claim.

The Purpose of St John's Gospel.

The Fourth Gospel thus offers us a most important supplement to the limited sketch of our Lord's life which we find in the Synoptic Gospels. Yet this was not the purpose which led to its composition. That purpose is plainly stated by the author himself: "These things have been written that ye may believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that believing ye may have life in His name." His avowed aim is, not to write history, but to produce conviction. He desires to interpret the coming of Jesus Christ into the world, to declare whence and why He came, and to explain how His coming, as light in the midst of darkness, brought a crisis into the lives of all with whom He came in contact. The issue of this crisis in His rejection by the Jews at Jerusalem is the main theme of the book.

St John's prologue prepares us to find that he is not writing for persons who require a succinct narrative of facts, but for those who having such already in familiar use are asking deep questions as to our Lord's mission. It goes back far behind human birth or lines of ancestry. It begins, like the sacred story of creation, "In the beginning." The Book of Genesis had told how all things were called into existence by a Divine utterance: "God said, Let there be ... and there was." The creative Word had been long personified by Jewish thought, especially in connexion with the prophets to whom "the Word of the Lord" came. "In the beginning," then, St John tells us, the Word was--was with God--yea, was God. He was the medium of creation, the source of its light and its life--especially of that higher life which finds its manifestation in men. So He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and yet the world knew Him not. At length He came, came to the home which had been prepared for Him, but His own people rejected Him. But such as did receive Him found a new birth, beyond their birth of flesh and blood: they became children of God, were born of God. In order thus to manifest Himself He had undergone a human birth: "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory"--the glory, as the evangelist has learned to see, of the Father's only-begotten Son, who has come into the world to reveal to men that God whom "no man hath ever seen." In these opening words we are invited to study the life of Christ from a new point of view, to observe His self-manifestation and its issue. The evangelist looks back across a period of half a century, and writes of Christ not merely as he saw Him in those far-off days, but as he has come by long experience to think and speak of Him. The past is now filled with a glory which could not be so fully perceived at the time, but which, as St John tells, it was the function of the Holy Spirit to reveal to Christ's disciples.

The first name which occurs in this Gospel is that of John the Baptist. He is even introduced into the prologue which sketches in general terms the manifestation of the Divine Word: "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John: he came for witness, to witness to the Light, that through him all might believe." This witness of John holds a position of high importance in this Gospel. His mission is described as running on for a while concurrently with that of our Lord, whereas in the other Gospels we have no record of our Lord's work until John is cast into prison. It is among the disciples of the Baptist on the banks of the Jordan that Jesus finds His first disciples. The Baptist has pointed Him out to them in striking language, which recalls at once the symbolic ritual of the law and the spiritual lessons of the prophets: "Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."

Soon afterwards at Cana of Galilee Jesus gives His first "sign," as the evangelist calls it, in the change of water into wine to supply the deficiency at a marriage feast. This scene has all the happy brightness of the early Galilean ministry which St Mark records. It stands in sharp contrast with the subsequent appearance of Jesus in Jerusalem at the Passover, when His first act is to drive the traders from the Temple courts. In this He seems to be carrying the Baptist's stern mission of purification from the desert into the heart of the sacred city, and so fulfilling, perhaps consciously, the solemn prophecy of Malachi which opens with the words: "Behold, I will send My Messenger, and He shall prepare the way before Me; and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to His Temple" (Mai. iii. 1-5). This significant action provokes a challenge of His authority, which is answered by a mysterious saying, not understood at the time, but interpreted afterwards as referring to the Resurrection. After this our Lord was visited secretly by a Pharisee named Nicodemus, whose advances were severely met by the words, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." When Nicodemus objected that this was to demand a physical impossibility, he was answered that the new birth was "of water and spirit"--words which doubtless contained a reference to the mission of the Baptist and to his prophecy of One who should baptize with the Holy Spirit. Towards the end of this conversation the evangelist passes imperceptibly from reporting the words of the Lord into an interpretation or amplification of them, and in language which recalls the prologue he unfolds the meaning of Christ's mission and indicates the crisis of self-judgment which necessarily accompanies the manifestation of the Light to each individual. When he resumes his narrative the Lord has left Jerusalem, and is found baptizing disciples, in even greater numbers than the Baptist himself. Though Jesus did not personally perform the rite, it is plain once again that in this early period He closely linked His own mission with that of John the Baptist. When men hinted at a rivalry between them, John plainly declared "He must increase, and I must decrease": and the reply of Jesus was to leave Judaea for Galilee.

Away from the atmosphere of contention we find Him manifesting the same broad sympathy and freedom from convention which we have noted in the other Gospels, especially in that of St Luke. He converses with a woman, with a woman moreover who is a Samaritan, and who is of unchaste life. He offers her the "living water" which shall supply all her needs: she readily accepts Him as the expected Messiah, and He receives a welcome from the Samaritans. He passes on to Galilee, where also He is welcomed, and where He performs His second "sign," healing the son of one of Herod's courtiers.

The Ministry at Jerusalem.

But St John's interest does not lie in Galilee, and he soon brings our Lord back to Jerusalem on the occasion of a feast. The Baptist's work is now ended; and, though Jesus still appeals to the testimony of John, the new conflict with the Jewish authorities shows that He is moving now on His own independent and characteristic lines. In cleansing the Temple He had given offence by what might seem an excess of rigour: now, by healing a sick man and bidding him carry his bed on the Sabbath, He offended by His laxity. He answered His accusers by the brief but pregnant sentence: "My Father worketh even until now, and I work." They at once understood that He thus claimed a unique relation to God, and their antagonism became the more intense: "the Jews therefore sought the more to kill Him, because He had not only broken the Sabbath, but had also said that God was His own Father, making Himself equal to God." His first reply is then expanded to cover the whole region of life. The Son beholds the Father at work, and works concurrently, doing nothing of Himself. He does the Father's will. The very principle of life is entrusted to Him. He quickens, and He judges. As Son of Man He judges man.

The next incident is the feeding of the five thousand, which belongs to the Galilean ministry and is recorded by the three other evangelists. St John's purpose in introducing it is not historical but didactic. It is made the occasion of instruction as to the heavenly food, the flesh and blood of Him who came down from heaven. This teaching leads to a conflict with certain Judaeans who seem to have come from Jerusalem, and it proves a severe test even to the faith of disciples.

The feast of tabernacles brings fresh disputes in Jerusalem, and an attempt is made to arrest Jesus. A climax of indignation is reached when a blind man is healed at the pool of Siloam on the sabbath day. At the feast of the dedication a fresh effort at arrest was made, and Jesus then withdrew beyond the Jordan. Here He learned of the sickness of Lazarus, and presently He returned and came to Bethany to raise him from the dead. The excitement produced by this miracle led to yet another attack, destined this time to be successful, on the life of Jesus. The Passover was at hand, and the last supper of our Lord with His disciples on the evening before the Passover lamb was killed is made the occasion of the most inspiring consolations. Our Lord interprets His relation to the disciples by the figure of a tree and its branches--He is the whole of which they are the parts; He promises the mission of the Holy Spirit to continue His work in the world; and He solemnly commends to His Father the disciples whom He is about to leave.

The account of the trial and the crucifixion differs considerably from the accounts given in the other Gospels. St John's narratives are in large part personal memories, and in more than one incident he himself figures as the unnamed disciple "whom Jesus loved." In the Resurrection scenes he also gives incidents in which he has played a part; and the appearances of the risen Lord are not confined either to Jerusalem or to Galilee, but occur in both localities.

If we ask what is the special contribution to history, apart from theology, which St John's Gospel makes, the answer would seem to be this--that beside the Galilean ministry reported by St Mark there was a ministry to "Jews" (Judaeans) in Jerusalem, not continuous, but occasional, taken up from time to time as the great feasts came round; that its teaching was widely different from that which was given to Galileans, and that the situation created was wholly unlike that which arose out of the Galilean ministry. The Galilean ministry opens with enthusiasm, ripening into a popularity which even endangers a satisfactory result. Where opposition manifests itself, it is not native opposition, but comes from religious teachers who are parts of a system which centres in Jerusalem, and who are sometimes expressly noted as having come from Jerusalem. The Jerusalem ministry on the contrary is never welcomed with enthusiasm. It has to do with those who challenge it from the first. There is no atmosphere of simplicity and teachableness which rejoices in the manifestation of power and sympathy and liberty. It is a witness delivered to a hostile audience, whether they will hear or no. Ultimate issues are quickly raised: keen critics see at once the claims which underlie deeds and words, and the claims in consequence become explicit: the relation of the teacher to God Himself is the vital interest. The conflict which thus arose explains what St Mark's succinct narrative had left unexplained--the fatal hostility of Jerusalem. It may have been a part of St John's purpose to give this explanation, and to make other supplements or corrections where earlier narratives appeared to him incomplete or misleading. But he says nothing to indicate this, while on the other hand he distinctly proclaims that his purpose is to produce and confirm conviction of the divine claims of Jesus Christ.

For bibliography see BIBLE; CHRISTIANITY; CHURCH HISTORY; and the
articles on the separate Gospels. (J. A. R.)

JET (Fr. _jais_, Ger. _Gagat_), a substance which seems to be a peculiar kind of lignite or anthracite; often cut and polished for ornaments. The word "jet" probably comes, through O. Fr. _jaiet_, from the classical _gagates_, a word which was derived, according to Pliny, from Gagas, in Lycia, where jet, or a similar substance, was originally found. Jet was used in Britain in prehistoric times; many round barrows of the Bronze age have yielded jet beads, buttons, rings, armlets and other ornaments. The abundance of jet in Britain is alluded to by Caius Julius Solinus (fl. 3rd century) and jet ornaments are found with Roman relics in Britain. Probably the supply was obtained from the coast of Yorkshire, especially near Whitby, where nodules of jet were formerly picked up on the shore. Caedmon refers to this jet, and at a later date it was used for rosary beads by the monks of Whitby Abbey.

The Whitby jet occurs in irregular masses, often of lenticular shape,
embedded in hard shales known as jet-rock. The jet-rock series belongs
to that division of the Upper Lias which is termed the zone of
_Ammonites serpentinus_. Microscopic examination of jet occasionally
reveals the structure of coniferous wood, which A. C. Seward has shown
to be araucarian. Probably masses of wood were brought down by a
river, and drifted out to sea, where becoming water-logged they sank,
and became gradually buried in a deposit of fine mud, which eventually
hardened into shale. Under pressure, perhaps assisted by heat, and
with exclusion of air, the wood suffered a peculiar kind of
decomposition, probably modified by the presence of salt water, as
suggested by Percy E. Spielmann. Scales of fish and other fossils of
the jet-rock are frequently impregnated with bituminous products,
which may replace the original tissues. Drops of liquid bitumen occur
in the cavities of some fossils, whilst inflammable gas is not
uncommon in the jet-workings, and petroleum may be detected by its
smell. Iron pyrites is often associated with the jet.

Formerly sufficient jet was found in loose pieces on the shore, set
free by the disintegration of the cliffs, or washed up from a
submarine source. When this supply became insufficient, the rock was
attacked by the jet-workers; ultimately the workings took the form of
true mines, levels being driven into the shales not only at their
outcrop in the cliffs but in some of the inland dales of the Yorkshire
moorlands, such as Eskdale. The best jet has a uniform black colour,
and is hard, compact and homogeneous in texture, breaking with a
conchoidal fracture. It must be tough enough to be readily carved or
turned on the lathe, and sufficiently compact in texture to receive a
high polish. The final polish was formerly given by means of rouge,
which produces a beautiful velvety surface, but rotten-stone and
lampblack are often employed instead. The softer kinds, not capable of
being freely worked, are known as bastard jet. A soft jet is obtained
from the estuarine series of the Lower Oolites of Yorkshire.

Much jet is imported from Spain, but it is generally less hard and
lustrous than true Whitby jet. In Spain the chief locality is
Villaviciosa, in the province of Asturias. France furnishes jet,
especially in the department of the Aude. Much jet, too, occurs in the
Lias of Württemberg, and works have been established for its
utilization. In the United States jet is known at many localities but
is not systematically worked. Pennsylvanian anthracite, however, has
been occasionally employed as a substitute. In like manner Scotch
cannel coal has been sometimes used at Whitby. Imitations of jet, or
substitutes for it, are furnished by vulcanite, glass, black obsidian
and black onyx, or stained chalcedony. Jet is sometimes improperly
termed black amber, because like amber, though in less degree, it
becomes electric by friction.

See P. E. Spielmann, "On the Origin of Jet," _Chemical News_ (Dec. 14,
1906); C. Fox-Strangways, "The Jurassic Rocks of Britain, Vol. I.
Yorkshire," _Mem. Geol. Surv._ (1892); J. A. Bower, "Whitby Jet and
its Manufacture," _Journ. Soc. Arts_ (1874, vol. xxii. p. 80).

JETHRO (or JETHER, Exod. iv. 18), the priest of Midian, in the Bible, whose daughter Zipporah became the wife of Moses. He is known as Hobab the son of Reuel the Kenite (Num. x. 29; Judg. iv. 11 ), and once as Reuel (Exod. ii. 18); and if Zipporah is the wife of Moses referred to in Num. xii. 1, the family could be regarded as Cushite (see Cush). Jethro was the priest of Yahweh, and resided at the sacred mountain where the deity commissioned Moses to deliver the Israelites from Egypt. Subsequently Jethro came to Moses (probably at Kadesh), a great sacrificial feast was held, and the priest instructed Moses in legislative procedure; Exod. xviii. 27 (see EXODUS) and Num. x. 30 imply that the scene was not Sinai. Jethro was invited to accompany the people into the promised land, and later, we find his clan settling in the south of Judah (Judg. i. 16); see KENITES. The traditions agree in representing the kin of Moses as related to the mixed tribes of the south of Palestine (see EDOM) and in ascribing to the family an important share in the early development of the worship of Yahweh. Cheyne suggests that the names of Hobab and of Jonadab the father of the Rechabites (q.v.) were originally identical (_Ency. Bib._ ii. col. 2101).

JETTY. The term jetty, derived from Fr. _jetée_, and therefore signifying something "thrown out," is applied to a variety of structures employed in river, dock and maritime works, which are generally carried out in pairs from river banks, or in continuation of river channels at their outlets into deep water; or out into docks, and outside their entrances; or for forming basins along the sea-coast for ports in tideless seas. The forms and construction of these jetties are as varied as their uses; for though they invariably extend out into water, and serve either for directing a current or for accommodating vessels, they are sometimes formed of high open timber-work, sometimes of low solid projections, and occasionally only differ from breakwaters in their object.

_Jetties for regulating Rivers._--Formerly jetties of timber-work were
very commonly extended out, opposite one another, from each bank of a
river, at intervals, to contract a wide channel, and by concentration
of the current to produce a deepening of the central channel; or
sometimes mounds of rubble stone, stretching down the foreshore from
each bank, served the same purpose. As, however, this system
occasioned a greater scour between the ends of the jetties than in the
intervening channels, and consequently produced an irregular depth, it
has to a great extent been superseded by longitudinal training works,
or by dipping cross dikes pointing somewhat upstream (see RIVER
ENGINEERING).

_Jetties at Docks._--Where docks are given sloping sides, openwork
timber jetties are generally carried across the slope, at the ends of
which vessels can lie in deep water (fig. 1); or more solid structures
are erected over the slope for supporting coal-tips. Pilework jetties
are also constructed in the water outside the entrances to docks on
each side, so as to form an enlarging trumpet-shaped channel between
the entrance, lock or tidal basin and the approach channel, in order
to guide vessels in entering or leaving the docks. Solid jetties,
moreover, lined with quay walls, are sometimes carried out into a wide
dock, at right angles to the line of quays at the side, to enlarge the
accommodation; and they also serve, when extended on a large scale
from the coast of a tideless sea under shelter of an outlying
breakwater, to form the basins in which vessels lie when discharging
and taking in cargoes in such a port as Marseilles (see DOCK).

_Jetties at Entrances to Jetty Harbours._--The approach channel to
some ports situated on sandy coasts is guided and protected across the
beach by parallel jetties, made solid up to a little above low water
of neap tides, on which open timber-work is erected, provided with a
planked platform at the top raised above the highest tides. The
channel between the jetties was originally maintained by tidal scour
from low-lying areas close to the coast, and subsequently by the
current from sluicing basins; but it is now often considerably
deepened by sand-pump dredging. It is protected to some extent by the
solid portion of the jetties from the inroad of sand from the adjacent
beach, and from the levelling action of the waves; whilst the upper
open portion serves to indicate the channel, and to guide the vessels
if necessary (see HARBOUR). The bottom part of the older jetties, in
such long-established jetty ports as Calais, Dunkirk and Ostend, was
composed of clay or rubble stone, covered on the top by fascine-work
or pitching; but the deepening of the jetty channel by dredging, and
the need which arose for its enlargement, led to the reconstruction of
the jetties at these ports. The new jetties at Dunkirk were founded in
the sandy beach, by the aid of compressed air, at a depth of 22¾ ft.
below low water of spring tides; and their solid masonry portion, on a
concrete foundation, was raised 5(3/5) ft. above low water of neap
tides (fig. 2).

_Jetties at Lagoon Outlets._--A small tidal rise spreading tidal water
over a large expanse of lagoon or inland back-water causes the influx
and efflux of the tide to maintain a deep channel through a narrow
outlet; but the issuing current on emerging from the outlet, being no
longer confined by a bank on each side, becomes dispersed, and owing
to the reduction of its scouring force, is no longer able at a
moderate distance from the shore effectually to resist the action of
the waves and littoral currents tending to form a continuous beach in
front of the outlet. Hence a bar is produced which diminishes the
available depth in the approach channel. By carrying out a solid jetty
over the bar, however, on each side of the outlet, the tidal currents
are concentrated in the channel across the bar, and lower it by scour.
Thus the available depth of the approach channels to Venice through
the Malamocco and Lido outlets from the Venetian lagoon have been
deepened several feet over their bars by jetties of rubble stone
surmounted by a small superstructure (fig. 3), carried out across the
foreshore into deep water on both sides of the channel. Other examples
are provided by the long jetties extended into the sea in front of the
entrance to Charleston harbour, formerly constructed of fascines,
weighted with stone and logs, but subsequently of rubble stone, and by
the two converging rubble jetties carried out from each shore of
Dublin bay for deepening the approach to Dublin harbour.

_Jetties at the Outlet of Tideless Rivers._--Jetties have been
constructed on each side of the outlet of some of the rivers flowing
into the Baltic, with the objects of prolonging the scour of the river
and protecting the channel from being shoaled by the littoral drift
along the shore. The most interesting application of parallel jetties
is in lowering the bar in front of one of the mouths of a deltaic
river flowing into a tideless sea, by extending the scour of the river
out to the bar by a virtual prolongation of its banks. Jetties
prolonging the Sulina branch of the Danube into the Black Sea, and the
south pass of the Mississippi into the Gulf of Mexico (fig. 4), formed
of rubble stone and concrete blocks, and fascine mattresses weighted
with stone and surmounted with large concrete blocks respectively,
have enabled the discharge of these rivers to scour away the bars
obstructing the access to them; and they have also carried the
sediment-bearing waters sufficiently far out to come under the
influence of littoral currents, which, by conveying away some of the
sediment, postpone the eventual formation of a fresh bar farther out
(see RIVER ENGINEERING).