the circumstance that at a later period one Zenodorus appears as farming the inheritance of Lysanias (Antiq. xv. 10, § 1). Wieseler concludes that he probably entered into this engagement because the heirs of Lysanias, being minors, were under guardianship. Then, lastly, the territory of Lysanias is mentioned by Josephus as a tetrarchy, which in the year 790 was given, with the tetrarchy of Philip, by the Emperor Caius Caligula, to Agrippa. From these several indications the critic just named concludes, that between the years 734-790 there must have been a younger Lysanias who governed Abilene as a tetrarch.1 As the earlier Lysanias is not designated a tetrarch, the fact is of importance, that Pococke describes a coin which names on its superscription a tetrarch Lysanias; and the same traveller discovered an inscription in a temple on the summit of the ancient Abila, 15 English miles from Damascus, which also speaks of the tetrarch Lysanias of Abilene. But the notices in Josephus already mentioned are quite sufficient to introduce the historic testimony of Luke.

3

To the preceding chronological data Luke adds the striking statement, that'Annas was high priest, and Caiaphas.' It has been supposed that Annas is placed first because he was the Nasi or president of the Sanhedrim, while Caiaphas was the officiating high priest in the matter of sacrifices.2 But Caiaphas (according to John xviii.) evidently appears as the proper judge of Jesus; but he was His judge, not as high priest, but as president of the Sanhedrim. Moreover, the Romans, who had less to do with the sacrificing priest than with the presidency of the Sanhedrim, would have thought it of no consequence to remove Annas from the high-priesthood, if that measure had not, in fact, mainly dealt with the presidency of the supreme civil tribunal. Luke seems to mark that degradation of the high-priesthood ironically, when he speaks of a high priest (apxiepews) Annas, and Caiaphas; the one, that is to say, had the influence, the other the office. In like manner Annas appears in John (xviii. 4): not as president of the council, but as father-in-law

1 [Robinson comes to the same conclusion on similar grounds-Biblical Researches in Palestine, iii. 482-4; and compare Ebrard's Gospel History (Clark, 1863), p. 143.-ED.]

2 See Wieseler, Chronol. Synops. p. 183.

* [Lichtenstein supposes he may have been vice-president.-ED.]

of Caiaphas, he had the honour of having Jesus first sent to him. Caiaphas is the high priest 'that same year.' At a period when the office of high priest changed hands so often, he figured as the high priest of the year; but in the national feeling the real, permanent high priest was Annas. It was Caiaphas who uttered the official adage, that 'it was expedient one man should die for the people'-an inconsiderate expression, which evinced neither great political wisdom nor a noble disposition, but which in a higher sense might be regarded as an unconscious prophecy of the atonement.1

According to the before-named chronological limits of the ministry of John the Baptist, he was probably engaged in it for half a year before he had fully aroused the people and called them to baptism. After that, he was about a year and a half occupied in baptizing them. Finally, his imprisonment appears to have lasted about half a year. A doubt has been expressed, whether it was possible for John, in the short space of time allowed him by the Evangelists, to make so great an impression on his nation. But if we bear in mind that the infinitely superior ministry of Christ was comprised in the space of two years and a half, we shall find it very conceivable that two years sufficed John for his vocation. Indeed, John must already in the first half-year have agitated his nation, in order to appear as the Baptist. But would it require more than half a year to set Israel in motion when the message resounded, 'The kingdom of the Messiah is at hand! Come, purify yourselves, in order to enter it!' The history of the false messiahs shows that the people were easily set in motion by an announcement of the Messiah's advent. But, apart from the wonderful effect of this message on the theocratic nation, we need only look back on the

1 It appears from John xviii. 24, that there was no change of place, no sending from palace to palace. The temple guards follow the Jewish national instinct: they lead Jesus first before him who was really the high priest in the opinion of the Jews. He submits Jesus to a preliminary examination, and then sends Him bound, to be disposed of by Caiaphas, who was the officiating, titular high priest-the official high priest in the opinion of the Romans, who by their arbitrary appointments converted the high-priesthood into an annual office. The dose aúтòv dedeμévov (ver. 24) may be explained according to the analogy of the passage Luke iv. 19, ἀποστεῖλαι ἐν ἀφέσει. Annas, as the proper deciding hierarch, sent the Lord bound to Caiaphas; by that His fate was already decided.

middle ages, or into the history of Methodism, to be convinced how speedily a great preacher of repentance, simply as such, can agitate the popular mind. We may here be reminded how the theses of Luther spread like wildfire.

En peu d'heure, Dieu labeure, is a French proverb expressive of the agency of God generally. But this will apply with peculiar force to the agency of God in critical periods of the world's history.1 We must regard those minds as ill endowed who have no perception that God in His kingdom often works by voices, thunder, and lightnings (Rev. viii. 5). But, in reference to John, we might wonder that the widely extended ministry of such a man left behind so slight an effect, if we did not also recollect that the splendour of his career was lost in that of Jesus, as the morning star before the sun; while in the school of John's disciples' only the long shadow of the expiring remains of its Jewish restrictedness has been thrown across the world's history.

John described himself as 'the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord.' He exerted an influence suited to his gifts and destiny, which were intended to arouse and prepare, not to fulfil and satisfy. 'He was a burning and a shining light,' according to the words of Christ. Does such a fiery signal at the outset of a great history require much time? Certainly much time, says the critic.? Does the sharp note of an overture, wherewith one stroke announces the character of the piece and prepares the audience for it, require· much time? Surely, thinks the questioner, the instruments take a long time before they are in perfect tune. The world's history pronounces otherwise, and herein agrees with art. It is the office of a historical period to tune the instruments for a new epoch; but when this opens, new operations succeed, stroke upon stroke like lightning and thunder. Clement of Alexandria calls the Baptist the voice or sound of the Logos. This expression is ingenious; though we must remark that the Logos has His own peculiar sound, and John his own special mode of thought (sein eigenthümlich Logisches) proceeding from the life

1 ['Usefulness and power are not measured by length of life. Youth has originated all the great movements of the world.'-Young's Christ of History, p. 31.-ED.]

2 See Weisse, die evang. Geschichte i. 253.

of the Logos. If we adhere to Clement's figurative language, we may say that John is to be regarded as a clear trumpet-tone in which the Israelitish feeling for the Messiah expressed itself, and His forthcoming manifestation was announced; or as the clear response which the sound of the incarnate eternal Word, in His New Testament fulness, called forth in the last and noblest prophet of the Old Testament dispensation.

NOTES.

1. Abilene, the territory belonging to the town of Abila, was a district of Anti-Lebanon, towards the east of Hermon; it sloped from Anti-Lebanon towards the plain of Damascus.

2. It is as little possible to learn the special tendency of the Baptist from the tendency of the later sect called 'John's Disciples,' as to form a judgment of a believer who is awakened to a new life from the workings of his old sinful nature in his subsequent history. The so-called John's Disciples who formed. themselves into a sect hostile to Christianity, represent John's old Adam; they form the great historical shadow of the great Prophet-the cast-off slough of a religious genius, thrown off when he put on Christ, and whose violent death in Galilee prefigured the violent death of Christ in Jerusalem.

SECTION II.

JOHN THE BAPTIST.

John the Baptist, in his manifestation and agency, was like a burning torch; his public life was quite an earthquake—the whole man was a sermon; he might well call himself a voice— 'the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord' (John i. 23).

But if we attempt to seize the characteristic features of this great phenomenon, we shall be able plainly to distinguish the Nazarite, the prophet, and the religious reformer in a more confined sense, although these characteristics are combined in him in a most living expressive unity.

He grew and waxed strong' in the virgin solitudes of

nature (Luke i. 80). In his excursions from the hill-country of Judea, he had become acquainted with the sacred loneliness of the adjacent desert region,1 and here the Spirit of the Lord had spoken to his spirit.2 In chosen privation as a free son of the wilderness, he had accustomed himself to the simplest diet; locusts and wild honey sufficed him. He clothed himself in raiment of camel's hair, with a leathern girdle about his loins.3 Thus the Nazarite assumed the form of the preacher of repentance. But he also knew the significance of his Nazarite vow; he knew that he had to lead back Israel from the illusions of their formalized temple-worship into the wilderness, from which they had at first emerged as the people of the law, that they might purify themselves in the wilderness for the new economy of the kingdom of God. The Nazarite is a preacher of repentance in the deeply earnest tone of his soul, and therefore in the pensive seriousness of his appearance.

It does not, however, in the least follow from this devoted man's mode of life that he wished to convert others into ascetics like himself. He was perfectly aware of the singularity of his position, and knew how, with noble freedom, to appreciate other modes of life, and especially higher spiritual stages. But that the persons who became his disciples must have accommodated themselves to his peculiar habits, lies in the very nature of such a connection. They were his assistants in administering baptism, and must therefore have complied with the prerequisites of this employment of this symbolic preaching of repentance.5

But the divine commission which constituted him a prophet was the revelation that the kingdom of God was at hand for His people; that therefore the Messiah, as the founder of this king

1 See Robinson's Researches [and Andrews, p. 128].

2 We are here reminded of Fox, the founder of the sect of the Quakers, and of other distinguished characters of world-wide reputation.

3 See Von Ammon, die Geschichte des Lebens Jesu i. 251. [Kitto, Daily Bible Illust., 32d Week, 3d Day.]

4 When Strauss imagines that John, as "the gloomy, threatening preacher of repentance," would have found it difficult to be on terms of friendship with Jesus, he substitutes for the historical image of John in the Gospels one very different from that which really belongs to

him.

5 Exod. xix. 10, 15.