[Footnote 1: We are ignorant from what book this quotation is taken.]
[Footnote 2: There is a slight confusion here, which is also found in the Targum of Jonathan (Lament. ii. 20), between Zacharias, son of Jehoiadas, and Zacharias, son of Barachias, the prophet. It is the former that is spoken of (2 Paral. xxiv. 21.) The book of the Paralipomenes, in which the assassination of Zacharias, son of Jehoiadas, is related, closes the Hebrew canon. This murder is the last in the list of murders of righteous men, drawn up according to the order in which they are presented in the Bible. That of Abel is, on the contrary, the first.]
[Footnote 3: Matt. xxiii. 2-36; Mark xii. 38-40; Luke xi. 39-52, xx. 46, 47.]
His terrible doctrine of the substitution of the Gentiles—the idea that the kingdom of God was about to be transferred to others, because those for whom it was destined would not receive it,[1] is used as a fearful menace against the aristocracy. The title "Son of God," which he openly assumed in striking parables,[2] wherein his enemies appeared as murderers of the heavenly messengers, was an open defiance to the Judaism of the Law. The bold appeal he addressed to the poor was still more seditious. He declared that he had "come that they which see not might see, and that they which see might be made blind."[3] One day, his dislike of the temple forced from him an imprudent speech: "I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands."[4] His disciples found strained allegories in this sentence; but we do not know what meaning Jesus attached to it. But as only a pretext was wanted, this sentence was quickly laid hold of. It reappeared in the preamble of his death-warrant, and rang in his ears amidst the last agonies of Golgotha. These irritating discussions always ended in tumult. The Pharisees threw stones at him;[5] in doing which they only fulfilled an article of the Law, which commanded every prophet, even a thaumaturgus, who should turn the people from the ancient worship, to be stoned without a hearing.[6] At other times they called him mad, possessed, Samaritan,[7] and even sought to kill him.[8] These words were taken note of in order to invoke against him the laws of an intolerant theocracy, which the Roman government had not yet abrogated.[9]
[Footnote 1: Matt. viii. 11, 12, xx. 1, and following, xxi. 28, and following, 33, and following, 43, xxii. 1, and following; Mark xii. 1, and following; Luke xx. 9, and following.]
[Footnote 2: Matt. xxi. 37, and following; John x. 36, and following.]
[Footnote 3: John ix. 39.]
[Footnote 4: The most authentic form of this sentence appears to be in
Mark xiv. 58, xv. 29. Cf. John ii. 19; Matt. xxvi. 61, xxvii. 40.]
[Footnote 5: John viii. 39, x. 31, xi. 8.]
[Footnote 6: Deuter. xiii. 1, and following. Comp. Luke xx. 6; John x. 33; 2 Cor. xi. 25.]