As to learning, intellectual attainment, his characteristic word is, "Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." "Be as little children."
The prevalent forms of religious observance he quietly acquiesced in, except where they barred the free play of human charity. Then he set the form aside, as being only the servant of the spirit. "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath."
Such was his attitude toward wealth, honor, intellectual wisdom, ceremonial.
Toward the outcasts, the publican and harlots, his attitude was of pure compassion. Toward the Pharisees it was denunciatory. Wealth of ceremony and poverty of spirit, self-complacency mixed with scorn for others and with hostility to new light and love, roused in him a wrath which broke in lightning-flashes. "Woe unto you! whited sepulchres full of dead men's bones, children of hell!"
In the ethics of Jesus chastity has a high place, yet he has few words about it. His is an exalted and ardent goodness, of which purity is an almost silent element. His effect is like that of a noble woman, whose presence is felt as an atmosphere. When he speaks, his words set the highest mark,—"Be pure in heart."
We may contrast the scene between Jesus and Mary Magdalene with that between Socrates and the courtesan Theodota. The philosopher is proof against allurement, and gives kindly advice, which clearly will have no effect; Jesus, without conscious effort, wakes a passion of repentance which transforms the life. So again we may compare the check which Epictetus prescribes against undue tenderness, "Say while you kiss your child, he is mortal," with the habitual attitude of Jesus toward children,—taking them in his arms, and saying, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven." It is in such scenes as these—in his relations especially with women and with children—that we best see the genius of the heart, the newness which came into the world with Jesus.
While dwelling in an inner realm of joy, he had the keenest sense of the sin and sorrow in men's lives. "He was filled with compassion for the multitude, as sheep having no shepherd." Their epilepsies, leprosies,—the hardness of heart, the insensibility to the higher life,—these moved him with a great pity. Scarcely save in little children did he see the heart-free joy, the natural freedom and happiness, which was his own. The hard-heartedness of the rich, the scorn of the self-righteous for the outcasts, moved his indignation. Thus the holy happiness of his own life was mingled with a profound sense of the trouble of other lives.
His reading of the trouble was very simple: there were but two forces in the world, moral good and evil, God and Satan, and God was shortly to give an absolute triumph to the good.
Among the chief impressions he made was that of commanding power. He must have been full of healthy and majestic manhood. Women and children were attracted to him, as the weak are attracted by the strong. In the storm on the lake, his spirit so rose above the elemental rage—as if upborne with delight by the sublime scene—that his companions forgot their fears, and in the remembrance it appeared to them that the sea and wind grew calm at his word. His strength seemed to impart itself to the weak, his health to the sick. The stories of marvel which richly embroider the whole story are partly the halos of imagination investing a personality which commanded, charmed, inspired.
Sometimes evil was considered the work of wicked spirits,—so especially in cases of lunacy. Over some such cases Jesus had a peculiar power. He even imparted this power to some of the disciples, who caught his inspiration. The disciples, and probably Jesus, believed that this power extended to other sicknesses. Of the uniformity of nature there is no recognition in the New Testament. Man's power over events is believed to be measured by his spiritual nearness to God. "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed," ye can cast mountains into the sea.