That wisdom is justified of all her children, is a truth carrying to different generations the precise lesson of tolerance it needs. It was not long before the Apostles themselves had occasion to call this very lesson to mind. An exclusive spirit, and the desire to have their privileges all to themselves led [pg 268] them to forbid a man who followed not with them to cast out devils in their Master's name. They are very gently set right. Our Lord is never hard upon errors arising from mistaken notions; he gently checks them at the time and takes early occasion, by a parable, or some lesson of circumstance, to suggest the proper counter view.
But though the Apostles might profit by this apophthegm, yet it was aimed directly at the Scribes who held that in all questions there must be one right view, all others being wrong; so that toleration of anything that deviated from the accepted view, implied indifference to truth. But it is only “truth absolute” which is one and exclusive and this, in spiritual matters, can only be attained by an unmistakeable dictum of revelation. In a geometrical investigation, we have an infallible logic dealing with definite notions; we therefore get one precise result, and all that differ from this are worthless. But in matters spiritual an element of infinity must be present; notions enter which cannot be defined; men may use the same words in stating their views, but whether these words convey the same conceptions to them all, no one can possibly say. In things spiritual, therefore, no one answer completely excludes all other answers because we never get a perfect solution at all; we only get approximations. In like manner there are insoluble problems in Mathematical Physics to which we can only get answers approximately [pg 269] correct. These being points in a circle round the unattainable centre may be infinite in number.
These hard sayings shew that Christ, when he spoke, looked beyond his hearers into infinite space and saw there “other sheep who were not of this fold.”[185] He must also have felt sure that these words of His would be preserved for after times; for certainly, it was not merely for Galilean hearers that our Lord uttered pregnant words like those I have just discussed.[186] The candle was not lighted to be put in a cupboard. The hard sayings of our Lord as well as many of His passing words, which called forth no notice at the time, are to me part of the witness, everywhere peeping out, of our Lord's prospective view in what He said and did. He must have had in view persons or bodies of men, who would find, some in one of these utterances and some in another, what answered to a want or a question rising in their hearts; and, as a fact, men have in every age lighted on words of our Lord which seemed to be a revelation directed to their own case, the key to the special riddle which vexed their souls. There are herbs and simples growing on the earth, which men for ages have passed carelessly by, but some new form of malady has one day appeared, and in the disregarded plant has the needful help been found.
Chapter IX. The Schooling Of The Apostles. The Mission To The Cities.
The point we have now reached in the history is marked by a signal change as well in the form of our Lord's teaching as in the outer tenour of His life. His discourses are no longer a string of positive precepts, but they consist largely of parables, commonly closing with a moral put into a striking, not to say a paradoxical, form. His way of life is altered also, it is no longer that of a resident of Capernaum, but that of a wayfarer undertaking considerable journeys, accompanied by the Twelve who had left all to follow Him. Outward circumstances, such as danger from the side of Herod, may have had influence in bringing this latter change about, but all things fell together to further the kind of education desired for the Twelve. This change from a stationary life to a wandering one was conducive to the growth of certain qualities valuable for the founders of a Church. These [pg 271] qualities we find conspicuously displayed by the Apostles in the Acts, and we may ask whether they had not acquired them in this course of practical education, and also whether our Lord did not frame this course with a view to its educational effects, and the fitting of the Apostles for their work. Was it of pure accident that all this came about?
We can also, although with less positiveness, draw some inferences from the courses which our Lord avoided taking as well as from those which He took. When we are disposed to wonder why our Lord did not take some particular step, it is a good plan to consider what would have come about if He had done so. We shall often find that the proposed course would have had an ultimate effect, very different from that immediate and obvious one which had at first occurred to us. So, by examining the educational consequences which would have resulted from certain courses that were not taken we shall, I think, learn something about what to avoid in education ourselves. Although the education of the Apostles is a purpose ever in our Lord's view, yet it is only now and then that we are plainly told that something was said or done for the Apostles' sakes. This silence as to the effect which is aimed at is, in education, often a necessity. If a pupil is told by his master that he is put through certain studies, not that he may learn the subject, but that he may perfect [pg 272] himself in certain mental motions and improve his capacities, he is apt to be made self-conscious and coxcombical or else, feeling satisfied that his mind and capacities are very well as they are, he gives small attention to what he is told.
From the very first we have seen indications that our Lord was divining the natures of men, selecting them with a forecast to their coming work, and fitting them to receive and promulgate His revelation of God. But this inner purpose, which, until the Twelve are called, has lain underground, now crops out on the surface and forces itself into view; and we feel bound to ask of every subsequent incident in the sacred History, “How was the Apostles' character influenced by this?”
I have spoken of the “Schooling of the Apostles” for want of a better phrase, but the mental changes wrought in the disciples by their Master's company constitute a very different sort of schooling from what commonly goes by the name. They receive no doctrinal instruction in dogmatic form, they obtain nothing which they can display, they are shewn no new system for dealing with the problems of life, nor are they given fresh views about the Messiah. Those who come asking “What they are to do?” are always told that they already know, or should know, this very well of themselves. Among the great Teachers of the world there is hardly one, whose chosen pupils have [pg 273] received so few tenets in a formulated shape as those of Christ; and yet the Apostles at the time of the Ascension have undergone a transformation, compared with what they were when our Lord first found them, greater than was ever wrought in men in the same time before.