Pastor Pastorum; Or, The Schooling of the Apostles by Our Lord

by Henry Latham

It was, I think, in Galilee, as St Matthew tells us, that this profession of adhesion was made. At the time he speaks of, popular feeling in our Lord's favour was at its greatest height, and it was owing to the thronging of the multitude to the Lake shore near Capernaum that our Lord gave orders to depart unto the other side. The circumstances tally perfectly with the language of the passage, for our Lord was then going into a wild country. But where the passage stands in St Luke, our Lord is travelling “as it were in secret” from a village in Samaria to Jerusalem. In this journey, rapidly made, he would not have been likely to have fallen in with the scribe at all, and, as He did not preach as He went, we cannot account for the emotion which the scribe displays; moreover, it could hardly be said that at Jerusalem, He would not have “where to lay His head.”

What most particularizes the scribe is his impulsiveness. We have here another example [pg 376] of that mistrust of emotional fervour which our Lord uniformly shews. The woman who cried “Blessed is the womb that bare thee,”[285] the scribe in the case before us, and St Peter, when he said, “I am ready to go with thee both to prison and to death,”[286] all are answered by our Lord in the same tone of repression.[287]

Sudden transports and ebullitions of feeling like those just named, come mainly of temperament and of passing physical conditions which subjugate the agent, and our Lord does not regard them as betokening a character on which he can depend.

It speaks well for the right feeling of this scribe that he forbears to press his suit. He divined, with the delicacy of a well bred Oriental, that our Lord's reply, though apparently only discouraging him from following for his own sake, shewed that He held it best that he should stay behind. He is satisfied that our Lord's judgment will be right and he yields at once. A man with less perception might have protested against the imputation on his endurance, and have declared that he would go with the Master though he should have to lie on the bare earth.

That, however genuine his devotion may have been, it was best for the scribe to stay at home is easy to understand; he had been used to an indoors life and under hardships and exposure he would have broken down; besides, while being a burden to the rest, he could, as a jaded man, have gained little in moral or spiritual growth. He was moreover, both as to culture and social caste, of a different type from the rest, and his presence would have made the party less homogeneous. Another important consideration was this; by remaining where he was, he might do that particular kind of good for which he was suited by temper and condition better than by following our Lord. The course which had taken hold of his imagination may not have been that in which he could do the best work. By remaining in Galilee and mixing with other educated men, he, like Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, might help to spread tolerance and leaven the mass.

The two cases which follow, no doubt, puzzled the disciples much. Our Lord had so strenuously enforced a man's duty to his parents, that they would have expected these pleas for delay to be admitted without a word. They are however very positively rejected, and the refusal is put in so impressive a form that I cannot but infer that our Lord intended these colloquies to be recorded.

It has commonly been taken for granted, that the father of the spokesman in the first of these [pg 378] cases was lying dead when our Lord met him and bade him follow; but Eastern usages almost preclude this view, for the Jews buried within twenty-four hours of the death, and for a son to be seen in public while his father was lying dead would to their minds have been highly indecent. Some think that, the father being in extreme age, the son asked to be allowed to stay with him till he died; what seems to me more likely is that the completion of the ten days of strict mourning was regarded as part of the obsequies, and that the word “buried” applies to this. The father might have been laid in the ground, but the ten days not having expired, the funeral solemnities were not considered over.

I think that our Lord meant in this case to leave a lesson, and that the lesson was this. Family ties and duties, blessed though they usually are, must not be turned into idols or suffered to hamper the “clear spirit” in its ascent to God. There is such a thing as the tyranny of family just as there is of social usage or public opinion, and from each and all of these our Lord would set men free. This kind of freedom would cost a struggle as other kinds also would, and owing to divisions caused by change of Faith even parents might be set against children and children against parents—a heavy price indeed, but one that vanishes compared with the opening of eternal life to mankind. Supposing, as I do, that these disciples [pg 379] were summoned by our Lord to go forth with the seventy, I find in this inflexibility which our Lord displays something quite of a piece with the order to “salute no man by the way,”[288] and to wipe off the dust from their feet when not received; all this is consistent, when taken together, and viewed as a lesson in the dignity of consecration to God and the imperative character of the charge imposed.

It is important to observe that though these disciples make excuse, and our Lord has usually little tolerance for excuses, yet, instead of being dismissed, these men are despatched to preach the Kingdom of God. This shews that the defect in them was not organic, and that it had not touched the vital centres. Their malady was of a different order from that of the guests invited to the great supper who said, “I pray thee have me excused,” for these latter made light of the invitation; while, if my view be correct, these two men were terrified and overawed by being called to duties which their imagination painted as beyond their powers. They were sensitive and distrustful of self, with highly strung nerves, and the suddenness of the call to preach the Kingdom of God took away their breath. They do not refuse, but they beg for delay. If they had obtained such a postponement it would have been all the worse for them, because they would have been working themselves into a fever all the while. They are panic stricken [pg 380] at the idea of going into strange districts proclaiming the Kingdom of God. They were quailing under a nerve-storm and by devising excuses they only gave it greater force; every moment that they lingered increased the hold of the morbid impression: a foreign will must come to their help and take the place of that which was failing. Such a will acts most effectively in the form of an imperative command, calling the patient to immediate positive action. This treatment is followed here. These two men, no doubt, followed as they were bidden. They yielded to authority and herein they found their cure; they, like the rest, set out with only their staves in their hands and came back exulting that the devils were subject to them through the Lord's name. Thus each of the three personages receives the proper specific for his case; Christ divines the treatment that every particular diathesis requires.

But the crowning case of all is yet to come. It belongs to a later time than the above, and is related more at length. It was soon after our Lord had entered on his final public journey to Jerusalem, teaching and discoursing as He went, that a young man, “a certain ruler,” in St Luke's words, ran to Him and threw himself at His feet. St Mark's account is the most full of detail.