The Life of Jesus of Nazareth: A Study

by Rush Rhees

The first gospel assigns another extended discourse to this Galilean period,--the Instructions to the Twelve. The mission of the twelve formed a new departure as Jesus saw the Galilean crisis approaching. He sought thereby to multiply his own work, and commissioned his disciples to heal and preach as he was doing. The restriction of their field to Israel (Matt. x. 5, 6) simply applied to them the rule he adopted for himself during the Galilean period (Matt. xv. 24). Comparison with the accounts in Mark and Luke, as well as the character of the instructions found in Matthew, show that here the first evangelist has followed his habit of gathering together teachings on the same general theme from different periods in Jesus' life. Much in the tenth chapter of Matthew indicates clearly that the ministry of Jesus had already passed the period of popularity, and that his disciples could now look for little but scorn and persecution. This was the situation at the end of Jesus' public life, and parallel sayings are found in the record of the last week in Jerusalem.

When the teaching of the sermon and the parables is compared with Jesus' self-assertion in his replies to pharisaic criticism and blasphemy, the difference is striking. Ordinarily he avoided calling attention to himself, wishing men to form their opinion of him after they had learned to know him as he was. Yet when one looks beneath the surface of his teaching, the tone of authority which astonished the multitudes is identical with the calm self-confidence which replied to pharisaic censure: "The Son of Man hath authority on the earth to forgive sins."

Jesus drew the multitudes after him not only by his teachings, but also by his mighty works. He certainly was for his contemporaries a wonder-worker and healer of disease, and, in order to appreciate the impression which he made, the miracles recorded in the gospels must be allowed to reveal what they can of his character. The mighty works which enchained attention in Galilee were chiefly cures of disease, with occasional exhibitions of power over physical nature,--such as the stilling of the tempest and the feeding of the five thousand. The significant thing about them is their uniform beneficence of purpose and simplicity of method. Nothing of the spectacular attached itself to them. Jesus repeatedly refused to the critical Pharisees a sign from heaven. This was not because he disregarded the importance of signs for his generation,--witness his appeal to his works in the reply to John (Matt. xi. 4-6); but he felt that in his customary ministry to the needy multitudes he had furnished signs in abundance, for his deeds both gave evidence of heavenly power and revealed the character of the Father who had sent him.

One of the commonest of the ailments cured by Jesus is described in the gospels as demoniac possession, the popular idea being that evil spirits were accustomed to take up their abode in men, speaking with their tongues and acting through their bodies, at the same time afflicting them with various physical diseases. Six specific cures of such possession are recorded in the story of the Galilean ministry, besides general references to the cure of many that were possessed. Of these specific cases the Gadarene demoniac shows symptoms of violent insanity; the boy cured near Cæsarea Philippi, those of epilepsy; in other cases the disease was more local, showing itself in deafness, or blindness, or both. In the cures recorded Jesus addressed the possessed with a command to the invading demon to depart. He was ordinarily greeted, either before or after such a command, with a loud outcry, often accompanied with a recognition of him as God's Holy One.

The record of such maladies and their cure is not confined to the New Testament. The evil spirit which came upon King Saul is a similar case, and Josephus tells of Jewish exorcists who cured possessed persons by the use of incantations handed down from King Solomon. The early Christian fathers frequently argued the truth of Christianity from the way in which demons departed at the command of Christian exorcists, while in the middle ages and down to modern times belief in demoniac possession has been common, particularly among some of the more superstitious of the peasantry in Europe. Moreover, from missionaries in China and other eastern lands it is learned that diseases closely resembling the cases of possession recorded in the New Testament are frequently met with, and are often cured by native Christian ministers.

The similarity of the symptoms of so-called possession to recognized mental and physical derangements such as insanity, epilepsy, and hysteria, suggests the conclusion that possession should be classed with other ailments due to ill adjustment of the relations of the mental and physical life. If this conclusion is valid, the idea of actual possession by evil spirits becomes only an ancient effort to interpret the mysterious symptoms in accordance with wide-spread primitive beliefs. This explanation would doubtless be generally adopted were it not that it seems to compromise either the integrity or the knowledge of Jesus. The gospels plainly represent him as treating the supposed demoniac influence as real, addressing in his cures not the invalid, but the invading demon. If he did this knowing that the whole view was a superstition, was he true to his mission to release mankind from its bondage to evil and sin? If he shared the superstition of his time, had he the complete knowledge necessary to make him the deliverer he claimed to be? These questions are serious and difficult, but they form a part of the general problem of the extent of Jesus' knowledge, and can be more intelligently discussed in connection with that whole problem (sects. 249-251). It is reasonable to demand, however, that any conclusion reached concerning the nature of possession in the time of Jesus must be considered valid for similar manifestations of disease in our own day.

What astonished people in Jesus' cures was not so much that he healed the sick as that he did it with such evidence of personal authority. His cures and his teachings alike served to attract attention to himself and to invite question as to who he could be. Yet a far more powerful means to the end he had in view was the subtle, unobtrusive, personal influence which without their knowledge knit the hearts of a few to himself. In reality both his teaching and his cures were only means of self-disclosure. His permanent work during this Galilean period was the winning of personal friends. His chief agency in accomplishing his work was what Renan somewhat too romantically has called his "charm." It was that in him which drew to his side and kept with him the fishermen of Galilee and the publican of Capernaum, during months of constant disappointment of their preconceived religious ideas and Messianic hopes; it was that which won the confidence of the woman who was a sinner, and the constant devotion of Mary Magdalene and Susanna and the others who followed him "and ministered to him of their substance." The outstanding wonder of early Christianity is the complete transformation not only of life but of established religious ideas by the personal impress of Jesus on a Peter, a John, and a Paul. The secret of the new element of the Christian religion--salvation through personal attachment to Jesus Christ--is simply this personal power of the man of Nazareth. The multitudes followed because they saw wonderful works or heard wonderful words; many because they hoped at length to find in the new prophet the champion of their hopes in deliverance from Roman bondage. But these sooner or later fell away, disappointed in their desire to use the new leader for their own ends. It was only because from out the multitudes there were a few who could answer, "To whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life," when Jesus asked, "Will ye also go away?" that the work in Galilee did not end in complete failure. These few had felt his personal power, and they became the nucleus of a new religion of love to a personal Saviour.

The test of the personal attachment of the few came shortly after the execution of John the Baptist by Antipas. Word of this tragedy was brought to Jesus by John's disciples about the time that he and the twelve returned to Capernaum from their tour of preaching. At the suggestion of Jesus they withdrew to the eastern side of the lake in search of rest. It is not unlikely that the little company also wished to avoid for the time the territory of the tyrant who had just put John to death, for Jesus was not yet ready for the crisis of his own life. Such a desire for seclusion would be intensified by the continued impetuous enthusiasm of the multitudes who flocked about him again in Capernaum. In fact, so insistent was their interest in Jesus that they would not allow him the quiet he sought, but followed around the lake in great numbers when they learned that he had taken ship for the other side. He who came not to be ministered unto but to minister could not repel the crowds who came to him, and he at once "welcomed them, and spake to them of the kingdom of God, and them that had need of healing he healed" (Luke ix. 11). The day having passed in this ministry, he multiplied the small store of bread and fish brought by his disciples in order to feed the weary people. This work of power seemed to some among the multitudes to be the last thing needed to prove that Jesus was to be their promised deliverer, and they "were about to come and take him by force and make him king" (John vi. 15), when he withdrew from them and spent the night in prayer.

This sudden determination on the part of the multitudes to force the hand of Jesus was probably due to the prevalence of an idea, found also in the later rabbinic writers, that the Messiah should feed his people as Moses had provided them manna in the desert. The rebuff which Jesus quietly gave them did not cool their ardor, until on the following day, in the synagogue in Capernaum, he plainly taught them that they had quite missed the significance of his miracle. They thought of loaves and material sustenance. He would have had them find in these a sign that he could also supply their spirits' need, and he insisted that this, and this alone, was his actual mission. From the first the popular enthusiasm had had to ignore many contradictions of its cherished notions. But his power and the indescribable force of his personality had served hitherto to hold them to a hope that he would soon discard the perplexing rôle which he had chosen for the time to assume, and take up avowedly the proper work of the Messiah. This last refusal to accept what seemed to them to be his evident duty caused a revulsion in the popular feeling, and "many of his disciples turned back and walked no more with him" (John vi. 66). The time of sifting had come. Jesus had known that such a rash determination to make him king was possible to the Galilean multitudes, and that whenever it should come it must be followed by a disillusionment. Now the open ministry had run its course. As the multitudes were turning back and walking no more with him, he turned to the twelve with the question, "Will ye also go away?" and found that with them his method had borne fruit. They clung to him in spite of disillusionment, for in him they had found what was better than their preconceptions.

It is the fourth gospel that shows clearly the critical significance of this event. The others tell nothing of the sudden determination of the multitude, nor of the revulsion of feeling that followed Jesus' refusal to yield to their will. Yet these other gospels indicate in their narratives that from this time on Jesus avoided the scenes of his former labors, and show that when from time to time he returned to the neighborhood of Capernaum he was met by such a spirit of hostility that he withdrew again immediately to regions where he and his disciples could have time for quiet intercourse.