"Capernaum, Chorazin Magdala, Bethsaida, Dalmanutha Gerasa, preaching in the synagogues, visiting the fishing-boats and threshing-floors, healing the sick, and comforting the poor; gentle in his aspect and in his life; wise as a sage and simple as a child; winning people to his views by the charm of his manner and the beauty of his sayings."
His first aim was to win the Jews from the Oral Law, to convince them of its emptiness; it is the key to the following scenes graphically depicted by Mr. Dixon. Christ had gone to Jerusalem for the feast of Purim, and was walking by the Pool of Bethesda in the sheet market, a spot he had to pass daily. On the thanks of this pool were crowds of sick, the halt, aged, and blind, a spectacle sure to attract the eye of Jesus:
"It was the Sabbath day.
"In the temple hard by, these wretches could hear the groaning of bulls under the mace, the bleating of lambs under the sacrificial knife, the shouting of dealers as they sold doves and shekels. Bakers were hurrying through with bread. The captain of the temple was on duty with his guards. Priests were marching in procession, and crowds of worshippers standing about the holy place. Tongues of flame leaped faintly from the altars on which the priests were sprinkling blood . . . but the wretches who lay around (the pool) on their quilts and rugs, the blind, the leprous, and the aged poor, drew no compassion from the busy priests. One man, the weakest of the weak, had been helpless no less than thirty-eight years. Over this man Jesus paused and said:
"'Wilt thou be made whole?'
"'Rabbi, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool; but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me."
The Compassionate answered him:
"'Rise, take up thy bed and walk.'
"At once the life leaped quickly into the poor man's limbs. Rising from the ground he folded up his quilt, taking it on his arm to go away; but some of the Pharisees seeing him get up and roll his bed into a coil, run toward him crying: 'It is the Sabbath day; it is not lawful for thee two carry thy bed.' It was certainly an offense against the Oral Law."
The Jews had turned the blessing of the Sabbath into a curse.
"From the moment of hearing the ram's horn, a sacred trumpet, called the shofa, blown from the temple wall, announcing that the seventh had commenced, he was not allowed to tight a fire or make a bed, to boil him a pot; he could not pool his ass from a ditch, nor raise and arms in defense of his life . . . A Jew could not quit his camp, his village, or his city on the day of rest. He might not begin a journey; if going along a road, he must rest from sundown till the same event of the coming day. He might not carry a pencil, a kerchief a shekel in his belt; if he required a handkerchief for use, he had to tie it round his leg. If he offended against one of these rules, he was held to deserve the doom awarded to the vilest of sinners. Some rabbins held that a man ought not to change his position, but that, whether he was standing or sitting when the shofa sounded, he should stand or sit immovable as a stone until the Sabbath had passed away."
Jesus broke the Oral Law that he might bring his followers to a sense of its degrading spirit, and announced the new truth that "The Sabbath is made for man; not and for the Sabbath." After two very interesting chapters upon Antipas Herod and Herodias, we have once upon the Synagogue. Some writers have striven to claim the remotest antiquity for this institution, but in all probability it might be dated from the captivity. There would be a natural desire to meet together away from the pagans, by whom they were surrounded, to pray to their God, to sing their psalms, and to read the law. This gave rise to the synagogue, which means no more then a "meeting together;" but after the Maccabaean insurrection it became a popular institution, and every little village had its synagogue. Now, as much of the work of Christ was done in the synagogue, as he loved to go into them and to take part [{509}] in their services, it is desirable that we should have a clear notion of what a synagogue was:
"A house of unhewn stones taken up from the hillside; squat and square of the ancient Hebrew style, having a level roof, but neither spire nor tower, neither dome nor minaret to enchant the eye; such was the simple synagogue of the Jews in which Jesus taught. . . Inside a Syrian synagogue is like one of our parish schools with seats for the men, rough sofas of wood half covered with rushes and straw; a higher seat stands in the centre like that of a mosque, for the elders of the town, a desk for the reader of the day; at the south end a closet, concealed by a hanging veil, in which the torah, a written copy of the Pentateuch, is kept in the sacred ark. A silver lamp is always kept burning, a candlestick with eight arms, a pulpit, a reading-desk, are the chief articles of furniture in the room. . . . . In olden times women were allowed to enter with the men, though they were even then parted from father and son by a wooden screen. . . . Before entering a synagogue a man is expected to dip his hands into water. . . . Ten persons are necessary to form a meeting; every town or city having a synagogue appointed ten men called batlanim (men of leisure), who were bound to appear at the hour of prayer. . . Higher in office was the chazzan, who took charge of the house and scroll. . . The meturgeman was an interpreter of the law, whose duty it was to stand near the reader for the day, and translate the sacred verses, one by one, from the Hebrew into the vulgar tongue. Above him were the elders. . . . When the people came in they first bowed to the ark; the elders took their places on the raised platform; the rich went up to high seats near the ark; the poor sat on wooden sofas, matted with straw. . . . A prayer was said, one of the Psalms of David sung. The chazzan walked up to the veil, which he drew aside with reverence, lifted the ark from its niche, took out the torah, carried the roll round the benches, every one striving either to kiss or touch it with his palm; the sheliach read the lesson for the day; at its close the elder expounded the text in a sort of sermon, when the torah was carried back, the prayers began. . . . Every hearer had in those times a right to express his opinion of the sacred text, and of what it meant."
Our Lord availed himself of this right, which every Jew possessed, of speaking in the synagogue upon the text which had been read; and Mr. Dixon has worked up two scenes well known in the career of our Lord, with all the surrounding incidents and scenery, so graphically and so accurately that no one could read these descriptions without rising from them with a clearer and more complete understanding of the simple statement of the gospel. The gospels were not written as historical sketches, but as vehicles for the vital truth they contain; consequently anything that resuscitates the scene and reproduces the incidents as they took place, with all their peculiar surroundings, must be of great value in assisting us to comprehend more readily, and to retain in our minds more vividly the events of our Lord's career. We think this is more preeminently the characteristic aim and achievement of this work than of the many others we have read upon the subject, and we shall instance one, the scene in the synagogue of Capernaum. The first alluded to was the declaration of Jesus in the synagogue at Nazareth; but as many of the incidents are included in this of Capernaum, we content ourselves with giving it somewhat in detail, as an illustration of the peculiarity we have already mentioned. Let the reader first peruse the simple statement in the gospel of St. John, vi. ch., 25 v., to the end, and then the following; or better still the whole of chapter xvii. in the second volume of Mr. Dixon's work, called The Bread of Life, and he will rise from it with a much more vivid conception of one of the most trying scenes in our Lord's history. On the steps of the synagogue a motley crowd had collected, eager, excited, and curious, for it was just after the miraculous feeding of the 5,000, and they were full of it; they had heard of it in all its stupendous power; it was the miracle of all miracles most likely to overpower the Jewish mind; it recalled to them the words of Jehovah: