(Matt. xx, 1-16); like men intrusted with capital which was to be used in a master's business (Matt. xxv, 14-30); like bridesmaids at a wedding, keeping their lamps filled and ready to meet the bridegroom (Matt. xxv, I-13). Some of his later parables, also, were aimed at the responsible leaders of the nation, who were recreant to their high trust: like stewards who abused the servants sent to receive the master's due and finally killed the son (Matt. xxi, 33-41); and like invited guests who would not attend a feast and whose place was accordingly taken by an assemblage of poor and crippled (Matt. xxii, 1-14). All these have direct reference to the idea of the kingdom, setting forth in narrative and as it were in situ the active working of its spiritual principles.

Thus Jesus' parables, simple and transparent as they were, in effect were his most revolutionary utterances, because they aimed at reversing men's standards of values. This, however, not by suppressing their natural ambitions in life, but by clarifying and directing these. It was a kind of teaching which set the elements of life in sound relation and proportion, so that men from the humblest up could feel what things were of supreme importance and what merely secondary or valueless.

III

His Encounters with Human Falsity. The general tone of Jesus' intercourse with men, it would seem, was gentle and gracious, patient with the sincere-minded however dull or feeble, and so little disposed to display that a biographer found in him the fulfillment of Isaiah's description of Jehovah's servant :

He will not strive nor cry aloud;

Neither will any one hear his voice in the streets.

(Matt. xii, 19; cf. Isa. xlii, 2)

His mission, as he said, was not to judge and censure men, but to give them such light that they could judge themselves

(cf. John xii, 47, with ix, 39; Luke xii, 14). Hence his general manner of teaching: not seeking to convince or refute by argument but to make the truth luminous by illustration and example, so that men could see for themselves.

One response he sought, however, one reciprocity of relation between himself and his hearers; namely, sincerity, openness, and candor of mind. Any kind of falsity or pretense or guile called forth from him an answer that unearthed its ungenuineness and revealed the truth as it were in white light.

We note this especially in two ways.

1. Taking

the Wise in their Own Craftiness 1

Almost from the beginning of his ministry Jesus was beset by men, generally of the leading and cultured class, who were seeking not to learn the truth but to ensnare him in his words, and thereby get a pretext on legal or political grounds against him. They would come with smooth professions of respect and sincerity; would propound questions as if they had real doubts about them; and yet with sheer duplicity and hatred in their hearts. He saw the pretense and falsity of it all, yet he answered them according to what they pretended to be. They were posing as truth-seekers; he gave them straight truth. This he did by lifting their ideas out of the petty and sophisticated slough in which they were mired to a higher and more reasonable, which is to say a spiritual, plane. It was like setting the light of intuitive truth over against the ingenuities of rabbinical hair-splitting and logic.

Thus it came about that by his answers to these insincere questions, answers given as it were on the defensive, he brought out some of the profoundest truths of his teaching. Such, for instance, was his reply about the resurrection, wherein he removes the truth at one stroke from the fogs of speculation and conjecture to the clear ground of the 1 The heading taken from Job v, 13; words of Eliphaz.

self-evident (Matt. xxii, 23-33). His reply about the tribute money (Matt. xxii, 15-22) not only silenced their duplicity but put every man into his reasonable relation both to God and to the state. Nor did he stop with the defensive,—with merely answering their questions. He turned the tables upon them, asking them questions in turn. Instances are his question about the significance of John's baptism (Matt. xxi, 23-27) and his question about their conception of the Christ (Matt. xxii, 41-45)-things which they could not answer without betraying their insincerity and their unspiritual ideals. They had invented dilemmas in which they tried in vain to entrap him; he, employing their own method, put them with ease into dilemmas from which they could not escape and remain the men they were. Yet his answers and his questions alike were not negative but eminently constructive. Their object was not controversy nor even self-defense, but vital truth. The result of these encounters it is important to note. In Matthew it is described, “And no one was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions" (Matt. xxii, 46; cf. Mark xii, 34). To which Mark adds, "And the common people heard him gladly" (Mark xii, 37). The words so baffling to the insincere and sophisticated were clear and edifying to simple and candid minds.

It was inevitable, of course, that Jesus should come in contact with the leaders of thought and opinion. It was his mission, indeed, to teach not the common people only, or any one class, but all who would meet him as man to man, including the teachers and cultured ones of the nation. So all the leading classes, at the fitting occasions, had their encounters with him: the Scribes, who were the leaders in learning; the Pharisees, who were the orthodox authorities in religion; and the Sadducees, who were of the aristocratic and governing class, worldly and skeptical. Most of the opposition to him came from these classes; the secret plots

against him, also, were instigated by them; and his most sweeping denunciations were directed against these representatives of learning and religion. It is important therefore that we understand on what grounds there should have risen this mutual antagonism.

The prevailing mildness and graciousness of Jesus' manner makes the effect all the more impressive when he takes 2. Unearth- occasion to employ the literary weapon of invecing Moral tive. It gives us a sense of the tremendous and Religious reserve power which he could wield if he would, Shams while at the same time our thought is concentrated on the thing that could so move him from his wonted orbit of gentleness. And we find the issue a very plain and simple one. It is the antipathy of the true to the false, of the sincere and genuine to crookedness and sham.

Jesus' most trenchant denunciations were directed against the Scribes and Pharisees. He seems to have taken a particular occasion to utter these; it was in Jerusalem in the last week of his ministry, just after his encounter with the leaders of the people. These denunciations are most fully reported in what are sometimes called the Seven Woes, in Matthew xxiii. The introduction to his discourse, however, shows that he had no controversy with Scribes and Pharisees as such, nor with what they taught as authoritative leaders of the people. They sat, as he said, in Moses' seat, and what they inculcated it was right to heed and do (Matt. xxiii, 2). Of the typical scribe, or man of letters, and what his capacities are if he has true insight, Jesus spoke in admiring terms (Matt. xiii, 52). He ate and associated freely with Pharisees who were sincere and candid with him (Luke vii, 36; xi, 37); and, as reported in the gospel of John, he imparted one of his profoundest doctrines to Nicodemus, an inquiring Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrim (John iii, 1-15). His whole issue with these two leading classes was on the ground of their too prevalent sham and inconsistency;

not because they were Scribes and Pharisees but because, or in so far as, they were hypocrites. The Greek word hupokritēs, in classical usage, means an actor, a stageplayer. This meaning fits well with his denunciation of the Pharisees. As accredited and responsible teachers it was their duty to live as they taught. Instead of that they were posing, acting a false part, appearing to be what they were not. The series of woes pronounced upon them showed up the various ways in which they were making display of sanctity and righteousness while inwardly turning their professions to their own selfish purposes. For such insincere practices Jesus, the consistent witness to truth, could not but have the most uncompromising antipathy. On the other hand, he acquired the popular (or invidious) fame of being a friend of publicans and sinners (Matt. xi, 19; cf. Luke xix, 7), largely, it would seem, because there was no question of insincerity or pretense between them.

When once asked who was greatest in the kingdom of heaven he praised the truth and purity of childhood (Matt. xviii, 1-6); and in his beatitudes it was the pure, that is, the single of heart, who should see God (Matt. v, 8). The faith he sought was simply openness of heart and will to the truth of life as embodied in his words and personality. But with any form of crookedness or duplicity he had no patience or toleration.

IV

His Utterances in Divine Character. As we have seen,1 for common hearers and ordinary occasions Jesus did not assert his personality as divine. He used the term "Son of Man" to designate himself, and even this for the most part indirectly, speaking of it in the third person as if of an ideal to be emulated and realized. At the same time he did not assume not to be divine or in any way to

1 See above, pp. 535, 541 ff.