of human judgment which comes with the spirit of Christianity and makes it, in its gentle yet penetrative way, the most revolutionary power in the world.

As Jesus enters upon the final week, which he spends in Jerusalem, Bethany, and the Mount of Olives, the intensity of his mood increases; his words become more prophetic, more vehement, and more like those of a judge pronouncing doom. Availing himself of a symbolic prediction in Zechariah (see Zech. ix, 9), — for both in relation to law and to prophecy he comes to fulfill, he makes a dramatic entry into Jerusalem, riding upon an ass and with shouting multitudes accompanying (Matt. xxi, 1-11; Mark xi, 1–11; Luke xix, 28-40). As, coming over the crest of the hill from Bethany, he reaches the point on the Mount of Olives where the city comes into magnificent view, he pauses to weep over it and to prophesy its destruction,— one of his most moving utterances in divine character (Luke xix, 41-44). After some days of teaching and controversy in the Temple, as he has left it for the last time and is sitting on the hillside over against it, he gives almost as if casually his most notable prophetic discourse to his disciples.1 In response to their expressed admiration of its splendor and magnificence, he prophesies that the days are coming when not one stone of the Temple will be left upon another. This leads to predictions of great hardships and trials, of great opportunities also for wisdom and faith and steadfastness, of the end of the age with its apocalyptic signs, and of the eventual coming of the Son of Man to those who, like the fig tree when summer approaches, have put forth their wealth of faith and fruitfulness to meet him (Matt. xxiv; Mark xiii; Luke xxi, 5-36). It is Jesus' own contribution to apocalyptic literature; in which images dictated by prophetic fantasy are replaced by spiritual values that all may realize and feel.

1 See "The Presage in Jesus' Words," pp. 660 ff., below.

It is
Finished

The story of the close of Jesus' ministry is but the detailed account of his deliberate laying down of his life, his voluntary committal of himself to the hands of men for their acceptance or rejection, until, regardless of its immediate result of apparent failure, his final word from the cross was, "It is finished" (John xix, 30). It does not belong to the scope of our treatment to recount the last days of Jesus on earth. The story of them is told, with variations of order, fullness, and incident, but with little if any real discrepancy, by all four Evangelists.

What suits our purpose is rather to note that although he let men do their will upon him (cf. Matt. xvii, 12), without resistance or evasion on his part (cf. Matt. xxvi, 53; Luke xxii, 53), it all came about in consistent pursuance of the ideal that he had formed from the beginning: the ideal of what is due to the integrity and perfecting of the true manhood. Nothing short of the life he lived and the death he died with all its accompaniment of divine power and wisdom and grace-could fully express its worth and potency.

This ministry of Jesus came too in what an apostle has called "the fullness of the time" (Gal. iv, 4), when, as it were, the stage of human nature was set and the properties ready. Jesus, with the sense of this age-preparation upon him, was acting consciously as the Protagonist in a great world transaction, as it were, a mighty dramatic action, in which the theme, wrought out by actual fullness of life, was the achievement of manhood in perfect loyalty to its divine parentage and powers. This we may regard as the large literary aspect of his life among men. To live such a life was to be, whether recognized or not, not only man but the divinely anointed King of men. The best expression of this idea, perhaps, is Jesus' definition of his life's meaning and aim, as given to the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate, when he stood before that ruler a prisoner and self-confessed king:

"Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth" (John xviii, 37). The word "bear witness," martureo, is the word from which comes our word "martyr," a term which his death and the death of many who lived in his faith have made forever sacred. His witness to the highest truth and beauty of manhood went on heroically and consistently until its end was martyrdom. For three days after his crucifixion the end seemed to all like ruin and failure. It was a time of suspense and Yet Only doubt, as if the promise of manhood and eternal Just Begun life were falsified. Then an event occurred which, however we seek to make it realistic, changed the mood of the disciples from despair to bewildered awe and wonder, and later to a permanence of courage and beneficence and joy such as they had never experienced before. They went forth announcing to the world that he could not be holden of death (Acts ii, 24), but that in his continued life the power of death itself was conquered. The event of his life which was the first to be preached (Acts ii, 32) and the earliest to be recorded in writing (I Cor. xv, 3-8) was his resurrection from the dead.

If Jesus' death on the cross was the sign that one stage of his active ministry was finished, the resurrection three days later was the signal of a new beginning. Henceforth the same ministry was to be perpetuated by the activities of men, living and working in the spirit of the Christ. St. Luke, going on from his gospel to write a continuation of history, is accurate in calling the former treatise as "concerning all that Jesus began both to do and to teach" (Acts i, 1). The beginning implies continuation; and in that continuation not only will new and greater works be done but new discoveries made in the facts and values of that life which has proved itself the light of men.

FTER the ascension of Jesus (Acts i), which left the

A disciples with a new courage and hope, and after the

wonderful illumination which they experienced at Pentecost (Acts ii), the little Christian community, still identified with Judaism and its associations, had no thought of making a literature, or even of needing any books except those of the Old Testament. Their first interests were active and practical. They were concerned to make known the momentous new truth that had been revealed to them and to avail themselves of its power and promise. For centuries their nation had subsisted largely on a literature of prophetic strain; had been looking for an ideal king and a golden age. And now that in the conviction of these disciples, henceforth called apostles, the era of fulfillment was come, the practical problem was not to write or philosophize about it but to make it available to the largest extent possible and to naturalize its results in the world.

In course of time, however, a literature must in the nature of things rise out of this Christian faith and activity. The

primal materials for such a literature, in the form of oral address and teaching, were forthcoming at once. It was what the apostles went about proclaiming, in order to induce men to believe what they had seen and experienced. This oral utterance, to begin with, based itself on simple concrete fact. It was concerned with reporting what had actually taken place events so unique and far-reaching that the witnesses of them could not keep silent. Peter's answer to the rulers who would forbid him gives the keynote of their initial motive: "Whether it is right in the sight of God to hearken unto you rather than unto God, judge ye; for we cannot but speak the things which we saw and heard" (Acts iv, 19, 20). Such reporting of events and their meaning was the beginning of a literature.

The tone of this literature is not philosophical nor expository. It is not conceived in the feeling of poetry or eloquence. It is simple announcement of fact and fulfillment. The general name it has received contains just this implication. It is called euaggelion (literally, "good news "), from which comes the Saxon translation "gospel" (that is, "good spell" or news"), a term adopted from the suggestion of the Second Isaiah, which Jesus used as a description of his own mission (Isa. xl, 9; lxi, 1; Luke iv, 18). "Good news, Good news," "good tidings," and "gospel" are synonymous terms. The men in the early church who, in distinction from apostles and prophets, had this duty of announcement specifically in charge were called Evangelists (Eph. iv, 11; Acts xxi, 8).

I. THE APOSTLES AND THEIR INITIAL MESSAGE

As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you" (John xx, 21), in these simple words Christ commissioned his disciples after he was risen from the dead. Their work was to be, as nearly as they could do it, a reproduction, in spirit and kind, of his: a work of disseminating the truth of