as his confession had been, was countered by a reproof on Jesus' part as emphatic as had been his previous commendation (Matt. xvi, 22, 23).

The Dis

Following his solemn announcement of his coming suffering and death, Jesus as solemnly enunciates the principle that for every disciple of his (in which number he ciples' Part includes not the twelve only but all who ever bein the Issue lieve in him, Mark viii, 34) the following of his way means self-denial and cross-bearing. "If any one," he says, "would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me" (Luke ix, 23). On a later occasion, as great multitudes followed him, he spoke still more emphatically, "Whosoever doth not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple,” accompanying the statement by the "hard saying" about hating all one's relatives for his sake (Luke xiv, 25-27). To the earlier statement he adds the enigmatical saying, "For whosoever would save his life will lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake, the same will save it" (Luke ix, 24). Among the paradoxes and startling half-truths with which his teaching abounds,1 this was the most spiritually penetrative and the hardest to make men understand. We may call it the distinctive Christian principle, which is destined in the end to prevail. What he meant has become a commonplace of the Christian consciousness and spirit. However imperfectly men carry it out, or however the world scorns the practical application of it, no theme of literature and life is so honored to-day as self-sacrifice and the heroism of service. But such an ideal, though it touched the very heart of his reign, needed time and a new spirit of life for realization; and Jesus reassuringly added that the kingdom of heaven would come with power; that there were men standing there who would see it before they died (Matt. xvi, 28; Mark ix, 1; Luke ix, 27).

1 See above, p. 546 f.

1

At this point in his ministry we note a change in the substance and tone of his teaching. He left the region of Starting to Cæsarea Philippi a few days (or perhaps weeks) Carry it out after the Great Confession; and in the course of a somewhat leisurely and unobtrusive journey through Palestine from north to south (cf. for Galilee, Mark ix, 30), a sort of farewell journey with Jerusalem as his objective, he took occasion to impress on his disciples that this, his last journey, meant going to death and resurrection (Luke ix, 51; ix, 44; Mark ix, 30-32; x, 32-34). It was their hardest lesson; and for the time they were almost deaf to it, though the majesty of his mien, as thus he strode so resolutely toward his doom, amazed them. To the idea of the coming kingdom, however, they were quite keenly awake, and there was rivalry among them as to who should be greatest therein. James and John, indeed, who are thought to have been cousins of Jesus, preferred a definite request for high official appointment (Mark x, 35-37); but his response to their request, "Can ye drink of the cup which I drink? or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” (Mark x, 38), elicits their mistaken conception and emphasizes anew the austere and soul-trying ordeal that awaits them. He is minded to foster no false hopes. Nor does he command them to follow him. He gives them the opportunity rather, holding before them the risks and the sacrifices; his appeal is always to men's choice and free will. It is with a kind of yearning wistfulness that he asks if they can share his cup and his baptism with him, submitting themselves thereby to lives of service (Mark x, 42-45). But from this time onward the severity and solemnity of the situation deepens, for he is preparing them for the deep things of the manhood life.

1 We have to reckon for the Transfiguration (see next section), which occurred six or eight days after (Luke ix, 28; Mark ix, 2); succeeding that, however, the start southward is indefinite.

II

Reckoning on Departure. The last six months of Jesus' ministry was a deliberate planning and preparation for the end. To designate this ending St. Luke, in his account of the Transfiguration, uses a peculiar word: he calls it decease or departure (Greek ten exodon, "the exodus, the going out," Luke ix, 31); an idea which included not only death but rising again and, to crown all, ascension — entrance upon a higher stage and table-land of being, from which divine position his ministry could be continued on a world scale and be victorious. That this was the idea in Jesus' mind is evident from what he said about being lifted up, both at the beginning and the end of his ministry. To a Pharisee, during his first visit to Jerusalem, he said the Son of Man must be lifted up, and he illustrated it by reference to Moses and the serpent in the wilderness (John iii, 14; cf. Num. xxi, 8, 9). To certain Greeks who later inquired after him in Jerusalem, his remark, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself" (John xii, 32), meant crucifixion, but it meant a great deal more. It meant a death which was also a germination, like that of a grain of wheat buried in the ground; this is the image he used to illustrate it (John xii, 24). All this, it will be noted, he took upon himself not as assuming the divine but as Son of Man, working out the true glory of manhood.

The Great

A week after Peter had made his confession and Jesus had told the disciples what it involved and presaged, occurred one of the most mysterious events of his ministry. Refusal and As with Peter, James, and John, his three most Resolve intimate companions, he was in prayer on a high mountain, — probably Mount Hermon, near Cæsarea Philippi,

suddenly, with a super-earthly light apparently from within his person, his face and figure so shone that his very garments were dazzling white. Two men, also glorified, who

were identified as Moses and Elijah, appeared and talked with him. This strange episode is narrated by all three of the synoptists (Matt. xvii, 1-8; Mark ix, 2-8; Luke ix, 2836); and its essentials are recalled in a later epistle attributed to one of the spectators (2 Peter i, 16-18). St. Luke alone reports the subject of their conversation. They spoke, he says, of his decease, his exodus, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.

These two men, it will be remembered, were the greatest personages of Old Testament history: the men in whom, respectively, the essential spirit of law and of prophecy were embodied. From Moses had been preserved a prediction of a prophet to come after him like himself, to whom men should hearken (Deut. xviii, 15; cf. Acts iii, 22; vii, 37); and Elijah, as the evangelists recall, was to be the herald of the Christ (Mal. iv, 5; cf. Matt. xi, 14; Mark ix, 11-13; Luke i, 17). And now these three, so intimately associated in prophecy and fulfillment, were together, discussing a new theme. Further, the other-world personages were two of the three men (the other was the patriarch Enoch, Gen. v, 24) who are represented to have been spared the universal fate of death, or, in the case of Moses, to have had an exceptional departure from earth (Deut. xxxiv, 5, 6; 2 Kings ii, I-II), a distinction seemingly due to their exceptional identification with God's work and will. If their release from mortality was a reward of such merit, then Jesus, whose meat, as he said, was to do the Father's will (cf. John iv, 34), would certainly seem to have earned it, nay, to be even more truly than they worthy of exemption from death. And that he was all ready for such translation, the other-world splendor of his form and his intimacy with the great immortals seem to indicate. Translation to heaven, the ascension by which at the end he actually did depart (Acts i, 9–11), was his if he would take it; he could be spared the preliminary shame and suffering and death and resurrection.

Here then occurs what we have called the great refusal and resolve. He chose to renounce this exceptional result of a sinless life; chose to submit to the universal human lot, the doom which from earliest times had been deemed the wages and penalty of sin (cf. Gen. ii, 17; Rom. vi, 16, 23). His motive in this his whole consistent career had revealed. As Son of Man he was resolved to submit to all to which man is subject, claiming no favors or exemption. A death so chosen, when he might have been spared it, was truly unique. It was doubtless a new thing to Moses and Elijah themselves; and one of the spectators of this transfiguration describes the sacrifice as something that prophets had speculated on and that angels had desired to look into (1 Pet. i, 10-12).

With this refusal and resolve made, the splendor faded. A cloud enveloped the company, and from it there came a voice, saying, "This is my Son, my Chosen; hear ye him" (Luke ix, 35). As the voice ceased the disciples saw only Jesus alone. He had made the resolve, it would seem, of his own will without reference to the Father's; but the immediate approval from heaven evinced that his will and the Father's were entirely at one. His sense of perfect unity with the Father yet perfect freedom of choice and action on his own part he asserted later in Jerusalem. "Therefore doth the Father love me," he said, "because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No one taketh it away from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again" (John x, 17, 18).

In this episode at Mount Hermon Jesus had virtually laid down his life. There remained only the deepening details of making his resolve an actuality. But the disciples, naturally enough, could not understand it in this its initial stage. They were bidden keep silent about it until the Son of Man was risen (Matt. xvii, 9). It was the eventual