down the footlights of his stage." [1] The erstwhile "winsome moralist" has become a transcendental revolutionary. Up to this point He had thought to bring about the triumph of the Kingdom of God by natural means, by teaching and influencing men. The Jewish eschatology stood vaguely in the background. Now it becomes prominent. The tension set up between His purely ethical ideas and these eschatological expectations gives His words from this time forward a special force. The period of joyous simplicity is past.
Even the character of the hero loses its simplicity. In the furtherance of His cause He becomes a wonder-worker. It is true that even before He had sometimes practised innocent arts such as Joan of Arc made use of later. [2] He had, for instance, pretended to know the unspoken thoughts of one whom He desired to win, had reminded him, perhaps of some experience of which he cherished the memory. He allowed the people to believe that He received knowledge of certain matters through a kind of revelation. Finally, it came to be whispered that He had spoken with Moses and Elias upon the mountains. But He now finds Himself compelled to adopt in earnest the role which He had formerly taken, as it were, in play. Against His will He is compelled to found His work upon miracle. He must face the alternative of either renouncing His mission or becoming a thaumaturge. He consented, therefore, to play an active part in many miracles. In this astute friends gave Him their aid. At Bethany something happened which could be regarded as a raising of the dead. Perhaps this miracle was arranged by Lazarus himself. When very ill he had allowed himself to be wrapped in the cerements of the dead and laid in the grave. His sisters sent for Jesus and brought Him to the tomb. He desired to look once more upon His friend, and when, overcome with grief, He cried his name aloud, Lazarus came forth from the grave. Why should the brother and sisters have hesitated to provide a miracle for the Master, in whose miracle-working power they, indeed, believed? Where, then, was Renan's allegiance to his "honoured master" Strauss, when he thus enrolled himself among the rationalists?
On these lines Jesus played His part for eighteen months, from the Easter of 31 to the Feast of Tabernacles of 32. How great is the change from the gentle teacher of the Sermon on the Mount! His discourse takes on a certain hardness of tone. In the synagogue at Capernaum He drives many from Him, offended by the saying about eating and drinking His flesh and blood. The "extreme materialism of the expression," which in Him had always been the natural counterpoise to the "extreme idealism of the
