practice, when the soul turned from the lower to the higher. But the best of all was the third way:
the free unfolding of that spiritual life which cometh neither from study nor discipline, but from a
natural good disposition. And in that state the soul had true rest70 and joy.71
68. Symbolised by Lot's wife.
69. Symbolised by Ebher, Hebrew.
70. The Sabbath, Jerusalem.
71. For further details on these points see Appendix II.: `Philo and Rabbinic Theology.'
Here we must for the present pause.72 Brief as this sketch of Hellenism has been, it must have
brought the question vividly before the mind, whether and how far certain parts of the New
Testament, especially the fourth Gospel,73 are connected with the direction of thought described
in the preceding pages. Without yielding to that school of critics, whose perverse ingenuity
discerns everywhere a sinister motive or tendency in the Evangelic writers,74 it is evident that
each of them had a special object in view in constructing his narrative of the One Life; and
primarily addressed himself to a special audience. If, without entering into elaborate discussion,
we might, according to St. Luke i. 2, regard the narrative of St. Mark as the grand
representative of that authentic `narration' (διηγησις), though not by Apostles,75 which was in
circulation, and the Gospel by St. Matthew as representing the `tradition' handed down (the
παραδοσις), by the Apostolic eye-witnesses and ministers of the Word,76 we should reach
the following results. Our oldest Gospel-narrative is that by St. Mark, which, addressing itself to
no class in particular, sketches in rapid outlines the picture of Jesus as the Messiah, alike for all
men. Next in order of time comes our present Gospel by St. Matthew. It goes a step further
back than that by St. Mark, and gives not only the genealogy, but the history of the miraculous
birth of Jesus. Even if we had not the consensus of tradition every one must feel that this Gospel
is Hebrew in its cast, in its citations from the Old Testament, and in its whole bearing. Taking its
key-note from the Book of Daniel, that grand Messianic text-book of Eastern Judaism at the
time, and as re-echoed in the Book of Enoch - which expresses the popular apprehension of
Daniel's Messianic idea - it presents the Messiah chiefly as `the Son of Man,' `the Son of
David,' `the Son of God.' We have here the fulfilment of Old Testament law and prophecy; the
realisation of Old Testament life, faith, and hope. Third in point of time is the Gospel by St.
Luke, which, passing back another step, gives us not only the history of the birth of Jesus, but
also that of John, `the preparer of the way.' It is Pauline, and addresses itself, or rather, we
should say, presents the Person of the Messiah, it may be `to the Jew first,' but certainly `also to
the Greek.' The term which St. Luke, alone of all Gospel writers,77 applies to Jesus, is that of
the παις or `servant' of God, in the sense in which Isaiah has spoken of the Messiah as the
`Ebhed Jehovah,' `servant of the Lord.' St. Luke's is, so to speak, the Isaiah-Gospel,
presenting the Christ in His bearing on the history of God's Kingdom and of the world - as
God's Elect Servant in Whom He delighted. In the Old Testament, to adopt a beautiful figure,78
the idea of the Servant of the Lord is set before us like a pyramid: at its base it is all Israel, at its
central section Israel after the Spirit (the circumcised in heart), represented by David, the man
after God's own heart; while at its apex it is the `Elect' Servant, the Messiah.79 And these three