Jesus returned to Galilee full of revolutionary ardour.  His innocent aphorisms and beautiful moral precepts now culminated in a decided policy.  The law is to be abolished, and it is he that will abolish it.  The Messiah is come, and it is he that is the Messiah.  The Kingdom of God is about to be revealed, and it is he that will reveal it.  He knew well that he would be the victim of his own audacity, but it was by cries and the rending of hearts that the kingdom had to be established.

The proposition “Jesus is the Messiah” was followed by the proposition “Jesus is the Son of David,” and, by an entirely spontaneous conspiracy, fictitious genealogies arose in the imaginations of his partisans, while he was still alive, to prove his royal descent.  We cannot tell whether he knew anything of these legends.  He never designated himself Son of David.  That he ever dreamed of making himself pass for an incarnation of God is a matter about which no doubt can exist.  Such an idea was entirely foreign to the Jewish mind.  He believed himself to be more than an ordinary man, but separated by an infinite distance from God.  He was the Son of God, but all men are, or may become so in divers degrees.  Jesus apparently remained a stranger to the theological subtleties which were soon to fill the world with sterile disputations.

TIME-WORM PROOFS

Two means of proof—­miracles and the accomplishment of prophecies—­could alone establish a supernatural mission in the opinion of the contemporaries of Jesus.  He himself, but more especially his disciples, employed these two methods of demonstration in perfect good faith.  For a long time Jesus had recognised himself in the sacred oracles of the prophets.  As to miracles, they were considered at this epoch the indispensable mark of the divine, and the sign of the prophetic vocation.  Jesus, therefore, was compelled either to renounce his mission or become a thaumaturgist.  It must be remembered that not only did he believe in miracles, but he had not the least idea of an order of nature under the reign of law.  On that point, his knowledge was in no way superior to that of his contemporaries.  Indeed, one of his most deeply-rooted opinions was that by faith and prayer man had entire power over nature.  Almost all the miracles Jesus believed he performed seem to have been miracles of healing.  The kind of healing which he most often practised was exorcism, or the expulsion of demons.  There can be no doubt that he had in his lifetime the reputation of possessing the greatest secrets of the art.  There were many lunatics in Judaea wandering at large, and no doubt Jesus had great influence over these unhappy beings.  Circumstances seem to indicate that he became a thaumaturgist late in life and against his own inclinations.  He accepted miracles exacted by public opinion rather than performed them.

THE NEW KINGDOM OF GOD