partly for rest, and also that He might for a little while be alone with His disciples, Jesus crossed over with them to the solitudes on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee. But neither here could rest and solitude be had. No sooner did the people see them depart than they hastened on foot six miles round the head of the lake, and crossing the Jordan, met our Lord on the other side, so that in a little while a great multitude had come together. And Jesus taught them, and then, before more than five thousand witnesses, He shewed His creative power, multiplying the five loaves and the two fishes, until the people, as they sat "in ranks by hundreds and fifties" on the slopes of the hills of Bashan, or upon the rich plain of Bethsaida Julias, all ate and were satisfied, and the twelve disciples filled each one his basket with the fragments (see Note 5, Lesson VII. St. Matt.). Then St. Mark relates how, after the people had departed, Jesus prayed in solitude, while His disciples were returning without Him across the lake; and how He saw them through the darkness "toiling in rowing" against the contrary wind. Then he tells us of our Lord's miraculous walk upon the stormy sea, the fright of His disciples, and their " sore amazement" when the Lord came up unto them into the ship, and the wind ceased; and how, on the western side, the sick were brought unto Him from every side, and He healed them (vi. 48-56). How wonderful were Christ's miracles! But what were they, and what did they prove? They were evidences of a Divine Power -of an Almighty, Everliving God; and as our Lord did them in His own Name and by His own power they proved Him to be Divine.

But the Scribes and Pharisees returned again from

Jerusalem, making fresh charges against the Holy One. "Why," said they, "walk not Thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashen hands?" Our Lord's answer crushes them. Defilement comes not from outward things, but is from within, from the heart (vii. 15); it was they therefore that transgressed.

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But our Lord would no longer stay in Galilee. Mark says He arose and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon (vii. 24); but even here rest and seclusion were denied Him, for as St. Mark tells us "He could not be hid ;" and here He yielded to the entreaties and rewarded the faith of the Gentile woman (see vii. 2530). Then, according to the reading of the three oldest MSS., "from the coasts of Tyre He came through Sidon," and so, as Bishop Ellicott remarks, "we are certainly led to extend this journey beyond the Tyrian frontier, and further to draw the interesting inference, that our Lord, moved probably by the great faith of the Syrophoenician woman, actually passed into the heathen territory, visited ancient and idolatrous Sidon, and from the neighbourhood of that city commenced His south-easterly circuit toward Decapolis and the further shore of the Sea of Gennesaret."

St. Mark singles out one miracle, from many, doubtless, that our Lord did in these regions, and tells us of the deaf and dumb man whom Jesus first took apart and then healed (vii. 32-37); and the people made known the miracle far and wide, saying, "He hath done all things well. He maketh the deaf to hear and the

dumb to speak" (vii. 37).

A great multitude were gathered once more round

1 Historical Lectures on the Life of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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N.T.-II.

the Lord, and they could not be sent away fasting to their distant homes; so Jesus had compassion on them, and once again put forth His miraculous power, feeding four thousand with five loaves near the spot where a few weeks before He had fed a still larger number: "so they did eat and were filled, and the disciples gathered of the broken meat that was left seven baskets" (viii. 1-8).

NOTES-LESSON V.

I. "The brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon" (Mark vi. 3). Who these brethren of Jesus were has been a matter of dispute. Some have supposed them to be children of Joseph and Mary. Rejecting this as inconsistent with the universal sentiment of the Church, and with the commendation of Mary to the care of St. John on Good Friday, others have adopted Jerome's view, that they were not brothers but first cousins to our Lord-children of Cleopas and Mary the sister of the Virgin, many identifying three of them with the Apostles-James the son of Alphæus, and Simon and Jude his brothers. But against this commonly received view there are two almost fatal objections: (1) St. John (vii. 5) tells us that during the ministry they did not believe in our Lord's divine mission; (2) in Acts i. 14 they are mentioned as distinct from the Twelve. It may further be urged against St. Jerome's view, that it is far more likely that four women are mentioned in John xix. 25, than that Mary's sister should also be called Mary; and further, that the constancy of the term 'brethren' seems to forbid the notion of their being cousins. There remains therefore the third opinion, so ably advocated by Professor Lightfoot in his Commentary on Galatians, that they were sons of Joseph by a former marriage-half-brothers therefore of our Blessed Lord. All

became believers after the Resurrection, and two of them rose to repute in the Church-James, the author of the General Epistle, called an Apostle (in Col. i. 19) as Paul and Barnabas were, and Jude, the author of the General Epistle.

2. Words or passages needing explanation :

(a) "Shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them" (vi. II. See p. 26, Lesson V., St. Matthew). It may here be repeated that it was the custom of the Jews to shake off the dust of Gentile countries, when on their return from them they again set foot in their own land. (b) "Corban" (vii. 11), an offering-something devoted to holy uses or dedicated to God.

(c) "A Syrophœnician" (ver. 26), an inhabitant of Syrophoenicia, a narrow plain extending north 100 miles from the promontory of the Tyrian Ladder along the coast, between the Mediterranean Sea and the mountains.

LESSON V1.

IN GALILEE-PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES-TO BETHSAIDA JULIAS THE BLIND MAN-TO CÆSAREA PHILIPPI— PETER'S CONFESSION-THE HARD LESSON - PETER'S REBUKE-THE TRANSFIGURATION-THE DEMONIAC

BOY-RETURN TO GALILEE. (viii. 10-ix. 50.)

ΟΝ

NCE again our Lord crossed over to Galilee, landing in the neighbourhood of Dalmanutha, near to Magdala, which was on the sea-shore at the southern end of the plain of Gennesaret; and here the Pharisees again come to Him—not in humility, not in faith, not to listen to His words that they may be instructed by them, but in the old spirit of enmity and hardness of heart and unbelief. This time they were leagued with the Sadducees; for though the Pharisees and Sadducees differed in most things, and disliked each other, they agreed only too well in their hatred of the Holy One. And taking no account of our Lord's miracles, the fame of which had gone again and again through all the land, amazing the people and troubling the guilty Herod, they came to Him, "seeking of Him a sign from heaven" (that is, from the sky), "tempting Him" (viii. 11); and how sorrowful yet how gentle was His reproof, as, sighing deeply in spirit,