It is not clear from the evidence whether Jesus from the first thought of himself as the king of the kingdom that he preached. There is an uncertainty, a fluctuation in his thought, which makes it difficult to determine just what his attitude toward the Messiahship was. In his early teaching he seems to think of the kingdom of God as an inward principle rather than as an outward institution. The children of the kingdom were the poor in spirit, the meek, those thirsting for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peace makers, the persecuted. It was not "lo, here, nor lo, there, for the kingdom of God was within." It was not an outward polity, it was an inward state. But this quiet pietism could only be personal; it could not be social; it could not be organic. It might be the kingdom of God; it could never be the kingdom of David. It might save the human soul; it could not deliver the people of Israel. It is the tragedy of the life of Jesus that he had to reconcile these antagonistic conceptions. He knew in his soul that he was the child of God; but was he the king of the Jews?

It was at Cæsarea-Phillipi that Jesus paused to take account of himself. Who was he? what was he? He turned in his sore perplexity to his followers and asked them: "Whom do men say that I am?"

They answered:

"Some say you are John the Baptist, and some that you are one of the old prophets."

Still more anxiously Jesus asks:

"But whom do ye say that I am?"

Peter answered at once:

"Thou art the Christ of God."

Magnificent words!-giving Jesus the spiritual leadership of the world, and Peter a power second only to that of his Master.

Jesus accepted the proclamation of Peter as the inspiration of God.

"Blessed art thou, Simon bar Jonah!" he cried, "Flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father in heaven."

From this moment all hesitation ceases, Jesus adopts the current conception of the Messiahship. His mission is not to the Gentiles but the Jews. He is to restore the kingdom

to Israel. His work lies not out yonder in the world; he must set his face toward Jerusalem. David's throne must be

set up in David's city.

Under this new impulse Jesus loses his simplicity. He is moody; he walks apart from his following; they dare not speak to him. They have proclaimed him their king; they fall naturally into the rank of subjects.

The word spreads throughout Galilee that the Messiah has come, and is on his way to Jerusalem. The whole countryside is aflame with excitement; multitudes go before and follow after, crying: "Hosannah in the highest! Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!" And Jesus enters Jerusalem in triumph as the Messiah of God.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Peter Denies Jesus

And then nothing happens. Jesus falls back into his old method of teaching. Instead of proclaiming the kingdom and calling the people to arms, he is telling stories in the temple; he is rousing the extreme anger of the priests and the scribes by his fierce denunciation of their vices; he is disappointing the people by his inaction,-and the inevitable end comes.

The priests make ready to seize him; the people forsake him. Jesus makes no effort to oppose his enemies, no effort to escape them. He comprehends now to the full his mission he is not to fight for the kingdom but to die for it. His earlier conception of the kingdom was the true one. The kingdom of God is within him. He cannot establish it by outward violence, only by inward obedience.

This action of the Master is bewildering to his following, especially to Peter. Peter had come down to fight for the kingdom; he had bought a sword. Had Jesus given the word, Peter had been the first to raise the war-cry, "The sword of the Lord and Gideon!" and to have bathed his sword in the blood of the Gentiles. The Jewish authorities were not wrong in fearing at that time an uprising of the people. Had Jesus made the sign, Peter would have led the Galileans in an effort to overthrow the Roman power and reëstablish the kingdom of Israel.

But Jesus did not speak the word. Without an effort at defense or escape, he submitted to seizure. He was arrested, condemned, and executed.

This unexpected turn of events changed the courage of Peter into panic fear. Instead of the excitement of the conflict, he was paralyzed by the cold, benumbing, process of the law. He followed Jesus to the Hall of Annas, and there, when he was accused of being one of his company, he denied his leader, then denied him again and again. In an agony of shame and terror Peter turned and fled into the darkness, in the which we lose sight of him until the Sunday afternoon of the day of resurrection.

From indications that we find in the narrative, from our knowledge of the character of Peter and of human nature in general, we may safely conclude that Peter hid himself in the crowd and followed Jesus to the Pretorium and to Calvary. He saw the scourging and the crowning with thorns, he heard the death sentence; he saw the nailing of the hands and the feet, he watched from the third to the ninth hour; he heard the death-cry from the cross, and then in the desperation of despair he turned and fled away into his own country, Galilee.

CHAPTER XXXIX

Peter's Flight in Despair

The life of Peter, from the time that he fled from the cross until his reappearance among the brethren in Jerusalem on the afternoon of the day of resurrection, has an importance in the religious life of mankind that can hardly be measured. During those wonderful hours that event transpired which made Peter the leader of the greatest religious movement in history. In reconstructing the life of Peter during this period, we shall have to make use of such hints as we can find in the records, which are few, assisted by our knowledge of the human soul and its workings under given conditions.

The first impulse of Peter when assured of the death of Jesus was to escape from the horrors of his position and find refuge in his own country, Galilee. In obedience to this impulse he took the direct route homeward through Samaria. His actions were not those of a man who was conscious of what he was doing, but rather of one who was carried away by the subconscious forces within him.

The soul of Peter throughout that journey homeward was the scene of a terrific psychic storm. Everything upon which his life rested was swept away. He had loved Jesus as one man seldom loves another, and Jesus was dead. No mother could mourn her first-born more despairingly than Peter mourned the loss of the youth whom his heart cherished. Not only had he been bereaved of his friend, he had also lost his leader. Peter had cast in his personal and political fortunes with Jesus. He had forsaken father and mother, wife and children, his ways of livelihood, that he might further the plans of his Master, and now all those plans had come to naught! It was not some little thing that he expected of Jesus; it was nothing less than the restoration of the kingdom of Israel,-the deliverance of his country from the hated rule of the Gentile. And now this hope for the liberty of his people was blasted as by a stroke from heaven. Peter had proclaimed Jesus Messiah, he had made him, as it were, God

in the earth, and this God had died the vile death of the criminal slave. Could wreck of faith and hope be more complete? From the devastated heart of Peter went up the desolating cry "There is no God,-there is no Saviour!"

But beside this death of his friend, this blasting of his hopes, this dishonor of his God, a calamity had come upon Peter which mortal man seldom survives. In the wreck and ruin of the storm he had lost his own soul; in the critical moment of his life his own spirit had failed him. In that moment Peter had basely denied his friend, had left his leader in the lurch, had lost his hold on God. He who thought himself brave had turned craven; he had trembled at the word of a maid; he had hid himself in a crowd that had blasphemed his Lord! All the horrors of that horrible time were swallowed up in the overwhelming horror that Peter had denied Jesus,-denied him again and again, denied him with an oath. And this action was beyond repair. Jesus was dead and could never know the shame, the sorrow, the bitter repentance of his recreant friend.

So this bereaved, disappointed, abased man went on and on through the darkness, losing in his sorrow and remorse all sense of fatigue, and the early morning light found him in the defiles of Gilboa, thirty miles and more from the scene of his disaster. As he came over the shoulder of the mountain he saw his own country, Galilee, lying quiet under the dawning. He saw Mount Carmel and Lake Gennasaret; he saw Capernaum and Bethsaida. That land which was sacred to the eyes of all Israel, the land of Elijah and Elisha, the land in which he had walked and talked with Jesus, was so peaceful in the morning light that the horrors from which Peter had fled seemed to him but a nightmare from which he had awakened to find himself safe in his own country. This peace of nature hushed the storm in the soul of Peter. He listened, and he heard the tinkling of the sheep bells; he looked, and he saw the shepherds driving their flocks to pasture. He went to some shepherd's hut, begged a morsel of bread and some goat's milk, to break his fast, and lay down on the ground and slept the deep sleep of exhaustion.