guests of the Lord's wedding feast; told of many of them scorning the honor; of their places being taken by the general mass of mankind, and these in turn winnowed of the personally unworthy, till the banquet is filled with the King's faithful friends.

CHAPTER XV.

THE RELATION OF CHURCH AND STATE.

Matt. xxii. 15-22; Mark xii. 13-17; Luke xx. 20-26.

THE Pharisees were notoriously of the national party, as the Herodians were of the Roman party, and the two factions were at deadly feud with each other. Yet both hated Jesus intensely. Hence their ill-sorted alliance in putting Him to public question on the perilous subject of Cæsar's authority. Though the Pharisees rated the Herodians as traitors to both religion and fatherland, and the Herodians were the home guards of the Roman garrison, yet they were ready to unite against Jesus. Evil has many varieties, but all of them make men equally enemies of the Son of God.

Then the Pharisees going, consulted among themselves how to ensnare him in his speech. And they sent to him their disciples with the Herodians, spies who should feign themselves just, that they might take hold of him in his words, that they might deliver him up to the authority and power of the governor. And they asked him, saying: Master, we know that thou speakest and teachest rightly, and carest not for any man, for thou regardest not the person of men, but teachest the way of God in truth. Tell us therefore what dost thou think? Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Cæsar or not? But Jesus, knowing their wickedness, said: Why do you tempt me, ye hypocrites? Show me the coin of the tribute; and they offered him a penny. And Jesus saith to them: Whose image and inscription is this? They say to him: Cæsar's. Then he saith to them: Render therefore to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things that are God's. they could not reprehend his word before the people, and wondering at his answer they held their peace, and leaving him, went their ways.

Both parties were well trained in hypocrisy, and they baited their spare to entrap the Saviour in His speech, with a pretence of admiration for His manly qualities. "Master, we know that Thou speakest and and carest not for any man, for Thou regardest not the person of men, but teachest the way of God in truth.

teachest rightly,

And

Tell us therefore what dost Thou think? Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Cæsar or not?"

Their purpose was to wreck the Messias upon the rock of the Roman Empire. To embroil the representatives of religion with the civil authority is now, as it was then, the aim of wicked and ambitious schemers; it will always be so. If Christ shall say, "Pay the tribute," then He is a traitor to His theocratic nation; if He shall say, "Do not pay the tribute," He is a rebel against Rome. either case He is ruined. The Master was not to be entrapped; nor would He hurt His frankness by an evasion. What they had hypocritically said of His fearless truth-telling was entirely correct, and His answer proved it, though it baffled them. He taught first that Cæsar had just authority, for as a matter of fact his rule preserved order, and so far at least was entitled to the tribute; yet He taught that the Roman authority was not unlimited, for God's majesty is above all, and this stood for religion, for equity between man and man, for peaceful and just administration of the laws. Furthermore, a plain inference from the answer of Jesus was that in purely mundane affairs the State is not subject to the Church, each being independent in its own sphere.

The Messias had previously taught that He had not been set over men to settle disputes about a family inheritance, a matter which belonged to the civil tribunals; and now He taught that neither He nor His Church could be forced to decide between rival

claimants for secular princedom. Let men and nations adhere openly to His religion, let them be submissive to His religious and moral influence and to that of His Church after Him, and they shall be able to form civil codes, establish civil tribunals and minister to the temporal welfare of the people, guided by wisdom from above-but in such affairs they were not immediately subject to the Church's authority. Referring, therefore, the case offered Him to its proper sphere, that of the private and public conscience of men in secular matters, Jesus, first unveiling the deceit of His questioners, made His far-famed answer. It is a brief summary of all the learning on the delicate subject of the relation of Church and State: "He saith to them: Render therefore to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and to God the things, that are God's."

CHAPTER XVI.

"THEY SHALL NEITHER MARRY NOR BE MARRIED." Matt. xxii. 23-33; Mark xii. 18-27; Luke xx. 27-40.

THE Sadducees were the agnostics of that era, unbelievers in immortality, especially the resurrection of the body. Yet some of them, as we have seen, were high in office, both Annas and Caiaphas being of that sect. The Sanhedrin, however, was made up almost entirely of Pharisees, stiff adherents of orthodoxy, and as stiff tyrants over consciences by means of their rabbinical observances. The Sadducees hated Jesus from political motives mainly, for they were tools of the Roman governor and satellites of the Herods, enemies of religious movement and change of all kinds. The hatred of the Pharisees likewise

had its origin in politics, though of a sort directly opposite to those of the Sadducees, for the Pharisees were set upon revolution. They found Jesus at once peaceful in His aims and all powerful with the pecple. The two sects could work together for this one end to destroy the Prophet of Nazareth. On all other points they were at daggers drawn with each other. In their enmity to Jesus they often acted in concert, but sometimes separately. Immediately after the defeat the Pharisees had suffered over the question of the tribute, their ill-sorted allies, the Sadducees, tried their chance with a difficulty which no doubt had served them to confuse the Pharisees: "And there came to Him that day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, and they asked Him saying: Master, Moses wrote unto us that if any man's brother die and leave his wife behind him, and leave no children, his brother shall take his wife and raise up seed to his brother. Now there were seven brethren, and the first took a wife, and died leaving no issue. And the second took her, and died, and neither did he leave any issue. And the third in like manner. And the seven all took her in like manner and did not leave issue. Last of all the woman died. In the resurrection therefore, when they shall rise again, whose wife shall she be of them? for the seven had her to wife."

Such was the argument against man's immortality, a gross extension of bodily relations into a spiritual condition in order to prove the doctrine of a future life an absurdity. They would not believe what they could not understand; they revolted against mysteries. Yet nothing can be more unreasonable than such an attitude of mind. Is there no knowledge except full knowledge? And, furthermore, if

God be all powerful, does it not follow that His work shall be hard to understand, since many an intelligent man cannot understand even a great poet, or the intricacies of a problem in mathematics. The Sadducees belonged to the class who will worship a man because he is great beyond their comprehension, and yet they exact of the great God that His works shall be brought down to their level, even in reference to the mysterious life of disembodied spirits. Sensual men they were in their tastes and conduct, and cynics and sceptics in their frame of mind, trimmers in their politics, content, as to religion, with the bark of the Mosaic tree, its civil advantages, its racial privileges. Hence their choice of this puzzling question, and hence their flippant style of wording it. Nothing hurts a sensualist so much as the affirmation of human dignity, and the worthiness of man for a high destiny. With the Sadducees the sensual enjoyment of women's company was ever in their thoughts as the chief happiness of life, whether here or hereafter; an Oriental trait religiously perpetuated in the joys, earthly and heavenly, of the unclean sect of Mahomet.

The answer of Jesus was a bright ray from the celestial life, telling of the freedom of the saints in Heaven from sexual trammels. Both Scripture and unaided reason might teach them that in that blissful state there was no need of marriage to propagate a race of immortals: "Do ye not therefore err because you know not the Scriptures nor the power of God? For when they shall rise again from the dead, they shall neither marry, nor be married, but are as the angels in Heaven. The children of this world marry and are given in marriage, but they that shall be accounted worthy of that world, and of the resurrec