[Interlocutor: (noun) one who takes part in a dialogue or conversation].

The preceding chapter treats mainly of the formal “sayings” of Christ; it is now proposed to look at “sayings” which were uttered without the possibility of preparation, and which, for that reason, must afford valuable incidental evidence of the quality of Christ’s mind. We should shrink from applying such a test to any merely human speaker; for as “great Homer sometimes nods,” so the most careful student may occasionally make slips in extemporaneous conversation which contrast broadly with the exactness of his formal preparations. He might properly protest against being taken at a disadvantage, and would certainly claim the right of revising his opinions before finally committing himself to them. Jesus Christ never claimed any such right; he never protects himself by a saving clause; he never hints at possible modifications of his opinions; but immediately and unchangeably affirms his judgment of every case that is brought before him. He was opposed not only by his disciples, but by the stronger and craftiest of the learned sects, who to the sharpness of the ripest cultivation added the sting of the bitterest malignity. Under such circumstances the real power and quality of Christ’s mind would be shown, and the measure of the influence of provocation upon his intellectual processes be disclosed. It is proposed, then, to look at his common talk, and to inquire whether there is anything on the face of the answers themselves to explain the supremacy of Jesus Christ as an interlocutor? If his supremacy was functional, then it was arbitrary; if it was personal, then it was rational. Is it the man’s office, or the man’s quality, that makes him supreme?

A few instances will show the respective positions occupied by Jesus Christ and his opponents. We may begin with collisions of opinion which occurred between him and the disciples. When the people were in a desert place, Jesus Christ commanded them to be fed. The disciples pronounced the command impracticable, and apparently they had reason on their side. Here was the point of difference. Who spoke the magnanimous and generous word—Jesus Christ or the disciples? On another occasion children were being intruded on Christ’s attention; the disciples protested against the annoyance, but Jesus said, “Forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.” Who spoke the magnanimous and generous word—Jesus Christ or the disciples? When the Samaritan villagers did not receive Christ, because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem, James and John proposed to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them; but Jesus rebuked them, and said, “Ye know not what manner of spirits ye are of.” Here is a direct collision of opinion: who spoke the magnanimous and generous word—Jesus Christ or the disciples? On another occasion John showed what the disciples would have done with collateral and unrecognized workers; he said, “Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and we forbade him, because he followed not with us.” Was not this a reason strong enough to carry the judgment of all men of order? Yet Jesus said, “Forbid him not, for he that is not against us is for us.” Who spoke the magnanimous and generous word—Jesus Christ or the disciples? When Peter asked him how often he was to forgive his brother, Peter suggested seven times; Christ answered, “Not only until seen times, but until seventy times seven.” Who spoke the magnanimous and generous word—Jesus Christ or the disciples?

The remarkable point in such instances is that the disciples themselves (the corrected men, not the correcting Man) are the narrators. Men are not prone to publish their own ignorance or expose their own errors, yet this is literally what the disciples did. In every instance they show that they were wrong and that their Master was right. They never seek, though they had the pen in their own hands, to modify Christ’s opinion, or to interpose afterthoughts which would throw doubt of Christ’s judgment. As impostors, they need not have set Christ up as being always right; they might have paid an occasional tribute to their own sagacity; they might have outvoted him sometimes; yet they concur (without one another’s knowledge) in stating that in all disputed or misunderstood cases they were always wrong and he was always right. Nor do they state this in summary terms; they report the cases in detail; and it is evident upon the face of the answers themselves that Jesus Christ’s supremacy was not an arbitrary lordship, but the legitimate influence which attaches to great intellectual and moral elevation. Sometimes in human relations, reasoning comes into collision with authority, but in such cases authority overrides all opposition: the reasoning of soldiers, for example, may oppose the authority of commanders, but it is—

“Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die;”

They are “men under authority”—it may be an authority with reason, or an authority against reason, but the determining fact is authority. In the case of Jesus Christ’s answers, the authority is the reason, and the reason is the authority; the authority and the reason are coincident and identical.

The foregoing instances of collision occurred between Christ and his disciples; we have now to look at those between Christ and his avowed opponents. His disciples might have been disposed to yield readily, but his enemies would maintain the dispute obstinately. On one occasion the Pharisees, despairing of a casual victory, actually “took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk”; they approached the attack deliberately, and by so much had the advantage of the interlocutor who was expected to give an instant answer. The force of the Pharisees was in the “counsel” which they took; the weakness of Christ, viewed from a purely human point, was in his want of opportunity for preparation. A number of resolute partisans, comprising disciples of the Pharisees, with the Herodians, addressed Jesus Christ in terms which were intended to elicit an answer from his vanity rather than his judgment; they told him that he was true, that he taught the way of God in truth, and that he cared not for any man, nor regarded the person of men (deceitful words, which would have victimized an unbalanced mind), and then they put their case before him. Instantly, as if he had been specially prepared for that particular mode of attack, he turned upon them, and said, “Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?” Then he told them to render what was due alike to God and to man. On the same day another deputation, this time Sadducean, waited upon him, and endeavored to bring him into collision with Moses, upon what they had conceived as a practical difficulty in the resurrection; but he told them that they erred, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God; for “in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.” Upon hearing that “he had put the Sadducees to silence,” the Pharisees resolved to make another attempt; one of their lawyers put a question concerning the Law, which Jesus Christ answered as clearly and fully as if he had had specific notice of the inquiry. These cases occurred in succession, and the general opinion showed that in none of them was Jesus Christ worsted. The general opinion is expressed thus: in the case of the tribute money, “they marveled, and left him, and went their way;” in the case of the resurrection, “they were astonished at his doctrine”; in the case of the lawyer and the subsequent discourse, “no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.”

The basis of argument will be complete, if to instances of opposition between Christ and his disciples, and Christ and his enemies, be added an instance or two of Christ’s method of meeting those who were immediately concerned in his judgment and death. When he was brought before Caiaphas, it was with extreme difficulty that the high priest could prevail upon him to speak; not, indeed, until he had adjured him by the living God; then the answer was, “Hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” In other cases, neither Pilate or any of the officers could break his silence: “Jesus held his peace”; “he answered nothing”; “he answered him to never a word, insomuch that the governor marveled greatly.” At last this great speaker was silent, and his interrogators knew not the difference between the silence of obstinacy and the silence of a lamb brought to the slaughter. What storms of the heart were covered by that silence! The great purpose of God had now passed beyond the region of debate and clamor; words were of no further use; the Man was not on his defense as a criminal, he was on his trial as a Sacrifice! Already he had prayed that the cup might pass, but in a second prayer he had been strengthened to say, “Thy will be done!” After such agony how could he talk to men, whose questions were technical, and whose share in the work was a mystery which no explanation could simplify? He must now speak by suffering, and by dying as no other man had ever died.

With all these examples to guide our judgment, it may now be asked, is there anything on the face of the answers themselves to account for Christ’s supremacy? Setting aside all theological tenets and prejudices, it cannot be denied that, viewed simply as answers between man and man, the answers of Jesus Christ are superior in completeness to those of his interlocutors. But what is the value of completeness as an argument? Obviously, not in theology only, but in all subjects of human inquiry, completeness is the final test of wisdom and accuracy. He who approaches completeness approaches the absolute: he who approaches the Absolute approaches God. When Newton proved that the force which preserves planetary order is identical with the force by which an apple falls to the ground, he was, by that discovery, so much nearer God, because so much nearer a complete idea of the universe than any inferior discoverer had ever been. Now, in all the disputes between Christ and his contemporaries, it will be found that the tendency, at least, towards completeness is invariable on the side of Christ—a completeness alike mental and moral. Christ never speaks the narrow or intolerant word; never does the mean or selfish deed; never resorts to the reactionary or inexpensive tradition. He is willing to feed the multitude, to bless little children, to protect collateral though unbaptized workers, to walk two miles instead of one, to give his cloak as well as his coat, to give Caesar his due as well as God, and to trust his truth to persuasion rather than to the sword. In all this, interpreted by common sense alone, not by the canons of sectarian science, Christ is the great man, the magnanimous man, the complete man; and even in the awful silence referred to he would have been less silent if his view had been less complete; it was because he saw all that he said nothing.

The word “tendency” just employed must not be misunderstood. The reason of its use is, that Jesus Christ on some occasions purposely refrained from giving complete answers; but on those occasions he generally intimated that the incompleteness was either temporary, or designed in the special interest of his hearers: for example, “What thou know not thou shalt know hereafter;” there the incompleteness was temporary—and in another place, “I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now,” the incompleteness was studiously adapted to the capacity and condition of the disciples. In addition to such special instances, there is the great promise of completeness; “When he, the Spirit of Truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth.” The very conception of possible completeness, accompanied by a promise of its accomplishment, on the part of a Galilean peasant, is a circumstance which must not be overlooked in estimating the value of his claims.

Christ’s supremacy as an interlocutor rests, apart from the proper arguments of the theologian, on the completeness of his mental views and the unequalled range of his moral sympathies and services. He met all cases of perplexity with a deeper answer, and all cases of distress with a wider generosity, than did any other man. Every idea he suggested was an installment of the “all-truth” which the Spirit would reveal, and every gift he gave was an earnest of the gift of his body and his blood. Everything he said and did, looked, tended, pressed towards completeness—did so not merely as a matter of fact, but as a matter of comparison; and the comparison is so marked, even upon the face of the evidence, as to place him immeasurably in advance of all other speakers. In advance, for example, of “them of old time” who knew the letter, but not the spirit, of justice; in advance of Moses, who brought the Law, but could not bring “grace and truth;” as well as in advance of men who exalted the tradition of the elders above the commandment of God. Supremacy would be assigned to any speaker who gave the deepest answers to questions which were being controverted; this would be done in common deference to intellectual power, whatever points there might be in the religious creed of the speaker which his hearers could not accept. This would be done, too, not in theological questions only, but in all other subjects; the speaker’s supremacy being determined, not by the mere fluency or keenness of his speech, but by its accuracy, its comprehensiveness, its approach to the “all-truth.” It may be fairly insisted that Jesus Christ should have the advantage which should be conceded on the common ground of courteous justice. The man who would walk two miles excels in completeness the man who would walk only one; the man who would give his cloak as well as his coat excels in completeness the man who would give his coat only; the man who would receive little children as well as adults excels in completeness the man who would confine his attention to the elder portions of society; the man who would divide his last loaf with the hungering multitude excels in completeness the man who would plead his poverty in mitigation of his selfishness; the man who would work a miracle in order to pay the Temple tribute excels in completeness the man who would avail himself of a technical exemption from the impost; the man who would look approvingly upon a good work done by irregular workers excels in completeness the man who would subordinate life to formality; the man who would forgive seventy times seven times excels in completeness the man who would forgive seven times; and highest of all, and natural climax of all, the man who would die for his enemies excels in completeness the man who would die for friends only. All the intermediate points have been tending towards the climacteric point—the Cross, which unites the completeness of love with the completeness of power. All these points of completeness may be distinctly claimed for Jesus Christ, on the same principles of criticism that would be applied to any character in any department of history, so that hesitation in ceding them might be fairly denominated an immorality in criticism. Viewed in the light of the higher claims of the Christian writings, is there anything to account for this completeness—a completeness not only in the more formal sayings, but in the extemporaneous and casual utterances of Jesus Christ? Whence hath this man this completeness? What if in him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily? What if it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell? And what if men receive out of his fullness grace for grace?

The last question turns the subject most practically upon the Church. The supremacy of the Church must be identical in claim with the supremacy of Jesus Christ. The Church can hold its position only so long as it can excel all rivals in the completeness of its answers to the great problems which engage the human mind. The measure of its completeness is the measure of its supremacy. If science and philosophy return completer answers than the Church, then the Church is a deposed power, and God has raised up the very stones as children unto Abraham. The Church might have been first, but its title has, if such be the case, been forgone: and now men come from the east and west, from the north and south; and the children, who have lost all but their name, are shut out of the kingdom. The Church cannot maintain a merely traditionary supremacy against the competing forces which distinguish a scientific civilization. Its supremacy must be vital; its resources must be “unsearchable riches.” When Peter returned a complete answer, the keys of the kingdom of heaven were instantly promised to him; but when, shortly after, he took an incomplete view of Christ’s journey to Jerusalem, he was ordered behind as an “offense.” So it will be with the Church; she holds the keys only so long as she gives the complete answer; when she fails in that, she is disinherited and degraded. The doctrine of eternal punishment is a ludicrous anti-climax to her superficial and mispronounced dogmas: how differently it comes after Christ’s own teaching we shall now proceed to consider.