following.]

[Footnote 4: Matt. viii. 10, ix. 2, 22, 28, 29, xvii. 19; John vi. 29,
etc.]

[Footnote 5: Matt. xvii. 16; Mark iii. 5, ix. 18; Luke viii. 45, ix.
41.]

[Footnote 6: It is in Mark especially that this feature is visible;
iv. 40, v. 15, ix. 31, x. 32.]

[Footnote 7: Mark xi. 12-14, 20, and following.]

It was not that his virtue deteriorated; but his struggle for the
ideal against the reality became insupportable. Contact with the world
pained and revolted him. Obstacles irritated him. His idea of the Son
of God became disturbed and exaggerated. The fatal law which condemns
an idea to decay as soon as it seeks to convert men applied to him.
Contact with men degraded him to their level. The tone he had adopted
could not be sustained more than a few months; it was time that death
came to liberate him from an endurance strained to the utmost, to
remove him from the impossibilities of an interminable path, and by
delivering him from a trial in danger of being too prolonged,
introduce him henceforth sinless into celestial peace.

CHAPTER XX.

OPPOSITION TO JESUS.

During the first period of his career, it does not appear that Jesus
met with any serious opposition. His preaching, thanks to the extreme
liberty which was enjoyed in Galilee, and to the number of teachers
who arose on all hands, made no noise beyond a restricted circle. But
when Jesus entered upon a path brilliant with wonders and public
successes, the storm began to gather. More than once he was obliged to
conceal himself and fly.[1] Antipas, however, did not interfere with
him, although Jesus expressed himself sometimes very severely
respecting him.[2] At Tiberias, his usual residence, the Tetrarch was
only one or two leagues distant from the district chosen by Jesus for
the centre of his activity; he heard speak of his miracles, which he
doubtless took to be clever tricks, and desired to see them.[3] The
incredulous were at that time very curious about this class of
illusions.[4] With his ordinary tact, Jesus refused to gratify him. He
took care not to prejudice his position by mingling with an
irreligious world, which wished to draw from him an idle amusement; he
aspired only to gain the people; he reserved for the simple, means
suitable to them alone.

[Footnote 1: Matt. xii. 14-16; Mark iii. 7, ix. 29, 30.]

[Footnote 2: Mark viii. 15; Luke xiii. 32.]

[Footnote 3: Luke ix. 9, xxiii. 8.]

[Footnote 4: _Lucius_; attribut