]

A hate, which death alone could satisfy, was the consequence of these
struggles. John the Baptist had already provoked enmities of the same
kind.[1] But the aristocrats of Jerusalem, who despised him, had
allowed simple men to take him for a prophet.[2] In the case of Jesus,
however, the war was to the death. A new spirit had appeared in the
world, causing all that preceded to pale before it. John the Baptist
was completely a Jew; Jesus was scarcely one at all. Jesus always
appealed to the delicacy of the moral sentiment. He was only a
disputant when he argued against the Pharisees, his opponents forcing
him, as generally happens, to adopt their tone.[3] His exquisite
irony, his arch and provoking remarks, always struck home. They were
everlasting stigmas, and have remained festering in the wound. This
Nessus-shirt of ridicule which the Jew, son of the Pharisees, has
dragged in tatters after him during eighteen centuries, was woven by
Jesus with a divine skill. Masterpieces of fine raillery, their
features are written in lines of fire upon the flesh of the hypocrite
and the false devotee. Incomparable traits, worthy of a son of God! A
god alone knows how to kill after this fashion. Socrates and Moliere
only touched the skin. He carried fire and rage to the very marrow.

[Footnote 1: Matt. iii. 7, and following, xvii. 12, 13.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. xiv. 5, xxi. 26; Mark xi. 32; Luke xx. 6.]

[Footnote 3: Matt. xii. 3-8, xxiii. 16, and following.]

But it was also just that this great master of irony should pay for
his triumph with his life. Even in Galilee, the Pharisees sought to
ruin him, and employed against him the manoeuvre which ultimately
succeeded at Jerusalem. They endeavored to interest in their quarrel
the partisans of the new political faction which was established.[1]
The facilities Jesus found for escape in Galilee, and the weakness of
the government of Antipas, baffled these attempts. He ran into danger
of his own free will. He saw clearly that his action, if he remained
confined to Galilee, was necessarily limited. Judea drew him as by a
charm; he wished to try a last effort to gain the rebellious city; and
seemed anxious to fulfill the proverb--that a prophet must not die
outside Jerusalem.[2]

[Footnote 1: Mark iii. 6.]

[Footnote 2: Luke xiii. 33.]

CHAPTER XXI.

LAST JOURNEY OF JESUS TO JERUSALEM.

Jesus had for a long time been sensible of the dangers that surrounded
him.[1] Dur