well watered, must have been one of the
most beautiful places in Syria. Josephus speaks of it with the same
admiration as of Galilee, and calls it, like the latter province, a
"divine country."[7]

[Footnote 1: John x. 22. Comp. 1 Macc. iv. 52, and following; 2 Macc.
x. 6, and following.]

[Footnote 2: Jos., _Ant._, XII. vii. 7.]

[Footnote 3: John x. 40. Cf. Matt. xix. 1; Mark x. 1. This journey is
known to the synoptics. But they seem to think that Jesus made it by
coming from Galilee to Jerusalem through Perea.]

[Footnote 4: _Eccles._ xxiv. 18; Strabo, XVI. ii. 41; Justin., xxxvi.
3; Jos., _Ant._, IV. vi. 1, XIV. iv. 1, XV. iv. 2.]

[Footnote 5: Luke xix. 1, and following.]

[Footnote 6: Matt. xx. 29; Mark x. 46, and following; Luke xviii. 35.]

[Footnote 7: _B.J._, IV. viii. 3. Comp. _ibid._, I. vi. 6, I. xviii.
5, and _Antiq._, XV. iv. 2.]

After Jesus had completed this kind of pilgrimage to the scenes of his
earliest prophetic activity, he returned to his beloved abode in
Bethany, where a singular event occurred, which seems to have had a
powerful influence on the remaining days of his life.[1] Tired of the
cold reception which the kingdom of God found in the capital, the
friends of Jesus wished for a great miracle which should strike
powerfully the incredulity of the Hierosolymites. The resurrection of
a man known at Jerusalem appeared to them most likely to carry
conviction. We must bear in mind that the essential condition of true
criticism is to understand the diversity of times, and to rid
ourselves of the instinctive repugnances which are the fruit of a
purely rational education. We must also remember that in this dull and
impure city of Jerusalem, Jesus was no longer himself. Not by any
fault of his own, but by that of others, his conscience had lost
something of its original purity. Desperate, and driven to extremity,
he was no longer his own master. His mission overwhelmed him, and he
yielded to the torrent. As always happens in the lives of great and
inspired men, he suffered the miracles opinion demanded of him rather
than performed them. At this distance of time, and with only a single
text, bearing evident traces of artifices of composition, it is
impossible to decide whether in this instance the whole is fiction, or
whether a real fact which happened at Bethany has served as a basis to
the rumors which were spread about it. It must be acknowledged,
however, that the way John narrates the