f
the cross, and Jesus seeing his mother and his beloved disciple
together, said to the one, "Behold thy mother!" and to the other,
"Behold thy son!" But we do not understand how the synoptics, who name
the other women, should have omitted her whose presence was so
striking a feature. Perhaps even the extreme elevation of the
character of Jesus does not render such personal emotion probable, at
the moment when, solely preoccupied by his work, he no longer existed
except for humanity.[5]

[Footnote 1: John xix. 25, and following.]

[Footnote 2: The synoptics are agreed in placing the faithful group
"afar off" the cross. John says, "at the side of," governed by the
desire which he has of representing himself as having approached very
near to the cross of Jesus.]

[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvii. 55, 56; Mark xv. 40, 41; Luke xxiii. 49, 55;
xxiv. 10; John xix. 25. Cf. Luke xxiii. 27-31.]

[Footnote 4: John xix. 25, and following. Luke, who always adopts a
middle course between the first two synoptics and John, mentions also,
but at a distance, "all his acquaintance" (xxiii. 49). The expression,
[Greek: gnostoi], may, it is true, mean "kindred." Luke, nevertheless
(ii. 44), distinguishes the [Greek: gnostoi] from the [Greek:
sungeneis]. Let us add, that the best manuscripts bear [Greek: oi
gnostoi auto], and not [Greek: oi gnostoi autou]. In the _Acts_ (i.
14), Mary, mother of Jesus, is also placed in company with the
Galilean women; elsewhere (Gospel, chap. ii. 35), Luke predicts that a
sword of grief will pierce her soul. But this renders his omission of
her at the cross the less explicable.]

[Footnote 5: This is, in my opinion, one of those features in which
John betrays his personality and the desire he has of giving himself
importance. John, after the death of Jesus, appears in fact to have
received the mother of his Master into his house, and to have adopted
her (John xix. 27.) The great consideration which Mary enjoyed in the
early church, doubtless led John to pretend that Jesus, whose favorite
disciple he wished to be regarded, had, when dying, recommended to his
care all that was dearest to him. The presence of this precious trust
near John, insured him a kind of precedence over the other apostles,
and gave his doctrine a high authority.]

Apart from this small group of women, whose presence consoled him,
Jesus had before him only the spectacle of the baseness or stupidity
of humanity. The passers-by insulted hi