od some time in the future, nay, right here and before
the passing of the present generation, will transform while at the same
time "revealing" his kingdom.

It is but natural that in the mental development of such individuals
they should seek to be great, glorious, and to achieve the supernatural,
since they, themselves, are denied the ordinary satisfactions. If, in
addition, such individuals believe that they have had a divine call, if
the disability of the body so preys on the mind that the sensitive
structure gives way to delusions, then there results an aberration from
the normal and usual processes of thought,--to be sure not the rabid,
violent form of mental disease, but yet a deviation from the normal
manner of thinking. Such was the case with the Prophet Jesus.

Afflicted in body but endowed with a sensitive mind, exposed to an
unusual environment of seething unrest and political ferment, and firmly
convinced in the current fancies regarding the approaching destruction
of the world, the conquest of the Evil Power, and the Reign of God,
Jesus became the subject of a delusion that he was the only true Messiah
who had been presaged by the prophets of old.

The greatest difficulty encountered in every attempt to present the life
and work of Jesus according to the evidence of his own words preserved
in the sources is the sharp, irreconcilable contradiction between the
so-called "fire and sword" sayings on the one side, and the beatitudes
on the peacemakers and the meek, the prohibition to kill, to be angry,
to resist wrong, and the command to love one's enemy, contained in the
Sermon on the Mount, on the other.

In the early period of his messianic career, the period of the Sermon on
the Mount, Jesus was a thorough quietist. But if we realize that the
delusion that he was "The Messiah" had entered his mind so vehemently
that he firmly believed that the end of the world was imminent, and that
it was his duty to save as many as possible, we can understand his
acquiescence to the violence which followed.

Moreover, he was clearly forced to the fatal road by the idea that he
must set on foot a movement of hundreds of thousands, the picture of the
exodus from Egypt with the fantastic figures given in the Old Testament.
The Messianic rising he was to initiate could not be regarded as
realized if he left the country with a band of some hundred elect. If he
wished, however, to put at least two-fifths of the population i