to the
minds of his followers (Matt. 8:17, roughly after Isaiah 53:4).
Perhaps when we begin to understand what is meant by the
Incarnation, we may find that omnipotence has a great deal more to
do than we have supposed with natural sympathy and the genius for
entering into the sorrows and sufferings of other people.

One side of the work of Jesus must never be forgotten. His attitude
to woman has altered her position in the world. No one can study
society in classical antiquity or in non-Christian lands with any
intimacy and not realize this. Widowhood in Hinduism, marriage among
Muslims--they are proverbs for the misery of women. Even the Jew
still prays: "Blessed art thou, O Lord our God! King of the
Universe, who hast not made me a woman." The Jewish woman has to be
grateful to God, because He "hath made me according to His will"--a
thanksgiving with a different note, as the modern Jewess, Amy Levy,
emphasized in her brilliant novel, where her heroine, very like
herself, corrected her prayerbook to make it more explicit "cursed
art Thou, O Lord our God! Who hast made me a woman." Paul must have
known these Jewish prayers, for he emphasized that in Christ there
is neither male nor female (Gal. 3:28). Paul had his views--the
familiar old ways of Tarsus inspired them[25]--as to woman's dress
and deportment, especially the veil; but he struck the real
Christian note here, and laid stress on the fact of what Jesus had
done and is doing for women. There is no reference made by Jesus to
woman that is not respectful and sympathetic; he never warns men
against women. Even the most degraded women find in him an amazing
sympathy; for he has the secret of being pure and kind at the same
time--his purity has not to be protected; it is itself a purifying
force. He draws some of his most delightful parables from woman's
work, as we have seen. It is recorded how, when he spoke of the
coming disaster of Jerusalem, he paused to pity poor pregnant women
and mothers with little babies in those bad times (Luke 21:23; Matt.
24:19). Critics have remarked on the place of woman in Luke's
Gospel, and some have played with fancies as to the feminine sources
whence he drew his knowledge--did the women who ministered to Jesus,
Joanna, for instance, the wife of Chuza (Luke 8:3), tell him these
illuminative stories of the Master? In any case Jesus' new attitude
to woman is in the record; and it has so reshaped the thought of
mankind, and made i