sh
tribe, the discovery of some unheard-of bird or beast, the birth of a
calf with two heads--every scrap of gossip found its way to Rome.[4] But
the entrance of the Creator into the world was an event of such
insignificance that not even this finely sympathetic system took any
note of it. The great Roman world remained in absolute unconsciousness
of the vicinity of God: they registered His birth, took account of Him
as one to be taxed, but were as little aware as the oxen with whom He
shared His first sleeping-place, that this was God; they saw Him with
the same stupid, unconscious, bovine stare.[5]

3. But in this great world of men there was an inner and specially
trained circle, which John here designates "His own." For although the
world might be called "His own," as made and upheld by him, yet it seems
more likely that this verse is not a mere repetition of the preceding,
but is intended to mark a deeper degree of insensibility on the part of
Christ's rejecters. Not only had all men been made in God's image, so
that they might have been expected to recognise Christ as the image of
the Father; but one nation had been specially instructed in the
knowledge of God, and was proud of having His dwelling-place in its
midst. If other men were blind to God's glory, the Jews at least might
have been expected to welcome Christ when He came. Their temple and all
that was done in it, their law, their prophets, their institutions,
their history and their daily life, all spoke to them of God, and
reminded them that God dwelt among them and would come to His own.
Though all the world should shut its doors against Christ, surely the
gates of the Temple, His own house, would be thrown open to Him. For
what else did it exist?

Our Lord Himself, in the parable of the Wicked Husbandmen, makes even a
heavier accusation against the Jews, intimating, as He there does, that
they rejected Him not because they did not recognise Him, but because
they did. "This is the Heir. Come, let us kill Him, that the inheritance
may be ours." In any case their guilt is great. They had been definitely
and repeatedly admonished to expect some great manifestation of God;
they looked for the Christ to come, and immediately before His
appearance they had been strikingly awakened to prepare for His coming.
But what was their actual state when Christ came? Again and again it has
been pointed out that their whole thoughts were given to the schemes
which usual