filled, therefore, with new proofs that Jesus had the words of
eternal life.

155. Before he put to his disciples the crucial question, he who knew what
was in man (John ii. 25) was confident that they were ready for it. It was
after the rebuff in Galilee, when the unbelieving Pharisees had again
demanded a sign of his authority, and after he had definitely warned the
disciples against the influence of their leaders, that Jesus led his
little company far to the north towards the slopes of Hermon. There, near
the recently built Caesarea Philippi, Jesus plainly asked his disciples
what the people thought of him (Mark viii. 27-30). We have seen how
gradually sentiment in Galilee concerning the new teacher crystallized
until, from thinking him a prophet, the people, first timidly, then
boldly, concluded that such a teacher and worker of signs must be the
promised king. We have seen also how the popular estimate changed when
Jesus refused to be guided by the popular will. Now, after the lapse of a
few weeks, in answer to his inquiry concerning the common opinion of him,
he is told that the people look on him as a prophet, in whom the spirit of
the men of old had been revived; but not a whisper remains of the former
readiness to hail him as the Messiah. It was in the face of such a
definite revulsion in the popular feeling, in the face, too, of the
increasing hostility of all the great in the nation, that Peter answered
for the twelve that they believed Jesus to be the Messiah, God's appointed
Deliverer of his people (Matt. xvi. 16 ff.). In form this confession was
no more than Nathanael had rendered on his first meeting with Jesus (John
i. 49), and was practically the same as the report made by Andrew to Simon
his brother, and by Philip to Nathanael (John i. 41, 45). In both idea and
expression the reply to Jesus' question, "Will ye also go away?" (John vi.
68, 69), was virtually equivalent to this later confession of Peter. Yet
Jesus found in Peter's answer at Caesarea Philippi something so significant
and remarkable that he declared that the faith that could answer thus
could spring only from a heavenly source (Matt. xvi. 17). The early
confessions were in fact no more than expressions of more or less
intelligent expectation that Jesus would fulfil the confessor's hopes. The
confession at Capernaum followed one of Jesus' mightiest exhibitions of
power, and was given before the disciples had had time to consider the
extent