sect. 116; see A
39).

182. Tuesday, the last day of public activity, exhibits Jesus in four
different lights, according as he had to do with his critics, with the
devout widow, with the inquiring Greeks, and with his own disciples. The
opposition to him expressed itself, after the general challenge of his
authority, in three questions put in succession by Pharisees and
Herodians, by Sadducees, and by a scribe, more earnest than most, whom the
Pharisees put forward after they had seen how Jesus silenced the
Sadducees. Jesus met the opening challenge by a question about John's
baptism (Mark xi. 29-33) which completely destroyed the complacency of his
critics, putting them on the defensive. This was more than a clever
stroke, they could not know what his authority was unless they had a quick
sense for spiritual things. His question would have served to bring this
to the surface if they had possessed it. Their reply showed them incapable
of receiving a real answer to their question. It also gave him opportunity
to say in three significant parables (Matt. xxi. 28 to xxii. 14) what
their spiritual blindness signified for them and their nation, giving thus
a turn to the interview not at all to their minds. As Jesus' rebuke was
spoken in the hearing of the people, a determined effort was at once made
to discredit him in the popular mind. The question (Mark xii. 13-17) with
which the Pharisees and Herodians hoped to ensnare him was most subtle,
for the popular feeling was as sensitive to the mark of subserviency which
the payment of tribute kept ever before them as the Roman authorities were
to the slightest suspicion of revolt against their sway. In none of his
words had Jesus so clearly asserted the simple other-worldliness of his
doctrine of the kingdom of God as in his answer to the question about
tribute. For him loyalty to the actual earthly sovereign was quite
compatible with loyalty to God, the lower obligation was in fact a summons
to be scrupulous also to render to God his due,--a duty in which this
nation was sadly delinquent. The reply gave no ground for an accusation
before the governor; but the popular feeling against Rome was so strong
that it is not unlikely that it contributed somewhat to the readiness of
the multitude a few days later to prefer Barabbas to Jesus.

183. A second assault was made by some Sadducees who put to him a crude
question about the relations of a seven-times married woman in the
resurrec