tion (Mark xii. 18-27). If this question was asked with the
expectation of making Jesus ridiculous in the sight of the people it was a
marked failure, for his reply was so simple and straightforward that he
won the admiration even of some of the Pharisees. The most significant
feature of it was his argument from God's reference to himself as God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; for in that he taught that the fact of
fellowship with God implies that God's servants share with him a life that
death cannot vanquish. The skill with which Jesus met these two questions
interested some of his hearers and showed to his opponents that they must
put forward their ablest champions to cope with him. The next test was
more purely academic in character,--as to what class of commands is
greatest in the law (Mark xii. 28-34). For the pharisaic scholars this was
a favorite problem. For Jesus, however, the question contained no problem,
since all the law is summed up in the two commandments of love. His
contemporaries were not without power to see the truth of his
generalization, and their champion in this last attack was moved with
admiration for the fineness and sufficiency of Jesus' answer.

184. All of the assaults served only to show freshly the clearness and
profoundness of his thought; his critics were quite discomfited in their
effort to entangle him. They had done with him, but he had still a word
for them. The business of these scribes was the study of the scriptures.
They furnished the people with authoritative statements of truth. One of
the common-places of the current thought was that the Messiah should be
David's son. Jesus did not deny the truth of this view, yet he showed them
how partial their ideas were by quoting a word of scripture in which the
Messiah is shown as David's Lord. If they had been open-minded they might
have inferred from this that perhaps the man before them was not so
impossible a Messiah as they thought. This last question closed the
colloquy; there awaited yet, however, Jesus' calm, scathing arraignment of
the hypocrisy of these religious leaders. There was no longer any need for
prudence and every reason for a clear indication of the difference between
himself and the scribes in motive, in teaching, and in character. The
final conflict was on, and Jesus freely spoke his mind concerning their
whole life of piety without godliness. Never have sharper words of
reproach fallen from human lips than these whic