show miraculous
signs as a proof of his Messianic character (Mark viii. 12). The
tradition of the people implied a sudden appearance of the Messiah, but
Jesus made no claims to a supernatural origin and was content to be
known as the son of Joseph and Mary (Mark vi. 3-4). His kingdom is not
to be set up by wonders and miraculous powers, nor is it to be
established by force (Matt. xxvi. 52). Such means would contradict its
fundamental character, for as the kingdom of loving service it can be
established only by loving service. And as God is love, he can be
revealed not by prodigies of power but only by a love which is faithful
unto death.

Even the disciples of Jesus could not grasp the simplicity and
profundity of his message; still less could his opponents. When the
crisis came, he alone remained unshaken in his faith. He was accused of
blasphemy to the ecclesiastical authorities and of insurrection to the
civil rulers. He was condemned and crucified. His followers were
scattered every man to his own place as sheep without a shepherd. Of his
work nothing remained, not a written word, nor more than the rudiments
of an organization. The decisive event, which turned defeat into victory
and re-established courage and faith, was the resurrection of Jesus from
the dead and his reappearance to his disciples. Our sources will not
permit the precise determination of the order or the nature of these
appearances, but in any case from them arose the faith which was the
basis of the Christian Church and the starting-point of its theology.

The death of Jesus as a criminal, and his resurrection, profoundly
aroused the belief and hopes of the little group of Jews who were his
followers. His person and mission assumed the first place in their
affections and their thinking. He had been to them a prophet, mighty in
word and deed, but he now becomes to them the Messiah, Christ. It is not
his word but his person which assumes first place, and faith is
acceptance of him--crucified and risen--as Messiah. Hence his followers
early acquire the name Christians from the Greek form of the word. With
this emphasis upon the Messiah the Jewish element would seem to be
predominant, but as a matter of fact it was not so. The earlier group of
disciples, it is true, did not appreciate the universality of the
teaching of Jesus, and they continued zealous for the older forms, but
St Paul through his prophetic consciousness grasped the fundamental fact