made and to be kept in view,
namely, a distinction between the real meaning of Christ's words
in his own mind and the actual meaning understood in them by his
auditors and reporters.1 Here we approach a most delicate and
vital point, hitherto too little noticed, but destined yet to
become prominent and fruitful. A large number of religious phrases
were in common use among the Jews at the time of Jesus. He adopted
them, but infused into them a deeper, a correct meaning, as
Copernicus did into the old astronomic formulas. But the
bystanders who listened to his discourses, hearing the familiar
terms, seized the familiar meaning, and erroneously attributed it
to him. It is certain that the Savior was often misunderstood and
often not understood at all. When he declared himself the Messiah,
the people would have made him a king by force! Even the apostles
frequently grossly failed to appreciate his spirit and aims,
wrenched unwarrantable inferences from his words, and quarrelled
for the precedency in his coming kingdom and for seats at his
right hand. In numerous cases it is glaringly plain that his ideas
were far from their conceptions of them. We have no doubt the same
was true in many other instances where it is not so clear. He
repeatedly reproves them for folly and slowness because they did
not perceive the sense of his instructions. Perhaps there was a
slight impatience in his tones when he said, "How is it that ye do
not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that
ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the
Sadducees?" Jesus uttered in established phrases new and
profoundly spiritual thoughts. The apostles educated in, and full
of, as they evidently were, the dogmas, prejudices, and

1 See this distinction affirmed by De Wette, in the preface to his
Commentatio de Morte Jesus Christi Expiatoria. See also Thurn,
Jesus und seine Apostel in Widerspruch in Ansehung der Lehre von
der Ewigcn Verdamnniss. In Scherer's Schriftforsch. sect. i. nr.
4.

hopes of their age and land would naturally, to some extent,
misapprehend his meaning. Then, after a tumultuous interval,
writing out his instructions from memory, how perfectly natural
that their own convictions and sentiments would have a powerful
influence in modifying and shaping the animus and the verbal
expressions in their reports! Under the circumstances, that we
should now possess the very equivalents of his words with strict
liter