The Son of Man V. More than a Prophet

Irish Jesuit Province

The Son of Man V. More than a ProphetAuthor(s): Hugh KellySource: The Irish Monthly, Vol. 79, No. 935 (May, 1951), pp. 219-223Published by: Irish Jesuit ProvinceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20516363 .

Accessed: 14/06/2014 20:56

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Irish Jesuit Province is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Irish Monthly.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.60 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 20:56:48 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ijp

http://www.jstor.org/stable/20516363?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


THE SON OF MAN?V

MORE THAN A PROPHET

By HUGH KELLY, SJ.

THE universal effect of Christ's words on His hearers was one

of wonder and admiration. "

Never man spoke like this ", they would say to one another. That impression was due to an

unusual air of authority, to a peculiar depth and luminousness in

His teaching. He did not speak like a prophet, who was given a

message to deliver; still less like one of the Pharisees, whose teaching was obscure, timid, petty. The ordinary people perceived at once a quality in His teaching which made it quite unlike anything else

they had heard, which they felt at once and which they described

rightly when they said that He taught as one having power and not

as one of the Pharisees.

The words of this Teacher are preserved for us in the Gospel; we

read them in cold print; we do not hear them from His lips; we do

not receive them supported by the force of His personality. Yet we find in them that same unmistakable note, something that is

unique. No one could attribute to an Old Testament prophet or

to St. Paul, still less to St. Augustine or St. Thomas, an utterance

of Christ. They possess a stamp, a hallmark which put them in a

place apart. Prophet, Apostle, Doctor?they speak things holy, wise,

profound, but they do not speak like Christ.

It is a commonplace drawn from the lives of the saints, and indeed

from all religious experience, that the closer a man approaches to

God the more he feels his unworthiness; that the proximity to God

and the Spirit of God produces always a feeling of fear, and a strong sense of the chasm that separates the creature from the Creator.

When God speaks to a creature, His message comes with a strange,

overwhelming power to the human soul and mind. The author of

a recent life of Christ has expressed this truth in a happy and ex

pressive image. The divine truth, he says, comes into the human

soul of prophet or saint, like a torrent from the hills, which falls

into a lake with a thunder and a force which trouble it to its depths. Or again the divine message is like a blinding light winch dazzles

219



IRISH MONTHLY

and overwhelms him who receives it; so that he delivers it only by

stammering, with a strong sense of his unworthiness, that his lips are unclean and need to be purified.

" Woe is me?because I am

a man of unclean lips?I have seen with my eyes the King, the Lord

of hosts," Isaias said (VI, 5). And Jerem?as gives a like testimony of his unworthiness, of being unequal to the strain of the message

given to him: "Thou hast been stronger than I, and Thou hast

prevailed. . . . And there came in my heart, as it were a burning fire, shut up in my bones; and I was wearied not being able to

bear it "

(XX, 7). And when St. Paul wishes to recount his divine

experiences he confesses that he has not human thoughts or words

in which to convey them.

But with One Teacher, Who spoke of divine things, there is none

of that emotion, no stammering, no fear, no sense of unworthiness

to receive the message or of inability to communicate it. The word

of God came to Him not as it were from above with violence, but

like a spring that wells up in a lake and fills it without causing a

ripple on the surface. He is not overwhelmed or dazzled by the

vision of truth. He is on a level with His message; it does not swoop down on Him from a great height. He belongs to the region of

the truth. Pascal has noted this quality in the teaching of Christ. A merchant, he says, speaks well and correctly about commerce; a

lawyer will discourse aptly about the business of the law courts; a

diplomatist and courtier will speak competently about the affairs

of kings and state. Only God can speak rightly about the things of God. Only once in human history has a man spoken with

complete assurance of the things of God. By Him the most profound things were said with that perfect simplicity and confidence with

which a man speaks of the business of his life and profession; of

the things which belong to his normal experience. He spoke of

divine things as One Who belonged naturally to that world. There is not the slightest trace of fear or of wonder at His message; still less any feeling of unworthiness.

" We speak of what We know, and

We testify what We have seen" (John III, 11). From that source comes the authority which so impressed the

people. That note was in His words from the beginning. There is no trace of growing confidence from His experience, or from the

acceptance of His hearers. Perhaps in none of His discourses did He manifest that note more strongly than in the Sermon on the

220



MORE THAN A PROPHET

Mount, which was preached in the early part of His ministry. The whole spirit of the teaching of the contemporary teachers, the Scribes and Pharisees, had been the completest subservience to the letter of the law; they had by their casuistry extended the reverence due to

the law itself to the thousand deductions and applications which

they had drawn out from it. And then there suddenly appears a

young Teacher Who will set aside their traditions, nay, Who will

actually correct or complete the law itself. "

You have heard that it was said to them of old; Thou shalt not kill. And whosoever shall

kill shall be in danger of the judgment. But I say to you that who soever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment

"

(Matt. V, 21, 22). This was something different from the timid,

textual, commenting of the Pharisees. Here was One Who gave a

higher perfection to the law; Who approached it not as a subject but as a law-giver. The impression He left on His hearers is recorded

by the Evangelist, who has given us the fullest account of the Sermon on the Mount: "And it came to pass when Jesus had fully ended

these words that the people were in admiration of His doctrine. For

He was teaching them as one having power; and not as the Scribes

and Pharisees "

(Matt. VII, 28, 29). That same quality shows itself in the depth and serenity with

which He spoke of the things of God. In His words the divine

realities stand out in their depth and lucidity, as in no other words.

Every page will furnish examples of this quality. "

Seek first the

kingdom of God and His justice and all these things will be added

to you." "

Be ye perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect." "

Call

no man your father upon earth; for one is your Father Who is in

Heaven." " Why askest thou concerning good? One is good, God."

The whole of human life is lifted up by these words; it is suffused

by a new light; it is shown as having a new value and dignity.

But, at the same time, we must not consider that He was a

visionary, that He had an unreal view of life; that He was a Man

Who went through life with His eyes fixed on remote horizons, oblivious of the true conditions of the world in which He moved.

He knew the realities of human life; no one knew the potential

depravity of man's heart as He did. ** He knew what was in man."

Did He not say, "

From the heart of man come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false testimonies, blas

phemies "

(Matt. XV, 19)? But He saw clearly the good that was

221



IRISH MONTHLY

latent in human life; what it could become, if only it were opened to the truth and grace which He came to give.

That same vision of truth, that serene divine wisdom, how easily He brings it into play to settle controversies or difficulties, or even

captious questionings put Him by His enemies. When the Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection, propounded a frivolous

difficulty about the future life, He raised the question to a higher

plane, by answering, "

The God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, is

not the God of the dead, but of the living; for all five in Him "

(Luke XX, 38). They proposed a difficulty from human marriage? the case of a woman who had been married to seven brothers

successively. If there is a resurrection, whose wife shall she be?

they asked. His reply showed up the gross idea they held of eternal Ufe. The children of the resurrection, He told them, would be like

the angels, who neither marry nor are given in marriage. One day in the last week of His life as He was teaching in the

temple, His enemies approached Him, and with hypocritical protesta tions of respect asked Him a question, which was not inspired by a

desire to gain instruction, but was meant to embarrass Him: "

Is

it lawful," they ask, "

to give tribute to Caesar or not? "

It was a

subtle and an insidious question. No matter how He answered He was likely to offend?either the national sentiment of His own people or the suspicion of the Roman rulers. He did not shirk the question.

He asked for a coin in which the tribute was paid. They handed

Him a Roman denarius. "

Whose image and superscription is this? "

He asked. "Caesar's," they answered. Then He saith to them: "

Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God

the things that are God's." The answer was perfectly clear and

could not be thought otherwise by His questioners. By accepting the coinage of Caesar they admitted his authority. But Christ goes

beyond the question asked, or rather He puts it in its full setting. While He taught His hearers to obey their earthly rulers, He reminded

them that there was a higher loyalty. His replies are never subter

fuges, never merely a debating point; they are an answer to the

difficulty; they contain positive instruction; they open up new

horizons.

A doctor of the law came to Him to ask what seemed a simple

question, which seemed to be asked with the best intentions. " Master, which is the great commandment of the law?

" In reality

222



MORE THAN A PROPHET

it was an attempt to trap Him into a maze of controversy. Under

the casuistry of the Pharisees the commandments had been multiplied and extended until all sense of proportion between what was im

portant and what was trivial had been lost under a mass of decisions and traditions. At once He cut through this mass and came to the heart of religion: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart and thy whole soul and with all thy mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like to this:

Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." With these words He

shows the true features of the whole religious and moral life and

exposes the empty, vicious system which the Pharisees had built up. No man ever spoke like this. Every page of the Gospel gives us

examples of this utterance, which is unlike any other, which drew

at once the admiration of the crowd as it has drawn the admiration

of all succeeding ages. We have but to compare His words with

those of any other religious or moral teacher to see at once that between the two there is a difference not merely of degree but of

kind. Others will speak from their limited human experiences or

speculation or will give forth their message in the measure in which

they have received it. But the depth and luminousness, the wisdom

and sweetness of Christ's words can come only from a full, un

clouded view of life, divine and human.

And the reason of this distinction is that He is not a prophet or

an apostle or a doctor, but something incomparably greater. "A

prophet, yea, and more than a prophet," was His own tribute to

St. John the Baptist. And the greatness of the Baptist was just that,

by his vocation, he was close to the Messias, that He was to introduce

to the Jewish people "

Him that was to come ", whereas the prophets had only saluted Him from afar.

" In old days God spoke to our

fathers in many ways and by many means through the prophets; now at last in these times He has spoken to us with a Son to speak for Him

" (Hebrews I, 1). That is the secret of His greatness, of

His uniqueness. He is the Son Who shares the Father's nature and

life, Who alone knows the Father, Who alone can reveal Him to us.

"No man knows the Father but the Son and he to whom it shall

please the Son to reveal Him": "All My things are thine and all

Thy things are mine." No prophet could speak in that way.

223



Documents

The Son of Man V. More than a Prophet