pardon.79 The Jerusalem Talmud 80 adds the beautiful remark: 'Let this be a token in
thine hand - each time that thou showest mercy, God will show mercy on thee; and if
thou showest not mercy, neither will God show mercy on thee.' And yet it was a settled
rule, that forgiveness should not be extended more than three times.81 Even so, the
practice was terribly different. The Talmud relates, without blame, the conduct of a
Rabbi, who would not forgive a very small slight of his dignity, though asked by the
offender for thirteen successive years, and that on the Day of Atonement - the reason
being, that the offended Rabbi had learned by a dream that his offending brother would
attain the highest dignity, whereupon he feigned himself irreconcilable, to force the other
to migrate from Palestine to Babylon, where, unenvied by him, he might occupy the
chief place!82
80. Jer. Babha K. 6 c.
78. St. Matt. xviii. 21.
79. Babha K. viii. 7.
81. Yoma 86 b.
82. Yoma 87.
And so it must have seemed to Peter, in his ignorance, quite a stretch of charity to
extend forgiveness to seven, instead of three offences. It did not occur to him, that the
very act of numbering offences marked an externalism which had never entered into,
nor comprehended the spirit of Christ. Until seven times? Nay, until seventy times
seven!83 The evident purport of these words was to efface all such landmarks. Peter
had yet to learn, what we, alas! too often forget: that as Christ's forgiveness, so that of
the Christian, must not be computed by numbers. It is qualitative, not quantitative: Christ
forgives sin, not sins - and he who has experienced it, follows in His footsteps.84
83. It makes no difference in the argument, wh ether we translate seventy times seven, or
else seventy times and seven.
84. The Parable, with which the account in St. Matthew closes, will be explained by and
by in the Second Series of Parables.
Book IV
THE DESCENT: FROM THE MOUNT OF TRANSFIGURATION INTO THE VALLEY
OF HUMILIATION AND DEATH.
Chapter 4
THE JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM
CHRONOLOGICAL ARRANGEMENT OF THE LAST PART OF THE GOSPEL-
NARRATIVES
FIRST INCIDENTS BY THE WAY.
(St. John 7:1-16; St. Luke 9:1-56, 57-62; St. Matthew 8:19-22.)
THE part in the Evangelic History which we have now reached has this peculiarity and
difficulty, that the events are now recorded by only one of the Evangelists. The section
in St. Luke's Gospel from chapter ix. 51 to chapter xviii. 14 stands absolutely alone.