represents and presents the fullest anti -Pharisaic Discourse of the Saviour, it will be
better to postpone our analysis till we reach that period of His Life.4
1. Even St. Luke xx. 45-47 is not an exception. Christ, indeed, often afterwards answered
their questions, but this is His last formal address to the Pharisees.
2. St. Matt. xxiii.
3. St. Matt. xxiii.
4. See the remarks on St. Luke xi. 39-52 in our analysis of St. Matt. xxiii. in chap. iv. of
Book V.
Some distinctive points, however, must here be noted. The remarks already made will
explain, how some time may have elapsed between this and the former Discourse, and
that the expression 'And as He spake'5 must not be pressed as a mark of time (referring
to the immediately preceding Discourse), but rather be regarded as indicating the
circumstances under which a Pharisee had bidden Him to the meal.6 Indeed, we can
scarcely imagine that, immediately after such a charge by the Pharisees as that Jesus
acted as the representative of Beelzebul, and such a reply on the part of Jesus, a
Pharisee would have invited Him to a friendly meal, or that 'Lawyers,' or, to use a
modern term, 'Canonists,' would have been present at it. How different their feelings
were after they had heard His denunciations, appears from the bitterness with which
they afterwards sought to provoke Him into saying what might serve as ground for a
criminal charge.7 And there is absolutely no evidence that, as commentators suggest,
the invitation of the Pharisee had been hypocritically given, for the purpose of getting up
an accusation against Christ. More than this, it seems entirely inconsistent with the
unexpressed astonishment of the Pharisee, when he saw Jesus sitting down to food
without ha ving first washed hands. Up to that moment, then, it would seem that he had
only regarded Him as a celebrated Rabbi, though perhaps one who taught strange
things.
5. St. Luke xi. 37.
6. The expression 'one of the Lawyers' (ver. 45) seems to imply that there were several at
table.
7. St. Luke xi. 53, 54.
But what makes it almost certain, that some time must have elapsed between this and
the previous Discourse (or rather that, as we believe, the two events happened in
different places), is, that the invita tion of the Pharisee was to the 'morning -meal.'8 We
know that this took place early immediately after the return from morning prayers in the
Synagogue.9 It is, therefore, scarcely conceivable, that all that is recorded in connection
with the first Discourse should have occurred before this first meal. On the other hand, it
may well have been, that what passed at the Pharisee's table may have some
connection with something that had occurred just before in the Synagogue, for we
conjecture that it was the Sabbath-day. We infer this from the circumstance that the
invitation was not to the principal meal, which on a Sabbath 'the Lawyers' (and, indeed,
all householders) would, at least ordinarily, have in their own homes.10 We can picture