CHRIST AND THE PHARISEES 131 



power of them/' And having realised this, His answer 

 was emphatic and final : '' Get thee behind Me, Satan ; 

 for it is written, * Thou shalt worship the Lord Thy God 

 and Him only shalt thou serve/ '' And having once 

 decided as to which ideal He would choose. He never 

 wavered in His loyalty to it. And how true was the 

 Spiritual Insight of Jesus, Surely of all gifts, the power 

 to dominate our fellow-men is the most damning and the 

 most damnable. The Gift of God is not the power to 

 dominate, but the power to serve. 



But to decide which ideal He would follow was one 

 thing — to convert His disciples to the same ideal was 

 another. On one occasion at least, we are told that His 

 followers tried to take Him by force and make Him a 

 King, — the Messianic Ruler that they wanted. And 

 when they utterly failed, ** many went back and walked 

 no more with Him,'' Even His most intimate disciples 

 hoped to the very end that He would assume the 

 role of a Conquering Hero, such as tradition led them to 

 expect. This is well illustrated in the story of the last 

 sad journey from Caesarea Phillipi to Jerusalem, The 

 danger-clouds were gathering thick and fast around the 

 little group, and when He asked them, ''but whom say 

 ye that I am ? " the impetuous Peter replied ** Thou art 

 the Christ," /,e,, the Messiah, What he meant by that, 

 and what the Disciples understood Him to mean, is 

 clearly shown in the sequel, Jesus at once proceeded 

 to tell them that He was not going up to Jerusalem to be 

 crowned as a Jewish Messiah, but to be executed as a 

 criminal. Whereupon Peter took Him aside and began 

 to rebuke Him, '' Far be it from Thee, Lord, This shall 

 never be done unto Thee," Then Jesus addressed to him 

 the same words that He had spoken to the Tempter in the 

 wilderness, when he suggested to Him the role of a con- 

 quering Messianic Hero, '' Get thee behind Me, Satan," 

 Later on He asked the disciples what they had been 



