It is significant that this is to be kept secret not only until our Lord’s death but until His Resurrection. The three were not allowed to use it to comfort and reassure the rest as soon as their Master had suffered on the cross. The nine were to go through this trial unaided, eight stood the test, and held together in Jerusalem. When the Resurrection came, the Apostles “were glad when they saw the Lord,” and then in the delight and exultation of that moment the three may have poured forth the secret they had in store. The Apostles were not surprised at being told that they were to tell no man; they had received the same charge when they had seen Jairus’ daughter raised to life; but they were greatly puzzled by the words “till the Son of man were risen from the dead.” They believed probably in a Resurrection, but that was to be ages hence, whereas this rising of Christ from the dead must take place in their own lifetime, because after it had happened they were to be free to speak of the Vision on the Mount. They asked each other what this rising could be, and perhaps some fancied that our Lord would permanently assume the glorified existence of which He had given them a glimpse. Then came the question of Elijah. Our Lord turns the allusion to the prophets towards His coming rejection. Men had ill-treated the prophets; they will set at nought the Son of man too. “Even so shall the Son of man also suffer of them.”(254) This news is broken to the disciples gently and little by little, but they never believe that it is literally true. Their cause must, they were sure, succeed in the end, Christ would not have engaged them in failure. What leader ever prophesied his own discomfiture and death? Our Lord first broke this truth to Peter at Cæsaræa Philippi, then to the three, and again, as we shall see presently, to all the Twelve on their way to Capernaum; thus the stream of communication broadens out. We learn from St Luke(255) that it was not till the next day that our Lord “came down from the hill and much people met him,” so that in the night, and in the long day’s walk down to the inhabited country, the Apostles had ample time for quietly thinking over all that had taken place. Our Lord is always careful to leave time for one impression to fix itself, before another takes its place. CHAPTER XI. FROM THE MOUNT TO JERUSALEM. The spot at which our Lord had left the disciples when He went up to the Mount of the Transfiguration must have been well peopled and provided with synagogues, for our Lord on His return finds a “great multitude about them and scribes questioning with them.” The people were greatly amazed either at His sudden appearance or at something uplifted in His air. The Scribes were holding an altercation with the disciples, possibly exulting over the failure of these to cure the child, and our Lord, addressing the Scribes who were, it would seem, the assailing party, asks