The account in the gospels of the closing incidents of Christ’s life is probably in the main strictly correct. Sooner or later he was sure to go to Jerusalem. The need to justify his system by preaching it in the capital, and the wish to found it securely by his death under persecution, would alike impel him in this direction. And he would naturally choose one of the great feasts as the occasion for his visit to the city. Though the forms of Judaism had now probably ceased to be an essential portion of his religion, there is no reason to suppose that he personally objected to observing the more important of them. Coming to Jerusalem to keep the passover, he would find it crowded with strangers; practically the whole Jewish world would be concentrated there; and thus he would obtain the widest possible publicity, both for his preaching and his martyrdom. That the latter would necessarily follow the former he must have clearly seen. In the capital of Judaism, at a time when a great religious festival excited the fanaticism of the people to the highest pitch, to preach a religion that involved the overthrow of legalism and the equality of Jew and Gentile in the sight of God, and to do this while claiming to fulfil the popular expectations, obviously meant a speedy extinction. So we may conclude that Christ came to Jerusalem at the time of the passover, probably accompanied by many of his country adherents who were also going to the feast, and that there by his preaching he provoked against himself the fanaticism of the priests and the populace, and was put to death as an offender against the law. Among the incidents related as occurring now, is one that established a great dogma.