Later, when Joseph returns with the child and journeys to Nazareth, this too is explained by the words of the prophet, who said, “He shall be called a Nazarene.” On the false idea of the words of the prophet, that a Nazarene is an inhabitant of Nazareth, I shall say nothing here. Everything, even such popular errors, is quite intelligible from this point of view, and only shows how convinced the people were that Jesus was the Messiah, and therefore must have fulfilled everything which was expected of the Messiah. To us these fulfilments of the prophecy may not sound very convincing. But as a presentation of the ideas which then held sway over the people, and as proof of the grasp of the colloquial process, they are of great value to the historian. The appearance of John the Baptist, too, is immediately explained by reference to prophetic words (iii. 3). And when Jesus, after the imprisonment of John, left his abode and removed to Capernaum, as was quite natural, this, likewise must have occurred (iv. 14-16) that certain words of Isaiah should be fulfilled. There follows in the fifth to the seventh chapters the real kernel of Christian teaching in the sermon on the mount, and the announcement of the coming kingdom of God upon earth. Here we ask nothing more than a true statement, such as an apostle or his disciples were fully in a position to give us. No miraculous inspiration is needed for it; on the contrary, it would only injure for us the trustworthiness of the reporter. In the next chapters we read of the works done by Jesus, which were soon construed by the people as miracles, while in another place the evangelist sets the forgiveness of sins higher than all miracles, than all healing of the sick, and even declares this to be a power which God had given to men (ix. 8). Jesus himself often makes his healing power depend on the faith of the person to be healed, and of miraculous arts he says not a word (ix. 28). Next follow the appointment and despatch of the disciples, and soon after those words, which are so significant for this Gospel (xi. 27), “All things are delivered unto me of my Father; and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the son willeth to reveal _him_.” Here we have in a few words the true spirit, the true inspiration of the teaching which Christ proclaimed, that he was not only the Messiah or the son of David, but the true son of God, the Logos, which God willed when he willed man, the highest thought of God, the highest revelation of God, which was imparted in Jesus to blind humanity. We cannot judge of this so correctly as those who saw and knew Jesus in his corporeal existence, and found in him all those perfections, particularly in his life and conduct, of which human nature is capable. We must here rely on the evidence of his contemporaries who had no motive to discover in him, the son of a carpenter, the