This is a strongly figurative description of the millennium. Westcott thinks it is based on a
real discourse, but to me it sounds fabulous, and borrowed from the Apocalypse of Baruch which
has a similar passage (cap. 29, first published in Monumenta Sacra et Profana opera collegii
Doctorum Bibliothecae Ambrosianae, Tom. I. Fasc. II. Mediol. 1866, p. 80, and then in Fritzsche’s
ed. of Libri Apocryphi Veteris Test. Lips. 1871, p. 666): "Etiam terra dabit fructus suos unum in
decem millia, et in vite una erunt Mille palmites, et unus palmes faciet mille botros, et botrus unus
faciet mille acinos, et unus acinus faciet corum vini. Et qui esurierunt jucundabuntur, iterum autem
videbunt prodigia quotidie .... Et erit in illo tempore, descendet iterum desuper thesaurus manna,
et comedent ex eo in istis annis."
Westcott quotes eleven other apocryphal sayings which are only loose quotations or
perversions of genuine words of Christ, and may therefore be omitted. Nicholson has gathered the
probable or possible fragments of the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which correspond more
or less to passages in the canonical Gospels.
Mohammedan tradition has preserved in the Koran and in other writings several striking
words of Christ, which Hofmann, l.c. pp. 327–329, has collected. The following is the best:
"Jesus, the Son of Mary, said, ’He who longs to be rich is like a man who drinks sea-water;
the more he drinks the more thirsty he becomes, and never leaves off drinking till he perishes."
II. Personal Appearance of Jesus. None of the Evangelists, not even the beloved disciple
and bosom-friend of Jesus, gives us the least hint of his countenance and stature, or of his voice,
his manner, his food, his dress, his mode of daily life. In this respect our instincts of natural affection
have been wisely overruled. He who is the Saviour of all and the perfect exemplar for all should
not be identified with the particular lineaments of one race or nationality or type of beauty. We
should cling to the Christ in spirit and in glory rather than to the Christ in the flesh So St. Paul
thought (2 Cor. 5:16; Comp. 1 Pet. 1:8). Though unseen, he is loved beyond all human beings.
I see Thee not, I hear Thee not,
Yet art Thou oft with me;
And earth hath ne’er so dear a spot,
As when I meet with Thee."
Jesus no doubt accommodated himself in dress and general appearance to the customs of
his age and people, and avoided all ostentation. He probably passed unnoticed through busy crowds.
But to the closer observer he must have revealed a spiritual beauty and an overawing majesty in
his countenance and personal bearing. This helps to explain the readiness with which the disciples,
forsaking all things, followed him in boundless reverence and devotion. He had not the physiognomy
of a sinner. He had more than the physiognomy of a saint. He reflected from his eyes and countenance
the serene peace and celestial purity of a sinless soul in blessed harmony with God. His presence
commanded reverence, confidence and affection.
In the absence of authentic representation, Christian art in its irrepressible desire to exhibit
in visible form the fairest among the children of men, was left to its own imperfect conception of
ideal beauty. The church under persecution in the first three centuries, was averse to pictorial
representations of Christ, and associated with him in his state of humiliation (but not in his state
of exaltation) the idea of uncomeliness, taking too literally the prophetic description of the suffering
Messiah in the twenty-second Psalm and the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. The victorious church
after Constantine, starting from the Messianic picture in the forty-fifth Psalm and the Song ofA.D. 1-100.