it to fairy-land, as to blot out the Old and New Testament from history and resolve them into airy
myths and legends.^162
The Land.
Jesus spent his life in Palestine. It is a country of about the size of Maryland, smaller than
Switzerland, and not half as large as Scotland,^163 but favored with a healthy climate, beautiful
scenery, and great variety and fertility of soil, capable of producing fruits of all lands from the
snowy north to the tropical south; isolated from other countries by desert, mountain and sea, yet
lying in the centre of the three continents of the eastern hemisphere and bordering on the
Mediterranean highway of the historic nations of antiquity, and therefore providentially adapted
to develop not only the particularism of Judaism, but also the universalism of Christianity. From
little Phoenicia the world has derived the alphabet, from little Greece philosophy and art, from little
Palestine the best of all—the true religion and the cosmopolitan Bible. Jesus could not have been
born at any other time than in the reign of Caesar Augustus, after the Jewish religion, the Greek
civilization, and the Roman government had reached their maturity; nor in any other land than
Palestine, the classical soil of revelation, nor among any other people than the Jews, who were
predestinated and educated for centuries to prepare the way for the coming of the Messiah and the
fulfilment of the law and the prophets. In his infancy, a fugitive from the wrath of Herod, He passed
through the Desert (probably by the short route along the Mediterranean coast) to Egypt and back
again; and often may his mother have spoken to him of their brief sojourn in "the land of bondage,"
out of which Jehovah had led his people, by the mighty arm of Moses, across the Red Sea and
through "the great and terrible wilderness" into the land of promise. During his forty days of fasting
"in the wilderness" he was, perhaps, on Mount Sinai communing with the spirits of Moses and
Elijah, and preparing himself in the awfully eloquent silence of that region for the personal conflict
with the Tempter of the human race, and for the new legislation of liberty from the Mount of
Beatitudes.^164 Thus the three lands of the Bible, Egypt, the cradle of Israel, the Desert, its school
and playground, and Canaan, its final home, were touched and consecrated by "those blessed feet
which, eighteen centuries ago, were nailed for our advantage on the bitter cross."
He travelled on his mission of love through Judaea, Samaria, Galilee, and Peraea; he came
as far north as mount Hermon, and once he crossed beyond the land of Israel to the Phoenician
border and healed the demonized daughter of that heathen mother to whom he said, "O woman,
great is thy faith: be it done unto thee even as thou wilt."
We can easily follow him from place to place, on foot or on horseback, twenty or thirty
miles a day, over green fields and barren rocks over hill and dale among flowers and thistles, under
olive and fig-trees, pitching our tent for the night’s rest, ignoring the comforts of modern civilization,(^162) Well says Hausrath (Preface to 2nd ed. of vol. I. p. ix) against the mythical theory: "Für die poëtische Welt der religiösen
Sage ist innerhalb einer rein historischen Darstellung kein Raum; ihre Gebilde verbleichen vor einem geschichtlich hellen
Hintergrund .... Wenn wir die heilige Geschichte als Bruchstück einer allgemeinen Geschichte nachweisen und zeigen können,
wie die Ränder passen, wenn wir die abgerissenen Fäden, die sie mit der profanen Welt verbanden, wieder aufzufinden vermögen,
dann ist die Meinung ausgeschlossen, diese Geschichte sei der schöne Traum eines späteren Geschlechtes gewesen."
(^163) The average length of Palestine is 150 miles, the average breadth east and west of the Jordan to the Mediterranean, from
80 to 90 miles, the number of square miles from 12,000 to 13,000. The State of Maryland has 11,124, Switzerland 15,992,
Scotland 30,695 English square miles.
(^164) The tradition, which locates the Temptation on the barren and dreary mount Quarantania, a few miles northwest of Jericho,
is of late date. Paul also probably went, after his conversion, as far as Mount Sinai during the three years of repose and preparation
"in Arabia,"Gal. 1:17, comp. 4:24.
A.D. 1-100.