CHAPTER IV.

_THE TRANSFIGURATION――THE LUNATIC CHILD._ A.D. 29.

AFTER the announcement we have just considered, the teaching of the Lord as addressed to His disciples assumed a new character. The mysterious close of His life had been already[361] more than once hinted at in figures or parables, but now He began gradually, as they were able to bear it, to speak clearly and openly of His death and rejection by the Jews. So far from establishing any earthly kingdom such as they expected, in which they might occupy distinguished places, He proceeded from this time to intimate in precise and distinct language how very different was the end that really awaited Him.

To the Apostles, who indulged to the close in dreams of a reign like that of earthly kings, these intimations of their Master sounded strange and unaccountable. To cheer, therefore, their wounded spirits, to enable them in some measure to comprehend the supernatural character of His kingdom, the Holy One was pleased to assure them that there were _some standing there_, who should not _taste of death till they had seen_, in spite of the sad announcement He had just made, _the Son of Man coming in His kingdom_ (Mtt. xvi. 28; comp. Mk. ix. 1; Lk. ix. 27).

Accordingly six days afterwards, with three of the most privileged of their number, who had already in the chamber of Jairus witnessed their Master’s power over death[362], He retired to one of the numerous mountain-ranges in the neighbourhood, not improbably one of the summits of Hermon[363]. From St Luke’s intimation that one object of His own withdrawal was that He might engage in solitary prayer (Lk. ix. 28), and that the three Apostles were wearied and oppressed by sleep (Lk.