The Divisions of His Public Ministry

54. The public ministry of Jesus is generally reckoned to have lasted three years. Each of them had peculiar features of its own. The first may be called the Year of Obscurity, both because the records of it which we possess are very scanty, and because He seems during it to have been only slowly emerging into public notice. It was spent for the most part in Judsea. The second was the Year of Public Favour, during which the country had become thoroughly aware of Him, Hi? activity was incessant, and His fame rang through the length and breadth of the land. It was almost wholly passed in Galilee. The third was the Year of Opposition, when the public favour ebbed away. His enemies multiplied and assailed Him with more and more pertinacity, and at last He fell a victim to their hatred. The first six months of this final year were passed in Gahlee, and the last six in other parts of the land.

55. Thus the life of the Saviour in its external outline resembled that of many a reformer and benefactor of mankind. Such a life often begins with a period during which the public is gradually made aware of the new man in its midst, then passes into a period when his doctrine or reform is borne aloft on the shoulders of popularity, and ends with a reaction, when the old prejudices and interests which have been assailed by him rally from his attack, and, gaining to themselves the passions of the crowd, crush him in their rage.