The reason for their conduct lay not so much in either
their culture or their intelligence, as in the kind of life that seemed
to be necessary to them as the expression of their culture.
Thus, they were full of prejudices, prepossessions, and foregone
conclusions, all of which had the sanction of their culture. It was
enough for them to know that Jesus came from Nazareth and was
unlettered; this produced in them violent scorn and antipathy. They
were still further offended because He used none of the shibboleths
with which they were familiar. Nor could they conceive of any life as
satisfactory but the kind of life they lived, and that was a life of
social complexity, ruled by conventional usages and maxims, and
essentially artificial in ideal and practice. Jesus, therefore, turned
from them to the simple and natural people, fishermen, artisans, and
humble women, in whom the natural instincts had fuller play. His
reward was immediate; then, and ever since, the Common People heard Him
gladly.
The reason why simple and natural people readily understand Jesus is
that in the kind of life they live the primal emotions are supreme.
The very narrowness of their social outlook intensifies those emotions.
They have little to distract them; they are not bewildered by endless
disquisitions on conduct, and religion itself is for them an emotion
rather than a systematized creed.
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