§ 218. The contracted Jewish Theodicy Rejected. (Luke, xiii., 1-5.)

Certain sad events of the times were employed by Christ as types and warnings of the future. It was reported to him that Pilate had caused several Galileans to be slain while offering sacrifices in the Temple. The details of the case are unknown to us; whether it was carelessly reported by persons who did not know its connexion with the whole sad and terrible course of events into which the guilt of the nation was hurrying it; or whether they considered, according to the contracted notions of the Jews in regard to the avenging justice of God, that these Galileans deserved this wretched fate.⁵⁹¹⁵⁹¹   See p. 298. In answering them, Christ declared that guilt was common to the whole people, and that unless they became convinced of it and repented, they might all expect destruction. A tower, also, had fallen upon several persons in Jerusalem and killed them; but this, he told them, did not prove any marked guilt on the part of the unfortunate sufferers, but was rather a sign of the universal wretchedness which the guilt of the whole people was to bring upon them.