Note 32 — Part I
Reading edition
Jesus probably spoke to His disciples in the veiled language so often used by Him, since it is clear that His disciples, down to the last days in Jerusalem, had not accepted the idea of His immediate bodily death.
"But they understood not that saying and were afraid to ask Him" (Mark IX:32).
"And they understood none of these things; and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things that were spoken" (Luke XVIII:34; see Matt. XXIV:3).
It is probable that up to the hour of the Crucifixion many of the disciples still clung to the hope that Jesus would exert His miraculous powers to confound His enemies and establish an earthly kingdom.
"They thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear" (Luke XIX:11).
They quarreled among themselves as to who should have precedence in this kingdom.
"And there was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest" (Luke XXII:24).