LONDON:
WATTS & Co.,
5 & 6 JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET STREET, E-C-4
**** ****
To
THE PURE SOUL
of
MY SISTER HENRIETTE,
Who died at Byblus, on September 24th, 1861.
Dost thou recall, from the bosom of God where thou
reposest long days at Ghazir, in which, alone with thee, I wrote these
pages, inspired by the places we had visited together? Silent at my side,
thou didst read an copy each sheet as soon as I had written it while the
sea, the villages, the ravines, and the mountains were spread at our feet.
When the overwhelming light had given place to the innumerable army of
stars, thy shrewd and subtle questions, thy discreet doubts, led me back
to the sublime object of our common thoughts, one day thou didst tell me
that thou wouldst love this book -- first, because it had been composed
with thee, and also because it pleased thee. Though at times thou didst
fear for it the narrow judgements of the frivolous, yet wert thou ever
persuaded that all truly religious souls would ultimately take pleasure in
it. In the midst of these sweet meditations, the Angel of Death struck us
both with his wing: the sleep of fever seized us at the same time -- I
awoke alone! ... Thou sleepest now in the land of Adonis, near the holy
Byblus and the sacred stream where the women of the ancient mysteries came
to mingle their tears. Reveal to me, O good genius, to me whom thou
lovedst, those truths which conquer death, deprive it of terror, and make
it almost beloved.
Preface
LIKE many another "infidel," Ernest Renan grew up in an
atmosphere of piety. He was born in the Breton fishing-town of Treguier in
1823. When he was only five years old his father, a ship-outfitter, was
drowned at sea. Henceforth the home influence of a sensitive and
impressionable child was exercised by two women, Renan's mother and his
sister, Henriette, who was twelve years his senior. The latter was the
bread-winner of the family and proved a second mother to the young Ernest.
In his manhood she became his most trusted counsellor and friend.
Renan's mother remained a Catholic to the end of her
life, but Henriette lost all belief in the Supernatural long before her
brother had entertained a single doubt of his hereditary faith. Yet she
put no obstacle in the way of his cherished ambition to become a priest.
His first school was the ecclesiastical college at Treguier, where he soon
showed such brilliancy that, through the kind efforts of Dupanloup
(afterwards Bishop of Orleans), he was sent to a superior college in
Paris. Thence he passed to the Seminary of Issy, and afterwards to St.
Sulpice and St. Stavistas (the lay college of the Oratorians). It was
during his stay in the last of these establishments that Renan reluctantly
came to the conviction that he could never enter the Catholic priesthood.
According to his own account, the critical study of the Bible was the main
factor of his change. His bias was strongly pietistic, and he loved and
admired his clerical teachers. Bad priests never seem to have come his
way.
When he announced his decision -- he was now twenty-
two -- the older men among his instructors sought to dissuade him, hoping
that his faith might return when he had settled down to his clerical
duties. Dupanloup, however, agreed that he ought to choose a lay career
and offered to help him with money.
He was encouraged to take the final step by Henriette,
who sent him 500 francs while he was looking for employment. It was not
long before Renan obtained a post as usher in a boys' school, where he
started a lifelong friendship with Berthelot, the famous chemist, who was
then eighteen. His duties occupying only the evenings, Renan had plenty of
time at his disposal for reading during the day.
In 1849 the French Government sent Renan on a
scientific mission to Italy. On his return to Paris he received a small
post in the Bibliotheque Nationals, which, together with the savings of
Henriette, who had now come to live with him, kept the two alive. In 1852
was published Renan's work on the most renowned Islamic philosopher of the
Middle Ages, Averroes. This brought him his doctor's degree and
established his reputation as a thinker. He married two years later, and
in 1859 he published new translations, with commentaries, of the Book of
Job and the Song of Songs.
The chair of Hebrew and Chaldaic at the Collage de
France now became vacant, and Renan offered himself as a candidate.
Naturally, he was bitterly opposed by the Catholics. Napoleon III was then
the ruler of France and his wife, the Empress Eugenie, supported the
Catholic reactionaries. The Emperor was bound to conciliate so powerful a
body of his subjects, without whose support he could not hope to retain
his precarious authority. But he did not lack admiration for Renan and
wished to do something for him. So he sent him on an archaeological
mission to Syria.
Renan sailed for the East with the devoted Henriette as
his companion, and they made their first stay at Beyrout. A few months
later his wife joined him, but was compelled by her home duties to return
to France in the following summer. Henriette remained behind and shared,
as far as she could, her brother's investigations of Phoenician
antiquities.
In July, 1861, Renan had finished his work, and the two
paid a visit to the Upper Lebanon. Renan was now engaged in making his
first draft of the 'Vie de Jesus,' his sister copying it out for him page
by pane.
The brother and sister went back to Beyrout, in order
to prepare for a journey to Cyprus, where the mission was to reach its
end. Time, however, was found for excavations at Gebeil (the ancient
Byblus), in the fabled land of Adonis. Here Renan and Henriette were
struck down with a severe attack of fever. Henriette's case proved fatal.
They buried her in the land of Adonis, as Renan tells us in his beautiful
dedication to her soul, which prefaces the book by which all the world
knows him. Renan returned to France. The mission bore fruit in the
important 'Corpus Inscriptiontem Semiticarum,' of which he was the editor.
A richly illustrated report of the mission's achievements was published in
1864. The previous year had seen the appearance of the 'Vie de Jesus.
Shortly before the issue of his most popular work Renan
had obtained the chair of Hebrew and Semitic languages in the University
of Paris, which had been left vacant through the death of Quatremere,
under whom he had studied. The Catholics were furious. Even among the
Liberals there was suspicion of the new professor, and it was feared that
Renan was sympathetic to the Imperial regime.
His inaugural address provoked more than one
interruption, the climax coming when he referred to Jesus as "a man so
great that ... I should not wish to contradict those who, impressed by the
unique character of his movement, call him God." This damning with faint
praise, as they were bound to consider it, gave offence to the Catholics.
Four days later Renan was suspended from his professorial duties, although
he retained his salary and for two years taught Hebrew in his own house to
those students who desired it. The publication of the 'Vie de Jesus'
prevented his reinstatement. The French ministry offered him a post in the
Bibliotheque Imperiale, which he declined with scorn.
The Vie de Jesus was only the first of a series dealing
very fully with Christian origins. Three years later appeared 'The
Apostles.' To this were subsequently added 'The Gospels and the Second
Christian Generation,' 'Saint Paul, The Antichrist,' 'The Christian
Church, and Marcus Aurelius.' The last brought the story down to the last
quarter of the second century. It is perhaps the most remarkable of the
series. Few have depicted so vividly, and with such a wealth of erudition,
the social and intellectual life of Pagans and Christians in the days of
the last of the great Stoic Emperors as did Ernest Renan.
The great French scholar's 'New Studies of Religious
History' (collected in 1884) show the catholicity of his interests,
dealing as they do with such themes as the Islamic mystery play of the
martyrdom of Hussein, the growth of the legend of the Buddha, and the life
of St. Francis of Assisi. His 'History of Israel,' which was published in
1887-91, revealed Renan's competency to handle Old Testament problems with
the same skill and learning that he applied to those of the New.
It will always be gratifying to Englishmen of broad
sympathies and culture to remember that Renan delivered in London the
Hibbert course of lectures for the year 1880. His subject was the
influence of Roman institutions on the development of Catholicism, The
liberal-minded Dean Stanley was among those who showed their cordiality to
the famous heretic.
Renan's exquisite 'Recollections of My Youth' (1883),
which is perhaps his best known work after the 'Vie de Jesus,' must have
endeared him to the hearts of millions. Seldom has a more touching story
been told, or one so candid and dignified, of the struggle of a soul
thirsty for truth and ready to sacrifice everything in its service.
The political fluctuations of Renan, at one time
Suspicious of democracy as a possible foe of culture and finally
reconciled to it and hopeful of its future evolution, hardly concern us
here. Nor need we dwell on his experiments in drama, which would never
have won him fame.
The Chair of Semitic Languages, which Renan forfeited,
through his own indiscretions and the bigotry of his orthodox enemies,
under the Second Empire was ultimately restored to him under the Third
Republic. He had become one of the most celebrated men of letters in
France, and his sympathetic courtesy and geniality of temper had gained
for him the respect, if not the affection, of many to whom his religious
opinions were repugnant. When he died in the autumn of 1892, at the age of
nearly sixty-nine, he was still busy with his classes at the Collage de
France, whither he had returned after a very short holiday in his native
Brittany, which he loved so well.
Seventy-two years have passed since Ernest Renan's 'Vie
de Jesus,' the first biography of Jesus to present him as entirely human,
was launched on a world already much troubled with doubts about the
Supernatural. In less than six months 60,000 copies of this momentous work
were sold. Edition quickly followed edition, no less than twenty-three
appearing within the space of twenty years.
Although thousands welcomed the 'Vie de Jesus' for its
lucidity and charm, as well as for the tenderness and sympathy with which
Jesus and the great movement he is reputed to have started were
delineated, the rage of Orthodoxy against the book and its author was at
least as great as that provoked by Strauss's 'Leben Jesu' nearly thirty
years earlier.
Here for the first time was a purely naturalistic
biography of one whom Christendom had so long adored as God manifest in
the flesh. The 'Leben Jesu' by Strauss can hardly be called a biography;
it is a searching criticism of the Gospels, and makes scarcely an attempt
to construct a history in the place of the legend, which Strauss did more
perhaps than any previous critic to demolish. To much the same category
belong the works of those Biblical scholars who preceded Strauss --
Herder, Reimarus, Evanson, Bahrdt, Venturini, Paulus, and others.
Arguments about the mutual relations of the Gospels, their trustworthiness
and their probable dating; conjectures (sometimes fantastic) about what
might have happened in Galilee and Jerusalem some nineteen hundred years
ago -- all this the earlier Higher Critics of the New Testament gave. But
none before Renan drew a real portrait of a man who could be loved as a
man and judged as a man.
The charm and the skill with which Renan handles his
theme may well serve to hide the critical and literary blemishes of his
work. His Jesus is a young carpenter of Nazareth, who was at first one of
the disciples of the fiery revivalist, John the Baptizer, and took up his
slogan, "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Later he broke away from the
group and formed his own body of disciples. "The Kingdom of Heaven" meant
nothing less than the restoration of the ancient theocracy in all its
glory, as Jewish piety imagined it to have once existed, involving the
overthrow of Roman rule and, in the opinion of many Jews, the
reestablishment of the dynasty of David in Jerusalem. To the future king
the name of Messiah (Heb. Moshiah = "Anointed") was given. Jesus did not
at first claim to be the Messiah. He preached an ethic of love and
justice, of pity and self-renunciation, of humility and purity of heart,
which should prepare his fellow-countrymen -- foreigners were outside the
scope of his propaganda -- for the wonderful era that was shortly coming.
Jesus enforced his teaching with simple parables, stories drawn from
natural happenings, observable by all, and from the everyday life of the
people -- the sower scattering his seed on different soils, the
mustard-seed that grew into a stately tree, the net breaking under the
weight of the fish it enclosed, the shepherd hunting for the lost sheep,
the merchant selling all his goods to buy the precious pearl. The Rabbis
often used parables in their expositions. Parables with similar themes to
those of the Gospels appear in the Talmud.
Simple folk loved Jesus and eagerly listened to his
discourses. Among them he wrought many faith-cures. But his popularity
with the Galilean peasants, whose attachment to Jewish Orthodoxy was
rather loose, drew on him the keen resentment of the Pharisees, who, like
Jesus, were Messianic in their outlook and much of whose ethical teaching
resembled his, and still more the hostility of the Sadducees, who were
pro-Roman and unfriendly to Messianic visions, and from whose ranks came
the great hierarchy of the Temple. Popularity with the multitude and
opposition from their religious and political leaders spurred Jesus to
greater boldness. He was no loner content with the role of a prophet of
the Kingdom, a wandering "Son of Man" (Ezekiel had borne that title). He
claimed to be himself the Messiah. He even foretold his death by violence,
his ascent to God his Father's right hand, and his eventual return in
triumph on the clouds of heaven, accompanied by a host of angels. His
character underwent a measure of degeneration. "The Galilean idyll," which
graced his earlier career, disappeared, and the gentle, persuasive teacher
was turned into an angry enunciator, and his mind became obsessed with
apocalyptic horrors. Even fraud now assisted his propaganda. According to
Renan, the raising of Lazarus was a trick, planned by the subject of the
pretended miracle with the aid of Martha and Mary.
The end was inevitable. With the aid of a treacherous
disciple the enemies of Jesus tracked him down and, after a mock trial
before the High Priest on a blasphemy charge, dragged him before Pontius
Pilatus, precurator of Judea, who reluctantly sentenced him to crucifixion
as a rebel against Roman rule. Jesus was buried by a wealthy Jewish
sympathizer in his own family tomb. The story of his resurrection a day or
two later was started by the hallucinations of a frenzied devotee, Mary of
Magdala. A woman's love and folly had given to the world a risen God!
Renan's reconstruction of the story of Jesus does not
lack plausibility in many of its features, but he has certainly failed to
present a figure worthy of any great respect. This deluded visionary and
fanatic, even stooping to fraud, has no claim to the glowing panegyric
with which Renan closes his narrative. That Jesus was not only lovable,
but, in a sense, worshipful, Renan truly felt and would have his readers
feel. Was it not his Catholic upbringing that induced this frame of mind
rather than the calm survey of the facts which he believed a critical
study of the Gospels substantiated?
At times Renan is even weakly sentimental. From an
aesthetic viewpoint, if from no other, one must condemn his surmise that
Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane cast a thought on the girls he might
have wooed in Galilee. No wonder a young French lady put down the 'Vie de
Jesus' with the remark: "What a pity it does not end with a marriage!"
Renan, of course, did not accept without qualification
the traditional views on the dating and authorship of the Gospels. But his
conservatism would be hard to match to-day outside the ranks of the
theologians. Bernard Shaw is hardly more uncritical than he sometimes is.
Renan adhered to the opinion, first broached by Lachmann in the eighteenth
century, that Mark was the earliest Gospel and, broadly speaking, reliable
as a biographical source -- an opinion which is still the prevailing one
among Protestant scholars (Catholics are forbidden by the Papal Biblical
Commission to maintain Mark's priority), though it is disputed by some
eminent critics, like Raschke, who regards Mark as a late document.
Renan's treatment of the Fourth Gospel is strangely arbitrary. Although
not attributing it to John the son of Zebedee, he sees in it a valuable
source of biographical data for the life of Jesus. His offensive
interpretation of the story of Lazarus has no justification whatever, and
is on a par with the vagaries of Paulus and Venturini, on which Strauss
expended his scorn. The story is, in all probability, a didactic fiction,
which the Fourth Evangelist may have built up on a basis of popular
conjectures, gathering round a legendary or historic name.
To-day the question is being seriously mooted whether
any materials exist for a life of Jesus, even conceding his historicity.
No more drastic critic of previous attempt at biographical reconstruction
has been written than Dr. Albert Schweitzer's 'Von Reimarus zu Wrede'
(translated under the title of 'The Quest of the Historical Jesus'), "that
cemetery of departed hypotheses," as the late Prof. W.B. Smith so
amusingly described it. Circumspect readers of Dr. Schweitzer's lengthy
work will regard his own efforts in the way of Jesuine biography as open
to the same charge of arbitrariness which he shrewdly and wittily makes
against so many other critics.
It is not surprising that, in view of "such quantities
of sand," the belief has been steadily growing during the last twenty-
five years that Jesus belongs wholly to the realm of myth. Ingenious
attempts, sometimes bewilderingly erudite, have been made by many scholars
-- Arthur Drews, W.B. Smith, J.M. Robertson, Kalihoff, Jensen, Couchoud,
Bergh van Eysinga, and others -- to explain the rise of Christianity
without an historical Jesus. But there has been so far little measure of
agreement among the Mythicists, beyond denial of the reputed founder's
existence. The alleged traces of a prechristian cult of a sacrificed and
resurrected Savior God, named Jesus or Joshua, seem very dubious. The
final victory may well lie with the Historicists. And yet it cannot be
said that their position is rationally unchallengeable. The history of the
numerous and often contradictory defenses of the Gospels is a history of
continual critical surrenders. Did Jesus claim to be the Messiah? Wrede
and many other Historicists say no. Guignebert believes that an
hallucination of Peter was the source, not only of the myth of the
resurrection, but of the doctrine of the Messiahship of Jesus, though this
seems to militate against all psychological probability. Wrede, Hamack,
and the Liberal School generally, regard Jesus as an ethical teacher,
whose views of the Kingdom of Heaven were mystical rather than political.
He was a prophet of the inner life. On the other hand, Schweitzer
discovers in Jesus an apocalyptic seer, preaching an "interim ethic,"
whose value can hardly be detached from those forecasts of catastrophe and
millennial glory in which time has proved him mistaken. According to
Eisler, the Galilean propagandist was an aspirant to David's crown, though
piously refusing to enforce his rights till God should intervene.
Many evangelical data, once proclaimed unassailable,
are now seriously questioned even by opponents of the Mythicists. Among
these are the Twelve Apostles, the treachery of Judas, and the Sermon on
the Mount. Where do we reach the bottom-rock of historical fact? Some will
say that the Crucifixion is at least certain. The late Canon Cheyne,
however, expressed doubts even of this event, and it seems possible to
give an explanation of it in terms of myth. The interesting thesis of Mr.
J.M. Robertson that a mystery play underlies the story of the Passion
seems to receive support from the discovery of some cuneiform tablets
relating to the Babylonian god Marduk, whose death and resurrection were
dramatically represented long before the Christian era. Marduk, the son of
Ea and intercessor with his father for mankind, was tried, condemned to
death, slain, buried in a mountain cave, and raised to life. He is also
said to have visited "the spirits in prison" (a curious parallel to I
Peter iii. 19). Possibly some form of this dramatic mystery was known in
certain heterodox circles of Judaism. Prof. Zimmern in Germany and Dr. S.
Langdon in England, both Assyriologists of repute, hold that the Marduk
Passion-myth has some bearing on the problem of Christian origins. The
Witness of Paul, which has been cited again and again as one of the
unshakable pillars of the tradition, has become at least questionable. Not
only is the formidable attack by Van Manen on the authenticity of the
whole of the Pauline Epistles to be reckoned with, but also the fact that
the defence of them to-day generally involves the surrender of several as
non-Pauline and the admission of large interpolations in the rest. At any
rate, the theology of Paul, or of those who wrote under his name, seems to
demand a longer growth of propaganda preceding it than the Orthodox
tradition assumes.
A.D. Howell Smith.
Introduction
In Which The Sources Of This Histor Are Principally Treated
A HISTORY of the "Origin of Christianity" ought to
embrace all the obscure and, if one might so speak, subterranean periods
which extend from the first beginnings of this religion up to the moment
when its existence became a public fact, notorious and evident to the eyes
of all. Such a history would consist of four books. The first, which I now
present to the public, treats of the particular fact which has served as
the starting-point of the new religion; and is entirely filled by the
sublime person of the Founder. The second would treat of the Apostles and
their immediate disciples, or, rather, of the revolutions which religious
thought under-went in the first two generations of Christianity. I would
close this about the year 100, at the time when the last friends of Jesus
were dead, and when all the books of the New Testament were fixed almost
in the forms in which we now read them. The third would exhibit the state
of Christianity under the Antonines. We should see it develop itself
slowly, and sustain an almost permanent war against the empire, which had
just reached the highest degree of administrative perfection, and,
governed by philosophers, combated in the new-born sect a secret and
theocratic society, which obstinately denied and incessantly undermined
it. This book would cover the entire period of the second century. Lastly,
the fourth book would show the decisive progress which Christianity made
from the time of the Syrian emperors. We should see the learned system of
the Antonines crumble, the decadence of the ancient civilization become
irrevocable, Christianity profit from its ruin, Syria conquer the whole
West, and Jesus, in company with the gods and the deified sages of Asia,
take possession and a purely civil government no longer sufficed. It was
then that the religious ideas of the races grouped around the
Mediterranean became profoundly modified; that the Eastern religious
everywhere took precedence; that the Christian Church, having become very
numerous, totally forgot its dreams of a millennium, broke its last ties
with Judaism, and entered completely into the Greek and Roman world. The
contests and the literary labors of the third century, which were carried
on without concealment, would be described only in their general features.
I would relate still more briefly the persecutions at the commencement of
the fourth century, the last effort of the empire to return to its former
principles, which denied to religious association any place in the State.
Lastly, I would only foreshadow the change of policy which, under
Constantine, reversed the position, and made of the most free and
spontaneous religious movement an official worship, subject to the State,
and persecutor in its turn. I know not whether I shall have sufficient
life and strength to complete a plan so vast. I shall be satisfied if,
after having written the Life of Jesus, I am permitted to relate, as I
understand it, the history of the Apostles, the state of the Christian
conscience during the weeks which followed the death of Jesus, the
formation of the cycle of legends concerning the resurrection, the first
acts of the Church of Jerusalem, the life of Saint Paul, the crisis of the
time of Nero, the appearance of the Apocalypse, the fall of Jerusalem, the
foundation of the Hebrew-Christian sects of Batanea, the compilation of
the Gospels, and the rise of the great schools of Asia Minor originated by
John. Everything pales by the side of that marvelous first century. By a
peculiarity rare in history, we see much better what passed in the
Christian world from the year 50 to the year 75 than from the year 100 to
the year 150.
Those who will consult the following excellent writings
will there find explained. a number of points upon which I have been
obliged to be very brief: --
- Etudes Critiques sur l'Evangile de saint Matthieu, par M. Albert
Reville, pasteur de l'eglise Wallonne de Rotterdam.
- Histoire de la Theologie Chretienne au Siecle Apostolique, par M.
Reuss, professeur a la Faculte de Theologie et au Seminaire Protestant
de Strasbourg.
- Des Doctrines Religieuses des Juifs pendant les Deux Siecles
Anterieurs a l'Ere Chretienne, par M. Michel Nicolas, professeur a la
Faculte de Theologie Protestante de Montauban.
- Vie de Jesus, par le Dr. Strauss; traduite par M. Littre, Membre de
l'Institut.
- Revue de Theologie et de Philosophie Chretienne, publiee sous la
direction de M. Colani, de 1850 a 1857. -- Nouvelle Revue de Theologie,
faisant suite a la precedente depuis 1858.
- While this work was in the press, a book has appeared which I do not
hesitate to add to this list, although I have not read it with the
attention it deserves -- Les Evangiles, par M. Gustave d'Eichthal.
Premiere Partie: Examen Critique et Comparatif des Trois Premiers
Evangiles. Paris, Hachette, 1863.
The criticism of the details of the Gospel texts
especially has been done by Strauss in a manner which leaves little to be
desired. Although Strauss may be mistaken in his theory of the compilation
of the Gospels; and although his book has, in my opinion, the fault of
taking up the theological ground too much, and the historical ground too
little, it will be necessary, in order to understand the motives which
have guided me amid a crowd of minutiae, to study the always judicious,
though sometimes rather subtle, argument of the book, so well translated
by my learned friend, M. Littre.
I do not believe I have neglected any source of
information as to ancient evidences. Without speaking of a crowd of other
scattered data, there remain, respecting Jesus, and the time in which he
lived, five great collections of writings -- 1st, The Gospels, and the
writings of the New Testament in general; 2nd, The compositions called the
"Apocrypha of the Old Testament"; 3rd, The works of Philo; 4th, Those of
Josephus; 5th, The Talmud. The writings of Philo have the priceless
advantage of showing us the thoughts which, in the time of Jesus,
fermented in minds occupied with great religious questions. Philo lived,
it is true, in quite a different province of Judaism to Jesus, but, like
him, he was very free from the littlenesses which reigned at Jerusalem;
Philo is truly the elder brother of Jesus. He was sixty-two years old when
the Prophet of Nazareth was at the height of his activity, and he survived
him at least ten years. What a pity that the chances of life did not
conduct him into Galilee! What would he not have taught us!
Josephus, writing specially for pagans, is not so
candid. His short notices of Jesus, of John the Baptist, of Judas the
Gaulonite, are dry and colourless. We feel that he seeks to present these
movements, so profoundly Jewish in character and spirit, under a form
which would be intelligible to Greeks and Romans. I believe the passage
respecting Jesus to be authentic. It is perfectly in the style of
Josephus, and, if this historian has made mention of Jesus, it is thus
that he must have spoken of him. We feel only that a Christian hand has
retouched the passage, has added a few words -- without which it would
almost have been blasphemous ["If it be lawful to call him man."] -- has
perhaps retrenched or modified some expressions. It must be recollected
that the literary fortune of Josephus was made by the Christians, who
adopted his writings as essential documents of their sacred history. They
made, probably in the second century, an edition corrected according to
Christian ideas. At all events, that which constitutes the immense
interest of Josephus on the subject which occupies us is the clear light
which he throws upon the period. Thanks to him, Herod, Herodias, Antipas,
Phihp, Annas, Caiaphas, and Pilate are personages whom we can touch with a
finger, and whom we see living before us with a striking reality.
The Apocryphal books of the Old Testament, especially
the Jewish part of the Sibylline verses, and the Book of Enoch together
with the Book of Daniel, which is also really an Apocrypha, have a primary
importance in the history of the development of the Messianic theories,
and for the understanding of the conceptions of Jesus respecting the
kingdom of God. The Book of Enoch especially, which was much read at the
time of Jesus, gives us the key to the expression "Son of Man," and to the
ideas attached to it. The ages of these different books, thanks to the
labors of Alexander, Ewald, Dillmann, and Reuss, are now beyond doubt.
Every one is agreed in placing the compilation of the most important of
them in the second and first centuries before Jesus Christ. The date of
the Book of Daniel is still more certain. The character of the two
languages in which it is written, the use of Greek words, the clear,
precise, dated announcement of events which reach even to the time of
Antiochus Epiphanes, the incorrect descriptions of Ancient Babylonia there
given, the general tone of the book, which in no respect recalls the
writings of the captivity, but, on the contrary, responds, by a crowd of
analogies, to the beliefs, the manners, the turn of imagination of the
time of the Seleucidae; the Apocalyptic form of the visions, the place of
the book in the Hebrew canon, out of the sense of the prophets, the
omission of Daniel in the panegyrics of chapter xlix. of Ecclesiastics, in
which his position is all but indicated, and many other proofs which have
been deduced a hundred times, do not permit of a doubt that the Book of
Daniel was but the fruit of the great excitement produced among the Jews
by the persecution of Antiochus. It is not in the old prophetical
literature that we must class this book, but rather at the head of
Apocalyptic literature, as the first model of a kind of composition, after
which come the various Sibylline poems, the Book of Enoch, the Apocalypse
of John, the Ascension of Isaiah, and the Fourth Book of Esdras.
In the history of the origin of Christianity, the
Talmud has hitherto been too much neglected. I think, with M. Geiger, that
the true notion of the circumstances which surrounded the development of
Jesus must be sought in this strange compilation, in which so much
precious information is mixed with the most insignificant scholasticism.
The Christian and the Jewish theology, having in the main followed two
parallel ways, the history of the one cannot well be understood without
the history of the other. Innumerable important details in the Gospels
find, moreover, their commentary in the Talmud. The vast Latin collection
of Lightfoot, Schoettgen, Buxtorf, and Otho contained already a mass of
information on this point. I have imposed on myself the task of verifying
in the original all the citations which I have admitted, without a single
exception. The assistance which has been given me for this part of my task
by a learned Israelite, M. Neubauer, well versed in Talmudic literature,
has enabled me to go further, and to clear up the most intricate parts of
my subject by new researches. The distinction of epochs is here most
important, the compilation of the Talmud extending from the year 200 to
about the year 500. We have brought to it as much discernment as is
possible in the actual state of the studies. Dates so recent will excite
some fears among persons habituated to accord value to a document only for
the period in which it was written. But such scruples would here be out of
place. The teaching of the Jews from the Asmonean epoch down to the second
century was principally oral. We must not judge of this state of
intelligence by the habits of an age of much writing. The Vedas, and the
ancient Arabian poems, have been preserved for ages from memory, and yet
these compositions present a very distinct and delicate form. In the
Talmud on the contrary, the form has no value. Let us add that before the
Mishnah of Judas the Saint, which has caused all others to be forgotten,
there were attempts at compilation, the commencement of which is probably
much earlier than is commonly supposed. The style of the Talmud is that of
loose notes; the collectors did probably than classify under certain
titles the enormous mass of writings which had been accumulating in the
different schools for generations.
It remains for us to speak of the documents which,
presenting themselves as biographies of the Founder of Christianity, must
naturally hold the first place in a Life of Jesus. A complete treatise
upon the compilation of the Gospels would be a work of itself. Thanks to
the excellent researches of which this question has been the object during
thirty years, a problem which was formerly judged insurmountable has
obtained a solution which, though it leaves room for many uncertainties,
fully suffices for the necessities of history. We shall have occasion to
return to this in our Second Book, the composition of the Gospels having
been one of the most important facts for the future of Christianity in the
second half of the first century. We will touch here only a single aspect
of the subject, that which is indispensable to the completeness of our
narrative. Leaving aside all which belongs to the portraiture of the
Apostolic times, we will inquire only in what degree the data furnished by
the Gospels may be employed in a history formed according to rational
principles.
That the Gospels are in part legendary is evident,
since they are full of miracles and of the supernatural; but legends have
not all the same value. No one doubts the principal features of the life
of Francis d'Assisi, although we meet the supernatural at every step. No
one, on the other hand, accords credit to the Life of Apollonius of Tyana,
because it was written long after the time of the hero, and purely as a
romance. At what time, by what hands, under what circumstances, have the
Gospels been compiled? This is the Primary question upon which depends the
opinion to be formed of their credibility.
Each of the four Gospels bears at its head the name of
a Perspoenagie known either in the Apostolic history or in the Gospel
story itself. These four personages are not strictly given us as the
authors. The formulae, "according to Matthew," "according to Mark,"
"according to Luke," "according to John," do not imply that, in the most
ancient opinion, these recitals were written from beginning to end by
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; they merely signify that these were the
traditions proceeding from each of these Apostles and claiming their
authority. It is clear that, if these titles are exact, the Gospels,
without ceasing to be in part legendary, are of great value, since they
enable us to go back to the half-century which followed the death of
Jesus, and, in two instances, even to the eye-witnesses of his actions.
Firstly, as to Luke, doubt is scarcely possible. The
Gospel of Luke is a regular composition, founded on anterior documents. It
is the work of a man who selects, prunes, and combines. The author of this
Gospel is certainly the same as that of the Acts of the Apostles. Now, the
author of the Acts is a companion of St. Paul, a title which applies to
Luke exactly. I know that more than one objection may be raised against
this reasoning; but one least, is beyond doubt -- namely, that the author
of the third Gospel and of the Acts was a man of the second Apostolic
generation, and that is sufficient for our object. The date of this Gospel
can, moreover, be determined with much precision by considerations drawn
from the book itself. The 21st chapter of Luke, inseparable from the rest
of the work, was certainly written after the siege of Jerusalem and but a
short time after. We are here, then, upon solid ground; for we are
concerned with a work written entirely by the same hand, and of the most
perfect unity.
The Gospels of Matthew and Mark have not nearly the
same stamp of individuality. They are impersonal compositions, in which
the author totally disappears. A proper name written at the head of works
of this kind does not amount to much. But if the Gospel of Luke is dated,
those of Matthew and Mark are dated also; for it is certain that the third
Gospel is posterior to the first two, and exhibits the character of a much
more advanced compilation. We have, besides, on this point, an excellent
testimony from a writer of the first half of the second century -- namely,
Papias, bishop of Hierapolis, a grave man, a man of traditions, who was
all his life seeking to collect whatever could be known of the person of
Jesus. After having declared that on such matters he preferred oral
tradition to books, Papias mentions two writings on the acts and words of
Christ: first a writing of Mark, the interpreter of Apostle Peter, written
briefly, incomplete, and not arranged in chronological order, including
narratives and discourses (OC-Yokv-rce TCPCXXoivroc), composed from the
information and recollections of the Apostle Peter; second, a collection
of sentences (16yL(X) written in Hebrew by Matthew, "and which each one
has translated as he could." it is certain that these two descriptions
answer pretty well to the general physiognomy of the two books now called
"Gospel according to Matthew." "Gospel according to Mark"; the first
characterized by its long discourses; the second, above all, by anecdote
-- much more exact than the first upon small facts, brief even to dryness,
containing few discourses, and indifferently composed. That these two
works, such as we now read them, are absolutely similar to those read by
Papias, cannot be sustained: firstly, because the writings of Matthew were
to Papias solely discourses in Hebrew of which there were in circulation
very varying translations; and, secondly, because the writings of Mark and
Matthew, were to him profoundly distinct, written without any knowledge of
each other, and, as it seems, in different languages. Now, in the present
state of the texts, the "Gospel according to Matthew" and the "Gospel
according to Mark" present parallel parts so long and so perfectly
identical, that it must be supposed, either that the final compiler of the
first had the second under his eyes, or vice versi, or that both copied
from the same prototype. That which appears the most likely is that we
have not the entirely original compilations of either Matthew or Mark, but
that our first two Gospels are versions in which the attempt is made to
fill up the gaps of the one text by the other. Every one wished, in fact,
to possess a complete copy. He who had in his copy only discourses wished
to have narratives, and vice versa. It is thus that "the Gospel according
to Matthew" is found to have included almost all the anecdotes of Mark,
and that "the Gospel according to Mark" now contains numerous features
which come from the Logia of Matthew. Every one, besides, drew largely on
the Gospel tradition then current. This tradition was so far from having
been exhausted by the Gospels that the Acts of the Apostles and the most
ancient Fathers quote many words of Jesus which appear authentic, and are
not found in the Gospels we possess.
It matters little for our present object to push this
delicate analysis funher, and to endeavor to reconstruct in some manner on
the one hand the original Logia of Matthew, and on the other the primitive
narrative such as it left the pen of Mark. The Logia are doubtless
represented by the great discourses of Jesus which fill a considerable
part of the first Gospel. These discourses form, in fact, when detached
from the rest, a sufficiently complete whole. As to the narratives of the
first and second Gospels, they seem to have for basis a common document,
of which the text reappears sometimes in the one and sometimes in the
other, and of which the second Gospel, such as we read it to-day, is but a
slightly modified reproduction. In other words, the scheme of the Life of
Jesus, in the Synoptics, rests upon two original documents -- first, the
discourses of Jesus collected by Matthew; second, the collection of
anecdotes and personal reminiscences which Mark wrote from the
recollections of peter. We may say that we have these two documents still,
mixed with accounts from another source, in the two first Gospels, which
bear, not without reason, the name of the "Gospel according to Matthew"
and of the Gospel according to Mark."
What is undubitable, in any case, is that very early
the discourses of Jesus were written in the Aramean language, and very
early also his remarkable actions were recorded. These were not texts
defined and fixed dogmatically. Besides the Gospels which have come to us,
there were a number of others professing to represent the tradition of
eye-witnesses. Little importance was attached to these writings, and the
preservers, such as Papias, greatly preferred oral tradition. As men still
believed that the world was nearly at an nd, they cared little to compose
books for the future; it was sufficient merely to preserve in their hearts
a lively image of him whom they hoped soon to see again in the clouds.
Hence the little authority which the Gospel texts enjoyed during one
hundred and fifty years. There was no scruple in inserting additions, in
variously combining them, and in completing some by others. The poor man
who has but one book wishes that it may contain all that is dear to his
heart. These little books were lent, each one transcribed in the margin of
his copy the words, and the parables he found elsewhere, which touched
him. The most beautiful thing in the world has thus proceeded from an
obscure and purely popular elaboration. No compilation was of absolute
value. Justin, who often appeals to that which he calls "The Memoirs of
the Apostles," had under his notice Gospel documents in a state very
different from that in which we possess them. At all events, he never
cares to quote them textually. The Gospel quotations in the pseudo-Clementinian
writings, of Ebionite origin, present the same character, The spirit was
everything; the letter was nothing. it was when tradition became weakened,
in the second half of the second century, that the texts bearing the names
of the Apostles took a decisive authority and obtained the force of law.
Who does not see the value of documents posed of the
tender remembrances, and simple narratives, of the first two Christian
generations, still full of the strong impression which the illustrious
Founder has produced, and which seemed long to survive him? Let us add,
that the Gospels in question seem to proceed from that branch of the
Christian family which stood nearest to Jesus. The last work of
compilation, at least of the text which bears the name of Matthew, appears
to have been done in one of the countries situated at the north-east of
Palestine such as Gaulonitis, Auranitis, Batanea, where many Christians
took refuge at the time of the Roman war, where were found relatives of
Jesus even in the second century, and where the first Galilean tendency
was longer preserved than in other parts,
So far we have only spoken of the three Gospels named
the Synoptics. There remains a fourth, that Which bears the name of John.
Concerning this one, doubts have a much better foundation, and the
question is further from solution. Papias -- who was connected with the
school of John, and who, if not One of his auditors, as Irenaeus thinks,
associated with his immediate disciples, among others, Aristion, and the
one called Presbyteros Joannes -- says not a word of a "Life of Jesus"
written by John, although he had zealously collected the oral narratives
of both Aristion and Presbyteros Joannes. If any such mention had been
found in his work, Eusebius, who points out everything therein that can
contribute to the literary history of the Apostolic age, would doubtless
have mentioned it.
The intrinsic difficulties drawn from the peru fourth
Gospel itself are not less strong. How is it that, side by side with
narration so precise and so evidently that of an eye-witness, we find
discourses so totally different from those of Matthew? How is it that,
connected with a general plan of the life of Jesus, which appears much
more satisfactory and exact than that of the Synoptics, these singular
passages occur in which we are sensible of a dogmatic interest peculiar to
the compiler, of ideas foreign to Jesus, and sometimes of indications
which place us on our guard against the good faith of the narrator?
Lastly, how is it that, united with views the most pure, the most just,
the most truly evangelical, we find these blemishes, which we would fain
regard as the interpolations of an ardent sectarian? Is it indeed John,
son of Zebedee, brother of James (of whom there is not a single mention
made in the fourth Gospel), who is able to write in Greek these lessons of
abstract metaphysics, to which neither the Synoptics nor the Talmud offer
any analogy? All this is of great importance; and, for myself, I dare not
be sure that the fourth Gospel has been entirely written by the pen of a
Galilean fisherman. But that, as a whole, this Gospel may have originated
towards the end of the first century from the great school of Asia Minor,
which was connected with John, that it represents to us a version of the
life of the Master, worthy of high esteem, and often to be preferred, is
demonstrated in a manner which leaves us nothing to be desired, both by
exterior evidences and by examination of the document itself.
And, firstly, no one doubts that, towards the year 150,
the fourth Gospel did exist, and was attributed to John. Explicit texts
from St. Justin, from Athenagoras, from Tatian, from Theophilus of
Antioch, from Irenaeus, show that henceforth this Gospel mixed in every
controversy, and served as corner-stone for the development of the faith.
Irenaeus is explicit; now, Irenneus came from the school of John, and
between him and the Apostle there was only Polycarp. The part played by
this Gospel in Gnosticism, and especially in the system of Valentinus, in
Montanism, and in the quarrel of the Quartodecimans, is not less decisive.
The school of John was the most influential one during the second century;
and it is only by regarding the origin of the Gospel as coincident with
the rise of the school that the existence of the latter can be understood
at all. Let us add that the first Epistle attributed to St. John is
certainly by the same author as the fourth Gospel; now, this Epistle is
recognized as from John by Polycarp, Papias, and Irenaeus.
But it is, above all, the perusal of the work itself
which is calculated to give this impression. The author always speaks as
an eye-witness; he wishes to pass for the Apostle John. If, then, this
work is not really by the Apostle, we must admit a fraud, of which the
author convicts himself. Now, although the ideas of the time respecting
literary honesty differed essentially from ours, there is no example in
the Apostolic world of a falsehood of this kind. Besides, not only does
the author wish to pass for the Apostle John, but we see clearly that he
writes in the interest of this Apostle. On each page he betrays the desire
to fortify his authority, to show that he has been the favorite of Jesus;
that in all the solemn circumstances (at the lord's supper, at Calvary, at
the tomb) he held the first place. His relations on the whole fraternal,
although not excluding a certain rivalry with Peter; his hatred, on the
contrary, of Judas, a hatred, probably anterior to the betrayal, seems to
pierce through here and there. We are tempted to believe that John, in his
old age, having read the Gospel narratives, on the one hand remarked their
various inaccuracies, on the other was hurt at seeing that there was not
accorded to him a sufficiently high place in the history of Christ; that
then he commenced to dictate a number of things which he knew better than
the rest, with the intention of showing that in many instances, in which
only Peter was spoken of, he had figured with him and even before him.
Already during the life of Jesus, these trifling sentiments of jealousy
had been manifested between the sons of Zebedee and the other disciples.
After the death of James, his brother, John remained sole inheritor of the
intimate remembrances of which these two Apostles, by the common consent,
were the depositaries. Hence his perpetual desire to recall that he is the
last surviving eye-witness, and the pleasure which he takes in relating
circumstances which he alone could know. Hence, too, so many minute
details which seem like the commentaries of an annotator -- "it was the
sixth hour"; "it was night"; "the servant's name was Malchus"; "they had
made a fire of coals, for it was cold"; the coat was without seam." Hence,
lastly, the disorder of the compilation, the irregularity of the
narration, the disjointedness of the first chapters, all so many
inexplicable features on the supposition that this Gospel was but a
theological thesis, without historic value, and which, on the contrary,
are perfectly intelligible, if, in conformity with tradition, we see in
them the remembrances of an old man, sometimes of remarkable freshness,
sometimes having undergone strange modifications.
A primary distinction, indeed, ought to be made in the
Gospel of John. On the one side this Gospel presents us with a rough
drought of the life of Jesus, which differs considerably from that of the
Synoptics. On the other, it puts into the mouth of Jesus discourses of
which the tone, the style, the treatment, and the doctrines have nothing
in common with the Logia given us by the Synoptics. In this second respect
the difference is such that we must make choice in a decisive manner. If
Jesus spoke as Matthew represents, he could not have spoken as John
relates. Between these two authorities no critic has ever hesitated, or
can ever hesitate. Far removed from the simple, disinterested, impersonal
tone of the Synoptics, the Gospel of John shows incessantly the
preoccupation of the apologist -- the mental reservation of the sectarian,
the desire to prove a thesis, and to convince adversaries. It was not by
pretentious tirades, heavy, badly written, and appealing little to the
moral sense, that Jesus founded his divine work. If even Papias had not
taught us that Matthew wrote the sayings of Jesus in their original
tongue, the natural, ineffable truth, the charm beyond comparison of the
discourses in the Synoptics, their profoundly Hebraistic idiom, the
analogies which they present with the sayings of the Jewish doctors of the
period, their perfect harmony with the natural phenomena of Galilee -- all
these characteristics, compared with the obscure Gnosticism, with the
distorted metaphysics, which fill the discourses of John, would speak
loudly enough. This by no means implies that there are not in the
discourses of John some admirable gleams, some traits which truly come
from Jesus. But the mystic tone of these discourses does not correspond at
all to the character of the eloquence of Jesus, such as we picture it
according to the Synoptics. A new spirit has breathed; Gnosticism has
already commenced; the Galilean era of the kingdom of God is finished; the
hope of the near advent of Christ is more distant; we cater on the
barrenness of metaphysics, into the darkness of abstract dogma. The spirit
of Jesus is not there, and, if the son of Zebedee has truly traced these
pages, he had certainly, in writing them, quite forgotten the Lake of
Gennesareth, and the charming discourses which he had heard upon its
shores.
One circumstance, moreover, which strongly proves that
the discourses given us by the fourth Gospel are not historical, but
compositions intended to cover with the authority of Jesus certain
doctrines dear to the compiler, is their perfect harmony with the
intellectual state of Asia Minor at the time when they were written, Asia
Minor was then the theater of a strange movement of syncretical
philosophy; all the germs of Gnosticism existed there already. John
appears to have drunk deeply from these strange springs. It may be that,
after the crisis of the year 68 (the date of the Apocalypse) and of the
year 70 (the destruction of Jerusalem), the old Apostle, with an ardent
and plastic spirit, disabused of the belief in a near appearance of the
Son of Man in the clouds, may have inclined towards the ideas that he
found around him, of which several agreed sufficiently well with certain
Christian doctrines. In attributing these new ideas to Jesus, he only
followed a very natural tendency. Our remembrances are transformed with
our circumstances; the ideal of a person that we have known changes as we
change. Considering Jesus as the incarnation of truth, John could not fail
to attribute to him that which he had come to consider as the truth.
If we must speak candidly, we will add that probably
John himself had little share in this; that the change was made around him
rather than by him. One is sometimes tempted to believe that precious
notes, coming from the Apostle, have been employed by his disciples in a
very different sense from the primitive Gospel spirit. In fact, certain
portions of the fourth Gospel have been added later; such is the entire
twenty-first chapter, in which the author seems to wish to render homage
to the Apostle Peter after his death, and to reply to the objections which
would be drawn, or alrbady had been drawn, from the death of John himself
(ver. 21-23). Many other places bear the traces of erasures and
corrections. It is impossible at this distance to understand these
singular problems, and without doubt many surprises would be in store for
us, if we were permitted to netrate the secrets of that mysterious school
of Ephesus, which, more than once, appears to have delighted in obscure
paths. But there is a decisive test. Everyone who sets himself to write
the life of Jesus without any predetermined theory as to the relative
value of the Gospels, letting himself be guided solely by the sentiment of
the subject, will be led in numerous instances to prefer the narration of
John to that of the Synoptics. The last months of the life of Jesus
especially are explained by John alone; a number of the features of the
passion, unintelligible in the Synoptics, resume both probility and
possibility in the narrative of the fourth Gospel. On the contrary, I dare
defy anyone to compose a Life of Jesus with any meaning from the
discourses which John attributes to him. This manner of incessantly
preaching and demonstrating himself, this erpetual argumentation, this
stage-effect devoid of simpplicity, these long arguments after each
miracle, these stiff and awkward discourses, the tone of which is so often
false and unequal, wouId not be tolerated by a man of taste compared with
the delightful sentences of the Synoptics. There are here evidently
artificial portions, which represent to us the sermons of Jesus, as the
dialogues of Plato render us the conversations of Socrates. They are, so
to speak, the variations of a musician improvising on a given theme. The
theme is not without some authenticity; but in the execution the
imagination of the artist has given itself full scope. We are sensible of
the factitious mode of procedure, of rhetoric, of gloss. Let us add that
the vocabulary of Jesus cannot be recognised in the portions of which we
speak. The expression "kingdom of God," which was so familiar to the
Master, occurs there but once. On the other hand, the style of the
discourses attributed to Jesus by the fourth Gospel presents the most
complete analogy with that of the Epistles of St. John; we see that, in
writing the discourses, the author followed not his recollections, but
rather the somewhat monotonous movement of his own thought. Quite a new
mystical language is introduced, a language of which the Synoptics had not
the least idea ("world," "truth," "life," "light," "darkness," etc.). If
Jesus had ever spoken in this style, which has nothing of Hebrew, nothing
Jewish, nothing Talmudic in it, how, if I may thus express myself, is it
that but a single one of his hearers should have so well kept the secret?
Literary history offers, besides, another example,
which presents the greatest analogy with the historic phenomenon we have
just described and serves to explain it. Socrates, who, like Jesus, never
wrote, is known to us by two of his disciples, Xenophon and Plato; the
first corresponding to the Synoptics in his clear, transparent, impersonal
compilation; the second recalling the author of the fourth Gospel, by his
vigorous individuality. In order to describe the Socratic teaching, should
we follow the "dialogues" of Plato or the "discourses" of Xenophon? Doubt,
in this respect, is not possible; everyone chooses the "discourses," and
not the "dialogues." Does Plato, however, teach us nothing about Socrates?
Would it be good criticism, in writing the biography of the latter, to
neglect the "dialogues"? Who would venture to maintain this? The analogy,
moreover, is not complete, and the difference is in favour of the fourth
Gospel. The author of this Gospel is, in fact, the better biographer; as
if Plato, who, while attributing to his master fictitious discourses, had
known important matters about his life, which Xenophon ignored entirely.
Without pronouncing upon the material question as to what hand has written
the fourth Gospel, and while inclined to believe that the discourses, at
least, are not from the son of Zebedee, we admit still that it is indeed
"the Gospel according to John," in the same sense that the first and
second Gospels are the Gospels "according to Matthew" and "according to
Mark." The historical sketch of the fourth Gospel is the Life of Jesus,
such as it was known in the school of John; it is the recital which
Aristion and Presbyteros Joannes made to Papias, without telling him that
it was written, or rather attaching no importance to this point. I must
add that, in my opinion, this school was better acquainted with the
exterior circumstances of the life of the founder than the group whose
remembrances constituted the Synoptics. It had, especially upon the
sojourns of Jesus at Jerusalem, data which the others did not possess. The
disciples of this school treated Mark as an indifferent biographer, and
devised a system to explain his omissions. Certain passages of Luke, where
there is, as it were, an echo of the traditions of John, prove also that
these traditions were entirely unknown to the rest of the Christian
family.
These explanations will suffice, I think, to show, in
the course of my narrative, the motives which have determined me to give
the preference to this or that of the four guides whom we have for the
Life of Jesus. On the whole, I admit as authentic the four Canonical
Gospels. All, in my opinion, date from the first century, and the authors
are, generally speaking, those to whom they are attributed; but their
historic value is very diverse. Matthew evidently merits an unlimited
confidence as to the discourses; they are the logia, the identical notes
taken from a clear and lively remembrance of the teachings of Jesus. A
kind of splendour at once mild and terrible -- a divine strength, if we
may so speak -- emphasises these words, detaches them from the context,
and renders them easily distinguishable. The person who imposes upon
himself the task of making a continuous narrative from the gospel history
possesses, in this respect, an excellent touchstone. The real words of
Jesus disclose themselves; as soon as we touch them in this chaos of
traditions of varied authenticity, we feel them vibrate -- they betray
themselves spontaneously, and shine out of the narrative with unsqualled
brilliancy.
The narrative portions grouped in the first Gospel
around this primitive nucleus have not the same authority. There are many
not well-defined legends which have proceeded from the zeal of the second
Christian generation. The Gospel of Mark is much firmer, more precise,
containing fewer subsequent additions. He is the one of the three
Synoptics who has remanied the most primitive the most original, the one
to whom the fewest after-elements have been added. In Mark the facts are
related with a clearness for which we seek in vain among the other
evangelists. He likes to report certain words of Jesus in Syro-Chaldean.
He is full of minute observations, coming doubtless from an eve-witness.
There is nothing to prevent our agreeing with Papias in regarding this
eve- witness, who evidently had followed Jesus, who had loved him and
observed him very closely, and who had preserved a lively image of him, as
the Apostle Peter himself.
As to the work of Luke, its historical value is
sensibly weaker. It is a document which comes to us second-hand, The
narrative is more mature. The words of Jesus are there, more deliberate,
more sententious. Some sentences are distorted and exaggerated. Writing
outside of Palestine, and certainly after the siege of Jerusalem, the
author indicates the places with less cxactitude than the other two
Synoptics; he has an erroneous idea of the temple, which he represents as
an oratory where people went to pay their devotions. He subdues some
details in order to make the different narratives agree; he softens the
passages which had become embarrassing on account of a more exalted idea
of the divinity of Christ; he exaggerates the marvellous; commits errors
in chronology; omits Hebraistic comments; quotes no word of Jesus in this
language, and gives to all the localities their Greek names. We feel we
have to do with a compiler -- with a man who has not himself seen the
witnesses, but who labours at the texts and wrests their sense to make
them agree. Luke had probably under his eyes the biographical collection
of Mark and the Logia of Matthew. But he treats them with much freedom;
sometimes he fuses two anecdotes or two parables in one; sometimes he
divides one in order to make two. He interprets the documents according to
his own idea, he has not the absolute impassibility of Matthew and Mark.
We might affirm certain things of his individual tastes and tendencies; he
is a very exact devotee; he insists that Jesus had performed all the
Jewish rites; he is a warm Ebionite and democrat -- that is to say, much
opposed to property -- and persitided that the triumph of the poor is
approaching; he likes especially all the anecdotes showing prominently the
conversion of sinners -- the exaltation of the humble he often modifies
the ancient traditions in order to give them this meaning; he admits into
his first pages the legends about the infancy of Jesus, related with the
long amplifications, the spiritual songs, and the conventional proceedings
which form the essential features of the Apocryphal Gospels. Finally, he
has in the narrative of the last hours of Jesus some circumstances full of
tender feeling, and certain words of Jesus of delightful beauty, which are
not found in more authentic accounts, and in which we detect the presence
of legend. Luke probably borrowed them from a more recent collection, in
which the principal aim was to excite sentiments of piety.
A great reserve was naturally enforced in presence of a
document of this nature. It would have been as uncritical to neglect it as
to employ it without discernment. Luke has had under his eyes originafs
which we no longer possess. He is less an evangelist than a biographer of
Jesus, a "harmoniser," a corrector after the manner of Marcion and Tatian.
But he is a biographer of the first century, a divine artist, who,
independently of the information which he has drawn from more ancient
sources, shows us the character of the founder with a happiness of
treatment, with a uniform inspiration, and a distinctness which the other
two Synoptics do not possess. In the perusal of his Gospel there is the
greatest charm; for to the incomparable beauty of the foundation, common
to them all, he adds a degree of skill in composition which singularly
augments the effect of the portrait, without seriously injuring its
truthfulness.
On the whole, we may say that the Synoptical
compilation has passed through three stages: first, the original
documentary state (7.6ytoe of Matthew, XE:Zpgvr(x q 7p(xx Oivroc of Mark),
primary compilations which no longer exist; second, the state of simple
mixture, in which the original documents are amalgamated without any
effort at composition, without there appearing any personal bias of the
authors (the existing Gosiels of Matthew and Mark); third, the state of
combination or of intentional and deliberate compiling, in which we are
sensible of an attempt to reconcile the different versions (Gospel of
Luke). The Gospel of John, as we have said, forms a composition of another
order, and is entirely distinct.
It will be remarked that I have made no use of the
Apocryphal Gospels. These compositions ought not in any manner to be put
upon the same footing as the Canonical Gospels. They are insipid and
puerile amplifications, having the Canonical Gospels for their basis, and
adding nothing thereto of any value. On the other hand, I have been very
attentive to collect the shreds preserved by the Fathers of the Church, of
the ancient Gospels which formerly existed parallel with the Canonical
Gosfels, and which are now lost -- such as the Gospel according to the
Hebrews, the Gospel according to the Egyptians, the Gospels styled those
of Justin, Marcion, and Tatian. The first two are principally important
because they were written in Aramean, like the Logia of Matthew, and
appear to constitute one version of the Gospel of this Apostle, and
because they were the Gospel of the Ebionim -- that is, of those small
Christian sects of Batanea who preserved the use of Syro-Chaldean, and who
appear in some respects to have followed the course marked out by Jesus.
But it must be confessed that, in the state in which they have come to us,
these Gospels are inferior, as critical authorities, to the compilation of
Matthew's Gospel which we now possess.
It will now be seen, I think, what kind of historical
value I attribute to the Gospels. They are neither biographies after the
manner of Suetonius, nor fictitious legends in the style of Philostratus;
they are legendary biographics. I should willingly compare them with the
Legends of the Saints, the Lives of Plotinus, Proclus, Isidore, and other
writings of the same kind, in which historical truth and the desire to
present models of virtue are combined in various degrees. Inexactitude,
which is one of the features of all popular compositions, is there
particularly felt. Let us suppose that, ten or twelve years ago, three or
four old soldiers of the Empire had each undertaken to write the life of
napoleon from memory. It is clear that their narratives would contain
numerous errors and great discordances. One of them would place Wagram
before Marengo: another would write without hesitation that Napoleon drove
the Government of Robespierre from the Tuileries; a third would omit
expeditions of the highest importance. But one thing would certainly
result with a great degree of truthfulness from these simple recitals, and
that is the character of the hero, the impression which he made around
him. In this sense such popular narratives would be worth more than a
formal and official history. We may say as much of the Gospels. Solely
attentive to bring out strongly the excellency of the Master, his
miracles, his teaching, the evangelists display entire indifference to
everything that is not of the very spirit of Jesus. The contradictions
respecting time, place, and persons were regarded as insignificant; for
the higher the degree of inspiration attributed to the words of Jesus, the
less was granted to the compilers themselves. The latter regarded
themselves as simple scribes, and cared but for one thing -- to omit
nothing they knew.
Unquestionably certain preconceived ideas associated
themselves with such recollections. Several narratives, especially in
Luke, are invented in order to bring out more vividly certain traits of
the character of Jesus. This character itself constantly underwent
alteration. Jesus would be a phenomenon unparalleled in history if, with
the part which he played, he had not early become idealised. The legends
respecting Alexander were invented before the generation of his companions
in arms became extinct; those respecting St. Francis d'Assisi began in his
lifetime. A rapid metamorphosis operated in the same manner in the twenty
or thirty years which followed the death of Jesus, and imposed upon his
biography the peculiarities of all ideal legend. Death adds perfection to
the most perfect man; it frees him from all defect in the eyes of those
who have loved him. With the wish to paint the Master, there was also the
desire to explain him. Many anecdotes were conceived to prove that in him
the prophecies regarded as Messianic had had their accomplishment. But
this procedure, of which we must not deny the importance, would not
suffice to explain everything. No Jewish work of the time gives a series
of prophecies exactly declaring what the Messiah should accomplish. Many
Messianic allusions quoted by the evangelists are so subtle, so indirect,
that one cannot believe they all responded to a generally admitted
doctrine. Sometimes they reasoned thus; "The Messiah ought to do such a
thing; now, Jesus is the Messiah; therefore Jesus has done such a thing."
At other times, by an inverse process, it was said: "Such a thing has
happened to Jesus; now, Jesus is the Messiah; therefore such a thing was
to happen to the Messiah." Too simple explanations are always false when
analysing those profound creations of popular sentiment which baffle all
systems by their fullness and infinite variety. It is scarcely necessary
to say that, with such documents, in order to present only what is
indisputable, we must limit ourselves to general features. In almost all
ancient histories, even in those which are much less legendary than these,
details open up innumerable doubts. When we have two accounts of the same
fact, it is extremely rare that the two accounts agree. Is not this a
reason for anticipating many difficulties when we have but one? We may say
that among the anecdotes, the discourses, the celebrated sayings which
have been given us by the historians, there is not one strictly authentic.
Were there stenographers to fix these fleeting words? Was there an
annalist always present to note the gestures, the manners, the sentiments,
of the actors? Let anyone endeavor to get at the truth as to the way in
which such or such contemporary fact has happened; he will not succeed.
Two accounts of the same event given by different eye-witnesses differ
essentially. Must we, therefore, reject all the colouring of the
narratives, and limit ourselves to the bare facts only? That would be to
suppress history. Certainly, I think that, if we except certain short and
almost mnemonic axioms, none of the discourses reported by Matthew are
textual; even our stenographic reports are scarcely so. I freely admit
that the admirable account of the Passion contains many trifling
inaccuracies. Would it, however, be writing the history of Jesus to omit
those sermons which give to us in such a vivid manner the character of his
discourses, and to limit ourselves to saying, with Josephus and Tacitus,
"that he was put to death by the order of Pilate at the instigation of the
priests"? That would be, in my opinion, a kind of inexactittide worse than
that to which we are exposed in admitting the details supplied by the
texts. These details are not true to the letter, but they are true with a
superior truth, they are more true than the naked truth, in the sense that
they are truth rendered expressive and articulate -- truth idealised.
I beg those who think that I have placed an exaggerated
confidence in narratives in great part legendary to take note of the
observation I have just made. To what would the life of Alexander be
reduced if it were confined to that which is materially certain? Even
partly erroneous traditions contain a portion of truth which history
cannot neglect. No one has blamed M. Spranger for having, in writing the
life of Mohammed, made much of the hadith or oral traditions concerning
the prophet, and for often having attributed to his hero words which are
only known through this source. Yet the traditions respecting Mohammed are
not superior in historical value to the discourses and narratives which
compose the Gospels. They were written between the year 50 and the year
140 of the Hegira. When the history of the Jewish schools in the ages
which immediately preceded and followed the birth of Christianity shall be
written, no one will make any scruple of attributing to Hillel, Shammai,
Gamaliel, the maxims ascribed to them by the Mishnah and the Gemara,
although these great compilations were written many hundreds of years
after the time of the doctors in question.
As to those who believe, on the contrary, that history
should consist of a simple reproduction of the documents which have come
down to us, I beg to observe that such a course is not allowable. The four
principal documents are in flagrant contradiction one with another.
Josephus rectifies them sometimes. It is necessary to make a selection. To
assert that an event cannot take place in two ways at once, or in an
impossible manner, is not to impose an a'pyiori philosophy upon history.
The historian ought not to conclude that a fact is false because he
possesses several versions of it, or because credulity has mixed with them
much that is fabulous. He ought in such a case to be very cautious, to
examine the texts, and to proceed carefully by induction. There is one
class of narratives especially to which this principle must necessarily be
applied. Such are narratives of supernatural events. To seek to explain
these, or to reduce them to legends, is not to mutilate facts in the name
of theory; it is to make the observation of facts our groundwork. None of
the miracles with which the old histories are filled took place under
scientific conditions. Observation, which has never once been falsified,
teaches us that miracles never happen but in times and countries in which
they are believed, and before persons disposed to believe them. No miracle
ever occurred in the presence of men capable of testing its miraculous
character. Neither common people nor men of the world are able to do this.
It requires great precautions and long habits of scientific research. In
our days have we not seen almost all respectable people dupes of the
grossest frauds or of puerile illusions? Marvellous facts, attested by the
whole population of small towns, have, thanks to a severer scrutiny, been
exploded. If it is proved that no contemporary miracle will bear inquiry,
is it nut probable that the miracles of the past which have all been
performed in popular gatherings would equally present their share of
illusion, if it were possible to criticise them in detail?
It is not, then, in the name of this or that
philosophy, but in the name of universal experience, that we banish
miracle from history. We do not say, "Miracles are impossible." We say,
"Up to this time a miracle has never been proved." If to-morrow a
thaumaturgus present himself with credentials sufficiently important to be
discussed, and announce himself as able, say, to raise the dead, what
would be done? A commission, composed of physiologists, physicists,
chemists, persons accustomed to historical criticism, would be named. This
commission would choose a corpse, would assure itself that the death was
real, would select the room in which the experiment should be made, would
arrange the whole system of precautions, so as to leave no chance of
doubt. If, under such conditions, the resurrection were effected, a
probability almost equal to certainty would be established. As, however,
it ought to be possible always to repeat an experiment -- to do over again
which has been done once; and as, in the order of miracle, there can be no
question of ease or dffficulty, the thaumaturgus would be invited to
reproduce his marvellous act under other circumstances, upon other
corpses, in another place. If the miracle succeeded each time, two things
would be proved: first, that supernatural events happen in the world;
second, that the power of producing them belongs, or is delegated to,
certain persons. But who does not see that no miracle ever took place
under these conditions, but that always hitherto the thaumaturgus has
chosen the subject of the experiment, chosen the spot, chosen the public;
that, besides, the people themselves most commonly in consequence of the
invincible want to see something divine in great events and great men --
create the marvellous legends afterwards? Until a new order of things
prevails, we shall maintain, then, this principle of historical criticism
-- that a supernatural account cannot be admitted as such, that it always
implies credulity or imposture, that the duty of the historian is to
explain it, and seek to asceitain what share of truth, or of error, it may
conceal.
Such are the rules which have been followed in the
composition of this work. To the perusal of documentary evidences I have
been able to add an important source of information -- the sight of the
places where the events occurred. The scientific mission, having for its
object the exploration of ancient Phoenicia, which I directed in i86o and
1861, led me to reside on the frontiers of Galilee, and to travel there
frequently. I have traversed, in all directions, the country of the
Gospels; I have visited Jerusalem, Hebron, and Samaria; scarcely any
important locality of the history of Jesus has escaped me. All this
history, which at a distance seems to float in the clouds of an unreal
world, thus took a form, a solidity which astonished me. The striking
agreement of the texts with the places, the marvellous harmony of the
Gospel ideal with the country which served it as a framework, were like a
revelation to me, I had before my eyes a fifth Gospel, torn, but still
legible, and henceforward, through the recitals of Matthew and Mark, in
place of an abstract being, whose existence might have been doubted, I saw
living and moving an admirable human figure. During the summer, having to
go up to Ghazir, in Lebanon, to take a little repose, I fixed, in rapid
sketches, the image which had appeared to me, and from them resulted this
history. When a cruel bereavement hastened my departure, I had but a few
pages to write. In this manner the book has been composed almost entirely
near the very places where Jesus was born, and where his character was
developed. Since my return I have laboured unceasingly to verify and check
in detail the rough sketch which I had written in haste in a Maronite
cabin, with five or six volumes around me.
Many will regret, perhaps, the biographical form which
my work has thus taken. When I first conceived the idea of a history of
the origin of Christianity, what I wished to write was, in fact, a history
of doctrines, in which men and their actions would have hardly had a
place. Jesus would scarcely have been named; I should have endeavoured to
show how the ideas which have grown under his name took root and covered
the world. But I have learned since that history is not a simple game of
abstractions; that men are more than doctrines. It was not a certain
theory on justification and redemption which brought about the
Reformation; it was Luther and Calvin. Parseeism, Hellenism, Judaism,
might have been able to have combined under every form; the doctrines of
the Resurrection and of the Word might have developed themselves during
ages without producing this grand, unique, and fruitful fact, called
Christianity. This fact is the work of Jesus, of St. Paul, of St. John. To
write the history of Jesus, of St. Paul, of St. John, is to write the
history of the origin of Christianity. The anterior movements belong to
our subject only in so far as they serve to throw light upon these
extraordinary men, who naturally could not have existed without connection
with that which preceded them.
In such an effort to make the great souls of the past
live again, some share of divination and conjecture must be permitted. A
great life is an organic whole which cannot be rendered by the simple
agglomeration of small facts. It requires a profound sentiment to embrace
them all, moulding them into perfect unity. The method of art in a similar
subject is a good guide; the exquisite tact of a Goethe would know how to
apply it. The essential condition of the creations of art is, that they
shall form a living system of which all the parts are mutually dependent
and related.
In histories such as this, the great test that we have
got the truth is to have succeeded in combining the texts in such a manner
that they shall constitute a logical, probable narrative, harmonious
throughout. The secret laws of life, of the progression of organic
products, of the melting of minute distinctions, ought to be consulted at
each moment; for what is required to be reproduced is not the material
circumstance, which it is impossible to verify, but the very soul of
history; what must be sought is not the petty certainty about trifles, it
is the correctness of the general sentiment, the truthfulness of the
colouring. Each trait which departs from the rules of classic narration
ought to warn us to be careful; for the fact which has to be related has
been living, natural, and harmonious. If we do not succeed in rendering it
such by the recital, it is surely because we have not succeeded in seeing
it aright. Suppose that, in restoring the Minerva of Phidias according to
the texts, we produced a dry, jarring, artificial whole, what must we
conclude? Simply that the texts want an appreciative interpretation; that
we must study them quietly until they dovetail and furnish a whole in
which all the parts are happily blended. Should we then be sure of having
a perfect reproduction of the Greek statue? No; but at least we should not
have the caricature of it; we should have the general spirit of the work
-- one of the forms in which it could have existed.
This idea of a living organism we have not hesitated to
take as our guide in the general arrangement of the narrative. The perusal
of the Gospels would suffice to prove that the compilers, although having
a very true plan of the Life of Jesus in their minds, have not been guided
by very exact chronological data; Papias, besides, expressly teaches this.
The expressions, "At this time ... after that ... then ... and it came to
pass ..." etc., are the simple transitions intended to connect different
narratives with each other. To leave all the information furnished by the
Gospels in the disorder in which tradition supplies it, would only be to
write the history of Jesus as the history of a celebrated man would be
written, by giving pell-mell the letters and anecdotes of his youth, his
old age, and of his maturity. The Koran, which presents to us, in the
loosest manner, fragments of the different epochs in the life of Mohammed,
has yielded its secret to an ingenious criticism; the chronological order
in which the fragments were composed has been discovered so as to leave
little room for doubt. Such a rearrangement is much more difficult in the
case of the Gospels, the public life of Jesus having been shorter and less
eventful than the life of the founder of Islamism. Meanwhile, the attempt
to find a guiding thread through this labyrinth ought not to be taxed with
gratuitous subtlety. There is no great abuse of hypothesis in supposing
that a founder of a new religion commences by attaching himself to the
moral aphorisms aleady in circulation in his time, and to the practices
which are in vogue; that, when riper, and in full posession of his idea,
he delights in a kind of calm and in full poetical eloquence, remote from
all controversy, sweet and free as pure feeling; that he warms by degrees,
becomes animated by opposition, and finishes by polemics and strong
invectives. Such are the periods which may plainly be distinguished in the
Koran. The order adopted with an extremely fine tact by the Synoptics
supposes an analogous progress, If Matthew be attentively read, we shall
find in the distribution of the discourses a gradation perfectly analogous
to that which we have just indicated. The reserved turns of expression of
which we make use in unfoldin the progress of the ideas of Jesus will also
be observed. The reader may, if he likes, see in the divisions adopted in
doing this only the indispensable breaks for the methodical expsition of a
profound and complicated thought.
If the love of a subject can help one to understand it,
it will also, I hope, be recognised that I have not been wanting in this
condition. To write the history of a religion, it is necessary, firstly,
to have believed it (otherwise we should not be able to understand how it
has charmed and satisfied the human conscience); in the second place, to
believe it no longer in an absolute manner, for absolute faith is
incompatible with sincere history. But love is possible without faith. To
abstain from attaching one's self to any of the forms which captivate the
adoration of men is not to deprive ourselves of the enjoyment of that
which is good and beautiful in them. No transitory appearance exhausts the
Divinity; God was revealed before Jesus -- God will reveal himself after
him. Profoundly unequal, and so much the more Divine, as they are grander
and more spontaneous, the manifestations of God hidden in the depths of
the human conscience are all of the same order. Jesus cannot belong solely
to those who call themselves his disciples. He is the common honour of all
who share a common humanity. His glory does not consist in being relegated
out of history; we render him a truer worship in showing that all history
is incomprehensible without him.
Chapter 01
Place Of Jesus In The History Of The World
THE great event of the history of the world is the
revolution by which the noblest portions of humanity have passed from the
ancient religions, comprised under the vague name of Paganism, to a
religion founded on the Divine Unity, the Trinity, and the Incarnation of
the Son of God. It has taken nearly a thousand years to accomplish this
conversion. The new religion had itself taken at least three hundred years
in its formation. But the origin of the revolution in question is a fact
which took place under the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius. At that time
there lived a superior personage, who, by his bold originality, and by the
love which he was able to inspire, became the object and fixed the
starting-point of the future faith of humanity.
As soon as man became distinguished from the animal, he
became religious -- that is to say, he saw in nature something beyond the
phenomena, and for himself something beyond death. This sentiment, during
some thousands of years, became corrupted in the strangest manner. In many
races it did not pass beyond the belief in sorcerers, under the gross form
in which we still find it in certain parts of Oceania. Among some, the
religious sentiment degenered into the shameful scenes of butchery which
form the character of the ancient religion of Mexico. Among others,
especially in Africa, it became pure Fetichism -- that is, the adoration
of a material object, to which were attributed supernatural powers. Like
the instinct of love, which at times elevates the most vulgar man above
himself, yet sometimes becomes perverted and ferocious, so this divine
faculty of religion during a long period seems only to be a cancer which
must be extirpated from the human race, a cause of errors and crimes which
the wise ought to endeavour to suppress.
The brilliant civilisations which were developed from a
very remote antiquity in China, in Babylonia, and in Egypt, caused a
certain progress to be made in religion. China arrived very early at a
sort of mediocre good sense, which prevented great extravagances. She
neither knew the advantages nor the abuses of the religious spirit. At all
events, she had not in this way any influence in directing the great
current of humanity. The religions of Babylonia and Syria were never freed
from a substratum of strange sensuality; these religions remained, until
their extinction in the fourth and fifth centuries of our era, schools of
immorality, in which at intervals glimpses of the divine world were
obtained by a sort of poetic intuition. Egypt, notwithstanding an apparent
kind of fetichism, had very early metaphysical dogmas and a lofty
symbolism. But doubtless these interpretations of a refined theology were
not primitive. Man has never, in the possession of a clear idea, amused
himself by clothing it in symbols; it is oftener after long reflections,
and from the impossibility felt by the human mind of resigning itself to
the absurd, that we seek ideas under the ancient mystic images whose
meaning is lost. Moreover, it is not from Egypt that the faith of humanity
has come. The elements which, in the religion of a Christian, passing
through a thousand transformations, came from Egypt and Syria, are
exterior forms of little consequence, or dross of Which the most purified
worships always retain some portion. The grand defect of the religions of
which we speak was their essentially superstitious character. They only
threw into the world millions of amulets and charms. No great moral
thought could proceed from races oppressed by a secular despotism, and
accustomed to institutions which precluded the exercise of individual
liberty.
The poetry of the soul, faith, liberty, virtue,
devotion, made their appearance in the world with the two great races
which, in one sense have made humanity -- viz. the Indo-European and the
Semitic races. The first religious intuitions of the Indo-European race
were essentially naturalistic. But it was a profound and moral naturalism,
a loving embrace of nature by man, a delicious poetry, full of the
sentiment of the Infinite -- the principle, in fine, of all that which the
Germanic and Celtic genius, of that which a Shakespeare and a Goethe,
should express in later times. It was neither theology nor moral
philosophy -- it was a state of melancholy, it was tenderness, it was
imagination; it was, more than all, earnestness, the essential condition
of morals and religion. The faith of humanity, however, could not come
from thence, because these ancient forms of worships had great difficulty
in detaching themselves from Polytheism, and could not attain to a very
clear symbol. Brahminism has only survived to the present day by virtue of
the astonishing faculty of conservation which India seems to posses.
Buddhism failed in all its approaches towards the West. Druidism remained
a form exclusively national, and without universal capacity. The Greek
attempts at reform, Orpheism, the Mysteries, did not suffice to give
"solid aliment to the soul. Persia alone succeeded in making a dogmatic
religion, almost Monotheistic, and skillfully organized; but it is very
possible that this organization itself was but an imitation, or borrowed.
At all events, Persia has not converted the world; she herself, on the
contrary, was converted when she saw the flag of the Divine unity as
proclaimed by Mohamedanism appear on her frontiers.
It is the Semitic race which has the glory of having
made the religion of humanity. Far beyond the confines of history, resting
under his tent free from the taint of a corrupted world, the Bedouin
patriarch prepared the faith of mankind. A strong antipathy against the
voluptuous worships of Syria, a grand simplicity of ritual, the complete
absence of temples, and the idol reduced to insignificant theraphim
constituted his superiority. Among all the tribes of the nomadic Semites,
that of the Beni-Israel was already chosen for immense destinies. Ancient
relations with Egypt, whence perhaps resulted some purely material
ingredients, did but augment their repulsion to idolatry. A "Law," or
Thora, very anciently written on tables of stone, and which they
attributed for their great liberator Moses, had become the code of
Monotheism, and contained, as compared with the institutions of Egypt and
Chaldea, powerful germs of social equality and morality. A chest or
portable ark, having staples on each side to admit of bearing poles,
constituted all their religious material; there were collected the sacred
objects of the nation, its relics, its souvenirs, and lastly the "book,"
the, journal of the tribe, always open, but which was written in with
great discretion. The family charged with bearing the ark and watching
over the portable archives, being near the book and having the control of
it very soon became important. From hence, however, the institution which
was to control the future did not come. The Hebrew priest did not differ
much from the other priests of antiquity. The character which essentially
distinguishes Israel among theocratic peoples is that its priesthood has
always been subordinated to individual inspiration. Besides its priests,
each wandering tribe had its nabi or prophet, a sort of living oracle who
was consulted for the solution of obscure questions supposed to require a
high degree of clairvoyance. The nabis of Israel, organized in groups or
schools, had great influence. Defenders of the ancient democratic spirit,
enemies of the rich, opposed to all political organization, and to
whatsoever might draw Israel into the paths of other nations, they were
the true authors of the religious preeminence of the Jewish people. Very
early they announced unlimited hopes, and when the people, in part the
victims of their impolitic counsels, had been crushed by the Assyrian
power, they proclaimed that a kingdom without bounds was reserved for
them, that one day Jerusalem would be the capital of the whole world, and
the human race become Jews. Jerusalem and its temple appeared to them as a
city placed on the summit of a mountain, towards which all people should
turn, as an oracle whence the universal law should proceed, as the center
of an ideal kingdom, in which the human race, set at rest by Israel,
should find again the joys of Eden.
Mystical utterances already make themselves heard,
tending to exalt the martyrdom and celebrate the power of the "Man of
Sorrows." Respecting one of those sublime sufferers, who, like Teremiah,
stained the streets of Jerusalem with their blood, one of the inspired
wrote a song upon the sufferings and triumph of the "servant of God," in
which all the prophetic force of the genius of Israel seemed concentrated.
"For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a
dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness. He is despised and rejected of
men: and we hid, as it were, our faces from him; he was despised, and we
esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our
sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our
iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his
stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned
everyone to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us
all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth:
he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her
shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. And he made his grave with
the wicked. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall
see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord
shall prosper in his hand."
Important modifications were made at the same time in
the Thora. New texts, pretending to represent the true law of Moses, such
as Deuteronomy, were produced, and inaugurated in reality a very different
spirit from that of the old nomads. A marked fanaticism was the dominant
feature of this spirit. Furious believers unceasingly instigated violence
against all who wandered from the worship of Jehovah -- they succeeded in
establishing a code of blood, making death the penalty for religious
faults. Piety brings, almost always, singular contradictions of vehemence
and mildness. This zeal, unknown to the coarser simplicity of the time of
the judges, inspired tones of moving prophecy and tender unction, which
the world had never heard till then. A strong tendency towards social
questions already made itself felt; Utopias, dreams of a perfect society,
took a place in the code. The Pentateuch, a mixture of patriarchal
morality and ardent devotion, primitive intuitions and pious subtleties,
like those which filled the souls of Hezekiah, of Josiah, and of Jeremiah,
was thus fixed in the form in which we now see it, and became for ages the
absolute rule of the national mind.
This great book once created, the history of the Jewish
people unfolded itself with an irresistible force. The great empires which
followed each other in Western Asia, in destroying its hope of a
terrestrial kingdom, threw it into religious dreams, which it cherished
with a kind of somber passion. Caring little for the national dynasty or
political independence, it accepted all governments which permitted it to
practice freely its worship and follow ifs usages. Israel will
henceforward have no other guidance than that of its religious
enthusiasts, no other enemies than those of the Divine unity, no other
country than its Law.
And this Law, it must be remarked, was entirely social
and moral. It was the work of men penetrated with a high ideal of the
present life, and believing that they had found the best means of
realizing it. The conviction of all was that the Thora, well observed,
could not fail to give perfect felicity. This Thora has nothing in common
with the Greek or Roman "Laws," which, occupying themselves with scarcely
anything but abstract right, entered little into questions of private
happiness and morality. We feel beforehand that the results which will
proceed from it will be of a social and not a political order, that the
work at which this people labors is a kingdom of God, not a civil
republic; a universal institution, not a nationality or a country.
Notwithstanding numerous failures, Israel admirably
sustained this vocation. A series of pious men, Ezra, Nehemiah, Onias, the
Maccabees, consumed with zeal for the Law, succeeded each other in the
defence of the ancient institutions. The idea that Israel was a holy
people, a tribe chosen by God and bound to him by covenant, took deeper
and firmer root. An immense expectation filled their souls. All
Indo-European antiquity had placed paradise in the beginning; all its
poets had wept a vanished golden age. Israel placed the age of gold in the
future. The perennial poesy of religious souls, the Psalms, blossomed from
this exalted piety, with their divine and melancholy harmony. Israel
became truly and specially the people of God, while around it the pagan
religions were more and more reduced, in Persia and Babylonia, to an
official charlatanism, in Egypt and Syria to a gross idolatry, and in the
Greek and Roman world to mere parade. That which the Christian martyrs did
in the first centuries of our era, that which the victims of persecuting
orthodoxy have done, even in the bosom of Christianity, up to our time,
the Jews did during the two centuries which preceded the Christian era.
They were a living protest against superstition and religious materialism.
An extraordinary movement of ideas, ending in the most opposite results,
made of them, at this epoch, the most striking and original people in the
world. Their dispersion along all the coast of the Mediterranean, and the
use of the Greek language, which they adopted when out of Palestine,
prepared the way for a propagandist of which ancient societies, divided
into small nationalities, had never offered a single example.
Up to the time of the Maccabees, Judaism, in spite of
its persistence in announcing that it would one day be the religion of the
human race, had had the characteristic of all the other worships of
antiquity -- it was a worship of the family and the tribe. The Israelite
thought, indeed, that his worship was the best, and spoke with contempt of
strange gods; but he believed also that the religion of the true God was
made for himself alone. Only when a man entered into the Jewish family did
he embrace the worship of Jehovah. No Israelite cared to convert the
stranger to a worship which was the patrimony of the sons of Abraham. The
development of the pietistic spirit, after Ezra and Nehemiah, led to a
much firmer and more logical conception. Judaism became the true religion
in a more absolute manner; to all who wished, the right of entering it was
given; soon it became a work of piety to bring into it the greatest number
possible. Doubtless the refined sentiment which elevated John the Baptist,
Jesus, and St. Paul above the petty ideas of race did not yet exist; for,
by a strange contradiction, these converts were little respected and were
treated with disdain. But the idea of a sovereign religion, the idea that
there was something in the world superior to country, to blood, to laws --
the idea which makes apostles and martyrs -- was founded. Profound pity
for the pagans, however brilliant might be their worldly fortune, was
henceforth the feeling of every Jew. By a cycle of legends destined to
furnish models of immovable firmness, such as the histories of Daniel and
his companions, the mother of the Maccabees and her seven sons, the
romance of the racecourse of Alexandria -- the guides of the people sought
above all to inculcate the idea that virtue consists in a fanatical
attachment to fixed religious institutions.
The persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes made this idea
a passion, almost a frenzy. it was something very analogous to that which
happened under Nero two hundred and thirty years later. Rage and despair
threw the believers into the world of visions and dreams. The first
apocalypse, "The Book of Daniel," appeared. It was like a revival of
prophecy, but under a very different form from the ancient one, and with a
much larger idea of the destinies of the world. The Book of Daniel gave,
in a manner, the last expression to the Messianic hopes. The Messiah was
no longer a king, after the manner of David and Solomon, a theocratic and
Mosaic Cyrus; he was a "Son of Man" appearing in the clouds -- a
supernatural being, invested with human form, charged to rule the world,
and to preside over the golden age. Perhaps the Sosiosh of Persia, the
great prophet who was to come, charged with preparing the reign of Ormuzd,
gave some features to this new ideal. The unknown author of the Book of
Daniel had, in any case, a decisive influence on the religious event which
was about to transform the world. He supplied the mise-en-scene, and the
technical terms of the now belief in the Messiah; and we might apply to
him what Jesus said of John the Baptist -- Before him, the prophets; after
him, the kingdom of God.
It must not, however, be supposed that this profoundly
religious and soul-stirring movement had particular dogmas for its primary
impulse, as was the case in all the conflicts which have disturbed the
bosom of Christianity. The Jew of this epoch was as little theological as
possible. He did not speculate upon the essence of the Divinity: the
beliefs about angels, about the destinies of man, about the Divine
personality, of which the first germs might already be perceived, were
quite optional -- they were meditations, to which each one surrendered
himself according to the turn of his mind, but of which a great number of
men had never heard. They were the most orthodox even, who did not share
in these particular imaginations, and who adhered to the simplicity of the
Mosaic law. No that which orthodox Christianity has given to the Church
then existed. It was only at the beginning of the third century, when
Christianity had fallen into the hands of reasoning races, mad with
dialectics and metaphysics, that that fever for definitions commenced
which made the history of the Church but the history of one immense
controversy. There were disputes also among the Jews -- excited Schools
brought opposite solutions to almost all the questions which were
agitated; but in these contests, of which the Talmud has preserved the
principal details, there is not a single word of speculative theology. To
observe and maintain the law was just, and because, when well observed, it
gave happiness -- such was Judaism. No credo, no theoretical symbol. One
of the disciples of the boldest Arabian philosophy, Moses Maimonides, was
able to become the oracle of the synagogue, because he was well versed in
the canonical law.
The reigns of the last Asmoneans, and that of Herod,
saw the excitement grow still stronger. They were filled by an
uninterrupted series of religious movements. In the degree that power
became secularized, and passed into the hands of unbelievers, the Jewish
people lived less and less for the earth, and became more and more
absorbed by the strange fermentation which was operating in their midst.
The world, distracted by other spectacles, had little knowledge of that
which passed in this forgotten corner of the East. The minds abreast of
their age were, however, better informed. The tender and clear-sighted
Virgil seems to answer, as by a secret echo, to the second Isaiah. The
birth of a child throws him into dreams of a universal palingenesis. These
dreams were of every-day occurrence and shaped into a kind of literature
which was designated Sibylline, The quite recent formation of the empire
exalted the imagination; the great era of peace on which it entered, and
that impression of melancholy sensibility which the mind experiences after
long periods of revolution, gave birth on all sides to unlimited hopes.
In Judea expectation was at its height. Holy persons --
among whom may be named the aged Simeon, who, legend tells us, held Jesus
in his arms; Anna, daughter of Phanuel, regarded as a prophetess -- passed
their life about the temple, fasting, and praying that it might please God
not to take them from the world without having seen the fulfillment of the
hopes of Israel. They felt a powerful presentiment; they were sensible of
the approach of something unknown.
This confused mixture of clear views and dreams, this
alternation of deceptions and hopes, these ceaseless aspirations, driven
back by an odious reality, found at last their interpretation in the
incomparable man, to whom the universal conscience has decreed the title
of Son of God, and that with justice, since he has advanced religion as no
other has done, or probably ever will be able to do.
Chapter 02
Infancy And Youth Of Jesus - His First Impressions
Jesus was born at Nazareth, a small town of Galilee,
which before his time had no celebrity. All his life he was designated by
the name of "the Nazarene," and it is only by a rather embarrassed and
roundabout way [NOTE: The census effected by Quirinus, to which legend
attributes the journey from Bethlehem, is at least ten years later than
the year in which, according to Luke and Matthew, Jesus was born. The two
evangelists in effect make Jesus to be born under the reign of Herod
(Matt. ii. 1, 19, 22; Luke i. 5). Now, the census of Quirinus did not take
place until after the deposition of Archelaus -- i.e., ten years after the
death of Herod, the 37th year from the era of Actium (Josephus Ant., XVII.
XIII. 5, XVIII. i. I, ii. I). The inscription by which it was formerly
pretended to establish that Quirinus had levied two censuses is recognized
as false (see Orelli, Inscr. Lat., No. 623, and the supplement of Henzen
in this number; Borghesi, Fastes Consulaires [yet unpublished] in the year
742). The census in any case would only be applied to the parts of the
Roman provinces, and not to the tetrarchies. The texts by which it is
sought to prove that some of the operations for statistics and tribute
commanded by Augustus ought to extend to the dominion of the Herods,
either do not mean what they have been made to say, or are from Christian
authors who have borrowed this statement from the Gospel of Luke. That
which proves, besides, that the journey of the family of Jesus to
Bethlehem is not historical, is the motive attributed to it. Jesus was not
of the family of David (see Chap. XV.), and, if he had been, we should
still not imagine that his parents should have been forced, for an
operation purely registrative and financial, to come to enrol themselves
in the place whence their ancestors had proceeded a thousand years before.
In imposing such an obligation, the Roman authority would have sanctioned
pretensions threatening her safety.] that, in the legends respecting him,
he is made to be born at Bethlehem. We shall see later the motive for this
supposition, and how it was the necessary consequence of the Messianic
character attributed to Jesus. The precise date of his birth is unknown.
It took place under the reign of Augustus, about the Roman year 750,
probably some years before the year 1 of that era which all civilized
people date from the day on which he was born.
The name of Jesus, which was given him, is an
alteration from Joshua. It was a very common name; but afterwards
mysteries, and an allusion to his character of Savior, were naturally
sought for in it. Perhaps he, like all mystics, exalted himself in this
respect. It is thus that more than one great vocation in history has been
caused by a name given to a child without premeditation. Ardent natures
never bring themselves to see aught of chance in what concerns them. God
has regulated everything for them, and they see a sign of the supreme will
in the most insignificant circumstances.
The population of Galilee was very mixed, as the very
name of the country indicated. This province counted among its
inhabitants, in the time of Jesus, many who were not Jews (Phoenicians,
Syrians, Arabs, and even Greeks). The conversions to Judaism were not rare
in these mixed countries. It is therefore impossible to raise here any
question of race, and to seek to ascertain what blood flowed in the veins
of him who has contributed most to efface the distinctions of blood in
humanity.
He proceeded from the ranks of the people. His father
Joseph and his mother Mary were people in humble circumstances, artisans
living by their labor, in the state so common in the East, which is
neither ease nor poverty. The extreme simplicity of life in such
countries, by dispensing with the need of comfort, renders the privileges
of wealth almost useless, and makes everyone voluntarily poor. On the
other hand, the total want of taste for art, and for that which contribute
to the elegance of material life, gives a naked aspect to the house of him
who otherwise wants for nothing. Apart from something sordid and repulsive
which Islamism bears everywhere with it, the town of Nazareth, in the time
of Jesus, did not perhaps much differ from what it is today. We see the
streets where he played when a child, in the stony paths or little
crossways which separate the dwellings. The house of Joseph doubtless much
resembled those poor shops, lighted shop, by the door, serving at once for
kitchen, and bedroom, having for furniture a mat, some cushions on the
ground, one or two clay pots, and a painted chest.
The family, whether it proceeded from one or many
marriages, was rather numerous. Jesus had brothers and sisters, of whom he
seems to have been the eldest. All have remained obscure, for it appears
that the four personages, who were named as his brothers, and among whom
one, at least, James, had acquired great importance in the development of
Christianity, were his cousins-german. Mary, in fact, had a sister also
named Mary, who married a certain Alpheus or Cleophas (these two names
appear to designate the same person), and was the mother of several sons
who played a considerable part among the first disciples of Jesus. These
cousins-german who adhered to the young Master, while his own brothers
opposed him, took the title of "brothers of the Lord." The real brothers
of Jesus, like their mother, became important only after his death. Even
then they do not appear to have equalled in importance their cousins,
whose conversion had been more spontaneous, and whose character seems to
have had more originality. Their names were so little known that when the
evangelist put in the mouth of the men of Nazareth the enumeration of the
brothers according to natural relationship, the names of the sons of
Cleophas first presented themselves to him.
His sisters were married at Nazareth, and he spent the
first years of his youth there. Nazareth was a small town in a hollow,
opening broadly at the summit of the group of mountains which close the
plain of Esdraelon on the north. The population is now from three to four
thousand, and it can never have varied much. The cold there is sharp in
winter, and the climate very healthy. The town, like all the small Jewish
towns at this period, was a heap of huts built without style, and would
exhibit that harsh and poor aspect which villages in Semitic countries now
present. The houses, it seems, did not differ much from those cubes of
stone, without exterior or interior elegance, which still cover the
richest parts of the Lebanon, and which, surrounded with vines and
fig-trees, are still very agreeable. The environs, moreover, are charming;
and no place in the world was so well adapted for dreams of perfect
happiness. Even in our times Nazareth is still a delightful abode, the
only place, perhaps, in Palestine in which the mind feels itself relieved
from the burden which oppresses it in this unequalled desolation. The
people are amiable and cheerful; the gardens fresh and green. Anthony the
Martyr, at the end of the sixth century, drew an enchanting picture of the
fertility of the environs, which he compared to paradise. Some valleys on
the western side fully justify his description. The fountain, where
formerly the life and gaiety of the little town were concentrated, is
destroyed; its broken channels contain now only a muddy stream. But the
beauty of the women who meet there in the evening -- that beauty which was
remarked even in the sixth century, and which was looked upon as a gift of
the Virgin Mary -- is still most strikingly preserved. It is the Syrian
type in all its languid grace. No doubt Mary was there almost every day,
and took her place with her jar on her shoulder in the file of her
companions who have remained unknown. Anthony the Martyr remarks that the
Jewish women, generally disdainful to Christians, were here full of
affability. Even now religious animosity is weaker at Nazareth than
elsewhere.
The horizon from the town is limited. But if we ascend
a little the plateau, swept by a perpetual breeze, which overlooks the
highest houses, the prospect is splendid. On the west are seen the fine
outlines of Carmel, terminated by an abrupt point, which seems to plunge
into the sea. Before us are spread out the double summit which towers
above Megiddo; the mountains of the country of Shechem, with their holy
places of the patriarchal age; the hills of Gilboa, the small picturesque
group to which are attached the graceful or terrible recollections of
Shunem and of Endor; and Tabor, with its beautiful rounded form, which
antiquity compared to a bosom. Through a depression between the mountains
of Shunem and Tabor are seen the valley of the Jordan and the high plains
of Peraea, which form a continuous line from the eastern side. On the
north the mountains of Safed, in inclining towards the sea, conceal St.
Jean d'Acre, but permit the Gulf of Khaifa to be distinguished, Such was
the horizon of Jesus. This enchanted circle, cradle of the kingdom of God,
was for years his world. Even in his later life he departed but little
beyond the familiar limits of his childhood. For yonder, northwards, a
glimpse is caught, almost on the flank of Hermon, of Caesarea-Philippi,
his furthest point of advance into the Gentile world; and here,
southwards, the more somber aspect of these Samaritan hills foreshadows
the dreariness of Judea beyond, parched as by a scorching wind of
defoliation and death.
If the world, remaining Christian, but attaining to a
better idea of the esteem in which the origin of its religion should be
held, should ever wish to replace by authentic holy places the mean and
apocryphal sanctuaries to which the piety of dark ages attached itself, it
is upon this height of Nazareth that it will rebuild its temple. There, at
the birthplace of Christianity, and in the center of the actions of its
Founder, the great church ought to be raised in which all Christians may
worship. There, also, on this spot where sleep Joseph the Carpenter and
thousands of forgotten Nazarenes who never passed beyond the horizon of
their valley, would be a better station than any in the world beside for
the philosopher to contemplate the course of human affairs, to console
himself for their uncertainty, and to reassure himself as to the Divine
end which tie world pursues through countless falterings, and in spite of
the universal vanity.
Chapter 03
Education Of Jesus
THIS aspect of nature, at once smiling and grand, was
the whole education of Jesus. He learned to read and to write, doubtless,
according to the Eastern method, which consisted in putting in the hands
of the child a book, which he repeated in cadence with his little
comrades, until he knew it by heart. It is doubtful, however, if he under
stood the Hebrew writings in their original tongue. His biographers make
him quote them according to the translations in the Aramean tongue; his
principles of exegesis, as far as we can judge of them by those of his
disciples, much resembled those which were then in vogue, and which form
the spirit of the Targums and the Midrashim.
The schoolmaster in the small Jewish towns was the
hazzan, or reader in the synagogues. Jesus frequented little the higher
schools of the scribes or sopherim (Nazareth had perhaps none of them),
and he had none of those titles which confer, in the eyes of the vulgar,
the privileges of knowledge. It would, nevertheless, be a great error to
imagine that Jesus was what we call ignorant. Scholastic education among
us draws a profound distinction, in respect of personal worth, between
those who have received and those who have been deprived of it. It was not
so in the East, nor, in general, in the good old times. The state of
ignorance in which, among us, owing to our isolated and entirely
individual life, those remain who have not passed through the schools, was
unknown in those societies where moral culture, and especially the general
spirit of the age, was transmitted by the perpetual intercourse of man
with man. The Arab, who has never had a teacher, is often, nevertheless, a
very superior man; for the tent is a kind of school always open, where,
from the contact of well-educated men, there is produced a great
intellectual and even literary movement. The refinement of manners and the
acuteness of the intellect have, in the East, nothing in common with what
we call education. It is the men from the schools, on the contrary, who
are considered badly trained and pedantic. In this social state ignorance,
which among us, condemns a man to an inferior rank, is the condition of
great things and of great originality.
It is not probable that Jesus knew Greek. This language
was very little spread in Judea beyond the classes who participated in the
Government and the towns inhabited by pagans, like Caesarea. The real
mother tongue of Jesus was the Syrian dialect mixed with Hebrew, which was
then spoken in Palestine. Still less probably had he any knowledge of
Greek culture. This culture was proscribed by the doctors of Palestine,
who included in the same malediction "he who rears swine and he who
teaches his son Greek science." At all events, it had not penetrated into
little towns like Nazareth. Notwithstanding the anathema of the doctors,
some Jews, it is true, had already embraced the Hellenic culture. Without
speaking of the Jewish school of Egypt, in which the attempts to
amalgamate Hellenism and Judaism had been in operation nearly two hundred
years, a Jew, Nicholas of Damascus, had become, even at this time, one of
the most distinguished men, one of the best informed, and one of the most
respected of his age. Josephus was destined soon to furnish another
example of a Jew completely Grecianised. But Nicholas was only a Jew in
blood. Josephus declares that he himself was an exception among his
contemporaries; and the whole schismatic school of Egypt was detached to
such a degree from Jerusalem that we do not find the least allusion to it
either in the Talmud or in Jewish tradition. Certain it is that Greek was
very little studied at Jerusalem, that Greek studies were considered as
dangerous, and even servile, that they were regarded, at the best, as a
mere womanly accomplishment. The study of the Law was the only one
accounted liberal and worthy of a thoughtful man. Questioned as to the
time when it would be proper to teach children "Greek wisdom," a learned
Rabbi had answered At the time when it is neither day nor night; since it
is written of the Law, Thou shalt study it day and night."
Neither directly nor indirectly. then did any element
of Greek culture reach Jesus. He knew nothing beyond Judaism; his mind
preserved that free innocence which an extended and varied culture always
weakens. In the very bosom of Judaism, he remained a stranger to many
efforts often parallel to his own. On the one hand, the asceticism of the
Essenes or the Therapeutoe; on the other, the fine efforts of religious
philosophy put forth by the Jewish school of Alexandria, and of which
Philo, his contemporary, was the ingenious interpreter, were unknown to
him. The frequent resemblances which we find between him and Philo, those
excellent maxims about the love of God, charity, rest in God, which are
like an echo between the Gospel and the writings of the illustrious
Alexandrian thinker, proceed from the common tendencies which the wants of
the time inspired in all elevated minds.
Happily for him, he was also ignorant of the strange
scholasticism which was taught at Jerusalem, and which was soon to
constitute the Talmud. If some Pharisees had already brought it into
Galilee, he did not associate with them, and when, later, he encountered
this silly casuistry, in it only inspired him with disgust. We may
suppose, however, that the principles of Hillel were not unknown to him.
Hillel, fifty years before him, had given utterance to aphorisms very
analogous to his own. By his poverty, so meekly endured, by the sweetness
of his character, by his opposition to priests and hypocrites, Hillel was
the true master of Jesus, if, indeed, it may be permitted to speak of a
master in connection with so high an originality as his.
The perusal Of the books of the Old Testament made much
impression upon him. The canon of the holy books was compose of two
principal parts: the Law -- that is to say, the Pentateuch -- and the
Prophets, such as we now possess them. An extensive allegorical exegesis
was applied to all these books; and it was sought to draw from them
something that was not in them, but which responded to the aspirations of
the age. The Law, which represented not the ancient laws of the country,
but Utopias, the factitious laws and pious frauds of the time of the
pietistic kings, had become, since the nation had ceased to govern itself,
an inexhaustible theme of subtle interpretations. As to the Prophets and
the Psalms, the popular persuasion was that almost all the somewhat
mysterious traits that were in these books had reference to the Messiah,
and it was sought to find there the type of him who should realize the
hopes of the nation. Jesus participated in the taste which everyone had
for these allegorical interpretations. But the true poetry of the Bible,
which escaped the puerile exegetists of Jerusalem, was fully revealed to
his grand genius. The Law does not appear to have had much charm for him;
he thought that he could do something better. But the religious lyrics of
the Psalms were in marvelous accordance with his poetic soul; they were,
all his life, his food and sustenance. The prophets -- Isaiah in
particular, and his successor in the record of the time of the captivity
-- with their brilliant dreams of the future, their impetuous eloquence,
and their invectives mingled with enchanting pictures, were his true
teachers. He read also. no doubt, many apocryphal works -- i.e. writings
somewhat modern -- the authors of which, for the sake of an authority only
granted to very ancient writings, had clothed themselves with the names of
prophets and patriarchs, One of these books especially struck him --
namely, the book of Daniel. This book, composed by an enthusiastic Jew of
the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, under the name of an ancient sage, was
the resume of the spirit of those later times. Its author, a true creator
of the philosophy of history, had for the first time dared to see in the
march of the world and the succession of empires only a purpose
subordinate to the destinies of the Jewish people. Jesus was early
penetrated by these high hopes. Perhaps, also, he had read the books of
Enoch, then revered equally with the holy books, and the other writings of
the same class, which kept up so much excitement in the popular
imagination. The advent of the Messiah, with his glories and his terrors
-- the nations falling down one after another, the cataclysm of heaven and
earth -- were the familiar food of his imagination; and, as these
revolutions were reputed near, and a great number of persons sought to
calculate the time when they should happen, the supernatural state of
things into which such visions transport us appeared to him from the first
perfectly natural and simple.
That he had no knowledge of the general state of the
world is apparent from each feature of his most authentic discourses. The
earth appeared to him still divided into kingdoms warring with one
another; he seemed to ignore the "Roman peace," and the new state of
society which its age inaugurated. He had no precise idea of the Roman
power; the name of "Caesar" alone reached him. He saw building, in Galilee
or its environs, Tiberias, Julias, Diocaesarea, Caesarea, gorgeous works
of the Herods, who sought, by these magnificent structures, to prove their
admiration for Roman civilization, and their devotion towards the members
of the family of Augustus -- structures whose names, by a caprice of fate,
now serve, though strangely altered, to designate miserable hamlets of
Bedouins. He also probably saw Sebaste, a work of Herod the Great, a showy
city, whose ruins would lead to the belief that it had been carried there
ready made, like a machine which had only to be put up in its place. This
ostentatious piece of architecture arrived in Judea by cargoes; these
hundreds of columns, all of the same diameter, the ornament of some
insipid Rue de Rivoli -- these were what he called "the kingdoms of the
world and all their glory." But this luxury of power, this administrative
and official art, displeased him. What he loved were his Galilean
villages, confused mixtures of huts, of nests and holes cut in the rocks,
of wells, of tombs, of fig-trees, and of olives. He always clung close to
nature. The courts of kings appeared to him as places where men wear fine
clothe. The charming impossibilities with which his parables abound, when
he brings kings and the mighty ones on the stage, prove that he never
conceived of aristocratic society but as a young villager who sees the
world through the prism of his simplicity.
Still less was he acquainted with the new idea, created
by Grecian science, which was the basis of all philosophy, and which
modern science has greatly confirmed -- to wit, the exclusion of
capricious gods, to whom the simple belief of ancient ages attributed the
government of the universe, Almost a century before him Lucretius had
expressed, in an admirable manner, the unchangeableness of the general
system of nature. The negation of miracle -- the idea that everything in
the world happens by laws in which the personal intervention of superior
beings has no share -- was universally admitted in the great schools of
all the countries which had accepted Grecian science. Perhaps even Babylon
and Persia were not strangers to it. Jesus knew nothing of this progress.
Although born at a time when the principle of positive science was already
proclaimed, he lived entirely in the supernatural. Never, perhaps, had the
Jews been more possessed with the thirst for the marvelous. Philo, who
lived in a great intellectual center, and who had received a very complete
education, possessed only a chimerical and inferior knowledge of science.
Jesus on this point differed in no respect from his
companions. He believed in the devil, whom he regarded as a kind of evil
genius, and he imagined, like all the world, that nervous maladies were
produced by demons who possessed the patient and agitated him. The
marvelous was not the exceptional for him; it was his normal state. The
notion of the supernatural, with its impossibilities, is coincident with
the birth of experimental science. The man who is strange to all ideas of
physical laws, who believes that by praying he can change the path of the
clouds, arrest disease, and even death, finds nothing extraordinary in
miracle, inasmuch as the entire course of things is to him the result of
the free will of the Divinity. This intellectual state was constantly that
of Jesus. But in his great soul such a belief produced effects quite
opposed to those produced on the vulgar. Among the latter the belief in
the special action of God led to a foolish credulity, and the deceptions
of charlatans. With him it led to a profound idea of the familiar
relations of man with God, and an exaggerated belief in the power of man
-- beautiful errors, which were the secret of his power; for if they were
the means of one day showing his deficiencies in the eyes of the physicist
and the chemist, they gave him a power over his own age of which no
individual had been possessed before his time, or has been since.
His distinctive character very early revealed itself.
Legend delights to show him even from his infancy in revolt against
paternal authority, and departing from the common way to fulfil his
vocation. It is certain, at least, that he cared little for the relations
of kinship. His family do not seem to have loved him, and at times he
seems to have been hard towards them. Jesus, like all men exclusively
preoccupied by an idea, came to think little of the ties of blood. The
bond of thought is the only one that natures of this kind recognize.
"Behold my mother and my brethren," said he, in extending his hand towards
his disciples; "he who does the will of my Father, he is my brother and my
sister." The simple people did not understand the matter thus, and one day
a woman passing near him cried out, "Blessed is the womb that bare thee,
and the paps which gave thee suck!" But he said, "Yea, rather blessed are
they that hear the word of God, and keep it." Soon, in his bold revolt
against nature, he went still further, and we shall see him trampling
under foot everything that is human -- blood, love, and country -- and
only keeping soul and heart for the idea which presented itself to him as
the absolute form of goodness and truth.
Chapter 04
The Order Of Thought Which Surrounded The Development Of Jesus
As the cooled earth no longer permits us to understand
the phenomena of primitive creation, because the fire which penetrated it
is extinct, so deliberate explanations have always appeared somewhat
insufficient when applying our timid methods of induction to the
revolutions of the creative epochs which have decided the fate of
humanity. Jesus lived at one of those times when the game of public life
is freely played, and when the stake of human activity is increased a
hundredfold. Every great part, then, entails death; for such movements
suppose liberty and an absence of preventive measures which could not
exist without a terrible alternative. In these days man risks little and
gains little. In heroic periods of human activity man risked all and
gained all, The good and the wicked, or at least those who believed
themselves and are believed to be such, form opposite armies. The
apotheosis is reached by the scaffold; characters have distinctive
features, which engrave them as eternal types in the memory of men. Except
in the French Revolution, no historical center was as suitable as that in
which Jesus was formed to develop those hidden forces which humanity holds
as in reserve, and which are not seen except in days of excitement and
peril.
If the government of the world were a speculative
problem, and the greatest philosopher were the man best fitted to tell his
fellows what they ought to believe, it would be from calmness and
reflection that those great moral and dogmatic truths called religion
would proceed. But it is not so. If we except Cakya-Mouni, the great
religious founders have not been metaphysicians. Buddhism itself, whose
origin is in pure thought, has conquered one-half of Asia by motives
wholly political and moral. As to the Semitic religions, they are as
little philosophical as possible. Moses and Mohammed were not men of
speculation: they were men of action. It was in proposing action to their
fellow-countrymen and to their contemporaries that they governed humanity.
Jesus, in like manner, was not a theologian, or a philosopher, having a
more or less well- composed system. In order to be a disciple of Jesus, it
was not necessary to sign any formulary, or to pronounce any confession of
faith; one thing only was necessary -- to be attached to him, to love him.
He never disputed about God, for he felt him directly in himself. The rock
of metaphysical subtleties, against which Christianity broke from the
third century, was in no wise created by the founder. Jesus had neither
dogma nor system, but a fixed personal resolution, which, exceeding in
intensity every other created will, directs to this hour the destinies of
humanity.
The Jewish people had the advantage, from the captivity
of Babylon up to the Middle Ages, of being in a state of the greatest
tension. This is why the interpreters of the spirit of the nation, during
this long period, seemed to write under the action of an intense fever,
which placed them constantly either above or below reason, rarely in its
middle path. Never did man seize the problem of the future and of his
destiny with a more desperate courage, more determined to go to extremes.
Not separating the lot of humanity from that of their little race, the
Jewish thinkers were the first who sought for a general theory of the
progress of our species. Greece, always confined within itself, and solely
attentive to petty quarrels, has had admirable historians; but before the
Roman epoch it would be in vain to seek in her a general system of the
philosophy of history embracing all humanity. The Jew, on the contrary,
thanks to a kind of prophetic sense which renders the Semite at times
marvelously apt to see the great lines of the future, has made history
enter into religion. Perhaps he owes a little of this spirit to Persia.
Persia, from an ancient period, conceived the history of the world as a
series of evolutions, over each of which a prophet presided. Each prophet
had his hazar, or reign of a thousand years (chiliasm), and from these
successive ages, analogous to the Avatar of India, is composed the course
of events which prepared the reign of Ormuzd. At the end of the time when
the cycle of chiliasms shall be exhausted, the complete paradise will
come. Men then will live happy; the earth will be as one plain; there will
be only one language, one law, and one government for all. But this advent
will be preceded by terrible calamities. Dahak (the Satan of Persia) will
break his chains and fall upon the world. Two prophets will come to
console mankind, and to prepare the great advent. These ideas ran through
the world, and penetrated even to Rome, where they inspired a cycle of
prophetic poems, of which the fundamental ideas were the division of the
history of humanity into periods, the succession of the gods corresponding
to these periods -- a complete renovation of the world, and the final
advent of a golden age. The book of Daniel, the book of Enoch, and certain
parts of the Sibylline books are the Jewish expression of the same theory.
These thoughts were certainly far from being shared by all; they were only
embraced at first by a few persons of lively imagination, who were
inclined towards strange doctrines. The dry and narrow author of the book
of Esther never thought of the rest of the world except to despise it, and
to wish it evil. The disabused epicurean who wrote Ecclesiastes thought so
little of the future that he considered it even useless to labor for his
children; in the eyes of this egotistical celibate the highest stroke of
wisdom was to use his fortune for his own enjoyment. But the great
achievements of a people are generally wrought by the minority.
Notwithstanding all their enormous defects -- hard, egotistical, scoffing,
cruel, narrow, subtle, and sophistical -- the Jewish people are the
authors of the finest movement of disinterested enthusiasm which history
records. Opposition always makes the glory of a country. The greatest men
of a nation are those whom it puts to death. Socrates was the glory of the
Athenians, who would not suffer him to live among them. Spinoza was the
greatest Jew of modern times, and the synagogue expelled him with
ignominy. Jesus was the glory of the people of Israel, who crucified him.
A gigantic dream haunted for centuries the Jewish
people, constantly renewing its youth in its decrepitude. A stranger to
the theory of individual recompense, which Greece diffused under the name
of the immortality of the soul, Judea concentrated all its power of love
and desire upon the national future. She thought she possessed divine
promises of a boundless future; and as a bitter reality, from the ninth
century before our era, gave more and more the dominion of the world to
physical force, and brutally crushed these aspirations, she took refuge in
the union of the most impossible ideas, and attempted the strangest
gyrations. Before the captivity, when all the earthly hopes of the nation
had become weakened by the separation of the northern tribes, they dreamt
of the restoration of the house of David, the reconciliation of the two
divisions of the people, and the triumph of theocracy and the worship of
Jehovah over idolatry. At the epoch of the captivity a poet, full of
harmony, saw the splendor of a future Jerusalem, of which the peoples and
the distant isles should be tributaries, under colors so charming that one
might say a glimpse of the visions of Jesus had reached him at a distance
of six centuries.
The victory of Cyrus seemed at one time to realize all
that had been hoped. The grave disciples of the Avesta and the adorers of
Jehovah believed themselves brothers. Persia had begun by banishing the
multiple devas, and by transforming them into demons (divs), to draw from
the old Arian imaginations (essentially naturalistic) a species of
Monotheism. The prophetic tone of many of the teachings of Iran had much
analogy with certain compositions of Hosea and Isaiah. Israel reposed
under the Achemenidae, and under Xerxes (Ahasuerus) made itself feared by
the Iranians themselves. But the triumphal and often cruel entry of Greek
and Roman civilization into Asia threw it back upon its dreams. More than
ever it invoked the Messiah as judge and avenger of the people. A complete
renovation, a revolution which should shake the world to its very
foundation, was necessary in order to satisfy the enormous thirst of
vengeance excited in it by the sense of its superiority, and by the sight
of its humiliation.
If Israel had possessed the spiritualistic doctrine
which divides man in two parts -- the body and the soul -- and finds it
quite natural that while the body decays the soul should survive, this
paroxysm of rage and of energetic protestation would have had no
existence. But such a doctrine, proceeding from the Grecian philosophy,
was not in the traditions of the Jewish mind. The ancient Hebrew writings
contain no trace of future rewards or punishments. While the idea of the
solidarity of the tribe existed, it was natural that a strict retribution
according to individual merits should not be thought of. So much the worse
for the pious man who happened to live in an epoch of impiety; he suffered
like the rest the public misfortunes consequent on the general irreligion.
This doctrine, bequeathed by the sages of the patriarchal era, constantly
produced unsustainable contradictions. Already at the time of Job it was
much shaken; the old men of Teman who professed it were considered behind
the age, and the young Elihu, who intervened in order to combat them,
dared to utter as his first word this essentially revolutionary sentiment,
"Great men are not always wise; neither do the aged understand judgment."
With the complications which had taken place in the world since the time
of Alexander, the old Temanite and Mosaic principle became still more
intolerable. Never had Israel been more faithful to the Law, and yet it
was subjected to the atrocious persecution of Antiochus. Only a declaimer,
accustomed to repeat old phrases denuded of meaning, would dare to assert
that these evils proceeded from the unfaithfulness of the people. What!
these victims who died for their faith, these heroic Maccabees, this
mother with her seven sons -- will Jehovah forget them eternally? Will he
abandon them to the corruption of the grave? Worldly and incredulous
Sadduceeism might possibly not recoil before such a consequence, and a
consummate sage, like Antigonus of Soco, might indeed maintain that we
must not practice virtue like a slave in expectation of a recompense, that
we must be virtuous without hope. But the mass of the people could not be
contented with that. Some, attaching themselves to the principle of
philosophical immortality, imagined the righteous living in the memory of
God, glorious for ever in the remembrance of men, and judging the wicked
who had persecuted them. "They live in the sight of God; ... they are
known of God." That was their reward. Others, especially the Pharisees,
had recourse to the doctrine of the resurrection. The righteous will live
again in order to participate in the Messianic reign. They will live again
in the flesh, and for a world of which they will be the kings and the
judges; they will be present at the triumph of their ideas and at the
humiliation of their enemies.
We find among the ancient people of Israel only very
indecisive traces of this fundamental dogma. The Sadducee, who did not
believe it, was in reality faithful to the old Jewish doctrine; it was the
Pharisee, the believer in the resurrection, who was the innovator. But in
religion it is always the zealous sect which innovates, which progresses,
and which has influence. Besides this, the resurrection, an idea totally
different from that of the immortality of the soul, proceeded very
naturally from the anterior doctrines and from the position of the people.
Perhaps Persia also furnished some of its elements. In any case, combining
with the belief in the Messiah, and with the doctrine of a speedy renewal
of all things, it formed those apocalyptic theories which, without being
articles of faith (the orthodox Sanhedrim of Jerusalem does not seem to
have adopted them), pervaded all imaginations, and produced an extreme
fermentation from one end of the Jewish world to the other. The total
absence of dogmatic rigor caused very contradictory notions to be admitted
at one time, even upon so primary a point. Sometimes the righteous were to
await the resurrection; sometimes they were to be received at the moment
of death into Abraham's bosom; sometimes the resurrection was to be
general; sometimes it was to be reserved only for the faithful; sometimes
it supposed a renewed earth and a new Jerusalem: sometimes it applied a
previous annihilation of the universe.
Jesus, as soon as he began to think, entered into the
burning atmosphere which was created in Palestine by the ideas we have
just stated. These ideas were taught in no school; but they were in the
very air, and his soul was early penetrated by them. Our hesitations and
our doubts never reached him. On this summit of the mountain of Nazareth,
where no man can sit to-day without an uneasy, though it may be a
frivolous, feeling about his destiny, Jesus sat often untroubled by a
doubt. Free from selfishness -- that source of our troubles which makes us
seek with eagerness a reward for virtue beyond the tomb -- he thought only
of his work, of his race, and of humanity. Those mountains, that sea, that
azure sky, those high plains in the horizon, were for him not the
melancholy vision of a soul which interrogates Nature upon her fate, but
the certain symbol, the transparent shadow, of an invisible world and of a
new heaven.
He never attached much importance to the political
events of his time, and he probably knew little about them. The court of
the Herods farmed a world so different to his that he doubtless knew it
only by name. Herod the Great died about the year in which Jesus was born,
leaving imperishable remembrances -- monuments which must compel the most
malevolent posterity to associate his name with that of Solomon;
nevertheless, his work was incomplete, and could not be continued.
Profanely ambitious, and lost in a maze of religious controversies, this
astute Idumean had the advantage which coolness and judgment, stripped of
morality, give over passionate fanatics. But his idea of a secular kingdom
of Israel, even if it had not been an anachronism in the state of the
world in which it was conceived, would inevitably have miscarried, like
the similar project which Solomon formed, owing to the difficulties
proceeding from the character of the nation. His three sons were only
lieutenants of the Romans, analogous to the rajahs of India under the
English dominion. Antipater, or Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and of Peraea,
of whom Jesus was a subject all his life, was an idle and useless prince,
a favorite and flatterer of Tiberius, and too often misled by the bad
influence of his second wife, Herodias. Philip, tetrarch of Gaulonitis and
Batanea, into whose dominions Jesus made frequent journeys, was a much
better sovereign, As to Archelaus, ethnarch of Jerusalem, Jesus could not
know him, for he was about ten years old when this man, who was weak and
without character, though sometimes violent, was deposed by Augustus. The
last trace of self-government was thus lost to Jerusalem. United to
Samaria and Tdumea, Judea formed a kind of dependency of the province of
Syria, in which the senator Publius Sulpicius Quirinus, well known as
consul, was the imperial legate. A series of Roman procurators,
subordinate in important matters to the imperial legate of Syria --
Coponius, Marcus Ambivius, Annius Rufus, Valerius Gratus, and, lastly (in
the twenty-sixth year of our era), Pontius Pilate -- followed each other,
and were constantly occupied in extinguishing the volcano which was
seething beneath their feet.
Continual seditions, excited by the zealots of Mosaism,
did not cease, in fact, to agitate Jerusalem during all this time. The
death of the seditious was certain; but death, when the integrity of the
Law was in question, was sought with avidity. To overturn the Roman eagle,
to destroy the works of art raised by the Herods, in which the Mosaic
regulations were not always respected -- to rise up against the votive
escutcheons put up by the procurators, the inscriptions of which appeared
tainted with idolatry -- were perpetual temptations to fanatics, who had
reached that degree of exaltation which removes all care for life. Judas,
son of Sariphea, Matthias, son of Margaloth, two very celebrated doctors
of the law, formed against the established order a boldly aggressive
party, which continued after their execution. The Samaritans were agitated
by movements of a similar nature. The Law had never counted a greater
number of impassioned disciples than at this time, when he already lived
who, by the full authority of his genius and of his great soul, was about
to abrogate it. The "Zelotes" (Kenaim), or "Sicarii," pious assassins, who
imposed on themselves the task of killing whoever in their estimation
broke the Law, began to appear. Representatives of a totally different
spirit, the Thaumaturges, considered as in some sort divine, obtained
credence in consequence of the imperious want which the age experienced
for the supernatural and the divine.
A movement which had much more influence upon Jesus was
that of Judas the Gaulonite, or Galilean. Of all the exactions to which
the country newly conquered by Rome was subjected, the census was the most
unpopular. This measure, which always astonishes people unaccustomed to
the requirements of great central administrations, was particularly odious
to the Jews. We see that already, under David, a numbering of the people
provoked violent recriminations and the menaces of the prophets. The
census, in fact, was the basis of taxation; now taxation, to a pure
theocracy, was almost an impiety. God being the sole Master whom man ought
to recognize, to pay tithe to a secular sovereign was, in a manner, to put
him in the place of God. Completely ignorant of the idea of the Etate, the
Jewish theocracy only acted up to its logical induction -- the negation of
civil society and of all government. The money of the public treasury was
accounted stolen money. The census ordered by Quirinus (in the year 6 of
the Christian era) powerfully reawakened these ideas, and caused a great
fermentation. An insurrection broke out in the northern provinces. One
Judas, of the town of Gamala, upon the eastern shore of the Lake of
Tiberias, and a Pharisee named Sadoc, by denying the lawfulness of the
tax, created a numerous party, which soon broke out in open revolt. The
fundamental maxims of this party were -- that they ought to call no man
"master," this title belonging to God alone; and that liberty was better
than life. Judas had, doubtless, many other principles, which Josephus,
always careful not to compromise his co-religionists, designedly
suppresses; for it is impossible to understand how, for so simple an idea,
the Jewish historian should give him a place among the philosophers of his
nation, and should regard him as the founder of a fourth school, equal to
those of the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes, Judas was
evidently the chief of a Galilean sect, deeply imbued with the Messianic
idea, and which became a political movement. The procurator, Coponius,
crushed the sedition of the Gaulonite; but the school remained and
preserved its chiefs, Under the leadership of Menahem, son of the founder,
and of a certain Eleazar, his relative, we find them again very active in
the last contests of the Jews against the Romans. Perhaps Jesus saw this
Judas, whose idea of the Jewish revolution was so different from his own;
at all events, he knew his school, and it was probably to avoid his error
that he pronounced the axiom upon the penny of Caesar. Jesus, more wise,
and far removed from all sedition, profited by the fault of his
predecessor, and dreamed of another kingdom and another deliverance.
Galilee was thus an immense furnace wherein the most
diverse elements were seething. An extraordinary contempt of life, or,
more properly speaking, a kind of longing for death, was the consequence
of these agitations. Experience counts for nothing in these great
fanatical movements. Algeria, at the commencement of the French
occupation, saw arise, each spring, inspired men, who declared themselves
invulnerable, and sent by God to drive away the infidels; the following
year their death was forgotten, and their successors found no less
credence. The Roman power, very stern on the one hand, yet little disposed
to meddle, permitted a good deal of liberty. Those great brutal
despotisms, terrible in repression, were not so suspicious as powers which
have a faith to defend. They allowed everything up to the point when they
thought it necessary to be severe. It is not recorded that Jesus was even
once interfered with by the civil power in his wandering career. Such
freedom, and, above all, the happiness which Galilee enjoyed in being much
less confined in the bonds of Pharisaic pedantry, gave to this district a
real superiority over Jerusalem. The revolution, or, in other words, the
belief in the Messiah, caused here a general fermentation. men deemed
themselves on the eve of the great renovation; the Scriptures, tortured
into divers meanings, fostered the most colossal hopes. In each line of
the simple writings of the Old Testament they saw the assurance, and in a
manner the program, of the future reign, which was to bring peace to the
righteous, and to seal for ever the work of God.
From all time this division into two parties, opposed
in interest and spirit, had been for the Hebrew nation a principle which
contributed to their moral growth. Every nation called to high destinies
ought to be a little world in itself, including opposite poles. Greece
presented, at a few leagues' distance from each other, Sparta and Athens
-- to a superficial observer, the two antipodes; but in reality, rival
sisters, necessary to one another. It was the same with Judea. Less
brilliant in one sense than the development of Jerusalem, that of the
North was on the whole much more fertile; the greatest achievements of the
Jewish people have always proceeded thence. A complete absence of the love
of nature, bordering upon something dry, narrow, and ferocious, has
stamped all the works purely Hierosolymite with a degree of grandeur,
though sad, arid, and repulsive. With its solemn doctors, its insipid
canonists, its hypocritical and atrabilious devotees, Jerusalem has not
conquered humanity. The North has given to the world the simple Shunammite,
the humble Canaanite, the impassioned Magdalene, the good foster-father
Joseph, and the Virgin Mary. The North alone has made Christianity;
Jerusalem, on the contrary, is the true home of that obstinate Judaism,
which, founded by the Pharisees, and fixed by the Talmud, has traversed
the Middle Ages, and come down to us.
A beautiful external nature tended to produce a much
less austere spirit -- a spirit less sharply monotheistic, if I may use
the expression -- which imprinted a charming and idyllic character on all
the dreams of Galilee. The saddest country in the world is perhaps the
region round about Jerusalem. Galilee, on the contrary, was a very green,
shady, smiling district, the true home of the Song of Songs, and the songs
of the well-beloved. During the two months of March and April the country
forms a carpet of flowers of an incomparable variety of colors. The
animals are small and extremely gentle -- delicate and lively
turtle-doves, blue-birds so light that they rest on a blade of grass
without bending it, crested larks which venture almost under the feet of
the traveller, little river tortoises with mild and lively eyes, storks
with grave and modest mien, which, laying aside all timidity, allow man to
come quite near them, and seem almost to invite his approach. In no
country in the world do the mountains spread themselves out with more
harmony or inspire higher thoughts. Jesus seems to have had a peculiar
love for them. The most important acts of his divine career took place
upon the mountains. It was there that he was the most inspired; it was
there that he held secret communion with the ancient prophets; and it was
there that his disciples witnessed his transfiguration.
This beautiful country has now become sad and gloomy
through the ever-impoverishing influence of Islamism. But still everything
which man cannot destroy breathes an air of freedom, mildness, and
tenderness, and at the time of Jesus it overflowed with happiness and
prosperity. The Galileans were considered energetic, brave and laborious.
If we except Tiberias, built by Antipas in honor of Tiberius (about the
year 15), in the Roman style, Galilee had no large towns. The country was,
nevertheless, well peopled, covered with small towns and large villages,
and cultivated in all parts with skill. From the ruins which remain of its
ancient splendor we can trace an agricultural people, no way gifted in
art, caring little for luxury, indifferent to the beauties of form, and
exclusively idealistic. The country abounded in fresh streams and in
fruits; the large farms were shaded with vines and fig-trees; the gardens
were filled with trees bearing apples, walnuts, and pomegranates. The wine
was excellent, if we may judge by that which the Jews still obtain at
Safed, and they drank much of it. This contented and easily satisfied life
was not like the gross materialism of our peasantry, the coarse pleasures
of agricultural Normandy, or the heavy mirth of the Flemish. It
spiritualized itself in ethereal dreams -- in a kind of poetic mysticism,
blending heaven and earth. Leave the austere Baptist in his desert of
Judea to preach penitence, to inveigh without ceasing, and to live on
locusts in the company of jackals. Why should the companions of the
bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? Joy will be a part of
the kingdom of God. Is she not the daughter of the humble in heart, of the
men of goodwill?
The whole history of infant Christianity has become in
this manner a delightful pastoral. A Messiah at the marriage festival --
the courtesan and the good Zacclicus called to his feasts -- the founders
of the kingdom of heaven like a bridal procession -- that is what Galilee
has boldly offered, and what the world has accepted. Greece has drawn
pictures of human life by sculpture and by charming poetry, but always
without backgrounds or distant receding perspectives. In Galilee were
wanting the marble, the practiced workmen, the exquisite and refined
language. But Galilee has created the most sublime ideal for the popular
imagination; for behind its idyl moves the fate of humanity, and the light
which illumines its picture is the sun of the kingdom of God.
Jesus lived and grew amid these enchanting scenes. From
his infancy he went almost annually to the feast at Jerusalem. The
pilgrimage was a sweet solemnity for the provincial Jews. Entire series of
psalms were consecrated to celebrate the happiness of thus journeying in
family companionship during several days in the spring across the hills
and valleys, each one having in prospect the splendours of Jerusalem, the
solemnities of the sacred courts, and the joy of brethren dwelling
together in unity. The route which Jesus ordinarily took in these journeys
was that which is followed to this day through Ginaea and Shechem. From
Shechem to Jerusalem the journey is very toilsome. But the neighborhood of
the old sanctuaries of Shiloh and Bethel, near which the travellers pass,
keep their interest alive. Ain-el-Haramie, the last halting-place, is a
charming and melancholy spot, and few impressions equal that experienced
on encamping there for the night. The valley is narrow and somber, and a
dark stream issues from the rocks, full of tombs, which form its banks. It
is, I think, the "valley of tears," or of dropping waters, which is
described as one of the stations on the way in the delightful
eighty-fourth Psalm, and which became the emblem of life for the sad and
sweet mysticism of the Middle Ages. Early the next day they would be at
Jerusalem; such an expectation even now sustains the caravan, rendering
the night short and slumber light.
These journeys, in which the assembled nation exchanged
its ideas, and which were almost always centers of great agitation, placed
Jesus in contact with the mind of his countrymen, and no doubt inspired
him while still young with a lively antipathy for the defects of the
official representatives of Judaism. It is supposed that very early the
desert had great influence on his development, and that he made long stays
there. But the God he found in the desert was not his God. It was rather
the God of Job, severe and terrible, accountable to no one. Sometimes
Satan came to tempt him. He returned, then, into his beloved Galilee, and
found again his heavenly Father in the midst of the green hills and the
clear fountains -- and among the crowds of women and children, who, with
joyous soul and the song of angels in their hearts, awaited the salvation
of Israel.
Chapter 05
The First Sayings Of Jesus - The Ideas Of A Divine Father And Of A
Purer Religion - First Disciples
Joseph died before his son had taken any public part.
Mary remained, in a manner, the head of the family, and this explains why
her son, when it was wished to distinguish him from others of the same
name, was most frequently called the "son of Mary." It seems that having,
by the death of her husband, been left friendless at Nazareth, she
withdrew to Cana, from which she may have come originally. Cana was a
little town at from two to two and a half hours' journey from Nazareth, at
the foot of the mountains which bound the plain of Asochis on the north.
The prospect, less grand than at Nazareth, extends over all the plain, and
is bounded in the most picturesque manner by the mountains of Nazareth and
the hills of Sepphoris. Jesus appears to have resided some time in this
place. Here he probably passed a part of his youth, and here his greatness
first revealed itself.
He followed the trade of his father, which was that of
a carpenter. This was not in any degree humiliating or grievous. The
Jewish customs required that a man devoted to intellectual work should
learn a trade. The most celebrated doctors did so; thus St. Paul, whose
education had been so carefully tended, was a tent- maker. Jesus never
married, All his power of love centered upon that which he regarded as his
celestial vocation. The extremely delicate feeling towards women which we
remark in him was not separated from the exclusive devotion which he had
for his mission. Like Francis d'Assisi and Francis de Sales, he treated as
sisters the women who were loved of the same work as himself; he had his
St. Clare, his Frances de Chantal. It is, however, probable that these
loved him more than the work; he was, no doubt, more beloved than loving.
Thus, as often happens in very elevated natures, tenderness of the heart
was transformed in him into an infinite sweetness, a vague poetry, and a
universal charm. His relations, free and intimate but of an entirely moral
kind, with women of doubtful character, are also explained by the passion
which attached him to the glory of his Father, and which made him
jealously anxious for all beautiful creatures who could contribute to it.
What was the progress of the ideas of Jesus during this
obscure period of his life? Through what meditations did he enter upon the
prophetic career? We have no information on these points, his history
having come to us in scattered narratives, without exact chronology. But
the development of character is everywhere the same; and there is no doubt
that the growth of so powerful an individuality as that of Jesus obeyed
very rigorous laws. A high conception of the Divinity -- which he did not
owe to Judaism, and which seems to have been in all its parts the creation
of his great mind -- was in a manner the source of all his power. It is
essential here that we put aside the ideas familiar to us, and the
discussions in which little minds exhaust themselves. In order properly to
understand the precise character of the piety of Jesus, we must forget all
that is placed between the Gospel and ourselves. Deism and Pantheism have
become the two poles of theology. The paltry discussions of scholasticism,
the dryness of spirit of Descartes, the deep-rooted irreligion of the
eighteenth century by lessening God, and by limiting him, in a manner, by
the exclusion of everything which is not his very, self, have stifled in
the breast of modern rationalism all fertile ideas of the Divinity. If
God, in fact, is a personal being outside of us, he who believes himself
to have peculiar relations with God is a "visionary," and, as the physical
and physiological sciences have shown us that all supernatural visions are
illusions, the logical Deist finds it impossible to understand the great
beliefs of the past. Pantheism, on the other hand, in suppressing the
Divine personality, is as far as it can be from the living God of the
ancient religions. Were the men who have best comprehended God --
Cakya-Mouni, Plato, St. Paul, St. Francis d'Assisi, and St. Augustine (at
some periods of his fluctuating life) -- Deists or Pantheists? Such a
question has no meaning. The physical and metaphysical proofs of the
existence of God were quite indifferent to them. They felt the Divine
within themselves. We must place Jesus in the first rank of this great
family of the true sons of God. Jesus had no visions; God did not speak to
him as to one outside of himself; God was in him; he felt himself with
God, and he drew from his heart all he said of his Father. He lived in the
bosom of God by constant communication with him; he saw him not, but he
understood him, without need of the thunder and the burning bush of Moses,
of the revealing tempest of Job, of the oracle of the old Greek sages, of
the familiar genius of Socrates, or of the angel Gabriel of Mohammed. The
imagination and the hallucination of a St. Theresa, for example, are
useless here. The intoxication of the Soufi proclaiming himself identical
with God is also quite another thing. Jesus never once gave utterance to
the sacrilegious idea that he was God. He believed himself to be in direct
communion with God; he believed himself to be the Son of God. The highest
consciousness of God which has existed in the bosom of humanity was that
of Jesus.
We understand, on the other hand, how Jesus, starting
with such a disposition of spirit, could never be a speculative
philosopher like Cakya-Mouni. Nothing is further from scholastic theology
than the Gospel. The speculations of the Greek fathers on the Divine
essence proceed from an entirely different spirit. God, conceived simply
as Father, was all the theology of Jesus. And this was not with him a
theoretical principle, a doctrine more or less proved, which he sought to
inculcate in others. He did not argue with his disciples; he demanded from
them no effort of attention, He did not preach his opinions; he preached
himself. Very great and very disinterested minds often present, associated
with much elevation, that character of perpetual attention to themselves,
and extreme personal susceptibility, which, in general, is peculiar to
women. Their conviction that God is in them, and occupies himself
perpetually with them, is so strong that they have no fear of obtruding
themselves upon others: our reserve, and our respect for the opinion of
others, which is a part of our weakness, could not belong to them. This
exaltation of self is not egotism; for such men, possessed by their idea,
give their lives freely, in order to seal their work: it is the
identification of self with the object it has embraced, carried to its
utmost limit. It is regarded as vain glory by those who see in the new
teaching only the personal phantasy of the founder; but it is the finger
of God to those who see the result. The fool stands side by side here with
the inspired man; only the fool never succeeds. It has not yet been given
to insanity to influence seriously the progress of humanity.
Doubtless, Jesus did not attain at first this high
affirmation of himself. But it is probable that, from the first, he
regarded his relationship with God as that of a son with his father. This
was his great act of originality; in this he had nothing in common with
his race. Neither the Jew nor the Mussulman has understood this delightful
theology of love. The God of Jesus is not that tyrannical master who kills
us, damns us, or saves us, according to his pleasure. The God of Jesus is
our Father. We hear him in listening to the gentle inspiration which cries
within us, "Abba, Father." The God of Jesus is not the partial despot who
has chosen Israel for his people and specially protects them. He is the
God of humanity. Jesus was not a patriot, like the Maccabees; or a
theocrat, like Judas the Gaulonite. Boldly raising himself above the
prejudices of his nation, he established the universal fatherhood of God.
The Gaulonite maintained that we should die rather than give to another
than God the name of "Master"; Jesus left this name to anyone who liked to
take it, and reserved for God a dearer name. While he accorded to the
powerful of the earth, who were to him representatives of force, a respect
full of irony, he proclaimed the supreme consolation -- the recourse to
the Father which each one has in heaven -- and the true kingdom of God,
which each one bears in his heart.
This name of "kingdom of God," or "kingdom of heaven,"
was the favorite term of Jesus to express the revolution which he brought
into the world. Like almost all the Messianic terms, it came from the book
of Daniel. According to the author of this extraordinary book, the four
profane empires, destined to fall, were to be succeeded by a fifth empire,
that of the saints, which should last for ever. This reign of God upon
earth naturally led to the most diverse interpretations. To Jewish
theology the "kingdom of God" is most frequently only Judaism itself --
the true religion, the monotheistic worship, piety. In the later periods
of his life Jesus believed that this reign would be realized in a material
form by a sudden renovation of the world. But doubtless this was not his
first idea. The admirable moral which he draws from the idea of God as
Father is not that of enthusiasts who believe the world is near its end,
and who prepare themselves by asceticism for a chimerical catastrophe; it
is that of men who have lived and still would live. "The kingdom of God is
within you," said he to those who sought with subtilty for external signs.
The realistic conception of the Divine advent was but a cloud, a transient
error, which his death has made us forget. The Jesus who founded the true
kingdom of God, the kingdom of the meek and the humble, was the Jesus of
early life -- of those chaste and pure days when the voice of his Father
re- echoed within him in clearer tones. It was then for some months,
perhaps a year, that God truly dwelt upon the earth. The voice of the
young carpenter suddenly acquired an extraordinary sweetness. An infinite
charm was exhaled from his person, and those who had seen him up to that
time no longer recognized him. He had not yet any disciples, and the group
which gathered around him was neither a sect nor a school; but a common
spirit, a sweet and penetrating influence was felt. His amiable character,
accompanied doubtless by one of those lovely faces which sometimes appear
in the Jewish race, threw around him a fascination from which no one in
the midst of these kindly and simple populations could escape.
Paradise would, in fact, have been brought to earth if
the ideas of the young Master had not far transcended the level of
ordinary goodness beyond which it has not been found possible to raise the
human race. The brotherhood of men, as sons of God, and the moral
consequences which result therefrom, were deduced with exquisite feeling.
Like all the rabbis of the time, Jesus was little inclined towards
consecutive reasonings, and clothed his doctrine in concise aphorisms, and
in an expressive form, at times enigmatical and strange. Some of these
maxims come from the books of the Old Testament. Others were the thoughts
of more modern sages, especially those of Antigonus of Soco, Jesus, son of
Sirach, and Hillel, which had reached him, not from learned study, but as
oft-repeated proverbs. The synagogue was rich in very happily expressed
sentences, which formed a kind of current proverbial literature. Jesus
adopted almost all this oral teaching, but imbued it with a superior
spirit. Exceeding the duties laid down by the Law and the elders, he
demanded perfection. All the virtues of humility -- forgiveness, charity,
abnegation, and self-denial -- virtues which with good reason have been
called Christian, if we mean by that that they have been truly preached by
Christ -- were in this first teaching, though undeveloped. As to justice,
he was content with repeating the well-known axiom -- "Whatsoever ye would
that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." But this old though
somewhat selfish wisdom did not satisfy him. He went to excess and said --
"Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other
also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let
him have thy cloak also." "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and
cast it from thee." "Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you,
pray for them that persecute you." "Judge not, that ye be not judged."
"Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven." "Be ye therefore merciful as your
Father also is merciful." "It is more blessed to give than to receive."
"Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble
himself shall be exalted."
Upon alms, pity, good works, kindness, peacefulness,
and complete disinterestedness of heart, he had little to add to the
doctrine of the synagogue. But he placed upon them an emphasis full of
unction, which made the old maxims appear new. Morality is not composed of
more or less well-expressed principles. The poetry which makes the precept
loved is more than the precept itself, taken as an abstract truth. Now, it
cannot be denied that these maxims borrowed by Jesus from his predecessors
produce quite a different effect in the Gospel to that in the ancient Law,
in the Pirke Aboth, or in the Talmud. It is neither the ancient Law nor
the Talmud which has conquered and changed the world. Little original in
itself -- if we mean by that that one might recompose it almost entirely
by the aid of older maxims -- the morality of the Gospels remains,
nevertheless, the highest creation of human conscience -- the most
beautiful code of perfect life that any moralist has traced.
Jesus did not speak against the Mosaic law, but it is
clear that he saw its insufficiency, and allowed it to be seen that he did
so. He repeated unceasingly that more must be done than the ancient sages
had commanded. He forbade the least harsh word; he prohibited divorce and
all swearing; he censured revenge; he condemned usury; he considered
voluptuous desire as criminal as adultery; he insisted upon a universal
forgiveness of injuries. The motive on which he rested these maxims of
exalted charity was always the same. ... "That ye may be the children of
your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil
and the good. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do
not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what
do than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect,
even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."
A pure worship, a religion without priests and external
observances, resting entirely on the feelings of the heart, on the
imitation of God, on the direct relation of the conscience with the
heavenly Father, was the result of these principles. Jesus never shrank
from this bold conclusion, which made him a thorough revolutionist in the
very center of Judaism. Why should there be mediators between man and his
Father? As God only sees the heart, of what good are these purifications,
these observances relating only to the body? Even tradition, a thing so
sacred to the Jews, is nothing compared to sincerity. The hypocrisy of the
Pharisees, who, in praying, turned their heads to see if they were
observed, who gave their alms with ostentation, and put marks upon their
garments, that they might be recognized as pious persons -- all these
grimaces of false devotion disgusted him. "They have their recompense,
said he; "but thou, when thou doest thine alms, let not thy left hand know
what thy right hand doeth, that thy alms may be in secret, and thy Father,
which seeth in secret, himself shall reward thee openly." "And when thou
prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray
standing in the synagogues, and in the corners of the streets, that they
may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But
thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet; and when thou hast shut
thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret and thy Father, which
seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain
repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard
for their much speaking. Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of
before ye ask him."
He did not affect any external signs of asceticism,
contenting himself with praying, or rather meditating, upon the mountains.
and in the solitary places, where man has always sought God. This high
idea of the relations of man with God, of which so few minds, even after
him, have been capable, is summed up in a prayer which he taught to his
disciples: --
"Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us
this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those
who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation; deliver us from the
evil one." He insisted particularly upon the idea that the heavenly Father
knows better than we what we need, and that we almost sin against him in
asking him for this or that particular thing.
Jesus in this only carried out the consequences of the
great principles which Judaism had established, but which the official
classes of the nation tended more and more to despise. The Greek and Roman
prayers were almost always mere egotistical verbiage. Never had Pagan
priest said to the faithful, "If thou bring thy offering to the altar, and
there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee; leave there
thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled with thy
brother, and then come and offer thy gift." Alone in antiquity, the Jewish
prophets, especially Isaiah, had, in their antipathy to the priesthood,
caught a glimpse of the true nature of the worship man owes to God. "To
what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me: I am full of the
burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in
the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he- goats. ... Incense is an
abomination unto me; for your hands are full of blood: cease to do evil,
learn to do well, seek judgment, and then come." In later times, certain
doctors, Simeon the just, Jesus, son of Sirach, Hillel, almost reached
this point, and declared that the sum of the Law was righteousness. Philo,
in the Judaeo-Egyptian world, attained at the same time as Jesus ideas of
a high moral sanctity, the consequences of which was the disregard of the
observances of the Law. Shemaia and Abtalion also more than once proved
themselves to be very liberal casuists. Rabbi Johanan ere long placed
works of mercy above even the study of the Law! Jesus alone, however,
proclaimed these principles in an effective manner, Never has any one been
less a priest than Jesus, never a greater enemy of forms, which stifle
religion under the pretext of protecting it. By this we are all his
disciples and his successors; by this he has laid the eternal
foundation-stone of true religion; and if religion is essential to
humanity, he has by this deserved the Divine rank the world has accorded
to him. An absolutely new idea, the idea of a worship founded on purity of
heart, and on human brotherhood, through him entered into the world -- an
idea so elevated that the Christian Church ought to make it its
distinguishing feature, but an idea which, in our days, only few minds are
capable of embodying.
An exquisite sympathy with nature furnished him each
moment with expressive images. Sometimes a remarkable ingenuity, which we
call wit, adorned his aphorisms; at other times their liveliness consisted
in the happy use of popular proverbs. "How wilt thou say to thy brother,
Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine
own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and
then thou shalt see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's
eye."
These lessons, long hidden in the heart of the young
Master, soon gathered around him a few disciples. The spirit of the time
favored small churches; it was the period of the Essenes or Therapeutae.
Rabbis, each having his distinctive teaching, Shomaia, Abtalion, Hillel,
Shammai, Judas the Gaulonite, Gamaliel, and many others whose maxims form
the Talmud, appeared on all sides. They wrote very little; the Jewish
doctors of this time did not write books; everything was done by
conversations, and in Public lessons, to which it was sought to give a
form easily remembered. The proclamation by the young Carpenter of
Nazareth of these maxims, for the most part already generally known, but
which, thanks to him, were to regenerate the world, was therefore no
striking event. It was only one Rabbi more (it is true, the most charming
of all), and around him some young men, eager to hear him, and thirsting
for knowledge. It requires time to command the attention of men. As yet
there were no Christians; though true Christianity was founded, and,
doubtless, it was never more perfect than at this first period. Jesus
added to it nothing durable afterwards. Indeed, in one sense, he
compromised it; for every movement, in order to triumph, must make
sacrifices; we never come from the contest of life unscathed.
To conceive the good, in fact, is not sufficient; it
must be made to succeed among men. To accomplish this less pure paths must
be followed. Certainly, if the Gospel was confined to some chapters of
Matthew and Luke, it would be more perfect, and would not now be open to
so many objections; but would Jesus have converted the world without
miracles? If he had died at the period of his career we have now reached,
there would not have been in his life a single page to wound us; but,
greater in the eyes of God, he, would have remained unknown to men; he
would have been lost in the crowd of great unknown spirits, himself the
greatest of all; the truth would not have been promulgated, and the world
would not have profited from the great moral superiority with which his
Father had endowed him. Jesus, son of Sirach, and Hillel had uttered
aphorisms almost as exalted as those of Jesus. Hillel, however, will never
be accounted the true founder of Christianity. In morals, as in art,
precept is nothing; practice is everything. The idea which is hidden in a
picture of Raphael is of little moment; it is the picture itself which is
prized. So, too, in morals, truth is but little prized when it is a mere
sentiment, and only attains its full value when realized in the world as
fact. Men of indifferent morality have written very good maxims. Very
virtuous men, on the other hand, have done nothing to perpetuate in the
world the tradition of virtue. The palm is his who has been mighty both in
words and in works, who has discerned the good, and at the price of his
blood has caused its triumph. Jesus, from this double point of view, is
without equal; his glory remains entire, and will ever be renewed.
Chapter 06
John The Baptist - Visit Of Jesus To John, And His Abode In The Desert
Of Judea - Adoption Of The Baptism Of John
AN extraordinary man, whose position, from the absence
of documentary evidence, remains to us in some degree enigmatical,
appeared about this time, and was unquestionably to some extent connected
with Jesus. This connection tended rather to make the young Prophet of
Nazareth deviate from his path; but it suggested many important
accessories to his religious institution, and, at all events, furnished a
very strong authority to his disciples in recommending their Master in the
eyes of a certain class of Jews.
About the year 28 of our era (the fifteenth year of the
reign of Tiberius) there spread throughout Palestine the reputation of a
certain Johanan, or John, a young ascetic full of zeal and enthusiasm.
John was of the priestly race, and born, it seems, at Juttah, near Hebron,
or at Hebron itself. Hebron, the patriarchal city per excellence, situated
at a short distance from the desert of Judea, and within a few hours'
journey of the great desert of Arabia, was at this period what it is
to-day -- one of the bulwarks of Semitic ideas, in their most austere
form. From his infancy John was Nazir -- that is to say, subjected by vow
to certain abstinences. The desert by which he was, so to speak,
surrounded early attracted him. He led there the life of a Yogi of India,
clothed with skins or stuffs of camels' hair, having for food only locusts
and wild honey. A certain number of disciples were grouped around him,
sharing his life and studying his severe doctrine. We might imagine
ourselves transported to the banks of the Ganges, if particular traits had
not revealed in this recluse the last descendant of the great prophets of
Israel.
From the time that the Jewish nation had begun to
reflect upon its destiny with a kind of despair, the imagination of the
people had reverted with much complacency to the ancient prophets. Now, of
all the personages of the past, the remembrance of whom came like the
dreams of a troubled night to awaken and agitate the people, the greatest
was Elias. This giant of the prophets, in his rough solitude of Carmel,
sharing the life of savage beasts, dwelling in the hollows of the rocks,
whence he came like a thunderbolt to make and unmake kings, had become, by
successive transformations, a sort of superhuman being, sometimes visible,
sometimes invisible, and as one who had not tasted death. It was generally
believed that Elias would return and restore Israel. The austere life
which he had led, the terrible remembrances he had left behind him -- the
impression of which is still powerful in the East -- the somber image
which, even in our own time, causes, trembling and death -- all this
mythology, full of vengeance and terror, vividly struck the mind of the
people, and stamped as with a birth-mark all the creations of the popular
mind. Whoever aspired to act powerfully upon the people must imitate
Elias; and, as solitary life had been the essential characteristic of this
prophet, they were accustomed to conceive "the man of God" as a hermit.
They imagined that all the holy personages had had their days of
penitence, of solitude, and of austerity. The retreat to the desert thus
became the condition and the prelude of high destinies.
No doubt this thought of imitation had occupied john's
mind. The anchorite life, so opposed to the spirit of the ancient Jewish
people, and with which the vows, such as those of tho Nazirs and the
Rechabites, had no relation, pervaded all parts of Judea. The Essenes or
Therapeutae were grouped near the birthplace of John, on the eastern
shores of the Dead Sea. It was imagined that the chiefs of sects ought to
be recluses, having rules and institutions of their own, like the founders
of religious orders. The teachers of the young were also at times species
of anchorites, somewhat resembling the gourous of Brahminism. In fact,
might there not in this be a remote influence of the mounis of India?
Perhaps, some of those wandering Buddhist monks who overran the world, as
the first Franciscans did in later times, preaching by their actions and
converting people who knew not their language, might have turned their
stops towards Judea, as they certainly did towards Syria and Babylon? On
this point we have no certainty, Babylon had become for some time a true
focus of Buddhism. Boudasp (Bodhisattva) was reputed a wise Chaldean, and
the founder of Sabeism, Sabeism was, as its etymology indicates, baptism
-- that is to say, the religion of many baptisms -- the origin of the sect
still existing called "Christians of St. John," or Mendaites, which the
Arabs call el- Mogtasila, "the Baptists." It is difficult to unravel these
vague analogies. The sects floating between Judaism, Christianity,
Baptism, and Saboism, which we find in the region beyond the Jordan during
the first centuries of our era, present to criticism the most singular
problem, in consequence of the confused accounts of them which have come
down to us. We may believe, at all events, that many of the external
practices of John, of the Essenes, and of the Jewish spiritual teachers of
this time, were derived from influences then but recently received from
the far East. The fundamental practice which characterized the sect of
John, and gave it its name, has always had its center in lower Chaldea,
and constitutes a religion which is perpetuated there to the present day.
This practice was baptism, or total immersion.
Ablutions were already familiar to the Jews, as they were to all religions
of the East. The Essenes had given them a peculiar extension. Baptism had
become an ordinary ceremony on the introduction of proselytes into the
bosom of the Jewish religion, a sort of initiatory rite. Never before John
the Baptist, however, had either this importance or this form been given
to immersion. John had fixed the scene of his activity in that part of the
desert of Judea which is in the neighborhood of the Dead Sea. At the
periods when he administered baptism he went to the banks of the Jordan,
either to Bethany or Bethabara, upon the eastern shore, probably opposite
to Jericho, or to a place called AEnon, or "the Fountains," near Salim,
where there was much water. Considerable crowds, especially of the tribe
of Judah, hastened to him to be baptized. In a few months he thus became
one of the most influential men in Judea, and acquired much importance in
the general estimation.
The people took him for a prophet, and many imagined
that it was Elias who had risen again. The belief in these resurrections
was widely spread: it was thought that God would raise from the tomb
certain of the ancient prophets to guide Israel towards its final destiny.
Others held John to be the Messiah himself, although he made no such
pretension. The priests and the scribes, opposed to this revival of
prophetism, and the constant enemies of enthusiasts, despised him. But the
popularity of the Baptist awed them, and they dared not speak against him.
It was a victory which the ideas of the multitude gained over the priestly
aristocracy. When the chief priests were compelled to declare themselves
explicitly on this point, they were considerably embarrassed.
Baptism with John was only a sign destined to make an
impression, and to prepare the minds of the people for some great
movement. No doubt he was possessed in the highest degree with the
Messianic hope, and that his principal action was in accordance with it.
"Repent," said he, "for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." He announced a
"great wrath" -- that is to say, terrible calamities which should come to
pass -- and declared that the axe was already laid at the root of the
tree, and that the tree would soon be cast into the fire. He represented
the Messiah with a fan in his hand, collecting the good wheat and burning
the chaff. Repentance (of which baptism was the type), the giving of alms,
the reformation of habits, were, in John's view, the great means of
preparation for the coming events, though we do not know exactly in what
light he conceived them. It is, however, certain that he preached with
much power against the same adversaries as Jesus, against rich priests,
the Pharisees, the doctors -- in one word, against official Judaism; and
that, like Jesus, he was specially welcomed by the despised classes. He
made no account of the title "son of Abraham," and said that God could
raise up sons unto Abraham from the tones of the road. It does not seem
that he possessed even the germ of the great idea which led to the triumph
of Jesus -- the idea of a pure religion; but he powerfully served this
idea in substituting a private rite for the legal ceremonies which
required priests, as the Flagellants of the Middle Ages were the
precursors of the Reformation, by depriving the official clergy of the
monopoly of the sacraments and of absolution. The general tone of his
sermons was stern and severe. The expressions which he used against his
adversaries appear to have been most violent. It was a harsh and
continuous invective. It is probable that he did not remain quite a
stranger to politics. Josephus, who, through his teacher Banou, was
brought into almost direct connection with John, suggests as much by his
ambiguous words, and the catastrophic which put an end to John's life
seems to imply this. His disciples led a very austere life, fasted often,
and affected a sad and anxious demeanor. We have at times glimpses of
communism -- the rich man being ordered to share all that he had with the
poor; the poor man appeared as the one who would be specially benefitted
by the kingdom of God.
Although the center of John's action was Judea, his
fame quickly penetrated to Galilee and reached Jesus, who, by his first
discourses, had already gathered around himself a small circle of hearers.
Enjoying as yet little authority, and doubtless impelled by the desire to
see a teacher whose instruction had so much in common with his own, Jesus
quitted Galilee, and repaired with his small group of disciples to John.
The newcomers were baptized like every one else. John welcomed this group
of Galilean disciples, and did not object to their remaining distinct from
his own. The two teachers were young; they had many ideas in common; they
loved one another, and publicly vied with each other in exhibitions of
kindly feeling. At the first glance, such a fact surprises us in John the
Baptist, and we are tempted to call it in question. Humility has never
been a feature of strong Jewish minds. It might have been expected that a
character so stubborn, a sort of Lamennais always irritated, would be very
passionate, and suffer neither rivalry nor half adhesion. But this manner
of viewing things rests upon a false conception of the person of John. We
imagine him an old man; he was, on the contrary, of the same age as Jesus,
and very young according to the ideas of the time. In mental development,
he was the brother rather than the father of Jesus. The two young
enthusiasts, full of the same hopes and the same hatreds, were able to
make common cause, and mutually to support each other. Certainly an aged
teacher, seeing a man without celebrity approach him, and maintain towards
him an aspect of independence, would have rebelled; we have scarcely an
example of a leader of a school receiving with eagerness his future
successor. But youth is capable of any sacrifice, and we may admit that
John, having recognized in Jesus a spirit akin to his own, accepted him
without any personal reservation. These good relations became afterwards
the starting- point of a whole system developed by the evangelists, which
consisted in giving the Divine mission of Jesus the primary basis of the
attestation of John. Such was the degree of authority acquired by the
Baptist that it was not thought possible to find in the world a better
guarantee. But far from John abdicating in favor of Jesus, Jesus, during
all the time that he passed with him, recognized him as his superior, and
only developed his own genius with timidity.
It seems, in fact, that, notwithstanding his profound
originality, Jesus, during some weeks at least, was the imitator of John.
His way, as yet, was not clear before him. At all times, moreover, Jesus
yielded much to opinion, and adopted many things which were not in exact
accordance with his own ideas, or for which he cared little, merely
because they were popular; but these accessories never injured his
principal idea, and were always subordinate to it. Baptism had been
brought by John into very great favor; Jesus thought himself obliged to do
like John; therefore he baptized and his disciples baptized also. No doubt
he accompanied baptism with preaching, similar to that of John. The Jordan
was thus covered on all sides with Baptists, whose discourses were more or
less successful. The pupil soon squalled the master, and his baptism was
much sought after. There was on this subject some jealousy among the
disciples: the disciples of John came to complain to him of the growing
success of the young Galilean, whose baptism would, they thought, soon
supplant his own. But the two teachers remained superior to this meanness.
The superiority of John was, besides, too indisputable for Jesus, still
little known, to think of contesting it. Jesus only wished to increase
under John's protection; and thought himself obliged, in order to gain the
multitude, to employ the external means which had given John such
astonishing success. When he recommenced to preach after John's arrest,
the first words put into his mouth are but the repetition of one of the
familiar phrases of the Baptist. Many other of John's expressions may be
found repeated verbally in the discourses of Jesus. The two schools appear
to have lived long on good terms with each other; and after the death of
John, Jesus, as his trusty friend, was one of the first to be informed of
the event.
John, in fact, was soon cut short in his prophetic
career. Like the ancient Jewish prophets, he was, in the highest degree, a
censurer of the established authorities. The extreme vivacity with which
he expressed himself at their expense could not fail to bring him into
trouble. In Judea, John does not appear to have been disturbed by Pilate;
but in Perea, beyond the Jordan, he came into the territory of Antipas.
This tyrant was uneasy at the political leaven which was so little
concealed by John in his preaching. The great assemblages of men gathered
around the Baptist, by religious and patriotic enthusiasm, gave rise to
suspicion. An entirely personal grievance was also added to these motives
of State, and rendered the death of the austere censor inevitable.
One of the most strongly marked characters of this
tragical family of the Herods was Herodias, grand-daughter of Herod the
Great. Violent, ambitious, and passionate, she detested Judaism, and
despised its laws. She had been married, probably against her will, to her
uncle Herod, son of Mariamne, whom Herod the Great had disinherited, and
who never played any public part. The inferior position of her husband in
respect to the other persons of the family gave her no peace; she
determined to be sovereign at whatever cost. Antipas was the instrument of
whom she made use. This feeble man, having become desperately enamored of
her, promised to marry her, and to repudiate his first wife, daughter of
Hareth, king of Petra, and emir of the neighboring tribes of Perea The
Arabian princess, receiving a hint of this design, resolved to fly.
Concealing her intention, she pretended that she wished to make a journey
to Machero, in her father's territory, and caused herself to be conducted
thither by the officers of Antipas.
Makaur, or Machero, was a colossal fortress built by
Alexander Jannaeus, and rebuilt by Herod, in one of the most abrupt wadys
to the east of the Dead Sea. It was a wild and desolate country, filled
with strange legends, and believed to be haunted by demons. The fortress
was just on the boundary of the lands of Hareth and of Antipas. At that
time it was in the possession of Hareth. The latter, having been warned,
had prepared everything for the flight of his daughter, who was conducted
from tribe to tribe to Petra.
The almost incestuous union of Antipas and Herodias
then took place. The Jewish laws on marriage were a constant rock of
offence between the irreligious family of the Herods and the strict Jews.
The members of this numerous and rather isolated dynasty being obliged to
marry among themselves, frequent violations of the limits prescribed by
the Law necessarily took place. John, in energetically blaming Antipas,
was the echo of the general feeling. This was more than sufficient to
decide the latter to follow up his suspicions. He caused the Baptist to be
arrested, and ordered him to be shut up in the fortress of Machero, which
he had probably seized after the departure of the daughter of Hareth.
More timid than cruel, Antipas did not desire to put
him to death. According to certain rumors, he feared a popular sedition.
According to another version, he had taken pleasure in listening to the
prisoner, and these conversations had thrown him into great perplexities.
It is certain that the detention was prolonged, and that John, in his
prison, preserved an extended influence. He corresponded with his
disciples, and we find him again in connection with Jesus. His faith in
the near approach of the Messiah only became firmer; he followed with
attention the movements outside, and sought to discover in them the signs
favorable to the accomplishment of the hopes which he cherished.
Chapter 07
Development Of The Ideas Of Jesus Respecting The Kingdom Of God
Up to the arrest of John, which took place about the
summer of the year 29, Jesus did not quit the neighborhood of the Dead Sea
and of the Jordan. An abode in the desert of Judea was generally
considered as the preparation for great things, as a sort of "retreat"
before public acts. Jesus followed in this respect the example of others,
and passed forty days with no other companions than savage beasts,
maintaining a rigorous fast. The disciples speculated much concerning this
sojourn. The desert was popularly regarded as the residence of demons.
There exist in the world few regions more desolate, more abandoned by God,
more shut out from life, than the rocky declivity which forms the western
shore of the Dead Sea. It was believed that during the time which Jesus
passed in this frightful country he had gone through terrible trials; that
Satan had assailed him with his illusions or tempted him with seductive
promises; that afterwards, in order to recompense him for his victory, the
angels had come to minister to him.
It was probably in coming from the desert that Jesus
learnt of the arrest of John the Baptist. He had no longer any reason to
prolong his stay in a country which was partly strange to him. Perhaps he
feared also being involved in the severities exercised towards John, and
did not wish to expose himself at a time in which, seeing the little
celebrity he had, his death could in no way serve the progress of his
ideas. He regained Galilee, his true home, ripened by an important
experience, and having, through contact with a great man very different
from himself, acquired a consciousness of his own originality.
On the whole, the influence of John had been more
hurtful than useful to Jesus. It checked his development; for everything
leads us to believe that he had, when he descended towards the Jordan,
ideas superior to those of John, and that it was by a sort of concession
that he inclined for a time towards baptism. Perhaps if the Baptist, whose
authority. it would have been difficult for him to escape, had remained
free, Jesus would not have been able to throw off the yoke of external
rites and ceremonies, and would then, no doubt, have remained an unknown
Jewish sectary; for the world would not have abandoned its old ceremonies
merely for others of a different kind. It has been by the power of a
religion, free from all external forms, that Christianity has attracted
elevated minds. The Baptist once imprisoned, his school was soon
diminished, and Jesus found himself left to his own impulses. The only
things he owed to John were lessons in preaching and in popular action.
From this moment, in fact, he preached with greater power, and spoke to
the multitude with authority.
It seems also that his sojourn with John had, not so
much by the influence of the Baptist as by the natural progress of his own
thought, considerably ripened his ideas on "the kingdom of heaven." His
watchword henceforth is the "good tidings," the announcement that the
kingdom of God is at hand. Jesus is no longer simply a delightful
moralist, aspiring to express sublime lessons in short and lively
aphorisms; he is the transcendent revolutionary, who essays to renovate
the world from its very basis, and to establish upon earth the ideal which
he had conceived. "To await the kingdom of God" is henceforth synonymous
with being a disciple of Jesus. This phrase, "kingdom of God," or "kingdom
of heaven," was, as we have said, already long familiar to the Jews. But
Jesus gave it a moral sense, a social application, which even the author
of the book of Daniel, in his apocalyptic enthusiasm, had scarcely dared
to imagine.
He declared that in the present world evil is the
reigning power. Satan is "the prince of this world," and everything obeys
him. The kings kill the prophets. The priests and the doctors do not that
which they command others to do; the righteous are persecuted, and the
only portion of the good is weeping. The "world" is in this manner the
enemy of God and his saints; but God will awaken and avenge his saints.
The day is at hand, for the abomination is at its height. The reign of
goodness will have its turn.
The advent of this reign of goodness will be a great
and sudden revolution. The world will seem to be turned upside down: the
actual state being bad, in order to represent the future, it suffices to
conceive nearly the reverse of that which exists. The first shall be last.
A new order shall govern humanity. Now the good and the bad are mixed,
like the tares and the good grain in a field. The master lets them grow
together; but the hour of violent separation will arrive. The kingdom of
God will be as the casting of a great net, which gathers both good and bad
fish; the good are preserved, and the rest are thrown away. The germ of
this great revolution will not be recognizable in its beginning. It will
be like a grain of mustard-seed which is the smallest of seeds, but which,
thrown into the earth, becomes a tree under the foliage of which the birds
repose; or it will be like the leaven which, deposited in the meal, makes
the whole to ferment. A series of parables, often obscure, was designed to
express the suddenness of this advent, its apparent injustice, and its
inevitable and final character.
Who was to establish this kingdom of God? Let us
remember that the first thought of Jesus, a thought so deeply rooted in
him that it had probably no beginning, and formed part of his very being,
was that he was the Son of God, the friend of his Father, the doer of his
will. The answer of Jesus to such a question could not therefore be
doubtful. The persuasion that he was to establish the kingdom of God took
absolute possession of his mind. He regarded himself as the universal
reformer. The heavens, the earth, the whole of nature, madness, disease,
and death, were but his instruments. In his paroxysm of heroic will he
believed himself all-powerful. If the earth would not submit to this
supreme transformation, it would be broken up, purified by fire, and by
the breath of God. A new heaven would be created, and the entire world
would be peopled with the angels of God.
A radical revolution, embracing even nature itself, was
the fundamental idea of Jesus. Henceforward, without doubt, he renounced
politics; the example of Judas, the Gaulonite, had shown him the inutility
of popular seditions. He never thought of revolting against the Romans and
tetrarchs. His was not the unbridled and anarchical principle of the
Gaulonite. His submission to the established powers, though really
derisive, was in appearance complete. He paid tribute to Caesar, in order
to avoid disturbance. Liberty and right were not of this world, why should
he trouble his life with vain anxieties? Despising the earth, and
convinced that the present world was not worth caring for, he took refuge
in his ideal kingdom; he established the great doctrine of transcendent
disdain, the true doctrine of liberty of souls, which alone can give
peace. But he had not yet said, "My kingdom is not of this world." Much
darkness mixed itself with even his most correct views. Sometimes strange
temptations crossed his mind. In the desert of Judea Satan had offered him
the kingdoms of the earth. Not knowing the power of the Roman empire, he
might, with the enthusiasm there was in the heart of Judea, and which
ended soon after in so terrible an outbreak, hope to establish a kingdom
by the number and the daring of his partisans. Many times, perhaps, the
supreme question presented itself -- will the kingdom of God be realized
by force or by gentleness, by revolt or by patience? One day, it is said,
the simple men of Galilee wished to carry him away and make him king, but
Jesus fled into the mountain and remained there some time alone. His noble
nature preserved him from the errors which would have made him an
agitator, or a chief of rebels, a Theudas or a Barkokeba.
The revolution he wished to effect was always a moral
revolution; but he had not yet begun to trust to the angels and the last
trumpet for its execution. It was upon men and by the aid of men
themselves that he wished to act. A visionary who had no other idea than
the proximity of the last judgment would not have had this care for the
amelioration of man, and would not have given utterance to the finest
moral teaching that humanity has received. Much vagueness no doubt tinged
his ideas, and it was rather a noble feeling than a fixed design that
urged him to the sublime work which was realized by him, though in a very
different manner to what he imagined.
It was indeed the kingdom of God, or, in other words,
the kingdom of the Spirit, which he founded; and if Jesus, from the bosom
of his Father, sees his work bear fruit in the world, he may indeed say
with truth, "This is what I have desired." That which Jesus founded, that
which will remain eternally his, allowing for the imperfections which mix
themselves with everything realized by humanity, is the doctrine of the
liberty of the soul. Greece had already had beautiful ideas on this
subject. Various Stoics had learnt how to be free even under a tyrant. But
in general the ancient world had regarded liberty as attached to certain
political forms; freedom was personified in Harmodius and Aristogiton,
Brutus and Cassius. The true Christian enjoys more real freedom; here
below he is an exile. What matters it to him who is the transitory
governor of this earth, which is not his home? Liberty for him is truth.
Jesus did not know history sufficiently to understand that such a doctrine
came most opportunely at the moment when republican liberty ended, and
when the small municipal constitutions of antiquity were absorbed in the
unity of the Roman empire. But his admirable good sense, and the truly
prophetic instinct which he had of his mission, guided him with marvelous
certainty. By the sentence, "Render unto Caesar the things which are
Caesar's, and to God the things which are God's," he created something
apart from polities, a refuge for souls in the midst of the empire of
brute force. Assuredly such a doctrine had its dangers. To establish as a
principle that we must recognize the legitimacy of a power by the
inscription on its coins, to proclaim that the perfect man pays tribute
with scorn and without question, was to destroy republicanism in the
ancient form, and to favor all tyranny. Christianity, in this sense, has
contributed much to weaken the sense of duty of the citizen, and to
deliver the world into the absolute power of existing circumstances. But
in constituting an immense free association, which during three hundred
years was able to dispense with politics, Christianity amply compensated
for the wrong it had done to civic virtues. The to the things of earth;
the mind was free, or at least the terrible rod of Roman omnipotence was
broken for ever.
The man who is especially preoccupied with the duties
of public life does not readily forgive those who attach little importance
to his party quarrels. He especially blames those who subordinate
political to social questions, and profess a sort of indifference for the
former. In one sense he is right, for exclusive power is prejudicial to
the good government of human affairs, But what progress have "parties"
been able to effect in the general morality of our species? If Jesus,
instead of founding his heavenly kingdom, had gone to Rome, had expended
his energies in conspiring against Tiberius, or in regretting Germanicus,
what would have become of the world? As an austere republican, or zealous
patriot, he would not have arrested the great current of the affairs of
his age; but, in declaring that politics are insignificant, he has
revealed to the world this truth, that one's country is not everything,
and that the man is before, and higher than, the citizen.
Our principles of positive science are offended by the
dreams contained in the program of Jesus. We know the history of the
earth; cosmical revolutions of the kind which Jesus expected are only
produced by geological or astronomical causes, the connection of which
with the spiritual things has never yet been demonstrated. But, in order
to be just to great originators, they must not be judged by the prejudices
in which they have shared. Columbus discovered America, though starting
from very erroneous ideas; Newton believed his foolish explanation of the
Apocalypse to be as true as his system of the world. Shall we place an
ordinary man of our time above a Francis d'Assisi, A St. Bernard, a Joan
of Arc, or a Luther, because he is free from errors which these last have
professed? Should we measure men by the correctness of their ideas of
physics, and by the more or less exact knowledge which they possess of the
true system of the world? Let us understand better the position of Jesus
and that which made his power. The Deism of the eighteenth century, and a
certain kind of Protestantism, have accustomed us to consider the founder
of the Christian faith only as a great moralist, a benefactor of mankind.
We see nothing more in the Gospel than good maxims; we throw a prudent
veil over the strange intellectual state in which it was originated. There
are even persons who regret that the French Revolution departed more than
once from principles, and that it was not brought about by wise and
moderate men. Let us not impose our petty and commonplace ideas on these
extraordinary movements so far above our everyday life. Let us continue to
admire the "morality of the Gospel" -- let us suppress in our religious
teachings the chimera which was its soul; but do not let us believe that
with the simple ideas of happiness, or of individual morality, we stir the
world. The idea of Jesus was much more profound; it was the most
revolutionary idea ever formed in a human brain; it should be taken in its
totality, and not with those timid suppressions which deprive it of
precisely that which has rendered it efficacious for the regeneration of
humanity.
The ideal is ever a Utopia. When we wish nowadays to
represent the Christ of the modern conscience, the consoler, and the judge
of the new times, what course do we take? That which Jesus himself did
eighteen hundred and thirty years ago. We suppose the conditions of the
real world quite other than what they are; we represent a moral liberator
breaking without weapons the chains of the negro, ameliorating the
condition of the poor, and giving liberty to oppressed nations. We forget
that this implies the subversion of the world, the climate of Virginia and
that of Congo modified, the blood and the race of millions of men changed,
our social complications restored to a chimerical simplicity, and the
political stratifications of Europe displaced from their natural order.
The "restitution of all things" desired by Jesus was not more difficult.
This new earth, this new heaven, this new Jerusalem which comes from
above, this cry: "Behold I make all things new!" are the common
characteristics of reformers. The contrast of the ideal with the sad
reality always produces in mankind those revolts against unimpassioned
reason which inferior minds regard as folly, till the day arrives in which
they triumph, and in which those who have opposed them are the first to
recognize their reasonableness.
That there may have been a contradiction between the
belief in the approaching end of the world and the general moral system of
Jesus, conceived in prospect of a permanent state of humanity, nearly
analogous to that which now exists, no one will attempt to deny. It was
exactly this contradiction that insured the success of his work. The
millenarian alone would have done nothing lasting; the moralist alone
would have done nothing powerful. The millenarianism gave the impulse; the
moralist insured the future. Hence Christianity united the two conditions
of great success in this world -- a revolutionary starting-point and the
possibility of continuous life. Everything which is intended to succeed
ought to respond to these two wants; for the world seeks both to change
and to last, Jesus, at the same time that he announced an unparalleled
subversion in human affairs, proclaimed the principles upon which society
has reposed for eighteen hundred years.
That which in fact distinguishes Jesus from the
agitators of his time, and from those of all ages, is his perfect
idealism. Jesus, in some respects, was an anarchist, for he had no idea of
civil government. That government seems to him purely and simply an abuse.
He spoke of it in vague terms, and as a man of the people who had no idea
of politics. Every magistrate appeared to him a natural enemy of the
people of God; he prepared his disciples for contests with the civil
powers, without thinking for a moment that there was anything to be
ashamed of. But he never shows any desire to put himself in the place of
the rich and the powerful. He wishes to annihilate riches and power, bat
not to appropriate them. He predicts persecution and all kinds of
punishment to his disciples; but never once does the thought of armed
resistance appear. The idea of being all-powerful by suffering and
resignation, and of triumphing over force by purity of heart, is indeed an
idea peculiar to Jesus. Jesus is not a spiritualist, for to him everything
tended to a palpable realization; he had not the least notion of a soul
separated from the body. But he is a perfect idealist, matter being only
to him the sign of the idea, and the real, the living expression of that
which does not appear.
To whom should we turn, to whom should we trust to
establish the kingdom of God? The mind of Jesus on this point never
hesitated. That which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the
sight of God, The founders of the kingdom of God are the simple. Not the
rich, not the learned, not priests; but women, common people, the humble,
and the young. The great characteristic of the Messiah is that "the poor
have the gospel preached to them." The idyllic and gentle nature of Jesus
here resumed the superiority. A great social revolution, in which rank
will be overturned, in which all authority in this world will be
humiliated, was his dream. The world will not believe him; the world will
kill him. But his disciples will not be of the world. They will be a
little flock of the humble and the simple, who will conquer by their very
humility. The idea which has made "Christian" the antithesis of "worldly
has its full justification in the thoughts of the master.
Chapter 08
Jesus At Capernaum
BESET by an idea, gradually becoming more and more
imperious and exclusive, Jesus proceeds henceforth with a kind of fatal
impassibility in the path marked out by his astonishing genius and the
extraordinary circumstances in which he lived. Hitherto he had only
communicated his thoughts to a few persons secretly attracted to him;
henceforward his teaching was sought after by the public. He was about
thirty years of age. The little group of hearers who had accompanied him
to John the Baptist had doubtless, increased, and perhaps some disciples
of John had attached themselves to him. It was with this first nucleus of
a Church that he boldly announced, on his return into Galilee, the "good
tidings of the kingdom of God." This kingdom was approaching, and it was
he, Jesus, who was that "Son of Man" whom Daniel had beheld in his vision
as the divine herald of the last and supreme revelation.
We must remember that, in the Jewish ideas, which were
averse to art and mythology, the simple form of man had a superiority over
that of Cherubs, and of the fantastic animals which the imagination of the
people, since it had been subjected to the influence of Assyria, had
ranged around the Divine Majesty. Already, in Ezekiel, the Being seated on
the supreme throne, far above the monsters of the mysterious chariot, the
great revealer of prophetic visions, had the figure of a man. In the book
of Daniel, in the midst of the vision of the empires, represented by
animals, at the moment when the great judgment commences, and when the
books are opened, a Being "like unto a Son of Man" advances towards the
Ancient of days, who confers on him the power to judge the world, and to
govern it for eternity. Son of Man, in the Semitic languages, especially
in the Aramean dialects, is a simple synonym of man. But this chief
passage of Daniel struck the mind; the words, Son of Man, became, at
least, in certain schools, one of the titles of the Messiah, regarded as
judge of the world, and as king of the new era about to be inaugurated.
The application which Jesus made of it to himself was therefore the
proclamation of his Messiahship, and the affirmation of the coming
catastrophe in which he was to figure as judge, clothed with the full
powers which had been delegated to him by the Ancient of days.
The success of the teaching of the new prophet was this
time decisive. A group of men and women, all characterized by the same
spirit of juvenile frankness and simple innocence, adhered to him, and
said, "Thou art the Messiah." As the Messiah was to be the son of David,
they naturally conceded him this title, which was synonymous with the
former. Jesus allowed it with pleasure to be given to him, although it
might cause him some embarrassment, his birth being well known. The name
which he preferred himself was that of "Son of Man," an apparently humble
title, but one which connected itself directly with the Messianic hopes.
This was the title by which he designated himself, and he used "The Sun of
Man" as synonymous with the pronoun "I," which he avoided. But he was
never thus addressed, doubtless because the name in question would be
fully applicable to him only on the day of his future appearance.
His center of action, at this epoch of his life, was
the little town of Capernaum, situated on the shore of the lake of
Gennesareth. The name of Capernaum, containing the word caphar, "village,"
seems to designate a small town of the ancient character, in opposition to
the great towns built according to the Roman method, like Tiberias. That
name was so little known that Josephus, in one passage of his writings,
takes it for the name of a fountain, the fountain having more celebrity
than the village situated near it. Like Nazareth, Capemaum had no history,
and had in no way participated in the profane movement fevered by the
Herods. Jesus was much attached to this town, and made it a second home.
Soon after his return he attempted to commence his work at Nazareth, but
without success. He could not perform any miracle there, according to the
simple remark of one of his biographers. The knowledge which existed there
about his family, not an important one, injured his authority too much.
People could not regard as the son of David one whose brother, sister, and
brother- in-law they saw every day, and it is remarkable, besides, that
his family were strongly opposed to him, and plainly refused to believe in
his mission. The Nazarenes, much more violent, wished, it is said, to kill
him by throwing him from a steep rock. Jesus aptly remarked that this
treatment was the fate of all great men, and applied to himself the
proverb, "No one is a prophet in his own country."
This check far from discouraged him, He returned to
Capernaum, where he met with a much more favorable reception, and from
thence he organized a series of missions among the small surrounding
towns. The people of this beautiful and fertile country were scarcely ever
assembled except on Saturday. This was the day which he chose for his
teaching. At that time each town had its synagogue, or place of meeting.
This was a rectangular room, rather small, with a portico, decorated in
the Greek style. The Jews, not having any architecture of their own, never
cared to give these edifices an original style. The remains of many
ancient synagogues still exist in Galilee. They are all constructed of
large and good materials; but their style is somewhat paltry, in
consequence of the profusion of floral omaments, foliage, and twisted
work, which characterize the Jewish buildings. In the interior there were
seats, a chair for public reading, and a closet to contain the sacred
rolls. These edifices, which had nothing of the character of a temple,
were the center of the whole Jewish life. There the people assembled on
the Sabbath for prayer and reading of the law and the prophets. As
Judaism, except in Jerusalem, had, properly speaking, no clergy, the first
comer stood up, gave the lessons of the day (parasha and haphtaya), and
added thereto a midrask, or entirely personal commentary, in which he
expressed his own ideas. This was the origin of the "homily," the finished
model of which we find in the small treatises of Philo. The audience had
the right of making objections and putting questions to the reader; so
that the meeting soon degenerated into a kind of free assembly. It had a
president, "elders," a hazzan -- i.e., a recognized reader, or apparitor
-- deputies, who were secretaries or messengers, and conducted the
correspondence between one synagogue and another, a shammash, or
sacristan. The synagogues were thus really little independent republics,
having an extensive jurisdiction. Like all municipal corporation, up to an
advanced period of the Roman empire, they issued honorary decrees, voted
resolutions, which had the force of law for the community, and ordained
corporal punishments, of which the hazzan was the ordinary executor.
With the extreme activity of mind which has always
characterized the Jews, such an institution, notwithstanding the arbitrary
rigors it tolerated, could not fail to give rise to very animated
discussions. Thanks to the synagogues, Judaism has been able to sustain
intact eighteen centuries of persecution. They were like so many little
separate worlds, in which the national spirit was preserved, and which
offered a ready field for intestine struggles. A large amount of passion
was expended there. The quarrels for precedence were of constant
occurrence. To have a seat of honor in the first rank was the reward of
great piety, or the most envied privilege of wealth. On the other hand,
the liberty, accorded to everyone, of instituting himself reader and
commentator of the sacred text afforded marvelous facilities for the
propagation of new ideas. This was one of the great instruments of power
wielded by Jesus, and the most habitual means he employed to propound his
doctrinal instruction. He entered the synagogue and stood up to read; the
hazzan offered him the book, he unrolled it, and, reading the parasha or
the haphtara of the day, he drew from his reading a lesson in conformity
with his own ideas. As there were few Pharisees in Galilee, the discussion
did not assume that degree of vivacity and that tone of acrimony against
him which at Jerusalem would have arrested him at the outset. These good
Galileans had never heard discourses so adapted to their cheerful
imaginations. They admired him, they encouraged him, they found that he
spoke well, and that his reasons were convincing. He answered the most
difficult objections with confidence; the charm of his speech and his
person captivated the people, whose simple minds had not yet been cramped
by the pedantry of the doctors.
The authority of the young master thus continued
increasing every day, and, naturally, the more people believed in him, the
more he believed in himself. His sphere of action was very limited. It was
confined to the valley in which the Lake of Tiberias is situated, and even
in this valley there was one region which he preferred. The lake is five
or six leagues long and three or four broad; although it presents the
appearance of an almost perfect oval, it forms, commencing from Tiberias
up to the entrance of the Jordan, a sort of gulf, the curve of which
measures about three leagues. Such is the field in which the seed sown by
Jesus found at last a well-prepared soil. Let us run over it step by step,
and endeavor to raise the mantle of aridity and mourning with which it has
been covered by the demon of Islamism.
On leaving Tiberias we find at first steep rocks, like
a mountain which seems to roll into the sea. Then the mountains gradually
recede; a plain (El Ghoueir) opens almost at the level of the lake. It is
a delightful copse of rich verdure, furrowed by abundant streams, which
proceed partly from a great round basin of ancient construction (Ain-Medawara).
At the entrance of this plain, which is, properly speaking, the country of
Gennesareth, there is the miserable village of Medjdel. At the other
extremity of the plain (always following the sea) we come to the site of a
town (Khan-Minyeh), with very beautiful streams (Ain-et-Tin), a pretty
road, narrow and deep, cut out of the rock, which Jesus often traversed,
and which serves as a passage between the plain of Gennesareth and the
northern slopes of the lake. A quarter of an hour's journey from this
place we cross a stream of salt water (Ein-Tabiga), issuing from the earth
by several large springs at a little distance from the lake, and entering
it in the midst of a dense mass of verdure. At last, after a journey of
forty minutes further upon the arid declivity which extends from
Ain-Tabiga to the mouth of the Jordan, we find a few huts and a collection
of monumental ruins, called Tell-Houm.
Five small towns, the names of which mankind will
remember as long as those of Rome and Athens, were, in the time of Jesus,
scattered in the space which extends from the village of Medjdel to Tell-Houm.
Of these five towns, Magdala, Dalmanutlia, Capernauni, Bethsaida, and
Chorazin, the first alone can be found at the present time with any
certainty. The repulsive village of Medjdel has no doubt preserved the
name and the place of the little town which gave to Jesus his most
faithful female friend. Dalmanutha was probably near there. It is possible
that Chorazin was a little more inland, on the northern side. As to
Bethsaida and Capernaum, it is in truth almost at hazard that they have
been placed at Tell-Houm, Ain-et-Tin, Khan-Minyeh, and Ain-Medawara. We
might say that in topography, as well as in history, a profound design has
wished to conceal the traces of the great founder. It is doubtful whether
we shall ever be able, upon this extensively devastated soil, to ascertain
the places where mankind would gladly come to kiss the imprint of his
feet.
The lake, the horizon, the shrubs, the flowers, are all
that remain of the little canton, three or four leagues in extent, where
Jesus founded his Divine work, The trees have totally disappeared. In this
country, in which the vegetation was formerly so brilliant that Josephus
saw in it a kind of miracle -- Nature, according to him, being pleased to
bring hither, side by side the plants of cold countries, the productions
of the torrid zone, and the trees of temperate climates, laden all the
year with flowers and fruits -- in this country travellers are obliged now
to calculate a day beforehand the place where they will the next day find
a shady resting-place. The lake has become deserted. A single boat in the
most miserable condition now ploughs the waves once so rich in life and
joy. But the waters are always clear and transparent. The shore, composed
of rocks and pebbles, is that of a little sea, not that of a pond, like
the shores of Lake Huleh. It is clean, neat, free from mud, and always
beaten in the same place by the light movement of the waves. Small
promontories, covered with rose laurels, tamarisks, and thorny caper
bushes, are seen there; at two places, especially at the mouth of the
Jordan, near Tarichea, and at the boundary of the plain of Gennesareth,
there are enchanting parterres, where the waves ebb and flow over masses
of turf and flowers. The rivulet of Ain-Tabiga makes a little estuary, of
full of pretty shells. Clouds of aquatic birds hover over the lake. The
horizon is dazzling with light. The waters, of an empyrean blue, deeply
imbedded amid burning rocks, seem, when viewed from the height of the
mountains of Safed, to lie at the bottom of a cup of gold. On the north,
the snowy ravines of Hermon are traced in white lines upon the sky; on the
west, the high undulating plateaux of Gaulonitis and Perea, absolutely
arid, and clothed by the sun with a sort of velvety atmosphere, form one
compact mountain, or rather a long and very elevated terrace, which from
Coosarea Philippi runs indefinitely towards the south.
The heat on the shore is now very oppressive. The lake
lies in a hollow six hundred and fifty feet below the level of the
Mediterranean, and thus participates in the torrid conditions of the Dead
Sea. An abundant vegetation formerly tempered these excessive heats; it
would be difficult to understand that a furnace, such as the whole basin
of the lake now is, commencing from the month of May, had ever been the
scene of great activity. Josephus, moreover, considered the country very
temperate. No doubt there has been here, as in the campagna of Rome, a
change of climate introduced by historical causes. It is Islamism, and
especially the Mussulman reaction against the Crusades, which has withered
as with a blast of death the district Preferred by Jesus. The beautiful
country of Gennesareth never suspected that beneath the brow of this
peaceful wayfarer its highest destinies lay hidden.
Dangerous countryman! Jesus has been fatal to the
country which had the formidable honor of bearing him. Having become a
universal object of love or of hate, coveted by two rival fanaticisms,
Galilee, as the price of its glory, has been changed to a desert. But who
would say that Jesus would have been happier if he had lived obscure in
his village to the full age of man? And who would think of these
ungrateful Nazarenes, if one of them had not, at the risk of compromising
the future of their town, recognized his Father, and proclaimed himself
the Son of God?
Four or five large villages, situated at half an hour's
journey from one another, formed the little world of Jesus at the time of
which we speak. He appears never to have visited Tiberias, a city
inhabited for most part by Pagans, and the habitual residence of Antipas.
Sometimes, however, he wandered from his favorite region. He went by boat
to the eastern shore, to Gergesa, for instance. Towards the north we see
him at Paneas or Cossarea Philippi, at the foot of Mount Hermon. Lastly,
he journeyed once in the direction of Tyre and Sidon, a country which must
have been marvelously flourishing at that time. In all these countries he
was in the midst of Paganism. At Coesarea he saw the celebrated grotto of
Panium, thought to be the source of the Jordan, and with which the popular
belief had associated strange legends; he could admire the marble temple
which Herod had erected near there in honor of Augustus; he probably
stopped before the numerous votive statues to Pan, to the Nymphs, to the
Echo of the Grotto, which piety had already begun to accumulate in this
beautiful place.
A rationalistic Jew, accustomed to take strange gods
for deified men or for demons, would consider all these figurative
representations as idols. The seductions of the naturalistic worships,
which intoxicated the more sensitive nations, never affected him. He was
doubtless ignorant of what the ancient sanctuary of Melkarth, at Tyre,
might still contain of a primitive worship more or less analogous to that
of the Jews. The Paganism which, in Phoenicia, had raised a temple and a
sacred grove on every hill, all this aspect of great industry and profane
riches, interested him but little. Monotheism takes away all aptitude for
comprehending the Pagan religions; the Mussulman, thrown into polytheistic
countries, seems to have no eyes. Jesus assuredly learnt nothing in these
journeys. He returned always to his well- beloved shore of Gennesareth.
There was the center of his thoughts; there he found faith and love.
Chapter 9
The Disciples Of Jesus
IN this terrestrial paradise, which the great
revolutions of history had till then scarcely touched, there lived a
population in perfect harmony with the country itself, active, honest,
joyous, and tender-hearted. The Lake of Tiberias is one of the best
supplied with fish of any in the world. Very productive fisheries were
established, especially at Bethsaida and at Capernaum, and had produced a
certain degree of wealth. These families of fishermen formed a gentle and
peaceable society, extending by numerous ties of relationship through the
whole district of the lake which we have described. Their comparatively
easy life left entire freedom to their imagination. The ideas about the
kingdom of God found in these small companies of worthy people more
credence than anywhere else. Nothing of that which we call civilization,
in the Greek and worldly sense, had reached them. Neither was there any of
our Germanic and Celtic earnestness; but, although goodness among them was
often superficial and without depth, their habits were quiet, and they
were in some degree intelligent and shrewd. We may imagine them as
somewhat analogous to the better populations of the Lebanon, but with the
gift -- not possessed by the latter -- of producing great men. Jesus met
here his true family. He installed himself as one of them; Capernaum
became "his own city"; in the center of the little circle which adored him
he forgot his skeptical brothers, ungrateful Nazareth and its mocking
incredulity.
One house especially at Capernaum offered him an
agreeable refuge and devoted disciples. It was that of two brothers, both
sons of a certain Jonas, who probably was dead at the period when Jesus
came to stay on the borders of the lake. These two brothers were Simon,
surnamed Cephas or Peter, and Andrew. Born at Bethsaida, they were
established at Capernaum when Jesus commenced his public life. Peter was
married and had children; his mother-in- law lived with him. Jesus loved
this house, and dwelt there habitually. Andrew appears to have been a
disciple of John the Baptist, and Jesus had perhaps known him on the banks
of the Jordan. The two brothers continued always, even at the period in
which it seems they must have been most occupied with their master, to
follow their business as fishermen. Jesus, who loved to play upon words,
said at times that he would make them fishers of men. In fact, among all
his disciples he had none more faithfully attached.
Another family, that of Zabdia or Zebedee, a well-to-do
fisherman and owner of several boats, gave Jesus a welcome reception.
Zebedee had two sons: James, who was the elder, and a younger son, John,
who later was called to play so prominent a part in the history of infant
Christianity. Both were zealous disciples. Salome, wife of Zebedee, was
also much attached to Jesus, and accompanied him until his death.
Women, in fact, received him with eagerness. He
manifested towards them those reserved manners which render a very sweet
union of ideas possible between the two sexes. The separation of men from
women, which has prevented all refined development among the Semitic
peoples, was no doubt then, as in our days, much less rigorous in the
rural districts and villages than in the large towns. Three or four
devoted Galilean women always accompanied the young Master, and disputed
the pleasure of listening to and of tending him in turn. They infused into
the new sect an element of enthusiasm and of the marvelous, the importance
of which had already begun to be understood. One of them Mary of Magdala,
who has rendered the name of this poor town so celebrated in the world,
appears to have been of a very enthusiastic temperament. According to the
language of the time she had been possessed by seven demons. That is, she
hah been affected with nervous and apparently inexplicable maladies.
Jesus, by his pure and sweet beauty, calmed this troubled nature. The
Magdalene was faithful to him, even unto Golgotha, and on the day but one
after his death played a prominent part; for, as we shall see later, she
was the principal means by which faith in the resurrection was
established. Joanna, wife of Chuza, one of the stewards of Antipas,
Susanne, and others who have remained unknown, followed him constantly and
ministered unto him. Some were rich, and by their fortune enabled the
young prophet to live without following the trade which he had until then
practiced.
Many others followed him habitually, and recognized him
as their Master: a certain Philip of Bethsaida; Nathanael, son of Tolmai
or Ptolemy, of Cana, perhaps a disciple of the first period; and Matthew,
probably the one who was the Xenophon of the infant Christianity. The
latter had been a publican, and, as such, doubtless handled the Kalam more
easily than the others. Perhaps it was this that suggested to him the idea
of writing the Logia, which are the basis of what we know of the teachings
of Jesus. Among the disciples are also mentioned Thomas, or Didymus, who
doubted sometimes, but who appears to have been a man of warm heart and of
generous sympathies; one Lebbaeus or Thaddeus; Simon Zelotes, perhaps a
disciple of Juclas the Gaulonite, belonging to the party of the Kenaim,
which was formed about that time, and which was soon to play so great a
part in the movements of the Jewish people. Lastly Judas, son of Simon, of
the town of Kerioth, who was an exception in the faithful flock, and drew
upon himself such a terrible notoriety. He was the only one who was not a
Galilean. Kerioth was a town at the extreme south of the tribe of Judah, a
day's journey beyond Hebron.
We have seen that in general the family of Jesus were
little inclined towards him. James and Jude, however, his cousins by Mary
Cleophas, henceforth became his disciples, and Mary Cleophas herself was
one, of the women who followed him to Calvary. At this period we do not
see his mother beside him. It was only after the death of Jesus that Mary
acquired great importance, and that the disciples sought to attach her to
themselves. It was then also that the members of the family of the
founder, under the title of "brothers of the Lord," formed an influential
group, which was a long time at the head of the Church of Jerusalem, and
which, after the sack of the city, took refuge in Batanea. The simple fact
of having been familiar with him became a decisive advantage, in the same
manner as after the death of Mahomet the wives and daughters of the
prophet, who had no importance in his life, became great authorities,
In this friendly group Jesus had evidently his
favorites, and, so to speak, an inner circle. The two sons of Zebedee,
James and John, appear to have been in the first rank. They were full of
fire and passion. Jesus had aptly surnamed them "sons of thunder," on
account of their excessive zeal, which, if it could have controlled the
thunder, would often have made use of it. John especially appears to have
been on very familiar terms with Jesus. Perhaps the warm affection which
the Master felt for this disciple has been exaggerated in his Gospel, in
which the personal interests of the writer are not sufficiently concealed.
The most significant fact is that, in the Synoptical Gospels, Simon
Barjona, or Peter, James, son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, form a
sort of intimate council, which Jesus calls at certain times when he
suspects the faith and intelligence of the others. It seems, moreover,
that they were all three associated in their fishing. The affection of
Jesus for Peter was strong. The character of the latter -- upright,
sincere, impulsive -- pleased Jesus, who at times permitted himself to
smile at his resolute manners. Peter, little of a mystic, communicated to
the Master his simple doubts, his repugnances, and his entirely human
weaknesses with an honest frankness which recalls that of Joinville
towards St. Louis. Jesus chided him, in a friendly manner, full of
confidence and esteem. As to John, his youth, his exquisite tenderness of
heart, and his lively imagination, must have had a great charm. The
personality of this extraordinary man, who has exerted so peculiar an
influence on infant Christianity, did not develop itself till afterwards.
When old he wrote that strange Gospel, which contains such precious
teachings, but in which, in our opinion, the character of Jesus is
falsified upon many points. The nature of John was too powerful and too
profound for him to bend himself to the impersonal tone of the first
evangelists. He was the biographer of Jesus, as Plato was of Socrates.
Accustomed to ponder over his recollections with the feverish restlessness
of an excited mind, he transformed his Master in wishing to describe him,
and sometimes he leaves it to be suspected (unless other hands have
altered his work) that perfect good faith was not invariably his rule and
law in the composition of this singular writing.
No hierarchy, properly speaking, existed in the new
sect. They were to call each other "brothers," and Jesus absolutely
proscribed titles of superiority, such as rabbi, "master," father -- he
alone being Master, and God alone being Father. The greatest was to become
the servant of the others. Simon Barjona, however, was distinguished among
his fellows by a peculiar degree of importance. Jesus lived with him, and
taught in his boat; his house was the center of the Gospel preaching. In
public he was regarded as the chief of the flock; and it is to him that
the overseers of the tolls address themselves to collect the taxes which
were due from the community. He was the first who had recognized Jesus as
the Messiah. In a moment of unpopularity, Jesus, asking of his disciples
"Will ye also go away?" Simon answered, "Lord, to whom should we go? Thou
hast the words of eternal life." Jesus, at various times, gave him a
certain priority in his church; and gave him the Syrian sumame of Kepha
(stone), by which he wished to signify by that that he made him the
corner-stone of the edifice. At one time he seems even to promise him "the
keys of the kingdom of heaven," and to grant him the right of pronouncing
upon earth decisions which should always be ratified in eternity.
No doubt this priority of Peter excited a little
jealousy. Jealousy was kindled especially in view of the future -- and of
this kingdom of God, in which all the disciples would be seated upon
thrones, on the right and on the left of the Master, to judge the twelve
tribes of Israel. They asked who would then be nearest to the Son of man,
and act in a manner as his prime minister and assessor. The two sons of
Zebedee aspired to this rank. Preoccupied with such a thought, they
prompted their mother Salome, who one day took Jesus aside, and asked him
for the two places of honor for her sons. Jesus evaded the request by his
habitual maxim that he who exalted himself should be humbled, and that the
kingdom of heaven will be possessed by the lowly. This created some
disturbance in the community; there was great discontent against James and
John. The same rivalry appears to show itself in the Gospel of John, where
the narrator unceasingly declares himself to be "the disciple whom Jesus
loved," to whom the Master in dying confided his mother, and seeks
systematically to place himself near Simon Peter, and at times to put
himself before him in important circumstances where the older evangelists
had omitted mentioning him.
Among the preceding personages, all those of whom we
know anything had begun by being fishermen. At all events, none of them
belonged to a socially elevated class. Only Matthew or Levi, son of
Alpheus, had been a publican. But those to whom they gave this name in
Judea were not the farmers-general of taxes, men of elevated rank (always
Roman patricians), who were called at Rome publicani. They were the agents
of these contractors, employees of low rank, simply officers of the
customs. The great route from Acre to Damascus, one of the most ancient
routes of the world, which crossed Galilee, skirting the lake, made this
class of employees very numerous there. Capernaum, which was perhaps on
the road, possessed a numerous staff of them. This profession is never
popular, but with the Jews it was considered quite criminal. Taxation, new
to them, was the sign of their subjection; one school, that of Judas the
Gaulonite, maintained that to pay it was an act of paganism. The customs
officers, also, were abhorred by the zealots of the law. They were only
named in company with assassins, highway robbers, and men of infamous
life. The Jews who accepted such offices were excommunicated, and became
incapable of making a will; their money was accursed, and the casuists
forbade the changing of money with them. These poor men, placed under the
ban of society, visited among themselves. Jesus accepted a dinner offered
him by Levi, at which there were, according to the language of the time,
"many publicans and sinners." This gave great offence. In these
ill-reputed houses there was a risk of meeting bad society. We shall often
see him thus, caring little to shock the prejudices of well-disposed
persons, seeking to elevate the classes humiliated by the orthodox, and
thus exposing himself to the liveliest reproaches of the zealots.
Jesus owed these numerous conquests to the infinite
charm of his person and his speech. A penetrating word, a look falling
upon a simple conscience, which only wanted awakening, gave him an ardent
disciple. Sometimes Jesus employed an innocent artifice, which Joan of Arc
also used: he affected to know something intimate respecting him whom he
wished to gain, or he would perhaps recall to him some circumstance dear
to his heart. It was thus that he attracted Nathanael, Peter, and the
Samaritan woman. Concealing the true source of his strength -- his
superiority over all that surrounded him -- he permitted people to believe
(in order to satisfy the ideas of the time -- ideas which, moreover, fully
coincided with his own) that a revelation from on high revealed to him all
secrets and laid bare all hearts. Every one thought that Jesus lived in a
sphere superior to that of humanity. They said that he conversed on the
mountains with Moses and Elias; they believed that in his moments of
solitude the angels came to render him homage, and established a
supernatural intercourse between him and heaven.
Chapter 10
The Preaching On The Lake
Such was the group which, on the borders of the lake of
Tiberias, gathered around Jesus. The aristocracy was represented there by
a customs officer and by the wife of one of Herod's stewards. The rest
were fishermen and common people. Their ignorance was extreme; their
intelligence was feeble; they believed in apparitions and spirits. Not one
element of Greek culture had penetrated this first assembly of the saints.
They had very little Jewish instruction; but heart and goodwill
overflowed. The beautiful climate of Galilee made the life of these honest
fishermen a perpetual delight. They truly preluded the kingdom of God --
simple, good, and happy -- rocked gently on their delightful little sea,
or at night sleeping on its shores. We do not realize to ourselves the
intoxication of a life which thus glides away in the face of heaven -- the
sweet yet strong love which this perpetual contact with nature gives, and
the dreams of these nights passed in the brightness of the stars, under in
azure dome of infinite expanse. It was daring such a night that Jacob,
with his head resting upon a stone, saw in the stars the promise of an
innumerable posterity, and the mysterious ladder by which the angels of
God came and went from heaven to earth. At the time of Jesus the heavens
were not closed, nor the earth grown cold. The cloud still opened above
the Son of man; the angels ascended and descended upon his head; the
visions of the kingdom of God were everywhere, for man carried them in his
heart. The clear and mild eyes of these simple souls contemplated the
universe in its ideal source. The world unveiled perhaps its secret to the
divinely enlightened conscience of these happy children, whose purity of
heart deserved one day to behold God.
Jesus lived with his disciples almost always in the
open air. Sometimes he got into a boat, and instructed his hearers, who
were crowded upon the shore. Sometimes he sat upon the mountains which
bordered the lake, where the air is so pure and the horizon so luminous.
The faithful band led thus a joyous and wandering life, gathering the
inspirations of the Master in their first bloom. An innocent doubt was
sometimes raised, a question slightly skeptical; but Jesus, with a smile
or a look, silenced the objection. At each step -- in the passing cloud,
the germinating seed, the ripening corn -- they saw the sign of the
Kingdom drawing nigh, they believed themselves on the eve of seeing God,
of being masters of the world; tears were turned into joy; it was the
advant upon earth of universal consolation.
"Blessed," said the Master, "are the poor in spirit:
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
"Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be
Comforted.
"Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the
earth.
"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after
righteousness: for they shall be filled.
"Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
"Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
"Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called
the children of God.
"Blessed are they which are persecuted for
righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
His preaching was gentle and pleasing, breathing nature
and the perfume of the fields. He loved the flowers, and took from them
his most charming lessons. The birds of heaven, the sea, the mountains,
and the games of children furnished in turn the subject of his
instructions. His style had nothing of the Grecian in it, but approached
much more to that of the Hebrew parabolists, and especially of sentences
from the Jewish doctors, his contemporaries, such as we read them in the "Pirke
Aboth." His teachings were not very, extended, and formed a species of
sorites in the style of the Koran, which, joined together, afterwards
composed those long discourses which were written by Matthew. No
transition united these diverse pieces; generally, however, the same
inspiration penetrated them and made them one. It was, above all, in
parable that the Master excelled. Nothing in Judaism had given him the
model of this delightful style. He created it. It is true that we find in
the Buddhist books parables of exactly the same tone and the same
character as the Gospel parables; but it is difficult to admit that a
Buddhist influence has been exercised in these. The spirit of gentleness
and the depth of feeling which equally animate infant Christianity and
Buddhism suffice perhaps to explain these analogies.
A total indifference to exterior life and the vain
appanage of the "comfortable," which our drearier countries make necessary
to us, was the consequence of the sweet and simple life lived in Galilee.
Cold climates, by compelling man to a perpetual contest with external
nature, cause too much value to be attached to researches after comfort
and luxury. On the other hand, the countries which awaken few desires are
the countries of idealism and of poesy. The accessories of life are there
insignificant compared with the pleasure of living. The embellishment of
the house is superfluous, for it is frequented as little as possible. The
strong and regular food of less generous climates would be considered
heavy and disagreeable. And as to the luxury of garments, what can rival
that which God has given to the earth and the birds of heaven? Labor in
climates of this kind appears useless: what it gives is not equal to what
it costs. The animals of the field are better clothed than the most
opulent man, and they do nothing. This contempt, which, when it is not
caused by idleness, contributes greatly to the elevation of the soul,
inspired Jesus with some charming apologues: "Lay not up for yourselves
treasures upon earth," said he, "where moth and rust doth corrupt, and
where thieves break through and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures
in heaven, where neither moth nor dust doth corrupt, and where thieves do
not break through nor steal: for where your treasure is, there will your
heart be also. No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the
one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the
other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. Therefore I say unto you, take no
thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet
for your body what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and
the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not,
neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father
feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking
thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for
raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not,
neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his
glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the
grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven,
shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no
thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or,
Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the
Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all
these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness;
and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought
for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought of the things of itself.
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
This essentially Galilean sentiment had a decisive
influence on the destiny of the infant sect. The happy flock, relying on
the heavenly Father for the satisfaction of its wants, had for its first
principle the regarding of the cares of life as an evil which choked the
germ of all good in man. Each day they asked of God the bread for the
morrow. Why lay up treasure? The kingdom of God is at hand. "Sell that ye
have and give alms," said the Master. "Provide yourselves bags which wax
not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not." What more foolish
than to heap up treasures for heirs whom thou wilt never behold? As an
example of human folly, Jesus loved to cite the case of a man who, after
having enlarged his barns and amassed wealth for long years, died before
having enjoyed it! The brigandage which was deeply rooted in Galilee gave
much force to these views. The poor, who did not suffer from it, would
regard themselves as the favored of God; while the rich, having a less
sure possession, were the truly disinherited. In our societies,
established upon a very rigorous idea of property, the position of the
poor is horrible; they have literally no place under the sun. There are no
flowers, no grass, no shade, except for him who possesses the earth. In
the East these are gifts of God which belong to no one. The proprietor has
but a slender privilege; nature is the patrimony of all.
The infant Christianity, moreover, in this only
followed the footsteps of the Essenes, or Therapeutoe, and of the Jewish
sects founded on the monastic life. A communistic element entered into all
these sects, which were equally disliked by Pharisees and Sadducees. The
Messianic doctrine, which was entirely political among the orthodox Jews,
was entirely social among them. By means of a gentle, regulated,
contemplative existence, leaving its share to the liberty of the
individual, these little Churches thought to inaugurate the heavenly
kingdom upon earth. Utopias of a blessed life, founded on the brotherhood
of men and the worship of the true God, occupied elevated souls, and
produced from all sides bold and sincere, but short-lived, attempts to
realize these doctrines.
Jesus, whose relations with the Essenes are difficult
to determine (resemblances in history not always implying relations), was
on this point certainly their brother. The community of goods was for some
time the rule in the new society. Covetousness was the cardinal sin. Now,
it must be remarked that the sin of covetousness, against which Christian
morality has been so severe, was then the simple attachment to property.
The first condition of becoming a disciple of Jesus was to sell one's
property and to give the price of it to the poor, Those who recoiled from
this extremity were not admitted into the community. Jesus often repeated
that he who has found the kingdom of God ought to buy it at the price of
all his goods, and that in so doing he makes an advantageous bargain. "The
kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a
man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that
he hath, and buyeth that field. Again the kingdom of heaven is like unto a
merchantman seeking goodly pearls; who, when he had found one pearl of
great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it." Alas! the
inconveniences of this plan were not long in making themselves felt. A
treasurer was wanted. They chose for that office Judas of Kerioth. Rightly
or wrongly, they accused him of stealing from the common purse; it is
certain that he came to a bad end.
Sometimes the Master, more versed in things of heaven
than those of earth, taught a still more singular political economy. In a
strange parable, a steward is praised for having made himself friends
among the poor at the expense of his master, in order that the poor might
in their turn introduce him into the kingdom of heaven. The poor, in fact,
becoming the dispensers of this kingdom, will only receive those who have
given to them. A prudent man, thinking of the future, ought therefore to
seek to gain their favor. "And the Pharisees also," says the evangelist,
who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him." Did they
also hear the formidable parable which follows? "There was a certain rich
man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously
every day: and there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at
his gate, full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell
from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
And it came to pass that the beggar died, and was carried by the angles
into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; and in hell
he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and
Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on
me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and
cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son,
remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things; and
likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted and thou art
tormented." What more just? Afterwards this parable was called that of the
"wicked rich man." But it is purely and simply the parable of the "rich
man." He is in hell because he is rich, because he does not give his
wealth to the poor, because he dines well, while others at his door dine
badly. Lastly, in a less extravagant moment, Jesus does not make it
obligatory to sell one's goods, and give them to the poor except as a
suggestion towards greater perfection. But he still makes this terrible
declaration: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle
than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
An admirable idea governed Jesus in all this, as well
as the band of joyous children who accompanied him and made him for
eternity the true creator of the peace of the soul, the great consoler of
life. In disengaging man from what he called "the cares of this world,"
Jesus might go to excess and injure the essential conditions of human
society; but he founded that high spiritualism which for centuries has
filled souls with joy in the midst of this vale of tears. He saw with
perfect clearness that man's inattention, his want of philosophy and
morality, come mostly from the distractions which he permits himself, the
cares which besiege him, and which civilization multiplies beyond measure.
The Gospel, in this manner, has been the most efficient remedy for the
weariness of ordinary life, a perpetual sursum corda, a powerful diversion
from the miserable cares of earth, a gentle appeal like that of Jesus in
the ear of Martha -- "Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about
many things; but one thing is needful." Thanks to Jesus, the dullest
existence, that most absorbed by sad or humiliating duties, has had its
glimpse of heaven. In our busy civilizations the remembrance of the free
life of Galilee has been like perfume from another world, like the "dew of
Hermon," which has prevented drought and barrenness from entirely invading
the field of God.
Chapter 11
The Kingdom Of God Concieced As The Ingeritance Of The Poor
THESE maxims, good for a country where life is
nourished by the air and the light, and this delicate communism of a band
of children of God reposing in confidence on the bosom of their Father,
might suit a simple sect constantly persuaded that its Utopia was about to
be realized. But it is clear that they could not satisfy the whole of
society. Jesus understood very soon, in fact, that the official world of
his time would by no means adopt his kingdom. He took his resolution with
extreme boldness. Leaving the world, with its hard heart and narrow
prejudices on one side, he turned towards the simple. A vast substitution
of classes would take place. The kingdom of God was made -- 1st, For
children, and those who resemble them; 2nd, For the outcasts of this
world, victims of that social arrogance which repulses the good but humble
man; 3rd, For heretics and schismatics, publicans, Samaritans, and Pagans
of Tyre and Sidon. An energetic parable explained this appeal to the
people, and justified it. A king has prepared a wedding feast, and sends
his servants to seek those invited. Each one excuses himself; some
ill-treat the messengers. The king, therefore, takes a decided step. The
great people have not accepted his invitation. Be it so. His guests shall
be the first comers; the people collected from the highways and byeways,
the poor, the beggars, and the lame; it matters not who, the room must be
filled. "For I say unto you," said he, "that none of those men which were
bidden shall taste of my supper."
Pure Ebionism -- that is, the doctrine that the poor (ebionim)
alone shall be saved, that the reign of the poor is approaching -- was,
therefore, the doctrine of Jesus. "Woe unto you that are rich," said he,
"for ye have received your consolation. Woe unto you that are full, for ye
shall hunger. Woe unto you that laugh now, for ye shall mourn and weep."
"Then said he also to him that bade him, When thou makest a dinner or a
supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor
thy rich neighbors, lest they also bid thee again, and a recompense be
made thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the
lame, the blind: and thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense
thee; for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just." It
is perhaps in an analogous sense that he often repeated, Be good bankers
-- that is to say, make good investments for the kingdom of God, in giving
your wealth to the poor, conformably to the old proverb, "He that hath
pity upon the poor, leadeth unto the Lord."
This, however, was not a new fact. The most exalted
democratic movement of which humanity has preserved the remembrance (the
only one, also, which has succeeded, for it alone has maintained itself in
the domain of pure thought). had long disturbed the Jewish race. The
thought that God is the avenger of the poor and the weak, against the rich
and the powerful, is found in each page of the writings of the Old
Testament. The history of Israel is of all histories that in which the
popular spirit has most constantly predominated. The prophets, the true,
and, in one sense, the boldest tribunes, had thundered incessantly against
the great, and established a close relation, on the one hand, between the
words "rich, impious, violent, wicked," and, on the other, between the
words "poor, gentle, humble, pious." Under the Seleucidae, the aristocrats
having almost all apostatized and gone over to Hellenism, these
associations of ideas only became stronger. The Book of Enoch contains
still more violent maledictions than those of the Gospel against the
world, the rich, and the powerful. Luxury is there depicted as a crime.
The "Son of man," in this strange Apocalypse, enthrones kings, tears them
from their voluptuous life, and precipitates them into hell. The
initiation of Judea into secular life, the recent introduction of an
entirely worldly element of luxury and comfort, provoked a furious
reaction in favor of patriarchal simplicity. "Woe unto you who despise the
humble dwelling and inheritance of your fathers! Woe unto you who build
your palaces with the sweat of others! Each stone, each brick of which it
is built, is a sin." The name of "poor" (ebion) had become a synonym of
"saint," of "friend of God." This was the name that Galilean disciples of
Jesus loved to give themselves; it was for a long time the name of the
Judaising Christians of Batanea and of the Hauran (Nazarenes, Hebrews) who
remained faithful to the tongue, as well as to the primitive instructions
of Jesus, and who boasted that they possessed among themselves the
descendants of his family. At the end of the second century, these good
sectaries, having remained beyond the reach of the great current which had
carried away all the other Churches, were treated as heretics (Ebionites),
and a pretended heretical leader (Ebion) was invented to explain their
name.
We may see, in fact, without difficulty, that this
exaggerated taste for poverty could not be very lasting. It was one of
those Utopian elements which always mingle in the origin of great
movements, and which time rectifies. Thrown into the center of human
society, Christianity very easily consented to receive rich men into her
bosom, just as Buddhism, exclusively monkish in its origin, soon began, as
conversions multiplied, to admit the laity. But the mark of origin is ever
preserved. Although it quickly passed away and became forgotten, Ebionism
left a leaven in the whole history of Christian institutions which has not
been lost. The collection of the Logia, or discourses of Jesus, was formed
in the Ebionitish center of Batanea. "Poverty remained an ideal from which
the true followers of Jesus were never after separated. To possess nothing
was the truly evangelical state; mendicancy became a virtue, a holy
condition. The great Umbrian movement of the thirteenth century, which,
among all the attempts at religious construction, most resembles the
Galilean movement, took place entirely in the name of poverty. Francis
d'Assisi, the man who, more than any other, by his exquisite goodness, by
his delicate, pure, and tender intercourse with universal life, most
resembled Jesus, was a poor man. The mendicant orders, the innumerable
communistic sects of the Middle Ages (Pauvres de Lyon, Begards,
Bons-Hommes, Fratricelles, Humilies, Pauvres evangiliques, etc.) grouped
under the banner of the "Everlasting Gospel," pretended to be, and in fact
were, the true disciples of Jesus. But even in this case the most
impracticable dreams of the new religion were fruitful in results. Pious
mendacity, so impatiently born by our industrial and well-organized
communities, was in its day, and in a suitable climate, full of charm. It
offered to a multitude of mild and contemplative souls the only condition
suited to them. To have made poverty an object of love and desire, to have
raised the beggar to the altar, and to have sanctified the coat of the
poor man, was a master-stroke which political economy may not appreciate,
but in the presence of which the true moralist cannot remain indifferent.
Humanity, in order to bear its burden, needs to believe that it is not
paid entirely by wages. The greatest service which can be rendered to it
is to repeat often that it lives not by bread alone.
Like all great men, Jesus loved the people and felt
himself at home with them. The Gospel, in his idea, is made for the poor;
it is to them he brings the glad tidings of salvation. All the despised
ones of orthodox Judaism were his favorites. Love of the people, and pity
for its weakness (the sentiment of the democratic chief, who feels the
spirit of the multitude live in him, and recognize him as its natural
interpreter), shine forth at each moment in his acts and discourses.
The chosen flock presented, in fact, a very mixed
character, and one likely to astonish rigorous moralists. It counted in
its fold men with whom a Jew respecting himself would not have associated.
Perhaps Jesus found in this society, unrestrained by ordinary rules, more
mind and heart than in a pedantic and formal middle-class, proud of its
apparent morality. The Pharisees, exaggerating the Mosaic prescriptions,
had come to believe themselves defiled by contact with men less strict
than themselves; in their meals they almost rivalled the puerile
distinctions of caste in India. Despising these miserable aberrations of
the religious sentiment, Jesus loved to eat with those who suffered from
them; by his side at table were seen persons said to lead wicked lives,
perhaps only so called because they did not share the follies of the false
devotees. The Pharisees and the doctors protested against the scandal.
"See," said they, "with what men he eats!" Jesus returned subtle answers,
which exasperated the hypocrites: "They that be whole need not a
physician." Or again: "What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he
lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness,
and go after that which is lost until he find it? And when he hath found
it, he layeth it on his shoulder rejoicing." Or again: "The Son of man is
come to save that which was lost." Or again: "I am not come to call the
righteous, but sinners." Lastly, that delightful parable of the prodigal
son, in which he who is fallen is represented as having a kind of
privilege of love above him who has always been righteous. Weak or guilty
women, surprised at so much that was charming, and realizing for the first
time the attractions of contact with virtue, approached him freely. People
were astonished that he did not repulse them. "Now when the Pharisee which
had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he
were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that
toucheth him: for she is a sinner." Jesus replied by the parable of a
creditor who forgives his debtors' unequal debts, and he did not hesitate
to prefer the lot of him to whom was remitted the greater debt. He
appreciated conditions of soul only in proportion to the love mingled
therein. Women, with tearful hearts, and disposed through their sins to
feelings of humility, were nearer to his kingdom than ordinary natures,
who often have little merit in not having fallen. We may conceive, on the
other hand, that these tender souls, finding in their conversion to the
sect an easy means of restoration, would passionately attach themselves to
him.
Far from seeking to soothe the murmurs stirred up by
his disdain for the social susceptibilities of the time, he seemed to take
pleasure in exciting them. Never did anyone avow more loftily this
contempt for the "world," which is the essential condition of great things
and of great originality. He pardoned the rich man, but only when the rich
man, in consequence of some prejudice, was disliked by society. He greatly
preferred men of equivocal life and of small consideration in the eyes of
the orthodox leaders. "The publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom
of God before you. For John came unto you and ye believed him not: but the
publicans and the harlots believed him." We can understand how galling the
reproach of not having followed the good example set by prostitutes must
have been to men making a profession of seriousness and rigid morality.
He had no external affectation or show of austerity. He
did not fly from pleasure; he went willingly to marriage feasts. One of
his miracles was performed to enliven a wedding at a small town. Weddings
in the East take place in the evening. Each one carries a lamp; and the
lights coming and going produce a very agreeable effect. Jesus liked this
gay and animated aspect, and drew parables from it. Such conduct, compared
with that of John the Baptist, gave offence. One day, when the disciples
of John and the Pharisees were observing the fast, it was asked, "Why do
the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but thy disciples fast
not? And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber fast,
while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom
with them, they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom
shall be taken away from them, and then they shall fast in those days."
His gentle gaiety found expression in lively ideas and amiable
pleasantries. "But whereunto," said he, "shall I liken this generation? It
is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their
fellows, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have, not danced; we
have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented. For John came neither
eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came
eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a
wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But Wisdom is justified of
her children."
He thus traversed Galilee in the midst of a continual
feast. He rode on a mule. In the East this is a good and safe mode of
travelling; the large black eyes of the animal, shaded by long eyelashes,
give it an expression of gentleness. His disciples sometimes surrounded
him with a kind of rustic pomp, at the expense of their garments, which
they used as carpets. They placed them on the mule which carried him, or
extended them on the earth in his path. His entering a house was
considered a joy and a blessing. He stopped in the villages and the large
farms, where he received an eager hospitality. In the East, the house into
which a stranger enters becomes at once a public place. All the village
assembles there, the children invade it, and, though dispersed by the
servants, always return. Jesus could not permit these simple auditors to
be treated harshly; he caused them to be brought to him and embraced them.
The mothers, encouraged by such a reception, brought him their children in
order that he might touch them. Women came to pour oil upon his head and
perfume on his feet His disciples sometimes repulsed them as troublesome;
but Jesus, who loved the ancient usages, and all that indicated simplicity
of heart, repaired the ill done by his too zealous friends. He protected
those who wished to honor him. Thus children and women adored him. The
reproach of alienating from their families these gentle creatures, always
easily misled, was one of the most frequent charges of his enemies.
The new religion was thus in many respects a movement
of women and children. The latter were like a young guard around Jesus for
the inauguration of his innocent royalty, and gave him little ovations
which much pleased him, calling him "son of David," crying Hosanna, and
bearing palms around him. Jesus, like Savonarola, perhaps made them serve
as instruments for pious missions; he was very glad to see these young
apostles, who did not compromise him, rush into the front and give him
titles which he dared not take himself. He let them speak, and, when he
was asked if he heard, he replied in an evasive manner that the praise
which comes from young lips is the most agreeable to God.
He lost no opportunity of repeating that the little
ones are sacred beings, that the kingdom of God belongs to children, that
we must become children to enter there, that we ought to receive it as a
child, that the heavenly Father hides his secrets from the wise, and
reveals them to the little ones. The idea of disciples is, in his mind,
almost synonymous with that of children. On one occasion, when they had
one of those quarrels for precedence which were not uncommon, Jesus took a
little child, placed him in their midst, and said unto them: "Whosoever
therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest
in the kingdom of heaven."
It was infancy, in fact, in its divine spontaneity, in
its simple bewilderments of joy, which took possession of the earth.
Everyone believed at each moment that the kingdom so much desired was
about to appear. Each one already saw himself seated on a throne beside
the Master. They divided among themselves the positions of honor in the
new kingdom, and strove to reckon the precise date of its advent. This new
doctrine was called the "Good Tidings"; it had no other name. An old word,
"paradise," which the Hebrew, like all the languages of the East, had
borrowed from the Persian, and which at first designated the parks of the
Achaemenidae, summed up the general dream; a delightful garden, where the
charming life which was led here below would be continued forever. How
long this intoxication lasted we know not. No one, during the course of
this magical apparition, measured time any more than we measure a dream.
Duration was suspended; a week was an age. But, whether it filled years or
months, the dream was so beautiful that humanity has lived upon it ever
since, and it is still our consolation to gather its weakened perfume.
Never did so much joy fill the breast of man. For a moment Humanity, in
this the most vigorous effort she ever made to rise above the world,
forgot the leaden weight which binds her to earth and the sorrows of the
life below. Happy he who has been able to behold this divine unfolding,
and to share, were it but for one day, this unexampled illusion! But still
more happy, Jesus would say to us, is he who, freed from all illusion,
shall reproduce in himself the celestial vision, and, with no millenarnan
dream, no chimerical paradise, no signs in the heavens, but, by the
uprightness of his will and the poetry of his soul, shall be able to
create anew in his heart the true kingdom of God!
Chapter 12
Embassy From John In Prison To Jesus - Death Of John - Relation Of His
School With That Of Jesus
WHILE joyous Galilee was celebrating in feasts the
coming of the well-beloved, the sorrowful John, in his prison of Machers,
was pining away with expectation and desire. The success of the young
Master whom he had seen some months before as his auditor reached his
ears. It was said that the Messiah predicted by the prophets, he who was
to re-establish the kingdom of Israel, was come, and was proving his
presence in Galilee by marvelous works. John wished to inquire into the
truth of this rumor, and, as he communicated freely with his disciples, he
chose two of them to go to Jesus in Galilee.
The two disciples found Jesus at the height of his
fame. The air of gladness which reigned around him surprised them.
Accustomed to fasts, to persevering prayer, and to a life of aspiration,
they were astonished to see themselves transported suddenly into the midst
of the joys attending the welcome of the Messiah. They told Jesus their
message: "Art thou he that should come? Or do we look for another?" Jesus,
who from that time hesitated no longer respecting his peculiar character
as Messiah, enumerated the works which ought to characterize the coming of
the kingdom of God -- such as the healing of the sick and the good tiding
of a speedy salvation preached to the poor. He did all these works. And
blessed is he," said Jesus, whosoever shall not be offended in me." We
know not whether this answer found John the Baptist living or in what
temper it put the austere ascetic. Did he die consoled and certain that he
whom he had announced already lived, or did he remain doubtful as to the
mission of Jesus? There is nothing to inform us. Seeing, however, that his
school continued to exist a considerable time parallel with the Christian
Churches, we are led to think that, notwithstanding his regard for Jesus,
John did not look upon him as the one who was to realize the divine
promises. Death came, moreover, to end his perplexities. The untenable
freedom of the ascetic was to crown his restless and stormy career by the
only end which was worthy of it.
The leniency which Antipas had at first shown towards
John was not of long duration. In the conversations which, according to
the Christian tradition, John had had with the tetrarch, he did not cease
to declare to him that his marriage was unlawful, and that he ought to
send away Herodias. We can easily imagine the hatred which the
grand-daughter of Herod the Great must have conceived towards this
importunate counsellor. She only waited an opportunity to ruin him.
Her daughter, Salome, born of her first marriage, and,
like her, ambitious and dissolute, entered into her designs, That year
(probably the year 30) Antipas was at Machero on the anniversary of his
birthday. Herod the Great had constructed in the interior of the fortress
a magnificent palace, where the tetrarch frequently resided. He gave a
great feast there, during which Salome executed one of those dances in
character which were not considered in Syria as unbecoming a distinguished
person. Antipas, being much pleased, asked the dancer what she most
desired, and she replied, at the instigation of her mother, "Give me here
John Baptist's head in a charger." [A portable dish on which liquors and
viands are served in the East.] Antipas was sorry but he did not like to
refuse. A guard took the dish, went and cut off the head of the prisoner,
and brought it.
The disciples of the Baptist obtained his body and
placed it in a tomb, but the people were much displeased. Six years after,
Hareth having attacked Antipas, in order to recover Machero and avenge the
dishonor of his daughter, Antipas was completely beaten; and his defeat
was generally regarded as a punishment for the murder of John.
The news of John's death was brought to Jesus by the
disciples of the Baptist. John's last act towards Jesus had effectually
united the two schools in the most intimate bonds. Jesus, fearing an
increase of ill-will on the part of Antipas, took precautions and retired
to the desert, where many people followed him. By exercising an extreme
frugality, the holy band was enabled to live there, and in this there was
naturally seen a miracle. From this time Jesus always spoke of John with
redoubled admiration. He declared unhesitatingly that he was more than a
prophet, that the Law and the ancient prophets had force only until he
came, that he had abrogated them, but that the kingdom of heaven would
displace him in turn. In fine, he attributed to him a special place in the
economy of the Christian mystery, which constituted him the link of union
between the Old Testament and the advent of the new reign.
The prophet Malachi, whose opinion in this matter was
soon brought to bear, had announced with much energy a precursor of the
Messiah, who was to prepare men for the final renovation, a messenger who
should come to make straight the paths before the elected one of God. This
messenger was no other than the prophet Elias, who, according to a
widely-spread belief, was soon to descend from heaven, whither he had been
carried, in order to prepare men by repentance for the great advent and to
reconcile God with his people. Sometimes they associated with Elias,
either the patriarch Enoch, to whom for one or two centuries they had
attributed high sanctity; or Jeremiah, whom they considered as a sort of
protecting genius of the people; constantly occupied in praying for them
before the throne of God. This idea, that two ancient prophets should rise
again in order to serve as precursors to the Messiah, is discovered in so
striking a form in the doctrine of the Parsees, that we feel much inclined
to believe that it comes from that source. However this may be, it formed
at the time of Jesus an integral portion of the Jewish theories about the
Messiah. It was admitted that the appearance of "two faithful witnesses,"
clothed in garments of repentance, would be the preamble of the great
drama about to be unfolded, to the astonishment of the universe.
It will be seen that, with these ideas, Jesus and his
disciples could not hesitate about the mission of John the Baptist. When
the scribes raised the objection that the Messiah could not have come
because Elias had not yet appeared, they replied that Elias was come, that
John was Elias raised from the dead. By his manner of life, by his
opposition to the established political authorities, John in fact recalled
that strange figure in the ancient history of Israel. Jesus was not silent
on the merits and excellencies of his forerunner. He said that none
greater were born among the children of men. He energetically blamed the
Pharisees and the doctors for not having accepted his baptism, and for not
being converted at his voice.
The disciples of Jesus were faithful to these
principles of their Master. This respect for John continued during the
whole of the first Christian generation. He was supposed to be a relative
of Jesus. ln order to establish the mission of the latter upon testimony
admitted by all, it was declared that John, at the first sight of Jesus,
proclaimed him the Messiah; that he recognized himself his inferior,
unworthy to unloose the latches of his shoes that he refused at first to
baptism him, and maintained that it was he who ought to be baptized by
Jesus. These were exaggerations, which are sufficiently refuted by the
doubtful form of John's last message. But, in a more general sense, John
remains in the Christian legend that which he was in reality -- the
austere forerunner, the gloomy preacher of repentance before the joy on
the arrival of the bride-groom, the prophet who announces the kingdom of
God and dies before beholding it. This giant in the early history of
Christianity, this eater of locusts and wild honey, this rough redresser
of wrongs, was the bitter which prepared the lip for the sweetness of the
kingdom of God. His beheading by Herodias inaugurated the era of Christian
martyrs; he was the first witness for the new faith. The worldly, who
recognized in him their true enemy, could not permit him to live; his
mutilated corpse, extended on the threshold of Christianity, traced the
bloody path in which so many others were to follow.
The school of John did not die with its founder. It
lived some time distinct from that of Jesus, and at first a good
understanding existed between the two. Many years after the death of the
two Masters people were baptized with the baptism of John. Certain persons
belonged to the two schools at the same time -- for example, the
celebrated Apollos, the rival of St. Paul (towards the year 50), and a
large number of the Christians of Ephesus. Josephus placed himself (year
53) in the school of an ascetic named Banou, who presents the greatest
resemblance to John the Baptist, and who was perhaps of his school. This
Banou lived in the desert, clothed with the leaves of trees; he supported
himself only on wild plants and fruits, and baptized himself frequently,
both day and night, in cold water, in order to purify himself. James, he
who was called the "brother of the Lord" (there is here, perhaps, some
confusion of homonyms), practiced a similar asceticism. Afterwards,
towards the year 80, Baptism was in strife with Christianity, especially
in Asia Minor. John the Evangelist appears to combat it in an indirect
manner, One of the Sibylline poems seems to proceed from this school. As
to the sects of Hemero-baptists, Baptists, and Elchasaites (Sabiens
Mogtasila of the Arabian writers), [NOTE: Sabiens is the Aramean
equivalent of the word Baptists." Mogtasila has the same meaning in
Arabic.] who, in the second century, filled Syria, Palestine, and
Babylonia, and whose representatives still exist in our days among the
Mendaites, called "Christians of St. John," they have the same origin as
the movement of John the Baptist, rather than an authentic descent from
John. The true school of the latter, partly mixed with Christianity,
became a small Christian heresy, and died out in obscurity. John had
foreseen distinctly the destiny of the two schools. If he had yielded to a
mean rivalry, he would to-day have been forgotten in the crowd of
sectaries of his time. By his self-abnegation, he has attained a glorious
and unique position in the religious pantheon of humanity.
Chapter 13
First Attempts On Jerusalem
JESUS, almost every year, went to Jerusalem for the
feast of the passover. The details of these journeys are little known, for
the Synoptics do not speak of them, and the notes of the fourth Gospel are
very confused on this point. It was, it appears, in the year 31, and
certainly after the death of John, that the most important of the visits
of Jesus to Jerusalem took place. Many of the disciples followed him.
Although Jesus attached from that time little value to the pilgrimage, he
conformed himself to it in order not to wound Jewish opinion, with which
he had not yet broken. These journeys, moreover, were essential to his
design; for he felt already that, in order to play a leading part, he must
go from Galilee, and attack Judaism in its stronghold, which was
Jerusalem.
The little Galilean community were here far from being
at home. Jerusalem was then nearly what it is to-day, a city of pedantry,
acrimony, disputes, hatreds, and littleness of mind. Its fanaticism was
extreme, and religious seditions very frequent. The Pharisees were
dominant; the study of the Law, pushed to the most insignificant minutiae,
and reduced to questions of casuistry, was the only study. This
exclusively theological and canonical culture contributed in no respect to
define the intellect. It was something analogous to the barren doctrine of
the Mussulman fakir, to that empty science discussed round about the
mosques, and which is a great expenditure of time and useless
argumentation, by no means calculated to advance the right discipline of
the mind. The theological education of the modern clergy, although very
dry, gives us no idea of this, for the Renaissance has introduced into all
our teachings, even the most irregular, a share of belles lettres and of
method, which has infused more or less of the humanities into
scholasticism. The science of the Jewish doctor, of the sofer or scribe,
was purely barbarous, unmitigatedly absurd, and denuded of all moral
element. To crown the evil, it filled with ridiculous pride those who had
wearied themselves in acquiring it. The Jewish scribe, proud of the
pretended knowledge which had cost him so much trouble, had the same
contempt for Greek culture which the learned Mussulman of our time has for
European civilization, and which the old Catholic theologian had for the
knowledge of men of the world. The tendency of this scholastic culture was
to close the mind to all that was refined, to create esteem only for those
difficult triflings on which they had wasted their lives, and which were
regarded as the natural occupation of persons professing a degree of
seriousness.
This odious society could not fail to weigh heavily on
the tender and susceptible minds of the north. The contempt of the
Hierosolymites for the Galileans rendered the separation still more
complete. In the beautiful temple which was the object of all their
desires they often only met with insult. A verse of the pilgrim's psalm,
"I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God," seemed made
expressly for them. A contemptuous priesthood laughed at their simple
devotion, as formerly in Italy the clergy, familiarized with the
sanctuaries, witnessed coldly and almost jestingly the fervor of the
pilgrim come from afar. The Galileans spoke a rather corrupt dialect;
their pronunciation was vicious; they confounded the different aspirations
of letters, which led to mistakes which were much laughed at. In religion
they were considered as ignorant and somewhat heterodox; the expression,
"foolish Galileans," had become proverbial. It was believed (not without
reason) that they were not of pure Jewish blood, and no one expected
Galilee to produce a prophet. Placed thus on the confines of Judaism., and
almost outside of it, the poor Galileans had only one badly interpreted
passage in Isaiah to build their hopes upon. "Land of Zebulon, and land of
Naphtali, way of the sea, Galilee of the nations! The people that walked
in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the
shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined." The reputation of the
native city of Jesus was particularly bad. It was a popular proverb "Can
there any good thing come out of Nazareth?
The parched appearance of nature in the neighborhood of
Jerusalem must have added to the dislike Jesus had for the place. The
valleys are without water; the soil arid and stony. Looking into the
valley of the Dead Sea, the view is somewhat striking; elsewhere it is
monotonous. The hill of Mizpeh, around which cluster the most ancient
historical remembrances of Israel, alone relieves the eye. The city
presented, at the time of Jesus, nearly the same form that it does now. It
had scarcely any ancient monuments, for, until the time of the Asmoneans,
the Jews had remained strangers to all the arts. John Hyrcanus had begun
to embellish it, and Herod the Great had made it one of the most
magnificent cities of the East. The Herodian constructions, by their grand
character, perfection of execution, and beauty of material, may dispute
superiority with the most finished works of antiquity. A great number of
superb tombs, of original taste, were raised at the same time in the
neighborhood of Jerusalem. The style of these monuments was Grecian, but
appropriate to the customs of the Jews, and considerably modified in
accordance with their principles. The ornamental sculptures of the human
figure which the Herods had sanctioned, to the great discontent of the
purists, were banished, and replaced by floral decorations. The taste of
the ancient inhabitants of Phoenicia and Palestine for monoliths in solid
stone seemed to be revived in these singular tombs cut in the rock, and in
which Grecian orders are so strangely applied to an architecture of
troglodytes. Jesus, who regarded works of art as a pompous display of
vanity, viewed these monuments with displeasure. His absolute
spiritualism, and his settled conviction that the form of the old world
was about to pass away, left him no taste except for things of the heart.
The temple, at the time of Jesus, was quite new, and
the exterior works of it were not completed. Herod had begun its
reconstruction in the year 20 or 21 before the Christian era, in order to
make it uniform with his other edifices. The body of the temple was
finished in eighteen months; the porticoes took eight years; and the
accessory portions were continued slowly, and were only finished a short
time before the taking of Jerusalem. Jesus probably saw the work
progressing, not without a degree of secret vexation. These hopes of a
long future were like an insult to his approaching advent. Clearer-sighted
than the unbelievers and the fanatics, he foresaw that these superb
edifices were destined to endure but for a short time.
The temple formed a marvelously imposing whole, of
which the present harem, notwithstanding its beauty, scarcely gives us any
idea. The courts and the surrounding porticoes served as the daily
rendezvous for a considerable number of persons -- so much so that this
great space was at once temple, forum, tribunal, and university. All the
religious discussions of the Jewish schools, all the canonical
instruction, even the legal processes and civil causes -- in a word, all
the activity of the nation was concentrated there. It was an arena where
arguments were perpetually clashing, a battle-field of disputes,
resounding with sophism and subtle questions. The temple had thus much
analogy with a Mohammedan mosque. The Romans at this period treated all
strange religions with respect when kept within proper limits, and
carefully refrained from entering the sanctuary. Greek and Latin
inscriptions marked the point up to which those who were not Jews were
permitted to advance, But the tower of Antonia, the headquarters of the
Roman forces, commanded the whole enclosure, and allowed all that passed
therein to be seen. The guarding of the temple belonged to the Jews; the
entire superintendence was committed to a captain, who caused the gates to
be opened and shut, and prevented any one from crossing the enclosure with
a stick in his hand, or with dusty shoes, or when carrying parcels, or to
shorten his path. They were especially scrupulous in watching that no one
entered within the inner gates in a state of legal impurity. The women had
an entirely separate court.
It was in the temple that Jesus passed his days while
he remained at Jerusalem. The period of the feasts brought an
extraordinary concourse of people into the city. Associated in parties of
ten to twenty persons, the pilgrims invaded everywhere, and lived in that
disordered state in which Orientals delight. Jesus was lost in the crowd,
and his poor Galileans grouped around him were of small account. He
probably felt that he was in a hostile world which would receive him only
with disdain. Everything he saw set him against it. The temple, like
much-frequented places of devotion in general, offered a not very edifying
spectacle. The accessories of worship entailed a number of repulsive
details, especially of mercantile operations, in consequence of which real
shops were established within the sacred enclosure. There were sold beasts
for the sacrifices; there were tables for the exchange of money; at times
it seemed like a bazaar. The inferior officers of the temple fulfilled
their functions doubtless with the irreligious vulgarity of the sacristans
of all ages. This profane and heedless air in the handling of holy things
wounded the religious sentiment of Jesus, which was at times carried even
to a scrupulous excess. He said that they had made the house of prayer
into a den of thieves. One day, it is even said, that, carried away by his
anger, he scourged the vendors with a "scourge of small cords," and
overturned their tables. In general, he had little love for the temple.
The worship which he had conceived for his Father had nothing in common
with scenes of butchery -- All these old Jewish institutions displeased
him, and he suffered in being obliged to conform to them. Except among the
Judaising Christians, neither the temple nor its site inspired pious
sentiments. The true disciples of the new faith held this ancient
sanctuary in aversion. Constantine and the first Christian emperors left
the pagan construction of Adrian existing there, and only the enemies of
Christianity, such as Julian, remembered the temple. When Omar entered
into Jerusalem, he found the site designedly polluted in hatred of the
Jews. It was Islamism -- that is to say, a sort of resurrection of Judaism
in its exclusively Semitic form -- which restored its glory. The place has
always been anti-Christian.
The pride of the Jews completed the discontent of
Jesus, and rendered his stay in Jerusalem painful. In the degree that the
great ideas of Israel ripened, the priesthood lost its power. The
institution of synagogues had given to the interpreter of the Law, to the
doctor, a great superiority over the priest, There were no priests except
at Jerusalem, and even there, reduced to functions entirely ritual,
almost, like our parish priests, excluded from preaching, they were
surpassed by the orator of the synagogue, the casuist, and the sofer or
scribe, although the latter was only a layman. The celebrated men of the
Talmud were not priests; they were learned men according to the ideas of
the time. The high priesthood of Jerusalem held, it is true, a very
elevated rank in the nation; but it was by no means at the head of the
religious movement. The sovereign pontiff, whose dignity had already been
degraded by Herod, became more and more a Roman functionary, who was
frequently removed in order to divide the profits of the office". Opposed
to the Pharisees, who were very warm lay zealots, the priests were almost
all Sadducees -- that is to say, members of that unbelieving aristocracy
which had been formed around the temple, and which lived by the altar,
while they saw the vanity of it. The sacerdotal caste was separated to
such a degree from the national sentiment, and from the great religious
movement which dragged the people along, that the name of "Sadducee" (sadoki),
which at first simply designated a member of the sacerdotal family of
Sadok, had become synonymous with "Materialist" and with "Epicurean." A
still worse element had begun, since the reign of Herod the Great, to
corrupt the high-priesthood. Herod having fallen in love with Mariamne,
daughter of a certain Simon, son of Bogthus of Alexandria, and having
wished to marry her (about the year 28 B.C.), saw no other means of
ennobling his father-in-law and raising him to his own rank than by making
him high-priest. This intriguing family remained master, almost without
interruption, of the sovereign pontificate for thirty-five years. Closely
allied to the reigning family, it did not lose the office until after the
deposition of Archelaus, and recovered it (the year 42 of our era) after
Herod Agrippa had for some time re-enacted the work of Herod the Great.
Under the name of Boethusim, a new sacerdotal nobility was formed, very
worldly and little devotional, and closely allied to the Sadokites. The
Boethusim, in the Talmud and the rabbinical writings, are depicted as a
kind of unbelievers, and always reproached as Sadducees. From all this
there resulted a miniature court of Rome around the temple, living on
politics, little inclined to excesses of zeal, even rather fearing them,
not wishing to hear of holy personages or of innovators, for it profited
from the established routine. These epicurean priests had not the violence
of the Pharisees; they only wished for quietness; it was their moral
indifference, their cold irreligion, which revolted Jesus. Although very
different, the priests and the Pharisees were thus confounded in his
antipathies. But a stranger, and without influence, he was long compelled
to restrain his discontent within himself, and only to communicate his
sentiments to the intimate friends who accompanied him.
Before his last stay, which was by far the longest of
all that he made at Jerusalem, and which was terminated by his death,
Jesus endeavored, however, to obtain a hearing. He preached; people spoke
of him; and they conversed respecting certain deeds of his which were
looked upon as miraculous. But from all that there resulted neither an
established Church at Jerusalem nor a group of Hierosolymite disciples.
The charming teacher who forgave everyone, provided they loved him, could
not find much sympathy in this sanctuary of vain disputes and obsolete
sacrifices. The only result was that he formed some valuable friendships,
the advantage of which he reaped afterwards. He does not appear at that
time to have made the acquaintance of the family of Bethany, which, amid
the trials of the latter months of his life, brought him so much
consolation. But very early he attracted the attention of a certain
Nicodemus, a rich Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrin, and a man occupying
a high position in Jerusalem. This man, who appears to have been upright
and sincere, felt himself attracted towards the young Galilean. Not
wishing to compromise himself, he came to see Jesus by night, and had a
long conversation with him. He doubtless preserved a favorable impression
of him, for afterwards he defended Jesus against the prejudices of his
colleagues, and, at the death of Jesus, we shall find him tending with
pious care the corpse of the Master. Nicodemus did not become a Christian;
he had too much regard for his position to take part in a revolutionary
movement which as yet counted no men of note among its adherents. But he
evidently felt great friendship for Jesus, and rendered him service,
though unable to rescue him from a death which even at this period was all
but decreed.
As to the celebrated doctors of the time, Jesus does
not appear to have had any connection with them. Hillel and Shammai were
dead; the greatest authority of the time was Gamaliel, grandson of Hillel.
He was of a liberal spirit, and a man of the world, not opposed to secular
studies, and inclined to tolerance by his intercourse with good society.
Unlike the very strict Pharisees, who walked veiled or with closed eyes,
he did not scruple to gaze even upon Pagan women. This, as well as his
knowledge of Greek, was tolerated because he had access to the Court.
After the death of Jesus, he expressed very moderate views respecting the
new sect. St. Paul sat at his feet, but it is not probable that Jesus ever
entered his school.
One idea, at least, which Jesus brought from Jerusalem,
and which henceforth appears rooted in his mind, was that there was no
possible union between him and the ancient Jewish religion. The abolition
of the sacrifices which had caused him so much disgust, the suppression of
an impious and haughty priesthood, and, in a general sense, the abrogation
of the Law, appeared to him absolutely necessary. From this time he
appears no more as a Jewish reformer, but as a destroyer of Judaism.
Certain advocates of the Messianic ideas had already admitted that the
Messiah would bring a new law, which should be common to all the earth.
The Essenes, who were scarcely Jews, also appear to have been indifferent
to the temple and to the Mosaic observances. But these were only isolated
or unavowed instances of boldness. Jesus was the first who dared to say
that from his time, or rather from that of John, the Law was abolished. If
sometimes he used more measured terms, it was in order not to offend
existing prejudices too violently. When he was driven to extremities, he
lifted the veil entirely, and declared that the Law had no longer any
force. On this subject he used striking comparisons. "No man putteth a
piece of new cloth into an old garment, neither do men put new wine into
old bottles." This was really his chief characteristic as teacher and
creator. The temple excluded all except Jews from its enclosure by
scornful announcements. Jesus had no sympathy with this. The narrow, hard,
and uncharitable Law was only made for the children of Abraham. Jesus
maintained that every well-disposed man, every man who received and loved
him, was a son of Abraham. The pride of blood appeared to him the great
enemy which was to be combated. In other words, Jesus was no longer a Jew.
He was in the highest degree revolutionary; he called all men to a worship
founded solely on the fact of their being children of God. He proclaimed
the rights of man, not the rights of the Jew; the religion of man, not the
religion of the Jew; the deliverance of man, not the deliverance of the
Jew. How far removed was this from a Gaulonite Tudas or a Matthias
Margaloth, preaching revolution in the name of the Law! The religion of
humanity, established, not upon blood, but upon the heart, was founded.
Moses was puperseded, the temple was rendered useless, and was irrevocably
condemned.
Chapter 14
Intercourse Of Jesus With The Pagans And the Samaritans
FOLLOWING out these principles, Jesus despised all
religion which was not of the heart. The vain practices of the devotees,
the exterior strictness which trusted to formality for salvation, had in
him a mortal enemy. He cared little for fasting. He preferred forgiveness
to sacrifice. The love of God, charity, and mutual forgiveness were his
whole law. Nothing could be less priestly. The priest, by his office, ever
advocates public sacrifice, of which he is the appointed minister; he
discourages private prayer, which has a tendency to dispense with his
office.
We should seek in vain in the Gospel for one religious
rite recommended by Jesus. Baptism to him was only of secondary
importance; and with respect to prayer he prescribes nothing, except that
it should proceed from the heart. As is always the case, many thought to
substitute mere goodwill for genuine love of goodness, and imagined they
could win the kingdom of heaven by saying to him, "Rabbi, Rabbi." He
rebuked them, and proclaimed that his religion consisted in doing good. He
often quoted the passage in Isaiah which says: "This people honor me with
their lips, but their heart is far from me."
The observance of the Sabbath was the principal point
upon which was raised the whole edifice of Pharisaic scruples and
subtleties. This ancient and excellent institution had become a pretext
for the miserable disputes of casuists, and a source of superstitious
beliefs. It was believed that nature observed it; all intermittent springs
were accounted "Sabbatical." This was the point upon which Jesus loved
best to defy his adversaries. He openly violated the Sabbath, and only
replied by subtle raillery to the reproaches that were heaped upon him. He
despised still more a multitude of modern observances, which tradition had
added to the Law, and which were dearer than any other to the devotees on
that very account. Ablutions, and the too subtle distinctions between pure
and impure things, found in him a pitiless opponent. "There is nothing
from without a man," said he. "that entering into him can defile him: but
the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man." The
Pharisees, who were the propagators of these mummeries, were unceasingly
denounced by him. He accused them of exceeding the Law, of inventing
impossible precepts, in order to create occasions of sin. "Blind leaders
of the blind," said he, "take care lest ye also fall into the ditch." "O
generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out
of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh."
He did not know the Gentiles sufficiently to think of
founding anything lasting upon their conversion. Galilee contained a great
number of pagans, but, as it appears, no public and organized worship of
false gods. Jesus could see this worship displayed in all its splendor in
the country of Tyre and Sidon, at Caesarea Philippi and in the Decapolis,
but he paid little attention to it. We never find in him the wearisome
pedantry of the Jews of his time, those declamations against idolatry, so
familiar to his co- religionists from the time of Alexander, and which
fill, for instance, the book of "Wisdom." That which struck him in the
pagans was not their idolatry, but their servility. The young Jewish
democrat, agreeing on this point with Judas the Gaulonite, and admitting
no master but God, was hurt at the honors with which they surrounded the
persons of sovereigns, and the frequently mendacious titles given to them.
With this exception, in the greater number of instances in which he comes
in contact with pagans, he shows great indulgence to them; sometimes he
professes to conceive more hope of them than of the Jews. The kingdom of
God would be transferred to them. "When the lord, therefore, of the
vineyard cometh, what will he do unto these husbandmen? He will miserably
destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other
husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons." Jesus
adhered so much the more to this idea as the conversion of the Genfiles
was, according to Jewish ideas, one of the surest signs of the advent of
the Messiah. In his kingdom of God he represents as seated at a feast by
the side of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, men come from the four winds of
heaven, while the lawful heirs of the kingdom are rejected. Sometimes, it
is true, there seems to be an entirely contrary tendency in the commands
he gives to his disciples: he seems to recommend them only to preach
salvation to the orthodox Jews; he speaks of pagans in a manner
conformable to the prejudices of the Jews. But we must remember that the
disciples, whose narrow minds did not share in this supreme indifference
for the privileges of the sons of Abraham, may have given the instruction
of their Master the bent of their own ideas. Besides, it is very possible
that Jesus may have varied on this point, just as Mohammed speaks of the
Jews in the Koran, sometimes in the most honorable manner, sometimes with
extreme harshness, as he had hope of winning their favor or otherwise.
Tradition, in fact, attributes to Jesus two entirely opposite rules of
proselytism, which he may have practiced in turn: "He that is not against
us is on our part." "He that is not with me is against me." Impassioned
conflict involves almost necessarily this kind of contradictions.
It is certain that he counted among his disciples many
men whom the Jews called "Hellenes." This word had in Palestine divers
meanings. Sometimes it designated in the Jews, speaking Greek, and
dwelling among the pagans; sometimes men of pagan origin converted to
Judaism. It was probably in the last named category of Hellene, that Jesus
found sympathy. The affiliation with Judaism had many degrees; but the
proselytes always remained in a state of inferiority in regard to the Jew
by birth. Those in question were called "proselytes of the gate," or "men
fearing God," and were subject to the precepts of Noah, and not to those
of Moses. This very inferiority was doubtless the cause which drew them to
Jesus, and gained them his favor.
He treated the Samaritans in the same manner. Shut in,
like a small island, between the two great provinces of Judaism (Judea and
Galilee), Samaria formed in Palestine a kind of enclosure in which was
preserved the ancient worship of Gerizim, closely resembling and rivalling
that of Jerusalem. This poor sect, which had neither the genius nor the
learned organization of Judaism, properly so- called, was treated by the
Hierosolymites with extreme harshness. They placed them in the same rank
as pagans, but hated them more. Jesus, from a feeling of opposition, was
well disposed towards Samaria, and often preferred the Samaritans to the
orthodox Jews. If, at other times, he seems to forbid his disciples
preaching to them, confining his Gospel to the Israelites proper, this was
no doubt a precept arising from special circumstances, to which the
apostles have given too absolute a meaning. Sometimes, in fact, the
Samaritans received him badly, because they thought him imbued with the
prejudices of his co-religionists -- in the same manner as in our days the
European freethinker is regarded as an enemy by the Mussulman, who always
believes him to be a fanatical Christian. Jesus raised himself above these
misunderstandings. He had many disciples at Shechem, and he passed at
least two days there. On one occasion he meets with gratitude and true
piety from a Samaritan only. One of his most beautiful parables is that of
the man wounded on the way to Jericho. A priest passes by and sees him,
but goes on his way; a Levite also passes, but does not stop; a Samaritan
takes pity on him, approaches him, and pours oil into his wounds, and
bandages them. Jesus argues from this that true brotherhood is established
among men by charity, and not by creeds. The "neighbor" who in Judaism was
specially the co-religionist, was in his estimation the man who has pity
on his kind without distinction of sect. Human brotherhood in its widest
sense overflows in all his teaching.
These thoughts, which beset Jesus on his leaving
Jerusalem, found their vivid expression in an anecdote which has been
preserved respecting his return. The road from Jerusalem into Galilee
passes at the distance of half-an-hour's journey from Shechem, in front of
the opening of the valley commanded by mounts Ebal and Gerizim, This route
was in general avoided by the Jewish pilgrims, who preferred making in
their journeys the long detour through Perea, rather than expose
themselves to the insults of the Samaritans, or ask anything of them. It
was forbidden to eat and drink with them. It was an axiom of certain
casuists that "a piece of Samaritan bread is the flesh of swine." When
they followed this route, provisions were always laid up beforehand; yet
they rarely avoided conflict and ill-treatment. Jesus shared neither these
scruples nor these fears. Having come to the point where the valley of
Shechem opens on the left, he felt fatigued, and stopped near a well. The
Samaritans were then as now accustomed to give to all the localities of
their valley names drawn from patriarchal reminiscences. They regarded
this well as having been given by Jacob to Joseph; it was probably the
same which is now called Birlakoub. The disciples entered the valley and
went to the city to buy provisions. Jesus seated himself at the side of
the well, having Gerizim before him.
It was about noon. A woman of Shechem came to draw
water. Jesus asked her to let him drink, which excited great astonishment
in the woman, the Jews generally forbidding all intercourse with the
Samaritans, won by the conversation of Jesus, the woman recognized in him
a prophet, and, expecting some reproaches about her worship, she
anticipated him. "Sir," said she, "our fathers worshipped in this
mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to
worship." Jesus saith unto her, "Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when
ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the
Father. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall
worship the Father in spirit and in truth."
The day on which he uttered this saying he was truly
Son of God. He pronounced for the first time the sentence upon which will
repose the edifice of eternal religion. He founded the pure worship of all
ages, of all lands, that which all elevated souls will practice until the
end of time. Not only was his religion on this day the best religion of
humanity, it was the absolute religion; and if other planets have
inhabitants gifted with reason and morality, their religion cannot be
different from that which Jesus proclaimed near the well of Jacob. Man has
not been able to maintain this position; for the ideal is realized but
transitorily. This sentence of Jesus has been a brilliant light amid gross
darkness; it has required eighteen hundred years for the eyes of mankind
(what do I say! for an infinitely small portion of mankind) to become
accustomed to it. But the light will become the full day, and, after
having run through all the cycles of error, mankind will return to this
sentence as the immortal expression of its faith and its hope.
Chapter 15
Commencment Of The Legends Concerning Jesus - His Own Idea Of His
Supernatural Character
JESUS returned to Galilee, having completely lost his
Jewish faith, and filled with revolutionary ardor. His ideas are now
expressed with perfect clearness. The innocent aphorisms of the first part
of his prophetic career, in part borrowed from the Jewish rabbis anterior
to him and the beautiful moral precepts of his second period, are
exchanged for a decided policy. The Law would be abolished; and it was to
be abolished by him. The Messiah had come, and he was the Messiah. The
kingdom of God was about to be revealed; and it was he who would reveal
it. He knew well that he would be the victim of his boldness; but the
kingdom of God could not be conquered without violence; it was by crises
and commotions that it was to be established. The Son of man would
reappear in glory, accompanied by legions of angels, and those who had
rejected him would be confounded.
The boldness of such a conception ought not to surprise
us. Long before this Jesus had regarded his relation to God as that of a
son to his father. That which in others would be an insupportable pride
ought not in him to be regarded as presumption.
The title of "Son of David" was the first which he
accepted, probably without being concerned in the innocent frauds by which
it was sought to secure it to him. The family of David had, as it seems,
been long extinct; the Asmoneans, being of priestly origin, could not
pretend to claim such a descent for themselves; neither Herod nor the
Romans dreamt for a moment that any representative whatever of the ancient
dynasty existed in their midst. But from the close of the Asmonean dynasty
the dream of an unknown descendant of the ancient kings, who should avenge
the nation of its enemies, filled every mind. The universal belief was
that the Messiah would be son of David, and, like him, would be born at
Bethlehem. The first idea of Jesus was not precisely this. The remembrance
of David, which was uppermost in the minds of the Jews, had nothing in
common with his heavenly reign. He believed himself the Son of God, and
not the son of David. His kingdom and the deliverance which he meditated
were of quite another order. But public opinion on this point made him do
violence to himself. The immediate consequence of the proposition, "Jesus
is the Messiah," was this other proposition, "Jesus is the son of David."
He allowed a title to be given him without which he could not hope for
success. He ended, it seems, by taking pleasure therein, for he performed
most willingly the miracles which were asked of him by those who used this
title in addressing him. In this, as in many other circumstances of his
life, Jesus yielded to the ideas which were current in his time, although
they were not precisely his own. He associated with his doctrine of the
"kingdom of God" all that could warm the heart and the imagination. It was
thus that we have seen him adopt the baptism of John, although it could
not have been of much importance to him.
One great difficulty presented itself, his birth at
Nazareth, which was of public notoriety. We do not know whether Jesus
strove against this objection. Perhaps it did not present itself in
Galilee, where the idea that the son of David should be a Bethlehemite was
less spread. To the Galilean idealist, moreover, the title of "son of
David" was sufficiently justified if he to whom it was given revived the
glory of his race and brought back the great days of Israel. Did Jesus
authorize by his silence the fictitious genealogies which his partisans
invented in order to prove his royal descent? Did he know anything of the
legends invented to prove that he was born at Bethlehem; and particularly
of the attempt to connect his Bethlehemite origin with the census which
had taken place by order of the Imperial legate, Quirinus? We know not.
The inexactitude and the contradictions of the genealogies lead to the
belief that they were the result of popular ideas operating at various
points, and that none of them were sanctioned by Jesus. Never does he
designate himself as son of David. His disciples, much less enlightened
than he, frequently magnified that which he said of himself; but, as a
rule, he had no knowledge of these exaggerations. Let us add that during
the first three centuries considerable portions of Christianity absolutely
denied the royal descent of Jesus and the authenticity of the genealogies.
The legends about him were thus the fruit of a great
and entirely spontaneous conspiracy, and were developed around him during
his lifetime. No great event in history has happened without having given
rise to a cycle of fables; and Jesus could not have put a stop to these
popular creations, even if he had wished to do so. Perhaps a sagacious
observer would have recognized from this point the germ of the narratives
which were to attribute to him a supernatural birth, and which arose, it
may be, from the idea, very prevalent in antiquity, that the incomparable
man could not be born of the ordinary relations of the two sexes; or, it
may be, in order to respond to an imperfectly understood chapter of
Isaiah, which was thought to foretell that the Messiah should be born of a
virgin; or, lastly, it may be in consequence of the idea that the "breath
of God," already regarded as a divine hypostasis, was a principle of
fecundity. Already, perhaps, there was current more than one anecdote
about his infancy, conceived with the intention of showing in his
biography the accomplishment of the Messianic ideal; or, rather, of the
propfiecies which the allegorical exegesis of the time referred to the
Messiah. At other times they connected him from his birth with celebrated
men, such as John the Baptist Herod the Great, Chaldean astrologers, who,
it was said visited Jerusalem about this time, and two aged persons,
Simeon and Anna, who had left memories of great sanctity. A rather loose
chronology characterized these combinations, which for the most part were
founded upon real facts travestied. But a singular spirit of gentleness
and goodness, a profoundly popular sentiment, permeated all these fables,
and made them a supplement to his preaching. It was especially after the
death of Jesus that such narratives became greatly developed; we may,
however, believe that they circulated even during his life, exciting only
a pious credulity and simple admiration.
That Jesus never dreamt of making himself pass for an
incarnation of God is a matter about which there can be no doubt. Such an
idea was entirely foreign to the Jewish mind; and there is no trace of it
in the Synoptical Gospels: we only find it indicated in portions of the
Gospel of John, which cannot be accepted as expressing the thoughts of
Jesus. Sometimes Jesus even seems to take precautions to put down such a
doctrine. The accusation that he made himself God, or the equal of God, is
presented even in the Gospel of John, as a calumny of the Jews. In this
last Gospel he declares himself less than his Father. Elsewhere he avows
that the Father has not revealed everything to him. He believes himself to
be more than an ordinary man, but separated from God by an infinite
distance. He is Son of God; but all men are, or may become so, in divers
degrees. Everyone ought daily to call God his father; all who are raised
again will be sons of God. The Divine sonship was attributed in the Old
Testament to beings whom it was by no means pretended were equal with God,
The word "son" has the widest meanings in the Semitic language, and in
that of the New Testament. Besides, the idea Jesus had of man was not that
low idea which a cold Doism has introduced. In his poetic conception of
nature one breath alone penetrates the universe the breath of man is that
of God; God dwells in man and lives by man, the same as man dwells in God
and lives by God. The transcendent idealism of Jesus never permitted him
to have a very clear notion of his own personality. He is his Father his
Father is he. He lives in his disciples; he is everywhere with them; his
disciples are one, as he and his Father are one. The idea to him is
everything; the body, which makes the distinction of persons, is nothing.
The title "Son of God," or simply "Son," thus became
for Jesus a title analogous to "Son of man," and, like that, synonymous
with the Messiah," with the sole difference that he called himself "Son of
man," and does not seem to have made the same use of the phrase "Son of
God." The title Son of man expressed his character as judge; that of Son
of God his power and his participation in the supreme designs. This power
had no limits. His Father had given him all power. He had the power to
alter even the Sabbath. No one could know the Father except through him.
The Father had delegated to him exclusively the right of judging. Nature
obeyed him; but she obeys also all who believe and pray, for faith can do
everything. We must remember that no idea of the laws of nature marked the
limit of the impossible, either in his own mind or in that of his hearers.
The witnesses of his miracles thanked God "for having given such power
unto men." He pardoned sins; he was superior to David, to Abraham, to
Solomon, and to the prophets. We do not know in what form, nor to what
extent, these affirmations of himself were made. Jesus ought not to be
judged by the law of our petty conventionalities. The admiration of his
disciples overwhelmed him and carried him away. It is evident that the
title of Rabbi, with which he was at first contented, no longer sufficed
him; even the title of prophet or messenger of God responded no longer to
his ideas. The position which he attributed to himself was that of a
superhuman being, and he wished to be regarded as sustaining a higher
relationship to God than other men. But it must be remarked that these
words, "superhuman" and "supernatural," borrowed from our petty theology,
had no meaning in the exalted religious consciousness of Jesus. To him
nature and the development of humanity were not limited kingdoms apart
from God -- paltry realities subjected to the laws of a hopeless
empiricism. There was no supernatural for him, because there was no
nature. Intoxicated with infinite love, he forgot the heavy chain which
holds the spirit captive; he cleared at one bound the abyss, impossible to
most, which the weakness of the human faculties has created between God
and man.
We cannot mistake in these affirmations of Jesus the
germ of the doctrine which was afterwards to make of him a divine
hypostasis, in identifying him with the Word, or "second God," or eldest
Son of God, or Angel Metathronos, [that is, sharing the throne of God; a
kind of divine secretary, keeping the register of merits and demerits.]
which Jewish theology created apart from him. A kind of necessity caused
this theology, in order to correct the extreme rigor of the old
Monotheism, to place near God an assessor, to whom the eternal Father is
supposed to delegate the government of the universe. The belief that
certain men are incarnations of divine faculties or "powers" was
widespread; the Samaritans possessed about the same time a thaumaturgus
named Simon, whom they identified with the "great power of God." For
nearly two centuries the speculative minds of Judaism had yielded to the
tendency to personify the divine attributes, and certain expressions which
were connected with the Divinity. Thus, the "breath of God," which is
often referred to in the Old Testament, is considered as a separate being,
the "Holy Spirit." In the same manner the "Wisdom of God " and the "Word
of God" became distinct personages. This was the germ of the process which
has engendered the Sephiroth of the Cabbala, the AEons of Gnosticism, the
hypostasis of Christianity, and all that dry mythology, consisting of
personified abstractions, to which Monotheism is obliged to resort when it
wishes to pluralize the Deity.
Jesus appears to have remained a stranger to these
refinements of theology, which were soon to fill the world with barren
disputes. The metaphysical theory of the Word, such as we find it in the
writings of his contemporary Philo, in the Chaldean Targums, and even in
the book of "Wisdom," is neither seen in the Logia of Matthew nor in
general in the Synoptics, the most authentic interpreters of the words of
Jesus. The doctrine of the Word, in fact, had nothing in common with
Messianism. The "Word" of Philo, and of the Targums, is in no sense the
Messiah. It was John the Evangelist, or his school, who afterwards
endeavored to prove that Jesus was the Word, and who created, in this
sense, quite a new theology, very different from that of the "kingdom of
God." The essential character of the Word was that of Creator and of
Providence. Now, Jesus never pretended to have created the world, nor to
govern it. His office was to judge it, to renovate it. The position of
president at the final judgment of humanity was the essential attribute
which Jesus attached to himself, and the character which all the first
Christians attributed to him. Until the great day he will sit at the right
hand of God, as his Metathronos, his first minister, and his future
avenger. The superhuman Christ of the Byzantine apsides, seated as judge
of the world, in the midst of the apostles in the same rank with him, and
superior to the angels who only assist and serve, is the exact
representation of that conception of the "Son of man" of which we find the
first features so strongly indicated in the book of Daniel.
At all events, the strictness of a studied theology by
no means existed in such a state of society. All the ideas we have just
stated formed in the mind of the disciples a theological system so little
settled that the Son of God, this species of divine duplicate, is made to
act purely as man. He is tempted -- he is ignorant of many things -- he
corrects himself -- he is cast down, discouraged -- he asks his Father to
spare him trials -- he is submissive to God as a son. He who is to judge
the world does not know the day of judgment. He takes precautions for his
safety. Soon after his birth he is obliged to be concealed to avoid
powerful men who wish to kill him. In exorcisms the devil cheats him, and
does not come out at the first command, In his miracles we are sensible of
painful effort -- an exhaustion as if something went out of him. All these
are simply the acts of a messenger of God, of a man protected and favored
by God. We must not look here for either logic or sequence. The need Jesus
had of obtaining credence, and the enthusiasm of his disciples, heaped up
contradictory notions. To the Messianic believers of the millenarian
school, and to the enthusiastic readers of the books of Daniel and of
Enoch, he was the Son of man -- to the Jews holding the ordinary faith,
and to the readers of Isaiah and Micah, he was the Son of David -- to the
disciples he was the Son of God, or simply the Son. Others, without being
blamed by the disciples, took him for John the Baptist risen from the
dead, for Elias, for Jeremiah, conformable to the popular belief that the
ancient prophets were about to reappear, in order to prepare the time of
the Messiah.
An absolute conviction, or rather the enthusiasm, which
freed him from even the possibility of doubt, shrouded all these
boldnesses. We little understand, with our cold and scrupulous natures,
how any one can be so entirely possessed by the idea of which he has made
himself the apostle. To the deeply earnest races of the West, conviction
means sincerity to one's self. But sincerity to one's self has not much
meaning to Oriental peoples, little accustomed to the subtleties of a
critical spirit. Honesty and imposture are words which, in our rigid
consciences, are opposed as two irreconcilable terms. In the East they are
connected by numberless subtle links and windings. The authors of the
Apocryphal books (of "Daniel" and of "Enoch," for instance), men highly
exalted, in order to aid their cause, committed, without a shadow of
scruple, an act which we should term a fraud. The literal truth has little
value to the Oriental; he sees everything through the medium of his ideas,
his interests, and his passions.
History is impossible if we do not fully admit that
there are many standards of sincerity. All great things are done through
the people; now, we can only lead the people by adapting ourselves to its
ideas. The philosopher who, knowing this, isolates and fortifies himself
in his integrity is highly praiseworthy. But he who takes humanity with
its illusions, and seeks to act with it and upon it, cannot be blamed.
Caesar knew well that he was not the son of Venus; France would not be
what it is if it had not for a thousand years believed in the Holy Ampulla
of Rheims. It is easy for us, who are so powerless, to call this
falsehood, and, proud of our timid honesty, to treat with contempt the
heroes who have accepted the battle of life under other conditions. When
we have effected by our scruples what they accomplished by their
falsehoods, we shall have the right to be severe upon them. At least, we
must make a marked distinction between societies like our own, where
everything takes place in the full light of reflection, and simple and
credulous communities, in which the beliefs that have governed ages have
been born. Nothing great has been established which does not rest on a
legend. The only culprit in such cases is the humanity which is willing to
be deceived.
Chapter 16
Miracles
Two means of proof -- miracles and the accomplishment
of prophecies -- could alone, in the opinion of the contemporaries of
Jesus, establish a supernatural mission. Jesus, and especially his
disciples, employed these two processes of demonstration in perfect good
faith. For a long time Jesus had been convinced that the prophets had
written only in reference to him. He recognized himself in their sacred
oracles; he regarded himself as the mirror in which all the prophetic
spirit of Israel had read the future. The Christian school, perhaps even
in the lifetime of its founder, endeavored to prove that Jesus responded
perfectly to all that the prophets had predicted of the Messiah. In many
cases these comparisons were quite superficial, and are scarcely
appreciable by us. They were most frequently fortuitous or insignificant
circumstances in the life of the Master which recalled to the disciples
certain passages of the Psalms and the Prophets, in which, in consequence
of their constant preoccupation, they saw images of him. The exegesis of
the time consisted thus almost entirely in a play upon words, and in
quotations made in an artificial and arbitrary manner. The synagogue had
no officially settled list of the passages which related to the future
reign. The Messianic references were very liberally created, and
constituted artifices of style rather than serious reasoning.
As to miracles, they were regarded at this period as
the indispensable mark of the divine, and as the sign of the prophetic
vocation. The legends of Elijah and Elisha were full of them. It was
commonly believed that the Messiah would perform many. In Samaria, a few
leagues from where Jesus was, a magician, named Simon, acquired an almost
divine character by his illusions. Afterwards, when it was sought to
establish the reputation of Apollonius of Tyana, and to prove that his
life had been the sojourn of a god upon the earth, it was not thought
possible to succeed therein except by inventing a vast cycle of miracles.
The Alexandrian philosophers themselves, Plotinus and others, are reported
to have performed several. Jesus was, therefore, obliged to choose between
these two alternatives -- either to renounce his mission or to become a
thaumaturgus. It must be remembered that all antiquity, with the exception
of the great scientific schools of Greece and their Roman disciples,
accepted miracles; and that Jesus not only believed therein, but had not
the least idea of an order of nature regulated by fixed laws. His
knowledge on this point was in no way superior to that of his
contemporaries. Nay, more, one of his most deeply-rooted opinions was that
by faith and prayer man has entire power over nature. The faculty of
performing miracles was regarded as a privilege frequently conferred by
God upon men, and it had nothing surprising in it.
The lapse of time has changed that which constituted
the power of the great founder of Christianity into something offensive to
our ideas, and if ever the worship of Jesus loses its hold upon mankind,
it will be precisely on account of those acts which originally inspired
belief in him. Criticism experiences no embarrassment in presence of this
kind of historical phenomenon. A thaumaturgus of our days, unless of an
extreme simplicity, like that manifested by certain stigmatists of
Germany, is odious, for he performs miracles without believing in them,
and is a mere charlatan. But, if we take a Francis d'Assisi, the question
becomes altogether different; the series of miracles attending the origin
of the order of St. Francis, far from offending us, affords us real
pleasure. The founder of Christianity lived in as complete a state of
poetic ignorance as did St. Clair and the tres socii. The disciples deemed
it quite necessary that their Master should have interviews with Moses and
Elias, that he should command the elements, and that he should heal the
sick. We must remember, besides, that every idea loses something of its
purity as soon as it aspires to realize itself. Success is never attained
without some injury being done to the sensibility of the soul. Such is the
feebleness of the human mind that the best causes are ofttimes gained only
by bad arguments. The demonstrations of the primitive apologists of
Christianity are supported by very poor reasonings. Moses, Christopher
Columbus, Mohammed, have only triumphed over obstacles by constantly
making allowance for the weakness of men, and by not always giving the
true reasons for the truth. It is probable that the hearers of Jesus were
more struck by his miracles than by his eminently divine discourses. Let
us add that doubtless popular rumor, both before and after the death of
Jesus, exaggerated enormously the number of occurrences of this kind. The
types of the Gospel miracles, in fact, do not present much variety: they
are repetitions of each other, and seem fashioned from a very small number
of models, accommodated to the taste of the country.
It is impossible, among the miraculous narratives so
tediously enumerated in the Gospels, to distinguish the miracles
attributed to Jesus by public opinion from those in which he consented to
play an active part. It is especially impossible to ascertain whether the
offensive circumstances attending them, the groanings, the strugglings,
and other features savoring of jugglery, are really historical, or whether
they are the fruit of the belief of the compilers, strongly imbued with
theurgy, and living, in this respect, in a world analogous to that of the
"spiritualists" of our times. Almost all the miracles which Jesus thought
he performed appear to have been miracles of healing. Medicine was at this
period in Judea what it still is in the East -- that is to say, in no
respect scientific, but absolutely surrendered to individual inspiration.
Scientific medicine, founded by Greece five centuries before, was at the
time of Jesus unknown to the Jews of Palestine. In such a stale of
knowledge, the presence of a superior man, treating the diseased with
gentleness, and giving him by some sensible signs the assurance of his
recovery, is often a decisive remedy. Who would dare to say that in many
cases, always excepting certain peculiar injuries, the touch of a superior
being is not equal to all the resources of pharmacy? The mere pleasure of
seeing him cures. He gives only a smile, or a hope, but these are not in
vain.
Jesus had no more idea than his countrymen of a
rational medical science; he believed, like everyone else, that healing
was to be effected by religious practices, and such a belief was perfectly
consistent. From the moment that disease was regarded as the punishment of
sin, or as the act of a demon, and by no means as the result of physical
causes, the best physician was the holy man who had power in the
supernatural world. Healing was considered a moral act; Jesus, who felt
his moral power, would believe himself specially gifted to heal. Convinced
that the touching of his robe, the imposition of his hands, did good to
the sick, he would have been unfeeling if he had refused to those who
suffered a solace which it was in his power to bestow. The healing of the
sick was considered as one of the signs of the kingdom of God, and was
always associated with the emancipation of the poor. Both were the signs
of the great revolution which was to end in the redress of all
infirmities.
One of the species of cure which Jesus most frequently
performed was exorcism, or strange disposition to believe in demons
pervaded all minds. It was a universal opinion, not only in Judea, but in
the whole world, that demons seized hold of bodies of certain persons and
made them act contrary to their will. A Persian div, often named in the
Avesta, Aeschma-daiva, the "div of coneupiscence," adopted by the Jews
under the name of Asmodeus, became the cause of all the hysterical
afflictions of women. Epilepsy, mental and nervous maladies, in which the
patient seems no longer to belong to himself, and infirmities the cause of
which is not apparent, as deafness, dumbness, were explained in the same
manner. The admirable treatise, On Sacred Disease, by Hippocrates, which
set forth the true principles of medicine on this subject four centuries
and a half before Jesus, had not banished from the world so great an
error. It was supposed that there were processes more or less efficacious
for driving away the demons; and the occupation of exorcist was a regular
profession, like that of physician. There is no doubt that Jesus had in
his lifetime the reputation of possessing the greatest secrets of this
art. There were at that time many lunatics in Judea, doubtless in
consequence of the great mental excitement. These mad persons, who were
permitted to go at large, as they still are in the same districts,
inhabited the abandoned sepulchral caves, which were the ordinary retreat
of vagrants. Jesus had great influence over these unfortunates. A thousand
singular incidents were related in connection with his cures, in which the
credulity of the time gave itself full scope. But still these difficulties
must not be exaggerated. The disorders, which were explained by
"possessions," were often very slight. In our times, in Syria, they regard
as mad or possessed by a demon (these two ideas were expressed by the same
word, medjnoun [The phrase, Daemonium habes Matt. xi. 18; Luke vii. 33;
John vii. 20. viii. 48, and following, X. 20, and following), should be
translated by "Thou art mad," as we should say in Arabic, Medjnoun ente.
The verb &aIloviv has also, in all classical antiquity, the meaning of "to
be mad."]) people who are only somewhat eccentric. A gentle word often
suffices in such cases to drive away the demon. Such were doubtless the
means employed by Jesus. Who knows if his celebrity as exorcist was not
spread almost without his own knowledge? Persons who reside in the East
are occasionally surprised to find themselves, after some time, in
possession of a great reputation, as doctors, sorcerers, or discoverers of
treasures, without being able to account to themselves for the facts which
have given rise to these strange fancies.
Many circumstances, moreover, seem to indicate that
Jesus only became a thaumaturgus late in life and against his inclination.
He often performs his miracles only after he has been besought to do so,
and with a degree of reluctance, reproaching those who asked them for the
grossness of their minds. One singularity, apparently inexplicable, is the
care he takes to perform his miracles in secret, and the request he
addresses to those whom he heals to tell no one. When the demons wish to
proclaim him the Son of God, he forbids them to open their mouths; but
they recognize him in spite of himself. These traits are especially
characteristic in Mark, who is preeminently the evangelist of miracles and
exorcisms. It seems that the disciple, who has furnished the fundamental
teachings of this Gospel, importuned Jesus with his admiration of the
wonderful, and that the Master, wearied of a reputation which weighed upon
him, had often said to him, "See thou say nothing to any man." Once this
discordance evoked a singular outburst, a fit of impatience, in which the
annoyance these perpetual demands of weak minds caused Jesus breaks forth.
One would say, at times, that the character of thaumaturgus was
disagreeable to him, and that he sought to give as little publicity as
possible to the marvels which, in a manner, grew under his feet. When his
enemies asked a miracle of him, especially a celestial miracle, a "sign
from heaven," he obstinately refused. We may therefore conclude that his
reputation of thaumaturgus was imposed upon him, that he did not resist it
much, but also that he did nothing to aid it, and that, at all events, he
felt the vanity of popular opinion on this point.
We should neglect to recognize the first principles of
history if we attached too much importance to our repugnance on this
matter, and if, in order to avoid the objections which might be raised
against the character of Jesus, we attempted to suppress facts which, in
the eyes of his contemporaries, were considered of the greatest
importance. It would be convenient to say that these are the additions of
disciples much inferior to their Master who, not being able to conceive
his true grandeur, have sought to magnify him by illusions unworthy of
him. But the four narrators of the life of Jesus are unanimous in
extolling his miracles: one of them, Mark, interpreter of the Apostle
Peter, insists so much on this point that, if we trace the character of
Christ only according to this Gospel, we should represent him as an
exorcist in possession of charms of rare efficacy, as a very potent
sorcerer, who inspired fear, and whom the people wished to get rid of. We
will admit, then, without hesitation, that acts which would now be
considered as acts of illusion or folly held a large place in the life of
Jesus. Must we sacrifice to these uninviting features the sublimer aspect
of such a life? God forbid. A mere sorcerer, after the manner of Simon the
magician, would not have brought about a moral revolution like that
effected by Jesus. If the thaumaturgus had effaced in Jesus the moralist
and the religious reformer, there would have proceeded from him a school
of theurgy, and not Christianity.
The problem, moreover, presents itself in the same
manner with respect to all saints and religions founders. Things now
considered morbid, such as epilepsy and seeing of visions, were formerly
principles of power and greatness. Physicians can designate the disease
which made the fortune of Mohammed. Almost in our own day the men who have
done the most for their kind (the excellent Vincent de Paul himself!)
were, whether they wished it or not, thaumaturgi. If we set out with the
principle that every historical personage to whom acts have been
attributed, which we in the nineteenth century hold to be irrational or
savoring of quackery, was either a madman or a charlatan, all criticism is
nullified. The school of Alexandria was a noble school, but, nevertheless,
it gave itself up to the practices of an extravagant theurgy. Socrates and
Pascal were not exempt from hallucinations. Facts ought to explain
themselves by proportionate causes. The weaknesses of the human mind only
engender weakness; great things have always great causes in the nature of
man, although they are often developed amid a crowd of littlenesses which,
to superficial minds, eclipse their grandeur.
In a general sense, it is therefore true to say that
Jesus was only thaumaturgus and exorcist in spite of himself. Miracles are
ordinarily the work of the public much more than of him to whom they are
attributed. Jesus persistently shunned the performance of the wonders
which the multitude would have created for him; the greatest miracle would
have been his refusal to perform any; never would the laws of history and
popular psychology have suffered so great a derogation. The miracles of
Jesus were a violence done to him by his age, a concession forced from him
by a passing necessity. The exorcist and the thaumaturgus have alike
passed away; but the religious reformer will live eternally.
Even those who did not believe in him were struck with
these acts, and sought to be witnesses of them. The pagans, and persons
unacquainted with him, experienced a sentiment of fear, and sought to
remove him from their district. Many thought perhaps to abuse his name by
connecting it with seditious movements. But the purely moral and in no
respect political tendency of the character of Jesus saved him from these
entanglements. His kingdom was in the circle of disciples whom a like
freshness of imagination and the same foretaste of heaven had grouped and
retained around him.
Chapter 17
Definitive Form Of The Ideas Of Jesus Respecting The Kingdom Of God
WE Suppose that this last phase of the activity of
Jesus continued about eighteen months from the time of his return from the
Passover of the year 31 until his journey to the feast of tabernacles of
the year 32. During this time the mind of Jesus does not appear to have
been enriched by the addition of any new element; but all his old ideas
grew and developed with an ever- increasing degree of power and boldness.
The fundamental idea of Jesus from the beginning was
the establishment of the kingdom of God. But this kingdom of God, as we
have already said, appears to have been understood by Jesus in very
different senses. At times we should take him for a democratic leader
desiring only the triumph of the poor and the disinherited. At other times
the kingdom of God is the literal accomplishment of the apocalyptic
visions of Daniel and Enoch. Lastly, the kingdom of God is often a
spiritual kingdom, and the approaching deliverance is a deliverance of the
spirit. In this last sense the revolution desired by Jesus was the one
which has really taken place -- the establishment of a new worship, purer
than that of Moses. All these thoughts appear to have existed at the same
time in the mind of Jesus. The first one, however -- that of a temporal
revolution -- does not appear to have impressed him much; he never
regarded the earth or the riches of the earth, or material power, as worth
caring for. He had no worldly ambition. Sometimes by a natural
consequence, his great religious importance was in danger of being
converted into mere social importance. Men came requesting him to judge
and arbitrate on questions affecting their material interests. Jesus
rejected these proposals with haughtiness, treating them as insults. Full
of his heavenly ideal, he never abandoned his disdainful poverty. As to
the other two conceptions of the kingdom of God, Jesus appears always to
have held them simultaneously. If he had been only an enthusiast, led away
by the apocalypses on which the popular imagination fed, he would have
remained an obscure sectary, inferior to those whose ideas he followed. If
he had been only a puritan, a sort of Channing or "Savoyard vicar," he
would undoubtedly have been unsuccessful. The two parts of his system, or,
rather, his two conceptions of the kingdom of God, rest one on the other,
and this mutual support has been the cause of his incomparable success.
The first Christians were dreamers, living in a circle of ideas which we
should term visionary; but, at the same time, they were the heroes of that
social war which has resulted in the enfranchisement of the conscience.
and in the establishment of a religion from which the pure worship,
proclaimed by the founder, will eventually proceed.
The apocalyptic ideas of Jesus, in their most complete
form, may thus be summed up. The existing condition of humanity is
approaching its termination. This termination will be an immense
revolution, "an anguish" similar to the pains of child-birth; a
palingenesis, or, in the words of Jesus himself, a "new birth," preceded
by dark calamities and heralded by strange phenomena. In the great day
there will appear in the heavens the sign of the Son of man: it will be a
startling and luminous vision like that of Sinai, a great storm rending
the clouds, a fiery meteor flashing rapidly from east to west. The Messiah
will appear in the clouds, clothed in glory and majesty, to the sound of
trumpets and surrounded by angels, His disciples will sit by his side upon
thrones. The dead will then arise, and the Messiah will proceed to
judgment.
At this judgment men will be divided into two classes
according to their deeds. The angels will be the executors of the
sentences. The elect will enter into delightful mansions, which have been
prepared for them from the foundation of the world; there they will be
seated, clothed with light, at a feast presided over by Abraham, the
patriarchs and the prophets. They will be the smaller number. The rest
will depart into Gehenna. Gehenna was the western valley of Jerusalem.
There the worship of fire had been practiced at various times, and the
place had become a kind of sewer. Gehenna was, therefore, in the mind of
Jesus, a gloomy, filthy valley, full of fire. Those excluded from the
kingdom will there be burnt and eaten by the never-dying worm, in company
with Satan and his rebel angels. There, there will be wailing and gnashing
of teeth. The kingdom of heaven will be as a closed room, lighted from
within, in the midst of a world of darkness and torments.
This new order of things will be eternal. Paradise and
Gehenna will have no end. An impassable abyss separates the one from the
other. The Son of man, Seated on the right hand of God, will preside over
this final condition of the world and of humanity.
That all this was taken literally by the disciples and
by the Master himself at certain moments appears clearly evident from the
writings of the time. If the first Christian generation had one profound
and constant belief, it was that the world was near its end, and that the
great "revelation" of Christ was about to take place. The startling
proclamation, "The time is at hand," which commences and closes the
Apocalypse; the incessantly reiterated appeal, "He that hath ears to hear
let him hear!" were the cries of hope and encouragement for the whole
Apostolic age. A Syrian expression, Mayan atha, "Our Lord cometh!" became
a sort of password, which the believers used among themselves to
strengthen their faith and their hope. The Apocalypse, written in the year
68 of our era, declares that the end will come in three years and a half.
The "Ascension of Isaiah" adopts a calculation very similar to this.
Jesus never indulged in such precise details. When he
was interrogated as to the time of his advent, he always refused to reply;
once even he declared that the date of this great day was known only by
the Father, who had revealed it neither to the angels nor to the Son. He
said that the time when the kingdom of God was most anxiously expected was
just that in which it would not appear. He constantly repeated that it
would be a surprise, as in the times of Noah and of Lot; that we must be
on our guard, always ready to depart; that each one must watch and keep
his lamp trimmed as for a wedding procession, which arrives unforeseen;
that the Son of man would come like a thief, at an hour when he would not
be expected; that he would appear as a flash of lightning, running from
one end of the heavens to the other. But his declarations on the neamess
of the catastrophe leave no room for any equivocation. "This generation,"
said he, "shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled. There be Some
standing here which shall not taste of death till they see the Son of man
coming in his kingdom." He reproaches those who do not believe in him for
not being able to read the signs of the future kingdom. "When it is
evening, ye say, it will be fair weather, for the sky is red. And in the
morning, It will be foul weather to-day, for the sky is red and lowering.
O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky, but can ye not
discern the signs of the times? "By an illusion common to all great
reformers, Jesus imagined the end to be much nearer than it really was; he
did not take into account the slowness of the movements of humanity; he
thought to realize in one day that which, eighteen centuries later, has
still to be accomplished.
These formal declarations preoccupied the Christian
family for nearly seventy years. It was believed that some of the
disciples would see the day of the final revelation before dying. John, in
particular, was considered as being of this number; many believed that he
would never die. Perhaps this was a later opinion suggested towards the
end of the first century, by the advanced age which John seems to have
reached; this age having given rise to the belief that God wished to
prolong his life indefinitely until the great day, in order to realize the
words of Jesus. However this may be, at his death the faith of many was
shaken, and his disciples attached to the prediction of Christ a more
subdued meaning.
At the same time that Jesus fully admitted the
Apocalyptic beliefs, such as we find them in the apocryphal Jewish books,
he admitted the doctrine, which is the complement, or rather the
condition, of them all -- namely, the resurrection of the dead. This
doctrine, as we have already said, was still somewhat new in Israel: a
number of people either did not know it, or did not believe it. It was the
faith of the Pharisees, and of the fervent adherents of the Messianic
beliefs. Jesus accepted it unreservedly, but always in the most idealistic
sense. Many imagined that in the resuscitated world they would eat, drink,
and marry. Jesus, indeed, admits into his kingdom a new passover a table,
and a new wine; but he expressly excludes marriage from it. The Sadducees
had on this subject an apparently coarse argument, but one which was
really in conformity with the old theology. It will be remembered that,
according to the ancient sages, man survived only in his children. The
Mosaic code had consecrated this patriarchal theory by a strange
institution, the levirate law. The Sadducees drew from thence subtle
deductions against the resurrection. Jesus escaped them by formally
declaring that in the life eternal there would no longer exist differences
of sex, and that men would be like the angels. Sometimes he seems to
promise resurrection only to the righteous, the punishment of the wicked
consisting in complete annihilation. Oftener, however, Jesus declares that
the resurrection shall bring eternal confusion to the wicked.
It will be seen that nothing in all these theories was
absolutely new. The Gospels and the writings of the Apostles scarcely
contain anything as regards apocalyptic doctrines but what might be found
already in "Daniel," "Enoch," and the "Sibylline Oracles," of Jewish
origin. Jesus accepted the ideas, which were generally received among his
contemporaries. He made them his basis of action, or rather one of his
bases; for he had too profound an idea of his true work to establish it
solely upon such fragile principles -- principles so liable to be
decisively refuted by facts.
It is evident, indeed, that such a doctrine, taken by
itself in a literal manner, had no future. The world, in continuing to
exist, caused it to crumble. One generation of man at the most was the
limit of its endurance. The faith of the first Christian generation is
intelligible, but the faith of the second generation is no longer so.
After the death of John, or of the last survivor, whoever he might be, of
the group which had seen the Master, the word of Jesus was convicted of
falsehood. If the doctrine of Jesus had been simply belief in an
approaching end of the world, it would certainly now be sleeping in
oblivion. What is it, then, which has saved it? The great breadth of the
Gospel conceptions, which has permitted doctrines suited to very different
intellectual conditions to be found under the same creed. The world has
not ended, as Jesus announced, and as his disciples believed. But it has
been renewed, and in one sense renewed as Jesus desired. It is because his
thought was two-sided that it has been fruitful. His chimera has not had
the fate of so many others which have crossed the human mind, because it
concealed a germ of life which, having been introduced, thanks to the
covering of fable, into the bosom of humanity, has thus brought forth
eternal fruits.
And let us not say that this is a benevolent
interpretation, imagined in order to clear the honor of our great Master
from the cruel contradiction inflicted on his dreams by reality, No, no;
this true kingdom of God, this kingdom of the spirit, which makes each one
king and priest; this kingdom which, like the grain of mustard seed, has
become a tree which overshadows the world, and amid whose branches the
birds have their nests, was understood, wished for, and founded by Jesus.
By the side of the false, cold, and impossible idea of an ostentatious
advent, he conceived the real city of God, the true "palingenesis," the
Sermon on the Mount, the apotheosis of the weak, the love of the people,
regard for the poor, and the reestablishment of all that is humble, true,
and simple. This reestablishment he has depicted as an incomparable
artist, by features which will last eternally. Each of us owes that which
is best in himself to him. Let us pardon him his hope of a vain
apocalypse, and of a second coming in great triumph upon the clouds of
heaven. Perhaps these were the errors of others rather than his own; and
if it be true that he himself shared the general illusion, what matters
it, since his dream rendered him strong against death, and sustained him
in a struggle to which he might otherwise have been unequal?
We must, then, attach several meanings to the divine
city conceived by Jesus. If his only thought had been that the end of time
was near, and that we must prepare for it, he would not have surpassed
John the Baptist. To renounce a world ready to crumble, to detach one's
self little by little from the present life, and to aspire to the kingdom
about to come, would have formed the gist of his preaching. The teaching
of Jesus had always a much larger scope. He proposed to himself to create
a new state of humanity, and not merely to prepare the end of that which
was in existence. Elias or Jeremiah, reappearing in order to prepare men
for the supreme crisis, would not have preached as he did. This is so true
that this morality, attributed to the latter days, is found to be the
eternal morality, that which has saved humanity. Jesus himself in many
cases makes use of modes of speech which do not accord with the
apocalyptic theory. He often declares that the kingdom of God has already
commenced; that every man bears it within himself; and can, if he be
worthy, partake of it; that each one silently creates this kingdom by the
true conversion of the heart. The kingdom of God at such times is only the
highest form of good. A better order of things than that which exists, the
reign of justice, which the faithful, according to their ability, ought to
help in establishing; or, again, the liberty of the soul, something
analogous to the Buddhist "deliverance," the fruit of the soul's
separation from matter and absorption in the divine essence. These truths,
which are purely abstract to us were living realities to Jesus. Everything
in his mind was concrete and substantial. Jesus, of all men, believed most
thoroughly in the reality of the ideal.
In accepting the Utopias of his time and his race,
Jesus thus was able to make high truths of them, thanks to the fruitful
misconceptions of their import. His kingdom of God was no doubt the
approaching a Apocalypse, which was about to be unfolded in the heavens.
But it was still, and probably above all the kingdom of the soul, founded
on liberty and on the filial sentiment which the virtuous man feels when
resting on the bosom of his Father. It was a pure religion, without forms,
without temple, and without priest; it was the moral judgment of the
world, delegated to the conscience of the just man, and to the arm of the
people. This is what was designed to live; this is what has lived. When,
at the end of a century of vain expectation, the materialistic hope of a
near end of the world was exhausted, the true kingdom of God became
apparent. Accommodating explanations throw a veil over the material
kingdom, which was then seen to be incapable of realization. The
Apocalypse of John, the chief Canonical book of the New Testament, being
too formally tied to the idea of an immediate catastrophe, became of
secondary importance, was held to be unintelligible, tortured in a
thousand ways, and almost rejected. At least, its accomplishment was
adjourned to an indefinite future. Some poor benighted ones, who, in a
fully enlightened age, still preserved the hopes of the first disciples,
became heretics (Ebionites, Millenarians) lost in the shallows of
Christianity. Mankind had passed to another kingdom of God. The degree of
truth contained in the thought of Jesus had prevailed over the chimera
which obscured it.
Let us not, however, despise this chimera, which has
been the thick rind of the sacred fruit on which we live. This fantastic
kingdom of heaven, this endless pursuit after a city of God, which has
constantly preoccupied Christianity during its long career, has been the
principle of that great instinct of futurity which has animated all
reformers, persistent believers in the Apocalypse, from Joachim of Flora
down to the Protestant sectary of our days. This impotent effort to
establish a perfect society has been the source of the extraordinary
tension which has always made the true Christian an athlete struggling
against the existing order of things. The idea of the "kingdom of God,"
and the Apocalypse, which is the complete image of it, are thus, in a
sense, the highest and most poetic expressions of human progress. But they
have necessarily given rise to great errors. The end of the world,
suspended as a perpetual menace over mankind, was, by the periodical
panics which it caused during centuries, a great hindrance to all secular
development. Society, being no longer certain of its existence, contracted
therefrom a degree of trepidation, and those habits of servile humility,
which rendered the Middle Ages so inferior to ancient and modern times. A
profound change had also taken place in the mode of regarding the coming
of Christ. When it was first announced to mankind that the end of the
world was about to come, like the infant which receives death with a
smile, it experienced the greatest access of joy that it has ever felt.
But, in growing old, the world became attached to life. The day of grace,
so long expected by the simple souls of Galilee, became to these iron ages
a day of wrath: Dies irae, dies illa! But, even in the midst of barbarism,
the idea of the kingdom of God continued fruitful. in spite of the feudal
church, of sects, and of religious orders, holy persons continued to
protest, in the name of the Gospel, against the iniquity of the world.
Even in our days, troubled days, in which Jesus has no more authentic
followers than those who seem to deny him, the dreams of an ideal
organization of society, which have so much analogy with the aspirations
of the primitive Christian sects, are only in one sense the blossoming of
the same idea. They are one of the branches of that immense tree in which
germinates all thought of a future, and of which the "kingdom of God" will
be eternally the root and stem. All the social revolutions of humanity
will be grafted on this phrase. But, tainted by a coarse materialism, and
aspiring to the impossible -- that is to say, to found universal happiness
upon political and economical measures -- the "socialist" attempts of our
time will remain unfruitful, until they take as their rule the true spirit
of Jesus, I mean absolute idealism -- the principle that, in order to
possess the world, we must renounce it.
The phrase, "kingdom of God," expresses also, very
happily, the want which the soul experiences of a supplementary destiny,
of a compensation for the present life. Those who do not accept the
definition of man as a compound of two substances, and who regard the
Deistical dogma of the immortality of the soul as in contradiction with
physiology, love to fall back upon the hope of a final reparation, which,
under an unknown form, shall satisfy the wants of the heart of man. Who
knows if the highest term of progress after millions of ages may not evoke
the absolute conscience of the universe, and in this conscience the
awakening of all that has lived? A sleep of a million of years is not
longer than the sleep of an hour. St. Paul, on this hypothesis, was right
in saying, In ictu oculi! It is certain that moral and virtuous humanity
will have its reward, that one day the ideas of the poor but honest man
will judge the world, and on that day the ideal figure of Jesus will be
the confusion of the frivolous who have not believed in virtue, and of the
selfish who have not been able to attain to it. The favorite phrase of
Jesus continues, therefore, full of an eternal beauty. A and of exalted
divination seems to have maintained it in a vague sublimity, embracing at
the same time various orders of truths.
Chapter 18
Institutions Of Jesus
THAT Jesus was never entirely absorbed in his
apocalyptic ideas is proved, moreover, by the fact that at the very time
he was most preoccupied with them he laid with rare forethought the
foundation of a Church destined to endure. It is scarcely possible to
doubt that he himself chose from among his disciples those who were
preeminently called the "Apostles," or the "Twelve," since on the day
after his death we find them forming a distinct body, and filling up by
election the vacancies that had arisen in their midst. They were the two
sons of Jonas, the two sons of Zebedee; James, son of Cleophas; Philip;
Nathaniel bar-Tolmai; Thomas; Levi, or Matthew, the son of Alphoeus; Simon
Zelotes; Thaddeus or Lebbaeus; and Judas of Kerioth. it is probable that
the idea of the twelve tribes of Israel had had some share in the choice
of this number.
The "Twelve," at all events, formed a group of
privileged disciples, among whom Peter maintained a fraternal priority,
and to them Jesus confided the propagation of his work. There was nothing,
however, which presented the appearance of a regularly organized
sacerdotal school. The lists of the "Twelve," which have been preserved,
contain many uncertainties and contradictions; two or three of those who
figure in them have remained completely obscure. Two, at least, Peter and
Philip, were married and had children.
Jesus evidently confided secrets to the Twelve, which
he forbade them to communicate to the world. It seems as if his plan at
times was to surround himself with a degree of mystery, to postpone the
most important testimony respecting himself till after his death, and to
reveal himself completely only to his disciples, confiding to them the
care of demonstrating him afterwards to the world. "What I tell you in
darkness, that speak ye in light; and what ye hear in the ear, that preach
ye upon the housetops." This spared him the necessity of too precise
declarations, and created a kind of medium between the public and himself.
It is clear that there were certain teachings confined to the Apostles,
and that he explained many parables to them, the meaning of which was
ambiguous to the multitude. An enigmatical form and a degree of oddness in
connecting ideas were customary in the teachings of the doctors, as may be
seen in the sentences of the Pirke Aboth. Jesus explained to his intimate
friends whatever was peculiar in his apothegms or in his apologies, and
showed them his meaning stripped of the wealth of illustration which
sometimes obscured it. Many of these explanations appear to have been
carefully preserved.
During the lifetime of Jesus the Apostles preached, but
without ever departing far from him. Their preaching, moreover, was
limited to the announcement of the speedy coming of the kingdom of God.
They went from town to town, receiving hospitality, or rather taking it
themselves, according to the custom of the country. The guest in the East
has much authority; he is superior to the master of the house, who has the
greatest confidence in him. This fireside preaching is admirably adapted
to the propagation of new doctrines. The hidden treasure is communicated,
and payment is thus made for what is received; politeness and good feeling
lend their aid; the household is touched and converted. Remove Oriental
hospitality, and it would be impossible to explain the propagation of
Christianity. Jesus, who adhered greatly to good old customs, encouraged
his disciples to make no scruple of profiting by this ancient public
right, probably already abolished in the great towns where there were
hostelries. "The laborer," said he, "is worthy of his hire!" Once
installed in any house, they were to remain there, eating and drinking
what was offered them as long as their mission lasted.
Jesus desired that, in imitation of his example, the
messengers of the glad tidings should render their preaching agreeable by
kindly and polished manners. He directed that, on entering into a house,
they should give the salaam or greeting. Some hesitated; the salaam being
then, as now, in the East, a sign of religious communion, which is not
risked with persons of a doubtful faith. "Fear nothing," said Jesus; "if
no one in the house is worthy of your salute, it will return unto you."
Sometimes, in fact, the Apostles of the kingdom of God were badly
received, and came to complain to Jesus, who generally sought to soothe
them. Some of them, persuaded of the omnipotence of their Master, were
hurt at this forbearance. The sons of Zebedee wanted him to call down fire
from heaven upon the inhospitable towns. Jesus received these outbursts
with a subtle irony, and stopped them by saying: "The Son of man is not
come to destroy men's lives, but to save them."
He sought in every way to establish as a principle that
his Apostles were as himself. It was believed that he had communicated his
marvelous virtues to them. They cast out demons, prophesied, and formed a
school of renowned exorcists, although certain cases were beyond their
power. They also wrought cures, either by the imposition of hands or by
the anointing with oil, one of the fundamental processes of Oriental
medicine. Lastly, like the Psylli, they could handle serpents and could
drink deadly potions with impunity. The further we get from Jesus, the
more offensive does this theurgy become. But there is no doubt that it was
generally received by the primitive Church, and that it held an important
place in the estimation of the world around. Charlatans, as generally
happens, took advantage of this movement of popular credulity. Even in the
lifetime of Jesus many, without being his disciples, cast out demons in
his name. The true disciples were much displeased at this, and sought to
prevent them. Jesus, who saw that this was really an homage paid to his
renown, was not very severe towards them. It must be observed, moreover,
that the exercise of these gifts had to some degree become a trade,
Carrying the logic of absurdity to the extreme, certain men cast out
demons by Beelzebub, the prince of demons. They imagined that this
sovereign of the infernal regions must have entire authority over his
subordinates, and that in acting through him they were certain to make the
intruding spirit depart. Some even sought to buy from the disciples of
Jesus the secret of the miraculous powers which had been conferred upon
them. The germ of a Church from this time began to appear. This fertile
idea of the power of men in association (ecclesia) was doubtless derived
from Jesus. Full of the purely idealistic doctrine that it is the union of
love which brings souls together, he declared that whenever men assembled
in his name he would be in their midst. He confided to the Church the
right to bind and to unbind (that is to say, to render certain things
lawful or unlawful), to remit sins, to reprimand, to warn with authority,
and to pray with the certainty of being heard favorably. It is possible
that many of these words may have been attributed to the Master in order
to give a warrant to the collective authority which was afterwards sought
to be substituted for that of Jesus. At all events, it was only after his
death that particular Churches were established, and even this first
constitution was made purely and simply on the model of the Synagogue.
Many personages who had loved Jesus much, and had founded great hopes upon
him, as Joseph of Arimathea, Lazarus, Mary Magdalene, and Nicodemus, did
not, it seems, join these Churches, but clung to the tender or respectful
memory which they had preserved of him.
Moreover, there is no trace, in the teaching of Jesus,
of an applied morality or of a canonical law, ever so slightly defined.
once only, respecting marriage, he spoke decidedly, and forbade divorce.
Neither was there any theology or creed. There were indefinite views
respecting the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, from which, afterwards,
were drawn the Trinity and the Incarnation, but they were then only in a
state of indeterminate imagery. The later books of the Jewish canon
recognized the Holy Spirit, a sort of divine hypostasis, sometimes
identified with Wisdom or the Word. Jesus insisted upon this point, and
announced to his disciples a baptism by fire and by the spirit, as much
preferable to that of John, a baptism which they believed they had
received, after the death of Jesus, in the form of a great wind and
tongues of fire. The Holy Spirit thus sent by the Father was to teach them
all truth, and testify to that which Jesus himself had promulgated. In
order to designate this Spirit, Jesus made use of the word Peraklit, which
the Syro-Chaldaic had borrowed from the Greek (770epckx),-n'roq), and
which appears to have had in his mind the meaning of "advocate." "counsellor,"
and sometimes that of "interpreter of celestial truths," and of "teacher
charged to reveal to men the hitherto hidden mysteries." He regarded
himself as a Peraklit to his disciples, and the Spirit which was to come
after his death would only take his place. This was an application of the
process which the Jewish and Christian theologies would follow during
centuries, and which was to produce a whole series of divine assessors,
the Metathronos, the Synadelphe or Sandalphon, and all the
personifications of the Cabbala. But in Judaism these creations were to
remain free and individual speculations, while in Christianity, commencing
with the fourth century, they were to form the very essence of orthodoxy
and of the universal doctrine.
It is unnecessary to remark how remote from the thought
of Jesus was the idea of a religious book containing a code and articles
of faith. Not only did he not write, but it was contrary to the spirit of
the infant sect to produce sacred books. They believed themselves to be on
the eve of the great final catastrophe. The Messiah came to put the seal
upon the Law and the Prophets, not to promulgate new Scriptures. With the
exception of the Apocalypse, which was in one sense the only revealed book
of the infant Christianity, all the other writings of the Apostolic age
were works evoked by existing circumstances, making no pretensions to
furnish a completely dogmatic whole. The Gospels had at first an entirely
personal character, and much less authority than tradition.
Had the sect, however, no sacrament, no rite, no sign
of union? It had one which all tradition ascribes to Jesus. One of the
favorite ideas of the Master was that he was the new bread -- bread very
superior to manna, and on which mankind was to live. This idea, the germ
of the Eucharist, was at times expressed by him in singularly concrete
forms. On one occasion especially, in the synagogue of Capernaum, he took
a decided step, which cost him several of hisciples. "Verily, verily, I
say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father
giveth you the true bread from heaven." And he added, I am the bread of
life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me
shall never thirst." These words excited much murmuring. "The Jews then
murmured at him because he said, I am the bread which came down from
heaven. And they said, Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father
and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from
heaven?" But Jesus insisting with still more force, said, "I am that bread
of life; your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead. This
is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof,
and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any man
eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give
is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world." The offence was
now at its height: "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" Jesus
going still further, said, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat
the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life, and I win
raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is
drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in
me, and I in him. As the living Father has sent me, and I live by the
Father: so he that eateth me, even he Shall live by me. This bread which
came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he
that eateth of this bread shall live for ever." Several of his disciples
were offended at such obstinacy in paradox, and ceased to follow him.
Jesus did not retract; he only added: "It is the spirit that quickeneth;
the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you, they are
spirit, and they are life." The Twelve remained faithful, notwithstanding
this strange preaching. It gave to Cephas, in particular, an opportunity
of showing his absolute devotion, and of proclaiming once more, "Thou art
that Christ, the Son of the living God."
It is probable that from that time, in the common
repasts of the sect, there was established some custom which was derived
from the discourse so badly received by the men of Capernaum. But the
Apostolic traditions on this subject are very diverse and probably
intentionally incomplete. The Synoptical Gospels suppose that a unique
sacramental act, served as basis to the mysterious rite, and declare this
to have been "the last supper." John, who has preserved the incident at
the synagogue of Capemaum, does not speak of such an act, although he
describes the last supper at great length. Elsewhere we see Jesus
recognized in the breaking of bread, as if this act had been to those who
associated with him the most characteristic of his person. When he was
dead, the form under which he appeared to the pious memory of his
disciples was that of president of a mysterious banquet, taking the bread,
blessing it, breaking and presenting it to those present. It is probable
that this was one of his habits, and that at such times he was
particularly loving and tender. One material circumstance, the presence of
fish upon the table (a striking indication, which proves that the rite had
its bath on the shore of Lake Tiberias) was itself almost sacramental, and
became a necessary part of the conceptions of the sacred feast.
Their repasts were among the sweetest moments of the
infant community. At these times they all assembled; the Master spoke to
each one, and kept up a charming and lively conversation. Jesus loved
these seasons, and was pleased to see his spiritual family thus grouped
around him. The participation of the same bread was considered as a Kind
of communion, a reciprocal bond. The Master used, in this respect,
extremely strong terms, which were afterwards taken in a very literal
sense. Jesus was, at the same time, very idealistic in his conceptions,
and very materialistic in his expression of them. Wishing to express the
thought that the believer only lives by him, that altogether (body, blood,
and soul) he was the life of the truly faithful, he said to his disciples,
"I am your nourishment," a phrase which, turned in figurative style,
became, "My flesh is your bread, my blood your drink." Added to this the
modes of speech employed by Jesus, always strongly subjective, carried him
still further. At table, pointing to the food, he said, "I am here" --
holding the bread -- "this is my body"; and of the wine, "This is my
blood" -- all modes of speech which were equivalent to, "I am your
nourishment."
This mysterious rite obtained great importance in the
lifetime of Jesus. It was probably established some time before the last
journey to Jerusalem, and it was the result of a general doctrine much
more than a determinate act. After the death of Jesus it became the great
symbol of Christian communion, and it is to the most solemn moment of the
life of the Savior that its establishment is referred. It was wished to
see, in the consecration of bread and wine, a farewell memorial which
Jesus, at the moment of quitting life, had left to his disciples. They
recognized Jesus himself in this sacrament. The wholly spiritual idea of
the presence of souls, which was one of the most familiar to the Master,
which made him say, for instance, that he was personally with his
disciples when they were assembled in his name, rendered this easily
admissible. Jesus, we have already said, never had a very defined notion
of that which constitutes individuality. In the degree of exaltation to
which he had attained, the ideal surpassed everything to such an extent
that the body counted for nothing. We are one when we love one another,
when we live in dependence on each other; it was thus that he and his
disciples were one. His disciples adopted the same language. Those who for
years had lived with him had seen him constantly take the bread and the
cup "between his holy and venerable hands," and thus offer himself to
them, It was he whom they ate and drank; he became the true passover, the
former one having been abrogated by his blood. It is impossible to
translate into our essentially determined idiom, in which a rigorous
distinction between the material and the metaphorical must always be
observed, habits of style the essential character of which is to attribute
to metaphor, or rather to the idea it represents, a complete reality.
Chapter 19
Increasing Progression Of Enthusiasm And Of Exaltation
IT is clear that such a religious society, founded
solely on the expectation of the kingdom of God, must be in itself very
incomplete. The first Christian generation lived almost entirely upon
expectations and dreams. On the eve of seeing the world come to an end,
they regarded as useless everything which only served to prolong it.
Possession of property was interdicted. Everything which attaches man to
earth, everything which draws him aside from heaven, was to be avoided.
Although several of the disciples were married, there was to be no more
marriage on becoming a member of the sect. The celibate was greatly
preferred; even in marriage continence was recommended. At one time the
Master seems to approve of those who should mutilate themselves in
prospect of the kingdom of God. In this he was consistent with his
principle. "If thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast
them from thee; it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed,
rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.
And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee; it is
better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two
eyes to be cast into hell-fire." The cessation of generation was often
considered as the sign and condition the kingdom of God.
Never, we perceive, would this primitive Church have
formed a lasting society but for the great variety of germs deposited by
Jesus in his teaching. It required more than a century for the true
Christian Church -- that which has converted the world -- to disengage
itself from this little sect of "latter-day saints," and to become a
framework applicable to the whole of human society. The same thing,
indeed, took place in Buddhism, which at first was founded only for monks.
The same thing would have happened in the order of St. Francis if that
order had succeeded in its pretension of becoming the rule of the whole
human society. Essentially Utopian in their origin, and succeeding by
their exaggeration, the great systems of which we have just spoken have
only laid hold of the world by being profoundly modified, and by
abandoning their excesses. Jesus did not advance beyond this first and
entirely monachal period, in which it was believed that the impossible
could be attempted with impunity. He made no concession to necessity. He
boldly preached war against nature and total severance from ties of blood.
"Verily I say unto you," said he, "there is no man that hath left house,
or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's
sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the
world to come life everlasting.
The teachings which Jesus is reputed to have given to
his disciples breathe the same exaltation. He who was so tolerant to the
world outside, he who contented himself sometimes with half adhesions,
exercised towards his own an extreme rigor. He would have no "all buts."
We should call it an "order," constituted by the most austere rules.
Faithful to his idea that the cares of life trouble man and draw him
downwards, Jesus required from his associates a complete detachment from
the earth, an absolute devotion to his work. They were not to carry with
them either money or provisions for the way, not even a scrip, or change
of raiment. They must practice absolute poverty, live on alms and
hospitality. "Freely ye have received, freely give," said he, in his
beautiful language. Arrested and arraigned before the judges, they were
not to prepare their defence; the Peraklit, the heavenly advocate, would
inspire them with what they ought to say. The Father would send them his
Spirit from on high, which would become the principle of all their acts,
the director of their thoughts, and their guide through the world. If
driven from any town, they were to shake the dust from their shoes,
declaring always the proximity of the kingdom of God, that none might
plead ignorance. "Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel," added
he, "till the Son of man be come."
A strange ardor animates all these discourses, which
may in part be the creation of the enthusiasm of his disciples, but which
even in that case came indirectly from Jesus, for it was he who had
inspired the enthusiasm. He predicted for his followers severe
persecutions and the hatred of mankind. He sent them forth as lambs in the
midst of wolves. They would be scourged in the synagogues and dragged to
prison. Brother should deliver up brother to death, and the father his
son. When they were prosecuted in one country, they were to flee to
another. "The disciple," said he, "is not above his Master, nor the
servant above his lord. Fear not them which kill the body, but are not
able to kill the soul. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one
of them shall not fall to the ground without your Father. But the very
hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not, therefore, ye are of
more value than many sparrows." "Whosoever, therefore," continued he,
"shall confess to me before men, him will I confess also before my Father
which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men him will I also
deny before my Father which is in heaven."
In these fits of severity he went so far as to abolish
all natural ties. His requirements had no longer any bounds. Despising the
healthy limits of man's nature, he demanded that he should exist only for
him, that he should love him alone. "If any man come to me," he said, "and
hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and
sisters, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." "So, likewise,
whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be
my disciple." There was, at such times, something strange and more than
human in his words; they were like a fire utterly consuming life and
reducing everything to a frightful wilderness. The harsh and gloomy
feeling of distaste for the world, and of excessive self-abnegation, which
characterizes Christian perfection, was originated, not by the refined and
cheerful moralist of earlier days, but by the somber giant whom a kind of
grand presentiment was withdrawing, more and more, out of the pale of
humanity. We should almost say that, in these moments of conflict with the
most legitimate cravings of the heart, Jesus had forgotten the pleasure of
living, of loving, of seeing, and of feeling. Employing still more
unmeasured language, he even said, "If any man will come after me, let him
deny himself and follow me. He that loveth father or mother more than me
is not worthy of me, and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is
not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that
loseth his life for my sake and the Gospel's shall find it. What is a man
profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" Two
anecdotes of the kind we cannot accept as historical, but which, although
they were exaggerations, were intended to represent a characteristic
feature, clearly illustrate this defiance of nature. He said to one man,
"Follow me!" But he said, "Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my
father." Jesus answered, "Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and
preach the kingdom of God." Another said to him, "Lord, I will follow
thee; but let me first go bid them farewell which are at home at my
house." Jesus replied, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and
looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." An extraordinary confidence,
and at times accents of singular sweetness, reversing all our ideas of
him, caused these exaggerations to be easily received. "Come unto me,"
cried he, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me: for I am meek and lowly in heart:
and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden
is light."
A great danger threatened the future of this exalted
morality, thus expressed in hyperbolical language and with a terrible
energy. By detaching man from earth the ties of life were severed. The
Christian would be praised for being a bad son or a bad patriot if it was
for Christ that he resisted his father and fought against his country. The
ancient city, the parent republic, the state, or the law common to all,
were thus placed in hostility with the kingdom of God. A fatal germ of
theocracy was introduced into the world.
From this point another consequence may be perceived.
This morality, created for a temporary crisis, when introduced into a
peaceful country, and in the midst of a society assured of its own
duration, must seem impossible. The Gospel was thus destined to become a
Utopia for Christians which few would care to realize. These terrible
maxims would, for the greater number, remain in profound oblivion -- an
oblivion encouraged by the clergy itself; the Gospel man would prove a
dangerous man. The most selfish, proud, hard, and worldly of all human
beings, a Louis XIV., for instance, would find priests to persuade him, in
spite of the Gospel, that he was a Christian. But, on the other hand,
there would always be found holy men who would take the sublime paradoxes
of Jesus literally. Perfection being placed beyond the ordinary conditions
of society, and a complete Gospel life being only possible away from the
world, the principle of asceticism and of monasticism was established.
Christian societies would have two moral rules; the one moderately heroic
for common men, the other exalted in the extreme for the perfect man; and
the perfect man would be the monk, subjected to rules which professed to
realize the Gospel ideal. It is certain that this ideal, if only on
account of the celibacy and poverty it imposed, could not become the
common law. The monk would be thus, in one sense, the only true Christian.
Common sense revolts at these excesses; and if we are guided by it, to
demand the impossible, is a mark of weakness and error. But common sense
is a bad judge where great matters are in question. To obtain little from
humanity, we must ask much. The immense moral progress which we owe to the
Gospel is the result of its exaggerations. It is thus that it has been,
like stoicism, but with infinitely greater fullness, a living argument for
the divine powers in man, an exalted monument of the potency of the will.
We may easily imagine that to Jesus, at this period of
his life, everything which was not the kingdom of God had absolutely
disappeared. He was, if we may say so, totally outside nature; family,
friendship, country, had no longer any meaning for him. No doubt, from
this moment he had already sacrificed his life. Sometimes we are tempted
to believe that, seeing in his own death a means of founding his kingdom,
he deliberately determined to allow himself to be killed. At other times,
although such a thought only afterwards became a doctrine, death presented
itself to him as a sacrifice, destined to appease his Father and to save
mankind. A singular taste for persecution and torments possessed him. His
blood appeared to him as the water of a second baptism with which he ought
to be baptized, and he seemed possessed by a strange haste to anticipate
this baptism which alone could quench his thirst.
The grandeur of his views upon the future was at times
surprising. He did not conceal from himself the terrible storm he was
about to cause in the world. "Think not," said he, with much boldness and
beauty, "that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace,
but a sword. There shall be five in one house divided, three against two,
and two against three. I am come to set a man at variance against his
father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law
against her mother-in-law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own
household." "I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it
be already kindled?" "They shall put you out of the synagogues," he
continued; "yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you, will think
that he doeth God service." "If the world hate you, ye know that it hated
me before it hated you. Remember the word that I said unto you: The
servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they
will also persecute you."
Carried away by this fearful progression of enthusiasm,
and governed by the necessities of a preaching becoming daily more
exalted, Jesus was no longer free; he belonged to his mission, and, in one
sense, to mankind. Sometimes one would have said that his reason was
disturbed. He suffered great mental anguish and agitation. The great
vision of the kingdom of God glistening before his eyes bewildered him.
His disciples at times thought him mad. His enemies declared him to be
possessed. His excessively impassioned temperament carried him incessantly
beyond the bounds of human nature. He laughed at all human systems, and
his work, not being a work of the reason, that which he most imperiously
required was "faith." This was the word most frequently repeated in the
little guest-chamber. It is the watchword of all popular movements. It is
clear that none of these movements would take place if it were necessary
that their author should gain his disciples one by one by force of logic.
Reflection leads only to doubt. If the authors of the French Revolution,
for instance, had had to be previously convinced by lengthened
meditations, they would all have become old without accomplishing
anything; Jesus, in like manner, aimed less at convincing his hearers than
at exciting their enthusiasm. Urgent and imperative, he suffered no
opposition; men must be converted, nothing less would satisfy him. His
natural gentleness seemed to have abandoned him; he was sometimes harsh
and capricious. His disciples at times did not understand him, and
experienced in his presence a feeling akin to fear. Sometimes his
displeasure at the slightest opposition led him to commit inexplicable and
apparently absurd acts.
It was not that his virtue deteriorated; but his
struggle for the ideal against the reality became insupportable. Contact
with the world pained and revolted him. Obstacles irritated him. His idea
of the Son of God became disturbed and exaggerated. The fatal law which
condemns an idea to decay as soon as it seeks to convert men applied to
him. Contact with men degraded him to their level. The tone he had adopted
could not be sustained more than a few months; it was time that death came
to liberate him from an endurance strained to the utmost, to remove him
from the impossibilities of an interminable path, and, by delivering him
from a trial in danger of being too prolonged, introduce him henceforth
sinless into celestial peace.
Chapter 20
Opposition To Jesus
During the first period of his career it does not
appear that Jesus met with any serious opposition. His preaching, thanks
to the extreme liberty which was enjoyed in Galilee, and to the number of
teachers who arose on all hands, made no noise beyond a restricted circle.
But when Jesus entered upon a path brilliant with wonders and public
successes, the storm began to gather. More than once he was obliged to
conceal himself and fly. Antipas, however, did not interfere with him,
although Jesus expressed himself sometimes very severely respecting him.
At Tiberias, his usual residence, the Tetrarch was only one or two leagues
distant from the district chosen by Jesus for the center of his activity;
he heard speak of his miracles, which he doubtless took to be clever
tricks, and desired to see them. The incredulous were at that time very
curious about this class of illusions. With his ordinary tact, Jesus
refused to gratify him. He took care not to prejudice his position by
mingling with an irreligious world, which wished to draw from him an idle
amusement; he aspired only to gain the people; he reserved for the simple
means suitable to them alone.
On one occasion the report was spread that Jesus was no
other than John the Baptist risen from the dead. Antipas became anxious
and uneasy, and employed artifice to rid his dominions of the new prophet.
Certain Pharisees, under the pretence of regard for Jesus, came to tell
him that Antipas was seeking to kill him. Jesus, notwithstanding his great
simplicity, saw the snare, and did not depart. His peaceful manners, and
his remoteness from popular agitation, ultimately reassured the Tetrarch
and dissipated the danger.
The new doctrine was by no means received with equal
favor in all the towns of Galilee. Not only did incredulous Nazareth
continue to reject him who was to become her glory: not only did his
brothers persist in not believing in him, but the cities of the lake
themselves, in general well disposed, were not all converted. Jesus often
complained of the incredulity and hardness of heart which he encountered,
and although it is natural that in such reproaches we make allowance for
the exaggeration of the preacher, although we are sensible of that kind of
convicium seculi which Jesus affected in imitation of John the Baptist, it
is clear that the country was far from yielding itself entirely a second
time to the kingdom of God. "Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee,
Bethsaida!" cried he; "for if the mighty works which were done in you had
been done in Tyre and Sidon they would have repented long ago in sackcloth
and ashes. But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and
Sidon at the day of judgment than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art
exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell; for if the mighty
works which have been done in thee had been done in Sodom it would have
remained until this day. But I say unto you, That it shall be more
tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee."
"The queen of the south," added he, " shall rise up in the judgment of
this generation, and shall condemn it : for she came from the uttermost
parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, a greater
than Solomon is here. The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this
generation, and shall condemn it; because they repented at the preaching
of Jonas; and behold, a greater than Jonas is here." His wandering life,
at first so full of charm, now began to weigh upon him. " The foxes," he
said, " have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of
man hath not where to lay his head." Bitterness and reproach took more and
more hold upon him. He accused unbelievers of not yielding to evidence,
and said that, even at the moment in which the Son of man should appear in
his celestial glory, there would still be men who would not believe in
him.
Jesus, in fact, was not able to receive opposition with
the coolness of the philosopher, who, understanding the reason of the
various opinions which divide the world, finds it quite natural that all
should not agree with him. One of the principal defects of the Jewish race
is its harshness in controversy and the abusive tone which it almost
always infuses into it. There never were in the world such bitter quarrels
as those of the Jews among themselves. It is the faculty of nice
discernment which makes the polished and moderate man. Now, the lack of
this faculty is one of the most constant features of the Semitic mind.
Subtle and refined works, the dialogues of Plato, for example, are
altogether unknown to these nations. Jesus, who was exempt from almost all
the defects of his race, and whose leading quality was precisely an
infinite delicacy was led, in spite of himself, to make use of the general
style in Polemics. Like John the Baptist, he employed very harsh terms
against his adversaries. Of an exquisite gentleness with the simple, he
was irritated at incredulity, however little aggressive. He was no longer
the mild teacher who delivered the "Sermon on the Mount," who had met with
neither resistance nor difficulty. The passion that underlay his character
led him to make use of the keenest invectives. This singular mixture ought
not to surprise us. M. de Lamennais, a man of our own times, has
strikingly presented the same contrast. in his beautiful book, The Words
of a Believer, the most immoderate anger and the sweetest relentings
alternate, as in a mirage. This man, who was extremely kind in the
intercourse of life, became madly intractable towards those who did not
agree with him. Jesus, in like manner, applied to himself, not without
reason, the passage from Isaiah: "He shall not strive nor cry; neither
shall any man hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed shall he not
break, and smoking flax shall be not quench." And yet many of the
recommendations which he addressed to his disciples contain the germs of a
true fanaticism -- germs which the Middle Ages were to develop in a cruel
manner. Must we reproach him for this? No revolution is effected without
some harshness. If Luther, or the actors in the French Revolution, had
been compelled to observe the rules of politeness, neither the Reformation
nor the Revolution would have taken place. Let us congratulate ourselves
in like manner that Jesus encountered no law which punished the invectives
he uttered against one class of citizens. Had such a law existed, the
Pharisees would have been inviolate. All the great things of humanity have
been accomplished in the name of absolute principles. A critical
philosopher would have said to his disciples: Respect the opinion of
others, and believe that no one is so completely right that his adversary
is completely wrong. But the action of Jesus has nothing in common with
the disinterested speculation of the philosopher. To know that we have
touched the ideal for a moment, and have been deterred by the wickedness
of a few, is a thought insupportable to an ardent soul. What must it have
been for the founder of a new world?
The invincible obstacle to the ideas of Jesus came
especially from orthodox Judaism, represented by the Pharisees. Jesus
became more and more alienated from the ancient Law. Now, the Pharisees
were the true Jews -- the nerve and sinew of Judaism. Although this party
had its center at Jerusalem, it had adherents either established in
Galilee or who often came there. They were, in general, men of a narrow
mind, caring much for externals; their devoutness was haughty, formal, and
self- satisfied. Their manners were ridiculous, and excited the smiles of
even those who respected them. The epithets which the people gave them,
and which savoir of caricature, prove this. There was the "bandy-legged
Pharisee" (Nikfi), who walked in the streets dragging his feet and
knocking them against the stones; the "bloody-browed Pharisee" (Kizai),
who went with his eyes shut in order not to see the women, and dashed his
head so much against the walls that it was always bloody; the "pestle
Pharisee" (Medinkia), who kept himself bent double like the handle of a
pestle; the "Pharisee of strong shoulders" (Shikmi), who walked with his
back bent as if he carried on his shoulders the whole burden of the Law;
the "What-is-there-to-do?-I-do-it Pharisee," always on the search for a
precept to fulfil and, lastly, the "dyed Pharisce," whose externals of
devotion were but a varnish of hypocrisy. This strictness was, in fact,
often only apparent, and concealed in reality great moral laxity. The
people, nevertheless, were duped by it. The people, whose instinct is
always right, even when it is most astray respecting individuals, is very
easily deceived by false devotees. That which it loves in them is good and
worthy of being loved; but it has not sufficient penetration to
distinguish the appearance from the reality.
It is easy to understand the antipathy which, in such
an impassioned state of society, must necessarily break out between Jesus
and persons of this character. Jesus recognized only the religion of the
heart, while that of the Pharisees consisted almost exclusively in
observances. Jesus sought the humble and outcasts of all kinds, and the
Pharisees saw in this an insult to their religion of respectability. The
Pharisee was an infallible and faultless man, a pedant always right in his
own conceit, taking the first place in the synagogue, praying in the
street, giving alms to the sound of a trumpet, and caring greatly for
salutations. Jesus maintained that each one ought to await the kingdom of
God with fear and trembling. The bad religious tendency represented by
Pharisaism did not reign without opposition. Many men before or during the
time of Jesus, such as Jesus, son of Sirach (one of the true ancestors of
Jesus of Nazareth), Gamaliel, Antigonus of Soco, and especially the gentle
and noble Hillel, had taught much more elevated, and almost Gospel,
doctrines. But these good seeds had been choked. The beautiful maxims of
Hillel, summing up the whole Law as equity, those of Jesus, son of Sirach,
making worship consist in doing good, were forgotten or anathematized,
Shammai, with his narrow and exclusive spirit, had prevailed. An enormous
mass of "traditions" had stifled the Law, under pretext of protecting and
interpreting it. Doubtless these conservative measures had their share of
usefulness; it is well that the Jewish people loved its Law even to
excess, since it is this frantic love which, in saving Mosaism under
Antiochus Epiphanes and under Herod, has preserved the leaven from which
Christianity was to emanate. But, taken in themselves, all these old
precautions were only puerile. The synagogue, which was the depository of
them, was no more than a parent of error. Its reign was ended; and yet to
require its abdication was to require the impossible, that which an
established power has never done or been able to do.
The conflicts of Jesus with official hypocrisy were
continual. The ordinary tactics of the reformers who appeared in the
religious state which we have just described, and which might be called
"traditional formalism," were to oppose the "text" of the sacred books to
"traditions." Religions zeal is always an innovator, even when it pretends
to be in the highest degree conservative. Just as the neo-Catholics of our
days become more and more remote from the Gospel, so the Pharisees left
the Bible at each step more and more. This is why the Puritan reformer is
generally essentially " biblical," taking the unchangeable text for his
basis in criticizing the current theology, which has changed with each
generation. Thus acted later the Karaites and the Protestants. Jesus
applied the axe to the root of the tree much more energetically. We see
him sometimes, it is true, invoke the text against the false Masores or
traditions of the Pharisees. But in general he dwelt little on exegesis --
it was the conscience to which he appealed. With one stroke he cut through
both text and commentaries. He showed indeed to the Pharisees that they
seriously perverted Mosaism by their traditions, but he by no means
pretended himself to return to Mosaism. His mission was concerned with the
future, not with the past. Jesus was more than the reformer of an obsolete
religion; he was the creator of the eternal religion of humanity.
Disputes broke out especially respecting a number of
external practices introduced by tradition, which neither Jesus nor his
disciples observed. The Pharisees reproached him sharply for this. When he
dined with them, he scandalized them much by not observing the customary
ablutions. "Give alms," said he, "of such things as ye have; and behold,
all things are clean unto you." That which in the highest degree hurt his
refined feeling was the air of assurance which the Pharisees carried into
religious matters; their paltry worship, which ended in a vain seeking
after precedents and titles, to the utter neglect of the improvement of
their hearts. An admirable parable rendered this thought with infinite
charm and justice. "Two men," said he, "went up into the temple to pray;
the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and
prayed thus with himself: God, I thank thee that I am not as other men
are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast
twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican,
standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but
smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you
this man went down to his house justified rather than the other."
A hate which death alone could satisfy was the
consequence of these struggles. John the Baptist had already provoked
enmities of the same kind. But the aristocrats of Jerusalem, who despised
him, had allowed simple men to take him for a prophet. In the case of
Jesus, however, the war was to the death. A new spirit had appeared in the
world, causing all that preceded to pale before it. John the Baptist was
completely a Jew; Jesus was scarcely one at all. Jesus always appealed to
the delicacy of the moral sentiment. He was only a disputant when he
argued against the Pharisees, his opponents forcing him, as generally
happens, to adopt their tone. His exquisite irony, his arch and provoking
remarks, always struck home. They were everlasting stigmas, and have
remained festering in the wound. This Nessus-shirt of ridicule which the
Jew, son of the Pharisees, has dragged in tatters after him during
eighteen centuries, was woven by Jesus with a divine skill. Masterpieces
of fine raillery, their features are written in lines of fire upon the
flesh of the hypocrite and the false devotee. Incomparable traits, worthy
of a son of God! A god alone knows how to kill after this fashion.
Socrates and Moliere only touched the skin. He carried fire and rage to
the very marrow.
But it was also just that this great master of irony
should pay for his triumph with his life. Even in Galilee the Pharisees
sought to ruin him, and employed against him the manoeuvre which
ultimately succeeded at jerusalem. They endeavored to interest in their
quarrel the partisans of the new political faction which was established.
The facilities Jesus found for escape in Galilee, and the weakness of the
government of Antipas, baffled these attempts. He ran into danger of his
own free will. He saw clearly that his action, if he remained confined to
Galilee, was necessarily limited. Judea drew him as by a charm; he wished
to try a last effort to gain the rebellious city; and seemed anxious to
fulfil the proverb -- that a prophet must not die outside Jerusalem.
Chapter 21
Last Journey Of Jesus To Jerusalem
JESUS had for a long time been sensible of the dangers
that surrounded him. During a period of time which we may estimate at
eighteen months, he avoided going on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. At the
feast of Tabernacles of the year 32 (according to the hypothesis we have
adopted) his relations, always malevolent and incredulous, pressed him to
go there. The evangelist John seems to insinuate that there was some
hidden project to ruin him in this invitation. "Depart hence, and go into
Judea, that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest. For
there is no man that doeth anything in secret, and he himself seeketh to
be known openly. If thou do these things, show thyself to the world."
Jesus, suspecting some treachery, at first refused; but when the caravan
of pilgrims had set out, he started on the journey, unknown to everyone,
and almost alone. It was the last farewell which he bade to Galilee. The
feast of Tabernacles fell at the autumnal equinox. Six months still had to
elapse before the fatal denouement. But during this interval Jesus saw no
more his beloved provinces of the north. The pleasant days had passed
away; he must now traverse, step by step, the painful path that will
terminate only in the anguish of death.
His disciples, and the pious women who tended him, met
him again in Judea. But how much everything was changed for him there!
Jesus was a stranger at Jerusalem. He felt that there was a wall of
resistance he could not penetrate. Surrounded by snares and difficulties,
he was unceasingly pursued by the ill-will of the Pharisees. Instead of
that illimitable faculty of belief, happy gift of youthful natures, which
he found in Galilee -- instead of those good and gentle people, among whom
objections (always the fruit of some degree of ill-will and indocility)
had no existence, he met there at each step an obstinate incredulity, upon
which the means of action that had so well succeeded in the north had
little effect. His disciples were despised as being Galileans. Nicodemus,
who, on one of his former journeys, had had a conversation with him by
night, almost compromised himself with the Sanhedrim by having wished to
defend him. "Art thou also of Galilee?" they said to him. "Search and
look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet."
The city, as we have already said, displeased Jesus.
Until then he had always avoided great centers, preferring for his action
the country and the towns of small importance. Many of the precepts which
he gave to his Apostles were absolutely inapplicable, except in a simple
society of humble men. Having no idea of the world, and accustomed to the
kindly communism of Galilee, remarks continually escaped him whose
simplicity would at Jerusalem appear very singular. His imagination and
his love of nature found themselves constrained within these walls. True
religion does not proceed from the tumult of towns, but from the tranquil
serenity of the fields.
The arrogance of the priests rendered the courts of the
temple disagreeable to him. One day some of his disciples, who knew
Jerusalem better than he, wished him to notice the beauty of the buildings
of the temple, the admirable choice of materials, and the richness of the
votive offerings that covered the walls. "Seest thou these buildings?"
said he; "there shall not be left one stone upon another." He refused to
admire anything, except it was a poor widow who passed at that moment and
threw a small coin into the box. "She has cast in more than they all,"
said he; "for all these have of their abundance cast unto the offerings of
God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had." This
manner of criticizing all he observed at Jerusalem, of praising the poor
who gave little, of slighting the rich who gave much, and of blaming the
opulent priesthood who did nothing for the good of the people, naturally
exasperated the sacerdotal caste. As the seat of a conservative
aristocracy, the temple, like the Mussulman harem which succeeded it, was
the last place in the world where revolution could prosper. Imagine an
innovator going in our days to preach the overthrow of Islamism round the
mosque of Omar! There, however, was the center of the Jewish life, the
point where it was necessary to conquer or die. On this Calvary, where
certainly Jesus suffered more than at Golgotha, his days passed away in
disputation and bitterness, in the midst of tedious controversies
respecting canonical law and exegesis, for which his great moral
elevation, instead of giving him the advantage, positively unfitted him.
In the midst of this troubled life, the sensitive and
kindly heart of Jesus found a refuge, where he enjoyed moments of
sweetness. After having passed the day disputing in the temple, towards
evening Jesus descended into the valley of Kedron, and rested a while in
the orchard of a farming establishment (probably for the making of oil)
named Gethsemane, which served as a pleasure garden to the inhabitants.
Thence he proceeded to pass the night upon the Mount of Olives, which
limits the horizon of the city on the east. This side is the only one in
the environs of Jerusalem which offers an aspect in any degree pleasing
and verdant. The plantations of olives, figs, and palms were numerous
there, and gave their names to the villages, farms, or enclosures of
Bethphage, Gethsemane, and Bethany. There were upon the Mount of Olives
two great cedars, the memory of which was long preserved among the
dispersed Jews; their branches served as an asylum to clouds of doves, and
under their shade were established small bazaars. All this precinct was in
a manner the abode of Jesus and his disciples; they knew it field by field
and house by house.
The village of Bethany, in particular, situated at the
summit of the hill, upon the incline which commands the Dead Sea and the
Jordan, at a journey of an hour and a half from Jerusalem, was the place
especially beloved by jesus. He there made the acquaintance of a family
composed of three persons, two sisters and a brother, whose friendship had
a great charm for him. Of the two sisters, the one named Martha was an
obliging, kind, and assiduous person; the other, named Mary, on the
contrary, pleased Jesus by a sort of languor and by her strongly-
developed speculative instincts. Seated at the feet of Jesus, she often
forgot, in listening to him, the duties of real life. Her sister, upon
whom fell all the duty at such times, gently complained. "Martha, Martha,"
said Jesus to her, "thou art troubled, and carest about many things; now,
one thing only is needful. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not
be taken away." Her brother, Eleazar, or Lazarus, was also much beloved by
Jesus. Lastly, a certain Simon, the leper, who was the owner of the house,
formed, it appears, part of the family. It was there, in the enjoyment of
a pious friendship, that Jesus forgot the vexations of public life. In
this tranquil home he consoled himself for the bickerings with which the
scribes and the Pharisees unceasingly surrounded him. He often sat on the
Mount of Olives, facing Mount Moriah, having beneath his view the splendid
perspective of the terraces of the temple, and its roofs covered with
glittering plates of metal. This view struck strangers with admiration; at
the rising of the sun, especially, the sacred mountain dazzled the eyes,
and appeared like a mass of snow and of gold. But a profound feeling of
sadness poisoned for Jesus the spectacle that filled all other Israelites
with joy and pride. He cried out, in his moments of bitterness, "O
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them
which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children
together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye
would not."
It was not that many good people here, as in Galilee,
were not touched; but such was the power of the dominant orthodoxy that
very few dared to confess it. They feared to discredit themselves in the
eyes of the Hierosolymites by placing themselves in the school of a
Galilean. They would have risked being driven from the synagogue, which,
in a mean and bigoted society, was the greatest degradation.
Excommunication, besides, carried with it the confiscation of all
possessions. By ceasing to be a Jew, a man did not become a Roman; but
remained without protection, in the power of a theocratic legislation of
the most atrocious severity. One day the inferior officers of the temple,
who had been present at one of the discourses of Jesus, and had been
enchanted with it, came to confide their doubts to the priests: "Have any
of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him?" was the reply to them;
"but this people who knoweth not the Law are cursed." Jesus remained thus
at Jerusalem, a provincial admired by provincials like himself, but
rejected by all the aristocracy of the nation. The chiefs of schools and
of sects were too numerous for anyone to be stirred by seeing one more
appear. His voice made little noise in Jerusalem. The prejudices of race
and of sect, the direct enemies of the spirit of the Gospel, were too
deeply rooted there.
His teaching in this new world necessarily became much
modified. His beautiful discourses, the effect of which was always
observable upon youthful imaginations and consciences morally pure, here
fell upon stone. He who was so much at his ease on the shores of his
charming little lake felt constrained and not at home in the company of
pedants. His perpetual self- assertion appeared somewhat fastidious. He
was obliged to become controversialist, jurist, exegetist, and theologian.
His conversations, generally so full of charm, became a rolling fire of
disputes, an interminable train of scholastic battles. His harmonious
genius was wasted in insipid argumentations upon the Law and the prophets,
in which we should have preferred not seeing him sometimes play the part
of aggressor. He lent himself, with a condescension we cannot but regret,
to the captious criticisms to which the merciless cavillers subjected him.
In general, he extricated himself from difficulties with much skill. His
reasonings, it is true, were often subtle (simplicity of mind and subtlety
touch each other; when simplicity reasons, it is often a little
sophistical); we find that sometimes he courted misconceptions, and
prolonged them intentionally; his reasoning, judged according to the rules
of Aristotelian logic, was very weak. But when the unequalled charm of his
mind could be displayed, he was triumphant. One day it was intended to
embarrass him by presenting to him an adulteress and asking him what was
to be done to her. We know the admirable answer of Jesus. The fine
raillery of a man of the world, tempered by a divine goodness, could not
be expressed in a more exquisite manner. But the wit which is allied to
moral grandeur is that which fools forgive the least. In pronouncing this
sentence of so just and pure a taste, "He that is without sin among you,
let him first cast a stone at her," Jesus pierced hypocrisy to the heart,
and with the same stroke sealed his own death-warrant.
It is probable, in fact, that but for the exasperation
caused by so many bitter shafts, Jesus might long have remained unnoticed,
and have been lost in the dreadful storm which was soon about to overwhelm
the whole Jewish nation. The high priesthood and the Sadducees had rather
disdained than hated him. The great sacerdotal families, the Boethusim,
the family of Hanan, were only fanatical in their conservatism. The
Sadducees, like Jesus, rejected the "traditions" of the Pharisees. By a
very strange singularity, it was these unbelievers who, denying the
resurrection, the oral Law, and the existence of angels, were the true
Jews. Or rather, as the old Law in its simplicity no longer satisfied the
religious wants of the time, those who strictly adhered to it, and
rejected modern inventions, were regarded by the devotees as impious, just
as an evangelical Protestant of the present day is regarded as an
unbeliever in Catholic countries. At all events, from such a party no very
strong reaction against Jesus could proceed. The official priesthood, with
its attention turned towards political power, and intimately connected
with it, did not comprehend these enthusiastic movements. It was the
middle-class Pharisees, the innumerable soferim, or scribes, living on the
science of "traditions," who took the alarm, and whose prejudices and
interests were in reality threatened by the doctrine of the new teacher.
One of the most constant efforts of the Pharisees was
to involve Jesus in the discussion of political questions, and to
compromise him as connected with the party of Judas the Gaulonite. These
tactics were clever; for it required all the deep wisdom of Jesus to avoid
collision with the Roman authority while proclaiming the kingdom of God.
They wanted to break through this ambiguity, and compel him to explain
himself. One day a group of Pharisees and of those politicians named "Herodians"
(probably some of the Boethusim), approached him, and, under pretence of
pious zeal, said unto him, "Master, we know that thou art true, and
teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man. Tell
us, therefore, what thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto
Caesar or not?" They hoped for an answer which would give them a pretext
for delivering him up to Pilate. The reply of Jesus was admirable. He made
them show him the image on the coin; "Render," said he, "unto Caesar the
things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's."
Profound words, which have decided the future of Christianity! Words of a
perfected spiritualism, and of marvelous justness, which have established
the separation between the spiritual and the temporal, and laid the basis
of true liberalism and civilization!
His gentle and penetrating genius inspired him when
alone with his disciples with accents full of tenderness; "Verily, verily,
I say unto you, he that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but
climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that
entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. The sheep hear his
voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. He
goeth before them, and the sheep follow him; for they know his voice. The
thief cometh not but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. But he
that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not,
seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth. I am the good
shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine; and I lay down my life
for the sheep." The idea that the crisis of humanity was close at hand
frequently recurred to him. "Now," said he, "learn a parable of the
fig-tree: When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know
that summer is nigh. Lift up your eyes and look on the fields; for they
are white already to harvest."
His powerful eloquence always burst forth when
contending with hypocrisy. "The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat.
All, therefore, whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but
do not ye after their works: for they say and do not. For they bind heavy
burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but
they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.
"But all their works they do to be seen of men;
they make broad their phylacteries, enlarge the borders of their garments,
and love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the
synagogues, and greetings in the markets, and to be called of men Rabbi,
Rabbi. Woe unto them! ...
"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for
you have taken away the key of knowledge, shut up the kingdom of heaven
against men! for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that
are entering to go in. Woe unto you, for ye devour widows' houses, and,
for a pretence, make long prayers: therefore ye shall receive the greater
damnation. Woe unto you, for ye compass sea and land to make one
proselyte; and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell
than yourselves! Woe unto you, for ye are as graves which appear not; and
the men that walk over them are not aware of them.
"Ye fools, and blind! for ye pay tithe of mint and
anise and cumming and have omitted the weightier matters of the law,
judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave
the other undone. Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat and swallow a
camel. Woo unto you!
"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites for ye
make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter; but within they are
full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee cleanse first that which
is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.
"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for
ye are like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward,
but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so
ye also outwardly appear righteous unto them, but within ye are full of
hypocrisy and iniquity.
"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchers of
the righteous, and say, 'If we had been in the days of our fathers, we
would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.'
Wherefore, ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of
them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your
fathers. 'Therefore, also,' said the Wisdom of God, 'I will send unto you
prophets and wise men and scribes; and some of them ye shall kill and
crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and
persecute them from city to city. That upon you may come all the righteous
blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood
of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the
altar.' Verily, I say unto you, all these things shall come upon this
generation."
His terrible doctrine of the substitution of the
Gentiles -- the idea that the kingdom of God was about to be transferred
to others, because those for whom it was destined would not receive it --
is used as a fearful menace against the aristocracy. The title "Son of
God," which he openly assumed in striking parables, wherein his enemies
appeared as murderers of the heavenly messengers, was as an open defiance
to the Judaism of the Law. The bold appeal he addressed to the poor was
still more seditious. He declared that he had "come that they which see
not might see, and that they which see might be made blind." One day his
dislike of the temple forced from him an imprudent speech: "I will destroy
this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I will build
another made without hands." His disciples found strained allegories in
this sentence; but we do not know what meaning Jesus attached to it. But
as only a pretext was wanted, this sentence was quickly laid hold of. It
reappeared in the preamble of his death warrant, and rang in his ears amid
the last agonies of Golgotha. These irritating discussions always ended in
tumult. The Pharisees threw stones at him; in doing which they only
fulfilled an article of the Law, which commanded every prophet, even a
thaumaturgus, who should turn the people from the ancient worship, to be
stoned without a hearing. At other times they called him mad, possessed,
Samaritan, and even sought to kill him. These words were taken note of in
order to invoke against him the laws of an intolerant theocracy, which the
Roman Government had not yet abrogated.
Chapter 22
Machinations Of The Enimies Of Jesus
JESUS passed the autumn and a part of the winter at
Jerusalem. This season is there rather cold. The portico of Solomon, with
its covered aisles, was the place where he habitually walked. This portico
consisted of two galleries, formed by three rows of columns, and covered
by a ceiling of carved wood. It commanded the valley of Kedron, which was
doubtless less covered with debris than it is at the present time. The
depth of the ravine could not be measured from the height of the portico;
and it seemed, in consequence of the angle of the slopes, as if an abyss
opened immediately beneath the wall. The other side of the valley even at
that time was adorned with sumptuous tombs. Some of the monuments, which
may be seen at the present day, were perhaps those cenotaphs in honor of
ancient prophets which Jesus pointed out, when, seated under the portico,
he denounced the official classes, who covered their hypocrisy or their
vanity by these colossal piles.
At the end of the month of December he celebrated at
Jerusalem the feast established by Judas Maccabeus in memory of the
purification of the temple after the sacrileges of Antiochus Epiphanes. It
was also called the "Feast of Lights," because, during the eight days of
the feast, lamps were kept lighted in the houses. Jesus undertook soon
after a journey into Perea and to the banks of the Jordan -- that is to
say, into the very country he had visited some years previously, when he
followed the school of John, and in which he had himself administered
baptism. He seems to have reaped consolation from this journey, specially
at Jericho. This city, as the terminus of several important routes, or, it
may be, on account of its gardens of spices and its rich cultivation, was
a customs station of importance. The chief receiver, Zaccheus, a rich man,
desired to see Jesus. As he was of small stature, he climbed a sycamore
tree near the road which the procession had to pass. Jesus was touched
with this simplicity in a person of consideration, and, at the risk of
giving offence, he determined to stay with Zaccheus. There was much
dissatisfaction at his honoring the house of a sinner by this visit. In
parting, Jesus declared his host to be a good son of Abraham; and, as if
to add to the vexation of the orthodox, Zaccheus became a Christian; he
gave, it is said, the half of his goods to the poor, and restored fourfold
to those whom he might have wronged. But this was not the only pleasure
which Jesus experienced there. On leaving the town, the beggar Bartimeus
pleased him much by persisting in calling him "son of David," although he
was told to be silent. The cycle of Galilean miracles appeared for a time
to recommence in this country, which was in many respects similar to the
provinces of the north. The delightful oasis of Jericho, at that time well
watered, must have been one of the most beautiful places in Syria.
Josephus speaks of it with the same admiration as of Galilee, and calls
it, like the latter province, a "divine country."
After Jesus had completed this kind of pilgrimage to
the scenes of his earliest prophetic activity, he returned to his beloved
abode in Bethany, where a singular event occurred, which seems to have had
a powerful influence on the remaining days of his life. Tired of the cold
reception which the kingdom of God found in the capital, the friends of
Jesus wished for a great miracle which should strike powerfully the
incredulity of the Hierosolymites. The resurrection of a man known at
Jerusalem appeared to them most likely to carry conviction, We must bear
in mind that the essential condition of true criticism is to understand
the diversity of times, and to rid ourselves of the instinctive repugnance
which are the fruit of a purely rational education. We must also remember
that in this dull and impure city of Jerusalem Jesus was no longer
himself. Not by any fault of his own, but by that of others, his
conscience had lost something of its original purity. Desperate, and
driven to extremity, he was no longer his own master. His mission
overwhelmed him, and he yielded to the torrent. As always happens in the
lives of great and inspired men, he suffered the miracles opinion demanded
of him rather than performed them. At this distance of time, and with only
a single text, bearing evident traces of artifices of composition, it is
impossible to decide whether in this instance the whole is fiction, or
whether a real fact which happened at Bethany has served as basis to the
rumors which were spread about it. It must be acknowledged, however, that
the way John narrates the incident differs widely from those descriptions
of miracles, the offspring of the popular imagination, which fill the
Synoptics. Let us add that John is the only evangelist who has a precise
knowledge of the relations of Jesus with the family of Bethany, and that
it is impossible to believe that a mere creation of the popular mind could
exist in a collection of remembrances so entirely personal. It is, then,
probable that the miracle in question was not one of those purely
legendary ones for which no one is responsible. In other words, we think
that something really happened at Bethany which was looked upon as a
resurrection.
Fame already attributed to Jesus two or three works of
this kind. The family of Bethany might be led, almost without suspecting
it into taking part in the important act which was desired. Jesus was
adored by them. it seems that Lazarus was sick, and that in consequence of
receiving a message from the anxious sisters Jesus left Perea. They
thought that the joy Lazarus would feel at his arrival might restore him
to-life. Perhaps, also, the ardent desire of silencing those who violently
denied the divine mission of Jesus carried his enthusiastic friends beyond
all bounds. It may be that Lazarus, still pallid with disease, caused
himself to be wrapped in bandages as if dead, and shut up in the tomb of
his family. These tombs were large vaults cut in the rock, and were
entered by a square opening, closed by an enormous stone. Martha and Mary
went to meet Jesus, and, without allowing him to enter Bethany, conducted
him to the cave. The emotion which Jesus experienced at the tomb of his
friend, whom he believed to be dead, might be taken by those present for
the agitation and trembling which accompanied miracles. Popular opinion
required that the divine virtue should manifest itself in man as an
epileptic and convulsive principle. Jesus (if we follow the above
hypothesis) desired to see once more him whom he had loved; and, the stone
being removed, Lazarus came forth in his bandages, his head covered with a
winding- sheet. This reappearance would naturally be regarded by everyone
as a resurrection. Faith knows no other law than the interest of that
which it believes to be true. Regarding the object which it pursues as
absolutely holy, it makes no scruple of invoking bad arguments in support
of its thesis when good ones do not succeed. if such and such a proof be
not sound, many others are! If such and such a wonder be not real, many
others have been! Being intimately persuaded that Jesus was a thaumaturgus,
Lazarus and his two sisters may have aided in the execution of one of his
miracles, just as many pious men who, convinced of the truth of their
religion, have sought to triumph over the obstinacy of their opponents by
means of whose weakness they are well aware. The state of their conscience
was that of the stigmatists, of the convulsionists, of the possessed ones
in convents, drawn, by the influence of the world in which they live, and
by their own belief, into feigned acts. As to Jesus, he was no more able
than St. Bernard or St. Francis d'Assisi to moderate the avidity for the
marvelous displayed by the multitude, and even by his own disciples.
Death, moreover, in a few days would restore him his divine liberty, and
release him from the fatal necessities of a position which each day became
more exacting and more difficult to sustain.
Everything, in fact, seems to lead us to believe that
the miracle of Bethany contributed sensibly to hasten the death of Jesus.
The persons who had been witnesses of it were dispersed throughout the
city, and spoke much about it. The disciples related the fact, with
details as to its performance, prepared in expectation of controversy. The
other miracles of Jesus were transitory acts, spontaneously accepted by
faith, exaggerated by popular fame, and were not again referred to after
they had once taken place. This was a real event, held to be publicly
notorious, and one by which it was hoped to silence the Pharisees. The
enemies of Jesus were much irritated at all this fame. They endeavored, it
is said, to kill Lazarus. It is certain that from that time a council of
the chief priests was assembled, and that in this council the question was
clearly put: "Can Jesus and Judaism exist together?" To raise the question
was to resolve it; and, without being a prophet, as thought by the
evangelist, the high priest could easily pronounce his cruel axiom: "It is
expedient that one man should die for the people."
"The high priest of that same year," to use an
expression of the fourth Gospel, which well expresses the state of
abasement to which the sovereign pontificate was reduced, was Joseph
Kaiapha, appointed by Valerius Gratus, and entirely devoted to the Romans.
From the time that Jerusalem had been under the government of procurators
the office of high priest had been a temporary one; changes in it took
place nearly every year. Kaiapha, however, held it longer than anyone
else. He had assumed his office in the year 25, and he did not lose it
till the year 36. His character is unknown to us, and many circumstances
lead to the belief that his power was only nominal. In fact, another
personage is always seen in conjunction with, and even superior to, him,
who, at the decisive moment we have now reached, seems to have exercised a
preponderating power.
This personage was Hanan or Annas, [The Ananus of
Josephus. It is thus that the Hebrew name Johanan became in Greek Joannes,
or Joanslas.] son of Seth, and father-in-law of Kaiapha. He was formerly
the high priest, and had in reality preserved amid the numerous changes of
the pontificate all the authority of the office. He had received the high
priesthood from the legate Quirinius in the year 7 of our era. He lost his
office in the year 14, on the accession of Tiberius; but he remained much
respected. He was still called "high priest," although he was out of
office, and he was consulted upon all important matters. During fifty
years the pontificate continued in his family almost uninterruptedly; five
of his sons successively sustained this dignity, besides Kaiapha, who was
his son-in-law. His was called the "priestly family," as if the priesthood
had become hereditary in it. The chief offices of the temple were almost
all filled by them. Another family, that of Boethus, alternated, it is
true, with that of Hanan's in the pontificate. But the Boethusim, whose
fortunes were of not very honorable origin, were much less esteemed by the
pious middle class. Hanan was then in reality the chief of the priestly
party. Kaiapha did nothing without him; it was customary to associate
their names, and that of Hanan was always put first. It will be
understood, in fact, that under this regime of an annual pontificate,
changed according to the caprice of the procurators, an old high priest,
who had preserved the Secret of the traditions, who had seen many younger
than himself succeed each other, and who had retained sufficient influence
to get the office delegated to persons who were subordinate to him in
family rank, must have been a very important personage. Like all the
aristocracy of the temple, he was a Sadducee, "a sect," says Josephus,
"particularly severe in its judgments." All his sons also were violent
persecutors. One of them, named, like his father, Hanan, caused James, the
brother of the Lord, to be stoned under circumstances not unlike those
which surrounded the death of Jesus. The spirit of the family was haughty,
bold, and cruel; it had that particular kind of proud and sullen
wickedness which characterizes Jewish politicians. Therefore, upon this
Hanan and his family must rest the responsibility of all the acts which
followed. It was Hanan (or the party he represented) who killed Jesus.
Hanan was the principal actor in the terrible drama, and far more than
Kaiapha, far more than Pilate, ought to bear the weight of the
maledictions of mankind.
it is in the mouth of Kaiapha that the evangelist
places the decisive words which led to the death of Jesus. It was supposed
that the high priest possessed a certain gift of prophecy; his declaration
thus became an oracle full of profound meaning to the Christian community.
But such an expression, whoever he might be that pronounced it, was the
feeling of the whole sacerdotal party. This party was much opposed to
popular seditions. It sought to put down religious enthusiasts, rightly
foreseeing that by their excited preachings they would lead to the total
ruin of the nation. Although the excitement created by Jesus was in nowise
temporal, the priests saw, as an ultimate consequence of this agitation,
an aggravation of the Roman yoke and the overturning of the temple, the
source of their riches and honors. Certainly the causes which,
thirty-seven years after, were to effect the ruin of Jerusalem did not
arise from infant Christianity. They arose in Jerusalem itself, and not in
Galilee. We cannot, however, say that the motive alleged in this
circumstance by the priests was so improbable that we must necessarily
regard it as insincere. In a general sense, Jesus, if he had succeeded,
would have really effected the ruin of the Jewish nation. According to the
principles, universally admitted by all ancient polity, Hanan and Kaiapha
were right in saying: "Better the death of one man than the rain of a
people!" In our opinion this reasoning is detestable. But it has been that
of conservative parties from the commencement of all human society. The
"party of order" (I use this expression in its mean and narrow sense) has
ever been the same. Deeming the highest duty of government to be the
prevention of popular disturbances, it believes it performs an act of
patriotism in preventing, by judicial murder, the tumultuous effusion of
blood. Little thoughtful of the future, it does not dream that, in
declaring war against all innovations, it incurs the risk of crushing
ideas destined one day to triumph. The death of Jesus was one of the
thousand illustrations of this policy. The movement he directed was
entirely spiritual, but it was still a movement; hence the men of order,
persuaded that it was essential for humanity not to be disturbed, felt
themselves bound to prevent the new spirit from extending itself. Never
was seen a more striking example of how much such a course of procedure
defeats its own object. Left free, Jesus would have exhausted himself in a
desperate struggle with the impossible. The unintelligent hate of his
enemies decided the success of his work, and sealed his divinity.
The death of Jesus was thus resolved upon from the
month of February or the beginning of March. But he still escaped for a
short time. He withdrew to an obscure town called Ephraim or Ephron, in
the direction of Bethel, a short day's journey from Jerusalem. He spent a
few days there with his disciples, letting the storm pass over. But the
order to arrest him the moment he appeared at Jerusalem was given. The
feast of the Passover was drawing nigh, and it was thought that Jesus,
according to his custom, would come to celebrate it at Jerusalem. [For the
order of the events, in all this part we follow the system of John. The
Synoptics appear to have little information as to the period of the life
of Jesus which precedes the Passion.]
Chapter 23
Last Week Of Jesus
JESUS did, in fact, set out with his disciples to see
once more, and for the last time, the unbelieving city. The hopes of his
companions were more and more exalted. All believed, in going up to
Jerusalem, that the kingdom of God was about to be realized there. The
impiety of men being at its height was regarded as a great sign that the
consummation was at hand. The persuasion in this sect was such that they
already disputed for precedence in the kingdom. This was, it is said, the
moment chosen by Salome to ask, on behalf of her sons, the two seats on
the right and left of the Son of man. The Master, on the other hand, was
beset by grave thoughts. Sometimes he allowed a gloomy resentment against
his enemies to appear; he related the parable of a nobleman who went to
take possession of a kingdom in a far country; but no sooner had he gone
than his fellow-citizens wished to get rid of him. The king returned, and
commanded those who had conspired against him to be brought before him,
and had them all put to death. At other times he summarily destroyed the
illusions of the disciples. As they marched along the stony roads to the
north of Jerusalem, Jesus pensively preceded the group of his companions.
All regarded him in silence, experiencing a feeling of fear, and not
daring to interrogate him. Already, on various occasions, he had spoken to
them of his future sufferings, and they had listened to him reluctantly.
Jesus at last spoke to them, and, no longer concealing his presentiments,
discoursed to them of his approaching end. There was great sadness in the
whole company. The disciples were expecting soon to see the sign appear in
the clouds. The inaugural cry of the kingdom of God, "Blessed is he that
cometh in the name of the Lord," resounded already in joyous accents in
their ears. The fearful prospect he foreshadowed troubled them. At each
step of the fatal road the kingdom of God became nearer or more remote in
the mirage of their dreams. As to Jesus he became confirmed in the idea
that he was about to die, but that his death would save the world. The
misunderstanding between him and his disciples became greater each moment.
The custom was to come to Jerusalem several days before
the Passover, in order to prepare for it. Jesus arrived late, and at one
time his enemies thought they were frustrated in their hope of seizing
him. The sixth day before the feast (Saturday, 8th of Nisan, equal to the
28th March) he at last reached Bethany. He entered, according to his
custom, the house of Lazarus, Martha and Mary, or of Simon the leper. They
gave him a great reception. There was a dinner at Simon the leper's, where
many persons were assembled, drawn thither by the desire of Seeing him,
and also of seeing Lazarus, of whom for some time so many things had been
related. Lazarus was seated at the table, and attracted much attention.
Martha served, according to her custom. It seems that they sought, by an
increased show of respect, to overcome the coolness of the public, and to
assert the high dignity of their guest. Mary, in order to give to the
event a more festive appearance, entered during dinner, bearing a vase of
perfume, which she poured upon the feet of Jesus. She afterwards broke the
vase, according to an ancient custom by which the vessel that had been
employed in the entertainment of a stranger of distinction was broken.
Then, to testify her worship in an extraordinary manner, she prostrated
herself at the feet of her Master and wiped them with her long hair. All
the house was filled with the odor of the perfume, to the great delight of
everyone except the avaricious Judas of Kerioth. Considering the
economical habits of the community, this was certainly prodigality. The
greedy treasurer calculated immediately how much the perfume might have
been sold for, and what it would have realized for the poor. This not very
affectionate feeling, which seemed to place something above Jesus,
dissatisfied him. He liked to be honored, for honors served his aim and
established his title of son of David. Therefore, when they spoke to him
of the poor, he replied rather sharply: "Ye have the poor always with you;
but me ye have not always." And, exalting himself, he promised immortality
to the woman who in this critical moment gave him a token of love.
The next day (Sunday, 9th of Nisan) Jesus descended
from Bethany to Jerusalem. When, at a bend of the road, upon the summit of
the Mount of Olives, he saw the city spread before him, it is said he wept
over it, and addressed to it a last appeal. At the base of the mountain,
at some steps from the gate, on entering the neighboring portion of the
eastern wall of the city, which was called Bethphage, no doubt on account
of the fig-trees with which it was planted, he had experienced a momentary
pleasure. His arrival was noised abroad. The Galileans who had come to the
feast were highly elated, and prepared a little triumph for him. An ass
was brought to him, followed, according to custom, by its colt. The
Galileans spread their finest garments upon the back of this humble animal
as saddle-cloths, and seated him thereon. Others, however, spread their
garments upon the road, and strewed it with green branches. The multitude
which preceded and followed him, carrying palms, cried: "Hosanna to the
son of David! Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!" Some
persons even gave him the title of king of Israel. "Master, rebuke thy
disciples," said the Pharisees to him. "If these should hold their peace,
the stones would immediately cry out," replied Jesus, and he entered into
the city. The Hierosolymites, who scarcely knew him, asked who he was. "It
is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth, in Galilee," was the reply. Jerusalem
was a city of about 50,000 souls. A trifling event, such as the entrance
of a stranger, however little celebrated, or the arrival of a band of
provincials, or a movement of people to the avenues of the city, could not
fail, under ordinary circumstances, to be quickly noised about. But at the
time of the feast the confusion was extreme. Jerusalem at these times was
taken possession of by strangers. It was among the latter that the
excitement appears to have been most lively. Some proselytes, speaking
Greek, who had come to the feast, had their curiosity piqued, and wished
to see Jesus. They addressed themselves to his disciples; but we do not
know the result of the interview. Jesus, according to his custom, went to
pass the night at his beloved village of Bethany. The three following days
(Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday) he descended regularly to Jerusalem; and,
after the setting of the sun, he returned either to Bethany, or to the
farms on the western side of the Mount of Olives, where he had many
friends.
A deep melancholy appears, during these last days, to
have filled the soul of Jesus, who was generally so joyous and serene. All
the narratives agree in relating that before his arrest he underwent a
short experience of doubt and trouble; a kind of anticipated agony.
According to some, he suddenly exclaimed, "Now is my soul troubled. O
Father, save me from this hour." It was believed that a voice from heaven
was heard at this moment: others said that an angel came to console him.
According to one widely-spread version, the incident took place in the
garden of Gethsemany. Jesus, it was said, went about a stone's throw from
his sleeping disciples, taking with him only Peter and the two sons of
Zebedee, and fell on his face and prayed. His soul was sad even unto
death; a terrible anguish weighed upon him; but resignation to the Divine
will sustained him. This scene, owing to the instinctive art which
regulated the compilation of the Synoptics, and often led them in the
arrangement of the narrative to study adaptability and effect, has been
given as occurring on the last night of the life of Jesus, and at the
precise moment of his arrest. If this version were the true one, we should
scarcely understand why John, who had been the intimate witness of so
touching an episode, should not mention it in the very circumstantial
narrative which he has furnished of the evening of the Thursday. All that
we can safely say is, that during his last days the enormous weight of the
mission he had accepted pressed cruelly upon Jesus. Human nature asserted
itself for a time. Perhaps he began to hesitate about his work. Terror and
doubt took possession of him, and threw him into a state of exhaustion
worse than death. He who has sacrificed his repose and the legitimate
rewards of life to a great idea always experiences a feeling of revulsion
when the image of death presents itself to him for the first time, and
seeks to persuade him that all has been in vain. Perhaps some of those
touching reminiscences which the strongest souls preserve, and which at
times pierce like a sword, came upon him at this moment. Did he remember
the clear fountains of Galilee where he was wont to refresh himself; the
vine and the fig-tree under which he had reposed, and the young maidens
who, perhaps, would have consented to love him? Did he curse the hard
destiny which had denied him the joys conceded to all others? Did he
regret his too lofty nature, and, victim of his greatness, did he mourn
that he had not remained a simple artisan of Nazareth? We know not. For
all these internal troubles evidently were a sealed letter to his
disciples. They understood nothing of them, and supplied by simple
conjectures that which in the great soul of their Master was obscure to
them. It is certain at least that his Divine nature soon regained the
supremacy. He might still have avoided death; but he would not. Love for
his work sustained him. He was willing to drink the cup to the dregs.
Henceforth we behold Jesus entirely himself; his character unclouded. The
subtleties of the polemic, the credulity of the thaumaturgus and of the
exorcist, are forgotten. There remains only the incomparable hero of the
Passion, the founder of the rights of the free conscience, and the
complete model which all suffering souls will contemplate in order to
fortify and console themselves.
The triumph of Bethphage -- that bold act of the
provincials in celebrating at the very gates of Jerusalem the advent of
their Messiah-King -- completed the exasperation of the Pharisees and the
aristocracy of the temple. A new council was held on the Wednesday (12th
of Nisan) in the house of Joseph Kaiapha. The immediate arrest of Jesus
was resolved upon. A great idea of order and of conservative policy
governed all their plans. The desire was to avoid a scene. As the feast of
the Passover, which commenced that year on the Friday evening, was a time
of bustle and excitement, it was resolved to anticipate it. Jesus being
popular, they feared an outbreak; the arrest was therefore fixed for the
next day, Thursday. It was resolved, also, not to seize him in tho temple,
where he came every day, but to observe his habits, in order to seize him
in some retired place. The agents of the priests sounded his disciples,
hoping to obtain useful information from their weakness or their
simplicity. They found what they sought in Judas of Kerioth. This wretch,
actuated by motives impossible to explain, betrayed his Master, gave all
the necessary information, and even undertook himself (although such an
excess of vileness is scarcely credible) to guide the troop which was to
effect his arrest. The remembrance of horror which the folly or the
wickedness of this man has left in the Christian tradition has doubtless
given rise to some exaggeration on this point. Judas until then had been a
disciple like the others; he had even the title of Apostle; and he had
performed miracles and driven out demons. Legend, which always uses strong
and decisive language, describes the occupants of the little supper room
as eleven saints and one reprobate. Reality does not proceed by such
absolute categories. Avarice, which the Snoptics give as the motive of the
crime in question, does not suffice to explain it. It would be very
singular if the man who kept the purse, and who knew what he would lose by
the death of his chief, were to abandon the profits of his occupation in
exchange for a very small sum of money. Had the self-love of Judas been
wounded by the rebuff which he had received at the dinner at Bethany? Even
that would not explain his conduct. John would have us regard him as a
thief, an unbeliever from the beginning, for which, however, there is no
probability. We would rather ascribe it to some feeling of jealousy or to
some dissension among the disciples. The peculiar hatred John manifests
towards Judas confirms this hypothesis. Less pure in heart than the
others, Judas had, from the very nature of his office, become
unconsciously narrow- minded. By a caprice very common to men engaged in
active duties, he had come to regard the interests of the treasury as
superior even to those of the work for which it was intended. The
treasurer had overcome the Apostle. The murmurings which escaped him at
Bethany seem to indicate that sometimes he thought the Master cost his
spiritual family too dear. No doubt this mean economy had caused many
other collisions in the little society.
Without denying that judas of Kerioth may have
contributed to the arrest of his Master, we still believe that the curses
with which he is loaded are somewhat unjust. There was, perhaps, in his
deed more awkwardness than perversity. The moral conscience of the man of
the people is quick and correct, but unstable and inconsistent. it is at
the mercy of the impulse of the moment. The secret societies of the
republican party were characterized by much earnestness and sincerity, and
yet their denouncers were very numerous. A trifling spite sufficed to
convert a partisan into a traitor. But if the foolish desire for a few
pieces of silver turned the head of poor Judas, he does not seem to have
lost the moral sentiment completely, since, when he had seen the
consequences of his fault, he repented, and, it is said, killed himself.
Each moment of this eventful period is solemn, and
counts more than whole ages in the history of humanity. We have arrived at
the Thursday, 13th of Nisan (2nd April). The evening of the next day
commenced the festival of the Passover, begun by the feast in which the
Paschal lamb was eaten. The festival continued for seven days, during
which unleavened bread was eaten. The first and the last of these seven
days were peculiarly solemn. The disciples were already occupied with
preparations for the feast. As to Jesus, we are led to believe that he
knew of the treachery of Judas, and that he suspected the fate that
awaited him. In the evening he took his last repast with his disciples. It
was not the ritual feast of the passover, as was afterwards supposed,
owing to an error of a day in reckoning; but for the primitive Church this
supper of the Thursday was the true passover, the seat of the new
covenant. Each disciple connected with it his most cherished remembrances,
and numerous touching traits of the Master which each one preserved were
associated with this repast, which became the corner-stone of Christian
piety and the starting-point of the most fruitful institutions.
Doubtless the tender love which filled the heart of
Jesus for the little Church which surrounded him overflowed at this
moment, and his strong and serene soul became buoyant, even under the
weight of the gloomy preoccupations that beset him. He had a word for each
of his friends; two among them especially, John and Peter, were the
objects of tender marks of attachment. John (at least, according to his
own account) was reclining on the divan, by the side of Jesus, his head
resting upon the breast of the Master. Towards the end of the repast the
secret which weighed upon the heart of Jesus almost escaped him: he said,
"Verily I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me." To these simple
men this was a moment of anguish; they looked at each other, and each
questioned himself. Judas was present; perhaps Jesus, who had for some
time had reasons to suspect him, sought by this expression to draw from
his looks or from his embarrassed manner the confession of his fault. But
the unfaithful disciple did not lose countenance; he even dared, it is
said, to ask with the others: "Master, is it I?"
Meanwhile, the good and upright soul of Peter was in
torture. He made a sign to John to endeavor to ascertain of whom the
Master spoke. John, who could converse with Jesus without being heard,
asked him the meaning of this enigma. Jesus, having only suspicions, did
not wish to pronounce any name; he only told John to observe to whom he
was going to offer a sop. At the same time, he soaked the bread and
offered it to Judas. John and Peter alone had cognisance of the fact.
Jesus addressed to Judas words which contained a bitter reproach, but
which were not understood by those present; and he left the company. They
thought that Jesus was simply giving him orders for the morrow's feast.
At the time this repast struck no one; and apart from
the apprehensions which the Master confided to his disciples, who only
half understood them, nothing extraordinary took place. But after the
death of Jesus they attached to this evening a singularly solemn meaning,
and the imagination of believers spread a coloring of sweet mysticism over
it. The last hours of a cherished friend are those we best remember. By an
inevitable illusion, we attribute to the conversations we have then had
with him a meaning which death alone gives to them; we concentrate into a
few hours the memories of many years. The greater part of the disciples
saw their Master no more after the supper of which we have just spoken. It
was the farewell banquet. In this repast, as in many others, Jesus
practiced his mysterious rite of the breaking of bread. As it was early
believed that the repast in question took place on the day of the
Passover, and was the Paschal feast, the idea naturally arose that the
Eucharistic institution was established at this supreme moment. Starting
from the hypothesis that Jesus knew beforehand the precise moment of his
death, the disciples were led to suppose that he reserved a number of
important acts for his last hours. As, moreover, one of the fundamental
ideas of the first Christians was that the death of Jesus had been a
sacrifice, replacing all those of the ancient Law, the "Last Supper,"
which was supposed to have taken place, once for all, on the eve of the
Passion, became the supreme sacrifice -- the act which constituted the new
alliance -- the sign of the blood shed for the salvation of all. The bread
and wine, placed in connection with death itself, were thus the image of
the new testament that Jesus had sealed with his sufferings -- the
commemoration of the sacrifice of Christ until his advent.
Very early this mystery was embodied in a small
sacramental narrative, which we possess under four forms, very similar to
one another. John, preoccupied with the Eucharistic ideas, and who relates
the Last Supper with so much prolixity, connecting with it so many
circumstances and discourses, and who was the only one of the evangelists
whose testimony on this point has the value of an eyewitness, does not
mention this narrative. This is a proof that he did not regard the
Eucharist as a peculiarity of the Lord's Supper. For him the special rite
of the Last Supper was the washing of feet. It is probable that in certain
primitive Christian families this latter rite obtained an importance which
it has since lost. No doubt Jesus on some occasions had practiced it to
give his disciples an example of brotherly humility. It was connected with
the eve of his death, in consequence of the tendency to group around the
Last Supper all the great moral and ritual recommendations of Jesus.
A high sentiment of love, of concord, of charity, and
of mutual deference, animated, moreover, the remembrances which were
cherished of the last hours of Jesus. It is always the unity of his
Church, constituted by him or by his Spirit, which is the soul of the
symbols and of the discourses which Christian tradition referred to this
sacred moment: "A new commandment I give unto you," said he, "that ye love
one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this
shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to
another. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not
what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I
have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. These things I command
you, that ye love one another." At this last moment there were again
evoked rivalries and struggles for precedence. Jesus remarked that if he,
the Master, had been in the midst of his disciples as their servant, how
much more ought they to submit themselves to one another. According to
some, in drinking the wine, he said, "I will not drink henceforth of this
fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my
Father's kingdom." According to others, he promised them soon a celestial
feast, where they would be seated on thrones at his side.
It seems that towards the end of the evening the
presentiments of Jesus took hold of the disciples. All felt that a very
serious danger threatened the Master, and that they were approaching a
crisis. At one time Jesus thought of precautions and spoke of swords.
There were two in the company. "It is enough," said he. He did not,
however, follow out this idea; he saw clearly that timid provincials would
not stand before the armed force of all the great powers of Jerusalem.
Peter, full of zeal, and feeling sure of himself, swore that he would go
with him to prison and to death. Jesus, with his usual acuteness,
expressed doubts about him. According to a tradition, which probably came
from Peter himself, Jesus declared that Peter would deny him before the
crowing of the cock. All, like Peter, swore that they would remain
faithful to him.
Chapter 24
Arrest And Trial Of Jesus
IT was nightfall when they left the room. Jesus,
according to his custom, passed through the valley of Kedron; and
accompanied by his disciples, went to the garden of Gethsemane, at the
foot of the Mount of Olives, and sat down there. Overawing his friends by
his inherent greatness, he watched and prayed. They were sleeping near
him, when all at once an armed troop appeared bearing lighted torches. It
was the guards of the temple, armed with staves, a kind of police under
the control of priests. They were supported by a detachment of Roman
soldiers with their swords. The order for the arrest emanated from the
high priest and Sanhedrim. Judas, knowing the habits of Jesus, had
indicated this place as the one where he might most easily be surprised.
Judas, according to the unanimous tradition of the earliest times,
accompanied the detachment himself; and, according to some, he carried his
hateful conduct even to betraying him with a kiss. However this may be, it
is certain that there was some show of resistance on the part of the
disciples. One of them (Peter, according to eye-witnesses) drew his sword,
and wounded the ear of one of the servants of the high priest, named
Malchus. Jesus restrained this opposition, and gave himself up to the
soldiers. Weak and incapable of effectual resistance, especially against
authorities who had so much prestige, the disciples took flight, and
became dispersed; Peter and John alone did not lose sight of their Master.
Another unknown young man followed him, covered with a light garment. They
sought to arrest him, but the young man fled, leaving his tunic in the
hands of the guards.
The course which the priests had resolved to take
against Jesus was quite in conformity with the established law. The
procedure against the "corrupter" (mesith) who sought to injure the purity
of religion is explained in the Talmud, with details the naive impudence
of which provokes a smile. A judicial ambush is there made an essential
part of the examination of criminals. When a man was accused of being a
"corrupter," two witnesses were suborned, who were concealed behind a
partition. It was arranged to bring the accused into a contiguous room,
where he could be heard by these two without his perceiving them. Two
candles were lighted near him in order that it might be satisfactorily
proved that the witnesses "saw him." He was then made to repeat his
blasphemy, and urged to retract it. If he persisted, the witnesses who had
heard him conducted him to the tribunal, and he was stoned to death. The
Talmud adds that this was the manner in which they treated Jesus; that he
was condemned on the faith of two witnesses who had been suborned, and
that the crime of "corruption" is, moreover, the only one for which the
witnesses are thus prepared.
We learn from the disciples of Jesus themselves that
the crime with which their Master was charged was that of "corruption";
and, apart from some minutiae, the fruit of the rabbinical imagination,
the narrative of the Gospels corresponds exactly with the procedure
described by the Talmud. The plan of the enemies of Jesus was to convict
him, by the testimony of witnesses and by his own avowals, of blasphemy,
and of outrage against the Mosaic religion, to condemn him to death
according to law, and then to get the condemnation sanctioned by Pilate.
The priestly authority, as we have already seen, was in reality entirely
in the hands of Hanan. The order for the arrest probably came from him. It
was before this powerful personage that Jesus was first brought. Hanan
questioned him as to his doctrine and his disciples. Jesus, with proper
pride, refused to enter into long explanations. He referred Hanan to his
teachings, which had been public; he declared he had never held any secret
doctrine; and desired the ex-high priest to interrogate those who had
listened to him. This answer was perfectly natural; but the exaggerated
respect with which the old priest was surrounded made it appear audacious;
and one of those present replied to it, it is said, by a blow.
Peter and John had followed their Master to the
dwelling of Hanan. John, who was known in the house, was admitted without
difficulty; but Peter was stopped at the entrance, and John was obliged to
beg the porter to let him pass. The night was cold. Peter stopped in the
antechamber, and approached a brasier, round which the servants were
warming themselves. He was soon recognized as a disciple of the accused.
The unfortunate man, betrayed by his Galilean accent, and pestered by
questions from the servants, one of whom, a kinsman of Malchus, had seen
him at Gethsemane, denied thrice that he had ever had the least connection
with Jesus. He thought that Jesus could not hear him, and never imagined
that this cowardice, which he sought to hide by his dissimulation, was
exceedingly dishonorable. But his better nature soon revealed to him the
fault he had committed. A fortuitous circumstance, the crowing of the
cock, recalled to him a remark which Jesus had made. Touched to the heart,
he went out and wept bitterly.
Hanan, although the true author of the judicial murder
about to be accomplished, had not power to pronounce the sentence upon
Jesus; he sent him to his son-in-law, Kaiapha, who bore the official
title. This man, the blind instrument of his father-in- law, would
naturally ratify everything that had been done. The Sanhedrim was
assembled at his house. The inquiry commenced; and several witnesses,
prepared beforehand according to the inquisitorial process described in
the Talmud, appeared before the tribunal. The fatal sentence which Jesus
had really uttered, "I am able to destroy the temple of God and to build
it in three days," was cited by two witnesses. To blaspheme the temple of
God was according to the Jewish law, to blaspheme God himself. Jesus
remained silent, and refused to explain the incriminating speech. If we
may believe one version, the high priest then adjured him to say if he
were the Messiah; Jesus confessed it, and proclaimed before the assembly
the near approach of his heavenly reign. The courage of Jesus, who had
resolved to die, renders this narrative superfluous. It is probable that
here, as when before Hanan, he remained silent. This was in general his
rule of conduct during his last moments. The sentence was settled; and
they only sought for pretexts. Jesus felt this, and did not undertake a
useless defence. In the light of orthodox Judaism, he was truly a
blasphemer, a destroyer of the established worship. Now, these crimes were
punished by the law with death. With one voice the assembly declared him
guilty of a capital crime. The members of the council who secretly leaned
to him were absent or did not vote. The frivolity which characterizes old
established aristocracies did not permit the judges to reflect long upon
the consequences of the sentence they had passed. Human life was at that
time very lightly sacrificed; doubtless the members of the Sanhedrim did
not dream that their sons would have to render account to an angry
posterity for the sentence pronounced with such careless disdain.
The Sanhedrim had not the right to execute a sentence
of death. But, in the confusion of powers which then reigned in Judea,
Jesus was, from that moment, none the less condemned. He remained the rest
of the night exposed to the ill treatment of an infamous pack of servants,
who spared him no indignity.
In the morning the chief priests and the elders again
assembled. The point was to get Pilate to ratify the condemnation
pronounced by the Sanhedrim, which, since the occupation of the Romans,
was no longer sufficient. The procurator was not invested, like the
imperial legate, with the disposal of life and death. But Jesus was not a
Roman citizen; it only required the authorization of the governor in order
that the sentence pronounced against him should take its course. As always
happens when a political people subjects a nation in which the civil and
religious laws are confounded, the Romans had been brought to give to the
Jewish law a sort of official support. The Roman law did not apply to
Jews. The latter remained under the canonical law which we find recorded
in the Talmud, just as the Arabs in Algeria are still governed by the code
of Islamism. Although neutral in religion, the Romans thus very often
sanctioned penalties inflicted for religious faults. The situation was
nearly that of the sacred cities of India under the English dominion, or
rather that which would be the state of Damascus if Syria were conquered
by a European nation. Josephus asserts, though this may be doubted, that,
if a Roman trespassed beyond the pillars which bore inscriptions
forbidding pagans to advance, the Romans themselves would have delivered
him to the Jews to be put to death.
The agents of the priests therefore bound Jesus and led
him to the judgment-hall, which was the former palace of Herod, adjoining
the Tower of Antonia. It was the morning of the day on which the Paschal
lamb was to be eaten. (Friday the 14th of Nisan, our April 3rd.) The Jews
would have been defiled by entering the judgment-hall, and would not have
been able to share in the sacred feast. They therefore remained without.
Pilate, being informed of their presence ascended the bima or tribunal,
situated in the open air, at the place named Gabbatha, or, in Greek,
Lithostrotos, on account of the pavement which covered the ground.
He had scarcely been informed of the accusation before
he displayed his annoyance at being mixed up with this affair. He then
shut himself up in the judgment-hall with Jesus. There a conversation took
place, the precise details of which are lost, no witness having been able
to repeat it to the disciples, but the tenour of which appears to have
been well divined by John. His narrative, in fact, perfectly accords with
what history teaches us of the mutual position of the two interlocutors.
The procurator, Pontius, surnamed Pilate, doubtless on
account of the pilum or javelin of honor with which he or one of his
ancestors was decorated, had hitherto had no relation with the new sect.
Indifferent to the internal quarrels of the Jews, he only saw, in all
these movements of sectaries, the results of intemperate imaginations and
disordered brains. In general, he did not like the Jews, but the Jews
detested him still more. They thought him hard, scornful, and passionate,
and accused him of improbable crimes.
Jerusalem, the center of a great national fermentation,
was a very seditious city, and an insupportable abode for a foreigner. The
enthusiasts pretended that it was a fixed design of the new procurator to
abolish the Jewish law. Their narrow fanaticism and their religious
hatreds disgusted that broad sentiment of justice and civil government
which the humblest Roman carried everywhere with him. All the acts of
Pilate which are known to us show him to have been a good administrator.
In the earlier period of the exercise of his office he had difficulties
with those subject to him which he had solved in a very brutal manner; but
it seems that essentially he was right. The Jews must have appeared to him
a people behind the age; he doubtless judged them as a liberal prefect
formerly judged the Bas-Bretons, who rebelled for such trifling matters as
a new road, or the establishment of a school. In his best projects for the
good of the country, notably in those relating to public works, he had
encountered an impassable obstacle in the Law. The Law restricted life to
such a degree that it opposed all change, and all amelioration. The Roman
structures, even the most useful ones, were objects of great antipathy on
the part of zealous Jews. Two votive escutcheons with inscriptions, which
he had set up at his residence near the sacred precincts, provoked a still
more violent storm. Pilate at first cared little for these
susceptibilities; and he was soon involved in sanguinary suppressions of
revolt, which afterwards ended in his removal. The experience of so many
conflicts had rendered him very prudent in his relations with this
intractable people, which avenged itself upon its governors by compelling
them to use towards it hateful severities. The procurator saw himself,
with extreme displeasure, led to play a cruel part in this new affair, for
the sake of a law he hated. He knew that religious fanaticism, when it has
obtained the sanction of civil Governments to some act of violence, is
afterwards the first to throw the responsibility upon the Government, and
almost accuses them of being the author of it. Supreme injustice; for the
true culprit is, in such cases, the instigator!
Pilate, then, would have liked to save Jesus. Perhaps
the dignified and calm attitude of the accused made an impression upon
him. According to a tradition, Jesus found a supporter in the wife of the
procurator himself. She may have seen the gentle Galilean from some window
of the palace overlooking the courts of the temple. Perhaps she had seen
him again in her dreams; and the idea that the blood of this beautiful
young man was about to be spilt weighed upon her mind. Certain it is that
Jesus found Pilate prepossessed in his favor. The governor questioned him
with kindness, and with the desire to find an excuse for sending him away
pardoned.
The title of "Kings of the Jews," which Jesus had never
taken upon himself, but which his enemies represented as the sum and
substance of his acts and pretensions, was naturally that by which it was
sought to excite the suspicions of the Roman authority. They accused him
on this ground of sedition, and of treason against the Government. Nothing
could be more unjust; for Jesus had always recognized the Roman Government
as the established power. But conservative religious bodies do not
generally shrink from calumny. Notwithstanding his own explanation, they
drew certain conclusions from his teaching; they transformed him into a
disciple of Judas the Gaulonite; they pretended that he forbade the
payment of tribute to Caesar. Pilate asked him if he was really the King
of the Jews. Jesus concealed nothing of what he thought. But the great
ambiguity of speech which had been the source of his strength, and which,
after his death, was to establish his kingship, injured him on this
occasion. An idealist that is to say, not distinguishing the spirit from
the substance, Jesus, whose words, to use the image of the Apocalypse,
were as a two-edged sword, never completely satisfied the powers of earth.
If we may believe John, he avowed his royalty, but uttered at the same
time this profound sentence: "My kingdom is not of this world." He
explained the nature of his kingdom, declaring that it consisted entirely
in the possession and proclamation of truth. Pilate understood nothing of
this grand idealism. Jesus doubtless impressed him as being an inoffensive
dreamer. The total absence of religious and philosophical proselytism
among the Romans of this epoch made them regard devotion to truth as a
chimera. Such discussions annoyed them, and appeared to them devoid of
meaning. Not perceiving the element of danger to the empire that lay
hidden in these new speculations, they had no reason to employ violence
against them. All their displeasure fell upon those who asked them to
inflict punishment for what appeared to them to be vain subtleties. Twenty
years after Gallio still adopted the same course towards the Jews. Until
the fall of Jerusalem, the rule which the Romans adopted in administration
was to remain completely indifferent to these sectarian quarrels.
An expedient suggested itself to the mind of the
governor by which he could reconcile his own feelings with the demands of
the fanatical people, whose pressure he had already so often felt. It was
the custom to deliver a prisoner to the people at the time of the
Passover. Pilate, knowing that Jesus had only been arrested in consequence
of the jealousy of the priests, tried to obtain for him the benefit of
this custom. He appeared again upon the bima, and proposed to the
multitude to release the "King of the Jews." The proposition made in these
terms, though ironical, was characterized by a degree of liberality. The
priests saw the danger of it. They acted promptly, and, in order to combat
the proposition of Pilate, they suggested to the crowd the name of a
prisoner who enjoyed great popularity in Jerusalem. By a singular
coincidence, he also was called Jesus, and bore the surname of Bar-Abba,
or Bar-Rabban. He was a well-known personage, and had been arrested for
taking part in an uproar in which murder had been committed, A general
clamor was raised, "Not this man; but Jesus Bar-Rabban"; and Pilate was
obliged to release Jesus Bar- Rabban.
His embarrassment increased. He feared that too much
indulgence shown to a prisoner to whom was given the title of "King of the
Jews" might compromise him. Fanaticism, moreover, compels all powers to
make terms with it. Pilate thought himself obliged to make some
concession; but still hesitating to shed blood, in order to satisfy men
whom he hated, wished to turn the thing into a jest. Affecting to laugh at
the pompous title they had given to Jesus, he caused him to be scourged.
Scourging was the general preliminary of crucifixion. Perhaps Pilate
wished it to be believed that this sentence had already been pronounced,
hoping that the preliminary would suffice. Then took place (according to
all the narratives) a revolting scene The soldiers put a scarlet robe on
his back, a crown formed of branches of thorns upon his head, and a reed
in his hand. Thus attired, he was led to the tribunal in front of the
people. The soldiers defiled before him, striking him in turn, and knelt
to him, saying, "Hail! King of the Jews!" Others, it is said, spit upon
him, and struck his head with the reed. It is difficult to understand how
Roman dignity could stoop to acts so shameful. It is true that Pilate, in
the capacity of procurator, had under his command scarcely any but
auxiliary troops. Roman citizens, as the legionaries were, would not have
degraded themselves by such conduct.
Did Pilate think by this display that he freed himself
from responsibility? Did he hope to turn aside the blow which threatened
Jesus by conceding something to the hatred of the Jews, and by
substituting for the tragic denouement a grotesque termination, to make it
appear that the affair merited no other issue? If such were his idea, it
was unsuccessful. The tumult increased, and became an open riot. The cry,
"Crucify him! Crucify him!" resounded from all sides. The priests,
becoming increasingly urgent, declared the Law in peril if the corrupter
were not punished with death. Pilate saw clearly that to save Jesus he
would have to put down a terrible disturbance. He still tried, however, to
gain time. He returned to the judgment-hall and ascertained from what
country Jesus came, with the hope of finding a pretext for declaring his
inability to adjudicate. According to one tradition, he even sent Jesus to
Antipas, who, it is said was then at Jerusalem. Jesus took no part in
these well-meant efforts; he maintained, as he had done before Kaiapha, a
grave and dignified silence, which astonished Pilate. The cries from
without became more and more menacing. The people had already begun to
denounce the lack of zeal in the functionary who protected an enemy of
Caesar. The greatest adversaries of the Roman rule were suddenly
transformed into loyal subjects of Tiberius, that they might have the
right of accusing the too tolerant procurator of treason. "We have no
king," said they, "but Caesar. If thou let this man go, thou art not
Caesar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar."
The feeble Pilate yielded; he foresaw the report that his enemies would
send to Rome, in which they would accuse him of having protected a rival
of Tiberius. Once before, in the matter of the votive escutcheons, the
Jews had written to the emperor, and had received satisfaction. He feared
for his office. By a compliance, which was to deliver his name to the
scorn of history he yielded, throwing, it is said, upon the Jews all the
responsibility of what was about to happen. The latter, according to the
Christians, fully accepted it by exclaiming, "His blood be on us and on
our children!"
Were these words really uttered? We may doubt it. But
they are the expression of a profound historical truth Considering the
attitude which the Romans had taken in Judea, Pilate could scarcely have
acted otherwise. How many sentences of death dictated by religious
intolerance been extorted from the civil power! The king of Spain, who, in
order to please a fanatical clergy, delivered hundreds of his subjects to
the stake, was more blameable than Pilate, for he represented a more
absolute power than that of the Romans at Jerusalem. When the civil power
becomes persecuting or meddlesome at the solicitation of the priesthood,
it proves its weakness. But let the Government that is without sin in this
respect throw the first stone at Pilate. The "secular arm," behind which
clerical cruelty shelters itself, is not the culprit. No one has a right
to say that he has a horror of blood when he causes it to be shed by his
servants.
It was, then, neither Tiberius nor Pilate who condemned
Jesus. It was the old Jewish party; it was the Mosaic Law. According to
our modern ideas, there is no transmission of moral demerit from father to
son; no one is accountable to human or Divine justice except for that
which he himself has done. Consequently, every Jew who suffers to-day for
the murder of Jesus has a right to complain, for he might have acted as
did Simon the Cyrenean; at any rate, he might not have been with those who
cried "Crucify him!" But nations, like individuals, have their
responsibilities, and, if ever crime was the crime of a nation, it was the
death of Jesus. This death was "legal in the sense that it was primarily
caused by a law which was the very soul of the nation. The Mosaic law, in
its modern, but still in its accepted form, pronounced the penalty of
death against all attempts to change the established worship. Now, there
is no doubt that Jesus attacked this worship, and aspired to destroy it.
The Jews expressed this to Pilate with a truthful simplicity: "We have a
law, and by our law he ought to die; because he has made himself the Son
of God." The law was detestable, but it was the law of ancient ferocity;
and the hero who offered himself in order to abrogate it had first of all
to endure its penalty.
Alas! it has required more than eighteen hundred years
for the blood that he shed to bear its fruits. Tortures and death have
been inflicted for ages in the name of Jesus on thinkers as noble as
himself. Even at the present time, in countries which call themselves
Christian, penalties are pronounced for religious offences. Jesus is not
responsible for these errors. He could not foresee that people, with
mistaken imaginations, would one day imagine him as a frightful Moloch,
greedy of burnt flesh. Christianity has been intolerant, but intolerance
is not essentially a Christian fact, It is a Jewish fact in the sense that
it was Judaism which first introduced the theory of the absolute in
religion, and laid down the principle that every innovator, even if he
brings miracles to support his doctrine, ought to be stoned without trial.
The pagan world has also had its religious violence. But, if it had had
this law, how would it have become Christian? The Pentateuch has thus been
in the world the first code of religious terrorism. Judaism has given the
example of an immutable dogma armed with the sword. If, instead of
pursuing the Jews with a blind hatred, Christianity had abolished the
regime which killed its founder, how much more consistent would it have
been! how much better would it have deserved of the human race.
Chapter 25
Death Of Jesus
ALTHOUGH the real motive for the death of Jesus was
entirely religious, his enemies had succeeded, in the judgment-hall, in
representing him as guilty of treason against the State; they could not
have obtained from the skeptical Pilate a condemnation simply on the
ground of heterodoxy. Consistently with this idea, the priests demanded,
through the people, the crucifixion of Jesus. This punishment was not
Jewish in its origin; if the condemnation of Jesus had been purely Mosaic,
he would have been Stoned. Crucifixion was a Roman punishment, reserved
for slaves, and for cases in which it was wished to add to death the
aggravation of ignominy. In applying it to Jesus they treated him as they
treated highway robbers, brigands, bandits, or those enemies of inferior
rank to whom the Romans did not grant the honor of death by the sword. It
was the chimerical "King of the Jews," not the heterodox dogmatist, who
was punished. Following out the same idea, the execution was left to the
Romans. We know that among the Romans their soldiers, their profession
being to kill, performed the office of executioners. Jesus was therefore
delivered to a cohort of auxiliary troop's, and all the most hateful
features of executions introduced by the cruel habits of the new
conquerors were exhibited towards him. It was about noon. They re-clothed
him with the garments which they had removed for the farce enacted at the
tribunal, and, as the cohort had already in reserve two thieves who were
to be executed, the three prisoners were taken together, and the
procession set out for the place of execution.
The scene of the execution was at a place called
Golgotha, situated outside Jerusalem, but near the walls of the city. The
name Golgotha signifies a skull; it corresponds with the French word
Chaumont, and probably designated a bare hill or rising ground, having the
form of a bald skull. The situation of this hill is not precisely known.
It was certainly on the north or north-west of the city, in the high
irregular plain which extends between the walls and the two valleys of
Kedron and Hinnom, a rather uninteresting region, and made still worse by
the objectionable circumstances arising from the neighborhood of a great
city. It is difficult to identify Golgotha as the precise place which,
since Constantine, has been venerated by entire Christendom. This place,
is too much in the interior of the city, and we are led to believe that in
the time of Jesus it was comprised within the circuit of the walls.
He who was condemned to the cross had himself to carry
the instrument of his execution. But Jesus, physically weaker than his two
companions, could not carry his. The troop met a certain Simon of Cyrene,
who was returning from the country, and the soldiers, with the off-hand
procedure of foreign garrisons, forced him to carry the fatal tree.
Perhaps they made use of a recognized right of forcing labor, the Romans
not being allowed to carry the infamous wood. It seems that Simon was
afterwards of the Christian community. His two sons, Alexander and Rufus,
were well known in it. He related perhaps more than one circumstance of
which he had been witness. No disciple was at this moment near to Jesus.
The place of execution was at last reached. According
to Jewish custom, the sufferers were offered a strong aromatic wine, an
intoxicating drink, which, through a sentiment of pity, was given to the
condemned in order to stupefy him. It appears that the ladies of Jerusalem
often brought this kind of wine to the unfortunates who were led to
execution; when none was presented by them, it was purchased from the
public treasury. Jesus, after having touched the edge of the cup with his
lips, refused to drink. This mournful consolation of ordinary sufferers
did not accord with his exalted nature. He preferred to quit life with
perfect clearness of mind, and to await in full consciousness the death he
had willed and brought upon himself. He was then divested of his garments,
and fastened to the cross. The cross was composed of two beams, tied in
the form of the letter T. It was not much elevated, so that the feet of
the condemned almost touched the earth. They commenced by fixing it, then
they fastened the sufferer to it by driving nails into his hands; the feet
were often nailed, though sometimes only bound with cords. A piece of wood
was fastened to the upright portion of the cross, towards the middle, and
passed between the legs of the condemned, who rested upon it. Without that
the hands would have been torn and the body would have sunk down. At other
times a small horizontal rest was fixed beneath the feet and sustained
them.
Jesus tasted these horrors in all their atrocity. A
burning thirst, one of the tortures of crucifixion, devoured him, and he
asked to drink. There stood near a cup of the ordinary drink of the Roman
soldiers, a mixture of vinegar and water, called Posca, The soldiers had
to carry with them their posca on all their expeditions, of which an
execution was considered one. A soldier dipped a sponge in this drink, put
it at the end of a reed, and raised it to the lips of Jesus, who sucked
it. The two robbers were crucified, one on each Side. The executioners, to
whom were usually left the small effects (pannicularia) of those executed,
drew lots for his garments, and, seated at the foot of the cross, kept
guard over him. According to one tradition, Jesus pronounced this
sentence, which was in his heart if not upon his lips: "Father, forgive
them, for they know not what they do."
According to the Roman custom, a writing was attached
to the top of the cross, bearing in three languages, Hebrew, Greek, and
Latin, the words: "THE KING OF THE JEWS." There was something painful and
insulting to the nation in this inscription. The numerous passers-by who
read it were offended. The priests complained to Pilate that he ought to
have adopted an inscription which would have implied simply that Jesus had
called himself King of the Jews. But Pilate, already tired of the whole
affair, refused to make any change in what had been written.
His disciples had fled. John, nevertheless, declares
himself to have been present, and to have remained standing at the foot of
the cross during the whole time. It may be affirmed, with more certainty,
that the devoted women of Galilee, who had followed Jesus to Jerusalem and
continued to tend him, did not abandon him. Mary Cleophas, Mary Magdalene,
Joanna, wife of Khouza, Salome, and others, stayed at a certain distance,
and did not lose sight of him. If we must believe John, Mary, the mother
of Jesus, was also at the foot of the cross, and Jesus, seeing his mother
and his beloved disciple together, said to the one, "Behold thy mother!"
and to the other, "Behold thy son!" But we do not understand how the
Synoptics, who name the other women, should have omitted her whose
presence was so striking a feature. Perhaps even the extreme elevation of
the character of Jesus does not render such personal emotion probable at
the moment when solely preoccupied by his work, he no longer existed
except for humanity.
Apart from this small group of women, whose presence
consoled him, Jesus had before him only the spectacle of the baseness or
stupidity of humanity. The passers-by insulted him. He heard around him
foolish scoffs, and his greatest cries of pain turned into hateful jests:
"He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he
said, I am the Son of God. He saved others," they said again; himself he
cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the
cross, and we will believe him! Ah, thou that destroyest the temple, and
buildest it in three days, save thyself." Some, vaguely acquainted with
his apocalyptic ideas, thought they heard him call Elias, and said: Let us
see whether Elias will come to save him." It appears that the two
crucified thieves at his side also insulted him. The sky was dark; and the
earth, as in all the environs of Jerusalem, dry and gloomy. For a moment,
according to certain narratives, his heart failed him; a cloud hid from
him the face of his Father; he endured an agony of despair a thousand
times more acute than all his torture. He saw only the ingratitude of men;
he perhaps repented suffering for a vile race, and exclaimed: "My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me?" But his Divine instinct still prevailed.
In the degree that the life of the body became extinguished, his soul
became clear, and returned by degrees to its celestial origin. He regained
the idea of his mission; he saw in his death the salvation of the world;
he lost sight of the hideous spectacle spread at his feet, and, profoundly
united to his Father, he began upon the gibbet the Divine life which he
was to live in the heart of humanity throughout infinite ages.
The peculiar atrocity of crucifixion was that one might
live three or four days in this horrible state upon the instrument of
torture. The hemorrhage from the hands quickly stopped, and was not
mortal. The true cause of death was the unnatural position of the body,
which brought on a frightful disturbance of the circulation, terrible
pains of the head and heart, and, at length, rigidity of the limbs. Those
who had a strong constitution only died of hunger. The idea which
suggested this cruel punishment was not directly to kill the condemned by
positive injuries, but to expose the slave, nailed by the hand of which he
had not known how to make good use, and to let him rot on the wood. The
delicate organization of Jesus preserved him from this slow agony.
Everything leads to the belief that the instantaneous rupture of a vessel
in the heart brought him, at the end of three hours, to a sudden death.
Some moments before yielding up his soul his voice was still strong. All
at once he uttered a terrible cry, which some heard as: "Father, into thy
hands I commend my spirit!" but which others, more preoccupied with the
accomplishment of prophecies, rendered by the words, "It is finished!" His
head fell upon his breast, and he expired.
Rest now in thy glory, noble initiator. Thy work is
completed; thy divinity is established. Fear no more to see the edifice of
thy efforts crumble through a flaw. Henceforth, beyond the reach of
frailty, thou shalt be present, from the height of the divine peace, in
the infinite consequences of thy acts. At the price of a few hours of
suffering, which have not even touched thy great soul, thou hast purchased
the most complete immortality. For thousands of years the world will extol
thee. Banner of our contradictions, thou wilt be the sign around which
will be fought the fiercest battles. A thousand times more living, a
thousand times more loved since thy death than during the days of thy
pilgrimage here below, thou wilt become to such a degree the corner-stone
of humanity that to tear thy name from this world would be to shake it to
its foundations. Between thee and God men will no longer distinguish.
Complete conqueror of death, take possession of thy kingdom, whither, by
the royal road thou hast traced, ages of adorers will follow thee.
Chapter 26
Jesus In The Tomb
IT was about three o'clock in the afternoon, according
to our manner of reckoning, when Jesus expired. A Jewish law forbade a
corpse suspended on the cross to be left beyond the evening of the day of
the execution. It is not probable that in the executions performed by the
Romans this rule was observed; but as the next day was the Sabbath, and a
Sabbath of peculiar solemnity, the Jews expressed to the Roman authorities
their desire that this holy day should not be profaned by such a
spectacle. Their request was granted; orders were given to hasten the
death of the three condemned ones, and to remove them from the cross. The
soldiers executed this order by applying to the two thieves a second
punishment much more speedy than that of the cross, the Crurifragium, or
breaking of the legs, the usual punishment of slaves and of prisoners of
war. As to Jesus, they found him dead, and did not think it necessary to
break his legs. But one of them, to remove all doubt as to the real death
of the third victim, and to complete it, if any breath remained in him,
pierced his side with a spear. They thought they saw water and blood flow,
which was regarded as a sign of the cessation of life.
John, who professes to have seen it, insists strongly
on this circumstance. It is evident, in fact, that doubts arose as to the
reality of the death of Jesus. A few hours of suspension on the cross
appeared, to persons accustomed to see crucifixions, entirely insufficient
to lead to such a result. They cited many instances of persons crucified
who, removed in time, had been brought to life again by powerful remedies.
Origen afterwards thought it needful to invoke miracle in order to explain
so sudden an end. The same astonishment is found in the narrative of Mark.
To speak truly, the best guarantee that the historian possesses upon a
point of this nature is the suspicious hatred of the enemies of Jesus. It
is doubtful whether the Jews were at that time preoccupied with the fear
that Jesus might pass for resuscitated: but, in any case, they must have
made sure that he was really dead. Whatever, at certain periods, may have
been the neglect of the ancients in all that belonged to legal proof and
the strict conduct of affairs, we cannot but believe that those interested
here had taken some precautions in this respect.
According to the Roman custom, the corpse of Jesus
ought to have remained suspended in order to become the prey of birds.
According to the Jewish law, it would have been removed in the evening,
and deposited in the place of infamy set apart for the burial of those who
were executed. If Jesus had had for disciples only his poor Galileans,
timid and without influence, the latter course would have been adopted.
But we have seen that, in spite of his small success at Jerusalem, Jesus
had gained the sympathy of some important persons who expected the kingdom
of God, and who, without confessing themselves his disciples, were
strongly attached to him. One of these persons, Joseph, of the small town
of Arimathea (Ha-ramathaim), [Probably identical with the ancient Rama of
Samuel, in the tribe of Ephraim.] went in the evening to ask the body from
the procurator. Joseph was a rich and honorable man, a member of the
Sanhedrim. The Roman law at this period commanded, moreover, that the body
of the person executed should be delivered to those who claimed it.
Pilate, who was ignorant of the circumstance of the crurifragium, was
astonished that Jesus was so soon dead, and summoned the centurion who had
superintended the execution, in order to know how this was. Pilate, after
having received the assurances of the centurion, granted to Joseph the
object of his request. The body probably had already been removed from the
cross. They delivered it to Joseph, that he might do with it as he
pleased.
Another secret friend, Nicodemus, whom we have already
seen employing his influence more than once in favor of Jesus, came
forward at this moment. He arrived bearing an ample provision of the
materials necessary for embalming. Joseph and Nicodemus interred Jesus
according to the Jewish custom -- that is to say, they wrapped him in a
sheet with myrrh and aloes. The Galilean women were present, and no doubt
accompanied the scene with piercing cries and tears.
It was late, and all this was done in great haste. The
place had not yet been chosen where the body would be finally deposited,
The carrying of the body, moreover, might have been delayed to a late
hour, and have involved a violation of the Sabbath -- now the disciples
still conscientiously observed the prescriptions of the Jewish law. A
temporary interment was determined upon. There was at hand, in the garden,
a tomb recently dug out in the rock, which had never been used. It
belonged, probably, to one of the believers. The funeral caves, when they
were destined for a single body, were composed of a small room, at the
bottom of which the place for the body was marked by a trough or couch let
into the wall, and surmounted by an arch. As these caves were dug out of
the sides of sloping rocks, they were entered by the floor; the door was
shut by a stone very difficult to move. Jesus was deposited in the cave,
and the stone was rolled to the door, as it was intended to return in
order to give him a more complete burial. But the next day being a solemn
Sabbath, the labor was postponed till the day following.
The women retired after having carefully noticed how
the body was laid. They employed the hours of the evening which remained
to them in making new preparations for the embalming. On the Saturday all
rested.
On the Sunday morning the women, Mary Magdalene the
first, came very early to the tomb. The stone was displaced from the
opening, and the body was no longer in the place where they had laid it.
At the same time the strangest rumors were spread in the Christian
community. The cry, "He is risen!" quickly spread among the disciples.
Love caused it to find ready credence everywhere. What had taken place? In
treating of the history of the Apostles we shall have to examine this
point, and to make inquiry into the origin of the legends relative to the
resurrection. For the historian, the life of Jesus finishes with his last
sigh. But such was the impression he had left in the heart of his
disciples and of a few devoted women that during some weeks more it was as
if he were living and consoling them. Had his body been taken away, or did
enthusiasm, always credulous, create afterwards the group of narratives by
which it was sought to establish faith in the resurrection? In the absence
of opposing documents, this can never be ascertained. Let us say, however,
that the strong imagination of Mary Magdalene played an important part in
this circumstance. Divine power of love! Sacred moments in which the
passion of one possessed gave to the world a resuscitated God!
Chapter 27
Fate Of The Enemies Of Jesus
ACCORDING to the calculation we adopt, the death of
Jesus happened in the year 33 of our era. it could not, at all events, be
either before the year 29, the preaching of John and Jesus having
commenced in the year 28, or after the year 35, since in the year 36, and
probably before the passover, Pilate and Kaiapha both lost their offices.
The death of Jesus appears, moreover, to have had no connection whatever
with these two removals. In his retirement Pilate probably never dreamt
for a moment of the forgotten episode, which was to transmit his pitiful
renown to the most distant posterity. As to Kaiapha, he was succeeded by
Jonathan, his brother-in-law, son of the same Hanan who had played the
principal part in the trial of Jesus. The Sadducean family of Hanan
retained the pontificate a long time, and, more powerful than ever,
continued to wage against the disciples and the family of Jesus the
implacable war which they had commenced against the Founder. Christianity,
which owed to him the definitive act of its foundation, owed to him also
its first martyrs. Hanan passed for one of the happiest men of his age. He
who was truly guilty of the death of Jesus ended his life full of honors
and respect, never having doubted for an instant that he had rendered a
great service to the nation. His sons continued to reign around the
temple, kept down with difficulty by the procurators, oft-times dispensing
with the consent of the latter in order to gratify their haughty and
violent instincts.
Antipas Herodias soon disappeared also from the
political scene. Herod Agrippa, having been raised to the dignity of king
by Caligula, the jealous Herodias swore that she also would be queen.
Pressed incessantly by this ambitious woman, who treated him as a coward,
because he suffered a superior in his family, Antipas overcame his natural
indolence, and went to Rome to solicit the title which his nephew had just
obtained (the year 39 of our era). But the affair turned out in the worst
possible manner. Injured in the eyes of the emperor by Herod Agrippa,
Antipas was removed, and dragged out the rest of his life in exile at
Lyons and in Spain. Herodias followed him in his misfortunes. A hundred
years at least were to elapse before the name of their obscure subject,
now become deified should appear in these remote countries to brand upon
their tombs the murder of John the Baptist.
As to the wretched Judas of Kerioth, terrible legends
were current about his death. It was maintained that he had bought a field
in the neighborhood of Jerusalem with the price of his perfidy. There was,
indeed, on the south of Mount Zion, a place named Hakeldama (the field of
blood). It was supposed that this was the property acquired by the
traitor. According to one tradition, he killed himself. According to
another, he had a fall in his field, in consequence of which his bowels
gushed out. According to others, he died of a kind of dropsy, accompanied
by repulsive circumstances, which were regarded as a punishment from
heaven. The desire of showing in Judas the accomplishment of the menaces
which the Psalmist pronounces against the perfidious friend may have given
rise to these legends. Perhaps, in the retirement of his field of
Hakeldama, Judas led a quiet and obscure life; while his former friends
conquered the world, and spread his infamy abroad. Perhaps, also, the
terrible hatred which was concentrated on his head drove him to violent
acts, in which was seen the finger of heaven.
The time of the great Christian revenge was, moreover
far distant. The new sect had no part whatever in the catastrophe which
Judaism was soon to undergo. The Synagogue did not understand till much
later to what it exposed itself in practicing laws of intolerance. The
empire was certainly still further from suspecting that its future
destroyer was born. Daring nearly three hundred years it pursued its path
without suspecting that at its side principles were growing destined to
subject the world to a complete transformation. At once theocratic and
democratic, the idea thrown by Jesus into the world was, together with the
invasion of the Germans, the most active cause of the dissolution of the
empire of the Caesar. On the one hand, the right of all men to participate
in the kingdom of God was proclaimed. On the other, religion was
henceforth separated in principle from the State. The right of conscience,
withdrawn from political law, resulted in the constitution of a new power
-- the "spiritual power." This power has more than once belied its origin.
For ages the bishops have been princes, and the Pope has been a king. The
pretended empire of souls has shown itself at various times as a frightful
tyranny, employing the rack and the stake in order to maintain itself. But
the day will come when the separation will bear its fruits, when the
domain of things spiritual will cease to be called a "power," that it may
be called a "liberty." Sprung from the conscience of a man of the people,
formed in the presence of the people, beloved and admired first by the
people, Christianity was impressed with an original character which will
never be effaced. It was the first triumph of revolution, the victory of
the popular idea, the advent of the simple in heart, the inauguration of
the beautiful as understood by the people. Jesus thus, in the aristocratic
societies of antiquity, opened the breach through which all will pass.
The civil power, in fact, although innocent of the
death of Jesus (it only countersigned the sentence, and even in spite of
itself), ought to bear a great share of the responsibility. In presiding
at the scene of Calvary the State gave itself a serious blow. A legend
full of all kinds of disrespect prevailed, and became universally known --
a legend in which the constituted authorities played a hateful part, in
which it was the accused that was right, and in which the judges and the
guards were leagued against the truth. Seditious in the highest degree,
the history of the Passion, spread by a thousand popular images, displayed
the Roman eagles as sanctioning the most iniquitous of executions,
soldiers executing it, and a prefect commanding it. What a blow for all
established powers! They have never entirely recovered from it. How can
they assume infallibility in respect to poor men when they have on their
conscience the great mistake of Gethsemane?
Chapter 28
Essential Character Of The Work Of Jesus
JESUS, it will be seen, limited his action entirely to
the Jews. Although his sympathy for those despised by orthodoxy led him to
admit pagans into the kingdom of God -- although he had resided more than
once in a pagan country, and once or twice we surprise him in kindly
relations with unbelievers -- it may be said that his life was passed
entirely in the very restricted world in which he was born. He was never
heard of in Greek or Roman countries; his name appears only in profane
authors of a hundred years later, and then in an indirect manner, in
connection with seditious movements provoked by his doctrine, or
persecutions of which his disciples were the object. Even on Judaism,
Jesus made no very durable impression. Philo, who died about the year 50,
had not the slightest knowledge of him. Josephus, born in the year 37, and
writing in the last years of the century, mentions his execution in a few
lines, as an event of secondary importance; and in the enumeration of the
sects of his time he omits the Christians altogether, in the Mishnah,
also, there is no trace of the new school; the passages in the two Gemaras
in which the founder of Christianity is named do not go further back than
the fourth or fifth century. The essential work of Jesus was to create
around him a circle of disciples, whom he inspired with boundless
affection, and among whom he deposited the germ of his doctrine. To have
made himself beloved, "to the degree that after his death they ceased not
to love him," was the great work of Jesus, and that which most struck his
contemporaries. His doctrine was so little dogmatic that he never thought
of writing it or of causing it to be written. Men did not become his
disciples by believing this thing or that thing, but in being attached to
his person, and in loving him A few sentences collected from memory, and
especially the type of character he set forth, and the impression it had
left, were what remained of him. Jesus was not a founder of dogmas, or a
maker of creeds; he infused into the world a new spirit. The least
Christian men were, on the one hand, the doctors of the Greek Church, who,
beginning from the fourth century, entangled Christianity in a path of
puerile metaphysical discussions, and, on the other, the scholastics of
the Latin Middle Ages, who wished to draw from the Gospel the thousands of
articles of a colossal system. To follow Jesus in expectation of the
kingdom of God was all that was implied by being Christian.
It will thus be understood how, by an exceptional
destiny, pure Christianity still preserves, after eighteen centuries, the
character of a universal and eternal religion. It is, in fact, because the
religion of Jesus is in some respects the final religion. Produced by a
perfectly spontaneous movement of souls, freed at its birth from all
dogmatic restraint, having struggled three hundred years for liberty of
conscience, Christianity, in spite of its failures, still reaps the
results of its glorious origin. To renew itself, it has but to return to
the Gospel. The kingdom of God, as we conceive it, differs notably from
the supernatural apparition which the first Christians hoped to see appear
in the clouds. But the sentiment introduced by Jesus into the world is
indeed ours. His perfect idealism is the highest rule of the unblemished
and virtuous life. He has created the heaven of pure souls, where is found
what we ask for in vain on earth, the perfect nobility of the children of
God, absolute purity, the total removal of the stains of the world; in
fine, liberty, which society excludes as an impossibility., and which
exists in all its amplitude only in the domain of thought. The great
Master of those who take refuge in this ideal kingdom of God is still
Jesus. He was the first to proclaim the royalty of the mind; the first to
say, at least by his actions, "My kingdom is not of this world." The
foundation of true religion is indeed his I work: after him, all that
remains is to develop it and render it fruitful.
"Christianity" has thus become almost a synonym of
"religion." All that is done outside of this great and good Christian
tradition is barren. Jesus gave religion to humanity, as Socrates gave it
philosophy, and Aristotle science. There was philosophy before Socrates,
and science before Aristotle. Since Socrates and since Aristotle,
philosophy and science have made immense progress; but all has been built
upon the foundation which they laid. In the same way, before Jesus,
religious thought had passed through many revolutions; since Jesus, it has
made great conquests; but no one has improved, and no one will improve,
upon the essential principle Jesus has created; he has fixed forever the
idea of pure worship. The religion of Jesus in this sense is not limited.
The Church has had its epochs and its phases; it has shut itself up in
creed, which are, or will be, but temporary; but Jesus has founded the
absolute religion, excluding nothing, and determining nothing unless it be
the spirit. His creeds are not fixed dogmas, but images susceptible of
indefinite interpretations. We should seek in vain for a theological
proposition in the Gospel. All confessions of faith are travesties of the
idea of Jesus, just as the scholasticism of the middle Ages, in
proclaiming Aristotle the sole master of a completed science, perverted
the thought of Aristotle. Aristotle, if he had been present in the debates
of the schools, would have repudiated this narrow doctrine; he would have
been of the party of progressive science against the routine which
shielded itself under his authority; he would have applauded his
opponents. In the same way, if Jesus were to return among us, he would
recognize as disciples, not those who pretend to enclose him entirely in a
few catechismal phrases, but those who labor to carry on his work. The
eternal glory in all great things is to have laid the first stone. It may
be that in the "physics" and in the "Meteorology" of modern times we may
not discover a word of the treatises of Aristotle which bear these titles;
but Aristotle remains no less the founder of natural science. Whatever may
be the transformations of dogma, Jesus will ever be the creator of the
pure spirit of religion; the Sermon on the Mount will never be surpassed.
Whatever revolution takes place will not prevent us attaching ourselves in
religion to the grand intellectual and moral line at the head of which
shines the name of Jesus. In this sense we are Christians, even when we
separate ourselves on almost all points from the Christian tradition which
has preceded us.
And this great foundation was indeed the personal work
of Jesus. Tn order to make himself adored to this degree, he must have
been adorable. Love is not enkindled except by an object worthy of it, and
we should know nothing of Jesus if it were not for the passion he inspired
in those about him, which compels us still to affirm that he was great and
pure. The faith, the enthusiasm, the constancy of the first Christian
generation is not explicable, except by supposing, at the origin of the
whole movement, a man of surpassing greatness. At the sight of the
marvelous creations of the ages of faith, two impressions equally fatal to
good historical criticism arise in the mind. On the one hand we are led to
think these creations too impersonal; we attribute to a collective action
that which has often been the work of one powerful will and of one
superior mind. On the other hand, we refuse to see men like ourselves in
the authors of those extraordinary movements which have decided the fate
of humanity. Let us have a larger idea of the powers which nature conceals
in her bosom. Our civilizations, governed by minute restrictions, cannot
give us any idea of the power of man at periods in which the originality
of each one had a freer field wherein to develop itself. Let us imagine a
recluse dwelling in the mountains near our capitals, coming out from time
to time in order to present himself at the palaces of sovereigns,
compelling the sentinels to stand aside, and, with an imperious tone,
announcing to kings the approach of revolutions of which he had been the
promoter. The very idea provokes a smile. Such, however, was Elias; but
Elias the Tishbite, in our days, would not be able to pass the gate of the
Tuileries. The preaching of Jesus, and his free activity in Galilee, do
not deviate less completely from the social conditions to which we are
accustomed. Free from our polished conventionalities, exempt from the
uniform education which refines us, but which so greatly dwarfs our
individuality, these mighty souls carried a surprising energy into action.
They appear to us like the giants of an heroic age which could not have
been real. Profound error! These men were our brothers; they were of our
stature, felt and thought as we do. But the breath of God was free in
them; with us it is restrained by the iron bonds of a mean society, and
condemned to an irremediable mediocrity.
Let us place, then, the person of Jesus at the highest
summit of human greatness. Let us not be misled by exaggerated doubts in
the presence of a legend which keeps us always in a superhuman world. The
life of Francis d'Assisi is also but a tissue of miracles. Has any one,
however, doubted of the existence of Francis d'Assisi, and of the part
played by him? Let us say no more that the glory of the foundation of
Christianity belongs to the multitude of the first Christians, and not to
him whom legend has deified. The inequality of men is much more marked in
the East than with us. It is not rare to see arise there, in the midst of
a general atmosphere of wickedness, characters whose greatness astonishes
us. So far from Jesus having been created by his disciples, he appeared in
everything as superior to his disciples. The latter, with the exception of
St. Paul and St. John, were men without either invention or genius. St.
Paul himself bears no comparison with Jesus, and, as to St. John, I shall
show hereafter that the part he played, though very elevated in one sense,
was far from being in all respects irreproachable. Hence the immense
superiority of the Gospels among the writings of the New Testament. Hence
the painful fall we experience in passing from the history of Jesus to
that of the apostles. The evangelists themselves, who have bequeathed us
the image of Jesus, are so much beneath him of whom they speak that they
constantly disfigure him from their inability to attain to his height.
Their writings are full of errors and misconceptions. We feel in each line
a discourse of divine beauty, transcribed by narrators who do not
understand it, and who substitute their own ideas for those which they
have only half understood. On the whole, the character of Jesus, far from
having been embellished by his biographers, has been lowered by them.
Criticism, in order to find what he was, needs to discard a series of
misconceptions, arising from the inferiority of the disciples. These
painted him as they understood him, and often in thinking to raise him
they have in reality lowered him.
I know that our modern ideas have been offended more
than once in this legend, conceived by another race, under another sky,
and in the midst of other social wants. There are virtues which, in some
respects, are more conformable to our taste. The virtuous and gentle
Marcus Aurelius, the humble and gentle Spinoza, not having believed in
miracles, have been free from some errors that Jesus shared. Spinoza, in
his profound obscurity, had an advantage which Jesus did not seek. By our
absolute sincerity and our means of conviction, by our absolute sincerity
and our disinterested love of the pure idea, we have founded -- all we who
have devoted our lives to science -- a new ideal of morality. But the
judgment of general history ought not to be restricted to considerations
of personal merit. Marcus Aurelius and his noble teachers have had no
permanent influence on the world. Marcus Aurelius left behind him
delightful books, an execrable son, and a decaying nation. Jesus remains
an inexhaustible principle of moral regeneration for humanity. Philosophy
does not suffice for the multitude. They must have sanctity. An Apollonius
of Tyana, with his miraculous legend, is necessarily more successful than
a Socrates with his cold reason. "Socrates," it was said, "leaves men on
the earth, Apollonius transports them to heaven; Socrates is but a sage,
Apollonius is a god," Religion, so far, has not existed without a share of
asceticism, of piety, and of the marvelous. When it was wished, after the
Antonines, to make a religion of philosophy, it was requisite to transform
the philosophers into saints, to write the "Edifying life" of Pythagoras
or Plotinus, to attribute to them a legend, virtues of abstinence,
contemplation, and supernatural powers, without which neither credence nor
authority was found in that age.
Preserve us, then, from mutilating history in order to
satisfy our petty susceptibilities! Which of us, pygmies as we are, could
do what the extravagant Francis d'Assisi or the hysterical Saint Theresa
has done? Let medicine have names to express these grand errors of human
nature; let it maintain that genius is a disease of the brain; let it see,
in a certain delicacy of morality, the commencement of consumption; let it
class enthusiasm and love as nervous accidents -- it matters little. The
terms "healthy" and "diseased" are entirely relative. Who would not prefer
to be diseased like Pascal, rather than healthy like the common herd? The
narrow ideas which are spread in our times respecting madness mislead our
historical judgments in the most serious manner, in questions of this
kind. A state in which a man says things of which he is not conscious, in
which thought is produced without the summons and control of the will,
exposes him to being confined as a lunatic. Formerly this was called
prophecy and inspiration. The most beautiful things in the world are done
in a state of fever; every great creation involves a breach of
equilibrium, a violent state of the being which draws it forth.
We acknowledge, indeed, that Christianity is too
complex to have been the work of a single man. In one sense, entire
humanity has cooperated therein. There is no one so shut in as not to
receive some influence from without. The history of the human mind is full
of strange coincidences, which cause very remote portions of the human
species, without any communication with each other, to arrive at the same
time at almost identical ideas and imaginations. In the thirteenth century
the Latins, the Greeks, the Syrians, the Jews, and the Mussulmans adopted
scholasticism, and very nearly the same scholasticism, from York to
Samarcand; in the fourteenth century everyone in Italy, Persia, and India
yielded to the taste for mystical allegory; in the sixteenth, art was
developed in a very similar manner in Italy, at Mount Athos, and at the
court of the Great Moguls, without St. Thomas, Barhebraeus, the Rabbis of
Narbonne, or the Motecallemin of Baghdad, having known each other, without
Dante and Petrarch having seen any sofi, without any pupil of the schools
of Perouse or of Florence having been at Delhi. We should say there are
great moral influences running through the world like epidemics, without
distinction of frontier and of race. The interchange of ideas in the human
species does not take place only by books or by direct instruction. Jesus
was ignorant of the very name of Buddha, of Zoroaster, and of Plato; he
had read no Greek book, no Buddhist Sudra, nevertheless there was in him
more than one element, which, without his suspecting it, came from
Buddhism, Parseeism, or from the Greek wisdom. All this was done through
secret channels and by that kind of sympathy which exists among the
various portions of humanity. The great man, on the one hand, receives
everything from his age; on the other, he governs his age. To show that
the religion founded by Jesus was the natural consequence of that which
had gone before does not diminish its excellence, but only proves that it
had a reason for its existence, that it was legitimate -- that is to say,
conformable to the instinct and wants of the heart in a given age.
Is it more just to say that Jesus owes all to Judaism,
and that his greatness is only that of the Jewish people? No one is more
disposed than myself to place high this unique people, whose particular
gift seems to have been to contain in its midst the extremes of good and
evil. No doubt, Jesus proceeded from Judaism; but he proceeded from it as
Socrates proceeded from the schools of the Sophists, as Luther proceeded
from the Middle Ages, as Lamennais from Catholicism, as Rousseau from the
eighteenth century. A man is of his age and his race even when he reacts
against his age and his race. Far from Jesus having continued Judaism, he
represents the rupture with the Jewish spirit. The general direction of
Christianity after him does not permit the supposition that his idea in
this respect could lead to any misunderstanding. The general march of
Christianity has been to remove itself more and more from Judaism. It will
become perfect in returning to Jesus, but certainly not in returning to
Judaism. The great originality of the founder remains then undiminished;
his glory admits no legitimate sharer.
Doubtless, circumstances much aided the success of this
marvelous revolution; but circumstances only second that which is just and
true. Each branch of the development of humanity has its privileged epoch,
in which it attains perfection by a sort of spontaneous instinct, and
without effort. No labor of reflection would succeed in producing
afterwards the masterpieces which nature creates at those moments by
inspired geniuses. That which the golden age of Greece was for arts and
literature, the age of Jesus was for religion. Jewish society exhibited
the most extraordinary moral and intellectual state which the human
species has ever passed through. It was truly one of those divine hours in
which the sublime is produced by combinations of a thousand hidden forces,
in which great souls find a flood of admiration and sympathy to sustain
them. The world, delivered from the very narrow tyranny of small municipal
republics, enjoyed great liberty. Roman despotism did not make itself felt
in a disastrous manner until much later, and it was, moreover, always less
oppressive in those distant provinces than in the center of the empire.
Our petty preventive interferences (far more destructive than death to
things of the spirit) did not exist. Jesus, during three years, could lead
a life which, in our societies, would have brought him twenty times before
the magistrates. Our laws upon the illegal exercise of medicine would
alone have sufficed to cut short his career. The unbelieving dynasty of
the Herods, on the other hand, occupied itself little with religious
movements; under the Asmodeans, Jesus would probably have been arrested at
his first step. An innovator, in such a state of society, only risked
death, and death is a gain to those who labor for the future. Imagine
Jesus reduced to bear the burden of his divinity until his sixtieth or
seventieth year, losing his celestial fire, wearing out little by little
under the burden of an unparalleled mission! Everything favors those who
have a special destiny; they become glorious by a sort of invincible
impulse and command of fate.
This sublime person, who each day still presides over
the destiny of the world, we may call divine, not in the sense that Jesus
has absorbed all the divine, or has been adequate to it (to employ an
expression of the schoolmen), but in the sense that Jesus is the one who
has caused his fellow-men to make the greatest step towards the divine.
Mankind in its totality offers an assemblage of low beings, selfish, and
superior to the animal only in that its selfishness is more reflective.
From the midst of this uniform mediocrity there are pillars that rise
towards the sky, and bear witness to a nobler destiny. Jesus is the
highest of these pillars which show to man whence he comes, and whither he
ought to tend. In him was condensed all that is good and elevated in our
nature. He was not sinless; he has conquered the same passions that we
combat; no angel of God "comfort him, except his good conscience; no Satan
tempted him, except that which each one bears in his heart. In the same
way that many of his great qualities are lost to us, through the fault of
his disciples, it is also probable that many of his faults have been
concealed. But never has any one so much as he made the interests of
humanity predominate in his life over the littlenesses of self-love.
Unreservedly devoted to his mission, he subordinated everything to it to
such a degree that towards the end of his life the universe no longer
existed for him. It was by this access of heroic will that he conquered
heaven. There never was a man, Cakya-Mouni perhaps excepted, who has to
this degree trampled under foot family, the joys of this world, and all
temporal care. Jesus only lived for his Father and the divine mission
which he believed himself destined to fulfil.
As to us, eternal children, powerless as we are, we who
labor without reaping, and who will never see the fruit of that which we
have sown, let us bow before these demigods. They were able to do that
which we cannot do: to create, to affirm, to act. Will great originality
be born again, or will the world content itself henceforth by following
the ways opened by the bold creators of the ancient ages? We know not. But
whatever may be the unexpected phenomena of the future, Jesus will not be
surpassed. His worship will constantly renew its youth, the tale of his
life will cause ceaseless tears, his sufferings will soften the best
hearts; all the ages will proclaim that among the sons of men there is
none born who is greater than Jesus.
Appendix
Renan And His Critics
IT is well known that the appearance of 'The Life of
Jesus' was the signal for an outburst of orthodox indignation against the
man who dared to reduce Jesus from a Divinity to a human being. Renan,
however, calmly disregarded the flood of criticism under which a less
happily poised nature would have been submerged. Renan was a scholar, a
poet, a dreamer, a worshipper of the good and the beautiful. He was not a
controversialist. His attitude in the "imminent deadly breach" of
theological warfare was to lie still and let the storm of battle pass over
him. Not until twelve editions of the book had appeared did he even notice
his critics, and then he wrote for the thirteenth edition a preface full
of dignity and beauty. During this period of four years Renan labored in
essantly to unprove his work, and never did the abuse and calumnies of the
hostile critics prevent him from profiting by such justice as their
strictures contained. Everything was dispassionately weighed and tested. A
finer attitude towards critical attack can scarcely be conceived.
The objections brought against The Life of Jesus
proceeded from two opposing parties. On the one band, Freethinkers and
liberal Protestant theologians blamed Renan for lack of thoroughness in
the application of his critical principles, and for retaining too
pronounced a reverence for the traditional figure of his hero. With these
writers Renan found himself on common ground; they started with the same
principles, and merely differed as to their application. On the other
hand, the orthodox attack was delivered in greater force, but was vitiated
by a fundamental misapprehension as to the reality of the supernatural
incidents of the Gospel narrative. If miracles are realities, Renan's book
is, as he says, a tissue of errors. If the Gospels are divinely inspired
and literally true, he has done wrong in not contenting himself with
piecing together the fragments of the four texts, and out of them
constructing, after the approved manner of the harmonists, a redundant and
contradictory whole. If, however, the supernatural element is
inadmissible, he is justified in regarding the books which relate
miraculous stories as containing both fictitious and historical matter, as
legends full of inaccuracies and systematic expedients. The first
principle of criticism is to admit at least the possibility of error in
the texis which it examines: infallible texts it cannot recognize. Renan,
indeed, claims that he should be ranked not as a skeptic, but as a
moderate critic, since, instead of rejecting faulty documents as mere
trash, he endeavors, by careful analysis, to extract from them their real
historical value.
These two assumptions, that miracles do not happen, and
that the Gospel writings are not divinely inspired, underlie the whole
narrative of Renan's Life of Jesus. And that such assumptions are amply
justified Renan has no difficulty in showing. The former negation is, in
fact necessary and prior to all rational exegesis. It is the fruit of an
experience which it is impossible to deny. Miracles never happen: only the
credulous believe they have seen them; no miracle can be cited which has
taken place in the presence of those capable of testing it; no special
intervention of Deity, either in the composition of a book no or in any
other event, can be shown to have occurred. To admit the supernatural is
to stand outside the province of science; it is to accept a non-scientific
explanation: an explanation which is set aside by the astronomer, the
physician, or the geologist, is not one which should be accepted without
inquiry by the historian. We all disregard the supernatural, and for the
same reason that we reject the existence of centaurs -- because we have
never seen them. To reject miracles we do not need prior disproof of the
credibility of the Gospel writers. The fact that they recount miracles
entitles us at once to say: "The Gospels are legends; they may contain
history, but certainly all they relate cannot be historical.
There is thus no common ground between the orthodox
writer and the Rationalist critic, since they start from diametrically
opposite premises. To the theologian the Gospels, like the rest of the
Bible, stand on a different footing from all other books; their history is
truer than any other history, since it is without any admixture of error.
To the Rationalist the Gospels are texts to which the ordinary rules of
criticism ought to be applied. Criticism recognizes the relative value of
the documents submitted for its examination: they may contain errors; they
may be improved by comparison with other documents. Orthodoxy, proclaiming
that the sacred books contain neither contradiction nor error, resorts to
the most desperate expedients in order to get out of difficulties which
are created solely by its own erroneous assumption. Much orthodox exegesis
becomes for this reason a tissue of subtleties. An isolated subtlety may
be true; a thousand subtleties cannot all be true. If we found in Tacitus
errors so pronounced as those committed by Luke in his references to
Quirinius and Theudas, we should, without hesitation, say that Tacitus had
been deceived. Reasonings which no one would admit in the interpretation
of a Greek or Latin classic, hypotheses which no historian would dream of
employing, are held to be plausible and satisfactory when it is a question
of defending a Gospel writer.
Orthodoxy reproaches Rationalism with altering
historical records because it does not accept word for word the documents
which orthodoxy holds to be sacred. But because a statement is written
down, does it follow that it must be true? The miracles of Mohammed as
well as those of Jesus have been put into writing, and some of the
biographies of Mohammed have a better claim than the Gospels to be
considered historical documents. But do we on this account believe in the
miracles attributed to mohammed? If his biographer relates an incredible
thing, we make no scruple about rejecting it. If we had four lives of
Buddha partly fabulous and as mutually irreconcilable as the four Gospels,
and a learned Buddhist endeavored to purge the narratives of their
contradictions, we should not charge him with falsifying the texts.
The question of the supernatural lies at the bottom of
all discussion on these matters. If the miracles really happened and the
Gospels are really inspired, Renan candidly admits that his method may be
termed detestable. But if these beliefs are unfounded. his method is the
true and right one. To the rational inquirer one simple reason settles the
question: There is no room for belief in a thing of which the world can
offer no experimental trace. We do not believe in miracles, just as we do
not believe in the devil, in sorcery, or in astrology. There is no need to
refute one by one the elaborate reasonings of astrology in order to
justify our skepticism with regard to the influence of the stars on human
events. It is sufficient to meet them by the simple fact that experience
shows that such an influence has never been proved.
The theologian cannot be a historian. History is by its
nature essentially disinterested; it deals with facts, not suppositions;
its one care is with two inseparable aspects of life -- art and truth. The
theologian has an interest to serve -- his dogma. Even where the dogma is
minimized as far as possible, it is still a grievous burden to the artist
or the critic. It is essential that the study of books held to be sacred
should be carried on in a dispassionate spirit. Critical inquiry into the
origins of Christianity will not have said its last word until it has
cultivated in a purely secular spirit the method of the Hellenists, a
people who were strangers to theology, who thought neither of edifying nor
of scandalizing, who neither defended nor overthrew the dogmas of their
religion.
The foregoing observations of Renan are sufficient
evidence of the gradual progress of his mind in the direction of
Rationalism between the first and the thirteenth editions of The Life of
Jesus. With increasing knowledge, and under the pressure of fact and
reason, his mind took a firmer and more intellectual tone, his perception
of the unity of the race strengthened, and the haze of poetic sentiment in
which to him the figure of Jesus was enveloped was partially dispelled,
though his sense of the beauty and grandeur of the character of Jesus and
of the spiritual value of much of the Gospel writings remained as keen as
that of any orthodox believer. That the progress towards a more assured
Rationalism was to some extent reluctant seems clear, though this fact
only confirms our impression of its genuineness and value. It was no
superficial examination, but the most serious reflection, which led to the
more advanced views. Renan pondered on these matters with no other
prejudices than those which constitute the essence of reason itself. the
most important problem which presented itself was that of the Fourth
Gospel. While holding that this work had some actual connection with the
Apostle John, he fully appreciated the difficulty of defining the nature
of that connection. He freely avowed that in certain passages of his first
edition he had inclined too much in the direction of authenticity; that he
had shown a certain disposition to admit the apostolic authorship of the
Fourth Gospel, which was without adequate warrant; and that he was wrong
in repudiating the notion of its later origin. The second Epistle
attributed to Peter affords an analogous example of a writing which must
have emanated from a subsequent author, and the authenticity of which
cannot be reasonably sustained. In conformity with this more advanced
conception, Renan, while still holding that in the Fourth Gospel we have a
fund of information equal, and in some respects superior, to that of the
Synoptics, struck out from his later editions expressions which implied
that the Gospel as it stands is the genuine record of the Apostle John, or
of any other eye-witness of the events narrated.
That which Renan regarded as certain in the life of
Jesus may be stated in a few lines. He existed. His home was Nazareth in
Galilee. His preaching had a powerful charm for the multitude. His
aphorisms made a deep impression on his followers. Peter and John were his
principal disciples. He excited the hatred of the orthodox Jews, who
arraigned him before Pontius Pilate, then Procurator of Judoed, under whom
he was crucified. It was believed that, after two or three days, he had
risen from the dead. Beyond this all is doubtful. As to the order of his
mental development; whether he believed in the miracles attributed to him;
whether he regarded himself as the Messiah; whether he was purely a Jew or
definitely broke with the Mosaic law -- these are questions on which
persons who seek for certainty must remain silent. Little reliance can be
placed on the Gospel statements on these points, since they furnish
arguments equally serviceable to opposing views, and modify the character
of Jesus to suit the purpose of the writers. In such matters it is
permissible to make conjectures, provided they are put forward as such.
The texts do not give certitude, but they give something. It is necessary
neither to follow them with blind confidence, nor to reject them with
disdain. We can only strive to divine their meaning, without being certain
of having found it. The history of Jesus and of his Apostles has, above
all other histories, to be constructed out of a vast mixture of ideas and
sentiments. With such ideas and sentiments a thousand trifles and
conjectures are intermingled. The details of these it is impossible now to
trace with any exactness; the traditions that have come down to us may be
true, but they may also be false. The best course is to follow the
original narratives as closely as possible, to discard impossibilities, to
sow in every direction the seeds of doubt, and to regard the diverse
relations of events as matters of conjecture. Narratives dealing so
largely with the supernatural cannot be true to the letter; out of a
hundred accounts of supernatural occurrences probably eighty have been
pieced together by popular imagination. Only in rare cases does a basis of
actual fact lie behind the transformed legend. It is useless to think that
a single explanation holds good from one end of the Bible to the other.
That a particular explanation is repugnant to our ideas is no reason for
rejecting it. History has to deal with a world which is partly good and
partly evil, and in reading it we are by turns charmed and disgusted,
grieved and consoled.
The method of science is in sharp contrast with the
method of theology. Science alone seeks after pure truth. Science alone
supports truth by convincing reasons, and subjects the methods of her
convictions to severe examination. Doubtless this is one reason why, up
till now, science has had so little influence on the people. In the
future, when the people have received the better instruction which we hope
for, they will yield their judgment only to carefully deduced proofs. But
the great men of the past are not to be judged by the principles of a
later development, or blamed for believing on grounds which to us would be
inadequate. We should be lacking in gratitude if we did not speak kindly
of Christianity. But final recognition should never blind our eyes to the
truth. We are not wanting in respect to a government when we perceive that
it is unable to satisfy all man's conflicting needs; nor to a religion
when we allege that it is not free from the formidable objections which
science has raised against all forms of belief in the supernatural. When
religions respond to the aspirations of the heart at the expense of the
protestations of reason, they in their turn by slow degrees, crumble away,
for no force in the world can permanently succeed in stifling reason.
