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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life of Jesus, by Ernest Renan
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Life of Jesus
+
+Author: Ernest Renan
+
+Release Date: August 22, 2005 [EBook #16581]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF JESUS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Linda Cantoni, and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+LIFE
+
+OF
+
+JESUS
+
+
+BY
+
+ERNEST RENAN
+
+
+INTRODUCTION BY
+
+JOHN HAYNES HOLMES
+
+[Transcriber's note: Introduction by John Haynes Holmes not included
+in this etext due to copyright restrictions.]
+
+
+MODERN LIBRARY
+NEW YORK
+
+
+INTRODUCTION COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY THE MODERN LIBRARY, INC.
+
+
+_Random House_ IS THE PUBLISHER OF
+
+THE MODERN LIBRARY
+
+BENNETT A. CERF * DONALD S. KLOPPER * ROBERT K. HAAS
+
+Manufactured in the United States of America
+
+Printed by Parkway Printing Company * Bound by H. Wolff
+
+
+
+
+TO THE PURE SOUL OF
+
+MY SISTER HENRIETTE
+
+_Who Died at Byblus on the 24th of September, 1861_
+
+
+Dost thou recall, from the bosom of God where thou reposest, those
+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 and copy each sheet as soon as I had written it,
+whilst 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
+judgments 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
+
+
+In presenting an English version of the celebrated work of M. Renan,
+the translator is aware of the difficulty of adequately rendering a
+work so admirable for its style and beauty of composition. It is not
+an easy task to reproduce the terseness and eloquence which
+characterize the original. Whatever its success in these respects may
+be, no pains have been spared to give the author's meaning. The
+translation has been revised by highly competent persons; but although
+great care has been taken in this respect, it is possible that a few
+errors may still have escaped notice.
+
+The great problem of the present age is to preserve the religious
+spirit, whilst getting rid of the superstitions and absurdities that
+deform it, and which are alike opposed to science and common sense.
+The works of Mr. F.W. Newman and of Bishop Colenso, and the "Essays
+and Reviews," are rendering great service in this direction. The work
+of M. Renan will contribute to this object; and, if its utility may be
+measured by the storm which it has created amongst the _obscurantists_
+in France, and the heartiness with which they have condemned it, its
+merits in this respect must be very great. It needs only to be added,
+that whilst warmly sympathizing with the earnest spirit which pervades
+the book, the translator by no means wishes to be identified with all
+the opinions therein expressed.
+
+_December 8, 1863._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                                  PAGE
+
+Introduction, by John Haynes Holmes                                 15
+
+Introduction, in Which the Sources of This History Are Principally
+Treated                                                             25
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Place of Jesus in the History of the World                          67
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Infancy and Youth of Jesus--His First Impressions                   81
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Education of Jesus                                                  89
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+The Order of Thought Which Surrounded the Development
+of Jesus                                                            99
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+The First Saying of Jesus--His Ideas of a Divine Father
+and of a Pure Religion--First Disciples                            119
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+John the Baptist--Visit of Jesus to John, and His Abode in
+the Desert of Judea--Adoption of the Baptism of John               135
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Development of the Ideas of Jesus Respecting the Kingdom
+of God                                                             148
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Jesus at Capernaum                                                 160
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+The Disciples of Jesus                                             173
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+The Preachings on the Lake                                         184
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+The Kingdom of God Conceived as the Inheritance of the
+Poor                                                               194
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+Embassy from John in Prison to Jesus--Death of John--Relations
+of His School with That of Jesus                                   206
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+First Attempts on Jerusalem                                        213
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+Intercourse of Jesus with the Pagans and the Samaritans            227
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Commencement of the Legends Concerning Jesus--His Own
+Idea of His Supernatural Character                                 235
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Miracles                                                           248
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+Definitive Form of the Ideas of Jesus Respecting the Kingdom
+of God                                                             259
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+Institutions of Jesus                                              273
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+Increasing Progression of Enthusiasm and of Exaltation             285
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+Opposition to Jesus                                                295
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+Last Journey of Jesus to Jerusalem                                 305
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+Machinations of the Enemies of Jesus                               319
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+Last Week of Jesus                                                 329
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+Arrest and Trial of Jesus                                          344
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+Death of Jesus                                                     360
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+Jesus in the Tomb                                                  370
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+Fate of the Enemies of Jesus                                       376
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+Essential Character of the Work of Jesus                           381
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION,
+
+In Which the Sources of This History 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 underwent 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 of a society for which
+philosophy 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 religions
+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 marvellous
+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.
+
+The plan followed in this history has prevented the introduction into
+the text of long critical dissertations upon controverted points. A
+continuous system of notes enables the reader to verify from the
+authorities all the statements of the text. These notes are strictly
+limited to quotations from the primary sources; that is to say, the
+original passages upon which each assertion or conjecture rests. I
+know that for persons little accustomed to studies of this kind many
+other explanations would have been necessary. But it is not my
+practice to do over again what has been already done well. To cite
+only books written in French, those who will consult the following
+excellent writings[1] will there find explained a number of points
+upon which I have been obliged to be very brief:
+
+     _Études Critiques sur l'Évangile de saint Matthieu_, par M.
+     Albert Réville, pasteur de l'église Wallonne de
+     Rotterdam.[2]
+
+     _Histoire de la Théologie Chrétienne au Siècle Apostolique_,
+     par M. Reuss, professeur à la Faculté de Théologie et au
+     Séminaire Protestant de Strasbourg.[3]
+
+     _Des Doctrines Religieuses des Juifs pendant les Deux
+     Siècles Antérieurs à l'Ère Chrétienne_, par M. Michel
+     Nicolas, professeur à la Faculté de Théologie Protestante de
+     Montauban.[4]
+
+     _Vie de Jésus_, par le Dr. Strauss; traduite par M. Littré,
+     Membre de l'Institut.[5]
+
+     _Revue de Théologie et de Philosophie Chrétienne_, publiée
+     sous la direction de M. Colani, de 1850 à 1857.--_Nouvelle
+     Revue de Théologie_, faisant suite à la précédente depuis
+     1858.[6]
+
+[Footnote 1: 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 Évangiles_, par M. Gustave
+d'Eichthal. Première Partie: _Examen Critique et Comparatif des Trois
+Premiers Évangiles_. Paris, Hachette, 1863.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Leyde, Noothoven van Goor, 1862. Paris, Cherbuliez. A
+work crowned by the Society of The Hague for the defence of the
+Christian religion.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Strasbourg, Treuttel and Wurtz. 2nd edition. 1860. Paris,
+Cherbuliez.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Paris, Michel Lévy frères, 1860.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Paris, Ladrange. 2nd edition, 1856.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Strasbourg, Treuttel and Wurtz. Paris, Cherbuliez.]
+
+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;[1] and although his book has, in my opinion, the fault of
+taking up the theological ground too much, and the historical ground
+too little,[2] it will be necessary, in order to understand the
+motives which have guided me amidst a crowd of minutiæ, to study the
+always judicious, though sometimes rather subtle argument, of the
+book, so well translated by my learned friend, M. Littré.
+
+[Footnote 1: The great results obtained on this point have only been
+acquired since the first edition of Strauss's work. The learned critic
+has, besides, done justice to them with much candor in his after
+editions.]
+
+[Footnote 2: It is scarcely necessary to repeat that not a word in
+Strauss's work justifies the strange and absurd calumny by which it
+has been attempted to bring into disrepute with superficial persons, a
+work so agreeable, accurate, thoughtful, and conscientious, though
+spoiled in its general parts by an exclusive system. Not only has
+Strauss never denied the existence of Jesus, but each page of his book
+implies this existence. The truth is, Strauss supposes the individual
+character of Jesus less distinct for us than it perhaps is in
+reality.]
+
+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; 2d, The compositions called
+the "Apocrypha of the Old Testament;" 3d, 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 colorless. 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[1] 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[2]--has perhaps retrenched or modified
+some expressions.[3] 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.[4] 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,
+Philip, Annas, Caiaphas, and Pilate are personages whom we can touch
+with the finger, and whom we see living before us with a striking
+reality.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Ant._, XVIII. iii. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: "If it be lawful to call him a man."]
+
+[Footnote 3: In place of [Greek: christos outos ên], he certainly had
+these [Greek: christos outos elegeto].--Cf. _Ant._, XX. ix. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Eusebius (_Hist. Eccl._, i. 11, and _Demonstr. Evang._,
+iii. 5) cites the passage respecting Jesus as we now read it in
+Josephus. Origen (_Contra Celsus_, i. 47; ii. 13) and Eusebius (_Hist.
+Eccl._, ii. 23) cite another Christian interpolation, which is not
+found in any of the manuscripts of Josephus which have come down to
+us.]
+
+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,[1] 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, is 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 Seleucidæ; the Apocalyptic form of the visions, the
+place of the book in the Hebrew canon, out of the series of the
+prophets, the omission of Daniel in the panegyrics of Chapter xlix. of
+Ecclesiasticus, 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Jude Epist. 14.]
+
+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
+collections 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 these 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 no more
+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.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Persons who wish to read more ample explanations, may
+consult, in addition to the work of M. Réville, previously cited, the
+writings of Reuss and Scherer in the _Revue de Théologie_, vol. x.,
+xi., xv.; new series, ii., iii., iv.; and that of Nicolas in the
+_Revue Germanique_, Sept. and Dec., 1862; April and June, 1863.]
+
+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 personage,
+known either in the apostolic history, or in the Gospel history
+itself. These four personages are not strictly given us as the
+authors. The formulæ "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,[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: In the same manner we say, "The Gospel according to the
+Hebrews," "The Gospel according to the Egyptians."]
+
+Firstly, as to Luke, doubt is scarcely possible. The Gospel of Luke is
+a regular composition, founded on anterior documents.[1] 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.[2]
+Now, the author of the Acts is a companion of St. Paul,[3] a title
+which applies to Luke exactly.[4] I know that more than one objection
+may be raised against this reasoning; but one thing, at 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 twenty-first chapter of Luke, inseparable from the rest of
+the work, was certainly written after the siege of Jerusalem, and but
+a short time after.[5] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke i. 1-4.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Acts_ i. 1. Compare Luke i. 1-4.]
+
+[Footnote 3: From xvi. 10, the author represents himself as
+eye-witness.]
+
+[Footnote 4: 2 Tim. iv. 11; Philemon 24; Col. iv. 14. The name of
+_Lucas_ (contraction of _Lucanus_) being very rare, we need not fear
+one of those homonyms which cause so many perplexities in questions of
+criticism relative to the New Testament.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Verses 9, 20, 24, 28, 32. Comp. xxii. 36.]
+
+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.[1] 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 the apostle Peter, written briefly, incomplete, and
+not arranged in chronological order, including narratives and
+discourses, ([Greek: lechthenta ê prachthenta],) composed from the
+information and recollections of the apostle Peter; second, a
+collection of sentences ([Greek: logia]) written in Hebrew[2] 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 versa_, 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: In Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._, iii. 39. No doubt whatever
+can be raised as to the authenticity of this passage. Eusebius, in
+fact, far from exaggerating the authority of Papias, is embarrassed at
+his simple ingenuousness, at his gross millenarianism, and solves the
+difficulty by treating him as a man of little mind. Comp. Irenæus,
+_Adv. Hær._, iii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: That is to say, in the Semitic dialect.]
+
+It matters little for our present object to push this delicate
+analysis further, 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 indubitable, 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.[1] Little importance was attached to these writings,
+and the preservers, such as Papias, greatly preferred oral
+tradition.[2] As men still believed that the world was nearly at an
+end, 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 clear 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.[3] 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,"[4] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke i. 1, 2; Origen, _Hom. in Luc._ 1 init.; St. Jerome,
+_Comment. in Matt._, prol.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Papias, in Eusebius, _H.E._, iii. 39. Comp. Irenæus,
+_Adv. Hær._, III. ii. and iii.]
+
+[Footnote 3: It is thus that the beautiful narrative in John viii.
+1-11 has always floated, without finding a fixed place in the
+framework of the received Gospels.]
+
+[Footnote 4: [Greek: Ta apomnêmoneumata tôn apostolôn, a kaleitai
+euangelia]. Justin, _Apol._ i. 33, 66, 67; _Dial. cum Tryph._, 10,
+100-107.]
+
+Who does not see the value of documents thus composed of the tender
+remembrances, and simple narratives, of the first two Christian
+generations, still full of the strong impression which the illustrious
+Founder had 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
+northeast 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[1] even in the second century, and where the
+first Galilean tendency was longer preserved than in other parts.
+
+[Footnote 1: Julius Africanus, in Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._, i. 7.]
+
+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 Irenæus 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 perusal of the 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 toward 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, toward the year 150, the fourth
+Gospel did exist, and was attributed to John. Explicit texts from St.
+Justin,[1] from Athenagorus,[2] from Tatian,[3] from Theophilus of
+Antioch,[4] from Irenæus,[5] show that thenceforth this Gospel mixed
+in every controversy, and served as corner-stone for the development
+of the faith. Irenæus is explicit; now, Irenæus 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,[6] in Montanism,[7] and in the quarrel of the
+Quartodecimans,[8] 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,[9] now, this epistle is
+recognized as from John by Polycarp,[10] Papias,[11] and Irenæus.[12]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Apol._, 32, 61; _Dial. cum Tryph._, 88.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Legatio pro Christ_, 10.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Adv. Græc._, 5, 7; Cf. Eusebius, _H.E._, iv. 29;
+Theodoret, _Hæretic. Fabul._, i. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ad Autolycum_, ii. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Adv. Hær._, II. xxii. 5, III. 1. Cf. Eus., _H.E._, v.
+8.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Irenæus, _Adv. Hær._, I. iii. 6; III. xi. 7; St.
+Hippolytus, _Philosophumena_ VI. ii. 29, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Irenæus, _Adv. Hær._, III. xi. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._, v. 24.]
+
+[Footnote 9: John, i. 3, 5. The two writings present the most complete
+identity of style, the same peculiarities, the same favorite
+expressions.]
+
+[Footnote 10: _Epist. ad Philipp._, 7.]
+
+[Footnote 11: In Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._, III. 39.]
+
+[Footnote 12: _Adv. Hær._, III. xvi. 5, 8; Cf. Eusebius, _Hist.
+Eccl._, v. 8.]
+
+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;[1] 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;[2] his hatred, on the
+contrary, of Judas,[3] 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,[4] 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.[5] 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,[6] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: John xiii. 23, xix. 26, xx. 2, xxi. 7, 20.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John xviii. 15-16, xx. 2-6, xxi. 15-16. Comp. i. 35, 40,
+41.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John vi. 65, xii. 6, xiii. 21, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: The manner in which Aristion and _Presbyteros Joannes_
+expressed themselves on the Gospel of Mark before Papias (Eusebius,
+_H.E._, III. 39) implies, in effect, a friendly criticism, or, more
+properly, a sort of excuse, indicating that John's disciples had
+better information on the same subject.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Compare John xviii. 15, and following, with Matthew xxvi.
+58; John xx. 2 to 6, with Mark xvi. 7. See also John xiii. 24, 25.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Chap. i. 14, xix. 35, xxi. 24, and following. Compare the
+First Epistle of St. John, chap. i. 3, 5.]
+
+A primary distinction, indeed, ought to be made in the Gospel of John.
+On the one side, this Gospel presents us with a rough draft 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.[1] 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.[2] 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 enter 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: See, for example, chaps. ix. and xi. Notice especially,
+the effect which such passages as John xix. 35, xx. 31, xxi. 20-23,
+24, 25, produce, when we recall the absence of all comments which
+distinguishes the synoptics.]
+
+[Footnote 2: For example, chap. iv. 1, and following, xv. 12, and
+following. Many words remembered by John are found in the synoptics
+(chap. xii. 16, xv. 20).]
+
+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 theatre 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 toward 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.[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: It was thus that Napoleon became a liberal in the
+remembrances of his companions in exile, when these, after their
+return, found themselves thrown in the midst of the political society
+of the time.]
+
+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,[1] 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 already had been drawn, from
+the death of John himself, (ver. 21-23.) Many other places bear the
+trace of erasures and corrections.[2] 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 penetrate
+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. Every one 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,[3] resume both
+probability and possibility in the narrative of the fourth Gospel. On
+the contrary, I dare defy any one 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 perpetual
+argumentation, this stage-effect devoid of simplicity, these long
+arguments after each miracle, these stiff and awkward discourses, the
+tone of which is so often false and unequal,[4] would not be tolerated
+by a man of taste compared with the delightful sentences of the
+synoptics. There are here evidently artificial portions,[5] 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.[6] Let us add
+that the vocabulary of Jesus cannot be recognized in the portions of
+which we speak. The expression, "kingdom of God," which was so
+familiar to the Master,[7] occurs there but once.[8] 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?
+
+[Footnote 1: The verses, chap. xx. 30, 31, evidently form the original
+conclusion.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Chap. vi. 2, 22, vii. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 3: For example, that which concerns the announcement of the
+betrayal by Judas.]
+
+[Footnote 4: See, for example, chaps. ii. 25, iii. 32, 33, and the
+long disputes of chapters vii., viii., and ix.]
+
+[Footnote 5: We feel often that the author seeks pretexts for
+introducing certain discourses (chaps. iii., v., viii., xiii., and
+following).]
+
+[Footnote 6: For example, chap. xvii.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Besides the synoptics, the Acts, the Epistles of St.
+Paul, and the Apocalypse, confirm it.]
+
+[Footnote 8: John iii. 3, 5.]
+
+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;
+every one 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 favor of the
+fourth Gospel. The author of this Gospel is, in fact, the better
+biographer; as if Plato, who, whilst 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 whilst 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.[1] Certain
+passages of Luke, where there is, as it were, an echo of the
+traditions of John,[2] prove also that these traditions were not
+entirely unknown to the rest of the Christian family.
+
+[Footnote 1: Papias, _loc. cit._]
+
+[Footnote 2: For example, the pardon of the adulteress; the knowledge
+which Luke has of the family of Bethany; his type of the character of
+Martha responding to the [Greek: diêchouei] of John (chap. xii. 2);
+the incident of the woman who wiped the feet of Jesus with her hair;
+an obscure notion of the travels of Jesus to Jerusalem; the idea that
+in his passion he was seen by three witnesses; the opinion of the
+author that some disciples were present at the crucifixion; the
+knowledge which he has of the part played by Annas in aiding Caiaphas;
+the appearance of the angel in the agony (comp. John xii. 28, 29).]
+
+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 splendor at once mild and terrible--a divine
+strength, if we may so speak, emphasizes 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 unequaled 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.[1] The Gospel of Mark is much firmer, more
+precise, containing fewer subsequent additions. He is the one of the
+three synoptics who has remained 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 amongst the other evangelists. He likes to report certain words
+of Jesus in Syro-Chaldean.[2] He is full of minute observations,
+coming doubtless from an eye-witness. There is nothing to prevent our
+agreeing with Papias in regarding this eye-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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Chaps. i., ii., especially. See also chap. xxvii. 3, 19,
+51, 53, 60, xxviii. 2, and following, in comparing Mark.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Chap. v. 41, vii. 34, xv. 24. Matthew only presents this
+peculiarity once (chap. xxvii. 46).]
+
+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.[1] Writing
+outside of Palestine, and certainly after the siege of Jerusalem,[2]
+the author indicates the places with less exactitude 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.[3]
+He subdues some details in order to make the different narratives
+agree;[4] he softens the passages which had become embarrassing on
+account of a more exalted idea of the divinity of Christ;[5] he
+exaggerates the marvellous;[6] commits errors in chronology;[7] omits
+Hebraistic comments;[8] 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 labors 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;[9] sometimes
+he divides one in order to make two.[10] 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;[11] he insists that
+Jesus had performed all the Jewish rites,[12] he is a warm Ebionite
+and democrat, that is to say, much opposed to property, and persuaded
+that the triumph of the poor is approaching;[13] he likes especially
+all the anecdotes showing prominently the conversion of sinners--the
+exaltation of the humble;[14] he often modifies the ancient traditions
+in order to give them this meaning;[15] 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,[16] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Chap. xiv. 26. The rules of the apostolate (chap. x.)
+have there a peculiar character of exaltation.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Chap. xix. 41, 43, 44, xxi. 9, 20, xxiii. 29.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Chap. ii. 37, xviii. 10, and following, xxiv. 53.]
+
+[Footnote 4: For example, chap. iv. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Chap. iii. 23. He omits Matt. xxiv. 36.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Chap. iv. 14, xxii. 43, 44.]
+
+[Footnote 7: For example, in that which concerns Quirinius, Lysanias,
+Theudas.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Compare Luke i. 31 with Matt. i. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 9: For example, chap. xix. 12-27.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Thus, of the repast at Bethany he gives two narratives,
+chap. vii. 36-48, and x. 38-42.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Chap. xxiii. 56.]
+
+[Footnote 12: Chap. ii. 21, 22, 39, 41, 42. This is an Ebionitish
+feature. Cf. _Philosophumena_ VII. vi. 34.]
+
+[Footnote 13: The parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Compare chap.
+vi. 20, and following, 24, and following, xii. 13, and following, xvi.
+entirely, xxii. 35. _Acts_ ii. 44, 45, v. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 14: The woman who anoints his feet, Zaccheus, the penitent
+thief, the parable of the Pharisee and the publican, and the prodigal
+son.]
+
+[Footnote 15: For example, Mary of Bethany is represented by him as a
+sinner who becomes converted.]
+
+[Footnote 16: Jesus weeping over Jerusalem, the bloody sweat, the
+meeting of the holy women, the penitent thief, &c. The speech to the
+women of Jerusalem (xxiii. 28, 29) could scarcely have been conceived
+except after the siege of the year 70.]
+
+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 originals
+which we no longer possess. He is less an evangelist than a biographer
+of Jesus, a "harmonizer," 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 ([Greek:
+logia] of Matthew, [Greek: lechthenta ê prachthenta] 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 Gospels 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 orders 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 Gospels, 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 biographies. 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.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See the passage from Papias, before cited.]
+
+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 idealized. 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 an 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."[1] Too simple explanations are
+always false when analyzing 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
+amongst 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 analyst always present to note the gestures, the manners, the
+sentiments of the actors? Let any one 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
+coloring 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 inexactitude 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
+idealized.
+
+[Footnote 1: See, for example, John xix. 23-24.]
+
+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. Sprenger for having, in writing the life
+of Mahomet, 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
+Mahomet 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 _à priori_
+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.[1] If it is
+proved that no contemporary miracle will bear inquiry, is it not
+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?
+
+[Footnote 1: See the _Gazette des Tribunaux_, 10th Sept. and 11th
+Nov., 1851, 28th May, 1857.]
+
+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 what has been done once; and as, in the order of miracle,
+there can be no question of ease or difficulty, 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 afterward? 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 ascertain 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 1860 and
+1861,[1] 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 labored 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: The work which will contain the results of this mission
+is in the press.]
+
+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 endeavored
+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 coloring. 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.[1] 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 Mahomet, 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 already in circulation in his
+time, and to the practices which are in vogue; that, when riper, and
+in full possession of his idea, he delights in a kind of calm and
+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 unfolding 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 exposition of a profound, complicated thought.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Loc. cit._]
+
+If the love of a subject can help one to understand it, it will also,
+I hope, be recognized 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 honor 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.
+
+
+
+
+LIFE OF JESUS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+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
+with which we have to do 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 degenerated into the
+shameful scenes of butchery which form the character of the ancient
+religion of Mexico. Amongst 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 endeavor to suppress.
+
+The brilliant civilizations 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 possess. Buddhism failed in all its
+approaches toward 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 a solid
+aliment to the soul. Persia alone succeeded in making a dogmatic
+religion, almost Monotheistic, and skilfully 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 Mohammedanism appear on her frontiers.
+
+It is the Semitic race[1] 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 to 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
+_matériel_; there were collected the sacred objects of the nation, its
+relics, its souvenirs, and, lastly, the "book,"[2] 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 temples appeared to them as a city placed on
+the summit of a mountain, toward which all people should turn, as an
+oracle whence the universal law should proceed, as the centre of an
+ideal kingdom, in which the human race, set at rest by Israel, should
+find again the joys of Eden.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: I remind the reader that this word means here simply the
+people who speak or have spoken one of the languages called Semitic.
+Such a designation is entirely defective; but it is one of those
+words, like "Gothic architecture," "Arabian numerals," which we must
+preserve to be understood, even after we have demonstrated the error
+that they imply.]
+
+[Footnote 2: I Sam. x. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Isa. ii. 1-4, and especially chaps. xl., and following,
+lx., and following; Micah iv. 1, and following. It must be recollected
+that the second part of the book of Isaiah, beginning at chap. xl., is
+not by Isaiah.]
+
+Mystical utterances already made themselves heard, tending to exalt
+the martyrdom and celebrate the power of the "Man of Sorrows."
+Respecting one of those sublime sufferers, who, like Jeremiah, 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.[1] "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 every one 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."
+
+[Footnote 1: Isa. lii. 13, and following, and liii. entirely.]
+
+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 toward 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 sombre passion. Caring little for the
+national dynasty or political independence, it accepted all
+governments which permitted it to practise freely its worship and
+follow its 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 defense 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 propagandism, 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.[1] 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;[2] soon it became a work of piety
+to bring into it the greatest number possible.[3] 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.[4] 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.[5] 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,[6] the romance of the race-course of
+Alexandria[7]--the guides of the people sought above all to inculcate
+the idea, that virtue consists in a fanatical attachment to fixed
+religious institutions.
+
+[Footnote 1: Ruth i. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Esther ix. 27.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxiii. 15; Josephus, _Vita_, 23; _B.J._, II. xvii.
+10, VII. iii. 3; _Ant._, XX. ii. 4; Horat., Sat. I., iv., 143; Juv.,
+xiv. 96, and following; Tacitus, _Ann._, II. 85; _Hist._, V. 5; Dion
+Cassius, xxxvii. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Mishnah, _Shebiit_, X. 9; Talmud of Babylon, _Niddah_,
+fol. 13 _b_; _Jebamoth_, 47 _b_, _Kiddushim_, 70 _b_; Midrash, _Jalkut
+Ruth_, fol. 163 _d_.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Apocryphal letter of Baruch, in Fabricius, _Cod. pseud.,
+V.T._, ii., 147, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: II. Book of Maccabees, ch. vii. and the _De Maccabæis_,
+attributed to Josephus. Cf. Epistle to the Hebrews xi. 33, and
+following.]
+
+[Footnote 7: III. Book (Apocr.) of Maccabees; Rufin, Suppl. ad Jos.,
+_Contra Apionem_, ii. 5.]
+
+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[1]--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.[2] 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-scène_, and the
+technical terms of the new 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Chap. vii. 13, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Vendidad_, chap. xix. 18, 19; _Minokhired_, a passage
+published in the "_Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen
+Gesellschaft_," chap. i. 263; _Boundehesch_, chap. xxxi. The want of
+certain chronology for the Zend and Pehlvis texts leaves much doubt
+hovering over the relations between the Jewish and Persian beliefs.]
+
+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 dogmatic power analogous to 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, because 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.[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Egl. iv. The _Cumæum carmen_ (v. 4) was a sort of
+Sibylline apocalypse, borrowed from the philosophy of history familiar
+to the East. See Servius on this verse, and _Carmina Sibyllina_, iii.
+97-817; cf. Tac., _Hist._, v. 13.]
+
+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[1]--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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke ii. 25, and following.]
+
+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 II.
+
+INFANCY AND YOUTH OF JESUS--HIS FIRST IMPRESSIONS.
+
+
+Jesus was born at Nazareth,[1] a small town of Galilee, which before
+his time had no celebrity.[2] All his life he was designated by the
+name of "the Nazarene,"[3] and it is only by a rather embarrassed and
+round-about way,[4] that, in the legends respecting him, he is made
+to be born at Bethlehem. We shall see later[5] the motive for this
+supposition, and how it was the necessary consequence of the Messianic
+character attributed to Jesus.[6] 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.[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xiii. 54, and following; Mark vi. 1, and following;
+John i. 45-46.]
+
+[Footnote 2: It is neither named in the writings of the Old Testament,
+nor in Josephus, nor in the Talmud.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mark i. 24; Luke xviii. 37; John xix. 19; _Acts_ ii. 22,
+iii. 6. Hence the name of _Nazarenes_ for a long time applied to
+Christians, and which still designates them in all Mohammedan
+countries.]
+
+[Footnote 4: 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. 1, ii. 1). 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 reduced to
+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.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Chap. XIV.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. ii. 1, and following; Luke ii. 1, and following.
+The omission of this narrative in Mark, and the two parallel passages,
+Matt. xiii. 54, and Mark vi. 1, where Nazareth figures as the
+"country" of Jesus, prove that such a legend was absent from the
+primitive text which has furnished the rough draft of the present
+Gospels of Matthew and Mark. It was to meet oft-repeated objections
+that there were added to the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew
+reservations, the contradiction of which with the rest of the text was
+not so flagrant, that it was felt necessary to correct the passages
+which had at first been written from quite another point of view.
+Luke, on the contrary (chap. iv. 16), writing more carefully, has
+employed, in order to be consistent, a more softened expression. As to
+John, he knows nothing of the journey to Bethlehem; for him, Jesus is
+merely "of Nazareth" or "Galilean," in two circumstances in which it
+would have been of the highest importance to recall his birth at
+Bethlehem (chap. i. 45, 46, vi. 41, 42).]
+
+[Footnote 7: It is known that the calculation which serves as basis of
+the common era was made in the sixth century by _Dionysius the Less_.
+This calculation implies certain purely hypothetical data.]
+
+The name of _Jesus_, which was given him, is an alteration from
+_Joshua_. It was a very common name; but afterward mysteries, and an
+allusion to his character of Saviour, were naturally sought for in
+it.[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. i. 21; Luke i. 31.]
+
+The population of Galilee was very mixed, as the very name of the
+country[1] indicated. This province counted amongst its inhabitants,
+in the time of Jesus, many who were not Jews (Phoenicians, Syrians,
+Arabs, and even Greeks).[2] 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 distinction of
+blood in humanity.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Gelil haggoyim_, "Circle of the Gentiles."]
+
+[Footnote 2: Strabo, XVI. ii. 35; Jos., _Vita_, 12.]
+
+He proceeded from the ranks of the people.[1] His father, Joseph, and
+his mother, Mary, were people in humble circumstances, artisans living
+by their labor,[2] 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 every one voluntarily
+poor. On the other hand, the total want of taste for art, and for that
+which contributes 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 to-day.[3] 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 by the door, serving at once for shop, kitchen, and
+bedroom, having for furniture a mat, some cushions on the ground, one
+or two clay pots, and a painted chest.
+
+[Footnote 1: We shall explain later (Chap. XIV.) the origin of the
+genealogies intended to connect him with the race of David. The
+Ebionites suppressed them (Epiph., _Adv. Hær._, XXX. 14).]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xiii. 55; Mark vi. 3; John vi. 42.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The rough aspect of the ruins which cover Palestine
+proves that the towns which were not constructed in the Roman manner
+were very badly built. As to the form of the houses, it is, in Syria,
+so simple and so imperiously regulated by the climate, that it can
+scarcely ever have changed.]
+
+The family, whether it proceeded from one or many marriages, was
+rather numerous. Jesus had brothers and sisters,[1] of whom he seems
+to have been the eldest.[2] 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
+earliest years of the development of Christianity, were his
+cousins-german. Mary, in fact, had a sister also named Mary,[3] who
+married a certain Alpheus or Cleophas (these two names appear to
+designate the same person[4]), 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,[5] took the title of "brothers of the Lord."[6] The real
+brothers of Jesus, like their mother, became important only after his
+death.[7] Even then they do not appear to have equaled 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xii. 46, and following, xiii. 55, and following;
+Mark iii. 31, and following, vi. 3; Luke viii. 19, and following; John
+ii. 12, vii. 3, 5, 10; _Acts_ i. 14.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. i. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 3: That these two sisters should bear the same name is a
+singular fact. There is probably some error arising from the habit of
+giving the name of Mary indiscriminately to Galilean women.]
+
+[Footnote 4: They are not etymologically identical. [Greek: Alphaios]
+is the transcription of the Syro-Chaldean name Halphaï; [Greek:
+Klôpas] or [Greek: Kleopas] is a shortened form of [Greek:
+Kleopatros]. But there might have been an artificial substitution of
+one for the other, just as Joseph was called "Hegissippus," the
+Eliakim "Alcimus," &c.]
+
+[Footnote 5: John vii. 3, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: In fact, the four personages who are named (Matt. xiii.
+55, Mark vi. 3) as sons of Mary, mother of Jesus, Jacob, Joseph or
+Joses, Simon, and Jude, are found again a little later as sons of Mary
+and Cleophas. (Matt. xxvii. 56; Mark xv. 40; _Gal._ i. 19; _Epist.
+James_ i. 1; _Epist. Jude_ 1; Euseb., _Chron._ ad ann. R. DCCCX.;
+_Hist. Eccl._, iii. 11, 32; _Constit. Apost._, vii. 46.) The
+hypothesis we offer alone removes the immense difficulty which is
+found in supposing two sisters having each three or four sons bearing
+the same names, and in admitting that James and Simon, the first two
+bishops of Jerusalem, designated as brothers of the Lord, may have
+been real brothers of Jesus, who had begun by being hostile to him and
+then were converted. The evangelist, hearing these four sons of
+Cleophas called "brothers of the Lord," has placed by mistake their
+names in the passage _Matt._ xiii. 5 = _Mark_ vi. 3, instead of the
+names of the real brothers, which have always remained obscure. In
+this matter we may explain how the character of the personages called
+"brothers of the Lord," of James, for instance, is so different from
+that of the real brothers of Jesus as they are seen delineated in John
+vii. 2, and following. The expression "brother of the Lord" evidently
+constituted, in the primitive Church, a kind of order similar to that
+of the apostles. See especially 1 _Cor._ ix. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _Acts_ i. 14.]
+
+His sisters were married at Nazareth,[1] 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.[2] 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 unequaled 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.[3] 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[4]--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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Mark vi. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: According to Josephus (_B.J._, III. iii. 2), the smallest
+town of Galilee had more than five thousand inhabitants. This is
+probably an exaggeration.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Itiner._, § 5.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Ant. Martyr, _Itiner._, § 5.]
+
+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 Peræa, which form a
+continuous line from the eastern side. On the north, the mountains of
+Safed, in inclining toward the sea conceal St. Jean d'Acre, but permit
+the Gulf of Khaïfa 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
+familial limits of his childhood. For yonder, northward, a glimpse is
+caught, almost on the flank of Hermon, of Cæsarea-Philippi, his
+furthest point of advance into the Gentile world; and here southward,
+the more sombre aspect of these Samaritan hills foreshadows the
+dreariness of Judea beyond, parched as by a scorching wind of
+desolation 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 centre 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 the world pursues through
+countless falterings, and in spite of the universal vanity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+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,[1] 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.[2] It is doubtful,
+however, if he understood the Hebrew writings in their original
+tongue. His biographers make him quote them according to the
+translations in the Aramean tongue;[3] 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_.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: John viii. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Testam. of the Twelve Patriarchs_, Levi. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvii. 46; Mark xv. 34.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Jewish translations and commentaries of the Talmudic
+epoch.]
+
+The schoolmaster in the small Jewish towns was the _hazzan_, or reader
+in the synagogues.[1] 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.[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Mishnah, _Shabbath_, i. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xiii. 54, and following; John vii. 15.]
+
+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 Cæsarea.[1] The
+real mother tongue of Jesus was the Syrian dialect mixed with Hebrew,
+which was then spoken in Palestine.[2] 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."[3] 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 Grecianized. But Nicholas was only a Jew in blood. Josephus
+declares that he himself was an exception among his contemporaries;[4]
+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.[5] The study of the Law was the only
+one accounted liberal and worthy of a thoughtful man.[6] 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."[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: Mishnah, _Shekalim_, iii. 2; Talmud of Jerusalem,
+_Megilla_, halaca xi.; _Sota_, vii. 1; Talmud of Babylon, _Baba Kama_,
+83 _a_; _Megilla_, 8 _b_, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matthew xxvii. 46; Mark iii. 17, v. 41, vii. 34, xiv. 36,
+xv. 34. The expression [Greek: ê patrios phônê] in the writers of the
+time, always designates the Semitic dialect, which was spoken in
+Palestine (II. Macc. vii. 21, 27, xii. 37; _Acts_ xxi. 37, 40, xxii.
+2, xxvi. 14; Josephus, _Ant._, XVIII. vi. 10, xx. sub fin.; _B.J._,
+prooem I; V. vi. 3, V. ix. 2, VI. ii. 1: _Against Appian_, I. 9; _De
+Macc._, 12, 16). We shall show, later, that some of the documents
+which served as the basis for the synoptic Gospels were written in
+this Semitic dialect. It was the same with many of the Apocrypha (IV.
+Book of Macc. xvi. ad calcem, &c.). In fine, the sects issuing
+directly from the first Galilean movement (Nazarenes, _Ebionim_, &c.),
+which continued a long time in Batanea and Hauran, spoke a Semitic
+dialect (Eusebius, _De Situ et Nomin. Loc. Hebr._, at the word [Greek:
+Chôba]; Epiph., _Adv. Hær._, xxix. 7, 9, xxx. 3; St. Jerome, _In
+Matt._, xii. 13; _Dial. adv. Pelag._, iii. 2).]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mishnah, _Sanhedrim_, xi. 1; Talmud of Babylon, _Baba
+Kama_, 82 _b_ and 83 _a_; _Sota_, 49 _a_ and _b_; _Menachoth_, 64 _b_;
+comp. II. Macc. iv. 10, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Jos., _Ant._ XX. xi. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Talmud of Jerusalem, _Peah_, i. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Jos., _Ant._, _loc. cit._; Orig., _Contra Celsum_, ii.
+34.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Talmud of Jerusalem, _Peah_, i. 1; Talmud of Babylon,
+_Menachoth_, 99 _b_.]
+
+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 Therapeutæ;[1] 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,[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: The _Therapeutæ_ of Philo are a branch of the Essenes.
+Their name appears to be but a Greek translation of that of the
+_Essenes_ ([Greek: Essaioi], _asaya_, "doctors"). Cf. Philo, _De Vita
+Contempl._, init.]
+
+[Footnote 2: See especially the treatises _Quis Rerum Divinarum Hæres
+Sit_ and _De Philanthropia_ of Philo.]
+
+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, 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,[1] if indeed it may be permitted to speak of a
+master in connection with so high an originality as his.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Pirké Aboth_, chap. i. and ii.; Talm. of Jerus.,
+_Pesachim_, vi. 1; Talm. of Bab., _Pesachim_, 66 _a_; _Shabbath_, 30
+_b_ and 31 _a_; _Joma_, 35 _b_.]
+
+The perusal of the books of the Old Testament made much impression
+upon him. The canon of the holy books was composed 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 every one 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
+marvellous 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,[1] was the _résumé_ 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,[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: The legend of Daniel existed as early as the seventh
+century B.C. (Ezekiel xiv. 14 and following, xxviii. 3). It was for
+the necessities of the legend that he was made to live at the time of
+the Babylonian captivity.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Epist. Jude_, 14 and following; 2 Peter ii. 4, 11;
+_Testam. of the Twelve Patriarchs_, Simeon, 5; Levi, 14, 16; Judah,
+18; Zab., 3; Dan, 5; Naphtali, 4. The "Book of Enoch" still forms an
+integral part of the Ethiopian Bible. Such as we know it from the
+Ethiopian version, it is composed of pieces of different dates, of
+which the most ancient are from the year 130 to 150 B.C. Some of these
+pieces have an analogy with the discourses of Jesus. Compare chaps.
+xcvi.-xcix. with Luke vi. 24, and following.]
+
+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 "Cæsar" alone reached him. He saw building, in Galilee or its
+environs, Tiberias, Julias, Diocæsarea, Cæsarea, gorgeous works of the
+Herods, who sought, by these magnificent structures, to prove their
+admiration for Roman civilization, and their devotion toward 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 clothes. The charming impossibilities with which
+his parables abound, when he brings kings and the mighty ones on the
+stage,[1] prove that he never conceived of aristocratic society but as
+a young villager who sees the world through the prism of his
+simplicity.
+
+[Footnote 1: See, for example, Matt. xxii. 2, and following.]
+
+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 marvellous. Philo, who lived in a great
+intellectual centre, 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,[1]
+and he imagined, like all the world, that nervous maladies were
+produced by demons who possessed the patient and agitated him. The
+marvellous 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. vi. 13.]
+
+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 fulfill his
+vocation.[1] It is certain, at least, that he cared little for the
+relations of kinship. His family do not seem to have loved him,[2]
+and at times he seems to have been hard toward them.[3] 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 toward 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."[4] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke ii. 42 and following. The Apocryphal Gospels are
+full of similar histories carried to the grotesque.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xiii. 57; Mark vi. 4; John vii. 3, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xii. 48; Mark iii. 33; Luke viii. 21; John ii. 4;
+Gospel according to the Hebrews, in St. Jerome, _Dial. adv. Pelag._,
+iii. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke xi. 27, and following.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+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 believe 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 centre 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 religions 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 Mahomet 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 nowise 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 marvellously 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 Avatär 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.[1] 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.[2] The book of Daniel, the book of Enoch, and certain
+parts of the Sibylline books,[3] 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 toward 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.[4] 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.[5] 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 amongst 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Yaçna_, xiii. 24: Theopompus, in Plut., _De Iside et
+Osiride_, sec. 47; _Minokhired_, a passage published in the
+_Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, i., p.
+263.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Virg., Ecl. iv.; Servius, at v. 4 of this Eclogue;
+Nigidius, quoted by Servius, at v. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Book iii., 97-817.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Esther vi. 13, vii. 10, viii. 7, 11-17, ix. 1-22; and in
+the apocryphal parts, ix. 10, 11, xiv. 13, and following, xvi. 20,
+24.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Eccl. i. 11, ii. 16, 18-24, iii. 19-22, iv. 8, 15, 16, v.
+17, 18, vi. 3, 6, viii. 15, ix. 9, 10.]
+
+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 the 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.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Isaiah lx. &c.]
+
+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 _dévas_, 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,[1] 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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: The whole book of Esther breathes a great attachment to
+this dynasty.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Apocryphal letter of Baruch, in Fabricius, _Cod. pseud.,
+V.T._, ii. p. 147, and following.]
+
+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. Whilst 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."[1]
+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.[2] 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.[3] 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?[4] Worldly and incredulous Sadduceeism might
+possibly not recoil before such a consequence, and a consummate sage,
+like Antigonus of Soco,[5] might indeed maintain that we must not
+practise 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 forever in the remembrance of men, and judging the
+wicked who had persecuted them.[6] "They live in the sight of God; ...
+they are known of God."[7] That was their reward. Others, especially
+the Pharisees, had recourse to the doctrine of the resurrection.[8]
+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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Job xxxiii. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 2: It is nevertheless remarkable that Jesus, son of Sirach,
+adheres to it strictly (chap. xvii. 26-28, xxii. 10, 11, xxx. 4, and
+following, xli. 1, 2, xliv. 9). The author of the book of _Wisdom_
+holds quite opposite opinions (iv. 1, Greek text).]
+
+[Footnote 3: Esth. xiv. 6, 7 (apocr.); the apocryphal Epistle of
+Baruch (Fabricius, _Cod. pseud., V.T._, ii. p. 147, and following).]
+
+[Footnote 4: 2 _Macc._ vii.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Pirké Aboth._, i. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Wisdom_, ii.-vi.; _De Rationis Imperio_, attributed to
+Josephus, 8, 13, 16, 18. Still we must remark that the author of this
+last treatise estimates the motive of personal recompense in a
+secondary degree. The primary impulse of martyrs is the pure love of
+the Law, the advantage which their death will procure to the people,
+and the glory which will attach to their name. Comp. _Wisdom_, iv. 1,
+and following; _Eccl._ xliv., and following; Jos., _B.J._, II. viii.
+10, III. viii. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _Wisdom_, iv. 1; _De Rat. Imp._, 16, 18.]
+
+[Footnote 8: 2 _Macc._, vii. 9, 14, xii. 43, 44.]
+
+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.[1] 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;[2] sometimes they were to be received at the
+moment of death into Abraham's bosom;[3] sometimes the resurrection
+was to be general;[4] sometimes it was to be reserved only for the
+faithful;[5] sometimes it supposed a renewed earth and a new
+Jerusalem; sometimes it implied a previous annihilation of the
+universe.
+
+[Footnote 1: Theopompus, in _Diog. Laert._, Proem, 9. _Boundehesch_,
+xxxi. The traces of the doctrine of the resurrection in the Avesta are
+very doubtful.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John xi. 24.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke xvi. 22. Cf. _De Rationis Imp._, 13, 16, 18.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Dan. xii. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 5: 2 _Macc._ vii. 14.]
+
+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 formed
+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 Peræa, of whom Jesus was a subject all his
+life, was an idle and useless prince,[1] a favorite and flatterer of
+Tiberius,[2] and too often misled by the bad influence of his second
+wife, Herodias.[3] Philip, tetrarch of Gaulonitis and Batanea, into
+whose dominions Jesus made frequent journeys, was a much better
+sovereign.[4] 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.[5] The last trace of self-government was thus lost to
+Jerusalem. United to Samaria and Idumea, Judea formed a kind of
+dependency of the province of Syria, in which the senator Publius
+Sulpicius Quirinus, well known as consul,[6] 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[7]--followed each other, and were constantly occupied
+in extinguishing the volcano which was seething beneath their feet.
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._, VIII. v. 1, vii. 1 and 2; Luke iii. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ibid., XVIII. ii. 3, iv. 5, v. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Ibid., XVIII. vii. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Ibid., XVIII. iv. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Ibid., XVII. xii. 2; and _B.J._, II. vii. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Orelli, _Inscr. Lat._, No. 3693; Henzen, _Suppl._, No.
+7041; _Fasti prænestini_, on the 6th of March, and on the 28th of
+April (in the _Corpus Inscr. Lat._, i. 314, 317); Borghesi, _Fastes
+Consulaires_ (yet unedited), in the year 742; R. Bergmann, _De Inscr.
+Lat. ad. P.S. Quirinium, ut videtur, referenda_ (Berlin, 1851). Cf.
+Tac., _Ann._, ii. 30, iii. 48; Strabo, XII. vi. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Jos., _Ant._, l. XVIII.]
+
+Continual seditions, excited by the zealots of Mosaism, did not cease,
+in fact, to agitate Jerusalem during all this time.[1] 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[2]--to rise up against the
+votive escutcheons put up by the procurators, the inscriptions of
+which appeared tainted with idolatry[3]--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.[4] The Samaritans were agitated by movements of a similar
+nature.[5] 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" (Kenaïm), or "Sicarii," pious assassins, who imposed
+on themselves the task of killing whoever in their estimation broke
+the Law, began to appear.[6] 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.[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ibid., the books XVI. and XVIII. entirely, and _B.J._,
+books I. and II.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _Ant._, XV. x. 4. Compare Book of Enoch, xcvii. 13,
+14.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Philo, _Leg. ad Caium_, § 38.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Jos., _Ant._, XVII. vi. 2, and following; _B.J._, I.
+xxxiii. 3, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. iv. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Mishnah, _Sanhedrim_, ix. 6; John xvi. 2; Jos., _B.J._,
+book IV., and following.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _Acts_ viii. 9. Verse 11 leads us to suppose that Simon
+the magician was already famous in the time of Jesus.]
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] 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 State, 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.[3] 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.[4]
+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.[5] 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 Cæsar. Jesus, more wise, and
+far removed from all sedition, profited by the fault of his
+predecessor, and dreamed of another kingdom and another deliverance.
+
+[Footnote 1: Discourse of Claudius at Lyons, Tab. ii. sub fin. De
+Boisseau, _Inscr. Ant. de Lyon_, p. 136.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 2 Sam. xxiv.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Talmud of Babylon, _Baba Kama_, 113 _a_; _Shabbath_, 33
+_b_.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. i. 1 and 6; _B.J._, II. viii. 1;
+_Acts_ v. 37. Previous to Judas the Gaulonite, the _Acts_ place
+another agitator, Theudas; but this is an anachronism, the movement of
+Theudas took place in the year 44 of the Christian era (Jos., _Ant._,
+XX. v. 1).]
+
+[Footnote 5: Jos., _B.J._, II. xvii. 8, and following.]
+
+Galilee was thus an immense furnace wherein the most diverse elements
+were seething.[1] An extraordinary contempt of life, or, more properly
+speaking, a kind of longing for death,[2] 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 programme of the future reign, which
+was to bring peace to the righteous, and to seal forever the work of
+God.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xiii. 1. The Galilean movement of Judas, son of
+Hezekiah, does not appear to have been of a religious character;
+perhaps, however, its character has been misrepresented by Josephus
+(_Ant._, XVII. x. 5).]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _Ant._, XVI. vi. 2, 3; XVIII. i. 1.]
+
+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.[1] 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;[2] it was there that he held
+secret communion with the ancient prophets; and it was there that his
+disciples witnessed his transfiguration.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _B.J._, III. iii. 1. The horrible state to which
+the country is reduced, especially near Lake Tiberias, ought not to
+deceive us. These countries, now scorched, were formerly terrestrial
+paradises. The baths of Tiberias, which are now a frightful abode,
+were formerly the most beautiful places in Galilee (Jos., _Ant._,
+XVIII. ii. 3.) Josephus (_Bell. Jud._, III. x. 8) extols the beautiful
+trees of the plain of Gennesareth, where there is no longer a single
+one. Anthony the Martyr, about the year 600, consequently fifty years
+before the Mussulman invasion, still found Galilee covered with
+delightful plantations, and compares its fertility to that of Egypt
+(_Itin._, § 5).]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. v. 1, xiv. 23; Luke vi. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xvii. 1, and following; Mark ix. 1, and following;
+Luke ix. 28, and following.]
+
+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.[1] If we except Tiberias, built by Antipas in honor of
+Tiberius (about the year 15), in the Roman style,[2] 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.[3] 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.[4] The
+wine was excellent, if we may judge by that which the Jews still
+obtain at Safed, and they drank much of it.[5] 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 good will?
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _B.J._, III. iii. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. ii. 2; _B.J._, II. ix. 1; _Vita_,
+12, 13, 64.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Jos., _B.J._, III. iii. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: We may judge of this by some enclosures in the
+neighborhood of Nazareth. Cf. Song of Solomon ii. 3, 5, 13, iv. 13,
+vi. 6, 10, vii. 8, 12, viii. 2, 5; Anton. Martyr, _l.c._ The aspect of
+the great farms is still well preserved in the south of the country of
+Tyre (ancient tribe of Asher). Traces of the ancient Palestinian
+agriculture, with its troughs, threshing-floors, wine-presses, mills,
+&c., cut in the rock, are found at every step.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. ix. 17, xi. 19; Mark ii. 22; Luke v. 37, vii. 34;
+John ii. 3, and following.]
+
+The whole history of infant Christianity has become in this manner a
+delightful pastoral. A Messiah at the marriage festival--the courtezan
+and the good Zaccheus 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 amidst these enchanting scenes. From his infancy,
+he went almost annually to the feast at Jerusalem.[1] 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[2] during several days in the spring across the
+hills and valleys, each one having in prospect the splendors of
+Jerusalem, the solemnities of the sacred courts, and the joy of
+brethren dwelling together in unity.[3] The route which Jesus
+ordinarily took in these journeys was that which is followed to this
+day through Ginæa and Shechem.[4] From Shechem to Jerusalem the
+journey is very tiresome. But the neighborhood of the old sanctuaries
+of Shiloh and Bethel, near which the travellers pass, keeps their
+interest alive. _Ain-el-Haramie_,[5] 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
+sombre, 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,[6] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke ii. 41.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke ii. 42-44.]
+
+[Footnote 3: See especially Ps. lxxxiv., cxxii., cxxxiii. (Vulg.,
+lxxxiii., cxxi., cxxxii).]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke ix. 51-53, xvii. 11; John iv. 4; Jos., _Ant._, XX.
+vi. 1; _B.J._, II. xii. 3; _Vita_, 52. Often, however, the pilgrims
+came by Peræa, in order to avoid Samaria, where they incurred dangers;
+Matt. xix. 1; Mark x. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 5: According to Josephus (_Vita_, 52) it was three days'
+journey. But the stage from Shechem to Jerusalem was generally divided
+into two.]
+
+[Footnote 6: lxxxiii. according to the Vulgate, v. 7.]
+
+These journeys, in which the assembled nation exchanged its ideas, and
+which were almost always centres of great agitation, placed Jesus in
+contact with the mind of his countrymen, and no doubt inspired him
+whilst 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.[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke iv. 42, v. 16.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE FIRST SAYINGS OF JESUS--HIS IDEAS OF A DIVINE FATHER AND OF A PURE
+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."[1] It seems that having,
+by the death of her husband, been left friendless at Nazareth, she
+withdrew to Cana,[2] from which she may have come originally. Cana[3]
+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.[4] 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.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: This is the expression of Mark vi. 3; cf. Matt. xiii. 55.
+Mark did not know Joseph. John and Luke, on the contrary, prefer the
+expression "son of Joseph." Luke iii. 23, iv. 22; John i. 45, iv. 42.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John ii. 1, iv. 46. John alone is informed on this
+point.]
+
+[Footnote 3: I admit, as probable, the idea which identifies Cana of
+Galilee with _Kana el Djélil_. We may, nevertheless, attach value to
+the arguments for _Kefr Kenna_, a place an hour or an hour and a
+half's journey N.N.E. of Nazareth.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Now _El-Buttauf_.]
+
+[Footnote 5: John ii. 11, iv. 46. One or two disciples were of Cana,
+John xxi. 2; Matt. x. 4; Mark iii. 18.]
+
+He followed the trade of his father, which was that of a
+carpenter.[1] 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;[2] thus St. Paul,
+whose education had been so carefully tended, was a tent-maker.[3]
+Jesus never married. All his power of love centred upon that which he
+regarded as his celestial vocation. The extremely delicate feeling
+toward 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.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Mark vi. 3; Justin, _Dial. cum Tryph._, 88.]
+
+[Footnote 2: For example, "Rabbi Johanan, the shoemaker, Rabbi Isaac,
+the blacksmith."]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Acts_ xviii. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke vii. 37, and following; John iv. 7, and following;
+viii. 3, and following.]
+
+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 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 Mahomet. 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.[1] 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;[2] 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.[3] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: The discourses which the fourth Gospel attributes to
+Jesus contain some germs of theology. But these discourses being in
+absolute contradiction with those of the synoptical Gospels, which
+represent, without any doubt, the primitive _Logia_, ought to count
+simply as documents of apostolic history, and not as elements of the
+life of Jesus.]
+
+[Footnote 2: See Matt. ix. 9, and other analogous accounts.]
+
+[Footnote 3: See, for example, John xxi. 15, and following.]
+
+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.[1] 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."[2] 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 any one who liked to take it, and
+reserved for God a dearer name. Whilst 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: The great soul of Philo is in sympathy here, as on so
+many other points, with that of Jesus. _De Confus. Ling._, § 14; _De
+Migr. Abr._, § 1; _De Somniis_, ii. § 41; _De Agric. Noë_, § 12; _De
+Mutatione Nominum_, § 4. But Philo is scarcely a Jew in spirit.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Galatians iv. 6.]
+
+This name of "kingdom of God," or "kingdom of heaven,"[1] was the
+favorite term of Jesus to express the revolution which he brought into
+the world.[2] 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 forever.[3] 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.[4] 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.[5]
+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 subtlety for external
+signs.[6] 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[7]--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.[8] 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[9] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: The word "heaven" in the rabbinical language of that time
+is synonymous with the name of "God," which they avoided pronouncing.
+Compare Matt. xxi. 25; Luke xv. 18, xx. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 2: This expression occurs on each page of the synoptical
+Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and St. Paul. If it only appears
+once in John (iii. 3, 5), it is because the discourses related in the
+fourth Gospel are far from representing the true words of Jesus.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Dan. ii. 44, vii. 13, 14, 22, 27.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Mishnah, _Berakoth_, ii. 1, 3; Talmud of Jerusalem,
+_Berakoth_, ii. 2; _Kiddushin_, i. 2; Talm. of Bab., _Berakoth_, 15
+_a_; _Mekilta_, 42 _b_; _Siphra_, 170 _b_. The expression appears
+often in the _Medrashim_.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. vi. 33, xii. 28, xix. 12; Mark xii. 34; Luke xii.
+31.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Luke xvii. 20, 21.]
+
+[Footnote 7: The grand theory of the revelation of the Son of Man is
+in fact reserved, in the synoptics, for the chapters which precede the
+narrative of the Passion. The first discourses, especially in Matthew,
+are entirely moral.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Matt. xiii. 54 and following; Mark vi. 2 and following;
+John v. 43.]
+
+[Footnote 9: The tradition of the plainness of Jesus (Justin, _Dial.
+cum Tryph._, 85, 88, 100) springs from a desire to see realized in him
+a pretended Messianic trait (Isa. liii. 2).]
+
+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
+toward consecutive reasonings, and clothed his doctrine in concise
+aphorisms, and in an expressive form, at times enigmatical and
+strange.[1] 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.[2] Jesus adopted
+almost all this oral teaching, but imbued it with a superior
+spirit.[3] 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."[4] 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."[5] "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast
+it from thee."[6] "Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you,
+pray for them that persecute you."[7] "Judge not, that ye be not
+judged."[8] "Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven."[9] "Be ye therefore
+merciful as your Father also is merciful."[10] "It is more blessed to
+give than to receive."[11] "Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be
+abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted."[12]
+
+[Footnote 1: The _Logia_ of St. Matthew joins several of these axioms
+together, to form lengthened discourses. But the fragmentary form
+makes itself felt notwithstanding.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The sentences of the Jewish doctors of the time are
+collected in the little book entitled, _Pirké Aboth_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The comparisons will be made afterward as they present
+themselves. It has been sometimes supposed that--the compilation of
+the Talmud being later than that of the Gospels--parts may have been
+borrowed by the Jewish compilers from the Christian morality. But this
+is inadmissible--a wall of separation existed between the Church and
+the Synagogue. The Christian and Jewish literature had scarcely any
+influence on one another before the thirteenth century.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. vii. 12; Luke vi. 31. This axiom is in the book of
+_Tobit_, iv. 16. Hillel used it habitually (Talm. of Bab., _Shabbath_,
+31 _a_), and declared, like Jesus, that it was the sum of the Law.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. v. 39, and following; Luke vi. 29. Compare
+Jeremiah, _Lamentations_ iii. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. v. 29, 30, xviii. 9; Mark ix. 46.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. v. 44; Luke vi. 27. Compare Talmud of Babylon,
+_Shabbath_, 88 _b_; _Joma_, 23 _a_.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Matt. vii. 1; Luke vi. 37. Compare Talmud of Babylon,
+_Kethuboth_, 105 _b_.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Luke vi. 37. Compare _Lev._ xix. 18; _Prov._ xx. 22;
+_Ecclesiasticus_ xxviii. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Luke vi. 36; Siphré, 51 _b_ (Sultzbach, 1802).]
+
+[Footnote 11: A saying related in _Acts_ xx. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 12: Matt. xxiii. 12; Luke xiv. 11, xviii. 14. The sentences
+quoted by St. Jerome from the "Gospel according to the Hebrews"
+(Comment. in _Epist. ad Ephes._, v. 4; in Ezek. xviii.; _Dial. adv.
+Pelag._, iii. 2), are imbued with the same spirit.]
+
+Upon alms, pity, good works, kindness, peacefulness, and complete
+disinterestedness of heart, he had little to add to the doctrine of
+the synagogue.[1] 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 _Pirké 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Deut._ xxiv., xxv., xxvi., &c.; Isa. lviii. 7; _Prov._
+xix. 17; _Pirké Aboth_, i.; Talmud of Jerusalem, _Peah_, i. 1; Talmud
+of Babylon, _Shabbath_, 63 _a_.]
+
+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.[1] He forbade the least harsh word;[2] he prohibited
+divorce,[3] and all swearing;[4] he censured revenge;[5] he condemned
+usury;[6] he considered voluptuous desire as criminal as adultery;[7]
+he insisted upon a universal forgiveness of injuries.[8] 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 ye
+more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore
+perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."[9]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. v. 20, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. v. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. v. 31, and following. Compare Talmud of Babylon,
+_Sanhedrim_, 22 _a_.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. v. 33, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. v. 38, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. v. 42. The Law prohibited it also (_Deut._ xv. 7,
+8), but less formally, and custom authorized it (Luke vii. 41, and
+following).]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. xxvii. 28. Compare Talmud, _Masséket Kalla_ (edit.
+Fürth, 1793), fol. 34 _b_.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Matt. v. 23, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Matt. v. 45, and following. Compare _Lev._ xi. 44, xix.
+2.]
+
+A pure worship, a religion without priests and external observances,
+resting entirely on the feelings of the heart, on the imitation of
+God,[1] 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 centre 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?[2] Even
+tradition, a thing so sacred to the Jews, is nothing compared to
+sincerity.[3] 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."[4] "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."[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Compare Philo, _De Migr. Abr._, § 23 and 24; _De Vita
+Contemp._, the whole.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xv. 11, and following; Mark vii. 6, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mark vii. 6, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. vi. 1, and following. Compare _Ecclesiasticus_
+xvii. 18, xxix. 15; Talm. of Bab., _Chagigah_, 5 _a_; _Baba Bathra_, 9
+_b_.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. vi. 5-8.]
+
+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.[1] 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:[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xiv. 23; Luke iv. 42, v. 16, vi. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. vi. 9, and following; Luke xi. 2, and following.]
+
+"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."[1] 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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _i.e._, the devil.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xi. 5, and following.]
+
+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."[1]
+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."[2] In later times, certain doctors, Simeon
+the just,[3] Jesus, son of Sirach,[4] Hillel,[5] almost reached this
+point, and declared that the sum of the Law was righteousness. Philo,
+in the Judæo-Egyptian world, attained at the same time as Jesus ideas
+of a high moral sanctity, the consequence of which was the disregard
+of the observances of the Law.[6] Shemaïa and Abtalion also more than
+once proved themselves to be very liberal casuists.[7] Rabbi Johanan
+ere long placed works of mercy above even the study of the Law![8]
+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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. v. 23, 24.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Isaiah i. 11, and following. Compare ibid., lviii.
+entirely; Hosea vi. 6; Malachi i. 10, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Pirké Aboth_, i. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ecclesiasticus_ xxxv. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Talm. of Jerus., _Pesachim_, vi. 1. Talm. of Bab., the
+same treatise 66 _a_; _Shabbath_, 31 _a_.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Quod Deus Immut._, § 1 and 2; _De Abrahamo_, § 22;
+_Quis Rerum Divin. Hæres_, § 13, and following; 55, 58, and following;
+_De Profugis_, § 7 and 8; _Quod Omnis Probus Liber_, entirely; _De
+Vita Contemp._, entirely.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Talm. of Bab., _Pesachim_, 67 _b_.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Talmud of Jerus., _Peah_, i. 1.]
+
+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."[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. vii. 4, 5. Compare Talmud of Babylon, _Baba
+Bathra_, 15 _b_, _Erachin_, 16 _b_.]
+
+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 Therapeutæ.
+Rabbis, each having his distinctive teaching, Shemaïa, Abtalion,
+Hillel, Shammai, Judas the Gaulonite, Gamaliel, and many others, whose
+maxims form the Talmud,[1] 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.[2] 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
+afterward. 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: See especially _Pirké Aboth_, ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The Talmud, a _résumé_ of this vast movement of the
+schools, was scarcely commenced till the second century of our era.]
+
+To conceive the good, in fact, is not sufficient; it must be made to
+succeed amongst 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 VI.
+
+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,[1] and born, it seems, at Juttah near
+Hebron, or at Hebron itself.[2] Hebron, the patriarchal city _par
+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.[3] The desert by
+which he was, so to speak, surrounded, early attracted him.[4] He led
+there the life of a Yogi of India, clothed with skins or stuffs of
+camel's hair, having for food only locusts and wild honey.[5] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke i. 5; passage from the Gospel of the Ebionites,
+preserved by Epiphanius, (_Adv. Hær._, xxx. 13.)]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke i. 39. It has been suggested, not without
+probability, that "the city of Juda" mentioned in this passage of
+Luke, is the town of _Jutta_ (Josh. xv. 55, xxi. 16). Robinson
+(_Biblical Researches_, i. 494, ii. 206) has discovered this _Jutta_,
+still bearing the same name, at two hours' journey south of Hebron.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke i. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke i. 80.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. iii. 4; Mark i. 6; fragm. of the Gospel of the
+Ebionites, in Epiph., _Adv. Hær._, xxx. 13.]
+
+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.[1] 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[2]--the sombre 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.[3] The retreat to the desert thus became
+the condition and the prelude of high destinies.
+
+[Footnote 1: Malachi iv. 5, 6; (iii. 23, 24, according to the Vulg.);
+_Ecclesiasticus_ xlviii. 10; Matt. xvi. 14, xvii. 10, and following;
+Mark vi. 15, viii. 28, ix. 10, and following; Luke ix. 8, 19; John i.
+21, 25.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The ferocious Abdallah, pacha of St. Jean d'Acre, nearly
+died from fright at seeing him in a dream, standing erect on his
+mountain. In the pictures of the Christian churches, he is surrounded
+with decapitated heads. The Mussulmans dread him.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Isaiah_ ii. 9-11.]
+
+No doubt this thought of imitation had occupied John's mind.[1] The
+anchorite life, so opposed to the spirit of the ancient Jewish people,
+and with which the vows, such as those of the Nazirs and the
+Rechabites, had no relation, pervaded all parts of Judea. The Essenes
+or Therapeutæ were grouped near the birthplace of John, on the eastern
+shores of the Dead Sea.[2] 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,[3] somewhat resembling the
+_gourous_[4] 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
+steps toward Judea, as they certainly did toward Syria and Babylon?[5]
+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,[6] _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."[7] It is difficult to unravel these vague analogies. The
+sects floating between Judaism, Christianity, Baptism, and Sabeism,
+which we find in the region beyond the Jordan during the first
+centuries of our era,[8] 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,[9] 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 centre in lower Chaldea, and constitutes a religion which is
+perpetuated there to the present day.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke i. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, v. 17; Epiph., _Adv. Hær._, xix. 1
+and 2.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Josephus, _Vita_, 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Spiritual preceptors.]
+
+[Footnote 5: I have developed this point elsewhere. _Hist. Génér. des
+Langues Sémitiques_, III. iv. 1; _Journ. Asiat._, February-March,
+1856.]
+
+[Footnote 6: The Aramean word _seba_, origin of the name of _Sabians_,
+is synonymous with [Greek: baptizô].]
+
+[Footnote 7: I have treated of this at greater length in the _Journal
+Asiatique_, Nov.-Dec., 1853, and August-Sept., 1855. It is remarkable
+that the Elchasaïtes, a Sabian or Baptist sect, inhabited the same
+district as the Essenes, (the eastern bank of the Dead Sea), and were
+confounded with them (Epiph., _Adv. Hær._, xix. 1, 2, 4, xxx. 16, 17,
+liii. 1, 2; _Philosophumena_, IX. iii. 15, 16, X. xx. 29).]
+
+[Footnote 8: See the remarks of Epiphanius on the Essenes,
+Hemero-Baptists, Nazarites, Ossenes, Nazarenes, Ebionites, Samsonites
+(_Adv. Hær._, books i. and ii.), and those of the author of the
+_Philosophumena_ on the Elchasaïtes (books ix. and x).]
+
+[Footnote 9: Epiph., _Adv. Hær._, xix., xxx., liii.]
+
+This practice was baptism, or total immersion. Ablutions were already
+familiar to the Jews, as they were to all religions of the East.[1]
+The Essenes had given them a peculiar extension.[2] Baptism had become
+an ordinary ceremony on the introduction of proselytes into the bosom
+of the Jewish religion, a sort of initiatory rite.[3] 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.[4] At the periods when he administered baptism, he went to
+the banks of the Jordan,[5] either to Bethany or Bethabara,[6] upon
+the eastern shore, probably opposite to Jericho, or to a place called
+_Ænon_, or "the Fountains,"[7] near Salim, where there was much
+water.[8] Considerable crowds, especially of the tribe of Judah,
+hastened to him to be baptized.[9] In a few months he thus became one
+of the most influential men in Judea, and acquired much importance in
+the general estimation.
+
+[Footnote 1: Mark vii. 4; Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. v. 2; Justin, _Dial.
+cum Tryph._, 17, 29, 80; Epiph., _Adv. Hær._, xvii.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _B.J._, II. viii. 5, 7, 9, 13.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mishnah, _Pesachim_, viii. 8; Talmud of Babylon,
+_Jebamoth_, 46 _b_; _Kerithuth_, 9 _a_; _Aboda Zara_, 57 _a_;
+_Masséket Gérim_ (edit. Kirchheim, 1851), pp. 38-40.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. iii. 1; Mark i. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Luke iii. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 6: John i. 28, iii. 26. All the manuscripts say _Bethany_;
+but, as no one knows of Bethany in these places, Origen (_Comment. in
+Joann._, vi. 24) has proposed to substitute _Bethabara_, and his
+correction has been generally accepted. The two words have, moreover,
+analogous meanings, and seem to indicate a place where there was a
+ferry-boat to cross the river.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _Ænon_ is the Chaldean plural, _Ænawan_, "fountains."]
+
+[Footnote 8: John iii. 23. The locality of this place is doubtful. The
+circumstance mentioned by the evangelist would lead us to believe that
+it was not very near the Jordan. Nevertheless, the synoptics are
+agreed in placing the scene of the baptisms of John on the banks of
+that river (Matt. iii. 6; Mark i. 5; Luke iii. 3). The comparison of
+verses 22 and 23 of chap. iii. of John, and of verses 3 and 4 of chap.
+iv. of the same Gospel, would lead us to believe that Salim was in
+Judea, and consequently in the oasis of Jericho, near the mouth of the
+Jordan; since it would be difficult to find in any other district of
+the tribe of Judah a single natural basin in which any one might be
+totally immersed. Saint Jerome wishes to place Salim much more north,
+near Beth-Schean or Scythopolis. But Robinson (_Bibl. Res._, iii. 333)
+has not been able to find anything at these places that justifies this
+assertion.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Mark i. 5; Josephus, _Ant._, XVIII. v. 2.]
+
+The people took him for a prophet,[1] and many imagined that it was
+Elias who had risen again.[2] The belief in these resurrections was
+widely spread;[3] it was thought that God would raise from the tomb
+certain of the ancient prophets to guide Israel toward its final
+destiny. Others held John to be the Messiah himself, although he made
+no such pretensions.[4] 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.[5] 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.[6]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xiv. 5, xxi. 26.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. vi. 14; Mark vi. 15; John i. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xiv. 2; Luke ix. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke iii. 15, and following; John i. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xxi. 25, and following; Luke vii. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt., _loc. cit._]
+
+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."[1] He announced a "great
+wrath," that is to say, terrible calamities which should come to
+pass,[2] 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,[3] 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.[4] He made no account of the title
+"son of Abraham," and said that God could raise up sons unto Abraham
+from the stones of the road.[5] 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.[6] 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,[7] and the catastrophe which put an end to John's
+life seems to imply this. His disciples led a very austere life,[8]
+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.[9] The poor man appeared as the one who
+would be specially benefited by the kingdom of God.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. iii. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. iii. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke iii. 11-14; Josephus, _Ant._ XVIII. v. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxi. 32; Luke iii. 12-14.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. iii. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. iii. 7; Luke iii. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _Ant._ XVIII. v. 2. We must observe that, when Josephus
+described the secret and more or less seditious doctrines of his
+countrymen, he suppressed everything which had reference to the
+Messianic beliefs, and, in order not to give umbrage to the Romans,
+spread over these doctrines a vulgar and commonplace air, which made
+all the heads of Jewish sects appear as mere professors of morals or
+stoics.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Matt. ix. 14.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Luke iii. 11.]
+
+Although the centre 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.[1] 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,[2] 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 toward 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 afterward 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. iii. 13, and following; Mark i. 9, and following;
+Luke iii. 21, and following; John i. 29, and following; iii. 22, and
+following. The synoptics make Jesus come to John, before he had played
+any public part. But if it is true, as they state, that John
+recognized Jesus from the first and welcomed him, it must be supposed
+that Jesus was already a somewhat renowned teacher. The fourth Gospel
+brings Jesus to John twice, the first time while yet unknown, the
+second time with a band of disciples. Without touching here the
+question of the precise journeys of Jesus (an insoluble question,
+seeing the contradictions of the documents and the little care the
+evangelists had in being exact in such matters), and without denying
+that Jesus might have made a journey to John when he had as yet no
+notoriety, we adopt the information furnished by the fourth Gospel
+(iii. 22, and following), namely, that Jesus, before beginning to
+baptize like John, had formed a school. We must remember, besides,
+that the first pages of the fourth Gospel are notes tacked together
+without rigorous chronological arrangement.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke i., although indeed all the details of the
+narrative, especially those which refer to the relationship of John
+with Jesus, are legendary.]
+
+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.[1] 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 equaled
+the master, and his baptism was much sought after. There was on this
+subject some jealousy among the disciples;[2] 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.[3] Many other of John's
+expressions may be found repeated verbally in the discourses of
+Jesus.[4] The two schools appear to have lived long on good terms with
+each other;[5] and after the death of John, Jesus, as his trusty
+friend, was one of the first to be informed of the event.[6]
+
+[Footnote 1: John iii. 22-26, iv. 1, 2. The parenthesis of ver. 2
+appears to be an interpolation, or perhaps a tardy scruple of John
+correcting himself.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John iii. 26, iv. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. iii. 2, iv. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. iii. 7, xii. 34, xxiii. 33.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xi. 2-13.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. xiv. 12.]
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] An entirely personal grievance
+was also added to these motives of state, and rendered the death of
+the austere censor inevitable.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke iii. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. v. 2.]
+
+One of the most strongly marked characters of this tragical family of
+the Herods was Herodias, granddaughter of Herod the Great. Violent,
+ambitious, and passionate, she detested Judaism, and despised its
+laws.[1] She had been married, probably against her will, to her uncle
+Herod, son of Mariamne,[2] whom Herod the Great had disinherited,[3]
+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.[4] 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.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. v. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matthew (chap. xiv. 3, in the Greek text) and Mark (chap.
+vi. 17) have it that this was Philip; but this is certainly an
+inadvertency (see Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. v. 1, 4). The wife of Philip
+was Salome, daughter of Herodias.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. iv. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Ibid., XVIII. vii. 1, 2, _B.J._, II. ix. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Ibid., XVIII. v. 1.]
+
+Makaur,[1] or Machero, was a colossal fortress built by Alexander
+Jannaeus, and rebuilt by Herod, in one of the most abrupt wâdys to the
+east of the Dead Sea.[2] It was a wild and desolate country, filled
+with strange legends, and believed to be haunted by demons.[3] 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.[4] The
+latter having been warned, had prepared everything for the flight of
+his daughter, who was conducted from tribe to tribe to Petra.
+
+[Footnote 1: This form is found in the Talmud of Jerusalem (_Shebiit_,
+ix. 2), and in the Targums of Jonathan and of Jerusalem (_Numb._ xxii.
+35).]
+
+[Footnote 2: Now Mkaur, in the wâdy Zerka Main. This place has not
+been visited since Seetzen was there.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Josephus, _De Bell. Jud._, VII. vi. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. v. 1.]
+
+The almost incestuous[1] 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.[2]
+The members of this numerous and rather isolated dynasty being obliged
+to marry amongst 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.[3] 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.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Lev._ xviii. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _Ant._, XV. vii. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xiv. 4; Mark vi. 18; Luke iii. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. v. 2.]
+
+More timid than cruel, Antipas did not desire to put him to death.
+According to certain rumors, he feared a popular sedition.[1]
+According to another version,[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xiv. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mark vi. 20. I read [Greek: êporei], and not [Greek:
+epoiei].]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+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.[1] 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 afterward, in
+order to recompense him for his victory, the angels had come to
+minister to him.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Tobit_ viii. 3; Luke xi. 24.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. iv. 1, and following; Mark i. 12, 13; Luke iv. 1,
+and following. Certainly, the striking similarity that these
+narratives present to the analogous legends of the _Vendidad_ (farg.
+xix.) and of the _Lalitavistara_ (chap. xvii., xviii., xxi.) would
+lead us to regard them only as myths. But the meagre and concise
+narrative of Mark, which evidently represents on this point the
+primitive compilation, leads us to suppose a real fact, which
+furnished later the theme of legendary developments.]
+
+It was probably in coming from the desert that Jesus learned 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 toward 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,[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. iv. 12; Mark i. 14; Luke iv. 14; John iv. 3.]
+
+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 toward the Jordan, ideas
+superior to those of John, and that it was by a sort of concession
+that he inclined for a time toward 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.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. vii. 29; Mark i. 22; Luke iv. 32.]
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Mark i. 14, 15.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mark xv. 43.]
+
+He declared that in the present world evil is the reigning power.
+Satan is "the prince of this world,"[1] 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:[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: John xii. 31, xiv. 30, xvi. 11. (Comp. 2 _Cor._ iv. 4;
+_Ephes._ ii. 2.)]
+
+[Footnote 2: John i. 10, vii. 7, xiv. 17, 22, 27, xv. 18, and
+following; xvi. 8, 20, 33, xvii. 9, 14, 16, 25. This meaning of the
+word "world" is especially applied in the writings of Paul and John.]
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] 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.[3] 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;[4] or it will be like the leaven which, deposited in the meal,
+makes the whole to ferment.[5] A series of parables, often obscure,
+was designed to express the suddenness of this event, its apparent
+injustice, and its inevitable and final character.[6]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xix. 30, xx. 16; Mark x. 31; Luke xiii. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xiii. 24, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xiii. 47, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xiii. 31, and following; Mark iv. 31, and
+following; Luke xiii. 19, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xiii. 33; Luke xiii. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. xiii. entirely; xviii. 23, and following; xx. 1,
+and following; Luke xiii. 18, and following.]
+
+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.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxii. 30.]
+
+A radical revolution,[1] 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
+Cæsar, 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,[2] 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,[3] but Jesus fled into the mountain and remained there some time
+alone. His noble nature preserved him from the error which would have
+made him an agitator, or a chief of rebels, a Theudas or a Barkokeba.
+
+[Footnote 1: [Greek: Apochatastasis pantôn], _Acts_ iii. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xvii. 23-26; xxii. 16-22.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John vi. 15.]
+
+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.[1] Various stoics had learned 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.[2] 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 Cæsar the things which are
+Cæsar's, and to God the things which are God's," he created something
+apart from politics, 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 power of the state was limited to the things of earth;
+the mind was freed, or at least the terrible rod of Roman omnipotence
+was broken forever.
+
+[Footnote 1: See Stobæus, _Florilegium_, ch. lxii., lxxvii., lxxxvi.,
+and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John viii. 32, and following.]
+
+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 programme 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 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 every-day
+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"[1] 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!"[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Acts_ iii. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Rev._ xxi. 1, 2, 5.]
+
+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.[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: The millenarian sects of England present the same
+contrast, I mean the belief in the near end of the world,
+notwithstanding much good sense in the conduct of life, and an
+extraordinary understanding of commercial affairs and industry.]
+
+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 seemed 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 in this
+to be ashamed of.[1] 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, but not to appropriate them. He predicts persecution and
+all kinds of punishment to his disciples;[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. x. 17, 18; Luke xii. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. v. 10, and following; x. entirely; Luke vi. 22, and
+following; John xv. 18, and following; xvi. 2, and following, 20, 33;
+xvii. 14.]
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] The great characteristic of the Messiah is,
+that "the poor have the gospel preached to them."[3] 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.[4] 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.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xvi. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. v. 3, 10, xviii. 3, xix. 14, 23, 24, xxi. 31, xxii.
+2, and following; Mark x. 14, 15, 23-25; Luke iv. 18, and following;
+vi. 20, xviii. 16, 17, 24, 25.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xi. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xv. 19, xvii. 14, 16.]
+
+[Footnote 5: See especially chapter xvii. of St. John, expressing, if
+not a real discourse delivered by Jesus, at least a sentiment which
+was very deeply rooted in his disciples, and which certainly came from
+him.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke iii. 23; Gospel of the Ebionites, in Epiph., _Adv.
+Hær._, xxx. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John i. 37, and following.]
+
+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,[1] 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 toward the Ancient of days, who confers on him
+the power to judge the world, and to govern it for eternity.[2] _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,[3] one of the titles of the Messiah, regarded as judge of the
+world, and as king of the new era about to be inaugurated.[4] 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.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Chap. i. 5, 26, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Daniel vii. 13, 14; comp. viii. 15, x. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 3: In John xii. 34, the Jews do not appear to be aware of
+the meaning of this word.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Book of Enoch, xlvi. 1-3, xlviii. 2, 3, lxii. 9, 14, lxx.
+1 (division of Dilmann); Matt. x. 23, xiii. 41, xvi. 27, 28, xix. 28,
+xxiv. 27, 30, 37, 39, 44, xxv. 31, xxvi. 64; Mark xiii. 26, xiv. 62;
+Luke xii. 40, xvii. 24, 26, 30, xxi. 27, 36, xxii. 69; _Acts_ vii. 55.
+But the most significant passage is John v. 27, compared with _Rev._
+i. 13, xiv. 14. The expression "Son of woman," for the Messiah, occurs
+once in the book of Enoch, lxii. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 5: John v. 22, 27.]
+
+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,[1] and he used "The Son 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: This title occurs eighty-three times in the Gospels, and
+always in the discourses of Jesus.]
+
+His centre 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.[1]
+That name was so little known that Josephus, in one passage of his
+writings,[2] takes it for the name of a fountain, the fountain having
+more celebrity than the village situated near it. Like Nazareth,
+Capernaum had no history, and had in no way participated in the
+profane movement favored by the Herods. Jesus was much attached to
+this town, and made it a second home.[3] Soon after his return, he
+attempted to commence his work at Nazareth, but without success.[4] He
+could not perform any miracle there, according to the simple remark
+of one of his biographers.[5] 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.[6] The Nazarenes, much more
+violent, wished, it is said, to kill him by throwing him from a steep
+rock.[7] 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."
+
+[Footnote 1: It is true that Tell-Houm, which is generally identified
+with Capernaum, contains the remains of somewhat fine monuments. But,
+besides this identification being doubtful, these monuments may be of
+the second or third century after Christ.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _B.J._, III. x. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. ix. 1; Mark ii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xiii. 54, and following; Mark vi. 1, and following;
+Luke iv. 16, and following, 23-24; John iv. 44.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Mark vi. 5; cf. Matt. xii. 58; Luke iv. 23.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. xiii. 57; Mark vi. 4; John vii. 3, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Luke iv. 29. Probably the rock referred to here is the
+peak which is very near Nazareth, above the present church of the
+Maronites, and not the pretended _Mount of Precipitation_, at an
+hour's journey from Nazareth. See Robinson, ii. 335, and following.]
+
+This check far from discouraged him. He returned to Capernaum,[1]
+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.[2] They are
+all constructed of large and good materials; but their style is
+somewhat paltry, in consequence of the profusion of floral ornaments,
+foliage, and twisted work, which characterize the Jewish buildings.[3]
+In the interior there were seats, a chair for public reading, and a
+closet to contain the sacred rolls.[4] These edifices, which had
+nothing of the character of a temple, were the centre 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 _haphtara_), and added thereto a
+_midrash_, or entirely personal commentary, in which he expressed his
+own ideas.[5] 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,[6] "elders,"[7] a _hazzan_, _i.e._, a recognized reader,
+or apparitor,[8] deputies,[9] who were secretaries or messengers, and
+conducted the correspondence between one synagogue and another, a
+_shammash_, or sacristan.[10] The synagogues were thus really little
+independent republics, having an extensive jurisdiction. Like all
+municipal corporations, up to an advanced period of the Roman empire,
+they issued honorary decrees,[11] voted resolutions, which had the
+force of law for the community, and ordained corporal punishments, of
+which the _hazzan_ was the ordinary executor.[12]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. iv. 13; Luke iv. 31.]
+
+[Footnote 2: At Tell-Houm, Irbid (Arbela), Meiron (Mero), Jisch
+(Giscala), Kasyoun, Nabartein, and two at Kefr-Bereim.]
+
+[Footnote 3: I dare not decide upon the age of those buildings, nor
+consequently affirm that Jesus taught in any of them. How great would
+be the interest attaching to the synagogue of Tell-Houm were we to
+admit such an hypothesis! The great synagogue of Kefr-Bereim seems to
+me the most ancient of all. Its style is moderately pure. That of
+Kasyoun bears a Greek inscription of the time of Septimus Severus. The
+great importance which Judaism acquired in Upper Galilee after the
+Roman war, leads us to believe that several of these edifices only
+date back to the third century--a time in which Tiberias became a sort
+of capital of Judaism.]
+
+[Footnote 4: 2 _Esdras_ viii. 4; Matt. xxiii. 6; Epist. James ii. 3;
+Mishnah, _Megilla_, iii. 1; _Rosh Hasshana_, iv. 7, etc. See
+especially the curious description of the synagogue of Alexandria in
+the Talmud of Babylon, _Sukka_, 51 _b_.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Philo, quoted in Eusebius, _Præp. Evang._, viii. 7, and
+_Quod Omnis Probus Liber_, § 12; Luke iv. 16; _Acts_ xiii. 15, xv. 21;
+Mishnah, _Megilla_, iii. 4, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: [Greek: Archisunagôgos].]
+
+[Footnote 7: [Greek: Presbyteroi].]
+
+[Footnote 8: [Greek: Hupêretês].]
+
+[Footnote 9: [Greek: Apostoloi], or [Greek: angeloi].]
+
+[Footnote 10: [Greek: Diakonos]. Mark v. 22, 35, and following; Luke
+iv. 20, vii. 3, viii. 41, 49, xiii. 14; _Acts_ xiii. 15, xviii. 8, 17;
+_Rev._ ii. 1; Mishnah, _Joma_, vii. 1; _Rosh Hasshana_, iv. 9; Talm.
+of Jerus., _Sanhedrim_, i. 7; Epiph., _Adv. Hær._, xxx. 4, 11.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Inscription of Berenice, in the _Corpus Inscr. Græc._,
+No. 5361; inscription of Kasyoun, in the _Mission de Phenicie_, book
+iv. [in the press.]]
+
+[Footnote 12: Matt. v. 25, x. 17, xxiii. 34; Mark xiii. 9; Luke xx.
+11, xxi. 12; _Acts_ xxii. 19, xxvi. 11; 2 _Cor._ xi. 24; Mishnah,
+_Maccoth_, iii. 12; Talmud of Babylon, _Megilla_, 7 _b;_ Epiph., _Adv.
+Hær._, xxx. 11.]
+
+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.[1] On
+the other hand, the liberty, accorded to every one, 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.[2] 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 this reading a lesson in conformity with his own
+ideas.[3] 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.[4] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxiii. 6; Epist. James ii. 3; Talmud of Bab.,
+_Sukka_, 51 _b_.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. iv. 23, ix. 35; Mark i. 21, 39, vi. 2; Luke iv. 15,
+16, 31, 44, xiii. 10; John xviii. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke iv. 16, and following. Comp. Mishnah, _Joma_, vii.
+1.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. vii. 28, xiii. 54; Mark i. 22, vi. 1; Luke iv. 22,
+32.]
+
+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 (_Ain-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, Dalmanutha, Capernaum, Bethsaida, and
+Chorazin,[1] 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.[2] Dalmanutha[3] was probably near there. It
+is possible that Chorazin was a little more inland, on the northern
+side.[4] 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.[5] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: The ancient Kinnereth had disappeared or changed its
+name.]
+
+[Footnote 2: We know in fact that it was very near Tiberias.--Talmud
+of Jerusalem, _Maasaroth_, iii. 1; _Shebiit_, ix. 1; _Erubin_, v. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mark viii. 10. Comp. Matt. xv. 39.]
+
+[Footnote 4: In the place named _Khorazi_ or _Bir-kerazeh_, above
+Tell-Houm.]
+
+[Footnote 5: The ancient hypothesis which identified Tell-Houm with
+Capernaum, though strongly disputed some years since, has still
+numerous defenders. The best argument we can give in its favor is the
+name of _Tell-Houm_ itself, _Tell_ entering into the names of many
+villages, and being a substitute for _Caphar_. It is impossible, on
+the other hand, to find near Tell-Houm a fountain corresponding to
+that mentioned by Josephus (_B.J._, III. x. 8.) This fountain of
+Capernaum seems to be Ain-Medawara, but Ain-Medawara is half an hour's
+journey from the lake, while Capernaum was a fishing town on the
+borders of the lake (Matt. iv. 13; John vi. 17.) The difficulties
+about Bethsaida are still greater; for the hypothesis, somewhat
+generally admitted, of two Bethsaidas, the one on the eastern, the
+other on the western shore of the lake, and at two or three leagues
+from one another, is rather singular.]
+
+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[1]--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.[2] 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, 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 Cæsarea Philippi runs indefinitely toward
+the south.
+
+[Footnote 1: _B.J._, III. x. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _B.J._, III. x. 7; Jac. de Vitri, in the _Gesta Dei per
+Francos_, i. 1075.]
+
+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,[1] and thus participates in the torrid conditions of
+the Dead Sea.[2] 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.[3] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: This is the estimate of Captain Lynch (in Ritter,
+_Erdkunde_ xv., 1st part, p. 20.) It nearly agrees with that of M. de
+Bertou (_Bulletin de la Soc. de Geogr._, 2d series, xii., p. 146.)]
+
+[Footnote 2: The depression of the Dead Sea is twice as much.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _B.J._, III. x. 7 and 8.]
+
+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.[1]
+Sometimes, however, he wandered from his favorite region. He went by
+boat to the eastern shore, to Gergesa, for instance.[2] Toward the
+north we see him at Paneas or Cæsarea Philippi,[3] at the foot of
+Mount Hermon. Lastly, he journeyed once in the direction of Tyre and
+Sidon,[4] a country which must have been marvellously flourishing at
+that time. In all these countries he was in the midst of Paganism.[5]
+At Cæsarea, 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;[6] he could admire the marble temple which
+Herod had erected near there in honor of Augustus;[7] 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.[8]
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. ii. 3; _Vita_, 12, 13, 64.]
+
+[Footnote 2: I adopt the opinion of Dr. Thomson (_The Land and the
+Book_, ii. 34, and following), according to which the Gergesa of
+Matthew viii. 28, identical with the Canaanite town of _Girgash_
+(_Gen._ x. 16, xv. 21; _Deut._ vii. 1; _Josh._ xxiv. 11), would be the
+site now named _Kersa_ or _Gersa_, on the eastern shore, nearly
+opposite Magdala. Mark v. 1, and Luke viii. 26, name _Gadara_ or
+_Gerasa_ instead of Gergesa. _Gerasa_ is an impossible reading, the
+evangelists teaching us that the town in question was near the lake
+and opposite Galilee. As to Gadara, now _Om-Keis_, at a journey of an
+hour and a half from the lake and from the Jordan, the local
+circumstances given by Mark and Luke scarcely suit it. It is possible,
+moreover, that _Gergesa_ may have become _Gerasa_, a much more common
+name, and that the topographical impossibilities which this latter
+reading offered may have caused Gadara to be adopted.--Cf. Orig.,
+_Comment. in Joann._, vi. 24, x. 10; Eusebius and St. Jerome, _De situ
+et nomin. loc. hebr._, at the words [Greek: Gergesa], [Greek:
+Gergasei].]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xvi. 13; Mark viii. 27.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xv. 21; Mark vii. 24, 31.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Jos., _Vita_, 13.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Jos., _Ant._, XV. x. 3; _B.J._, I. xxi. 3, III. x. 7;
+Benjamin of Tudela, p. 46, edit. Asher.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Jos., _Ant._, XV. x. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 8: _Corpus inscr. gr._, Nos. 4537, 4538, 4538 _b_, 4539.]
+
+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.[1] 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,[2] interested him but little. Monotheism takes away
+all aptitude for comprehending the Pagan religion; the Mussulman,
+thrown into polytheistic countries, seems to have no eyes. Jesus
+assuredly learned nothing in these journeys. He returned always to his
+well-beloved shore of Gennesareth. There was the centre of his
+thoughts; there he found faith and love.
+
+[Footnote 1: Lucianus (ut fertur), _De Dea Syria_, 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The traces of the rich Pagan civilization of that time
+still cover all the Beled-Besharrah, and especially the mountains
+which form the group of Cape Blanc and Cape Nakoura.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+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.[1] 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 amongst 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;"[2] in the centre of the little circle which
+adored him, he forgot his sceptical brothers, ungrateful Nazareth and
+its mocking incredulity.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. iv. 18; Luke v. 44, and following; John i. 44, xxi.
+1, and following; Jos., _B.J._, III. x. 7; Jac. de Vitri, in the
+_Gesta Dei per Francos_, i. p. 1075.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. ix. 1; Mark ii. 1, 2.]
+
+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,[1] they were
+established at Capernaum when Jesus commenced his public life. Peter
+was married and had children; his mother-in-law lived with him.[2]
+Jesus loved this house and dwelt there habitually.[3] Andrew appears
+to have been a disciple of John the Baptist, and Jesus had perhaps
+known him on the banks of the Jordan.[4] 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.[5]
+Jesus, who loved to play upon words, said at times that he would make
+them fishers of men.[6] In fact, among all his disciples he had none
+more faithfully attached.
+
+[Footnote 1: John i. 44.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. viii. 14; Mark i. 30; Luke iv. 38; 1 _Cor._ ix. 5;
+1 Peter v. 13; Clem. Alex., _Strom._, iii. 6, vii. 11; Pseudo-Clem.,
+_Recogn._, vii. 25; Eusebius, _H.E._, iii. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. viii. 14, xvii. 24; Mark i. 29-31; Luke iv. 38.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John i. 40, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. iv. 18; Mark i. 16; Luke v. 3; John xxi. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. iv. 19; Mark i. 17; Luke v. 10.]
+
+Another family, that of Zabdia or Zebedee, a well-to-do fisherman and
+owner of several boats,[1] 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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Mark i. 20; Luke v. 10, viii. 3; John xix. 27.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvii. 56; Mark xv. 40, xvi. 1.]
+
+Women, in fact, received him with eagerness. He manifested toward 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.[1] They infused
+into the new sect an element of enthusiasm and of the marvellous, 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.[2] That is, she had 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, Susanna, and
+others who have remained unknown, followed him constantly and
+ministered unto him.[3] Some were rich, and by their fortune enabled
+the young prophet to live without following the trade which he had
+until then practiced.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvii. 55, 56; Mark xv. 40, 41; Luke viii. 2, 3,
+xxiii. 49.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mark xvi. 9; Luke viii. 2; cf. _Tobit_ iii. 8, vi. 14.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke viii. 3, xxiv. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke viii. 3.]
+
+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;[1] 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_,[2] which are
+the basis of what we know of the teachings of Jesus. Among the
+disciples are also mentioned Thomas, or Didymus,[3] who doubted
+sometimes, but who appears to have been a man of warm heart and of
+generous sympathies;[4] one Lebbæus, or Thaddeus; Simon Zelotes,[5]
+perhaps a disciple of Judas the Gaulonite, belonging to the party of
+the _Kenaïm_, 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,[6] a day's journey beyond Hebron.
+
+[Footnote 1: John i. 44, and following; xxi. 2. I admit the
+identification of Nathanael with the apostle who figures in the lists
+under the name of Bartholomew.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Papias, in Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._, iii. 39.]
+
+[Footnote 3: This second name is the Greek translation of the first.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xi. 16, xx. 24, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. x. 4; Mark iii. 18; Luke vi. 15; _Acts_ i. 13;
+Gospel of the Ebionites, in Epiphanes, _Adv. Hær._, xxx. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Now _Kuryétein_, or _Kereitein_.]
+
+We have seen that in general the family of Jesus were little inclined
+toward him.[1] 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.[2] At this period we do not see
+his mother beside him. It was only after the death of Jesus that Mary
+acquired great importance,[3] and that the disciples sought to attach
+her to themselves.[4] It was then, also, that the members of the
+family of the founder, under the title of "brothers of 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.[5] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: The circumstance related in John xix. 25-27 seems to
+imply that at no period of the public life of Jesus did his own
+brothers become attached to him.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvii. 56; Mark xv. 40; John xix. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Acts_ i. 14. Compare Luke i. 28, ii. 35, already
+implying a great respect for Mary.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xix. 25, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Julius Africanus, in Eusebius, _H.E._, i. 7.]
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] The most significant fact
+is, that, in the synoptical Gospels, Simon Bar-jona, 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.[3] It seems, moreover, that they
+were all three associated in their fishing.[4] 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,[5] with an honest frankness which recalls that of
+Joinville toward St. Louis. Jesus chided him, in a friendly manner,
+full of confidence and esteem. As to John, his youth,[6] his exquisite
+tenderness of heart,[7] and his lively imagination,[8] 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 afterward. When old, he wrote that strange
+Gospel,[9] which contains such precious teaching, 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Mark iii. 17, ix. 37, and following; x. 35, and
+following; Luke ix. 49, and following; 54, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John xiii. 23, xviii. 15, and following, xix. 26, 27, xx.
+2, 4, xxi. 7, 20, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xvii. 1, xxvi. 37; Mark v. 37, ix. 1, xiii. 3, xiv.
+33; Luke ix. 28. The idea that Jesus had communicated to these three
+disciples a Gnosis, or secret doctrine, was very early spread. It is
+singular that John, in his Gospel, does not once mention James, his
+brother.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. iv. 18-22; Luke v. 10; John xxi. 2, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xiv. 28, xvi. 22; Mark viii. 32, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: He appears to have lived till near the year 100. See his
+Gospel, xxi. 15-23, and the ancient authorities collected by Eusebius,
+_H.E._, iii. 20, 23.]
+
+[Footnote 7: See the epistles attributed to him, which are certainly
+by the same author as the fourth Gospel.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Nevertheless we do not mean to affirm that the Apocalypse
+is by him.]
+
+[Footnote 9: The common tradition seems sufficiently justified to me
+on this point. It is evident, besides, that the school of John
+retouched his Gospel (see the whole of chap. xxi.)]
+
+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.[1] Simon Bar-jona, however, was distinguished amongst his
+fellows by a peculiar degree of importance. Jesus lived with him, and
+taught in his boat;[2] his house was the centre 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.[3] He was the
+first who had recognized Jesus as the Messiah.[4] 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."[5] Jesus, at various times, gave him a certain priority
+in his church;[6] and gave him the Syrian surname of _Kepha_ (stone),
+by which he wished to signify by that, that he made him the
+corner-stone of the edifice.[7] 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.[8]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xviii. 4, xx. 25-26, xxiii. 8-12; Mark ix. 34, x.
+42-46.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke v. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xvii. 23.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xvi. 16, 17.]
+
+[Footnote 5: John vi. 68-70.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. x. 2; Luke xxii. 32; John xxi. 15, and following;
+_Acts_ i., ii., v., etc.; _Gal._ i. 18, ii. 7, 8.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. xvi. 18; John i. 42.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Matt. xvi. 19. Elsewhere, it is true (Matt. xviii. 18),
+the same power is granted to all the apostles.]
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] Jesus evaded the
+request by his habitual maxim that he who exalteth himself shall 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.[3] 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.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xviii. 1, and following; Mark ix. 33; Luke ix. 46,
+xxii. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xx. 20, and following; Mark x. 35, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mark x. 41.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xviii. 15, and following, xix. 26, 27, xx. 2, and
+following, xxi. 7, 21. Comp. i. 35, and following, in which the
+disciple referred to is probably John.]
+
+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,[1] 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_.[2] They were the
+agents of these contractors, employés 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,[3] made this class of employé very numerous there. Capernaum,
+which was perhaps on the road, possessed a numerous staff of them.[4]
+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.[5] 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.[6] These poor men, placed under the ban
+of society, visited amongst 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 offense.[7] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. ix. 9, x. 3; Mark ii. 14, iii. 18; Luke v. 27, vi.
+15; _Acts_ i. 13. Gospel of the Ebionites, in Epiph., _Adv. Hær._,
+xxx. 13. We must suppose, however strange it may seem, that these two
+names were borne by the same personage. The narrative, Matt. ix. 9,
+conceived in accordance with the ordinary model of legends, describing
+the call to apostleship, is, it is true, somewhat vague, and has
+certainly not been written by the apostle in question. But we must
+remember that, in the existing Gospel of Matthew, the only part which
+is by the apostle consists of the Discourses of Jesus. See Papias, in
+Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._, III. 39.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Cicero, _De Provinc. Consular._, 5; _Pro Plancio_, 9;
+Tac., _Ann._, IV. 6; Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, XII. 32; Appian, _Bell.
+Civ._, II. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 3: It remained celebrated, up to the time of the Crusades,
+under the name of _Via Maris_. Cf. Isaiah ix. 1; Matt. iv. 13-15;
+Tobit, i. 1. I think that the road cut in the rock near Ain-et-Tin
+formed part of it, and that the route was directed from thence toward
+the _Bridge of the Daughters of Jacob_, just as it is now. A part of
+the road from Ain-et-Tin to this bridge is of ancient construction.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. ix. 9, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. v. 46, 47, ix. 10, 11, xi. 19, xviii. 17, xxi. 31,
+32; Mark ii. 15, 16; Luke v. 30, vii. 34, xv. 1, xviii. 11, xix. 7;
+Lucian, _Necyomant_, ii.; Dio Chrysost., orat. iv., p. 85, orat. xiv.,
+p. 269 (edit. Emperius); Mishnah, _Nedarim_, iii. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Mishnah, _Baba Kama_, x. 1; Talmud of Jerusalem, _Demai_,
+ii. 3; Talmud of Bab., _Sanhedrim_, 25 _b_.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Luke v. 29, and following.]
+
+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,[1] Peter,[2] and the Samaritan woman.[3] 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;[4] they believed that in his moments of solitude the
+angels came to render him homage, and established a supernatural
+intercourse between him and heaven.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: John i. 48, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John i. 42.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John iv. 17, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xvii. 3; Mark ix. 3; Luke ix. 30-31.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. iv. 11; Mark i. 13.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE PREACHINGS 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.[1]
+Not one element of Greek culture had penetrated this first assembly of
+the saints. They had very little Jewish instruction; but heart and
+good-will 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 an azure dome of infinite expanse.
+It was during 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;[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xiv. 26; Mark vi. 49; Luke xxiv. 39; John vi. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John i. 51.]
+
+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.[1] 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 sceptical;
+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 advent upon earth of universal
+consolation.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xiii. 1, 2; Mark iii. 9, iv. 1; Luke v. 3.]
+
+"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."[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. v. 3-10; Luke vi. 20-25.]
+
+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 "_Pirké Aboth_." His teachings were not very
+extended, and formed a species of sorites in the style of the Koran,
+which, joined together, afterward composed those long discourses which
+were written by Matthew.[1] 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.[2] 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;[3] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: This is what the [Greek: Logia kuriaka] were called.
+Papias, in Eusebius, _H.E._, iii. 39.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The apologue, as we find it in _Judges_ ix. 8, and
+following, 2 _Sam._ xii. 1, and following, only resembles the Gospel
+parable in form. The profound originality of the latter is in the
+thought with which it is filled.]
+
+[Footnote 3: See especially the _Lotus of the Good Law_, chap. iii.
+and iv.]
+
+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 rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do
+not break through nor steal: for where your treasure is, there will
+your heart be also.[1] No man can serve two masters: for either he
+will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to one and
+despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.[2] 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,[3] 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."[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Compare Talm. of Bab., _Baba Bathra_, 11 _a_.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The god of riches and hidden treasures, a kind of Plutus
+in the Phoenician and Syrian mythology.]
+
+[Footnote 3: I here adopt the reading of Lachmann and Tischendorf.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. vi. 19-21, 24-34. Luke xii. 22-31, 33, 34, xvi. 13.
+Compare the precepts in Luke x. 7, 8, full of the same simple
+sentiment, and Talmud of Babylon, _Sota_, 48 _b_.]
+
+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.[1] Each day they asked of God the bread for the
+morrow.[2] 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."[3]
+What more foolish than to heap up treasures for heirs whom thou wilt
+never behold?[4] 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![5] The brigandage which
+was deeply rooted in Galilee,[6] gave much force to these views. The
+poor, who did not suffer from it, would regard themselves as the
+favored of God; whilst 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xiii. 22; Mark iv. 19; Luke viii. 14.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. vi. 11; Luke xi. 3. This is the meaning of the word
+[Greek: epiousios].]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke xii. 33, 34.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke xii. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Luke xii. 16, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Jos., _Ant._, XVII. x. 4, and following: _Vita_, 11,
+etc.]
+
+The infant Christianity, moreover, in this only followed the footsteps
+of the Essenes, or Therapeutæ, 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 amongst 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.[1] Covetousness was the cardinal
+sin.[2] 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.[3] 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."[4] 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;[5] it is certain that he came to a bad end.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Acts_ iv. 32, 34-37; v. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xiii. 22; Luke xii. 15, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xix. 21; Mark x. 21, and following, 29, 30; Luke
+xviii. 22, 23, 28.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xiii. 44-46.]
+
+[Footnote 5: John xii. 6.]
+
+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."[1] 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 angels into
+Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;[2] 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."[3] What more just? Afterward 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 toward 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."[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xvi. 1-14.]
+
+[Footnote 2: See the Greek text.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke xvi. 19-25. Luke, I am aware, has a very decided
+communistic tendency (comp. vi. 20, 21, 25, 26), and I think he has
+exaggerated this shade of the teaching of Jesus. But the features of
+the [Greek: Logia] of Matthew are sufficiently significant.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xix. 24; Mark x. 25; Luke xviii. 25. This
+proverbial phrase is found in the Talmud (Bab., _Berakoth_, 55 _b_,
+_Baba metsia_, 38 _b_) and in the Koran (Sur., vii. 38.) Origen and
+the Greek interpreters, ignorant of the Semitic proverb, thought that
+it meant a cable ([Greek: kamilos]).]
+
+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 the 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.[1] 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,"[2] which has prevented drought and
+barrenness from entirely invading the field of God.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xiii. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Psalm cxxxiii. 3.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE KINGDOM OF GOD CONCEIVED AS THE INHERITANCE 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 toward the simple.
+A vast substitution of classes would take place. The kingdom of God
+was made--1st, for children, and those who resemble them; 2d, for the
+outcasts of this world, victims of that social arrogance which
+repulses the good but humble man; 3d, for heretics and schismatics,
+publicans, Samaritans, and Pagans of Tyre and Sidon. An energetic
+parable explained this appeal to the people and justified it.[1] 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 byways,
+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."
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxii. 2, and following; Luke xiv. 16, and
+following. Comp. Matt. viii. 11, 12, xxi. 33, and following.]
+
+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."[1] "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."[2] It is perhaps in an
+analogous sense that he often repeated, "Be good bankers"[3]--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, lendeth unto the Lord."[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke vi. 24, 25.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xiv. 12, 14.]
+
+[Footnote 3: A saying preserved by very ancient tradition, and much
+used, Clement of Alexandria, _Strom._ i. 28. It is also found in
+Origen, St. Jerome, and a great number of the Fathers of the Church.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Prov. xix. 17.]
+
+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."[1]
+Under the Seleucidæ, 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.[2] Luxury is there depicted as a crime. The "Son of man," in
+this strange Apocalypse, dethrones kings, tears them from their
+voluptuous life, and precipitates them into hell.[3] 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."[4] The name of "poor" (_ebion_) had become a
+synonym of "saint," of "friend of God." This was the name that the
+Galilean disciples of Jesus loved to give themselves; it was for a
+long time the name of the Judaizing 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 amongst themselves the descendants of his family.[5] 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.[6]
+
+[Footnote 1: See, in particular, Amos ii. 6; Isa. lxiii. 9; Ps. xxv.
+9, xxxvii. 11, lxix. 33; and, in general, the Hebrew dictionaries, at
+the words:
+
+     [Hebrew: evion, dal, ani, anav, chasid, ashir, holelim,
+     aritz].]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ch. lxii., lxiii., xcvii., c., civ.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Enoch_, ch. xlvi. 4-8.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Enoch_, xcix. 13, 14.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Julius Africanus in Eusebius, _H.E._, i. 7; Eus., _De
+situ et nom. loc. hebr._, at the word [Greek: Chôba]; Orig., _Contra
+Celsus_, ii. 1, v. 61; Epiph., _Adv. Hær._, xxix. 7, 9, xxx. 2, 18.]
+
+[Footnote 6: See especially Origen, _Contra Celsus_, ii. 1; _De
+Principiis_, iv. 22. Compare Epiph., _Adv. Hær._, xxx. 17. Irenæus,
+Origen, Eusebius, and the apostolic Constitutions, ignore the
+existence of such a personage. The author of the _Philosophumena_
+seems to hesitate (vii. 34 and 35, x. 22 and 23.) It is by Tertullian,
+and especially by Epiphanes, that the fable of one _Ebion_ has been
+spread. Besides, all the Fathers are agreed on the etymology, [Greek:
+Ebiôn] = [Greek: ptôchos].]
+
+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 centre 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 centre of
+Batanea.[1] "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_,
+_Bégards_, _Bons-Hommes_, _Fratricelles_, _Humiliés_, _Pauvres
+évangéliques_, &c.) 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 mendicity, so impatiently
+borne 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 burdens, 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Epiph., _Adv. Hær._, xix., xxix., and xxx., especially
+xxix. 9.]
+
+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.[1] 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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xi. 5; Luke vi. 20, 21.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. ix. 36; Mark vi. 34.]
+
+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.[1] 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;[2] 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."[3] 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 shoulders rejoicing."[4] Or again: "The Son of Man is
+come to save that which was lost."[5] Or again: "I am not come to call
+the righteous, but sinners."[6] 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.[7] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. ix. 10, and following; Luke xv. entirely.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. ix. 11; Mark ii. 16; Luke v. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. ix. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke xv. 4, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xviii. 11; Luke xix. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. ix. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Luke vii. 36, and following. Luke, who likes to bring out
+in relief everything that relates to the forgiveness of sinners (comp.
+x. 30, and following, xv. entirely, xvii. 16, and following, xix. 2,
+and following, xxiii. 39-43), has included in this narrative passages
+from another history, that of the anointing of feet, which took place
+at Bethany some days before the death of Jesus. But the pardon of
+sinful women was undoubtedly one of the essential features of the
+anecdotes of the life of Jesus.--Cf. John viii. 3, and following;
+Papias, in Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._, iii. 30.]
+
+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 any one avow more loftily this contempt for
+the "world," which is the essential condition of great things and of
+great originality. He pardoned a rich man, but only when the rich man,
+in consequence of some prejudice, was disliked by society.[1] 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."[2]
+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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xix. 2, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxi. 31, 32.]
+
+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.[1] Such
+conduct, compared with that of John the Baptist, gave offence.[2] One
+day, when the disciples of John and the Pharisees were observing the
+fast, it was asked, "Why do the disciples of John and 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."[3] 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.[4] 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 winebibber,
+a friend of publicans and sinners. But Wisdom is justified of her
+children."[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxv. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mark ii. 18; Luke v. 33.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. ix. 14, and following; Mark ii. 18, and following;
+Luke v. 33, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: An allusion to some children's game.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xi. 16, and following; Luke vii. 34, and following.
+A proverb which means "The opinion of men is blind. The wisdom of the
+works of God is only proclaimed by His works themselves." I read
+[Greek: ergôn], with the manuscript B. of the Vatican, and not [Greek:
+teknôn].]
+
+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 traveling; 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.[1] 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.[2] The mothers, encouraged by such a reception,
+brought him their children in order that he might touch them.[3] 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.[4] 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.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxi. 7, 8.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xix. 13, and following; Mark ix. 35, x. 13, and
+following; Luke xviii. 15, 16.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxvi. 7, and following; Mark xiv. 3, and following;
+Luke vii. 37, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Gospel of Marcion, addition to ver. 2 of chap. xxiii. of
+Luke (Epiph., _Adv. Hær._, xlii. 11). If the suppressions of Marcion
+are without critical value, such is not the case with his additions,
+when they proceed, not from a special view, but from the condition of
+the manuscripts which he used.]
+
+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_,[1] 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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: A cry which was raised at the feast of tabernacles,
+amidst the waving of palms. Mishnah, _Sukka_, iii. 9. This custom
+still exists among the Israelites.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxi. 15, 16.]
+
+He lost no opportunity of repeating that the little ones are sacred
+beings,[1] that the kingdom of God belongs to children,[2] that we
+must become children to enter there,[3] that we ought to receive it as
+a child,[4] that the heavenly Father hides his secrets from the wise
+and reveals them to the little ones.[5] The idea of disciples is in
+his mind almost synonymous with that of children.[6] 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 to them, "Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little
+child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven."[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xviii. 5, 10, 14; Luke xvii. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xix. 14; Mark x. 14; Luke xviii. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xviii. 1, and following; Mark ix. 33, and
+following; Luke ix. 46.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Mark x. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xi. 25; Luke x. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. x. 42, xviii. 5, 14; Mark ix. 36; Luke xvii. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. xviii. 4; Mark ix. 33-36; Luke ix. 46-48.]
+
+It was infancy, in fact, in its divine spontaneity, in its simple
+bewilderments of joy, which took possession of the earth. Every one
+believed at each moment that the kingdom so much desired was about to
+appear. Each one already saw himself seated on a throne[1] beside the
+master. They divided amongst themselves the positions of honor in the
+new kingdom,[2] 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 Achæmenidæ, summed up the general dream; a delightful
+garden, where the charming life which was led here below would be
+continued forever.[3] 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
+millenarian 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!
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xxii. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mark x. 37, 40, 41.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke xxiii. 43; 2 _Cor._ xii. 4. Comp. _Carm. Sibyll.,
+prooem_, 36; Talm. of Bab., _Chagigah_, 14 _b_.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+EMBASSY FROM JOHN IN PRISON TO JESUS--DEATH OF JOHN--RELATIONS OF HIS
+SCHOOL WITH THAT OF JESUS.
+
+
+Whilst joyous Galilee was celebrating in feasts the coming of the
+well-beloved, the sorrowful John, in his prison of Machero, 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.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xi. 2, and following; Luke vii. 18, and following.]
+
+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.[1] 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 tidings 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 untamable freedom of the ascetic was to crown his
+restless and stormy career by the only end which was worthy of it.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. ix. 14, and following.]
+
+The leniency which Antipas had at first shown toward 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.[1] We can easily imagine the hatred which the granddaughter
+of Herod the Great must have conceived toward this importunate
+counsellor. She only waited an opportunity to ruin him.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xiv. 4, and following; Mark vi. 18, and following;
+Luke iii. 19.]
+
+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.[1] 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."[2]
+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.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _De Bello jud._, VII. vi. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 2: A portable dish on which liquors and viands are served in
+the East.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xiv. 3, and following; Mark vi. 14-29; Jos.,
+_Ant._, XVIII. v. 2.]
+
+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.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Josephus, _Ant._, XVIII. v. 1, 2.]
+
+The news of John's death was brought to Jesus by the disciples of the
+Baptist.[1] John's last act toward 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,[2] 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.[3] From this time Jesus always spoke of
+John with redoubled admiration. He declared unhesitatingly[4] that he
+was more than a prophet, that the Law and the ancient prophets had
+force only until he came,[5] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xiv. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xiv. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xiv. 15, and following; Mark vi. 35, and following;
+Luke ix. 11, and following; John vi. 2, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xi. 7, and following; Luke vii. 24, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xi. 12, 13; Luke xvi. 16.]
+
+The prophet Malachi, whose opinion in this matter was soon brought to
+bear,[1] 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.[2] Sometimes they
+associated with Elias, either the patriarch Enoch, to whom for one or
+two centuries they had attributed high sanctity;[3] or Jeremiah,[4]
+whom they considered as a sort of protecting genius of the people,
+constantly occupied in praying for them before the throne of God.[5]
+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.[6] 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.[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: Malachi iii. and iv.; _Ecclesiasticus_ xlviii. 10. See
+_ante_, Chap. VI.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xi. 14, xvii. 10; Mark vi. 15, viii. 28, ix. 10,
+and following; Luke ix. 8, 19.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Ecclesiasticus_ xliv. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xvi. 14.]
+
+[Footnote 5: 2 _Macc._ v. 13, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Texts cited by Anquetil-Duperron, _Zend-Avesta_, i. 2d
+part, p. 46, corrected by Spiegel, in the _Zeitschrift der deutschen
+morgenländischen Gesellschaft_, i. 261, and following; extracts from
+the _Jamasp-Nameh_, in the _Avesta_ of Spiegel, i., p. 34. None of the
+Parsee texts, which truly imply the idea of resuscitated prophets and
+of precursors, are ancient; but the ideas contained in them appear to
+be much anterior to the time of the compilation itself.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _Rev._ xi. 3, and following.]
+
+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,[1] they replied that Elias was come, that
+John was Elias raised from the dead.[2] 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.[3]
+Jesus was not silent on the merits and excellencies of his forerunner.
+He said that none greater was 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.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Mark ix. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xi. 14, xvii. 10-13; Mark vi. 15, ix. 10-12; Luke
+ix. 8; John i. 21-25.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke i. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxi. 32; Luke vii. 29, 30.]
+
+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.[1] He was supposed to be a relative of Jesus.[2]
+In 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 latchets of his shoes; that he
+refused at first to baptize him, and maintained that it was he who
+ought to be baptized by Jesus.[3] These were exaggerations, which are
+sufficiently refuted by the doubtful form of John's last message.[4]
+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
+bridegroom, 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Acts_ xix. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke i.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. iii. 14, and following; Luke iii. 16; John i. 15,
+and following, v. 32, 33.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xi. 2, and following; Luke vii. 18, and following.]
+
+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 (toward the year 50), and a large number of the
+Christians of Ephesus.[1] Josephus placed himself (year 53) in the
+school of an ascetic named Banou,[2] who presents the greatest
+resemblance to John the Baptist, and who was perhaps of his school.
+This Banou[3] 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), practised a
+similar asceticism.[4] Afterward, toward the year 80, Baptism was in
+strife with Christianity, especially in Asia Minor. John the
+evangelist appears to combat it in an indirect manner.[5] One of the
+Sibylline[6] poems seems to proceed from this school. As to the sects
+of Hemero-baptists, Baptists, and Elchasaïtes (_Sabiens Mogtasila_ of
+the Arabian writers[7]), 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Acts_ xviii. 25, xix. 1-5. Cf. Epiph., _Adv. Hær._, xxx.
+16.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Vita_, 2.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Would this be the Bounaï who is reckoned by the Talmud
+(Bab., _Sanhedrim_, 43 _a_) amongst the disciples of Jesus?]
+
+[Footnote 4: Hegesippus, in Eusebius, _H.E._, ii. 23.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Gospel, i. 26, 33, iv. 2; 1st Epistle, v. 6. Cf. _Acts_
+x. 47.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Book iv. See especially v. 157, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _Sabiens_ is the Aramean equivalent of the word
+"Baptists." _Mogtasila_ has the same meaning in Arabic.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+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,[1] and the notes of the fourth Gospel
+are very confused on this point.[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: They, however, imply them obscurely (Matt. xxiii. 37;
+Luke xiii. 34). They knew as well as John the relation of Jesus with
+Joseph of Arimathea. Luke even (x. 38-42) knew the family of Bethany.
+Luke (ix. 51-54) has a vague idea of the system of the fourth Gospel
+respecting the journeys of Jesus. Many discourses against the
+Pharisees and the Sadducees, said by the synoptics to have been
+delivered in Galilee, have scarcely any meaning, except as having been
+given at Jerusalem. And again, the lapse of eight days is much too
+short to explain all that happened between the arrival of Jesus in
+that city and his death.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Two pilgrimages are clearly indicated (John ii. 13, and
+v. 1), without speaking of his last journey (vii. 10), after which
+Jesus returned no more to Galilee. The first took place while John was
+still baptizing. It would belong consequently to the Easter of the
+year 29. But the circumstances given as belonging to this journey are
+of a more advanced period. (Comp. especially John ii. 14, and
+following, and Matt. xxi. 12, 13; Mark xi. 15-17; Luke xix. 45, 46.)
+There are evidently transpositions of dates in these chapters of John,
+or rather he has mixed the circumstances of different journeys.]
+
+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
+minutiæ, and reduced to questions of casuistry, was the only study.
+This exclusively theological and canonical culture contributed in no
+respect to refine 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.[1]
+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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: We may judge of it by the Talmud, the echo of the Jewish
+scholasticism of that time.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _Ant._, XX. xi. 2.]
+
+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,[1] "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.[2] In
+religion, they were considered as ignorant and somewhat heterodox;[3]
+the expression, "foolish Galileans," had become proverbial.[4] It was
+believed (not without reason) that they were not of pure Jewish blood,
+and no one expected Galilee to produce a prophet.[5] 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.[6] "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?"[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ps. lxxxiv. (Vulg. lxxxiii.) 11.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvi. 73; Mark xiv. 70; _Acts_ ii. 7; Talm. of
+Bab., _Erubin_, 53 _a_, and following; Bereschith Rabba, 26 _c_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Passage from the treatise _Erubin_, _loc. cit._]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Erubin_, _loc. cit._, 53 _b_.]
+
+[Footnote 5: John vii. 52.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Isa. ix. 1, 2; Matt. iv. 13, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 7: John i. 46.]
+
+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.[1] A
+great number of superb tombs, of original taste, were raised at the
+same time in the neighborhood of Jerusalem.[2] 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.[3] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._, XV. viii.-xi.; _B.J._, V. v. 6; Mark xiii.
+1, 2.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Tombs, namely, of the Judges, Kings, Absalom, Zechariah,
+Jehoshaphat, and of St. James. Compare the description of the tomb of
+the Maccabees at Modin (1 Macc. xiii. 27, and following).]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxiii. 27, 29, xxiv. 1, and following; Mark xiii.
+1, and following; Luke xix. 44, xxi. 5, and following. Compare _Book
+of Enoch_, xcvii. 13, 14; Talmud of Babylon, _Shabbath_, 33 _b_.]
+
+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 porticos took eight years;[1] and the
+accessory portions were continued slowly, and were only finished a
+short time before the taking of Jerusalem.[2] 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.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._, XV. xi. 5, 6.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _Ant._, XX. ix. 7; John ii. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxiv. 2, xxvi. 61, xxvii. 40; Mark xiii. 2, xiv.
+58, xv. 29; Luke xxi. 6; John ii. 19, 20.]
+
+The temple formed a marvelously imposing whole, of which the present
+_haram_,[1] notwithstanding its beauty, scarcely gives us any idea.
+The courts and the surrounding porticos 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.[2] It was an arena
+where arguments were perpetually clashing, a battlefield of disputes,
+resounding with sophisms and subtle questions. The temple had thus
+much analogy with a Mahometan mosque. The Romans at this period
+treated all strange religions with respect, when kept within proper
+limits,[3] 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.[4] But the tower of Antonia, the
+headquarters of the Roman forces, commanded the whole enclosure, and
+allowed all that passed therein to be seen.[5] 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.[6] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: The temple and its enclosure doubtless occupied the site
+of the mosque of Omar and the _haram_, or Sacred Court, which
+surrounds the mosque. The foundation of the haram is, in some parts,
+especially at the place where the Jews go to weep, the exact base of
+the temple of Herod.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke ii. 46, and following; Mishnah, _Sanhedrim_, x. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Suet., _Aug._ 93.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Philo, _Legatio ad Caium_, § 31; Jos., _B.J._, V. v. 2,
+VI. ii. 4; _Acts_ xxi. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Considerable traces of this tower are still seen in the
+northern part of the haram.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Mishnah, _Berakoth_, ix. 5; Talm. of Babyl., _Jebamoth_,
+6 _b_; Mark xi. 16.]
+
+It was in the temple that Jesus passed his days, whilst 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.[1] 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.[2] 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.[3] 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 Judaizing 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,[4] and only the enemies of Christianity, such as Julian,
+remembered the temple.[5] When Omar entered into Jerusalem, he found
+the site designedly polluted in hatred of the Jews.[6] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _B.J._, II. xiv. 3, VI. ix. 3. Comp. Ps. cxxxiii.
+(Vulg. cxxxii.)]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mark xi. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxi. 12, and following; Mark xi. 15, and following;
+Luke xix. 45, and following; John ii. 14, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Itin. a Burdig. Hierus._, p. 152 (edit. Schott); S.
+Jerome, in _Is._ i. 8, and in Matt. xxiv. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Eutychius, _Ann._, II. 286, and following (Oxford 1659).]
+
+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,[1] became more and more a Roman
+functionary,[2] 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.[3] 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."
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._, XV. iii. 1, 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ibid., XVIII. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Acts_ iv. 1, and following, v. 17; Jos., _Ant._, XX. ix.
+1; _Pirké Aboth_, i. 10.]
+
+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 Boëthus 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.[1] 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
+_Boëthusim_,[2] a new sacerdotal nobility was formed, very worldly,
+and little devotional, and closely allied to the Sadokites. The
+_Boëthusim_, in the Talmud and the rabbinical writings, are depicted
+as a kind of unbelievers, and always reproached as Sadducees.[3] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._ XV. ix. 3, XVII. vi. 4, xiii. 1, XVIII. i.
+1, ii. 1, XIX. vi. 2, viii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: This name is only found in the Jewish documents. I think
+that the "Herodians" of the gospel are the _Boëthusim_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The treatise of _Aboth Nathan_, 5; _Soferim_, iii., hal.
+5; Mishnah, _Menachoth_, x. 3; Talmud of Babylon, _Shabbath_, 118 _a_.
+The name of _Boëthusim_ is often changed in the Talmudic books with
+that of the Sadducees, or with the word _Minim_ (heretics). Compare
+Thosiphta, _Joma_, i., with the Talm. of Jerus., the same treatise, i.
+5, and Talm. of Bab., same treatise, 19 _b_; Thos. _Sukka_, iii. with
+the Talm. of Bab., same treatise, 43 _b_; Thos. ibid., further on,
+with the Talm. of Bab., same treatise, 48 _b_; Thos. _Rosh hasshana_,
+i. with Mishnah, same treatise ii. 1; Talm. of Jerus., same treatise,
+ii. 1; and Talm. of Bab., same treatise, 22 _b_; Thos. _Menachoth_, x.
+with Mishnah, same treatise, x. 3; Talm. of Bab., same treatise, 65
+_a_; Mishnah, _Chagigah_, ii. 4; and Megillath Taanith, i.; Thos.
+_Iadaim_, ii. with Talm. of Jerus.; _Baba Bathra_, viii. 1; Talm. of
+Bab., same treatise, 115 _b_; and Megillath Taanith, v.]
+
+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 every one 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 afterward.
+He does not appear at that time to have made the acquaintance of the
+family of Bethany, which, amidst 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
+Sanhedrim, and a man occupying a high position in Jerusalem.[1] This
+man, who appears to have been upright and sincere, felt himself
+attracted toward the young Galilean. Not wishing to compromise
+himself, he came to see Jesus by night, and had a long conversation
+with him.[2] He doubtless preserved a favorable impression of him, for
+afterward he defended Jesus against the prejudices of his
+colleagues,[3] and, at the death of Jesus, we shall find him tending
+with pious care the corpse of the master.[4] 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 amongst 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: It seems that he is referred to in the Talmud. Talm. of
+Bab., _Taanith_, 20 _a_; _Gittin_, 56 _a_; _Ketuboth_, 66 _b_;
+treatise _Aboth Nathan_, vii.; Midrash Rabba, _Eka_, 64 _a_. The
+passage _Taanith_ identifies him with Bounaï, who, according to
+_Sanhedrim_ (see ante, p. 212, note 2), was a disciple of Jesus. But
+if Bounaï is the Banou of Josephus, this identification will not hold
+good.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John iii. 1, and following, vii. 50. We are certainly
+free to believe that the exact text of the conversation is but a
+creation of John's.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John vii. 50, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xix. 39.]
+
+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.[1] Unlike the very strict Pharisees, who walked veiled
+or with closed eyes, he did not scruple to gaze even upon Pagan
+women.[2] This, as well as his knowledge of Greek, was tolerated
+because he had access to the court.[3] After the death of Jesus, he
+expressed very moderate views respecting the new sect.[4] St. Paul sat
+at his feet,[5] but it is not probable that Jesus ever entered his
+school.
+
+[Footnote 1: Mishnah, _Baba Metsia_, v. 8; Talm. of Bab., _Sota_, 49
+_b_.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Talm. of Jerus., _Berakoth_, ix. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Passage _Sota_, before cited, and _Baba Kama_, 83 _a_.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Acts_ v. 34, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Acts_ xxii. 3.]
+
+One idea, at least, which Jesus brought from Jerusalem, and which
+henceforth appears rooted in his mind, was that there was no union
+possible 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.[1] 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,[2] the Law was abolished. If sometimes he used more measured
+terms,[3] 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."[4] 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.[5] 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.[6] How far removed
+was this from a Gaulonite Judas 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 superseded, the temple was rendered useless, and was irrevocably
+condemned.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Orac. Sib._, book iii. 573, and following, 715, and
+following, 756-58. Compare the Targum of Jonathan, Isa. xii. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xvi. 16. The passage in Matt. xi. 12, 13, is less
+clear, but can have no other meaning.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. v. 17, 18 (Cf. Talm. of Bab., _Shabbath_, 116 _b_).
+This passage is not in contradiction with those in which the abolition
+of the Law is implied. It only signifies that in Jesus all the types
+of the Old Testament are realized. Cf. Luke xvi. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. ix. 16, 17; Luke v. 36, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Luke xix. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. xxiv. 14, xxviii. 19; Mark xiii. 10, xvi. 15; Luke
+xxiv. 47.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+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,[1] the exterior
+strictness, which trusted to formality for salvation, had in him a
+mortal enemy. He cared little for fasting.[2] He preferred forgiveness
+to sacrifice.[3] The love of God, charity and mutual forgiveness, were
+his whole law.[4] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xv. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. ix. 14, xi. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. v. 23, and following, ix. 13, xii. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxii. 37, and following; Mark xii. 28, and
+following; Luke x. 25, and following.]
+
+We should seek in vain in the Gospel for one religious rite
+recommended by Jesus. Baptism to him was only of secondary
+importance;[1] 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 good-will 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.[2] He often quoted the passage in
+Isaiah, which says: "This people honor me with their lips, but their
+heart is far from me."[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. iii. 15; 1 _Cor._ i. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. vii. 21; Luke vi. 46.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xv. 8; Mark vii. 6. Cf. Isaiah xxix. 13.]
+
+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.[1] It was believed that Nature observed it; all intermittent
+springs were accounted "Sabbatical."[2] This was the point upon which
+Jesus loved best to defy his adversaries.[3] 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."[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: See especially the treatise _Shabbath_ of the Mishnah and
+the _Livre des Jubilés_ (translated from the Ethiopian in the
+_Jahrbücher_ of Ewald, years 2 and 3), chap. I.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _B.J._, VII. v. 1; Pliny, _H.N._, xxxi. 18. Cf.
+Thomson, _The Land and the Book_, i. 406, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xii. 1-14; Mark ii. 23-28; Luke vi. 1-5, xiii. 14,
+and following, xiv. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xii. 34, xv. 1, and following, 12, and following,
+xxiii. entirely; Mark vii. 1, and following, 15, and following; Luke
+vi. 45, xi. 39, and following.]
+
+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.[1] Jesus could see this worship displayed in all its
+splendor in the country of Tyre and Sidon, at Cæsarea 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."[2] That
+which struck him in the pagans was not their idolatry, but their
+servility.[3] 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.[4] 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."[5] Jesus adhered so much the more to this idea, as the
+conversion of the Gentiles was, according to Jewish ideas, one of the
+surest signs of the advent of the Messiah.[6] 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, whilst the lawful heirs
+of the kingdom are rejected.[7] 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,[8] he speaks of pagans in a manner conformable to the
+prejudices of the Jews.[9] 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 Mahomet 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 practised in
+turn: "He that is not against us is on our part." "He that is not with
+me, is against me."[10] Impassioned conflict involves almost
+necessarily this kind of contradictions.
+
+[Footnote 1: I believe the pagans of Galilee were found especially on
+the frontiers--at Kedes, for example; but that the very heart of the
+country, the city of Tiberias excepted, was entirely Jewish. The line
+where the ruins of temples end, and those of synagogues begin, is
+to-day plainly marked as far north as Lake Huleh (Samachonites). The
+traces of pagan sculpture, which were thought to have been found at
+Tell-Houm, are doubtful. The coast--the town of Acre, in
+particular--did not form part of Galilee.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Chap. XIII. and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xx. 25; Mark x. 42; Luke xxii. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. viii. 5, and following, xv. 22, and following; Mark
+vii. 25, and following; Luke iv. 25, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xxi. 41; Mark xii. 9; Luke xx. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Isa. ii. 2, and following, lx.; Amos ix. 11, and
+following; Jer. iii. 17; Mal. i. 11; _Tobit_, xiii. 13, and following;
+_Orac. Sibyll._, iii. 715, and following. Comp. Matt. xxiv. 14; _Acts_
+xv. 15, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. viii. 11, 12, xxi. 33, and following, xxii. 1, and
+following.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Matt. vii. 6, x. 5, 6, xv. 24, xxi. 43.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Matt. v. 46, and following, vi. 7, 32, xviii. 17; Luke
+vi. 32, and following, xii. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Matt. xii. 30; Mark ix. 39; Luke ix. 50, xi. 23.]
+
+It is certain that he counted among his disciples many men whom the
+Jews called "Hellenes."[1] This word had in Palestine divers meanings.
+Sometimes it designated the pagans; sometimes the Jews, speaking
+Greek, and dwelling among the pagans;[2] sometimes men of pagan origin
+converted to Judaism.[3] It was probably in the last-named category of
+Hellenes that Jesus found sympathy.[4] 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.[5] This
+very inferiority was doubtless the cause which drew them to Jesus, and
+gained them his favor.
+
+[Footnote 1: Josephus confirms this (_Ant._, XVIII. iii. 3). Comp.
+John vii. 35, xii. 20, 21.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Talm. of Jerus., _Sota_, vii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: See in particular, John vii. 35, xii. 20; _Acts_ xiv. 1,
+xvii. 4, xviii. 4, xxi. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xii. 20; _Acts_ viii. 27.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Mishnah, _Baba Metsia_, ix. 12; Talm. of Bab., _Sanh._,56
+_b_; _Acts_ viii. 27, x. 2, 22, 35, xiii. 16, 26, 43, 50, xvi. 14,
+xvii. 4, 17, xviii. 7; Gal. ii. 3; Jos., _Ant._, XIV. vii. 2.]
+
+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.[1] They
+placed them in the same rank as pagans, but hated them more.[2] Jesus,
+from a feeling of opposition, was well disposed toward 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,[3] 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;[4]--in the same manner as in our days the European
+free-thinker is regarded as an enemy by the Mussulman, who always
+believes him to be a fanatical Christian. Jesus raised himself above
+these misunderstandings.[5] He had many disciples at Shechem, and he
+passed at least two days there.[6] On one occasion he meets with
+gratitude and true piety from a Samaritan only.[7] 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.[8] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Ecclesiasticus_ l. 27, 28; John viii. 48; Jos., _Ant._,
+IX. xiv. 3, XI. viii. 6, XII. v. 5; Talm. of Jerus., _Aboda zara_, v.
+4; _Pesachim_, i. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. x. 5; Luke xvii. 18. Comp. Talm. of Bab., _Cholin_,
+6 _a_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. x. 5, 6.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke ix. 53.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Luke ix. 56.]
+
+[Footnote 6: John iv. 39-43.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Luke xvii. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Luke x. 30, and following.]
+
+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,[1] 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.[2] It was an axiom
+of certain casuists, that "a piece of Samaritan bread is the flesh of
+swine."[3] When they followed this route, provisions were always laid
+up beforehand; yet they rarely avoided conflict and ill-treatment.[4]
+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
+_Bir-Iakoub_. 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Now Nablous.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke ix. 53; John iv. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mishnah, _Shebiit_, viii. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Jos., _Ant._, XX. v. 1; _B.J._, II. xii. 3; _Vita_, 52.]
+
+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."[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: John iv. 21-23. Verse 22, at least the latter clause of
+it, which expresses an idea opposed to that of verses 21 and 23,
+appears to have been interpolated. We must not insist too much on the
+historical reality of such a conversation, since Jesus, or his
+interlocutor, alone would have been able to relate it. But the
+anecdote in chapter iv. of John, certainly represents one of the most
+intimate thoughts of Jesus, and the greater part of the circumstances
+have a striking appearance of 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
+amidst 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 XV.
+
+COMMENCEMENT 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.[1] 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.[2] The Son of man would reappear in glory, accompanied by
+legions of angels, and those who had rejected him would be confounded.
+
+[Footnote 1: The hesitancy of the immediate disciples of Jesus, of
+whom a considerable portion remained attached to Judaism, might cause
+objections to be raised to this. But the trial of Jesus leaves no room
+for doubt. We shall see that he was there treated as a "corrupter."
+The Talmud gives the procedure adopted against him as an example of
+that which ought to be followed against "corrupters," who seek to
+overturn the Law of Moses. (Talm. of Jerus., _Sanhedrim_, xiv. 16;
+Talm. of Bab., _Sanhedrim_, 43 _a_, 67 _a_.)]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xi. 12; Luke xvi. 16.]
+
+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;[1] 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.[2] 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.[3] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: It is true that certain doctors--such as Hillel,
+Gamaliel--are mentioned as being of the race of David. But these are
+very doubtful allegations. If the family of David still formed a
+distinct and prominent group, how is it that we never see it figure,
+by the side of the Sadokites, Boëthusians, the Asmoneans, and Herods,
+in the great struggles of the time?]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. ii. 5, 6, xxii. 42; Luke i. 32; John vii. 41, 42;
+_Acts_ ii. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. ix. 27, xii. 23, xv. 22, xx. 30, 31; Mark x. 47,
+52; Luke xviii. 38.]
+
+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?[1] 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?[2] We know not. The inexactitude and the
+contradictions of the genealogies[3] 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.[4] 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 Christendom[5]
+obstinately denied the royal descent of Jesus and the authenticity of
+the genealogies.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. i. 1, and following; Luke iii. 23, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. ii. 1, and following; Luke ii. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The two genealogies are quite contradictory, and do not
+agree with the lists of the Old Testament. The narrative of Luke on
+the census of Quirinus implies an anachronism. See ante, p. 81, note
+4. It is natural to suppose, besides, that the legend may have laid
+hold of this circumstance. The census made a great impression on the
+Jews, overturned their narrow ideas, and was remembered by them for a
+long period. Cf. _Acts_ v. 37.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Julius Africanus (in Eusebius, _H.E._, i. 7) supposes
+that it was the relations of Jesus, who, having taken refuge in
+Batanea, attempted to recompose the genealogies.]
+
+[Footnote 5: The _Ebionites_, the "Hebrews," the "Nazarenes," Tatian,
+Marcion. Cf. Epiph., _Adv. Hær._, xxix. 9, xxx. 3, 14, xlvi. 1;
+Theodoret, _Hæret. fab._, i. 20; Isidore of Pelusium, Epist. i. 371,
+ad Pansophium.]
+
+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,[1] 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.[2]
+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;[3] or, rather, of the
+prophecies 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,[4]
+and two aged persons, Simeon and Anna, who had left memories of great
+sanctity.[5] A rather loose chronology characterized these
+combinations, which for the most part were founded upon real facts
+travestied.[6] But a singular spirit of gentleness and goodness, a
+profoundly popular sentiment, permeated all these fables, and made
+them a supplement to his preaching.[7] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. i. 22, 23.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Gen. i. 2. For the analogous idea among the Egyptians,
+see Herodotus, iii. 28; Pomp. Mela, i. 9: Plutarch, _Quæst. symp._,
+VIII. i. 3; _De Isid. et Osir._, 43.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. i. 15, 23; Isa. vii. 14, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. ii. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Luke ii. 25, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Thus the legend of the massacre of the Innocents probably
+refers to some cruelty exercised by Herod near Bethlehem. Comp. Jos.,
+_Ant._, XIV. ix. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. i., ii.; Luke i., ii.; S. Justin, _Dial. cum
+Tryph._, 78, 106; _Protoevang. of James_ (Apoca.), 18 and following.]
+
+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,[1] 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.[2] 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.[3] In this last Gospel he declares himself less
+than his Father.[4] Elsewhere he avows that the Father has not
+revealed everything to him.[5] 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.[6]
+Every one ought daily to call God his father; all who are raised again
+will be sons of God.[7] The divine son-ship was attributed in the Old
+Testament to beings whom it was by no means pretended were equal with
+God.[8] The word "son" has the widest meanings in the Semitic
+language, and in that of the New Testament.[9] Besides, the idea Jesus
+had of man was not that low idea which a cold Deism 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.[10]
+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;[11] his
+disciples are one, as he and his Father are one.[12] The idea to him
+is everything; the body, which makes the distinction of persons, is
+nothing.
+
+[Footnote 1: Certain passages, such as _Acts_ ii. 22, expressly
+exclude this idea.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xix. 17; Mark x. 18; Luke xviii. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John v. 18, and following, x. 33, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xiv. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Mark xiii. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. v. 9, 45; Luke iii. 38, vi. 35, xx. 36; John i. 12,
+13, x. 34, 35. Comp. _Acts_ xvii. 28, 29; Rom. viii. 14, 19, 21, ix.
+26; 2 Cor. vi. 18; Gal. iii. 26; and in the Old Testament, _Deut._
+xiv. 1; and especially _Wisdom_, ii. 13, 18.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Luke xx. 36.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Gen. vi. 2; Job i. 6, ii. 1, xxviii. 7; Ps. ii. 7,
+lxxxii. 6; 2 Sam. vii. 14.]
+
+[Footnote 9: The child of the devil (Matt. xiii. 38; _Acts_ xiii. 10);
+the children of this world (Mark iii. 17; Luke xvi. 8, xx. 34); the
+children of light (Luke xvi. 8; John xii. 36); the children of the
+resurrection (Luke xx. 36); the children of the kingdom (Matt. viii.
+12, xiii. 38); the children of the bride-chamber (Matt. ix. 15; Mark
+ii. 19; Luke v. 34); the children of hell (Matt. xxiii. 15); the
+children of peace (Luke x. 6), &c. Let us remember that the Jupiter of
+paganism is [Greek: patêr andrôn te theôn te].]
+
+[Footnote 10: Comp. _Acts_ xvii. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Matt. xviii. 20, xxviii. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 12: John x. 30, xvii. 21. See in general the later
+discourses of John, especially chap. xvii., which express one side of
+the psychological state of Jesus, though we cannot regard them as true
+historical documents.]
+
+The title "Son of God," or simply "Son,"[1] 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."[2] 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.[3] No one could know the
+Father except through him.[4] The Father had delegated to him
+exclusively the right of judging.[5] Nature obeyed him; but she obeys
+also all who believe and pray, for faith can do everything.[6] 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."[7] He pardoned sins;[8] he was superior to David, to
+Abraham, to Solomon, and to the prophets.[9] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: The passages in support of this are too numerous to be
+referred to here.]
+
+[Footnote 2: It is only in the Gospel of John that Jesus uses the
+expression "Son of God," or "Son," in speaking of himself.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xii. 8; Luke vi. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xi. 27.]
+
+[Footnote 5: John v. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. xvii. 18, 19; Luke xvii. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. ix. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Matt. ix. 2, and following; Mark ii. 5, and following;
+Luke v. 20, vii. 47, 48.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Matt. xii. 41, 42; xxii. 43, and following; John viii.
+52, and following.]
+
+We cannot mistake in these affirmations of Jesus the germ of the
+doctrine which was afterward to make of him a divine hypostasis,[1] in
+identifying him with the Word, or "second God,"[2] or eldest Son of
+God,[3] or _Angel Metathronos_,[4] which Jewish theology created apart
+from him.[5] 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."[6] 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 _Æons_ 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: See especially John xiv., and following. But it is
+doubtful whether we have here the authentic teaching of Jesus.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Philo, cited in Eusebius, _Præp. Evang._, vii. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Philo, _De migr. Abraham_, § 1; _Quod Deus immut._, § 6;
+_De confus. ling._, § 9, 14 and 28; De profugis, § 20; _De Somniis_,
+i. § 37; _De Agric. Noë_, § 12; _Quis rerum divin. hæres_, § 25, and
+following, 48, and following, &c.]
+
+[Footnote 4: [Greek: Metathronos], that is, sharing the throne of God;
+a kind of divine secretary, keeping the register of merits and
+demerits; _Bereshith Rabba_, v. 6 _c_; Talm. of Bab., _Sanhedr._, 38
+_b_; _Chagigah_, 15 _a_; Targum of Jonathan, _Gen._, v. 24.]
+
+[Footnote 5: This theory of the [Greek: Logos] contains no Greek
+elements. The comparisons which have been made between it and the
+_Honover_ of the Parsees are also without foundation. The _Minokhired_
+or "Divine Intelligence," has much analogy with the Jewish [Greek:
+Logos]. (See the fragments of the book entitled _Minokhired_ in
+Spiegel, _Parsi-Grammatik_, pp. 161, 162.) But the development which
+the doctrine of the _Minokhired_ has taken among the Parsees is
+modern, and may imply a foreign influence. The "Divine Intelligence"
+(_Maiyu-Khratû_) appears in the Zend books; but it does not there
+serve as basis to a theory; it only enters into some invocations. The
+comparisons which have been attempted between the Alexandrian theory
+of the Word and certain points of Egyptian theology may not be
+entirely without value. But nothing indicates that, in the centuries
+which preceded the Christian era, Palestinian Judaism had borrowed
+anything from Egypt.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Acts_ viii. 10.]
+
+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,"[1] 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
+afterward 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."[2] 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.[3] Until the great day, he will sit at the right hand of God, as
+his Metathronos, his first minister, and his future avenger.[4] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: ix. 1, 2, xvi. 12. Comp. vii. 12, viii. 5, and following,
+ix., and in general ix.-xi. These prosopopoeia of Wisdom personified
+are found in much older books. Prov. viii., ix.; Job xxviii.; _Rev._
+xix. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John, Gospel, i. 1-14; 1 Epistle v. 7; moreover, it will
+be remarked, that, in the Gospel of John, the expression of "the Word"
+does not occur except in the prologue, and that the narrator never
+puts it into the mouth of Jesus.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Acts_ x. 42.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxvi. 64; Mark xvi. 19; Luke xxii. 69; _Acts_ vii.
+55; Rom. viii. 34; Ephes. i. 20; Coloss. iii. 1; Heb. i. 3, 13, viii.
+1, x. 12, xii. 2; 1 Peter iii. 22. See the passages previously cited
+on the character of the Jewish Metathronos.]
+
+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[1]--he is cast down, discouraged--he asks
+his Father to spare him trials--he is submissive to God as a son.[2]
+He who is to judge the world does not know the day of judgment.[3] He
+takes precautions for his safety.[4] Soon after his birth, he is
+obliged to be concealed to avoid powerful men who wish to kill him.[5]
+In exorcisms, the devil cheats him, and does not come out at the first
+command.[6] In his miracles we are sensible of painful effort--an
+exhaustion, as if something went out of him.[7] All these are simply
+the acts of a messenger of God, of a man protected and favored by
+God.[8] 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.[9]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. x. 5, compared with xxviii. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvi. 39; John xii. 27.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mark xiii. 32.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xii. 14-16, xiv. 13; Mark iii. 6, 7, ix. 29, 30;
+John vii. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. ii. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. xvii. 20; Mark ix. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Luke viii. 45, 46; John xi. 33, 38.]
+
+[Footnote 8: _Acts_ ii. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Matt. xiv. 2, xvi. 14, xvii. 3, and following; Mark vi.
+14, 15, viii. 28; Luke ix. 8, and following, 19.]
+
+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.
+Cæsar 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 XVI.
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: For example, Matt. i. 22, ii. 5, 6, 15, 18, iv. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. i. 23, iv. 6, 14, xxvi. 31, 54, 56, xxvii. 9, 35;
+Mark xiv. 27, xv. 28; John xii. 14. 15, xviii. 9, xix. 19, 24, 28,
+36.]
+
+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.[1] In Samaria, a few
+leagues from where Jesus was, a magician, named Simon, acquired an
+almost divine character by his illusions.[2] Afterward, 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.[3] The Alexandrian philosophers themselves,
+Plotinus and others, are reported to have performed several.[4] 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.[5] The faculty of performing miracles was regarded as a
+privilege frequently conferred by God upon men,[6] and it had nothing
+surprising in it.
+
+[Footnote 1: John vii. 34; _IV. Esdras_, xiii. 50.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Acts_ viii. 9, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: See his biography by Philostratus.]
+
+[Footnote 4: See the Lives of the Sophists, by Eunapius; the Life of
+Plotinus, by Porphyry; that of Proclus, by Marinus; and that of
+Isidorus, attributed to Damascius.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xvii. 19, xxi. 21, 22; Mark xi. 23, 24.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. ix. 8.]
+
+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 natural 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, Mahomet, 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, amongst 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,[1] 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.[2]
+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 state 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke viii. 45, 46; John xi. 33 and 38.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Acts_ ii. 2, and following, iv. 31, viii. 15, and
+following, x. 44 and following. For nearly a century, the apostles and
+their disciples dreamed only of miracles. See the _Acts_, the writings
+of St. Paul, the extracts from Papias, in Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._,
+iii. 39, &c. Comp. Mark iii. 15, xvi. 17, 18, 20.]
+
+Jesus had no more idea than his countrymen of a rational medical
+science; he believed, like every one 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,[1] or as the act of a demon,[2] 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,[3] the
+imposition of his hands,[4] 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.[5] Both were the signs of the great
+revolution which was to end in the redress of all infirmities.
+
+[Footnote 1: John v. 14, ix. 1, and following, 34.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. ix. 32, 33, xii. 22; Luke xiii. 11, 16.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke viii. 45, 46.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke iv. 40.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xi. 5, xv. 30, 31; Luke ix. 1, 2, 6.]
+
+One of the species of cure which Jesus most frequently performed, was
+exorcism, or the expulsion of demons. A 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 the bodies
+of certain persons and made them act contrary to their will. A Persian
+_div_, often named in the Avesta,[1] _Aeschma-daëva_, the "div of
+concupiscence," adopted by the Jews under the name of Asmodeus,[2]
+became the cause of all the hysterical afflictions of women.[3]
+Epilepsy, mental and nervous maladies,[4] in which the patient seems
+no longer to belong to himself, and infirmities, the cause of which is
+not apparent, as deafness, dumbness,[5] 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.[6] There is
+no doubt that Jesus had in his lifetime the reputation of possessing
+the greatest secrets of this art.[7] 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.[8] 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_[9]) 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Vendidad_, xi. 26; _Yaçna_, x. 18.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Tobit_, iii. 8, vi. 14; Talm. of Bab., _Gittin_, 68
+_a_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Comp. Mark xvi. 9; Luke viii. 2; _Gospel of the Infancy_,
+16, 33; Syrian Code, published in the _Anecdota Syriaca_ of M. Land,
+i., p. 152.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Jos., _Bell. Jud._, VII. vi. 3; Lucian, _Philopseud._,
+16; Philostratus, _Life of Apoll._, iii. 38, iv. 20; Aretus, _De
+causis morb. chron._, i. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. ix. 33, xii. 22; Mark ix. 16, 24; Luke xi. 14.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Tobit_, viii. 2, 3; Matt. xii. 27; Mark ix. 38; _Acts_
+xix. 13; Josephus, _Ant._, VIII. ii. 5; Justin, _Dial. cum Tryph._,
+85; Lucian, Epigr., xxiii. (xvii. Dindorf).]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. xvii. 20; Mark ix. 24, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Matt. viii. 28, ix. 34, xii. 43, and following, xvii. 14,
+and following, 20; Mark v. 1, and following; Luke viii. 27, and
+following.]
+
+[Footnote 9: The phrase, _Dæmonium 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
+enté_. The verb [Greek: daimonan] has also, in all classical
+antiquity, the meaning of "to be mad."]
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] 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.[3]
+These traits are especially characteristic in Mark, who is
+pre-eminently 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,[4] 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.[5] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xii. 39, xvi. 4, xvii. 16; Mark viii. 17, and
+following, ix. 18; Luke ix. 41.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. viii. 4, ix. 30, 31, xii. 16, and following; Mark
+i. 44, vii. 24, and following, viii. 26.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mark i. 24, 25, 34, iii. 12; Luke iv. 41.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xvii. 16; Mark ix. 18; Luke ix. 41.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xii. 38, and following, xvi. 1, and following; Mark
+viii. 11.]
+
+We should neglect to recognize the first principles of history if we
+attached too much importance to our repugnances 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.[1]
+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,[2] 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.[3] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Josephus, _Ant._, XVIII. iii. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Papias, in Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._, iii. 39.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mark iv. 40, v. 15, 17, 33, 36, vi. 50, x. 32; cf. Matt.
+viii. 27, 34, ix. 8, xiv. 27, xvii. 6, 7, xxviii. 5, 10; Luke iv. 36,
+v. 17, viii. 25, 35, 37, ix. 34. The Apocryphal Gospel, said to be by
+Thomas the Israelite, carries this feature to the most offensive
+absurdity. Compare the _Miracles of the Infancy_, in Philo, _Cod.
+Apocr. N.T._, p. cx., note.]
+
+The problem, moreover, presents itself in the same manner with respect
+to all saints and religious 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 Mahomet.[1] 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 amidst a crowd of littlenesses which, to
+superficial minds, eclipse their grandeur.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Hysteria Muscularis_ of Shoenlein.]
+
+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.[1] The pagans, and persons
+unacquainted with him, experienced a sentiment of fear, and sought to
+remove him from their district.[2] Many thought perhaps to abuse his
+name by connecting it with seditious movements.[3] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xiv. 1, and following; Mark vi. 14; Luke ix. 7,
+xxiii. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. viii. 34; Mark v. 17, viii. 37.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John vi. 14, 15.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+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.[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: John v. 1, vii. 2. We follow the system of John,
+according to whom the public life of Jesus lasted three years. The
+synoptics, on the contrary, group all the facts within the space of
+one year.]
+
+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.[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xii. 13, 14.]
+
+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,"[1] preceded by dark
+calamities and heralded by strange phenomena.[2] 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.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xix. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxiv. 3, and following; Mark xiii. 4, and
+following; Luke xvii. 22, and following, xxi. 7, and following. It
+must be remarked that the picture of the end of time attributed to
+Jesus by the synoptics, contains many features which relate to the
+siege of Jerusalem. Luke wrote some time after the siege (xxi. 9, 20,
+24). The compilation of Matthew, on the contrary (xxvi. 15, 16, 22,
+29), carries us back exactly to this precise period, or very shortly
+afterward. There is no doubt, however, that Jesus predicted that great
+terrors would precede his reappearance. These terrors were an integral
+part of all the Jewish apocalypses. _Enoch_, xcix., c., cii., ciii.
+(division of Dillman); _Carm. sibyll._, iii. 334, and following, 633,
+and following, iv. 168, and following, v. 511, and following.
+According to Daniel also, the reign of the saints will only come after
+the desolation shall have reached its height. Chap. vii. 25, and
+following, viii. 23, and following, ix. 26, 27, xii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xvi. 27, xix. 28, xx. 21, xxiv. 30, and following,
+xxv. 31, and following, xxvi. 64; Mark xiv. 62; Luke xxii. 30; 1
+_Cor._ xv. 52; 1 Thess. iv. 15, and following.]
+
+At this judgment men will be divided into two classes according to
+their deeds.[1] The angels will be the executors of the sentences.[2]
+The elect will enter into delightful mansions, which have been
+prepared for them from the foundation of the world;[3] there they will
+be seated, clothed with light, at a feast presided over by Abraham,[4]
+the patriarchs and the prophets. They will be the smaller number.[5]
+The rest will depart into _Gehenna_. Gehenna was the western valley of
+Jerusalem. There the worship of fire had been practised 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.[6]
+There, there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.[7] The kingdom of
+heaven will be as a closed room, lighted from within, in the midst of
+a world of darkness and torments.[8]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xiii. 38, and following, xxv. 33.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xiii. 39, 41, 49.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxv. 34. Comp. John xiv. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. viii. 11, xiii. 43, xxvi. 29; Luke xiii. 28, xvi.
+22, xxii. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Luke xiii. 23, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. xxv. 41. The idea of the fall of the angels,
+detailed in the Book of Enoch, was universally admitted in the circle
+of Jesus. Epistle of Jude 6, and following; 2d Epistle attributed to
+Saint Peter, ii. 4. 11; _Revelation_ xii. 9; Gospel of John viii. 44.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. v. 22, viii. 12, x. 28, xiii. 40, 42, 50, xviii. 8,
+xxiv. 51, xxv. 30; Mark ix. 43, &c.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Matt. viii. 12, xxii. 13, xxv. 30. Comp. Jos., _B.J._,
+III. viii. 5.]
+
+This new order of things will be eternal. Paradise and Gehenna will
+have no end. An impassable abyss separates the one from the other.[1]
+The Son of man, seated on the right hand of God, will preside over
+this final condition of the world and of humanity.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xvi. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mark iii. 29; Luke xxii. 69; _Acts_ vii. 55.]
+
+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,[1] and that
+the great "revelation"[2] of Christ was about to take place. The
+startling proclamation, "The time is at hand,"[3] which commences and
+closes the Apocalypse; the incessantly reiterated appeal, "He that
+hath ears to hear let him hear!"[4] were the cries of hope and
+encouragement for the whole apostolic age. A Syrian expression, _Maran
+atha_, "Our Lord cometh!"[5] became a sort of password, which the
+believers used amongst themselves to strengthen their faith and their
+hope. The Apocalypse, written in the year 68 of our era,[6] declares
+that the end will come in three years and a half.[7] The "Ascension of
+Isaiah"[8] adopts a calculation very similar to this.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Acts_ ii. 17, iii. 19, and following; 1 _Cor._ xv. 23,
+24, 52; 1 Thess. iii. 13, iv. 14, and following, v. 23; 2 Thess. ii.
+8; 1 Tim. vi. 14; 2 Tim. iv. 1; Tit. ii. 13; Epistle of James v. 3, 8;
+Epistle of Jude 18; 2d Epistle of Peter, iii. entirely; _Revelations_
+entirely, and in particular, i. 1, ii. 5, 16, iii. 11, xi. 14, xxii.
+6, 7, 12, 20. Comp. 4th Book of Esdras, iv. 26.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xvii. 30; 1 _Cor._ i. 7, 8; 2 Thess. i. 7; 1 Peter
+i. 7, 13; _Revelations_ i. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Revelations_ i. 3, xxii. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xi. 15, xiii. 9, 43; Mark iv. 9, 23, vii. 16; Luke
+viii. 8, xiv. 35; _Revelations_ ii. 7, 11, 27, 29, iii. 6, 13, 22,
+xiii. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 5: 1 _Cor._ xvi. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Revelations_ xvii. 9, and following. The sixth emperor,
+whom the author represents as reigning, is Galba. The dead emperor,
+who was to return, is Nero, whose name is given in figures (xiii.
+18).]
+
+[Footnote 7: _Revelations_ xi. 2, 3, xii. 14. Comp. Daniel vii. 25,
+xii. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Chap. iv., v. 12 and 14. Comp. Cedrenus, p. 68 (Paris,
+1647).]
+
+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.[1] He said
+that the time when the kingdom of God was most anxiously expected, was
+just that in which it would not appear.[2] 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;[3] that the Son of man would come like a thief, at an
+hour when he would not be expected;[4] that he would appear as a flash
+of lightning, running from one end of the heavens to the other.[5] But
+his declarations on the nearness of the catastrophe leave no room for
+any equivocations.[6] "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."[7] 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?"[8] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxiv. 36; Mark xiii. 32.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xvii. 20. Comp. Talmud of Babyl., _Sanhedrim_, 97
+_a_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxiv. 36, and following; Mark xiii. 32, and
+following; Luke xii. 35, and following, xvii. 20, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke xii. 40; 2 Peter iii. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Luke xvii. 24.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. x. 23, xxiv., xxv. entirely, and especially xxiv.
+29, 34; Mark xiii. 30; Luke xiii. 35, xxi. 28, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. xvi. 28, xxiii. 36, 39, xxiv. 34; Mark viii. 39;
+Luke ix. 27, xxi. 32.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Matt. xvi. 2-4; Luke xii. 54-56.]
+
+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;[1] many believed that he would
+never die. Perhaps this was a later opinion suggested toward 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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: John xxi. 22, 23.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John xxi. 22, 23. Chapter xxi. of the fourth Gospel is an
+addition, as is proved by the final clause of the primitive
+compilation, which concludes at verse 31 of chapter xx. But the
+addition is almost contemporaneous with the publication of the Gospel
+itself.]
+
+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.[1] It was the faith of
+the Pharisees, and of the fervent adherents of the Messianic
+beliefs.[2] 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;[3] 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.[4] Sometimes he seems to promise
+resurrection only to the righteous,[5] the punishment of the wicked
+consisting in complete annihilation.[6] Oftener, however, Jesus
+declares that the resurrection shall bring eternal confusion to the
+wicked.[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: Mark ix. 9; Luke xx. 27, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Dan. xii. 2, and following; 2 Macc. vii. entirely, xii.
+45, 46, xiv. 46; _Acts_ xxiii. 6, 8; Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. i. 3;
+_B.J._, II. viii. 14, III. viii. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvi. 29; Luke xxii. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxii. 24, and following; Luke xx. 34-38; Ebionite
+Gospel, entitled, "Of the Egyptians," in Clem. of Alex., _Strom._ ii.
+9, 13; Clem. Rom., Epist. ii. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Luke xiv. 14, xx. 35, 36. This is also the opinion of St.
+Paul: 1 _Cor._ xv. 23, and following; 1 Thess. iv. 12, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Comp. 4th book of Esdras, ix. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. xxv. 32, and following.]
+
+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,"[1] "Enoch,"[2] and the "Sibylline Oracles,"[3] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: See especially chaps. ii., vi.-viii., x.-xiii.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Chaps. i., xiv., lii., lxii., xciii. 9, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Book iii. 573, and following; 652, and following; 766,
+and following; 795, and following.]
+
+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.[1] 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 a covering of fable, into the
+bosom of humanity, has thus brought forth eternal fruits.
+
+[Footnote 1: These pangs of Christian conscience are rendered with
+simplicity in the second epistle attributed to St. Peter, iii. 8, and
+following.]
+
+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 amidst 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 re-establishment
+of all that is humble, true, and simple. This re-establishment 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.[1] The kingdom of God at such times is only the highest
+form of good.[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. vi. 10, 33; Mark xii. 34; Luke xi. 2, xii. 31,
+xvii. 20, 21, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: See especially Mark xii. 34.]
+
+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
+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 destined 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 threw 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,[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Justin, _Dial. cum Tryph._, 81.]
+
+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.[1] 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 iræ, 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: See, for example, the prologue of Gregory of Tours to his
+_Histoire Ecclesiastique des Francs_, and the numerous documents of
+the first half of the Middle Ages, beginning by the formula, "On the
+approach of the night of the world...."]
+
+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!_[1] 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
+that 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 kind of exalted
+divination seems to have maintained it in a vague sublimity, embracing
+at the same time various orders of truths.
+
+[Footnote 1: 1 _Cor._ xv. 52.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+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 pre-eminently
+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.[1] 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
+Alphæus; Simon Zelotes; Thaddeus or Lebbæus; and Judas of Kerioth.[2]
+It is probable that the idea of the twelve tribes of Israel had had
+some share in the choice of this number.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Acts_ i. 15, and following; 1 _Cor._ xv. 5; Gal. i. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. x. 2 and following; Mark iii. 16, and following;
+Luke vi. 14, and following; _Acts_ i. 13; Papias, in Eusebius, _Hist.
+Eccl._, iii. 39.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xix. 28; Luke xxii. 30.]
+
+The "twelve," at all events, formed a group of privileged disciples,
+among whom Peter maintained a fraternal priority,[1] 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,[2] were married and had children.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Acts_ i. 15, ii. 14, v. 2, 3, 29, viii. 19, xv. 7; Gal.
+i. 18.]
+
+[Footnote 2: For Peter, see ante, p. 174; for Philip, see Papias,
+Polycrates, and Clement of Alexandria, quoted by Eusebius, _Hist.
+Eccl._, iii. 30, 31, 39, v. 24.]
+
+Jesus evidently confided secrets to the twelve, which he forbade them
+to communicate to the world.[1] 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 afterward to the world.[2] "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.[3] 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 _Pirké Aboth_.
+Jesus explained to his intimate friends whatever was peculiar in his
+apothegms or in his apologues, and showed them his meaning stripped of
+the wealth of illustration which sometimes obscured it.[4] Many of
+these explanations appear to have been carefully preserved.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xvi. 20, xvii. 9; Mark viii. 30, ix. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. x. 26, 27; Mark iv. 21, and following; Luke viii.
+17, xii. 2, and following; John xiv. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xiii. 10, and following, 34 and following; Mark iv.
+10, and following, 33, and following; Luke viii. 9, and following;
+xii. 41.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xvi. 6, and following; Mark vii. 17-23.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xiii. 18, and following; Mark vii. 18, and
+following.]
+
+During the lifetime of Jesus, the apostles preached,[1] but without
+ever departing far from him. Their preaching, moreover, was limited to
+the announcement of the speedy coming of the kingdom of God.[2] 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.[3] "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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke ix. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke x. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The Greek word [Greek: pandokeion], in all the languages
+of the Semitic East, designates an hostelry.]
+
+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."[1] 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.[2] 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."
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. x. 11, and following; Mark vi. 10, and following;
+Luke x. 5, and following. Comp. 2 Epistle of John, 10, 11.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke ix. 52, and following.]
+
+He sought in every way to establish as a principle that his apostles
+were as himself.[1] It was believed that he had communicated his
+marvellous virtues to them. They cast out demons, prophesied, and
+formed a school of renowned exorcists,[2] although certain cases were
+beyond their power.[3] They also wrought cures, either by the
+imposition of hands, or by the anointing with oil,[4] one of the
+fundamental processes of Oriental medicine. Lastly, like the Psylli,
+they could handle serpents and could drink deadly potions with
+impunity.[5] 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.[6] 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 toward them.[7] 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,[8] 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.[9] Some even
+sought to buy from the disciples of Jesus the secret of the miraculous
+powers which had been conferred upon them.[10] 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.[11] 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 afterward 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 Magdalen, and Nicodemus, did not, it seems,
+join these churches, but clung to the tender or respectful memory
+which they had preserved of him.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. x. 40, 42, xxv. 35, and following; Mark ix. 40;
+Luke x. 16; John xiii. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. vii. 22, x. 1; Mark iii. 15, vi. 13; Luke x. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xvii. 18, 19.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Mark vi. 13, xvi. 18; Epist. Jas. v. 14.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Mark xvi. 18; Luke x. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Mark xvi. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Mark ix. 37, 38; Luke ix. 49, 50.]
+
+[Footnote 8: An ancient god of the Philistines, transformed by the
+Jews into a demon.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Matt. xii. 24, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 10: _Acts_ viii. 18, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Matt. xviii. 17, and following; John xx. 23.]
+
+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.[1]
+Neither was there any theology or creed. There were indefinite views
+respecting the Father, the Son, and the Spirit,[2] from which,
+afterward, 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.[3] Jesus insisted upon
+this point,[4] and announced to his disciples a baptism by fire and by
+the spirit,[5] 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.[6] The Holy Spirit thus sent by
+the Father was to teach them all truth, and testify to that which
+Jesus himself had promulgated.[7] In order to designate this Spirit,
+Jesus made use of the word _Peraklit_, which the Syro-Chaldaic had
+borrowed from the Greek ([Greek: paraklêtos]), and which appears to
+have had in his mind the meaning of "advocate,"[8] "counsellor,"[9]
+and sometimes that of "interpreter of celestial truths," and of
+"teacher charged to reveal to men the hitherto hidden mysteries."[10]
+He regarded himself as a _Peraklit_ to his disciples,[11] 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, whilst in Christianity, commencing with the fourth
+century, they were to form the very essence of orthodoxy and of the
+universal doctrine.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xix. 3, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxviii. 19. Comp. Matt. iii. 16, 17; John xv. 26.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Sap._ i. 7, vii. 7, ix. 17, xii. 1; _Eccles._ i. 9, xv.
+5, xxiv. 27; xxxix. 8; _Judith_ xvi. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. x. 20; Luke xii. 12, xxiv. 49; John xiv. 26, xv.
+26.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. iii. 11; Mark i. 8; Luke iii. 16; John i. 26, iii.
+5; _Acts_ i. 5, 8, x. 47.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Acts_ ii. 1-4, xi. 15, xix. 6. Cf. John vii. 39.]
+
+[Footnote 7: John xv. 26, xvi. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 8: To _Peraklit_ was opposed _Katigor_, ([Greek:
+katêgoros]), the "accuser."]
+
+[Footnote 9: John xiv. 16; 1st Epistle of John ii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 10: John xiv. 26, xv. 26, xvi. 7, and following. Comp.
+Philo, _De Mundi opificio_, § 6.]
+
+[Footnote 11: John xiv. 16. Comp. the epistle before cited, _l.c._]
+
+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 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.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Papias, in Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._, iii. 39.]
+
+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 his disciples. "Verily,
+verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but
+my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven."[1] 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."[2] 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."[3] 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 will 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 is that 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."
+
+[Footnote 1: John vi. 32, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: We find an analogous form of expression provoking a
+similar misunderstanding, in John iv. 10, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: A11 these discourses bear too strongly the imprint of the
+style peculiar to John, for them to be regarded as exact. The anecdote
+related in chapter vi. of the fourth Gospel cannot, however, be
+entirely stripped of historical reality.]
+
+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 Capernaum, 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,[1] 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.[2] 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 birth on the shore of
+Lake Tiberias[3]), was itself almost sacramental, and became a
+necessary part of the conceptions of the sacred feast.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xxiv. 30, 35.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke _l.c._; John xxi. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Comp. Matt. vii. 10, xiv. 17, and following, xv. 34, and
+following; Mark vi. 38, and following; Luke ix. 13, and following, xi.
+11, xxiv. 42; John vi. 9, and following, xxi. 9, and following. The
+district round Lake Tiberias is the only place in Palestine where fish
+forms a considerable portion of the diet.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xxi. 13; Luke xxiv. 42, 43. Compare the oldest
+representations of the Lord's Supper, related or corrected by M. de
+Rossi, in his dissertation on the [Greek: ICHTHYS] (_Spicilegium
+Solesmense_ de dom Pitra, v. iii., p. 568, and following). The meaning
+of the anagram which the word [Greek: ICHTHYS] contains, was probably
+combined with a more ancient tradition on the place of fish in the
+Gospel repasts.]
+
+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.[1] 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 afterward 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."
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xxii. 15.]
+
+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,[1] and it is to the most solemn moment
+of the life of the Saviour 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.[2] 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[3] 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.[4] 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,"[5] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Acts_ ii. 42, 46.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 1 _Cor._ xi. 20, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xviii. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xii. entirely.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Canon of the Greek Masses and the Latin Mass (very
+ancient).]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] The celibate
+was greatly preferred; even in marriage continence was recommended.[3]
+At one time the master seems to approve of those who should mutilate
+themselves in prospect of the kingdom of God.[4] 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."[5] The cessation of generation was often considered as
+the sign and condition of the kingdom of God.[6]
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xiv. 33; _Acts_ iv. 32, and following, v. 1-11.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xix. 10, and following; Luke xviii. 29, and
+following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: This is the constant doctrine of Paul. Comp. _Rev._ xiv.
+4.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xix. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xviii. 8, 9. Cf. Talmud of Babylon, _Niddah_, 13
+_b_.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. xxii. 30; Mark xii. 25; Luke xx. 35; Ebionite
+Gospel, entitled "Of the Egyptians," in Clem. of Alex., _Strom._ iii.
+9, 13, and Clem. Rom., Epist. ii. 12.]
+
+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 of
+human society. Essentially Utopian in their origin, and succeeding by
+their very 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."[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xviii. 20, 30.]
+
+The teachings which Jesus is reputed to have given to his disciples
+breathe the same exaltation.[1] He who was so tolerant to the world
+outside, he who contented himself sometimes with half adhesions,[2]
+exercised toward 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 downward, 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 practise absolute
+poverty, live on alms and hospitality. "Freely ye have received,
+freely give,"[3] 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.[4] 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."
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. x., entirely, xxiv. 9; Mark vi. 8, and following,
+ix. 40, xiii. 9-13; Luke x. 3, and following, x. 1, and following,
+xii. 4, and following, xxi. 17; John xv. 18, and following, xvii. 14.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mark ix. 38, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. x. 8. Comp. Midrash Ialkout, _Deut._, sect. 824.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. x. 20; John xiv. 16, and following, 26, xv. 26,
+xvi. 7, 13.]
+
+A strange ardor animates all these discourses, which may in part be
+the creation of the enthusiasm of his disciples,[1] 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 persecuted 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."[2] "Whosoever, therefore,"
+continued he, "shall confess 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."[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: The expressions in Matt. x. 38, xvi. 24; Mark viii. 34;
+Luke xiv. 27, can only have been conceived after the death of Jesus.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. x. 24-31; Luke xii. 4-7.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. x. 32, 33; Mark viii. 38; Luke ix. 26, xii. 8, 9.]
+
+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," said he, "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."[1] "So
+likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath,
+he cannot be my disciple."[2] 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 sombre 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?"[3] 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."[4] 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."[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xiv. 26. We must here take into account the
+exaggeration of Luke's style.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xiv. 33.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. x. 37-39, xvi. 24, 25; Luke ix. 23-25, xiv. 26, 27,
+xvii. 33; John xii. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. viii. 21, 22; Luke ix. 59-62.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xi. 28-30.]
+
+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 fulness, 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.[1] At other times, although such a thought only afterward
+became a doctrine, death presented itself to him as a sacrifice,
+destined to appease his Father and to save mankind.[2] A singular
+taste for persecution and torments[3] 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.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xvi. 21-23, xvii. 12, 21, 22.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mark x. 45.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke vi. 22, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke xii. 50.]
+
+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."[1] "I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I,
+if it be already kindled?"[2] "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."[3] "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."[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. x. 34-36; Luke xii. 51-53. Compare Micah vii. 5,
+6.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xii. 49. See the Greek text.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John xvi. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xv. 18-20.]
+
+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.[1] The great vision of
+the kingdom of God, glistening before his eyes, bewildered him. His
+disciples at times thought him mad.[2] His enemies declared him to be
+possessed.[3] 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."[4] 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.[5] His disciples at times did not understand him, and
+experienced in his presence a feeling akin to fear.[6] Sometimes his
+displeasure at the slightest opposition led him to commit
+inexplicable and apparently absurd acts.[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: John xii. 27.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mark iii. 21, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mark iii. 22; John vii. 20, viii. 48, and following, x.
+20, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. viii. 10, ix. 2, 22, 28, 29, xvii. 19; John vi. 29,
+etc.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xvii. 16; Mark iii. 5, ix. 18; Luke viii. 45, ix.
+41.]
+
+[Footnote 6: It is in Mark especially that this feature is visible;
+iv. 40, v. 15, ix. 31, x. 32.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Mark xi. 12-14, 20, and following.]
+
+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 XX.
+
+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.[1] Antipas, however, did not interfere with
+him, although Jesus expressed himself sometimes very severely
+respecting him.[2] At Tiberias, his usual residence, the Tetrarch was
+only one or two leagues distant from the district chosen by Jesus for
+the centre of his activity; he heard speak of his miracles, which he
+doubtless took to be clever tricks, and desired to see them.[3] The
+incredulous were at that time very curious about this class of
+illusions.[4] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xii. 14-16; Mark iii. 7, ix. 29, 30.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mark viii. 15; Luke xiii. 32.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke ix. 9, xxiii. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Lucius_; attributed to Lucian, 4.]
+
+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;[1] 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.[2] His peaceful manners, and his remoteness from popular
+agitation, ultimately reassured the Tetrarch and dissipated the
+danger.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xiv. 1, and following; Mark vi. 14, and following;
+Luke ix. 7, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xiii. 31, and following.]
+
+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,[1] 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,[2] 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."[3] "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."[4] His wandering life, at first so full of charm, now began
+to weigh upon him. "The foxes," said he, "have holes, and the birds of
+the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his
+head."[5] 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.[6]
+
+[Footnote 1: John vii. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xii. 39, 45, xiii. 15, xvi. 4; Luke xi. 29.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xi. 21-24; Luke x. 12-15.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xii. 41, 42; Luke xi. 31, 32.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. viii. 20; Luke ix. 58.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Luke xviii. 8.]
+
+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.[1] Like John the
+Baptist,[2] he employed very harsh terms against his adversaries. Of
+an exquisite gentleness with the simple, he was irritated at
+incredulity, however little aggressive.[3] 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
+toward those who did not agree with him. Jesus, in like manner,
+applied to himself, not without reason, the passage from Isaiah:[4]
+"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
+he not quench."[5] And yet many of the recommendations which he
+addressed to his disciples contain the germs of a true fanaticism,[6]
+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?
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xii. 34, xv. 14, xxiii. 33.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. iii. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xii. 30; Luke xxi. 23.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Isa. xlii. 2, 3.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xii. 19-20.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. x. 14, 15, 21, and following, 34, and following;
+Luke xix. 27.]
+
+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
+centre at Jerusalem, it had adherents either established in Galilee,
+or who often came there.[1] They were, in general, men of a narrow
+mind, caring much for externals; their devoutness was haughty, formal,
+and self-satisfied.[2] Their manners were ridiculous, and excited the
+smiles of even those who respected them. The epithets which the people
+gave them, and which savor 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 Pharisee," whose externals
+of devotion were but a varnish of hypocrisy.[3] This strictness was,
+in fact, often only apparent, and concealed in reality great moral
+laxity.[4] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Mark vii. 1; Luke v. 17, and following, vii. 36.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. vi. 2, 5, 16, ix. 11, 14, xii. 2, xxiii. 5, 15, 23;
+Luke v. 30, vi. 2, 7, xi. 39, and following, xviii. 12; John ix. 16;
+_Pirké Aboth_, i. 16; Jos., _Ant._, XVII. ii. 4, XVIII. i. 3; _Vita_,
+38; Talm. of Bab., _Sota_, 22 _b_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Talmud of Jerusalem, _Berakoth_, ix., sub fin.; _Sota_,
+v. 7; Talmud of Babylon, _Sota_, 22 _b_. The two compilations of this
+curious passage present considerable differences. We have, in general,
+followed the Babylonian compilation, which seems most natural. Cf.
+Epiph., _Adv. Hær._, xvi. 1. The passages in Epiphanes, and several of
+those of the Talmud, may, besides, relate to an epoch posterior to
+Jesus, an epoch in which "Pharisee" had become synonymous with
+"devotee."]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. v. 20, xv. 4, xxiii. 3, 16, and following; John
+viii. 7; Jos., _Ant._, XII. ix. 1; XIII. x. 5.]
+
+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,
+whilst 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,[1] those of Jesus, son
+of Sirach, making worship consist in doing good,[2] were forgotten or
+anathematized.[3] Shammai, with his narrow and exclusive spirit, had
+prevailed. An enormous mass of "traditions" had stifled the Law,[4]
+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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Talm. of Bab., _Shabbath_, 31 _a_; _Joma_, 35 _b_.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Eccles._ xvii. 21, and following, xxxv. 1, and
+following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Talm. of Jerus., _Sanhedrim_, xi. 1; Talm. of Bab.,
+_Sanhedrim_, 100 _b_.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xv. 2.]
+
+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." Religious 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 criticising 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.[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xv. 2, and following; Mark vii. 2, and following.]
+
+Disputes broke out especially respecting a number of external
+practices introduced by tradition, which neither Jesus nor his
+disciples observed.[1] 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."[2] 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."[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xv. 2, and following; Mark vii. 4, 8; Luke v. sub
+fin. and vi. init., xi. 38, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xi. 41.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke xviii. 9-14; comp. _ibid._, xiv. 7-11.]
+
+A hate, which death alone could satisfy, was the consequence of these
+struggles. John the Baptist had already provoked enmities of the same
+kind.[1] But the aristocrats of Jerusalem, who despised him, had
+allowed simple men to take him for a prophet.[2] 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.[3] 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 Molière
+only touched the skin. He carried fire and rage to the very marrow.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. iii. 7, and following, xvii. 12, 13.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xiv. 5, xxi. 26; Mark xi. 32; Luke xx. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xii. 3-8, xxiii. 16, and following.]
+
+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.[1]
+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 fulfill the proverb--that a prophet must not die
+outside Jerusalem.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Mark iii. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xiii. 33.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+LAST JOURNEY OF JESUS TO JERUSALEM.
+
+
+Jesus had for a long time been sensible of the dangers that surrounded
+him.[1] During a period of time which we may estimate at eighteen
+months, he avoided going on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.[2] At the feast
+of Tabernacles of the year 32 (according to the hypothesis we have
+adopted), his relations, always malevolent and incredulous,[3] 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 every one, and almost alone.[4] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xvi. 20, 21; Mark viii. 30, 31.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John vii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John vii. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John vii. 10.]
+
+His disciples, and the pious women who tended him, met him again in
+Judea.[1] 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.[2] Instead of that illimitable faculty of belief, happy
+gift of youthful natures, which he found in Galilee--instead of those
+good and gentle people, amongst 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."[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvii. 55; Mark xv. 41; Luke xxiii. 49, 55.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John vii. 20, 25, 30, 32.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John vii. 50, and following.]
+
+The city, as we have already said, displeased Jesus. Until then he had
+always avoided great centres, 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.[1] 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.[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. x. 11-13; Mark vi. 10; Luke x. 5-8.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxi. 3, xxvi. 18; Mark xi. 3, xiv. 13, 14; Luke
+xix. 31, xxii. 10-12.]
+
+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."[1] 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 in unto the offerings of God; but she of her penury hath cast in
+all the living that she had."[2] This manner of criticising all he
+observed at Jerusalem, of praising the poor who gave little, of
+slighting the rich who gave much,[3] 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 _haram_ which succeeded
+it, was the last place in the world where revolution could prosper.
+Imagine an innovator going in our days to preach the overturning of
+Islamism round the mosque of Omar! There, however, was the centre 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxiv. 1, 2; Mark xiii. 1, 2; Luke xix. 44, xxi. 5,
+6. Cf. Mark xi. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mark xii. 41, and following; Luke xxi. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mark xii. 41.]
+
+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, toward 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,[1] 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.[2] 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.[3] There
+were upon the Mount of Olives two great cedars, the memory of which
+was long preserved amongst the dispersed Jews; their branches served
+as an asylum to clouds of doves, and under their shade were
+established small bazaars.[4] All this precinct was in a manner the
+abode of Jesus and his disciples; they knew it field by field and
+house by house.
+
+[Footnote 1: Mark xi. 19; Luke xxii. 39; John xviii. 1, 2. This
+orchard could not be very far from the place where the piety of the
+Catholics has surrounded some old olive-trees by a wall. The word
+_Gethsemane_ seems to signify "oil-press."]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xxi. 37, xxii. 39; John viii. 1, 2.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Talm. of Bab., _Pesachim_, 53 _a_.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Talm. of Jerus., _Taanith_, iv. 8.]
+
+The village of Bethany, in particular,[1] 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.[2] 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.[3] Of the two sisters, the one,
+named Martha, was an obliging, kind, and assiduous person;[4] the
+other, named Mary, on the contrary, pleased Jesus by a sort of
+languor,[5] 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."[6] Her brother, Eleazar, or Lazarus, was also much beloved by
+Jesus.[7] Lastly, a certain Simon, the leper, who was the owner of the
+house, formed, it appears, part of the family.[8] 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,[9] 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.[10] 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."[11]
+
+[Footnote 1: Now _El-Azerié_ (from _El-Azir_, the Arabic name of
+Lazarus); in the Christian texts of the Middle Ages, _Lazarium_.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxi. 17, 18; Mark xi. 11, 12.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John xi. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke x. 38-42; John xii. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 5: John xi. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Luke x. 38, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 7: John xi. 35, 36.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Matt. xxvi. 6; Mark xiv. 3; Luke vii. 40-43; John xii. 1,
+and following.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Mark xiii. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Josephus, _B.J._, V. v. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Matt. xxiii. 37; Luke xiii. 34.]
+
+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.[1]
+Excommunication, besides, carried with it the confiscation of all
+possessions.[2] 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."[3] 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 any one 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: John vii. 13, xii. 42, 43, xix. 38.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 1 Esdr. x. 8; Epistle to Hebrews x. 34; Talmud of Jerus.,
+_Moëdkaton_, iii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John vii. 45, and following.]
+
+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.[1]
+He was obliged to become controversialist, jurist, exegetist, and
+theologian. His conversations, generally so full of charm, became a
+rolling fire of disputes,[2] an interminable train of scholastic
+battles. His harmonious genius was wasted in insipid argumentations
+upon the Law and the prophets,[3] in which we should have preferred
+not seeing him sometimes play the part of aggressor.[4] He lent
+himself with a condescension we cannot but regret to the captious
+criticisms to which the merciless cavillers subjected him.[5] 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;[6] his reasoning, judged according
+to the rules of Aristotelian logic, was very weak. But when the
+unequaled 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.[7] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: John viii. 13, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxi. 23-37.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxii. 23, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxii. 42, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xxii. 36, and following, 46.]
+
+[Footnote 6: See especially the discussions reported by John, chapter
+viii., for example; it is true that the authenticity of such passages
+is only relative.]
+
+[Footnote 7: John viii. 3, and following. This passage did not at
+first form part of the Gospel of St. John; it is wanting in the more
+ancient manuscripts, and the text is rather unsettled. Nevertheless,
+it is from the primitive Gospel traditions, as is proved by the
+singular peculiarities of verses 6 and 8, which are not in the style
+of Luke, and compilers at second hand, who admitted nothing that does
+not explain itself. This history is found, as it seems, in the Gospel
+according to the Hebrews. (Papias, quoted by Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._,
+iii. 39.)]
+
+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
+_Boëthusim_, the family of Hanan, were only fanatical in their
+conservatism. The Sadducees, like Jesus, rejected the "traditions" of
+the Pharisees.[1] 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
+toward 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._, XIII. x. 6, XVIII. i. 4.]
+
+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, whilst 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 _Boëthusim_),
+approached him, and, under pretense 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 Cæsar, 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 Cæsar the things which
+are Cæsar's; and unto God the things that are God's."[1] Profound
+words, which have decided the future of Christianity! Words of a
+perfected spiritualism, and of marvellous justness, which have
+established the separation between the spiritual and the temporal, and
+laid the basis of true liberalism and civilization!
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxii. 15, and following; Mark xii. 13, and
+following; Luke xx. 20, and following. Comp. Talm. of Jerus.,
+_Sanhedrim_, ii. 3.]
+
+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."[1] 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."[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: John x. 1-16.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxiv. 32; Mark xiii. 28; Luke xxi. 30; John iv.
+35.]
+
+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,[1] enlarge the borders of their garments,[2] 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!...
+
+[Footnote 1: _Totafôth_ or _tefillin_, plates of metal or strips of
+parchment, containing passages of the Law; which the devout Jews wore
+attached to the forehead and left arm, in literal fulfilment of the
+passages (_Ex._ xiii. 9; _Deut._ vi. 8, xi. 18.)]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Zizith_, red borders or fringes which the Jews wore at
+the corner of their cloaks to distinguish them from the pagans (_Num._
+xv. 38, 39; _Deut._ xxii. 12.)]
+
+"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye have taken
+away the key of knowledge, shut up the kingdom of heaven against
+men![1] 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 pretense, 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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: The Pharisees excluded men from the kingdom of God by
+their fastidious casuistry, which rendered entrance into it too
+difficult, and discouraged the unlearned.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Contact with the tombs rendered any one impure. Great
+care was, therefore, taken to mark their extent on the ground. Talm.
+of Bab., _Baba Bathra_, 58 _a_; _Baba Metsia_, 45 _b_. Jesus here
+reproached the Pharisees for having invented a number of small
+precepts which might be violated unwittingly, and which only served to
+multiply infringements of the law.]
+
+"Ye fools, and blind! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin,
+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.
+Woe unto you!
+
+"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean
+the outside of the cup and of the platter;[1] but within they are
+full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee,[2] cleanse first
+that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may
+be clean also.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: The purification of vessels was subjected, amongst the
+Pharisees, to the most complicated laws (Mark vii. 4.)]
+
+[Footnote 2: This epithet, often repeated (Matt. xxiii. 16, 17, 19,
+24, 26), perhaps contains an allusion to the custom which certain
+Pharisees had of walking with closed eyes in affectation of sanctity.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke (xi. 37, and following) supposes, not without
+reason, that this verse was uttered during a repast, in answer to the
+vain scruples of the Pharisees.]
+
+"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; for ye are like unto
+whited sepulchres,[1] 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 men, but within ye are full of
+hypocrisy and iniquity.
+
+[Footnote 1: The tombs being impure, it was customary to whiten them
+with lime, to warn persons not to approach them. See p. 315, note 3,
+and Mishnah, _Maasar hensi_, v. 1; Talm. of Jerus., _Shekalim_, i. 1;
+_Maasar sheni_, v. 1; _Moëd katon_, i. 2; _Sota_, ix. 1; Talm. of
+Bab., _Moëd katon_, 5 _a_. Perhaps there is an allusion to the "dyed
+Pharisees" in this comparison which Jesus uses.]
+
+"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the
+tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres 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,[1] '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,[2] whom ye slew between
+the temple and the altar.' Verily, I say unto you, all these things
+shall come upon this generation."[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: We are ignorant from what book this quotation is taken.]
+
+[Footnote 2: There is a slight confusion here, which is also found in
+the Targum of Jonathan (_Lament._ ii. 20), between Zacharias, son of
+Jehoiadas, and Zacharias, son of Barachias, the prophet. It is the
+former that is spoken of (2 _Paral._ xxiv. 21.) The book of the
+Paralipomenes, in which the assassination of Zacharias, son of
+Jehoiadas, is related, closes the Hebrew canon. This murder is the
+last in the list of murders of righteous men, drawn up according to
+the order in which they are presented in the Bible. That of Abel is,
+on the contrary, the first.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxiii. 2-36; Mark xii. 38-40; Luke xi. 39-52, xx.
+46, 47.]
+
+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,[1] is used as a
+fearful menace against the aristocracy. The title "Son of God," which
+he openly assumed in striking parables,[2] wherein his enemies
+appeared as murderers of the heavenly messengers, was 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."[3] 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."[4] 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 amidst the last
+agonies of Golgotha. These irritating discussions always ended in
+tumult. The Pharisees threw stones at him;[5] 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.[6] At other times they called him mad,
+possessed, Samaritan,[7] and even sought to kill him.[8] 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.[9]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. viii. 11, 12, xx. 1, and following, xxi. 28, and
+following, 33, and following, 43, xxii. 1, and following; Mark xii. 1,
+and following; Luke xx. 9, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxi. 37, and following; John x. 36, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John ix. 39.]
+
+[Footnote 4: The most authentic form of this sentence appears to be in
+Mark xiv. 58, xv. 29. Cf. John ii. 19; Matt. xxvi. 61, xxvii. 40.]
+
+[Footnote 5: John viii. 39, x. 31, xi. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Deuter._ xiii. 1, and following. Comp. Luke xx. 6; John
+x. 33; 2 _Cor._ xi. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 7: John x. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 8: John v. 18, vii. 1, 20, 25, 30, viii. 37, 40.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Luke xi. 53, 54.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+MACHINATIONS OF THE ENEMIES 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.[1] This portico
+consisted of two galleries, formed by three rows of columns, and
+covered by a ceiling of carved wood.[2] It commanded the valley of
+Kedron, which was doubtless less covered with débris 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.[3] 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[4] 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.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: John x. 23.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _B.J._, V. v. 2. Comp. _Ant._, XV. xi. 5, XX. ix.
+7.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Jos., places cited.]
+
+[Footnote 4: See ante, p. 316. I am led to suppose that the tombs
+called those of Zachariah and of Absalom were monuments of this kind.
+Cf. _Itin. a Burdig. Hierus._, p. 153 (edit. Schott.)]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xxiii. 29; Luke xi. 47.]
+
+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.[1] It was
+also called the "Feast of Lights," because, during the eight days of
+the feast, lamps were kept lighted in the houses.[2] 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,[3] and in which he had himself
+administered baptism. He seems to have reaped consolation from this
+journey, especially 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,[4] was a customs station of importance. The
+chief receiver, Zaccheus, a rich man, desired to see Jesus.[5] 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 offense, 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[6] 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."[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: John x. 22. Comp. 1 Macc. iv. 52, and following; 2 Macc.
+x. 6, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _Ant._, XII. vii. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John x. 40. Cf. Matt. xix. 1; Mark x. 1. This journey is
+known to the synoptics. But they seem to think that Jesus made it by
+coming from Galilee to Jerusalem through Perea.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Eccles._ xxiv. 18; Strabo, XVI. ii. 41; Justin., xxxvi.
+3; Jos., _Ant._, IV. vi. 1, XIV. iv. 1, XV. iv. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Luke xix. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. xx. 29; Mark x. 46, and following; Luke xviii. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _B.J._, IV. viii. 3. Comp. _ibid._, I. vi. 6, I. xviii.
+5, and _Antiq._, XV. iv. 2.]
+
+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.[1] 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 repugnances 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 a 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: John xi. 1, and following.]
+
+Fame already attributed to Jesus two or three works of this kind.[1]
+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.[2] 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,[3]
+might be taken by those present for the agitation and trembling[4]
+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 every one 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 were
+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
+marvellous, 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. ix. 18, and following; Mark v. 22, and following;
+Luke vii. 11, and following, viii. 41, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John xi. 3, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John xi. 35, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xi. 33, 38.]
+
+Everything, in fact, seems to lead us to believe that the miracle of
+Bethany contributed sensibly to hasten the death of Jesus.[1] 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.[2] The enemies of Jesus were much irritated at
+all this fame. They endeavored, it is said, to kill Lazarus.[3] It is
+certain, that from that time a Council of the chief priests[4] 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."
+
+[Footnote 1: John xi. 40, and following, xii. 2, 9, and following, 17,
+and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John xii. 9, 10, 17, 18.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John xii. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xi. 47, and following.]
+
+"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 Kaïapha, 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.[1] Kaïapha, however, held it longer than any
+one 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._, XV. iii. 1, XVIII. ii. 2, v. 3, XX. ix. 1,
+4.]
+
+This personage was Hanan or Annas,[1] son of Seth, and father-in-law
+of Kaïapha. He was formerly the high priest, and had in reality
+preserved amidst 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,[2]
+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,[3] besides Kaïapha,
+who was his son-in-law. His was called the "priestly family," as if
+the priesthood had become hereditary in it.[4] The chief offices of
+the temple were almost all filled by them.[5] Another family, that of
+Boëthus, alternated, it is true, with that of Hanan's in the
+pontificate.[6] But the _Boëthusim_, 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. Kaïapha did
+nothing without him; it was customary to associate their names, and
+that of Hanan was always put first.[7] It will be understood, in fact,
+that under this _régime_ 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,[8] he was a Sadducee, "a sect," says
+Josephus, "particularly severe in its judgments." All his sons also
+were violent persecutors.[9] 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;[10] 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 Kaïapha, far
+more than Pilate, ought to bear the weight of the maledictions of
+mankind.
+
+[Footnote 1: The _Ananus_ of Josephus. It is thus that the Hebrew name
+_Johanan_ became in Greek _Joannes_ or _Joannas_.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John xviii. 15-23; _Acts_ iv. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Jos., _Ant._, XX. ix. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Jos., _Ant._, XV. iii. 1; _B.J._, IV. v. 6 and 7; _Acts_
+iv. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Jos., _Ant._, XX. ix. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Jos., _Ant._, XV. ix. 3, XIX. vi. 2, viii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Luke iii. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 8: _Acts_ v. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Jos., _Ant._, XX. ix. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Jos., _Ant._, XX. ix. 1.]
+
+It is in the mouth of Kaïapha that the evangelist places the decisive
+words which led to the death of Jesus.[1] 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.[2] 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 Kaïapha were right in saying: "Better the
+death of one man than the ruin 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: John xi. 49, 50. Cf. _ibid._, xviii. 14.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John xi. 48.]
+
+The death of Jesus was thus resolved upon from the month of February
+or the beginning of March.[1] 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.[2] 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.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: John xi. 53.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John xi. 54. Cf. 2 _Chron._ xiii. 19; Jos., _B.J._, IV.
+ix. 9; Eusebius and St. Jerome, _De situ et nom. loc. hebr._, at the
+words [Greek: Ephrôn] and [Greek: Ephraim].]
+
+[Footnote 3: John xi. 55, 56. 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 XXIII.
+
+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.[1] The impiety of
+men being at its height, was regarded as a great sign that the
+consummation was at hand. The persuasion in this respect was such,
+that they already disputed for precedence in the kingdom.[2] 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.[3] 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.[4] 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.[5] Jesus at last spoke to them, and no longer concealing
+his presentiments, discoursed to them of his approaching end.[6] 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,"[7] 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.[8]
+The misunderstanding between him and his disciples became greater each
+moment.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xix. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xxii. 24, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xx. 20, and following; Mark x. 35, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke xix. 12-27.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xvi. 21, and following; Mark viii. 31, and
+following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. xx. 17, and following; Mark x. 31, and following;
+Luke xviii. 31, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. xxiii. 39; Luke xiii. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Matt. xx. 28.]
+
+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.[1]
+The sixth day before the feast (Saturday, 8th of Nisan, equal to the
+28th March[2]) 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,[3] 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.[4] 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 afterward 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.[5] 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.[6] All
+the house was filled with the odor of the perfume, to the great
+delight of every one 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.[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: John xi. 56.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The Passover was celebrated on the 14th of Nisan. Now in
+the year 33, the 1st of Nisan corresponded with Saturday, 21st of
+March.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvi. 6; Mark xiv. 3. Cf. Luke vii. 40, 43, 44.]
+
+[Footnote 4: It is customary, in the East, for a person who is
+attached to any one by a tie of affection or of domesticity, to attend
+upon him when he goes to eat at the house of another.]
+
+[Footnote 5: I have seen this custom still practised at Sour (Zoar.)]
+
+[Footnote 6: We must remember that the feet of the guests were not, as
+amongst us, concealed under the table, but extended on a level with
+the body on the divan, or _triclinium_.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. xxvi. 6, and following; Mark xiv. 3, and following;
+John xi. 2, xii. 2, and following. Compare Luke vii. 36, and
+following.]
+
+The next day (Sunday, 9th of Nisan), Jesus descended from Bethany to
+Jerusalem.[1] 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.[2] 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,[3] he
+had experienced a momentary pleasure.[4] 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.[5] "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.[6] 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.[7] Jerusalem at these times was
+taken possession of by strangers. It was amongst 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;[8]
+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.[9] 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.[10]
+
+[Footnote 1: John xii. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xix. 41, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mishnah, _Menachoth_, xi. 2; Talm. of Bab., _Sanhedrim_,
+14 _b_; _Pesachim_, 63 _b_, 91 _a_; _Sota_, 45 _a_; _Baba metsia_, 85
+_a_. It follows from these passages that Bethphage was a kind of
+_pomærium_, which extended to the foot of the eastern basement of the
+temple, and which had itself its wall of inclosure. The passages Matt.
+xxi. 1, Mark xi. 1, Luke xix. 29, do not plainly imply that Bethphage
+was a village, as Eusebius and St. Jerome have supposed.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxi. 1, and following; Mark xi. 1, and following;
+Luke xix. 29, and following; John xii. 12, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Luke xix. 38; John xii. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 6: The number of 120,000, given by Hecatæus (in Josephus,
+_Contra Apion_, I. xxii.), appears exaggerated. Cicero speaks of
+Jerusalem as of a paltry little town (_Ad Atticum_, II. ix.) The
+ancient boundaries, whichever calculation we adopt, do not allow of a
+population quadruple of that of the present time, which does not reach
+15,000. See Robinson, _Bibl. Res._, i. 421, 422 (2d edition);
+Fergusson, _Topogr. of Jerus._, p. 51; Forster, _Syria and Palestine_,
+p. 82.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Jos., _B.J._, II. xiv. 3, VI. ix. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 8: John xii. 20, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Matt. xxi. 17; Mark xi. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Matt. xxi. 17, 18; Mark xi. 11, 12, 19; Luke xxi. 37,
+38.]
+
+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."[1] It was believed that a voice from
+heaven was heard at this moment: others said that an angel came to
+console him.[2] According to one widely spread version, the incident
+took place in the garden of Gethsemane. 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.[3] 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.[4] 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
+free conscience, and the complete model which all suffering souls will
+contemplate in order to fortify and console themselves.
+
+[Footnote 1: John xii. 27, and following. We can easily imagine that
+the exalted tone of John, and his exclusive preoccupation with the
+divine character of Jesus, may have effaced from the narrative the
+circumstances of natural weakness related by the synoptics.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xxii. 43; John xii. 28, 29.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvi. 36, and following; Mark xiv. 32, and
+following; Luke xxii. 39, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: This is the less to be understood, as John is affectedly
+particular in noticing the circumstances which were personal to him,
+or of which he had been the only witness (xiii. 23, and following,
+xviii. 15, and following, xix. 26, and following, 35, xx. 2, and
+following, xxi. 20, and following.)]
+
+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 Kaïapha.[1] 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,[2] they feared an
+outbreak; the arrest was therefore fixed for the next day, Thursday.
+It was resolved, also, not to seize him in the temple, where he came
+every day,[3] 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 synoptics give as the motive of the crime in
+question, does not suffice to explain it. It would be very singular if
+a 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[4] in
+exchange for a very small sum of money.[5] 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,[6] for which,
+however, there is no probability. We would rather ascribe it to some
+feeling of jealousy or to some dissension amongst the disciples. The
+peculiar hatred John manifests toward Judas[7] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvi. 1, 5; Mark xiv. 1, 2; Luke xxii. 1, 2.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxi. 46.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvi. 55.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xii. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 5: John does not even speak of a payment in money.]
+
+[Footnote 6: John vi. 65, xii. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 7: John vi. 65, 71, 72, xii. 6; xiii. 2, 27, and following.]
+
+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,[1] and, it is said, killed
+himself.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvii. 3, and following.]
+
+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 (2d 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.[1] 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 afterward supposed, owing to an error of a day in
+reckoning,[2] but for the primitive church this supper of the
+Thursday was the true passover, the seal 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvi. 1, and following; Mark xiv. 12; Luke xxii. 7;
+John xiii. 29.]
+
+[Footnote 2: This is the system of the synoptics (Matt. xxvi. 17, and
+following; Mark xiv. 12, and following; Luke xxii. 7, and following,
+15.) But John, whose narrative of this portion has a greater
+authority, expressly states that Jesus died the same day on which the
+Paschal lamb was eaten (xiii. 1, 2, 29, xviii. 28, xix. 14, 31.) The
+Talmud also makes Jesus to die "on the eve of the Passover" (Talm. of
+Bab., _Sanhedrim_, 43 _a_, 67 _a_.)]
+
+Doubtless the tender love which filled the heart of Jesus for the
+little church which surrounded him overflowed at this moment,[1] 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. Toward 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."[2] 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?"
+
+[Footnote 1: John xiii. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvi. 21, and following; Mark xiv. 18, and
+following; Luke xx. 21, and following; John xiii. 21, and following,
+xxi. 20.]
+
+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 cognizance 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.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: John xiii. 21, and following, which shows the
+improbabilities of the narrative of the synoptics.]
+
+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 practised 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.[1] 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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xxii. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 1 _Cor._ xi. 26.]
+
+Very early this mystery was embodied in a small sacramental narrative,
+which we possess under four forms,[1] very similar to one another.
+John, preoccupied with the Eucharistic ideas,[2] and who relates the
+Last Supper with so much prolixity, connecting with it so many
+circumstances and discourses[3]--and who was the only one of the
+evangelists whose testimony on this point has the value of an
+eye-witness--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.[4] No
+doubt, Jesus, on some occasions, had practised 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvi. 26-28; Mark xiv. 22-24; Luke xxii. 19-21; 1
+_Cor._ xi. 23-25.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Chap. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Chaps. xiii.-xvii.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xiii. 14, 15. Cf. Matt. xx. 26, and following; Luke
+xxii. 26, and following.]
+
+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.[1] 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."[2] At this last
+moment there were again evoked rivalries and struggles for
+precedence.[3] 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."[4] According to others, he promised them soon a celestial
+feast, where they would be seated on thrones at his side.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: John xiii. 1, and following. The discourses placed by
+John after the narrative of the Last Supper cannot be taken as
+historical. They are full of peculiarities and of expressions which
+are not in the style of the discourses of Jesus; and which, on the
+contrary, are very similar to the habitual language of John. Thus the
+expression "little children" in the vocative (John xiii. 33) is very
+frequent in the First Epistle of John. It does not appear to have been
+familiar to Jesus.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John xiii. 33-35, xv. 12-17.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke xxii. 24-27. Cf. John xiii. 4, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxvi. 29; Mark xiv. 25; Luke xxii. 18.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Luke xxii. 29, 30.]
+
+It seems that, toward 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.[1] He did not, however,
+follow out this idea; he saw clearly that timid provincials would not
+stand before the armed force of 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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xxii. 36-38.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvi. 31, and following; Mark xiv. 29, and
+following; Luke xxii. 33, and following; John xiii. 36, and
+following.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+ARREST AND TRIAL OF JESUS.
+
+
+It was nightfall[1] when they left the room.[2] 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,[3] 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 the priests. They were supported by a detachment
+of Roman soldiers with their swords. The order for the arrest emanated
+from the high priest and the Sanhedrim.[4] 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;[5] and
+according to some,[6] he carried his hateful conduct even to betraying
+him by a kiss. However this may be, it is certain that there was some
+show of resistance on the part of the disciples.[7] One of them
+(Peter, according to eye-witnesses[8]) 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.[9]
+
+[Footnote 1: John xiii. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The singing of a religious hymn, related by Matt. xxvi.
+30, and Mark xiv. 26, proceeds from the opinion entertained by these
+two evangelists that the last repast of Jesus was the Paschal feast.
+Before and after the Paschal feast, psalms were sung. Talm. of Bab.,
+_Pesachim_, cap. ix. hal. 3, and fol. 118 _a_, etc.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvi. 36; Mark xiv. 32; Luke xxii. 39; John xviii.
+1, 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxvi. 47; Mark xiv. 43; John xviii. 3, 12.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xxvi. 47; Mark xiv. 43; Luke xxii. 47; John xviii.
+3; _Acts_ i. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 6: This is the tradition of the synoptics. In the narrative
+of John, Jesus declares himself.]
+
+[Footnote 7: The two traditions are agreed on this point.]
+
+[Footnote 8: John xviii. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Mark xiv. 51, 52.]
+
+The course which the priests had resolved to take against Jesus was
+quite in conformity with the established law. The procedure against
+the "corrupter" (_mésith_), who sought to injure the purity of
+religion, is explained in the Talmud, with details, the naïve
+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."[1] 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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: In criminal matters, eye-witnesses alone were admitted.
+Mishnah, _Sanhedrim_, iv. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Talm. of Jerus., _Sanhedrim_, xiv. 16; Talm. of Bab.,
+same treatise, 43 _a_, 67 _a_. Cf. _Shabbath_, 104 _b_.]
+
+We learn from the disciples of Jesus themselves that the crime with
+which their Master was charged was that of "corruption;"[1] and apart
+from some minutiæ, 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.[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvii. 63; John vii. 12, 47.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John xviii. 13, and following. This circumstance, which
+we only find in John, is the strongest proof of the historic value of
+the fourth Gospel.]
+
+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, around 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 that Jesus had made. Touched to the heart, he went out and wept
+bitterly.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvi. 69, and following; Mark xiv. 66, and
+following; Luke xxii. 54, and following; John xviii. 15, and
+following, 25, and following.]
+
+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, Kaïapha, 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.[1] 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.[2] Jesus remained silent, and refused to explain the
+incriminated 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.[3] 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 defense. 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.[4] 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.[5] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xvi. 57; Mark xiv. 53; Luke xxii. 66.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxiii. 16, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvi. 64; Mark xiv. 62; Luke xxii. 69. John knows
+nothing of this scene.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Levit._ xxiv. 14, and following; _Deut._ xiii. 1, and
+following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Luke xxiii. 50, 51.]
+
+The Sanhedrim had not the right to execute a sentence of death.[1] 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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: John xviii. 31; Jos., _Ant._, XX. ix. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvi. 67, 68; Mark xiv. 65; Luke xxii. 63-65.]
+
+In the morning the chief priests and the elders again assembled.[1]
+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 the 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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvii. 1; Mark xv. 1; Luke xxii. 66, xxiii. 1; John
+xviii 28.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _Ant._, XV. xi. 5; _B.J._, VI. ii. 4.]
+
+The agents of the priests therefore bound Jesus and led him to the
+judgment-hall, which was the former palace of Herod,[1] adjoining the
+Tower of Antonia.[2] It was the morning of the day on which the
+Paschal lamb was to be eaten (Friday the 14th of Nisan, our 3d of
+April). 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.[3] Pilate being informed of
+their presence, ascended the _bima_[4] or tribunal, situated in the
+open air,[5] at the place named _Gabbatha_, or in Greek,
+_Lithostrotos_, on account of the pavement which covered the ground.
+
+[Footnote 1: Philo, _Legatio ad Caium_, § 38. Jos., _B.J._, II. xiv.
+8.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The exact place now occupied by the seraglio of the Pacha
+of Jerusalem.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John xviii. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 4: The Greek word [Greek: Bêma] had passed into the
+Syro-Chaldaic.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Jos., _B.J._, II. ix. 3, xiv. 8; Matt. xxvii. 27; John
+xviii. 33.]
+
+He had scarcely been informed of the accusation, before he displayed
+his annoyance at being mixed up with this affair.[1] 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 tenor 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: John xviii. 29.]
+
+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,[1] 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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Virg., _Æn._, XII. 121; Martial, _Epigr._, I. xxxii., X.
+xlviii.; Plutarch, _Life of Romulus_, 29. Compare the _hasta pura_, a
+military decoration. Orelli and Henzen, _Inscr. Lat._, Nos. 3574,
+6852, etc. _Pilatus_ is, on this hypothesis, a word of the same form
+as _Torquatus_.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Philo, _Leg. ad Caium_, § 38.]
+
+Jerusalem, the centre 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.[1] 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.[2] 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.[3] Two votive escutcheons with inscriptions, which he
+had set up at his residence near the sacred precincts, provoked a
+still more violent storm.[4] Pilate at first cared little for these
+susceptibilities; and he was soon involved in sanguinary suppressions
+of revolt,[5] which afterward ended in his removal.[6] 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 toward 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.[7] He knew that
+religious fanaticism, when it has obtained the sanction of civil
+governments to some act of violence, is afterward 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!
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. iii. 1, init.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. ii.-iv.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Talm. of Bab., _Shabbath_, 33 _b_.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Philo, _Leg. ad Caium_, § 38.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. iii. 1 and 2; Luke xiii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. iv. 1, 2.]
+
+[Footnote 7: John xviii. 35.]
+
+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,[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvii. 19.]
+
+The title of "King 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 Cæsar.[1] Pilate asked him
+if he was really the king of the Jews.[2] 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.[3] 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 toward the Jews.[4] Until the fall of Jerusalem, the rule which
+the Romans adopted in administration, was to remain completely
+indifferent to these sectarian quarrels.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xxiii. 2, 5.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvii. 11; Mark xv. 2; Luke xxiii. 3; John xviii.
+33.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John xviii. 38.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Acts_ xviii. 14, 15.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Tacitus (_Ann._, xv. 44) describes the death of Jesus as
+a political execution by Pontius Pilate. But at the epoch in which
+Tacitus wrote, the Roman policy toward the Christians was changed;
+they were held guilty of secretly conspiring against the state. It was
+natural that the Latin historian should believe that Pilate, in
+putting Jesus to death, had been actuated by a desire for the public
+safety. Josephus is much more exact (_Ant._, XVIII. iii. 3.)]
+
+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,[1] 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,[2]
+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,[3]
+and bore the surname of Bar-Abba, or Bar-Rabban.[4] He was a
+well-known personage,[5] and had been arrested for taking part in an
+uproar in which murder had been committed.[6] A general clamor was
+raised, "Not this man; but Jesus Bar-Rabban;" and Pilate was obliged
+to release Jesus Bar-Rabban.
+
+[Footnote 1: Mark xv. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvii. 20; Mark xv. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The name of Jesus has disappeared in the greater part of
+the manuscripts. This reading has, nevertheless, very great
+authorities in its favor.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxvii. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Cf. St. Jerome. In Matt. xxvii. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Mark xv. 7; Luke xxiii. 19. John (xviii. 40), who makes
+him a robber, appears here too much further from the truth than Mark.]
+
+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.[1] Scourging was the general preliminary of crucifixion.[2]
+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."[3] 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.[4] Roman citizens, as the legionaries were, would not have
+degraded themselves by such conduct.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvii. 26; Mark xv. 15; John xix. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _B.J._, II. xiv. 9, V. xi. 1, VII. vi. 4;
+Titus-Livy, XXXIII. 36; Quintus Curtius, VII. xi. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvii. 27, and following; Mark xv. 16, and
+following; Luke xxiii. 11; John xix. 2, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: See _Inscript. Rom. of Algeria_, No. 5, fragm. B.]
+
+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,[1] 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.[2] 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.[3] According to one tradition, he even sent Jesus to
+Antipas, who, it is said, was then at Jerusalem.[4] Jesus took no part
+in these well-meant efforts; he maintained, as he had done before
+Kaïapha, 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 Cæsar. 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 Cæsar. If thou let this
+man go, thou art not Cæsar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king
+speaketh against Cæsar."[5] 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,[6] 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!"[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xxiii. 16, 22.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John xix. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John xix. 9. Cf. Luke xxiii. 6, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: It is probable that this is a first attempt at a "Harmony
+of the Gospels." Luke must have had before him a narrative in which
+the death of Jesus was erroneously attributed to Herod. In order not
+to sacrifice this version entirely he must have combined the two
+traditions. What makes this more likely is, that he probably had a
+vague knowledge that Jesus (as John teaches us) appeared before three
+authorities. In many other cases, Luke seems to have a remote idea of
+the facts which are peculiar to the narration of John. Moreover, the
+third Gospel contains in its history of the Crucifixion a series of
+additions which the author appears to have drawn from a more recent
+document, and which had evidently been arranged with a special view to
+edification.]
+
+[Footnote 5: John xix. 12, 15. Cf. Luke xxiii. 2. In order to
+appreciate the exactitude of the description of this scene in the
+evangelists, see Philo, _Leg. ad Caium_, § 38.]
+
+[Footnote 6: See _ante_, p. 351.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. xxvii. 24, 25.]
+
+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 have 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."[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: John xix. 7.]
+
+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.[1] The pagan world has also had its
+religious violences. 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 régime which
+killed its founder, how much more consistent would it have been!--how
+much better would it have deserved of the human race!
+
+[Footnote 1: _Deut._ xiii. 1, and following.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+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 sceptical 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.[1] 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.[2] 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
+amongst the Romans, the soldiers, their profession being to kill,
+performed the office of executioners. Jesus was therefore delivered to
+a cohort of auxiliary troops, and all the most hateful features of
+executions introduced by the cruel habits of the new conquerors, were
+exhibited toward him. It was about noon.[3] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._, XX. ix. 1. The Talmud, which represents the
+condemnation of Jesus as entirely religious, declares, in fact, that
+he was stoned; or, at least, that after having been hanged, he was
+stoned, as often happened (Mishnah, _Sanhedrim_, vi. 4.) Talmud of
+Jerusalem, _Sanhedrim_, xiv. 16. Talm. of Bab., same treatise, 43 _a_,
+67 _a_.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _Ant._, XVII. x. 10, XX. vi. 2; _B.J._, V. xi. 1;
+Apuleius, _Metam._, iii. 9; Suetonius, _Galba_, 9; Lampridius, _Alex.
+Sev._, 23.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John xix. 14. According to Mark xv. 25, it could scarcely
+have been eight o'clock in the morning, since that evangelist relates
+that Jesus was crucified at nine o'clock.]
+
+The scene of the execution was at a place called Golgotha, situated
+outside Jerusalem, but near the walls of the city.[1] 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 northwest of the
+city, in the high, irregular plain which extends between the walls and
+the two valleys of Kedron and Hinnom,[2] 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.[3] 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.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvii. 33; Mark xv. 22; John xix. 20; _Heb._ xiii.
+12.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Golgotha, in fact, seems not entirely unconnected with
+the hill of Gareb and the locality of Goath, mentioned in Jeremiah
+xxxi. 39. Now, these two places appear to have been at the northwest
+of the city. I should incline to fix the place where Jesus was
+crucified near the extreme corner which the existing wall makes toward
+the west, or perhaps upon the mounds which command the valley of
+Hinnom, above _Birket-Mamilla_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The proofs by which it has been attempted to establish
+that the Holy Sepulchre has been displaced since Constantine are not
+very strong.]
+
+[Footnote 4: M. de Vogüé has discovered, about 83 yards to the east of
+the traditional site of Calvary, a fragment of a Jewish wall analogous
+to that of Hebron, which, if it belongs to the inclosure of the time
+of Jesus, would leave the above-mentioned site outside the city. The
+existence of a sepulchral cave (that which is called "Tomb of Joseph
+of Arimathea"), under the wall of the cupola of the Holy Sepulchre,
+would also lead to the supposition that this place was outside the
+walls. Two historical considerations, one of which is rather strong,
+may, moreover, be invoked in favor of the tradition. The first is,
+that it would be singular if those, who, under Constantine, sought to
+determine the topography of the Gospels, had not hesitated in the
+presence of the objection which results from _John_ xix. 20, and from
+_Heb._ xiii. 12. Why, being free to choose, should they have wantonly
+exposed themselves to so grave a difficulty? The second consideration
+is, that they might have had to guide them, in the time of
+Constantine, the remains of an edifice, the temple of Venus on
+Golgotha, erected by Adrian. We are, then, at times led to believe
+that the work of the devout topographers of the time of Constantine
+was earnest and sincere, that they sought for indications, and that,
+though they might not refrain from certain pious frauds, they were
+guided by analogies. If they had merely followed a vain caprice, they
+might have placed Golgotha in a more conspicuous situation, at the
+summit of some of the neighboring hills about Jerusalem, in accordance
+with the Christian imagination, which very early thought that the
+death of Christ had taken place on a mountain. But the difficulty of
+the inclosures is very serious. Let us add, that the erection of a
+temple of Venus on Golgotha proves little. Eusebius (_Vita Const._,
+iii. 26), Socrates (_H.E._, i. 17), Sozomen (_H.E._, ii. 1), St.
+Jerome (_Epist._ xlix., ad Paulin.), say, indeed, that there was a
+sanctuary of Venus on the site which they imagined to be that of the
+holy tomb; but it is not certain that Adrian had erected it; or that
+he had erected it in a place which was in his time called "Golgotha";
+or that he had intended to erect it at the place where Jesus had
+suffered death.]
+
+He who was condemned to the cross, had himself to carry the instrument
+of his execution.[1] 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 afterward of the Christian community. His two
+sons, Alexander and Rufus,[2] 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.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Plutarch, _De Sera Num. Vind._, 19; Artemidorus,
+_Onirocrit._, ii. 56.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mark xv. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The circumstance, Luke xxiii. 27-31, is one of those in
+which we are sensible of the work of a pious and loving imagination.
+The words which are there attributed to Jesus could only have been
+written after the siege of Jerusalem.]
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] Jesus, after having touched the
+edge of the cup with his lips, refused to drink.[3] 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,[4] and fastened to
+the cross. The cross was composed of two beams, tied in the form of
+the letter T.[5] It was not much elevated, so that the feet of the
+condemned almost touched the earth. They commenced by fixing it,[6]
+then they fastened the sufferer to it by driving nails into his hands;
+the feet were often nailed, though sometimes only bound with cords.[7]
+A piece of wood was fastened to the upright portion of the cross,
+toward the middle, and passed between the legs of the condemned, who
+rested upon it.[8] 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.[9]
+
+[Footnote 1: Talm. of Bab., _Sanhedrim_, fol. 43 _a_. Comp. _Prov._
+xxi. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Talm. of Bab., _Sanhedrim_, _l.c._]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mark xv. 23; Matt. xxvii. 34, falsifies this detail, in
+order to create a Messianic allusion from Ps. lxix. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxvii. 35; Mark xv. 24; John xix. 23. Cf.
+Artemidorus, _Onirocr._, ii. 53.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Lucian, _Jud. Voc._, 12. Compare the grotesque crucifix
+traced at Rome on a wall of Mount Palatine. _Civilta Cattolica_, fasc.
+clxi. p. 529, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Jos., _B.J._, VII. vi. 4; Cic., _In Verr._, v. 66;
+Xenoph. Ephes., _Ephesiaca_, iv. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Luke xxiv. 39; John xx. 25-27; Plautus, _Mostellaria_,
+II. i. 13; Lucan., _Phars._, vi. 543, and following, 547; Justin,
+_Dial. cum Tryph._, 97; Tertullian, _Adv. Marcionem_, iii. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Irenæus, _Adv. Hær._, ii. 24; Justin, _Dial. cum
+Tryphone_, 91.]
+
+[Footnote 9: See the _graffito_ quoted before.]
+
+Jesus tasted these horrors in all their atrocity. A burning thirst,
+one of the tortures of crucifixion,[1] 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,[2] 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.[3] The two robbers were crucified, one on each
+side. The executioners, to whom were usually left the small effects
+(_pannicularia_) of those executed,[4] drew lots for his garments,
+and, seated at the foot of the cross, kept guard over him.[5]
+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."[6]
+
+[Footnote 1: See the Arab text published by Kosegarten, _Chrest.
+Arab._, p. 64.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Spartianus, _Life of Adrian_, 10; Vulcatius Gallicanus,
+_Life of Avidius Cassius_, 5.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvii. 48; Mark xv. 36; Luke xxiii. 36; John xix.
+28-30.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Dig., XLVII. xx., _De bonis damnat._, 6. Adrian limited
+this custom.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xxvii. 36. Cf. Petronius, _Satyr._, cxi., cxii.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Luke xxiii. 34. In general, the last words attributed to
+Jesus, especially such as Luke records, are open to doubt. The desire
+to edify or to show the accomplishment of prophecies is perceptible.
+In these cases, moreover, every one hears in his own way. The last
+words of celebrated prisoners, condemned to death, are always
+collected in two or three entirely different shapes, by even the
+nearest witnesses.]
+
+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.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: John xix. 19-22.]
+
+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.[1] 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
+Magdalen, Joanna, wife of Khouza, Salome, and others, stayed at a
+certain distance,[2] and did not lose sight of him.[3] If we must
+believe John,[4] 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.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: John xix. 25, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The synoptics are agreed in placing the faithful group
+"afar off" the cross. John says, "at the side of," governed by the
+desire which he has of representing himself as having approached very
+near to the cross of Jesus.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvii. 55, 56; Mark xv. 40, 41; Luke xxiii. 49, 55;
+xxiv. 10; John xix. 25. Cf. Luke xxiii. 27-31.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xix. 25, and following. Luke, who always adopts a
+middle course between the first two synoptics and John, mentions also,
+but at a distance, "all his acquaintance" (xxiii. 49). The expression,
+[Greek: gnôstoi], may, it is true, mean "kindred." Luke, nevertheless
+(ii. 44), distinguishes the [Greek: gnôstoi] from the [Greek:
+sungeneis]. Let us add, that the best manuscripts bear [Greek: oi
+gnôstoi autô], and not [Greek: oi gnôstoi autou]. In the _Acts_ (i.
+14), Mary, mother of Jesus, is also placed in company with the
+Galilean women; elsewhere (Gospel, chap. ii. 35), Luke predicts that a
+sword of grief will pierce her soul. But this renders his omission of
+her at the cross the less explicable.]
+
+[Footnote 5: This is, in my opinion, one of those features in which
+John betrays his personality and the desire he has of giving himself
+importance. John, after the death of Jesus, appears in fact to have
+received the mother of his Master into his house, and to have adopted
+her (John xix. 27.) The great consideration which Mary enjoyed in the
+early church, doubtless led John to pretend that Jesus, whose favorite
+disciple he wished to be regarded, had, when dying, recommended to his
+care all that was dearest to him. The presence of this precious trust
+near John, insured him a kind of precedence over the other apostles,
+and gave his doctrine a high authority.]
+
+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."[1] 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.[2] The sky was dark;[3] 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 through infinite ages.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvii. 40, and following; Mark xv. 29, and
+following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvii. 44; Mark xv. 32. Luke has here modified the
+tradition, in accordance with his taste for the conversion of
+sinners.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvii. 45; Mark xv. 33; Luke xxiii. 44.]
+
+The peculiar atrocity of crucifixion was that one might live three or
+four days in this horrible state upon the instrument of torture.[1]
+The hæmorrhage 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.[2] 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.[3] All at once, he uttered a terrible cry,[4] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Petronius, _Sat._, cxi., and following; Origen, _In Matt.
+Comment. series_, 140 Arab text published in Kosegarten, _op. cit._,
+p. 63, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._, viii. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvii. 46; Mark xv. 34.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxvii. 50; Mark xv. 37; Luke xxiii. 46; John xix.
+30.]
+
+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 thy 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 has traced,
+ages of adorers will follow thee.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+JESUS IN THE TOMB.
+
+
+It was about three o'clock in the afternoon, according to our manner
+of reckoning,[1] when Jesus expired. A Jewish law[2] 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[3] their desire that this holy day should not be profaned
+by such a spectacle.[4] 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,[5] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvii. 46; Mark xv. 37; Luke xxiii. 44. Comp. John
+xix. 14.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Deut._ xxi. 22, 23; Josh. viii. 29, x. 26, and
+following. Cf. Jos., _B.J._, IV. v. 2; Mishnah, _Sanhedrim_, vi. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John says, "To Pilate"; but that cannot be, for Mark (xv.
+44, 45) states that at night Pilate was still ignorant of the death of
+Jesus.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Compare Philo, _In Flaccum_, § 10.]
+
+[Footnote 5: There is no other example of the _crurifragium_ applied
+after crucifixion. But often, in order to shorten the tortures of the
+sufferer, a finishing stroke was given him. See the passage from
+Ibn-Hischâm, translated in the _Zeitschrift für die Kunde des
+Morgenlandes_, i. p. 99, 100.]
+
+John, who professes to have seen it,[1] 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.[2] Origen afterward thought it needful to
+invoke miracle in order to explain so sudden an end.[3] The same
+astonishment is found in the narrative of Mark.[4] 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.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: John xix. 31-35.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Herodotus, vii. 194; Jos., _Vita_, 75.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _In Matt. Comment. series_, 140.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Mark xv. 44, 45.]
+
+[Footnote 5: The necessities of Christian controversy afterward led to
+the exaggeration of these precautions, especially when the Jews had
+systematically begun to maintain that the body of Jesus had been
+stolen. Matt. xxvii. 62, and following, xxviii. 11-15.]
+
+According to the Roman custom, the corpse of Jesus ought to have
+remained suspended in order to become the prey of birds.[1] 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.[2] 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-ramathaïm_[3]), went in
+the evening to ask the body from the procurator.[4] 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.[5] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Horace, _Epistles_, I. xvi. 48; Juvenal, xiv. 77; Lucan.,
+vii. 544; Plautus, _Miles glor._, II. iv. 19; Artemidorus, _Onir._,
+ii. 53; Pliny, xxxvi. 24; Plutarch, _Life of Cleomenes_, 39;
+Petronius, _Sat._, cxi.-cxii.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mishnah, _Sanhedrim_, vi. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Probably identical with the ancient Rama of Samuel, in
+the tribe of Ephraim.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxvii. 57, and following; Mark xv. 42, and
+following; Luke xxiii. 50, and following; John xix. 38, and
+following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Dig. XLVIII. xxiv., _De cadaveribus puntorum_.]
+
+Another secret friend, Nicodemus,[1] whom we have already seen
+employing his influence more than once in favor of Jesus, came forward
+at this moment. He arrived, bearing 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,[2] and no doubt
+accompanied the scene with piercing cries and tears.
+
+[Footnote 1: John xix. 39, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvii. 61; Mark xv. 47; Luke xxiii. 55.]
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] 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.[3]
+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.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: John xix. 41, 42.]
+
+[Footnote 2: One tradition (Matt. xxvii. 60) designates Joseph of
+Arimathea himself as owner of the cave.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The cave which, at the period of Constantine, was
+considered as the tomb of Christ, was of this shape, as may be
+gathered from the description of Arculphus (in Mabillon, _Acta SS.
+Ord. S. Bened._, sec. iii., pars ii., p. 504), and from the vague
+traditions which still exist at Jerusalem among the Greek clergy on
+the state of the rock now concealed by the little chapel of the Holy
+Sepulchre. But the indications by which, under Constantine, it was
+sought to identify this tomb with that of Christ, were feeble or
+worthless (see especially Sozomen, _H.E._, ii. 1.) Even if we were to
+admit the position of Golgotha as nearly exact, the Holy Sepulchre
+would still have no very reliable character of authenticity. At all
+events, the aspect of the places has been totally modified.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke xxiii. 56.]
+
+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.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xxiii. 54-56.]
+
+On the Sunday morning, the women, Mary Magdalen the first, came very
+early to the tomb.[1] 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 amongst 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,[2] or did enthusiasm, always credulous,
+create afterward 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 Magdalen[3] played an important part in
+this circumstance.[4] Divine power of love! Sacred moments in which
+the passion of one possessed gave to the world a resuscitated God!
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxviii. 1; Mark xvi. 1; Luke xxiv. 1; John xx. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: See Matt. xxviii. 15; John xx. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 3: She had been possessed by seven demons (Mark xvi. 9; Luke
+viii. 2.)]
+
+[Footnote 4: This is obvious, especially in the ninth and following
+verses of chap. xvi. of Mark. These verses form a conclusion of the
+second Gospel, different from the conclusion at xvi. 1-8, with which
+many manuscripts terminate. In the fourth Gospel (xx. 1, 2, 11, and
+following, 18), Mary Magdalen is also the only original witness of the
+resurrection.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+FATE OF THE ENEMIES OF JESUS.
+
+
+According to the calculation we adopt, the death of Jesus happened in
+the year 33 of our era.[1] It could not, at all events, be either
+before the year 29, the preaching of John and Jesus having commenced
+in the year 28,[2] or after the year 35, since in the year 36, and
+probably before the passover, Pilate and Kaïapha both lost their
+offices.[3] The death of Jesus appears, moreover, to have had no
+connection whatever with these two removals.[4] 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 Kaïapha, 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.[5] 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,[6] ofttimes dispensing with the consent of the latter in
+order to gratify their haughty and violent instincts.
+
+[Footnote 1: The year 33 corresponds well with one of the data of the
+problem, namely, that the 14th of Nisan was a Friday. If we reject the
+year 33, in order to find a year which fulfils the above condition, we
+must at least go back to the year 29, or go forward to the year 36.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke iii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. iv. 2 and 3.]
+
+[Footnote 4: The contrary assertion of Tertullian and Eusebius arises
+from a worthless apocryphal writing (See Philo, _Cod. Apocr., N.T._,
+p. 813, and following.) The suicide of Pilate (Eusebius, _H.E._, ii.
+7; _Chron._ ad annl. Caii) appears also to be derived from legendary
+records.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Jos., _Ant._, XX. ix. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Jos., _l.c._]
+
+Antipas and 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.[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. vii. 1, 2; _B.J._, II. ix. 6.]
+
+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[1]). It was supposed that this was the property
+acquired by the traitor.[2] According to one tradition,[3] he killed
+himself. According to another, he had a fall in his field, in
+consequence of which his bowels gushed out.[4] According to others, he
+died of a kind of dropsy, accompanied by repulsive circumstances,
+which were regarded as a punishment from heaven.[5] The desire of
+showing in Judas the accomplishment of the menaces which the Psalmist
+pronounces against the perfidious friend[6] 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 were seen the finger of heaven.
+
+[Footnote 1: St. Jerome, _De situ et nom. loc. hebr._ at the word
+_Acheldama_. Eusebius (_ibid._) says to the north. But the Itineraries
+confirm the reading of St. Jerome. The tradition which styles the
+necropolis situated at the foot of the valley of Hinnom _Haceldama_,
+dates back, at least, to the time of Constantine.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Acts_ i. 18, 19. Matthew, or rather his interpolator,
+has here given a less satisfactory turn to the tradition, in order to
+connect with it the circumstance of a cemetery for strangers, which
+was found near there.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvii. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Acts_, _l.c._; Papias, in Oecumenius, _Enarr. in Act.
+Apost._, ii., and in Fr. Münter, _Fragm. Patrum Græc._ (Hafniæ, 1788),
+fasc. i. p. 17, and following; Theophylactus, in Matt. xxvii. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Papias, in Münter, _l.c._; Theophylactus, _l.c._]
+
+[Footnote 6: Psalms lxix. and cix.]
+
+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 practising laws of intolerance. The empire
+was certainly still further from suspecting that its future destroyer
+was born. During 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 Cæsars. 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 rights 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?[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: This popular sentiment existed in Brittany in the time of
+my childhood. The gendarme was there regarded, like the Jew elsewhere,
+with a kind of pious aversion, for it was he who arrested Jesus!]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+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[1]--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.[2]
+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,[3] as an event of
+secondary importance, and in the enumeration of the sects of his time,
+he omits the Christians altogether.[4] 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.[5] The essential work of Jesus was
+to create around him a circle of disciples, whom he inspired with
+boundless affection, and amongst 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.[6] 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 at first was implied
+by being Christian.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. viii. 5, and following; Luke vii. 1, and following;
+John xii. 20, and following. Comp. Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. iii. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Tacitus, _Ann._, xv. 45; Suetonius, _Claudius_, 25.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Ant._, XVIII. iii. 3. This passage has been altered by a
+Christian hand.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ant._, XVIII. i.; _B.J._, II. viii.; _Vita_, 2.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Talm. of Jerusalem, _Sanhedrim_, xiv. 16; _Aboda zara_,
+ii. 2; _Shabbath_, xiv. 4; Talm. of Babylon, _Sanhedrim_, 43 _a_, 67
+_a_; _Shabbath_, 104 _b_, 116 _b_. Comp. _Chagigah_, 4 _b_; _Gittin_,
+57 _a_, 90 _a_. The two Gemaras derive the greater part of their data
+respecting Jesus from a burlesque and obscene legend, invented by the
+adversaries of Christianity, and of no historical value.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. iii. 3.]
+
+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 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 creeds 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. In
+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 marvellous 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! Those 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 extreme delicacy in the use of 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."[1] Religion, so far, has not existed without a
+share of asceticism, of piety, and of the marvellous. 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 were found in that age.
+
+[Footnote 1: Philostratus, _Life of Apollonius_, i. 2, vii. 11, viii.
+7; Unapius, _Lives of the Sophists_, pages 454, 500 (edition Didot).]
+
+Preserve us, then, from mutilating history in order to satisfy our
+petty susceptibilities! Which of us, pigmies 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
+co-operated 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 every
+one 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, Barhebræus, the Rabbis of Narbonne, or the
+_Motécallémin_ of Bagdad, 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 marvellous
+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
+afterward 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 centre 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 Asmoneans, 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 toward 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 toward 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
+comforted 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, toward 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 fulfill.
+
+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 demi-gods. 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.
+
+
+[THE END.]
+
+
+
+
+_Modern Library of the World's Best Books_
+
+COMPLETE LIST OF TITLES IN
+
+THE MODERN LIBRARY
+
+For convenience in ordering use number at right of title
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ADAMS, HENRY               The Education of Henry Adams 76
+AIKEN, CONRAD              A Comprehensive Anthology of
+                             American Poetry 101
+AIKEN, CONRAD              20th-Century American Poetry 127
+ANDERSON, SHERWOOD         Winesburg, Ohio 104
+AQUINAS, ST. THOMAS        Introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas 259
+ARISTOTLE                  Introduction to Aristotle 248
+ARISTOTLE                  Politics 228
+BALZAC                     Droll Stories 193
+BALZAC                     Père Goriot and Eugénie Grandet 245
+BEERBOHM, MAX              Zuleika Dobson 116
+BELLAMY, EDWARD            Looking Backward 22
+BENNETT, ARNOLD            The Old Wives' Tale 184
+BERGSON, HENRI             Creative Evolution 231
+BIERCE, AMBROSE            In the Midst of Life 133
+BOCCACCIO                  The Decameron 71
+BRONTË, CHARLOTTE          Jane Eyre 64
+BRONTË, EMILY              Wuthering Heights 106
+BUCK, PEARL                The Good Earth 15
+BURK, JOHN N.              The Life and Works of Beethoven 241
+BURTON, RICHARD            The Arabian Nights 201
+BUTLER, SAMUEL             Erewhon and Erewhon Revisited 136
+BUTLER, SAMUEL             The Way of All Flesh 13
+BYRNE, DONN                Messer Marco Polo 43
+CALDWELL, ERSKINE          God's Little Acre 51
+CALDWELL, ERSKINE          Tobacco Road 249
+CANFIELD, DOROTHY          The Deepening Stream 200
+CARROLL, LEWIS             Alice in Wonderland, etc. 79
+CASANOVA, JACQUES          Memoirs of Casanova 165
+CELLINI, BENVENUTO         Autobiography of Cellini 150
+CERVANTES                  Don Quixote 174
+CHAUCER                    The Canterbury Tales 161
+COMMAGER, HENRY STEELE     A Short History of the United States 235
+CONFUCIUS                  The Wisdom of Confucius 7
+CONRAD, JOSEPH             Heart of Darkness
+                             (In Great Modern Short Stories 168)
+CONRAD, JOSEPH             Lord Jim 186
+CONRAD, JOSEPH             Victory 186
+CORNEILLE and RACINE       Six Plays of Corneille and Racine 194
+CORVO, FREDERICK BARON     A History of the Borgias 192
+CRANE, STEPHEN             The Red Badge of Courage 130
+CUMMINGS, E.E.             The Enormous Room 214
+DANA, RICHARD HENRY        Two Years Before the Mast 236
+DANTE                      The Divine Comedy 208
+DAY, CLARENCE              Life with Father 230
+DEFOE, DANIEL              Robinson Crusoe and A Journal of the
+                             Plague Year 92
+DEFOE, DANIEL              Moll Flanders 122
+DEWEY, JOHN                Human Nature and Conduct 173
+DICKENS, CHARLES           A Tale of Two Cities 189
+DICKENS, CHARLES           David Copperfield 110
+DICKENS, CHARLES           Pickwick Papers 204
+DICKINSON, EMILY           Selected Poems of 25
+DINESEN, ISAK              Seven Gothic Tales 54
+DOS PASSOS, JOHN           Three Soldiers 205
+DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR        Crime and Punishment 199
+DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR        The Brothers Karamazov 151
+DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR        The Possessed 55
+DOUGLAS, NORMAN            South Wind 5
+DOYLE, SIR ARTHUR CONAN    The Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock
+                             Holmes 206
+DREISER, THEODORE          Sister Carrie 8
+DUMAS, ALEXANDRE           Camille 69
+DUMAS, ALEXANDRE           The Three Musketeers 143
+DU MAURIER, DAPHNE         Rebecca 227
+DU MAURIER, GEORGE         Peter Ibbetson 207
+EDMAN, IRWIN               The Philosophy of Plato 181
+EDMAN, IRWIN               The Philosophy of Santayana 224
+ELLIS, HAVELOCK            The Dance of Life 160
+EMERSON, RALPH WALDO       Essays and Other Writings 91
+FAST, HOWARD               The Unvanquished 239
+FAULKNER, WILLIAM          Sanctuary 61
+FAULKNER, WILLIAM          The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay
+                             Dying 187
+FIELDING, HENRY            Joseph Andrews 117
+FIELDING, HENRY            Tom Jones 185
+FLAUBERT, GUSTAVE          Madame Bovary 28
+FORESTER, C.S.             The African Queen 102
+FORSTER, E.M.              A Passage to India 218
+FRANCE, ANATOLE            Penguin Island 210
+FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN         Autobiography, etc. 39
+FROST, ROBERT              The Poems of 242
+GALSWORTHY, JOHN           The Apple Tree
+                             (In Great Modern Short Stories 168)
+GAUTIER, THEOPHILE         Mlle. De Maupin and
+                             One of Cleopatra's Nights 53
+GEORGE, HENRY              Progress and Poverty 36
+GODDEN, RUMER              Black Narcissus 256
+GOETHE                     Faust 177
+GOETHE                     The Sorrows of Werther
+                             (In Collected German Stories 108)
+GOGOL, NIKOLAI              Dead Souls 40
+GRAVES, ROBERT             I, Claudius 20
+HAMMETT, DASHIELL           The Maltese Falcon 45
+HAMSUN, KNUT               Growth of the Soil 12
+HARDY, THOMAS              Jude the Obscure 135
+HARDY, THOMAS              The Mayor of Casterbridge 17
+HARDY, THOMAS              The Return of the Native 121
+HARDY, THOMAS              Tess of the D'Urbervilles 72
+HART AND KAUFMAN           Six Plays by 233
+HARTE, BRET                The Best Stories of 250
+HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL       The Scarlet Letter 93
+HELLMAN, LILLIAN           Four Plays by 223
+HEMINGWAY, ERNEST          A Farewell to Arms 19
+HEMINGWAY, ERNEST          The Sun Also Rises 170
+HEMON, LOUIS               Maria Chapdelaine 10
+HENRY, O.                  Best Short Stones of 4
+HERODOTUS                  The Complete Works of 255
+HERSEY, JOHN               A Bell for Adano 16
+HOMER                      The Iliad 166
+HOMER                      The Odyssey 167
+HORACE                     The Complete Works of 141
+HUDSON, W.H.               Green Mansions 89
+HUDSON, W.H.               The Purple Land 24
+HUGHES, RICHARD            A High Wind in Jamaica 112
+HUGO, VICTOR               The Hunchback of Notre Dame 35
+HUXLEY, ALDOUS             Antic Hay 209
+HUXLEY, ALDOUS             Point Counter Point 180
+IBSEN, HENRIK              A Doll's House, Ghosts, etc. 6
+IRVING, WASHINGTON         Selected Writings of Washington Irving
+                             240
+JACKSON, CHARLES           The Lost Weekend 258
+JAMES, HENRY               The Portrait of a Lady 107
+JAMES, HENRY               The Turn of the Screw 169
+JAMES, HENRY               The Wings of the Dove 244
+JAMES, WILLIAM             The Philosophy of William James 114
+JAMES, WILLIAM             The Varieties of Religious Experience 70
+JEFFERS, WILLIAM           Roan Stallion; Tamar and Other
+                             Poems 118
+JEFFERSON, THOMAS          The Life and Selected Writings of 234
+JOYCE, JAMES               Dubliners 124
+JOYCE, JAMES               A Portrait of the Artist as a Young
+                             Man 145
+KAUFMAN AND HART           Six Plays by 233
+KOESTLER, ARTHUR           Darkness at Noon 74
+KUPRIN, ALEXANDRE          Yama 203
+LAOTSE                     The Wisdom of 262
+LARDNER, RING              The Collected Short Stories of 211
+LAWRENCE, D.H.             The Rainbow 128
+LAWRENCE, D.H.             Sons and Lovers 109
+LAWRENCE, D.H.             Women in Love 68
+LEWIS, SINCLAIR            Arrowsmith 42
+LEWIS, SINCLAIR            Babbitt 162
+LEWIS, SINCLAIR            Dodsworth 252
+LONGFELLOW, HENRY W.       Poems 56
+LOUYS, PIERRE              Aphrodite 77
+LUDWIG, EMIL               Napoleon 95
+MACHIAVELLI                The Prince and The Discourses of
+                             Machiavelli 65
+MALRAUX, ANDRÉ             Man's Fate 33
+MANN, THOMAS               Death in Venice
+                             (In Collected German Stories 108)
+MANSFIELD, KATHERINE       The Garden Party 129
+MARQUAND, JOHN P.          The Late George Apley 182
+MARX, KARL                 Capital and Other Writings 202
+MAUGHAM, W. SOMERSET       Of Human Bondage 176
+MAUGHAM, W. SOMERSET       The Moon and Sixpence 27
+MAUPASSANT, GUY DE         Best Short Stories 98
+MAUROIS, ANDRÉ             Disraeli 46
+McFEE, WILLIAM             Casuals of the Sea 195
+MELVILLE, HERMAN           Moby Dick 119
+MEREDITH, GEORGE           Diana of the Crossways 14
+MEREDITH, GEORGE           The Ordeal of Richard Feverel 134
+MEREDITH, GEORGE           The Egoist 253
+MEREJKOWSKI, DMITRI        The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci 138
+MILTON, JOHN               The Complete Poetry and Selected
+                             Prose of John Milton 132
+MISCELLANEOUS              An Anthology of American Negro
+                             Literature 163
+                           An Anthology of Light Verse 48
+                           Best Amer. Humorous Short Stories 87
+                           Best Russian Short Stories, including
+                             Bunin's The Gentleman from San
+                             Francisco 18
+                           Eight Famous Elizabethan Plays 94
+                           Famous Ghost Stories 73
+                           Five Great Modern Irish Plays 30
+                           Four Famous Greek Plays 158
+                           Fourteen Great Detective Stories 144
+                           Great German Short Novels and
+                             Stories 108
+                           Great Modern Short Stories 168
+                           Great Tales of the American West 238
+                           Outline of Abnormal Psychology 152
+                           Outline of Psychoanalysis 66
+                           The Consolation of Philosophy 226
+                           The Federalist 139
+                           The Making of Man: An Outline of
+                             Anthropology 149
+                           The Making of Society: An Outline of
+                             Sociology 183
+                           The Poetry of Freedom 175
+                           The Sex Problem in Modern Society 198
+                           The Short Bible 57
+                           Three Famous French Romances 85
+                             Sapho, by Alphonse Daudet
+                             Manon Lescaut, by Antoine Prevost
+                             Carmen, by Prosper Merimee
+MOLIERE                    Plays 78
+MORLEY, CHRISTOPHER        Parnassus on Wheels 190
+NASH, OGDEN                The Selected Verse of Ogden Nash 191
+NEVINS, ALLAN              A Short History of the United States 235
+NIETZSCHE, FRIEDRICH       Thus Spake Zarathustra 9
+NOSTRADAMUS                Oracles of 81
+ODETS, CLIFFORD            Six Plays of 67
+O'NEILL, EUGENE            The Emperor Jones, Anna Christie and
+                             The Hairy Ape 146
+O'NEILL, EUGENE            The Long Voyage Home and Seven
+                             Plays of the Sea 111
+PALGRAVE, FRANCIS          The Golden Treasury 232
+PARKER, DOROTHY            The Collected Short Stories of 123
+PARKER, DOROTHY            The Collected Poetry of 237
+PASCAL, BLAISE             Pensées and The Provincial Letters 164
+PATER, WALTER              Marius the Epicurean 90
+PATER, WALTER              The Renaissance 86
+PAUL, ELLIOT               The Life and Death of a Spanish
+                             Town 225
+PEARSON, EDMUND            Studies in Murder 113
+PEPYS, SAMUEL              Samuel Pepys' Diary 103
+PERELMAN, S.J.             The Best of 247
+PETRONIUS ARBITER          The Satyricon 156
+PLATO                      The Philosophy of Plato 181
+PLATO                      The Republic 153
+POE, EDGAR ALLAN           Best Tales 82
+POLO, MARCO                The Travels of Marco Polo 196
+POPE, ALEXANDER            Selected Works of 257
+PORTER, KATHERINE ANNE     Flowering Judas 88
+PROUST, MARCEL             Swann's Way 59
+PROUST, MARCEL             Within a Budding Grove 172
+PROUST, MARCEL             The Guermantes Way 213
+PROUST, MARCEL             Cities of the Plain 220
+PROUST, MARCEL             The Captive 120
+PROUST, MARCEL             The Sweet Cheat Gone 260
+RAWLINGS, MARJORIE KINNAN  The Yearling 246
+READE, CHARLES             The Cloister and the Hearth 62
+REED, JOHN                 Ten Days that Shook the World 215
+RENAN, ERNEST              The Life of Jesus 140
+ROSTAND, EDMOND            Cyrano de Bergerac 154
+ROUSSEAU, JEAN JACQUES     The Confessions of Jean Jacques
+                             Rousseau 243
+RUSSELL, BERTRAND          Selected Papers of Bertrand Russell 137
+SCHOPENHAUER               The Philosophy of Schopenhauer 52
+SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM       Tragedies, 1, 1A--complete, 2 vols.
+SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM       Comedies, 2, 2A--complete, 2 vols.
+SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM       Histories, 3         }
+                           Histories, Poems, 3A } complete, 2 vols.
+SHEEAN, VINCENT            Personal History 32
+SMOLLETT, TOBIAS           Humphry Clinker 159
+SNOW, EDGAR                Red Star Over China 126
+SPINOZA                    The Philosophy of Spinoza 60
+STEINBECK, JOHN            In Dubious Battle 115
+STEINBECK, JOHN            Of Mice and Men 29
+STEINBECK, JOHN            The Grapes of Wrath 148
+STEINBECK, JOHN            Tortilla Flat 216
+STENDHAL                   The Red and the Black 157
+STERNE, LAURENCE           Tristram Shandy 147
+STEWART, GEORGE R.         Storm 254
+STOKER, BRAM               Dracula 31
+STONE, IRVING              Lust for Life 11
+STOWE, HARRIET BEECHER     Uncle Tom's Cabin 261
+STRACHEY, LYTTON           Eminent Victorians 212
+SUETONIUS                  Lives of the Twelve Caesars 188
+SWIFT, JONATHAN            Gulliver's Travels, A Tale of a Tub, The
+                             Battle of the Books 100
+SWINBURNE, CHARLES         Poems 23
+SYMONDS, JOHN A.           The Life of Michelangelo 49
+TACITUS                    The Complete Works of 222
+TCHEKOV, ANTON             Short Stories 50
+TCHEKOV, ANTON             Sea Gull, Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters,
+                             etc. 171
+THACKERAY, WILLIAM         Henry Esmond 80
+THACKERAY, WILLIAM         Vanity Fair 131
+THOMPSON, FRANCIS          Complete Poems 38
+THOREAU, HENRY DAVID       Walden and Other Writings 155
+THUCYDIDES                 The Complete Writings of 58
+TOLSTOY, LEO               Anna Karenina 37
+TOMLINSON, H.M.            The Sea and the Jungle 99
+TROLLOPE, ANTHONY          Barchester Towers and The Warden 41
+TROLLOPE, ANTHONY          The Eustace Diamonds 251
+TURGENEV, IVAN             Fathers and Sons 21
+VAN LOON, HENDRIK W.       Ancient Man 105
+VEBLEN, THORSTEIN          The Theory of the Leisure Class 63
+VIRGIL'S WORKS             Including The Aeneid, Eclogues, and
+                             Georgics 75
+VOLTAIRE                   Candide 47
+WALPOLE, HUGH              Fortitude 178
+WALTON, IZAAK              The Compleat Angler 26
+WEBB, MARY                 Precious Bane 219
+WELLS, H.G.                Tono Bungay 197
+WHARTON, EDITH             The Age of Innocence 229
+WHITMAN, WALT              Leaves of Grass 97
+WILDE, OSCAR               Dorian Gray, De Profundis 125
+WILDE, OSCAR               Poems and Fairy Tales 84
+WILDE, OSCAR               The Plays of Oscar Wilde 83
+WOOLF, VIRGINIA            Mrs. Dalloway 96
+WOOLF, VIRGINIA            To the Lighthouse 217
+WRIGHT, RICHARD            Native Son 221
+YEATS, W.B.                Irish Fairy and Folk Tales 44
+YOUNG, G.F.                The Medici 179
+ZOLA, EMILE                Nana 142
+ZWEIG, STEFAN              Amok (In Collected German Stories 108)
+
+
+
+
+MODERN LIBRARY GIANTS
+
+_A series of full-sized library editions of books that formerly were
+available only in cumbersome and expensive sets._
+
+THE MODERN LIBRARY GIANTS REPRESENT A
+SELECTION OF THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS
+
+_Many are illustrated and some of them are over 1200 pages long._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+G1.  TOLSTOY, LEO. War and Peace.
+G2.  BOSWELL, JAMES. Life of Samuel Johnson.
+G3.  HUGO, VICTOR. Les Miserables.
+G4.  THE COMPLETE POEMS OF KEATS AND SHELLEY.
+G5.  PLUTARCH'S LIVES (The Dryden Translation).
+G6.} GIBBON, EDWARD. The Decline and Fall of the Roman
+G7.}   Empire (Complete in three volumes).
+G8.}
+G9.  YOUNG, G.F. The Medici (Illustrated).
+G10. TWELVE FAMOUS RESTORATION PLAYS (1660-1820)
+       (Congreve, Wycherley, Gay, Goldsmith, Sheridan, etc.)
+G11. JAMES, HENRY. The Short Stories of.
+G12. THE MOST POPULAR NOVELS OF SIR WALTER
+       SCOTT (Quentin Durward, Ivanhoe and Kenilworth).
+G13. CARLYLE, THOMAS. The French Revolution.
+G14. BULFINCH'S MYTHOLOGY (Illustrated).
+G15. CERVANTES. Don Quixote (Illustrated).
+G16. WOLFE, THOMAS. Look Homeward, Angel.
+G17. THE POEMS AND PLAYS OF ROBERT BROWNING.
+G18. ELEVEN PLAYS OF HENRIK IBSEN.
+G19. THE COMPLETE WORKS OF HOMER.
+G20. THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+G21. SIXTEEN FAMOUS AMERICAN PLAYS.
+G23. TOLSTOY, LEO. Anna Karenina.
+G24. LAMB, CHARLES. The Complete Works and Letters of
+       Charles Lamb.
+G25. THE COMPLETE PLAYS OF GILBERT AND SULLIVAN.
+G26. MARX, KARL. Capital.
+G27. DARWIN, CHARLES. The Origin of Species and The Descent
+       of Man.
+G28. THE COMPLETE WORKS OF LEWIS CARROLL.
+G29. PRESCOTT, WILLIAM H. The Conquest of Mexico and
+       The Conquest of Peru.
+G30. MYERS, GUSTAVUS. History of the Great American
+       Fortunes.
+G31. WERFEL, FRANZ. The Forty Days of Musa Dagh.
+G32. SMITH, ADAM. The Wealth of Nations.
+G33. COLLINS, WILKIE. The Moonstone and The Woman in White.
+G34. NIETZSCHE, FRIEDRICH. The Philosophy of Nietzsche.
+G35. BURY, J.B. A History of Greece.
+G36. DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR. The Brothers Karamazov.
+G37. THE COMPLETE NOVELS AND SELECTED TALES OF
+       NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
+G38. ROLLAND, ROMAIN. Jean-Christophe.
+G39. THE BASIC WRITINGS OF SIGMUND FREUD.
+G40. THE COMPLETE TALES AND POEMS OF EDGAR
+       ALLAN POE.
+G41. FARRELL, JAMES T. Studs Lonigan.
+G42. THE POEMS AND PLAYS OF TENNYSON.
+G43. DEWEY, JOHN. Intelligence in the Modern World: John
+       Dewey's Philosophy.
+G44. DOS PASSOS, JOHN. U.S.A.
+G45. LEWISOHN, LUDWIG. The Story of American Literature.
+G46. A NEW ANTHOLOGY OF MODERN POETRY.
+G47. THE ENGLISH PHILOSOPHERS FROM BACON TO
+       MILL.
+G48. THE METROPOLITAN OPERA GUIDE.
+G49. TWAIN, MARK. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
+G50. WHITMAN, WALT. Leaves of Grass.
+G51. THE BEST-KNOWN NOVELS OF GEORGE ELIOT.
+G52. JOYCE, JAMES. Ulysses.
+G53. SUE, EUGENE. The Wandering Jew.
+G54. FIELDING, HENRY. Tom Jones.
+G55. O'NEILL, EUGENE. Nine Plays by.
+G56. STERNE, LAURENCE. Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental
+       Journey.
+G57. BROOKS, VAN WYCK. The Flowering of New England.
+G58. THE COMPLETE NOVELS OF JANE AUSTEN.
+G59. HEMINGWAY, ERNEST. The Short Stories of.
+G60. DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR. The Idiot. (Illustrated by
+       Boardman Robinson).
+G61. SPAETH, SIGMUND. A Guide to Great Orchestral Music.
+G62. THE POEMS, PROSE AND PLAYS OF PUSHKIN.
+G63. SIXTEEN FAMOUS BRITISH PLAYS.
+G64. MELVILLE, HERMAN. Moby Dick.
+G65. THE COMPLETE WORKS OF RABELAIS.
+G66. THREE FAMOUS MURDER NOVELS
+     _Before the Fact_, Francis Iles.
+     _Trent's Last Case_, E.C. Bentley.
+     _The House of the Arrow_, A.E.W. Mason.
+G67. ANTHOLOGY OF FAMOUS ENGLISH AND AMERICAN
+       POETRY.
+G68. THE SELECTED WORK OF TOM PAINE.
+G69. ONE HUNDRED AND ONE YEARS' ENTERTAINMENT.
+G70. THE COMPLETE POETRY OF JOHN DONNE AND
+       WILLIAM BLAKE.
+G71. SIXTEEN FAMOUS EUROPEAN PLAYS.
+G72. GREAT TALES OF TERROR AND THE SUPERNATURAL.
+G73. A SUBTREASURY OF AMERICAN HUMOR.
+
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life of Jesus, by Ernest Renan
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Life of Jesus
+
+Author: Ernest Renan
+
+Release Date: August 22, 2005 [EBook #16581]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE OF JESUS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Linda Cantoni, and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+LIFE
+
+OF
+
+JESUS
+
+
+BY
+
+ERNEST RENAN
+
+
+INTRODUCTION BY
+
+JOHN HAYNES HOLMES
+
+[Transcriber's note: Introduction by John Haynes Holmes not included
+in this etext due to copyright restrictions.]
+
+
+MODERN LIBRARY
+NEW YORK
+
+
+INTRODUCTION COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY THE MODERN LIBRARY, INC.
+
+
+_Random House_ IS THE PUBLISHER OF
+
+THE MODERN LIBRARY
+
+BENNETT A. CERF * DONALD S. KLOPPER * ROBERT K. HAAS
+
+Manufactured in the United States of America
+
+Printed by Parkway Printing Company * Bound by H. Wolff
+
+
+
+
+TO THE PURE SOUL OF
+
+MY SISTER HENRIETTE
+
+_Who Died at Byblus on the 24th of September, 1861_
+
+
+Dost thou recall, from the bosom of God where thou reposest, those
+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 and copy each sheet as soon as I had written it,
+whilst 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
+judgments 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
+
+
+In presenting an English version of the celebrated work of M. Renan,
+the translator is aware of the difficulty of adequately rendering a
+work so admirable for its style and beauty of composition. It is not
+an easy task to reproduce the terseness and eloquence which
+characterize the original. Whatever its success in these respects may
+be, no pains have been spared to give the author's meaning. The
+translation has been revised by highly competent persons; but although
+great care has been taken in this respect, it is possible that a few
+errors may still have escaped notice.
+
+The great problem of the present age is to preserve the religious
+spirit, whilst getting rid of the superstitions and absurdities that
+deform it, and which are alike opposed to science and common sense.
+The works of Mr. F.W. Newman and of Bishop Colenso, and the "Essays
+and Reviews," are rendering great service in this direction. The work
+of M. Renan will contribute to this object; and, if its utility may be
+measured by the storm which it has created amongst the _obscurantists_
+in France, and the heartiness with which they have condemned it, its
+merits in this respect must be very great. It needs only to be added,
+that whilst warmly sympathizing with the earnest spirit which pervades
+the book, the translator by no means wishes to be identified with all
+the opinions therein expressed.
+
+_December 8, 1863._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                                  PAGE
+
+Introduction, by John Haynes Holmes                                 15
+
+Introduction, in Which the Sources of This History Are Principally
+Treated                                                             25
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Place of Jesus in the History of the World                          67
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Infancy and Youth of Jesus--His First Impressions                   81
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+Education of Jesus                                                  89
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+The Order of Thought Which Surrounded the Development
+of Jesus                                                            99
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+The First Saying of Jesus--His Ideas of a Divine Father
+and of a Pure Religion--First Disciples                            119
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+John the Baptist--Visit of Jesus to John, and His Abode in
+the Desert of Judea--Adoption of the Baptism of John               135
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+Development of the Ideas of Jesus Respecting the Kingdom
+of God                                                             148
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+Jesus at Capernaum                                                 160
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+The Disciples of Jesus                                             173
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+The Preachings on the Lake                                         184
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+The Kingdom of God Conceived as the Inheritance of the
+Poor                                                               194
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+Embassy from John in Prison to Jesus--Death of John--Relations
+of His School with That of Jesus                                   206
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+First Attempts on Jerusalem                                        213
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+Intercourse of Jesus with the Pagans and the Samaritans            227
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+Commencement of the Legends Concerning Jesus--His Own
+Idea of His Supernatural Character                                 235
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+Miracles                                                           248
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+Definitive Form of the Ideas of Jesus Respecting the Kingdom
+of God                                                             259
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+Institutions of Jesus                                              273
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+Increasing Progression of Enthusiasm and of Exaltation             285
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+Opposition to Jesus                                                295
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+Last Journey of Jesus to Jerusalem                                 305
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+Machinations of the Enemies of Jesus                               319
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+Last Week of Jesus                                                 329
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+Arrest and Trial of Jesus                                          344
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+Death of Jesus                                                     360
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+Jesus in the Tomb                                                  370
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+Fate of the Enemies of Jesus                                       376
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+Essential Character of the Work of Jesus                           381
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION,
+
+In Which the Sources of This History 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 underwent 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 of a society for which
+philosophy 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 religions
+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 marvellous
+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.
+
+The plan followed in this history has prevented the introduction into
+the text of long critical dissertations upon controverted points. A
+continuous system of notes enables the reader to verify from the
+authorities all the statements of the text. These notes are strictly
+limited to quotations from the primary sources; that is to say, the
+original passages upon which each assertion or conjecture rests. I
+know that for persons little accustomed to studies of this kind many
+other explanations would have been necessary. But it is not my
+practice to do over again what has been already done well. To cite
+only books written in French, those who will consult the following
+excellent writings[1] 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.[2]
+
+     _Histoire de la Theologie Chretienne au Siecle Apostolique_,
+     par M. Reuss, professeur a la Faculte de Theologie et au
+     Seminaire Protestant de Strasbourg.[3]
+
+     _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.[4]
+
+     _Vie de Jesus_, par le Dr. Strauss; traduite par M. Littre,
+     Membre de l'Institut.[5]
+
+     _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.[6]
+
+[Footnote 1: 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.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Leyde, Noothoven van Goor, 1862. Paris, Cherbuliez. A
+work crowned by the Society of The Hague for the defence of the
+Christian religion.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Strasbourg, Treuttel and Wurtz. 2nd edition. 1860. Paris,
+Cherbuliez.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Paris, Michel Levy freres, 1860.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Paris, Ladrange. 2nd edition, 1856.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Strasbourg, Treuttel and Wurtz. Paris, Cherbuliez.]
+
+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;[1] and although his book has, in my opinion, the fault of
+taking up the theological ground too much, and the historical ground
+too little,[2] it will be necessary, in order to understand the
+motives which have guided me amidst 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: The great results obtained on this point have only been
+acquired since the first edition of Strauss's work. The learned critic
+has, besides, done justice to them with much candor in his after
+editions.]
+
+[Footnote 2: It is scarcely necessary to repeat that not a word in
+Strauss's work justifies the strange and absurd calumny by which it
+has been attempted to bring into disrepute with superficial persons, a
+work so agreeable, accurate, thoughtful, and conscientious, though
+spoiled in its general parts by an exclusive system. Not only has
+Strauss never denied the existence of Jesus, but each page of his book
+implies this existence. The truth is, Strauss supposes the individual
+character of Jesus less distinct for us than it perhaps is in
+reality.]
+
+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; 2d, The compositions called
+the "Apocrypha of the Old Testament;" 3d, 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 colorless. 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[1] 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[2]--has perhaps retrenched or modified
+some expressions.[3] 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.[4] 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,
+Philip, Annas, Caiaphas, and Pilate are personages whom we can touch
+with the finger, and whom we see living before us with a striking
+reality.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Ant._, XVIII. iii. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: "If it be lawful to call him a man."]
+
+[Footnote 3: In place of [Greek: christos outos en], he certainly had
+these [Greek: christos outos elegeto].--Cf. _Ant._, XX. ix. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Eusebius (_Hist. Eccl._, i. 11, and _Demonstr. Evang._,
+iii. 5) cites the passage respecting Jesus as we now read it in
+Josephus. Origen (_Contra Celsus_, i. 47; ii. 13) and Eusebius (_Hist.
+Eccl._, ii. 23) cite another Christian interpolation, which is not
+found in any of the manuscripts of Josephus which have come down to
+us.]
+
+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,[1] 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, is 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 series of the
+prophets, the omission of Daniel in the panegyrics of Chapter xlix. of
+Ecclesiasticus, 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Jude Epist. 14.]
+
+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
+collections 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 these 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 no more
+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.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Persons who wish to read more ample explanations, may
+consult, in addition to the work of M. Reville, previously cited, the
+writings of Reuss and Scherer in the _Revue de Theologie_, vol. x.,
+xi., xv.; new series, ii., iii., iv.; and that of Nicolas in the
+_Revue Germanique_, Sept. and Dec., 1862; April and June, 1863.]
+
+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 personage,
+known either in the apostolic history, or in the Gospel history
+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,[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: In the same manner we say, "The Gospel according to the
+Hebrews," "The Gospel according to the Egyptians."]
+
+Firstly, as to Luke, doubt is scarcely possible. The Gospel of Luke is
+a regular composition, founded on anterior documents.[1] 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.[2]
+Now, the author of the Acts is a companion of St. Paul,[3] a title
+which applies to Luke exactly.[4] I know that more than one objection
+may be raised against this reasoning; but one thing, at 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 twenty-first chapter of Luke, inseparable from the rest of
+the work, was certainly written after the siege of Jerusalem, and but
+a short time after.[5] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke i. 1-4.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Acts_ i. 1. Compare Luke i. 1-4.]
+
+[Footnote 3: From xvi. 10, the author represents himself as
+eye-witness.]
+
+[Footnote 4: 2 Tim. iv. 11; Philemon 24; Col. iv. 14. The name of
+_Lucas_ (contraction of _Lucanus_) being very rare, we need not fear
+one of those homonyms which cause so many perplexities in questions of
+criticism relative to the New Testament.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Verses 9, 20, 24, 28, 32. Comp. xxii. 36.]
+
+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.[1] 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 the apostle Peter, written briefly, incomplete, and
+not arranged in chronological order, including narratives and
+discourses, ([Greek: lechthenta e prachthenta],) composed from the
+information and recollections of the apostle Peter; second, a
+collection of sentences ([Greek: logia]) written in Hebrew[2] 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 versa_, 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: In Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._, iii. 39. No doubt whatever
+can be raised as to the authenticity of this passage. Eusebius, in
+fact, far from exaggerating the authority of Papias, is embarrassed at
+his simple ingenuousness, at his gross millenarianism, and solves the
+difficulty by treating him as a man of little mind. Comp. Irenaeus,
+_Adv. Haer._, iii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: That is to say, in the Semitic dialect.]
+
+It matters little for our present object to push this delicate
+analysis further, 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 indubitable, 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.[1] Little importance was attached to these writings,
+and the preservers, such as Papias, greatly preferred oral
+tradition.[2] As men still believed that the world was nearly at an
+end, 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 clear 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.[3] 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,"[4] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke i. 1, 2; Origen, _Hom. in Luc._ 1 init.; St. Jerome,
+_Comment. in Matt._, prol.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Papias, in Eusebius, _H.E._, iii. 39. Comp. Irenaeus,
+_Adv. Haer._, III. ii. and iii.]
+
+[Footnote 3: It is thus that the beautiful narrative in John viii.
+1-11 has always floated, without finding a fixed place in the
+framework of the received Gospels.]
+
+[Footnote 4: [Greek: Ta apomnemoneumata ton apostolon, a kaleitai
+euangelia]. Justin, _Apol._ i. 33, 66, 67; _Dial. cum Tryph._, 10,
+100-107.]
+
+Who does not see the value of documents thus composed of the tender
+remembrances, and simple narratives, of the first two Christian
+generations, still full of the strong impression which the illustrious
+Founder had 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
+northeast 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[1] even in the second century, and where the
+first Galilean tendency was longer preserved than in other parts.
+
+[Footnote 1: Julius Africanus, in Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._, i. 7.]
+
+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 perusal of the 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 toward 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, toward the year 150, the fourth
+Gospel did exist, and was attributed to John. Explicit texts from St.
+Justin,[1] from Athenagorus,[2] from Tatian,[3] from Theophilus of
+Antioch,[4] from Irenaeus,[5] show that thenceforth this Gospel mixed
+in every controversy, and served as corner-stone for the development
+of the faith. Irenaeus is explicit; now, Irenaeus 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,[6] in Montanism,[7] and in the quarrel of the
+Quartodecimans,[8] 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,[9] now, this epistle is
+recognized as from John by Polycarp,[10] Papias,[11] and Irenaeus.[12]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Apol._, 32, 61; _Dial. cum Tryph._, 88.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Legatio pro Christ_, 10.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Adv. Graec._, 5, 7; Cf. Eusebius, _H.E._, iv. 29;
+Theodoret, _Haeretic. Fabul._, i. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ad Autolycum_, ii. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Adv. Haer._, II. xxii. 5, III. 1. Cf. Eus., _H.E._, v.
+8.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Irenaeus, _Adv. Haer._, I. iii. 6; III. xi. 7; St.
+Hippolytus, _Philosophumena_ VI. ii. 29, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Irenaeus, _Adv. Haer._, III. xi. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._, v. 24.]
+
+[Footnote 9: John, i. 3, 5. The two writings present the most complete
+identity of style, the same peculiarities, the same favorite
+expressions.]
+
+[Footnote 10: _Epist. ad Philipp._, 7.]
+
+[Footnote 11: In Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._, III. 39.]
+
+[Footnote 12: _Adv. Haer._, III. xvi. 5, 8; Cf. Eusebius, _Hist.
+Eccl._, v. 8.]
+
+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;[1] 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;[2] his hatred, on the
+contrary, of Judas,[3] 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,[4] 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.[5] 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,[6] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: John xiii. 23, xix. 26, xx. 2, xxi. 7, 20.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John xviii. 15-16, xx. 2-6, xxi. 15-16. Comp. i. 35, 40,
+41.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John vi. 65, xii. 6, xiii. 21, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: The manner in which Aristion and _Presbyteros Joannes_
+expressed themselves on the Gospel of Mark before Papias (Eusebius,
+_H.E._, III. 39) implies, in effect, a friendly criticism, or, more
+properly, a sort of excuse, indicating that John's disciples had
+better information on the same subject.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Compare John xviii. 15, and following, with Matthew xxvi.
+58; John xx. 2 to 6, with Mark xvi. 7. See also John xiii. 24, 25.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Chap. i. 14, xix. 35, xxi. 24, and following. Compare the
+First Epistle of St. John, chap. i. 3, 5.]
+
+A primary distinction, indeed, ought to be made in the Gospel of John.
+On the one side, this Gospel presents us with a rough draft 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.[1] 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.[2] 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 enter 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: See, for example, chaps. ix. and xi. Notice especially,
+the effect which such passages as John xix. 35, xx. 31, xxi. 20-23,
+24, 25, produce, when we recall the absence of all comments which
+distinguishes the synoptics.]
+
+[Footnote 2: For example, chap. iv. 1, and following, xv. 12, and
+following. Many words remembered by John are found in the synoptics
+(chap. xii. 16, xv. 20).]
+
+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 theatre 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 toward 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.[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: It was thus that Napoleon became a liberal in the
+remembrances of his companions in exile, when these, after their
+return, found themselves thrown in the midst of the political society
+of the time.]
+
+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,[1] 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 already had been drawn, from
+the death of John himself, (ver. 21-23.) Many other places bear the
+trace of erasures and corrections.[2] 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 penetrate
+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. Every one 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,[3] resume both
+probability and possibility in the narrative of the fourth Gospel. On
+the contrary, I dare defy any one 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 perpetual
+argumentation, this stage-effect devoid of simplicity, these long
+arguments after each miracle, these stiff and awkward discourses, the
+tone of which is so often false and unequal,[4] would not be tolerated
+by a man of taste compared with the delightful sentences of the
+synoptics. There are here evidently artificial portions,[5] 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.[6] Let us add
+that the vocabulary of Jesus cannot be recognized in the portions of
+which we speak. The expression, "kingdom of God," which was so
+familiar to the Master,[7] occurs there but once.[8] 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?
+
+[Footnote 1: The verses, chap. xx. 30, 31, evidently form the original
+conclusion.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Chap. vi. 2, 22, vii. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 3: For example, that which concerns the announcement of the
+betrayal by Judas.]
+
+[Footnote 4: See, for example, chaps. ii. 25, iii. 32, 33, and the
+long disputes of chapters vii., viii., and ix.]
+
+[Footnote 5: We feel often that the author seeks pretexts for
+introducing certain discourses (chaps. iii., v., viii., xiii., and
+following).]
+
+[Footnote 6: For example, chap. xvii.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Besides the synoptics, the Acts, the Epistles of St.
+Paul, and the Apocalypse, confirm it.]
+
+[Footnote 8: John iii. 3, 5.]
+
+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;
+every one 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 favor of the
+fourth Gospel. The author of this Gospel is, in fact, the better
+biographer; as if Plato, who, whilst 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 whilst 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.[1] Certain
+passages of Luke, where there is, as it were, an echo of the
+traditions of John,[2] prove also that these traditions were not
+entirely unknown to the rest of the Christian family.
+
+[Footnote 1: Papias, _loc. cit._]
+
+[Footnote 2: For example, the pardon of the adulteress; the knowledge
+which Luke has of the family of Bethany; his type of the character of
+Martha responding to the [Greek: diechouei] of John (chap. xii. 2);
+the incident of the woman who wiped the feet of Jesus with her hair;
+an obscure notion of the travels of Jesus to Jerusalem; the idea that
+in his passion he was seen by three witnesses; the opinion of the
+author that some disciples were present at the crucifixion; the
+knowledge which he has of the part played by Annas in aiding Caiaphas;
+the appearance of the angel in the agony (comp. John xii. 28, 29).]
+
+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 splendor at once mild and terrible--a divine
+strength, if we may so speak, emphasizes 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 unequaled 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.[1] The Gospel of Mark is much firmer, more
+precise, containing fewer subsequent additions. He is the one of the
+three synoptics who has remained 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 amongst the other evangelists. He likes to report certain words
+of Jesus in Syro-Chaldean.[2] He is full of minute observations,
+coming doubtless from an eye-witness. There is nothing to prevent our
+agreeing with Papias in regarding this eye-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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Chaps. i., ii., especially. See also chap. xxvii. 3, 19,
+51, 53, 60, xxviii. 2, and following, in comparing Mark.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Chap. v. 41, vii. 34, xv. 24. Matthew only presents this
+peculiarity once (chap. xxvii. 46).]
+
+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.[1] Writing
+outside of Palestine, and certainly after the siege of Jerusalem,[2]
+the author indicates the places with less exactitude 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.[3]
+He subdues some details in order to make the different narratives
+agree;[4] he softens the passages which had become embarrassing on
+account of a more exalted idea of the divinity of Christ;[5] he
+exaggerates the marvellous;[6] commits errors in chronology;[7] omits
+Hebraistic comments;[8] 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 labors 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;[9] sometimes
+he divides one in order to make two.[10] 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;[11] he insists that
+Jesus had performed all the Jewish rites,[12] he is a warm Ebionite
+and democrat, that is to say, much opposed to property, and persuaded
+that the triumph of the poor is approaching;[13] he likes especially
+all the anecdotes showing prominently the conversion of sinners--the
+exaltation of the humble;[14] he often modifies the ancient traditions
+in order to give them this meaning;[15] 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,[16] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Chap. xiv. 26. The rules of the apostolate (chap. x.)
+have there a peculiar character of exaltation.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Chap. xix. 41, 43, 44, xxi. 9, 20, xxiii. 29.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Chap. ii. 37, xviii. 10, and following, xxiv. 53.]
+
+[Footnote 4: For example, chap. iv. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Chap. iii. 23. He omits Matt. xxiv. 36.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Chap. iv. 14, xxii. 43, 44.]
+
+[Footnote 7: For example, in that which concerns Quirinius, Lysanias,
+Theudas.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Compare Luke i. 31 with Matt. i. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 9: For example, chap. xix. 12-27.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Thus, of the repast at Bethany he gives two narratives,
+chap. vii. 36-48, and x. 38-42.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Chap. xxiii. 56.]
+
+[Footnote 12: Chap. ii. 21, 22, 39, 41, 42. This is an Ebionitish
+feature. Cf. _Philosophumena_ VII. vi. 34.]
+
+[Footnote 13: The parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Compare chap.
+vi. 20, and following, 24, and following, xii. 13, and following, xvi.
+entirely, xxii. 35. _Acts_ ii. 44, 45, v. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 14: The woman who anoints his feet, Zaccheus, the penitent
+thief, the parable of the Pharisee and the publican, and the prodigal
+son.]
+
+[Footnote 15: For example, Mary of Bethany is represented by him as a
+sinner who becomes converted.]
+
+[Footnote 16: Jesus weeping over Jerusalem, the bloody sweat, the
+meeting of the holy women, the penitent thief, &c. The speech to the
+women of Jerusalem (xxiii. 28, 29) could scarcely have been conceived
+except after the siege of the year 70.]
+
+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 originals
+which we no longer possess. He is less an evangelist than a biographer
+of Jesus, a "harmonizer," 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 ([Greek:
+logia] of Matthew, [Greek: lechthenta e prachthenta] 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 Gospels 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 orders 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 Gospels, 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 biographies. 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.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: See the passage from Papias, before cited.]
+
+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 idealized. 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 an 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."[1] Too simple explanations are
+always false when analyzing 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
+amongst 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 analyst always present to note the gestures, the manners, the
+sentiments of the actors? Let any one 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
+coloring 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 inexactitude 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
+idealized.
+
+[Footnote 1: See, for example, John xix. 23-24.]
+
+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. Sprenger for having, in writing the life
+of Mahomet, 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
+Mahomet 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 priori_
+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.[1] If it is
+proved that no contemporary miracle will bear inquiry, is it not
+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?
+
+[Footnote 1: See the _Gazette des Tribunaux_, 10th Sept. and 11th
+Nov., 1851, 28th May, 1857.]
+
+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 what has been done once; and as, in the order of miracle,
+there can be no question of ease or difficulty, 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 afterward? 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 ascertain 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 1860 and
+1861,[1] 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 labored 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: The work which will contain the results of this mission
+is in the press.]
+
+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 endeavored
+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 coloring. 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.[1] 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 Mahomet, 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 already in circulation in his
+time, and to the practices which are in vogue; that, when riper, and
+in full possession of his idea, he delights in a kind of calm and
+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 unfolding 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 exposition of a profound, complicated thought.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Loc. cit._]
+
+If the love of a subject can help one to understand it, it will also,
+I hope, be recognized 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 honor 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.
+
+
+
+
+LIFE OF JESUS
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+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
+with which we have to do 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 degenerated into the
+shameful scenes of butchery which form the character of the ancient
+religion of Mexico. Amongst 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 endeavor to suppress.
+
+The brilliant civilizations 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 possess. Buddhism failed in all its
+approaches toward 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 a solid
+aliment to the soul. Persia alone succeeded in making a dogmatic
+religion, almost Monotheistic, and skilfully 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 Mohammedanism appear on her frontiers.
+
+It is the Semitic race[1] 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 to 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
+_materiel_; there were collected the sacred objects of the nation, its
+relics, its souvenirs, and, lastly, the "book,"[2] 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 temples appeared to them as a city placed on
+the summit of a mountain, toward which all people should turn, as an
+oracle whence the universal law should proceed, as the centre of an
+ideal kingdom, in which the human race, set at rest by Israel, should
+find again the joys of Eden.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: I remind the reader that this word means here simply the
+people who speak or have spoken one of the languages called Semitic.
+Such a designation is entirely defective; but it is one of those
+words, like "Gothic architecture," "Arabian numerals," which we must
+preserve to be understood, even after we have demonstrated the error
+that they imply.]
+
+[Footnote 2: I Sam. x. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Isa. ii. 1-4, and especially chaps. xl., and following,
+lx., and following; Micah iv. 1, and following. It must be recollected
+that the second part of the book of Isaiah, beginning at chap. xl., is
+not by Isaiah.]
+
+Mystical utterances already made themselves heard, tending to exalt
+the martyrdom and celebrate the power of the "Man of Sorrows."
+Respecting one of those sublime sufferers, who, like Jeremiah, 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.[1] "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 every one 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."
+
+[Footnote 1: Isa. lii. 13, and following, and liii. entirely.]
+
+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 toward 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 sombre passion. Caring little for the
+national dynasty or political independence, it accepted all
+governments which permitted it to practise freely its worship and
+follow its 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 defense 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 propagandism, 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.[1] 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;[2] soon it became a work of piety
+to bring into it the greatest number possible.[3] 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.[4] 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.[5] 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,[6] the romance of the race-course of
+Alexandria[7]--the guides of the people sought above all to inculcate
+the idea, that virtue consists in a fanatical attachment to fixed
+religious institutions.
+
+[Footnote 1: Ruth i. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Esther ix. 27.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxiii. 15; Josephus, _Vita_, 23; _B.J._, II. xvii.
+10, VII. iii. 3; _Ant._, XX. ii. 4; Horat., Sat. I., iv., 143; Juv.,
+xiv. 96, and following; Tacitus, _Ann._, II. 85; _Hist._, V. 5; Dion
+Cassius, xxxvii. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Mishnah, _Shebiit_, X. 9; Talmud of Babylon, _Niddah_,
+fol. 13 _b_; _Jebamoth_, 47 _b_, _Kiddushim_, 70 _b_; Midrash, _Jalkut
+Ruth_, fol. 163 _d_.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Apocryphal letter of Baruch, in Fabricius, _Cod. pseud.,
+V.T._, ii., 147, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: II. Book of Maccabees, ch. vii. and the _De Maccabaeis_,
+attributed to Josephus. Cf. Epistle to the Hebrews xi. 33, and
+following.]
+
+[Footnote 7: III. Book (Apocr.) of Maccabees; Rufin, Suppl. ad Jos.,
+_Contra Apionem_, ii. 5.]
+
+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[1]--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.[2] 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 new 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Chap. vii. 13, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Vendidad_, chap. xix. 18, 19; _Minokhired_, a passage
+published in the "_Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlaendischen
+Gesellschaft_," chap. i. 263; _Boundehesch_, chap. xxxi. The want of
+certain chronology for the Zend and Pehlvis texts leaves much doubt
+hovering over the relations between the Jewish and Persian beliefs.]
+
+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 dogmatic power analogous to 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, because 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.[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Egl. iv. The _Cumaeum carmen_ (v. 4) was a sort of
+Sibylline apocalypse, borrowed from the philosophy of history familiar
+to the East. See Servius on this verse, and _Carmina Sibyllina_, iii.
+97-817; cf. Tac., _Hist._, v. 13.]
+
+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[1]--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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke ii. 25, and following.]
+
+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 II.
+
+INFANCY AND YOUTH OF JESUS--HIS FIRST IMPRESSIONS.
+
+
+Jesus was born at Nazareth,[1] a small town of Galilee, which before
+his time had no celebrity.[2] All his life he was designated by the
+name of "the Nazarene,"[3] and it is only by a rather embarrassed and
+round-about way,[4] that, in the legends respecting him, he is made
+to be born at Bethlehem. We shall see later[5] the motive for this
+supposition, and how it was the necessary consequence of the Messianic
+character attributed to Jesus.[6] 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.[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xiii. 54, and following; Mark vi. 1, and following;
+John i. 45-46.]
+
+[Footnote 2: It is neither named in the writings of the Old Testament,
+nor in Josephus, nor in the Talmud.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mark i. 24; Luke xviii. 37; John xix. 19; _Acts_ ii. 22,
+iii. 6. Hence the name of _Nazarenes_ for a long time applied to
+Christians, and which still designates them in all Mohammedan
+countries.]
+
+[Footnote 4: 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. 1, ii. 1). 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 reduced to
+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.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Chap. XIV.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. ii. 1, and following; Luke ii. 1, and following.
+The omission of this narrative in Mark, and the two parallel passages,
+Matt. xiii. 54, and Mark vi. 1, where Nazareth figures as the
+"country" of Jesus, prove that such a legend was absent from the
+primitive text which has furnished the rough draft of the present
+Gospels of Matthew and Mark. It was to meet oft-repeated objections
+that there were added to the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew
+reservations, the contradiction of which with the rest of the text was
+not so flagrant, that it was felt necessary to correct the passages
+which had at first been written from quite another point of view.
+Luke, on the contrary (chap. iv. 16), writing more carefully, has
+employed, in order to be consistent, a more softened expression. As to
+John, he knows nothing of the journey to Bethlehem; for him, Jesus is
+merely "of Nazareth" or "Galilean," in two circumstances in which it
+would have been of the highest importance to recall his birth at
+Bethlehem (chap. i. 45, 46, vi. 41, 42).]
+
+[Footnote 7: It is known that the calculation which serves as basis of
+the common era was made in the sixth century by _Dionysius the Less_.
+This calculation implies certain purely hypothetical data.]
+
+The name of _Jesus_, which was given him, is an alteration from
+_Joshua_. It was a very common name; but afterward mysteries, and an
+allusion to his character of Saviour, were naturally sought for in
+it.[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. i. 21; Luke i. 31.]
+
+The population of Galilee was very mixed, as the very name of the
+country[1] indicated. This province counted amongst its inhabitants,
+in the time of Jesus, many who were not Jews (Phoenicians, Syrians,
+Arabs, and even Greeks).[2] 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 distinction of
+blood in humanity.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Gelil haggoyim_, "Circle of the Gentiles."]
+
+[Footnote 2: Strabo, XVI. ii. 35; Jos., _Vita_, 12.]
+
+He proceeded from the ranks of the people.[1] His father, Joseph, and
+his mother, Mary, were people in humble circumstances, artisans living
+by their labor,[2] 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 every one voluntarily
+poor. On the other hand, the total want of taste for art, and for that
+which contributes 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 to-day.[3] 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 by the door, serving at once for shop, kitchen, and
+bedroom, having for furniture a mat, some cushions on the ground, one
+or two clay pots, and a painted chest.
+
+[Footnote 1: We shall explain later (Chap. XIV.) the origin of the
+genealogies intended to connect him with the race of David. The
+Ebionites suppressed them (Epiph., _Adv. Haer._, XXX. 14).]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xiii. 55; Mark vi. 3; John vi. 42.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The rough aspect of the ruins which cover Palestine
+proves that the towns which were not constructed in the Roman manner
+were very badly built. As to the form of the houses, it is, in Syria,
+so simple and so imperiously regulated by the climate, that it can
+scarcely ever have changed.]
+
+The family, whether it proceeded from one or many marriages, was
+rather numerous. Jesus had brothers and sisters,[1] of whom he seems
+to have been the eldest.[2] 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
+earliest years of the development of Christianity, were his
+cousins-german. Mary, in fact, had a sister also named Mary,[3] who
+married a certain Alpheus or Cleophas (these two names appear to
+designate the same person[4]), 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,[5] took the title of "brothers of the Lord."[6] The real
+brothers of Jesus, like their mother, became important only after his
+death.[7] Even then they do not appear to have equaled 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xii. 46, and following, xiii. 55, and following;
+Mark iii. 31, and following, vi. 3; Luke viii. 19, and following; John
+ii. 12, vii. 3, 5, 10; _Acts_ i. 14.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. i. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 3: That these two sisters should bear the same name is a
+singular fact. There is probably some error arising from the habit of
+giving the name of Mary indiscriminately to Galilean women.]
+
+[Footnote 4: They are not etymologically identical. [Greek: Alphaios]
+is the transcription of the Syro-Chaldean name Halphai; [Greek:
+Klopas] or [Greek: Kleopas] is a shortened form of [Greek:
+Kleopatros]. But there might have been an artificial substitution of
+one for the other, just as Joseph was called "Hegissippus," the
+Eliakim "Alcimus," &c.]
+
+[Footnote 5: John vii. 3, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: In fact, the four personages who are named (Matt. xiii.
+55, Mark vi. 3) as sons of Mary, mother of Jesus, Jacob, Joseph or
+Joses, Simon, and Jude, are found again a little later as sons of Mary
+and Cleophas. (Matt. xxvii. 56; Mark xv. 40; _Gal._ i. 19; _Epist.
+James_ i. 1; _Epist. Jude_ 1; Euseb., _Chron._ ad ann. R. DCCCX.;
+_Hist. Eccl._, iii. 11, 32; _Constit. Apost._, vii. 46.) The
+hypothesis we offer alone removes the immense difficulty which is
+found in supposing two sisters having each three or four sons bearing
+the same names, and in admitting that James and Simon, the first two
+bishops of Jerusalem, designated as brothers of the Lord, may have
+been real brothers of Jesus, who had begun by being hostile to him and
+then were converted. The evangelist, hearing these four sons of
+Cleophas called "brothers of the Lord," has placed by mistake their
+names in the passage _Matt._ xiii. 5 = _Mark_ vi. 3, instead of the
+names of the real brothers, which have always remained obscure. In
+this matter we may explain how the character of the personages called
+"brothers of the Lord," of James, for instance, is so different from
+that of the real brothers of Jesus as they are seen delineated in John
+vii. 2, and following. The expression "brother of the Lord" evidently
+constituted, in the primitive Church, a kind of order similar to that
+of the apostles. See especially 1 _Cor._ ix. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _Acts_ i. 14.]
+
+His sisters were married at Nazareth,[1] 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.[2] 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 unequaled 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.[3] 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[4]--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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Mark vi. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: According to Josephus (_B.J._, III. iii. 2), the smallest
+town of Galilee had more than five thousand inhabitants. This is
+probably an exaggeration.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Itiner._, Sec. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Ant. Martyr, _Itiner._, Sec. 5.]
+
+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 toward 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
+familial limits of his childhood. For yonder, northward, a glimpse is
+caught, almost on the flank of Hermon, of Caesarea-Philippi, his
+furthest point of advance into the Gentile world; and here southward,
+the more sombre aspect of these Samaritan hills foreshadows the
+dreariness of Judea beyond, parched as by a scorching wind of
+desolation 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 centre 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 the world pursues through
+countless falterings, and in spite of the universal vanity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+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,[1] 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.[2] It is doubtful,
+however, if he understood the Hebrew writings in their original
+tongue. His biographers make him quote them according to the
+translations in the Aramean tongue;[3] 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_.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: John viii. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Testam. of the Twelve Patriarchs_, Levi. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvii. 46; Mark xv. 34.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Jewish translations and commentaries of the Talmudic
+epoch.]
+
+The schoolmaster in the small Jewish towns was the _hazzan_, or reader
+in the synagogues.[1] 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.[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Mishnah, _Shabbath_, i. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xiii. 54, and following; John vii. 15.]
+
+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.[1] The
+real mother tongue of Jesus was the Syrian dialect mixed with Hebrew,
+which was then spoken in Palestine.[2] 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."[3] 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 Grecianized. But Nicholas was only a Jew in blood. Josephus
+declares that he himself was an exception among his contemporaries;[4]
+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.[5] The study of the Law was the only
+one accounted liberal and worthy of a thoughtful man.[6] 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."[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: Mishnah, _Shekalim_, iii. 2; Talmud of Jerusalem,
+_Megilla_, halaca xi.; _Sota_, vii. 1; Talmud of Babylon, _Baba Kama_,
+83 _a_; _Megilla_, 8 _b_, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matthew xxvii. 46; Mark iii. 17, v. 41, vii. 34, xiv. 36,
+xv. 34. The expression [Greek: e patrios phone] in the writers of the
+time, always designates the Semitic dialect, which was spoken in
+Palestine (II. Macc. vii. 21, 27, xii. 37; _Acts_ xxi. 37, 40, xxii.
+2, xxvi. 14; Josephus, _Ant._, XVIII. vi. 10, xx. sub fin.; _B.J._,
+prooem I; V. vi. 3, V. ix. 2, VI. ii. 1: _Against Appian_, I. 9; _De
+Macc._, 12, 16). We shall show, later, that some of the documents
+which served as the basis for the synoptic Gospels were written in
+this Semitic dialect. It was the same with many of the Apocrypha (IV.
+Book of Macc. xvi. ad calcem, &c.). In fine, the sects issuing
+directly from the first Galilean movement (Nazarenes, _Ebionim_, &c.),
+which continued a long time in Batanea and Hauran, spoke a Semitic
+dialect (Eusebius, _De Situ et Nomin. Loc. Hebr._, at the word [Greek:
+Choba]; Epiph., _Adv. Haer._, xxix. 7, 9, xxx. 3; St. Jerome, _In
+Matt._, xii. 13; _Dial. adv. Pelag._, iii. 2).]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mishnah, _Sanhedrim_, xi. 1; Talmud of Babylon, _Baba
+Kama_, 82 _b_ and 83 _a_; _Sota_, 49 _a_ and _b_; _Menachoth_, 64 _b_;
+comp. II. Macc. iv. 10, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Jos., _Ant._ XX. xi. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Talmud of Jerusalem, _Peah_, i. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Jos., _Ant._, _loc. cit._; Orig., _Contra Celsum_, ii.
+34.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Talmud of Jerusalem, _Peah_, i. 1; Talmud of Babylon,
+_Menachoth_, 99 _b_.]
+
+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 Therapeutae;[1] 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,[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: The _Therapeutae_ of Philo are a branch of the Essenes.
+Their name appears to be but a Greek translation of that of the
+_Essenes_ ([Greek: Essaioi], _asaya_, "doctors"). Cf. Philo, _De Vita
+Contempl._, init.]
+
+[Footnote 2: See especially the treatises _Quis Rerum Divinarum Haeres
+Sit_ and _De Philanthropia_ of Philo.]
+
+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, 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,[1] if indeed it may be permitted to speak of a
+master in connection with so high an originality as his.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Pirke Aboth_, chap. i. and ii.; Talm. of Jerus.,
+_Pesachim_, vi. 1; Talm. of Bab., _Pesachim_, 66 _a_; _Shabbath_, 30
+_b_ and 31 _a_; _Joma_, 35 _b_.]
+
+The perusal of the books of the Old Testament made much impression
+upon him. The canon of the holy books was composed 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 every one 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
+marvellous 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,[1] 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,[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: The legend of Daniel existed as early as the seventh
+century B.C. (Ezekiel xiv. 14 and following, xxviii. 3). It was for
+the necessities of the legend that he was made to live at the time of
+the Babylonian captivity.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Epist. Jude_, 14 and following; 2 Peter ii. 4, 11;
+_Testam. of the Twelve Patriarchs_, Simeon, 5; Levi, 14, 16; Judah,
+18; Zab., 3; Dan, 5; Naphtali, 4. The "Book of Enoch" still forms an
+integral part of the Ethiopian Bible. Such as we know it from the
+Ethiopian version, it is composed of pieces of different dates, of
+which the most ancient are from the year 130 to 150 B.C. Some of these
+pieces have an analogy with the discourses of Jesus. Compare chaps.
+xcvi.-xcix. with Luke vi. 24, and following.]
+
+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 toward 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 clothes. The charming impossibilities with which
+his parables abound, when he brings kings and the mighty ones on the
+stage,[1] prove that he never conceived of aristocratic society but as
+a young villager who sees the world through the prism of his
+simplicity.
+
+[Footnote 1: See, for example, Matt. xxii. 2, and following.]
+
+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 marvellous. Philo, who lived in a great
+intellectual centre, 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,[1]
+and he imagined, like all the world, that nervous maladies were
+produced by demons who possessed the patient and agitated him. The
+marvellous 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. vi. 13.]
+
+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 fulfill his
+vocation.[1] It is certain, at least, that he cared little for the
+relations of kinship. His family do not seem to have loved him,[2]
+and at times he seems to have been hard toward them.[3] 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 toward 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."[4] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke ii. 42 and following. The Apocryphal Gospels are
+full of similar histories carried to the grotesque.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xiii. 57; Mark vi. 4; John vii. 3, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xii. 48; Mark iii. 33; Luke viii. 21; John ii. 4;
+Gospel according to the Hebrews, in St. Jerome, _Dial. adv. Pelag._,
+iii. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke xi. 27, and following.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+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 believe 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 centre 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 religions 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 Mahomet 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 nowise 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 marvellously 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 Avataer 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.[1] 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.[2] The book of Daniel, the book of Enoch, and certain
+parts of the Sibylline books,[3] 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 toward 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.[4] 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.[5] 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 amongst 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Yacna_, xiii. 24: Theopompus, in Plut., _De Iside et
+Osiride_, sec. 47; _Minokhired_, a passage published in the
+_Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlaendischen Gesellschaft_, i., p.
+263.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Virg., Ecl. iv.; Servius, at v. 4 of this Eclogue;
+Nigidius, quoted by Servius, at v. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Book iii., 97-817.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Esther vi. 13, vii. 10, viii. 7, 11-17, ix. 1-22; and in
+the apocryphal parts, ix. 10, 11, xiv. 13, and following, xvi. 20,
+24.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Eccl. i. 11, ii. 16, 18-24, iii. 19-22, iv. 8, 15, 16, v.
+17, 18, vi. 3, 6, viii. 15, ix. 9, 10.]
+
+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 the 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.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Isaiah lx. &c.]
+
+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,[1] 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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: The whole book of Esther breathes a great attachment to
+this dynasty.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Apocryphal letter of Baruch, in Fabricius, _Cod. pseud.,
+V.T._, ii. p. 147, and following.]
+
+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. Whilst 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."[1]
+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.[2] 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.[3] 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?[4] Worldly and incredulous Sadduceeism might
+possibly not recoil before such a consequence, and a consummate sage,
+like Antigonus of Soco,[5] might indeed maintain that we must not
+practise 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 forever in the remembrance of men, and judging the
+wicked who had persecuted them.[6] "They live in the sight of God; ...
+they are known of God."[7] That was their reward. Others, especially
+the Pharisees, had recourse to the doctrine of the resurrection.[8]
+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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Job xxxiii. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 2: It is nevertheless remarkable that Jesus, son of Sirach,
+adheres to it strictly (chap. xvii. 26-28, xxii. 10, 11, xxx. 4, and
+following, xli. 1, 2, xliv. 9). The author of the book of _Wisdom_
+holds quite opposite opinions (iv. 1, Greek text).]
+
+[Footnote 3: Esth. xiv. 6, 7 (apocr.); the apocryphal Epistle of
+Baruch (Fabricius, _Cod. pseud., V.T._, ii. p. 147, and following).]
+
+[Footnote 4: 2 _Macc._ vii.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Pirke Aboth._, i. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Wisdom_, ii.-vi.; _De Rationis Imperio_, attributed to
+Josephus, 8, 13, 16, 18. Still we must remark that the author of this
+last treatise estimates the motive of personal recompense in a
+secondary degree. The primary impulse of martyrs is the pure love of
+the Law, the advantage which their death will procure to the people,
+and the glory which will attach to their name. Comp. _Wisdom_, iv. 1,
+and following; _Eccl._ xliv., and following; Jos., _B.J._, II. viii.
+10, III. viii. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _Wisdom_, iv. 1; _De Rat. Imp._, 16, 18.]
+
+[Footnote 8: 2 _Macc._, vii. 9, 14, xii. 43, 44.]
+
+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.[1] 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;[2] sometimes they were to be received at the
+moment of death into Abraham's bosom;[3] sometimes the resurrection
+was to be general;[4] sometimes it was to be reserved only for the
+faithful;[5] sometimes it supposed a renewed earth and a new
+Jerusalem; sometimes it implied a previous annihilation of the
+universe.
+
+[Footnote 1: Theopompus, in _Diog. Laert._, Proem, 9. _Boundehesch_,
+xxxi. The traces of the doctrine of the resurrection in the Avesta are
+very doubtful.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John xi. 24.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke xvi. 22. Cf. _De Rationis Imp._, 13, 16, 18.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Dan. xii. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 5: 2 _Macc._ vii. 14.]
+
+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 formed
+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,[1] a favorite and flatterer of
+Tiberius,[2] and too often misled by the bad influence of his second
+wife, Herodias.[3] Philip, tetrarch of Gaulonitis and Batanea, into
+whose dominions Jesus made frequent journeys, was a much better
+sovereign.[4] 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.[5] The last trace of self-government was thus lost to
+Jerusalem. United to Samaria and Idumea, Judea formed a kind of
+dependency of the province of Syria, in which the senator Publius
+Sulpicius Quirinus, well known as consul,[6] 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[7]--followed each other, and were constantly occupied
+in extinguishing the volcano which was seething beneath their feet.
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._, VIII. v. 1, vii. 1 and 2; Luke iii. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ibid., XVIII. ii. 3, iv. 5, v. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Ibid., XVIII. vii. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Ibid., XVIII. iv. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Ibid., XVII. xii. 2; and _B.J._, II. vii. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Orelli, _Inscr. Lat._, No. 3693; Henzen, _Suppl._, No.
+7041; _Fasti praenestini_, on the 6th of March, and on the 28th of
+April (in the _Corpus Inscr. Lat._, i. 314, 317); Borghesi, _Fastes
+Consulaires_ (yet unedited), in the year 742; R. Bergmann, _De Inscr.
+Lat. ad. P.S. Quirinium, ut videtur, referenda_ (Berlin, 1851). Cf.
+Tac., _Ann._, ii. 30, iii. 48; Strabo, XII. vi. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Jos., _Ant._, l. XVIII.]
+
+Continual seditions, excited by the zealots of Mosaism, did not cease,
+in fact, to agitate Jerusalem during all this time.[1] 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[2]--to rise up against the
+votive escutcheons put up by the procurators, the inscriptions of
+which appeared tainted with idolatry[3]--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.[4] The Samaritans were agitated by movements of a similar
+nature.[5] 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.[6] 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.[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ibid., the books XVI. and XVIII. entirely, and _B.J._,
+books I. and II.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _Ant._, XV. x. 4. Compare Book of Enoch, xcvii. 13,
+14.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Philo, _Leg. ad Caium_, Sec. 38.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Jos., _Ant._, XVII. vi. 2, and following; _B.J._, I.
+xxxiii. 3, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. iv. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Mishnah, _Sanhedrim_, ix. 6; John xvi. 2; Jos., _B.J._,
+book IV., and following.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _Acts_ viii. 9. Verse 11 leads us to suppose that Simon
+the magician was already famous in the time of Jesus.]
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] 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 State, 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.[3] 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.[4]
+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.[5] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Discourse of Claudius at Lyons, Tab. ii. sub fin. De
+Boisseau, _Inscr. Ant. de Lyon_, p. 136.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 2 Sam. xxiv.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Talmud of Babylon, _Baba Kama_, 113 _a_; _Shabbath_, 33
+_b_.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. i. 1 and 6; _B.J._, II. viii. 1;
+_Acts_ v. 37. Previous to Judas the Gaulonite, the _Acts_ place
+another agitator, Theudas; but this is an anachronism, the movement of
+Theudas took place in the year 44 of the Christian era (Jos., _Ant._,
+XX. v. 1).]
+
+[Footnote 5: Jos., _B.J._, II. xvii. 8, and following.]
+
+Galilee was thus an immense furnace wherein the most diverse elements
+were seething.[1] An extraordinary contempt of life, or, more properly
+speaking, a kind of longing for death,[2] 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 programme of the future reign, which
+was to bring peace to the righteous, and to seal forever the work of
+God.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xiii. 1. The Galilean movement of Judas, son of
+Hezekiah, does not appear to have been of a religious character;
+perhaps, however, its character has been misrepresented by Josephus
+(_Ant._, XVII. x. 5).]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _Ant._, XVI. vi. 2, 3; XVIII. i. 1.]
+
+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.[1] 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;[2] it was there that he held
+secret communion with the ancient prophets; and it was there that his
+disciples witnessed his transfiguration.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _B.J._, III. iii. 1. The horrible state to which
+the country is reduced, especially near Lake Tiberias, ought not to
+deceive us. These countries, now scorched, were formerly terrestrial
+paradises. The baths of Tiberias, which are now a frightful abode,
+were formerly the most beautiful places in Galilee (Jos., _Ant._,
+XVIII. ii. 3.) Josephus (_Bell. Jud._, III. x. 8) extols the beautiful
+trees of the plain of Gennesareth, where there is no longer a single
+one. Anthony the Martyr, about the year 600, consequently fifty years
+before the Mussulman invasion, still found Galilee covered with
+delightful plantations, and compares its fertility to that of Egypt
+(_Itin._, Sec. 5).]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. v. 1, xiv. 23; Luke vi. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xvii. 1, and following; Mark ix. 1, and following;
+Luke ix. 28, and following.]
+
+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.[1] If we except Tiberias, built by Antipas in honor of
+Tiberius (about the year 15), in the Roman style,[2] 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.[3] 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.[4] The
+wine was excellent, if we may judge by that which the Jews still
+obtain at Safed, and they drank much of it.[5] 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 good will?
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _B.J._, III. iii. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. ii. 2; _B.J._, II. ix. 1; _Vita_,
+12, 13, 64.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Jos., _B.J._, III. iii. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: We may judge of this by some enclosures in the
+neighborhood of Nazareth. Cf. Song of Solomon ii. 3, 5, 13, iv. 13,
+vi. 6, 10, vii. 8, 12, viii. 2, 5; Anton. Martyr, _l.c._ The aspect of
+the great farms is still well preserved in the south of the country of
+Tyre (ancient tribe of Asher). Traces of the ancient Palestinian
+agriculture, with its troughs, threshing-floors, wine-presses, mills,
+&c., cut in the rock, are found at every step.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. ix. 17, xi. 19; Mark ii. 22; Luke v. 37, vii. 34;
+John ii. 3, and following.]
+
+The whole history of infant Christianity has become in this manner a
+delightful pastoral. A Messiah at the marriage festival--the courtezan
+and the good Zaccheus 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 amidst these enchanting scenes. From his infancy,
+he went almost annually to the feast at Jerusalem.[1] 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[2] during several days in the spring across the
+hills and valleys, each one having in prospect the splendors of
+Jerusalem, the solemnities of the sacred courts, and the joy of
+brethren dwelling together in unity.[3] The route which Jesus
+ordinarily took in these journeys was that which is followed to this
+day through Ginaea and Shechem.[4] From Shechem to Jerusalem the
+journey is very tiresome. But the neighborhood of the old sanctuaries
+of Shiloh and Bethel, near which the travellers pass, keeps their
+interest alive. _Ain-el-Haramie_,[5] 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
+sombre, 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,[6] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke ii. 41.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke ii. 42-44.]
+
+[Footnote 3: See especially Ps. lxxxiv., cxxii., cxxxiii. (Vulg.,
+lxxxiii., cxxi., cxxxii).]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke ix. 51-53, xvii. 11; John iv. 4; Jos., _Ant._, XX.
+vi. 1; _B.J._, II. xii. 3; _Vita_, 52. Often, however, the pilgrims
+came by Peraea, in order to avoid Samaria, where they incurred dangers;
+Matt. xix. 1; Mark x. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 5: According to Josephus (_Vita_, 52) it was three days'
+journey. But the stage from Shechem to Jerusalem was generally divided
+into two.]
+
+[Footnote 6: lxxxiii. according to the Vulgate, v. 7.]
+
+These journeys, in which the assembled nation exchanged its ideas, and
+which were almost always centres of great agitation, placed Jesus in
+contact with the mind of his countrymen, and no doubt inspired him
+whilst 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.[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke iv. 42, v. 16.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE FIRST SAYINGS OF JESUS--HIS IDEAS OF A DIVINE FATHER AND OF A PURE
+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."[1] It seems that having,
+by the death of her husband, been left friendless at Nazareth, she
+withdrew to Cana,[2] from which she may have come originally. Cana[3]
+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.[4] 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.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: This is the expression of Mark vi. 3; cf. Matt. xiii. 55.
+Mark did not know Joseph. John and Luke, on the contrary, prefer the
+expression "son of Joseph." Luke iii. 23, iv. 22; John i. 45, iv. 42.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John ii. 1, iv. 46. John alone is informed on this
+point.]
+
+[Footnote 3: I admit, as probable, the idea which identifies Cana of
+Galilee with _Kana el Djelil_. We may, nevertheless, attach value to
+the arguments for _Kefr Kenna_, a place an hour or an hour and a
+half's journey N.N.E. of Nazareth.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Now _El-Buttauf_.]
+
+[Footnote 5: John ii. 11, iv. 46. One or two disciples were of Cana,
+John xxi. 2; Matt. x. 4; Mark iii. 18.]
+
+He followed the trade of his father, which was that of a
+carpenter.[1] 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;[2] thus St. Paul,
+whose education had been so carefully tended, was a tent-maker.[3]
+Jesus never married. All his power of love centred upon that which he
+regarded as his celestial vocation. The extremely delicate feeling
+toward 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.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Mark vi. 3; Justin, _Dial. cum Tryph._, 88.]
+
+[Footnote 2: For example, "Rabbi Johanan, the shoemaker, Rabbi Isaac,
+the blacksmith."]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Acts_ xviii. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke vii. 37, and following; John iv. 7, and following;
+viii. 3, and following.]
+
+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 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 Mahomet. 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.[1] 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;[2] 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.[3] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: The discourses which the fourth Gospel attributes to
+Jesus contain some germs of theology. But these discourses being in
+absolute contradiction with those of the synoptical Gospels, which
+represent, without any doubt, the primitive _Logia_, ought to count
+simply as documents of apostolic history, and not as elements of the
+life of Jesus.]
+
+[Footnote 2: See Matt. ix. 9, and other analogous accounts.]
+
+[Footnote 3: See, for example, John xxi. 15, and following.]
+
+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.[1] 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."[2] 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 any one who liked to take it, and
+reserved for God a dearer name. Whilst 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: The great soul of Philo is in sympathy here, as on so
+many other points, with that of Jesus. _De Confus. Ling._, Sec. 14; _De
+Migr. Abr._, Sec. 1; _De Somniis_, ii. Sec. 41; _De Agric. Noe_, Sec. 12; _De
+Mutatione Nominum_, Sec. 4. But Philo is scarcely a Jew in spirit.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Galatians iv. 6.]
+
+This name of "kingdom of God," or "kingdom of heaven,"[1] was the
+favorite term of Jesus to express the revolution which he brought into
+the world.[2] 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 forever.[3] 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.[4] 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.[5]
+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 subtlety for external
+signs.[6] 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[7]--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.[8] 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[9] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: The word "heaven" in the rabbinical language of that time
+is synonymous with the name of "God," which they avoided pronouncing.
+Compare Matt. xxi. 25; Luke xv. 18, xx. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 2: This expression occurs on each page of the synoptical
+Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and St. Paul. If it only appears
+once in John (iii. 3, 5), it is because the discourses related in the
+fourth Gospel are far from representing the true words of Jesus.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Dan. ii. 44, vii. 13, 14, 22, 27.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Mishnah, _Berakoth_, ii. 1, 3; Talmud of Jerusalem,
+_Berakoth_, ii. 2; _Kiddushin_, i. 2; Talm. of Bab., _Berakoth_, 15
+_a_; _Mekilta_, 42 _b_; _Siphra_, 170 _b_. The expression appears
+often in the _Medrashim_.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. vi. 33, xii. 28, xix. 12; Mark xii. 34; Luke xii.
+31.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Luke xvii. 20, 21.]
+
+[Footnote 7: The grand theory of the revelation of the Son of Man is
+in fact reserved, in the synoptics, for the chapters which precede the
+narrative of the Passion. The first discourses, especially in Matthew,
+are entirely moral.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Matt. xiii. 54 and following; Mark vi. 2 and following;
+John v. 43.]
+
+[Footnote 9: The tradition of the plainness of Jesus (Justin, _Dial.
+cum Tryph._, 85, 88, 100) springs from a desire to see realized in him
+a pretended Messianic trait (Isa. liii. 2).]
+
+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
+toward consecutive reasonings, and clothed his doctrine in concise
+aphorisms, and in an expressive form, at times enigmatical and
+strange.[1] 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.[2] Jesus adopted
+almost all this oral teaching, but imbued it with a superior
+spirit.[3] 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."[4] 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."[5] "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast
+it from thee."[6] "Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you,
+pray for them that persecute you."[7] "Judge not, that ye be not
+judged."[8] "Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven."[9] "Be ye therefore
+merciful as your Father also is merciful."[10] "It is more blessed to
+give than to receive."[11] "Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be
+abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted."[12]
+
+[Footnote 1: The _Logia_ of St. Matthew joins several of these axioms
+together, to form lengthened discourses. But the fragmentary form
+makes itself felt notwithstanding.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The sentences of the Jewish doctors of the time are
+collected in the little book entitled, _Pirke Aboth_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The comparisons will be made afterward as they present
+themselves. It has been sometimes supposed that--the compilation of
+the Talmud being later than that of the Gospels--parts may have been
+borrowed by the Jewish compilers from the Christian morality. But this
+is inadmissible--a wall of separation existed between the Church and
+the Synagogue. The Christian and Jewish literature had scarcely any
+influence on one another before the thirteenth century.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. vii. 12; Luke vi. 31. This axiom is in the book of
+_Tobit_, iv. 16. Hillel used it habitually (Talm. of Bab., _Shabbath_,
+31 _a_), and declared, like Jesus, that it was the sum of the Law.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. v. 39, and following; Luke vi. 29. Compare
+Jeremiah, _Lamentations_ iii. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. v. 29, 30, xviii. 9; Mark ix. 46.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. v. 44; Luke vi. 27. Compare Talmud of Babylon,
+_Shabbath_, 88 _b_; _Joma_, 23 _a_.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Matt. vii. 1; Luke vi. 37. Compare Talmud of Babylon,
+_Kethuboth_, 105 _b_.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Luke vi. 37. Compare _Lev._ xix. 18; _Prov._ xx. 22;
+_Ecclesiasticus_ xxviii. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Luke vi. 36; Siphre, 51 _b_ (Sultzbach, 1802).]
+
+[Footnote 11: A saying related in _Acts_ xx. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 12: Matt. xxiii. 12; Luke xiv. 11, xviii. 14. The sentences
+quoted by St. Jerome from the "Gospel according to the Hebrews"
+(Comment. in _Epist. ad Ephes._, v. 4; in Ezek. xviii.; _Dial. adv.
+Pelag._, iii. 2), are imbued with the same spirit.]
+
+Upon alms, pity, good works, kindness, peacefulness, and complete
+disinterestedness of heart, he had little to add to the doctrine of
+the synagogue.[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Deut._ xxiv., xxv., xxvi., &c.; Isa. lviii. 7; _Prov._
+xix. 17; _Pirke Aboth_, i.; Talmud of Jerusalem, _Peah_, i. 1; Talmud
+of Babylon, _Shabbath_, 63 _a_.]
+
+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.[1] He forbade the least harsh word;[2] he prohibited
+divorce,[3] and all swearing;[4] he censured revenge;[5] he condemned
+usury;[6] he considered voluptuous desire as criminal as adultery;[7]
+he insisted upon a universal forgiveness of injuries.[8] 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 ye
+more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore
+perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."[9]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. v. 20, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. v. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. v. 31, and following. Compare Talmud of Babylon,
+_Sanhedrim_, 22 _a_.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. v. 33, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. v. 38, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. v. 42. The Law prohibited it also (_Deut._ xv. 7,
+8), but less formally, and custom authorized it (Luke vii. 41, and
+following).]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. xxvii. 28. Compare Talmud, _Masseket Kalla_ (edit.
+Fuerth, 1793), fol. 34 _b_.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Matt. v. 23, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Matt. v. 45, and following. Compare _Lev._ xi. 44, xix.
+2.]
+
+A pure worship, a religion without priests and external observances,
+resting entirely on the feelings of the heart, on the imitation of
+God,[1] 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 centre 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?[2] Even
+tradition, a thing so sacred to the Jews, is nothing compared to
+sincerity.[3] 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."[4] "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."[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Compare Philo, _De Migr. Abr._, Sec. 23 and 24; _De Vita
+Contemp._, the whole.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xv. 11, and following; Mark vii. 6, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mark vii. 6, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. vi. 1, and following. Compare _Ecclesiasticus_
+xvii. 18, xxix. 15; Talm. of Bab., _Chagigah_, 5 _a_; _Baba Bathra_, 9
+_b_.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. vi. 5-8.]
+
+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.[1] 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:[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xiv. 23; Luke iv. 42, v. 16, vi. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. vi. 9, and following; Luke xi. 2, and following.]
+
+"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."[1] 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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _i.e._, the devil.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xi. 5, and following.]
+
+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."[1]
+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."[2] In later times, certain doctors, Simeon
+the just,[3] Jesus, son of Sirach,[4] Hillel,[5] 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 consequence of which was the disregard
+of the observances of the Law.[6] Shemaia and Abtalion also more than
+once proved themselves to be very liberal casuists.[7] Rabbi Johanan
+ere long placed works of mercy above even the study of the Law![8]
+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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. v. 23, 24.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Isaiah i. 11, and following. Compare ibid., lviii.
+entirely; Hosea vi. 6; Malachi i. 10, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Pirke Aboth_, i. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ecclesiasticus_ xxxv. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Talm. of Jerus., _Pesachim_, vi. 1. Talm. of Bab., the
+same treatise 66 _a_; _Shabbath_, 31 _a_.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Quod Deus Immut._, Sec. 1 and 2; _De Abrahamo_, Sec. 22;
+_Quis Rerum Divin. Haeres_, Sec. 13, and following; 55, 58, and following;
+_De Profugis_, Sec. 7 and 8; _Quod Omnis Probus Liber_, entirely; _De
+Vita Contemp._, entirely.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Talm. of Bab., _Pesachim_, 67 _b_.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Talmud of Jerus., _Peah_, i. 1.]
+
+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."[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. vii. 4, 5. Compare Talmud of Babylon, _Baba
+Bathra_, 15 _b_, _Erachin_, 16 _b_.]
+
+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, Shemaia, Abtalion,
+Hillel, Shammai, Judas the Gaulonite, Gamaliel, and many others, whose
+maxims form the Talmud,[1] 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.[2] 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
+afterward. 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: See especially _Pirke Aboth_, ch. i.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The Talmud, a _resume_ of this vast movement of the
+schools, was scarcely commenced till the second century of our era.]
+
+To conceive the good, in fact, is not sufficient; it must be made to
+succeed amongst 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 VI.
+
+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,[1] and born, it seems, at Juttah near
+Hebron, or at Hebron itself.[2] Hebron, the patriarchal city _par
+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.[3] The desert by
+which he was, so to speak, surrounded, early attracted him.[4] He led
+there the life of a Yogi of India, clothed with skins or stuffs of
+camel's hair, having for food only locusts and wild honey.[5] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke i. 5; passage from the Gospel of the Ebionites,
+preserved by Epiphanius, (_Adv. Haer._, xxx. 13.)]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke i. 39. It has been suggested, not without
+probability, that "the city of Juda" mentioned in this passage of
+Luke, is the town of _Jutta_ (Josh. xv. 55, xxi. 16). Robinson
+(_Biblical Researches_, i. 494, ii. 206) has discovered this _Jutta_,
+still bearing the same name, at two hours' journey south of Hebron.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke i. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke i. 80.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. iii. 4; Mark i. 6; fragm. of the Gospel of the
+Ebionites, in Epiph., _Adv. Haer._, xxx. 13.]
+
+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.[1] 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[2]--the sombre 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.[3] The retreat to the desert thus became
+the condition and the prelude of high destinies.
+
+[Footnote 1: Malachi iv. 5, 6; (iii. 23, 24, according to the Vulg.);
+_Ecclesiasticus_ xlviii. 10; Matt. xvi. 14, xvii. 10, and following;
+Mark vi. 15, viii. 28, ix. 10, and following; Luke ix. 8, 19; John i.
+21, 25.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The ferocious Abdallah, pacha of St. Jean d'Acre, nearly
+died from fright at seeing him in a dream, standing erect on his
+mountain. In the pictures of the Christian churches, he is surrounded
+with decapitated heads. The Mussulmans dread him.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Isaiah_ ii. 9-11.]
+
+No doubt this thought of imitation had occupied John's mind.[1] The
+anchorite life, so opposed to the spirit of the ancient Jewish people,
+and with which the vows, such as those of the 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.[2] 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,[3] somewhat resembling the
+_gourous_[4] 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
+steps toward Judea, as they certainly did toward Syria and Babylon?[5]
+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,[6] _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."[7] It is difficult to unravel these vague analogies. The
+sects floating between Judaism, Christianity, Baptism, and Sabeism,
+which we find in the region beyond the Jordan during the first
+centuries of our era,[8] 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,[9] 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 centre in lower Chaldea, and constitutes a religion which is
+perpetuated there to the present day.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke i. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, v. 17; Epiph., _Adv. Haer._, xix. 1
+and 2.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Josephus, _Vita_, 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Spiritual preceptors.]
+
+[Footnote 5: I have developed this point elsewhere. _Hist. Gener. des
+Langues Semitiques_, III. iv. 1; _Journ. Asiat._, February-March,
+1856.]
+
+[Footnote 6: The Aramean word _seba_, origin of the name of _Sabians_,
+is synonymous with [Greek: baptizo].]
+
+[Footnote 7: I have treated of this at greater length in the _Journal
+Asiatique_, Nov.-Dec., 1853, and August-Sept., 1855. It is remarkable
+that the Elchasaites, a Sabian or Baptist sect, inhabited the same
+district as the Essenes, (the eastern bank of the Dead Sea), and were
+confounded with them (Epiph., _Adv. Haer._, xix. 1, 2, 4, xxx. 16, 17,
+liii. 1, 2; _Philosophumena_, IX. iii. 15, 16, X. xx. 29).]
+
+[Footnote 8: See the remarks of Epiphanius on the Essenes,
+Hemero-Baptists, Nazarites, Ossenes, Nazarenes, Ebionites, Samsonites
+(_Adv. Haer._, books i. and ii.), and those of the author of the
+_Philosophumena_ on the Elchasaites (books ix. and x).]
+
+[Footnote 9: Epiph., _Adv. Haer._, xix., xxx., liii.]
+
+This practice was baptism, or total immersion. Ablutions were already
+familiar to the Jews, as they were to all religions of the East.[1]
+The Essenes had given them a peculiar extension.[2] Baptism had become
+an ordinary ceremony on the introduction of proselytes into the bosom
+of the Jewish religion, a sort of initiatory rite.[3] 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.[4] At the periods when he administered baptism, he went to
+the banks of the Jordan,[5] either to Bethany or Bethabara,[6] upon
+the eastern shore, probably opposite to Jericho, or to a place called
+_AEnon_, or "the Fountains,"[7] near Salim, where there was much
+water.[8] Considerable crowds, especially of the tribe of Judah,
+hastened to him to be baptized.[9] In a few months he thus became one
+of the most influential men in Judea, and acquired much importance in
+the general estimation.
+
+[Footnote 1: Mark vii. 4; Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. v. 2; Justin, _Dial.
+cum Tryph._, 17, 29, 80; Epiph., _Adv. Haer._, xvii.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _B.J._, II. viii. 5, 7, 9, 13.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mishnah, _Pesachim_, viii. 8; Talmud of Babylon,
+_Jebamoth_, 46 _b_; _Kerithuth_, 9 _a_; _Aboda Zara_, 57 _a_;
+_Masseket Gerim_ (edit. Kirchheim, 1851), pp. 38-40.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. iii. 1; Mark i. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Luke iii. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 6: John i. 28, iii. 26. All the manuscripts say _Bethany_;
+but, as no one knows of Bethany in these places, Origen (_Comment. in
+Joann._, vi. 24) has proposed to substitute _Bethabara_, and his
+correction has been generally accepted. The two words have, moreover,
+analogous meanings, and seem to indicate a place where there was a
+ferry-boat to cross the river.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _AEnon_ is the Chaldean plural, _AEnawan_, "fountains."]
+
+[Footnote 8: John iii. 23. The locality of this place is doubtful. The
+circumstance mentioned by the evangelist would lead us to believe that
+it was not very near the Jordan. Nevertheless, the synoptics are
+agreed in placing the scene of the baptisms of John on the banks of
+that river (Matt. iii. 6; Mark i. 5; Luke iii. 3). The comparison of
+verses 22 and 23 of chap. iii. of John, and of verses 3 and 4 of chap.
+iv. of the same Gospel, would lead us to believe that Salim was in
+Judea, and consequently in the oasis of Jericho, near the mouth of the
+Jordan; since it would be difficult to find in any other district of
+the tribe of Judah a single natural basin in which any one might be
+totally immersed. Saint Jerome wishes to place Salim much more north,
+near Beth-Schean or Scythopolis. But Robinson (_Bibl. Res._, iii. 333)
+has not been able to find anything at these places that justifies this
+assertion.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Mark i. 5; Josephus, _Ant._, XVIII. v. 2.]
+
+The people took him for a prophet,[1] and many imagined that it was
+Elias who had risen again.[2] The belief in these resurrections was
+widely spread;[3] it was thought that God would raise from the tomb
+certain of the ancient prophets to guide Israel toward its final
+destiny. Others held John to be the Messiah himself, although he made
+no such pretensions.[4] 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.[5] 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.[6]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xiv. 5, xxi. 26.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. vi. 14; Mark vi. 15; John i. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xiv. 2; Luke ix. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke iii. 15, and following; John i. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xxi. 25, and following; Luke vii. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt., _loc. cit._]
+
+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."[1] He announced a "great
+wrath," that is to say, terrible calamities which should come to
+pass,[2] 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,[3] 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.[4] He made no account of the title
+"son of Abraham," and said that God could raise up sons unto Abraham
+from the stones of the road.[5] 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.[6] 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,[7] and the catastrophe which put an end to John's
+life seems to imply this. His disciples led a very austere life,[8]
+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.[9] The poor man appeared as the one who
+would be specially benefited by the kingdom of God.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. iii. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. iii. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke iii. 11-14; Josephus, _Ant._ XVIII. v. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxi. 32; Luke iii. 12-14.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. iii. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. iii. 7; Luke iii. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _Ant._ XVIII. v. 2. We must observe that, when Josephus
+described the secret and more or less seditious doctrines of his
+countrymen, he suppressed everything which had reference to the
+Messianic beliefs, and, in order not to give umbrage to the Romans,
+spread over these doctrines a vulgar and commonplace air, which made
+all the heads of Jewish sects appear as mere professors of morals or
+stoics.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Matt. ix. 14.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Luke iii. 11.]
+
+Although the centre 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.[1] 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,[2] 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 toward 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 afterward 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. iii. 13, and following; Mark i. 9, and following;
+Luke iii. 21, and following; John i. 29, and following; iii. 22, and
+following. The synoptics make Jesus come to John, before he had played
+any public part. But if it is true, as they state, that John
+recognized Jesus from the first and welcomed him, it must be supposed
+that Jesus was already a somewhat renowned teacher. The fourth Gospel
+brings Jesus to John twice, the first time while yet unknown, the
+second time with a band of disciples. Without touching here the
+question of the precise journeys of Jesus (an insoluble question,
+seeing the contradictions of the documents and the little care the
+evangelists had in being exact in such matters), and without denying
+that Jesus might have made a journey to John when he had as yet no
+notoriety, we adopt the information furnished by the fourth Gospel
+(iii. 22, and following), namely, that Jesus, before beginning to
+baptize like John, had formed a school. We must remember, besides,
+that the first pages of the fourth Gospel are notes tacked together
+without rigorous chronological arrangement.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke i., although indeed all the details of the
+narrative, especially those which refer to the relationship of John
+with Jesus, are legendary.]
+
+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.[1] 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 equaled
+the master, and his baptism was much sought after. There was on this
+subject some jealousy among the disciples;[2] 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.[3] Many other of John's
+expressions may be found repeated verbally in the discourses of
+Jesus.[4] The two schools appear to have lived long on good terms with
+each other;[5] and after the death of John, Jesus, as his trusty
+friend, was one of the first to be informed of the event.[6]
+
+[Footnote 1: John iii. 22-26, iv. 1, 2. The parenthesis of ver. 2
+appears to be an interpolation, or perhaps a tardy scruple of John
+correcting himself.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John iii. 26, iv. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. iii. 2, iv. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. iii. 7, xii. 34, xxiii. 33.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xi. 2-13.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. xiv. 12.]
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] An entirely personal grievance
+was also added to these motives of state, and rendered the death of
+the austere censor inevitable.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke iii. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. v. 2.]
+
+One of the most strongly marked characters of this tragical family of
+the Herods was Herodias, granddaughter of Herod the Great. Violent,
+ambitious, and passionate, she detested Judaism, and despised its
+laws.[1] She had been married, probably against her will, to her uncle
+Herod, son of Mariamne,[2] whom Herod the Great had disinherited,[3]
+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.[4] 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.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. v. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matthew (chap. xiv. 3, in the Greek text) and Mark (chap.
+vi. 17) have it that this was Philip; but this is certainly an
+inadvertency (see Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. v. 1, 4). The wife of Philip
+was Salome, daughter of Herodias.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. iv. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Ibid., XVIII. vii. 1, 2, _B.J._, II. ix. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Ibid., XVIII. v. 1.]
+
+Makaur,[1] 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.[2] It was a wild and desolate country, filled
+with strange legends, and believed to be haunted by demons.[3] 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.[4] The
+latter having been warned, had prepared everything for the flight of
+his daughter, who was conducted from tribe to tribe to Petra.
+
+[Footnote 1: This form is found in the Talmud of Jerusalem (_Shebiit_,
+ix. 2), and in the Targums of Jonathan and of Jerusalem (_Numb._ xxii.
+35).]
+
+[Footnote 2: Now Mkaur, in the wady Zerka Main. This place has not
+been visited since Seetzen was there.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Josephus, _De Bell. Jud._, VII. vi. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. v. 1.]
+
+The almost incestuous[1] 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.[2]
+The members of this numerous and rather isolated dynasty being obliged
+to marry amongst 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.[3] 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.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Lev._ xviii. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _Ant._, XV. vii. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xiv. 4; Mark vi. 18; Luke iii. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. v. 2.]
+
+More timid than cruel, Antipas did not desire to put him to death.
+According to certain rumors, he feared a popular sedition.[1]
+According to another version,[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xiv. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mark vi. 20. I read [Greek: eporei], and not [Greek:
+epoiei].]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+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.[1] 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 afterward, in
+order to recompense him for his victory, the angels had come to
+minister to him.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Tobit_ viii. 3; Luke xi. 24.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. iv. 1, and following; Mark i. 12, 13; Luke iv. 1,
+and following. Certainly, the striking similarity that these
+narratives present to the analogous legends of the _Vendidad_ (farg.
+xix.) and of the _Lalitavistara_ (chap. xvii., xviii., xxi.) would
+lead us to regard them only as myths. But the meagre and concise
+narrative of Mark, which evidently represents on this point the
+primitive compilation, leads us to suppose a real fact, which
+furnished later the theme of legendary developments.]
+
+It was probably in coming from the desert that Jesus learned 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 toward 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,[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. iv. 12; Mark i. 14; Luke iv. 14; John iv. 3.]
+
+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 toward the Jordan, ideas
+superior to those of John, and that it was by a sort of concession
+that he inclined for a time toward 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.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. vii. 29; Mark i. 22; Luke iv. 32.]
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Mark i. 14, 15.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mark xv. 43.]
+
+He declared that in the present world evil is the reigning power.
+Satan is "the prince of this world,"[1] 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:[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: John xii. 31, xiv. 30, xvi. 11. (Comp. 2 _Cor._ iv. 4;
+_Ephes._ ii. 2.)]
+
+[Footnote 2: John i. 10, vii. 7, xiv. 17, 22, 27, xv. 18, and
+following; xvi. 8, 20, 33, xvii. 9, 14, 16, 25. This meaning of the
+word "world" is especially applied in the writings of Paul and John.]
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] 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.[3] 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;[4] or it will be like the leaven which, deposited in the meal,
+makes the whole to ferment.[5] A series of parables, often obscure,
+was designed to express the suddenness of this event, its apparent
+injustice, and its inevitable and final character.[6]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xix. 30, xx. 16; Mark x. 31; Luke xiii. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xiii. 24, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xiii. 47, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xiii. 31, and following; Mark iv. 31, and
+following; Luke xiii. 19, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xiii. 33; Luke xiii. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. xiii. entirely; xviii. 23, and following; xx. 1,
+and following; Luke xiii. 18, and following.]
+
+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.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxii. 30.]
+
+A radical revolution,[1] 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,[2] 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,[3] but Jesus fled into the mountain and remained there some time
+alone. His noble nature preserved him from the error which would have
+made him an agitator, or a chief of rebels, a Theudas or a Barkokeba.
+
+[Footnote 1: [Greek: Apochatastasis panton], _Acts_ iii. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xvii. 23-26; xxii. 16-22.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John vi. 15.]
+
+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.[1] Various stoics had learned 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.[2] 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 politics, 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 power of the state was limited to the things of earth;
+the mind was freed, or at least the terrible rod of Roman omnipotence
+was broken forever.
+
+[Footnote 1: See Stobaeus, _Florilegium_, ch. lxii., lxxvii., lxxxvi.,
+and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John viii. 32, and following.]
+
+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 programme 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 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 every-day
+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"[1] 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!"[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Acts_ iii. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Rev._ xxi. 1, 2, 5.]
+
+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.[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: The millenarian sects of England present the same
+contrast, I mean the belief in the near end of the world,
+notwithstanding much good sense in the conduct of life, and an
+extraordinary understanding of commercial affairs and industry.]
+
+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 seemed 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 in this
+to be ashamed of.[1] 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, but not to appropriate them. He predicts persecution and
+all kinds of punishment to his disciples;[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. x. 17, 18; Luke xii. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. v. 10, and following; x. entirely; Luke vi. 22, and
+following; John xv. 18, and following; xvi. 2, and following, 20, 33;
+xvii. 14.]
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] The great characteristic of the Messiah is,
+that "the poor have the gospel preached to them."[3] 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.[4] 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.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xvi. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. v. 3, 10, xviii. 3, xix. 14, 23, 24, xxi. 31, xxii.
+2, and following; Mark x. 14, 15, 23-25; Luke iv. 18, and following;
+vi. 20, xviii. 16, 17, 24, 25.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xi. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xv. 19, xvii. 14, 16.]
+
+[Footnote 5: See especially chapter xvii. of St. John, expressing, if
+not a real discourse delivered by Jesus, at least a sentiment which
+was very deeply rooted in his disciples, and which certainly came from
+him.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke iii. 23; Gospel of the Ebionites, in Epiph., _Adv.
+Haer._, xxx. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John i. 37, and following.]
+
+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,[1] 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 toward the Ancient of days, who confers on him
+the power to judge the world, and to govern it for eternity.[2] _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,[3] one of the titles of the Messiah, regarded as judge of the
+world, and as king of the new era about to be inaugurated.[4] 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.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Chap. i. 5, 26, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Daniel vii. 13, 14; comp. viii. 15, x. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 3: In John xii. 34, the Jews do not appear to be aware of
+the meaning of this word.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Book of Enoch, xlvi. 1-3, xlviii. 2, 3, lxii. 9, 14, lxx.
+1 (division of Dilmann); Matt. x. 23, xiii. 41, xvi. 27, 28, xix. 28,
+xxiv. 27, 30, 37, 39, 44, xxv. 31, xxvi. 64; Mark xiii. 26, xiv. 62;
+Luke xii. 40, xvii. 24, 26, 30, xxi. 27, 36, xxii. 69; _Acts_ vii. 55.
+But the most significant passage is John v. 27, compared with _Rev._
+i. 13, xiv. 14. The expression "Son of woman," for the Messiah, occurs
+once in the book of Enoch, lxii. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 5: John v. 22, 27.]
+
+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,[1] and he used "The Son 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: This title occurs eighty-three times in the Gospels, and
+always in the discourses of Jesus.]
+
+His centre 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.[1]
+That name was so little known that Josephus, in one passage of his
+writings,[2] takes it for the name of a fountain, the fountain having
+more celebrity than the village situated near it. Like Nazareth,
+Capernaum had no history, and had in no way participated in the
+profane movement favored by the Herods. Jesus was much attached to
+this town, and made it a second home.[3] Soon after his return, he
+attempted to commence his work at Nazareth, but without success.[4] He
+could not perform any miracle there, according to the simple remark
+of one of his biographers.[5] 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.[6] The Nazarenes, much more
+violent, wished, it is said, to kill him by throwing him from a steep
+rock.[7] 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."
+
+[Footnote 1: It is true that Tell-Houm, which is generally identified
+with Capernaum, contains the remains of somewhat fine monuments. But,
+besides this identification being doubtful, these monuments may be of
+the second or third century after Christ.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _B.J._, III. x. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. ix. 1; Mark ii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xiii. 54, and following; Mark vi. 1, and following;
+Luke iv. 16, and following, 23-24; John iv. 44.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Mark vi. 5; cf. Matt. xii. 58; Luke iv. 23.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. xiii. 57; Mark vi. 4; John vii. 3, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Luke iv. 29. Probably the rock referred to here is the
+peak which is very near Nazareth, above the present church of the
+Maronites, and not the pretended _Mount of Precipitation_, at an
+hour's journey from Nazareth. See Robinson, ii. 335, and following.]
+
+This check far from discouraged him. He returned to Capernaum,[1]
+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.[2] They are
+all constructed of large and good materials; but their style is
+somewhat paltry, in consequence of the profusion of floral ornaments,
+foliage, and twisted work, which characterize the Jewish buildings.[3]
+In the interior there were seats, a chair for public reading, and a
+closet to contain the sacred rolls.[4] These edifices, which had
+nothing of the character of a temple, were the centre 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 _haphtara_), and added thereto a
+_midrash_, or entirely personal commentary, in which he expressed his
+own ideas.[5] 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,[6] "elders,"[7] a _hazzan_, _i.e._, a recognized reader,
+or apparitor,[8] deputies,[9] who were secretaries or messengers, and
+conducted the correspondence between one synagogue and another, a
+_shammash_, or sacristan.[10] The synagogues were thus really little
+independent republics, having an extensive jurisdiction. Like all
+municipal corporations, up to an advanced period of the Roman empire,
+they issued honorary decrees,[11] voted resolutions, which had the
+force of law for the community, and ordained corporal punishments, of
+which the _hazzan_ was the ordinary executor.[12]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. iv. 13; Luke iv. 31.]
+
+[Footnote 2: At Tell-Houm, Irbid (Arbela), Meiron (Mero), Jisch
+(Giscala), Kasyoun, Nabartein, and two at Kefr-Bereim.]
+
+[Footnote 3: I dare not decide upon the age of those buildings, nor
+consequently affirm that Jesus taught in any of them. How great would
+be the interest attaching to the synagogue of Tell-Houm were we to
+admit such an hypothesis! The great synagogue of Kefr-Bereim seems to
+me the most ancient of all. Its style is moderately pure. That of
+Kasyoun bears a Greek inscription of the time of Septimus Severus. The
+great importance which Judaism acquired in Upper Galilee after the
+Roman war, leads us to believe that several of these edifices only
+date back to the third century--a time in which Tiberias became a sort
+of capital of Judaism.]
+
+[Footnote 4: 2 _Esdras_ viii. 4; Matt. xxiii. 6; Epist. James ii. 3;
+Mishnah, _Megilla_, iii. 1; _Rosh Hasshana_, iv. 7, etc. See
+especially the curious description of the synagogue of Alexandria in
+the Talmud of Babylon, _Sukka_, 51 _b_.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Philo, quoted in Eusebius, _Praep. Evang._, viii. 7, and
+_Quod Omnis Probus Liber_, Sec. 12; Luke iv. 16; _Acts_ xiii. 15, xv. 21;
+Mishnah, _Megilla_, iii. 4, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: [Greek: Archisunagogos].]
+
+[Footnote 7: [Greek: Presbyteroi].]
+
+[Footnote 8: [Greek: Huperetes].]
+
+[Footnote 9: [Greek: Apostoloi], or [Greek: angeloi].]
+
+[Footnote 10: [Greek: Diakonos]. Mark v. 22, 35, and following; Luke
+iv. 20, vii. 3, viii. 41, 49, xiii. 14; _Acts_ xiii. 15, xviii. 8, 17;
+_Rev._ ii. 1; Mishnah, _Joma_, vii. 1; _Rosh Hasshana_, iv. 9; Talm.
+of Jerus., _Sanhedrim_, i. 7; Epiph., _Adv. Haer._, xxx. 4, 11.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Inscription of Berenice, in the _Corpus Inscr. Graec._,
+No. 5361; inscription of Kasyoun, in the _Mission de Phenicie_, book
+iv. [in the press.]]
+
+[Footnote 12: Matt. v. 25, x. 17, xxiii. 34; Mark xiii. 9; Luke xx.
+11, xxi. 12; _Acts_ xxii. 19, xxvi. 11; 2 _Cor._ xi. 24; Mishnah,
+_Maccoth_, iii. 12; Talmud of Babylon, _Megilla_, 7 _b;_ Epiph., _Adv.
+Haer._, xxx. 11.]
+
+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.[1] On
+the other hand, the liberty, accorded to every one, 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.[2] 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 this reading a lesson in conformity with his own
+ideas.[3] 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.[4] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxiii. 6; Epist. James ii. 3; Talmud of Bab.,
+_Sukka_, 51 _b_.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. iv. 23, ix. 35; Mark i. 21, 39, vi. 2; Luke iv. 15,
+16, 31, 44, xiii. 10; John xviii. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke iv. 16, and following. Comp. Mishnah, _Joma_, vii.
+1.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. vii. 28, xiii. 54; Mark i. 22, vi. 1; Luke iv. 22,
+32.]
+
+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 (_Ain-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, Dalmanutha, Capernaum, Bethsaida, and
+Chorazin,[1] 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.[2] Dalmanutha[3] was probably near there. It
+is possible that Chorazin was a little more inland, on the northern
+side.[4] 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.[5] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: The ancient Kinnereth had disappeared or changed its
+name.]
+
+[Footnote 2: We know in fact that it was very near Tiberias.--Talmud
+of Jerusalem, _Maasaroth_, iii. 1; _Shebiit_, ix. 1; _Erubin_, v. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mark viii. 10. Comp. Matt. xv. 39.]
+
+[Footnote 4: In the place named _Khorazi_ or _Bir-kerazeh_, above
+Tell-Houm.]
+
+[Footnote 5: The ancient hypothesis which identified Tell-Houm with
+Capernaum, though strongly disputed some years since, has still
+numerous defenders. The best argument we can give in its favor is the
+name of _Tell-Houm_ itself, _Tell_ entering into the names of many
+villages, and being a substitute for _Caphar_. It is impossible, on
+the other hand, to find near Tell-Houm a fountain corresponding to
+that mentioned by Josephus (_B.J._, III. x. 8.) This fountain of
+Capernaum seems to be Ain-Medawara, but Ain-Medawara is half an hour's
+journey from the lake, while Capernaum was a fishing town on the
+borders of the lake (Matt. iv. 13; John vi. 17.) The difficulties
+about Bethsaida are still greater; for the hypothesis, somewhat
+generally admitted, of two Bethsaidas, the one on the eastern, the
+other on the western shore of the lake, and at two or three leagues
+from one another, is rather singular.]
+
+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[1]--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.[2] 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, 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 Caesarea Philippi runs indefinitely toward
+the south.
+
+[Footnote 1: _B.J._, III. x. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _B.J._, III. x. 7; Jac. de Vitri, in the _Gesta Dei per
+Francos_, i. 1075.]
+
+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,[1] and thus participates in the torrid conditions of
+the Dead Sea.[2] 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.[3] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: This is the estimate of Captain Lynch (in Ritter,
+_Erdkunde_ xv., 1st part, p. 20.) It nearly agrees with that of M. de
+Bertou (_Bulletin de la Soc. de Geogr._, 2d series, xii., p. 146.)]
+
+[Footnote 2: The depression of the Dead Sea is twice as much.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _B.J._, III. x. 7 and 8.]
+
+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.[1]
+Sometimes, however, he wandered from his favorite region. He went by
+boat to the eastern shore, to Gergesa, for instance.[2] Toward the
+north we see him at Paneas or Caesarea Philippi,[3] at the foot of
+Mount Hermon. Lastly, he journeyed once in the direction of Tyre and
+Sidon,[4] a country which must have been marvellously flourishing at
+that time. In all these countries he was in the midst of Paganism.[5]
+At Caesarea, 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;[6] he could admire the marble temple which
+Herod had erected near there in honor of Augustus;[7] 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.[8]
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. ii. 3; _Vita_, 12, 13, 64.]
+
+[Footnote 2: I adopt the opinion of Dr. Thomson (_The Land and the
+Book_, ii. 34, and following), according to which the Gergesa of
+Matthew viii. 28, identical with the Canaanite town of _Girgash_
+(_Gen._ x. 16, xv. 21; _Deut._ vii. 1; _Josh._ xxiv. 11), would be the
+site now named _Kersa_ or _Gersa_, on the eastern shore, nearly
+opposite Magdala. Mark v. 1, and Luke viii. 26, name _Gadara_ or
+_Gerasa_ instead of Gergesa. _Gerasa_ is an impossible reading, the
+evangelists teaching us that the town in question was near the lake
+and opposite Galilee. As to Gadara, now _Om-Keis_, at a journey of an
+hour and a half from the lake and from the Jordan, the local
+circumstances given by Mark and Luke scarcely suit it. It is possible,
+moreover, that _Gergesa_ may have become _Gerasa_, a much more common
+name, and that the topographical impossibilities which this latter
+reading offered may have caused Gadara to be adopted.--Cf. Orig.,
+_Comment. in Joann._, vi. 24, x. 10; Eusebius and St. Jerome, _De situ
+et nomin. loc. hebr._, at the words [Greek: Gergesa], [Greek:
+Gergasei].]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xvi. 13; Mark viii. 27.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xv. 21; Mark vii. 24, 31.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Jos., _Vita_, 13.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Jos., _Ant._, XV. x. 3; _B.J._, I. xxi. 3, III. x. 7;
+Benjamin of Tudela, p. 46, edit. Asher.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Jos., _Ant._, XV. x. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 8: _Corpus inscr. gr._, Nos. 4537, 4538, 4538 _b_, 4539.]
+
+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.[1] 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,[2] interested him but little. Monotheism takes away
+all aptitude for comprehending the Pagan religion; the Mussulman,
+thrown into polytheistic countries, seems to have no eyes. Jesus
+assuredly learned nothing in these journeys. He returned always to his
+well-beloved shore of Gennesareth. There was the centre of his
+thoughts; there he found faith and love.
+
+[Footnote 1: Lucianus (ut fertur), _De Dea Syria_, 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The traces of the rich Pagan civilization of that time
+still cover all the Beled-Besharrah, and especially the mountains
+which form the group of Cape Blanc and Cape Nakoura.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+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.[1] 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 amongst 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;"[2] in the centre of the little circle which
+adored him, he forgot his sceptical brothers, ungrateful Nazareth and
+its mocking incredulity.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. iv. 18; Luke v. 44, and following; John i. 44, xxi.
+1, and following; Jos., _B.J._, III. x. 7; Jac. de Vitri, in the
+_Gesta Dei per Francos_, i. p. 1075.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. ix. 1; Mark ii. 1, 2.]
+
+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,[1] they were
+established at Capernaum when Jesus commenced his public life. Peter
+was married and had children; his mother-in-law lived with him.[2]
+Jesus loved this house and dwelt there habitually.[3] Andrew appears
+to have been a disciple of John the Baptist, and Jesus had perhaps
+known him on the banks of the Jordan.[4] 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.[5]
+Jesus, who loved to play upon words, said at times that he would make
+them fishers of men.[6] In fact, among all his disciples he had none
+more faithfully attached.
+
+[Footnote 1: John i. 44.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. viii. 14; Mark i. 30; Luke iv. 38; 1 _Cor._ ix. 5;
+1 Peter v. 13; Clem. Alex., _Strom._, iii. 6, vii. 11; Pseudo-Clem.,
+_Recogn._, vii. 25; Eusebius, _H.E._, iii. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. viii. 14, xvii. 24; Mark i. 29-31; Luke iv. 38.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John i. 40, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. iv. 18; Mark i. 16; Luke v. 3; John xxi. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. iv. 19; Mark i. 17; Luke v. 10.]
+
+Another family, that of Zabdia or Zebedee, a well-to-do fisherman and
+owner of several boats,[1] 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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Mark i. 20; Luke v. 10, viii. 3; John xix. 27.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvii. 56; Mark xv. 40, xvi. 1.]
+
+Women, in fact, received him with eagerness. He manifested toward 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.[1] They infused
+into the new sect an element of enthusiasm and of the marvellous, 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.[2] That is, she had 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, Susanna, and
+others who have remained unknown, followed him constantly and
+ministered unto him.[3] Some were rich, and by their fortune enabled
+the young prophet to live without following the trade which he had
+until then practiced.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvii. 55, 56; Mark xv. 40, 41; Luke viii. 2, 3,
+xxiii. 49.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mark xvi. 9; Luke viii. 2; cf. _Tobit_ iii. 8, vi. 14.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke viii. 3, xxiv. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke viii. 3.]
+
+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;[1] 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_,[2] which are
+the basis of what we know of the teachings of Jesus. Among the
+disciples are also mentioned Thomas, or Didymus,[3] who doubted
+sometimes, but who appears to have been a man of warm heart and of
+generous sympathies;[4] one Lebbaeus, or Thaddeus; Simon Zelotes,[5]
+perhaps a disciple of Judas 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,[6] a day's journey beyond Hebron.
+
+[Footnote 1: John i. 44, and following; xxi. 2. I admit the
+identification of Nathanael with the apostle who figures in the lists
+under the name of Bartholomew.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Papias, in Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._, iii. 39.]
+
+[Footnote 3: This second name is the Greek translation of the first.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xi. 16, xx. 24, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. x. 4; Mark iii. 18; Luke vi. 15; _Acts_ i. 13;
+Gospel of the Ebionites, in Epiphanes, _Adv. Haer._, xxx. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Now _Kuryetein_, or _Kereitein_.]
+
+We have seen that in general the family of Jesus were little inclined
+toward him.[1] 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.[2] At this period we do not see
+his mother beside him. It was only after the death of Jesus that Mary
+acquired great importance,[3] and that the disciples sought to attach
+her to themselves.[4] It was then, also, that the members of the
+family of the founder, under the title of "brothers of 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.[5] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: The circumstance related in John xix. 25-27 seems to
+imply that at no period of the public life of Jesus did his own
+brothers become attached to him.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvii. 56; Mark xv. 40; John xix. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Acts_ i. 14. Compare Luke i. 28, ii. 35, already
+implying a great respect for Mary.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xix. 25, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Julius Africanus, in Eusebius, _H.E._, i. 7.]
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] The most significant fact
+is, that, in the synoptical Gospels, Simon Bar-jona, 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.[3] It seems, moreover, that they
+were all three associated in their fishing.[4] 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,[5] with an honest frankness which recalls that of
+Joinville toward St. Louis. Jesus chided him, in a friendly manner,
+full of confidence and esteem. As to John, his youth,[6] his exquisite
+tenderness of heart,[7] and his lively imagination,[8] 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 afterward. When old, he wrote that strange
+Gospel,[9] which contains such precious teaching, 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Mark iii. 17, ix. 37, and following; x. 35, and
+following; Luke ix. 49, and following; 54, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John xiii. 23, xviii. 15, and following, xix. 26, 27, xx.
+2, 4, xxi. 7, 20, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xvii. 1, xxvi. 37; Mark v. 37, ix. 1, xiii. 3, xiv.
+33; Luke ix. 28. The idea that Jesus had communicated to these three
+disciples a Gnosis, or secret doctrine, was very early spread. It is
+singular that John, in his Gospel, does not once mention James, his
+brother.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. iv. 18-22; Luke v. 10; John xxi. 2, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xiv. 28, xvi. 22; Mark viii. 32, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: He appears to have lived till near the year 100. See his
+Gospel, xxi. 15-23, and the ancient authorities collected by Eusebius,
+_H.E._, iii. 20, 23.]
+
+[Footnote 7: See the epistles attributed to him, which are certainly
+by the same author as the fourth Gospel.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Nevertheless we do not mean to affirm that the Apocalypse
+is by him.]
+
+[Footnote 9: The common tradition seems sufficiently justified to me
+on this point. It is evident, besides, that the school of John
+retouched his Gospel (see the whole of chap. xxi.)]
+
+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.[1] Simon Bar-jona, however, was distinguished amongst his
+fellows by a peculiar degree of importance. Jesus lived with him, and
+taught in his boat;[2] his house was the centre 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.[3] He was the
+first who had recognized Jesus as the Messiah.[4] 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."[5] Jesus, at various times, gave him a certain priority
+in his church;[6] and gave him the Syrian surname of _Kepha_ (stone),
+by which he wished to signify by that, that he made him the
+corner-stone of the edifice.[7] 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.[8]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xviii. 4, xx. 25-26, xxiii. 8-12; Mark ix. 34, x.
+42-46.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke v. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xvii. 23.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xvi. 16, 17.]
+
+[Footnote 5: John vi. 68-70.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. x. 2; Luke xxii. 32; John xxi. 15, and following;
+_Acts_ i., ii., v., etc.; _Gal._ i. 18, ii. 7, 8.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. xvi. 18; John i. 42.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Matt. xvi. 19. Elsewhere, it is true (Matt. xviii. 18),
+the same power is granted to all the apostles.]
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] Jesus evaded the
+request by his habitual maxim that he who exalteth himself shall 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.[3] 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.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xviii. 1, and following; Mark ix. 33; Luke ix. 46,
+xxii. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xx. 20, and following; Mark x. 35, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mark x. 41.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xviii. 15, and following, xix. 26, 27, xx. 2, and
+following, xxi. 7, 21. Comp. i. 35, and following, in which the
+disciple referred to is probably John.]
+
+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,[1] 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_.[2] They were the
+agents of these contractors, employes 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,[3] made this class of employe very numerous there. Capernaum,
+which was perhaps on the road, possessed a numerous staff of them.[4]
+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.[5] 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.[6] These poor men, placed under the ban
+of society, visited amongst 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 offense.[7] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. ix. 9, x. 3; Mark ii. 14, iii. 18; Luke v. 27, vi.
+15; _Acts_ i. 13. Gospel of the Ebionites, in Epiph., _Adv. Haer._,
+xxx. 13. We must suppose, however strange it may seem, that these two
+names were borne by the same personage. The narrative, Matt. ix. 9,
+conceived in accordance with the ordinary model of legends, describing
+the call to apostleship, is, it is true, somewhat vague, and has
+certainly not been written by the apostle in question. But we must
+remember that, in the existing Gospel of Matthew, the only part which
+is by the apostle consists of the Discourses of Jesus. See Papias, in
+Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._, III. 39.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Cicero, _De Provinc. Consular._, 5; _Pro Plancio_, 9;
+Tac., _Ann._, IV. 6; Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, XII. 32; Appian, _Bell.
+Civ._, II. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 3: It remained celebrated, up to the time of the Crusades,
+under the name of _Via Maris_. Cf. Isaiah ix. 1; Matt. iv. 13-15;
+Tobit, i. 1. I think that the road cut in the rock near Ain-et-Tin
+formed part of it, and that the route was directed from thence toward
+the _Bridge of the Daughters of Jacob_, just as it is now. A part of
+the road from Ain-et-Tin to this bridge is of ancient construction.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. ix. 9, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. v. 46, 47, ix. 10, 11, xi. 19, xviii. 17, xxi. 31,
+32; Mark ii. 15, 16; Luke v. 30, vii. 34, xv. 1, xviii. 11, xix. 7;
+Lucian, _Necyomant_, ii.; Dio Chrysost., orat. iv., p. 85, orat. xiv.,
+p. 269 (edit. Emperius); Mishnah, _Nedarim_, iii. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Mishnah, _Baba Kama_, x. 1; Talmud of Jerusalem, _Demai_,
+ii. 3; Talmud of Bab., _Sanhedrim_, 25 _b_.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Luke v. 29, and following.]
+
+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,[1] Peter,[2] and the Samaritan woman.[3] 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;[4] they believed that in his moments of solitude the
+angels came to render him homage, and established a supernatural
+intercourse between him and heaven.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: John i. 48, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John i. 42.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John iv. 17, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xvii. 3; Mark ix. 3; Luke ix. 30-31.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. iv. 11; Mark i. 13.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE PREACHINGS 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.[1]
+Not one element of Greek culture had penetrated this first assembly of
+the saints. They had very little Jewish instruction; but heart and
+good-will 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 an azure dome of infinite expanse.
+It was during 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;[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xiv. 26; Mark vi. 49; Luke xxiv. 39; John vi. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John i. 51.]
+
+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.[1] 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 sceptical;
+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 advent upon earth of universal
+consolation.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xiii. 1, 2; Mark iii. 9, iv. 1; Luke v. 3.]
+
+"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."[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. v. 3-10; Luke vi. 20-25.]
+
+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, afterward composed those long discourses which
+were written by Matthew.[1] 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.[2] 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;[3] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: This is what the [Greek: Logia kuriaka] were called.
+Papias, in Eusebius, _H.E._, iii. 39.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The apologue, as we find it in _Judges_ ix. 8, and
+following, 2 _Sam._ xii. 1, and following, only resembles the Gospel
+parable in form. The profound originality of the latter is in the
+thought with which it is filled.]
+
+[Footnote 3: See especially the _Lotus of the Good Law_, chap. iii.
+and iv.]
+
+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 rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do
+not break through nor steal: for where your treasure is, there will
+your heart be also.[1] No man can serve two masters: for either he
+will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to one and
+despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.[2] 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,[3] 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."[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Compare Talm. of Bab., _Baba Bathra_, 11 _a_.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The god of riches and hidden treasures, a kind of Plutus
+in the Phoenician and Syrian mythology.]
+
+[Footnote 3: I here adopt the reading of Lachmann and Tischendorf.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. vi. 19-21, 24-34. Luke xii. 22-31, 33, 34, xvi. 13.
+Compare the precepts in Luke x. 7, 8, full of the same simple
+sentiment, and Talmud of Babylon, _Sota_, 48 _b_.]
+
+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.[1] Each day they asked of God the bread for the
+morrow.[2] 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."[3]
+What more foolish than to heap up treasures for heirs whom thou wilt
+never behold?[4] 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![5] The brigandage which
+was deeply rooted in Galilee,[6] gave much force to these views. The
+poor, who did not suffer from it, would regard themselves as the
+favored of God; whilst 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xiii. 22; Mark iv. 19; Luke viii. 14.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. vi. 11; Luke xi. 3. This is the meaning of the word
+[Greek: epiousios].]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke xii. 33, 34.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke xii. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Luke xii. 16, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Jos., _Ant._, XVII. x. 4, and following: _Vita_, 11,
+etc.]
+
+The infant Christianity, moreover, in this only followed the footsteps
+of the Essenes, or Therapeutae, 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 amongst 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.[1] Covetousness was the cardinal
+sin.[2] 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.[3] 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."[4] 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;[5] it is certain that he came to a bad end.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Acts_ iv. 32, 34-37; v. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xiii. 22; Luke xii. 15, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xix. 21; Mark x. 21, and following, 29, 30; Luke
+xviii. 22, 23, 28.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xiii. 44-46.]
+
+[Footnote 5: John xii. 6.]
+
+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."[1] 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 angels into
+Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;[2] 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."[3] What more just? Afterward 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 toward 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."[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xvi. 1-14.]
+
+[Footnote 2: See the Greek text.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke xvi. 19-25. Luke, I am aware, has a very decided
+communistic tendency (comp. vi. 20, 21, 25, 26), and I think he has
+exaggerated this shade of the teaching of Jesus. But the features of
+the [Greek: Logia] of Matthew are sufficiently significant.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xix. 24; Mark x. 25; Luke xviii. 25. This
+proverbial phrase is found in the Talmud (Bab., _Berakoth_, 55 _b_,
+_Baba metsia_, 38 _b_) and in the Koran (Sur., vii. 38.) Origen and
+the Greek interpreters, ignorant of the Semitic proverb, thought that
+it meant a cable ([Greek: kamilos]).]
+
+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 the 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.[1] 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,"[2] which has prevented drought and
+barrenness from entirely invading the field of God.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xiii. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Psalm cxxxiii. 3.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE KINGDOM OF GOD CONCEIVED AS THE INHERITANCE 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 toward the simple.
+A vast substitution of classes would take place. The kingdom of God
+was made--1st, for children, and those who resemble them; 2d, for the
+outcasts of this world, victims of that social arrogance which
+repulses the good but humble man; 3d, for heretics and schismatics,
+publicans, Samaritans, and Pagans of Tyre and Sidon. An energetic
+parable explained this appeal to the people and justified it.[1] 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 byways,
+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."
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxii. 2, and following; Luke xiv. 16, and
+following. Comp. Matt. viii. 11, 12, xxi. 33, and following.]
+
+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."[1] "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."[2] It is perhaps in an
+analogous sense that he often repeated, "Be good bankers"[3]--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, lendeth unto the Lord."[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke vi. 24, 25.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xiv. 12, 14.]
+
+[Footnote 3: A saying preserved by very ancient tradition, and much
+used, Clement of Alexandria, _Strom._ i. 28. It is also found in
+Origen, St. Jerome, and a great number of the Fathers of the Church.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Prov. xix. 17.]
+
+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."[1]
+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.[2] Luxury is there depicted as a crime. The "Son of man," in
+this strange Apocalypse, dethrones kings, tears them from their
+voluptuous life, and precipitates them into hell.[3] 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."[4] The name of "poor" (_ebion_) had become a
+synonym of "saint," of "friend of God." This was the name that the
+Galilean disciples of Jesus loved to give themselves; it was for a
+long time the name of the Judaizing 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 amongst themselves the descendants of his family.[5] 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.[6]
+
+[Footnote 1: See, in particular, Amos ii. 6; Isa. lxiii. 9; Ps. xxv.
+9, xxxvii. 11, lxix. 33; and, in general, the Hebrew dictionaries, at
+the words:
+
+     [Hebrew: evion, dal, ani, anav, chasid, ashir, holelim,
+     aritz].]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ch. lxii., lxiii., xcvii., c., civ.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Enoch_, ch. xlvi. 4-8.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Enoch_, xcix. 13, 14.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Julius Africanus in Eusebius, _H.E._, i. 7; Eus., _De
+situ et nom. loc. hebr._, at the word [Greek: Choba]; Orig., _Contra
+Celsus_, ii. 1, v. 61; Epiph., _Adv. Haer._, xxix. 7, 9, xxx. 2, 18.]
+
+[Footnote 6: See especially Origen, _Contra Celsus_, ii. 1; _De
+Principiis_, iv. 22. Compare Epiph., _Adv. Haer._, xxx. 17. Irenaeus,
+Origen, Eusebius, and the apostolic Constitutions, ignore the
+existence of such a personage. The author of the _Philosophumena_
+seems to hesitate (vii. 34 and 35, x. 22 and 23.) It is by Tertullian,
+and especially by Epiphanes, that the fable of one _Ebion_ has been
+spread. Besides, all the Fathers are agreed on the etymology, [Greek:
+Ebion] = [Greek: ptochos].]
+
+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 centre 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 centre of
+Batanea.[1] "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
+evangeliques_, &c.) 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 mendicity, so impatiently
+borne 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 burdens, 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Epiph., _Adv. Haer._, xix., xxix., and xxx., especially
+xxix. 9.]
+
+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.[1] 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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xi. 5; Luke vi. 20, 21.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. ix. 36; Mark vi. 34.]
+
+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.[1] 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;[2] 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."[3] 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 shoulders rejoicing."[4] Or again: "The Son of Man is
+come to save that which was lost."[5] Or again: "I am not come to call
+the righteous, but sinners."[6] 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.[7] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. ix. 10, and following; Luke xv. entirely.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. ix. 11; Mark ii. 16; Luke v. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. ix. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke xv. 4, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xviii. 11; Luke xix. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. ix. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Luke vii. 36, and following. Luke, who likes to bring out
+in relief everything that relates to the forgiveness of sinners (comp.
+x. 30, and following, xv. entirely, xvii. 16, and following, xix. 2,
+and following, xxiii. 39-43), has included in this narrative passages
+from another history, that of the anointing of feet, which took place
+at Bethany some days before the death of Jesus. But the pardon of
+sinful women was undoubtedly one of the essential features of the
+anecdotes of the life of Jesus.--Cf. John viii. 3, and following;
+Papias, in Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._, iii. 30.]
+
+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 any one avow more loftily this contempt for
+the "world," which is the essential condition of great things and of
+great originality. He pardoned a rich man, but only when the rich man,
+in consequence of some prejudice, was disliked by society.[1] 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."[2]
+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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xix. 2, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxi. 31, 32.]
+
+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.[1] Such
+conduct, compared with that of John the Baptist, gave offence.[2] One
+day, when the disciples of John and the Pharisees were observing the
+fast, it was asked, "Why do the disciples of John and 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."[3] 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.[4] 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 winebibber,
+a friend of publicans and sinners. But Wisdom is justified of her
+children."[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxv. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mark ii. 18; Luke v. 33.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. ix. 14, and following; Mark ii. 18, and following;
+Luke v. 33, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: An allusion to some children's game.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xi. 16, and following; Luke vii. 34, and following.
+A proverb which means "The opinion of men is blind. The wisdom of the
+works of God is only proclaimed by His works themselves." I read
+[Greek: ergon], with the manuscript B. of the Vatican, and not [Greek:
+teknon].]
+
+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 traveling; 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.[1] 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.[2] The mothers, encouraged by such a reception,
+brought him their children in order that he might touch them.[3] 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.[4] 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.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxi. 7, 8.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xix. 13, and following; Mark ix. 35, x. 13, and
+following; Luke xviii. 15, 16.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Ibid.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxvi. 7, and following; Mark xiv. 3, and following;
+Luke vii. 37, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Gospel of Marcion, addition to ver. 2 of chap. xxiii. of
+Luke (Epiph., _Adv. Haer._, xlii. 11). If the suppressions of Marcion
+are without critical value, such is not the case with his additions,
+when they proceed, not from a special view, but from the condition of
+the manuscripts which he used.]
+
+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_,[1] 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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: A cry which was raised at the feast of tabernacles,
+amidst the waving of palms. Mishnah, _Sukka_, iii. 9. This custom
+still exists among the Israelites.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxi. 15, 16.]
+
+He lost no opportunity of repeating that the little ones are sacred
+beings,[1] that the kingdom of God belongs to children,[2] that we
+must become children to enter there,[3] that we ought to receive it as
+a child,[4] that the heavenly Father hides his secrets from the wise
+and reveals them to the little ones.[5] The idea of disciples is in
+his mind almost synonymous with that of children.[6] 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 to them, "Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little
+child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven."[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xviii. 5, 10, 14; Luke xvii. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xix. 14; Mark x. 14; Luke xviii. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xviii. 1, and following; Mark ix. 33, and
+following; Luke ix. 46.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Mark x. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xi. 25; Luke x. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. x. 42, xviii. 5, 14; Mark ix. 36; Luke xvii. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. xviii. 4; Mark ix. 33-36; Luke ix. 46-48.]
+
+It was infancy, in fact, in its divine spontaneity, in its simple
+bewilderments of joy, which took possession of the earth. Every one
+believed at each moment that the kingdom so much desired was about to
+appear. Each one already saw himself seated on a throne[1] beside the
+master. They divided amongst themselves the positions of honor in the
+new kingdom,[2] 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.[3] 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
+millenarian 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!
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xxii. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mark x. 37, 40, 41.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke xxiii. 43; 2 _Cor._ xii. 4. Comp. _Carm. Sibyll.,
+prooem_, 36; Talm. of Bab., _Chagigah_, 14 _b_.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+EMBASSY FROM JOHN IN PRISON TO JESUS--DEATH OF JOHN--RELATIONS OF HIS
+SCHOOL WITH THAT OF JESUS.
+
+
+Whilst joyous Galilee was celebrating in feasts the coming of the
+well-beloved, the sorrowful John, in his prison of Machero, 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.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xi. 2, and following; Luke vii. 18, and following.]
+
+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.[1] 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 tidings 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 untamable freedom of the ascetic was to crown his
+restless and stormy career by the only end which was worthy of it.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. ix. 14, and following.]
+
+The leniency which Antipas had at first shown toward 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.[1] We can easily imagine the hatred which the granddaughter
+of Herod the Great must have conceived toward this importunate
+counsellor. She only waited an opportunity to ruin him.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xiv. 4, and following; Mark vi. 18, and following;
+Luke iii. 19.]
+
+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.[1] 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."[2]
+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.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _De Bello jud._, VII. vi. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 2: A portable dish on which liquors and viands are served in
+the East.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xiv. 3, and following; Mark vi. 14-29; Jos.,
+_Ant._, XVIII. v. 2.]
+
+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.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Josephus, _Ant._, XVIII. v. 1, 2.]
+
+The news of John's death was brought to Jesus by the disciples of the
+Baptist.[1] John's last act toward 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,[2] 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.[3] From this time Jesus always spoke of
+John with redoubled admiration. He declared unhesitatingly[4] that he
+was more than a prophet, that the Law and the ancient prophets had
+force only until he came,[5] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xiv. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xiv. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xiv. 15, and following; Mark vi. 35, and following;
+Luke ix. 11, and following; John vi. 2, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xi. 7, and following; Luke vii. 24, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xi. 12, 13; Luke xvi. 16.]
+
+The prophet Malachi, whose opinion in this matter was soon brought to
+bear,[1] 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.[2] Sometimes they
+associated with Elias, either the patriarch Enoch, to whom for one or
+two centuries they had attributed high sanctity;[3] or Jeremiah,[4]
+whom they considered as a sort of protecting genius of the people,
+constantly occupied in praying for them before the throne of God.[5]
+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.[6] 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.[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: Malachi iii. and iv.; _Ecclesiasticus_ xlviii. 10. See
+_ante_, Chap. VI.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xi. 14, xvii. 10; Mark vi. 15, viii. 28, ix. 10,
+and following; Luke ix. 8, 19.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Ecclesiasticus_ xliv. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xvi. 14.]
+
+[Footnote 5: 2 _Macc._ v. 13, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Texts cited by Anquetil-Duperron, _Zend-Avesta_, i. 2d
+part, p. 46, corrected by Spiegel, in the _Zeitschrift der deutschen
+morgenlaendischen Gesellschaft_, i. 261, and following; extracts from
+the _Jamasp-Nameh_, in the _Avesta_ of Spiegel, i., p. 34. None of the
+Parsee texts, which truly imply the idea of resuscitated prophets and
+of precursors, are ancient; but the ideas contained in them appear to
+be much anterior to the time of the compilation itself.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _Rev._ xi. 3, and following.]
+
+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,[1] they replied that Elias was come, that
+John was Elias raised from the dead.[2] 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.[3]
+Jesus was not silent on the merits and excellencies of his forerunner.
+He said that none greater was 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.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Mark ix. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xi. 14, xvii. 10-13; Mark vi. 15, ix. 10-12; Luke
+ix. 8; John i. 21-25.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke i. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxi. 32; Luke vii. 29, 30.]
+
+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.[1] He was supposed to be a relative of Jesus.[2]
+In 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 latchets of his shoes; that he
+refused at first to baptize him, and maintained that it was he who
+ought to be baptized by Jesus.[3] These were exaggerations, which are
+sufficiently refuted by the doubtful form of John's last message.[4]
+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
+bridegroom, 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Acts_ xix. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke i.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. iii. 14, and following; Luke iii. 16; John i. 15,
+and following, v. 32, 33.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xi. 2, and following; Luke vii. 18, and following.]
+
+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 (toward the year 50), and a large number of the
+Christians of Ephesus.[1] Josephus placed himself (year 53) in the
+school of an ascetic named Banou,[2] who presents the greatest
+resemblance to John the Baptist, and who was perhaps of his school.
+This Banou[3] 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), practised a
+similar asceticism.[4] Afterward, toward the year 80, Baptism was in
+strife with Christianity, especially in Asia Minor. John the
+evangelist appears to combat it in an indirect manner.[5] One of the
+Sibylline[6] poems seems to proceed from this school. As to the sects
+of Hemero-baptists, Baptists, and Elchasaites (_Sabiens Mogtasila_ of
+the Arabian writers[7]), 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Acts_ xviii. 25, xix. 1-5. Cf. Epiph., _Adv. Haer._, xxx.
+16.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Vita_, 2.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Would this be the Bounai who is reckoned by the Talmud
+(Bab., _Sanhedrim_, 43 _a_) amongst the disciples of Jesus?]
+
+[Footnote 4: Hegesippus, in Eusebius, _H.E._, ii. 23.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Gospel, i. 26, 33, iv. 2; 1st Epistle, v. 6. Cf. _Acts_
+x. 47.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Book iv. See especially v. 157, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _Sabiens_ is the Aramean equivalent of the word
+"Baptists." _Mogtasila_ has the same meaning in Arabic.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+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,[1] and the notes of the fourth Gospel
+are very confused on this point.[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: They, however, imply them obscurely (Matt. xxiii. 37;
+Luke xiii. 34). They knew as well as John the relation of Jesus with
+Joseph of Arimathea. Luke even (x. 38-42) knew the family of Bethany.
+Luke (ix. 51-54) has a vague idea of the system of the fourth Gospel
+respecting the journeys of Jesus. Many discourses against the
+Pharisees and the Sadducees, said by the synoptics to have been
+delivered in Galilee, have scarcely any meaning, except as having been
+given at Jerusalem. And again, the lapse of eight days is much too
+short to explain all that happened between the arrival of Jesus in
+that city and his death.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Two pilgrimages are clearly indicated (John ii. 13, and
+v. 1), without speaking of his last journey (vii. 10), after which
+Jesus returned no more to Galilee. The first took place while John was
+still baptizing. It would belong consequently to the Easter of the
+year 29. But the circumstances given as belonging to this journey are
+of a more advanced period. (Comp. especially John ii. 14, and
+following, and Matt. xxi. 12, 13; Mark xi. 15-17; Luke xix. 45, 46.)
+There are evidently transpositions of dates in these chapters of John,
+or rather he has mixed the circumstances of different journeys.]
+
+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 refine 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.[1]
+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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: We may judge of it by the Talmud, the echo of the Jewish
+scholasticism of that time.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _Ant._, XX. xi. 2.]
+
+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,[1] "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.[2] In
+religion, they were considered as ignorant and somewhat heterodox;[3]
+the expression, "foolish Galileans," had become proverbial.[4] It was
+believed (not without reason) that they were not of pure Jewish blood,
+and no one expected Galilee to produce a prophet.[5] 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.[6] "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?"[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: Ps. lxxxiv. (Vulg. lxxxiii.) 11.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvi. 73; Mark xiv. 70; _Acts_ ii. 7; Talm. of
+Bab., _Erubin_, 53 _a_, and following; Bereschith Rabba, 26 _c_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Passage from the treatise _Erubin_, _loc. cit._]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Erubin_, _loc. cit._, 53 _b_.]
+
+[Footnote 5: John vii. 52.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Isa. ix. 1, 2; Matt. iv. 13, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 7: John i. 46.]
+
+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.[1] A
+great number of superb tombs, of original taste, were raised at the
+same time in the neighborhood of Jerusalem.[2] 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.[3] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._, XV. viii.-xi.; _B.J._, V. v. 6; Mark xiii.
+1, 2.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Tombs, namely, of the Judges, Kings, Absalom, Zechariah,
+Jehoshaphat, and of St. James. Compare the description of the tomb of
+the Maccabees at Modin (1 Macc. xiii. 27, and following).]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxiii. 27, 29, xxiv. 1, and following; Mark xiii.
+1, and following; Luke xix. 44, xxi. 5, and following. Compare _Book
+of Enoch_, xcvii. 13, 14; Talmud of Babylon, _Shabbath_, 33 _b_.]
+
+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 porticos took eight years;[1] and the
+accessory portions were continued slowly, and were only finished a
+short time before the taking of Jerusalem.[2] 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.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._, XV. xi. 5, 6.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _Ant._, XX. ix. 7; John ii. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxiv. 2, xxvi. 61, xxvii. 40; Mark xiii. 2, xiv.
+58, xv. 29; Luke xxi. 6; John ii. 19, 20.]
+
+The temple formed a marvelously imposing whole, of which the present
+_haram_,[1] notwithstanding its beauty, scarcely gives us any idea.
+The courts and the surrounding porticos 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.[2] It was an arena
+where arguments were perpetually clashing, a battlefield of disputes,
+resounding with sophisms and subtle questions. The temple had thus
+much analogy with a Mahometan mosque. The Romans at this period
+treated all strange religions with respect, when kept within proper
+limits,[3] 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.[4] But the tower of Antonia, the
+headquarters of the Roman forces, commanded the whole enclosure, and
+allowed all that passed therein to be seen.[5] 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.[6] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: The temple and its enclosure doubtless occupied the site
+of the mosque of Omar and the _haram_, or Sacred Court, which
+surrounds the mosque. The foundation of the haram is, in some parts,
+especially at the place where the Jews go to weep, the exact base of
+the temple of Herod.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke ii. 46, and following; Mishnah, _Sanhedrim_, x. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Suet., _Aug._ 93.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Philo, _Legatio ad Caium_, Sec. 31; Jos., _B.J._, V. v. 2,
+VI. ii. 4; _Acts_ xxi. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Considerable traces of this tower are still seen in the
+northern part of the haram.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Mishnah, _Berakoth_, ix. 5; Talm. of Babyl., _Jebamoth_,
+6 _b_; Mark xi. 16.]
+
+It was in the temple that Jesus passed his days, whilst 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.[1] 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.[2] 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.[3] 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 Judaizing 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,[4] and only the enemies of Christianity, such as Julian,
+remembered the temple.[5] When Omar entered into Jerusalem, he found
+the site designedly polluted in hatred of the Jews.[6] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _B.J._, II. xiv. 3, VI. ix. 3. Comp. Ps. cxxxiii.
+(Vulg. cxxxii.)]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mark xi. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxi. 12, and following; Mark xi. 15, and following;
+Luke xix. 45, and following; John ii. 14, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Itin. a Burdig. Hierus._, p. 152 (edit. Schott); S.
+Jerome, in _Is._ i. 8, and in Matt. xxiv. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Eutychius, _Ann._, II. 286, and following (Oxford 1659).]
+
+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,[1] became more and more a Roman
+functionary,[2] 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.[3] 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."
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._, XV. iii. 1, 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Ibid., XVIII. ii.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Acts_ iv. 1, and following, v. 17; Jos., _Ant._, XX. ix.
+1; _Pirke Aboth_, i. 10.]
+
+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 Boethus 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.[1] 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_,[2] 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.[3] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._ XV. ix. 3, XVII. vi. 4, xiii. 1, XVIII. i.
+1, ii. 1, XIX. vi. 2, viii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: This name is only found in the Jewish documents. I think
+that the "Herodians" of the gospel are the _Boethusim_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The treatise of _Aboth Nathan_, 5; _Soferim_, iii., hal.
+5; Mishnah, _Menachoth_, x. 3; Talmud of Babylon, _Shabbath_, 118 _a_.
+The name of _Boethusim_ is often changed in the Talmudic books with
+that of the Sadducees, or with the word _Minim_ (heretics). Compare
+Thosiphta, _Joma_, i., with the Talm. of Jerus., the same treatise, i.
+5, and Talm. of Bab., same treatise, 19 _b_; Thos. _Sukka_, iii. with
+the Talm. of Bab., same treatise, 43 _b_; Thos. ibid., further on,
+with the Talm. of Bab., same treatise, 48 _b_; Thos. _Rosh hasshana_,
+i. with Mishnah, same treatise ii. 1; Talm. of Jerus., same treatise,
+ii. 1; and Talm. of Bab., same treatise, 22 _b_; Thos. _Menachoth_, x.
+with Mishnah, same treatise, x. 3; Talm. of Bab., same treatise, 65
+_a_; Mishnah, _Chagigah_, ii. 4; and Megillath Taanith, i.; Thos.
+_Iadaim_, ii. with Talm. of Jerus.; _Baba Bathra_, viii. 1; Talm. of
+Bab., same treatise, 115 _b_; and Megillath Taanith, v.]
+
+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 every one 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 afterward.
+He does not appear at that time to have made the acquaintance of the
+family of Bethany, which, amidst 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
+Sanhedrim, and a man occupying a high position in Jerusalem.[1] This
+man, who appears to have been upright and sincere, felt himself
+attracted toward the young Galilean. Not wishing to compromise
+himself, he came to see Jesus by night, and had a long conversation
+with him.[2] He doubtless preserved a favorable impression of him, for
+afterward he defended Jesus against the prejudices of his
+colleagues,[3] and, at the death of Jesus, we shall find him tending
+with pious care the corpse of the master.[4] 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 amongst 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: It seems that he is referred to in the Talmud. Talm. of
+Bab., _Taanith_, 20 _a_; _Gittin_, 56 _a_; _Ketuboth_, 66 _b_;
+treatise _Aboth Nathan_, vii.; Midrash Rabba, _Eka_, 64 _a_. The
+passage _Taanith_ identifies him with Bounai, who, according to
+_Sanhedrim_ (see ante, p. 212, note 2), was a disciple of Jesus. But
+if Bounai is the Banou of Josephus, this identification will not hold
+good.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John iii. 1, and following, vii. 50. We are certainly
+free to believe that the exact text of the conversation is but a
+creation of John's.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John vii. 50, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xix. 39.]
+
+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.[1] Unlike the very strict Pharisees, who walked veiled
+or with closed eyes, he did not scruple to gaze even upon Pagan
+women.[2] This, as well as his knowledge of Greek, was tolerated
+because he had access to the court.[3] After the death of Jesus, he
+expressed very moderate views respecting the new sect.[4] St. Paul sat
+at his feet,[5] but it is not probable that Jesus ever entered his
+school.
+
+[Footnote 1: Mishnah, _Baba Metsia_, v. 8; Talm. of Bab., _Sota_, 49
+_b_.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Talm. of Jerus., _Berakoth_, ix. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Passage _Sota_, before cited, and _Baba Kama_, 83 _a_.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Acts_ v. 34, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: _Acts_ xxii. 3.]
+
+One idea, at least, which Jesus brought from Jerusalem, and which
+henceforth appears rooted in his mind, was that there was no union
+possible 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.[1] 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,[2] the Law was abolished. If sometimes he used more measured
+terms,[3] 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."[4] 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.[5] 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.[6] How far removed
+was this from a Gaulonite Judas 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 superseded, the temple was rendered useless, and was irrevocably
+condemned.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Orac. Sib._, book iii. 573, and following, 715, and
+following, 756-58. Compare the Targum of Jonathan, Isa. xii. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xvi. 16. The passage in Matt. xi. 12, 13, is less
+clear, but can have no other meaning.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. v. 17, 18 (Cf. Talm. of Bab., _Shabbath_, 116 _b_).
+This passage is not in contradiction with those in which the abolition
+of the Law is implied. It only signifies that in Jesus all the types
+of the Old Testament are realized. Cf. Luke xvi. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. ix. 16, 17; Luke v. 36, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Luke xix. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. xxiv. 14, xxviii. 19; Mark xiii. 10, xvi. 15; Luke
+xxiv. 47.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+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,[1] the exterior
+strictness, which trusted to formality for salvation, had in him a
+mortal enemy. He cared little for fasting.[2] He preferred forgiveness
+to sacrifice.[3] The love of God, charity and mutual forgiveness, were
+his whole law.[4] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xv. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. ix. 14, xi. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. v. 23, and following, ix. 13, xii. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxii. 37, and following; Mark xii. 28, and
+following; Luke x. 25, and following.]
+
+We should seek in vain in the Gospel for one religious rite
+recommended by Jesus. Baptism to him was only of secondary
+importance;[1] 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 good-will 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.[2] He often quoted the passage in
+Isaiah, which says: "This people honor me with their lips, but their
+heart is far from me."[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. iii. 15; 1 _Cor._ i. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. vii. 21; Luke vi. 46.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xv. 8; Mark vii. 6. Cf. Isaiah xxix. 13.]
+
+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.[1] It was believed that Nature observed it; all intermittent
+springs were accounted "Sabbatical."[2] This was the point upon which
+Jesus loved best to defy his adversaries.[3] 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."[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: See especially the treatise _Shabbath_ of the Mishnah and
+the _Livre des Jubiles_ (translated from the Ethiopian in the
+_Jahrbuecher_ of Ewald, years 2 and 3), chap. I.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _B.J._, VII. v. 1; Pliny, _H.N._, xxxi. 18. Cf.
+Thomson, _The Land and the Book_, i. 406, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xii. 1-14; Mark ii. 23-28; Luke vi. 1-5, xiii. 14,
+and following, xiv. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xii. 34, xv. 1, and following, 12, and following,
+xxiii. entirely; Mark vii. 1, and following, 15, and following; Luke
+vi. 45, xi. 39, and following.]
+
+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.[1] 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."[2] That
+which struck him in the pagans was not their idolatry, but their
+servility.[3] 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.[4] 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."[5] Jesus adhered so much the more to this idea, as the
+conversion of the Gentiles was, according to Jewish ideas, one of the
+surest signs of the advent of the Messiah.[6] 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, whilst the lawful heirs
+of the kingdom are rejected.[7] 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,[8] he speaks of pagans in a manner conformable to the
+prejudices of the Jews.[9] 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 Mahomet 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 practised in
+turn: "He that is not against us is on our part." "He that is not with
+me, is against me."[10] Impassioned conflict involves almost
+necessarily this kind of contradictions.
+
+[Footnote 1: I believe the pagans of Galilee were found especially on
+the frontiers--at Kedes, for example; but that the very heart of the
+country, the city of Tiberias excepted, was entirely Jewish. The line
+where the ruins of temples end, and those of synagogues begin, is
+to-day plainly marked as far north as Lake Huleh (Samachonites). The
+traces of pagan sculpture, which were thought to have been found at
+Tell-Houm, are doubtful. The coast--the town of Acre, in
+particular--did not form part of Galilee.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Chap. XIII. and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xx. 25; Mark x. 42; Luke xxii. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. viii. 5, and following, xv. 22, and following; Mark
+vii. 25, and following; Luke iv. 25, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xxi. 41; Mark xii. 9; Luke xx. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Isa. ii. 2, and following, lx.; Amos ix. 11, and
+following; Jer. iii. 17; Mal. i. 11; _Tobit_, xiii. 13, and following;
+_Orac. Sibyll._, iii. 715, and following. Comp. Matt. xxiv. 14; _Acts_
+xv. 15, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. viii. 11, 12, xxi. 33, and following, xxii. 1, and
+following.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Matt. vii. 6, x. 5, 6, xv. 24, xxi. 43.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Matt. v. 46, and following, vi. 7, 32, xviii. 17; Luke
+vi. 32, and following, xii. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Matt. xii. 30; Mark ix. 39; Luke ix. 50, xi. 23.]
+
+It is certain that he counted among his disciples many men whom the
+Jews called "Hellenes."[1] This word had in Palestine divers meanings.
+Sometimes it designated the pagans; sometimes the Jews, speaking
+Greek, and dwelling among the pagans;[2] sometimes men of pagan origin
+converted to Judaism.[3] It was probably in the last-named category of
+Hellenes that Jesus found sympathy.[4] 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.[5] This
+very inferiority was doubtless the cause which drew them to Jesus, and
+gained them his favor.
+
+[Footnote 1: Josephus confirms this (_Ant._, XVIII. iii. 3). Comp.
+John vii. 35, xii. 20, 21.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Talm. of Jerus., _Sota_, vii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: See in particular, John vii. 35, xii. 20; _Acts_ xiv. 1,
+xvii. 4, xviii. 4, xxi. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xii. 20; _Acts_ viii. 27.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Mishnah, _Baba Metsia_, ix. 12; Talm. of Bab., _Sanh._,56
+_b_; _Acts_ viii. 27, x. 2, 22, 35, xiii. 16, 26, 43, 50, xvi. 14,
+xvii. 4, 17, xviii. 7; Gal. ii. 3; Jos., _Ant._, XIV. vii. 2.]
+
+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.[1] They
+placed them in the same rank as pagans, but hated them more.[2] Jesus,
+from a feeling of opposition, was well disposed toward 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,[3] 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;[4]--in the same manner as in our days the European
+free-thinker is regarded as an enemy by the Mussulman, who always
+believes him to be a fanatical Christian. Jesus raised himself above
+these misunderstandings.[5] He had many disciples at Shechem, and he
+passed at least two days there.[6] On one occasion he meets with
+gratitude and true piety from a Samaritan only.[7] 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.[8] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Ecclesiasticus_ l. 27, 28; John viii. 48; Jos., _Ant._,
+IX. xiv. 3, XI. viii. 6, XII. v. 5; Talm. of Jerus., _Aboda zara_, v.
+4; _Pesachim_, i. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. x. 5; Luke xvii. 18. Comp. Talm. of Bab., _Cholin_,
+6 _a_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. x. 5, 6.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke ix. 53.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Luke ix. 56.]
+
+[Footnote 6: John iv. 39-43.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Luke xvii. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Luke x. 30, and following.]
+
+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,[1] 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.[2] It was an axiom
+of certain casuists, that "a piece of Samaritan bread is the flesh of
+swine."[3] When they followed this route, provisions were always laid
+up beforehand; yet they rarely avoided conflict and ill-treatment.[4]
+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
+_Bir-Iakoub_. 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Now Nablous.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke ix. 53; John iv. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mishnah, _Shebiit_, viii. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Jos., _Ant._, XX. v. 1; _B.J._, II. xii. 3; _Vita_, 52.]
+
+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."[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: John iv. 21-23. Verse 22, at least the latter clause of
+it, which expresses an idea opposed to that of verses 21 and 23,
+appears to have been interpolated. We must not insist too much on the
+historical reality of such a conversation, since Jesus, or his
+interlocutor, alone would have been able to relate it. But the
+anecdote in chapter iv. of John, certainly represents one of the most
+intimate thoughts of Jesus, and the greater part of the circumstances
+have a striking appearance of 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
+amidst 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 XV.
+
+COMMENCEMENT 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.[1] 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.[2] The Son of man would reappear in glory, accompanied by
+legions of angels, and those who had rejected him would be confounded.
+
+[Footnote 1: The hesitancy of the immediate disciples of Jesus, of
+whom a considerable portion remained attached to Judaism, might cause
+objections to be raised to this. But the trial of Jesus leaves no room
+for doubt. We shall see that he was there treated as a "corrupter."
+The Talmud gives the procedure adopted against him as an example of
+that which ought to be followed against "corrupters," who seek to
+overturn the Law of Moses. (Talm. of Jerus., _Sanhedrim_, xiv. 16;
+Talm. of Bab., _Sanhedrim_, 43 _a_, 67 _a_.)]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xi. 12; Luke xvi. 16.]
+
+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;[1] 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.[2] 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.[3] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: It is true that certain doctors--such as Hillel,
+Gamaliel--are mentioned as being of the race of David. But these are
+very doubtful allegations. If the family of David still formed a
+distinct and prominent group, how is it that we never see it figure,
+by the side of the Sadokites, Boethusians, the Asmoneans, and Herods,
+in the great struggles of the time?]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. ii. 5, 6, xxii. 42; Luke i. 32; John vii. 41, 42;
+_Acts_ ii. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. ix. 27, xii. 23, xv. 22, xx. 30, 31; Mark x. 47,
+52; Luke xviii. 38.]
+
+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?[1] 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?[2] We know not. The inexactitude and the
+contradictions of the genealogies[3] 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.[4] 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 Christendom[5]
+obstinately denied the royal descent of Jesus and the authenticity of
+the genealogies.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. i. 1, and following; Luke iii. 23, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. ii. 1, and following; Luke ii. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The two genealogies are quite contradictory, and do not
+agree with the lists of the Old Testament. The narrative of Luke on
+the census of Quirinus implies an anachronism. See ante, p. 81, note
+4. It is natural to suppose, besides, that the legend may have laid
+hold of this circumstance. The census made a great impression on the
+Jews, overturned their narrow ideas, and was remembered by them for a
+long period. Cf. _Acts_ v. 37.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Julius Africanus (in Eusebius, _H.E._, i. 7) supposes
+that it was the relations of Jesus, who, having taken refuge in
+Batanea, attempted to recompose the genealogies.]
+
+[Footnote 5: The _Ebionites_, the "Hebrews," the "Nazarenes," Tatian,
+Marcion. Cf. Epiph., _Adv. Haer._, xxix. 9, xxx. 3, 14, xlvi. 1;
+Theodoret, _Haeret. fab._, i. 20; Isidore of Pelusium, Epist. i. 371,
+ad Pansophium.]
+
+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,[1] 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.[2]
+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;[3] or, rather, of the
+prophecies 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,[4]
+and two aged persons, Simeon and Anna, who had left memories of great
+sanctity.[5] A rather loose chronology characterized these
+combinations, which for the most part were founded upon real facts
+travestied.[6] But a singular spirit of gentleness and goodness, a
+profoundly popular sentiment, permeated all these fables, and made
+them a supplement to his preaching.[7] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. i. 22, 23.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Gen. i. 2. For the analogous idea among the Egyptians,
+see Herodotus, iii. 28; Pomp. Mela, i. 9: Plutarch, _Quaest. symp._,
+VIII. i. 3; _De Isid. et Osir._, 43.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. i. 15, 23; Isa. vii. 14, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. ii. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Luke ii. 25, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Thus the legend of the massacre of the Innocents probably
+refers to some cruelty exercised by Herod near Bethlehem. Comp. Jos.,
+_Ant._, XIV. ix. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. i., ii.; Luke i., ii.; S. Justin, _Dial. cum
+Tryph._, 78, 106; _Protoevang. of James_ (Apoca.), 18 and following.]
+
+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,[1] 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.[2] 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.[3] In this last Gospel he declares himself less
+than his Father.[4] Elsewhere he avows that the Father has not
+revealed everything to him.[5] 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.[6]
+Every one ought daily to call God his father; all who are raised again
+will be sons of God.[7] The divine son-ship was attributed in the Old
+Testament to beings whom it was by no means pretended were equal with
+God.[8] The word "son" has the widest meanings in the Semitic
+language, and in that of the New Testament.[9] Besides, the idea Jesus
+had of man was not that low idea which a cold Deism 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.[10]
+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;[11] his
+disciples are one, as he and his Father are one.[12] The idea to him
+is everything; the body, which makes the distinction of persons, is
+nothing.
+
+[Footnote 1: Certain passages, such as _Acts_ ii. 22, expressly
+exclude this idea.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xix. 17; Mark x. 18; Luke xviii. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John v. 18, and following, x. 33, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xiv. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Mark xiii. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. v. 9, 45; Luke iii. 38, vi. 35, xx. 36; John i. 12,
+13, x. 34, 35. Comp. _Acts_ xvii. 28, 29; Rom. viii. 14, 19, 21, ix.
+26; 2 Cor. vi. 18; Gal. iii. 26; and in the Old Testament, _Deut._
+xiv. 1; and especially _Wisdom_, ii. 13, 18.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Luke xx. 36.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Gen. vi. 2; Job i. 6, ii. 1, xxviii. 7; Ps. ii. 7,
+lxxxii. 6; 2 Sam. vii. 14.]
+
+[Footnote 9: The child of the devil (Matt. xiii. 38; _Acts_ xiii. 10);
+the children of this world (Mark iii. 17; Luke xvi. 8, xx. 34); the
+children of light (Luke xvi. 8; John xii. 36); the children of the
+resurrection (Luke xx. 36); the children of the kingdom (Matt. viii.
+12, xiii. 38); the children of the bride-chamber (Matt. ix. 15; Mark
+ii. 19; Luke v. 34); the children of hell (Matt. xxiii. 15); the
+children of peace (Luke x. 6), &c. Let us remember that the Jupiter of
+paganism is [Greek: pater andron te theon te].]
+
+[Footnote 10: Comp. _Acts_ xvii. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Matt. xviii. 20, xxviii. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 12: John x. 30, xvii. 21. See in general the later
+discourses of John, especially chap. xvii., which express one side of
+the psychological state of Jesus, though we cannot regard them as true
+historical documents.]
+
+The title "Son of God," or simply "Son,"[1] 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."[2] 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.[3] No one could know the
+Father except through him.[4] The Father had delegated to him
+exclusively the right of judging.[5] Nature obeyed him; but she obeys
+also all who believe and pray, for faith can do everything.[6] 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."[7] He pardoned sins;[8] he was superior to David, to
+Abraham, to Solomon, and to the prophets.[9] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: The passages in support of this are too numerous to be
+referred to here.]
+
+[Footnote 2: It is only in the Gospel of John that Jesus uses the
+expression "Son of God," or "Son," in speaking of himself.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xii. 8; Luke vi. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xi. 27.]
+
+[Footnote 5: John v. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. xvii. 18, 19; Luke xvii. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. ix. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Matt. ix. 2, and following; Mark ii. 5, and following;
+Luke v. 20, vii. 47, 48.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Matt. xii. 41, 42; xxii. 43, and following; John viii.
+52, and following.]
+
+We cannot mistake in these affirmations of Jesus the germ of the
+doctrine which was afterward to make of him a divine hypostasis,[1] in
+identifying him with the Word, or "second God,"[2] or eldest Son of
+God,[3] or _Angel Metathronos_,[4] which Jewish theology created apart
+from him.[5] 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."[6] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: See especially John xiv., and following. But it is
+doubtful whether we have here the authentic teaching of Jesus.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Philo, cited in Eusebius, _Praep. Evang._, vii. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Philo, _De migr. Abraham_, Sec. 1; _Quod Deus immut._, Sec. 6;
+_De confus. ling._, Sec. 9, 14 and 28; De profugis, Sec. 20; _De Somniis_,
+i. Sec. 37; _De Agric. Noe_, Sec. 12; _Quis rerum divin. haeres_, Sec. 25, and
+following, 48, and following, &c.]
+
+[Footnote 4: [Greek: Metathronos], that is, sharing the throne of God;
+a kind of divine secretary, keeping the register of merits and
+demerits; _Bereshith Rabba_, v. 6 _c_; Talm. of Bab., _Sanhedr._, 38
+_b_; _Chagigah_, 15 _a_; Targum of Jonathan, _Gen._, v. 24.]
+
+[Footnote 5: This theory of the [Greek: Logos] contains no Greek
+elements. The comparisons which have been made between it and the
+_Honover_ of the Parsees are also without foundation. The _Minokhired_
+or "Divine Intelligence," has much analogy with the Jewish [Greek:
+Logos]. (See the fragments of the book entitled _Minokhired_ in
+Spiegel, _Parsi-Grammatik_, pp. 161, 162.) But the development which
+the doctrine of the _Minokhired_ has taken among the Parsees is
+modern, and may imply a foreign influence. The "Divine Intelligence"
+(_Maiyu-Khratu_) appears in the Zend books; but it does not there
+serve as basis to a theory; it only enters into some invocations. The
+comparisons which have been attempted between the Alexandrian theory
+of the Word and certain points of Egyptian theology may not be
+entirely without value. But nothing indicates that, in the centuries
+which preceded the Christian era, Palestinian Judaism had borrowed
+anything from Egypt.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Acts_ viii. 10.]
+
+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,"[1] 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
+afterward 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."[2] 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.[3] Until the great day, he will sit at the right hand of God, as
+his Metathronos, his first minister, and his future avenger.[4] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: ix. 1, 2, xvi. 12. Comp. vii. 12, viii. 5, and following,
+ix., and in general ix.-xi. These prosopopoeia of Wisdom personified
+are found in much older books. Prov. viii., ix.; Job xxviii.; _Rev._
+xix. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John, Gospel, i. 1-14; 1 Epistle v. 7; moreover, it will
+be remarked, that, in the Gospel of John, the expression of "the Word"
+does not occur except in the prologue, and that the narrator never
+puts it into the mouth of Jesus.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Acts_ x. 42.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxvi. 64; Mark xvi. 19; Luke xxii. 69; _Acts_ vii.
+55; Rom. viii. 34; Ephes. i. 20; Coloss. iii. 1; Heb. i. 3, 13, viii.
+1, x. 12, xii. 2; 1 Peter iii. 22. See the passages previously cited
+on the character of the Jewish Metathronos.]
+
+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[1]--he is cast down, discouraged--he asks
+his Father to spare him trials--he is submissive to God as a son.[2]
+He who is to judge the world does not know the day of judgment.[3] He
+takes precautions for his safety.[4] Soon after his birth, he is
+obliged to be concealed to avoid powerful men who wish to kill him.[5]
+In exorcisms, the devil cheats him, and does not come out at the first
+command.[6] In his miracles we are sensible of painful effort--an
+exhaustion, as if something went out of him.[7] All these are simply
+the acts of a messenger of God, of a man protected and favored by
+God.[8] 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.[9]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. x. 5, compared with xxviii. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvi. 39; John xii. 27.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mark xiii. 32.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xii. 14-16, xiv. 13; Mark iii. 6, 7, ix. 29, 30;
+John vii. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. ii. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. xvii. 20; Mark ix. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Luke viii. 45, 46; John xi. 33, 38.]
+
+[Footnote 8: _Acts_ ii. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Matt. xiv. 2, xvi. 14, xvii. 3, and following; Mark vi.
+14, 15, viii. 28; Luke ix. 8, and following, 19.]
+
+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 XVI.
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: For example, Matt. i. 22, ii. 5, 6, 15, 18, iv. 15.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. i. 23, iv. 6, 14, xxvi. 31, 54, 56, xxvii. 9, 35;
+Mark xiv. 27, xv. 28; John xii. 14. 15, xviii. 9, xix. 19, 24, 28,
+36.]
+
+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.[1] In Samaria, a few
+leagues from where Jesus was, a magician, named Simon, acquired an
+almost divine character by his illusions.[2] Afterward, 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.[3] The Alexandrian philosophers themselves,
+Plotinus and others, are reported to have performed several.[4] 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.[5] The faculty of performing miracles was regarded as a
+privilege frequently conferred by God upon men,[6] and it had nothing
+surprising in it.
+
+[Footnote 1: John vii. 34; _IV. Esdras_, xiii. 50.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Acts_ viii. 9, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: See his biography by Philostratus.]
+
+[Footnote 4: See the Lives of the Sophists, by Eunapius; the Life of
+Plotinus, by Porphyry; that of Proclus, by Marinus; and that of
+Isidorus, attributed to Damascius.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xvii. 19, xxi. 21, 22; Mark xi. 23, 24.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. ix. 8.]
+
+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 natural 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, Mahomet, 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, amongst 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,[1] 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.[2]
+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 state 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke viii. 45, 46; John xi. 33 and 38.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Acts_ ii. 2, and following, iv. 31, viii. 15, and
+following, x. 44 and following. For nearly a century, the apostles and
+their disciples dreamed only of miracles. See the _Acts_, the writings
+of St. Paul, the extracts from Papias, in Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._,
+iii. 39, &c. Comp. Mark iii. 15, xvi. 17, 18, 20.]
+
+Jesus had no more idea than his countrymen of a rational medical
+science; he believed, like every one 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,[1] or as the act of a demon,[2] 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,[3] the
+imposition of his hands,[4] 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.[5] Both were the signs of the great
+revolution which was to end in the redress of all infirmities.
+
+[Footnote 1: John v. 14, ix. 1, and following, 34.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. ix. 32, 33, xii. 22; Luke xiii. 11, 16.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke viii. 45, 46.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke iv. 40.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xi. 5, xv. 30, 31; Luke ix. 1, 2, 6.]
+
+One of the species of cure which Jesus most frequently performed, was
+exorcism, or the expulsion of demons. A 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 the bodies
+of certain persons and made them act contrary to their will. A Persian
+_div_, often named in the Avesta,[1] _Aeschma-daeva_, the "div of
+concupiscence," adopted by the Jews under the name of Asmodeus,[2]
+became the cause of all the hysterical afflictions of women.[3]
+Epilepsy, mental and nervous maladies,[4] in which the patient seems
+no longer to belong to himself, and infirmities, the cause of which is
+not apparent, as deafness, dumbness,[5] 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.[6] There is
+no doubt that Jesus had in his lifetime the reputation of possessing
+the greatest secrets of this art.[7] 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.[8] 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_[9]) 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Vendidad_, xi. 26; _Yacna_, x. 18.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Tobit_, iii. 8, vi. 14; Talm. of Bab., _Gittin_, 68
+_a_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Comp. Mark xvi. 9; Luke viii. 2; _Gospel of the Infancy_,
+16, 33; Syrian Code, published in the _Anecdota Syriaca_ of M. Land,
+i., p. 152.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Jos., _Bell. Jud._, VII. vi. 3; Lucian, _Philopseud._,
+16; Philostratus, _Life of Apoll._, iii. 38, iv. 20; Aretus, _De
+causis morb. chron._, i. 4.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. ix. 33, xii. 22; Mark ix. 16, 24; Luke xi. 14.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Tobit_, viii. 2, 3; Matt. xii. 27; Mark ix. 38; _Acts_
+xix. 13; Josephus, _Ant._, VIII. ii. 5; Justin, _Dial. cum Tryph._,
+85; Lucian, Epigr., xxiii. (xvii. Dindorf).]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. xvii. 20; Mark ix. 24, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Matt. viii. 28, ix. 34, xii. 43, and following, xvii. 14,
+and following, 20; Mark v. 1, and following; Luke viii. 27, and
+following.]
+
+[Footnote 9: 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 [Greek: daimonan] has also, in all classical
+antiquity, the meaning of "to be mad."]
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] 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.[3]
+These traits are especially characteristic in Mark, who is
+pre-eminently 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,[4] 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.[5] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xii. 39, xvi. 4, xvii. 16; Mark viii. 17, and
+following, ix. 18; Luke ix. 41.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. viii. 4, ix. 30, 31, xii. 16, and following; Mark
+i. 44, vii. 24, and following, viii. 26.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mark i. 24, 25, 34, iii. 12; Luke iv. 41.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xvii. 16; Mark ix. 18; Luke ix. 41.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xii. 38, and following, xvi. 1, and following; Mark
+viii. 11.]
+
+We should neglect to recognize the first principles of history if we
+attached too much importance to our repugnances 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.[1]
+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,[2] 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.[3] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Josephus, _Ant._, XVIII. iii. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Papias, in Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._, iii. 39.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mark iv. 40, v. 15, 17, 33, 36, vi. 50, x. 32; cf. Matt.
+viii. 27, 34, ix. 8, xiv. 27, xvii. 6, 7, xxviii. 5, 10; Luke iv. 36,
+v. 17, viii. 25, 35, 37, ix. 34. The Apocryphal Gospel, said to be by
+Thomas the Israelite, carries this feature to the most offensive
+absurdity. Compare the _Miracles of the Infancy_, in Philo, _Cod.
+Apocr. N.T._, p. cx., note.]
+
+The problem, moreover, presents itself in the same manner with respect
+to all saints and religious 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 Mahomet.[1] 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 amidst a crowd of littlenesses which, to
+superficial minds, eclipse their grandeur.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Hysteria Muscularis_ of Shoenlein.]
+
+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.[1] The pagans, and persons
+unacquainted with him, experienced a sentiment of fear, and sought to
+remove him from their district.[2] Many thought perhaps to abuse his
+name by connecting it with seditious movements.[3] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xiv. 1, and following; Mark vi. 14; Luke ix. 7,
+xxiii. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. viii. 34; Mark v. 17, viii. 37.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John vi. 14, 15.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+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.[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: John v. 1, vii. 2. We follow the system of John,
+according to whom the public life of Jesus lasted three years. The
+synoptics, on the contrary, group all the facts within the space of
+one year.]
+
+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.[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xii. 13, 14.]
+
+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,"[1] preceded by dark
+calamities and heralded by strange phenomena.[2] 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.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xix. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxiv. 3, and following; Mark xiii. 4, and
+following; Luke xvii. 22, and following, xxi. 7, and following. It
+must be remarked that the picture of the end of time attributed to
+Jesus by the synoptics, contains many features which relate to the
+siege of Jerusalem. Luke wrote some time after the siege (xxi. 9, 20,
+24). The compilation of Matthew, on the contrary (xxvi. 15, 16, 22,
+29), carries us back exactly to this precise period, or very shortly
+afterward. There is no doubt, however, that Jesus predicted that great
+terrors would precede his reappearance. These terrors were an integral
+part of all the Jewish apocalypses. _Enoch_, xcix., c., cii., ciii.
+(division of Dillman); _Carm. sibyll._, iii. 334, and following, 633,
+and following, iv. 168, and following, v. 511, and following.
+According to Daniel also, the reign of the saints will only come after
+the desolation shall have reached its height. Chap. vii. 25, and
+following, viii. 23, and following, ix. 26, 27, xii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xvi. 27, xix. 28, xx. 21, xxiv. 30, and following,
+xxv. 31, and following, xxvi. 64; Mark xiv. 62; Luke xxii. 30; 1
+_Cor._ xv. 52; 1 Thess. iv. 15, and following.]
+
+At this judgment men will be divided into two classes according to
+their deeds.[1] The angels will be the executors of the sentences.[2]
+The elect will enter into delightful mansions, which have been
+prepared for them from the foundation of the world;[3] there they will
+be seated, clothed with light, at a feast presided over by Abraham,[4]
+the patriarchs and the prophets. They will be the smaller number.[5]
+The rest will depart into _Gehenna_. Gehenna was the western valley of
+Jerusalem. There the worship of fire had been practised 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.[6]
+There, there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.[7] The kingdom of
+heaven will be as a closed room, lighted from within, in the midst of
+a world of darkness and torments.[8]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xiii. 38, and following, xxv. 33.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xiii. 39, 41, 49.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxv. 34. Comp. John xiv. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. viii. 11, xiii. 43, xxvi. 29; Luke xiii. 28, xvi.
+22, xxii. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Luke xiii. 23, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. xxv. 41. The idea of the fall of the angels,
+detailed in the Book of Enoch, was universally admitted in the circle
+of Jesus. Epistle of Jude 6, and following; 2d Epistle attributed to
+Saint Peter, ii. 4. 11; _Revelation_ xii. 9; Gospel of John viii. 44.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. v. 22, viii. 12, x. 28, xiii. 40, 42, 50, xviii. 8,
+xxiv. 51, xxv. 30; Mark ix. 43, &c.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Matt. viii. 12, xxii. 13, xxv. 30. Comp. Jos., _B.J._,
+III. viii. 5.]
+
+This new order of things will be eternal. Paradise and Gehenna will
+have no end. An impassable abyss separates the one from the other.[1]
+The Son of man, seated on the right hand of God, will preside over
+this final condition of the world and of humanity.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xvi. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mark iii. 29; Luke xxii. 69; _Acts_ vii. 55.]
+
+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,[1] and that
+the great "revelation"[2] of Christ was about to take place. The
+startling proclamation, "The time is at hand,"[3] which commences and
+closes the Apocalypse; the incessantly reiterated appeal, "He that
+hath ears to hear let him hear!"[4] were the cries of hope and
+encouragement for the whole apostolic age. A Syrian expression, _Maran
+atha_, "Our Lord cometh!"[5] became a sort of password, which the
+believers used amongst themselves to strengthen their faith and their
+hope. The Apocalypse, written in the year 68 of our era,[6] declares
+that the end will come in three years and a half.[7] The "Ascension of
+Isaiah"[8] adopts a calculation very similar to this.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Acts_ ii. 17, iii. 19, and following; 1 _Cor._ xv. 23,
+24, 52; 1 Thess. iii. 13, iv. 14, and following, v. 23; 2 Thess. ii.
+8; 1 Tim. vi. 14; 2 Tim. iv. 1; Tit. ii. 13; Epistle of James v. 3, 8;
+Epistle of Jude 18; 2d Epistle of Peter, iii. entirely; _Revelations_
+entirely, and in particular, i. 1, ii. 5, 16, iii. 11, xi. 14, xxii.
+6, 7, 12, 20. Comp. 4th Book of Esdras, iv. 26.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xvii. 30; 1 _Cor._ i. 7, 8; 2 Thess. i. 7; 1 Peter
+i. 7, 13; _Revelations_ i. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Revelations_ i. 3, xxii. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xi. 15, xiii. 9, 43; Mark iv. 9, 23, vii. 16; Luke
+viii. 8, xiv. 35; _Revelations_ ii. 7, 11, 27, 29, iii. 6, 13, 22,
+xiii. 9.]
+
+[Footnote 5: 1 _Cor._ xvi. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Revelations_ xvii. 9, and following. The sixth emperor,
+whom the author represents as reigning, is Galba. The dead emperor,
+who was to return, is Nero, whose name is given in figures (xiii.
+18).]
+
+[Footnote 7: _Revelations_ xi. 2, 3, xii. 14. Comp. Daniel vii. 25,
+xii. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Chap. iv., v. 12 and 14. Comp. Cedrenus, p. 68 (Paris,
+1647).]
+
+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.[1] He said
+that the time when the kingdom of God was most anxiously expected, was
+just that in which it would not appear.[2] 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;[3] that the Son of man would come like a thief, at an
+hour when he would not be expected;[4] that he would appear as a flash
+of lightning, running from one end of the heavens to the other.[5] But
+his declarations on the nearness of the catastrophe leave no room for
+any equivocations.[6] "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."[7] 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?"[8] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxiv. 36; Mark xiii. 32.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xvii. 20. Comp. Talmud of Babyl., _Sanhedrim_, 97
+_a_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxiv. 36, and following; Mark xiii. 32, and
+following; Luke xii. 35, and following, xvii. 20, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke xii. 40; 2 Peter iii. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Luke xvii. 24.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. x. 23, xxiv., xxv. entirely, and especially xxiv.
+29, 34; Mark xiii. 30; Luke xiii. 35, xxi. 28, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. xvi. 28, xxiii. 36, 39, xxiv. 34; Mark viii. 39;
+Luke ix. 27, xxi. 32.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Matt. xvi. 2-4; Luke xii. 54-56.]
+
+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;[1] many believed that he would
+never die. Perhaps this was a later opinion suggested toward 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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: John xxi. 22, 23.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John xxi. 22, 23. Chapter xxi. of the fourth Gospel is an
+addition, as is proved by the final clause of the primitive
+compilation, which concludes at verse 31 of chapter xx. But the
+addition is almost contemporaneous with the publication of the Gospel
+itself.]
+
+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.[1] It was the faith of
+the Pharisees, and of the fervent adherents of the Messianic
+beliefs.[2] 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;[3] 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.[4] Sometimes he seems to promise
+resurrection only to the righteous,[5] the punishment of the wicked
+consisting in complete annihilation.[6] Oftener, however, Jesus
+declares that the resurrection shall bring eternal confusion to the
+wicked.[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: Mark ix. 9; Luke xx. 27, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Dan. xii. 2, and following; 2 Macc. vii. entirely, xii.
+45, 46, xiv. 46; _Acts_ xxiii. 6, 8; Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. i. 3;
+_B.J._, II. viii. 14, III. viii. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvi. 29; Luke xxii. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxii. 24, and following; Luke xx. 34-38; Ebionite
+Gospel, entitled, "Of the Egyptians," in Clem. of Alex., _Strom._ ii.
+9, 13; Clem. Rom., Epist. ii. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Luke xiv. 14, xx. 35, 36. This is also the opinion of St.
+Paul: 1 _Cor._ xv. 23, and following; 1 Thess. iv. 12, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Comp. 4th book of Esdras, ix. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. xxv. 32, and following.]
+
+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,"[1] "Enoch,"[2] and the "Sibylline Oracles,"[3] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: See especially chaps. ii., vi.-viii., x.-xiii.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Chaps. i., xiv., lii., lxii., xciii. 9, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Book iii. 573, and following; 652, and following; 766,
+and following; 795, and following.]
+
+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.[1] 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 a covering of fable, into the
+bosom of humanity, has thus brought forth eternal fruits.
+
+[Footnote 1: These pangs of Christian conscience are rendered with
+simplicity in the second epistle attributed to St. Peter, iii. 8, and
+following.]
+
+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 amidst 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 re-establishment
+of all that is humble, true, and simple. This re-establishment 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.[1] The kingdom of God at such times is only the highest
+form of good.[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. vi. 10, 33; Mark xii. 34; Luke xi. 2, xii. 31,
+xvii. 20, 21, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: See especially Mark xii. 34.]
+
+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
+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 destined 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 threw 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,[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Justin, _Dial. cum Tryph._, 81.]
+
+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.[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: See, for example, the prologue of Gregory of Tours to his
+_Histoire Ecclesiastique des Francs_, and the numerous documents of
+the first half of the Middle Ages, beginning by the formula, "On the
+approach of the night of the world...."]
+
+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!_[1] 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
+that 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 kind of exalted
+divination seems to have maintained it in a vague sublimity, embracing
+at the same time various orders of truths.
+
+[Footnote 1: 1 _Cor._ xv. 52.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+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 pre-eminently
+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.[1] 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
+Alphaeus; Simon Zelotes; Thaddeus or Lebbaeus; and Judas of Kerioth.[2]
+It is probable that the idea of the twelve tribes of Israel had had
+some share in the choice of this number.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: _Acts_ i. 15, and following; 1 _Cor._ xv. 5; Gal. i. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. x. 2 and following; Mark iii. 16, and following;
+Luke vi. 14, and following; _Acts_ i. 13; Papias, in Eusebius, _Hist.
+Eccl._, iii. 39.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xix. 28; Luke xxii. 30.]
+
+The "twelve," at all events, formed a group of privileged disciples,
+among whom Peter maintained a fraternal priority,[1] 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,[2] were married and had children.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Acts_ i. 15, ii. 14, v. 2, 3, 29, viii. 19, xv. 7; Gal.
+i. 18.]
+
+[Footnote 2: For Peter, see ante, p. 174; for Philip, see Papias,
+Polycrates, and Clement of Alexandria, quoted by Eusebius, _Hist.
+Eccl._, iii. 30, 31, 39, v. 24.]
+
+Jesus evidently confided secrets to the twelve, which he forbade them
+to communicate to the world.[1] 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 afterward to the world.[2] "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.[3] 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 apologues, and showed them his meaning stripped of
+the wealth of illustration which sometimes obscured it.[4] Many of
+these explanations appear to have been carefully preserved.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xvi. 20, xvii. 9; Mark viii. 30, ix. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. x. 26, 27; Mark iv. 21, and following; Luke viii.
+17, xii. 2, and following; John xiv. 22.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xiii. 10, and following, 34 and following; Mark iv.
+10, and following, 33, and following; Luke viii. 9, and following;
+xii. 41.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xvi. 6, and following; Mark vii. 17-23.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xiii. 18, and following; Mark vii. 18, and
+following.]
+
+During the lifetime of Jesus, the apostles preached,[1] but without
+ever departing far from him. Their preaching, moreover, was limited to
+the announcement of the speedy coming of the kingdom of God.[2] 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.[3] "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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke ix. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke x. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The Greek word [Greek: pandokeion], in all the languages
+of the Semitic East, designates an hostelry.]
+
+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."[1] 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.[2] 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."
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. x. 11, and following; Mark vi. 10, and following;
+Luke x. 5, and following. Comp. 2 Epistle of John, 10, 11.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke ix. 52, and following.]
+
+He sought in every way to establish as a principle that his apostles
+were as himself.[1] It was believed that he had communicated his
+marvellous virtues to them. They cast out demons, prophesied, and
+formed a school of renowned exorcists,[2] although certain cases were
+beyond their power.[3] They also wrought cures, either by the
+imposition of hands, or by the anointing with oil,[4] one of the
+fundamental processes of Oriental medicine. Lastly, like the Psylli,
+they could handle serpents and could drink deadly potions with
+impunity.[5] 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.[6] 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 toward them.[7] 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,[8] 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.[9] Some even
+sought to buy from the disciples of Jesus the secret of the miraculous
+powers which had been conferred upon them.[10] 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.[11] 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 afterward 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 Magdalen, and Nicodemus, did not, it seems,
+join these churches, but clung to the tender or respectful memory
+which they had preserved of him.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. x. 40, 42, xxv. 35, and following; Mark ix. 40;
+Luke x. 16; John xiii. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. vii. 22, x. 1; Mark iii. 15, vi. 13; Luke x. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xvii. 18, 19.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Mark vi. 13, xvi. 18; Epist. Jas. v. 14.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Mark xvi. 18; Luke x. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Mark xvi. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Mark ix. 37, 38; Luke ix. 49, 50.]
+
+[Footnote 8: An ancient god of the Philistines, transformed by the
+Jews into a demon.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Matt. xii. 24, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 10: _Acts_ viii. 18, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Matt. xviii. 17, and following; John xx. 23.]
+
+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.[1]
+Neither was there any theology or creed. There were indefinite views
+respecting the Father, the Son, and the Spirit,[2] from which,
+afterward, 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.[3] Jesus insisted upon
+this point,[4] and announced to his disciples a baptism by fire and by
+the spirit,[5] 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.[6] The Holy Spirit thus sent by
+the Father was to teach them all truth, and testify to that which
+Jesus himself had promulgated.[7] In order to designate this Spirit,
+Jesus made use of the word _Peraklit_, which the Syro-Chaldaic had
+borrowed from the Greek ([Greek: parakletos]), and which appears to
+have had in his mind the meaning of "advocate,"[8] "counsellor,"[9]
+and sometimes that of "interpreter of celestial truths," and of
+"teacher charged to reveal to men the hitherto hidden mysteries."[10]
+He regarded himself as a _Peraklit_ to his disciples,[11] 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, whilst in Christianity, commencing with the fourth
+century, they were to form the very essence of orthodoxy and of the
+universal doctrine.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xix. 3, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxviii. 19. Comp. Matt. iii. 16, 17; John xv. 26.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Sap._ i. 7, vii. 7, ix. 17, xii. 1; _Eccles._ i. 9, xv.
+5, xxiv. 27; xxxix. 8; _Judith_ xvi. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. x. 20; Luke xii. 12, xxiv. 49; John xiv. 26, xv.
+26.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. iii. 11; Mark i. 8; Luke iii. 16; John i. 26, iii.
+5; _Acts_ i. 5, 8, x. 47.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Acts_ ii. 1-4, xi. 15, xix. 6. Cf. John vii. 39.]
+
+[Footnote 7: John xv. 26, xvi. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 8: To _Peraklit_ was opposed _Katigor_, ([Greek:
+kategoros]), the "accuser."]
+
+[Footnote 9: John xiv. 16; 1st Epistle of John ii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 10: John xiv. 26, xv. 26, xvi. 7, and following. Comp.
+Philo, _De Mundi opificio_, Sec. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 11: John xiv. 16. Comp. the epistle before cited, _l.c._]
+
+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 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.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Papias, in Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._, iii. 39.]
+
+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 his disciples. "Verily,
+verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but
+my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven."[1] 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."[2] 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."[3] 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 will 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 is that 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."
+
+[Footnote 1: John vi. 32, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: We find an analogous form of expression provoking a
+similar misunderstanding, in John iv. 10, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: A11 these discourses bear too strongly the imprint of the
+style peculiar to John, for them to be regarded as exact. The anecdote
+related in chapter vi. of the fourth Gospel cannot, however, be
+entirely stripped of historical reality.]
+
+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 Capernaum, 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,[1] 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.[2] 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 birth on the shore of
+Lake Tiberias[3]), was itself almost sacramental, and became a
+necessary part of the conceptions of the sacred feast.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xxiv. 30, 35.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke _l.c._; John xxi. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Comp. Matt. vii. 10, xiv. 17, and following, xv. 34, and
+following; Mark vi. 38, and following; Luke ix. 13, and following, xi.
+11, xxiv. 42; John vi. 9, and following, xxi. 9, and following. The
+district round Lake Tiberias is the only place in Palestine where fish
+forms a considerable portion of the diet.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xxi. 13; Luke xxiv. 42, 43. Compare the oldest
+representations of the Lord's Supper, related or corrected by M. de
+Rossi, in his dissertation on the [Greek: ICHTHYS] (_Spicilegium
+Solesmense_ de dom Pitra, v. iii., p. 568, and following). The meaning
+of the anagram which the word [Greek: ICHTHYS] contains, was probably
+combined with a more ancient tradition on the place of fish in the
+Gospel repasts.]
+
+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.[1] 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 afterward 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."
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xxii. 15.]
+
+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,[1] and it is to the most solemn moment
+of the life of the Saviour 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.[2] 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[3] 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.[4] 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,"[5] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: _Acts_ ii. 42, 46.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 1 _Cor._ xi. 20, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xviii. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xii. entirely.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Canon of the Greek Masses and the Latin Mass (very
+ancient).]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] The celibate
+was greatly preferred; even in marriage continence was recommended.[3]
+At one time the master seems to approve of those who should mutilate
+themselves in prospect of the kingdom of God.[4] 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."[5] The cessation of generation was often considered as
+the sign and condition of the kingdom of God.[6]
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xiv. 33; _Acts_ iv. 32, and following, v. 1-11.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xix. 10, and following; Luke xviii. 29, and
+following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: This is the constant doctrine of Paul. Comp. _Rev._ xiv.
+4.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xix. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xviii. 8, 9. Cf. Talmud of Babylon, _Niddah_, 13
+_b_.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. xxii. 30; Mark xii. 25; Luke xx. 35; Ebionite
+Gospel, entitled "Of the Egyptians," in Clem. of Alex., _Strom._ iii.
+9, 13, and Clem. Rom., Epist. ii. 12.]
+
+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 of
+human society. Essentially Utopian in their origin, and succeeding by
+their very 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."[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xviii. 20, 30.]
+
+The teachings which Jesus is reputed to have given to his disciples
+breathe the same exaltation.[1] He who was so tolerant to the world
+outside, he who contented himself sometimes with half adhesions,[2]
+exercised toward 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 downward, 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 practise absolute
+poverty, live on alms and hospitality. "Freely ye have received,
+freely give,"[3] 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.[4] 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."
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. x., entirely, xxiv. 9; Mark vi. 8, and following,
+ix. 40, xiii. 9-13; Luke x. 3, and following, x. 1, and following,
+xii. 4, and following, xxi. 17; John xv. 18, and following, xvii. 14.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mark ix. 38, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. x. 8. Comp. Midrash Ialkout, _Deut._, sect. 824.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. x. 20; John xiv. 16, and following, 26, xv. 26,
+xvi. 7, 13.]
+
+A strange ardor animates all these discourses, which may in part be
+the creation of the enthusiasm of his disciples,[1] 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 persecuted 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."[2] "Whosoever, therefore,"
+continued he, "shall confess 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."[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: The expressions in Matt. x. 38, xvi. 24; Mark viii. 34;
+Luke xiv. 27, can only have been conceived after the death of Jesus.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. x. 24-31; Luke xii. 4-7.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. x. 32, 33; Mark viii. 38; Luke ix. 26, xii. 8, 9.]
+
+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," said he, "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."[1] "So
+likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath,
+he cannot be my disciple."[2] 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 sombre 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?"[3] 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."[4] 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."[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xiv. 26. We must here take into account the
+exaggeration of Luke's style.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xiv. 33.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. x. 37-39, xvi. 24, 25; Luke ix. 23-25, xiv. 26, 27,
+xvii. 33; John xii. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. viii. 21, 22; Luke ix. 59-62.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xi. 28-30.]
+
+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 fulness, 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.[1] At other times, although such a thought only afterward
+became a doctrine, death presented itself to him as a sacrifice,
+destined to appease his Father and to save mankind.[2] A singular
+taste for persecution and torments[3] 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.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xvi. 21-23, xvii. 12, 21, 22.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mark x. 45.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke vi. 22, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke xii. 50.]
+
+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."[1] "I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I,
+if it be already kindled?"[2] "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."[3] "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."[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. x. 34-36; Luke xii. 51-53. Compare Micah vii. 5,
+6.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xii. 49. See the Greek text.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John xvi. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xv. 18-20.]
+
+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.[1] The great vision of
+the kingdom of God, glistening before his eyes, bewildered him. His
+disciples at times thought him mad.[2] His enemies declared him to be
+possessed.[3] 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."[4] 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.[5] His disciples at times did not understand him, and
+experienced in his presence a feeling akin to fear.[6] Sometimes his
+displeasure at the slightest opposition led him to commit
+inexplicable and apparently absurd acts.[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: John xii. 27.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mark iii. 21, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mark iii. 22; John vii. 20, viii. 48, and following, x.
+20, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. viii. 10, ix. 2, 22, 28, 29, xvii. 19; John vi. 29,
+etc.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xvii. 16; Mark iii. 5, ix. 18; Luke viii. 45, ix.
+41.]
+
+[Footnote 6: It is in Mark especially that this feature is visible;
+iv. 40, v. 15, ix. 31, x. 32.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Mark xi. 12-14, 20, and following.]
+
+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 XX.
+
+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.[1] Antipas, however, did not interfere with
+him, although Jesus expressed himself sometimes very severely
+respecting him.[2] At Tiberias, his usual residence, the Tetrarch was
+only one or two leagues distant from the district chosen by Jesus for
+the centre of his activity; he heard speak of his miracles, which he
+doubtless took to be clever tricks, and desired to see them.[3] The
+incredulous were at that time very curious about this class of
+illusions.[4] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xii. 14-16; Mark iii. 7, ix. 29, 30.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mark viii. 15; Luke xiii. 32.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke ix. 9, xxiii. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Lucius_; attributed to Lucian, 4.]
+
+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;[1] 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.[2] His peaceful manners, and his remoteness from popular
+agitation, ultimately reassured the Tetrarch and dissipated the
+danger.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xiv. 1, and following; Mark vi. 14, and following;
+Luke ix. 7, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xiii. 31, and following.]
+
+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,[1] 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,[2] 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."[3] "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."[4] His wandering life, at first so full of charm, now began
+to weigh upon him. "The foxes," said he, "have holes, and the birds of
+the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his
+head."[5] 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.[6]
+
+[Footnote 1: John vii. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xii. 39, 45, xiii. 15, xvi. 4; Luke xi. 29.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xi. 21-24; Luke x. 12-15.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xii. 41, 42; Luke xi. 31, 32.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. viii. 20; Luke ix. 58.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Luke xviii. 8.]
+
+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.[1] Like John the
+Baptist,[2] he employed very harsh terms against his adversaries. Of
+an exquisite gentleness with the simple, he was irritated at
+incredulity, however little aggressive.[3] 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
+toward those who did not agree with him. Jesus, in like manner,
+applied to himself, not without reason, the passage from Isaiah:[4]
+"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
+he not quench."[5] And yet many of the recommendations which he
+addressed to his disciples contain the germs of a true fanaticism,[6]
+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?
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xii. 34, xv. 14, xxiii. 33.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. iii. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xii. 30; Luke xxi. 23.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Isa. xlii. 2, 3.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xii. 19-20.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. x. 14, 15, 21, and following, 34, and following;
+Luke xix. 27.]
+
+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
+centre at Jerusalem, it had adherents either established in Galilee,
+or who often came there.[1] They were, in general, men of a narrow
+mind, caring much for externals; their devoutness was haughty, formal,
+and self-satisfied.[2] Their manners were ridiculous, and excited the
+smiles of even those who respected them. The epithets which the people
+gave them, and which savor 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 Pharisee," whose externals
+of devotion were but a varnish of hypocrisy.[3] This strictness was,
+in fact, often only apparent, and concealed in reality great moral
+laxity.[4] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Mark vii. 1; Luke v. 17, and following, vii. 36.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. vi. 2, 5, 16, ix. 11, 14, xii. 2, xxiii. 5, 15, 23;
+Luke v. 30, vi. 2, 7, xi. 39, and following, xviii. 12; John ix. 16;
+_Pirke Aboth_, i. 16; Jos., _Ant._, XVII. ii. 4, XVIII. i. 3; _Vita_,
+38; Talm. of Bab., _Sota_, 22 _b_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Talmud of Jerusalem, _Berakoth_, ix., sub fin.; _Sota_,
+v. 7; Talmud of Babylon, _Sota_, 22 _b_. The two compilations of this
+curious passage present considerable differences. We have, in general,
+followed the Babylonian compilation, which seems most natural. Cf.
+Epiph., _Adv. Haer._, xvi. 1. The passages in Epiphanes, and several of
+those of the Talmud, may, besides, relate to an epoch posterior to
+Jesus, an epoch in which "Pharisee" had become synonymous with
+"devotee."]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. v. 20, xv. 4, xxiii. 3, 16, and following; John
+viii. 7; Jos., _Ant._, XII. ix. 1; XIII. x. 5.]
+
+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,
+whilst 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,[1] those of Jesus, son
+of Sirach, making worship consist in doing good,[2] were forgotten or
+anathematized.[3] Shammai, with his narrow and exclusive spirit, had
+prevailed. An enormous mass of "traditions" had stifled the Law,[4]
+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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Talm. of Bab., _Shabbath_, 31 _a_; _Joma_, 35 _b_.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Eccles._ xvii. 21, and following, xxxv. 1, and
+following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Talm. of Jerus., _Sanhedrim_, xi. 1; Talm. of Bab.,
+_Sanhedrim_, 100 _b_.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xv. 2.]
+
+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." Religious 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 criticising 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.[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xv. 2, and following; Mark vii. 2, and following.]
+
+Disputes broke out especially respecting a number of external
+practices introduced by tradition, which neither Jesus nor his
+disciples observed.[1] 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."[2] 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."[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xv. 2, and following; Mark vii. 4, 8; Luke v. sub
+fin. and vi. init., xi. 38, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xi. 41.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke xviii. 9-14; comp. _ibid._, xiv. 7-11.]
+
+A hate, which death alone could satisfy, was the consequence of these
+struggles. John the Baptist had already provoked enmities of the same
+kind.[1] But the aristocrats of Jerusalem, who despised him, had
+allowed simple men to take him for a prophet.[2] 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.[3] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. iii. 7, and following, xvii. 12, 13.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xiv. 5, xxi. 26; Mark xi. 32; Luke xx. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xii. 3-8, xxiii. 16, and following.]
+
+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.[1]
+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 fulfill the proverb--that a prophet must not die
+outside Jerusalem.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Mark iii. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xiii. 33.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+LAST JOURNEY OF JESUS TO JERUSALEM.
+
+
+Jesus had for a long time been sensible of the dangers that surrounded
+him.[1] During a period of time which we may estimate at eighteen
+months, he avoided going on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.[2] At the feast
+of Tabernacles of the year 32 (according to the hypothesis we have
+adopted), his relations, always malevolent and incredulous,[3] 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 every one, and almost alone.[4] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xvi. 20, 21; Mark viii. 30, 31.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John vii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John vii. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John vii. 10.]
+
+His disciples, and the pious women who tended him, met him again in
+Judea.[1] 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.[2] Instead of that illimitable faculty of belief, happy
+gift of youthful natures, which he found in Galilee--instead of those
+good and gentle people, amongst 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."[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvii. 55; Mark xv. 41; Luke xxiii. 49, 55.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John vii. 20, 25, 30, 32.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John vii. 50, and following.]
+
+The city, as we have already said, displeased Jesus. Until then he had
+always avoided great centres, 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.[1] 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.[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. x. 11-13; Mark vi. 10; Luke x. 5-8.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxi. 3, xxvi. 18; Mark xi. 3, xiv. 13, 14; Luke
+xix. 31, xxii. 10-12.]
+
+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."[1] 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 in unto the offerings of God; but she of her penury hath cast in
+all the living that she had."[2] This manner of criticising all he
+observed at Jerusalem, of praising the poor who gave little, of
+slighting the rich who gave much,[3] 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 _haram_ which succeeded
+it, was the last place in the world where revolution could prosper.
+Imagine an innovator going in our days to preach the overturning of
+Islamism round the mosque of Omar! There, however, was the centre 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxiv. 1, 2; Mark xiii. 1, 2; Luke xix. 44, xxi. 5,
+6. Cf. Mark xi. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mark xii. 41, and following; Luke xxi. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mark xii. 41.]
+
+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, toward 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,[1] 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.[2] 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.[3] There
+were upon the Mount of Olives two great cedars, the memory of which
+was long preserved amongst the dispersed Jews; their branches served
+as an asylum to clouds of doves, and under their shade were
+established small bazaars.[4] All this precinct was in a manner the
+abode of Jesus and his disciples; they knew it field by field and
+house by house.
+
+[Footnote 1: Mark xi. 19; Luke xxii. 39; John xviii. 1, 2. This
+orchard could not be very far from the place where the piety of the
+Catholics has surrounded some old olive-trees by a wall. The word
+_Gethsemane_ seems to signify "oil-press."]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xxi. 37, xxii. 39; John viii. 1, 2.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Talm. of Bab., _Pesachim_, 53 _a_.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Talm. of Jerus., _Taanith_, iv. 8.]
+
+The village of Bethany, in particular,[1] 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.[2] 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.[3] Of the two sisters, the one,
+named Martha, was an obliging, kind, and assiduous person;[4] the
+other, named Mary, on the contrary, pleased Jesus by a sort of
+languor,[5] 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."[6] Her brother, Eleazar, or Lazarus, was also much beloved by
+Jesus.[7] Lastly, a certain Simon, the leper, who was the owner of the
+house, formed, it appears, part of the family.[8] 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,[9] 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.[10] 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."[11]
+
+[Footnote 1: Now _El-Azerie_ (from _El-Azir_, the Arabic name of
+Lazarus); in the Christian texts of the Middle Ages, _Lazarium_.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxi. 17, 18; Mark xi. 11, 12.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John xi. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke x. 38-42; John xii. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 5: John xi. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Luke x. 38, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 7: John xi. 35, 36.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Matt. xxvi. 6; Mark xiv. 3; Luke vii. 40-43; John xii. 1,
+and following.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Mark xiii. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Josephus, _B.J._, V. v. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 11: Matt. xxiii. 37; Luke xiii. 34.]
+
+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.[1]
+Excommunication, besides, carried with it the confiscation of all
+possessions.[2] 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."[3] 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 any one 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: John vii. 13, xii. 42, 43, xix. 38.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 1 Esdr. x. 8; Epistle to Hebrews x. 34; Talmud of Jerus.,
+_Moedkaton_, iii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John vii. 45, and following.]
+
+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.[1]
+He was obliged to become controversialist, jurist, exegetist, and
+theologian. His conversations, generally so full of charm, became a
+rolling fire of disputes,[2] an interminable train of scholastic
+battles. His harmonious genius was wasted in insipid argumentations
+upon the Law and the prophets,[3] in which we should have preferred
+not seeing him sometimes play the part of aggressor.[4] He lent
+himself with a condescension we cannot but regret to the captious
+criticisms to which the merciless cavillers subjected him.[5] 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;[6] his reasoning, judged according
+to the rules of Aristotelian logic, was very weak. But when the
+unequaled 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.[7] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: John viii. 13, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxi. 23-37.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxii. 23, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxii. 42, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xxii. 36, and following, 46.]
+
+[Footnote 6: See especially the discussions reported by John, chapter
+viii., for example; it is true that the authenticity of such passages
+is only relative.]
+
+[Footnote 7: John viii. 3, and following. This passage did not at
+first form part of the Gospel of St. John; it is wanting in the more
+ancient manuscripts, and the text is rather unsettled. Nevertheless,
+it is from the primitive Gospel traditions, as is proved by the
+singular peculiarities of verses 6 and 8, which are not in the style
+of Luke, and compilers at second hand, who admitted nothing that does
+not explain itself. This history is found, as it seems, in the Gospel
+according to the Hebrews. (Papias, quoted by Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._,
+iii. 39.)]
+
+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.[1] 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
+toward 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._, XIII. x. 6, XVIII. i. 4.]
+
+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, whilst 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 pretense 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."[1] Profound
+words, which have decided the future of Christianity! Words of a
+perfected spiritualism, and of marvellous justness, which have
+established the separation between the spiritual and the temporal, and
+laid the basis of true liberalism and civilization!
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxii. 15, and following; Mark xii. 13, and
+following; Luke xx. 20, and following. Comp. Talm. of Jerus.,
+_Sanhedrim_, ii. 3.]
+
+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."[1] 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."[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: John x. 1-16.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxiv. 32; Mark xiii. 28; Luke xxi. 30; John iv.
+35.]
+
+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,[1] enlarge the borders of their garments,[2] 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!...
+
+[Footnote 1: _Totafoth_ or _tefillin_, plates of metal or strips of
+parchment, containing passages of the Law; which the devout Jews wore
+attached to the forehead and left arm, in literal fulfilment of the
+passages (_Ex._ xiii. 9; _Deut._ vi. 8, xi. 18.)]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Zizith_, red borders or fringes which the Jews wore at
+the corner of their cloaks to distinguish them from the pagans (_Num._
+xv. 38, 39; _Deut._ xxii. 12.)]
+
+"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye have taken
+away the key of knowledge, shut up the kingdom of heaven against
+men![1] 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 pretense, 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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: The Pharisees excluded men from the kingdom of God by
+their fastidious casuistry, which rendered entrance into it too
+difficult, and discouraged the unlearned.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Contact with the tombs rendered any one impure. Great
+care was, therefore, taken to mark their extent on the ground. Talm.
+of Bab., _Baba Bathra_, 58 _a_; _Baba Metsia_, 45 _b_. Jesus here
+reproached the Pharisees for having invented a number of small
+precepts which might be violated unwittingly, and which only served to
+multiply infringements of the law.]
+
+"Ye fools, and blind! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin,
+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.
+Woe unto you!
+
+"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean
+the outside of the cup and of the platter;[1] but within they are
+full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee,[2] cleanse first
+that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may
+be clean also.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: The purification of vessels was subjected, amongst the
+Pharisees, to the most complicated laws (Mark vii. 4.)]
+
+[Footnote 2: This epithet, often repeated (Matt. xxiii. 16, 17, 19,
+24, 26), perhaps contains an allusion to the custom which certain
+Pharisees had of walking with closed eyes in affectation of sanctity.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke (xi. 37, and following) supposes, not without
+reason, that this verse was uttered during a repast, in answer to the
+vain scruples of the Pharisees.]
+
+"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; for ye are like unto
+whited sepulchres,[1] 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 men, but within ye are full of
+hypocrisy and iniquity.
+
+[Footnote 1: The tombs being impure, it was customary to whiten them
+with lime, to warn persons not to approach them. See p. 315, note 3,
+and Mishnah, _Maasar hensi_, v. 1; Talm. of Jerus., _Shekalim_, i. 1;
+_Maasar sheni_, v. 1; _Moed katon_, i. 2; _Sota_, ix. 1; Talm. of
+Bab., _Moed katon_, 5 _a_. Perhaps there is an allusion to the "dyed
+Pharisees" in this comparison which Jesus uses.]
+
+"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the
+tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres 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,[1] '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,[2] whom ye slew between
+the temple and the altar.' Verily, I say unto you, all these things
+shall come upon this generation."[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: We are ignorant from what book this quotation is taken.]
+
+[Footnote 2: There is a slight confusion here, which is also found in
+the Targum of Jonathan (_Lament._ ii. 20), between Zacharias, son of
+Jehoiadas, and Zacharias, son of Barachias, the prophet. It is the
+former that is spoken of (2 _Paral._ xxiv. 21.) The book of the
+Paralipomenes, in which the assassination of Zacharias, son of
+Jehoiadas, is related, closes the Hebrew canon. This murder is the
+last in the list of murders of righteous men, drawn up according to
+the order in which they are presented in the Bible. That of Abel is,
+on the contrary, the first.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxiii. 2-36; Mark xii. 38-40; Luke xi. 39-52, xx.
+46, 47.]
+
+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,[1] is used as a
+fearful menace against the aristocracy. The title "Son of God," which
+he openly assumed in striking parables,[2] wherein his enemies
+appeared as murderers of the heavenly messengers, was 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."[3] 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."[4] 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 amidst the last
+agonies of Golgotha. These irritating discussions always ended in
+tumult. The Pharisees threw stones at him;[5] 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.[6] At other times they called him mad,
+possessed, Samaritan,[7] and even sought to kill him.[8] 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.[9]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. viii. 11, 12, xx. 1, and following, xxi. 28, and
+following, 33, and following, 43, xxii. 1, and following; Mark xii. 1,
+and following; Luke xx. 9, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxi. 37, and following; John x. 36, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John ix. 39.]
+
+[Footnote 4: The most authentic form of this sentence appears to be in
+Mark xiv. 58, xv. 29. Cf. John ii. 19; Matt. xxvi. 61, xxvii. 40.]
+
+[Footnote 5: John viii. 39, x. 31, xi. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 6: _Deuter._ xiii. 1, and following. Comp. Luke xx. 6; John
+x. 33; 2 _Cor._ xi. 25.]
+
+[Footnote 7: John x. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 8: John v. 18, vii. 1, 20, 25, 30, viii. 37, 40.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Luke xi. 53, 54.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+MACHINATIONS OF THE ENEMIES 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.[1] This portico
+consisted of two galleries, formed by three rows of columns, and
+covered by a ceiling of carved wood.[2] 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.[3] 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[4] 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.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: John x. 23.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _B.J._, V. v. 2. Comp. _Ant._, XV. xi. 5, XX. ix.
+7.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Jos., places cited.]
+
+[Footnote 4: See ante, p. 316. I am led to suppose that the tombs
+called those of Zachariah and of Absalom were monuments of this kind.
+Cf. _Itin. a Burdig. Hierus._, p. 153 (edit. Schott.)]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xxiii. 29; Luke xi. 47.]
+
+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.[1] It was
+also called the "Feast of Lights," because, during the eight days of
+the feast, lamps were kept lighted in the houses.[2] 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,[3] and in which he had himself
+administered baptism. He seems to have reaped consolation from this
+journey, especially 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,[4] was a customs station of importance. The
+chief receiver, Zaccheus, a rich man, desired to see Jesus.[5] 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 offense, 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[6] 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."[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: John x. 22. Comp. 1 Macc. iv. 52, and following; 2 Macc.
+x. 6, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _Ant._, XII. vii. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John x. 40. Cf. Matt. xix. 1; Mark x. 1. This journey is
+known to the synoptics. But they seem to think that Jesus made it by
+coming from Galilee to Jerusalem through Perea.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Eccles._ xxiv. 18; Strabo, XVI. ii. 41; Justin., xxxvi.
+3; Jos., _Ant._, IV. vi. 1, XIV. iv. 1, XV. iv. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Luke xix. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. xx. 29; Mark x. 46, and following; Luke xviii. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 7: _B.J._, IV. viii. 3. Comp. _ibid._, I. vi. 6, I. xviii.
+5, and _Antiq._, XV. iv. 2.]
+
+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.[1] 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 repugnances 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 a 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: John xi. 1, and following.]
+
+Fame already attributed to Jesus two or three works of this kind.[1]
+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.[2] 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,[3]
+might be taken by those present for the agitation and trembling[4]
+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 every one 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 were
+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
+marvellous, 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. ix. 18, and following; Mark v. 22, and following;
+Luke vii. 11, and following, viii. 41, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John xi. 3, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John xi. 35, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xi. 33, 38.]
+
+Everything, in fact, seems to lead us to believe that the miracle of
+Bethany contributed sensibly to hasten the death of Jesus.[1] 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.[2] The enemies of Jesus were much irritated at
+all this fame. They endeavored, it is said, to kill Lazarus.[3] It is
+certain, that from that time a Council of the chief priests[4] 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."
+
+[Footnote 1: John xi. 40, and following, xii. 2, 9, and following, 17,
+and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John xii. 9, 10, 17, 18.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John xii. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xi. 47, and following.]
+
+"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.[1] Kaiapha, however, held it longer than any
+one 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._, XV. iii. 1, XVIII. ii. 2, v. 3, XX. ix. 1,
+4.]
+
+This personage was Hanan or Annas,[1] son of Seth, and father-in-law
+of Kaiapha. He was formerly the high priest, and had in reality
+preserved amidst 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,[2]
+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,[3] besides Kaiapha,
+who was his son-in-law. His was called the "priestly family," as if
+the priesthood had become hereditary in it.[4] The chief offices of
+the temple were almost all filled by them.[5] Another family, that of
+Boethus, alternated, it is true, with that of Hanan's in the
+pontificate.[6] 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.[7] 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,[8] he was a Sadducee, "a sect," says
+Josephus, "particularly severe in its judgments." All his sons also
+were violent persecutors.[9] 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;[10] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: The _Ananus_ of Josephus. It is thus that the Hebrew name
+_Johanan_ became in Greek _Joannes_ or _Joannas_.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John xviii. 15-23; _Acts_ iv. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Jos., _Ant._, XX. ix. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Jos., _Ant._, XV. iii. 1; _B.J._, IV. v. 6 and 7; _Acts_
+iv. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Jos., _Ant._, XX. ix. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Jos., _Ant._, XV. ix. 3, XIX. vi. 2, viii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Luke iii. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 8: _Acts_ v. 17.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Jos., _Ant._, XX. ix. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Jos., _Ant._, XX. ix. 1.]
+
+It is in the mouth of Kaiapha that the evangelist places the decisive
+words which led to the death of Jesus.[1] 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.[2] 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 ruin 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: John xi. 49, 50. Cf. _ibid._, xviii. 14.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John xi. 48.]
+
+The death of Jesus was thus resolved upon from the month of February
+or the beginning of March.[1] 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.[2] 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.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: John xi. 53.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John xi. 54. Cf. 2 _Chron._ xiii. 19; Jos., _B.J._, IV.
+ix. 9; Eusebius and St. Jerome, _De situ et nom. loc. hebr._, at the
+words [Greek: Ephron] and [Greek: Ephraim].]
+
+[Footnote 3: John xi. 55, 56. 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 XXIII.
+
+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.[1] The impiety of
+men being at its height, was regarded as a great sign that the
+consummation was at hand. The persuasion in this respect was such,
+that they already disputed for precedence in the kingdom.[2] 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.[3] 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.[4] 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.[5] Jesus at last spoke to them, and no longer concealing
+his presentiments, discoursed to them of his approaching end.[6] 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,"[7] 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.[8]
+The misunderstanding between him and his disciples became greater each
+moment.
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xix. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xxii. 24, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xx. 20, and following; Mark x. 35, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke xix. 12-27.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xvi. 21, and following; Mark viii. 31, and
+following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Matt. xx. 17, and following; Mark x. 31, and following;
+Luke xviii. 31, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. xxiii. 39; Luke xiii. 35.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Matt. xx. 28.]
+
+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.[1]
+The sixth day before the feast (Saturday, 8th of Nisan, equal to the
+28th March[2]) 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,[3] 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.[4] 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 afterward 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.[5] 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.[6] All
+the house was filled with the odor of the perfume, to the great
+delight of every one 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.[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: John xi. 56.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The Passover was celebrated on the 14th of Nisan. Now in
+the year 33, the 1st of Nisan corresponded with Saturday, 21st of
+March.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvi. 6; Mark xiv. 3. Cf. Luke vii. 40, 43, 44.]
+
+[Footnote 4: It is customary, in the East, for a person who is
+attached to any one by a tie of affection or of domesticity, to attend
+upon him when he goes to eat at the house of another.]
+
+[Footnote 5: I have seen this custom still practised at Sour (Zoar.)]
+
+[Footnote 6: We must remember that the feet of the guests were not, as
+amongst us, concealed under the table, but extended on a level with
+the body on the divan, or _triclinium_.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. xxvi. 6, and following; Mark xiv. 3, and following;
+John xi. 2, xii. 2, and following. Compare Luke vii. 36, and
+following.]
+
+The next day (Sunday, 9th of Nisan), Jesus descended from Bethany to
+Jerusalem.[1] 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.[2] 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,[3] he
+had experienced a momentary pleasure.[4] 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.[5] "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.[6] 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.[7] Jerusalem at these times was
+taken possession of by strangers. It was amongst 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;[8]
+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.[9] 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.[10]
+
+[Footnote 1: John xii. 12.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xix. 41, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mishnah, _Menachoth_, xi. 2; Talm. of Bab., _Sanhedrim_,
+14 _b_; _Pesachim_, 63 _b_, 91 _a_; _Sota_, 45 _a_; _Baba metsia_, 85
+_a_. It follows from these passages that Bethphage was a kind of
+_pomaerium_, which extended to the foot of the eastern basement of the
+temple, and which had itself its wall of inclosure. The passages Matt.
+xxi. 1, Mark xi. 1, Luke xix. 29, do not plainly imply that Bethphage
+was a village, as Eusebius and St. Jerome have supposed.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxi. 1, and following; Mark xi. 1, and following;
+Luke xix. 29, and following; John xii. 12, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Luke xix. 38; John xii. 13.]
+
+[Footnote 6: The number of 120,000, given by Hecataeus (in Josephus,
+_Contra Apion_, I. xxii.), appears exaggerated. Cicero speaks of
+Jerusalem as of a paltry little town (_Ad Atticum_, II. ix.) The
+ancient boundaries, whichever calculation we adopt, do not allow of a
+population quadruple of that of the present time, which does not reach
+15,000. See Robinson, _Bibl. Res._, i. 421, 422 (2d edition);
+Fergusson, _Topogr. of Jerus._, p. 51; Forster, _Syria and Palestine_,
+p. 82.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Jos., _B.J._, II. xiv. 3, VI. ix. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 8: John xii. 20, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Matt. xxi. 17; Mark xi. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 10: Matt. xxi. 17, 18; Mark xi. 11, 12, 19; Luke xxi. 37,
+38.]
+
+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."[1] It was believed that a voice from
+heaven was heard at this moment: others said that an angel came to
+console him.[2] According to one widely spread version, the incident
+took place in the garden of Gethsemane. 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.[3] 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.[4] 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
+free conscience, and the complete model which all suffering souls will
+contemplate in order to fortify and console themselves.
+
+[Footnote 1: John xii. 27, and following. We can easily imagine that
+the exalted tone of John, and his exclusive preoccupation with the
+divine character of Jesus, may have effaced from the narrative the
+circumstances of natural weakness related by the synoptics.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke xxii. 43; John xii. 28, 29.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvi. 36, and following; Mark xiv. 32, and
+following; Luke xxii. 39, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: This is the less to be understood, as John is affectedly
+particular in noticing the circumstances which were personal to him,
+or of which he had been the only witness (xiii. 23, and following,
+xviii. 15, and following, xix. 26, and following, 35, xx. 2, and
+following, xxi. 20, and following.)]
+
+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.[1] 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,[2] they feared an
+outbreak; the arrest was therefore fixed for the next day, Thursday.
+It was resolved, also, not to seize him in the temple, where he came
+every day,[3] 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 synoptics give as the motive of the crime in
+question, does not suffice to explain it. It would be very singular if
+a 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[4] in
+exchange for a very small sum of money.[5] 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,[6] for which,
+however, there is no probability. We would rather ascribe it to some
+feeling of jealousy or to some dissension amongst the disciples. The
+peculiar hatred John manifests toward Judas[7] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvi. 1, 5; Mark xiv. 1, 2; Luke xxii. 1, 2.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxi. 46.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvi. 55.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xii. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 5: John does not even speak of a payment in money.]
+
+[Footnote 6: John vi. 65, xii. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 7: John vi. 65, 71, 72, xii. 6; xiii. 2, 27, and following.]
+
+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,[1] and, it is said, killed
+himself.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvii. 3, and following.]
+
+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 (2d 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.[1] 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 afterward supposed, owing to an error of a day in
+reckoning,[2] but for the primitive church this supper of the
+Thursday was the true passover, the seal 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvi. 1, and following; Mark xiv. 12; Luke xxii. 7;
+John xiii. 29.]
+
+[Footnote 2: This is the system of the synoptics (Matt. xxvi. 17, and
+following; Mark xiv. 12, and following; Luke xxii. 7, and following,
+15.) But John, whose narrative of this portion has a greater
+authority, expressly states that Jesus died the same day on which the
+Paschal lamb was eaten (xiii. 1, 2, 29, xviii. 28, xix. 14, 31.) The
+Talmud also makes Jesus to die "on the eve of the Passover" (Talm. of
+Bab., _Sanhedrim_, 43 _a_, 67 _a_.)]
+
+Doubtless the tender love which filled the heart of Jesus for the
+little church which surrounded him overflowed at this moment,[1] 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. Toward 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."[2] 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?"
+
+[Footnote 1: John xiii. 1, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvi. 21, and following; Mark xiv. 18, and
+following; Luke xx. 21, and following; John xiii. 21, and following,
+xxi. 20.]
+
+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 cognizance 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.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: John xiii. 21, and following, which shows the
+improbabilities of the narrative of the synoptics.]
+
+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 practised 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.[1] 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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xxii. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 2: 1 _Cor._ xi. 26.]
+
+Very early this mystery was embodied in a small sacramental narrative,
+which we possess under four forms,[1] very similar to one another.
+John, preoccupied with the Eucharistic ideas,[2] and who relates the
+Last Supper with so much prolixity, connecting with it so many
+circumstances and discourses[3]--and who was the only one of the
+evangelists whose testimony on this point has the value of an
+eye-witness--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.[4] No
+doubt, Jesus, on some occasions, had practised 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvi. 26-28; Mark xiv. 22-24; Luke xxii. 19-21; 1
+_Cor._ xi. 23-25.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Chap. vi.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Chaps. xiii.-xvii.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xiii. 14, 15. Cf. Matt. xx. 26, and following; Luke
+xxii. 26, and following.]
+
+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.[1] 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."[2] At this last
+moment there were again evoked rivalries and struggles for
+precedence.[3] 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."[4] According to others, he promised them soon a celestial
+feast, where they would be seated on thrones at his side.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: John xiii. 1, and following. The discourses placed by
+John after the narrative of the Last Supper cannot be taken as
+historical. They are full of peculiarities and of expressions which
+are not in the style of the discourses of Jesus; and which, on the
+contrary, are very similar to the habitual language of John. Thus the
+expression "little children" in the vocative (John xiii. 33) is very
+frequent in the First Epistle of John. It does not appear to have been
+familiar to Jesus.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John xiii. 33-35, xv. 12-17.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Luke xxii. 24-27. Cf. John xiii. 4, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxvi. 29; Mark xiv. 25; Luke xxii. 18.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Luke xxii. 29, 30.]
+
+It seems that, toward 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.[1] He did not, however,
+follow out this idea; he saw clearly that timid provincials would not
+stand before the armed force of 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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xxii. 36-38.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvi. 31, and following; Mark xiv. 29, and
+following; Luke xxii. 33, and following; John xiii. 36, and
+following.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+ARREST AND TRIAL OF JESUS.
+
+
+It was nightfall[1] when they left the room.[2] 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,[3] 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 the priests. They were supported by a detachment
+of Roman soldiers with their swords. The order for the arrest emanated
+from the high priest and the Sanhedrim.[4] 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;[5] and
+according to some,[6] he carried his hateful conduct even to betraying
+him by a kiss. However this may be, it is certain that there was some
+show of resistance on the part of the disciples.[7] One of them
+(Peter, according to eye-witnesses[8]) 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.[9]
+
+[Footnote 1: John xiii. 30.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The singing of a religious hymn, related by Matt. xxvi.
+30, and Mark xiv. 26, proceeds from the opinion entertained by these
+two evangelists that the last repast of Jesus was the Paschal feast.
+Before and after the Paschal feast, psalms were sung. Talm. of Bab.,
+_Pesachim_, cap. ix. hal. 3, and fol. 118 _a_, etc.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvi. 36; Mark xiv. 32; Luke xxii. 39; John xviii.
+1, 2.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxvi. 47; Mark xiv. 43; John xviii. 3, 12.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xxvi. 47; Mark xiv. 43; Luke xxii. 47; John xviii.
+3; _Acts_ i. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 6: This is the tradition of the synoptics. In the narrative
+of John, Jesus declares himself.]
+
+[Footnote 7: The two traditions are agreed on this point.]
+
+[Footnote 8: John xviii. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 9: Mark xiv. 51, 52.]
+
+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."[1] 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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: In criminal matters, eye-witnesses alone were admitted.
+Mishnah, _Sanhedrim_, iv. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Talm. of Jerus., _Sanhedrim_, xiv. 16; Talm. of Bab.,
+same treatise, 43 _a_, 67 _a_. Cf. _Shabbath_, 104 _b_.]
+
+We learn from the disciples of Jesus themselves that the crime with
+which their Master was charged was that of "corruption;"[1] 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.[2] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvii. 63; John vii. 12, 47.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John xviii. 13, and following. This circumstance, which
+we only find in John, is the strongest proof of the historic value of
+the fourth Gospel.]
+
+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, around 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 that Jesus had made. Touched to the heart, he went out and wept
+bitterly.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvi. 69, and following; Mark xiv. 66, and
+following; Luke xxii. 54, and following; John xviii. 15, and
+following, 25, and following.]
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] Jesus remained silent, and refused to explain the
+incriminated 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.[3] 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 defense. 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.[4] 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.[5] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xvi. 57; Mark xiv. 53; Luke xxii. 66.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxiii. 16, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvi. 64; Mark xiv. 62; Luke xxii. 69. John knows
+nothing of this scene.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Levit._ xxiv. 14, and following; _Deut._ xiii. 1, and
+following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Luke xxiii. 50, 51.]
+
+The Sanhedrim had not the right to execute a sentence of death.[1] 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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: John xviii. 31; Jos., _Ant._, XX. ix. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvi. 67, 68; Mark xiv. 65; Luke xxii. 63-65.]
+
+In the morning the chief priests and the elders again assembled.[1]
+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 the 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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvii. 1; Mark xv. 1; Luke xxii. 66, xxiii. 1; John
+xviii 28.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _Ant._, XV. xi. 5; _B.J._, VI. ii. 4.]
+
+The agents of the priests therefore bound Jesus and led him to the
+judgment-hall, which was the former palace of Herod,[1] adjoining the
+Tower of Antonia.[2] It was the morning of the day on which the
+Paschal lamb was to be eaten (Friday the 14th of Nisan, our 3d of
+April). 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.[3] Pilate being informed of
+their presence, ascended the _bima_[4] or tribunal, situated in the
+open air,[5] at the place named _Gabbatha_, or in Greek,
+_Lithostrotos_, on account of the pavement which covered the ground.
+
+[Footnote 1: Philo, _Legatio ad Caium_, Sec. 38. Jos., _B.J._, II. xiv.
+8.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The exact place now occupied by the seraglio of the Pacha
+of Jerusalem.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John xviii. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 4: The Greek word [Greek: Bema] had passed into the
+Syro-Chaldaic.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Jos., _B.J._, II. ix. 3, xiv. 8; Matt. xxvii. 27; John
+xviii. 33.]
+
+He had scarcely been informed of the accusation, before he displayed
+his annoyance at being mixed up with this affair.[1] 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 tenor 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: John xviii. 29.]
+
+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,[1] 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.[2]
+
+[Footnote 1: Virg., _AEn._, XII. 121; Martial, _Epigr._, I. xxxii., X.
+xlviii.; Plutarch, _Life of Romulus_, 29. Compare the _hasta pura_, a
+military decoration. Orelli and Henzen, _Inscr. Lat._, Nos. 3574,
+6852, etc. _Pilatus_ is, on this hypothesis, a word of the same form
+as _Torquatus_.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Philo, _Leg. ad Caium_, Sec. 38.]
+
+Jerusalem, the centre 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.[1] 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.[2] 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.[3] Two votive escutcheons with inscriptions, which he
+had set up at his residence near the sacred precincts, provoked a
+still more violent storm.[4] Pilate at first cared little for these
+susceptibilities; and he was soon involved in sanguinary suppressions
+of revolt,[5] which afterward ended in his removal.[6] 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 toward 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.[7] He knew that
+religious fanaticism, when it has obtained the sanction of civil
+governments to some act of violence, is afterward 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!
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. iii. 1, init.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. ii.-iv.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Talm. of Bab., _Shabbath_, 33 _b_.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Philo, _Leg. ad Caium_, Sec. 38.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. iii. 1 and 2; Luke xiii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. iv. 1, 2.]
+
+[Footnote 7: John xviii. 35.]
+
+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,[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvii. 19.]
+
+The title of "King 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.[1] Pilate asked him
+if he was really the king of the Jews.[2] 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.[3] 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 toward the Jews.[4] Until the fall of Jerusalem, the rule which
+the Romans adopted in administration, was to remain completely
+indifferent to these sectarian quarrels.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xxiii. 2, 5.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvii. 11; Mark xv. 2; Luke xxiii. 3; John xviii.
+33.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John xviii. 38.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Acts_ xviii. 14, 15.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Tacitus (_Ann._, xv. 44) describes the death of Jesus as
+a political execution by Pontius Pilate. But at the epoch in which
+Tacitus wrote, the Roman policy toward the Christians was changed;
+they were held guilty of secretly conspiring against the state. It was
+natural that the Latin historian should believe that Pilate, in
+putting Jesus to death, had been actuated by a desire for the public
+safety. Josephus is much more exact (_Ant._, XVIII. iii. 3.)]
+
+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,[1] 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,[2]
+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,[3]
+and bore the surname of Bar-Abba, or Bar-Rabban.[4] He was a
+well-known personage,[5] and had been arrested for taking part in an
+uproar in which murder had been committed.[6] A general clamor was
+raised, "Not this man; but Jesus Bar-Rabban;" and Pilate was obliged
+to release Jesus Bar-Rabban.
+
+[Footnote 1: Mark xv. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvii. 20; Mark xv. 11.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The name of Jesus has disappeared in the greater part of
+the manuscripts. This reading has, nevertheless, very great
+authorities in its favor.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxvii. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Cf. St. Jerome. In Matt. xxvii. 16.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Mark xv. 7; Luke xxiii. 19. John (xviii. 40), who makes
+him a robber, appears here too much further from the truth than Mark.]
+
+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.[1] Scourging was the general preliminary of crucifixion.[2]
+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."[3] 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.[4] Roman citizens, as the legionaries were, would not have
+degraded themselves by such conduct.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvii. 26; Mark xv. 15; John xix. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _B.J._, II. xiv. 9, V. xi. 1, VII. vi. 4;
+Titus-Livy, XXXIII. 36; Quintus Curtius, VII. xi. 28.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvii. 27, and following; Mark xv. 16, and
+following; Luke xxiii. 11; John xix. 2, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: See _Inscript. Rom. of Algeria_, No. 5, fragm. B.]
+
+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,[1] 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.[2] 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.[3] According to one tradition, he even sent Jesus to
+Antipas, who, it is said, was then at Jerusalem.[4] 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."[5] 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,[6] 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!"[7]
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xxiii. 16, 22.]
+
+[Footnote 2: John xix. 7.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John xix. 9. Cf. Luke xxiii. 6, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 4: It is probable that this is a first attempt at a "Harmony
+of the Gospels." Luke must have had before him a narrative in which
+the death of Jesus was erroneously attributed to Herod. In order not
+to sacrifice this version entirely he must have combined the two
+traditions. What makes this more likely is, that he probably had a
+vague knowledge that Jesus (as John teaches us) appeared before three
+authorities. In many other cases, Luke seems to have a remote idea of
+the facts which are peculiar to the narration of John. Moreover, the
+third Gospel contains in its history of the Crucifixion a series of
+additions which the author appears to have drawn from a more recent
+document, and which had evidently been arranged with a special view to
+edification.]
+
+[Footnote 5: John xix. 12, 15. Cf. Luke xxiii. 2. In order to
+appreciate the exactitude of the description of this scene in the
+evangelists, see Philo, _Leg. ad Caium_, Sec. 38.]
+
+[Footnote 6: See _ante_, p. 351.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Matt. xxvii. 24, 25.]
+
+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 have 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."[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: John xix. 7.]
+
+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.[1] The pagan world has also had its
+religious violences. 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!
+
+[Footnote 1: _Deut._ xiii. 1, and following.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+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 sceptical 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.[1] 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.[2] 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
+amongst the Romans, the soldiers, their profession being to kill,
+performed the office of executioners. Jesus was therefore delivered to
+a cohort of auxiliary troops, and all the most hateful features of
+executions introduced by the cruel habits of the new conquerors, were
+exhibited toward him. It was about noon.[3] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._, XX. ix. 1. The Talmud, which represents the
+condemnation of Jesus as entirely religious, declares, in fact, that
+he was stoned; or, at least, that after having been hanged, he was
+stoned, as often happened (Mishnah, _Sanhedrim_, vi. 4.) Talmud of
+Jerusalem, _Sanhedrim_, xiv. 16. Talm. of Bab., same treatise, 43 _a_,
+67 _a_.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Jos., _Ant._, XVII. x. 10, XX. vi. 2; _B.J._, V. xi. 1;
+Apuleius, _Metam._, iii. 9; Suetonius, _Galba_, 9; Lampridius, _Alex.
+Sev._, 23.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John xix. 14. According to Mark xv. 25, it could scarcely
+have been eight o'clock in the morning, since that evangelist relates
+that Jesus was crucified at nine o'clock.]
+
+The scene of the execution was at a place called Golgotha, situated
+outside Jerusalem, but near the walls of the city.[1] 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 northwest of the
+city, in the high, irregular plain which extends between the walls and
+the two valleys of Kedron and Hinnom,[2] 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.[3] 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.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvii. 33; Mark xv. 22; John xix. 20; _Heb._ xiii.
+12.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Golgotha, in fact, seems not entirely unconnected with
+the hill of Gareb and the locality of Goath, mentioned in Jeremiah
+xxxi. 39. Now, these two places appear to have been at the northwest
+of the city. I should incline to fix the place where Jesus was
+crucified near the extreme corner which the existing wall makes toward
+the west, or perhaps upon the mounds which command the valley of
+Hinnom, above _Birket-Mamilla_.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The proofs by which it has been attempted to establish
+that the Holy Sepulchre has been displaced since Constantine are not
+very strong.]
+
+[Footnote 4: M. de Voguee has discovered, about 83 yards to the east of
+the traditional site of Calvary, a fragment of a Jewish wall analogous
+to that of Hebron, which, if it belongs to the inclosure of the time
+of Jesus, would leave the above-mentioned site outside the city. The
+existence of a sepulchral cave (that which is called "Tomb of Joseph
+of Arimathea"), under the wall of the cupola of the Holy Sepulchre,
+would also lead to the supposition that this place was outside the
+walls. Two historical considerations, one of which is rather strong,
+may, moreover, be invoked in favor of the tradition. The first is,
+that it would be singular if those, who, under Constantine, sought to
+determine the topography of the Gospels, had not hesitated in the
+presence of the objection which results from _John_ xix. 20, and from
+_Heb._ xiii. 12. Why, being free to choose, should they have wantonly
+exposed themselves to so grave a difficulty? The second consideration
+is, that they might have had to guide them, in the time of
+Constantine, the remains of an edifice, the temple of Venus on
+Golgotha, erected by Adrian. We are, then, at times led to believe
+that the work of the devout topographers of the time of Constantine
+was earnest and sincere, that they sought for indications, and that,
+though they might not refrain from certain pious frauds, they were
+guided by analogies. If they had merely followed a vain caprice, they
+might have placed Golgotha in a more conspicuous situation, at the
+summit of some of the neighboring hills about Jerusalem, in accordance
+with the Christian imagination, which very early thought that the
+death of Christ had taken place on a mountain. But the difficulty of
+the inclosures is very serious. Let us add, that the erection of a
+temple of Venus on Golgotha proves little. Eusebius (_Vita Const._,
+iii. 26), Socrates (_H.E._, i. 17), Sozomen (_H.E._, ii. 1), St.
+Jerome (_Epist._ xlix., ad Paulin.), say, indeed, that there was a
+sanctuary of Venus on the site which they imagined to be that of the
+holy tomb; but it is not certain that Adrian had erected it; or that
+he had erected it in a place which was in his time called "Golgotha";
+or that he had intended to erect it at the place where Jesus had
+suffered death.]
+
+He who was condemned to the cross, had himself to carry the instrument
+of his execution.[1] 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 afterward of the Christian community. His two
+sons, Alexander and Rufus,[2] 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.[3]
+
+[Footnote 1: Plutarch, _De Sera Num. Vind._, 19; Artemidorus,
+_Onirocrit._, ii. 56.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mark xv. 21.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The circumstance, Luke xxiii. 27-31, is one of those in
+which we are sensible of the work of a pious and loving imagination.
+The words which are there attributed to Jesus could only have been
+written after the siege of Jerusalem.]
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] Jesus, after having touched the
+edge of the cup with his lips, refused to drink.[3] 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,[4] and fastened to
+the cross. The cross was composed of two beams, tied in the form of
+the letter T.[5] It was not much elevated, so that the feet of the
+condemned almost touched the earth. They commenced by fixing it,[6]
+then they fastened the sufferer to it by driving nails into his hands;
+the feet were often nailed, though sometimes only bound with cords.[7]
+A piece of wood was fastened to the upright portion of the cross,
+toward the middle, and passed between the legs of the condemned, who
+rested upon it.[8] 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.[9]
+
+[Footnote 1: Talm. of Bab., _Sanhedrim_, fol. 43 _a_. Comp. _Prov._
+xxi. 6.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Talm. of Bab., _Sanhedrim_, _l.c._]
+
+[Footnote 3: Mark xv. 23; Matt. xxvii. 34, falsifies this detail, in
+order to create a Messianic allusion from Ps. lxix. 20.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxvii. 35; Mark xv. 24; John xix. 23. Cf.
+Artemidorus, _Onirocr._, ii. 53.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Lucian, _Jud. Voc._, 12. Compare the grotesque crucifix
+traced at Rome on a wall of Mount Palatine. _Civilta Cattolica_, fasc.
+clxi. p. 529, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Jos., _B.J._, VII. vi. 4; Cic., _In Verr._, v. 66;
+Xenoph. Ephes., _Ephesiaca_, iv. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 7: Luke xxiv. 39; John xx. 25-27; Plautus, _Mostellaria_,
+II. i. 13; Lucan., _Phars._, vi. 543, and following, 547; Justin,
+_Dial. cum Tryph._, 97; Tertullian, _Adv. Marcionem_, iii. 19.]
+
+[Footnote 8: Irenaeus, _Adv. Haer._, ii. 24; Justin, _Dial. cum
+Tryphone_, 91.]
+
+[Footnote 9: See the _graffito_ quoted before.]
+
+Jesus tasted these horrors in all their atrocity. A burning thirst,
+one of the tortures of crucifixion,[1] 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,[2] 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.[3] The two robbers were crucified, one on each
+side. The executioners, to whom were usually left the small effects
+(_pannicularia_) of those executed,[4] drew lots for his garments,
+and, seated at the foot of the cross, kept guard over him.[5]
+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."[6]
+
+[Footnote 1: See the Arab text published by Kosegarten, _Chrest.
+Arab._, p. 64.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Spartianus, _Life of Adrian_, 10; Vulcatius Gallicanus,
+_Life of Avidius Cassius_, 5.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvii. 48; Mark xv. 36; Luke xxiii. 36; John xix.
+28-30.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Dig., XLVII. xx., _De bonis damnat._, 6. Adrian limited
+this custom.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Matt. xxvii. 36. Cf. Petronius, _Satyr._, cxi., cxii.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Luke xxiii. 34. In general, the last words attributed to
+Jesus, especially such as Luke records, are open to doubt. The desire
+to edify or to show the accomplishment of prophecies is perceptible.
+In these cases, moreover, every one hears in his own way. The last
+words of celebrated prisoners, condemned to death, are always
+collected in two or three entirely different shapes, by even the
+nearest witnesses.]
+
+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.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: John xix. 19-22.]
+
+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.[1] 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
+Magdalen, Joanna, wife of Khouza, Salome, and others, stayed at a
+certain distance,[2] and did not lose sight of him.[3] If we must
+believe John,[4] 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.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: John xix. 25, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: The synoptics are agreed in placing the faithful group
+"afar off" the cross. John says, "at the side of," governed by the
+desire which he has of representing himself as having approached very
+near to the cross of Jesus.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvii. 55, 56; Mark xv. 40, 41; Luke xxiii. 49, 55;
+xxiv. 10; John xix. 25. Cf. Luke xxiii. 27-31.]
+
+[Footnote 4: John xix. 25, and following. Luke, who always adopts a
+middle course between the first two synoptics and John, mentions also,
+but at a distance, "all his acquaintance" (xxiii. 49). The expression,
+[Greek: gnostoi], may, it is true, mean "kindred." Luke, nevertheless
+(ii. 44), distinguishes the [Greek: gnostoi] from the [Greek:
+sungeneis]. Let us add, that the best manuscripts bear [Greek: oi
+gnostoi auto], and not [Greek: oi gnostoi autou]. In the _Acts_ (i.
+14), Mary, mother of Jesus, is also placed in company with the
+Galilean women; elsewhere (Gospel, chap. ii. 35), Luke predicts that a
+sword of grief will pierce her soul. But this renders his omission of
+her at the cross the less explicable.]
+
+[Footnote 5: This is, in my opinion, one of those features in which
+John betrays his personality and the desire he has of giving himself
+importance. John, after the death of Jesus, appears in fact to have
+received the mother of his Master into his house, and to have adopted
+her (John xix. 27.) The great consideration which Mary enjoyed in the
+early church, doubtless led John to pretend that Jesus, whose favorite
+disciple he wished to be regarded, had, when dying, recommended to his
+care all that was dearest to him. The presence of this precious trust
+near John, insured him a kind of precedence over the other apostles,
+and gave his doctrine a high authority.]
+
+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."[1] 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.[2] The sky was dark;[3] 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 through infinite ages.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvii. 40, and following; Mark xv. 29, and
+following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvii. 44; Mark xv. 32. Luke has here modified the
+tradition, in accordance with his taste for the conversion of
+sinners.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvii. 45; Mark xv. 33; Luke xxiii. 44.]
+
+The peculiar atrocity of crucifixion was that one might live three or
+four days in this horrible state upon the instrument of torture.[1]
+The haemorrhage 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.[2] 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.[3] All at once, he uttered a terrible cry,[4] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Petronius, _Sat._, cxi., and following; Origen, _In Matt.
+Comment. series_, 140 Arab text published in Kosegarten, _op. cit._,
+p. 63, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._, viii. 8.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvii. 46; Mark xv. 34.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxvii. 50; Mark xv. 37; Luke xxiii. 46; John xix.
+30.]
+
+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 thy 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 has traced,
+ages of adorers will follow thee.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+JESUS IN THE TOMB.
+
+
+It was about three o'clock in the afternoon, according to our manner
+of reckoning,[1] when Jesus expired. A Jewish law[2] 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[3] their desire that this holy day should not be profaned
+by such a spectacle.[4] 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,[5] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvii. 46; Mark xv. 37; Luke xxiii. 44. Comp. John
+xix. 14.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Deut._ xxi. 22, 23; Josh. viii. 29, x. 26, and
+following. Cf. Jos., _B.J._, IV. v. 2; Mishnah, _Sanhedrim_, vi. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 3: John says, "To Pilate"; but that cannot be, for Mark (xv.
+44, 45) states that at night Pilate was still ignorant of the death of
+Jesus.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Compare Philo, _In Flaccum_, Sec. 10.]
+
+[Footnote 5: There is no other example of the _crurifragium_ applied
+after crucifixion. But often, in order to shorten the tortures of the
+sufferer, a finishing stroke was given him. See the passage from
+Ibn-Hischam, translated in the _Zeitschrift fuer die Kunde des
+Morgenlandes_, i. p. 99, 100.]
+
+John, who professes to have seen it,[1] 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.[2] Origen afterward thought it needful to
+invoke miracle in order to explain so sudden an end.[3] The same
+astonishment is found in the narrative of Mark.[4] 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.[5]
+
+[Footnote 1: John xix. 31-35.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Herodotus, vii. 194; Jos., _Vita_, 75.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _In Matt. Comment. series_, 140.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Mark xv. 44, 45.]
+
+[Footnote 5: The necessities of Christian controversy afterward led to
+the exaggeration of these precautions, especially when the Jews had
+systematically begun to maintain that the body of Jesus had been
+stolen. Matt. xxvii. 62, and following, xxviii. 11-15.]
+
+According to the Roman custom, the corpse of Jesus ought to have
+remained suspended in order to become the prey of birds.[1] 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.[2] 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_[3]), went in
+the evening to ask the body from the procurator.[4] 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.[5] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Horace, _Epistles_, I. xvi. 48; Juvenal, xiv. 77; Lucan.,
+vii. 544; Plautus, _Miles glor._, II. iv. 19; Artemidorus, _Onir._,
+ii. 53; Pliny, xxxvi. 24; Plutarch, _Life of Cleomenes_, 39;
+Petronius, _Sat._, cxi.-cxii.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Mishnah, _Sanhedrim_, vi. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Probably identical with the ancient Rama of Samuel, in
+the tribe of Ephraim.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Matt. xxvii. 57, and following; Mark xv. 42, and
+following; Luke xxiii. 50, and following; John xix. 38, and
+following.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Dig. XLVIII. xxiv., _De cadaveribus puntorum_.]
+
+Another secret friend, Nicodemus,[1] whom we have already seen
+employing his influence more than once in favor of Jesus, came forward
+at this moment. He arrived, bearing 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,[2] and no doubt
+accompanied the scene with piercing cries and tears.
+
+[Footnote 1: John xix. 39, and following.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvii. 61; Mark xv. 47; Luke xxiii. 55.]
+
+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.[1] 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.[2] 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.[3]
+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.[4]
+
+[Footnote 1: John xix. 41, 42.]
+
+[Footnote 2: One tradition (Matt. xxvii. 60) designates Joseph of
+Arimathea himself as owner of the cave.]
+
+[Footnote 3: The cave which, at the period of Constantine, was
+considered as the tomb of Christ, was of this shape, as may be
+gathered from the description of Arculphus (in Mabillon, _Acta SS.
+Ord. S. Bened._, sec. iii., pars ii., p. 504), and from the vague
+traditions which still exist at Jerusalem among the Greek clergy on
+the state of the rock now concealed by the little chapel of the Holy
+Sepulchre. But the indications by which, under Constantine, it was
+sought to identify this tomb with that of Christ, were feeble or
+worthless (see especially Sozomen, _H.E._, ii. 1.) Even if we were to
+admit the position of Golgotha as nearly exact, the Holy Sepulchre
+would still have no very reliable character of authenticity. At all
+events, the aspect of the places has been totally modified.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Luke xxiii. 56.]
+
+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.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Luke xxiii. 54-56.]
+
+On the Sunday morning, the women, Mary Magdalen the first, came very
+early to the tomb.[1] 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 amongst 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,[2] or did enthusiasm, always credulous,
+create afterward 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 Magdalen[3] played an important part in
+this circumstance.[4] Divine power of love! Sacred moments in which
+the passion of one possessed gave to the world a resuscitated God!
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. xxviii. 1; Mark xvi. 1; Luke xxiv. 1; John xx. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 2: See Matt. xxviii. 15; John xx. 2.]
+
+[Footnote 3: She had been possessed by seven demons (Mark xvi. 9; Luke
+viii. 2.)]
+
+[Footnote 4: This is obvious, especially in the ninth and following
+verses of chap. xvi. of Mark. These verses form a conclusion of the
+second Gospel, different from the conclusion at xvi. 1-8, with which
+many manuscripts terminate. In the fourth Gospel (xx. 1, 2, 11, and
+following, 18), Mary Magdalen is also the only original witness of the
+resurrection.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+FATE OF THE ENEMIES OF JESUS.
+
+
+According to the calculation we adopt, the death of Jesus happened in
+the year 33 of our era.[1] It could not, at all events, be either
+before the year 29, the preaching of John and Jesus having commenced
+in the year 28,[2] or after the year 35, since in the year 36, and
+probably before the passover, Pilate and Kaiapha both lost their
+offices.[3] The death of Jesus appears, moreover, to have had no
+connection whatever with these two removals.[4] 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.[5] 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,[6] ofttimes dispensing with the consent of the latter in
+order to gratify their haughty and violent instincts.
+
+[Footnote 1: The year 33 corresponds well with one of the data of the
+problem, namely, that the 14th of Nisan was a Friday. If we reject the
+year 33, in order to find a year which fulfils the above condition, we
+must at least go back to the year 29, or go forward to the year 36.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Luke iii. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. iv. 2 and 3.]
+
+[Footnote 4: The contrary assertion of Tertullian and Eusebius arises
+from a worthless apocryphal writing (See Philo, _Cod. Apocr., N.T._,
+p. 813, and following.) The suicide of Pilate (Eusebius, _H.E._, ii.
+7; _Chron._ ad annl. Caii) appears also to be derived from legendary
+records.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Jos., _Ant._, XX. ix. 1.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Jos., _l.c._]
+
+Antipas and 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.[1] 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.
+
+[Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. vii. 1, 2; _B.J._, II. ix. 6.]
+
+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[1]). It was supposed that this was the property
+acquired by the traitor.[2] According to one tradition,[3] he killed
+himself. According to another, he had a fall in his field, in
+consequence of which his bowels gushed out.[4] According to others, he
+died of a kind of dropsy, accompanied by repulsive circumstances,
+which were regarded as a punishment from heaven.[5] The desire of
+showing in Judas the accomplishment of the menaces which the Psalmist
+pronounces against the perfidious friend[6] 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 were seen the finger of heaven.
+
+[Footnote 1: St. Jerome, _De situ et nom. loc. hebr._ at the word
+_Acheldama_. Eusebius (_ibid._) says to the north. But the Itineraries
+confirm the reading of St. Jerome. The tradition which styles the
+necropolis situated at the foot of the valley of Hinnom _Haceldama_,
+dates back, at least, to the time of Constantine.]
+
+[Footnote 2: _Acts_ i. 18, 19. Matthew, or rather his interpolator,
+has here given a less satisfactory turn to the tradition, in order to
+connect with it the circumstance of a cemetery for strangers, which
+was found near there.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvii. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Acts_, _l.c._; Papias, in Oecumenius, _Enarr. in Act.
+Apost._, ii., and in Fr. Muenter, _Fragm. Patrum Graec._ (Hafniae, 1788),
+fasc. i. p. 17, and following; Theophylactus, in Matt. xxvii. 5.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Papias, in Muenter, _l.c._; Theophylactus, _l.c._]
+
+[Footnote 6: Psalms lxix. and cix.]
+
+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 practising laws of intolerance. The empire
+was certainly still further from suspecting that its future destroyer
+was born. During 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 Caesars. 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 rights 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?[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: This popular sentiment existed in Brittany in the time of
+my childhood. The gendarme was there regarded, like the Jew elsewhere,
+with a kind of pious aversion, for it was he who arrested Jesus!]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+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[1]--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.[2]
+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,[3] as an event of
+secondary importance, and in the enumeration of the sects of his time,
+he omits the Christians altogether.[4] 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.[5] The essential work of Jesus was
+to create around him a circle of disciples, whom he inspired with
+boundless affection, and amongst 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.[6] 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 at first was implied
+by being Christian.
+
+[Footnote 1: Matt. viii. 5, and following; Luke vii. 1, and following;
+John xii. 20, and following. Comp. Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. iii. 3.]
+
+[Footnote 2: Tacitus, _Ann._, xv. 45; Suetonius, _Claudius_, 25.]
+
+[Footnote 3: _Ant._, XVIII. iii. 3. This passage has been altered by a
+Christian hand.]
+
+[Footnote 4: _Ant._, XVIII. i.; _B.J._, II. viii.; _Vita_, 2.]
+
+[Footnote 5: Talm. of Jerusalem, _Sanhedrim_, xiv. 16; _Aboda zara_,
+ii. 2; _Shabbath_, xiv. 4; Talm. of Babylon, _Sanhedrim_, 43 _a_, 67
+_a_; _Shabbath_, 104 _b_, 116 _b_. Comp. _Chagigah_, 4 _b_; _Gittin_,
+57 _a_, 90 _a_. The two Gemaras derive the greater part of their data
+respecting Jesus from a burlesque and obscene legend, invented by the
+adversaries of Christianity, and of no historical value.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. iii. 3.]
+
+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 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 creeds 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. In
+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 marvellous 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! Those 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 extreme delicacy in the use of 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."[1] Religion, so far, has not existed without a
+share of asceticism, of piety, and of the marvellous. 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 were found in that age.
+
+[Footnote 1: Philostratus, _Life of Apollonius_, i. 2, vii. 11, viii.
+7; Unapius, _Lives of the Sophists_, pages 454, 500 (edition Didot).]
+
+Preserve us, then, from mutilating history in order to satisfy our
+petty susceptibilities! Which of us, pigmies 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
+co-operated 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 every
+one 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 Bagdad, 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 marvellous
+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
+afterward 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 centre 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 Asmoneans, 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 toward 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 toward 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
+comforted 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, toward 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 fulfill.
+
+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 demi-gods. 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.
+
+
+[THE END.]
+
+
+
+
+_Modern Library of the World's Best Books_
+
+COMPLETE LIST OF TITLES IN
+
+THE MODERN LIBRARY
+
+For convenience in ordering use number at right of title
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ADAMS, HENRY               The Education of Henry Adams 76
+AIKEN, CONRAD              A Comprehensive Anthology of
+                             American Poetry 101
+AIKEN, CONRAD              20th-Century American Poetry 127
+ANDERSON, SHERWOOD         Winesburg, Ohio 104
+AQUINAS, ST. THOMAS        Introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas 259
+ARISTOTLE                  Introduction to Aristotle 248
+ARISTOTLE                  Politics 228
+BALZAC                     Droll Stories 193
+BALZAC                     Pere Goriot and Eugenie Grandet 245
+BEERBOHM, MAX              Zuleika Dobson 116
+BELLAMY, EDWARD            Looking Backward 22
+BENNETT, ARNOLD            The Old Wives' Tale 184
+BERGSON, HENRI             Creative Evolution 231
+BIERCE, AMBROSE            In the Midst of Life 133
+BOCCACCIO                  The Decameron 71
+BRONTE, CHARLOTTE          Jane Eyre 64
+BRONTE, EMILY              Wuthering Heights 106
+BUCK, PEARL                The Good Earth 15
+BURK, JOHN N.              The Life and Works of Beethoven 241
+BURTON, RICHARD            The Arabian Nights 201
+BUTLER, SAMUEL             Erewhon and Erewhon Revisited 136
+BUTLER, SAMUEL             The Way of All Flesh 13
+BYRNE, DONN                Messer Marco Polo 43
+CALDWELL, ERSKINE          God's Little Acre 51
+CALDWELL, ERSKINE          Tobacco Road 249
+CANFIELD, DOROTHY          The Deepening Stream 200
+CARROLL, LEWIS             Alice in Wonderland, etc. 79
+CASANOVA, JACQUES          Memoirs of Casanova 165
+CELLINI, BENVENUTO         Autobiography of Cellini 150
+CERVANTES                  Don Quixote 174
+CHAUCER                    The Canterbury Tales 161
+COMMAGER, HENRY STEELE     A Short History of the United States 235
+CONFUCIUS                  The Wisdom of Confucius 7
+CONRAD, JOSEPH             Heart of Darkness
+                             (In Great Modern Short Stories 168)
+CONRAD, JOSEPH             Lord Jim 186
+CONRAD, JOSEPH             Victory 186
+CORNEILLE and RACINE       Six Plays of Corneille and Racine 194
+CORVO, FREDERICK BARON     A History of the Borgias 192
+CRANE, STEPHEN             The Red Badge of Courage 130
+CUMMINGS, E.E.             The Enormous Room 214
+DANA, RICHARD HENRY        Two Years Before the Mast 236
+DANTE                      The Divine Comedy 208
+DAY, CLARENCE              Life with Father 230
+DEFOE, DANIEL              Robinson Crusoe and A Journal of the
+                             Plague Year 92
+DEFOE, DANIEL              Moll Flanders 122
+DEWEY, JOHN                Human Nature and Conduct 173
+DICKENS, CHARLES           A Tale of Two Cities 189
+DICKENS, CHARLES           David Copperfield 110
+DICKENS, CHARLES           Pickwick Papers 204
+DICKINSON, EMILY           Selected Poems of 25
+DINESEN, ISAK              Seven Gothic Tales 54
+DOS PASSOS, JOHN           Three Soldiers 205
+DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR        Crime and Punishment 199
+DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR        The Brothers Karamazov 151
+DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR        The Possessed 55
+DOUGLAS, NORMAN            South Wind 5
+DOYLE, SIR ARTHUR CONAN    The Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock
+                             Holmes 206
+DREISER, THEODORE          Sister Carrie 8
+DUMAS, ALEXANDRE           Camille 69
+DUMAS, ALEXANDRE           The Three Musketeers 143
+DU MAURIER, DAPHNE         Rebecca 227
+DU MAURIER, GEORGE         Peter Ibbetson 207
+EDMAN, IRWIN               The Philosophy of Plato 181
+EDMAN, IRWIN               The Philosophy of Santayana 224
+ELLIS, HAVELOCK            The Dance of Life 160
+EMERSON, RALPH WALDO       Essays and Other Writings 91
+FAST, HOWARD               The Unvanquished 239
+FAULKNER, WILLIAM          Sanctuary 61
+FAULKNER, WILLIAM          The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay
+                             Dying 187
+FIELDING, HENRY            Joseph Andrews 117
+FIELDING, HENRY            Tom Jones 185
+FLAUBERT, GUSTAVE          Madame Bovary 28
+FORESTER, C.S.             The African Queen 102
+FORSTER, E.M.              A Passage to India 218
+FRANCE, ANATOLE            Penguin Island 210
+FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN         Autobiography, etc. 39
+FROST, ROBERT              The Poems of 242
+GALSWORTHY, JOHN           The Apple Tree
+                             (In Great Modern Short Stories 168)
+GAUTIER, THEOPHILE         Mlle. De Maupin and
+                             One of Cleopatra's Nights 53
+GEORGE, HENRY              Progress and Poverty 36
+GODDEN, RUMER              Black Narcissus 256
+GOETHE                     Faust 177
+GOETHE                     The Sorrows of Werther
+                             (In Collected German Stories 108)
+GOGOL, NIKOLAI              Dead Souls 40
+GRAVES, ROBERT             I, Claudius 20
+HAMMETT, DASHIELL           The Maltese Falcon 45
+HAMSUN, KNUT               Growth of the Soil 12
+HARDY, THOMAS              Jude the Obscure 135
+HARDY, THOMAS              The Mayor of Casterbridge 17
+HARDY, THOMAS              The Return of the Native 121
+HARDY, THOMAS              Tess of the D'Urbervilles 72
+HART AND KAUFMAN           Six Plays by 233
+HARTE, BRET                The Best Stories of 250
+HAWTHORNE, NATHANIEL       The Scarlet Letter 93
+HELLMAN, LILLIAN           Four Plays by 223
+HEMINGWAY, ERNEST          A Farewell to Arms 19
+HEMINGWAY, ERNEST          The Sun Also Rises 170
+HEMON, LOUIS               Maria Chapdelaine 10
+HENRY, O.                  Best Short Stones of 4
+HERODOTUS                  The Complete Works of 255
+HERSEY, JOHN               A Bell for Adano 16
+HOMER                      The Iliad 166
+HOMER                      The Odyssey 167
+HORACE                     The Complete Works of 141
+HUDSON, W.H.               Green Mansions 89
+HUDSON, W.H.               The Purple Land 24
+HUGHES, RICHARD            A High Wind in Jamaica 112
+HUGO, VICTOR               The Hunchback of Notre Dame 35
+HUXLEY, ALDOUS             Antic Hay 209
+HUXLEY, ALDOUS             Point Counter Point 180
+IBSEN, HENRIK              A Doll's House, Ghosts, etc. 6
+IRVING, WASHINGTON         Selected Writings of Washington Irving
+                             240
+JACKSON, CHARLES           The Lost Weekend 258
+JAMES, HENRY               The Portrait of a Lady 107
+JAMES, HENRY               The Turn of the Screw 169
+JAMES, HENRY               The Wings of the Dove 244
+JAMES, WILLIAM             The Philosophy of William James 114
+JAMES, WILLIAM             The Varieties of Religious Experience 70
+JEFFERS, WILLIAM           Roan Stallion; Tamar and Other
+                             Poems 118
+JEFFERSON, THOMAS          The Life and Selected Writings of 234
+JOYCE, JAMES               Dubliners 124
+JOYCE, JAMES               A Portrait of the Artist as a Young
+                             Man 145
+KAUFMAN AND HART           Six Plays by 233
+KOESTLER, ARTHUR           Darkness at Noon 74
+KUPRIN, ALEXANDRE          Yama 203
+LAOTSE                     The Wisdom of 262
+LARDNER, RING              The Collected Short Stories of 211
+LAWRENCE, D.H.             The Rainbow 128
+LAWRENCE, D.H.             Sons and Lovers 109
+LAWRENCE, D.H.             Women in Love 68
+LEWIS, SINCLAIR            Arrowsmith 42
+LEWIS, SINCLAIR            Babbitt 162
+LEWIS, SINCLAIR            Dodsworth 252
+LONGFELLOW, HENRY W.       Poems 56
+LOUYS, PIERRE              Aphrodite 77
+LUDWIG, EMIL               Napoleon 95
+MACHIAVELLI                The Prince and The Discourses of
+                             Machiavelli 65
+MALRAUX, ANDRE             Man's Fate 33
+MANN, THOMAS               Death in Venice
+                             (In Collected German Stories 108)
+MANSFIELD, KATHERINE       The Garden Party 129
+MARQUAND, JOHN P.          The Late George Apley 182
+MARX, KARL                 Capital and Other Writings 202
+MAUGHAM, W. SOMERSET       Of Human Bondage 176
+MAUGHAM, W. SOMERSET       The Moon and Sixpence 27
+MAUPASSANT, GUY DE         Best Short Stories 98
+MAUROIS, ANDRE             Disraeli 46
+McFEE, WILLIAM             Casuals of the Sea 195
+MELVILLE, HERMAN           Moby Dick 119
+MEREDITH, GEORGE           Diana of the Crossways 14
+MEREDITH, GEORGE           The Ordeal of Richard Feverel 134
+MEREDITH, GEORGE           The Egoist 253
+MEREJKOWSKI, DMITRI        The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci 138
+MILTON, JOHN               The Complete Poetry and Selected
+                             Prose of John Milton 132
+MISCELLANEOUS              An Anthology of American Negro
+                             Literature 163
+                           An Anthology of Light Verse 48
+                           Best Amer. Humorous Short Stories 87
+                           Best Russian Short Stories, including
+                             Bunin's The Gentleman from San
+                             Francisco 18
+                           Eight Famous Elizabethan Plays 94
+                           Famous Ghost Stories 73
+                           Five Great Modern Irish Plays 30
+                           Four Famous Greek Plays 158
+                           Fourteen Great Detective Stories 144
+                           Great German Short Novels and
+                             Stories 108
+                           Great Modern Short Stories 168
+                           Great Tales of the American West 238
+                           Outline of Abnormal Psychology 152
+                           Outline of Psychoanalysis 66
+                           The Consolation of Philosophy 226
+                           The Federalist 139
+                           The Making of Man: An Outline of
+                             Anthropology 149
+                           The Making of Society: An Outline of
+                             Sociology 183
+                           The Poetry of Freedom 175
+                           The Sex Problem in Modern Society 198
+                           The Short Bible 57
+                           Three Famous French Romances 85
+                             Sapho, by Alphonse Daudet
+                             Manon Lescaut, by Antoine Prevost
+                             Carmen, by Prosper Merimee
+MOLIERE                    Plays 78
+MORLEY, CHRISTOPHER        Parnassus on Wheels 190
+NASH, OGDEN                The Selected Verse of Ogden Nash 191
+NEVINS, ALLAN              A Short History of the United States 235
+NIETZSCHE, FRIEDRICH       Thus Spake Zarathustra 9
+NOSTRADAMUS                Oracles of 81
+ODETS, CLIFFORD            Six Plays of 67
+O'NEILL, EUGENE            The Emperor Jones, Anna Christie and
+                             The Hairy Ape 146
+O'NEILL, EUGENE            The Long Voyage Home and Seven
+                             Plays of the Sea 111
+PALGRAVE, FRANCIS          The Golden Treasury 232
+PARKER, DOROTHY            The Collected Short Stories of 123
+PARKER, DOROTHY            The Collected Poetry of 237
+PASCAL, BLAISE             Pensees and The Provincial Letters 164
+PATER, WALTER              Marius the Epicurean 90
+PATER, WALTER              The Renaissance 86
+PAUL, ELLIOT               The Life and Death of a Spanish
+                             Town 225
+PEARSON, EDMUND            Studies in Murder 113
+PEPYS, SAMUEL              Samuel Pepys' Diary 103
+PERELMAN, S.J.             The Best of 247
+PETRONIUS ARBITER          The Satyricon 156
+PLATO                      The Philosophy of Plato 181
+PLATO                      The Republic 153
+POE, EDGAR ALLAN           Best Tales 82
+POLO, MARCO                The Travels of Marco Polo 196
+POPE, ALEXANDER            Selected Works of 257
+PORTER, KATHERINE ANNE     Flowering Judas 88
+PROUST, MARCEL             Swann's Way 59
+PROUST, MARCEL             Within a Budding Grove 172
+PROUST, MARCEL             The Guermantes Way 213
+PROUST, MARCEL             Cities of the Plain 220
+PROUST, MARCEL             The Captive 120
+PROUST, MARCEL             The Sweet Cheat Gone 260
+RAWLINGS, MARJORIE KINNAN  The Yearling 246
+READE, CHARLES             The Cloister and the Hearth 62
+REED, JOHN                 Ten Days that Shook the World 215
+RENAN, ERNEST              The Life of Jesus 140
+ROSTAND, EDMOND            Cyrano de Bergerac 154
+ROUSSEAU, JEAN JACQUES     The Confessions of Jean Jacques
+                             Rousseau 243
+RUSSELL, BERTRAND          Selected Papers of Bertrand Russell 137
+SCHOPENHAUER               The Philosophy of Schopenhauer 52
+SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM       Tragedies, 1, 1A--complete, 2 vols.
+SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM       Comedies, 2, 2A--complete, 2 vols.
+SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM       Histories, 3         }
+                           Histories, Poems, 3A } complete, 2 vols.
+SHEEAN, VINCENT            Personal History 32
+SMOLLETT, TOBIAS           Humphry Clinker 159
+SNOW, EDGAR                Red Star Over China 126
+SPINOZA                    The Philosophy of Spinoza 60
+STEINBECK, JOHN            In Dubious Battle 115
+STEINBECK, JOHN            Of Mice and Men 29
+STEINBECK, JOHN            The Grapes of Wrath 148
+STEINBECK, JOHN            Tortilla Flat 216
+STENDHAL                   The Red and the Black 157
+STERNE, LAURENCE           Tristram Shandy 147
+STEWART, GEORGE R.         Storm 254
+STOKER, BRAM               Dracula 31
+STONE, IRVING              Lust for Life 11
+STOWE, HARRIET BEECHER     Uncle Tom's Cabin 261
+STRACHEY, LYTTON           Eminent Victorians 212
+SUETONIUS                  Lives of the Twelve Caesars 188
+SWIFT, JONATHAN            Gulliver's Travels, A Tale of a Tub, The
+                             Battle of the Books 100
+SWINBURNE, CHARLES         Poems 23
+SYMONDS, JOHN A.           The Life of Michelangelo 49
+TACITUS                    The Complete Works of 222
+TCHEKOV, ANTON             Short Stories 50
+TCHEKOV, ANTON             Sea Gull, Cherry Orchard, Three Sisters,
+                             etc. 171
+THACKERAY, WILLIAM         Henry Esmond 80
+THACKERAY, WILLIAM         Vanity Fair 131
+THOMPSON, FRANCIS          Complete Poems 38
+THOREAU, HENRY DAVID       Walden and Other Writings 155
+THUCYDIDES                 The Complete Writings of 58
+TOLSTOY, LEO               Anna Karenina 37
+TOMLINSON, H.M.            The Sea and the Jungle 99
+TROLLOPE, ANTHONY          Barchester Towers and The Warden 41
+TROLLOPE, ANTHONY          The Eustace Diamonds 251
+TURGENEV, IVAN             Fathers and Sons 21
+VAN LOON, HENDRIK W.       Ancient Man 105
+VEBLEN, THORSTEIN          The Theory of the Leisure Class 63
+VIRGIL'S WORKS             Including The Aeneid, Eclogues, and
+                             Georgics 75
+VOLTAIRE                   Candide 47
+WALPOLE, HUGH              Fortitude 178
+WALTON, IZAAK              The Compleat Angler 26
+WEBB, MARY                 Precious Bane 219
+WELLS, H.G.                Tono Bungay 197
+WHARTON, EDITH             The Age of Innocence 229
+WHITMAN, WALT              Leaves of Grass 97
+WILDE, OSCAR               Dorian Gray, De Profundis 125
+WILDE, OSCAR               Poems and Fairy Tales 84
+WILDE, OSCAR               The Plays of Oscar Wilde 83
+WOOLF, VIRGINIA            Mrs. Dalloway 96
+WOOLF, VIRGINIA            To the Lighthouse 217
+WRIGHT, RICHARD            Native Son 221
+YEATS, W.B.                Irish Fairy and Folk Tales 44
+YOUNG, G.F.                The Medici 179
+ZOLA, EMILE                Nana 142
+ZWEIG, STEFAN              Amok (In Collected German Stories 108)
+
+
+
+
+MODERN LIBRARY GIANTS
+
+_A series of full-sized library editions of books that formerly were
+available only in cumbersome and expensive sets._
+
+THE MODERN LIBRARY GIANTS REPRESENT A
+SELECTION OF THE WORLD'S GREATEST BOOKS
+
+_Many are illustrated and some of them are over 1200 pages long._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+G1.  TOLSTOY, LEO. War and Peace.
+G2.  BOSWELL, JAMES. Life of Samuel Johnson.
+G3.  HUGO, VICTOR. Les Miserables.
+G4.  THE COMPLETE POEMS OF KEATS AND SHELLEY.
+G5.  PLUTARCH'S LIVES (The Dryden Translation).
+G6.} GIBBON, EDWARD. The Decline and Fall of the Roman
+G7.}   Empire (Complete in three volumes).
+G8.}
+G9.  YOUNG, G.F. The Medici (Illustrated).
+G10. TWELVE FAMOUS RESTORATION PLAYS (1660-1820)
+       (Congreve, Wycherley, Gay, Goldsmith, Sheridan, etc.)
+G11. JAMES, HENRY. The Short Stories of.
+G12. THE MOST POPULAR NOVELS OF SIR WALTER
+       SCOTT (Quentin Durward, Ivanhoe and Kenilworth).
+G13. CARLYLE, THOMAS. The French Revolution.
+G14. BULFINCH'S MYTHOLOGY (Illustrated).
+G15. CERVANTES. Don Quixote (Illustrated).
+G16. WOLFE, THOMAS. Look Homeward, Angel.
+G17. THE POEMS AND PLAYS OF ROBERT BROWNING.
+G18. ELEVEN PLAYS OF HENRIK IBSEN.
+G19. THE COMPLETE WORKS OF HOMER.
+G20. THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
+G21. SIXTEEN FAMOUS AMERICAN PLAYS.
+G23. TOLSTOY, LEO. Anna Karenina.
+G24. LAMB, CHARLES. The Complete Works and Letters of
+       Charles Lamb.
+G25. THE COMPLETE PLAYS OF GILBERT AND SULLIVAN.
+G26. MARX, KARL. Capital.
+G27. DARWIN, CHARLES. The Origin of Species and The Descent
+       of Man.
+G28. THE COMPLETE WORKS OF LEWIS CARROLL.
+G29. PRESCOTT, WILLIAM H. The Conquest of Mexico and
+       The Conquest of Peru.
+G30. MYERS, GUSTAVUS. History of the Great American
+       Fortunes.
+G31. WERFEL, FRANZ. The Forty Days of Musa Dagh.
+G32. SMITH, ADAM. The Wealth of Nations.
+G33. COLLINS, WILKIE. The Moonstone and The Woman in White.
+G34. NIETZSCHE, FRIEDRICH. The Philosophy of Nietzsche.
+G35. BURY, J.B. A History of Greece.
+G36. DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR. The Brothers Karamazov.
+G37. THE COMPLETE NOVELS AND SELECTED TALES OF
+       NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
+G38. ROLLAND, ROMAIN. Jean-Christophe.
+G39. THE BASIC WRITINGS OF SIGMUND FREUD.
+G40. THE COMPLETE TALES AND POEMS OF EDGAR
+       ALLAN POE.
+G41. FARRELL, JAMES T. Studs Lonigan.
+G42. THE POEMS AND PLAYS OF TENNYSON.
+G43. DEWEY, JOHN. Intelligence in the Modern World: John
+       Dewey's Philosophy.
+G44. DOS PASSOS, JOHN. U.S.A.
+G45. LEWISOHN, LUDWIG. The Story of American Literature.
+G46. A NEW ANTHOLOGY OF MODERN POETRY.
+G47. THE ENGLISH PHILOSOPHERS FROM BACON TO
+       MILL.
+G48. THE METROPOLITAN OPERA GUIDE.
+G49. TWAIN, MARK. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
+G50. WHITMAN, WALT. Leaves of Grass.
+G51. THE BEST-KNOWN NOVELS OF GEORGE ELIOT.
+G52. JOYCE, JAMES. Ulysses.
+G53. SUE, EUGENE. The Wandering Jew.
+G54. FIELDING, HENRY. Tom Jones.
+G55. O'NEILL, EUGENE. Nine Plays by.
+G56. STERNE, LAURENCE. Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental
+       Journey.
+G57. BROOKS, VAN WYCK. The Flowering of New England.
+G58. THE COMPLETE NOVELS OF JANE AUSTEN.
+G59. HEMINGWAY, ERNEST. The Short Stories of.
+G60. DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR. The Idiot. (Illustrated by
+       Boardman Robinson).
+G61. SPAETH, SIGMUND. A Guide to Great Orchestral Music.
+G62. THE POEMS, PROSE AND PLAYS OF PUSHKIN.
+G63. SIXTEEN FAMOUS BRITISH PLAYS.
+G64. MELVILLE, HERMAN. Moby Dick.
+G65. THE COMPLETE WORKS OF RABELAIS.
+G66. THREE FAMOUS MURDER NOVELS
+     _Before the Fact_, Francis Iles.
+     _Trent's Last Case_, E.C. Bentley.
+     _The House of the Arrow_, A.E.W. Mason.
+G67. ANTHOLOGY OF FAMOUS ENGLISH AND AMERICAN
+       POETRY.
+G68. THE SELECTED WORK OF TOM PAINE.
+G69. ONE HUNDRED AND ONE YEARS' ENTERTAINMENT.
+G70. THE COMPLETE POETRY OF JOHN DONNE AND
+       WILLIAM BLAKE.
+G71. SIXTEEN FAMOUS EUROPEAN PLAYS.
+G72. GREAT TALES OF TERROR AND THE SUPERNATURAL.
+G73. A SUBTREASURY OF AMERICAN HUMOR.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life of Jesus, by Ernest Renan
+
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