TO THE PURE SOUL
of
MY SISTER HENRIETTA,
Who died at Byblus, 24th September, 1861.
FROM the bosom of God, in which thou reposest, dost thou recall those long days at Ghazir, when, alone with thee, I wrote these pages, which were inspired by the places we had visited together? Sitting silently by my side, thou didst read each sheet and copy it as soon as written—the sea, the villages, the ravines, the mountains being meanwhile spread out at our feet. When the overpowering light had given place to the innumerable host of stars, thy delicate and subtly questions, thy discreet doubts, brought me back to the sublime object of our common thoughts. Thou saidst to me one day that thou wouldst love this book, because, first, it had been written in thy presence, and because, also, it was to thine heart. If at times thou didst fear for it the narrow opinions of frivolous men, thou felt always persuaded that truly religious souls would, in the end, take delight in it. While in the midst of these sweet meditations, Death struck us both with his wing; the sleep of fever overtook us at the same hour, and I awoke alone! Thou sleepest now in the land of Adonis, near the holy Byblus and the sacred waters 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, strip it of fear, and make it almost beloved.
Page | |
DEDICATION | iii |
PREFACE (First Time in English) | ix |
INTRODUCTION | xxxiii |
CHAPTER I. | |
PLACE OF JESUS IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD | 1 |
CHAPTER II. | |
INFANCY AND YOUTH OF JESUS — HIS FIRST IMPRESSIONS | 13 |
CHAPTER III. | |
EDUCATION OF JESUS | 18 |
CHAPTER IV. | |
THE ORDER OF THOUGHT FROM WHOSE CENTRE JESUS WAS DEVELOPED |
26 |
CHAPTER V. | |
THE FIRST SAYINGS OF JESUS — HIS IDEAS OF A “FATHER GOD” AND OF A PURE RELIGION — FIRST DISCIPLES |
43 |
JOHN THE BAPTIST—VISIT OF JESUS TO JOHN, AND HIS ABODE IN THE DESERT OF JUDEA—HE ADOPTS THE BAPTISM OF JOHN |
56 |
CHAPTER VII. | |
DEVELOPMENT OF THE IDEAS OF JESUS RELATIVE TO THE KINGDOM OF GOD |
66 |
CHAPTER VIII. | |
JESUS AT CAPERNAUM |
76 |
CHAPTER IX. | |
THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS |
86 |
CHAPTER X. | |
PREACHINGS ON THE LAKE |
95 |
CHAPTER XI. | |
THE KINGDOM OF GOD CONCEIVED AS THE INHERITANCE OF THE POOR |
104 |
CHAPTER XII. | |
EMBASSY TO JESUS FROM JOHN IN PRISON — DEATH OF JOHN — THE RELATIONS OF HIS SCHOOL WITH THAT OF JESUS |
114 |
CHAPTER XIII. | |
FIRST ATTEMPTS ON JERUSALEM |
120 |
CHAPTER XIV. | |
RELATIONS OF JESUS WITH THE PAGANS AND THE SAMARITANS |
130 |
COMMENCEMENT OF THE LEGEND OF JESUS — HIS OWN IDEA OF HIS SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER |
137 |
CHAPTER XVI. | |
MIRACLES |
147 |
CHAPTER XVII. | |
DEFINITE FORM OF THE IDEAS OF JESUS IN RESPECT OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD |
156 |
CHAPTER XVIII. | |
INSTITUTIONS OF JESUS |
167 |
CHAPTER XIX. | |
INCREASING PROGRESSION OF ENTHUSIASM AND OF EXALTATION |
177 |
CHAPTER XX. | |
OPPOSITION TO JESUS |
185 |
CHAPTER XXI. | |
LAST JOURNEY OF JESUS TO JERUSALEM |
194 |
CHAPTER XXII. | |
MACHINATIONS OF THE ENEMIES OF JESUS |
205 |
CHAPTER XXIII. | |
LAST WEEK OF JESUS |
213 |
CHAPTER XXIV. | |
ARREST AND TRIAL OF JESUS |
226 |
CHAPTER XXV. | |
DEATH OF JESUS |
239 |
CHAPTER XXVI. | |
246 | |
CHAPTER XVII. | |
FATE OF THE ENEMIES OF JESUS |
250 |
CHAPTER XXVIII. | |
ESSENTIAL CHARACTER OF THE WORK OF JESUS |
254 |
APPENDIX (First Time in English) |
269 |
THE twelve first editions of this work differ only from one
another in respect of a few trifling changes. The present edition, on the
contrary, has been revised and corrected with the greatest care. During the four
years which have elapsed since the book appeared, I have laboured incessantly
to improve it. The numerous criticisms to which it has given rise have rendered
the task in certain respects an easy one. I have read all those which contain
anything important. I believe I can conscientiously affirm that not once have
the outrage and the calumny, which have been imported into them, hindered me
from deriving profit from the just observations which those criticisms might
contain. I have weighed everything, tested everything. If, in certain cases,
people should wonder why I have not answered fully the censures which have been
made with such extreme assurance, and as if the errors alleged have been proved,
it is not that I did not know of these censures, but that it was impossible for
me to accept them. In the majority of such cases I have added in a note the
texts or the considerations which have deterred me from changing my opinion, or
better, by making some slight change of expression, I have endeavoured to show
wherein lay the contempt of my critics. These notes, though very brief and
containing little more than an indication of the sources at first hand,
To attempt to answer in detail all the accusations which have been brought against me, it would have been necessary for me to triple or quadruple this volume: I should have had to repeat things which have already been well said, even in French; it would have been necessary to enter into a religious discussion, a thing that I have absolutely interdicted myself from doing; I should have had to speak of myself, a thing I shall never do. I write for the purpose of promulgating my ideas to those who seek the truth. As for those persons who would have, in the interests of their belief, that I am an ignoramus, an evil genius, or a man of bad faith, I do not pretend to be able to modify their opinions. If such opinions are necessary for the peace of mind of certain pious people, I would make it a veritable scruple to disabuse them of them.
The controversy, moreover, if I had entered upon it, would
have led me most frequently to points foreign to historical criticism. The
objections which have been directed against me have proceeded from two opposing
parties. One set has been addressed to me by freethinkers, who do not believe in
the supernatural, nor, consequently, in the inspiration of the sacred books;
another set by theologians of the liberal Protestant school, who hold such broad
doctrinal views that the rationalists and they can readily understand one
another. These, adversaries and I find ourselves on common ground; we start with
the same principles; we can discuss according to the rules followed in all
questions relating to matters of history, philology, and archæology. As to the
refutations of my book (and these are much the most numerous) which have been
made by orthodox theologians, both Catholic and Protestant, who believe in the
supernatural and in the sacred character of the books of the Old and New
Testament, they all involve a fundamental misapprehension. If the miracle has
any reality, this book is but a tissue of errors. If the Gospels are inspired
books, and true, consequently, to the letter,
And as no one asserts that to put the question in such a
manner implies a petitio principii, seeing we take for granted à
priori that which is proved in detail, to wit, that the miracles related by
the Gospels have had no reality, that the Gospels are not books written under
the inspiration of Divinity. Those two negations are not with us the result of
exegesis; they are anterior to exegesis. They are the outcome of an experience
which has not been denied. Miracles are things which never happen; only
credulous people believe they have seen them; you cannot cite a single one which
has taken place in presence of witnesses capable of testing it; no special
intervention of the Divinity, whether in the composition of a book, or in any
event whatever, has been proved. For this reason alone, when a person admits the
supernatural, such a one is without the province of science; he accepts an
explanation which is non-scientific, an explanation which is set aside by the
astronomer, the physician, the chemist, the geologist, the physiologist, one
which ought also to be passed over by the historian. We reject the supernatural
for the same reason that we reject the existence of centaurs and hippogriffes;
and this reason
It is hence impossible that the orthodox person and the rationalist who denies the supernatural can be of much assistance in such questions. In the eyes of theologians, the Gospels and the books of the Bible in general are books like no others, books more historic than the best histories, inasmuch as they contain no errors. To the rationalist, on the contrary, the Gospels are texts to which the ordinary rules of criticism ought to be applied; we are, in this respect, like the Arabs in presence of the Koran and the hadith, like the Hindoos in presence of the Vedas and the Buddhist books. Is it because the Arabs regard the Koran as infallible? Is it because we accuse them of falsifying history that they relate the origins of Islamism differently from the Mussulman theologians? Is it because the Hindoos hold the Lalitavistara to be a biography?
How are such opinions, in setting out from opposed
principles, to be mutually reconciled? All rules of criticism assume that a
document subjected to examination has but a relative value, that it may be in
error, and that it may be improved by comparing it with a better document. The
profane savant, persuaded that all books which have come down to us as legacies
are the work of man, did not hesitate to do an injury to texts when the texts
contradicted one another, when they set forth absurd or formal statements which
had been refuted by witnesses of greater authority. Orthodoxy, on the contrary,
positive in advancing that the sacred books do not contain an error or a
contradiction, tolerates the most violent tactics, expedients the most
desperate, in order to get out of difficulties. Orthodox exegesis is, in this
way, a tissue of subtleties. An isolated subtlety may be true; but a thousand
subtleties cannot at once be true. If there were in Tacitus or Polybius errors
so pronounced as those committed by Luke àpropos of
Hence it is orthodoxy which is guilty of a petitio principii, when it reproaches rationalism with changing history, because the latter does not accept word for word the documents which orthodoxy holds to be sacred. Because a fact is written down, it does not thence follow that it is true. The miracles of Mahomet have been put into writing as well as those of Jesus; and certainly the Arab biographies of Mahomet, that of Ibn-Haschim, for example, has a much more historical character than the Gospels. Do we on this account admit the miracles of Mahomet? We follow Ibn-Haschim with more or less confidence when we have no reasons for doubting him. But when he relates to us things that are perfectly incredible we make no difficulty about abandoning him. Certainly, if we had four lives of Buddha, which were partly fabulous, and as irreconcilable amongst themselves as the four Gospels are to one another, and if a savant essayed to purge the four Buddhist narratives of their contradictions, we should not accuse that savant of falsifying the texts. It might well be that he attempted to unite discordant passages, that he sought a compromise, a sort of middle course, a narrative which should embrace nothing that was impossible, in which opposing testimony was balanced and misrepresented as little as possible. If, after that, the Buddhists believed in a lie, in the falsification of history, we would have a right to say to them: “The question here is not one of history, and if we must at times discard your texts it is the fault of those texts which contain things impossible of belief, and, moreover, which are contradictory.”
At the bottom of all discussion on such matters is the
question of the supernatural. If the miracle and the inspiration of certain
books are actual facts, our method is detestable. If the miracle and the
inspiration of some books are beliefs without any reality, our method
God forbid that we should be unmindful of the services that the theologians have rendered to science! The research and the constitution of the texts which serve as the basis of this history have been the work in many cases of orthodox theologians. The labour of criticism has been the work of liberal theologians. But there is one thing that a theologian can never be—I mean a historian. History is essentially disinterested. The historian has but one care, art and truth (two inseparable things; art guards the secret of the laws which are the most closely related to truth). The theologian has an interest — his dogma. Minimise that dogma as much as you will, it is still to the artist and the critic an insupportable burden. The orthodox theologian may be compared to a caged bird; every movement natural to it is intercepted. The liberal theologian is a bird, some of the feathers of whose wings have been clipped. He believes he is master of himself, and he in fact is until the moment he seeks to take his flight. Then it is seen that he is not completely the creature of the air. We proclaim it boldly; critical inquiries relative to the origin of Christianity will not have said their last word until they shall have cultivated, in a purely secular and profane spirit, the method of the Hellenists, the Arabs, the Hindoos, people strangers to all theology, who think neither of edifying, nor of scandalising, nor of defending, nor of overthrowing dogmas.
Day and night, if I might so speak, I have reflected on
these questions, questions which ought to be agitated without any other
prejudices than those which constitute the essence
Second opinion: “The fourth Gospel is, in fact, by the Apostle John, although it may have been revised and retouched by his disciples. The facts recounted in that Gospel are direct traditions in regard to Jesus. The discourses are often from compositions expressing only the manner in which the author had conceived the mind of Jesus.” This is the opinion of Ewald, and in some respects that of Lücke, Weisse, and Reuss. This is the opinion that I adopted in the first edition of this work.
Third opinion: “The fourth Gospel is not the work of the Apostle John. It was attributed to him by some of his disciples about the year 100. The discourses are almost entirely fictitious; but the narrative parts contain valuable traditions, ascending in part to the Apostle John.” This is the opinion of Weizsaecker and of Michael Nicolas. It is the opinion which I now hold.
Fourth opinion: “The fourth Gospel is in no sense the work of the Apostle John. And whether, as regards the facts or the discourses which are reported in it, it is not a historic book; it is a work of the imagination and in part allegorical, concocted about the year 150, in which the author has proposed to himself, not to recount actually the life of Jesus, but to make believe in the idea that he himself had formed of Jesus.” Such is, with some variations, the opinion of Baur, Schwegler, Strauss, Zeller, Volkmar, Helgenfeld, Schenkel, Scholten, and Rénille.
I cannot quite ally myself to this radical party. I am
convinced that the fourth Gospel has an actual connection
In the body of the narrative several passages have also
been modified in consequence of what has been just stated. All passages in a
sentence which implied more or less that the fourth Gospel was by the
Apostle John, or by an ocular witness of the evangelical facts, have been cut
out. In order to trace the personal character of John, the son of Zebedee, I
have thought of the rude Boanerge of Mark, of the terrible visionary of
the Apocalypse, and not of the mystic, so full of tenderness, who has written
the Gospel of
The critical examination of the synoptics has not been modified throughout. It has been completed and determined on some points, notably in that which concerns Luke. As regards Lysanias, a study of the inscription of Zenodorus at Baalbeck, which I did for the Phœnician Mission, has led me to believe that the evangelist could not have made so grievous a mistake as the ingenious critics think. As regards Quirinius, on the contrary, the last memoir of M. Mommsen has settled the question against the third Gospel. Mark seems to me more and more the primitive type of the synoptic narrative and the most authoritative text.
The paragraph relative to the Apocrypha has been explained.
The important texts published by M. Ceriani have been employed to advantage. I
have great doubts in regard to the book of Enoch. I reject the opinion of
Weisse, Volkmar, and Graetz, who believe that the whole book is posterior to
Jesus. As to the most important portion of the book, which extends from chapter
xxvii. to chapter lxxi., I dare not decide between the arguments of Helgenfeld
and Colani, who regard this portion as posterior to Jesus; and the opinion of
Hoffmann, Dillmann, Koestlin, Ewald, Lücke, and Weizsaecker, who hold it to be
anterior. How much is it to be desired that the Greek text of that important
writing could be found!
The position I have taken in discarding the bibliography has frequently been wrongly interpreted. I believe I have loudly enough proclaimed that which I owe to the masters of German science in general, and to each of them in particular, so that such a silence might not be taxed with ingratitude. Bibliography is only useful when it is complete. Now the German genius has displayed such activity in the field of evangelical criticism that if I had cited all the works relative to the questions treated in this book I would have tripled the extent of the notes and changed the character of my narrative. One cannot accomplish everything at once. I have restricted myself, therefore, to the rule of only admitting citations at first hand. Their number has been greatly multiplied. Besides, for the convenience of French readers who are not conversant with these studies, I have continued the revision of the summary list of the writings, composed in our language, wherever I could find details which I may have omitted. Many of these works are far removed from my ideas; but all are of a nature to make the enlightened man reflect and to make him understand our discussions.
The thread of the narrative has been much changed.
Certain expressions, too strong for communistic minds, which were of the
essence of nascent Christianity, have been softened down. Among those holding
personal relations
I have said, and I repeat it, that if in writing the life
of Jesus one confines oneself to advancing only details which are certain, it
would be necessary to limit oneself to a few lines. He existed. He was from
Nazareth in Galilee. There was a charm in his preaching, and he implanted in the
minds of his disciples aphorisms which left a deep impression there. His two
principal disciples were Peter and John, sons of Zebedee. He excited the hatred
of the orthodox Jews, who brought him before Pontius Pilate, then
It is singular that, in regard to almost all these points,
it is the liberal school of theology which proposes the most sceptical
solutions. The more sensible defenders of
This tendency has already been more than once logically
produced in the bosom of Christianity. What did Marcion aim at? What did the
Gnostics of the second century try
If liberal theologians repudiate explanations of this kind,
it is because they do not wish to subject Christianity to the laws common to
other religious movements; because also, perhaps, they are not sufficiently
acquainted with the theory of spiritual life. There are no religious movements
in which such deceptions do not play a great part. It may even be affirmed that
they hold a permanent position in certain communities, such as the pietist
Protestants, the Mormons, and the convent Catholics. In those little excited
worlds it is not rare that conversions are the result of some accident, in which
the anxious soul sees the finger of God. These accidents, which always contain
something puerile, are concealed by the believers; it is a secret between
heaven and them. A fortuitous event is nothing to a cold or indifferent soul; it
is a divine symbol to a susceptible soul. To say that it was an accident which
changed St. Paul and St. Ignatius Loyola through and through, or rather which
gave a new turn to their activity, is certainly inexact. It was the interior
movement of those strong natures which had prepared the clap of thunder; yet the
thunderclap had been determined by an exterior cause. All these phenomena,
moreover, had reference to a moral state which no longer belongs to us. In the
majority of their actions they were governed by dreams which they had seen the
preceding night, by inductions drawn from a fortuitous object which struck their
first waking view, or by sounds which they believed they heard. It has happened
that the wings of a bird, currents of air, or headaches, have determined the
fate of the world. In order to be sincere and exhaustive it is necessary to say
this; and when certain commonplace documents tell us of incidents of this kind
we must take care to pass them over in silence. In history there are but few
details which are certain; details, nevertheless, possess always some
significance. The historian's
We can hence accord a place in history to particular incidents, without being on that account a rationalist of the old school or a disciple of Paulus. Paulus was a theologian who, wishing to have as little as possible to do with miracles, and not daring at the same time to treat the Bible narratives as legends, twisted them about so as to explain them in a wholly natural fashion. In this way Paulus desired to retain for the Bible all its authority and to enter into the real thoughts of the sacred authors. But I am a profane critic; I believe that no supernatural writing is true to the letter; I think that out of a hundred narratives of the supernatural there are eighty which have been pieced together by popular imagination. I admit, nevertheless, that in certain very rare cases legend has been derived from an actual fact and trans-formed in the imagination. As to the mass of supernatural data recounted by the Gospels and by the Acts, I shall attempt to show in five or six instances how the illusion may have been created. The theologian who is invariably methodical would have that a single explanation should hold good from one end of the Bible to the other. Criticism believes that every explanation should be attempted, or rather, that the possibility of each explanation should be successively demonstrated. That an explanation is repugnant to one's ideas is no reason for rejecting it. The world is at once an infernal and a divine comedy, a strange “round,” led by a choragus of genius, now good, now evil, now stupid; the good defile into the ranks which have been assigned to them, in view of the accomplishment of a mysterious end. History is not history if in reading it one is not by turns charmed and disgusted, grieved and consoled.
The first task of the historian is to make a careful sketch
of the manner in which the events he recounts took place. Now, the history of
religious beginnings transports us into a world of women and children, of brains
ardent or foolish. These facts, placed before minds of a positive order, are
absurd and unintelligible, and this is why countries such as England, of
ponderous intellects, find it impossible to comprehend anything about it. That
which is a drawback
Let us guard against applying our conscientious
distinctions, our reasonings of cool and clear heads, to the appreciation of
these extraordinary events, which are at once so much beyond and beneath us.
There are those who would
Troubled consciences cannot have the clearness of good
sense. Now, it is only troubled consciences which can lay powerful foundations.
I have tried to draw a picture in which the colours should be disposed as they
are in nature, that is to say, at once grand and puerile, in which one sees the
divine instinct threading its way with safety through a thousand peculiarities.
If the picture had been without shade, this would have been the proof that it
was false. The condition of the written proofs does not permit of us telling in
what instances the illusion was consistent with itself. All that we can say is,
that sometimes it has happened thus. One cannot lead for years the life of a
thaumaturgist without being often cornered—without having one's hand forced by
the public. The man who has a legend attaching to his life is led tyrannically
by his legend. One begins by artlessness, credulity, absolute innocence; one
ends in all sorts of embarrassments, and, in order to
Every true, or probable, or possible circumstance most then
have its proper place in my narration, together with its shade of probability.
In such a history it will be necessary to speak not only of that which has taken
place, but also of that which had a likelihood of taking place. The
impartiality with which I have treated my subject has interdicted me from not
accepting a conjecture, even one that shocks; for undoubtedly there were many
shocking ones in the fashion of the things which are past and gone. I have
applied from beginning to end the same process in an inflexible manner. I have
given the good impressions which the texts have suggested to me; I could not,
therefore, be silent as to the bad. I intend that my book shall retain its value
even in the day when people shall have reached the point of regarding a certain
amount of fraud as an element inseparable from religious history. It will be
necessary to make my hero beautiful and charming (for undoubtedly he was so),
and that, too, in spite of actions which, in our days, might be characterised in
an unfavourable manner. People have praised me for having tried to construct a
narrative lovely, human, and possible. Would my work have received these
eulogiums if it had represented the origin of Christianity as absolutely
immaculate? That would have been to admit the greatest of miracles. The result
thence would have been a picture lifeless to the last degree. I do not say that
this is for want of faults I may have made in the composition.
The same difficulty presents itself, moreover, in the
history of the apostles. This history is admirable in its way. But what can be
more shocking than the glossolaly, which is attested by the unexceptionable
texts of St. Paul? Liberal theologians admit that the disappearance of the body
of Jesus was one of the grounds for the belief in the resurrection. What does
that signify, unless the Christian conscience at that moment was two-sided, that
a moiety of that conscience gave birth to the illusion of the other moiety? If
the disciples themselves had taken away the body and spread themselves over the
city crying, “He is risen!” the imposture would have been discovered. But
there can be no doubt that it was not they themselves who did the two things.
For belief in a miracle to be accepted it is indeed necessary that someone be
responsible for the first rumour which is spread abroad; but, ordinarily, this
is not the principal author. The rôle of the latter is limited to not
exclaiming against the reputation which people have given him. Moreover, even if
he did exclaim, it would be useless; popular opinion would prove stronger than
he. In the miracle of Salette, people possessed a clear idea of the artifice;
but the conviction that it would do good to religion carried all before it. The
fraud was divided between several unconscionable persons, or rather it had
ceased to be a fraud and became a misapprehension. Nobody, in that case,
deceives deliberately; everybody deceives innocently. Formerly it was taken for
granted that every legend implied deceivers and deceived; in our opinion, all
the collaborators of a legend are at once deceived and deceivers. A miracle, in
other words, presupposes three conditions: first, general credulity; second, a
little complaisance on the part of some; third, tacit acquiescence in the
principal author. Through a reaction against the brutal
Science alone is pure; for science possesses nothing
practical; it does not touch men; the Propaganda takes no notice of it; its duty
is to prove, not to persuade or to convert. He who has discovered a theorem
publishes its demonstration for those who are capable of comprehending it. He
does not mount a chariot; he does not gesticulate; he does not have recourse to
oratorical artifices in order to induce people to adopt it who do not perceive
its truth. Enthusiasm, certainly, has its good faith, but it is an ingenuous
good faith; it is not the deep reflective good faith of the savant. Only the
ignorant yield to bad reasonings. If Laplace had been able to gain the multitude
over to his system of the world, he would not have limited
Morality is not history. To paint and to record is not to
approve. The naturalist who describes the transformations of the chrysalis
neither blames nor praises it. He does not tax it with ingratitude because it
abandons its shroud; he does not describe it as bold because it has found its
wings: he does not accuse it of folly because it aspires to plunge into space.
One may be the passionate friend of the true and the beautiful, and show oneself
indulgent at the same time to the simple ignorance of the people. Our happiness
has cost our fathers torrents of tears and deluges of blood. In order that pious
souls may taste at the foot of the altar the inward consolation which gives them
life, it has taken centuries of severe constraint, the mysteries of a sacerdotal
polity, a rod of iron, funereal piles. The success which one owes to a wholly
great institution does not demand the sacrifice of the sincerity
That day will be unfortunate for reason when she would
stifle religion. Our planet, believe me, labours at some profound work. Do not
pronounce rashly upon the inutility of such and such of its parts; do not say
that it is
A HISTORY of the “Origins of Christianity” ought to embrace
the whole obscure and, so to speak, subterranean period which extends from the
first beginnings of this religion to the time when its existence became a public
fact, notorious and apparent to everybody. Such a history ought to consist of four
parts. The first, which is now presented to the public, treats of the particular
fact which was the starting point of the new religion, and is wholly concerned
with the sublime personality of the Founder. The second should treat of the
Apostles and their immediate disciples, or rather, of the revolutions which took
place in religious thought in the first two generations of Christianity. This
should end about the year 100, when the last friends of Jesus were just
dead, and when the whole of the books of the New Testament had almost assumed
the form in which they are now read. The third book should set forth the
state of Christianity under the Antonines. We should then observe its slow
development and its waging of an almost permanent war against the empire,
which latter, having at that moment attained to the highest degree of
administrative perfection and being governed by philosophers, combated in the
nascent sect a secret and theocratic society, which the latter obstinately
disowned, but which was a continual source of weakness. This book would embrace
the whole of the second century. The fourth and last part should show the
decided progress which Christianity had made from the time of Syrian emperors.
In it we should see the learned constitution of the Antonines crumble away, the
decadence of ancient civilisation set in irrevocably and Christianity profit by
its ruin, Syria conquer the entire West, and Jesus, in combination with the gods
and the deified sages of Asia, take possession of a society which philosophy and
a purely civil government were unable longer to cope with. It was then that the
religious ideas of the races established upon the coasts of the Mediterranean
underwent a great change; that the Eastern religions everywhere took the lead;
that Christianity, having become a large Church, totally forgot
I do not know whether I shall have life and strength to execute no vast a plan. I should be satisfied if, after writing the life of Jesus, it is given to me to relate, as I understand it, the history of the Apostles; the condition of the Christian conscience during the weeks which immediately succeeded the death of Jesus; the formation of the cycle of legends touching the resurrection; the first acts of the Church of Jerusalem, the life of St. Paul, the crisis at the time of Nero, the appearance of the Apocalypse, the ruin 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. Everything pales by the side of that marvellous first century. By a peculiarity rare in history, we can judge better of what passed in the Christian world from the year 50 to 75 than from the year 80 to 150.
The plan upon which this history proceeds prevents
the introduction into the text of long critical dissertations upon controversial
points. A continuous succession of notes places likewise the reader in a position
to verify the sources of all the propositions in the text. These notes are
strictly limited to quotations at first hand—I mean, to the indication of the
original passages upon which each assertion or hypothesis rests. I am aware
that, to persons who have had little experience in these studies, many other
explanations might be necessary; but it is not my habit to do over again what has
once been done and done well. To cite only books written in French,
the following can be recommended:
The above works are for the most part excellent, and in
them will be found explained a multitude of details upon which I have had to be
very succinct. In particular, the criticism of the details of evangelical texts
has been done by M. Strauss in a manner which leaves little to be desired.
Although M. Strauss may at first have been deceived in his theory in regard to
the authorship of the Gospels, and although his book, in my opinion, has the
fault of occupying too much theological and too little historical ground, it is
indispensable, so as to understand the motives which have guided me in a
multitude of details, to follow
I am not aware that, in respect of ancient testimony, I have overlooked any source of information. Not to mention a multitude of scattered data respecting Jesus and the times in which he lived, we still have five great collections of writings. These are: first, the Gospels and the New Testament writings in general; second, the compositions called the “Apocrypha of the Old Testament;” third, the works of Philo; fourth, those of Josephus; fifth, the Talmud. The writings of Philo have the inestimable advantage of showing us the thoughts which, in the time of Jesus, stirred souls occupied with great religious questions. Philo lived, it is true, in quite a different sphere of Judaism from Jesus; yet, like him, he was quite free from the pharisaic spirit which reigned at Jerusalem; Philo is in truth the elder brother of Jesus. He was sixty-two years of age when the prophet of Nazareth had reached the highest point of his activity, and he survived him at least ten years. What a pity it is that the accidents of life did not direct his steps into Galilee! What would he not have taught us!
Josephus, who wrote chiefly for the Pagans, did not exhibit the some sincerity. His meagre accounts of Jesus, John the Baptist, and of Judas the Gaulonite are colourless and lifeless. We feel that he sought to represent these movements, so profoundly Jewish in character and spirit, in a form which would be intelligible to the Greeks and Romans. Taken as a whole I believe the passage in regard to Jesus to be authentic. It is perfectly in the style of Josephus, and, if that historian mentioned Jesus at all, it is indeed in this manner that he would have spoken of him. We feel, however, that the hand of a Christian has retouched the fragment, and has added to it passages without which it would have been well nigh blasphemous, as well as abridged and modified some expressions. It is necessary to remember that Josephus owed his literary fortune to the Christians, who adopted his writings as essential documents of their sacred history. It is probable that in the second century they circulated an edition of them, corrected according to Christian ideas. At all events that which constitutes the immense interest of the books of Josephus in respect of our present subject is the vivid picture he gives of the times. Thanks to this Jewish historian, Herod, Herodias, Antipas, Philip, Annas, Kaïaphas, and Pilate are personages whom, so to speak, we can touch, and whom we can actually see living before us.
The Apocrypha of the Old Testament, especially the Jewish
part of the Sibylline verses, the book of Enoch, the Assumption of Moses, the
fourth book of Esdras, the Apocalypse of Baruch, together with the book of
Daniel, which is also itself a real Apocrypha, possess a primary importance in
the history of the development of the Messianic theories, and in the
understanding of the conceptions of Jesus in regard to the kingdom of God. The
book of Enoch, in particular, and the Assumption of Moses, were much read in the
circle of Jesus. Some expressions imputed to Jesus by the synoptics are presented
in the epistle attributed to Saint Barnabas as belonging to Enoch:
The collection of the Sibylline verses needs to be regarded in the same light; but the latter is more easily established. The oldest part in the poem contained in Book III., v. 97–817; it appeared about the year 140 B.C. Respecting the date of the fourth book of Esdras everybody now is nearly agreed in assigning this Apocalypse to the year 97 A.D. It has been altered by the Christians. The Apocalypse of Baruch has a great resemblance to that of Esdras; we find there, as in the book of Enoch, several utterances imputed to Jesus. As to the book of Daniel, the character of the two languages in which it is written, the use of Greek words, the clear, precise, dated announcements of events which go back as far as the times of Antiochus Epiphanes; the false descriptions which are there drawn of ancient Babylon; the general tone of the book, which has nothing suggestive of the writings of the captivity, but, on the contrary, corresponds, by numerous analogies, to the beliefs, the manners, the turn of imagination of the epoch of Seleucidæ; the Apocalyptic form of the visions; the position of the book in the Hebrew canon which is outside 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 a thousand other proofs, which have been deduced a hundred times, do not permit of a doubt that this book was but the product of the general exaltation produced among the Jews by the persecution of Antiochus. It is not in the old prophetic literature that it most be classed; its place is at the head of Apocalyptic literature, the first model of a kind of composition, after which were to come the various Sibylline poems, the book of Enoch, the Assumption of Moses, the Apocalypse of John, the Ascension of Isaiah, the fourth book of Esdras.
Hitherto, in the history of the origins of Christianity,
the Talmud has been too much neglected. I think with M. Geiger that the true
notion of the circumstances which produced Jesus must be sought in this peculiar
compilation, in which so much knowledge is mixed with the most insignificant
scholasticism. The Christian theology and the Jewish theology having followed
uniformly two parallel paths, the history of the one cannot be understood
without the history of the other. Innumerable material details in the Gospels
find, moreover, their commentary in the Talmud. The vast Latin collections of
Lightfoot, Schœttgen, Buxtorf, and Otho contained already on this point a mass
of information. I have taken upon myself to verify in the original all
the quotations which I have made use of, without an exception. The assistance
which has been given in this part of
It remains for us to speak of the documents which, pretending to be biographies of the Founder of Christianity, must naturally take the place of honour in a life of Jesus. A complete treatise upon the compilation of the Gospels would be a work of itself. Thanks to the excellent work which, for the last thirty years, has been devoted to this question, a problem which was formerly held to be insoluble has been resolved, and, though there is room still left for much uncertainty, it is quite sufficient for the requirements of history. We shall have occasion later on to revert to this in our second book, seeing that the composition of the Gospels was one of the most important facts in the future of Christianity in the second half of the first century. We shall only touch in this place a single aspect of the subject, but one which is indispensable to the solidarity of our narrative. Putting to one side all that belongs to a picture of the apostolic times, we will inquire only to what extent the data furnished by the Gospels can be employed in a history arranged according to rational principles.
That the Gospels are in part legendary is quite evident, inasmuch as they are full of miracles and of the supernatural; but there are legends and legends. Nobody disputes the principal traits in the life of Francis d'Assisi, although at every step the supernatural is encountered in it. Contrariwise, no one gives credence to the “Life of Apollonius of Tyana,” for the reason that it was written long after the hero, and avowedly as a pure romance. When, by whom, and under what conditions were the Gospels compiled? This is the chief question upon which the opinion, it is necessary to form of their credibility, depends.
We know that each of the four Gospels bears at its head the name
As for Luke, doubt is hardly possible. The Gospel of Luke
is a studied composition, founded upon anterior documents. It is the work of a
man who selects, adapts, and combines. The author of this Gospel is undoubtedly
the same as that of the Acts of the Apostles. Now, the author of the Acts
appears to be a companion of Paul, an appellation which exactly fits Luke. I am
aware that more than one objection can be raised against this opinion; but one
thing is beyond question, to wit, the author of the third Gospel and of the
Acts is a man belonging to the second Apostolic generation, and that is
sufficient for our purpose. The date of that Gospel may, however, be determined
with quite enough precision by considerations drawn from the book itself. The
The Gospels of Matthew and Mark do not nearly possess the same stamp of individuality. They are impersonal compositions, in which the author wholly disappears. A proper name inscribed at the head of such works does not count for much.
We cannot, moreover, reason here as in the case of Luke.
The date which belongs to a particular chapter (to
It matters little for our present purpose that we should press this analysis further, or attempt, on the one hand, to reconstruct in a kind of way the original Logia of Matthew, or, on the other, to restore the primitive narrative to what it was when it left the pen of Mark. The Logia are doubtless presented to us in the great discourses of Jesus, which make up a considerable portion of the first Gospel. These discourses, in fact, form, when detached from the rest, a complete enough narrative. As for the original narratives of Mark, the text of them seems to make its appearance now in the first, now in the second Gospel, but most often in the second. In other words, the plan of the life of Jesus in the synoptics is founded upon two original documents: first, the discourses of Jesus collected by the Apostle Matthew; second, the collection of anecdotes and of personal information which Mark committed to writing from the recollections of Peter. It may be said that we still possess these two documents, mixed up with the facts of another production, in the two first Gospels, which bear, not without reason, the titles of “The Gospel according to Matthew” and “The Gospel according to Mark” respectively.
In any case, that which is indubitable is that very early
the discourses of Jesus were reduced to writing in the Aramean tongue; also,
that very early his remarkable actions were taken down. These were not
Who does not recognise the value of documents constructed thus out of the tender recollections and simple narratives of the first two Christian generations, still full of the strong impressions produced by the illustrious Founder, and which seems to have survived him for a long time? Let us add that those Gospels seemed to proceed from those branches of the Christian family which were most closely related to Jesus. The final labour of compilation of the text which bears the name of Matthew appears to have been done in one of the countries situated to the north-east of Palestine, such as Gaulonitis, Auranitis, and Batanea, where many Christians took refuge at the time of the Roman war, where were still to be found at the end of the second century relatives of Jesus, and where the first Galilean tendency was longer felt than elsewhere.
So far we have only spoken of the three Gospels called the
synoptic. It now remains to speak of the fourth, the one which bears the name of
John. Here the question is much more difficult. Polycarp, the most intimate
disciple of John, who often quotes the synoptics in his epistle to the
Philippians, makes no allusion to the fourth Gospel. Papias, who was equally
attached to the school of John, and who, if he had not been his
disciple, as Irenæus believes he was, had associated a great
The same remarks apply to the pseudo-Clementine homilies. The words of Jesus quoted by that book are of the synoptic type. In two or three places there are, it would seem, facts borrowed from the fourth Gospel. But the author of the Homilies certainly does not accord to that Gospel an apostolic authority, since on many points be puts himself in direct contradiction with him. It appears that Marcion (about 140) could not have known the said Gospel, or attributed to it no importance as an inspired book. This Gospel accorded so well with his ideas that, if he had known it, he would have adopted it eagerly, and would not have been obliged, so as to have an ideal Gospel, to make a corrected edition of the Gospel of Luke. Finally, the apocryphal Gospels which may be referred to the second century, like the Protevangel of James, the Gospel of Thomas the Israelite, embellished the synoptic canvas, but they took no account of the Gospel of John.
The intrinsic difficulties which result from the reading of
the fourth Gospel itself are not less forcible. How is it that, by the side of
information so precise, and in places felt to be that of eyewitnesses, we find
discourses totally different from those of Matthew? How is it that the Gospel in
question does not contain a parable or an exorcism? How is it to be explained
that side by side with a general plan of the life of Jesus, which plan in some
respects seems more satisfactory and more exact than that of the synoptics,
appear those singular passages in which one perceives a dogmatic interest
peculiar to the author, ideas most foreign to Jesus, and sometimes indications which put us on our guard
to the good faith of the narrator? How is it, finally, that by the side of views
the most pure, the most just, the most truly evangelical, we find those
blemishes which we would rather look upon as the interpolation of an ardent
sectary? Is this indeed John, son of Zebedee, the brother of James (who is not
mentioned once in the fourth Gospel), who has written in Greek those abstract
lessons on metaphysics, to which the synoptics offer no analogy? Is this the
essentially Judaising author of the Apocalypse, who, in so few years, should
have been stripped to this extent of his style and of his ideas? Is it an
“Apostle of Circumcision,” who is likely to have composed a narrative more
hostile to Judaism than the whole of St. Paul's, a narrative in which the word
“Jew” is almost equivalent to That of “enemy of Jesus”? Is it indeed he whose example
And, in the first place, no one doubts that about the year 170 the fourth Gospel did exist. At that date there broke out at Laodicea on the Lycus a controversy relative to the Passover, in which our Gospel played an important part. Apollinaris, Athenagoras, Polycrates, the author of the epistle to the Churches of Vienne and of Lyons, professed already in regard to the alleged narrative of John the opinion that it would soon become orthodox. Theophilus of Antioch (about 180) said positively that the Apostle John was the author of it. Irenæus and the Canon of Muratori attest the complete triumph of our Gospel, a triumph in respect of which there could no longer be any doubt.
But, if about the year 170 the fourth Gospel appeared as a writing of the Apostle John and invested with full authority, is it not evident that at this date it was not of ancient creation? Tatian, the author of the epistle to Diogenatus, seems indeed to have made use of it. The part played by our Gospel in Gnosticism, and especially in the system of Valentinus, in Montanism and in the controversy of the Aloges, is not less remarkable, and shows that from the last half of the second century this Gospel was included in every controversy, and served as a corner stone for the development of the dogma. The school of John is the one whose progress is the most apparent during the second century; Irenæus proceeded from the school of John, and between him and the Apostle there was only Polycarp. Now, Irenæus has not a doubt as to the authenticity of the fourth Gospel. Let as add that the first epistle attributed to Saint John is, according to all appearances, by the same author as the fourth Gospel; now the epistle seems to have been known to Polycarp; it was, it is said, cited by Papias; Irenæus recognised it as John's.
But, as some light is now required to be cast upon the
reading of the work itself, we shall remark, first, that the author therein
always speaks as an eyewitness. He wishes to pass for the Apostle John, and it
is clearly seen that he writes in the interest of that apostle. In each he
betrays the design of fortifying the authority of the son of Zebedee, of showing
that he was the favourite of Jesus, and the most far-seeing of his disciples;
that on all the most solemn occasions (at the Supper, at Calvary, at the Tomb),
he occupied the chief place. The relations of John with Peter, which were on the
whole fraternal, although not excluding a certain rivalry; the hatred, on the
other hand, of Judas, a hatred probably anterior to the betrayal, seem to break
through here
An important distinction, in fact, is to he remarked in the
Gospel of John. This Gospel, on the one hand, presents a sketch of the life of
Jesus which differs considerably from that of the synoptics. On the other, it
puts into the mouth of Jesus discourses whose tone, style, character and
doctrines have nothing in common with the Logia contained in the synoptics. In
respect of the latter, the difference is such that one must make an unqualified
choice. If Jesus spoke as Matthew would have us believe, he could not have
spoken in the manner represented by John. Between these two authorities no one
has hesitated, or will ever hesitate. Removed by a thousand leagues from the
simple, disinterested and impersonal tone of the synoptics, the Gospel of John
shows at every step the prepossession of the apologist,
One circumstance, moreover, which proves indeed that the discourses reported by the fourth Gospel are historical fragments, but that they ought to be regarded as compositions, intended to cover, with the authority of Jesus, certain doctrines dear to the author, is their complete harmony with the intellectual condition of Asia Minor at the time they were written. Asia Minor was then the theatre of a strange movement of syncretic philosophy; all the germs of Gnosticism existed there already. Cerinthus, a contemporary of John, said that æon named Christos was united by baptism to the man named Jesus, and had separated from him on the cross. Some of the disciples of John would appear to have drunk deeply from these strange springs. Can we affirm that the Apostle himself had not been subject to the same influences, that he did not experience something anolagous to the change which was wrought in St. Paul, and of which the epistle to the Colossians is the principal witness? No, certainly not. It may be that after the crisis of 68 (the date of the Apocalypse), and of the year 70 (the ruin of Jerusalem), the old Apostle, with an ardent and plastic soul, disabused of the belief of the near appearance of the Son of Man in the clouds, inclined towards the ideas that he found around him, many of which amalgamated quite well with certain Christian doctrines. In imputing these new ideas to Jesus, he only followed a very natural leaning. Our recollections are, like everything else, transformable; the ideal of a person we have known changes as we change. Regarding Jesus as the incarnation of truth, John has succeeded in attributing to him that which he had come to accept as the truth.
It is nevertheless much more probable that John himself had
no part in them, that the change was made around him rather than by him,
In this mode some explain away the whimsical contradictions presented in the writings of Justin and in the pseudo-Clementine Homilies, in which are to be found traces of our Gospel, but which certainly are not to be placed upon the same footing as the synoptics. Hence also those species of allusions, which are not faithful quotations, but were made from it about the year 180. Hence, finally, this singularity, that the fourth Gospel appeared to emerge slowly from the Church of Asia in the second century, was first adopted by the Gnostics, but only obtained in the orthodox Church very limited credence, as can be seen from the controversy on the Passover, then it was universally recognised. I am sometimes led to believe that it was the fourth Gospel of which Papias was thinking when he opposed to the exact information in regard to the life of Jesus the long discourses and the singular precepts which others have attributed to him. Papias and the old Jadæo-Christian party came to esteem such novelties as very reprehensible. This could not have been the only instance that a book which was at first heretical would have forced the gates of the orthodox Church and become one of its rules of faith.
There is one thing, at least, which I regard as very
probable, and that is, that the book was written before the year 100; that is to
say, at a time when the synoptics had not yet a complete canonicity.
After this date it is impossible any longer to conceive that the author could
force himself to go beyond the limits of the “Apostolic Memoirs.” To Justin, and
apparently to Papias, the synoptic cadre constitutes the true and only plan of
the life of Jesus. An impostor who wrote about the year 120 to 130 a fantastic
gospel contented himself with treating in his own way the received version, as
had been done in the apocryphal Gospels, and did not reverse from top to bottom
what was regarded as the essential lines of the life of Jesus. This is so true
that, from the second half of the second century, these contradictions became a
serious difficulty in the hands of the aloges, and obliged the defenders of the
fourth Gospel to invent the most embarrassing
It is impossible at this distance of time to comprehend all these singular problems, and we should undoubtedly encounter many surprises if it were given to us to penetrate the secrets of that mysterious school of Ephesus, which appeared frequently to take pleasure in pursuing obscure paths. But the latter is a capital test. Every person who sets himself to write the life of Jesus without having a decided opinion upon the relative value of the Gospels, who allows himself to be guided solely by the sentiment of the subject, would, in many instances, be induced to prefer the narrative of the fourth Gospel to that of the synoptics. The last months of the life of Jesus especially are explained only by John; several details of the Passion, which are unintelligible in the synoptics, assume both probability and possibility in the narrative of the fourth Gospel. On the other hand, I can defy anybody to compose a life of Jesus that is understandable, which takes into account the discourses that the alleged John imputes to Jesus. This fashion of his of incessantly preaching himself up and of exhibiting himself, this perpetual argumentation, this studied stage-effect, these long reasonings attached to each miracle, these lifeless and incoherent discourses, the tone of which is so often false and unequal, could not be endured by a man of taste alongside of the delightful phraseology which, according to the synoptics, constituted the soul of the teaching of Jesus. There are here evidently fictitious fragments, which represent to us the sermons of Jesus in the same way as the dialogues of Plato set forth the conversations of Socrates. They resemble the variations of a musician improvising on his own account upon a given theme. The theme in question may have existed previously; but in the execution the artist gives his fancy free scope. We perceive the factitious progressions, the rhetoric, the verisimilitude. Let us add that the vocabulary of Jesus is nowhere to be found in the fragments of which we speak. The expression of “Kingdom of God,” which was so common with the master, does not appear even once. But, contrariwise, the style of the discourses attributed to Jesus by the fourth Gospel offers the most complete analogy to that of parts of the narrative of the same Gospel and to that of the author of the epistles called John. We see that the author of the fourth Gospel, in writing these discourses, did not give his recollections, but the somewhat monotonous workings of his own thought. Quite a new mystical language is displayed in them, language characterised by the frequent employment of the words “world,” “truth,” “life,” “light,” “darkness,” and which resembles much less that of the synoptics than that of the book of the sages—Philo and the Valentinians. If Jesus had ever spoken in that style, which is neither Hebraic nor Jewish, how does it come that, amongst the auditors, only a single one of the latter has kept the secret?
For the rest, literary history offers one example which
presents a certain
Without pronouncing upon the question, it is material to know as to what hand indited the fourth Gospel; even if we were persuaded it was not that of the son of Zebedee, we can at least admit that this work possesses some title to be called “the Gospel according to John.” The historical sketch of the fourth Gospel is, in my opinion, the life of Jesus, such as it was known to the immediate circle of John. It is also my belief that this school was better acquainted with the different exterior circumstances of the life of the Founder than the group whose recollections go to make up the synoptic Gospels. Notably, in regard to the sojourns of Jesus at Jerusalem, it was in possession of facts that the other Gospels had not. Presbyteros Joannes, who is probably not a different person from the Apostle John, regarded, it is said, the narrative of Mark as incomplete and confused; he even had a theory which explained the omissions of the latter. Certain passages in Luke, which are a kind of echo of the Johannine traditions, prove, moreover, that the traditions preserved by the fourth Gospel were not to the rest of the Christian family something which was entirely unknown.
These explanations will suffice, I think, to show the motives which in the course of my narrative have determined me to give the preference to this or that one of the four guides which we have for the life of Jesus. On the whole, I admit the four canonical Gospels to be important documents. All four ascend to the century which succeeded the death of Jesus; but their historic value is very diverse. Matthew evidently merits unlimited confidence in respect of the discourses; the latter are the Logia, the very notes which have been extracted from a clear and lively memory of the teaching of Jesus. A species of éclat at once mild and terrible, a divine force, if I may so speak, underlines these words, detaches them from the context, and to the critic renders them easily distinguishable. The person who undertakes the task of carving out of evangelical history a consecutive narrative possesses, in this regard, an excellent touchstone. The actual words of Jesus, so to speak, reveal themselves; as soon as we touch them in this chaos of traditions of unequal authority, we feel them vibrate; they translate themselves spontaneously and fit into the narrative naturally, where they constitute an unsurpassable relief.
The narrative parts which are grouped in the first Gospel
around this primitive nucleus do not possess the same authority. In them are to
be found many silly enough legends, which proceeded from the piety of
As for the work of Luke, its historic value is sensibly
more feeble. It is a document at second hand. Its manner of narration is more
matured. The sayings of Jesus are there more reflective, more sententious. Some
sentences are carried to excess and are false. Writing outside Palestine, and
certainly after the siege of Jerusalem, the author indicates the places with
less exactness than the two other synoptics; he is too fond of representing the
temple as an oratory, where people go to do their devotions; he does not speak
of the Herodians; he modifies details in order to bring the different
narratives into closer agreement; he softens down passages which had become
embarrassing because of the more exalted idea which people around him had attained
to in regard to the divinity of Jesus; he exaggerates the marvellous; he commits
errors of geography and of topography; he omits the Hebraic glosses; he appears
to know little of Hebrew; he does not quote a word of Jesus in that language; he
calls all the localities by their Greek names; he corrects at times in a clumsy
manner the sayings of Jesus. We perceive in the author a compiler, a man who has
not seen directly the witnesses, who labours at the texts, and permits himself
to do them great violence in order to make them agree. Luke had probably under
his eyes the original narrative of Mark and the Logia of Matthew. But he
treats them with great freedom; at times he runs two anecdotes or two parables
together to make one; sometimes he divides one in order to make two. He
interprets the documents according to his own mind; he has not the absolute
impassibility of Matthew and Mark. We might affirm this of his tastes and of his
personal tendencies: he is a very exact devotee; he holds that Jesus has
accomplished all the Jewish rites; he is a passionate democrat and Ebionite; that
is to say, much opposed to property, and is persuaded that the poor will soon
have their revenge; he is specially partial to the anecdotes which put into
relief the conversion of sinners and the exaltation of the humble; he frequently
modifies the ancient traditions so as to give them this acceptation. In his
first pages he includes the legends touching the infancy of Jesus, related with
the long amplifications, the canticles and the conventional proceedings which
constitute the essential feature of
A great reserve was naturally bespoken in regard to a document of this nature. It would have been as little scientific to neglect it as to employ it without discernment. Luke had under his eyes originals which we no longer have. He is less an evangelist than a biographer of Jesus, a “harmonist,” a reviser, after the manner of Marcion and Tatian. But he is a biographer of the first century, a divine artist who, independently of the information he has extracted from more ancient sources, shows us the character of the Founder with a happiness of treatment, a uniformity of inspiration, and a clearness that the other two synoptic do not possess. His Gospel is the one the reading of which possesses most charm: for, not to mention the incomparable beauty of its common basis, he combines a degree of art and of skill in composition which singularly enhances the effect of the picture, without seriously marring its truthfulness.
To sum up, we are warranted in saying that the synoptic compilation has passed through three stages: first, the original documentary stage (λόγια of Matthew, λεχθέντα ἢ πραχθέντα of Mark), primary compilations no longer in existence; second, the simple amalgamation stage, in which the original documents were thrown together without any regard to literary form, and without any personal traits on the part of the authors becoming manifest (the present Gospels of Matthew and Mark); third, the combination stage, that of careful composition and reflection, in which we are conscious of an effort made to reconcile the different versions (the Gospel of Luke, the Gospels of Marcion, Tatian, &c.). The Gospel of John, as we have above said, is a composition of another order and altogether distinct.
It will be observed that I have not made any use of
apocryphal Gospels. In no sense ought these compositions to be placed on the
same footing as the canonical Gospels. They are tiresome and puerile
amplifications, having almost entirely the canonicals for a basis, and adding
almost nothing to them of any particular value. Contrariwise, I have been most
careful in collecting the shreds which have been preserved by the Fathers of
the Church, by the ancient Gospels which formerly existed simultaneously with
the canonicals, but which are now lost, such as the Gospel according to the
Hebrews, the Gospel according to the Egyptians, the Gospels attributed to
Justin, Marcion, and Tatian. The first two possess a peculiar importance,
inasmuch as they were indited in Aramean like the Logia of Matthew; as
they appear to have formed a version of the Gospel attributed to that apostle,
and as they were the Gospel of Ebionim, that is to say, of those small Christian
sects of Batanea who preserved the use of the Syro-Chaldean tongue, and appear to
have continued, to some extent, in the footsteps of Jesus. But it most be owned
that, in the condition they have come down to us,
It will now, I presume, be understood what sort of historic
value I put upon the Gospels. They are neither biographies after the manner of
Suetonius, nor fictitious legends, after the manner of Philostratus; they are
legendary biographies. I place them at once alongside of the legends
of the saints, the lives of Plotinus, Proclus, Isidore, and other compositions
of the same sort, in which historical truth and the desire to present models of
virtue are combined in divers degrees. Inexactitude, a trait common to all
popular compositions, makes itself particularly felt in them. Let us suppose
that fifteen or twenty years ago three or four old soldiers of the Empire had
individually set themselves to write a life of Napoleon from recollections of
him. It is clear that their narratives would present numerous errors, great
discordances. One of them would place Wagram before Marengo; another would
boldly state that Napoleon ousted the government of Robespierre from the
Tuileries; a third would omit expeditions of the highest importance. But one
thing, possessing a great degree of truthfulness, would certainly result from
these simple narratives—that is, the character of the hero, the impression he
made around him. In this sense such popular narratives would be worth more than
a solemn and official history. The same can also be said of the Gospels. Bent
solely on bringing out strongly the excellency of the master, his miracles, his
teaching, the evangelists manifest entire indifference to everything that is not
of the very spirit of Jesus. The contradictions in respect of time, place, and
persons were regarded as insignificant; for just as the greater the degree of
inspiration that is attributed to the words of Jesus, so the less was granted to
the compilers themselves. The latter looked upon themselves as simple scribes,
and cared only for one thing—to omit nothing they knew.
Without doubt some certain preconceived ideas must have
been associated with such recollections. Several narratives, especially in Luke,
are invented in order to bring out more vividly certain traits of the
personality of Jesus. This personality itself underwent alteration each day.
Jesus would be a unique phenomenon in history if, with the part which he played,
he had not soon become imbued with it. The legend respecting Alexander was
concocted before the generation of his companions in arms was extinct; that
respecting St. Francis d'Assisi began in his lifetime. A rapid work of
transformation went on in the same manner in the twenty or thirty years which
followed the death of Jesus, and imposed upon his biography the absolute traits
of an ideal legend. Death makes perfect the most perfect man; it renders him faultless to those who have loved him. At the same time, the wish to paint the
Master created likewise the desire to explain him. Many anecdotes were concocted
in order to prove that the prophecies regarded as Messianic had been fulfilled
in him. But this procedure, the importance of which is undeniable, would not
suffice to explain everything. No Jewish work of the time gives a series of prophecies
It is scarcely necessary to say that with such documents, in order to present only what is incontestable, we must confine ourselves to general lines. In almost all ancient histories, even in those which are much less legendary than these, details give rise to infinite doubts. When we have two accounts of the some fact, it is extremely rare that the two accounts are in accord. Is not this a reason, when we are confronted with but one perplexity, for falling into many? We may say that amongst the anecdotes, the discourses, the celebrated sayings reported by the historians, there is not one strictly accurate. Were there stenographers to take down these fleeting words? Was there an annalist always present to note the gestures, the conduct, the sentiments, of the actors? Let any one essay to attain to the truth as to the manner in which such or such a contemporary fact took place; he will not succeed. Two accounts of the same event given by two eyewitnesses differ essentially. Must we, hence, reject all the colouring of the narratives, and confine ourselves to recording the bare facts only? That would be to suppress history. Certainly I think, however, that if we except certain short and almost mnemonic axioms, none of the discourses reported by Matthew are textual; there is hardly one of our stenographic reports which is so. I willingly admit that that admirable account of the Passion embraces a multitude of trifling inaccuracies. Would it, however, be writing the history of Jesus to omit those sermons which exhibit to us in such a vivid manner the nature 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 one exposes himself when admitting the details supplied by the texts. These details are not true to the letter, but they are rendered true by a superior truth; they are more true than the naked truth, in the sense that they are truths rendered expressive and articulate and raised to the height of an idea.
I beg those who think that I have placed an exaggerated
confidence in narratives which are 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 limited to that which is materially certain? Even partly erroneous
traditions contain a portion of truth which history
Contrariwise, those who believe that history ought to
consist of a reproduction without comments of the documents which have come
down to us, I beg them to take notice that such a course is not allowable. The
four principal documents are in flagrant contradiction with one another;
Josephus, moreover, sometimes rectifies them. It is necessary to make a choice.
To allege that an event cannot take place in two ways at once, or in an absurd
manner, is not to impose à priori philosophy upon history. Because he
possesses several different versions of the same fact, or because credulity has
mixed with all these versions fabulous circumstances, the historian most not
conclude that the fact is not a fact; but he ought, in such a case, to be very
cautious,—to examine the texts, and to proceed by induction. There is one class
of narratives especially, apropos of which this principle must
necessarily be applied—narratives of the supernatural. To seek to explain these
narratives, or to transform them into legends, is not to mutilate facts in the
name of theory; it is to begin with the observation of the very facts
themselves. None of the miracles with which the old histories are filled took
place under scientific conditions. Observation, which has not once been
falsified, teaches us that miracles never take place save in times and countries
in which they are believed, and in presence of persons disposed to believe them.
No miracle ever took place in presence of an assembly of men capable of testing
the miraculous character of the event. Neither common people nor men of the world
are equal to the latter. It requires great precautions and long habit
of scientific research. In our own days, have we not seen the great majority of
people become dupes of the grossest frauds or of puerile illusions! Marvellous
facts, attested by the populations of small towns, have, thanks to closer
investigation, been condemned.
It is not, then, in the name of this or that philosophy,
but in the
Such are the rules which have been adhered to in the
composition of this narrative. In the reading of the texts, I have been able to
combine with it an important source of information—the viewing of the places
where the events occurred. The scientific mission, having for its object the
exploration of ancient Phœnicia, which I directed in 1860 and 1861,
Many will perhaps regret the biographical form which my work has thus taken. When, for the first time, I conceived the idea of writing a history of the origins of Christianity, my intention was, in fact, to produce a history of doctrines, in which men and their actions would have hardly had a place. Jesus was scarcely to be named; I was especially bent on showing how the ideas which, under cover of his name, were produced, took root and covered the world. But I have since learned that history is not a simple game of abstractions; that men are more important than doctrines. It was not a certain theory in regard to justification and redemption which caused the Reformation; it was Luther and Calvin. Parseeism, Hellenism, Judaism, might have been able to combine under all forms; the doctrines of the Resurrection and of the Word might have gone on developing for ages without producing that grand, unique, and fruitful fact, which is called Christianity. That fact is the work of Jesus, of St. Paul, and of the apostles. To write the history of Jesus, of St. Paul, and of the apostles, is to write the history of the origins of Christianity. The anterior movements do not belong to our subject except as serving to explain the characters If these extraordinary men, who, naturally, could not be severed from that which preceded them.
In such an effort, to make the great souls of the
past live again, some degree of divination and of conjecture must be permitted.
A great life is an organic whole which cannot be exhibited by the mere
agglomeration of small facts. It requires a profound sentiment to embrace the
whole, and to make it a perfect unity. The artist method in such a subject is a
good guide; the exquisite tact of a Goethe would discover how to apply it. The
essential condition of the creations of art is to form a living system of which
all the parts are mutually dependent and connected. In histories of this kind,
the great indication that we hold to the truth is to have succeeded in combining
the texts in such a fashion that they shall constitute a logical and probable
narrative, in which nothing shall be out of tune. The secret laws of life, of
the progression of organic products, of the action of minute particles, 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; it is the soul itself
of history; what most be sought after is not the petty certainty of minutiæ, it
is the correctness of the general sentiment, the truthfulness of the colouring.
Each detail which departs from the rules of classic narration ought to warn us
to be on our guard; for the fact which requires to be related has been confined
to the necessities of things, natural and
This sentiment of a living organism we have not hesitated to take as our guide in the general arrangement of the narrative. The reading of the Gospels would be sufficient to prove that the authors, although conceiving a very true idea of the Life of Jesus, have not been guided by very rigorous chronological data; Papias, moreover, expressly teaches this, and bases his opinion upon evidence which seems to emanate from the Apostle John himself. The expressions, “At this time . . . after that . . . then . . . and it came to pass . . .” &c., are the simple transitions designed to connect different narratives with each other. To leave all the information furnished by the Gospels in the disorder in which tradition gives it, would no more be writing the history of Jesus than it would be writing the history of a celebrated man to give 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 possible, fragments of the different epochs in the life of Mahomet, has discovered its secret to ingenious criticism; the chronological order in which the fragments were composed has been hit upon in such a way as to leave little room for doubt Such a re-arrangement is much more difficult in the Gospel, owing to the public life of Jesus having been shorter and less eventful than the life of the founder of Islamism. Nevertheless, the attempt to find a thread which shall serve as a guide through this labyrinth, ought not to be taxed with gratuitous subtlety. There is no great abuse of hypothesis in premising that a religious founder commences by attaching himself to the moral aphorisms which are already in circulation, and to the practices which are in vogue; nor, as he advances and gets full possession of his idea, that he delights in a kind of calm and poetical eloquence, remote from all controversy, sweet and free as pure feeling; nor, as he gradually warms, that he is animated by opposition, and finishes by polemics and strong invectives. Such are the periods which are plainly distinguishable in the Koran. The order which, with extremely fine tact, is adopted by the synoptic, supposes an analogous progress. If we read Matthew attentively, we shall find, in the arrangement of the discourses, a gradation greatly analogous to that just indicated. We may observe also the studied turns of expression which are made use of when it is desired to show the progress of the ideas of Jesus. The reader may, if he prefers, see in the divisions adopted in this respect, only the breaks indispensable for the methodical exposition of a profound and complicated thought.
If love for a subject can assist in the understanding of it, it will also, I hope, be recognised that I have not been wanting in this condition. To construct the history of a religion, it is necessary first to have believed it (without this, we should not be able to understand why 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 exists apart from faith. In order not to attach one's self to any of the forms which captivate the adoration of men, one need not renounce the appreciation of that which they contain of good and of beautiful. No transitory apparition exhausts the Divinity; God was revealed before Jesus—God will reveal Himself after him. Profoundly unequal, and so much the more Divine, because they are grander and more spontaneous, the manifestations of God which are hidden in the depths of the human conscience are all of the same order. Jesus cannot then belong solely to those who call themselves his disciples. He is the common honour of him who carries a human heart. His glory does not consist in being banished from history; we render him a truer worship in showing that all history is incomprehensible without him.
The chief event in the world's history is the revolution by which the noblest portions of humanity passed from the ancient religions comprised under the name of Paganism to a religion based on the divine unity, the trinity, and the incarnation of the Son of God. It took nearly a thousand years to make this conversion. The new religion itself was three hundred years in forming. But the revolution in question had its origin in the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius. There lived then a superior person, who, through his daring originality and the love he could inspire, created the object and fixed the point of departure of the future faith of humanity.
Man, since he distinguished himself from the animal, has
been religious: we mean, he sees something in nature beyond appearances, and in
himself something beyond death. This sentiment, for thousands of years, was
debased in the most singular manner. With many races it went no further than a
belief in sorcerers, under the gross form in which it is still to be found in
certain parts of
The brilliant civilisations developed at a remote period in
China, in Babylonia, and in Egypt, were the cause of a certain progress in
religion. China attained early to a sort of good common sense, which prevented
her from going wildly astray. She was cognisant neither of the advantages nor
the abuses of the religious spirit. At all events, she had in this instance no
influence in directing the great current of human thought. The religions of
Babylonia and Syria never disengaged themselves from a substratum of strange
sensuality; those religions continued to be, until their extinction in the
fourth and fifth centuries of our era, schools of immorality from which, at
times, thanks to a kind of poetical instinct, glimpses of the divine world
emanated. Egypt, in spite of an apparent kind of Fetichism, was able very early
to embrace metaphysical dogmas and a lofty symbolism. But these interpretations
of a refined theology were unquestionably not intuitive. Man, when possessed of
a clear idea, has never amused himself by clothing it in symbols; most often it
is the result of long reflection, and the impossibility felt by the human mind
The poetry of the soul, faith, liberty, sincerity,
devotion, appeared simultaneously in the world with the two great races which,
in a sense, have made humanity; we refer to 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, an amorous
embrace of nature by man, a delicious poetry, full of the sentiment of the
infinite; the principle, in a word, of all that which the Germanic and Celtic
genius, of that which, in later times, a Shakespeare and a Goethe, should
express. This was neither religion nor moral reflection; it was melancholy,
tenderness, and imagination; above all, it was extreme earnestness—that is to
say, the essential condition of morals and religion. The faith of mankind,
nevertheless, could not issue thence, for the reason that these old religions
had much difficulty in detaching themselves from polytheism, and could not
attain to a very distinct symbolism. Brahmanism has survived to our day only by
virtue of the astonishing conservatism which India seems to possess. Buddhism has been
It is the Semitic race whose glory it is to have founded
the religion of humanity. Away beyond the confines of history, the Bedouin
patriarch, resting under his tent and free from the disorders of an already
corrupted world, prepared the faith of humanity. His superiority consisted in
his strong antipathy against the voluptuous religions of Syria, a marked
simplicity of ritual, a complete absence of temples, and the idol reduced to
insignificant theraphim. Amongst all the tribes of the nomadic Semites
that of the Beni-Israel was already marked out for a great future. From its
ancient relations with Egypt there resulted impressions whose extent it would be
difficult to determine, but this only served to enhance its hatred for idolatry.
A “Law,” or Thora, written in very ancient times on tables of
stone, which they attributed to Moses, their great liberator, was already the
code of monotheism, and contained, when compared with the institutions of Egypt
and Chaldea, powerful germs of social equality and of morality. A portable ark,
surmounted by a sphinx, with staples on the two sides through which to
pass poles, constituted all their religious matériel; all the sacred
books of the nation were collected, its relics,
Obscure utterances began already to be heard,
“ 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 grief, 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.” [
Isaiah lii. 13 et seq. , andliii. entirely .]
Great alterations were made at the same time in the
Thora. New texts, such as Deuteronomy, assuming to represent the true law of
Moses, were produced, which inaugurated in reality a spirit very different from
that of the old nomads. An ardent fanaticism was the dominant characteristic of
this spirit. Infatuated believers provoked incessant persecutions against all
who strayed from the worship of Jehovah; a code of blood, prescribing the
penalty of death for religious derelictions, was successfully established. Piety
almost always brings in its train the singular contradictions—vehemence and
gentleness. This zeal, unknown to the coarser simplicity of the age of the
Judges, inspired tones of eager prophecy and of tender unction of which the
world until now had never
This great book once created, the history of the Jewish people developed with an irresistible force The great empires which succeeded each other in Western Asia, in destroying the hope of a terrestrial kingdom, threw them into religious dreams, which they cherished with a kind of sombre passion. Caring little for the national dynasty or for political independence, they accepted all governments which permitted them to practise freely their worship and to follow their usages. Israel will no longer have other guidance than that of its religious enthusiasts, other enemies than those of the Divine unity, 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, who believed they had found the best means of realising it. The general conviction was that the Thora, closely followed, could not fail to give perfect felicity. This Thora has nothing in common with the Greek or Roman “Laws,” which are cognisant of little else than abstract right, and entered little into the questions of private happiness and morality. We feel beforehand that the results which will proceed from the Jewish Law will be of a social, and not of a political order, that the work at which this people labours is a kingdom of God, not a civil republic; a universal institution, not a nationality or a country.
Despite numerous failures, Israel admirably sustained this vocation. A series of pious men, Ezra, Nehemiah, Onias, the Maccabees, eaten up with zeal for the Law, succeeded each other in the defence of the ancient institutions. The idea that Israel was a holy people, a tribe chosen by God and bound to Him by a covenant, took more and more a firm root. A great expectation filled their souls. The whole of the Indo-European antiquity had placed paradise in the beginning; its poets, who had wept a golden age, had passed away. Israel placed the age of gold in the future. The perennial poesy of religious souls, the Psalms, with their divine and melancholy harmony, blossomed from this exalted piety. Israel became actually and par excellence 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 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 activity of ideas, terminating in the most opposite results, made of them, at this epoch, a people the most striking and original in the world. Their dispersion along the whole Mediterranean littoral, and the use of the Greek language, which they adopted when out of Palestine, prepared the way for a propagandism of which ancient societies, broken up into small nationalities, had not yet presented an example.
Up to the time of the Maccabees, Judaism, in spite of its
persistence in announcing that it would
The persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes made of this idea a
passion, almost a frenzy. It was
It must not, however, be supposed that this movement, so
profoundly religious and soul-stirring, had particular dogmas to give it
impulse, as was the case in all the conflicts which have broken out in the bosom
of Christianity. The Jew of this time had as little of the theologian
The reigns of the last Asmoneans, and that of
Herod, saw the excitement grow still stronger.
They were filled with an uninterrupted series of
religious movements. In proportion as that power
became secularised, and passed into the hands of
unbelievers, the Jewish people lived less and less
for the earth, and allowed themselves to become
In Judæa expectation was at its zenith. Holy persons, such as old Simeon, who, legend tells us, held Jesus in his arms; Anna, daughter of Phanuel, regarded as a prophetess, passed their life about the temple, fasting and praying, that it might please God not to withdraw them from the world until they should see the fulfilment of the hopes of Israel. They felt a powerful presentiment of the approach of something unknown.
This confused mixture of clear views and of dreams, this alternation of deceptions and of hopes, these ceaseless aspirations, which were driven back by an odious reality, found at last their expression in the incomparable man, to whom the universal conscience has most justly decreed the title of Son of God, because he has given to religion a direction which no other can or probably ever will be able to emulate.
Jesus was born at Nazareth, a small town of Galilee, which until his time had no celebrity. During the whole of his life he was designated by the name of “the Nazarene,” and it is only by a puzzling enough evasion that, in the legends concerning him, it can be shown that he was born at Bethlehem. We shall see later on the motive for this supposition, and how it was the necessary consequence of the Messianic character attributed to Jesus. The precise date of his birth is not known. It took place during the reign of Augustus, about 750 of the Roman year, that is to say, some years before the first of that era which all civilised nations date from—the day on which it is believed he was born.
The name of Jesus, which was given him, is an alteration from Joshua. It was a very common name; but people naturally sought later on to discover some mystery in it, as well as an allusion to his character of Saviour. Perhaps Jesus himself, 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 can bring themselves to admit chance in anything that concerns them. God has ordained everything for them, and they see a sign of the supreme will in the most insignificant circumstances.
The population of Galilee, as the name indicates, was very
mixed. This province reckoned amongst its inhabitants, in the time of Jesus,
many who
He sprang from the ranks of the people. His father Joseph and his mother Mary were of humble position, artisans living by their work, in that condition which is so common in the East, and which is neither ease nor poverty. The extreme simplicity of life in such countries, by dispensing with the need of modern comforts, renders the privileges of the wealthy almost useless, and makes every one voluntarily poor. On the other hand, the total absence of taste for art and for that which tends to the elegance of material life, gives a naked aspect to the house of the man who otherwise wants for nothing. If we take into account the sordid and repulsive features which Islamism has carried into the Holy Land, the town of Nazareth, in the time of Jesus, did not perhaps much differ from what it is to-day. The streets where he played as a child we can see in the stony paths or in the little cross-ways which separate the dwellings. The house of Joseph no doubt closely resembled those poor shops, lighted by the door, which serve at once as workshop, kitchen, and bedroom, the furniture consisting of a mat, some cushions on the ground, one or two earthenware pots, and a painted chest.
The family, whether it proceeded from one or several
marriages, was rather numerous. Jesus had brothers and sisters, of whom he seems
to have been the eldest. All have remained obscure, for it appears that the four
personages who are given as his brothers—one of whom at least, James,
had acquired great importance in the earliest years.
His sisters were married at Nazareth, and he spent there
the first years of his youth. Nazareth was a small town situated in a hollow,
opening broadly at the summit of the group of mountains which close the plain of
Esdraelon on the north. The population is now from three to four thousand, and
it can never have varied much. The cold is keen there in winter, and the climate
very healthy. Nazareth, like all the small Jewish towns at this period, was a
heap of huts built without plan, and would exhibit that withered and poor aspect
which characterise villages in Semitic countries. The houses, as it would seem,
did not differ much from those cubes of stone, without exterior or interior
elegance, which cover to-day the richest parts of the Lebanon, and which,
surrounded with vines and fig-trees, are far from being disagreeable. The
The prospect from the town is limited; but if we ascend a
little and reach the plateau, swept by a perpetual breeze, which overlooks the
highest houses, the view is splendid. On the west are displayed the fine
outlines of Carmel, terminated by an abrupt spur which seems to plunge into the
sea. Next are spread out the double summit which dominates Megiddo; the
mountains of the country of Shechem, with their holy places of patriarchal age;
the hills of Gilboa, the small picturesque
If the world, should it remain Christian, though it should
attain to a better idea of the esteem in which the origins of its religion
should be held, ever wishes to replace by authentic holy places the mean and
apocryphal sanctuaries to which the piety of dark ages attached itself, it is
upon this ground of Nazareth that it will rebuild its temple. There, at the spot
where Christianity was born, and at the centre of the activity of its Founder,
the great church ought to be raised in which all Christians might worship.
There, also, on the spot where sleep Joseph the carpenter and thousands of
forgotten Nazarenes, who never passed beyond the outskirts of their valley,
would be a better station than any in the world for the philosopher to
contemplate the course of human events, to console himself for the
disappointments which those inflict
Nature here, at once smiling and grand, was the whole education of Jesus. He learnt to read and to write, no doubt, according to the Eastern method, which consisted in putting into the hands of the child a book, which he repeated rhythmically with his little comrades, until he knew it by heart. It is doubtful, however, whether he understood the Hebrew writings in their original tongue. His biographers make him quote them according to the translations in the Aramean language; and his methods of exegesis, as far as we can make them out from his disciples, much resembled those which were then common, and which form the spirit of the Targummim and the Midraschim.
The schoolmaster in the small Jewish towns was the
hazzan, or reader in the synagogues. Jesus frequented little the higher
schools of the scribes or sopherim (Nazareth had perhaps none of them),
and he had not any of those titles which confer, in the eyes of the vulgar, the
privileges of knowledge. It would, nevertheless, be a great error to imagine
that Jesus was what we call an ignoramus. Scholastic education among us draws a
great distinction, in respect of personal worth, between those who have received
and those who have been deprived of it. It was different in the East, and in the
good
It is not at all likely that Jesus knew Greek. This
language had spread only to a small extent in Judæa beyond the classes who
participated in the government, and the towns which were inhabited by Pagans,
like Cæsarea. The mother tongue of Jesus was the Syrian dialect mixed with
Hebrew, which was spoken in Palestine at that time. There is even greater reason
to conclude that he knew nothing of Greek culture. This culture was indeed
proscribed by the doctors of Palestine, who included in the same malediction “the man who breeds swine, and the person who teaches his son Greek science.” At
all events, it had not penetrated to little towns such as 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
It seems clear, therefore, that neither directly nor
indirectly did any element of “profane” culture reach Jesus. He knew nothing
beyond Judaism; his mind preserved that free innocence which is invariably
weakened by an extended and varied culture. In the very bosom of this Judaism he
remained a stranger to many efforts somewhat parallel to his own. On the one
hand, the asceticism of the Essenes or Therapeutæ did not seem to have had any
direct influence upon him; on the other, the fine efforts of religious
philosophy made by the Jewish school of Alexandria, of which Philo, his
contemporary, was the ingenious interpreter, were unknown to him. The frequent resemblances
Happily for him, he was also ignorant of the strange scholasticism which was taught at Jerusalem, and which soon was to form the Talmud. If some Pharisees had already brought it into Galilee, Jesus did not associate with them, and when later he met this silly casuistry face to face, it only inspired him with disgust. We may believe, however, that the principles of Hillel were not unknown to him. This Rabbi, fifty years before him, had uttered certain aphorisms which were almost analogous to his own. By his poverty so meekly borne, by the sweetness of his character, by his antagonism to priests and hypocrites, Hillel was the true master of Jesus, if it may be allowed that one should speak of a master in connection with such a lofty genius as his.
The perusal of the books of the Old Testament made a deep
impression on Jesus. 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
possess them now. An extensive and allegorical method of interpretation was
applied to all these books; and the attempt was made to draw from them what was
a response to the aspirations of the age. The Law, which did not represent the
ancient laws of the country, but Utopias—the factitious laws, and the pious
frauds 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
That he had no acquaintance with the general condition of
the world is a fact which is seen in each feature of his best authenticated
discourses. The earth to him appeared as still divided into kingdoms making war
upon each other; he seemed to ignore the “Roman peace,” and the new
state of society which its age inaugurated. He had no exact idea of the Roman
power; the name of “Cæsar” was all that had reached him. He saw being
built, in Galilee or its neighbourhood, Tiberias, Julias, Diocæsarea,
Cæsarea—splendid works of the Herods, who sought by these magnificent
structures to prove their admiration for Roman civilisation, and their devotion
to the members of the family of Augustus; and the names of these places,
although strangely altered, now serve to designate, as by a caprice of fate,
miserable hamlets of Bedouins. Jesus probably also saw Sebaste, a work of Herod
the Great, a showy city, whose ruins would make one believe that it had been
transported there ready made, like some machine which had only to be set up in
its place. This ostentatious piece of architecture was shipped to Judæa in
portions; the 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 the glory of them.”
Jesus was still less acquainted with the new idea, created by Grecian science, which is the basis of all philosophy and which modern science has largely confirmed, viz., the exclusion of the supernatural forces to which the simple faith of the ancient times 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
At an early age his extraordinary character revealed
itself. Legend delights to show him even in his infancy in revolt against
parental authority, and deviating from the common lines to follow his vocation.
It is at least certain that for the relations of kinship he cared little. His
family do not seem to have loved him, and more than once he appears to have been
severe towards them. Jesus, like all men exclusively preoccupied by an idea,
As the cooled earth no longer permits us to comprehend the
phenomena of primitive creation, because the fire which once penetrated
it is extinct, so deliberate explanations contain always something
insufficient, when the question is one of applying our timid methods of analysis
to the revolutions of the creative epochs which have decided the fate of
humanity. Jesus lived at one of those epochs when the game of public life is
If the government of the world were a speculative problem,
and the greatest philosopher was the man best fitted to tell his fellow-men what
they ought to believe, it would be from calmness and reflection that those great
moral and dogmatic truths which we call religions would proceed. But it is
nothing of the kind. If we except Sakya-Mouni, the great religious founders have
not been metaphysicians. Buddhism itself, which is based on pure thought, has
conquered one-half of Asia by motives wholly political and moral. As for the
Semitic religions, they are as little philosophical as it is possible to be.
Moses and Mahomet were not speculators: they were men of action. It was by
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-constructed system. To be a disciple of
Jesus, it was not necessary to sign any formulary, or to repeat any
The Jewish people have had the advantage, from the Babylonian captivity up to the Middle Ages, of being always in a state of extreme tension. This is why the interpreters of the spirit of the nation, during this long period, seem to have written under the action of a violent fever, which placed them constantly either above or under reason, rarely in its middle pathway. Never did man seize the problem of the future and of his own destiny with a more desperate courage, or was more determined to go to extremes. Not separating the fate of humanity from that of their little race, the Jewish thinkers were the first who sought to discover a general theory of the progress of our species. Greece, always confined within itself, and only concerned with its petty provincial quarrels, has had admirable historians. Stoicism had enounced the highest maxims upon the duties of man considered as a citizen of the world and as a member of a great brotherhood; but previous to the Roman period it would be a vain attempt to discover in classic literature a general system of the philosophy of history, embracing all humanity. The Jew, on the contrary, thanks to a sort of prophetic sense, has made history enter into religion. Possibly he owes a little of this spirit to Persia, which, from an ancient date, conceived the history of the world as a series of evolutions, over which a prophet presided.
Each prophet had his reign of a thousand years, and out of those successive ages, analogous to the millions of ages devolved to each Buddha of India, was composed the train of events which prepared the reign of Ormuzd. At the end of the time when the circle of the revolutions shall be completed, the perfect Paradise will appear. Men will then live happily: the earth will be like a great plain; there will be only one language, one law, and one government for all men. But this advent is to be preceded by terrible calamities. Dahak (the Satan of Persia) will break his chains and fall upon the world. Two prophets will then come to comfort mankind, and to prepare for the great advent.
These ideas ran through the world, and penetrated even to
Rome, where they inspired a cycle of prophetic poems, whose fundamental ideas
were the division of the history of humanity into periods, the succession of the
gods representing these epochs, a complete renewal of the world, and the final
coming of a golden age. The book of Daniel, certain parts of the book of Enoch,
and the Sibylline books are the Jewish expression of the same theory. It was
certainly not the case that these thoughts were universal. They were, on the
contrary, embraced at first only by some people of vivid imaginations and
readily impressed by strange doctrines. The dry and narrow author of the book of
Esther never thought of the rest of the world except to despise it and to wish
it evil. The sated and undeceived Epicurean who writes Ecclesiastes thinks so
little of the future that he considers it even useless to work for his children.
In the eyes of this egotistical celibate, the highest advice of wisdom is to
find one's chief good in mis-spent money. But great achievements made by any
people are generally the work of the minority. In spite of all their defects,
hard, egotistical, scoffing, cruel, narrow, subtle, sophistical, the Jews are
nevertheless the authors of the finest movement of disinterested enthusiasm of
which history speaks. Opposition always makes the glory of a country. In one
sense, the greatest
A gigantic dream haunted for centuries the Jewish people, constantly renewing its youth in its decrepitude. A stranger to the theory of individual recompenses which Greece had spread under the name of immortality of the soul, Judæa concentrated on her national future all her power of love and longing. She believed herself to possess divine promises of a boundless future; and as the bitter reality which, from the ninth century before our era, gave the domination of the world more and more to physical force 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 future of the nation disappeared in consequence of the separation of the northern tribes, they had 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 idolatrous systems. At the time of the captivity, a poet full of harmony foresaw the splendour of a future Jerusalem, to which the nations and distant isles should be tributaries, under colours so charming that it teemed a glance from the eyes of Jesus had leached him from a distance of six centuries.
The victories of Cyrus at one time appeared to realise all
that had been hoped for. 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
If Israel had possessed the doctrine called spiritualism,
which divides man into two parts—the body and the soul—and finds it quite
natural that while the body decays the soul survives, this paroxysm of rage and
of energetic protestation would have had no raison d'être. 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 a time
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, produced day by day 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
We find among the ancient people of Israel only very
indecisive traces of this fundamental dogma.
Jesus, from the moment he began to think, entered into the
burning atmosphere which had been created in Palestine by the ideas we have just
referred to. These ideas were taught in no school; but they were “in the air”
around him, and his soul was early penetrated by them. Our hesitations and
doubts never reached him. On this summit of the hill of Nazareth, where no man
of the present day can sit without an uneasy, although frivolous,
He never attached much importance to the political events
of his time, and he was probably badly informed regarding them. The dynasty of
the Herods lived in a world so different from his own that he doubtless only
knew it by name. Herod the Great died about the year in which Jesus was born,
leaving imperishable memories—monuments which must compel the most malevolent
posterity to associate his name with that of Solomon; his woks, nevertheless,
was incomplete, and could not be continued. Profanely ambitious, lost in a maze
of religious controversies, this astute Idumean had the advantage which coolness
and judgment, stripped of morality, give one in the midst of passionate
fanatics. But his conception 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
have miscarried, like the similar project which Solomon formed, in consequence
of the difficulties arising from the peculiar character of the nation. His three
sons were nothing but lieutenants of the Romans, analogous to the rajahs of
India under the English Government. Antipater, or Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee
and Peræa, whose subject Jesus was all his life, was an idle and empty prince, a
favourite and flatterer of Tiberius, and too often misled by the evil influence
of his second wife Herodias. Philip, Tetrarch of Gaulonitis and Batanea, into
whose territories Jesus made
Continual seditions, excited by the zealots of Mosaism,
were constantly during this period agitating Jerusalem. The death of the
seditious was certain; but death, when the matter concerned the integrity of the
Law, was sought for with avidity. To overturn the Roman eagles, to destroy the
works of art raised by the Herods, in which the Mosaic regulations were not
always respected, to rebel against the votive escutcheons raised by the
procurators, and whose inscriptions seemed to them tainted by idolatry, were
perpetual temptations to fanatics who had reached that degree of exaltation
which removes all regard for life. Thus it was that Judas, son of Sariphea, and
Matthias, son of Margaloth, two greatly celebrated doctors of the Law, formed
against the established order a party of bold aggression, which continued after
their execution. The Samaritans were agitated by movements of the same kind. The
Law seems never to have counted more impassioned votaries than at this period,
when there already lived that
A movement which had much more influence on Jesus was that
of Judas, the Gaulonite or Galilean. Of all the constraints to which countries
newly conquered by Rome were subjected, the census was the most unpopular. This
measure, which always irritates nations little accustomed to the
responsibilities of great central administrations, was specially odious to the
Jews. Already, under David, we see how a numbering of the people provoked
violent recriminations, and the threatenings of the prophets. The census, in
fact, was the basis of taxation. Now, taxation, in the estimation of a pure
theocracy, was almost an impiety. God being the sole Master whom man ought to
recognise, 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 in the public treasury was regarded as stolen.
The census ordered by Quirinius (in the sixth year of the Christian era)
powerfully awakened these ideas, and caused a tremendous ferment. A disturbance
broke out in the northern provinces. One Judas, of the town of Gamala, on the
eastern shore of the lake of Tiberias, and a Pharisee named Sadoc, by denying
the lawfulness of the impost, created a numerous
Galilee was thus a vast furnace, in which the most diverse
elements were heaving to a boiling point. An extraordinary contempt for life,
or, to speak more correctly, a kind of longing for death, was the result of
these agitations. Experience counts for nothing in great fanatical movements.
Algeria, in the first days of the French occupation, saw arise, each springtime,
inspired men who
From all time this division into two parties, opposed to
each other in interest and spirit, had been for the Hebrew people a principle
which had been fertile in moral growth. Every nation called to high destinies
ought to form a complete little world, including within it the opposite poles.
Greece presented, a few leagues apart, Sparta and Athens, the two antipodes to a
superficial observer, but in reality rival sisters, each necessary to the other.
It was the same with Judæa. Less brilliant in one sense than the development of
Jerusalem,
A beautiful aspect of nature contributed to the formation
of this less austere, though less sharply monotheistic spirit, if I may venture
so to call it, which impressed all the dreams of Galilee with a charming and
idyllic character. The region round about Jerusalem is, perhaps, the gloomiest
country in the world. Galilee, on the contrary, was exceedingly verdant, shady,
smiling, the true home of the Song of Songs and the Canticles of the
well-beloved. During the two months of March and April the country is a carpet
of flowers, with an incomparable variety of colouring. 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 advance
nearly under the very feet of the traveller; little river-tortoises with sweet
and lively eyes, and also storks with grave and modest mien, which, dismissing
all timidity, allow themselves to be approached quite closely, and seem
This lovely country, which at the present day has become
(through the woful impoverishing influence which Islamism has wrought on human
life) so sad and wretched, but where everything that man cannot destroy
breathes still an air of freedom, sweetness, and tenderness, overflowed with
happiness and joy at the time of Jesus. The Galileans were reckoned brave,
energetic and laborious. If we except Tiberias, built by Antipas in the Roman
style, in honour of Tiberius (about the year 15), Galilee had no large towns.
The country was nevertheless covered with small towns and large villages well
peopled, and cultivated with skill in every direction. From the ruins of its
ancient splendour which survive we can trace an agricultural people in 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 fruits;
the large farms were shaded with vines and fig-trees; the gardens were a mass of
apple and walnut trees, and pomegranates. The wine was excellent, if it may be
judged from what the Jews still obtain at Safed, and they drank freely of it.
This contented and easily satisfied life did not at all resemble the gross
materialism of our peasantry, or the coarse happiness of agricultural Normandy,
or the heavy mirth of the Flemings. It spiritualised itself in mysterious
dreams, in a kind of poetical mysticism,
The entire history of infant Christianity is in this sense a delightful pastoral. A Messiah at the marriage supper, the courtesan and the good Zaccheus called to his feasts, the founders of the kingdom of heaven like a bridal procession;—this is what Galilee has dared to offer, and what the world has really accepted. Greece has drawn admirable pictures of human life in sculpture and poetry, but always without backgrounds or receding perspectives. Here were wanting the marble, the practised workmen, the exquisite and refined language. But Galilee has created for the popular imagination the most sublime ideal; for behind its idyll the fate of humanity moves, and the light which illumines its picture is the sun of the kingdom of God.
Jesus lived and grew up amidst those elevating
surroundings. From his infancy, he went almost every year to the feast at
Jerusalem. The pilgrimage was for the provincial Jews a solemnity of sweet
associations. Several entire series of psalms were consecrated to celebrate the
happiness of thus journeying in family society during several days in springtime
across the hills and valleys, all having in prospect the splendours of
Jerusalem, the solemnities of the sacred courts, and the joy of brethren
dwelling together. The route which Jesus usually followed in these journeys was
that which is taken in the present day, through Ginæa and Shechem. From Shechem
to Jerusalem travelling is very toilsome.
These journeys, during which the assembled nation exchanged its ideas, and which created annually in the capital centres of great excitement, placed Jesus in contact with the mind of his countrymen, and doubtless inspired him from his youth with a lively antipathy to the defects of the official representatives of Judaism. It is observable that very early the desert had been for him like a school, and to this he had made prolonged visits. But the God he found there was not his God. It was emphatically rather the God of Job, severe and terrible, and who is accountable to none. Sometimes Satan came to tempt him. He then returned from these sojourns into his beloved Galilee, and found again his heavenly Father, in the midst of the green hills and the clear fountains—among the crowds of women and children who, with joyous soul and the song of the angels in their hearts, waited for the salvation of Israel.
Joseph died before his son had assumed any public position. Mary remained, in a manner, the head of the family; and this explains why Jesus, when it was desired to distinguish him from others of the same name, was most frequently called “the son of Mary.” It would seem that having, through her husband's death, become friendless in Nazareth, she retired to Cana, which was probably her native place. Cana was a little town about two or two and a half hours' journey from Nazareth, at the base of the hills which bound the plain of Asochis on the north. The prospect, less grand than that at Nazareth, extends over the whole plain, and is bounded in the most picturesque manner by the mountains of Nazareth and the hills of Sepphoris. Jesus appears to have resided in this place for some time. There he probably passed a part of his youth, and his first manifestations were made at Cana.
He followed the same occupation as his father—that of a
carpenter. This was no humiliating or vexatious circumstance. The Jewish custom
demanded that a man devoted to intellectual work should assume a handicraft.
The most celebrated doctors had their trades; it was thus that St. Paul, whose
education was so elaborate, was a tent-maker, or upholsterer. Jesus never
married. All his power of loving expended itself on what he considered his
heavenly vocation. The extremely delicate sentiment
What was the progress of thought in Jesus during this
obscure period of his life? Through what meditations did he enter upon his
prophetic career? We cannot tell, his history having come to us in the shape of
scattered narratives and without exact chronology. But the development of living
character is everywhere the same, and it cannot be doubted that the growth of a
personality so powerful as that of Jesus obeyed very rigorous laws. An exalted
conception of the Divinity—which he did not owe to Judaism, and which appears to
have been in all its parts the creation of his great intellect—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
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 own heart all he said of his Father. He lived in the bosom of God by an
unceasing communication; he did not see Him, but he understood Him, without need
of the thunder or 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 Saint
Theresa, for example, are valueless here. The intoxication of the Soufi
proclaiming himself identical with God is also a totally different
We understand, on the other hand, that Jesus, commencing
his work with such a disposition of mind, could never be a speculative
philosopher like Sakya-Mouni. Nothing is further from scholastic theology than
the Gospel. The speculations of the Greek doctors on the Divine essence proceed
from an entirely different spirit. God, conceived simply as Father, was all the
theology of Jesus. And this was not with him a theoretical principle, a doctrine
more or less proved, which he sought to inculcate in others. He did not argue
with his disciples; he demanded from them no effort of attention. He did not
preach his opinions; he preached himself. Very great and very disinterested
minds often present, associated with much elevation, that character of
perpetual attention to themselves, and extreme personal susceptibility, which,
in general, is peculiar to women. Their conviction that God is in them, and
occupies Himself perpetually with them, is so strong that they have no fear of
obtruding themselves upon others; our reserve, and our respect for the opinion
of others, which is a part of our weakness, could not belong to them. This
exaltation of self is not egotism; for such men, possessed by their idea, give
their lives freely, in order to seal their work; it is the identification of
self with the object it has embraced, carried to its utmost limit. It is
regarded as vain glory by those who see in the new teaching only the personal phantasy of the founder; but it is the finger of God to those who see the
result. The fool stands side by side here with the inspired man, only the
Jesus, no doubt, did not reach at one step this high assertion of himself. But it is probable that, from the first, he looked on himself as standing with God in the relation of a son to his father. This was his grand act of originality; there was nothing here in common with his race. Neither the Jew nor the Mussulman has understood this delightful theology of love. The God of Jesus is not the tyrannical master who kills, damns, or saves us, just as it pleases Him. The God of Jesus is our Father. We hear Him while listening to the gentle inspiration which cries within us—“Father.” The God of Jesus is not the partial despot who has chosen Israel for His people, and protects them against all the world. He is the God of humanity. Jesus would not be a patriot like the Maccabees, or a theocrat like Judas the Gaulonite. Boldly elevating himself above the prejudices of his nation, he would establish the universal Fatherhood of God. The Gaulonite maintained that it was better for one to die than to give the title of “Master” to any other than God; Jesus would allow any man to take this name, but reserves for God a title dearer still. Yielding to the powerful of the earth, who were to him the representatives of force, a respect full of irony, he establishes the supreme consolation—the recourse to the Father whom each one has in heaven, and the true kingdom of God which every man carries in his heart.
This expression—“the kingdom of God” or “the
kingdom of heaven”—was the favourite term of Jesus to describe the revolution
he was bringing into the world. Like nearly all the terms relating to the
Messiah, it came from the book of Daniel. According to the author of that
extraordinary book,
Paradise would, in fact, have been brought to earth if the
ideas of the young Master had not far transcended that level of ordinary
goodness which the human race has found it hitherto impossible to pass. The
brotherhood of men, as sons of God, and the moral consequences which have
resulted from it, were deduced with exquisite feeling. Like all the rabbis of
the period, Jesus little affected consecutive reasonings, but clothed his
teaching in concise aphorisms, and in an expressive form, oft-times enigmatical
and singular. Some of these maxims came from the books of the Old Testament.
Others were the thoughts of more modern sages, especially of Antigonus of Soco,
Jesus, son of Sirach, and Hillel, which had reached him, not through a course of
learned study, but as oft-repeated proverbs. The synagogue was rich in very
happily-expressed maxims, which formed a sort of current proverbial literature.
Jesus adopted almost all this oral teaching, but imbued it with a superior
spirit. Generally exceeding the duties laid down by the Law and the elders, he
demanded perfection. All the virtues of humility, pardon, charity, abnegation,
and self-denial—virtues which have been called with good reason Christian—if it
is meant by this that they have been truly preached by Christ—were found in germ
in this first declaration. As to justice, he contented himself with repeating
the well-known axiom—“Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye
even so to them.” But this old wisdom, selfish enough as it was, did
not satisfy him. He went to excess, declaring—“Whosoever shall smite thee on
thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the
law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.” “If thy right eye
offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee.” “Love your enemies, do good
to them that hate you; pray
In regard to alms, pity, good works, kindness, the desire for peace, and complete disinterestedness of heart, he had little to add to the teaching of the synagogue. But he stamped them with an emphasis full of unction, and thus gave novelty to those aphorisms which had long been current. Morality is not composed of principles more or less well-expressed. The poetry of the precept, which makes one love it, is more than the precept itself, viewed 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 it is meant by that that one might recompose it almost entirely by means of more ancient maxims—the morality of the Gospel remains no less the loftiest creation of the human conscience, the most beautiful code of perfect life which any moralist has traced.
Jesus did not speak against the Mosaic law; but it is clear
that he saw its insufficiency, and he let this be distinctly understood. He
repeated constantly that more must be done than the ancient sages commanded. He
forbade the least harsh word; he prohibited divorce, and all swearing; he
censured revenge; he condemned usury; he held voluptuous desire to be as
criminal as adultery. He demanded a universal forgiveness of injuries. The
motive on which he grounded these maxims of
A pure worship, a religion without priests or external
observances, resting entirely on the feelings of the heart, on the imitation of
God, on the direct communication between the conscience and the heavenly Father,
was the result of these principles. Jesus never shrank from this daring
consequence, which made him, in the very centre of Judaism, a revolutionist of
the first rank. Why should there be any intermediaries between man and his
Father? As God only looks on the heart, of what use are these
purifications—these observances which only relate to the body? Even tradition, a
thing so sacred to the Jew, is nothing compared to a pure feeling. The hypocrisy
of the Pharisees, who, in praying, turned their heads to see if they were
observed, who gave alms with ostentation, and put on their garments marks by
which they might be recognised as pious persons—all these grimaces of false
devotion disgusted him. “They have their reward,” said he; “but thou, when thou
doest thine alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, that thy
alms may be in secret; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, Himself shall
reward thee openly.” “And 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.
He did not affect any outward sign of asceticism, contenting himself with praying, or rather meditating, upon the mountains and in those solitary places where man has always sought God. This lofty 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 compiled from some pious phrases already current amongst the Jews, and which he taught his disciples: —
“Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation; deliver us from the evil one.” Jesus insisted particularly upon the idea that the heavenly Father knows better than we do what we need, and that we almost sin against Him in asking Him for this or that particular thing.
Jesus did nothing more in this matter than to carry out the
consequences of the great principles which Judaism had established, but which
the official classes of the nation inclined more and more to despise. The Greek
and Roman prayers were almost always full of egotism. Never had Pagan priest
said to the faithful, “If thou bring thy offering to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift
before the altar and go thy way; first be reconciled with thy brother, and then
come and offer thy gift.” Alone in antiquity, the Jewish prophets, especially
Isaiah, in their antipathy to the priesthood, had discovered a little
An exquisite sympathy with nature furnished Jesus with
expressive images at every turn. Sometimes a wonderful ingenuity, which we call
wit,
These lessons, long concealed in the heart of the young Master, soon gathered round him a few disciples. The spirit of the age was in favour of small churches; it was the time of the Essenes or Therapeutæ. Certain Rabbis, each having his own distinctive teaching, Shemaïa, Abtalion, Hillel, Shammaï, Judas the Gaulonite, Gamaliel, and many others whose maxims form the Talmud, appeared on all sides. They wrote very little; the Jewish doctors of that age did not make books; everything was done by conversation and public lessons, to which it was sought to give a form easily remembered. The day when the youthful carpenter of Nazareth began openly to proclaim those maxims, for the most part already propagated, but which, thanks to him, have been able to regenerate the world, marked therefore no very startling event. It was only one Rabbi more (true, the most fascinating of them all), and around him a few young people, greedy to hear him and to search for the unknown. It requires time to awaken men from inattention. There was not as yet any Christian, though true Christianity was founded already, and doubtless it has never been more perfect than at this first period. Jesus added nothing more enduring to it afterwards. What do I say? In one sense he compromised it; for every idea, in order to prevail, must make sacrifices; we never come out of the battle of life unscathed.
To conceive the good, in fact, is not enough; it is
necessary to make it succeed amongst men. To
An extraordinary man, whose position, in the absence of documents to describe it, remains to us in some measure enigmatical, appeared about this time, and was unquestionably connected to some extent with Jesus. This connection rather tended to make the young prophet of Nazareth deviate from his path; but it also suggested many important accessories to his religious institution, and, at all events, it furnished his disciples with a very strong authority to recommend 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 through all Palestine the fame of a certain Johanan or John, a young ascetic full of zeal and enthusiasm. John was of the priestly race, and was born, it would seem, at Juttah, near Hebron, or at Hebron itself. This city, which may be called patriarchal beyond all others, situated a short distance from the desert of Judæa, and within a few hours' journey of the great desert of Arabia, was at that time what it is still to-day, one of the bulwarks of monotheism in its most austere form.
From his infancy John was a Nazir—that is to say,
subjected by vow to certain abstinences. The desert by which he was, so to
speak, surrounded, attracted him from early life. He led there a life like that
of a Yogui of India, clothed with skins or cloth of camel's hair, having for
food only locusts
Since 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 and his rough solitude of Carmel, where he shared the life of wild beasts, dwelling in the hollows of the rocks, whence he issued like a thunderbolt to make and unmake kings, had become, by successive transformations, a sort of superhuman being, sometimes visible, sometimes invisible, and one who had not tasted of death. It was generally believed that Elias would return and restore Israel. The austere life which he had led, the terrible remembrances he had left behind him—the impression of which is still vivid in the East—that sombre portraiture which, even in our own days, causes trembling and death; all this mythology, full of vengeance and terrors, powerfully struck the public imagination and stamped, as with a birth-mark, all the creations of the popular mind. Whoever aspired to any great influence over the people must imitate Elias; and, as a solitary life had been the essential characteristic of that prophet, they were accustomed to think of “the man of God” as a hermit. They imagined that all holy personages would have their days of penitence, of solitary life, and of austerity. The retreat to the desert thus became the condition and the prelude of high destinies.
There can be no doubt that this idea of imitation had
occupied John's mind to a considerable degree. 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 Judæa.
The Essenes were grouped near the birthplace of John, on the eastern shores of
the Dead Sea. Abstinence from flesh, wine, and from sexual pleasures was
regarded as the novitiate of the prophets. People imagined that the chiefs of
any sect should be recluses, having their own rules and institutions, like the
founders of religious orders. The teachers of the young were also at times a
species of anchorites, resembling to some extent the gourous of
Brahminism. In fact, might there not in this be a remote influence of the
mounis of India? Perhaps, some of those wandering Buddhist monks who
overran the world, as the first Franciscans did in later times, preaching by
their actions and converting people who knew not their language, might have
turned their steps towards Judæa, as they certainly did towards Syria and
Babylon. On this point we have no certainty. Babylon had become for some time a
true focus of Buddhism. Boudasp (Bodhisattva) was reputed a wise Chaldean, and
the founder of Sabeism. Sabeism was, as its etymology indicates, baptism—that is to say, the religion of many baptisms—the origin of the sect
still existing called “Christians of St. John,” or Mendaites, which the Arabs
call el-Mogtasila, “the Baptists.” It is very 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, present to criticism the most singular problem, in
consequence of the confused accounts of them which have come
This practice was baptism, or total immersion. Ablutions were already familiar to the Jews, as they were to all the religions of the East. The Essenes had given them a peculiar extension. Baptism had become an ordinary ceremony at the introduction of proselytes into the bosom of the Jewish religion—a sort of initiatory rite. But never before the Baptist's time had there been given to immersion either this form or importance. John had fixed the scene of his labours in that part of the desert of Judæa which borders on the Dead Sea. At the periods when he administered baptism, he betook himself to the banks of the Jordan, either to Bethany or to Bethabara, on the eastern shore, probably opposite Jericho, or to a place called Ænon, or the Fountains, near Salim, where there was much water. There considerable crowds, mainly of the tribe of Judah, hastened to him to be baptized. In a few months he thus became one of the most influential men in Judæa, and all the multitude held him in high estimation.
The people considered him a prophet, and many imagined that
he was Elias who had risen from the dead. The belief in such resurrections was
widely spread; it was thought that God would raise from their graves certain of
the ancient prophets to serve as the leaders of Israel to its final destiny.
Others took John for the Messiah himself, although
Baptism, however, was to John nothing more than a sign,
destined to make an impression and to prepare men's minds for some
great movement. There is no doubt that he was imbued in the highest degree with
the Messianic expectations. “Repent,” said he, “for the kingdom of
heaven is at hand.” He announced a “great wrath,” that is to say,
terrible calamities which were to come, and declared that the axe was already at
the root of the tree, and that the tree would soon be cast into the fire. The
Messiah he described had a fan in his hand, gathering in the wheat and burning
the chaff. Repentance, of which baptism was the type, the giving of alms, and
the reformation of manners, were to John's mind the great means of
preparation for the coming events. We cannot discover in what light exactly he
looked at these events. What we are sure of is that he preached with much power
against the same adversaries as Jesus attacked later on, against the rich
priests, the Pharisees, the doctors—in one word, against official Judaism; and
that, like Jesus, he was specially welcomed by the despised classes. He reduced
to a small value the title “son of Abraham,” and declared that God could raise
up children to Abraham from the stones on the ground. It does not seem that he
possessed, even in germ, the great idea which led to the triumph of Jesus—the
conception of a pure religion; but he powerfully served this idea by
substituting a private
Although the centre of John's action was Judæa, his fame
penetrated quickly to Galilee and reached Jesus, who, by his first discourses,
had already gathered round him a little circle of hearers. Enjoying up to this
point little authority, and doubtless impelled by the desire to see a teacher
whose instructions had so much in them that was in sympathy with his own ideas,
Jesus left Galilee and went with his small band of pupils to visit John. The new
comers were baptized like every one else. John very warmly welcomed this group
of Galilean disciples, and found nothing objectionable in their remaining
distinct from his own followers. The two teachers were young; they had many
ideas in common; they loved one another and vied with each other before the
public in reciprocal kindness
These good relations became afterwards the starting-point of a whole system developed by the evangelists, which consisted in giving John's attestation as the primary basis of the Divine mission of Jesus. Such was the degree of authority attained by the Baptist that men thought it would be impossible to find in the world a better guarantee. But far from the Baptist having abdicated before Jesus, Jesus, during all the time he passed with him, recognised him as his superior, and only developed his own genius with timidity.
It seems, indeed, that, notwithstanding his profound
John, in fact, was soon cut short in his prophetic career. Like the old Jewish prophets, he was, in the highest degree, a censurer of the established authorities. The extreme vivacity with which he expressed himself regarding them could not fail to draw him into an embarrassing position. In Judæa, John does not appear to have been disturbed by Pilate; but, in Perea, beyond the Jordan, he came into the territories of Antipas. This tyrant was uneasy at the political leaven which was thinly veiled by John in his preaching. The great assemblages of men, formed by religious and patriotic enthusiasm, which had gathered round the Baptist, had a suspicious aspect. An entirely personal grievance, besides, was added to these motives of state, and rendered the death of the austere censurer inevitable.
One of the most strongly-marked characters in this tragical
family of the Herods was Herodias, grand-daughter of Herod the Great. Violent,
ambitious, and passionate, she detested Judaism, and despised its laws. She had
been married, probably against her will, to her uncle, Herod, son of Mariamne,
whom Herod the Great had disinherited, and who never had assumed any public
part. The inferior position of her husband, in comparison with the other members
of the family, allowed her no peace of mind; she resolved to be sovereign at any
cost. Antipas was the instrument through which she acted. This weak man, having
become desperately enamoured of her, promised to marry her and to repudiate his
first wife, the daughter of Hâreth, king of Petra, and emir of the neighbouring
tribes of Perea. The Arabian princess, having obtained a hint of this purpose,
resolved to fly. Concealing
Makaur, or Machero, was a colossal fortress built by Alexander Janneus, and rebuilt by Herod, in one of the most rugged wadys to the east of the Dead Sea. This was a wild and savage country, full of extraordinary legends, and was believed to be haunted by demons. The fortress was just on the boundary of the States of Hâreth and Antipas. At this period it was in the possession of Hâreth. Having been forewarned, the latter had prepared everything for the flight of his daughter, who was reconducted, from tribe to tribe, to Petra.
The almost incestuous union of Antipas and Herodias then took place. The Jewish laws as to marriage were a constant rock of offence between the irreligious family of the Herods and the strict Jews. The members of this numerous and somewhat isolated dynasty being obliged to intermarry to a large extent, there frequently resulted violations of the limits prescribed by the Law. John was thus the echo of the general feeling when he rebuked Antipas. This was more than sufficient to decide the latter to follow up his suspicions. He caused the Baptist to be arrested and confined in the fortress of Machero, of which he had probably taken possession after the departure of the daughter of Hâreth.
More timid than cruel, Antipas did not wish to put John to
death. According to certain reports, he feared popular sedition. According to
another version, he had taken pleasure in listening to his prisoner, and these
interviews had thrown him into great perplexities. What is certain is, that the
detention was prolonged, and that John preserved, even in prison, an extensive
influence. He correspnded
Up to the arrest of John, which may be dated approximately
in the summer of the year 29, Jesus did not quit the neighbourhood of the Dead
Sea and of the Jordan. A sojourn in the desert of Judæa was generally considered
as the preparation for great things, as a sort of “retreat” before
public acts. Jesus in this respect followed the example of others, and passed
forty days in no other society than that of the wild beasts, maintaining a
rigorous fast. The minds of the disciples were much exercised in regard to this
sojourn. The desert was, according to popular belief, the abode of demons. There
are to be found in the world few regions more desolate, more God-forsaken, more
shut off from all outward life, than the rocky declivity which forms the western
border of the Dead Sea. It was believed that, during the time Jesus passed in
this frightful country, he had gone through terrible trials; that Satan had
assailed him with his illusions or tempted him by seductive
It was probably in returning from the desert that Jesus was informed of the arrest of John the Baptist. He had no further reason now to prolong his stay in a country which was comparatively strange to him. Perhaps he feared also being involved in the severities exercised towards John, and did not wish to expose himself at a time in which, seeing the little celebrity he had, his death could in no way serve the advancement of his ideas. He accordingly went back to Galilee, his true fatherland, ripened by an important experience, and having acquired, through contact with a great man very different from himself, a consciousness of his own originality.
On the whole, the influence of John had been more harmful
than useful to Jesus. It checked his development; for everything leads us to
believe that when he went towards Jordan he had ideas superior to those of John,
and it was out of a kind of concession that he inclined for a moment towards
baptism. Probably if the Baptist, to whose authority it would have been
difficult to submit himself, had remained at liberty, he would not have thought
of casting off the yoke of rites and of materialistic practices, and henceforth
might have remained an unknown Jewish sectary; for the world had not yet
abandoned these practices for others. It is the charm of a religion stripped of
all exterior forms that has attracted the most elevated minds to Christianity.
The Baptist once imprisoned, his followers became rapidly fewer, and Jesus found
himself at liberty to follow his own bent. The only things he was indebted in a
sort of way to John for were instruction in the art of preaching and in
attracting popularity. From that moment,
It appears also that his close intercourse with John, not so much by the influence of the Baptist as by the natural development of his own mind, matured many of his ideas about the “kingdom of heaven.” His watchword henceforth is “glad tidings;” and the announcement that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Jesus is no longer a delightful moralist merely, aspiring to embody in a few vivid and concise aphorisms sublime lessons; he is a transcendental revolutionary who attempts to renovate the world from its very basis, and to found on earth the ideal which he has conceived. “The kingdom of God” is at hand is to be synonymous with being a disciple of Jesus. The phrase “kingdom of God” or “kingdom of Heaven,” as we have already said, had been long familiar to the Jews. Jesus, however, gave to it a moral sense—a social application, that the author of the book of Daniel himself, in his enthusiastic apocalypse, dared hardly venture upon.
In the world, as it is constituted, it is the evil that prevails. Satan is the “king of this world,” and everything obeys him. The priests and the doctors do not the things which they order others to do. The just are persecuted, and the sole portion of the good is to weep. The “world” is a species of enemies of God and His saints; but God will reveal Himself and avenge His saints. The day is at hand; for abomination is rampant. The reign of justice is to have its turn.
The advent of the reign of justice is to be a great and
unexpected revolution. The world is to be turned upside down; the present state
being bad, to represent the future, it is sufficient to conceive as near as may
be the contrary of that which exists. The first shall be last. A new order will
rule
Who is to establish this kingdom of God? Let us recall that the first thought of Jesus—a thought so deeply rooted in him that it was probably intuitive forming part of his very being—was that he was the son of God, the bosom friend of his father, the executor of His decrees. The response of Jesus to such a question could not then be doubtful. The persuasion that he should found the kingdom of God took, in the most absolute manner, possession of his mind. He looked upon himself as the universal reformer. Heaven, earth, all nature, depravity, disease, and death are only his instruments. In the glow of his heroic will, he believes himself to be all powerful. If the earth does not lend itself to this complete transformation, it will be broken up, purified by fire and by the breath of God. A new heaven will be created, and the whole earth peopled with the angels of God.
A complete revolution, extending to nature itself —such was
the fundamental idea of Jesus. Henceforth, it is certain, he renounced
politics; the
The revolution that he sought to bring about was a moral
revolution; but he had not yet reached the point of trusting to the angels and
the last trumpet
It is in fact the kingdom of God, I mean, the kingdom of
mind, that he founded, and, if Jesus from the bosom of his father sees his work
bearing fruit through the ages, he may indeed truly say: “This is what I
wished.” That which Jesus founded, and which will remain his to all
eternity—deductions being made for the imperfections which enter into everything
accomplished by mankind—is the doctrine of freedom of mind. Greece had
already exalted ideas on the subject. Several stoics had discovered
the means of being free under a tyrant. But, in general, the ancient world only
understood liberty as attached to certain political forms; Harmodius and
Aristogiton, Brutus and Cassius were concrete examples of such liberty. The true
Christian is much more free from all restraints; here below he is a stranger;
what boots it to him who is the temporary ruler of this earth, which is not his
country? Liberty to him means truth. Jesus was not sufficiently acquainted with
history to comprehend how opportune such a doctrine was—the very moment when
republican liberty was expiring, and when the small municipal institutions of
antiquity were being absorbed in the Roman Empire. But his admirable sound sense
and the truly prophetic instinct that he had of his mission, guided him here
with marvellous
The man who is especially preoccupied with the duties of
public life does not spare those who place some other object above his party
strifes. He especially blames those who subordinate political to social
questions, and profess for the former a sort of indifference. In one sense he is
right; for exclusiveness is prejudicial to the good government of human affairs.
But what have parties done to promote the general morality of our species? If
Jesus, instead of founding his heavenly kingdom, had betaken himself to Rome,
and had worn his life out in conspiring against Tiberius, or in regretting
Germanicus, what would have become of this world? Neither as a stern republican
nor as a zealous patriot could he have stemmed the great public
The principles of our positive science have been injured by
the dreams embraced in the scheme of Jesus. We know the history of the world.
The kind of revolutions expected by Jesus are only produced by geological or
astronomical causes, and no one has ever been able to connect them with things
moral. But to be just to great originators, they must not be fastened with the
prejudices they only shared. Columbus discovered America, though he started out
with the most erroneous ideas; Newton believed his silly explanation of the
Apocalypse to be as certain as his theory of gravitation. Shall we place a
mediocre man of our times above a Francis d'Assisi, a St. Bernard, a
Joan of Arc, or a Luther, because he is exempt from the errors that these
persons have taught? Ought we to measure men by the correctness of their ideas
of physics, and by the more or less exact knowledge they possess of the true
natural laws of the universe? Let us understand better the position of Jesus and
whence he derived his power. The Deism of the eighteenth century and a certain
kind of Protestantism have accustomed us to regard the founder of the Christian
faith merely as a great moralist, a benefactor of mankind. We see no more in the
gospel than good maxims; we throw a convenient veil over the strange
intellectual state whence it had its origin. There are some people who regret
even that the French Revolution departed more than once from principle, and that
it was not brought about by wise and moderate men. Let us not impose our petty
plans and commonplace notions on those extraordinary movements which are so far
above our grasp! Let us continue to
At bottom, the ideal is always a Utopia. When we wish at
the present time to represent the Christ of the modern conscience, the consoler,
the judge of these times, what do we do? That which Jesus himself did over
1800 years ago. We suppose the conditions of the real world quite other than they
are; we represent a moral liberator breaking without weapons the chains of the
negro, bettering the condition of the common people, delivering oppressed
nations. We forget that that implies the subversion of the world, the climate of
Virginia and that of the Congo modified, the blood and the race of millions of
men changed, our social complications restored to a chimerical simplicity, and
the political stratifications of Europe displaced from their natural order. The
“restitution of all things” desired by Jesus was not more difficult. That new
earth, that new heaven, that new Jerusalem, which comes from above, this cry, “Behold I make all things new,” are the characteristics common to
reformers. The contrast of the ideal with the sad reality invariably produces in
mankind those revolts against cold reason which mediocre minds consider as
follies, until the day of their triumph arrives, and then those who have
combated them are the first to acknowledge their great wisdom. That there may
have been a contradiction between
To whom shall we apply, upon whom shall we rely, to found the kingdom of God? The opinion of Jesus never wavered upon this point. That which is cherished by man is an abomination in the sight of God. The founders of the kingdom of God are the weak and lowly. Neither the rich, the learned, nor the priests; but women, common people, the humble, little children. The grand distinguishing mark of the Messiah is:—“The poor have the gospel preached to them.” The idyllic and gentle nature of Jesus here asserted its superiority. A great social revolution, in which rank should be levelled, in which all authority should be brought under, was his dream. The world will not believe him; the world will kill him. But his followers will not be of this world. They will be a small band of the lowly and humble, who will conquer the world by their very humility. The sentiment which made the “world” the antithesis of “Christian” has, in the mind of the Master, its full justification.
Haunted by a more and more imperious idea, Jesus, with a
quiet determination, henceforth follows the path his extraordinary genius and
the
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 Cherubim, and of the fantastic animals which the imagination of the
people, since it had been subjected to the influence of Assyria, had ranged
around the Divine Majesty. Already in Ezekiel, the Being seated on the supreme
throne, far above the monsters of the mysterious chariot, the great revealer of
prophetic visions, had the figure of a man. In the book of Daniel, in the midst
of the vision of the empires, represented by animals, at the moment when the
great judgment commences, and when the books are opened, a Being, “like unto a
Son of Man,” advances towards the Ancient of days, who confers on him the power
to judge the world, and to govern it for eternity. Son of Man, in the
Semitic languages, especially in the Aramean dialects, is a simple synonym of
man. But this chief passage of Daniel struck the mind; the words, Son
of Man, became, at least in certain schools, one of the titles of the
Messiah, regarded as judge of the world, and as king of the new era about to be
inaugurated.
The success of the teaching of the new prophet was this time decisive. A group of men and women, all characterised by the same spirit of juvenile frankness and of simple innocence, adhered to him and said: “Thou art the Messiah!” As the Messiah was to be the Son of David, he was naturally conceded this appellation, which was synonymous with the former. Jesus accepted it with pleasure, although it might cause him some embarrassment, his origin being so well known. For himself, he preferred the title of “Son of Man,” an apparently humble title, but it was connected directly with the Messianic hopes. That was the appellation by which he designated himself, although, in his mouth, the “Son of Man” was a synonym of the pronoun I, which he avoided using. But no one ever thus addressed him, doubtless because the name in question did not quite suit him, until the day of his coming advent.
Jesus' centre of action, at this period of his life, was
the little town of Capernaum—situated on the shore of the lake of Gennesareth.
The name of Capernaum, into which enters the word caphar, village, seems
to denote a small town of the old character, in contradistinction to the great
towns built according to the Roman fashion, such as Tiberias. The name was so
little known that Josephus, in one place in his writings, takes it for the name
of a fountain, the fountain having more celebrity than the village close to it.
Like Nazareth, Capernaum had no history, and had not participated in the profane
movement favoured by the Herods. Jesus
This check was far from discouraging him. He returned to
Capernaum, where he found the people much more favourably disposed to him, and
from there he organised a series of missions into the small surrounding towns.
The people of this beautiful and fertile country rarely assembled together
except on the Sabbath. This was the day he selected for his teaching. Each town
had then a synagogue or place of meeting. It was a rectangular room, not very
large, with a portico, decorated in the Greek style. The Jews, not having any
architecture of their own, never attempted to give to those edifices an
original design. The remains of many ancient synagogues are still to be seen in
Galilee. They have all been constructed of large and good materials; but their
appearance is rather paltry, owing to the profusion
With the marked activity of mind that has always
characterised the Jews, such an institution, despite the arbitrary restraints it
tolerated, could not fail to give rise to very animated discussions. Thanks to
the synagogues, Judaism has been able
Thus, the authority of the young Master increased daily,
and, as a matter of course, the more people believed in him the more he believed
in himself. His sphere, however, was limited. It was confined to the basin of
the lake of Tiberias, and even here
The first objects we encounter on leaving Tiberias are steep rocks, a mountain which appears to roll into the sea. The mountains then gradually recede, and a plain (El Ghoueir), almost level with the sea, opens out. It is a charming grove of rich verdure, furrowed by the plentiful waters which issue partly from a great round reservoir of ancient construction (Aïn Medawara). On the verge of this plain, which is, strictly speaking, the country of Gennesareth, we find the miserable village of Medjdel. At the opposite side of the plain (always following the lake) we come upon the site of a town (Khan Minyeh) with charming streams (Aïn-et-Tin), a pretty road, narrow and deep, cut out of the rocks, which Jesus certainly often traversed, and which serves as an outlet into the plain of Gennesareth and to the northern slopes of the lake. A mile from this place the traveller crosses a stream of salt water (Aïn Tabiga), issuing from several large springs a few yards from the lake, and entering it through the middle of a dense mass of verdure. After a further journey of forty minutes over the bare slopes which stretch from Aïn Tabiga to the mouth of the Jordan, we at last find some huts and a collection of monumental ruins, called Tell-Houm.
Five small towns (which will be as long
spoken of
The lake, the horizon, the shrubs, the flowers, are all
that remain of the little canton, three or four leagues in extent, where Jesus
began his Divine work. The trees have totally disappeared. In this country,
where the vegetation was formerly so rich that Josephus saw in it a kind of
miracle—Nature, according to him, being pleased to bring forth side by side the
plants indigenous to cold countries, the products of the torrid zones, the trees
of temperate climates, laden all the year round with flowers and fruits—in this
country travellers are now obliged to calculate a day beforehand the place where
they will on the morrow find a shady nook to sit down to lunch. The lake has
become deserted. A solitary, dilapidated barque now ploughs the waves, formerly
the scene of so much activity and of happiness. But the waters are still smooth
and transparent. The coast, formed of rocks and pebbles, is indeed
The heat upon the shore is, in summer, very oppressive.
The lake occupies a hollow which is over six hundred feet below the level of the
Mediterranean, and thus is subjected to the torrid conditions of the Dead Sea.
A luxurious vegetation tempered in former times these excessive heats. One can
hardly understand that a furnace such as the whole lake basin now is, beginning
with the month of May, had ever been the scene of marvellous activity. Josephus,
however, found the climate very temperate. Undoubtedly, there has been here, as
in the Campagna of Rome, some change of climate, attributable to
historical causes. It is Islamism, and, above all, the Mussulman reaction
against the crusades, which has withered, as with a blast of
A dangerous compatriot indeed! He has ruined the country which had the insuperable honour of giving him birth. Coveted by two rival fanaticisms, after it had become the object of universal love or hate, Galilee, as the price of its glory, has been changed into a desert. But who will say that Jesus would have been happier if he had lived in obscurity in his own village until he had reached the age of mature manhood? and as for the ungrateful Nazarenes, who would ever think of them if one of their number had not, at the risk of compromising the future prosperity of their town, discovered his Father and proclaimed himself the Son of God ?
At the time of which we speak, four or five large villages,
situated about half an hour's walk from one another, formed the little world of
Jesus. He seems never to have visited Tiberias, a heathen city, peopled for the
most part by Pagans, and the permanent residence of Antipas. Sometimes, however,
he wandered forth of his favourite region. For instance, he went by boat along
the eastern shore to Gergesa. In the north, we find him at Paneas, or
Cæsarea-Philippi, at the foot of Mount Hermon. Moreover, he finally made a
journey to Tyre and Sidon, a country which at that time must have been in an
exceedingly flourishing condition. In all these countries he was surrounded
with Paganism. At Cæsarea he saw the celebrated grotto of Panium, which
was considered the source of the Jordan, and around which popular belief had
entwined many strange legends; he could admire the marble temple that Herod had
erected near there in honour of Augustus;
In this earthly paradise, which the great historic
revolutions had, up till then, affected but little, there lived a people in
perfect harmony with the country itself—active, honest, light and
tender-hearted. The lake of Tiberias is one of the best
One house especially, at Capernaum, offered him an
agreeable asylum and devoted disciples. It was that of two brothers, sons of one
Jonas, who was probably dead at the time when Jesus came to fix his abode upon
the banks of the lake. These two brothers were Simon, surnamed in Syro-Chaldaic
Cephas, in Greek Petros, “the Stone,” or Peter, and Andrew. Born at Bethsaida,
they had established themselves at Capernaum when Jesus entered on public life.
Peter was married and had children, and his mother-in-law lived with him Jesus
loved that house, and resided there constantly. Andrew appears to have been a
disciple
Another family, that of Zabdia or Zebedee, a well-to-do fisherman and the owner of several boats, extended to Jesus a hearty welcome. Zebedee had two sons; James, who was the elder, and a younger son, John, who later on was destined to play so important a part in the history of infant Christianity. Both were zealous disciples. Salome, wife of Zebedee, was also strongly attached to Jesus, and accompanied him till his death.
The women, in fact, received him very gladly. He had in
their society those reserved manners which render a very agreeable union of
ideas between the two sexes possible. The separation of men and women which has
checked all refined development among the peoples of the East was, undoubtedly,
then, as in our day, much less rigorous in the country and in the villages than
in the large towns. Three or four devoted Galilean women always accompanied the
young Master, and disputed among themselves for the pleasure of listening to
him and of attending on him in turn. These women imported into the new sect an
enthusiastic element, as well as something of the marvellous, the importance of
which was already felt. One of them, Mary Magdalene, who has
There were still many others who followed him habitually and recognised him as their Master:— one Philip of
Bethsaida, Nathaniel, son of Tolmai or Ptolemy, of Cana, perhaps a disciple of the first
period; and Matthew, probably the person who was the Xenophon of infant
Christianity. He had, according to tradition, been a publican, and, as such,
handled with greater facility the kalam than the others. It was then
probably that he began to think of writing those memoirs which are the bases of
that which we know of the teachings of Jesus. Others of the disciples were
Thomas or Didymus, who, though he doubted sometimes, was warm-hearted, and a man
of generous impulses; one Lebbæus or Thaddeus; Simon the Zelot, who was,
perhaps, a disciple of Judas the Gaulonite, belonging to the party of the
Kenaim, which was formed at that time, and which was soon to play so
We have seen that the family of Jesus was in general little predisposed towards him. Nevertheless, James and Jude, his cousins, by Mary Cleophas, became from that time his disciples, and Mary Cleophas herself was of the number of those persons who followed him to Calvary. At this period we do not read of his mother being with him. It is only after the death of Jesus that Mary becomes of great importance, and that the disciples seek to attach her to themselves. It is then, too, that the members of the family of the founder, under the appellation of brothers of the Lord, form an influential group, which for long was at the head of the Church at Jerusalem, and which after the sack of the city sought refuge in Batanea. The simple fact of having been on terms of intimacy with him became a decided advantage, just as, after the death of Mahomet, the wives and daughters of the prophet, who were of no account during his life-time, became great authorities.
In this friendly throng Jesus had avowedly his favourites,
and a select circle of confidants. The two sons of Zebedee, James and John,
appear to have taken the front rank in that small council. They were full of
fire and passion. Jesus had uniquely designated them “sons of thunder,”
on account of their excessive zeal, a zeal which, if it had had the
control of the thunder, would have made too frequent use of it. John, in
particular, appears to
No hierarchy, strictly speaking, existed in this infant 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 be the servant of the others. Nevertheless, Simon Barjona distinguished himself among his fellows by a certain personal importance. Jesus lived with him and discoursed from his boat; his house was the head-quarters of evangelical preaching. In public, he was regarded as chief of the band, and it was to him that the superintendent of the tax collectors addressed himself for payment of the taxes due by the sect. Simon was the first to acknowledge Jesus to be the Messiah. In a moment of unpopularity, when Jesus demanded of his disciples: “Will ye also go away?” Simon answered: “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” At various times Jesus conferred on him in his Church a certain priority, and interpreted his Syriac surname of Képha (stone), wishing to signify thereby that he would make him the corner-stone of the new building. At one time, he seems to promise him “the keys of the kingdom of Heaven,” and to accord him the right of pronouncing upon earth decisions to be ratified always in eternity.
No doubt this preference given to Peter excited not a
little jealousy. In view of the future, particularly, was this jealousy
kindled—in view of that kingdom of God, in which all the disciples would be
seated on thrones, at the right and the left of the Master, in order to judge
the twelve tribes of Israel. They demanded of him who should then be the nearest
to the “Son of Man,”
Among the persons above mentioned, every one of them, of which
we know anything, commenced life as a fisherman. In a country of simple manners, in which every one labours, this profession was not so degrading as
the declamations of preachers would have us believe, in order the better to
magnify the miraculous origins of Christianity. At all events, none of them
belonged to a socially elevated class. Matthew or Levi, son of Alphæus, alone
had been a publican. But those to whom that name was given in Judæa were not the
farmers-general [of taxes], who were men of exalted rank (always Roman
patricians), and called at Rome publicani. They were the agents of the
farmers-general, subordinate servants, simple customs officers. The great route
from Acre to Damascus, one of the most ancient routes in the world, which
traversed Galilee skirting the lake, increased greatly the number of this class
of
Jesus owed these numerous conquests to an infinite charm
of person and of speech. One penetrating word, one look falling upon a simple
conscience, which was only waiting to be aroused, made such a one an ardent
disciple. Sometimes
Such was the group which, on the banks of the Lake of
Tiberias, surrounded Jesus. The aristocracy was represented there by a
customs-officer and the wife of a steward. The rest were composed of
fishermen and common people. They were extremely ignorant;
their intellect was feeble. They believed in apparitions and ghosts. Not one
particle of Greek culture had penetrated this chief circle. Moreover, their
Jewish instruction was
Jesus lived with his disciples almost always in the open
air. Sometimes he entered a boat and taught the multitudes assembled on the
shore. Sometimes he sat upon the mountains which skirted the lake, where the air
was so pure and the sky so luminous. The faithful band led thus a gay and
roaming life, receiving the inspirations of the Master fresh from his lips. An
innocent doubt was now and then started, some mildly sceptical question raised.
A smile or a look from Jesus
His preaching was unimpassioned and pleasing, redolent of
nature and of the perfume of the fields. He loved the flowers, and drew from
them his most charming lessons. The birds of the air, the sea, the mountains,
the frolics of children, were introduced by turn into his discourses. His style
had nothing of the Greek period about it, but resembled much more the turn of
the Hebrew parabolists, and in particular the sentences of the Jewish doctors,
his contemporaries, which are to be found in the Pirke Aboth. His
expositions were not very extended; they formed a species of sorites after the
manner of the Koran, which, being put together, constituted later on those long
discourses which were written by Matthew. No note of transition linked together
these diverse fragments. In general, however, the same inspiration pervaded them
all and gave them unity. It was in the parable, especially, that the
A total indifference to exterior things, and for vain
superfluities as regards manners and customs, which our colder climates render
imperative, were the outcome of the innocent and sweet lives passed in Galilee.
Cold climates, by bringing man and the outer world into perpetual conflict, have
caused too much store to be set by researches after comfort and luxury. On the
other hand, the climates which awaken fewer desires are the countries of
idealism and of poetry. The accessories of life are there insignificant as
compared to the pleasure of living. The adornment of dwellings is there
superfluous, for people remain within doors as little as possible. The strong
and regularly-served food of less generous climates would be looked upon as
heavy and disagreeable. And, as for the luxury of clothing, what can equal that
which God has given to the earth and to the birds of the air? Labour, in
climates of this description, seems useless; what it affords is not worth what
it costs. The animals of the field are better clothed than the most opulent of
men, and they toil not. This contempt, when it does not proceed from idleness,
greatly assists to elevate the souls of men, and inspired Jesus with some
charming apologues. “Lay not up for yourselves,” said he, “treasures upon
earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and
steal; for where your treasure is, there will
This essentially Galilean sentiment had a decisive
influence upon the destinies of the primitive sect. The happy band, trusting to
its Heavenly Father to supply its wants, held, as a fundamental principle, the
cares of life to be an evil, which extinguished in man the germ of all that was
good. Each day it
Further, primitive Christianity in those things was only
following in the footsteps of the Jewish sects who practised the monastic life.
A communistic element pervaded all those sects (Essenians, Therapeutæ), which
were looked upon with disfavour equally by Pharisees and Sadducees. The Messianic beliefs, which among the orthodox Jews wore a wholly political aspect,
had for the two sects just named a purely social meaning. By means of an easy,
regulated, and contemplative mode of life, leaving to each individual freedom
of action, these small churches, which were supposed (not wrongly, perhaps) to
be an imitation
Jesus, whose relations with the Essenes it is very
difficult to make out (resemblances in history do not always imply relations),
was in this unquestionably at one with them. Community of goods was for some
time the rule in the new society. Avarice was the cardinal sin. Now, it is
necessary to remark that the sin of “avarice,” against which moral Christianity
has been so severe, was then the mere attachment to property. The first
condition of being a perfect disciple of Jesus was to sell one's
property and give the proceeds to the poor. Those who recoiled from that step
were not admitted into the community. Jesus often repeated that he who finds the
kingdom of God must buy it at the sacrifice of all his goods, and that in doing
so he makes an advantageous exchange. “Again: 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 merchant-man seeking goodly pearls: who, when
he hath found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had, and
bought it” (
In all this a very admirable sentiment dominated the mind of Jesus as well as the minds of the band of joyous children which accompanied him, and made him the true source of the peace of the soul for eternity, and the grand consoler of life. In disengaging men from what he called “the cares of this world,” Jesus may have gone to excess, and struck at the conditions essential to human society; but he founded that high spirituality which has during centuries filled souls with joy in passing through this vale of tears. He saw quite clearly that man's inattention, his want of philosophy and morality, proceeded most often from the amusements he indulges in, from the cares which assail him, and which are multiplied beyond measure by civilisation. The Gospel, in some sort, has been the supreme remedy for the weariness of ordinary life, a perpetual sursum corda, a powerful distraction from the miserable cares of the world, a gentle appeal like that of Jesus to the ear of Martha: “Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things; but one thing is needful.” Thanks to Jesus, existence the most gloomy, the most absorbed by sad and humiliating duties, has been cheered by a glimpse of heaven! In our troublous civilisations, the recollection of the free life led in Galilee is like perfume from another world, like the “dew of Hermon,” which has prevented barrenness and vulgarity from pervading entirely the field of God.
These maxims—good for a country in which life is nurtured
by the air and the light, and that delicate communism of a band of children of
God, leaning with confidence on the bosom of their Father—might suit a simple
sect which was firmly of the belief that its dreams were about to be realised.
But it is evident that such principles did not satisfy the whole of the society.
Jesus, in fact, soon perceived that the official world would on no account
tolerate his kingdom. He therefore took his resolution with extreme boldness.
Putting the world, with its unfeeling heart and its narrow prejudices, on one
side, he turned towards the common people. A great substitution of one class for
another must take place. The kingdom of God is made: first, for children and for
those who resemble them; second, for the outcast of this world, victims of that
social arrogance which repels the good though humble man; third, for heretics
and schismatics, publicans, Samaritans, and Pagans of Tyre and Sidon. A forcible
parable explained and justified that appeal to the people. A king prepares a
wedding feast, and sends his servants to seek out those that are invited. Each
one of the invited excuses himself; some even maltreat the messengers. The king
thereupon takes firm measures. The fashionable people have rejected his
invitation. Be it so; he will have the first comers instead, the people
collected from the highways and byeways, the poor, the beggars, the lame; it
matters not; the room
Pure Ebionism, that is to say, the doctrine that the poor
(ebionim) alone shall be saved, that the kingdom of the poor is at hand, was,
hence, 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” (
But this was no new fact. The most exalted democratic
movement, the memory of which has been preserved by mankind (the only one, also,
that has succeeded, for it alone has maintained itself in the domain of pure
thought) had agitated for a long time the Jewish race. The idea that God is the
avenger of the poor and of the weak against the rich and powerful is found in
every page of the books of the Old Testament. The history of Israel is, of all
histories, that in which the popular notions have most certainly predominated.
The prophets, the truest, and in a sense the boldest tribunes, had
We may see, at a glance, that this exaggerated taste for
poverty could not be very durable. It
Like all great men, Jesus loved the people, and felt himself at home with them. The Gospel, in his idea, is made for the poor; it is to them he brings the glad tidings of salvation. All the despised ones of orthodox Judaism were his favourites. 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 recognises him as its natural interpreter) shine forth at each moment in his acts and discourses.
The chosen flock presented, in fact, a very mixed
character, and one likely to astonish rigorous moralists. It counted in its fold
men with whom a Jew, respecting himself, would not have associated. Perhaps
Jesus found in this society, unrestrained by ordinary rules, more mind and heart
than in a pedantic and formal middle-class, proud of its apparent morality. The
Pharisees, exaggerating the Mosaic prescriptions, had come to believe
themselves defiled by contact with men less strict than themselves; in their
meals they almost rivalled the senseless distinctions of caste in India. Jesus,
despising these miserable aberrations of the religious sentiment, loved to eat
with those who suffered on account of them; by his side at table were to be
found persons said to lead wicked lives, perhaps solely from the fact that they
did not share the follies of the false devotees. The Pharisees and
Far from seeking to allay the murmurs raised
He had no outward affectation or any show of austerity. He
did not eschew pleasure; he went willingly to marriage feasts. One of his
miracles was performed to enliven a wedding feast at a small town. In the East,
weddings take place in the evening. Each person carries a lamp; and the lights
coming and going produce a very agreeable effect. Jesus liked these gay and
animated scenes and drew parables from them. Such levity, compared with that of
John the Baptist, gave offence. One day, when the disciples of John and the
Pharisees were observing the fast, it was asked, “Why do the disciples of John
and of the Pharisees fast, but thy disciples fast not? And Jesus said unto
them, Can the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with
them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast. But the
days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then they
shall fast in those days.” His sweet gaiety found expression in
lively reflections and amiable pleasantries
He thus traversed Galilee in the midst of a continual
feast. He rode on a mule (which in the East is a good and safe mode of
travelling), whose large black eyes, shaded by long eye-lashes, give it an
expression of gentleness. His disciples sometimes disposed themselves around 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 spread them on the
earth in his path. When he entered a house it was considered a joy and a
blessing. He halted in the villages and at the large farms, where he received
open hospitality. In the East, when a stranger enters a house it becomes at once
a public place. All the village assembles there; the children invade it; they
are put out by the servants, but always return. Jesus could not suffer these
innocent auditors to be treated harshly; he caused them to be brought to him and
embraced them. The mothers, encouraged by such treatment, brought him their
children in order that he might touch them. Women came to pour oil upon his
head, and perfumes on his feet. His disciples sometimes repulsed them as
importunates; but Jesus, who loved ancient usages, and everything that
indicated simplicity of heart, rectified the ill done by his too zealous friends.
The nascent religion was thus in many respects confined to women and children. The latter were like a young guard around Jesus for the inauguration of his innocent royalty, and made him little ovations which much pleased him, calling him “son of David,” crying Hosanna, and bearing palms around him. Jesus, like Savonarola, perhaps made them serve as instruments for pious missions; he was very glad to see these young apostles, who did not compromise him, rush to 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 evasively that the praise which fell from young lips was the most agreeable to God.
He lost no opportunity of repeating that the little ones are sacred beings, that the kingdom of God belongs to children, that we must become children to enter there, that we ought to receive it as a child, that the heavenly Father hides his secrets from the wise, and reveals them to babes. The notion of disciples in his mind is almost synonymous with that of children. Once, 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.”
It was infancy, in fact, in its divine freshness, in its
simple bewilderments of joy, which took possession of the earth. Every one
believed that the
Whilst joyous Galilee was celebrating in feasts the coming of the well-beloved, the disconsolate 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 had reached him. It was said that the Messiah predicted by the prophets, he who was to re-establish the kingdom of Israel, had come, and was making known his presence in Galilee by marvellous works. John wished to inquire into the truth of this rumour, and, as he was allowed to communicate freely with his disciples, he chose two of them to go to Jesus in Galilee.
The two disciples found Jesus at the height of his fame.
The appearance of happiness which reigned around him surprised them. Accustomed
to fasts, to earnest prayer, and to a life full of aspirations, they were
astonished to see themselves transported suddenly into the midst of welcome
rejoicings. 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 to them the works which ought to characterise the coming of the kingdom of God—such as the healing of the sick,
and the glad tidings of a salvation near at hand preached to the poor. He had
done all these works. “And
We do not know whether this answer reached John the Baptist, or into what temper it threw the austere ascetic. Did he die consoled and certain that he whom he had announced already lived, or did he retain some doubts as to the mission of Jesus? There is nothing to inform us. Seeing, however, that his school continued to exist a considerable time side by side with the Christian churches, we are constrained to believe that, notwithstanding his regard for Jesus, John did not regard him as the one who was to realise the divine promises. Death came, moreover, to end his perplexities. The untamable freedom of the ascetic was to crown his restless and troubled career by the only end which was worthy of it.
The indulgence which Antipas had at first shown towards John was not of long duration. In the conversations which, according to the Christian tradition, John had had with the tetrarch, he did not cease repeating to him that his marriage was unlawful, and that he ought to send Herodias away. We can easily imagine the hatred which the grand-daughter of Herod the Great must have engendered against this importunate counsellor. She only waited an opportunity to ruin him.
Her daughter, Salome, by 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 caused to be constructed in the interior of the fortress a
magnificent palace, in which the tetrarch frequently resided. He gave a great
feast there, during which Salome executed one of those character dances which
were not considered in Syria as unbecoming a distinguished person. Antipas,
being greatly delighted, asked
The disciples of the Baptist obtained his body and placed it in a tomb. The people were much offended. Six years later, Hâreth having attacked Antipas, in order to recover Machero and avenge the dishonour of his daughter, Antipas was completely beaten; and his defeat was generally regarded as a punishment for the murder of John.
The news of John's death was brought to Jesus by the disciples of the Baptist. The last step John had taken in regard to Jesus had succeeded in establishing between the two schools the most intimate bonds. Jesus, fearing an increase of ill-will on the part of Antipas, took the precaution to retire to the desert. Many people followed him thence. Thanks to a strict frugality, the holy band succeeded in living there, and in this there was naturally seen a miracle From that time Jesus always spoke of John with redoubled admiration. He declared unhesitatingly that he was more than a prophet, that the Law and the ancient prophets had force only until he came, that he had abrogated them, but that the kingdom of heaven in turn had superseded him. In fine, he assigned him a special place in the economy of the Christian mystery, which constituted him the link of union between the Old Testament and the advent of the new reign.
The prophet Malachi, whose opinion in this matter was soon
brought to bear, had persistently declared a precursor of the Messiah, who was
to prepare men for the final renovation, a messenger
We can understand 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 it could not yet be a question of the Messiah,
inasmuch as Elias had not yet appeared, they replied that Elias had come, that
John was Elias raised from the dead. By his manner of life, by his opposition to
the established political authorities, John recalled, in fact, that strange
figure in the ancient history of Israel. Nor was Jesus silent in regard to the
merits and excellences of his forerunner. He said that among the children of men
none greater had been born. He vehemently blamed the Pharisees and the
The disciples of Jesus were faithful to these principles of their master. Respect for John was an unquestioned tradition during the whole of the first Christian generation. He was supposed to be a relative of Jesus. His baptism was regarded as the most important fact, and, in some sort, as the prefatory obligation of all gospel history. In order to establish the mission of the son of Joseph upon testimony admitted by all, it was stated that John, at the first sight of Jesus, proclaimed him the Messiah; that he recognised 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. These were exaggerations, which are sufficiently refuted by the doubtful form of John's last message. But, in a more general sense, John remains in the Christian legend that which he was in reality,—the austere forerunner, the gloomy preacher of repentance before the joy on the arrival of the bridegroom, the prophet who announces the kingdom of God and dies before beholding it. This giant in primitive Christianity, this eater of locusts and wild honey, this rugged redresser of wrongs, was the absinthe 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 regarded him their true enemy, could not permit him to live; his mutilated corpse, extended on the threshold of Christianity, indicated the bloody path in which so many others were to follow.
The school of John did not die with its founder. It existed
some time distinct from that of Jesus, and from the first on good terms with the
latter.
Jesus went almost every year to Jerusalem for the feast of the passover. The particulars of these journeys are meagre, for the synoptics do not speak of them, and the remarks in the fourth Gospel are on this point very confused. It was, it would seem, in the year 31, and certainly after the death of John, that the most important of the visits of Jesus to Jerusalem took place. Several of the disciples followed him. Although Jesus attached at that time little value to the pilgrimage, he conformed himself to it in order not to offend Jewish opinion, with which he had not yet broken. These journeys besides were essential to his design; for he felt already that, in order to play a leading part, he must go from Galilee, and attack Judaism in its stronghold, which was Jerusalem.
The little Galilean community was here by no means 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 were 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 nowise to refine the intellect. It was something
analogous to the barren doctrine of the Mussulman fakir, to that empty science
debated round the mosques, which is a great expenditure of time and a pure
waste of dialectical skill, without aiding the right discipline of the mind. The
theological education of the modern clergy, although very dry, can give us no
idea of this, for
This odious society could not but weigh very heavily on the
tender and susceptible northern mind. The contempt of the Jerusalemites for the
Galileans rendered the separation still more complete. In that beautiful
temple, the object of all their desires, they often only experienced insult. A
verse of the pilgrim's psalm, “I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my
God,” seemed expressly made for them. A contemptuous priest-hood
laughed at their simple devotion, just as formerly in Italy the clergy,
familiarised with the sanctuaries, witnessed coldly and almost jestingly the
fervour of the pilgrim arriving from afar. The Galileans spoke a rather corrupt
dialect, their pronunciation was faulty; they confounded diverse aspirates
which led to mistakes that were much laughed at. In religion, they were regarded
as
The great barrenness of nature in the neighbourhood of
Jerusalem must have added to the dislike Jesus had for the place. The valleys
are without water; the soil is arid and stony. Casting the eye into the valley
of the Dead Sea, the view is somewhat striking; elsewhere it is monotonous. The
hill of Mizpeh, around which clusters the most ancient historical remembrances
of Israel, alone relieves the eye. The city presented, at the time of Jesus,
nearly the same aspect that it does now. It had very few ancient monuments, for
until the time of the Asmoneans the Jews had remained strangers to all the arts.
John Hyrcanus had begun to embellish it, and Herod the Great had made it one of
the most magnificent cities of the East. The Herodian constructions, by their
grand character, perfection of execution, and beauty of material, may dispute
superiority with the most finished works of antiquity. A great number of superb
tombs, displaying original taste, were erected at the same time in the
neighbourhood of Jerusalem.
The temple, at the time of Jesus, was quite new, while its exterior works were not yet 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 main body of the temple was finished in eighteen months; the porticoes took eight years; and the accessory portions were raised slowly, and were only finished a short time before the taking of Jerusalem. Jesus probably saw the work progressing, not without a degree of secret vexation. These hopes of a long future seemed an insult to his approaching advent. Clearer-sighted than the unbelievers and the fanatics, he foresaw that these superb edifices would have but a short duration.
The temple, nevertheless, formed a marvellously imposing
whole, of which the present haram, in spite of its beauty, can scarcely
give us any idea. The courts and the porticoes served as the daily rendezvous
for a considerable gathering, so much so that this great space was at once
temple
It was in the temple that Jesus passed his days, whilst he
remained at Jerusalem. The period of the feasts attracted to the city
extraordinary affluence. Lodged in parties of ten to twenty persons in one
chamber, the pilgrims invaded every quarter and lived in that huddled state in
which Orientals delight. Jesus was lost in the crowd, and his poor Galileans who
grouped around him were of small account. He probably felt that there he was in
a hostile world which would receive
The pride of the Jews completed the discontent of Jesus, and rendered his sojourn in Jerusalem painful. In proportion as the great ideas of Israel ripened, the priesthood were debased. 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 entirely ritual functions, almost, like our parish priests, excluded from preaching, they were surpassed by the orator of the synagogue, the casuist, the sofer or scribe, though the latter was but a layman. The celebrated men of the Talmud were not priests; they were learned men according to the ideas of the time. The high priesthood of Jerusalem held, it is true, a very elevated rank in the nation; but it was by no means at the head of the religious movement. The sovereign pontiff, whose dignity had already been degraded by Herod, became more and more a Roman functionary, who was frequently removed in order that others might share the profits of the office. Opposed to the Pharisees, who were important lay zealots, the priests were almost all Sadducees, that is to say, members of that unbelieving aristocracy which had been formed around the temple, lived by the altar, though they saw the vanity of it. The sacerdotal caste was separated to such a degree from the national sentiment and from the great religious movement which urged the people on, 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.”
An element worse still 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
Before his last stay, much more protracted than any he had
made at Jerusalem, and which was terminated by his death, Jesus endeavoured,
however, to make himself heard. He preached; people spoke of him; and they
conversed upon certain acts of his which were looked upon as miraculous.
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 day was Gamaliel, grandson of
One idea, at least, which Jesus carried away from
Jerusalem, and which henceforth appeared to be 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 an absolute necessity! From this moment
he is no longer a Jewish reformer, but it is as a destroyer of Judaism that he
poses. Some advocates of the Messianic notions had already admitted that the
Messiah would bring a new law, which should be common to all people. The
Essenes, who were scarcely Jews, appear also to have been indifferent to the
temple and to the Mosaic observances. But these were only isolated or unavowed
instances of boldness. Jesus was the first who dared to say that from his time,
or rather from that of John, the Law was abolished. If sometimes he used more
guarded terms it was in order not to shock too violently existing prejudices.
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.”
As a consequence of these principles, Jesus contemned all
religion which was not of the heart. The foolish practices of the devotees, the
exterior rigorism, which trusted to formality for salvation, had in him a mortal
enemy. He cared little for fasting. He preferred forgiving an injury to
sacrifice. The love of God, charity and reciprocal forgiveness, were his whole
law. Nothing could be less priestly. The priest, by virtue of his office,
ever advocates public sacrifice, of which he is the
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 a thousand superstitious beliefs. It was believed
that nature observed it; all intermittent sources were accounted “Sabbatical.” This was, moreover, the point upon which Jesus most delighted in
defying his adversaries. He openly violated the Sabbath, and only replied by
subtle raillery to the reproaches that were heaped upon him. For a still
stronger reason he despised a host of modern observances, which tradition had
added to the Law, and which on that very account were dearer than any other to
the devotees. Ablutions, and the too subtle distinctions between things pure
and impure, 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 the target for all his attacks. He accused
them of
He was not sufficiently acquainted with the Gentiles to
think of founding anything lasting upon their conversion. Galilee contained a
great number of Pagans, but, as it appears, no public and organised worship of
false gods. Jesus could see this worship displayed in all its splendour in the
country of Tyre and Sidon, at Cæsarea Philippi and in the Decapolis, but he
paid little attention to it. In him we never find the wearisome Jewish pedantry
of his time, nor those declamations against idolatry so familiar to his
co-religionists from the time of Alexander, and which fill, for instance, the
book of “Wisdom.” That which struck him in the Pagans was not their idolatry,
but their servility. The young Jewish democrat agreeing on this point with Judas
the Gaulonite, admitting no master but God, was hurt at the honours with which
they surrounded the persons of sovereigns, and the mendacious titles frequently
given to them. With this exception, in the greater number of instances in which
he comes in contact with Pagans, he shows towards them great indulgence;
sometimes he professes to conceive more hope of them than of the Jews. The
kingdom of God is to 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 vine-yard unto other husbandmen,
which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.” Jesus adhered so
much the more to this idea, as the conversion of the
It is certain that he numbered amongst his disciples many
men whom the Jews designated “Hellenes.” This term had in Palestine divers
meanings. Sometimes it designated the Pagans; sometimes the Greek-speaking Jews
dwelling among the Pagans; sometimes men of Pagan origin converted to Judaism.
It was probably in this last category of Hellenes that Jesus found sympathy. The
affiliation with Judaism had numerous degrees; but the proselytes always
remained in a state of inferiority
It was in the same manner that he treated the Samaritans.
Surrounded like a small island, by the two great provinces of Judaism (Judæa and
Galilee), Samaria formed in Palestine a kind of enclosure in which was preserved
the ancient worship of Gerizim, closely related and rivalling that of
Jerusalem. This poor sect, which had neither the genius nor the perfect
organisation of Judaism, properly so called, was treated by the Jerusalemites
with extreme harshness. They placed them on the same footing with Pagans, but
hated them more. Jesus, from a spirit of opposition, was well disposed towards
them. He often preferred the Samaritans to the orthodox Jews. If, on the other
hand, he seems to forbid his disciples from going to preach to them, reserving
his gospel for the Israelites proper, this was no doubt a precept dictated by
special circumstances, to which the apostles have attached too absolute a
meaning. Sometimes, in fact, the Samaritans received him badly, because they
supposed him to be imbued with the prejudices of his co-religionists; in like
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 knew how
to rise above these misunderstandings. He had many disciples at Shechem, and he
passed there at least two days. On one occasion he meets with gratitude and true
piety from a Samaritan only. One of his most beautiful parables is that of the
man injured on the way to Jericho. A priest passes by and sees him, but goes on
These ideas, which beset Jesus on his leaving Jerusalem, found vivid expression in an anecdote which has been preserved in regard to his return. The route from Jerusalem into Galilee passes Shechem at a distance of about half an hour's walk, at the opening of the valley commanded by Mounts Ebal and Gerizim. This route was in general shunned by the Jewish pilgrims, who preferred journeying by the long detour through Peræa rather than expose themselves to the ill-treatment of the Samaritans, or have to ask anything of them. It was forbidden to eat and drink with them; for it was an axiom of certain casuists that “a piece of Samaritan bread is the flesh of swine.” When they followed this route, provisions were always laid up beforehand; yet it was rarely they could avoid scuffles and ill-treatment. Jesus shared neither these scruples nor these fears. Arrived, by this route, at the point whence the valley of Shechem opens on the left, he felt fatigued, and stopped near a well. The Samaritans were then as now in the habit of giving to the different spots of their valley names drawn from patriarchal reminiscences. They called this well the well of Jacob; it was probably the same that is called even up to this day Bir-Iakoub. The disciples entered the valley and went to the city to buy provisions; Jesus sat by the side of the well, having Gerizim in front of him.
It was about noon, and a woman of Shechem came to draw water. Jesus asked of her to 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 recognising in him a prophet, and anticipating reproaches about her worship, she took up speech first. “Sir,” said she, “our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.”
The day on which he uttered this saying, he was in reality Son of God. He uttered 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 embrace 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 endowed with reason and morality, their religion cannot be different from that which Jesus proclaimed near Jacob's well. Man has not been able to hold to it; for we can attain the ideal but for a moment. This sentiment of Jesus has been a bright light amidst gross darkness; it has taken eighteen hundred years for the eyes of mankind (I ought rather to say for an infinitely small portion of mankind) to become accustomed to it. But the light will grow into the full day, and, after having traversed all the circles of error, mankind will come back to this sentiment and regard it as the immortal expression of its faith and its hopes.
Jesus, having completely lost his Jewish faith, and being filled with revolutionary ardour, returned to Galilee. His ideas are now expressed with perfect clearness. The simple aphorisms of the first part of his prophetic career, borrowed in part from the Jewish rabbis anterior to him, and the beautiful moral teachings of his second period, are discarded for a decided policy. The Law must be abolished; and it is to be abolished by him. The Messiah has come, and he it is who is the Messiah. The kingdom of God is soon to be revealed; and it is he who will reveal it. He knows well that he will suffer for his boldness; but the kingdom of God cannot be conquered without violence; it is by crises and commotions that it is to be established. The Son of man after his death will return in glory, accompanied by legions of angels, and those who have rejected him will be confounded.
The boldness of such a conception ought not to surprise us. Long before this Jesus regarded his relation to God as that of a son to his father. That which in others would be insupportable pride ought not in him to be treated as presumption.
The title of “Son of David” was the first that he
accepted, probably without his being implicated in the innocent frauds by which
it was sought to secure it to him. The family of David had, as it appears, been
long extinct; nor did the Asmoneans, who were of priestly origin, nor Herod, nor
the Romans dream for a moment that any representative
One great difficulty presented itself, to wit, his birth at
Nazareth, which was of public notoriety. We do not know whether Jesus
endeavoured to remove 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
The legend about him was thus the result of a great and
entirely spontaneous conspiracy, and began to surround him during his lifetime.
There has been no great event in history which has not given rise to a series of
fables; and Jesus could not, even had he wished, put a stop to these popular
creations. Doubtless a sagacious observer would have detected in them the germ
of the narratives which were to ascribe to him a supernatural birth, either by
reason of the idea, very prevalent in ancient times, that the incomparable man
could not be born of the ordinary relations of the two sexes; or for the purpose
of fulfilling the requirements of an imperfectly understood chapter of Isaiah,
which was believed to foretell that the
That Jesus never dreamt of passing himself for an
incarnation of the true God, there can be no doubt. Such an idea was quite
foreign to the Jewish mind; and there is no trace of it in the three first
gospels; we only find it alluded to in portions of the fourth, which cannot be
accepted as reflecting the thoughts of Jesus. Sometimes Jesus
The title “Son of God,” or simply “Son,” became thus for Jesus a title analogous to “Son of man,” with the sole difference that he called himself “Son of man,” and does not seem to have made the same use of the phrase, “Son of God.” The title, Son of man, expressed his character as judge; that of Son of God, participation in the supreme designs and his power. This power had no limits. His Father had given him all power. He had the right to alter even the Sabbath. No one could know the Father but through him. The Father had delegated to him the right to judge. Nature obeyed him: but she obeys also all who believe and pray, for faith can do everything.
We must bear in mind that no idea of the laws of nature marked, either in his own mind or in that of his hearers, the limit of the impossible. The witnesses of his miracles thanked God “for having given such power unto men.” He pardoned sins; he is superior to David, to Abraham, to Solomon, to the prophets. We do not know in what form, nor to what extent, these affirmations of himself were made. Jesus ought not to be judged by the rule governing our petty conventionalities. The admiration of his disciples overwhelmed and carried him away. It is evident that the title of Rabbi, with which he was at first contented, no longer satisfied him; the title even of prophet or messenger of God responded no longer to his ideas. The position which he assigned himself was that of a superhuman being, and he wished to be regarded as having a higher relationship with God than other men. But it must be observed that these words, “superhuman” and “supernatural,” borrowed from our pitiful theology, had no meaning in the exalted religious consciousness of Jesus. To him nature and the development of humanity were not limited kingdoms outside of God—paltry realities subject to the laws of a desperate rigorism. There was no supernatural for him, for the reason that 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 formed between God and man.
We cannot mistake in these affirmations of Jesus the germ
of the doctrine which was, later on, to make of him a divine hypostasis, in
identifying him with the Word, or “second God,” or eldest Son of God,
or Angel Metathronas, which Jewish theology created apart from him. A
sort of necessity produced this theology, in order to correct the extreme
rigour of the old Monotheism, to place
Jesus appears to have remained a stranger to these
hair-splittings of theology, which were soon to fill the world with barren
disputes. The meta-physical theory of the Word, such as we find it in the
writings of his contemporary Philo, in the Chaldæan Targums, and even in the
book of “Wisdom,” is neither seen in the Logia of Matthew, nor in general
in the synoptics, the most authentic interpreters of the words of Jesus. The
doctrine of the Word, in fact, had nothing in common with Messianism. The “Word”
of Philo, and of the Targums, is in no sense the Messiah. It was later that
Jesus came to be identified with the Word, and when, in starting from that
principle, there was created quite a new theology, very different from that of
the “kingdom of God.” The essential character of the Word was that of
Creator and of Providence. Now,
In any case, the rigour of scholastic rejection had no place
in such a world. All the collection of ideas we have just stated formed in the
mind of the disciples a theological system so little settled that the Son of
God, this kind of duplication of the Divinity, is made to act purely as man. He
is tempted—he is ignorant of many things—he corrects himself—he changes his
opinion—he is cast down, discouraged—he asks his Father to spare him trials—he
is submissive to God as a son. He who must judge the world does not know the
date of the day of judgment. He takes precautions for his safety. Immediately
after his birth he has to be concealed to escape from powerful men who wish to
kill him. All this is simply the work of a messenger of God—of a man protected
and favoured by God. We must not ask here for logic or sequence. The need Jesus
had of obtaining credence, and the enthusiasm of his disciples, piled up
contradictory notions. To those who believed in the coming of the Messiah, and
to the enthusiastic readers of the books of Daniel and of Enoch, he was the Son
of man; to the Jews holding the
An absolute conviction, or rather the enthusiasm which freed him from the possibility of doubt, shrouded all this boldness. We, with our cold and scrupulous natures, little understand how any one can be so entirely possessed by the idea of which he has made himself the apostle. To us, the deeply earnest races, conviction signifies to be sincere with one's self. But sincerity to one's self has not much meaning to Oriental peoples, little accustomed to the subtleties of the 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 a thousand 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. Faith knows no other law than the interest in
that which it believes to be true. The aim which it pursues being for it,
absolutely holy, it makes no scruple about introducing bad arguments into a
thesis where good ones do not succeed. If such a proof is not sound, how many
others are? If such a prodigy is not real, how many others have been
so? How
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 above all 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 recognised 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, endeavoured to prove that Jesus answered perfectly to all that the prophets had predicted of the Messiah. In many cases these comparisons were quite superficial, and are hardly 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 what was passing before their eyes. 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 freely applied, and constituted artifices of style rather than serious argument.
As to miracles, at that time they were regarded as the
indispensable mark of the divine, and as the
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 humanity, 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 thaumaturgist of our days, unless of an extreme simplicity, like
that manifested by certain stigmatics of Germany, is
It is impossible, amongst the miraculous narratives so
tediously enumerated in the Gospels, to distinguish the miracles attributed by
common consent to Jesus from those in which he consented to play
Jesus had no more idea than the majority of his countrymen
of a rational medical science; he shared the general belief that healing was to
be effected by religious practices, and such a belief was perfectly
consistent. From the moment that disease was regarded as the punishment of sin,
or as the act of a demon, and in no way as the result of physical
causes, the best physician was the holy man who had power in the supernatural
world. Healing was regarded as a moral act; Jesus, who
One of the species of cure which Jesus most frequently
performed was exorcism, or the casting out of devils. A strange disposition to
believe in demons pervaded all minds. It was a universal opinion, not only in
Judæa, but everywhere, that demons took possession of the bodies of certain
persons and made them act contrary to their will. A Persian div, often
named in the Avesta, Aeschmadaëva, the “div of concupiscence,” adopted
by the Jews under the name of Asmodeus, became the cause of all the hysterical
afflictions of women. Epilepsy, in mental and nervous maladies, when the patient
seems no longer to belong to himself, and in infirmities the cause of which is
not apparent, such as deafness and dumbness, were explained in the same manner.
The admirable treatise, “On Sacred Disease,” by Hippocrates, which
set forth the true principles of medicine on this subject, four centuries and a
half before Jesus, had not banished from the world so great an error. It was
supposed that there were processes more or less efficacious for driving away the
demons; and the occupation of exorcist was a regular profession like that of
physician. There is no doubt that
Many circumstances, moreover, seem to indicate that Jesus
only became a thaumaturgist 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 their hardness of
heart. One singularity, apparently inexplicable, is the care he takes to perform
his miracles in secret, and the request he addresses to those whom he heals to
tell no one. When the demons wish to proclaim him the Son of God, he forbids
them to open their
We should be lacking in historical method if we listened
here too much to our repugnances. The essential condition of the true critic is
to comprehend the diversity of times, and to divest himself of instinctive
habits, which are the results of a purely rational education. In order to meet
the objections which might be raised against the character of Jesus, we must not
suppress facts which, in the eyes of his contemporaries, were considered of the
greatest importance, It would be convenient to say that these are the additions
of disciples much inferior to their Master, who, not being able to conceive his
true grandeur, have sought to magnify him by illusions unworthy of him. But the
four
The problem, moreover, presents itself in the same manner
with respect to all saints and religious founders. Things now considered morbid,
such as epileptic visions, were formerly principles of power and greatness.
Physicians know the name of the disease which made the fortune of Mahomet.
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,
thaumaturgists. 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 savouring of quackery, was either a madman or a charlatan, all
criticism is falsified. 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
In a general sense, it is therefore true to say that Jesus was only thaumaturgist 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 prodigies 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. He was no more able than St. Bernard, or Francis d'Assisi, to moderate the avidity of the multitude and of his own disciples for the marvellous. 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 thaumaturgist have alike passed away; but the religious reformer will live eternally.
Even those who did not believe in him were struck with these acts, and sought to be witnesses of them. The Pagans, and persons unacquainted with him, experienced a sentiment of fear, and sought to remove him from their district. Many thought perhaps to abuse his name by connecting it with seditious movements. But the purely moral and in no respect political tendency of the character of Jesus saved him from these entanglements. His kingdom was in the circle of disciples, whom a like freshness of imagination and the same foretaste of heaven had grouped and retained around him.
We suppose that this last phase of the activity of Jesus continued about eighteen months, reckoning from the time of his return from the Passover of the year 31 to his journey to the feast of tabernacles of the year 32. During that interval the mind of Jesus does not appear to have been enriched by any new element; but all that was in him developed and grew with ever-increasing power and boldness.
The fundamental idea of Jesus from the first 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 he might be taken for a democratic leader desiring only the reign 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. Finally, the
kingdom of God is often a spiritual kingdom, and the near deliverance is a
deliverance of the spirit. The revolution then desired by Jesus was that which
has actually taken place; the establishment of a new worship, purer than that of
Moses. All these thoughts appear to have been coexistent in the mind of Jesus.
The first, however—that of a temporal revolution—does not appear to have had
much hold on him; Jesus never regarded the earth or the riches of the earth, or
material power as a thing worth caring for. He had no exterior ambition.
Sometimes, by a natural consequence, his great religious importance was on the
point of being
The apocalyptic ideas of Jesus, in their most complete form, may thus be summed up:
The existing order of humanity is approaching its
termination. This termination will be an immense revolution, “an anguish”
similar to the pains of child-birth; a palingenesis, or, in the words of
Jesus himself, a “new birth,” preceded by dark calamities and
heralded by strange phenomena. In the great day there will appear in the heavens
the sign of the Son of man; it will be a startling and luminous vision like that
of Sinai, a great storm rending the clouds, a fiery meteor flashing rapidly from
east to west. The Messiah will appear in the
At this judgment men will be divided into two classes according to their works. The angels will be the executors of the sentences. The elect will enter into a delightful abode which has been prepared for them from the foundation of the world; there they will be seated, clothed with light, at a feast presided over by Abraham, the patriarchs, and the prophets. They will be the smaller number. The rest will depart into Gehenna. Gehenna was the western valley of Jerusalem. There the worship of fire had been 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. There, there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. The kingdom of heaven will be as a closed room, lighted from within, in the midst of a world of darkness and torments.
This new order of things will be eternal. Paradise and Gehenna will have no end. An impassable abyss separates the one from the other. The Son of man, seated on the right hand of God, will preside over this final condition of the world and of humanity.
That all this was taken literally by the disciples and by
the master himself at certain moments appears clearly evident from the writings
of the time. If the first Christian generation had one profound and constant
belief, it was that the world was near its end, and that the great “revelation”
of Christ was soon to take place. The startling
Jesus never indulged in such precision. When he was
interrogated as to the time of his advent he always refused to reply; once even
he declared that the date of this great day was known only by the Father, who
had revealed it neither to the angels nor to the Son. He said that the time when
the kingdom of God was most anxiously expected was just that in which it would
not appear. He constantly repeated that it would be a surprise, as in the times
of Noah and of Lot; that we must be on our guard, always ready to depart; that
each one must watch and keep his lamp trimmed as for a wedding procession, which
arrives unforeseen; that the Son of man would come like a thief, at an hour when
he would not be expected; that he would appear as a flash of lightning, running
from one end of the heavens to the other. But his declarations as to the
proximity of the catastrophe leave no room for any equivocation. “This
generation,” said he, “shall not pass till all these things be
fulfilled. There be some standing here which shall not taste of death till they
see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.” He reproaches those who do not
believe in him for not being able to read the signs of the future kingdom. “When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather; for
These formal declarations preoccupied the Christian family for nearly seventy years. It was believed that some of the disciples would see the day of the final revelation before dying. John, in particular, was considered as being of this number; many believed that he would never die. Perhaps this was a later opinion suggested towards the end of the first century, by the advanced age which John seems to have reached; this age having given occasion to the belief that God wished to prolong his life indefinitely until the great day, in order to realise the words of Jesus. When he died in turn, the faith of many was shaken, and his disciples attached to the prediction of Christ a more subdued meaning.
At the same time that Jesus fully admitted the Apocalyptic
beliefs, such as we find them in the apocryphal Jewish books, he admitted the
dogma 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 in it. It was the faith of the Pharisees, and of the fervent adherents
of the Messianic beliefs. Jesus accepted it unreservedly, but always in the most
idealistic sense. Many imagined that in the resuscitated world they would eat,
drink, and marry. Jesus,
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 apocalyptics but what might be found already in “Daniel,” “Enoch,” the “Sibylline Oracles,” and the assumption of Moses, which are of Jewish origin. Jesus accepted these 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, so liable to receive from facts a crushing refutation.
It is evident, indeed, that such a doctrine, taken by
itself in a literal manner, had no future. The world, in continuing to endure,
entirely disproves it. One generation of man at the most, was reserved for it.
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
And let us not say that this is a benevolent
interpretation, imagined in order to clear the honour 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 under 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 “renaissance,” 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 rehabilitation
he has depicted as an incomparable artist, by features which will last
eternally. Each of us owes that which is best in himself to
In accepting the Utopias of his time and his race, Jesus, thanks to the fruitful misconceptions of their import, thus knew how to elevate them into great truths. 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. Complaisant explanations drew a veil over the real kingdom, which did not come. The Apocalypse of John, the first book, properly speaking, of the New Testament, being too formally tied to the idea of an immediate catastrophe, was rejected by the second plan, held to be unintelligible, and tortured in a thousand ways. At least, its accomplishment was adjourned to an indefinite future. Some poor benighted ones who, in a fully enlightened age, still preserved the hopes of the first disciples, became heretics (Ebionites, Millenarians) lost in the shallows of Christianity. Mankind had passed to another kingdom of God. The degree of truth contained in the thought of Jesus had prevailed over the chimera which obscured it.
Let us not, however, despise this chimera, which
The phrase “kingdom of God,” on the other
hand, expresses also very happily the want which the soul experiences of a
supplementary destiny, of a compensation for the present life. Those who do not
accept the definition of man as a compound of two substances, and who regard the
deistical dogma of the immortality of the soul as in contradiction with
physiology, love to fall back upon the hope of a final reparation, which under
an unknown form shall satisfy the wants of the heart of man. Who knows if the
highest term of progress after millions of ages may not evoke the absolute
conscience of the universe, and in this conscience the awakening of all that
has lived? A sleep of a million of years is not longer than the sleep of an
hour. St. Paul, on this hypothesis, was right in saying, In ictu oculi!
It is certain that moral and
That which proves, moreover, that Jesus was never entirely
absorbed in his apocalyptic ideas is that, at the very time he was most
preoccupied with them, he laid with rare foresight the basis of a church
destined to endure. It is scarcely possible to doubt that he himself only 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 been
produced in their midst. They were the two sons of Jonas; the two sons of Zebedee; James, son of Alphæus; Philip; Nathaniel bar-Tolmai; Thomas; Matthew;
Simon Zelotes; Thaddeus or Lebbæus; and Judas of Kerioth. It is probable that
the idea of the twelve tribes of Israel had had something to do with the choice
of this number. The “twelve,” at all events, formed a group of
privileged disciples,
Jesus evidently confided secrets to the twelve, which he forbade them to communicate to the world. It seems sometimes as if his intentions had been to surround his person with some mystery, to postpone the most important testimony till after his death, and to reveal himself clearly only to his disciples, confiding to them the care of demonstrating him afterwards to the world. “What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light; and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops.” He was thus spared the necessity of too precise declarations, and created a kind of medium between the public and himself. What is certain is that there were teachings reserved to the apostles, and that he explained many parables to them, the meaning of which was ambiguous to the multitude. An enigmatical form and a degree of oddness in connecting ideas were customary in the teachings of the doctors, as may be seen in the sentences of the Pirké Aboth. Jesus explained to his disciples 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. Many of these explanations appear to have been carefully preserved.
During the lifetime of Jesus the apostles preached, but
without ever departing far from him. Their preaching, moreover, was confined to
the announcement of the speedy coming of the kingdom of God.
Jesus desired that, by imitating his example, the
messengers of the glad tidings should render their preaching agreeable by kindly
and polished manners. He directed that, on entering a house, they should give
the host the salaam—wish him happiness. Some hesitated; the salaam being then,
as now, in the East, a sign of religious communion, which is not risked with
persons of a doubtful faith. “Fear nothing,” said Jesus; “if no one in the house
is worthy of your salute, it will return unto you.” Sometimes, in
fact, the apostles of the kingdom of God were badly received, and came to
complain to Jesus, who generally sought to conciliate them. Some of them,
persuaded of the omnipotence of their master, were hurt at this forbearance. The
sons of Zebedee wanted him to call down fire from heaven upon the inhospitable
towns. Jesus answered these outbursts with a fine irony, and stopped them
He sought in every way to establish as a principle that his apostles were as himself. It was believed that he had communicated his marvellous virtues to them. They cast out demons, prophesied, and formed a school of renowned exorcists, although certain cases were beyond their power. They also made cures, either by the imposition of hands or by the unction of oil, one of the fundamental processes of Oriental medicine. Lastly, like the Psylli, they could handle serpents and drink with impunity deadly potions. The further we get from Jesus this theurgy becomes more and more offensive. But there is no doubt that it was a common practice in the primitive Church, and that it held a chief place in the estimation of the world around. Charlatans, as generally happens, exploited 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 hurt at this, and sought to prevent them. Jesus, who saw in this a homage to his renown, did not manifest much severity towards them. It must be observed, moreover, that these supernatural gifts had, if I may say so, become a trade. Carrying the logic of absurdity to the extreme, certain men cast out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of demons. They imagined that this sovereign of the infernal regions must have entire authority over his subordinates, and that in acting through him they were certain to make the intruding spirit depart. Some even sought to buy from the disciples of Jesus the secret of the miraculous powers which had been conferred upon them.
The germ of a church began from this time to appear. This
fertile idea of the power of men in association (ecclesia) seemed indeed
an idea of Jesus. Full of the purely idealistic doctrine that it
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 with decision, and forbade divorce. Neither was
there any theology or creed. There were hardly any opinions respecting the
Father, the Son, and the Spirit, from which, afterwards, were drawn the Trinity
and the Incarnation, but they still remained in a state of indeterminate
imagery. The later books of the Jewish canon recognised already in the Holy
Spirit a sort of divine hypostasis, sometimes identified with Wisdom or the
Word. Jesus insisted upon this point, and pretended to give to his disciples a
baptism by fire and by the Spirit, as much preferable to that of John. For
Jesus, this Holy Spirit, was not distinct from the inspiration emanating from
God the
It is needless 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 nascent 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 texts. Further, with the exception of the Apocalypse,
which was in one sense the only revealed book of the primitive Christianity,
the writings of
Had not the sect, however, some sacrament, some rite, some
rallying point? It had the one which all tradition ascribes to Jesus. One of the
favourite notions of the master was that he was the new bread, a bread very
superior to manna, and on which mankind was to live. This notion, the germ of
the Eucharist, took in his mouth at times singularly concrete forms. On one
occasion especially, in the synagogue of Capernaum, he took a bold 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.” And he added, “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never
hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.” These words excited
deep murmurings. The Jews then murmured at him because he said, “I am the bread
which came down from heaven. And they said, is not this Jesus the son of Joseph,
whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from
heaven?” But Jesus, insisting with still more force, said, “I am that bread
of life; your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead. This is the
bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. I
am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread,
he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will
give for the life of the world.” The ill-feeling 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,
It is probable that henceforward in the common repasts of
the sect, there was established some custom which from the discourse was badly
received by the men of Capernaum. But the apostolic traditions on this subject
are very divergent and probably intentionally incomplete. The synoptical
gospels, whose account is confirmed by St. Paul, suppose that a unique
sacramental act served as basis to the mysterious rite, and refer it to “the
last supper.” The fourth gospel, which has accurately preserved to
us the incident at the synagogue of Capernaum, does not speak of such an act,
although it describes the last supper at great length. Elsewhere we see Jesus
recognised in the breaking of bread, as if this act had been to those who
associated with him the most characteristic of his person. When he was dead,
the
Their repasts had become the sweetest moments of the infant community. At these times they all assembled; the master spoke to each one, and kept up a charming and lively conversation. Jesus loved these seasons, and was pleased to see his spiritual family thus grouped around him. The participation of the same bread was considered as a kind of communion, a reciprocal bond. The master used, in this respect, extremely strong terms, which were afterwards taken in a very literal sense. Jesus was, at once, very idealistic in his conceptions and very materialistic in his expression of them. Wishing to express the thought that the believer lives only 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.” Then the modes of speech employed by Jesus, always strongly subjective, carried him yet further. At table, pointing to the food, he said, “I am here,” holding the bread; “this is my body; holding up the wine, “This is my blood,”—all modes of speech which were equivalent to, “I am your nourishment.”
This mysterious rite obtained in the lifetime of
It is clear that such a religious society, founded exclusively 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, it regarded as useless everything which served but to prolong the world. The desire to possess property was regarded as reprehensible. 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, it seems, to be no more marriage after one became a member of the sect. The celibate was greatly preferred. At one time the master seems to approve of those who should mutilate themselves in view of the kingdom of God. In this he acted up to his precept. “If thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee; it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee; it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell-fire.” The cessation of generation was often considered as the symbol and condition of the kingdom of God.
We can perceive that this primitive Church never could have
formed a durable society but for the great variety of germs embraced in the
teaching of Jesus. It required more than another
The instruction which Jesus is alleged to have given to his
disciples breathes the same exaltation. He who was so lenient with the outside
world, he who contented himself sometimes with formal adhesions, exercised
towards his own an extreme rigour. He would have no “all buts.” We
should call it an “order,” founded upon the most austere rules. Wrapped up in
his idea that the cares of life trouble and debase man, Jesus required of his
companions a complete detachment from the earth, an absolute devotion to his
work. They ought not to carry with them either money or provisions for the way,
not even a scrip, or a
A strange ardour animates all these discourses, which may
in part be the creation of the enthusiasm of his disciples, but which even in
that case came indirectly from Jesus, since such enthusiasm was his work. Jesus
informed those who wanted to follow him that they would be subjected to 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, the father the 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.” “Whosoever, therefore,”
continued he, “shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before
In these fits of severity he went the length of suppressing
the desires of the flesh. His requirements had no longer any bounds. Despising
the healthy limits of man's nature, he demanded that the latter 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. So
likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot
be my disciple.” There was something strange and more than human thus mixed up
in his speech; it was like a fire consuming light to its root, and reducing
everything to a frightful wilderness. The harsh and gloomy sentiment of distaste
for the world, and of the excessive self-abnegation which characterises
Christian perfection, was for the founders not the refined and cheerful
moralist of his earlier days, but the sombre giant whom a kind of presentiment
was withdrawing, more and more without the pale of humanity. We should even say
that, in these moments, when warring against the most legitimate cravings of the
heart, Jesus had forgotten the pleasure of living, of loving, of seeing, and of
feeling. Employing more unmeasured language, he dared to say, “If any man will
come after me, let him deny himself and follow me. He that loveth father or
mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more
than me is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that
loseth his life for my sake and the Gospel's shall find it. What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Two anecdotes
A great danger might result in the future from this exalted memory, which was expressed in hyperbolical language and with a terrible energy. By thus 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, invented for a time of crisis, being transported into a peaceful
country, into the bosom of a society assured of its own duration, must seem
impossible. The Gospel was thus destined to become for Christians a Utopia,
which
We may readily imagine that to Jesus, at this period of
his life, everything which did not belong to the kingdom of God had
absolutely disappeared. He
The grandeur of his views upon the future was at times surprising. He did not deceive himself as to the terrible storm he was about to cause in the world. “Think not,” said he, boldly and beautifully, “that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. There shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.” “I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?” “They shall put you out of the synagogues,” he continued; “yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.” “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. Remember the word that I said unto you: The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”
Carried away by this fearfully increasing enthusiasm, and governed by the necessities of a preaching more and more exalted, Jesus was no longer free; he belonged to his mission, and, in one sense, to mankind. Sometimes it might have been averred that his reason was disturbed. He suffered great mental anguish and agitation. The great vision of the kingdom of God, dangling constantly before his eyes, bewildered him. It must be remembered that, at times, those about him believed him to be mad, while his enemies declared him to be possessed. His excessively impassioned temperament carried him incessantly beyond the bounds of human nature. His work not being a work of the reason, jeering at all the laws of the human mind, that which he most imperiously required was “faith.” This was the word most frequently repeated in the little guest-chamber. It is the watchword of all popular movements. It is clear that none of these movements would take place, if it were necessary that their author should gain his disciples one by one by force of logic. Reflection leads only to doubt, and if the authors of the French Revolution, for instance, had had to be previously convinced by lengthened meditations, they would all have become old without accomplishing anything. Jesus, in like manner, aimed less at convincing his hearers than at exciting their enthusiasm. Urgent and imperative, he suffered no opposition: men must be converted, nothing less would satisfy him. His natural gentleness seemed to have abandoned him; he was sometimes harsh and capricious. His disciples at times did not understand him, and experienced in his presence a feeling akin to fear. Sometimes his displeasure at the slightest opposition led him to commit inexplicable and apparently absurd acts.
It was not that his virtue deteriorated; but his
During the early period of his career, Jesus does not
appear to have encountered any serious opposition. His preaching, thanks to the
extreme liberty which was enjoyed in Galilee, and to the great number of
teachers who arose on all sides, made no noise outside a somewhat restricted
circle of persons. But when Jesus entered upon a career brilliant with prodigies
and public successes, the storm began to howl. More than once he was obliged to
conceal himself and fly. Antipas, however,
Once the report was spread that Jesus was no other than John the Baptist risen from the dead. Antipas became anxious and uneasy; he employed artifice to rid his dominions of the new prophet. Certain Pharisees, under the pretence of being interested in Jesus, came to tell him that Antipas was seeking to kill him. Jesus, despite his great simplicity, saw the snare, and did not depart. His wholly pacific attractions, and his remoteness from popular agitation, ultimately reassured the Tetrarch and dissipated the danger.
The new doctrine was by no means received with equal favour
in all the towns of Galilee. Not only did incredulous Nazareth continue to
reject him who was to become her glory; not only did his brothers persist in not
believing in him, but also the cities of the lake themselves, in general
well-disposed, were not wholly converted. Jesus often complained of the
incredulity and hardness of heart which he encountered, and although it is
natural in such reproaches to make allowance for a certain kind of exaggeration
of the preacher, although we are sensible of that kind of convicium
Jesus, in fact, could not withstand 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 be
of his opinion. One of the principal defects of the Jewish race is its harshness
in controversy, and the abusive tone which it almost
The invincible obstacle to the designs of Jesus came in
particular from orthodox Judaism, represented by the Pharisees. Jesus drifted
away more and more from the ancient Law. Now, the Pharisees were the backbone of
Judaism. Although this party had its centre at Jerusalem, it had, nevertheless,
adherents either established in Galilee or who often came to the North. They
were, in general, men of a narrow mind, giving much attention to externals; with
a devoutness that was haughty, formal, and self-satisfied. Their manners were
ridiculous, and excited the smiles of even those who respected them. The
epithets which the people gave them, and which savour of caricature, prove this.
There was the “bandy-legged Pharisee” (Nikfi), who walked in
the streets dragging his feet and knocking them
The antipathy which, in such an impassioned state of
society, would necessarily break out between Jesus and persons of this character
is easy to understand. Jesus sought only the religion of the heart; the
religion of the Pharisees consisted almost exclusively in observances. Jesus
sought after the humble and all kinds of outcasts; the Pharisees saw in this an
insult to their religion of respectability. The Pharisee was an infallible and
impeccable man, a pedant always certain of being in the right, taking the first
place in the synagogue, praying in the street, giving alms to the sound of a
trumpet, and watching to see whether people saluted him. Jesus maintained that
each one ought to await the judgment of God with fear and trembling. The
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 are getting
further and further away from the Gospel, so the Pharisees, at
Disputes broke out, especially in regard to a number of
external practices introduced by tradition, a tradition which neither Jesus nor
his disciples observed. The Pharisees reproached him sharply for this. When he
dined with them he scandalised them greatly by not going through the customary
ablutions. “Give alms,” said he, “of such things as ye have; and behold, all
things are clean unto you.” That which in the highest degree wounded
his sensitive nature was the air of assurance which the Pharisees carried into
religious matters; their contemptible devotion which ended in a vain seeking
after precedents and titles, and not the improvement of their hearts. An
admirable parable expressed 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
A hatred which death alone could assuage was the consequence of these struggles. John the Baptist had previously provoked enmities of the same kind. But the aristocrats of Jerusalem, who despised him, had allowed simple men to regard him as a prophet. In this case, however, the war was to the death. It was a new spirit that had appeared in the world, which shattered all that had preceded it. John the Baptist was a thorough Jew: Jesus was scarcely one at all. Jesus always addressed himself to refined moral sentiment. He was only a disputant when he argued against the Pharisees, his opponents forcing him, as almost always happens, to adopt their tone. His exquisite irony, his stinging remarks, always went to the heart. They were everlasting stings, 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 in this way. Socrates and Molière only grazed the skin. The former carried fire and rage to the very marrow.
But it was also just that this great master of irony should
pay for his triumph with his life. Even in Galilee the Pharisees sought to kill
him,
For a long time Jesus had been conscious of the dangers
which surrounded him. During a period which we may estimate at eighteen months,
he avoided going on a pilgrimage to the holy city. At the feast of Tabernacles
of the year 32 (according to the hypothesis we have adopted), his relations,
always malevolent and incredulous, persuaded him to go there. The evangelist
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;
His disciples and the pious women who ministered to him found him again in Judea. But how much everything else was changed for him! Jesus was a stranger at Jerusalem. He felt that there was a wall of resistance he could not pierce. Surrounded by snares and obstacles, he was unceasingly pursued by the ill-will of the Pharisees. In place of that illimitable faculty of belief, the happy gift of youthful natures, which he found in Galilee—instead of those good and gentle people, amongst whom opposition (always the fruit to some extent of ill-will and indocility) had no existence, he encountered there at each step an obstinate incredulity, upon which the policy that had succeeded so well 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 sought to defend him. “Art thou also of Galilee they said to him. “Search and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet.”
The city, as we have already said, was disliked by Jesus.
Until then he had always eschewed great centres, preferring to pursue his
avocation in the country and the towns of small importance. Many of the precepts
which he had given to his apostles were absolutely inapplicable outside a simple
The arrogance of the priests rendered the precincts of the
temple disagreeable to him. One day some of his disciples, who were better
acquainted with Jerusalem than he, wished to draw his attention to the beauty
of the buildings of the temple, the admirable choice of materials, and the
richness of the votive offerings that covered the walls. “Seest thou these
buildings?” said he; “there shall not be left one stone upon another.”
He refused to admire anything, unless 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.” This manner of regarding critically all that was going on at
Jerusalem, of extolling the poor who gave little, of slighting the rich who gave
much, and of blaming the opulent priesthood who did nothing for the good of the
people, naturally exasperated the sacerdotal caste. The seat of a conservative
aristocracy, the temple, like the Mussulman karam which succeeded it, was the
last place in the world whence revolution could succeed. Imagine for a moment an
innovator in our days going to preach the overturning of Islamism round the
mosque of Omar! Jerusalem, however, was the centre of the Jewish life, the
point where it was necessary to conquer or die. On this Calvary, where Jesus
certainly suffered more than at Golgotha,
In the midst of this troubled life, the sensitive and kindly heart of Jesus succeeded in creating a refuge, where he enjoyed much soft contentment. After having passed the day disputing in the temple, towards evening Jesus descended into the valley of Kedron, and took a little repose in the orchard of a farming establishment (probably for the making of oil) named Gethsemane (which was used as a pleasure resort by the inhabitants), after which he proceeded to pass the night upon the Mount of Olives, which limits on the east the horizon of the city. This side is the only one, in the environs of Jerusalem, which presents an aspect somewhat pleasing and verdant. The plantations of olives, figs, and palms were numerous around the villages, farms, or enclosures of Bethphage, Gethsemane, and Bethany. There were upon the Mount of Olives two great cedars, the recollection 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. All this precinct was in a manner the abode of Jesus and his disciples; we can see that they knew it almost field by field and house by house.
The village of Bethany, in particular, situated at the
summit of the hill, upon the incline which commands the Dead Sea and the
Jordan, at a journey of an hour and a half from Jerusalem, was the place
preferred by Jesus. He made there the acquaintance of a family consisting of
three persons, two sisters and a third member, whose friendship had a great
charm for him. Of the two sisters, the one, named Martha, was an obliging, kind,
and bustling
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
Jerusalemites by placing themselves in the school of a Galilean. They would have
The teaching of Jesus in this new world necessarily became
much modified. His beautiful discourses, the effect of which was always
calculated upon when addressed to youthful imaginations and consciences morally
pure, here fell upon stone. He who was so much at his ease on the shores of his
charming little lake felt constrained and not at home in the company of pedants.
His perpetual self-assertion appeared somewhat fastidious. He was obliged to
become controversialist, jurist, exegetist, and theologian. His conversations,
generally so full of charm, became a rolling fire of disputes, an interminable
train of scholastic battles. His harmonious genius was wasted in insipid
argumentations upon the Law and the prophets, in which case we should have
preferred not seeing him sometimes play the part of aggressor. He lent himself
It is probable, in fact, that but for the exasperation
caused by so many bitter retorts, 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 Sadducees treated him rather with disdain
than hatred. The great sacerdotal families, the Boethusim, the family of
Hanan, were only fanatical in their conservatism. The Sadducees, like Jesus,
rejected the “traditions” of the Pharisees. By a very strange singularity, it
was these unbelievers who, denying the resurrection, the oral Law, and the
existence of angels, were the true
One of the most constant efforts of the Pharisees was to
draw Jesus into the discussion of political questions, and to compromise him as
being connected with the party of Judas the Gaulonite. Their tactics were
clever; for it required all the great ingenuity of Jesus to avoid conflict with
the Roman authority, whilst he was proclaiming the kingdom of God. They sought
to break through this ambiguity, and compel him to explain himself. One day, a
group of Pharisees, and of those politicians named “Herodians” (probably some of
the Boethusim), approached him, and, under pretence of pious zeal, said
unto him, “Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in
truth, neither carest thou for any man. Tell us, therefore, what thinkest thou?
Is it lawful to give tribute unto 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 of the coin. “Render,” said
he, “unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's; and unto God
His gentle and penetrating genius inspired him when he was alone with his disciples, with accents full of tenderness! “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. The sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. He goeth before them, and the sheep follow him; for they know his voice. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth. I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine; and I lay down my life for the sheep.” The idea that the crisis of humanity was close at hand frequently recurred to him. “Now,” said he, “learn a parable of the fig-tree: When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh. Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.”
His powerful eloquence found expression always when contending with hypocrisy. “The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. All, therefore, whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say and do not. For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.
“But all their works they do to be seen of men; they make broad their phylacteries, enlarge the borders of their garments, and love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. Woe unto them! . . . . . .
”Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge, shut up the kingdom of heaven against men! For ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you, for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence, make long prayers: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. Woe unto you, for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves! Woe unto you, for ye are as graves which appear not; and the men that walk over them are not aware of them.
“Ye fools, and blind! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and 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; but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye
are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are
within full of dead men's bones and of all uncleannesss.
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, ‘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 Bacharias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.' Verily, I say unto you, all these things shall come upon this generation.”
His terrible dogma of the substitution of the Gentiles,—the
idea that the kingdom of God was going to be transferred to others, because
those for whom it was destined would not receive it, is used as a fearful menace
against the aristocracy, and his title “Son of God,” which he openly assumed in
striking parables, wherein his enemies appeared as murderers of the heavenly
messengers, was an open defiance of legal Judaism. The bold appeal he addressed
to the poor was still more seditious. He declared that he had “come that they
which see not might see, and that they which see might be made blind.”
One day, his dislike of the temple forced from him an imprudent speech: “I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I will
build another made without
Jesus passed the autumn and a part of the winter at Jerusalem. This season is there rather cold. The portico
of Solomon, with its covered aisles, was the place where he habitually walked.
This portico, the only portion of the ancient temple which remained,
consisted of two galleries, formed by two rows of columns, by the wall which
overlooked 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
At the end of the month of December he celebrated at
Jerusalem the feast established by Judas Maccabeus in memory of the purification
of the temple after the sacrileges of Antiochus Epiphanes. It was also called
the “Feast of Lights,” because, during the eight days of the feast,
lamps were kept lighted in the houses. Jesus soon after undertook a journey into
Perea and to the banks of the Jordan, —that is to say, into the same
country he had visited some years previously, when he belonged to the school of
John, and where he himself had administered baptism. He seems to have reaped
some consolation from this journey, specially at Jericho. This city, either as
the terminus of several important routes, or on account of its gardens of spices
and its rich cultivation, was a customs station of some importance. The chief
receiver, Zaccheus, a rich man, desired to see Jesus. As he was of small
stature, he mounted a sycamore tree near the road which the procession had to
pass. Jesus was touched with this condescension in a person of consideration,
and at the risk of giving offence he went to the house of Zaccheus. There was
much murmuring at his thus honouring the house of a sinner by a visit. In
parting, Jesus described his host as 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
After Jesus had completed this kind of pilgrimage to the
scenes of his earliest prophetic activity, he returned to his beloved abode in
Bethany. That which most pained the faithful Galileans at Jerusalem was that he
had not done any miracles there. Grieved at the cold reception which the kingdom
of God found in the capital, the friends of Jesus wished, it seems, for a great
miracle which should strike powerfully the incredulity of the Jerusalemites. A
resurrection of a man known at Jerusalem appeared to them the most likely to
carry conviction. It is to be supposed that Martha and Mary had spoken to Jesus
on the subject. 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 originate 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
Certain notable indications, in fact, lead us to the belief that some of the reports received from Bethany had the effect of hastening the death of Jesus. At times we are led to suppose that the family of Bethany were guilty of some indiscretions or plunged into an excess of zeal. It was probably the ardent desire of closing the mouth of those who vigorously denied the divine mission of their friend which carried these passionate persons beyond all reasonable limits. It must be remembered that in this impure and inanimate city of Jerusalem Jesus was not quite himself His conscience, through a fault of the people and not his own, had lost something of his primordial sincerity. Desperate and pressed to extremes, he no longer was master of himself. His mission had been imposed on him, and he pursued it fearlessly. Death would in a few days restore him his divine liberty, and wrench him away from the fatal necessities of a position which each day was becoming more exacting and more difficult to sustain.
The contrast between his always increasing exaltation and the indifference of the Jews became more and more marked. The power of the State, at the same time, became more bitter against him. From the beginning of February to the commencement of March a council had been assembled by the chief priests, and in that council the question had been pointedly put, “Can Jesus and Judaism exist together?” To raise the question was to reserve it; and, without being a prophet, as thought by the evangelist, the high priest could easily pronounce his cruel axiom, “It is expedient that one man should die for the people.”
“The high priest of that same year,” to use an
This personage was Hanan or Annas, son of Seth, and
father-in-law of Kaïpha, who was formerly the high priest, and had in reality
preserved amidst the numerous changes of the pontificate all the authority of
the office. Hanan had received the high priesthood from the legate Quirinius, in
the year 7 of our era. He lost his function in the year 14, on the accession of
Tiberius; but he continued to be much respected. He was still called “high
priest,” although he was out of office, and 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,
without counting Kaïapha, who was his son-in-law. His was called the “priestly
family,” as if the priesthood had become hereditary in it. The chief offices of
the temple almost all devolved upon them. Another family, that of Boëthus,
alternated, it is true, with that of Hanan's in the pontificate. But the
Boethusim, whose fortunes were of not very honourable origin, were much less
esteemed by the pious middle class.
It is in the mouth of Kaïapha that the evangelist puts the
decisive words which led to the sentence of death being passed on Jesus. It was
supposed that the high priest possessed a certain gift of prophecy; his words
thus became an oracle full of profound meaning to the Christian community. But
such a sentence, whoever he might be that pronounced it, expressed the feeling
of the whole
The death of Jesus was thus resolved upon in the month of February or March. But he escaped yet for a short time. He withdrew to a town called Ephraim or Ephron, in the direction of Bethel, a short day's journey from Jerusalem near the border of the desert. He spent a few days there with his disciples, allowing the storm to pass over. But the order to arrest him as soon as he appeared at Jerusalem was given. The solemnity of the Passover was drawing nigh, and it was thought that Jesus, according to his custom, would come to celebrate it at Jerusalem.
Jesus set out in fact, in the train of his disciples, to
see again, and for the last time, the unbelieving city. The hopes of his
followers were more and more exalted. All believed that in his going up to
Jerusalem, the kingdom of God was about to be manifested there. The impiety of
men was at its height, and this was regarded as a great sign that the
consummation was near. The belief in this was such that they already disputed
for precedence
The custom was to go Jerusalem several days before the
Passover, in order to prepare for the feast. Jesus was the last to arrive, and
at one
The next day (Sunday, 9th of Nizan) Jesus descended from
Bethany to Jerusalem. When, at a bend of the road, upon the summit of the Mount
of Olives, he saw the city spread out before him, it is said he wept over it,
and addressed to it a last appeal. At the base of the mountain, a few steps from
the gate, on entering the adjoining portion of the eastern wall of the city,
which was called Bethphage, on account, no doubt, of the fig-trees with
which it was planted, Jesus had once more a moment of human satisfaction. His
arrival was noised abroad. The Galileans who had came to the feast were highly
elated, and prepared a little triumph for him. An ass was brought to him,
followed, according to custom, by its colt. The Galileans spread their finest
garments upon the back of this humble animal as saddle-cloths, and seated him
thereon. Others, however, spread their garments upon the road, and strewed it
with green branches. The multitude which preceded and followed him,
carrying palms, cried, “Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is he that cometh
in the name of the Lord!” Some persons even gave him the title of king of
Israel. “Master, rebuke thy disciples,” said the Pharisees to him. “If these
should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out,” replied Jesus,
and he entered into the city. The Jerusalemites, who hardly knew him, asked who
he was. “It is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth, in Galilee,” was the reply.
Jerusalem was a city of about 50,000 souls. A trifling event, like the entrance
of a stranger, however little celebrated,
A deep melancholy appears during these last days to have
filled his soul, which was generally so gay and so serene. All the narratives
agree in attributing to him before his arrest that he had a short experience of
doubt and trouble; a kind of anticipated agony. According to some, he cried out
suddenly, “Now is my soul troubled. O Father, save me from this hour.” It was
believed that a voice from heaven was heard at this moment: others said that an
angel came to console him. According to one widely-spread version this
occurred to him 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, then fell on his face and prayed. His soul was sad almost
to death; a terrible anguish pressed upon him; but resignation to the divine
will sustained him. This scene,
The triumph of Bethphage, that audacious 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) at the house
of Joseph Kaïapha. The immediate arrest of Jesus was resolved upon. A great idea
of order and of conservative policy presided over all their plans. The question
was how 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 was popular; they feared an outbreak. Although it was
customary to relieve the solemnities in which the whole nation joined by the
execution of individual rebels to the priestly authorities—a species of
religious murder designed to inculcate on the people a religious terror—it was,
however, arranged that such executions should not fall upon the holy days. The
arrest was therefore fixed for the next day, Thursday. It was resolved, further,
not to seize him in the temple, where he came every day, but to observe his
habits, in order
Without denying that Judas of Kerioth may have contributed to the arrest of his Master, we yet believe that the curses with which he is loaded are somewhat unjust. There was, perhaps, in what he did more awkwardness than perversity. The moral conscience of the man of the people is quick and correct, but unstable and inconsequent. It cannot resist the impulse of the moment. The secret societies of the republican party were characterised 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, on seeing the consequences of his fault, he repented, and, it is said, killed himself.
Each minute, at this crisis, was solemn, and counted more
than whole ages in the history of humanity. We have reached Thursday, 13th of
Nisan (2nd April). The evening of the next day was the beginning of the festival
of the Passover, begun by the feast at which the Paschal lamb was eaten. The
feast continued for seven days, during which unleavened bread was eaten. The
first and the last of these seven days were of a peculiarly solemn character.
The disciples were already occupied with preparations for the feast. As for
Jesus, we are led to believe that he was cognisant of the treachery of Judas,
and that he was suspicious
Doubtless the tender love which filled the heart of Jesus for the little church which surrounded him overflowed at this moment. His serene and strong soul became gay under the weight of the gloomy preoccupations that beset him. He had a word for each of his friends; John and Peter especially were the objects of tender marks of attachment. John reclined on the divan, by the side of Jesus, with his head resting upon the breast of the Master. Towards the end of the repast, the secret which weighed upon the heart of Jesus nearly escaped him: he said, “Verily I say unto you that one of you shall betray me.” This was for these simple men a moment of anguish; they looked at each other, and each questioned himself. Judas was present; perhaps Jesus, who had had for some time reasons to distrust him, sought by this remark to draw from his looks or from his embarrassed manner the avowal of his fault. But the unfaithful disciple did not lose countenance; he even dared, it is said, to ask with the others, “Master, is it I ?”
Meanwhile, the good and upright soul of Peter was in torture.
He made a sign to John to endeavour to ascertain of whom the Master was
speaking. John, who could converse with Jesus without
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 over it a colouring of sweet mysticism. The last hours of a
dear friend are those we best remember. By an inevitable illusion, we attribute
to the conversations we have then had with him a sense that death only gives to
them; we concentrate into a few hours the memories of many years. The majority
of the disciples did not after the supper of which we have just spoken see their
Master again. It was the farewell banquet. In this repast, as well as in many
others, Jesus practised his mysterious rite of the breaking of bread. As it was
believed from the earliest years of the Church 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 in advance the precise moment of
his death, the disciples were led to suppose that he reserved for his last hours
a number of important acts. As, moreover, one of the
Very early this mystery was incorporated into a small sacramental narrative, which we possess under four forms, very similar to one another. The fourth Evangelist, preoccupied with the Eucharistic ideas, and who narrates the Last Supper with so much prolixity, connecting it with so many circumstances and discourses, does not mention this narrative. This is a proof that he did not regard the Eucharist as a peculiarity of the Lord's Supper. To the fourth Evangelist the rite of the Last Supper was the washing of feet. It is probable that in certain primitive Christian families this latter rite obtained an importance which it has since lost. No doubt Jesus, on some occasions, had 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.
A high sentiment of love, of concord, of charity, and of
mutual deference, animated, moreover, the remembrances which were believed to
surround the last hours of Jesus. It is always the unity of his Church,
constituted by him or by his Spirit, which is the essence of the symbols and of
the discourses which Christian tradition referred to this sacred
It seems that, towards the close 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 verging on a crisis. At one time Jesus thought of precautions, and spoke of swords. There were two in the company. “It is enough,” said he. He did not, however, follow out this idea; he saw clearly that timid provincials could not stand up before the armed force of the great powers of Jerusalem. Cephas, full of zeal and self-confidence, swore that he would go with him to prison and to death. Jesus, with his usual astuteness, expressed doubts concerning him. According to a tradition, which probably originated with Peter himself, Jesus gave him till cock-crowing. Like Peter, they all swore that they would not yield.
It was quite dark when they left the room. Jesus, as was
his wont, 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.
He sat down there. Overawing his friends by his great superiority, he watched
and prayed. They were sleeping near him, when suddenly an armed troop appeared
bearing lighted torches. It was the guards of the temple, armed with staves, a
kind of brigade 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. Judas, knowing the habits of
Jesus, had indicated this place as that where he might most easily be surprised.
According to the unanimous tradition of the earliest times, Judas accompanied
the detachment himself; according to some, he carried his hateful conduct even
to the length of betraying him with a kiss. Be that as it may, certain it is
that there was some show of resistance on the part of the disciples. One of them
(Peter, according to eye-witnesses) drew his sword, and wounded one of the
servants of the high priest, named Malchus, on the ear. Jesus put a stop to this
resistance, and surrendered himself to the soldiers. Weak and incapable of
acting with effect, especially against authorities with so much prestige, the
disciples took to flight and became dispersed. Peter and John alone did not lose
sight of their Master. Another unknown young man (probably Mark), wrapped in a
light garment,
The course which the priests had resolved to pursue in regard to Jesus was quite in conformity with the established law. The procedure against the “corrupter” (mésith), who sought to attaint the purity of religion, is explained in the Talmud, with details the naïve impudence of which provokes a smile. A judicial ambush is therein erected into 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 witnesses without his perceiving them. Two candles were lighted near him, in order that it might be satisfactorily proved that the witnesses “saw him.” He was then made to repeat his blasphemy; next, 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.
In fact, the disciples of Jesus inform us that the crime
with which their Master was charged was that of “corruption;” and, apart from
some minutiæ, the offspring 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
Peter and John had followed their Master to the residence 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 remained in the antechamber, and approached a brazier, around which the servants were warming themselves. He was soon recognised as a disciple of the accused. The unfortunate man, betrayed by his Galilean accent, and pursued by questions from the servants, one of whom was a kinsman of Malchus and had seen him at Gethsemane, denied thrice that he had ever had the slightest connection with Jesus. He imagined that Jesus could not hear him, and never dreamt that this dissimulated cowardice was exceedingly dishonourable. 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.
Hanan, although the real author of the judicial murder
about to be committed, had not power to pronounce sentence upon Jesus, so he
sent him to his son-in-law, Kaïapha, who bore the official title. This man, the
blind instrument of his father-in-law, naturally ratified everything required of
him by Hanan. The Sanhedrim was assembled at his house. The inquiry commenced;
and several witnesses, well instructed 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, equivalent to
blaspheming God Himself. Jesus remained silent, and refused to explain the
incriminating speech. If we may believe one version, the high priest then
adjured him to say if he were the Messiah; Jesus confessed it, and proclaimed
before the assembly the near approach of his heavenly reign. The courage of
Jesus, who had resolved to die, did not require this. It is more probable that
here, as when before Hanan, he remained silent. This was in general, during his
last moments, his rule of conduct. The sentence was determined on; and they only
sought for pretexts. Jesus perceived this, and did not undertake a useless
defence. From the orthodox Judaism point of view, he was truly a blasphemer, a
destroyer of the established worship, and these crimes were punishable by the
law with death. With one voice, the assembly declared him guilty of a capital
crime. The members of the council, who had a secret penchant for him, were
absent or did not vote. The usual frivolity of old-established aristocracies did
not permit the judges to reflect long upon the consequences of the sentence they had
The Sanhedrim had not the right to execute a sentence of death. But in the confusion of powers which then prevailed in Judæa, Jesus was, from that moment, none the less condemned. He remained the rest of the night exposed to the wicked treatment of an infamous pack of servants, who spared him no affront.
In the morning the chief priests and the elders again
assembled. The question was, how to get Pilate to ratify the condemnation
pronounced by the Sanhedrim, whose powers, since the occupation of the Romans,
were no longer sufficient. The procurator was not invested, like the imperial
legate, with the power of life and death. But Jesus was not a Roman citizen: it
only required the authorisation 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 amongst which the civil and the religious
laws are confounded, the Romans had been led to give to the Jewish law a sort of
official support. The Roman law was not applicable 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 to-morrow Syria were conquered by a European nation. Josephus pretends,
though the
The agents of the priests therefore bound Jesus and led him to the judgment-hall, which was the former palace of Herod, adjoining the Tower of Antonia. It was the morning of the day on which the Paschal lamb was to be eaten (Friday the 14th of Nisan, our 3rd 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, and therefore remained without. Pilate, apprised of their presence, ascended the bima or tribunal, situated in the open air, at the place named Gabbatha, or in Greek, Lithostrotos, on account of the pavement which covered the ground.
Hardly had he been informed of the accusation before he manifested his annoyance at being mixed up in the affair. He then shut himself up in the judgment-hall with Jesus. There a conversation took place, the precise details of which are lost, no witness having been able to repeat it to the disciples, but the tenor of which appears to have been happily conjectured by the fourth Evangelist. His narrative, at least, is in perfect accord with what history teaches us of the respective positions of the two interlocutors.
The procurator, Pontius, surnamed Pilate, doubtless on
account of the pilum or javelin of honour with which he or one of his
ancestors was decorated, had hitherto had no relation with the new sect.
Indifferent to the internal quarrels of the Jews, he only saw in all these
sectarian movements the effects of a diseased imagination and disordered brain.
In general, he did not like the Jews. The Jews, on their part, detested him
still more. They
Pilate, then, would have liked to save Jesus. Perhaps the calm and dignified attitude of the accused made an impression upon him. According to a tradition, Jesus found a supporter in the procurator's own wife. She may have seen the gentle Galilean from some window of the palace, which overlooked the courts of the temple. Perhaps she had seen him again in her dreams; and the blood of this beautiful young man, which was about to be spilt, had given her nightmare. Certain it is that Jesus found Pilate prepossessed in his favour. The governor questioned him kindly, with the desire of finding out by what means he could send him away pardoned.
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 they might be able to
excite the suspicions of the Roman authority. He was accused of sedition, and of
being guilty of treason against the government. Nothing could be more unjust;
for Jesus had always recognised the Roman empire as the established power. But
conservative religious bodies are not accustomed to shrink from calumny. In
spite of all his explanations they drew certain conclusions from his teaching;
they made him out to be a disciple of Judas the Gaulonite; they
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 resentment he had already so often felt. It was the custom to
deliver a prisoner to the people
His embarrassment increased. He feared that too much
indulgence to a prisoner, to whom was given the title of “King of the Jews,”
might compromise him. Fanaticism, moreover, constrains all powers to make terms
with it. Pilate felt himself obliged to make some concession; but still
hesitating to shed blood, in order to satisfy men whom he detested, 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. Flagellation was the usual
preliminary of crucifixion. Perhaps Pilate wished it to be believed that this
sentence had already been pronounced, hoping that the preliminary would suffice.
Then took place, according to all the narratives, a revolting scene. The
soldiers put a scarlet robe on the back of Jesus, a crown of thorny branches
upon his head, and a reed in his hand. Thus attired, he was led to the tribunal
in front of the
Did Pilate think by this display to shield himself from
responsibility? Did he hope to turn aside the blow which threatened Jesus by
conceding something to the hatred of the Jews, and by substituting for the
tragic denouement a grotesque termination, whence would seem to follow that the
affair merited no other issue? If such were his idea, it did not succeed. The
tumult increased, and became an actual riot. The cry “Crucify him! Crucify him!” resounded on all sides. The priests, assuming a tone of more and more
urgency, declared the law to be in peril if the corrupter were not punished with
death. Pilate saw clearly that in order to save Jesus he would have to put down
a furious riot. He still tried, however, to gain time. He returned to the
judgment-hall, and ascertained from what country Jesus came, seeking a pretext
to free him from adjudicating. According to one tradition, he even sent Jesus to
Antipas, who it is said was then at Jerusalem. Jesus encouraged but little these
benevolent efforts; he maintained, as he had done at the house of 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 of the functionary who shielded an enemy of Cæsar. The greatest
adversaries of the Roman rule were found to be transformed into loyal subjects
Were these words really uttered? It is open to doubt. They nevertheless are the expression of a profound historical truth. Considering the attitude which the Romans had taken up in Judæa, Pilate could scarcely have acted otherwise than he did. How many sentences of death dictated by religious intolerance have forced the hand of 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 blamable than Pilate, for he was the representative of a more absolute power than were the Romans at Jerusalem. When the civil power becomes persecuting or meddlesome at the solicitation of the priesthood, it demonstrates 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 is justified in saying 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; each one has to account to human or divine justice 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 been a Simon the Cyrenean, or at least not have been one of those who cried “Crucify him!” But nations, like individuals, have their responsibilities. Now, if ever a 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, it is true, in its modern yet 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 hoped to destroy it. The Jews expressed this to Pilate with truthful simplicity: “We have a law, and by our law he ought to die; because he has made himself the Son of God.” The law was detestable, but it was the law of ancient ferocity; and the hero who attempted to abrogate it had first of all to endure its penalty.
Alas! it has taken more than eighteen hundred years for the
blood that he shed to bear its fruits. For ages tortures and death have been
inflicted in the name of Jesus on thinkers as noble as himself. Even to-day, in
countries which call themselves Christian, penalties are pronounced for
religious derelictions. Jesus is not responsible for these errors. He could not
foresee that people with mistaken ideas would one day imagine him to be a
frightful Moloch, greedy of burnt victims. Christianity has been intolerant, but
intolerance is
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. Following up this idea, the priests demanded, through the people,
the crucifixion of Jesus. This mode of punishment was not of Jewish origin. If
the condemnation of Jesus had been purely Mosaic, he would have been stoned.
Crucifixion was a Roman punishment. reserved for slaves, and for cases in
This was a locality called Golgotha, situated outside
Jerusalem, but near the walls of the city. The name Golgotha signifies
a skull; it seems to correspond to our word Chaumont, and probably
designated a bare hill, having the form of a bald skulL Where this hill was
situated is not exactly known. Certainly it was on the north or north-west of
the city, on the high irregular plain which extends between the walls and the
two valleys of Kedron and Hinnom—a rather unattractive region, and rendered
still more repulsive by the objectionable circumstances that always
characterise the neighbourhood of a great city. It is difficult to identify
Golgotha with the spot that, since Constantine, has been venerated by all
Christendom. This
Any one condemned to the cross was forced himself to carry the instrument of his execution. But Jesus, physically weaker than his two companions, was not able to carry his. The troop met a certain Simon of Cyrene, who was returning from the country, and the soldiers, with the offhand procedure of foreign garrisons, compelled him to carry the fatal tree. In so doing they perhaps exercised a recognised right to enforce labour, the Romans not being allowed to carry the infamous wood. It seems that Simon was afterwards of the Christian community. His two sons, Alexander and Rufus, were well known in it. He related perhaps more than one circumstance of which he had been witness. No disciple was at this moment near Jesus.
The place of execution was at length reached. According to
Jewish usage, the victims were offered a strong aromatic wine, an intoxicating
drink, which, from a feeling of pity, was given to the condemned to stupefy him.
It appears that the women of Jerusalem often brought this kind of stupefying
wine to the unfortunates who were being led to execution; when there was none
presented by the latter, it was purchased at the expense of the public treasury.
Jesus, after having touched the rim of the cup with his lips, refused to drink.
This sad consolation of common sufferers did not accord with his
exalted nature. He preferred to quit life with perfect clearness of mind, and to
await in full consciousness the death he had willed and brought upon himself. He
was then divested of his garments, and fastened to the cross. The cross was
composed of two beams, tied in the form of the letter T. It was so little raised
that the feet
Jesus experienced these horrors in all their atrocity. A burning thirst, one of the tortures of crucifixion, consumed him. He asked to drink. Near him there was a cup full 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, amongst which executions were reckoned. A soldier dipped a sponge in this mixture, put it on the end of a reed, and raised it to the lips of Jesus, who sucked it. Two thieves were crucified, one on each side. The executioners, to whom were usually left the small effects of the victims, drew lots for his garments, and, sitting at the foot of the cross, guarded him. According to one tradition, Jesus uttered this sentence, which was in his heart, if not upon his lips: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
According to the Roman custom, a writing was affixed to the
head of the cross, bearing in three languages — Hebrew, Greek, and Latin — the
words: “THE KING OF THE JEWS.” There was in this inscription
something painful and insulting to the nation. Those who passed by and read it
were offended. The priests complained to Pilate that he ought to have made use
of an inscription which implied simply that Jesus had called himself
The disciples of Jesus had fled. John, nevertheless, declares himself to have been present, and to have remained standing at the foot of the cross during the whole time. It may be affirmed, with more certainty, that the devoted women of Galilee, who had followed Jesus to Jerusalem and continued to tend him, did not abandon him. Mary Cleophas, Mary Magdalen, Joanna, wife of Khouza, Salome, and others, stood off at a certain distance, never losing sight of him. If we must believe John, Mary, the mother of Jesus, was also at the foot of the cross, and Jesus, seeing his mother and his beloved disciple together, said to the one, “Behold my mother!” and to the other, “Behold thy son!” But we do not understand how the synoptics, who name the other women, should have omitted her whose presence was so striking a feature. Perhaps even the extreme elevation of the character of Jesus does not render such personal emotion probable, at the moment when, solely preoccupied by his work, he no longer existed except for humanity.
Apart from this small group of women, whose
presence consoled him, Jesus had before him only the spectacle
of the baseness or stupidity of humanity. The passers-by
insulted him. He heard around him foolish scoffs, and his
greatest cries of pain turned into odious jests: “He trusted in
God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he
said, I am the Son of God.” “He saved others,” they
said again; “himself he cannot save. If he be the king of
Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe
him! Ah, thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it
in three days, save thyself.” Some, vaguely acquainted
The peculiar atrocity of crucifixion was that one could
live three or four days in this horrible state upon the instrument of torture.
The bleeding from the hands soon stopped, and was not fatal. The real cause of
death was the unnatural position of the body, which brought on a frightful
disturbance of the circulation, terrible pains in the head and heart, and,
finally, rigidity of the limbs. Victims with strong constitutions died simply of
hunger. The original idea of this cruel punishment was not directly to kill the
culprit by positive injuries, but to expose the slave, nailed by the hand of
which he had neglected to make good use, and to let him rot on the wood. The
delicate organisation of Jesus preserved him from this slow agony. Everything
tends to show that the instantaneous
Rest now in thy glory, noble founder. Thy work is completed; thy divinity is established. Fear no more to see the edifice of thy efforts crumble through a flaw. Henceforth, stripped of all frailty, thou shalt aid, by the exaltation of thy divine peace, the infinite fruits of thy acts. At the cost of a few hours of suffering, which have not even tinged thy great soul, thou hast purchased the most complete immortality. During thousands of years, the world will extol thee. Ensign of our contradictions, thou wilt be the standard 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 so completely 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 vanquisher of death, take possession of thy kingdom, whither shall follow thee, by the royal road thou hast traced, ages of adorers.
It was about three o'clock in the afternoon, according to our custom of reckoning, when Jesus expired. A Jewish law forbade a corpse suspended on the cross to be left beyond the evening of the day of the execution. It is not probable that in the executions performed by the Romans this rule was observed. But as the next day was the Sabbath, and a Sabbath of peculiar solemnity, the Jews expressed to the Roman authorities their desire that this holy day should not be profaned by such a spectacle. Their request was granted; orders were given to hasten the death of the three condemned ones, and to remove them from the cross. The soldiers executed this order by applying to the two thieves a second punishment much more speedy than that of the cross, the crurifragium, breaking of the legs, the usual punishment of slaves and of prisoners of war. As to Jesus, they found him dead, and did not think it necessary to break his legs. But one of them, to remove all doubt as to the real death of the third victim, and to complete it, if any breath remained in him, pierced his side with a spear. They thought they saw water and blood flow, which was regarded as a sign of the cessation of life.
The fourth Evangelist, who here represents the Apostle John
as having been an eye-witness, insists strongly on this detail. 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 as
entirely insufficient to lead to such a result. They cited many instances of
persons crucified, who, removed
According to the Roman custom, the corpse of Jesus ought to
have remained suspended in order to become the prey of birds. According to the
Jewish law, it would, being removed in the evening, have been deposited in the
place of infamy set apart for the burial of those who were executed. If Jesus' disciples had consisted only of his poor Galileans, timid and without influence,
the second 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 people of
consideration who expected the kingdom of God, and who, without avowing
themselves his disciples, had for him a strong attachment. One of these, Joseph,
of the small town of Arimathea (Ha-ramathaim), went in the evening to
ask the body from the procurator. Joseph was a man rich, honourable, and a
member of the Sanhedrim. Roman law, at this period, commanded, moreover, the
delivering up of the body of the person executed
Another secret friend, Nicodemus, whom we have already seen employing his influence more than once in favour of Jesus, came forward at this moment. He arrived bearing an ample provision of the materials necessary for embalming. Joseph and Nicodemus interred Jesus according to the Jewish custom—that is to say, they wrapped him in a sheet with myrrh and aloes. The Galilean women were present, and no doubt accompanied the scene with piercing cries and tears.
It was late, and all this was done in great haste. The
place had not yet been chosen where the body would be finally deposited. The
carrying of the body, moreover, might have been delayed to a late hour, and have
involved a violation of the Sabbath; the disciples still conscientiously
observed the prescriptions of the Jewish law. A temporary interment was hence
decided upon. There was near at hand, in the garden, a tomb recently dug out in
the rock, which had never been used. It belonged, probably, to one of the
believers. The funeral caves, when they were destined for a single body, were
composed of a small chamber, at the bottom of which the place for the body was
marked by a trough or couch let into the wall, and surmounted by an arch. As
these caves were dug out of the sides of sloping rocks, they were entered by the
floor; the door was shut by a stone very difficult to move. Jesus was deposited
in the cave, and
The women retired after having carefully noticed how the body was laid. They employed the hours of the evening which remained to them in making new preparations for the embalming. On the Saturday all rested.
On the Sunday morning, the women, Mary Magdalen the first, came very early to the tomb. The stone was displaced from the opening, and the body was no longer in the place where they had put it. At the same time, the strangest rumours were spread in the Christian community. The cry, “He is risen!” spread amongst the disciples like lightning. 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 investigate the origin of the legends as touching the resurrection. For the historian, the life of Jesus finishes with his last sigh. But such was the impression he had left in the hearts of his disciples and of a few devoted females, that during some weeks more it was as if he were living and consoling them. Had his body been taken away? Did enthusiasm, always credulous in certain circumstances, create afterwards the group of narratives by which it was sought to establish faith in the resurrection? In the absence of opposing documents this can never be ascertained. Let us say, however, that the strong imagination of Mary Magdalen played in this circumstance an important part. Divine power of love! Sacred moments in which the passion of one possessed gave to the world a resuscitated God!
According to the calculation which we
have adopted, the death of Jesus took place in the year 33 of our era. It could
not, at all events, be either anterior to the year 29, the preaching of John and
Jesus having commenced in the year 28, or posterior to the year 35, as in the
year 36, and probably before the Passover, Pilate and Kaïapha both lost their
offices. The death of Jesus, moreover, had no connexion whatever with these two
removals. In his retirement., Pilate probably never dreamt for a moment of the
forgotten episode which was to transmit his pitiful renown to the most distant
posterity. As to 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 was looked upon as one of the happiest men of
his age. The actual person guilty of the death of Jesus ended his life
overwhelmed with honours and consideration, without ever doubting for an
instant that he had rendered a great service to the nation. His sons continued
to reign around the temple, and, kept down with difficulty by the procurators,
they ofttimes dispensed
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
neighbourhood of Jerusalem with the price of his perfidy. There was, indeed, on
the south of Mount Zion, a place named Hakeldama (the field of blood). It
was alleged that this was the property acquired by the traitor. According to one
tradition he killed himself. According to another, he had a fall in his field,
which caused his bowels to gush out. According to others, he died of a kind of
dropsy, which, being accompanied by repulsive circumstances, was regarded as a
chastisement of heaven. The desire of making out Judas to be another Absalom,
and of showing in him the accomplishment of the menaces which the Psalmist
pronounces against the perfidious friend, may have
The time of the great Christian revenge was, moreover, far
distant. The new sect had nothing to do with the catastrophe which Judaism was
soon to experience. 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 had been born. For nearly
three hundred years it pursued its path without suspecting that in its bosom
principles were growing which were destined to subject humanity 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 work 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,
outside of 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 conjunctures 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,” and will be denominated a “liberty.”
Proceeding
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 irreverence prevailed, and became known to everybody—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, represented 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 contumely of Gethsemane?
Jesus, it is seen, never extended his action beyond the
Jewish circle. Although his sympathy for outcasts of heterodoxy led him to
admit Pagans into the kingdom of God, although he had more than once resided in
a Pagan country, and although once or twice we surprise him in kindly relations
with unbelievers, it may be said that his life was passed entirely in the small
world in which he was born. In Greek or Roman countries he was never heard of;
his name only appears in profane authors of a hundred years later, and then in
an indirect manner, in connection with seditious movements provoked by his
doctrine, or persecutions of which his disciples were the object. Even on the
heart of Judaism Jesus made no very durable impression. Philo, who died about
the year 50, knew nothing of him Josephus, born in the year 37, and writing at
the close of the century, mentions his execution in a few lines, as an event of
secondary importance, while in the enumeration of the sects of his time he omits
the Christians altogether. Even the Mishna affords no trace of the new
school. The passages in the two Gemaras in which the founder of Christianity is
named, do not carry us back beyond the fourth or fifth century. The essential
work of Jesus was to form around him a circle of disciples, whom he inspired with
boundless affection, and in whose breasts he deposited the germ of his doctrine.
To have made himself beloved, “to the extent that
It will now be understood why, by an exceptional destiny,
pure Christianity still presents, after eighteen centuries, the character of a
universal and eternal religion. In truth it is because the religion of Jesus is,
in some respects, the final religion. The product of a perfectly spontaneous
movement of souls, disengaged at its birth from all dogmatic restraints, having
struggled three hundred years for liberty of conscience, Christianity, in spite
of the catastrophes which have followed it, reaps still the fruits of its
excellent origin. To renew itself it has only to return to the Gospel. The
kingdom of God, such as we conceive it, differs materially from the supernatural
apparition that early Christians hoped to see appear in the clouds. But the
sentiment which Jesus introduced into the world is
“Christianity” has thus become almost synonymous with
“religion.” All that one may attempt, outside this grand and noble Christian
tradition, is futile. Jesus founded the religion of humanity, just as Socrates
founded philosophy, and Aristotle science. There was philosophy before Socrates,
and science before Aristotle. But since the times of Socrates and Aristotle
philosophy and science have made immense progress; yet it has all been reared
upon the foundations they laid down. Similarly, before Jesus religion had passed
through many revolutions; since Jesus it has achieved great conquests; yet we
have not advanced, and never will improve upon the essential principle Jesus
created; he fixed for ever 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
enveloped itself in creeds which have lasted and can only last for a time:
Jesus, on the other hand, has founded absolute religion, which excludes
nothing, determines nothing unless it be sentiment. His creeds are not fixed
dogmas, but ideas susceptible of indefinite interpretations. We
And this great foundation was indeed the personal work of Jesus. To make himself adored to this degree, he must have been
adorable. Love is only kindled by an object worthy of it, and we should know
nothing of Jesus if it were not for the passion he inspired in those around him,
which obliges us still to affirm that he was great and
Let us place, then, at the highest summit of
human greatness the person of Jesus. Let us not be led astray by sneers in the
presence of a legend which keeps us always in a superhuman world. The life of
Francis d'Assisi is, too, only a tissue of miracles. Has any one ever
doubted, though, of his existence, and of the part he played? Let us say no
more that the glory of founding Christianity must be attributed 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 no rarity to see
spring up there, in the midst of a general atmosphere of wickedness, characters
whose greatness astonishes us. So far from Jesus having been made by his
disciples, he appeared in everything superior to them. The latter, St. Paul and
St. John excepted, were men without invention or genius. St. Paul himself bears
no comparison with Jesus, and as to St. John, he has done little more in his
Apocalypse than to breathe the poetry of Jesus. Hence the immense superiority of
the Gospels among the writings of the New Testament. Hence the painful lowering
of sentiment we experience in passing from the history of Jesus to that of the
apostles. The evangelists themselves, who have transmitted to us the image of
Jesus, are so much beneath him of whom they speak that they constantly disfigure
him, not being able to attain to his height. Their writings are full of errors
and contradictions. We feel in each line a discourse of divine beauty, told by
narrators who do not understand it, and who substitute their own ideas for those
they have only half grasped. On the whole, the character of Jesus, far from
having
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 upright and gentle Marcus Aurelius, the humble and
tender Spinoza, not having believed in miracles, were exempt 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 masters have left no durable
impress 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 therefore more successful than a Socrates with his cold reason. “Socrates,” it was said, “leaves men on the earth, Apollonius
transports them to heaven; Socrates is but a sage, Apollonius is a god.”
Religion, so far, has not existed without a share of asceticism, of piety, and
of the marvellous. When it was wished, after the
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 amongst the 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; child-birth is, by a law of nature, a violent process.
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. History is full of singular synchronisms, which cause, without
Is it more just to say that Jesus was wholly indebted to Judaism, and that his greatness is only that of the Jewish people? No one is more disposed than myself to place high this unrivalled people, whose particular heritage seems to have been to contain amongst them the extremes of good and evil. Jesus doubtless sprang from Judaism; but he proceeded from it as Socrates did 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 belongs to his age and race even when he reacts against his age and race. Far from continuing Judaism, Jesus represents the rupture with the Jewish spirit. The supposition that his idea in this respect could lead to equivocation is disproved by the general direction of Christianity after him. The general tendency of Christianity has been to separate itself more and more from Judaism. Its perfection depends on its returning to Jesus, but certainly not in returning to Judaism. The great originality of the founder remains then unchallenged; his glory does not admit any legitimate sharer.
Doubtless, circumstances much aided the success of this
marvellous revolution; but circumstances only second endeavours as to what is
just and true. Each branch of the development of humanity, art, poetry,
religion, encounters, in crossing the ages, a privileged epoch, in which it
attains perfection by a sort of spontaneous instinct, and without effort. No
labour of reflection would succeed in producing afterwards the masterpieces
which nature creates at those moments by inspired geniuses. What the golden age
of Greece was for art and profane literature, the age of Jesus was for religion.
Jewish society exhibited the most extraordinary moral and intellectual state
This sublime person, who each day still presides over the
destiny of the world, may be called divine, not in the sense that Jesus has
absorbed all the divine, but in the sense that Jesus is the person who has
impelled his fellow-men to make the greatest step towards the divine. Humanity
in its totality presents an assemblage of low beings, selfish, superior to the
animal only in the single
As to us, eternal children, condemned to impotence, who
labour without reaping, and who will never witness the fruit of that which we
have sown, let us bow before these demi-gods. They did that which we cannot
do—create, affirm, act. Will great originality be borne again, or will the world
henceforth content itself by following the paths opened by the bold original
minds of antiquity? We do not know. In any case, Jesus will pot be surpassed.
His worship will constantly
The greatest difficulty which presents itself to the historian of Jesus is the value of the sources upon which such a history rests. On the one hand, what is the value of the Gospels called synoptic? On the other, what use is to be made of the fourth Gospel in writing the life of Jesus? On the first point all those who occupy themselves with these studies, according to the critical method, are thoroughly in accord. The synoptics represent the tradition, often legendary, of the two or three first Christian generations in regard to the person of Jesus. This permits of much uncertainty in the application, and necessitates the continual employment in the narrative of the formulas: “Some have said this,” “Others have related that,” &c. But that suffices to inform us as to the general character of the founder, the charm and the principal features of his teaching, and even as regards the most important circumstances of his life. The writers of the life of Jesus, who confine themselves to the employment of the synoptics, do not differ more from one another than the narrators of the life of Mahomet who have made use of the hadith. The biographers of the Arab prophet may take different views of the value of such and such a document. But, on the whole, they are all agreed as to the value of the hadith. They all, according to their manner, class them along with those legendary and traditional documents, but not as precise documents of history properly speaking.
Upon the second point, I desire to say, in regard to the
employment it is fitting to make of the fourth Gospel, that there is
disagreement. I have, with many reserves and precautions, made use of this
document. In the opinion of excellent judges, I ought not to have made any use
of it, with the exception of chapters
§ 1. The opening verses (
That would be, in my opinion, a premature conclusion. A
work full of theological ideas may embrace valuable historical information. Were
not the synoptics written with the constant preoccupation of demonstrating that
Jesus realised all the Messianic prophecies? Because of this,
§ 2. Let us return to our subject. According to
consecrated usage the evangelist commences his narrative with the mission of
John the Baptist. That which he says of the relations of John with Jesus is
similar in many points to the tradition of the synoptics; in other points the
divergence is considerable. The theory, soon held so dear by all the Christians,
according to which John proclaimed the divine mission of Jesus, is greatly
exaggerated by our author. Things are better managed in the synoptics, where
John entertains to the end doubts as to the character of Jesus, and sends to him
messengers to question him. The narrative of the fourth Gospel implies a
perfectly prearranged plan, and confirms us in the idea that we have divined
the prologue, to wit, that the author sought rather to prove than to record. We
shall discover presently, however, that the author, though differing much from
the synoptics, possesses many traditions in common with them. He cites the same
prophecies; like them he believes in a dove which should descend upon the head
of Jesus immediately after baptism. But his narrative is less ingenuous, more
advanced, more ripe, if I may so speak. One single detail staggers me; this is
§ 3. Beginning with
The discussion on this point is somewhat favourable to our
text.
The fourth Gospel should then be limited to the first chapter,
which must be defined as “a fragment made up of traditions or of recollections
hastily written, and occupied with a theology far removed from the primitive
Christian spirit; a chapter of legendary biography, in which the author permits
the introduction of traditional data, which he often transforms, but invents
nothing.” If the question is one of à priori biography, it is
indeed rather in the synoptics that I find a biography of that sort. It is the
synoptics which make Jesus to be born at Bethlehem, which make him go into
Egypt, which lead the Magi to him, &c., for the necessities of the cause. It is
Luke who creates or
A circumstance, moreover, strikes us from this moment. The author wishes it to be accepted that the two first disciples of Jesus were Andrew and another disciple. Andrew very soon attracts Peter, his brother, who thus finds himself put a little into the shade. The second disciple is not named. But, in comparing this passage with others we encounter later on, we are induced to think that the other unnamed disciple is none other than the author of the Gospel, or at least one who wishes to pass himself off for the author. In the last chapters of the book, in fact, we shall see the author speaking with a certain mystery of himself, and, what is most remarkable, affecting always to place himself before Peter, even when recognising the hierarchical superiority of the latter. Let us observe also that in the synoptics the vocation of John is closely associated with that of Peter; but in the Acts John is continually represented as the companion of Peter. A double difficulty is hence presented to us. For, if the unnamed disciple is really John, the son of Zebedee, one is led to think that John, the son of Zebedee, is the author of our Gospel. To suppose that an impostor, in wishing to make believe that the author is John, had had the intention of not naming John and of designating him in an enigmatical fashion, would be to impute to him a ridiculous artifice. On the other hand, are we to understand that, if the real author of our Gospel commenced by being a disciple of John the Baptist, he speaks of the latter in a fashion so little historical, that the synoptic Gospels on this point are superior to his narrative?
§ 4. Paragraph
§ 5. That which follows
But there is yet something more striking. The first circumstance of the sojourns of Jesus at Jerusalem reported by our evangelist is likewise reported by the synoptics, and placed by them almost on the eve of the death of Jesus; this is the driving of the merchants out of the temple. Is it to a Galilean that, on the morrow of his arrival at Jerusalem, we can attribute with any show of likelihood such an act, which, however, might have had some reality, since it is reported in each of the four texts ? In the chronological arrangement of the narrative, the advantage belongs entirely to our author. It is evident that the synoptics accumulated during the last days circumstances which were furnished to them by tradition, and that they did not know where to place them.
We must now touch upon a question which it is time to clear
up. We have already found that our evangelist possessed many traditions in
common with the synoptics (the part played by John the Baptist, the dove at the
baptism, the etymology of the name Cephas, the names of at least three of the
apostles, the merchants who were driven from the temple). Does our evangelist
imbibe this from the synoptics? No: for he presents these same circumstances
with two important differences. Whence, then, did he get these narratives in
common? Evidently from tradition, or
§ 6. There follows another incident, the relation of which
to the synoptics is no less remarkable. The latter, or at least Matthew and
Mark, report, apropos of the proceedings of Jesus and of his agony on
Golgotha, a phrase that Jesus would have given expression to, and which would
have been one of the principal causes of his condemnation: “Destroy this temple
and I will build it up again in three days.” The synoptics do not say that Jesus
had uttered these words: on the contrary, they treat that as false testimony.
Our evangelist records that Jesus did in fact give utterance to this
incriminating expression. Did he take this sentence from the synoptics? It is
hardly probable: for he gives a different version of it, and even an allegorical
explanation of which the synoptics are not cognisant. It seems, then, that here
he adhered to an original tradition, one more original even than that of the
synoptics, since the latter do
Observe the Jewish historical characteristic in
§ 7. The
§ 8. Let us look now at the episode of Nicodemus (
§ 9. The
The sentiment of
§ 10. We now come to the interview of Jesus with the Samaritan woman and the mission to the Samaritans (
§ 11.
§ 12.
§ 13.
§ 14.
§ 15. By means of evidently artificial connections, which
prove clearly that all these recollections (if recollection it be) were written
afterwards, the author introduces a strange series of miracles and visions (
§ 16. The two miracles which precede serve to lead up to a
most important sermon, which Jesus is alleged to have delivered in the synagogue
of Capemaum. This sermon was evidently related to a collection of symbols which
were very familiar to the oldest Christian community—symbols in which Christ was
presented as the bread of believers. I have already said that, in our Gospel,
the discourses of Christ are almost all fictitious works, and the one in
question may certainly be one of the number. I would, if put to it, own that
this fragment possesses more importance in regard to the history of the
eucharistic ideas of the first century than the statement even of the sentiments
of Jesus. Nevertheless, I believe that our Gospel furnishes us here again with a
gleam of light. According to the synoptics, the institution of the eucharist
does not ascend beyond the last soiree of Jesus. It is clear that very far back
this was believed in, whilst it was the doctrine of St. Paul. But to admit this
to be true, it is necessary to suppose that Jesus knew absolutely the day when
he would die, a supposition which we cannot accept. The usages which gave rise to
the eucharist ascend, then, beyond the last supper, and I believe that our
Gospel is completely within the truth, in omitting the sacramental account of
the soiree of the Friday, and in disseminating eucharistic ideas in the course
even of the life of Jesus. That which is essential in the eucharistic account is
at bottom
§ 17.
§ 18. Now comes a dispute (
§ 19. The account of the woman taken in adultery gives room
for great critical doubts. This passage is wanting in the best manuscripts; I
believe, however, that it constituted part of the primitive text. The
topographical data of
§ 20. The theological disputes which fill up the rest of
§ 21.
§ 22. But it is far from being limited to this. Beginning with
§ 23. We reach now a most important passage (
The miracle of Bethany is to the Galilean miracles what the stigmata of Francis d'Assisi were to the miracles of the same saint. M. Karl Hase has composed an exquisite Life of Christ in the shades, without insisting particularly upon any of these latter; but he saw clearly that it would not have been a sincere biography if he had not descanted upon the stigmata; he has devoted to these a long chapter, giving place to all sorts of conjectures and suppositions.
Amongst the miracles which are spread over the four
compilations of the Life of Jesus, a distinction makes itself felt. Some are
pure and simple legendary creations. There is nothing in the real life of Jesus
which has a place in them. They are the fruit of that labour of imagination
which is produced around all popular celebrities. Others have had actual facts
for their foundation. Legend has not arbitrarily attributed to Jesus the
healing of those possessed of devils. Doubtless, Jesus more than once was
believed to make such cures. The multiplication of loaves, many cures of
sickness, perhaps certain apparitions, ought to be put in the same category.
These are not miracles hatched out of pure imagination, they are miracles
conceived àpropos of real incidents, exaggerated and transformed. Let us
absolutely discard an idea which is very widespread, that no eye-witness reports
miracles. The author of the last chapter of the Acts is surely an ocular witness
of the life of St. Paul. Now this writer records miracles which have taken place
before him.
In what category must we place the miracle which we are now
discussing? Did some actual fact, which had been exaggerated and embellished,
give rise to it? Or, again, does it possess reality of any sort? Is it a pure
legend, an invention of the narrator? What complicates the difficulty is that
the third Gospel, that of Luke, presents to us here consonances which are most
peculiar. Luke, in fact, knew Martha and Mary; he knew at the same time they did
not hail from Galilee; in fine, he knew them in a light which was strongly
analogous to that under which these two personages figure in the fourth Gospel.
Martha, in the latter text, plays the rôle of a servant, διηχόνει, Mary,
the rôle of a forward, ardent personage. We know the admirable little episode
which Luke has extracted thence. But, if we compare the passages in Luke and in
the fourth Gospel, it is clearly the fourth Gospel which plays here the original
part; not that Luke, or whoever the author of the third Gospel may be, may have
read the fourth, but in the sense in which we find in the fourth Gospel the data
which explain the legendary anecdote of the third. Was the third Gospel also
cognisant of Lazarus? After having for a long time refused to admit this, I have
arrived at the belief that this is very probable. Yes, I now think that the
Lazarus of the parable of the rich man is but a transformation of our resurgent
one. Let it not be said that in thus being metamorphosed it has been much
changed in the process. In this respect everything is possible, since the repast
of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, who play a great part in the fourth Gospel and who
are placed by the synoptics in the house of Simon the Leper, becomes in the
third Gospel a repast at the house of Simon the Pharisee, where there figures a
fisherwoman who, like Mary in our Gospel, anoints the feet of Jesus and wipes
them with her hair. What thread holds together this inextricable labyrinth
I know what has been attempted here by means of symbolical
explanation. The miracle of Bethany, according to the learned and profound
defenders of this system, signifies that Jesus is to believers in a spiritual
sense the resurrection and the life. Lazarus is the poor man, the ebion
resurrected by Christ from his state of spiritual death. It was on account of
this, the sense of a popular reawakening which came to perplex them, that the
official classes decided on making Jesus perish. This is the theory upon which
the best theologians that the Church has possessed in our days repose. In my
opinion it is an erroneous one. That our Gospel is dogmatic I recognise, but it
is by no means allegorical. The really allegorical writings of the first
centuries, the Apocalypse, the Pastor of Hermas, the Pista Sophia, possess quite
a different charm. At bottom of all this symbolism is the companion of the
mysticism of M. Strauss; the expedients of theologians at their wit's end,
seeking by means of allegory, mysticism, and symbolism to escape from their
dilemma. For us, who are seeking only for pure historic truth without a shade of
either theological or political arrière pensée, we have more scope. For us,
all this is not mythical, all this is not symbolical, all this is sectarian and
popular history.
Divers examples are pleaded. The Alexandrian school, such as we know it through the writings of Philo, exercised unquestionably a strong influence upon the theology of the apostolic century. Now, do we not see this school press its taste for symbolism to the verge of folly? The whole of the Old Testament became in its hands only a pretext for subtle allegories. Are not the Talmud and the Midraschim full of pretended historical teachings which have been stripped of all truth, and which can only be explained by religious tenets or by the desire of originating arguments in support of a thesis? But this is not the case with the fourth Gospel. The principles of criticism which it is proper to apply to the Talmud and the Midraschim, cannot be transferred to a composition altogether at variance with the likings of the Palestinian Jews. Philo discerns allegories in the ancient texts; he does not invent allegorical texts. An old sacred book exists; the plain interpretation of this text embarrasses or is insufficient; we seek in it its hidden and mysterious meaning; examples such as these abound. But when we write an extended historical narrative with the arrière pensée of concealing in it symbolical finesse which was only to be discovered seventeen hundred years later, this is what is but seldom seen. It is the partisans of the allegorical explanation who, in this case, play the part of Alexandrians. It is they who, embarrassed by the fourth Gospel, treat it just as Philo treated Genesis, just as the Jewish and Christian tradition has treated the Canticle of Canticles. For us simple historians who admit first of all (1) That the question here is only one of legends, in parts true, in parts false, like all legends; (2) that the reality which served as a basis for these legends was beautiful, splendid, touching and delicious, but, like all things human, greatly marred by weaknesses which would disgust us if we saw them—for us, I say, there are no difficulties of this kind. There are texts, and the question is to extract the largest amount of historic truth possible, that is all.
Another very delicate question presents itself here. In the
miracles of the second class, in those which owe their origin to a real fact in
the life of Jesus, is there not
“People do not prepare,” I have been told, “sophistical miracles, when people believe they everywhere are truth.” This is an
error. It is when people believe in miracles that they are drawn away, without
doubting in them, to augment their number. We can with difficulty,
The eighteenth century would describe all religious history
as imposture. The critic of our times has totally discarded that explanation.
The term is certainly improper; but to what extent have the most beautiful souls
of the past not aided in their own illusions, or in those of which they have
been the object, is what a reflective age can no longer comprehend. For one to
understand this thoroughly one must have been in the East. In the East passion
is the soul of everything and credulity has no limits. We can never get at the
bottom of the mind of an Oriental; because this bottom often does not exist for
himself. Passion on one side, credulity on the other, make imposture. So no
great movement is produced in this country without some fraud. We no longer know
how to desire or to hate; cunning finds no longer a place in our society, for
she has no longer an object. But exaltation is a passion which does not
accommodate itself to this reserve, this indifference to consequences which is the basis of our sincerity. When absolute natures will
embrace a thesis after the Oriental manner, they are no longer restrainable, and
nothing, the day even when illusion becomes necessary, is too dear to them. Is
that the fault of sincerity? Not at all; it is because conviction is most keenly
felt by such spirits, because they are incapable of returning upon themselves,
that they have few
To summarise amongst the miracles which the Gospels
attribute to Jesus, there are some purely legendary. But there were probably
some of them in which he consented to play a part. Let us put to one side the
fourth Gospel. The Gospel of Mark, the most original of the synoptics, is the
life of an exorcist and thaumaturgist. Some details, as in
§ 24.
§ 25. Again (
§ 26. The account of the triumphal entry of Jesus into
The aphorism in
§ 27.
§ 28. We have now reached the last evening (
What is very remarkable is, that the fourth Gospel, in
place of the eucharist, gives another rite, the washing of feet, as having been
the proper institution of the last supper. Doubtless, our evangelist has for
once yielded to the natural tendency of reporting on the last evening the solemn
acts in the life of Jesus. The hatred of our author against Judas unmasks itself
more and more, because of a strong prepossession which made him speak of this
unhappy man, even when he is not directly in evidence (
§ 29. Now follow long discourses which possess a certain
beauty, but which, there can be no doubt, contain nothing traditional. These are
fragments of theology and rhetoric, having no analogy to the discourses of Jesus
in the synoptic Gospels, and to which we must not attribute any more historical
reality than to the discourses which Plato puts into the mouth of his master at
the moment of dying. Nothing must be concluded hence as to the value of the
context. The discourses inserted by Sallust and Titus Livy in their histories
are assuredly fictions; but are we to conclude from this that the basis of these
histories is fictitious ) It is probable, moreover, that in these homilies
attributed to Jesus there is one feature which is of historic value, Thus, the
promise of the Holy Spirit (
§ 30. After the Supper our evangelist, like the synoptics,
conducts Jesus to the Garden of Gethsemane (
But here follows the proof the most sensible which
our author possesses on the Passion—evidence much more original than that of the
other evangelists. He alone causes Jesus to be conducted to Annas or Hanan, the
father-in-law of Kaïaphas. Josephus confirms the correctness of this account,
and Luke seems here again to gather a sort of echo of our Gospel. Hanan had for
a long time been deposed from the Pontificate; but, during the remainder of his
long life, he in reality retained the power, which he exercised under the
names of his son and sons-in-law, who were successively raised to the
sacerdotal sovereignty.
§ 32. The recital of the denials of Peter possesses the same
superiority. The whole episode, in our author, is more circumstantial and better
explained. The details of
§ 33. We come now to Pilate. The incident of
§ 34. I abandon the conversations of Pilate and Jesus,
composed evidently from mere conjecture, yet with an exact enough sentiment as
regards the situation of the two persons. The question in
§ 35. The minute details of the seamless coat furnish also
an argument against our author. It might be said that his false conception of it
arose from his having eagerly seized the parallelism of the passage in
This is very happily put. It completely proves that our
author had more than one arrière pensée, that he had not the
In any case, this new accord which we have found between
our text and the Gospel is very remarkable. The words of Luke, in fact (
§ 37. Our text recovers its superiority in that which
concerns the potion offered on the cross. This circumstance, with respect to
which Matthew and Mark express themselves with obscurity, which in Luke is
entirely transformed (
§ 38. Our Gospel omits the earthquake and the phenomena which the most widely circulated legend would have it believed accompanied the last supper of Jesus.
§ 39. The episode of the crurifragium (the breaking of
Jesus' legs) and the lance thrust, which are peculiar to our Gospel, is
certainly possible. The ancient Jewish and Roman customs, contained in
§ 40. At the burial, Nicodemus, a personage peculiar to our Gospel, reappears. It must be observed that this personage plays no part in the early apostolic history. Moreover, as regards the Twelve Apostles, seven or eight of them disappeared completely after the death of Jesus. It seems that there were near Jesus groups which looked upon him in very different lights, and some of which do not figure in the history of the Church. The author of the teachings which form the basis of our Gospel has been able to recognise friends of Jesus who are not mentioned in the synoptics, who lived in a less extended world. The evangelical personnel was very different in the different Christian families. James, brother of the Lord, a man in St. Paul's eyes of the first importance, plays only a very secondary part in the eyes of the synoptics and of our author. Mary Magdalene, who, according to the four texts, played a capital part in the resurrection, is not included by St. Paul in the number of the persons to whom Jesus showed himself, and after that solemn hour she is no more heard of It was the same in the case of Babism. In the accounts which we possess of the origins of that religion, and which are in complete accord, the personnel differs quite sensibly. Each witness has observed the fact from his own point of view, and has attributed a special importance to such of the founders as were known to him.
Observe a new textual coincidence between Luke (
§ 41. An important fact arises from the discussion
which have just instituted. Our Gospel, disagreeing very considerably
§ 42. The agreement of our Gospel with the synoptics, which
strikes one in the narrative of the Passion, is hardly discernible, at least in
Matthew, in that of the resurrection and what follows. But here again I think our
author much
The ingenuous personal characteristics which are presented
here in the narrative of our author are almost sign-manuals. The determined
adversaries of the authenticity of the fourth Gospel impose on themselves a
difficult task in forcing themselves to see in these characteristics the
artifices of a forger. The design of the author to place himself alongside or
before Peter in important circumstances (
Note again a coincidence between Luke (
§ 43. The apparition which follows, in our author—we mean
the one which takes place before the apostles assemble on Sunday
evening—coincides well with the account of Paul. But it is with Luke that the
agreements here become striking and decisive. Not only does the apparition take
place on the same date in presence of the same people, but also the words
pronounced by Jesus are the same; the circumstance of Jesus showing his feet
and his hands is lightly transposed, but it is recognisable as a part of the
other, whilst it is wanting in the two first synoptics. The Gospel of the
Hebrews marches here in accord with the third and fourth Gospels. “But why,” it
might be said, “hold to the narrative of an eyewitness, a narrative which
embraces manifest impossibilities? He who does not admit the miracle, and admits
the authenticity of the fourth Gospel, is he not forced to regard as an
imposture the so formal assurance of
§ 44. A peculiarity of our Gospel is that the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit occurs on the very evening of the resurrection (
§ 45. Like all critics, I make the compilation of the
fourth Gospel terminate at the end of chapter xx.
46. Details somewhat obscure follow (
§ 47. So, in the account of the life beyond the tomb of
Jesus, the fourth Gospel retains its superiority. This superiority is to be
especially recognised in portions taken generally. In the Gospels of Luke and
Mark (
What is the result of this long analysis? Firstly, that
considered by itself the narrative of the material circumstances of the life of
Jesus, as furnished by the fourth Gospel, is superior in point of probability to
the narrative of the synoptics. Secondly, that, on the other hand, the
discourses which the fourth Gospel impute to Jesus have in general no character
of authenticity. Thirdly, that the author has a tradition of the life of Jesus
very different from that of the synoptics, except as concerns the last days.
Fourthly, that this tradition, however, was pretty well spread; for Luke, who
does not belong to the school whence emerged our Gospel, has an idea more or
less vague of many of the facts which were known to our author, and of which
Matthew and Mark knew nothing. Fifthly, that the work is less beautiful than the
synoptic Gospels, Matthew and Mark being the masterpieces of spontaneous art,
Luke presenting an admirable combination of ingenuous art and of reflection,
whilst the fourth Gospel presents only a series of notes, very badly arranged,
in which legend and tradition, reflection and naïveté se fondent
mal. Sixthly, that the author of the fourth Gospel, whoever he may be, has
written to raise the authority of one of the apostles, in order to show that
this apostle had played a part, in circumstances where he is not mentioned in
the other narratives, in order to prove that he knew things which the other
disciples knew not. Seventhly, that the author of the fourth Gospel wrote at a
time when Christianity was more advanced than the synoptics, and with a more
exalted idea of the divine rôle of Jesus, the figure of Jesus being with
him more rugged, more heretical, like that of an Æon or a divine hypostasis who
operates through his own will. Eighthly, that if the material teachings are more
exact than those of the synoptics, its historic colouring is much less so,
insomuch that, in order to seize the general physiognomy of Jesus, the synoptic
Gospels,
Naturally, these reasons in favour of the fourth Gospel would be singularly confirmed if it could be established that the author of this Gospel is the apostle John, son of Zebedee. But the present is a research of a different order. Our aim has been to examine the fourth Gospel by itself, independently of its author. This question of the authorship of the fourth Gospel is assuredly the most singular that there is in literary history. I know of no question of criticism in which contrary appearances are so evenly balanced and which hold the mind more completely in suspense.
It is clear at first that the author wishes to pass himself
off as an ocular witness of evangelical facts (
Who is the disciple whose authority the author thus seeks
to make prevail? The title indicates it; it is “John.” There is not the least
reason to suppose it may have been added in opposition to the intentions of the
real author. It was certainly written at the head of our Gospel at the end of
the second century. On the other hand, evangelical history only presents,
outside of John the Baptist, a single personage of the name of John. It is
necessary then to choose between the hypotheses; either we must acknowledge
John, son of Zebedee, as the author of the fourth Gospel, or regard that Gospel
as an apocryphal writing composed by some individual who wished to pass it off
as a work of John, son of
That fault is not, moreover, the only one which the author
may have committed. We have three epistles which in like manner bear the name of
John. If there is one thing in the domain of criticism which is probable, it is
that the first at least of these epistles is by the same author as the fourth
Gospel. One might almost denominate it as a detached chapter. The vocabulary of
the two writings is identical. Now the language of the works of the New Testament
is so poor in expression and so little varied that such inductions can be drawn
with an almost absolute certainty. The author of this epistle, like the author
of the Gospel, gives himself out as an eyewitness (
Let us hasten to add, nevertheless, that critics of the
first order have not without grave reason rejected the authenticity of the
fourth Gospel. The work is too rarely cited in the most ancient Christian
literature; its authority only commences to be known much later. Nothing could
less resemble than this Gospel that which might be expected from John, an old
fisher on the Lake of Gennesareth. The Greek in which it is written is not in
any sense the Palestinian Greek with which we are acquainted in the other books
of
For my part I see but one way. It is to hold that
the fourth Gospel is, indeed, in a sense χατὰΙοάνοην, that it was not
written by John himself, that it was for a long time esoteric and secret in one
of the schools which adhered to John. To penetrate into the mystery of this
school, to learn how the writing in question was put forth, is simply
impossible. Can the notes or data left by the Apostle be used as a basis for the
text which we have? Has a secretary, nurtured by the reading of Philo, and
possessing a style of his own, given to the narratives and letters of his master
a turn which without this they could never have had? Have we not here something
analogous to the letters of Saint Catherine of Sienna, revised by her secretary,
or to those revelations of Catherine Emmerich, of which we can say equally that
they are by Catherine, and that they are by Bretano, the ideas of Catherine
having traversed the style of Bretano? Have not some purely semi-Gnostics, at
the close of the life of the Apostle, seized his pen, and, under the pretext of
aiding him in writing his recollections and of assisting him in his
correspondence, incorporated their ideas, and favourite expressions, covering
themselves with his authority. Who is that Presbyteros Johannes, a sort
of double of the Apostle, whose tomb is pointed out by the side of John's? Is he
a different personage from the Apostle? Is he the Apostle himself whose long
life was for many years the foundation
Genesis
Exodus
Joshua
2 Samuel
Psalms
Proverbs
Isaiah
Zechariah
Matthew
5:3-10 6:19-34 8:5 10:20 13:44-46 14:1-36 21:2-5 27:34
Mark
8:22 8:23 13:11 15:23 16:9 16:9-20 131
Luke
6:24-25 7:1 8:45-46 12:11-12 14:12-14 16:19-25 21:1-38 23:16 23:36 23:49 23:53 24:1-2 24:4 24:12 24:24 24:41-43 24:49 24:49
John
1:1-14 1:1-14 1:14 1:14 1:28 1:35 1:35 1:35 1:35-51 1:39 1:43 1:51 2:1-12 2:10 2:11 2:11-12 2:13 2:20 2:23-25 3:1-21 3:12 3:22 3:22-23 3:22-4:2 3:24 3:25 3:26 3:27-36 4:1 4:1 4:1-42 4:2 4:2 4:2 4:2 4:3-6 4:5-6 4:9 4:14 4:16-18 4:21-23 4:22 4:22 4:35 4:43-45 4:44 4:46 4:46-54 5:1-47 5:2 6:1-4 6:1-71 6:16 6:23 6:60 6:68 6:70-71 7:1-10 7:11 7:50 7:50 7:52 8:1-2 8:7-59 9:1-41 9:6 9:7 10:1-20 10:22 10:24-39 10:40 11:1-45 11:45 11:46-54 11:55-56 12:1 12:1 12:1 12:1 12:1-2 12:6 12:6 12:9-11 12:12 12:12 12:17 12:17-18 12:18 12:20 12:23 12:25 12:27-28 13:1-38 13:2 13:10 13:11 13:18 13:22 13:23 13:29 14:16 14:26 15:26 16:7 16:7 16:13 17:1-26 18:1 18:1-40 18:6 18:8 18:15 18:15 18:16 18:28 19:1-42 19:9 19:23-24 19:26 19:29 19:31 19:34 19:35 19:36 19:36 19:39 19:41 20:9 20:12-13 20:22 20:22 20:30-31 21:1-25 21:1-25 21:1-25 21:1-25 21:12-13 21:15 21:21-23 21:24 21:24 21:25
Acts
1:1-4 1:1-8 2:1 2:1-47 2:1-47 2:1-47
1 Corinthians
1 John
Revelation
i ii iii iv v vi vii viii ix x xi xii xiii xiv xv xvi xvii xviii xix xx xxi xxii xxiii xxiv xxv xxvi xxvii xxviii xxix xxx xxxi xxxii xxxiii xxxiv xxxv xxxvi xxxvii xxxviii xxxix xl xli xlii xliii xliv xlv xlvi xlvii xlviii xlix l li lii liii liv lv lvi 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316