[Footnote 1: This is the expression of Mark vi. 3; cf. Matt. xiii. 55. Mark did not know Joseph. John and Luke, on the contrary, prefer the expression "son of Joseph." Luke iii. 23, iv. 22; John i. 45, iv. 42.]

[Footnote 2: John ii. 1, iv. 46. John alone is informed on this point.]

[Footnote 3: I admit, as probable, the idea which identifies Cana of Galilee with Kana el Djelil. We may, nevertheless, attach value to the arguments for Kefr Kenna, a place an hour or an hour and a half's journey N.N.E. of Nazareth.]

[Footnote 4: Now El-Buttauf.]

[Footnote 5: John ii. 11, iv. 46. One or two disciples were of Cana, John xxi. 2; Matt. x. 4; Mark iii. 18.]

He followed the trade of his father, which was that of a carpenter.[1] This was not in any degree humiliating or grievous. The Jewish customs required that a man devoted to intellectual work should learn a trade. The most celebrated doctors did so;[2] thus St. Paul, whose education had been so carefully tended, was a tent-maker.[3] Jesus never married. All his power of love centred upon that which he regarded as his celestial vocation. The extremely delicate feeling toward women, which we remark in him, was not separated from the exclusive devotion which he had for his mission. Like Francis d'Assisi and Francis de Sales, he treated as sisters the women who were loved of the same work as himself; he had his St. Clare, his Frances de Chantal. It is, however, probable that these loved him more than the work; he was, no doubt, more beloved than loving. Thus, as often happens in very elevated natures, tenderness of the heart was transformed in him into an infinite sweetness, a vague poetry, and a universal charm. His relations, free and intimate, but of an entirely moral kind, with women of doubtful character, are also explained by the passion which attached him to the glory of his Father, and which made him jealously anxious for all beautiful creatures who could contribute to it.[4]

[Footnote 1: Mark vi. 3; Justin, Dial. cum Tryph., 88.]

[Footnote 2: For example, "Rabbi Johanan, the shoemaker, Rabbi Isaac, the blacksmith."]

[Footnote 3: Acts xviii. 3.]

[Footnote 4: Luke vii. 37, and following; John iv. 7, and following; viii. 3, and following.]

What was the progress of the ideas of Jesus during this obscure period of his life? Through what meditations did he enter upon the prophetic career? We have no information on these points, his history having come to us in scattered narratives, without exact chronology. But the development of character is everywhere the same; and there is no doubt that the growth of so powerful individuality as that of Jesus obeyed very rigorous laws. A high conception of the Divinity—which he did not owe to Judaism, and which seems to have been in all its parts the creation of his great mind—was in a manner the source of all his power. It is essential here that we put aside the ideas familiar to us, and the discussions in which little minds exhaust themselves. In order properly to understand the precise character of the piety of Jesus, we must forget all that is placed between the gospel and ourselves. Deism and Pantheism have become the two poles of theology. The paltry discussions of scholasticism, the dryness of spirit of Descartes, the deep-rooted irreligion of the eighteenth century, by lessening God, and by limiting Him, in a manner, by the exclusion of everything which is not His very self, have stifled in the breast of modern rationalism all fertile ideas of the Divinity. If God, in fact, is a personal being outside of us, he who believes himself to have peculiar relations with God is a "visionary," and as the physical and physiological sciences have shown us that all supernatural visions are illusions, the logical Deist finds it impossible to understand the great beliefs of the past. Pantheism, on the other hand, in suppressing the Divine personality, is as far as it can be from the living God of the ancient religions. Were the men who have best comprehended God—Cakya-Mouni, Plato, St. Paul, St. Francis d'Assisi, and St. Augustine (at some periods of his fluctuating life)—Deists or Pantheists? Such a question has no meaning. The physical and metaphysical proofs of the existence of God were quite indifferent to them. They felt the Divine within themselves. We must place Jesus in the first rank of this great family of the true sons of God. Jesus had no visions; God did not speak to him as to one outside of Himself; God was in him; he felt himself with God, and he drew from his heart all he said of his Father. He lived in the bosom of God by constant communication with Him; he saw Him not, but he understood Him, without need of the thunder and the burning bush of Moses, of the revealing tempest of Job, of the oracle of the old Greek sages, of the familiar genius of Socrates, or of the angel Gabriel of Mahomet. The imagination and the hallucination of a St. Theresa, for example, are useless here. The intoxication of the Soufi proclaiming himself identical with God is also quite another thing. Jesus never once gave utterance to the sacrilegious idea that he was God. He believed himself to be in direct communion with God; he believed himself to be the Son of God. The highest consciousness of God which has existed in the bosom of humanity was that of Jesus.

We understand, on the other hand, how Jesus, starting with such a disposition of spirit, could never be a speculative philosopher like Cakya-Mouni. Nothing is further from scholastic theology than the Gospel.[1] The speculations of the Greek fathers on the Divine essence proceed from an entirely different spirit. God, conceived simply as Father, was all the theology of Jesus. And this was not with him a theoretical principle, a doctrine more or less proved, which he sought to inculcate in others. He did not argue with his disciples;[2] he demanded from them no effort of attention. He did not preach his opinions; he preached himself. Very great and very disinterested minds often present, associated with much elevation, that character of perpetual attention to themselves, and extreme personal susceptibility, which, in general, is peculiar to women.[3] Their conviction that God is in them, and occupies Himself perpetually with them, is so strong, that they have no fear of obtruding themselves upon others; our reserve, and our respect for the opinion of others, which is a part of our weakness, could not belong to them. This exaltation of self is not egotism; for such men, possessed by their idea, give their lives freely, in order to seal their work; it is the identification of self with the object it has embraced, carried to its utmost limit. It is regarded as vain-glory by those who see in the new teaching only the personal phantasy of the founder; but it is the finger of God to those who see the result. The fool stands side by side here with the inspired man, only the fool never succeeds. It has not yet been given to insanity to influence seriously the progress of humanity.

[Footnote 1: The discourses which the fourth Gospel attributes to Jesus contain some germs of theology. But these discourses being in absolute contradiction with those of the synoptical Gospels, which represent, without any doubt, the primitive Logia, ought to count simply as documents of apostolic history, and not as elements of the life of Jesus.]

[Footnote 2: See Matt. ix. 9, and other analogous accounts.]

[Footnote 3: See, for example, John xxi. 15, and following.]

Doubtless, Jesus did not attain at first this high affirmation of himself. But it is probable that, from the first, he regarded his relationship with God as that of a son with his father. This was his great act of originality; in this he had nothing in common with his race.[1] Neither the Jew nor the Mussulman has understood this delightful theology of love. The God of Jesus is not that tyrannical master who kills us, damns us, or saves us, according to His pleasure. The God of Jesus is our Father. We hear Him in listening to the gentle inspiration which cries within us, "Abba, Father."[2] The God of Jesus is not the partial despot who has chosen Israel for His people, and specially protects them. He is the God of humanity. Jesus was not a patriot, like the Maccabees; or a theocrat, like Judas the Gaulonite. Boldly raising himself above the prejudices of his nation, he established the universal fatherhood of God. The Gaulonite maintained that we should die rather than give to another than God the name of "Master;" Jesus left this name to any one who liked to take it, and reserved for God a dearer name. Whilst he accorded to the powerful of the earth, who were to him representatives of force, a respect full of irony, he proclaimed the supreme consolation—the recourse to the Father which each one has in heaven—and the true kingdom of God, which each one bears in his heart.

[Footnote 1: The great soul of Philo is in sympathy here, as on so many other points, with that of Jesus. De Confus. Ling., Sec. 14; De Migr. Abr., Sec. 1; De Somniis, ii. Sec. 41; De Agric. Noe, Sec. 12; De Mutatione Nominum, Sec. 4. But Philo is scarcely a Jew in spirit.]

[Footnote 2: Galatians iv. 6.]

This name of "kingdom of God," or "kingdom of heaven,"[1] was the favorite term of Jesus to express the revolution which he brought into the world.[2] Like almost all the Messianic terms, it came from the book of Daniel. According to the author of this extraordinary book, the four profane empires, destined to fall, were to be succeeded by a fifth empire, that of the saints, which should last forever.[3] This reign of God upon earth naturally led to the most diverse interpretations. To Jewish theology, the "kingdom of God" is most frequently only Judaism itself—the true religion, the monotheistic worship, piety.[4] In the later periods of his life, Jesus believed that this reign would be realized in a material form by a sudden renovation of the world. But doubtless this was not his first idea.[5] The admirable moral which he draws from the idea of God as Father, is not that of enthusiasts who believe the world is near its end, and who prepare themselves by asceticism for a chimerical catastrophe; it is that of men who have lived, and still would live. "The kingdom of God is within you," said he to those who sought with subtlety for external signs.[6] The realistic conception of the Divine advent was but a cloud, a transient error, which his death has made us forget. The Jesus who founded the true kingdom of God, the kingdom of the meek and the humble, was the Jesus of early life[7]—of those chaste and pure days when the voice of his Father re-echoed within him in clearer tones. It was then for some months, perhaps a year, that God truly dwelt upon the earth. The voice of the young carpenter suddenly acquired an extraordinary sweetness. An infinite charm was exhaled from his person, and those who had seen him up to that time no longer recognized him.[8] He had not yet any disciples, and the group which gathered around him was neither a sect nor a school; but a common spirit, a sweet and penetrating influence was felt. His amiable character, accompanied doubtless by one of those lovely faces[9] which sometimes appear in the Jewish race, threw around him a fascination from which no one in the midst of these kindly and simple populations could escape.

[Footnote 1: The word "heaven" in the rabbinical language of that time is synonymous with the name of "God," which they avoided pronouncing. Compare Matt. xxi. 25; Luke xv. 18, xx. 4.]

[Footnote 2: This expression occurs on each page of the synoptical Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and St. Paul. If it only appears once in John (iii. 3, 5), it is because the discourses related in the fourth Gospel are far from representing the true words of Jesus.]

[Footnote 3: Dan. ii. 44, vii. 13, 14, 22, 27.]

[Footnote 4: Mishnah, Berakoth, ii. 1, 3; Talmud of Jerusalem, Berakoth, ii. 2; Kiddushin, i. 2; Talm. of Bab., Berakoth, 15 a; Mekilta, 42 b; Siphra, 170 b. The expression appears often in the Medrashim.]

[Footnote 5: Matt. vi. 33, xii. 28, xix. 12; Mark xii. 34; Luke xii. 31.]

[Footnote 6: Luke xvii. 20, 21.]

[Footnote 7: The grand theory of the revelation of the Son of Man is in fact reserved, in the synoptics, for the chapters which precede the narrative of the Passion. The first discourses, especially in Matthew, are entirely moral.]

[Footnote 8: Matt. xiii. 54 and following; Mark vi. 2 and following; John v. 43.]

[Footnote 9: The tradition of the plainness of Jesus (Justin, Dial. cum Tryph., 85, 88, 100) springs from a desire to see realized in him a pretended Messianic trait (Isa. liii. 2).]

Paradise would, in fact, have been brought to earth if the ideas of the young Master had not far transcended the level of ordinary goodness beyond which it has not been found possible to raise the human race. The brotherhood of men, as sons of God, and the moral consequences which result therefrom, were deduced with exquisite feeling. Like all the rabbis of the time, Jesus was little inclined toward consecutive reasonings, and clothed his doctrine in concise aphorisms, and in an expressive form, at times enigmatical and strange.[1] Some of these maxims come from the books of the Old Testament. Others were the thoughts of more modern sages, especially those of Antigonus of Soco, Jesus, son of Sirach, and Hillel, which had reached him, not from learned study, but as oft-repeated proverbs. The synagogue was rich in very happily expressed sentences, which formed a kind of current proverbial literature.[2] Jesus adopted almost all this oral teaching, but imbued it with a superior spirit.[3] Exceeding the duties laid down by the Law and the elders, he demanded perfection. All the virtues of humility—forgiveness, charity, abnegation, and self-denial—virtues which with good reason have been called Christian, if we mean by that that they have been truly preached by Christ, were in this first teaching, though undeveloped. As to justice, he was content with repeating the well-known axiom—"Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."[4] But this old, though somewhat selfish wisdom, did not satisfy him. He went to excess, and said—"Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also."[5] "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee."[6] "Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, pray for them that persecute you."[7] "Judge not, that ye be not judged."[8] "Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven."[9] "Be ye therefore merciful as your Father also is merciful."[10] "It is more blessed to give than to receive."[11] "Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted."[12]

[Footnote 1: The Logia of St. Matthew joins several of these axioms together, to form lengthened discourses. But the fragmentary form makes itself felt notwithstanding.]

[Footnote 2: The sentences of the Jewish doctors of the time are collected in the little book entitled, Pirke Aboth.]

[Footnote 3: The comparisons will be made afterward as they present themselves. It has been sometimes supposed that—the compilation of the Talmud being later than that of the Gospels—parts may have been borrowed by the Jewish compilers from the Christian morality. But this is inadmissible—a wall of separation existed between the Church and the Synagogue. The Christian and Jewish literature had scarcely any influence on one another before the thirteenth century.]

[Footnote 4: Matt. vii. 12; Luke vi. 31. This axiom is in the book of Tobit, iv. 16. Hillel used it habitually (Talm. of Bab., Shabbath, 31 a), and declared, like Jesus, that it was the sum of the Law.]

[Footnote 5: Matt. v. 39, and following; Luke vi. 29. Compare Jeremiah, Lamentations iii. 30.]

[Footnote 6: Matt. v. 29, 30, xviii. 9; Mark ix. 46.]

[Footnote 7: Matt. v. 44; Luke vi. 27. Compare Talmud of Babylon, Shabbath, 88 b; Joma, 23 a.]

[Footnote 8: Matt. vii. 1; Luke vi. 37. Compare Talmud of Babylon, Kethuboth, 105 b.]

[Footnote 9: Luke vi. 37. Compare Lev. xix. 18; Prov. xx. 22; Ecclesiasticus xxviii. 1, and following.]

[Footnote 10: Luke vi. 36; Siphre, 51 b (Sultzbach, 1802).]

[Footnote 11: A saying related in Acts xx. 35.]

[Footnote 12: Matt. xxiii. 12; Luke xiv. 11, xviii. 14. The sentences quoted by St. Jerome from the "Gospel according to the Hebrews" (Comment. in Epist. ad Ephes., v. 4; in Ezek. xviii.; Dial. adv. Pelag., iii. 2), are imbued with the same spirit.]

Upon alms, pity, good works, kindness, peacefulness, and complete disinterestedness of heart, he had little to add to the doctrine of the synagogue.[1] But he placed upon them an emphasis full of unction, which made the old maxims appear new. Morality is not composed of more or less well-expressed principles. The poetry which makes the precept loved, is more than the precept itself, taken as an abstract truth. Now it cannot be denied that these maxims borrowed by Jesus from his predecessors, produce quite a different effect in the Gospel to that in the ancient Law, in the Pirke Aboth, or in the Talmud. It is neither the ancient Law nor the Talmud which has conquered and changed the world. Little original in itself—if we mean by that that one might recompose it almost entirely by the aid of older maxims—the morality of the Gospels remains, nevertheless, the highest creation of human conscience—the most beautiful code of perfect life that any moralist has traced.

[Footnote 1: Deut. xxiv., xxv., xxvi., &c.; Isa. lviii. 7; Prov. xix. 17; Pirke Aboth, i.; Talmud of Jerusalem, Peah, i. 1; Talmud of Babylon, Shabbath, 63 a.]

Jesus did not speak against the Mosaic law, but it is clear that he saw its insufficiency, and allowed it to be seen that he did so. He repeated unceasingly that more must be done than the ancient sages had commanded.[1] He forbade the least harsh word;[2] he prohibited divorce,[3] and all swearing;[4] he censured revenge;[5] he condemned usury;[6] he considered voluptuous desire as criminal as adultery;[7] he insisted upon a universal forgiveness of injuries.[8] The motive on which he rested these maxims of exalted charity was always the same.... "That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."[9]

[Footnote 1: Matt. v. 20, and following.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. v. 22.]

[Footnote 3: Matt. v. 31, and following. Compare Talmud of Babylon, Sanhedrim, 22 a.]

[Footnote 4: Matt. v. 33, and following.]

[Footnote 5: Matt. v. 38, and following.]

[Footnote 6: Matt. v. 42. The Law prohibited it also (Deut. xv. 7, 8), but less formally, and custom authorized it (Luke vii. 41, and following).]

[Footnote 7: Matt. xxvii. 28. Compare Talmud, Masseket Kalla (edit. Fuerth, 1793), fol. 34 b.]

[Footnote 8: Matt. v. 23, and following.]

[Footnote 9: Matt. v. 45, and following. Compare Lev. xi. 44, xix. 2.]

A pure worship, a religion without priests and external observances, resting entirely on the feelings of the heart, on the imitation of God,[1] on the direct relation of the conscience with the heavenly Father, was the result of these principles. Jesus never shrank from this bold conclusion, which made him a thorough revolutionist in the very centre of Judaism. Why should there be mediators between man and his Father? As God only sees the heart, of what good are these purifications, these observances relating only to the body?[2] Even tradition, a thing so sacred to the Jews, is nothing compared to sincerity.[3] The hypocrisy of the Pharisees, who, in praying, turned their heads to see if they were observed, who gave their alms with ostentation, and put marks upon their garments, that they might be recognized as pious persons—all these grimaces of false devotion disgusted him. "They have their recompense," said he; "but thou, when thou doest thine alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, that thy alms may be in secret, and thy Father, which seeth in secret, Himself shall reward thee openly."[4] "And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues, and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet; and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask Him."[5]

[Footnote 1: Compare Philo, De Migr. Abr., Sec. 23 and 24; De Vita Contemp., the whole.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. xv. 11, and following; Mark vii. 6, and following.]

[Footnote 3: Mark vii. 6, and following.]

[Footnote 4: Matt. vi. 1, and following. Compare Ecclesiasticus xvii. 18, xxix. 15; Talm. of Bab., Chagigah, 5 a; Baba Bathra, 9 b.]

[Footnote 5: Matt. vi. 5-8.]

He did not affect any external signs of asceticism, contenting himself with praying, or rather meditating, upon the mountains, and in the solitary places, where man has always sought God.[1] This high idea of the relations of man with God, of which so few minds, even after him, have been capable, is summed up in a prayer which he taught to his disciples:[2]

[Footnote 1: Matt. xiv. 23; Luke iv. 42, v. 16, vi. 12.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. vi. 9, and following; Luke xi. 2, and following.]

"Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation; deliver us from the evil one."[1] He insisted particularly upon the idea, that the heavenly Father knows better than we what we need, and that we almost sin against Him in asking Him for this or that particular thing.[2]

[Footnote 1: i.e., the devil.]

[Footnote 2: Luke xi. 5, and following.]

Jesus in this only carried out the consequences of the great principles which Judaism had established, but which the official classes of the nation tended more and more to despise. The Greek and Roman prayers were almost always mere egotistical verbiage. Never had Pagan priest said to the faithful, "If thou bring thy offering to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled with thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift."[1] Alone in antiquity, the Jewish prophets, especially Isaiah, had, in their antipathy to the priesthood, caught a glimpse of the true nature of the worship man owes to God. "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats.... Incense is an abomination unto me: for your hands are full of blood; cease to do evil, learn to do well, seek judgment, and then come."[2] In later times, certain doctors, Simeon the just,[3] Jesus, son of Sirach,[4] Hillel,[5] almost reached this point, and declared that the sum of the Law was righteousness. Philo, in the Judaeo-Egyptian world, attained at the same time as Jesus ideas of a high moral sanctity, the consequence of which was the disregard of the observances of the Law.[6] Shemaia and Abtalion also more than once proved themselves to be very liberal casuists.[7] Rabbi Johanan ere long placed works of mercy above even the study of the Law![8] Jesus alone, however, proclaimed these principles in an effective manner. Never has any one been less a priest than Jesus, never a greater enemy of forms, which stifle religion under the pretext of protecting it. By this we are all his disciples and his successors; by this he has laid the eternal foundation-stone of true religion; and if religion is essential to humanity, he has by this deserved the Divine rank the world has accorded to him. An absolutely new idea, the idea of a worship founded on purity of heart, and on human brotherhood, through him entered into the world—an idea so elevated, that the Christian Church ought to make it its distinguishing feature, but an idea which, in our days, only few minds are capable of embodying.

[Footnote 1: Matt. v. 23, 24.]

[Footnote 2: Isaiah i. 11, and following. Compare ibid., lviii. entirely; Hosea vi. 6; Malachi i. 10, and following.]

[Footnote 3: Pirke Aboth, i. 2.]

[Footnote 4: Ecclesiasticus xxxv. 1, and following.]

[Footnote 5: Talm. of Jerus., Pesachim, vi. 1. Talm. of Bab., the same treatise 66 a; Shabbath, 31 a.]

[Footnote 6: Quod Deus Immut., Sec. 1 and 2; De Abrahamo, Sec. 22; Quis Rerum Divin. Haeres, Sec. 13, and following; 55, 58, and following; De Profugis, Sec. 7 and 8; Quod Omnis Probus Liber, entirely; De Vita Contemp., entirely.]

[Footnote 7: Talm. of Bab., Pesachim, 67 b.]

[Footnote 8: Talmud of Jerus., Peah, i. 1.]

An exquisite sympathy with Nature furnished him each moment with expressive images. Sometimes a remarkable ingenuity, which we call wit, adorned his aphorisms; at other times, their liveliness consisted in the happy use of popular proverbs. "How wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then thou shalt see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."[1]

[Footnote 1: Matt. vii. 4, 5. Compare Talmud of Babylon, Baba Bathra, 15 b, Erachin, 16 b.]

These lessons, long hidden in the heart of the young Master, soon gathered around him a few disciples. The spirit of the time favored small churches; it was the period of the Essenes or Therapeutae. Rabbis, each having his distinctive teaching, Shemaia, Abtalion, Hillel, Shammai, Judas the Gaulonite, Gamaliel, and many others, whose maxims form the Talmud,[1] appeared on all sides. They wrote very little; the Jewish doctors of this time did not write books; everything was done by conversations, and in public lessons, to which it was sought to give a form easily remembered.[2] The proclamation by the young carpenter of Nazareth of these maxims, for the most part already generally known, but which, thanks to him, were to regenerate the world, was therefore no striking event. It was only one rabbi more (it is true, the most charming of all), and around him some young men, eager to hear him, and thirsting for knowledge. It requires time to command the attention of men. As yet there were no Christians; though true Christianity was founded, and, doubtless, it was never more perfect than at this first period. Jesus added to it nothing durable afterward. Indeed, in one sense, he compromised it; for every movement, in order to triumph, must make sacrifices; we never come from the contest of life unscathed.

[Footnote 1: See especially Pirke Aboth, ch. i.]

[Footnote 2: The Talmud, a resume of this vast movement of the schools, was scarcely commenced till the second century of our era.]

To conceive the good, in fact, is not sufficient; it must be made to succeed amongst men. To accomplish this, less pure paths must be followed. Certainly, if the Gospel was confined to some chapters of Matthew and Luke, it would be more perfect, and would not now be open to so many objections; but would Jesus have converted the world without miracles? If he had died at the period of his career we have now reached, there would not have been in his life a single page to wound us; but, greater in the eyes of God, he would have remained unknown to men; he would have been lost in the crowd of great unknown spirits, himself the greatest of all; the truth would not have been promulgated, and the world would not have profited from the great moral superiority with which his Father had endowed him. Jesus, son of Sirach, and Hillel, had uttered aphorisms almost as exalted as those of Jesus. Hillel, however, will never be accounted the true founder of Christianity. In morals, as in art, precept is nothing, practice is everything. The idea which is hidden in a picture of Raphael is of little moment; it is the picture itself which is prized. So, too, in morals, truth is but little prized when it is a mere sentiment, and only attains its full value when realized in the world as fact. Men of indifferent morality have written very good maxims. Very virtuous men, on the other hand, have done nothing to perpetuate in the world the tradition of virtue. The palm is his who has been mighty both in words and in works, who has discerned the good, and at the price of his blood has caused its triumph. Jesus, from this double point of view, is without equal; his glory remains entire, and will ever be renewed.



CHAPTER VI.

JOHN THE BAPTIST—VISIT OF JESUS TO JOHN, AND HIS ABODE IN THE DESERT OF JUDEA—ADOPTION OF THE BAPTISM OF JOHN.

An extraordinary man, whose position, from the absence of documentary evidence, remains to us in some degree enigmatical, appeared about this time, and was unquestionably to some extent connected with Jesus. This connection tended rather to make the young prophet of Nazareth deviate from his path; but it suggested many important accessories to his religious institution, and, at all events, furnished a very strong authority to his disciples in recommending their Master in the eyes of a certain class of Jews.

About the year 28 of our era (the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius) there spread throughout Palestine the reputation of a certain Johanan, or John, a young ascetic full of zeal and enthusiasm. John was of the priestly race,[1] and born, it seems, at Juttah near Hebron, or at Hebron itself.[2] Hebron, the patriarchal city par excellence, situated at a short distance from the desert of Judea, and within a few hours' journey of the great desert of Arabia, was at this period what it is to-day—one of the bulwarks of Semitic ideas, in their most austere form. From his infancy, John was Nazir—that is to say, subjected by vow to certain abstinences.[3] The desert by which he was, so to speak, surrounded, early attracted him.[4] He led there the life of a Yogi of India, clothed with skins or stuffs of camel's hair, having for food only locusts and wild honey.[5] A certain number of disciples were grouped around him, sharing his life and studying his severe doctrine. We might imagine ourselves transported to the banks of the Ganges, if particular traits had not revealed in this recluse the last descendant of the great prophets of Israel.

[Footnote 1: Luke i. 5; passage from the Gospel of the Ebionites, preserved by Epiphanius, (Adv. Haer., xxx. 13.)]

[Footnote 2: Luke i. 39. It has been suggested, not without probability, that "the city of Juda" mentioned in this passage of Luke, is the town of Jutta (Josh. xv. 55, xxi. 16). Robinson (Biblical Researches, i. 494, ii. 206) has discovered this Jutta, still bearing the same name, at two hours' journey south of Hebron.]

[Footnote 3: Luke i. 15.]

[Footnote 4: Luke i. 80.]

[Footnote 5: Matt. iii. 4; Mark i. 6; fragm. of the Gospel of the Ebionites, in Epiph., Adv. Haer., xxx. 13.]

From the time that the Jewish nation had begun to reflect upon its destiny with a kind of despair, the imagination of the people had reverted with much complacency to the ancient prophets. Now, of all the personages of the past, the remembrance of whom came like the dreams of a troubled night to awaken and agitate the people, the greatest was Elias. This giant of the prophets, in his rough solitude of Carmel, sharing the life of savage beasts, dwelling in the hollows of the rocks, whence he came like a thunderbolt, to make and unmake kings, had become, by successive transformations, a sort of superhuman being, sometimes visible, sometimes invisible, and as one who had not tasted death. It was generally believed that Elias would return and restore Israel.[1] The austere life which he had led, the terrible remembrances he had left behind him—the impression of which is still powerful in the East[2]—the sombre image which, even in our own time, causes trembling and death—all this mythology, full of vengeance and terror, vividly struck the mind of the people, and stamped as with a birth-mark all the creations of the popular mind. Whoever aspired to act powerfully upon the people, must imitate Elias; and, as solitary life had been the essential characteristic of this prophet, they were accustomed to conceive "the man of God" as a hermit. They imagined that all the holy personages had had their days of penitence, of solitude, and of austerity.[3] The retreat to the desert thus became the condition and the prelude of high destinies.

[Footnote 1: Malachi iv. 5, 6; (iii. 23, 24, according to the Vulg.); Ecclesiasticus xlviii. 10; Matt. xvi. 14, xvii. 10, and following; Mark vi. 15, viii. 28, ix. 10, and following; Luke ix. 8, 19; John i. 21, 25.]

[Footnote 2: The ferocious Abdallah, pacha of St. Jean d'Acre, nearly died from fright at seeing him in a dream, standing erect on his mountain. In the pictures of the Christian churches, he is surrounded with decapitated heads. The Mussulmans dread him.]

[Footnote 3: Isaiah ii. 9-11.]

No doubt this thought of imitation had occupied John's mind.[1] The anchorite life, so opposed to the spirit of the ancient Jewish people, and with which the vows, such as those of the Nazirs and the Rechabites, had no relation, pervaded all parts of Judea. The Essenes or Therapeutae were grouped near the birthplace of John, on the eastern shores of the Dead Sea.[2] It was imagined that the chiefs of sects ought to be recluses, having rules and institutions of their own, like the founders of religious orders. The teachers of the young were also at times species of anchorites,[3] somewhat resembling the gourous[4] of Brahminism. In fact, might there not in this be a remote influence of the mounis of India? Perhaps some of those wandering Buddhist monks who overran the world, as the first Franciscans did in later times, preaching by their actions and converting people who knew not their language, might have turned their steps toward Judea, as they certainly did toward Syria and Babylon?[5] On this point we have no certainty. Babylon had become for some time a true focus of Buddhism. Boudasp (Bodhisattva) was reputed a wise Chaldean, and the founder of Sabeism. Sabeism was, as its etymology indicates,[6] baptism—that is to say, the religion of many baptisms—the origin of the sect still existing called "Christians of St. John," or Mendaites, which the Arabs call el-Mogtasila, "the Baptists."[7] It is difficult to unravel these vague analogies. The sects floating between Judaism, Christianity, Baptism, and Sabeism, which we find in the region beyond the Jordan during the first centuries of our era,[8] present to criticism the most singular problem, in consequence of the confused accounts of them which have come down to us. We may believe, at all events, that many of the external practices of John, of the Essenes,[9] and of the Jewish spiritual teachers of this time, were derived from influences then but recently received from the far East. The fundamental practice which characterized the sect of John, and gave it its name, has always had its centre in lower Chaldea, and constitutes a religion which is perpetuated there to the present day.

[Footnote 1: Luke i. 17.]

[Footnote 2: Pliny, Hist. Nat., v. 17; Epiph., Adv. Haer., xix. 1 and 2.]

[Footnote 3: Josephus, Vita, 2.]

[Footnote 4: Spiritual preceptors.]

[Footnote 5: I have developed this point elsewhere. Hist. Gener. des Langues Semitiques, III. iv. 1; Journ. Asiat., February-March, 1856.]

[Footnote 6: The Aramean word seba, origin of the name of Sabians, is synonymous with [Greek: baptizo].]

[Footnote 7: I have treated of this at greater length in the Journal Asiatique, Nov.-Dec., 1853, and August-Sept., 1855. It is remarkable that the Elchasaites, a Sabian or Baptist sect, inhabited the same district as the Essenes, (the eastern bank of the Dead Sea), and were confounded with them (Epiph., Adv. Haer., xix. 1, 2, 4, xxx. 16, 17, liii. 1, 2; Philosophumena, IX. iii. 15, 16, X. xx. 29).]

[Footnote 8: See the remarks of Epiphanius on the Essenes, Hemero-Baptists, Nazarites, Ossenes, Nazarenes, Ebionites, Samsonites (Adv. Haer., books i. and ii.), and those of the author of the Philosophumena on the Elchasaites (books ix. and x).]

[Footnote 9: Epiph., Adv. Haer., xix., xxx., liii.]

This practice was baptism, or total immersion. Ablutions were already familiar to the Jews, as they were to all religions of the East.[1] The Essenes had given them a peculiar extension.[2] Baptism had become an ordinary ceremony on the introduction of proselytes into the bosom of the Jewish religion, a sort of initiatory rite.[3] Never before John the Baptist, however, had either this importance or this form been given to immersion. John had fixed the scene of his activity in that part of the desert of Judea which is in the neighborhood of the Dead Sea.[4] At the periods when he administered baptism, he went to the banks of the Jordan,[5] either to Bethany or Bethabara,[6] upon the eastern shore, probably opposite to Jericho, or to a place called AEnon, or "the Fountains,"[7] near Salim, where there was much water.[8] Considerable crowds, especially of the tribe of Judah, hastened to him to be baptized.[9] In a few months he thus became one of the most influential men in Judea, and acquired much importance in the general estimation.

[Footnote 1: Mark vii. 4; Jos., Ant., XVIII. v. 2; Justin, Dial. cum Tryph., 17, 29, 80; Epiph., Adv. Haer., xvii.]

[Footnote 2: Jos., B.J., II. viii. 5, 7, 9, 13.]

[Footnote 3: Mishnah, Pesachim, viii. 8; Talmud of Babylon, Jebamoth, 46 b; Kerithuth, 9 a; Aboda Zara, 57 a; Masseket Gerim (edit. Kirchheim, 1851), pp. 38-40.]

[Footnote 4: Matt. iii. 1; Mark i. 4.]

[Footnote 5: Luke iii. 3.]

[Footnote 6: John i. 28, iii. 26. All the manuscripts say Bethany; but, as no one knows of Bethany in these places, Origen (Comment. in Joann., vi. 24) has proposed to substitute Bethabara, and his correction has been generally accepted. The two words have, moreover, analogous meanings, and seem to indicate a place where there was a ferry-boat to cross the river.]

[Footnote 7: AEnon is the Chaldean plural, AEnawan, "fountains."]

[Footnote 8: John iii. 23. The locality of this place is doubtful. The circumstance mentioned by the evangelist would lead us to believe that it was not very near the Jordan. Nevertheless, the synoptics are agreed in placing the scene of the baptisms of John on the banks of that river (Matt. iii. 6; Mark i. 5; Luke iii. 3). The comparison of verses 22 and 23 of chap. iii. of John, and of verses 3 and 4 of chap. iv. of the same Gospel, would lead us to believe that Salim was in Judea, and consequently in the oasis of Jericho, near the mouth of the Jordan; since it would be difficult to find in any other district of the tribe of Judah a single natural basin in which any one might be totally immersed. Saint Jerome wishes to place Salim much more north, near Beth-Schean or Scythopolis. But Robinson (Bibl. Res., iii. 333) has not been able to find anything at these places that justifies this assertion.]

[Footnote 9: Mark i. 5; Josephus, Ant., XVIII. v. 2.]

The people took him for a prophet,[1] and many imagined that it was Elias who had risen again.[2] The belief in these resurrections was widely spread;[3] it was thought that God would raise from the tomb certain of the ancient prophets to guide Israel toward its final destiny. Others held John to be the Messiah himself, although he made no such pretensions.[4] The priests and the scribes, opposed to this revival of prophetism, and the constant enemies of enthusiasts, despised him. But the popularity of the Baptist awed them, and they dared not speak against him.[5] It was a victory which the ideas of the multitude gained over the priestly aristocracy. When the chief priests were compelled to declare themselves explicitly on this point, they were considerably embarrassed.[6]

[Footnote 1: Matt. xiv. 5, xxi. 26.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. vi. 14; Mark vi. 15; John i. 21.]

[Footnote 3: Matt. xiv. 2; Luke ix. 8.]

[Footnote 4: Luke iii. 15, and following; John i. 20.]

[Footnote 5: Matt. xxi. 25, and following; Luke vii. 30.]

[Footnote 6: Matt., loc. cit.]

Baptism with John was only a sign destined to make an impression, and to prepare the minds of the people for some great movement. No doubt he was possessed in the highest degree with the Messianic hope, and that his principal action was in accordance with it. "Repent," said he, "for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."[1] He announced a "great wrath," that is to say, terrible calamities which should come to pass,[2] and declared that the axe was already laid at the root of the tree, and that the tree would soon be cast into the fire. He represented the Messiah with a fan in his hand, collecting the good wheat and burning the chaff. Repentance, of which baptism was the type, the giving of alms, the reformation of habits,[3] were in John's view the great means of preparation for the coming events, though we do not know exactly in what light he conceived them. It is, however, certain that he preached with much power against the same adversaries as Jesus, against rich priests, the Pharisees, the doctors, in one word, against official Judaism; and that, like Jesus, he was specially welcomed by the despised classes.[4] He made no account of the title "son of Abraham," and said that God could raise up sons unto Abraham from the stones of the road.[5] It does not seem that he possessed even the germ of the great idea which led to the triumph of Jesus, the idea of a pure religion; but he powerfully served this idea in substituting a private rite for the legal ceremonies which required priests, as the Flagellants of the Middle Ages were the precursors of the Reformation, by depriving the official clergy of the monopoly of the sacraments and of absolution. The general tone of his sermons was stern and severe. The expressions which he used against his adversaries appear to have been most violent.[6] It was a harsh and continuous invective. It is probable that he did not remain quite a stranger to politics. Josephus, who, through his teacher Banou, was brought into almost direct connection with John, suggests as much by his ambiguous words,[7] and the catastrophe which put an end to John's life seems to imply this. His disciples led a very austere life,[8] fasted often, and affected a sad and anxious demeanor. We have at times glimpses of communism—the rich man being ordered to share all that he had with the poor.[9] The poor man appeared as the one who would be specially benefited by the kingdom of God.

[Footnote 1: Matt. iii. 2.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. iii. 7.]

[Footnote 3: Luke iii. 11-14; Josephus, Ant. XVIII. v. 2.]

[Footnote 4: Matt. xxi. 32; Luke iii. 12-14.]

[Footnote 5: Matt. iii. 9.]

[Footnote 6: Matt. iii. 7; Luke iii. 7.]

[Footnote 7: Ant. XVIII. v. 2. We must observe that, when Josephus described the secret and more or less seditious doctrines of his countrymen, he suppressed everything which had reference to the Messianic beliefs, and, in order not to give umbrage to the Romans, spread over these doctrines a vulgar and commonplace air, which made all the heads of Jewish sects appear as mere professors of morals or stoics.]

[Footnote 8: Matt. ix. 14.]

[Footnote 9: Luke iii. 11.]

Although the centre of John's action was Judea, his fame quickly penetrated to Galilee and reached Jesus, who, by his first discourses, had already gathered around himself a small circle of hearers. Enjoying as yet little authority, and doubtless impelled by the desire to see a teacher whose instruction had so much in common with his own, Jesus quitted Galilee and repaired with his small group of disciples to John.[1] The newcomers were baptized like every one else. John welcomed this group of Galilean disciples, and did not object to their remaining distinct from his own. The two teachers were young; they had many ideas in common; they loved one another, and publicly vied with each other in exhibitions of kindly feeling. At the first glance, such a fact surprises us in John the Baptist, and we are tempted to call it in question. Humility has never been a feature of strong Jewish minds. It might have been expected that a character so stubborn, a sort of Lamennais always irritated, would be very passionate, and suffer neither rivalry nor half adhesion. But this manner of viewing things rests upon a false conception of the person of John. We imagine him an old man; he was, on the contrary, of the same age as Jesus,[2] and very young according to the ideas of the time. In mental development, he was the brother rather than the father of Jesus. The two young enthusiasts, full of the same hopes and the same hatreds, were able to make common cause, and mutually to support each other. Certainly an aged teacher, seeing a man without celebrity approach him, and maintain toward him an aspect of independence, would have rebelled; we have scarcely an example of a leader of a school receiving with eagerness his future successor. But youth is capable of any sacrifice, and we may admit that John, having recognized in Jesus a spirit akin to his own, accepted him without any personal reservation. These good relations became afterward the starting-point of a whole system developed by the evangelists, which consisted in giving the Divine mission of Jesus the primary basis of the attestation of John. Such was the degree of authority acquired by the Baptist, that it was not thought possible to find in the world a better guarantee. But far from John abdicating in favor of Jesus, Jesus, during all the time that he passed with him, recognized him as his superior, and only developed his own genius with timidity.

[Footnote 1: Matt. iii. 13, and following; Mark i. 9, and following; Luke iii. 21, and following; John i. 29, and following; iii. 22, and following. The synoptics make Jesus come to John, before he had played any public part. But if it is true, as they state, that John recognized Jesus from the first and welcomed him, it must be supposed that Jesus was already a somewhat renowned teacher. The fourth Gospel brings Jesus to John twice, the first time while yet unknown, the second time with a band of disciples. Without touching here the question of the precise journeys of Jesus (an insoluble question, seeing the contradictions of the documents and the little care the evangelists had in being exact in such matters), and without denying that Jesus might have made a journey to John when he had as yet no notoriety, we adopt the information furnished by the fourth Gospel (iii. 22, and following), namely, that Jesus, before beginning to baptize like John, had formed a school. We must remember, besides, that the first pages of the fourth Gospel are notes tacked together without rigorous chronological arrangement.]

[Footnote 2: Luke i., although indeed all the details of the narrative, especially those which refer to the relationship of John with Jesus, are legendary.]

It seems, in fact, that, notwithstanding his profound originality, Jesus, during some weeks at least, was the imitator of John. His way as yet was not clear before him. At all times, moreover, Jesus yielded much to opinion, and adopted many things which were not in exact accordance with his own ideas, or for which he cared little, merely because they were popular; but these accessories never injured his principal idea, and were always subordinate to it. Baptism had been brought by John into very great favor; Jesus thought himself obliged to do like John; therefore he baptized, and his disciples baptized also.[1] No doubt he accompanied baptism with preaching, similar to that of John. The Jordan was thus covered on all sides with Baptists, whose discourses were more or less successful. The pupil soon equaled the master, and his baptism was much sought after. There was on this subject some jealousy among the disciples;[2] the disciples of John came to complain to him of the growing success of the young Galilean, whose baptism would, they thought, soon supplant his own. But the two teachers remained superior to this meanness. The superiority of John was, besides, too indisputable for Jesus, still little known, to think of contesting it. Jesus only wished to increase under John's protection; and thought himself obliged, in order to gain the multitude, to employ the external means which had given John such astonishing success. When he recommenced to preach after John's arrest, the first words put into his mouth are but the repetition of one of the familiar phrases of the Baptist.[3] Many other of John's expressions may be found repeated verbally in the discourses of Jesus.[4] The two schools appear to have lived long on good terms with each other;[5] and after the death of John, Jesus, as his trusty friend, was one of the first to be informed of the event.[6]

[Footnote 1: John iii. 22-26, iv. 1, 2. The parenthesis of ver. 2 appears to be an interpolation, or perhaps a tardy scruple of John correcting himself.]

[Footnote 2: John iii. 26, iv. 1.]

[Footnote 3: Matt. iii. 2, iv. 17.]

[Footnote 4: Matt. iii. 7, xii. 34, xxiii. 33.]

[Footnote 5: Matt. xi. 2-13.]

[Footnote 6: Matt. xiv. 12.]

John, in fact, was soon cut short in his prophetic career. Like the ancient Jewish prophets, he was, in the highest degree, a censurer of the established authorities.[1] The extreme vivacity with which he expressed himself at their expense could not fail to bring him into trouble. In Judea, John does not appear to have been disturbed by Pilate; but in Perea, beyond the Jordan, he came into the territory of Antipas. This tyrant was uneasy at the political leaven which was so little concealed by John in his preaching. The great assemblages of men gathered around the Baptist, by religious and patriotic enthusiasm, gave rise to suspicion.[2] An entirely personal grievance was also added to these motives of state, and rendered the death of the austere censor inevitable.

[Footnote 1: Luke iii. 19.]

[Footnote 2: Jos., Ant., XVIII. v. 2.]

One of the most strongly marked characters of this tragical family of the Herods was Herodias, granddaughter of Herod the Great. Violent, ambitious, and passionate, she detested Judaism, and despised its laws.[1] She had been married, probably against her will, to her uncle Herod, son of Mariamne,[2] whom Herod the Great had disinherited,[3] and who never played any public part. The inferior position of her husband, in respect to the other persons of the family, gave her no peace; she determined to be sovereign at whatever cost.[4] Antipas was the instrument of whom she made use. This feeble man having become desperately enamored of her, promised to marry her, and to repudiate his first wife, daughter of Hareth, king of Petra, and emir of the neighboring tribes of Perea. The Arabian princess, receiving a hint of this design, resolved to fly. Concealing her intention, she pretended that she wished to make a journey to Machero, in her father's territory, and caused herself to be conducted thither by the officers of Antipas.[5]

[Footnote 1: Jos., Ant., XVIII. v. 4.]

[Footnote 2: Matthew (chap. xiv. 3, in the Greek text) and Mark (chap. vi. 17) have it that this was Philip; but this is certainly an inadvertency (see Jos., Ant., XVIII. v. 1, 4). The wife of Philip was Salome, daughter of Herodias.]

[Footnote 3: Jos., Ant., XVIII. iv. 2.]

[Footnote 4: Ibid., XVIII. vii. 1, 2, B.J., II. ix. 6.]

[Footnote 5: Ibid., XVIII. v. 1.]

Makaur,[1] or Machero, was a colossal fortress built by Alexander Jannaeus, and rebuilt by Herod, in one of the most abrupt wadys to the east of the Dead Sea.[2] It was a wild and desolate country, filled with strange legends, and believed to be haunted by demons.[3] The fortress was just on the boundary of the lands of Hareth and of Antipas. At that time it was in the possession of Hareth.[4] The latter having been warned, had prepared everything for the flight of his daughter, who was conducted from tribe to tribe to Petra.

[Footnote 1: This form is found in the Talmud of Jerusalem (Shebiit, ix. 2), and in the Targums of Jonathan and of Jerusalem (Numb. xxii. 35).]

[Footnote 2: Now Mkaur, in the wady Zerka Main. This place has not been visited since Seetzen was there.]

[Footnote 3: Josephus, De Bell. Jud., VII. vi. 1, and following.]

[Footnote 4: Jos., Ant., XVIII. v. 1.]

The almost incestuous[1] union of Antipas and Herodias then took place. The Jewish laws on marriage were a constant rock of offence between the irreligious family of the Herods and the strict Jews.[2] The members of this numerous and rather isolated dynasty being obliged to marry amongst themselves, frequent violations of the limits prescribed by the Law necessarily took place. John, in energetically blaming Antipas, was the echo of the general feeling.[3] This was more than sufficient to decide the latter to follow up his suspicions. He caused the Baptist to be arrested, and ordered him to be shut up in the fortress of Machero, which he had probably seized after the departure of the daughter of Hareth.[4]

[Footnote 1: Lev. xviii. 16.]

[Footnote 2: Jos., Ant., XV. vii. 10.]

[Footnote 3: Matt. xiv. 4; Mark vi. 18; Luke iii. 19.]

[Footnote 4: Jos., Ant., XVIII. v. 2.]

More timid than cruel, Antipas did not desire to put him to death. According to certain rumors, he feared a popular sedition.[1] According to another version,[2] he had taken pleasure in listening to the prisoner, and these conversations had thrown him into great perplexities. It is certain that the detention was prolonged, and that John, in his prison, preserved an extended influence. He corresponded with his disciples, and we find him again in connection with Jesus. His faith in the near approach of the Messiah only became firmer; he followed with attention the movements outside, and sought to discover in them the signs favorable to the accomplishment of the hopes which he cherished.

[Footnote 1: Matt. xiv. 5.]

[Footnote 2: Mark vi. 20. I read [Greek: eporei], and not [Greek: epoiei].]



CHAPTER VII.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE IDEAS OF JESUS RESPECTING THE KINGDOM OF GOD.

Up to the arrest of John, which took place about the summer of the year 29, Jesus did not quit the neighborhood of the Dead Sea and of the Jordan. An abode in the desert of Judea was generally considered as the preparation for great things, as a sort of "retreat" before public acts. Jesus followed in this respect the example of others, and passed forty days with no other companions than savage beasts, maintaining a rigorous fast. The disciples speculated much concerning this sojourn. The desert was popularly regarded as the residence of demons.[1] There exist in the world few regions more desolate, more abandoned by God, more shut out from life, than the rocky declivity which forms the western shore of the Dead Sea. It was believed that during the time which Jesus passed in this frightful country, he had gone through terrible trials; that Satan had assailed him with his illusions, or tempted him with seductive promises; that afterward, in order to recompense him for his victory, the angels had come to minister to him.[2]

[Footnote 1: Tobit viii. 3; Luke xi. 24.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. iv. 1, and following; Mark i. 12, 13; Luke iv. 1, and following. Certainly, the striking similarity that these narratives present to the analogous legends of the Vendidad (farg. xix.) and of the Lalitavistara (chap. xvii., xviii., xxi.) would lead us to regard them only as myths. But the meagre and concise narrative of Mark, which evidently represents on this point the primitive compilation, leads us to suppose a real fact, which furnished later the theme of legendary developments.]

It was probably in coming from the desert that Jesus learned of the arrest of John the Baptist. He had no longer any reason to prolong his stay in a country which was partly strange to him. Perhaps he feared also being involved in the severities exercised toward John, and did not wish to expose himself, at a time in which, seeing the little celebrity he had, his death could in no way serve the progress of his ideas. He regained Galilee,[1] his true home, ripened by an important experience, and having, through contact with a great man, very different from himself, acquired a consciousness of his own originality.

[Footnote 1: Matt. iv. 12; Mark i. 14; Luke iv. 14; John iv. 3.]

On the whole, the influence of John had been more hurtful than useful to Jesus. It checked his development; for everything leads us to believe that he had, when he descended toward the Jordan, ideas superior to those of John, and that it was by a sort of concession that he inclined for a time toward baptism. Perhaps if the Baptist, whose authority it would have been difficult for him to escape, had remained free, Jesus would not have been able to throw off the yoke of external rites and ceremonies, and would then, no doubt, have remained an unknown Jewish sectary; for the world would not have abandoned its old ceremonies merely for others of a different kind. It has been by the power of a religion, free from all external forms, that Christianity has attracted elevated minds. The Baptist once imprisoned, his school was soon diminished, and Jesus found himself left to his own impulses. The only things he owed to John, were lessons in preaching and in popular action. From this moment, in fact, he preached with greater power, and spoke to the multitude with authority.[1]

[Footnote 1: Matt. vii. 29; Mark i. 22; Luke iv. 32.]

It seems also that his sojourn with John had, not so much by the influence of the Baptist, as by the natural progress of his own thought, considerably ripened his ideas on "the kingdom of heaven." His watchword, henceforth, is the "good tidings," the announcement that the kingdom of God is at hand.[1] Jesus is no longer simply a delightful moralist, aspiring to express sublime lessons in short and lively aphorisms; he is the transcendent revolutionary, who essays to renovate the world from its very basis, and to establish upon earth the ideal which he had conceived. "To await the kingdom of God" is henceforth synonymous with being a disciple of Jesus.[2] This phrase, "kingdom of God," or "kingdom of heaven," was, as we have said, already long familiar to the Jews. But Jesus gave it a moral sense, a social application, which even the author of the Book of Daniel, in his apocalyptic enthusiasm, had scarcely dared to imagine.

[Footnote 1: Mark i. 14, 15.]

[Footnote 2: Mark xv. 43.]

He declared that in the present world evil is the reigning power. Satan is "the prince of this world,"[1] and everything obeys him. The kings kill the prophets. The priests and the doctors do not that which they command others to do; the righteous are persecuted, and the only portion of the good is weeping. The "world" is in this manner the enemy of God and His saints:[2] but God will awaken and avenge His saints. The day is at hand, for the abomination is at its height. The reign of goodness will have its turn.

[Footnote 1: John xii. 31, xiv. 30, xvi. 11. (Comp. 2 Cor. iv. 4; Ephes. ii. 2.)]

[Footnote 2: John i. 10, vii. 7, xiv. 17, 22, 27, xv. 18, and following; xvi. 8, 20, 33, xvii. 9, 14, 16, 25. This meaning of the word "world" is especially applied in the writings of Paul and John.]

The advent of this reign of goodness will be a great and sudden revolution. The world will seem to be turned upside down; the actual state being bad, in order to represent the future, it suffices to conceive nearly the reverse of that which exists. The first shall be last.[1] A new order shall govern humanity. Now the good and the bad are mixed, like the tares and the good grain in a field. The master lets them grow together; but the hour of violent separation will arrive.[2] The kingdom of God will be as the casting of a great net, which gathers both good and bad fish; the good are preserved, and the rest are thrown away.[3] The germ of this great revolution will not be recognizable in its beginning. It will be like a grain of mustard-seed, which is the smallest of seeds, but which, thrown into the earth, becomes a tree under the foliage of which the birds repose;[4] or it will be like the leaven which, deposited in the meal, makes the whole to ferment.[5] A series of parables, often obscure, was designed to express the suddenness of this event, its apparent injustice, and its inevitable and final character.[6]

[Footnote 1: Matt. xix. 30, xx. 16; Mark x. 31; Luke xiii. 30.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. xiii. 24, and following.]

[Footnote 3: Matt. xiii. 47, and following.]

[Footnote 4: Matt. xiii. 31, and following; Mark iv. 31, and following; Luke xiii. 19, and following.]

[Footnote 5: Matt. xiii. 33; Luke xiii. 21.]

[Footnote 6: Matt. xiii. entirely; xviii. 23, and following; xx. 1, and following; Luke xiii. 18, and following.]

Who was to establish this kingdom of God? Let us remember that the first thought of Jesus, a thought so deeply rooted in him that it had probably no beginning, and formed part of his very being, was that he was the Son of God, the friend of his Father, the doer of his will. The answer of Jesus to such a question could not therefore be doubtful. The persuasion that he was to establish the kingdom of God took absolute possession of his mind. He regarded himself as the universal reformer. The heavens, the earth, the whole of nature, madness, disease, and death, were but his instruments. In his paroxysm of heroic will, he believed himself all powerful. If the earth would not submit to this supreme transformation, it would be broken up, purified by fire, and by the breath of God. A new heaven would be created, and the entire world would be peopled with the angels of God.[1]

[Footnote 1: Matt. xxii. 30.]

A radical revolution,[1] embracing even nature itself, was the fundamental idea of Jesus. Henceforward, without doubt, he renounced politics; the example of Judas, the Gaulonite, had shown him the inutility of popular seditions. He never thought of revolting against the Romans and tetrarchs. His was not the unbridled and anarchical principle of the Gaulonite. His submission to the established powers, though really derisive, was in appearance complete. He paid tribute to Caesar, in order to avoid disturbance. Liberty and right were not of this world, why should he trouble his life with vain anxieties? Despising the earth, and convinced that the present world was not worth caring for, he took refuge in his ideal kingdom; he established the great doctrine of transcendent disdain,[2] the true doctrine of liberty of souls, which alone can give peace. But he had not yet said, "My kingdom is not of this world." Much darkness mixed itself with even his most correct views. Sometimes strange temptations crossed his mind. In the desert of Judea, Satan had offered him the kingdoms of the earth. Not knowing the power of the Roman empire, he might, with the enthusiasm there was in the heart of Judea, and which ended soon after in so terrible an outbreak, hope to establish a kingdom by the number and the daring of his partisans. Many times, perhaps, the supreme question presented itself—will the kingdom of God be realized by force or by gentleness, by revolt or by patience? One day, it is said, the simple men of Galilee wished to carry him away and make him king,[3] but Jesus fled into the mountain and remained there some time alone. His noble nature preserved him from the error which would have made him an agitator, or a chief of rebels, a Theudas or a Barkokeba.

[Footnote 1: [Greek: Apochatastasis panton], Acts iii. 21.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. xvii. 23-26; xxii. 16-22.]

[Footnote 3: John vi. 15.]

The revolution he wished to effect was always a moral revolution; but he had not yet begun to trust to the angels and the last trumpet for its execution. It was upon men and by the aid of men themselves that he wished to act. A visionary who had no other idea than the proximity of the last judgment, would not have had this care for the amelioration of man, and would not have given utterance to the finest moral teaching that humanity has received. Much vagueness no doubt tinged his ideas, and it was rather a noble feeling than a fixed design, that urged him to the sublime work which was realized by him, though in a very different manner to what he imagined.

It was indeed the kingdom of God, or in other words, the kingdom of the Spirit, which he founded; and if Jesus, from the bosom of his Father, sees his work bear fruit in the world, he may indeed say with truth, "This is what I have desired." That which Jesus founded, that which will remain eternally his, allowing for the imperfections which mix themselves with everything realized by humanity, is the doctrine of the liberty of the soul. Greece had already had beautiful ideas on this subject.[1] Various stoics had learned how to be free even under a tyrant. But in general the ancient world had regarded liberty as attached to certain political forms; freedom was personified in Harmodius and Aristogiton, Brutus and Cassius. The true Christian enjoys more real freedom; here below he is an exile; what matters it to him who is the transitory governor of this earth, which is not his home? Liberty for him is truth.[2] Jesus did not know history sufficiently to understand that such a doctrine came most opportunely at the moment when republican liberty ended, and when the small municipal constitutions of antiquity were absorbed in the unity of the Roman empire. But his admirable good sense, and the truly prophetic instinct which he had of his mission, guided him with marvelous certainty. By the sentence, "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and to God the things which are God's," he created something apart from politics, a refuge for souls in the midst of the empire of brute force. Assuredly, such a doctrine had its dangers. To establish as a principle that we must recognize the legitimacy of a power by the inscription on its coins, to proclaim that the perfect man pays tribute with scorn and without question, was to destroy republicanism in the ancient form, and to favor all tyranny. Christianity, in this sense, has contributed much to weaken the sense of duty of the citizen, and to deliver the world into the absolute power of existing circumstances. But in constituting an immense free association, which during three hundred years was able to dispense with politics, Christianity amply compensated for the wrong it had done to civic virtues. The power of the state was limited to the things of earth; the mind was freed, or at least the terrible rod of Roman omnipotence was broken forever.

[Footnote 1: See Stobaeus, Florilegium, ch. lxii., lxxvii., lxxxvi., and following.]

[Footnote 2: John viii. 32, and following.]

The man who is especially preoccupied with the duties of public life, does not readily forgive those who attach little importance to his party quarrels. He especially blames those who subordinate political to social questions, and profess a sort of indifference for the former. In one sense he is right, for exclusive power is prejudicial to the good government of human affairs. But what progress have "parties" been able to effect in the general morality of our species? If Jesus, instead of founding his heavenly kingdom, had gone to Rome, had expended his energies in conspiring against Tiberius, or in regretting Germanicus, what would have become of the world? As an austere republican, or zealous patriot, he would not have arrested the great current of the affairs of his age, but in declaring that politics are insignificant, he has revealed to the world this truth, that one's country is not everything, and that the man is before, and higher than, the citizen.

Our principles of positive science are offended by the dreams contained in the programme of Jesus. We know the history of the earth; cosmical revolutions of the kind which Jesus expected are only produced by geological or astronomical causes, the connection of which with spiritual things has never yet been demonstrated. But, in order to be just to great originators, they must not be judged by the prejudices in which they have shared. Columbus discovered America, though starting from very erroneous ideas; Newton believed his foolish explanation of the Apocalypse to be as true as his system of the world. Shall we place an ordinary man of our time above a Francis d'Assisi, a St. Bernard, a Joan of Arc, or a Luther, because he is free from errors which these last have professed? Should we measure men by the correctness of their ideas of physics, and by the more or less exact knowledge which they possess of the true system of the world? Let us understand better the position of Jesus and that which made his power. The Deism of the eighteenth century, and a certain kind of Protestantism, have accustomed us to consider the founder of the Christian faith only as a great moralist, a benefactor of mankind. We see nothing more in the Gospel than good maxims; we throw a prudent veil over the strange intellectual state in which it was originated. There are even persons who regret that the French Revolution departed more than once from principles, and that it was not brought about by wise and moderate men. Let us not impose our petty and commonplace ideas on these extraordinary movements so far above our every-day life. Let us continue to admire the "morality of the gospel"—let us suppress in our religious teachings the chimera which was its soul; but do not let us believe that with the simple ideas of happiness, or of individual morality, we stir the world. The idea of Jesus was much more profound; it was the most revolutionary idea ever formed in a human brain; it should be taken in its totality, and not with those timid suppressions which deprive it of precisely that which has rendered it efficacious for the regeneration of humanity.

The ideal is ever a Utopia. When we wish nowadays to represent the Christ of the modern conscience, the consoler, and the judge of the new times, what course do we take? That which Jesus himself did eighteen hundred and thirty years ago. We suppose the conditions of the real world quite other than what they are; we represent a moral liberator breaking without weapons the chains of the negro, ameliorating the condition of the poor, and giving liberty to oppressed nations. We forget that this implies the subversion of the world, the climate of Virginia and that of Congo modified, the blood and the race of millions of men changed, our social complications restored to a chimerical simplicity, and the political stratifications of Europe displaced from their natural order. The "restitution of all things"[1] desired by Jesus was not more difficult. This new earth, this new heaven, this new Jerusalem which comes from above, this cry: "Behold I make all things new!"[2] are the common characteristics of reformers. The contrast of the ideal with the sad reality, always produces in mankind those revolts against unimpassioned reason which inferior minds regard as folly, till the day arrives in which they triumph, and in which those who have opposed them are the first to recognize their reasonableness.

[Footnote 1: Acts iii. 21.]

[Footnote 2: Rev. xxi. 1, 2, 5.]

That there may have been a contradiction between the belief in the approaching end of the world and the general moral system of Jesus, conceived in prospect of a permanent state of humanity, nearly analogous to that which now exists, no one will attempt to deny.[1] It was exactly this contradiction that insured the success of his work. The millenarian alone would have done nothing lasting; the moralist alone would have done nothing powerful. The millenarianism gave the impulse, the moralist insured the future. Hence Christianity united the two conditions of great success in this world, a revolutionary starting-point, and the possibility of continuous life. Everything which is intended to succeed ought to respond to these two wants; for the world seeks both to change and to last. Jesus, at the same time that he announced an unparalleled subversion in human affairs, proclaimed the principles upon which society has reposed for eighteen hundred years.

[Footnote 1: The millenarian sects of England present the same contrast, I mean the belief in the near end of the world, notwithstanding much good sense in the conduct of life, and an extraordinary understanding of commercial affairs and industry.]

That which in fact distinguishes Jesus from the agitators of his time, and from those of all ages, is his perfect idealism. Jesus, in some respects, was an anarchist, for he had no idea of civil government. That government seemed to him purely and simply an abuse. He spoke of it in vague terms, and as a man of the people who had no idea of politics. Every magistrate appeared to him a natural enemy of the people of God; he prepared his disciples for contests with the civil powers, without thinking for a moment that there was anything in this to be ashamed of.[1] But he never shows any desire to put himself in the place of the rich and the powerful. He wishes to annihilate riches and power, but not to appropriate them. He predicts persecution and all kinds of punishment to his disciples;[2] but never once does the thought of armed resistance appear. The idea of being all-powerful by suffering and resignation, and of triumphing over force by purity of heart, is indeed an idea peculiar to Jesus. Jesus is not a spiritualist, for to him everything tended to a palpable realization; he had not the least notion of a soul separated from the body. But he is a perfect idealist, matter being only to him the sign of the idea, and the real, the living expression of that which does not appear.

[Footnote 1: Matt. x. 17, 18; Luke xii. 11.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. v. 10, and following; x. entirely; Luke vi. 22, and following; John xv. 18, and following; xvi. 2, and following, 20, 33; xvii. 14.]

To whom should we turn, to whom should we trust to establish the kingdom of God? The mind of Jesus on this point never hesitated. That which is highly esteemed among men, is abomination in the sight of God.[1] The founders of the kingdom of God are the simple. Not the rich, not the learned, not priests; but women, common people, the humble, and the young.[2] The great characteristic of the Messiah is, that "the poor have the gospel preached to them."[3] The idyllic and gentle nature of Jesus here resumed the superiority. A great social revolution, in which rank will be overturned, in which all authority in this world will be humiliated, was his dream. The world will not believe him; the world will kill him. But his disciples will not be of the world.[4] They will be a little flock of the humble and the simple, who will conquer by their very humility. The idea which has made "Christian" the antithesis of "worldly," has its full justification in the thoughts of the master.[5]

[Footnote 1: Luke xvi. 15.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. v. 3, 10, xviii. 3, xix. 14, 23, 24, xxi. 31, xxii. 2, and following; Mark x. 14, 15, 23-25; Luke iv. 18, and following; vi. 20, xviii. 16, 17, 24, 25.]

[Footnote 3: Matt. xi. 5.]

[Footnote 4: John xv. 19, xvii. 14, 16.]

[Footnote 5: See especially chapter xvii. of St. John, expressing, if not a real discourse delivered by Jesus, at least a sentiment which was very deeply rooted in his disciples, and which certainly came from him.]



CHAPTER VIII.

JESUS AT CAPERNAUM.

Beset by an idea, gradually becoming more and more imperious and exclusive, Jesus proceeds henceforth with a kind of fatal impassibility in the path marked out by his astonishing genius and the extraordinary circumstances in which he lived. Hitherto he had only communicated his thoughts to a few persons secretly attracted to him; henceforward his teaching was sought after by the public. He was about thirty years of age.[1] The little group of hearers who had accompanied him to John the Baptist had, doubtless, increased, and perhaps some disciples of John had attached themselves to him.[2] It was with this first nucleus of a church that he boldly announced, on his return into Galilee, the "good tidings of the kingdom of God." This kingdom was approaching, and it was he, Jesus, who was that "Son of Man" whom Daniel had beheld in his vision as the divine herald of the last and supreme revelation.

[Footnote 1: Luke iii. 23; Gospel of the Ebionites, in Epiph., Adv. Haer., xxx. 13.]

[Footnote 2: John i. 37, and following.]

We must remember, that in the Jewish ideas, which were averse to art and mythology, the simple form of man had a superiority over that of Cherubs, and of the fantastic animals which the imagination of the people, since it had been subjected to the influence of Assyria, had ranged around the Divine Majesty. Already in Ezekiel,[1] the Being seated on the supreme throne, far above the monsters of the mysterious chariot, the great revealer of prophetic visions, had the figure of a man. In the book of Daniel, in the midst of the vision of the empires, represented by animals, at the moment when the great judgment commences, and when the books are opened, a Being "like unto a Son of Man," advances toward the Ancient of days, who confers on him the power to judge the world, and to govern it for eternity.[2] Son of Man, in the Semitic languages, especially in the Aramean dialects, is a simple synonym of man. But this chief passage of Daniel struck the mind; the words, Son of Man, became, at least in certain schools,[3] one of the titles of the Messiah, regarded as judge of the world, and as king of the new era about to be inaugurated.[4] The application which Jesus made of it to himself was therefore the proclamation of his Messiahship, and the affirmation of the coming catastrophe in which he was to figure as judge, clothed with the full powers which had been delegated to him by the Ancient of days.[5]

[Footnote 1: Chap. i. 5, 26, and following.]

[Footnote 2: Daniel vii. 13, 14; comp. viii. 15, x. 16.]

[Footnote 3: In John xii. 34, the Jews do not appear to be aware of the meaning of this word.]

[Footnote 4: Book of Enoch, xlvi. 1-3, xlviii. 2, 3, lxii. 9, 14, lxx. 1 (division of Dilmann); Matt. x. 23, xiii. 41, xvi. 27, 28, xix. 28, xxiv. 27, 30, 37, 39, 44, xxv. 31, xxvi. 64; Mark xiii. 26, xiv. 62; Luke xii. 40, xvii. 24, 26, 30, xxi. 27, 36, xxii. 69; Acts vii. 55. But the most significant passage is John v. 27, compared with Rev. i. 13, xiv. 14. The expression "Son of woman," for the Messiah, occurs once in the book of Enoch, lxii. 5.]

[Footnote 5: John v. 22, 27.]

The success of the teaching of the new prophet was this time decisive. A group of men and women, all characterized by the same spirit of juvenile frankness and simple innocence, adhered to him, and said, "Thou art the Messiah." As the Messiah was to be the son of David, they naturally conceded him this title, which was synonymous with the former. Jesus allowed it with pleasure to be given to him, although it might cause him some embarrassment, his birth being well known. The name which he preferred himself was that of "Son of Man," an apparently humble title, but one which connected itself directly with the Messianic hopes. This was the title by which he designated himself,[1] and he used "The Son of Man" as synonymous with the pronoun "I," which he avoided. But he was never thus addressed, doubtless because the name in question would be fully applicable to him only on the day of his future appearance.

[Footnote 1: This title occurs eighty-three times in the Gospels, and always in the discourses of Jesus.]

His centre of action, at this epoch of his life, was the little town of Capernaum, situated on the shore of the lake of Gennesareth. The name of Capernaum, containing the word caphar, "village," seems to designate a small town of the ancient character, in opposition to the great towns built according to the Roman method, like Tiberias.[1] That name was so little known that Josephus, in one passage of his writings,[2] takes it for the name of a fountain, the fountain having more celebrity than the village situated near it. Like Nazareth, Capernaum had no history, and had in no way participated in the profane movement favored by the Herods. Jesus was much attached to this town, and made it a second home.[3] Soon after his return, he attempted to commence his work at Nazareth, but without success.[4] He could not perform any miracle there, according to the simple remark of one of his biographers.[5] The knowledge which existed there about his family, not an important one, injured his authority too much. People could not regard as the son of David, one whose brother, sister, and brother-in-law they saw every day, and it is remarkable besides, that his family were strongly opposed to him, and plainly refused to believe in his mission.[6] The Nazarenes, much more violent, wished, it is said, to kill him by throwing him from a steep rock.[7] Jesus aptly remarked that this treatment was the fate of all great men, and applied to himself the proverb, "No one is a prophet in his own country."

[Footnote 1: It is true that Tell-Houm, which is generally identified with Capernaum, contains the remains of somewhat fine monuments. But, besides this identification being doubtful, these monuments may be of the second or third century after Christ.]

[Footnote 2: B.J., III. x. 8.]

[Footnote 3: Matt. ix. 1; Mark ii. 1.]

[Footnote 4: Matt. xiii. 54, and following; Mark vi. 1, and following; Luke iv. 16, and following, 23-24; John iv. 44.]

[Footnote 5: Mark vi. 5; cf. Matt. xii. 58; Luke iv. 23.]

[Footnote 6: Matt. xiii. 57; Mark vi. 4; John vii. 3, and following.]

[Footnote 7: Luke iv. 29. Probably the rock referred to here is the peak which is very near Nazareth, above the present church of the Maronites, and not the pretended Mount of Precipitation, at an hour's journey from Nazareth. See Robinson, ii. 335, and following.]

This check far from discouraged him. He returned to Capernaum,[1] where he met with a much more favorable reception, and from thence he organized a series of missions among the small surrounding towns. The people of this beautiful and fertile country were scarcely ever assembled except on Saturday. This was the day which he chose for his teaching. At that time each town had its synagogue, or place of meeting. This was a rectangular room, rather small, with a portico, decorated in the Greek style. The Jews not having any architecture of their own, never cared to give these edifices an original style. The remains of many ancient synagogues still exist in Galilee.[2] They are all constructed of large and good materials; but their style is somewhat paltry, in consequence of the profusion of floral ornaments, foliage, and twisted work, which characterize the Jewish buildings.[3] In the interior there were seats, a chair for public reading, and a closet to contain the sacred rolls.[4] These edifices, which had nothing of the character of a temple, were the centre of the whole Jewish life. There the people assembled on the Sabbath for prayer, and reading of the law and the prophets. As Judaism, except in Jerusalem, had, properly speaking, no clergy, the first comer stood up, gave the lessons of the day (parasha and haphtara), and added thereto a midrash, or entirely personal commentary, in which he expressed his own ideas.[5] This was the origin of the "homily," the finished model of which we find in the small treatises of Philo. The audience had the right of making objections and putting questions to the reader; so that the meeting soon degenerated into a kind of free assembly. It had a president,[6] "elders,"[7] a hazzan, i.e., a recognized reader, or apparitor,[8] deputies,[9] who were secretaries or messengers, and conducted the correspondence between one synagogue and another, a shammash, or sacristan.[10] The synagogues were thus really little independent republics, having an extensive jurisdiction. Like all municipal corporations, up to an advanced period of the Roman empire, they issued honorary decrees,[11] voted resolutions, which had the force of law for the community, and ordained corporal punishments, of which the hazzan was the ordinary executor.[12]

[Footnote 1: Matt. iv. 13; Luke iv. 31.]

[Footnote 2: At Tell-Houm, Irbid (Arbela), Meiron (Mero), Jisch (Giscala), Kasyoun, Nabartein, and two at Kefr-Bereim.]

[Footnote 3: I dare not decide upon the age of those buildings, nor consequently affirm that Jesus taught in any of them. How great would be the interest attaching to the synagogue of Tell-Houm were we to admit such an hypothesis! The great synagogue of Kefr-Bereim seems to me the most ancient of all. Its style is moderately pure. That of Kasyoun bears a Greek inscription of the time of Septimus Severus. The great importance which Judaism acquired in Upper Galilee after the Roman war, leads us to believe that several of these edifices only date back to the third century—a time in which Tiberias became a sort of capital of Judaism.]

[Footnote 4: 2 Esdras viii. 4; Matt. xxiii. 6; Epist. James ii. 3; Mishnah, Megilla, iii. 1; Rosh Hasshana, iv. 7, etc. See especially the curious description of the synagogue of Alexandria in the Talmud of Babylon, Sukka, 51 b.]

[Footnote 5: Philo, quoted in Eusebius, Praep. Evang., viii. 7, and Quod Omnis Probus Liber, Sec. 12; Luke iv. 16; Acts xiii. 15, xv. 21; Mishnah, Megilla, iii. 4, and following.]

[Footnote 6: [Greek: Archisunagogos].]

[Footnote 7: [Greek: Presbyteroi].]

[Footnote 8: [Greek: Huperetes].]

[Footnote 9: [Greek: Apostoloi], or [Greek: angeloi].]

[Footnote 10: [Greek: Diakonos]. Mark v. 22, 35, and following; Luke iv. 20, vii. 3, viii. 41, 49, xiii. 14; Acts xiii. 15, xviii. 8, 17; Rev. ii. 1; Mishnah, Joma, vii. 1; Rosh Hasshana, iv. 9; Talm. of Jerus., Sanhedrim, i. 7; Epiph., Adv. Haer., xxx. 4, 11.]

[Footnote 11: Inscription of Berenice, in the Corpus Inscr. Graec., No. 5361; inscription of Kasyoun, in the Mission de Phenicie, book iv. [in the press.]]

[Footnote 12: Matt. v. 25, x. 17, xxiii. 34; Mark xiii. 9; Luke xx. 11, xxi. 12; Acts xxii. 19, xxvi. 11; 2 Cor. xi. 24; Mishnah, Maccoth, iii. 12; Talmud of Babylon, Megilla, 7 b; Epiph., Adv. Haer., xxx. 11.]

With the extreme activity of mind which has always characterized the Jews, such an institution, notwithstanding the arbitrary rigors it tolerated, could not fail to give rise to very animated discussions. Thanks to the synagogues, Judaism has been able to sustain intact eighteen centuries of persecution. They were like so many little separate worlds, in which the national spirit was preserved, and which offered a ready field for intestine struggles. A large amount of passion was expended there. The quarrels for precedence were of constant occurrence. To have a seat of honor in the first rank was the reward of great piety, or the most envied privilege of wealth.[1] On the other hand, the liberty, accorded to every one, of instituting himself reader and commentator of the sacred text, afforded marvelous facilities for the propagation of new ideas. This was one of the great instruments of power wielded by Jesus, and the most habitual means he employed to propound his doctrinal instruction.[2] He entered the synagogue, and stood up to read; the hazzan offered him the book, he unrolled it, and reading the parasha or the haphtara of the day, he drew from this reading a lesson in conformity with his own ideas.[3] As there were few Pharisees in Galilee, the discussion did not assume that degree of vivacity, and that tone of acrimony against him, which at Jerusalem would have arrested him at the outset. These good Galileans had never heard discourses so adapted to their cheerful imaginations.[4] They admired him, they encouraged him, they found that he spoke well, and that his reasons were convincing. He answered the most difficult objections with confidence; the charm of his speech and his person captivated the people, whose simple minds had not yet been cramped by the pedantry of the doctors.

[Footnote 1: Matt. xxiii. 6; Epist. James ii. 3; Talmud of Bab., Sukka, 51 b.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. iv. 23, ix. 35; Mark i. 21, 39, vi. 2; Luke iv. 15, 16, 31, 44, xiii. 10; John xviii. 20.]

[Footnote 3: Luke iv. 16, and following. Comp. Mishnah, Joma, vii. 1.]

[Footnote 4: Matt. vii. 28, xiii. 54; Mark i. 22, vi. 1; Luke iv. 22, 32.]

The authority of the young master thus continued increasing every day, and, naturally, the more people believed in him, the more he believed in himself. His sphere of action was very limited. It was confined to the valley in which the Lake of Tiberias is situated, and even in this valley there was one region which he preferred. The lake is five or six leagues long and three or four broad; although it presents the appearance of an almost perfect oval, it forms, commencing from Tiberias up to the entrance of the Jordan, a sort of gulf, the curve of which measures about three leagues. Such is the field in which the seed sown by Jesus found at last a well-prepared soil. Let us run over it step by step, and endeavor to raise the mantle of aridity and mourning with which it has been covered by the demon of Islamism.

On leaving Tiberias, we find at first steep rocks, like a mountain which seems to roll into the sea. Then the mountains gradually recede; a plain (El Ghoueir) opens almost at the level of the lake. It is a delightful copse of rich verdure, furrowed by abundant streams which proceed partly from a great round basin of ancient construction (Ain-Medawara). At the entrance of this plain, which is, properly speaking, the country of Gennesareth, there is the miserable village of Medjdel. At the other extremity of the plain (always following the sea), we come to the site of a town (Khan-Minyeh), with very beautiful streams (Ain-et-Tin), a pretty road, narrow and deep, cut out of the rock, which Jesus often traversed, and which serves as a passage between the plain of Gennesareth and the northern slopes of the lake. A quarter of an hour's journey from this place, we cross a stream of salt water (Ain-Tabiga), issuing from the earth by several large springs at a little distance from the lake, and entering it in the midst of a dense mass of verdure. At last, after a journey of forty minutes further, upon the arid declivity which extends from Ain-Tabiga to the mouth of the Jordan, we find a few huts and a collection of monumental ruins, called Tell-Houm.

Five small towns, the names of which mankind will remember as long as those of Rome and Athens, were, in the time of Jesus, scattered in the space which extends from the village of Medjdel to Tell-Houm. Of these five towns, Magdala, Dalmanutha, Capernaum, Bethsaida, and Chorazin,[1] the first alone can be found at the present time with any certainty. The repulsive village of Medjdel has no doubt preserved the name and the place of the little town which gave to Jesus his most faithful female friend.[2] Dalmanutha[3] was probably near there. It is possible that Chorazin was a little more inland, on the northern side.[4] As to Bethsaida and Capernaum, it is in truth almost at hazard that they have been placed at Tell-Houm, Ain-et-Tin, Khan-Minyeh, and Ain-Medawara.[5] We might say that in topography, as well as in history, a profound design has wished to conceal the traces of the great founder. It is doubtful whether we shall ever be able, upon this extensively devastated soil, to ascertain the places where mankind would gladly come to kiss the imprint of his feet.

[Footnote 1: The ancient Kinnereth had disappeared or changed its name.]

[Footnote 2: We know in fact that it was very near Tiberias.—Talmud of Jerusalem, Maasaroth, iii. 1; Shebiit, ix. 1; Erubin, v. 7.]

[Footnote 3: Mark viii. 10. Comp. Matt. xv. 39.]

[Footnote 4: In the place named Khorazi or Bir-kerazeh, above Tell-Houm.]

[Footnote 5: The ancient hypothesis which identified Tell-Houm with Capernaum, though strongly disputed some years since, has still numerous defenders. The best argument we can give in its favor is the name of Tell-Houm itself, Tell entering into the names of many villages, and being a substitute for Caphar. It is impossible, on the other hand, to find near Tell-Houm a fountain corresponding to that mentioned by Josephus (B.J., III. x. 8.) This fountain of Capernaum seems to be Ain-Medawara, but Ain-Medawara is half an hour's journey from the lake, while Capernaum was a fishing town on the borders of the lake (Matt. iv. 13; John vi. 17.) The difficulties about Bethsaida are still greater; for the hypothesis, somewhat generally admitted, of two Bethsaidas, the one on the eastern, the other on the western shore of the lake, and at two or three leagues from one another, is rather singular.]

The lake, the horizon, the shrubs, the flowers, are all that remain of the little canton, three or four leagues in extent, where Jesus founded his Divine work. The trees have totally disappeared. In this country, in which the vegetation was formerly so brilliant that Josephus saw in it a kind of miracle—Nature, according to him, being pleased to bring hither side by side the plants of cold countries, the productions of the torrid zone, and the trees of temperate climates, laden all the year with flowers and fruits[1]—in this country travellers are obliged now to calculate a day beforehand the place where they will the next day find a shady resting-place. The lake has become deserted. A single boat in the most miserable condition now ploughs the waves once so rich in life and joy. But the waters are always clear and transparent.[2] The shore, composed of rocks and pebbles, is that of a little sea, not that of a pond, like the shores of Lake Huleh. It is clean, neat, free from mud, and always beaten in the same place by the light movement of the waves. Small promontories, covered with rose laurels, tamarisks, and thorny caper bushes, are seen there; at two places, especially at the mouth of the Jordan, near Tarichea, and at the boundary of the plain of Gennesareth, there are enchanting parterres, where the waves ebb and flow over masses of turf and flowers. The rivulet of Ain-Tabiga makes a little estuary, full of pretty shells. Clouds of aquatic birds hover over the lake. The horizon is dazzling with light. The waters, of an empyrean blue, deeply imbedded amid burning rocks, seem, when viewed from the height of the mountains of Safed, to lie at the bottom of a cup of gold. On the north, the snowy ravines of Hermon are traced in white lines upon the sky; on the west, the high, undulating plateaux of Gaulonitis and Perea, absolutely arid, and clothed by the sun with a sort of velvety atmosphere, form one compact mountain, or rather a long and very elevated terrace, which from Caesarea Philippi runs indefinitely toward the south.