| CHAP. | A.D. | Page | |
| INTRODUCTION. | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| CRITICISM OF ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS. | |||
| I. | Formation of Beliefs Relative to the Resurrection of Jesus.—The Apparitions at Jerusalem |
33 | 1 |
| II. | Departure of the Disciples from Jerusalem.—Second Galilean Life of Jesus |
33 | 15 |
| III. | Return of the Apostles to Jerusalem.—End of the Period of Apparitions |
33-34 | 25 |
| IV. | Descent of the Holy Spirit.—Ecstatical and Prophetical Phenomena |
34 | 31 |
| V. | First Church of Jerusalem; it is entirely cenobitical |
35 | 41 |
| VI. | The Conversion of Hellenistic Jews and of Proselytes |
36 | 55 |
| VII. | The Church Considered as an Association of Poor People—Institution of the Diaconate, Deaconesses, and Widows |
36 | 62 |
| VIII. | First Persecution.—Death of Stephen.—Destruction of the First Church of Jerusalem |
36-37 | 74 |
| IX. | First Missions.—Philip, the Deacon | 38 | 62 |
| X. | Conversion of St. Paul.—Ridiculous to put Paul’s Conversion A.D. 38.—Aretas settles the date as about 34 |
38 | 89 |
| XI. | Peace and Interior Developments of the Church of Judea |
38-41 | 103 |
| XII. | Foundation of the Church of Antioch | 41 | 117 |
| XIII. | The Idea of an Apostolate to the Gentiles.—Saint Barnabas |
42-44 | 124 |
| XIV. | Persecution by Herod Agrippa the First | 44 | 131 |
| XV. | Movements Parallel to Christianity, or imitated from it.—Simon of Gitton |
45 | 141 |
| XVI. | General Progress of Christian Missions | 45 | 149 |
| XVII. | State of the World at the Middle of the First Century |
45 | 163 |
| XVIII. | Religious legislation at this period | 45 | 184 |
| XIX. | The Future of Missions | 45 | 193 |
The first book of our history of the Origins of Christianity has traced the story as far as the death and burial of Jesus. We must now resume the narrative at the point where we left it—to wit, Saturday, 4th April, 33. This will be for some time yet a continuation, in some sort, of the Life of Jesus. Next, after the months of joyous rapture, during which the great Founder laid the foundation of a new order for humanity, these last years were the most decisive in the history of the world. It is still Jesus, some sparks of whose sacred fire have been deposited in the hearts of a few friends who created institutions of the greatest originality, moves, transforms souls, imprints upon everything his divine seal. We have to show how, under this ever active and victorious influence over death, the faith of the resurrection, the influence of the holy Spirit, the gift of tongues, and the power of the Church, established themselves. We shall describe the organization of the Church at Jerusalem, its first trials, its first conquests, the earliest missions which it despatched. We shall follow Christianity in its rapid progress in Syria, as far as Antioch, where was formed a second capital, more important in a sense than that of Jerusalem, which it was destined to supplant. In this new centre, where the converted Pagans constituted the majority, we shall see Christianity separating itself definitely from Judaism, and receiving a name of its own; we shall see especially the birth of the grand idea of distant missions, destined to carry the name of Jesus into the world of the Gentiles. We shall pause at the important moment when Paul, Barnabas, and John Mark set out for the execution of this great design. There we shall interrupt our narrative, and cast a glance at the world which those daring missionaries undertook to convert. We shall endeavour to give an account of the intellectual, political, religious, and social condition of the Roman Empire about the year 45, the probable date of the departure of Saint Paul upon his first mission.
Such is the subject-matter of this second book, which we have entitled, The
Apostles, for the reason that it expounds the period of common action during
which the small family created by Jesus acted in concert, and was grouped
morally around a single point—Jerusalem. Our next work, the third, will take us
out of this company, and we shall be devoted almost exclusively to the man who,
more than any other, represents conquering and travelling Christianity—Saint
Paul. Although, from a certain epoch, he called himself an apostle, Paul had not
the same right to the title as the Twelve; he is a workman of the second hour,
and almost an intruder. The state in which historical documents have reached us
are at this stage-misleading. As we know infinitely more of the history of St.
Paul than that of the Twelve, as we possess his authentic writings and original
memoirs detailing minutely certain periods of his life, we assign to him an
importance of the first order, almost exceeding that of Jesus. This is an error.
Paul was a great man: in the foundation of Christianity he played a most important part. Still, we must not compare him with Jesus, nor even with any of
the immediate disciples of the latter. Paul never saw Jesus, nor did he ever
taste the ambrosia of the Galilean preaching. Hence, the most commonplace man
who had had his part of the celestial manna, was from that very circumstance
superior to him who had only had an after-taste. Nothing can be more false than
an opinion which has become fashionable in these days, that Paul was really the
founder of Christianity. The real founder of Christianity was Jesus. The first
places, next to him, ought to be reserved to those grand and obscure companions
of Jesus, to those faithful and zealous women, who believed in him despite his
death. Paul was, in the first century, a kind of isolated phenomenon. He did not
leave an organized school. On the contrary he left bitter opponents, who strove,
after his death, to banish him from the Church and to place him, in a sort of
way, on the same footing as Simon Magus. They tried to take away from him that
which we regard as the peculiar work—the conversion of the Gentiles. The church of Corinth, which he himself had founded, claimed
to owe its origin to him and to St. Peter.
At first glance the documents for the period embraced in this volume are rare and altogether insufficent. The direct testimony is reduced to the first chapters of the Acts of the Apostles—chapters, the historical value of which is open to serious objections. Yet, the light which these last chapters of the Gospels cast upon that obscure interval, especially the Epistles of St. Paul, dispels, to some extent, the darkness. An old writing serves to make known, first, the exact date at which it was composed, and, secondly, the period which preceded its composition. Every writing suggests, in fact, retrospective inductions as to the state of society which produced it. Composed, for the most part, between the years 53 and 62, the Epistles of St. Paul are replete with information concerning the early years of Christianity. Moreover, seeing that we are here speaking of great events without precise dates, the essential point is to show the conditions under which they formed themselves, On this subject I ought to remark once for all that the current date inscribed at the head of each chapter is never more than approximate. The chronology of these first years has but a very small number of fixed land-marks. Yet, thanks to the care which the editor of the Acts has taken, not to interrupt the succession of events; thanks to the Epistle to the Galatians, where are to be found some numerical indications of the greatest value; and to Josephus, who gives the dates of events of profane history connected with some facts concerning the apostles, we are able to create for the history of these last a very probable canvas upon which the chances of error are confined within very narrow limits.
I shall again repeat at the beginning of this book what I have already said at
the beginning of my Life of Jesus. In histories of that kind, where the general effect alone is
For the knowledge of the decisive events which happened in the first days after
the death of Jesus the authorities are the last chapters of the Gospels
containing the narratives of the appearance of the resuscitated Christ. I need not
The Acts of the Apostles are the most important document for the history which we are about to relate. I ought to explain myself hero as to the character of that work, its historical value, and the use which I have made of it.
The one thing beyond question is that the Acts had the same author as the third
Gospel, of which they are a continuation. It is not worth while to stop to prove
this position, which, however, has never been disputed. The
A second proposition, which is not quite so self-evident, but which may be
regarded as very probable is, that the author of the Acts was a disciple of
Paul. who accompanied him during a great part of his journeyings. At the first
glance this proposition appeared indubitable. In many places beginning with the
This becomes still more striking, if we note in what circumstances the narrator
thus puts himself in company with Paul. The use of “we” begins at the moment
when Paul goes into Macedonia for the first time (
There will, perhaps, be some surprise that a thesis so evident should have been
contradicted. But criticism of the writings of the New Testament shows that many
things which appear to be perfectly clear are, upon examination, full of
uncertainty. In the matter of style, thoughts, and doctrines, the Acts are
scarcely what might be expected from a disciple of Paul. They in no way resemble
his epistles. There is not a trace of the lofty doctrines which constitute the
originality of the Apostle of the Gentiles. The temperament of Paul is that of a
stiff and self-contained Protestant; the author of the Acts gives us the
impression of a good Catholic, docile, optimist, calling every priest a “holy
father,” every bishop “a great bishop,” ready to swallow any fiction, rather
than believe that these holy fathers and great bishops quarrel amongst
themselves and often make rude war. Whilst professing a great admiration for
Paul, the author of the Acts avoids giving him the title of apostle, and is
anxious that the initiative of the conversion of the Gentiles should belong to
Peter. We should say, in short, that he is a disciple of Peter, rather than of
Paul. We shall soon show that, in two or three circumstances, his principles of
conciliation have led him gravely to falsify the biography of Paul; he makes
mistakes and omissions of things which are very strange in a disciple of this
last. He does not mention a single one of his epistles; he keeps back, in the
most surprising fashion, explanations of the first importance. Even in the part,
where he must have been the companion of Paul, he is sometimes singularly dry,
ill-informed and dull. In short, the softness and vagueness
Must we insist upon these objections? I think not, and I persist in believing that the last editor of the Acts is really the disciple of Paul who says “we” in the last chapters. All the difficulties, insoluble though they may appear, should be, if not set on one side, at least held in suspense by an argument as decisive as that which results from this word “we.” We may add, that by attributing the Acts to a companion of Paul, two important peculiarities are explained: on the one hand, the disproportion of the work of which more than three-fifths are consecrated to Paul; on the other, the disproportion which may be remarked, even in the biography of Paul himself, whose first mission is dispatched with great brevity, whilst certain parts of the second and third missions, especially his last journey, are told with minute details. A man altogether a stranger to the apostolic history, would not have exhibited these inequalities. His work would have been better planned as a whole. That which distinguishes history composed from documents, from history written wholly or in part by an actor in it, is exactly this disproportion: The historian of the closet takes for his framework the events themselves; the author of memoirs takes his recollections for his framework, or, at least, his personal relations. An ecclesiastical historian, a sort of Eusebius, writing about the year 120, would have bequeathed to us a book very differently distributed after chapter xiii. The bizarre fashion in which the Acts at this time leaves the orbit in which they had revolved until then can, to my thinking, be explained only by the peculiar situation of the author and by his relations with Paul. This result will be naturally confirmed if we find amongst the known fellow labourers of Paul the name of the author to whom tradition attributes our writing.
This is in effect what took place. Manuscripts and tradition assign as the
author of the third Gospel a certain Lucas or Lucanus. From what has been said
it is evident that if Lucas be really the author of the third Gospel, he is also
the author of the Acts. Now we find this Lucas
The very name of Luke, or Lucanus, and the profession of physician, which the
disciple of Paul thus named exercised, answer completely to the indications
which the two books furnish as to their author. We have shown in effect
What date may we give to the composition of this important document? Luke appears for the first time in company with Paul on the occasion of the first journey of the apostle to Macedonia, about the year 52. Suppose that lie was then 25 years of age; there is nothing unnatural in supposing him to have lived to the year 100. The narrative of the Acts stops at the year 63. But the edition of the Acts being evidently later than that of the third Gospel, and the date of that third Gospel being fixed with sufficient precision in the years which followed the destruction of Jerusalem (70), we cannot dream of placing the production of the Acts earlier than 71 or 72.
If it were certain that the Acts were composed immediately after the Gospel we
might stop at this point. But doubt is permissible. Some facts lead to the
belief that a considerable interval passed between the composition of the third
Gospel and that of the Acts. Thus there is a singular contradiction between the
last chapters of the Gospel and the first of the Acts. According to the former
account the ascension took place on the very day of the resurrection; according
to the Acts it took place only after forty days. It is clear that the second
version presents the legend to us in a more advanced form—a form which was
adopted when the need was felt for creating a place for the various apparitions,
and for giving to the life
It appears then that we shall be very near the truth in supposing that the Acts
were written about the year 80. The spirit of the book, in fact, corresponds
completely with the age of the first Flavians. The author carefully avoids all
that can wound the Romans. He loves to show how favourable the Roman
authorities were to the new sect; how they sometimes even embraced it; how they
at least defended it against the Jews; how greatly superior is imperial justice
to the passions of the local powers. He insists especially on the advantages
which Paul owed to his rights as a Roman citizen. He abruptly cuts his narrative
short at the moment of the arrival of Paul at Rome, perhaps in order to avoid
the necessity of relating the cruelties of Nero towards the Christians. The
contrast with the Apocalypse is striking. The Apocalypse, written in the year
68, is full of the memory of the iniquities of Nero; a horrible hatred of Rome
overspreads
We can understand how a man who has placed himself intentionally in such a
disposition of mind, is the least capable in the world of representing things as
they really happened. Historical fidelity is a matter of indifference to him;
edification is all he cares for. Luke scarcely conceals this; he writes in
order that Theophilus may recognise the truth of what the catechists have taught
him. There was then already a recognised system of ecclesiastical history,
The disadvantages of such a situation are manifest. The life of Jesus, as related by the third evangelist alone, would be extremely defective and incomplete. We know it, because so far as the life of Jesus is concerned, comparison is possible. Together with Luke we possess (without speaking of the fourth Gospel) Matthew and Mark, who, as compared with Luke, are in part, at least, original. We can lay a finger on the violent proceedings by means of which Luke dislocates or mixes up anecdotes, on the way in which he modifies the colour of certain facts according to his personal views, of the pious legends which he adds to the most authentic traditions. Is it not evident that if we could make such a comparison of the Acts, we should find faults of a precisely similar description? The first chapters of the Acts would even appear, without doubt, inferior to the third Gospel, for these chapters were probably composed with fewer and less universally accepted documents.
A fundamental distinction, in fact, is here necessary. From the point of view of
historical value, the book of the Acts divides itself into two parts; one,
including the first twelve chapters, and relating the principal facts of the
history of the primitive Church; the other containing the remaining sixteen
chapters, all devoted to the missions of St. Paul. That second part includes in
itself two distinct kinds of narrative; those on the one hand, of which the
narrator gives himself out as eye-witness; on the other, those
These are not simple suspicions, conjectures of a criticism defiant to excess. They are solid inductions; every time that we are permitted to examine the narrative of the Acts, we find it incorrect and unsystematic. The examination of the Gospels, which can be done only by comparison with the Synoptics, we can make with the help of the Epistles of Paul, especially of the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians. It is clear that where the Acts and the Epistles clash, the preference ought always to be given to the Epistles—texts of an absolute authenticity, more ancient, of a complete sincerity, and free from legends. In history documents have the more authority the less they possess of historical form. The authority of all the chronicles must yield to that of an inscription, of a medal, of a map, of an authentic letter. From this point of view, the letters of certain authors, or of certain dates, are the basis of all the history of the origins of Christianity. Without them, it might be said that doubt would attach to them, and would ruin, from top to bottom, even the life of Jesus itself. Now, in two very important particulars, the Epistles put in a striking light the private tendencies of the author of the Acts, and his desire to efface all trace of the divisions which existed between Paul and the Apostles of Jerusalem.
And first, the author of the Acts says that Paul, after the incident at Damascus
(
The desire to make of Paul an assiduous visitor to Jerusalem, which has led our
author to advance and to prolong his first stay in that city after his
conversion, appears to have induced him to ascribe to the apostle one journey
too many. According to him Paul came to Jerusalem with Barnabas, bearing the
offering of the faithful during the famine of the year 44 (
These comings and goings appear to have been related by our author in a very
inexact fashion. In comparing
That which is most important about our present subject which furnishes thin
critical ray of light for the difficult question of the historical value of the
Acts is a comparision of the passages relative to the business of the
circumcision in the Acts (
Let us now compare the account of Paul in the Epistle to the Galatians. Paul’s version is that the journey to Jerusalem which he undertook on that occasion was the effect of a spontaneous movement, and even the result of a revolution. Arrived at Jerusalem, he communicates his gospel to those whom it concerned; he has, in particular, interviews with those who appear to be considerable personages. They do not offer him a single criticism; they communicate nothing to him; they only ask that he should remember the poor of Jerusalem. If Titus, who accompanied him, consented to allow himself to be circumcised it is “because of false brethren unawares brought in.” Paul makes this passing concession to them, but he does not submit himself to them. As to men of importance (Paul speaks of them only with a shade of bitterness and irony), they have taught him nothing new. More, Peter, having come later to Antioch, Paul “withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.” First, in effect, Peter ate with all indiscriminately. The emissaries of James having arrived, Peter hides himself and avoids the uncircumcised. “Seeing that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel,” Paul apostrophises Peter before them all, and reproaches him bitterly with his conduct.
The difference is palpable. On the one hand a solemn agreement, on the other
anger ill-restrained, extreme susceptibilities. On the one side a sort of
council; on the other nothing resembling it. On one side a formal decree issued
by a recognized authority; on the other different opinions, which remain in
existence without any reciprocal yielding, save for form’s sake. It is useless
to say which version merits the preference. The account in the Acts is scarcely
probable, since according to this account the council was occasioned by a
dispute of which no trace is to be found when the council has met. The two
orators expressed themselves in a sense altogether different from that which we
know to have been otherwise their usual part. The decree which the council is
said to have decided
In our third book we shall have to deal in detail with the question which lies
at the root of all those curious incidents. Here we have desired to give only
some examples of the manner in which the author of the Acts understands history,
of his system of conciliation, of his preconceived ideas. Must we conclude from
them that the first chapters of the Acts are devoid of authority, as some
celebrated critics think, that fiction so far enters as to create both pieces
and persons, such as the eunuch of Candace, the centurion Cornelius, and even
the deacon Stephen and the pious Tabitha? I think by no means. It is probable
that the author of the Acts has not invented the persons, but is a skilful
advocate, who writes to prove his case, and who makes the most of the facts
which have come to his knowledge to support his favourite theories, which are
the legitimacy of the calling of the Gentiles, and the divine institution of
the hierarchy. Such a document must be used with great caution, but to reject it
absolutely is as uncritical as to follow it blindly. Some paragraphs, besides,
even in the first part, have a universally recognised value, and represent
authentic memoirs extracted by the last editor.
It may be seen in what distress we should be if the only documentary authorities
we have for this history were a legendary book like this. Happily, we have
others which refer directly to the period which will be the subject of our third
book, and which shed a great light upon this. These are the Epistles of St.
Paul. The Epistles to the Galatians especially is a veritable treasury, the
basis of the chronology of this age, the key which opens everything, the
testimony which ought to re-assure the most sceptical as to the reality of
matters concerning which they might doubt. I beg, serious readers who may be
tempted to regard me as too bold or too credulous, to read again the two first
chatters of that remarkable document. They are certainly the two most important
chapters for the study of nascent Christianity. The Epistles of St. Paul have,
in fact, an unequalled advantage in that history: their absolute authenticity.
No doubt has ever been raised by serious criticism as to the authenticity of
It is not necessary to refer in this place to the rules of criticism which have
been followed in the composition of this work; that has already been done in
the introduction to the Life of Jesus. The first twelve chapters of the Acts are
in effect a document analogous to the synoptical Gospels, and require to be
treated in the same fashion. Documents of this kind, half historical, half
legendary, can never be regarded as wholly legend or wholly history. Almost
everything in them is false in detail, nevertheless it may enclose some precious
truths. To translate these narratives pure and simple is not to write history.
These narratives are, in fact, often contradicted by other and more authentic
texts. In consequence, even when there is only one text, one is always
constrained to fear that if there had been others there would have been the same
contradictions. For the Life of Jesus the narrative of Luke is continually
controlled and corrected by the two other synoptical Gospels and by the fourth.
Is it not probable, I repeat, that if we had for the Acts the analogue of the
Synoptics and of the fourth Gospel, the Acts would be corrected on a host of
points where we have now only their testimony? In our third book, where we shall
be in clear and definite history, and where we shall have in our hands original
and often biographical information, we shall be guided by other rules. When St.
Paul himself tells us the story of some episode of his life which he had no
interest in presenting
How besides can it be pretended that documents should be followed to the letter
when they are full of impossibilities? The first twelve chapters of the Acts are
a tissue of miracles. Now it is an absolute rule of criticism to give no place
in historical documents to miraculous circumstances. This is not the result of a
metaphysical system, but simply a matter of observation. Facts of that kind can
never be verified. All the pretended miracles that we can study closely resolve
themselves either into illusions or impostures. If a single miracle were proved,
we could hardly reject all those of ancient history in a mass, for after all,
admitting that a great number of these last were false, it is still possible to
believe that certain of them were true. But it is not thus. All discussable
miracles fade away. May we not reasonably conclude from that fact that the
miracles which are removed from us by centuries, and concerning which there is
no way of establishing an exhaustive discussion, are also without reality? In
other words, there is no miracle except when one believes it; the substance of
the supernatural is faith. Catholicism itself, which pretends that the
miraculous power is not yet extinct within its bosom, undergoes the power of
this law. The miracles which it pretends to work happen only in places of its
choice. When there is so simple a method of proving its authenticity, why not do
so in open daylight?
“But,” it is said, “if it is impossible to prove that there has ever been a supernatural fact, it is equally impossible to prove that there has not been one. The positive savant who denies the supernatural proceeds then as gratuitously as the believer who admits it.” In no way. It is for him who affirms a proposition to prove it. He, before whom it is affirmed, has but one thing to do, to wait for the proof, and to yield if it is good. Supposing we had called upon Buffon to give a place in his Natural History to sirens and centaurs, Buffon would have answered, “Show me a specimen of these beings, and I will admit them; until you do, they do not exist for me”—“But prove that they do not exist?”—“It is for you to prove that they exist.” The burden of proof in science rests upon those, who make the assertion. Why do we not believe in angels or devils, although innumerable historic texts assume their existence? Because the existence of an angel or a devil has never yet been proved.
To maintain the reality of the miracle appeal is made to the phenomena, which,
it is said, could have been produced only by going beyond the laws of nature,
the creation of man for example. “The creation of man,” it is said, “could have
come about only by the direct intervention of the Deity; why should not that
intervention be repeated at other decisive moments of the development of the
universe?” I shall not insist upon the strange philosophy, and the paltry idea
of the Divinity which such a method of reasoning involves, for history has its
method, independent of all philosophy. Without entering, in the smallest degree,
upon the province of theodicy, it is easy to show how defective such an argument
is. It is equivalent
Without doubt, in distant ages, things happened in the universe, phenomena which
offer themselves no more, at least upon the same scale in the actual state of
things. But these phenomena may be explained by the date at which they have
occurred. In the geological formation a great number of minerals and precious
atones are found, which it would appear are no longer produced in nature.
Nevertheless Messrs. Mitscherlich, Ebelman, de Sénarmont,
Others, abandoning miracles of the physical order, entrench themselves behind
moral miracles, without which they maintain that these events cannot be
explained. Certainly the formation of Christianity is the greatest event in the
religious history of the world. But it is not a miracle for all that. Buddhism,
Babism have had martyrs as numerous, as exalted, as resigned as Christianity.
The miracles of the foundation of Islam are of a wholly different
I hope that the interval of two years and a half passed since the publication of
the Life of Jesus will lead some of my readers to consider these problems with
greater calmness. Religious controversy is always one of bad faith, without any
intention or desire that it should be so. There is no independent discussion; no
anxious seeking for the truth; it is the defence of a position already taken up
to prove that the dissident is ignorant or dishonest. Calumnies,
misinterpretations, falsifications of ideas and of texts, triumphant reasonings
over things that an opponent has never said, cries of victory over mistakes
which he has not made, nothing appears disloyal to the man who would hold in his
hand the interests of absolute truth. I should have ignored history if I had not
expected all that. I am cool enough to be almost insensible to it, and I have a
sufficiently lively taste for matters of faith to be able to understand in a
kindly spirit what there is that is often touching in the sentiment which
inspired those who contradicted
There are practical persons who, with regard to a work of science, ask what
political party the author proposes to satisfy, and who are anxious that every
poem should convey a moral lesson. Such persons do not admit that it is possible
to write for something else besides a propaganda. The idea of art and of science
aspiring only to find the true, and to realize the beautiful, outside of all
politics, is to them incomprehensible. Between us and such persons
misunderstandings are inevitable. “These people,” as the Greek philosopher
said, “take back with their left hand what they give with their right.” A host
of letters, dictated by a worthy sentiment, which I have received, may be summed
up thus:—“What do you want? What end do you propose?” Good God! the same
that every one proposes in writing history. If I had many lives at my disposal I
would devote one to writing the history of Alexander, another to writing the
history of Athens, a third, it may be, to writing a history of the French Revolution, or a history of the Order of St. Francis. What end should I
propose to myself in writing those works? One only, to find the truth and to
make it live, to work so that
The first principle of the critical school in effect is that in matters of faith everyone admits what he wants to admit, and, as it were, makes the bed of his belief in proportion to his own stature. Why should we be so senseless as to mix ourselves up with what depends upon circumstances concerning which no one knows anything? If anyone accepts our principles, it is because he possesses the turn of mind and the necessary education for them; all our efforts would give neither, did one not already possess those qualities. Philosophy differs from faith, inasmuch as faith operates by itself, independently of the understanding that we have of the dogmas. We believe, on the contrary, that a truth has no value, save when it is reached by itself, when one sees the whole order of ideas to which it belongs. We do not force ourselves to silence such of our opinions as are not in harmony with the belief of a portion of our fellow-man; we make no sacrifice to the exigencies of divergent orthodoxies; but on the other hand we do not dream of attacking or provoking them; we act as though they did not exist. For myself, the day when I may be convicted of an effort to convert to my views a single adherent who did not come of himself would cause me the most acute pain. I should conclude from it, either that my mind had lost its freedom and calmness, or that something was oppressing me so that I could not content myself any longer with the free and joyous contemplation of the universe.
If, moreover, my aim had been to make war upon established religions, I should
have worked in another way, undertaking only to point out the impossibilities
and the contradictions of the texts and dogmas held as sacred. That minute task
has been done a thousand times, and done
I intend to hold invariably to this rule of conduct—the only one worthy of a
scholar. I know that the researches of religious history touch upon living
questions which appear to demand a solution. Persons familiar with free
speculation do not understand the calm deliberation of thought; practical minds
grow impatient with science, which does not answer to their eagerness. Let us
avoid these vain excitements. Let us avoid finding anything. Let us rest in our
respective Churches, profiting by their daily worship and their tradition of
virtue, participating in their good work, and rejoicing in the poetry of their
past. Nor should their intolerance repel us, We may even forgive
As for pure religion, the pretension of which is not to be a sect or a Church
apart, why should it submit to the inconveniences of a position of which it has
none of the advantages? Why should it raise flag against flag when it knows
that salvation is possible everywhere and to everybody; that it depends on the
degree of nobility which
Undoubtedly there are circumstances in which the application of these principles
is difficult. The spirit breathes where it will; the spirit is liberty. Now it
is to persons who are as it were chained to absolute faith I would speak; of
men in holy orders or clothed with some ministerial authority. Even then a fine
soul knows how to find the ways of issue. A worthy country priest, by his
solitary studies and by the purity of his his, comes to see the impossibility of
literal dogmatism; must he sadden those whom he has hitherto consoled by
explaining to them simple changes which they cannot understand? God forbid!
There are not two men in the world who have exactly the same duties. The good
Bishop Colenso accomplished an act of honesty such as the Church has not seen
since its origin, in writing his doubts as soon as they came
Theory is not practice. The ideal must remain the ideal; it must fear lest it soil itself by contact with reality. Thoughts which are good for those who are preserved by their nobility from all moral danger may not be, if they are, applied without their inconveniences for those who are surrounded with baseness. Great things are achieved only with ideas strictly defined; the man absolutely without prejudice would be powerless. Let us enjoy the liberty of the sons of God; but let us take care lest we become accomplices in the diminution of virtue which would menace society if Christianity were to grow weak. What should we be without it? What could replace the great schools of seriousness and respect, such as St. Sulpice, or the devoted ministry of the Sisters of Charity? How can we avoid being affrighted by the pettiness and the cold heartedness which have invaded the world? Our disagreement with persons who believe in positive religions is, after all, purely scientific; at heart we are with them! We have only one enemy who is theirs also—vulgar materialism, the baseness of the interested man.
Peace then, in God’s name! Let the various orders of humanity live side by side,
not falsifying their own intelligence in order to make reciprocal concessions
which will lessen them, but in naturally supporting each other. Nothing ought to
reign here below to the exclusion of its opposite. No one force ought to be able
to suppress the others. The harmony of humanity results from the free emission
of the most discordant notes. If orthodoxy should succeed in killing science we
know what would happen. The Mussulman world of Spain died from having too
conscientiously performed that task. If Rationalism wishes to govern the world
without regard to the religious needs of the soul, the experience of the French
Revolution is there to teach us the consequences of such a blunder. The
instincts of art, carried to the highest point of refinement, but without
honesty, made of the Italy of the Renaissance a den of
Jesus, although speaking constantly of resurrection, of new life, never stated distinctly that he would rise again in the flesh. The disciples, in the hours immediately following his death, had not, in this respect, any settled expectations. The sentiments, in which they have so unaffectedly taken us into their confidence, implied even that they believed all was finished. They wept, and interred their friend, if not as they would at the death of a common person, at least as a person whose loss was irreparable. They were sad and cast down. The hope that they had cherished of seeing him realise the salvation of Israel is now proved to have been vanity. They were spoken of as men who had been robbed of a grand and dear illusion.
But enthusiasm and love do not recognise conditions barren of results. They
dallied with the impossible, and, rather than abdicate hope, they did violence
to all reality. Several phrases of the Master, which were recalled, especially
those in which he predicted his future advent, might be interpreted in the sense
that he would leave the tomb. Such a belief was, besides, so natural that the
faith of the disciples would have sufficed to create it in every part. The great
prophets, Enoch and Elijah, had not tasted death. They began even is believe
that the patriarchs and the men of the first order in the old law, were not
really dead, and that their
The day which followed the burial of Jesus (Saturday, 15th April) was crowded
with these thoughts. People were interdicted from all manner of manual labour,
because of the Sabbath. But never was repose more fruitful. The Christian
conscience had on that day but one object—the Master laid low in the tomb. The
women, in particular, embalmed him in ointment with their most tender caresses.
Not for a moment did their thoughts abandon that sweet friend, reposing in his
myrrh, whom the wicked had killed! Ah! the angels are doubtless surrounding
him, veiling their faces in his shroud! He, indeed, did say that he should die,
that his death would be the salvation of the sinner, and that he should rise in
the kingdom of his Father. Yes; he shall live again; God will not leave his Son
to be a prey to hell; He will not suffer his chosen one to see corruption. What
is this
The belief in the immortality of the soul, which, through the influence of the Grecian philosophy, has become a dogma of Christianity, readily permits of one resigning oneself to death, inasmuch as the dissolution of the body in that hypothesis was only a deliverance of the soul, freed henceforth from vexatious bonds, without which it can exist. But that theory of man, considered as a being composed of two substances, did not appear very clear to the Jews. To them the reign of God and the reign of Spirit consisted in a complete transformation of the world and in the annihilation of death. To acknowledge that death could be victorious over Jesus, over him who came to extinguish its empire, was the height of absurdity. The very idea that he could suffer had previously disgusted his disciples. The latter, then, had no choice between despair or heroic affirmation. A man of penetration might have announced on that Saturday that Jesus would rise again; the little Christian Society on that day wrought the veritable miracle; it resurrected Jesus in its heart, because of the intense love that it bore for him. It decided that Jesus had not died. The love of these passionate souls was, in truth, stronger than death; and, as the property of passion is to be communicative, to light like a torch a sentiment which resembles itself, and, consequently, to be indefinitely propagated; Jesus, in a sense, at the moment of which we speak, is already risen from the dead. Let but one material fact, insignificant itself, permit the belief that his body is no longer here below, and the dogma of the resurrection will be established for eternity.
It was that which happened in the circumstances which, though part obscured, because of the incoherency of the traditions, and especially because of the contradictions which they presented, can, nevertheless, be grasped with a sufficient degree of probability.
Early on Sunday morning, the Galilean women who on Friday evening had hastily embalmed the body, visited the tomb in which he had been temporarily deposited. These were Mary Magdalene, Mary Cleophas, Salome, Joanna, wife of Kouza, and others. They came, probably, each on her own account, for it is difficult to call in question the tradition of the three synoptical gospels, according to which several women came to the tomb; on the other hand, it is certain that in the two most authentic narratives which we possess of the resurrection, Mary Magdalene alone played a part. In any case she had, at that solemn moment, taken a part altogether out of line. It is she whom we must follow step by step, for she bore on that day, for an hour, all the burden of a Christian conscience; her testimony decided the faith of the future.
Let us not forget that the vault in which the body of Jesus had been enclosed,
was a vault which had been recently cut in the rock, and was situated in a
garden near the place of execution. It had, for the latter reason been specially
taken, seeing that it was late in the day and that they were desirous of not
desecrating the Sabbath. The first gospel alone adds one circumstance, to wit,
that the vault belonged to Joseph of Arimathæa. But, in general, the
anecdotical circumstances annexed by the first gospel to the common fund of the
tradition, are without any value, especially when the matter in hand is the last
days of the life of Jesus. The same gospel mentions another detail which, in
view of the silence of the others, has not any probability; we refer to the
public seals and a guard being placed at the tomb. We must also remember that
the mortuary vaults were low chambers, cut into an inclining rock,
But when Mary Magdalene arrived on the Sunday morning, the stone was not in its place. The vault was open. The body was no longer there. In her mind the idea of the resurrection was as yet little developed. That which filled her soul was a tender regret and the desire to render funeral honours to the body of her divine friend. Her first sentiments, moreover, were those of surprise and of sadness. The disappearance of the cherished body had stripped her of the last joy upon which she had calculated. She could not touch him again with her hands! And what had become of him? The idea of a desecration was present to her and she was shocked at it. Perhaps, at the same time, a glimmer of hope crossed her mind. Without losing a moment, she ran to a house in which Peter and John were together. “They have taken away the body of our Master,” said she, “and I know not where they have laid him.”
The two disciples got up hastily and ran with all their might to see. John, the
younger, arrived first. He stooped down to look into the interior. Mary was
right. The tomb was empty. The linen which had served to enshroud him was
scattered about the sepulchre. They both entered, examined the linen, which was
no doubt stained with blood, and remarked in particular the napkin, which had
enveloped his head, rolled up in a corner apart. Peter and John returned home
extremely perplexed. If they did not now pronounce
Peter and John departed from the garden; Mary remained alone at the mouth of the sepulchre. She wept profusely. One single thought engaged her: Where have they put the body? Her woman’s heart did not go beyond the desire of holding the well-beloved body again in her arms. Suddenly she heard a slight noise behind her. A man is standing near her. She thinks at first it is the gardener. “Sir,” said she, “if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.” In response, she heard herself called by her name, “Mary!” It was the voice which had so often before thrilled her. It was the voice of Jesus. “Oh, my master!” she exclaimed. She made as if to touch him. A sort of instinctive movement induced her to kneel down and kiss his feet. The vision gently receded, and said to her: “Touch me not!” Gradually the shadow disappeared. But the miracle of love was accomplished. What Cephas was not able to do, Mary had done. She knew how to extract life, sweet and penetrating words, from the empty tomb. It was no longer a question of deducing consequences or of framing conjectures. Mary had seen and heard. The resurrection had its first immediate witness.
Frantic with love, inebriated with joy, Mary returned to the city and said to
the first disciples whom she met: “I have seen him; he has spoken to me.” Her
greatly troubled imagination, her broken and incoherent discourse, made her to
be taken by some as mad. Peter and John, in their turn, related what they had
seen. Other disciples went to the tomb and saw likewise. The conviction reached
by the whole of this first group was that Jesus had risen. Many doubts still
existed. But the assurances of Mary, of Peter and of John, imposed
The other women who had been to the tomb spread meanwhile the news abroad.
They had not seen Jesus; but they spoke of a man in white, whom they had seen in
the sepulchre, and who had said to them: “He is not here; return into Galilee; he will go before you there; there shall ye see him.” Perhaps it was these
white linen clothes which had originated this hallucination. Perhaps, again,
they saw nothing, and only commenced to speak of their vision when Mary
Magdalene had related
The day was stormy and decisive. The little company was greatly dispersed. Some
had already departed for Galilee; others hid themselves for fear. The
deplorable scene of the Friday; the afflicting spectacle which they had had
before their eyes, in seeing him of whom they had expected so much expire upon
the gibbet, without his Father coming to deliver him, had, moreover,
extinguished the faith of many. The news imparted by the women and Peter was
received on every side with scarcely dissembled credulity. Of the diverse
stories, some were believed; the women went hither and thither with singular
and inconsistent stories, enriching them as they went. Statements, the most
opposed, were put forth. Some still wept over the sad event of the day before;
others were already triumphant; all were disposed to entertain the most
extraordinary accounts. Nevertheless, the distrust which the excitement of Mary
Magdalene inspired, the little authority which the women had, the incoherency of
their narratives, produced grave doubts. People were
It is the characteristic of those states of the soul, in which originate ecstasy
and apparitions, to be contagious. The history of all the great religious
crises, proves that these sort of visions are infectious. In an assembly of
persons, entertaining the same beliefs, it is sufficient for one member of the
body to affirm having seen or heard something supernatural for others to see and
to hear also. Amongst the persecuted Protestants, a report was spread that
people had heard the angels singing psalms upon a recently destroyed temple:
They all went there and heard the same psalm. In cases of this kind, it is the
most excited who give law, and who regulate the temperature of the common
atmosphere. The exaltation of a few is transmitted to all; no one desires to be
left behind, or likes to confess that he is less favoured than the others. Those
who see nothing, are carried away, and finish by believing either that they are
less clear-sighted, or that they do not take proper account of their sensations.
In any case, they take care not to avow it; they would be disturbers of the
common joy, would cause sadness to others, and would be playing a disagreeable
part. When, therefore, one apparition is brought forward in such assemblies, it
is customary for everyone to see it, or believe he has seen it. It is necessary
to remember, however, what was the degree of intellectual culture possessed by
the disciples of Jesus. What is called a weak head, very often, is associated
with infinite goodness of heart. The disciples believed in phantoms; they
imagined themselves to be compassed
On the same Sabbath day, at an advanced hour of the morning, when the tales of
the women had already been circulated, two disciples, one of whom was named
Cleopatros or Cleopas, set out on a short journey to a village named Emmaus,
situated a short distance from Jerusalem. They talked together of recent events,
and were filled with sadness On the way, an unknown companion joined them, and
inquired as to the cause of their sorrow. “Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem?” said they, “And
hast not known the things which are come to pass in these
days?” And he said unto them, “What things?” And they said unto him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before
God and all the people: And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him
to be condemned to death and have crucified him. But we trusted that it had been
he which should have redeemed Israel: and besides all this, to-day is the third
day since these things were done. Yea, and certain women also of our company
made us astonished, which were early at the sepulchre: and when they found not
his body, they
The main body of the disciples were, just at that moment, assembled at the
house of Peter. Night had completely set in. Each was relating his impressions,
and what he had seen and heard. The general belief already willed that Jesus had
risen. At the entrance of the two disciples, the brethren hastened to speak to
them of that which was called, “the vision of Peter.” They, on their side, told
what had befallen them on the way to Emmaus, and how that they had recognized
him in the breaking of bread. The imaginations of everyone became quite excited.
The doors were shut; for they feared the Jews. Oriental cities are silent after
sunset. The silence, hence, for some moments in the interior was frequently
profound. Every slight sound which was accidentally produced was interpreted in
the sense of the common expectation. Expectation, as is usual, was the
progenitor of its object. During a moment of silence, a slight breath of wind
passed over the face of the assembly. At these decisive times, a current of air,
a creaking window, a casual murmur, suffices to fix the beliefs of people for
centuries. At the same moment the breath of air was felt, they believed that
they heard sounds. Some declared that they had seen the word schalom, “happiness” or “peace.” This was the ordinary salutation of
Jesus, and the word
by which he signalized his presence. It was impossible to doubt; Jesus was
present; he was there, in the assembly. It was his dear voice; everyone
recognized it. This idea was the more easily accepted, inasmuch as Jesus had
said to them, that as often as they came together in his name, he would be in
the midst of them. It was then an accepted fact, that on Sunday evening, Jesus
had appeared before his assembled disciples. Some of them pretended to have
distinguished the marks of the nails in his hands and his feet, and in his side
the trace of the spear thrust. According to a widely-spread tradition, this was
the self-same evening that he breathed upon his disciples the holy spirit.
Such were the incidents of that day, which has decided the fate of humanity. The opinion that Jesus had risen was, on that day, established in an irrevocable manner. The sect, which was believed to be extinguished by the death of the Master, was, from that instant, assured of a great future.
Some doubts were, nevertheless, ventilated. The apostle, Thomas, who was not
present at the meeting on Sunday evening, avowed that he envied those who had
seen the marks of the spear and of the nails. Eight days after, this envy, it is
said, was allayed. But there has attached to him, in consequence, some slight
blame and a mild reproach. By an instinctive feeling of exquisite justness, they
understood that the ideal was not to be touched with hands, and that it must not
be subjected to the test of experience. Noli, me tangere (touch me not) is the
motto of all great affection. The sense of touch leaves nothing to faith; the
eye, a purer and more noble organ than the hand, which nothing can sully, and by
which nothing is sullied, became very soon a superfluous witness. A singular
sentiment began to grow up; any hesitation was held to be a mark of disloyalty
and lack of love; one was ashamed to remain behind hand, and one interdicted
oneself from desiring to sec. The dictum: “Blessed are they who have not seen
and yet believed,” became the key-note of the situation. It was thought to be a
thing so much more generous to believe without proof. The really sincere friends
denied having seen any vision. Just as, in later times, Saint Louis refused to
be a witness to an eucharistic miracle, so as not to detract from the merits of
faith. From that time, credulity became a hideous emulation, and a kind of
out-bidding one another. The merit consisted in believing without having seen;
faith at any cost; gratuitous faith; the faith which went as far as folly—was
exalted, as if it were the first of the gifts
The first days were hence a period of intense feverishness, in which the
faithful, infatuated with one another, and imposing one’s fancies each upon the
other, mutually carried away, and imparting to each other the most exalted
notions. Visions were multiplied without number. The evening assemblies were the
most common occasions when they were produced. When the doors were closed, and
when each was beset with his fixed idea, the first who was believed to hear the
sweet word, schalom, “salutation,” or “peace,” would give the signal. All
would then listen, and would soon hear the very same thing. It was hence a great
joy to those unsophisticated souls to know that Jesus was in the midst of them.
Each tasted of the sweetness of that thought, and believed himself to be
favoured with some inward colloquy. Other visions were noised abroad of a
different description, and recalled those of the sojourners to Emmaus. During
meal time, Jesus was seen to appear, taking the bread, blessing it, breaking it,
and offering it to him who had been honoured with a vision of himself. In a few
days, a whole string of stories, greatly differing in details, but inspired by
the same spirit of love, and of absolute faith, was invented and spread abroad.
It is the gravest of errors to suppose that legends require any length of time
to be formed. Legend is sometimes born in a day. On Sunday evening
THE most eager desire of those who have lost a dear friend, is to revisit the
places where they have lived with them. It was, doubtless, this sentiment which,
a few days after the events of the Passover, induced the disciples to return
into Galilee. From the moment of the arrest of Jesus, and immediately after his
death, it is probable that many of the disciples had already found their way to
the northern provinces. At the time of the resurrection, a rumour was spread
abroad, according to which, it was in Galilee that he would be seen again. Some
of the women who had been to the sepulchre came back with the report that the
angel had said to them that Jesus had already preceded them into Galilee. Others
said that it was Jesus himself who had ordered them to go there. Now and then
some people said that they themselves remembered that he had said so during his
life time. What is certain is, that at the end of a few days, probably after the
Paschal Feast of the Pass-over had been quite over, the disciples believed they
had a command to return into their own country, and to it accordingly they
returned. Perhaps the visions began to abate at Jerusalem. A species of
melancholy seized them. The brief appearances of Jesus were not sufficient to
compensate for the enormous void left by
The majority of the disciples then departed, full of joy and hope, perhaps in
the company of the caravan, which took back the pilgrims from the Feast of the
Passover. What they hoped to find in Galilee, were not only transient visions,
but Jesus himself to continue with them, as he had done before his death. An
intense expectation filled their souls. Was he going to restore the Kingdom of
Israel, to found definitely the Kingdom of God, and, as was said, “Reveal his
justice?” Everything was possible. They already called to mind the smiling
landscapes where they had enjoyed his presence. Many believed that he had given
to them a rendezvous upon a mountain, probably the same to which with them there
clung so many sweet recollections. Never, it is certain, had there been a more
pleasant journey. All their dreams of happiness were on the point of being
realized. They were going to see him once more! And, in fact, they did see him
again. Hardly restored to their harmless chimeras, they believed themselves to be
in the midst of the Gospel dispensation period. It was now drawing near to the
end of April. The ground is then strewn with red anemones, which were probably
those “lilies of the fields” from which Jesus delighted to draw his similes.
At each step, his words were brought to mind, adhering, as it were, to the
thousand accidental objects they met by the way. Here was the tree, the flower,
the seed, from which he had taken his parables; there was
Such was the state of mind of this faithful band, in this short period when
Christianity seemed to return for a moment to his cradle and bid to him an
eternal adieu. The principal disciples, Peter, Thomas, Nathaniel, the sons of
Zebedee, met again on the shores of the lake, and henceforth lived together;
they had taken up again their former calling of fishermen, at Bethsaida or at
Capernaum. The Galilean women were no doubt with them. They had insisted more
than the others on that return, which was to them a heartfelt love. This was
their last act in the establishment of Christianity. From that moment, they
disappear. Faithful to their love, their wish was to quit no more the country in
which they had tasted their greatest delight. They were quickly forgotten, and,
as the Galilean Christianity possessed but little of futurity, the remembrance
of them was completely lost in certain ramifications of the tradition. These
touching demoniacs, these converted fisherwomen, these actual founders of
Christianity, Mary Magdalene, Mary
The visions, at first, on the lake appear to have been pretty frequent On board
these crafts where they had come in contact with God, how many times had the
disciples not seen again their Divine Friend? The simplest circumstances
brought him back to them. Once they had toiled all night without taking a single
fish; suddenly the nets were filled; this was a miracle. It appeared that some
one from the land had said to them: “Cast your nets to the right.” Peter and
John regarded one another. “It is the Lord,” said John. Peter, who was naked,
covered himself hastily with his fisher’s coat, and cast himself into the sea,
in order to go to the invisible councillor. At other times Jesus came and
partook of their simple repasts. One day, when they had done fishing, they were
surprised to find lighted coals, with fish placed upon them, and bread near by.
A lively sense of their feasts of past times crossed their minds, since bread
and fish had been always an essential part of their diet. Jesus was in the habit
of offering these to them. After the meal they were persuaded that Jesus himself
had sat by their side, and had presented to them those victuals which hail
already become to them eucharistic and sacred, John and Peter were the ones who
were specially favoured with those private conversations with the well-beloved
phantom. One day, Peter, dreaming, perhaps (but what am I saying! their life on
the shore was it not a perpetual dream?) believed that he heard Jesus ask him:
“Lovest thou Me?” The question was repeated three times. Peter, wholly
possessed by a tender and sad sentiment, imagined that he responded, “Yea,
These grand and melancholy dreams, these never ceasing conversations, broken off
and recommenced with the death of the cherished one, occupied the days and
months. The sympathy of Galilee for the prophet that the Hierosolymites of
Jerusalem had put to death was re-awakened. More than five hundred persons were
already devoted to the memory of Jesus. In default of the lost master, they
obeyed the disciples, the most authoritative—Peter—in particular. One day, when
following in the suite of their spiritual chiefs, the faithful Galileans had
ascended one of those mountains whither Jesus had often conducted them, and they
imagined that they saw him again. The atmosphere of these heights is full of
strange mirages. The same vision which formerly had occurred to the most
intimate disciples was once more produced. The whole assembly believed that they
saw the divine spectre displayed in the clouds; all fell on their faces and
worshipped. The sentiment which the clear horizon of those mountains inspires is
the idea of the extent of the world, and the desire of conquering it.
Nearly a year rolled on, during which they led this life, suspended between
heaven and earth. The charm, far from diminishing, increased. It is a property
of great and holy things, always to become grander and more pure of themselves.
The sentiment in regard to a loved one who has been lost, is certainly keener at
a distance of time, than on the morrow after the death. The greater the
distance, the more the sentiment gains strength. The sorrow, which at first is a
part of it and, in a sense, lessens it, is changed into a serene piety. The
image of the defunct one is transfigured, idealized, becomes the soul of life,
the principle of all action, the source of all joy, the oracle which is
consulted, the consolation which is sought in moments of despondency. Death is a
necessary, condition of every apotheosis. Jesus, so beloved during his life, was
in this way more so after his last breath, or rather his last breath was the
commencement of his actual life in the bosom of the church. He became the
intimate friend, the confidant, the travelling companion, the one who, at the
turning point of the route, joins you,
About the years 80 or 83, when the actual text of the first Gospel received its
final additions, the Jews already had on this matter a settled opinion. If they
are to be believed, the disciples might have come by night and stolen away his
body. The Christian conscience was alarmed at this rumour, and in order to
This last circumstance would lead one to suppose that a woman’s hand had crept in there. The five narratives of the visit of the women to the tomb are so confused and embarrassing, that it is certainly quite allowable for us to suppose that they contained some misapprehension. The female conscience, when dominated by passion, is capable of the most extravagant illusions. Often it becomes the abettor of its own dreams. To these sort of incidents, for the purpose of having them considered as marvellous, nobody deliberately deceives; but everybody, without thinking of it, is led to connive at them. Mary Magdalene, according to the language of the times, had been “possessed of seven devils.” In all this it is necessary to take account of the lack of the precision of mind of the women of the East, of their absolute want of education, and of the peculiar shade of their sincerity. Exalted conviction renders any return upon herself impossible. When the sky is seen everywhere, one is led to put oneself at times in the place of the sky.
Let us draw a veil over these mysteries. In states nt religious crises, everything being regarded as divine, the greatest effects may be the results of the most trifling causes. If we were witnesses of the strange facts which are at the origin of all the works of faith, we should discover circumstances which to us would not appear proportioned to the importance of the results, and others which would make us smile. Our old cathedrals are reckoned among the most beautiful objects in the world; one cannot enter them without being in some sort inebriated with the infinite. Yet these splendid marvels are almost always the fruit of some little conceit. And what does it matter definitively. The result alone counts in such matters. Faith purifies all. The material incident which has induced belief in the resurrection was not the true cause of the resurrection. That which raised Jesus from the dead was love. That love was so powerful that a petty accident sufficed to erect the edifice of a universal faith. If Jesus had been less loved, if faith in the resurrection had had less reason for its establishment, these kind of accidents would have occurred in vain, nothing would have come out of them. A grain of sand causes the fall of a mountain, when the moment for the fall of the mountain has come. The greatest things proceed at once from the greatest and smallest causes. Great causes alone are real; little ones only serve to determine the production of an effect which has for a long time been in preparation.
THE apparitions, in the meanwhile, as happens always in movements of credulous
enthusiasm, began to abate. Popular chimeras resemble contagious maladies; they
grow stale quickly and change their form. The activity of these ardent souls had
already turned in another direction. What they believed to have heard from the
lips of the dear risen one, was the order to go forth and preach, and to convert
the world. But where should they commence? Naturally, at Jerusalem. The
return to Jerusalem was then resolved upon by those who at that time had the
direction of the sect. As these journeys were ordinarily made by caravan at the
time of the feasts, we now suppose with all manner of likelihood, that the
return in question took place at the Feast of Tabernacles at the close of the
year 33, or the Paschal Feast of the year 34. Galilee was thus abandoned by
Christianity, and abandoned for ever. The little church which remained there
continued, no doubt, to exist; but we hear it no more spoken of. It was probably
broken up, like all the rest, by the frightful disaster which then overtook the
country during the war of Vespasian; the wreck of the dispersed community
sought refuge beyond Jordan. After the war it was not Christianity which was
brought back into Galilee; it was Judaism. In the ii., iii., and iv. centuries,
Galilee was a country wholly Jewish; the centre of Judaism, the country of the
Talmud. Galilee thus counted but an hour in the history of Christianity; but it
was the sacred hour, par excellence; it gave to the new religion that which has
made it endure—its poetry, its penetrating charms. “The Gospel,” after the
manner of the synoptics, was a Galilean work. But we shall attempt
In fact, it is very remarkable that the family of Jesus, some of whose members
during his life had been
Be that as it may, the apostles henceforth separated no more, except to make
temporary journeys. Jerusalem became their head-quarters; they seemed to be
afraid to disperse, while certain acts served to reveal in them the
prepossession of being opposed to return again into Galilee, which latter had
dissolved its little society. An express order of Jesus is supposed to have
interdicted their quitting Jerusalem, before, at least, the great manifestations
which were to take place. Apparitions became more and more rare. They were
spoken much less of, and people began to believe that they would not see the
Master again until His grand appearance in the clouds. Peoples’ thoughts were
turned with great force towards a promise which it was supposed Jesus had made.
During his life-time, Jesus, it was said, had often spoken of the Holy Spirit,
which was understood to mean a personification of divine wisdom. He had promised
his disciples that the Spirit would nerve them in the combats that they would
have to engage in, would be their inspirer in difficulties, and their advocate,
if they had to speak in public. When the visions became rare, the brethren found
compensation in this Spirit, which they looked upon as a consoler, as another
self which Jesus had bequeathed to his friends. Sometimes it was supposed that
Jesus suddenly presented himself in the midst of his disciples assembled, and
breathed on them out of his own mouth a current of vivifying air. At other times
the disappearance of Jesus was regarded as a premonition of the coming of the
Spirit. It was believed that in the apparitions he had promised the descent of
this Spirit. Many people established an intimate connection between this descent
and the restoration of the
The legend would make it appear that the disciples, after that marvellous scene,
re-entered Jerusalem “with joy.” For ourselves, it is with sadness that we have
to say to Jesus a final adieu. To have found him living again his shadow life,
has been to us a great consolation. That second life of Jesus, a pale image of
the first, is yet full of charm. Now, all scent of him is lost. Raised on a
cloud to the right hand of his Father, he has left us with men, but, oh, Heaven!
the fall is terrible! The reign of poetry is past. Mary Magdalene, retired to
her native village, buried there her recollections. In consequence of that
eternal injustice which ordains that man appropriates to himself alone the work
in which woman has had as great a share as he, Cephas eclipsed her, and made her
to be forgotten! No more sermons on the Mount; no more of the possessed of
devils healed; no more courtesans touched; no more of those strange female
fellow workers in the work of redemption whom Jesus had not repelled! God has
verily disappeared. No; history of the church is to be most often henceforth the
history of treasons to blot out the name of Jesus. But such as it is, that
history is still a hymn to his glory. The wools and the image of the illustrious
Nazarene shall
Mean, narrow, ignorant, inexperienced they were, as completely so as it was possible to be. Their simplicity of mind was extreme; their credulity had no limits. But they had one quality: they loved their Master to foolishness. The recollection of Jesus was the only moving power of their lives; it was perpetually with them, and it was clear that they lived only for him, who, during two or three years, had so strangely attached and seduced them. For souls of a secondary standard, who cannot love God directly, that is to say, discover truth, create the beautiful, do right of themselves, salvation consists in loving some one in whom there shines a reflection of the true, the beautiful, and the good. The great majority of mankind require a worship of two degrees. The multitude of worshippers desire an intermediary between it and God.
When a person has succeeded in attracting to himself, by an elevated moral
bond, several other persons, when he dies, it always happens that the survivors,
who, up to that time are often divided by rivalries and dissensions, beget a
strong friendship the one for the other. A thousand cherished images of the
past, which they regret, become to them a common treasure. There is .a manner of
loving the dead, which consists in loving those with whom we have known him. We
are anxious to meet one another, in order to re-call the happy times
The affection that the disciples had the one for the other, while Jesus was alive, was thus enhanced tenfold after his death. They formed a very small and very retired society, and lived exclusively by themselves. At Jerusalem they numbered about one-hundred-and-twenty. Their piety was active, and, as yet, completely restrained by the forms of Jewish piety. The temple was then the chief place of devotion. They worked, no doubt, for a living; but at that time, manual labour in Jewish society engaged very few. Everyone had a trade, but that trade by no means hindered a man from being educated and well-bred. With us, material wants are so difficult to satisfy, that the man living by his hands is obliged to work twelve or fifteen hours a day; the man of leisure alone can follow intellectual pursuits; the acquisition of instruction is a rare and costly affair. But in those old societies (of which the East of our days gives still an idea), in those climates, where nature is so prodigal to man and so little exacting, in the life of the labourer there was plenty of leisure. A sort of common instruction puts every man au courant of the ideas of the times. Mere food and clothing satisfied their wants; a few hours of moderate labour provided these. The rest was given up to day dreaming, and to passion. Passion had attained in the minds of those people a decree of energy which is to us inconceivable. The Jews of that time appear to us to be in truth possessed, each pursuing with a blind fatality the idea with which he had been seized.
The dominant idea in the Christian community, at the moment at which we are now
arrived, and when apparitions had ceased, was the coming of the Holy Spirit.
People were believed to receive it in the form of a mysterious breath, which
passed over the assembly.
These beliefs were strengthened by notions drawn from the Old Testament. The
prophetic spirit is represented in the Hebrew books as a breathing which
penetrates man and inspires him. In the beautiful vision of Elijah, God passes
by in the form of a gentle wind, which produces a slight rustling noise. This
ancient imagery had handed down to later ages beliefs analogous to those of the
Spiritualists of our days. In the ascension of Isaiah, the coming of the Spirit
is accompanied by a certain rustling at the doors. More often, however, people
regarded this coming as another baptism, to wit, the “baptism of the Spirit,”
far superior to that of John. The hallucinations of touch being very frequent
among persons so nervous and so excited, the least current of air, accompanied
by a shuddering in the midst of the silence, was considered as the passage of
the Spirit. One conceived that he felt it; soon everybody felt it; and the
enthusiasm was communicated from one to another. The correspondence of these
phenomena with those which are to be found amongst the visionaries of all times
is easily apprehended. They
Amongst all these “descents of the Spirit,” which appear to have been frequent
enough, there was one which left a profound impression on the nascent Church.
One day, when the brethren were assembled, a thunder-storm burst forth. A
violent wind threw open the windows: the heavens were on fire. Thunderstorms, in
these countries, are accompanied by prodigious sheets of lightning; the
atmosphere is, as it were, everywhere furrowed with ridges of flame. Whether the
electric fluid had penetrated the room itself, or whether a dazzling flash of
lightning had suddenly illuminated the faces of all, everyone was convinced that
the Spirit had entered, and that it had alighted on the head of each in the form
of tongues of fire. It was a prevalent opinion in the theurgic schools of Syria,
that the communication of the Spirit was produced by a divine fire, and under
the form of a mysterious glare. People fancied themselves to be present at the
splendours of Sinai, at a divine manifestation analogous to those of former
days. The baptism of the Spirit thenceforth became also a baptism of fire. The
baptism of the Spirit and of fire was opposed to, and greatly preferred to, the
baptism of water, the only baptism which John had known. The baptism of fire,
was only prepared on rare occasions. Thy apostles and the disciples of the first
guest-chamber alone were reputed to have received it. But the idea that the
Spirit had alighted on them in the form of jets of Ilene, resembling tongues of
fire, gave rise to a series
The tongue of the inspired man was supposed to receive a kind of sacrament. It
was pretended that many prophets, before their mission, had been stammerers;
that the Son of God had passed a coal over their lips, which purified them and
conferred on them the gift of eloquence. In preaching, the man was supposed not
to speak of his own volition. His tongue was considered as the organ of divinity
which inspired it. These tongues of fire appeared a striking symbol. People were
convinced that God desired to signify in this manner that he poured out upon the
apostles his most precious gifts of eloquence, and of inspiration. But they did
not stop there. Jerusalem was, like the majority of the large cities of the
East, a city in which many languages were spoken. The diversity of tongues was
one of the difficulties which one found there in the way of propagating a
universal form of faith. One of the things, moreover, which alarmed the
apostles, at the commencement of a ministry destined to embrace the world, was
the number of languages which was spoken there: they were asking themselves
incessantly how they could learn so many tongues. “The gift of tongues” became
thus a marvellous privilege. It was believed that the preaching of the Gospel
would clear away the obstacle which was created by the diversity of idioms. It
was imagined that, in some solemn circumstances, the auditors had heard the
apostle preaching each in his own tongue: in other words, that the apostolic
preaching translated itself to each of the listeners. At other times, this was understood in a somewhat different manner. To the apostles was attributed the
gift of knowing, by divine inspiration, all tongues, and of speaking them at
will. There was in this a liberal idea; they meant to imply that the Gospel
should have no language of its own; that it should be translatable into every
tongue; and that the translation should be of the came value as the original.
Such was not the sentiment
For the rest, the gift of tongues soon underwent a considerable transformation,
and resulted in more extraordinary effects. Brain excitement led to ecstacy and
prophecy. In these ecstatic moments the faithful, impelled by the Spirit,
uttered inarticulate and incoherent sounds, which were taken for the words of a
foreign language, and which they innocently sought to interpret. At other times
it was believed that the ecstatically possessed spoke new and hitherto unknown
languages, or even the language of the angels. These extravagant scenes, which
led to abuses, did not become habitual until a later period. Yet it is probable
that from the earliest years of Christianity they were produced. The visions of
the ancient prophets had often been accompanied by phenomena of nervous
excitation. The dythyrambic state amongst the Greeks produced
The history of fanatical sects is fruitful in instances of the same kmd. The
preachers of the Cevennes displayed similar instances of “glossolaly.” The most
striking instance, however, is that of the “readers” of Sweden, about the years
1841-43. Involuntary utterances, enunciations, having no meaning to those who
uttered them, and accompanied by convulsions and fainting fits, were for a long
time practised daily in that little sect. The thing became perfectly contagious,
and occasioned a considerable popular movement. Amongst the Irvingites the
phenomenon of tongues has been produced with features which reproduce in the
most striking manner the stories of the Acts and of Saint Paul. Our own century
has
These strange phenomena were sometimes produced out of doors. The ecstatic
persons, at the very moment when they were a prey to their extravagant
illuminations, had the hardihood to go out and show themselves to the multitude.
They were taken for drunken persons. Although sober-minded in point of
mysticism, Jesus had more than once presented in his own person the ordinary
phenomena of the ecstatic state. The disciples, for two or three years, were
beset with these ideas. Prophesying was frequent and considered as a gift
analogous to that of tongues. Prayers, accompanied by convulsions, rhythmic
modulations, mystic sighs, lyrical enthusiasm, songs with graceful attitudes,
were a daily exercise. A rich vein of “canticles,” “psalms,” “hymns,” in
imitation of those of the Old Testament, was thus found to be open to them.
Sometimes the mouth and heart mutually accompanied one another; sometimes the
heart sang alone, accompanied inwardly by grace. No language being able to
render the new sensations which were produced, they indulged in an indistinct
muttering, at once sublime and puerile, in which what one might call “the
Christian language,” was wafted in a state of embryo. Christianity, not finding
in the ancient languages an appropriate instrument for its needs, has shattered
them. But whilst the new religion was forming a language suited to its use,
centuries of obscure effort and, so to speak, of childish prattle, were
required. The style of Saint Paul, and, in general, that of the authors of the
New Testament, what is its characteristic, if it be not stifled, halting,
informal, improvisation of the “glossolalist”? Language failed them. Like the
prophets, they aped
All this was very far from the sentiment of Jesus; but for minds penetrated with a belief in the supernatural, these phenomena possessed great importance. The gift of tongues, in particular, was considered as an essential sign of the new religion, and as a proof of its truth. In any case, there resulted from it much fruit for edification. Many Pagans were converted in this way. Up to the third century “glossolaly” was manifested in a manner analogous to that described by St. Paul, and was considered as a perpetual miracle. Many of the sublime words of Christianity are derived from these incoherent sighs. The general effect was touching and penetrating. Their manner of offering in common their inspirations and of handing them over to the community for interpretation established in time amongst the faithful a strong bond of fraternity.
As in the case of all mvstics, the new sectaries led fasting and austere lives.
Like the majority of Orientals, they ate little, which contributed to maintain
them in a state of excitement. The sobriety of the Syrian, the cause of his
physical weakness, keeps him in a perpetual state of fever and of nervous
susceptibility. Our severe, continuous, intellectual efforts, are impossible
under such a regimen. But this cerebal debility and muscular laxity, produces,
apparently without cause, lively alternations of sorrow and joy, and puts the
soul in constant relationship with God. That which was called “Godly sorrow”
passed for a Heavenly gift. All the teachings of the Fathers concerning the life spiritual, such as John Climacus, as Basil, as Nilus, as Arsenius,—all the
The custom of living together, holding the same faith, and indulging the same expectation, necessarily produced many common habits. Very soon rules were framed, which made that primitive church resemble, to some extent, the establishments of the cenobitical life, rules with which Christianity subsequently became acquainted. Many of the precepts of Jesus conduced to this; the true ideal of evangelical life is a monastery, not a monastery enclosed with iron bars, a prison after the type of the Middle Ages, with the separation of the sexes, but an asylum in the midst of the world, a place set apart for spiritual life, a free association or little private confraternity, surrounded by a barrier, which may serve to ward off the cares which are prejudicial to the liberty of the Kingdom of God.
All, then, lived in common, having but one heart and one mind. No one possessed
anything which was his own. On becoming a disciple of Jesus, one sold one’s
goods and made a gift of the proceeds to the society. The chiefs of the society
then distributed the common possessions to each, according to his needs. They
lived in the same quarter, They took their meals together, and continued to
attach to them the mystic sense that Jesus had prescribed. They passed long
hours in prayers. Their prayers were sometimes improvised aloud, but more often
meditated in silence. Trances were frequent, and each one believed oneself to be
constantly favoured with divine inspiration. The concord was perfect; no
dogmatic quarrels, no disputes in regard to precedence. The tender recollection
of Jesus effaced all dissensions. Joy, lively and deep-seated,
That the author of the Acts, to whom we are indebted for the picture of this
primitive Christianity at Jerusalem, has laid on his colours a little too
thickly, and, in particular, exaggerated the community of goods which obtained
in the sect, is certainly possible. The author of the Acts is the same as the
author of the third gospel, who, in his life of Jesus, had the habit of adapting
his facts to suit his theories, and with whom a tendency to the doctrine of
ebonism, that is to say, of absolute poverty, is very perceptible. Nevertheless,
the narrative of the Acts cannot here be destitute of some foundation. Although
Jesus himself would not have given utterance to any of the communistic axioms
which one reads in the third gospel, it is certain that a renunciation of
worldly goods and of the giving of alms pushed to the length of
self-despoilment, were perfectly conformable to the spirit of his preaching. The
belief that the world is coming to an end has always produced a distaste for
worldly goods, and a leaning to the communistic life. The narrative of the Acts
is, however, perfectly conformable to that which we know of the origin of other
ascetic religions—of Buddhism for example. These sorts of religion commence
always with monastical life. Their first adepts are some species of mendicant
monks. The layman does not appear in them until later, and when these religions
We admit, then, in the Church of Jerusalem a period of cenobitical life. Two centuries later Christianity produced still on the Pagans the effect of a communistic sect. It must be remembered that the Essenians or Therapeutians had already given the model of this species of life, which sprang very legitimately from Mosaism. The Mosaic code being essentially moral and not political, its natural product was a social Utopia (church, synagogue and convent) not a civil state, nation or city. Egypt had had for many centuries recluses, both male and female, maintained by the state, probably in fulfilment of charitable legacies, near the Serapeum at Memphis. It must especially be remembered that such a life in the East is by no means what it has been in our West. In the East, one can very well enjoy nature and existence without possessing anything. Man, in these countries, is always free, because he has few wants; the slavery of toil is there unknown. We readily admit that the communism of the primitive church was neither so rigorous nor so universal as the author of the Acts would have. What is certain is, that there was at Jerusalem a large community of poor, governed by the apostles, and to whom were sent gifts from every quarter of Christendom. This community was obliged, no doubt, to establish some rather seven rules, and some years later, it was even necessary, in order to enforce these rules, to employ terror. Some frightful legends were circulated, according to which the mere fact of having retained anything beyond that which one gave to the community, was looked upon as a capital crime and punished by death.
The porticoes of the temple, especially the portico of Solomon, which looked
down on the Valley of Cedron, was the place where the disciples usually met
during the day. There they could recall the hours Jesus had spent in the same
place. In the midst of the extreme
At eventide, the brethren returned to their quarters, and partook of the meal,
being divided into groups, in sign of paternity, and in remembrance of Jesus,
whom they always believed to be present in the midst of them. The one at the
head of the table broke the bread, blessed the cup, and sent them round as a
symbol of union in Jesus. The most common act of life became in this way the
most sacred and the most holy. These meals en famille, which were always enjoyed
by the Jews, were accompanied by prayers, pious raptures, and pervaded by a
sweet cheerfulness. They believed themselves once more to be in the time when
Jesus animated them by his presence: they imagined they saw him, and it was not
long before the rumour went abroad that Jesus had said: “As often as ye break
the bread, do it in remembrance of Me.” The bread itself became
The apostles chosen by Jesus, and who were supposed to have received from him a
special mandate to announce to the world the Kingdom of God, had, in the little
community, an incontestable superiority. One of the first cares, as soon as they
saw the sect settle quietly down at Jerusalem, was to fill the vacancy that
Judas of Kerioth had left in its ranks. The opinion that the latter had betrayed
his master, and had been the cause of his death, became more and more general.
The legend was mixed up with him, and every day one heard of some new
circumstance which enhanced the black-heartedness of his deed. He had bought a
field near the old necropolis of Hakeldama, to the south of Jerusalem, and there
he lived retired. Such was the state of artless excitation in which the little
Church found itself, that, in order to replace him, it was resolved to have
recourse to a vote of some sort. In general, in great religious agitations we
decide upon this method of coming to a determination, since it is admitted on
principle that nothing is fortuitous, that the question in point is the chief
object of divine attention, and that God’s part in an action is so much the more
greater in proportion as that of man’s is the more feeble. The sole condition
was, that the candidate should be chosen from the groups of the oldest
disciples, who had been witnesses of the whole series of events, from the time
of the baptism of John. This reduced considerably the number of those eligible.
Two only were found in the ranks,
For the rest, it is necessary to guard against the misunderstandings, which the name of “apostle” might provoke, and which it has not failed to occasion. From a very early period, people were led by some passages in the Gospel, and, above all, by the analogy of the life of Saint Paul, to regard the apostles as essentially wandering missionaries, distributing in a kind of way the world in advance, and traversing as conquerors all the kingdoms of the earth. A cycle of legends was founded upon that data, and imposed upon ecclesiastical history. Nothing could be more contrary to the truth. The body of Twelve lived, generally, permanently at Jerusalem. Till about the year 60 the apostles did not leave the holy city except upon temporary missions. This explains the obscurity in which the majority of the members of the central council remained. Very few of them had a rôle. This council was a kind of sacred college or senate, destined only to represent tradition, and a spirit of conservatism. It finished by being relieved of every active function, so that its members had nothing to do but to preach and pray; but as yet the brilliant feats of preaching had not fallen to their lot. Their names were hardly known outside Jerusalem, and about the year 70 or 80 the lists which were given of these chosen Twelve, agreed only in the principal names.
The “brothers of the Lord” appear often by the side of the “apostles,”
although they were distinct from them. Their authority, however, was equal to
that of
The term used to designate the assembly of the faithful was the Hebrew Kahal, which was rendered by the essentially democratic word Ecclesia, which is the convocation of the people in the ancient Grecian cities, the summons to the Pnyx or the Agora. Commencing with the second or the third century before Jesus Christ, the words of the Athenian democracy became a sort of common law in Hellenic language; many of these terms, on account of their having been used in the Greek confraternities, entered into the Christian vocabulary. It was, in reality, the popular life, which; restrained for centuries, resumed its power under forms altogether different. The Primitive Church was, in its way, a little democracy. Even election by lot, a method an dear to the ancient Republics, had sometimes found its way into it. Less harsh, and less suspicious, however, than the ancient cities, the Church voluntarily delegated its authority. Like all theocratic societies, it inclined to abdicate its functions into the hands of a clergy, and it was easy to foresee that one or two centuries would not roll over before all this democracy would resolve itself into an oligarchy.
The power which was ascribed to the Church assembled and to its chiefs was
enormous. The Church conferred every mission, and was guided solely in its
choice by the signs given by the Spirit. Its authority
Peter had amongst the apostles a certain precedence, derived directly from his
zeal and his activity. In these first years, he was hardly ever separate from
John, son of Zebedee. They went almost always together, and their amity was
doubtless the corner stone of the new faith. James, the brother of the Lord,
almost equalled them in authority, at least amongst a fraction of the Church. In
regard to certain intimate friends of Jesus, like the Galilean women, and the
family of Bethany, we have already remarked that no more mention is made of
them. Less solicitous of organizing and of establishing a society, the faithful
companions of Jesus were content with loving in death him whom they had loved in
life. Absorbed in their expectation, these noble women, who have formed the
faith of the world, were almost unknown to the important men of Jerusalem. When
they died, the most important elements of the history of nascent Christianity
were put into the tomb with them. Only those who played active parts earned
renown. Those who were content to love in
It is needless to remark that this little group of simple people had no speculative theology. Jesus wisely kept himself far removed from all metaphysics. He had only one dogma, his own divine sonship and the divinity of his mission. The whole symbol of the primitive church might be embraced in one line: “Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.” This belief rested upon a peremptory argument—the fact of the resurrection, of which the disciples claimed to be witnesses. In reality nobody (not even the Galilean women) said they had seen the resurrection. But the absence of the body and the apparitions which had followed, appeared to be equivalent to the fact itself. To attest the resurrection of Jesus was the task which all considered as being specially imposed upon them. It was, however, very soon put forth that the master had predicted this event. Different sayings of his were recalled, which were represented as having not been well understood, and in which was seen, on second thoughts, an announcement of the resurrection. The belief in the near glorious manifestation of Jesus was universal. The secret word which the brethren used amongst themselves, in order to be recognized and confirmed, was maran-atha, the “Lord is at hand.” They believed to remember a declaration of Jesus, according to which their preaching would not have time to go over all the cities of Israel, before that the Son of Man appeared in his majesty. In the meanwhile the risen Jesus had seated himself at the right hand of his Father. Here he is to remain until the solemn day on which he shall conic, seated upon the clouds, to judge the quick and the dead.
The idea which they had of Jesus was the one which Jesus had given them of
himself. Jesus had been “a prophet, mighty in deed and word,” a man chosen of
God, having received a special mission on behalf
Jesus with his exquisite tact in religious matters had instituted no new ritual.
The new sect had not yet any special ceremonies. The practices of piety were
Jewish. The assemblies had, in a strict sense, nothing liturgic. They were the
meetings of confraternities, at which prayers were offered up, devoted
themselves to glossolaly or prophecy, and the reading of correspondence. There
was nothing yet of sacerdotalism. There was no priest (cohen); the presbyter was
the “elder,” nothing more. The only priest was Jesus: in another sense, all the
faithful were priests. Fasting was considered a very meritorious practice.
Baptism was the token of admission
This imposition of hands, already as familiar to Jesus, was the sacramental act par excellence. It conferred inspiration, universal illumination, the power to produce prodigies, prophesying, and the speaking of languages. It was what was called the Baptism of the Spirit. It was supposed to recall a saying of Jesus: “John baptised you with water, but as for you, you shall be baptised by the Spirit.” Gradually, all these ideas became amalgamated, and baptism was conferred “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” But it is not probable that this formula, in the early days in which we now are, was yet employed. We see the simplicity of this primitive Christian worship. Neither Jesus nor the apostles had invented it. Certain Jewish sects had adopted, before them, these grave and solemn ceremonies, which appeared to have come in part from Chaldea, where they are still practised with special liturgies by the Sabæans or Mendaïtes. The religion of Persia embraced also many rites of the same description.
The beliefs in popular medicine, which constituted a part of the force of Jesus,
were continued in his disciples. The power of healing was one of the marvellous
gifts conferred by the Spirit. The first Christians, like almost all the Jews of
the time, looked upon diseases as the punishment of a transgression, or the work
of a malignant demon. The apostles passed, just as Jesus did, for powerful
exorcists. People imagined that the anointings of oil administered by the
apostles, with imposition of hands, and invocation of the name of Jesus, were
all powerful to wash away the sins which
The sect being young and not numerous, the question of deaths was not taken into
account until later on. The effect caused by the first demises which took place
in the ranks of the brethren was strange. People were troubled by the manner of
the deaths. It was asked whether they were less favoured than those who were
reserved to see with their eyes the advent of the Son of Man. They came
generally to consider the interval between death and the resurrection as a kind
of blank in the consciousness of the defunct. The idea set forth in the Phædon,
that the soul existed before and after death, that death was a boon, that it was
the philosophical state par excellence, inasmuch as the soul was then free and
disengaged; this idea, I say, was by no means settled in the minds of the first
Christians. More often it would seem that man, to them, could not exist without
the body. This conception endured for a long time, and was only given up when
the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, in the sense of the Greek
philosophy, made its entry into the Church, and united in itself so much good
and bad with the Christian dogma of the resurrection and with the universal
renovation. At the time of which we speak, belief in the resurrection almost
alone prevailed. The funeral rite was undoubtedly the Jewish rite. No importance
was attached to it; no inscription indicated the name of the dead. The great
resurrection was near; the bodies of the faithful had only to make in the rock a
very short sojourn. It did not require much persuasion to put people in accord
on the question as to whether the
The music which was sung to the new hymns was probably that species of sobbing,
without distinct notes, which is still the music of the Greek Church, of the
Maronites, and in general of the Christians of the East. It is less a musical
modulation than a manner of forcing the voice and of emitting by the nose a sort
of moaning in which all the inflexions follow each other with rapidity. That odd
melopœia was executed standing, with the eyes fixed, the eyebrows crumpled, the
brow knit, and with an appearance of effort. The word amen, in particular, was
given out in a quivering, trembling voice. That word played a great part in the
liturgy. In imitation of the Jews, the new adherents employed it to mark the
assent of the multitude to the words of the prophet or the precentor. People, perhaps,
Till now, the Church of Jerusalem presents itself to the outside world as a
little Galilean colony. The friends whom Jesus had made at Jerusalem, and in its
environs, such as Lazarus, Martha, Mary of Bethany, Joseph of Arimathea, and
Nicodemus, had disappeared from the scene. The Galilean group, who pressed
around the Twelve, alone remained compact and active. The preachings of these
zealous disciples were incessant, and subsequently, after the destruction of
Jerusalem, and far away from Judea, the sermons of the apostles were represented
as public occasions, being delivered in
More feeble still was the proof invoked in support of their arguments, which was
drawn from pretended prodigies. It was impossible to doubt that the apostles did
not believe that they could work miracles. Miracles were regarded as the sign of
every divine mission. Saint Paul, imbued with much of the spirit the most ripe
of the first Christian school, believed he wrought them. It was held as certain
that Jesus had performed them. It was but natural that the series of these
divine manifestations should be continued. In fact, thaumaturgy was a privilege
of the apostles until the end of the first century. The miracles of the apostles
were of the same character as those of Jesus, and consisted principally, but not
exclusively, in the healing of the sick, and in exorcising the possessed of
devils. It was pretended that their shadows alone sufficed to operate these
marvellous cures. These prodigies were accounted to be the regular gifts of the
Holy Spirit, and held the same rank as the gifts of knowledge, preaching and
prophesy. In the third century
It is not by reason of innocent errors, or by the pitiful discourses we read in the Acts, by which we are to judge of the means of conversion which laid the foundations of Christianity. The real preaching was the private conversations of these good and sincere men; it was the reflection always noticeable in their discourses, of the words of Jesus; it was above all their piety, their gentleness. The attraction of communistic life carried with it also a great deal of force. Their houses were a sort of hospitals, in which all the poor and the forsaken found asylum and succour.
One of the first to affiliate himself with the rising society was a Cypriote, named Joseph Hallevi, or the Levite. Like the others, he sold his land and carried the price of it to the feet of the Twelve. He was an intelligent man, with a devotion proof against everything, and a fluent speaker. The apostles attached him closely to themselves and called him Bar-naba, that is to say, “the son of prophesy,” or of “preaching.” He was accounted, in fact, of the number of the prophets, that is to say, of the inspired preachers. Later on we shall see him play a capital part. Next to Saint Paul, he was the most active missionary of the first century. A certain Mnason, his countryman, was converted about the same time. Cyprus possessed many Jews. Barnabas and Mnasou were undoubtedly Jewish by race. The intimate and prolonged relations of Barnabas with the Church at Jerusalem, induces the belief that Syro-Chaldaic was familiar to him.
A conquest, almost as important as that of Barnabas
The first flame was thus spread with great rapidity. The men, the most celebrated of the apostolic century, were almost all gained over to the cause in two or three years, by a sort of simultaneous attraction. It was a second Christian generation, similar to that which had been formed five or six years previously, upon the shores of Lake Tiberias. This second generation had not seen Jesus, and could not equal the first in authority. But it was destined to surpass it in activity and in its love for distant missions. One of the best known among the new converts was Stephen, who, before his conversion, appears to have been only a simple proselyte. He was a man full of ardour and of passion. His faith was of the most fervent, and he was considered to be favoured with all the gifts of the Spirit. Philip, who, like Stephen, was a zealous deacon and evangelist, attached himself to the community abort the sane time. He was often confounded with his namesake, the apostle. Finally, there were converted it this epoch, Andronicus and Junia, probably husband and wife, who, like Aquila and Priscilla, later on, were the model of an apostolic couple, devoted to all the duties of missionary work. They were of the blood of Israel, and were in the closest relations with the apostles.
The new converts, when touched by grace, were all Jews by religion, but they belonged to two very different classes of Jews. The one class was the Hebrews; that is to say, the Jews of Palestine, speaking Hebrew or rather Armenian, reading the Bible in the Hebrew text; the other class was “Hellenists,” that is to say, Jews speaking Greek, and reading the Bible in Greek. These last were further sub-divided into two classes, the one being of Jewish blood, the other being proselytes, that is to say, people of non-Israelitish origin, allied in divers degrees to Judaism. These Hellenists, who almost all came from Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt, or Cyrene, lived at Jerusalem in distinct quarters. They had their separate synagogues, and formed thus little communities apart. Jerusalem contained a great number of these special synagogues. It was in these that the words of Jesus found the soil prepared to receive it and to make it fructify.
The primitive nucleus of the Church at Jerusalem had been composed wholly and
exclusively of Hebrews; the Aramaic dialect, which was the language of Jesus,
was alone known and employed there. But we see that from the second or third
years after the death of Jesus, Greek was introduced into the little community,
where it soon became dominant. In consequence of their daily relations with the
new brethren, Peter, John, James, Jude, and in general the Galilean disciples,
acquired the Greek with much more facility than if they had already known
something of it. An incident, of which we are soon to speak, shows that this
diversity of tongues caused at first some divisions in the community, and that
the relations of the two factions were not of the most agreeable kind. After the
destruction of Jerusalem, we shall see the “Hebrews,” retire to beyond Jordan,
to the heights of Lake Tiberias, and form a separate Church, which had a
separate destiny. But in the interval, between these two events, it does not
appear that the diversity of
The conversions to Christianity became soon much more numerous amongst the “Hellenists” than amongst the “Hebrews.” The old Jews at Jerusalem were but
little drawn towards a sect of provincials, moderately advanced in the single
science that a Pharisee appreciated—the science of the law. The position of the
little Church in regard to Judaism was, as with Jesus himself, rather equivocal.
But every religious or political party carries in itself a force that dominates
it, and obliges it, despite itself, to revolve in its own
In these classes so little subject to the doctors of the law, credulity was also, it seems, more naive and more complete. That which distinguished the Talmudic Jews was not credulity. The credulous Jew, the lover of the marvellous, whom the Latin satirists knew, was not the Jew of Jerusalem; he was the Hellenist Jew, at once very religious and little instructed, and, consequently, very superstitious. Neither the half-incredulous Sadducee, nor the rigorous Pharisee, could be much affected by the theurgy popular in the apostolic circle. But the Judæus Apella, at whom the epicurean Horace laughed, was easy to convince. Social questions, besides, interested particularly those not benefited by the wealth which the temple and the central institutions of the nation caused to flow into Jerusalem. Yet it was in allying itself to the desires so very analogous to what is now called “socialism” that the new sect laid the solid foundation upon which was to be reared the edifice of its future.
A general truth is revealed to us in the comparative history of religions; to wit: all those which have had a beginning, and have not been contemporary with the origin of language itself, were established rather on account of social than theological reasons. This was assuredly the case with Buddhism. That which was the cause of the enormous success of that religion was not the nihilistic philosophy which served it as a basis; it was its social element. It was in proclaiming the abolition of castes, in establishing, to use his own words, “a law of grace for all,” that Cakya-Mouni and his disciples drew after them first India, then the greater part of Asia. Like Christianity, Buddhism was a movement proceeding from the common people. The great attraction which it had was the facility it afforded the disinherited classes to rehabilitate themselves by the profession of a religion which bettered their condition, and offered infinite resources of assistance and sympathy.
The number of the poor, at the beginning of the first century of our era, was
very considerable in Judea. The country is materially destitute of the resources
which procure luxury. In these countries, where there is no industry, fortunes
almost always originate either in richly endowed religious institutions, or in
favours shown by She Government. The wealth of the temple had for a long time
been the exclusive appanage of a limited number of nobles. The Asmoneans had
formed around their dynasty a circle of rich families; the Herods augmented
lunch the luxury and well-being of a certain class of society. But the true
theocratic Jew, when
We can conceive how, in such a social state, an association for mutual
assistance would be eagerly welcomed. The small Christian Church must have
seemed a paradise. This family of simple and united brethren drew associates
from every quarter. In return for that which these brought, they obtained an
assured future, the society of a congenial brotherhood, and precious hopes. The
general custom, before entering the sect, was for each one to convert his
fortune into specie. These fortunes ordinarily consisted of small rural,
semi-barren properties, and difficult of cultivation. It had one advantage,
especially for unmarried people; it enabled them to exchange these plots of
land against funds sunk in an assurance society, with a view to the Kingdom of
God. Even some married people came to the fore in that arrangement; and
precautions were taken to insure that the associates brought all that they
really possessed, and did not retain anything outside the common fund. Indeed,
seeing that each one received out of the latter a share, not in proportion to
what one put in, but in proportion to one’s needs, every
Under such a social constitution, the administrative difficulties were
necessarily very numerous, whatever might be the degree of fraternal feeling
which prevailed. Between two factions of a community, whose language was not the
same, misapprehensions were inevitable. It was difficult for well-descended Jews
not to entertain some contempt for their co-religionists, who were less noble.
In fact, it was not long before murmurs began to be heard. The “Hellenists,” who
each day became more numerous, complained because their widows were not so
well-treated at the distributions as those of the “Hebrews.” Till now, the
apostles had presided over the affairs of the treasury. But in face of these
protestations, they felt the necessity of delegating to others this part of
their powers. They proposed to the community to confide these administrative
cares to seven experienced and considerate men. The proposition was accepted.
The seven chosen were Stephanas, or Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon,
Parmenas and Nicholas. The last was from Antioch, and was a simple proselyte.
Stephen was perhaps of the same condition. It appears that contrary to the
method employed in the election of the apostle Matthiasit was decided not to
choose the seven administrators from the group of primitive disciples,
To the administrators thus designated were given the Syriac name of Schammaschin. They were also sometimes called “The Seven,” to distinguish them from “The Twelve.” Such, then, was the origin of the Diaconate, which is found to be the most ancient ecclesiastical function, the most ancient of sacred orders. Later, all the organised churches, in imitation of that of Jerusalem, had deacons. The growth of such an institution was marvellous. It placed the claims of the poor on an equality with religious services. It was a proclamation of the truth that social problems are the first which should occupy the attention of mankind. It was the foundation of political economy in the religious sense. The deacons were the first preachers of Christianity. We shall see presently what part they played as evangelists. As organisers, financiers, and administrators, they filled a yet more important part. These practical men, is constant contact with the poor, the sick, the women, went everywhere, observed everything, exhorted, and were most efficacious in converting people. They accomplished more than the apostles, who remained on their seats of honour at Jerusalem. They were the founders of Christianity, in respect of that which it possessed which was most solid and enduring.
At an early period, women were admitted to this office. They were designated, as
in our day, by the name of “sisters.” At first widows were selected; later,
virgins were preferred. The tact which guided the primitive church in all this
was admirable. These
The women were naturally drawn towards a community in which the weak were
surrounded by so many guarantees. Their position in the society was then humble
and precarious; the widow in particular, despite several protective laws, was
the most often abandoned to misery, and the least respected. Many of the doctors
advocated the not giving of any religious education to women. The Talmud placed
in the same category with the pests of the world the gossiping and inquisitive
widow, who passed her life in chattering with her neighbours, and the virgin who
wasted her time in praying. The new religion created for these disinherited
unfortunates an honourable and sure asylum. Some women held most important
places in the church, and their houses served as places for meeting. As for
those women who had no houses, they were formed into a species of order, or
feminine presbyterial body, which also comprised virgins, who played so capital
a role in the collection of alms. Institutions, which are regarded as the later
fruit of Christianity—congregations of
The times of the Seleucidæ had been a terrible epoch for female depravity. Never were so many domestic dramas seen, or such a series of poisonings and adulteries. The sages of that time came to consider woman as a pest to humanity, as the origin of baseness, and of shame, as an evil genius, whose only object in life was to destroy every noble germ in the opposite sex. Christianity changed all this. At that age which seems to us still youth, but at which the life of Oriental woman is so gloomy, so fatally prone to evil suggestions, the widow could, by covering her head with a black shawl, become a respectable person, be worthily employed, a deaconess, the equal of men, the most highly esteemed. This position, so distressing for a childless widow, Christianity elevated, rendered it holy. The widow became almost the equal of the maiden. She was calogrie, “beautiful in old age, venerated, useful, treated as a mother.” These women, constantly going to and fro, were admirable missionaries of the new religion. Protestants are mistaken in carrying into the recognition of these facts our modern ideas of individuality. As a mere question of Christian history, socialism and cenobitism are its primitive features.
The bishop and the priest, as we now know them, did not yet
exist. Still, the pastoral ministry, that intimate
In a sense, Christianity was a re-action against the too narrow domestic economy
of the Aryan race. The old Aryan societies did not only admit but few besides
married men, but also interpreted marriage in the strictest sense. It was
something analogous to an English family, a narrow, exclusive, contracted
circle, an egotism of several, as withering for the soul, as the egotism of the
individual. Christianity, with its divine conception of the liberty of the
Kingdom of God, corrected these exaggerations. It first guarded itself against imposing
The exception which Greek society made in favour of the hetærae, like Aspasia, and of the cortigiana, like Imperia, in consequence of the necessities of polite society, Christianity made for the priest, the nun and the deaconess, with a view to the general good. It recognised different classes in society. There are souls who find more sweetness in the love of five or six hundred people than in that of five or six; for such the ordinary conditions of family seem insufficient, cold and wearisome. Why extend to all, the exigences of our dull and mediocre societies? The temporal family suffices not for man. He requires brothers and sisters not of the flesh.
By its hierarchy of different social functions, the primitive church appeared to
conciliate these opposing requirements. We shall never comprehend how happy
these people were, under these holy restrictions, which maintained liberty,
without restraining it, rendering at once possible the pleasures of communistic
life, and those of private life. It was altogether different from the
hurly-burly of our modern societies, artificial, and without love, in which the
sensitive soul is sometimes so cruelly isolated. In these little refuges, which
are called churches, the atmosphere was genial and sweet. People lived together
in the same faith and in the same hope. But it is clear also that these
conditions would be inapplicable to a large society. When entire countries
embraced Christianity, the rules of the first churches became a Utopian idea,
and sought refuge in monasteries. The monastic life is, in this sense, but the
continuation of the primitive churches. The convent is the necessary consequence
of the Christian spirit. There is no perfect
A large allowance of credit, ought certainly to be made to Judaism in these great creations. Each of the Jewish communities scattered along the coasts of the Mediterranean, was already a sort of church, possessing its funds for mutual succour. Almsgiving, always recommended by the sages, had become a precept: it was done in the Temple, and in the synagogues: it was regarded as the first duty of the proselyte. In all times Judaism has been distinguished by its care for its poor, and for the fraternal sentiment of charity which it inspires.
There is a supreme injustice in opposing Christianity to Judaism by way of reproach, since all which Primitive Christianity possesses came bodily from Judaism. It is while thinking of the Roman world that one is struck by the miracles of charity and free association undertaken by the Church. Never did profane society, recognizing reason alone for its basis, produce such admirable results. The law of every profane, or, if I may say so, philosophical society, is liberty, sometimes equality; never fraternity. Charity, viewed from the point of right, has nothing about it obligatory; it concerns only individuals; it is even found to possess certain inconveniences, on which account it is distrusted. Every attempt to apply the public funds for the benefit of the poor savours of communism. When a man dies of hunger, when entire classes languish in misery, profane policy limits itself to finding out the cause of the misfortune. It points out at once that there can be no civil or political order without liberty; but the consequence of that liberty is that he who has nothing, and can earn nothing, must die of hunger. That is logical: but nothing can withstand the abuse of logic. The wants of the most numerous class always prevail in the long run. Institutions purely political and civil do not suffice; social and religious aspirations have also a right to a legitimate satisfaction.
The glory of the Jewish people is that they have loudly proclaimed this principle, from which emanated the ruin of the ancient empires, but which will never be eradicated. The Jewish law is social and non-political; the prophets, the authors of the apocalypses, were the promoters of social revolutions. In the first half of the first century, in the presence of profane civilization, the Jews had but one idea, which was to refuse the benefits of the Roman law, that philosophical and Atheistic law, which placed everyone on an equality, and to proclaim the excellence of their theocratic law, which formed a religious and moral society. “The Law is Happiness”: this was the idea of all Jewish thinkers, such as Philo and Josephus. The laws of other peoples were designed that justice should have its course; it mattered little whether men were good or happy. The Jewish law took account of the minutest details of moral education. Christianity is due to the development of the same idea. Each church is a monastery, in which all possess equal rights, in which there ought to be neither poor nor wicked, in which, consequently, each watches over and commands each other. Primitive Christianity may be defined as a great association of poor people, a heroic struggle against egotism, based upon the idea that each has a right to no more than is necessary for him, that all superfluity belongs to those who have nothing. We can at once see that between such a spirit and the Roman spirit, would be established a war to the death, and that Christianity, on its part, will never attain to dominating over the world, except on the condition of making important modifications in its inherent tendencies and in its original programme.
But the wants which it represents will always endure. The communistic life,
commencing with the second half of the Middle Ages, having served for the abuses
of an intolerant Church, the monastery having too often become but a feudal
fief, or the barracks of a
But let us not anticipate events. It was now about the year 36. Tiberius, at Caprea, has little idea of the enemy to the empire which is growing up. In two or three years the sect had made surprising progress. It numbered several thousand of the faithful. It was already easy to forsee that its conquests would be effected chiefly amongst the Hellenists and proselytes. The Galilean group which had listened to the master, though preserving always its precedence, seemed as if swamped by the floods of new corners speaking Greek. One could already perceive that the principal parts were to be played by the latter. At the time at which we are arrived, no Pagan, that is to say, no man without some anterior connection with Judaism, had entered into the Church. Proselytes, however, performed very important functions in it. The circle de provenance of the disciples had likewise largely extended; it is no longer a simple little college of Palestineans; we can count in it people from Cyprus, Antioch, and Cyrene, and from almost all the points of the eastern coasts of the Mediterranean, where Jewish colonies had been established. Egypt alone was wanting in the primitive Church, and for a long time continued to be so. The Jews of that country were almost in a state of schism with Judea. They lived after their own fashion, which was superior in many respects to the life in Palestine, and scarcely felt the shock of the religious movements at Jerusalem
It was inevitable that the preachings of the new sect, although delivered with so much reserve, should revive the animosities which had accumulated against its founder, and eventually brought about his death. The Sadducee family of Hanan, who had caused the death of Jesus, was still reigning. Joseph Caiaphas occupied, up to 36, the sovereign Pontificate, the effective power of which he gave over to his father-in-law Hanan, and to his relatives, John and Alexander. These arrogant and pitiless men viewed with impatience a troop of good and holy people, without official title, winning the favour of the multitude. Once or twice, Peter, John, and the principal members of the apostolic college, were put in prison and condemned to flagellation. This was the chastisement inflicted on heretics. The authorization of the Romans was not necessary in order to apply it. As we might indeed suppose, these brutalities only served to inflame the ardour of the apostles. They came forth from the Sanhedrim where they had just undergone flagellation, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for him whom they loved. Eternal puerility of penal repressions applied to things of the soul! They were regarded, no doubt, as men of order, as models of prudence and wisdom; these blunderers, who seriously believed in the year 36, to gain the upper hand of Christianity by means of a few strokes of a whip!
These outrages proceeded chiefly from the Sadducees, that is to say, from the
upper clergy, who crowded the Temple and derived from it immense profits. We do
not find that the Pharisees exhibited towards the sect the animosity they
displayed to Jesus. The new believers
Stephen defended himself by expounding the Christian thesis, with a wealth of
citations from the written Law, from the Psalms, from the Prophets, and wound up
by reproaching the members of the Sanhedrim with the murder of Jesus. “Ye
stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart,” said he to them, “you will then ever
resist the Holy Ghost as your fathers also have done. Which of the prophets have
not your fathers prosecuted? They have slain those who announced the coming of
the Just One, whom you have betrayed, and of whom you have been the murderers.
This law that you have received from the mouth of angels you have not kept.” At
these words a scream of rage interrupted him. Stephen, his excitement increasing
more and more, fell into one of those transports of
In all this there was an observance to the letter of the prescriptions of
At all events, that which is important to remark is, that in that epoch the
persecutors of Christianity were not Romans; they were orthodox Jews. The Romans
preserved in the midst of this fanaticism a principle of tolerance and of
reason. If we can reproach the imperial authority with anything, it is with
being too lenient, and with not having cut short with a stroke the civil
consequences of a sanguinary law which visited with death religious
derelictions. But as yet the
As Stephen’s death may have taken place at any time during the years 36, 37, 38, we cannot, therefore, affirm whether Caiaphas ought to be held responsible for it. Caiaphas was deposed by Lucius Vitellius, in the year 36, shortly after the time of Pilate; but the change was inconsiderable. He had for a successor his brother-in-law, Jonathan, son of Hanan. The latter, in turn, was succeeded by his brother Theophilus, son of Hanan, who continued the Pontificate in the house of Hanan till the year 42. Hanna was still alive, and, possessed of the real power, maintained in his family the principles of pride, severity, hatred against innovators which were, so to speak, hereditary.
The death of Stephen produced a great impression. The proselytes solemnized his
funeral with tears and groanings. The separation of the new secretaries from
Thus began the era of Christian martyrs. Martyrdom was not an entirely new thing. Not to mention John the Baptist and Jesus, Judaism at the time of Antiochus Epiphanus, had had its witnesses, faithful even to the death. But the series of courageous victims, beginning with Saint Stephen, has exercised a peculiar influence upon the history of the human mind. It introduced into the western world an element which it lacked, to wit, absolute and exclusive faith, the idea that there is but one good and true religion. In this sense, the martyrs began the era of intolerance. It may be avouched with great assurance, that he who can give his life for his faith would, if he were master, be intolerant. Christianity, when it had passed through three centuries of persecution, and became, in its turn, dominant, was more persecuting than any religion had ever been. When people have shed their blood for a cause they are too prone to shed the blood of others, so as to conserve the treasure they have gained.
The murder of Stephen, moreover, was not an isolated event. Taking advantage of
the weakness of the Roman functionaries, the Jews brought to bear upon the
Church a real persecution. It seems that the vexations pressed chiefly on the
Hellenists and the proselytes whose free behaviour exasperated the orthodox. The
Church of Jerusalem, which though already strongly organized, was compelled to
disperse. The apostles, according to a principle which seems to have seized
strong hold of their minds, did not quit the city. It was probably so, too, with
the whole purely Jewish group, those who were denominated the “Hebrews.” But the
great community with its common table, its
The leading part in the persecution we have just related belonged to that young
Saul, whom we have above found abetting, as far as in him lay, the murder of
Stephen. This hot-headed youth, furnished with a permission from the priests,
entered houses suspected of harbouring Christians, laid violent hold on men and
women and dragged them to prison, or before the tribunals. Saul boasted that
there was no one of his generation so zealous as himself for the traditions.
True it is, that often the gentleness and the resignation of his victims astonished
The persecution of the year 37 had for its result, as is always the case, the
spread of the doctrine which it was wished to arrest. Till now, the Christian
preaching had not extended far beyond Jerusalem; no mission had been undertaken; enclosed within its exalted but narrow communison, the mother Church had
spread no haloes around herself, or formed any branches. The dispersion of the
little circle scattered the good seed to the four winds of heaven. The members
of the Church of Jerusalem, driven violently from their quarters, spread
themselves over every part of Judæ and Samaria, and preached everywhere the
Kingdom of God. The deacons, in particular, freed from their administrative functions by the destruction of the community, became
The scene of the first of these missions, which was soon to embrace the whole
basin of the Mediterranean, was the region about Jerusalem, within a radius of
two or three days’ journey. Philip, the Deacon, was the hero of this first holy
expedition. He evangelized Samaria most successfully. The Samaritans were
schismatics; but the young sect, following the example of the Master, was less
susceptible than the rigorous Jews in regard to questions of orthodoxy. Jesus,
it was said, had shown himself at different times to be quite favourable to the
Samaritans. Philip appeared to have been one of the apostolical men most
pre-occupied with theurgy. The accounts which relate to him transport us into a
strange and fantastic world. The conversions which he made in Samaria, and in
particular in the capital, Sebaste, are explained by prodigies. This country was
itself wholly given up to superstitious ideas in regard to magic. In the year
36, that is to say, two or three years before the arrival of the Christian
preachers, a fanatic had excited among the Samaritans quite a serious commotion
by preaching the necessity of a return to primitive Mosaism, the sacred utensils
of which he pretended to have found. A certain Simon, of the village of Gitta or
Gitton, who obtained later a great reputation, began about that time to gain
notoriety by means of his enchantments. One feels at seeing the gospel finding a
preparation and a support in such
If the tradition about it is to be credited, Simon of Gitton found himself from that time in relations with the Christians. According to their accounts, he, being converted by the preaching and miracles of Philip, was baptized, and attached himself to this evangelist. Then when the apostles Peter and John had arrived, and when he saw the supernatural powers procured by the imposition of hands, he came, it is said, and offered them money, in order that they might impart to him the faculty of conferring the Holy Spirit. Peter is then reported to have made to him this admirable response: “Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be bought! Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter, for thy heart is not right in the sight of God.”
Whether these words were or were not pronounced, they seem to picture exactly
the situation of Simon regard to the nascent sect. We shall see, in fact, that
according to all appearances, Simon of Gitton was the chief of a religious
movement, similar to that of Christianity, which might be regarded as a sort of
Samaritan counterfeit of the work of Jesus. Had Simon already commenced to
dogmatize and to perform prodigies when Philip arrived at Sebaste? Did he enter
thereupon
Peter and John, after confirming the Church of Sebaste, departed again for
Jerusalem, evangelizing on their tray the villages of the country of Samaria.
Philip the Deacon, continued his evangelizing journeys, directing
Now this traveller was a powerful personage. He was a eunuch of the Candace of
Ethiopia, her finance minister, the keeper of her treasures, who had come to
Philip, after that adventure, betook himself to Ashdod or Azote. Such was the
artless state of enthusiasm in which these missionaries lived, that at each step
they believed they heard the voice of Heaven, and received directions from the
Spirit. Each of their steps seemed to them to be regulated by a superior power,
and when they went from one city to another, they thought they were obeying a
supernatural inspiration. Sometimes they fancied they made ærial trips. Philip
was in this respect one of the most privileged. It was, as he believed, on the
indication of an angel, that he had come from Samaria to the place where he had
encountered the eunuch; after the baptism of the
Azote and the Gaza route were the limits of the first evangelical preachings towards the south. Beyond were the desert and the nomadic life upon which Christianity has never taken much hold. From Azote, Philip the Deacon turned towards the north and evangelized all the coast as far as Cesarea. It is probable that the Church of Joppa and of Gydda, which we shall soon find flourishing, were founded by him. At Cesarea he settled and founded an important Church. We shall encounter him there again twenty years later. Cesarea was a new city and the most considerable of Judea. It had been built on the site of a Sidonian fortress, called Abdastartes or Shato’s Tower, by Herod the Great, who gave to it, in honour of Augustus, the name which its ruins bear still to-day. Cesarea was much the best part in all Palestine, and tended day by day to become its capital. Tired of living at Jerusalem, the Judean Procurators were soon to repair thence, to make it their permanent residence. It was principally peopled by Pagans; the Jews, however, were somewhat numerous there; cruel strifes had often taken place between the two classes of the population. The Greek language was alone spoken there, and the Jews themselves had come to recite certain parts of their liturgy in Greek. The austere Rabbis of Jerusalem regarded Cesarea as a dangerous and profane abode, and in which one became nearly a Pagan. From all the facts which have just been cited, this city will occupy an important place in the sequel of this history. It was in a kind of way the port of Christianity, the point by which the Church of Jerusalem communicated with all the Mediterranean.
Many other missions, the history of which is unknown to us, were conducted
simultaneously with that of Philip. The very rapidity with which this first
preaching was done, was the reason of its success. In
The year 38 is marked in the history of the nascent Church by a much more important conquest. During that year we may safely place the conversion of that Saul whom we witnessed participating in the stoning of Stephen, and as a principal agent in the persecution of 37, but who now, by a mysterious act of grace, becomes the most ardent of the disciples of Jesus.
Saul was born at Tarsus, in Cilicia, in the year 10 or 12 of our era. Following
the custom of the times, his name was latinized into that of Paul; he did not,
however, regularly adopt this last name until he became the apostle of the
Gentiles. Paul was of the purest Jewish blood. His family, who probably hailed
originally from the town of Gischala, in Galilee, pretended to belong to the
tribe of Benjamin; while his father enjoyed
During the epoch of Augustus, Tartus was a very flourishing city. The
population, though composed chiefly of the Greek and Aramaic races, included, as
was common in all the commercial towns, a large number of Jews. A taste for
letters and the sciences was a marked characteristic of the place; and no city
in the world, not even excepting Athens and Alexandria, had so many scientific
institutions and schools. The number of learned men which Tarsus produced, or
who prosecuted their studies there, was truly extraordinary; but it must not
hence be imagined that Paul received a careful Greek education. The Jews rarely
frequented the institutions of secular instruction. The most celebrated schools
of Tarsus were those of rhetoric, where the Greek classics received the first
attention. It seems hardly probable that a man who had taken even elementary
lessons in grammar and rhetoric, could have written in the incorrect
non-Hellenistic style of that of the Epistles of St. Paul. He talked constantly
and even fluently in Greek, and wrote or rather dictated in that language; but
his Greek was that of the Hellenistic Jews, bristling with Hebraisms and
Syriacisms, scarcely intelligible to a lettered man of that period, and which
can only be understood by trying to discover the Syriac turn of mind which
influenced Paul, at the time he was dictating his epistles. He was himself
cognizant of the vulgar and detective character of his style. Whenever it was
possible he spoke Hebrew—that is to say, the
His doctrine, moreover, shows us no direct adaptation from Greek philosophy. The verse quoted from the Thais of Menander, which occurs in his writings, is one of those monostich-proverbs that were familiar to the public, and could easily have been quoted by one who was not acquainted with the original. Two other quotation—one from Epimenides, the other from Aratus—which appear under his name, though it is by no means certain that he used them, may also be understood as having been borrowed at second-hand. The literary training of Paul was almost exclusively Jewish, and it is in the Talmud rather than in the Greek classics that the analogies of his modes of thought must be sought. A few general ideas of popular philosophy, which one could learn without opening a single book of the philosophers, alone reached him. His manner of reasoning is most singular. He knew nothing certainly of the peripatetic logic. His syllogism is not that of Aristotle; on the contrary, his dialectics greatly resemble those of the Talmud. Paul, in general is carried away by words rather than by thought. When a word took possession of his mind it suggested a train of thought wholly irrelevant to the subject in hand. His transitions were sudden, his treatment disjointed, his periods frequently suspended. No writer could be more unequal. We would seek in vain throughout the realm of literature for a phenomenon as capricious as that of the sublime passage in the thirteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, placed by the side of such feeble arguments, painful repetitions, and fastidious subtleties.
His father at the outset intended that he should be a rabbi; and following the
general custom, gave him a trade. Paul was an upholsterer, or rather a
manufacturer of the heavy cloths of Cilicia, called Cilicium. At various times
he had to work at this trade, having no
Refinement of manners being, according to the modern ideas of the middle-classes, in direct proportion to personal wealth, it might be imagined, from what has just been said that Paul was badly brought up and undistinguished amongst the proletariat. This idea would, however, be quite erroneous. His politeness, when he chose, was extreme, and his manners, exquisite. Despite the defects in his style, his letters show that he was a man of uncommon intelligence, who could find for the expression of his lofty sentiments, language of rare felicity; and no correspondence displays more careful attention, finer shades of meaning, and more charming hesitancy and timidity. Some of his pleasantries shock us. But what animation! What a fund of charming sayings! What simplicity! One can easily see that his character, when his passions did not make him irascible and fierce, was that of a polite, earnest, and affectionate man, susceptible at times, and a trifle jealous. Inferior as such men are in the eyes of the general public, they yet possess within small Churches, immense advantages, because of the attachments they inspire, their practical aptitude, and their skill in escaping from the greatest difficulties.
Paul had a sickly appearance, which did not correspond with the greatness of his
soul. He was uncomely, short, squat, and stooping, his broad shoulders awkwardly
sustaining a little bald pate. His sallow countenance was half concealed in a
thick beard; his nose was aquiline, his eyes piercing, while his black, heavy
eye-brows met across his forehead. Nor was there anything imposing about his
speech; his timid and embarassed air, and incorrect language, gave at first but
a poor idea of his eloquence. He gloried, however, in his exterior defects, and
even shrewdly extracted advantage
The temperament of Paul was not less peculiar than his exterior. His constitution was sickly, yet its singular endurance was tested by the way in which he supported an existence full of fatigues and sufferings. He makes constant allusions to his bodily weakness. He speaks of himself as a sick man, exhausted, and nigh unto death; add to this, that he was timid, without any appearance or prestige, without any of those personal advantages, calculated to produce an impression, so much so, that it was a marvel people were not repelled by such uninviting an exterior. Elsewhere, he mysteriously hints at a secret affliction, “a thorn in the flesh,” which he compares to a messenger of Satan sent, with God’s permission, to buffet him, “lest he should be exalted above measure.” Thrice he besought the Lord to deliver him, and thrice the Lord replied, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” This was evidently some bodily infirmity; for it is not to be supposed that he refers to the allurements of carnal delights, since he himself informs us in another place that he was insensible to these. It would seem he was never married: the thorough coldness of his temperament, the result of the intense ardour of his brain, manifests itself throughout his life, and he boasts of it with an assurance savouring of affectation, to an extent which is disagreeable.
At an early age he came to Jerusalem, and entered, as it is said, the school of
Gamaliel the Elder. This Gamaliel was the most cultured man in Jerusalem. As the
name of Pharisee was applied to every prominent Jew who was not of a priestly
family, Gamaliel was taken for a member of that sect. Yet he had none of its
narrow and exclusive spirit. He was a liberal, intelligent
The confusion of Roman authority in Judea, explains these arbitrary vexations.
The insane Caligula was in power, and the administrative service was everywhere
distracted. Fanaticism had gained all that the civil power had lost. After the
dismissal of Pilate, and the concessions made to the natives by Lucius Vitellius, the country was permitted to govern itself according to its own laws.
A thousand local tyrannies profited by the weakness of an indifferent authority.
In addition , Damascus had just passed into the hands
Paul, in leaving Jerusalem, followed doubtless the usual road, and crossed the
Jordan at the “Bridge of the Daughters of Jacob.” His mental excitement was now
at its greatest height, and he was at times troubled and shaken in his faith.
Passion is not a rule of faith. The passionate man flies from one extreme creed
to another, but always retains the same impetuosity. Now, like all strong minds,
Paul almost loved that which he hated. Was he sure, after all, that he was not
thwarting the designs of God? Perhaps he remembered the calm, dispassionate
views of his master Gamaliel. Often these ardent souls experienced terrible
revulsions. He felt a liking for those whom ho had tortured. The more these
excellent sectarians were known, the better they were liked; and none had
greater opportunities of knowing them better than their persecutor. At times he
fancied he saw the sweet face of the Master who inspired his disciples with no
much patience, regarding him with an air of pity and tender reproach. He was
also much
Having crossed Ithuria, and while in the great plain of Damascus, Paul, with
several companions, all, as it appears, journeying on foot, approached the city,
and had probably already reached the beautiful gardens which surrounded it The
time was noon. The road from Jerusalem to Damascus has in nowise changed. It is
the one, which, leaving Damascus in a south-westerly direction, crosses the
beautiful plain watered by the streams flowing into the Abana and the Pharpar,
and upon which are now marshalled the villages of Dareya, Kaukab, and Sasa. The
exact locality of which we speak, which was the scene of one of the most
important facts in the history of humanity, could not have been beyond Kaukab
(four hours from Damascus). It is even probable that the point in question was
much nearer the city, perhaps about Dareya (an hour and a half from Damascus),
or between Dareya and Meidan. The great city lay before Paul, and the outlines
of several of its edifices could be dimly traced through the thick foliage:
behind him towered the majestic dome of Hermon, with its ridges of snow, making
it resemble the bald head of an old man; upon his right were the Hauran, the two
little parallel chains which enclose the lower course of the Pharpar, and the
tumuli of the region of the lakes; and upon his left were the outer spurs of the
Anti-Libanus stretching out to Mt Hermon. The impression produced by these
richly-cultivated fields and beautiful orchards, separated from one another by
trenches and laden with the most delicious fruits, is that of peace
if Paul experienced these terrible visions, it was because he carried them in
his heart. Every step in his journey towards Damascus awakened in him painful
perplexities. The odious part of executioner, which he was about to undertake,
became insupportable. The houses which he saw through the trees were, perhaps,
those of his victims. This thought beset him and delayed his steps; he did not
wish to advance; he seemed to be resisting a mysterious impulse which pressed
him forward. The fatigue of the journey, joined to this pre-occupation of mind,
overwhelmed him. He had, it would seem, inflamed eyes, probably the beginning of
ophthalmia. In these prolonged journeys, the last hours are the most trying. All
the debilitating effects of the days just past accumulate, the nerves relax
their power, and a re-action sets in. Perhaps, also, the sudden passage from the
sun-smitten clam to the cool shades of the gardens enhanced his suffering
condition and seriously excited the fanatical traveller. Dangerous fevers,
accompanied by delirium, are quite sudden in these latitudes, and in a few
minutes the victim is prostrated
And what did he see, what did he hear, while he was a prey to these hallucinations? He saw the countenance
which had haunted him for several days; he saw the phantom of which so much had been told. He saw
Jesus himself, who spoke to him in Hebrew, saying, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? “Impetuous natures pass instantaneously from one extreme to the
other. For them there exists solemn moments which change the course of a lifetime, which colder natures
never experience. Reflective men do not change, but are transformed; ardent men, on the contrary, change and are not transformed. Dogmatism is a
shirt of Nessus which they cannot tear off. They must have a pretext for loving and hating. Our western races alone have been able to produce
those minds—large yet delicate, strong yet flexible—which no empty affirmation can mislead, no momentary illusion carry away.
The East has never produced men of this stamp. Instantly, the most thrilling thoughts rushed in upon the soul of Paul. Awakened to the enormity of his conduct,
he saw himself stained with the blood of Stephen, and this martyr appeared to him as his father, his initiator into the new faith. Touched to the quick,
his sentiments experienced a revulsion as complete as it was sudden; still,
all this was but a new phase of fanaticism. His sincerity and his need of an absolute faith precluded any middle course; it was already clear that
he would
With the assistance of his companions, who led him by the hand, Paul entered Damascus. His friends took him to the house of a certain Judas, who lived in the street called Straight, a grand colonnaded avenue over a mile long and a hundred feet broad, which crossed the city from east to west, and the line of which yet forms, with a few deviations, the principal artery of Damascus. The blindness and delirium had not yet subsided. For three days Paul, a prey to fever, neither ate nor drank. It is easy to imagine what passed during this crisis in that burning brain maddened by violent disease. Mention was made in his hearing of the Christians of Damascus, and in particular of a certain Ananias, who appeared to be the chief of the community. Paul had often heard of the miraculous powers of new believers over maladies, and he became impressed by the idea that the imposition of hands would cure him of his disease. His eyes all this time were highly inflamed, and in his delirious imaginings he thought he saw Ananias enter the room and make to him the sign familiar to Christians. From that moment he felt convinced he should owe his recovery to Ananias. The latter, informed of this, visited the sick man, spoke kindly, addressed him as his “brother,” and laid his hands upon his head; and from that hour peace returned to the soul of Paul. He believed himself cured; and as his ailment had been purely nervous, he was indeed cured. Little crusts or scales, it is said, fell from his eyes; he partook of food and recovered his strength.
Almost immediately after this he was baptized. The doctrines of the Church were
so simple that he had nothing new to learn, and became at once a Christian and a
perfect one., And from whom else did he need instruction? Had not Jesus himself
appeared to him? He too, like James and Peter, had had his vision of the risen
Jesus. He had learned everything by direct revelation.
An immense danger found entrance through this proud man into the little society of the poor in spirit who until now had constituted Christianity. It will be a real miracle if his violence and his inflexible personality do not overthrow everything. But at the same time his boldness, his initiative force, his prompt decision, will be precious elements when brought into contact with the narrow, timid, and indecisive spirit of the saints of Jerusalem! Certainly, if Christianity had remained confined to these good people, shut up in a conventicle of elect, leading a communistic life, it would, like Essenism, have faded away, leaving scarcely a trace behind. It is this ungovernable Paul who will secure its success, and who at the risk of every peril will boldly launch it on the high seas. By the side of the obedient faithful, accepting his creed from his superior without questioning him, there will be a Christian disengaged from all authority who will believe only from personal conviction. Protestantism thus existed five years after the death of Jesus, and St. Paul was its illustrious founder. Surely Jesus had not anticipated such disciples; and it was such as these who would most largely contribute to the vitality of his work and insure its eternity.
Violent natures disposed to proselytism only change the object of their passion. As ardent for the new faith as he had been for the old, St. Paul, like Omar, dropped in one day his part of persecutor for that of apostle. He did not return to Jerusalem, where his position towards the Twelve would have been peculiar and delicate. He tarried at Damascus and in the Hauran for three years (38-41), preaching that Jesus was the Son of God. Herod Agrippa I. held the sovereignty of the Hauran and of the neighbouring countries; but his power was at several points superseded by that of a Nabatian king, Hâreth. The decay of the Roman power in Syria had delivered to the ambitious Arab the great and rich city of Damascus, besides a part of the countries beyond Jordan and Mount Hermon, then just being opened up to civilization. Another emir, Soheyn, perhaps a relative or lieutenant of Hâreth, had received from Caligula the command of Ithuria. It was in the midst of this great awakening of the Arab nation, upon this strange soil, where an energetic race manifested with great success its feverish activity, that Paul first displayed the ardour of his apostolic soul. Perhaps the material and so remarkable a movement which revolutionized the country was prejudicial to a theory and to a preaching wholly idealistic, and founded on a belief of a near approach of the end of the world. Indeed, there exists no traces of an Arabian Church founded by St. Paul. If the region of the Hauran became, towards the year 70, one of the most important centres of Christianity, it was owing to the emigration of Christians from Palestine; and it was the Ebonites, the enemies of St. Paul, who had in this region their principal establishment.
At Damascus, where there were many Jews, the teachings of Paul received more
attention. In the synagogues of that city he entered into warm arguments to
prove that Jesus was the Christ. Great indeed was the astonishment of the
faithful on beholding
From the year 38 to the year 44 no persecution seems to have been directed
against the Church. The faithful were, no doubt, far more prudent than before
the death of Stephen, and avoided speaking in public. Perhaps, too, the troubles
of the Jews who, during all the second part of the reign of Caligula, were at
variance with that prince, contributed to favour the nascent sect. The Jews, in
fact, became active persecutors in proportion to the good understanding they
maintained with the Romans. To buy or to recompense their tranquility, the
latter were led to augment their privileges, and in particular the one to which
they clung most closely—the right of killing
The antipathy which the Jews, in consequence of their moral superiority, their odd customs, as well as their harshness, excited in the populations among which they lived, was at its height, especially at Alexandria. This accumulated hatred, for its own satisfaction, took advantage of the coming to the imperial throne of one of the most dangerous lunatics that ever wore a crown. Caligula, at least after the malady which completed his mental derangement (October, 37), presented the frightful spectacle of a maniac governing the world endowed with the most enormous powers ever put into the hands of any man. The atrocious law of Cæsarism rendered such horrors possible, and left the governed without remedy. This lasted three years and three mouths. One cannot without shame set down in a serious history that which is now to follow. Before entering upon the recital of these saturnalia we cannot but exclaim with Suetonius: Reliqua ut de monstro narranda sunt.
The most inoffensive pastime of this madman was the care of his own divinity. In
order to do this he used a sort of bitter irony, a mixture of the serious and
the comic (for the monster was not wanting in wit), a sort of profound derision
of the human race. The enemies of the Jews were not slow to perceive the
advantage they might gain from this mania. The religious abasement of the world
was such that not a protest was heard against the sacrilege of the Cæsar;
every cult hastened to bestow upon him the titles and the honours which it had
reserved for its gods. It is to the eternal glory of the Jews that, amidst this
ignoble idolatry, they uttered the cry of outraged conscience. The principle of
intolerance which was in them, and which led them to so many cruel acts,
exhibited here
Such pleasantries had been several times repeated when a still more diabolical
idea was suggested to the emperor. This was to place a colossal golden statue of
himself in the sanctuary of the temple at Jerusalem, and to have the temple
itself dedicated to his own divinity. This odious design very nearly hastened by
thirty years the revolt and the ruin of the Jewish nation. The moderation of the
imperial legate, Publius Petronius, and the intervention of King Herod Agrippa, a favourite of Caligula, averted the
catastrophe. But until the moment in which the sword of Chæræa delivered the
earth from the most execrable tyrant it had as yet endured, the Jews lived
everywhere in terror. Philo has preserved for us the monstrous scene which
occurred when the deputation of which he was the chief was admitted to see the
emperor. Caligula received them during a visit he was paying to the villas of
Mæcenas and of Lamia, near the sea, in the environs of Pozzuoli. On that day he
was in a vein of gaiety. Helicon, his favourite joker, had been relating to him
all sorts of
We can easily understand how so painful a situation must have taken from the Jews of the time of Marullus much of that audacity which made them speak so boldly to Pilate. Already almost entirely detached from the temple, the Christians must have been much less alarmed than the Jews at the sacrilegious projects of Caligula. Their numbers were, moreover, too few for their existence to be known at Rome. The storm at the time of Caligula, like that which resulted in the taking of Jerusalem by Titus, passed over their heads, and was in many regards serviceable to them. Everything which weakened Jewish independence was favourable to them, since it was so much taken away from the power of a suspicious orthodoxy, which maintained its pretensions by severe penalties.
This period of peace was fruitful in interior developments. The nascent church
was divided into three provinces; Judea, Samaria, Galilee, to which Damascus was
no doubt attached. The primacy of Jerusalem was uncontested. The church of this
city, which had been dispersed after the death of Stephen, was quickly
reconstituted. The apostles had never quitted the city. The brothers of the Lord
continued to reside there, and to wield a great authority. It does not seem that
this new church of Jerusalem was organized in so strict a
Peter undertook frequent apostolical journeys in the environs of Jerusalem. He had always a great reputation as a thaumaturgist. At Lydda in particular he was reputed to have cured a paralytic named Æneas, a miracle which is said to have led to numerous conversions in the plain of Saron. From Lydda he repaired to Joppa, a city which appears to have been a centre for Christianity. Cities of workmen, of sailors, of poor people, where the orthodox Jews were not dominant, were those in which the new sect found people the best disposed towards them. Peter made a long sojourn at Joppa, at the house of a tanner named Simon, who dwelt near the sea. Working in leather was an industry regarded as unclean, according to the Mosaic code; it was not lawful to associate with those who carried it on, so that the curriers had to reside in a district by themselves. Peter, in selecting such a host, gave a proof of his indifference to Jewish prejudices, and worked for that ennoblement of petty callings which constitutes a grand feature of the Christian spirit.
The organization of works of charity was soon actively entered upon. The church
of Joppa possessed a woman most appropriately named in Aramaic, Tabitha
(gazelle), and in Greek, Dorcas, who consecrated all her time to the poor. She
was rich, it seems, and distributed her wealth in alms. This worthy lady had
formed a society of pious widows, who passed their days with her in weaving
clothes for the poor. As the schism between Christianity and Judaism was not yet
consummated, it is probable that the Jews participated in the benefit of these
acts of charity. The “saints and widows” were thus pious persons, doing good to
all, a sort of friars and
The germ of those associations of women, which are one of the glories of Christianity, thus existed in the first churches of Judea. At Jaffa commenced those societies of veiled women, clothed in linen, who were destined to continue through centuries the tradition of charitable secrets. Tabitha was the mother of a family which will have no end as long as there are miseries to be relieved and feminine instincts to be gratified. It is related further on, that Peter raised her from the dead. Alas! death, however unmindful and revolting, in such a case, is inflexible. When the most exquisite soul has sped, the decree is irrevocable; the most excellent woman can no more respond to the invitation of the friendly voices which would fain recall her, than can the vulgar and frivolous. But ideas are not subject to the conditions of matter. Virtue and goodness escape the fangs of death. Tabitha had no need to be resuscitated. For the sake of a few days more of this sad life, why disturb her sweet and eternal repose? Let her sleep in peace; the day of the just will come!
In these very mixed cities, the problem of the admission of Pagans to baptism
was propounded with much persistency. Peter was strongly pre-occupied by it. One
day while he was praying at Joppa, on the terrace of the tanner’s house, having
before him the sea that was soon going to bear the new faith to all the empire,
he had a prophetic ecstasy. Plunged into a state of reverie, he thought he
experienced a sensation of hunger, and asked for something to eat. And while
they were making it ready for him, he saw the heavens opened, and a cloth tied
at the four corners descend. Looking inside the cloth he saw there all sorts of
animals, and thought he heard a voice saying to him: “Kill and eat” On his
objecting that many of these animals were impure, he was answered: “Call not
that unclean which God has
An occasion was soon presented for applying these principles. From Joppa, Peter went to Cesarea. There he came in contact with a centurion named Cornelius. The garrison of Cesarea was formed, at least in part, of one of those cohorts composed of Italian volunteers which were called Italicæ. The complete name which this term represented may have been cohors prima Augustus Italica civium Romamorum. Cornelius was a centurion of this cohort, consequently an Italian and a Roman citizen. He was a man of probity, who had long felt himself drawn towards the monotheistic worship of the Jews. He prayed; gave alms; practised, in a word, those precepts of natural religion which are taken for granted by Judaism; but he was not circumcised; he was not a proselyte in any sense whatever; he was a pious Pagan, an Israelite in heart, nothing more. His whole household and some soldiers of his command were, it is said, in the same state of mind. Cornelius applied for admission into the new Church. Peter, whose nature was open and benevolent, granted it to him, and the centurion was baptized.
Perhaps Peter at first saw no difficulty in this; but on his return to Jerusalem
he was severely reproached for it. He had openly violated the Law; he had gone
amongst the uncircumcized and had eaten with them. The question was an important
one; it was no other than whether the Law was abolished; whether it was
permissible to violate it in proselytism; whether Gentiles could be freely
received into the Church. Peter related in self defence the vision he had at
Joppa. Subsequently the fact of the centurion served as an argument in the great
question of the baptism of the uncircumcized. To give it more importance it was
pretended that each phase of
The Church of Jerusalem was still exclusively composed of Jews and of proselytes. The Holy Ghost being shed upon the uncircumcized before baptism, appeared an extraordinary fact. It is probable that there existed thenceforward a party opposed in principle to the admission of Gentiles, and that all did not accept the explanations of Peter. The author of the Acts would have us believe that the approbation was unanimous. But in a few years we shall see the question revived with much greater intensity. This matter of the good centurion was, perhaps, like that of the Ethiopian eunuch, accepted as an exceptional case, justified by a revelation and an express order from God. Still the matter was far from being settled. This was the first controversy which had taken place in the bosom of the Church; the paradise of interior peace had lasted for six or seven years.
About the year 40, the great question upon which depended all the future of
Christianity appears thus to have been propounded. Peter and Philip took a very
just view of what was the true solution, and baptized Pagans. It is difficult,
no doubt, in the two accounts given us by the author of the Acts on this
subject, and which are partly borrowed one from the other, not to recognize an
argument. The author of the Acts belonged to a party of conciliation,
favourable to the introduction of Pagans into the Church, and who was not
Paul, who was destined, some ten or twelve years later, to give to this discussion so decisive a bearing, had not yet meddled with it. He was in the Hauran, or at Damascus, preaching, refuting the Jews, placing at the service of the new faith the same ardour he had shown in combatting it. The fanaticism, of which he had once been the instrument, was not long in pursuing him in turn. The Jews resolved to kill him. They obtained from the ethnarch, who governed Damascus in the name of Hâreth, an order to arrest him. Paul hid himself. It was known that he was to leave the city; the ethnarch, who wanted to please the Jews, placed detachments at the gates to seize his person; but the brethren secured his escape by night, letting him down in a basket from the window of a house which over-looked the ramparts.
Having escaped this danger, Paul turned his eyes towards Jerusalem. He had been
a Christian for three years, and had not yet seen the apostles. His stern,
unyielding character, prone to isolation, had made him at first turn his back as
it were upon the great family into which he had just entered in spite of
himself, and prefer for his first apostolate a new country, in which he would
find no colleague. There was awakened in him, how. ever, a desire to see Peter.
He recognized his authority, and designated him, as every one did, by the name
of Cephas, “the stone.” He repaired then to Jerusalem,
His position at Jerusalem was extremely false and embarrassing. It had, no doubt, been understood there that the persecutor had become the most zealous of evangelists, and one of the first defenders of the faith which he had formerly sought to destroy. But there remained great prejudices against him. Many dreaded on his part some horrible plot. They had seen him so enraged, so cruel, so zealous in entering houses and tearing open family secrets in order to find victims, that he was believed capable of playing an odious farce in order to destroy those whom he hated. He resided, as it seems, in the house of Peter. Many disciples remained deaf to his advances, and shrank from him. Barnabas, a man of courage and will, took at this moment a decisive part. As a Cypriote and a new convert, he understood better than the Galilean disciples the position of Paul. He came to meet him, took him by the hand, introduced him to the most suspicious, and became his surety. By this sagacious and far-seeing act, Barnabas earned at the hands of the Christian worlds the highest degree of merit. It was he who appreciated Paul; it is to him that the Church owes the most extraordinary of her founders. The advantageous friendship of these two apostolic men, a friendship that no cloud ever tarnished, notwithstanding many differences in opinion, afterwards led to their association in the work of missions to the Gentiles. This grand association dates, in one sense, from Paul’s first sojourn at Jerusalem. Amongst the sources of the faith of the world, we must count the generous movement of Barnabas, who stretched out his hand to the suspected and forsaken Paul; the profound intuition which led him to discover the soul of an apostle under that downcast mien; the frankness with which be broke the ice and levelled the obstacles raised between the convert and his new brethren by the unfortunate antecedents of the former, and perhaps, also, by certain traits in his character.
Paul, however, systematically avoided seeing the apostles. He himself says so, and he takes the trouble to affirm it with an oath; he saw only Peter, and James the brother of the Lord. His sojourn lasted but two weeks. It is certainly possible that at the time in which he wrote the Epistle to the Galatians (towards 56), Paul may have found himself constrained by the exigencies of the moment, to alter a little the nature of his relations with the apostles; to represent them as more harsh, more imperious, than they were in reality. Towards 56 the essential point for him to prove was that he had received nothing from Jerusalem—that he was in no wise the mandatory of the Council of the Twelve established in this city. His attitude at Jerusalem would have been the proud and lofty bearing of a master, who avoids relations with other masters in order not to have the air of subordinating himself to them, and not the humble and repentant mien of a sinner ashamed of the past, as the author of the Acts represents. We cannot believe that from the year 41 Paul was animated by this jealous care to preserve his own individuality, which he showed at a later day. The few interviews he had with the apostles, and the briefness of his sojourn at Jerusalem, arose probably from his embarrassment in the presence of people, whose nature was different from his own, and who were full of prejudices against him, rather than from a refined policy, which would have revealed to him fifteen years in advance the disadvantages there might be in his frequenting their society.
In reality, that which must have erected a sort of wall between the apostles and
Paul, was the difference of their character and of their education. The apostles
were all Galileans; they had not been at the great Jewish school; they had
seen Jesus; they remembered his words; they were good and pious folk, at times
a little solemn and simple-hearted. Paul was a man of action, full of fire, only
moderately mystical, enrolled, as
Now Paul was not the man to accept a secondary place. His haughty temperament required a position for itself. It was probably about this time that there sprang up in him the singular idea that after all he had nothing to envy those who had known Jesus, and had been chosen by him, since he also had seen Jesus, and had received from Jesus a direct revelation and the commission of his apostleship. Even those who had been honoured by the personal appearance of the risen Christ were no better than he was. Although the last apostle, his vision had been none the less remarkable. It had taken place under circumstances which gave it a peculiar stamp of importance and of distinction. A signal error! The echo of the voice of Jesus was found in the discourses of the humblest of his disciples. With all his Jewish science, Paul could not make up for the immense disadvantage under which he was placed in consequence of his tardy initiation. The Christ whom he had seen on the road to Damascus was not, whatever he might say, the Christ of Galilee; it was the Christ of his imagination, of his own conception. Although he may have been most industrious in learning the words of the Master, it is clear that he was only a disciple at second-hand. If Paul had met Jesus during his life, it is doubtful whether he would have attached himself to him. His doctrine must be his own, not that of Jesus; the revelations of which he was so proud were the fruit of his own brain.
These ideas, which he dared not as yet communicate, rendered his stay at
Jerusalem disagreeable. At the end of a fortnight he took leave of Peter, and
went away. He had seen so few people that he ventured to
It is probable, indeed, that from Jerusalem he did repair to Cæsarea. But he stayed there only a short time, and then set out to traverse Syria, and afterwards Cilicia. He was, no doubt, already preaching, but it was on his own account, and without any understanding with anybody. Tarsus, his native place, was his habitual sojourn during this period of his apostolic life, which we may reckon as having lasted about two years. It is possible that the Churches of Cilicia owed their origin to him. Still, the life of Paul was not at this epoch that which we see it to be subsequently. He did not assume the title of an apostle, which latter was then strictly reserved to the Twelve. It was only from the time of his association with Barnabas (in 45) that he entered upon that career of sacred peregrinations and preachings which were to make of him the typical travelling missionary.
The new faith was spread from place to place with marvellous rapidity. The members of the church of Jerusalem, who had been dispersed immediately after the death of Stephen, pushing their conquests along the coast of Phœnicia, reached Cyprus and Antioch. They were at first guided by the sole principle of preaching the Gospel to the Jews only.
Antioch, “the metropolis of the East,” the third city of the world, was the
centre of this Christian movement in northern Syria. It was a city with a
population of more than 500,000 souls, almost as large as Paris before its
recent extensions, and the residence of the Imperial Legate of Syria. Suddenly
advanced to a high degree of splendour by the Seleucidæ, it reaped great benefit
from the Roman occupation. In general, the Seleucidæ were in advance of the
Romans in the taste for theatrical decorations, as applied to great cities.
Temples, aqueducts, baths, basilicas, nothing was wanting at Antioch in what
constituted a grand Syrian city of that period. The streets, flanked by
colonnades, their cross-roads being decorated with statues, had more of symmetry
and regularity than anywhere else. A Corso, ornamented with four rows of
columns, forming two covered galleries, with a wide avenue in the midst,
traversed the city from one side to the other, the length of which was
thirty-six stadia (more than a league). But Antioch not only possessed immense
edifices of public utility; it had also that which few of the Syrian cities
possessed—the noblest specimens of Grecian art, beautiful statues, classical
works of a delicacy of detail which the age was no longer capable of imitating.
Antioch, from its foundation, had been wholly a Grecian city. The
In fact, besides the Greek population, which in no part of the East (with the
exception of Alexandria) was as numerous as here, Antioch counted amongst its
population a considerable number of native Syrians, speaking Syriac. These
natives were a low class, inhabiting the suburbs of the great city, and the
populous villages which formed a vast suburb all around it—Charandama, Ghisira,
Gandigura, and Apate (chiefly Syrian names). Marriages between the Syrians and
the Greeks were common: Seleucus had made naturalization a legal obligation
binding on every stranger establishing himself in the city, so that Antioch, at
the end of three centuries and a half of its existence, became one of the places
in the world where race was most blended with race. The degradation of the
people was awful. The
The beauty of works of art, and the infinite charm of nature, prevented this
moral degradation from sinking entirely into hideousness and vulgarity. The site
of Antioch is one of the most picturesque in the world. The city occupied the
space between the Orontes and the slopes of Mount Silpius, one of the spurs of
Mount Cassius. Nothing could equal the abundance and limpidness of the waters.
The fortified portion, climbing up perpendicular rocks, by a master-piece of
military architecture, enclosed the summit of the mountains, and formed, with
the rocks at a tremendous height, an indented crown of marvellous effect. This
disposition of ramparts, uniting the advantages of the ancient acropolis with
those of the great walled cities, was in general preferred by the generals of
Alexander, as one sees in the Pierian Seleucia, in Ephesus, in Smyrna, in
Thessalonica. The result was astonishing perspectives. Antioch had within its
walls mountains seven hundred feet in height, perpendicular rocks, torrents,
precipices, deep ravines, cascades, inaccessible caves; and, in the midst of
all these, delightful gardens. A thick wood of myrtles, of flowering box, of
laurels, of evergreen plants —and of the richest green—rocks carpeted with
pinks, with hyacinths, and cyclamens, gave to these wild heights the aspect of
gardens suspended in the air. The variety of the flowers, the freshness of the
turf, composed of an incredible number of delicate grasses, the beauty of the
plane trees which border the Orontes, inspire the gaiety, the tinge of sweet
odour, with which the fine genius of Chrysostom, Libanius, and Julian was, as it
were, intoxicated. On the right bank of the river stretches a vast plain bounded
on one side by the Amanus, and the oddly-shaped mountains of Pieria; on the
other side by the plateaus of Cyrrhestica, behind which is concealed the
dangerous neighbourhood of the Arab and the desert. The valley of the Orontes,
which opens to the west, puts this interior basin into communication with the sea,
or rather with the vast world, in the bosom of which
Amongst the different colonies which the liberal ordinances of the Seleucidæ had attracted to the capital of Syria, that of the Jews was one of the most numerous; it dated from the time of Seleucus Nicator, and enjoyed the same rights as the Greeks. Although the Jews had an ethnarch of their own, their relations with the Pagans were very frequent. Here, as at Alexandria, these relations often degenerated into quarrels and aggressions. On the other hand, they afforded a field for an active religious propagandism. The official polytheism becoming more and more insufficient to meet the wants of serious minds, the Grecian philosophy and Judaism attracted all those whom the vain pomps of Paganism could not satisfy. The number of proselytes was considerable. From the first days of Christianity, Antioch had furnished to the Church of Jerusalem one of its most influential members, viz. Nicholas, one of the deacons. There existed there promising germs, which only waited for a ray of grace to cause thorn to burst forth into bloom and to bear the most excellent fruits which had hitherto been produced.
The Church of Antioch owed its foundation to some believers originally from Cyprus and Cyrene, who had already been much engaged in preaching. Up to this time they had only addressed themselves to the Jews. But in a city where pure Jews—Jews who were proselytes, “people fearing God”—or half-Jewish Pagans and pure Pagans, lived together, exclusive preaching restricted to a group of houses, became impossible. That feeling of religious aristocracy on which the Jews of Jerusalem so much prided themselves, did not exist in those large cities, where civilization was altogether of the profane sort, where the scope was greater, and where prejudices were less firmly rooted The Cypriot and Cyrenian missionaries were then constrained to depart from their rule. They preached to the Jews and to the Greeks indifferently.
The dispositions of the Jewish and of the Pagan population appeared at this time to have been very unsatisfactory. But circumstances of another kind probably subserved the new ideas. The earthquake, which had done serious damage to the city on 23rd March, of the year 37, still occupied their minds. The whole city was talking about an impostor named Debborius, who pretended to be able to prevent the recurrence of such accidents by silly talismans. This sufficed to direct preoccupied minds towards supernatural matters. But, be this as it may, the success of the Christian preaching was great. A young, innovating, and ardent Church, full of the future, because it was composed of the most diverse elements, was quickly founded. All the gifts of the Holy Spirit were there poured out, and it was easy to perceive that this new church, emancipated from the strict Mosaism which erected an insuperable barrier around Jerusalem, would become the second cradle of Christianity. Assuredly, Jerusalem must remain for ever the capital of the Christian world; nevertheless, the point of departure of the Church of the Gentiles, the primordial focus of Christian missions, was, in truth, Antioch. It was there that for the first time, a Christian Church was established, freed from the bonds of Judaism; it was there that the great propaganda of the Apostolic age was established; it was there that St. Paul assumed a definite character. Antioch marks the second halting-place of the progress of Christianity and in respect of Christian nobility, neither Rome, nor Alexandria, nor Constantinople can be at all compared with it.
The topography of ancient Antioch is so effaced that we should search in vain
over its site, nearly destitute as it is of any vestiges of the antique, for the
spot to which to attach such grand recollections. Here, as everywhere,
Christianity was, doubtless, established in the poor quarters of the city and
among the petty tradespeople. The basilica, which is called “the old”
The prevailing language of the Church of Antioch was the Greek. It is, however,
very probable that the suburbs where Syriac was spoken, furnished a great number
of converts to the sect. Hence, Antioch already contained the germ of two rival,
and, at a later, period, hostile Churches; the one speaking Greek, and now
represented by the Syrian Greeks, whether orthodox or Catholics; the other,
whose actual representatives are the Maronites, who previously spoke Syriac and
guard
As for the converted Jews at Antioch, they too were very numerous. But we are bound to believe that they accepted from the very first a fraternal alliance with the Gentiles. It was then on the shores of the Orontes that the religious fusion of races, dreamed of by Jesus, or to speak more fully, by six centuries of prophets, became a reality.
Great was the excitement at Jerusalem when it was learned what had taken place
at Antioch. Notwithstanding the kindly wishes of some of the principal members
of the Church of Jerusalem, Peter in particular, the Apostolic College continued
to be influenced by the meanest ideas. On every occasion when it was told that
the glad tidings had been announced to the heathen, some of the elders
manifested signs of disappointment. The man who at this time triumphed
A magnificent idea sprung up in this noble heart at Antioch. Paul was at Tarsus
in forced repose, which, to an active man like him, must have been perfect
torture. His false position, his haughtiness, and his exaggerated pretensions,
were sapping many of his other and better qualities. He was fretting himself,
and remained almost useless. Barnabas knew how to apply to its true work that
force which was wasting away in this unhealthy and dangerous solitude. For the
second time, Barnabas held out the hand of friendship to Paul, and led this
intractable character into the society of those brethren whom he wished to
avoid. He went himself to Tarsus, sought him out, and brought
During an entire year Barnabas and Paul worked together. This was a most brilliant, and, without doubt, the most happy year in the life of Paul. The prolific originality of these two great men raised the Church of Antioch to a degree of grandeur to which no Christian Church had previously attained. Few places in the world had experienced more intellectual activity than the capital of Syria. During the Roman epoch, as in our time, social and religious questions were brought to the surface principally at the centres of population. A sort of reaction against the general immorality, which made Antioch later, the special abode of Stylites and hermits, was already felt; and the true doctrine thus found in this city, more favourable conditions for success than it had yet met.
An important circumstance proves, besides, that it was at Antioch that the sect
for the first time felt the full consciousness of its existence; for it was in
this city that it received a distinct name. Hitherto its adherents had called
themselves “believers,” “the faithful,” “saints,” “brothers,” “the disciples;”
but
The Jews did not adopt, in a regular manner, at least, the name given by the Romans to their schismatic co-religionist. They continued to call the new converts “Nazarenes” or “Nazorenes,” because no doubt they were accustomed to call Jesus Han-nasri or Han-nosri, “the Nazarene;” and even unto the present day, this name is still applied to them throughout the entire East.
This was a most important moment. Solemn indeed is the hour when the new
creation receives its name, for that name is the direct symbol of its existence.
It is by its name that a being, individual or collective, really becomes itself,
and is distinct from others. The formation of the word “Christian” marks thus
the precise date of the separation from Judaism of the Church of Jesus. For a
long time to come the two religions were still confounded; but this confusion
could only take place in those countries where the spread of Christianity was
slow and backward. The sect quickly accepted the appelation which was applied to
it, and viewed it as a title of honour. It is really astonishing to reflect that
ten years after the death of Jesus, his religion had already, in the capital of
Syria, a name in the Greek and Latin tongues. Christianity was now
The feverish activity of ideas manifested by this young Church must have been truly extraordinary. Great spiritual manifestations were frequent. All believed themselves to be inspired in various ways. Some were “prophets,” others “teachers.” Barnabas, as his name indicates, was no doubt among the prophets. Paul had no special title. Among the leaders of the Church at Antioch are also mentioned Simeon, surnamed Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, and Menahem, who had been the foster-brother of Herod Antipas, and was consequently rather old. All these personages were Jews. Among the converted heathen was, perhaps, already that Evhode, who, at a certain period, seems to have occupied the first place in the church of Antioch. Undoubtedly the heathen who heard the first preaching were slightly inferior, and did not shine in the public exercises of using unknown tongues, of preaching, and prophecy.
In the midst of the congenial society of Antioch, Paul quickly adapted himself
to the order of things. Later, he manifested opposition to the use of tongues,
and it is probable that he never practised it; but he had many visions and
immediate revelations. It was apparently at Antioch where occurred that ecstatic
trance which he describes in these terms: “I knew a man in Christ above
fourteen years ago (whether in the body I cannot tell; or whether out of the
body I cannot tell—God knoweth); such an one was caught up to the third heaven.
And I knew such a man (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot
tell—God knoweth);
But men permeated with so lively a faith could not content themselves with
merely exuberant piety, so they panted soon for action. The idea of great
missions, destined to convert the heathen, beginning in Asia Minor, seized hold
of the public mind. Had such an idea been formed at Jerusalem, it could not have
been realized, because the church there was without pecuniary resources. An
extensive undertaking of propagandism requires a certain capital to work on.
Now, the common treasury at Jerusalem was entirely devoted to the support of the
poor, and was frequently insufficient for that purpose; and to save these noble
mendicants from dying from hunger, it was necessary to obtain help from all
quarters. Communism had created at Jerusalem an irremediable poverty and a total
incapacity for great enterprises. The church at Antioch was exempt from such a
calamity. The Jews in these profane cities had attained to affluence, and in
some cases had accumulated vast fortunes. The faithful were wealthy when they
entered the church. Antioch furnished the capital for the founding of
Christianity, and it is easy to imagine the total difference in manner and
spirit which this circumstance alone would create between the two churches.
Jerusalem remained the city of the poor of God, of the ebionim, of those simple
Galilean dreamers, intoxicated, as it were, with the expectation of the kingdom
of Heaven. Antioch, almost a stranger to the words of Jesus, whom it had never
heard, was the church of action and of progress.
A certain circumstance soon brought all these traits into bold relief. So great
was the lack of forethought in this half-starved Church of Jerusalem, that the
least accident threw the community into distress. Now, in a country destitute of
economic organization, where commerce was but little developed, and where the
sources of welfare were limited, famines were inevitable. A terrible famine
occurred in the reign of Claudius, in the year 44. When its threatening symptoms
became apparent, the elders of Jerusalem decided to seek succour from the
members of the richer churches of Syria. An embassy of prophets was sent from
Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them, named Agab, who was in high repute for his
prophetic powers, was suddenly inspired, and announced that the famine was now
at hand. The faithful were deeply moved at the evils which menanced the mother
Church, to which they still deemed themselves tributary. A collection was made,
at which every one gave according to his means, and Barnabas was selected to
carry the funds thus obtained to the brethren in Judea. Jerusalem for a long
time remained the capital of Christianity. There were centred the objects
peculiar to the faith, and there only were the apostles. But a great forward
step had been taken. For several years there had been only one completely
organised Church, that of Jerusalem—the absolute centre of the faith, the heart
from which all life proceeded and to which it flowed back again; such was no
longer the case. The Church at Antioch was now a perfect Church. It possessed
all the hierarchy of the gifts of the Holy Ghost. It was the starting-point of
the missions, and their head-quarters. It was a second capital, or rather
It was now easy to forsee that the second capital must soon eclipse the first. The decay of the Church at Jerusalem was, indeed, rapid. It is natural that institutions founded on communism should enjoy at the beginning a period of brilliancy, for communism involves always high mental exaltation; but it is equally natural that such institutions should very quickly degenerate, because communism is contrary to the instincts of human nature. In his virtuous fits, man readily believes that he can entirely sacrifice his selfish instincts and his peculiar interests; but egotism has its revenge, by proving that absolute disinterestedness engenders evils more serious than those it is hoped to avoid by the renunciation of personal rights to property.
Barnabas found the church of Jerusalem in great trouble. The year 44 was perilous to it. Besides the famine, the fires of persecution, which had been smothered since the death of Stephen, were rekindled.
Herod Agrippa, grandson of Herod the Great, had succeeded, since the year 41, in
reconstructing the kingdom of his grandfather. Thanks to the favour of Caligula,
he had reunited under his sway Batanea, Trachonitis a part of the Hauran,
Abilene, Galilee, and the Perea. The ignoble part he played in the tragi-comedy
which raised Claudius to the empire, completed his fortune. This vile Oriental, in
return for the lessons of baseness and
It was inevitable that a prince of this character should persecute the
Christians. Sincere or not, Herod Agrippa was, in the strictest sense of the
word, a Jewish Sovereign. The house of Herod, as it became weaker, took to
devotion. It held no longer to that broad profane idea of the founder of the
dynasty, which sought to make the most diverse religions live together under the
common empire of civilization. When Herod Agrippa, for the first time after he
had become king, set foot in Alexandria, it was as a King of the Jews that he
was received: it was this title which irritated the population and gave rise to
endless buffooneries. Now what was a King of the Jews, if he did not become the
guardians of the laws and the traditions, a sovereign theocrat and persecutor?
From the time of Herod the Great, under whom fanaticism was entirely suppressed, until the breaking out of the war
which led to the destruction of
Jerusalem, there was thus a constantly increasing process of religious ardour.
The species of feudality which, since the death of Tiberius, tended to establish
itself in Syria and the neighbouring countries, was in fact an interruption in
the imperial policy and had almost uniformly injurious results. The “Kings”
coming to Rome were great personages, and exercised there a detestable
influence. The corruption and abasement of the people, especially under
Caligula, proceeded in great part from the spectacle furnished by these
wretches, who were seen successively dragging their purple at the theatre, at
the palace of the Cæsar, and in the prisons. So far as concerns the Jews, we
have seen that autonomy meant intolerance. The Sovereign Pontificate quitted for
a moment the family of Hanan, only to enter that of Boëthus, a family no less
haughty and cruel. A sovereign anxious to please the Jews could not fail, but
Herod Agrippa, in fact, became towards the end of his reign a violent persecutor. Some time before the Passover of the year 44, he cut off the head of one of the principal members of the apostolical college, James, son of Zebedee, brother of John. The offence was not re-presented as a religious one; there was no inquisitorial trial before the Sanhedrim: the sentence, as in the case of John the Baptist, was pronounced by virtue of the arbitrary power of the sovereign. Encouraged by the good effect which this execution produced upon the Jews, Herod Agrippa was unwilling to stop upon so easy a road to popularity. It was the first days of the Feast of the Passover, which were ordinarily marked by redoubled fanaticism. Agrippa ordered the imprisonment of Peter in the Tower of Antonia, and sought to have him judged and put to death in the most ostentations manner before the multitude of people then assembled.
A circumstance with which we are unacquainted, and which was regarded as
miraculous, opened Peter’s prison. One evening, as many of the disciples were
assembled in the house of Mary, mother of John-Mark, where Peter constantly
resided, there was suddenly a knock heard at the door. The servant, named Rhoda,
went to listen. She recognised Peter’s voice. Transported with delight, instead
of opening the door she ran back to announce that Peter was there. They regarded
her as mad. She avowed she spoke the truth. “It is his angel,” said some of
them. The knocking was continued; it was indeed he. Their delight was infinite.
Peter immediately announced his deliverance to James, brother of the Lord, and
to the other disciples. It was believed that the angel of God had entered into
the prison of the apostle and made the chains drop from his hands, and the bolts
of the doors fall. Peter related, in fact, all that
Agrippa survived these violences but a short time. In the course of the year 44,
he went to Cesarea to celebrate games in honour of Claudius. The concourse of
people was very great; and many from Tyre and Sidon, who had difficulties with
him, came thither to sue for pardon. These festivals were very displeasing to
the Jews, both because they took place in the city of Cæsarea, and because they
were held in the theatre. Previously, on one occasion, the king having quitted
Jerusalem under similar circumstances, a certain rabbi Simeon had proposed to
declare him an alien to Judaism, and to exclude him from the temple. Herod
Agrippa had carried his condescension so far as to place the rabbi beside him in
the theatre in order to prove to him that nothing passed there contrary to the
law, and thinking he had thus satisfied the most austere, he allowed himself to
indulge his taste for profane pomps. The second day of the festival he entered
the theatre very early in the morning, clothed in a tunic of silver fabric, of
marvellous brilliancy. The effect of this tunic, glittering in the rays of the
rising sun, was extraordinary. The Phœnicians who surrounded the king lavished
upon him adulations borrowed from Paganism. “It is a god,” they cried, “and
not a man.” The king did not testify his indignation, and did not blame this
expression. He died five days afterwards; and Jews and Christians believed that
he was struck dead for not having repelled with horror a blasphemous flattery.
Christian tradition represents that he died of a vermicular malady, the
punishment reserved for the enemies of God. The symptoms related by Josephus
would lead rather to the
The death of Herod Agrippa I. led to the end of all independence for Jerusalem. The administration by procurators was resumed, and this régime lasted until the great revolt. This was fortunate for Christianity; for it is very remarkable that this religion, which was des-tined to sustain subsequently so terrible a struggle against the Roman empire, grew up in the shadow of the Roman rule, under its protection. It was Rome, as we have already several times remarked, which hindered Judaism from giving itself up fully to its intolerant instincts, and stifling the free instincts which were stirred within its bosom. Every diminution of Jewish authority was a benefit to the nascent sect. Cuspius Fadus, the first of this new series of procurators, was another Pilate, full of firmness, or at least of good-will. But Claudius continued to show himself favourable to Jewish pretensions, chiefly at the instigation of the young Herod Agrippa, son of Herod Agrippa I., whom he kept near to his person, and whom he greatly loved. After the short administration of Cuspius Fadus, we find the functions of procurator confided to a Jew, to that Tiberius Alexander, nephew of Philo, and son of the alabarque of the Alexandrian Jews who attained to high position, and played a great part in the political affairs of that century. It is true that the Jews did not like him; and regarded him, not without reason, as an apostate.
To put an end to these incessantly renewed disputes, recourse was had to an
expedient based on sound principles. A sort of separation was made between the
spiritual and temporal. The political power remained with the procurators; but
Herod, king of Chalcis, brother of Agrippa I., was named prefect of the temple,
guardian of the pontifical habits, treasurer of the sacred
Christianity took no part in these troubles. But these troubles, like
Christianity itself, were one of the symptoms of the extraordinary fever which
devoured the Jewish people, and the Divine work which was being accomplished in
its midst. Never had the Jewish faith made such progress. The temple of
Jerusalem was one of the sanctuaries of the world, the reputation of which was
most widely extended, and in which the offerings were the most liberal. Judaism
had become the dominant religion of several portions of Syria. The Asmonean
princes had forcibly converted entire populations to it (Idumeans, Itureans,
&c.). There were many instances of circumcision having been imposed by force;
the ardour for making proselytes was very great. Even the house of Herod aided
powerfully the Jewish propaganda. In order to marry princesses of this family,
whose wealth was immense, the princes of the little dynasties of Emese, of
Pontus, and of Cilicia, vassals of the Romans, became Jews. Arabia and Ethiopia
contained also a great number of converts. The royal families of Mesene and of
Adiabene, tributaries of the Parthians, were gained over, especially by their
women. It was generally admitted that happiness was found in the knowledge and
practice of the Law. Even when
One of the most extraordinary examples of this pen-chant of religious souls
towards Judaism was that given by the royal family of Adiabene, upon the Tiger.
This house, Persian by origin and in manners, and in a measure acquainted with
Greek culture, became wholly Jewish, and affected extreme devotion; for, as we
have said, those proselytes were often more pious than Jews by birth. Izate, the
head of the family, embraced Judaism through the preaching of a Jewish merchant
named Ananias, who, having occasion to enter the seraglio of Abennerig, King of
Mesene, to prosecute his pedlar business, had succeeded in converting all the
women, and constituted himself their spiritual preceptor. The women put Izate
into communication with him. Helen, his mother, had herself instructed in the
true religion by another Jew. Izate, with the zeal of a new convert, desired
forthwith to be circumcised. But his mother and Ananias earnestly dissuaded him
against it. Ananias proved to him that the keeping of
The conversion of Izate was followed by that of his brother Monobaze and almost the whole of his family. About the year 44, Helen established herself at Jerusalem, where she had erected for the royal house of Adiabene a palace and a family mausoleum, which still exists. She made herself to be beloved of the Jews by her affability and her alms. It was a source of great edification to see her, like a devout Jewess, frequenting the Temple, consulting the doctors, reading the Law, and instructing her sons in it. In the plague of the year 44, this holy woman was a god-send to the city. She bought a large quantity of wheat in Egypt, and dried figs in Cyprus. Izate, on his part, sent considerable sums to be distributed amongst the poor. The wealth of Adiabene was expended in part at Jerusalem. The son of Izate came there to learn the usages and the language of the Jews. The whole of this family was thus the resource of the city of mendicants. It acquired there a sort of citizenship; several of its members were found there at the time of the siege of Titus; others figure in the Talmudic writings, and are represented as models of piety and disinterestedness.
It is in this way that the royal family of Adiabene belongs to the history of
Christianity. Without in fact being Christian, as certain traditions would have
it, this family represented, under various aspects, the promises of the
Gentiles. In embracing Judaism, it
We see at least that the question of proselytes was put forward in a similar
manner, both in Judaism and in Christianity. On both hands the necessity for
enlarging the door of entrance was felt. For those who were thus situated,
circumcision was a useless or noxious practice; the Mosaic rite was simply a
sign of race, of no value except for the children of Abraham. Before becoming
the universal religion, Judaism was compelled to reduce itself to a sort of
deism, imposing only the duties of natural religion. There was thus a sublime
mission to fulfil, and a part of Judaism in the first half of the first century
lent itself to it in a very intelligent manner. On one side, Judaism was one of
the innumerable forms of natural worship which filled the world, and the
sanctity of which came only from what its ancestors had worshipped; on the
other, Judaism was the absolute religion made for all and destined to be adopted
by all. The frightful outbreak of fanaticism which gained the upper hand in
Judea, and which brought about the war of extermination, cut short that future.
It was Christianity which undertook the work which the Synagogue had not known
Christianity was now really established. In the history of religions it is
always the first years which are most difficult to traverse. When once a faith
has borne up against the hard trials, which every new institution has to endure,
its future is assured. More clever than the other sectaries of the same date,
Epenians, Baptists, partizans of John the Gaulonite, which simply came out of
the Jewish world, and perished with it, the founders of Christianity, with a
singular clearness of sight, cast themselves very early into the great world,
and took their place in it. The scantiness of the references to the Christians,
which are to be found in Josephus, in the Talmud, and in the Greek and Latin
writers, ought not to be surprising. Josephus has reached us through Christian
copyists, who have suppressed all that was
The circumstance that Christianity was not an isolated movement has contributed
not a little towards the effacement of its outlines in the history of the Jewish
world in the first century of our era. Philo, at the moment at which we have
arrived, has finished his career—a career consecrated to the love of the good.
The sect of Judas, the Gaulonite, still existed. The agitator had for continuers
of his idea, his sons James, Simon, and Menahem, Simon and James were crucified
by order of the renegade procurator, Tiberius Alexander. Menahem will play an
important part in the final catastrophe of the nation. In the year 44 an
enthusiast, named Theudas, arose announcing the approaching deliverance, and
invited the mob to follow him into the desert, promising, like another Joshua,
to make them pass dryshod over Jordan, this passage being, according
Dreams like that of Theudas were everywhere renewed. Persons, pretending to be
inspired, stirred up the people, and led them out into the desert, under
pretence of showing to them, by manifest signs that God was about to deliver
them. The Roman authorities exterminated these agitators and their dupes by
thousands. A Jew of Egypt, who came to Jerusalem about the year 56, was skilful
enough to draw after him 30,000
It is not impossible that Theudas had a certain after-thought of imitation, as regards Jesus and John the. Baptist. This imitation, at least, is evidently betrayed in Simon of Gitton, if the Christian traditions as to this personage are in any way worthy of credence. We have already met him in connexion with the Apostles apropos of the first mission of Philip to Samaria. It was under the reign of Claudius that he arrived at celebrity. His miracles passed as constant, and everybody in Samaria looked upon him as a supernatural personage.
His miracles, however, were not the only foundation of his reputation. He added
to them a doctrine which we can hardly judge of, since the work attributed to
him, and entitled the Great Exposition, has reached us only by extracts, and is
probably only a very modified expression of his ideas. Simon, during his stay in
Alexandria, appears to have drawn from his studies of Greek philosophy, a system
of syncretic philosophy, and of allegorical exegesis, resembling that of Philo.
The system had its greatness. Sometimes it recalls the Jewish Cabala, sometimes
the Pantheistic theories of Indian philosophy; looked at from a certain
standpoint
At the basis of his system there is much analogy with that of Valentin, and with the doctrines as to the Divine persons which are found in the fourth Gospel, in Philo and on the Targums. The “Metatrône,” which the Jews placed by the side of the Divinity, and almost in its breast, has a strong resemblance to the “Great Power.” In the theology of the Samaritans may be found a “Great Angel,” chief of the others, and of the class of manifestations or “divine virtues,” like those which the Jewish Cabala figures on its side. It appears certain then that Simon, of Gitton, was a kind of theosophist of the race of Philo and the Cabalists. It is possible that he approached Christianity for the moment, but he certainly did not definitely embrace it.
Whether he really borrowed something from the disciples of Jesus is very
difficult to decide. If the Great Exposition is his in any degree, it must be
admitted that in many points he went beyond Christian ideas, and that upon
others he adopted them very freely. It would seem that he attempted eclecticism
like that which Mahomet practised later on, and that he endeavoured to found his
religious character upon the preliminary acceptance of the divine mission of
John and of Jesus. He wanted to be in a mystical communion with them. He
maintained, it is said, that it was he, Simon, who appeared to the Samaritans as
Father, to the Jews the visible crucifixion of the Son, to the Gentiles, by the
infusion of the Holy Ghost. He thus prepared the way, it would seem, for the
doctrines of the docetes. He said that it was he who had suffered in Judea in
the person of Jesus, but that that suffering had only been apparent. His
pretension to be the Divinity itself, and
It will be seen besides that the doctrine of the Great Exposition is that of almost all the Gnostic writers; if Simon really professed the doctrines, it was with good reason that the fathers of the Church made him the founder of Gnosticism. We believe that the Great Exposition has only a relative authenticity, and that it really is to the doctrine of Simon—to compare small things with great—what the Fourth Gospel is to the mind of Jesus; that it goes back to the first years of the second century, that is to say, to the period when the theosophic ideas of the Logos definitely gained the ascendency. These ideas, the germ of which we shall find in the Christian Church about the year 60, might however have been known to Simon, whose career we may reason-ably extend to the end of the century.
The idea which we form to ourselves of this enigmatical personage is then that of a kind of plagiarist of Christianity. Counterfeiting appears to have been a constant habit amongst the Samaritans. Just as they had always imitated the Judaism of Jerusalem, their sectaries had also copied Christianity in their ways, their gnoxis, their theosophic speculations, their Cabala. But was Simon a respectable imitator, who only failed of success, or an immoral and profligate conjuror using for his own advantage a doctrine of shreds and patches picked up here and there? This is a question which will probably never be answered. Simon thus maintains in history an utterly false position; he walks upon a light rope where hesitation is impossible; in this order, there is no middle path between a ridiculous fall and the most miraculous success.
We shall again have to occupy ourselves with Simon, and to enquire if the
legends as to his stay in Rome are in any way founded on truth. It is certain
that the Samarian sect lasted until the third century; that it had
Amongst the Christians, the memory of Simon of Gitton was an abomination. These
illusions, which were so much like their own, irritated them. To have
successfully rivalled the apostles was unpardonable. It was asserted that the
miracles of Simon and of his disciples were the work of the devil, and they
applied to the Samaritan theosophist the title of the “Magician,” which the
faithful took in very bad part. All the Christian legends of Simon bear the
marks of a concentrated wrath. He was credited with the maxims of quietisms, and
with the excess which are usually supposed to be its consequence. He was
considered to be the father of every error, the first heresiarch. Christians
amused themselves by telling laughable stories of him and of his defeats by the
apostle Peter. They attributed his approach towards Christianity to the vilest
of motives. They were so preoccupied with his name that they fancied they read
It in inscriptions which he had not written. The symbolism in which he had
enveloped his ideas was interpreted in the most grotesque fashion. The “Helen,”
whom he identified with the “Highest Intelligence,” became a prostitute whom he
had bought in the market at Tyre. His very name was hated almost as much as that
of Judas, and, taken as synonym of “anti-apostle,” became the last insult and as
it were a proverbial word
But criticism, at least, should not forget to mention in connexion with the Samaritan theurgist a coincidence which is perhaps not altogether fortuitous. In a story of the historian Josephus, a Jewish magician named Simon, born in Cyprus, plays the part of pander to Felix. The circumstances of this tale do not fit in with those of Simon of Gitton well enough for him to be made responsible for the acts of a person who could have nothing in common with him, but a name then borne by thousands of men, and a pretension to supernatural powers, which he unhappily shared with a host of his contemporaries.
We have seen Barnabas depart from Antioch to carry to the faithful of Jerusalem the alms of their brethren in Syria. We have seen him share in some of the emotions which the persecutions of Herod Agrippa I. caused the Church at Jerusalem. Let us return with him to Antioch where all the creative activity of the sect appears at that moment to have been concentrated.
Barnabas brought with him a zealous collaborator, his cousin John-Mark, the favourite disciple of Peter, and the son of that Mary with whom the first of the apostles loved to dwell. Without doubt in taking with him this new co-operator, he was already thinking of the new enterprise with which he intended to associate him. Perhaps he even foresaw the divisions which that new enterprise would raise up, and was by no means unwilling to mix up with them a man whom he knew to be Peters right hand, that is to say, the right hand of that one of the apostles who had the greatest authority in general matters.
This enterprise was nothing less than a series of great missions, starting from Antioch and having for programme the conversion of the whole world. Like all resolutions taken by the Church, this was attributed to the direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost. A special vocation, a supernatural choice, was believed to have been communicated to the Church of Antioch whilst she was fasting and praying. Perhaps one of the prophets of the Church, Menaham or Lucius, in one of his fits of speaking with tongues, uttered words from which it was concluded that Paul and Barnabas had been selected for this mission. Paul himself was convinced that God had chosen him from his mother’s womb for the work to which he was henceforward wholly to devote himself.
The two apostles took as coadjutor, under the name of subordinate, to attend to the material cares of their enterprise, this John-Mark, whom Barnabas had brought with him from Jerusalem. When the preparations were finished there were fastings and prayer; it is said that hands were laid upon the apostles, in sign of a mission conferred by the Church herself; they were commended to the grace of God and they departed. Whither would they go? What world would they evangelize? That is what we have now to inquire.
All the great primitive Christian missions turned
The Mediterranean had been for a thousand years the great route where all
civilization and all ideas intermingled. The Romans, having delivered it from
piracy, had made it an unequalled means of communication. A numerous fleet of
coasters made travelling on the shores of this great lake very easy. The
relative security which the routes of the Empire afforded, the guarantees which
were found in the public powers, the diffusions of the Jews on all the coasts of
the Mediterranean, the use of the Greek language in the Eastern part of that
sea, the unity of civilization which the Greeks first, and then the Romans had
created there, made the map of the Empire the very map of the countries reserved
for Christian missions, and destined to become Christian. The Roman orbis became
the Christian orbis, and in this sense it may be said that the founders of the
Empire were the founders of the Christian monarchy, or at least, that they
sketched its outlines. Every province conquered by the Roman Empire has been a
province conquered by Christianity. If we figure to ourselves the apostles in
the presence of an Asia Minor, of a Greece, of an Italy divided into a hundred
petty republics, of a Spain, an Africa, an Egypt in possession of ancient
national institutions, we cannot imagine them as successful, or rather we cannot
imagine how the project of them could ever have been conceived. The unity of the
Empire was the preliminary condition of every great scheme of religious proselytism
Of all the countries outside Judea, the first in which Christianity established itself was naturally Syria. The neighbourhood of Palestine and the great number of Jews established in that country rendered such a thing inevitable. Cyprus, Asia Minor, Macedonia, Greece, and Italy, were visited by the apostolic messengers after some years. The south of Gaul, Spain, the coast of Africa, though they may have been evangelized sufficiently early, may be considered as forming a more recent course in the substructure of Christianity.
It was the same in Egypt. Egypt plays scarcely any part in apostolic history.
Christian missionaries appear to have systematically turned their backs upon it.
This country, which from the beginning of the third century became the scene of
such important events in the history of religion, was at first greatly behind
hand in its Christianity. Apollos is the only Christian doctor produced by the
school of Alexandria, and even he learned Christianity in his travels. The cause
of this remarkable phenomenon must be sought in the little communication which
then existed between the Jews of Egypt and those of Palestine, and above all, in
the fact that Jewish Egypt had in some sort its separate religious development.
Egypt had Philo and
A rapid flash, coming out of Syria, illuminating almost simultaneously the three great peninsulas of Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy, and soon followed by a second reflection which embraced almost all the coasts of the Mediterranean, such was the first apparition of Christianity. The journey of the apostolic ship is almost always the same. Christian preaching appears to follow almost invariably in the wake of the Jewish emigration. As an infection which, taking its point of departure from the bottom of the Mediterranean, appears at the same moment at a certain number of points on the littoral by a secret correspondence, so Christianity had its ports of arrival as it were settled beforehand. These ports were almost all marked by Jewish colonies. A synagogue preceded in general the establishment of the Church. One might say a train of powder, or better still a sort of electric chain along which the new idea ran in an almost instantaneous fashion.
For five hundred years, in effect, Judaism, until then confined to the East and
to Egypt, had taken its flight towards the West. Cyrene, Cyprus, Asia Minor,
certain cities of Macedonia and of Greece and Italy, had
It has always been the peculiarity of the Jewish life, piously practiced, to
produce great gaiety and cordiality. There was love in that little world; they
love a past, and the same past; the religious ceremonies surrounded
The disposition of the native populations towards these strangers varied
greatly. On the one hand the sentiment of revulsion and of antipathy, that the
Jews by their spirit of jealous isolation, their rancorous temper and unsociable
habits, produced around them everywhere where they were numerous and organised,
manifested itself most strongly. When they were free, they were in reality
privileged; since they enjoyed the advantages of society without bearing its
cost. Impostors profited by the movement of curiosity which
But those superficial judgments were not those of all. The Jews had as many
friends as detractors. Their gravity, their good morals, the simplicity of their
worship, charmed a crowd of people. Something superior was felt in them. A vast
monotheistic and Mosaic propaganda was organised; a sort of singular whirlwind
formed itself around this singular little
The exemption from certain civil charges, particularly the
military, helped also to cause the fate of the Jews to be regarded as enviable.
The State then demanded many sacrifices and gave little moral satisfaction.
Everything was icily cold as on a flat plain without shelter. Life, so sad in
the midst of Paganism regained its charm and its value in the warm atmosphere of
synagogue and church. It was not liberty which was to be found there. The
brethren spied much upon each other, everyone worrying himself about the affairs
of everyone else. But although the interior life of these little communities was
greatly agitated, they were happy enough; no one quitted them; there were no
apostasies. The poor were content in them;
The word of Zachariah was verified: that men “shall take hold of the skirt of
him that is a Jew, saying we will go with you, for we perceive that God is with
you.” There was no great town where the Sabbath fasts and other ceremonies of
Judaism were not observed. Josephus dares to provoke those who doubted it, to
consider their country and even their own house to see if there were not
confirmation of what he said. The presence in Rome and near the Emperor of many
members of the family of the Herods, who practised their worship ostentatiously
in the face of all, contributed much to this publicity. The Sabbath besides
imposed itself by a sort of necessity in the quarters where there were Jews.
Their obstinate determination not to open their shops on that day forced their
neighbours to modify their habits. It is thus that at Salonica one might say
that the Sabbath is still observed, the Jewish population there being rich
enough and numerous enough to make the law and to order the day of rest by
closing its places of business. Almost the equal of the Jew, often in company
with him, the Syrian was an active instrument in the conquest
Many of the Syrian emigrants whom the desire of making their fortunes had drawn
westwards, were more or less attached to Judaism. Those who were not, remained
faithful to the worship of their villages; that is to say to the memory of some
temple dedicated to a local “Jupiter,” who was usually simply the supreme being,
differentiated by a particular title. It was at bottom a species of monotheism,
which these Syrians brought under cover of their strange gods. Compared
It was especially at Rome that the Syrian in the first century exercised his
penetrating activity. Charged with almost all the minor trades, guide,
messenger; letterbearer, the Syrus entered everywhere, introducing with himself
the language and the manners of his country. He had neither the pride nor the
philosophical hauteur of the European. Still less their bodily strength: weak of
body, pale, often nervous, not knowing how to eat or to sleep at regular hours
after the fashion of our heavy and solid races, eating little meat, living upon
onions and pumpkins, sleeping but little and lightly, the Syrian died young, and
was habitually ill. What were peculiar to him, were his humility, his
gentleness, his affability, and a certain goodness; no solidity of mind, but an
infinite charm; little good sense, except in matters of business, but an
astonishing ardour, and a seductiveness altogether feminine. The Syrian, having
never had any political life, has an altogether special aptitude for religious
movements. This poor Maronite, humble, ragged as he is, has made the greatest of
revolutions. His ancestor, the Syrus of Rome, was the most zealous bearer of the
good news to all the afflicted. Every year brought to Greece, to Italy, to Gaul,
colonies of these Syrians, urged by the natural taste which they had for small
business. They were recognized on the ships by their numerous families, by their
troops of pretty children almost of the same age, who followed them: the mother,
with the childish air of a little girl of fourteen, holding herself by the side
of her husband, submissive, gently smiling, scarcely bigger than her elder sons.
The heads in these little groups are not strikingly marked; there is certainly
no Archimedes, Plato or Phidias amongst them. But the Syrian merchant arrived in Rome, will be
a man, good and pitiful, charitable to his fellow countrymen, loving the poor.
He will talk with the slaves, revealing to them an
To explain the revolution which is about to be accomplished, we must take into account the political, social, moral, intellectual, and religious state of the countries, where Jewish proselytism had opened the soil for Christian preaching to fertilize. That study will show, I hope, convincingly that the conversion of the world to Jewish and Christian ideas was inevitable, and will leave room for astonishment, only upon one point, which is, that conversion should be effected so slowly and so late.
The political state of the world was of the saddest kind. All authority was
concentrated at Rome and in the legions. There occurred the most shameful and
degrading scenes. The Roman aristocracy, which had conquered the world, and
which, in short, had alone governed under the Cæsars, delivered itself up to the
most frightful Saturnalia of grime which the world has ever seen. Cæsar and
Augustus, in establishing the aristocracy, had seen with perfect accuracy the
necessities of their times. The world was so low in the political sense that no
other government was possible. Since Rome had conquered provinces innumerable,
the ancient constitution, founded on the privileges of patrician families, a
species of obstinate and malevolent Tories, could not subsist. But Augustus had
failed in all the duties of true policy in that he left the future to chance.
Without regular hereditary succession, without fixed rules of adoption, without
electoral laws, without constitutional limitations, Cæsarism was like a
colossal weight on the deck of a ship without ballast. The most terrible shocks
were inevitable. Thrice in a century, under Caligula, under Nero, and under
Domitian, the greatest power which had ever existed fell into the hands of
execrable or extravagant men. Hence, horrors, which have scarcely been exceeded
by the monsters of the Mongal dynasties. In that fatal series of sovereigns we
are reduced almost to excusing a Tiberius, who was absolutely wicked only
towards the close of his life! a Claudius, who was simply eccentric,
The true Roman spirit, in effect, still survived. Human nobility was far from being extinct. A great tradition of pride and of virtue was kept up in some families, which came to power with Nerva, and made the splendour of the century of the Antonines of which Tacitus has been the eloquent interpreter. A time, which was that of minds so profoundly honest as Quintilian, Pliny the younger and Tacitus, is not a time of which we need despair. The disturbance of the surface did not affect the great basis of honesty and of seriousness which underlay good society in Rome; some families still afforded models of valour, of devotion to duty, of concord, of solid virtue. There were in the noble houses admirable wives, admirable sisters. Was there ever a more touching fate than that of the young and chaste Octavia, daughter of Claudius, and wife of Nero, pure amidst so many infamies, killed at twenty-two years of age, before she had had time to enjoy her life? The women described in the inscriptions as Castissimæ, univiræ are not rare. Wives accompanied their husbands in exile; others shared their noble deaths. The old Roman simplicity was not lost; the education of children was grave and careful. The noblest women laboured with their hands at woolwork; the cares of the toilette were almost unknown in good families.
The excellent statesmen who sprang up under Trajan were not improvised. They had served under preceding reigns; only they had had little influence, cast into the shade as they were by the freedmen and the basest favourites of the Emperor. Men of the highest character thus occupied exalted positions under Nero. The skeleton was good, the accession of the bad Emperors to power, disastrous though it was, did not suffice to change the general course of affairs and the principles of the State. The Empire, far from being in decadence, was in all the force of the most robust youth. The decadence was coming, but that would be two centuries later, and, strange to say, under the least evil of the sovereigns. Looked at from the political point of view, the situation was analogous to that of France, which, for want of an invariable rule since the Revolution as to the succession of powers, has gone through the most perilous adventures, without its internal organisation and national force suffering too much. From the moral point of view we may compare the time of which we speak with the eighteenth century, an epoch which we might fancy to be altogether corrupt, if we judged by the memories, the manuscript literature, the collection of anecdotes of the times, yet, in which houses maintained a great severity of morals.
Philosophy had allied itself with the honest Roman families, and resisted nobly.
The Stoic school produced the great characters of Cremastius Cordus, of
Thraseas, of Arria, of Helvidius Priscus, of Annæus Cornelius, of Musonius
Rufus—admirable masters of aristocratic virtue. The stiffness and the
exaggerations of this school, arose from the horrible cruelty of the government
of the Cæsars. The perpetual thought of the good man was how he might best
endure tortures and prepare for death. Lucan, with bad taste, Persius, with
greater talents, expressed the highest sentiments of a great soul. Seneca the
philosopher, Pliny the elder, Papirius Fabianus, maintained an elevated
tradition of
This government, so frightfully unequal at Rome, was much better in the
provinces. Few of the disorders which shocked the capital were felt there. In
spite of its defects the Roman administration was much better than the royalties
and republics which the conquest had suppressed. The time of the sovereign
municipalities had gone by for centuries. These little states had destroyed
themselves by their egotism, their jealous spirit, their ignorance, or their
little care for private liberties. The ancient Greek life, all struggles, all
exterior, satisfied no one. It had been charming in its day, but this brilliant
Olympus of a democracy of demi-gods having lost its freshness, had become
something dry, cold, insignificant, vain, superficial, for want of goodness and
of solid honesty. This, it was, which constituted the legitimacy of the
Macedonian domination, then of the Roman administration. The Empire did not yet
know the excess of centralization. Until the time of Diocletian, it left much
liberty to the provinces and cities. Kingdoms, almost independent, existed in
Palestine, in Syria, in Asia Minor, in little Armenia, in Thrace under the
protection of Rome. These kingdoms became dangers only in the days of Caligula,
because the rules of the great and profound political policy of Augustus were
neglected. The free cities, and they were numerous, governed themselves
according to their own laws; they had the legislative power and all the
magistracy of an autonomous state, until the third century, municipal decrees
began with the formula, “The senate and the people . . .” The theatres served, not only for the pleasures of
the stage, they were the centres of opinion and of movement. The majority of the
towns
In short, notwithstanding the exactions of the governors, and the violence,
inseparable from an absolute government the world in many respects had never yet
been so happy. An administration coming from a distant centre was so great an
advantage that even the plunderings of the Prætors in the last days of the
Republic had not been sufficient to make it odious. The Julian law, besides, had
greatly narrowed the field of abuse and of collusions. The follies or the
cruelties of the Emperor, except under Nero, affected only the Roman aristocracy
and the immediate surroundings of the Prince. There never was a time when a man
who did not meddle in politics could live more comfortably. The republics of
antiquity, in which everyone was forced to occupy himself with the quarrels of
parties, were exceedingly uncomfortable places of abode. People were incessantly
upset or proscribed. Now the time seemed expressly fitted for large proselytisms
above the quarrels of the little towns and the rivalries of dynasties. Such
attempts against liberty as there were, arose out of what
In those of the conquered countries in which political necessities had not
existed for centuries, and where the people were deprived only of the right to
tear each other to pieces by continual wars, the Empire was a period of
prosperity and of well-being, such as had never been known, we may even add
without paradox, of liberty, On the one hand, freedom of trade and of industry,
of which the Greek Republics had no idea, became possible. On the other, liberty
of thought could only gain by the new system. That liberty is always stronger
when it has to deal with a king or a prince, than when it has to negotiate with
a narrow and jealous citizen. The ancient republics did not possess it. The
Greeks did without it in great things, thanks to the incomparable strength of
their genius, but it ought not to be forgotten that Athens had her inquisition.
The inquisition was the archon king; the holy office was the Royal Porch,
whither were taken accusations of “impiety.” Accusations of that kind were very
numerous; it is concerning cases of this description that most of the great
Attic orations were delivered. Not merely philosophical crimes, such as denying
God or providence, but the slightest blow struck at the municipal worship, the
preaching of foreign religions, the most childish infractions of the scrupulous
legislation of the mysteries, were crimes which might be punished with death.
The gods whom Aristophanes mocked at on the stage, killed sometimes. They killed
Socrates, they wanted to kill Alcibiades. Anaxagoras, Protagoras, Theodorus the
Atheist, Diagoras of Melos, Prodicus of Ceos, Stilpo, Aristotle, Theophrastus,
Aspasia, Euripides, were more or less seriously disquieted. Liberty of thought
was, in short, the fruit of the royalties which sprang out of the Macedonian
Large ideas of universal brotherhood springing for the most part out of
stoicism, a sort of general sentiment of humanity, were the fruits of the less
narrow system and of the less exclusive education to which the individual was
subjected. There were dreams of a new era and of new worlds. The public wealth
was great, and, notwithstanding the imperfection of the economic doctrines of
the times, wealth was widely spread. Morals were not what they have often been
imagined to be. At Rome, it is true, all the vices were displayed with a
Customs even outside Rome were still to a certain ex-tent cruel, it may be
through the memory of antique manners, everywhere rather sanguinary, it may be
through the special influence of Roman hardness. But there was progress even in
this respect. What soft and pure sentiment, what impression of tender melancholy
had not found its tenderest expression by the pen of Virgil or Tibullus? The
world grew more yielding, lost its antique rigour, acquired gentleness and
susceptibility. Maxims of humanity grew common; equality, the abstract idea of
the rights of man, were loudly preached by stoicism. Woman, thanks to the dowry
system of the Roman law, became more and more her own mistress; precepts on the
manner of treating slaves improved; Seneca ate with his. The slave was no
longer of necessity that grotesque and malicious being, whom Latin comedy
introduced to provoke outbursts of laughter, and whom Cato recommended to be
treated as a beast of burden. The times have now greatly changed. The slave is
morally the equal of his master; it is admitted that he is capable of virtue, of
fidelity, of devotion, and he has given proofs that he is so. Prejudices as to
nobility of birth are dying out. Many very humane and very just laws are enacted
even under the worst of the Emperors. Tiberius was an able financier; he
founded upon an excellent basis an establishment
The theatre was one of the most insupportable scandals to honest people, and was
one of the first causes of the antipathy of Jews and Judaizers of every class
against the profane civilization of the time. These gigantic circles appeared to
them the sewer in which all the vices festered. Whilst the front ranks
applauded, repulsion and horror alone were produced on the upper benches. The
spectacles of gladiators were established in the provinces only with difficulty.
The Greek countries at least objected to them, and clung more often to their
ancient Greek exercises. The sanguinary games preserved always in the East a
very pronounced mark of their Roman origin. The Athenians in emulation of the
Corinthians having, one day deliberated as to imitating these barbarous games, a
philosopher is said to have risen and moved that before this was done, the altar
of Pity should be overthrown. The horror of the theatre, of the stadium, of the
gymnasium, that is to say, of the public places, and of what constituted
essentially a Greek or a Roman city, was thus one of the deepest sentiments of
the Christian, and one of those which produced the greatest results. Ancient
civilization was a public civilization; everything was done in the open air,
before the assembled citizens. It was the reverse of our societies, where life
is altogether private and closed within the compass of the house. The theatre
was the heir of the agora and of the forum. The anathema uttered against the
theatre rebounded upon all society. A profound rivalry was established between
the Church on the one hand, the public games on the other. The slave, driven
from the
Legislation and the administrative rules of the Empire were still a veritable chaos. The central despotism, the municipal and provincial franchises, the caprice of the governors, the violences of the independent communities clashed in the strangest manner. But religious liberty gained by these conflicts. The splendid unitary administration of Trajan will be more fatal to the rising worship than the irregular state, full of the unforeseen, without rigorous police of the time of the Cæsars.
The institutions of public assistance, founded on the principle that the State
has paternal duties towards its members, developed themselves extensively only
after the period of Nerva and Trajan. Some traces of them are, however, found in
the first century. There were already charities for children, distributions of
food to the poor, an assize of bread, with indemnities to the corn merchants,
precautions about provisions, premiums and assurances for ship owners, bread
bonds, which permitted corn to be bought at a reduced price. All the emperors,
without exception, showed the greatest solicitude about these questions, minor
ones, if you like, but on certain occasions of primary importance. In the
earliest ages it is possible that the world had no need of charity. The world
was young and valiant, the hospital was useless. The good and simple Homeric
moral, according to which the host and the beggar alike come from Jupiter, is
the moral of robust and cheerful youth.
The intellectual state of various parts of the Empire was not very satisfactory.
In this respect there was a
Italy, in adopting Greek science, had learned for a moment to animate it with a
new sentiment. Lucretius had furnished the model of the great philosophical
poem, at once hymn and blasphemy, inspiring in turn, serenity and despair,
penetrated with that profound sentiment of human destiny, which was always
wanting
The Empire until the time of Vespasian had nothing which could be called public
instruction. What there was of this kind at a later date was confined almost
exclusively to the insipid exercises of the grammarians; the general decadence
was rather pressed on than delayed. The last days of the republican government,
and the reign of Augustus, were witnesses to one of the finest literary
movements that ever took place. But after the death of the great Emperor the
decadence is rapid, or, more correctly, altogether sudden. The intelligent and
cultivated society of Cicero, Atticus, Cæar, Mæcenas, Agrippa, Pollio, had
disappeared like a dream. Without doubt there were still enlightened men, men
abreast of the science of their time, occupying high social positions, such as
Seneca and the literary society of which he was the centre, Lucilius, Gallio,
Pliny. The body of Roman law, which is philosophy
Greece happily remained faithful to her genius. The prodigious blaze of the
Roman power had dazzled her, crushed her down, but had not destroyed her. In
fifty years she will have reconquered the world, she will again be the mistress
of all who think, she will sit on the throne with the Antonines. But now Greece
herself is in one of her hours of lassitude. Genius is rare there; original
science inferior to what it had been in the six preceding centuries and to what
it will be in the pet, The school of Alexandria, decaying for nearly
From the death of Augustus to the accession of Trajan must be reckoned as a period of momentary abasement of the human mind. The antique world was far from having said its last word; but the cruel trial through which it had passed, had robbed it of voice and heart. Better days are dawning, and the mind relieved from the desolating rule of the Cæsars will appear to revive. Epictetus, Plutarch, Dionysius, the golden-mouthed, Chrysostom, Tacitus, Quintilian, Pliny, the younger, Juvenal, Rufus of Ephesus, Aretæus, Galen, Ptolemy, Hypsicles, Theon, Lucian, will recall the best days of Greece, not of that inimitable Greece which existed but once for the despair and the charm of those who love the beautiful, but a Greece rich and flourishing yet, which whilst confounding her gifts with those of the Roman spirit will produce new fruits full of originality.
The general taste was very bad. There are no great Greek writers. The Latin
authors whom we know, with the exception of the satirist Persius, are mediocre
and without genius. Declamation spoiled everything. The principle by which the
public judged the works of the mind was pretty much the same as in our own day.
They only looked for the brilliant strokes. The word was no longer the simple
vesture of the thought, drawing all its elegance from its perfect proportion to
the idea it expressed. Words were cultivated for their own sake. The object of
an author in writing was to show his talent. The excellence of a recitation or
public lecture was measured by the number of applauded words with which it was
sown. The great principle that in matters of art everything ought to serve for
ornament, but that all that is put in expressly as ornament is bad, this
principle, I say, was profoundly forgotten. The time was if you will, very
literary. They only spoke of eloquence, of good style, and at bottom almost all
the world wrote ill; there was not a single
Stoicism itself could not escape this defect, or at least did not know before Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, how to find a graceful form to envelope its doctrines. The tragedies of Seneca are really extraordinary monuments where the loftiest sentiments are expressed in the tone of a literary charlatanism, wholly fatiguing and indicative at once of moral progress and an irredeemable decadence of taste. The same maybe said of Lucan. The tension of soul, the natural effect of the eminently tragic character of the situation gave birth to an inflated style, where the only care was to shine by fine sentences. Something of the same kind happened amongst us under the Revolution; the severest crisis that had ever been known produced scarcely anything but a literature of rhetoricians, full of declamation. We must not stop at that. The new thoughts were sometimes expressed with a great deal of pretension. The style of Seneca is sober, simple, and pure compared with that of S. Augustine. But we forgive S. Augustine his, detestable though it often is, and his insipid concetti, for the sake of his fine sentiments.
In any case that education, noble and distinguished as it was in many ways,
never reached the people. That would have been a comparatively slight
inconvenience, if the people had had at least a religious training analogous in
some sort to that which the most disinherited portions of our societies receive
in the Church.
Having for guardians only a vacillating popular tradition and interested sacristan, the worship could not but fall back into adulation. Augustus, although with hesitation, suffered himself to be worshipped in the provinces while yet alive. Tiberius allowed that ignoble meeting of the Asiatic townsmen, who disputed the honour of erecting a temple to him, to be held under his eyes. The extravagant impieties of Caligula produced no re-action; outside Judaism there was not a single priest to resist such follies, Sprung for the most part from a primitive worship of natural forces, ten times transformed by mixtures of all kinds, and by the imagination of the people, Pagan worship was limited by its past. It was impossible to extract from them what they did not contain—deism, edification. The Fathers of the Church make us smile when they talk of the misdeeds of Saturn as of those of the father of a family, and Jupiter as a husband. And surely it was much more ridiculous still to erect Jupiter (that is to say the atmosphere) into a moral god who commands, forbids, rewards, punishes. In a world which aspired to possess a catechism, which can be done with a worship like that of Venus, which arose out of an old social necessity of the first Phœnecian navigators in the Mediterranean, but became with time an outrage to those who looked up to it more and more as the essence of religion?
In all quarters, in short, the need of a monotheistic religion, having the morality of the divine prescriptions for its basis, was felt more and more. There thus came a time when natural religion, reduced to pure childishness, to the grimaces of sorcerers, would not suffice for society where humanity wanted a moral and philosophical religion. Buddhism, Zoroasterism answered to that need in India, in Persia. Orpheism and the Mysteries had attempted the same thing in the Greek world, with-out succeeding in a durable manner. At this epoch the problem presented itself to the whole of the world with a sort of solemn unanimity and imperious grandeur.
Greece, it is true, formed an exception in this respect. Hellenism was much less used than other religions of the empire. Plutarch in his little Bœotian town lived by Hellenism, tranquil, happy, contented as a child with the calmest religious conscience. With him, not a trace of crisis, of rending, of disquiet, of imminent revolution. But it was only the Greek spirit which was capable of so infantine a serenity. Always satisfied with herself; proud of her past and of that brilliant mythology of which she possessed all the holy places, Greece did not share all the internal torments, which worried the rest of the world. Only she did not call for Christianity; only she wished to pass it by; only she thought to do better. She held to that eternal youth, to that patriotism, to that gaiety which have always characterised the veritable Hellene, and which to-day cause the Greek to be a stranger to the profound cares which eat us up. Hellenism thus found itself in a position to attempt a renaissance which no other of the religions of the empire would have been able to attempt. In the second, third, and fourth centuries of our era, Hellenism will constitute itself an organised religion by a sort of fusion of the Greek mythology and philosophy, and with its wonder-working philosophers, its ancient sages promoted to the rank of prophets, its legends of Pythagoras and of Apollonius, will enter into a rivalry with Christianity, which, though it remained powerless, was none the less the most dangerous obstacle which the religion of Jesus found in its path.
That attempt was not made so early as the time of the Cæsars. The first
philosophers who attempted a species of alliance between philosophy and
Paganism—Euphrates of Tyre, Apollonius of Tyana, and Plutarch, are of the end of
the century. Euphrates of Tyre is but little known to us. Legend has so covered
up the warp and woof of the real biography of Apollonius that it is difficult to
say, whether he is to be reckoned amongst the sages, amongst the founders of
religions, or amongst the
After the accession of Tiberius, it is true, a religious reaction made itself
felt. It appears that the world was frightened by the avowed incredulity of the
times of Cæsar and Augustus; the unlucky attempt of Julian was anticipated; all
the superstitions found themselves revivified for reasons of State. Valerius
Maximus gives us the first example of a writer of the lower class, making
himself the auxiliary of the theologians at bay; of a venal or prostituted pen
put at the service of religion. But it is the foreign religions which profit
most by this return. The serious reaction in favour of the Græco-Roman cult will
only be produced in the second century. Now the classes which have been seized
with religious disquiet turn towards the religions, come from the East. Isis and
Serapis find more favour than ever. Importers of every species, miracle-mongers,
magicians, profit by the demand, and as usually happens at periods when and in
countries where the religion of the State is weak, increased on every side,
recalling the real or fictitious types of Apollonius of Tyana, Alexander of
Abonoticus, of Peregrinus, of Simon
To sum up:—the middle of the first century is one of the worst epochs of
ancient history. Greek and Roman society show themselves in decadence after what
has gone before, and much behind hand with respect to what is to follow But the
grandeur of the crisis revealed clearly some strange and sacred formation. Life
appeared to have lost its motive: suicides were multiplied. Never had a century
presented such a struggle between good and evil. The evil was a powerful
despotism, which put the world into the hands of men, who were either criminals
or lunatics; it was the corruption of morals, the result of introducing into
Rome the vices of the East; it was the absence of a good religion, and of a
serious public instruction. The good was on one side, philosophy fighting with
uncovered breast, against the tyrants, defying the monsters, three or four times
proscribed in in half a century (under Nero, Vespasian and Domitian) it was on
another side the efforts after popular virtue these legitimate aspirations after
a better religious state, this tendency towards confraternities, towards
mono-theistic worship; this rehabilitation of the poor, which was principally
produced under cover of Judaism, or Christianity. These two great protestations
were far from being in agreement. The philosophical party and the Christian
party did not know each other, and they had so little idea of the community of
their efforts, that the philosophical party, having come to power by the advent
of Nerva, was far from being favourable to Christianity Truth to tell, the
design of the Christian was much more radical. The stoic masters of the Empire,
reformed it and presided over it during the hundred best years in the history of
humanity The Christian Masters of the Empire, after Constantine, succeeded in
The Empire in the first century, even whilst showing itself hostile to the
religious innovations which came from the East, did not offer a constant
resistance to them. The principle of the religion of the State was but
moderately maintained. Under the Republic at various intervals, foreign
religions had been forbidden, in particular the worship of Sabazius, of Isis, of
Serapis. The people were impelled towards these religions by an irresistible
force. When the demolition of the temple of Isis and Serapis, was decreed at
Rome, in the year
With the profound and liberal intention characteristic of him, this great man showed himself favourable to a complete liberty of conscience. Augustus was more attached to the national religion. He had antipathy for the Oriental religions; he forbade even the propagation of Egyptian ceremonies in Italy; but he wished that every religion, that of the Jews especially, should be supreme at home. He exempted the Jews from every-thing that might distress their consciences, especially from secular work on the Sabbath. Some persons of his court were less tolerant, and would willingly have made him a persecutor for the benefit of the Latin religion. He does not appear to have yielded to these wretched counsels. Josephus, who is suspected of exaggeration in this matter, will even have it that he made gifts of sacred vessels to the temple at Jerusalem.
It was Tiberius who first laid down the principle of the religion of the State,
with clearness, and took serious precautions against the Jewish and Oriental
propaganda. It must be remembered that the Emperor was “Grand Pontiff,” that in
protecting the old Roman religion he did but execute a duty laid upon him.
Caligula withdrew the edicts of Tiberius, but his madness prevented anything
further from being done. Claudius appears to have imitated the policy of
Augustus. At Rome he strengthened the Latin religion, showed himself interested
in the progress made by foreign religion, displayed harshness to the Jews, and
pursued the confraternities with fury. In Judea, on the contrary, he showed
himself well disposed towards the natives. The favour which the Agrippas
displayed at Rome under
Nero concerned himself but little with religion. His odious treatment of the Christians came from native ferocity and not from legislative disposition. The examples of persecution which were quoted in Roman society at this time sprang rather from family than public authority. Such things still happened only in the noble houses of Rome, which preserved the old traditions. The provinces were perfectly free to follow their own religions on the single condition that they did not insult the religions of other countries. The provincials of Rome had the same right, provided they made no scandal. The only two religions against which the Empire made war in the first century, Druidism and Judaism, were fortresses where nationalities defended themselves. All the world was convinced that the profession of Judaism implied contempt for the civil law, and indifference to the prosperity of the State. When Judaism was content to be a simple personal religion, it was not persecuted. The severities against the worship of Serapis, arose perhaps from the mono-theistic character which it presented, and which already caused it to be confounded with the Jewish and the Christian religion.
No fixed law then forbade in the time of the apostles the profession of
monotheistic religion. These religions, until the accession of the Syrian
Emperors, were always watched, but it was not until the time of Trajan that the
Empire began to prosecute them systematically as hostile to others, as
intolerant, and as implying the negation of the State. In short, the only thing
against which the Roman Empire declared war in the matter of religion was
theocracy. Its principle was that of the lay state; it did not admit that a
religion had civil or political consequence in any degree; above all it did not
allow of any association
The Greek countries, associated as they were with all things good and delicate,
had had the priority over the Romans. The Greek Eranes or Thiases of Athens,
Rhodes, of the inlands of the Archipelago, had been excellent societies for
mutual help, credit, assurance in case of fire, piety, honest pleasures. Every
Erane had its decisions engraved upon the arches (stelos), its archives, its
common chest, fed by voluntary gifts and assessments. The Eranites or Thiastes
celebrated together certain festivals and met for banquets, where cordiality
reigned. A member, embarassed for money, might borrow from the chest on
condition of repayment. Women formed part of these Eranes, and had their
separate President (proëranistria). The meetings were absolutely secret; a
rigid order was maintained in them; they took place, it would seem, in closed
gardens, surrounded by porches or small buildings, in the midst of which rose
the altar of sacrifice. Finally, every congregation had a body of dignitaries,
drawn by lot for a year (Clerotes), according to the custom of ancient Greek
democracies, from whom the Christian “clergy” may have taken their name. The
president alone was elected. These officers caused the new members to submit to
a species of examination, and were bound to certify that he was “holy, pious
and good.” There was in these little confraternities, during the two or three
centuries which preceded our era, a movement almost as varied as that which in
the middle ages produced so many religious orders and subdivisions of these
orders. In the single island of Rhodes there were computed to be as many as
nineteen, many of which bore the names of their founders or their reformers.
Some of these
At Rome association of the same kind encountered greater difficulties and not less favour amongst the proscribed classes. The principles of the Roman policy concerning confraternities had been promulgated for the first time under the Republic (186 B.C.) apropos of the Bacchanals. The Romans by their natural taste were greatly inclined to associations, especially to religious associations; but permanent congregations of this kind displeased the patricians, guardians of public powers, who, in their narrow and dry conception of life, admitted only the Family of the State as the social group. The most minute precautions were taken; a preliminary authorization was made a necessity, the number of members was limited; it was forbidden to have a permanent magister sacrorum, and to create a common fund by means of subscriptions. The same solicitude was manifested on various occasions in the history of the empire. The laws contained texts for repressions of every kind. But it was for the authorities to say, if they should or should not be used. The proscribed religions often appeared a very few years after their proscription. The foreign emigration, besides, especially that of the Syrians, perpetually renewed the funds from which the beliefs were nourished, which it was vainly sought to extirpate.
It is remarkable to note, to how great a degree a subject in appearance so
wholly secondary occupied the strongest heads. One of the principal cares of
Cæsar and of Augustus was to prevent the formation of new societies and to
destroy those which had already been
Thus, notwithstanding all the efforts of the politicians, the confraternities
developed themselves enormously. They were exactly analogous to our middle age
confraternities with their patron saints and their corporation meals. The great
families were careful of their name, of their country, of their tradition; the
humble, the small, had only their collegium. There they found all their
pleasures. All the texts show us collegia or cœtus, as formed of slaves, of
veterans, of small people (tenuiores). Equality reigned there among the freemen,
emancipated slaves and servile persons. The women in them were numerous. At the
risk of a thousand cavils, sometimes of the most severe punishments, men became
members of these collegia, where they lived in the bonds of an agreeable
confraternity, where they found mutual help,
To all appearance, these colleges were only burial societies, to use the modern
phrase. But that alone would not have sufficed to give them a moral character.
In the Roman period, as in our time, and at all periods when religion is
weakened, the piety of the tombs was almost the only one which the people
retained. They liked to believe that they would not be thrown into the horrible
common trench, that the college would provide for their funerals, that the
brethren would come on foot to the funeral pile to receive a little honorarium
of twenty centimes. Slaves especially wished to hope that if their masters
caused their bodies to be thrown into the sewers, there would be some friends to
make for them “imaginary funerals.” The poor man put his half-penny per month
into the common fund, to provide for himself, after his death, a little urn in a
Columbarium, with a slab of marble, on which his name might be engraved.
Sepulture amongst the Romans being intimately
It thus came about that Christianity presented itself for a long time in Rome as a kind of funeral collegium, and that the first Christian sanctuaries were the tombs of the martyrs. If Christianity had been that one, however, it would not have provoked so many severities; but it was besides quite another thing; it had common treasuries; it boasted of being a complete city; it believed itself assured of the future. When, on a Saturday evening, one enters the limits of a Greek Church in Turkey, for example that of S. Photinus in Smyrna, he is struck with the strength of these associated religions, in the midst of a persecuting and malevolent society. This irregular accumulation of buildings (church, presbytery, schools, prison), those faithful ones coming and going in their enclosed city, those lately opened tombs, on each of which a lamp is burning, the corpse-like odour, the impression of damp mustiness, the murmur of prayers, the appeals for charity, from a soft and warm atmosphere, that a stranger at times must find sufficiently sickening, but that is to the initiated eminently grateful.
These societies, once provided with a special authorization, had in Rome all the
rights of civil persons; but such an authorization was granted only with
infinite reserves, as soon as the societies had funds in hand, and other
matters than funerals might occupy them. The pretext of religion, or of the
accomplishment of vows in common is foreseen, and formally pointed out as being
amongst the circumstances, which give to a meeting the character of au offence;
and this offence was no other than that of treason, at least for the person who
hail called the assembly together. Claudius went so far as to close the inns
where the confraternities met, and even to interdict the little eating-houses,
where these poor people could get soup and hot water cheaply.
The Greek and Roman world; the lay world; the profane world, which did not know what a priest is, which had neither divine law nor revealed book, touched here upon problems which it could not solve. We may add that if there had been priests, a severe theology, a strongly organized religion, it would not have created the lay State, inaugurated the idea of a rational society, of a society founded upon simple human necessities, and upon the natural relations of individuals. The religious inferiority of the Greeks and Romans was the consequence of their political and intellectual superiority. The religious superiority of the Jewish people, on the contrary, was the cause of their political and philosophical inferiority. Judaism and primitive Christianity embodied the negation, or rather the subjection of the civil State. Like Islamism, they established society upon religion. When human affairs are taken up in this way, great universal proselytisms are founded, apostles run about from one end of the world to another converting it; but political institutions, national independence, a dynasty, a code, a people—none of these are founded.
Such was the world which Christian missionaries undertook to convert. It
appears to me, however, that we may here see that such an enterprise was not a
madness, and that no miracle was required to insure its success. The world was
troubled with moral necessities, to which the new religion answered admirably.
Manners were growing softer; a purer worship was required; the notion of the
rights of man, the ideas of social
The foundation of Christianity, from this point of view, is the greatest work that the men of the people have ever achieved. Very quickly, without doubt, men and women of the high Roman nobility joined themselves to the Church. At the end of the first century, Flavius Clemens and Flavia Domitilla, show us Christianity penetrating almost into the palace of the Cæsars. In the time of the first Antonines, there are rich people in the community. Towards the end of the second century, it embraces some of the most considerable persons in the Empire. But in the beginning all, or almost all, were humble. In the most ancient churches, nobles and powerful men were no more to be found than in Galilee about Jesus. Now, in these great creations, it is the first hour which is decisive. The glory of religions belongs wholly to their founders. Religion is, in fact, a matter of faith. To believe is something vulgar; the great thing to do is to inspire faith.
When we attempt to delineate these marvellous beginnings, we usually represent things on the model of
our own times, and are thus brought to grave errors. The man of the people in the first century of our era, especially in Greek and
Oriental countries, in no way resembled what he is to-day. Education did not then mark out between the classes a barrier as strong as now.
These races of the Mediterranean, if we except the population of Latium, which had disappeared, or had lost all their importance since the Roman Empire, in
conquering the world, had become the heritage of the conquered peoples—these races, I say, were less solid than ours, but lighter,
more lively, more spiritual, more idealistic. The heavy materialism of our disinherited classes, that something mournful and burnt out, the effect of our climate,
and the fatal legacy of the middle ages, which gives to our poor so wretched a countenance, was not the defect of the poor of those earlier days. Though very ignorant
and very credulous, they were scarcely more so than rich and powerful men. We ought therefore not to represent the establishment of Christianity as analogous in any
way to a movement amongst ourselves, starting from the lower classes (a thing in our eyes impossible) by obtaining the assent of educated men. The founders of
Christianity were men of the people, in the sense that they were dressed in a common fashion, that they lived simply, that they spoke ill, or
rather sought in speaking only to express their ideas with vivacity. But they were inferior in intelligence to only a very small number of men,
the survivors who were becoming every day more rare, from the great world of Cæsar and of Augustus. Compared with the elite of the philosophers,
who formed the bond between the century of Augustus and that of the Antonines the first Christians were feeble. Compared with the mass of the subjects
of the Empire, they were enlightened. Sometimes they were treated as freethinkers; the cry of the populace against them was, “Death to the
Christianity was born outside the official world, but not precisely below it. It is in appearance, and according to earthly prejudices that the disciples of Jesus were unimportant persons. The worldly man loves what is proud and strong; he speaks without affability to the humble man; honour as he understands it, consists in not allowing himself to be insulted; he despises those who avow themselves weak, who suffer everything, yield to everything, who give up their coat to him who would take their cloak, who turn their cheeks to the smiters. There lies his error, for the weak, whom he despises, are usually superior to him; the highest virtue is amongst those who obey (servants, work-people, soldiers, sailors, etc.)—higher than amongst those who command and enjoy. And that is almost in order, since to command and to enjoy, far from aiding virtue, make virtue difficult.
Jesus marvellously comprehended that the people carry in their bosoms the great
reserve of devotion and of resignation which will save the world. This is why he
proclaimed the blessedness of the poor, judging that they find it more easy than
other people to be good. The primitive Christians were essentially poor. “Poor”
(Ebionim) was their name. Even when the Christian was rich, in the second and
third centuries, he was in spirit a tenuior; he escaped, thanks to the law of
the Collegia tenuiorum. Christians were certainly not all slaves and people of
low condition; but the social equivalent of a Christian was a slave; what was
said of a slave was said of a Christian also. On both sides they honoured the
same virtues, goodness, humility, resignation,
In a word, the Pagans were the world; Christians were not of the world. They were a little flock apart, hated by the world, finding the world evil, seeking “to keep themselves unspotted from the world.” The ideal of Christianity will be the reverse of that of the worldly man. The perfect Christian will love abjection; he will have the virtues of the poor and the simple, of him who does not seek to exalt himself. But he will also have the defect of his virtues; he will declare many things to be vain and frivolous, which are not so at all; he will depreciate the universe; he will be the enemy of the admirer of beauty. A system where the Venus of Milo is but an idol is a system, partial, it not false for beauty, is almost as valuable as the good and the true. A decadence of art is in any case inevitable with such ideas. The Christian will not care to build well, nor to sculpture well, nor to design well; he is too idealistic. He will care little for knowledge; curiosity seems a vain thing to him. Confounding the great voluptuousness of the soul, which is one of the methods of reaching the infinite, with vulgar pleasure, he will for-bid himself to enjoy it. He is too virtuous.
Another law shows itself as dominating this history. The establishment of
Christianity corresponds to the suppression of political life in the world of
the Mediterranean. Christianity was born and expanded itself at a period when
there was no such thing as patriotism. If anything is wholly wanting to the
founders of the Church it is that quality. They are not Cosmopolitan; for, the
whole planet is for them, but a place of exile, they are idealistic in the most
absolute sense. Our country is composed of body and soul. The soul: its
The importance given to social questions is always in an inverse ratio to
political pre-occupations. Socialism rises when patriotism grows weak.
Christianity was the explosion of social and religious ideas for which the world
had been waiting, since Augustus put an end to political conflicts. As with
Islamism, Christianity being a universal religion, will be at bottom the enemy
of nationalities. It will require many centuries and
And this was one of the causes of the greatness of the new religion. Humanity is a varying, changeable thing at the mercy of contradictory desires. Great is the country; its saints are the heroes of Marathon, of Thermopylæ, of Valmy, and of Fleurus. Country, however, is not everything here below. One is man and Son of God before being Frenchman or German. The Kingdom of God, eternal dream which will never be torn from the heart of man, is a protest against a too exclusive patriotism. The thought of an organization of humanity in view of its greatest happiness and its moral amelioration is Christian and legitimate. The State knows but one thing—how to organise egotism. That is not indifferent, for egotism is the most powerful and the most assailable of human motives. But that is not sufficient. Governments which have started with the belief that man is swayed only by his instincts of cupidity, are deceived. Devotion is as natural as egotism to the man of a noble race, and the organization of devotion, is religion. Let no one hope then to get away from religion or from religious associations. Every step in the progress of modern society has made the need for them more imperious.
It is in this way that these accounts of strange events may be for us full of
both teaching and of example. There is no need for delay over certain details
which the difference of time renders strange and eccentric. When it is a
question of popular beliefs there is always an immense disproportion between the
grandeur of the idealism, which faith pursues, and the triviality of the
material circumstances, which we are called upon to
I do not speak of the Mormons, a sect which is in some respects so silly and so
abject that it is hard to speak of it seriously. It is, however, instructive to
see in the middle of the nineteenth century, thousands of men living by miracle,
believing with a blind faith in the marvels, which, they say, they have seen and
handled. There is already a whole literature devoted to the agreement between
Mormonism and science; what is
That happened in 1852. The sect of Mazdak under Chosroes Nouschirvan, was suffocated in a similar bath of blood. Absolute devotion is, for simple natures, the most exquisite of joys and a species of necessity. In the affair of the Bab, people who were hardly members of the sect, came forward to denounce themselves, so that they might be joined with the sufferers. It is so sweet for man to suffer for something, that in many cases the thirst for martydom causes men to believe. A disciple who was companion of Bab at his execution, hanged by his side on the ramparts of Tabriz and momentarily expecting death, had only one word in his mouth:—“Are you satisfied with me, master?”
The persons who consider as miraculous or chimerical all that in history
surpasses the calculations of ordinary good sense, find such things
inexplicable. The fundamental condition of criticism is to know how to
understand the varying conditions of the human mind. Absolute faith is for us
wholly out of the question. Outside of the positive sciences, of a certainty in
some
The great conflagrations of religion, being the results of a too definite manner
of seeing things, thus became enigmas for an age like ours, when the rigour of
conviction is weakened. With us the sincere man constantly modifies his opinions; in the first place, because the world changes, in the second, because the
observer changes also. We believe more things at the same time. We love justice
and truth; for them we would risk our lives; but we do not admit that justice
and truth belong to a sect or a party. We are good French-men, but we admit that
the Germans and the English are superior to us in many ways. It is not thus at
the periods and in the countries where everyone belongs with his whole nature to
his communion, race, or political school; and this is why all great religious
creations have taken place in societies, the general spirit of
Who is there who has not, while passing through our ancient towns which have become modem, stopped at the feet of gigantic monuments of the faith of olden times? All is externally renewed; there is not a vestige of ancient habits; the cathedral remains, a little lowered in height may be by the hand of man, but profoundly rooted in the soil. Mole sua stat! Its massiveness is its law. It has resisted the deluge, which swept away everything else around it; not one of the men of old times returning to visit the places where he lived would find his home again; the crow alone, who has fixed his nest in the heights of the sacred edifice, has not seen the hammer threatening his dwelling. Strange prescription! These honest martyrs, these rude converts, these pirate church builders, rule us still. We are Christians because it pleased them to be so. As in politics it is the barbarous foundations only that live, so in religion there are only spontaneous, and, if I may dare to say so, fanatical affirmations that can be contagious. This is because religions are wholly popular works. Their success does not depend upon the more or less convincing proofs of their divinity which they bring forward; their success is in proportion to what they say to the heart of the people.
Does it follow from thence that religion is destined to diminish little by
little, and to disappear like popular errors concerning magic, sorcery, spirits? Certainly not. Religion is not a popular error; it is a great instinctive
truth, imperfectly seen by the people, expressed by the people. All the symbols
which serve to give a form to
But it is time to return to our three missionaries, Paul, Barnabas and
John—Mark, whom we left at the moment when they went out of Antioch by the gate,
which led to Seleucia. In my third volume I will endeavour to trace these
messages of good news by land and by sea, through calm and tempest, through good
and evils days. I am in haste to retell that unequalled epic, to describe those
infinite routes of Asia and of
i ii iii iv v vi vii viii ix x xi xii xiii xiv xv xvi xvii xviii xix xx xxi xxii xxiii xix xxv xxvi xxvii xxviii xxix xxx xxxi xxxii xxxiii xxxiv 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206