Member of the French Academy.
page | |
INTRODUCTION | v |
CHAPTER I. | |
---|---|
THE JEWS AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE | 1 |
CHAPTER II. | |
BETHER—THE BOOK OF JUDITH—THE JEWISH CANON | 14 |
CHAPTER IIII. | |
EBION BEYOND JORDAN | 20 |
CHAPTER IV. | |
THE RELATIONS OF JEWS AND CHRISTIANS | 32 |
CHAPTER V. | |
SETTLEMENT OF THE LEGEND AND OF THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS |
39 |
CHAPTER VI. | |
THE HEBREW GOSPEL | 49 |
CHAPTER VII. | |
THE GREEK GOSPEL—MARK | 58 |
CHAPTER VIII. | |
CHRISTIANITY AND THE EMPIRE UNDER FLAVIUS | 66 |
CHAPTER IX. | |
PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY—EGYPT—SIBYLLISM | 81 |
CHAPTER X. | |
THE GREEK GOSPEL IS CORRECTED AND COMPLETED (MATTHEW) |
91 |
SECRET OF THE BEAUTIES OF THE GOSPEL | 103 |
CHAPTER XII. | |
THE CHRISTIANS OF THE FLAVIA FAMILY—FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS |
115 |
CHAPTER XIII. | |
THE GOSPEL OF LUKE | 131 |
CHAPTER XIV. | |
THE DOMITIAN PERSECUTION | 149 |
CHAPTER XV. | |
CLEMENS ROMANUS—PROGRESS OF THE PRESBYTERIATE |
161 |
CHAPTER XVI. | |
END OF THE FLAVII—NERVA—RECRUDESCENCE OF THE APOCALYPSES |
175 |
CHAPTER XVII. | |
TRAJAN—THE GOOD AND GREAT EMPERORS | 194 |
CHAPTER XVIII. | |
EPHESUS—THE OLD AGE OF JOHN—CERINTHUS, DOCETISM |
212 |
CHAPTER XIX. | |
LUKE, THE FIRST HISTORIAN OF CHRISTIANITY | 224 |
CHAPTER XX. | |
SYRIAN SECTS—ELKASAÏ | 232 |
CHAPTER XXI. | |
TRAJAN AS A PERSECUTOR—LETTER OF PLINY | 241 |
CHAPTER XXII. | |
IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH | 249 |
CHAPTER XXIII. | |
END OF TRAJAN—REVOLT OF THE JEWS | 255 |
CHAPTER XXIV. | |
DEFINITIVE SEPARATION OP THE CHURCH AND THE SYNAGOGUE |
263 |
APPENDIX | 277 |
I had at first believed that I should
be able to finish is one volume this history of the “Origins of Christianity;”
but the matter has grown in proportion as I have advanced in my work, and the present
volume only the last but two. The reader will find in it the explanation, so far
as it is possible to give one, of a fact almost equal in importance to the personal
action of Jesus himself—I mean to say, of the manner in which the legend of Jesus
was written. The compilation of the Gospels is, next to the life of Jesus, the cardinal
chapter of the history of Christian origins. The material circumstances of this
compilation are surrounded with mystery; many of the doubts, however, have, in those later years, been dispelled, and it can now he said that the problem of the
compilation of the Gospels denominated synoptic, has reached a kind of maturity.
The relations of Christianity with the Roman Empire, the first heresies, the disappearance
of the last immediate disciples of Jesus, the gradual separation of the Church and
the Synagogue, the progress of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the substitution of
the presbytery for the primitive community, the coming in with Trajan of a met of
golden age for civil society, these are the great facts which we shall see unfolded
to our view. Our sixth volume will embrace the history of Christianity under the
reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus; we shall witness the commencement of Gnosticism,
the compilation of the pseudo-Johannine writings, the first apologists, the party
of St Paul drifting by exaggeration to Marcion, ancient Christianity running into
a coarser Millenarism and Montanism. Opposed to all this, the episcopate making
rapid strides, Christianity becoming each day more Greek and less Hebrew, a “Catholic
Church” beginning to result from the accord of all the individual churches, and
to constitute centre of irrefragable authority, which already was established at
Rome. We shall see finally the absolute separation of Judaism and Christianity definitively
effected, from the time of the revolt of Bar-Coziba, and hatred the most deadly
kindled between mother and daughter. From this point it can be said that Christianity
is constituted. Its principle of authority exists. The episcopate has entirely replaced
the primitive democracy, and the bishops of the different churches are en rapport
with one another. The new Bible is complete; it is called the New
It is at this moment, about the year 160, that we shall determine this. That which follows belongs to history, and may seem relatively easy to recount. What we have wished to make clear belongs to the embry-organic stage, and must in great part be inferred, sometimes even divined. Minds which only love material certainty, cannot be pleased with such researches. Rarely (for these periods recur) does it happen that one can say with precision how things have taken place; but one may succeed sometimes in picturing to oneself the diverse manners in which they may have taken place, and that is sufficient. If there be a science which can make in our day surprising progress, it is the science of comparative mythology. Now this science has consisted much less in teaching us how each myth has been formed, than in demonstrating to us the diverse categories of formation. Although we cannot say, “Such a demi-god, such a goddess, is surely storm, lightning, the dawn,” etc.; but we can say, “The atmospheric phenomena, particularly those which are related to the rising and the setting of the sun, and so forth, have been the fruitful sources of gods and demi-gods.” Aristotle has truly said, “There is no science except general science.” History herself, history properly speaking, history exposed to the light of day and founded upon documents, does she escape this necessity? Certainly not; we do not know exactly the details of anything. That which is of moment are the general lines, the grand resultant facts which remain true even though all the details may be erroneous.
Hence I have said the most important object of this volume is
to explain in a plausible manner the method by which the three Gospels, called
synoptic, were formed, which constitute, if we compare them with the fourth Gospel,
a family apart. It is certainly true that it is impossible to determine precisely
many of the points in this delicate research. It must be confessed, however, that
the question has made during the last twenty years veritable progress. As the origin
of the fourth Gospel, which is attributed to John, remains enveloped in mystery,
so the hypotheses in regard to the compilation of the Gospels called synoptic have
attained a high degree of probability. There are in reality three kinds of Gospels: (1) The original Gospels, or Gospels at first hand, composed solely from oral
tradition, and without the author having before him
The most important documents for the epoch treated of in this
volume are, besides the Gospels and the other writings the compilation of which
are therein explained, the somewhat numerous epistles which were produced during
the last apostolic period—epistles in which
The question whether the epistle attributed to Clemens Romanus really by that holy personage, has only a mediocre importance, since the writing in question is represented as the collective work of the Roman Church, and since the problem confines itself, consequently, as to who held the pen on this particular occasion. It is not the same as the epistles attributed to St Ignatius. The fragments which compose this collection are either authentic or the work of a forger. In the second hypothesis they were at lead sixty years posterior to the death of St Ignatius, and such is the importance of the change. which operated in those sixty years, that the documentary value of the said fragments is absolutely changed by them. It is hence impossible to treat the history of the origins of Christianity, without taking up a decided position in this regard.
The question of the Epistles of St Ignatius, next to the question
of the Johannine writings, is the most difficult of those which belong to the primitive
Christian literature. A few of the moat striking features of one of the letters
which form a portion of that correspondence, were known and cited from the end of
the second century. We have, moreover, here the testimony of a man which we are surprised
to see pleaded on a subject of ecclesiastical history—that of Lucian of Samosata.
The spirituelle picture of morals which that charming author has entitled “The
Death of Peregrinus,” contains some almost direct allusions to the triumphal journey
of the prisoner Ignatius, and to the circular epistles which he addressed to the
Churches. These constitute some strong presumptions in favour of the authenticity
of the letters of which we have been speaking. On the other hand, the taste for
supposititious writings was at the time so wide-spread amongst Christian society,
that we ought always to be on our guard in respect of them, since it is proved that
no scruple was made in ascribing some of the letters and other writings to Peter,
Paul, and John. There is no prejudicial objection to be raised against the hypothesis
which attribute. writings to persona of high authority, such as Ignatius
In regard to a personage like St Paul, some of whose longer writings of indubitable authenticity it is universally admitted we possess, and whose biography is well enough known, the discussion of the contested epistles has some foundation. We start with the texts to which no exception can be taken, and from the well-established outlines of the biography; we compare the doubtful writings with them; we see whether they agree with the data admitted by everyone, and, in certain cases, as in those of the Epistles to Titus and Timothy, we reach most satisfactory conclusions. But we know nothing of the private life of St Ignatius; among the writings attributed to him there is not a page of them which is not contestable. We have not their solid criterium to warrant us in saying, “This is or this is not his.” That which greatly complicates the question is, that the text of the epistles is extremely variable—the Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Armenian manuscripts of the same epistle differ considerably amongst themselves. These letters, during several centuries, seem to have particularly exercised the forgers and the interpolators. Obstacles and difficulties are encountered in them at each step.
Without taking into account the secondary various readings, as well as some works notoriously spurious, we prossess two collections of unequal length of the epistles attributed to St Ignatius. The one contains seven letters addressed to the Ephesian, the Magnesians, the Trallians, the Romans, the Philadelphians, the Smyrniotes, to Polycarpus. The other consists of thirteen letters, to wit: (1) The seven just mentioned, considerably augmented; (2) Four new letters of Ignatius to the Tarsians, to the Philippians, to the Antiochians, to Heros; (3) and finally, a letter of Maria de Castabala to Ignatius, with the answer of Ignatius. Between those two collections there can be but little possible hesitation. The critics, beginning with Usserius, are nearly agreed in preferring the collection of seven letters to that of the thirteen. There can be no doubt that the added letters in the latter collection are apocryphal. As for the seven letters which are common to the two collections, the actual text must certainly be sought for in the former collection. Many of the particulars in the texts of the second collection betray unmistakably the hand of the interpolator; but this does not necessitate that this second collection may not have a veritable critical value in regard to the construction of the text, for it would appear that the interpolator had in his hands an excellent manuscript, the reading of which ought to be preferred to that of the noninterpolated manuscripts actually existing.
In any case, is the collection of seven letters beyond suspicion? Far from it. The first doubts were raised by the great school of French criticism
of the seventeenth century. Saumaise and Blondel raised the moat serious objections
against portions of the collection of the seven letters. Daillé, in 1666, published a remarkable dissertation,
Amongst the treasures which the British Museum secured from the convents of Nitria, M. Cureton discovered three Syriac manuscripts, each of which contained the same collection of the Ignatian epistles; but they are much more abridged than the two Greek collections. The Syrian collection found by Cureton contained only three epistles—the epistle to the Ephesians, that to the Romans, that to Polycarpus—and these three epistles were found to be much shorter than in the Greek. It was natural to believe that people would in fine hold Ignatius to be authentic, the text being anterior to all interpolations. The phrases cited as those of Ignatius by Irenæus, by Origen, were found in that Syriac version.
People believed it was possible to show that the suspected
passages were not to be found in them. Bunsen, Ritschl, Weiss, and Lipsius
displayed an extreme ardour in maintaining that proposition. M. Ewald assumed to
advocate it in imperious tone; but very strong objections were raised against it.
Baur, Wordsworth, Hefele, Uhlhorn, and Merx set themselves to prove that the small
Syriac collection, so far from being the original text, was an abridged and mutilated
text. They have not clearly shown, it is true, what motives had guided the abbreviator
in this work of making extracts. But in seeking again for the evidences of the knowledge
which the Syrians had of the epistles in question, we arrive at the conclusion that
not only had the Syrians not possessed an Ignatius more authentic than that of the
Greeks, but that even the collection which they have was the collection of thirteen
letters from which the abbreviator discovered by Cureton had drawn his extracts.
Petermann contributed much to this result in discussing the Armenian translation
of the epistles in question. This translation
We see, after what has just been said, that three opinions divide the critics as to the collection of the seven letters, only one of which, however, merits discussion. Some hold that the whole collection is apocryphal, while others maintain that the whole, or nearly so, is authentic. A few seek to distinguish the authentic from the apocryphal portion. The second opinion appears to us indefensible. Without affirming that everything in the correspondence of the Bishop of Antioch is apocryphal, it is allowable to regard as a desperate attempt the pretension of demonstrating that the whole of it is of good alloy.
If we except, in fact, the Epistle to the Romans, which is full of a singular energy, of a kind of sacred fire, and stamped by a character peculiarly original, the six other epistles, excepting two or three passages, are cold, lifeless, and desperately monotonous. There is not one of those striking peculiarities which gave so distinctive a seal to the Epistles of St Paul and even to the Epistles of St James and Clemens Romanus; they consist of vague exhortations, without any special relations to those to whom they are addressed, and always dominated by one fixed idea—the enhancement of the episcopal power, the constitution of the Church into a hierarchy.
Certainly the remarkable evolution which substituted for the collective authority of the ἐκκλησία or συναγωγή the direction of the πρεσβύτεροι or ἐπίσκοποι (two terms at first synonymous), and which, among the πρεσβύτεροι or ἐπίσκοποι, in selecting one out from the circle (?) to be par excellence the ἐπίσκοπος or overseer of the others, began at a very early date. But it is not credible that, about the year 110 or 115, this movement was so advanced as we see it to be in the Ignatian epistles. According to the author of these curious writings, the bishop is the whole Church; it is imperative to follow him in everything, to consult him in everything—he some up the community in himself alone. He is Christ himself. Where the bishop is, there is the Church, just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Church Catholic. The distinction between the different ecclesiastical orders is not less characteristic. The priests and deacons are in the hands of the bishop like the strings of a lyre; their perfect harmony depends upon the accuracy of the sounds which the Church emits. Above the individual Churches, in fact, there is a Church Universal, ἡ καθολικὴ ἐκκλησία. All this is true enough from the end of the second century, but not so from the early years of that century. The repugnance which our old French critics evinced on this point was well founded, and sprung from the very correct sentiment which they entertained as to the gradual evolution of the Christian dogmas.
The heresies combatted by the author of the Ignatian epistles with
so much fury are likewise of an age posterior to that of Trajan. They were wholly
attached to a Docetism or a Gnosticism analogous to that of Valentinus. We insist
less on this particular, for the pastoral epistles and the Johannine writings combat
errors greatly analogous,
The great feature of the apocryphal writings is the affectation of a leaning in a certain direction: the aim that the forger proposed to himself in their composition always clearly betrays itself in them. This character is observable in the highest degree in the epistles attributed to St Ignatius, the Epistle to the Romans always excepted. The author wishes to strike a great blow in favour of the episcopal hierarchy; he wishes to crush the heretics and the schismatics of his time with the weight of an indisputable authority. But where can we find a higher authority than that of this venerated bishop, whose heroic death was recognised by everyone! What more solemn than the counsels given by this martyr a few days or a few weeks before his appearance in the amphitheatre! St Paul, in like manner, in the epistles supposed to be addressed to Titus and to Timothy, is represented as old, nigh unto death. The last will of a martyr came to be regarded as sacred, and, moreover, the admission of the apocryphal work was so much the more easy, inasmuch as St Ignatius was believed, in fact, to have written different letters on his way to his execution. Let u add to these objections a few material improbabilities. The salutations to the Churches and the relations which these salutations presupposed to exist between the author of the letters and the Churches, are not sufficiently explained. The circumstantial features contain something awkward and stupid just as was also to be remarked in the false epistles of Paul to Titus and to Timothy. The great use which is made in the writings of which we speak, of the fourth Gospel and of the Johannine epistles, the affected way in which the author speaks of the doubtful epistle of St Paul to the Ephesians, likewise excites suspicion. On the other hand, it is very strange that the author, in seeking to exalt the Church at Ephesus, ignores the relations of this Church with St Paul, and says nothing of the sojourn of St John at Ephesus, he who was supposed to be so closely connected with Polycarpus, the disciple of John. It must be confessed, in short, that this correspondence is not often cited by the fathers, and that the estimate which appears to have been put upon it by the Christian authors up to the fourth century, is not in proportion to that which it merited had it been authentic. Let us always put to one side the Epistle to the Romans, which, in our view, does not form a part of the apocryphal collection. The six other epistles have been little read—St John, Chrysostom, and the ecclesiastical writers of Antioch, seem to have been ignorant of them. It is a singular thing that even the author of the Acts, of the Martyrdom of Ignatius, the most authorised of those that Ruinart published from a script of Colbert, possesses only a very vague knowledge concerning them. It is the same with the author of the Acts published by Dressel.
Ought the Epistle to the Romans to be included in the condemnation
These intrinsic arguments are not the only ones which oblige us
to place the Epistle to the Romans in a distinct category in the Ignatian correspondence.
In some respects this epistle contradicts the other six. At paragraph 4, Ignatius
declares to the Romans that he represents them to the Churches as being willing
that he should carry off the crown of martyrdom. We find nothing resembling this
in the epistles to these Churches. That which is much more serious is that the Epistle
to the Romans does not seem to have reached us through the same channel as the other
six letters. In the manuscripts which have preserved to us the collection of the
suspected letters, the Epistle to the Romans is not to be found. The relatively
true text of this epistle has only been transmitted to us by the Acts, called Colbertine,
of the martyrdom of St Ignatius. It has been extracted thence, and intercalated
in the collection of the thirteen letters. But everything proves that the collection
of the letters to the Ephesian, the Magnesian, the Trallians, the Philadelphians,
the Smyrniotes, to Polycarpus, did not comprise at first the Epistle to the Romans,—that these six letters in
Thus everybody assigns the Epistle to the Romans in the Ignatian literature a distinct place. M. Zahn recognises this peculiar circumstance; he shows clearly in different places that this epistle was never completely incorporated with the other six; but he has failed to point out the consequence of that fact. His desire to discover the collection of the seven authentic letters has led him into an imprudent discussion, to wit, that the collection of the seven letters ought either to be accepted or rejected in its entirety. This is to repeat, in another sense, the fault of Baur, of Helgenfeld, and Volkmar; it is to compromise seriously one of the jewels of the primitive Christian literature, in associating it with these but too often mediocre writings, and which have almost on this point been put out of court.
That which then seems the most probable is that the Ignatian literature
contains nothing authentic, except the Epistle to the Romans. Even this epistle
has not remained exempt from alterations. The length, the repetitions which are
remarked in it, are probably injuries inflicted by an interpolation upon that beautiful
monument of Christian antiquity. When we compare the texts preserved by the Colbertin
Acts, with the texts of the collection of the thirteen epistles, with the Latin
and Syriac translations, with the citations of Eusebius, we find very considerable
differences. It seems that the author of the Colbertin Acts, in encasing in his account
this precious fragment, has not scrupled to retouch it in many points. In the superscription,
for example, Ignatius gives himself the surname of Θεοφόρος. Now neither Irenæus,
nor Origen, nor Eusebius, nor St Jerome knew this characteristic surname; it appeared
for the first time in the Acts of Martyrdom, which makes the most important part
of Trajan’s inquiring turn upon the said epithet. The idea of applying it to Ignatius
was suggested by passages in the supposititious epistles, such as Ad. Eph., sec.
9. The author of the Acts, finding that name in the tradition, has availed himself of it, and
Is one justified in denying absolutely that in the six suspected epistles there is no portion of them borrowed from the authentic letters of Ignatius? No, certainly not; and the author of the six apocryphal epistles not having known, as it would seem, the Epistle to the Romans, there is no great likelihood that he possessed other authentic letters of the martyr. A single passage in sec. 19 of the Epistle to the Ephesians, appears to me to cut into the dark and vague ground with which the suspected epistles are encompassed, that which concerns the τρία μυστήρια κραυγῆς has much of that mysterious, singular, and obscure style, recalling the fourth Gospel, which we have remarked in the Epistle to the Romans. That passage, like the brilliant sentiments in the Epistle to the Romans, has been much cited. But it occupies too isolated a position there to be insisted on.
A question which is closely connected with that of the epistles
ascribed to St Ignatius, is the question of the epistle attributed to Polycarpus.
At two different places (sec. 9 and sec. 13), Polycarpus, or the person who has forged
the letter, makes formal mention of Ignatius. In a third place (sec. 1), he would
seem again to make allusion to it. We read in one of those passages (sec. 13, and
last): “You have written to me, you and Ignatius, in order that if there be anyone
here who is about to depart for Syria he would bear thence your letters. I shall
acquit myself of this task, when I can find a suitable opportunity, either in person,
or by a messenger whom I shall send for both of us. As for the epistles that Ignatius
has addressed to you, and the others of his which we possess, we send them to you,
since you have requested us to do so; they are sent together with this letter. You
will be able to extract much profit from them, as they breathe the faith, the patience,
the edification of our Lord.” The old Latin version adds, “Inform me as to that
which you know touching Ignatius, and those who are with him.” These lines notoriously
correspond with a passage in the letter of Ignatius to Polycarpus (sec. 8), where
Ignatius asks the latter to send messengers in different directions. All this is
suspicious. As the Epistle of Polycarpus finishes very well with sec. 12, one is
led almost necessarily, if one admits the authenticity of this epistle, to suppose
that a post-scriptum has been added to the Epistles of Polycarpus by the
author of the six apocryphal epistles of Ignatius himself. There is no Greek
manuscript of the Epistle of Polycarpus which contains this post-scriptum. We only know it
through a citation of Eusebius, and through the Latin version. The same errors are
combated in the Epistles to Polycarpus as in the six Ignatian epistles: the order
of the ideas is the same. Many manuscripts present the Epistle of Polycarpus joined
to the Ignatian collection in the form of a preface or of an epilogue. It would
seem, then, either that the
From the Epistle of Polycarpus so falsified, and from the six letters ascribed to Ignatius, there was formed a little pseudo-Ignatian Corpus, perfectly homogeneous in style and in colouring, which was a real defence of orthodoxy, and of the episcopate. By the side of this collection there was preserved the more or less authentic Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans. This circumstance induces the belief that the forger was acquainted with this writing, nevertheless it appears that he did not judge it convenient to include it in his collection, the arrangement of which he changed, and demonstrated its non-authenticity.
Irenæus, about the year 180, only knew Ignatius through the energetic sentiments contained in his Epistle to the Romans. “I am the bread of Christ,” etc. He had undoubtedly read this epistle, although what he says is sufficiently accounted for by an oral tradition. Irenæus, to all appearance, did not possess the six apocryphal letters, and in all probability he read the true or supposed epistle of his master Polycarpus without the post-scriptum; Επἰγρὰψατέ μοι . . . Origen admitted as authentic the Epistle to the Romans, and the six apocryphal letters. He cited the former in the prologue of his commentary on the Canticle of Canticles, and the pretended Epistle to the Ephesians in his sixth homily upon St Luke. Eusebius knew the Ignatian collection as we have it, that is to say, consisting of seven letters; he did not use the Acts of Martyrdom; he makes no distinction between the Epistle to the Romans and the six others. He read the Epistle of Polycarpus with the post-scriptum. A peculiar fate seemed to designate the name of Ignatius to the fabricators of apocryphas. In the second half of the fourth century, about 375, a new collection of Ignatian epistles was produced: this is the collection of the thirteen letters, to which the collection of the seven letters notoriously served as a nucleus. As these seven letters presented many obscurities, the new forger also set about interpolating them. A multitude of explanatory glosses are introduced into the text, and burden it to no purpose. Six new letters were fabricated from end to end, and, in spite of their shocking improbability, they came to be universally adopted. The retouchings to which they were afterwards subjected, were only abridgments of the two preceding collections. The Syrians, in particular, concocted a small edition, consisting of three abridged letters, in the preparation of which they were guided by no correct sentiment as to the distinction between the authentic and the apocryphal. A few works appeared still later to enlarge the Ignatian works. We possess these only in Latin.
The Acts of the Martyrdom of St Ignatius presents not less diversities than the text itself of the epistles which are ascribed to them. We enumerate as many as eight or nine compilations. We must not attribute much importance to these productions; none of them have any original value; all are posterior to Eusebius, and compiled from the data furnished by Eusebius, data which of themselves have no other foundation than the collection of the epistles, and, in particular, the Epistle to the Romans. These Acts, in their most ancient form, do not go back further than the end of the fourth century. We cannot in any way compare them with the Acts of the Martyrdom of Polycarpus and the martyrs of Lyons, accounts actually authentic and contemporaneous with the fact reported. They are full of impossibilities, of historical errors and mistakes, as to the condition of the Empire at the epoch of Trajan.
In this volume, as in those which precede, we have sought to steer
a middle course between the criticism which employs all its resources to defend texts which
have for long been stamped with discredit, and the exaggerated scepticism which
rejects en bloc and à priori everything which Christianity records of its first
origins. One will remark, in particular, the employment of this intermediary method
in that which concerns the question of the Clements and that of the Christian Flavii.
It is apropos of the Clements that the conjectures of the school called Tübingen
have been the worst inspired. The defect of this school, sometimes so fecund, is
the rejecting of the traditional systems, often, it is true, built upon fragile
materials, and their substituting systems founded upon authorities more fragile
still. As regards Ignatius, have not they pretended to correct the traditions of
the second century by Jean Malala? As regards Simon Magus, have not some theologians,
in other respects sagacious, resisted to the latest the necessity of admitting the
real existence of that personage? An regards the Clements, we would be looked upon
by certain critics as narrow-minded indeed, if we admitted that Clemens Romanus
existed, and if we did not explain all that which relates to him by the certain
misunderstandings and confusions with Flavius Clemens. Now it is, on the contrary, the data in regard to Flavius Clemens which are uncertain and contradictory. We do not deny the gleams of Christianity
which appear to issue from the obscure rubbish of the Flavian family; but to extract
from thence a great historic fact by which to rectify uncertain traditions, is a
strange part to take, or rather, this lack of just proportion in induction, which
in Germany is so often detrimental to the rarest qualities of diligence and application.
They discard solid evidence, and substitute for it feeble hypothesis; they challenge
satisfactory texts, and accept, almost without examination, the combinations hazarded
by an accommodating archeology. Something new they will have at any cost, and the
new they obtained by the exaggeration of ideas, often just and penetrating. From
a feeble current proved to exist in some obscure gulf, they conclude the existence
of a great oceanic current. The observation was proper enough, but they drew from it false
consequences. It is far from my thoughts to deny or to attenuate the
services which German science has rendered to our difficult studies, but, in order
to profit by those services, we must examine
Never was a people so sadly undeceived as was the Jewish race
on the morrow of the day when, contrary to the most formal assurances of the Divine
oracles, the Temple which they had supposed to be indestructible collapsed before
the assault of the soldiers of Titus. To have been near the realisation of the grandest
of visions and to be forced to renounce them, at the very moment when the destroying
angel had already partially withdrawn the cloud, to see everything vanish into
space; to be committed through having prophesied the Divine apparition, and to receive
from the harshness of facts the most cruel contradiction—were not these reasons
for doubting the Temple, nay, for doubting God himself? Thus the first years which
followed the catastrophe of the year 70 were characterised by an intense feverishness—perhaps
the most intense which the Jewish conscience had ever experienced. Edom (the name by which
The hired assassins, the enthusiasts, had almost all been killed: those who had survived passed the rest of their lives in that mournful state of stupefaction which amongst madmen follows attacks of violent mania. The Sadducees had almost disappeared in the year 66 with the priestly aristocracy who lived in the Temple, and drew from it all their prestige. It has been supposed that some survivors of the great families took refuge with the Herodians in the north of Syria, in Armenia, at Palmyra, remained long allied to the little dynasties of those countries, and shed a final brilliancy on that Zenobia who appears to us in effect, in the third century, as a Sadducean Jewess, foreshadowing by a simple monotheism both Arianism and Islam. The theory is a plausible one; but, in any case, such more or less authentic relics of the Sadducean party had become almost strangers to the rest of the Jewish nation: the Pharisees treated them as enemies.
That which survived the Temple and remained almost intact after
the disaster at Jerusalem, was Pharisaism: the moderate party in Jewish society,
the party less inclined to mingle politics with religion than other sections of
the people, narrowing the business of life to the scrupulous accomplishment of
the Law. Strange state of things! the Pharisees had passed through the ordeal almost
safe and sound; the Revolution had passed over them without injuring them.
The Law was, in truth, all that remained to the Jewish people after the shipwreck of their religious institutions. Public worship, after the destruction of the Temple, had been impossible; prophecy, after the terrible check which it had received, was dumb; holy hymns, music, ceremonies, all had become insipid and objectless, since the Temple, which served as the navel of the entire Hebrew cosmos, had ceased to exist. The Thora, on the contrary, in the non-ritualistic part of it, was always possible. The Thora was not only a religious law, it was a complete system of legislation, a civil code, a personal statute, which made of the people who submitted to it a sort of republic apart from the rest of the world. Such was the object to which the Jewish conscience would henceforward attach itself with a kind of fanaticism. The ritual had to be profoundly modified, but the Canon Law was maintained almost in its entirety. To explain, to practise the Law with minute exactitude, appeared the sole end of life. One science only was held in esteem, that of the Law. Its tradition became the ideal country of the Jew. The subtle discussions which for about a hundred years had filled the schools, were as nothing compared with those which followed. Religious minutiæ and scrupulous devotion were substituted amongst the Jews for all the rest of the worship.
One not less grave consequence springing out of the new conditions under which Israel was henceforward to live was the definitive victory of the teacher (doctor) over the priest. The Temple had perished, but the school of the Law had been spared. The priest, after the destruction of the Temple, saw his functions reduced to very small proportions. The doctor, or, more properly speaking, the judge, the interpreter of the Thora, became, on the contrary, an important personage. The tribunal (Beth-din) was at that time a great Rabbinical school. The Ab-beth-din (president) is a chief at once civil and religious. Every titled rabbin had the right of entry within its limits; its decisions are determined by the majority of votes. The disciples standing behind a barrier heard and learned what was necessary to make them judges and doctors in their turn.
“A tight cistern which did not allow the escape of a drop of
water” became henceforward the ideal of Israel. There was as yet no written manual
of this traditional law. More than a hundred years had to roll on before the discussions
of the schools became crystallised into a body which should be called Mishna, par
excellence, but the root of this book really dates from the period of which we speak.
Although compiled in Galilee, it was in reality born in Jabneh. Towards the end
of the first century it existed only in the form of little pamphlets of notes, in
style almost algebraical, and full of abbreviations, which gave the solutions by
the most celebrated rabbins of embarrassing cases. The most robust memories already
gave way under the weight of tradition and of judicial precedents. Such a state
of things made writing necessary. Thus we see at this period mention is made of
the Mishna, that is to say, little collections of decisions or halakoth, which
bear the names of their authors. Such was that of the Rabbi Eliezer ben Jacob, who
about the end of the first century was described as “short but good.” The Mishnic
treatise Eduïoth, which is distinguished
The opposition between these tendencies and those of the nascent
Christianity was that of fire and water. Christians detached themselves ever more
and more from the Law: the Jews fettered themselves with it frantically. A lively
antipathy appears to have existed amongst Christians against the subtle and uncharitable
spirit which every day tended to increase in the synagogues. Jesus fifty years before
already had chosen this spirit as the object of his severest rebukes. Since then
the casuists had only plunged more and more deeply into the abysses of their narrow
hair splittings. The misfortunes of the nation had in no way changed their character.
Disputatious, vain, jealous, susceptible, given to quarrelling for merely personal
motives, they passed their time between Jabneh and Lydda in excommunicating each
other for the most puerile reasons. James and the relations of Jesus generally were
very strict Pharisees. Paul himself boasted of being a Pharisee and the son of a
Pharisee. But after the siege the war was open. In collecting the traditional words
of Jesus the change of situation made itself felt. The word “Pharisee” in the Gospels
generally, as later the word “Jew” in the Gospel attributed to John, is employed
as synonymous with “enemy of Jesus.” Derision of the casuist was one of the essential
elements of the evangelical literature,
One consequence of the new situation of the Jewish people was
a vast increase of the separatist and exclusive spirit. Hated and despised by the
world, Israel withdrew more and more into itself. The perischouth insociability
became a law of public salvation. To live apart in a purely Jewish world, to add
new requirements to the Law, to render it difficult to fulfil, such was the aim
of the doctors, and they attained it very cleverly. Excommunications were multiplied.
To observe the Law was so complicated an art that the Jew had no time to think of
anything else. Such was the origin of the “eighteen measures,” a complete code
of sequestration which originally dates from a period anterior to the destruction
of the Temple but which did not come into operation until after 70. These eighteen
measures were all intended to exaggerate the isolation of Israel. Forbidden to buy
the most necessary things amongst Pagans, forbidden to speak their language, to
receive their testimony and their offerings, forbidden to offer sacrifices for the
Emperor. Many of these prescriptions were at once regretted; some even said that
the day on which they were adopted was as sad as that on which the Golden Calf was
set up, but they were never abrogated. A legendary dialogue expresses the opposite
sentiments of the two
It was mainly in what concerned proselytes that the contrast was marked. Not merely did the Jews seek no longer to win them, but they displayed towards these new brethren a scarcely veiled hostility. It had not yet been said that “proselytes are a leprosy for Israel;” but far from encouraging them, they were dissuaded; they were told of the numberless dangers and difficulties to which they exposed themselves by consorting with a despised race. At the same time, the hatred against Rome redoubled. The only thoughts which her name inspired were thoughts of murder and of bloodshed.
But now, as always in the course of its long history there was
an admirable minority in Israel who protested against the errors of the majority
of the nation. The grand duality which lies at the base of the life of this singular
people continued. The calm, the gentleness of the good Jew, was proof against all
trials. Shammai and Hillel, though long dead, were as the heads of two opposed families;
one representing the narrow, malevolent, subtle, materialistic spirit; the other
the broad, benevolent, idealistic side of the religious genius of Israel. The contrast
was striking. Humble,
Amongst really pious souls singularly bold ideas sometimes developed
themselves. On the one hand the liberal family of Gamaliel, who had for principle
in their relations with Pagans to care for their poor, to treat them with politeness
even when they worshipped their idols, to pay the last respects to their dead,
sought to relax the situation. In business this family already had relations with
the Romans, and had no scruple in asking from their conquerors the investiture of
a sort of presidency of the Sanhedrim, and, with their permission, the resumption
of the title of Nasi. On the other hand, an extremely liberal man, Johanan ben Zakaï,
was the soul of the transformation. Long before the destruction of Jerusalem he
had enjoyed a preponderating influence in the Sanhedrim. During the Revolution he
was one of the chiefs of the moderate party which kept itself aloof from political
questions, and did all that was possible to prevent the prolongation of a resistance
which must inevitably bring about the destruction of the Temple. Escaped from Jerusalem,
he predicted, it is asserted, the Empire of Vespasian; one of the favours which
he asked from him was a doctor for the old Zadok, who, in the years before the siege,
had ruined his health by fasting. It appears certain that he got into the good graces
of the Romans, and that he obtained from them the re-establishment of the Sanhedrim
at Jabneh. It is doubtful whether he was ever really a pupil of Hillel, but he was
certainly the inheritor of his spirit. To cause peace to reign amongst men was his
favourite maxim. It was told
A little consolation came to the frightfully troubled soul of
Israel. Fanatics, at the risk of their lives, stole into the silent city and furtively
offered sacrifice on the ruins of the Holy of Holies. Some of these madmen spoke
on their return of a mysterious voice which had come out from the heaps of rubbish,
and had declared acceptance of their sacrifices; but this excess was generally
condemned. Certain amongst them forbade all enjoyment, lived in tears and fasting,
and drank only water. Johanan ben Zakaï consoled them:—“Be not sad, my son,” said
he to one of these despairing ones. “If we cannot offer sacrifices, there is still
a way of expiating our sins which is quite as efficacious—good works.” And he recalled
the words of Isaiah, “I love charity better than sacrifice.” Rabbi Joshua was of
the same opinion. “My friends,” said he to those who imposed exaggerated privations
upon themselves, “what is the use of abstaining from meat and from wine?” “How,”
they answered, “should we eat the flesh which is sacrificed on the altar which
is now destroyed? should we drink the wine which we ought to pour out as a libation
on the same altar?” “Well,” replied the Rabbi Joshua, “then eat no bread, since
it is no longer possible to make sacrifices of fine flour.” “Then we must feed
upon fruit.” “Nay. Fruits cannot be allowed, since it is no longer possible to
offer first-fruits in the Temple.” The force of circumstances decided the matter.
The eternity of the Law was maintained in theory; it was believed that even Elias
himself could not change a single article of
The misery was extreme. A heavy taxation weighed upon all, and
the sources of revenue were dried up. The mountains of Judea remained uncultivated
and covered with ruins; property itself was very uncertain. When it was cultivated,
the cultivator was liable to be evicted by the Romans. As for Jerusalem, it was
nothing but a heap of broken stones. Pliny even spoke of it as of a city that had
ceased to exist. Without doubt, the Jews who had been tempted to come in considerable
numbers to encamp upon the ruins, had been expelled from thence. Yet the historians
who insist most strongly on the total destruction of the city, admit that some old
men and some women were left. Josephus depicts for us the first sitting and weeping
in the dust of the sanctuary, and the second reserved by the conquerors for the
last outrages. The 10th Fretensian Legion continued to act as a garrison in a corner
of the deserted city. The bricks which have been found with the stamp of that legion,
prove that the men of it built it. It is probable
Driven thus from their Holy City and from the region which they
loved, the Jews spread themselves over the towns and villages of the plain which
extends from the foot of the Mountain of Judea to the sea. The Jewish population
multiplied there. One locality above all was the scene of that quasi-resurrection
of Pharisaism, and became the theological capital of the Jews until the war of Bar
Coziba. This was the city—originally Philistine—of Jabneh or Jamnia, four leagues
and a half to the south of Jaffa. It was a considerable town, inhabited by Pagans
and Jews; but the Jews predominated there, although the town, since the war of Pompey,
had ceased to form part of Judea. The struggles between the two populations had
been lively. In his campaigns of 67 and 68 Vespasian had had to show himself there
to establish his authority. Provisions abounded there. In the earlier days of the
blockade many peaceable wise men, such as Johanan ben Zakaï, whom the chimera of
natural independence did not lead away, came thither for shelter. There it was that
they learned of the burning of the Temple. They wept, rent their garments, put on
mourning, but found that it was still worth while to live, that they might see if
God had not reserved a future for Israel. It was, it is said, at the entreaty of
Johanan that Vespasian spared Jabneh and its
Rabbi Gamaliel the younger put the top stone to the celebrity of Jabneh when he took the direction of the school after Rabbi Johann retired to Berour-Haïl. Jabneh, from this moment, became the first Jewish academy of Palestine. The Jews from various countries assembled there for the feasts, as formerly they had gone up to Jerusalem, and as formerly they profited by the journey to the Holy City to take council with the Sanhedrim and the schools upon doubtful cases, so at Jabneh they submitted difficult questions to the Beth-din. This tribunal was only rarely and improperly called by the name of the ancient Sanhedrim; but it exercised an undisputable authority; the doctors of all Judea sometimes met in it, and so gave to the Beth-din the character of a Supreme Court. The memory was long preserved of the orchard where the sittings of this tribunal were held, and of the dovecote under whose shade the president sat.
Jabneh appeared thus as a sort of resuscitated Jerusalem. As
to privileges and religious obligations, it was completely assimilated to Jerusalem; its synagogue was considered the legitimate heiress of that of Jerusalem—as the
centre of the now religious authority. The Romans themselves looked at it in this
light, and accorded to the Nasi or Ab-beth-din of Jabneh an official authority. This
was the commencement of the Jewish patriarchate which developed itself later and
became an institution analogous to the Christian patriarchates of the Ottoman Empire
of our own days. These magistratures, at once civil and religious, conferred by
the political power, have always been in the East the means employed by great Empires
to disembarrass themselves of the responsibilities of their satraps.
Lydda had its schools which rivalled those of Jabneh in celebrity, or rather which were a sort of dependency of them. The two towns were about four leagues Apart: when a man had been excommunicated at one he betook himself to the other. All the villages, Danite or Philistine, of the surrounding maritime plain—Berour Haïl, Bakiin, Gibthon, Gimso, Bene Barak, which were all situated to the south of Antipatris, and were until then hardly considered as belonging to the Holy Land at all—served also as an asylum to celebrated doctors. Finally the Darom, the southern part of Judea, situated between Eleutheropolis and the Dead Sea, received many fugitive Jews. It was a rich country, far from the routes frequented by the Romans, and almost at the limit of their domination.
It thus appears that the current which carried Rabbinism towards Galilee had not yet made itself felt. There were exceptions. Rabbi Eliezer ben Jacob, the editor of one of the first Mishna, appears to have been a Galilean. Towards the year 100 the Mishnic doctors are seen approaching Cæsarea in Galilee. It was, however, only after the war of Hadrian that Tiberias and upper Galilee became par excellence the country of the Talmud.
During the first years which followed the war, it appears that a centre of population was formed near to Jerusalem, which fifty or sixty years later was destined to play a very important part. Two leagues and a quarter west-south-west of Jerusalem was a village until then obscure, known as Bether. Many years before the siege a great number of rich and peaceable citizens of Jerusalem, perceiving the storm which was about to break over the capital, had bought lands to which to retire. Bether was in effect situated in a fertile valley outside the important routes which connect Jerusalem with the north and with the sea. An acropolis commanded the village, built near a beautiful spring, and forming a sort of natural fortification; a lower plateau formed a sort of step to the lower town. After the catastrophe of the year 70, a considerable body of fugitives met there. Synagogues, a sanhedrim, and schools were established. Bether became a Holy City, a sort of equivalent to Zion. The little scarped hill was covered with houses, which, supporting themselves by ancient works in the rock and by the natural form of the hill, formed a species of citadel which was completed with steps of great stones. The isolated situation of Bether induces the belief that the Romans did not greatly trouble themselves about these works; perhaps also a part of them dated from before the time of Titus. Supported by the great Jewish communities of Lydda and of Jabneh, Bether thus became a sufficiently large town, and, as it were, the entrenched camp of fanaticism in Judea. We shall there see Judaism offer to the Roman power a last and impotent resistance.
At Bether, a singular book appears to have been
A sensible Pagan who knows Israel, Achior (brother of the light),
tries to stop Holophernes. The one thing necessary, according to him, is to know
if Israel fails to keep the Law; in this case, the conquest will be easy; if not,
it will be necessary to beware how one attacks her. All is useless; Holophernes
marches on Jerusalem. The key of Jerusalem is a place on the north, on the side
of Dothaïm, at the entrance of the mountainous region to the south of the plain
of Esdraelon. This place is called Beth-eloah (the House of God). The author describes
it exactly on the plan of Bether. It is placed at the opening of a Wadi (Fiumara
or bed of a watercourse), on a mountain at the foot of which runs a stream indispensable
to the people, the cisterns of the upper town being relatively small. Holophernes
besieges Beth-eloah, which is soon reduced by thirst to the direst extremity. But
it is an attribute of Divine Providence to choose the weakest agents for the greatest
works. A widow, a zealot, Judith (the Jewess),
The author, from his singular taste for imagining the conversion
of Pagans, from his persuasion that God loves the weak above all, that he is par
excellence the God of the hopeless, approaches Christian sentiments. But by his
materialistic attachment to the principles of the Law, he shows himself a pure Pharisee.
He dreams of an autonomy for the Israelites under the autonomy of the Sanhedrim
and their Nasi. His ideal is absolutely that of Jabneh. There is a mechanism of
human life which God loves; the Law is the absolute rule of it; Israel is created to
The need of a rigorously limited canon of the sacred books made
itself felt more and more. The Thora, the Prophets, the Psalms, were the admitted
foundation of all. Ezekiel alone created some difficulties by the passages wherein
be is not in accord with the Thora, from which he was extricated only by subtleties.
There was some hesitation about Job, whose hardihood was not in accord with the
pietism of the times. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of
As to the Books excluded from the Canon, their reading was forbidden,
and it was even sought to destroy them. This it is which explains how books essentially
Jewish, and having quite as much right as Daniel and Esther to remain in the Jewish
Bible, are only preserved by Greek translations. Thus the Maccabean histories, the
book of Tobit, the books of Enoch, the wisdom of the son of Sirach, the book of
Baruch, the book called “the third of Esdras,” various chapters of which belong
to the book of Daniel (the Three Children in the Furnace) Susannah, Bel and the
Judaism and Christianity still lived together like those double
beings which are joined by one part of their organisation though distinct as regards
all the rest. Each of these beings transmitted to the other its sensations and its
desires. A book which was the fruit of the most ardent Jewish passions, a book zealous
for its first chief, was immediately adopted by Christianity, was preserved by
Christianity, introduced itself, thanks to it, into the Canon of the Old Testament.
A fraction of the Christian Church, it cannot be doubted, had felt the emotions
of the siege, had shared in the grief and anger of the Jews over the destruction
of the Temple, had sympathised with the rebels; the author of the Apocalypse, who
probably still lived, had surely mourning at his heart, and calculated the days
of the great vengeance of Israel. But already the Christian conscience had found
other issues; it was not only the school of Paul, it was the family of the
We have seen in 68 the Christian Church of Jerusalem carried on by the relatives of Jesus fly from the city delivered over to terror, and take refuge at Pella on the other side of Jordan. We have seen the author of the Apocalypse some months afterwards employ the most lively and touching images to express the protection which God extended to the fugitive Church, and the repose which it enjoyed in the desert. It is probable that this sojourn was prolonged for many years after the siege. A return to Jerusalem was impossible, and the antipathy between Christianity and the Pharisees was already too strong to allow of the Christians joining the bulk of the nation on the side of Jabneh and Lydda. The saints of Jerusalem dwelt therefore beyond the Jordan. The expectation of the final catastrophe had become extremely vivid. The three years and a half which the Apocalypse fixed for the fulfilment of its predictions, expired about the month of July 72.
The destruction of the Temple had certainly been a surprise for
the Christians. They had no more believed in it than had the Jews. Sometimes they
had imagined Nero the Anti-Christ returning from amongst the Parthians, marching
upon Rome with his allies, sacking it, and then putting himself at the
One calculation, moreover, appears to have greatly engaged the
Christians at this time. They remembered this passage of the Psalm (
So great was the influence of that fixed idea that the town of
Pella came to be regarded as a temporary asylum where God himself fed his elect
and preserved them from the hatred of the wicked (
The name which these pious guardians of the tradition of Jesus
gave themselves was (“Ebionim”) or “poor.” Faithful to the spirit which had
said “Blessed are the poor” (“ebionim”) and which had characteristically attributed
to the disinherited of this world the Kingdom of Heaven and the inheritance of the
Gospel, they gloried in their poverty, and continued, like the primitive Church
of Jerusalem, to live upon alms. We have seen St Paul always preoccupied with his
poor of Jerusalem, and St James taking the name of “poor” as a title of nobility,
(
The name by which the sectaries were known
This singular misunderstanding explains itself when it is remembered
that the Ebionim and the Nazarenes remained faithful to the primitive spirit of
the Church of Jerusalem, and of the brothers of Jesus, according to whom Jesus was
no more than a prophet chosen of God to save Israel, whilst in the Churches founded
Their admiration for Jesus was unbounded: they described him as
being in a peculiar degree the Prophet of Truth, the Messiah, the Son of God, the
elect of God: they believed in his resurrection, but they never got beyond that
Jewish idea according to which a man-God is a monstrosity. Jesus, in their minds,
was a mere man, the son of Joseph, born under the ordinary conditions of humanity,
without miracle. It was very slowly that they learned to explain his birth by the
operation of the Holy Spirit. Some admitted that on the day on which he was adopted
by God, the Holy Spirit or the Christ had descended upon him in the visible form
of a dove, so that Jesus did not become the Son of God and anointed by the Holy
Ghost until after his baptism. Others, approaching more nearly to Buddhist conceptions,
held that he attained the dignity of Messiah, and of Son of God, by his perfection,
by his continual progress, by his union with God, and, above all, by his extraordinary
feat of observing the whole Law. To hear them, Jesus alone had solved this difficult
problem. When they were pressed, they admitted that any other man who could do the
same thing would obtain the same honour. They were consequently compelled, in
Their churches were called “synagogues,” their priests “archi-synagogues.” They forbade the use of flesh, and practised all the austerities of the hasidim, austerities which, as is well known, made up the greatest part of the sanctity of James, the Lord’s brother. Peter also obtained all their respect. It was under the names of these two apostles that they put forth their apocryphal revelations. On the other hand, there was no curse which they did not utter against Paul. They called him “the man of Tarsus,” “the Apostate;” they told only the most ridiculous histories of him; they refused him the title of Jew, and pretended that it might be on the side of his father, or it might be on that of his mother, he had had only Pagans for ancestors. A genuine Jew speaking of the abrogation of the Law, appeared to them an absolute impossibility.
We speedily discern a literature springing out of this order of ideas and passions. The good sectaries of Kokaba obstinately turned their backs upon the West, upon the future. Their eyes were for ever turned towards Jerusalem, whose miraculous restoration they confidently anticipated. They called it “the House of God,” and as they turned towards it in prayer, it is to be believed that they gave to it a species of adoration. A keen eye might have discovered from that that they were in the way of becoming heretics, and that some day they would be treated as profane in the house which they had founded.
An absolute difference in a word separated the Christianity of the Nazarene—of the Ebionim—of the relatives of Jesus, from the Christianity which triumphed later on. For the immediate successors of Jesus it was a question not of replacing Judaism but of crowning it by the advent of the Messiah. The Christian Church was for them only a re-union of Hasidim, of true Israelites admitting a fact that for a Jew, not a Sadducee, might appear perfectly possible; it was that Jesus put to death and raised again was the Messiah, that after a very brief delay he would come to take possession of the throne of David and accomplish the prophecies. If they had been told that they were deserters from Judaism, they would certainly have cried out, and would have protested that they were true Jews and the heirs of the promises. To renounce the Mosaic Law would have been, from their point of view, an apostacy; they no more dreamed of setting themselves free from it than of liberating others. What they hoped to inaugurate was the complete triumph of Judaism, and not a new religion abrogating that which had been promulgated from Sinai.
Return to the Holy City was forbidden them: but as they hoped
that the prohibition would not last long, the important members of the refugee Church
continued to associate together, and called themselves always the Church of Jerusalem.
From the time of their arrival at Pella, they gave a successor to James, the Lord’s
brother, and naturally they chose that successor from the family of the Master.
Nothing is more obscure than the things which concern the brothers and cousins of
Jesus in the Judeo-Christian Church of Syria. Certain indications lead us to believe
that Jude, brother of the Lord, and brother of James, was, for some time, head of
the Church of Jerusalem, but it is not easy to say when or under what circumstances.
He whom all tradition designates as having
The greatest uncertainty prevails as to the return of the exiled
Church (or rather of a part of that Church) to the city at once so guilty and so
holy, which had crucified Jesus and was nevertheless to be the seat of his future
glory. The fact of the return is incontestable, but the date of the event is unknown.
Strictly we might put back the date to the moment when Hadrian decided on the rebuilding
of the city, that is to say, until the year 122. It is more probable, however,
that the return of the Christians took place shortly after the complete pacification
of Judea. The Romans undoubtedly relaxed their severity towards a people so peaceable
as the disciples of Jesus. Some hundreds of saints might well dwell upon Mount Sion
in the houses which the destruction had respected, without the city ceasing to be
considered a field of ruins and desolation. The 10th Fretensian Legion alone would
form around it a certain group of inhabitants. Mount Sion, as we have already said,
was an exception to the general appearance of the town. The meeting-place of the
Apostles, many other buildings, and particularly seven synagogues, one of which
was preserved until the time of Constantine, were almost intact
The honour of possessing amongst their body persons so distinguished inspired an extraordinary pride amongst the Churches of Batanea. It seems probable that at the moment of the departure of the Church of Jerusalem for Pella, some of “the twelve,” that is to say, the Apostles chosen by Jesus—Matthew, for example—were still alive, and were amongst the number of emigrants. Certain of the apostles may have been younger than Jesus, and consequently not very old at the date of which we speak. The data we have to go upon concerning the apostles who remained in the Holy Land and did not follow the example of Peter and John, are so incomplete that it is impossible to be certain on this point. The “Seven,” that is to say the Deacons chosen by the first Church of Jerusalem, were also without doubt dead or dispersed. The relatives of Jesus inherited all the importance which the chosen of the first Coenaculum had had. From the year 70 to about the year 110 they really governed the Churches beyond the Jordan, and formed a sort of Christian Senate. The family of Cleophas especially enjoyed in devout circles a universally recognised authority.
The relatives of Jesus were pious people, tranquil, gentle, modest, labouring with their hands, faithful to the rigid principles of Jesus with regard to poverty, but at the same time strict Jews, putting the title of child of Israel before every other advantage. They were much reverenced, and a name was given to them (perhaps maraniin or moranoïe) of which the Greek equivalent was desposynoi. For a long time past, doubtless even during the life-time of Jesus, it had been supposed that he was of the lineage of David, since it was admitted that the Messiah should be of David’s race. The admission of such an ancestry for Jesus implied it also for his family. These good people thought much of it, and were not a little proud of it. We see them constantly occupied in constructing genealogies, which rendered probable the little fraud of which the Christian legend had need. When they were too much embarrassed they took refuge behind the persecutions of Herod, which they pretended had destroyed the genealogical books. Nor did they stop here. Sometimes they maintained that the work had been done from memory, sometimes that they had had copies of ancient chronicles whereby to construct it. It was admitted that they had done “the best that they could.” Two of these genealogies have come down to us, one in the Gospel attributed to St Matthew, the other in the Gospel of St Luke, and it appears that neither of them satisfied the Ebionim, since their Gospel did not contain them, and the churches of Syria always protested strongly against them.
This movement, inoffensive though it was as a matter of policy,
excited suspicion. It appears that the Roman authorities had more than once kept
a watch upon these real or pretended descendants of David. Vespasian had heard of
the hopes which the Jews founded upon a mysterious representative of their ancient
royal race. Fearing that they meant
The imminent danger which these speculations about genealogy and royal descent implied for the nascent Christianity, needs no elaborate demonstration. A kind of Christian aristocracy was being created In the political world the nobility are almost necessary to the state, politics having to deal with vulgar struggles which make of them a matter—matter is material rather than ideal. A state is strong only when a certain number of families, by traditional privilege, find it alike their duty and their interest to transact its business, to represent it, to defend it. But in the ideal order, birth is nothing; everyone is valued in proportion to what he discerns of the truth, to what he realises of the good. Institutions which have a religious, literary, or moral aim are lost when considerations of family, of caste, of heredity come to prevail amongst them. The nephews and the cousins of Jesus would have been the destruction of Christianity if the Churches of Paul had not been of sufficient strength to act as a counterpoise to that aristocracy, whose tendency had been to proclaim itself alone respectable, and to treat all converts as intruders. Pretensions analogous to those of the sons of Ali in Islam would have been produced. Islamism would certainly have perished under the embarrassments caused by the family of the Prophet, if the result of the struggles of the first century after the Hejira had not been to throw into an inferior rank all these who were too nearly related to the person of the Founder. The true heirs of a great man are those who continue his work, and not his relatives according to the flesh.
Considering the tradition of Jesus as its property, the little coterie of Nazarenes would have surely stifled it. Happily the narrow circle speedily disappeared: the relatives of Jesus were speedily forgotten in the depths of The Hauran. They lost all importance, and left Jesus to his true family, the only one which he would have recognised—those who “hear the word of God and keep it.” Many passages from the Gospels where the family of Jesus is seen in an unfavourable light, may spring out of the antipathy which the nobiliary pretensions of the desposynoi could not fail to provoke around them.
The relations of these altogether Hebrew Churches of Batanea and
of Galilee with the Jews must have been frequent. It is to the Judeo-Christians
that an expression frequent in Talmudic traditions, that of minim, corresponding
to “heretics,” belongs. The minim are represented as a species of wonder-workers
and spiritual doctors, curing the sick by the power of the name of Jesus and by
the application of holy oil. It will be remembered that this was one of the precepts
of St James. Cures of this sort, as well as exorcisms, were the great means of
conversion employed by the disciples of Jesus, especially with regard to the Jews.
The Jews appropriated to themselves these marvellous receipts, and until the third
century we find the doctors curing in the name of Jesus. No one was astonished.
The belief in daily miracles was such that the Talmud ordains the prayer that every one
Judaism, besides, included two tendencies which put it into opposite
relations with regard to Christianity. The Law and the Prophets continued always
the two poles of the Jewish people. The Law gave occasion to that bizarre scholasticism
which was called the halaka, out of which the Talmud sprang. The prophets, the
psalms, the poetic books inspired an ardent, popular preaching, brilliant dreams,
unlimited hopes; what was called the agada, a word which embraces at once passionate
fables like that of Judith and the apocryphal apocalypses which agitated the people.
Just as the casuists of Jabneh showed themselves contemptuous of the disciples
of Jesus, so the agadists sympathised with them. The agadists, in common with the
Christians, had a dislike for the Pharisees, a taste for Messianic explanations
of the prophetic books, an arbitrary exegesis which recalls the fashion in which
the preachers of the Middle Ages played with texts, a belief in the approaching
reign of a descendant of David. Like the Christians, the agadists sought to connect
the genealogy of the patriarchal family with that of the old dynasty. Like them,
they sought to diminish the burden of the Law. Their system of allegorical interpretation
which transformed a code of laws into a book of moral precepts was the avowed abandonment
of doctrinal rigorism. On the other hand, the halakists treated the agadists (and
Christians were agadists in their eyes) as frivolous people, strangers to the only
serious study, which was that of the Thora. Talmudism and Christianity became in
this way the two antipodes of the moral world, and
The inconvenience of the Talmudic studies was the confidence which
they gave and the disdain which they inspired for the profane. “I thank Thee, O
Eternal God!” said the student, on coming out of the house of study, “for that
by Thy grace I have frequented the school instead of doing as those do who visit
the market place. I rose up like them, but it was for the study of the law, and
not from frivolous motives. I labour like them, but I shall be rewarded. We both
run, but I for life eternal, whilst they can but fall into the pit of destruction.”
This it was which wounded Jesus and the authors of the Gospels so deeply; this which
inspired those beautiful sentences, “Judge not, that ye be not judged,” those
parables wherein the man who is simple but pure of heart is preferred to the haughty
Pharisee. Like St Paul, they saw in the casuists only people who sought to damn
the greater part of the world by exaggerating obligations beyond the strength of
man. Judaism, having at its basis the fact which was taken for granted that man
is treated here below according to his merits, set itself to judge without ceasing,
since the justice of God’s ways could be proved only under that condition. Pharisaism
has its profoundest roots in the theories of the friends of Job and of certain Psalmists.
Jesus, by postponing the application of the justice of God to the future, rendered
those criticisms of the conduct of others futile. The Kingdom of Heaven would set
all things straight: God sleeps until then; but commit yourselves to him. Out of
horror of hypocrisy Christianity arrived at even the paradox of preferring a world
openly wicked but susceptible of conversion to a bourgeoisie which made a parade
of its apparent honesty. Many features of the legend,
Between people of the same race, partakers of the same exile, admitting the same divine revelations and differing only upon a single point of recent history, controversy was inevitable. Sufficiently numerous traces of it are found in the Talmud and in the writings connected with it. The most celebrated doctor whose name appears mixed up in these disputes, is Rabbi Tarphon. Before the siege of Jerusalem he had filled various sacerdotal offices. He loved to recall his memories of the Temple, particularly how he had assisted upon the platform of the priests at the solemn service of the Day of Atonement. The Pontiff had for that day permission to pronounce the ineffable name of the Most High. Tarphon tells how, notwithstanding his efforts, he was unable to hear it, the song of the other officiants having drowned the priest’s voice.
After the destruction of the Holy City he was one of the glories
of the schools of Jabneh and Lydda. To subtlety he joined what was better—charity.
In a year of famine it is said that he married three hundred women so that they
might, thanks to their title of future spouses of a priest, have the right to share
in the sacred offerings. Naturally, the famine having passed over, nothing more
was heard of his espousals. Many sentences of Tarphon recall the Gospel. “The day
is short, the work is long; the workmen are idle, the reward is great, the master
urges on.” “In our time,” he adds, “when one says to another, ‘Take the straw
out of thine eye,’ the answer is, ‘Take the beam out of thine own.’” The Gospel
places such a reply in the mouth of Jesus reprimanding the Pharisees, and one is
tempted to believe that the ill temper of Rabbi Tarphon came from a response of
the same kind which had been made to him by some min. The name of Tarphon, in short,
was celebrated in the Church. In
The choice of Justin and the malevolent tone in which he makes this Tryphon speak of the Christian faith, are justified by what we read in the Talmud of the sentiments of Tarphon. This Rabbi knew the Gospels and the books of the minim; but, far from admiring them, he wished them to be burned. It was pointed out to him that the name of God constantly appeared in them. “I would rather lose my son,” said he, “than that he should not cast these books into the fire, even though they contain the name of God. A man pursued by a murderer, or threatened with the bite of a serpent, had better seek shelter in an idolatrous Temple than in one of the houses of the minim, for these know the truth and deny it, whilst idolators deny God because they do not know him.”
If a man relatively moderate like Tarphon could allow himself to be so far carried away, we can imagine how ardent and passionate must have been this hatred in the world of the synagogues, where the fanaticism of the Law was carried to its extremest limit. Orthodox Judaism could not curse the minim with sufficient bitterness. The use of a triple malediction against the partisans of Jesus comprised under the name of Nazarenes was early established, it being said in the synagogue at morning, at mid-day and at evening. This malediction was introduced into the principal prayer of Judaism, the amida or schemoné-esré. The amida is composed first of eighteen benedictions, or rather of eighteen paragraphs. About the time of which we speak, an imprecation in these terms was intercalated between the eleventh and twelfth paragraphs:—
“For the treacherous, no hope! For the malevolent destruction!
It is supposed, not without a show of reason, that the enemies of Israel pointed at in this prayer were originally the Judeo-Christians, and that this was a sort of shibboleth to turn the partisans of Jesus out of the synagogues. Conversions of Jews to Christianity were not rare in Syria. The fidelity of the Christians of this country to Mosaic observances afforded great facilities for this kind of thing. Whilst the uncircumcised disciples of St Paul could have no relations with a Jew, the Judeo-Christian might enter the synagogues, approach the teba and the reading-desk where the officials and the preachers presided, and might select the texts which favoured their views. In this way great precautions were taken. The most efficacious, was to compel everyone who wished to pray in the synagogue to recite a prayer which, pronounced by a Christian, would have been a curse upon himself.
To sum up—notwithstanding its appearance of narrowness, this Nazareo-Ebionite
Church of Batanea had something mystical and holy about it which is exceedingly
striking. The simplicity of the Jewish conceptions of the Divinity preserved it
from mythology and from metaphysics, into which Western Christendom was not slow
to plunge. Its persistence in maintaining the sublime paradox of Jesus, the nobility
and the happiness of poverty was touching in its way. There, perhaps, lay the great
truth of Christianity, that by which it has succeeded and by which it will survive.
In one sense all of us, such as we are—students, artists, priests, doers of disinterested
deeds—have the right to call ourselves Ebionim. The friend of the true, the beautiful,
and the good, never admits that he calls for a reward. The things of the soul are
beyond price; to the student who illuminates
The Nazarenes of Batanea had thus an inestimable privilege. They held the veritable tradition of the words of Jesus; the Gospel came forth from their midst. Thus those who knew directly the Church beyond the Jordan, such as Hegisippus and Julius Africanus, spoke of it with the greatest admiration. There, principally, it appeared to them, was the true ideal of Christianity to be found; in that Church hidden in the desert, in a profound peace under the wing of God, it appeared to them like a virgin of an absolute purity. The bonds of these scattered communities with Catholicism were broken little by little. Justin hesitates on their account, he knows little of the Judeo-Christian Church; but he knows that it exists, he speaks of it with consideration; at all events he does not break away from communion with it. It is Irenæus who begins the series of these declamations, repeated after him by all the Greek and Latin Fathers, and upon which St Epiphanius puts the topstone by the species of rage which the very names of Nazarene and Ebionite excite in him. It is a law of this world that every originator, every founder, shall speedily become a stranger, then one excommunicated, then an enemy in his own school, and that if he obstinately persists in living, those who go out from him are obliged to take measures against him as against a dangerous man.
When a great apparition of the religious, moral, and literary order is produced, the next generation usually feels the necessity of fixing the memory of the remarkable things which happened at the commencement of the new movement. Those who took part in the first hatching, those who have known according to the flesh, the master whom so many others have been able to adore in the spirit only, have a sort of aversion for the writings which diminish their privilege and appear to deliver to all the world a holy tradition which they keep secretly guarded in their hearts. It is when the last witnesses of the beginning threaten to disappear, that disquietude as to the future sets in, and that attempts are made to trace the image of the founder in durable tints. One circumstance in the case of Jesus, contributed to delay the period when the memoirs of disciples are usually written down, and that was the belief in the approaching end of the world, the assurance that the Apostolic generation would not pass away until the gentle Nazarene had returned as the Eternal Shepherd of his friends.
It has been remarked a thousand times, that the strength of man’s
memory is in inverse proportion to the habit of writing. We can scarcely imagine
what oral tradition might retain, when people did not resort to notes which had
been taken or to papers which they possessed. The memory of a man was then as a
book; he knew how to report conversation, to which he himself had not listened.
“The Clamozenians had heard tell of one Antiphon, who was connected with a certain
Pythadorus, friend of Zeno, who remembered the conversations of Socrates with
The moral sentences which formed the most solid part of the teaching
of Jesus were still more easy to retain. They were assiduously recited. “Towards
midnight I always awake,” Peter is made to say in an Ebionite writing, composed
about the year 135, “and then sleep returns to me no more. It is the effect of
the habit which I have contracted of recalling to memory the words of my Lord which
I have heard, so that I may retain them faithfully.” As, however, those who had
directly received the divine words were dying day by day, and as many words and
anecdotes seemed likely to be lost, the necessity for writing them down made itself
felt. On various sides little collections were made. These collections presented,
with much in common, strange variants; the order and arrangement especially differed;
each author sought to make his copy complete by consulting the papers of others,
and naturally every vigorously accentuated word took its origin in the community,
provided it conformed to the spirit of Jesus, was greedily seized upon, and inserted
in the collections.
One writing which may assist us to form an idea of this first Embryo of the Gospels is the Pirké Aboth, a collection of the sentences of celebrated Rabbis, from the Asmonean times to the second century of our era. Such a book could be formed only by successive accretions. The progress of the Buddhist writings on the life of Saka-Mouni followed a similar course. The Buddhist Sutras corresponded to the collections of the words of Jesus; they are not biographies; they begin simply by indications of this kind:—“At this time Bhagavat sojourned at Sravasti in the Vihara of Jetavana,” etc. The narrative part is very limited; the teaching, the parable, is the principal object. Entire parts of Buddhism only possess such Sutras. The Buddhism of the North, and the branches which have issued from it, have more books like the Lalita Vistara, complete biographies of Saka-Mouni, from his birth to the moment of his attaining to perfect intelligence. The Buddhism of the South has no such biographies, not that it ignores them, but because its theological teaching has been able to pass them by, and to hold to the Sutras.
We shall see, in speaking of the Gospel according to Matthew,
that the state of these Christian Sutras may readily be imagined. They were a species
of pamphlets, of sentences and parables without much order, which the editor of
our Matthew inserted into his narrative. The Hebrew genius had always excelled
in moral sentences; in the mouth of Jesus that exquisite style attained perfection.
Nothing prevents
In what language were those little collections of the sentences
of Jesus composed, these Pirké Ieschou, if such an expression may be permitted?
In the language of Jesus himself, in the vulgar tongue of Palestine—a sort of mixture
of Hebrew and Aramaic which was still called Hebrew, and to which modern savants
have given the name of Syro-Chaldaic. Upon this point the Pirké Aboth is perhaps
still the book which gives us the best idea of the primitive Gospels, although the
Rabbis who figure in this collection, being doctors of the pure Jewish school, speak
there a language which is perhaps nearer to Hebrew than was that of Jesus. Naturally
the catechists who spoke Greek translated those words as best they could, and in
a fashion sufficiently free. It is this that is called the Logia Kyriaca, “the oracles
of the Lord,” or simply the Logia. The Syro-Chaldaic collections of the sentences
of Jesus having never had unity, the Greek collections have even less, and were
only written down individually in the manner of notes for the personal use of each
one. It was impossible that even in a sketchy fashion Jesus was entirely contained
in a gnomic writing; the entire Gospel could
That which characterises Jesus in the highest degree is that with him teaching was inseparable from action. His lessons were acts, living symbols, bound indissolubly to his parables, and certainly in the most ancient pages which were written to fix his teachings, there are already anecdotes and short narratives. Very soon, however, the first framework became totally insufficient. The sentences of Jesus were nothing without his biography. That biography is the mystery par excellence, the realisation of the Messianic ideal; the texts of the prophets there find their justification. To relate the life of Jesus is to prove his Messiahship, is to make, in the eyes of the Jews, the most complete apology for the new movement.
Thus very early arose a framework which was in some sort the skeleton
of all the Gospels, and in which word and action were mingled. In the beginning
John the Baptist, forerunner of the Kingdom of God, announcing, welcoming, recommending
Jesus; then Jesus preparing himself for his Divine mission by retirement and the
fulfilling of the Law; then the brilliant period of his public life, the full sunshine
of the Kingdom of God—Jesus in the midst of his disciples beaming with the gentle
and tempered radiance of a prophet-son of God. As the disciples had scarcely any
save Galilean reminiscences, Galilee was the almost exclusive stage of this exquisite
theophany. The part of Jerusalem was almost suppressed. Jesus went there only eight
days before his death. His two last days were told almost hour by hour. On the eve
of his death he kept the Passover with his disciples and instituted the Divine rite of common
The beginning and the end of the history were, as we see, sufficiently well defined. The interval, on the contrary, was in a state of anecdotic chaos without any chronology. For the whole of this part relative to the public life no order was consecrated; each distributed his matter in his own way. Altogether the compilation became what was called “the good news,” in Hebrew Besora, in Greek Evangelion, in allusion to the passage of the second Isaiah: “The spirit of Jehovah is upon me, because Jehovah hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn.” The Mebasser or “Evangelist” had as his especial duty to expound this excellent history which has been for eighteen hundred years the great instrument for the conversion of the world, which yet remains the great argument for Christianity in the struggle of the last days.
The matter was traditional: now tradition is in its essence a
ductile and extensible matter. Every year sayings more or less apocryphal were mixed
with the authentic words of Jesus. Did a new fact, a new tendency, make its appearance
in the community, the question was asked what Jesus would have thought of it; and
there was no difficulty in attributing it to the Master. The collection, in this way, grew from
This fact it is which gives us the right to believe that the image
of Jesus, as portrayed in the Gospels, resembles the original in all essential particulars.
These narratives are at once historical and figurative. Whatever of fable may have
mixed itself with them, it would be erring, out of fear of erring, to conclude that
nothing in the Gospels is true. If we had known St Francis of Assisi only by the
book of the “Conformities,” we should have to say that it was a biography like
that of Buddha or of Jesus, a biography written à priori to exhibit the realisation
of a preconceived type. Still, Francis of Assisi certainly existed. All has become
an altogether mythical personage amongst the Shieks. His sons, Hassan and Hosein,
have been substituted for the fabulous part of Thammuz. Yet, Ali Hassan and Hosein
are real personages. The myth is frequently grafted upon a historical biography.
The ideal is sometimes the true. Athens offers the absolutely beautiful in the arts,
and Athens exists. Even the personages who may sometimes be taken for symbolical
statues, have really at certain times lived in flesh and bone. These histories follow,
in fact, certain orderly patterns so closely that there is a certain resemblance
amongst all of them. Babism, which is a fact of our days, offers, in its nascent
legend, parts that seem drawn from the Life of Jesus; the type of the disciple
who denies; the details of the sufferings and the death of Bab, appear to be imitated
from the Gospel, which does not imply
We may add that by the side of these ideal traits, which make up the figure of the hero of the Gospels, there are also characteristics of the time, of the race, and of individual character. This young Jew, at once gentle and terrible, subtle and imperious, childlike and sublime, filled with a disinterested zeal, with a pure morality, and with the ardour of an exalted personality, most certainly existed. He should have his place in one of Bida’s pictures, the face encircled with long locks of hair. He was a Jew, and he was himself. The loss of his supernatural aureole has deprived him in no way of his charm. Our race restored to itself and disengaged from all that Jewish influences have introduced into its manner of thought, will continue to love him.
Assuredly in writing concerning such lives, one is perpetually
compelled to say, with Quintus Curtius. Equidem plura transcribo quam credo. On
the other hand, by an excess cf scepticism, one is deprived of many great truths.
For our clear and scholastic minds, the distinction between a real and a fictitious
history is absolute. The epic poem, the heroic narrative, or the Homerides, the
troubadours, the antari, the cantistorie, exhibit themselves with so much ease,
are reduced in the poetic of a Lucan or of a Voltaire to the cold puppets of stage
machines which deceive nobody. For the success of such narratives, the auditor must
accept them; but it is necessary that the author should believe them possible.
The legendary, the Agadist, are no more impostors than the authors of the Homeric
poems, or than were the Christians of Troyes. One of the essential dispositions
of those who create the really fertile fables, is their complete carelessness with
regard to material truth. The Agadist would smile if we put a question with all
sincerity, “Is what you tell us true?” In
Just as the life of a Buddha in India was in some sense written
in advance, so the life of a Jewish Messiah was traced à priori; it was easy to
say what it would be and what it ought to be. His type was as it were sculptured
by the prophets, thanks to the exegesis which applied to the Messiah all that belonged
to an obscure ideal. Most frequently, however, it was the inverse process which
prevailed amongst the Christians. In reading the prophets, especially the prophets
of the end of the captivity, the second Isaiah, Jeremiah and Zechariah, they found
Jesus in every line. “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Sion; shout, O daughter of
Jerusalem; behold thy King cometh unto thee, he is just and having salvation, lowly
and riding upon an ass and a colt the foal of an ass” (
The whole tissue of the life of Jesus was thus an express fact,
a sort of superhuman arrangement intended to realise a series of ancient texts
reputed to relate to him. It is a kind of exegesis which the Jews call Midrasch,
into which all equivoques, all plays upon words, letters, sense, are admitted. The
old biblical texts were for the Jews of this time not as for us an historical and
literary whole but a book of gramarye whence were drawn fates, images, inductions
of every description. The sense proper for such an exegesis did not exist; the
chimeras of the cabbalist were already approached; the sacred text was treated simply
as an agglomeration of letters. It is unnecessary to say that all this work was
done in an impersonal and in some sense an anonymous fashion. Legends, myths, popular
songs, proverbs, historical words, calumnies characteristic of a party—all this
is the work of that great impostor who is called the crowd. Assuredly every legend,
every proverb, every spiritual word, has its father, but an unknown father. Someone
says the word; thousands repeat it, perfect it, refine it, acuminate
This exposition of the Messianic life of Jesus, mixed up with texts of the old prophets, always the same, and capable of being recited in a single sitting, was early settled in almost invariable terms, at least so far as the sense is concerned. Not merely did the narrative unfold itself according to a predetermined plan, but the characteristic words were settled so that the word often guided the thought and survived the modifications of the text. The framework of the Gospel thus existed even before the Gospel itself, almost in the same way as in the Persian dramas of the death of the sons of Ali the order of the action is settled, whilst the dialogue is left to be improvised by the actors. Designed for preaching, for apology, for the conversion of the Jews, the Gospel story found all its individuality before it was written. Had the Galilean disciples, the brothers of the Lord, been consulted as to the necessity for having the sheets containing this narrative worked into a consecrated form, they would have laughed. What necessity is there for a paper to contain our fundamental thoughts, those which we repeat and apply every day? The young catechists might avail themselves, for some time, of such aids to memory; the old masters felt only contempt for those who used them.
Thus it was that until the middle of the second century the words
of Jesus continued to be cited from
The same phenomenon makes its appearance furthermore in almost all sacred literatures. The Vedas have been handed down for centuries without having been written; a man who respected himself ought to know them by heart. He who had need of a manuscript to recite these ancient hymns confessed his ignorance; so that the copies have never been held in much esteem. To quote from memory from the Bible, the Koran, is, even in our days, a point of honour amongst Orientals. A part of the Jewish Thora must have been oral before it was written down. It was the same with the Psalms. The Talmud, finally, existed for two hundred years before it was written down. Even after it was written, scholars long preferred the traditional discourses to the MSS. which contained the opinions of the doctors. The glory of the scholar was to be able to cite from memory the greatest possible number of the solutions of the casuists. In presence of these facts, far from being astonished at the contempt of Papias for the Gospel texts existing in his time, amongst which were certainly two of the books which Christianity has since so deeply revered, we find his contempt in perfect harmony with what might be expected from a “man of tradition,” an “elder,” as those who had spoken of him have called him.
It may be doubted whether before the death of the Apostles, and the destruction of Jerusalem, all that collection of narratives, sentences, parables, and prophetic citations had been reduced to writing. The features of the divine figure before which eighteen centuries of Christians have prostrated themselves, were first sketched about the year 75. Batanea, where the brothers of Jesus lived, and where the remnant of the Church of Jerusalem had taken refuge, appears to have been the country where this important work was executed. The tongue employed was that in which the very words of Jesus had been uttered, that is to say, Syro-Chaldaic, which was abusively called Hebrew. The brothers of Jesus, the fugitive Christians of Jerusalem, spoke that language, little different besides from that of the Bataneans, who had not adopted the Greek tongue. It was in an obscure dialect, and without literary culture, that the first draft of the book which has charmed so many souls was traced. It was in Greek that the Gospel was to attain its perfection, the last form which has made the tour of the world. It must not, however, be forgotten that the Gospel was first a Syrian book, written in a Semitic language. The style of the Gospel—that charming turn of childlike narrative which recalls the most limpid pages of the old Hebrew books—penetrated with a species of idealistic ether that the ancient people did not know, and which has nothing of Greek in it. Hebrew is its basis. A just proportion of materialism and spirituality, or rather an indiscernible confusion of soul and sense, makes that adorable language the very synonym of poetry, the pure vestment of the moral idea, something analogous to Greek sculpture, where the ideal allows itself to be touched and loved.
Thus was sketched out by an unconscious genius that masterpiece
of spontaneous art, the Gospel, not such and such a gospel, but this species of unfixed
The Halaka has converted no one; the Epistles of St Paul alone
would not have won a hundred disciples to Jesus. That which has conquered the hearts
of man is the Gospel, that delicious mixture of poetry and the moral sense, that
narrative floating between dreams and reality in a Paradise where no note is taken
of time. In all that there is assuredly a little literary
The Hebrew Protavangel was preserved in the original amongst the
Nazarenes of Syria until the fifth century. There are besides Greek translations
of it. A specimen was found in the library of the priest Pamphilus of Cæsarea;
St Jerome is said to have copied the Hebrew text at Aleppo, and even to have translated
it. All the Fathers of the Church have found that this Hebrew Gospel is much like the Greek
The destruction of the Judeo-Christians of Syria brought about the disappearance of the Hebrew text. The Greek and Latin translations, which created a disagreeable discord by the side of the canonical Gospels, also perished. The numerous quotations made from it by the Fathers, allow us to imagine the original up to a certain point. The Fathers had reason to connect it with the first of our Gospels. This Gospel of the Hebrews, of the Nazarenes, resembled in truth much of that which bears the name of Matthew, both in plan and in arrangement. As to length, it holds the middle place between Mark and Matthew. It is impossible sufficiently to regret the loss of such a text, though it is certain that even supposing we still possessed the Gospel of the Hebrews seen by St Jerome, our Matthew would be preferred to it. Our Matthew, in a word, has been preserved intact since its final revision in the last years of the first century, whilst the Gospel of the Hebrews, through the absence of an orthodoxy (the jealous guardian of the text) amongst the Judaising Churches of Syria, has been revised from century to century, so that at the last it was no better than one of the apocryphal Gospels.
In its origin it appears to have possessed the characteristics
which one expects to find in a primitive work. The plan of the narrative was like
that of Mark, simpler than that of Matthew and Luke. The
The stories of the appearances of Jesus after his resurrection,
presented evidently in that Gospel a character apart. Whilst the Galilean tradition
represented by Matthew will have it that Jesus appointed a meeting with his disciples
in Galilee, the Gospel of the Hebrews—without doubt because it represented the tradition
of the Church of Jerusalem—supposed that all the appearances took place in that
city, and attributed the first vision to James. The endings of the Gospels of St
Mark and St Luke place, in the same
One very remarkable fact is that James, the man of Jerusalem,
played in the Gospel of the Hebrews a more important part than in the evangelical
tradition which has survived. It appears that there was amongst the Greek evangelists
a sort of agreement to efface the brother of Jesus, or even to allow it to be supposed
that he played an odious part. In the Nazarene Gospel, on the contrary, James is
honoured with an appearance of Jesus after his resurrection; that apparition is
the first of all; it is for him alone; it is the reward of the vow, full of lively
faith, that James had made, that he would neither eat nor drink until he had seen
his brother raised from the dead. We might be tempted to regard this narrative as
a sufficiently modern resetting of the legend, without a single important circumstance.
St Paul in the year 57 also tells us that, according to the tradition which he had
received, James had had his vision. Here, then, is an important fact which the Greek
evangelists suppressed, and which the Gospel of the Hebrews related. On the other
hand, it appears that the first Hebrew edition embodies more than one hostile allusion
to Paul. People have prophesied, and cast out devils in the name of Jesus: Jesus
openly repulses them because they have “practised illegality.” The parable of the
tares is still more characteristic. A man has sown in his field only good seed;
but whilst he slept an enemy came, sowed tares in the field, and departed. “Master,”
said the servants, “didst thou not sow good seed in thy field? from whence then
hath it tares?” And he said unto them, “An enemy hath done this.” The servants
said unto him, “Wilt thou that we go and gather them up?” But he said unto them, “Nay, lest while ye gather up the tares ye root up also the wheat with them. Let
both grow together until the harvest, and in the time of harvest I will say to the
Was the Gospel of the Hebrews considered by the Christians of Syria, who made use of it, as the work of the Apostle Matthew? There is no valid reason for such a belief. The witness of the fathers of the Church proves nothing about the matter. Considering the extreme inexactitude of the ecclesiastical writers, when Hebrew affairs are in question, this perfectly accurate proposition, “The Gospel of the Hebrews of the Syrian Christians resembles the Greek Gospel known by the name of St Matthew,” transforms itself into this, with which it is by no means synonymous:—“The Christians of Syria possessed the Gospel of St Matthew in Hebrew,” or rather, “St Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew.” We believe that the name of St Matthew was not applied to one of the versions of the Gospel until the Greek version which now bears his name was composed, which will be much later. If the Hebrew Gospel never bore an author’s name, or rather a title of traditional guarantee, it was the title of “the Gospel of the Twelve Apostles,” sometimes also that of “the Gospel of Peter.” Still, we believe that these names were given later, when Gospels bearing the names of the Apostles came into use. A decisive method of preserving to the original Gospel its high authority, was to cover it with the authority of the entire Apostolic College.
As we have already said, the Gospel of the Hebrews was ill preserved.
Every Judaising sect of Syria added to it, and suppressed parts of it, so that the
orthodox sometimes presented it as swollen by interpolation to a greater size than
St Matthew, and sometimes as mutilated. It was especially in the
The Christianity of the Greek countries had still greater need
than those of Syria for a written version of the life and teaching of Jesus. It
appears at the first glance that it would have been very simple, for the satisfaction
of that demand, to translate the Hebrew Gospel, which shortly after the fall of
Jerusalem had taken a definite form. But translation pure and simple was not the
fashion of those times: no text had sufficient authority to cause it to be preferred
over others; it is, moreover, doubtful if the little Hebrew pamphlets of the Nazarenes
could have passed the sea and gone out of Syria. The Apostolic men who were in communication
with the Western Churches trusted to their memories, and without doubt did not carry
with them works which would have been unintelligible to the faithful. When the necessity
for a Gospel in Greek made itself felt, it was composed of fragments. But, as we
have already said, the plan, the skeleton, the book almost
The general lines, the order of the narrative, had already been settled. What had to be created were the Greek style and the choice of the necessary words. The man who accomplished this important work was John-Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter. Mark, it appears, had seen when a child something of the facts of the Gospel; it may even be believed that he was at Gethsemane. He had personally known those who had played a part in the drama of the last days of Jesus. Having accompanied Peter to Rome, he probably remained there after the death of the Apostle, and passed through the terrible crisis which followed the event in that town. It was there that, according to all appearances, he put together the little book of forty or fifty pages which was the corner stone of the Greek Gospels.
The document, although composed after the death of Peter, was
in a sense his work; it was the way in which he had been accustomed to relate the
life of Jesus. Peter knew scarcely any Greek; Mark served him as dragoman; hundreds
of times he had been the channel through which this marvellous history had passed.
Peter did not follow a very rigid order in his preaching; he cited facts and parables
as the exigencies of his teaching required. This licence of composition is also
found in the book of Mark. The distribution of the subject is often logically at
fault; in some respects the work is very incomplete, since entire parts of the
Life of Jesus are wanting, of which complaint was made even in the second century.
On the other hand, the clearness, the precision of detail, the originality, the
picturesqueness, the life of this first narrative were
The part which Mark took in so singularly abridging the great discourses of Jesus is astonishing. These discourses could not have been unknown to him: if he has omitted them, he must have had some motive for doing so. The somewhat narrow and dry spirit of Peter is perhaps the cause of this suppression. This spirit is certainly also the explanation of the puerile importance which Mark attaches to the miracles. The working of wonders in his Gospel has a singular character of heavy materialism, which for the moment recalls the reveries of the magnetizers. The miracles are painfully accomplished by successive steps. Jesus works them by means of Aramaic formulae, which have a Cabbalistic air. There is a struggle between the natural and supernatural forces: the evil yields only step by step, and under reiterated injunctions. Add to this a sort of secret character, Jesus always forbidding those who are the recipients of his favours. to speak of them It is not to be denied that Jesus comes out of this Gospel not as the delightful moralist whom we love, but as a terrible magician. The sentiment with which he inspires the majority of those about him is fear; the people, terrified by his miracles, pray him to depart out of their coasts.
It is not to be concluded from this that the Gospel of Mark is
less historic than the others; quite the
The spirit which rules in this little book is certainly that of
Peter. In the first place, Cephas plays there an eminent part, and appears always
at the head of the apostles. The author is in no way of the school of Paul, yet
in various ways he approaches him much more nearly than in the direction of James
by his indifference with regard to Judaism, his hatred for Pharisaism, his lively
opposition to the principles of the Jewish theocracy. The story of the Syro-Phœnician
woman (
We shall see later what kind of modifications it was thought necessary to introduce into the first Greek version, in order to make it acceptable to the faithful, and how, from that revision, emerged the Gospels attributed to Matthew and Luke. One cardinal fact of primitive Christian literature is that these connected, and in a sense more complete texts, did not cause the primitive text to disappear, The little work of Mark was preserved, and soon, thanks to the convenient but altogether erroneous hypothesis which makes of him “a divine abbreviator,” he took his place amongst the mysterious four evangelists. Is it certain that the text of Mark can have remained pure from all interpolations,—that the text which we read to-day is purely and simply the first Greek Gospel? It would be a bold thing to affirm that it is. At the very time that it was found necessary to compose, other Gospels bearing other names, taking Mark for the foundation, it is very possible that Mark himself may have been retouched, whilst his name was still left at the head of the book. Many particulars appear to suppose a sort of retroactive influence upon the text of Mark, exercised by the Gospels composed after Mark. But these are complicated hypotheses of which there is no absolute proof. The Gospel of Mark presents a perfect unity and, except for certain matters of detail where the manuscripts differ, apart from those little retouchings, from which the Christian writings have, almost without exception, suffered, it does not appear to have received any considerable addition since it was composed.
The characteristic feature of the Gospel of Mark was, from the
first, the absence of the genealogies and of the legends relating to the infancy
of Jesus. If there was a gap which ought to be filled up for the benefit of Catholic
readers, it was to be found there. And yet no attempt was made to fill it. Many other
When Matthew, and, above all, Luke, omit certain passages which are actually in Mark, are we forced to conclude that these passages were not in the proto-Mark? We are not. The authors of the second version selected and omitted, guided by the sentiment of an instinctive art and by the unity of their work. It has been said, for example, that the Passion was wanting in the primitive Mark, because Luke, who has followed him up to that point, does not follow him in the narrative of the last hours of Jesus. The truth is that Luke has taken for the Passion another guide more symbolical, more touching than Mark, and Luke was too great an artist to muddle his colours. The Passion of Mark, on the contrary, is the truest, the most ancient, the most historical. The second version in any case is always blunter, more governed by a priori, reasons than those which have preceded it. Precise details are matters of indifference to generations which have not known the primitive actors. What is pre-eminently required is an account with clear outlines and significant in all its parts.
There is everything to lead us to believe that Mark did not write
down his Gospel until after the death of Peter. Papias assumes this when he tells
us that Mark wrote “from memory” what he had from Peter. Finally the fact that the Gospel of Mark contains
On the other hand, the Gospel of St Mark was composed before
all the eye-witnesses of the life of Jesus were dead. Hence we may see within what narrow
According to all appearances, it was at Rome that Mark composed this first attempt at a Greek gospel, which, imperfect though it is, contains the essential outlines of the subject. Such is the old tradition, and there is nothing improbable in it. Rome was, after Syria, the headquarters of Christianity. Latinisms are more frequent in the little work of Mark than in any other of the New Testament writings. The biblical texts to which reference is made recall the Septuagint. Many details lead to the belief that the writer had in view readers who knew little of Palestine and Jewish customs. The express citations from the Old Testament made by the author himself may be reduced to one; the exegetical reasonings which characterise Matthew and even Luke are wanting in Mark; the name of the Law never drops from his pen. Nothing, in fact, obliges us to believe that this may be a work sensibly different from that of which the Presbyter Joannes in the first years of the second century said to Papias:—“The Presbyters still say this: Mark, become the interpreter of Peter, wrote exactly but without order all that he remembered of the words and actions of Christ. For he did not hear or follow the Lord; but later, as I have said, he followed Peter, who made his didascalies according to the necessities of the moment, and not as if he wished to prepare a methodical statement of the discourses of the Lord; hence Mark is in no way to be blamed if he has thus written down but a small number of details, such as he remembered them. He had but one concern, to omit nothing that he had heard, and to let nothing pass that was false.”
Far from diminishing the importance of the Jews at Rome, the war of Judea had in a sense contributed to increase it. Rome was by far the greatest Jewish city in the world: she had inherited all the importance of Jerusalem. The war of Judea had cast into Italy thousands of Jewish slaves. From 65 to 72 all prisoners made during the war had been sold wholesale. The places of prostitution were filled with Jews and Jewesses of the most distinguished families. Legend has pleased itself by building a most romantic structure on this foundation.
Except for the heavy poll tax which oppressed the Jews, and which
was for Christians more than an exaction, the reign of Vespasian was not remarkable
for any special severities towards the two branches of the House of Israel. We have
seen that the new dynasty, far from drawing down upon itself the contempt of Judaism
in the beginning, had been compelled by the fact of the war of Judea, inseparable
from its approach, to contract obligations towards a great number of Jews. It must
be remembered that Vespasian and Titus, before attaining to power, had remained
about four years in Syria, and had there formed many connections. Tiberius Alexander
was the man to whom the Flavii owed the most. He continued to occupy one of the
chief positions in the state; his statue was one of those which adorned the Forum.
Nec meiere fas est! said the old Romans in their wrath, irritated by that intrusion
of the Orientals. Herod Agrippa II., whilst continuing to reign and to coin money
at Tiberias and Paneas, lived at Rome surrounded by his co-religionists, keeping
up a great state, astonishing the Romans by the pomp and ostentation with which he celebrated
His sisters Drusilla and Berenice also lived at Rome. Berenice, notwithstanding her already ripe age, exercised over the heart of Titus such an empire, that she had the design of marrying him, and Titus it was said had promised her, and was only deterred by political considerations. Berenice inhabited the palace, and, pious as she was, lived openly with the destroyer of her country. The jealousy of Titus was active, and it appears to have contributed, not less than policy, to the murder of Caecina. The Jewish favourite enjoyed to the full her royal rights. Legal cases were taken under her jurisdiction, and Quintilian relates that he pleaded before her in a case in which she was both judge and party. Her luxury astonished the Romans; she ruled the fashions; a ring which she had worn on her finger sold for an insane price; but the serious world despised her, and openly described her relations with her brother Agrippa as incestuous. Other Herodians still lived in Italy, perhaps at Naples, in particular that Agrippa, son of Agrippa and Felix, who perished in the eruption of Vesuvius. In a word, all these dynasties of Syria and Armenia which had embraced Judaism, remained with the new Imperial family in daily relations of intimacy.
Around this aristocratic world the subtle and prudent Josephus
hovered, like a complaisant servant. Since his entry into the household of Vespasian
and of Titus, he had taken the name of Flavius, and in the usual manner of a common-place soul, he reconciled
Josephus had undoubtedly a superficial Greek education, of which,
like a clever man, he knew how to make the most. He read the Greek historians;
that reading provoked him to emulation; he saw the possibility of writing in the
same way the history of the last misfortunes of his country. Too little of an artist
to understand the temerity of his undertaking, he plunged into it, as happens sometimes
with Jews who begin in literature in a foreign tongue, like one who fears nothing.
He was not yet accustomed to write in Greek, and it was in Syro-Chaldaic that he
made the first version of his work; later he put forward the Greek version which
has come down to our own times. Notwithstanding his protestations, Josephus is not
a truthful man. He has the Jewish defect—the defect most opposed to a healthy manner
The work was submitted (at least Josephus wishes us to believe
so) to the criticism of Agrippa and of Titus, who appear to have approved it.
Titus would have gone further; he would have signed with his own hand the copy
which was intended to serve as a type, to show that it was according to this
volume that he desired that the history of the siege of Jerusalem should be
told. The exaggeration here is palpable. What is clearly evident is the
existence around Titus of a Jewish coterie which flattered him, which desired to
persuade him that, far from having been the cruel destroyer of Judaism, he had
wished to save the Temple; that Judaism had killed itself, and that, in any
case, a superior decree of the Divine will, of which Titus had been but the
instrument, hovered over all. Titus was evidently pleased to hear this theory
maintained. He willingly forgot his cruelties, and the decree that he had to all appearance pronounced
The sentiment of sympathy for the Jews, which is thus implied
on the part of Titus, might be expected to extend itself to the Christians. Judaism,
as Josephus understood it, approached Christianity on many sides, especially the
Christianity of St Paul. Like Josephus, the majority of the Christians had condemned
the insurrection, and cursed the zealots. They loudly professed submission to the
Romans. Like Josephus they held the ritual part of the Law as secondary, and understood
the sonship of Abraham in a moral sense. Josephus himself appears to have been favourable
to the Christians, and to have spoken of the chiefs of the sect with sympathy. Berenice,
on her side, and her brother Agrippa, had had for St Paul a sentiment of benevolent
curiosity. The private friends of Titus were rather favourable than unfavourable
to the disciples of Jesus, by which circumstance may be explained the fact, which
appears incontestable, that there were Christians in the very household of Flavius.
Let it be remembered that this family did not belong to the great Roman aristocracy; that it formed part of what may be called the provincial middle class; that it
had not, consequently, against the Jews and Orientals in general, the prejudices
of the Roman nobility, prejudices which we shall soon see regain all their power
under Nerva, and bring about a century of almost continuous persecution of the Christians. That dynasty fully admitted popular
The conversions which brought the faith in Jesus so near to the throne, were probably not effected until the reign of Domitian. The Church of Rome was reformed but slowly. The inclination which Christians had felt about the year 68 to flee from a town upon which they expected every moment the wrath of God to descend, had grown weak. The generation mown down by the massacres of 64 was replaced by the continual immigration which Rome received from other parts of the Empire. The survivors of the massacres of Nero breathed at last, they considered themselves as in a little provisional Paradise, and compared themselves with the Israelites after they had passed the Red Sea. The persecution of 64 presented itself to them as a sea of blood, where all had only not been drowned. God had inverted the parts, and as to Pharaoh, he had given to their executioners blood to drink: it was the blood of the civil wars, which from 68 to 70 had poured out in torrents.
The exact list of the ancient presbyteri or episcopi of the Roman
Church is unknown. Peter, if he went to Rome, as we believe, occupied there an exceptional
place, and would certainly have had no successor properly so-called. It was not
until a hundred years afterwards, when the episcopate was regularly constituted,
that any attempt was made to present a consecutive list of the successors of Peter
as bishops of Rome. There are no accurate memorials until after the time of Xystus,
who died about 125. The interval between Xystus and St Peter is filled with the
names of Roman presbyters who had left some reputation. After Peter we come upon
a certain Linus, of whom nothing certain is known; then Anenclet, whose name
One phenomenon which is manifested more and more is that the Church of Rome became the heiress of that of Jerusalem, and was in some sort substituted for it. There was the same spirit, the same traditional and hierarchical authority, the same taste for command. Judeo-Christianity reigned at Rome as at Jerusalem. Alexandria was not yet a great Christian centre. Ephesus, even Antioch, could not struggle against the preponderance which the capital of the Empire, by the very nature of things, tended more and more to arrogate to itself.
Vespasian arrived at an advanced old age, esteemed by the serious
part of the Empire, repairing, in the bosom of a profound peace, with the aid of
an active and intelligent son, the evils which Nero and the civil war had created.
The high aristocracy, without having much sympathy for a family of parvenus—men
of capacity but without distinction, and of manners sufficiently common—sustained
and seconded it. They were at last delivered from the detestable school of Nero,—a
school of wicked, immoral, and frivolous men, wretched soldiers and administrators.
The honest party which, after the cruel trial of the reign of Domitian was to arrive
definitely at power with Nerva, breathed at last, and already was almost triumphant.
Only the madmen and the debauchees of Rome who had loved Nero laughed at the parsimony
of the old General, without dreaming that that economy was perfectly simple and
altogether praiseworthy. The treasury of the Emperor was not clearly distinguished
from his private fortune; but the treasury of Nero had been sadly dilapidated.
The situation of a family without fortune, like that of Flavius, borne to power
under such circumstances, became very embarrassing. Galba, who was of the great
nobility, but of serious habits, was lost because
“Onesimus comes from the village,”
the burden of which the spectators repeated in chorus. There was no way of pleasing these impertinents save by magnificence and cavalier manners. Vespasian would have found it much more easy to obtain pardon for crimes than for his rather vulgar good sense, and that species of awkwardness which the poor officer usually retains who has risen from the ranks by his merits. The human race is so little disposed to encourage goodness and devotion in its sovereigns, that it is sometimes surprising that the offices of king and of emperor still find conscientious men to discharge them.
A more importunate opposition than that of the idlers of the amphitheatre
and the worshippers of the memory of Nero, was that of the philosophers, or, to
be more correct, of the republican party. This party, which had reigned for thirty-six
hours after the death of Caligula, gained, on the death of Nero, and during the
civil war which followed that event, an unexpected importance. Men highly considered,
like Helvidius Priscus, with his wife Fannia (daughter of Thrasea), were seen to
refuse the most simple fictions of imperial etiquette, to affect with regard to
Vespasian an air at once cavilling and full of effrontery. We must do Vespasian
the justice to remember that it was with great regret that he treated the grossest
provocations with rigour, provocations which were the simple result of the goodness
and simplicity of this excellent sovereign. The philosophers imagined, with the
best faith in the world, that they defended the dignity of man with their little
literary allusions; they did not see that in reality they defended only the privileges of an
Alas! that power had the cardinal defect of floating between the elective dictatorship and the hereditary monarchy. Every monarchy aspires to be hereditary, not merely because of what the democracies call the egotism of the family, but because monarchy is advantageous for the people only when it is hereditary. Heredity, on the other hand, is impossible without the Germanic principle of fidelity. All the Roman Emperors aimed at heredity; but heredity could never extend beyond the second generation, and it scarcely ever produced any but fatal consequences. The world only breathes when through particular circumstances adoption (the system best adapted to Cæsarism) prevails; there was in it only a happy chance; Marcus Aurelius had a son, and lost everything.
Vespasian was exclusively preoccupied with this cardinal question.
Titus, his eldest son, at the age of thirty-nine, had no male issue, nor had Domitian
at twenty-seven a son. The ambition of Domitian ought to have been satisfied with
such hopes. Titus openly announced him as his successor, and contented himself with
desiring that he should marry his daughter Julia Sabina. But in spite of so many
favourable conditions,
As happens with good-hearted men, Vespasian improved every day as he grew older. Even his pleasantry, which was often, from want of education, of a coarse description, became just and fine. He was told that a comet had shown itself in the sky. “It is the King of the Parthians whom that concerns,” said he, “he wears long hair.” Then his health growing worse,—“I think I am about to become a god,” said he, smiling. He occupied himself with business to the last, and feeling himself dying, “an Emperor should die standing,” said he. He expired, in fact, in the arms of those who supported him, a grand example of manly attitude and firm bearing in the midst of troubled times, which seemed almost desperate. The Jews alone preserved his memory as that of a monster who had made the entire earth groan under the weight of his tyranny. There was without doubt some Rabbinical legend concerning his death; he died in his bed they admitted, but he could not escape the torments which he merited.
Titus succeeded him without difficulty. His virtue was not a profound
virtue like that of Antoninus or of Marcus Aurelius. He forced himself to be virtuous,
and sometimes nature got the upper hand. Nevertheless, a good reign was hoped for.
As rarely happens, Titus improved after his accession to power. He had great powers
of self-control, and he began by making the most difficult of all sacrifices to
public opinion. Berenice was less than ever disposed to renounce her hope of being
married. She behaved in all respects as if she were. Her quality of Jewess, of foreigner, of
Honest folks felt their hopes revive. With the spectacles, and
a little charlatanism, it was easy to content the people, and they remained quiet.
Latin literature, which, since the death of Augustus, had undergone so great an
eclipse, was in the way of recovery. Vespasian seriously encouraged science, literature,
and the arts. He established the first professors paid by the state, and was thus
the creator of the teaching body, at the head of which illustrious fraternity shines
the name of Quintilian. The sickly poetry of the epopoeias and the artificial tragedies
continued piteously. Bohemians of talent, like Martial and Statius, both excellent
in little verses, did not come out from a low and barren literature. But Juvenal
attained, in the truly Latin species of satire, an uncontested mastery for force
and originality. A haughty Roman spirit, narrow, if you will, closed, exclusive,
but full of tradition, patriotic, opposed to
Under this wise and moderate rule Christians lived in peace. The
memory which Titus left in the Church was not that of a persecutor. One event of
his reign made a lively impression. This was the eruption of Vesuvius. The year
79 witnessed this, perhaps the most striking phenomenon in the volcanic history
of the earth. The entire world was moved. Since humanity had a conscience, nothing
so remarkable had ever been seen. An old crater, extinct from time
Would Titus keep to the end his promise of goodness? That was
the question. Many pretended that the part of “delight of the human race” is difficult
to maintain, and that the new Cæsar would follow in the footsteps of Tiberius, of
Caligula, and of the Neros, who after having begun well finished most badly. Souls
absolutely given over to the stoic philosophy, like those of Antoninus and Marcus
Aurelius, were required by those who would not succumb to the temptations of a boundless
power. The character of Titus was of a rare quality; his attempt to reign by goodness,
his noble illusions as to the humanity of his times, were something liberal and touching; his
These, however, were only retrospective apprehensions. Death
came to withdraw Titus from a trial which might have been fatal had it been too
prolonged. His health failed visibly. At every instant he wept as if, after having
attained the highest rank in the world, he saw the frivolity of all things in spite
of appearances. Once especially, at the end of the ceremony of the inauguration
of the Coliseum, he burst into tears before the people. In his last journey to Rhætum
he was overwhelmed with sadness. At one moment he was seen to draw back the curtains
of his litter, to look at the sky, and to swear that he had not deserved death.
Perhaps it was the wasting, the enervation produced by the part which he chose to
play, the life of debauchery which he had lived at various times before attaining
to the Empire, that was the cause of this. Perhaps also it was the protest which
a noble soul had in such a time the right to raise against destiny. His nature was
sentimental and amiable. The frightful wickedness of his brother killed him. He
saw clearly that if he did not take the initiative, Domitian would. To have dreamed
of the empire of the world, to make himself adored by it, to see his dream accomplished,
and then to see its vanity, and to recognise that in politics good nature is a mistake; to see evil rise before him in the form of a monster, saying, “Kill me or I will
kill you!” What a trial for a good heart! Titus had not the
The world mourned but Israel triumphed. That unexplained death from exhaustion and philosophical melancholy, was it not a manifest judgment from heaven upon the destroyer of the Temple—the guiltiest man the world had yet seen? The rabbinical legend on this subject took as usual a puerile turn which, however, was not wholly without justice. “Titus the wicked,” said the Agadists, “died through the bite of a fly which introduced itself into his brain and killed him amidst atrocious tortures.” Always the dupes of popular reports, the Jews and the Christians of the time generally believed in the fratricide. According to them, the cruel Domitian, the murderer of Clemens, the persecutor of the saints, was more than the assassin of his brother, and that foundation, like the parricide of Nero, became one of the bases of a new apocalyptic symbolism, as we shall see somewhat later on.
The tolerance which Christianity enjoyed under the reign of the Flavii was eminently favourable to its development. Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, Rome, especially, were the active centres where the name of Jesus became every day more and more important, and from which the new faith shone out. If we except the exclusive Ebionites of Batanea, the relations between the Judeo-Christians and the converted Pagans became every day more easy; prejudices were set aside; a fusion was wrought. In many important towns there were two Presbyteries and two Episcopi, one for Christians of Jewish extraction, the other for the faithful of Pagan origin. It is supposed that the Episcopos of the converted Pagans had been instituted by St Paul, and the other by some apostle of Jerusalem. It is true that in the third and fourth centuries this hypothesis was abused, in order that the Churches might escape from the difficulty in which they found themselves when they sought to found a regular succession of bishops with antagonistic elements of tradition. Nevertheless, the double character of the two Churches appears to have been a real fact. Such was the diversity of education of the two sections of the Christian community, that the same pastor could scarcely give to both the teaching of which they stood in need.
Matters fell out thus especially when, as at Antioch, the difference
of origin was joined with difference of language, where one of the groups spoke
Syriac and the other Greek. Antioch appears to have had two successions of Presbyteri,
one belonging in theory to St Peter, the other to St Paul. The constitution of the
two lists was managed in the same way as the
Egypt, which for a long time was much behind-hand in the matter
of Christianity, probably received the germ of the new faith under the Flavii. The
tradition of the preaching of St Mark at Alexandria is one of those tardy inventions
by which the great Churches sought to give themselves an Apostolic antiquity. The
general outline of the life of St Mark is well known; it is in Rome and not in Alexandria
that it must be sought. When all the great Churches pretended to an Apostolic foundation,
the Church of Alexandria, already very considerable, wished to supply titles of
nobility which it did not possess. Mark was almost the only one amongst the personages
of Apostolic history who had not yet been appropriated. In reality the cause of
the absence of the name of Egypt from the narrative of the Acts of the Apostles
and from the Epistles of St Paul is that Egypt had a sort of pre-Christianity which
long held it closed against Christianity properly so called. She had Philo, she
had the Therapeutes, that is to say, doctrines so like those which grew up in Judea
and Galilee that it was unnecessary for her to lend an attentive ear to the latter.
Later, it was maintained that the Therapeutes were nothing else than the Christians
of St Mark, whose kind of life Philo had described. It was a strange hallucination.
In a certain sense, however, this bizarre
Christianity appears indeed to have had a very undecided character in Egypt for a long time. The members of the old Therapeutic communities of Lake Narcotis, if their existence must be admitted, ought to appear like saints to the disciples of Jesus, the Exegetas of the school of Philo, like Apollos, marched side by side with Christianity, entered into it even without staying there; the other Alexandrine Jewish authors of the apocryphal books shared largely, it is said, in the ideas which prevailed in the Council of Jerusalem. When the Jews, animated, it is said, by like sentiments, heard Jesus spoken of, it was unnecessary that they should be converted in order to sympathise with his disciples. The confraternity established itself. A curious monument of the spirit, peculiar to Egypt, has been preserved in one of the Sibylline poems—a poem dated with great precision from the reign of Titus or one of the first years of Domitian, which the critics have been able, with almost equal reason, to accept as Christian on the one hand and Essenian or Therapeutic on the other. The truth is that the author was a Jewish sectary, floating between Christianity, Baptism, Essenism, and inspired, before all things, by the dominant idea of the Sibyllists, who were the first preachers of monotheism to the Pagans, and of morality, under cover of a simplified Judaism.
Sibyllism was born in Alexandria about the time when apocalypticism
came into existence in Palestine. The two parallel theories owed their existence
to analogous spiritual conditions. One of the laws of every apocalypse is the attribution
of the work to some celebrity of past times. The opinion of the present day is that
the list of great prophets is closed, and that no modern can pretend to equal the
ancient inspired ones. What then was a man to do who was possessed with the idea
of producing his thought and
The Sibyls present themselves to the mind as forgers in search
of incontestable authorities under cover of whom they may present themselves to
the Greeks the ideas which were dear to them. They already circulated little poems, pretended Cumæans, Erythæans,
Sibyllism was thus the form of the Alexandrine Apocalypse. When a Jew—a friend of the good and of the true in that tolerant and sympathetic school—wished to address warnings or counsels to the Pagans, he made one of the prophetesses of the Pagan world to speak, to give to his utterances a force which they would not otherwise have had. He took the tone of the Erythæan oracles, forced himself to imitate the traditional style of the prophetic poetry of the Greeks, provided himself with some of these versified threats which made a great impression on the people, and framed the whole in pious utterances. Let us repeat it—such frauds with a good object were in no way repugnant to anybody. By the side of the Jewish manufactory of false classics, the art of which consisted in putting into the mouths of Greek philosophers and moralists the maxims which they were desirous of inculcating, there was established in the second century before Christ a pseudo-Sibyllism in the interest of the same ideas. In the time of the Flavii, an Alexandrine looked up the long interrupted tradition and added some new pages to the former oracles. These pages are of a remarkable beauty.
Happy is he who worships the Great God, him whom human hands have
not made, who hath no temple, whom mortal eye cannot see nor haul measure. Happy
are those who pray before they eat, and before they drink; who, at sight of the
temples make a sign of protestation, and who turn away with horror
After this exordium came the essential parts of every apocalypse; first a theory concerning the succession of empires—a species of philosophy of history imitated from Daniel; then signs in heaven, tremblings of the earth, islands emerging from the depths of the sea, wars, famines, and all the preparations which announce the coming of God’s judgment. The author particularly mentions the earthquake at Laodicaea in 60; that of Myra; the invasions of the sea at Lycia, which took place in 68. The sufferings of Jerusalem then appeared to him. A powerful king, the murderer of his mother, flees from Italy, ignored, unknown, under the disguise of a slave, and takes refuge beyond the Euphrates. There he waits in hiding whilst the candidates for the Empire make bloody war. A Roman chief will deliver the Temple to the flames and will destroy the Jewish nation. The bowels of Italy will be torn; a flame will come out of her and will mount to heaven, destroying the cities, consuming thousands of men; a black dust will fill the air; lapilli like vermillion red will fall from heaven. Then it may be hoped men will recognise the wrath of God Most High, the wrath which has fallen on them because they have destroyed the innocent tribe of pious men. As the topstone of misfortune, the fugitive king, hidden behind the Euphrates, will draw his great sword and will recross the Euphrates with myriads of men.
It will be remarked how immediately this work follows the Apocalypse of St John. Taking up the
When piety, faith, and justice shall have entirely disappeared, when no one will care for pious men, when all will seek to kill them, taking pleasure in insulting them, plunging their hands in their blood, then will be seen an end to the Divine patience; trembling with wrath, God will annihilate the human race with fire.
Ah! wretched mortals! change your conduct; do not force the great God to the last outbreak of his wrath; leaving your swords, your quarrels, your murders, your violence, wash your whole bodies in running water, and, lifting up your hands to Heaven, ask pardon for your sins that are past, and with your prayers heal yourselves of your dreadful impieties. Then will God repent him of his threat, and will not destroy you. His wrath shall be appeased if you cultivate this precious piety in your hearts. But if you persist in your evil mind; if you do not obey me, and if, nursing your madness, you receive these warnings ill, fire shall spread itself upon the earth, and these shall be the signs of it. At the rising of the sun there shall be sounds in the heavens and the noise of trumpets; the whole earth shall hear bellowings and a terrible uproar. Fire shall burn the earth; the whole race of man shall perish, and the world shall be reduced to small dust.
When all shall be in ashes, and God shall have put out the great
fire which he had kindled, then shall the Almighty restore form to the dust and
bones of men, and restore man as he was before. Then shall cone the Judgment, when
God himself shall judge the world. Those who remain hardened in their
Was the author of this poem a Christian? He certainly was one at heart, but he was one also by his style. The critics who see in this fragment the work of a disciple of Jesus, support their view principally upon the invitation to the Gentiles to be converted and to wash their whole bodies in the rivers. But baptism was not an exclusively Christian rite. There were by the side of Christianity sects of Baptists, of Hemero-Baptists, with whom the Sibylline verse would agree better, since Christian baptism can be administered but once, whilst the baptism mentioned in the poem would seem to have been like the prayer which accompanied it, a pious practice for the washing away of sin, a sacrament which might be renewed, and which the penitent administered to himself. What would be altogether inconceivable is that in a Christian apocalypse of nearly two hundred verses written at the beginning of the age of Domitian there was not a single word about the resurrection of Jesus or of the coming of the Son of Man in the clouds to judge the quick and the dead. If we add to that the employment of mythological expressions, of which there is no example in the first century, an artificial style which is a pasticcio of the old Homeric style which takes for granted a study of the profane poets and a long stay in the schools of the grammarians of Alexandria, our case is complete.
The Sibylline literature appears then to have originated amongst
the Essenian or Therapeutic communities; now the Therapeutists, the Essenians, the Baptists, the
The book numbered fourth in the Sibylline collection is not the only one of its class which the period of Domitian may have produced. The fragment which serves as the preface to the entire collection, and which has been preserved for us by Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch (end of second century), greatly resembles the fourth book, and ends in the same way: “A torrent of fire will fall upon you; burning torches will scorch you through all eternity; but those who have worshipped the true and infinite God, shall inherit life for ever, dwelling in the free and laughing garden of Paradise, and eating the sweet bread which shall fall from the starry skies.” This fragment appears at first sight to present in some expressions indications of Christianity, but expressions altogether analogous may be found in Philo. The nascent Christianity had outside the divine aspect lent to it by the person of Jesus so few features specially proper to it, that the rigid distinction between what is Christian and what is not, becomes at times extremely delicate.
A characteristic detail of the Sibylline Apocalypses
Ananias, Avilius, Cerdon, Primus, who are described as the successors
of St Mark, were without doubt old presbyters whose names had been preserved and
of whom bishops were made when the divine origin of the episcopate was recognised,
and when every see was expected to show an unbroken succession of presidents up
to the apostolic personage who was accredited with its foundation. Whatever it
may have been, the Church of Alexandria appears to have been from the first of a
very isolated character. It was exceedingly anti-Jewish; it is from its bosom that
we shall see emerge, in the course of the next fourteen or fifteen years, the most
energetic manifesto of separation between Judaism and Christianity, the treatise
known by the name of “the Epistle of Barnabas.” It
The defects and omissions in the Gospel of Mark became every day more obnoxious. Those who knew the beautiful addresses of Jesus as they appeared in the Syro-Chaldaic Scriptures, regretted the dryness of the narrative based on the tradition of Peter. Not only did the most beautiful of his preachings appear in a truncated form, but parts of the life of Jesus, which had come to be recognised as essential, were altogether omitted. Peter, faithful to the old ideas of the first Christian century, attached little importance to the story of the childhood and to the genealogies. Now it was especially with respect to those things that the Christian imagination laboured. A crowd of new narratives sprang up; a complete Gospel was demanded, which to all that Mark embodied should be added all that the best traditionists of the East knew, or believed they knew.
Such was the origin of our text “according to Matthew.” The author
has taken as the foundation
The fashion in which the author managed the intercalation of
the great discourses of Jesus is singular. Whether he takes them from the collections
of sentences which may have existed at a certain period of the
The insertion of traditions unknown to the old Mark is done by
the pseudo-Matthew by yet more violent processes. In possession of some accounts
of miracles or of healings of which he does not perceive the identity with those
which are already told by Mark, the author prefers telling the story twice over,
to omitting any particular. He desires, before all things, to be complete, and he
does not disquiet himself lest he should stumble in thus arranging portions of various
In this way a crowd of legends were introduced into the Gospel
text which are wanting in Mark—the genealogy; the supernatural birth; the visit
of the Magi; the flight into Egypt; the massacre of Bethlehem; Peter walking upon
the water; the prerogatives of Peter; the miracle of the money found in the fish’s
mouth; the eunuchs of the kingdom of God; the emotion of Jerusalem at the entrance
of Jesus; the Jerusalem miracles and the triumph of the children
A sort of competition in the use of the marvellous; the taste for more and more startling miracles; a tendency to present the Church as already organised and disciplined from the days of Jesus; an ever-increasing repulsion for the Jews, dictated the majority of these additions to the primitive narrative. As has already been said, there are moments in the growth of a dogma when days are worth centuries. A week after his death, Jesus was the hero of a vast legend of his life, the majority of the details to which we have just referred were already written in advance.
One of the great factors in the creation of the Jewish Agada are the analogies drawn from Biblical texts. These things serve to fill up a host of gaps in the souvenirs. The most contradictory reports were current, for example, about the death of Judas. One version soon prevailed: Achitophel, the betrayer of David, served as his prototype. It was admitted that Judas hanged himself as he did. A passage of Zechariah furnished the thirty pieces of silver, the fact of his having cast them down in the Temple, as well as the potter’s field—nothing is wanting to the story.
The apologetic intention was another fertile source of anecdotes
and intercalations. Already objections
The birth of Jesus and his resurrection were the cause of endless
objections from low minds and ill-prepared hearts. The resurrection no one had seen;
the Jews declared that the friends of Jesus had carried his corpse away into Galilee.
It was answered by the fable of the guardians to whom the Jews had given money to
say that the disciples had carried away the body. As to the birth, two contradictory
currents of opinion may be traced; but as both responded to the needs of the Christian
conscience, they were reconciled as well as they might be. On the one hand, it was
necessary that Jesus should be the descendant of David; on the other, he might not
be conceived under the ordinary conditions of humanity. It was not natural that
he who had never lived as other men lived should be born as other men were born.
The descent from David was established by a genealogy which showed Joseph as of
the stock of David. That was scarcely satisfactory, in view of the hypothesis of
the supernatural conception, according to which Joseph and his supposed ancestors had nothing to do
The genealogy which we read in the Gospel ascribed to Matthew
is certainly not the work of the author of that Gospel. He has taken it from some
previous document. Was it in the Gospel of the Hebrews itself? It is doubtful.
A large proportion of the Hebrews of Syria kept always a text in which such genealogies
did not figure; but also certain Nazarene manuscripts of very ancient date presented
by way of preface a sepher toledoth. The turn of the genealogy of Matthew is Hebrew; the transcriptions of the proper names are not those of the Septuagint. We have
seen, besides, that the genealogies were probably the work of the kinsmen of Jesus,
retired to Batanea and speaking Hebrew. What is certain is that the work of the
genealogies was not executed with much unity or much authority, for two altogether
discordant systems of connecting Joseph with the last known persons of the line
of David have come down to us.
For the rest, the supernatural connexion gained every day so much
in importance, that the question of the father and of the ancestors of Jesus after
the flesh, became in some sort a secondary matter. It was believed to have been
prophesied by Isaiah in a passage which is ill-rendered in the Septuagint, that
Christ should be born of a Virgin. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, had done
all. Joseph in reality appears to have been an old man when Jesus was born. Mary,
who appears to have been his second wife, might be very young. This contrast rendered
the idea of the miracle easy. Certainly the legend would not have come into existence
without that; as, moreover, the myth was elaborated in the midst
The stories of the childhood, ignored by Mark, are confined by
Matthew to the episode of the magi, linked with the persecution by Herod, and the
Massacre of the Innocents. All this development appears to be of Syrian origin;
the odious part which Herod plays, was, without doubt, the invention of the family
of Jesus, refugees in Batanea. The little group appears, in a word, to have been
a source of hateful calumnies against Herod. The fable about the infamous origin
of his father, contradicted by Josephus and Nicholas of Damascus, appears to have
come from thence. Herod became the scapegoat of all Christian grievances. As for
the dangers with which the childhood of Jesus is supposed to have been
Mark, in his singularly naïve narrative, has eccentricities,
rudenesses, passages not very easy of explanation and open to much objection. Matthew
proceeds by retouchings and extenuations of detail. Compare, for example,
The two lively sallies of Mark are thus effaced; the lines of
the new Gospel are larger, more correct, more ideal. The marvellous features are
multiplied, but we should say that there is an attempt to make the marvellous more
credible. Miracles are less clumsily told; certain prolixities are omitted. Thaumaturgic
materialism, the use of natural means to produce miracles —characteristic features
of Mark’s narrative—have almost wholly disappeared in Matthew. Compared with the
Gospel of Mark, that attributed to Matthew presents corrections of taste and tact.
Various inaccuracies are rectified; details æsthetically weak or inexplicable
are suppressed or cleared up. Mark has often been considered as the abbreviator
of Matthew. The very reverse is the truth; only the addition of the discourses
has the effect of extending the abridgment considerably beyond the limits of the
original. When we compare the accounts of the demoniac of the Gergesenes, the paralytic of Capernaum, the daughter
It is especially with regard to poverty that we discover in the text of Matthew precautions and uneasiness. Jesus had boldly placed poverty at the head of the heavenly beatitudes. “Blessed are ye poor,” was probably the first word which came out of the Divine mouth, when he began to speak with authority. The majority of the sentences of Jesus (as happens always when we wish to give a living form to thought) lent themselves to misunderstanding; the pure Ebionites drew from them subversive consequences. The editor of our Gospel adds a word to prevent certain excesses. The poor in the ordinary sense become the “poor in spirit”—that is to say, pious Israelites who play a humble part in the world, which contrasts with the haughty air of the great men of the day. In another beatitude, those who are hungry become those who “hunger and thirst after righteousness.”
The progress of thought is then very visible in Matthew; we catch
glimpses in him of a crowd of after thoughts, the intention of parrying certain
objections; an exaggeration of the symbolical pretensions. The story of the Temptation
in the Wilderness has developed itself and has changed its character; the passion
is enriched with some beautiful details; Jesus speaks of his “Church” as of a body
already constituted and founded under the primacy of Peter. The formula of baptism
is enlarged, and comprehends, under a form sufficiently syncretic, the three sacramental
words of the theology of the time, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
What is chiefly remarkable in the new Gospel is an immense literary progress. The general effect is that of a fairy palace constructed wholly of luminous stones. An exquisite vagueness in the transitions and the chronological relations gives to this divine composition the light attractiveness of a child’s story. “At that hour,” “at that time,” “that day,” “it happened that,” and a crowd of other formulæ which look precise, but which are nothing of the kind, hold the narrative as it were in suspense between earth and heaven. Thanks to the uncertainty of the time, the Gospel story only touches the reality. An airy genius whom one touches, one embraces, but who never strikes against the pebbles in the road, speaks to us and enchants us. We do not stop to ask if he is certain of what he tells us. He doubts nothing, and he knows nothing. There is an analogous charm in the affirmation of a woman who subjugates us while she makes us smile. It is in literature what a picture of a child by Correggio or a Virgin of sixteen by Raphael is in art.
The language is of the same character and perfectly appropriate to the subject. By a veritable tour de force the clear and childlike method of the Hebrew narrative, the fine and exquisite stamp of the Hebrew proverbs, have been translated into a Hellenic dialect, correct enough as far as grammatical forms are concerned, but in which the old learned syntax is completely cast aside. It has been remarked that the Gospels were the first books written in the Greek of everyday life. The Greek of antiquity is there, in effect, modified in the analytical sense of modern languages. The Hellenist cannot but admit that the language is commonplace and weak; he is certain that from the classical point of view the Gospel has neither style, nor plan, nor beauty; but it is the masterpiece of popular literature, and in one sense the most ancient popular book that has been written. That half-articulate language has the additional advantage of preserving its character in different versions, so that for such writings the translation is as valuable as the original.
This simplicity of form ought to give rise to no illusion. The
word “truth” has not the same significance for the Oriental as for ourselves.
The Oriental tells with a bewitching candour and with the accent of a witness, a
crowd of things which he has not seen and about which he is by no means certain.
The fantastic tales of the Exodus from Egypt, which are told in Jewish families
during the Feast of the Passover, deceive nobody, yet none the less they enchant
those who listen to them. Every year the scenic representations by which they commemorate
the martyrdom of the sons of Ali in Persia, are enriched with some new invention
designed to render the victims more interesting and their murderers more hateful.
There is more passion in these episodes than anyone might think possible. It is
the especial quality of the Oriental agada to touch most profoundly those who
The especial quality of a literature of logia, of hadith, is to
go on increasing. After the death of Mohammed the number of words which “the people
of the Bench” attributed to him was not to be counted. It was the same with Jesus.
To the charming apologues which he had really pronounced, others were added conceived
in the same style, which it is very difficult to distinguish from the genuine. The
ideas of the time expressed themselves especially in those seven admirable parables
of the kingdom of God, where all the innocent rivalries of the golden age of Christianity
have left their traces. Some persons were aggrieved by the low rank of those who
entered the Church; the doors of the churches of St Paul opening with both leaves,
appeared to them a scandal; they wanted a selection, a preliminary examination,
a censorship. The Shamaites in like manner desired that no man should be admitted
to Jewish teaching unless he were intelligent, modest, of good family, and rich.
To these exigent persons an answer was given in the shape of a parable of a man
who prepared a dinner, and who, in the absence of the regularly invited guests,
invited the lame, the vagabonds, and the beggars; or of a fisherman whose net gathered
of every kind, both bad and good, the choice being made afterwards. The eminent
place which Paul, once one of the enemies of Jesus, one of the last comers to the
Gospel work, occupied amongst the faithful of these early days, excited murmurs.
This was the occasion of the workers who were engaged at the eleventh hour, and
were rewarded equally with those who had borne the burden and heat of the day. A statement of
The parable of the tares also signifies in its way the mixed composition of the kingdom, wherein Satan himself has sometimes power to cast in a few grains. The mustard seed expresses its future greatness; the leaven its fermentative force; the hidden treasure and the pearl of great price; the thread, its success, mixed with perils in the future. “The first shall be last,” “many are called but few chosen,” such were the maxims which they especially loved to repeat. The expectation of Jesus above all inspired living and strong comparisons. The image of the thief in the night, the lightning which shines from the east to the west, of the fig tree whose young shoots announce the approach of summer, filled all minds. They repeated the charming fable of the wise and the foolish virgins, masterpieces of simplicity, of art, of wit, of subtlety. Both awaited the bridegroom, but as he was long in coming, they all slumbered. Then in the middle of the night was heard the cry, “Behold him! Behold him:” The wise virgins, who had carried oil in their flasks, soon lighted their lamps, but the foolish were confounded. There was no place for them at the banquet.
We do not say that these exquisite fragments are not the work of Jesus. The great difficulty of a history
The Apostolic instructions, such as our Gospel presents them,
appear in some respects to proceed from the ideal of the Apostle formed upon the
model of Paul. The impression left by the life of the great missionary had been
profound. Many apostles had already suffered martyrdom for having carried to the
people the appeals of Jesus. The Christian preacher was imagined as appearing before
kings, before the highest tribunals, and proclaiming Christ. The first principle
of this apostolic eloquence was not to prepare
The author of the Gospel according to Matthew takes no decisive
aide in the great questions which divided the Church. He is neither an exclusive
Jew after the manner of James, nor a lax Jew after the fashion of Paul. He feels
the necessity for attaching the Church to Peter, and insists upon the prerogative
of this last. On the other hand, he allows certain shades of ill will to appear
against the family of Jesus and against the first Christian generation. He suppresses,
in particular, in the list of the appearances of
The Gospel of St Matthew, like almost all fine compositions,
was the work of a conscience in some sort double. The author is at once Jew and
Christian; the new faith has not killed the old, nor has it taken
In this lay one of his strong points. The supreme ability in the
work of conciliation is to deny and affirm at the same moment, to practise the Ama
tanquam osurus of the sage of antiquity. Paul suppresses all Judaism, and even
all religion, to replace everything by Jesus. The Gospels hesitate, and remain in
a much more delicate half-light? Does the Law still exist? Yes, and no. Jesus
fulfilled it and destroyed it. The Sabbath? He suppressed and maintained it. The
Jewish ceremonies? He observes them, and will not allow of their being held to.
Every religious reformer has to observe this rule; men are not discharged from
a burden impossible to be borne, except he takes it for himself without reserve
or softening. The contraction was everywhere. When the Talmud has quoted on the same line opinions which exclude each other
Such a state of mind, to say the truth, agreed only with a single kind of hatred—the hatred of the Pharisee, the official Jew. The Pharisee, or, more properly, the hypocrite (for the word was now used in an abusive sense, just as with us the name of Jesuit is applied to a host of people who form no part of the society founded by Loyola), had to appear especially guilty, opposed in everything to Jesus. Our Gospel groups into a single invective, full of virulence, all the discourses which Jesus pronounced at various times against the Pharisees. The author undoubtedly took this fragment from some previous collection which had not the ordinary form. Jesus is there accredited with having made numerous journeys to Jerusalem; the punishment of the Pharisees is predicted in a vague fashion, which carries us back to the date before the revolution in Judea.
From all this results a Gospel infinitely superior in beauty to
that of Mark, but of a much smaller historical value. Mark remains, as far as facts
are concerned, the only authentic record of the life of Jesus. The narratives which
the pseudo-Matthew adds to those of Mark are only legends; the modifications which he applies to the tales of Mark are only
This was more important than biographical exactitude, and the
Gospel of Matthew, all things considered, is the most important book of Christianity—the
most important book that has ever been written. It was not without reason that in
the classification of the writings of the new Bible it received the first place.
The biography of a great man is a part of his work. St Louis would not be what he
is in the conscience of humanity, without Joinville. The life of Spinoza, by Colerus,
is the finest of Spinoza’s works. Epictetus owes almost as much to Arrian, Socrates
to Plato and to Xenophon. Jesus in the same way is in part made by the Gospel. In
this sense, the compilation of the Gospels is, next to the personal action of Jesus,
the leading fact of the history of the origins of Christianity; I will even add
of the history of humanity. The habitual reading of the world is a book where the
priest is always in fault, where respectable people are always hypocrites, where
the lay authorities are always scoundrels, and where all the rich are damned. This
book—the most revolutionary and dangerous ever written—the Roman Church has prudently
put aside; but it has not been able to prevent it from bearing fruit. Malevolent
towards the priesthood, contemptuous of austerity, indulgent towards the loose
liver of good heart, the Gospels have been the perpetual nightmare of the hypocrite. The man of the Gospel has
Where was the Gospel of St Matthew written? Everything appears to indicate that it was in Syria, for a Jewish circle which knew scarcely anything but Greek, but which had some idea of Hebrew. The author makes use of the original Gospels written in Hebrew; yet it is doubtful whether the original Hebrew of the Gospel texts ever went out of Syria. In five or six cases, Mark had preserved little Aramaic phrases uttered by Jesus; the pseudo-Matthew effaces all of them with but one exception. The character of the traditions proper to our evangelist is exclusively Galilean. According to him, all the appearances of Jesus after the Resurrection took place in Galilee. His first readers appear to have been Syrians. He gives none of those explanations of customs and those topographical notes which are to be found in Mark. On the contrary, there are details which, meaningless at Rome, were interesting in the East. A Greek Gospel appeared a precious thing; but the gaps in that of Mark were striking, and they were filled up. The Gospel which resulted from these additions came in time to Rome. Hence the explanation of Luke’s ignorance of it in that city about 95.
Hence, also, the explanation of the reasons why to exalt the new
work and to oppose to the name of Mark that of a superior authority, the text was
attributed to the Apostle Matthew. Matthew was a Judeo-Christian apostle, living
an ascetic life like that of James, abstaining from flesh, and living only upon
vegetables and the shoots of trees. Perhaps his former occupation
What is certain, in any case, is that the work attributed to Matthew had not the authority which its title would lead one to suppose, and was not accepted as final. There have been many similar attempts which are no longer in existence. The mere name of an apostle was not enough to recommend a work of this kind. Luke, who was not an apostle, and whom we shall soon see resuming the attempt at a Gospel embodying and superseding the others, was, in all probability, ignorant of the existence of that said to be according to Matthew.
The fatal law of Cæsarism fulfilled itself. The legitimate king improves as his reign grows older: the Cæsar begins well, and finishes ill. Every year was marked in Domitian by the progress of evil passions. The man had always been perverse. His ingratitude towards his father and his eldest brother was something abominable, but his first government was not that of a bad sovereign. It was only by degrees that the sombre jealousy of all merit, the refined perfidy, the black malice which were ingrained in his nature, disclosed themselves. Tiberius had been very cruel, but this was through a sort of philosophic rage against humanity which was not without its grandeur, and which did not prevent him from being in some respects the most intelligent man of his time. Caligula was a melancholy buffoon, at once grotesque and terrible, but amusing, and not very dangerous to those who did not approach him. Under the reign of that incarnation of satanic irony who called himself Nero, a sort of stupor held the world in suspense; people had the consciousness of assisting at an unprecedented crisis, at the definitive struggle between good and evil. After his death there was a breathing space; evil appeared to be chained up; the perversity of the century seemed to be softened. It is easy to imagine the horror which seized on all honest minds when they saw “the Beast” revived; when they recognised that the abnegation of all the honourable men in the Empire had served only to hand over the world to a sovereign much more worthy of execration than the monsters whom they believed relegated to the souvenirs of the past.
Domitian was probably the wickedest man who over lived. Commodus is more odious, for he was the son of an admirable father; but Commodus is a sort of brute; Domitian is a man of strong sense, and of a calculating wickedness. He had not the excuse of madness; his head was perfectly sound, cold, and clear. He was a serious and logical politician. He had no imagination, and if at a certain period of his life he dabbled somewhat in literature, and made fairly good verses, it was out of affectation, and in order to appear a stranger to business; soon he renounced it and thought no more of it. He did not love the arts; music found him and left him indifferent; his melancholy temperament rejoiced only in solitude. He was seen walking alone for hours; his followers were then sure to see the breaking out of some perverse scheme. Cruel without disguise, he smiled almost in the act of murder. His base extraction constantly reappeared. The Cæsars of the House of Augustus, prodigal and greedy of glory, are bad, often absurd, rarely vulgar. Domitian is the tradesman of crime: he makes a profit of it. Not rich, he makes money everywhere, and pushes taxation to its last limits. His sinister face never knew the mad laugh of Caligula. Nero, a very literary tyrant, always engaged in making the world love and admire him, heard raillery and provoked it. Domitian had nothing burlesque about him. He did not lend himself to ridicule; he was too tragic. His manners were no better than those of the son of Agrippina, but to infamy he joined a sly egotism, a hypocritical affectation of severity, the air of a rigid censor (sanctissimus censor)—all which things were only pretexts for destroying the innocent. The tone of austere virtue which his flatterers assume is nauseous in the extreme. Martial, Statius, Quintilian, when they wished to give him the title which he coveted the most, bestowed on him that of Saviour of the gods, and Restorer of morals.
Nero’s vanity was not less than that which impelled him to so many pitiable freaks, and it was much less innocent. His false triumphs, his pretended victories, his monuments full of lying adulation, his accumulated consulates, were something sickening, much more irritating than the eighteen hundred crowns of Nero.
The other tyrannies which had afflicted Rome were much less wise.
His was administrative, meticulous, organised. The tyrant himself played the part
of chief of the police and prosecuting counsel. It was a juridical reign of terror.
The proceedings were conducted with the burlesque legality of the Revolutionary
Tribunal. Flavius Sabinus, cousin of the Emperor, was put to death because of a
mistake of the crier who had proclaimed him Emperor instead of Consul; a Greek historian,
for certain images which appeared obscure: all the copyists were crucified. A distinguished
Roman was killed because he loved to recite the harangues of Livy, possessed certain
maps, and had given to two slaves the names of Mago and of Hannibal; a highly-esteemed
soldier, Sallustius Lucullus, perished for having suffered his name to be given
to some lances of a new model which he had invented. Never had the trade of informer
thriven so greatly; tempters and spies abounded everywhere. The mad faith of the
Emperor in astrologers doubled the danger. The instruments of Caligula and Nero
had been vile Orientals, strangers to Roman society, and satisfied when they were
rich. The informers of Domitian—men like Tonquier Tinville, sinister and ghostly—struck
a sure blow. The Emperor concerted with the accusers and the false witnesses what
they were to say; he then was himself present at the tortures, diverting himself
with the pallor painted in all faces, and appearing to count the groans extorted
by suffering. Nero spared himself the sight of the crimes he commanded; Domitian insisted on seeing
The silence during this time was frightful. The Senate passed some years in a mournful stupor. What was most terrible was that there seemed to be no way out. The Emperor was thirty-six. The feverish outburst of evil which had been observed up to that time had been short; it was felt that they were crises and that they could not last. This time there was no reason for their coming to an end. The army was content; the people were indifferent. Domitian, it is true, never attained the popularity of Nero; and in the year 88 an impostor thought he saw a chance of dethroning him, by presenting himself as the adored master who had given the people such days of enjoyment. Nevertheless, too much had not been lost. The spectacles were as monstrous as they had ever been. The Flavian amphitheatre (the Coliseum) inaugurated under Titus, had even made progress in the ignoble art of amusing the people. No danger then on that side. He, however, read only the Memoirs of Tiberius. He despised the familiarity which his father Vespasian had encouraged; he treated as childishness the good nature of his brother Titus, and the delusion of governing humanity by making himself beloved, under which he laboured. He pretended to know better than anybody the requirements of a power without constitution, obliged to defend itself, to refound itself every day.
It was felt, in short, that there was a political reason for these
horrors, which was not the mere caprice of a lunatic. The hideous image of the new sovereignty
It was principally upon his own house that his fury was spent. Almost all his cousins or nephews perished. Everything that recalled Titus to him exasperated him. That singular family which had none of the prejudice, aristocratic coolness, profound scepticism of the high Roman aristocracy, offered strange contrasts. Frightful tragedies were played in it. What a fate, for example, was that of Julia Sabina, the daughter of Titus, sinking from crime to crime, until she finished, like the heroine of a vulgar romance, in the anguish of an abortion. So much perversity provoked strange reactions. The tender and sentimental parts of the nature of Titus reappeared amongst some members of the family, especially in the branch of Flavius Sabinus, the brother of Vespasian. Flavius Sabinus, who was long Prefect of Rome, and particularly in 64, might already know the Christians; he was a gentle, humane man, and one who was already reproached with “poor spiritedness.” For Roman ferocity such a word was equivalent to humanity. The numerous Jews who were familiar with the Flavian family, found, especially on this side, an audience already prepared and attentive.
It is, in short, not to be denied that Christian or Judeo-Christian
ideas penetrated the Imperial family, especially in its collateral branch. Flavius
Clemens, son of Flavius Sabinus, and consequently cousin-german to Domitian, had
married Flavia Domitilla, his second cousin, daughter of another Flavia Domitilla,
herself the daughter of Vespasian, who had died before the accession of her father
to the Empire. By means which are unknown to us, but probably arising out of
If the family of Clemens were Christians, it must be owned that
they were Christians of a very undecided kind. What the public saw of the conversion
of these two illustrious personages was a very small matter. The distracted world
which surrounded them could not well say whether they were Jews or Christians. Changes
of this kind are recognised only by two symptoms, first, an ill-concealed aversion
from the national religion, an estrangement from all apparent rites, on the part
of those who are supposed to hold to the secret worship of an intangible, unnameable
God; in the second place, an apparent indolence, a total abandonment of the duties
and honours of civic life inseparable from idolatry. A taste for solitude, a search
after a peaceable and retired life, an aversion for the theatres, for the shows
and for the cruel scenes which Roman life offered at every step, fraternal relations
with persons of humble station, by no means inclined to the military life (for which
the Romans despised them), indifference to public business, as frivolous matters
to those who looked for the speedy coming of Christ, meditative habits, a spirit
of detachment—all this the Romans described by the single word ignavia. According
to the ideas of the time, everyone ought to have as much ambition as comported with his birth and fortune. The man of high
Clemens and Domitilla were not, moreover, the only ones whom the
blast of the reign of Domitian inclined towards Christianity. The terror and the
sadness of the times crushed souls. Many persons of the Roman aristocracy lent an
ear to teaching, and which, in the midst of the night through which they were passing,
showed the pure heaven of an ideal kingdom. The world was so dark, so wicked! Never,
besides, had the Jewish propaganda been so active. Perhaps we must refer to the
time of the conversion of a Roman lady, Veturia Paulla, who, being converted at
the age of 70, took the name of Sara, and was mother of the synagogues of the Campus
Martius and of Volumnus, for sixteen years longer. A great part of the movement
in these immense suburbs of Rome, where seethed an immense population, far greater
in number than the aristocratic society enclosed in the circuit of Servius Tullius,
came from the sons of Israel. Confined to a spot near the Capenian Gate by the
side of the unwholesome stream of the fountain of Egeria, they lived there, begging,
carrying on disreputable trades, the art of the gipsies, telling fortunes, levying
contributions on visitors to the wood of Egeria, which they rented. The impression
produced upon the public mind by that strange race was more lively than ever. “He
to whom fate has given for father an observer of the Sabbath, not contented with
adoring the God of heaven, and with putting on the same level the flesh of pigs
and the flesh of human beings, soon hurries to get rid of his foreskin. Accustomed
to despise the Roman law, he studies and observes, with trembling,
Saturday, in fact, notwithstanding all the bad temper of the true Romans, was not in Rome in the least like other days. The world of little tradesmen who on other days filled the public places, seemed to have sunk into the earth. That irregularity, yet more than their easily recognisable type, drew attention, and made those eccentric foreigners the object of the gossip of the idle.
The Jews suffered like the rest of the world from the hardness
of the times. The greed of Domitian made all taxation excessive, especially the
poll tax, called the fiscus Judaïcus, to which the Jews were subject. Until this
time the tribute was exacted only from those who avowed themselves to be Jews. Many
disguised their origin and did not pay. To prevent that tolerance, the truth was
sought in the most odious way. Suetonius remembers having seen in his youth an old
man of ninety stripped before a numerous audience to see if he were not circumcised.
These rigours brought about, as a consequence, the practice, in a great number of
instances, of the operation of blistering; the number of recutiti at this date is
very considerable. Such inquiries, on the other hand, brought the Roman authorities
to a discovery which astonished them: it was that there were people who were living
the Jewish life in all ways who were not circumcised. The treasury decided that
that class of persons, the improfessi, as they were called, should pay the poll-tax
like the circumcised. “The Jewish life,” and not the circumcision, was thus taxed, and the
The vexations introduced by Domitian contributed greatly to deprive Christianity of its previously undecided character. By the side of the severe orthodoxy of the Jewish doctors, and afterwards of those of Jabneh, there had been until that time in Judaism schools analogous to Christianity, without being identical with it. Apollos, in the bosom of the Church, was an example of those inquiring Jews who tried many sects without adhering resolutely to any one. Josephus when he wrote for the Romans, reduced his Judaism to a kind of Deism, owning that circumcision and the Jewish practices were good for Jews by race, whilst the true worship is that which each adopts in full liberty. Was Flavius Clemens a Christian in the strict sense of the word? It may be doubted if he were. He loved the Jewish life, he practised Jewish customs, and it was that fact which struck his contemporaries. He went no further, and perhaps he himself would have been puzzled to say to what class of Jews he belonged. The matter was not cleared up when the treasury took it in hand. The circumcision received on that day a fatal blow. The greed of Domitian extended the tax on the Jews, the fiscus Judaïcus, who without being Jews by race, and without being circumcised, practised Jewish customs. Then the categories were marked out: there was the pure Jew, whose quality was established by physical inquiry, and the quasi-Jew, the improfessus, who took nothing from Judaism besides its honest morality and its purified worship.
The penalties ordained by a special law against the circumcision of non-Jews contributed to the same result. The precise date of that law is unknown, but it certainly appears to be of the period of Flavius. Every Roman citizen who allowed himself to be circumcised was punished with perpetual exile, and the loss of all his goods. A master rendered himself liable to the same penalty if he permitted his slaves to submit to the operation; the doctor who performed it was punished with death. The Jews who circumcised their slaves were equally liable to death. That was thoroughly conformable to the Roman policy,—tolerant towards foreign religions when they kept themselves within the limits of their own nationalities; severe when those religions entered upon the work of the propaganda. But it is easy to understand how decisive such measures were in the struggle between the circumcised Jews and the uncircumcised or improfessi. These last alone could carry on a serious proselytism. By the law of the Empire, the circumcision was condemned to go no further than the narrow limits of the house of Israel.
Agrippa II., and probably Berenice, died about this time. Their
death was an immense loss to the Jewish colony, which these exalted personages covered
by their credit with Flavius. Josephus, in the midst of this ardent struggle, doubled
his activity. He had the superficial facility characteristic of the Jew transported
into a civilisation which is foreign to him, of placing himself with marvellous
quickness abreast of the ideas in the midst of which he finds himself thrown, and
of seeing in what way he can profit by them. Domitian protected him, but was probably
indifferent to his writings. The Empress Domitia heaped favours on him. He was,
besides, the client of a certain Epaphroditus, a considerable personage, supposed
to be identical with the Epaphroditus of Nero, whom Domitian had taken into his service. This Epaphroditus was a man
Josephus added to this curious work, in the form of an appendix,
an autobiography, or rather an apology for his own conduct. His ancient enemies
of Galilee who, rightly or wrongly, called him a traitor, were still alive and left
him no repose. Justus of Tiberius, writing, from his point of view, the history
of the catastrophe of his country, accused him of falsehood, and presented his conduct in Galilee in the most odious
The fecundity of Josephus was inexhaustible. As many persons raised
doubts as to what he said in his “Antiquities,” and objected that if the Jewish
nation had been as ancient as he represented, the Greek historians would have spoken
of it, he undertook on this subject a justificatory memoir, which may be regarded
as the first monument of the Jewish and Christian apology. Already towards the middle
of the second century B.C. Aristobalus, the Jewish peripatician, had maintained
that the Greek poets and philosophers had known the Hebrew writings, and had borrowed
from them all those parts of their writings which have a monotheistic appearance.
To prove his theory, he forged without scruple passages from profane authors—Homer,
Hesiod, Linus—which he pretended were borrowed from the Bible. Josephus took up
the task with more honesty, but as little critical ability. It was necessary to
refute the learned men who, like Lysimachus of Alexandria, Apollonius Molon (about
a hundred years B.C.), expressed themselves unfavourably with regard to the Jews.
It was especially necessary to destroy the authority of the Egyptian scholar Apion,
who fifty years before had, it may be in his history of Egypt, or else in a distinct
work, exhibited an immense amount of learning in disputing the antiquity of the
Jewish religion. In the eyes of an Egyptian, or of a Greek, that was quite sufficient to deprive it of all nobility. Apion
The science of Apion was that of a vain and frivolous pedant; but that which Josephus opposed to it was scarcely better. Greek erudition was for him an improvised speciality, since his early education had been Jewish, and altogether confined to the law. His book is not, and could not be, anything but a pleading without criticism; one feels in every page the presence of the advocate who cuts his arrow in any wood. Josephus does not manufacture his texts, but he takes anything that comes; the false historians, the garbled classics of the Alexandrian school; the valueless documents accumulated in the book “on the Jews” which circulated under the name of Alexander Polyhiston, all are greedily accepted by him; through him that suspected literature of the Eupolemes, the Cleodemes, the so-called Hecatea of Abvera, Demetrius of Phalera, etc., makes its entrance into science, and troubles it seriously. The apologists, and the Christian historians—Justin, Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, Moses of Khorone—followed him in this bad path. The public to whom Josephus addressed himself was superficial in point of erudition; it was easily contented; the rational culture of the time of the Cæsars had disappeared; the human mind was rapidly lowering its standard, and offered to all charlatanisms an easy prey.
Such was the literature of the cultivated and liberal Jews grouped
around the principal representatives of a dynasty liberal in itself and in its origin,
but for the moment devoured by a madman. Josephus formed endless projects of work.
He was fifty-six. With his style, artificial and chequered with a patchwork heterogeneous of rags, he seriously thought himself a
One of these ideas, to which Christians held most strongly, was
that Jesus had predicted the ruin of the rebellious city. What could more strongly
prove the literal accomplishment of that prophecy than the history, told by a Jew,
of the unheard-of atrocities which accompanied the destruction of the Temple? Josephus
became thus a fundamental witness and a supplement to the Bible. He was read and
copied assiduously by Christians. He made of it, if I may so say, a Christian
The reduced circle of aristocratic proselytes of a mediocre literary
taste, for whom Josephus composed his book, were doubtless entirely satisfied with
it. The difficulties of the old texts were ably disguised. Jewish history became
as attractive as Greek, sown with harangues conducted according to the rules of
profane rhetoric. Thanks to a charlatanesque display of erudition, and to a choice
of doubtful or slightly falsified situations, there was an answer to all objectors.
A discreet rationalism threw a veil over the too naive wonders of the ancient Hebrew
books; after having read the accounts of the greatest miracles, you might believe
them or not at will. For non-Jews never an insulting word; provided one is willing
to recognise the historic nobility of the race, Josephus is satisfied. On every
page a gentle philosophy, sympathetic with all virtue, treating the ritual precepts
of the Law as binding upon Jews only, and proclaiming aloud that every just man
has the essential qualities necessary for becoming a son of Abraham. A simple metaphysical
and rationalistic Deism, a purely natural morality, replaces the sombre theology of
As we have already several times had occasion to remark, the Gospel
writings at the period at which we have arrived, were numerous. The majority of
those writings did not bear the names of Apostles; they were second-hand attempts
founded upon oral tradition, which they did not pretend to exhaust. The Gospel
of Matthew alone presented itself as having the privilege of an apostolic origin; but that Gospel was not widely diffused; written for the Jews of Syria, it had
not yet, to all appearance, penetrated to Rome. It was under these conditions that
one of the most conspicuous members of the Church at Rome undertook—“himself also”
(
Nor does the date appear involved in much uncertainty. All the world admits that the book is of later date than the year 70; but, on the other hand, it cannot be very much later. If it were, the predictions of the immediate appearance of Christ in the clouds, which the author copies without flinching from the oldest documents, would be sheer nonsense. The author throws back the year of the return of Jesus to an indeterminate future; “the end” is postponed as far as possible, but the connection between the catastrophe of Judea and the destruction of the world is maintained. The author preserves also the assertion of Jesus, according to which the generation which listened to him should not pass away until his predictions as to the end of the world were accomplished. Notwithstanding the extreme latitude which the apostolic exegesis claims in the interpretation of the discourses of our Lord, it cannot be allowed that an editor so intelligent as that of the third Gospel, an editor who knows so well how to make the words of Jesus pass through the changes required by the necessities of the time, should have copied a phrase which embodies a peremptory objection to the gift of prophecy attributed to the Master.
It is certainly only by conjecture that we connect Luke and his
Gospel with the Christian society in Rome in the time of the Flavii. Yet it is certain that
This Theophilus is otherwise unknown; his name may be only a fiction or a pseudonym to distinguish some one of the powerful adepts of the Church of Rome—one of the Clemens, for instance. A little preface clearly explains the intention and the situation of the author:—
Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even as they delivered them unto us which from the beginning were eye-witnesses of the word, it seemed good to me, also having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee, in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of those things wherein thou hast been instructed.
It does not necessarily follow from this preface that Luke must
have had under his eyes, in working, these numerous writings to whose existence
he bears witness; but the reading of the book leaves no doubt on that point. The
verbal coincidences of the text of Luke with that of Mark, and, by consequence,
with Matthew, are very frequent. No doubt Luke may have had under his eyes a text
of Mark which differed very little from our own. We might say that he has assimilated
it bodily, except the part of
By the side of the book of Mark, Luke had surely on his table
other narratives of the same kind, from which also he borrowed largely. The long
passage from
From this it appears that Luke held with regard to Mark a position
analogous to that which Matthew held to the same Evangelist. By both Mark has been
enlarged by additions borrowed from documents drawn more or less from the Hebrew
Gospel. To explain the numerous additions which Luke made to the common basis of
Mark, and which are not in Matthew, a large part must be attributed to oral tradition.
Luke plunged deeply into that tradition; he drew from it; he looked upon it as on
the same footing as the numerous authors of essays on Gospel History who had existed
before him. Did he scruple to insert in his text stories of his own invention, in
order to stamp upon the work of Jesus the impression which he believed to be the
true one? Certainly not. Tradition itself did no otherwise. Tradition is a collective
work, since it expresses the mind of all; but at the same
We have insisted elsewhere upon the errors which the distance
of the Evangelist from Palestine has made him commit. His exegesis rests only
the Septuagint, which he follows in its greatest blunders. The author was not a
Jew by birth; he certainly writes for those who are not Jews; he has only a superficial acquaintance
The spirit which inspired Luke is thus much more easy to determine
than that which inspired Mark and the author of the Gospel according to Matthew.
These two last Evangelists are neutral, taking no part in the quarrels which were
rending the Church. The partisans of Paul, and those of James, might equally adopt
them. Luke, on the contrary, is a disciple of Paul, moderate certainly, tolerant,
full of respect for Peter, even for James, but a decided supporter of the adoption
into the Church of Pagans, Samaritans, publicans, sinners, and heretics of all sorts.
It is in him that we find the pitiful parable of the Good Samaritan, of the Prodigal
Son, of the Lost Sheep, of the Lost Drachma, where the position of the penitent
sinner is placed almost above that of the just man who has not failed. Certainly
Luke was in that matter in agreement with the very spirit of Jesus, but there is
on his part preoccupation, prejudice, fixed ideas. His boldest stroke was the conversion
of one of the two thieves of Calvary. According to Mark and Matthew, the two malefactors
insulted Jesus. Luke puts a fine sentiment into the mouth of one of them. “We receive
the due rewards of our deeds, but this man hath done nothing amiss.” In return,
Jesus promises that that very day he shall be with him in Paradise. Jesus goes further.
He prays for his executioners. “They know not what they do.”
There is scarcely an anecdote or a parable proper to Luke which
does not breathe that spirit of mercy, and of appeal to sinners. The only saying
of Jesus which ever appears a little harsh becomes in his hands an apologue, full
of indulgence and of long-suffering. The unfruitful tree ought not to be cut down
too quickly; a good gardener opposes the anger of the proprietor, and asks leave
to dig about the roots of the unhappy tree, and to dung it before condemning it
altogether. The Gospel of Luke is especially the Gospel of pardon, and of pardon
obtained by faith. “There is more joy in heaven over a sinner that repenteth than
over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance.” “The Son of Man is
come not to destroy men, but to save them.” Any quantity of straining is lawful
to him, if only he can make each incident of the Gospel history a history of pardoned
sinners. Samaritans, publicans, centurions, guilty women, benevolent Pagans, all
those whom Pharisaism despises, are his clients. The idea that Christianity has
pardons for all the world is his alone. The door is open; conversion is possible
to all. It is no longer a question of the Law; a new devotion, the
The perfect conformity of these views with those of Paul may readily
be seen. Paul had no Gospel in the sense in which we understand the word. Paul had
never heard Jesus, and intentionally speaks with much reserve of his relations with
his immediate disciples. He had seen very little of them, and had passed only a
few days in the centre of their traditions, at Jerusalem. He had scarcely heard
tell of the Logia; of the tradition of the Gospel he knew only fragments. It must
be added, however, that these fragments agree well with what we read in Luke. The
account of the Last Supper, as Paul gives it, is identical, save for a few details
of small importance, with that of the third Gospel. Luke, without doubt, carefully avoids all
In this was an imitation of that chapter of Numbers in which God,
in order to console Moses under a burden which had become too heavy, pours out upon
seventy elders a part of the spirit of government which, until then, had been the
gift of Moses alone. As though with the intention of rendering more conspicuous
this division, and this likeness of powers, Luke divides between the Twelve and
the Seventy the apostolic instructions which in the collections of Logia form only
a single discourse addressed to the Twelve. This number of seventy or seventy-two
had, moreover, the advantage of corresponding with the number of the nations of
the earth, as the number twelve answered to the tribes of Israel. There was, indeed,
an opinion that God had divided the earth amongst seventy-two nations, over each
of which an angel presided. The figure was mystical; besides the seventy elders
of Moses, there were seventy-one members of the Sanhedrim, seventy or seventy-two
Greek translators of the Bible. The secret thought which dictated to Luke this so
grave addition to the Gospel text is thus evident. It was necessary, to save the
legitimacy of the apostolate of Paul, to present that apostolate as parallel to
the powers of the Twelve,—to show that one might be an Apostle without being one
of the Twelve —which was precisely Paul’s case. The Twelve, in a word, did not exhaust
the apostolate; the plenitude of their powers did not make the existence of others
impossible, “and besides,” the sage disciple of
From such a point of view the privileges of the sons of Abraham are reduced to a very small thing. Jesus, rejected by his own, finds his true family only amongst the Gentiles. Men of distant countries, the Gentiles of Paul, have accepted him as king, whilst his companions, whose natural sovereign he was, have shown him that they will none of him. Woe to them! When the lawful king shall return, he will put them to death in his presence. The Jews imagine that because Jesus has eaten and drunk with them, and taught in their streets, they will always enjoy their privileges. They are in error. Many shall come from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob, and they shall lament at the door. The lively impression of the misfortunes which have befallen the Jewish people may be read upon every page, and these misfortunes, the author finds, the nation has merited through not having understood Jesus and the mission with which he was charged for Jerusalem. In the genealogy Luke avoids tracing the descent of Jesus from the kings of Judah. From David to Salathiel the descent is through collaterals.
Other and less open signs discover a favourable intention towards
Paul. It is not unquestionably merely by chance that, after having described how
Peter was the first to recognise Jesus as the Messiah, the author does not give
the famous words, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church;” words
which were already taking their place in the tradition. The story of the Canaanitish woman, which the author had undoubtedly read in Mark, is omitted because
of the harsh words which
The same exaltation may be remarked in all that relates to poverty.
Luke hates riches, regards the simple attachment to property as an evil. When Jesus
came into the world there was no room for him in the inn; he was born in the midst
of the simplest of beings, sheep and oxen. His first worshippers were shepherds.
All his life he was poor. It is absurd to save, for the rich man can carry nothing
away with him. The disciple of Jesus has nothing to do with the goods of this world:
he must renounce all that he possesses. The happy man is the poor man; the rich
man is always guilty: hell is his certain fate. So the poverty of Jesus was
The doctrine of Luke is, it will be seen, pure Ebionism—the glorification of poverty. According to the Ebionites, Satan is king of this world, and he gives its good things to his fellows. Jesus is the prince of the world to come. To participate in the good things of the diabolical world is equivalent to exclusion from the other. Satan is the sworn enemy of Christians and of Jesus; the world, its princes and its rich men, are his allies in the work of opposition to the kingdom of Jesus. The demonology of Luke is material and bizarre. His miracle-mongering has something of the crude materialism of Mark: it terrifies the spectators. Luke does not know in this way the softened tones of Matthew.
An admirable popular sentiment, a fine and touching poetry,
the clear and pure sound of a silvery soul, something removed from earthliness
and exquisite in tone, prevent us from dreaming of these blemishes, these many
failures of logic, these singular contradictions. The judge and the importunate
widow, the friend with the three loaves, the unfaithful steward, the prodigal son, the pardoned woman that was a
The taste which carried Luke towards pious narratives naturally
inclined him to create for John the Baptist a childhood like that of Jesus. Elizabeth
and Zecharias long barren, the vision of the priest at the hour of incense, the
visit of the two mothers, the Canticle of the father of John the Baptist, were as
the propylæa before the porch, imitated from the porch itself, and reproducing its
principal lines. There is no necessity for denying that Luke may have found in the
documents of which he made use the germs of these exquisite narratives which have been one of the
Very beautiful, and also very unhistoric, are the narratives proper
to the third Gospel of the Passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. In this part
of his book, Luke almost abandons his original Mark, and follows other texts. Hence
we have a narrative even more legendary in character than that of Matthew. Everything
is exaggerated. At Gethsemane, Luke adds the angel, the sweating of blood, the curing
of the amputated ear of Malchus. The appearance before Herod Antipas is entirely
of his invention. The beautiful episode of the daughters of Jerusalem, intended
to present the crowd as innocent of the death of Jesus, and to throw all the odium
of it upon the great men and their chiefs, the conversion of one of the malefactors,
the prayer of Jesus for his executioners, drawn from
The Gospel of Luke is then an amended Gospel, completed and strongly impressed with legend. Like the pseudo-Matthew, Luke corrects Mark, foreseeing objections, effacing real or apparent contradictions, suppressing more or less difficult features, and vulgar exaggerated or insignificant details. What he does not understand, he suppresses or turns with infinite skill. He adds touching and delicate details. He invents little, but he modifies much. The aesthetic transformations which he creates are surprising. The picture which he has drawn of Mary and her sister Martha, is a marvellous thing: no pen has ever traced ten more charming lines. His arrangement of the woman with the alabaster box of ointment is not less exquisite. The episode of the disciples at Emmaus, is one of the finest and most delicately-shaded in any language.
The Gospel of Luke is the most literary of the Gospels. Everything
in it reveals a large and gentle mind, wise, moderate, sober, and rational, even
in the midst of unreason. His exaggerations, his improbabilities, his inconsequences,
are somewhat of the nature of parables, and give its charm to it. Matthew rounds
off the somewhat harsh outlines of Mark; Luke does more—he writes and shows a true
understanding of the art of composition. His book is a beautiful narrative well
followed up, at once Hebraic and Hellenistic, uniting the emotion of the drama with
the serenity of the idyll. Everyone there smiles, weeps, sings; everywhere there
are tears and canticles;
The historical value of the third Gospel is certainly less than that of the two first. Nevertheless, one remarkable fact which proves that the so-called synoptical Gospels really contain an echo of the words of Jesus, results from the comparison of the Gospel of Luke with the Acts of the Apostles. On both sides the author is the same. Yet when we compare the discourses of Jesus in the Gospels with the discourses of the Apostles in the Acts, the difference is absolute; here the charm of the most utter simplicity, there (I should say in the discourses of the Acts, especially towards the last chapters) a certain rhetoric, at times cold enough. Whence can this difference arise? Evidently because in the second case Luke makes the discourses himself, while in the first he follows a tradition. The words of Jesus were written before Luke; those of the Apostles were not. A considerable inference may be drawn from the account of the Last Supper in the First Epistle of St Paul to the Corinthians. The most anciently written Gospel text that there is may be found here (the First Epistle to the Corinthians is of the year 57.) Now this text coincides absolutely with that of Luke. Luke then has his own value, even when he is separated from Mark and Matthew.
Luke marks the last degree of deliberate revision at which the
Gospel tradition may arrive. After him
The monstrosities of the “bald Nero” made frightful progress.
He reached madness, but a sombre, determined madness. Until now there had been
intervals in his paroxysms; now it was a continuous frenzy. Wickedness mingled
with a feverish rage, which appears to be one of the fruits of the Roman climate,
the sensation of becoming ridiculous through his military failures, and by the lying
triumphs which he had ordered, filled him with an implacable hatred for every honest
and sensible man. He might have been called a vampire feeding greedily upon the carcase of expiring humanity; an open war was declared against all virtue. To write
the biography of a great man was a crime; it seemed as though there was a wish to
abolish the human intellect, and to take away the voice from conscience. Everything
that was illustrious trembled; the world was full of murders and
It was a very honourable thing for philosophy and for Christianity
that under Domitian, as under Nero, they should have been persecuted in company.
As Tertullian says, what such monsters condemned must have had something of good
in it. It is the topstone of wickedness in a government when it does not permit
the good to live even under its most resigned form. The name of philosopher implied
thenceforward a profession of ascetic practices, a special kind of life, a cloak.
This race of secular monks, protesting by their renunciation against the vanities
of the world, were during the first century the greatest enemies of Cæsarism. Philosophy,
let us say it to its glory, does not readily lend its support to the basenesses
of humanity, and to the sad consequences which that baseness entails in politics.
Heirs of the liberal spirit of Greece, the Stoics of the Roman epoch dreamed of
virtuous democracies in a time which suited only with tyranny. The politicians whose
principle it is to shut themselves up within limitations as far as possible, had
naturally a strong antipathy to such a way of looking at things. Tiberius had been
wont to hold the philosophers in aversion. Nero (in 66) drove
Nothing more than his own personal wickedness was necessary to induce Domitian to persecute the sages. He had early entertained a hatred for men of letters: every thought was a condemnation of his crimes and of his mediocrity. In his later days he could not suffer them. A decree of the senate drove the philosophers from Rome and from Italy. Epictetus, Dionysius Chrysostom, Artemidorus, departed. The courageous Sulpicia dared to raise his voice on behalf of the banished, and to address prophetic menaces to Domitian. Pliny, the younger, escaped almost by a miracle from the punishment which his distinction and his virtue merited. The treatise Octavius composed about this time contains cruel outbursts of indignation and despair:
It is not surprising that the Jews and the Christians should
have suffered from the recoil of these redoubtable terrors. One circumstance rendered
war inevitable: Domitian, imitating the madness of Caligula, wished to receive
divine honours. The road to the Capitol was crowded with herds which were taken
to his statue to be sacrificed there: the form of the letters from his Chancery
commenced with Dominus et Deus noster. We must read the monstrous preface which
Quintilian, one of the master spirits of the age, puts at the head of one of his volumes, on the
Such is the tone adopted by a man who was “pious” in the fashion
of his times. Domitian, like all hypocritical sovereigns, showed himself a severe
upholder of the old worship. The word impietas especially during his reign had generally
a political signification, and was synonymous with lèse majesté. Religious indifference
and tyranny had reached such a point that the Emperor was the only god whose majesty
was dreaded. To love the Emperor was piety; to be suspected of opposition or even
of coldness was impiety. The word was not from that suspected of having lost its
religious sense. The love of the Emperor, in fact, implied the respectful adoption
of a whole sacred rhetoric which no sensible man could any longer accept as serious.
That man was a revolutionary who did not bow before these absurdities, which had
become part of the routine of the state; now the revolutionary was the impious
man. The Empire thus came from it to a sort of orthodoxy, to
In such a condition of the language and of minds, Jewish and Christian monotheism must have appeared a supreme impiety. The religion of the Jew and of the Christian attached itself to a supreme God, the worship of whom was a robbery of the profane god. To worship God was to give a rival to the Emperor; to worship other gods than those of whom the Emperor was the legal patron, constituted a yet worse insult. The Christians, or rather the pious Jews, believed themselves obliged to make a more or less evident sign of protest when passing before the temples; at least they refrained absolutely from the kiss which it was the custom of pious Pagans to wave to the sacred edifice in passing before it. Christianity, by its cosmopolitan and revolutionary principle, was certainly “the enemy of the gods, of the emperors, of the laws, of morals, of all nature.” The best of the emperors will not always know how to disentangle this sophism, and, without knowing it, almost without wishing it, will be persecutors. A narrow and wicked spirit, like that of Domitian, became such with pedantry and even with a sort of voluptuousness.
The Roman policy had always made in religious legislation a fundamental
difference. Roman statesmen saw no harm in a provincial practising his religion
in his own country without any spirit of proselytism. When this same provincial
wished to worship in his own way in Italy, and, above all, in Rome, the matter
became more delicate; the eyes of the true Roman were offended by the spectacle
of fantastic ceremonies, and from time to time the police come to sweep out what
these aristocrats regarded as ignominies. The foreign religions were besides extremely
We know with certainty in effect, that a great number of persons
having embraced Jewish customs (the Christians were frequently placed in this category)
were brought to judgment under the accusation of impiety or atheism. As under Nero,
calumnies uttered by false brethren were perhaps the cause of the evil. Some were
condemned to death; others were exiled or deprived of their goods. There were some
apostacies. In the year 95 Flavius Clemens was Consul. In the last days of his Consulate
Domitian put him to death on the slightest suspicion, coming from the basest informers.
These suspicions were assuredly political, but the pretext was religion. Clemens
had, without doubt, manifested little zeal for the Pagan forms with which every
civil act in Rome was accompanied: possibly he had abstained from some ceremony
regarded as of capital importance. Nothing more was required to justify the issue
of a charge of impiety against him and against Flavia Domitilla. Clemens was put
to death. As to Flavia Domitilla, she was exiled to the island of Pandataria, which
had already been the scene of the exile of Julia, the daughter of Augustus, of Agrippina, the wife of
Of all the victims of the persecution of Domitian, we know one only by name—that of Flavius Clemens. The ill-will of the Government appears to have been directed far more against the Romans who were attracted to Judaism or to Christianity than against the Jews and Oriental Christians established in Rome. It does not appear that any of the presbyters or episcopi of the Church suffered martyrdom. Among the Christians who suffered, none appear to have been delivered to the beasts in the amphitheatre, for almost all belonged to what were relatively the upper classes of society. As under Nero, Rome was the principal scene of these violences; there were, however, troubles in the provinces. Some Christians faltered and left the Church, where for the moment they had found consolation for their souls, but where it was too hard to remain. Others, however, were heroic in charity, spent their goods to feed the saints, and took upon themselves the chains of those whom they judged to be more valuable to the Church than themselves.
The year 95 was not, it may be owned, as solemn a time for the
Church as the year 64, but it had its importance. It was like a second consecration
of Rome. After an interval of thirty-one years the maddest and wickedest of men
appeared to lay himself out for the destruction of the Church of Jesus, and in
reality strengthened it so that the apologists
It was probably the information which Domitian had of this remark
upon Judeo-Christianity which told him of the rumours which circulated concerning
the continued existence of descendants of the ancient dynasty of Judah. The imagination
of the Agadists gave itself the rein on this subject, and attention, which for centuries
had been diverted from the family of David, was now strongly attracted to it. Domitian
took umbrage at this, and commanded all who bore that name to be put to death;
but soon it was pointed out to him that amongst these supposed descendants of the
antique royal race of Jerusalem there were people whose inoffensive character ought
assuredly to place them beyond suspicion. There were the grandsons of Jude, the
brother of Jesus, peaceably retired in Batanea. The defiant Emperor had besides
heard tell of the coming triumph of Christ; all that disquieted him. An evocatus
came to seek out the holy people in Syria; they were two; they were taken to the
Emperor. Domitian asked them first if they were the descendants of David. They answered
that they were. The Emperor then questioned them as to their means of living. “Between us,” they said, “we possess only 9000
denarii, of which each of us takes
half. And that property we possess not in money but in the form of a piece of land
of some thirty acres upon which we pay the taxes, and we live by the labour of our
hands.” Then they showed their hands covered with callosities, and hardened, and
red with toil. Domitian questioned them concerning Christ and his kingdom; his future
appearance, and the times and places of his appearance. They answered that his kingdom
was not of this world; that it was celestial, angelic; that it would be revealed
at the end of time, when Christ should come in his glory to judge the quick and
the dead, and render to
Certain indications in effect lead to the belief that Domitian towards the end of his life relaxed his severities. It is, however, impossible to be certain in this matter; for other witnesses lead us to think that the situation of the Church was improved only after the advent of Nerva. At the moment when Clemens wrote his letter, the fire appears to have diminished. It was like the morrow of a battle; they count those who have fallen, those who are still in chains are pitied; but they are far from believing that all is over. God is entreated to defeat the perverse designs of the Gentiles, and to deliver his people from those who hate them without a cause.
The persecution of Domitian struck at Jews and Christians alike.
The Flavian house thus put the topstone to its crimes, and became for the two branches
of the house of Israel the most flagrant representation of impiety. It is not impossible
that Josephus may have fallen a victim to the last fury of the dynasty which he
had flattered. After the year 93 or 94 we hear no more of him. The works which he
contemplated in 93 were not written. In that year, his life had been in danger
through the curse of the times—the informers. Twice he escaped the danger, and his
accusers were even punished; but it was the abominable habit of Domitian in such
a case to revoke the acquittal which he had pronounced, and, after having chastised
the informer, to slay the accused. The frightful rage for murder which Domitian
showed in 95 and 96 against everyone connected with the Jewish world and family,
scarcely permits it to be believed that he would have allowed a man to go
Have we a monument of these sombre months of terror, where all the worshippers of the true God dreamed only of martyrdom, in the discourse “on the Empire of Reason,” which bears in the MSS. the name of Josephus? The thoughts, at least, are very much those of the times in which we are. A strong soul is mistress of the body which she animates, and allows herself to be conquered only by the most cruel punishments. The author proves his position by the examples of Eleazer and of the mother who, during the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanius, courageously endured death with her seven sons—histories which may also be found in the sixth and seventh chapters of the Second Book of Maccabees.
Notwithstanding the declamatory tone, and certain ornaments which
recall a little too strongly the lesson of philosophy, the book contains noble doctrines.
God embodies in himself the eternal order which is made manifest to man by reason; reason is the law of life; duty consists in preferring it to the passions. As
in the Second Book of Maccabees, the idea of future rewards and punishments is altogether
spiritual. The righteous dead live to God for God in the sight of God, Ζῶσι τῷθεῷ.
God as the author is at the same time the absolute God of philosophy, and the national
God of Israel. The Jew ought to die for his Law, first, because it is the Law of
his fathers, then because it is divine and true. The meats forbidden by the Law have
The book succeeded amongst the Christians; under the title of Fourth Book of Maccabees it was almost received into the canon; many Greek manuscripts of the Old Testament contain it. Less fortunate, however, than the Book of Judith, it was not able to keep its place; the Second Book of Maccabees afforded no sufficient reason for placing it at its side. The interesting point for us is that we may there see the first type of a species of literature which was later much cultivated,—exhortations to martyrdom, in which the author exalts to encourage the sufferers the example of feeble beings who have shown themselves heroic, or still better of these Acta martyrum, now pieces of rhetoric having edification as their aid, proceeding by oratorical amplification, without any care for historical truth, and finding in the hideous details of the antique the ferments of a sombre voluptuousness and the means of emotion.
An indistinct echo of all these events may be found in the Jewish
traditions. In the month of September or October four elders of Judea, Rabbi Gamaliel,
patriarch of the tribunal of Jabneh; Rabbi Eleazar ben
Whilst these four elders were at Rome the senate of the Emperor
decreed the extermination of the Jews throughout the world. A senator, a pious man
(Clemenes?) reveals this redoubtable secret to Gamaliel. The wife of the senator,
even more pious than he (Domitilla??) advises him to kill himself by sucking
a poison which he keeps in his ring, which will save the Jews (how one does not
see). Later on, the conviction spread that this senator was circumcised, or, according
to the figurative expression, “that the vessel had not quitted the port without
paying the impost” According to another account, the Cæsar, enemy of the Jews, said
to the great of his empire: “If one has an ulcer on the foot, should he cut off
his foot or keep it at the risk of suffering?” All were for amputation, except Katia hen Shalom. This last
There are plenty of vague images here and memories of half sane people. Some of the controversies of the four doctors at Rome are reported. “If God disapproves idolatry,” they were asked, “why does he not destroy it?” “But God must then destroy the sun, moon, and stars.” “No; he might destroy useless idols and leave the useful ones.” “But that would at once make those things divine which he has not destroyed. The world goes its own way. The stolen seed grows like any other; the unchaste woman is not sterile because the child which shall be born of her is a bastard.” In preaching, one of the four travellers utters this thought: “God is not like earthly kings, who make laws, and do not themselves observe them.” A Min (a Judeo-Christian?) heard these words, and on coming out of the hall said to the doctor, “Why does not God observe the Sabbath; the world goes on just as usual on Saturday?” “Is it not lawful on the Sabbath day to move whatever is in one’s house?” “Yes,” said the Min. “Well, then, the whole world is the house of God.”
The most correct lists of the Bishops of Rome, forcing a little
the signification of the word bishop, for times so remote place after Anenclet a
certain Clement, who from the similarity of his name and the nearness of his time
has frequently been confounded with
Everything leads to the belief that Clement was of Jewish origin.
His familiarity with the Bible, the turn of style in certain passages of his Epistle,
the use which he makes of the Book of Judith and of apocryphal writings such as
the assumption of Moses, do not agree with the idea of a converted Pagan. On the
other hand, he appears to be little of a Hebraiser. It appears then that he was
born in Rome of one of those Jewish families which had inhabited the capital of
the world for many generations. His knowledge of cosmography and of profane history
presuppose a careful education. It is admitted that he had been in relation with
the Apostles, especially with Peter, though on this point the proof is perhaps
hardly decisive. What is indubitable is the
The extreme importance at which Clement had arrived results, above
all things, from the vast apocryphal literature which is attributed to him. When,
towards the year 140, an attempt was made to gather together into one body of writing,
clothed with an ecclesiastical character, the Judeo-Christian traditions concerning
Peter and his apostolate, Clement was chosen as the supposed author of the work.
When it was desired to codify the ancient ecclesiastical customs, and to make the
collection thus formed a Corpus of “Apostolic Constitutions,” it was Clement who
guaranteed that apocryphal work. Other writings, all having more or less connection
with the establishment of a canon law, were equally attributed to him. The fabricator
of apocryphas endeavours to give weight to his forgeries. The name which he puts
at the head of his compositions is always that of a celebrity. The sanction of Clement
thus appears to us as the highest which can be imagined in the second century to
recommend a book. Thus in the Pastor of the psuedo-Hermas, Clement’s special function
is assigned as being that of sending the books newly issued in Rome to the other
Churches, and of causing them to be accepted. His supposed
Clement passed through the persecution of Domitian without suffering
from it. When the severities abated, the Church of Rome renewed its relations with
the outer world. Already the idea of a certain primacy of that Church began to make
itself felt. The right of advising the Churches and of adjusting their differences
was accorded to it. Such privileges; it may at least be believed, were accorded
to Peter and to his immediate disciples. Now, a closer and closer bond was established
between St Peter and Rome. Grave dissensions had torn the Church of Corinth. That
Church had scarcely changed since the days of St Paul. There was the same spirit
of pride, of disputatiousness, of frivolity. We feel that the principal opposition
to the hierarchy dwelt in this Greek spirit, always mobile, frivolous, undisciplined,
not knowing how to reduce a crowd to the condition of a flock. The women, the children,
were in full rebellion. The transcendental doctors imagined that they possessed
concerning everything deep significations, mystical secrets, analogous to the gift
of tongues and the discerning of spirits. Those who were honoured with these supernatural
gifts despised the elders and aspired to replace them. Corinth had a respectable
presbyteriate, but one which never aimed at an exalted
The Roman Church, consulted on these internal troubles, answered with admirable good sense. The Roman Church was then above all things the Church of order, of subordination, of rule. Its fundamental principle was that humility and submission were of more value than the most sublime of gifts. The Epistle addressed to the Church of Corinth was anonymous, but one of the most ancient traditions has it that Clement’s was the pen which wrote it. Three of the most considerable of the elders—Claudius Ephebus, Valerius Biton, and Fortunatus—were charged to carry the letter, and received full powers from the Church at Rome to bring about a reconciliation.
The Church of God Abiding in Rome to the Church of God in Corinth, to the Elect sanctified by the will of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ, grace and peace be upon you in abundance from God Almighty by Jesus Christ.
The misfortunes, the unforeseen catastrophes which have fallen upon us, blow upon blow, have, brethren, been the reason that we occupied ourselves but slowly with the questions which you have addressed to us, dear brethren, touching the impious and detestable revolt, cursed of the elect of God, which a small number of insolent and daring persons have raised up and carried to such a point of extravagance, that your name so famous, so venerable, and so beloved of all, has suffered great injury. Who was he who having lived among you did not esteem your virtue and the firmness of your faith? Who did not admire the wisdom and the Christian moderation of your piety? Who did not publish the largeness of your hospitality? Who did not esteem you happy in the perfection and soundness of your knowledge? You did all things without acceptation of persons, and you walked according to the laws of God, obedient to your leaders. You rendered due honour to the elders, you warned the young men to be grave and sober, and the women to act in all things with a pure and chaste conscience, loving their husbands as they ought to do, dwelling in the rule of submission, applying themselves to the government of their houses with great modesty.
You were all humble-minded, free from boastings, disposed rather
to submit yourselves than to cause others to submit to you, to give than to receive.
Content with the sacraments of Christ, and applying yourselves carefully to his
word, you kept it in your hearts, and had always his sufferings before your eyes.
Thus you rejoiced in the sweetness of a profound peace; you had an insatiable desire
to do good, and the Holy Ghost was fully poured out upon you. Fitted with good-will,
with zeal, and with an holy confidence, you stretched forth your hands towards Almighty
God, praying for pardon for your involuntary sins. You strove day and night for
all the community, so that the number of the elect of God was saved by the force
of piety and of conscience. You were sincere and innocent, without resentment of
injuries. All rebellion, all divisions you held in horror. You wept over the fall
of your neighbours; you esteemed their faults as your own. A virtuous and respectable
life was your adornment, and you did all things in the fear of God; his commandments
were written upon the tables of your hearts, you were in glory and abundance, and
in you was accomplished that which was written:—“The well-beloved bath eaten and
drunk; he has been in abundance; he has waxed fat and kicked.”
After having quoted many sad examples of jealousy, taken from the Old Testament, he adds:—
But let us leave here these ancient examples and come to the strong men who have lately fought. Let us take the illustrious examples of our own generation. It was through jealousies and discord that the great men who were the pillars of the Church have been persecuted, and have fought to the death. Let us place before our eyes the holy Apostles, Peter, for example, who, through an unjust jealousy suffered not once or twice but many times, and who, having thus accomplished his martyrdom, has gone to the place of glory which was due to him. It was through jealousy and discord that Paul has shown how far patience can be carried; seven times in chains, banished, stoned, and after having been the herald of the Truth in the east and in the west, he has received the noble reward of his faith, after having taught justice to the whole world and being come to the very extremity of west. Having thus accomplished his martyrdom before the earthly power, he was delivered from this world, and has gone to that holy place, giving to all of us a great example of patience. To those men whose life has been holy has been joined a great company of the elect, who, always through jealousy, have endured many insults and torments, leaving amongst us an illustrious example. It was finally pursued by jealousy that the poor women, the Danaides and the Dirces, after having suffered terrible and monstrous indignities, have reached the goal in the sacred course of faith, and have received a noble recompense, feeble in body though they were.
Order and obedience are the supreme law of the Church.
It is better to displease imprudent and senseless men who raise
themselves up and who glorify themselves through pride in their discourses, than
to displease God. Let us respect our
The Divine Service ought to be celebrated in the places and at the hours fixed by the ordained ministers, as in the Temple of Jerusalem. All power, all ecclesiastical rule, comes from God.
The Apostles have evangelised us on the part of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and Jesus Christ had received his mission from God. Christ has been sent
by God, and the Apostles have been sent by Christ. The two things have then been
regularly done by the will of God. Provided with instruction from the Master, persuaded
by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, strengthened in the faith in the Word
of God by the confirmation of the Holy Ghost, the Apostles went out preaching the
approach of the Kingdom of God. Preaching thus alike in the country and in the cities,
they chose those who had been the first-fruits of their apostolate, and after having proved them by
Have we not the same God, the same Christ, the same Spirit of
Grace poured out upon us? Why shall we tear away, why shall we cut off, the members
of Christ? Why should we make war upon our own body, and come to such a point of
madness as to forget that we are all members one of another? Your schism has driven
away many persons, it has discouraged others, it has cast certain into doubt, and
afflicted all of us; nevertheless, your rebellion continues. Take the Epistle of
the blessed Paul the Apostle. What is the first thing of which he writes to you
at the beginning of his Gospel? Certainly the Spirit of Truth dictated to him what
he commanded you touching Cephas, Apollos, and himself. Then there were divisions
amongst you, but those divisions were less guilty than the divisions of to-day.
Your choice was divided amongst authorised Apostles and a man whom they had approved.
Now consider who are those who have led you astray, and have injured that reputation
for fraternal love for which you were venerated. It is shameful, my beloved, it
is very shameful and unworthy of Christian piety to hear it said that that Church
of Corinth, so firm, so ancient, is in revolt against its elders because of one
or two persons. And this report has come not only to us, but to those who hold us
in but little goodwill, so that the name of the Lord is blasphemed through your
imprudence, and you create perils for yourselves. . . Such a faithful one is specially
gifted to explain the secrets
The best thing the authors of these troubles can do is to go away.
Is there amongst you anyone who is generous, tender, and charitable, let him say, “If I am the cause of the rebellion, the quarrel, the schisms, I will retire, I will go where you will, I will do what the majority order, I ask only one thing, which is, that the flock of Christ may be at peace with the elders who have been established.” He who will thus use himself will acquire a great glory in the Lord, and will be made welcome wherever he may go. “The earth is the Lord’s and all that therein is.” See what they have done, and what they yet will do, who do the will of God, which never leads to repentance.
Kings and pagan chiefs have braved death in time of pestilence, to save their fellow-citizens; others have exiled themselves to put an end to civil war. “We know that many amongst us have delivered themselves to chains, that they might deliver others.” If those who have caused the revolt recognise their errors, it is not to us, it is to God, to whom they will yield. All ought to receive with joy the correction of the Church.
You then who have begun the rebellion, submit yourselves to the elders, and receive the correction in the spirit of penitence, bending the knees of your hearth. Learn to submit yourselves, renouncing the vain and insolent boldness of your tongues; for it is better that you should be small but esteemed in the flock of Christ, than that you should keep up the appearance of superiority, and be deprived of your hopes in Christ.
The submission which is due to the bishops and elders, the Christian
owes to the powers of the earth. At the moment of the most diabolical atrocities
of Nero, we heard Paul and Peter declare that the power of this monster came from
God. Clement, in the very days when Domitian was guilty of the greatest cruelties
against the Church, and against the human race, held him equally as being the lieutenant
It is thou, supreme Master, who by thy great and unspeakable power hast given to our sovereigns and to those who govern us upon earth the power of royalty. Knowing the glory and the honour which thou hast distributed to them, we submit ourselves to them, thus avoiding placing ourselves in contradiction with thy will. Give to them, O Lord, health, peace, concord, stability, that they may exercise without hindrance the sovereignty which thou has confided to them. For it is thou, Heavenly Master, King of the Worlds, who hast given to the children of men the glory, and the honour, and the power over all that there is on the surface of the earth. Direct, O Lord! their wills for good, and according to that which is pleasing to thee, so that exercising in peace, with gentleness and piety, the power which thou has given, they may find thee propitious.
Such is this document, a remarkable monument of the practical
wisdom of the Church of Rome, of its profound policy, of its spirit of government.
Peter and Paul are there more and more reconciled; both are right; the dispute
about Law and works is pacified; the vague expressions “our apostles,” “our pillars,”
mask the memory of past struggles. Although a warm admirer of Paul, the author is
profoundly a Jew. Jesus for him is simply “the child beloved of God;” “the great
High Priest,” “the chief of Christians.” Far from breaking with Judaism, he preserves
in its integrity the privilege of Israel; only a new chosen people amongst the
Gentiles is joined with Israel. All the antique prescriptions preserve their force,
even though they have ceased to bear their original meaning. Whilst Paul abrogates,
Clement preserves and transforms. What he desires above all things is concord, uniformity,
rule, order in the Church as in nature, and in the Roman Empire. Let everyone obey
in his rank: this is the order of the world. The small cannot exist without the
great, nor the great without the small; the life of the body is the result of the
common action of all the members. Obedience is then the summing-up, the synonym of the word
The history of the ecclesiastical hierarchy is the history of a triple abdication, the community of the faithful remitting first all its powers to the hands of the elders or presbyteri; the presbyteral body joining in a single personage, who is the episcopos; then the episcopi effacing themselves in the presence of one of them, who is pope. This last process, if we may so describe it, was effected only in our own days. The creation of the Episcopate is the work of the second century. The absorption of the Church by the presbyteri was accomplished before the end of the first. In the Epistle of Clement of Rome it is not yet the episcopate, it is the presbytery, which is in question. Not a trace of a presbyteros superior to his fellows is to be found. But the author proclaims aloud that the presbyteriate, the clergy, are before the people. The Apostles, in establishing Churches, have chosen, by the inspiration of the Spirit, “the bishops and deacons of future believers.” The powers emanating from the Apostles have been transmitted by a regular succession. No Church has a right to deprive its elders. The privilege of riches counts for nothing in the Church. In the same way, those who are favoured with mystical gifts ought to be the most submissive.
The great problem is approached: who form the Church? Is it the
people? or the clergy? or the inspired? The question had already been asked in
the time of St Paul, who solved it in the right way by mutual charity. Our Epistle
defines the question in a purely Catholic sense. The apostolic title is everything;
the right of the people is reduced to nothing. It may then be said that Catholicism
had its origin in Rome, since the Church of Rome traced out its first rule. Precedence
does not belong to spiritual gifts, to science, to distinction; it belongs to the
hierarchy, to the powers transmitted by the channel of canonical
From the literary point of view the Epistle of Clement is somewhat weak and soft. It is the first monument of that prolix style, charged with superlatives, smelling of the preacher, which to this day remains that of the Papal Bulls. The imitation of St Paul is palpable; the author is governed by his memories of the sacred Scriptures. Almost every line contains an allusion to the writings of the Old Testament. Clement shows himself singularly pre-occupied with the new Bible, which is in course of formation. The Epistle to the Hebrews, which was a sort of inheritance of the Church of Rome, evidently formed his habitual reading; we may say the same of the other great Epistles of St Paul. His allusions to the Gospel texts appear to be divided between Matthew, Mark, and Luke; we might almost say that he had the same Gospel matter as we, but distributed without doubt otherwise than as we have it. The allusions to the Epistles of James and Peter are doubtful. But the allusions to the Jewish apocryphas, to which Clement accords the same authority as to the writings of the Old Testament, are striking: Judith an apocrypha of Ezekiel, the assumption of Moses, perhaps also the prayer of Manasseh. Like the Apostle Jude, Clement admitted into the Bible all those recent products of Jewish imagination or passion, inferior though they are to the old Hebrew literature, but more fitted than this last of pleasing at the time, by their tone of pathetic eloquence and of lively piety.
The Epistle of Clement attained besides the object
The trace left at Rome by Bishop Clement was profound from the
most ancient times; a Church consecrated his memory in the valley between the Cœlius
and the Esquiline, in the district where, according to tradition, the paternal
house was placed, and where others, through a feeling of secular hesitation, wished
to recall the memory of Flavius Clemens. We shall see him later become the hero
of a surprising romance, very popular in Rome, and entitled “the Recognitions,”
because his father, his mother, and his brothers, bewailed as dead, are found again,
and recognise each other. With him was associated a certain Grapte, charged together
with him with the government and teaching of widows and orphans. In the half light
in which he remains enveloped, and, as it were, lost in the luminous haze of a fine
historic distance, Clement is one of the great figures of nascent Christianity.
Some vague rays come only out of the mystery which surrounds him; one might call him a
The death of Domitian followed closely upon that of Flavius and
the persecution of the Christians. There were between these events relations which
are hardly to be explained. “He had been able,” says Juvenal, “to deprive Rome
with impunity of her most illustrious souls, without anyone arming himself to avenge
them, but he perished when he became terrible to the cobblers. Behold what lost
a man stained with the blood of the Lamia!” It seems probable that Domitilla and
Flavius Clemens entered into the plot. Domitilla may have been recalled from Pandataria
in the last months of Domitian. There was, however, a general conspiracy around
the monster. Domitian felt it, and, like all egotists, he was very exigent as to
the fidelity of others. He caused Epaphroditus to be put to death for having helped
Nero to kill himself, in order to show what crime the freedman commits who raises
his hand against his master, even with a good intention. Domitia his wife, all the
people of his household, trembled, and resolved to anticipate the blow which threatened
them. With them was associated Stephanus, a freedman of Domitilla, and steward
of her household. As he was very robust, he offered himself for the attack, body
to body. On the 18th September, towards
The soldiers, whom Domitian had covered with shame but whose pay he had increased, wished to avenge him, and proclaimed him Divus. The senate was sufficiently strong to prevent this last ignominy. It caused all his statues to be broken or melted, his name to be effaced from the inscriptions, and his triumphal arches to be thrown down. It was ordered that he should be buried like a gladiator; but his nurse succeeded in carrying away his corpse, and in secretly uniting his ashes to those of the other members of his family in the temple of the gens Flavia.
This house, raised up by the chance of the revolutions to such
strange destinies, fell thenceforward into great discredit. The persons of merit
and virtue whom it yet contained were forgotten. The proud aristocracy, honest and of high nobility, who were
The circumstances which brought the old Nerva to the Empire
are obscure. The conspirators who killed the tyrant had, without doubt, a
preponderating share in the choice. A reaction against the abominations of the
preceding reign was inevitable; the conspirators, however, having taken part in
the principal events of the reign, did not want too strong a reaction. Nerva was
an excellent man, but reserved, timid, and carrying
All the good that could be done without breaking with the evil, Nerva did. Progress was never loved more sincerely; a remarkable spirit of humanity, of gentleness, entered into the government and even into the legislation. The Senate regained its authority. Men of sense thought the problem of the times, the alliance of the aristocracy with liberty, definitely resolved. The mania for religious persecution, which had been one of the saddest features of the reign of Domitian, absolutely disappeared. Nerva caused those who were under the weight of accusations of this kind to be absolved, and recalled the banished. It was forbidden to prosecute anyone for the mere practice of Jewish customs; prosecutions for impiety were suppressed; the informers were punished. The fiscus judaicus, as we have seen, afforded scope for much injustice. People who did not owe it were made to pay; in order to ascertain the quality of persons liable to it, they were subjected to disgusting inquiries. Measures were taken to prevent the revival of similar abuses, and a special coinage (FISCI IVDAICI CALVMNIA SVBLATA) recalled the memory of that measure.
All the families of Israel thus enjoyed a relative calm after a cruel storm. They breathed. For some years the Church of Rome was more happy and more flourishing than she had ever been. The apocalyptic ideas resumed their course; it was believed that God had fixed the time of his coming upon earth for the moment when the number of the elect reached a certain figure; every day they rejoiced to see that number increase. The belief in the return of Nero had not disappeared. Nero, if he had lived, would have been sixty, which was a great age for the part which was destined for him; but the imagination reasons little; besides Nero, the Antichrist became day by day a more ideal personage, placed altogether without the conditions of the natural life. For a long time people continued to speak of his return, even when it was obvious that he could no longer be alive.
The Jews were more ardent and more sombre than ever. It appears that it was a law of religious conscience with this people to pour forth in each of the great crises which tore the Roman Empire one of those allegorical compositions in which the rein was given to prognostications of the future. The situation of the year 97 in many ways resembled that of the year 68. Natural prodigies appeared to multiply. The fall of the Flavii made almost as much impression as the disappearance of the house of Julius. The Jews believed that the existence of the Empire was again in question. The two catastrophes had been preceded by sanguinary madnesses, and were followed by civil troubles, which caused doubts as to the vital powers of a state so agitated. During this eclipse of the Roman power, the imagination of the Messianists again took the field; the eccentric speculations as to the end of the Empire and the end of time resumed their course.
The Apocalypse of the reign of Nerva appeared, according to the
custom of compositions of this kind,
The author may in many ways be considered the last prophet of
Israel. The work is divided into seven sections, for the most part affecting the
form of a dialogue between Esdras, a supposed exile to Babylon, and the angel Uriel; but it is easy to see behind the biblical personage the ardent Jew of the Flavian
epoch, full of rage because of the destruction of the Temple by Titus. The memory
of these dark days of the year 70 rises in his soul like the smoke of the pit, and
fills it with holy wrath. How far are we, with this fiery zealot, from a Josephus
who treats the defenders of Jerusalem as scoundrels? Here is a veritable Jew who
is sorry not to have been with those who perished in the fire of the Temple. The
Revolution of Judea, according to him, was not an insanity. Those who defended
Jerusalem to the uttermost, those assassins whom the moderates sacrificed and regarded
as alone responsible for the misfortunes of the nations—those assassins were saints. Their fate
Never did Israelite, more pious, more penetrated with the sufferings of Zion, pour out his prayers and tears before Jehovah. A profound doubt, the great doubt of the Jews, rent him,—the same which devoured the Psalmist when he “saw the ungodly in prosperity.” Israel are the chosen people. God has promised happiness to them if they observe the Law. Without having fulfilled that condition in all its rigour, what would be beyond human strength, Israel is better than other nations. In any case, he has never observed the Law more scrupulously than in these last times. Why, then, is Israel the most unfortunate of peoples; and more just he is the more unfortunate? The author sees clearly that the old materialistic solutions of this problem cannot be accepted. Thus is his soul troubled even to death.
Lord, Master Universal, he cries, of all the forests of the earth, and of all the trees that are found therein, thou hast chosen a vine; of all the countries of the world, thou hast chosen a province; of all the flowers of the world, thou hast chosen a lily; of all the wilderness of water, thou host chosen a brook; amongst all the cities, thou hast sanctified Sion; of all the birds, thou hast dedicated a dove to thyself; and of all created beasts, thou wouldest take only a lamb for thyself. thus out of all the people on the face of the earth thou hast adopted one only, and to that beloved people thou hast given a Law which all admire. And now, Lord, what has he done that thou shouldest deliver thine only One to profanation, that upon the root of thy choice thou hast grafted other plants, that thou hast dispersed thy dear ones in the midst of the nations. those who deny thee crowd upon the feet of the faithful. If thou hast come to hate thy people, it must be so! But at least punish them with thine own hands, and lay not this task upon the unfaithful.
Thou hast said that it is for us that thou hast created the world; that the other nations born of Adam are in thine eyes but vile spittle
(sic). . . . And now, Lord, behold these nations, thus treated as nothing, rule over us and
trample us under foot. And we thy people, we whom thou hast called thy first-born,
thy only Son, we the objects of thy jealousy, we are delivered
Sion is a desert, Babylon is happy. Is this just? Sion has sinned much. She may have, but is Babylon more innocent? I believed so until I came here, but since I came, what do I see? Such impieties that I marvel that thou bearest them, after having destroyed Sion for so much less iniquity. What nation has known thee save only Israel? What tribe has believed in thee save only that of Jacob? And who has been less rewarded? Amongst the nations I have seen them flourishing and unmindful of thy commandments. Weigh in the balance what we have done, and what they do. Amongst us I confess there are few faithful ones, but amongst them there are none at all. Now they enjoy a profound peace, and we, our life is the life of a fugitive grasshopper; we pass our days in fear and anguish. It had been better for us never to have been born than to be tormented thus without knowing in what our guilt consists. . . . Oh, that we had been burned in the fires of Sion! We are not better than those who perished there!
The angel Uriel, the interlocutor of Esdras, eludes as best he can the inflexible logic of this protestation. The mysteries of God are so profound! The mind of man is so limited! Pressed with questions, Uriel escapes by a Messianic theory like that of the Christians. The Messiah, son of God, but simple man, is on the eve of appearing in Zion in glory, in company with those who have not tasted death, that is to say, with Moses, Enoch, Elias, and Esdras himself. He will recall the ten tribes from the “land of Arzareth” (foreign country). He will fight a great fight against the wicked; after having conquered them, he will reign four hundred years upon the earth with his elect. At the end of that time, the Messiah will die, and all the living will die with him. The world will return to its primitive silence for seven days. Then a new world will appear, and the general resurrection will take place. The Most High will appear upon his throne, and will proceed to a definitive judgment.
The particular turn which Jewish Messianism tended to take, clearly
appears here. Instead of an
Such a theory raises a question with which we have already seen
St Paul and his faithful greatly concerned. In such a conception there is an enormous
difference between the fate of those who are alive at the appearance of the Messiah,
and those who have died beforehand. Our seer even asks himself a question which
is odd enough, but certainly logical:—Why did not God make all men alive at the
same time? He gets out of the difficulty by the hypothesis of provisional “depôts”
(pronaptuaria) where the souls of departed saints are held in reserve until the
judgment. At the great day the depôts will be opened, so that the contemporaries
of the appearance of the Messiah shall have only one advantage over the others—that
of having enjoyed the reign of four hundred years. In comparison with eternity,
that is a very small matter, and the author thinks himself justified in maintaining
that there will be no point or privilege,—the first and the last will be all equals in
The signs of the last days are those which we have enumerated twenty times. The trumpet shall sound. The order of Nature will be reversed; blood shall flow from wood, and the stones shall speak. Enoch and Elias will appear to convert man. Men must hasten to die, and are as nothing compared with those that are to come. The more the world is weakened by old age, the more wicked it will become. Truth will withdraw day by day from the earth; good shall seem to be exiled.
The small number of the elect is the dominant thought of our sombre
dreamer. The entrance to eternal life is like a narrow strait between two seas,
like a narrow and slippery passage which gives access to a city; on the right there
is a precipice of fire, on the left a sea without bottom; a single man can scarcely
hold himself there. But the sea into which one enters is also immense, and the city
is full of every good thing. There is in this world more silver than gold, more
copper than silver, more iron than
Oh Earth! what hast thou done in giving birth to so many beings destined to perdition? It had been better had we no existence, rather than that we should exist only to be tortured Let humanity weep! let the beasts of the field rejoice! The condition of these last is better than ours; they do not expect the Judgment; they have no punishment to fear; after death, there is nothing for them. Of what use is life to us, since we owe to it an eternity of torments? Better annihilation than the prospect of judgment.
The Eternal God answers that intelligence has been given to man that he may be without excuse in the Day of Judgment and that he has nothing to reply.
The author plunges more and more deeply into strange questions,
which raise formidable dogmas. Can it be that from the moment that one draws his
last breath that he is damned and tortured, or will an interval pass, during which
the soul is in repose until the Judgment? According to the author, the fate of
each man is fixed at death. The wicked, excluded from the place of departed spirits,
are in the condition of wandering souls, tormented provisionally with seven punishments,
of which the two principal are seeing the happiness enjoyed by those in the asylum
I have already said, and I say again,—“Better were it for us that Adam had not been created upon the earth. At least after having placed him there God should have prevented him from doing evil. What advantage is it for man to pass his life in sadness and in misery, when after his death he can expect nothing else than punishments and torments? Oh, Adam! how enormous was thy crime! By sinning thou didst lose thyself and hast dragged down in thy fall all the men of whom thou went the father. And of what value is immortality to us if we have done only deeds worthy of death?”
Pseudo-Esdras admits liberty; but liberty has but a small right of existence in a system which makes so cardinal a point of predestination. It is for Israel that the world was created; the rest of the human race are damned.
And now, Lord, I pray not for all men (thou knowest better
Inquire of the earth and she will tell thee that it is to her that the right of weeping belongs. All those who are born or who will be born come out of the earth; yet almost all of them hasten to destruction, and the greater part of them are destined to perish! . . .
Disquiet not thyself because of the great number of those who must perish, for they also having received liberty have scoffed at the Most High, have rejected his holy law, have trampled his just ones under foot, and have said in their hearts “There is no God.” So whilst ye enjoy the rewards that have been promised, they will partake of the thirst and the torments which have been prepared for them. It is not that God hath desired the destruction of men; but the men who are the work of his hands have defiled the name of their Maker, and have been ungrateful to him who has given them life. . . .
I have reserved to myself a grape of the bunch, a plant from the forest. Let the multitude then perish who have been born in vain, if only I may keep my single grape, my plant that I have tended with so much care! . . .
A special vision is designed, as in almost all apocalypses, to
give in an enigmatic fashion the philosophy of contemporary history, and as usual
also the date of the book may be precisely arrived at from it. An immense eagle
(the eagle is the symbol of the Roman Empire in Daniel) extends its wings over all
the earth and holds it in its grip. It has six pairs of great wings, four pairs
of pinions or opposing wings, and three heads. The six pairs of great wings are
six Emperors. The second amongst them reigns for so long that none of those who
succeed him reach half the number of his years. This is obviously Augustus; and
the six Emperors referred to are the six Emperors of the house of Julius—Cæsar,
Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, masters of the East and of the West.
The four pinions or opposing wings are the four usurpers or Anti-Cæsars—Galba,
Otho, Vitellius, Nerva, who, according to the author, must not be considered as
true Emperors. The reigns of the three first Anti-Cæsars are periods of trouble, during which
Then comes the turn of the last pair of pinions, that is to say, of Nerva, the usurper, who succeeded, the right hand head (Domitian) and is with regard to Flavius in the same relation as Galba, Otho, and Vitellius were with Julius. The last reign is short and full of trouble; it is less a reign than an arrangement made by God to bring about the end of the world. In fact, after some moments, according to our visionary, the last Anti-Cæsar (Nerva) disappears; the body of the eagle takes fire, and all the earth is stricken with astonishment. The end of the profane world arrives, and the Messiah comes to overwhelm the Roman Empire with the bitterest reproaches.
Thou hast reigned over the world by terror and not by truth;
thou hast crushed the poor; thou hast persecuted peaceable people; than hast hated
the just; thou hast loved the liars; thou hast broken down the walls of those who
have done thee no wrong. Thy violences have gone up before the throne of the Eternal
God, and thy pride has reached even unto the Almighty. The
The Romans will then be judged; judged living, and exterminated on the spot. Then the Jewish people will breathe. God will preserve them in joy until the Day of Judgment.
It will scarcely be doubted after this that the author wrote during
the reign of Nerva, a reign which appeared without solidity or future, because of
the age and of the weakness of the sovereign, until the adoption of Trajan (end
of 97). The author of the Apocalypse of Esdras, like the author of the Apocalypse
of John, ignorant of real politics, believes that the Empire which he hates, and
the infinite resources of which he does not see, is approaching the end of its
career. The authors of the two Revelations, passionately Jewish, clap their hands
in advance over the ruin of their enemy. We shall see the same hopes renewed after
the reverses of Trajan in Mesopotamia. Always on the look out for the moments of
weakness on the part of the Empire, the Jewish party, at the appearance of any
black spot on the horizon, break out in advance into shouts of triumph, and applaud,
by anticipation. The hope of a Jewish Empire succeeding to the Roman Empire, still
filled these burning souls whom the frightful massacres of the year 70 had not crushed.
The author of the Apocalypse of Esdras had perhaps in his youth fought in Judea; sometimes he appears to regret that he did not find his death. We see that the
fire is not extinct, that it still lives in the ashes, and that before abandoning
all hope, Israel will tempt her fortune more than once. The Jewish revolts under Trajan and Adrian
The fate of the Apocalypse of Esdras was as strange as the work itself. Like the Book of Judith and the discourse upon the Empire of Reason, it was neglected by the Jews, in whose eyes every book written in Greek became at once a foreign book; but immediately upon its appearance it was eagerly adopted by the Christians, and accepted as a book of the Canon of the Old Testament, really written by Esdras. The author of the Epistle attributed to St Barnabas, the author of the apocryphal epistle which is called the Second of Peter, certainly read it. The false Herman appears to imitate its plan, order, use of visions, and turn of dialogue. Clement of Alexandria makes a great show of it. The Greek Church, departing further and further from Judeo-Christianity, abandons it, and allows the original to be lost. The Latin Church is divided. The learned doctors, such as St Jerome, see the apocryphal character of the whole composition, and reject it with disdain, whilst St Ambrose makes more use of it than of no matter what other holy book, and distinguishes it in no way from the revealed Scriptures. Vigilance detects there the germ of its heresy as to the uselessness of prayers for the dead. The Liturgy borrows from it. Roger Bacon quotes it with respect. Christopher Columbus finds in it arguments for the existence of another world. The enthusiasts of the sixteenth century nourish themselves upon it. Antoinette Bourignon, the illuminée, sees in it the most beautiful of the holy books.
In reality, few books have furnished so many elements of Christian
theology as this anti-Christian work. Limbo, original sin, the small number of the
elect, the eternity of the pains of hell, the punishment by fire, the free choice of God, have there found their
If anything proves the promptitude with which the false prophecy
of Esdras was received by the Christians, it is the use which was made of it in
the little treatise of Alexandrian exegesis, imitated from the Epistle to the Hebrews,
to which the name of Barnabas was attached from a very early date. The author of
this treatise cites the false Esdras as he quotes Daniel, Enoch, and the old prophets.
One feature of Esdras is especially striking—the wood from which the blood flows—in
which is naturally seen the image of the Cross. Now everything leads us to believe
that the treatise attributed to Barnabas was composed, like the Apocalypse of Esdras,
in the reign of Nerva. The writer applies, or rather alters
The facility with which the author has been able to adopt the
prophecy of the false Esdras, is so much the more singular, since few Christian
doctors express as energetically as he the necessity for an absolute separation
from Judaism. The Gnostics in this respect have said nothing stronger. The author
presents himself to us as an ex-Jew, well versed in the Ritual, the agada, and the
rabbinical disquisitions, but strongly opposed to the religion which he has left.
Circumcision appears to him to have always been a mistake of the Jews—a misunderstanding
into which they have been betrayed by some perverse genius. The Temple itself was
a mistake; the worship which was practised in it was almost idolatrous; it rested
wholly upon the Pagan idea that God could be shut up in a house. The Temple destroyed
through the fault of the Jews, would never be re-erected; the true Temple is that
spiritual house which is raised in the hearts of Christians. Judaism, in general,
has been only an aberration, the work of a bad angel, who has led the Jews in opposition
to the commands of God. What the author fears most is lest the Christian should
have only the air of a Jewish proselyte. All has been changed by Jesus, even the
Sabbath. The Sabbath formerly represented the end of the world; transplanted to
the first day of the week, it represents, by the joy with which it is celebrated,
the opening of a new world inaugurated by the resurrection and ascension of Jesus
Christ. Sacrifices and the Law are alike at an end. The whole of the Old Testament
was but a symbol. The cross of Jesus solves all problems; the author finds it
everywhere, by means of
The scenes of disorder which followed each other from day to day
in the Empire gave, moreover, only too much reason for the sombre predictions of
the pseudo-Esdras and the pretended Barnabas. The reign of the feeble old man whom
all parties had agreed to put into power, in the hours of surprise which followed
the death of Domitian, was an agony. The timidity with which he was reproached was
really sagacity. Nerva felt that the army always regretted Domitian, and bore only
with impatience the domination of the civil element. Honest men were in power, but
the reign of honest men, when it is not supported by an army, is always weak. A
terrible incident showed the depth of the evil. About the 27th October 97 the Prætorians,
having found a leader in Casperius Ælianus, besieged the palace, demanding with
loud cries the punishment of those who had slain Domitian. Nerva’s somewhat soft
temperament was not suited to such scenes. He virtuously offered his own life, but
he could not prevent the massacre of Parthenius and of those who had made him Emperor.
The day was decisive, and saved the Republic. Nerva, like a wise man, understood
that he ought to associate with himself a young captain whose energy should supply
what he was deficient in. He had relations, but, attentive only to the good of the state, he sought
The adoption of Trajan assured to civilised humanity after cruel
trials a century of happiness. The Empire was saved. The malignant predictions of
the apocalypse makers were completely contradicted. The world still desired to
live: the Empire, in spite of the fall of the Julii and the Flavii, found in its
strong military organisation resources which the superficial provincials never
suspected. Trajan, whom the choice of Nerva was to carry to the Imperial throne,
was a very great man, a true Roman, master of himself, cool in command, of a grave
and dignified bearing. He had certainly less political genius than a Cæsar, an
Augustus, a Tiberius, but he was their superior in justice and in goodness, while in military talent, he
Galba had been the first to recognise that combination of apparently
contradictory elements. Nerva and Trajan realised it. The Empire with them became
Republican, or rather the Emperor was the first and only Republican in the Empire.
The great men who are praised in the world which surrounds the sovereign are Thrasea,
Helvidius, Senecion, Cato, Brutus, the Greek heroes who expelled the tyrants from
their country. Therein lies the explanation of the fact that after the year 98 nothing
more is heard of protests against the principate. The philosophers who had been
until then in some sort the soul of the Radical opposition, and whose attitude had
been so hostile under the Flavii, suddenly held their peace: they were satisfied.
Between the new régime and philosophy
The age of monsters had gone by. That haughty race of the Julii, and the families which were allied to them, had unfolded before the world the strangest spectacle of folly, grandeur, and perversity. Henceforward the bitterness of the Roman blood appears exhausted. Rome has sweated away all her malice. It is the peculiarity of an aristocracy which has lived its life without restraint, to become in its old age rigid, orthodox, puritan. The Roman nobility, the most terrible that ever existed, is now distinguished chiefly by refinements, extremes of virtue, delicacy, modesty.
This transformation was in a great measure the work of Greece.
The Greek schoolmaster had succeeded in making himself accepted by the Roman noblesse,
by dint of submitting to its pride, its coarseness, its contempt for matters of
mind. In the time of Julius Cæsar, Sextius, the father, brought from Athens to
Rome the proud moral discipline of Stoicism, the examination of conscience, asceticism,
abstinence, love of poverty. After him, Sextius, the son, Sohon of Alexandria, Attala,
Demetrius the cynic, Metronax, Claranus, Fabianus, Seneca, gave the model of an
active and practical philosophy, employing all means—preaching, direction of conscience—for
the propagation of virtue. The noble struggle of the philosophers against Nero and
Domitian, their banishments, their punishments, had all ended in making them dear
to the best Roman society. Their credit continues increasing until the time of Marcus
Aurelius, under whom they reigned. The strength of a party is
Ancient philosophy assuredly had days of greater originality,
but it had never penetrated life and society more deeply. The differences of the
schools were almost effaced; general systems were abandoned; a superficial eclecticism,
such as men of the world like when they are anxious to do well, was the fashion.
The philosophy became oratorical, literary preaching tending more towards moral
amelioration than to the satisfaction of curiosity. A host of persons made it their
rule and even the law of their exterior life. Musonius Rufus and Artemidorus were
true confessors of their faith, heroes of stoical virtue. Euphrates of Tyre offered
the ideal of the gentleman philosopher, his person had a great charm, his manners
were of the rarest distinction. Dion Chrysostom created a series of lectures akin
to sermons, and obtained immense successes, without ever falling short
Literature, on its side, having become all at once grave and worthy,
exhibits an immense progress in the manners of good society. Quintilian already,
in the worst days of the reign of Domitian, had laid out the code of oratorical
probity which ought to be in such perfect accord with our greatest minds of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Rollin, M.M. de Port Royal. Now literary honesty
never goes alone; it is only serious ages that can have a serious literature.
Tacitus wrote history with a high aristocratic sense, which did not save him from
errors of detail, but which inspired him with those outbursts of virtuous passion
which have made of him for all eternity the spectre of tyrants. Suetonius prepared
himself, by labours of solid erudition, for his part of exact and impartial biographer.
Pliny, a man of good birth, liberal, humane, charitable, refined, founds schools
and public libraries; he might be a Frenchman of the most amiable society of the
eighteenth century. Juvenal, sincere in declamation, and moral in his
The world is then at last to be governed by reason. Philosophy will enjoy for a hundred years the right which it is credited with of rendering people happy. A great number of excellent laws, forming the best part of the Roman law, are of this date. Public assistance begins; children are, above all, the object of the solicitude of the State. A real moral sentiment animates the government; never before the eighteenth century was so much done for the amelioration of the condition of the human race. The Emperor is a god accomplishing his journey upon earth, and signalising his passage by benefits.
Such a system must, of course, differ greatly from what we consider
as essentially a Liberal government. We should seek vainly for any trace of parliamentary
or representative institutions: the state of the world was Incompatible with such
things. The opinion of the politicians of the time is that power belongs, by a sort
of natural delegation, to honest, sensible, moderate men. That designation was made
by the Tatum; when it was once accepted, the Emperor governs the Empire as the ram
conducts his troop, and the bull his herd. By the side of this a language altogether
Republican. With the best faith in the world these excellent sovereigns thought
that they would be able to realise a State founded upon the natural equality of
all citizens, a royalty having as its basis respect for liberty. Liberty, justice,
respect for opponents, were their fundamental maxims. But these words, borrowed
from the history of the Greek Republics,
The victory of these families was assuredly a just victory, for under the odious reigns of Nero and Domitian they had given an asylum to virtue, to self-respect, to the instinct of reasonable command, to good literary and philosophical education; but these same families, as usually happens, formed a very closely-enclosed world. The advent of Nerva and Trajan, which was the work of an aristocratic, Liberal-Conservative party, put an end to two things—barrack troubles, and the importance of the Orientals, the domestics, and favourites of the Emperors. The freedmen, people of Egypt and Syria, will no longer be able to trouble all that is best in Rome. These wretches, who made themselves masters by their guilty complaisances in the reigns of Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, who had even been the counsellors and the confidants of the debaucheries of Titus before his accession, fell into contempt. The irritation which the Romans felt at the honours decreed to a Herod Agrippa, to a Tiberius Alexander, was not again felt after the fall of Flavius. The Senate increased as much in power; but the action of the provinces was lessened; the attempts to break the ice of the official world were almost reduced to impotence.
Hellenism did not suffer; for it knew by its suppleness or by
its high distinction how to make itself acceptable to the best of the Roman world. But
Trajan, Adrian, Antonine, Marcus Aurelius, held themselves in
this way with regard to Judaism and to Christianity in a sort of haughty isolation.
They did not know it; they did not care to study it. Tacitus, who wrote for the
great world, speaks of the Jews as an exotic curiosity, totally ignored by those
The question of liberty is thus raised as it has never been raised
before in any of the republics of antiquity. The ancient city, which was only an enlarged family,
Trajan and his successors scarcely cared to renew the sad excess
of sneaking hypocrisy which characterised
To that strong preference for the national worship was joined,
with the great emperors of the second century, the fear of the heteria, cœtus illiciti,
or associations which might become factions in the cities. A simple body of firemen
were suspected. Too many people at a family festivity disquieted the authorities.
Trajan required that the invitations should be limited and given by name. Even the
associations ad sustinendam tenuiorium inopiam were permitted only in the cities
which had special charters for the purpose. In that matter Trajan followed the tradition
of all the great Emperors after Cæsar. It is impossible that such measures could
have appeared necessary to such great men if they had not been justified in some
respects. But the administrative spirit of the second century was carried to excess.
Instead of practising public benevolence, as the State had begun to do, how much
better it would have been to leave the associations free to exercise it! These
associations aspired to spring up in all parts: the State was full of injustice
and harshness for them. It wanted peace at any price, but peace, when it is based by authority on the
In that lies the cause of that phenomenon, in itself so singular,
of Christianity being found worse under the wise administration of the great emperors
of the second century than under the furious rage with which the scoundrels of the
first attacked it. The violences of Nero, of Domitian, lasted only a few weeks or
months; they were either passing acts of brutality or else the results of annoyances
springing out of a fantastic and shady policy. In the interval which passed between
the appearance of Christianity and the accession of Trajan, never once do we find
the criminal law put in force against Christians. Legislation on the subject of
the illicit colleges already existed in part, but it was never applied with so much
rigour as was done later. On the contrary, the very legal but very governmental
rule (as we should say nowadays) of the Trajans and the Antonines, will be more
oppressive to Christianity than the ferocity and the wickedness of the tyrants.
These great Conservatives of things Roman will perceive, not without reason, a
serious danger to the Empire in that too firm faith in a kingdom of God which is
the inversion of existing society. The theocratic element which underlies Judaism
and Christianity alike terrifies them. They see indistinctly but certainly what
the Decii, the Aurelians, the Diocletians will see more clearly after them, all
the restorers of the Empire failing in the third century,—that a choice must be
made between the Empire and the Church,—that full liberty of the Church means the
end of the Empire. They struggle as a matter of duty; they allow a harsh law to
be applied, since it is the condition of the existence of society in their time.
Thus a fair understanding with Christianity was much more remote than under Nero
or under Flavius. Public men had felt the
Assuredly, according to our ideas, Trajan and Marcus Aurelius
would have done better had they been Liberals altogether, had they fully conceded
the right of association, of recognising corporations as being capable of holding
property; free, in case of schism, to divide the property of the corporation amongst
the members, in proportion to the number of adherents to each party. This last point
would have been sufficient to get rid of all danger. Already in the third century
it is the Empire which maintains the unity of the Church in making it a rule that
he shall be regarded as the true bishop of a church in any city who corresponds
with the Bishop of Rome, and is recognised by him. What would have happened in
the fourth, in the midst of those embittered struggles with Arianism? Numberless
and irremediable schisms. The emperors, and then the barbarian kings, alone could
put an end to the matter by limiting the question of orthodoxy to “who was the canonical
bishop?” Corporations not connected with the State are never very formidable to
the State, when the State remains really neutral, does not assume the office of
judge of the denominations, and in the legal proceedings before it for the possession
of goods, observes the rule of dividing the capital in strict proportion to numbers.
Thus all associations which might become dangerous to the peace of the State may
readily be dissolved; division will reduce them to dust. The authority of the State alone can cause
Permanent persecution by the State. Such, then, is in brief the story of the era which is now opening for Christianity. It has been thought sometimes that there was a special edict in these terms:—Non licet esse Christianos, which served as basis for all the proceedings against the Christians. It is possible, but it is not necessary, to suppose that there was. Christians were, by the very fact of their existence, in conflict with the laws concerning association. They were guilty of sacrilege, of lèse majesté, of nightly meetings. They could not render to the Emperor the honours which a loyal subject should. Now the crime of lèse majesté was punished with the most cruel tortures: no one accused of the crime was exempt from the torture. And there was that sombre category of flagitia nomini cohærentia, crimes which it was not necessary to prove, which the name of Christian alone was supposed to be sufficient to prove à priori, and which entailed the character of hostis publicus. Such crimes were officially prosecuted. Such, in particular, was the crime of arson, constantly kept in mind by the remembrance of 64, and also by the persistence with which the apocalypses returned to the idea of a final conflagration. To this was joined the constant suspicion of secret infamies, of nightly meetings, of guilty commerce with women, young girls, and children. From thence to judge the Christians capable of every crime and to attribute to them all misdeeds, was but one step, and that step the crowd rather than the magistracy took every day.
When to all this is added the terrible discretion which was left to the judges, especially in the choice of punishment, and it will be understood how, without exceptional laws, without special legislation, it was possible to produce the desolating spectacle which the history of the Roman Empire presents at its best periods. The law may be applied with greater or less rigour, but it is still the law. This condition of things will last like a low and slow fever throughout the second century, with intervals of exasperation and remission in the third. It will end only with the terrible outburst of the first years of the fourth century, and will be definitely closed by the edict of Milan of 313. Every revival of the Roman spirit will be a redoubling of persecution. The emperors who, on divers occasions in the fourth century, undertook to restore the Empire, are the persecutors. The tolerant emperors—Alexander, Severus, Philip—are those who have no Roman blood in their veins, and who sacrifice Latin traditions to the cosmopolitanism of the East.
Venerate the Divine in all things and everywhere, according to the usages of the nation, and force others to honour him. Hate and punish the partisans of foreign ceremonies, not merely out of respect for the gods, but especially because those who introduce new divinities thereby spread the taste for foreign customs, which leads to conjurations, to coalitions to associations, things which agree in no way with the Monarchy. Neither permit any man to profess at atheism or magic. Divination is necessary; let augurs and auspices be officially named, therefore, to whom those who wish to consult them may address themselves, but let there be no free magicians, for such persona, mixing some truths with many lies, may urge the citizens to rebellion. The same thing may be said of many of those who call themselves philosophers; beware of them; they only do mischief to private persons and to the peoples.
It was in such terms that a statesman of the generation which
followed the Antonines summed up their religious policy. As in a time nearer to
our own, the State thought itself to be displaying immense
A great intellectual decline was the result of these efforts to
restore a faith which no one held. A sort of commonplaceness spread itself over
beliefs, and took away from them everything that was serious. Free-thinkers, innumerable
in the century before and the century after Jesus Christ, diminished in numbers
and disappeared. The easy tone of the great Latin literature was lost, and gave
place to a heavy credulity. Science extinguished itself from day to day. After the
death of Seneca it could hardly be said that there was a single savant who was altogether
a rationalist. Pliny the elder is curious, but is no critic. Tacitus, Pliny the
younger, Suetonius, avoid all expression of opinion on the inanity of the most ridiculous
imagination. Pliny the younger believes in childish ghost stories. Epictetus desires
to practise the established religion. Even a writer as frivolous as Apuleius believes
himself, when the gods are in question, obliged to take the tone of a rigid Conservative. A
Whilst religion was corrupting philosophy, philosophy sought for apparent reconciliations with the supernatural. A foolish and hollow theology, mixed with imposture, came into fashion Apuleius will soon call the philosophers “the priests of all the gods.” Alexander of Abonotica will found a religion upon conjuring tricks. Religious quackery, miracle-mongering, relieved by a false varnish of philosophy, became the fashion. Apollonius of Tyana afforded the first example of it, although it would be difficult to say who this singular personage was in reality, It was at a later date that he was imagined to be a religious revealer, a sort of philosophical demi-god. Such was the promptitude of the decadence of the human mind that a wretched theurgist who, in the time of Trajan, would hardly have been accepted by the Gapers of Asia Minor, became a hundred years afterwards, thanks to shameless writers, who used him to amuse a public fallen altogether into credulity, a personage of the first order, a divine incarnation whom they dared to compare with Jesus.
Public instruction obtained from the emperors much more attention
than under the Cæsars and even under the Flavii; but there was no question of literature;
the grand discipline of the mind which comes especially from science will obtain
from these professors but little profit. Philosophy was specially favoured by Antoninus
and Marcus Aurelius; but philosophy, which is the supreme object of life, which
includes everything else, can scarcely be taught by the State. In any case, that
instruction affected the people very little. It was something abstract and elevated, something
To sum up! Notwithstanding all its defects, society in the
second century was making progress. There was intellectual decadence but moral
improvement, as appears to be the case in our own days in the upper ranks of
French society. The ideas of charity, of assistance to the poor, of disgust at
the (gladiatorial) spectacles, increased everywhere. So much did this excellent
spirit preside over the destinies of the Empire, that at the death of Marcus
Aurelius Christianity seemed to be brought to a standstill It pressed forward,
on the contrary, with an irresistible movement
Doubt, which is never absent from this history, becomes always
an opaque cloud when it is a question of Ephesus and of the dark passions which
agitated it. We have admitted as probable the traditional opinion, according to
which the Apostle John, surviving the majority of the disciples of Jesus, having
escaped from the storms of Rome and Judea successively, took refuge in Ephesus,
and there lived to an advanced age, surrounded with the respect of all the Churches
of Asia. Irenæus, without doubt, on the
The old Apostle, in these last years veiled in mystery, appears
to have been much beset. Miracles and even resurrections from the dead were ascribed
to him. A circle of disciples gathered around him. What passed in that private cœnaculum?
What traditions were elaborated there? What stories did the old man tell? Did
he not soften in his last days the strong antipathy which he had always shown to
the disciples of Paul? In his narratives did he not seek, as happened more than
once in the lifetime of Jesus, to ascribe to himself the first place by the side
of his Master, to put himself nearest to His heart? Did some of the doctrines which
were described later as Johannian begin already to be discussed between the aged
and weary master and the young and bright spirits in search of novelties, seeking
perhaps to persuade the old man that he had always
Philo, at about the time when Jesus lived, had developed a philosophy
of Judaism, which, although prepared by previous speculations of Israelitish thinkers,
took under his pen only a definite form. The basis of that philosophy was a sort
of abstract metaphysic, introducing into the one God various hypostases, and snaking
of the Divine Reason (in Greek Logos, in Syro-Chaldaic Memera) a sort of distinct
principle from the Eternal Father. Egypt and Phœnicia already knew of similar
doublings of one same God. The Hermetic Books were later to erect the theology of
the hypostases into a philosophy parallel to that of Christianity. Jesus appears
to have been left out of these speculations, which, had he known of them, would
have had few charms for his poetic imagination and his loving heart. His school,
on the contrary, was, so to speak, besieged by it; Apollos was perhaps no stranger
to it. St Paul, in the latter part of his life, appears to have allowed himself
to be greatly preoccupied with it. The apocalypse gives us the mysterious name of
its triumphant Λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ.
Judeo-Christianity, faithful to the spirit of orthodox Judaism, did not allow
such ideas to enter their midst, save in the most limited fashion. But when the
Churches out of Syria were more and more detached from Judaism, the invasion of
the new spirit was accomplished with an irresistible force. Jesus, who at first
had been for his hearers only as a prophet,
It is not in effect with the Apostle John alone that tradition
connects the solemn promulgation of this novel dogma. Around John tradition shows
us his doctrine raising storms, troubling consciences, provoking schisms and anathemas.
About the time at which we have arrived, there appeared at Ephesus, coming from
Alexandria like another Apollos, a man who appears, after a generation, to have
had many points of likeness with this last. The man in question was Cerinthus, which
others call Merinthas, without its being possible to know what mystery is hidden
under that assonance. Like Apollus, Cerinthus was born a Jew, and before becoming
acquainted with Christianity had been imbued with the Judeo-Alexandrine philosophy.
He embraced the faith of Jesus in a manner altogether different from that of the
good Israelites who believed the kingdom of God realised in the Idyll of Nazareth,
and of the pious Pagans, whom a secret attraction drew towards that mitigated form
of Judaism. His mind, besides, appears to have had little fixity, and to have been
willingly carried from one extreme to the other. Sometimes his conceptions approached
those of the Ebionites; sometimes they inclined to millenarianism; sometimes they
floated in pure gnosticism, or presented an analogy with those of Philo. The creator
of the world and the author of the Jewish law—the God of Israel, in short—was not
the Eternal Father; he was an angel, a sort of demigod, subordinated to the great
and Almighty God. The spirit of this great God, long unknown to the
That doctrine, which we have already found at least in germ amongst
many of the families of the Ebionim, whose propaganda was carried on beyond the
Jordan in Asia, and which in fifty years Narcion and the Gnostics would take up
with greater vigour, appeared a frightful scandal to the Christian conscience.
In separating from Jesus the fantastic being called Christos, it did nothing less
than divide the person of Jesus, carrying off all personality from the most beautiful
part of his active life, since the Christ found himself to have been in him only
as something foreign and impersonal to him. It was thought indeed that the friends
of Jesus, those who had seen and loved him, child, young man, martyr, corpse, would
be indignant. The memories presented Jesus to them as amiable as God, from one moment
to mother; they wished that he should be adopted and
On all sides the difficulty of reconciling the two parts of Jesus,
of causing to co-exist in the same being the wise man and the Christ, produced imaginations
like those which excited the wrath of John. Docetism was, if we may so express it,
the heresy of the time. Many could not admit that the Christ had been crucified
and laid in the tomb. Some like Cerinthus admitted a sort of intermittance in the
divine work of Jesus; others supposed that the body of Jesus had been fantastic,
that all his material life, above all, his life of suffering, had been but apparitional.
These imaginations came from the opinion, very wide spread at that period, that
matter is a fall, a degradation of the spirit; that the material manifestation is
the degradation of the idea. The Gospel history is thus volatilised as it were into
something impalpable. It is curious that Islamism, which is only a sort of Arab
prolongation of Judeo-Christianity, should have adopted this idea about Jesus. At
Jerusalem, in particular, the Mussulmans have always denied absolutely that Isa
died upon Golgotha; they pretend that someone like him was crucified in his stead.
The supposed place of the Ascension upon the Mount of Olives is for the Shaykhs
the true Holy Place of Jerusalem connected with Isa, for it is there that the impassible
Messiah, born of the sacred breath and not of the
Whatever he may have been, Cerinthus became in the Christian tradition a sort of Simon Magus, a personage almost fabulous, the typical representative of Docetic Christianity, brother of Ebionite and Judeo-Christian Christianity. As Simon Magus was the sworn enemy of Peter, Cerinthus was considered to be the bitter opponent of Paul. He was put on the same footing as Ebion; there was soon a habit of not separating them, and as Ebion was the abstract personification of the Judeo-Christian-speaking Hebrew, Cerinthus became a sort of generic word to designate Judeo-Christianity-speaking Greek. Phrases like the following were coined:—“Who dares to reproach Peter with having admitted Pagans into the Church? Who showered insults upon Paul? Who provoked a sedition against Titus the uncircumcised? It was Ebion: it was Cerinthus”—phrases which, taken literally, cause it to be supposed that Cerinthus had had a part in Jerusalem in the earliest ages of the Church. As Cerinthus has left no writings, the ecclesiastical tradition went on in all that concerned him from one inexactitude to another. In this tissue of contradictions there is not one word of truth. Cerinthus was really the first heretic, the author of a doctrine destined to remain a dead branch in the great tree of the Christian doctrine. In opposing itself to him, in denying his claims, the Christian Church made the greatest step towards the constitution of an orthodox faith.
By these struggles, and these contradictions in effect, Christian
theology developed itself. The person of Jesus, and the singular combination of
man, and the Divinity that were believed to exist in him, formed the basis of these
speculations. We shall see gnosticism come to light in a current of like ideas,
and seek in its turn to decompose the unity of the Christ; but
John, without doubt, consoled himself for these aberrations, the fruits of a mind strange to the Galilean tradition, by the fidelity and affection with which his disciples surrounded him. In the first rank was a young Asiatic, named Polycarp, who must have been about thirty years of age during the extreme old age of John, and who appears to have been converted to the faith in Christ in his infancy. The extreme respect which he had for the Apostle made him look upon him with the curious eye of youth, in which everything enlarges and transforms itself. The living image of this old man had fixed itself in his mind, and throughout his life he spoke of it as of a glimpse of the Divine world. It was at Smyrna that he was chiefly active, and it is not impossible that he had been selected by John to preside over the already ancient Church in that city, as Irenæus has it.
Thanks to Polycarp, the memory of John remained in Asia, and consequently
at Lyons, and amongst the Gauls, a living tradition. Everything that Polycarp said
of the Lord, of his doctrine, and of his miracles, connected him as having received
it from the eye-witnesses of the Life of Jesus. He was accustomed to express himself
thus:—“This I have from the Apostles.” . . . “I who have been taught by the Apostles,
and who have lived with many of those who have seen the Christ.” This way of speaking
caused it to be supposed that Polycarp had known other Apostles besides John—Philip,
for example. It is, however, more probable that there was some hyperbole here.
The expression “the Apostles,” without doubt means John, who might besides be accompanied
by many unknown Galilean disciples. We may also understand thereby, if we choose, Presbyteros Joannes
Nothing, in short, is more doubtful than everything which relates to this homonym of the Apostle, this Presbyteros Joannes, who only appears near to John in his later years, and who, according to some traditions, succeeded him in the presidency of the Church of Ephesus. His existence, however, seems probable. The title of Presbyteros may be the appellation by which he was distinguished from Apostolos. After the death of the Apostle, he may have long continued to describe himself as Presbyteros, omitting his name. Aristion, whom very ancient information places by the side of the Presbyteros as a traditionist of the highest authority, and who appears to have been claimed by the Church of Smyrna, is also an enigma. All that can be said is that there was at Ephesus a group of men who, towards the end of the first century, gave themselves out as the last eye-witnesses of the Life of Jesus. Papias knew them, or at least came very near to them, and collected their traditions.
We shall see later the publication of a Gospel, of an altogether
special character, produced by this little circle, which appears to have obtained
the entire confidence of the old Apostle, and which perhaps believed itself authorised
to speak in his name. At the period at which we are, and before the death of John,
some of his disciples, who appear to have surrounded him, and, as it were, to have
monopolised the old age of the last survivor of the Apostles, did they not seek to
John continued a strict Jew to the end, observing the Law in all its rigour; it is doubtful whether the transcendental theories which began to be disseminated as to the identity of Jesus with the Logos can ever have been comprehended by him; but, as happens in schools of thought in which the master attains a great age, his school went on without him and outside of him, even whilst pretending to base itself upon him. John appeared fated to be made use of by the authors of fictitious pieces. We have seen how much there was that was suspicious in the origin of the Apocalypse; objections almost equally grave may be made to theories which maintain the authenticity of this singular book, and which declare it apocryphal. What shall be said of that other eccentricity, that a whole branch of the ecclesiastical tradition, the school of Alexandria, has determined not merely that the Apocalypse shall not be John’s, but that it belongs to his opponent Cerinthus. We shall find the same equivocations surrounding the second class of Johannian writings which will soon be produced, and one thing only remaining clear—that John cannot have been the author of the two series of works which bear his name. One of the two series, at all events, may possibly be his; but both are certainly not.
There was great emotion on the day which witnessed the death
of the Apostle in whom for many years had been summed up the whole Christian tradition,
and by whom it was believed that there was still connection with Jesus, and with
the beginning of the new word. All the pillars of the Church had disappeared. He
whom Jesus, according to the common belief, had promised not to allow to taste of
death until he came again, had in turn gone down into the grave. It was a cruel deception, and in order to
The tomb of John was shown at Ephesus ninety years later; it is
probable that upon this venerable monument was raised the basilica which afterwards
With John disappeared the last man of the strange generation which had believed itself to have seen God upon the earth, and had hoped not to die. It was about the same time that that charming book appeared which has preserved to us across the mists of legends the image of the age of gold. Luke, or whoever the author of the third Gospel may have been, undertook that task, which was congenial to his refined soul, to his pure and gentle talents. The prefaces which stand at the head of the third Gospel and at the head of the Acts appear at the first glance to indicate that Luke conceived his work as consisting of two books, one of which contained the Life of Jesus, the other the history of the Apostles as he had known them. There are, however, strong reasons for believing that the compilation of the two works was separated by some interval. The preface to the Gospel does not necessarily imply the intention of composing the Acts. It may be that Luke added this second book to his work only at the end of several years, and at the request of persons with whom the first book had had so much success.
This hypothesis is supported by the part which the author has
taken in the first lines of the Acts relative to the ascension of Jesus. In the
other Gospels the period of the apparitions of Jesus fades away little by little,
without any definite end. The imagination comes to desire a final catastrophe;
a definite way of escaping from a state of things which could not continue indefinitely.
This myth, the completion of the legend of Jesus, was slowly and painfully evolved.
The author of the apocalypse in 69 certainly believed in the Ascension. Jesus,
according to him, is carried up into heaven and placed by the throne of God. In
the same book the two prophets copied from Jesus, killed like him, rise after three
and a half days; after their resurrection, they ascend to heaven in a cloud in the
sight of their enemies. Luke, in his Gospel, leaves the matter in suspense, but
at the beginning of the Acts he relates, with all desirable accompaniments, the
crowning event of the life of Jesus. He knows even how long the life of Jesus lasted
beyond the tomb. It was forty days, a remarkable coincidence with the apocalypse
of Esdras. Luke at Rome may have been one of the earliest readers of this document,
which must have made a profound impression upon him. The spirit of the Acts is the
same as that of the third Gospel: gentleness, tolerance, conciliation, sympathy
with the humble, aversion from the proud. The author is certainly he who wrote,
“Peace to men of good will.” We have explained elsewhere the singular distortions
which these excellent intentions have made him give to historic accuracy, and how
his book is the first document of the mind of the Roman Church, indifferent to
facts and dominated in all things by the official tendencies. Luke is the founder
of that eternal fiction which is called ecclesiastical history, with its insipidity,
its habit of smoothing off all angles, its foolishly sanctified turns. The à priori of a Church
From the point of view of historical value, two parts, absolutely
distinct, ought to be made in the Acts, according to which Luke relates the facts of the life
We have had too many occasions to show in detail
Something analogous to this may be found in what happened about
the time of the Revolution, in the party which undertook to restore the worship
of the French Revolution. Amongst the heroes of the Revolution, the struggles had
been ardent and bitter; there was hatred even to the death. But twenty-five
Another essentially Roman feature of Luke, is one which brings
him into closer relation with Clement, is his respect for the Imperial authority,
and the precautions which he takes not to wound it. We do not find amongst these
two writers the bitter hatred of Rome which characterises the authors of the apocalypse
and the Sibylline poems. The author of the Acts avoids everything which could present
Rome as the enemy of Christianity. On the contrary, he endeavours to show that on
many occasions they have defended Paul and the Christians against the Jews. There
is never an insulting word for the civil magistrates. If he stops short in his narrative
at the arrival of Paul at Rome, it is perhaps because he does not wish to be compelled
to relate the monstrosities of Nero. Luke does not admit that the Christians may
ever have been legally compromised. If Paul had not appealed to the Emperor, he might
The perfect unity of the book scarcely allows us to decide whether
Luke in composing it had under his eyes previously-written documents, or if he was
the first to write the history of the Apostles from oral tradition. There were many
Acts of the Apostles, just as there were many Gospels; but whilst several Gospels
have been retained in the Canon, only a single book of Acts has been preserved.
The “Preaching of Peter,” the object of which was to present Jerusalem as the source
of all Christianity, and Peter as the centre of the Hierosolymitan Christianity,
is perhaps as ancient at bottom as the Acts; but Luke certainly did not know it.
It is gratuitous also to suppose that Luke revised and completed, in the sense of
the reconciliation of the Judeo-Christian with Paul, a more ancient document composed
to the greater glory of the Church of Jerusalem and the Twelve. The design of putting
Paul on a level with the Twelve, and, above all, to connect Peter and Paul, is manifest
in our author; but it appears that he followed in his narrative only the framework
of a long-established oral tradition. The chiefs of the Church of Rome appear to
have a consecrated manner of relating the apostolic history. Luke conformed to it,
adding a sufficiently detailed memoir of Paul, and towards the end some personal
recollections. Like all the historians of antiquity, he did not deny himself the
use of a little innocent rhetoric. At Rome his Greek education had
The book of the Acts, like the third Gospel written for the Christian society of Rome, remained for a long time confined to it. So long as the Church developed herself by direct tradition and by internal necessities, only a secondary importance was attached to it, but when the decisive argument in the discussions relative to the ecclesiastical organisations was to remount to the primitive Church as to an ideal, the book of the Acts became of the highest authority. It told of the Ascension, the Pentecost, the Cœnaculum, the miracles of the apostolic Word, the Council of Jerusalem. The foregone conclusions of Luke imposed themselves upon history; and even to the penetrating observers of the modern criticism, the thirty years which were most fertile in ecclesiastical annals, were known only by him. The material truth suffered from it, for that material truth Luke scarcely knew, while he cared still less about it; but almost as much as the Gospels, the Acts fashioned the future. The manner in which things are told is of more consequence in great secular developments than the manner in which they happened. Those who constructed the legend of Jesus have a part in the work of Christianity almost equal to his; that which made the legend of the primitive Church has weighed with an enormous weight in the creation of that spiritual society where so many centuries have found the repose of their souls. Multitudinis credentium erat cor unum et anima una. When one has written that, one has thrust into the heart of humanity the goad which never allows it to rest until what may have been discovered, and what has been seen in slumber, and what has been seen in dreams, and touched that of which we have dreamed.
Whilst the Western Churches, yielding more or less to the influence of the Roman spirit, moved rapidly towards an orthodox Catholicism, and aspired to give to itself a central government excluding the varieties of the sects, the Churches of the Ebionim in Syria were crumbling away more and more, and wasted themselves in all sorts of aberrations. The sect is not the Church; too often, on the contrary, the sect eats away the Church and dissolves it. A veritable Proteus, Judeo-Christianity engaged itself by turns in the most opposite directions. Notwithstanding the privilege enjoyed by the Syrian Christians of possessing the members of the family of Jesus, and of attaching to itself a tradition much closer than those of the Churches of Asia, of Greece, and of Rome, it is not to be doubted that, left to themselves, these little associations would have melted away like a dream at the end of two or three hundred years. On the one hand, the exclusive use of Syriac deprived them of all fertile contact with the works of Greek genius; on the other, a host of Oriental influences, full of danger, acted upon them, and threatened them with a prompt corruption. Their imperfect reasoning powers delivered them over to the seductions of the theosophic follies—of Babylonian, Persian, or Egyptian origin; which, in about forty years, caused the nascent Christianity that grave malady of Gnosticism, which can only be compared to a terrible croup, from which the child barely escapes by a miracle.
The atmosphere in which these Ebionite Churches of Syria, and
beyond the Jordan, lived, was exceedingly disturbed. Jewish sects abounded in these
districts, and followed an altogether different course
The Samaritans were divided on their side into a crowd of sects,
more or less connected with Simon of Gitton. Cleobius, Menander, the Gorotheans,
the Sebueans, are already Gnostics: the Cabbalistic mysticism ran high amongst
them. The absence of all authority still permitted the gravest confusions. The Samaritan
sects which swarmed by the side of the Church sometimes entered within its limits
or sought to force their way in. We may connect with these times the book of the
Grand Exposition attributed to Simon of Gitton. Menander and Capharateus had succeeded
to all the ambitions of Simon. He, like his master, imagined that he possessed the
supreme virtue hidden from the rest of men. Between God and the creation he placed
an innumerable world of angels, over whom magic had all power. Of that magic he
pretended to know the profoundest secrets. It appears that he baptised in his own
name. This baptism conferred the right to the resurrection and to immortality. It was at Antioch that Menander
Another Samaritan, Dositheus or Dosthaï, played the part of a
sort of Christ, of Son of God, and sought to pass himself off as the great prophet
equal to Moses of whom the promise might be read in Deuteronomy (
The intimate connection which existed between Christians and the
mass of Israel, the want of direction which characterised the trans-Jordanic Churches,
caused each of these sects to have its counterpart in the Church of Jesus. We do
not well understand what Hegesippus endeavours to say when he traces for the Church
of Jerusalem a period of absolute virginity, finishing about the time at which we
now are, and when he attributes all the evil of the time which followed to a certain
Trebuthis, who, out of spite at not having been named bishop, infected the Church
with errors borrowed from seven Jewish sects. What is true is that in the lost provinces
of the East strange alliances were produced. Sometimes even the mania for incoherent
mixtures did not stop at the limits of Judaism; the religions of Upper Asia furnished
more than one element to the cauldron in which the most discordant elements fermented
together. Baptism is a rite originally from the region
This Elkasaï appears to have been an Essene of the country beyond
Jordan. He had, perhaps, resided in Babylonia, whence he pretended to have brought
the book of his revelation. He raised his prophetic standard in the third year
of the reign of Trajan, preaching repentance, and a new baptism more efficacious
than all these which had preceded it, capable, in a word, of washing away the most
enormous sins. He presented, as a proof of his divine mission, a bizarre apocalypse,
probably written in Syriac, which he sought to surround with a charlatanesque mystery,
by representing it as having come down from heaven at Sera, the capital of the fabulous
country of the Serans, beyond Parthia. A gigantic angel, thirty-two leagues in height,
representing the Son of God, there played the part of revealer; by his side, a female
angel of the same height, the Holy Spirit, appeared like a statue in the clouds
between two mountains. Elkasaï, now the depositary of the book, transmits it to
a certain Sobiaï. Some fragments of this strange document are known to us. Nothing
there rises above the level of a vulgar mystifier, who wishes to make his fortune
with pretended formulas of expiation and ridiculous mummeries. Magic formulas composed of Syriac
Was Elkasaï really Christian? It has sometimes been doubted. He spoke often about the Messiah, but he equivocated concerning Jesus. It may be imagined that, walking in the footsteps of Simon of Gitton, Elkasaï knew and copied Christianity. Like Mahomet, at a later period, he adopted Jesus as a divine personage. The Ebionites were the only Christians with whom he had relations; for his Christology is distinctly that of Ebion. By its example, he maintained the Law, circumcision, the Sabbath, rejected the ancient prophets, hated Paul, abstained from flesh, and turned towards Jerusalem in prayer. His disciples appear to have approached Buddhism; they admitted many Christs, passing one into the others by a sort of transmigration, or rather a single Christ incarnating himself and appearing in the world at intervals. Jesus was one of these apparitions, Adam having been the first. These dreams make one think of the avatars of Vishnu and the successive lives of Krishna
We feel in all this the crude syncretism of a sectary very like
Mahomet, who coolly jumbles together and confounds the ideas which he gleans from
right and left according to his caprice or interest. The most recognisable influence
is that of Persian naturalism and the Babylonian Cabbala. The Elkasaïtes adored
water as the source of life, and detested fire. Their baptism administered, “in
the name of the Most High God, and in the name of the Son, the great King,” effaced
all sins and cured all sickness, when to it was joined the invocation of seven mysterious
witnesses, the heaven, water, the holy spirits, the angels of
These doctrines were more or less adopted by all the Ebionite sects. The living impress of them may be found in the pseudo-Clementine narratives, the work of the Ebionites at Rome, and vague reflections of them in the epistle falsely attributed to John. The book of Elkasaï was, however, not known by the Greek and Latin Churches until the third century, and had amongst them no success. It was, on the other hand, adopted with enthusiasm by the Osseans, the Nazarenes, and the Ebionites of the East. All the region beyond Jordan, Perea, Moab, Iturea, the country of the Nabatheans, the banks of the Dead Sea towards Arnon, were filled with these sectaries. Later they were called Samseans, an expression of obscure meaning. In the fourth century the fanaticism of the sect was such that people caused themselves to be killed for the family of Elkasaï. His family, in fact, still existed and carried on its vulgar charlatanry. Two women, Marthous and Marthana, who claimed descent from him, were almost worshipped; the dust of their feet, their spittle, were treated as relics. In Arabia, the Elkasaïtes, like the Ebionites and the Judeo-Christians in general, lived close to Islam and were confounded with it. The theory of Mahomet as to Jesus is scarcely separable from that of Elkasaï. The idea of the Kibla, or direction for prayer, perhaps comes from the trans-Jordanic sectaries.
It is impossible to insist too strongly on the point that before
the great schism of the Greek and Latin
The Syriac name of these various sects of Baptists was Sabiin,
the exact equivalent of “baptisers.” This is the origin of the name of
Sabiens which serves even now to designate the Mendaïtes, the Nazarenes, or Christians of St John,
who drag out their poor existence in the marshy district of Wasith and of Howeysa,
not far from the confluence of the Tigris and of the Euphrates. In the seventh century
Mahomet treated them with a special consideration. In the tenth the Arab polygraphs
called them Elmogtasileh, “those who bathed.” The first Europeans who knew them
took them for disciples of John the Baptist, who had quitted the banks of the Jordan
before receiving the preaching of Jesus. It is hardly possible to doubt the identity
of these sectaries with the Elkasaïtes, when we find them calling their founder
El hasih, and, above all, when we study their doctrines, which are a sort of Judeo-Babylonian
Gnosticism analogous in many ways to that of Elkasaï. The use of ablutions, the
taste for astrology,
Like Elkasaï the Mendaïtes believed in water as the principle of life; fire as a principle of darkness and destruction. Although they lived far from the Jordan, that stream is always the baptismal stream. Their antipathy for Jerusalem and Judaism, the dislike which they manifested for Jesus and for Christianity, did not prevent their organisation of bishops, priests, and faithful from recalling in all respects the organisation of Christianity, or their liturgy from being copied from that of a Church, and bordering upon true Sacraments. Their books do not appear to be very ancient, but they seem to have replaced older ones. Of this number was perhaps the Apocalypse or Penitence of Adam, a singular book about the celestial liturgies for every hour of the day and night, and upon the sacramental acts which belong to each.
Does Mendaïsm come from a single source—Essenism and Jewish baptism? Certainly not. In many respects a branch of the Babylonian religion may be seen in it, that religion may have entered into close alliance with a Judeo-Christian sect, itself already impressed with Babylonish ideas. The unbridled syncretism which has always been the rule with Oriental sects, renders an exact analysis of such monstrosities impossible. The ulterior relations of the Sabiens with Manicheism remain very obscure. All that can be said is that Elkasaïsm lasts even in our own days, and represents alone in the marshes of Bassora the Judeo-Christian sects which formerly flourished beyond Jordan.
The family of Jesus which still survived in Syria was undoubtedly
opposed to these unhealthy dreams. About the time we are considering, the last nephews
An important political event occurred in the year 105, in Syria,
which had grave consequences for the future of Christianity. The Nabathean kingdom,
which, until then, had remained independent, bordered Palestine on the east and
included the cities of Petra, of Bostra, and in fact, if not in law, the city of
Damascus, was destroyed by Cornelius Palma, and became the Roman province of Arabia.
About the same time the little royalties feudatory to the Empire which until then
were maintained in Syria, the Herods, the Soëmi of Edessa, the little sovereign
of Chalcis, of Arbila, the Solencides of the Comagena, had disappeared. The Roman
domination then assumed in the East a regularity which it had never had before.
Beyond its frontiers there was only the inaccessible desert. The trans-Jordanic
world which until then entered into the Empire only by its most westerly parts,
was there swallowed up wholly. Palmyra, which so far had given to Rome only auxiliaries,
entered altogether into the Roman domination. The entire field of Christian work
is henceforward submitted to Rome, and is about to enjoy the absolute repose which
the end of the pre-occupations of local patriotism brings about. All the East adopted
Roman manners; the cities until then
In a multitude of ways this force was benevolent. There were many countries, and, in consequence, many wars. With the reforms which might be hoped for from the excellent statesmen who were at the head of affairs, the aims of humanity seemed to be attained. We have already shown how that species of golden age of the Liberals, that government of the wisest and most honest men was hard,—worse, in a sense, than that of Nero and Domitian. Cold, correct, moderate statesmen, knowing only the law, applying it even with indulgence, could not fail to be persecutors; for the law was a persecutor; it did not permit what the Church of Jesus regarded as of the very essence of its divine institution.
Everything proves, in fact, that Trajan was the first systematic
persecutor of Christianity. The proceedings against the Christians, without being very frequent,
That becomes manifest in a very sensible manner when one of the
most honest, the most upright, the most educated, the most liberal men of the time
found himself brought by his duties into the presence of the problem which was coming
to the front, and was beginning to embarrass the best minds. Pliny was named in
the year 111 Imperial Legate Extraordinary in the provinces of Bithynia and Pontus,
that is to say, in all the north of Asia Minor. This country had until then been
governed by annual pro-consuls, senators drawn by lot, who had administered it with
the greatest negligence. In some respects liberty had gained thereby. Shut off from
high political questions, these administrators of a day occupied themselves less
than they might have done with the future of the Empire. The public treasury had fallen into a
The official religion had to sustain it only the support which it received from the Empire: abandoned to itself by those indifferent prefects, it had fallen altogether into disrepute. In certain districts, the temples were in ruins. The professional and religious associations, the heteries, which were so strongly to the taste of Asia Minor, had been infinitely developed; Christianity, profiting by the facilities offered by the officials charged with its suppression, gained in all districts. We have seen that Asia and Galatia were the places where in all the world the new religion had found the greatest favour. Thence it had made surprising progress towards the Black Sea. Manners were altogether changed. Meats offered to idols, which were one of the sources of the provision of the markets, could not be sold. The firm knot of faithful might not be very numerous, but around it sympathetic crowds were grouped, half initiated, inconstant, capable of hiding their faith at the appearance of danger, but at bottom not detaching themselves from it. There were in those corporate conversions fashionable enthusiasms, gusts of wind which from time to time carried to the Church, and took away from it, waves of unstable populations, but the courage of the leaders was superior to all trials; their hatred of idolatry led them to brave everything to maintain the point of honour of the faith which they had embraced.
Pliny, a perfectly honest man and scrupulous executor of the Imperial
orders, was soon at work to bring back to the provinces which had been entrusted
to him both order and law. Experience was wanting
It was inevitable that the Christian Churches should be attacked by a meticulous policy which saw everywhere the spectre of the heteries, and disquieted itself over a society of five hundred workmen instituted by authority to act as firemen. Pliny often met on his path innocent sectaries, the danger of whom he did not readily see. In the different stages of his career as an advocate and magistrate he had never been concerned in any proceedings against the Christians. Denunciations now multiplied daily; arrests must follow. The Imperial Legate, following the summary procedure of the justice of the time, made some examples; he decided to send to Rome those who were Roman citizens; he put two deaconesses to the torture. All that he discovered appeared to him childish. He wished to shut his eyes, but the laws of the Empire were absolute; the informations passed all measure; he found himself in the way to put the entire country under arrest.
It was at Amisus, on the border of the Black Sea, in the autumn
of the year 112, that this difficulty became a dominant care for him. It is probable that
I consider it my duty, sire, to refer to you all matters on which
I have doubts. Who can direct my hesitations or instruct my ignorance better than
you? I have never taken part in any proceedings against the Christians, hence I
know not whether I ought to punish or to hunt them out, nor how far I ought to go.
For example, I do not know if I ought to make any distinction of age, or if in such
a matter there ought to be no difference between youth and ripe age; if I must
pardon upon repentance, or if he who has become altogether a Christian ought to
profit by ceasing to be one; if it is the name itself apart from all crime that
should be punished, or the crimes which are inseparable from the name. In the meantime,
the course which I have adopted with regard to all those who have been brought before
me as Christians, has been to inquire first if they are Christians; those who have
avowed themselves to be such, I have interrogated a second time; a third time threatening
them with punishment; those who have persisted, I have sent to death; one point
in effect beyond all doubt for me being that, whether the fact admitted be criminal
or not, that inflexible obstinacy and persistency deserved to be punished. There
are some other unhappy persons attacked with the same madness, who, in view of their
rank as Roman citizens, I have directed to be sent to Rome. Then in the course of
the process the crime as generally happens, branching out widely, many species of
it are presented. An anonymous libel has been deposited containing many names.
Those who have denied that they either were or had been Christians, I have thought
it right to release, when after me they have invoked the gods, when they have offered
incense and wine to your image, with which I have supplemented the statues of the
divinities, and when, moreover, they have cursed Christus, all which things I am
assured they could not be forced to do if they were Christians. Others named by
the informer have said that they were Christians, and immediately have denied that
they were, avowing that they had been, but asserting that they had ceased to be,
some for three years, some for still longer, others for as many as twenty years.
All these also have paid honour to your image, and to the statues of the gods, and
have cursed Christ. Now these affirm that all their offence or all their error was
confined to meeting habitually on fixed days before sunrise to sing together alternately
(? antiphonically) a hymn to Christus as God, and to swear not to such
Trajan answered:
Thou hast followed the path thou should’st have taken, my dear Secundus, in examining the cases of those who have been brought before thy tribunal as Christians. In such a matter it is impossible to devise a fixed rule for all cases. They should not be sought out. If they are denounced and are convicted, they must be punished in such a way, however, that he who denies that he is a Christian, and who proves his words by his acts,—that is to say, by addressing his supplications to our gods, shall obtain pardon as a reward for his repentance, whatever may have been the suspicions which weigh upon him for the past. As for anonymous denunciations, we most not take account of the species of accusation which is brought, for this concerns a detestable example which is no longer of our time.
No more misunderstandings! To be a Christian, is to be in disagreement
with the law, is to merit death From Trajan’s time Christianity is a crime against
the State. Some tolerant Emperors of the third century will alone consent to shut
their eyes and allow men to be Christians if they chose. A good
It is equally evident from these invaluable documents that Christians
were not persecuted as Jews, as has been the case under Domitian. They are persecuted
as Christians. There is no longer any confusion in the judicial world, though in
the world outside it still existed. Judaism was not a crime: it had even outside
its days of revolt, its guarantees, and privileges. Strange thing! Judaism, which
revolted thrice against the Empire with a nameless fury, was never officially persecuted; the evil treatment which the Jews endured are, like those of the Rayahs in Mahometan
countries, the consequence of a subordinate position, not a legal punishment;
very rarely, in the second and third century, because he will not sacrifice to idols
or to the image of the Emperor. More than once even we find the Jews protected by
the administration against the Christians. On the contrary, Christianity, which
was never in revolt, was in reality outside the law. Judaism had, if it may be so
expressed, its Concordat with the Empire; Christianity had none. The Roman policy
felt that Christianity was the white ant which was eating away the heart of antique society. Judaism did not
Trajan’s answer to Pliny was not a law; but it supposed laws and fixed the interpretation of them. The temperaments indicated by the wise Emperor should have been of small consequence. It was too easy to find pretexts, for the ill-will with which Christians were regarded to find itself hampered. A signed denunciation relating to an ostensible act was all that was necessary. Now the attitude of a Christian in passing before temples, his questions in the markets as to the origin of the meats he found there; his absence from public festivals, pointed him out at once. Thus local persecutions never ceased. It was less the Emperors than the Pro-Consuls who persecuted. All depended upon the good or the ill-will of the governors, and the good-will was rare. The time had gone by when the Roman aristocracy would receive these exotic novelties with a sort of benevolent curiosity. It had now but a cold disdain for the follies it declined out of pure moderation and pity for human weaknesses to suppress at a moment’s notice. The people, on the other hand, showed themselves fanatical enough. He who never sacrificed, or who, in passing before a sacred edifice. did not waft it a kiss of adoration, went in danger of his life.
Antioch had its part, and a very violent one, in those cruel measures
which proved to be so absolutely inefficacious. The Church of Antioch, or, at least,
the fraction of that Church which attached itself to St Paul, had at this moment
a chief, regarded with the most profound respect, who was called Ignatius. This
name is probably the Latin equivalent of the Syriac name Nourana. The reputation
of Ignatius had spread through all the Churches, especially in Asia Minor. Under
circumstances which are unknown to us, probably as the result of some popular movement,
he was arrested, condemned to death, and, as he was not a Roman citizen, ordered
to be taken to Rome to be delivered to the beasts in the amphitheatre. For that
fate the noblest victims were reserved, men worthy to be shown to the Roman people.
The journey of this courageous confessor from Antioch to Rome along the coasts of
Asia, Macedonia, and Greece was a sort of triumphal progress. The Churches of the
cities at which he touched flocked around him, asking for his counsels. He, on his
part, wrote letters full of instruction, to which his position, like that of St
Paul, prisoner of Jesus Christ, gave the highest authority. At Smyrna, in particular,
Ignatius found himself in communication with all the Churches of Asia. Polycarp,
Bishop of Smyrna, saw him, and retained a profound memory of him. Ignatius had from
that place an extensive correspondence: his letters were received with almost as
such respect as the apostolic writings. Surrounded by couriers of a sacred character,
who came and went, he was more like a powerful personage than a prisoner. The spectacle impressed the very
Almost the whole of the authentic epistles of Ignatius appear to have been lost. Those which we possess under his name addressed to the Ephesians, to the Magnesian, to the Tralliens, to the Philadelphians, to the Smyrniotes, to Polycarp, are apocryphal. The four first were written from Smyrna; the two last from Alexandria-Troas. The six works are more or less feeble reproductions of the same original. Genius and individuality are absolutely wanting. But it appears that amongst the letters which Ignatius wrote from Smyrna, there was one addressed to the faithful at Rome, after the manner of St Paul. This piece, such as we have it, impressed all ecclesiastical antiquity. Irenæus, Origen, and Eusebius cite it and admire it. Its style has a harsh and pronounced flavour, something strong and popular; pleasantry is pushed even to playing upon words; as a matter of taste, certain points are urged with a shocking exaggeration, but the liveliest faith, the most ardent thirst for death, have never inspired such passionate accents. The enthusiasm of the martyr who for six hundred years was the dominant spirit of Christendom, has received from the author of this extraordinary fragment, whoever he may be, its most exalted expressions.
After many prayers I am permitted to see your holy faces; I have
even obtained more than I asked; for if God give me grace to endure to the end,
I hope that I shall embrace you as the prisoner of Jesus Christ. The business has
begun well, seeing that nothing prevents me from awaiting the lot which has been
appointed to me. Verily it is for you that I am concerned. I fear lest your affection
should be hurtful to me. You would risk nothing, but I should lose God himself if
you succeed in saving me . . . Never again shall I find such an opportunity, and
you, if you will have the charity to remain quiet, never will you have taken part
in a better work. If you keep silence, in short, I shall belong to God; if you
love my flesh, 1 shall again be cast into the conflict. Let me suffer whilst
You have never done evil to any; why then begin to-day? You have been masters to so many others! I ask but one thing; do what you teach, what you prescribe. Ask only for me strength from within and from without, so that I may be not only called Christian but really a Christian, when I shall have passed away from this world. Nothing that is visible is good. What thou seest is temporal. What thou seest not is eternal. Our God, Jesus Christ, existing in his father, appears no more. Christianity is not only a work of silence; it becomes a work of splendour when it is hated of the world.
I write to the Churches: I inform all that I am assured of dying for God, if you do not prevent me. I beg you not to prove yourselves by your intemperate goodness my worst enemies. Let me be the food of beasts, thanks to whom it shall be given me to enjoy God; I am the wheat of God, I must be ground by the teeth of beasts that I may be found the pure bread of Christ. Rejoice therefore that they shall be my tomb, and that nothing shall be left of my body, that my funeral shall thus cost no man aught. Then shall I be truly the disciple of Christ, when the world shall see my body no more.
From Syria to Rome, upon land, upon sea, by day and by night, I fight already against the beasts, chained as I am to ten leopards (I speak of the soldiers who guard me, and who show themselves the more cruel the more good is done to them). Thanks to their ill-treatment, I am formed, “but I am not thereby justified.” I shall gain, I assure you, when I find myself face to face with the beasts which await me. I hope to meet them in good temper; if needs be, I will caress them with my hands, that they may devour me alone, and that they may not, as they have done to some, show themselves afraid to touch me. If they do it unwillingly, I will force them.
Forgive me. I know which is best for me. It is now that I begin
to be a true disciple. No! no power, visible or invisible, shall prevent me from
rejoicing in Jesus Christ. Fire and cross; troops of beasts; broken bones; limbs
lopped off; crushing of the whole body, all the punishments of the devil, may fall
upon me, if only I may rejoice in Jesus Christ . . . My love has been crucified, and
there is no longer in me ardour for the material part; there is within me only
a living water which murmurs and says to me, “Come to the Father.” I take pleasure
no longer in corruptible food, nor in the joys of this life. I desire the bread
of God, the bread of life, which is the flesh of Jesus
Sixty years after the death of Ignatius, the characteristic phrase of this fragment, “I am the wheat of God,” was traditional in the Church, and was repeated to sustain the courage of martyrs. Perhaps this was a matter of oral tradition; perhaps also the letter is authentic at bottom—I mean as to those energetic phrases by which Ignatius expressed his desire to suffer, and his love for Jesus. In the authentic narrative of the martyrdom of Polycarp (155), there are, it would appear, allusions to the very text of that Epistle to the Romans which we now possess. Ignatius becomes thus the great master of martyrdom, the exciter to enthusiasm for death for Jesus. His letters, true or superstitious, were the collection from which might be drawn striking expressions and exalted sentiments. The deacon Stephen had by his heroism sanctified the Diaconate and the ecclesiastical ministries; with still great splendour the Bishop of Antioch surrounded with an aureole, the functions of the Episcopate. It was not without reason that writings were attributed to him in which those functions were hyperbolically depicted. Ignatius was really the patron saint of the Episcopate, the creator of the privilege of the chiefs of the Church, the first victim of their redoubtable duties.
The most curious thing is that this history, told more recently
by one of the most intelligent writers of the age by Lucian, inspired him with the
principal features of his little picture of manners, entitled “Of the Death of Peregrinus.” It is scarcely to be doubted that Lucian borrowed from the narratives
of Ignatius the passages in which he represents his charlatan playing the part of
Bishop and Confessor, chained in Syria, shipped for Italy, surrounded by the faithful
with cares and attentions, receiving from all parts
In the Church the memory of Ignatius was especially exalted by the partisans of St Paul. To have seen Ignatius was a favour almost as great as to have seen St Paul. The high authority of the martyr was one of the reasons which contributed to the success of this group, whose right to exist in the Church of Jesus was still so greatly contested. Towards the year 170, a disciple of St Paul, zealous for the establishment of episcopal authority, conceived the project, in imitation of the pastoral epistles attributed to the Apostle, of composing, under the name of Ignatius, a series of epistles designed to inculcate an anti-Jewish conception of Christianity, as well as ideas of strict hierarchy and Catholic orthodoxy in opposition to the errors of the Docetists and of certain Gnostic sects. These writings, which it was desired should be regarded as having been collected by Polycarp, were accepted with enthusiasm, and had in the constitution of discipline and dogma a commanding influence.
By the side of Ignatius we may see, in the oldest documents, two persons figure who appear to have been associated with him, Zozimus and Rufus. Ignatius does not appear to have had travelling companions; Zozimus and Rufus were perhaps persons well known in the ecclesiastical circles of Greece and of Asia, and recommended by their high devotion to the Church of Christ.
About the same time another martyr may have
Rome at that period appears to have had no martyrs. Among the Presbyteri and Episcopi who governed that capital Church are reckoned Evarestes, Alexander, and Xystus, who appear to have died in peace.
Trajan, the conqueror of the Dacii, adorned with all the triumphs,
arrived at the highest degree of power which man had until then attained, revolved,
notwithstanding his sixty years, boundless projects with regard to the East. The
limit of the Empire in Syria and in Asia Minor was as yet but ill-assured. The recent
destruction of the Nabathean kingdom postponed for centuries all danger from the
Arabs. But the kingdom of Armenia, although in law vassal to the Romans, constantly
inclined towards the Parthian alliance. In the Dacian war, the Arsacides had had
relations with Decebalus. The Parthian Empire, master of Mesopotamia, menaced Antioch,
and created, for provinces incapable of defending themselves, a perpetual danger.
An Eastern expedition, having for its object the annexation to the Empire of Armenia,
Osrohenia and Mygdonia, countries which in effect, after the campaigns of Lucius
Verus and of Septimius Severus, belonged to the Empire, would have been reasonable.
But Trajan did not take sufficient
Trajan left Italy, which he was not again to see, in the month of October 113. He passed the winter months at Antioch, and in the spring of 114 began the campaign of Armenia. The result was prodigious: in September, Armenia was reduced to a Roman province; the limits of the Empire extended to the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea. Trajan rested the following winter at Antioch.
The results of the year 115 were not less extraordinary.
The year 116 witnessed miracles: the times of Alexander seemed
restored. Trajan conquered Adiabene, beyond the Tigris, in spite of a vigorous resistance.
There he should have stopped. Pushing his fortune to its limit, Trajan penetrated
to the heart of the Parthian Empire. The strategy of the Parthians, like that of
the Russians in 1813, consisted in at first offering no resistance. Trajan marched
without opposition as far as Babylon; took Æsiphon, the western capital of the
Empire, thence descended the Tigris to the Persian Gulf, saw those distant seas
which appeared to the Romans only as a vision, and regained Babylon. Then the black
spots began to accumulate upon the horizon. Towards the end of 116 Trajan heard
at Babylon that revolt had broken out behind him. The Jews had without doubt taken
a great part in it. They were numerous in Babylonia. The relations between the Jews
of Palestine and those of Babylonia were continual—the doctors passed from one country
to the other with great facility. A vast secret society escaping thus from all supervision
created a political vehicle of the most active kind. Trajan confided the duty of
crushing this dangerous movement to Lusius Quietus, chief of the Berber cavalry,
who had placed himself with his goum at the service of the Romans, and had rendered
the greatest services in the Parthian wars. Quietus re‑conquered
Disquieting news reached him, blow upon blow. The Jews were everywhere in revolt. Nameless horrors passed in Cyrenaica. The Jewish fury attained to heights which had never yet been known. This poor people again lost their heads. Perhaps there was already, in Africa, a presentiment of the revival of fortune which was awaiting Trajan; it may be that the Jewish rebellions of Cyrene, the most fanatical of all, were anticipated on the faith of some prophet, that the day of wrath against the Pagans had arrived, and that it was time to begin the Messianic exterminations. All the Jews were agitated as under a demoniacal attack. It was less a revolt than a massacre, with details of indescribable ferocity. Having at their head a certain Lucora, who enjoyed amongst his friends the title of King, these madmen set to work to butcher Greeks and Romans, eating the flesh of those whom they had slaughtered, making belts of their bowels, rubbing themselves with their blood, skinning them and clothing themselves with the skin. Madmen were seen sawing unfortunate men in two through the midst of their bodies. At other times the insurgents delivered the Pagans to the beasts, in memory of what they themselves had suffered, and forced them to fight with each other like gladiators. Two hundred and twenty thousand Cyreneans are believed to have been slaughtered in this way. It was almost the entire population: the province became a desert. To repeople it, Hadrian was obliged to bring colonists from other places, but the country never again flourished as it had done under the Greeks.
From Cyrenaica the epidemic of massacre extended to Egypt and
to Cyprus. The latter witnessed atrocities. Under the leadership of a certain Artemion
In Egypt the Jewish insurrection assumed the proportions of a veritable war. At first the rebels had the advantage. Lupus, Prefect of Egypt, was obliged to retreat. The alarm in Alexandria was acute. The Jews, to fortify themselves, destroyed the Temple of Nemesis raised by Cæsar to Pompey. The Greek population succeeded, however, not without a struggle, in gaining the upper hand. All the Greeks of Lower Egypt took refuge with Lupus in the city, and made there a great entrenched camp. It was time. The Cyreneans, led by Lucora, came to join their brethren of Alexandria, and to form with them a single army. Deprived of the support of their Alexandrini co-religionists, all killed or prisoners, but strengthened by bands from other parts of Egypt, they dispersed themselves, killing and plundering, over the Thebaïd. They especially sought to seize the functionaries who tried to gain the cities of the coast, Alexandria and Pelusia. Appian, the future historian, then young, who exercised municipal functions in Alexandria, his country, was nearly captured by these madmen. Lower Egypt was inundated with blood. The fugitive Pagans found themselves pursued like wild beasts; the deserts by the side of the Isthmus of Suez were filled with people who hid themselves and endeavoured to come to an understanding with the Arabs, so as to escape from death.
The position of Trajan in Babylonia became more and more critical.
The wandering Arabs in the space between the two rivers mused him much difficulty.
The impregnable stronghold of Hatra, inhabited by a war-like tribe, stopped him
altogether. The surrounding
About the month of April 117, the Emperor set out on his return
to Antioch, sad, ill, and irritable. The East had conquered him without fighting.
All those who had bowed before the conqueror raised their heads again. The results
of three years of campaigning, full of marvellous struggles against nature, were
lost. Trajan had to begin over again, if he were not to lose his reputation for
invincibility. All at once grave news came to prove to him what grave dangers were
concealed in the situation created by the recent reverses. The Jewish revolt, until
then limited to Cyrenaica and Egypt, threatened to extend itself through
Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia. Always on the watch for signs of weakness in
the Roman Empire, the enthusiasts fancied for the tenth time that they saw the
preliminary signs of the end of an abhorred domination. Excited by books like
Judith and the apocalypse of Esdras, they believed that the day of Edom was
come. The cries of joy which they had uttered at the deaths of Nero and
Domitian, they uttered once more. The generation which had made the great
Revolution had almost disappeared; the new had learned nothing. These hard
heads, obstinate and full of passion, were incapable
The revolt of Cyrenaica, of Egypt, and of Cyprus, still continued.
Trajan chose one of his most distinguished lieutenants, Marcius Turbo, to
suppress it. He gave him a land and a sea force, and numerous cavalry. A regular
war with many battles was required
Such was this deplorable movement, in which the Jews appear to have been wrong from the first, and which finished by ruining them in the opinion of the civilised world. Poor Israel fell into furious madness. These horrible cruelties, so far removed from the Christian spirit, widened the ditch of separation between Judaism and the Church. The Christian, becoming more and more of an idealist, consoled himself more and more by his gentleness, by his resigned attitude. Israel had made himself a cannibal, rather than allow his prophets to be liars. Pseudo-Esdras, twenty years before, contented himself with the tender reproach of a pious soul which thinks itself forgotten of God: now it is a question of killing everybody, of annihilating the Pagans, that it may not be said that God has failed to keep his promise to Jacob. Every great fanaticism, pressed by the ruin of its hopes, ends in madness, and becomes a peril to the reason of all humanity.
The material diminution of Judaism, as the result of this inept campaign, was very considerable. The number of those who perished was enormous. From that moment the Jewry of Cyrene and Egypt almost disappeared. The powerful community of Alexandria, which had been an essential element of Oriental life, was no longer important. The great synagogue of Diapleuston, which passed in the eyes of the Jews for one of the wonders of the world, was destroyed. The Jewish quarter near the Lochias became a field of ruins and of tombs.
Fanaticism knows no repentance. The monstrous error of 117 scarcely left more than the recollection of a festivity in the Jewish mind. Amongst the number of days when fasting was forbidden, and mourning must be suspended, figures the 12th December, the iom Traïanos or “day of Trajan,” not because the war of 116-117 gave reason for any anniversary of victory, but because of the tragic end which the agada ascribed to the enemy of Israel. The massacres of Quietus remained, on the other hand, in tradition, under the name of polémos schel Quitos. A progress of Israel in the way of mourning was attached to it:—
After the polémos schel Aspasionos, crowns and the use of tambourines are forbidden to bridegrooms.
After the polémos schel Quitos, crowns were forbidden to brides, and the teaching of the Greek language to one’s son was prohibited.
After the last Polémos, the bride was forbidden to go out of the town in a litter.
Thus every folly brought about a new sequestration, a new renunciation of some part of life. Whilst Christianity became more and more Greek and Latin, and its writers conformed to a good Hellenic style, the Jew interdicted the study of Greek, and shut himself up obstinately in his unintelligible Syro-Hebraic dialect. The root of all good intellectual culture is cut off for him for a thousand years. It is especially in this period that the decisions were given which present Greek education as an impurity, or at best as a frivolity.
The man who announced himself at Jabneh, and grew from day to
day as the future chief of Israel,
This touched madness; we are only two steps from the Cabbala and the Notarikon, silly combinations, in which the texts represent no longer the language of humanity, but is taken for a divine book of magic. In detail the consultations of Aquiba are recommended by their moderation, the sentences which are attributed to him have even the marks of a certain liberal spirit. But a violent fanaticism spoiled all his qualities. The greatest contradictions spring up in those minds which are at once subtle and uncultivated, whence the superstitious study of a solitary text had banished the right sense of language and of reason. Incessantly travelling from synagogue to synagogue in all the countries of the Mediterranean, and perhaps even amongst the Parthians, Aquiba kept up amongst his co-religionaries the strange fire with which he himself was filled, and which soon became so melancholy for his country.
A monument of the mournful sadness of these times
The divine interlocutor answers that the Jerusalem which had been destroyed was not the Eternal Jerusalem, prepared since the times of Paradise, which was shown to Adam before his fall, and a glimpse of which was seen by Abraham and Moses. It was not the Pagans who destroyed the city; it was the wrath of God which annihilated it. An angel descends from heaven, carries all the sacred objects from the Temple, and buries them. The angels then demolish the city. Baruch sings a song of mourning. He is indignant that nature should continue her course, that the earth smiles, and is not burned up by an eternal midday sun.
Labourers, cease to sow, and thou, O Earth, cease to bring forth
harvests; wherefore dost thou waste thy wine, O thou Vine, since Zion is no more? Bridegrooms, denounce your rights; virgins, deck yourselves no more with crowns; women, cease to pray that ye may become mothers. Henceforth the barren shall rejoice,
and the fruitful mothers shall weep; for why bring forth children in sorrow, whom
ye must bury with tears? Henceforth, speak no more of charms; neither discuss beauty.
Take the keys of the sanctuary, O priests, cast them towards heaven, return them
to the Lord, and say to him,—“Preserve now thine own house!” And ye,
O virgins, who sew your linen and your silk with the gold of Ophir, hasten and cast all into
the fire, that the flames may carry all these things to him
Pseudo-Baruch, no better than pseudo-Esdras, can render account of the conduct of God towards his people. Assuredly the turn of the Gentiles will come. If God has given to his people such severe lessons, what will he do with those who have turned his benefits against him? But how explain the fate of so many of the just who have scrupulously observed the Law and have been exterminated? Why has not the Eternal had pity upon Zion for their sakes? Why has he taken account only of the wicked? “What hast thou done with thy servants?” cries the pious writer. “We can no longer understand why thou art our Creator. When the world had no inhabitants, thou didst create man as minister of thy works, to show that the world existed only for man, and not man for the world. And now, behold, the world which thou hast made for us lasts, and we, for whom thou hast made it, disappear.”
God answers that man has been made free and intelligent. If he has been punished, it is only his desert. This world for the just man is a trial; the world to come will be a crown. Length of time is a relative matter. Better to have commenced by ignominy and finished with happiness than to have begun in glory and finished in shame. Time is, moreover, pressing on, and will go by much more quickly in the future than in the past.
“If man had but this life,” answers the melancholy dreamer, “nothing
could be more bitter than his fate. How long shall the triumph of impiety continue?
How long, O Lord! wilt thou leave it to be believed that thy patience is weakness?
Arise; close Sheol; forbid it henceforward to receive fresh dead men; and
cause limbo to give up the souls that are enclosed therein. Behold how long
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the others, who sleep in the earth, have been waiting,
those for whom thou hast
God contents himself with saying that the time is fixed and that the end is not far distant. The Messianic sorrows have already begun; but the signs of the catastrophe will be isolated, partial, so that men shall scarcely be able to see them. At the moment when it shall be said, “The Almighty has forgotten the earth,” when the despair of the just shall be at its height, this shall be the hour of awakening. Signs shall stretch forth over the whole universe. Palestine alone shall be safe from calamity. Then the Messiah shall be revealed. Behemoth and Leviathan shall serve as food to those who shall be saved. The earth shall yield up ten thousand for one; a single stem of the vine shall have a thousand branches; every branch shall bear a thousand grapes, and every grape shall yield a hogshead of wine. Joy shall be perfect. In the morning a breath shall leave the bosom of God, bearing the perfume of the most exquisite flowers; in the evening, another breath bearing a wholesome dew. Manna shall fall from Heaven. The dead who sleep in hope of the Messiah shall rise. The receptacles of the souls of the just shall open; the multitude of happy souls shall be all of one mind; the first shall rejoice and the last shall not be sad. The impious shall be consumed with rage, seeing that the moment of their punishment is come. Jerusalem shall be renewed, and crowned for Eternity.
The Roman Empire then appears to our seer like a forest which
covers the earth; the shadow of the forest veils the truth; all that there is of
evil in the world hides itself there and finds a shelter. It is the harshest and
the worst of all the Empires which succeed each other. The Messianic Kingdom, on
the contrary, is represented by a vine under whose shadow a sweet and gentle spring arises which runs towards
Is it not thou, O Cedar! who art the relic of the forest of malice; who seizest upon what does not belong to thee; who never hast pity upon that which is thine own; who wouldest reign over that which was far from thee; who boldest in the nets of impiety all that approacheth thee; and who art proud as though thou couldest never be uprooted? Behold thine hour is come. Go, O Cedar; share the fate of the forest which has disappeared before thee, and let thine ashes mingle with it.”
The cedar is short, is cast down to the earth, and fire is kindled. The chief is enchained and brought upon Mount Sion. There the Messiah convicts him of impiety, shows him the wickedness which has been wrought by his armies, and kills him. The vine then extends itself on all sides and covers the earth; the earth reclothes itself with flowers which never fade. The Messiah will reign until the end of the corruptible world. The wicked, during this time, shall burn in a fire where none shall pity them.
Oh, blindness of man, who will not discern the approach of the
Great Day! On the eve of the event they will live calm and careless. They will
see miracles without understanding them; true and false prophecies shall grow in
all parts. Like pseudo-Esdras, our visionary believes in the small number of the
elect, and in the enormous number of the damned. “Just men rejoice in your sufferings; for a day of trial here below, ye shall have an eternity of glory.” Like pseudo-Esdras
again he disquiets himself with
After the judgment, a marvellous change will be wrought. The damned shall become more ugly than they were; the just shall become beautiful, brilliant, glorious; their figures shall be transformed into a luminous ideal. The rage of the wicked shall be frightful, seeing those whom they have persecuted here below glorified above them. They will be forced to assist at this spectacle, before being taken away for punishment. The just shall see marvels; the invisible world shall be unrolled before them; the hidden times shall be discovered. No more old age; equal to the angels: like the stars; they may change themselves into whatever form they will; they will go from beauty to beauty, from glory to glory; all Paradise shall be open to them; they shall contemplate the majesty of the mystical beasts which are under the throne; all the armies of angels shall await their arrival. The first who enter shall receive the last, the last shall recognise those whom they knew to have preceded them.
These dreams are pervaded by some glimpses of a sufficiently lucid
good sense. More than pseudo-Esdras, pseudo-Baruch has pity on man, and protests
against a theology which has no bowels. Man has not said to his father, “Beget me,”
nor has he said to Sheol, “Open to receive me.” The individual is responsible only
for himself; each of us is Adam for his own soul. But fanaticism leads him soon to the
After the spectacle of the twelve zones a deluge of black water descends, mingled with stenches and with fire. It is the period of transition between the kingdom of Israel and the coming of the Messiah—a time of abominations, of wars, of plagues, of earthquakes. The earth seems to wish to devour its inhabitants. A flash of lightning (the Messiah) sweeps out all, purifies all, cures all. The miserable survivors of the plagues shall be given over to the Messiah, who will kill them. All who have not oppressed Israel shall live. Every nation which has governed Israel with violence shall be put to the sword. In the midst of these sufferings the Holy Land alone shall be at peace and shall protect its people.
Paradise shall then be realised upon earth; no more pain, no more suffering, no more sickness, no more toil. Animals shall serve man spontaneously. Men will still die, but never prematurely; women shall feel no more the pangs of travail; the harvest shall be gathered without effort; the houses shall be built without fatigue. Hatred, injustice, vengeance, calumny, shall disappear.
The people received the prophecy of Baruch with delight. But it
was only right that the Jews dispersed in distant countries should not be deprived
We see the infidel nations prosperous, although they act with impiety; but their prosperity is like a vapour. We see them rich although they act with iniquity; but their riches will last them as long as a drop of water. We see the solidity of their power, although they resist God; but it is worth no more than spittle. We contemplate their splendour whilst they do not observe the precepts of the Most High; but they shall vanish away like smoke. . . . Let nothing which belongs to the present time enter into your thoughts; have patience, for all that has been promised shall happen. We will not stop over the spectacle of the delights which foreign nations may enjoy. Let us beware lest we be excluded at once from the heritage of two worlds; captives here, tortured hereafter. Let us prepare our souls that we may rest with our fathers and may not be punished with our enemies.
Baruch receives the assurance that he will be taken to heaven like Enoch without having tasted death. We have seen that favour granted, in like manner, to Esdras, by the author of the apocalypse which is attributed to this last.
The work of the pseudo-Baruch, like that of the pseudo-Esdras,
was as successful amongst the Christians as amongst the Jews—perhaps even more
so. The original Greek was soon lost, but a Syriac translation was made which has
come down to us. The final letter alone, however, was adapted for the use
Pseudo-Baruch is the last writer of the apocryphal literature of the Old Testament. The Bible which he knew is the same as that which we perceive behind the Epistle of Jude and the pretended Epistle of Barnabas, that is to say, the canonical books of the Old Testament. The author adds, whilst putting them on the same footing, books recently fabricated, such as the Revelations of Moses, the Prayer of Manasseh, and other agadic compilations. These works, written in a biblical style, divided into verses, became a sort of supplement to the Bible. Often even, precisely because of their modern character, such apocryphal productions had greater popularity than the ancient Bible, and were accepted as Holy Scripture on the day of their appearance, at least by the Christians, who were more easy in that respect than the Jews. For the future there will be no more of these books. The Jews compose no more pasticcios of the Sacred Text; we feel amongst them even fears and precautions on this subject. Hebrew religious poetry of a later date seems to be expressly written in a style which is not that of the Bible.
It is possible that the troubles in Palestine, under Trajan, may
have been the occasion for transporting the Beth-din of Jabneh to Ouscha. The
Beth-din,
as far as possible, must be fixed in Judea; but Jabneh, a mixed town, sufficiently
large, not far from Jerusalem, might become uninhabitable for the Jews after the
horrible excesses which they had committed in Egypt and Cyprus. Ouscha was an altogether
obscure part of Galilee. The new patriarchate was of much less
What was called the Church of Jerusalem continued its tranquil
existence a thousand leagues removed from the seditious ideas which animated the
nation. A great number of Jews were converted, and continued to observe strictly
the prescriptions of the Law. The chiefs of that Church were, moreover, taken from
amongst the circumcised Christians, and all the Church, not to wound the rigorists,
constrained itself to follow the Mosaic rules. The list of these bishops of the
circumcision is full of uncertainties. The best-known appears to have been one named
Justus. The controversy between the converted and those who persisted in pure Mosaism
was active but less acrimonious than after Bar Coziba. A certain Juda ben Nakouza
appears to have played an especially brilliant part. The Christians endeavoured
to prove that the Bible did not exclude the divinity of Jesus Christ. They insisted
upon the word Elohim, upon the plural employed by God upon several occasions (for
example, in
In Galilee, the relations of the two sects appear to have been
friendly. A Judeo-Christian of Galilee, Jacob of Caphar-Shekaniah, appears about
this time to have been much mixed up with the Jewish world
In general the minim, especially those of Caphar-Nahum, passed
for great magicians, and their successes were attributed to spells and to ocular
illusions. We have already seen that until the third century at least Jewish doctors
continued to work their cures in the name of Jesus. But the Gospel was cursed: reading
it was strictly forbidden; the very name of Gospel gave rise to a play upon words
which made it signify “evident iniquity.” A certain Eliza ben Abouyah, surnamed
Aher, who professed a species of gnostic Christianity, was for his former co-religonists
the type of a perfect apostate. Little by little the Judeo-Christians were placed by the Jews in the same rank
The truth of the apocalyptic image was striking. The woman protected by God, the Church, had truly received two eagles’ wings to fly into the desert far from the crises of the world and from its sanguinary dramas. There she grew in peace, and all that was done against her turned to her. The dangers of her first childhood are passed; her growth is henceforward assured.
The inaccuracy of the information furnished by the Gospels as
to the material circumstances of the life of Jesus, the dubiety of the traditions
of the first century, collected by Hegesippus, the frequent homonyms which occasion
so much embarrassment in the history of the Jews at all epochs, render the questions
relating to the family of Jesus almost insoluble. If we hold by a passage from the
synoptic Gospels,
One Jude appears also to have a most indisputable right to this
title. The Jude whose epistle we possess gives himself the title of
ἀδελφὸς δε Ἰαχώβου. A person of the name of James, of sufficient importance to be taken notice
of, and who was given the authority to call himself His brother, can hardly be the
celebrated James of the Epistle to the Galatians, the Acts, of Josephus, of Hegesippus, of the
Simon and Jose are not known otherwise than as brothers of the
Lord. But there would be nothing singular in the fact that two members of the family
should remain obscure. What is much more surprising is that in reconciling other
facts furnished by the Gospels, Hegesippus, and the oldest traditions of the Church
of Jerusalem, a family of cousins-german of Jesus is formed, bearing almost the
same names which are given by Matthew (
In fact, amongst the women whom the synoptics place at the foot
of the cross of Jesus, and who testify to the resurrection, there is found one “Mary,”
mother of James the Less (ὁ μιχρός) and of Jose (
We have thus three sons of Clopas called James, Jose, Simeon, exactly like the brothers of Jesus mentioned by the synoptics, without speaking of a hypothetical grandson in whom was revived the same identical name. Two sisters bearing the same name was indeed a very singular fact. What is to be said of a case in which these two sisters should have had at least three sons bearing the same name? No criticism can admit the possibility of such a coincidence. It is evident that we shall have to seek some solution which shall dispose of that anomaly.
The orthodox doctors, since St Jerome, thought to remove the
difficulty by taking it for granted that the four personages enumerated by Mark
and Matthew as brothers of Jesus were, in reality, his cousins-german, sons of Mary
Cleophas. But this is inadmissible. Many other passages assume that Jesus had full
brothers and sisters. The arrangement of the little scene recounted by Matthew (
Jesus had full brothers and sisters. Only it is possible that these brothers and sisters were but half-brothers and half-sisters. Were these brothers and sisters likewise sons and daughters of Mary? This is improbable. In fact, the brothers appear to have been much older than Jesus. Now Jesus was, as it would appear, the first-born of his mother. Jesus, moreover, was, in his youth, designated at Nazareth by the name of “Son of Mary.” For this we have the most undoubted testimony of the Gospels. This assumes that he was known for a long time as the only son of a widow. In fact, such appellations were only employed where the father was dead, and when the widow had no other son. Let us instance the case of Piero dells Francesca, the celebrated painter. In fine, the myth of the virginity of Mary, without excluding absolutely the idea that Mary may have had afterwards other children by Joseph, or have been remarried, fits in better with the hypothesis that she had only one son.
No doubt, the legend is so constructed as to do the greatest
violence to truth. Nevertheless, we must remember that the legend now in question
was elaborated by the brothers and cousins of Jesus themselves. Jesus, the sole
and tardy progeny of the union of a young woman and a man already reached maturity,
offered perfect opportunity for the opinions according to which his conception had
been supernatural. In such a case, the divine action appeared so much the more striking
in proportion as nature seemed the more impotent. People take a pleasure in representing
children, predestined to great prophetic vocations, as being born to old men or
of women who have been for a long time sterile—Samuel, John the Baptist, and Mary
herself are conspicuous instances. The author, also, of the Protovangile of James,
St Epiphanes, etc., ardently insists upon the great age of
These difficulties could be readily enough removed, if we were to assume that Joseph had before been married, and had, by this marriage, sons and daughters, in particular, James and Jude. These two personages, and James, at least, appear to have been older than Jesus. The hostile disposition which was attributed at first to the brothers of Jesus by the Gospels, the singular contrast which the principles and the species of life led by James and Jude, and those of Jesus presents, is, in such a hypothesis, somewhat less unaccountable than on the other suppositions that have been made to get rid of these contradictions.
How could the sons of Clopas be cousins-german of Jesus? They
may have been by the same mother, Mary Cleophas, as the fourth Gospel would have
us believe, or by the same father, Clopas, who is made out by Hegisippus to be a
brother of Joseph, or on both sides at once; for it was actually possible that the
two brothers may have married two sisters. Between these three hypotheses, the second
is much the more probable. The hypothesis as to two sisters bearing the same name,
is extremely problematical. The passage in the fourth Gospel (
Clopas seems to have been younger than Joseph, and his eldest son must have been younger than the eldest son of the latter. It is natural that, if his name was James, a custom might exist in the family of calling him ὁ μιχρός, in order to distinguish him from his cousin-german of the same name. Simeon may have been fifteen years younger than Jesus, and, strictly speaking, died in the reign of Trajan. Nevertheless, we prefer to believe that the member of the Cleophas family martyred under Trajan belonged to another generation. Mere data regarding the age of James and Simeon are, moreover, very uncertain. James must have died at ninety-six, and Simeon at a hundred-and-twenty. This last assumption is, on the face of it, inadmissible. On the other hand, if James had been ninety-six, as it is pretended, in 62, he must have been born thirty-four years before Jesus, which is a thing very unlikely.
It remains to inquire whether any of these brothers of
The list of the Apostles given by Luke in his Gospel and in the
Acts contains one Ἰούδα Ἰάχωβου, whom it has been attempted to identify with
Jude, brother of the Lord, by assuming that it was necessary to understand ἀδελφός
between the two names. Nothing could be more arbitrary. This Judas was the son of
James, otherwise unknown. The same must also be said of Simon the Zealot, whom people
have tried, without a shadow of reason, to identify with the Simon that we find
classed (
To sum up, it does not appear that a single member of the family of Jesus formed a part of the college of the Twelve. James himself was not of that number. The only two brothers of the Lord whose names we are sure of knowing were James and Jude. James was not married, but Jude had children and grandchildren; the latter appeared before Domitian as descendants of David, and were presidents of churches in Syria.
As for the sons of Clopas, we know three of them, one of
London: Printed by the Temple Publishing Company.
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