The Life of Jesus Part 15

[Footnote 9: The common tradition seems sufficiently justified to me on this point. It is evident, besides, that the school of John retouched his Gospel (see the whole of chap. xxi.)]

No hierarchy, properly speaking, existed in the new sect. They were to call each other "brothers;" and Jesus absolutely proscribed t.i.tles of superiority, such as _rabbi_, "master," father--he alone being master, and G.o.d alone being father. The greatest was to become the servant of the others.[1] Simon Bar-jona, however, was distinguished amongst his fellows by a peculiar degree of importance. Jesus lived with him, and taught in his boat;[2] his house was the centre of the Gospel preaching. In public he was regarded as the chief of the flock; and it is to him that the overseers of the tolls address themselves to collect the taxes which were due from the community.[3] He was the first who had recognized Jesus as the Messiah.[4] In a moment of unpopularity, Jesus, asking of his disciples, "Will ye also go away?"

Simon answered, "Lord, to whom should we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life."[5] Jesus, at various times, gave him a certain priority in his church;[6] and gave him the Syrian surname of _Kepha_ (stone), by which he wished to signify by that, that he made him the corner-stone of the edifice.[7] At one time he seems even to promise him "the keys of the kingdom of heaven," and to grant him the right of p.r.o.nouncing upon earth decisions which should always be ratified in eternity.[8]

[Footnote 1: Matt. xviii. 4, xx. 25-26, xxiii. 8-12; Mark ix. 34, x.

42-46.]

[Footnote 2: Luke v. 3.]

[Footnote 3: Matt. xvii. 23.]

[Footnote 4: Matt. xvi. 16, 17.]

[Footnote 5: John vi. 68-70.]

[Footnote 6: Matt. x. 2; Luke xxii. 32; John xxi. 15, and following; _Acts_ i., ii., v., etc.; _Gal._ i. 18, ii. 7, 8.]

[Footnote 7: Matt. xvi. 18; John i. 42.]

[Footnote 8: Matt. xvi. 19. Elsewhere, it is true (Matt. xviii. 18), the same power is granted to all the apostles.]

No doubt, this priority of Peter excited a little jealousy. Jealousy was kindled especially in view of the future--and of this kingdom of G.o.d, in which all the disciples would be seated upon thrones, on the right and on the left of the master, to judge the twelve tribes of Israel.[1] They asked who would then be nearest to the Son of man, and act in a manner as his prime minister and a.s.sessor. The two sons of Zebedee aspired to this rank. Preoccupied with such a thought, they prompted their mother Salome, who one day took Jesus aside, and asked him for the two places of honor for her sons.[2] Jesus evaded the request by his habitual maxim that he who exalteth himself shall be humbled, and that the kingdom of heaven will be possessed by the lowly. This created some disturbance in the community; there was great discontent against James and John.[3] The same rivalry appears to show itself in the Gospel of John, where the narrator unceasingly declares himself to be "the disciple whom Jesus loved," to whom the master in dying confided his mother, and seeks systematically to place himself near Simon Peter, and at times to put himself before him, in important circ.u.mstances where the older evangelists had omitted mentioning him.[4]

[Footnote 1: Matt. xviii. 1, and following; Mark ix. 33; Luke ix. 46, xxii. 30.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. xx. 20, and following; Mark x. 35, and following.]

[Footnote 3: Mark x. 41.]

[Footnote 4: John xviii. 15, and following, xix. 26, 27, xx. 2, and following, xxi. 7, 21. Comp. i. 35, and following, in which the disciple referred to is probably John.]

Among the preceding personages, all those of whom we know anything had begun by being fishermen. At all events, none of them belonged to a socially elevated cla.s.s. Only Matthew or Levi, son of Alpheus,[1] had been a publican. But those to whom they gave this name in Judea were not the farmers-general of taxes, men of elevated rank (always Roman patricians), who were called at Rome _publicani_.[2] They were the agents of these contractors, employes of low rank, simply officers of the customs. The great route from Acre to Damascus, one of the most ancient routes of the world, which crossed Galilee, skirting the lake,[3] made this cla.s.s of employe very numerous there. Capernaum, which was perhaps on the road, possessed a numerous staff of them.[4]

This profession is never popular, but with the Jews it was considered quite criminal. Taxation, new to them, was the sign of their subjection; one school, that of Judas the Gaulonite, maintained that to pay it was an act of paganism. The customs-officers, also, were abhorred by the zealots of the law. They were only named in company with a.s.sa.s.sins, highway robbers, and men of infamous life.[5] The Jews who accepted such offices were excommunicated, and became incapable of making a will; their money was accursed, and the casuists forbade the changing of money with them.[6] These poor men, placed under the ban of society, visited amongst themselves. Jesus accepted a dinner offered him by Levi, at which there were, according to the language of the time, "many publicans and sinners." This gave great offense.[7] In these ill-reputed houses there was a risk of meeting bad society. We shall often see him thus, caring little to shock the prejudices of well-disposed persons, seeking to elevate the cla.s.ses humiliated by the orthodox, and thus exposing himself to the liveliest reproaches of the zealots.

[Footnote 1: Matt. ix. 9, x. 3; Mark ii. 14, iii. 18; Luke v. 27, vi.

15; _Acts_ i. 13. Gospel of the Ebionites, in Epiph., _Adv. Haer._, x.x.x. 13. We must suppose, however strange it may seem, that these two names were borne by the same personage. The narrative, Matt. ix. 9, conceived in accordance with the ordinary model of legends, describing the call to apostles.h.i.+p, is, it is true, somewhat vague, and has certainly not been written by the apostle in question. But we must remember that, in the existing Gospel of Matthew, the only part which is by the apostle consists of the Discourses of Jesus. See Papias, in Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._, III. 39.]

[Footnote 2: Cicero, _De Provinc. Consular._, 5; _Pro Plancio_, 9; Tac., _Ann._, IV. 6; Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, XII. 32; Appian, _Bell.

Civ._, II. 13.]

[Footnote 3: It remained celebrated, up to the time of the Crusades, under the name of _Via Maris_. Cf. Isaiah ix. 1; Matt. iv. 13-15; Tobit, i. 1. I think that the road cut in the rock near Ain-et-Tin formed part of it, and that the route was directed from thence toward the _Bridge of the Daughters of Jacob_, just as it is now. A part of the road from Ain-et-Tin to this bridge is of ancient construction.]

[Footnote 4: Matt. ix. 9, and following.]

[Footnote 5: Matt. v. 46, 47, ix. 10, 11, xi. 19, xviii. 17, xxi. 31, 32; Mark ii. 15, 16; Luke v. 30, vii. 34, xv. 1, xviii. 11, xix. 7; Lucian, _Necyomant_, ii.; Dio Chrysost., orat. iv., p. 85, orat. xiv., p. 269 (edit. Emperius); Mishnah, _Nedarim_, iii. 4.]

[Footnote 6: Mishnah, _Baba Kama_, x. 1; Talmud of Jerusalem, _Demai_, ii. 3; Talmud of Bab., _Sanhedrim_, 25 _b_.]

[Footnote 7: Luke v. 29, and following.]

Jesus owed these numerous conquests to the infinite charm of his person and his speech. A penetrating word, a look falling upon a simple conscience, which only wanted awakening, gave him an ardent disciple. Sometimes Jesus employed an innocent artifice, which Joan of Arc also used: he affected to know something intimate respecting him whom he wished to gain, or he would perhaps recall to him some circ.u.mstance dear to his heart. It was thus that he attracted Nathanael,[1] Peter,[2] and the Samaritan woman.[3] Concealing the true source of his strength--his superiority over all that surrounded him--he permitted people to believe (in order to satisfy the ideas of the time--ideas which, moreover, fully coincided with his own) that a revelation from on high revealed to him all secrets and laid bare all hearts. Every one thought that Jesus lived in a sphere superior to that of humanity. They said that he conversed on the mountains with Moses and Elias;[4] they believed that in his moments of solitude the angels came to render him homage, and established a supernatural intercourse between him and heaven.[5]

[Footnote 1: John i. 48, and following.]

[Footnote 2: John i. 42.]

[Footnote 3: John iv. 17, and following.]

[Footnote 4: Matt. xvii. 3; Mark ix. 3; Luke ix. 30-31.]

[Footnote 5: Matt. iv. 11; Mark i. 13.]

CHAPTER X.

THE PREACHINGS ON THE LAKE.

Such was the group which, on the borders of the lake of Tiberias, gathered around Jesus. The aristocracy was represented there by a customs-officer and by the wife of one of Herod's stewards. The rest were fishermen and common people. Their ignorance was extreme; their intelligence was feeble; they believed in apparitions and spirits.[1]

Not one element of Greek culture had penetrated this first a.s.sembly of the saints. They had very little Jewish instruction; but heart and good-will overflowed. The beautiful climate of Galilee made the life of these honest fishermen a perpetual delight. They truly preluded the kingdom of G.o.d--simple, good, and happy--rocked gently on their delightful little sea, or at night sleeping on its sh.o.r.es. We do not realize to ourselves the intoxication of a life which thus glides away in the face of heaven--the sweet yet strong love which this perpetual contact with Nature gives, and the dreams of these nights pa.s.sed in the brightness of the stars, under an azure dome of infinite expanse.

It was during such a night that Jacob, with his head resting upon a stone, saw in the stars the promise of an innumerable posterity, and the mysterious ladder by which the angels of G.o.d came and went from heaven to earth. At the time of Jesus the heavens were not closed, nor the earth grown cold. The cloud still opened above the Son of man; the angels ascended and descended upon his head;[2] the visions of the kingdom of G.o.d were everywhere, for man carried them in his heart.

The clear and mild eyes of these simple souls contemplated the universe in its ideal source. The world unveiled perhaps its secret to the divinely enlightened conscience of these happy children, whose purity of heart deserved one day to behold G.o.d.

[Footnote 1: Matt. xiv. 26; Mark vi. 49; Luke xxiv. 39; John vi. 19.]

[Footnote 2: John i. 51.]

Jesus lived with his disciples almost always in the open air.

Sometimes he got into a boat, and instructed his hearers, who were crowded upon the sh.o.r.e.[1] Sometimes he sat upon the mountains which bordered the lake, where the air is so pure and the horizon so luminous. The faithful band led thus a joyous and wandering life, gathering the inspirations of the master in their first bloom. An innocent doubt was sometimes raised, a question slightly sceptical; but Jesus, with a smile or a look, silenced the objection. At each step--in the pa.s.sing cloud, the germinating seed, the ripening corn--they saw the sign of the Kingdom drawing nigh, they believed themselves on the eve of seeing G.o.d, of being masters of the world; tears were turned into joy; it was the advent upon earth of universal consolation.

[Footnote 1: Matt. xiii. 1, 2; Mark iii. 9, iv. 1; Luke v. 3.]

"Blessed," said the master, "are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

"Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

"Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

"Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

"Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see G.o.d.

"Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of G.o.d.

"Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."[1]