The Life of Jesus Part 26

And let us not say that this is a benevolent interpretation, imagined in order to clear the honor of our great master from the cruel contradiction inflicted on his dreams by reality. No, no: this true kingdom of G.o.d, this kingdom of the spirit, which makes each one king and priest; this kingdom which, like the grain of mustard-seed, has become a tree which overshadows the world, and amidst whose branches the birds have their nests, was understood, wished for, and founded by Jesus. By the side of the false, cold, and impossible idea of an ostentatious advent, he conceived the real city of G.o.d, the true "palingenesis," the Sermon on the Mount, the apotheosis of the weak, the love of the people, regard for the poor, and the re-establishment of all that is humble, true, and simple. This re-establishment he has depicted as an incomparable artist, by features which will last eternally. Each of us owes that which is best in himself to him. Let us pardon him his hope of a vain apocalypse, and of a second coming in great triumph upon the clouds of heaven. Perhaps these were the errors of others rather than his own; and if it be true that he himself shared the general illusion, what matters it, since his dream rendered him strong against death, and sustained him in a struggle, to which he might otherwise have been unequal?

We must, then, attach several meanings to the divine city conceived by Jesus. If his only thought had been that the end of time was near, and that we must prepare for it, he would not have surpa.s.sed John the Baptist. To renounce a world ready to crumble, to detach one's self little by little from the present life, and to aspire to the kingdom about to come, would have formed the gist of his preaching. The teaching of Jesus had always a much larger scope. He proposed to himself to create a new state of humanity, and not merely to prepare the end of that which was in existence. Elias or Jeremiah, reappearing in order to prepare men for the supreme crisis, would not have preached as he did. This is so true that this morality, attributed to the latter days, is found to be the eternal morality, that which has saved humanity. Jesus himself in many cases makes use of modes of speech which do not accord with the apocalyptic theory. He often declares that the kingdom of G.o.d has already commenced; that every man bears it within himself; and can, if he be worthy, partake of it; that each one silently creates this kingdom by the true conversion of the heart.[1] The kingdom of G.o.d at such times is only the highest form of good.[2] A better order of things than that which exists, the reign of justice, which the faithful, according to their ability, ought to help in establis.h.i.+ng; or, again, the liberty of the soul, something a.n.a.logous to the Buddhist "deliverance," the fruit of the soul's separation from matter and absorption in the divine essence.

These truths, which are purely abstract to us, were living realities to Jesus. Everything in his mind was concrete and substantial. Jesus, of all men, believed most thoroughly in the reality of the ideal.

[Footnote 1: Matt. vi. 10, 33; Mark xii. 34; Luke xi. 2, xii. 31, xvii. 20, 21, and following.]

[Footnote 2: See especially Mark xii. 34.]

In accepting the Utopias of his time and his race, Jesus thus was able to make high truths of them, thanks to the fruitful misconceptions of their import. His kingdom of G.o.d was no doubt the approaching apocalypse, which was about to be unfolded in the heavens. But it was still, and probably above all the kingdom of the soul, founded on liberty and on the filial sentiment which the virtuous man feels when resting on the bosom of his Father. It was a pure religion, without forms, without temple, and without priest; it was the moral judgment of the world, delegated to the conscience of the just man, and to the arm of the people. This is what was destined to live; this is what has lived. When, at the end of a century of vain expectation, the materialistic hope of a near end of the world was exhausted, the true kingdom of G.o.d became apparent. Accommodating explanations threw a veil over the material kingdom, which was then seen to be incapable of realization. The Apocalypse of John, the chief canonical book of the New Testament,[1] being too formally tied to the idea of an immediate catastrophe, became of secondary importance, was held to be unintelligible, tortured in a thousand ways and almost rejected. At least, its accomplishment was adjourned to an indefinite future. Some poor benighted ones who, in a fully enlightened age, still preserved the hopes of the first disciples, became heretics (Ebionites, Millenarians), lost in the shallows of Christianity. Mankind had pa.s.sed to another kingdom of G.o.d. The degree of truth contained in the thought of Jesus had prevailed over the chimera which obscured it.

[Footnote 1: Justin, _Dial. c.u.m Tryph._, 81.]

Let us not, however, despise this chimera, which has been the thick rind of the sacred fruit on which we live. This fantastic kingdom of heaven, this endless pursuit after a city of G.o.d, which has constantly preoccupied Christianity during its long career, has been the principle of that great instinct of futurity which has animated all reformers, persistent believers in the Apocalypse, from Joachim of Flora down to the Protestant sectary of our days. This impotent effort to establish a perfect society has been the source of the extraordinary tension which has always made the true Christian an athlete struggling against the existing order of things. The idea of the "kingdom of G.o.d," and the Apocalypse, which is the complete image of it, are thus, in a sense, the highest and most poetic expressions of human progress. But they have necessarily given rise to great errors. The end of the world, suspended as a perpetual menace over mankind, was, by the periodical panics which it caused during centuries, a great hindrance to all secular development. Society being no longer certain of its existence, contracted therefrom a degree of trepidation, and those habits of servile humility, which rendered the Middle Ages so inferior to ancient and modern times.[1] A profound change had also taken place in the mode of regarding the coming of Christ. When it was first announced to mankind that the end of the world was about to come, like the infant which receives death with a smile, it experienced the greatest access of joy that it has ever felt. But in growing old, the world became attached to life. The day of grace, so long expected by the simple souls of Galilee, became to these iron ages a day of wrath: _Dies irae, dies illa!_ But, even in the midst of barbarism, the idea of the kingdom of G.o.d continued fruitful. In spite of the feudal church, of sects, and of religious orders, holy persons continued to protest, in the name of the Gospel, against the iniquity of the world. Even in our days, troubled days, in which Jesus has no more authentic followers than those who seem to deny him, the dreams of an ideal organization of society, which have so much a.n.a.logy with the aspirations of the primitive Christian sects, are only in one sense the blossoming of the same idea. They are one of the branches of that immense tree in which germinates all thought of a future, and of which the "kingdom of G.o.d" will be eternally the root and stem. All the social revolutions of humanity will be grafted on this phrase. But, tainted by a coa.r.s.e materialism, and aspiring to the impossible, that is to say, to found universal happiness upon political and economical measures, the "socialist" attempts of our time will remain unfruitful until they take as their rule the true spirit of Jesus, I mean absolute idealism--the principle that, in order to possess the world, we must renounce it.

[Footnote 1: See, for example, the prologue of Gregory of Tours to his _Histoire Ecclesiastique des Francs_, and the numerous doc.u.ments of the first half of the Middle Ages, beginning by the formula, "On the approach of the night of the world...."]

The phrase, "kingdom of G.o.d," expresses also, very happily, the want which the soul experiences of a supplementary destiny, of a compensation for the present life. Those who do not accept the definition of man as a compound of two substances, and who regard the Deistical dogma of the immortality of the soul as in contradiction with physiology, love to fall back upon the hope of a final reparation, which under an unknown form shall satisfy the wants of the heart of man. Who knows if the highest term of progress after millions of ages may not evoke the absolute conscience of the universe, and in this conscience the awakening of all that has lived? A sleep of a million of years is not longer than the sleep of an hour. St. Paul, on this hypothesis, was right in saying, _In ictu oculi!_[1] It is certain that moral and virtuous humanity will have its reward, that one day the ideas of the poor but honest man will judge the world, and that on that day the ideal figure of Jesus will be the confusion of the frivolous who have not believed in virtue, and of the selfish who have not been able to attain to it. The favorite phrase of Jesus continues, therefore, full of an eternal beauty. A kind of exalted divination seems to have maintained it in a vague sublimity, embracing at the same time various orders of truths.

[Footnote 1: 1 _Cor._ xv. 52.]

CHAPTER XVIII.

INSt.i.tUTIONS OF JESUS.

That Jesus was never entirely absorbed in his apocalyptic ideas is proved, moreover, by the fact that at the very time he was most preoccupied with them, he laid with rare forethought the foundation of a church destined to endure. It is scarcely possible to doubt that he himself chose from among his disciples those who were pre-eminently called the "apostles," or the "twelve," since on the day after his death we find them forming a distinct body, and filling up by election the vacancies that had arisen in their midst.[1] They were the two sons of Jonas; the two sons of Zebedee; James, son of Cleophas; Philip; Nathaniel bar-Tolmai; Thomas; Levi, or Matthew, the son of Alphaeus; Simon Zelotes; Thaddeus or Lebbaeus; and Judas of Kerioth.[2]

It is probable that the idea of the twelve tribes of Israel had had some share in the choice of this number.[3]

[Footnote 1: _Acts_ i. 15, and following; 1 _Cor._ xv. 5; Gal. i. 10.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. x. 2 and following; Mark iii. 16, and following; Luke vi. 14, and following; _Acts_ i. 13; Papias, in Eusebius, _Hist.

Eccl._, iii. 39.]

[Footnote 3: Matt. xix. 28; Luke xxii. 30.]

The "twelve," at all events, formed a group of privileged disciples, among whom Peter maintained a fraternal priority,[1] and to them Jesus confided the propagation of his work. There was nothing, however, which presented the appearance of a regularly organized sacerdotal school. The lists of the "twelve," which have been preserved, contain many uncertainties and contradictions; two or three of those who figure in them have remained completely obscure. Two, at least, Peter and Philip,[2] were married and had children.

[Footnote 1: _Acts_ i. 15, ii. 14, v. 2, 3, 29, viii. 19, xv. 7; Gal.

i. 18.]

[Footnote 2: For Peter, see ante, p. 174; for Philip, see Papias, Polycrates, and Clement of Alexandria, quoted by Eusebius, _Hist.

Eccl._, iii. 30, 31, 39, v. 24.]

Jesus evidently confided secrets to the twelve, which he forbade them to communicate to the world.[1] It seems as if his plan at times was to surround himself with a degree of mystery, to postpone the most important testimony respecting himself till after his death, and to reveal himself completely only to his disciples, confiding to them the care of demonstrating him afterward to the world.[2] "What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light; and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops." This spared him the necessity of too precise declarations, and created a kind of medium between the public and himself. It is clear that there were certain teachings confined to the apostles, and that he explained many parables to them, the meaning of which was ambiguous to the mult.i.tude.[3] An enigmatical form and a degree of oddness in connecting ideas were customary in the teachings of the doctors, as may be seen in the sentences of the _Pirke Aboth_.

Jesus explained to his intimate friends whatever was peculiar in his apothegms or in his apologues, and showed them his meaning stripped of the wealth of ill.u.s.tration which sometimes obscured it.[4] Many of these explanations appear to have been carefully preserved.[5]

[Footnote 1: Matt. xvi. 20, xvii. 9; Mark viii. 30, ix. 8.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. x. 26, 27; Mark iv. 21, and following; Luke viii.

17, xii. 2, and following; John xiv. 22.]

[Footnote 3: Matt. xiii. 10, and following, 34 and following; Mark iv.

10, and following, 33, and following; Luke viii. 9, and following; xii. 41.]

[Footnote 4: Matt. xvi. 6, and following; Mark vii. 17-23.]

[Footnote 5: Matt. xiii. 18, and following; Mark vii. 18, and following.]

During the lifetime of Jesus, the apostles preached,[1] but without ever departing far from him. Their preaching, moreover, was limited to the announcement of the speedy coming of the kingdom of G.o.d.[2] They went from town to town, receiving hospitality, or rather taking it themselves, according to the custom of the country. The guest in the East has much authority; he is superior to the master of the house, who has the greatest confidence in him. This fireside preaching is admirably adapted to the propagation of new doctrines. The hidden treasure is communicated, and payment is thus made for what is received; politeness and good feeling lend their aid; the household is touched and converted. Remove Oriental hospitality, and it would be impossible to explain the propagation of Christianity. Jesus, who adhered greatly to good old customs, encouraged his disciples to make no scruple of profiting by this ancient public right, probably already abolished in the great towns where there were hostelries.[3] "The laborer," said he, "is worthy of his hire!" Once installed in any house, they were to remain there, eating and drinking what was offered them, as long as their mission lasted.

[Footnote 1: Luke ix. 6.]

[Footnote 2: Luke x. 11.]

[Footnote 3: The Greek word [Greek: pandokeion], in all the languages of the Semitic East, designates an hostelry.]

Jesus desired that, in imitation of his example, the messengers of the glad tidings should render their preaching agreeable by kindly and polished manners. He directed that, on entering into a house, they should give the salaam or greeting. Some hesitated; the salaam being then, as now, in the East, a sign of religious communion, which is not risked with persons of a doubtful faith. "Fear nothing," said Jesus; "if no one in the house is worthy of your salute, it will return unto you."[1] Sometimes, in fact, the apostles of the kingdom of G.o.d were badly received, and came to complain to Jesus, who generally sought to soothe them. Some of them, persuaded of the omnipotence of their master, were hurt at this forbearance. The sons of Zebedee wanted him to call down fire from heaven upon the inhospitable towns.[2] Jesus received these outbursts with a subtle irony, and stopped them by saying: "The Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them."

[Footnote 1: Matt. x. 11, and following; Mark vi. 10, and following; Luke x. 5, and following. Comp. 2 Epistle of John, 10, 11.]

[Footnote 2: Luke ix. 52, and following.]

He sought in every way to establish as a principle that his apostles were as himself.[1] It was believed that he had communicated his marvellous virtues to them. They cast out demons, prophesied, and formed a school of renowned exorcists,[2] although certain cases were beyond their power.[3] They also wrought cures, either by the imposition of hands, or by the anointing with oil,[4] one of the fundamental processes of Oriental medicine. Lastly, like the Psylli, they could handle serpents and could drink deadly potions with impunity.[5] The further we get from Jesus--the more offensive does this theurgy become. But there is no doubt that it was generally received by the primitive Church, and that it held an important place in the estimation of the world around.[6] Charlatans, as generally happens, took advantage of this movement of popular credulity. Even in the lifetime of Jesus, many, without being his disciples, cast out demons in his name. The true disciples were much displeased at this, and sought to prevent them. Jesus, who saw that this was really an homage paid to his renown, was not very severe toward them.[7] It must be observed, moreover, that the exercise of these gifts had to some degree become a trade. Carrying the logic of absurdity to the extreme, certain men cast out demons by Beelzebub,[8] the prince of demons.

They imagined that this sovereign of the infernal regions must have entire authority over his subordinates, and that in acting through him they were certain to make the intruding spirit depart.[9] Some even sought to buy from the disciples of Jesus the secret of the miraculous powers which had been conferred upon them.[10] The germ of a church from this time began to appear. This fertile idea of the power of men in a.s.sociation (_ecclesia_) was doubtless derived from Jesus. Full of the purely idealistic doctrine that it is the union of love which brings souls together, he declared that whenever men a.s.sembled in his name, he would be in their midst. He confided to the Church the right to bind and to unbind (that is to say, to render certain things lawful or unlawful), to remit sins, to reprimand, to warn with authority, and to pray with the certainty of being heard favorably.[11] It is possible that many of these words may have been attributed to the master, in order to give a warrant to the collective authority which was afterward sought to be subst.i.tuted for that of Jesus. At all events, it was only after his death that particular churches were established, and even this first const.i.tution was made purely and simply on the model of the synagogue. Many personages who had loved Jesus much, and had founded great hopes upon him, as Joseph of Arimathea, Lazarus, Mary Magdalen, and Nicodemus, did not, it seems, join these churches, but clung to the tender or respectful memory which they had preserved of him.

[Footnote 1: Matt. x. 40, 42, xxv. 35, and following; Mark ix. 40; Luke x. 16; John xiii. 20.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. vii. 22, x. 1; Mark iii. 15, vi. 13; Luke x. 17.]

[Footnote 3: Matt. xvii. 18, 19.]

[Footnote 4: Mark vi. 13, xvi. 18; Epist. Jas. v. 14.]

[Footnote 5: Mark xvi. 18; Luke x. 19.]

[Footnote 6: Mark xvi. 20.]

[Footnote 7: Mark ix. 37, 38; Luke ix. 49, 50.]

[Footnote 8: An ancient G.o.d of the Philistines, transformed by the Jews into a demon.]

[Footnote 9: Matt. xii. 24, and following.]

[Footnote 10: _Acts_ viii. 18, and following.]