By the aid of faith we never find any thing to condemn in the conduct
of those, whom we have been accustomed to regard as saints; their
obstinacy, seditious spirit, pride, even their ferocity, are justified,
by saying that they are animated with a holy zeal. In a word, a saint
may violate with impunity, the most sacred rules of morality, without
his bigoted admirers permitting themselves to criticise his conduct.
Saints have always been in the habit of terming those chastisements,
which they have drawn upon themselves (oftentimes justly) by their
unruly passions or indiscreet zeal, persecution. Those whom a devout
phrensy excites to tumult and disorder are honoured as confessors and
martyrs, and we find the Jews and Pagans were the most unjust and cruel
of men, for having treated the Christians, whom they could not consider
but as disturbers of the public peace, in the same manner as the
Christians now treat the Jews, heretics, and infidels. Bigots, accustom
themselves to regard their saints as irreproachable characters, or if
they cannot justify their conduct, they say that God has permitted them
to sin, to humiliate them, in order that he might have an opportunity of
pardoning them. It is thus that every good Christian regards a brigand
in revolt against his legitimate sovereign, an usurper, a monster of
cruelty, an infamous adulterer, an assassin, in a word, a David, as a
great saint; or even by excellence, as the man after God's own heart!
Faith in the mind of a bigot, is able to reverse, even the most simple
rules of morality and virtue. Religion encourages the most perverse men
to give themselves up to the blackest crimes, the most shameful vices,
and the most shocking irregularities, by setting before them the
examples of scoundrels, who were nevertheless the friends of God.
It cannot be pretended that St. Paul of whom we are now speaking, was
guilty of excesses, similar to those committed by the king of the Jews,
whose whole history is a series of horrors: but without faith it is
difficult to consider our Apostle as an irreproachable character; though
the historian, whoever he be, to whom we are indebted for the Acts of
the Apostles, has designed to hold him up as a model of virtue, we find
that by a singular oversight he did not seem aware, that he made him
tell an untruth in public, and in the most solemn manner in presence of
the Sanhedrim or great council of the Jews. In fact as we have already
remarked, perceiving that his audience was composed of Sadducees and
Pharisees, with the view of dividing them and gaining friends, Paul
cried out that he was a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee, and that they
sought to kill him, because of his hope in the resurrection.
In this assertion we may detect two deceptions. In the first place Paul
was not a Pharisee, at the moment he spoke he was a Christian, he was
an Apostle, he preached Jesus Christ, he laboured effectually to make
proselytes to his sect, he had disgusted the Jews in announcing to them
a new law, contrary to that of Moses, he had procured in the council
at Jerusalem the abolition of the practice of circumcision so strictly
ordained by their law. In a word he preached Christianity and not
Judaism in the same moment that he declared himself a Pharisee. On this
occasion his conduct was in fact that of an apostate, at least it cannot
be denied, that he conducted himself as a coward, who did not care to
acknowledge his real belief in the presence of the council, and who had
recourse to an artifice to outwit his Judges. In fact the conduct of
Paul on this occasion has no resemblance to that of a great number of
martyrs, who freely acknowledge themselves Christians at the risk of
their lives, and boldly confessed Jesus Christ, in the presence of
their persecutors and executioners. The presence of the High Priest
and council so much imposed on St. Paul, that he declared himself a
Pharisee; fear troubled his memory to such a degree, that he forgot he
had just acknowledged himself a Christian, and missionary of Jesus to
the Gentiles in the presence of the people collected before the gate of
the fortress, who indignant at his discourse, cried out, "away with such
a fellow from the earth for it is not fit that he should live." Nothing
then but theological subtilty, can clear Paul from deception, apostacy,
and cowardice on this occasion.
In the second place it was not true, that it was because of the hope
of another life, and of the resurrection of the dead, that Paul was
persecuted by the Jews. It was for having preached a new doctrine,
contrary to the law of Moses; this great legislator has in no part
taught us what we ought to believe concerning the resurrection of the
dead or of another life. The Jews without ceasing to be Jews, embraced
respecting it whatever opinion they pleased, the Sadducees rejected it
without however being on that account, excluded from the synagogue,
and without ceasing to observe the Judaic law; the Pharisee admitted it
without its appearing to cause a schism between them, ami those who
did not think, as they did. It is true that Paul had preached the
resurrection, but it was that of Jesus, on which he endeavoured to
establish a new sect very different from the Jewish religion. Thus the
words of St. Paul were merely a subterfuge unworthy of a man, whom grace
ought to have endued with sufficient courage to maintain before the
council, at the peril of his liberty and his life, the same sentiments
that he had taught the people and preached in all those places where he
had planted the faith. It was then for having preached Christianity,
and for having (in spite even of his brethren the apostles) desired in
favour of the Gentiles the abolition of the Jewish customs, that Paul
was persecuted, the priests were doubtless irritated against a man who
sought to abrogate a law and a priesthood which a divine revelation had
so many times taught them was to endure eternally, whilst the authors of
the Epistle to the Hebrews formerly assures us that they have been set.
aside by the Gospel.