comfort poverty, must not think of entering into the Kingdom. Sometimes
the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the
children of light, understand the management of their earthly affairs
better than the children of light understand their heavenly life. Like
that steward who was out of favor with his master and was obliged to
leave his position. He called one by one his lord’s debtors to him, and
canceled a part of the debt of every one, so that when he was sent away
he had made here and there with his fraudulent stratagem so many friends
that they did not let him die of hunger. He had benefited himself and
the others by cheating and robbing his master. He was a thief, but a
shrewd thief. If men would use for the salvation of the spirit the
shrewdness which this man used for his bodily comfort, how many more
would be converted to faith in the Kingdom!
He who is not converted in time will be cut down like the unfruitful
fig-tree. And the conversion must be final, for falling from grace
injures a man’s soul a great deal more than repentance helps him. A man
had an unclean spirit in him and succeeded in driving it away. The demon
walked through dry places seeking rest; and finding none, he said: “I
will return into my house whence I came out.” It happens that this
house, the soul of that man, is empty, swept and garnished so that it is
hard to recognize it. Then the demon takes to him seven other spirits
more wicked than himself and at the head of the band he enters into his
house so that the last state of that man was worse than the first.
In the day of triumph laments and excuses will count less than the
whispering of the wind among the rushes. Then will be made the last and
irrevocable choice, like that of the fisherman who, after having pulled
up from the sea his net full of fish, sits down on the beach and puts
those fit for food into his baskets and throws away the others. A long
truce is given to sinners, that they may have all the time necessary to
change their hearts, but when that day has come he who has not arrived
at the door, or is not worthy, will remain eternally outside.
A good husbandman sowed good seed in his field, but while men slept, his
enemy came and sowed tares also among the wheat. When the blade was
sprung up, the servants of the household saw the tares and came and told
their master of it.
“Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?” But he said, “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 reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in
bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.”
Thus like a good husbandman Jesus waits for the day of the harvest. One
day an immense multitude was about Him to listen to Him, and seeing all
these men and these women who were hungering after righteousness and
thirsting after love, He was moved with compassion and said to His
disciples: “The harvest truly is plenteous but the laborers are few;
Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth
laborers into this harvest.”
His voice does not carry everywhere, not even the Twelve are enough:
others are necessary to proclaim the good news, that it may be carried
to all those who suffer and who await it.
THE TWELVE
Fate knows no better way to punish the great for their greatness than by
sending them disciples. Every disciple, just because he is a disciple,
cannot understand all that his master says, but at very best only half,
and that according to the kind of mind he has. Thus without wishing to
falsify the teaching of his master, he deforms it, vulgarizes it,
belittles it, corrupts it.
The disciple nearly always has companions and is jealous of them; he
would like to be at least first among those who are second; and
accordingly he maligns and plots against his fellows; and each one
believes that he is, or at least wishes others to believe that he is,
the only perfect interpreter of the master.
The disciple knows that he is a disciple and sometimes it shames him to
be one who eats at another’s table. Then he twists and turns the
master’s thought to make it seem that he has a thought of his own,
different and original. Or else, and this is the most graceless and
servile manner of being a disciple, he teaches exactly the opposite of
what he was taught.
In every disciple, even in those who seem most loyal, there is the seed
of a Judas. A disciple is a parasite, a middleman who robs the seller
and tricks the buyer; a dependent who, invited to dine, nibbles at the
hors d’œuvres, licks the sauces, picks at the fruit, but does not attack
the bones because he has no teeth, or only milk teeth, to crack them and
suck out the meaty marrow. The disciple paraphrases sentences, obscures
mysteries, complicates what is clear, multiplies difficulties, comments
on syllables, travesties principles, clouds evidence, magnifies
non-essentials, weakens the essential, dilutes the strong wine, and
retails this hodge-podge as elixir distilled and quintessence. Instead
of a torch which gives light and fire, he is a smoky wick giving no
light even to himself.
And yet no one has been able to dispense with these pupils and
followers, nor even to wish to. For the great man is so foreign to the
multitude, so distant, so alone, that he needs to feel some one near
him. He cannot teach without the illusion that some one understands his
words, receives his ideas, transmits them to others far away before his
death and after his death. This wanderer who has no home of his own
needs a friendly hearth. To this uprooted man who cannot have a family
of his own flesh and blood, the children of his spirit are dear. The
prophet is a captain whose soldiers spring up only after his blood has
soaked into the ground, and yet he longs to feel a little army about him
during his life-time. Here is one of the most tragic elements in all
greatness: disciples are repugnant and dangerous, but disciples, even
false ones, cannot be dispensed with. Prophets suffer if they do not
find them; they suffer, perhaps more, when they have found them.
A man’s thought is bound with a thousand threads to his soul even more
closely than a child to a parent’s heart. It is infinitely precious,
delicate, fragile, and the newer it is, the harder it is for other men
to understand. It is a tremendous responsibility, a continued torture
and suffering to confide it to another, to graft it on another’s
thought, to give it into the hands of the man incapable of respecting
it, this gift so rare, a thought new in human life. And yet every great
man longs to share with all men what he has received; and to achieve
this sharing with humanity is more than he can do single-handed. Then,
too, vanity insinuates itself even in noble breasts: and vanity needs
caressing words, needs praise, even offensive praise, needs assent, even
verbal, consecration even from the mediocre, victories even if they are
only apparent.
Christ has none of this smallness of the great, and yet in order to
share all the burdens of mankind, He accepted with the other trials of
earthly life the burden of disciples. Before being tormented by His
enemies, He gave himself over to be tormented by His friends. The
priests killed him, once and once only; the disciples made Him suffer
every day of their life with Him. The anguish of His passion would not
have been completely intolerable if it had not included the desertion of
the Apostles in addition to the Sadducees, the guards, the Romans, the
crowd.
We know who the Apostles were. A Galilean, He chose them from among the
Galileans. A poor man, He chose them from among the poor; a simple man,
but of a divine simplicity transcending all philosophies, He called
simple men whose simplicity kept them like clods. He did not wish to
choose them from among the rich, because He had come to combat the rich;
nor among the scribes and doctors, because He had come to overturn their
law; nor among the philosophers, because there were no philosophers
living in Palestine, and had there been, they would have tried to
extinguish His supernatural mysticism under the dialectic bushel.
He knew that these souls were rough but had integrity, were ignorant but
ardent, and that He could in the end mold them according to His desire,
bring them up to His level, fashion them like clay from the river, which
is only mud, and yet when modeled and baked in the kiln, becomes eternal
beauty. But flame from the Holy Ghost was needed for that
transformation; until the day of the Pentecost their imperfect nature
had too often the upper hand. To the Twelve much should be pardoned
because almost always they had faith in Him; because they tried to love
Him as He wished to be loved; and, above all, because after having
deserted Him in the Garden of Gethsemane, they never forgot Him and left
to all eternity the memory of His word and of His life.
And yet our hearts ache if we look at them closely in the Gospels, those
disciples of whom we have some knowledge. They were not always worthy of
their unique and supreme felicity, those men who were so inestimably
fortunate as to live with Christ, to walk, to eat with Him, to sleep in
the same room, to look into His face, to touch His hand, to kiss Him, to
hear His words from His very mouth; those twelve fortunate men, whom
throughout the centuries millions of souls have secretly envied.
We see them, hard of head and of heart, not able to understand the
clearest parables of the Master; not always capable of understanding,
even after His death, who Jesus had been and what sort of a new Kingdom
was proclaimed by Him; often lacking in faith, in love, in brotherly
affection; eager for pay; envying each other; impatient for the revenge
which would repay them for their long wait; intolerant of those who were
not one with them; vindictive towards those who would not receive them,
somnolent, doubtful, materialistic, avaricious, cowardly.
One of them denies Him three times; one of them delays giving Him due
reverence until He is in the sepulcher; one does not believe in His
mission because He comes from Nazareth; one is not willing to admit His
resurrection; one sells Him to His enemies, and gives Him over with His
last kiss to those who come to arrest Him. Others, when Christ’s
teachings were on a too-lofty level, “went back and walked no more with
Him.”
Many times Jesus was forced to reprove them for their slowness of mind.
He told them the parable of the sower, and they did not understand its
meaning. “Know ye not this parable, and how then will ye know all
parables?” He warns them against the leaven of the Pharisees and the
Sadducees, and they think that He is speaking of material bread. “Why
reason ye because ye have no bread, perceive ye not yet, neither
understand? Have ye your heart yet hardened? Having eyes see ye not, and
having ears hear ye not?” Like the common people they constantly feel
that Jesus should be the worldly Messiah, political, warlike, come to
restore the temporal throne of David. Even when He is about to ascend
into Heaven they continue to ask Him: “Lord, wilt thou at this time
restore again the Kingdom to Israel?” And after the resurrection, the
two disciples of Emmaus say: “But we trusted that it had been he which
should have redeemed Israel.”
They disputed among themselves to know who should have the chief place
in the new Kingdom and Jesus reproved them: “What was it that ye
disputed among yourselves by the way?” But they held their peace, for by
the way they had disputed among themselves who should be the greatest.
And He sat down and called the Twelve and saith unto them: “If any man
desires to be first, the same shall be last of all and the servant of
all.” Jealous of their privileges they denounced to Jesus one who was
casting out devils in His name: “Forbid him not,” answered Jesus, “for
there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name that can lightly
speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is on our part.” After a
talk at Capernaum many murmured at his words and said: “This is an hard
saying; who can hear it?” and they left Him.
And yet Jesus spared no warnings to those who wished to follow Him. A
Scribe said to Him that he would follow Him everywhere. “And Jesus saith
unto him: The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but
the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head.” Another who was a
disciple wished first to bury his father, “But Jesus said unto him,
Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.” And still another, “Lord,
I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell which are at
home at my house. And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand
to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God.”
A rich young man came to Him who observed all the Commandments. “Then
Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou
lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor,
and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come take up the cross, and
follow me. And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he
had great possessions.”
To be with Him, a man must needs leave his home, his dead, his family,
his money,—all the ordinary loves, all the ordinary good things of life.
What is given in exchange is so great that it will repay every
renunciation. But few are capable of this renunciation, and some after
they have believed, falter.
Renunciation was easier for the Twelve, almost all poor men, yet even
they did not always succeed in being as Jesus wished them.
“Simon, Simon,” He said one day to Peter, “behold, Satan hath desired to
have you, that he may sift you as wheat.” In spite of the winnowing of
Christ, some evil seeds remained among his grain.
SIMON, CALLED THE ROCK
Peter before the Resurrection is like a body beside a spirit, like a
material voice which accompanies the sublimation of the soul. He is the
earth which believes in Heaven but remains earthy. In his rough man’s
imagination the Kingdom of Heaven still resembles rather too closely the
Kingdom of the Prophets’ Messiah.
When Jesus pronounced the famous words: “It is easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the
kingdom of God,” Peter thought this sweeping condemnation of wealth very
harsh. “Then answered Peter and said unto him, Behold, we have forsaken
all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore?” He acts like a
money lender inquiring what interest he can expect. And Jesus, to
console him, promises him that he will sit upon a throne to judge one of
the tribes of Israel, that the other eleven will judge the other eleven
tribes, and adds that every one shall have a hundred times what he has
given up.
Again Peter does not understand what Christ means when He asserts that
only what comes from man himself can defile men. “Peter then answered
and said unto him: Declare unto us this parable, and Jesus said: Are ye
also without understanding? Do ye not yet understand?” Among the
disciples so slow to understand, Peter is one of the slowest. His
surname “Cefa,” stone, piece of rock, was not given him only for the
firmness of his faith, but for the hardness of his head.
He was not an alert spirit in either the literal or the figurative
meaning of the word. He easily fell asleep even at supreme moments. He
fell asleep on the Mount of the Transfiguration. He fell asleep on the
night at Gethsemane, after the last supper, where Jesus had uttered the
saying which would have kept even a Scribe everlastingly from sleep. And
yet his boldness was great. When Jesus that last evening announced that
He was to suffer and die, Peter burst out: “Lord, I am ready to go with
thee both, into prison, and to death. Although all shall be offended,
yet will not I. If I should die with thee, I will not deny Thee in any
wise.” Jesus answered him: “Verily I say unto thee that this night
before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.”
Jesus knew him better than Peter knew himself. When he stood in the
courtyard of Caiaphas, warming himself at the brazier while the priests
were questioning and insulting his God, he denied three times that he
was one of His followers.
At the moment of the arrest he had made, against the teaching of Jesus,
an appearance of resistance: he had cut off the ear of Malchus. He had
not yet understood after years of daily comradeship with Christ that any
form of material violence was repellent to Jesus. He had not understood
that if Jesus had wished to save Himself, He could have hidden in the
wilderness unknown to all, or escaped out of the hands of the soldiers
as He had done that first time at Nazareth. So little did Jesus value
this act, contrary to His teaching, that he healed the wound at once and
reproved His untimely avenger.
That was not the first time that Peter showed himself unequal to great
events. He had like all crude personalities a tendency to see the
material dross in spiritual manifestations, the low in the lofty, the
commonplace in the tragic. On the mountain of the transfiguration, when
he was awakened and saw Jesus refulgent with white light, speaking with
two others, with two spirits, with two prophets, the first thought which
came to him, instead of worshiping and keeping silence, was to build a
tabernacle for these great personages. “Lord, it is good for us to be
here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee,
and one for Moses, and one for Elias.” Luke, the wise man, adds to
excuse him, “not knowing what he said.”
When he saw Jesus walking in all security on the lake, the idea came to
him to do the same thing. “And when Peter was come down out of the ship,
he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind
boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying,
Lord, save me” And immediately Jesus stretched forth His hand, and
caught him, and said unto him, “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst
thou doubt?” Because he was familiar with the lake and with Jesus, the
good fisherman thought he could do as his master did, and did not know
that the storm could be mastered only by a soul infinitely greater, a
faith infinitely more potent than his.
His great love for Christ, which makes up for all his weakness, led him
one day almost to rebuke Him. Jesus had told His disciples how He must
suffer and be killed. “Then Peter took him and began to rebuke him,
saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. But he
turned and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an
offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but
those that be of men.” No one ever pronounced such a terrible judgment
on Simon, called Peter. He was called to work for the Kingdom of God,
and he _thought as men do_. His mind, still occupied with the vulgar
idea of the triumphant Messiah, refused to conceive of a persecuted
Messiah condemned and executed. His soul had not yet kindled to the idea
of divine expiation, the idea that salvation cannot be secured without
an offering of suffering and blood, and that the great should sacrifice
His body to the ferocity of mean men in order that the mean, after being
enlightened by that life, may be saved from that death. He loved Jesus,
but although his love was warm and potent, it still had something earthy
in it, and he grew angry at the thought that his king should be reviled,
that his God should die. And yet he was the first to recognize Jesus as
the Christ; and this primacy is so great that nothing has been able to
cancel it.
SONS OF THUNDER
The two fishermen, the brothers James and John, who had left their boat
and their nets on the shore at Capernaum in order to go with Jesus, form
together with Peter a sort of favorite triumvirate. They are the only
ones who accompany Jesus into the house of Jairus, and on the Mount of
Transfiguration, and they are the ones whom He takes with Him on the
night of Gethsemane. But in spite of their long intimacy with the
Master, they never acquired sufficient humility. Jesus gave them the
surname of “Boanerges—Sons of Thunder,” an ironic surname, alluding
perhaps to their fiery, irascible character.
When they all started together towards Jerusalem, Jesus sent some of
them ahead to make ready for Him. They were crossing Samaria and were
badly received in a village. “And they did not receive him, because his
face was as though he would go to Jerusalem. And when his disciples,
James and John, saw this, they said: Lord, wilt thou that we command
fire to come down from heaven and consume them? But he turned, and
rebuked them.” For them, Galileans, faithful to Jerusalem, the
Samaritans were always enemies. In vain had they heard the Sermon on the
Mount: “Do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which
despitefully use you, and persecute you.” In vain had they received
instructions for their mission among the peoples: “And whosoever shall
not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house
or city, shake off the dust from your feet.” Angry at an affront to
Jesus they presumed to be able to command fire from Heaven. It seemed to
them a work of righteous justice to reduce to ashes the village guilty
of inhospitality. And yet far as they were from that loving rebirth of
the soul which alone constitutes the reality of the Kingdom of Heaven,
these men had the pretension to claim the first places on the day of
triumph.
“And James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came unto him, saying: Master,
we would that thou shouldest do for us whatsoever we should desire. And
he said unto them: What would ye that I should do for you? They said
unto him: Grant unto us that we may sit one on thy right hand and one on
thy left hand in thy glory. But Jesus said unto them: Ye know not what
ye ask. And when the ten heard it they began to be much displeased with
James and John. But Jesus called them to Him and saith unto them:
Whosoever will be great among you let him be your minister; and
whosoever will be the chief among you, let him be your servant, for even
the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto but to minister.”
Christ, the overturner of the old order, took this occasion to repeat
the master word to which all magnanimous souls respond. Only the
useless, the petty, the parasites, wish to be served, even by their
inferiors (if any one in the absolute meaning of the word can be
inferior to them), but any superior being is always at the service of
lesser souls precisely because he is superior.
This miraculous paradox is the proof of the fire of genius. It is
repugnant to the egotism of the self-centered, to the pretensions of
would-be supermen, and to the poverty of the avaricious because the
little that they have is not even enough for themselves. He who cannot
or will not serve shows that he has nothing to give, is a weakling,
impotent, imperfect, empty. But the genius is no true genius if he does
not exuberantly benefit his inferiors. To serve is not always the same
as to obey. A people can be served better sometimes by a man who puts
himself at their head to force them to be saved even if they do not wish
it. There is nothing servile in serving.
James and John understood this stimulating saying of Jesus. We find one
of them, John, among the nearest and most loving of the disciples. At
the Last Supper he leans his head on Jesus’ breast; and from the height
of the cross Jesus, crucified, confides the Virgin to him, that he
should be a son to her.
THE OTHERS
Thomas owes his popularity to the quality which should be his shame.
Thomas, the twin, is the guardian of modernity, as Thomas Aquinas is the
oracle of medieval life. He is the true patron saint of Spinoza and of
all the other deniers of the resurrection, the man who is not satisfied
even with the testimony of his eyes, but wishes that of his hands as
well. And yet his love for Jesus makes him pardonable. When they came to
the Master to say that Lazarus was dead, and the disciples hesitated
before going into Judea among their enemies, it was Thomas alone who
said: “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” The martyrdom which he
did not find then came to him in India, after Christ’s death.