THE FUTURE OF MISSIONS.
Such was the world which the Christian missionaries undertook to
convert. It may now be readily perceived, it seems to me, that the
enterprise was nothing impossible, and that its success was no
miracle. The world was fermenting with moral longings to which the
new religion answered admirably. Manners were losing their rudeness;
a purer religion was looked for; and the notions of human rights and
social improvement were everywhere gaining ground. On the other hand,
credulity was extreme, and the number of educated persons very limited.
To such a world, a few earnest apostles had only to present themselves,
believing in one God and, as disciples of Jesus, imbued with the most
beneficent moral doctrine the ears of men ever listened to, and they
could not fail to be heard. The imaginary miracles which they mingled
with their teaching would not hinder their success; for the number of
those who would refuse to believe in the supernatural or miraculous
was very small. If the apostles were humble and poor, so much the
better. Humanity, in the condition it had then arrived at, could not be
saved but by an effort springing from the masses. The ancient heathen
religions were not susceptible of reform. The Roman state was what
the state always will be--rigid, dry, and unyielding. In such a world
perishing for want of love, the future is the property of him who
can touch the living spring of popular devotion, to do which, Greek
liberalism and the old Roman gravity were alike impotent.
The founding of Christianity is in this view the mightiest work which
the men of the people have ever accomplished. At an early day, it is
true, we find men and women of high rank at Rome joining themselves
to the Church; and about the end of the first century, the examples
of Flavius Clemens and Flavia Domitilla show that Christianity was
penetrating almost within the palace of the Cæsars.[19.1] From the
time of the first Antonines there were some rich men in the Christian
communities; and near the close of the second century we find in them a
few of the most distinguished persons of the empire.[19.2] But at the
commencement, all or nearly all were of humble condition.[19.3] The
noble and powerful of the earth were found in the earliest churches
no more than in Galilee, following the footsteps of Jesus. Now in
these great movements the beginning is the decisive moment. The glory
of a religion belongs entirely to its founders. Religion, in fact,
is an affair of faith, and to exercise faith is an easy thing; the
master-work is to inspire it.
When we try to become acquainted with the marvellous origin of
Christianity, we ordinarily regard matters by the standards of our
own day, and are thus led into grave errors. The man of the people in
the first century, especially in the Greek and Oriental countries,
was in no wise similar to what he is amongst us, and at this day.
Education had not then separated classes as widely as at present. The
Mediterranean races, excepting the Latin tribes, which had lost all
importance since the empire by the conquest of the world had become a
mixture of vanquished nations, were less solid than moderns, and were
more vivacious, excitable, imaginative, and quick of apprehension. The
heavy materialism of our lower classes, and their apparent melancholy
and dulness, which are in part the result of climate, and in part
the sad legacy of the Dark Ages, and which stamp our poor with so
distressful a physiognomy, did not operate upon the same classes in the
early times. Although they were indeed very ignorant and credulous,
they were not much more so than the rich and powerful of their day.
The establishment of Christianity cannot then be considered analogous
to a popular movement in the present age, starting from the common
people and at last commanding the assent of the educated class. This
would with us be simply impossible. The founders of Christianity
belonged to the common people in a certain sense, it is true. They
were clothed in the same manner, lived poorly and frugally, and spoke
without polish, or rather sought only to express their thoughts with
energy. But they were inferior in intelligence to only a very small
and constantly diminishing class of men, the survivors of the refined
age of Cæsar and Augustus. In comparison with the philosophers who
flourished from the time of Augustus to that of the Antonines, the
first Christians were of course illiterate. In comparison with the
great mass of their fellow-subjects, they were enlightened men. At
times they were even looked on as free-thinkers, and the cry of the
populace arose, "Down with the Atheists!"[19.4] This need not surprise
us. The world was making startling progress in credulity. The two
earliest strongholds of Gentile Christianity, Antioch and Ephesus, were
of all the cities in the empire the most superstitious. The second and
third centuries carried the love of the marvellous close to the borders
of folly and madness.
Christianity arose outside of the official world, but not entirely
beneath it. It was only in appearance, and as viewed according
to worldly prejudices, that the disciples of Jesus were of an
insignificant class. The worldling admires pride and strength, and
wastes no affability on inferiors. Honor in his view consists in
repelling insult. He despises the spirit which is meek, long-suffering,
humble, which yields its cloak also, and turns its cheek to the smiter.
He is wrong; the meekness which he disdains is the mark of a loftier
soul than his own; and the highest virtues dwell more contentedly with
those who obey and serve than with those who command and enjoy. And
this accords with reason; for power and pleasure, so far from aiding us
in the practice of virtue, are hindrances in the way.
Jesus knew well that the heart of the common people was the great
reservoir of the self-devotion and resignation by which alone the
world could be saved. Hence he called the poor blessed, deeming it
easier for them to be good than for others. The primitive Christians
were essentially "poor;" it was their rightful title.[19.5] Even if
a Christian possessed riches in the second and third centuries, he
was poor in spirit, and classed himself among the poor, and was saved
from persecution by claiming the privilege of the law concerning the
"_collegia tenuiorum_."[19.6] It is true that all the Christians were
not slaves or persons of low rank; but the social equivalent of a
Christian was a slave, and the same terms were applied to both; while
the cardinal virtues of the servile condition--gentleness, humility,
and resignation--were aimed at by both alike. The heathen writers are
unanimous on this point. All of them without exception recognise in
the Christian the traits of servile character, such as indifference
to public affairs, a subdued and melancholy air, a severe estimate of
the vices of the age, and a settled aversion to the theatres, baths,
gymnasia, and public games.[19.7]
In a word, the heathen were the world; the Christians were not of the
world. They were a little flock apart, hated of the world, reproving
its iniquities,[19.8] seeking to keep themselves "unspotted from the
world."[19.9] The ideal of the Christian was wholly opposed to that of
the worldling.[19.10] The sincere Christian loved to be humble, and
cultivated the virtues of the poor and simple and self-abasing. He had
also the defects which accompany these virtues. He considered as vain
and frivolous many things which are not so. He belittled the universe,
looking on beauty and art with a hostile or contemptuous eye. A system
under which the Venus of Milo is only a stone idol is erroneous, or at
the least partial; for beauty is almost the equivalent of goodness and
of truth. When such ideas prevailed, the decay of art was inevitable.
The Christian set no store by architecture, sculpture, or painting; he
was too much of an idealist. He cared little for the advancement of
science, for it was to him nothing but idle curiosity. Confounding the
higher enjoyments of the soul, by which we touch upon the infinite,
with vulgar pleasures, he denied himself all amusement. He pushed his
virtues to excess.
Another law demands our attention at this period, which will not
fail to have its influence upon the history we are to recount. The
establishment of Christianity corresponds in time with the suppression
of political life in the Mediterranean world. The subjects of the
imperial sway had ceased to have a country. If any one sentiment was
wholly wanting in the founders of the Church, it was patriotism.
They were not even cosmopolites, citizens of the world; for the
planet was to them only a place of exile, and they were idealists
in the most absolute sense. The country is a composite object; it
has body and soul. The soul is its recollections, customs, legends,
misfortunes, hopes, and common regrets; the body its soil, race,
language, mountains, rivers, characteristic productions. But never
were any people so regardless of all this as the primitive Christians.
Judea could not retain their affection. A few years passed, and they
had forgotten the walks of Galilee. The glories of Greece and Rome
were foolishness to them. The regions in which Christianity first
rooted itself--Syria, Cyprus, and Asia Minor--could not recall the
period when they had been free. Greece and Rome still possessed much
national pride. But at Rome the patriotism was hardly felt outside of
the army and a few families; while in Greece, Christianity flourished
only at Corinth, a city which, after its destruction by Mummius and
its rebuilding by Cæsar, was a mixture of men from every land. The
true Greek tribes were then, as now, very exclusive in their notions,
absorbed in the memory of their past; and paid little heed to the new
doctrine. They proved but half-way Christians. On the other hand, the
gay, luxurious, and pleasure-loving inhabitants of Asia and Syria,
accustomed to a life of enjoyment, of easy manners, and used to accept
the customs and laws of every new conqueror, had nothing in the shape
of national pride or cherished traditions to lose. The early centres of
Christianity--Antioch, Ephesus, Thessalonica, Corinth, and Rome--were,
if I may so express it, public cities; cities like modern Alexandria,
whither all races gather, and where that union and tie of affection
between the citizen and the soil which constitutes a nation, were
entirely unknown.
The interest of the public in social questions is always in inverse
ratio to its preoccupation with politics. Socialism advances when
patriotism becomes weak. Christianity was an explosion of social and
religious ideas which could not have had free scope until Augustus
had suppressed political contests. It was destined, like Islamism, to
become in essence an enemy of the tendency to separate nationality.
Many ages and many schisms would be necessary before national
established churches could be derived out of a religion which started
with the negation of the idea of any earthly home or country; which
arose at an epoch when the distinctive _city_ and _citizen_ of early
Greece and Italy had ceased to exist; and when the stern and vigorous
republican spirit of a former period had been carefully sifted out as
deadly poison to the state.
Here then is one of the causes of the grandeur of the new religion.
Humanity is diverse and changeable in feeling, and constantly agitated
by contradictory desires. Great is the love of country and sacred are
the heroes of Marathon, Thermopylæ, Valmy, and Fleurus. One's country,
however, is not everything here below. Man is a man and a child of God
before he is a Frenchman or a German. The kingdom of God, that eternal
vision which cannot be torn out of the heart of man, is the protest of
his nature against the exclusiveness of patriotism. The idea of a great
and universal organization of the race to bring about its greatest
welfare and its moral improvement, is both legitimate and Christian.
The state knows and can know only one thing, the organization of
self-interest. This is something, for self-interest is the strongest
and most engrossing of human motives. But it is not enough. Governments
founded on the theory that man is composed of selfish wants and desires
alone, have proved greatly mistaken. Devotion is as natural as egotism
to the race, and religion is organized devotion. Let none expect, then,
to do without religion or religious associations. Every forward step of
modern society will render the need of religion more imperious.
We can now see how these recitals of strange events may prove
illustrative and instructive. We need not reject the lesson because of
certain traits which the difference of times and manners has invested
with an odd or unusual aspect. In regard to popular convictions, there
is always an immense disproportion between the greatness of the ideal
aimed at by the system of belief, and the trifling nature of the actual
facts which have given rise to it. Hence the particularity with which
religious history mingles common details and actions approaching folly
with its most sublime events and doctrines. The monk who contrived the
"holy vial" was one of the founders of the French monarchy. Who would
not willingly efface from the life of Jesus the story of the demoniacs
of Gadara? What man of cool blood and common sense would have acted
like Francis of Assisi, Joan of Arc, Peter the Hermit, or Ignatius
Loyola? Terms attributing folly or fanaticism to the actions of past
ages must of necessity be deemed merely relative. If our ideas are
to be taken as the standard, there was never a prophet, apostle, or
saint, who ought not to have been confined as a lunatic. Conscience is
very unstable in periods when reflection is not mature, and then good
becomes evil, and evil good, by insensible stages. Unless we admit
this, it is impossible to form a just estimate of the past. The same
divine breath vitalizes all history and gives to it wonderful unity,
but human faculties have produced an infinite variety of combinations.
The apostles differed less in character from us than did the founders
of Buddhism, although the latter were allied more nearly to us in
language and probably in race. Our own age has witnessed religious
movements quite as extraordinary as those of former times; movements
attended with as much enthusiasm, which have already had in proportion
more martyrs, and the future of which is still undetermined.
I do not refer to the Mormons, a sect in some respects so degraded
and absurd that one hesitates to seriously consider it. There is much
to suggest reflection, however, in seeing thousands of men of our own
race living in the miraculous in the middle of the nineteenth century,
and blindly believing in the wonders which they profess to have seen
and touched. A literature has already arisen pretending to reconcile
Mormonism and science. But, what is of more importance, this religion,
founded upon silly impostures, has inspired prodigies of patience and
self-denial. Five hundred years hence, learned professors will seek to
prove its divine origin by the miracle of its establishment.
_Bab-ism_ in Persia was a phenomenon much more astonishing.[19.11] A
mild and unassuming man, in character and opinion a sort of pious and
modest Spinoza, was suddenly and almost in spite of himself raised to
the rank of a worker of miracles and a divine incarnation; and became
the head of a numerous, ardent, and fanatical sect, which came near
accomplishing a revolution like that of Mahomet. Thousands of martyrs
rushed to death for him with joyful alacrity. The great butchery of his
followers at Teheran was a scene perhaps unparalleled in history. "That
day in the streets and _bazaars_ of Teheran," says an eye-witness, "the
residents will never forget.[19.12] To this moment when it is talked
of, the mingled wonder and horror which the citizens then experienced
appears unabated by the lapse of years. They saw women and children
walking forward between their executioners, with great gashes all over
their bodies and burning matches thrust into the wounds. The victims
were dragged along by ropes, and hurried on by strokes of the whip.
Children and women went singing a verse to this effect, 'Verily we came
from God, and to him shall we return!' Their shrill voices rose loud
and clear in the profound silence of the multitude. If one of these
poor wretches fell down, and the guards forced him up again with blows
or bayonet-thrusts, as he staggered on with the blood trickling down
every limb, he would spend his remaining energy in dancing and crying
in an access of zeal, 'Verily we are God's, and to him we return!'
Some of the children expired on the way. The executioners threw their
corpses in front of their fathers and their sisters, who yet marched
proudly on, giving hardly a second glance. At the place of execution
life was offered them if they would abjure, but to no purpose. One of
the condemned was informed that unless he recanted, the throats of his
two sons should be cut upon his own bosom. The eldest of these little
boys was fourteen years old, and they stood red with their own blood
and with their flesh burned and blistered, calmly listening to the
dialogue. The father, stretching himself upon the earth, answered that
he was ready; and the oldest boy, eagerly claiming his birthright,
asked to be murdered first.[19.13] At length all was over; night closed
in upon heaps of mangled carcasses; the heads were suspended in bunches
on the scaffold, and the dogs of the _faubourgs_ gathered in troops
from every side as darkness veiled the awful scene."
This happened in 1852. In the reign of Chosroes Nouschirvan, the sect
of Masdak was smothered in blood in the same way. Absolute devotion
is to simple natures the most exquisite of enjoyments, and, in fact,
a necessity. In the Bab persecution, people who had hardly joined the
sect came and denounced themselves, that they might suffer with the
rest. It is so sweet to mankind to suffer for something, that the
allurement of martyrdom is itself often enough to inspire faith. A
disciple who shared the tortures of Bab, hanging by his side on the
ramparts of Tabriz and awaiting a lingering death, had only one word to
say--"Master, have I done well?"
Those who regard as either miraculous or chimerical everything in
history which transcends the ordinary calculations of common sense,
will find such facts as these inexplicable. The fundamental condition
of criticism is to be able to comprehend the diverse states of the
human soul. Absolute faith is a thing entirely foreign to us. Beyond
the positive sciences which possess a material certainty, all opinion
is in our view only an approximation to the truth, and necessarily
implies some error. The amount of error may be as small as you please,
but is never zero in regard to moral subjects. Such is not the method
of narrow and bigoted minds, like the Oriental for example. The
mental vision of those races is not like ours; theirs is dull and
fixed like the enamelled eyes of figures in mosaic. They see only one
thing at a time, and that takes entire possession of them. They are
not their own masters whether to believe or not. There is no room for
an after-thought with them. People who embrace an opinion after this
fashion will die for it. The martyr is in religion what the partisan
is in politics. There have not been many very intelligent martyrs.
The Christians who confessed their faith under Diocletian, would have
been, after peace was gained for the Church, rather unpleasant and
impracticable personages. One is never very tolerant when he believes
himself entirely in the right, and his opponents entirely in the wrong.
Great religious movements, being thus the results of a confined method
of viewing moral subjects, are enigmas to an age like the present, in
which the strength of conviction is enfeebled. Among us, the man of
sincerity is continually modifying his opinions, because both the world
around him and his own nature are changing. We believe in many things
at once. We love justice and the truth, and would expose our lives in
their cause; but we do not admit that justice and truth can be the
peculiar property of any sect or party. We are good Frenchmen, but we
confess that the Germans and the English excel us in many respects.
Not so in epochs and countries where every man belongs with his whole
nature to his own community, race, or school of politics. Hence all the
great religious developments have occurred in states of society when
the general mind was more or less analogous to the oriental. In fact,
it is only absolute faith that has hitherto succeeded in conquering
souls. A pious servant-girl of Lyons named Blandina, who suffered for
her religion 1700 years ago; a rough chieftain, Clovis, who saw fit
some fourteen centuries back to embrace Catholicism--are still giving
law to us.
Who is there who has not at some time while wandering through our old
cities, now so rapidly being modernized, paused at the foot of one
of the gigantic monuments of the faith of the Middle Age! Everything
around is becoming new; not a vestige of ancient customs remains; the
cathedral alone stands, a little lowered perhaps by men's violence,
but firmly rooted in the soil. _Mole sua stat!_ Its strength is
its right. It has withstood the flood which has washed away its
surroundings. Not one of the men of old, should here visit the spots
which once knew him, could find his former home. Of all the dwellers
there, the rooks alone who built their nests in the lofty niches of
the consecrated edifice, have never seen the hammer of destruction
raised against their abode. Strange destiny! Those simple martyrs,
those rude converts, those pirate church-builders, rule us still. We
are Christians because it pleased them to be so. As in politics, it is
only systems founded by barbarians which have endured; so in religion
it is only the spontaneous, and, if I may so express it, fanatical
movements, which are contagious. Their success depends not on the more
or less satisfactory proofs they furnish of their divine origin, but is
proportioned to what they have to say to the hearts of the people.
Are we then to conclude that religion is destined gradually to die away
like the popular fallacies concerning magic, sorcery, and ghosts? By
no means. Religion is not a popular fallacy; it is a great intuitive
truth, felt and expressed by the people. All the symbols which serve to
give shape to the religious sentiment are imperfect, and their fate is
to be one after another rejected. But nothing is more remote from the
truth than the dream of those who seek to imagine a perfected humanity
without religion. The contrary idea is the truth. The Chinese, a very
inferior branch of humanity, have hardly any religious sentiment.
But if we suppose a planet inhabited by a race whose intellectual,
moral, and physical force were the double of our own, that race would
be at least twice as religious as we. I say "at least," for it is
likely that the religious sentiment would increase more rapidly than
the intellectual capacity, and not in merely direct proportion. Let
us suppose a humanity ten times as powerful as we are; it would be
infinitely more religious. It is even probable that at this degree of
sublime elevation, being freed from material cares and egotism, endowed
with perfect judgment and appreciation, and perceiving clearly the
baseness and nothingness of all that is not true, good, or beautiful,
man would be wholly a religious being, and would spend his days in
ceaseless adoration, passing from ecstasy to ecstasy of religious
rapture, and living and dying in the loftiest delight of the soul.
Egotism is the measure of inferiority, and decreases as we recede from
the animal nature. A perfected being would no longer be selfish, but
purely religious. The progress of humanity, then, cannot destroy or
weaken religion, but will develop and increase it.
* * * * *
But it is time that we return to the three missionaries, Paul,
Barnabas, and Mark, whom we left as they sallied forth from Antioch
by the Seleucian gate. In my third book I shall attempt to trace the
footsteps of these messengers of good report, by land and sea, in
calm and storm, through good and evil days. I long to recount that
unequalled epic; to depict those tossing waves so often traversed,
and those endless journeyings in Asia and Europe, during which the
Gospel-seed was sown. The great Christian Odyssey begins. Already the
apostolic bark has spread its sails, and the freshening breeze rejoices
to bear upon its wings the words of Jesus.
FINIS.
NOTES.
NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION.
[I.1] The author of the _Acts_ does not directly give to St. Paul
the title of apostle. This title is, in general, reserved by
him for the members of the central college, at Jerusalem.
[I.2] Hom. Pseudo-Clem., xvii. 13-19.
[I.3] Justin, Apol. i. 39. In the Acts also is seen the idea that
Peter was the Apostle of the Gentiles. See especially Chap. x.,
comp. Petri i. 1.
[I.4] I. Cor. iii. 6, 10; iv. 14, 15; ix. 1, 2. II. Cor.
xi. 2, etc.
[I.5] Letter of Denys of Corinth in Euseb. _Hist. Eccl._
ii. 25.
[I.6] French readers, for ample details upon the discussion and
comparison of the four narratives, may see Strauss, Vie de
Jésus, 3d sect., chapters iv. and v. (traduction Littré);
_Nouvelle Vie de Jésus_, 1. i., § 46, &c.; 1. ii. § 97, &c.
(translation Nefftzer and Dollfus).
[I.7] The Church early admitted this. See the canon of Muratori
(_Antiq. Ital._ iii. 854), (Neutestamentliche Studien, Gotha,
1866), lines 33, &c.
[I.8] Luke i. 1-4; _Acts_ i. 1.
[I.9] See especially _Acts_, xvi. 12.
[I.10] The paucity of language in the New Testament writers is so
great that each one has his own dictionary; so that the
writers of even very short manuscripts can be easily
recognised.
[I.11] The use of this word, _Acts_ xiv. 4, 14, is very indirect.
[I.12] Comp. for example, _Acts_ xvii. 14-16; xviii. 5, with
I. Thess. iii. 1-2.
[I.13] I. Cor. xv. 32; II. Cor. i. 8; xi. 23, &c.; Rom. xv. 19;
xvi. 3, &c.
[I.14] _Acts_ xvi. 6; xviii. 22-23, compared with the Epistle to
the Galatians.
[I.15] For instance, the sojourn at Cesarea is left in obscurity.
[I.16] Mabillon, _Museum Italicum_, i. 1 pars, p. 109.
[I.17] Col. iv. 14.
[I.18] See above, p. xii.
[I.19] Almost all the inscriptions are Latin, as at Naples (Cavala),
the port of Philippi. See Heuzey, _Mission de Macédoine_,
p. 11, &c. The remarkable familiarity with nautical subjects
of the author of the _Acts_ (see especially chapters
xxvii-xxviii), would give rise to the belief that he was a
Neapolitan.
[I.20] For example, _Acts_ x. 28.
[I.21] _Acts_ v. 36-37.
[I.22] The Hebraisms of his style may arise from careful reading
of Greek translations of the Old Testament, and above all,
from reading the manuscripts of his co-religionists of
Palestine, whom he often copied word for word. His quotations
from the Old Testament are made without any acquaintance with
the original text (for example, xv. 16, &c.).
[I.23] _Acts_ xvii. 22, &c.
[I.24] Luke i. 26; iv. 31; xxiv. 13.
[I.25] Luke i. 31, compared with Matthew i. 21. The name of
_Jeanne_, known only to Luke, is dubious. See, however, Talm.
de Bab. Sota, 22 a.
[I.26] _Acts_ ii. 47; iv. 33; v. 13, 26.
[I.27] _Acts_ ix. 22, 23; xii. 3, 11; xiii. 45, 50, and many other
passages. It is the same with the fourth gospel also compiled
out of Syria.
[I.28] Luke x. 33, &c.; xvii. 16; _Acts_ viii. 5, &c. The same in
the fourth gospel: John iv. 5, &c.
[I.29] _Acts_ xxviii. 30.
[I.30] See _Vie de Jésus_.
[I.31] Luke xxiv. 50. Mark xvi. 19, shows a similar arrangement.
[I.32] _Acts_ i. 3, 9.
[I.33] See especially Luke i. 1, the expression τῶν πεπληροφορημένων
ἐν ἡμῖν πραγμάτων.
[I.34] Ch. x. xxii. xxvi.
[I.35] The centurion Cornelius, the proconsul Sergius Paulus.
[I.36] _Acts_ xiii. 7, &c.; xviii. 12, &c.; xix. 35, &c.;
xxiv. 7, 17; xxv. 9, 16, 25; xxvii. 2; xxviii. 17-18.
[I.37] Ibid. xvi. 37, &c.; xxii. 26, &c.
[I.38] Similar precautions were by no means rare. In the Apocalypse
and the Epistle of Peter, Rome is alluded to in disguised
language.
[I.39] Luke i. 4.
[I.40] _Acts_ i. 22.
[I.41] See _Vie de Jésus_, p. xxxix. &c.
[I.42] This is obvious, especially in the history of the centurion
Cornelius.
[I.43] _Acts_ ii. 47; iv. 33; v. 13, 26. Cf. Luke, xxiv.
19-20.
[I.44] _Acts_ ii. 44-45; iv. 34, &c.; v. 1, &c.
[I.45] I. Cor. xii-xiv. Comp. Mark xvi. 17, and _Acts_ ii. 4-13;
x. 46; xi. 15; xix. 6.
[I.46] {Comp. _Acts_ iii. 2, &c., to xiv. 8, &c.; ix. 36, &c., to
xx. 9, &c.; v. 1, &c., with xiii. 9, &c.; v. 15-16, to
xix. 12; xii. 7, &c., with xvi. 26, &c.; x. 44, with xix. 6.}
[I.47] In a speech attributed by the author to Gamaliel, about the
year 36, Theudas is spoken of as anterior to Judas of Galilee
(_Acts_ v. 36-37). Now the revolt of Theudas was in the year
44 (Jos. _Ant._ xx. v. 1), and certainly after that of the
Galilean (Jos. _Ant._, xviii. i. 1; B. J., II., viii. 1).
[I.48] Those who cannot refer to the German works of Baur,
Schneckenburger, Wette, Schwegler, Zeller, where critical
questions relative to the Acts are brought to almost a
definite solution, may consult _Etudes Historiques et
Critiques sur les Origines du Christianisme_, by A. Stap
(Paris, Lacroix, 1864), p. 116, &c.; Michel Nicolas, _Etudes
Critiques sur la Bible; Nouveau Testament_ (Paris, Lévy,
1864), p. 223, &c.; Reuss, _Histoire de la Théologie
Chretienne au siècle Apostolique_ I. vi. ch. v.; other works
of MM. Kayser, Scherer, Reuss, in the _Revue de Théologie_ of
Strasburg, 1st series, vol. ii. and iii.; 2d series, vol. ii.
and iii.
[I.49] For the exact meaning of οὐ προσανεθέμην σαρκὶ και αἴματι,
comp. Matt. xvi. 17.
[I.50] He declares it on oath. See chapters i. and ii. of the Epistle
to the Galatians.
[I.51] _Acts_ xii. 1.
[I.52] Jos. Ant. XIX. viii. 2; B. J. II. xii. 6.
[I.53] The quotation from Amos (xv. 16-17), made by James according
to the Greek version, and in non-accordance with the Hebrew,
also shows that this speech is a fiction of the author.
[I.54] We shall show later that this is the true sense. Any way, the
question of the circumcision of Titus is of no importance
here.
[I.55] Comp. _Acts_ xv. 1; Gal. i. 7; ii. 12.
[I.56] I. Cor. viii. 4, 9; x. 25, 29.
[I.57] _Acts_, xxi. 20, &c.
[I.58] Above all, the Ebionites. See the Homilies Pseudo-Clem.
Irenæus. Adv. hær. I. xxvi. 2; Epiphanius, Adv. hær., hær.
xxx; St. Jerome. _In_ Matt. xii.
[I.59] I would nevertheless willingly lose Ananias and Sapphira.
[I.60] _De Divinatione_, ii. 57.
[I.61] Preface to the _Etudes d'Histoire Religieuse_.
CHAPTER I.
[1.1] Mark xvi. 11; Luke xviii. 34; xxiv. 44; John xx. 9, 24, and
following verses. The contrary opinion in Matt. xii. 40; xxi.
4, 24; xvii. 9, 23; xx. 19; xxxi. 32; Mark viii. 34; ix. 9,
10--31; x. 34; Luke ix. 22; xi. 29, 30; xviii. 31 et seq.;
xxiv. 6-8. Justin, _Pial. cum Tryph._ 106, proceeds from a
source on which, beginning from a certain epoch, considerable
reliance may be placed as to the announcements which Jesus
had made in reference to his resurrection. The synopticals
acknowledge, moreover, that if Jesus spake of it at all, his
disciples understood nothing of it (Mark ix. 10, 32; Luke
xviii. 34: compare Luke xxiv. 8, and John ii. 21, 22).
[1.2] Mark xiii. 10; Luke xxiv. 17, 21.
[1.3] Preceding passages, especially Luke xvii. 24, 25; xviii. 31-34.
[1.4] Talmud of Babylon, _Baba, Bathra,_ 58, a, and the Arabic
extract given by the Abbé Bargès, in the _Bulletin de
l'Œuvre des Pélérinages en terre Sainte_, February 1863.
[1.5] Ibn. Hischam, _Sirot Errasoul_, édit. Wüsdenfeld, 1012, and
following pages.
{1.6} {Luke xxiv, 23; _Acts_ xxv; Jos. _Ant._ xviii. 3.}
{1.7} Ps. xvi. 10. The sense of the original is a little different.
But the received versions thus translate the passage.
{1.8} I. Thess. iv. 12, et seq.; I. Cor. xv., entire; Revelation
xx.-xxii.
{1.9} Matt. xvi. 21, et seq.; Mark viii. 31, et seq.
{1.10} Josephus, _Ant._ XVIII., iii. 3.
{1.11} Carefully reperuse the four stories of the Gospels, and the
passage I. Cor. xv. 4, 8.
{1.12} Matt. xxviii. 1; Mark xvi. 1; Luke xxiv. 1; John xx. 1.
{1.13} John xx. 2, seems to suppose even that Mary was not always
alone.
{1.14} John xx. 1, et seq.; and Mark xvi. 9, et seq. It must be
observed that the Gospel of Mark has, in our printed versions
of the New Testament, two conclusions: Mark xvi. 1-8; Mark
xvi. 9-20, to say nothing of two other conclusions, one of
which has been handed down to us in the manuscript L. of
Paris, and the margin of the Philoxenian version (_Nov.
Test._, edit. Griesbach, Schultz, 1, page 291 note); the
other by St. Jerome, _Adv. Pelag._ l. ii. (vol. iv., 2d
part, col. 250, edit. Martianay.) The conclusion in the
sixteenth chapter, 9th and following verses, are wanting
in the _Codex Sinaïticus_ and in the most important
Greek manuscripts. But, in any case, it is of great antiquity,
and its harmony with the fourth Gospel is a striking
coincidence.
{1.15} Matt. xxvii. 60; Mark xv. 46; Luke xxiii. 53.
{1.16} John xix. 41, 42.
{1.17} See "_Life of Jesus_," p. 38.
{1.18} The Gospel of the Hebrews contained, perhaps, some analogous
circumstance (vide St. Jerome, _de Viris Illustribus_, 2).
{1.19} M. de Vogue, _The Churches of the Holy Land_, pp. 125, 126.
The verb αποκυλίω (Matt. xxviii. 2; Mark xvi. 3, 4; Luke
xxvi. 2) clearly proves that such was the situation of
the tomb of Jesus.
{1.20} In all this, the recital of the fourth Gospel is vastly
superior. It is our principal guide. In Luke xxiv. 12, Peter
alone goes to the tomb. In the conclusion of Mark given in
manuscript L, and in the margin of the Philoxenian version
(Griesbach, _loc. citat._) occur τοῖς περὶ τὸν Πέτρον St. Paul
(I. Cor. xv. 5) similarly introduces Peter only in this first
vision. Further, Luke (xxiv. 24) supposes that many disciples
went to the tomb, which observation probably applies to
successive visits. It is possible that John has here yielded
to the after-thought which betrays him more than once in his
Gospel, of showing that he had, in the history of Jesus, a
first-rate rôle, equal even to that of Peter. Perhaps, also,
the repeated declarations of John, that he was an eye-witness
of the fundamental facts of the Christian faith (Gospel i. 14;
xxi. 24; I. John i. 1-3; iv. 14), should be applied to this
visit.
{1.21} John xx. 1, 10; compare Luke xxiv. 12, 34; I. Cor. xv. 5, and
the conclusion of Mark in the manuscript L.
{1.22} Matt. xxviii. 9; in observing that Matt. xxviii. 9, 10,
replies to John xx. 16. 17.
{1.23} John xx. 11-17, in harmony with Mark xvi. 9, 10; compare the
parallel, but far less satisfactory account of Matt. xxviii.
1-10; Luke xxiv. 1, 10.
{1.24} John xx. 18.
{1.25} Compare Mark xvi. 9; Luke viii. 2.
{1.26} Luke xxiv. 11.
{1.27} Ibid. xxiv. 24.
{1.28} Ibid. xxiv. 34; I. Cor. xv. 5; the conclusion of Mark in the
manuscript L. The fragment of the Gospel of the Hebrews in St.
Ignatius, _Epist. ad Smyrn._, and in St. Jerome, _de Viris
Ill._, 16, seem to place "the vision of Peter" in the evening,
and to confound it with that of the assembled Apostles. But
St. Paul expressly distinguishes between the two visions.
{1.29} Luke xxiv. 23, 24. It results from these passages that the
tidings were separately proclaimed.
{1.30} Mark xvi. 1-8; Matthew xxviii. 9, 10, contradict this. But
this is at variance with the synoptical system, where the
women only see an angel. It seems that the first Gospel was
intended to reconcile the synoptical system with that of the
fourth, wherein one woman only saw Jesus.
{1.31} Matt, xxxviii. 2, et seq.; Mark xvi. 5, et seq.; Luke xxiv.
4, et seq., 23. This apparition of angels is even introduced
into the story of the fourth Gospel (xx. 12, 13), which it
completely deranges, being applied to Mary of Magdala. The
author was unwilling to abandon this traditionary feature.
{1.32} Mark xvi. 8.
{1.33} Luke xxiv. 4, 7; John xx. 12, 13.
{1.34} Matt. xviii. 1, et seq. The story of Matthew is that in which
the circumstances have suffered the greatest exaggeration. The
earthquake and the feature of the guards are probably late
additions.
{1.35} The six or seven accounts which we have of this scene on
Sunday morning (Mark having two or three, and Paul having also
his own, to say nothing of the Gospel of the Hebrews), are in
complete disagreement with each other.
{1.36} Matt. xxvi. 31; Mark xiv. 27; John xvi. 32; Justin, _Apol._
i. 50; _Dial. cum Tryph._, 53, 106. The theory of Justin is
that immediately on the death of Jesus, there was a complete
apostasy on the part of His disciples.
{1.37} Matt. xxviii. 17; Mark xvi. 11; Luke xxiv. 11.
{1.38} Mark xvi. 9; Luke viii. 2.
{1.39} Consult, for example, Calmeil, _De la Folie au Point de Vue
Pathologique, Historique et Judiciaire_. Paris, 1845. 2 vols,
in 8vo.
{1.40} See the _Pastoral Letters_ of Jurieu, 1st year, 7th letter;
Misson, _The Sacred Theatre of Cevennes_ (London, 1707), pp.
28, 34, 38, 102, 103, 104, 107; Memoirs of Court in Sayons,
_History of French Literature_, seventeenth century, i. p.
303. _Bulletin of the French Protestant Historical Society_,
1862, p. 174.
{1.41} Matt. xiv. 26; Mark vi. 49; Luke xxiv. 37; John iv. 19.
{1.42} Mark xvi. 12-13; Luke xxiv. 13-33.
{1.43} Compare Josephus, B. J., vii. vi. 6. Luke places this village
at 60 stadia, and Josephus at 30 stadia from Jerusalem.
Εξήκοντα, which is found in certain manuscripts and editions
of Josephus, is a correction made by some Christian. Consult
the edition of G. Pindorf. The most probable locality of Emmaus
is Kullouvé, a beautiful place at the bottom of a valley, on
the road from Jerusalem to Jaffa. Consult Sepp. _Jerusalem and
the Holy Land_ (1863), I. p. 56; Bourquenoud in the _Studies
of Religious History and Literature_, by the Priests of the
Society of Jesus, 1863, No. 9; and for the exact distances,
H. Zschokke. _The Emmaus of the New Testament_ (Schaffouse,
1865).
{1.44} Mark xvi. 14; Luke xxiv. 33, et seq.: John xx. 19, et seq.:
Gospel of the Hebrews in St. Ignatius, _Epist. ad Smyrn._, 3,
and in St. Jerome, _De Viris Ill._, 16; I. Cor. xv. 5; Justin,
_Dial. cum Tryph._ 106.
{1.45} Luke xxiv. 34.
{1.46} In an island opposite Rotterdam, where the people have
remained attached to the most austere Calvinism, the peasants
are persuaded that Jesus comes to their death-beds to assure
the elect of their justification; many, in fact, see Him.
{1.47} In order to conceive the possibility of similar illusions, it
is sufficient to remember the scenes of our own days, when a
number of persons assembled together unanimously acknowledged
that they heard unreal voices, and that in perfectly good
faith. The expectation, the effort of the imagination, the
desire to believe, sometimes compliances accorded with perfect
innocence, explain such of the phenomena as are not produced
by direct fraud. These compliances proceed, in general,
from persons who are convinced, and who, actuated by a
kindly feeling, are unwilling that the party should break up
unpleasantly, and are desirous of relieving the masters of the
house from embarrassment. When a person believes in a miracle,
he always unwillingly assists in its propagation. Doubt
and denial are impossible in this sort of assemblage. You
would only cause pain to those who do believe, and to those
whom you have invited. And thus it is that these experiences
which succeed so well before small committees, are usually
failures before a paying public, and always so when handled by
scientific commissions.
{1.48} John xx. 22, 23, echoed by Luke xxiv. 49.
{1.49} Matt. xxviii. 17; Mark xvi. 14; Luke xxiv. 39, 40.
{1.50} John xx. 24, 29; compare Mark xvi. 14; and the conclusion of
Mark preserved by St. Jerome, _Adv. Pelag._ ii. (v. above at
page).
{1.51} John xx. 29.
{1.52} It is very remarkable indeed that John, under whose name the
above dictum has been transmitted, had no particular vision
for himself alone. Cf. I. Cor. xv. 5, 8.
{1.53} John xx. 26. The passage xxi. 14 supposes it is true that
there were only two apparitions at Jerusalem before the
assembled disciples. But the passages xx. 30, and xxi. 25,
give us far more latitude. Compare _Acts_ 1, 3.
{1.54} Luke xxiv. 41, 43; Gospel of the Hebrews, in St. Jerome, _De
Viris Illustribus_, 2; conclusion of Mark, in St. Jerome,
_Adv. Pelag._, ii.
CHAPTER II.
[2.1] Matt. xxviii. 7; Mark xvi. 7.
[2.2] Matt. xxviii. 10.
[2.3] Ibid. xxvi. 32.
[2.4] Matt. xxviii. 16; John xxi.; Luke xxiv. 49, 50, 52, and the
_Acts_ i. 3, 4, are here in flagrant contradiction to Mark
xvi. 1-8, and Matthew. The second conclusion of Mark (xvi. 9,
et seq.), and even of the two others which are not a part of
the received text, appeared to be included in the system of
Luke. But this cannot avail in opposition to the harmony of a
portion of the synoptical tradition with the fourth Gospel,
and even indirectly with Paul (I. Cor. xv. 5-8), on this
point.
[2.5] Matt. xxviii. 16.
[2.6] Ibid, xxviii. 7; Mark xvi. 7.
[2.7] Conclusion of Mark, in St. Jerome, _Adv. Pelag._ ii.
[2.8] Matt. xxviii. 16.
[2.9] John xxi. 2, et seq.
[2.10] The author of the _Acts_ i. 14, makes them remain at Jerusalem
until the Ascension. But this agrees with his systematic
determination (Luke xxiv. 49; _Acts_ i. 4), not to allow
of a journey into Galilee after the resurrection (a theory
contradicted by Matthew and by John). To be consistent in this
theory he is compelled to place the Ascension at Bethany, in
which he is contradicted by all the other traditions.
[2.11] I. Cor. xv. 5, et seq.
[2.12] John xxxi. 1, et seq. This chapter has been added to the
already completed Gospel, as a postscript. But it is from the
same pen as the rest.
[2.13] John xxi. 9-14; compare Luke xxiv. 41-43. John combines in
one the two scenes of the fishing and the meal. But Luke
arranges the matter differently. At all events, if we consider
with attention the verses of John xxi. 14, 15, we shall come
to the conclusion that these harmonies of John are somewhat
artificial. Hallucinations, at the moment of their conception,
are always isolated. It is later that consistent anecdotes
are formed out of them. This habit of coupling together as
consecutive events facts which are separated by months and
weeks, is seen, in a very striking manner, by comparing
together two passages of the same writer, Luke, Gospel, xxiv.
end, and _Acts_ i. at the beginning. According to the former
passage, Jesus should have ascended into heaven on the same
day as the resurrection; whilst, according to the latter,
there was an interval of forty days. Again, if we rigorously
interpret Mark xvi. 9-20, the Ascension must have taken
place on the evening of the resurrection. Nothing more fully
proves than the contradiction of Luke in these two passages,
how little the editors of the evangelical writings observed
consistency in their stories.
[2.14] John xxi. 15, et seq.
[2.15] Ibid. xxi. 18, et seq.
[2.16] I. Cor. xv. 6.
[2.17] The Transfiguration.
[2.18] Matt, xxviii. 16-20; I. Cor. xv. 6. Compare Mark xvi. 15, et
seq. Luke xxiv. 44, et seq.
[2.19] I. Cor. xv. 6.
[2.20] John affixes no limit to the resuscitated life of Jesus.
He appears to suppose it somewhat protracted. According to
Matthew, it could only have lasted during the time which was
necessary to complete the journey to Galilee and to rendezvous
at the mountain pointed out by Jesus. According to the first
incomplete conclusion of Mark (xvi. 1-8), the incidents would
seem to have transpired as found in Matthew. According to
the second conclusion (xvi. 9, 20), according to others;
and, according to the Gospel of Luke, the disentombed life
would appear to have lasted only one day. Paul (I. Cor. xv.
5-8), agreeing with the fourth Gospel, prolongs it for two
years, since he gives his vision, which occurred five or six
years at least after the death of Jesus, as the last of the
apparitions. The circumstance of "five hundred brethren"
conduces to the same conclusion; for it does not appear
that on the morning after the death of Jesus, the group of
his friends was compact enough to furnish such a gathering
(_Acts_ i. 15). Many of the Gnostic sects, especially the
Valentinians and the Sethians, estimated the continuance of
the apparitions at eighteen months, and even founded mystic
theories on that notion (Irenæus _Adv. hær._, i. iii. 2; xxx.
14). The author of the _Acts_ alone (i. 3) fixes the duration
of the disentombed life of Jesus at forty days. But this
is very poor authority; above all, if we remark that it is
connected with an erroneous system (Luke xxiv. 49, 50, 52;
_Acts_ i. 4, 12), according to which the whole disentombed
life of Jesus would have been passed at Jerusalem or in its
vicinity. The number forty is symbolic (the people spend forty
years in the desert; Moses, forty days on Mount Sinai; Elijah
and Jesus fast forty days, &c.). As to the formula of the
narrative adopted by the author of the last twelve verses of
the second Gospel, and by the author of the third Gospel, a
formula according to which the events are confined to one day,
the authority of Paul, the most ancient and the strongest of
all, corroborating that of the fourth Gospel, which affords
the most connected and authentic record of this portion of
the evangelic history, appears to us to furnish a conclusive
argument.
[2.21] Luke xxiv. 34.
[2.22] John xx. 19, 26.
[2.23] Matt. xxviii. 9; Luke xxiv. 37, et seq.; John xx. 27, et seq.;
Gospel of the Hebrews, in St. Ignatius, the Epistle to the
Smyrniotes 3, and in St. Jerome, _De Viris Illustribus_, 16.
[2.24] John vi. 64.
[2.25] Matt. xxviii. 11-15; Justin, _Dial. cum Tryph._ 17, 108.
[2.26] Matt. xxvii. 62-66; xxviii. 4, 11-15.
[2.27] Ibid. xxviii. 9, et seq.
[2.28] The Jews are enraged, Matt. xxvii. 63, when they hear that
Jesus had predicted his resurrection. But even the disciples
of Jesus had no precise ideas in this respect.
[2.29] A vague idea of this sort may be found in Matthew xxvi. 32;
xxviii. 7, 10; Mark xiv. 28; xvi. 7.
[2.30] This is plainly seen in the miracles of Salette and Sourdes.
One of the most usual ways in which a miraculous legend is
invented is the following. A person of holy life pretends to
heal diseases. A sick person is brought to him or her, and in
consequence of the excitement finds himself relieved. Next
day it is bruited abroad in a circle of ten miles that there
has been a miracle. The sick person dies five or six days
afterwards; no one mentions the fact; so that at the hour of
the burial of the deceased, people at a distance of forty
miles are relating with admiration his wondrous cure. The
word loaned to the Grecian philosophy before the _ex votos_
of Samothrace (Diog. Läert. VI. ii. 59,) is also perfectly
appropriate.
[2.31] A phenomenon of this kind, and one of the most striking, takes
place annually at Jerusalem. The orthodox Greeks pretend that
the fire which is spontaneously lighted at the holy sepulchre
on the Saturday of the holy week preceding their Easter, takes
away the sins of those whose faces it touches without burning
them. Millions of pilgrims have tried it and know full well
that this fire does burn (the contortions which they make,
joined to the smell, are a sufficient proof). Nevertheless,
no one has ever been found to contradict the belief of
the orthodox Church. This would be to avow that they were
deficient in faith, that they were unworthy of the miracle,
and to acknowledge, oh, heavens! that the Latins were the true
Church; for this miracle is considered by the Greeks as the
most convincing proof that theirs is the only good church.
[2.32] The affair of Salette before the civil tribunal of Grenoble
(decree of 2d May, 1855), and before the court of Grenoble
(decree of 6th May, 1857), pleadings of MM. Jules Favre and
Bethmont, &c., collected by J. Sabbatier (Grenoble Vellot.
1857.)
[2.33] John xx. 15. Could it include a glimmering of this?
[2.34] See above.
[2.35] John expressly says so, xix. 41, 42.
[2.36] John xx. 6, 7.
[2.37] One cannot help thinking of Mary of Bethany, who in fact is
not represented as taking any part in the event of the Sunday
morning. See "_Life of Jesus_" p. 341, et seq.; 359, et seq.
[2.38] Celsus has already delivered some excellent critical
observations on this subject (in Origen). _Contra Celsum_,
ii. 55.
[2.39] Mark xvi. 9; Luke viii. 2.
CHAPTER III.
[3.1] Luke xxiv. 47.
[3.2] Respecting the name of "Galileans" given to the Christians,
see below.
[3.3] Matthew is exclusively Galilean; Luke and the second Mark,
xvi. 9-22, are exclusively Jerusalemitish. John unites the two
traditions. Paul (I. Cor. xv. 5-8) also admits the occurrence
of visions at widely separated places. It is possible that
the vision of "the five hundred brethren" of Paul, which we
have conjecturally identified with that "of the mountain of
Galilee" of Matthew, was a Jerusalemite vision.
[3.4] I. Cor. xv. 7. One cannot explain the silence of the four
canonical Evangelists respecting this vision in any other
way than by referring it to an epoch placed on this side of
the scheme of their recital. The chronological order of the
visions, on which St. Paul insists with so much precision,
leads to the same result.
[3.5] Gospel of the Hebrews, cited by St. Jerome _De Viris
Illustribus_, 2. Compare Luke xxiv. 41-43.
[3.6] Gospel of the Hebrews, cited above.
[3.7] John vii. 5.
[3.8] Could there be an allusion to this abrupt change in Gal. ii. 6?
[3.9] Acts i. 14, weak authority indeed. One already perceives in
Luke a tendency to magnify the part of Mary. Luke, chap. i.
and ii.
[3.10] John xix. 25, 27.
[3.11] The tradition respecting his sojourn at Ephesus is modern and
valueless. See Epiphanius. _Adv. heret._ lxxviii. 11.
[3.12] See _Life of Jesus_.
[3.13] Gospel of the Hebrews, passage cited above.
[3.14] Acts viii. 1; Galat. i. 17-19; ii. 1, et seq.
[3.15] Luke xxiv. 49; _Acts_ i. 4.
[3.16] This idea indeed is not developed until we come to the fourth
Gospel (chap. xiv., xv., xvi.). But it is indicated in Matt.
iii. 11; Mark i. 8; Luke iii. 16; xii. 11, 12, xxiv. 49.
[3.17] John xx. 22-23.
[3.18] Ibid. xvi. 7.
[3.19] Luke xxiv. 49; _Acts_ i. 4, et seq.
[3.20] Acts i. 5-8.
[3.21] I. Cor. xv. 7; Luke xxiv. 50, et seq.; _Acts_ i. 2, et seq.
Certainly it might with propriety be admitted that the vision
of Bethany related by Luke was parallel to the vision of
the mountain in Matthew xxviii. 16, et seq. transposing the
place where it occurred. And yet this vision of Matthew is
not followed by the Ascension. In the second conclusion of
Mark, the vision with the final instructions, followed by the
Ascension, takes place at Jerusalem. Lastly Paul relates the
vision "to all the Apostles," as distinct from that seen by
"the five hundred brethren."
[3.22] Other traditions referred the conferring of this power to
anterior visions. (John xx. 23.)
[3.23] Luke xxiv. 23; Acts xxv. 19.
[3.24] _Acts_ i. 11.
[3.25] I. Cor. xv. 8.
[3.26] Matt. xxviii. 20.
[3.27] John iii. 13; vi. 62; xvi. 7; xx. 77; Ephes. iv. 10; I. Peter
iii. 22. Neither Matthew nor John gives the recital of the
Ascension. Paul (I. Cor. xv. 7-8) excludes even the very idea.
[3.28] Mark xvi. 19; Luke xxiv. 50-52. _Acts_ 2-12. _Apol._ i. 50.
_Ascension of Isaiah_, Ethiopic version, xi. 22; Latin version
(Venice, 1522), sub fin.
[3.29] Compare the account of the Transfiguration.
[3.30] Jos. _Antiq._ iv., viii. 58.
[3.31] II. Kings, ii. 11, et seq.
[3.32] Luke, last chapter of the Gospel, and the first chapter of the
_Acts_.
[3.33] Luke xxiii. 52.
CHAPTER IV.
[4.1] Matt, xviii. 20.
[4.2] _Acts_ i. 15. The greater part of these "five hundred
brethren" doubtless remained in Galilee. That which is told
in _Acts_ ii. 41, is surely an exaggeration, or at least an
anticipation.
[4.3] Luke xxiv. 53; _Acts_ ii. 46; compare Luke ii. 37; Hegesippus
in Eusebius, _Hist. Eccles._ ii. 23.
[4.4] Deuteron. x. 18; I. Tim. vi. 8.
[4.5] Read the _Wars of the Jews_ of Josephus.
[4.6] John xx. 22.
[4.7] I. Kings xix. 11-12.
[4.8] This work appears to have been written at the commencement of
the second century of our era.
[4.9] _The Ascension of Isaiah_, vi. 6, et seq. (Ethiopic version.)
[4.10] Matt. iii. 11; Mark i. 8; Luke iii. 16; Acts i. 5; xi. 16;
xix. 14; I. John 6, et seq.
[4.11] Compare Misson, _The Sacred Theatre of Cevennes_ (London,
1707), p. 103.
[4.12] _Revue des Deux Mondes_, Sept. 1853, p. 96, et seq.
[4.13] Jules Remy, _Journey to the Mormon Territory_ (Paris, 1860),
Books II. and III.; for example, Vol. I., p. 259-260; Vol. II.
470, et seq.
[4.14] Astié, _The Religious Revival of the United States_ (Lausanne,
1859).
[4.15] Acts ii. 1-3; Justin _Apol._ i. 50.
[4.16] The expression "tongue of fire" means in Hebrew, simply, a
flame (Isaiah v. 24). Compare Virgil's Æneid II. 682, 84.
[4.17] Jamblicus (De Myst., sec. iii. cap. 6) exposes all this theory
of the luminous descents of the Spirit.
[4.18] Compare Talmud of Babylon, Chagiga, 14 b.; Midraschim, _Schir
hasschirin Rabba_, fol. 40 b.; _Ruth Rabba_, fol. 42 a.;
_Koheleth Rabba_, 87 a.
[4.19] Matt. iii. 11; Luke iii. 16.
[4.20] Exodus iv. 10; compare Jeremiah i. 6.
[4.21] Isaiah vi. 5, et seq. Compare Jeremiah i. 9.
[4.22] Luke xi. 12; John xiv. 26.
[4.23] _Acts_ ii. 5, et seq. This is the most probable sense of the
narrative, although it may mean that each of the dialects was
spoken separately by each of the preachers.
[4.24] _Acts_ ii. 4. Compare I. Cor. xii. 10, 28; xiv. 21, 22. For
analogous imaginations, see Calmeil, _De la Folie_, i. p. 9,
262; ii. p. 357, et seq.
[4.25] Talmud of Jerusalem, _Sota_, 21 b.
[4.26] _Testimony of the Twelve Patriarchs_, Judah, 25.
[4.27] Acts ii. 4; x. 34, et seq.; vi. 15; xix. 6; I. Cor. xii, xiv.
[4.28] Mark xvi. 17. It must be remembered that in the ancient
Hebrew, as in all the other ancient languages (see my
_Origin of Language_, p. 177, et seq.), the words meaning
"stranger," "strange language," were derived from the words
which signified "to stammer," "to sob," an unknown dialect
always appearing to a simple people, as it were, an indistinct
stammering. See Isaiah xxviii. 11; xxxiii. 19; I. Cor. xiv. 21.
[4.29] I. Cor. viii. 1, remembering what precedes.
[4.30] I. Cor. xii. 28, 30; xiv. 2, et seq.
[4.31] I. Sam. xix. 23, et seq.
[4.32] Plutarch, _Of the Pythian Oracles_, 24. Compare the prediction
of Cassandra in the Agamemnon of Æschylus.
[4.33] I. Cor. xii. 3; xvi. 22; Rom. viii. 15.
[4.34] Rom. viii. 23, 26, 27.
[4.35] I. Cor. vii. 1; xiv. 7, et seq.
[4.36] Rom. viii. 26, 27.
[4.37] I. Cor. xiv. 13, 14, 27, et seq.
[4.38] Jurieu, _Pastoral Letters_, 3d year, 3d letter; Misson, _The
Sacred Theatre of Cevennes_, p. 10, 14, 15, 18, 19, 22, 31,
32, 36, 37, 65, 66, 68, 70, 94, 104, 109, 126, 140; Bruey's
_History of Fanaticism_ (Montpelier, 1709). I., pages 145, et
seq.; Fléchier, _Select Letters_ (Lyon, 1734), I., p. 353, et
seq.
[4.39] Karl Hase, _History of the Church_, §§ 439 and 458, 5; the
Protestant Journal, _Hope_, 1st April, 1847.
[4.40] M. Hohl, _Bruchstücke aus dem Leben und den Schriften_ Edward
Irving's (Saint-Gall, 2839), p. 145, 149, et seq.; Karl Hase,
_History of the Church_, §§ 458, 4. For the Mormons, see Remy,
_Voyage_ I., p. 176-177, note; 259, 260; II., p. 55, et seq.
For the Convulsionaries of St. Medard, see, above all, Carré
de Montgeron, _The Truth about Miracles_, &c. (Paris, 1737,
1744), II., p. 18, 19, 49, 54, 55, 63, 64, 80, &c.
[4.41] _Acts_ ii. 13, 15.
[4.42] Mark iii 21, et seq.; John x. 20, et seq.; xii. 27, et seq.
[4.43] _Acts_ xix. 6; I. Cor. xiv. 3, et seq.
[4.44] _Acts_ x. 46; I. Cor. xiv. 15, 16, 26.
[4.45] Col. iii. 16; Eph. v. 49 (ψαλμόι ὔμνοι ῳ δαὶ πνευματικαι).
See the former chapters of the Gospel of Luke. Compare in
particular, Luke i. 46, with _Acts_ x. 46.
[4.46] I. Cor. xiv. 15; Col. iii. 16; Eph. v. 19.
[4.47] Jeremiah i. 6.
[4.48] Mark xvi. 17.
[4.49] I. Cor. xiv. 22. Πνεῦμα in the Epistles of S. Paul, often
approaches the sense of δυνάμις. The spiritual phenomena are
regarded as δυνάμεις, that is to say, miracles.
[4.50] Irenæus, _Adv. hæret._ V., vi. 1; Tertullian, _Adv. Marciom_,
v. 8. _Constit. Apost._ viii. 1.
[4.51] Luke ii. 37; II. Cor. vi. 5; xi. 27.
[4.52] II. Cor. vii. 10.
[4.53] _Acts_ viii. 26, et seq.; x. entire; xvi. 6, 7, 9, et seq.
Compare Luke ii. 27, &c.
[4.54] _Acts_ xx. 19, 31. Rom. viii. 23, 26.
CHAPTER V.
[5.1] _Acts_ ii. 42-47; iv. 32, 37; v. 1, 11; vi. 1, et seq.
[5.2] Ibid. ii. 44, 46, 47.
[5.3] Ibid. ii. 46.
[5.4] No literary production has ever so often repeated the word
"joy" as the New Testament. See I. Thess. i. 6; v. 16; Rom.
xiv. 17; xv. 13; Galat. v. 22; Philip i. 25; iii. 1; iv. 4; I.
John i. 4, &c.
[5.5] _Acts_ xii. 12.
[5.6] See _Life of Jesus_, p. xxxix., et seq.
[5.7] _Ebionim_ means "poor folk." See _Life of Jesus_, p. 182, 183.
[5.8] To recall the year 1000. All instruments in writing commencing
with: _The evening of the world being at hand_ or similar
expressions, are in donations to the monasteries.
[5.9] Hodgson, in the _Journal of the Asiatic Society_ of Bengal,
vol. V., p. 33, et seq.; Eugéne Burnouf, _Introduction to the
History of Indian Buddhism_, i. p. 278, et seq.]
[5.10] Lucian, _Death of Peregrinus_, 13.
[5.11] Papyrus at Turin, London, and Paris, collected by Brunet de
Presle, _Mem. respecting the Serapeum of Memphis_ (Paris,
1852); Eggee, _Mem. of Ancient History and Philology_, p. 151,
et seq., and in the _Notices and Extracts_, vol. xviii., 2d
part, p. 264-359. Observe that the Christian-hermit life was
first commenced in Egypt.
[5.12] _Acts_ xi. 29, 30; xxiv. 17; Galat. ii. 10; Rom. xv. 26, et
seq.; I. Cor. xvi. 1-4; II. Cor. viii. and ix.
[5.13] _Acts_ v. 1-11.
[5.14] Ibid. ii. 46; v. 12.
[5.15] Ibid. iii. 1.
[5.16] James, for instance, was all his life a pure Jew.
[5.17] _Acts_ ii. 47; iv. 33; v. 13, 26.
[5.18] _Acts_ ii. 46.
[5.19] I. Cor. x. 16; Justin, _Apol_. i. 65-67.
[5.20] Συνδεῖπνα, Joseph, _Antiq._ XIV. x. 8, 12.
[5.21] Luke xxii. 19; I. Cor. xi. 24, et seq.; Justin, passage
already cited.
[5.22] In the year 57, the institution called the Eucharist already
abounded with abuses (I. Cor. xi. 17, et seq.), and was, in
consequence, ancient.
[5.23] _Acts_ xx. 7; Pliny, _Epist._ x. 97. Justin, _Apol._ i. 67.
[5.24] _Acts_ xx. 7, 11.
[5.25] Pliny, Epist. x. 97.
[5.26] John xx. 26, does not satisfactorily prove the contrary. The
Ebionites always observed the Sabbath. St. Jerome, in Matt.
xii., commencement.
[5.27] _Acts_ i. 15-26.
[5.28] See _Life of Jesus_, p. 437, et seq.
[5.29] Compare Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._ iii. 39 (according to Papias).
[5.30] Justin, _Apol._ i. 39, 50.
[5.31] Pseudo-Abdias, etc.
[5.32] Compare I. Cor. xv. 10, with Romans xv. 19.
[5.33] Gal. i. 17, 19.
[5.34] _Acts_ vi. 4.
[5.35] Compare Matt. x. 2-4; Mark iii. 16-19; Luke vi. 14-16; _Acts_
i. 13.
[5.36] _Acts_ i. 14; Gal. i. 19; I. Cor. ix. 5.
[5.37] Gal. ii. 9.
[5.38] See _Life of Jesus_, p. 307.
[5.39] See _Life of Jesus_, p. 150. Compare Papias in Eusebius,
_Hist. Eccl._, iii. 39; Polycrates, Ibid. v. 24; Clement of
Alexandria, _Strom_. iii. 6; vii. 11.
[5.40] For instance ἐπίσκοπος, perhaps κλῆρος. See Wescher, in the
_Archæological Review_, April, 1866.
[5.41] _Acts_ i. 26. See below, p.
[5.42] _Acts_ xiii. 1, et seq.; Clement of Alexandria, in Eusebius,
_Hist. Eccl._, iii. 23.
[5.43] _Acts_ v. 1-11.
[5.44] I. Cor. v. 1, et seq.
[5.45] I. Tim. i. 20.
[5.46] Genesis xvii. 14, and numerous other passages in the Mosaic
code; Mischna, _Kerithouth_, i. 1; Talmud of Babylon, Möed
Katou, 28, a. Compare Tertullian, _De Animâ_, 57.
[5.47] Consult the Hebrew and Rabbinical dictionaries, at the word כרת.
Compare the word _to exterminate_.
[5.48] Mischna, _Sanhedrim_ ix. 6; John xvi. 2; Joseph. _B. J._,
vii., viii., 1; III. Maccab. (apocr.), vii. 8, 12-13.
[5.49] Luke vi. 15; _Acts_ i. 13. Compare Matt. x. 4; Mark iii. 18.
[5.50] _Acts_ v. 1-11. Compare _Acts_ xiii. 9-11.
[5.51] _Acts_ i. 15; ii. 14, 37; v. 3, 29; Gal. i. 18; ii. 8.
[5.52] _Acts_ iii. 1, et seq.; viii. 14; Gal. ii. 9. Compare John xx.
2, et seq.; xxi. 20, et seq.
[5.53] According to Matthew xxviii. 1, et seq., the keepers would
have been witnesses to the descent of the angel who removed
the stone. This very embarrassed account would also lead us to
conclude that the women were witnesses of the same act, but it
does not expressly say so. Anyhow, whatever the keepers and
the women should have seen, according to the same narrative,
would not be Jesus resuscitated, but the angel. Such a story,
isolated and inconsistent as it is, is evidently the most
modern of all.
[5.54] Luke xxiv. 48; _Acts_ i. 22; ii. 32; iii. 15; iv. 33; v. 32;
x. 41; xiii. 30, 31.
[5.55] See above p. 1, note 1.
[5.56] See "_Life of Jesus_," p. 275, et seq.
[5.57] I. Cor. xvi. 22. These two words are Syro-Chaldaic.
[5.58] Matt. x, 23.
[5.59] _Acts_ ii. 33, et seq.; x. 42.
[5.60] Luke xxiv. 19.
[5.61] _Acts_ ii. 22.
[5.62] The diseases were generally considered to be the work of the
devil.
[5.63] _Acts_ x. 38.
[5.64] _Acts_ ii. 36; viii. 37; ix. 22; xvii. 31, &c.
[5.65] _Acts_ ii. 44, et seq.; iv. 8, et seq.; 25, et seq.; vii. 14,
et seq.; v. 43 and the Epistle attributed to St. Barnabas,
entire.
[5.66] James i. 26-27.
[5.67] Later it was called λειτουργεῖν. _Acts_ xiii. 2.
[5.68] Heb. v. 6; vi. 20; viii. 4; x. 11.
[5.69] Revel, i. 6; v. 10; xx. 6.
[5.70] _Acts_ xiii. 2; Luke ii. 37.
[5.71] Rom. vi. 4, et seq.
[5.72] _Acts_ viii. 12, 16; x. 48.
[5.73] _Acts_ viii. 16; x. 47.
[5.74] Matt. ix. 18; xix. 13, 15; Mark v. 23; vi. 5; vii. 32; viii.
23-25; x. 16; Luke iv. 40; viii. 13.
[5.75] _Acts_ vi. 6; viii. 17, 19; ix. 12, 17; xiii. 3; xiv. 6;
xxviii. 8; 1 Tim. iv. 14; v. 22; ii. Tim. i. 6; Heb. vi. 2;
James v. 13.
[5.76] Matt. iii. 11; Mark i. 8; Luke iii. 16; John i. 26; _Acts_ i.
5; xi. 16; xix. 4.
[5.77] Matt, xxviii. 19.
[5.78] See the _Cholasté_, Sabeau manuscripts of the Imperial Bible,
Nos. 8, 10, 11, 13.
[5.79] Vendidad-Sadé viii. 296, et seq.; ix. 1-145; xvi. 18, 19.
Spiegel, _Avesta_, ii. p. 83, et seq.
[5.80] I. Cor. xii. 9, 28, 30.
[5.81] Matt. ix. 2; Mark ii. 5; John v. 14; ix. 2; James v. 15;
Mischna. _Schabbath_, ii. 6; _Talm. of Bab. Nedarim, fol._ 41
a.
[5.82] Matt. ix. 33; xii. 22; Mark ix. 16, 24; Luke xi. 14; _Acts_
xix. 12; Tertullian _Apol._ xxii.; adv. Mark iv. 8.
[5.83] _Acts_ v. 16; xix. 12-16.
[5.84] James v. 14-15; Mark vi. 13.
[5.85] Luke x. 34.
[5.86] Mark xvi. 18; _Acts_ xxviii. 8.
[5.87] I. Thess. iv. 13, et seq.; I. Cor. xv. 12, et seq.
[5.88] Phil. i. 33, seems to be a shade different. But compare I.
Thess. iv. 14-17. See, above all, Revel, xx. 4-6.
[5.89] Paul, in previously cited passages, and Phil. iii. 11; Revel.
xx. entire; Papias, in Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._ iii. 39.
Sometimes one sees a different belief springing up, above all
in Luke (Gospel xvi. 22, et seq.; xxiii. 43, 46). But this is
a weak authority on a point of Jewish theology. The Essenians
had already adopted the Greek dogma of the immortality of the
soul.
[5.90] Compare _Acts_ xxiv. 15 with I. Thess. iv. 13, et seq.;
Phil. iii. 11. Compare Revel. xx. 5. See Leblant, _Christian
Inscriptions in Gaul_ ii. p. 81, et seq.
[5.91] _Acts_ xi. 27, et seq.; xiii. 1; xv. 32; xxi. 9, 10, et seq.;
I. Cor. xii. 28, et seq.; xiv. 29-37; Eph. iii. 5; iv. 11;
Revel. i. 3; xvi. 6; xviii. 20, 24; xxii. 9.
[5.92] Luke i. 46, et seq.; 68, et seq.; ii. 29, et seq.
[5.93] _Acts_ xvi. 25; I. Cor. xiv. 15; Col. iii. 16; Eph. v. 19;
James v. 13.
[5.94] The identity of this chant in religious communities which have
been separated from the earliest ages proves that it is of
great antiquity.
[5.95] Num. v. 2; Deut. xxvii. 15, et seq.; Ps. 106, 48; I. Chron.
xvi. 36; Nehem. v. 13, viii. 6.
[5.96] I. Cor. xiv. 16; Justin. _Apol._ i. 65, 67.
[5.97] I. Cor. xiv. 7, 8, does not prove it. The use of the verb
ψάλλω does not any more prove it. This verb originally implied
the use of an instrument with strings, but in time it became
synonymous with "to chant the Psalms."
[5.98] Col. iii. 16; Eph. v. 19.
[5.99] See Du Cange, at the word _Lollardi_ (edit. Didot). Compare
the Cantilenes of the Cevenols. _Prophetic warnings of Elijah
Marion_ (London, 1707), p. 10, 12, 14, &c.
[5.100] James v. 12.
[5.101] Matt. xvi. 28; xxiv. 34; Mark viii. 39; xiii. 30; Luke ix.
27; xxi. 32.
CHAPTER VI.
[6.1] _Acts,_ first chapters.
[6.2] _Acts_ v. 42.
[6.3] See for example, _Acts_ ii. 34, &c., and in general all the
first chapters.
[6.4] I. Cor. i. 22; ii. 4-5; II. Cor. xii. 12; I Thess. i. 5; II
Thess. ii. 9; Gal. iii. 5; Rom. xv. 18-19.
[6.5] Rom. xv. 19; II. Cor. xii. 12; I. Thess. i. 5.
[6.6] _Acts_ v. 12-16. The _Acts_ are full of miracles. That of
Eutychus (_Acts_ xx. 7-12) is surely related by ocular
testimony. The same of _Acts_ xxviii. Comp. Papias in Euseb.
H. E. iii. 39.
[6.7] Jewish and Christian exorcism were regarded as the most
efficacious even for the heathen. Damascius, Vie d'Isidore, 56.
[6.8] _Acts_ v. 15.
[6.9] I. Cor. xii. 9, &c., 28, &c.; _Constit. apost._ viii. 1.
[6.10] Irenæus. _Adv. hær._ ii. xxxii. 4; v. vi. 1; Tertull. _Apol._
23-43; _Ad Scapulam_, 2; _De Corona_, 11; _De Spectaculis_,
24; _De Anima_, 57; _Constit. Apost._ chapter noted, which
appeared drawn from the work of St. Hippolytus upon the
_Chrismata_.
[6.11] Miracles are of daily occurrence among the Mormons. Jules
Remy, _A Visit to the Mormons_, I. p. 140, 192, 259-260; II.
53, &c.
[6.12] _Acts_ iv. 36-37. Cf. ibid. xv. 32.
[6.13] Ibid. xiii. 1.
[6.14] Ibid. xxi. 16.
[6.15] Jos. _Ant._ XIII. x. 4; XVII. xii. 1, 2; Philo, _Leg. ad
Caium_, § 36.
[6.16] Hence for Barnabas his name of Hallévi and of Col. iv. 10-11.
Mnason appears to be the translation of some Hebrew name from
the root _zacar_, as Zacharius.
[6.17] Col. iv. 10-11.
[6.18] _Acts_ xii. 12.
[6.19] I. Petri, v. 13. _Acts_ xii. 12; Papias in Euseb. H. E. iii.
39.
[6.20] _Acts_ xii. 12-14. All this chapter, where the affairs of
Peter are so minutely related, appears edited by John-Mark.
[6.21] As the name of _Marcus_ was not common at that time among
the Jews, there is no reason for referring to different
individuals the passages relating to a personage of that name.
[6.22] Comp. _Acts_ viii. 2, with _Acts_ ii. 5.
[6.23] Acts. vi. 5.
[6.24] Ibid.
[6.25] Comp. _Acts_ xxi. 8-9 with Papias in Euseb. _Hist. Eccl._ iii.
39.
[6.26] Rom. xvi. 7. It is doubtful whether Ἰουνία or Ἰουνίας =
_Junianus_.
[6.27] Paul calls them his συγγενεῖς; but it is difficult to
say whether that signifies that these were Jews, of the tribe
of Benjamin or of Tarsus, or really relations of Paul. The
first sense is the most probable. Comp. Rom. ix. 3; xi. 14.
In any event, this word implies that they were Jews.
[6.28] _Acts_ vi. 1-5; II. Cor. xi. 22; Phil. iii. 5.
[6.29] _Acts_ ii. 9-11; vi. 9.
[6.30] The Talmud of Jerusalem, Megilla, fol. 73 d, mentions four
hundred and twenty-five synagogues. Comp. Midrasch _Eka_, 52
b, 70 d. Such a number would appear by no means improbable to
those who have seen the little family mosques which are found
in every Mahommedan village. But the Talmudic information
about Jerusalem is of mediocre authority.
[6.31] _Acts_ vi. 1.
[6.32] The Epistle of St. James was written in moderately pure Greek.
It is true that the authenticity of this Epistle is not
certain.
[6.33] The savants wrote in ancient Hebrew, somewhat altered.
[6.34] Jos. _Ant._ last paragraph.
[6.35] This proves the transcriptions of Greek into Syriac. I have
developed here in my _Eclaircissements sirés des Langues
Sémitiques sur quelque points de la Prononciatian Grecque_.
(Paris, 1849.) The language of the Greek inscriptions of Syria
is very bad.
[6.36] Jos. _Ant._ loc. cit.
[6.37] Sat. I. v. 105.
CHAPTER VII.
[7.1] See the accounts collected and translated by Eugene Burnouf.
_Introduction to the History of Indian Buddhism_, i. p. 137,
and following pages, and particularly pp. 198, 199.
[7.2] See _Life of Jesus_.
[7.3] _Acts_ ii. 45; iv. 34, 37; v. 1.
[7.4] _Acts_ v. 1, and following verses.
[7.5] Ibid. ii. 45; iv. 35.
[7.6] Ibid. vi. 1, &c.
[7.7] See chapter vi.
[7.8] _Acts_ xxi. 8.
[7.9] Phil. i. 1; I. Timothy iii. 8, and following.
[7.10] Romans xvi. 1, 12; I. Tim. iii. 11; v. 9, and following.
Pliny Epist. x. 97. The Epistles to Timothy are most probably
not from the pen of Saint Paul; but are in any event of very
ancient date.
[7.11] Rom. xvi. 1; I. Cor. ix. 5. Philemon 2.
[7.12] I. Tim. v. 9, and following.
[7.13] Constit. Apost. vi. 17.
[7.14] Sap. ii. 10; Eccl. xxxvii. 17; Matthew xxiii. 14; Mark xii.
40; Luke xx. 47; James 27.
[7.15] Mischna, _Sota_, iii. 4.
[7.16] Talmud of Babylon, Sota 22 a; Comp. I. Tim. v. 13.
[7.17] Acts vi. 1.
[7.18] Ibid, xii, 12.
[7.19] I. Tim. v. 9, and following. Compare Acts ix. 39, 41.
[7.20] I. Tim. v. 3, and following.
[7.21] Ecclesiastes vii. 27; Ecclesiasticus vii. 26, and following;
ix. 1, and following; xxv. 22, and following; xxvi. 1, and
following; xiii. 9, and following.
[7.22] For the costume of the widows of the Eastern Church, see the
Greek manuscript No. 64 in the _Bibliothèque Imperiale_ (old
building), fol. 11. The costume to this day is very nearly the
same the type, the religious female of the East, being the
widow, as that of the Latin nun is the virgin.
[7.23] Compare the "Shepherd" of Hermas, vis. ii. ch. 4.
[7.24] Καλογρία, the name of the religious females or nuns of the
Eastern Church. Καλός combines the significance of both
"beautiful" and "good."
[7.25] See Note 7.16.
[7.26] I. Cor. xii. entire.
[7.27] The Pietist congregations of America, who are to the
Protestants what convents are to the Catholics, resemble
in many points the primitive churches. Bridel, _Recits
Americains_. (Lausanne, 1861.)
[7.28] Prov. iii. 27, and following; x. 2; xi. 4; xxii. 9; xxviii.
27; Eccl. iii. 23, and following; vii. 36; xii. 1, and
following; xviii. 14; xx. 13, and following; xxxi. 11; Tobit,
ii. 15, 22; iv. 11; xii. 9; xiv. 11; Daniel iv. 24; Talmud of
Jerusalem; _Peah_. 15, _b_.
[7.29] Matthew vi. 2; Mischna, _Schekalim_, v. 6; Talmud of
Jerusalem, _Demai_, fol. 23, _b_.
[7.30] _Acts_ x. 2, 4, 31.
[7.31] Ps. cxxxiii.
[7.32] _Acts_ ii. 44-47; iv. 32-35.
[7.33] Ibid. ii. 41.
[7.34] See chapter vi.
[7.35] _Acts_ vi. 5; xi. 20.
CHAPTER VIII.
[8.1] Acts iv. 6. See _Life of Jesus_.
[8.2] Acts iv. 1-31; v. 47-41.
[8.3] See _Life of Jesus_.
[8.4] Acts v. 41.
[8.5] Ib. iv. 5-6; v. 17. Comp. James ii. 6.
[8.6] Γένος αρχιερατιχον, Acts i.; αρχιερεις in Josephus _Ant._
xx. viii. 8.
[8.7] Acts xv. 5; xxi. 20.
[8.8] Let us add that the reciprocal antipathy of Jesus and the
Pharisees seems to have been exaggerated by the synoptical
Evangelists, perhaps on account of the events which, at the
time of the great war, led to the flight of the Christians
beyond the Jordan. It cannot be denied that James, brother of
the Lord, was pretty nearly a Pharisee.
[8.9] Acts v. 34, and following. See _Life of Jesus_.
[8.10] Acts vi. 8; vii. 59.
[8.11] Probably descendants of Jews who had been taken to Rome as
slaves, and then freed. Philo, _Leg. ad Caium_, § 23; Tacitus,
_Ann._ ii. 85.
[8.12] See _Life of Jesus_.
[8.13] Matt. xv. 2, and following; Mark vii. 3; Gal. i. 14.
[8.14] Compare Gal. iii. 19; Heb. ii. 2; Jos. Ant. XV. v. 3. It was
supposed that God Himself had not revealed Himself in the
theophanies of the ancient law, but that he had substituted in
his place a sort of intermediary, the _maleak Jehovah_. See
the Hebrew dictionaries on the word מלאך.
[8.15] Deut. xvii. 7.
[8.16] Acts vii. 59; xxii. 20; xxvi 10.
[8.17] John xviii. 31.
[8.18] Josephus, Ant. XVIII. iv. 2.
[8.19] Ib., Ib., XV. xi. 4; XVIII. iv. 2. Compare XX. i. 1, 2.
[8.20] The whole trial of Jesus proves this. Compare _Acts_ xxiv. 27;
xxv. 9.
[8.21] Suetonius, _Caius_, 6; Dion Cassius lix. 8, 12; Josephus Ant.
XVIII. v. 3; vi. 10; 2 Cor. xi. 32.
[8.22] Ventidius Cumanus experienced quite similar adventures. It is
true that Josephus exaggerates the misfortunes of all those
who are opposed to his nation.
[8.23] Madden, History of Jewish Coinage, p. 134, and following.
[8.24] Jos. _Ant._ XVIII. iv. 3.
[8.25] Ib., XVIII. v. 3.
[8.26] _Acts_ viii. 2. The words ἀνὴρ eὐλαβὴς designate a proselyte,
not a pure Jew. See Acts ii. 5.
[8.27] _Acts_ viii. 1, and following; xi. 19; Acts xxvi. 10, would
even lead to the belief that there were other deaths than that
of Stephen. But we must not misconstrue words in our versions
of a style so loose. Compare Acts ix. 1-2 with xxii. 5 and
xxvi. 12.
[8.28] Compare Acts i. 4; viii. 1, 14; Gal i. 17, and following.
[8.29] Acts ix. 26-30 prove, in fact, that in the mind of the author
the expressions of viii. I had not a meaning so absolute as
might be supposed. [Except that after the first panic was over
some of the disciples, at first wholly scattered, may have
returned by the time of Saul's arrival.--Tr.]
[8.30] This happened in the case of the Essenians.
[8.31] This happened to the Franciscans.
[8.32] I. Thess. ii. 14.
[8.33] Acts viii. 3; ix. 13, 14, 21, 26; xxii. 4, 19; xxvi. 9, and
following; Gal. i. 13, 23; I. Cor. xv. 9; Phil. iii. 6; I.
Tim. i. 13.
[8.34] Gal. i. 14; Acts xxvi. 5; Phil. iii. 5.
[8.35] Acts ix. 13, 21, 26.]
CHAPTER IX.
[9.1] Acts viii. 1, 4; xi. 19.
[9.2] Acts viii. 5, and following. That it was not the apostle is
evident from a comparison of the passages, _Acts_ viii. 1, 5,
12, 14, 40; xxi. 8. It is true that the verse, _Acts_ xxi.
9, compared with what is said by Papias (in Eusebius His.
Ecc. iii. 39), Polycrates (ib. v. 24), Clement of Alexandria
(Strom, iii. 6), would identify the Apostle Philip, of
whom these three ecclesiastical writers are speaking, with
the Philip who plays so important a part in the _Acts_.
But it is more natural to admit that the statement in the
verse in question is a mistake, and that the verse was only
interpolated to contradict the tradition of the churches
of Asia and even of Hierapolis, whither the Philip who had
daughters prophetesses retired. The particular data possessed
by the author of the 4th Gospel (written, as it seems, in Asia
Minor), in regard to the Apostle Philip are thus explained.
[9.3] See _Life of Jesus_, ch. xiv. It may be, however, that the
habitual tendency of the author of the _Acts_ shows itself
here again. See _Introd._, and supra.
[9.4] _Acts_ viii. 5-40.
[9.5] Jos. _Ant._ XVIII. iv. 1, 2.
[9.6] At this day Jît, on the road from Nablous to Jaffa, an hour
and a half from Nablous and from Sebastieh. See Robinson _Bib.
Res_. ii. p. 308, note; iii. 134 (2d ed.), and his map.
[9.7] The accounts relative to this personage, given by the
Christian writers, are so fabulous that doubts may be raised
even as to the reality of his existence. These doubts are all
the more specious from the fact that in the Pseudo-Clementine
literature "Simon the Magician" is often a pseudonym for St.
Paul. But we cannot admit that the legend of Simon rests upon
this foundation alone. How could the author of the _Acts_, so
favorable to St. Paul, have admitted a doctrine the hostile
bearing of which could not have escaped him? The chronological
series of the Simonian School, the writings which remain to us
of it, the precise facts of topography and chronology given
by St. Justin, fellow-countryman of our thaumaturgist, are
inexplicable, moreover, upon the hypothesis of Simon's having
been an imaginary person. (See especially Justin _Apol._ ii.
15, and _Dial. cum Tryph._ 120.)
[9.8] Acts viii. 5, and following.
[9.9] Ib. viii. 9, and following.
[9.10] Justin, _Apol._ i. 26, 56.
[9.11] _Homil._ Pseudo-Clem. xvii. 15, 17; Quadratus, in Eusebius
_Hist. Ecc._ iv. 3.
[9.12] _Acts_ viii. 25.
[9.13] Ib. viii. 26-40.
[9.14] I. Macc. x. 86, 89; xi. 60, and following. Jos. _Ant._ XIII.,
xiii. 3; XV. vii. 3; XVIII. xi. 5; _B. J._, I. iv. 2.
[9.15] Robinson _Bib. Res._, II. p. 41 and 514, 515 (2d ed).
[9.16] Talm. of Bab. _Erubin_ 53 b and 54 a; _Sota_, 46 b.
[9.17] Isaiah liii. 7.
[9.18] At this day Mérawi, near to Gebel-Barkal (Lepsius, _Denkmæler_
i pl. 1 and 2 _bis_.) Strabo XVII., i. 54.
[9.19] Strabo, XVII, i. 54; Pliny VI, xxxv. 8; Dion Cassius liv. 5;
Eusebius _Hist. Ecc._ ii. 1.
[9.20] The descendants of these Jews still exist under the name
of Falâsyân. The missionaries who converted them came from
Egypt. Their translation of the Bible was made from the Greek
version. The Falâsyân are not Israelites by blood.
[9.21] John xii. 20; Acts x. 2.
[9.22] See _Deut._ xxiii. 1. It is true that εὐνοῦχος might be
taken by catachresis to designate a chamberlain as functionary
of the Oriental Court. But δυνάστης was sufficient to render
this idea; εὐνοῦχος ought then to be taken here in its proper
sense.
[9.23] _Acts_ viii. 26, 29.
[9.24] To conclude thence that all this history was invented by
the author of the _Acts_ seems to us rash. The author of
the _Acts_ insists with satisfaction upon the facts which
support his opinions; but we do not believe that he introduces
into his narrative facts purely symbolical or deliberately
invented. See _Introd._
[9.25] For the analogous state of the first Mormons, see Jules Remy,
_Voyage au pays des Mormons_ (Paris, 1860), i. p. 195, and
following.
[9.26] _Acts_ viii. 39-40. Compare _Luke_ iv. 14.
[9.27] _Acts_ ix. 32, 38.
[9.28] Ib. viii. 40; xi. 11.
[9.29] Ib. xxi. 8.
[9.30] Jos. _B. J._ III. ix. 1.
[9.31] _Acts_ xxiii. 23, and following; xxv. 1, 5; Tacitus _Hist._
ii. 79.
[9.32] Jos. _B. J._ III. ix. 1.
[9.33] Jos. _Ant._ XX. viii. 7; _B. J._ II. xiii. 5; xiv. 5; xviii. 1.
[9.34] Palm. of Jerusalem, _Sota_, 21 b.
[9.35] Jos. _Ant._ XIX. vii. 3-4; viii. 2.
[9.36] _Acts_ xi. 19.
[9.37] Ib. ix. 2, 10, 19.
CHAPTER X.
[10.1] This date resulted from the comparison of chapters ix., xi.,
xii. of the _Acts_ with Gal. i. 18; ii. 1, and from the
synchronism presented by Chapter xii. of the _Acts_ with
profane history, a synchronism which fixes the date of the
incidents detailed in this chapter at the year 44.
[10.2] _Acts_ ix. 11; xxi. 39; xxii. 3.
[10.3] In the Epistle to Philemon, written about the year 61, he
calls himself an "old man" (v. 9); _Acts_ vii. 57, he calls
himself a young man.
[10.4] In the same way that those named "Jesus" often called
themselves "Jason;" the "Josephs," "Hegesippe;" the "Eliacim,"
"Alcime," etc. St. Jerome (_De Viris Ill._ 5) supposes Paul
took his name from the proconsul Sergius Paulus (_Acts_ xiii.
9). Such an explanation seems hardly admissible. If the _Acts_
only give to Saul the name of "Paul," after his relations with
that personage, that would argue that the supposed conversion
of Sergius was the first important act of Paul as apostle of
the Gentiles.
[10.5] _Acts_ xiii. 9, and following. The closing phrases of all the
Epistles; II. Peter iii. 15.
[10.6] The Ebionite calumnies (Epiphan. _Adv. hær._ xxx. 16, 25)
should not be seriously taken.
[10.7] St. Jerome, _loc. cit._ Inadmissible as the present St.
Jerome, though this tradition appears to have some foundation.
[10.8] Rom. xi. 1; Phil. iii. 5.
[10.9] _Acts_ xxii. 28.
[10.10] _Acts_ xxiii. 6.
[10.11] Phil. iii. 5; _Acts_ xxvi. 5.
[10.12] _Acts_ vi. 9; Philo, _Leg. ad Caium_, § 36.
[10.13] Strabo XIV. x. 13.
[10.14] _Ibid_. XIV. x. 14, 15; Philostratus _Vie d'Apollonius_, 1, 7.
[10.15] Jos. _Ant._, last paragraph, Cf. _Vie de Jésus_.
[10.16] Philostratus, _loc. cit._
[10.17] _Acts_ xvii. 22, etc.; xxi. 37.
[10.18] Gal. vi. 11; Rom. xvi. 22.
[10.19] II. Cor. xi. 6.
[10.20] _Acts_ xxi. 40. I have elsewhere explained the sense of the
word Ἑβραïστί. _Hist. des Langes Sémit._ ii. 1, 5; iii. 1, 2.
[10.21] _Acts_ xxvi. 14.
[10.22] I. Cor. xv. 33, Cf. Meinecke. _Menandri fragm._ p. 75.
[10.23] Tit. i. 12; _Acts_ xvii. 28. The authenticity of the Epistle
to Titus is very doubtful. As to the discourse in chapter
xvii. of the _Acts_, it is the work of the author of the
_Acts_ rather than of St. Paul.
[10.24] The verse quoted from Aratus (Phænom. 5) is really found in
Cleanthes (_Hymn to Jupiter_, 5). Both are doubtless taken
from some anonymous religious hymn.
[10.25] Gal. i. 14.
[10.26] _Acts_ xvii. 22, etc. Observe note 23.
[10.27] See _Vie de Jésus_, p. 72.
[10.28] _Acts_ xviii. 3.
[10.29] _Ibid._ xviii. 3; I. Cor. iv. 12; I. Thess. ii. 9; II. Thess.
iii. 8.
[10.30] _Acts_ xxiii. 16.
[10.31] II. Cor. viii. 18, 22; xii. 18.
[10.32] Rom. xvi. 7, 11, 21.
[10.33] See above all the Epistle to Philemon.
[10.34] Gal. v. 12; Phil. iii. 2.
[10.35] II. Cor. x. 10.
[10.36] _Acta Pauli et Theclæ_ 3, in Tischendorf, _Acta Apost._,
apocr. (Leipzig, 1851), p. 41, and the notes (an ancient
text perhaps, the original spoken of by Tertullian); the
_Philopatris_, 12 (composed about 363); Malala Chronogr. p.
257, edit. Bonn; Nicephore, _Hist. Eccl._ ii. 37. All these
passages, above all that of _Philopatris_, admit that these
were ancient portraits.
[10.37] I. Cor. ii. 1, etc.; II. Cor. x. 1, 2, 10; xi. 6.
[10.38] I. Cor. ii. 3; II. Cor. x. 10.
[10.39] II. Cor. xi. 30; xii. 5, 9, 10.
[10.40] I. Cor. ii. 3; II. Cor. i. 8, 9; x. 10; xi. 30; xii. 5, 9,
10; Gal. iv. 13, 14.
[10.41] II. Cor. xii. 7-10.
[10.42] I. Cor. vii. 7, 8, and the context.
[10.43] I. Cor. vii. 7, 8; ix. 5. This second passage is far from
being demonstrative. Phil. iv. 3, would imply the contrary.
Comp. Clement of Alexandria, _Strom._ iii. 6, and Euseb.
_Hist. Eccl._ iii. 30. The passage I. Cor. vii. 7, 8 alone has
any weight on this point.
[10.44] I. Cor. vii. 7-9.
[10.45] _Acts_ xxii. 3; xxvi. 4.
[10.46] Ibid. xxii. 3. Paul does not speak of this matter in certain
parts of his Epistles where he would naturally mention him
(Phil. iii. 5). There is an absolute contradiction between the
principles of Gamaliel (_Acts_ v. 34, etc.) and the conduct of
Paul before his conversion.
[10.47] Gal. i. 13, 14; _Acts_ xxii. 3; xxvi. 5.
[10.48] II. Cor. v. 16, does not implicate him. The passages _Acts_
xxii. 3, xxvi. 4, give reason to believe that Paul was at
Jerusalem at the same time as Jesus. But it does not follow
that he saw him.
[10.49] _Acts_ xxii. 4, 19; xxvi. 10, 11.
[10.50] Ibid. xxvi. 11.
[10.51] High-Priest from 37 to 42; Jos. _Ant_. XVIII. v. 3; XIX. vi.
2.
[10.52] _Acts_ ix. 1, 2, 14; xxii. 5; xxvi. 12.
[10.53] See _Revue Numismatique_, new series, vol. iii. (1858), p.
296, etc.; 362, etc.; _Revue Archéol._, April, 1864, p. 284,
etc.
[10.54] Jos. B. J. II. xx. 2.
[10.55] II. Cor. xi. 32. The Roman money at Damascus is wanting
during the reigns of Caligula and Claud. Eckhel, _Doctrina
num. vet._, part 1, vol. iii. p. 330. Damascus money, stamped
"Arétas Philhellenius" (ibid.), seems to be of our Hâreth
(communication of M. Waddington).
[10.56] Jos. _Ant._ XVIII. v. 1, 3.
[10.57] Comp. _Acts_ xii. 3; xxiv. 27; xxv. 9.
[10.58] _Acts_ v. 34, etc.
[10.59] See an analogous trait in the conversion of Omar.
Ibn-Hiseham. _Sirat errasoul_, p. 226 (Wüstenfeld edition).
[10.60] _Acts_ ix. 3; xxii. 6; xxvi. 13.
[10.61] _Acts_ ix. 4, 8; xxii. 7, 11; xxvi. 14, 16.
[10.62] It is here that the tradition of the middle ages locates the
miracle.
[10.63] This results from _Acts_ ix. 3, 8; xxii. 6, 11.
[10.64] Nahr el-Aroadj.
[10.65] The plain is really more than seventeen hundred feet above
the level of the sea.
[10.66] _Acts_ xxvi. 14.
[10.67] From Jerusalem to Damascus is over eight days' journey.
[10.68] _Acts_ ix. 8, 9, 18; xxii. 11, 13.
[10.69] II. Cor. xii. 1, etc.
[10.70] I experienced a crisis of this kind at Byblos; and with other
principles I would certainly have taken the hallucinations
that I had then for visions.