THE FIRST SAYINGS OF JESUS--HIS IDEAS OF A DIVINE FATHER AND OF A PURE
RELIGION--FIRST DISCIPLES.
Joseph died before his son had taken any public part. Mary remained,
in a manner, the head of the family, and this explains why her son,
when it was wished to distinguish him from others of the same name,
was most frequently called the "son of Mary."[1] It seems that having,
by the death of her husband, been left friendless at Nazareth, she
withdrew to Cana,[2] from which she may have come originally. Cana[3]
was a little town at from two to two and a half hours' journey from
Nazareth, at the foot of the mountains which bound the plain of
Asochis on the north.[4] The prospect, less grand than at Nazareth,
extends over all the plain, and is bounded in the most picturesque
manner by the mountains of Nazareth and the hills of Sepphoris. Jesus
appears to have resided some time in this place. Here he probably
passed a part of his youth, and here his greatness first revealed
itself.[5]
[Footnote 1: This is the expression of Mark vi. 3; cf. Matt. xiii. 55.
Mark did not know Joseph. John and Luke, on the contrary, prefer the
expression "son of Joseph." Luke iii. 23, iv. 22; John i. 45, iv. 42.]
[Footnote 2: John ii. 1, iv. 46. John alone is informed on this
point.]
[Footnote 3: I admit, as probable, the idea which identifies Cana of
Galilee with _Kana el Djélil_. We may, nevertheless, attach value to
the arguments for _Kefr Kenna_, a place an hour or an hour and a
half's journey N.N.E. of Nazareth.]
[Footnote 4: Now _El-Buttauf_.]
[Footnote 5: John ii. 11, iv. 46. One or two disciples were of Cana,
John xxi. 2; Matt. x. 4; Mark iii. 18.]
He followed the trade of his father, which was that of a
carpenter.[1] This was not in any degree humiliating or grievous. The
Jewish customs required that a man devoted to intellectual work should
learn a trade. The most celebrated doctors did so;[2] thus St. Paul,
whose education had been so carefully tended, was a tent-maker.[3]
Jesus never married. All his power of love centred upon that which he
regarded as his celestial vocation. The extremely delicate feeling
toward women, which we remark in him, was not separated from the
exclusive devotion which he had for his mission. Like Francis d'Assisi
and Francis de Sales, he treated as sisters the women who were loved
of the same work as himself; he had his St. Clare, his Frances de
Chantal. It is, however, probable that these loved him more than the
work; he was, no doubt, more beloved than loving. Thus, as often
happens in very elevated natures, tenderness of the heart was
transformed in him into an infinite sweetness, a vague poetry, and a
universal charm. His relations, free and intimate, but of an entirely
moral kind, with women of doubtful character, are also explained by
the passion which attached him to the glory of his Father, and which
made him jealously anxious for all beautiful creatures who could
contribute to it.[4]
[Footnote 1: Mark vi. 3; Justin, _Dial. cum Tryph._, 88.]
[Footnote 2: For example, "Rabbi Johanan, the shoemaker, Rabbi Isaac,
the blacksmith."]
[Footnote 3: _Acts_ xviii. 3.]
[Footnote 4: Luke vii. 37, and following; John iv. 7, and following;
viii. 3, and following.]
What was the progress of the ideas of Jesus during this obscure period
of his life? Through what meditations did he enter upon the prophetic
career? We have no information on these points, his history having
come to us in scattered narratives, without exact chronology. But the
development of character is everywhere the same; and there is no
doubt that the growth of so powerful individuality as that of Jesus
obeyed very rigorous laws. A high conception of the Divinity--which he
did not owe to Judaism, and which seems to have been in all its parts
the creation of his great mind--was in a manner the source of all his
power. It is essential here that we put aside the ideas familiar to
us, and the discussions in which little minds exhaust themselves. In
order properly to understand the precise character of the piety of
Jesus, we must forget all that is placed between the gospel and
ourselves. Deism and Pantheism have become the two poles of theology.
The paltry discussions of scholasticism, the dryness of spirit of
Descartes, the deep-rooted irreligion of the eighteenth century, by
lessening God, and by limiting Him, in a manner, by the exclusion of
everything which is not His very self, have stifled in the breast of
modern rationalism all fertile ideas of the Divinity. If God, in fact,
is a personal being outside of us, he who believes himself to have
peculiar relations with God is a "visionary," and as the physical and
physiological sciences have shown us that all supernatural visions are
illusions, the logical Deist finds it impossible to understand the
great beliefs of the past. Pantheism, on the other hand, in
suppressing the Divine personality, is as far as it can be from the
living God of the ancient religions. Were the men who have best
comprehended God--Cakya-Mouni, Plato, St. Paul, St. Francis d'Assisi,
and St. Augustine (at some periods of his fluctuating life)--Deists or
Pantheists? Such a question has no meaning. The physical and
metaphysical proofs of the existence of God were quite indifferent to
them. They felt the Divine within themselves. We must place Jesus in
the first rank of this great family of the true sons of God. Jesus
had no visions; God did not speak to him as to one outside of Himself;
God was in him; he felt himself with God, and he drew from his heart
all he said of his Father. He lived in the bosom of God by constant
communication with Him; he saw Him not, but he understood Him, without
need of the thunder and the burning bush of Moses, of the revealing
tempest of Job, of the oracle of the old Greek sages, of the familiar
genius of Socrates, or of the angel Gabriel of Mahomet. The
imagination and the hallucination of a St. Theresa, for example, are
useless here. The intoxication of the Soufi proclaiming himself
identical with God is also quite another thing. Jesus never once gave
utterance to the sacrilegious idea that he was God. He believed
himself to be in direct communion with God; he believed himself to be
the Son of God. The highest consciousness of God which has existed in
the bosom of humanity was that of Jesus.
We understand, on the other hand, how Jesus, starting with such a
disposition of spirit, could never be a speculative philosopher like
Cakya-Mouni. Nothing is further from scholastic theology than the
Gospel.[1] The speculations of the Greek fathers on the Divine essence
proceed from an entirely different spirit. God, conceived simply as
Father, was all the theology of Jesus. And this was not with him a
theoretical principle, a doctrine more or less proved, which he sought
to inculcate in others. He did not argue with his disciples;[2] he
demanded from them no effort of attention. He did not preach his
opinions; he preached himself. Very great and very disinterested minds
often present, associated with much elevation, that character of
perpetual attention to themselves, and extreme personal
susceptibility, which, in general, is peculiar to women.[3] Their
conviction that God is in them, and occupies Himself perpetually with
them, is so strong, that they have no fear of obtruding themselves
upon others; our reserve, and our respect for the opinion of others,
which is a part of our weakness, could not belong to them. This
exaltation of self is not egotism; for such men, possessed by their
idea, give their lives freely, in order to seal their work; it is the
identification of self with the object it has embraced, carried to its
utmost limit. It is regarded as vain-glory by those who see in the new
teaching only the personal phantasy of the founder; but it is the
finger of God to those who see the result. The fool stands side by
side here with the inspired man, only the fool never succeeds. It has
not yet been given to insanity to influence seriously the progress of
humanity.
[Footnote 1: The discourses which the fourth Gospel attributes to
Jesus contain some germs of theology. But these discourses being in
absolute contradiction with those of the synoptical Gospels, which
represent, without any doubt, the primitive _Logia_, ought to count
simply as documents of apostolic history, and not as elements of the
life of Jesus.]
[Footnote 2: See Matt. ix. 9, and other analogous accounts.]
[Footnote 3: See, for example, John xxi. 15, and following.]
Doubtless, Jesus did not attain at first this high affirmation of
himself. But it is probable that, from the first, he regarded his
relationship with God as that of a son with his father. This was his
great act of originality; in this he had nothing in common with his
race.[1] Neither the Jew nor the Mussulman has understood this
delightful theology of love. The God of Jesus is not that tyrannical
master who kills us, damns us, or saves us, according to His pleasure.
The God of Jesus is our Father. We hear Him in listening to the gentle
inspiration which cries within us, "Abba, Father."[2] The God of Jesus
is not the partial despot who has chosen Israel for His people, and
specially protects them. He is the God of humanity. Jesus was not a
patriot, like the Maccabees; or a theocrat, like Judas the Gaulonite.
Boldly raising himself above the prejudices of his nation, he
established the universal fatherhood of God. The Gaulonite maintained
that we should die rather than give to another than God the name of
"Master;" Jesus left this name to any one who liked to take it, and
reserved for God a dearer name. Whilst he accorded to the powerful of
the earth, who were to him representatives of force, a respect full of
irony, he proclaimed the supreme consolation--the recourse to the
Father which each one has in heaven--and the true kingdom of God,
which each one bears in his heart.
[Footnote 1: The great soul of Philo is in sympathy here, as on so
many other points, with that of Jesus. _De Confus. Ling._, § 14; _De
Migr. Abr._, § 1; _De Somniis_, ii. § 41; _De Agric. Noë_, § 12; _De
Mutatione Nominum_, § 4. But Philo is scarcely a Jew in spirit.]
[Footnote 2: Galatians iv. 6.]
This name of "kingdom of God," or "kingdom of heaven,"[1] was the
favorite term of Jesus to express the revolution which he brought into
the world.[2] Like almost all the Messianic terms, it came from the
book of Daniel. According to the author of this extraordinary book,
the four profane empires, destined to fall, were to be succeeded by a
fifth empire, that of the saints, which should last forever.[3] This
reign of God upon earth naturally led to the most diverse
interpretations. To Jewish theology, the "kingdom of God" is most
frequently only Judaism itself--the true religion, the monotheistic
worship, piety.[4] In the later periods of his life, Jesus believed
that this reign would be realized in a material form by a sudden
renovation of the world. But doubtless this was not his first idea.[5]
The admirable moral which he draws from the idea of God as Father, is
not that of enthusiasts who believe the world is near its end, and who
prepare themselves by asceticism for a chimerical catastrophe; it is
that of men who have lived, and still would live. "The kingdom of God
is within you," said he to those who sought with subtlety for external
signs.[6] The realistic conception of the Divine advent was but a
cloud, a transient error, which his death has made us forget. The
Jesus who founded the true kingdom of God, the kingdom of the meek and
the humble, was the Jesus of early life[7]--of those chaste and pure
days when the voice of his Father re-echoed within him in clearer
tones. It was then for some months, perhaps a year, that God truly
dwelt upon the earth. The voice of the young carpenter suddenly
acquired an extraordinary sweetness. An infinite charm was exhaled
from his person, and those who had seen him up to that time no longer
recognized him.[8] He had not yet any disciples, and the group which
gathered around him was neither a sect nor a school; but a common
spirit, a sweet and penetrating influence was felt. His amiable
character, accompanied doubtless by one of those lovely faces[9] which
sometimes appear in the Jewish race, threw around him a fascination
from which no one in the midst of these kindly and simple populations
could escape.
[Footnote 1: The word "heaven" in the rabbinical language of that time
is synonymous with the name of "God," which they avoided pronouncing.
Compare Matt. xxi. 25; Luke xv. 18, xx. 4.]
[Footnote 2: This expression occurs on each page of the synoptical
Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and St. Paul. If it only appears
once in John (iii. 3, 5), it is because the discourses related in the
fourth Gospel are far from representing the true words of Jesus.]
[Footnote 3: Dan. ii. 44, vii. 13, 14, 22, 27.]
[Footnote 4: Mishnah, _Berakoth_, ii. 1, 3; Talmud of Jerusalem,
_Berakoth_, ii. 2; _Kiddushin_, i. 2; Talm. of Bab., _Berakoth_, 15
_a_; _Mekilta_, 42 _b_; _Siphra_, 170 _b_. The expression appears
often in the _Medrashim_.]
[Footnote 5: Matt. vi. 33, xii. 28, xix. 12; Mark xii. 34; Luke xii.
31.]
[Footnote 6: Luke xvii. 20, 21.]
[Footnote 7: The grand theory of the revelation of the Son of Man is
in fact reserved, in the synoptics, for the chapters which precede the
narrative of the Passion. The first discourses, especially in Matthew,
are entirely moral.]
[Footnote 8: Matt. xiii. 54 and following; Mark vi. 2 and following;
John v. 43.]
[Footnote 9: The tradition of the plainness of Jesus (Justin, _Dial.
cum Tryph._, 85, 88, 100) springs from a desire to see realized in him
a pretended Messianic trait (Isa. liii. 2).]
Paradise would, in fact, have been brought to earth if the ideas of
the young Master had not far transcended the level of ordinary
goodness beyond which it has not been found possible to raise the
human race. The brotherhood of men, as sons of God, and the moral
consequences which result therefrom, were deduced with exquisite
feeling. Like all the rabbis of the time, Jesus was little inclined
toward consecutive reasonings, and clothed his doctrine in concise
aphorisms, and in an expressive form, at times enigmatical and
strange.[1] Some of these maxims come from the books of the Old
Testament. Others were the thoughts of more modern sages, especially
those of Antigonus of Soco, Jesus, son of Sirach, and Hillel, which
had reached him, not from learned study, but as oft-repeated proverbs.
The synagogue was rich in very happily expressed sentences, which
formed a kind of current proverbial literature.[2] Jesus adopted
almost all this oral teaching, but imbued it with a superior
spirit.[3] Exceeding the duties laid down by the Law and the elders,
he demanded perfection. All the virtues of humility--forgiveness,
charity, abnegation, and self-denial--virtues which with good reason
have been called Christian, if we mean by that that they have been
truly preached by Christ, were in this first teaching, though
undeveloped. As to justice, he was content with repeating the
well-known axiom--"Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do
ye even so to them."[4] But this old, though somewhat selfish wisdom,
did not satisfy him. He went to excess, and said--"Whosoever shall
smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any
man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy
cloak also."[5] "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast
it from thee."[6] "Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you,
pray for them that persecute you."[7] "Judge not, that ye be not
judged."[8] "Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven."[9] "Be ye therefore
merciful as your Father also is merciful."[10] "It is more blessed to
give than to receive."[11] "Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be
abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted."[12]
[Footnote 1: The _Logia_ of St. Matthew joins several of these axioms
together, to form lengthened discourses. But the fragmentary form
makes itself felt notwithstanding.]
[Footnote 2: The sentences of the Jewish doctors of the time are
collected in the little book entitled, _Pirké Aboth_.]
[Footnote 3: The comparisons will be made afterward as they present
themselves. It has been sometimes supposed that--the compilation of
the Talmud being later than that of the Gospels--parts may have been
borrowed by the Jewish compilers from the Christian morality. But this
is inadmissible--a wall of separation existed between the Church and
the Synagogue. The Christian and Jewish literature had scarcely any
influence on one another before the thirteenth century.]
[Footnote 4: Matt. vii. 12; Luke vi. 31. This axiom is in the book of
_Tobit_, iv. 16. Hillel used it habitually (Talm. of Bab., _Shabbath_,
31 _a_), and declared, like Jesus, that it was the sum of the Law.]
[Footnote 5: Matt. v. 39, and following; Luke vi. 29. Compare
Jeremiah, _Lamentations_ iii. 30.]
[Footnote 6: Matt. v. 29, 30, xviii. 9; Mark ix. 46.]
[Footnote 7: Matt. v. 44; Luke vi. 27. Compare Talmud of Babylon,
_Shabbath_, 88 _b_; _Joma_, 23 _a_.]
[Footnote 8: Matt. vii. 1; Luke vi. 37. Compare Talmud of Babylon,
_Kethuboth_, 105 _b_.]
[Footnote 9: Luke vi. 37. Compare _Lev._ xix. 18; _Prov._ xx. 22;
_Ecclesiasticus_ xxviii. 1, and following.]
[Footnote 10: Luke vi. 36; Siphré, 51 _b_ (Sultzbach, 1802).]
[Footnote 11: A saying related in _Acts_ xx. 35.]
[Footnote 12: Matt. xxiii. 12; Luke xiv. 11, xviii. 14. The sentences
quoted by St. Jerome from the "Gospel according to the Hebrews"
(Comment. in _Epist. ad Ephes._, v. 4; in Ezek. xviii.; _Dial. adv.
Pelag._, iii. 2), are imbued with the same spirit.]
Upon alms, pity, good works, kindness, peacefulness, and complete
disinterestedness of heart, he had little to add to the doctrine of
the synagogue.[1] But he placed upon them an emphasis full of unction,
which made the old maxims appear new. Morality is not composed of more
or less well-expressed principles. The poetry which makes the precept
loved, is more than the precept itself, taken as an abstract truth.
Now it cannot be denied that these maxims borrowed by Jesus from his
predecessors, produce quite a different effect in the Gospel to that
in the ancient Law, in the _Pirké Aboth_, or in the Talmud. It is
neither the ancient Law nor the Talmud which has conquered and changed
the world. Little original in itself--if we mean by that that one
might recompose it almost entirely by the aid of older maxims--the
morality of the Gospels remains, nevertheless, the highest creation of
human conscience--the most beautiful code of perfect life that any
moralist has traced.
[Footnote 1: _Deut._ xxiv., xxv., xxvi., &c.; Isa. lviii. 7; _Prov._
xix. 17; _Pirké Aboth_, i.; Talmud of Jerusalem, _Peah_, i. 1; Talmud
of Babylon, _Shabbath_, 63 _a_.]
Jesus did not speak against the Mosaic law, but it is clear that he
saw its insufficiency, and allowed it to be seen that he did so. He
repeated unceasingly that more must be done than the ancient sages had
commanded.[1] He forbade the least harsh word;[2] he prohibited
divorce,[3] and all swearing;[4] he censured revenge;[5] he condemned
usury;[6] he considered voluptuous desire as criminal as adultery;[7]
he insisted upon a universal forgiveness of injuries.[8] The motive on
which he rested these maxims of exalted charity was always the
same.... "That ye may be the children of your Father which is in
heaven: for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good. For if
ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the
publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye
more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore
perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."[9]
[Footnote 1: Matt. v. 20, and following.]
[Footnote 2: Matt. v. 22.]
[Footnote 3: Matt. v. 31, and following. Compare Talmud of Babylon,
_Sanhedrim_, 22 _a_.]
[Footnote 4: Matt. v. 33, and following.]
[Footnote 5: Matt. v. 38, and following.]
[Footnote 6: Matt. v. 42. The Law prohibited it also (_Deut._ xv. 7,
8), but less formally, and custom authorized it (Luke vii. 41, and
following).]
[Footnote 7: Matt. xxvii. 28. Compare Talmud, _Masséket Kalla_ (edit.
Fürth, 1793), fol. 34 _b_.]
[Footnote 8: Matt. v. 23, and following.]
[Footnote 9: Matt. v. 45, and following. Compare _Lev._ xi. 44, xix.
2.]
A pure worship, a religion without priests and external observances,
resting entirely on the feelings of the heart, on the imitation of
God,[1] on the direct relation of the conscience with the heavenly
Father, was the result of these principles. Jesus never shrank from
this bold conclusion, which made him a thorough revolutionist in the
very centre of Judaism. Why should there be mediators between man and
his Father? As God only sees the heart, of what good are these
purifications, these observances relating only to the body?[2] Even
tradition, a thing so sacred to the Jews, is nothing compared to
sincerity.[3] The hypocrisy of the Pharisees, who, in praying, turned
their heads to see if they were observed, who gave their alms with
ostentation, and put marks upon their garments, that they might be
recognized as pious persons--all these grimaces of false devotion
disgusted him. "They have their recompense," said he; "but thou, when
thou doest thine alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand
doeth, that thy alms may be in secret, and thy Father, which seeth in
secret, Himself shall reward thee openly."[4] "And when thou prayest,
thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray
standing in the synagogues, and in the corners of the streets, that
they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their
reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet; and when
thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and
thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. But when
ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think
that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Your Father knoweth
what things ye have need of before ye ask Him."[5]
[Footnote 1: Compare Philo, _De Migr. Abr._, § 23 and 24; _De Vita
Contemp._, the whole.]
[Footnote 2: Matt. xv. 11, and following; Mark vii. 6, and following.]
[Footnote 3: Mark vii. 6, and following.]
[Footnote 4: Matt. vi. 1, and following. Compare _Ecclesiasticus_
xvii. 18, xxix. 15; Talm. of Bab., _Chagigah_, 5 _a_; _Baba Bathra_, 9
_b_.]
[Footnote 5: Matt. vi. 5-8.]
He did not affect any external signs of asceticism, contenting himself
with praying, or rather meditating, upon the mountains, and in the
solitary places, where man has always sought God.[1] This high idea of
the relations of man with God, of which so few minds, even after him,
have been capable, is summed up in a prayer which he taught to his
disciples:[2]
[Footnote 1: Matt. xiv. 23; Luke iv. 42, v. 16, vi. 12.]
[Footnote 2: Matt. vi. 9, and following; Luke xi. 2, and following.]
"Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom
come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day
our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who
trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation; deliver us from the
evil one."[1] He insisted particularly upon the idea, that the
heavenly Father knows better than we what we need, and that we almost
sin against Him in asking Him for this or that particular thing.[2]
[Footnote 1: _i.e._, the devil.]
[Footnote 2: Luke xi. 5, and following.]
Jesus in this only carried out the consequences of the great
principles which Judaism had established, but which the official
classes of the nation tended more and more to despise. The Greek and
Roman prayers were almost always mere egotistical verbiage. Never had
Pagan priest said to the faithful, "If thou bring thy offering to the
altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee;
leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be
reconciled with thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift."[1]
Alone in antiquity, the Jewish prophets, especially Isaiah, had, in
their antipathy to the priesthood, caught a glimpse of the true nature
of the worship man owes to God. "To what purpose is the multitude of
your sacrifices unto me: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and
the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or
of lambs, or of he-goats.... Incense is an abomination unto me: for
your hands are full of blood; cease to do evil, learn to do well, seek
judgment, and then come."[2] In later times, certain doctors, Simeon
the just,[3] Jesus, son of Sirach,[4] Hillel,[5] almost reached this
point, and declared that the sum of the Law was righteousness. Philo,
in the Judæo-Egyptian world, attained at the same time as Jesus ideas
of a high moral sanctity, the consequence of which was the disregard
of the observances of the Law.[6] Shemaïa and Abtalion also more than
once proved themselves to be very liberal casuists.[7] Rabbi Johanan
ere long placed works of mercy above even the study of the Law![8]
Jesus alone, however, proclaimed these principles in an effective
manner. Never has any one been less a priest than Jesus, never a
greater enemy of forms, which stifle religion under the pretext of
protecting it. By this we are all his disciples and his successors; by
this he has laid the eternal foundation-stone of true religion; and if
religion is essential to humanity, he has by this deserved the Divine
rank the world has accorded to him. An absolutely new idea, the idea
of a worship founded on purity of heart, and on human brotherhood,
through him entered into the world--an idea so elevated, that the
Christian Church ought to make it its distinguishing feature, but an
idea which, in our days, only few minds are capable of embodying.
[Footnote 1: Matt. v. 23, 24.]
[Footnote 2: Isaiah i. 11, and following. Compare ibid., lviii.
entirely; Hosea vi. 6; Malachi i. 10, and following.]
[Footnote 3: _Pirké Aboth_, i. 2.]
[Footnote 4: _Ecclesiasticus_ xxxv. 1, and following.]
[Footnote 5: Talm. of Jerus., _Pesachim_, vi. 1. Talm. of Bab., the
same treatise 66 _a_; _Shabbath_, 31 _a_.]
[Footnote 6: _Quod Deus Immut._, § 1 and 2; _De Abrahamo_, § 22;
_Quis Rerum Divin. Hæres_, § 13, and following; 55, 58, and following;
_De Profugis_, § 7 and 8; _Quod Omnis Probus Liber_, entirely; _De
Vita Contemp._, entirely.]
[Footnote 7: Talm. of Bab., _Pesachim_, 67 _b_.]
[Footnote 8: Talmud of Jerus., _Peah_, i. 1.]
An exquisite sympathy with Nature furnished him each moment with
expressive images. Sometimes a remarkable ingenuity, which we call
wit, adorned his aphorisms; at other times, their liveliness consisted
in the happy use of popular proverbs. "How wilt thou say to thy
brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a
beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out
of thine own eye, and then thou shalt see clearly to cast out the mote
out of thy brother's eye."[1]
[Footnote 1: Matt. vii. 4, 5. Compare Talmud of Babylon, _Baba
Bathra_, 15 _b_, _Erachin_, 16 _b_.]
These lessons, long hidden in the heart of the young Master, soon
gathered around him a few disciples. The spirit of the time favored
small churches; it was the period of the Essenes or Therapeutæ.
Rabbis, each having his distinctive teaching, Shemaïa, Abtalion,
Hillel, Shammai, Judas the Gaulonite, Gamaliel, and many others, whose
maxims form the Talmud,[1] appeared on all sides. They wrote very
little; the Jewish doctors of this time did not write books;
everything was done by conversations, and in public lessons, to which
it was sought to give a form easily remembered.[2] The proclamation by
the young carpenter of Nazareth of these maxims, for the most part
already generally known, but which, thanks to him, were to regenerate
the world, was therefore no striking event. It was only one rabbi more
(it is true, the most charming of all), and around him some young men,
eager to hear him, and thirsting for knowledge. It requires time to
command the attention of men. As yet there were no Christians; though
true Christianity was founded, and, doubtless, it was never more
perfect than at this first period. Jesus added to it nothing durable
afterward. Indeed, in one sense, he compromised it; for every
movement, in order to triumph, must make sacrifices; we never come
from the contest of life unscathed.
[Footnote 1: See especially _Pirké Aboth_, ch. i.]
[Footnote 2: The Talmud, a _résumé_ of this vast movement of the
schools, was scarcely commenced till the second century of our era.]
To conceive the good, in fact, is not sufficient; it must be made to
succeed amongst men. To accomplish this, less pure paths must be
followed. Certainly, if the Gospel was confined to some chapters of
Matthew and Luke, it would be more perfect, and would not now be open
to so many objections; but would Jesus have converted the world
without miracles? If he had died at the period of his career we have
now reached, there would not have been in his life a single page to
wound us; but, greater in the eyes of God, he would have remained
unknown to men; he would have been lost in the crowd of great unknown
spirits, himself the greatest of all; the truth would not have been
promulgated, and the world would not have profited from the great
moral superiority with which his Father had endowed him. Jesus, son of
Sirach, and Hillel, had uttered aphorisms almost as exalted as those
of Jesus. Hillel, however, will never be accounted the true founder of
Christianity. In morals, as in art, precept is nothing, practice is
everything. The idea which is hidden in a picture of Raphael is of
little moment; it is the picture itself which is prized. So, too, in
morals, truth is but little prized when it is a mere sentiment, and
only attains its full value when realized in the world as fact. Men of
indifferent morality have written very good maxims. Very virtuous men,
on the other hand, have done nothing to perpetuate in the world the
tradition of virtue. The palm is his who has been mighty both in words
and in works, who has discerned the good, and at the price of his
blood has caused its triumph. Jesus, from this double point of view,
is without equal; his glory remains entire, and will ever be renewed.