COMMENCEMENT OF THE LEGENDS CONCERNING JESUS--HIS OWN IDEA OF HIS
SUPERNATURAL CHARACTER.
Jesus returned to Galilee, having completely lost his Jewish faith,
and filled with revolutionary ardor. His ideas are now expressed with
perfect clearness. The innocent aphorisms of the first part of his
prophetic career, in part borrowed from the Jewish rabbis anterior to
him, and the beautiful moral precepts of his second period, are
exchanged for a decided policy. The Law would be abolished; and it was
to be abolished by him.[1] The Messiah had come, and he was the
Messiah. The kingdom of God was about to be revealed; and it was he
who would reveal it. He knew well that he would be the victim of his
boldness; but the kingdom of God could not be conquered without
violence; it was by crises and commotions that it was to be
established.[2] The Son of man would reappear in glory, accompanied by
legions of angels, and those who had rejected him would be confounded.
[Footnote 1: The hesitancy of the immediate disciples of Jesus, of
whom a considerable portion remained attached to Judaism, might cause
objections to be raised to this. But the trial of Jesus leaves no room
for doubt. We shall see that he was there treated as a "corrupter."
The Talmud gives the procedure adopted against him as an example of
that which ought to be followed against "corrupters," who seek to
overturn the Law of Moses. (Talm. of Jerus., _Sanhedrim_, xiv. 16;
Talm. of Bab., _Sanhedrim_, 43 _a_, 67 _a_.)]
[Footnote 2: Matt. xi. 12; Luke xvi. 16.]
The boldness of such a conception ought not to surprise us. Long
before this, Jesus had regarded his relation to God as that of a son
to his father. That which in others would be an insupportable pride,
ought not in him to be regarded as presumption.
The title of "Son of David" was the first which he accepted, probably
without being concerned in the innocent frauds by which it was sought
to secure it to him. The family of David had, as it seems, been long
extinct;[1] the Asmoneans being of priestly origin, could not pretend
to claim such a descent for themselves; neither Herod nor the Romans
dreamt for a moment that any representative whatever of the ancient
dynasty existed in their midst. But from the close of the Asmonean
dynasty the dream of an unknown descendant of the ancient kings, who
should avenge the nation of its enemies, filled every mind. The
universal belief was, that the Messiah would be son of David, and like
him would be born at Bethlehem.[2] The first idea of Jesus was not
precisely this. The remembrance of David, which was uppermost in the
minds of the Jews, had nothing in common with his heavenly reign. He
believed himself the Son of God, and not the son of David. His
kingdom, and the deliverance which he meditated, were of quite another
order. But public opinion on this point made him do violence to
himself. The immediate consequence of the proposition, "Jesus is the
Messiah," was this other proposition, "Jesus is the son of David." He
allowed a title to be given him, without which he could not hope for
success. He ended, it seems, by taking pleasure therein, for he
performed most willingly the miracles which were asked of him by
those who used this title in addressing him.[3] In this, as in many
other circumstances of his life, Jesus yielded to the ideas which were
current in his time, although they were not precisely his own. He
associated with his doctrine of the "kingdom of God" all that could
warm the heart and the imagination. It was thus that we have seen him
adopt the baptism of John, although it could not have been of much
importance to him.
[Footnote 1: It is true that certain doctors--such as Hillel,
Gamaliel--are mentioned as being of the race of David. But these are
very doubtful allegations. If the family of David still formed a
distinct and prominent group, how is it that we never see it figure,
by the side of the Sadokites, Boëthusians, the Asmoneans, and Herods,
in the great struggles of the time?]
[Footnote 2: Matt. ii. 5, 6, xxii. 42; Luke i. 32; John vii. 41, 42;
_Acts_ ii. 30.]
[Footnote 3: Matt. ix. 27, xii. 23, xv. 22, xx. 30, 31; Mark x. 47,
52; Luke xviii. 38.]
One great difficulty presented itself--his birth at Nazareth, which
was of public notoriety. We do not know whether Jesus strove against
this objection. Perhaps it did not present itself in Galilee, where
the idea that the son of David should be a Bethlehemite was less
spread. To the Galilean idealist, moreover, the title of "son of
David" was sufficiently justified, if he to whom it was given revived
the glory of his race, and brought back the great days of Israel. Did
Jesus authorize by his silence the fictitious genealogies which his
partisans invented in order to prove his royal descent?[1] Did he know
anything of the legends invented to prove that he was born at
Bethlehem; and particularly of the attempt to connect his Bethlehemite
origin with the census which had taken place by order of the imperial
legate, Quirinus?[2] We know not. The inexactitude and the
contradictions of the genealogies[3] lead to the belief that they
were the result of popular ideas operating at various points, and that
none of them were sanctioned by Jesus.[4] Never does he designate
himself as son of David. His disciples, much less enlightened than he,
frequently magnified that which he said of himself; but, as a rule, he
had no knowledge of these exaggerations. Let us add, that during the
first three centuries, considerable portions of Christendom[5]
obstinately denied the royal descent of Jesus and the authenticity of
the genealogies.
[Footnote 1: Matt. i. 1, and following; Luke iii. 23, and following.]
[Footnote 2: Matt. ii. 1, and following; Luke ii. 1, and following.]
[Footnote 3: The two genealogies are quite contradictory, and do not
agree with the lists of the Old Testament. The narrative of Luke on
the census of Quirinus implies an anachronism. See ante, p. 81, note
4. It is natural to suppose, besides, that the legend may have laid
hold of this circumstance. The census made a great impression on the
Jews, overturned their narrow ideas, and was remembered by them for a
long period. Cf. _Acts_ v. 37.]
[Footnote 4: Julius Africanus (in Eusebius, _H.E._, i. 7) supposes
that it was the relations of Jesus, who, having taken refuge in
Batanea, attempted to recompose the genealogies.]
[Footnote 5: The _Ebionites_, the "Hebrews," the "Nazarenes," Tatian,
Marcion. Cf. Epiph., _Adv. Hær._, xxix. 9, xxx. 3, 14, xlvi. 1;
Theodoret, _Hæret. fab._, i. 20; Isidore of Pelusium, Epist. i. 371,
ad Pansophium.]
The legends about him were thus the fruit of a great and entirely
spontaneous conspiracy, and were developed around him during his
lifetime. No great event in history has happened without having given
rise to a cycle of fables; and Jesus could not have put a stop to
these popular creations, even if he had wished to do so. Perhaps a
sagacious observer would have recognized from this point the germ of
the narratives which were to attribute to him a supernatural birth,
and which arose, it may be, from the idea, very prevalent in
antiquity, that the incomparable man could not be born of the ordinary
relations of the two sexes; or, it may be, in order to respond to an
imperfectly understood chapter of Isaiah,[1] which was thought to
foretell that the Messiah should be born of a virgin; or, lastly, it
may be in consequence of the idea that the "breath of God," already
regarded as a divine hypostasis, was a principle of fecundity.[2]
Already, perhaps, there was current more than one anecdote about his
infancy, conceived with the intention of showing in his biography the
accomplishment of the Messianic ideal;[3] or, rather, of the
prophecies which the allegorical exegesis of the time referred to the
Messiah. At other times they connected him from his birth with
celebrated men, such as John the Baptist, Herod the Great, Chaldean
astrologers, who, it was said, visited Jerusalem about this time,[4]
and two aged persons, Simeon and Anna, who had left memories of great
sanctity.[5] A rather loose chronology characterized these
combinations, which for the most part were founded upon real facts
travestied.[6] But a singular spirit of gentleness and goodness, a
profoundly popular sentiment, permeated all these fables, and made
them a supplement to his preaching.[7] It was especially after the
death of Jesus that such narratives became greatly developed; we may,
however, believe that they circulated even during his life, exciting
only a pious credulity and simple admiration.
[Footnote 1: Matt. i. 22, 23.]
[Footnote 2: Gen. i. 2. For the analogous idea among the Egyptians,
see Herodotus, iii. 28; Pomp. Mela, i. 9: Plutarch, _Quæst. symp._,
VIII. i. 3; _De Isid. et Osir._, 43.]
[Footnote 3: Matt. i. 15, 23; Isa. vii. 14, and following.]
[Footnote 4: Matt. ii. 1, and following.]
[Footnote 5: Luke ii. 25, and following.]
[Footnote 6: Thus the legend of the massacre of the Innocents probably
refers to some cruelty exercised by Herod near Bethlehem. Comp. Jos.,
_Ant._, XIV. ix. 4.]
[Footnote 7: Matt. i., ii.; Luke i., ii.; S. Justin, _Dial. cum
Tryph._, 78, 106; _Protoevang. of James_ (Apoca.), 18 and following.]
That Jesus never dreamt of making himself pass for an incarnation of
God, is a matter about which there can be no doubt. Such an idea was
entirely foreign to the Jewish mind; and there is no trace of it in
the synoptical gospels,[1] we only find it indicated in portions of
the Gospel of John, which cannot be accepted as expressing the
thoughts of Jesus. Sometimes Jesus even seems to take precautions to
put down such a doctrine.[2] The accusation that he made himself God,
or the equal of God, is presented, even in the Gospel of John, as a
calumny of the Jews.[3] In this last Gospel he declares himself less
than his Father.[4] Elsewhere he avows that the Father has not
revealed everything to him.[5] He believes himself to be more than an
ordinary man, but separated from God by an infinite distance. He is
Son of God, but all men are, or may become so, in divers degrees.[6]
Every one ought daily to call God his father; all who are raised again
will be sons of God.[7] The divine son-ship was attributed in the Old
Testament to beings whom it was by no means pretended were equal with
God.[8] The word "son" has the widest meanings in the Semitic
language, and in that of the New Testament.[9] Besides, the idea Jesus
had of man was not that low idea which a cold Deism has introduced. In
his poetic conception of Nature, one breath alone penetrates the
universe; the breath of man is that of God; God dwells in man, and
lives by man, the same as man dwells in God, and lives by God.[10]
The transcendent idealism of Jesus never permitted him to have a very
clear notion of his own personality. He is his Father, his Father is
he. He lives in his disciples; he is everywhere with them;[11] his
disciples are one, as he and his Father are one.[12] The idea to him
is everything; the body, which makes the distinction of persons, is
nothing.
[Footnote 1: Certain passages, such as _Acts_ ii. 22, expressly
exclude this idea.]
[Footnote 2: Matt. xix. 17; Mark x. 18; Luke xviii. 19.]
[Footnote 3: John v. 18, and following, x. 33, and following.]
[Footnote 4: John xiv. 28.]
[Footnote 5: Mark xiii. 35.]
[Footnote 6: Matt. v. 9, 45; Luke iii. 38, vi. 35, xx. 36; John i. 12,
13, x. 34, 35. Comp. _Acts_ xvii. 28, 29; Rom. viii. 14, 19, 21, ix.
26; 2 Cor. vi. 18; Gal. iii. 26; and in the Old Testament, _Deut._
xiv. 1; and especially _Wisdom_, ii. 13, 18.]
[Footnote 7: Luke xx. 36.]
[Footnote 8: Gen. vi. 2; Job i. 6, ii. 1, xxviii. 7; Ps. ii. 7,
lxxxii. 6; 2 Sam. vii. 14.]
[Footnote 9: The child of the devil (Matt. xiii. 38; _Acts_ xiii. 10);
the children of this world (Mark iii. 17; Luke xvi. 8, xx. 34); the
children of light (Luke xvi. 8; John xii. 36); the children of the
resurrection (Luke xx. 36); the children of the kingdom (Matt. viii.
12, xiii. 38); the children of the bride-chamber (Matt. ix. 15; Mark
ii. 19; Luke v. 34); the children of hell (Matt. xxiii. 15); the
children of peace (Luke x. 6), &c. Let us remember that the Jupiter of
paganism is [Greek: patêr andrôn te theôn te].]
[Footnote 10: Comp. _Acts_ xvii. 28.]
[Footnote 11: Matt. xviii. 20, xxviii. 20.]
[Footnote 12: John x. 30, xvii. 21. See in general the later
discourses of John, especially chap. xvii., which express one side of
the psychological state of Jesus, though we cannot regard them as true
historical documents.]
The title "Son of God," or simply "Son,"[1] thus became for Jesus a
title analogous to "Son of man," and, like that, synonymous with the
"Messiah," with the sole difference that he called himself "Son of
man," and does not seem to have made the same use of the phrase, "Son
of God."[2] The title, Son of man, expressed his character as judge;
that of Son of God his power and his participation in the supreme
designs. This power had no limits. His Father had given him all power.
He had the power to alter even the Sabbath.[3] No one could know the
Father except through him.[4] The Father had delegated to him
exclusively the right of judging.[5] Nature obeyed him; but she obeys
also all who believe and pray, for faith can do everything.[6] We must
remember that no idea of the laws of Nature marked the limit of the
impossible, either in his own mind, or in that of his hearers. The
witnesses of his miracles thanked God "for having given such power
unto men."[7] He pardoned sins;[8] he was superior to David, to
Abraham, to Solomon, and to the prophets.[9] We do not know in what
form, nor to what extent, these affirmations of himself were made.
Jesus ought not to be judged by the law of our petty
conventionalities. The admiration of his disciples overwhelmed him and
carried him away. It is evident that the title of _Rabbi_, with which
he was at first contented, no longer sufficed him; even the title of
prophet or messenger of God responded no longer to his ideas. The
position which he attributed to himself was that of a superhuman
being, and he wished to be regarded as sustaining a higher
relationship to God than other men. But it must be remarked that these
words, "superhuman" and "supernatural," borrowed from our petty
theology, had no meaning in the exalted religious consciousness of
Jesus. To him Nature and the development of humanity were not limited
kingdoms apart from God--paltry realities subjected to the laws of a
hopeless empiricism. There was no supernatural for him, because there
was no Nature. Intoxicated with infinite love, he forgot the heavy
chain which holds the spirit captive; he cleared at one bound the
abyss, impossible to most, which the weakness of the human faculties
has created between God and man.
[Footnote 1: The passages in support of this are too numerous to be
referred to here.]
[Footnote 2: It is only in the Gospel of John that Jesus uses the
expression "Son of God," or "Son," in speaking of himself.]
[Footnote 3: Matt. xii. 8; Luke vi. 5.]
[Footnote 4: Matt. xi. 27.]
[Footnote 5: John v. 22.]
[Footnote 6: Matt. xvii. 18, 19; Luke xvii. 6.]
[Footnote 7: Matt. ix. 8.]
[Footnote 8: Matt. ix. 2, and following; Mark ii. 5, and following;
Luke v. 20, vii. 47, 48.]
[Footnote 9: Matt. xii. 41, 42; xxii. 43, and following; John viii.
52, and following.]
We cannot mistake in these affirmations of Jesus the germ of the
doctrine which was afterward to make of him a divine hypostasis,[1] in
identifying him with the Word, or "second God,"[2] or eldest Son of
God,[3] or _Angel Metathronos_,[4] which Jewish theology created apart
from him.[5] A kind of necessity caused this theology, in order to
correct the extreme rigor of the old Monotheism, to place near God an
assessor, to whom the eternal Father is supposed to delegate the
government of the universe. The belief that certain men are
incarnations of divine faculties or "powers," was widespread; the
Samaritans possessed about the same time a thaumaturgus named Simon,
whom they identified with the "great power of God."[6] For nearly two
centuries, the speculative minds of Judaism had yielded to the
tendency to personify the divine attributes, and certain expressions
which were connected with the Divinity. Thus, the "breath of God,"
which is often referred to in the Old Testament, is considered as a
separate being, the "Holy Spirit." In the same manner the "Wisdom of
God" and the "Word of God" became distinct personages. This was the
germ of the process which has engendered the _Sephiroth_ of the
Cabbala, the _Æons_ of Gnosticism, the hypostasis of Christianity, and
all that dry mythology, consisting of personified abstractions, to
which Monotheism is obliged to resort when it wishes to pluralize the
Deity.
[Footnote 1: See especially John xiv., and following. But it is
doubtful whether we have here the authentic teaching of Jesus.]
[Footnote 2: Philo, cited in Eusebius, _Præp. Evang._, vii. 13.]
[Footnote 3: Philo, _De migr. Abraham_, § 1; _Quod Deus immut._, § 6;
_De confus. ling._, § 9, 14 and 28; De profugis, § 20; _De Somniis_,
i. § 37; _De Agric. Noë_, § 12; _Quis rerum divin. hæres_, § 25, and
following, 48, and following, &c.]
[Footnote 4: [Greek: Metathronos], that is, sharing the throne of God;
a kind of divine secretary, keeping the register of merits and
demerits; _Bereshith Rabba_, v. 6 _c_; Talm. of Bab., _Sanhedr._, 38
_b_; _Chagigah_, 15 _a_; Targum of Jonathan, _Gen._, v. 24.]
[Footnote 5: This theory of the [Greek: Logos] contains no Greek
elements. The comparisons which have been made between it and the
_Honover_ of the Parsees are also without foundation. The _Minokhired_
or "Divine Intelligence," has much analogy with the Jewish [Greek:
Logos]. (See the fragments of the book entitled _Minokhired_ in
Spiegel, _Parsi-Grammatik_, pp. 161, 162.) But the development which
the doctrine of the _Minokhired_ has taken among the Parsees is
modern, and may imply a foreign influence. The "Divine Intelligence"
(_Maiyu-Khratû_) appears in the Zend books; but it does not there
serve as basis to a theory; it only enters into some invocations. The
comparisons which have been attempted between the Alexandrian theory
of the Word and certain points of Egyptian theology may not be
entirely without value. But nothing indicates that, in the centuries
which preceded the Christian era, Palestinian Judaism had borrowed
anything from Egypt.]
[Footnote 6: _Acts_ viii. 10.]
Jesus appears to have remained a stranger to these refinements of
theology, which were soon to fill the world with barren disputes. The
metaphysical theory of the Word, such as we find it in the writings of
his contemporary Philo, in the Chaldean Targums, and even in the book
of "Wisdom,"[1] is neither seen in the _Logia_ of Matthew, nor in
general in the synoptics, the most authentic interpreters of the words
of Jesus. The doctrine of the Word, in fact, had nothing in common
with Messianism. The "Word" of Philo, and of the Targums, is in no
sense the Messiah. It was John the Evangelist, or his school, who
afterward endeavored to prove that Jesus was the Word, and who
created, in this sense, quite a new theology, very different from that
of the "kingdom of God."[2] The essential character of the Word was
that of Creator and of Providence. Now, Jesus never pretended to have
created the world, nor to govern it. His office was to judge it, to
renovate it. The position of president at the final judgment of
humanity was the essential attribute which Jesus attached to himself,
and the character which all the first Christians attributed to
him.[3] Until the great day, he will sit at the right hand of God, as
his Metathronos, his first minister, and his future avenger.[4] The
superhuman Christ of the Byzantine apsides, seated as judge of the
world, in the midst of the apostles in the same rank with him, and
superior to the angels who only assist and serve, is the exact
representation of that conception of the "Son of man," of which we
find the first features so strongly indicated in the book of Daniel.
[Footnote 1: ix. 1, 2, xvi. 12. Comp. vii. 12, viii. 5, and following,
ix., and in general ix.-xi. These prosopopoeia of Wisdom personified
are found in much older books. Prov. viii., ix.; Job xxviii.; _Rev._
xix. 13.]
[Footnote 2: John, Gospel, i. 1-14; 1 Epistle v. 7; moreover, it will
be remarked, that, in the Gospel of John, the expression of "the Word"
does not occur except in the prologue, and that the narrator never
puts it into the mouth of Jesus.]
[Footnote 3: _Acts_ x. 42.]
[Footnote 4: Matt. xxvi. 64; Mark xvi. 19; Luke xxii. 69; _Acts_ vii.
55; Rom. viii. 34; Ephes. i. 20; Coloss. iii. 1; Heb. i. 3, 13, viii.
1, x. 12, xii. 2; 1 Peter iii. 22. See the passages previously cited
on the character of the Jewish Metathronos.]
At all events, the strictness of a studied theology by no means
existed in such a state of society. All the ideas we have just stated
formed in the mind of the disciples a theological system so little
settled, that the Son of God, this species of divine duplicate, is
made to act purely as man. He is tempted--he is ignorant of many
things--he corrects himself[1]--he is cast down, discouraged--he asks
his Father to spare him trials--he is submissive to God as a son.[2]
He who is to judge the world does not know the day of judgment.[3] He
takes precautions for his safety.[4] Soon after his birth, he is
obliged to be concealed to avoid powerful men who wish to kill him.[5]
In exorcisms, the devil cheats him, and does not come out at the first
command.[6] In his miracles we are sensible of painful effort--an
exhaustion, as if something went out of him.[7] All these are simply
the acts of a messenger of God, of a man protected and favored by
God.[8] We must not look here for either logic or sequence. The need
Jesus had of obtaining credence, and the enthusiasm of his disciples,
heaped up contradictory notions. To the Messianic believers of the
millenarian school, and to the enthusiastic readers of the books of
Daniel and of Enoch, he was the Son of man--to the Jews holding the
ordinary faith, and to the readers of Isaiah and Micah, he was the Son
of David--to the disciples he was the Son of God, or simply the Son.
Others, without being blamed by the disciples, took him for John the
Baptist risen from the dead, for Elias, for Jeremiah, conformable to
the popular belief that the ancient prophets were about to reappear,
in order to prepare the time of the Messiah.[9]
[Footnote 1: Matt. x. 5, compared with xxviii. 19.]
[Footnote 2: Matt. xxvi. 39; John xii. 27.]
[Footnote 3: Mark xiii. 32.]
[Footnote 4: Matt. xii. 14-16, xiv. 13; Mark iii. 6, 7, ix. 29, 30;
John vii. 1, and following.]
[Footnote 5: Matt. ii. 20.]
[Footnote 6: Matt. xvii. 20; Mark ix. 25.]
[Footnote 7: Luke viii. 45, 46; John xi. 33, 38.]
[Footnote 8: _Acts_ ii. 22.]
[Footnote 9: Matt. xiv. 2, xvi. 14, xvii. 3, and following; Mark vi.
14, 15, viii. 28; Luke ix. 8, and following, 19.]
An absolute conviction, or rather the enthusiasm, which freed him from
even the possibility of doubt, shrouded all these boldnesses. We
little understand, with our cold and scrupulous natures, how any one
can be so entirely possessed by the idea of which he has made himself
the apostle. To the deeply earnest races of the West, conviction means
sincerity to one's self. But sincerity to one's self has not much
meaning to Oriental peoples, little accustomed to the subtleties of a
critical spirit. Honesty and imposture are words which, in our rigid
consciences, are opposed as two irreconcilable terms. In the East,
they are connected by numberless subtle links and windings. The
authors of the Apocryphal books (of "Daniel" and of "Enoch," for
instance), men highly exalted, in order to aid their cause,
committed, without a shadow of scruple, an act which we should term a
fraud. The literal truth has little value to the Oriental; he sees
everything through the medium of his ideas, his interests, and his
passions.
History is impossible, if we do not fully admit that there are many
standards of sincerity. All great things are done through the people;
now we can only lead the people by adapting ourselves to its ideas.
The philosopher who, knowing this, isolates and fortifies himself in
his integrity, is highly praiseworthy. But he who takes humanity with
its illusions, and seeks to act with it and upon it, cannot be blamed.
Cæsar knew well that he was not the son of Venus; France would not be
what it is, if it had not for a thousand years believed in the Holy
Ampulla of Rheims. It is easy for us, who are so powerless, to call
this falsehood, and, proud of our timid honesty, to treat with
contempt the heroes who have accepted the battle of life under other
conditions. When we have effected by our scruples what they
accomplished by their falsehoods, we shall have the right to be severe
upon them. At least, we must make a marked distinction between
societies like our own, where everything takes place in the full light
of reflection, and simple and credulous communities, in which the
beliefs that have governed ages have been born. Nothing great has been
established which does not rest on a legend. The only culprit in such
cases is the humanity which is willing to be deceived.