proud silence of the arraigned prince; the bold assertion of kingliness,
when challenged; the stately defiance of the pagan's wrath; the appeal
to supernatural support; the prediction of angelic succor in the hour of
need, in strict accordance with the apocalyptic expressions thrown out
at the last supper, and reverberated in tremendous rhetoric on the Mount
of Olives and in the palace of the high priest, expressions in full and
literal harmony with the Jewish conceptions of the Christ's relations
with the angelic world, wholly in the spirit of Daniel, Enoch, and other
apocryphal writings, leave no doubt on the mind that this personage
moved within the limits of the common Messianic conception. Pilate
condemns him reluctantly, feeling that he is a harmless visionary, but
is obliged to condemn him as one who persistently claimed to be the
"King of the Jews," an enemy of Caesar, an insurgent against the empire,
a pretender to the throne, a bold inciter to rebellion. The death he
undergoes is the death of the traitor and mutineer, the death that
would have been decreed to Judas the Gaulonite, had he been captured
instead of slain in battle, and that was inflicted on thousands of his
deluded followers. The bitter cry of the crucified as he hung on the
cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" disclosed the hope
of deliverance that till the last moment sustained his heart, and
betrayed the anguish felt when the hope was blighted; the sneers and
hootings of the rabble expressed their conviction that he had pretended
to be what he was not.
The miracles ascribed to the Christ, so far from being inconsistent with
the ordinary conception of the Messianic office, were necessary to
complete that conception. It was expected that the Messiah would work
miracles. This was one of his prerogatives; a certificate of his
commission from Jehovah, and an instrument of great service in carrying
out his designs. To the Jew of that, as of preceding periods, to the
crude theist of all periods, the belief in miracles was and is easy. In
such judgment, the will of God is absolute, and when should that will be
exerted if not at providential crises of need, or in furtherance of his
servants' work? The special miracles attributed to the Christ of the
earliest New Testament literature are, as Strauss conclusively shows,
patterned after performances which met satisfactorily the demands of the
Jewish imagination; being either repetitions of ancient marvels, or
concrete expressions of ideal faith. The miracles of this Christ are
precisely adjusted to the exigencies of his calling, in no respect
transcending or falling short of that standard.
The moral precepts put into the Messiah's mouth are also what he might
be expected to utter. The teachings of the sermon on the Mount are
echoes, and not altogether awakening or inspiring echoes, of ancient
ethical law. The beatitudes do not exceed in beauty of sentiment or
felicity of phrase, lovely passages that gem the pages of prophet,
psalmist and sage. Portions of the morality are harsh, ungracious,
intemperate, almost inhuman as compared with the mellow grandeur of the
older law. Several of the parables, if taken in an ethical sense,
contain moral injunctions or insinuations that are quite unjustifiable;
the parable, for example, of the laborers in the vineyard, the last of
whom, though they have worked but one hour, receive the same
compensation as the early comers, who had borne the burden and heat of
the day;--the parable of the steward, which, literally construed,
palliates abuse of trusts;--the parable of Dives and Lazarus, which
teaches the evil lesson that felicity or infelicity hereafter is
consequent on fortune or misfortune here. These and other parables are
deprived of their dangerous moral tendency by being removed from the
ethical category, and made to convey lessons of a different kind. Read
the story of the laborers in the vineyard as intended to justify
Jehovah in granting the same spiritual favors to the newly called
Gentiles as to the descendants of Abraham who, from the first, answered
to the call addressed to them:--read the story of the steward as
conveying an explanation of the Pauline policy in making capital with
the Gentiles by offering to them on easy terms the promises that the
Jews showed themselves unworthy of, and rejected:--read the story of
Dives and Lazarus as containing the idea that the "poor in spirit," the
outcast, to whom the mansions of the Lord's house, the patrimony of
Abraham had never been opened, the people who had nothing but
faith,--whom even pagan dogs commiserated,--should enjoy the blessedness
of the Messiah's kingdom rather than those who claimed a prescriptive
right to it on the ground of descent or privilege,--and the difficulty
of reconciling them with moral principle is avoided. These parables and
others of like tenor, do not belong to the first layer of Messianic
tradition, but to the second deposit made by the Apostle Paul.
To the same period belong other parables that contain larger ideas than
the Jewish Messiah of the first generation could entertain. Such are the
story of the net cast into the sea and gathering in of every kind, that
is, "Greeks and Romans, barbarians, Scythians, bond and free," not
Hebrews only,--the miscellaneous haul being impartially
examined--sweetness of quality, not forms of scale being made the
condition of acceptance;--the story of the good Samaritan, designed to
place people reckoned idolators and miscreants on a higher spiritual
level than anointed priests of whatever order, who postponed mercy to
sacrifice. Could the Jewish Messiah attribute to Samaritans a grace that
was the highest adornment of faithful Jews? The story of the prodigal
son belongs to the same category. The elder brother, who has always been
at home, dutiful but ungracious niggardly and covetous, is the Jew who
has never left the homestead of faith, but has stayed there, confidently
expecting the Messianic inheritance as the reward of his conventional
orthodoxy. The younger brother is the Gentile, the infidel, the pagan
apostate, who throws off the parental authority and reduces himself to
spiritual beggary. He spends all; he contents himself with refuse; is
more heathenish than the heathen themselves; swinish in his habits. Yet
this spiritual reprobate, by his unseemly behavior, forfeits no
privilege. The "mansion" of the Father's house is still open to him when
he shall choose to return. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob waits and
watches for the penitent; sees him a great way off; runs to meet him;
throws his arms about his neck; reinstates him in his place; celebrates
his arrival by feasting, and puts him above the elder brother who had
been working in the field while the prodigal had been rioting in the
city. Such a lesson from the lips of the Jewish Messiah would have been
astonishing indeed. It would have gone far towards overturning his
claim. We know that some years later the lesson was inculcated as a
cardinal doctrine by Paul and regarded as a heresy by the Christ's
personal disciples, and it is in accordance with literary laws to refer
to this later period the ideas that were native to it.
The religious beliefs imputed to the Messiah we are sketching, are the
ordinary beliefs of his age and people. His faith is the faith of the
Pharisees. His idea of God is the national idea softened, as it always
had been, by a gentle mind. It thinks as his countrymen thought about
Providence, fate and freedom, good and evil, destiny, the past and the
future of his race. He believes in the resurrection and the judgment,
the blessedness that is in store for the faithful Israelite, the misery
that awaits the unworthy children of Abraham. His moral classifications
are the technical classifications of the enthusiastic patriot, who
confounded national with rational principles of judgment. He believes in
good and bad angels, in guardian spirits and demoniacal possession. A
Pharisee of the narrow literal school he is not. His allegiance to the
Mosaic law is spiritual, not slavish; his faith in the perpetuity of the
temple worship is unencumbered with formalism; he discriminates between
the priestly office and the priestly character, between the form and
the essence of sacrifice; yet is he capable of lurid feelings and bitter
thoughts towards the Pharisees of another school; he cannot enter into
the mind of the Sadducee; and the scribe is a person he cannot respect.
On this side his intolerance occasionally breaks forth with
inconsiderate heat. He calls his opponents "blind guides," "hypocrites,"
"whited sepulchres," and threatens them with the wrath of the Eternal.
The Messiah's essential conception of his office does not differ
materially from that of his countrymen. He is no military leader; he
puts no confidence in the sword; he incites to no revolt. But he does
not trust to intellectual methods for his success; the success that he
anticipates is not such as follows the promulgation of ideas, or the
establishment of moral convictions. He looks for demonstrations of
power, not human but super-human. The hosts that surround him, and are
reckoned on to sustain him, are the hosts of heaven, marshalled under
the Lord and prepared to sweep down upon the Lord's foes when the hour
of conflict shall strike. He will not draw the sword himself, or allow
his followers to gird on weapons of war; but he is more than willing to
avail himself of legions irresistible in might. James Martineau has
touched this point with a master hand: "The non-resistant principle
meant no more in the early church than that the disciples were not to
anticipate the hour fast approaching of the Messiah's descent to claim
his throne. But when that hour struck there was to be no want of
'physical force' no shrinking from retribution as either unjust or
undivine. The 'flaming fire,' the 'sudden destruction,' the 'mighty
angels,' the 'tribulation and anguish,' were to form the retinue of
Christ, and the pioneers of the kingdom of God. The new reign was to
come _with force_, and on nothing else in the last resort was there any
reliance; only the army was to arrive from heaven before the earthly
recruits were taken up. 'My kingdom,' said Jesus, 'is not of this world,
else would my servants fight;' an expression which implies that no
kingdom of this world can dispense with arms, and that he himself, were
he the head of a human polity, would not forbid the sword: but while
'legions of angels' stood ready for his word, and only waited till the
Scripture was fulfilled, and the hour of darkness was passed, to obey
the signal of heavenly invasion, the weapon of earthly temper might
remain in its sheath."
It is not affirmed here that the actual Jesus corresponded to this
Messianic representation; that he filled it and no more; that it
correctly and adequately reported him. It may possibly present only so
much of him as the average of his contemporaries could appreciate. They
may be right who are of opinion that the fourth evangelist comes nearer
to the historical truth than the first. That the earliest New Testament
conception of the Messiah has been correctly portrayed in the preceding
sketch may be granted without prejudice to the historical Jesus. They
only who assume the identity of this Hebrew Messiah with the man of
Nazareth, need place him in the niche that is here made for the Messiah.
There are others more noble. Let each decide for himself, on the
evidence, to which he belongs. Some will decide that the first account
of a wonderful person must, from the nature of the case, be the falsest;
others will decide that in the nature of things it must be the truest.
Whichever be the decision the literary image remains unimpaired. Whether
time should be judged requisite to emancipate the living character from
the associations of its environment, and bring it into full view; or
whether on the other hand time should be regarded as darkening and
confusing the image, for the reason that it allows the growth of legends
and distorting theory, is a question that will be touched by-and-by. For
the present it suffices to show what the earliest representation was,
and to trace its descent from the traditions of the race. The materials
are adequate for this, whether for more or not. The form of Jesus may be
lost, but the form of the Messiah is distinct.
V.
THE FIRST CHRISTIANS.
The death of the Messiah did not discourage his followers, as it might
have done had he presented the coarser type of the anticipation
illustrated by Judas of Galilee whose insurrection had been extinguished
in blood some years before, yet the movement of Judas did not cease at
his death, but troubled the state for sixty years. His two sons, James
and John, raised the Messianic standard fifteen years or thereabouts
after the crucifixion of Jesus, and were themselves crucified. Their
younger brother, Menahem, renewed the attempt twenty years later, and so
far succeeded that he cut his way to the throne, assumed the part of a
king, went in royal state to the temple, and but for the fury of his
fanaticism might have re-erected temporarily the throne of David. But
this kind of Messiah, besides being savage, was monotonous. His appeal
was to the lower passions; the thoughtful, imaginative, contemplative,
poetic, were not drawn to him. His followers, adherents not
disciples,--might, at the best, have founded a dynasty, they could not
have planted a church. The pure enthusiasm of the Christ, his entire
singleness of heart, the absence in him of private ambition or
self-seeking, his confidence in the heavenly character of his mission,
his reliance on super-human aid, his sincere persuasion that the purpose
of his calling would not be thwarted by death, insured his hold on those
who had trusted him. They did not lose their conviction that he was the
Messiah; they anticipated his return, in glory, to complete his work; in
that anticipation they waited, watched and prayed. The name "Christians"
was, we are told, given, in derision, to the believers in Antioch. But
if they had chosen a name for themselves, they could not have hit on a
more precisely descriptive one. "Christians" they were; believers that
the Christ had come, that the crucified was the Christ, that he would
reappear and vindicate his claim. This was their single controlling
thought, the only thought that distinguished them from their countrymen
who rejected the Messiahship of their friend. They were Jews, in every
respect; Jews of Jews, enthusiastic, devout, pharisaic Jews, the firmest
of adherents to the Law of Moses, unqualified receivers of tradition,
diligent students of the scriptures, constant attendants at the temple
worship, urgent in supplication, literal in creed, and punctual in
observance; acquiescent in the claims of the priesthood, scrupulous in
all Hebrew etiquette. They were determined that the Master, at his
coming, should find them ready.
James, "the Lord's brother," set an example of sanctity worthy of a
high-priest. In fact, he assumed the position of a priest, and filled it
with such austerity that he was called "the righteous." He tasted, says
Hegesippus, neither wine nor strong drink; he ate nothing that had life;
his hair was never shorn; his body was never anointed with oil, or
bathed in water; his garments were of linen, never of wool; so perfect
was he in all righteousness that, though no consecrated priest, he was
permitted to enter the holy place behind the veil of the temple, and
there he spent hours in intercession for the people, his knees becoming
as hard as a camel's from contact with the stone pavement. To those who
asked him the way to life, he replied: "Believe that Jesus is the
Christ." When some dissenters protested against this declaration and
asked him to retract it, he repeated it with stronger emphasis; when the
malcontents who revered him, but would have none of his Messiah, raised
a tumult and tried to intimidate him, he reiterated the statement,
adding: "He sits in heaven, at the right hand of the Supreme power, and
will come in clouds." For this testimony, says tradition, he laid down
his life.
The fellow-believers of James imitated him as closely as they could.
They were proud of their descent from Abraham; they were tenacious of
the privileges granted to the twelve tribes; they kept up their relation
with the synagogue; they had faith in forms of observance; they revered
the Sabbath; their trust in the literal efficacy of prayer was implicit;
they were excessively jealous of intellectual activity outside of their
narrow communion; their anticipations were confined to the restoration
of Israel, and never wandered into the region of social improvement or
moral progress; in general ethical and social culture they were not
interested.
They had no ecclesiastical establishment apart from the Jewish Church;
no separate priesthood, no sacraments, no cultus, no rubric, no
calendar, no liturgy. The validity of sacrifice they maintained, the
doctrine of sacrifice possessing a deeper significance for them from the
growing faith that their Lord was himself the paschal lamb, the shedding
of whose blood purchased the remission of sins. Hence a special
encouragement of the sacerdotal spirit, an exaggerated sense of the
efficacy of blood, a theory of atonement more searching and absolute
than had prevailed in the ancient church. The later doctrine of
atonement in the christian church may have grown from this small but
vital germ.
They had no dogma peculiar to themselves, the doctrines of the old
Church being all they needed; they had no trinity or beginning of
trinity; no christology; no doctrine of Fall; no theory of first and
second Adam; no metaphysic; no philosophy of sin and salvation; no
interior mystery of experience. Whatever newness of creed they avowed,
was owing to their acknowledgment of the Christ, and consisted in a few
very simple inferences from this tenet. Of course even slow-minded,
literal, external men could not entertain a belief like that, and not be
pushed by it to certain practical conclusions. The expectation of the
Christ's coming would necessarily raise questions respecting the
conditions of acceptance with him, the character of his dominion, the
duration of it, the social changes incidental to it; but it does not
appear that speculation on these subjects was carried far. A crude
millenarianism developed itself early; a cloudy theory of atonement
found favor; for the rest, conjecture, it was little more, dwelt
contentedly within the confines of rabbinical lore.
There was nothing peculiar in their moral precepts or usages, nothing
that should effect a change in the received ethics of the nation. Their
essential creed involved no practical innovation on private or social
moralities. The mosaic code was familiar to them from childhood. The
popular commentaries on it were promulgated from week to week in the
synagogues, and their validity was no more questioned by the Christians
than by the most orthodox of Jews.
The daily existence of these people was retired and simple. They had
frequent meetings for talk, song, mutual cheer and confirmation; full of
expectation and excitement they must have been; wild with memories and
hopes. For the believers lived out of themselves, in an ideal, a
supernatural sphere; their hearts were in heaven with their Master,
whose form filled their vision, whose voice they seemed to hear, from
whom came, as they fancied, impressions, intimations, influences,
unspoken but breathed messages interpreted by the soul. They were
visionaries. Their life was illusion. They were transported beyond
themselves at times, by the prospect of the Lord's nearness. Their minds
were dazed; their feelings raised to ecstasy; in vision they saw the
heavens open and fiery tongues descend. Their small upper chamber seemed
to tremble and dilate in sympathy with their feelings; the ceiling
appeared to lift; they were moved by an impulse which they could not
account for, and regarded themselves as inspired.
In these circumstances, it is not to be wondered at that they lived in
communities by themselves, preferring the society of their fellows; that
they had a common purse, a common table; that they were ascetic and
celibate; that they withdrew from public affairs and from private
business, and approached nearly to the Essenes, with whom they had much
in common, perpetuating the habit of monasticism, which became
afterwards so prominent a feature in the Eastern church.
Nor is it surprising that they regarded the intimate friends of their
Christ with a peculiar veneration, and ascribed to them extraordinary
gifts. The basis of the future hierarchy was laid in the honor paid to
these few men. They were credited with supernatural insight, and with
the possession of miraculous power. Their touch was healing; their mere
shadow comforted; their approval was blessing; their displeasure cursed.
What they ratified was fixed; what they permitted was decreed. Their
word was law; it was for them to admit and to exclude. The penalty of
excommunication was in their hands, to be inflicted at their discretion.
Superstition went so far as to concede to them the alternatives of life
and death. The legend of Ananias and Sapphira is evidence of a credulity
that set not reason only, but conscience at defiance. In their
infatuation they believed that the Christ above communicated a saving
spiritual grace to such as the apostles touched with their fingers.
Very singular, but very consistent and logical were the views of death
entertained by the brotherhood in Christ. As their Lord delayed his
coming, the elders grew old and fell asleep. There was a brotherhood of
the dead as well as of the living; the living became few; the dead many.
Questions arose respecting the destination of those departed. That they
had perished was not to be thought of; as little to be thought of was
the possibility of their forfeiting their privilege of sharing the
believers' triumph. The resurrection the disciples had always believed
in. That, at the coming of the Messiah there would be a general
resurrection of the faithful Israelites from their graves, in field or
rock, was part of their ancestral faith. But now, the matter was brought
home to them with painful reality. The Christ might come at any moment;
the dead were their own immediate kindred, their parents and brethren.
The problem presented no difficulties to their minds however agitating
it might be to their hearts. The Lord would come; of that there could be
no doubt; the dead would rise, that was certain; but in what form? In
what order? Would the living have precedence of them? Where would the
meeting take place? How would the dead know that the time of
resurrection had arrived? The answer came promptly as the question. The
trumpet of the angels would proclaim the event to all creatures, visible
and invisible. The elect would respond to the summons; the gates of
Hades would burst asunder. In etherial forms, lighter than air, more
radiant than the morning, the faithful who had died "in the Lord," would
ascend; the living would exchange their terrestrial bodies for bodies
celestial, and thus "changed," "in a moment, in the twinkling of an
eye," would mount upward to join them, and all together would "meet the
Lord in the air." For the believers the grave had no victory and death
no sting.
In all this the Christians were strictly within the circle of Jewish
thought. The belief in the resurrection wore different aspects in
different minds; the vision of the hereafter floated many-hued before
the imaginations of men. The fiery zealots who "took the kingdom of
heaven by violence," dreamed of the resurrection of the body, and of
tangible privileges of dominion in the terrestrial millennium. The
milder enthusiasts, who could not believe that flesh and blood could
inherit the kingdom of God, were constrained to invent a "spiritual
world" for the accommodation of spiritual bodies. Some conjectured that
the etherial forms would mount to their native seat, only at the
termination of the thousand years reign; the spiritual world being
brought in at the end, as a device of eschatology to dispose finally of
the saints who could neither die nor remain longer on earth. Others
surmised that the spiritual world would claim its own at once, there
being no place on earth where the risen could live and no occupations in
which they could engage. The cruder faith was the earlier.