Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I
am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." [Footnote 109]
[Footnote 109: Matthew v. 17.]
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"Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one
that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye
believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.
But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my
words?" [Footnote 110]
[Footnote 110: John v. 45-47.]
This was the language that Jesus used to the Jews. It was in the
name of their history and of their faith, in the name of the God
of Abraham and of Jacob, that He called them to Him, presenting
himself to them in the double capacity of conservative and
reformer, and appealing to the ancient law against those who,
whilst observing it outwardly, really changed its character.
"Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of
Jerusalem, saying, Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition
of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread.
But He answered and said unto them, "Why do ye also transgress
the commandment of God by your tradition? For God commanded,
saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father
or mother, let him die the death.
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But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It
is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; and
honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus ye
have made the commandment of God of none effect by your
tradition![Footnote 111] ... Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees,
hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and
have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy,
and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the
other undone." [Footnote 112]
[Footnote 111: Matthew xv. 1-6.]
[Footnote 112: Matthew xxiii. 23.]
Jesus was incessantly warning, making appeals to the Jews; and
when He saw that they pertinaciously disavowed and rejected Him,
He cried, in an impulse of patriotic, affectionate sadness:--"O
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest
them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy
children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her
wings, and ye would not!" [Footnote 113]
[Footnote 113: Matthew xxiii. 37. Luke xiii. 34.]
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I know nothing more imposing than the apparition of a grand idea,
a divine idea rising and mounting rapidly upon the human horizon.
Such is the spectacle afforded to us in its short duration by the
history of Jesus Christ. In his first instructions to his
apostles, He said to them, "Go not to the Gentiles and enter not
into any city of the Samaritans; but go ye rather to the lost
sheep of the people of Israel." Thus he carefully avoided
offending the sentiments of the day, and only enjoined upon his
apostles what they might do with success at the very beginning of
their mission. But soon the light increases that issues from the
words and the actions of Jesus; as I advance in the books of the
Gospel, I there read: "And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum,
there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, and saying,
Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously
tormented.
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And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion
answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come
under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be
healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me:
and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come,
and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. When
Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed,
Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not
in Israel. And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east
and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob,
in the kingdom of heaven." [Footnote 114]
[Footnote 114: Matthew viii. 5-11.]
Thus a great stride has been made; it is no longer for the sheep
of the house of Israel that Jesus has come; from the East and
from the West will men come to Him, and He will receive them all.
To continue the Gospel narrative: departing from the borders of
the lake of Gennesareth, Jesus "departed into the coasts of Tyre
and Sidon.
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And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and
cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of
David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But he
answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him,
saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answered
and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of
Israel. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.
But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's
bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the
dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table. Then
Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be
it unto thee even as thou wilt." [Footnote 115]
[Footnote 115: Matthew xv. 21-28.]
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Another day, near the city Sychar and the well of Jacob, Jesus
conversed with a woman of Samaria, who had come there to draw
water:--"The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art
a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say,
that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus
saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall
neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the
Father. ... But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true
worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for
the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they
that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."
[Footnote 116]
[Footnote 116: John iv. 5-24.]
Thus disappears gradually, in the name of the God of the Jews
himself, the exclusive privilege of the Jews to the divine
revelation and to divine grace. And thus, too, the restricted
religion of Israel gives place to the grand catholicity of the
religion of Christ. The benefit of the true faith and of
salvation is no longer limited to one people, whether great or
small, ancient or modern; but is imparted to all the races of
mankind.
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"Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."
[Footnote 117] "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world,
and preach the gospel to every creature."[Footnote 118]
[Footnote 117: Matthew xxviii. 19.]
[Footnote 118: Mark xvi. 15.]
These were the last words which Christ addressed to his apostles,
and the apostles execute faithfully the instructions of their
divine Master; they go forth in effect, preaching in all places
and to all nations his history, his doctrine, his precepts, and
his parables. St. Paul is the special apostle of the Gentiles.
From Jesus, says this apostle, "We have received grace and
apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for
his name." "Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the
Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also." "For there is no difference
between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich
unto all that call upon him." [Footnote 119]
[Footnote 119: Romans i. 5.; iii. 29; x. 12.]
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In spite of his prejudices as a Jew, and of the differences that
took place in the infancy of the Church, St. Peter adheres to St.
Paul; the apostles and the elders assembled at Jerusalem adhere
to St. Peter and St. Paul. The God of Abraham and of Jacob is now
not merely the One God, He is the God of the whole human race; to
all men alike He prescribes the same faith, the same law, and
promises the same salvation.
Another question, more temporal in its nature, still a great, a
delicate one, is raised in the presence of Jesus Christ. He
withdraws from the Jews their exclusive privilege to the
knowledge and the grace of the true God; but what does He think
of that which touches their existence as a nation, and as a great
one? Does He direct them to rebel and to struggle against their
earthly governor and sovereign?--"Then went the Pharisees, and
took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk. And they
sent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians, saying,
Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God
in truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou regardest not
the person of men. Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou?
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Is it lawful to give tribute unto Cesar, or not? But Jesus
perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye
hypocrites? Shew me the tribute money. And they brought unto him
a penny. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and
superscription? They say unto him, Cesar's. Then saith he unto
them, Render therefore unto Cesar the things which are Cesar's;
and unto God the things that are God's. When they had heard these
words, they marvelled, and left him, and went their way."
[Footnote 120]
[Footnote 120: Matthew xxii. 15-22.
Mark xii. 12-17. Luke xx. 19-25.]
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In this reply of Christ there was much more matter for admiration
than the Pharisees supposed; it was in effect much more than an
adroit evasion of the snare that had been extended for Him; it
defined in principle the distinction of man's life as it regards
religion, and man's life as it concerns society; the bounds, in
fact, of Church and of State. Cæsar has no right to intervene,
with his laws and material force, between the soul of man and his
God; and on his side, the faithful worshipper of God is bound to
fulfil towards Cæsar the duties which the necessity of the
maintenance of civil order imposes. The independence of religious
faith, and at the same time its subjection to the laws of
society, are alike the sense of Christ's reply to the Pharisees,
and the divine source of the greatest progress ever made by human
society since it began to feel the troubles and agitations of
this earth.
I take again these two grand principles, these two great acts of
Jesus,--the abolition of every privilege in the relations of God
and man, and the distinction of man's religious and his civil
life: I confront with these two principles all the history, and
every state of society previous to the advent of Jesus Christ,
and I am unable to discover in those essentially Christian
principles any kindred, any human origin. Everywhere before
Christ, religions were national local religions; they were
religions which established between nations, classes,
individuals, enormous differences and inequalities.
{280} Everywhere, also, before Christ, man's civil life and his
religious life were confounded, and mutually oppressed each
other; that religion or those religions were institutions
incorporated in the state, which the state regulated or repressed
as its interest dictated. But in this catholicity of religious
faith, in this independence of religious communities, I am
constrained to recognise new and sublime principles, and to see
in them flashes from the light of heaven. It needed many
centuries before mental vision was capable of receiving that
light; and no one shall pronounce how many centuries will be
needed before it will pervade and penetrate the entire world. But
whatever difficulties and shortcomings may be reserved in the
womb of the future for the two great truths to which I have just
referred, it is clear that God caused them first to beam forth
from the life and teaching of Jesus Christ.
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