IF NON-TOLERATION WAS PART OF THE DIVINE LAW
AMONG THE JEWS, AND WHETHER IT WAS ALWAYS
PUT IN PRACTICE.
By the divine law, I take to be understood those rules and precepts
which have been given to us by God Himself. For example, he ordained
that the Jews should eat a lamb dressed with bitter herbs, and
standing with a staff in their hand, in remembrance of the Passover;
that the consecration of the high-priest should be performed by
touching the tip of his right ear, his right hand, and his right foot
with blood; that the scapegoat should be charged with the sins of the
people: he also forbade the eating of all shellfish, swine, hares,
hedgehogs, owls, the heron, and the lapwing.[33]
He also instituted their several feasts and ceremonies; and all those
things which appeared arbitrary to other nations, and subjected to
positive law and custom, when commanded by God Himself, became a
divine law to the Jews, in like manner as whatever Jesus Christ the
Son of Mary and the Son of God has commanded us is to us a divine law.
But here let us not presume to inquire wherefore it has pleased God
to substitute a new law in the room of that given to Moses, and
wherefore He commanded Moses more things than he did the patriarch
Abraham, and Abraham more than Noah.[34] In this he seems, with
infinite condescension, to have accommodated himself to times and
the state of population amongst the inhabitants of the earth; and in
this gradation, to have shown his paternal love: but these are depths
too profound for our weak faculties to measure; I shall therefore
confine myself to my subject, and proceed to examine the state of
non-toleration among the Jews.
It is certain, that in Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy we
find several very rigorous laws and severe punishments in relation
to religious worship. Several able commentators have been greatly
puzzled to reconcile these books of Moses with several passages in
the prophets Jeremiah and Amos, and with the famous discourse of
St. Stephen, as related in the Acts of the Apostles. Amos says that
the Jews constantly worshipped in the wilderness, Moloch and Chiun,
gods whom they had made to themselves.[35] And Jeremiah expressly
says, that God commanded not their fathers concerning burnt-offerings
or sacrifices in the day that he brought them out of the land of
Egypt.[36] And St. Stephen, in his discourse to the Jews previously
mentioned, says: “They worshipped the host of heaven, and that they
neither offered sacrifices nor slew beasts, for the space of forty
years in the wilderness, but took up the tabernacle of Moloch and the
star of their god Remphan.”[37]
Other critics again infer from the worship of so many strange gods
here mentioned, that the Israelites were indulged with having these
gods by Moses; and in support of their opinion they quote the
following words in Deuteronomy: “When ye shall enter into the land
of Canaan, ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this
day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes.”[38][39]
And as a further proof, they say that there is no mention made of
any religious act of the people of Israel while in the wilderness;
neither the celebration of the Passover, nor of the Feast of the
Tabernacles, nor of any public form of worship being established, nor
even the practice of circumcision, the seal of the covenant made by
God with Abraham.
They likewise refer to the history of Joshua, where this great
conqueror thus addresses the Jews: “If it seem evil unto you to
serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve; whether
the gods which your fathers served in Mesopotamia or the gods of
the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell:” and the people said, “Nay,
but we will serve the Lord our God (Adonai).” And Joshua said unto
the people, “Ye have chosen, now therefore put away the strange
gods which are among you.” Hence, say they, it is evident that the
Israelites had other gods besides the Lord (Adonai) under Moses.
It is altogether needless to take up the reader’s time with an
attempt to refute the opinions of those critics who think that
the Pentateuch was not written by Moses. This subject has been
sufficiently discussed long ago; and, even admitting that some few
parts of it were written in the times of the Judges, the Kings, or
the Prophets, it would not make the whole less inspired or divine.
It is sufficient, in my opinion, if the Holy Scripture proves to
us, that, notwithstanding the extraordinary punishments which the
Jews called down upon themselves by their idolatrous worship of the
golden calf, they continued for a long time to enjoy perfect liberty
of conscience; and it is even probable, that Moses, after having
massacred the twenty-three thousand, in the first transports of his
rage against his brother and them for having erected this idol,
finding that nothing was to be gained by such severity in matters of
religion, was glad to wink at the fondness the people expressed for
strange gods.
And indeed he himself appears soon after to have transgressed the
very law which he had given:[40] for, notwithstanding his having
forbidden all molten or graven images, we find him erecting the
brazen serpent. And this law was again dispensed with by Solomon
in the building of his temple; where that prince caused twelve
brazen bulls to be placed as supporters to the great Laver; as also
cherubim in the ark, which had two heads, one of an eagle and the
other of a calf; and it was probable from this latter head, badly
made, and found in the temple by the Roman soldiers at the time
of their plundering of it, that the Jews were so long reported to
have worshipped an ass. Moreover, notwithstanding the repeated
prohibitions against the worship of false gods, Solomon, though
giving way to the grossest idolatry, lived and died in peace.
Jeroboam, to whom God himself gave ten parts out of twelve of the
kingdom, set up two golden calves, and yet reigned two and twenty
years, having united in his person the twofold dignity of monarch and
of high-priest. The petty people of Judæa erected altars and images
to strange gods under Rehoboam. Pious King Aza suffered the high
places to remain undemolished. And lastly, Uriah, the high-priest,
erected a brazen altar, which had been sent to him by the king of
Syria, in the temple, in the place of the altar of burnt-offerings.
In a word, we do not anywhere find the least constraint in point of
religion among the Jews; it is true, indeed, that they frequently
destroyed and murdered one another; but that was from motives of
political concern, and not about the modes of belief. It is true,
that among the prophets we find some making heaven a party in their
vengeance. Elias, for instance, calls down fire from heaven to
consume the priests of Baal. And Elisha sent bears to devour two and
forty little children for calling him baldhead. But these miracles
are very rare in their kind, and it would moreover be somewhat
inhuman to desire to imitate them. We are also told that the Jews
were a most ignorant and cruel people; and that in their war with
the Midianites[41] they were commanded by Moses to kill all the
male children and all the child-bearing women, and to divide the
spoil.[42] They found in the enemy’s camp 675,000 sheep, 72,000
oxen, 61,000 asses, and 32,000 young maidens, and they took all the
spoil and slew the captives. Several commentators will have it, that
thirty-two of the young women were sacrificed to the Lord. “The
Lord’s tribute was thirty and two persons.”[43]
It is evident that the Jews offered human sacrifices to God; witness
that of Jephthah’s daughter,[44] and of King Agag hewed in pieces by
the prophet Samuel.[45] And we find the prophet Ezekiel promising
them, by way of encouragement, that they should feast upon human
flesh: “Ye shall eat of the flesh of the horse, and of his rider,
and ye shall drink the blood of the princes of the earth.”[46] But
although the history of this people does not furnish us with one
single act of generosity, magnanimity, or humanity, yet amidst so
long and dismal a night of barbarism, there is continually breaking
forth a cheering ray of universal toleration.
Jephthah, who was inspired of God, and who sacrificed to him his
daughter, says to the chief of the Amorites, “Wilt not thou possess
that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess? so whomsoever the
Lord our God shall drive from before us, them will we possess.”[47]
This declaration is express, and might be carried to a great length;
however, it is at least an evident proof that God permitted the
worship of Chemosh. For the words of the Holy Scripture are not
“_Thou thinkest_ thou hast a right to possess that which thy god
Chemosh giveth thee to possess,” but expressly, “_Thou hast_ a right
to possess,” etc., for that is the true interpretation of the Hebrew
words _Otho thirasch_.
The story of Micah and the Levite, related in the seventeenth
and eighteenth chapters of the Book of Judges, is a still more
incontestable proof of this extensive toleration and liberty of
conscience allowed among the Jews. The mother of Micah having lost
eleven hundred shekels of silver, and her son having restored them to
her, she dedicated or vowed them unto the Lord, and made images with
them, and she built a small chapel and hired a Levite to officiate
therein for ten shekels of silver by the year, and a suit of apparel
and his victuals. Then said Micah: “Now know I that the Lord will do
me good, seeing that I have a Levite to be my priest.”[48]
In a short time after, six hundred men of the tribe of Dan, who
were in search of some town which they might seize upon as an
inheritance to dwell in, came to the house of Micah, where they
found the Levite officiating; and having no priest of their own with
them, and thinking that on that account God would not prosper their
undertaking, they seized upon the carved image, the ephod, and the
teraphim belonging to Micah, and also the Levite, whom they took
with them in spite of all the remonstrances of the latter, and the
outcries of Micah and his mother. After this, full of assurance of
success, they went and fell upon the city of Laish, and smote all
the inhabitants with the edge of the sword, and burnt the city to
the ground, as was their usual custom; they then built them another
city, and called its name Dan,[49] in remembrance of their victory;
and they set up Micah’s graven image; and what is more remarkable,
Jonathan, the grandson of Moses, was a priest of the temple, wherein
the God of Israel and the idol of Micah were both worshipped at the
same time.[50]
After the death of Gideon, the Israelites worshipped Baal-Perith
for upwards of twenty years, and abandoned the worship of the true
God, without any punishment being inflicted upon them for it, either
by their chiefs, their judges, or their priests. This, I must
confess, was a very heinous crime; but then, if even this idolatry
was tolerated, how great must have been the differences of the true
worship?
There are some persons, who, in support of non-toleration, bring us
the authority of God Himself; who, having suffered His ark to fall
into the hands of the Philistines in the day of battle, punished
them only by afflicting them with an inward distemper, resembling
the hæmorrhoids or piles, by breaking in pieces the statue of their
god Dagon, and by sending a number of rats to devour the fruits of
their lands. But when the Philistines, in order to appease his wrath,
sent back the ark drawn by two cows that gave milk to their calves,
and made an offering to the Lord of five golden rats, and the like
number of golden hæmorrhoids, the Lord smote seventy of the Elders of
Israel, and fifty thousand of the people, for having looked upon the
ark. To this it may be answered, that the judgment of God was not, on
this occasion, directed against any particular belief, any difference
in worship, or idolatry.
If God had meant to punish idolatry, He would have destroyed all the
Philistines who had attempted to seize upon His ark, and who were
worshippers of the idol Dagon; whereas, we find Him smiting with
death fifty thousand and seventy of His own people, for having looked
upon His ark, which they ought not to have looked upon. So much did
the laws and manners of those times and the Jewish dispensation
differ from everything that we know, and so inscrutable are the ways
of God to us! “The rigorous punishment,” says the learned Doctor
Calmet, “inflicted on such a multitude of persons on this occasion,
will appear excessive only to those who do not comprehend how greatly
God would have Himself feared and respected among His chosen people,
and who judge of the ways and designs of Providence only by the weak
lights of their own reason.”
Here then God punished the Israelites, not for any strange worship,
but for a profanation of His own; an indiscreet curiosity, a
disobedience of His precepts, and perhaps an inward rebellious
spirit. It is true, that such punishments appertain alone to the God
of the Hebrews, and we cannot too often repeat, that those times and
manners were altogether different from ours.
Again, we find, some ages after, when the idolatrous Naaman asked of
Elijah if he might be allowed to follow his king up to the temple of
Rimmon, and bow down himself there with him; this very Elijah,[51]
who had before caused the little children to be devoured by bears
only for mocking him, answered this idolater, “Go in peace.”
But this is not all; we find the Lord commanding Jeremiah to make
him bonds and yokes, saying: “Put them upon thy neck,[52] and send
them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of
the Ammonites, and to the king of Tyrus, and to the king of Zidon,”
and he did so, bidding the messenger say to them in the name of the
Lord: “I have given all your lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar,
king of Babylon, my servant.”[53] Here then we have God declaring an
idolatrous prince his servant and favorite.
The same prophet having been cast into the dungeon by order of the
Jewish king Zedekiah, and afterwards released by him, advises him in
the name of God to submit himself to the king of Babylon, saying:
“If thou wilt assuredly go forth unto the king of Babylon’s princes,
thy soul shall live.” God therefore takes part with an idolatrous
king, and delivers into his hands His holy ark, the looking upon
which only had cost the lives of fifty thousand and seventy Jews;
and not only so, but also delivers up to him the Holy of Holies,
together with the rest of the temple, the building of which had cost
a hundred and eight thousand talents of gold, one million seventeen
thousand talents of silver, and ten thousand drachmas of gold, that
had been left by David and his great officers for building the house
of the Lord; which, exclusive of the sums expended for that purpose
by King Solomon, amounts to the sum of nineteen milliards, sixty-two
millions, or thereabouts, of the present currency. Never, surely,
was idolatry so nobly rewarded. I am sensible that this account
is exaggerated, and that it seems to be an error of the copyist.
But if we reduce the sum to one half, to a fourth, or even to an
eighth part, it will still be amazing. But Herodotus’s account of
the treasures which he himself saw in the temple of Ephesus is not
less surprising. In fine, all the riches of the earth are as nothing
in the sight of God; and the title of _my servant_, with which he
dignified Nebuchadnezzar, is the true and invaluable treasure.
Nor does God show less favor to Kir, or Koresh whom we call Cyrus,
and whom He calls His _Christ_, His _anointed_, though he never
was anointed according to the general acceptation of that word,
and was moreover a follower of the religion of Zoroaster, and a
usurper in the opinion of the rest of mankind; yet him He calls His
_shepherd_;[54] and we have not in the whole sacred writings so great
an instance of divine predilection.
We are told by the prophet Malachi, that, “from the rising of the
sun even unto the going down of the same, the name of God shall be
great among the Gentiles; and in every place a pure offering shall be
offered unto his name.”[55] God takes as much care of the idolatrous
Ninevites as of His chosen Jews. Melchizedek, though no Jew, was
the high-priest of the living God. Balaam, though an idolater, was
His prophet. The Holy Scripture then teaches us, that God not only
tolerated every other religion, but also extended His fatherly care
to them all. And shall we, after this, dare to be persecutors?
Thus, then, under Moses, the Judges, and the Kings, we find
numberless instances of toleration. Moreover, we are told by Moses,
that “God will visit the sins of the fathers upon the children,
unto the third and fourth generation.” This threat was necessary to
a people to whom God had not revealed the immortality of the soul,
and the rewards and punishment of a future state. These truths are
not to be found in any part of the decalogue, nor in the Levitic or
Deuteronomic law. They were the tenets of the Persians, Babylonians,
Egyptians, Greeks, and Cretans, but made no part of the Jewish
religion. Moses does not say, “Honor thy father and thy mother,
that thou mayest inherit _eternal_ life,” but “that thy days may be
long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee”; that is, in
this life; and the punishments with which he threatens them regard
only the present mortal state; such as being smitten with the scab
and with the itch, with blasting and with mildew; that they shall
betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her; that they shall
build houses, and others shall dwell therein; that they shall plant
vineyards, and shall not gather the grapes thereof; that they shall
eat the fruit of their own bodies, the flesh of their sons and of
their daughters, and be obliged to bow down before the stranger
that is within their gates;[56] but he never tells them that their
souls are immortal, and shall taste of felicity or punishment after
death. God, who conducted His people Himself, punished or rewarded
them immediately according to their good or evil deeds. Everything
relating to them was temporal, and this the learned Bishop Warburton
brings as a proof of the divine origin of the Jewish law;[57]
“inasmuch,” says he, “as God being their King, and exercising
justice immediately upon them, according to their transgression or
obedience, found it not necessary to reveal to them a doctrine which
He reserved for after-times, when He should no longer so directly
govern His people.” Those who through ignorance pretend that Moses
taught the immortality of the soul, deprive the New Testament of
one of its principal advantages over the Old. It is certain that
the law of Moses taught only temporal punishments, extending to the
fourth generation; and yet, notwithstanding the positive declaration
of God delivered in this law, Ezekiel preached the very contrary to
the Jews, telling them, “The son shall not bear the iniquities of
the father;”[58][59] and in another place he goes so far as to make
God say that “He had given them statutes that were not good, and
judgments whereby they should not live.”[60]
Notwithstanding these contradictions, the book of Ezekiel was not
the less admitted into the number of those inspired writers: It is
true, that according to St. Jerome, the synagogue did not permit the
reading of it till after thirteen years of age; but that was for fear
their youth should make a bad use of the too lively description, in
the sixteenth and twenty-third chapters, of the whoredoms of Aholah
and Aholibah.
But when the immortality of the soul came to be a received
doctrine,[61] which was probably about the beginning of the
Babylonish captivity, the sect of Sadducees still continued to
believe that there were no rewards or punishments after death, and
that the faculties of the soul perished with us in like manner
as those of the body. They also denied the existence of angels.
In a word, they differed much more from the other Jews than the
Protestants do from the Catholics; nevertheless, they lived in
peaceable communion with their brethren; and some of their sect were
admitted to the high-priesthood.
The Pharisees held fatality or predestination,[62] and believed in
the Metempsychosis;[63] the Essenians thought that the souls of
the just went into some happy islands,[64] and those of the wicked
into a kind of Tartarus, or hell. They offered no sacrifices, and
assembled together in particular synagogues of their own. In a word,
if we examine closely into the Jewish economy, we shall be surprised
to find the most extensive toleration prevailing amidst the most
shocking barbarities. This is indeed a contradiction, but almost all
people have been governed by contradictions. Happy are those whose
manners are mild, while their laws are bloody!
Let us now see whether Christ established sanguinary laws, whether He
enjoined non-toleration, instituted the horrors of the inquisition,
or the butchery of an _auto da fé_.
There are, unless I am much mistaken, very few passages in the New
Testament from which the spirit of persecution can have inferred that
tyranny and constraint in religious matters are permitted: one is
the parable wherein the kingdom of heaven is likened unto a certain
king who made a marriage for his son, and sent forth his servants to
invite guests to the wedding, saying, “Tell them which were bidden,
my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready; come
unto the marriage.”[65] But those who were bidden made light of the
invitation, one going to his farm and another to his business, and
the rest of them took the king’s servants and slew them. Upon which
he sent forth his armies and destroyed those murderers and burnt up
their city. After this he sent out into the highways to invite all
that could be found to come to the marriage; but one of the guests
happening to sit down to table without a wedding garment, the king
ordered him to be bound hand and foot and cast into outer darkness.
But it is clear that this allegory relates only to the kingdom of
heaven; therefore, assuredly no man can assume a right from thence
to fetter or imprison his neighbor who should come to dine with
him without being properly dressed; nor do I believe that history
furnishes us with any instance of a prince causing one of his
courtiers to be hanged upon such an occasion; and there is little
reason to apprehend that when the emperor sent his pages to any of
the princes of the empire to invite them to an entertainment those
princes would fall upon the pages and kill them.
The invitation to the marriage feast is a type of the preaching of
the gospel, and the murder of the king’s servants is figurative of
the persecution of those who preach wisdom and virtue.
The other parable is that of a private person who made a great
supper, to which he invited many of his friends,[66] and when he was
ready to sit down to table sent his servants to tell them that all
things were ready; but one excused himself by saying that he had
bought a piece of ground and must needs go and see it, an excuse
which was not admissible, as no one goes to visit their lands in the
night-time; another said he had bought five yoke of oxen and was
going to prove them; he was as much to blame as the other, since
no one would go to prove oxen at supper-time; the third said he
had married a wife and could not come; this last was certainly a
very good excuse. The master of the house being very angry at this
disappointment, told his servants to go into the streets and lanes
of the city and bring in the poor, and the maimed, the halt and the
blind; this being done, and finding that there was yet room, he said
unto his servant, “Go out into the highways and hedges and compel
them (that you find) to come in.”
It is true that we are not expressly told that this parable is a type
of the kingdom of heaven, and the words “compel them to come in” have
been perverted to very bad purposes; but it is very evident that
one single servant could not _forcibly_ compel every person he met
to come and sup with his master; besides, the company of people so
compelled would not have made the supper very agreeable. “Compel them
to come in,” therefore, means nothing more, according to commentators
of the best reputation, than pray, desire, press them to come in;
therefore, what connection, for heaven’s sake, can prayers and
invitations have with persecution?
But to take things in a literal sense, is it necessary to be maimed,
halt, and blind, or to be compelled by force to enter into the bosom
of the Church? Christ says in the same parable: “When thou makest a
dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, nor thy
rich kinsmen”; but did any one ever infer from this that we should
never dine or sup with our friends or kinsmen if they happen to be
worth money?
Our Saviour, after this parable of the feast, says: “If any man come
to me, and hate not his father and mother, his wife and children,
his brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be
my disciple,” etc. But is there any person living so unnatural as to
conclude from this that he ought to hate his father and mother and
his nearest relations? And is it not evident to one of the meanest
capacity that the true interpretation of these words is: hesitate not
between me and your dearest affections?
The following passage in the eighth chapter of St. Matthew is also
quoted: “Whosoever heareth not the word of God shall be like to
an heathen, and like one who sitteth at the receipt of custom”;
but certainly this is not saying that we ought to persecute all
unbelievers and custom-house officers; they are frequently cursed
indeed, but they are not delivered up to the arm of secular power.
And so far from depriving the latter of any part of the prerogatives
of citizens, they are indulged with the greatest privileges; and
though their profession is the only one condemned in Scripture, it
is of all others the most protected and favored by every government.
Why then should we not show some indulgence to our brethren who
are unbelievers, while we load with benefits our brethren the
tax-gatherers?
Another passage which has been grossly abused is that in St. Matthew
and St. Mark, where we are told that Jesus being hungry in the
morning, and coming to a fig tree which had no leaves—for it was not
the time of figs—Jesus cursed the tree and it immediately dried up.
This miracle has been explained in several different ways, but not
one of them appears to authorize persecution. Though a fig tree
could not be expected to bear fruit in the beginning of March, yet
we find it blasted; but is that a reason why we should blast our
brethren with affliction in all seasons of the year? When we meet
with anything in holy writing that may occasion doubts in our vain
and inquisitive minds, we should pay it all due reverence, but let us
not make use of it to countenance cruelty and persecution.
The spirit of persecution which perverts everything has also strained
in its own vindication the story of Christ driving the buyers and
sellers out of the temple, and that of his sending a legion of
devils out of the body of the man possessed with an evil spirit
into two thousand unclean animals; but cannot any one perceive that
these two instances were no other than acts of justice, which God
Himself deigned to execute for a contravention of His law? It was
a disrespect shown to the house of the Lord to change His dwelling
into a market for buyers and sellers. And although the Sanhedrim and
its priests might permit this traffic for the greater convenience of
their sacrifices, yet the God to whom these sacrifices were offered
might, doubtless, though under a human shape, overturn this profane
practice. In the same manner might He punish those who brought into
the country whole troops of those animals which were prohibited by
the law of which He Himself deigned to be an observer. These two
examples, then, have not the least connection with persecution for
religion’s sake; and the spirit of non-toleration must certainly be
founded upon very false principles when it everywhere seeks such idle
pretexts.
Christ, in almost every other part of His gospel, both by His words
and actions, preaches mildness, forbearance and indulgence. Witness
the father who receives his prodigal son, and the workman who comes
at the last hour and yet is paid as much as the others; witness the
charitable Samaritan, and Christ Himself, who excuses His disciples
for not fasting, who pardons the woman who had sinned, and only
recommends fidelity for the future to the woman caught in adultery.
He even condescends to partake of the innocent mirth of those who
have met at the marriage feast in Cana, and who being already warmed
with wine and wanting still more, Christ is pleased to perform a
miracle in their favor by changing their water into wine. He is not
even incensed against Judas, whom He knew to be about to betray Him;
He commands Peter never to make use of the sword, and reprimands
the sons of Zebedee, who, after the example of Elias, wanted to
call down fire from heaven to consume a town in which they had been
refused a lodging. In a word, He Himself died a victim to malice
and persecution; and, if one might dare to compare God with a mortal
and sacred things with profane, His death, humanly speaking, had a
great resemblance to that of Socrates. The Greek philosopher suffered
for the hatred of the sophists, the priests and the heads of the
people; the Christian Law-giver, by that of the Scribes, Pharisees
and priests. Socrates might have avoided death, but would not;
Christ offered Himself a voluntary sacrifice. The Greek philosopher
not only pardoned his false accusers and iniquitous judges, he even
desired them to treat his children as they had done himself, should
they, like him, one day be happy enough to deserve their hatred. The
Christian Law-giver, infinitely superior to the heathen, besought
His Father to forgive His enemies. If Christ seemed to fear death,
and if the agonies He was in at its approach drew from Him sweat
mixed with blood, which is the most violent and rare of all symptoms,
it was because He condescended to submit to every weakness of the
human frame, which He had taken upon Him; His body trembled, but His
soul was unshaken. By His example we may learn that true fortitude
and greatness consist in supporting those evils at which our nature
shrinks. It is the height of courage to meet death at the same time
that we fear it.
Socrates accused the sophists of ignorance and convicted them of
falsehood; Jesus, in His godlike character, accused the Scribes and
Pharisees of being hypocrites, blind guides and fools, and a race of
vipers and serpents.
Socrates was not accused of attempting to found a new sect, nor was
Christ charged with endeavoring to introduce a new one. We are told
in St. Matthew that the great men and the priests and all the council
sought false witness against Jesus to put Him to death.
Now, if they were obliged to seek for false witnesses, they could
not charge Him with having preached openly against the law; besides,
it was evident that He complied in every respect with the Mosaic law
from His birth to His death. He was circumcised the eighth day like
other Jewish children; He was baptized in Jordan, agreeable to a
ceremony held sacred among the Jews and among all the other people
of the east. All impurities of the law were cleansed by baptism; it
was in this manner their priests were consecrated at the solemn feast
of the expiation, every one plunged himself in the water, and all
new-made proselytes underwent the same ceremony.
Moreover, Jesus observed all the points of the law; He feasted every
Sabbath day, and He abstained from forbidden meats; He kept all
the festivals, and even before His death He celebrated that of the
Passover; He was not accused of embracing any new opinion, nor of
observing any strange rites. Born an Israelite, He always lived as an
Israelite.
He was accused, indeed, by two witnesses of having said that He
could destroy the Temple and build it up again in three days; a
speech altogether unintelligible to the carnal Jews, but which did
not amount to an accusation of seeking to found a new sect.
When He was examined before the high priest, this latter said to him:
“I command you, in the name of the living God, to tell us if Thou
art Christ, the Son of God.” We are not told what the high priest
meant by the Son of God. This expression was sometimes made use of to
signify a just or upright man,[67] in the same manner as the words
son of Belial, to signify a wicked person. The carnal Jews had no
idea of the sacred mystery of the Son of God, God Himself coming upon
earth.
Jesus answered the high priest, “thou hast said; nevertheless, I say
unto you, hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right
hand of the power of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven.”[68]
This answer was looked upon by the whole assembly as a blasphemy.
But the Sanhedrim having no longer the power of life and death, they
falsely accused Jesus before the Roman governor of the province of
being a disturber of the public peace, and one who, said they, should
not pay tribute to Cæsar; and, moreover, called Himself King of the
Jews. It is therefore incontestably evident that he was accused of a
crime against the state.
Pilate being informed that He was a Galilean, sent Him immediately to
Herod, the tetrarch of Galilee. This latter, thinking it impossible
that a person of Jesus’ appearance should pretend to be the head
of a party, or aspire to royalty, treated Him with great contempt,
and sent Him back again to Pilate, who had the infamous weakness to
condemn Him to death as the only means to appease the tumult raised
against himself; more especially as he had lately experienced the
revolt of the Jews, as we are told by Josephus. On this occasion
Pilate did not show the same generosity which the governor Festus did
afterwards.
I now desire to know whether toleration or non-toleration appears to
be of divine prescription? Let those who would resemble Christ be
martyrs and not executioners.