The Cradle of the Christ Part 4

In the veins of the Logos flows no pa.s.sionate blood. His language is vehement, but suggests no corresponding emotion; the words are not vascular. Certain superficial peculiarities of these discourses are noticeable at once, their length, their stateliness, their absoluteness, their loud-voiced, declamatory character, their oracular tone. But little scrutiny is required to discover that they are monotones; that their theme is always the same, namely, the claims of the Christ; that they unfold no system of moral or spiritual teaching, proceed in no rational order, arrive at no conclusions; that they contain no arguments, answer no questions, meet no inquiring states of mind; that they resemble orations more than discourses of any other kind, but are unlike orations, in having neither beginning middle nor end, in quite lacking point and application, in proceeding no whither, in simply standing still and reiterating the same sublime abstractions, without regard to logical or rhetorical proprieties.

This being discovered, the conclusion follows swiftly, that the divine Logos could not discourse otherwise. His addresses, like his deeds, are designed to be revelations of himself; expressions, not of his thoughts, but of his being, not of his character, but of his nature. They are the Word made articulate, as his wonders are the Word made mighty, as his form is the Word made visible. A human being, seeking to convince, persuade, instruct mankind, will from necessity pursue a different course from the divine Reason presenting itself to "the world." Its very audiences are impersonal, consisting not of individuals or of parties, but of abstractions labelled "Jews," who come like shadows, so depart.

So unhuman is the Christ, so entirely without near relations with mankind, that when he has left the world, a subst.i.tute may be provided for him, in the shape of the Holy Spirit, another personality proceeding from him and his Father, and appointed to complete his work; to reprove the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment; to guide the disciples into all truth; to bring to their remembrance all that had been said to them; to comfort them, and abide with them for ever. The idea loses itself in vagueness at times, now being identified with the Christ, now appearing as a Spirit of Truth, now being an indwelling presence, now an effluence from the Logos. But all the while something like an individual consciousness is preserved; the spirit is as palpable as the Logos himself was. Here is already the germ of a trinity maturing within the bosom of the Hebrew monotheism. The process has been simple; the consecutive steps have been inevitable. But in the process the solid ground of Judaism has been left; the ma.s.sive substance of the ancient faith has been melted into cloud.

How entirely nebulous it has become under the action of speculative mind is strikingly apparent on examination of the ethical characteristics of the fourth gospel. The concrete virtues of the ancient race, the honest human righteousness and charity have disappeared, and in their place are certain spectral "graces" which have quality of a technical, but little of a human sort. That, according to the Logos doctrine men are saved, not by natural goodness or piety but by faith in the Christ, is written all over the book. But this is not the point. It is not enough that character has no saving power, it is dispensed with; and instead of it, something is set up which possesses none of the elements of character.

The compact principles of human duty which hold so large a place in the Old Testament scriptures, and are so essential in the earliest Messianic conception, are not found here, at all. The sermon on the mount is omitted. The beat.i.tudes are unmentioned. The parables are not remembered. There is no chapter in the book that bears comparison in point of moral vigor or n.o.bleness with the twelfth chapter of Romans, or the thirteenth chapter of Corinthians. Humanity has shrunk to the dimensions of an incipient Christendom. The men and women whom the Jesus of Matthew addresses, to whom Paul makes appeal, are men and women no more; not even Jews by race, not even a knot of radical Jews; they are "disciples," "believers," "brethren." Christians, not fellow men, are to love one another. "So shall ye be my disciples, if ye have love one for another." "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples." Of the broad human love, the recognition of brotherhood on the human ground, duty to love those who are _not_ disciples, there is not a word. The common _faith_, not the common _nature_, is the bond. The promises in the fourteenth chapter, the warnings in the fifteenth, the counsel in the sixteenth, the consecration in the seventeenth are all for the believers, not for the doers; for the doers only so far as they are believers, and within the limits of the believing community. The tender word "love" shrinks to ecclesiastical proportions. "If a man love me he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our abode with him;" but the words are not words of exhortation to practical righteousness, they are words of admonition against unbelief. "If ye love me, keep my commandments;" but the commandments are not the wholesome enactments of the Hebrew decalogue, but a bidding to "walk by the light while ye have the light," "to do the will of Him that sent me," which is "to believe on him whom He hath sent." "He that believeth not is condemned already in his not believing in the only begotten Son of G.o.d." There is no sweeter word than "love;"

there is no more comprehensive law than the law of love; but when love is changed from a virtue to a sentiment, and when the duty of practising it is limited to members of a doctrinal communion, the practical issue is more likely to be sectarian narrowness than human fellowship.

As the speculation rises the spectral character of the morality becomes more startling. The so-called epistles of John carry the Logos idea considerably further than the gospel does. The mission of the Logos is more sharply discriminated. He is described as a sin offering. "He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin." "He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him is no sin." The word "manifested" is the key to the doctrine. "The Son of G.o.d was _manifested_ that He might destroy the works of the devil." It is the same conception as in the gospel; the Prince of Light confronting the Prince of Darkness, shaming him and _attracting_ away his subjects.

The anti-Christ now comes into view; the sin unto death is named; the second advent is announced, though not according to the millennial antic.i.p.ations of a former day. "He that denieth that Jesus is the Christ is a liar." "Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of G.o.d." "Every spirit which confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of G.o.d." Belief or unbelief in the incarnation of the Logos is made the test of one's spiritual relationship, marking him as a candidate for eternal felicity in the realm of the blessed, or as a victim of endless misery in the realm of Satan. Thus the very heart of natural goodness is eaten out. Of virtue there remains small trace. A great deal of very strong language is used about sin, but _sins_ are not particularized. Sin, as an abstraction, a principle, a power, a force, a deep seated taint in the nature, ineradicable except by the infusion of a new spirit of life, is represented as the dreadful thing; and Love, another abstraction, is raised to honor as a spiritual grace, equally unconnected with the human will. "Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of G.o.d, and every one that loveth is born of G.o.d and knoweth G.o.d. He that loveth not knoweth not G.o.d, for G.o.d is Love." The words have a deep and tender sound. But the consideration that "the beloved" are those only who confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, that all others are the reverse of "beloved," causes that neither the depth nor the sweetness remains. The love does not mean compa.s.sion, or pity, or good-will, or helpfulness; it has no reference to the poor, the needy, the sick, sorrowful, wicked; it has no downward look, is dest.i.tute of humility, is as far as can well be from the love described by Paul in his perfect lyric. It is, we may say, the opposite of that, being a quality that distinguishes the elect from the non-elect, and makes their special election the more sure.

The literary character of the fourth gospel must be remarked on as a peculiar indication of the mental exhaustion that accompanies the last stages of an intellectual movement. The literature of the century preceding Jesus fairly throbs with personal vitality. It is scarcely more than an expression of individual energies. The earliest writings of the New Testament, the genuine letters of Paul, are animated in every line by his own vehement personality; the speculative portions of them stir the blood, so real are the issues presented, so vital are the interests at stake. Shapeless, and sometimes incoherent, the thoughts tumble out of the writer's overcharged heart. The Christ is an ideal personage, but his mission is tremendously real; we are moved by a battle cry as the apostle's ideas burst upon us.

The literature of the succeeding period, though more elaborate and self-conscious, bearing traces of reflection, and even artifice in composition, is yet warm with the presence of a real purpose. But the fourth gospel is a purely literary work; a composition, the production of an artist in language. Its author, perhaps because he was simply an artist in language, is unknown. Trace of an historical Jesus in it there is none. No breath from the world of living men blows through it; no stir of social existence, no movement of human affairs ruffles its calm surface. The people are not real people, the issues are not real issues, the conflict is not a real conflict. We have a book, not a gospel.

The writer formally announces the subject of his spiritual drama, and then proceeds to develop it, according to approved rules of literary art. First comes the prologue, setting forth in a few sententious pa.s.sages the cardinal idea of the piece. This occupies eighteen verses of the first chapter, and is followed by the introduction of John the Baptist and his testimony. This occupies eighteen verses more. The manifestation of the Logos to the first company of disciples is described with due circ.u.mstance in the remainder of the chapter. The symbolical opening of the public ministry, at Cana, the first open "manifestation of the glory" in the miracle of turning water into wine, by which is signified the calling to subst.i.tute a spiritual for a natural order, occupies the first ten verses of the second chapter. Then the ministry of revelation begins, with signs and demonstrations. The city of Jerusalem is chosen as the scene of it; and the scene never changes for longer than a moment, and then it changes without historical, or biographical motive. The cleansing of the temple is placed at the beginning, with undisguised purpose to announce his claim, and the dialectical contest is opened. Nicodemus, "a ruler of the Jews,"

seeks a nocturnal interview, betrays the ignorance of the kingdom which characterizes all save the regenerate, even the wisest, and gives occasion to the Christ to declare the intrinsic superiority of the Son of G.o.d, and the conditions of salvation through him; Nicodemus furnishing the starting point for a lofty declamation which soars beyond him into the region of transcendental ideas. The Baptist, instead of doubting, as in Matthew, and sending an emba.s.sy to the Christ to ascertain the reasons of his not disclosing himself, is himself questioned by skeptical disciples, and re-a.s.sures them by words that are an echo of the Christ's own.

The interview with the woman of Samaria is introduced for the purpose of extracting another confession of the Christ's supremacy from a different order of mind. Nicodemus represented Judaism in its pride of authority and learning. The woman of Samaria represents the ignorant, superst.i.tious, yet stubborn idolatry reckoned by the Jews as no better than heathenism; her "five husbands" are the five sects into which Judaism was divided. She too is pictured to us as sitting by a well and _drawing water_. The conversation begins with the Christ's declaration of his power to create perennial springs of water in the heart, and leads immediately up to the great disclosure of himself. Superst.i.tion, like superciliousness, listens and is persuaded. The mention of Galilee is necessary to account for the episode in Samaria, but nothing occurs there. The next scene is laid again in Jerusalem. The _water_ of Bethesda is brought into compet.i.tion with the quickening spirit of the Christ; the cure of the sick man introduces a mystical discourse on the spiritual sufficiency of the Son of G.o.d.

Another scene is presented, and once more in Jerusalem. Another series of tableaux is arranged. This time the Christ is pictured as breaking bread and _walking on water_, whence occasion is taken to descant on the bread of life. For the purpose of making a fresh appearance in Jerusalem, and presenting his claim under a new aspect, Galilee is called into requisition again, but as usual, the drama is enacted in Jerusalem, which is the centre of the opposition. This time, the Christ, having declined to go up in his own character to meet his critics, goes up in disguise, incognito, and amazes the congregated mult.i.tude by his superb a.s.sumptions of authority, and his overwhelming denunciations of all who do not receive him; denunciations so uncompromising, that dissensions are created. "Some would have taken him, but none laid hands on him." As always, the demonstration results in bringing out his friends and enemies, in showing who were and who were not his own, which is the aim and end of every manifestation. The Logos presents himself, makes his statement, a.s.serts his prerogative, offers the alternative of spiritual life or death, and retires, leaving the result to the spiritual laws.

The story of the woman taken in adultery which immediately follows this pa.s.sage, probably made no part of the original gospel, as it appears out of all connection. It is p.r.o.nounced by some of the best critics to be ungenuine. The obvious improbability of its incidents, the locality of it,--the Mount of Olives,--the Christ's mysterious proceeding of writing on the ground, and his unaccountable verdict, deprive the tale of all but literary interest. It is interesting in a literary point of view, or would be if it were set in literary relations; for it ill.u.s.trates the Christ's supremacy, his supernatural power of rebuke and insight, his authority to grant absolution on purely theological grounds. The doctrine that none but the guiltless are ent.i.tled to p.r.o.nounce sentence on guilt would put an end to censorship of every kind, but is quite in accordance with the ethical tone of the book. The author however, turns the incident to no account, but proceeds with new scenes in his speculative drama. "I am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life;" the Christ enters once more into the old debate, once more the claim is challenged, once more the angry discussion flows on, becoming, at this juncture more violent than ever; terrible denunciations leap from the divine lips; the adversaries are called a devil's brood, liars, murderers at heart. At the close of the final outburst, the unseen hands raise the visionary stones, but "Jesus hid himself, went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so pa.s.sed by."

The speech however is continued; the main doctrine of it, namely that the Christ is the Light of the World, being ill.u.s.trated by the miracle of giving sight to a man "blind from his birth,"--the story being told at great length and with exceedingly minute detail, so as to cover every point of circ.u.mstance. This seems to be a critical moment in the development of the idea. The vehemence subsides for a time, and the light of the world shines gently as a shepherd's lantern showing wandering sheep the way to the true fold. But the softest word stirs up anger; the "Jews" take up stones, not to throw them, but to exhibit temper, and the act closes tranquilly like those that preceded it.

The resurrection of Lazarus prepares the way for the closing scenes.

That such a story, so artificially constructed, so evidently introduced for effect, told by one writer and not as much as alluded to by the others, told with so much circ.u.mstance and with so little regard for biographical probability, told for a dogmatical purpose, and fitted into the narrative at the precise juncture where a turning point was wanted, should be accepted as history by any unfettered mind; that a critic like Renan, professing a profound reverence for the character of Jesus, should have admitted it as in some sense true, and should have been driven in explanation of it to a theory utterly fatal to the moral character of the "colossal" man he celebrates, thus sacrificing the moral greatness of Jesus to a perverse sense of historical truth, proves the obstinacy of traditional prejudice. The narrative is too evidently a literary device, one would think, to deceive anybody of awakened discernment. Its manifest artifice is such that it alone would be enough to cast suspicion on all the miraculous narrations of the book.

"From that day forth the Jews took counsel together to put him to death." The crisis has come, and events hasten on towards the catastrophe, which, as has been said, was no catastrophe, but a consummation. Mary, instead of sitting at his feet as a disciple, anoints them with spikenard and wipes them with the hair of her head; the holy woman performing the act elsewhere ascribed to a sinner, the act itself being a ceremony of consecration, instead of a mark of penitence. The triumphal entry into Jerusalem, elsewhere described as the Messiah's own project, is converted into a spontaneous demonstration in his honor, rendered by "much people," who had heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. "Certain Greeks" present themselves and ask an introduction, as to a royal personage. They are the first fruits of the Gentile world; their coming is welcomed as a sign of final victory. "The hour is come," says Jesus, on receiving them, "that the Son of Man should be glorified." The heavens echo his exclamation; an audible voice, interpreted as the voice of an angel, p.r.o.nouncing the glorification certain and eternal. The Son of G.o.d adds his own interpretation, confirming that of his friends; prophesies the speedy judgment of the world and his own elevation to glory by means of the cross, makes his last statement, and the dialectical war is at an end.

The rest of the life is given to the disciples. The last supper, its agony and distress of mind omitted, is an occasion for impressing on "his own" the lesson of mutual love. The departure of Judas on his errand is the signal for a burst of rapture. Words of consolation, mingled with promises of the "Spirit of Truth," "The Comforter," words of blessing too follow, intended to beget in his friends the feeling that, though absent, he will still be present with them. They are bidden to remember him as the source of their life; are admonished to keep unbroken the spiritual bond that unites them to him in vital sympathy; are a.s.sured that the mission he came to earth to discharge will be fulfilled by the Holy Ghost; and finally are solemnly consecrated by priestly supplication as the rescued children of G.o.d.

The story of the arrest is told in a strain equally suited to the idea on which the book is constructed. In full consciousness of his position, Jesus steps forth out of the shadow of mystery to meet Judas and his troop, who have come, expecting to find him in his garden retreat. The soldiers, over-awed by the apparition, start backward and fall to the ground, prostrate before the Son of G.o.d. The trial goes on before Annas and Caiaphas, priests, and Pilate, Roman viceroy. The powers of Church and State p.r.o.nounce on him; before the powers of Church and State he announces himself and makes his royal claim. In the presence of the High Priest, who is scarcely more than a name in this proceeding, introduced in order that Judaism might have one more opportunity of rejecting the majesty of heaven, Jesus suffers an indignity at the hands of one of the prelate's officers; but Pilate, the pagan, shudders before the awful personage who tells him that he could have no power at all except it were given him from above; that he was but a tool of providence. The guilt of the execution is thus transferred from his shoulders to destiny; for the Jews, no less than the governor, are fated. The hour of glorification has come, and the Son of Man moves with stately step towards his ascension.

The process of withdrawal from the visible sphere has already been described. It is not effected at once. As a lantern in the hand of one walking in a wood flashes out and again hides itself, becoming dimmer and dimmer until finally it quite disappears, so the Son of G.o.d is many times visible and invisible before he vanishes altogether from sight. No bodily ascension is necessary to bear away one whose coming and going are not conditioned by s.p.a.ce or time. His form has always been a translucent veil, which could at pleasure be removed. His mission ended, there is no more occasion for his self-revelation, and he is unseen. The unreality of a representation like this must be too apparent to be argued.

From this exposition it appears that the New Testament literature is, in some sort, to the end, a continuation of the literature of the Old Testament. As the earliest phase of Christianity was Judaism, with a belief in the Messiah's advent superadded, so the first literature of Christianity is the literature of Judaism, written on the supposition that the Christ has come. Judaism is Christianity still expectant of a Christ to come, or, as with the radical Jews, unexpectant of a personal Messiah; Christianity is Judaism with the expectation fulfilled. The Judaic element was not limited to the little knot of Jerusalemites who hung about the holy city and waited there for the Christ's coming; it was conspicuous in the system of Paul, and so far from being absent from the later form, known by the name of John, determines the cardinal idea of that, and shapes its bent. Whatever additions are made, grow out of this cardinal idea, as branches from its stem. The strict monotheism of the Hebrew faith is sacrificed to the Messianic conception. The Christ in time becomes a twin Deity, a Holy Ghost being required to fill up the gulf between G.o.dhead and humanity.

But for the fury of the discord that arose and deepened between the Jews who accepted the Christ and the Jews who preferred still to wait for him, the later, as well as the earlier form of Christianity, might possibly have been merged in Judaism. The believers in the Messianic advent were radical to the point of fanaticism. They were the restless advocates of change, agitators, revolutionists. Their pa.s.sionate zeal could not brook indifference or coolness. Nothing short of a fervid allegiance satisfied them. The recusants had to bear hard names, as the gospels attest. The ill-fortune of the Messiah, the bitter opposition he encountered, his untimely death, were charged upon the faithlessness of the nation who would not confess him. These, and not the Roman Government that actually put him to death, were held answerable for his crucifixion; thus a discord was planted, which all the generations of Christendom have failed to eradicate. There has, from that time to this, been implacable hatred between Christian and Jew.

The separation, which might have been healed or obliterated, had this been the sole cause of it, was widened by the subsequent breach between the christians themselves, which drew attention off from the previous issue. The position taken by Paul, that the mission of the Christ was extended to the Gentiles and comprehended them on precisely the same conditions with the Jews, was exceedingly disagreeable and even shocking to the conservatives, who held that the Christ was sent to Israel only, and especially to that portion of Israel that clung tenaciously to the traditions of the law. The necessary criticism of the Law which Paul's position required, the apparent disrespect shown to Moses and the prophets, the disregard of the ancestral claim set up by the "children of Abraham," the subst.i.tution of an interior principle--faith--which any heathen might adopt, for the old fashioned legal requirements to which none but orthodox Jews could conform, was hardly less than blasphemous in their regard; and a feud was begun, which in violence and rancor, excelled the quarrel between the orthodox christians and the Jews. The traces of this controversy, plainly marked in the writings of Paul, are visible on the literature of his own and of the succeeding period, and disappear only in the events of greater significance incident to the fall of Jerusalem, the complete dispersion of the Jews, and the blending of parties in the Western Empire.

Ferdinand Christian Baur may have pushed too far in some directions, his theory that the entire gospel literature of the New Testament was determined as to its form by the exigencies of this controversy, the canonical books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and the "Acts of the Apostles"

all being written in the interest of reconciliation; but his fundamental position, as in the case of Strauss, has never been carried, or even shaken, by a.s.sault. The extreme points in controversy are fixed with a good deal of certainty. Paul's own statement in the second chapter of Galatians is fairly explicable only on the supposition of a violent collision, the nature of which is there defined, the bearings of which are indicated in that and in other undoubted writings of the apostle.

Many pa.s.sages therein are unintelligible on any other hypothesis. The Apocalypse and the Epistle of James, as clearly set forth the opposite view, in language and implication of the strongest kind, and in a spirit of decided antagonism. The "Acts of the Apostles" is, as elsewhere hinted, prepared with a view of making it appear that no controversy existed; that Peter carried the gospel to the Gentiles, and that Paul insisted on the validity of circ.u.mcision, the mark of initiation into the Jewish church. The narrative is so forced, the incidents so artificial, the aim so evident, the limitation of view so marked, that the book betrays its own character. To admit the genuineness of the "Acts" is to throw into confusion the little history that we certainly know, and to unfix the continuity of events. How far the three first gospels correspond in purpose with the "Acts," is a nice question, which need not be answered here, which may be left unanswered without detriment to the soundness of the general theory. Whether or no the controversy was of such absorbing moment, whether or no it lasted as long as Baur believes, or exerted as wide an influence on literature, its effect in drawing the thoughts away from the earlier dispute between the Messianic and the anti-Messianic Jews, and in detaching the christians from their original a.s.sociations is unimpaired. From the breaking out of that dispute, which occurred within fifteen or twenty years of the crucifixion, at the latest, Christianity followed its own law of development.

But, though thus discarded, disowned, finally detested, the very name of Jew, as early as the fourth gospel, being a.s.sociated with a stiff-necked bigotry impenetrable to conviction, the old religion maintained its sway over the child that had taken its portion of goods and gone away to make a home of its own. The Palestinian and Asiatic literature of the young faith bears the stamp of its Hebrew lineage, as has been shown. The Christ sprung from its bosom, was instructed in its schools, was glorified through its imagination. The resurrection was its prophecy; the heaven to which he ascended was of its building and coloring; the throne whereon he seated himself was of its construction; the Father at whose right hand he reigned was its own ancient deity. His very name, the name he continues to bear to this day,--Messiah--is the name whereby she loved to describe her own ideal man. In the depth of his degradation, in the heat of his persecution, in the agony of his despair, the Jew could reflect that his relentless oppressor owed to him the very faith he was compelled to curse. The victim was the conqueror. The reflection may still have been bitter; whatever sweetness it brought was flavored with vengeance, except in the greatest souls who loved their religion better than their fame.

VIII.

THE WESTERN CHURCH.

Our story is not yet told. As regards the New Testament books, though the genius that produced them was Eastern, the judgment that brought them together in a single collection was Western. No list of the New Testament books pretending to carry weight was made until the year 360.

For two centuries and a half there was no Christian bible. The canon, as it now stands, was fixed by Pope Innocent I., A. D. 405, by a special decree. Why precisely these books were selected from the ma.s.s of literature then in existence and use, is--except in two or three cases where the prevailing sentiment of the actual Church threw out a book like Enoch or kept in a book like the Apocalypse--still open to conjecture. In such a dilemma Schwegler's conjecture, that the irenical or reconciling books were retained, and the partisan writings dropped, is as plausible as any, perhaps more so. The Church of Rome had two patron saints--Peter and Paul; it claimed to be founded by both Apostles, and, on this principle, adopted its canon of scripture. The New Testament, by its arrangement, was, it is claimed, an expression in literature of the Catholic claim.

As regards the Christ idea, though formed in the East, the West gave it currency, made it the central feature of a vast religious system, crowned it and placed it on a throne. Had the creative thought of Judaism been confined to the East, our concern with it need have gone no further. But the thought was not confined to the East, even in the widest comprehension of that term. The Jews were everywhere. The repeated disasters which befel their country gave fresh impulse to their creed. Their ideas spread as their state diminished; and their ideas were so vital that they captured and engaged the floating speculations of the Gentile world whenever they were encountered. In Alexandria, where Jews had been for two hundred and fifty or three hundred years, and whither they flocked by thousands after each fresh national disaster, the faith, instead of being extinguished by the flood of speculation in that busy centre of the world's thought, revived, drew in copious supplies of blood from the Greek spirit, and entered on a new career. If it be true, as is declared in Smith's Dictionary of Geography, that when the city of Alexandria was founded (B. C. 332) it was laid out in three sections, one of which was a.s.signed to the Jews, their political and social influence must have corresponded to their numbers. Prof. Huidekoper revives and reargues the belief, that travelled men of letters from Greece, preeminent among them, Plato, who visited Egypt, borrowed from the Jews the ideas which enn.o.bled and beautified the Greek philosophy. The doctrines of the Stoics, Greek and Roman, bear, in Mr. Huidekoper's opinion, evident marks of Jewish origin. This is going, we think, beyond warrant of the facts. We may claim much less and still place very high the intellectual sway of this remarkable people. It may be confidently a.s.serted, that in portions of Asia Minor, Syria, and Northern Egypt, their faith had largely displaced the ancient superst.i.tions.

The splendid literature of the Apocrypha, Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom, the rich fund of speculation in the Talmud, the intellectual wealth of Philo, the Pauline and Johannean Gnosis, brilliantly attest their intellectual vigor. The Rev. Brooke Foss Walcott, in Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible," declares, that from the date of the destruction of Jerusalem, in the year 70, the power of Judaism "as a present living force, was stayed." But such a statement can be accepted only in a much qualified sense. The destruction of Jerusalem put an end to the State more completely than the overthrow of any modern city could do; for the holy city was the home of the national life in a peculiar sense; it was the seat of the national worship in which the national life centred.

With the temple fell the inst.i.tutions that rested on the temple. When the walls were thrown down and the grand buildings levelled, it was like erasing the marks of history, tearing up the roots of tradition and setting the seal of destiny on the nation's future. The territory was small; the power of the great city was felt in every part of it, and the quenching of its light left the land in darkness. But the catastrophe which terminated the existence of the State, gave a new life to the religious idea and opened a new arena for its conquests. It greatly increased the number of Jews in the city of Rome, the imperial city of the West, the conquering metropolis; raised the congregations already existing there to a position of considerable importance; served to unite, by the sympathy of a common sorrow, parties that had been divided; had the effect in some measure to weaken antipathies, harmonize opinions and inflame zeal; in a word, transferred to Italy the faith that, in outward form, had been crushed in Palestine. Thenceforth Judaism, which had been a blended worship and polity, ceased to be a polity, and became more intensely than ever, because more exclusively, a worship.

The history of the settlement of Jews in Rome, is naturally obscure.

Being mainly of the mercantile and trading cla.s.s their presence there might have been expected early. They were restless, enterprising, industrious, eager and skilful in barter; and Rome attracted all such, being the business centre of the western world. Political affairs at home were never long favorable to peaceful pursuits, and were frequently in such confusion that the transactions of ordinary existence were precarious. The numbers that were carried away to Babylon comprised it is probable the more eminent cla.s.s. As many, if not more, found their way to other cities, and of these Rome received its share. The earliest mention brings them before us as already of consequence from their wealth and intelligence. Sixty years before the christian era, Cicero commended Lucius Valerius Flaccus, praetor of the district of Asia Minor, because he did not encourage an exorbitant expenditure of money on the construction of the temple, by Jews, the exportation of whose wealth from Rome was felt as an evil. He states that under the directions of Flaccus, one hundred pounds weight of gold ($25,000) had been seized at Apamea, in Asia Minor; twenty pounds at Laodicea. The Jews were rich.

Their demonstrations of grief at the death of Julius Caesar, the conqueror of their conqueror, Pompey, and the enlightened friend of the people, argued by the number and loudness of the voices, the presence of a mult.i.tude. One may read in any book of Jewish history that Josephus reckoned at eight thousand the Jews who were present, when at the death of king Herod, his son Archelaus appeared before Augustus; that the poor among them were numerous enough to procure from Augustus a decree authorizing them to receive their share of the bounty of corn on another day, when the day of general distribution fell on their Sabbath; that one emperor expelled them as a dangerous element in the city; that another for the same reason laid special penalties and burdens on them; that the aristocratic party was steadily hostile to them. Tacitus, their enemy, speaks of the deportation of four thousand young Israelites to Sardinia. Josephus makes the astounding, the fabulous statement that in the year 66, the Jews in Rome required two hundred and fifty-six thousand lambs for their paschal commemoration.[2] Such a provision would imply a population of two million and a half at least. That the Jews were of some importance is attested by the comments made on them by Roman writers; by Martial, who alludes to their customs in his epigrams; by Ovid, who criticises their observance of the Sabbath as having the character of a debasing superst.i.tion and introduces a shirk who, having exhausted all pretexts, makes a pretext of respecting the Sabbath in order not to incur the ill will of the Jews; by Persius, who remarks satirically on the Sabbath observances and the rite of circ.u.mcision; by Plutarch, who minutely describes the Mosaic system of laws. Satire betrays fear as well as dislike. The great writer disdains to caricature people who are inconspicuous. Juvenal was a great writer, and his envenomed raillery against the Jews has become familiar by quotation. It would seem, from his invectives, that Jewish ideas and practices had crept into public approval, and were exerting an influence on the education of Roman youth. He complains bitterly of parents who bring up their children to think more of the laws of Moses than of the laws of their country.--"Some there are, a.s.signed by fortune to Sabbath fearing fathers, who adore nothing but the clouds and the genius of the sky; who see no distinction between the swine's flesh as food and the flesh of man. Habitually despising the laws of Rome, they study, keep and revere the code of Judaea, a tradition given by Moses in a dark volume. The blame is with the father, with whom every seventh day is devoted to idleness, and withdrawn from the uses of life." Juvenal lived in the latter part of the first and the early part of the second century, about a generation after the destruction of Jerusalem. Admitting the genuineness of the pa.s.sage, and the ground of the criticism, neither of which is disputed, the influence of the Jews was by no means contemptible.

[Footnote 2: Bellum Judaic.u.m, VII. 17.]

Milman conjectures that while the number of Jews in Rome was much increased, their respectability as well as their popularity were much diminished by the immense influx of the most dest.i.tute as well as of the most unruly of the race, who were swept into captivity by thousands after the fall of Jerusalem. This may be true. There is reason to believe that the importation of so great a number of strangers was attended by poverty, distress, and squalor, horrible to think of. It could not have been otherwise. That they should infest and infect whole districts of the city; that they should pitch their vagabond tents on vacant plots of ground, and should change fair districts, gardens and groves into disreputable and foul precincts; that they should resort to mean trades for support, peddling, trafficking in old clothes, rags, matches, broken gla.s.s, or should sink into mendicancy, is simply in the nature of things, But it is fair to suppose that the exiles from Jerusalem would bring with them the memory of their sufferings during the unexampled horrors of that tremendous war; would bring with them also a fiercer sense of loyalty to the faith for which such agonies had been borne, such sacrifices had been made. That they held their religion dear, is certain. Their Sabbaths were observed, their laws revered, their synagogues frequented, their peculiarities of race cherished and perpetuated by tradition from father to son. There is reason to think that they antic.i.p.ated the Christians in their practice of burying their dead in the catacombs, which bore a strong resemblance to the rocky caverns where in the fatherland, their ancestors were laid. The catacombs in the neighborhood of the Transtevere, the district where the Jews mostly lived, are plainly a.s.sociated with them. The seven-branched candlestick appears on the wall, and the inscriptions bear witness to the pious constancy of the race.[3] They made proselytes among the pagans weary of their decrepit and moribund faiths, and thus extended the religious ideas which they so tenaciously held. Among themselves there was close a.s.sociation, partly from tradition and partly from race.

Some semblance of their ancient inst.i.tutions was kept up; their general council; their tribunal of laws. Circ.u.mstances alone prevented them from maintaining their ancestral religion in its grandeur. Seneca, about the middle of the first century, represents Jewish usages as having pervaded all nations; he is speaking of the Sabbath. Paul found thriving synagogues, wherever he went, and wrote to some that he could not visit, before the destruction of Jerusalem made the final dispersion.

[Footnote 3: See Milman's Jews, II. p. 461.]

The Messianic hope was strong in these people; all the stronger on account of their political degradation. Born in sorrow, the antic.i.p.ation grew keen in bitter hours. That Jehovah would abandon them, could not be believed. The thought would be atheism. The hope kept the eastern Jews in a perpetual state of insurrection. The cry, "lo here, lo there!"

was incessant. The last great insurrection, that of Bar-Cochab, revealed an astonishing frenzy of zeal. It was purely a Messianic uprising.

Judaism had excited the fears of the Emperor Hadrian,[4] and induced him to inflict unusual severities on the people. He had forbidden circ.u.mcision, the rite of initiation into their church; he had prohibited the observance of the Sabbath and the public reading of the law, thus drying up the sources of the national faith. He had even threatened to abolish the historical rallying point of the religion by planting a Roman colony on the site of Jerusalem and building a shrine to Jupiter on the place where the temple had stood. Measures so violent and radical could hardly have been prompted by anything less alarming than the upspringing of that indomitable conviction which worked at the heart of the people. The effect of the violence was to stimulate that conviction to fury. The night of their despair was once more illumined by the star of the east. The banner of the Messiah was raised. Portents as of old were seen in the sky; the clouds were watched for the glory that should appear. Bar-Cochab, the "son of the star," seemed to fill out the popular idea of the deliverer. Miracles were ascribed to him; flames issued from his mouth. The vulgar imagination made haste to transform the audacious fanatic into a child of David. Mult.i.tudes flocked to his standard. "The whole Jewish race throughout the world,"

says Milman, "was in commotion; those who dared not betray their interest in the common cause openly, did so in secret, and perhaps some of the wealthy Jews in the remote provinces privately contributed from their resources." "Native Jews and strangers swelled his ranks. It is probable that many of the fugitives from the insurgents in Egypt and Cyrene had found their way to Palestine and lay hid in caves and fastnesses. No doubt some from the Mesopotamian provinces came to the aid of their brethren." "Those who had denied or disguised their circ.u.mcision, hastened to renew that distinguishing mark of their Israelitish descent, to ent.i.tle themselves to a share in the great redemption." The insurrection gained head. The heights about Jerusalem were seized and occupied; fortifications were erected; caves were dug, and subterranean pa.s.sages cut between the garrisoned positions; arms were collected; nothing but the "host of angels" was needed to insure victory. The angels did not appear; the Roman legions did. The carnage, during the three or four years of the war--for so long and possibly longer, the war lasted--was frightful. The Messiah, not proving himself a conqueror, was held to have proved himself an impostor, the "son of a lie." The holy city was once more destroyed, this time completely. A new city, peopled by foreigners, arose on its site. The effect of the outbreak, which was felt far and wide, in time and s.p.a.ce, was disastrous to Jewish influence in the empire. From this time Judaism lost its good name, and at the same time its hold on the cultivated mind of Europe.

Fanaticism so wild and destructive was ent.i.tled to no respect.

[Footnote 4: See Huidekoper's "Judaism in Rome," p. 325-329.]

The Christians, of course, took no part in the great rising, and had no interest in it. It was their faith that the Messiah had already come; and however confident their expectation of his reappearance to judge the nations and redeem his elect, time had so far sobered the hopes of even the rudest among them, that they no longer looked for a man of war, no longer were attracted by banners in the hands of ruffians or trumpet blasts blown by human lips. The feeling was gaining ground, if it was not quite confirmed, that instead of waiting for the Christ to come to them, they were to go to him in his heaven. Hence, Jews, though they might be in the essentials of their religious faith, they were wholly alienated from those of their race who looked for a cosmical or political demonstration. That this want of sympathy and failure to partic.i.p.ate, widened the breach between them and the Jews who still expected a temporal deliverer, there can be little question; that in times of great excitement, the Christian Jews were exposed to scoffing and persecution is equally undeniable. Bar-Cochab treated them with extreme cruelty. It is even probable that in Rome and the provinces of the empire a settled hatred of the Christians animated Jews of the average stamp, and found expression in the usual forms of popular malignity. It is easy to believe that Jews in Rome, possessing influence in high quarters, thrust Christians between themselves and persecution.

This, indeed, is extremely probable.[5] But that, in ordinary times, an active animosity prevailed on the part of the Jews of the old school against Jews of the new school, is not clearly proved. The latter were orthodox, conservative Jews, loyal to the national faith in every respect save one, namely, their persuasion that the Christ was no longer to be looked for, having already appeared. To those Jews, who had abandoned the belief that he would appear, or who had allowed that belief to sink into the background of their minds, the belief of the Christians would occasion no bitterness. It is still a common impression that the persecution recorded in the book of "The Acts of the Apostles,"

to which Stephanos, the Greek convert, fell a victim, was directed by Jews against Christians. But it has been made to appear more than probable,--admitting the historical truth of the narrative--that the a.s.sault was made by the Judaizing upon the anti-Judaizing Christians; the Jews who were not Christians at all, taking no part in it. The reasoning upon which this conclusion is based, will be found in Zeller's book on the "Acts," an exhaustive treatise which must be studied by anybody who would understand that curious composition. The main positions may be apprehended by the intelligent reader on carefully perusing the story as written, and noting the conspicuous fact, that the quarrel is between radicals and conservatives; between the advocates of a broad policy, comprehending Greeks and Romans on the same terms with Jews, and the champions of a restricted policy, confining the benefits of the Messiah's advent to the true Israelites.

[Footnote 5: See "Judaism in Rome," p. 245.]

The destruction of Jerusalem was one of the causes that may have operated to close this gulf. By breaking up the head-quarters of the Christian conservatism, and dispersing the lingerers there among the inhabitants of Gentile cities, it weakened their ties, widened their experience, softened their prejudices, and prepared them to accept the larger interpretation of their faith. The writings of the New Testament, all of them produced after the destruction of Jerusalem, some of them fifty or sixty years after, none of them less than ten or fifteen years, bear traces of this enlargement. The Jewish christians living in Greek and Roman Cities could hardly avoid the temptations to adopt that view of their faith which commended it to the communities whereof they were a part, and this was the view presented by Paul and his school, the intellectual, or, as some prefer to call it, the "spiritual" view.

According to this view, also, the new religion was grafted on the old, Judaism was the foundation; the root from which sprung the branches, however widely spreading. Paul, as has been remarked, addressed himself invariably to Jews, in the first instance, and turned to the Gentiles only when the Jews rejected him. The essential beliefs of the religious Jew he retained, never exchanging them for the beliefs of Paganism, or qualifying them with the speculations of heathen philosophy. He labored in the interest of the faith of Israel, broadly interpreted, nor, in respect of his fundamental conceptions, did he ever wander far from the religion of his fathers. The spiritual distance between the school he founded, and the school that in his life time he opposed, was not so wide that it might not in course of time, be diminished, until at length it disappeared entirely. Parties holding the same cardinal belief, will not forever be separated by incidental barriers, especially when, as was the case with the destruction of Jerusalem, providence moves the chief barriers away.

Other inducements to a good understanding between the two parties of Christian Jews were at work. Heresies of all sorts were springing up within the churches, which could be suppressed only by the moral power of a common persuasion in the minds of the chief bodies. Questions were raised which neither branch of the christian community could satisfactorily answer; controversies arose, demanding something like an ecclesiastical authority to adjust. Unless the new religion was to split into petty sections and be pulverized to nothingness, the restoration of old breaches was an absolute necessity. The danger was of too sudden and artificial a compromise between the main divisions, resulting in a compact organization that might arrest the movements of the spirit of liberty. The church did eventually obtain supremacy in dogma and rite, through the imperative demand for unity that was urgently pressed early in the second century.

Judaism contained in its bosom two elements, one stationary, the other progressive; one close, the other expansive; one centralizing in Judaea and waiting till it should attract the outer world to it, the other forth reaching beyond Palestine, and seeking to commend the faith of Israel to those who knew it not. These two elements coexisted from early times, and caused perpetual ferment by their struggles to overmaster each other. The priest stood for the one principle, the narrower, the fixed, the inst.i.tuted; the prophet stood for the other, the intellectual, the expansive, the progressive. The priest stayed at home to administer the ordinances; the prophet journeyed about, to spread the salvation. The priest was a fixture, the prophet was a missionary.

The two divisions of the earliest Christian community represented these counter tendencies. The school of Peter, James, and John, the hierarchal, conservative school, maintained the att.i.tude of expectation.

They waited and prayed, exacted rigid compliance with ordinances; clung to their a.s.sociations with places and seasons; were tenacious of holy usages; required punctuality and accuracy of posturing, were strict in conformity with legal prescriptions, made a point of circ.u.mcision, or other rites of initiation into the true church. The school of Paul and Apollos took up the principle of universality, dispensed with whatever hampered their movements and impeded their action, and, taking essential ideas only, making themselves "all things to all men, if peradventure, they might win some," preached the message freely, to as many as would hear. The two principles, however discordant in operation, demanded each other. They could not long exist apart; the unity and the universality were mutually complementary. Unity alone, would bring isolation, solitariness, and ultimate death from diminution. Universality alone would lead to dissipation, attenuation, and disappearance. It was therefore not long before the extremes drew together and met.