The Life of Jesus Part 25

[Footnote 3: Matt. xxv. 34. Comp. John xiv. 2.]

[Footnote 4: Matt. viii. 11, xiii. 43, xxvi. 29; Luke xiii. 28, xvi.

22, xxii. 30.]

[Footnote 5: Luke xiii. 23, and following.]

[Footnote 6: Matt. xxv. 41. The idea of the fall of the angels, detailed in the Book of Enoch, was universally admitted in the circle of Jesus. Epistle of Jude 6, and following; 2d Epistle attributed to Saint Peter, ii. 4. 11; _Revelation_ xii. 9; Gospel of John viii. 44.]

[Footnote 7: Matt. v. 22, viii. 12, x. 28, xiii. 40, 42, 50, xviii. 8, xxiv. 51, xxv. 30; Mark ix. 43, &c.]

[Footnote 8: Matt. viii. 12, xxii. 13, xxv. 30. Comp. Jos., _B.J._, III. viii. 5.]

This new order of things will be eternal. Paradise and Gehenna will have no end. An impa.s.sable abyss separates the one from the other.[1]

The Son of man, seated on the right hand of G.o.d, will preside over this final condition of the world and of humanity.[2]

[Footnote 1: Luke xvi. 28.]

[Footnote 2: Mark iii. 29; Luke xxii. 69; _Acts_ vii. 55.]

That all this was taken literally by the disciples and by the master himself at certain moments, appears clearly evident from the writings of the time. If the first Christian generation had one profound and constant belief, it was that the world was near its end,[1] and that the great "revelation"[2] of Christ was about to take place. The startling proclamation, "The time is at hand,"[3] which commences and closes the Apocalypse; the incessantly reiterated appeal, "He that hath ears to hear let him hear!"[4] were the cries of hope and encouragement for the whole apostolic age. A Syrian expression, _Maran atha_, "Our Lord cometh!"[5] became a sort of pa.s.sword, which the believers used amongst themselves to strengthen their faith and their hope. The Apocalypse, written in the year 68 of our era,[6] declares that the end will come in three years and a half.[7] The "Ascension of Isaiah"[8] adopts a calculation very similar to this.

[Footnote 1: _Acts_ ii. 17, iii. 19, and following; 1 _Cor._ xv. 23, 24, 52; 1 Thess. iii. 13, iv. 14, and following, v. 23; 2 Thess. ii.

8; 1 Tim. vi. 14; 2 Tim. iv. 1; t.i.t. ii. 13; Epistle of James v. 3, 8; Epistle of Jude 18; 2d Epistle of Peter, iii. entirely; _Revelations_ entirely, and in particular, i. 1, ii. 5, 16, iii. 11, xi. 14, xxii.

6, 7, 12, 20. Comp. 4th Book of Esdras, iv. 26.]

[Footnote 2: Luke xvii. 30; 1 _Cor._ i. 7, 8; 2 Thess. i. 7; 1 Peter i. 7, 13; _Revelations_ i. 1.]

[Footnote 3: _Revelations_ i. 3, xxii. 10.]

[Footnote 4: Matt. xi. 15, xiii. 9, 43; Mark iv. 9, 23, vii. 16; Luke viii. 8, xiv. 35; _Revelations_ ii. 7, 11, 27, 29, iii. 6, 13, 22, xiii. 9.]

[Footnote 5: 1 _Cor._ xvi. 22.]

[Footnote 6: _Revelations_ xvii. 9, and following. The sixth emperor, whom the author represents as reigning, is Galba. The dead emperor, who was to return, is Nero, whose name is given in figures (xiii.

18).]

[Footnote 7: _Revelations_ xi. 2, 3, xii. 14. Comp. Daniel vii. 25, xii. 7.]

[Footnote 8: Chap. iv., v. 12 and 14. Comp. Cedrenus, p. 68 (Paris, 1647).]

Jesus never indulged in such precise details. When he was interrogated as to the time of his advent, he always refused to reply; once even he declared that the date of this great day was known only by the Father, who had revealed it neither to the angels nor to the Son.[1] He said that the time when the kingdom of G.o.d was most anxiously expected, was just that in which it would not appear.[2] He constantly repeated that it would be a surprise, as in the times of Noah and of Lot; that we must be on our guard, always ready to depart; that each one must watch and keep his lamp trimmed as for a wedding procession, which arrives unforeseen;[3] that the Son of man would come like a thief, at an hour when he would not be expected;[4] that he would appear as a flash of lightning, running from one end of the heavens to the other.[5] But his declarations on the nearness of the catastrophe leave no room for any equivocations.[6] "This generation," said he, "shall not pa.s.s till all these things be fulfilled. There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom."[7] He reproaches those who do not believe in him, for not being able to read the signs of the future kingdom. "When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather; for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather to-day; for the sky is red and lowering. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?"[8] By an illusion common to all great reformers, Jesus imagined the end to be much nearer than it really was; he did not take into account the slowness of the movements of humanity; he thought to realize in one day that which, eighteen centuries later, has still to be accomplished.

[Footnote 1: Matt. xxiv. 36; Mark xiii. 32.]

[Footnote 2: Luke xvii. 20. Comp. Talmud of Babyl., _Sanhedrim_, 97 _a_.]

[Footnote 3: Matt. xxiv. 36, and following; Mark xiii. 32, and following; Luke xii. 35, and following, xvii. 20, and following.]

[Footnote 4: Luke xii. 40; 2 Peter iii. 10.]

[Footnote 5: Luke xvii. 24.]

[Footnote 6: Matt. x. 23, xxiv., xxv. entirely, and especially xxiv.

29, 34; Mark xiii. 30; Luke xiii. 35, xxi. 28, and following.]

[Footnote 7: Matt. xvi. 28, xxiii. 36, 39, xxiv. 34; Mark viii. 39; Luke ix. 27, xxi. 32.]

[Footnote 8: Matt. xvi. 2-4; Luke xii. 54-56.]

These formal declarations preoccupied the Christian family for nearly seventy years. It was believed that some of the disciples would see the day of the final revelation before dying. John, in particular, was considered as being of this number;[1] many believed that he would never die. Perhaps this was a later opinion suggested toward the end of the first century, by the advanced age which John seems to have reached; this age having given rise to the belief that G.o.d wished to prolong his life indefinitely until the great day, in order to realize the words of Jesus. However this may be, at his death the faith of many was shaken, and his disciples attached to the prediction of Christ a more subdued meaning.[2]

[Footnote 1: John xxi. 22, 23.]

[Footnote 2: John xxi. 22, 23. Chapter xxi. of the fourth Gospel is an addition, as is proved by the final clause of the primitive compilation, which concludes at verse 31 of chapter xx. But the addition is almost contemporaneous with the publication of the Gospel itself.]

At the same time that Jesus fully admitted the Apocalyptic beliefs, such as we find them in the apocryphal Jewish books, he admitted the doctrine, which is the complement, or rather the condition of them all, namely, the resurrection of the dead. This doctrine, as we have already said, was still somewhat new in Israel; a number of people either did not know it, or did not believe it.[1] It was the faith of the Pharisees, and of the fervent adherents of the Messianic beliefs.[2] Jesus accepted it unreservedly, but always in the most idealistic sense. Many imagined that in the resuscitated world they would eat, drink, and marry. Jesus, indeed, admits into his kingdom a new pa.s.sover, a table, and a new wine;[3] but he expressly excludes marriage from it. The Sadducees had on this subject an apparently coa.r.s.e argument, but one which was really in conformity with the old theology. It will be remembered that according to the ancient sages, man survived only in his children. The Mosaic code had consecrated this patriarchal theory by a strange inst.i.tution, the levirate law.

The Sadducees drew from thence subtle deductions against the resurrection. Jesus escaped them by formally declaring that in the life eternal there would no longer exist differences of s.e.x, and that men would be like the angels.[4] Sometimes he seems to promise resurrection only to the righteous,[5] the punishment of the wicked consisting in complete annihilation.[6] Oftener, however, Jesus declares that the resurrection shall bring eternal confusion to the wicked.[7]

[Footnote 1: Mark ix. 9; Luke xx. 27, and following.]

[Footnote 2: Dan. xii. 2, and following; 2 Macc. vii. entirely, xii.

45, 46, xiv. 46; _Acts_ xxiii. 6, 8; Jos., _Ant._, XVIII. i. 3; _B.J._, II. viii. 14, III. viii. 5.]

[Footnote 3: Matt. xxvi. 29; Luke xxii. 30.]

[Footnote 4: Matt. xxii. 24, and following; Luke xx. 34-38; Ebionite Gospel, ent.i.tled, "Of the Egyptians," in Clem. of Alex., _Strom._ ii.

9, 13; Clem. Rom., Epist. ii. 12.]

[Footnote 5: Luke xiv. 14, xx. 35, 36. This is also the opinion of St.

Paul: 1 _Cor._ xv. 23, and following; 1 Thess. iv. 12, and following.]

[Footnote 6: Comp. 4th book of Esdras, ix. 22.]

[Footnote 7: Matt. xxv. 32, and following.]

It will be seen that nothing in all these theories was absolutely new.

The Gospels and the writings of the apostles scarcely contain anything as regards apocalyptic doctrines but what might be found already in "Daniel,"[1] "Enoch,"[2] and the "Sibylline Oracles,"[3] of Jewish origin. Jesus accepted the ideas, which were generally received among his contemporaries. He made them his basis of action, or rather one of his bases; for he had too profound an idea of his true work to establish it solely upon such fragile principles--principles so liable to be decisively refuted by facts.

[Footnote 1: See especially chaps. ii., vi.-viii., x.-xiii.]

[Footnote 2: Chaps. i., xiv., lii., lxii., xciii. 9, and following.]

[Footnote 3: Book iii. 573, and following; 652, and following; 766, and following; 795, and following.]

It is evident, indeed, that such a doctrine, taken by itself in a literal manner, had no future. The world, in continuing to exist, caused it to crumble. One generation of man at the most was the limit of its endurance. The faith of the first Christian generation is intelligible, but the faith of the second generation is no longer so.

After the death of John, or of the last survivor, whoever he might be, of the group which had seen the master, the word of Jesus was convicted of falsehood.[1] If the doctrine of Jesus had been simply belief in an approaching end of the world, it would certainly now be sleeping in oblivion. What is it, then, which has saved it? The great breadth of the Gospel conceptions, which has permitted doctrines suited to very different intellectual conditions to be found under the same creed. The world has not ended, as Jesus announced, and as his disciples believed. But it has been renewed, and in one sense renewed as Jesus desired. It is because his thought was two-sided that it has been fruitful. His chimera has not had the fate of so many others which have crossed the human mind, because it concealed a germ of life which having been introduced, thanks to a covering of fable, into the bosom of humanity, has thus brought forth eternal fruits.

[Footnote 1: These pangs of Christian conscience are rendered with simplicity in the second epistle attributed to St. Peter, iii. 8, and following.]