The Life of Jesus Part 30

LAST JOURNEY OF JESUS TO JERUSALEM.

Jesus had for a long time been sensible of the dangers that surrounded him.[1] During a period of time which we may estimate at eighteen months, he avoided going on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.[2] At the feast of Tabernacles of the year 32 (according to the hypothesis we have adopted), his relations, always malevolent and incredulous,[3] pressed him to go there. The evangelist John seems to insinuate that there was some hidden project to ruin him in this invitation. "Depart hence, and go into Judea, that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest. For there is no man that doeth anything in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou do these things, show thyself to the world." Jesus, suspecting some treachery, at first refused; but when the caravan of pilgrims had set out, he started on the journey, unknown to every one, and almost alone.[4] It was the last farewell which he bade to Galilee. The feast of Tabernacles fell at the autumnal equinox. Six months still had to elapse before the fatal denouement. But during this interval, Jesus saw no more his beloved provinces of the north. The pleasant days had pa.s.sed away; he must now traverse, step by step, the painful path that will terminate only in the anguish of death.

[Footnote 1: Matt. xvi. 20, 21; Mark viii. 30, 31.]

[Footnote 2: John vii. 1.]

[Footnote 3: John vii. 5.]

[Footnote 4: John vii. 10.]

His disciples, and the pious women who tended him, met him again in Judea.[1] But how much everything was changed for him there! Jesus was a stranger at Jerusalem. He felt that there was a wall of resistance he could not penetrate. Surrounded by snares and difficulties, he was unceasingly pursued by the ill-will of the Pharisees.[2] Instead of that illimitable faculty of belief, happy gift of youthful natures, which he found in Galilee--instead of those good and gentle people, amongst whom objections (always the fruit of some degree of ill-will and indocility) had no existence, he met there at each step an obstinate incredulity, upon which the means of action that had so well succeeded in the north had little effect. His disciples were despised as being Galileans. Nicodemus, who, on one of his former journeys, had had a conversation with him by night, almost compromised himself with the Sanhedrim, by having wished to defend him. "Art thou also of Galilee?" they said to him. "Search and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet."[3]

[Footnote 1: Matt. xxvii. 55; Mark xv. 41; Luke xxiii. 49, 55.]

[Footnote 2: John vii. 20, 25, 30, 32.]

[Footnote 3: John vii. 50, and following.]

The city, as we have already said, displeased Jesus. Until then he had always avoided great centres, preferring for his action the country and the towns of small importance. Many of the precepts which he gave to his apostles were absolutely inapplicable, except in a simple society of humble men.[1] Having no idea of the world, and accustomed to the kindly communism of Galilee, remarks continually escaped him, whose simplicity would at Jerusalem appear very singular.[2] His imagination and his love of Nature found themselves constrained within these walls. True religion does not proceed from the tumult of towns, but from the tranquil serenity of the fields.

[Footnote 1: Matt. x. 11-13; Mark vi. 10; Luke x. 5-8.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. xxi. 3, xxvi. 18; Mark xi. 3, xiv. 13, 14; Luke xix. 31, xxii. 10-12.]

The arrogance of the priests rendered the courts of the temple disagreeable to him. One day some of his disciples, who knew Jerusalem better than he, wished him to notice the beauty of the buildings of the temple, the admirable choice of materials, and the richness of the votive offerings that covered the walls. "Seest thou these buildings?"

said he; "there shall not be left one stone upon another."[1] He refused to admire anything, except it was a poor widow who pa.s.sed at that moment, and threw a small coin into the box. "She has cast in more than they all," said he; "for all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of G.o.d; but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had."[2] This manner of criticising all he observed at Jerusalem, of praising the poor who gave little, of slighting the rich who gave much,[3] and of blaming the opulent priesthood who did nothing for the good of the people, naturally exasperated the sacerdotal caste. As the seat of a conservative aristocracy, the temple, like the Mussulman _haram_ which succeeded it, was the last place in the world where revolution could prosper.

Imagine an innovator going in our days to preach the overturning of Islamism round the mosque of Omar! There, however, was the centre of the Jewish life, the point where it was necessary to conquer or die.

On this Calvary, where certainly Jesus suffered more than at Golgotha, his days pa.s.sed away in disputation and bitterness, in the midst of tedious controversies respecting canonical law and exegesis, for which his great moral elevation, instead of giving him the advantage, positively unfitted him.

[Footnote 1: Matt. xxiv. 1, 2; Mark xiii. 1, 2; Luke xix. 44, xxi. 5, 6. Cf. Mark xi. 11.]

[Footnote 2: Mark xii. 41, and following; Luke xxi. 1, and following.]

[Footnote 3: Mark xii. 41.]

In the midst of this troubled life, the sensitive and kindly heart of Jesus found a refuge, where he enjoyed moments of sweetness. After having pa.s.sed the day disputing in the temple, toward evening Jesus descended into the valley of Kedron, and rested a while in the orchard of a farming establishment (probably for the making of oil) named Gethsemane,[1] which served as a pleasure garden to the inhabitants.

Thence he proceeded to pa.s.s the night upon the Mount of Olives, which limits the horizon of the city on the east.[2] This side is the only one, in the environs of Jerusalem, which offers an aspect in any degree pleasing and verdant. The plantations of olives, figs, and palms were numerous there, and gave their names to the villages, farms, or enclosures of Bethphage, Gethsemane, and Bethany.[3] There were upon the Mount of Olives two great cedars, the memory of which was long preserved amongst the dispersed Jews; their branches served as an asylum to clouds of doves, and under their shade were established small bazaars.[4] All this precinct was in a manner the abode of Jesus and his disciples; they knew it field by field and house by house.

[Footnote 1: Mark xi. 19; Luke xxii. 39; John xviii. 1, 2. This orchard could not be very far from the place where the piety of the Catholics has surrounded some old olive-trees by a wall. The word _Gethsemane_ seems to signify "oil-press."]

[Footnote 2: Luke xxi. 37, xxii. 39; John viii. 1, 2.]

[Footnote 3: Talm. of Bab., _Pesachim_, 53 _a_.]

[Footnote 4: Talm. of Jerus., _Taanith_, iv. 8.]

The village of Bethany, in particular,[1] situated at the summit of the hill, upon the incline which commands the Dead Sea and the Jordan, at a journey of an hour and a half from Jerusalem, was the place especially beloved by Jesus.[2] He there made the acquaintance of a family composed of three persons, two sisters and a brother, whose friendship had a great charm for him.[3] Of the two sisters, the one, named Martha, was an obliging, kind, and a.s.siduous person;[4] the other, named Mary, on the contrary, pleased Jesus by a sort of languor,[5] and by her strongly developed speculative instincts.

Seated at the feet of Jesus, she often forgot, in listening to him, the duties of real life. Her sister, upon whom fell all the duty at such times, gently complained. "Martha, Martha," said Jesus to her, "thou art troubled, and carest about many things; now, one thing only is needful. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away."[6] Her brother, Eleazar, or Lazarus, was also much beloved by Jesus.[7] Lastly, a certain Simon, the leper, who was the owner of the house, formed, it appears, part of the family.[8] It was there, in the enjoyment of a pious friendship, that Jesus forgot the vexations of public life. In this tranquil home he consoled himself for the bickerings with which the scribes and the Pharisees unceasingly surrounded him. He often sat on the Mount of Olives, facing Mount Moriah,[9] having beneath his view the splendid perspective of the terraces of the temple, and its roofs covered with glittering plates of metal. This view struck strangers with admiration; at the rising of the sun, especially, the sacred mountain dazzled the eyes, and appeared like a ma.s.s of snow and of gold.[10] But a profound feeling of sadness poisoned for Jesus the spectacle that filled all other Israelites with joy and pride. He cried out, in his moments of bitterness, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not."[11]

[Footnote 1: Now _El-Azerie_ (from _El-Azir_, the Arabic name of Lazarus); in the Christian texts of the Middle Ages, _Lazarium_.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. xxi. 17, 18; Mark xi. 11, 12.]

[Footnote 3: John xi. 5.]

[Footnote 4: Luke x. 38-42; John xii. 2.]

[Footnote 5: John xi. 20.]

[Footnote 6: Luke x. 38, and following.]

[Footnote 7: John xi. 35, 36.]

[Footnote 8: Matt. xxvi. 6; Mark xiv. 3; Luke vii. 40-43; John xii. 1, and following.]

[Footnote 9: Mark xiii. 3.]

[Footnote 10: Josephus, _B.J._, V. v. 6.]

[Footnote 11: Matt. xxiii. 37; Luke xiii. 34.]

It was not that many good people here, as in Galilee, were not touched; but such was the power of the dominant orthodoxy, that very few dared to confess it. They feared to discredit themselves in the eyes of the Hierosolymites by placing themselves in the school of a Galilean. They would have risked being driven from the synagogue, which, in a mean and bigoted society, was the greatest degradation.[1]

Excommunication, besides, carried with it the confiscation of all possessions.[2] By ceasing to be a Jew, a man did not become a Roman; but remained without protection, in the power of a theocratic legislation of the most atrocious severity. One day, the inferior officers of the temple, who had been present at one of the discourses of Jesus, and had been enchanted with it, came to confide their doubts to the priests: "Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him?" was the reply to them; "but this people who knoweth not the Law are cursed."[3] Jesus remained thus at Jerusalem, a provincial admired by provincials like himself, but rejected by all the aristocracy of the nation. The chiefs of schools and of sects were too numerous for any one to be stirred by seeing one more appear. His voice made little noise in Jerusalem. The prejudices of race and of sect, the direct enemies of the spirit of the Gospel, were too deeply rooted there.

[Footnote 1: John vii. 13, xii. 42, 43, xix. 38.]

[Footnote 2: 1 Esdr. x. 8; Epistle to Hebrews x. 34; Talmud of Jerus., _Moedkaton_, iii. 1.]

[Footnote 3: John vii. 45, and following.]

His teaching in this new world necessarily became much modified. His beautiful discourses, the effect of which was always observable upon youthful imaginations and consciences morally pure, here fell upon stone. He who was so much at his ease on the sh.o.r.es of his charming little lake, felt constrained and not at home in the company of pedants. His perpetual self-a.s.sertion appeared somewhat fastidious.[1]

He was obliged to become controversialist, jurist, exegetist, and theologian. His conversations, generally so full of charm, became a rolling fire of disputes,[2] an interminable train of scholastic battles. His harmonious genius was wasted in insipid argumentations upon the Law and the prophets,[3] in which we should have preferred not seeing him sometimes play the part of aggressor.[4] He lent himself with a condescension we cannot but regret to the captious criticisms to which the merciless cavillers subjected him.[5] In general, he extricated himself from difficulties with much skill. His reasonings, it is true, were often subtle (simplicity of mind and subtlety touch each other; when simplicity reasons, it is often a little sophistical); we find that sometimes he courted misconceptions, and prolonged them intentionally;[6] his reasoning, judged according to the rules of Aristotelian logic, was very weak. But when the unequaled charm of his mind could be displayed, he was triumphant. One day it was intended to embarra.s.s him by presenting to him an adulteress and asking him what was to be done to her. We know the admirable answer of Jesus.[7] The fine raillery of a man of the world, tempered by a divine goodness, could not be expressed in a more exquisite manner. But the wit which is allied to moral grandeur is that which fools forgive the least. In p.r.o.nouncing this sentence of so just and pure a taste: "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her," Jesus pierced hypocrisy to the heart, and with the same stroke sealed his own death-warrant.

[Footnote 1: John viii. 13, and following.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. xxi. 23-37.]

[Footnote 3: Matt. xxii. 23, and following.]

[Footnote 4: Matt. xxii. 42, and following.]

[Footnote 5: Matt. xxii. 36, and following, 46.]

[Footnote 6: See especially the discussions reported by John, chapter viii., for example; it is true that the authenticity of such pa.s.sages is only relative.]

[Footnote 7: John viii. 3, and following. This pa.s.sage did not at first form part of the Gospel of St. John; it is wanting in the more ancient ma.n.u.scripts, and the text is rather unsettled. Nevertheless, it is from the primitive Gospel traditions, as is proved by the singular peculiarities of verses 6 and 8, which are not in the style of Luke, and compilers at second hand, who admitted nothing that does not explain itself. This history is found, as it seems, in the Gospel according to the Hebrews. (Papias, quoted by Eusebius, _Hist. Eccl._, iii. 39.)]