The Life of Jesus Part 9

[Footnote 3: Mark vii. 6, and following.]

[Footnote 4: Matt. vi. 1, and following. Compare _Ecclesiasticus_ xvii. 18, xxix. 15; Talm. of Bab., _Chagigah_, 5 _a_; _Baba Bathra_, 9 _b_.]

[Footnote 5: Matt. vi. 5-8.]

He did not affect any external signs of asceticism, contenting himself with praying, or rather meditating, upon the mountains, and in the solitary places, where man has always sought G.o.d.[1] This high idea of the relations of man with G.o.d, of which so few minds, even after him, have been capable, is summed up in a prayer which he taught to his disciples:[2]

[Footnote 1: Matt. xiv. 23; Luke iv. 42, v. 16, vi. 12.]

[Footnote 2: Matt. vi. 9, and following; Luke xi. 2, and following.]

"Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespa.s.ses, as we forgive those who trespa.s.s against us. Lead us not into temptation; deliver us from the evil one."[1] He insisted particularly upon the idea, that the heavenly Father knows better than we what we need, and that we almost sin against Him in asking Him for this or that particular thing.[2]

[Footnote 1: _i.e._, the devil.]

[Footnote 2: Luke xi. 5, and following.]

Jesus in this only carried out the consequences of the great principles which Judaism had established, but which the official cla.s.ses of the nation tended more and more to despise. The Greek and Roman prayers were almost always mere egotistical verbiage. Never had Pagan priest said to the faithful, "If thou bring thy offering to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled with thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift."[1]

Alone in antiquity, the Jewish prophets, especially Isaiah, had, in their antipathy to the priesthood, caught a glimpse of the true nature of the worship man owes to G.o.d. "To what purpose is the mult.i.tude of your sacrifices unto me: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats.... Incense is an abomination unto me: for your hands are full of blood; cease to do evil, learn to do well, seek judgment, and then come."[2] In later times, certain doctors, Simeon the just,[3] Jesus, son of Sirach,[4] Hillel,[5] almost reached this point, and declared that the sum of the Law was righteousness. Philo, in the Judaeo-Egyptian world, attained at the same time as Jesus ideas of a high moral sanct.i.ty, the consequence of which was the disregard of the observances of the Law.[6] Shemaa and Abtalion also more than once proved themselves to be very liberal casuists.[7] Rabbi Johanan ere long placed works of mercy above even the study of the Law![8]

Jesus alone, however, proclaimed these principles in an effective manner. Never has any one been less a priest than Jesus, never a greater enemy of forms, which stifle religion under the pretext of protecting it. By this we are all his disciples and his successors; by this he has laid the eternal foundation-stone of true religion; and if religion is essential to humanity, he has by this deserved the Divine rank the world has accorded to him. An absolutely new idea, the idea of a worship founded on purity of heart, and on human brotherhood, through him entered into the world--an idea so elevated, that the Christian Church ought to make it its distinguishing feature, but an idea which, in our days, only few minds are capable of embodying.

[Footnote 1: Matt. v. 23, 24.]

[Footnote 2: Isaiah i. 11, and following. Compare ibid., lviii.

entirely; Hosea vi. 6; Malachi i. 10, and following.]

[Footnote 3: _Pirke Aboth_, i. 2.]

[Footnote 4: _Ecclesiasticus_ x.x.xv. 1, and following.]

[Footnote 5: Talm. of Jerus., _Pesachim_, vi. 1. Talm. of Bab., the same treatise 66 _a_; _Shabbath_, 31 _a_.]

[Footnote 6: _Quod Deus Immut._, -- 1 and 2; _De Abrahamo_, -- 22; _Quis Rerum Divin. Haeres_, -- 13, and following; 55, 58, and following; _De Profugis_, -- 7 and 8; _Quod Omnis Probus Liber_, entirely; _De Vita Contemp._, entirely.]

[Footnote 7: Talm. of Bab., _Pesachim_, 67 _b_.]

[Footnote 8: Talmud of Jerus., _Peah_, i. 1.]

An exquisite sympathy with Nature furnished him each moment with expressive images. Sometimes a remarkable ingenuity, which we call wit, adorned his aphorisms; at other times, their liveliness consisted in the happy use of popular proverbs. "How wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then thou shalt see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."[1]

[Footnote 1: Matt. vii. 4, 5. Compare Talmud of Babylon, _Baba Bathra_, 15 _b_, _Erachin_, 16 _b_.]

These lessons, long hidden in the heart of the young Master, soon gathered around him a few disciples. The spirit of the time favored small churches; it was the period of the Essenes or Therapeutae.

Rabbis, each having his distinctive teaching, Shemaa, Abtalion, Hillel, Shammai, Judas the Gaulonite, Gamaliel, and many others, whose maxims form the Talmud,[1] appeared on all sides. They wrote very little; the Jewish doctors of this time did not write books; everything was done by conversations, and in public lessons, to which it was sought to give a form easily remembered.[2] The proclamation by the young carpenter of Nazareth of these maxims, for the most part already generally known, but which, thanks to him, were to regenerate the world, was therefore no striking event. It was only one rabbi more (it is true, the most charming of all), and around him some young men, eager to hear him, and thirsting for knowledge. It requires time to command the attention of men. As yet there were no Christians; though true Christianity was founded, and, doubtless, it was never more perfect than at this first period. Jesus added to it nothing durable afterward. Indeed, in one sense, he compromised it; for every movement, in order to triumph, must make sacrifices; we never come from the contest of life unscathed.

[Footnote 1: See especially _Pirke Aboth_, ch. i.]

[Footnote 2: The Talmud, a _resume_ of this vast movement of the schools, was scarcely commenced till the second century of our era.]

To conceive the good, in fact, is not sufficient; it must be made to succeed amongst men. To accomplish this, less pure paths must be followed. Certainly, if the Gospel was confined to some chapters of Matthew and Luke, it would be more perfect, and would not now be open to so many objections; but would Jesus have converted the world without miracles? If he had died at the period of his career we have now reached, there would not have been in his life a single page to wound us; but, greater in the eyes of G.o.d, he would have remained unknown to men; he would have been lost in the crowd of great unknown spirits, himself the greatest of all; the truth would not have been promulgated, and the world would not have profited from the great moral superiority with which his Father had endowed him. Jesus, son of Sirach, and Hillel, had uttered aphorisms almost as exalted as those of Jesus. Hillel, however, will never be accounted the true founder of Christianity. In morals, as in art, precept is nothing, practice is everything. The idea which is hidden in a picture of Raphael is of little moment; it is the picture itself which is prized. So, too, in morals, truth is but little prized when it is a mere sentiment, and only attains its full value when realized in the world as fact. Men of indifferent morality have written very good maxims. Very virtuous men, on the other hand, have done nothing to perpetuate in the world the tradition of virtue. The palm is his who has been mighty both in words and in works, who has discerned the good, and at the price of his blood has caused its triumph. Jesus, from this double point of view, is without equal; his glory remains entire, and will ever be renewed.

CHAPTER VI.

JOHN THE BAPTIST--VISIT OF JESUS TO JOHN, AND HIS ABODE IN THE DESERT OF JUDEA--ADOPTION OF THE BAPTISM OF JOHN.

An extraordinary man, whose position, from the absence of doc.u.mentary evidence, remains to us in some degree enigmatical, appeared about this time, and was unquestionably to some extent connected with Jesus.

This connection tended rather to make the young prophet of Nazareth deviate from his path; but it suggested many important accessories to his religious inst.i.tution, and, at all events, furnished a very strong authority to his disciples in recommending their Master in the eyes of a certain cla.s.s of Jews.

About the year 28 of our era (the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius) there spread throughout Palestine the reputation of a certain Johanan, or John, a young ascetic full of zeal and enthusiasm.

John was of the priestly race,[1] and born, it seems, at Juttah near Hebron, or at Hebron itself.[2] Hebron, the patriarchal city _par excellence_, situated at a short distance from the desert of Judea, and within a few hours' journey of the great desert of Arabia, was at this period what it is to-day--one of the bulwarks of Semitic ideas, in their most austere form. From his infancy, John was _n.a.z.ir_--that is to say, subjected by vow to certain abstinences.[3] The desert by which he was, so to speak, surrounded, early attracted him.[4] He led there the life of a Yogi of India, clothed with skins or stuffs of camel's hair, having for food only locusts and wild honey.[5] A certain number of disciples were grouped around him, sharing his life and studying his severe doctrine. We might imagine ourselves transported to the banks of the Ganges, if particular traits had not revealed in this recluse the last descendant of the great prophets of Israel.

[Footnote 1: Luke i. 5; pa.s.sage from the Gospel of the Ebionites, preserved by Epiphanius, (_Adv. Haer._, x.x.x. 13.)]

[Footnote 2: Luke i. 39. It has been suggested, not without probability, that "the city of Juda" mentioned in this pa.s.sage of Luke, is the town of _Jutta_ (Josh. xv. 55, xxi. 16). Robinson (_Biblical Researches_, i. 494, ii. 206) has discovered this _Jutta_, still bearing the same name, at two hours' journey south of Hebron.]

[Footnote 3: Luke i. 15.]

[Footnote 4: Luke i. 80.]

[Footnote 5: Matt. iii. 4; Mark i. 6; fragm. of the Gospel of the Ebionites, in Epiph., _Adv. Haer._, x.x.x. 13.]

From the time that the Jewish nation had begun to reflect upon its destiny with a kind of despair, the imagination of the people had reverted with much complacency to the ancient prophets. Now, of all the personages of the past, the remembrance of whom came like the dreams of a troubled night to awaken and agitate the people, the greatest was Elias. This giant of the prophets, in his rough solitude of Carmel, sharing the life of savage beasts, dwelling in the hollows of the rocks, whence he came like a thunderbolt, to make and unmake kings, had become, by successive transformations, a sort of superhuman being, sometimes visible, sometimes invisible, and as one who had not tasted death. It was generally believed that Elias would return and restore Israel.[1] The austere life which he had led, the terrible remembrances he had left behind him--the impression of which is still powerful in the East[2]--the sombre image which, even in our own time, causes trembling and death--all this mythology, full of vengeance and terror, vividly struck the mind of the people, and stamped as with a birth-mark all the creations of the popular mind. Whoever aspired to act powerfully upon the people, must imitate Elias; and, as solitary life had been the essential characteristic of this prophet, they were accustomed to conceive "the man of G.o.d" as a hermit. They imagined that all the holy personages had had their days of penitence, of solitude, and of austerity.[3] The retreat to the desert thus became the condition and the prelude of high destinies.

[Footnote 1: Malachi iv. 5, 6; (iii. 23, 24, according to the Vulg.); _Ecclesiasticus_ xlviii. 10; Matt. xvi. 14, xvii. 10, and following; Mark vi. 15, viii. 28, ix. 10, and following; Luke ix. 8, 19; John i.

21, 25.]

[Footnote 2: The ferocious Abdallah, pacha of St. Jean d'Acre, nearly died from fright at seeing him in a dream, standing erect on his mountain. In the pictures of the Christian churches, he is surrounded with decapitated heads. The Mussulmans dread him.]

[Footnote 3: _Isaiah_ ii. 9-11.]

No doubt this thought of imitation had occupied John's mind.[1] The anchorite life, so opposed to the spirit of the ancient Jewish people, and with which the vows, such as those of the n.a.z.irs and the Rechabites, had no relation, pervaded all parts of Judea. The Essenes or Therapeutae were grouped near the birthplace of John, on the eastern sh.o.r.es of the Dead Sea.[2] It was imagined that the chiefs of sects ought to be recluses, having rules and inst.i.tutions of their own, like the founders of religious orders. The teachers of the young were also at times species of anchorites,[3] somewhat resembling the _gourous_[4] of Brahminism. In fact, might there not in this be a remote influence of the _mounis_ of India? Perhaps some of those wandering Buddhist monks who overran the world, as the first Franciscans did in later times, preaching by their actions and converting people who knew not their language, might have turned their steps toward Judea, as they certainly did toward Syria and Babylon?[5]

On this point we have no certainty. Babylon had become for some time a true focus of Buddhism. Boudasp (Bodhisattva) was reputed a wise Chaldean, and the founder of Sabeism. _Sabeism_ was, as its etymology indicates,[6] _baptism_--that is to say, the religion of many baptisms--the origin of the sect still existing called "Christians of St. John," or Mendaites, which the Arabs call _el-Mogtasila_, "the Baptists."[7] It is difficult to unravel these vague a.n.a.logies. The sects floating between Judaism, Christianity, Baptism, and Sabeism, which we find in the region beyond the Jordan during the first centuries of our era,[8] present to criticism the most singular problem, in consequence of the confused accounts of them which have come down to us. We may believe, at all events, that many of the external practices of John, of the Essenes,[9] and of the Jewish spiritual teachers of this time, were derived from influences then but recently received from the far East. The fundamental practice which characterized the sect of John, and gave it its name, has always had its centre in lower Chaldea, and const.i.tutes a religion which is perpetuated there to the present day.

[Footnote 1: Luke i. 17.]

[Footnote 2: Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, v. 17; Epiph., _Adv. Haer._, xix. 1 and 2.]

[Footnote 3: Josephus, _Vita_, 2.]

[Footnote 4: Spiritual preceptors.]

[Footnote 5: I have developed this point elsewhere. _Hist. Gener. des Langues Semitiques_, III. iv. 1; _Journ. Asiat._, February-March, 1856.]

[Footnote 6: The Aramean word _seba_, origin of the name of _Sabians_, is synonymous with [Greek: baptizo].]