Part 22
They had heard and they had seen, and still they hoped on,—all but one. The truth shone out in them at moments like lightning-flashes in the dark. Then the night fell blacker than ever. The new man in their hearts who recognized Jesus as the Christ, the man born for the second time, the Christian, disappeared to give way to the Jew, deaf and blind, who saw nothing beyond the Jerusalem of bricks and stone.
The question which Jesus had put to the Twelve on the road in Cæsarea must have been the beginning of their complete conversion to the new truth. What need did Jesus have to know what others thought of Him? Such a curiosity springs up only in doubtful souls, in those who do not know themselves, in the weak who cannot read in their own hearts, in the blind who are not sure of the ground on which they stand. For any one of us such a question is legitimate, but not for Jesus. No one of us knows really who he is, no one knows with any certainty what is his real nature, his mission, and the name which he has a right to call his own, the eternal name which fits our destiny. The name which was given to us in infancy, together with the salt and water of baptism, the name set down on the municipal register, and written in the records of birth and of death, the name which the mother calls with so much gentleness in the morning, which the sweetheart murmurs with so much desire at night, the name which is cut for the last time on the rectangle of the tomb, that is not our real name. Every one of us has a secret name which expresses our invisible and authentic essence, and which we ourselves will never know until the day of the New Birth, until the full light of the resurrection.
Few of us dare to ask ourselves, “Who am I?” and there are still fewer who can answer. The question “Who art thou?” is the most tremendous, the most weighty which man can put to man. Other human beings are for each of us a sealed mystery even in the moments of supreme passion, when two souls desperately essay to become one. We are all of us a mystery even to ourselves. Unknown to others, we live among others unknown to us. Much of our wretchedness comes from this universal ignorance. Here is a man who acts like a king and believes himself a king and in the absolute he is really only a poor servant, predestined from the beginning of time to dependent mediocrity. Here is another dressed and acting like a judge; look at him well; he is born a dry-goods dealer, his real place is in the country fair. That man there who writes poetry has not understood his inner voice; he should be a goldsmith, because gold which can be turned into coin suits his taste, and he is attracted by filigree, mosaics, chasing, imitation jewels. This other man who is at the head of an army ought to be teaching school. What an expert and eloquent professor he might have become! And that fellow there, shouting in the public places, heading a revolution, calling on the people to revolt, is a gardener who has mistaken his calling; the red of tomatoes, long lines of onions, garlic, and cabbages would be the fit reward of his true mission. This other man here, on the contrary, who, cursing his fate, prunes his grape-vines and spreads the manure on the cultivated earth, should have studied in law-books the art of quibbling: no one can invent sophisms and verbal tricks as he can, and even now, how much eloquence he pours out in humble duels about money matters, this poor “leading lawyer” exiled to barns and furrows.
These errors concern us because we do not know, because we have not spiritual eyes strong enough to read in the heart which beats inside our own breasts, and the hearts which beat under the flesh of our neighbors, so irrevocably remote from us. Everything is in confusion because of those Names which we do not know, illegible for us, known to genius alone.
THOU ART THE CHRIST
But what did Jesus care what was said of Him by the men of the lake and of the cities, Jesus who could read in their souls the thoughts hidden even to themselves? Long before that day Jesus alone knew with ineffable certainty what His real name was, and what was his superhuman nature. As a matter of fact He did not ask that He might know, but, now that the end was near, that His faithful followers might know, His real name, at last—even they.
“Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias or, one of the Prophets.”
What were these things to Him, these rudimentary guesses of the poor and the ignorant? He wished the definite answer to come from His Disciples, destined as they were to follow His work and to bear witness to Him among the peoples and the centuries. Even at the last He did not wish to impose by force a belief on those who had seen His life close at hand and had heard Him speak. The recognition of His superb human mission, that name which not one of them up to that time had pronounced (as if they were afraid of it, as if it were too dangerous a secret to speak aloud), that recognition on the part of the Twelve should be free and spontaneous, should burst out, an impetuous confession of love, from one of those souls, should be pronounced by one of those mouths.
“But whom say ye that I am?” And then there came to Simon Peter the great light that was almost too great for him, and made him First to all eternity. He could not keep back the words, they came to his lips almost involuntarily in a cry of which he himself the moment before would have believed himself incapable: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Thou hast the word of eternal life, and we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.”
At last from Peter the Rock there sprang forth the wellspring which from that day to this has quenched the thirst of sixty generations of men. It was his right and his reward. Peter had been the first to follow Christ in the divine wanderings: it was for him to be the first to recognize in the wanderer the Proclaimer of the Kingdom, the everlasting and lawful sovereign of that Kingdom, the Messiah whom all men had been awaiting in the desert of the centuries, who had finally come and was there Himself, clothed in flesh, standing before their eyes, with His feet in the dust of the road.
The pure King, the Son of Justice, the Prince of Peace, the Son of Man sent by God, the Saviour, the Anointed, whom the prophets had foretold in the twilight of sorrow and affliction; who had been seen by apocalyptic writers descending upon the earth like lightning, in the fullness of victory and glory; for whom the poor, the wounded, the hungry, the afflicted, had been waiting from century to century, as dry grass waits for rain, as the flower waits for the sun, as the mouth awaits the kiss, and the heart, consolation; the Son of God and of Man, the Man who hid God in human flesh, the God who cloaked His divinity in Adam’s clay, it is He, the dear Brother of every day, who looks quietly into the astounded eyes of those chosen ones!
The period of waiting is done; ended is the vigil! Why had they not recognized Him until that day? Whence did it come in those simple souls, the first notion of the true name of Him who so many times had taken them by the hand, and had spoken for their ears to hear? They could never think that one of them—a common man like them, a workman and poor as they were—could be the Saviour Messiah announced and awaited by saints and by the centuries. With the intellect alone they could never have discovered Him, nor with the mere bodily senses, nor with the teachings of the scriptures; only with the inspiration, the intuition, the sudden flaming illumination of the heart, as it happened that day in the soul of Peter. “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in Heaven.” Fleshly eyes would not have been able to see what they saw without a revelation from on high.
But weighty consequences flow from the choice of Peter for this proclamation. It is a reward which calls for other recompense, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven.”
Weighty words from which have emerged, through the patient germination of long centuries, helped by the fire of faith and by the blood of witnesses, one of the greatest Kingdoms which men have ever established upon the earth; the only one of the old kingdoms which still lives on in the same city which saw the rise and fall of the proudest and most pompous of earthly kingdoms. For these words many men suffered, many were tortured, many were killed. To deny or uphold, to interpret or cancel these words, thousands of men have been killed in city squares and in battles; kingdoms have been divided, societies have been shaken and rent, nations have waged war, emperors and beggars have given their all. But their meaning in Christ’s mouth is plain and simple. He means to say, “Thou, Peter, shalt be hard and staunch as a rock, and upon the staunchness of thy faith in me, which thou wast the first to profess, is founded the first Christian society, the humble seed of the Kingdom. Against this Church which to-day has only Twelve citizens but which will be spread to the limits of the earth, the forces of evil cannot prevail, because you are the Spirit and the Spirit cannot be overcome and dimmed by Matter. Thou shalt close forever—and when I speak to thee I am speaking to all those who shall succeed thee united in the same certainty—the Gates of Hell; and thou shalt open to all those who are chosen the Gates of Heaven. Thou shalt bind and thou shalt unloosen in my name. What thou shalt forbid after my death shall be forbidden to-morrow also for that new humanity which I will find on my return; what thou shalt command shalt be justly commanded because thou wilt be only repeating in other words what I have told and taught thee. Thou shalt be, in thy person and in that of thy legitimate heirs, the shepherd of the interregnum, the temporary and provisional guide who shalt prepare, together with comrades obedient to thee, the Kingdom of God and of Love.
“In requital for this revelation and for this promise I lay on you a hard command: to keep silence; for the present you must tell no one who I am. My day is near, but has not yet come; you will be witness to events which you do not expect, which will even be the contrary of what you expect. I know the hour in which I shall speak and in which you shall speak. And when we break our silence, my cry and your cry shall be heard in the most distant realms of Heaven and Earth.”
SUN AND SNOW
A man’s voice, the voice of Peter the Rock, had called Him the Son of Man; another voice issuing from a cloud was to call Him the Son of God.
Very high is the three-peaked mountain of Hermon, covered with snow even in the hot season, the highest mountain of Palestine, higher than Mount Tabor. The Psalmist says, “It is the dew of Hermon that descends upon the mountains of Zion.” Jesus became incarnate light on this mountain, the highest mountain in the life of Christ, that life which marks its different stages by great heights—the mountain of the Temptation, the mountain of the Beatitudes, the mountain of the Transfiguration, the mountain of the Crucifixion.
Three Disciples alone were with Him: he who was called Peter, and the Sons of Thunder,—the man with the rugged, mountainous character, and the stormy men—fitting company for the place and hour. He prayed alone, apart from them, higher than all of them, perhaps kneeling in the snow. All of us have seen in winter how the snow on a mountain makes any other whiteness seem dull and drab. A pale face seems strangely dark, white linen seems dingy, paper looks like dry clay. The contrary of all this was seen on that day up in the gleaming, deserted height alone in the sky.
Jesus prayed by Himself apart from the others. Suddenly His face shone like the sun and His raiment became as white as snow in the sunshine, white “as no fuller on earth can white them.” Over the whiteness of the snow a more brilliant whiteness, a splendor more powerful than all known splendors, outshone all earthly light.
The Transfiguration is the Feast and the Victory of Light. Jesus still in the flesh—for so short a time!—took on the most subtle, the lightest and most spiritual aspect of matter. His body awaiting its liberation became sunlight, the light of Heaven, intellectual and supernatural light; His soul transfigured in prayer shone out through the flesh, pierced with its flaming whiteness the screen of His body and His garments, like a flame consuming the walls which close it in, and flashing through them.
But the light was not the same on His face and on His raiment. The light of His face was like the sun; that of His garments was like the brilliance of snow. His face, mirror of the soul, took on the color of fire; His garments, mere material stuff, were white like ice. For the soul is sun, fire, love; but the garments, all garments,—even that heavy garment which is called the human body,—are opaque, cold, dead; and can shine only by reflected light.
But Jesus, all light, His face gleaming with quiet refulgence, His garments shining white—gold sparkling in the midst of silver—was not alone. Two great figures, returned from death, gleaming like Him, stood by Him, and spoke with Him, Moses and Elias. The first of the Prophets, men of light and fire, came to bear witness to the new Light which shines on Hermon. All those who have spoken with God remain radiant with light. The face of Moses when he came down from Mt. Sinai had become so resplendent that he covered it with a veil, lest he dazzle the others. And Elias was caught up to Heaven in a chariot of fire drawn by fiery steeds. John, the new Elias, announced the baptism of fire, but his face was darkened by the sun and did not shine like the sun. The only splendor which came into his life was the golden platter on which his bloody head was carried, a kingly gift to Herod’s sinister concubine. But on Hermon there was One whose face shone more than Moses’ and whose ascension was to be more splendid than that of Elias,—He whom Moses had promised and who was to come after Elias. They had come there beside him, but they were to disappear thereafter forever. They were no longer necessary after this last revelation. From now on the world can do without their laws and their hopes. A luminous cloud hid the glorious three from the eyes of the obscure three, and from the cloud came out a voice: “This is my beloved Son: hear him.”
The cloud did not hide the light, but increased it. As from the tempest-cloud, the lightning darts out to light up suddenly all the country; from this cloud already shining in itself, flamed out the fire which burned up the Old Covenant and confirmed to all eternity the New Promise. The column of smoke which guided the fleeing Hebrews in the desert towards Jordan, the black cloud which hid the ark in the day of desolation and fear, had finally become a cloud of light so brilliant that it hid even the sunlike splendor of the face which was soon to be buffeted in the dark days, close at hand.
But when the cloud disappeared, Jesus was once more alone. The two precursors and the two witnesses had disappeared. His face had taken on its natural color. His garments had their everyday aspect. Christ, once more a loving brother, turned back to his swooning companions. “Arise, and be not afraid.... Tell the vision to no man, until the son of man be risen again from the dead.”
The Transfiguration forecasts the Ascension; but to die in shame always precedes rising in glory.
I SHALL SUFFER MANY THINGS
Jesus had known that He must soon die a shameful death. It was the reward for which he was waiting and no one could have defrauded Him of it. He who saves others is ready to lose himself; he who rescues others necessarily pays with his person (that is, with the only value which is really his and which surpasses and includes all other values); it is fitting that he who loves his enemies should be hated even by his friends; he who brings salvation to all nations must needs be killed by his own people; it suits human ideas of the fitness of things that he who offers his life should be put to death. Every benefaction is such an offense to the native ingratitude of men that it can be paid for only by the heaviest penalty. We lend ears only to voices which cry out from the tombs, and reserve our scanty capacity for reverence for those whom we have assassinated. The only truths which remain in the fleeting memory of the human race are the truths written in blood.
Jesus knew what was awaiting Him at Jerusalem, and as later was said by one worthy to portray Him, His every thought was colored by the thought of death. Three times they had already tried to kill Him; the first time at Nazareth when they took Him up on the summit of the mountain where the city was built and wished to cast Him down; the second time in the Temple, the Jews, offended by His talk, laid their hands on stones to stone Him; and a third time at the feast of the Dedication in winter-time, they took up the stones of the street to silence Him. But for these three times he escaped because His hour was not yet come.
He kept His certainty of death in His own heart for Himself alone until His last hours. For He did not wish to sadden His Disciples who would have shrunk from following a condemned man, a man who in His own heart knew Himself at the point of death. But after the triple consecration as Messiah—Peter’s cry, the light of Hermon, the anointing of Bethany—He could no longer keep silence. He knew too well the ingenuous complacency of the Twelve. He knew that when the rare moments of enthusiasm and illumination were gone, their thoughts were often the common thoughts of common people, human even in their highest dreams. He knew that the Messiah for whom they were waiting was a victorious restorer of the Age of Gold and not the Man of Sorrows. They thought of Him as a king on his throne and not as a criminal on the gallows; triumphant, receiving homage and tribute, not spat upon, beaten, and insulted; come to raise the dead and not to be executed like an assassin.
Lest the Disciples should lose this new certainty of Christ’s Messiahship on the day of His ignominy, Christ knew that He must warn them. They must learn from His own mouth that the Messiah would be condemned, that the Victorious One would disappear in a dreadful downfall, that the King of all kings would be insulted by Cæsar’s servants, that the Son of God would be crucified by the ignorant, blind servants of God.
Three times they had tried to put Him to death; three times after Peter’s recognition He announced to the Twelve His imminent death. And there were to be three kinds of men who were to bring about His death: the Elders, the High Priests and the Scribes. The Elders were the Patricians, the aristocrats, the lay delegates of the Hebrew middle-classes, they represented authority and wealth, and Christ had come to transform authority into service and to condemn the rich and their treasures. The High Priests represented the Temple, and He had come to destroy the Temple. The Scribes were the doctors of law, of theology, the interpreters of the Book, the masters of the Scriptures, and represented the authority of word and of tradition; and He had come to transform the Word and to regenerate the tradition. These three orders of men never could forgive Him even after they had sent Him to Golgotha.
And there were to be three accomplices to His death: Judas who betrayed Him, Caiaphas who sentenced Him, Pilate who permitted the execution of the sentence. And there were to be three sorts of men to execute the penalty: the guards who arrested Him, the Hebrews who cried “Crucify Him!” before the procurator’s house, the Roman soldiers who nailed Him on the cross.
There were to be three degrees of His afflictions, as He Himself told the disciples. First He was to be spurned and outraged, then spit upon and beaten, and finally killed. But they were not to fear nor to weep. As life has its reward in death, death is the promise of a second life. After three days, He was to rise from the tomb, never more to die. Christ was to be victorious not over earthly kingdoms, but over death. He does not bring golden treasures, nor abundance of grain, but immortality to all those who obey Him, and the cancellation of all sins committed by men. He was to buy this immortality and this liberation by imprisonment and death. The price was hard and bitter, but without those few days of His Passion and burial He could not have secured centuries and centuries of life and freedom for men.
The Disciples were troubled at this revelation and unwilling to believe. But Jesus had already begun His Passion, foreseeing those terrible last days of His life and describing them. From now on the heirs of His work knew all, and He could go on His way towards Jerusalem in order that His words should be fulfilled to the very last.
MARANATHA
And yet for one day at least He was to be like that King awaited by the poor every morning on the thresholds of the holy city.
Easter draws near. It was the beginning of the last week which even now had not yet ended—since the new Sabbath has not yet dawned. But this time Jesus does not come to Jerusalem as in other years, an obscure wanderer mingled with the crowd of pilgrims, into the evil-smelling metropolis huddled with its houses, white as sepulchers, under the towering vainglory of the Temple destined to the flames. This time, which is the last time, Jesus is accompanied by His faithful friends, by His fellow-peasants, by the women who were later to weep, by the Twelve who were to hide themselves, by the Galileans who come in memory of an ancient miracle, but with the hope of seeing a new miracle. This time He is not alone; the vanguard of the Kingdom is with Him, and He does not come unknown: the cry of the Resurrection has preceded Him. Even in the capital ruled by the iron of the Romans, the gold of the merchants, the letter of the Pharisees, there are eyes which look towards the Mount of Olives and hearts which beat faster.
This time He does not come on foot into the city which should have been the throne of His kingdom, and which was to be His tomb. When He had come to Bethpage, He sent two disciples to look for an ass, “Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her; loose them, and bring them unto me. And if any man say ought unto you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them.”