Part 24
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!” Their sins could be reduced to one, but that is the most poisonous, the least pardonable of all sins: the sin against the Spirit, the sin against Truth, the betrayal of Truth and Spirit, the laying waste of the only pure wealth which the world possesses. Thieves steal perishable goods, assassins kill the corruptible body, prostitutes sully flesh destined to corruption; but the hypocrites, the Pharisees sully the Word of the absolute, steal the promises of eternity, assassinate the soul. Everything in them is pretense: their dress and their talk, their teaching and their practice. What they say is contradicted by what they do. Their inner life does not correspond to what they choose to show. Secret swinishness gives the lie to their every claim. They are hypocrites because they cover themselves with fringed mantles and with wide phylacteries, to be seen in public places, and love to be called “Master,” and all the time they have hidden the keys of knowledge and have shut the gates of the Kingdom of Heaven, and neither go in themselves nor suffer others to enter. Hypocrites because they make long prayers in public and devour the houses of widows, and take advantage of the weak and the desolate. Hypocrites because they wash and clean the outside of the platter and the cup, and inside they are full of rapine and extortion. Hypocrites because they give their attention to minutiæ of rites and purifications and have no care for greater things: they strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. Hypocrites because they observe the smallest commandments and do not obey the only one which is of value: they pay punctually the tithe of mint and anise and cummin and rue, but they have not justice, mercy and faith in their hearts. Hypocrites because they build monuments to the prophets and garnish the sepulchers of righteous men of old times, but persecute the righteous men of to-day, and are preparing to kill the prophets. “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold I sent unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple, and the altar.”
They have accepted the inheritance of Cain. They are the descendants of Cain. They kill brothers, execute saints, crucify prophets. And, like Cain, God has stamped upon their faces a Sign—the mysterious sign of immortality. They cannot be killed because theirs are the hands which must kill. The fugitive fratricide was saved by this sign among early men, and the murderous Pharisees will be saved through all the centuries because God needs them for the high works of His justice which seems foolishness and madness to the eyes of little-minded men. An eternal decree, not revealed to most men, decrees death and the most atrocious death to all who would be like God. But the simple man could never assassinate a saint, nor even a sinner, a miraculous chrysalis of potential sanctity. And the saint would no longer be a saint if he took the life of another saint, the only brother given him by the Father. So the indestructible race of the Pharisees was created for all centuries and for all peoples, men who are never simple like children and who never know the way of salvation, those who are not visibly sinners, but who are from head to foot the incarnation of the ugliest sin, those who wish to appear saints and who hate real saints. God has made them fitting instruments of an appalling and necessary massacre, to play the part of executioners of perfect men. Faithful to this command, invulnerable as inhabitants of Hell, marked like Cain, immortal as hypocrisy and cruelty, they have survived all the empires and all the overthrows of empire. With different faces, with different garments, with different rules and pretexts, they have covered the face of the earth, stubborn and prolific, up to the present day. And when they have not been able to kill with nails and with fire, with axes and with knives, they have used tongue and pen with the utmost success.
Jesus, while He spoke to them in the great open courtyard crowded with witnesses, knew that He spoke to His Judges, and to those who would be, through intermediate persons, the real authors of His death. By speaking out on this day, He justified His later silence before Caiaphas and Pilate. He had condemned them and they would condemn Him; He had judged them first and had nothing more to add when they wished to judge Him.
Images of death came to His lips as He described them to themselves: vipers and tombs, treacherous black vipers, which as soon as you approach them pour into your blood all the poison hidden in their fangs. Whited sepulchers, fair without but within full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.
The Pharisees who stood before Jesus, and all those who have legitimately descended from them, are glad to hide themselves in the shadow of the dead, to prepare their venom. Cold as a snake’s skin, as the stone of a tomb, neither the heat of the sun, nor the warmth of love, nor the fires of Hell can ever warm them. They know all the words save one, the word of Life.
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walk over them are not aware of them.” The only one aware of this was Jesus—and it was because of this that He was not to remain more than two days in the sepulcher which they were preparing for Him.
ONE STONE UPON ANOTHER
The Thirteen went down from the Temple to make their daily ascent to the Mount of Olives. One of the Disciples (who could it have been?—perhaps John, son of Salome, still rather childish and naïvely full of wonder at what he saw? Or Judas Iscariot, with his respect for wealth?) said to Jesus, “Master, see what manner of stones and what buildings are here!”
The Master turned to look at the high walls faced with marble which the ostentatious calculation of Herod had built up on the hill and said, “Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”
The admiring exclamation suddenly died. No one dared answer, but perplexed and surprised, each of them continued to turn over in his mind these words. Hard words for the ears of those carnal-minded Jews, for the narrow hearts of those ambitious provincials. He whom they loved had said in these last days many other hard words, hard to hear, hard to understand, hard to believe. But they did not remember any other words so hard as these. They knew that He was the Christ and that He was to suffer and die, but they hoped that He would rise again at once in the glorious victory of the new David, to give abundance to all Israel and to award the greatest prizes and power to them, faithful to Him in the dangerous wanderings of His poor days. But if the world was to be commanded by Judea, Judea was to be commanded by Jerusalem, and the seats of command were to be in the Temple of the great King. It was occupied to-day by the faithless Sadducees, the hypocritical Pharisees, the traitorous Scribes, but Christ was to drive them away to give their places to His apostles. How then could the Temple be destroyed, splendid memorial of the kingdom in the past; hoped-for rock of the new Kingdom?
This talk of stones was harder than a stone for Simon called the Rock and for his companions. Had not John the Baptist said that God could change the stones of the Jordan into sons of Abraham? Had not Satan said that the Son of God could change the stones of the desert to loaves of wheat bread? Had not Jesus Himself said while He was passing the walls of Jerusalem that those very stones, in place of men, would have shouted out greetings and sung hymns? And was it not He who had made the stones fall from the hands of His enemies, the stones which they had taken up to kill Him? And had He not made them fall from those who accused the adulteress?
But the Disciples could not understand this talk about the stones of the Temple. They could not and they would not understand that those great massive stones, quarried out patiently from the mountains, drawn from afar by oxen, squared and prepared by chisels and mallets, put one upon another by masters of the art to make the most marvelous Temple of the universe; that these stones, warm and brilliant in the sun, should be torn apart once more and pulverized into ruins.
They had scarcely arrived at the Mount of Olives, and Christ had only had time to sit down opposite to the Temple, when their curiosity burst out:
“Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled?”
The answer was the discourse on the Last Things, the second Sermon on the Mount. At the beginning of His work, He had explained how the soul must be transformed to found the Kingdom; now at death’s door He taught what the punishment of the stubborn would be and in what manner He would come again.
This discourse, less understood than the other, and even more forgotten, is not, as it is generally believed, the answer to one question only. The Disciples had put two questions, “When shall these things be?” That is, the ruin of the Temple; and “What shall be the signs of Thy coming?” There are two answers to these two questions. Jesus first describes the events which will precede the destruction of Jerusalem, and then He describes the signs of His second appearance. The prophetic discourse, although it is read all in one piece in the Gospels, had two parts. The prophecies are two, quite distinct from each other; the first was fulfilled before the end of Jesus’ generation, about forty years after His death. The second has not yet been fulfilled, but perhaps before the passing of our own generation the first signs will be seen.
SHEEP AND GOATS
Jesus knew the weakness of the Disciples, weakness of the spirit, and perhaps also of the flesh, and He puts them on their guard against two great perils: fraud and martyrdom.
“Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many. Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For false Christs and false prophets shall rise and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect. Go not after them, nor follow them.”
But although they are to flee from the frauds of the false Messiahs, they cannot escape the persecutions of the enemies of the real Christ. “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. But take heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to councils; and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten: and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them. . . . Now the brother shall betray the brother to death, and the father the son; and the children shall rise up against their parents, and shall cause them to be put to death. . . . And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another . . . and because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved.”
Then shall begin the signs of the imminent punishment, “And when ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars, be ye not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be earthquakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and troubles: these are the beginnings of sorrow.”
These are the preliminary warnings: the order of the world shall be disturbed, the world, peaceful at the time when Christ pronounced these words, shall see man set against man, nation against nation, and the earth itself soaked with blood shall rise against men; shall tremble under their steps; shall cast down their houses; shall vomit out ashes, as if it cast out from the mouth of its mountains all its dead, and shall deny to the fratricides the food which ripens to gold every summer in the fields.
Then when all this shall have come to pass, the punishment will come upon those people who would not be born again in Christ, who did not accept the Gospel; on the city which nailed its Lord upon Golgotha and persecuted His witnesses.
“And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh. But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel, the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judea flee to the mountains: and let him that is on the housetop not go down into the house, neither enter therein, to take anything out of his house: And let him that is in the field not turn back again for to take up his garment. But woe to them that are with child, and to them who give suck in those days! And pray ye that your flight be not in winter. For in those days shall be affliction, such as was not from the beginning of creation which God created unto this time, neither shall be. There shall be great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”
This is the end of the first prophecy. Jerusalem shall be taken and destroyed and of the Temple, defiled by the abomination of desolation, there shall remain not one stone upon another.
But Jesus has not said all, until now has not spoken of His second coming.
“Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” What are these “tempi dei Gentili, tempora nationum”? The words of the Greek texts express it with greater precision than the other languages: they are the times adapted to, fitting, and awaiting the Gentiles, that is, those in which the non-Jews shall be converted to the Gospel, announced to the Jews before all others. Therefore that real end shall not come until the Gospel has been carried into all nations, until the Gentiles, the faithless ones, tread down the city of Jerusalem. “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”
The second coming of Christ from Heaven, the Parusia, will be the end of this world and the beginning of the true world, the eternal kingdom. The end of Judea was announced by signs human and terrestrial; this other end will be preceded by signs divine and celestial. “The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light. And the stars of heaven shall fall. And upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after these things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.”
For the end of Jerusalem only, the little earth was troubled; but for this universal ending, Heaven itself is convulsed. In the great sudden blackness only the roaring of water will be heard, and screams of terror. It is the Day of the Lord, the day of God’s wrath described in their times by Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah and Joel. “The day of the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come. A day of darkness and of gloominess! The land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness. The people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness. Therefore shall all hands be faint and every man’s heart shall melt. And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrow shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth; they shall be amazed one at another. Behold the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree.”
This is the day of the Father, day of blackness in the Heavens and of terror on earth. But the day of the Son follows immediately after.
He does not appear this time hidden in a stable, but on high in Heaven, no longer poor and wretched, but in power and splendor of glory. “And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” And when the celestial trumpets shall have awakened all those sleeping in the tombs, the irrevocable division shall be made.
“When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
“And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from, the goats:
“And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left.
“Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
“For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
“Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
“Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
“When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
“Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
“And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
“Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
“For I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
“I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
“Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
“Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
“And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.”
Jesus, even in His glory as judge of the last Day, does not forget the poor and unhappy whom He loved so greatly during His life on earth. He wishes to appear as one of those “least” who hold out their hands at the doors and on whom the “great” look down. On earth, in the time of Tiberius, He was the man who was hungering for bread and love, thirsting for water and martyrdom, who was like a stranger in His own country, not recognized by His own brothers, who stripped Himself to clothe those shaking with cold, who was sick with sorrow and suffering and no one comforted Him, who was imprisoned in the base prison of human flesh, in the narrow prison of earthly life. He was divinely hungering for souls, thirsting for faith, He was the stranger come from the ineffable fatherland, defenseless before whips and insults, the Man sick with the holy madness of love. But on that great Day of final Judgment, He will not be thinking of Himself, as He did not think of Himself when He was a man among men.
The code of this dividing of good from evil men will be based on one idea only: Compassion—Charity. During all the time which lies between His first and second coming He has gone on living under the appearance of the poor and the pilgrims, of the sick and persecuted, of wanderers and slaves. And on the Last Day He pays His debts. Mercy shown to those “least” was shown to Him, and He will reward that mercy in the name of all. Only those who did not receive Him when He appeared in the innumerable bodies of the poverty-stricken will be condemned to eternal punishment, because when they drove away the unfortunate they drove away God. When they refused bread, water and a garment to the poor man, they condemned the Son of God to cold, thirst and hunger. The Father had no need of your help, for all is His and He loves you even during the moments when you curse Him. But you must love the Father in the persons of His children. And those who did not quench the thirst of the thirsty will themselves thirst for all eternity; those who did not warm the naked man will suffer in fire for all eternity; those who did not comfort the prisoner will be prisoners of Hell forever; those who did not receive the stranger will never be received in Heaven, and those who did not help the fever-stricken patient will shiver in the spasms of everlasting fever.
The Great Poor Man in the day of His glory will, as justice dictates, reward every one with His infinite riches. He who has given a little life to the poor will have life forever; he who has left the poor in pain will himself be in pain forever. And then the bare sky will be peopled with other more powerful suns, with stars flaming more brightly in the heavens and there will be a new Heaven and a new Earth, and the Chosen will live not as we live now, like beasts, but in the likeness of angels.
WORDS WHICH SHALL NOT PASS AWAY
But when shall these things come to pass? These are the signs, this is the manner in which it shall happen. But the time? Shall we be still here, we who are now under the light of the sun? Or shall the grandchildren of our grandchildren see these events while we are dust and ashes under the earth?
Up to the very last, the Twelve understand as little as twelve stones. They have the truth before them and they do not see it: they have the Light in their midst and the Light does not reach them. If only they had been among stones like diamonds which send back, divided into reflected rays, the light which strikes them. But these twelve men are rough stones, scarcely dug out of the darkness of the quarry, dull stones, opaque stones, stones which the sun can warm but not kindle, stones which are lighted from without but do not reflect the splendor. They have not yet understood that Jesus is not a common diviner, a student of the Chaldeans and of the Etruscans, and that He has nothing to do with the presumptuous pretensions of astrology. They have not understood that a definitely dated prophecy would not work on men to create a conversion which needs perpetual vigilance. Perhaps they have not even understood that the Apocalyptic sayings revealed on the Mount of Olives form a double prophecy which refers to two events, different and distant from each other. Perhaps these provincial fishermen, for whom a lake was the sea and Judea was the universe, confused the end of the Hebrew people with the end of the human race, the punishment of Jerusalem with the second coming of Christ.
But the discourse of Jesus, although it is presented as one unit in the synoptic Gospels, shows us two distinct prophecies.