Part 13

Jesus said unto them, "They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. ... For I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." [Footnote 100]

[Footnote 100: Matthew ix. 12, 13.]

What is the signification of this sublime fact; what the meaning in Jesus of this union, this harmony of severity and of love, of saint-like holiness and of human sympathy? It is Heaven's revelation of the nature of Jesus him-self, of the God-man. {252} God, he made himself man. God is his father, men are his brethren. He is pure and holy like God: He is accessible and sensible to all that man feels. Thus the vital principles of the Christian faith, the divine and the human nature united in Jesus, start to evidence, in his sentiments and language respecting the relations between God and man. The dogma is the foundation of the principles.

Another fact is not less significant. At the same time that the divine and mysterious character of Jesus Christ appears in the Gospel, his acts and his words have a character essentially simple and practical. He pursues no learned object, no scientific plan; He develops no system; his object is something infinitely grander than the triumph of any logical abstraction: it is to pervade the human soul, to establish himself in it--to save it. He speaks the language--He appeals to the ideas most calculated to ensure Him success. {253} Sometimes He addresses himself to the task of inspiring in men the most poignant disquietude as to their future destiny, if they violate the laws of God; at other times He causes to shine before their eyes the realisation of the most magnificent hopes, if with sincerity they persist in faith. He knows the generation that He is addressing; He knows human nature in its universality, and what it will be in future generations: his object is to produce upon it an effect at once positive, general, durable; He chooses the ideas, He employs the images suitable to his design for the regeneration and the salvation of all. God's Ambassador is the most penetrating and able of human moralists.

More than once, the attempt has been made to find Him at fault, to detect in his language exaggerations, contradictions, incoherencies irreconcilable with his divine authority. Surprise, for instance, has been expressed, that He should have one day said, according to St. Matthew: "He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad;" [Footnote 101] and that He should another day, according to St. Mark, have used the expression, "For he that is not against us is on our part." [Footnote 102]

[Footnote 101: Matthew xii. 30.]

[Footnote 102: Mark ix. 40.]

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These two passages have been characterised as furnishing "two rules of proselytism entirely opposed to each other, and as involving a contradiction growing out of some impassioned struggle." [Footnote 103]

[Footnote 103: Vie de Jesus, par M. Renan, p. 229.]

In my turn I observe that it astonishes me how earnest men can fall into any such error. Jesus does not lay down in these two passages two contradictory rules of proselytism, He merely observes and refers in turn to two different facts: who has not learnt, in the course of actual life, that, according to the difference of circumstances and persons, the man who abstains from active concurrence, who keeps himself aloof, by that very fact may at one time give support and strength, and at another injure and impede? These two assertions, far from being in contradiction, may be both true, and Jesus Christ, in uttering them, spoke as a sagacious observer, not as a moralist who is enunciating precepts. {255} I have heard other critics reproachfully regard another passage as a sort of blasphemy. According to St Luke: "There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man: and there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me." [Footnote 104]

[Footnote 104: Luke xviii. 1-5.]

Is it possible to infer from these words an intention on the part of Jesus to liken God to an unjust judge, and to make the mere importunate persistence in praying a claim to God's grace? He only cited an occurrence which made noise in his time, in order to instil a lively impression of the utility of perseverance. To attain his end, He never makes use of out-of-the-way or impure expedients; but He draws from the ordinary events of human life examples and reasons to illustrate and render intelligible the divine precepts, and to insure their acceptance. All the parables have this meaning and object.

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Next to the precepts which refer to the relations of man with God come those which respect the relations of men with one another. Whilst Faith and Hope regard God, Charity has man for its object.

Charity, it has often been repeated, is the great principle of Jesus Christ, pre-eminently the Christian virtue. I know, not, however, whether the source whence Christian charity derives its character and grandeur has been adequately perceived or remarked.

In the different pagan religions, whether of character gross or learned, we have deifications of the different forces of nature or of men themselves. And even in those religions in which gods in their turn are said to assume man's shape, it is man particularly that is predominant, and that lives in the incarnation of God. {257} Whereas in Christianity, it is not a god sprung from nature or of human origin that becomes man, but the God self-existent, anterior, and superior to all beings, the God, One, Eternal. The Hebrew religion, alone of all religions, shows God essentially and eternally distinct from the nature and the mankind that He has created, and that He governs. The Christian Faith alone shows God one and eternal; the God of Abraham and of Moses making himself man, and the divine nature uniting itself to the human nature in the person of Jesus. And in this union it is the divine nature that shines forth, that speaks, that sets in movement. And this incarnation is unparalleled like the God its author.

And why did God make himself man? "What is the object of this unparalleled, this mysterious incarnation? It is God's purpose to rescue man from the evil and the peril which have continued to weigh upon him since the fault committed by his first progenitor. It is God's purpose to ransom the human race from the sin of Adam, the heritage of Adam's children, and to bring it back to the ways of eternal life. These are the designs, loudly proclaimed, of the divine incarnation in Jesus, and the price of all the sufferings and agonies which He endured in its accomplishment.

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Need I say more? Who does not see how this sublime fact exalts man's dignity at the same time that it illustrates the worth of man's nature? By the mere fact of God having assumed his form is man's nature glorified; and all men, so to say, have their share of the honour done by God to humanity in uniting himself with it, and in accepting, for a moment of time, all the conditions of humanity. But as far as mankind is here concerned, it is far more than a mere accession of an honour or a glorifying of his nature: it is a striking manifestation of the value that all men have in the eyes of God. For it is not for some of them only, for some class or nation, or portion of humanity, it is for all humanity that God became incarnate in Jesus Christ, and that Jesus Christ has submitted to all human sufferings. Every human soul is the object of this divine sacrifice, and called upon to gather the fruit.

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This is the source, this the privilege of Christian charity. The dogma makes the force of the precept itself. Jesus crucified is God's charity towards man. Impossible that men should not feel themselves bound to act towards each other as God has done to them; and towards what man is not charity a duty? Without the divinity and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the value of man's soul, if I may be pardoned the expression, sinks,--neither his salvation nor the example of his Saviour is any longer the question,--charity becomes nothing more than human goodness; a sentiment, however noble and useful, still limited both in impulsive energy and in efficacy; having its source in man alone, it can but incompletely solace the unequally distributed sufferings of mortality. It is not suited to inspire any long effort or great sacrifice: it is not adequate to convert the longing desire for the moral amendment, the physical relief of humanity, into that inextinguishable sympathy and untiring and impassioned emotion which really constitute charity, and which the Christian Faith, in the history of the world, has alone been able to inspire.

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Thus the essential precepts of Jesus, the virtues which He commands as the basis and source of all the others, have an intimate connection with his doctrine, a doctrine "which is not," He tells us himself, "_his_, but of him that sent him;" that is to say, they are connected with the fundamental dogmas of the Christian religion. No one denies the perfection, the sublimity of the Gospel morality; men indeed seem to feel a sort of self-complacency, a satisfaction in celebrating it, with a view to the conclusion, more or less explicitly stated, that that morality constitutes the whole Gospel. This is, however, not less than absolutely to mistake the bond which unites in man thought with sentiment, and belief with action. Man is grander and less easy to satisfy than superficial moralists pretend; the law of his life is for him, in the profound instinct of his soul, necessarily connected with the secret of his destiny; and it is only the Christian dogma that gives to Christian ethics the Royal authority of which they stand in need to govern and to regenerate humanity.

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III. Jesus And His Miracles.

I have called myself one of those who admit the supernatural; and I have stated my reasons. I might stop there and enter into no special reflection as to the Gospel Miracles. The possibility of miracles once accorded in principle, nothing remains but to weigh the value of the testimony in their support. In the second series of these _Meditations_, where I treat of the authenticity of the localities specified in the Holy Scriptures, I shall occupy myself with this examination. It is not, however, my wish to elude, upon the subjects that lie at the bottom of this question, any of the difficulties that it presents: for here we find the point of attack sought by the adversaries of the Christian faith. The image of Christ as it results from the Gospel would be besides singularly unfaithful, did we not range in it his miracles by the side of his precepts.

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I avow once more my belief in God, in God the Creator, the Sovereign Master of the Universe, who orders it and governs it by that independent and constant action of his providence and power styled the Laws of Nature. To those who regard nature as having existed from all eternity of itself, and governed by laws immutable and proceeding from fate, I have nothing to say of Jesus or his miracles; the question at issue between them and me is more important than that which respects miracles; it involves the very question of Pantheism or Christianity, of Fatalism or Liberty, affecting both God and man. Upon these subjects I have already expressed my general opinion and its grounds. I propose to enter further upon it in the third series of these _Meditations_, when I come to speak of the different systems which are now in conflict throughout Christendom. But at this moment I address myself to Deists and to men of wavering minds, and to these alone.

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One thing is beyond all doubt: the perfect sincerity of the apostles and of the primitive Christians as to their faith in the miracles of Jesus. Sincerity still more striking that it is united to every sort of hesitation in the mind and weakness in the conduct, and that it only triumphs gradually and slowly when Jesus has quitted his disciples and has left them alone charged with his work. Whilst He was with them, St. Peter has failed, St. Thomas has doubted; after several miracles have been performed by Jesus, his disciples are astonished, put questions to Him, yet still doubt of Him and of his power. Upon several occasions Jesus addresses them as men "of little faith," and at the moment when He is arrested, they abandon Him, they fly from Him. No impassioned enthusiasm, no exaggeration in their trustfulness and their devotedness; even with them Jesus sees himself confronted by all the vacillations and pusillanimity of humanity; He persuades them, He wins them, He preserves them only by great exertion, and by dint, so to say, of divine power and divine virtue. {264} They only really believe in Him after having witnessed the accomplishment of his sacrifice and his last miracle, when they had seen his Crucifixion and his Resurrection. Only then they believed; but from that moment their faith became absolute, superior to all perils and all trials: full of the Holy Spirit, and associated in a certain measure to their divine Master, they pursue his work with unshaken confidence and firmness, without pretending to any merit, without any impulse of personal pride. Before "the gate of the Temple which is called Beautiful," St. Peter has healed a lame man and made him to walk. "And as the lame man which was healed held Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch that is called Solomon's, greatly wondering. And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk? ... Ye killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses. {265} And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all." [Footnote 105]

[Footnote 105: Acts iii. 1-16.]

It was not the people only that felt astonishment, but "the rulers and elders; the scribes, the high priest, and all those who were of the kindred of the high priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem, and set in their midst "Peter and John, and after a deliberation full of anxiety, they "commanded them not to speak at all, nor teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things we have seen and heard." [Footnote 106]

[Footnote 106: Acts iv. 5, 6, 18-20.]

What sincerity and what firmness ever showed themselves more strikingly than those that grew out of the faith of St. Paul? From such faith he had been originally farther removed than the other apostles; he had done far more than merely err like Peter or doubt like Thomas; he had hotly persecuted the first followers of Christ. {266} In his turn penetrated and subdued on the road to Damascus by the voice of Jesus, he devotes himself to Him life and soul; he recounts himself his miraculous conversion, [Footnote 107] and as little doubt can be entertained of the authenticity of his Epistles as of the sincerity that dictated them.

[Footnote 107: 1 Corinthians xv. 8. 2 Corinthians xi. 32, 33; xii. 1-5. Galatians i. 1-4.]

The history of all religions abounds in miracles; but in all religions except the Christian, the miracles recounted by their historians are evidently either contrivances of the founder to induce persuasion, or they spring from the play of the human imagination, ever disposed to delight in the marvellous, ever particularly prone to give way in the sphere of religion to its fantastic suggestions. In the Gospel miracles, on the contrary, we have nothing of the kind; no artifice in their Author; none of the marvellous machinery of poetry, nor any hasty credulity in the historians. {267} The miraculous agency of Christ is essentially simple, practical, and moral: He does not go in search of miracles; neither does He make any vain display of them: they are wrought when a pressing emergency or a natural occasion calls for them; and when they are demanded in faith and in trust, He then works them without ostentation and in right of his divine mission; whilst at the very moment He makes the doubt and the coldness with which He is received, the subject of complaint: "Woe unto thee, Chorazin! wo unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes." [Footnote 108] Jesus has full confidence in himself, in the miracles that He effects, in the doctrine that He inculcates. He feels no astonishment, but merely sorrow, that His work, the work of light and of salvation, pursued by Him in accordance with the will of God his Father, should not obtain a more rapid, a more general success.

[Footnote 108: Matthew xi. 21.]

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As for us, remote spectators, the astonishment must be not the slowness or limited nature of that success, but its rapidity and its extent. All religions that have taken place in the world's history, have been established by moral and by material agency; all appealed from their very commencement as much to force as to persuasion, as much to the arm as to the tongue. Christianity alone lived and grew during three centuries by its own single native virtue, without any other appeal than that made to Truth, without any other aid than that of Faith. During those three centuries the dogmas, the precepts, and the miracles of its Author constituted its only weapons, and weapons which have prevailed against all other arms. Those dogmas, those precepts, and those miracles effected the conquest of man's mind and of human society in spite of the resistance of Greek philosophy, Roman power, and all the poetical or mystical mythologies of antiquity marshalled against them. {269} The victory has not, it is true, put an end to all struggle of man's intelligence: neither has the light from Christ dissipated all darkness, nor satisfied all minds; the explanation and commentaries of man have obscured the doctrines of Christ; human prejudices have mistaken his precepts; and legends have been grafted upon his miracles. But the fact does not the less exist, that the dogmas, the precepts, and the miracles of Christ, without any aid from human sources, sufficed to found and ensure the triumph of the Christian religion: this is a fact primitive and supreme. And from this single result shines forth the divine character of the Christian religion, for its triumph without the miraculous agency of God, would be of all miracles the most impossible to receive.

IV. Jesus, The Jews, And The Gentiles.

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." [Footnote 109]

[Footnote 109: Matthew v. 17.]

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"Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?" [Footnote 110]

[Footnote 110: John v. 45-47.]

This was the language that Jesus used to the Jews. It was in the name of their history and of their faith, in the name of the God of Abraham and of Jacob, that He called them to Him, presenting himself to them in the double capacity of conservative and reformer, and appealing to the ancient law against those who, whilst observing it outwardly, really changed its character. "Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying, Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread. But He answered and said unto them, "Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. {271} But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; and honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus ye have made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition![Footnote 111] ... Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone." [Footnote 112]

[Footnote 111: Matthew xv. 1-6.]

[Footnote 112: Matthew xxiii. 23.]

Jesus was incessantly warning, making appeals to the Jews; and when He saw that they pertinaciously disavowed and rejected Him, He cried, in an impulse of patriotic, affectionate sadness:--"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!" [Footnote 113]

[Footnote 113: Matthew xxiii. 37. Luke xiii. 34.]

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I know nothing more imposing than the apparition of a grand idea, a divine idea rising and mounting rapidly upon the human horizon. Such is the spectacle afforded to us in its short duration by the history of Jesus Christ. In his first instructions to his apostles, He said to them, "Go not to the Gentiles and enter not into any city of the Samaritans; but go ye rather to the lost sheep of the people of Israel." Thus he carefully avoided offending the sentiments of the day, and only enjoined upon his apostles what they might do with success at the very beginning of their mission. But soon the light increases that issues from the words and the actions of Jesus; as I advance in the books of the Gospel, I there read: "And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, and saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. {273} And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven." [Footnote 114]

[Footnote 114: Matthew viii. 5-11.]