Part 14

Thus a great stride has been made; it is no longer for the sheep of the house of Israel that Jesus has come; from the East and from the West will men come to Him, and He will receive them all. To continue the Gospel narrative: departing from the borders of the lake of Gennesareth, Jesus "departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. {274} And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt." [Footnote 115]

[Footnote 115: Matthew xv. 21-28.]

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Another day, near the city Sychar and the well of Jacob, Jesus conversed with a woman of Samaria, who had come there to draw water:--"The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. ... But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." [Footnote 116]

[Footnote 116: John iv. 5-24.]

Thus disappears gradually, in the name of the God of the Jews himself, the exclusive privilege of the Jews to the divine revelation and to divine grace. And thus, too, the restricted religion of Israel gives place to the grand catholicity of the religion of Christ. The benefit of the true faith and of salvation is no longer limited to one people, whether great or small, ancient or modern; but is imparted to all the races of mankind. {276} "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." [Footnote 117] "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."[Footnote 118]

[Footnote 117: Matthew xxviii. 19.]

[Footnote 118: Mark xvi. 15.]

These were the last words which Christ addressed to his apostles, and the apostles execute faithfully the instructions of their divine Master; they go forth in effect, preaching in all places and to all nations his history, his doctrine, his precepts, and his parables. St. Paul is the special apostle of the Gentiles. From Jesus, says this apostle, "We have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name." "Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also." "For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him." [Footnote 119]

[Footnote 119: Romans i. 5.; iii. 29; x. 12.]

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In spite of his prejudices as a Jew, and of the differences that took place in the infancy of the Church, St. Peter adheres to St. Paul; the apostles and the elders assembled at Jerusalem adhere to St. Peter and St. Paul. The God of Abraham and of Jacob is now not merely the One God, He is the God of the whole human race; to all men alike He prescribes the same faith, the same law, and promises the same salvation.

Another question, more temporal in its nature, still a great, a delicate one, is raised in the presence of Jesus Christ. He withdraws from the Jews their exclusive privilege to the knowledge and the grace of the true God; but what does He think of that which touches their existence as a nation, and as a great one? Does He direct them to rebel and to struggle against their earthly governor and sovereign?--"Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk. And they sent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou regardest not the person of men. Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? {278} Is it lawful to give tribute unto Cesar, or not? But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites? Shew me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny. And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription? They say unto him, Cesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Cesar the things which are Cesar's; and unto God the things that are God's. When they had heard these words, they marvelled, and left him, and went their way." [Footnote 120]

[Footnote 120: Matthew xxii. 15-22. Mark xii. 12-17. Luke xx. 19-25.]

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In this reply of Christ there was much more matter for admiration than the Pharisees supposed; it was in effect much more than an adroit evasion of the snare that had been extended for Him; it defined in principle the distinction of man's life as it regards religion, and man's life as it concerns society; the bounds, in fact, of Church and of State. Cæsar has no right to intervene, with his laws and material force, between the soul of man and his God; and on his side, the faithful worshipper of God is bound to fulfil towards Cæsar the duties which the necessity of the maintenance of civil order imposes. The independence of religious faith, and at the same time its subjection to the laws of society, are alike the sense of Christ's reply to the Pharisees, and the divine source of the greatest progress ever made by human society since it began to feel the troubles and agitations of this earth.

I take again these two grand principles, these two great acts of Jesus,--the abolition of every privilege in the relations of God and man, and the distinction of man's religious and his civil life: I confront with these two principles all the history, and every state of society previous to the advent of Jesus Christ, and I am unable to discover in those essentially Christian principles any kindred, any human origin. Everywhere before Christ, religions were national local religions; they were religions which established between nations, classes, individuals, enormous differences and inequalities. {280} Everywhere, also, before Christ, man's civil life and his religious life were confounded, and mutually oppressed each other; that religion or those religions were institutions incorporated in the state, which the state regulated or repressed as its interest dictated. But in this catholicity of religious faith, in this independence of religious communities, I am constrained to recognise new and sublime principles, and to see in them flashes from the light of heaven. It needed many centuries before mental vision was capable of receiving that light; and no one shall pronounce how many centuries will be needed before it will pervade and penetrate the entire world. But whatever difficulties and shortcomings may be reserved in the womb of the future for the two great truths to which I have just referred, it is clear that God caused them first to beam forth from the life and teaching of Jesus Christ.

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V. Jesus And Women.

At the very source of all religions, as well as in their subsequent history, women find a place to fill and a part to perform. At one time they constitute the material and furnish the ornament of licentious systems of mythology. At another, on the contrary, they are, for the heroes of those religions, objects either of pious horror or of observances at once rigorous and austere: women are considered by them as creatures full of evil and of peril; and they are accordingly thrust from their lives as men thrust from them what is a temptation and an impurity. Voluptuous pictures and adventures on the one hand, and zealous impulses of rigid asceticism on the other, constitute the two extremes to which religions in their ages of youth and of vigour are alternately prone. {282} Sometimes--and it is more fortunate for women when it is the case--they are described in the narrative of these religions, such as they really are in human life, charmers and at the same time charmed, seducers and seduced, idols and slaves; at first votaries of the enthusiasm, the victims of the errors and the passions which they at once inspire and feel. Whether Asiatic or European, rude or refined, such are the striking features with which all systems of religion, excepting Christianity, have characterised the women whom they have introduced in their narratives.

Neither of these characteristics, nor anything analogous, is met with in the Gospel and in the relations of Jesus with women. They seem irresistibly attracted towards Him, with hearts moved, imaginations struck by his manner of life, his precepts, his miracles, his language. He inspires them with feelings of tender respect and confiding admiration. The Canaanitish woman comes and addresses to Him a timid prayer for the healing of her daughter. The woman of Samaria listens to Him with eagerness, though she does not know Him: Mary seats herself at his feet, absorbed in reflections suggested by his words; and Martha proffers to Him the frank complaint that her sister assists her not, but leaves her unaided in the performance of her domestic duties. {283} The sinner draws near to Him in tears, pouring upon his feet a rare perfume, and wiping them with her hair. The adulteress, hurried into his presence by those who wished to stone her in accordance with the precepts of the Mosaic Law, remains motionless in his presence, even after her accusers have withdrawn, waiting in silence what He is about to say. Jesus receives the homage, and listens to the prayers of all these women, with the gentle gravity and impartial sympathy of a being superior and strange to earthly passion. Pure and inflexible interpreter of the Divine law, He knows and understands man's nature, and judges it with that equitable severity which nothing escapes, the excuse as little as the fault. Faith, sincerity, humanity, sorrow, repentance, touch Him without biassing the charity and the justice of his conclusions; and He expresses blame or announces pardon with the same calm serenity of authority, certain that his eye has read the depths of the heart to which his words will penetrate. {284} In his relations with the women who approach Him, there is, in short, not the slightest trace of man; nowhere does the Godhead manifest itself more winningly and with greater purity. And when there is no longer any question of these particular relations and conversations, when Jesus has no longer before him women suppliants and sinners, who are invoking his power or imploring his clemency; when it is with the position and the destiny of women in general that He is occupying himself, He affirms and defends their claims and their dignity with a sympathy at once penetrating and severe. He knows that the happiness of mankind, as well as the moral position of women, depends essentially upon the married state; He makes of the sanctity of marriage a fundamental law of Christian religion and society; He pursues adultery even into the recesses of the human heart, the human thought; He forbids divorce; He says of men, "Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female? ... For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh. {283} Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. They say unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away? He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery." [Footnote 121]

[Footnote 121: Matthew xix. 4-9; v. 27, 28 Mark x. 2-12. Romans vii. 2, 3. 1 Corinthians vi. 16-18; vii. 1-11.]

Signal and striking testimony to the progressive action of God upon the human race! Jesus Christ restores to the divine law of marriage the purity and the authority that Moses had not enjoined to the Hebrews "because of the hardness of their hearts."

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VI. Jesus Christ And Children.

The sentiments expressed by Jesus Christ towards children, and the language that He uses towards them, as these appear in the Gospel narrative, must strike even the most careless reader. Let me refer to the passages themselves:--

"And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them." [Footnote 122]

[Footnote 122: Mark x. 13-16; Matthew xix. 13-15. Luke xviii. 15-17.]

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Another day, "came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." [Footnote 123]

[Footnote 123: Matthew xviii. 1-4; Mark ix. 33-37.]

Again another day, Jesus, deploring the coldness that his preaching and his miracles frequently encountered, and that even in his closest vicinity, exclaimed, here no longer addressing his disciples, but God himself, "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." [Footnote 124]

[Footnote 124: Matthew xi. 25.]

What is the full meaning of these words? They are not simply the expression of that impulse of gentle benevolence excited in all hearts at the sight of children, and their innocent confidence in all who come near them. {288} Jesus Christ no doubt experienced the influence of this feeling, for He was strange to none of man's noble emotions; but his thoughts passed far beyond the children whose approach he permitted, and they merely furnished Him with the living occasion to address to men themselves his solemn warnings.

The child, I have already mentioned in these Meditations,[Footnote 125] is, for us, the image of innocence, the type of the creature fallible, yet who has not yet sinned, who knows not yet either error of understanding, or the seduction of passion, or the blinding influence of pride, or the troubles of doubt, or the extreme folly of sin, or the anguish of repentance; who follows in the first impulses of infancy only the spontaneous instincts of tender confidence in the parent to whom he is indebted for security and for love, for the first joys and the earliest blessings.

[Footnote 125: Meditation II., Christian Dogmas, p. 48.]

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Jesus does not pretend to bring men back to that fair condition, to restore to them their primitive innocence: but He comes to ransom them from sin; He brings them the hope of pardon and salvation. Confidence in God, a confidence sincere, unpretending, and loving, is that disposition which opens the soul of man to the divine blessing. This is also the disposition that the child evinces towards its parents; he calls upon them, and he hopes in them. Hence those words of Jesus: "Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." The way of innocence is a far better way than that of science to lead man up to God.

Science is a splendid thing; it is also a noble privilege of man that God, in creating him an intelligent and a free agent, has given him a capacity to desire and to pursue through study the truths of science, and even to attain them in a certain measure, and in a certain sphere. {290} But when science attempts to exceed that measure and to quit that sphere; when it ignores and scorns the instincts,--natural, universal, and permanent instincts, of the human soul; when it essays to set up everywhere its own torch in the place of that primitive light that lights mankind: then, and from that cause alone, science fills itself with error; and this is the very case which called forth those words of Jesus: "I praise thee, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." [Footnote 126]

[Footnote 126: Matthew xi. 25. The words [Greek text] are better rendered, "from the learned and the prudent," than "wise and intelligent;" "sages et intelligents," as in the French version by Osterwald.]

VII. Jesus Christ Himself.

I have sought to gather from the Gospels the scattered facts that constitute the life of Jesus. I have searched for them in his acts, his precepts, his words: in his different relations in life. I have added nothing, exaggerated nothing; on the contrary, the life of Jesus is infinitely grander and more sublime than I have made it; his words are infinitely more profound and admiral than I have described them. And I have said nothing of the seal affixed to _his work_ and _his mission_ by his Passion; nor have I shown Jesus at Gethsemane and upon the Cross.

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According to the Bible, God is without parallel--ever the same. Jesus is also so according to the Gospel. The most perfect, the most constant unity reigns in Him: in his life as in his soul; in his language as in his acts. His action is progressive, and proportionate to the circumstances which call it forth and in the midst of which He lives; but his progress never entails any change of character or purpose. As He appears at the age of twelve, in the Temple, already full of the sentiment of his divine nature, in his reply to his mother who was searching for Him with disquietude, "Knowest thou not that I must be about my Father's business?" the same He remains and manifests himself in the whole course of his active mission--in Galilee and at Jerusalem, with his apostles and with the people, amongst the Pharisees and the Publicans, whether they be men, or women, or children who approach Him; alike before Caiaphas and Pilate, and under the eyes of the crowd pressing around to listen to Him. {292} Everywhere and in every circumstance, the same spirit animates Him; He diffuses the same light, proclaims the same law. Perfect and immutable, always at once Son of God and Son of Man, He pursues and consummates amidst all the trials and all the sorrows of human existence his divine work for the salvation of mankind.

What need to add more? How speak in detail of Jesus himself when one believes in Him, when one sees in Him God made man, acting as God alone can act, and suffering all that man can suffer to ransom mankind from sin, and save it by bringing it back to God? How sound closely the mysteries of such a person and such a purpose? What passed in that divine soul during that human existence? Who shall explain those cries of agony of Jesus in the bosom of the most absolute faith in God his father and in himself, and those moments of horror at the approach of the sacrifice without the slightest hesitation in the sacrifice, without the smallest doubt as to its efficaciousness? {293} This sublime fact, this intimate and continual intermixture of the divine and human finds no competent, no adequate expression in human speech, and the more we consider it the more difficult we find it to speak of it.

Those who have no faith in Jesus, who admit not the supernatural character of his person, of his life, and of his work, do not feel this difficulty. Having beforehand done away with God and with miracles, the history of Jesus is for them nothing more than an ordinary history, which they narrate and explain like any other biography of man. But such historians fall into a far different difficulty, and wreck themselves on a far different rock. The supernatural being and power of Jesus may be disputed, but the perfection, the sublimity of his actions and of his precepts, of his life and of his moral law, are incontestable. {294} And in effect, not only are they not contested, but they are admired and celebrated enthusiastically, and complacently, too; it would seem as if it were desired to restore to Jesus as man, and man alone, the superiority of which men deprive Him in refusing to see in Him the Godhead. But then, what incoherence, what contradictions, what falsehood, what moral impossibility in his history, such as they make it; what a series of suppositions, irreconcilable with fact, nevertheless admitted! The man they make so perfect, so sublime, becomes by turns a dreamer or a charlatan; at once dupe and deceiver: dupe of his own mystical enthusiasm in believing in his own miracles; deceiver in tampering with evidence in order to accredit himself. The history of Jesus Christ is thus but a tissue of fables and falsehood. And nevertheless the hero of this history remains perfect, sublime, incomparable; the greatest genius, the noblest heart that the world ever saw; the type of virtue and moral beauty, the supreme and rightful chief of mankind. {295} And his disciples, in their turn justly admirable, have braved everything, suffered everything, in order to abide faithful to Him and to accomplish his work. And, in effect, the work has been accomplished: the pagan world has become Christian, and the whole world has nothing better to do than to follow the example.

What a contradictory and insolvable problem they present to us instead of the one they are so anxious to suppress!

History reposes upon two foundations--positive written evidence as to facts and persons, and presumptive evidence resulting from the connection of facts and the action of persons. These two foundations are entirely lost sight of in the history of Jesus such as it is recounted, or rather constructed, in these days; it is, on the one hand, in evident and shocking contradiction with the testimony of the men who saw Jesus, or of the men who lived nearly in the time of those who had seen Him; on the other side, with the natural laws presiding over the actions of men and the course of events. {296} This does not deserve the name of historical criticism; it is a philosophical system and a romantic narrative substituted for the substantial proof and the circumstantial evidence; it is a Jesus false and impossible, made by the hand of man pretending to dethrone the real living Jesus--the Son of God.