Category: History - Ancient

The Life of Jesus

A history of the "Origin of Christianity" ought to embrace all the obscure, and, if one might so speak, subterranean periods which extend from the first beginnings of this religion up to the moment when its existence became a public fact, notorious and evident to the eyes of a...

Chapters

12. Chapter 12

Josephus. Origen (_Contra Celsus_, i. 47; ii. 13) and Eusebius (_Hist. Eccl._, ii. 23) cite another Christian interpolation, which is not found in any of the manuscripts of Jose...

43. Chapter 43

Jesus, it will be seen, limited his action entirely to the Jews. Although his sympathy for those despised by orthodoxy led him to admit pagans into the kingdom of God--although...

19. Chapter 19

Joseph died before his son had taken any public part. Mary remained, in a manner, the head of the family, and this explains why her son, when it was wished to distinguish him fr...

39. Chapter 39

It was nightfall[1] when they left the room.[2] Jesus, according to his custom, passed through the valley of Kedron; and, accompanied by his disciples, went to the garden of Get...

38. Chapter 38

Jesus did in fact set out with his disciples to see once more, and for the last time, the unbelieving city. The hopes of his companions were more and more exalted. All believed,...

32. Chapter 32

We suppose that this last phase of the activity of Jesus continued about eighteen months from the time of his return from the Passover of the year 31, until his journey to the f...

36. Chapter 36

Jesus had for a long time been sensible of the dangers that surrounded him.[1] During a period of time which we may estimate at eighteen months, he avoided going on a pilgrimage...

30. Chapter 30

Jesus returned to Galilee, having completely lost his Jewish faith, and filled with revolutionary ardor. His ideas are now expressed with perfect clearness. The innocent aphoris...

28. Chapter 28

Jesus, almost every year, went to Jerusalem for the feast of the passover. The details of these journeys are little known, for the synoptics do not speak of them,[1] and the not...

23. Chapter 23

Beset by an idea, gradually becoming more and more imperious and exclusive, Jesus proceeds henceforth with a kind of fatal impassibility in the path marked out by his astonishin...

20. Chapter 20

An extraordinary man, whose position, from the absence of documentary evidence, remains to us in some degree enigmatical, appeared about this time, and was unquestionably to som...

13. Chapter 13

The great event of the History of the world is the revolution by which the noblest portions of humanity have passed from the ancient religions, comprised under the vague name of...

26. Chapter 26

These maxims, good for a country where life is nourished by the air and the light, and this delicate communism of a band of children of God reposing in confidence on the bosom o...

33. Chapter 33

That Jesus was never entirely absorbed in his apocalyptic ideas is proved, moreover, by the fact that at the very time he was most preoccupied with them, he laid with rare foret...

22. Chapter 22

Up to the arrest of John, which took place about the summer of the year 29, Jesus did not quit the neighborhood of the Dead Sea and of the Jordan. An abode in the desert of Jude...

24. Chapter 24

In this terrestrial paradise, which the great revolutions of history had till then scarcely touched, there lived a population in perfect harmony with the country itself, active,...

40. Chapter 40

Although the real motive for the death of Jesus was entirely religious, his enemies had succeeded, in the judgment-hall, in representing him as guilty of treason against the sta...

31. Chapter 31

Two means of proof--miracles and the accomplishment of prophecies--could alone, in the opinion of the contemporaries of Jesus, establish a supernatural mission. Jesus, and espec...

37. Chapter 37

Jesus passed the autumn and a part of the winter at Jerusalem. This season is there rather cold. The portico of Solomon, with its covered aisles, was the place where he habitual...

35. Chapter 35

During the first period of his career, it does not appear that Jesus met with any serious opposition. His preaching, thanks to the extreme liberty which was enjoyed in Galilee,...

15. Chapter 15

This aspect of Nature, at once smiling and grand, was the whole education of Jesus. He learned to read and to write,[1] doubtless, according to the Eastern method, which consist...

34. Chapter 34

It is clear that such a religious society, founded solely on the expectation of the kingdom of God, must be in itself very incomplete. The first Christian generation lived almos...

25. Chapter 25

Such was the group which, on the borders of the lake of Tiberias, gathered around Jesus. The aristocracy was represented there by a customs-officer and by the wife of one of Her...

14. Chapter 14

Jesus was born at Nazareth,[1] a small town of Galilee, which before his time had no celebrity.[2] All his life he was designated by the name of "the Nazarene,"[3] and it is onl...

29. Chapter 29

Following out these principles, Jesus despised all religion which was not of the heart. The vain practices of the devotees,[1] the exterior strictness, which trusted to formalit...

18. Chapter 18

A movement which had much more influence upon Jesus was that of Judas the Gaulonite, or Galilean. Of all the exactions to which the country newly conquered by Rome was subjected...

16. Chapter 16

As the cooled earth no longer permits us to understand the phenomena of primitive creation, because the fire which penetrated it is extinct, so deliberate explanations have alwa...

27. Chapter 27

Whilst joyous Galilee was celebrating in feasts the coming of the well-beloved, the sorrowful John, in his prison of Machero, was pining away with expectation and desire. The su...

41. Chapter 41

It was about three o'clock in the afternoon, according to our manner of reckoning,[1] when Jesus expired. A Jewish law[2] forbade a corpse suspended on the cross to be left beyo...

11. Chapter 11

A history of the "Origin of Christianity" ought to embrace all the obscure, and, if one might so speak, subterranean periods which extend from the first beginnings of this relig...

42. Chapter 42

According to the calculation we adopt, the death of Jesus happened in the year 33 of our era.[1] It could not, at all events, be either before the year 29, the preaching of John...

17. Chapter 17

Jesus, as soon as he began to think, entered into the burning atmosphere which was created in Palestine by the ideas we have just stated. These ideas were taught in no school; b...

21. Chapter 21

Makaur,[1] or Machero, was a colossal fortress built by Alexander Jannaeus, and rebuilt by Herod, in one of the most abrupt wâdys to the east of the Dead Sea.[2] It was a wild a...

4. Chapter 4

3. Chapter 3

7. Chapter 7

9. Chapter 9

10. Chapter 10

5. Chapter 5

6. Chapter 6

2. Chapter 2

1. Chapter 1

8. Chapter 8