Let us draw a veil over these mysteries. In the circumstances of a religious crisis, everything being considered as divine, the very grandest effects can be produced from the very meanest causes. If we were witnesses of the strange facts which lie at the bottom of all works of faith, we should see therein circumstances which seem to us quite out of proportion to the importance of the results, and others at which we could but smile. Our old cathedrals are counted amongst the most beautiful things of the world; one can scarcely enter them without being in some sort inebriated with the infinite. But these splendid marvels are almost always the blossoming of some little deceit. And what does it matter definitively? The result alone counts in such a matter. Faith purifies all. The material incident which has produced the belief in the resurrection was not the veritable cause of the resurrection. It was love that made Jesus rise again; and this love was so powerful that a little risk was sufficient to build up the universal faith. If Jesus had been less loved, if the belief of the resurrection had had less reason for its establishment, these sorts of risks would have been incurred in vain; nothing would have come of it. A grain of sand causes the fall of a mountain, when the moment for the fall of the mountain has arrived. The grandest results are produced altogether from causes very grand and very insignificant. The grand results alone are real; the little ones only serve to hasten the production of an effect which has been a long time in a state of preparation.
The apparitions, in the meanwhile, as is usually the case in all movements of too credulous enthusiasm, began to diminish. Popular chimeras are nearly allied to contagious diseases; quickly do they become stale and change their shape. The activity of these ardent souls was already turned in another direction. That which they believed they had heard from the lips of their beloved and resuscitated friend, was the command to go before him to preach and to convert the world. But where should they commence? Naturally at Jerusalem.[3.1] The return to Jerusalem was accordingly resolved upon by those who at this time directed the movements of the sect. As these journeys were ordinarily made in caravanseries at the periods of the feasts, we may suppose, with sufficient probability, that the return of which we are treating, took place at the feast of Tabernacles at the end of the year thirty-three or at the Paschal feast of the year thirty-four. Galilee was, accordingly, abandoned by Christianity, and abandoned for all time. The little church which remained there, doubtless, still existed; but we intend to speak no more of it. It was probably crushed, like all the rest, by the frightful catastrophe which overwhelmed the country during the war of Vespasian; the residue of the dispersed society took refuge, from that time, in Jerusalem. After the war, it was not Christianity which was replanted in Galilee; it was Judaism. In the second, third, and fourth centuries, Galilee was altogether a Jewish country, the centre of Judaism, the country of the Talmud.[3.2] Thus Galilee was considered as of no account whatsoever in the history of Christianity; but this was the sacred time of the church, par excellence; it conferred on the new religion its enduring qualities, its poetry, its penetrating charms. “The Gospel,” according to the theory of the synoptics, was a Galilean work. But we shall endeavor to show, further on, that “The Gospel,” thus understood, has been the principal cause of the success of Christianity, and continues to be the surest guarantee of its future history.
It is probable that a portion of the little school which surrounded Jesus during his last days had remained at Jerusalem at the time of their separation. The belief in the resurrection was already established. This belief became accordingly developed from two points of view, each having a perceptibly different aspect, and such, doubtless, is the reason for the completely different variations which are so remarkable in the stories of the apparitions. Two traditions—one Galilean, the other Jerusalemitish—were intended; according to the former, all the apparitions (except those of the earliest period) had occurred in Galilee; according to the latter, they had all taken place at Jerusalem.[3.3] The agreement of the two portions of the little church respecting the fundamental dogma, only served, as was natural, to confirm the common belief. They were united by the bonds of the same faith; again and again they said, “He is risen!” Perhaps the joy and enthusiasm which were the consequence of this harmony produced for them certain other visions. It is at about this period that we can place the “vision of James” mentioned by St. Paul.[3.4] James was the brother, or at least the kinsman, of Jesus. It is not clear that he accompanied Jesus during his last sojourn at Jerusalem, but he came there, probably, with the apostles, when they departed from Galilee. All the chief apostles had had their vision; it was hard that this “brother of the Lord” should not also have had his. It would appear that this vision was eucharistic—that is to say, one in which Jesus appeared taking and breaking the bread.[3.5] Later, those members of the Christian family who attached themselves to James, and who are called the Hebrews, referred that vision to the very day of the resurrection, and pretended that it had been the first of all.[3.6]
It is, indeed, very remarkable that the family of Jesus, certain members of which during his life had been unbelieving and opposed to his mission,[3.7] should now have become members of the Church and hold a position of eminence in it. We are compelled to suppose that the reconciliation took place during the sojourn of the apostles in Galilee. The renown with which the name of their kinsman had suddenly become invested—these five hundred persons who believed in him and were assured that they had seen him resuscitated—might have made an impression on their minds.[3.8] Since the definitive establishment of the apostles at Jerusalem, we see with them Mary, the mother of Jesus, and the brethren of Jesus.[3.9] As far as Mary is concerned, it appears that John, in the belief that he was thus obeying a recommendation of his Master, had adopted her and taken her into his own house.[3.10] He perhaps took her to Jerusalem. This woman, whose history and personal characteristics had been veiled in profound obscurity, became henceforth of great importance. The saying which the Evangelist puts into the mouth of some unknown woman: “Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked!” began to be verified. It is probable that Mary did not survive her son many years.[3.11]
In respect to the brothers of Jesus, the question is more obscure. Jesus had brothers and sisters.[3.12] It seems probable, nevertheless, that in the class of persons who were termed “brothers of the Lord,” were comprehended kinsmen of the second degree. It is only in connexion with James that the inquiry possesses any consequence. Was this James the Just, or “brother of the Lord,” whom we are about to regard as playing a grand part during the first thirty years of Christianity—was he James the son of Alphæus, who appears to have been a cousin-german of Jesus, or was he a real brother of Jesus? The data, in this respect, are altogether uncertain and contradictory. What we know of this James gives us an idea of a character so far removed from that of Jesus that one can hardly believe that two men so different could be born of the same mother. If Jesus is the true founder of Christianity, James was its most dangerous enemy; he almost ruined it through his narrow mind. Later, it was certainly believed that James the Just was a real brother of Jesus.[3.13] But perhaps some confusion has always surrounded this subject. However that may be, henceforth the apostles only separated to undertake temporary journeys. Jerusalem became their centre,[3.14] they seem to be afraid to disperse, and certain traits appear to manifest amongst them a determination to prevent a return into Galilee, which would have dissolved their little society. They expected an express order from Jesus, forbidding them to quit Jerusalem, at least until the grand manifestation which awaited them.[3.15] The apparitions became more and more infrequent. They spoke of them far less often, and they began to think that they should no more see the Master until his solemn return in the clouds. Their imaginations were forcibly impressed by a promise which they supposed that Jesus had made. During His lifetime, they said Jesus had frequently spoken of the Holy Spirit, conceived as a personification of divine wisdom.[3.16] He had promised His disciples that this Spirit should be their strength in the battles which they would have to fight, their inspiration in difficulties, their advocate if they were called upon to speak in public. When these visions became rare, they relied on this Spirit, viewed as a Comforter, as another self whom Jesus would doubtless send to his friends. Sometimes they fancied that Jesus, displaying himself suddenly in the midst of his assembled disciples, had breathed upon them from His own mouth a current of vivifying air.[3.17] On other occasions, the disappearance of Jesus was regarded as the condition of the coming of the Spirit.[3.18] They thought that in these apparitions he had promised the descent of this Spirit.[3.19] Many set up an intimate connexion between this descent and the restoration of the kingdom of Israel.[3.20] All the activity of imagination which the sect had displayed in the creation of the legend of Jesus resuscitated, it now began to apply to the creation of a similar pious belief respecting the descent of the Spirit and His marvellous gifts.
It seems, meanwhile, that a grand apparition of Jesus had again taken place at Bethany, or on the Mount of Olives.[3.21] Certain traditions referred to that vision the final recommendations, the reiterated promise of the sending of the Holy Spirit, and the act by which He invested His disciples with power to remit sins.[3.22] The characteristic features of these apparitions became more and more vague; one was confounded with another, and the result was, that they ceased to think much about them.[3.23] It was a received fact that Jesus was alive, that he had manifested himself by a number of apparitions sufficient to prove His existence, and that he would continue still to manifest Himself in partial visions, until the grand final revelation when everything would be consumed.[3.24] Thus St. Paul represents the vision which he saw on the route from Damascus as being of the same order as those which have been related.[3.25] At any rate, it was admitted that in an ideal sense the Master was with his disciples and would be with them even to the end.[3.26] In the early days, the apparitions were very frequent; Jesus was imagined as dwelling upon the earth constantly, and more or less fulfilling the functions of an earthly life. When the visions became rare, they inclined to another conception, representing Jesus as having entered into His glory and seated at the right hand of His Father.
“He is ascended into heaven,” they said.
This saying, though depending for the most part upon the state of vague idea in which they indulged, or on a process of induction,[3.27] was by many converted into a material scene. It was desirable that at the close of the last vision which was common to all the apostles, and when he delivered to them His last commands, Jesus should be taken up into heaven.[3.28] Afterwards, the scene was developed, and became a complete legend. They related that men of heavenly appearance, surrounded by the most appalling brilliancy,[3.29] appeared at the moment when a cloud surrounded Him, and consoled His disciples by the assurance of His return in the clouds precisely similar to the scene which they had just witnessed. The death of Moses had been invested by the popular ideas with circumstances of the same sort.[3.30] Perhaps also they bethought them of the ascension of Elijah.[3.31] A tradition[3.32] placed the locality of this scene near Bethany, on the summit of the Mount of Olives, a neighborhood always very dear to the disciples, doubtless because Jesus had dwelt there.
The legend relates that the disciples, after this marvellous scene, returned to Jerusalem “with joy.”[3.33] For our own part, it is with sorrow that we say a last farewell to Jesus. To find Him again still living his shadowy life, has been to us a great consolation. This second life of Jesus, a pale image of the first, is yet full of charms for us. Now all trace of Him is lost. Exalted on His cloud at the right hand of His Father, He leaves us with men; and, heavens! how great is the fall! The reign of poetry is past; Mary of Magdala retired to her hamlet-home, has there buried her recollections of him. In consequence of this never-ending injustice which permits man to appropriate to himself alone the work in which woman has taken an equal share, Cephas eclipses her and sends her to oblivion. No more sermons on the Mount; no more of the possessed ones cured; no more courtezans convinced of sin; no more of those wonderful fellow-laborers in the work of Redemption, whom Jesus had not repulsed. God truly has disappeared. The history of the Church will henceforth be oftener the history of treacheries than subservient to the idea of Jesus. But, such as it is, this history is still a hymn to his glory. The words and the image of the illustrious Nazarene will stand out in the midst of infinite miseries, as a sublime ideal—we shall the better understand how grand He was, when we shall see how paltry were His disciples.
Mean, narrow, ignorant, inexperienced they were, as much as was possible for them to be. Their simplicity of mind was extreme; their credulity had no bounds. But they had one quality; they loved their Master to madness. The remembrance of Jesus, the only moving power of their life, had possessed them constantly and entirely; and it was clear that they existed only on account of Him who, during two or three years, had so completely attached and seduced them to Himself. The safety of minds of a secondary class, who are unable to love God directly—that is, to discover the truth, create the beautiful, and do what is right of themselves—is the loving of some one in whom there shines forth a reflection of the true, the beautiful, and the good. The majority of mankind require a graduated worship. The multitude of worshippers pant for a mediator between themselves and God.
When an individual has succeeded in gathering around his person, by a highly elevated moral tie, a number of other individuals, and then dies, it invariably happens that the survivors, who were perhaps up to that time often divided amongst themselves by rivalries and differences of opinion, become bound together by a mutual and fast friendship. A thousand cherished images of the past, which they regret, form a common treasure to them. One way of loving a dead person is to love those with whom we have known him to associate. We court their society that we may recall to our minds the times which are no more. A profound saying of Jesus[4.1] is then discovered to be true to the letter: “The dead one is present in the midst of those who are united again by his memory.”
The affection which the disciples entertained for each other during the lifetime of Jesus, was thus increased tenfold after his death. They formed a little society, very retired, and they lived exclusively within themselves. The number of them at Jerusalem was one hundred and twenty.[4.2] Their piety was active, and as yet, completely restrained by the forms of Jewish religionism. The temple was their chief place of worship.[4.3] No doubt, they labored for their living; but manual labor occupied but a small place in the Jewish economy. Every Jew had a trade, and this trade implied no lack of learning or of gentle breeding. With us in our day, our material needs are so difficult to satisfy, that a man who lives by manual labor is obliged to work twelve or fifteen hours a day; the man of leisure alone can apply himself to intellectual pursuits; the acquisition of learning is a rare and expensive matter. But in these old societies, of which the East of our own day furnishes some idea; in those climates where nature is so lavish for man’s wants, and exacts so little in return—the life of a laborer left plenty of leisure. A sort of method of common instruction rendered every man well up in the prevailing ideas. Food and raiment sufficed;[4.4] a few hours of moderate labor were enough to provide them. The remaining portion of the time was devoted to day-dreaming and to the indulgence of passionate love. The latter had, in the minds of these people, attained to a degree altogether inconceivable by us. The Jews of that period[4.5] appear to us as if possessed, each one obeying like a blind machine the idea which had taken possession of him.
The prevailing idea in the Christian community at the time of which we are treating, and when the apparitions had ceased, was the coming of the Holy Spirit. They expected to receive Him under the form of a mysterious breath, which passed over the assembly. Many pretended that this was the breath of Jesus Himself. Every inward consolation, every courageous movement, every outburst of enthusiasm, every feeling of lively and pleasant gaiety, which they experienced without knowing its origin, was the work of the Spirit. These worthy consciences referred, as ever, to an outward cause the exquisite feelings which were springing up in them. It was especially in their assemblies that these varied phenomena of illumination were produced. When they were all assembled together and were awaiting in silence the heavenly inspiration, whatever murmur or noise arose was thought to be the coming of the Spirit. In the early times, it was the apparitions of Jesus which were thus produced. Now, there was a change in the course of their ideas. It was the Divine breath[4.6] which was breathed over the little church and filled it with heavenly emanations. These beliefs were strengthened by notions drawn from the Old Testament. The Spirit of prophecy is represented in the Hebrew books as a breathing which penetrates and lifts up the subject of it. In the beautiful vision of Elijah,[4.7] God passes by under the form of a light wind, which produces a gentle rustling sound. This ancient imagery had handed down to later epochs systems of belief very similar to those of the spiritualists of our own time. In the Ascension of Isaiah[4.8] the coming of the Spirit is accomplished by a certain crashing at the doors.[4.9] Later on, they always regarded this coming in the light of another baptism—that is to say, the “baptism of the Spirit,” far superior to that of John.[4.10] The hallucinations of bodily touch being very frequent amongst persons so nervous and so excited as they were, the least current of air, accompanied by a shuddering in the midst of the silence, was considered as the passage of the Spirit. One thought that he felt it; very soon all perceived it;[4.11] and the enthusiasm was communicated from neighbor to neighbor. The correspondence of these phenomena with those which are found to exist amongst the visionaries of every age is easily demonstrated. They are produced daily, partly under the influence of the reading the book of the Acts of the Apostles, in the English and American sects of Quakers, Jumpers, Shakers, Irvingites;[4.12] amongst the Mormons,[4.13] and in the camp meetings and revivals of America;[4.14] we have seen them reproduced amongst ourselves in the sect called the Spiritualists. But an immense difference should be observed between aberrations, without capacity or future results, and the illusions which have accompanied the establishment of a new code of religion for the human race.
Amongst all these “descents of the Spirit,” which appear to have been by no means infrequent, there was one which left a deep impression on the nascent Church.[4.15] One day when they were assembled together a thunder-storm arose. A violent wind burst the windows open—the sky seemed on fire. Thunder-storms in those countries are accompanied by wonderful illuminations; the atmosphere is furrowed, as it were, on every side with garbes of flame. Whether the electric fluid had penetrated into the very chamber itself, or whether a dazzling flash of lightning had suddenly illuminated all their faces, they were convinced that the Spirit had entered, and that he was poured out upon the head of each one of them under the form of tongues of fire.[4.16] It was a prevalent opinion in the theurgic schools of Syria that the communication of the Spirit was produced by a divine fire, and under the form of a mysterious glimmering.[4.17] It was believed to have been present at the display of all the wonders of Mount Sinai,[4.18] at a manifestation analogous to those of former times. The baptism of the Spirit hence became also a baptism of fire. The baptism of the Spirit and of fire was opposed to and greatly preferred to that of water, the only form with which John had been acquainted.[4.19] The baptism of fire was only produced on rare occasions; only the apostles and the disciples of the first guest-chamber were supposed to have received it. But the idea that the Spirit was poured forth upon them under the form of strokes of flame resembling burning tongues originated a series of singular ideas, which took firm hold of the imaginations of the period.
The tongue of an inspired man was supposed to have received a sort of sacrament. It was pretended that many prophets before their mission had been stammerers;[4.20] that the angel of God had passed a coal over their lips, which purified them and conferred on them the gift of eloquence.[4.21] In his prophetic utterances the man was supposed not to speak at all about himself.[4.22] His tongue was looked upon merely as the organ of the Divinity who inspired it. These tongues of fire appeared a very striking symbol. The disciples were convinced that God desired to make it known that on the apostles also he had conferred his most precious gifts of eloquence and inspiration. But they did not stop there; Jerusalem was, like most of the great cities of the East, a city where many languages were spoken. The diversity of tongues was one of the difficulties which they there discovered in the way of the propagation of a universal form of faith. Besides, one of the things which most alarmed the apostles at their very entry on a ministry destined to embrace the world, was the number of languages which were spoken in it; they were constantly inquiring how they could learn so many dialects. “The gift of tongues” became thenceforth a marvellous privilege. They believed that the preaching of the gospel would relieve them from the obstacle which the difference of idioms had raised. They pretended that, under certain solemn circumstances, those present had heard, each in his own language, the gospel preached by the apostles; in other words, that the apostolic promise was delivered to each one of the hearers.{4.23} At other times, this conception was entertained in a somewhat different shape. They ascribed to the apostles the gift of acquiring, by divine illumination, every language spoken, and of speaking those languages at will.{4.24}
There was in this a liberal conception; they wished it should have no language peculiar to itself, that it should be capable of translation into every language, and that the translation should be of the same standard value as the original. Such was not the opinion of orthodox Judaism. The Hebrew was “the holy language” to the Jew of Jerusalem, and no version could be compared to it. Translations of the Bible were in little esteem; so long as the Hebrew text was scrupulously guarded in the translations, changes and modifications of expression were tolerated. The Jews of Egypt and Hellenists of Palestine, indeed, practised a more tolerant system, and habitually perused the Greek translations of the Bible.{4.25} But the first plan of the Christians was even broader; according to their idea, the word of God has no language peculiar to it; it is free, unfettered by any idiomatic peculiarity; it is delivered to all spontaneously and without interpretation. The facility with which Christianity became detached from the Semitic dialect which Jesus had spoken, the liberty which it at first accorded to every nation of forming its own liturgy, and its own versions of the Bible in the vernacular, favored this sort of emancipation of languages. It was generally admitted that the Messiah would gather into one, all languages as well as all peoples.[4.26] Common usage and the promiscuousness of the languages was the first grand step towards this grand era of universal pacification.
Moreover, the gift of languages very soon underwent a considerable variation, and resulted in very extraordinary effects. Ecstasy and prophecy were the fruits of mental excitement. At these moments of ecstasy, the faithful, possessed by the Spirit, uttered inarticulate and incoherent sounds, which were mistaken for the words of a foreign language, and which they innocently attempted to interpret.[4.27] At other times they supposed that the ecstatically possessed was giving utterance to new and hitherto unknown languages,[4.28] which were not even the languages of the angels.[4.29]
These extravagant scenes, which were the fruitful cause of abuse, only became habitual at a later period;[4.30] but it is probable that they were produced from the earliest years of Christianity. The visions of the ancient prophets had often been accompanied by phenomena of nervous excitement.[4.31] The dithyrambic state amongst the Greeks abounded in occurrences of the same kind; the Pythia seemed to give a preference to the use of foreign or obsolete words, which were called, as also in the apostolic phenomena, glosses.[4.32] Many of the pass-words of primitive Christianity, which are precisely bi-linguistic, or formed by anagrams, such as Abba, Father, and Anathema Maranatha,[4.33] took their origin perhaps from these fantastic paroxysms, intermingled with sighs[4.34] from stifled gradus, from ejaculations, prayers, and sudden transports which were interpreted as prophecies. It was like some vague harmony of the soul, thrilling in indistinct sounds, and which the hearers of it desired to transform into determined shapes and words,[4.35] or rather like spiritual prayers addressed to God in a language understood by God alone, and which God knows how to interpret.[4.36] The individual in a state of ecstasy understood, in fact, nothing of what he uttered, and had no cognizance of it whatever.[4.37] His eager listeners ascribed to his incoherent syllables the thoughts which occurred to them at the time. Each one referred to his own dialect, and artlessly strove to explain the unintelligible sounds by what little knowledge of languages he possessed. They were always more or less successful, because the auditor interpolated within these broken accents the thoughts of his own breast. The history of fanatical sects is rich in facts of this description. The preachers of Cévennes displayed many instances of “glossology,”[4.38] but the most remarkable fact is that of the “readers” of Sweden,[4.39] about the years 1841–1843. Involuntary enunciations, devoid of sense in the minds of those who uttered them, and accompanied by convulsions and fainting-fits, were, for a long time daily practised by the members of this little sect. This phenomenon became quite contagious, and a considerable popular movement became blended with it. Amongst the Irvingites, the phenomenon of tongues is produced with features which reproduce, in the most remarkable manner, the most striking of the stories of the “Acts” and of St. Paul.[4.40] Our own age has witnessed fantastic scenes of the same nature, which need not to be recounted here; for it is always unjust to compare the credulity of a grand religious movement with the credulity which is caused only by dulness of intellect.
Now and then these strange phenomena were produced outside. The extatics, at the very moment when under the influence of their extravagant fantasies, had the hardihood to go out and display themselves to the crowd. They were taken for persons who were intoxicated.[4.41] However sober-minded in point of mysticism, Jesus had more than once presented in his own person the ordinary phenomena of the extatic state.[4.42] The disciples, during three or four years, were possessed with these ideas. The prophesyings were frequent, and were regarded as a gift analogous to that of tongues.[4.43] Prayer, mingled with convulsions, with harmonized modulations, with mystic sighs, with lyrical enthusiasm, with songs of thanksgiving,[4.44] was a daily exercise among them. A rich vein of “canticles,” of “Psalms,” and of “Hymns,” copied from those of the Old Testament was thus discovered to be open to them.[4.45] Sometimes the lips and the heart were in mutual accord; sometimes the spirit sang alone, accompanied by grace in the inner man.[4.46] Any language which did not afford the new sensations which were being produced, they suffered to become an indistinct stammering, at once sublime and puerile; or that which they could denominate “the Christian language” was wafted aloud in an embryo state. Christianity, not finding in the ancient tongues a weapon appropriate to its needs, has destroyed them. But whilst the new religion was forming for itself an idiom of its own, ages of obscure efforts, and so to speak, of squalling, intervened. What is the characteristic of the style of St. Paul and, in general, that of the writers of the New Testament, but the stifled, panting, misshapen improvisation of the “Glossology?” Language failed them. Like the prophets, they began with the a, a, a of the infant.[4.47] They knew not how to speak. The Greek and the Semitic tongues equally betrayed them. Thus arose that frightful violence which the new Christianity inflicted upon language. They would call it a stammering of the mouth, by which the sounds are stifled and confused, and wind up with a pantomime confused indeed, but nevertheless wonderfully expressive.
All this was very far from the intention of Jesus; but to those whose minds were imbued with a belief in the supernatural, these phenomena were of the utmost importance. The gift of tongues, in particular, was considered as an essential sign of the new religion, and, as it were, a proof of its verity.[4.48] In every case it resulted in great fruits of edification. Many pagans were in this manner converted.[4.49]
Up to the third century, the “Glossology” manifested itself in a manner analogous to that which St. Paul describes, and was considered in the light of a permanent miracle.[4.50] Some of the sublimest words of Christianity have originated in these incoherent sighings. The general effect was touching and penetrating. This fashion of joining together their inspirations and delivering them over to the community for interpretation was enough to establish amongst the faithful a profound bond of confraternity. Like all mystics, the new sectaries led lives of fasting and austerity.[4.51] Like the majority of Orientals, they ate little, which fact contributed to maintain their excited state. The sobriety of the Syrian, caused by physical weakness, kept him in a constant state of fever and nervous susceptibility. Such great and protracted intellectual efforts as ours are impossible under such a regimen; but this cerebral and muscular debility is productive, without apparent cause, of lively alternations of sadness and joy, which bring the soul into continual communion with God. Thus that which they called “godly sorrow”[4.52] passed for a heavenly gift. All the teachings of the Fathers respecting the spiritual life, such as John Chinaticus, as Basil, as Nilus, as Arsenius—all the secrets of the grand art of the inward life, one of the most glorious creations of Christianity—were germinating in that strange state of mind which possessed, in their months of extatic watchfulness, those illustrious ancestors of all “the men of longings.” Their moral state was strange; they lived in the supernatural. They acted only on the authority of visions; dreams and the most insignificant circumstances appeared to them to be admonitions from Heaven.[4.53] Under the name of gifts of the Holy Spirit were concealed also the rarest and most exquisite emanations of the soul—love, piety, respectful fear, objectless sighings, sudden languor, and spontaneous tenderness. All the good that is engendered in man, without man having any part in it, was attributed to a breathing from on high. Tears were often taken for a celestial favor. This charming gift, the privilege only of very good and pure souls, was repeated with an infinity of sweetness. We know what influence delicate natures—above all, women—exercise in the ability to shed copious tears. It is their style of praying, and assuredly it is the most holy of prayers. We must come down quite to the Middle Ages, to that piety watered with tears of St. Bruno, St. Bernard, and St. Francis of Assisi, in order to discover again the chaste melancholy of those early days, when they verily sowed in tears that they might reap with joy. To weep became an act of piety; those who could not preach, who were ignorant of languages, and unable to work miracles, wept. Praying, preaching, admonishing they wept;[4.54] it was the advent of the kingdom of tears. One might have said that their souls were dissolved, and that they desired, in the absence of a language which could interpret their sentiments, to display themselves to the world by a lively and brief expression of their entire inner being.
The custom of living in a community professing one identical faith, and indulging in one and the same expectation, necessarily produced many habits common to all the society. Very soon rules were enacted, and established a certain analogy between this primitive church and the cenobitical establishments with which Christianity became acquainted at a later period. Many of the precepts of Jesus conduced to this; the true ideal of the gospel life is a monastery—not a monastery closed in with iron gratings, a prison of the type of the Middle Ages, with the separation of the two sexes, but an asylum in the midst of the world, a place set apart for the spiritual life, a free association or little confraternity, tracing around it a rampart which may serve to dispel cares that are hurtful to the kingdom of God. All, then, lived in common, having only one heart and one mind.[5.1] No one possessed aught which individually belonged to him. On becoming disciples of Jesus, they sold their goods and presented to the society the price of them. The chiefs of the society then distributed the common possessions according to the needs of each member. They dwelt in one neighborhood only.[5.2] They took their meals together, and continued to attach to them the mystic sense which Jesus had ordered.[5.3] Many hours of the day they spent in prayer. These prayers were sometimes improvised in a loud voice; oftener they were silent meditations. Their states of ecstasy were frequent, and each one believed himself to be incessantly favored with the Divine inspiration. Their harmony was perfect; no quarrelling about dogmas, no dispute respecting precedence. The tender recollection of Jesus prevented all dissensions. A lively and deeply rooted joy pervaded their hearts.[5.4] Their morals were austere, but marked by a sweet and tender sympathy. They assembled in houses to pray and abandon themselves to ecstatic exercises.[5.5] The remembrance of those two or three years rested upon them like that of a terrestrial paradise, which Christianity would henceforth pursue in all its dreams, and to which it would endeavor to return in vain. Who, indeed, does not see that such an organization could only be applicable to a very little church? But, later on, the monastic life will resume on its own account this primitive ideal, which the church universal will hardly dream of realizing.
That the author of the “Acts,” to whom we owe the picture of this first Christianity at Jerusalem, has somewhat overcolored it, and in particular has exaggerated the community of goods which prevailed there, is quite possible. The author of the “Acts” is the same as the author of the third Gospel, who, in his life of Jesus, is accustomed to shape his facts according to his own theories,[5.6] and with whom a tendency to the doctrine of “ebionism,”[5.7]—that is to say, of absolute poverty—is very perceptible. Nevertheless, the story of the “Acts” cannot be entirely without foundation. Although even Jesus would not have given utterance to any of those communistic axioms which we read of in the third Gospel, certain it is that a renunciation of the goods of this world and a giving of alms, carried so far as even the despoiling of self, was entirely conformable to the spirit of his preaching. The belief that the world is coming to an end has always been conducive to a cenobitical life and to a distaste for the things of this world.[5.8] The story of the “Acts” is, in other respects, perfectly conformable to what we know of the origin of other ascetic religions—of Buddhism, for example. These sorts of religion invariably commence with the cenobitical life. Their first adepts are a species of mendicant monks. The laity are only introduced into them at a more advanced period, and when these religions have conquered entire societies, or the monastic life could only exist under exceptional circumstances.[5.9] We admit, then, in the Church of Jerusalem a period of cenobitical life. Two centuries later, Christianity produced still on the pagans the effect of a communistic sect.[5.10] We must remember that the Essenians or Thereapeutians had already produced the model of this description of life, which sprang very legitimately from Mosaism. The Mosaic code being essentially moral, and not political, naturally produced a social Utopia; church, synagogue, and convent—not a civil régime, nation, or city. Egypt had had, for many centuries, recluses both male and female supported by the State, probably in fulfilment of charitable bequests, near the Serapeum of Memphis.[5.11] Above all, it must be remembered that such a life in the East is by no means such as it has been in our West. In the East, one can abundantly enjoy nature and life without possessing anything. Man, in those countries, is always free because he has few cares; the slavery of labor is there unknown. We willingly suppose that the communism of the primitive Church was neither so rigorous nor so universal as the author of the “Acts” would lead us to believe. What is certain about it is, that it had a large community of poor people at Jerusalem, governed by the apostles, and to whom donations from all the places where Christianity existed were sent.[5.12] This community was, doubtless, compelled to establish rules of a sufficiently rigorous nature, and some years later it became necessary to keep it in due order, even to employ terror. Frightful legends were circulated, according to which, the simple fact of having retained anything besides that which had been presented to the community, was treated as a capital crime and punished with death.[5.13]
The porticos of the temple, especially Solomon’s porch, which commanded the valley of Cedron, was the place where the disciples usually assembled in the day-time.[5.14] There they recalled the remembrance of those hours which Jesus had passed in the same spot. In the midst of the immense activity which existed all about the temple, they would be little remarked. The galleries which formed part of this building were the seat of numerous schools and sects, and the arena of many a dispute. The faithful of Jesus would no doubt be taken for devotees of great precision of manner; for they scrupulously observed all the Jewish customs, praying at the appointed hours,[5.15] and observing all the precepts of the law. They were Jews, only differing from the others in their belief that the Messiah had already come. People who were not well versed in their concerns (and these were the immense majority), looked upon them as a sect of Hasidim, or pious people. By being affiliated with them, they became neither schismatics nor heretics,[5.16] any more than a man ceases to be a Protestant on becoming a disciple of Spener, or a Catholic because he is a member of the order of St. Francis or St. Bruno. They were beloved by the people on account of their piety, their simplicity, and sweetness of temper.[5.17] The aristocrats of the temple, no doubt, regarded them with disfavor. But the sect made little noise; it was quiet and tranquil, thanks to its obscurity. At eventide, the brethren returned to their quarters and partook of the meal, divided into groups[5.18] as a mark of brotherhood and in remembrance of Jesus, whom they always saw present in the midst of them. The head of the table brake the bread, blessed the cup,[5.19] and handed them round as a symbol of union in Jesus. The commonest act of life thus became the most holy and reverential one. These family repasts, always favorites with the Jews,[5.20] were accompanied by prayers and pious ejaculations, and abounded in a pleasant sort of joyfulness. They thought again of the time when Jesus cheered them by His presence; they fancied that they saw Him; and soon it was bruited abroad that Jesus had said: “As often as ye break the bread, do it in remembrance of me.”[5.21]
The bread itself became, in a certain manner, Jesus; regarded as the only source of strength for those who had loved him, and who still lived by him. These repasts, which were always the principal symbol of Christianity and the very life of its mysteries,[5.22] were at first served every night;[5.23] but soon custom restricted them to Sunday evenings[5.24] only; and later, the mystic repast was transferred to the morning.[5.25] It is probable that at the period of the history which we are now treating, the holiday of each week was still, with the Christians even, the Saturday.[5.26] The apostles chosen by Jesus, and who were supposed to have received from Him a special command to announce to the world the kingdom of God, had, in the little community, an undoubted superiority. One of their first cares, as soon as they saw the sect quietly settled at Jerusalem, was to fill up the void which Judas of Kerioth had left in its ranks.[5.27] The opinion that this Judas had betrayed his Master and became the cause of his death, became more generally received. The legend was mixed up with him, and daily they learned some new circumstance which increased the blackness of his deed. He had bought for himself a field near the old necropolis of Hakeldama, to the south of Jerusalem, and there he lived a retired life.[5.28] Such was the artless excitement which pervaded the whole of the little church, that in order to replace him they had recourse to the plan of casting lots. In general, in times of great religious excitement, this method of deciding is preferred, for it is admitted on principle that nothing is fortuitous, that the matter in hand is the principal object of the Divine attention, and that the part which God takes in any matter is greater in proportion to the weakness of man. The only condition was, that the candidates should be selected from the number of the older disciples, who had been witnesses of the entire series of events since the baptism by John. This considerably reduced the number of those who were eligible. Only two were found in the ranks, Joseph Bar-Saba, who bore the name of Justus,[5.29] and Matthias. The lot fell upon Matthias, who from that time was counted in the number of the Twelve. But this was the only example of such a replacing. The apostles were considered hitherto as having been named by Jesus once for all, and as not proposing to have any successors. The idea of a permanent college, preserving in itself all the life and strength of association, was judiciously rejected for a time. The concentration of the Church into an oligarchy did not occur until much later.
We must guard, moreover, against the misunderstandings which this appellation of “apostle” may induce, and which it has not failed to occasion. From a very remote period the idea was formed, by some passages of the Gospels, and above all by the analogy of the life of St. Paul, that the apostles were essentially travelling missionaries, distributing amongst themselves in a certain way the world in advance, and traversing as conquerors all the kingdoms of the earth.[5.30] A cycle of legends was invented in respect to this gift, and imposed upon ecclesiastical history.[5.31] Nothing is more opposed to the truth.[5.32] The twelve disciples were permanently settled at Jerusalem; up to the year 60, or thereabouts, they did not leave the holy city, except on temporary missions. And in this way is explained the obscurity in which the greater part of the central council remained; very few of them had any particular duty to perform. They formed a sort of a sacred college or a senate,[5.33] unequivocally destined to represent tradition and a conservative spirit. In the end they were discharged from all active duty, because they had only to preach and to pray;[5.34] as yet the brilliant feats of preaching had not fallen to their lot. Scarcely were their names known out of Jerusalem; and about the year 70 or 80 the catalogues which were published of these twelve primary elect ones only agreed in the principal names.[5.35]
The “brothers of the Lord” appear to have been often with the “apostles,” although they were distinguished from them.[5.36] Their authority was at least equal to that of the apostles. These two groups constituted, in the nascent Church, a sort of aristocracy, based entirely upon the greater or less intimacy which they had had with the Master. It was these men whom St. Paul called “pillars” of the Church of Jerusalem.[5.37] We see, moreover, that no distinctions of ecclesiastical hierarchy were yet in existence. The title was nothing; the personal authority was everything. The principle of ecclesiastical celibacy was already well established;[5.38] but it required time to conduct all these germs to their full development. Peter and Philip were married, and were the fathers of sons and daughters.[5.39]
The term by which the assembly of the faithful was distinguished, was the Hebrew word Kahal, which was rendered by the essentially democratic word ἐκκλησία, Ecclesia, which means the convocation of the people in the ancient Grecian cities, the summons to assemble at the Pnyx or the Agora. Commencing about the second or third century before Jesus Christ, Athenian democracy became a sort of common law wherever the Hellenic language was spoken; many of these terms,[5.40] on account of their being used in the Greek confraternities, were introduced into the language of Christianity. It was in reality the popular life, for centuries kept under restraint, which reasserted its power under entirely different forms. The primitive Church is, in its own way, a little democracy. The election by ballot, however—that mode so cherished by the ancient republics—is only rarely reproduced.[5.41] Far less harsh and suspicious than the ancient cities, the church readily delegated its authority; like every theocratic society, it had a tendency to abdicate its functions into the hands of the clergy, and it was easy to foresee that one or two centuries would scarcely elapse before all this democracy would resolve into an oligarchy.
The powers which they ascribed to an assembled Church and to its chiefs was enormous. All mission was conferred by the Church, which was entirely guided in its choice by signs given by the spirit.[5.42] Its authority extended as far as the death penalty. They related how, at the voice of Peter, guilty persons fell backwards and expired immediately.[5.43] St. Paul, at a later period, was not afraid, when excommunicating an incestuous person, “to deliver him to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.{5.44}” Excommunication was considered equivalent to a sentence of death. They doubted not that an individual whom the apostles or chiefs of the Church had cut off from the body of the saints and delivered over to the power of the Evil One, was lost.[5.45] Satan was considered to be the author of the diseases; to deliver to him the infected member was to hand him over to the natural executioner. A premature death was ordinarily considered as the result of one of those secret judgments, which, according to the expressive Hebrew term, “cut off a soul from Israel.”[5.46] The apostles believed themselves to be invested with supernatural powers; while pronouncing such condemnations, they believed that their anathemas could not fail to be effectual.
The terrible impression which these excommunications made, and the hatred of all the brethren towards the members thus cut off, were powerful enough in fact to produce death in many cases, or at least to compel the guilty person to expatriate himself. The same frightful ambiguity was found in the old law. “Extirpation” implied, at once decease, expulsion from the community, exile, and a solitary and mysterious death.[5.47] To kill the apostate, or blasphemer, to beat his body in order to save his soul, would seem quite lawful. It must be remembered that we are treating of the times of zealots, who considered it a virtuous act to assassinate any one who failed in obedience to the law;[5.48] nor must we forget that some of the Christians were, or had been, zealots.[5.49] Stories like that of the death of Ananias and Sapphira[5.50] raised no scruples. The idea of the civil power was so strange to all this world situated outside of the Roman law, they were so persuaded that the Church was a complete society sufficient for all its own needs, that nobody regarded the death or mutilation of an individual as an outrage punishable by the civil law. Enthusiasm and burning faith covered all, yea, excused all. But the frightful danger which these theocratic maxims entailed on the future was easily perceived. The Church is armed with a sword; excommunication will be a sentence of death. There is henceforth in the world a power above that of the State which disposes of the lives of citizens. Assuredly if the Roman power had limited itself to the repression among the Jews and the Christians of such abominable principles, it would have been a thousand times in the right. Only in its brutality it confounded the most legitimate of liberties, that of worshipping according to one’s own conviction, with abuses which no society has ever been able to endure with impunity.
Peter had a certain primacy amongst the apostles; the result of his daring zeal and activity.[5.51] In these early times he is scarcely ever separated from John, the son of Zebedee. They went together almost always,[5.52] and their perfect concord was doubtless the corner-stone of the new faith. James, brother of the Lord, was nearly their equal in authority, at least in one section of the Church. In respect to certain intimate friends of Jesus, like the women of Galilee and the family of Bethany, we have already observed that we have no more to do with them. Less anxious to organize and found a society, the faithful companions of Jesus were satisfied to love in death Him whom they had loved when alive. Totally occupied with their waiting, these noble women, who have established the faith of the world, were almost unknown to the important men of Jerusalem. When they died, the most important traits in the history of nascent Christianity were buried in the tomb with them. The active characters alone became renowned; those who are content to love secretly remain in obscurity, but assuredly they have the better part.
It is superfluous to remark that this little group had no speculative theology. Jesus kept himself far removed from everything metaphysical. He had only one dogma, His own divine Sonship and the divine authority of His mission. Every symbol of the primitive Church might be contained in one line: “Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.” This belief rested upon a peremptory argument, the fact of the resurrection, of which the disciples claimed to be witnesses. In reality, no one (not even the Galilean women) declared that they had seen the resurrection.[5.53] But the absence of the body and the apparitions which had followed appeared to be equivalent to the fact itself. To attest the resurrection of Jesus was the task which all considered as being specially imposed upon them.[5.54] They quickly entertained the idea that the Master had predicted this event. They recollected different sayings of His, which they fancied that they had never thoroughly understood, and in which they saw too late an announcement of the resurrection.[5.55] Belief in the next glorious manifestation of Jesus was universal.[5.56] The secret word which the associated brethren used among themselves for purposes of mutual recognition and confirmation was Maranatha, “The Lord will come.”[5.57] They fancied that they remembered a declaration of Jesus, according to which their preaching would not have time to reach to all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man appeared in His majesty.[5.58] In the meanwhile, Jesus risen is seated at the right hand of His Father. There He remains until the solemn day on which He shall come, seated on the clouds, to judge the quick and the dead.[5.59]
The idea which they had of Jesus was the very same which Jesus had given them of Himself. Jesus had been a mighty prophet in word and in deed,[5.60] a man elect of God, having received a special mission in behalf of mankind,[5.61] a mission the truth of which he had proved by His miracles, and, above all, by His resurrection. God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and endued Him with power; He went about doing good and healing those who were under the power of the devil;[5.62] for God was with Him.[5.63] He is the Son of God, that is, a man entirely sent of God, a representative of God on earth; He is the Messiah, the Saviour of Israel announced by the prophets.[5.64] The perusal of the books of the Old Testament, above all of the Psalms and the prophets, was a constant habit of the sect. In these readings one fixed idea ever accompanied them, and that was to discover, above all other considerations, the type of Jesus. They were persuaded that the ancient Hebrew books were full of Him, and, from the very first, He was moulded into a collection of texts drawn from the prophets and the Psalms and certain of the apocryphal books, wherein they were convinced that the life of Jesus was foretold and described in advance.[5.65] This arbitrary mode of interpretation was, at that time, that of all the Jewish schools. The Messianic allusions were a description of witty trifling, analogous to the use which the ancient preachers made of passages of the Bible, diverted from their natural meaning, and received as simple ornaments of sacred rhetoric. Jesus, with His exquisite tact in religious matters, had instituted no new ritual movement. The new sect had not, as yet, any special ceremonies.{5.66} Habits of piety were Jewish habits. The assemblies had nothing precisely liturgic about them; they were the sessions of confraternities, in which they devoted themselves to prayer, to glossological or prophetic{5.67} exercises, and to the reading of correspondence. There was nothing yet of sacerdotalism. There was no priest (cohen, or ἱερεύς); the presbyter is the “elder” of the community, nothing more. The only priest is Jesus;{5.68} in another sense, all the faithful are priests.{5.69} Fasting was considered a very meritorious usage.{5.70} Baptism was the sign of entrance into the sect.{5.71} The rite was the same in form as the baptism of John, but it was administered in the name of Jesus.{5.72} Baptism was always considered an insufficient initiation into the society. It should be followed by a conferring of the gifts of the Holy Spirit,{5.73} which was produced by means of a prayer pronounced over the head of the neophyte with the imposition of hands.