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JESUS CHRIST
DURING HIS MINISTRY

JESUS CHRIST:
His Person — His Authority — His Work.

I. Jesus Christ before His Ministry.
$1.25.
II. Jesus Christ during His Minis
try. $1.25.
III. The Death and Resurrection of
Jesus Christ. (In preparation.)

JESUS CHRIST
DURING HIS MINISTRY

BY
EDMOND STAPFER
professor in the faculty of protestant
theology at paris

CransIateB 6g
LOUISE SEYMOUR HOUGHTON

I
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1900

Copyright, 1897,
By Charles Scribner's Sons.

SJnffccrsIts JPras :
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A.

PKEFACE

T PROPOSE in the following pages to
- speak of Jesus Christ during his min
istry. With but rare exceptions I shall
carefully banish from this book all dis
cussion of the text, every interpretation
of it, theological or critical. I shall re
late only established facts, or facts easy
to establish, and shall permit myself to
make no conjectures but such as are
entirely plausible. The task as I conceive
it has therefore its limit; nevertheless, it
is still sufficiently complex to forbid me
to embarrass it by the discussion of con
troverted passages. But wherever the fact
is certain and the sayings of Jesus perfectly
authentic, I shall make use of them, and
shall endeavor to draw from them all that
they actually contain.

Vi PREFACE
I would add that I shall pass over in
silence many details, which though impor
tant are not essential to the end which I
propose to myself.
It is to be observed, indeed, that my
title is not " The Ministry of Jesus Christ,"
but "Jesus Christ during his Ministry,"
which is different. I propose, in fact, to
speak above all things of Jesus himself, to
ask what he thought, what he purposed
to do, what he professed to be, and, as
my general title says, what he said of his
person, what authority he claimed, and
what work he desired to do. I desire to
look for nothing else, and to speak of
nothing else; and here, as in my first
volume, I judge it to be needless to re
peat what the Gospels say. I shall par
ticularly seek for what they have not
said, but in this search I take as point of
departure certain data given by the Gospels
themselves. It is therefore not my intention to follow
the usual method of Lives of Jesus, setting
forth the New Testament narratives in a
more or less chronological order, and

PREFACE vii
studying them critically and exegetically.
I shall take the Bible story as a whole,
and shall try to draw from the impression
left by reading it a picture of the person
of Christ, and especially a history of his
thought. I shall touch upon the events which
occurred in the life of Jesus only so far as
they may serve to throw light upon what
took place in his soul.
In this, as in the first volume, the reader
will see that Jesus " destroyed " nothing,
and that he "fulfilled" all things. This
word is the key of many apparent enigmas
and contradictions. I hope to show that
everything that Jesus said, did, thought,
and preached had its roots in the past, and
by a slow and sure evolution was made by
him entirely new.
One word more: In writing this book
I would not forget that the moral and
religious life is not to be studied as natural
history is studied, that a simple statement
of facts does not explain everything, and
that the methods which lead to an acquaint
ance with the spiritual world can by no

Vlll PREFACE
means be the same as those which lead to a
knowledge of the world of nature. Here
as elsewhere the saying of Pascal is true :
"The heart has its reasoning which the
reason knows nothing of ; " and the soul
may have intuitions of the true which
objective observation will forever fall
short of giving to the learned.

CONTENTS

Page
Preface  v
Introduction  xi

Chapter I. The Earlier Activity of Jesus . 3
II. The Language of Jesus ... 20
III. The Earliest Teachings of Jesus 39
IV. The Messiah and his Work . . 59
V. Jesus and Miracles  76
VI. Earliest Preaching of Jesus on
the Kingdom of God ... 96
VTI. The Kingdom prepared for by
the Lowly and the Poor . . Ill
VIII. Journeys to Jerusalem .... 128
IX. Opposition to Jesus . . . . 143
X. Institution of the Apostolate . 159
XI. The Summer of the Year 29. . 177

X CONTENTS
Chapter Page
XII. Final Departure for Jerusalem 197
XIII. The Names assumed by Jesus . 221
XIV. The Requirements of Jesus . . 238
Conclusion  261

INTRODUCTION
THE SOURCES OP THE LIEE OP JESUS
'T*HE earliest information about Jesus
which we have is given us by St.
Paul. His name is continually repeated
in the few letters of the apostle which
have come down to us, and Paul appears
to have been very precisely informed upon
the principal events in the' life of his
Master. Had he known him personally?
It can hardly be supposed ; but it is highly
possible that he had seen him, and often
seen him, walking in the porticos of the
Temple ; perhaps he had heard him replying
to the Pharisees when he himself, a young
and high-spirited disciple of Gamaliel, was
carrying on his studies in Jerusalem.
However this may have been, Paul
counted among his intimate friends men
who had lived in Jesus' company, Barnabas 2
and Silas,2 for example, and in the earlier
i Acts iv. 38, etc. 2 ActB xv. 22.

Xii INTRODUCTION
days John surnamed Mark,1 who later
became the companion of Peter.
Paul had also spent a fortnight at Jeru
salem with Peter and James ; 2 he had had
the opportunity of receiving from their
lips many details of the life of Christ, and
he certainly had done so. We know that
Paul narrated the life of Jesus in his
churches, and in particular that he de
scribed his Passion in such moving terms
that it seemed as if Jesus were crucified
anew before his hearers.3 He also de
scribed the resurrection of the Lord — we
know with what power and what insist
ence.4 More than this, his letters abound
in allusions to the teachings of Jesus, con
cerning marriage,6 for example, or the
Lord's Supper,6 or mere citations of the
Master's precepts.7
Taken as a whole the testimony of St.
Paul gives a very accurate, very clear,
and very lifelike portrait of Jesus. The
principal features of his life are brought
out by the apostle, and his allusions con-
1 Acts xii. 12, 25. a (jai j ig; 19.
8 Gal. iii. 1. 4 1 Cor. xv. and passim.
6 1 Cor. vii. 10 f. e 1 Cor. xi. 23 ff.
7 See also Acts xx. 35.

INTRODUCTION xiii
firm in advance that which the Gospels
say at a later day.
This, in a few words, is what Paul gives
us to know about Jesus: his birth, his
Davidic origin, the time of his appearing,
which was that determined by God, the
humility of his earthly condition, his per
fect holiness, his Messianic dignity, the
character of his life : perfect fulfilment of
the will of God; that of his mission: to
preach, himself, to the people of Israel
only, and to leave instructions for the fu
ture with twelve apostles, by them making
the gift of his Gospel to all men ; his death
upon the cross, which is the seal of the
new covenant; the circumstances accom
panying his death; the last supper; the
institution of the Holy Communion; the
betrayal by Judas ; finally the resurrection
on the third day; the order of the appear
ances of the Risen Lord, concluding with
his life in heaven with God, whence he
shall return to judgment. It is evident that
in the details given and the allusions here
and there made by St. Paul, nothing essen
tial is lacking in the life of Jesus Christ.
After St. Paul we must cite as among
the most ancient documents the earlier

Xiv INTRODUCTION
chapters of the book of the Acts of the
Apostles. Not that this book was written
at an early date ; at earliest it was hardly
written before the year 80; but iii the
beginning of his narrative Luke, who is its
author, gives a picture of the first Church
in Jerusalem, — a Church composed of
ocular witnesses of the earthly work of
Jesus, his immediate disciples, who in
the words they utter recall the. essential
features of their Master's life.
The discourses of Peter, especially, are
extremely important. In them we see
what was the Gospel of the earliest days ;
when the apostle speaks of Jesus Christ
we have the witness of the disciple to his
Lord given only a few weeks after his
death. He pictures Jesus as a just man,
approved of God and men, the servant of
Jehovah, preaching the Good Tidings,
healmg the sick, going about doing good,
choosing twelve apostles.1
He also narrates his death, with the
betrayal by Judas, the special guilt of the
Sadducees in forcing Pilate's consent,
the accusation brought against the Christ
of having wished to destroy the Temple
i Acts ii. 22 ff. ; iii. 13 ff. ; iv. 10 ff.

INTRODUCTION XV
and abrogate the Law, his resurrection on
the third day, the preaching of remission
of sins through his name, — all this
expressed with a grand simplicity which
inspires confidence. The narratives with
which the Book of the Acts opens give
us the primitive Gospel, that of the oral
tradition; they have an unmistakable
stamp of originality, and are of priceless
value to the historian.
But it is very evident that if we knew
nothing more about Jesus than this, his
person and work would remain almost
unknown to us. Neither the Jews nor
the Gentiles of his day wrote of him. The,
Talmud mentions his name, it is true, and
even assumes to narrate his trial; but the
story merits no credit, being only a tissue
of falsehoods dictated by hatred.1 Yet it
serves to confirm the fact that Jesus with
stood the legalism and formalism of his
people, and attacked the traditional pre
cepts of the Pharisees.
As for Gentile writings, Suetonius, in an
inexact and insignificant passage, mentions
Jesus Christ under the name Chrestus;2
1 Jerus. Talm. Sank. 14, 16; Babyl. Sank. 43 a, 67 a.
a Life of Claudius, § 16.

Xvi INTR ODUCTI ON
Tacitus, somewhat more explicit,1 speaks
of "Christ who was put to death under
Tiberius, by the order of Pontius Pilate,
and whose detestable superstition has
spread everywhere abroad, even unto
Rome." Finally, the younger Pliny, early
in the second century, describes in a letter
to Trajan 2 the assemblies of Christians in
his province, saying that they sing hymns,
"speaking to Christ as to a God." All
these insignificant facts, which we mention
only for the sake of completeness, teach
us nothing about Jesua Christ which we
did not already know; and, all things con
sidered, the Gospels are the only true
source of the life of Jesus.
Let us endeavor to describe how they
were written, and say what degree of con
fidence we may accord to them. If we
study them attentively, collecting the tes
timony of the oldest Fathers of the Church
concerning the writings of the apostolic
epoch, the following is what we shall
discover : —
The first disciple of Jesus who to our
knowledge3 concerned himself with put-
1 Annals, xv. 44. a Correspondence, 10, 96.
8 " To our knowledge," because a great number of

INTRODUCTION XVII
ting into writing his Master's words, is the
apostle Matthew. Between the years 50
and 60 he composed a collection of the
discourses, sayings, and parables of Jesus,
writing it in the Aramaic tongue, that is,
in the very language in which Jesus spoke.
Matthew's collection was several times
translated into Greek with many altera
tions, but none of importance. This
primitive writing by Matthew, that is, the
collection of the sayings of Jesus in
Aramaic, no longer exists.
About ten years after Matthew, between
60 and 70, a disciple of Peter, John sur-
named Mark, who served him as inter
preter, wrote a summary of the preachings
of that apostle. This writing still exists
just as Mark composed it ; it is our second
Gospel. It is true that some critics hold
that ours is only a second recension, differ
ing somewhat from the original. But
this hypothesis is not indispensable, and it
is probable that it is the very text of Mark
which we have before us. Later appeared
a Gospel which also has been preserved,
which we have in our New Testament,
gospels were written in the first century, all except
four being lost. b

xviii INTRODUCTION
which we call the Gospel according to St.
Matthew, and whose true author is
unknown. This is how this author composed his
book. He took one of the Greek transla
tions of Matthew's collection of discourses,
and also the summary of Peter's preaching
which Mark had made, and combining
these two documents he produced our
first Gospel. Here and there he added
what he had learned from oral tradition;
for example, the manner of Jesus' coming
into the world, his genealogy, his birth,
the visit of the Wise Men; the opening
chapters of his book ; and a few other facts
scattered through the body of the work,
which he alone relates.1 The author had
a well-defined purpose in writing this
Gospel : to prove that Jesus Christ fulfilled
the prophecies relating to the Messiah,
and realized the promises made to the
Jews in the Old Testament.
About the same period, a little after
70 a.d., Luke composed the third of the
Gospels which we have in the New Testa-
1 For example, the miracle of the stater, xvii. 24-
27 ; the resurrection of the saints at the time of
Jesus' death, xxvii. 52, 53.

INTRODUCTION XIX
ment. This document, as we have it, has
undergone no retouching. In writing it
Luke had before him several narratives of
the life of Jesus. As a foundation he too
made use of one of the Greek translations
of Matthew's collection of the discourses,
though not the one made use of by the
author of the first Gospel, and differing
somewhat from that one. He also took
advantage of the Gospel by Mark. In the
third place he had at hand a collection
made at a date unknown to us, including
a number of words and deeds of Jesus
during one or more journeys betweeu
Galilee and Judea, and of which the
writers of the first two Gospels had no
knowledge. This narrative of the travels
of Jesus Christ was utilized by Luke from
verse 51 of chapter ix. to verse 28 of
chapter xix.
Luke had still other sources at his dis
posal. Such were the accounts of the
Passion of Jesus Christ which he heard
Paul give when he accompanied him on his
missionary travels, and a collection by
himself of Aramaean traditions concerning
the birth of John the Baptist and of Jusus
Christ.

XX INTROD UCTION
Such is the origin of our first three
Gospels. To find the most authentic accounts of
Jesus Christ we must first turn to the
Gospel by Mark: it is the oldest; it
should be the fundamental basis of every
orderly narrative of the ministry of Jesus.
The facts he gives should take precedence
on all accounts. The Gospel of Mark is
more impersonal than those of Matthew
and Luke. While these have each their
own purpose, and pursue it, Mark has no
other aim but to relate what he remembers,
and he gives the facts in chronological
order. His Gospel is consequently a true
drama, the drama of the life of the misun
derstood and murdered Messiah. There
is no digression, no delay, no pause. All
is animated, simple, natural. Mark neither
interprets facts nor accounts for them ; he
shows them. Therefore is this admirable
document not simply the oldest Gospel;
it is at the same time the surest, the most
faithful, the most exact. But it is incom
plete, and the critic must complete it with
the aid of the other two Synoptics.
In this work his first care should be to
compare Matthew and Luke, seeking all

INTROD UCTION xxi
that they have preserved to us of the
collection of discourses made by the apostle
Matthew. In fact, we find in our first
and third Gospels the substance of the
words of Jesus collected by Matthew, since
each of the authors had before him a Greek
translation of this collection.
This, therefore, is the most authentic
common foundation, the solid base of
what we most certainly know about Jesus
Christ. Where the three accounts differ we
must choose between them, always seeking
the eldest text, a critical work of by no
means insurmountable difficulty. Here
the duty of the historian is to eliminate
suspicious traditions, all that betrays a
tendency foreign to strict historic verity,
as, for example, the injunctions which
arise from doctrinal prepossessions. This
work done, we must determine the frame
work of Jesus Christ's ministry, and make
clear the order of the facts. It would be
utterly impossible to perform this task if
we had not the fourth Gospel, and here is
the great usefulness, let us rather say, the
unequalled value of the account of the life
of Jesus of which it yet remains to speak.

Xxii INTRODUCTION
With regard to the fourth Gospel, as
with regard to the first three, historical
criticism has arrived at nearly definitive
results. It is impossible to misapprehend the
unhistorical character of this book. We
mean by this that the author deliberately
sets aside a great number of important
events, and that his intention is not to
give us a biography of Jesus Christ, but
to prove that Jesus was verily the Word
made flesh, or, as he himself said, the
Christ, the Son of God.1 It results from
this that his account is quite fragmentary,
and tinctured with theological considera
tions completely foreign to the history.
This is an incontestable fact, which should
be recognized by every one.
The fourth Gospel, then, cannot serve
as a basis for the study of Jesus Christ's
ministry, and this is why we began by
speaking of the first three. They alone
give us a solid preliminary standpoint.
But we have also to find a standpoint
in the fourth Gospel. All has by no
means been said when it is said that this
writing may not be taken for a complete
1 John xx. 31.

INTRODUCTION xxiii
narrative of the life of Jesus; it remains
to point out its high documentary value.
Side by side with the general unhistoric
character which it presents to the impartial
reader, another not less indisputable fact
remains in our opinion to be recognized;
that is, that the author lived in intimate
association with an ocular witness of the
life of Jesus, — a witness who felt himself
to be of such authority as to give a differ
ent account from that of the first three
evangelists, whose books he perfectly well
knew, of sufficient authority to correct
them, and put forth assertions which com
pleted, rectified, and sometimes contra
dicted theirs. The author of the fourth
Gospel knows to their minutest details a
great number of perfectly certain, entirely
authentic facts in the life of Jesus, of
which the authors of the first three narra
tives were entirely ignorant.
More than this : with regard to the two
critical moments in the life of Jesus Christ,
the revulsion of popular feeling after the
multiplication of the loaves, and his death
upon the cross, this author is at one with
the first three evangelists, confirming and
completing them. And, finally, the outline

xxiv INTROD UCTION
of the life of Jesus which he gives is much
better than theirs. They mention only
one journey of Jesus Christ to Jerusalem,
which is more than unlikely, which is im
possible. The author of the fourth Gos
pel parts company with them at this point,
mentioning several such journeys, because
he is more accurate and knows the facts
better. For this reason the fourth Gospel is full
of personal recollections whose character
it is impossible to mistake. To take only
a single example, its account of the
Passion is the most vivid of the four, and
among other details of marvellous truth the
character of Pilate is admirably brought out.
It seems to us impossible to deny the
fact that the ocular witness of whom we
speak can be no other than an apostle, and
this apostle no other than John. If the
form given to the discourses of Jesus is
peculiar to the author of this book, and if
the fourth Gospel abounds in theological
deductions which can be nothing other
than the evangelist's own reflections and
not the authentic words of Jesus,1 there
1 It is to be observed that, in the first century, an
author writing the life of any one not only put into

INTROD UCTION XXV
are also many utterances put into the
mouth of the Christ which are certainly
quite as historical as those which the first
three evangelists attribute to him, and
which bear the inimitable stamp of the
authentic words of the Lord.
Therefore this book, which is not a life
of Jesus Christ (it is at once too dogmatic
and too fragmentary for that), is neverthe
less a very accurate document, and must
be consulted by those who would under
stand the life of Jesus. It may even be
said that upon many essential points it is
by much the most accurate of the four.
Only the authority of an apostle can be
the basis of a book which, when it appeared,
differed so widely from the first three
Gospels already received by the Church,
accepted as true, consecrated by piety, and
which parted company from them so
entirely.1
his mouth what he had really said, but what he might
have said ; and the words which the author was con
vinced that he might have uttered were considered
quite as authentic as if he had really spoken them.
1 The proofs of the historicity of the fourth Gospel
so far as the last week and the Passion are concerned,
are of altogether convincing force. Jesua names him
self to the soldiers who have come to arrest him.

Xxvi INTRODUCTION
Who, then, is the author of the fourth
Gospel? Let us ask the book itself. It
replies clearly that he draws very imme
diately from St. John, but is not St. John.
When he speaks of the "beloved disciple,"
he speaks in the third person. Of course
this might be only a literary form. Anti
quity affords us a well-known example.
The Commentaries of Julius Caesar were
written by Caesar himself, and nowhere
does he designate himself by the pronoun
of the first person. But the system adopted
by the writer of the fourth Gospel is very
Judas goes out from the upper chamber after re
ceiving the sop, etc. The Gospel clears up many
seeming improbabilities in the Synoptic account.
John states that Jesus died on the very day when the
paschal lamb was eaten ; so does the Talmud (" the
eve of Pasca," Babyl. Sank. 43a, 67a). He says noth
ing of the payment of money to Judas. With regard
to the six months before the Passion, John alone is
well informed. He shows the death of Jesus as
already resolved upon in the month of February or
March (xi. 53, 54); at that time Jesus retires to
Ephraim, the order for his arrest is given (xi. 55, 56).
The Synoptics know nothing of all this. Finally and
especially the fact that immediately after his arrest
Jesus was led to Annas (xviii. 13), who, as we know,
had a house on the Mount of Olives, is the strongest
possible proof of the historic value of the fourth
Gospel (cf. Renan, Vie de Jesus, 1st edition, p.
394.)

INTRODUCTION XXVii
different, for not simply does he never speak
of John except in the third person, he is
careful to distinguish himself from him ; he
speaks of John without ever naming him,
and always in terms of eulogy; he desig
nates him with veiled expressions and in
terms of invariable admiration: it is evi
dent that he is tenderly attached to him.
He brings out John's superiority, and the
peculiar affection of Jesus for him. The
apostle John, writing for himself, would
not thus have written about himself; and
yet all that we have said of the Johannine
origin of the fourth Gospel remains. One
solution alone is possible, — this book was
written by a disciple of St. John who
drew his inspiration from his master.
We may almost say that the fourth Gos
pel was composed in collaboration by the
apostle John and one of his disciples who
acted as penman; and just as he has
nowhere written his master's name, he
has nowhere made an error, and this book
has nothing in common with what is called
a pseudepigraph. We have one proof of this assertion in a
fact which it is impossible to contest. It
is universally admitted that chapter xxi.

XXviii INTRODUCTION
was added to the Gospel after its comple
tion and even after St. John's death.
Now, the style of this appendix — which
in any case is not that of St. John, since
it was written after his death — is pre
cisely the same as that of the Gospel. It
is by the same writer; then this writer
not being John for the twenty-first chapter
is also not John for the first twenty
chapters. The appendix was added by the
disciple who, a little while before, had
written the Gospel under the direction of
the apostle. This appears to us incon
testable. It is to be remarked also that the Gospel
of John was thought in Hebrew, that the
construction of the sentences is entirely
Hebraic. We may therefore admit that
we have an almost literal translation, made
by him who held the pen while the apostle
spoke to him in Aramaic. There was a
duality of authorship, — a duality which
is indeed betrayed by the pronoun in
the first person plural, here and there
employed. More than this, the writer-secretary from
time to time introduces his own reflections.
For example he says : " He that hath seen

INTRODUCTION xxix
hath borne witness, and his witness is
true; and he knoweth that he saith true,
that ye also may believe."1 That is to
say, " John attested what he saw when he
related to me the death upon the cross, and
now he knows that his attestation is true ;
I hear him saying so at the moment when
I am writing these lines." This is evi
dently a personal reflection of the writer, a
writer who is not "he that hath seen."
This literary method of a book written
by two people appears at first strange. It
is not in the least so, if we put ourselves
back in the time of the apostles. They,
especially Peter and John, must have been
very ill versed in Greek, if indeed they so
much as knew a word of it. But if they
wrote epistles or gospels, they could pub
lish them only in Greek. If they had
written them in their mother tongue, their
books would not have been widely scat
tered, and they would have been lost, as
Matthew's collection of the sayings of
Jesus was lost. They therefore took col
laborators, aids, secretaries. Peter, who
had John Mark for interpreter, had also
Silas, and caused Silas to write his epistle.
i John xix. 35.

XXX INTRODUCTION
He says it in so many words.1 In the
same way John, having to write a gospel,
acquitted himself of his task as he could,
giving the facts to a secretary who assur
edly was not chosen at hap-hazard, and
who made admirable use of what the
apostle related to him.
To return now to the question which we
have put to ourselves: How may we
reconstruct the outline of the ministry of
Jesus Christ? Three Paschal feasts were
celebrated in the course of it,2 and it must
therefore have occupied two and a half
years. If next we attempt to put the
events in their proper dates and to show a
progress, a development, in the ministry
of Jesus Christ, we must still address our
selves to the fourth Gospel.
The first three group the facts without
the slightest hint of progress or develop
ment; but, on the other hand, we find in
them, especially in the Gospel of Mark,
notes of time which grow out of the nature
of the events, and these indications of
time impress themselves upon the reader
all the more strongly because the Evan-
i 1 Pet. v. 12. 2 John ii. 23 ; vi. 4 ; xiii. 1.

INTRODUCTION XXXI
gelists had no thought of indicating them,
and were themselves not aware of them.
Thus there is a moment in Jesus Christ's
ministry — a "turning-point," as the Ger
mans say — which marks very nearly the
middle of his public life, and which is
indicated in all the four Gospels.1 It is
the moment when the people turn away
from Jesus Christ, when he loses the
popularity which up to that time he had
enjoyed. It is precisely a year before his
death; for this event followed the multi
plication of the loaves, which St. John
expressly places in the neighborhood of a
Passover which can only have been that
of the year 29. 2
Consequently, the ministry of Jesus
Christ is to be divided into three parts;
or, more correctly speaking, there are
three periods of undeniable authenticity
in the ministry of Jesus Christ, —
I. The Galilean Ministry (preaching of
the Gospel of the Kingdom; the Beati
tudes ; the visit to Nazareth ; the parables
i Matt. xvi. ; Mark viii. ; Luke ix. ; John vi.
2 " Can only have been," on the supposition that
Jesus was crucified in the year 30, — a very possible
date, but concerning' the accuracy of which a degree
of doubt exists.

XXXii INTRODUCTION
of the Kingdom of Heaven ; teachings and
cures). This first period is characterized
by the lively enthusiasm which Jesus
inspired, and the great popularity which
he enjoyed. His ministry opened in hope
and joy. He was encircled with universal
sympathy. He went up and down the
country performing miracles of benevo
lence, attacking the official representatives
of the theocracy; and the multitudes
approved. He replied to the messengers
of John the Baptist, and pronounced upon
him a decisive judgment. He proclaimed
the freedom of the conscience. This
period terminates with the discourse
known as the Sermon on the Mount, in
which are collected a large proportion of
the discourses spoken during this time. The
choice of the twelve apostles marks its close.
II. The second period of Jesus' ministry
now opens. It began with the open hos
tility of the Pharisees, who accuse him of
casting out demons by Beelzebub. Jesus
in his turn rebukes the Pharisees, and
parts company with them. Soon the
people also cease to understand him, and
abandon him. By one of those changes of
mood common to crowds, a reaction takes

INTROD UC TION XXxiii
place. The popularity of Jesus suddenly
wanes. The people accuse him of having tri
fled with their Messianic hopes. This crisis
occurs precisely a year before Jesus' death.
This second period is better known than
the preceding one, — that of favor and
success, which is somewhat enshrouded in
obscurity and hesitation. These are its
principal events: Jesus publicly breaks
with the Jewish Messianic hopes ; learning
of the death of John the Baptist, and feel
ing himself watched by Herod, he retires
into solitude, and begins his ministry of
wandering, often going beyond the limits
of Herod's territory (Tyre, Sidon, Caesarea
Philippi), and entering upon a life of
greater intimacy with his apostles. This
second period closes with the confession of
Peter, and the first prediction of his own
nearly approaching death by violence.
These are the facts, the exterior events.
To these exterior events correspond interior
events in the soul of Jesus. The convic
tion dawns upon him that his work is not
to be accomplished by words and miracles,
and that his death is probably necessary
to the coming of the kingdom. We say
probably, for even while affirming that his

XXXIV INTRODUCTION
death was inevitable he hoped to the end
that his Father would spare him this sacri
fice. But he clearly saw that the conver
sion of his people was not to be secured
simply by the means which up to this time
he had employed. He was obliged to give
up the hope of accomplishing the pure
spiritualization of Judaism as certain of the
Pharisees understood it. He himself gave
up his Judaism, and became in the most
absolute sense unsectarian. He was no
longer to be simply the spiritual and moral
Messiah who was born in the days of the
temptation in the desert ; he was to be the
suffering Messiah, sealing his work by
martyrdom. His death was to precede the
coming of the kingdom, which he still
continued to proclaim near at hand.
III. The third period may be entitled
The Final Struggle and the Last Week.1
We shall study it in our third volume. It
is the best-known period of Jesus' life.
The light which authentic documents shed
upon his life, a light which from the begin
ning grows ever stronger, is for these last
days as perfect as could be desired.
1 Matt, xx.-xxviii. ; Mark x.-xvi. ; Luke ix. 53-
xxiv. ; John vii.-xx.

JESUS CHRIST
HIS PERSON, HIS AUTHORITY, HIS
WORK

Part Secanti
JESUS CHRIST DURING HIS MINISTRY

CHAPTER I
THE EARLIER ACTIVITY OF JESTJS
/^\UR first volume brought events down
to the time when Jesus, at about
thirty years of age, began his ministry.
Still thrilling through and through with
the burning words of John the Baptist,
and the solemn refrain of his preaching,
" Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is
at hand," he began by repeating these
words, and for the time he said no others.
But it was not at Nazareth that he was
to preach what he already called the " gos
pel," — the good news, that is, — the com
ing renovation of things, prepared for by
a change in men's hearts and lives. In
Nazareth he had no authority: he had
been known there from childhood, and
"no man is a prophet in his own country."
And, besides, he would there remain un
known. Nazareth is hidden away in the

4 JESUS CHRIST
hills ; he needed a centre from which to
radiate into the far distance. Therefore
he chose Capernaum, deciding that this
village should be the point of departure
for his preaching, his calls to his people.
The choice was, no doubt, the result of
careful investigation on his part. He
might have stationed himself elsewhere ;
but remaining in Galilee, giving up for
the outset the idea of Jerusalem,1 he could
be nowhere better placed than in Caper
naum. He certainly knew this town and
all the lake shore, and in his youth he had
often taken the six or seven hours' walk
which separated Nazareth from the Sea
of Galilee.
He decided, therefore, to leave the place
"where he had always lived. The rupture
was certainly painful. This village where
he had grown up was entwined with mem
ories not merely of his childhood, but of
all his youth and his life up to the age of
thirty. It is true that these memories
were of mingled character. His mother
did not understand him ; his brothers dis-
1 " For the outset," because his first attempts upon
Jerusalem had not succeeded. See, further, Chapter
VIII., " Journeys to Jerusalem."

DURING HIS MINISTRY 5
approved of him ; James especially, — the
austere, strict, fastidious Jew, — who was
nearly of his own age, must have looked
upon him as a prodigal son, and later,
when he became aware of Jesus' breadth
of view, his heresies, his violation of the
Sabbath, would suspect him of madness.
But this was of minor importance ; for
Jesus to leave Nazareth, to go away, was
to break with all that he had dearest in
the world.
On leaving Nazareth the road ascends,
and the view opens more and more widely.
The culminating point of the way is one
of the highest in all Galilee. Jesus could
see immense regions spread out around
him, and in the distance Mount Hermon,
eternally white, towering above the lower
mountains, whose large undulations de
scend toward the Sea of Tiberias, still in
visible, hidden behind its terraced hills.
When at last it comes into view, it is a
sheet of grayish blue, seen only in glimpses
against the distant background, and grad
ually corning more clearly into view.
From these high points might be seen on
its banks cities, villages, — white houses,

6 JESUS CBRIST
cubes of masonry in great number, far
away and very low, as upon a map.
Galilee in that time was throbbing with
intense life; and when one sees it to-day
so gray and dead, the contrast is poignant.
When Jesus from the top of the hills first
saw the lake, he saw at the same time
Tiberias, Magdala, Bethsaida, and number
less barks skimming the water. Into the
midst of this simple and artless popula
tion, he was about to bring his new ideas,
— the preaching of John the Baptist, and
still other things ; all that was fermenting
in his soul, all that for eighteen years had
been working in his mind and drawing him
on, and all that he was shortly to add to
this ; for his thought was on the march,
and every day some new horizon would
open before him, and he would better
understand the Father's will. His meat
was to do that will, and thus to accom
plish his work.
In going to Capernaum he did not take
Tiberias in his way. This idolatrous or
would-be idolatrous city, peopled with
pagans and foreigners, inspired in him
the aversion with which it inspired every
loyal and patriotic Israelite. He went

DURING HIS MINISTRY 7
directly to the lake, and then walked
along its banks ; 1 and it was there that
he met his first friends — perhaps by ap
pointment, — two brothers, Simon and
Andrew, and farther on two other broth
ers, James and John. These four young
men, particularly the last two, his own
cousins, were to stand to him in the place
of his family, and would never again leave
him. John had already known him for a
long time, had loved and followed him,
and was united to Jesus in a close and
tender friendship. He also had felt the
influence of the Baptist, had been his dis
ciple ; and already for years, no doubt,
Jesus and John had thought together,
studied together, understood and found
light together. Alone of the apostles at
the foot of the cross, it would be for him
to take the place of son to the mother of
the Crucified One.
Capernaum and its neighboring villages,
Bethsaida and Chorazin, were to be the
favorite haunts of Jesus, and this corner
of the earth's surface was to become the
cradle of Christianity and of the world.
New ideas were soon to be fermenting there.
1 Marki. 16; Matt. iv. 18.

8 JESUS CHRIST
At Capernaum the house Of Simon and
Andrew, both of them sons of a certain
Johanan, became the first shelter and
abode of Jesus. Soon, thanks to a com
mon purse, which he established after the
Essenian custom, he rented a house, — one
of those mean dwellings, low-roofed and
windowless, in which people only spend
the night. It was not in the house that he
spoke, but in the open air, on the shore
of the lake, the plashing of whose harmless
wavelets was far too gentle to stifle his
voice. More or less everywhere on the
lake-shore Jesus taught. The crowds
listened standing on the shores ; the fisher
men brought their boats to the very mar
gin of the grass to listen, while he, seated
in the boat of Simon Cephas, pronounced
a few beatitudes or related a parable.
Water-fowl swam around the boat; the
sky quivered with light, and the waves
came softly up to die upon pebble and
sand, amid the grass and the flowers.
The stones of the shore which travellers
to-day tread under foot have heard his
words, but we can hear them only through
his disciples. He preached the gospel of
the early days, adding to the preaching of

DURING HIS MINISTRY 9
John the Baptist the announcement of the
Father's love and universal brotherhood.
He proclaimed pardon and infinite mercy
at a time when men knew only laws of
blood and vengeance, gods of gloom and
jealousy ; and he who thus spoke belonged
to Israel, that is to say, to the most exclusive
race of all antiquity. And it was the very
gospel, the good news, which he brought to
earth, the best which it had ever heard
or will ever hear. Now, this fact is not to
be explained ; and he who does not here
admit a revelation, and persists in say
ing this is an inexplicable enigma, seems
indeed to be wilfully closing his eyes to
historic evidence, superabundantly demon
strated. At other times Jesus went about the
country, passing through the admirably
cultivated plain of Genesareth, which lay
pent up between the sea and the moun
tains, and crossed by the road from Jerusa
lem to Damascus, — the road which St.
Paul journeyed over a few hours before his
conversion, and where caravans were un
ceasingly passing. This plain was a para
dise, an enchanted garden filled with trees
and flowers.

10 JESUS CHRIST
But let no one believe in what has been
called the Galilean idyl. Jesus found
himself everywhere surrounded with great
suffering, and he was constantly moved
with compassion. If he preached, it was
because he had a mission to fulfil. It is
certain that he had not earlier begun his
ministry because he had been waiting for a
divine call. Now he had heard it; God
had spoken to him in his baptism. He was
speaking to him every day; and the most
profound sentiment in Jesus' heart was the
desire to accomplish the work of God, the
work which the Father had given him to
do. Now he was carried out of himself in
compassion for his whole people. His will,
always sincere, firm, and when the time
came heroic,. was henceforth the steadfast
will of that which is good, or, rather, of that
which is God's will. Is it too daring to as
sume that the first two petitions of the
prayer which he taught his disciples were
in those days constantly upon his lips be
cause they had been constantly in his heart
during the years which immediately pre
ceded his public life, years of pondering
and waiting, and that they were more than
ever in his heart and on his lips at the pre-

DURING HIS MINISTRY \\
cise moment when he went to live in
Capernaum, — " Father, hallowed be thy
name ! " " Thy kingdom come ! " Two
sentiments were dominant in him, — an
intense and tender compassion for the
moral and material wretchedness which
surrounded him, and a communion with
God which sustained and carried him
without the slightest faltering. God was
there, — he felt him, heard him, lived with
and in him ; and this union with the
Father was the source of a deep peace and
an immense joy which sometimes thrilled
through him and filled him utterly.
An itinerant Essene in his manners, a
liberal Pharisee in his ideas, — such Jesus
appears to us all through this first period
of his activity. During these first months
of his ministry he remained in the great
current of the best Pharisaic doctrines,
not separating himself from Judaism.
His object was to prepare by his preaching
for the coming of the kingdom, and he
firmly hoped to be recognized and hailed
as Messiah by the people ; and, above all,
by their leaders, the Pharisees.
He lived in the Essenian way, but he did
not conduct himself as an Essene toward

12 JESUS CHRIST
those who approached him. The people
who hung upon his footsteps often made,
indeed, a very motley company. Among
them were individuals with whom respect
able persons did not associate ; 1 and while
the Essene would have held himself to be
contaminated if he had been touched by a
person less strict than himself, Jesus, by
way of protest against such narrowness,
dined with these pariahs, and declared that
he was come to seek sinners.2
Thus he went from village to village,
accepting hospitality, or even taking it,
according to custom. A guest had much
authority in those days. The master of
the house placed himself at his service, and
showed him great confidence. Thus it was
that the first propagation of the gospel was
made by fireside preaching.
Rabbi Jehoshua would enter, pronounce
a few words of greeting, relate one or two
allegorical stories. The women would
leave their work, and seat themselves at
his feet according to Oriental custom ; the
children would run to see and be blessed
by the journeying Rabbi. In the evening
1 Matt ix. 10 f . ; Luke xv.
2 Matt. ix. 11 f . ; Mark ii. 1G ff. ; Luke v. 30 ff.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 13
they would bring to him the sick persons
of the town, for every Rabbi was a doctor ;
he would give them counsel and heal them.
He revealed to them the pearl of great
price ; he brought the hidden treasure ;
every one was touched and moved, many
declared themselves for him. They said :
" What authority ! what power ! what
new teaching ! " On the morrow the same
scenes would be repeated in the next
village. Many details are thus explained
by Oriental customs. Jesus said that the
laborer was worthy of his hire, and his hire
was the hospitality which he received. To
lodge with a citizen was a sort of public
right, for there were hostelries only in the
large cities.
But Capernaum remained his centre. Its
name signifies " small town " (caphar, vil
lage). Jesus loved it much.1 On Satur
days especially he made a point of teaching
in its synagogue. During the week he
went about in the country among the scat
tered population.
The synagogue lent itself admirably to
his purpose. The service was open to the
public, who might make objections and put
1 Matt. ix. 1 ; Mark ii. 1.

14 JESUS CHRIST
questions to the speaker. A certain dis
order reigned there, and there was no
solemnity. People conversed, observed
one another, put questions to one another.
At times the discussions were very ani
mated. For example, there were questions
of precedence that made a great stir in
this little world. Men wanted the first
place, the highest seat. Nothing in the
synagogues resembled the silence which
reigns in Christian churches, and which
we call respect for the holy place.
In consequence, for Jesus to address the
meeting or offer himself as reader, gave
him an admirable opportunity to make
known his mission. His agreement with
the Pharisees, who, however, were not
numerous in Galilee, was complete. He
himself was most fully persuaded that he
was in the true line of good Pharisaism.
He was found to speak well, and was
greatly admired.1
His field of action was in all very
limited. Jesus hardly went beyond the
sort of gulf which the lake forms between
Tiberias and the mouth of the Jordan, a
1 Matt. vii. 28, xiii. 54 ; Mark i. 22, vi. 2 ; Luke iv.
22, 32.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 15
curve of three leagues. It begins with
rocks at the exit from Tiberias ; then a
plain opens out, — the land of Genesareth,
of which we have spoken. In it lies the
village of Magdala.
At the end of the plain is a road cut out
of the rock, which still exists, and which
Jesus surely often followed; then comes
Capernaum, and in its neighborhood Dal-
manutha, Bethsaida, Chorazin, lost cities
whose site will be forever unknown.
These villages were densely populated ;
their inhabitants were fishermen, worthy
and peaceable men, not without intelli
gence and even refinement, but densely
ignorant, and with a very incomplete Jew
ish education. They were sufficiently
well to do, and though not of pure race,
like the Jews of Jerusalem, they had no
Greek blood. Among these people Jesus
recruited his first disciples, who, however,
continued to work at their fisher's calling.1
Later he would choose twelve disciples.
He had not yet thought of doing so ; but
we have already seen four of them, —
John and James, Peter and Andrew, —
who, especially the first three, were to
1 Matt. iv. 18 ; Mark i. 16 ; Luke v. 3 ; John xxi. 3.

16 JESUS CHRIST
form an inner circle of friends and pre
ferred disciples.
All these people lived a life very dif
ferent from our own, a life of which it is
almost impossible for us to form a just
idea. With us existence is a struggle;
with them there was no need to fight for
life. They had no necessities to satisfy:
they required little food, and were con
tent with anything. There were no
rigors of climate, — nature was generous ;
and as they were seldom in the house, they
felt no need that their homes should be
beautiful. The earliest disciples who sur
rounded the Master formed a group of
confiding friends, living from day to day,
laying up nothing in store, since the king
dom of God was at hand, and asking
nothing more than the morrow's bread.
They were poor, and yet happy : as
they possessed nothing, no one could
deprive them of anything; they were
therefore without care, and suffered no
privation. With us, the poor man has
much difficulty in making for himself his
small place in the sunshine. There the
poor enjoj'ed the flowers, the shade, — all
nature, which was theirs as much as any-

DURING HIS MINISTRY 17
body's. The thought of communism came
naturally to the mind, — not in order that
every one should be rich ; quite the con
trary. " Riches are an evil thing," they
would say ; " poverty is a good. It is best
to give away the little that one has.
Neither liberty nor happiness depends on
what one has or has not." These doc
trines were in the air. In the preaching
of those days Jesus would speak of them,
and he already practised Essenian com
munism. One disciple had charge of the
common purse ; it was replenished by
gifts brought by the new members or by
some who were richer than the others.
Among those who heard the teachings of
Jesus were some who were led to the
point of giving up everything and leaving
all things to follow him, solemnly promis
ing never to leave him !
How little all this was in appearance !
How humble and small it all was ! A few
dreamy and ignorant Oriental souls, know
ing nothing either of the size of the world
or the political power of the Caesars,
nothing of the most elementary philosophy
or of the law of the universe ; expecting
the kingdom and seeing everywhere the
2

18 JESUS CHRIST
signs of its approach ; believing that heaven
is above, and hell below, and the earth in
the middle. And these souls were un
settled, disquieted, half unbelieving, even
in the things that they knew and believed.
And when one thinks that it is they who
have transmitted Jesus to us, that we
know Jesus only through their instrumen
tality, and that the little that they have
told us of him, so imperfectly and incom
pletely, has overturned and changed the
world ; when one realizes that it is by
what they have said that we live and die
(for the gospel is the best that men have
by which to learn to live well and die
well), and that no one has found anything
else, that we cannot do without it, — then
the teaching of Jesus, his word, his per
son, all his being, expand to inconceivable
proportions, and the certitude of a divine
message, a divine revelation, a word come
down from heaven, and a being come down
from heaven, forces itself upon us, domi
nates us, overwhelms us with its evidence.
For, after all, everything comes from him,
— our laws, our morals, our civilization,
all our wisdom and our newest ideas;
and those who reject Jesus, blaspheme

DURING HIS MINISTRY 19
and deny him, still are subject to his in
fluence, and in spite of themselves in one
relation or another remain his disciples ;
and, on the other hand, misguided Chris
tians, full of intolerance and fanaticism,
orthodox hypocrites and the proud of all
denominations, and the priests of all com
munions, also exalt him, since they call
themselves by his name; and it is even
the case that those who -senselessly throw
down his cross, thinking themselves to be
working for liberty and truth, are often
impelled into error by an unrecognized
motive of generosity, which by that very
quality has its roots in the evangelical
and Christian spirit.
Whatever, then, may be one's judgment
of the Gospels and their authenticity, it
remains true that there was a personality
of incomparable power concerning whom
these books were composed. The whole
sum of facts and ideas connected with
Jesus, which caused the creation of the
Church, the activity of the apostles, the
enthusiasm of the early martyrs, proves
the appearance in the first century of a
being whose influence upon those who
knew and loved him was colossal.

20 JESUS CHRIST

CHAPTER H
THE LANGUAGE OF JESUS
JESUS wrote nothing, and he appears
not to have taken the smallest pre
caution to secure the preservation of his
words. This was perfectly natural. No
one in the Jewish world of Palestine had
his mind turned to the composing of books.
Why write them? The world was about
to come to an end ; and, in fact, the Apoca
lypses, which are the only remaining Pal
estinian works of that time, are short tracts
solely designed to describe the end of all
things and prepare men's minds for the
final catastrophe.
People also wrote letters, but only occa
sionally. St. Paul did not compose one
line for the future ; he wrote not one word
with the intention that it should last. He
was too well convinced that he was living
in the last days of history. As to the
Gospels, it was not until much later that

DURING HIS MINISTRY 21
men thought of composing them. To write
was to will to preserve, to take thought for
the morrow. Certainly Jesus took thought
for the future of his work, but it was by
committing it to the apostles ; and he
seems not to have considered that the
apostles themselves might have need to
confide it to those who should succeed
them. How did the apostles retain the mem
ory of Jesus' words ? How were his words
preserved intact, after being for a long
time transmitted from lip to lip, no one
so much as thinking of fixing them by
writing ? Simply by one of those feats of
memory which the scarcity of manuscripts
made an absolute necessity. The preser
vation of the maxims of the Rabbis in the
Talmud offers precisely the same phenome
non ; and this explanation is the right one,
because it is the only one possible, and
there is not the slightest doubt that the
sayings of Jesus have come down to us
in their authentic form.
His sayings have so peculiar a turn, so
original a character, that no one can mis
take them, and one can easily authenticate
the very special form which he gave to his

22 JESUS CHRIST
thought; we may almost speak of the
style of Jesus as if he had himself held the
pen. And yet he not only wrote nothing,
but we have not even his words in the
language in which they were spoken. We
have said that one of the apostles made a
collection of the sayings of Jesus in the
original tongue, and that this collection is
lost. Yet, notwithstanding this loss, we can
still judge of the form which Jesus gave
his thought, so forcible and characteristic
is the imprint which his personality put
upon the least of his utterances. Each
one of them is in some way inimitable, of
an unique originality. The words of Jesus
are certainly his own, and can be those
of no other. Hillel, the elder Gamaliel,
Shammai, also wrote nothing ; and perhaps
by collecting the authentic maxims of each
of these doctors, one might characterize
their method of teaching and the form
which they gave to their aphorisms. At
all events, it can be done in the case of
Jesus. It is true that as soon as the form is
in question, we must set aside the long
discourses of the fourth Gospel, for, as is
generally admitted, these discourses are

DURING HIS MINISTRY 23
given to us in a language peculiar to the
author of the book. If the thought is that
of Jesus, the style is not his. We have
therefore not to speak of them here.1
As to the Synoptics, they reproduce with
admirable fidelity the very expressions used
by Jesus. Still, I should not dare to say
that the long discourses are textual. I do
not believe that Jesus spoke in very long
discourses. He developed little, and the
brevity of his utterances, the clearness of
his judgments, show that he sought above
all things precision in conciseness. His
style is eminently the lapidary's style. He
spoke in short paragraphs, which, being
brought together, formed the discourses
which we find in the Gospels. The Ser
mon on the Mount, for example, was put
together by tradition ; its different parts
are not necessarily connected, and this ser
mon was never pronounced just as it
stands. It is simply a summing up of
Jesus' mode of teaching during a certain
period of his ministry. Jesus did like all
the Rabbis, none of whom was an orator
1 Nevertheless there are to be found in the fourth
Gospel a number of sayings of Christ of which the
form is precisely that which the first three give.

24 JESUS CHRIST
in the modern sense of the word, — one
who aims at eloquence.
The Rabbis, wandering Essenes or others,
lived in small groups. No one among
them wrote ; they conversed in public and
among themselves ; they formulated their
thoughts in short aphorisms easy to re
member. These sentences might be either
purely moral precepts, or interpretations of
the Law, or even individual opinions on
divers casuistical points. Jesus did like
the others. He abolished nothing, he ful
filled; and his aphorisms came from his
lips in incomparable form, finished, perfect.
If he did not precisely preach sermons,
it yet sometimes happened that he spoke
long at a time; but he did not set forth
ideas logically linked together according
to a plan thought out and fixed in advance.
The custom of the Rabbis was to express
themselves either in clear, well-defined
sentences which left no doubt of their sig
nification, or, on the contrary, in enigmati
cal utterances which excited attention by
the desire to find their meaning, which
they aroused. Jesus, whose words were
often fragmentary, made use of both forms ;
with them he clothed entirely new ideas,

DURfNG HIS MINISTRY 25
and gave them an expression of finished
perfection.1 Searching thus for the most exact term,
the most striking word, the best figure,
Jesus came to employ unique expressions
with precision and truth. He gave to the
idea its final form. I will cite only one
example. The Pharisees had often spoken
of Providence before Jesus began to teach,
but faith in Providence became definitive
only on the day when he said, "Not a
sparrow shall fall to the ground without
your Father;"2 "The hairs of your head
are all numbered." 3
He adopted for his sententious utter
ances two forms particularly well adapted
to engrave them upon the memory, and of
these he was very fond, — antithesis and
paradox. 1 We do not mean to say that Jesus never spoke
except in this manner. There were in his discourses,
especially toward the close of his ministry, passages
of sublime tone, whose elevation recalls and surpasses
the most magnificent apostrophes of the old Prophets,
and which have no relationship with the brief and
somewhat dry maxims of the Doctors of the first cen
tury. But it is certain that we have in the short, pre
cise sentence one of the forms which by preference
Jesus gave to his thought.
2 Matt. x. 29 ; Luke xii. 6.
" Matt. x. 30 ; Luke xii. 7.

26 JESUS CHRIST
Antithesis is continually in his mouth.
For examples of it, one might cite more
than half his teachings. Paradox, which
excites and sustains the attention, is also
frequent : " Whosoever hath, to him shall
be given; but whosoever hath not, from
him shall be taken away even that which
he hath." J " If any man cometh unto me
and hateth not his own father and mother
and wife and children and brethren and
sisters, yea, and his own life also, he
cannot be my disciple." 2 " Rejoice and
be exceeding glad," in persecution.3 " I
am not come to bring peace, but a sword."*
"He that is not for me is against me."5
Sometimes it is only an exaggeration, — the
faith which moves mountains,6 the camel
that passes through the eye of a needle."
He also liked plays upon words : " Thou
art Peter, and upon this rock (petra) I will
build my church." 8 " He who will save
his life shall lose it. He who will lose
it for my sake shall save it." 9 " Let
1 Matt. xiii. 12 ; Mark iv. 25. 2 Luke xiv. 26.
8 Matt. v. 12 ; Luke vi. 23.
4 Matt. x. 34 ; Luke xii. 51.
6 Matt. xii. 30 ; Luke xi. 23. <* Matt. xii. 21.
7 Matt. xix. 24 ; Mark x. 25 ; Luke xviii. 25.
8 Matt. xvi. 18.
9 Matt. xvi. 25 ; Mark viii. 35 ; Luke ix. 24, xvii. 33.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 27
the dead bury their dead." J The fisher
men of the lake become " fishers of men." 2
By all these methods, designed to at
tract attention, Jesus shows himself the
ingenious Rabbi, knowing how to captivate
his hearers, to aid their memory, provoke
their reflection ; and always with a mar
vellous simplicity.
It often happened that he put his max
ims into figurative form; for example,
" The lamp of the body is the eye." 3 Fig
urative language was in fact the habitual
and almost constant form of his thought.
He seldom made use of abstract terms.
His incessant endeavor was to be under
stood by his hearers. He puts himself at
their level ; he varies his utterances ; some
times he gives striking examples ; some
times he uses words so simple as to be almost
infantine ; sometimes the expressions are
half veiled ; everywhere his object is the
same, — to awake attention and gain souls.
It is the picture that dominates ; from the
simple illustration of his thought by an ex
pressive word to the long enigmatic para
bles, he always speaks in pictures, and
1 Matt. viii. 22 ; Luke ix. 60. 2 Luke v. 10.
3 Luke xi. 34.

28 JESUS CHRIST
best of all he loves to put warnings in
this form.1
Comparisons, properly so called, by
which he reproves, censures, exhorts, are
very numerous.2 In tliis method we must
see one of the secrete of his authority.
Jesus shows and does not demonstrate.
He proposes divine verities, certain that
that which is right and true will prove
itself by showing itself. This again is one
of the reasons for the sententious and axi
omatic form in which he continually ex
presses himself. Finally, when the thought
which he is about to give out appears to
him particularly important, he precedes it
with the words, Amen ! Amen ! that is,
Verily! Verily!
It is needless to say that this perfection
of form was not improvised. We said in
our first volume that Jesus must have pre
pared himself to speak in public. If he
certainly applied to himself his precept,
" Be not anxious what ye shall say, for the
1 Matt. v. 25, vii. 3, 10, ix. 16, 17, xxiv. 45 ; Luke
viii. 16, xi. 33, xiv. 7-11, xviii. 9-14, xiv. 28-33, xvii.
7-9. 2 Matt. v. 13, 14, vi. 22, xi. 16-17; Mark iv. 26-29;
Matt. xiii.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 29
Holy Ghost will show you how ye ought
to speak," a none the less did he carefully
prepare certain parts of his teaching. The
Lord's Prayer must have been the result of
a preparation like that which the Pharisees
made for the prayers which they composed
for the use of their disciples. John the Bap
tist too composed a prayer for his disciples.
To represent the form of Jesus' teach
ing as spontaneous is either to believe it
to have been fortuitous or else to make of
it a mechanical revelation, a dictation of
the Holy Spirit, as people used formerly to
suppose was the case with the books of
the Bible. The form which Jesus gave
his utterances was predetermined ; he had
reflected upon it ; with wonderful tact he
had put in operation the gifts which God had
given him. Compare his figures with those
of his brother James. What a resemblance
and what a difference ! Resemblance, for
of all the Biblical writings, James's style
most nearly resembles his, which is not
surprising, since they were brothers. But
yet what a difference between them ! The
passage in James about the tongue,2 to
1 Mark xiii. 11 ; Matt. i. 19 ; Luke xii. 11.
2 James iii. 1-12.

30 JESUS CHRIST
cite only this one, is full of insufficient
metaphors, accumulated images, tasteless
and too abundant. With Jesus the image
is perfect, always lofty, always adequate.
His language is indeed that of the Orient,
but without one of those incoherences which
are so constant with Orientals, and with
which they concern themselves so little.
Jesus was concerned to find the finished
form as well as all the rest.
Thus the parables, with their rich teach
ings, in which so many details are inten
tional and have their signification, were
certainly not improvised. On the con
trary, they are composed with consummate
art. We may say of them that they have
not a word too much or too little. Clear
ness, simplicity, conciseness, are what dis
tinguish them. The naturally figura
tive turn of Jesus' thought found in
these little stories its natural expression.
People say that the parable was already in
use among the Orientals. That is true of
the Hindoos, but it is not entirely true of
the Jews. The figurative stories of the
Old Testament 1 have only an external re
semblance to the parables of Jesus Christ.
1 Jud. ix. 8 ff. ; 2 Sam. xii. 1 ff.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 31
Still, the Rabbis of his time did make use
of this mode of teaching. The Talmud
cites a considerable number of the parables
of Hillel and Shammai. Jesus did like
them. u
It is interesting to remark that he did
not begin by relating parables. In his
mode of speech he made development, as in
all the rest. The Sermon on the Mount,
that is to say, the beatitudes, the laws and
promises of the coming kingdom, precepts
easy to understand, figures of an extreme
simplicity, like that of the mote and the
beam,1 of agreeing with the opposing party,2
grapes gathered from thorns and figs from
thistles,3 the houses built either on the
rock or the sand,4 — such was the first
form of imagery in the teachings of Jesus.
They are nothing more than metaphors ;
they are not yet true parables. The first
of the parables properly so called are those
of the kingdom. There remain to us
eight of them: 1. The sower;6 2. the
wheat and the tares ; B 3. the grain of
1 Matt. vii. 3. 2 Matt. v. 25.
8 Matt. vii. 16. i Matt. vii. 24-27.
6 Matt. xiii. 4 ff. ; Mark iv. 3 ff. ; Luke viii. 5 ff.
6 Matt. xiii. 24 ff.

32 JESUS CHRIST
mustard seed ; 1 4. the seed thrown into
the ground ; 2 5. the leaven ; 3 6. the
treasure hidden in the field ; 4 7. the
pearl of great price ; 6 8. the net cast into
the sea.0 - Here Jesus draws almost all
his comparisons from nature. His parable
has already its finished, perfected form.
It is a little drama, with its denouement,
a true fiction, but one that never tran
scends historic probability.
At a later time Jesus changed both the
form and the matter of his parables. He
borrowed his comparisons from man him
self, and the most profound feelings of his
soul. Furthermore, he did not always
!give a symbolic example, but simply gave
an example to avoid. Sixteen of the
parables of this second period have come
down to us: 1. The two debtors;7 2. the
unforgiving servant ; 8 3. the good Samari
tan ; 9 4. the friend coming at midnight ; 10
5. the man whose fields had brought forth
much ; n 6. the marriage supper ; 12 7. the
1 Matt. xiii. 31 ff. ; Mark iv. 30 ff.
2 Mark iv. 26 f. 3 Matt. xiii. 33.
4 Matt. xiii. 44. 6 Matt, xiii. 45 f.
s Matt. xiii. 47 f. 7 Luke vii. 40 ff.
8 Matt, xviii. 23 ff. 9 Luke x. 25 f.
11 Luke xi. 5 f . u Luke xii. 16 f.
12 Luke xii. 35 f.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 33
barren fig-tree ; 1 8. the great supper ; 2
9. the lost sheep ; 3 10. the lost drachma ; 4
11. the prodigal son ; 5 12. the unjust
steward;6 13. Lazarus and the rich man;7
14. the unjust judge ; 8 15. the Pharisee
and the Publican ; 9 16. the laborers in
the vineyard.10 At the close of his min
istry Jesus resumed his parabolical teach
ings about the kingdom of God. There
remain to us six prophetic similitudes of
this epoch, of which we shall speak in our
third volume ; in them Jesus announces
his return and the last judgment: 1. The
talents,11 or the minaa ; 12 2. the two sons ; 13
3. the husbandmen ; H 4. the marriage of
the king's son;16 5. the ten virgins;16
6. the sheep and the goats.17
The parabolic teaching of Jesus has an
extreme importance ; we believe that it
is in the parable that we must search
1 Luke xiii. 6 f . 2 Luke xiv. 15 f.
8 Matt, xviii. 12 f; Luke xv. 3 f. * Luke xv. 8 f.
6 Luke xv. 11 f. - Luke xvi. 1 f.
7 Luke xvi. 19 f . 8 Luke xviii. 1 f .
9 Luke xviii. 9 f . 10 Matt. xx. 1 f .
n Matt. xxv. 14 f . 12 Luke xix. 12 f .
is Matt. xi. 28 f .
14 Matt. xxi. 33 f . ; Mark xii. 1 f . ; Luke xx. 9 f.
16 Matt. xx. 1 f . 16 Matt. xxv. 1 f .
« Matt. xxv. 3 f.

34 JESUS CHRIST
for the real matter of his thought. When
he had reflected at length upon a subject
and had arrived at a clear and definite
idea, the evolution of his thought having
reached its outcome, he composed a parable
by which he gave a finished and complete
form to a doctrine equally finished and
complete. Thus it is that, after having
for a long time taught that the Heavenly
Father pardons those who pardon, remits
the sins of whosoever consents to overlook
the sins that have been committed against
him, he composed the parable of the un
forgiving servant, which expresses in
picturesque form his true doctrine on
this important subject. Hence it results
that to know the final thought of Jesus
we must study his parables, and that by
placing them as much as possible at their
true date, we get a veritable history of his
religious ideas.
Let us now seek to determine the true
character of the form given by Jesus
to his teaching. It seems to us that it may
be defined by the word " spiritualization."
He fulfils the past by transforming it, and
this simply by the power of his own
spiritual life. Jesus, by his ideas, his

DURING HIS MINISTRY 35
knowledge, his language, is of his own
time and country. But in him there
reigns an intense religiosity, a profound
and unalterable sense of the continual
presence of God, which transforms every.
thing, sees through everything, and gives
to each a special reality and value.
He has no preconceived ideas, whether
critical, literary, historical, or metaphysical.
He has nothing to do with such things.
He makes no use of the distinctions of
modern thought, and he accepts all the
concrete and realistic terms of his time and
people. He accepts, without the least idea
that it is open to discussion, all that re
lates to angels and Satan. He admits the
fact of demoniac possession; he could not
do other than admit it, or he would not
be of his own time. The same may be
said of eschatological notions and of all the
old Judaism. It comes from God, he says ;
the Torah is the code of a divine religion.
But he spiritualizes everywhere, because his
religious consciousness is always alive,
and it assimilates the contents of the
book only by virtue of its affinity with
the contents. If a text has authority with
him by virtue of It is written, and that

36 JESUS CHRIST
because he is a Jew and of his time, the
text also and especially enjoys a higher
authority, that which it holds in virtue
of the sentiment which it expresses. To
his mind the arbitrary precepts of the
Law undoubtedly came from God as well
as all the others, and yet he pays no atten
tion to them because he sums up the whole
Law in love to God and to one's neighbor.
This continual spiritualization is, then,
the proper character of Jesus' language.
If the maxim " The style is the man " is
not always true, it is absolutely so of
Jesus, because there is an entire harmony
between his thought and the language of
which he made use in expressing it. This
is why the study of Jesus' method of
teaching has an exceptional importance,
which springs out of the very heart of
his teaching.
Jesus had not a doctrine like the
philosophers, like Plato or Aristotle. He
did not come to demonstrate new truths
as destined to supersede the old truths ;
but he did come to draw a new life out of
the old forms, while keeping the forms
such as they had been ; and his language
was always thoroughly Judaic and Oriental,

DURING HIS MINISTRY 37
although we hear it only through the Greek
translations of the disciples.
Such, then, was the language of Jesus,
and such were the beginnings of that
ministry which was so soon to end in the
disaffection of the multitude, the hatred
of the Pharisees, unpopularity. It began
in hope and joy. Jesus by his word
exercised an extraordinary, an immense,
ascendancy over the people. His renown
was great, and the sympathy of the
multitudes became absolutely his.
If it was a limited circle in which he
was active, if he was almost unknown in
Jerusalem, still his Galilean discourses
were fully accepted and aroused general
approbation. His only weapon was the
word, inviting the consent of the heart.
No doubt he attacked the official repre
sentatives of Judaism, but the people ap
proved, and true Pharisees approved also.
What a unique appearance was that of
this gentle and compassionate Rabbi, — a
sort of Pharisee, to be sure, but a very new,
very liberal Pharisee, who spiritualized
everything he said, and transformed every
thing he touched ! A sort of Essene, no
doubt, but only in appearance, for no one

38 JESUS CHRIST
was more irreconcilably than he the ad
versary of narrow legalism and exterior
purifications. We picture to ourselves the Master and
his disciples going about in Galilee, or
perhaps in the common room of their
little house; there they sit after the
Eastern manner, squatting close together
upon a rug, turban on head, and wrapped
about with their long mantles. Sometimes
they {&lk and put questions one to another :
sometimes after a long silence Jesus
slowly utters a sententious saying and
then is again silent. The disciples, with
eyes half closed and intent manner, listen
and remember. Their impeccable, faultless
memories will never lose a word. The
Master's utterance is now as if graven on
their hearts ; more than that, it may well
be that he will often repeat it. At last
the Master speaks again; this time to
whisper softly the explanation of the
parable which a little while before he had
spoken at the lakeside, under the brilliant
light of the noonday sun ; and he adds,
"What I say unto you in secret, that
proclaim upon the housetops." 1
1 Matt. x. 27 ; Luke xii. 3.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 39

CHAPTER III
THE EARLIEST TEACHINGS OF JESUS
JESUS began his work as a Rabbi, as an
itinerant preacher, as a physician of
soul and body ; such were already a certain
number of his contemporaries. One is at
first tempted to say that there is nothing
more than this in the words of Jesus and
the acts which he did. He seemed to have
no fixed plan. He lived from day to day.
The cares of each day were sufficient for
him ; he performed the work which pre
sented itself, replying to the questions that
were asked him, and uttering the sayings
which were suggested by the circumstances
of the moment.
People often came to consult him, as
they would have consulted a Doctor of the
Law. He laid down the law ; he spoke
with authority : his opinions were good to
know, and he gave his views exactly as
Hillel or Shammai might have done and
actually did.

40 JESUS CHRIST
He took his own wherever he found it.
On the subject of divorce, for example,
he ranged himself beside Shammai.1 On
other and more numerous points he holds
rather the views of Hillel ; thus what
he says about justice,2 which indeed is
also to be found in Tobias,3 was one of
Hillel's well-known formulas,4 and his
words about judging, " Judge not, that ye
be not judged," 5 were given by Hillel
under this form : " Judge not thy neigh
bor until thou findest thyself in his posi
tion."6 Sometimes Jesus would reproduce what
the Old Testament had already said ; some
times he would give a new opinion ; but
that which seems new to us was not al
ways such, and no doubt it often occurred
that he repeated words which he had heard
in the synagogue.
He reprehended the law of retaliation;
it would appear that no one had done
so before him.7 He condemned usury.8
Deuteronomy had already condemned it,
i Matt. v. 31, 32 ; Luke xvi. 18.
2 Matt. vii. 12 ; Luke vi. 31. 8 Tob. i. 16.
4 Babyl. Talmud, Shabbath, 31 a. 6 Matt. vii. 1.
6 Vide Babyl. Kethuboth , 106 b.
' Matt. v. 38. 8 Matt. v. 42.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 41
but usage authorized it. He said that one
should not make a display of devotion,
like the Pharisees, — that one should per
form his alms in secret;1 it had already
been said.2 The maxim " If a man smite
thee on the one cheek, turn to him the
other " 3 recalls a similar saying of Jere
miah ; 4 but the counsel to pluck out the
eye and cut off the hand which cause to
offend5 has nowhere an analogue, to our
knowledge. The duty of loving one's enemies6 re
calls similar words to be read in the Tal
mud,7 and it cannot be said that the
Talmudists borrowed these passages from
the Gospel, for a wall of separation was
built up between the synagogue and the
church down to the thirteenth century,
and down to that epoch neither exercised
any influence upon the other.
" Forgive and you shall be forgiven," is
1 Matt. vi. 1 ff.
2 Eccles. xvii. 18, xxix. 15 ; Babyl. Chagiga, 5 a ;
Bababathra, 9 b. Cf . Isa. i. 11 f ., lviii. ; Hos. vi. 6 ; Mai.
i. 10 f ., which prepared the way for such precepts.
8 Matt. v. 39 f. ; Luke vi. 29. 4 Lam. iii. 30.
6 Matt. v. 29-30, xviii. 9 ; Mark ix. 47, 48.
6 Matt. v. 44; Luke vi. 27.
7 Babyl. Shabbath, 88 b. ; Jorna, 23 a.

42 JESUS CHRIST
in the Old Testament.1 "Be merciful as
your heavenly Father is merciful," also
recalls an almost identical rabbinical utter
ance ; 2 and upon almsgiving, pity, good
works, kindness of heart, disinterestedness,
the duty of seeking for peace, Jesus said
only what the Old Testament had already
said,3 and what the synagogue around
him repeated, what he had heard from his
childhood.4 He sanctified celibacy, as the Essenes
did; like them, he forbade oaths, and it is
not to be doubted that he borrowed this
interdiction from Essenism.
For that matter, this question was much
discussed. Even those who allowed the
oath recognized cases where it was to be
forbidden. These cases were many; still
more numerous, however, were those where
it was permitted. Under such circum
stances it was an oath ; under such others
it was not an oath, even though men had
solemnly sworn.5
1 Lev. xix. 18 ; Prov. xx. 22 ; Eccles. xxviii. 1 f .
2 Siphre, 51 b.
8 Deut. xxiv., xxv., xxvi. etc. ; Isa. lviii. 7 ; Prov.
xix. 17 ; etc.
4 Pirke Aboth, 1 Jerus. Peah, i. 1 ; Babyl. Shabbath,
63 a.
0 Talmud, Sheolith, ch. 3, 4 ; and Berakoth, f ol. 55.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 43
Jesus swept away all this casuistry by
saying, " Swear not at all." 1 As to the
law, it forbade only perjury.2
Jesus, then, was a Rabbi, and a Rabbi of
his own time. Many of his precepts ex
plain themselves when one puts himself
into the surroundings in which they were
spoken, and compares the identical words
uttered by the Doctors of his time. The
questions which were put to him at Jerusa
lem, in the Temple, in the very latest days
of his life, concerning tribute, concerning
marriage in the future life, those which he
himself at that time asked concerning the
Davidic origin of the Messiah, are samples
of the questions which Pharisees of differ
ent shades of thought put to one another.
But when Jesus did not reply to the
questions which were put to him as Rabbi,
he was following his habitual method : to
abolish nothing, to fulfil everything. He
himself explained his attitude by the cele
brated maxim, " Every scribe instructed
in the things of the kingdom is like a
man who is a householder, who bringeth
where are mentioned all the oaths touched upon by
Jesus ; the Temple, Jerusalem, are mentioned.
i Matt. ». 34. 2 Lev. xix. 12 ff.

44 JESUS CHRIST
forth from his treasury things new and
old." 1 This expression, to be under
stood, should not be separated from that
other formula, " Abolish nothing ; fulfil all
things." It is true that, at a first glance, one is
tempted to believe that Jesus preached two
classes of truths, — one of them ancient,
taken from the Old Testament, which he
cited just as they were, without change ;
the other new, discovered by himself, and
more or less revolutionary. His teachings
would in that case be a medley of ancient
traditions which he thought worthy of
preservation, and truths entirely unknown
before his day, which he had drawn from
his own resources ; and in that case we,
studying his teachings to-day, would have
to perform a work of separation, saying of
one precept, " it was new ; " of another, " it
was old ; " here Jesus brought out original
ideas, there ideas which were not original.
In fact, a few moments ago we pointed out
one and another gospel precept which has
no analogue anywhere ; and others which,
on the contrary, were well known before
Jesus' time. But Jesus himself did not
1 Matt. xiii. 52.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 45
in the least do this, and we must interpret
his saying about the man who brings forth
from his treasury things new and old in
this way: he had studied the religion of
his people, their sacred books, and of this
Old Testament, which — it must not be
forgotten — he read through the medium
of the theology of his time, he made a
treasury. This treasury is therefore com
posed of things of the past, but it was
Jesus who made it, and it was he who
drew from it ; and thus these antique
truths, which were wholly old, became new
when they had passed through the crucible
of his personal experience and were ut
tered by him. They were at once old and
new. It is the ancient heritage which he
gave to his disciples, but not mitil he had
transformed it ; the old and the new are
fused in a higher unity, nothing is abol
ished, all is fulfilled.
This method of Jesus is eternally true.
At the present day, for example, Christian
dogmatics ought to be transformed and
entirely made over. It never will be
clone in a fruitful way unless Christians
preserve all the past, blotting out not one
of the old dogmas, those dogmas which

46 JESUS CHRIST
before their time were the spiritual and
moral force of so many generations, but
introducing into each one a new life, a
vital principle, which will rejuvenate and
transform it.
It is therefore an error to classify method
ically the various points of the teachings of
Jesus and find a system of doctrine in his
words, — to say, for example, that he taught
this albout God, that about men. This is
entirely to misunderstand the unique and
essential character of Jesus' teaching,
which was to preach his own person.1
He tells us what "he is, and gives himself
out for just what he is. He reveals his
soul. He tells what he feels, thinks, ex
periences, with an entire and absolute
spontaneity and sincerity.
It is therefore impossible to put this
teaching into formulas ; it is necessary to
rid ourselves of the idea that there is a
doctrine of Jesus independent of his per
son. What Jesus taught was himself.
He preached himself, — a thing that St.
Paul would not do. For example, when
Jesus taught that God is the Heavenly
1 We shall return to this thought and develop it
in our last chapter, " The Requirements of Jesus."

DURING HIS MINISTRY 47
Father, he was not seeking to inculcate
a doctrine of God. He did not give out
any opinions about God, but he told what
God was to him, and consequently what
he is absolutely. He was possessed with
an idea which was to him a certitude, — that
God was in him, dwelt in him. He heard
him, talked with him, and God's words
went sounding through his soul ; and this
is why he preached himself and asked that
others should give themselves to him.1
From the beginning, and certainly for a
long time before his public life, he had
felt himself in close relations with God.
Jesus, then, preserved all the past ; with
regard to God, sin, man, the reign of God,
he repeated what his contemporaries said.
He drew everything from the Old Testa
ment, and repeated Jewish doctrines pure
and simple ; but he repeated them other
wise than had been done before him,
because he had made them new in his
own consciousness.
More than this, he not only transformed
these precepts, not only gave to them a
value which makes them seem new, but
he further, and especially, put them in
i Matt. ix. 9.

48 JESUS CHRIST
practice. Why, indeed, had not these
maxims, which were already in the Law
and on the lips of pious and sincere Phari
sees, — why had they not changed the
world, and how was it that Jesus changed
it ? Because Jesus was the first one to
practise and live them. We may prove
that the gospel morality was not itself
very original, we may gather together the
whole of it from ancient maxims ; and yet
it was only in the first century that these
transformed the world, made it new, and
actually recreated it. He not only gave
the perfect code of the perfect life ; he lived
it. For this reason that in him which was
striking, that which drew hearts to him,
was not his charm, as has been said, but
the perfection of his life, — the fact that he,
first of all men, was perfect as the Father
is perfect.Let us be more circumstantial, studying
at yet closer range the spirit of his teach
ing, comparing it with that of the men of
his time.
The Scribes and Pharisees said that the
Law was the final authority. In it God
spoke. In the Torah was the exterior
commandment, before the letter of which

DURING HIS MINISTRY 49
all must bow. It was the word of God in
the narrowest and strictest sense of the
word. Jesus would certainly not have
repudiated this statement. But what did
the Scribes draw from it ? A servile fear
of violating a single one of these com
mandments ; a subtle interpretation of
the simplest texts ; a multitude of precepts
before which they continually trembled in
the fear of violating them. Here Jesus
parted company with them. He believed
in the exterior authority of the Law, but
he changed it to an interior authority.
Even during his long years of silent ob
scurity he had begun to have sacred
experiences ; and one of them, the foun
dation of his religious certitude, was
communion with God.
In the depths of his soul he had a secret
conviction which was to be identified, which
could not but be identified, with the com
mandments of the Law, because, like them,
it spoke only the truth. He was assured
of the approbation of his Father ; and
thus, when he was confronted by the Law,
which also came from the Father, it was
not a question of obeying precepts which
threaten, command, forbid, like the slave
4

50 JESUS CHRIST
who knows not what his master does, and
who obeys because his master is the strong
est, but of keeping the Law by identifying
it with the inward law, the law of con
science, the will of the Father. It was
not, then, the exterior law to which man
must submit, but the moral conscience
regenerated and set free by the Father,
who has mercy and forgives.
Jesus left on one side all which in the
Law is literal application and minute cas
uistry ; he paid no attention to it. It said
nothing to him, because it remained out
side of him, and those things which were
neither felt nor experienced were as if
non-existent. But he declared to be eter
nal all that is the will of God, all that
his own soul revealed to him. He found
in his soul the law of perfection. It was
already in the Old Testament, "Be ye
holy ; " but he declared that it could not
be accomplished simply by fulfilling the
Mosaic laws. The sentiments of men's
hearts must be changed. He rose from
the act to the sentiment which dictated it ;
it was the sentiment which should be per
fect. The thought of evil was as culpable
as the evil itself; and thus he reached

DURING HIS MINISTRY 51
a law as rigorous and as impossible to
keep as that of the Old Testament, though
for a different reason. " Unless your right
eousness exceeds that of the Scribes and
Pharisees," he said to his hearers, "ye can
not enter the kingdom of heaven." l The
commandment ceased to be limited by be
coming an inward command. To be per
fect as the Father is was what conscience
demanded, and it could demand nothing
less. This transformation from the letter to
the spirit, from the exterior to the inward
law, from blind and trembling submission
to free and joyful faith, led Jesus quite
simply and naturally to an inevitable con
clusion, which he early began to preach, —
that rites have no importance. The Tem
ple would pass away, and forms, which
indeed had been inevitable, were nothing.
No doubt he did not annul them ; he abol
ished nothing. After his departure an
entire wing of his Church continued to
profess Judaism; the so-called Judaizing
Christians went to synagogue and Temple,
recited the Shema, and, when men ex
pressed surprise at this, were able to an-
1 Matt. v. 20.

52 JESUS CHRIST
swer, " Jesus did thus ; " and it was true.
To the end of his life Jesus went to the
synagogue. He celebrated the Jewish
Passover on the eve of his death. He
did, indeed, institute Baptism and the
Eucharist, but in the earlier days he said
nothing about these. In his view, inde
pendence of conscience ought to be entire.
Every man is responsible only to his in
ward guide. The religious and the moral
Ufe ought to act and react upon each
other. In the early days of his ministry, then,
Jesus taught no religious practice. His
religion consisted wholly in an immediate,
personal relation between the soul and the
Heavenly Father. He placed no interme
diate clergy between God and the believer.
He repudiated all forms which touched
only the body.1 He rejected tradition.
All this was not absolutely new. Simon
the Just, Jesus ben-Sirach, and Hillel had
already summed up the Law in the precept
of righteousness. Philo had preached a
high moral sanctity, and had held practices
in slight esteem. Rabbi Johanan had put
works of mercy above even the study of
i Matt. xv. 11 ff. ; Mark vii. 6 ff.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 53
the Law.1 Jesus continued, completed, and
went beyond these teachers. In his view,
true worship consisted in having a pure
heart and treating all men as brothers.2
The act was of small importance ; the
important thing was the inward sentiment
which inspired it. In this position he was
no longer a Jew, for to the true Jew the
rite was everything. Whatever might be
the inward disposition, it was simply neces
sary to put oneself on right terms with
God by performing the rite. No doubt
Jesus said that the tithe must be paid,
even " of mint and anise and cummin," 8
for the Law ordains it, and he never abol
ished one stroke of the letter of the Law ;
but he rejected the Pharisaic casuistry on
the observation of the Sabbath, he did not
abstain from certain meats, and he did not
make a point of fasting. It was all one,
whether or not one practised these exter
nal acts. He had no wish to make an
abrupt change in common usage ; he
wished only to change men's hearts,
secure, in advance, that when the heart
was changed the external change would
1 Jerus. Peak. i. 1. 2 Cf. Jas. i. 27.
* Matt, xxiii. 23.

54 JESUS CHRIST
follow of itself. He gave no decree doing
away with one thing, retaining another,
but he implanted the inward leaven which
little by little would work through the
dough, transforming it and making it a
new material.
It is hard for us to enter into the spirit
of such a work, because with our modern
philosophical notions we can picture to
ourselves only a pure reform of ideas and
doctrines, a direct reformation. " This
is true, do it; that is false, believe it no
longer; replace it with this or that new
belief-" But Jesus was of his own time,
and had nothing to do with ours. He was
born a Jew ; he was thoroughly religious,
and imbued with theocratic notions. God
was the master, he was the Messiah, and
his purpose was to prepare for the com
ing of the Messianic kingdom. Now his
people with their Law and their prophets
were tending toward this kingdom. The
theocracy of Israel would be perfected
when the kingdom had come. The object
to reach was its coming.
How could it be reached ? By making
an advance upon the past, — a step forward,
but without rupture, and on the lines of

DURING HIS MINISTRY 55
the past. Jesus was certain that the an
cient Law had prepared for what he had
come to do. The people also were prepar
ing for the coming of the kingdom by the
practice of the Law. And they must com
plete this preparation by continuing to
practise it ; but in order to complete and
fulfil it they must go beyond the letter.
The members of the kingdom to come
were called from that moment to be sons
of God, children of the Father ; and enter
ing with him into the relations of children
with a father, they would be in new
and higher relations with God. Formerly
slaves, keeping the commandments literally
and by compulsion, they would now be
doing the will of God and filled with his
Spirit, because they were in personal com
munion with him.1
Thus there resulted a new moral obliga
tion for every disciple of Jesus. A son of
the Father, he must serve him, obey him,
do his will ; but all this service must be
done by love. He will obey because of
his confidence ; he has faith in his Father.
The will of God toward him is an act of
kindness. New motives unknown till then
i Matt. v. 9, 45-48 ; vi. 6, 8, 9, 14, 26, 32 ; vii. 11.

56 JESUS CHRIST
will be born in his soul, — love, confidence,
submission, yielding to the Father's will.
In this Jesus created a truly new
religion, and his supreme purpose in creat
ing it was to save his people ; that is, to
prepare them for the coming of the king
dom of God. There was never any thought
in these early teachings of a possible vio
lent death in the future, by which Jesus
purposed to accomplish salvation. He
simply preached a new relation between
God and man, a new covenant; and this
is in fact a new religion. The way of
salvation which he opened and offered
was the Father's forgiveness. When the
Father should have forgiven men, the age
to come would begin. And the Father
forgives those who forgive ; J he receives
the penitent prodigal.
The conditions of entrance into the
kingdom, then, were repentance, trust,
a change of heart. He who fulfilled these
would receive a great reward in the king
dom of heaven, provided he had done the
i Matt. vi. 14 ; Mark xi. 25 ; Matt, xviii. 35 ; Luke
vi. 37 ; etc. Jesus never attached any other condition
to the forgiveness of God than the forgiveness which
men extend to their brethren.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 57
will of God and put Jesus' teachings into
practice. The tree would be known by
its fruit. Those who had loved, forgiven,
done good to the poor and suffering would
enter the kingdom. Upon this point
Jesus' teaching never varied. In a para
ble of his latest days he declared that
those who should be placed at his right
hand and enter eternal life would be those
who had fed the hungry, given drink to the
thirsty, visited those who were sick and in
prison. The Jews said, Practise the Law
and you will be worthy of the kingdom.
Jesus said, Do the will of God and you
will be the son of God. The Lord's Prayer
remains the loftiest expression of this high
conception of the relations of man with
God, which is the whole of the religion
first taught by Jesus. We must bear in
mind, when we study this prayer, that
Jesus said at the same time that the
Father knows what things we have need
of before we ask for them.1
The teaching of Jesus in this early
period is, then, not to be distinguished from
a large, tolerant Pharisaism, taking a long
step forward. Most of his aphorisms were
1 Matt. vi. 8.

58 JESUS CHRIST
borrowed from the Old Testament or from
the Rabbis who preceded him. He was
persuaded that true Pharisees would ap
prove of his ideas of reform, just as Luther
was at first persuaded that he was doing
the work of a good Catholic, and would be
approved of by the Church and its rulers.
In the same way Jesus expected to be
approved by every one, welcomed by every
one ; he deemed that he was doing nothing
but what every true zealot of the Law
could do and ought to do. Full of confi
dence himself, he inspired confidence. He
had as yet very few disciples, properly so
called, but he was reaching consciences, he
was touching hearts ; his word was sink
ing deep into men's Souls.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 59

CHAPTER IV
THE MESSIAH AND HIS WORK
T N our first volume we affirmed that from
the beginning of his ministry Jesus
believed himself to be the Messiah. He
would not be a Messiah instigating a revo
lution, like Judas the Gaulonite or any
other zealot, but he was the Messiah.
It would seem at first view as though
the conviction of his Messianic dignity had
been of slow growth. In fact, all that we
have said of him up to this time shows
simply the work of a Rabbi. He began
by preaching, like John the Baptist.
Would he have done so if at that time he
had believed himself to be any other than
also a forerunner? More than this, it is
certain that he did not reveal himself to
his apostles as Messiah until a much later
time, only a year before his death.1 In
these early days he was simply one of those
i Matt. xvi. 13-20.

60 JESUS CHRIST
itinerant preachers frequently to be met in
Palestine at that time, trying to do some
good, healing the sick, casting out demons,
preaching the love of the Law, and each
in his own way preparing for the coming
of the kingdom.
All this is true, and nevertheless Jesus
already at this time (and, as we have shown,
since the Temptation) had not the slightest
doubt as to his own person. He was the
very Messiah. This conviction had been
forming itself from his youth, and he came
forth from his desert-testing absolutely
convinced that the Messianic prophecies
were to be fulfilled in him, and that he
was to be the hero of the Apocalypses of
his people.
More than this, Jesus never said, like
John the Baptist, that he was only a pre
cursor; and he never limited himself, as
John did, to arousing Israel to duty. He
clearly performed a Messianic work. It
was the Messiah who, in the Sermon on
the Mount, opposed his "But / say unto
you" to "Moses has said to you."1 It
was the Messiah who declared that John
the Baptist had no part in the new dispen-
1 Matt. v. 22, 28, 32, 34, etc.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 61
sation ; who uttered sovereign menaces and
promises concerning Bethsaida and Caper
naum ; ] who declared himself to be greater
than Jonas, than Solomon, than the
Temple and the Temple worship;2 who
called himself the Bridegroom,3 thus justi
fying the violation of the Sabbath; who
forgave the sins of the paralytic;4 who
assumed the name Son of Man.5
No doubt he said, "The kingdom is
coming! " and it seems more natural that
Jesus, believing himself to be the Messiah,
should have said, " The kingdom is come, is
present." This is to misunderstand at once
the Messianic ideas of Jesus' contempora
ries, and the views which Jesus held about
himself. According to Jewish notions,
the Messiah was to remain for a certain
time hidden, occupying this time of humili
ation in preparing for the Messianic king
dom.6 Now, this is precisely the line of
i Matt. xi. 21 ; Luke x. 13.
2 Matt. xii. 41 ; Luke xi. 32.
8 Mark ii. 19; Matt. ix. 15; Luke v. 35.
4 Mark ii. 5, and parallel passages.
5 Mark ii. 10 ; Matt. viii. 20, x. 23 ; etc.
3 Jerus. Beralchoth, fol. 51 ; Mishna, Sanhedr. 28. See
Luke xxi. 8; cf. Justin Martyr, Dial, with Tryph.
chap. viii.

62 JESUS CHRIST
conduct which Jesus chose, and which
during his Galilean ministry he carried
out. He believed that at this time, in his
actual earthly life, he had Messianic func
tions to exercise. After that the kingdom
would appear, and then, in this kingdom to
come, he would be the judging and reign
ing Messiah. But he believed that for the
time (and many of his contemporaries also
believed him to be the Messiah) he had to
live a humble and hidden life, the life of a
prophet and servant of God. During this
period of poverty and humility he was to
prepare for the coming of the kingdom of
which some day, and doubtless very soon,
he should be the glorious head. This is
what Jesus was doing in Galilee.
It was, then, in accordance with Jewish
notions of his time that Jesus considered
his first duty as Messiah to be the prepa
ration for the coming of the kingdom, — a
preparation without display, in which he
should carry out the designs of God, and
triumph over the enemies of the Law.
This preliminary work was to be entirely
Jewish. It was later that Jesus became
unsectarian. His present work was to
prepare Israel alone for the coming of the

DURING HIS MINISTRY 63
kingdom. But Israel must be prepared;
and already at this point he stood apart
from the Pharisees, who thought that the
kingdom was to be Israel's by right.
According to the Apocalypses of the time,
the pious portion of the nation was ripe
for Messianic felicity; the nation was
faithful. Jesus did not think so. It
needed to be converted, and the kingdom
would not appear until it was converted.
It was precisely because Jesus knew
that upon many points he was not in accord
with the Pharisees that he did not say
openly, "I am the Messiah," but limited
himself to acting as the Messiah. Not
being in the slightest degree, not in the
least wishing to be, the vulgar hero which
his nation was expecting, repudiating all
political ambition, being persuaded that
the Jews would not be ready for the king
dom until they had become once more the
true sons of God, he did not proclaim
himself as Messiah. If he had done so,
his Messianic conception would have
clashed with that of the Pharisees, and
produced a rupture. Jesus desired to avoid
this ; he wished to convert his people and
the Pharisees themselves to his ideas.

64 JESUS CHRIST
There were many years before him, as
he hoped. We know that it was not to be
so, — that, contrary to his expectation, he
was not to succeed, that a rupture was one
day to take place. Very soon he came to
perceive that this was inevitable; but he
exercised every care to delay it as long as
possible, and he refrained from saying that
he was the Messiah, in order to avoid any
misapprehension. The first thing was to
prepare the ground; and he would not
proclaim himself the Messiah until hearts
had been changed, or at least not until the
change had been begun.
We know that nothing of all this was
destined to take place. The Jews were
not converted. The Pharisees conspired
to kill Jesus, and it was when he saw that
death was near, close at hand, about to
carry him away while still young, that he
decided to communicate to the apostles in
confidence the great secret which they had
already divined, and that Peter said openly,
" Thou art the Messiah !" *
But let us not anticipate. At the hour
at which we have now arrived, Jesus
foresaw nothing of this dreadful eventual-
1 Matt. xvi. 16.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 65
ify. He was certain of only one thing, —
final success. He did not know when
it would come; he did not know how it
would come; but he firmly hoped that it
would be by the acceptance of his Messi
anic person. His persuasion of success'
never faltered. For the moment, sufficient
to each day was its evil ; he would not bor
row care for the morrow. He would per
form the' humble and difficult duty of
to-day. That of to-morrow would perhaps1
be still more difficult, but the triumph
which could not' fail to come some day
would be the recompense1 and result of
these difficult beginnings and of his fidel
ity in doing the Father's will. Plarvest
after seed-sowing ; and he would be' there"
in the day of harvest. He was preparing
for the kingdom1 with difficulty and by
painful seed-sowing; he would have his'
day of glory, and he expected it on earth,-
in! a future which could not be very far
distant. His reward would be the conver
sion of his people.
Jesus was essentially an optimist. Op
timism is one of those' original and dis
tinctive traits of his character whioh we
must set in contrast with the inveterate
5

66 JESUS CHRIST
pessimism of his contemporaries. Even
with the most pious among them nothing
in the present was satisfactory. No doubt,
to them also the future seemed beautiful
and the kingdom of God near ; but their
hopes were of the earth, earthy, and God
was far off. He might work later, but he
was not then manifesting himself.
As for Jesus, he saw God everywhere,
he felt his agency in and through every
thing ; and this faith made him understand
the world as something quite other than
what the nation saw in it. No doubt
to him also the present world was evil,
corrupt, wretched; but the constant joy of
his life, and its serene affirmation, was the
certainty of the future overthrow of evil,
of the kingdom of darkness and of the
devil, the king of this world. The Father
was living, eternal ; he lived in the Father,
and the Father lived in him, the Son. He
knew, he saw, he believed ; he was certain ;
there was not the shadow of faltering in
his faith, particularly in his faith in him
self. The Jews with groans of pain were
awaiting a super-terrestrial and future good.
Jesus, on his part, shed happiness around
him, and declared his disciples to be happy

DURING HIS MINISTRY 67
from that very moment, because they
were ready to enter the kingdom ; already
by anticipation they were in possession
of it.
By this unalterable optimism, this affirm
ation of the fatherhood of God, in which
he found the joy of his soul, Jesus did not
in reality introduce a new spirit ; he carried
out ancient prophecy. The Jewish theo
logians of his time misapprehended the
true spirit of the old prophetism. They said
God is far from men, and constructed a
complicated angelology of which the proph
ets knew nothing ; while he preached no
abstract God, far withdrawn from men,
but, on the contrary, taught the personal
communion of the soul with God, the cove
nant of God with Israel. The Psalms sang
in magnificent strains this close communion
of believers with Jehovah. According to
the Psalmists, God drew near to the nation
by the Law. He was not a far-off and
hidden God ; he was a Father, moved with
compassion for his children. Those who
observe the Law are near to him. The
piety of Jesus had been nourished from
his infancy on these words of the psalm-
book of his people, and his soul was thor-

68 JESUS CHRIST
oughly saturated with these high religious
thoughts. Jesus, .then, was an optimist, and he
preached a moral renovation necessary be
fore the coming of the Messianic era and
the apparition of the kingdom of God ;
for though the victory was certain, it was
to be dearly bought: it was imperative
that evil should be vanquished. Now,
Jesus had a most lively and profound sense
of man's sin and wretchedness, and he was
full of compassion for the suffering. Evil
under any of its forms strongly moved him.
He suffered because of evil, which oomes
from Satan. To vanquish Satan, over
throw his throne, should be his ; Messianic
work. The day was to come when he
would say in his unalterable certainty of
triumph, "I beheld Satan fall as light
ning from heaven." l This sublime vision
haunted him. This was the end to be at
tained and which should be attained.
These. visions sustained him. in the strug
gle ; but the struggle was incessant, and,
though his communion with the Father
was an inexhaustible spring of joy,, on the
other hand, the view of the world was a
i Luke x. 18.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 69
constant source of suffering to his loving
heart. This lively sense of the evil in
which the world is plunged was certainly
one of the most potent factors of his
Messianic vocation. Satan was sure to
fall, but how powerful he still was ! The
kings were slaying the prophets, the doc
tors were saying and not doing, the good
were being persecuted, and tears were the
only and unique portion of the good; in
short, the world was the enemy of God and
of his holy ones.1
This is why the words " he was moved
with compassion " are continually repeated
in the Gospels. Jesus suffered because he
loved ; hence his incessant activity, and his
longing to save both the souls and the
bodies of those who suffer.
This, then, was to be the Messiah's
work. It remains for us to point out one
last trait which distinguishes his idea of
preparation for the kingdom from that
taught by the Jewish doctors of his time.
The Pharisees, observing that nothing
announced the approaching fall of the
1 John, passim, i. 10 ; vii. 7; xiv. 17, 22, 27 ; xv. 18 ff. ;
xi. 8, 20, 33 ; vii. 9, 14, 16, 25 ; xii. 31 ; xiv. 30 ; xvi. 11
(cf. 2 Cor. iv. 4; Eph. ii. 2).

70 JESUS CHRIST
power of the enemies of God (pagans,
Romans, demons, etc.), concluded there
fore that their destruction was to be
supernatural, that the present world was
given over to evil, and that the palingenesis
would come only by a miracle, an obliga
tory forced transformation. They said also
that there would be a breach of continuity
between the present world and the world
to come. Now, the prophets had said pre
cisely otherwise. In their view there was a
bond between the present and the future.
The same was the case with Jesus. With
the aid of the prophets he corrected what
he found to be erroneous in the Apoca
lypses of his time and in the theology of
the Pharisees. The bond between the
present and the past would be found in
his preaching, his invitation to repentance,
to a change of heart and life.
According to the Apocalypses, a sudden
catastrophe would occur and the present
world would come to an end ; then heaven
would descend upon a transformed earth.
The Apocalypses insist upon a beyond, of
which the prophets have said nothing ; for
in their view all that they announced would
take place in the present world. At this

DURING HIS MINISTRY 71
point Jesus parts company with them ; he
also affirms the beyond, but he believes in
it differently from his people, differently
from the Apocalypses of his people. In
the view of the Jews of his time, the world,
which is evil, was to disappear, and the
celestial realities which would follow the
beyond would be the satisfaction of earthly
aspirations and longings. The glorification
of Israel would be a striking vengeance
of the elect over their enemies. But
while condemning the world, they did not
part company with it. The best among
the Pharisees were saying, " There is not
much more to hope from human effort, but
the Law must surely serve to assure us
good places in the kingdom. Therefore
we must keep it strictly, not that we may
do what is right, but that we may acquire
merit before God." Thus they began to
lose themselves in a minute casuistry. As
for the Essenes, they parted company with
the world by living as ascetics. Jesus also
spoke of renunciation; and with regard
to marriage, with regard to money, he
uttered Essenian precepts, but he added
that in order to enter the kingdom of God
one must be born anew, — be regenerated.

72 JESUS CHRIST
Grand and sublime new thought! Ac
cording to the Pharisees, whoever observed
the Law should possess the coming glory.
This glory would not be the natural conse
quence of the events which were occur
ring; it would follow as a supernatural
intervention of God, making Israel to tri
umph over his enemies. But Jesus taught
that man must fight against his own nature
and be regenerated by the Spirit of God.
Jesus then apprehended his Messianic
task in an entirely new manner. It was to
consist in saving his people, — that is to say,
in preparing them to enter the kingdom.
He would prepare them and save them by
making of them a humble, repentant, lowly,
regenerated people.
For the accomplishment of this work
Jesus had faith in his Father's assistance.
The Father works, and the Son also works,1
and by prayer continually renews his spirit
ual strength. He therefore made appeal
with his auditors to these two moral powers
of which he himself had daily experience, —
will and prayer. Neither of these ought
to be checked by considerations drawn
from the fatal forces of nature and the
1 John v. 17.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 73
blind laws which surround us as with an
iron circle. Prayer is and must remain
prayer, and one must take the word with
strictest literalness. On this subject Jesus
made use, of comparisons of a sublime famil
iarity.1 The child of God asks, and no
explanation ought either to change the
nature or attenuate the meaning of this
word "ask." To pray as if one could do
nothing, to pray with the assurance that
God can do everything and that he hears
prayer, that he is love, that he has the
heart of a Father and that we are his chil
dren, — this is what Jesus taught ; this is
what no consideration drawn from the phys
ical world ought to weaken. To this pre
cise and clear instruction he joined an
appeal to the will, to the moral energy,
and moved men to shame for all their
weaknesses and cowardice.
One who was converted was born anew.
This term excludes all explanation of con
version by a mere normal development of
the former life. Conversion is the true
moral supernatural ; otherwise it would be
nothing more than a fortunate evolution
of the natural man.
i Luke xi. 5-13 ; xviii. 1-8.

74 JESUS CHRIST
In all this early preaching Jesus affirms
mercy and liberty, for to him sin is a thing
out of the natural order. It is not a neces
sary phase in the development of man ; it
is that which ought not to be, and some
day it will be abolished. Let us observe,
finally, that though Jesus was an optimist
he was by no means a fatalist in his opti
mism, and he did not believe in inevitable
progress. He made appeal to each man ;
each individual should be active and make
progress. Many people to-day believe in
a general progress of humanity, in the evo
lution of the masses toward the light,
toward the good, toward a future goal
which will be attained as a matter of neces
sity. In the same way the Jews believed
in a kingdom of God which was in a cer
tain way fatal, certain, coining for every
one. The error which they committed and
which is also our own, is impugned by the
facts. There are nations which fall, and
there are individuals who fall. On the
other hand, the good does not come of
itself. It is not a necessary evolution ;
individual heroism makes it triumph. That
is what Jesus preached when he was pre
paring for the coming of the kingdom by

DURING HIS MINISTRY 75
the change of men's hearts ; this was what,
above all, he showed in his life, by being
the perfect model of that personal heroism
which nothing checks, and which is sus
tained by unalterable faith and hope.

7'6 JESUS CHRIST

CHAPTER V
JESUS AND MIRACLES
/^\UR earliest information concerning the
ministry of Jesus is this : " Jesus of
Nazareth, anointed by God with the Holy
Spirit and with power, went about doing
good and healing all them who were under
the power of Satan, for God was with him." l
This testimony is of indisputable authen
ticity. If it had not been preserved, if
the Gospels had not related a single cure
performed by Jesus, we should still have a
right to suppose it, for he was a Rabbi,
and in his quality of Rabbi he must have
exercised the functions of a physician.
Every Rabbi was a physician ; there were
no other physicians than the Rabbis, and,
in a general way, men of consideration for
piety, to whatever religious party they
might belong.
For instance, to heal the sick was one
of the principal functions of the Essenes.
i Acts x. 38. See also Matt. iv. 23.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 77
The Pharisees also cast out demons ; 1 and
here again, while exercising the functions
of a Rabbi, Jesus followed both' Essenian
and Pharisaic customs. It is to be observed j
that the physician depended upon individ- j
uai inspiration ; it was not knowledge that/
fitted him to heal, but piety, all of which'
did not prevent cures being from time to]
time obtained by remedies pointed out by
the Rabbis, small as was the advance in
medical science in Palestine in the first
century. But their cures were especially per
formed by religious practices, for illness
was always considered either as the pun
ishment of sin 2 or as the act of a demon.3
This is why it was the Rabbi, the pious man
given to religious meditation and dreaded
by demons, who was capable of healing.
The Essenes and the Pharisees, as we
have said, were Very much given to the
expulsion of demons, and they often suc
ceeded in this. Jesus admitted that the
Pharisees cast them out.4
i Matthew xii. 27 ; Luke xi. 19.
2 John v. 14, ix. 1 f ., 34.
8 Matt. ix. 32, 33, xii. 22; Luke xiii. 11, 16.
* Matt. xii. 27.

78 JESUS CHRIST
All maladies, not possessions only, were
attributed to moral causes ; no one sought
for a physical cause. To be sure, certain
medicinal plants were used, but very spar
ingly, for the ills with which the sick were
vexed had before all things a Satanic origin.
Healing could therefore be only a moral
act and a moral achievement ; therefore
the more pious the physician the more skil
ful was he to heal.
It is therefore easy to understand the
immense reputation which Jesus acquired
in the Galilean villages. He passed for a
remarkable physician, precisely because
he concerned himself with the salvation of
souls, and never separated the two cures of
soul and body. Jesus was, above all, held
to be a very powerful and much dreaded
exorcist.1 No one who is somewhat conversant
with the history of medicine through the
ages will be surprised at the close relations
of medicine and religion in Palestine in
the first century. To tell the truth, these
relations had always existed among all
i Mark v. 12, 15, 17, 33, 36, vi. 50, x. 32. Cf. Matt.
viii. 27, 34, ix. 8, xiv. 27, xvii. 6, 7, xxviii. 5, 10 ; Luke
iv. 18, v. 17, viii. 25, 35, 37, ix. 34.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 79
peoples. No science has developed more
slowly than that of medicine.
In Greece, by a unique exception, its
progress was extremely remarkable. Al
most five hundred years before Christ
Hippocrates created scientific medicine,
founded upon experience and the obser
vation of facts ; but this progress, due to
the genius of a single man, remained alone.
The methods of Hippocrates, his very
name, were unknown in Judea. Outside
of Greece the physician continued to be
for centuries what he was in the origin
of humanity, — a personage surrounded by
mystery, placing himself in relations with
Divinity, calling to him favorable spirits
and driving bad spirits away ; and this view
of things was current in Palestine in the
time of Jesus Christ. Why should we be
surprised that disease was always attributed
to evil spirits, when in our own day many
country folk still believe in the reality of
possession? Are not the sorcerers of the
present day nearly related to the healers
of the olden time, and are not the magi
cians of the negro tribes of Africa the true
sons of the physicians of antiquity ?
The surgeon was in an entirely different

80 JESUS CHRIST
position. As there is nothing mysterious in
a broken leg, and the cause of the ailment
is known, the surgeon was a personage
much less esteemed than the physician.
This was long the case. In France, even
to the seventeenth century, surgeons were
classed with barbers and hairdressers, and
in the time of Louis XIV. the surgeon
might operate only upon the order and
under the oversight of the physician. The
latter was a superior being, who might look
upon the sick person but would not stoop
to touch him. He had his mysterious
processes, and loved to give himself out
for something supernatural.
Assuredly, Jesus did not take this atti
tude ; but in this as in all other things he
must be considered in the environment in
which he lived. In his mind preaching
and healing stood on the same level.1 He
was the physician who gave health to the
soul, either by reaching it directly by his
word, or by healing the body which it in
habited, for disease came from Satan. It
was a possession; and whether Jesus
preached or healed, his end was the same
in both cases, — it was the soul which he
1 Matt. ix. 12, 13.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 81
jdesired to reach, and Satan whom he was
flighting.
' It has been said that Jesus was fulfilling
his Messianic work when he healed the
sick and occupied himself with them. We
do not think so. In practising medicine
he was acting simply as a Rabbi and not at
all as the Messiah. If he had been acting
as the Messiah, he would have drawn atten
tion to his cures ; he would have put in a
strong light the marvellous, miraculous
side of his work, and would have pointed
to it as a proof of his Messiahship; and
this he never did. On this point Renan
has fallen into an error, most surprising on
the part of a man so well versed in Pales
tinian Judaism of the first century. He says
that Jesus in his quality of Messiah must
have permitted miracles to be attributed to
him because the Messiah was expected to
perform miracles. When he assumed this
character, he was obliged to submit to cer
tain features of it of which he disapproved.
It was no doubt repugnant to him to ap
pear to do miracles which he did not do,
but he must needs resign himself to it.
The error is a singular one, for Jesus never
posed as a miracle-worker, and Renan gives
6

82 JESUS CHRIST
no proof that he did. If Renan's assertion
was correct, he must have said after per
forming a miracle, " Observe this miracu
lous deed : it is the proof that I am the
Messiah." But Jesus simply performed
miracles as a Rabbi; he healed the sick
because he was moved with compassion
toward them, and the irrefragable proof of
Renan's error is that Jesus forbade those
whom he healed to divulge their miracu
lous cure. He did not, then, count upon
the effect produced by the prodigy which
he had just accomplished to bring about
his acceptance as Messiah. Once, again,
every Rabbi was a physician, and the com
passion of Jesus, his immense compassion
for men, moved him to assuage their moral
and physical ills. This is the whole secret
of his cures.
Jesus, then, concealed his miracles ; so
far as Messianic works were concerned, he
left them entirely out of the question, do
ing them in secret and forbidding that they
should be spoken of.1 One day, in spite of
himself, when a demon recognized him, he
forbade him to speak of his Messiahship,
i Matt. viii. 4, ix. 30, 31, xii. 16 f . ; Mark i. 44, vii.
24 f., viii. 26.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 83
for this demon believed in it and knew it
to be true, because a demon, whose spirit is
of higher order than the spirit of man,
knows, divines, understands things that re
main unknown by man.1
More than this, when Jesus healed a
sick person he made a point of showing
that the moral healing was much more im
portant in his eyes than physical heahng.
He made a point of saying to the sick per
son, " Thy sins are forgiven thee." Pardon
is the true healing ; the heahng of the body
is nothing other than its symbol.
This fact is manifested with ample evi
dence in the healing of demoniacs. There
especially the return to health appeared
clearly to be a victory over sin, — that is
to say, over the world of darkness and the
evil spirits who reign there.
Belief in demons was very general in
antiquity. The Greeks and Romans, like
the Jews, were convinced that evil spirits
took possession of the bodies of certain
persons. We have said that all maladies
were by the Jews attributed to demons, but
there were certain diseases more evidently
their work, especially those where the
i Mark i. 24, 25, 34, iii. 12; Luke iv. 41.

84 JESUS CHRIST
patient appears to belong no longer to
himself (hysterical disturbances, nervous
maladies, madness), or those of which the
cause cannot be seen (mutism, deafness).
These affections were believed to be unde
niable cases of possession. Others, leprosy
for instance, were less evidently maladies
of Satanic origin ; nevertheless, like the
others, they came from the world of dark
ness. Let us now study in detail the methods
of healing employed by Jesus. The first
fact is that Jesus acts entirely as a physi
cian. He often puts questions like a doc
tor who is concerned to inform himself as
to the gravity of a case. "How long is it
since this came unto him ? " 1 He asks a
blind man whose cure he has begun if he
sees aught.2 It is the physician informing
himself and wishing to be informed. On
that day he healed slowly and by several
stages. He commanded that food should
be given the daughter of Jairus ; 3 it was
as a medical prescription. He made clay
with spittle.4 To complete the cure begun,
he commanded a sick man to wash in a
i Mark ix. 21. * Mark viii. 23 ; cf. v. 9.
3 Mark v. 43. 4 John ix. 0 ; Mark viii. 23.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 85
certain pool which he indicated.1 Once,
to heal a deaf mute he put his fingers into
his ears, touched his tongue with saliva,
breathed a deep sigh, and said the words,
"Be opened ! " 2 Here the healing was
slow, difficult, and one may almost doubt
whether in the end it was actually effected.
From time to time these difficult healings
occur. There was a particularly ill-disposed
and tenacious sort of demon who would
consent to go out only after the exorcist
had fasted and prayed.3 Therefore Jesus,
who most generally waited to be asked
before performing a miracle,4 at times per
formed a cure only as the result of effort,
a veritable moral effort. Notwithstanding
his great compassion, he even went so far
as to shun the sick who implored and sup
plicated his aid, in order to retire to a soli
tude to pray.
In fact, a cure was not certain. It de
pended upon one essential condition, that
the sick person should have faith, and even
1 John ix. 6.
2 Mark vii. 33 f .
8 Matt. xvii. 21 ; Mark ix. 29. It is possible that
the mention of the fact is not authentic.
4 Matt. xii. 39, xvi. 4, xvii. 16 ; Mark viii. 22 f ., ix
18 ; Luke ix. 11.

86 JESUS CHRIST
that the bystanders should have it too.1
When there was faith neither in the per
son of the sick nor of those who were
with him, Jesus did not perform a cure;
he could not succeed.2 This was not
merely refusal on his part, the refusal
to perform an act which he might have
performed if he had so willed ; no, it was
an impossibility. And the converse is true :
when the multitude were full of enthu
siasm and faith, Jesus performed many
cures, even at a distance and without the
l sick person being present.
The presence of Jesus sufficed; it kept
up a beneficent moral excitement, and pro
voked a confidence which put the sick per
son into communication with him by the
intermediary of the multitude. Cases of
suggestion which much resemble those are
cited in our own day. The sick person's
faith or that of the crowd is what performs
ithe miracle. Jesus was so much convinced
pf this that he never said, " I have healed
_ihfiS,!' but "Thy faith hath healed thee."
So, when he used clay to anoint the eyes
1 "Seeing their faith." Matt. ix. 2; Mark ii. 6;
Luke v. 20.
2 Mark vi. 5, 6 ; Matt. xiii. 58.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 87
of a blind man,1 when it was enough for
a woman to touch his garment and be
healed,2 he attached no superstitious idea
to these acts. He said to that woman, as
to the others, " Thy faith hath saved thee,"
and not "Thy contact with my garment
saved thee."
How was the healing produced? Judg-|
ing by the example just cited, it might be j
the case that it was produced by contact
with the garment of Jesus, even without
his knowledge.3 But in general the sick
person was healed as a consequence of
words pronounced by Jesus in a tone of
command.4 Doubtless there resulted from
the tone of his words a moral commotion
which made easy the return to health of {
him who had faith.
As for Jesus himself, it was by prayer1
that he healed. He had a profound and .
glowing faith that his prayer would be
answered. There is nothing concerning
which Jesus spoke with more unalterable
conviction than of the hearing of prayer.
He had a personal, full, absolute certainty
i John ix. 6 ; Mark viii. 23. 2 Mark v. 27, 28.
8 Mark iii. 10 ; v. 30 ; vi. 56.
4 Mark i. 25, and passim.

88 JESUS CHRIST
that one can do all things by prayer ; by it
one acts uponjjod, and through him upon
nature itself!1/
This is why Jesus certainly performed
true miracles, and did it often; for God]
certainly gave him the answer to his
prayers, and he often had experience of a J
direct response to his supplications by the\
Father. When he said, " Ask and ye shalL,
receive," 2 he drew this observation from
the depths of his personal experience. He
had asked and he had received; he had
knocked at the Father's door, and the
Father had opened to him the treasures
of his compassion, and his answers to
prayer. The incontestable authenticity of the
greater number of the sayings uttered by
Jesus when healing this or that sick per
son, on the occasion of this or that miracle,
is the irrefutable proof of the authenticity
of the miracle itself. In our day, in cer
tain religious establishments in Switzer
land, for example, Christians of ardent
faith have obtained cures by prayer, cures
which have been scientifically demon-
• Matt, xviii. 19, xxi. 21, 22 ; Mark xi. 23, 24.
a Matt. vii. 7 ff. and parallel passages.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 89
strated ; and whoever believes in the power
of God and the power of prayer believes
that health may be given back by God to
a sick person who asks it or for whom
others intercede. So much the more must
Jesus have obtained such cures.
We have spoken up to this time only of
the cures performed by Jesus, but what we
have said of these may be applied to all the
miracles attributed in the Gospels to Christ.
We have not the slightest a priori objec
tion to their authenticity. But each one
must be studied separately, by itself, and
in the light of a sound criticism; and
criticism should rest upon this indispu
table principle, this final affirmation of
modern science, — the laws of nature are
inviolable. In our first volume we explained our
views of the state of men's minds in Pales
tine in the first century; of the facility
with which every one saw miracles every
where, and the difference there is in this
matter between a man of that period and a
man of our own, who, on the other hand,
sees none anywhere. This remark must
be borne in mind; and since it has been
averred that the laws of nature are invio-

90 JESUS CHRIST
lable, it follows that the fact called a
miracle, if it be authentic, if it really
took place, can only be a fact which tem
porarily lies outside of the known forces
of nature.
As Jesus never drew attention to the
marvellous or inexplicable elements in the
miracles he performed, it follows — and
this statement is of the highest impor
tance — that he never desired that men
should see anything magical even in
his most extraordinary acts. One of the
victories of the Temptation consisted pre
cisely in repudiating every act which by
an appearance of prodigy might be likely
to dazzle and amaze the multitude. All
that seemed hke sorcery or magic, every
thing which might resemble an act of dex
terity designed to arouse astonishment,
was entirely outside of his method, and
never had anything to do with the gospel
as he conceived and preached it. Miracle
as miracle is foreign to the Christianity of i
Jesus. •
This is all the more remarkable because
Jesus' disciples and all his contemporaries,
without exception, looked upon miracles
from an entirely different point of view.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 91
They called them signs ; and to their minds
a divine messenger, and especially the
Messiah, could only accredit himself by
performing miracles and also by fulfilling
prophecy. These two proofs were abso
lutely required. Given that the miracles
were thoroughly authentic and the fulfil
ment of prophecy perfectly evident, all
doubt was dispelled. The disciples, there
fore, could only receive a miracle-working
Messiah. This is easily to be seen from
many passages in the Gospels, and in con
sequence the greatness of Jesus' views and
the originality of his ideas on this point are
all the more easy to discern, and all the
more certainly authentic.
• / It is so true that miracles made no part
jbf his mission that when he cast out a
/demon he forbade the possessed man with
I threafs/what threats ? — perhaps of a return
/ of his malady) to make known his cure ;
and twice he refused to perform a miracle,
because it would be perfectly evident that
he was its author, being performed before
the eyes of the Pharisees, the learned men
of the time.1 On this occasion he declared
that the true sign of his mission was his
1 Matt. xii. 38 ff., xvi. 1 ff. ; Mark viii. 11.

92 JESUS CHRIST
preaching, as powerful as that of Jonas,
and his wisdom, as great as that of Solo
mon. In the parable of the wicked rich
man, when the latter, being in torment,
thought of his five brothers, and asked
Abraham to send Lazarus to warn them
that they should not also come into torment,
Abraham replied : " They have Moses
and the prophets ; let them hear them.
If they hear not Moses and the prophets,
neither will they be persuaded if one rise
from the dead." 1 Therefore the miracle of
miracles, the resurrection from the dead,
proves less, has less of evidential value,
than the preaching of Moses and of the
prophets ; and it follows from this passage
that, in the mind of Jesus, the truth of his
preaching, the authenticity of his mission,
his gospel, in short, are not proved by one
of his miracles, not even by his own resur
rection from the dead.2
1 Luke xvi. 31.
2 One passage alone appears to oppose this con
stant attitude of Jesus ; namely, the reply to the
messengers of John the Baptist : " Go your way and
tell John the things which ye do hear and see : the
blind receive their sight and the lame walk, the lepers
are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are
raised up, and the poor have good tidings preached to

DURING HIS MINISTRY 93
When Jesus forbade those whom he
healed to speak of his miracles, it was as
suredly not that we should pass them over
in silence to-day. This chapter would not
have been written if we had thus understood
his words on the subject. Nevertheless
in that prohibition he gave us an impor
tant teaching, a teaching entirely misun
derstood by believers who persist in find
ing an apologetic value in miracles. For if
them" (Matt. xi. 5; Luke vii. 22). But here Jesus
does not appeal to his miracles because they are
prodigies, to draw from them the conclusion that
John ought to believe in him ; he appeals to them be
cause they are acts of compassion, and victories
achieved over Satan. Jesus arranges his remarkable
deeds in gradation, and after the resurrection of the
dead he mentions the preaching of the gospel to the
poor, a purely moral act, which appears to him even
more surprising than the raising of the dead. In fact,
each time that he performs his work, whether to
heal a sick person or to preach the gospel, but es
pecially in preaching the gospel, and preaching it to
the poor, he is laboring to overturn Satan's throne ;
and this is the purpose of his life. Even in this pas
sage, which, it is to be remarked, is unique, Jesus con
siders his miracles as religious acts, victories of God
over Satan, of light over darkness. Every converted
soul, and every sick person healed, push back the
limits of the kingdom of darkness, one as much as
the other, or, rather, the converted soul more than
the other.

94 JESUS CHRIST
there is one fact to be deduced with over
whelming evidence from the attitude of
the Christ, it is that they have none, and
that it serves nothing at all to demonstrate
their authenticity. Such a demonstration
has merely a historic interest, like the
demonstration of the existence of Homer,
and can in no case have any religious value
whatsoever. If Jesus had not performed
a single miracle (I mean a single physical
miracle), that could have subtracted ab
solutely nothing from the value of his
person, and the reality of the moral super-
naturalness which radiates from his whole
being. " Say nothing to any one ! " Noth
ing is indifferent that Jesus says ; the least
of his words is of capital importance, and
it may be affirmed that Christians have not
yet understood the significance of this
command. " A historic event, whether extraordinary
or not," writes M. Lachelier,1 "cannot be
an object of faith, precisely because it is
historic and by that very fact an object of
knowledge. The same is the case with
regard to the conclusions which may be
drawn from a miracle with regard to the
1 Prom an unpublished letter to the author.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 95
character and power of him who performed
it. Such conclusions, supposing them to
be legitimate, will always belong in the
order of knowledge, and will never consti
tute a moral and religious faith."

96 JESUS CHRIST

CHAPTER VI
EARLIEST PREACHING OP JESUS ON THE
KINGDOM OP GOD
HPHE two words Hammalkuth hash-
shamayim (the kingdom of heaven)
are certainly those which Jesus most often
uttered ; he preferred this expression to
the "kingdom of God." In our former
volume we explained that the two expres
sions are synonymous. Jesus employed
the former; the apostles, doubtless in
order to be better understood by Gentiles,
made use of the second. Still, though the
two expressions are synonymous, they pre
sent a shade of difference; and we may
compare with the marked preference of
Jesus for the form " kingdom of heaven "
(les cieux), his use of the expression of which
he was equally fond, "the Father who is
in heaven" (les cieux). He speaks also of
rewards "in heaven" (les cieux). Now,
the Rabbis of that time held to the

DURING HIS MINISTRY 97
existence of several heavens, — at least
seven, — one above the other, overhead
in the blue expanse which is spread abroad
beyond the clouds.1 There was to be
found the new earth, " the heavenly Jeru
salem," the kingdom to come ; and the
doctors, founding their view upon Daniel 2
and Enoch,3 believed that this king
dom, called " of the heavens " because
it was in the heavens,4 would descend from
it, all complete, all set in order in some
sort, to be established upon the earth. The
Son of Man appearing in the clouds
would found it, with the help of the
angels.5 Then the elect would " see "
and " enter " it.6 These expressions were
taken in their most literal sense; and
when men said the kingdom is at hand,
or has come,7 they meant it is about to
descend, it will soon be established.
Nothing indicates that Jesus understood
by " kingdom of heaven " anything different
from what his contemporaries understood ;
1 Bereshith Rabba. Bamidebar Rabba. Syb. Orac.
3, 83 ; Test. Patriarch, 12 (cf. 2 Cor. xii. 2 ; Eph. iv. 10;
Heb. iv. 14).
2 Dan. vii. ff. 8 Book of Enoch, passim.
4 See Rev. xxi. 10. 6 Matt. xvi. 27.
9 John iii. 3, 5. 7 Matt. iv. 17.
7

98 JESUS CHRIST
nothing authorizes us to find him using
on this subject any different language
from that of the doctors of his people.
If Jesus had held any other views upon
this important doctrine than those of his
contemporaries, he would have said so ;
he would have carefully distinguished
his way of looking at it from that of his
people. Especially when speaking to his
apostles, deprecating any misunderstanding
on their part, clearly perceiving how natural
such a misunderstanding would be, he
would have taken care to dissipate it,
would have warned, explained, put them
on their guard. But he did nothing of the
kind. Not only did he never take these
precautions ; on the contrary, he made
use of all the expressions of his contem
poraries, used them just as they used
them, repeated them just as they did and
in the sense which everybody gave them.
To say that Jesus was speaking with
another meaning, spiritualizing, allegoriz
ing, symbolizing, is wholly arbitrary. The
hearers of Jesus could have understood
another mode of speech concerning the
kingdom to come only with the clearest
and most precise explanations, distinguish-

DURING HIS MINISTRY 99
ing the two views. But the Gospels show
not the slightest trace of explanations of
this kind.
When Jesus spoke of the kingdom, he
always used the future tense. All the
rewards promised in the beatitudes of the
Sermon on the Mount were in the future.
For him, as for all his contemporaries, the
kingdom was to come. It was always in
the future in his teachings ; and never,
not even on the eve of his death, did he
speak of the kingdom as present and
already founded.1
Jesus also taught his disciples to say,
" Thy kingdom come ! " — the continual
prayer of the Jews ever since the Exile,
and certainly his own, as it had been in
his childhood and his youth. If he added,
"Thy will be done on earth as in heaven,"
it was because he mentally added "that
1 If we read is instead of will be in the following
passages, Matt. v. 3, 10, xi. 11 ; Luke vii. 28, ix. 62
[The English version is in the present. — Trans.], the
reference is evidently to a possession so certain that it
is anticipated as present. In the same way Jesus says
elsewhere, " He that believeth in me hath eternal life."
Por that matter, Jesus spoke without the verb, in
Aramaean, Lo anirn hammalkuth ha sh-shamayim ! ("To
the poor in spirit the kingdom of heaven ! ")

100 JESUS CHRIST
it may be possible for the kingdom which
is in heaven to appear upon the earth."
Jesus, then, announced the kingdom as
to come. The earliest passages in the
Gospels leave no doubt on this subject.
When he cried, "Seek ye first the king
dom ! " x that meant " Seek by prayers,
ask God, that the kingdom may come."
The close of the Sermon on the Mount is
explicit : " He who doeth the will of God
shall enter into the kingdom."
Such, then, was his mission as Messiah,
— to say, " The kingdom is at hand." In
this Jesus made no innovation. All Jews
held that the Messiah's first mission would,
in fact, be to announce the near approach
of the kingdom of God. At a later day,
when Jesus was putting his disciples on
their guard against the false Messiahs who
were to come, he told them that in order
to induce belief in their Messiahship they
would all say, " I am he, and the time is at
hand ! " 2 This is precisely what he was
himself doing.
Having worked out his first thought of
the kingdom, he formulated it in several
parables, as was his custom.
i Luke xii. 31. 2 Luke xxi. 8.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 101
In these allegories 1 he told how the
kingdom was being prepared for. He
compared himself to a sower. He was
sowing the seed. Those who heard and
bore fruit would enter into the kingdom,
whose coming was symbolized by the fu
ture harvest. The story of the mustard
seed represented the state of things which
would make ready for the coming of the
kingdom. The number of those who were
to have a part in the kingdom was at
present small, like a mustard seed, but it
would keep on growing and would be im
mense when the kingdom appeared. The
same is the case in the action of leaven
upon dough ; the word which prepares for
the coming of the kingdom has a hidden
power which will so transform the hearts
of the disciples as to make them capable of
entering the coming kingdom. One must
sacrifice everything in order to enter the
kingdom, like the man who finds a treas
ure hidden in a field ; and we must seek
for the kingdom, that is, prepare for it, as
one seeks for a pearl of great price. For
the time being Jesus and his disciples
were casting the net, and gathering into
i Matt. xiii. 1 ff.

102 JESUS CHRIST
it all sorts of men; but only they would
enter the kingdom who should be judged
worthy at the sorting of the last Judgment.
The same thought is expressed in the para
ble of the wheat and the tares ; the king
dom cannot be other than future, since
its coming is represented by the harvest,
which will be accompanied by the great
separation made by the angels.1
Everything which concerned the king
dom was mysterious, that is, secret and
hidden.2 At a future time these hidden
1 The kingdom is, then, future, and the parables of
Matthew xiii. do not in the least signify that Jesus
was at that very time founding it by his preaching.
He was preparing for its coming, — a very different
thing. It is true that at a later day he said to the
Pharisees, " The kingdom of God is in the midst of
you," or " within you " (Luke xvii. 21), and again, " It is
come upon you " (Luke xi. 21) ; but he certainly did
not desire by such words to indicate anything other
than possession of the kingdom by anticipation, —
a presence which is virtual because it is imminent.
No other interpretation of these passages is possible.
To explain them by saying that in them Jesus affirmed
that the kingdom was founded and was already pres
ent in the world, would be to put him in contradiction
with the entire teaching of his ministry, by virtue of
two isolated verses. (See a complete exposition of
these passages in chapter ix., " Opposition to Jesus,"
pagel43). 2 Matt. xiii. 11 f.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 103
things would become visible. When the
kingdom should appear, every one would
know all these mysteries.1 When the
kingdom should appear, Jesus would put
the finishing touch to his work, merging
it in that which he was now doing, for
both consist in bringing about the reign
of God. Jesus was the great Reformer.
The revolution which he was announc
ing would be radical. He was looking for
nothing less than a universal restoration.2
For the time being he was performing a
work of preparation ; there were, in fact,
aptitudes to acquire before men could be
ready to enter the kingdom, aptitudes
purely moral. He must therefore prepare
for it by a wholly spiritual and subjective
work, — by the changing of hearts.
He repudiated anything like political
preparation ; so early as the days of temp
tation he had put aside all idea of a Mes
siahship of the strong hand, a triumph by
force. The Messianic hopes of the Phari
sees were, above all things, political. If at
one moment of his life Jesus was attracted
by certain Pharisaic ideas, he never was
i Matt. xiii. 12.
2 Acts iii. 21 ; Matt. xix. 28.

104 JESUS CHRIST
by this one ; he never seems to have been
interested in politics, and never thought of
such a thing as revolt. Popular seditions
appeared to him criminal and useless;
the adventure of Judas the Gaulonite had
made that clear. He paid tribute to the
Romans, and from the very first he prac
tised his celebrated maxim, " Render unto
Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to
God the things that are God's." In this
matter, indeed, he was simply following
the example of the Essenes, who were
most careful not to meddle with politics.
But let us beware of thinking that Jesus,
taking no part in politics and desiring to
take no such part, had for that reason re
nounced his patriotic faith and his Mes
sianic hopes. To see a visible and national
kingdom founded in his lifetime, to see
the Jews choosing him for Messiah and
Master and proclaiming him king, — such
was, till the last, the great hope of his life.
No doubt he hid himself when the multi
tude wished to make him king ; 1 but solely
because the hour had not yet come, and
the people were under a misapprehension
as to the true nature of his Messiahship,
1 John vi. 5.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 105
believing that he intended to appeal to
arms and make use of violence. Never,
even in his hour of temptation, did he
repudiate the national Messianic kingdom.
We shall see him on Palm Sunday yield
ing without resistance to the ovations of
the multitude, and accepting the homage
paid to the Messiah-king. Jesus had always
the most ardent and profound sympathy
with the national hopes of his people.
We must, above all things, not forget
that Jesus constructed no theories, and
never spoke by virtue of a clearly defined
system, a logical construction. He did not
reason about the kingdom, saying, " It
shall be this and shall not be that. I
reject this detail which my people admit.
I accept that one ; I bring to it this new
idea, this unknown solution." To under
stand what Jesus said and thought about
the kingdom, we must put ourselves in
thought in the first century, breathe the
atmosphere of the time, saturate our minds
with the Jewish notions of the period, and
then we shall perceive that Jesus by no
means came to found the kingdom of God
and promulgate its laws, but that he came
to announce its coming and hasten it, by

106 JESUS CHRIST
detaching men's souls from this world and
preparing them for the world to come.
This is the key to his ministry in Galilee.
Concern for the future, and for what the
future would be, never left him for an
instant. Sometimes he would speak as if
the world were on the eve of a catastrophe ;
again he spoke as a reformer who had
abundant time before him, who had come
to open new paths and change the hearts
of men. The two attitudes appear to be
contradictory, but they are not in the least
so ; for on the one hand Jesus never an
nounced a progressive development of the
kingdom, but spoke of a sudden and final
catastrophe for which men should prepare ;
and, on the other hand, the catastrophe
though not far distant was not imminent.
Every one had a certain time before him,
short no doubt, but still a certain time for
preparation. In other words, the coming
of the kingdom was near, but not immedi
ate (the kingdom " is at hand " ) ; and
Jesus himself was preparing for it by
founding a society of disciples which was
to abide, which had before it, not sev
eral centuries, — Jesus never spoke of a
future of several centuries, — but at least

DURING HIS MINISTRY 107
a few years, perhaps many ; he did not
know exactly how many.1 He spoke of
the leaven, whose action is slow; of the
grain of mustard seed, which takes a cer
tain time to grow. He did not look for a
rapid success ; but he was still young, there
was time ; little by little the seed would
grow. He had placed himself in the
Father's hands, he was awaiting his hour ;
he had no preconceived views and no self-
deceptions. This is how Jesus, while considering
the final catastrophe as near at hand, still
came as a law-giver and reformer. His
moral teaching plainly shows that the
proximity of the Judgment was not im
mediate ; but it was near, for his own pre
occupation in his moral teachings was to
make men better with intent to prepare
them to enter the kingdom.
Jesus then saw in the kingdom neither
a spiritual deliverance nor the reign of the
poor and lowly. To say so is to confound
the kingdom itself with the state of mind
which would prepare for it.
In fact, to prepare oneself for it, one
1 "None knoweth the day nor the hour, not even
the Son" (Mark xiii. 32).

108 JESUS CHRIST
must become poor and lowly, as we shall
show in the next chapter ; and as to the
kingdom it was to be very nearly what
Daniel and Enoch had described. Jesus
neither criticised nor rejected the apoca
lyptic beliefs of his people. Let us not
forget that never was a critical question
put by Jesus. He no more thought of
criticising the Messianic hopes of his time
than the Pentateuch, and to the end of his
life he affirmed that the Messiah would
return again upon the clouds of heaven to
judge the world.1 He took this place of
judge as much in the early days 2 as in the
parables of the last week of his life.3 On
this point he never changed. He was to
preside over the last Judgment. This was
his duty and office as Messiah.
Further, — and this was the very soul of
what we have dared to call his profound and
i To hold that Jesus took these expressions in a
spiritual sense and saw only figures in the expressions,
" come down from heaven," " come in the clouds," is
to represent him as saying aside to himself, " I will
adopt all the phraseology of my time ; I will use the
most realistic apocalyptic language, but it shall be in
my own mind only figurative and symbolical ; and I
will tell no one this. They must divine it."
2 Matt. vii. 21 ff. 8 Matt. xxv. 31 ff.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 109
fine genius, — though he destroyed none
of his people's beliefs, he fulfilled them,
he brought out their very life. That which
in his eyes was most grand, most sublime,
in the coming kingdom was that justice
should be established, and that they who/^?
now hunger and tliirst should be filled.1! '
It was the righteousness of the kingdom
which men must first of all seek.2 The
sorrowful should be consoled, the meek
should reign.3 The future kingdom would
not be an avenging kingdom, a kingdom
of blood ; Jesus could not admit that. But
he did not reject this aspect of his people's
belief as the result of critical reasoning
and philosophical examination ; his soul
refused to believe for a single moment that
the kingdom of God, which in his view,
as in that of all Jews, would be the domi
nation of God and consequently of the
Father who is in heaven, could be anything
else than love, peace, joy, pardon, eternal
life. All the rest was for him as if it did
not exist.
At a later day, in the view of his disci
ples, the kingdom would be the Christian
Church, the society of souls who believed
' Matt. v. 6. 2 Matt. vi. 33. s Matt. v. 4 f.

110 JESUS CHRIST
in Jesus. To Jesus it was nothing else
than the Messianic era ; but (and it is here
that he is incomparably great) it was he
who prepared for the conception of the
disciples by raising high the notion of the
kingdom, accepting all that his people
taught on the subject, and entirely trans
forming it.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 111

CHAPTER VII
THE KINGDOM PREPARED POR BY THE
LOWLY AND THE POOR
T ET us now see Jesus preparing for the
coming of the kingdom.
His first object was to communicate to
men that sense of divine sonship which he .
himself fully possessed ; he desired to cre
ate it in men's souls. To experience this
feeling, one must become "humble," —
humble in rank, in money, in influence,
and humble in happiness. Therefore he
declares those happy who weep and who
suffer. Jesus made the most of the fact that
the interpretations by his contemporaries
of certain passages in Daniel concerning
the fifth empire were very diverse, to give
another, which was exceedingly spiritual
but not at all revolutionary. Everything
in Judaism was to be retained, but it was
to be transformed, and this transformation

112 JESUS CHRIST
was to be effected by a change in hearts.1
It was nothing else than piety, true piety,
taking the place of rites and external acts.
This piety would have its foundation in
humility, renunciation, a profound sense
of poverty of spirit.
This was why Jesus preached a new
righteousness, which he opposed to that
of the Scribes and Pharisees. In their
view, alms, fasts, prayers, works, make
a man righteous and confer merit upon
him. Jesus preached a higher righteous
ness.2 Man must humble himself, become
lowly, poor in spirit, contemplative, must
hunger and thirst, cry earnestly for mercy,
— for the Father is merciful, he is full of
compassion, he remits the debt, he forgives
those who forgive. The beginning of the
new life, then, is the desire to attain to it.
To be conscious of our shortcomings is
already, in some sort, to receive it.3
Yet Jesus never said that hunger and
thirst after righteousness carry their satis-
1 It is always the same method, — destroy nothing,
fulfil all things.
2 Matt. v. 20.
8 It has been said, and with reason, that to be con
scious of one's limitations is already in some degree
to have overpassed them.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 113
faction in themselves. The kingdom of
God is in no sense realized by the fact of
being sought after, desired, aspired unto.
It is not hunger that nourishes, nor thirst
that refreshes. To desire righteousness is
not to obtain it; otherwise the kingdom
would have been founded by the very fact
that Jesus was preparing for it. And he
never said so. The kingdom was to come,
and righteousness was to be obtained only t
at a later time, at its coming. Then those
who now hunger and thirst for it shall be
satisfied. One does not answer his own
prayers because he prays, and, in the same
way, one does not enter the kingdom be
cause he seeks for it; but one prepares
himself for it and he will enter it. A
change of hearts and minds (repentance,
" for the kingdom is at hand ") x is, then,
only the preparation for the kingdom, and
not the kingdom itself.
As we have said, Jesus expected the
kingdom on earth. The transformation
of society and of the world was to be
accomplished here, as soon as the Jews
should be converted. Every one would
then acclaim Jesus as Messiah; the king-
1 Mark i. 15 and parallel passages.

114 JESUS CHRIST
dom would appear, and the spiritual dom
ination of the Christ would begin upon
the earth. The Father would accord the
promised rewards, — those of some would
be great ; 1 and an era of universal felicity
would begin.
What was to take place at the begin
ning of this era ? How would the king
dom be inaugurated ? By a sudden change.
The contrary of that which is would be.
The world to come would be the present
world reversed. The first would be last,
and the last first.2 At the present time
good and evil are mingled, like the tares
and the wheat in a field. Then there
would be a great separation ; it would be
like a great drawing of the net.3 Jesus
often referred to the surprise which this
sudden reversal of things would occasion.
No one would be expecting it, and when
this transformation should have been made
it would be final.
One of the most unexpected reversals
which would take place would be the
1 Matt. v. 12, 19, x. 42; Luke vi. 23, 35; Mark
ix. 41.
2 Matt. xix. 30, xx. 16 ; Mark x. 31 ; Luke xiii. 30.
n Matt. xiii. 24 f., 31, 33, 47 f . ; Mark iv. 11 f.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 115
exaltation of the lowly, the humble, the
unknown; they would become the great,
and would in their turn take first rank.
Jesus therefore counted much upon the
poor in the preparation for the coming of
the kingdom.1 " That which is exalted
among men is an abomination in the sight
of God." The simple, the humble, the
fishermen of the lake, were the future
children of the kingdom. Concerning the
rich, Jesus always professed the most
literal Essenian doctrine, and his thought
concerning those who have possessions
never varied.2
Let us bear in mind that the environ
ment from which Jesus came was that
of the populace, the poor, the working-
class, and that the artisans and humble
people who knew nothing about politics
were dreaming, above all things, of a social
renovation. To realize a fortune and give
a part of the money to the poor was for
the Essenes one of the first conditions to
fulfil in order to be ready to enter the
1 Luke xvi. 15.
* Matt. v. 3, 20, xviii. 3, xix. 14, 23, 24, xxi. 31, xxii.
2 f . ; Mark x. 14, 15, 23-25 ; Luke iv. 18 f ., vi. 20, xviii.
16, 17, 24, 25.

116 JESUS CHRIST
kingdom when it should appear; and
when we recall to mind that this was
also the case in the earliest Christian com
munity, we recognize that we are here in
presence of an idea and a practice of the
early days.
Furthermore Jesus preached voluntary
poverty.1 In the outset of his ministry,
and probably during all his youth, he
conceived of the kingdom of God as
being prepared for by the renunciation of
wealth. But he no more concerned himself with
socialism than with politics. One might
sometimes wish that the true practice of
the Gospel might be found in the fulfil
ment of certain social duties, and that
doing good to the poor might serve to
found the kingdom of God. It is not so,
except so far as love for the poor and the
practice of good deeds proceed from a
higher life, and are the natural fruit of
regeneration of the new birth. All Chris
tian duty is not comprised in social duty.
Yet it is none the less true that in
Jesus' view the great sign of the Messiah
1 Matt. xix. 21 ; Mark x. 21 f., 29, 30 ; Luke xviii.
22 f.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 117
was " the Gospel preached to the poor." 1
This, according to him, was its highest
proof. This is evident, since all ranks
were to change places in the kingdom.
Those who are called the world, the
doctors, the Sadducees, the aristocrats, the
priests would not at first pass in; they
would enter only when they were changed
and had become " as little children."
The child is sacred ; 2 the kingdom of
God is his.3 One must become a child to
enter it.4 One must receive the kingdom
as a little child when it comes,6 and even
now it is to the children that the Father
reveals his secrets.6
One day Jesus took a child and set him
in the midst of his disciples and said to
them: "Except ye turn and become as
little children, ye shall in no wise enter
into the kingdom of heaven.7 The king
dom is for children and for such as are
like them."
1 Matt. xi. 5.
* Matt, xviii. 5, 10, 14; Luke xvii. 2.
8 Matt. xix. 14 ; Mark x. 14 ; Luke xviii. 16.
4 Matt, xviii. 1 f . ; Mark ix. 33 f . ; Luke ix. 46 f .
K Mark x. 15.
6 Matt. xi. 25; Luke x. 21.
1 Matt, xviii. 3 ; Mark ix. 35, 36 ; Luke ix. 46-48.

118 .JESUS CHRIST
The kingdom is also for the lowly of
this world, victims of the rich and the
proud. It is, finally, for those who are
without, — publicans, people of bad life ;
for all those who have to suffer the con
tempt of persons of high position, of those
who command, who have much, who are
well thought of.
At a later time Jesus went still further,
and said that the gospel was for Gentiles
and Samaritans, — at a later time, we say ;
for in this first period of his ministry he
was not yet unsectarian, and he shared the
notions of those about him with respect
of the Gentiles.1
Meantime the kingdom was, from first to
last, the kingdom of the poor, and was
prepared for by the exaltation of the poor.
This is pure Ebionism. In Jewish soci
ety of the first century those were called
Ebionim who affected indifference to all
i See the following passages : Matt. vi. 32, " After
all these things do the Gentiles seek ; " vi. 7, " Pray
not like the Gentiles ; " vii. 6, " Give not that which is
holy unto the dogs ; " xviii. 17, "Let him be unto thee
as the Gentile." Jesus did not become non-sectarian
until after his interview with a Canaanitish woman ;
we shall speak of this evolution of his thought in the
eleventh chapter.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 119
exterior advantages, — glory, pomp, honor,
and especially money. The Ebionim, who
were very pious and thoroughly persuaded
of the speedy appearance of the kingdom,
were a class marked by humility, gentle
ness, and resignation, without forming a
distinct religious party. It is needless to
say that their recruits came almost exclu
sively from the poorer class ; hence their
name. At a later time the early Christians
were called Ebionites by the Jews, — an
irrefragable evidence that Jesus gained
most of his early disciples from among
them, and that he himself was an Ebionite
in these early days of his ministry, when
he was still closely attached to the forms
and traditions of Judaism. " Woe unto
you that are rich," he said in his teaching,
" for ye have received your consolation !
Woe unto you that are full now, for ye
shall hunger ! Woe unto you, ye that
laugh now, for ye shall mourn and
weep ! " 1 " When thou makest a din
ner or a supper . . . bid the poor, the
maimed, the lame, the blind: and thou
shalt be blessed ; for they have not where
with to recompense thee : for thou shalt
i Luke vi. 24 ff.

120 JESUS CHRIST
be recompensed in the resurrection of the
just."1 " In heaven," " the recompense," Jesus
was always saying,2 " at the resurrection,"
"in life eternal," "in the kingdom ; " syn
onymous expressions all of them, which he
borrowed, with the ideas which they ex
pressed, from the Old Testament and the
synagogue. To understand them, and above all to
grasp the precise thought of Jesus about
the poor, we must bear in mind that for a
long time a feverish democratic movement
had been fermenting among his people.
They read and reread — and Jesus had
often read — the numerous passages of
the Old Testament where God declares
that he is the Avenger of the weak and
the oppressed.3 The prophets had always
fulminated against the great. In the minds
of many, the words " poor " and " gentle,"
" humble " and "pious," had become synony
mous, just as " rich " had come to signify
"impious, evil-disposed, violent." These
i Luke xiv. 12-14.
2 Matt. v. 12, x. 41 ; Mark ix. 41 ; Luke vi. 23, 35 ; etc.
8 Amos ii. 6; Isa. Ixiii. 9; Ps. xxv. 9, xxxvii. 11,
lxxix. 33.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 121
ideas had long been growing deeper and
stronger. The Book of Enoch cursed the
rich and powerful.1 It considers luxury as
a crime, and in it the Son of man de
thrones kings.2
In the first century the rich man was
the "bad rich man," and Jesus called
money "the mammon of unrighteousness."3
That was the popular and current term for
wealth. It was held to be always unjust and
ill-gotten. The rich man who was " clothed
in purple and fine linen," who " fared
sumptuously every day," had already
received "his good things," "his recom
pense," "that which was due him," and
therefore in the abode of the dead he would
be " in torment ; " the poor man, who had
been covered with sores, and to whom the
rich man had not given even his crumbs to
eat, would lie " in Abraham's bosom " and
would be " comforted." Why ? Because
he had had " evil things " in his life.
Therefore in the life to come compensation
would be made him ; the one would be
" in anguish," and the other " comforted." 4
1 Chaps, xxiii., xc, c, civ.
2 Chap. xlvi. 4-8.
8 Luke xvi. 9. * Luke xvi. 19 ff.

122 JESUS CHRIST
This doctrine of future compensation
had been current since the times of the
Maccabees, and it was this which had
sustained and consoled the lowly and
obscure. Their resignation was made of
hope, and they bore their burden with so
much the more courage in that they saw
by faith the future abode of eternal felicity,
the unending banquet' where, lying in
Abraham's bosom, they should drink the
wine of the celestial Passover, which was
promised to them forever.
The Ebionite and the poor were, then,
reckoned holy and beloved of God. It
followed that material poverty, want of
money, was held to be closely allied with
the sentiment of moral destitution, poverty
of spirit. This is why Jesus sometimes
said that in order to enter the kingdom
one must be " poor " (in money) 1 some
times that he must be " poor in spirit ; " 2
that is, poor in his own mind, his own
judgment, humble and repentant.
This preference for those whom the
world disdains and despises was a dis
tinctive feature of Jesus' character. He
had pity on the weakness and powerless-
1 Luke vi. 20. 2 Matt. v. 3.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 123
ness of the lowly. He ardently loved the
people and all that was of the people,1 sur
passing his contemporaries in this respect,
and setting himself against the national
aspirations after domination. The Ebionite
desired the coining of the kingdom be
cause then he would become rich, would
command in his turn, and humiliate the
proud who now humiliated him. Jesus
never accepted such a doctrine. If for him
true greatness was in serving, it was not
in the least because serving would lead in
the end to being served. His conscience,
enlightened by incessant communion with
the Father, transformed and spiritualized
the material and earthly notions of his
compatriots. No doubt he beheved and said that
when the kingdom should come, righteous
ness would reign and the lowly would be
happy ; but they were to be happy while
remaining lowly, while in the opinion of
most of the Jews it was the strong, the
able, the violent, who were to reign. The
Pharisees entirely expected to be first, and
we have already had occasion to say that
their sole purpose in strictly carrying out
i Matt. ix. 36 ; Mark vi. 34.

124 JESUS CHRIST
the most minute prescriptions of the Law
was to secure to themselves good places
in the kingdom. Jesus preached the
contrary. Yet it cannot be denied that he appro
priated the doctrine of compensation. In
the last centuries before his birth the idea
had spread abroad that God could not have
imposed the burden of life upon the poor,
the afflicted, the lowly, without preparing
for them compensation in the future king
dom and at the resurrection of the just,
in which they would certainly have part.
Jesus made his own this idea, which was
based upon faith in the justice of God.
There was to be a distributive justice, — a
statement which is the profound reason of
the Beatitudes.1 Men said, "In a little
while the deliverance ; " Jesus repeated it
with unalterable conviction. Yet a little
while and the future would be changed
into present, sorrow would be changed into
joy, tears into laughter, suffering into end
less well-being. Thence the hope, full of
confidence and gayety, which filled all the
first period of his ministry.
We may thus sum up in a few words the
1 Matt. v.3ff.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 125
earliest preaching of Jesus upon the king
dom of God.1 He understood by kingdom
a condition of things to come, an ideal life,
supraterrestrial, but realized on earth when
the Messiah should assume his place of
authority. This kingdom of God, which
he preferred to call the kingdom of
heaven, because it was then in heaven and
was to come down from thence, would be
the abode, on the transformed earth, of
those who should be judged worthy to
enter therein.
Jesus, then, taught nothing different from
his contemporaries. Yet he differentiated
himself from them by saying that no one
would enter the kingdom as a matter of
right, that he must be prepared by conver
sion to enter at a future day. The poor
were nearer to conversion than the rich.
But the rich were not shut out from it, —
they must make themselves materially and
morally poor, — and the poor were not cer
tain of it, for if they were already lowly in
social position they must add to this exter
nal poverty poverty of spirit, — poverty in
a spiritual and moral sense. He himself,
1 In our last volume we shall have to speak of
Jesus' final idea of the kingdom of God.

126 JESUS CHRIST
the Messiah, was charged with this pre
paratory work for all, rich and poor.
The Jews held that the kingdom would
have no other preparation than external
miracles, signs from heaven impressing
every one with their marvellous character.
Jesus refused these signs from heaven.1
More than this, the whole nation, accord
ing to the Pharisees, had a right to the
kingdom and were sure to enter it; the
only preparation required was obedience to
the Law and submission to Pharisaic tradi
tion.2 Jesus preached precisely the reverse.
At a later time the Rabbis taught a
purely spiritual and moral kingdom of
God, but in the time of Jesus such a thing
was not thought of. The state of heart
would prepare for the kingdom, but was
not the kingdom itself, the era of happi
ness, the universal palingenesis which Jesus
at first firmly hoped to produce during his
life. This entirely rehgious hope was of a
fundamentally Israelitish and national char
acter, especially in the earlier period of his
ministry. As we have said, Jesus was not
yet unsectarian. i Matt. xii. 38 f., xvi. 1 f. ; Mark viii. 11.
a Sanh. f ol. xxvii. 2.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 127
Finally, the socialism of Jesus, if we
may so much as use the word, was the
reverse of the socialism of to-day. The
absurd dream of our modern Utopia-makers
is to impoverish the rich in order to enrich
the poor and establish an equality of
fortune which will make everybody com
fortable. Jesus preached equality in abne
gation and poverty for all men. While
with many of our contemporary socialists
the object is to become rich, have posses
sions, enjoy, his was to become poor, empty
oneself, suffer, — yes, suffer; for in his
view happiness consists in submission to
the Father's will, humility of spirit is the
true greatness, and oneness in suffering the
true equality, — the only equality possible,
the only equality to be desired.

128 JESUS CHRIST

CHAPTER VIII
JOURNEYS TO JERUSALEM
TJ* VERY year Jesus made several obliga
tory journeys to Jerusalem. He had
always made them ; he had thus been able
a long time back to form an opinion con
cerning the Sadducees, the Temple, and the
worship which was celebrated there. We
believe that his convictions in this respect
date at latest from the time immediately
preceding his entrance upon his ministry.
Like every true Pharisee and every seri
ous Essene, he had separated himself from
Sadduceeism. Nevertheless he had retained
a hope of succeeding even with the Sad
ducees; and it seems to us certain that
before deciding upon Capernaum, on the
border of the lake, he had tried to make
himself known in Jerusalem.
It is easy to understand that the capital
would particularly attract him, and that he
did not resolve to shut himself up in the
narrow canton of Galilee until he had

DURING HIS MINISTRY 129
failed in the centre itself ; he could not
lose the hope of being one day welcomed
in that place, for no success would be
final for his purpose except as he should
succeed in the Holy City. Jerusalem was
what he needed to conquer ; and when she
was gained, the rest of the country would
soon be his. Therefore he did not settle
upon the lake shore until Jerusalem had
been closed to him.
It is true that the traditional Gospels
know only the ministry in Galilee, with
the exception of the last week; but the
Gospel of St. John has preserved for us
the very clear memory of several under
takings of Jesus at Jerusalem, most of
them in the early part of his ministry,
precisely at the time when the desire to
speak and act at the very centre of the
nation would naturally be in his heart.
Everything, therefore, leads us to believe
that the indications of the fourth Gospel
are in this respect, as in others, entirely
historical. Jesus began his work, not in
Galilee, but in Jerusalem ; and this is one
of the many touches which reveal the eye
witness revising the errors of the synoptical
tradition. 9

130 JESUS CHRIST
It is again remarkable that John places
the purification of the Temple at its true
date. It was an act of inauguration ; and
the first three Gospels, which know only
of a single journey to Jerusalem, although
they insist upon several,1 are forced to
place the purification of the Temple in
this single visit, and relegate it to the
last week, to a time which is highly
improbable.2 In one of his early journeys to Jerusa
lem, long before all that ministry in Gali
lee which we have already narrated, Jesus
had driven the merchants from the Tem
ple, because, like every true Pharisee and
every true Essene, he was outraged by the
profanation of the sanctuary.
He expelled the sellers in the Temple
court because they had no right there ; he
desired them to install themselves outside
the doors. Their presence in the Court of
1 Matt, xxiii. 37. Observe particularly the word
trotTaKis. 2 I say nothing of the singular opinion of those who
believe in two purifications of the Temple, — one at the
opening, the other at the close of Jesus' ministry, —
that weak invention of the harmonists who, in spite of
their protestations, are the slaves of their invincible
belief in the infallibility of the Bible.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 131
the Gentiles was an insult to God; they
changed " a house of prayer " into a " den
of thieves."
Moreover, we are permitted to suppose
that Jesus did not simply object to the fact
that they were installed in one place and
not in another, but that up to a certain
point he objected to their presence itself.
It is certain that, save the Paschal lamb
(the patriotic and family feast, which he
greatly prized), Jesus seems never to have
offered a sacrifice in the Temple. He
loved to recall the word of Jehovah in
Hosea, saying, "I will have mercy and
not sacrifice." Besides, sacrifices had fallen
into discredit. None of the Jews " of the
Dispersion" offered or could offer them.
These were none the less pious for that,
none the less devoted to the Law, none the
less thoroughly true Jews. Jesus acted in
the character of a liberal Jew, an anti-
Sadducean Pharisee, when he drove the
merchants out of the Temple ; and this act
was certainly approved by the Pharisees,
at the same time that it brought him under
the disapproval of the official authorities.
But in performing it and in opposing
sacrifices, Jesus only carried out the

132 JESUS CHRIST
teaching of Isaiah, when he wrote these
words : —
" What have I to do with the multitude of
your sacrifices, says Jehovah :
I am satiated with holocausts of rams, and the
fat of calves.
I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, of
sheep, and of goats.
When you come to present yourselves before
me,
Who requires it of you to trample my courts?
Cease to bring vain offerings.
I have a horror of incense,
New moons, Sabbaths, and assemblies ;
I cannot look upon iniquity and the solemn
meeting;
My soul hates your new moons and your
feasts,
They are a burden to me,
I am weary of bearing them.
When you spread forth your hands, I turn
away mine eyes ;
When you multiply prayers, I do not listen.
Your hands are full of blood ;
Wash you, make you clean,
Put away the evil of your doings from before
mine eyes.
Cease to do evil,
Learn to do well, seek justice,

DURING HIS MINISTRY 133
Protect the oppressed,
Procure justice for the orphan,
Defend the widow.
Come, let us plead together, saith Jehovah." 1
From the time that these words were
written the Temple was doomed to dis
appear. The ardent apostrophes of Isaiah, and
other similar passages of the Book of the
Prophets, were read and re-read by the
Pharisees, by the Ebionites, by all who felt
religious longings and failed to find their
satisfaction in the ceremonies of the Tem
ple ; and a separation had long been made
between these and the aristocratic Saddu
cees. It was necessary to choose either
the latter or the liberal Pharisees ; Jesus
had long since made his choice, and the
purification of the Temple aroused against
him the hatred of the priests. On that day
he perceived that from this quarter he was
certain to encounter an invincible opposi
tion. He was indeed too independent to
succeed in a circle so narrowly restricted
and unintelligently conservative. A say
ing of his at the time of the expulsion of
1 Isa. i. 11-18 (Segond's French translation).

134 JESUS CHRIST
the merchants was seized upon, distorted,
and characterized as blasphemy.1
From this time Jesus was obliged to give
up the thought of an immediate attempt
upon the holy city ; but he continued duti
fully to show himself there three or four
times a year, on festal occasions, and in
any case in the month Nisan, at the Pass
over. He was strongly attached to the Passover
pilgrimage, to which he had been accus
tomed from childhood. He and his disci
ples used to go up together to the capital ;
and the little company, unobserved in the
enormous multitudes of the festival days,
would keep the Paschal feast and observe
all the accustomed rites. They would
light the Sabbath lamp, — as indeed they
did every week, but with more solemnity
on this day. The spiritual family, made
up of the apostles and the Master, would
gather around the unleavened bread, and
would sing together with full voices the
old patriotic and religious songs which they
had known by heart from childhood.
Jesus made no use of these short visits
to again attempt to make himself known.
1 John ii. 19 f.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 135
He clearly saw that the hour for speaking
in the porticos of the Temple had not yet
come, and that to resume his former attempt
would be useless. St. John has preserved
the memory of an interview which in one
of his earlier visits he had with a Pharisee
of note named Nicodemus.1 The words
then exchanged between him and his inter
locutor no doubt also served to show him
that any attempt upon a society so unintel
ligent in religious things would be entirely
useless, at least at that time.
We must say more. The annual visits
of Jesus to Jerusalem had their influence
in separating him from Judaism, at least
from a certain kind of Judaism. From
these visits came the first light on this sub
ject ; they made him understand how little
of a Jew he was, and that day by day he
was becoming less of one. Besides, he
had failed there and he had a work to
do in Galilee. It was already begun, it
offered bright hopes ; it was the work to
pursue. At Jerusalem, side by side with Sad-
duceeism, there reigned a strict union of
formalism and fanaticism, that is to say,
1 John iii. 1 ff.

136 JESUS CHRIST
Pharisaism inspired by a most detestable
spirit, than which there can hardly be any
thing more repulsive in the world.
Jesus saw persons passing along the
streets whom he afterward described to his
hearers in Galilee. Here is one, emaciated
by fasting, heaving profound sighs, moving
painfully, thus to exaggerate his appearance
of fatigue and exhaustion, and exhibiting
to the pubhc a face as of an exhumed
corpse. Here is another, who throws a
corner of his mantle over his head above
his turban, so as not to be distracted by the
sight of passing women; in consequence
he sees nothing, and bumps himself against
the walls. Another, standing at a street
corner or at a crossing in order to be well
seen, turns his face to the wall, and lifts
up his voice; he is praying, telling God
how he pays his tithes and sets an example
of all the virtues; a fourth walks bent
double, his head as low as possible, paying
heed to nothing, because he is absorbed in
meditation on a difficult text. One can
imagine the indignation with which such
sights inspired Jesus. " Oh, the hypo
crites ! " he would say when he saw them ;
" they have received their reward ! "

DURING HIS MINISTRY 137
Among themselves, in their schools, these
worthies were forever deep in casuistries
which bristled with minute points. These
were the doctors of occult learning, a most
accurate notion of which may be gained
from almost any page of the Talmud.
They carried on discussions of most ab
surd puerility, interminable successions of
solemn trivialities without the slightest
moral value, filling with pride those who
devoted themselves to these so-called stud
ies, and closing their minds to such a
degree that these barbarous absurdities
appeared to them as the natural and seri
ous occupation of grave and respectable
persons. There was not, and there could not be, a
single point of contact between Jesus and
these Jerusalemites. Besides, Galileans
were a despised folk. The disdain which
Jesus had already been aware of when at
the age of twelve years he accompanied
Joseph and Mary to Jerusalem for the
first time, he had felt more and more
acutely every year. Their accent was
laughed at ; they were considered unortho
dox ; they were deemed ignorant and some
what ridiculous.

138 JESUS CHRIST
And then the ideas of Jesus had decidedly
changed. The Temple, where at the age of
twelve he had enjoyed such sweet and
pure emotions, to such a degree that he
called what he was doing " occupying
himself with the things of his Father," 1
and where he had hngered, forgetful of
everything else, — the Temple, to remain
in which then seemed to him the supreme
happiness, had become to him the symbol of
all that was to disappear. The very building
itself was to be destroyed. In vain had it
been rebuilt, in vain did the priesthood
hope for it a long future. Jesus perceived
that nothing of all that was destined to
last long. Sadduceeism would pass away,
he said to himself ; and its abode, the Tem
ple, would also pass away. He who often
repeated, "I desire mercy and not sacri
fice," 2 could not look upon the Temple in
another light than that of the Pharisees
themselves, and the latter had for a very
long time held it as of slight consequence.
Ah, yes, if it had continued to be what
it ought to have been, Jesus would have
made it his chosen habitation ! Even in
its decadence he still loved it, for it was
i Luke ii. 49. 2 Hos. vi. 6.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 139
still his Father's house, a "house of
prayer ; " and though it might have be
come the arena of discussions, disputes,
and subtile questions, he still made it his
centre on all his visits. But what he
saw there deeply pained him. In the
court were stalls, mercantile operations,
all the movement and traffic of a bazaar ;
for it is needless to say that the expulsion
which he effected was followed by no
enduring result. Before the sanctuary
were hideous scenes of butchery, and
among the Temple servants an irreligious
vulgarity which wounded his pious feel
ings. This debased priesthood did not
seem to him the inheritors of the ancient
traditions. The true heirs were those spir
itually minded ones who carried forward
the first chapter of Isaiah, and were in
spired with its prophetic utterances.
" To love God and one's neighbor is
much more than all whole burnt offerings
and sacrifices." 1 This the Scribes of his time
loudly proclaimed. Much more was Jesus
convinced of it. The synagogue, with its
orators, its liberty of preaching, appeared
to him far more serious and important than
i Mark xii. 33.

140 JESUS CHRIST
the mechanical ritualistic functions of in
different and formalizing priests.
There were then, so to speak, two
Judaisms, growing ever wider and wider
apart. On one side the men of the
Talmuds, the learned men, laics all of
them, rulers of the synagogue and belong
ing to the Pharisaic party. On the other
side the priests, occupying an elevated
rank, rulers of the Temple and even of the
Sanhedrin, forming an incredulous, Epi
curean, almost impious aristocracy, a sacer
dotal caste apart from the people and
the national sentiment represented by the
Zealots, who were enthusiastic laymen.
The Sadducees would have no innovators
nor innovations ; the official routine sufficed
for them. It was they first who detached
Jesus from Judaism. The sight of the
irreligion and moral carelessness of those
who were in possession of the Temple
itself, the haughty impiety of those who
represented the race of Aaron, first began
to persuade Jesus of the necessity of ab
rogating the Law.
Luther lost all his illusions at Rome.
In the same way Jesus learned much from
his visits to Jerusalem. His rupture with

DURING HIS MINISTRY 141
the Temple preceded his rupture with the
Pharisees. It must, then, have been effected
during the visits which he made to the holy
city during his Galilean ministry ; and this
first separation marks his entrance upon
the second phase of his ministry, — for it
was soon followed by the second.
Up to this time he had been a Jewish
reformer ; henceforth he was to be the
destroyer of Judaism. The latter, under
its sacerdotal form, inspired in him a
repugnance with which its Pharisaic form
was shortly also to inspire him. It was
necessary that the sacrifices should be
abolished. The fulfilling, of which he
often spoke, would in this case be an abo
lition. Here again Jesus adheres to Es-
senism, and develops an idea which he
received from the Essenes, for they were
entirely indifferent to the Temple, all
of them considering it as impious and
profaned. On his return to Galilee after these
journeys to Jerusalem, Jesus used to re
sume his work of preparation for the
kingdom ; but we have now arrived at a
time where he could not again resume it:
the rupture with the Pharisees was now in

142 JESUS CHRIST
its turn about to be precipitated. Jesus
was to separate himself from them. In fact,
he had for a long time been separate from
them. He had thought himself still of
their number, doing nothing else than
accentuate the liberality of the best among
them. But now he perceived to what an
extent he actually repudiated them, and
with them all Judaism.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 143

CHAPTER IX
OPPOSITION TO JESUS
JESUS preached a long time in Galilee
without encountering the slightest op
position. Rabbis were going about the
country ; he was one of them ; they were all
free, and no preacher was disturbed by any
one in the exercise of his ministry. Ex
hortations and cures attracted some people
and left others indifferent, and the little
Jewish world none the less went on its
every-day life.
But the success of Jesus was such that
at last it excited both jealousy and fear.
On certain days the people came in crowds
to hear him.1 Certain Pharisees who had
been far from attaining such success, saw
all this with displeasure ; and from this to
finding Jesus in error, insisting that his
success was not sound, and investigating
his life, discovering in it omission of rites
1 Matt. iv. 25 ; Mark ii. 4 ; Luke v. 1, viii. 4, 19, xi.
29, xii. 1 ; etc.

144 JESUS CHRIST
and errors of practice or of doctrine, was
not very far. Jesus perceived that he was
being spied upon, suspected ; that his liber
ality was criticised ; and the time came
when he was obliged to hide himself.1
He had already been repelled from Naz
areth; and he had certainly been very
sensitive to the aloofness of his own com
patriots. The Nazarenes, who had known
him as a child, persisted in remaining un
believing. They had seen Jesus grow up
in their village ; they remembered the car
penter's bench, his sisters were married in
the town, his brothers did not believe,2 and
decidedly he could not be a prophet in his
own country : he admitted that himself.
On the border of the lake, Chorazin and
Bethsaida had also refused to yield to
him.3 But it was above all from the Phar
isees that gradually came the most overt
opposition, that which was destined to
take on formidable proportions and pur
sue Jesus to the very end.
In the presence of this new opposition,
1 Matt. xiii. 14-16 ; Mark iii. 7, ix. 29, 30.
2 John vii. 5.
8 Matt. xi. 21, 24; Luke x. 12-15; Matt. xii. 41,
42; Luke xi. 31, 32, xviii. 8.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 145
the tokens of hostility which we have
already seen count for nothing. When
Jesus was repelled at Jerusalem, it was
only by Sadduceeism, a form of Jewish
faith which had no strength and no future.
When he failed at Nazareth, it was as the
consequence of local animosity resting
on private motives. But the rupture with
the Pharisees was the rupture with Juda
ism itself, of all in it that was most vital
and authentic.
Up to this time — and this is the character
of this first period of his ministry — Jesus,
as we have said and shown, had remained
in the great current of the best Pharisaic
ideas. He had pursued a parallel work
with that of the Pharisees, in no sense
hostile to it, but on the contrary affording
numerous points of contact with it ; but
little by little the resemblance had been
effaced. In reality, for a long time Jesus
had been little by little detaching himself
from Pharisaism without in any wise in
tending it, believing himself to be faithful
to the true spirit of the religion of his
people, persuaded that he was destroying
nothing, but fulfilling all things. From
this time he perceived that the spirit which
10

146 JESUS CHRIST
animated him and the reform which he
desired were not in the least conformable
to the hopes of his people, and especially
of those who led them, the Pharisees.
On the one hand, his success was increas
ing ; on the other, that which divided him
from the old Judaism was growing sharper,
a separation was inevitable.
In fact, the formalism of the Pharisees
had always displeased him. He had at all
times disapproved of the vain practices
and affectations of many among them.1
He preached the religion of the heart, and
his whole law was the love of God, charity,
forgiveness.2 We have said that he estab
lished no religious practice ; that if he
later instituted Baptism and the Eucharist,
still for the moment he desired only a
heart-religion which should show itself by
fulfilling the will of God and not by exterior
mechanical practices.3 He remained true
to the tradition of the prophet Isaiah.
That book was certainly among his chosen
reading, and we do not dispute that more
1 Matt. xv. 9, ix. 14, xi. 19, vi. 2 ff.
* Matt. xxii. 37 f . ; Mark xii. 28 f . ; Luke x. 25 f .
" Matt. xv. 8 ; Mark vii. 6 ; borrowed from Isa.
yxix. 13.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 147
than one of the Pharisees secretly approved
of him.
But he was decidedly too liberal for the
majority of them, and he became more and
more so all the time. Concerning the
Sabbath in particular, he was more than
liberal ; he opeuly violated it.1 Not that
he rejected it in itself, but he rejected
the superstitious beliefs and the miserable
casuistry of which its observance was the
source. The same was the case with ablutions
and the interminable discussions concern
ing what is pure and what is impure.2
Finally, he explicitly accused the Phari
sees ; he called them " blind leaders of the
blind," and declared that they were "in
wardly corrupt." 3
Let us make clear the points upon
which Jesus squarely separated himself
from Pharisaism. He said that it was the
heart which must be changed : with the
Pharisees observances sufficed. They were
satisfied, sure of themselves, laying em
phasis on external things, austere in a
1 Matt. xii. 1-5 and parallel passages.
2 Mark vii. 1 ff.
3 Matt. xii. 34, xv. 1 f ., xxiii. ; Luke vi. 45, xi. 39 f

148 JESUS CHRIST
somewhat narrow way, making veritable
dupes of their disciples. Jesus preached
to the poor, the humble, the lowly ; and
the Pharisees had a religion for people of
standing. They were impeccable pedants,
always in the right; they took the chief
seats in the synagogues, and did their alms
to the sound of the trumpet. Jesus re
quired humility and fear in view of the
judgment of God, and the Pharisees prayed
aloud, dragging their feet and stumbling
at the stones, walking with bended backs,
overwhelmed with the burden of the Law.
It was especially the Pharisees of the
school of Shammai who kept at a distance
from Jesus, and from whom Jesus also
kept at a distance. Agreeing with them
on a single point, divorce, Jesus certainly
preferred the Pharisees of the school of
Hillel. The disciples of Shammai were
narrow and exclusive ; they stifled the
Law under tradition, and in the inter
est of its protection surrounded it with a
hedge. Their conservative measures were
feeble and outworn precautions, which
could not but arouse the repugnance of
every one who had any degree of breadth
of mind.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 149
Thus it was that Jesus felt the bonds to
be breaking, one by one, that up to this
time had held him to the Judaism of his
day. The synagogue which he had fre
quented and loved, the worship practised
by his mother, the worship which had
entranced his childhood and which indeed
he never entirely gave up,1 were no longer
for him what they had once been. It was
impossible that he should not find the
worship hollow and the teaching a tissue
of error. And it was these Pharisees who
were the leaders of it, — the Pharisees on
whom he had so strongly counted !
Henceforth he would struggle against
official hypocrisy, opposing text to tradi
tion. Theology, as it develops, always
goes farther and farther from its starting-
point. Jesus showed the Pharisees that
they must go back to the authorities and
hold fast by the texts ; the Protestants
were to do the same thing in the sixteenth
century.2 But he did more, and the exegetical
argument was not the essential one in his
eyes. Before appealing to texts he had
i Luke iv. 16, " according to his custom.''
2 Matt. xv. 2 ff. ; Mark vii. 2.

150 JESUS CHRIST
appealed to the authority of his conscience.
As early as the Sermon on the Mount, as
we showed in our former volume, he op
posed to the text itself his " But I say
unto you." 1 If the Pharisees altered Mosa-
ism with their traditions, he did not simply
refer everything to Moses, nor simply re
store the old religion. He did not put
new wine into old wine-skins.2 He created
a new order of things, a new and final
religion. Decidedly he not only separated
himself from the Judaism of his time, but
from the ancient Law, the Torah itself.
Yet the Pharisees did not attack him
upon that point. His "I say unto you"
might pass for an interpretation, a com
mentary; and they themselves made the
like. True first-century Jews, what espe
cially grieved them was that Jesus did not
observe the rites. He might think as he
liked, but the intolerable thing was that
he did not practise. What ! he did not
fast ! He did not refrain from a single one
of the thirty-nine works forbidden on the
Sabbath day ! He associated with sinners,
continually contracted uncleannesses, and
i Matt. v. 22, 28, 34, etc.
- Matt. ix. 17 ; Mark ii. 22 ; Luke v. 38.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 151
did not so much as dream of perceiving
it ! And he required nothing of his dis
ciples, taught them nothing of what is
permitted and what forbidden, and the
apostles never fasted ! x What ! no ab
lutions, no complete bath before meals !
He said, " Give alms, and all things are
clean unto you." 2 What a scandal ! The
Pharisees were ruffled to the last degree.
The parable of the Pharisee and the Pub
lican carried their exasperation to a
climax.3 Their hatred increased in direct propor
tion to the increasing aloofness of Jesus
from Judaism. It is certain that he was by
this time hardly a Jew, and that at bottom
he had always been very little a Jew.
When he uttered the Sermon on the Mount,
spiritualizing Pharisaism and interpreting
the Law in its largest sense, he believed
himself to be in the great current of au
thentic Judaism ; he expected to preserve
it by reforming it. Therefore he affirmed
that not one jot should pass without being
fulfilled, but fulfilled in his own way,
1 Matt. xv. 1 ff . ; Mark vii. 4, 8 ; Luke v. 33-39, and
vi. 1 ff., xviii. 38 ff.
2 Luke xi. 41. 3 Luke xviii. 9 f.

152 JESUS CHRIST
fulfilled after having been transformed ;
and, rising from the act to the sentiment
which dictated it, he thought himself to be
professing true Mosaism. We have already
compared him to Luther protesting against
indulgences, convinced that he was doing
the work of a good Catholic, certain that
the Pope would approve of him, yet soon
to be cast out and excommunicated. This
was logical, for he had not for a long time
been a Catholic. In the same way Jesus,
preaching a change of heart, saying that
the act itself was nothing, appealing to the
moral sense, was no longer a Jew; for
practice and the deed performed are the
very essence of Judaism.
Thus Jesus and the Pharisees engaged
in an open conflict. The latter accused
Jesus of casting out demons by the prince
of demons.1 The attack was brutal; it
began with the most odious of calumnies
and the most offensive of insults. The
accusation that Jesus was inspired by Satan
recalls the accusation formulated in the
Middle Ages in the words, " He has
sold his soul to the Devil," — so true
i Matt. xii. 24 ; Mark iii. 22 ; Luke xi. 15.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 153
it is that clerical hatred is the same in
all times.1
1 In his reply Jesus seems to admit that the king
dom of God is present. We have already explained
this passage, but it is useful to recur to it here. Jesus
first said, " If I by the finger of God cast out demons,
then is the kingdom of God come upon you" (Matt.
xii. 28; Luke xi. 20). This passage does not signify
that the kingdom is already founded, but simply that
it is imminent. The kingdom has come i<j>' v/ias. The
term expresses a menace, something that is to happen-
The kingdom confronts you with its chastisements.
You are living immediately before its coming. This
fact, that demons are to-day cast out by me with
the aid of God, proves the speedy appearance of the
kingdom ; you have come face to face with it, and it
is close by. The same was the case when the Phari
sees asked Jesus when the kingdom would appear
(Luke xvii. 20), and he replied, "The kingdom of God
cometh not with observation : neither shall they say,
Lo, here ! or Lo, there ! for lo, the kingdom of God is
in your midst." Here Jesus said : The kingdom of
God is not being prepared for by exterior signs,
miracles, portents, as you Pharisees suppose : there
will no doubt be great signs at the last hour, catas
trophes and terrible woes; but all that will happen
only when hearts are ready. When men are prepared
to enter the kingdom, when they are changed, born
anew, become as little children, poor, simple, — trans
formations which are not visible, — then the kingdom
will appear without development, suddenly, without
precursory signs, like the thief in the night. The
premonitory signs will be purely moral, and by these
signs, which already exist, the kingdom is announced;
it is virtually present in my person. There will be no

154 JESUS CHRIST
Jesus replied by making use of a weapon
which he wielded as he alone could do, —
irony. It is seldom that there is no ill-
nature in irony. There was none in the
irony of Jesus ; it was holy because it was
always just and always merited. Therefore
it touched the heart, and the Jews never
recovered from it. The ridicule which
attaches to their name dates from the day
when Jesus said to one of them, "Which
of these three, thinkest thou, proved neigh
bor unto him that fell among the robbers ? " 1
Or again, " Many good works have I shown
you . . . for which of those works do ye
stone me?"2 " Is it lawful on the Sab
bath day to do good, or to do harm ? to
save a soul, or to destroy it ? " 3 " Is one a
debtor when he swears by the Temple?
or must he swear by the gold of the Tem-
sign which men can observe and say, " Here is the
kingdom," for I am the true sign, it is I whom you
must observe and listen to. No other proof will be
given you than my own person. That we must not
understand by these words that the kingdom of God
is present and founded, is proved by the witness of the
fact that everywhere else, before and after this mo
ment, Jesus announces the kingdom as to come-
(Matt. xix. 23 ; Mark x. 23, 25 ; Luke xviii. 24, 26.)
i Luke x. 36. 2 John x. 32.
8 Luke vi. 9.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 155
pie ? l by the altar, or by the gift that is
upon it ? " — childish casuistry upon which
Jesus poured out his scorn. His blows
were mortal, and the Pharisees allied them
selves with the Herodians to bring about
his very death. Their hatred could be
gratified by no less. They banded them
selves together ; in face of a common enemy
adversaries become friends. The day would
come when Pilate and Herod would be
come friends ; and already the Pharisees,
"the pure," were making an agreement
with spies in the pay of Antipas ; to-mor
row they would come to an agreement
with the Sadducees, whom in the depths of
their hearts they execrated. From this
time they had only one thought : " Death
to the innovator! "
Jesus soon became aware of an incipient
unpopularity, which could not but increase.
He asked himself what could be the out
come of this opposition. Failure and defeat,
even his own premature passing away, did
not seem to him impossible. Once, when
he was asked why his disciples did not
fast,2 he compared himself in his answer to
1 Matt, xxiii. 16.
2 Mark ii. 18 ff. and parallel passages.

156 JESUS CHRIST
a bridegroom, saying sadly, " The day will
come when the bridegroom shall be taken
away ! " 1 It was only a passing surmise,
but its significance is clear. This allu
sion is the first ; Jesus then foresaw a pos
sible violent death. Up to this time all
had been beautiful like a joyful marriage
feast. " We have not fasted," the happy
and peaceful disciples had been able to say ;
and here was the master, the bridegroom,
saying, " I shall be taken away from
you ! " This taking away, this disappear
ance, seemed to him, if not certain, at least
as very possible.
Jesus retained a few personal friends
among the Pharisees, but the bulk of the
party became more and more unfavorable
and hostile to him, and he separated him
self from them continually more and
more. His Messianic ideas began, in their turn,
to change their character. To the exterior
drama now beginning corresponded hence
forth an interior drama which nothing in
history at all resembles. First the pos
sibility, then the extreme probability, and
finally the certainty of a violent and ap-
i aimpefi. Mark ii. 20.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 157
proaching death, — such was the new ele
ment which was about to enter into his
previsions of the future ; and as his con
viction that he was the Messiah never
weakened for an instant, as the certitude
of this which he had gained at his baptism
was final and unalterable, he began to con
ceive of a Messiah who might be perse
cuted and put to death, and, consequently,
who might disappear before the advent of
the kingdom. The association of these two
ideas was something so strange and unheard
of, — a violent death on one side, and Messi-
anism on the other, — it was so far outside
of all that a Jew of that time could con
ceive or imagine, that it is impossible for
us to picture to ourselves the interior strug
gles which Jesus must have gone through,
the painful surprises, the acts of abnega
tion, and the immensity of the sacrifice to
which he was called. To give up all that
he had believed, hoped, understood ! For
long years he had beheved, he had known,
himself to be the Messiah ; he had the very
clear consciousness that he had to perform
a Messianic, that is to say, a royal task ;
and this idea had been for him absolutely
exclusive of that of suffering. And yet

158 JESUS CHRIST
he came at last to accept suffering and
premature death, a death above all others
ignominious and infamous. Ah ! it is cer
tain that we shall never sound the depths
of the Messianic consciousness of Jesus.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 159

CHAPTER X
INSTITUTION OP THE APOSTOLATE
XX 7TIEN these dark presentiments awoke,
Jesus remained as secure as ever of
the accomplishment of his task. Never a
shadow of doubt, of his Father or of his
mission or of himself, darkened his soul.
The nation rejected him; so let it be.
Well, he would cut loose from it ; and he
decided to found a society of disciples
whom he would send forth to prepare for
the coming of the kingdom. When that
should appear, the twelve tribes would be
restored ; J therefore it was necessary that
these continuators of his work, the future
heads of the national kingdom, should be
twelve in number. Jesus chose them from
among the best of his disciples, and gave
them the name of apostles. Some of them,
who had been especially faithful, were
naturally designated : the two brothers,
i Matt. xix. 28 : Luke xxii. 30.

160 JESUS CHRIST
Bene Johanan,1 and the two brothers,
Bene Zebedaiou,2 were closely attached to
him ; eight others, expressly selected by
him, were added to these. It was not
solely a sort of army of goodness which he
created in order that immediately after his
death the budding Church should be
guided according to his Spirit, and the
kingdom continually announced ; it was a
new and unknown institution which sud
denly appeared, and by its mere existence
consecrated the rupture of Jesus with
Judaism. It created a veritable schism.
Jesus so deeply felt the gravity of the
resolution which he was making, that he
passed the night in prayer.3 It was on a
mountain which had taken the place of the
one near Nazareth whither for so many years
he had gone to adore his Father ; it over
looked Capernaum and the entire lake.
During long hours he sought to know the
will of God, setting before his sight his
new project, his fears, his hopes, and the
choice of the Twelve which he was about
to make.
The next morning he designated them
1 Andrew and Peter. 2 James and John.
3 Luke vi. 12.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 161
and gave them his instructions. The Ser
mon on the Mount has preserved to us some
scattered fragments of the discourse which.
he addressed to them. It is difficult to
find in this collection of utterances, which
do not always follow logically, the clear
echo of what Jesus must have said to them
at this decisive hour. He recommended.
to them humility, gentleness, graciousness.
He said to them : " Ye are the salt of the.
earth; ye are the hght of the world; a
city set. upon . a hill cannot be hid."1 It.
was necessary for them to become " chil
dren of the Father which is in heaven." 2
He preached to them a " higher righteous
ness," 3 and said to them, " Be ye therefore;
perfect, even as your Father which is in
heaven is perfect." 4 To these principles
of pure morality, placing before their eyes
for goal the new righteousness, divine
sonship, perfection itself, Jesus added
neither rite nor rule, and asked of the
Twelve no practice. Later he added to
these first precepts a short prayer,5 accord
ing to the custom of the Rabbis of that
i Matt. v. 13 ff. 2 Matt. v. 45.
8 Matt. v. 20. 4 Matt. v. 48.
6 Matt. vi. 9 ff. ; Luke xi. 1 ff.
11

1G2 JESUS CHRIST
time, which was probably to be recited im
mediately after the Shema. For if Jesus
imposed no new act of worship, he did not
abolish those of which the Twelve and him
self had long had the habit; and if he
suppressed fasts and ablutions, he always
frequented the synagogue and recited the
customary prayers.
Jesus also gave the Twelve special in
structions. He took care that they should
always know the hidden meaning of the
parables, and he had secrets with them
which they were never to communicate to
any one.
No doubt Jesus preached to the crowds
and was understood by every one. Airs
of mystery were always foreign to him, and
his teaching has nothing esoteric. Yet
there are certain things which he said " in
the darkness," and " in the ear " of the
Twelve.1 In all this he followed the doc
tors and Rabbis of his time. The parables
themselves, as we showed when speaking
of the language which Jesus made use of,
were in some degree enigmatic. If they
put the highest religious verities within
i Matt. x. 26, 27 ; Mark. iv. 21 ff. ; Luke viii. 17, xii.
2 ff. ; John xiv. 22.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 163
reach of the humblest and the common
folk, they did so only by heightening
their curiosity, without always gratifying
it. They were far from being immedi
ately comprehensible; sometimes the vul
gar did not immediately seize the sense,
and Jesus, who wanted the Twelve to com
prehend this always, would explain the
parables to them in detail when he was
alone with them.1
Finally he sent them out two by two, for
he still desired to save his people by the
word, and stir up a religious and moral
transformation of their nation. The apos
tles were to divide among themselves the
twelve tribes, none others ; their whole
mission was to save the Jews: it is the
apostolate of the circumcision, as St. Paul
called it at a later time.2
The Twelve then went about preaching
during the lifetime of Jesus ; " they con
fined themselves to announcing the ap
proaching coming of the kingdom,4 repeated
the Master's teachings, and, like him,
i Matt. xiii. 10 ff., 34 ff., iv. 10 ff., 33 ff. ; Luke viii.
9 ff., xii. 41.
2 Gal. ii. 7. 3 Luke ix. 6.
* Matt. x. 7 ; Luke x. 9.

164 JESUS CHRIST
performed cures. Their manners and
customs were purely Essenian ; nowhere
in the gospel is the identity of budding
Christianity with Essenism more strik
ing. All the counsels as to conduct which
Jesus gave them are those which were given
to Essenes about to travel, — to stop at the
houses of brethren only, to pronounce the
Selam, or greeting of peace, on entering,
and by this sign to recognize true friends.
By this salutation of peace they themselves
were to accept hospitality.1 They were
to carry no provisions, no change of gar
ments; a single tunic, a single pair of
sandals, was to suffice. All this is the
purest Essenism. Let them go neither
to the Gentiles nor the Samaritans; let
them practise medicine, heal the sick,
cast out demons, cleanse lepers, and
let them do it all freely.2
In the view of Jesus the apostle was him
self ; and this he said in his instructions
to the Twelve.3 This creation of the
apostolate therefore proves two things :
1 Matt, x., passim.
2 Matt. x. 8.
8 Matt. x. 40-42, xxv. 35 f . ; Mark ix. 40 ; Luke x.
16 i John xiii. 20.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 165
1. The desire of Jesus, in case of his own
disappearance, to remain upon the earth
in the person of authentic representatives,
charged with the work of completing those
preparations for the speedy coming of the
kingdom which were to be interrupted
by his death ; 2. The desire to re-establish
the twelve tribes of Israel when the
kingdom should appear.
Therefore Jesus communicated only to
the Twelve his power to heal, to cast out
demons, and to prophesy,1 — that is to say,
his entire function as Rabbi.
The apostles' methods of heahng were
those of the Essenes, — anointing with
oil and the imposition of hands. Their
power to handle venomous serpents and
drink poisoned beverages with impunity (
is also mentioned ; but the passage in the
Gospels which makes this statement is
certainly apocryphal,2 and such powers
Were attributed to them only at a later
date. It is even evident that their power
to heal was limited, and sometimes attended
with want of success. Certain cases of
possession were too difficult for them ; it
1 Matt. vii. 22, x. 1 ; Mark iii. 15, vi. 13 ; Luke x. 17.
2 Mark xvi. 18.

166 JESUS CHRIST
sometimes occurred that they had not the
needed knowledge and were unaware
of the special process required to cast
out certain kinds of demons.1 For some
of these prayer was indispensable, and also
fasting. This detail shows that prayer was not
always essential to the cure of a possessed
person, and that, on the contrary, it was
sometimes necessary not only to ask God
to expel the evil spirit, but also to prac
tise a more or less prolonged fast, — a thing
which Jesus had authorized his disciples
to dispense with in ordinary life.2
Though Jesus communicated to his
apostles alone the power to heal and to
exorcise, it was the case that others
attempted to cast out demons in his name
without even being his disciples, and we
are not told that they did not succeed.
When the fact was reported to Jesus, he
declared its authorization.3 In fact, all
methods were used for delivering those un-
1 Matt. xvii. 19-21.
2 We have already alluded to this passage, and said
that the mention of fasting in Matt. xxii. 2, is prob
ably unauthentic (see page 137).
8 Mark ix. 38 ff . ; Luke ix. 49, 50.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 167
fortunate persons who were possessed. We
have seen above that men went so far as
to invoke Beelzebub, the prince of the infer
nal regions, because, being the devil, he had
all power over his subordinates. Thus do
superstitions reproduce themselves always
the same, and the most ridiculous inven
tions of the Middle Age were already in
existence. Choosing the Twelve, Jesus founded a
church, a community. He admirably
understood the importance of action in
common, its enormous power, and the
invincible strength of union by love.
This church, this community of the
Twelve and of all who should join them,
was to bind and loose ; that is to say, it
would have the right to permit and forbid,
it could forgive sins, reprimand, warn.
But Jesus added no code of rules to these
promises and privileges. He gave no indi
cations touching assemblies of believers,
and prescribed no ceremonies for the apos
tles to celebrate. Thus the primitive
Church was to be instituted on the model
of the synagogue, and the Twelve had no
other form of worship than the worship of
their fathers.

168 JESUS CHRIST
This is easy to understand. Jesus' only
care was to assure the life of his followers
during the time which should intervene
between his death and the coming of the
kingdom, since it was possible that he
might die before the kingdom of God
should come. And thus, having instituted
the apostolate, he confined himself to giv
ing his followers general instructions: he
sent them only to the Jews, and it was
enough for him to speak such words as
would encourage them when he should be
no longer in their midst.
They would find their first consolation in
the thought that the Holy Spirit was with
them. When he, Jesus, should be no
longer there, the Spirit would come, and it
would be his Spirit, strengthening his own,
for he would be always present with
his faithful ones, though they might be
only two or three gathered together.1
Such words and counsels were a great
source of strength to the apostles when
at a later day they recalled them to mind.
Jesus had predicted truly, it was the
Spirit of God which filled them ; never
could humanity have produced by itself
1 Matt, xviii. 20.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 169
the works which they performed; and
the supernatural shines forth through the
whole history of the primitive Church.
It is needless to say that there is no
trace of the ecclesiastical Trinity in the
teaching of Jesus, as there is indeed no
trace of theology or of a confession of
faith. But what St. Paul said at a
later day in one of his apostolic saluta
tions,1 naming successively the grace of the
Heavenly Father, the love of Jesus Christ,
and the communion of the Holy Ghost, and
invoking these blessings upon his readers,
was clearly drawn from the words of the
Christ. The Holy Spirit is not a separate
personality (it should be needless to say
this, so evident is it) ; it is himself, Jesus,
coming back into the hearts of his disciples
to establish his kingdom by their means.
It is impossible not to admit that Jesus
was acquainted with Jewish theology,
which made of the Holy Spirit a divine
hypostasis, and identified it with the Word
or Wisdom;2 and it is for this reason that
1 2 Cor. xiii. 13 ; and what Jesus himself said when
he instituted baptism in the name of the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost. Matt, xxviii. 19, 20.
2 Wisd. Sol. i. 7, vii. 7, ix. 17, xii. 1 ; Eccles. i. 9,
xv. 6, xxiv. 27, xxxix, 8 ; Judith xvi. 17.

170 JESUS CHRIST
he insisted upon the Holy Spirit, not only
in his teaching as the fourth Gospel
gives it, but also in that of the first three.
"Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit," he
said, " shall never be forgiven." x " It is
not ye who speak, but the Holy Spirit
which speaketh for you." 2 " The Father
giveth the Spirit to them that ask him ; " 3
etc. Such passages abound ; and in this
there is nothing surprising, for this was the
point in Jewish theology to which at that
time the greatest importance was attached.
In fact, out of this doctrine issued the
great question of the relations of God
with the world or with intermediary beings ;
and John the Baptist himself had already
spoken of a baptism of fire and of the
Spirit.4 When Jesus announced the coming of
the Holy Spirit, he gave to him in the Syro-
Chaldaic tongue a name with which we are
acquainted ; he called him the Paraclete.5
The Jewish doctors had derived this word
1 Matt. xii. 31, 32 ; Mark iii. 29; Luke xii. 10.
2 Mark xiii. 11 ; Luke xii. 12.
8 Luke xi. 13.
4 Matt. iii. 11 ; Mark i. 8 ; Luke iii. 16 ; John i, 26,
iii. 5 ; Acts i. 5, 8, x. 47.
6 See Buxtorf, Lex. Talm.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 171
from the Greek parakletos, which signifies
advocate, counsellor, doctor who explains
hidden mysteries. The Paraclete was so
little a distinct personality that Jesus
himself is thus called.1 The Spirit, the
Paraclete, was to replace him ; and this
would be his Spirit, it would be himself.2
As to a book to which should be com
mitted his teachings, Jesus never spoke of
such a thing. We have explained why
such a book was far from his thought.3
He had come to fulfil the Law and the
Prophets, and not in the least to publish
texts to be added to those of the Old
Testament. Finally, he instituted two ceremonies, — ¦
Baptism and the Eucharist.4 We must
reserve this subject for our third volume.
But a word must be said here concerning
the meals which he took in common with
the apostles, and with them alone. We
believe that long before the institution of
1 1 John ii. 1. 2 John xiv. 18.
8 See chapter ii., " The Language of Jesus," page
59 ff.4 It is remarkable that Jesus, with the exception of
a few interdictions like that of the oath (Matt. v. 34),
or of divorce (xix. 3 f.), never laid down a single rule
to be followed.

172 JESUS CHRIST
the Eucharist, which was established only.
on the last day, Jesus used to partake,
with the apostles of a meal which had a
sacred character. The Pharisees had a
habit of fraternal agape, with complete;
ablutions before and afterward, the bene
diction of each dish, and conversation on,
religious subjects ; and it is highly possible
that the feasts to which Jesus was, invited,
at their houses were of this character.1
However this may be, there is more,
than one resemblance between the frater
nal feasts of the Pharisees, who had insti
tuted fixed clays on which the brotherhood.
should assemble to take a meal together,
and the agapai of the early Christians. The
brethren celebrated those agapce as a sign>
of union. It is therefore more than prob
able that when in the course of his minis
try Jesus presided at the table around
which were grouped the Twelve, he gave
a special character to the gathering. We .
see him in St. John, a year before the
institution of the Eucharist,2 comparing
himself to bread which nourishes and
gives life ; and, according to certain pas-
1 Luke v. 29, vii. 30, xi. 37, xiv. 1 ff.
2 John vi. 35 ff.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 173
sages, he had a habit of breaking the bread
at the beginning of a meal, giving the
pieces to his disciples with a prayer of
thanksgiving. The gesture which he;
usually made at such moments was pecu
liar to him. It might aid in his recogni
tion,1 and the apostles kept in their minds
and their hearts the memory of the solemn,
moment of "the breaking of bread" by
their Master ; in the meal which he took
with his own it was a sacred moment with
a religious character. For that matter, to
eat of the same loaf was always, for the
Jew, a bond of union and intimacy. A
son of Israel did not sit down at the table
of a Gentile, precisely because such an act
presupposed an entire community of feel
ings and ideas ; and it is to be understood
how Jesus, who loved this common meal,
who at such moments felt himself most
near to his own and most closely united to
them, must, at the moment of parting from
the apostles, have felt the need of institut
ing a ceremony, a sacred supper, which
would recall to their minds those which
they had been used to take together, and
which would perpetuate his mystic pres-
1 Luke xxiv. 31,

174 JESUS CHRIST
ence, since by the Holy Spirit he would
be always in their midst.
Jesus must have felt all the more the
need of drawing near to his apostles and
living with them in close intimacy, in
proportion as the rupture with Judaism
was drawing daily nearer to its consum
mation. This rupture was destined soon to have
an important result. Jesus was to become
unsectarian. Up to this time he had not
been so. He had spoken of Gentiles as
strangers, and when he had sent the Twelve
forth upon their mission, he had said, " Go
not to the Gentiles nor to the Samaritans."
Not long after he used entirely different
language, going so far as to say that the
Gentiles would pass into the kingdom be
fore the Jews ; 1 that the vineyard destined
for the children of Israel should be given
to others,2 and in one of his parables
clearly designating the Jews, he makes the
king, who represents God himself, say,
" None of those who were bidden shall taste
of my supper." 3
These were new words, and they reveal
1 Luke xv. 24 f. 2 Matt. xxi. 24, etc.
8 Luke xiv. 24.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 175
long and painful experiences. We are far
now from the early time, far from the first
preaching on the Lake and on the Mount.
Opposition — a formidable opposition —
had burst out under the pressure of events.
Now the impatience of the people is, in its
turn, precipitating these events. Although
the change of hearts has not yet been
brought about, Jesus makes it understood
that he is indeed the Messiah, and his peo
ple, who are in no condition to understand
the austere spirituality of his Messianism,
will follow the Pharisees' example in part
ing from him. Jesus had already done
everything to retard his rupture with the
latter. He had hoped to avoid it, and
when it took place he had faced all its
consequences in creating the apostolate.
It was thus that, with admirable energy, a
conviction and assurance which nothing
could shake, he prepared for the future,
for what he called "the hour of the
Father," awaiting it with confidence, what
ever might be the sacrifice which the
Father was to ask of him.
Thus, in his days of endurance, of care
and renunciation, the Twelve were for
him a hope and consolation. When he

176 JESUS CHRIST
thought of them, he thrilled with joy,1 he
commended them to his Father, he thanked
him for having given him these " children,"
who knew more than the "wise and pru
dent ; " and when they told him of their
success, when they said, "Even the de
mons are subject to us," 2 — that is, we have
succeeded even in exorcisms, then, indeed,
he saw in advance all the victories that
were to be gained, — evil forever van
quished, and Satan overthrown appeared to
him, like a vision created by his unfalter
ing optimism, as if falling from heaven and
disappearing like a flash of lightning.3
1 Luke x. 21. 2 Luke x. 17. 8 Luke x. 19.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 177

CHAPTER XI
THE SUMMER OP THE YEAR 29 1
JESUS was full of these thoughts when
the entirely unexpected news of the
death of John the Baptist suddenly sur
prised him.
Up to this time, in spite of the opposition
which he was arousing and the plots which
were being formed against him, in spite of
the delays to which the apparition of the
kingdom seemed to be obliged to submit,
he had remained in Galilee, not, doubtless,
without solicitude, but expecting the hour
of the Father and pursuing his work. The
i We do not insist upon the figure 29. The pre
cision of the chronological researches which lead us
to adopt it makes it seem probable ; but at such a dis
tance from the events, and with the imperfections of
the calendar of the ancient Jews, nothing is certain.
The essential thing is that we are here concerned with
the last year before the death of Jesus. It can be the
year 29 only if Jesus died in the year 30.
12

178 JESUS CHRIST
death of John, so premature, so unexpected,
accompanied by such horrible details, came
home to him as a solemn warning. The
possibility of a tragic and unexpected end
was not then a chimera ; he also might dis
appear and in the same way. Herod began
to appear formidable.
A few trusty and faithful friends whom
he had kept among the Pharisees came at
that very juncture to inform him of certain
things said by the Tetrarch about him.
Antipas, hearing reports of Jesus and his
popularity, had said, " This Jesus is John
the Baptist risen from the dead." Now, he
who had thus spoken was very powerful,
and he was at Tiberias, whither indeed
Jesus never went, but which was not far
from Capernaum.1 There was, then, reason
to reckon with this dangerous neighbor.
No doubt Herod, as unstable as vindictive,
would not long think that this was John
risen from the dead. But he had spies,
sworn friends, certain individuals called
the Herodians;2 and Jesus learned that
these Herodians had had interviews with
certain decidedly hostile Pharisees, on the
i Matt. xiv. 1 ff. ; Mark vi. 14 ff. ; Luke ix. 7 ff.
3 Mark iii. 6, xii. 13 ; Matt. xxii. 16.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 179
subject of himself. They had come to
an understanding, something was being
plotted; and, instructed by these various
events, he formed a new resolution.
First of all, he decided that he would no
longer preach in the synagogues. Then he
gave up his Capernaum home, only once
again to occupy it for a few days or even
hours, as he passed through the city. From
that time he was to have no settled abode,1
and he began a wandering ministry, a hfe
of continual journeyings, concerning which
we have no exact information. He went
first toward the northern frontier. It was
a wise precaution. Phcenicia could offer
him at need a secure retreat. He was also
fond of visiting the eastern shore of the
lake ; it was a nearly desert country, over
which Antipas had no jurisdiction, and the
Decapolis in its turn might prove to Jesus
a secure and peaceful shelter.
One day, just when he had taken refuge
on the eastern shore of the lake, the people
came in crowds to find him.
It was to be his last day of popularity,
and one of the days in which he showed
himself the greatest. The people, who
1 Matt. viii. 20 ; Luke ix. 58.

180 JESUS CHRIST
detested Herod, proclaimed Jesus their
Messiah, and assigned to him royal honor.
What, then, took place in his soul ? To be
King! To be the national Messiah and
acclaimed as such ! It was all that he had
hoped, all that he had asked. Was, then,
the work of preparation which he had be
gun drawing to its close? No, for the
kingdom ought first to come. He was the
Messiah, but he was to remain humble and
hidden, and confine himself to a work of
preparation, so long as the kingdom had
not yet appeared. If Jesus had let the
people have their way, it would have been
a revolt, an armed insurrection, — a second
such experiment as that of Judas the Gau
lonite, all that he had before refused at
the temptation. And so he retired to
the mountain, and passed the night in
prayer.1 On the morrow, more than ever decided,
he spoke for the last time in the synagogue
of Capernaum. Making use of the symbol
of the bread, which no doubt he had already
explained to the Twelve, he spoke of eating
his flesh and drinking his blood ; he prom
ised to satisfy the hunger and thirst of
1 John vi. 15 ff.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 181
those who came to him. These expressions,
being misunderstood, produced a revulsion
of feeling in his hearers, and a crisis de
clared itself, — a formidable crisis, in which
the opposition of the people was in its turn
made manifest, joining with that of the
Pharisees. As for him, he followed his thought to
the end. It was a new thought, and had
taken so much the more hold upon him ;
and, full in the sight of a violent death,
which might be its consequence, he drew
the comparison of the bread broken and
the wine poured out. Before eating bread
one breaks it, before drinking wine one
pours it out; and thus he completed the
figure he had already employed, finding in it
a figure of his death. At this moment, with
out doubt, he had the first thought of a
ceremony commemorating his death, if in
deed it should be at hand and was to be
by violence.
The people refused to hear Jesus to the
end; that took place in their minds which
always takes place among the populace
when hopes have been awakened in them
and not satisfied. To popularity succeeds
desertion, to enthusiasm hatred. The peo-

182 JESUS CHRIST
pie have these sudden changes of mood;
the multitudes accuse those whom they
have worshipped of having betrayed and
deceived them. To avoid this crisis, Jesus
must needs have met them half-way, per
mitted them to name him king ; but he
could not. The hopes which he had awak
ened rested upon a misunderstanding ; the
misunderstanding was bound to come to
light sooner or later, and on this day the
inevitable rupture took place. The dis
appointed multitude abandoned Jesus for
always. He was not for a moment shaken, and
yet what a pang and what a warning!
He had not succeeded in Galilee ; but in
that case would he succeed elsewhere ? It
seemed impossible, and that is why he
spoke of the broken flesh and the poured-
out blood ; and yet who could tell ? Suc
cess might even yet be achieved without
death. He desired it, he hoped for it, he
asked it of God ; he continued to hope and
to ask even in Gethsemane. But whatever
might be the future, that which would
happen would be the Father's will. He
should therefore be victorious ; and even
though he were to be overtaken by a most

DURING HIS MINISTRY 183
atrocious and ignominious death, still in
defeat he would be victorious. Even in
death, even in martyrdom, victory would
lie concealed. He did not know how, but
God was his Father, and God could not be
defeated ; his cause and that of his Father
were the self-same cause.
All these new ideas arose in Jesus' mind,
crowding on one another, succeeding one
another, and in perfect accord. He was
convinced that he was to abolish the Law
of Moses and establish the reign of God.
The thought presented itself to him that
he might be the victim of its establishment
and of the accomplishment of a work so
different from that which the people were
expecting. But must not the kingdom be
established by violence, by disturbance ? J
Then there would be nothing surprising in
anything that he might have to suffer ; and
if he were to die, so be it ! He would re
turn accompanied by legions of angels, and
then he would found the kingdom.
At the same time his ideal became that
of universality. His rupture with the
Pharisees completed this enlargement of
his ideal. He declared that since John
1 Matt. xx. 12 ; Luke xvi. 16.

184 JESUS CHRIST
the Baptist, the Law was no longer in ex
istence.1 The true import of his words
" destroy not, fulfil," appeared to him anew.
He had already said that new stuff should
not be sewed to the old, nor new wine put
into old wine-skins ; here, certainly, was a
new notion, a creative act. Every man of
good will was a son of Abraham,2 and the
Law was made only for the sons of Abra
ham according to the flesh. All men were
called to be sons of God; he was calling
man, not the Jew ; he was preaching the re
ligion, the rights, the salvation of human
ity, and not those of the Jew. Mosaism
had lived ; it had now only to disappear.
Thus the most deeply rooted of Jewish
prejudices disappeared, and forever, from
Jesus' thought. Certainly he had lost the
Jewish faith.3 A magnificent prospect
1 Luke xvi. 16; Matt. xi. 6-13, ix. 16-17; Luke v.
36 f.
2 Luke xix. 9.
8 It must not be forgotten here that the apostles
for the most part remained very closely attached to
Judaism, and that they never became aware how far
their Master had gone. They believed him to have
remained more a Jew than was the case. In his trial
Jesus was accused of sedition, and the Talmudic
meaning of this word is very clear. Those were
called seditious who overturned the Law of Moses.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 185
opened out before his thought: all men
were equal, all were brothers; Gentiles
also, even Samaritans ! — the kingdom
would also be for them !
That which completed the enlighten
ment of Jesus on this subject was his
journeyings in heathen lands. To see the
"Goim," to visit their home, was a reve
lation to him. Up to this time he had
seldom seen them, and had known little
of them. In Galilee, only Tiberias was a
Gentile city ; and Jesus never went there,
precisely because it was not the custom to
visit Gentile cities. But at last he had
gone to Tyre and Sidon; he had seen
temples consecrated to idols and an organ
ized worship ; in these two cities he had
found himself in the very midst of pagan
ism, and it was there that he completed
his detachment from the opinion which
excluded Gentiles from the kingdom.
His interview with the Canaanitish
woman 1 marks the end of his former ideas
about Gentiles. When this woman asked
(Jerus. Sank. 14, 16 ; Babyl. Sank. 43 a and 67 a.) In
these passages the Talmuds speak of Jesus, and de
scribe the form of procedure against him. He had
been deemed seditious.
i Matt. xv. 21-28; Mark vii. 24-30.

186 JESUS CHRIST
him to heal her daughter, he said, " I am
not sent save to the lost sheep of the house
of Israel." It was just what he had
already said to his apostles, " Go not into
any way of the Gentiles, and enter not
into any city of the Samaritans ; " and a
moment later, when the Canaanitish woman
insisted, he declared, "It is not meet to
take the children's bread and cast it to the
dogs." The children were the Jews, and
they alone ; the dogs were the Gentiles.
And behold it was at that very moment
that he was conquered by the faith of the
sorrowful woman who was imploring him
to save her child. Light rose upon him ;
he declared that he had not found such
faith even among his own people. From
that day he entered upon a universal
work; he did this in the most absolute
sense, and this was a new notion, a creative
act. He had some other contact with Gen
tiles. A few weeks later at Caesarea
Philippi, during another of those excur
sions commanded by prudence which
carried him beyond the reach of Antipas
and the Herodians, he saw a marble tem
ple erected to Augustus by Herod the

DURING HIS MINISTRY 187
Great, and statues of the god Pan with
his nymphs.
But before these statues the Jew was
very much like the Mussulman to-day
in polytheistic countries ; he is closed to
impressions, it seems as if he were blind.
So the rigorous monotheism of the son of
Israel took from him all capacity of under
standing paganism.
It is indeed remarkable that Jesus never
spoke of idolatry or of paganism in order
to directly condemn either, as did the
Jews of his time who declaimed against
idolaters.1 What especially impressed him was the
pohtical subjection of the Gentiles. The
Jew's sole master was God. Must he
serve other masters on earth? Jesus
had heard this great question agitated all
around him ever since his childhood, and
he knew that Judas the Gaulonite and
others had taken it seriously and had
revolted. He was firmly of the opinion
that in one sense God alone is master, and
he condemned the deceitful servility of
the Gentiles, which betrayed itself by the
i See " Wisdom," xiii. ff. In this book we have a
model of pedantic and unintelligent condemnation.

188 JESUS CHRIST
titles that they gave their sovereigns ; 1
nevertheless he saw in them brothers, also
called to the kingdom, and to whom he
from this time said the kingdom was to
be transferred.2
Upon universal brotherhood he founded
his absolute non-sectarianism. The concep
tion of a universal worship became his, and
henceforth no barrier could separate him
from the nations.3 We have already
alluded to the parables of this period, —
the vineyard leased to others,4 the prodi
gal son returning home, the servants going
out into the highways to seek for the lost,
and none of the first invited guests who
made excuse permitted to taste of the
prepared supper. The kingdom, which
was still to come, would be given up to
the Gentiles. " Many should come from
the east and the west," and should enter
the Messianic banquet-hall. The Jews
would be shut out. Jesus did not say
merely " the Gentiles too," he did not even
1 Mark x. 42 ; Luke xxii. 25.
2 Matt. xxi. 43.
3 Matt. viii. 5 f ., xv. 22 f . ; Mark vii. 25 f . ; Luke iv.
25 f. 4 Matt. xxi. 41 ; Mark xii. 9 ; Luke xx. 16.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 189
say " the Gentiles first ; " he went so far as
to say " the Gentiles only."
Let us not suppose that such a question
was entirely new. Though the travels of
Jesus in pagan countries definitely com
pleted his emancipation from sectarianism,
though his interview with the Canaanitish
woman, in which he used the most abso
lutely particularist terms, completed the
opening of his eyes, he had for a long time,
since the beginning of his ministry, been
logically drawn toward catholicity. The
very fact that he preached a change of heart,
conversion to God, and nothing else, threw
down the barriers which separated him
from the nations. If an interior change
sufficed, if to belong to the Jewish race
was not necessary, why were not Gentiles
called too? Jews had first been called
because they were the chosen people ; and
when he had told the disciples to go and
preach only to the children of Israel, it was
because they had the rights of the oldest
son; but he had long since said the field
is the world,1 clearly showing that he made
no difference between peoples.2
1 Matt. xiii. 38.
2 Matt. viii. 11, 12; xxv. 31-34.

190 JESUS CHRIST
He was also prepared for catholicity by
his conviction that God is the God of hu
manity, and not the special God of Israel
alone. This God, who is not a fatal being,
killing, damning, and saving at his own
pleasure, — this God, who is the Father, is
universal. Though Jesus understood the
Maccabees and Judas the Gaulonite, he
took a stand high above them. Judas the
Gaulonite had said, God alone is Master;
one must die rather than call any one Mas
ter on earth. The kings of earth, the
powerful, the great, are masters, and must
be respected ; but each one has his Father
in heaven, and may feel himself to be bis
child on the earth; men are all brothers,
Gentiles also are sons of the Father who
is in heaven.
Furthermore, if with Jesus there is much
that is new, there is still nothing unex
pected, nothing which had not been pre
pared for long before ; not only did he draw
the universality of the second part of his
ministry from the depths of his own con
sciousness, — and we may find its origin in
his first words, — it still came from the
Old Testament. All the roots of this prog
ress were in the past ; from the time of

DURING HIS MINISTRY 191
the prophets the conversion of the Gentiles
was one of the works of the Messiah and
one of the signs of his coming.1 Only
Jesus had placed the conversion of the
Gentiles in the future, and all his life he
had maintained that the Jews alone were
to be evangelized by the apostles.2
His ideas about the Samaritans had al
ways been very liberal ; on this subject he
had early entirely parted company with
his people. The hatred of Jews for Samar
itans surpassed that which they manifested
to the Gentiles; they abhorred them.
Jesus, on the contrary, had always been
well disposed toward them. At the pres
ent time there was in his mind a very
distinct impulse toward reaction. The
parable of the Good Samaritan is very
clear. According to this parable the neighbor
is any man, even a Samaritan. So Jesus
had thought as he was going up to Jeru
salem or as he was returning by way of
Samaria. l Isa. ii. 2 ff., Ix. ; Amos ix. 11 ff. ; Jer. iii. 17 ; Mai.
i. 1 ; Tobias xiii. 13 f . ; Syb. Orac. iii. 715, etc. ; cf.
Matt. xxiv. 14 ; Acts xv. 15 ff.
2 Matt. vii. 6 ; x. 5, 6 ; xv. 24.

192 JESUS CHRIST
One day, especially, when he stopped
for a few minutes to rest himself beside
Jacob's Well, he had had an interview
with a woman of the country which made
a mark upon his life. To speak to her
was already to give a proof of his liberal
ity ; but the expressions of which he made
use clearly showed that the tendency to
catholicity, which grew more marked in
the middle of his ministry, and when he
came in contact with Gentiles, had already
been long latent in his soul.
For many years Jesus had thus been
embracing in thought the whole world, of
which God was the Father, and believing
that there was only one worship, belonging
neither to time nor to country, — the wor
ship of God the Spirit, who wills that they
who worship him should worship him in
spirit and in truth.1
Such were the thoughts which were
pressing upon the heart of Jesus during
the few months of the summer of 29.
He wandered here and there, desiring to
escape from his enemies, and at the same
time seeking to know the Father's will and
awaiting Ms hour. Resolved to set out
1 John iv. 23, 24.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 193
for Judea, to go even to Jerusalem and
manifest himself to the world, he yet re
mained a few weeks longer in the northern
countries, for he had important communi
cations to make to his apostles. From this
time he had nothing to conceal from them,
and he knew that his Messiahship was no
longer a mystery to them.
One day, therefore, he led them on the
road to Caesarea of Philip, a brother of
Antipas, from whom he knew he had
nothing to fear.
After having followed for a while the
banks of the Jordan and crossed great
marshes, the Master and his disciples
quitted the stream and climbed the gentle
acclivities of the mountains which close
the valley of the upper Jordan at the east.
Little by little they thus quitted the land
of Israel, and entered the territory of the
Gentiles. There Jesus was unknown, he
felt himself in a foreign land; and alone
with the Twelve, his intimacy with them
became more close. He drew forth Peter's
confession "Thou art the Christ, the Son
of the living God," 1 and immediately after
revealed to them the secret which was
1 Matt. xvi. 16.
13

194 JESUS CHRIST
weighing on his soul, — he must die soon
and by a violent death. He was to go up
to Jerusalem, and there he would be con
demned to death. He foresaw it, an
nounced it, maintained it; then at other
moments he hoped that it might not be
thus, that his people would recognize him.
Ah ! if Jerusalem welcomed him, he would
found the kingdom and would not be put
to death!
Nevertheless, it was time to set out.
This resolution to depart for Judea
was one of the grandest which Jesus took.
Doubtless no other issue was open to him ;
but he had willed it thus, and what he
now decided was to make of his death, if
death was inevitable, the greatest act of
his mission.
He was more sure than ever of the com
ing of the kingdom. He always announced
it as near, and declared that some of those
who were gathered round him would not
die until they had seen him coming with
his kingdom or in his kingdom.1 At a
later time he declared to Peter — so certain
was he of the near appearance of the king-
1 Matt. xvi. 28, x. 23, xxiv. 34 ; Mark ix. 1 ; Luke
ix. 29.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 195
dom — that he should have a public and
brilliant recompense in this world and still
another in the age to come.1 The kingdom
was then, in the mind of Jesus, both always
future and always near. Foreknowledge
of his death changed nothing of this ; and
still later, when he spoke of the cup which
he was to drink and the baptism of blood
which he was to receive, that is, when he
predicted the near approach of a violent
death, he still could tell the sons of Zebe
dee that they might be seated on his right
hand, have the two highest places, when he
should come in Ms glory surrounded with
angels, and that the Twelve should sit
upon twelve thrones.2 It was not he who
was to allot them places, it was his Father ;
but he denied neither the approacMng tri
umph, nor the reality of the assizes of the
apostles and of the approacMng judg
ment, and this in spite of his death, at the
very hour in which he announced it as cer
tain. The latter, in fact, would be only
an event, an accident in some sort, an act
willed by the Father, no doubt, and having
i Mark x. 28-31 ; Luke xviii. 28-30 ; Matt. xix.
27-29. 2 Matt. xix. 28 ; Luke xxii. 30.

196 JESUS CHRIST
capital importance, but a fact wMch took
away nothing whatever from his Messianic
hope and his prediction of the coming of
the kingdom.1 1 Matt. xix. 28 ; Luke xxii. 30.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 197

CHAPTER XII
PINAL DEPARTURE POR JERUSALEM
"CVER since Jesus had found himself
obliged to give up Ms work in Gali
lee, to part from those villages above all
others beloved, Capernaum, Bethsaida,
Chorazin, Magdala, — he had wandered here
and there. We have seen Mm drawing
near to Gentile countries, keeping at Ms
command means of easy escape, if Herod
should press Mm too closely, and at times
even crossing the frontier and coming in
contact with Gentiles, that " world " wMch
up to this time he had seen only from afar.
Everywhere in these journeyings he car
ried with Mm the thought " I am gomg to
my death ; the Messiah may and even must
suffer and die; " and this notion, wMchwas
absolutely anti-Jewish and revolting to a
Jew, completed Ms detachment from the
religion of Ms fathers. He sought to instil
it into the minds of his apostles, he never
tired of talking with them of the necessity

198 JESUS CHRIST
of Ms death, he returned continually to
the subject ; but he never succeeded in
convincing them, for a Jew could not com
prehend such a thought as the Messiah put
to death.
He had learned many tilings during these
journeys on wMch he had seen and spoken
with Gentiles. It is certain that from the
time of Ms interview with the Canaanitish
woman he had rejected all Jewish particu
larism. We have seen this woman show
ing Mm bow just and not unjust it is to
give to the dogs the bread wMch the chil
dren refuse ; and he was already preparing
and was soon to relate surprismg parables
of universal breadth1 wMch give us Ms
final doctrine on this point, — the parable of
the Excuses, that of the Husbandmen, in
wMch he said that the children of the
kingdom, that is, its natural inheritors,
should be cast out. Ah! it was because
there were moments when he despaired of
the conversion of the Jews, even while
still hoping for it. It was with regard to
this, as with regard to his death ; he affirmed
its unavoidable necessity, and yet he had
a secret hope that it might be avoided.
1 Matt. viii. 12 ; xxi. 33-44.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 199
As we have already said, ever since
Peter's confession Jesus had resolved to
make Ms death by violence the greatest
act of his mission. Indeed, if it was in
evitable, it was because it was according to
the will of God. Then it must be that it
was to serve his work. TMs reasonmg on
the part of Jesus was in the highest degree
simple and inevitable ; there was not, nor
could there be, room in Ms soul for doubt.
God was in Ms Ufe and in his work ; it was
the Messianic work ; and if he was to die a
violent death, it was because it was God's
will that the Messiah should thus die. The
reading of certain passages of the Prophets 1
could not but fortify this thought. He
knew that it was the lot of God's ambassa
dors to be persecuted,2 that martyrdom is
the law of the conflict between holiness and
the world ; and in this sense he found his
death in the Old Testament, and especially
in Isaiah.
The celebrated fifty-tMrd chapter cer
tainly had not taught Mm in his youth
that the Messiah was to die ; but it is very
probable that when he once understood the
i Isa. liii., for example.
2 Matt. v. 12 ; xxi. 35 ; xxiii. 37.

200 JESUS CHRIST
necessity of his martyrdom, he would find
the confirmation of the necessity in tins
chapter, and that thenceforth he applied it
to the Messiah, — a thing which his con
temporaries did not do, and which he him
self had not done until this time.
This is not all. If a violent death was
not to be avoided, if therefore it made a
part of the plan of God and was intended
to serve his Messianic work, it was neces
sary, as we have said, that it should be
accomplished in Jerusalem.' If he re
mained in Galilee, Antipas would bring
about his destruction, and his death would
be hardly noticed. He remembered what
had happened to John the Baptist. Herod
would have him also arrested, tMown into
a dungeon, and then secretly done away
with, ordering that he should be beheaded
without witnesses; and then nothing of
him would remain. Jesus had seen the
consequences of John's death; after the
first impression of horror at the murder,
no more had been said.
Herod, who by Ms spies kept watch of
Jesus, might even have him secretly assas
sinated, and the consequences of such a
crime would be even worse : no one would

DURING HIS MINISTRY 201
know what had become of him. Some
thing else must be done ; since he was the
Messiah, he must die in Jerusalem. He
must not perish less gloriously than the
prophets, and he would not draw back
from that. It would indeed be easy to
escape it all, to go out into Perea, the terri
tory of Herod Philip — if he wished ! But
the inward voice, the voice of the Father,
said to Mm, " No prophet dies out of Jeru
salem." And, besides, Jerusalem attracted
him ; he would once more try to win over
the rebellious city,1 as he had already so
often tried. Who could tell ? Perhaps
he would succeed in the end ! And then
he would be welcomed, and Ms death
would not be necessary to Ms work!
Before all tilings, let the Father's will be
done ; for the moment Ms death seemed to
him very necessary, quite inevitable. And
he was constantly speaking of it. " They
will kill the Son of man," he would say to
Ms disciples. The thought pursued Mm,
— he often repeated the same words, —
"They will kill the Son of man; they will
kill him."2
i Luke xiii. 33.
2 &.iioKT£vov<nv ahiiv. Matt. xvi. 21, xvii. 22, 23 ;
Mark ix. 31, x. 34 ; Luke xviii. 33 ; etc., etc.

202 JESUS CHRIST
If he should be arrested in Jerusalem
and regularly condemned, how would he
die ? No doubt by stoning : that was most
probable ; it was thus that Ms people put
to death false prophets and heretics. He
could not yet even dream that by a dex
terous manoeuvre they might lay off upon
Pilate all the odium of his execution ; that
the Jews would not have the courage to
sentence him, and would find means, by
false swearing, to cause Jesus to be con
demned by the Procurator. It was prob
ably at the last moment that the Sadducees
had the cowardice to ask Pilate to pro
nounce sentence, or, if they had decided in
advance to do this, they naturally kept to
themselves the shameful secret.1
1 I have shown, in Palestine au temps de Jesus
Christ (5th edition, page 103 f.), that the words "It
is not lawful for us to put any man to death " were
merely a bit of flattery for Pilate. The Jews, if they
had chosen, might have executed their own sentence of
death, and in that case Jesus would have been stoned.
In predicting his own death Jesus made use of the
word "crucified" only twice (Matt. xx. 19; xxvi. 2).
Everywhere else he simply said that he would be put
to death. Mark and Luke knew no other expression,
and the word " crucified " would very naturally have
been substituted (post eventum) for the words "put to
death" by the author of the first Gospel. If it be

DURING HIS MINISTRY 203
And now tins grave question presents
itself: What significance did Jesus give
to his violent death? — for he certainly
held that it had significance. Considering
it as willed by God, it was necessarily, as
we have said, of capital importance in his
work. Let us try to reply to tiris question ; and
first let us recall to mind what work Jesus
had to do. He had to prepare, by a change
in men's hearts, for the coming of the king
dom of God. In tins work, wMch had been
the very soul of his ministry in Galilee, he
absolutely required that the words be deemed authen
tic, it may be observed that these two predictions
belong to the very last days, and at that moment
Jesus may very well have had a presentiment that the
last ignominy of being delivered " to the wicked," as
he called them, that is, the Gentiles, was reserved for
him, and that in that case he should die on the cross.
If he already knew that he was to die during the
Peast, he might foresee that the Jews would not dare
not to refer the matter to Pilate, who always came to
Jerusalem at the time of the Passover. As to the ex
pression, " If any one will be my disciple, let him take
up his cross" (Luke ix. 23), it represents supreme
abnegation, perfect renunciation, but does not neces
sarily argue that Jesus knew that he was to be cruci
fied. Death by the cross was so frequent that Jesus
might speak of bearing the cross without necessarily
foreseeing his own crucifixion.

204 JESUS CHRIST
had not succeeded. Notwithstanding Ms
temporary success, he had not obtained by
his teaching that conversion, that new birth,
that change of hearts and lives, wMch he
sought. Quite the contrary, he had been
rejected. None the less did he continue to declare
that the conditions of entrance into the
kingdom were such as he had always
pointed out. His failure, though it might
lead even to his condemnation to death,
had changed notiiing of all that.
In the beginning, when he had said,
" Come unto me and I will give you rest,"
that is to say, " I will prepare you to enter
the kingdom, I will give you eternal life,
I will save you," he naturally said notMng
about Ms violent death, because he as yet
knew nothing about it. All Ms sayings
up to tMs time had thus implied that
each one would find in him the satisfaction
of his religious needs, rest, peace, life,
without any reference to his death, and
solely because he was the Messiah prepar
ing for the coming of the kingdom.
Now that he understood that death
was probably inevitable and necessary,
he changed nothing in his teachings as

DURING HIS MINISTRY 205
to the conditions of entrance into the
kingdom. His language remained the
same. The announcement of Ms death
had nothing to do with Ms preaching of
the kingdom. Jesus continued to his
last day to specify the same conditions
of entrance into the kingdom of God, —
repentance, conversion, the fulfilling of
God's will. Especially were works of
charity a means of entrance. One day,
describing the last Judgment, he declared
— and tMs at the very close of Ms life — ¦
that they who should enter eternal life
would be those who had visited the sick,
the prisoner, and the poor, who had
given food to the hungry and drink to
the tMrsty ; that is, such as had done
good deeds.1 These would have their
"reward" in heaven. He said to a rich
young man, at the very time of Ms last
journey to Jerusalem, that to obtain eternal
life he must " keep the commandments." 2
Still a little later he gave the same answer
to a Scribe who asked him the same ques
tion.3 In both cases he insists upon salva-
1 Matt. xxv. 31-46. See chapter iii. page 39 f.,
where we have already developed this thought.
2 Mark x. 17 f . « Luke x. 25 f .

206 JESUS CHRIST
tion by acts, — selling Ms goods for one,
showing mercy to a Samaritan for the
other, — in other words, to show by their
works that they had a new heart. He
never said that Ms death would open the
doors of the kingdom or that it was to be
a means of having them opened.
What, then, is the place of Ms death
in Ms work? We must recognize that,
so to speak, Jesus never answered this
question ; for though he often predicted
his death, — though the words " The Son
of man shall be rejected, scoffed at, put
to death," were continually upon Ms lips,
betraying the heavy foreboding, the inward
anguish, of his soul, — he seldom explained
Mmself as to the meaning wMch he gave
these words.
Still, let us try to picture to ourselves
what was passing in Ms mind when he
thought thus of his approaching disap
pearance. Let us abstract ourselves from
our modern ideas and all our religious
education, in which we have been taught
that Jesus died upon the cross for us, —
a thing indeed perfectly true, but needing
to be explained and understood. Let us
put ourselves in the first century, a year

DURING HIS MINISTRY 207
before the death of Jesus, at the time when
death begins to appear to Mm more and
more probable. He no longer greatly
hopes that Ms people will be converted
by hearing Ms words. He still hopes for
it at times ; a change of feeling may take
place. And yet it is certain that his
work of reformation, that enterprise wMch
with such confidence he had undertaken,
has failed. His words and miracles do
not suffice. And so, what more can he
do ? Of two tilings, one, — either give up
his mission or be ready for anytiiing, even
for death. There is no middle path; he
must choose between these.
We may say with assurance that Jesus
never so much as put to himself this
question, because in his view his mission
was to do Ms Father's will, and that will
was made manifest to him by the events
of his life. The path of obedience which
had been his from the earliest day would
remain his without the slightest hesitation
or wavering.
Now, upon this path which he was
following, he had made a marvellous pro
gress ; and he had made it all at once,
by a single step, — a giant stride forward.

208 JESUS CHRIST
He had entered upon a new stage ; reali
ties hitherto unknown uprose before Mm,
realities more stern than those wMch had
confronted him in the days of the desert
temptation. At that time he had created
a Messianic ideal wMch was to be de
tached from Jewish superstition and fanat
icism. He had emerged from the desert
the spiritual and moral Messiah; now,
from the trials tMough which he had
passed, loss of popularity, openly mani
fested hatred of the Pharisees, of Herod,
of the people themselves, he came forth
the Messiah who must suffer, sacrifice him
self, go forward even to martyrdom and
death. His death should be the crown
and the capital work of his life. For
the first time he understood this and
understood it perfectly. But what a
change ! What an overthrow of all that
he had believed, lived, understood, of all
that up to this time had been the Father's
will! It is exceedingly remarkable that the
faith of Jesus in himself and his work
remained absolutely true to itself. He
added to it a new element, the acceptance
of a violent and nearly approaching death,

DURING HIS MINISTRY 209
that is, the entire renunciation of all that
up to this time had been the strength and
the joy of Ms life ; for he had expected —
he the Messiah — that during his lifetime,
in a few years, the kingdom of God would
be mamfested. His faith in his work
had been faith in the efficacy of his words
and Ms cures. Now that he no longer
believed in the efficacy of Ms words, he
beheved in that of his death. TMs faith
in his death (if the expression may be
permitted) had become faith in his work.
No doubt, as we have just said, he hoped
against all hope ; a change in the popular
disposition remained possible to the very
last minute,1 but he hardly counted upon
it any longer. He said, "I must be put
to death," — must, because the Father so
wills. The whole change in his thought
is to be explained by submission to the
Father's will ; and thus that which would
naturally discourage him, make him lose
faith in himself, on the contrary strength
ened Mm. The religious authorities were
1 In our first volume we showed that the cry in
Gethsemane, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup
pass from me," has no meaning if it does not signify,
' If it be possible, let my Messianic work be otherwise
accomplished." 14

210 JESUS CHRIST
threatening him, the official world which
had seemed to be the true representative
of the thought of God, and which he had
hoped to convert, would do everything to
compass his destruction, and, instead of
saying to himself, " I was mistaken," he
saw in their hatred the fulfilment of the
will of God. It was the Father's will
that he should be conquered ; it was in
defeat that Ms victory was to consist.
Never had Jesus been more sure of him
self than in tMs crisis, which bade fair to
overthrow all his hopes, and which in fact
did overthrow them, but without over
throwing Mm.
There he was, abandoned by the people,
rejected by every one, alone, misunder
stood, a wanderer, with a violent death
looming up before Mm, probable and near
at hand. Must he not have said, under
such circumstances, that the Messianic
time was still far off, placing its realization
in a far distant future ? Quite the con
trary: with superhuman faith and cour
age he affirmed that all things had been
committed to him by the Father.1 Far
from being discouraged after so many
1 Matt. xi. 27.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 211
sterile efforts, he set down the popular
desertion to the account of the sufferings
willed by the Father for the salvation of
his nation and the world.
TMs unalterable confidence of Jesus in
Ms work, his Father, and Mmself is cer
tainly supernatural. Death appeared be
fore him, the abrupt and tragic end, taking
Mm in the opening of his work, overtaking
and overpowering Mm in full activity ; and
he had not a shadow of hesitation, because
God was with and in him. There is
enormous strength, as a proof of the divine
nature of Jesus, in tMs assurance which
no external event could disturb. What!
he was to die, to be taken away, and still
remain the Messiah ! He would still be the
Judge of the world, the founder of the
kingdom of God ! He would remain all
that he had said, take back not a single
particular ; would always be thus sure of
himself, of God, and of the truth !
But did he give any particular signifi
cance to Ms death? Let us see how his
future teachings answer to tMs question.
He considered his death as decreed by
the Father, — a decision of the Father very
distinct from Ms own, with regard to Mm,

212 JESUS CHRIST
Jesus, — and he would accept it, not without
conflict and anguish, but always declaring
that he would do what God willed.
Allusions to Ms death, though unex
plained, are constant from the moment at
wMch we have now arrived. He must
" take account of his forces," " lose his life
to save it," die hke a corn of wheat in
order to bear fruit,1 " be servant of all in
order to be great." 2 We have a right to
suppose that Jesus was here speaking from
experience and applying these words to
himself. It was he who was taking ac
count of his army before undertaking the
great battle, taking account of his posses
sions before building the tower on wMch
so much must be spent ; it was he who
was losing Ms hfe in order to save it and
Ms work ; it was he who could die like the
grain of wheat in order to bear fruit, he
who would be humble and servant of all
and thus would be truly great. He had
sown, the sowing had been hard and pain
ful, and now the furrow wMch he had
traced must be watered with his blood;
but his faith in the final triumph remained
the same. He did not know the day of the
1 John xii. 24. 2 Matt. xx. 20-28.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 213
triumph, — God alone knew that date,1 —
but he was expecting it ; he believed in its
speedy coming; and in our third volume
we shall show that the apocalyptic visions
of Ms last days say notMng that Jesus
might not have said at the opening of Ms
mimstry, when he promised the Mngdom
to the lowly, the tMrsting, the meek, and
the afflicted.
Jesus, then, saw in Ms death an act of
devotion necessary to the coming of the
kmgdom. Whether he died by crucifixion
or stoning, Ms blood would be none the
less poured out, as he Mmself said at a
later time, repeatmg an expression by
wMch Ms people spoke of death. To pour
out the blood of any one was to kill Mm,
for they said, " The blood is the life."
Jesus accepted the sacrifice of life which
the Father asked : he offered himself, he
gave Ms life for the sheep, as a good shep
herd should do.2 The wolf was Satan, the
Devil, who exercised an immense power
and held men in bondage. The world
belonged to him ; he was its prince. The
Son of man had come to minister, to offer
Mmself up, to give his very life as a ran-
1 Mark xiii. 32. 2 John x. 11.

214 JESUS CHRIST
som to the Prince of Darkness, that he
might snatch men from tMs slavery. He
was the good shepherd, and he gave his
life as a ransom to the wolf, the ravisMng
foe that was carrying away the sheep.1
1 It seems impossible to interpret otherwise the
passage (Mark x. 45 and Matt. xx. 28), " The Son of
man is come not to be ministered unto, but to
minister and to give his life a ransom for many." It
must first be asked if Jesus made use of a word
signifying precisely what we understand by ransom,
that is to say, the sum paid to free a prisoner. This
is by no means certain. We may remark, first of all,
that in the Greek \irpov Sovvai avrl is analogous to
a.Tro\vTpairai, that is, set free, deliver, with no stipula
tion as to the mode of deliverance. But this obser
vation is not enough, for Jesus spoke in Aramaic, and
it is certain that in order perfectly to understand
the word "ransom" we need to know what was the
Aramaean word he used. In general, a sound exegesis
of the important words of Jesus can only be made by
translating them back into Aramaean, and seeking to
recover the original phrase as it issued from his lips,
before being translated by his disciples into Greek.
As to the passage now occupying us, the question is
difficult to solve. Jesus had several words at his dis
posal. If we were sure that \6rpov represented in the
thought of Jesus the kopher of the sacerdotal legisla
tion (applied to the sacrifice), we might give another
interpretation than " ransom," for the Hebrew sacri
fice was never a ransom. But (1) \irpov represents
in the LXX. many other words besides kopher, for
example, the derivatives of a verb which signifies
" redeem " (Lev. xix. 20 ; Exod. xxi. 30), or it serves to

DURING HIS MINISTRY 215
Another passage must be noted. On
the eve of his death, when instituting the
translate the word " price " (Isa. xiv. 13) . (2) Kopher in
the older parts of the Old Testament designates the
money fine paid by the murderer to the family of his
victim. In this sense it is truly a ransom, a buying
back (Exod. xxi. 30 ; cf. Num. xxxv. 31, 32). (3) Jesus
spoke Aramaic, and this language has other words
besides that corresponding to kopher which serve to ren
der the Greek \vrpov ; for example, in the passage which
occupies us (Matt. xx. 28 ; Mark x. 45), the Peschito
makes use of a word whose root signifies " save " and
also " ransom." Let us admit, in spite of these un
certainties, that Jesua made use of a word clearly
signifying " ransom." In this case we affirm that there
can be no question in his thought of a ransom to pay
to God. Jesus never represented God as a creditor
demanding to be paid, still less as a master exacting a
ransom before delivering up his slaves or his prisoners.
Jesus always taught that God is a Pather forgiving
his children without requiring anything else from
them than their own forgiveness of their brothers.
He considered sin as a debt contracted toward God ;
he calls it a debt in so many words, and he always de
clared that God wholly forgives us this debt. He asks
of us only one thing, that we ourselves shall pardon
those who have sinned against us. Let the reader
look up the following passages, Matt. vi. 12, 14, xviii. 35,
Luke xi. 4, Mark xi. 25, Luke vi. 37, etc., etc., and es
pecially read the parable of the merciless servant
(Matt, xviii. 24 ff.), and he will see that there is per
haps no teaching which Jesus gave more constantly,
more clearly, and upon which he more insisted, than
this. The ransom of which he speaks in a single
passage cannot therefore be paid to God. He for-

216 JESUS CHRIST
Lord's Supper, Jesus said that his blood,
wMch was about to be shed, was "the
blood of the new covenant, shed for many,
for the remission of sins." 1 SpeaMng thus,
he alluded to a passage in the Law.2 Moses,
after having given the Law to the people,
sprinkled them with blood, saying, " TMs
is the blood of the covenant wMch God
has made with you." Jesus then solemnly
affirmed to his apostles that he was about
to pour out Ms blood to cement a new
covenant, a covenant wMch would replace
gives the whole debt ; he extends mercy, he exacts no
ransom. It would be impossible, indeed, to falsify a
whole teaching with a single passage. Whatever may
be the meaning of the word "ransom" in the verse which
occupies us, it cannot weaken the very clear declara
tions as to the freedom of the Father's forgiveness
with which the teaching of Jesus is filled. It is with
this passage as with the saying to the Pharisees when
Jesus appears to announce the kingdom of God as
present ; it cannot alter the fact that everywhere else,
at the end as well as at the beginning of his ministry,
Jesus announces it simply as to come. It is the same
again with his reply to the messengers of John the
Baptist, when he seems to accord to his miracles an
apologetic value, when we know distinctly by his
whole attitude that he gave them none in the least.
1 Matt. xxvi. 28 ; Mark xiv. 24 ; Luke xxii. 19, 20 ;
1 Cor. xi. 25. We shall study this passage in detail in
our third volume.
2 Exod. xxiv.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 217
that of Sinai. In tMs he gives no theologi
cal explanation of his death, but he does
affirm its importance.
Jesus, however, never considered his
death as a sacrifice in the Levitical sense.
He had found Ms sufferings predicted by
the prophets, but he never said that his
death was prefigured by the sacrifice of
the Law, or in general by the Temple
sacrifices. We have already had occasion to remark
that we never saw Jesus offering sacrifices
in the Temple, except that of the Passover
out of respect to a national custom, and
at a patriotic festival which he much loved.
He commended the Scribe who said that
to love God is more than all whole burnt-
offerings. We have several times cited
the word of God in Hosea, " I will have
mercy and not sacrifice ; " for Jesus often
repeated it, entirely making Ms own tMs
idea, which was much disseminated in his
time and wMch came in a straight line
from the first chapter of Isaiah, that God
asks of us, above all tilings, the gift of our
selves, and that the rites of the Temple and
the lamb offered upon the altar are not
essential.

218 JESUS CHRIST
When his resolution to go up to Jerusa
lem was taken, Jesus made haste to put it
into execution. Many of Ms utterances of
that time show a holy impatience to be
done with it all as soon as possible. Did
he hope thus to bring nearer the moment
of the coming of the kingdom? Did he
expect sometMng new ? It is certainly the
case that, comparing his death to a baptism
of blood, he declared himself in haste to
receive it.1 It was at Jerusalem that he
must receive it ; let him hasten thither as
fast as possible. With " Ms face steadfastly
set," as St. Luke says, he set out for the
Holy City.2 He quitted the North of Gali
lee, passing by way of Capernaum, return
ing for a few days to his own home, — that
home where he was leaving so many
memories, — seeing again Ms mother and
brothers, who had left Nazareth and estab
lished themselves in Capernaum. They
urged him to perform some Messianic act.
Let him hesitate no longer ; let him go to
Jerusalem, do some startling thing. Jesus
refused, and the chasm that separated him
from his own grew yet deeper. Some
startling thing ! " A sign from heaven ! "
1 Luke xii. 60. 2 Luke ix. 51.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 219
as the Pharisees had often said to him ; then
not one of Ms brothers nor even his mother
understood Mm. No doubt he was to do a
startling thing, but a very different one
from what they thought !
To his mind, it was essential to go to
Judea, and because of Herod he considered
it important that no one should suspect his
presence in Galilee. He therefore left
Capernaum incognito, never again to see
this village. Without being observed, he
went down the Jordan valley, taking once
more that road so often traversed, which
follows the eastern frontier of Samaria.
He had passed along it for the first time
at the age of twelve years, and how often
in the interval ! But this time he did not
immediately follow the road to its end ; he
would not yet give himself up to his
enemies. He wanted a few days of liberty,
and so he crossed the river. On the other
shore he would be at rest : it was Perea ;
no one would disturb him.
But this stay was short, and toward the
middle of autumn in the year 29 (we may
indicate this date without too much te
merity) he recrossed the Jordan, arrived at
Jericho, and once more began openly his

220 JESUS CHRIST
pubhc life, without the least allusion to its
probable issue. He appeared at Jerusalem
in the early days of October, at the Feast
of Tabernacles. There we shall find Mm
again in our last volume.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 221

CHAPTER XIII
THE NAMES ASSUMED BY JESUS
HPHAT we may penetrate yet more deeply
into the mind of Jesus, we have now
to study the names wMch he gave Mmself
or permitted others to give him, seeking
to know in what sense he took them.
Faithful to our method, we shall confine
ourselves to interrogating and ascertaining
the facts.
In our first volume we showed that Jesus
beheved himself to be the Messiah from
the time of Ms baptism. To follow the
development of Ms thought about himself
from that day forward, we must rest upon
tMs historic basis : he believed himself to
be the Messiah. This is the starting-point.
He was born at the very time when men
were expecting the Messiah; and this
wholly external historic fact certainly had
its influence upon his first decision.
He had been arriving at it little by little,
and at his baptism it became definitive.

222 JESUS CHRIST
At the temptation he had repelled the
popular Jewish Messianism wMch was to
accomplish a political revolution; it was
by a wholly spiritual and moral course of
action that he would prepare for the king
dom of God. Toward the end he took a
further step : he was to be a suffering
Messiah, persecuted and dying as a sacri
fice. We must now ask what consequences
are involved in tMs affirmation, " I am the
Messiah." One point must first be ascertained:
Did Jesus deceive himself ? This question,
wMch we put to ourselves in our first
volume, here presents itself anew. Renan
has said that Jesus, intoxicated by success,
believed Mmself to be the Messiah. He
was sane at the beginning of Ms ministry,
he was no longer so at its close ; and Ms
history, as Renan relates it, notwithstand
ing the carefulness with which he treats it,
is the history of the growing excitement of a
man who began with good sense, clearness
of vision, the moral health of a fine and
noble genius, and who ended in a sickly
exaltation next door to insanity. The
word "madness " was not written by Renan,
but the thought may be found expressed on

DURING HIS MINISTRY 223
every page. Well, the facts are opposed
to tMs explanation. We affirmed tMs in
our first volume; here we must demon
strate it. The demonstration is so much
the more necessary as the error in question,
which is the capital, fundamental, one may
almost say the only, error in Renan's Life
of Jesus, has been widely spread abroad
and received as truth. There is a general
belief that Renan found the key to the
great enigma, and with it explained Jesus
Christ. Therefore CMistianity is done
away ; no one tMnks of it any more.
Now, what Renan discovered is this : Jesus
succeeded, and Ms success dazzled Mm,
blinded Mm, turned Ms head, and he
became the mysterious apocalyptic per
sonage of the last days.
Well, we do not tMnk it is possible, with
Mstory at hand, to talk of the visible suc
cess of the ministry of Jesus. He was
misunderstood by the people, and always
less and less understood by them. They
felt for him the merest passing admiration.
The authorities, the leaders, the theolo
gians, for the most part held him in very
small estimation ; and, above all, however
great may have been Ms popularity in the

224 JESUS CHRIST
early days, it is Mstorieally certain that it
continually went on diminisMng. When
Jesus cried, "Father, I thank thee that
thou hast Mdden these tilings from the
wise and prudent and hast revealed them
unto babes," 2 he recognized that these
new truths were Mdden from the doctors.
They were Mdden by the decision of a
supreme and mysterious will.
And later, when the crisis came, he.
kept Ms faith in himself. If he had
been at the mercy of success or failure,
guided by an external fatality, he would
have given up the attempt ; he did just the
contrary. In the hour of failure, pre
cisely when the people were leavmg him,
he declared Mmself to be the Messiah,
with an assurance, a decision, a certitude
greater than ever. We have pointed out
the strength of mind, the faith and cour
age with wMch in the midst of the crisis he
affirmed Ms MessiahsMp. This was the
moment, as we have shown, when he
might have said, "I have deceived my
self, I have lost all, the time of the
Messiah has not yet come ; " yet, on the
contrary, it was at this moment that he
1 Matt. xi. 25.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 225
gave a more precise form to his work. It
was an external event, the necessity of Ms
violent death, wMch gave birth to the
inward conviction, " I am continually more
certam, I am more certain now than ever,
that I am the Messiah; " and at the same
time he affirmed that all things had been
committed to him by the Father.1
We have here, then, a solid historic basis
for knowmg the thought of Jesus about
Mmself. He had a profound, invincible,
all-powerful conviction of Ms special voca
tion. He was convinced that the future
founder of the kingdom was already pres
ent in the world ; and, let it be carefully
observed, he showed not merely strength
of mmd, the courage of the unfortunate
in adversity (for him there was no adver
sity in the prospect of death, since it was
willed by the Father ; death was good and
essential to the Messianic work), he showed
not only courage, but the certitude that he
was the extraordinary personage expected
by his people, yet at the same time very
different from him, since he must die by
a violent death. His consciousness, which
may not be separated from his communion
i Matt. xi. 27.
15

226 JESUS CHRIST
with the Father, thus revealed to him what
he was and what his work was to be.
WMle affirming that he was the Messiah,
and accepting the utterance of Peter,
" Thou art the Christ ! " Jesus never
gave Mmself this name, but called Mmself
the Son of man.
He did so in the very opening of Ms
ministry, and the appellation aids us
much to understand his thought about
himself. Jesus attached to it extreme
importance ; he constantly gave Mmself
tMs name, he preferred it to any other,
and he was alone in thus prizmg it. His
apostles never adopted it; never, with a
single exception,1 did one of Ms disciples
give it to him ; it is probable that they did
not understand it. The name contains,
indeed, an element of the enigmatical.
To catch its true meaning, let us remain
in the field of facts. When Jesus took
tMs name it had behind it a somewhat
long past and a true history. Let us relate
this Mstory.
The prophets, Ezekiel for example, made
use of it to designate themselves. It was
a term of humility. By taking it the
1 Acts vii 56.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 227
prophet meant to stipulate clearly that he
was only a man, although charged with
a divine revelation. Thus, in the time of
the prophets, tMs name in no sense implied
Messianic dignity ; it was simply a proof
that a man was the bearer of a Mgher
revelation. Daniel, who came afterward, gave an
entirely different meaning to the epithet
" Son of man." This prophet declared 1
that after the four empires represented by
the four animals the Messianic kingdom
would appear, represented by a Son of man.
The Ancient of Days would confer upon a
being like unto a son of man power to
judge the world and govern it eternally.2
TMs detail is of capital importance ; tMs
pMase of Darnel's impressed men's minds
to such a point that in the time of Jesus
the name Son of man had become a
synonyme for Messiah, in his capacity of
judge of the world and ruler over the new
social state which was imminent. The
proofs of what we here affirm are abun
dant;3 and Jesus knew so well the pas-
i Dan. vii. 13. 2 Ibid, and viii. 15, x. 16.
3 Enoch xlvi. 1, 2, 3, xlviii. 2, 3, lxii. 9, 14, Ixx. 1.
Cf. Matt. x. 23, xiii. 41, xvi. 27, 28, xix. 28, xxiv. 27, 30,

228 JESUS CHRIST
sages of Enoch upon tMs subject, and the
whole theology of his time, that when he
stood before the Sanhedrin he called Mm
self the Son of man in the very words of
Daniel. There is, then, no doubt concerning the
signification wMch Jesus gave to this
name. He accepted the change of mean
ing which Daniel gave it, as indeed did all
the theologians of Ms time.
But the people did not. The new
meaning of the pMase " Son of man " re
mained unknown to them. They continued
to take it in the sense that Ezekiel had
given it, wMch was the simplest sense. To
them " Son of man " was what it was in all
the Semitic languages, and especially in
the Aramaic, a pure and simple synonyme
of the word " man." In all these languages,
in fact, the meaning of the word " Son " and
of the expression " Son of " is extremely
large.1 Thus the Son of man was, in the
37, 39, 44, xxv. 31, xxvi. 64 ; Mark xiii. 26, xiv. 62 ;
Luke xii. 40, xvii. 24, 26, 30, xxi. 27, 36, xxii. 69; Acts
vii. 55, 56 ; John v. 27 ; Rev. i. 13, xiv. 14.
1 " Son of the devil " is found, Matt. xiii. 38 ; Acts
xiii. 10.
Son of this world, Luke xx. 34.
Son of light, Luke xvi. 8; John xii. 36.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 229
minds of the people, not the Messiah, but a
prophet, a revealer. We can comprehend,
therefore, how it was that the apostles
never grasped the Messianic meaning of
tMs name. In taking it, Jesus, who knew
the ignorance of the people, knew very
well, while giving Mmself a Messianic
title and designating himself as the Mes
siah, how to veil from the eyes of the igno
rant the true signification of the word.
Thus he could ask, "Who do men say
that I, the Son of man, am?" l The name
could be taken in two senses ; and Jesus,
who knew tMs perfectly well, followed his
usual method, not to destroy, but to fulfil,
— to take a familiar traditional name and
transform it, making of it sometMng new
and original for almost everybody.
The Son of man was, then, in the thought
of Jesus: 1. The Messiah; for the Rab
bis in their schools and the Apocalypses
unknown to the people gave Mm that
Son of the resurrection, Luke xx. 36.
Son of the kingdom, Matt. viii. 12, xiii. 38.
Son of the bridegroom, Matt. ix. 15 ; Mark ii. 19 ;
Luke v. 34.
Son of hell, Matt, xxiii. 15.
Son of peace, Luke xvi. 16.
1 Matt. xvi. 13.

230 JESUS CHRIST
name. 2. A simple man charged with a
divine revelation, a prophet. Jesus used it
in both senses. He was the Son of man,
the glorious and triumphant Messiah, in his
eschatological predictions, and in his ser
mons to the people he was the Son of man,
humble and poor, who had not where to lay
Ms head. The name, then, answered to a
process which Jesus loved, and wMch he
set working in the parables, to awaken at
tention, and force serious consciences to put
to themselves an interrogatory. The name
at the same time revealed and concealed
Mm. It did not say everytMng, and tins
was just what he wished at the beginmng,
— without openly proclaiming Mmself as
the Messiah, to do the work of the Messiah,
and leave it to men to divine who he was
and recognize Mm.
The people gave Mm the name Son of
David ; but the apostles never did, and he
Mmself never took it. Yet it was one of
the names of the Messiah, according to
ideas which had been current since the
close of the Asmonean period. It was
admitted by every one that the expected
Avenger would descend from David and
be born at Bethlehem. St. Paul, for

DURING HIS MINISTRY 231
example, was convinced that Jesus had
been of the seed of David according to the
flesh.1 To believe that Jesus was the
Messiah was to believe that he was de
scended from David ; one was not sepa
rated from the other, and the two terms
" Messiah " and " Son of David " were
synonymous. Yet Jesus never took to Mmself the
name of Son of David ; he permitted it to
be given Mm. There is a shade of differ
ence there. He certainly accepted his
Davidic descent, since he never either re
fused or consented to it, since he never
demed or contested it ; but he preferred
not to take officially the name Son of
David. It is probable that he wished by
this means to thoroughly establish the fact
that Ms coming reign would have nothing
in common with that of a king like David,
who would have armies and exercise a
military power.
There were, indeed, many things which
Jesus did not repel, although he did not
adopt them, which he simply let alone.
Thus he permitted his disciples to baptize
with John 's baptism at the time when he
1 Rom. i. 3.

232 JESUS CHRIST
was detacMng himself from John, and was
himself no longer baptizing. In the same
way there were in Ms time ideas and opin
ions which he had no reason for rejecting,
for in themselves they were neither false
nor erroneous. They included nothing to
be condemned, and yet notwithstanding
he did not preach them and did not cause
Ms disciples to preach them.
Do, then, the names Messiah, CMist, Son
of man, Son of David, tell us all that Jesus
had thought about Mmself ? Not at all :
they are merely to serve as a basis ; they
are a point of departure, but there was a
progress. Upon tMs basis Jesus built up
a more complete notion of Ms person ; he
summed it up under another name, that of
Son of God.1
In taking the name of Son of man, Jesus
gave Mmself a Mstoric title, but did not
fully define Mmself. He claimed this
title solely to show that he was bringing
the promised Messianic blessings, and to
bring to mind his quality of judge ; but
besides tMs it instructed Ms apostles con
cerning his person. He often explained to
them who he was ; and in these secret
1 Matt. xi. 27-30.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 233
interviews, when he insisted less upon Ms
title of Messiah than upon his relations with
the Father, he took the name Son of God.
To understand as far as is possible
to us what tMs name signifies, we may
recall to mind that Jesus exercised a great
ascendancy over his disciples. He had
gained them by a superiority wMch made
itself felt; it was a moral grandeur, a
charm, if one wills, but the charm of a
singularly elevated nature. It had sufficed
for Mm to say to them, " Follow me," and
they followed Mm. They admired Mm,
loved him, were carried away by Mm,
subjugated, full of enthusiasm. Jesus had
taken care to preserve that first impression.
He had developed that attachment ; he had
done more ; he had had private conversa
tions with his apostles on the subject of
his person. He had sought to convince
them of Ms perfect communion with Ms
Father, and it was then that he gave him
self the name Son of God. It was essen
tial, in fact, that they should believe in Ms
sayings as in the Word of God itself ; and
if they gave themselves to Mm, it was
because they were convinced that he was
the Revelation of God, that the destinies

234 JESUS CHRIST
of the kingdom had been confided to Mm, —
in a word, because they beheved in Ms
person. In one of the most authentic passages in
the Gospels, a passage drawn from the
primitive collections of the discourses of
Jesus made by the apostle Matthew, we
find these words : " All tMngs have been
committed to me by the Father, and no
man knoweth the Son except the Father,
and none knoweth the Father except the
Son and he to whom the Son will reveal
Mm." 1 In tMs we come upon what Jesus
used to say to Ms apostles in their secret
interviews. He had had experience of the
blindness of the sages, the doctors, the
wise men ; he had just offered thanks to
God for revealing divine tMngs to cMldren
and to the humble ; it was he, the Son, who
made the Father known to the lowly of
tMs world, and the Father had put him in
charge of this work, which was the work of
preparation for the coming of the kingdom.
For this reason he had given everytiiing
over to him, — and no one but God can know
truly the depth of the thought of Jesus,
— and he added, " Come unto me, all ye
J Matt. xi. 25, 26.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 235
who are weary and heavy laden, and I will
give you rest. Take my yoke upon you
and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly
of heart, and you shall find rest unto your
souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden
is light."1
The extraordinary gentleness of these
words is equalled only by their incredible
assurance. We cannot and ought not to go
beyond them. We can think no differently
of Jesus from what he has thought of Mm
self, and what he thought we know only
in part. Let us accept tMs ignorance.
God has not permitted that we should
know more of Mm, and very daring are
the constructors of dogmatic theory who
build upon a basis so insufficient. They
must be reminded of this saying, " No one
knows the Son but the Father, and no
one knows the Father but the Son and he
to whom the Son will reveal Mm." Then,
no one comprehends God except Jesus,
and he who believes in him and finds God
by Mm ; and as to the Son himself, no one
knows him but the Father. Thus, the
nearer we live to Jesus CMist, the nearer
we live to God. Let us not ask more, and,
1 Matt. xi. 28, 29, 30.

236 JESUS CHRIST
in the name of this saying, let us not hesi
tate to call them too daring who formulate
and make precise statements. It was the
great error of the fourth century to have
forgotten this passage.
Jesus was the Son of God, but he seems
never to have conceived the idea that he
might be an incarnation of God.1 The
Jews calumniated him when they insisted
that he made Mmself equal to God,2 and it
is certain that these expressions applied to
his death — the blood of God, the death of
God — would have horrified Mm. He was
less than Ms Father ; 3 the Father had not
revealed all things to him.4 If he was
Son of God in a special sense, he was that
as all men are or may become his sons.6
We cannot go further without entering the
domain of dogmatics, and we abide by the
expression " divine sonship." Already dur
ing the eighteen years of Ms preparation at
1 Matt. xix. 17 ; Markx. 18; Luke xviii. 19.
2 John v. 18 ff., x. 33 f. 3 John xiv. 28.
4 Mark xiii. 31.
6 Matt. v. 9, 45 ; Luke vi. 35, xx. 36 ; John i. 12, 13,
x. 34, 35. Cf . Acts xvii. 28, 29 ; Rom. viii. 14, 19, 21,
ix. 26 ; 2 Cor. vi. 18 ; Gal. iii. 26, and in the Old Testa
ment, Deut. xiv. 1 ; Wisdom ii. 13, 18. All who are
raised from the dead will be sons of God, Luke xx. 36.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 237
Nazareth it was in his consciousness of
being the Son of God that Jesus found the
strength and joy of Ms heart, and because
he felt himself to be the Son of God he
was convinced that he was the bringer of
a new covenant. It was because he felt
Mmself to be the Son of God that in the
days of the temptation he transformed the
notion of the Messiah and that of the prep
aration for the Messianic kingdom; and
upon tliis divine sonship, as we have shown,
he built the idea of salvation.
He was the Son of God in a special sense,
for he said my Father, your Father, but
never our Father in common with his dis
ciples. He separated himself from the rest
of humamty ; but this was only an appear
ance, for his purpose was to raise humanity
up to himself, to create among men and
witliin them that normal relation to God
wMch sin had destroyed. To this end
he preached the Father, he revealed the
Father, he desired that humanity should
know God as Father. He felt that he must
awaken the sentiment of divine sonsMp;
then the kingdom would come.

238 JESUS CHRIST

CHAPTER XIV
THE REQUIREMENTS OF JESUS
THO study the names which Jesus took
is still not enough.
At the moment at wMch we have arrived,
at the hour when he was going up to
Jerusalem, where Ms approacMng death
loomed up before him, we must understand
the words wMch he spoke about Mmself.
These words are of so imperative a nature
that any elucidation, any development, can
only weaken their import.
They are such as were never before
heard, and their character is absolute.
Men must follow him, love him, serve Mm,
believe in him, and give themselves to Mm,
because he first gave himself, and because
he brings to us not a new doctrine but a
person, his own. Men must live only for
him, love only him, prefer no other bemg
to him.1
1 Matt. x. 37-39, xvi. 24, 25 ; Luke ix.23-25, xiv. 26,
27 ; John xii. 26.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 239
The replies wMch he gave to those who
desired to follow Mm are equally distinct
and uncompromising.1 Where the ques
tion is of himself, what one owes to him,
what his disciples are bound to do for his
sake, he refuses all half-way measures and
approximations. He asks for all ; he will
have all. Renunciation must be complete,2
all that one has, without restriction. One
must flee from all that binds him to earth ;
and Ms illustrations are frightfully strong,
— one must cut off the hand, pluck out the
eye, wMch cause Mm to fall into sin.3
One may take upon himself to renounce
marriage, but tMs he does not absolutely
ask.4 In every case he requires a total
renunciation of property, of the family, and
the rupture of all ties of blood.5 His dis
ciples must make no provision for a journey,
not a change of clothing, not even a wallet ,
they are to hve upon alms.6 They must
l Matt. viii. 21, 22 ; Luke ix. 59-62.
2 Luke xiv. 33.
3 Matt, xviii. 8, 9 ; Mark ix. 43 ff.
4 Matt. xix. 10 ff.
s Luke xviii. 29, 30 ; Matt. x. 37 ff. ; Luke xiv. 26,
27. 6 Matt. x. 8 f. ; Mark vi. 8 f. ; Luke ix. 3 f ., x. 1 f.
Cf . Midrash Jalkouth sur Deuter. Sur. 824.

240 JESUS CHRIST
not prepare their defence before their
judges ; the Paraclete will inspire them and
will be their guide tMough the world.1
They will be hated, persecuted, " lambs in
the midst of wolves," but let them fear
notiiing. They are "of more value than
many sparrows." 2 He will confess be
fore his Father those who have confessed
him before men, and he will deny those
who have denied Mm, when he returns in
glory ; 3 and this will be soon, for he ended
by declaring that they would not have
finished making a tour of the cities of
Israel when the Son of man should appear.
In fact, perfectly to comprehend the
words in which Jesus demanded the renun
ciation of all worldly goods4 and even of
the family, we must remember that at that
time every one was persuaded that the end
of the world was at hand. Men did not
even ask a question as to the time, no one
asked Mmself when it would come, for it
1 Matt. x. 20 ; Luke xxi. 14 f . ; Mark xiii. 11 ; John
xiv. 16 f., xv. 26, xvi. 7-13.
2 Matt. xx. 24-31 ; Luke xxii. 4-7, i. 17; John xv.
18 f ., xvii. 14.
8 Matt. x. 32, 33 ; Mark viii. 38 ; Luke ix. 26, xii.
8,9. 4 Luke xiv. 26 f .

DURING HIS MINISTRY 241
was expected to make itself apparent at
short notice. It was an admitted, recog
nized fact, beyond all argument. A Jew of
that time would say, The end of all tMngs
is at hand, exactly as we affirm that the
sun will rise to-morrow, and it could not
enter the mind of any one that the world
would last perhaps during long centuries.
In general, Jesus condemned the good
things of this world only as they Mnder
the accomplishment of one's Christian
duties. There were cases where he did not
disapprove of them absolutely, but solely
if they were the cause of one's falling into
sin.1 But there were also times when he
said that earthly goods always do harm,
that they are always a cause of falling or
of sin.2 These precepts can only be taken
literally by those who believe that the
world is about to perish. How otherwise
can people literally put such teachings into
practice, break all family ties, give all their
goods to the poor, give up all that they
possess ? There have been found holy men
who said that it should be done and who
tried to do it. They were mistaken. And
i Mark ix. 43, and parallel passages.
2 Luke xiv. 25 ff. is explicit.
16

242 JESUS CHRIST
yet would not the perfect man be he who
should jsrecisely conform his life to Christ's
precepts, and meet all Ms requirements?
Certainly; and therefore we see that an
immense, a prodigious moral progress has
been made by Christian humanity since
Jesus Christ, and that the world owes it to
his gospel, and particularly to these uncom
promising words. It is these precepts,
holding up the ideal before our eyes, which
have brought about tMs progress. Jesus
said, TMs is the goal ; he made appeal to
the power of the will ; he showed that man
has within him divine forces whose power
is without limit.
Furthermore, when he gave these precepts
he applied them to himself, and he had
already made the sacrifice of his life.
When he gave them, and when he thought
of his death, he was looMng to the beyond;
he was prophesying of the future, and gaz
ing with magnificent clearness of vision
upon the frightful tempest wMch he was
about to let loose. He was about to bring
in the sword, three against two, two against
three.1 i Matt. x. 34-36 ; Luke xii. 51-53. Cf . Micah vii. 6.
See also John xvi. 2 ; xv. 18-20.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 243
Thus Jesus came little by little to the
point where he could make the highest
assertions concerning Mmself, his work,
the future, the final triumph of righteous
ness and of his own person. His Father
had given him power even to change the
Sabbath.1 Faith could do all tMngs,2 and
nature would obey him who prayed and
believed as it obeyed Jesus himself.
Yet he never claimed that he was the
creator of the world or its present gov
ernor; Ms highest claims were entirely
Messiamc: he was one day to judge and
renew the world. To preside at the final
assizes, where all humanity would appear,
tMs was Ms office.
But observe carefully all that tMs in
cludes. We are here at the highest point.
Jesus was convinced that all who believed
in him would receive the entire satisfaction
of their religious needs ; and we must place
here his words about Mmself in the fourth
Gospel, although they have evidently
undergone remodelling in takmg on the
Johannme form. John, the inspirer and
fundamentally the true author of tMs book,
1 Matt. xii. 8 ; Luke vi. 5.
2 Matt. vii. 19 f . ; Luke xvii. 6.

244 JESUS CHRIST
shows the Christ as progressively revealing
his person. Is not tMs an authentic mem
ory of the process wMch the Master fol
lowed with his disciples? John puts into
his mouth words wMch perhaps Jesus chd
not always actually utter, but wMch he
was convinced he might have uttered, and
wMch simply expressed what he was. In
this St. John made no mistake. The
Christ of the fourth Gospel in no respects
overpasses him whom the Synoptists had
made us perceive. Jesus was indeed he
who is " the way, the truth, and the life."
" He who hath seen Mm hath seen the
Father." l
This, then, is what he thought of Mmself
at the time when the opposition which had
already been shown became most violent.
Men were turning against Mm, and soon
they would put him to death; Ms work
would be interrupted, Ms life shattered,
his projects brought to notMng. But out
of the depths of his consciousness and the
certainty of divine SonsMp he drew a new
conviction : " If I die by a violent death,
my death will be the vital moment of my
work, the crowning of the preparation for
1 John xiv. 6, 9.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 245
the coming of the kingdom ; out of it will
come the salvation of my people and of
mankind." In tMs work, wMch is neither dogmatic
nor metaphysical and in which we confine
ourselves to ascertaining the facts, we find
ourselves led on, it is evident, to the es
tablishment of facts which are strange and
utterly inexplicable if Jesus was not a
being apart, above and beyond humanity
as we know it. We speak of Ms require
ments ; perhaps we would better say his
requirement, — for he made only one, which
includes all the others : he asked that men
should believe in Mm.
It is sometimes said that Jesus asks men
to believe like him, but does not ask them
to believe in him. No ; precisely the con
trary is true. The facts are these : Jesus
never said, " Believe like me," but, " Be
lieve in me ; " and he said it most especially
at the period of Ms life at which we have
arrived. At the present time, among Christians,
no one believes precisely like Jesus. Do
we believe like him when he believed
that a deaf-mute was possessed by a demon ?
Jesus adopted many of the opinions of his

246 JESUS CHRIST
time, and these opinions are not always
ours. He was not a theologian; he had
notMng to do with dogmatics or with
criticism, for the very simple reason that
these sciences did not exist at the time in
which he lived.
More than this : in the synagogues and
at school in Nazareth he never heard any
thing about rehgious doctrines as being
verities to be believed. Jesus never put
to himself such a question as " Is this doc
trine true ? " and he Mmself never formu
lated dogmas of which he said, " These
are verities to be admitted," nor did he
ever put to himself a critical question con
cerning the religious affirmations of the
synagogue ; nor did what is to-day called
orthodoxy exist m his time.
By orthodoxy I mean opinion conformed
to a teaching fixed by religious authority,
as opposed to heresy, to the opinion wMch
parts company with the official and ac
cepted faith, and is in disaccord with it.
In the time of Christ no one knew what it
was to be or not to be orthodox, no one
concerned himself with such a matter.
Thus, upon the most important of questions,
the person of the Messiah, every one had

DURING HIS MINISTRY 247
his own notion. One said he would be a
political personage ; another said he would
be exclusively religious. Some preached
that he would remain hidden, living humbly
among men ; others, that he would sud
denly descend from heaven in Ms glory.
He will appear before this or that, said
one ; no, he will appear after it, said an
other, etc. In this matter no one had
the slightest notion of putting forth an
opinion wMch should be final and obliga
tory ; and it was thus with respect of all
the doctrines. No one dreamed of formu
lating them, and therefore we have not
been able in the preceding chapters to set
forth the teacMng of Jesus as a doctrine to
be believed; and indeed Jesus would not
have wished it.
Yet were there no heretics ? Assuredly :
those who did not follow certain practices.
A pious Jew did all that tradition or
dained. No negation would put him among
the number of heretics, but those were re
garded with disfavor who did not accom
plish certain acts, did not observe certain
rites, to which every one was attached. A
Sadducee might quietly deny the existence
of angels, of spirits, and of the invisible

248 JESUS CHRIST
world ; if he offered the required sacri
fices, if he recited the Shema, if he ob
served the Sabbath, he was a Jew without
reproach, and it was certainly a much more
grave matter to eat pork than to deny the
resurrection of the dead. Acts were more
important than ideas.
Never did any Pharisee take Jesus to
task for his religious ideas, — - for, once
again, there were no heretical rehgious
ideas, — and he was always permitted to
preach precisely what he chose. But he
was taken to task for breaking the Sab
bath ; his violation of it was the great and
standing grievance of his adversaries. A
Jew passed for pious if he went every year
to offer the Paschal lamb, just as the
Catholic is pious who does not fail every
year to " keep his Easter."
Now, Jesus, without precisely rejecting
these practices, declared that they were of
value only by reason of the sentiment of
the heart, the mward faith wMch accom
panied them ; and as to his own religious
ideas, he never said, " Admit them."
In this chapter, in which we speak of
what he required, we must also say what
he did not require.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 249
Let us recall to mind a few of the
religious beliefs of Jesus: we shall see
that, side by side with imperishable and
eternal verities, they include outworn ele
ments wMch were doomed to disappear.
His God was the God of his people;
no doubt he had such an experience of the
fatherhood of God, he felt it so profoundly
and intimately and affirmed it with so
much power, that one might say that he
first gave it to the world ; yet it is none
the less certain that he did not create the
idea, and that the Old Testament teaches
the fatherhood of God.1
The same is the case with his notions of
sin and holiness. The Old Testament
taught them on every page.
These two notions are thorouglily He
braic. But it may be said that Jesus
made them over, and, as we have shown in
our first volume, the notion of sin is
closely connected with his appearing. In
his view, evil was getting the better of
good. His generation was wholly bad.2
He who departs from God is dead and
1 See, for example, the whole of Psalm ciii. and
especially verse 13 and the Psalms passim.
2 Matt. vii. 11, xii. 39 f., xvi. 4; Luke ix. 41.

250 JESUS CHRIST
lost.1 Sin is a debt contracted toward
God,2 and we cannot ourselves discharge
it.3 The sinner is a debtor. The seat
of evil is the heart.4 Jesus never speaks
of original sin, and assumes notMng mnate.
He says that sin comes from the devil and
Ms suggestions. The devil sows tares.5
Moreover, evil comes from ourselves, from
our desires. The eye, the foot, the hand,
may cause us to fall into sin.6
Jesus, hke his contemporaries, beheved
in demons. The devil is very powerful,
for this world is his kingdom ; 7 neverthe
less he will not prevail. The kingdom of
God is coming. Temptations come from
Satan, and to say to God, "Lead us not
into temptation, but deliver us from the evil
one," signifies, "Preserve us from situa
tions where the devil can get a hold upon
us." Sometimes Jesus rebuked demons
because they recognized Mm.8 That is to
1 Luke xv. 24, 32.
2 Matt. vi. 12. See the Greek text.
8 Matt, xviii. 25 f. ; Luke vii. 41, 42.
' Matt. xv. 17-20, xvi. 41 ; Mark xvii. 21 f.
6 Matt. xiii. 19, 25, 38 1; Luke xxii. 31; John
viii. 44.
8 Matt. v. 30, xviii. 8 ; Mark xi. 43.
7 Matt. xii. 26.
8 Mark i. 25; Luke iv. 35, 41, etc.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 251
say, that demons, being powers of the
invisible world, knew everything, and
among others immediately recognized the
Messiah in the humble form wMch he had
chosen. Jesus seems also to have said
nothing original concerning angels. He
always spoke of them in the plural. They
were to be the servitors of the Son of man
at the last judgment.1 They would make
the great separation of all men into two
parts.2 CMldren had guardian angels in
heaven.3 Angels did not know all
tMngs.4 The devil had also his angels,
which were demons.5 Men would be
with the angels in heaven.6
Jesus, then, was a man of Ms time, and
he shared the beliefs of his time concern
ing angels, demons, the authenticity of
the Law. With regard to the date of the
end of the world he may have believed,
he certainly did believe, that wMch the
Jews of his age believed ; but he nowhere
tells us that to be a Christian we must
believe all that. To be his disciple, once
i Matt. xiii. 39, 41, 49.
2 Matt. xvi. 27, xxiv. 31, xxv. 31 ; Mark viii. 38 ;
Luke xii. 22.
3 Matt, xviii. 10. 4 Mark xiii. 32.
5 Matt. xxv. 41. 6 Mark xii. 25.

252 JESUS CHRIST
again we repeat, one must follow him,
live his life, enter into communion with
him, — a very different tiling.
Let us also take notice that Jesus never
gave commandments of his own which
were to replace the ordinances of the
Law. He confined Mmself to prescribing
the commandments of the Old Testament.1
That is to say, he no more gave us
duties to learn than doctrines to believe.
He simply taught that whosoever is pene
trated with the spirit of the gospel will
practise the gospel. To love God is the
great means of changing the direction of
one's life. Therefore the Lord's Prayer
begins with the hallowing of the name of
God; and to love God men must love
Jesus, and believe in Jesus.
The confidence in himself which Jesus
required rested upon the consciousness of
his moral perfection, — a consciousness all
the more remarkable that it appeared in a
world which had but small moral develop
ment. Nothing shows a general moral
progress among the Jews of the first cen
tury. In this regard Jesus was not con-
i Matt. v. 19, xv. 4, xix. 17 f ., and parallel passages ;
Luke p. 25 f. ; John xiv. 15, 21, xv. 12 f.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 253
nected with the past ; he who was bound
to it by so many ties of all kinds was not
held to it by this tie. He was in no respect
the last term of an evolution of the moral
progress of his people ; and it was because
he was fully convinced of his moral supe
riority, of his perfect holiness, that he asked
Ms own to follow him.
Jesus, then, brings to us no list of beliefs
to confess and of dogmas to subscribe to ;
but he does tell us what we must do to
become Ms disciples.
It is very remarkable that he is true to
the Jewish spirit, in giving to his disciples,
not ideas to accept, but acts to perform.
The error of those persons is then plain
who believe that to decide what is Chris
tian doctrine we must begin by making
perfectly evident the thought of Jesus
CMist. They fancy that Jesus brought to
us doctrines to believe, which must have
for us an exterior authority, a canon. Cer
tain Protestants are disposed to say, " The
sayings of Jesus Christ are our Bible,
our infallible authority, in the plenary in
spiration of which we believe. We carve
out our Bible from within the Bible, and
the teachings of Jesus Christ are for us

254 JESUS CHRIST
what the whole Bible was for the theop-
neusties of former times."1
Not at all; for Jesus asks of Ms own
only to believe in Mm, to follow Mm, to
love one another, to bear their cross after
Mm, to put their trust in Mm ; and it is a
grave error to picture Jesus as giving us
a doctrine independent of his person, and
bringing us a complete and logical system.
He never formulated abstract truths which
must be accepted by an intellectual opera
tion. He never demands beliefs, but con
fidence in himself ; and by this confidence
he creates a new Hfe in the soul, a reli
gious and moral life, communion with God.
We who repel the notion of exterior au
thority of the Bible, saying, " It is to Jesus
Christ that we must go," — are we replacing
the authority of the Bible with that of Jesus
Christ ? No doubt. Only we must clearly
understand what we mean by the words
"the authority of Jesus Christ." The
only way of understanding them is by
asking what Jesus himself wanted us to
understand by Ms authority. He cer
tainly meant by it notMng else than con-
i I admit the supposition that the sayings of Jesus
are all authentic, which has first to be demonstrated.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 255
fidence in Mm. The authority of others
is made of the confidence with wMch
they inspire us. It can be made of noth
ing else unless it is to be made of material
force, wMch cannot here be in question.1
1 The religion of Jesus, Christianity, is, then, not a
system of religious truths which we are invited to
believe. Very many persons think that faith is noth
ing else than adhesion to a, certain number of doc
trines. This wholly intellectual conception is that of
Catholicism, from which Protestant orthodoxy has not
yet been able to free itself. In consequence, to believe
in the teaching of the Church is to be a Christian, and
in virtue of this wholly Catholic notion the orthodox
Protestant Synods have not confined themselves to
setting forth that which for them is Christian doc
trine (that is, their duty), but have insisted that men
shall give adhesion to the confession of faith which
they have formulated. As if aware of the error which
they are committing, they are now making these
Symbols as short as possible, reducing them to a more
or less scanty minimum. But, minimum or not, they
commit an error. They confound faith with intellec
tual adhesion to ready-made truths, formulated by the
Church or its representatives. Now, if there is one
certitude which stands out with evidence from all that
in this book we have heard Jesus say, it is that faith is
an act of the moral life, that its object is the person
of the Christ, and that by faith each one enters into
personal contact with him. Each Christian who has
faith appropriates the Christ to himself, and should
remain faithful to him, however much his dogmatic
conceptions may become modified. Hence it results
that faith in Jesus Christ may live, develop, and

256 JESUS CHRIST
It will perhaps be said: Of little conse
quence indeed are the purely intellectual
triumph, whatever may be the believer's dogmatic
notions. Men smile at faith independent of belief,
because they do not know what it is. But it is not we
who invented it, but Jesus himself who taught it ; and
this notion is all the more certainly historic because
it is in accord with the Jewish society in the midst of
which it arose. We have said that in this society the
idea mattered little. Men believed this or that with
the intellect, but they cared only for the rite
performed. No doubt Jesus transformed this way of looking at
things ; he cared nothing for the rite ; for example, he
broke the Sabbath, but he replaced the rite by his own
person. He cared for only one thing, he insisted on
only one thing, but he insisted on this with great
rigor, — that men should attach themselves to him,
live and die for him, unite themselves to him by a
deep and living faith, by a moral act which binds
their whole being to him. The rest matters little.
Thus we escape from the objection which has been
made to our way of thinking. It has been said :
" Faith independent of belief means nothing. Faith
must have an object." No doubt, we reply ; and its
object is the person of Jesus Christ. Faith is not,
then, a purely subjective sentiment, but it is independ
ent of historical beliefs, for which study is necessary.
What would the laborer, the peasant, the uncultured
man do, if in order to have saving faith he must inves
tigate facts, that is, pursue a course of study 1 A
purely historic event, M. Lachelier well says, (a) can
not he an object of faith, precisely because it is his
toric, and by this quality an object of knowledge.
(«) See ante, page 94.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 257
beliefs of Jesus. He was ignorant of sci
entific discoveries which we have made
and are making every day; he knew
nothing of modern astronomy, neither
had he our theological knowledge; but
he had an opinion about Mmself, and
when he asks men to believe in him,
does he mean by that, believe in what
he tMnks about Mmself?
No; for the two notions are different.
A child who believes in his father, who
has confidence in him, does not necessarily
believe what his father tMnks about Mm
self. Most generally he does not know,
and perhaps could not even understand,
what he tMnks. His father may consider
himself a genius, and may be mistaken ;
the child has confidence, simply because his
father is good and strong, takes care of
Mm, gives him his daily bread, watches
over Mm. He knows of his father that
of which he has had experience, and even
about this he does not reason; he feels
instinctively that his confidence in his
father is well placed: that is all. He
cannot know anything that lies outside
of this feeling and confidence. A truth
wMch has been neither experienced nor
17

258 JESUS CHRIST
lived remains beyond us, and is for us as
if it were not.1 The child's confidence
of wMch I speak rests, then, solely upon
practical experience such as is witMn the
powers of the child. He believes in his
father's authority because Ms father in
spires him with confidence and he has
felt his authority.
Later, when he is at an age to reason
and reflect, he may be able to conclude,
from what he knows and from what he
has seen, that his father is this or that.
This will be a doctrine about Ms father;
but before formulating tMs doctrine he
will have lived by Ms faith, will have
been happy in it, will have been his
father's disciple, will have obeyed Mm
even in tMngs which he has not always
understood. In the same way we, if we consider our
selves competent to discern in the words
of Jesus about Mmself any affirmations
which explain what he is, wMch aid us
to understand the source of the good he
has done us, to comprehend the cause of
i "En religion toute ve'rite hors de nous n'est ni
posse'de'e ni connue." Vinet, Nouvelles iStudes evange"-
liques, second edition, page 308.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 259
the salvation we have found in Mm and
experienced in our souls, very well, let us
try! Let us be theologians, for it is the
business of theologians to discuss these
things. Some one may say that Jesus was simply
a holy man, and that his divinity was
purely moral. Another may discover in
him the second person of the Trinity, as
the Athanasian Symbol sets Mm forth.
The latter may, perhaps, be right : we pre
judge nothing, we condemn a priori no
formula, no dogmatic decree of the Church.
We only say that all that comes after
faith in Jesus and assurance of salvation
possessed in him. The drowning man
clings to Ms savior, holds fast to him,
makes Mmself one with Mm, and after
ward, when he is saved, he may put to
Mmself questions about his savior, and
ask himself who tMs may be who was
strong enough to save Mm ; but he began
by having confidence in him. Intellectual
theories come afterward; and the simple
believer who has not time to study, and
who neither can nor ought to accept
blindly the teachings of the Church,
experiences the salvation wMch is in

260 JESUS CHRIST
Jesus Christ, and says, "Whether this
man he a sinner or not, I know not:
one tiling I know: whereas I was blind,
now I see." l 1 John ix. 16.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 261

CONCLUSION
T7J7E have contemplated Jesus, have
sought to see Mm as he was, to
hear him as entirely and as truly as pos
sible ; we have tried to know him : but
it was impossible for our curiosity to re
main disinterested. Yet it must do so,
says the historian, if you desire a perfectly
authentic testimony and a perfectly faith
ful picture. We cannot consent to con
sider such a position the true one. The
abstraction of the intellect is always
withering to the heart, and how shall we
admit that in this ease the heart has not
its word to say ? To confine ourselves to
saying of Jesus, " I admire him," without
saying to Mm, " I believe in thee," • — would
not this be to condemn ourselves before
hand to have only a sterile acquaintance
with Mm, insufficient and incomplete ?
But how shall we reach the point of
saying " I believe " ? Historical testimony
cannot suffice : it is impossible to prove

262 JESUS CHRIST
irrefutably that CMistianity is true.
Formerly men based their apologetic on
the miracles, and the prophecies that
were supposed to have come true ; but
tMs method is outworn and absolutely
overthrown. Shall we, then, attempt to show that
Christiamty is true because it responds
to the needs of the human soul, and be
cause there is a pre-established harmony
between man and the gospel ? Vinet was
the eloquent and fully persuaded defender
of this sort of apologetic. But is it
entirely adapted to the present require
ments of thought ? Can it restore in our
modern world belief in the Biblical reve
lation and in Christian verities ? Many
dispute it.
Yet the subjective method is the only
possible method to-day. We must adhere
closely to moral truth, — never call evil
good and good evil : keep and conserve the
great and unassailable certitudes, chng to
them, and never on any pretext or for any
reason let go of this plank of safety.
Here effort is necessary. Men must will,
— must will never to sacrifice conscience,
will to remain faitixful to duty, will to do

DURING HIS MINISTRY 263
what Jesus called the will of God.1 Then
one has faith. This faith is an act of will,
but it is not blind ; it is the faith born of
the experience of Mm whose eyes have
been opened.
It is impossible to prove that Jesus was
not a " sinner ; " but I would say to the
non-believer, it is impossible for you to
prove to me that he was one. And that
is sufficient for me, for " whereas I was
blind, now I see." 2 I admit that my ex
perience is wholly subjective ; but pre
cisely because it is subjective it is sufficient
for me, for it is I who have had it.
But it must be had ; and let Christians
not forget that they are strong only so
far as they are extraordinary men, super
natural men. The affirmation of the su
pernatural on their lips is useless if the
supernatural does not blaze forth in their
lives. The great objection to Christianity
is precisely this, — the insufficiency of
CMistian lives. When Christians show
that Jesus CMist has changed them, that
the preaching of the preparation of the
kingdom by the renewing of hearts is as
powerful as formerly, then Jesus CMist
i John vii. 17. 2 John ix. 25.

264 JESUS CHRIST
Mmself will be proved ; Ms gospel will be
saved. During his entire ministry, whatever
might be the passing events and the ex
ternal circumstances of Ms life, Jesus was
absolutely and irrefragably convinced that
righteousness would triumph, that goodness
would be conqueror, that the kingdom of
God would come. This conviction was
the strength and joy of Ms life. To this
certitude was joined another, ever growing
brighter and stronger in his soul, that
the triumph of righteousness, of the right
and the good, would be brought about by
him, and that he should be the hero of
the victory to come.
In presence of such a being, a being
who had such moral greatness and such
compassion, who possessed so absolute a
conviction, who made such unheard-of
demands, who showed so entire a devotion,
and who enjoyed a life in God and by Mm
so deep, so intense, so evidently certain,
the exclamation of Thomas is not too
strong ; it bursts from our hearts and lips ;
we utter to Jesus this cry of obedience
and adoration, " My Lord and my God ! " x
1 John xx. 28.

DURING HIS MINISTRY 265
I close this second volume at the arrival
of Jesus at Jerusalem for the Feast of
Tabernacles, in the beginning of the month
of October in the year 29. There remains
for me to describe the few months which
preceded his death, Ms trial, his execution,
and, finally, his life beyond the tomb, Ms
resurrection. TMs will be the subject of
a tMrd volume ; and thus I shall complete
the treatment of the three questions which
my general title presupposes, — the person,
the authority, and the work of Jesus, —
questions to wMch, as I hope, many pages
of the present volume have already made
answer.

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