His disciples, and
the pious women who tended him, met him again in Judea. But how much everything
was changed for him there! Jesus was a stranger at Jerusalem. He felt
that there was a wall of resistance he could not penetrate. Surrounded
by snares and difficulties, he was unceasingly pursued by the ill-will
of the Pharisees. Instead of that illimitable faculty of belief, happy
gift of youthful natures, which he found in Galilee -- instead of those
good and gentle people, among whom objections (always the fruit of some
degree of ill-will and indocility) had no existence, he met there at each
step an obstinate incredulity, upon which the means of action that had
so well succeeded in the north had little effect. His disciples were despised
as being Galileans. Nicodemus, who, on one of his former journeys, had
had a conversation with him by night, almost compromised himself with
the Sanhedrim by having wished to defend him. "Art thou also of Galilee?"
they said to him. "Search and look: for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet."
The city, as we have already said, displeased Jesus. Until then he had always
avoided great centers, preferring for his action the country and the towns
of small importance. Many of the precepts which he gave to his Apostles were
absolutely inapplicable, except in a simple society of humble men. Having no
idea of the world, and accustomed to the kindly communism of Galilee, remarks
continually escaped him whose simplicity would at Jerusalem appear very singular.
His imagination and his love of nature found themselves constrained within
these walls. True religion does not proceed from the tumult of towns, but from
the tranquil serenity of the fields.
The arrogance of the priests rendered the courts of the temple disagreeable
to him. One day some of his disciples, who knew Jerusalem better than he, wished
him to notice the beauty of the buildings of the temple, the admirable choice
of materials, and the richness of the votive offerings that covered the walls. "Seest
thou these buildings?" said he; "there shall not be left one stone upon another." He
refused to admire anything, except it was a poor widow who passed at that moment
and threw a small coin into the box. "She has cast in more than they all," said
he; "for all these have of their abundance cast unto the offerings of God:
but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had." This manner
of criticizing all he observed at Jerusalem, of praising the poor who gave
little, of slighting the rich who gave much, and of blaming the opulent priesthood
who did nothing for the good of the people, naturally exasperated the sacerdotal
caste. As the seat of a conservative aristocracy, the temple, like the Mussulman
harem which succeeded it, was the last place in the world where revolution
could prosper. Imagine an innovator going in our days to preach the overthrow
of Islamism round the mosque of Omar! There, however, was the center of the
Jewish life, the point where it was necessary to conquer or die. On this Calvary,
where certainly Jesus suffered more than at Golgotha, his days passed away
in disputation and bitterness, in the midst of tedious controversies respecting
canonical law and exegesis, for which his great moral elevation, instead of
giving him the advantage, positively unfitted him.
In the midst of this troubled life, the sensitive and kindly heart of Jesus
found a refuge, where he enjoyed moments of sweetness. After having passed
the day disputing in the temple, towards evening Jesus descended into the valley
of Kedron, and rested a while in the orchard of a farming establishment (probably
for the making of oil) named Gethsemane, which served as a pleasure garden
to the inhabitants. Thence he proceeded to pass the night upon the Mount of
Olives, which limits the horizon of the city on the east. This side is the
only one in the environs of Jerusalem which offers an aspect in any degree
pleasing and verdant. The plantations of olives, figs, and palms were numerous
there, and gave their names to the villages, farms, or enclosures of Bethphage,
Gethsemane, and Bethany. There were upon the Mount of Olives two great cedars,
the memory of which was long preserved among the dispersed Jews; their branches
served as an asylum to clouds of doves, and under their shade were established
small bazaars. All this precinct was in a manner the abode of Jesus and his
disciples; they knew it field by field and house by house.
The village of Bethany, in particular, situated at the summit of the hill,
upon the incline which commands the Dead Sea and the Jordan, at a journey of
an hour and a half from Jerusalem, was the place especially beloved by jesus.
He there made the acquaintance of a family composed of three persons, two sisters
and a brother, whose friendship had a great charm for him. Of the two sisters,
the one named Martha was an obliging, kind, and assiduous person; the other,
named Mary, on the contrary, pleased Jesus by a sort of languor and by her
strongly- developed speculative instincts. Seated at the feet of Jesus, she
often forgot, in listening to him, the duties of real life. Her sister, upon
whom fell all the duty at such times, gently complained. "Martha, Martha," said
Jesus to her, "thou art troubled, and carest about many things; now, one thing
only is needful. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away." Her
brother, Eleazar, or Lazarus, was also much beloved by Jesus. Lastly, a certain
Simon, the leper, who was the owner of the house, formed, it appears, part
of the family. It was there, in the enjoyment of a pious friendship, that Jesus
forgot the vexations of public life. In this tranquil home he consoled himself
for the bickerings with which the scribes and the Pharisees unceasingly surrounded
him. He often sat on the Mount of Olives, facing Mount Moriah, having beneath
his view the splendid perspective of the terraces of the temple, and its roofs
covered with glittering plates of metal. This view struck strangers with admiration;
at the rising of the sun, especially, the sacred mountain dazzled the eyes,
and appeared like a mass of snow and of gold. But a profound feeling of sadness
poisoned for Jesus the spectacle that filled all other Israelites with joy
and pride. He cried out, in his moments of bitterness, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee,
how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth
her chickens under her wings, and ye would not."
It was not that many good people here, as in Galilee, were not touched; but
such was the power of the dominant orthodoxy that very few dared to confess
it. They feared to discredit themselves in the eyes of the Hierosolymites by
placing themselves in the school of a Galilean. They would have risked being
driven from the synagogue, which, in a mean and bigoted society, was the greatest
degradation. Excommunication, besides, carried with it the confiscation of
all possessions. By ceasing to be a Jew, a man did not become a Roman; but
remained without protection, in the power of a theocratic legislation of the
most atrocious severity. One day the inferior officers of the temple, who had
been present at one of the discourses of Jesus, and had been enchanted with
it, came to confide their doubts to the priests: "Have any of the rulers or
of the Pharisees believed on him?" was the reply to them; "but this people
who knoweth not the Law are cursed." Jesus remained thus at Jerusalem, a provincial
admired by provincials like himself, but rejected by all the aristocracy of
the nation. The chiefs of schools and of sects were too numerous for anyone
to be stirred by seeing one more appear. His voice made little noise in Jerusalem.
The prejudices of race and of sect, the direct enemies of the spirit of the
Gospel, were too deeply rooted there.
His teaching in this new world necessarily became much modified. His beautiful
discourses, the effect of which was always observable upon youthful imaginations
and consciences morally pure, here fell upon stone. He who was so much at his
ease on the shores of his charming little lake felt constrained and not at
home in the company of pedants. His perpetual self- assertion appeared somewhat
fastidious. He was obliged to become controversialist, jurist, exegetist, and
theologian. His conversations, generally so full of charm, became a rolling
fire of disputes, an interminable train of scholastic battles. His harmonious
genius was wasted in insipid argumentations upon the Law and the prophets,
in which we should have preferred not seeing him sometimes play the part of
aggressor. He lent himself, with a condescension we cannot but regret, to the
captious criticisms to which the merciless cavillers subjected him. In general,
he extricated himself from difficulties with much skill. His reasonings, it
is true, were often subtle (simplicity of mind and subtlety touch each other;
when simplicity reasons, it is often a little sophistical); we find that sometimes
he courted misconceptions, and prolonged them intentionally; his reasoning,
judged according to the rules of Aristotelian logic, was very weak. But when
the unequalled charm of his mind could be displayed, he was triumphant. One
day it was intended to embarrass him by presenting to him an adulteress and
asking him what was to be done to her. We know the admirable answer of Jesus.
The fine raillery of a man of the world, tempered by a divine goodness, could
not be expressed in a more exquisite manner. But the wit which is allied to
moral grandeur is that which fools forgive the least. In pronouncing this sentence
of so just and pure a taste, "He that is without sin among you, let him first
cast a stone at her," Jesus pierced hypocrisy to the heart, and with the same
stroke sealed his own death-warrant.
It is probable, in fact, that but for the exasperation caused by so many
bitter shafts, Jesus might long have remained unnoticed, and have been lost
in the dreadful storm which was soon about to overwhelm the whole Jewish nation.
The high priesthood and the Sadducees had rather disdained than hated him.
The great sacerdotal families, the Boethusim, the family of Hanan, were only
fanatical in their conservatism. The Sadducees, like Jesus, rejected the "traditions" of
the Pharisees. By a very strange singularity, it was these unbelievers who,
denying the resurrection, the oral Law, and the existence of angels, were the
true Jews. Or rather, as the old Law in its simplicity no longer satisfied
the religious wants of the time, those who strictly adhered to it, and rejected
modern inventions, were regarded by the devotees as impious, just as an evangelical
Protestant of the present day is regarded as an unbeliever in Catholic countries.
At all events, from such a party no very strong reaction against Jesus could
proceed. The official priesthood, with its attention turned towards political
power, and intimately connected with it, did not comprehend these enthusiastic
movements. It was the middle-class Pharisees, the innumerable soferim, or scribes,
living on the science of "traditions," who took the alarm, and whose prejudices
and interests were in reality threatened by the doctrine of the new teacher.
One of the most constant efforts of the Pharisees was to involve Jesus in
the discussion of political questions, and to compromise him as connected with
the party of Judas the Gaulonite. These tactics were clever; for it required
all the deep wisdom of Jesus to avoid collision with the Roman authority while
proclaiming the kingdom of God. They wanted to break through this ambiguity,
and compel him to explain himself. One day a group of Pharisees and of those
politicians named "Herodians" (probably some of the Boethusim), approached
him, and, under pretence of pious zeal, said unto him, "Master, we know that
thou art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, neither carest thou for
any man. Tell us, therefore, what thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute
unto Caesar or not?" They hoped for an answer which would give them a pretext
for delivering him up to Pilate. The reply of Jesus was admirable. He made
them show him the image on the coin; "Render," said he, "unto Caesar the things
which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." Profound words,
which have decided the future of Christianity! Words of a perfected spiritualism,
and of marvelous justness, which have established the separation between the
spiritual and the temporal, and laid the basis of true liberalism and civilization!
His gentle and penetrating genius inspired him when alone with his disciples
with accents full of tenderness; "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that entereth
not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same
is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd
of the sheep. The sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name,
and leadeth them out. He goeth before them, and the sheep follow him; for they
know his voice. The thief cometh not but for to steal, and to kill, and to
destroy. But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep
are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth. I am the
good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine; and I lay down my life
for the sheep." The idea that the crisis of humanity was close at hand frequently
recurred to him. "Now," said he, "learn a parable of the fig-tree: When his
branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh.
Lift up your eyes and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest."
His powerful eloquence always burst forth when contending with hypocrisy. "The
scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. All, therefore, whatsoever they bid
you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they
say and do not. For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay
them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of
their fingers.
"But all their works they do to be seen of men; they make broad their phylacteries,
enlarge the borders of their garments, and love the uppermost rooms at feasts,
and the chief seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets, and to be
called of men Rabbi, Rabbi. Woe unto them! ...
"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you have taken
away the key of knowledge, shut up the kingdom of heaven against men! for
ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to
go in. Woe unto you, for ye devour widows' houses, and, for a pretence, make
long prayers: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. Woe unto
you, for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is made,
ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves! Woe unto you,
for ye are as graves which appear not; and the men that walk over them are
not aware of them.
"Ye fools, and blind! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cumming
and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith:
these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Ye blind
guides, which strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. Woo unto you!
"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites for ye make clean
the outside of the cup and of the platter; but within they are full of extortion
and excess. Thou blind Pharisee cleanse first that which is within the cup
and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.
"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto
whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within
full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly
appear righteous unto them, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build
the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous, and
say, 'If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers
with them in the blood of the prophets.' Wherefore, ye be witnesses unto
yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill
ye up then the measure of your fathers. 'Therefore, also,' said the Wisdom
of God, 'I will send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes; and some
of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your
synagogues, and persecute them from city to city. That upon you may come
all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous
Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew between
the temple and the altar.' Verily, I say unto you, all these things shall
come upon this generation."
His terrible doctrine of the substitution of the Gentiles -- the idea that the kingdom of God was about to be transferred to others, because those for whom it was destined would not receive it -- is used as a fearful menace against the aristocracy. The title "Son of God," which he openly assumed in striking parables, wherein his enemies appeared as murderers of the heavenly messengers, was as an open defiance to the Judaism of the Law. The bold appeal he addressed to the poor was still more seditious. He declared that he had "come that they which see not might see, and that they which see might be made blind." One day his dislike of the temple forced from him an imprudent speech: "I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands." His disciples found strained allegories in this sentence; but we do not know what meaning Jesus attached to it. But as only a pretext was wanted, this sentence was quickly laid hold of. It reappeared in the preamble of his death warrant, and rang in his ears amid the last agonies of Golgotha. These irritating discussions always ended in tumult. The Pharisees threw stones at him; in doing which they only fulfilled an article of the Law, which commanded every prophet, even a thaumaturgus, who should turn the people from the ancient worship, to be stoned without a hearing. At other times they called him mad, possessed, Samaritan, and even sought to kill him. These words were taken note of in order to invoke against him the laws of an intolerant theocracy, which the Roman Government had not yet abrogated.
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