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THE LIFE OF CHRIST

VOLUME III

THE

LIFE OF CHRIST

MGR. É. LE CAMUS

Bishop of La Rochelle, France
Translated by

WILLIAM A. HICKEY

Priest of the Diocese of Springfield
VOLUME m

New York

The Cathedral Library Association
MCMVIII

THE NEV/ YORK

PUBLIC LIEP—'^

ASTOR, LENOX ANO
TILDEN F0i;K:ïATiON8.

R 1S11 L

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England

Printed, January, 1908

THE TROW PRESS • NEW YORK

Biî)il mem:

Remigius Lafort, S.T.L.,

Censor.

3Fmptimatttr :

-I-'JoHN M. Farley,

Archbishop of New York.

December 15, 1907.

CONTENTS

THIRD VOLUME

BOOK III

(Continued from Volume 11)

Period of Combat in Jiidea

Section III
The Last Passover

CHAPTER I
JESUS GOES UP TO JERUSALEM

PAGE

The New Moon of Nisan — Impressions by the Way — Prophecies —
The Sons of Zebedee— First and Last. (St. Markx, 32-45; St. Mat-
thew xx, 17-28; St. Luke xviii, 31-34.) 3

CHAPTER II
JESUS IN JERICHO

The Two Roads Through Perœa — Past and Present — An Ovation —
The Healing of the Blind Men— Zacheus— The Parable of the
Pounds — Leavetaking. (St. Matthew xx, 29-34; St. Luke xviii, 35;
XIX, 28; St. Markx, 46-56.) 13

CHAPTER III
IN BETHANY

Popular Regard in Jerusalem — At the House of Simon the Leper — ^The
Woman with the Alabaster Box — ^The Homage of Mary Magdalen
— Judas — ^The Master's Lesson — "Praised by the Whole World."
(St John xi, 55; xii, 11; St. Mark xiv, 3-9; St. Matthew xxvi, 6-13.) 29
[ vii ]

CONTENTS

CHAPTER IV
THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRANCE INTO JERUSALEM

. PAOE

The Enthusiasm of the Multitude — The Procession — Acclamations —
Jesus and the Pharisees — Weeping Over Jerusalem — The Visit to the
Temple. (St. John xii, 12-19; St. Mark xi, 1-11; St. Luke xLx, 29-
44;St. Matthew xxi, 1-11.) 41

CHAPTER V
MONDAY: THE REIGN OF JESUS IN THE TEMPLE

The Sadness of Jesus — The Withered Fig-tree — The Sellers in the
Temple — "By What Authority" — Miracles of Healing — Acclama-
tion of the Young Lévites — The Pharisees. (St. Mark xi, 12-19;
St. Matthew xxi, 12-19; St. Luke xix, 45-48.) 51

CHAPTER VI

TUESDAY: THE REPLY TO THE SANHEDRIM-
PARABLES

Peter Before the Withered Fig-tree — In the Temple— The Question of
the Sanhedrim — The Counter-question of Jesus — Parable of the
Two Sons — The Husbandmen — The Corner-stone — The Marriage
Feast— The Wedding Garment. (St. Mark xi, 20; xii, 12; St. Mat-
thew xxi, 20; xxii, 14; St. Luke xx, 1-19.) 59

CHAPTER VII
TUESDAY: MORE QUESTIONING

The Herodians and Pharisees — Tribute to Csesar — The Sevenfold
Widow — The Life to Come — The Great Precept of the Law. (St.
Mark xii, 13-34; St. Matthew xxii, 15-40; St. Luke xx, 20-40.) . 74

CHAPTER VIII
WEDNESDAY: JESUS ASSUINIES THE OFFENSIVE

Son of David, and David's Lord — Silence of the Pharisees — Denuncia-
tion and Malediction— The Widow's Two Mites. (St. Matthew,
xxxii, 41; xxiii, 39; St. Mark xii, 35-44; St. Luke xx, 41; xxi, 4; and

xiii, 34-35; xi, 37-54.) 87

[ viii ]

CONTENTS

CHAPTER IX

JESUS AND THE GREEKS IN THE TEMPLE
ENCLOSURE

PAGE

Jesus and the Greeks— The Interview with Jesus— Philip and Andrew
—The Dying Grain— To Glorify the Father— The Voice from
Heaven— The Close of the Ministry. (St. John xii, 20-36.) . . 103

CHAPTER X

THE GREAT PROPHETIC DISCOURSE

From the Top of the Mount of Olives— Three Questions and Three Pic-
tures—The Approacliing Doom of Judaism— The Uninterrupted
Judgment of the Church— Parables— The Final Judgment of Man-
kind. (St. Matthew xxiv and xxv; St. Mark xiii, 1-37; St. Luke xxi,
5-36.) 115

CHAPTER XI

FINAL RESULT OF JESUS' IVHNISTRY

Israel Incapable of Understanding — An Objection and its Answer-
Israel's Deserved Rejection. (St. John xii, 36-50.) .... 154

PART THIRD
THE END

BOOK I

The Death of the Messiah

Section I

The Lengthening of the Shadow

CHAPTER I

JUDAS AND THE SANHEDRIM

At the House of Caiphas — Jesus Determines the Date of His Death —
The Motives of Judas— The Price to be Paid. (St. Matthew xxvi,
1-5 and 14-16; St. Mark xiv, 1 and 10-11; St. Luke xxii, 1-6.) . 163
[ ix ]

CONTENTS

CHAPTER II
PREPARATIONS FOR THE PASSOVER

PAGE

Thursday Morning — The Absence from Jerusalem — The Last Supper
and the Jewish Passover — St. John and the Synoptics. (St. Mat-
thew xxvi, 17-19; St. Mark xiv, 12-16; St. Luke xxii, 7-13.) . .170

CHAPTER III

, THE LAST SUPPER, AND THE DEPARTURE OF THE
BETRAYER

The Jews and the Paschal Meal — The First Words of Jesus — The
First Chalice — The Announcement of the End — The Dispute for the
First Place — The Washing of the Feet — The Unnamed Betrayer —
Peter's Impatience and John's Question — Judas Feels that He is
Unmasked. (St. Luke xxii, 14-30; St. Jolm xiii, 1-30; St. Matthew
xxvi, 20-25; St. Mark xiv, 17-21.) 187

CHAPTER IV

THE LAST SUFFER— Continued

The Discourses — Jesus on His Messianic Career Now Drawing to a
Close — The Church and the New Commandment — " Lord, Whither
Goest Thou?" — Abandonment by the Apostles — The Prediction of
Peter's Fall— The Two Swords. (St. John xiii, 31-38; St. Matthew
xxvi, 31-35;St. Mark xiv, 27-31; St. Luke xxii, 31-38.) . . .205

CHAPTER V

THE INSTITUTION OF HOLY COMMUNION

The Last Word of Divine Love — The Blessing of the Bread and the
Wine — The Real Presence and Transubstantiation — Luther and
Calvin — The Catholic Church — The Eucharist, Sacrament and Sac-
rifice. (St. Matthew xxvi, 26-29; St. Mark xiv, 22-25; St. Luke
xxii, 19-20 ; I Cor. xi, 23-25.) 213

[ x]

CONTENTS

CHAPTER VI
FIRST FAREWELL DISCOURSE

PAGE

Words of Encouragement — The Apostles United to Jesus — The Elect —
Jesus the Way — Builders of the Church — ISIiraculous Powers — The
Holy Ghost as Comforter — The Consolations of God. (St. John xiv,
1-3L) 226

CHAPTER VII

SECOND FAREWELL DISCOURSE

The Vine, the Branches, and the Husbandman — Union with Jesus —
The Continuation of the Master's Work — The World and the Apos-
tles— The Coming of the Holy Ghost — A Profession of Faith. (St.
John XV and xvi.) 242

CHAPTER VIII

JESUS' PRAYER

The High Priest of the New Law — His Glory — Sanctification in the
Truth — Consummation in Glory. (St. John xvii.) .... 266

Section II
The Trial of the Messiah

CHAPTER I

THE AGONY IN GETHSEMANE

The Entrance into the Garden — The Hour of Satan's Assault — Trouble
in the Soul of Jesus — The Prayer — The Bloody Sweat and Agony —
The Angel of Consolation — The Victory: "Rise, Let us Go." (St.
John xviii, 1; St. Matthew xxvi, 30, 36-46; St. Mark xiv, 26, 32-42;
St. Luke xxii, 39-46.) 278

[ xi ]

CONTENTS

CHAPTER II
THE ARREST

PAGE

Cedron and Gethsemane — The Acti\'ity of Judas — The Traitor's Kiss —
Whom Seek Ye?— Malchus and Peter— The Flight of the Apostles-
Jesus Taken Captive. (St. Matthew xxvi, 47-56; St. Mark xiv, 43-
52; St. Luke xxii, 47-53; St. John xviii, 2-11.) . . . . .291

CHAPTER III
THE ECCLESIASTICAL TRIAL

Jesus is Brought Before Annas — The Preliminary Examination —
Peter's Denials — The Tribunal of Caiphas — The False Witnesses —
Question and Answer— The Death Sentence — Res sacra reus — With
the Servants — ^The Last Denial — The Crowing of the Cock — The
Morning Session — Remanded to Pilate. (St. John xviii, 12-27; St.
Matthew xxvi, 57-75; St. Mark xiv, 53-72; St. Luke xxii, 54-71.) . 303

CHAPTER IV
THE CIVIL PROCESS

The Procurator, Pilate — Judge, but not Executioner — The Examination
of Jesus — His lungship — Innocence Proclaimed — Fresh Charges —
Remanded to Herod — The Release of Barrabas— Pilate's Wife — The
Washing of the Hands — The Scourging— Crowned with Thorns
— Ecce Homo! — ^The Son of God! — Conscience and Self-interest
— The Last Words: Ibis Ad Crucem. (St. John xrai, 28; xix, 16;
St. Matthew xxvii, 11-30; St. Mark xv, 2-19; St Luke xxiii, 2-25.) . 324

Section III
The Catastrophe

CHAPTER I
JESUS IS PUT TO DEATH

CONTENTS

PAGE

chical Party— The Good and the Wicked Thief— The Group of
Friends— Ecce Mater Tua !— Last Words— Signs and Portents— Tes-
timony of the Dead. (St. Matthew xx^-ii, 31-56; St. Mark xv, 20-41 ;
St. Luke xxiii, 26-49; St. John xLx, 16-31.) 358

CHAPTER II

THE BURIAL

The Zeal of His Enemies— The Appeal to PUate— The Crurifragium—
The Opened Side— Blood and Water— The Championship of Joseph
of Arimathea— Nicodemus— The Descent from the Cross— The
Women at the Sepulchre— The Sealed Tomb— The Descent into
HeU. (St. John xix, 31-42; St. Matthew xxvii, 57-66; St. Mark xv,
42-47; St. Luke xxiii, 50-56.)

386

CHAPTER III

THE ENEMIES OF JESUS

Israel's Crucifixion— Aimas Smitten in His Descendants— Caiphas De-
posed—The Exile of Herod— Pilate's Despair— The Remorse of
Judas. (St. Matthew xxvii, 3-10; Acts i, 18-19.) . . . .403

BOOK II

Li]e

CHAPTER I

THE MORNING OF THE THIRD DAY

The Twilight Pilgrimage to the Sepulchre— The Resurrection— Mag-
dalen Hastens to tell Peter and John— The Other Women and the
Angels— Peter and John— Magdalen— The First Apparition of
Jesus— Noli Me Tangere— His Apparition to the Other Women-
Why Jesus does not Show Himself to the Whole City— The Report
Spread by the Soldiers. (St. John xx, 1-18; St. Luke xxiv, 1-12; St.
Mark x\i 1-11; St. Matthew xxviii, 1-15.) 412

[ xiii ]

CONTENTS

CHAPTER II

THE AFTERNOON OF THE SAME DAY ON THE ROAD
TO EMMAUS

PAGE

The Two Disciples Going to Emmaus — The Third Traveller who Joins
in their Conversation — What Occupies their Attention — The Great
Lesson of Apologetic Exegesis — " Stay with us, Because it is Towards
Evening" — They knew Him in the Breaking of Bread — Their Hur-
ried Return to Jerusalem — Jesus had Appeared to Peter; the Con-
jectural Apparition to Mary His Mother. (St. Luke xxiv, 13-32;
St. Mark xvi, 12-13.) 433

CHAPTER III

THE EVENING OF THE RESURRECTION

The First Apparition to the Apostolic Circle — The Meeting of the
Apostles — The Closed Doors — No Phantom — " Handle and See" —
The Unreasonableness of Doubt— Mission Given the Apostles while
Awaiting Pentecost — Power of Remitting Sins. (St. Luke xxiv,
36-44;St. John XX, 19-25; St. Mark xvi, 14.) 442

CHAPTER IV

THE OCTAVE OF THE RESURRECTION.— JESUS
AGAIN APPEARS TO THE APOSTLES

Why All Must Believe Before Going Back into Galilee, and Why
Thomas did not Believe— The Conditions which He had Required
for His Act of Faith — How Jesus Accepts and Fulfils Them — The
Disciple Confronted with the Master's Wounds — "My Lord and
My God"— What Kind of Faith is the Most Meritorious? (St.
John XX, 24-29.) 451

CHAPTER V

THE APPARITION OF JESUS ON THE SHORES OF
LAKE TIBERIAS

[ xiv ]

CONTENTS

PAGE

Thou Me?" — Triple Expiation and Complete Reinstatement —
"Feed My Lambs, Feed My Sheep" — Prophecy of Peter's Mar-
tyrdom— His Words Concerning St. John. (St. John xxi, 1-24.) . 457

CHAPTER VI

OTHER APPEARANCES OF JESUS

The Christophanies in St. Paul and their Meaning — The Apparition to
the Five Hundred Brethren — ^To James — To the Eleven — The
Mountain in Galilee — The God Who Opens the World before the
Ambition of His Soldiers — Teach and Baptise in the Name of the
Trinity — "/ am with you All Days." (St. Matthew :<xviii, 16-20;
St. Mark xvi, 15-18.) 471

CHAPTER VII

CONCERNING THE RESURRECTION

The Resurrection and the Truth of Christianity — Proofs of Our Lord's
Death— Proofs of His New Life— The Miracle— The Christian
Church and the Tomb of Jesus Christ 483

BOOK III

Glory

THE ASCENSION

King of Heaven and Earth — Jerusalem on the Feast of Pentecost —
The Reëstablishment of Israel — On the Moimt of Olives — The
Cloud of Light — The Apostles in Jerusalem. (St. Luke xxiv, 50-
53; St. Mark xvi, 19-20; Acts i, 3-12.) 493

Index 503

[xv]

PART SECOND

(Continued from Volume II)

THE PUBLIC LIFE OF THE SAVIOUR

BOOK III

(Continued from Volume II)
Period of Combat in Judea

Section III
The Last Passover

CHAPTER I
JESUS GOES UP TO JERUSALEM

The New Moon of Nisan — Impressions by the Way —
Prophecies — The Sons of Zebedee — First and Last.
(St. Mark x, 32-45; St. Matthew xx, 17-28; St. Luke
xviii, 31-34.)

Meanwhile the new moon of Nisan had appeared in the
heavens. Fires on the mountains and emissaries over the
country made the official announcement that in fourteen
days Israel would celebrate the Paschal feast. Every one
hailed with joy the almost imperceptible crescent of the
reappearing luminary, and made ready to solemnise the
memory of the wonders achieved at the time of the de-
parture out of Egypt. Caravans began to organise ; the
people grouped themselves by families ; and, that they
might reach Jerusalem soon enough to be enabled to purify
themselves before the feast, they set out on their journey

[3]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paht second

without delay, that is, about the fourth day of the moon,
towards the close of March, or in the first days of April.
The weather at this season was already pleasant. The
last rains had ceased and, underneath a perpetually
clear sky, the sun with its rays was strengthening the
first flowers of spring. Everything contributed to make
the journey to the Holy City an undertaking of relig-
ious joy.

At the loud acclaim with which the people hailed the
approach of the Paschal feasts, Jesus, Who was in one
of the cities of Peraea, must have felt His heart gripped
with sorrow. For them the Passover meant life ; for Him,
it portended death. Of old, Isaac may have wondered
where the victim was, as he climbed the mountain of offer-
ing, but our Lord was not unaware that He was going to
be the true Lamb of the approaching sacrifice. The hour
noted by the prophet, wherein the abomination would be
set up in the holy place, had struck, and these crowds of
pilgrims, who sang their sacred canticles as they passed,
must have appeared to Him like so many witnesses going
up to Jerusalem to see with their own eyes whether He
would be true to the contract in which, for so many cen-
turies, both divine justice and human malice had engaged
Him. Interrupting His evangelical ministry, the Master,
Who was then on the high-road followed by the caravans,
at once began the journey at the end of which He beheld
the Cross.

The Gospel does not expressly say what struggle took
place in His soul at that moment. It was like a foretaste
of the agony of Gethsemane. According to St. Mark,^
the disciples were able to judge from His appearance that
He had just reached a supreme and terrible determination.

^St. Mark x, 32.
[4]

BOOK m] JESUS GOES UP TO JERUSALEM

He walked alone, at the head of the group of Apostles,
with the intrepid air of a chief advancing to the combat,
or rather, of a hero who gives himself up for the safety
of all. The Apostles followed Him, silent and depressed,
and the multitude, not knowing what to think, experienced
a vague feeling of fear. Solemn situations, after aston-
ishing for a moment, end by frightening those who are
not in possession of the secret.

It was strange ; were it not for that reflection of deep
sadness which they saw on the Master's brow, the disciples
would have readily abandoned their hearts to joy. Ac-
cording to their personal knowledge, everything was fa-
vourable for the Messianic cause, and they were auguring
happy events soon to come. If they were advancing to-
wards the enemy in going up to Jerusalem, they were not
advancing alone. A multitude of Galileans enthusiastic
and fearless, who had been gained over to the Messiah's
cause, preceded or followed them. Besides, the result of
the disciples' mission had been a consolation. Everywhere
town and country were aroused. Israel was seeking its
Christ, and the Christ was approaching the Holy City,
drawing men by the charm of His goodness, His grace,
and His might. It was in truth the hour of God.

Not to allow them to linger longer in this seductive
prospect, Jesus determined to share with them the painful
thoughts of His soul. They were dreaming of triumphs,
and His eyes were fixed upon His coming sorrow ; they
were wondering what their throne should be like, and He
saluted, in advance, His Cross. Taking them aside, in
order not to scandalise the multitude. He began to tell
them, this time without figures, the conditions under which
He hoped to attain universal Kingship.

" Behold," He says, " we go up to Jerusalem, and all
things shall be accomplished which are written by the

[5]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt second

prophets concerning the Son of Man." If their faith could
be shaken by the events of the future, the thought that
these have been foreseen and foretold must sustain it. The
history of the Passion, unfolded in the very order traced
by the prophets of old, shall prove the Messianic character
of Jesus instead of endangering it. More significant still
and no less conclusive is the fact that He Himself is going
to describe even in its minutest details that which His ene-
mies are preparing for Him, and thus prove that He
has had not only the merit of seeing the future, but the
courage to face it though knowing it. " The Son of Man
shall be betrayed to the chief priests and to the scribes,
and they shall condemn Him to death, and shall deliver
Him to the Gentiles. And they shall mock Him and spit
on Him, and scourge Him and kill Him." One would say
it was an oracle after the event, so full, so exact, so de-
tailed is it. Each separate step of His dolorous way is
insisted upon, from the perfidy of Judas, who sells the
Son of Man, to the folly of the Jews, who betray their
Messiah to the Gentiles ; from the ignominy of the de-
rision and the scourges of the flagellation down to the
death on the Cross. This, indeed, is His humiliation.

But His rehabilitation is noted likewise. After the
prophecy of abasement comes the prophecy of glory.
" And the third day He shall rise again." It is brief, but
decisive. The last word of the conflict shall not, then,
belong to His enemies. They may humiliate Him unto
death, but He shall rise again to life, to inaugurate His
eternal sovereignty.

The disciples, on hearing these declarations, were be-
yond themselves. They were disturbed as much in mind
as in heart. This ignominious treatment could not be
squared with their entirely human notions of the Messianic
triumph. They were unable to reconcile these two ex-

[6]

BOOK m] JESUS GOES UP TO JERUSALEM

tremes.^ Even the resurrection, after a disgraceful death,
seemed to them impossible, and they wondered if there were
in the ]\Iaster's words aught else than a series of images
announcing, in metaphor, the near approach of the King-
dom of God. In any case they preferred to fix their minds
on the last words of His discourse rather than on the first.
After all, Jesus shall be the Conqueror, and it is then, no
doubt, that amid universal acclamation He will inaugurate
the palingenesis of which He spoke not long ago. This
prospect raised their spirits, and renewed all the ambitions
of the Apostolic group.

It was at this moment that a woman among those who
followed Jesus, or coming with the caravans from Galilee,
took advantage of the privileged position of her two sons
among the disciples and also of her personal devotion to
the Master, to give utterance to a request, the artless
exigency of which only a mother's love can explain. It
was Salome, the wife of Zebedee and mother of James and
John. St. Mark supposes that the petition was addressed
to Jesus by the two brothers. But St. INIatthew, preserv-
ing a very important feature in his narration, expressly
says that the mother herself spoke. On her lips the re-
quest is less odious than in the mouth of her sons. What-
ever the personal ambition or even the mere affection which
the latter may have entertained for the Master, they should
still preserve some modesty in evincing their sentiments.
After all the discourses they had heard on the punish-
ment of those who seek the foremost places, for them-
selves to demand the first and second in the new Kingdom
would hardly have been wise. At bottom, however, it was
indeed their desire to obtain this twofold favour. Slow to

'St. Luke xviii, 34. The words in themselves were quite intelligible,
but they had so confused their own ideas that they would not and could not
understand. The Evangelist employs nearly the same terms as in ix, 45,
after a similar declaration : rh (irjfia tovto KeKpvnfiévov.

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

express it themselves, they had judged that their mother
would be an excellent advocate in this emergency. They
had no difficulty in filling her mind with the subject, and,
full of her mission, she went to the Master. Her sons fol-
lowed her ^ to support her petition.

They selected a moment when Jesus Avas alone. For we
shall see that, after the incident, He summons the Apostles
to give them His advice concerning the law of humble
equality which must govern His Church. Salome, with all
the respect she was capable of, prostrated herself before
Him, thus meaning that she had a request to prefer.
"What wilt thou? " said Jesus. " Say that these my two
sons," the mother replied, without further oratorical pref-
ace, " may sit one on thy right hand, and the other on
thy left in thy Kingdom." This was not only desiring
the best portion, but also demanding it at the expense of
the rest. For, at that rate, Peter already appointed first
by Jesus, would be at the most only tliird. They were
above all labouring under the greatest illusion as to the
establishment of the new Kingdom. This was about to be
founded amid perils, blood, and with a conflict unto death,
and hence there could be no question of sitting therein
at once in the comfort which victory affords. One's place
there must be fought for, not begged. Salome deceives
herself in serving as interpreter for the foolish ambitions
of her sons. They have not perceived whither their ambi-
tion tends, and they deserve this retort from Jesus : " Ye
know not what ye ask. Can ye drink the chalice that I
shall drink ; or be baptised with the baptism wherewith I
am baptised? " ^ It was the custom among the ancients,
during the feast, for the head of the house to offer his

3 They even speak when the time comes. According to St. Matt, xx, 22
and <S/. Mark x, 39, they cry out: AwdfieOa, "we can."

^St. Mark (x, 38) uses the present irlvu and fiairrl^oixai, because in
reality the sacrifice is already long since begun for Jesus, and is going on

[8]

BOOK III] JESUS GOES UP TO JERUSALEM

own cup containing the draught to the guests on his right
and left. Even to-day in the East, by a similar proce-
dure,^ they show their affection for the guests they wish to
honour. Since James and John look upon the Kingdom of
God as a banquet, think they that they are able to share
the cup prepared for the Master.'' This cup is no other
than the chalice of divine wrath destined for sinners by
eternal justice, and which Jesus will drain in the name of
all mankind. The first banquet set forth in the new King-
dom shall be that of woe. Who shall desire a place there.''
They alone who know not what is to happen there. For
Himself, Man-God though He is. He trembles at the
mere thought of so cruel a test. Grief shall penetrate
not only His inner organism like a drink, but also His
whole body like a baptism. Such is the real inaugura-
tion of His Kingdom. By this the beginning is to be
made. The period of eternal glory shall come only after-
wards.

Heedful rather to their enthusiasm than to the coun-
sels of prudent modesty, the two brothers affirm that they
are able to drink the chalice. Alas, Peter and the others,
too, would also declare that they would follow the Master
even unto death, and their protestations did not withstand
even the word of a woman, nor the first approach of dan-
ger. Jesus, Who knows the worth of this affirmation,
adds : " Ye shall indeed drink of the chalice that I drink
of: and with the baptism wherewith I am baptised, ye
shall be baptised. But to sit on ray right or left hand
is not mine to give to you, but to them for whom it is

every day. St. Matthew (xx, 24) prefers /neXXo) iriveiv, having in mind
especially the final sacrifice.

5 Thus, when a sheik, in Egypt, Galilee, or Syria received us at table, he
nearly always made it his duty either to drink first himself of the glass which
he offered us, or to mLx carefully with his hands the balls of rice and meat
which he gave to us as a sign of friendship.

[9]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

prepared by My Father." This response has given rise
to theological difficulties from the time of Arius. Pre-
destinarianism has also endeavoured to derive from this
text an argument in favour of its views. May we not ac-
cept it simply as a courteous and prudent way of refusing
to the two brothers what they could not possibly have de-
served? For, although they reply that they are willing
to share the Master's combats, the Master knows that
they are unable to do so, and concludes that He is right
in telling them that He Himself can do nothing to fulfil
their desires. It was for them to act and not to promise,
and thus they would justify their claims. The Son cannot
grant as a favour places which the Father's justice re-
serves for merit alone. The most valiant shall be first;
the field is open to all ; it remains for each one to set him-
self to work,®

So the project of the mother and her two sons failed
completely. When the other Apostles were informed of it,
they showed themselves indigiiant. Jesus took occasion
from this incident to address them a beautiful lesson of
wisdom. With His customary kindness, ever ready to cor-
rect their caprices, He gathers them about Him and' says :
" You know that they who seem to rule over the Gentiles,
lord it over them ; and their princes have power over them.
But it is not so among you ; but whosoever will be the
greater shall be your minister, and whosoever will be
first among you shall be the servant of all."

The difference between the kingdoms of the world and

* Our Lord's reply may also be understood in the sense that God's grace
has predestined two others to occupy those places, and that what has
already been fixed by the divine decree cannot be countermanded. But in
this explanation the scope of human liberty and the value of personal merit
are less evident. It might even appear that there is something fatal in the
destinies of men ; whereas our Lord seeks to indicate that, in His new King-
dom, everything must be attained by co-operation with grace, and that
nothing is given to simple preference or through bvuuan favour.

[10]

BOOK m] JESUS GOES UP TO JERUSALEM

that of God is that, in the one, the primacy is gained by
force, and, consequently, is maintained by force ; in the
other, it is obtained through love, and is sustained by
love. Moreover, in human society the public power has for
its object the imposing of the authority which is its safe-
guard ; in the Christian Church, the power has the special
mission of creating, of increasing life by the Apostolate
and by devotion. In her, the individual conscience is suf-
ficient guarantee of order through sanctity. Hence to
ask to be first in the Church is to ask not to sit on a throne
in command, but to set the hand to work ; it is to wish not
to reign amid earthly honours and pleasures, but to an-
nihilate and to sacrifice one's self for the common good ;
it is not to feed upon the flock, but to feed the flock itself.
This is what Jesus means, and what He admirably explains
by setting Himself before them as an example. " For the
Son of man," He says, " is not come to be ministered unto,
but to minister, and to give his life a redemption '^ for
many." He has given it for all, as is said in other pas-
sages, but all have not profited thereby. In reality. He
has redeemed only those who have desired to be redeemed ;
they are many, but they are not all mankind. At the foot
of the cross, there shall always be some traitors and some
blasphemers. It is from His humiliation and death that
Jesus will derive the legitimacy of His power over the
world. When, after the severe labours of a life passed in
the spreading of truth, in the suppressing of evil, in the
transforming of souls. He shall be stretched on the infa-
mous gibbet in payment of the ransom of mankind, giving
up His life for His people, He shall deserve to have His

'The expiatory sacrifice of Jesus is here clearly defined. He gives His
soul or EUs life together with His blood as the price demanded, Xirpov, for
the redemption of those who are lost. The word ovtI indicates the sub-
stitution of the ransom for the prisoners who are Uberated through Jesus'
sacrifice.

[11]

LIFE OF CHRIST [p.^t second

title of royalt}' inscribed above His head, in the three
languages of the world. By His sacrifice He shall be
King. There shall be no other kings in His Church but
those generous souls who are capable of imitating His
self-denial and of offerina: themselves as victims.

[12]

CHAPTER II
JESUS IN JERICHO

The Two Roads Through Perjea — Past and Present
— An Ovation — The Healing of the Blind Men —
— Zacheus — The Parable of the Pounds — Leave-
taking. (St. Matthew xx, 29-34 ; St. Luke xviii, 35 ;
xix, 28 ; St. Mark x, 46-56.)

To reach Jerusalem by way of Peraga there were two
ways : the one, more direct, but more difficult, followed here
the winding banks of the Jordan, there the rocky heights
that overhang them; the other, and the more frequented
one, described a curve to the east as far as Gerasa, and
was longer, but less wearisome. Both started from Ga-
dara, and joined again not far from Beth-Nimra, the
ancient headquarters of the tribe of Gad.

After leaving Beth-Nimra the two roads joined, and
from there on formed only one, turning directly towards
Judsea. First crossing the Jordan, after about two
hours' journey across little white and yellow sand-hills
rising in parallel lines, like long-forgotten tents of the
sons of Israel, one reached the pleasant, smiling oasis of
Jericho.

It would be difficult to-day for one sitting among the
ruins of the ancient tower of Er-Rikha, to rebuild, how-
ever strong the effort of imagination, the great memories
of the past that lie fallen in this little plain. The
two structures recently built for the reception of

[13]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet second

pilgrims have not lessened its desolate aspect. Instead
of the wealthy city, which after Jerusalem was the
foremost of the five toparchy capitals in Palestine,^
and wliich measured twenty stadia in circumference,
one sees but a miserable group of huts covered with
branches of trees, beneath which the traveller hesi-
tates to take shelter. Four Baslii-bazouks maintain or-
der among a population of three hundred Bedouins
whose aspect is wild and forbidding. The great palms
have disappeared, and of the beautiful rose-trees cele-
brated by our Holy Books there remained not a trace. A
few trees covered with thorns, seders and zakoums, great
hedges of bushes, have succeeded the rich vegetation of
olden times. The fountain of Ehseus alone remains ; ^ but
its waters run to waste and enrich only lands that have
for ages been neglected. In the time of Jesus, they flowed
in all directions, thanks to well-arranged canals whose
ruined aqueducts still mark their location. This delight-
ful valley was the paradise of Judaea, as the land of Genes-
areth was of GaUlee. Situated, like the Dead Sea, though
somewhat higher, six hundred feet below the level of the
sea, it saw growing in its exceptional!}- happy climate all
the fruits of the tropics. Amid its forests of palms, en-
riched by the balm which it gathered from its trees, intoxi-
cated with the perfume of its roses,^ Jericho, with its
ampliitheatre, its hippodrome, its fortified towers, was
like a queen seated in an oasis of delight.^

In all times travellers were pleased to halt beneath its

» Josephus, Antiq., sdv, 5, i; B. J., iii, 3, 5; Pliny, H. X., v, 14.

= /T' Kings ii, 10-2^2.

' Pliny, H. N., v, 15 : " Hiericuntem palmetis consitam, fontibus irriguam."
Eccles. xxiv, 18, speaks of its rose-plant; Deuter. xxxiv, 3, of its palm-trees;
comp. Judges i, 16; iii, 13. The name Jericho signified the City of the
Moon, or again the City of Sweet Odours.

*See Josephus' beautiful descriptions: Antiq., xiv, 4, 1; xv, 4, 2; 5. J.,
iv, 8, 3 ; i, 6, 6, etc.

[14]

BOOK in] JESUS IX JERICHO

walls. It was the meeting-place where the caravans were
arranged in thé order of pilgrimage, before setting out
for Jerusalem.

When Jesus arrived there, a great multitude was fol-
lowing Him. It was composed, no doubt, of many groups
of pilgrims who had met at the crossing of the river and
had deemed it an honour to escort the young Prophet.
This numerous train was advancing amid most enthusiastic
clamour. Not far from the gates of the city, two bHnd
men were seated by the roadside begging charity of
passers-by.^ As they heard the increasing tumult they
inquired its cause.^ The answer must have been that Jesus

' St. Mark and St. Luke say that the blind man was begging, Tpoffairûv.
While adopting the plural as given by St. Alatthew, in order to give a full
account, we maintain the data of the other two concerning the profession of
the subjects of the miracle.

^ In the narration of this incident, preserved by the entire SjTioptic tradi-
tion, there are two divergencies which show with undeniable clearness the
perfect independence of our Evangelists. They concern the number of the
blind men healed, and the place where the cure was effected. For, St.
iSIatthew says that there were two blind men ; St. Mark and St. Luke mention
but one. Again, St. Luke declares that the miracle took place before He
entered the city, and the other two relate that Jesus performed it as He
was lea^-ing. However, even though this divergency could not be explained
away, nothing of importance can result from it, except against the system
of absolute accuracy of authors inspired in the smallest details. The truth
of the miracle would remain none the less together with all its imf)ortance.

The attempts at sohàng this twofold difficulty have been so numerous
that the series of possible and impossible hypotheses seems to be finally
exhausted. Some have thought that there were four blind men cured,
and that we ought not to confound three absolutely distinct narrations.
This explanation does not suffer close scrutiny. For, in that case, Jesus
must have gone out of the city twice and the scene must have transpired
three times in the same circumstances and with the same words. Others
admit only two different cures of two blind men, one before entering the
city, the other on leaN-ing. In this case, St. Matthew must have imited the
two events in one narration; but he would again have been mistaken in
ha\'ing these two men healed in the same place and at the same time, whereas
they came on different occasions. Some have sought to explain St. Luke's
words: èv tw eyyi^nv avrbv els lepixé, in a general sense: when He u'as
near Jericho, without saying whether it was before He entered or after
He left the city. But this is impossible, since, immediately after the miracle,
St. Luke shows us Jesus entering the city: koI utreXAwp. Paulus has
pretended that the pilgrims, ranged in order of procession, were so numer-

[15]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

of Nazareth, Son of David and Messiah of Israel, was
passing. Immediately one of them, Bartimeus, who seems
to have made himself particularly remarkable by his
demonstration of faith, and perhaps, also, by the part he
took in the early Church, began to cry out : " Jesus, Son
of David, have mercy on me ! " His companion in misfor-
tune did likewise. The first movement of an enthusiastic
crowd is always to show itself pitiless towards those who
disturb its manifestations. In this instance the sponta-
neous ovation with which they were receiving the Master
had assumed the character of a religious march, and the
cries of the blind men disturbed its harmony. The crowd
was especially eager not to mar its order, and this would
be done should Jesus stop to heal the two unfortunates.
Every one, therefore, made an effort to silence them; but
their desire to be cured was stronger than any injunction,
and they cried out with increased energy : " O Lord, thou
Son of David, have mercy on us ! " Jesus, moved by this
persistent and courageous prayer, halted. " Bring them
here," He commanded to those around Him. This word

ous that the foremost groups had already gone out of the city when the
last were hardly entering. Thus, while remaining within the bounds of
truth, St. Luke could have said that they were entering, and the two others
that they were leaving, at the moment when the miracle took place, since
the entering and the departing were simultaneous.

However it may be, one caimot help remarking that here again, as in the
deliverance of the demoniac of Gergesa, it is St. Matthew who gives the
plural instead of the singular. Here again, as in the case of the demoniacs,
some have endeavoured to explain that one of those miraculously cured was
better known than the other for his faith, and, perhaps, for his part in the
primitive Church. As for the place where the cure was effected, the three
Synoptics would agree were it admitted that there were two cities in Jericho,
the ancient and the modern. The scene of the blind men, placed between
the two, would have occurred on lea\àng the one and entering the other.
But the true theory of the inspiration of the sacred authors does not make
such far-fetched and really unnatural solutions obligatory. At all events
St. Mark is the only one of the three Synoptics who knows the name of
Bartimeus, and relates the incident with very vivid details. He had received
it in this dramatic form from the lips of Peter.

[16]

BOOK m] JESUS IN JERICHO

at once changed the dispositions of the multitude with
regard to the two supphcants. Since the Master was de-
termined to consecrate His improvised triumph with a
miracle, there was nothing to do but to let Him proceed.
The universal enthusiasm could not but gain by it. *' Be
of better comfort," they said to the nearer of the two blind
men. " Arise, He calleth thee." Directly, Bartimeus ^
threw aside the cloak in which he crouched, and as if he
could already see, hastened without fear of falling towards
Jesus Who summoned him. The other came also, and the
Master, looking at them both, said : " What will ye that
I do to you ? " " Lord, that our eyes be opened." On
the instant, touching their eyes. He said to each of them :
" Receive thy sight ; thy faith hath made thee whole."
Their eyes were in truth opened ; and, filled with gratitude,
the two thus miraculously healed joined the procession
glorifying God with all their strength. This time Jesus
did not enjoin silence on the subjects of the miracle.

The multitude, who required not this incident to cele-
brate the glories of the Galilean Prophet, immediately let
their joy and admiration burst forth more noisily than
ever. Their shouts of gratitude rose towards heaven, and
Our Lord no longer protested, as He did formerly, against
these pious and lawful demonstrations. The time had
come for the cry to go forth from everything : " Welcome
to the Son of David ! " and if men had seen fit to hold their
peace, as He shall soon say Himself, the stones would have
essayed to speak in their stead.

Meanwhile there was great excitement throughout the
city ; the people hastened in curiosity to those points where
the procession would have to pass. Every one wished to

7 It is, perhaps, by this burst of faith, as much as by his personal notoriety,
that Bartimeus overshadowed his companion in the memories of early
tradition.

[17]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet second

see the young Prophet with his own eyes, and succeeded
only with difficulty, so great was the crowd.

Among the most eager and the least fortunate, in spite
of many efforts, was a man ^ whose life was notoriously
reprehensible, but whose soul, naturally upright, was not
indifferent to the grave problems of the religious ques-
tion. This was Zacheus, a chief of the tax-gatherers.^
The custom-house was of considerable importance in Jeri-
cho. Here was the frontier of Judaea and the entrance of
Peraea: two provinces under separate jurisdictions, ad-
ministered one by the Romans, the other by Herod. The
great caravans of merchants on the way from Syria to
Egypt passed there every day. The tolls of transit,
therefore, gave rise to a revenue already very large, but
there was, in particular, the tax on the products of the
country to be collected, and especially on the balm, which
was, according to the avowal of the ancients, the best in
the whole world. Hence the large number of fiscal agents
gathered in this city. Zacheus, Jew by birth though he
was, as his name indicates,^*^ held there the post of chief
director. If this position had enabled him to make a great
fortune, it had only the more surely gained him the dis-
credit and hatred of his compatriots. Having already
heard the popular talk of Jesus, of His extraordinary
works, and of His benevolence for publicans, he was
eagerly desirous of seeing Him as He passed. Unfortu-
nately he was too small in stature, and the eager crowd

8 This incident is not found in St. Matthew nor in St. Mark. Although
St. Luke wrote with his o^ai characteristic gifts of style (vers. 4, 7, 9), he
nevertheless shows traces of the Aramaic source from which he received it,
e. g. verse 1 et seq., the succession of KaVs which he employs, and ovafiaTi
Ka\ov[j.ei/os, which recalls 6s KaXelrai rÇi opé/jiaTi, in i, 61.

9 The title of àpxtTeKévrjs means one of the chiefs of the custom-house
who corresponded directly with the general Roman tax-farmers of whom
we have spoken elsewhere.

" Zakkaï was a Hebrew name signifying the Just, the Pure. {Esdr. ii, 9 ;
Nehem., vii, 14; Josephus, Autob., 46.)

[18]

BOOK m] JESUS IN JERICHO

made it impossible for him to satisfy his curiosity. With
that guilelessness of mamiers which common people often
retain, even when the world has enriched them without
making them proud, Zacheus hastened to get a sure start
of the procession, and to climb up into a sycamore tree,
whence overlooking the crowd, he could see everything at
his ease. The great avenues of cities in the East are
often lined with these trees, whose low branches parallel
with the road, furnish the people, on public holidays,
with privileged places from which they might see well.

On seeing him in this position, the crowd to whom he
was well known owing to his occupation, manifested, per-
haps, their joyous surprise, uttered his name, and began
to repeat in the hearing of Jesus, in a few uncharitable
words, his whole history. But Our Saviour Himself was
not unacquainted with this lost sheep ; and as, in His om-
niscience. He had called Nathanael, seated under the fig-
tree, so He deemed it fitting to call Zacheus from his
place on the sycamore. When He drew opposite the tree
from which the publican was observing Him, He raised
His eyes, and with that goodness which is ever ready to
anticipate repentant hearts : " Zacheus," He said, " make
haste and come down ; for this day I must ^^ abide in thy
house." Great and singularly sweet must have been the
publican's surprise as he heard these words ! He desired
only to see the Master pass, and he was invited to give
Him lodging! In all haste he came down; and in trans-
ports of joy conducted Our Lord towards his dwelling,
the honours of which he was to give Him.

As was to be expected, this sudden determination on the
part of the young Prophet did not please everybody. The
hierarchical party was largely represented in Jericho.

*' The 5e7, must, employed here by Jesus, reveals the providential order
according to which salvation comes to Zacheus.

[19]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet second

Elsewhere we have seen that the priests and Lévites were
glad to fix their residence in this city, so near to Jerusa-
lem. From there they betook themselves periodically to
the Temple for the fulfilment of their functions. The ar-
rival of Jesus, with such an outburst, could not but excite
their jealous hate. They easily made capital of the inci-
dent with Zacheus, and breathed among the people the
evil spirit that animated them. Hence is it said that the
crowd was scandalised and murmured on seeing the Master
take up His quarters in the house of a publican. The
people easily pass from wonderment to injustice. It does
not appear, however, that this movement of disapproval
was profound, whether it be that the Saviour's authority
was superior to the calumnies of His adversaries, or that
the hope of seeing a public sinner return to God justified,
in the eyes of the most wise, His courageous resolution.

For Zacheus was visibly overwhelmed by the words
which the Master addressed him, and the signal honour
which He did him. Grace is quick to work wonders, how-
ever little man yields to its solicitations. Although con-
ducting his guest in triumph, the publican was not indif-
ferent to the murmurings of the crowd. His decision is
taken. He will not let Jesus enter his house without hav-
ing given Him in the presence of them all the assurance
that He is coming to the home of a man henceforth honest
and transformed by the most sincere repentance. He does
not intend that the Master shall eat at his table, with any
scruple, a bread reputed to be the fruit of culpable exac-
tions. Still less does he wish Him to be blamed for his
generous charity. Halting, therefore, at the threshold of
his dwelling, as if to face^^ the accusations with which
they pursue him and to defend Jesus while defending him-

" This seems to be implied in the text: eraOels 8è, k. t. A.
[20]

BOOK m] JESUS IN JERICHO

self : " Behold, Lord," he says, with the assurance of a
man making known an heroic resolution, " the half of my
goods I give to the poor ; and if I have wronged any man
of anything, I restore him fourfold." Nothing could be
more categorical than this statement. He makes two parts
of his fortune : one he prudently keeps for his family, the
other he generously gives to the poor ; and for fear that
they may doubt the fulfilment' of his promise, he speaks
not in the future: I shall give, but in the present, / give.
The poor, then, have, first of all, profited by this visit of
the Saviour. The rich, for their part, shall lose nothing.
Zacheus is going to examine his whole life carefully, and
if he discovers any injustices, they shall be generously
repaired. Should any one even think himself wronged, let
him present himself at once, let him speak; justice shall
be done to his claims. Therefore no more scandal for any
one; whatever his past, the publican from this day forth
is an honest man. The sheep returns to the fold. Who
could be distressed by that.''

Jesus feels this triumph of grace deeply, and, wishing
to share His satisfaction with those around Him, He says
to them, as He looks on Zacheus in the noble attitude
which he has just assumed before the multitude and in view
of his duty : " This day is salvation come to this house ; be-
cause he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man
is come to seek and to save that which was lost." In all
probability, it was during the afternoon that Jesus made
His entrance into Jericho. He passed the evening and the
night with His ^^ host, completing by His discourses what
grace had so happily begun.

Meanwhile the whole city was filled with the event of the
day. The Messiah of the Jews at length revealed Himself.

" This is implied in St. Luke xix, 5, a-fifxepoy . . . . Se? >t« ixtîvai, and 7,
ticr7i\0fv KavaAvaai.

[21]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

It was said that He was going up to Jerusalem to have
Himself crowned theocratic king. It was the beginning
of the new era. If the disciples, in spite of all of the Mas-
ter's observations, felt themselves borne on irresistibly to
look for the inauguration of an earthly kingdom, what
must not the illusions of the multitude have been? When
Jesus sought to depart on the following day, He found
Himself confronted by an entire people excited, trans-
ported, misled by human hopes.^"* Deploring their error
and desirous of preparing them for the scandal of His
death. He began, as a farewell discourse, to announce to
them under the veil of a parable, His departure and His
return, His death and His resurrection. If they who sur-
round Him are still ignorant of this, it is time for them
to learn it: He is advancing not to triumph, but to the
torture. There shall be no deception when the catastrophe
comes. Instead of being discouraged, every true disciple
must arouse his faith to greater liveliness, and strengthen
that of the others. His absence shall not be long. On
His return, He will see what each one has done with the
truth and with the graces of which he was the depositary.
Then only shall His reign really commence, and then also
the intelligent and devoted servants shall receive, as re-
ward, a special authority in the new religious society.
Such is the general meaning of the parable of the pounds
which the Master began to relate.

" A certain nobleman," He said, " went into a far coun-
try to receive for himself a kingdom and to return." We
might see here an evident allusion to the contemporary
history of the Jews, did we not know from other sources
the little love that Jesus had for political affairs. Arche-
laus had kept royal residence in Jericho, and Jesus' hear-

"(S«. Luke xix, 11
[ 22 ]

BOOK III] JESUS IN JERICHO

ers had not forgotten that this prince, after the death of
his father, Herod the Great, had gone to Rome to have
his father's will confirmed, and to demand the investiture
of the states that were bequeathed to him. During his
journey his subjects had recourse to diplomacy and had
begged Augustus to deliver them from so hateful a domi-
nation, by constituting himself their immediate sovereign.

Here, the man of noble origin is Jesus, Son of David,
as the people shout on seeing Him pass, but also. Son of
God, and God like His Father. He undertakes a long
journey, for it is through the mysteries of death and
in another world that He is to go to claim the solemn in-
vestiture of His royalty. However, His absence shall not
be long; He will only go and come. His faithful shall
have only a few days to await Him.

On departing, the lord in the parable desired to put to a
test the fidelity and intelligence of his friends, and to learn
what administrative office he could assign to each one when
he should return with the royal crown. Having, there-
fore, called his ten servants together, he gave them ten
pounds, one to each, and said: "Trade till I come." ^^
This portion of His property which Jesus leaves to His
disciples is nothing else than the knowledge of religious
truth, the power to defend and to communicate it. Doubt-
less this knowledge is not yet complete. The power of
convincing, which is intrusted to them, is, perhaps, very
feeble. But what matter ! they have received a spark ; the

IS Some, judging that a mina, which we translate pound, was a slender
deposit intrusted to each servant, have supposed that the Aramaic text from
which St. Luke derived this information, had, not manim or maneh, viina,
but manot or manah, portion. In this case it would be a tenth part of his
seignorial property that he confided to each depositary. But there is nothing
to authorise this supposition, and, besides, it is not at all necessary to know
the exact value of a /ucS. These are unimportant details in a parable.
Jesus wishes to signify here, by the sum intrusted, only the first graces of
the apostolate in the rudimentary state. Thus He Himself judges as of
little value, eV i\axiffrcf, the deposit in question.

[23]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second

Master will see what they shall make of it while awaiting
His return.

The prince departed then on his journey. " But his
citizens hated him, and they sent an embassage after him,
saying: We will not have this man to reign over us."
These are the very words which the Jews pronounce a few
days later before Pilate : " Crucify Him ; we have no king
but Cœsar." But these clamourings of hatred cannot pre-
vent the prince from obtaining the crown he deserves.
" And it came to pass that he returned, having received
the kingdom ; and he commanded his servants to be called,
to whom he had given the money ; that he might know how
much every man had gained by trading."

So, Jesus returning from His journey in the dark
regions of death, and definitely inaugurating His reign at
Pentecost, shall wish to know, first of all, what use His
disciples have made of the gifts confided to them. To
them it had been given to see the Master near at hand, to
certify the fulfilment of the prophecies, and to have a
special grace for the preaching of the Gospel. Shall this
have served them in developing the faith of the multitudes
after His death and while awaiting His return? Or shall
they have been so unfortunate as to have buried the treas-
ure received, and so neglected the Master's dearest in-
terests?

The first servant, having come, said : " Lord, thy pound
hath gained ten pounds." This believer had gained over
ten believers more, and he had communicated to the souls
of ten brethren the light he had himself received. " Well
done, thou good servant," said the Master ; " because thou
hast been faithful in a little, thou shalt have power over
ten cities." His office in the Church shall be in proportion
to the zeal which he has evinced during the absence of his
Lord.

[24]

BOOK m] JESUS IN JERICHO

The second who presents himself, has gained five pounds
in money ; he shall be placed over five cities. The honours
of the new kingdom shall in every case be distributed ac-
cording to the intelligent success and to the care bestowed
upon the Master's interests.

Finally, there comes another servant, who forms a sin-
gular contrast with the first : " Lord," he says, " behold
here is thy pound, which I have kept laid up in a napkin ; ^^
for I feared thee, because thou art an austere man ; thou
takest up what thou didst not lay down, and thou reapest
that which thou didst not sow." ^^ Thus under a most im-
pertinent tone and a most cruel insult he thought to shel-
ter his discomfiture and his laziness. This is the history
of every one who has received abundant graces, and yet
has chosen to obey his own passions ; he seeks an excuse in
the difficulties of duty, in the exactions of the law-giver, in
the danger of ill-using heavenly gifts ; but the truest
reason is found in his cowardice and sloth.

Therefore the master silences him with a personal argu-
ment which he cannot elude : " Out of thy own mouth I
judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I was
an austere man, taking up what I laid not down, and reap-
ing that which I did not sow ; and why then didst thou not
give thy money into the bank, that at my coming I might
have exacted it with usury ? " If he knew the hard and
selfish character of the Master, he should have declined
the honour of working for Him, and resigned his office of

" The text has it sudary. The custom among the poorer classes of using
a linen cloth or handkerchief in which carefully to tie up their money that it
may not be lost, is well known.

1^ It is difficult to explain the motive which the wicked servant alleges here
in excusing his inactivity. Does he mean that his master is in the habit of
claiming what he did not give, in demanding not only the amount intrusted
but also its product ? Many believe so. But it seems more natural to con-
clude that he did not invest the money because he knew that, in case the
investment failed, his master might seek to indemnify himself out of his own
personal property.

[25]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet second

preacher and evangelist into tlie hands of the Church. To
be sure, to hand over to another the capital which he should
have made productive himself, would not have been very
meritorious, but after all it would be logical for one who
was unwilling to take any risk for his master. The king
must know on whom he can count for the defence of his
interests. He who wishes to hold aloof must let him know.
This is equivalent to saying that Jesus does not recognise
the lukewarm as His friends. Resolutely devoted or reso-
lutely opposed, this is how He wishes to find those who
have come to Him.

The danger which the servant uses as a pretext, of los-
ing that which he had received while seeking to make it
fructify, was not grave. The divine seed may be exposed
to every wind ; in the end it will even so find a soil ready
to receive it. In any case, if it perish, it perishes for the
Master. The effort, and consequently the merit of the
servant endures in spite of his failure. The worst that
can happen to the apostle shall be to exhaust his life in
the labour. The deposit which he shall have sought to
make bear fruit at any price, enriched by his sacrifice,
shall produce a hundredfold, and the Master will be
pleased. Let coward souls refuse a mission beyond their
valour, but let them not hide from it, and let them avow
their sloth ; else the Son of Man shall treat these false
heroes as their hypocritical fidelity deserves. " Take the
pound away from him," He will say, " and give it to him
that hath ten pounds." In vain shall any one tell Him
that there is something surprising in this sentence. " But
I say to you," the king replies, " that to every one that
hath shall be given, and he shall abound ; and from him
that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken from
him." Such is the terrible judgment of God upon those to
whom He had intrusted a special mission in the Church.

[ 26 ]

BOOK m] JESUS IN JERICHO

They have produced nothing for others, nothing shall be
done even for them. The faith which they have been un-
willing to spread shall be extinguished in their own hearts ;
the grace which they should have made fruitful in their
apostolate shall be sterile, and those hands, at first des-
tined by divine mercy to bear the sceptre, shall be con-
demned by eternal justice to carry the chains of slavery.
The valiant, on the contrary, shall see the field confided
to their zeal spreading wider and wider. The more the
apostle devotes himself to the service of God, the more
God opens the horizon before his eyes. Like Francis
Xavier in an ecstasy before the nations that God gives to
him to evangelise, he cries out : " More, more."

" But as for those my enemies," added the king, " who
would not have me to reign over them, bring them hither,
and kill them before me." Such is the judgment of the
Jewish people, after the judgment of the slothful dis-
ciple. The punishment of each is according to the gravity
of his fault.

If, among Plis followers, there are some who, after Cal-
vary, fear to preach His divinity, and to prove it by the
prophecies, by His works and words, by His resurrection,
their names shall be unheard and their faith shall be
wrecked. Others, on the contrary, even late comers like
Paul and Barnabas, shall be made princes of the Church
here below, first, and later, above, under the high suze-
rainty of the King Jesus.

As for Judaism, it shall vanish in its malice. The re-
bellious people shall fall beneath the blows of Roman
armies, and the judgment of the Son of Man, imposing
His empire upon the whole world, shall be carried out
in full.

Such is the future. They must not expect any different
from this. If Jesus had desired to have Zacheus under-

[27]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second

stand that, having received the hght of the Gospel, he
was to spread it bravely later on, we may believe that the
lesson was not lost. According to a very old tradition in
the East, the chief of the publicans, after having been St.
Peter's disciple, became Bishop of Caesarea.^^

»8See in St. Clement, Horn., iii, 63; and Recogn., i, 72; ii, 19.

[28]

CHAPTER III
IN BETHANY

Popular Regard in Jerusalem— At the House of
Simon the Leper — The Woman With the Alabas-
ter Box — The Homage of Mary Magdalen — Judas
— The Master's Lesson — " Praised by the Whole
World." (St. John xi, 55; xii, 11; St. Mark xiv,
S-9; St. Matthew xxvi, 6-13.) ^

Without further delay Jesus and His followers set out
on the way to Jerusalem. The caravans that had joined
Him on the evening before still followed Him, and the im-
mense crowd, escorting their Messiah-King, entered upon
the difficult and dangerous roads leading from Jericho to
the Holy City. In all probability it was the eighth of

' The anointing described by St. Matt, xxvi, 6, and St. Mark xiv, 3,
shortly before the Paschal feast, is unmistakably the same as the one in St.
John xii. It is true that the Synoptics mention only the anointing of the
head, and St. John only that of the feet; but that is a detail largely com-
pensated for by the characteristic name given to the ointment in St. John
and St. Mark, fxvpov vdpSov iTKjriKrjs. It has also been objected that
the Synoptics place the anointing ten days before the Passover, while St.
John says distinctly that it took place six days before. The answer is that
in the Synoptics this account is given in parenthesis and retrospectively, in
connection with the betrayal by Judas. The oral Gospel had brought these
two events together as being logically connected, and the written Gospel
maintained this connection at the expense of the chronological order. St.
John puts things back where they belong, and tells us the name of her who
did the anointing. She was designated by the other two Evangelists, in
the same manner as the sinful woman in St. Luke \ii, 37, as yw^, and
she was, indeed, the same woman, named Mary, sister of INIartha and Lazarus,
formerly a sinner but now the pious and faithful follower of Jesus.

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second

Nisan,^ the eve of the Sabbath. They had to hasten in
order to arrive in time and not to infringe on the law of
rest.

The pilgrims, after having crossed the bed of the Kelt,
began to climb those rocky heights which, like an immense
buttress, support the higher lands of Judaea and form the
western limit of the valley of. the Jordan. For nearly six
hours they marched on through an absolutely desert coun-
try, through defiles made famous by the murders and rob-
beries of which they had been the scene,^ and towards
evening they reached the foot of the last mountain that
hid Jerusalem from the eyes of travellers.

Here Jesus and His party halted while the rest of the
pilgrims hastened on to enter the Holy City before the
setting of the sun.* The news they brought must have
increased the excitement of minds. St. John ^ tells us
that all in various ways were filled with thoughts of Him.
The chief priests and the Pharisees watched closely for
His return, to carry out their homicidal resolutions. The
pilgrims already arrived were eager to behold Him. It
was in the Temple that they hoped to meet Him, and they
remained there steadfast, awaiting Him with some impa-
tience. " What think you," they said to one another,
" that he is not come to the festival to-day ? " Great must
have been their joy when they learned that He had arrived

2 The Passover, according to the text of Levit., xxiii, 5, was celebrated
on the fourteenth day of the first month. But Si. John xii, 1, expressly
says that Jesus arrived at Bethany six days before the Passover, consequently
on the eighth of Nisan, towards evening. This date may be modified by
including in these six days that of His arrival at Bethany and that of the
Passover, but this would not be taking the texts in their natural signification.

3 St. Luke X, 30. The mountain side of Adumin (Khân Hadur) was
notorious for the crimes committed there. It bad received the name of the
Red Slope, as if the blood of the plundered travellers had tinged its wild
and reddish rocks.

* The Sabbath begins at that moment.
" St. John xi, 55-57.

[30]

BOOK III] IN BETHANY

at Bethany with His disciples, and that He was prepar-
ing to come to Jerusalem after He had celebrated the
Sabbath.

It was at the house of Martha and Mary, in fact, that
. the Master had resolved once more to accept a pious and
cordial hospitality. The road of the caravans ran close
by the little town where dwelt this family. To pass by
with His Apostles without stopping would have sorely
grieved His friends. Besides it might seem imprudent to
proceed on the very first day to install Himself in Jerusa-
lem, and much more so to spend the night there. His ene-
mies had determined to seize Him under cover of darkness,
in order not to provoke an uprising. As a matter of fact,
the first evening that He passed in the Holy City, on the
occasion of the Paschal supper, was the fatal evening.
Once more, and for six days, He took up His lodgings
in Bethany, intending to return there each evening before
nightfall as to a protecting citadel whither the hatred of
His adversaries could not reach Him.

This saintly family had not seen Jesus since the resur-
rection of Lazarus. The fact reveals with what joy He
must have been received. The evening was passed in sweet
outpourings of piety and tenderness. They heard once
more — and, it may be, they said to themselves that it was
for the last time ^ — the serene and comforting words of
the Master as He discoursed on the happy life in the new
Kingdom. The hours were readily forgotten in listening
to the incomparable conversations of the divine Guest, and
never was Sabbath better sanctified than this last one spent
by Jesus on earth in a spot where the religious feelings of
His soul found an echo in every heart.

On Saturday, which was the day after His arrival, a

6 Mary's action, the next day, gives us to believe, according to Jesus'
words {St. John xii, 7) that she expected the approaching catastrophe.

[31]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

banquet was prepared in His honour in the house of Simon
the Leper. If, as has been suggested, this personage was
the head of the family of Bethany, who had been absent
for some time ^ (since he does not figure in the mourn-
ing for Lazarus where he would naturally take his place
beside the two desolate sisters), the scene that follows took
place in the house of Martha and Mary. Everything in-
clines us to believe, however, that Simon was simply a
friend of Jesus, who had been inspired by gratitude to
give a banquet in honour of the Master and His disciples.^
He had invited all the believers of that hospitable town,
and the family with whom Jesus lodged had not been for-
gotten. This feast was the protest of His friends against
the threatening attitude of His enemies. Each one con-
tributed something to heighten the Master's triumph.
Lazarus, seated among the guests was an unmistakable evi-
dence of the superhuman power that had called him back
from the grave. Martha had been unwilling to leave to
any one the honour of serving her Guest, and, in yielding
it for one repast, she had insisted on following Him, in
order to surround Him still with her devoted care. And
last, Mary was making ready to surpass them all by an
unexpected exhibition of reverence and love, which turned
out to be the one important event of the banquet. To
prove their affection, great souls suddenly conceive sub-
lime thoughts, that leave at an infinite distance behind
them the most eager manifestations of the vulgar. Their

^ Simon must have been previously concerned in some way in events of
the Gospel history of which we know nothing. It has been not improbably
supposed that Jesus had cured him of leprosy, and that in consequence he
and his family had become firm and devout believers.

8 It would have been a matter of some surprise if the Evangelist had em-
ployed the vague form firolricrav . . . deT-irvov, "they made him a supper,"
on the hypothesis that this supper had been given by the family of Lazarus,
and even more so that the presence of Lazarus should be mentioned as a
fact worthy of notice. As a matter of fact, it is clear that St. John speaks of
Lazarus as a chance guest : 6 Se Ad^apos eîs -fiv in tûv àvaKeifiévwv avv avr^.

[32]

BOOK ni] IN BETHANY

inspirations astonish and even scandalise those who are
incapable of comprehending them.

In the midst of the feast, the young woman ^ appeared
holding in her hands an alabaster box containing the most
exquisite of perfumes. It was the purest ^^ and most
costly nard, the remains, perhaps, of her former vanity.
Custom, among the ancients,^ ^ demanded that the host
should honour his guests by pouring on their heads, dur-
ing the repast, a sweet-scented oil.^^ Even to-day the
guests are sprinkled with rose-water. It was for this im-
portant part that Mary had held herself in reserve. Her
hand, which on so many other occasions of old had poured
the perfumes on her companions in sin, felt itself now suf-
ficiently pure to anoint the head of the Most Holy.

With the grace natural to a woman who had been of the
world worldly, and at the same time with the lofty senti-
ment of respect that was becoming in one converted from
sin, she solemnly approached the Master. Her attitude
had something of the believer who advances to adore, and
also of the priest who proceeds to consecrate a king or a
victim.

The vases of perfume were sold then as now, in all the
bazaars of the Orient, very carefully closed and sealed.

8 The S3Tioptics persistently omit her name. They simply say a woman,
as St. Luke did in speaking of the woman of sin, vii, 37.

1" Nard is a perfume less frequently in use nowadays than formerly. It
is extracted from a plant known in botany by the name Nardostachys
Jatamansi, which grows in India, Persia, Ceylon, and on the Himalayas.
Its aromatic and bitter taste resembles that of valerian. Its odour is very
pleasant. Dioscor., i, 77, Tlepl vapSiuov /nvpov, tells how this perfume
was prepared with oil of nuts and a number of ingredients, nard, balsam,
myrrh, etc. Cf. Pliny, xii, 25 ; xiv, 19 ; xvi, 59 ; Galen, Simpl. med., viii, 13 ;
Celsus, Hierobot., ii, 1, et seq.

'^ David (Ps. xxii, 5), employs this image to express the intimacy of his
union with Jehovah: "Thou hast prepared a table before me. Thou hast
anointed my head with oil," etc. Pagan civilisation was acquainted with
these same practices. (See Plato, De Republ., iii; Martial, Epigr., xii;
Horace, Carm., ii, 11, 16.)

1- In St. Luke vii, 46, Jesus finds fault because this formality is omitted.

[33]

LIFE OF CHRIST [p^kt second

Mary had not taken the time to open hers. Besides, she
means to keep back none of her offering. The graceful
urn, that is to be emptied to the last drop by the purest
of affections and sanctified by contact with a divine flesh,
must never serve at another banquet. The holocaust of
love will consume it all. She therefore violently breaks the
neck of the alabaster bottle instead of opening it with pre-
caution, and, while she contemplates with tender adoration
the august head of the Messiah-King, she extends her arm
as if to consecrate Him. Piously she pours out the per-
fume. Then suddenly she checks herself, in amazement at
her daring. A thought has crossed her mind. If she is
not unworthy to touch the Master's head to-day, it is be-
cause long ago she had the courage to kiss His feet. Her
whole past then rises up before her, with its sublime emo-
tions, in the inspiration of the present moment. It was
in the midst of a banquet, like this one, that she was for-
given. Falling on her knees, she wishes to renew the touch-
ing scene that marked the beginning of her justification,
and the memory of which remains imperishable in her
heart. The vase contained a pound of the precious liquid.
The first act of adoration had not exhausted it, and now
she begins to anoint the feet of Jesus. What remains of
the perfume flows out unchecked, just as her whole soul
had surrendered ever since the great day of her forgive-
ness. But her eyes can find no tears. The friends of God
have no further need of weeping. The consciousness of
their moral purity will not allow them to be sad. Yet the
faithful friend determines at this moment to outdo the
deep humility of the sinner of former days. Her beautiful
hair still remains to her, a memory of a guilty past ; it, too,
must concur in the filial homage which she has determined
to display. As Jesus allows her to proceed, her fervour
increases. Forgetting everybody in the Saviour's près-

[34]

BOOK m] IN BETHANY

ence, she loosens her silken tresses, as if once more to brand
her former weaknesses. What matters it to her if she
recall her dishonour, if by so doing she may glorify the
Master? With her hair she piously wipes the blessed
feet over which the nard is flowing. The intimate com-
munion thus established between her and her Saviour
seems to exalt her in an ecstasy. Having nothing more
to give, she is silent, she sighs and adores. Jesus will
soon tell what he thinks of a faith so vivid and a love so
ardent.

Meanwhile the entire house had been filled with the fra-
grance of the perfume. According to Pliny ^^ nothing
spreads a more delightful odour than nard, and, as the
Evangelists tell us, that which flowed here was of the
best production and free from any admixture of foreign
elements.^ ^ Its value certainly must have been consider-
able. By the side of those heavenly souls that soar in the
upper regions, there are unfortunately vulgar souls also
that delight in the things of earth. While the former
suff'er themselves to be borne along by their heroic aspira-
tions, the latter are worried with mean considerations of
sordid self-interest. This is utilitarianism striving to
suppress all generosity, all poetry, every ideal in life.
Some of the disciples, the Synoptics say, were shocked at
this extravagance, which was not only superfluous in the
treatment of a guest as indifferent as Jesus was to the

" Hist. Nat, xiii, 35, and xii, 26.

"The epithet niariKÔs, which is found in Xenophon, Cyropœd., i, 6,
10, TTKTTiKwrépovs \6yovs; in Plato's Gorgias, p. 455: 6 prirup êffri wiffriKhs
in the sense of persuasive; and in Ai'temidorus, Oneir., ii, 32; yvv^
iritniKT] Koi oÎKovpés, in the sense of faithful, worthy of confidence, must
imply that the nard was free from any adulteration. Pliny (H. N., xii, 26)
says: " Adultéra tur et pseudonardo herba, sincerum quidem Ie\itate de-
prehenditur. " Tibullus also speaking of pure nard, confirms this meaning
of in(rrtK6s. The interpretation which derives iti<ttik6s from irivo), and
translates it liquid has no better foundation than that which finds its ety-
mology in the name of a country.

[35]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

refinements of such exaggerated luxury, but especially
regrettable as money thrown away.

St. John, giving more exact details, shows that one dis-
ciple alone took the whole responsibility of the general dis-
pleasure. This was the son of Simon, Judas Iscariot.
He it was who before long was to show himself the open
enemy of the Master by an act of betrayal. Having com-
municated his impression to the others, he made himself
the spokesman of the impressions of all. " Why," he ex-
claimed with the audacity characteristic of his cynical
nature, " was not this ointment sold for three hundred
pence, and given to the poor .'' " Thus the wicked disciple
speedily reduced to its venal worth the sacrifice that Mary
has just accomplished. Three hundred pence wasted is all
that this earthly soul has discerned in an incomparable
act of supreme love and adoration. To be sure, as if to
palliate the impertinence of his criticism, he speaks of the
poor who might have benefited by so great a sum. But
in reality one perceives that the poor are the common
treasury of which he himself is the unfaithful keeper.
For his unscrupulous hand takes therefrom more in rob-
bery than in giving.^ ^ When it is full, he accomplishes
his fraudulent extractions with less danger and greater
profit. Had he become a thief because he was treasurer,
or did he seek to be treasurer because he was a thief.'' We

ï'This is what St. John says in verse 6. He categorically pronounces
him a thief; and if, to avoid evident tautology, we give the verb èfidffraCev
the sense of pDfering, the explanation closely follows the accusation. This
sense is frequent among the authors. See Josephus, Antiq., xiv, 8 ; Diogenes
Lrertius, iv, §9. As for the word employed by St. John, yXaxraéKonov,
according to its etjTiiology it signifies the receptacle in which flute-players
kept the mouthpieces of their flutes, but which because of its shape, like a
little case or casket, was easily transformed into a portable box. This is
the term employed by the Septuagint, // Parol., xxiv, 8, 10, 11, to designate
the box for the offerings. Josephus, Antiq., vi, 1, 2, gives this name to the
casket in which the Philistines kept the golden mice. The Apostles used it
for the offerings of friends and drew from it for their subsistence and in
almsgiving.

[36]

BOOK m] IN BETHANY

cannot say. The peculiar aptitudes of this cold and posi-
tive nature might have determined the Apostles to pro-
pose him themselves for this employment. Jesus, as Provi-
dence does in the government of men, respected the liberty
of their choice. He was not obhged to interfere in the
name of His prescience, when divine justice was thus pur-
suing its awful designs. The worst punishment of the
wicked is often the finding of no obstacle on the road
where their malice leads them. God delivers from temp-
tation him who wishes to fly it, but He does not withhold
from falling him who seeks it.

We do not know what reply ]Mary made to the disap-
proval provoked by her munificence. We may believe that
she was little moved by it. Hearts that mount so high
no longer hear the murmurings that come from below.
Besides, since Jesus Himself undertook the reply, she had
only to let Him do so.

Judas' malice and the offensive though thoughtless mur-
murs of the other disciples had pained Him. He spoke at
once to criticise the fault of all, but with that aggrieved
kindness that humiliates the guilty one and often succeeds
in touching his heart. If Judas needs a more severe les-
son, He reserves it for him in a clear allusion ; and if even
now he is thinking of betraying his Master, he can under-
stand that the latter reads his black project ^^ in his soul.
" Why do you trouble this woman ? " He says ; " for she

16 For Judas, the Master's words seem to mean: "Friend, restrain thy
hate yet a while, ere long it shall be satisfied, for I go to be immolated by
them to whom thou shalt betray me. Be not pained at this last testimony
of love that this woman gives me; it fits thy plans, since it prepares my
burial. If thou givest thyself the right to sell me, leave to this woman the
right to embalm me. " Observe the very precise details in the account which
St. John gives of this whole scene. It is he that points out the characteristic
anointing of the feet, the name of the woman, Mary, that of Judas who, after
exciting the discontent of his colleagues, impudently voices it aloud ; finally
the immediate connection between the protest of this Apostle and his defec-
tion which was near at hand. These are the details of an eye-witness.

[37]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second

hath wrought a good work upon me. For the poor you
have always with you ; and whenever you will, you may do
them good; but Me you have not always." His tone of
melancholy and of tenderness made the reproach particu-
larly painful to friendly hearts. The true disciples must
have deeply regretted their imprudent words. But Jesus
had not finished His lesson. They have invoked the prin-
ciple of utility against this pious woman. Alas ! this
anointing would not be useless, for its purpose is not to
enhance the delights of the feast, but to begin the honours
of a burial.

Love has enabled Mary to look with prophetic view into
the future. She knows what shall happen to-morrow ; and
while all are looking for the triumph, she surely foresees
the catastrophe. Let others think of their ambitious
dreams, she remains wholly occupied with the thoughts
of death and separation. Contemplating that beloved
head in the midst of the joys of the banquet, she had seen
the death that was going to blight it. That is why she
wished to embalm it beforehand, and to protect it against
the ravages of the tomb. She has looked upon the blessed
feet of the heavenly Ambassador, and, thinking that the
wicked are going to check them in their course, she has
resolved to anoint them to give them the strength still to
run, when they shall have triumphantly trampled on the
snares of death and hell. Thus the embalmment extends
to the entire man, and the consecration embraces the vic-
tim from head to foot. The hour of the wicked may come,
the prey is ready for the sepulchre. Mary has worthily
fulfilled the august part which her faith and her love in-
spired her to do. " What she could," Jesus continued,
" she hath done ; for she in pouring this ointment upon
My body, hath done it for the burial. Amen, I say to you,
wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole

[38]

BOOK III] IN BETHANY

world, that also which she hath done shall be told for a
memorial of her."

The glory of Mary Magdalen is that she saw into the
future, whereas the disciples, blinded by their earthly illu-
sions, saw nothing ; that she showed herself piously prodi-
gal, while the murmur of avarice accused her, and that she
loudly proclaimed her love while Judas' hypocrisy basely
concealed his hatred. Her glory is that of faithful friend-
ship, of heroic repentance, of invincible faith. IMore than
eighteen centuries have passed since the day when Jesus
prophesied the future celebrity of His friend, and every-
where Magdalen is known, admired, honoured. How many
souls have longed for her part in this banquet of holy
charity ! How many mouths have proclaimed her blessed !
How many women have wished to bear her name ! Poetry,
the arts-, eloquence have emulated one another in extolling
her, and mankind, in admiration before the great heart of
this converted sinner, has consecrated to her a most tender
and most consoling devotion.

In the evening, probably after the close of the Sab-
bath,^'^ many came from Jerusalem to Bethany to see not
only Jesus, but also Lazarus restored to life. The Jews,
coming from all parts and informed of the great events
lately accomplished, must have found the deepest interest
in contemplating Him Who declared Himself the Mes-
siah, and in verifying with their own eyes, in Lazarus
returned from the grave, the authentic proof of His
divine mission.

This movement of legitimate curiosity, capable of giv-
ing birth to faith in many souls, threatened to leave the
chiefs of the opposition almost alone at the very moment
when they sought to begin the struggle. All their proj-

"The distance between Jerusalem and Bethany was too great to be
covered on such a day without infringing on the law of Sabbatic rest.

[39]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet second

ects might suddenly be baffled. Without support among
the people, they were incapable of holding in check the
influence of the Galilean caravans, thoroughly devoted to
Jesus their compatriot. The strange thought then oc-
curred to them to put Lazarus to death. In all probability
they suspected him of fraud in the incident of his resur-
rection ; otherwise their determination would have been
unreasonable. For He Who had resurrected him the first
time would only have to do so a second time. Resolved to
see in Jesus' works only a continued series of false miracles
cleverly combined to allure the pe.ople, they were eager to
prove that they were right.

All this did not prevent the multitude from being most
happily disposed in favour of the young Prophet or from
declaring their enthusiasm in spite of the opposition of
the hierarchical party. They awaited only an opportunity
to hail their Messiah-King. This opportunity was not
long in coming.

[40]

CHAPTER IV

THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRANCE INTO
JERUSALEM

The Enthusiasm of the Multitude — The Procession
— Acclamations — Jesus and the Pharisees — Weep-
ing Over Jerusalem — The Visit to the Temple.
(St. John xii, 12-19; St. Mark xi, 1-11 ; St. Luke xix,
29-44; St. Matthew xxi, 1-11.)

Since, in accordance with the divine plan, it was through
triumph that He was to proceed to death, Jesus did not
hesitate to yield to the popular movement. Had He not
just been consecrated King and Victim at the supper in
Bethany? There was nothing for Him now but to let
friends and enemies act.

The tenth of the month of Nisan was the sacramental
date, in the Jewish year, on which each family reserved the
Paschal lamb.^ This mysterious separation sanctified the
victim, and officially consecrated it for the coming feast.
Jesus, the mystic Lamb, would find it natural to separate
Himself, too, from the multitude on the day prescribed by
the law. In accepting the triumph prepared for Him, He
meant to surrender Himself to death willingly for the sal-
vation of mankind. The great biblical memories were
ever present before His eyes, and He meant to fulfil, to

> Exodus xii, 3.
[41]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet second

the very last detail, all the prophetic figures that had
foreshadowed Him. On this day, Josue had come up out
of the Jordan and had begun the struggle with the kings
of Chanaan.^ Such an anniversary quite naturally forced
itself upon the true Guide of the people of God to under-
take the foundation of the Church, to confront His ene-
mies and, though falling beneath their blows, to destroy
them forever. It was probably about midday ^ when, com-
ing forth from the house of Martha, He set out on the
way to Jerusalem. This news was promptly spread
abroad, and the multitude began to assemble from all
directions.

On reaching Bethphage,* which was near enough to the
city to justify the Rabbis in saying: " the bread made in
Bethphage is as sacred as if it had been made in Jeru-

2 Jos. iv, 19.

2 We may conclude this from the fact that in Jerusalem He had only
time to visit the Temple before resuming at nightfall the journey back to
Bethany.

'The Synoptic tradition allows for no stop at Bethany; the first three
Evangelists seem to describe Jesus as proceeding directly from Jericho to
Jerusalem where He makes His triumphal entry. St. John supplies this
omission and then joins once more in the account of his predecessors at the
time when Jesus, between Bethany and Jerusalem, mounts upon the ass
which was to give Him a certain prominence in the midst of the multitude.
St. Luke xix, 29, and, according to the best authorities, St. Mark xi, 1, seem
to create a topographical difficulty in placing Bethphage before Bethany.
St. Luke says: is fi'^'yiaiv etj '^t)&<^a!yr\ Koi Brjfavlap. Now, if on their
way to Jerusalem they came first to Bethjihage and then to Bethany, it
would appear in view of St. John xii, 14, that Jesus, having left Bethany,
could not have found an ass at Bethphage without retracing His steps, which
would not be reasonable to suppose. But, if we turn more particularly to
the Greek text of St. Mark xi, 1, which is the true text: "When they were
drawing near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage, to Bethany, at the Mount of
Olives," we see that, the most important place, the end of the pilgrimage,
Jerusalem, being indicated, the Evangelist retraces his steps as far as Bethany,
the starting-point of the procession, passing through Bethphage, the point
where the triumphal march is definitely organised. As we have no precise
knowledge of the site of Bethphage (the House of Figs), we may rightly
suppose that this little village was on the road of the caravans at the point
where it divided towards Bethany. But, in this case, could we apply to it
the series of texts in which the Talmud supposes it to be at the gates of
Jerusalem?

[ 42 ]

BOOK m] TRIUMPHAL ENTRANCE

salem," ^ the crowd increased still more. It may be that
the camps of pilgrims, who found no room in the city,
extended as far as there. Less attached to the inhabitants
of the capital and accustomed to life in the open air, the
Galileans more particularly may have been thus encamped.
However that may be, from this moment the enthusiasm
assumed great proportions. From the slopes of the
Mount of Olives the crowds ran to meet Jesus, waving
in their hands branches of palms cut in haste. This tree
is, in the Orient, the emblem of strength and of beauty.
Moses, in Leviticus,^ recommended the people to carry
branches of it on the feast of Tabernacles, as a sign of
joy, and as if to prepare in advance an ovation to the
future Messiah. Here, the people, believing that they be-
held this Messiah with their own eyes, no longer restrained
their jubilation, and saluted Him with the symbolic palms.
Their chants fully explained their thought.

A Messianic psalm,^ which they loved to repeat on re-
ligious manifestations, in the procession of Tabernacles
and at the close of the Paschal feast, after the great Hallel,
seemed to them suited to the impressions of the moment.
The multitude chanted in chorus : " Hosanna ! ^ blessed is
he that cometh in the name of the Lord, the King of Is-
rael ! " For them Jesus was therefore not only a prophet,
but the Messianic Messenger, the new King of the theoc-
racy. And the Master did not silence this courageous,
boisterous faith. He desired, on the contrary, to prove
that it was right in declaring itself thus, by fulfilling a
most significant prophecy of Zacharias ^ before the eyes

s Bab. Pesachim, 63, 2 ; Menachot, 7, 6. Bethphage is there also said to
be extra muros, or again in conspedu mcenium urbis.
8 Levit. xxiii, 40.

7 Ps., cxva, 25, 2G.

8 Hosciha-nah, with Jehovah necessarily understood, signifies "Jehovah,
save, I pray thee"; this is best translated by. the French, sMut! .English, haill

^Zach., ix, 9.

[ 43 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

of all. It had been said by this prophet, that the humble
and pacific royalty of the Messiah would not be like that
of earthly potentates. In the midst of His triumph He
would be meek and modest. By this twofold sign Israel
was to recognise its King and Saviour. ^*^

Hence, at this moment, in order to distinguish Himself
from the multitude that surrounded Him and to show
Himself to His friends who hailed Him, Jesus determined
to take the place of honour in this triumphal march to
Jerusalem. It was on richly caparisoned mules that, long
before, His ancestors, David and Solomon, had made their
solemn entries into the Holy City ; He, the true King, not
of armies, but of souls, will come modestly on an ass ; and
His people shall see that He wishes to be for them all a
prince as modest as He is gentle-natured. " Go," He said
to two of His disciples, " into the village that is over
against you, and immediately at your coming in thither,
ye shall find an ass tied and a colt with her upon which
no man yet hath sat; loose them and bring them to me.
And if any man shall say to you. What are ye doing.''
say ye that the Lord hath need of them, and forthwith he
shall let them go." In obedience to this command, the dis-
ciples went and found the two animals tied, in front of
a door, at a point where two roads crossed each other.^*
At the mere saying that the Master had need of them,
they were permitted to lead them away. The owners were
no doubt friends of Jesus. And besides, who would have

1" St. John xii, 16, remarks that the disciples themselves did not suspect
that a prophecy was being fulfilled in what was then taking place. It was only
later on when the Master had entered into glory that they recalled and
understood the prophetic bearing of events in which they had taken part.

" These picturesque details are St. Mark's xi, 44. St. John does not
mention these measures taken to provide a beast upon which to ride, but
briefly says: tvpa}!/ 5è 6 'iTjtrovs ovàpiov iKaOia-ev 4ir' avr6. At tlie same
time he seems to suppose them when, v. 16, he speaks of what the
Apostles bad done for Him on this occasion, kuI ravra eirolyiffav avrû.

[44]

BOOK m] TRIUMPHAL ENTRANCE

dared at that time to refuse to participate in the triumph
of the Messiah-King? Before the Master Who spoke,
there were no other masters, and the owner had only to
resign his rights.

In the times of the Patriarchs and Judges, there was
no unseemliness in riding an ass in Palestine. Horses
were introduced only at a later date, in consequence of the
commercial relations established with Arabia and Egypt.
From that date the ass was used only by travellers of the
middle class, and by the poorer classes in their work. The
son of Sirach, in his lessons of wisdom,^^ shows, in fact,
that in his time the ass was as little valued as in our day ;
and certainly Zacharias, in representing the Messiah as
riding upon such an animal, did not wish to foretell a
proud conqueror, but a king of another order, poor not-
withstanding His might, and modest in spite of His glory.

Let us remark, however, that Jesus, while choosing the
lowliest of animals to aid in His triumph, requires that no
man shall have used it before Him. Jewish law,^^ like
paganism, did not deem it permissible to assign to the uses
of religion a beast that had already served the needs of
mankind. If the ass was brought with her colt, it was
no doubt because they sought thus to lead the latter more
easily in the triumphal march. St. Matthew gives this
insignificant detail only the better to show the fulfilment
of Zacharias' ^^ words.

From the mystical standpoint, St. Justin, in his dia-
logue with Tryphon, has ingeniously imagined that the

12 Ecclesiastieus xxxiii, 25.

" Numbers, xix, 2 ; Deut, xxi, 3 ; / Kings, vi, 7. We see what the pagans
thought in Horace, Epod. ix, 22 "intactae boves"; Virgil, Georg. iv, 540,
551, etc.

" The prophecy of Zacharias is quoted both by St. John and St. Matthew
with a liberty that is content with following the sense, without seeking
either the words or even the phraseology. St. Matthew, although the more
complete, seems to insert a memory of Isaias Ixii, 11.

[45]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second

ass was the image of the Jewish nation present at the tri-
umph in order to embelUsh it, but taking no active part.
The colt, in this case, is the symbol of paganism, which
had not yet borne the divine yoke. It is through the
synagogue that it receives spiritual life ; but the son shall
supplant the mother, and the latter, though present at the
inauguration of the Messianic reign, shall have a part that
is almost nil. Jesus chooses to be borne in triumph and
proclaimed king upon the shoulders of the pagan world.

The disciples covered the young ass with their best gar-
ments by way of housings, and the Master took His seat
upon ^^ it. Arrived on the summit of the Mount of Olives,
they were able all together to salute the Holy City and its
great memories. The solemn procession then took a more
immediate object, and disclosed a better drawn plan. The
daughter of Sion had now only to go out to behold her
King coming to her, " the just and Saviour and poor."
On His lowly beast, like the judges of old times,^^ He was
bringing to the nations words of peace. St. John says, in
fact, that the people, seeing Him who had raised Lazarus
from the dead thus escorted in triumph, came out from
Jerusalem to meet Him.^^

Nothing could be more touching than this manifesta-

" Here is another difficulty arising from St. Matthew's text. It is re-
markable that it is of the same kind as those already mentioned with reference
to the demoniacs of Gergesa and the bhnd men of Jericho. It is the plural,
taking the place of the singular. The text iir€K<idia-€v iirdvoo avrwv would
seem to say that Jesus mounted both animals, which would have been some-
what extraordinary. It is true, we can avoid this difficulty by making avrwv
refer to îtxariwv, and it was on the garments, in fact, that Jesus sat. But
the passage as a whole excludes this explanation. An error on the part of
copyists or translator is probable here also. It may have been caused by
a false interpretation of Zach. ix. St. Mark xi, 3, 4, 7, 9, and St. Luke xix,
SO, 31, 33, 34, 35, while maintaining an exact parallel with the first Synoptic,
persist in mentioning only the young ass.

^^ Judges, x, 4; xii, 14; v, 10.

"jSi. John xii, 18, distinguishes this crowd coming from the city from
that which followed Jesus : koI vv'fivT-na'ev oKirf o 6x\os.

[46]

BOOK m] TRIUMPHAL ENTRANCE

tion, whicJi was at the same time simple and grandiose.
In every group they told each other of the miraculous
works of Jesus, and more particularly of the story of
Lazarus, dead and restored to life. ]Many had been wit-
nesses of this latest prodigy, and Martha's brother, who,
no doubt, was in the crowd, afforded their words the most
striking confirmation. The enthusiasm grew at each step.
The newcomers, too, cut branches from the trees, from
the myrtle and olive-trees especially, of which there were
many on the way, and, joining the procession, they cried
out again and again : " Hosanna ! Blessed is he that com-
eth in the name of the Lord ! Blessed be the Kingdom of
our father David, that cometh! Peace in heaven and
glory on high! Hosanna in the highest!"^* At the
same time they strewed with verdure the way where Jesus
was to pass ; some even spread their garments on the road.
Thus long ago had Jehu been honoured at the moment
when he was proclaimed king.^^ Thus had the people
strewn flowers beneath the feet of Alexander the Great to
calm his wrath and to spare the city its final woes.^*^ But
in those days fear had bowed the head of the people be-
fore terrible monarchs, whereas now love alone brought
souls in submission before the feet of the Saviour.

In the immense crowd there were, however, some very
politic, timid, and even jealous men, and St. Luke, quali-
fying them as Pharisees, gives us reason to think that they
were enemies of Jesus. This significant demonstration
frightened them. They imagined that they already saw
the Roman soldiers brandishing their spears on the top of
the fortress Antonia in suppressing it, and they sought

18 This was another series of acclamations. They formed a part both of
the Hallel and of the prayer addressed to God to hasten the coming of the
Messiah.

i^ IV Kings ix, 13.

'<>Antiq., xi, 8, 5.

[47]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

to remind Jesus of that wise prudence which till then had
characterised His apostolate. It may be that under this
apparently charitable request they concealed only a most
hypocritical spite. After a vain endeavour to impose
silence on the Apostles they betook themselves directly to
Jesus, Who seemed to them to be responsible for that
which He tolerated. " Master," they said to Him, " re-
buke thy disciples." And Jesus simply replied with pro-
phetic majesty: "I say to you, that if these shall hold
their peace, the stones will cry out." For homage must
be done to the true King of Israel. The day when fear
shall close the mouths of the disciples, the rocks of Gol-
gotha shall be rent, proclaiming in this manner the divin-
ity of the Crucified, and when the Apostles, driven from
Jerusalem by persecution, shall no longer be able to make
the defence of their Master heard, the stones of the Tem-
ple and of the entire city, falling beneath the blows of
the Romans, shall again attest the divine mission and
assert the rights of the unacknowledged Messiah.

The cries of enthusiasm continuing, the Pharisees said
to one another angrily : " Do you see that we prevail noth-
ing.'' Behold the whole world is gone after Him." The
victory of the young Prophet seemed indeed complete.
The hierarchical party stood alone and without followers.
This was, no doubt, in their eyes, a proof that the deter-
mination of the Sanhedrim had been wisely taken, and that
there was need, instead of half-way measures, of having
recourse to extreme methods.

These recriminations, signs of evil disposition, must
have given Jesus a presentiment of the hostile reception
that awaited Him in Jerusalem. Hence as He approached
nearer and nearer to the city, whose splendid buildings
rose before Him in all their magnificence. His eyes
rested upon it with as much sadness as love. He read

[48]

BOOK m] TRIUMPHAL ENTRANCE

in the future the most dreadful misfortunes, and sud-
denly, with the tears flowing from His eyes, He ex-
claimed, with a sigh:^^ "If thou also hadst known,
and that in this thy day, the things that are to thy
peace: but now they are hidden from thy eyes." What
a touching picture is this: of the triumphant One
forgetting His triumph to weep for the misfortune of
His enemies ! Why will Jerusalem still remain faithless
to her Messiah-King? Would she but open her eyes even
at the last moment, and imitate the faith of these Gali-
leans who are escorting Him, how different her future
would be! Glory and felicity would return with the Sa-
viour's reign ; a whole past of crimes would be forgotten
and atoned for by this generous conversion. But it shall
not be so. Jerusalem shall persist more than ever in seeing
neither the good things she loses nor the woes she is pre-
paring for herself. " For," Jesus adds in accents of deep-
est grief — for it is His country's ruin that He prophesies
— " the days shall come upon thee, and thy enemies shall
cast a trench about thee and shall compass thee round and
shall straiten thee on every side ; and beat thee flat to the
ground, and thy children who are in thee; and they shall
not leave in thee a stone upon a stone, because thou hast
not known the time of thy visitation." Thus He foresaw
and foretold the horrors of the future.^" The ruins, the
dead and the dying shall thus, in spite of themselves, give
testimony to the rejected Messiah. They who would have
none of God's mercy, shall be subjected to His justice.
The punishment shall be so terrible, that it shall forever
appal all future generations.

When the procession reached the streets of the city, it

21 The text has: eKKava-iu, not iSaKpva-ev. There is a marvellous ac-
curacy in the shades of meaning of this account which St. Luke alone gives,
xix, 41.

22 B. J., Book V, chap, xviii, et seq.

[49]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet second

may be that these mournful prophecies had already mod-
erated the enthusiasm of the multitude. We read, how-
ever, in St. INIatthew, that the whole city was moved by
the event. The people crowded in the Lord's way, and
every one was asking : " Who is this ? " And the multi-
tude replied : " This is Jesus the prophet, from Nazareth
of Gahlee ! "

The Master desired to go at once to the Temple. As
He entered there, amid general excitement and shouts of
joy, conducted in triumph by His own, Jesus perceived
more closely the ill-concealed wrath of His enemies. How-
ever, no one dared, before so impressive a demonstration,
to utter a discordant cry. As the true Messianic King and
supreme chief of the people and of religion. He inspected
everything in the holy place. It may be that, at that late
hour, the court of the Gentiles was not occupied by the
merchants. At any rate, He did not wish to disturb so
beautiful a feast-day by any act of severity. The lesson
was reserved for the day following.

As night was approaching,^^ He returned to Bethany
with the twelve Apostles, leaving the city in a state of
liveliest emotion, and His enemies profoundly irritated by
His noble triumph.

23 The triumphal entry had taken the greater part of the afternoon, and
St. Mark xi, 11, says that it was late: 6\pias ^Stj oijtrrjs rrjs Sipas. Bethany
is ç;iven by this Evangelist as the place to which Jesus retired. St. Matthew
XXI, 17, says the same for the next day.

[50]

CHAPTER V

MONDAY: THE REIGN OF JESUS IN
THE TEMPLE

The Sadness of Jesus — The Withered Fig-Tree —
The Sellers in the Temple — " By What Au-
thority " — Miracles of Healing — Acclamation of
THE Young Lévites — The Pharisees. (St. Mark xi,
12-19; St. Matthew xxi, 12-19; St. Luke xix, 45-48.)

The procession that had accompanied Jesus in His
triumph was composed mostly of GaHleans and of stran-
gers who had come as pilgrims to the Paschal feasts. It
could not be concealed that the immense majority of the
inhabitants of Jerusalem, if they had not held aloof, had
at most shown only a vain curiosity. These frivolous
people were pleased to press more tightly than ever over
their eyes the fatal bandage that had blinded them so
long. For peoples, as well as for individuals, to resist
grace is ordinarily to open the heart to evil influences.
Here not to be openly with Jesus was to take sides against
Him. Let the Sanhedrim only attempt a daring stroke,
and it will transform into fierce enemies these hesitating
men Avho have witnessed this humble triumph, as one be-
holds a new spectacle, without any emotion in the depth
of the soul. They were not well-disposed on seeing Him
blessed and acclaimed by all ; their wickedness shall be
manifested when He is set before them, accused and
accursed.

[51]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

It was with the burden of these thoughts heavy upon
Him, that the Master had returned to Bethany. They
had filled His soul throughout the night. In the morning,^
when He set out once more for Jerusalem, He was sad.
The clear sight of the obstinate incredulity of Israel and
of the final reprobation which was to be its consequence
overwhelmed His heart. He felt the need of unbosoming
Himself to His disciples.

A fig-tree, planted by the road-side and distinguished
by its surprising precocity, attracted His attention.
Jesus saw in it an emblem of the people of God. On an-
other occasion and in the form of a parable, He had
represented Israel as a fig-tree planted by Jehovah in the
midst of the nations and grieving its master by its steril-
ity.^ The pretentious tree had no fruit. The Master
knew this in advance. The luxurious vegetation of its
foliage had absorbed everything. However, one had a
right to expect of it more than vain adornment. Israel,
too, with its hypocritical exhibitions of piety and of jus-
tice, had only made too evident its inability to produce
anything for God its Master. In vain had the time of
probation been prolonged at the vine-dresser's request.
The respite was ending, and naught had been gained but
more and more hateful results. It was the hour of justice ;
it was to be a terrible hour. To make it the better under-
stood Jesus, like the ancient prophets, had recourse to a
symbolical act, the meaning of which becoming, so to

' <S/. Mark xi, 12, assigns the incidents we are about to mention to the
next day after the triumphal entry, rfj tiravptov. If we had only the
Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke, we might suppose that the purifica-
tion of the Temple had taken place on the same day as our Lord's triumphal
entry. For St. Luke xix, 45, continues the accoinit of the Messiah's ovation,
in these terms: /col eîcreXOàiv els rb Uphv ^p|oTo èK0dWeiy, and likewise
St. Matthew xxi, 12. From which we see, once again, that we must not
look to the Synoptics for an accuracy which their traditional origin would
by no means admit.

2 St. Luke xiii, 6.

[52]

BOOK m] THE REIGN OF JESUS

speak, more tangible, would produce a lively impression
upon the Apostles' minds, and engrave there for ever the
terrible lesson contained in the example.

At this moment, the Evangelists say, He was hungry.
There can be a question here only of a hunger that was
altogether spiritual and supernatural. The Master came
from the house of His friends, and in less than half an
hour he would arrive in Jerusalem. The need of eating
which He felt and which He wished to satisfy was therefore
only the vehement desire of finding in Israel the Lord's
mystical fig-tree, the fruit whose blossoming and ripening
He had so long awaited. He approached the tree with
His disciples, and, after a careful search. He found only
leaves upon it. True, it was hardly the season when the
figs ^ should blossom. But in that case how was it that
this tree had already pushed forth leaves? The fruit
of the fig-tree comes before or at least together with its
foliage ; otherwise not at all. This is a striking image of
the fatuity of Israel calling itself, among the nations,
the exceptional people, God's servant and friend, because
it has the Temple and the law, but in reality concealing
beneath the lying appearances of false justice the most
deceptive barrenness. " May no man," said the Master,
" hereafter eat fruit of thee any more for ever." God's
curse is a devouring fire. It consumed at once the life of
the tree down to its very roots, and, when they passed
there on the next day, the disciples found that the fig-
tree was completely dead."* Thus shall Judaism perish

'The first fig of the season, or boccore, is ripe in June; the kermus figs
are ripe in August; and finally, the winter fig larger than the others, more
oval in shape and of a violet colour, remains on the tree even when the
leaves have fallen. In any case none are seen in April. They cannot sur-
vive the first frost. The first class is meant here, which begins to grow in
March.

'The apparent divergency between St. Matthew, who says of the tree:
"And immediately the fig-tree withered away," and St. Mark, who seems to

[53]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

unfruitful and proud. This the disciples must under-
stand.^ _f

Without further delay Jesus reached Jerusalem and
made His appearance in the Temple. His intention was
to assert His authority, and to reign there as Master dur-
ing the few hours He had to live. At this courageous
vindicating of INIessianic rights, His enemies, surprised,
terrified, thought only of giving way to Him. They
seemed for the moment even to have laid aside their hate
and their pretentions. The wicked frequently withdraw
into the shadow in order the better to prepare new plans
of attack.

Nothing is more difiicult to uproot than abuses, when
they have become the normal state in the religious life of
a people. We have seen Jesus, at the outset of His public
life, mercilessly drive the sellers from the Temple. Noth-
ing daunted, they had again installed themselves there in
the following year, and, in spite of the severe lesson it
had received, the hierarchical authority tolerated these
encroachments. It may have been to its interest to do so.
The name borne by a section occupied by these merchants
and money-changers, Hanouiots, the stalls of Hanna, would
warrant the belief that it was a commercial enterprise be-
longing to the aged High-Priest who had been dispos-
sessed.^ On the other hand, the exclusivism of the Phari-
sees was probably no stranger to this extraordinary tol-
eration. For it may have been their intention to alienate

put off its final death until the next day, is explained in this sense that death,
instantaneous within, was evident externally only after some hours.

' Thus, by this incident as by many others in the Gospel history, certain
difficulties presented as unanswerable are made to vanish. To pretend
that, according to the Evangelists, Jesus really desired to eat figs fresh
from the tree at the Passover, would be admitting that they ascribed to Him
a most extravagant whim.

* See Lightfoot and Edersheim, Lije of Jesus, V- *' •'Î. iii, c. v; Derebourg
Hist, et Geog. de la Palestine, p. 467.

[54]

BOOK III] THE REIGN OF JESUS

more and more from the Temple and from Jehovah all that
was not Jewish. This place reserved for the nations, in
the house of the true God, appeared to them too large,
perhaps, and they readily gave up the greater part of it
to the merchants, to the money-changers, or even to the
animals used in the sacrifice.

It was more particularly at the feast of the Passover
that this scandal was prominent, and this traffic shame-
lessly displayed in the sacred enclosure. It was just at
that time, too, that the Gentiles came in greater numbers
to pay their homage to the God of Israel. They found
their precincts scandalously invaded. It was impossible
for them to adore or to pray amid such confusion.^ This
sight rent Jesus' heart. The tumult had increased, no
doubt, since the evening before, the sellers, as well as the
buyers, becoming more and more numerous as the solem-
nity drew near.

Suddenly, the Master gives rein to His indignation.
Not armed this time with a scourge of cords. He com-
mands with a look, a gesture, a word, and every one trem-
bles. His superhuman majesty advancing upon them,
drives the sellers and buyers pell-mell before it. The tables
of the money-changers, the seats and benches of the dove-
merchants He overturns, and, thus, no one daring to resist
Him, for the second time He restores order in His
Father's house, which had been so disgracefully troubled.
His severity goes so far as to forbid even the carrying of
a vessel through the Temple. This was an effective means
of closing the door against all abuses.

' Jesus, Who had been present at no other Paschal solemnity since the
beginning of His public life, had had no other opportunity to protest against
this disgrace. On the feast of Tabernacles or of the Dedication, the religious
movement was more limited and the sacrifices fewer. There was not that
great and tumultuous crowd that gave to the business of the money-changers
and of the dealers in animals an exceptional importance during the second
week of Nisan.

[55]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

Then, to justify this act of authority, He turned and
said to the people who surrounded Him : " Is it not writ-
ten : My house shall be called the house of prayer to all
nations ; but you have made it a den of thieves ? " Both
texts, which Jesus unites in one, were borrowed from the
prophets. The first, from Isaias,® asserted God's right ;
the second, from Jeremias,^ stigmatised man's abuse.
Both were an awful condemnation of the priests who,
through connivance or weakness, tolerated such a profana-
tion.^^ If their object was to wall up the Law and grace
of God more and more effectually in the Temple of God,
and to repel forever evei'y one who was not a child of Is-
rael, they were most certain to succeed. For, these deputies
whom the nations sent each year to the Paschal solemnities,
would tell throughout the world that, notwithstanding the
divine invitation, there was no longer room for them in
the Temple in Jerusalem ; that foul animals had supplanted
man there, that their bellowings resounded in the enclo-
sure where the nations had no longer the right to offer
to Jehovah their homage and their prayers, and that in-
stead of believers, thieves had taken their seats. This
was a great crime, the entire responsibility for which fell
upon the priesthood, the official guardian of the Temple.
Human malice, interfering between God and the honest
souls among the nations, thus prevented Him from show-

* Isaias, Ivi, 7.

^ Jerem. \u, 11.

'" There is undoubtedly a great resemblance between this incident related
in the Synoptics, and that found in »S/. John ii, 13, at the beginning of Jesus'
ministry. But the abuse, being repeated in the same manner, could not but
provoke the same rebuke. However, among the several details which dis-
tinguish these two incidents one from the other, it will be noticed that there
is a diiîerence both in the conclusions and in the meaning of the words of
Jesus in each of the two purifications of the Temple. In the first the Master
attacks the scandal that Israel permits. In the second He refers to the right
of the pagans to a place in the Temple. In the beginning of His ministry
He sought to restore the theocracy, now He wishes to save the Gentiles.

[56]

BOOK III] THE REIGN OF JESUS

ing His love to all creatures, and withheld them from com-
ing to acknowledge and adore the Creator.

On hearing these grave teachings, the people, filled with
admiration, took pleasure in recounting the miraculous
works of the young Doctor. At the same time, the blind,
the infirm, who stood at the gates of the Temple begging,^ ^
came to Him, besought a cure, and obtained it. Thus
Jesus, sanctioned, as God, the great lesson He had just
given to the priests, the careless guardians of the dignity
of the Temple.

All at once, the general enthusiasm could no longer be
restrained, and from the midst of the crowd voices cried
out : " Hosanna to the Son of David ! " It was the young
Lévites, employed in the divine service, saluting the Won-
der-worker, the Law-giver, the Theocratic King Who now
appeared in His Father's house. Even these children, to
whom He had so often manifested His tender love, were
determined to pay Him homage. This renewed, with a
daring even more significant, the ovation of the day be-
fore; for this time Jesus was proclaimed Messiah in the
Temple itself and before the eyes of the religious authori-
ties. The representatives of the latter were moved to pro-
found indignation ; but, as on so many other occasions,
in the presence of the immense popular favour that wel-
comed the young Prophet, they had perforce to look on in
silence. Against so great a multitude they were power-
less. It were better to await a propitious moment in order
cleverly to turn the multitude against Him Whom to-day
it hailed with such ardour, and to associate it with them-
selves in the greatest of iniquities. Drawing near to Jesus,
the chief priests merely said to Him : " Hearest thou what
these say.?" They sought, by craftily asking for His

^'^ Ads iii, 2.

[57]

LIFE OF CHRIST [faut second

opinion concerning this significant demonstration, to place
on Him its entire responsibility. " Yea," Jesus responded
without emotion. Then, in order to justify that which
was to them a scandal. He added : " Have you never read :
Out of the mouth of infants and of sucklings thou hast
perfected praise." ^^ Thus He extolled, by the very
authority of the Holy Books, the dignity of His young
admirers, which the Scribes seemed to contest. Whatever
they in their malice may think of it, the children are, never-
theless, in the judgment of the Psalmist, the most ingenu-
ous, the most disinterested, and the most pure organs of
truth.

For the remainder of the day Jesus continued to in-
struct the people, who, according to St. Luke's words,
hung upon His lips. When evening came. He took the
road over the Mount of Olives, and returned to Bethany
to pass the night.

12 Psabn viii, 3.

[58]

CHAPTER VI

TUESDAY: THE REPLY TO THE
SANHEDRIM— PARABLES

Peter Before the Withered Fig-Tree — In the Tem-
ple— The Question of the Sanhedrim — The Coun-
ter-Question OF Jesus — Parable of the Two Sons
— The Husbandmen — The Corner-Stone — The
Marriage Feast— The Wedding Garment. (St.
Mark xi, 20 ; xii, 12 ; St. Matthew xxi, 20 ; xxii, lé ; St.
Luke XX, 1-19.)

Jesus was not unaware that His enemies, having deter-
mined to unite their efforts in trying Him with captious
questions, would look for Him without fail on the morrow.
This was Tuesday. He may have set out early in the
day, that He might leave them no time to turn against
Him the people who are always so changeable in their im-
pressions.

On the way the disciples noticed the fig-tree that had
been cursed the day before.^ It was withered to its roots.
" How is it presently withered away ! " they murmured to
each other. Peter, in order to evoke an explanation of this
prodigy, the utility of which he did not see, said : " Rabbi,
behold the fig-tree, which thou didst curse, is withered
away." And Jesus continuing the thought which He had
desired to make transparent beneath this symbolical fact,

1 If they did not notice it Monday evening, it was either because it was
dark, or because they had taken another road,

[59]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet second

merely replied what He had already said on other occasions
with regard to the omnipotence of true believers. " Amen,
I say to you, if you shall have faith, and stagger not, not
only this of the fig-tree shall you do, but also if you shall
say to this mountain: Take up and cast thyself into the
sea, it shall be done." The Apostles shall have the power
of life and death not only over a tree, but over a people.
At their command, infidel Judaism, stubborn, cruel, shall
wither in its hateful jealousy, and the Mount of IMoriah,
which stands before their eyes, shall disappear with its
priesthood and its temple, to be submerged in the vast sea
of the nations converted. Already too long has she closed
to the world the road that leads to God. With a word,
with a prayer, the Apostles must suppress this obstacle.
Such is the future.

Arrived in the Temple, Jesus began to stroll ^ up and
down like a man ready for the struggle. In the mean-
time He instructed those who were grouped around Him.
The hour was early and, perhaps, as yet there were few
in the holy place.

However, His enemies were not long in coming. Their
whole thought from the day before had been to select a
deputation that should speak in the name of all. This
deputation now stepped forward. Composed of high-
priests, scribes and elders of the people, in a word, of the
threefold element that constituted the Sanhedrim, it as-
sumed in the eyes of all an official character. " By what
authority," these emissaries said to Him, " dost thou these
things? And who hath given thee this authority that
thou shouldst do these things ? " This is not the first time
that we see the hierarchical party challenge Jesus on this
burning question in answer to which by characterising His

' St. Mark xi, 27, says : «V tÇ UpÇ irepiirarovvros avTov.

[60]

BOOK III] REPLY TO SANHEDRIM

mission, He might furnish a pretext for a juridical action.
His triumph of the previous day would undoubtedly move
Him to proclaim more loudly than ever that which He
thought of Himself. Every one awaited His reply with
impatience. How would He define the intimate nature of
His authority? Whence did He derive it? Both parts of
the question were closely bound one to the other. Were
His credentials human or divine?

Instead of replying categorically, Jesus essayed to make
his enemies answer for Him. To pose a question in re-
sponse to another question was much in vogue among the
dialecticians of the Synagogue. But in order to be topi-
cal, this counter-question should, by forcing a reply, estab-
lish the ignorance or the bad faith of those who had
provoked it. In this instance, Jesus found a twofold ad-
vantage in employing this process : on the one hand He
avoided making the personal declaration so maliciously
sought, and on the other He seemed to pay true homage
to the Sanhedrim, the competent and official judge in all
theological difficulties. " I," He said to them, " will also
ask you one word, and answer you Me, and I will tell you
by what authority I do these things." A single question i
It was not much, but it sufficed to cause them embarrass-
ment, for it was pointedly chosen. " The baptism of John
was it from heaven or from men? Answer Me." At once
they appeared sorely perplexed. They consulted each
other, saying : " If we say from heaven, He will say : Why
then did you not believe him?" His words introducing
the Messiah to His people had been clear, and the Precur-
sor had found himself deserted by the hierarchical party
at the very time when he had declared what he thought of
Jesus. " But, if we say : Of men, the whole people will
stone us," added the more prudent, " for they are per-
suaded that John was a prophet." For in the eyes of the

[61]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second

multitude John the Baptist had been a messenger from
heaven, and his tragic death had but added another halo
to his great and beautiful figure. The scandal would,
therefore, have been considerable. The Sanhedrists pre-
ferred to deny their competence. They said : " We know
not." But, by confessing themselves incapable of settling
a religious question as elementary as it was important, did
they not abdicate the dogmatic authority of which they
appeared so jealous.'' The proud mountain was, then,
entering upon visible dissolution ; the tree was withering
of itself. Jesus to accentuate their humiliation appeared
to accept purely and simply this hypocritical avowal of
their ignorance, and added : " Neither do I tell you by
what authority I do these things."

Turning then to the people,^ He gave them a series of
parables which, in affirming the divinity of His mission,
should put in a clear light the criminal intentions of His
adversaries.

" But what think you .'' " He exclaimed : " A certain man
had two sons,^ and coming to the first, he said: Son, go
work to-day in my vineyard. And he answering said: I
will not. But afterwards moved with repentance, he went.
And coming to the other, he said in like manner. And he
answering, said: I go. Sir, and he went not. Which of
the two did the father's will.? " Without hesitation the
people said :' " The first." As a matter of fact, his imper-
tinence, which ended after all in real obedience, availed
more than the hypocritical politeness of the latter, which
disguised his detestable insubordination.

3 This may be inferred from St. Luke xx, 9: "Hp^aro Se irphs rov \a6y
\eyeiv.

* This similitude with which Jesus assumes the offensive is found only
in St. Matt, xxi, 28-32. According to the context v. 31 and 32, it should
be applied not to the Jews and the Gentiles, but to the Pharisees and to
public sinners.

[62]

BOOK m] REPLY TO SANHEDRIM

In these two sons it was easy to recognise the two classes
of men whom God had called to redemption : public sinners
and Pharisees. To the call of heaven the former at first
replied : " No, we will not." But, after reflection, they
judged obedience to be the better part to choose. From
that moment, silencing their passions, they succeeded in
conforming their life to the law of the Gospel. The others
seemed at first to bow in reverence before the divine author-
ity. With feigned submission, they called Master the God
Who spoke to them as Father. But, after parading their
obedience as being equal to any trial, they took care to
follow only their own caprices and their own proud illu-
sions. " Therefore," Jesus adds, looking at His adver-
saries who are listening : " Amen, I say to you, that the
publicans and the harlots shall go into the Kingdom of
God before you." ^ What could be more legitimate?
When God, summoning John the Baptist from the desert,
had hardly begun to give them a sign, these correct men
of Judaism replied as a whole : " Master, behold us here."
And, indeed, they went and had themselves baptised. But
although they began by acclaiming the Precursor, they
ended by accusing him, hating him, and destroying him.
The public sinners did just the contrary. They were re-
bellious at first and afterwards faithful. That is why
they are set forth as models for these proud men who de-
spise them. " For John came to you in the way of justice,
and you did not believe him. But the publicans and har-
lots believed him; but you seeing it, did not even after-
wards repent, that you might believe him." Such is the
malice of the rebellious with their fulsome politeness, and
the merit of the impolite filled with obedience. Impiety is
the more odious the more hypocritical it is.

» The expression irpoiyovcriv vfûis, is rather ironical. The publicans and the
harlots are the giiides, the directors of the Pharisees into the Kingdom of God.

[63]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet second

That of the Pharisees will, moreover, go to the utmost
limits. They are capable not only of rejecting the mes-
sengers of heaven, but of causing even their destruction.
They betrayed John the Baptist ; they will slay the Son of
God. A second parable will explain this more clearly.
It is again addressed to the people. " There was a man,
a householder," said Jesus, " who planted a vineyard, and
made a hedge around about it, and dug in it a press,
and built a tower,^ and let it out to husbandmen ; and went
into a strange country ; and he was abroad for a long
time." The vineyard planted by God the Father of man-
kind, is the Jewish people, whom the law, like a beneficent
hedge, protects, in truth, against the invasions of pagan-
ism and idolatry. An indefectible teaching ministry, per-
petuated from age to age by the prophets or by genera-
tions of pious men, had been assured it as a mystic press
whence should flow the wine of truth. The Temple was
the tower wherein the watchful sentinels who were to
guard its prosperity, found shelter.

All being thus wisely organised, God had given the care
of His vineyard to the priests, the scribes, the elders, in a
word, to the theocratic authorities legally constituted. It
was their duty to make the land fructify. If the Master
seems to withdraw for a time, and no longer manifests an
immediate interest in the welfare of His people, this can
be only to test the intelligence, the devotion and the hon-
esty of His labourers. " And at the season, he sent to
the husbandmen a servant to receive of the husbandmen
of the fruit of the vineyard. Who having laid hands on
him, beat him and sent him away empty. And again he

° The figure used in this parable is applied in Isaias v, 1, et seq., to Israel.
In journeying through Palestine the author has seen many ancient presses
in the vineyards, especially on the way from Ramat-el-Khalil to Hebron.
Cf. Voyage aux Pays Biblique, Vol II, p. 34. The watch-towers are also
quite numerous.

[64]

BOOK m] REPLY TO SANHEDRIM

sent another servant. But they beat him also, and treat-
ing him reproachfully, sent him away empty. And again
he sent the third : and they wounded him also, and cast him
out, and him they killed. And thus they did to many
others." ^ Thus, in striking figures Jesus retraced, as in
letters of blood the long-continued faithlessness of a per-
verse people. The prophets had come, and in turn they
had been persecuted, dishonoured, mutilated, stoned,
killed.* Such were the revenues that Israel had paid to
Jehovah. Elias, Jeremias, Isaias, Zacharias, the son of
Joiada, could attest it.

" Therefore having yet one son most dear to him, then
the lord of the vineyard said: What shall I do? I will
send my beloved son. It may be when they see him, they
will reverence him." The parable here touched upon the
very quick of the situation. Friends and enemies became

^ We notice diflferences, of little importance doubtless, but numerous,
between the statements of each Synoptic in regard to these messengers.
Matthew has only two sendings of several servants at the same time, who are
struck, stoned, killed. Mark has only one servant for the first two sendings,
and several for a third. The bad treatment consists in striking, wounding
the head, and killing. Luke has three sendings of a single servant who is
struck, dishonored, and covered with wounds. Assuredly these variations,
which are explained by the oral Gospel from which our written Gospels are
taken, have no dogmatic importance, but here, as in many other passages,
they seem to render untenable those theories which exclude from our sacred
books every inaccuracy no matter how slight, as if the inspiration of the sacred
writers had the prerogative of extending infallibility into the most insignifi-
cant details. Undoubtedly on certain points in the present parable the
agreement is not perfect among the SjTioptics, nor can it be made so, what-
ever skill in harmonizing one may employ. If Jesus said (according to St.
Matt. xxi. 33 et seq.), that the King sent several servants on two occasions, He
did not say (according to St. Luke xx, 10 et seq.), that he sent only one on three
occasions, nor (according to St. Mark xii, 2 et seq.), that he sent one on two
occasions and, another time, several. It must be admitted then, that, while
all three are equally inspired, at least two of our Synoptics do not reproduce
the exact words of the Master. This phenomenon is repeated, moreover, in
other passages, doubtless of no great importance, but sufficiently numerous.
It is with such passages, it seems to us, that theologians in investigating the
true conditions of inspiration, ought to occupy themselves, before putting
forth doctrines which the texts seem finally to render untenable.

8 Hebr. xi, recounts their cruel experiences.

[65]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

eager to learn the denouement. Even the most dull could
divine that, in Jesus' thought, he who was sent at the
latest hour, after whom there can be no other, the well-
beloved Son of the Father, was indeed He from Whom
they had just demanded an account of His mission. And
so categorically and with courage, when His adversaries
were no longer expecting it. He proclaimed His rights
as the Only Son of God, one with His Father by a filiation
not merely adoptive, but essential, according to which He
is God like the Father from Whom Fie proceeds.

Let them know this then, and let them be confounded;
the Father has sent forth His Son from His bosom, so to
speak, and has sent Him to His people whom He desired
to save. In His prescience. He was not ignorant of the
reception reserved for Him; but He must needs fulfil the
promises made to the patriarchs and have pity on pious
souls who awaited their fulfilment. As for the rest, tliis
hardness of the Jewish people and their final reprobation
shall not prevent either the diffusion of truth in the
world or the redemption of the human race. By putting
the well-beloved Son to death, the Jews shall make sure
the salvation of the elect. " The husbandmen," continued
Jesus, " seeing the son, said among themselves : ^ This is
the heir, come, let us kill him, and we shall have his in-
heritance. And taking him, they cast him forth out of
the vineyard and killed him." Such is the secret of the
profound hatred which the hierarchical faction and the
Pharisees have vowed against Jesus. That they may not
lose their influence over the people, they are determined
to do everything in their power. The entire nation is in
their hands, they will not let it escape. If Jesus were

9 The word Sii\oylCovTo in St. Luke xx, 14, is a striking allusion to the
recent conferences of the leaders of Israel for the purpose of doing away
with Jesus. Cf. St. Mark xi, 18, and especially St. Luke xL\, 47, 48.

166}

BOOK III] REPLY TO SANHEDRIM

allowed to continue His work, their fall was certain ; cost
what it may the inheritance must be theirs. This their
selfishness dictates to them. The Messiah, then, shall be
put down by violence. These wicked men have already
cast Him out of His own vineyard, by launching against
Him a kind of excommunication. ^° They are making
ready to pursue Him even more cruelly, when they shall
drag Him out of the Holy City to kill Him on Calvary.
In the composure with which the Master speaks of His
approaching end there is something profoundly tragic.
The enemies whom He unmasks say nothing ; they tremble
at seeing the storm burst still more violently above their
heads.

" When, therefore," adds Jesus, " the lord of the vine-
yard shall come, what will he do to those husbandmen ? "
The people reply : " He will bring those evil men to an
evil end, and will let out his vineyard to other husbandmen,
that shall render him the fruit in due season." This was
the verdict of human integrity. A protest, however, was
heard in the multitude : " God forbid ! " exclaimed some,
as if to say that the chief priests were not capable of
committing such a crime, or that, in any case, Jesus'
friends would not permit it to be done. The Master cast
a severe glance at the group from which this denial came :
" Have you not read this Scripture," He said ; " what is
this then that is written : The stone which the builders
rejected, the same is become the head of the corner ; by the
Lord has this been done, and it is wonderful in our eyes."
The Saviour rightly understood this passage of the
Psalm ^^ as concerning the Messiah; for although it

10 Si. John ix, 22.

1' Ps. cx\ai, 22, according to the Septuagint. This passage refers to
faithful Israel becoming, after the Captivity, the element of salvation for the
people of God ; but Israel itself was only a figure of the true Sa\-iour Who
was to come later on. All the Rabbis applied this text to the ideal leader

[67]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

speaks here of David, it cannot be denied that it refers
to Him of Whom the great king was a figure. In reality,
the true stone scornfully rejected at first, and afterwards
taken up again to play the principal part in the construc-
tion of this edifice, is the Messiah in His person and in
His work. Judaism may reject Christ and the Church,
but Christ and the Church shall be none the less the
corner-stone of future society.

" And whosoever," the Master adds, evoking a twofold
biblical memory in support of His word, " shall fall on
this stone, shall be broken ; but on whomsoever it shall fall,
it shall grind him to powder." Isaias ^^ had compared
the Messiah to a rock against which the incredulous would
hurl themselves to their own destruction. Such, in truth,
is the final result of man's struggles against Jesus Christ.
In his folly, he exhausts himself in his endeavours to
destroy the pyramid, and after all his efforts he sees that
he has destroyed only his own strength. He has wasted
himself in the struggle, and he dies in despair. The
day shall come when, according to another saying of
Daniel, ^^ the stone shall take the offensive. Loosening
itself from the mountain, it shall fall on the enemies of
God, and shall so crush them that they may be passed
through the sieve of eternal wrath. " Therefore," con-
cludes Jesus, " I say to you, that the Kingdom of God
shall be taken from you, and shall be given to a nation
yielding the fruits thereof." It was a solemn, awful sen-
tence. In two words it determined the fall of the Mosaic
priesthood and the coming of the nations into the divine
inheritance.

As if it were necessary to make this substitution of the

of the theocracy (Cf. Schoettgen, H or. Hebr. on this passage), and Jesus
was right in applying it to Himself.

i'^ 7s. viii, 14.
13 Dan. ii, 44.

[68]

BOOK m] REPLY TO SANHEDRIM

pagan nations for the Jewish people better understood,
Jesus proceeds to give a second parable. He had ad-
dressed it to the Pharisees before; ^^ but He adds to it
on this occasion certain special and significant features.
" The Kingdom of God," He says, " is likened to a
King, who made a marriage for his son." This marriage
is the solemn union of the Word of God with mankind.
The Father invites the Jewish people the first to partici-
pate. They obstinately refuse. " The King sent his
servants to call them that were invited to the marriage ;
and they would not come." These emissaries are the
Apostles and the disciples, who have proclaimed the com-
ing of the Messiah in the country and in the cities.
Scarcely any heed was paid to their invitation. But the
divine goodness is not discouraged at the first refusal of
the human heart. After the sending of the twelve and of
the seventy, comes that of the martyrs. It is to be hoped
that by their mildness, by their heroic courage before ty-
rants, they at least may make themselves heard. " Again
he sent other servants saying: Tell them that were in-
vited : Behold I have prepared my dinner ; my beeves and
fatlings are killed and all things are ready ; come ye to the
marriage." At the time of this second invitation, every-
thing shall indeed be ready. The great victim, Jesus, shall
have been immolated, and placed at the disposal of every
one. Salvation shall hang on the tree of the Cross, and
the faithful shall have only to seize upon it. Strange to
say, this wretched Jewish people shall scorn it. " But
they neglected, and went their ways, one to his farm, and

" St. Luhe xiv, 15 ; this was explained in its own place. Then it was not a
king, but an ordinary individual who gave a supper and not a marriage feast.
He sent only one message, not two. Those invited gave various excuses, but
did not maltreat the messenger who reminded them of the invitation. Finally,
they were not punished as those in this parable shall be, and, in reality, the
conclusion was different.

[ 69 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt second

another to his trade." Mankind follows these two voices
of pleasure and of self-interest, in preference to all
others. Sometimes, too, irritated at hearing itself ever
recalled to its duty, it listens to that of hate, and, as if
to free itself from all remorse, it kills the preachers.
" And the rest laid hands on his servants, and, having
treated them contumeliously, put them to death." The
Jews shall be the first to cause the blood of martyrs to
flow. Woe unto them! the vengeance of heaven shall fol-
low close upon their crime. " But when the king had heard
of it, he was angry, and sending his armies, he destroyed
those murderers, and burnt their city." God at all times
has armies which while seeming to serve the caprices of
certain princes, in reality execute the decrees of His jus-
tice. Thus the Romans shall come to destroy the per-
secutors, as, later on, the barbarians shall come down from
the plateaus of upper Asia to destroy the Romans.
Jerusalem was burnt and of those who were the first in-
vited to the Gospel there remained naught but a woful
memory.

Nevertheless God's gifts do not perish for the want of
some one to accept them. " Then the King saith to his
servants : The marriage indeed is ready, but they that
were invited are not worthy. Go ye therefore into the
highways, and as many as you shall find call to the mar-
riage." On all the highways of the world souls must be
gathered together that they may be led to the banquet
of the Gospel. " And his servants going forth into the
ways, gathered together all that they found, both bad
and good ; and the marriage was filled with guests." Such
is the history of the preaching of the Apostles after Pen-
tecost. "Because you reject it" (the Word of God),
St. Paul shall say to the Jews of Antioch in Pisidia, " and
judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold we turn

[70]

BOOK III] REPLY TO SANHEDRII^I

to the gentiles." ^^ Regardless of person, good and bad,
rich and poor, ignorant and learned, all shall be admitted,
on condition solely that they wish to participate in the
feast. Nothing indeed was stranger than the membership
of the primitive Church. Philosophers, soldiers, common
people, masters, slaves, Greeks, Romans, barbarians, the
virtuous and the dissolute, all went pell-mell into the ban-
quet-hall. Before being allowed to pass, they were asked,
doubtless, if they believed in the reality of the Wedding
of the Son of God with humanity by His Incarnation and
His Redemption. They answered " Yes," and entered.
They came in numbers great enough to do honor to the
royal banquet. But the mere acceptance of the invitation
was not enough to give one the right to seat himself at
table and to remain there, no more than faith suffices to
insure salvation. The feast requires a becoming dress,
as the justification of the sinner demands the works that
are the complement of faith. This is explained in the
end of the parable. For God can welcome these guests
arriving in confusion only when He finds in them, as a
testimony of gratitude, at least the desire to honour their
host by a correct attire and an attitude in keeping with
the most elementary good manners. Grace impels man's
heart by the gift of faith, but man's heart should respond
to this invitation by works of salvation which, being par-
tially the fruit of our liberty, constitute our merit.

" And the King went in to see the guests ; and he saw
there a man who had not on a wedding garment. And he
said to him: Friend, how camest thou in hither not hav-
ing on a wedding garment.? " ^^ One may, indeed, enter

^^ Ads xiii, 46.

'* In the East, there is no one, however poor, man or woman, who has not
one of these garments, or of these articles of clothing, a mere turban, conffieh
or cincture, reserved for those feasts in which they never participate without
some unusual preparation. Besides, in those lands, where men so easily

[71]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt second

the Church through a frank profession of faith ; one may
even remain there without having the other Christian
virtues ; but he shall not enter heaven under like condi-
tions. Thej alone shall be of the Church in heaven who
shall have belonged not to the body, but to the soul of the
Church on earth. Woe to the imprudent one who thought
himself bound by no obligations in accepting the invita-
tion ! Thus severely questioned, the poorly clad man in
the parable was silent. He had no excuse. Nor shall those
condemned in the judgment of God, have more: it were
easy to put on Jesus Christ by an active faith, by charity
and justice! This obligatory garment was not impossible
for any one to find; all that was required was to will to
adorn one's self therewith. Indifference, presumption, the
various passions incline many to suppose that a call to
salvation is enough for one to be saved. Pecca fortitery
sed crede fortius, has it been said, and on this principle
they betake themselves to the banquet in the dress of
ignominy. The Pharisees thought, perhaps, to their
great scandal, that Jesus' indulgence went so far, and
that He promised salvation to all who would enroll them-
selves among His disciples. The Master protests against
such detestable doctrine. He declares that the life of
bliss is purchased by personal work, and that it is lost
when one counts on dead faith to insure it.

" Then the King said to the waiters : Bind his hands
and feet, and cast him into the exterior darkness ; there
shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Such is the
sentence that excludes the lost from eternal light. The
banquet is given in the evening. To be driven from
the hall, is to be cast out into the street where reigns the

fraternise in a common misery, any one is allowed to borrow his neighbours'
clothes ; so that at the wedding feasts of the very poor, beggars are sometimes
seen completely transformed in extraordinary holiday attire. This is the
wedding or nuptial garment.

[72]

BOOK III] REPLY TO SANHEDRIM

darkness of night. Death leads us towards the splendor
of God; if any unworthiness prevents us from attaining
it, our lot shall be to languish for ever outside the hall
where the others are rejoicing. What bitter regrets and
what groaning!

Let the publicans and the Gentiles know that, if they
are called to supplant the proud Pharisees and the obsti-
nate Jews, this is no reason for believing that a first act
of faith will enable them to take a seat for ever in the
place abandoned by the former. Faith opens the gates
of the Kingdom, but when it produces no works it can-
not maintain our right to stay within them.

[73]

CHAPTER VII

TUESDAY: MORE QUESTIONING

The Herodians and Pharisees — Tribute to C^sar —
The Sevenfold Widow — The Life to Come — The
Great Precept of the Law. (St. Mark xii, 13-3 Jj;
St. Matthew xxii, 15-40; St. Luke xx, 20-40.)

The Sanhedrim, defeated in the solemn interpellation it
had essayed, withdrew ; but it was then that the particular
sects sought to avenge the general rout by coming, each
in its turn, to set a new trap for the Teacher Who by
His wisdom disconcerted all His adversaries.

The first group that presented itself seems to have
been intentionally composed of very dissimilar political
elements, inasmuch as Pharisees, the determined partisans
of national independence, touched elbows with Herodians,
the devoted friends of the Roman authority.^

This was assuredly a strange combination of people
who cordially detested each other ; but it is not a rare

' It is known how the Herods had become vassals of the Roman emperors,
and by what bold enterprises the head of this dynasty, in particular, had
sought to impose Cîesar's authority upon the Jews. Every nation has its
types who are ready to enslave themselves in the hope of worldly success.
The defection in the Jewish national party came from a lofty source.
Manahem, President of the Great Council, passed over to Herod's camp
with a great number of his most influential fellow -citizens. They constituted
themselves a powerful faction which Roman cleverness pampered with secret
or public favours, and which, although seeming to be grouped about the sons
of Herod, was occupied especially with the interests of the empire. They
were Romans rather than Herodians. Cf. Josephus, Antiq., xiv, 13, 1;
15, 10;xvi, 9, 3.

[74]

BOOK m] MORE QUESTIONING

thing to see such alliances, ill-starred though they may
seem, suddenly formed under the influence of diverse pas-
sions and in a common interest. Besides, we may sup-
pose, according to the text, that the Pharisees experienced
a certain shame for such intercourse with the partisans of
the foreigners. For St. Matthew observes that the chiefs
held aloof and sent only a few of their disciples."

One is not surprised to find a political question on the
lips of such emissaries. Assuming for the occasion an air
of affected righteousness, they came like scrupulous citi-
zens to expose a perplexing case of conscience. It is their
piety that moves them to put their question, as St. Luke
indicates. " Master," they say to Him with hypocritical
respect and flattery, " Master, we know that thou art a
true speaker, and carest not for any man ; for thou re-
gardest not the person of men, but teachest the way of
God in truth." This preface acknowledges that Jesus'
independence gives assurance of His veracity, as His hon-
esty guarantees His independence. " Tell us, therefore,
what dost thou think ; is it lawful to give tribute to
Cassar or not ? "

At first glance we easily perceive the insidiousness of
this question. By replying in the affirmative Jesus would
alienate the people who were secretly champing the bit
imposed upon them by Roman tyranny ; He would destroy
all the Messianic hopes founded on His manifestation,
and declare that instead of throwing off the foreign yoke.
He had come to accept it. Before such weakness the mul-
titude could not fail to change from admiration to scorn,
and from devotion to deep hatred. By responding in the
negative — and His independent manner gave reason to
believe that He would so do, — He would pose as a rebel
and draw upon Himself chastisement from Roman au-

^ He says : MtoaTiWovinv avrcp tovs /loOTjras avTOiiv

[75]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

thority. Whatever His response, therefore, He would
be either denounced to the people by the party of the
patriotic Pharisees ^ as a coward who accepted the foreign
yoke, or betrayed before Pilate by the faction of the im-
perialist Herodians as a rebel who was exciting the
multitude by persuading them to refuse the tribute.

But these clever casuists had reckoned without the wis-
dom of the young Master which in the twinkling of an
eye could grasp the knot of a question and solve it with
a word. Between the alternatives imposed upon Him:
God or Cassar, there was a middle term, a third hypothesis,
which was the true one : God and Caesar. The two orders,
human and divine, must not exclude each other. It is their
function to exist side by side, to regulate man, the one in
his public life, the other in his private life ; the former
governs the social life, the latter the religious. Caesar
must respect God's rights, and God in turn safeguards
the rights of Caesar. Unjustly do men strive to bring
these two authorities into contradiction with each other.
In the divine plan, the two powers should never clash,
because they have their distinct spheres, their common
origin, and, in different degrees, one and the same pur-
pose : the happiness of mankind.

, Jesus, perceiving their malicious intention, began by let-
ting them understand what He thought of their scruples :
" Why do you tempt me," He said, " ye hypocrites ? "
After which, resolutely taking up the difficulty proposed:
" Show me the coin of the tribute," He added. They
gave Him the coin ^ with which they were accustomed

' Josephus has said of the Pharisees : Vl6vov r}yffiova koï Seo-Trorjjv Thy Bthu

* St. Matthew, who through his former profession had become famihar
with the various coins, puts on the Hps of Jesus the customary term rh
v6fjMT(ia Tov K7iv<rov, whereas in St. Mark and St. Luke we find the much less
precise word Srjvdpiov. Cf. Josephus, Antiq., xiv, 10, 6; Bell. Jud., ii, 16, 4.

[76]

BOOK III] MORE QUESTIONING

to pay the per capita tax, a personal assessment very
odious in the eyes of the people. It was the Roman penny
stamped for use in Palestine. Jesus, having looked at it,
said to them : " Whose image and inscription is this .? "
They replied : " Caesar's," not suspecting that with a
word they themselves broke the trap they had prepared.
The solution of the difficulty was indeed to be found in
their reply. If Tiberius Caesar had the right to coin
money with his image and inscription, it was because he
was master of the country. Only he in whom the state is
personified has the right to mark with his name and to
cover with his responsibiHty the current values which, as
money, are to serve in social transactions. The Jews ad-
mit this right in Caesar, since they grant a legal currency
to pieces struck with his image ; therefore they recognise
Caesar as the real authority which regulates their des-
tinies ; therefore they owe him, together with obedience
and respect, the tribute necessary for public affairs. The
payment of this tax is not an act contrary to the will of
God, Who has permitted Caesar to become master of Pal-
estine. But, on the other hand, by being a tributary of
Caesar one is not excused from being the servant of God.
Each of these two kings has his respective rights. The
Pharisees are mistaken in violating Caesar's rights the
more loudly to acknowledge those of God. Their patriotic
fanaticism is contrary to divine law. The Herodians,
sacrificing their national traditions and applauding the
criminal encroachments of the state upon the religious
domain, forget God's rights to give themselves wholly to
Caesar; they are even more culpable. To both parties
Jesus points out their reciprocal errors ; and His answer,
brief and lucid, admirably sets forth the truth far from
the extremes where they had put it : " Render, therefore,
to Caesar the things that are Caesar's " — this was aimed

[77]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet secoi^d

at the Pharisees who would not accept the claims of Rome
— " and to God the things that are God's " — and this at
the Herodians who gave but little thought to the claims
of Jehovah. At this solution of the difficulty, so simple
and so beautiful, His enemies began to admire Him Whom
they had come to test.

Immediately, and as if to cover defeat by a fresh at-
tack, another deputation presented itself to question
Jesus again in the hope of embarrassing Him. This was
composed of Sadducees. The Sadducees, as we have said,
were the materialists of that epoch. They admitted, as
a rule of faith, only the books of Moses — this was suffi-
cient to prevent their exclusion from public office or even
from the High-priesthood — and they were satisfied to
look for the sanction of their virtues or their vices in the
blessings and the ills of the present life. The mere cloak
of the Mosaic religion sufficed for their spirit and their
needs. They were in Judaism the cynical representatives
of those coarse instincts to which the law-giver of Israel
had had to make rather serious concessions. Such men,
having considerable influence in the state — twice had they
procured a general massacre of the Pharisees, their ene-
mies— had, no doubt, become interested in the spiritual
teachings of Jesus. They, too, desired, when the time
should come, to have a part in that supreme struggle
which the children of darkness were waging against the
King of light and truth.

The difficulty they had prepared was based on the fun-
damental point of their materialistic doctrines, which was
the denial of personal immortality and of the resurrection
of the body. A passage in the law of Moses seemed to
them to destroy radically the theories of Jesus on the
future life. They derived from it, therefore, a singular
objection which they at once came to propose to Him,

[78]

BOOK m] MORE QUESTIONING

with that sarcastic, frivolous bantering on which men of
their kind gladly pride themselves. Their ideas being in-
spired by their tastes, and their tastes being entirely
carnal, since they denied the existence of the soul, the
thought had struck them to ask Jesus to whom in the
future life, if there were such a life, would belong the
woman who, in this life, had had seven husbands in suc-
cession. This question appeared to them to be not only
striking for its originality, but also quite embarrassing in
its solution. " Master," said they, " Moses wrote unto us,
that if a man die having no son, his brother shall marry
his wife, and raise up issue to his brother." Without
citing the text, they gave the exact sense of the law of the
levirate.^ The starting-point of their objection was,
therefore, incontestable. An imaginary fact, exaggerated
according to the pleasure of these libertines, constituted
its second element. " Now there were with us seven
brothers ; and the first took a wife and died without
children ; and the next took her to wife, and he also died
childless. And the third took her. And in like manner
all the seven, and they left no children and died. Last of
all the woman died also. In the resurrection, therefore,
when they shall rise again, whose wife shall she be of
them; for the seven had her to wife.^*" The conclusion
drawn by them from these premises was, no doubt, that,
since the authority of Moses seemed to every son of
Israel as certain as the possibility of the fact alleged,
there was nothing else to do than to reject faith in the
resurrection, which created, at least in this case, an in-
surmountable difficulty.

It is by a general response that Jesus, at first, over-
comes His adversaries. He cannot conceal from them the
pity inspired in Him by their ignorance which betrays it-
' Deut, XXV, 5, 6. See Denary, de Hebr. leviratu. Berlin, 1835.

[79]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

self by so senseless an objection. These distinguished
legists, who have come so ostentatiously to quote Moses to
Him, know but little of him. " You err," He says to
them, " not knowing the scriptures nor the power of
God." It was hard for their pride to hear themselves in-
formed that they understood nothing either of Moses,
whose authority they accepted, or of God, Whose existence
they admitted without granting Him the power of raising
the dead to a higher life comparable to that of the angels.
Hard as it was, it was, however, true. The direct answer
to the objection proves this. " The children of this
world marry," Jesus says, and with a word He leads His
enemies to the reality of a higher world, where their
question no longer has any meaning, " and are given in
marriage, but they that shall be accounted worthy of that
world and of the resurrection from the dead, shall neither
be married nor take wives. Neither can they die any
more; for they are equal to the angels, and are the
children of God, being the children of the resurrection." ®
Men marry, in the present life, to repair on earth the
voids made by death, and to give to heaven the number of
the elect determined by God from all eternity. But, in
the future life, on the one hand, the just do not die, and,
on the other, receiving each day new recruits who come
from here below, they have no need of reproducing them-
selves in order to people the heavenly city. By their
resurrection, God, Who has communicated to them His
own immortality, has initiated them into a new life ; they
are become once more the children of Him Who created

6 The antithesis between "the children of this world" and "the children
of the resurrection" is worthy of remark. It is on this that the entire argu-
mentation of Jesus is based. The first are, on earth, children of men and
destined to generate other men ; the latter are children of God and are called
to live like the angels, in a world where God does not require the co-operation
of His creatures to engender life.

[80]

BOOK m] MORE QUESTIONING

them anew; their happiness shall then be to live, not as
these men of the world, whose carnal '^ appetites Jesus
stigmatises here, but like the angels, those pure spirits,
who, enjoying God, scorn the gross pleasures of earth.

It is not unintentionally that Jesus evokes the memory
of the angels before adversaries who pride themselves on
not beHeving in them. Instead of solving simply an ob-
jection. He wishes to prove an entire thesis, and He does
it with as much science as authority. Having answered,
He proceeds to instruct.

If the Sadducees propose such a question, it is because
they deny the future life, and they deny it because the
books of Moses, the only ones that they admit, say noth-
ing of it. But is this silence of the great Law-giver,
which serves as a basis for their doctrines, as real as they
think? In truth, a theologian with only the ordinary
knowledge of the Jewish Rabbis might well be embarrassed
in seeking to find in the Pentateuch an explicit text affirm-
ing the resurrection. For everything therein supposes
it, and nothing seems to establish it.^ But Jesus is of
another school than the doctors of the Synagogue, and
His eye can read where the eyes of His enemies had often
gazed without seeing aught.^ It is from words appar-
ently insignificant, which suppose, without long demon-
stration, the reality of the future life, that the new ]Mas-
ter causes the brightest light suddenly to shine forth.
" And as concerning the dead that they rise again," He

' The accumulation of expressions : yafxetv, èKyafil^eadai, or again
(KyafiiffKeffdai, is significant.

* Once more we refer to the article by Fr. Touzard, S.S., in the Revue
Biblique for April, 1898. One is astonished to learn that the Sadducees,
while acknowledging the authority of Moses, nevertheless deny the future
life. Josephus, Antiq., x^iii, 1, 4: B. J., ii, 8, 14.

« According to St. Luke xx, 37, INloses suggests èij-ijvva-ev, that the patriarchs,
though dead to earth, are not dead to God, and that their life continues
beyond the grave.

[ 81 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second

says, indicating that this was their secret thought and
the basis of their objection, " have you not read in the
book of Moses, how in tlie bush ^^ God spoke to him, say-
ing : I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and
the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but
of the Hving. For all live to him. ^^ You therefore do
greatly err." In the text of Moses, God says, in fact,
not: I have been, but: I am the God of Abraham; but
He cannot be the God of those who are no more, there-
fore these patriarchs, dead though they are to the world,
are still living. They are so much alive that God de-
clares Himself ready to fulfil the promises made to their
faith, and the fulfilment of which shall insure their joy
and their glory.

This proof, luminous though brief, absolutely topical,
and thoroughly in keeping with the methods of Jewish
theology, contained something so unexpected and so con-
clusive, ^^ that the Sadducees were stupefied. They had
acknowledged and used as an objection the authority of
Moses ; they were confounded by the same Moses. Those
who had been defeated before them must have rejoiced at
this repulse, and some Scribes, yielding to their enthusi-
asm, exclaimed: "Master, thou hast said well." ^^

>" Exodus iii, 6, 15.

11 The word uvtw does not mean in His memory; that would not prove
what Jesus wishes to estabhsh, but in relation to, in communion with Him.

12 To appreciate its conclusiveness the better, we should remember that
in antiquity, the question of the immortality of the soul and that of the
resurrection of the body seem to be confounded in one. The soul was not
imderstood as living without the body, and Jesus, by proving, in a general
way, the life of the patriarchs after their death, included in His proof not
only the immortality of the soul, but the resurrection of the whole man. He
meant to establish all that the Sadducees denied on this important question.

i^This exclamation coming from the very mouths of our Lord's enemies,
when we notice that these enemies were the Scribes, that is, the men of
learning, who, taken unawares, suddenly forget the hatred they have in their
hearts, is striking in its truth. It proves the authenticity of the documents
whence St. Luke drew his information.

[82]

BOOK m] MORE QUESTIONING

One of them, belonging to the sect of the Pharisees,
ventured, however, to put another question. If he had
come at first with mahcious intentions, we perceive that
he was deeply impressed by what he had just heard, and
if he asks a question, it is rather that he may abide by
his compact with those who have put him forward than
really to engage in a controversy with Him Whose wis-
dom he admires.^ ^ " Master," he says, and by this title
he proves his respect for Jesus, — " Master, which is the
great commandment in the law? " A legist, he speaks of
what interests him. Besides, the question he puts was
strongly controverted in the schools and among the Jew-
ish sects. Pharisaical formalism beheld the chief point of
the law in the articles that regulated man's exterior wor-
ship. Sadducean materialism sought it in the rewards or
chastisements reserved in this life for faithful or unfaith-
ful servants. Each doctor had his theory, which he de-
fended beyond all limits. Jesus unhesitatingly expounds
His. He had already done so on another occasion.^^ To
expose it was to impose it, so striking was its truth. For
Him the first commandment is that which goes straight to
man's heart to regulate its movements. True religion. can
be only in the most intimate, the most generous, the most
pure moral act of the soul, in the love that presents our
homage, our works, and our life. This is what Jehovah

" In this way the two Evangelists may be made to harmonise. In St.
Mark xii, 28, the Scribe seems to ask this question because he admires the
wisdom of Jesus. According to St. Matt, xxii, 35, he seeks to \xy the Master
ireipiÇaiv. These two motives may have existed simultaneously, especially
since treipi^wv does not always mean to try with malice. Cf. St. John \\, 6.

"It is not possible to join to this narrative in St. Matthew and in St.
Mark the analogous question which we have found in St. Luke. Although
in both cases a legist, voynKés, is asking a question, the circumstances are
different. The question itself this time bears upon the supreme command-
ment, and not upon the conditions for salvation; here it is Jesus, and not
the Scribe, Who utters the two great commandments; and finally the con-
clusion is different, as was the whole discourse.

[83]

LIFE OF CHRIST [iakt second

had said to Israel, but Israel had not understood or had
forgotten it. Jesus with a word leads the Jewish theology
back to the heights whence the sectarian spirit had caused
it to descend. " The first commandment of all," He said,
" is : Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. And
thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart
and with thy whole soul and with thy whole mind, and
with all thy strength. This is the greatest and the first
commandment." God has put it at the head of His law
only to point out its undeniable excellence, and woe to the
man who destroys the divine order ! True religion con-
sists in loving this God as our sole Master, that is, above
all things. To love Him thus is, moreover, to insure the
sanctity of our whole religious life. For, in such a love,
moral perfection must necessarily find its principle and
its term.

The Scribe had asked only the first commandment ; Jesus
insists on adding the second which sums up our duties
towards men, as the first has our duties to God. If any
one practises both, he has the fulness of justice. " The
second," adds the Master, " is like to this." For like this,
it also is addressed to man's heart and regulates its love.
" Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." The charity
we must have for others should be great, attentive, de-
voted, like that which we have for ourselves. In other
terms, God thus defines His two great commandments : for
Himself, He demands supreme love that nothing balances,
checks, or lessens ; for man. He prescribes all the affection
of which we are capable. " There is no other command-
ment greater than these," Jesus adds ; " on these two com-
mandments dcpendeth the whole law and the prophets."
Indeed, everything that has been prescribed or foi'bidden
to Israel comes under one or the other of these two great
and universal precepts.

[84]

BOOK m] MORE QUESTIONING

The Scribe was enraptui'cd by this splendid theory.
" Well, Master," he exclaimed, " hast thou said in truth,
that there is one God, and there is no other besides Him.
And that He should be loved with the whole heart, and
with the whole understanding, and with the whole soul, and
with the whole strength and to love one's neighbour as
one's self is a greater thing than all holocausts and sacri-
fices." With laudable perspicacity this man (to whom
St. Irenœus ^^ attributes also these words : " Long have I
desired to hear such discourse, and had found it on the
lips of no man ") had grasped Jesus' whole thought. He
understood and proclaimed that the best homage to give
to God is indeed that of the soul in the sacrifice of an un-
bounded charity.

The possession of a fine intelligence in the service of a
good heart is something. Jesus looking upon the Scribe
said to him : " Thou art not far from the Kingdom of
God." This was great encouragement for a soul in search
of the truth. We must believe that grace did the rest,
and that this legist became a believer.

Perhaps it is well to bring to a close here the incidents
of Tuesday, which would seem to be overcrowded if pro-
longed so as to include the discourse on the end of the
world. It is true that in the continuation of the account,
no one of the three Synoptics, except perhaps the first,^^
furnishes any perceptible pause that would allow us to
pass on to the following day. But we know them to be
given to these chronological oversights which are suffi-
ciently explained by the oral or spoken Gospel which was
their real source. Besides, by supposing that Tuesday
ended with this triumph of Jesus, we avoid having
Wednesday entirely given over to silence. And again,

" St. Irenaeus, C Hceres., i, 17.
^1 St. Matt, xxii, 41.

[85]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

the agreement between Judas and the Sanhedrim will be
seen to have been caused directly either by the disciple's
misunderstanding of the discourse on the destruction of
Jerusalem or by the fury aroused by Jesus' anathemas
against the Pharisees and the hierarchical faction.

[86]

CHAPTER VIII

WEDNESDAY : JESUS ASSUMES THE
OFFENSIVE

Son of David, and David's Lord — Silence of the
Pharisees — Denunciation and Malediction — The
Widow's Two Mites. (St. Matthew, xxxii, 41, xxiii,
39; St. Mark, xii, 35-44; St. Luke, xx, 41, xxi, 4; and
xiii, 34-35 ; xi, 37-54.)

The trial had proceeded far enough. In vain had each
faction measured its strength with the divine Teacher.
Their defeat seemed as humihating as it was complete.
The latest incident had even presented the rather rare
phenomenon of an adversary loyally surrendering his
arms to pass over to the camp of Him Whom he had come
to attack. They therefore deemed silence the better part,
and Jesus was enabled to enjoy His triumph indisputed.^

Returning at once to the thesis which He was develop-
ing when the Herodians had come upon the scene, He
determined to give to those of His hearers, who desired
it, the true idea of the Messiah. He Himself had been
questioned long enough to have the right to question
others. Turning, therefore, to the Pharisees, who formed
a considerable group : " What think you of Christ ? "
He said to them: " whose Son is He.'' " ^ " David's," they

» St. Mark xii, 34 ; St. Luke xx, 40.

2 Here, again, we notice a slight difference between St. Matt, xxii, 41 and
the two other Synoptics. The foi-mer relates, in effect — and his text appears

[87]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second

replied ; for such was the universal teaching of the Rabbis,
" How," returns Jesus, " say they that Christ is the son
of David? For David himself, inspired by the Holy
Ghost, calls him Lord in the book of Psalms,^ saying : The
Lord said to my Lord: Sit thou on my right hand, until
I make thy enemies thy footstooh If David then call him
Lord, how is He his son? "

To reply to this question one had to have a knowledge
of the twofold nature of the Messiah. As the Pharisees
knew nothing of this, the question rose beyond their
knowledge. But it forced itself on them, none the less,
as an evident difficulty. It was impossible to deny the

to us the better — that Jesus led the Pharisees, by first questioning them, to
start the difficulty which he wished to raise, viz., Christ is the Son of David.
St. Mark and St. Luke suppose that Jesus regards the Davidic sonship of the
Messiah as commonly taught by the doctors of the Law, and His reasoning
starts from what apjiears to Him a settled fact. This variation proves once
more the absolute independence of our Evangelists. It is explained, like the
others, by the hypothesis of different documents to which the oral Gospel was
at first consigned.

3 It is remarkable that Jesus attributes Psalm CIX to David {St. Luke
XX, 42), and that he calls it inspired by the Holy Ghost {St. Matt, xxii, 43;
St. Marie xii, 36). That David was the author of this psalm is plainly an-
nounced in the title wliich it bears, " A Psalm of David," and not " to David,"
as several have wished to translate it, exceptionally and contrary to all rules.
The particle ^, according to custom, indicates the proprietorship, the
source, and, consequently, the paternity of the psalm. But if David is the
author of Psalm CIX, he cannot be the subject of it. And, as a matter of
fact, we see him introduce a personage who unites in himself the priesthood
and the kingship, wliich he (David) has never done, and which no one has
done, as long as there existed, living and distinct, the tribe of Judah, with its
privilege of furnishing the kings, and that of Levi with the same for the
priests. The Messiah alone will "bear on His head the double cro-mi of prince-
dom and of priesthood, because with Him the ancient covenant will have an
end. Hence come the title of " My Lord" {Adonai), and the equality whether
of power or of glory with Jehovah — at whose "right hand" He (the Messiah)
must take His place — which David attributes to Him who is to come. It is
not, then, in order to conform Himself to the common belief that Jesus took
Psalm CIX as being Davad's, even though it were, in reality, the work of a
contemporary glorifying David (this is Ewald's opinion), or even of a poet of
the time of the Maccaloees glorifying Jonathan (which is Hitzig's theory).
These prejudiced and partisan hypotheses clash with the authorship even of
the text, and cannot be made to agree with the idea which we must have of
Jesus Christ. True criticism has done justice to them.

[88]

BOOK m] ASSUMES THE OFFENSIVE

Messianic sense of the psalm quoted. The whole Jewish
tradition acknowledged it, and David, with the energetic
precision, the bright imagery, and the mysterious depth
that characterise his genius, had neglected nothing to make
the hero of his canticle recognisable. It is Jehovah Who
speaks to a Lord of David. This Lord shares the throne
of Jehovah Himself, and is associated in His omnipotence.
His birth is before time; He goes forth from Sion to
achieve the conquest of the world, and to establish,
through many catastrophes. His empire over all peoples.
David and his posterity have had only the royal power ;
the sons of Levi have kept in their hands the spiritual
power of the priesthood ; but this conqueror of the world,
Who is to come in the course of ages, shall unite upon
His own head the two crowns of gold and silver of which
Zacharias ^ shall speak later on : the crown of the mon-
archs and that of the pontiffs ; He shall be priest and
king like Melchisedech. But if, on the one hand, it is in-
deed of the Messiah and of His work that David meant to
speak, and if, on the other, it is certain that this Messiah
is to be the Son of David, how explain that the Messiah
shall be at the same time the Son and the Lord of the
royal prophet? A single word were enough to give the
answer; but to find this word it was necessary to have
understood the divine Scriptures, and the Pharisees had
never penetrated beyond their surface. The Messiah is
the Son and the Lord of David, because in Him there are
two distinct natures ; He is man and He is God ; as man,
He is descended from David and is really his son ; as God,
He is begotten by God the Father in eternity, and, God
like His Father, He is, by every title, David's Lord.
Isaias ^ had clearly indicated this in calling Him Wonder-

^ Zacharias vi, 11.
» Isaias ix, 6.

[ 89 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet second

ful, God, the Mighty, the Child that is born for us ; the
prophet Micheas, too, had indicated this in distinguishing
two births of the Messiah ; one, in time, at Bethlehem, and
the other in eternity.^ But the Pharisees instead of pon-
dering over these revelations which were to illumine the
future of mankind, rather revelled in hair-splitting dis-
tinctions over the ceremonial laws. Of true religion they
knew nothing and taught nothing.

At this question they at once took refuge in arrogant
silence. Then Jesus, no longer checking His indignation,
solemnly denounced to the people the detestable sect
which, from the beginning of His public life, had never
ceased to persecute Him and to impede His work. His
words soon took on a terrible accent, and, before announc-
ing the judgment of Jerusalem and the world. He began
without pity to hurl His accusations against those adver-
saries whom in His charity He had vainly endeavoured to
convert. '^

" The Scribes and the Pharisees " ^ He said, " sit on
the chair of Moses. ^ All things, therefore, whatsoever
they shall say to you, observe and do." Their right
is undeniable. To sit on the throne of a king is to
succeed him and to inherit his power. To sit on the chair
of Moses is to inherit his authority. In virtue of this,
Jesus acknowledges first of all that men owe them respect

* Micheas v, 2.

' St. ISIark and St. Luke have only a very succinct summing-up of the fine
discourse preserved by St. ISIatthew ; but, what they say has indeed the same
tone, color and sense as that which we read in the first Synoptic.

8 The Scribes are here placed first as the teaching body with a special
responsibility. Josephus calls them, not Scribes or ypafiixarels, but "com-
mentators of the law," elrjyjjral yô/xov, Antiq., xvii, 6, 2; 9, 3; xviii, 3, 5;
XX, 2, 4, or again "the men of science," <xo<pi<rrai. Bell. Jud., i, 33, 2; ii, 2,
1, etc. Juvenal, Sat. \-i, 544, says: 'Inter pre s legum Solymarum."

9 Moses, Exod., x\iii, 13, sat in judgment of the people, but the chair,
Kisse or Katedrin, in the Talmud, taken here as sjmbol and sign of doctrinal
and legislative authoritj', was in reality only at a very late date used in
teaching in the Sjnagogues. Acts xxii, 3; Vitringa, Synag., p. 165.

[90]

BOOK in] ASSUMES THE OFFENSIVE

and obedience. In whatever hands it may reside, legiti-
mate authority is ever sacred; but one may, while re-
specting it, despise the unworthiness of those who bear
it. In every one of these Pharisees and Scribes, who are
become the guides of God's people, there are two men :
the official representative of the religious hierarchy, and
the private individual with his vices or his virtues. As
doctors of the Synagogue, teaching the law of Moses,
they have a right to be obeyed. As private men they
must not pose as models, for their conduct is detestable.
" But according to their works," continues Jesus, " do
ye not." ^^ And in a few words He sketches a vigorous
portrait of these false devotees, of these absurdly vain
men, veritable Tartuffes of the time : " For they say, and
do not."

Their hj^pocrisy does not stop here. It pretends per-
fection in strange aspirations ; it recommends extravagant
and innumerable religious practices, leaving to others the
care of fulfilling them. " For they bind heavy and insup-
portable burdens ; and they lay them on men's shoulders ;
but with a finger of their own they will not move them."
It is in order that they may appear to be prodigies of
virtue that they exert themselves to multiply thus the
conditions of sanctity. The more they raise and render
unattainable the ideal of perfection, the more they hope to
be admired, by inspiring the belief that they have realised
that which they were able to conceive. Hence that never-
ending increase of ceremonial observances that render the
religious life impossible by their excessive and tyrannical
character. The wretched people are overladen with these
ceremonies like a beast of burden bent beneath his load.

1" The Targum of Jerusalem, on Nuvïb. xxiii, 19, says: "Homines dicimt,
sed non faciunt " ; and in Chagigah, fol. 15, 2: "Memineris doctrinse ejus, et
non operum ejus."

[91]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

As for these zealous innovators, true tyrants over con-
sciences, they are satisfied once they have made men be-
heve in their own eminent virtue. It matters Httle to them
that honest souls pursue, without ever attaining, the ob-
ject they have proposed. They, at ease and proud of
having thus merited public consideration, judge that they
have nothing else to do but enjoy it. It is not even cer-
tain that they observe in secret the essential points of
the divine law. God's eye is less redoubtable to them
than man's. To seem and not to be, it appears, is their
motto in matters of virtue and religion.

This is why, when they have gained a hearing by their
doctrines, they seek to be admired in their deportment.
Thus they write upon their clothing the story of their
pretended perfection, so that the passers-by may read it ;
but they preserve no trace of it in the depths of their
hearts, with which to reassure their consciences. " And
all their works," continues Jesus, " they do for to be seen
of men ; for they make their phylacteries broad and en-
large their fringes." Hypocrisy, even more than the other
vices, has its ridiculous features. It shows every whim
of veritable folly. From a passage in Exodus,^ ^ they had
concluded that the Israelite ought to carry on his arm or
on his breast the memorial of the benefactions and of the
precepts of his God. The Pharisees literally covered their
bodies with long parchments on wliich they had written,
though not for the purpose of observing them, their rule
of life. Moses had willed that the Jew should attach a
fringe to his mantle to be distinguished from the Gentile
and to remind him of the law.^" The Pharisees, by multi-
plying the length of these symbolical ziziths, meant to ex-
hibit and to spread the horror they had for the Gentiles,

" Exodus xiii, 1-16; and Deut. vi, 4-9; xi, 13-22.
^oNumb. XV, 38; Dent, xxii, 12; Zach. viii, 23.

[92]

BOOK III] ASSUMES THE OFFENSIVE

and the fidelity with which they observed the precepts of
Jehovah. In their opinion these were a tahsman against
both the demon and ill-luck. ^^ What a fantastical pic-
ture was that of these hypocrites covered with amulets
from head to foot, on their foreheads, on their shoul-
ders, on their arms, and enveloped in mantles adorned
with blue fringes of most pretentious size ! Jesus does
not tell how they walked striking their feet against the
pebbles for the sake of mortification, or closing their eyes
in order not to look upon women ; ^^ He let us divine the
details of this vigorously sketched portrait, in which He
seeks principally to inform us of their moral ugliness.

Moreover, these bold impostors, in their extreme pride,
thought themselves called upon to demand everywhere the
homage due to their incomparable piety. " And they love
the first places at feasts," again says the Master ; " and
the first chairs in the Synagogues, and salutations in the
market-place, and to be called by men, Rabbi." As we
have already observed, their affected piety tends to
nothing else than this. They pretend to be saints,
exceptional men, only to procure for themselves the con-
sideration of the people. Pride and self-interest are the
sole motives of their seeming virtue.

" But," says Jesus, turning to the disciples who were
listening, deeply moved and perhaps disturbed by the
vehemence of His words, " be not 3^ou called Rabbi ; for
one is your Master, and all you are brethren. And call

'3 The favours attached to the wearing of these phylacteries were numer-
ous if we may judge from the words with which they were recommended :
" Observate prœcepium meum de Tephilim, ego id ita vohis imputaho, ac
si dies nodesque in lege mea sudaveritis." Cf. Buxtorf, p. 1743. Light-
foot and Schottgen give ciu^ious citations on this subject.

i^The Talmud of Jerusalem, Berachoth, Lx, near the end; Soia v, 7, and
that of Babylon, Sofa, 22, give us the nomenclature of the Pharisee Nikfi,
who walks dragging his legs ; of the Pharisee Schikmi, who walks bent over,
of the Pharisee Kizai, who walks with eyes closed, etc., etc. (See St.
Epiphanius, Adv. Hœres. x\a, 1.)

[93]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second

none your father on earth ; for one is your father, Who
is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters ; for one is
your master, Christ." Such, indeed, is the fundamental
character of Christianity that all human individuality is
lost before the God Who dominates, creates, and governs
all. There are no great and true dignitaries in the new
society but God and His Christ. If the language of the
Church retains any honorary titles to distinguish de-
grees in the hierarchy, faith explains and corrects them
by recollecting that the Church sees in her doctors only
representatives, more or less imperfect, of the universal
Doctor, Who is the Holy Spirit ; in her spiritual fathers
only the images of the heavenly Father, Who through
them communicates life to souls ; in her directors or
masters only the representatives of the great Master of
the Church, Jesus Christ. ^^ In no other way has Chris-
tian custom tolerated the special denominations that the
Master seems to forbid. ^^ The radical difference between
the Pharisees and us is found in the sense attributed to
the words which Jesus means to proscribe. The Pharisee
deemed himself a doctor by his own knowledge, father
by his own superiority, guide by his own light ; the
Christian, in accepting these names, knows that he de-
rives nothing from himself, but everything from God,
Who has communicated to him in greater abundance the
gifts of knowledge, paternity, and direction. In these
titles addressed to him, he sees homage done to Him on
Whom he depends, and he rejoices in it. This is the only
reason for tolerating them, for, as souls, all Christians

15 Jesus beholds in the diverse degrees of the hierarchy, fathers, doctors
and spiritual directors, the representatives of the three great influences which
the Holy Trinity exercises in the Church.

"^ We see St. Paul giving himself the title of father over the Corinthians
(/ Cor. iv, 15) ; he calls Timothy and Titus his sons in the faith (/ Tim. i, 2;
Tit. i, 4) ; and St. Peter says the same of Mark (/ Pet. v, 13).

[94]

BOOK m] ASSUMES THE OFFENSIVE

are equal before God. Thej are all brothers, all dis-
ciples, all sons ; and if the Lord is pleased to bestow on
some the mission of representing Him for the special
needs which the life of the Church involves, such a grace
only obliges them to greater humility. This is what
Jesus declares as He explains His thought, for the fol-
lowing words prove that He admits a legitimate hier-
archy : " He that is greatest among you shall be your
servant. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be
humbled, and he that shall humble himself shall be ex-
alted."

Then suddenly He turned again upon His enemies, and
exclaimed in a formidable voice : " But woe to you Scribes
and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut the Kingdom
of Heaven against men ; for you yourselves do not enter
in ; and those that are going in you suffer not to enter."
Like an insuperable obstacle, the wicked servants of God
place themselves at the door of the Church, not to enter,
but to bar the passage. Their malice endeavours not
only to deny themselves light, but to prevent others from
seeing.

" Woe to you Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, be-
cause you devour the houses of widows,^ ^ praying long
prayers! For this you shall receive the greater judg-
ment." These false devotees, under pretence of doing
good to others, succeeded in pursuing and finding oppor-
tunities of doing good to themselves. They lodged them-
selves in the houses of unfortunate widows, turning to
advantage their grief as well as their piety. They
brought their consolations, offering to aid the bereaved
ones with their spiritual counsels and prayers, and, con-

"We read in the Talmud, Sot. Hier., fol. 20, I: "Inter plaças, qiiœ a
Pharisœis provenhmt, efiam hœc est: Est qui consultât cum orphanis, ut
alimenta viduœ eripiat." And of a widow thus robbed, it is said: "Plaga
Pharisœorum tetigit illam."

[95]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet second

cealing under fine words their covetous aims, they man-
aged to devour there not only sumptuous banquets, but
even the very fortunes of the hospitable house. Thus they
transformed religion into an instrument of gain, an op-
portunity for feasting, a means of enriching themselves,
and this at the expense of unfortunate and worthy women ;
it was a hideous sacrilege.

" Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, be-
cause you go round about the sea and the land to make
one proselyte ; ^^ and when he is made, you make him
the child of hell twofold more than yourselves ! " Pros-
elytism of evil-doing cannot but be an abominable crime.
It is a hunt for souls to kill them and to cast them into
the abyss. Pharisaism does not take from them the vices
they already had, it entangles them in others just as de-
testable, namely, hypocrisy, obstinacy and pride. That
is why the sons it gains are, twofold more than itself,
sons of hell. What a frightful paternity it dares to
seek!

*' Woe to you, blind guides, that say, whosoever shall
swear by the temple, it is nothing ; but he that shall swear
by the gold of the temple, is a debtor. Ye foolish and
blind; for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple,
that sanctifieth the gold.'' And whosoever shall swear by
the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by
the gift that is upon it, is a debtor. Ye blind ; for
whether is greater, the gift, or the altar, that sanctifieth
the gift.'' " Strange casuistry, of which we have seen
elsewhere examples no less fantastic. Thus did these
false doctors run astray amid the absurd distinctions in-
spired in their diseased minds by self-interest and vanity.

" The proselytism of the Jews at this epoch was very ardent at home and
abroad. Cf. Schleusner, Lex. Heb., on this word, and the curious work of
Danz in Meuschen, N. T. è Talm. illust., p. 649 et seq., as well as Wolf,
Ctir. on St. Matt, xxiii, 15.

[96]

BOOK III] ASSUMES THE OFFENSIVE

But all these teachings, by disturbing consciences, only
caused faults to be multiplied, and served no good pur-
pose. Here the truth is restored in a few words by Jesus.
It is admirable for its simplicity : " He therefore that
sweareth by the altar, sweareth by it and by all things
that are upon it ; and whosoever shall swear by the tem-
ple, sweareth by it, and by Him that dwelleth in it ; and
he that sweareth by heaven, sweareth by the throne of
God, and by Him that sitteth thereon." Nothing could
be clearer than this theology, and henceforth the dis-
tinction of great and small oaths has no foundation.
Every oath brings in God as the guarantee of man's
word, and consequently binds him who makes it.

" Woe to you. Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, be-
cause you tithe mint, and anise, and cummin, and have
left the weightier things of the law: judgment, and mercy,
and faith ! " Moses ^^ had prescribed tithes of the fruits
and products of the earth. The Pharisees understood
this commandment in the most rigorous sense ; and to
the last vegetable of their gardens, everything, accord-
ing to them, owed to the priests its legal tax.^^ This was
an excess of zeal, but it would not have been in any
way blâmable, if it had not contrasted with the most
criminal laxity in matters of far greater importance. To
pay insignificant tithes while trampling under foot the
most essential precepts of morality, was to cover one's
self with the mask of perfection while remaining pro-
foundly recreant. " These things," says Jesus, " you
ought to have done, and not to leave those undone.

^^ Lev. xxvii, 30 and Parol.

2° There could be nothing more ridiculous than the exaggerations to which
they lent themselves, according to certain traditional precepts (Babyl.
Jorma, f. Ixxxiii, 2). See Lightfoot and Wetstein on Sf. Matt, xxiii, 23.
They thought it a crime not to conform to them ; Tr. Sanh. f . 83, 1 : " Qui
comedit non decimata, reus est mortis."

[97]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

Blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a
camel !"-^ Such is the inconsistency of hypocrites.

" Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,-^
because you make clean the outside of the cup and of
the dish, but within you are full of rapine and unclean-
ness ! " None of the vices avails itself of the ap-
pearances of virtue more easily than injustice or lust.
It is especially when disguised that these two passions
attain their object. One easily plunders the property
or the honour of others when he succeeds in passing
for a just and austere man. " Thou blind Pharisee, first
make clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, that
the outside may become clean." This is the great Chris-
tian principle that clashes with all Pharisaism. Purity
comes from within. External lustrations cannot be more
than an emblem, a sign. When the heart is pure, it
purifies all the rest ; but the contrary is not true. The
purity of the body does not involve the purity of the
soul, and the latter alone is pleasing in God's sight.

" Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, be-
cause you are like whited sepulchres, ^^ which outwardly
appear to men beautiful, but within are full of dead
men's bones and of all filthiness ! So you also outwardly
indeed appear to men just; but inwardly you are full
of hypocrisy and iniquity." As He spoke, Jesus glanced
perhaps in the direction of the Cedron where as usual

'^Levit. xi, 4.

s'Schottgen, p. 198, quotes a curious sentence from Aldr. Esth., 1, fol.
101, 4: "Decern portiones hypocriseos sunt in mundo, novem Hiero-
solymis, décima vero in toto orbe terrarum." The Psalter of Solomon,
iv, 7, says of the Pharisees: "oî iv vnoKpla-fi ^ûvrés."

^3 Some have thought that this was an allusion to the Jewish custom of
marking with chalk those places where the dead were buried, to prevent
passers-by from becoming impure for eight days. This is not the Saviour's
thought. He wishes to call attention to the proud magnificence that
causes the dead to be forgotten, and not to the prudence that revives their
memory.

[98]

BOOK m] ASSUMES THE OFFENSIVE

each year about the middle of the month of Adar,-^ the
tombs here and there along the western slope of the
Mount of Olives had just been whitewashed. The sight
of the tombs of the prophets drew from Him another
cry of indignation.

" Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, that
build the sepulchres of the prophets, and adorn the monu-
ments of the just, 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 you are
witnesses against yourselves, that you are the sons of
them that killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the
measure of your fathers. You serpents, generation of
vipers, how will you flee from the judgment of hell? "

Thus Jesus returns to the thought that dominates Him,
namely, that of His approaching death. He knows the
plot His enemies have laid against Him, and He piti-
lessly unmasks them. These hypocrites pretend that they
would not have dipped their hands in the blood of the
prophets, of those just men whose tombs they restore and
adorn ; and they are on the very eve of immolating the
sole Just One, the Great Prophet Whom they have in
the midst of them! Veritable vipers, who hide beneath
the flowers of their fine words the venom of their hearts !
They have a horror of the blood of the just, and yet,
after having shed that of Jesus, they will shed that of
the Apostles. " Therefore, behold I send to you proph-
ets," continued the Master, " and wise men, and scribes ;
and some of them you will put to death and crucify,
and some you will scourge in your synagogues, and per-
secute from city to city." ^^ Thus the measure of all

^^Schekalim, i, 1. " Quintodecwio mensis Adar emendant vias et
plateas, etc., et pingunt sepulchra.^'

" Incomplete though the history of the Apostles may be as it has come
down to us, we know with what awful exactitude all this was realised.

[99]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

crimes shall be filled, and the hour of chastisement shall
come. God has waited in patience until this moment, but
now His justice will avenge the present and the past.
" That upon you may come all the just blood that hath
been shed upon the earth from the blood of Abel the
just, even unto the blood of Zacharias the son of Bara-
chias,^^ whom you killed between the temple and the
altar. Amen, I say to you, all these things shall come
upon this generation." Thus speaks the Son of God in
the name of justice.

But, at the same time, the Son of Man cannot check
in Himself a movement of affectionate tenderness as He

Stephen stoned to death, James beheaded, Peter, Simeon son of Cleophas,
crucified, all of them hunted, pursued like wild beasts, to say nothing of the
cruelties inflicted by the Jews on Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles ; such is
the story of the Apostolic generation.

26 We need not hesitate to identify this Zacharias as the one who, at King
Joas' command, was stoned to death in the court of the Temple. Jesus
intends here to cite the first and the last murder mentioned in the history of
the Old Testament, that of Abel {Gen. iv, 8) , and that of Zacharias {II Parol.,
xxiv, 20 and 21). Compare Josephus, Antiq., ix, 8, 3, who dying had said:
" The Lord see and require it! " The murder of the prophet Urias, although
later, is recounted only in Jeremias xxvi, 23. Jesus does not speak of this
murder because He had in mind only the book of Genesis which w^as the
first, and the book of II Paral. which was the last of the series of Historical
Books admitted in the canon of the Jews. In St. Luke xi, 51, where we
find only a fragment of the discourse reproduced here according to St. Matt.
xxiii, Jesus does not name the father of Zacharias, and many, in order to
remove the difficulty, suppose that, in reality he had not been mentioned.
If we accept the text of St. Matt, xxiii, 35, just as it is, there arises a great
difficulty since it says that Zacharias \\'as the son of Barachias, whereas,
according to // Paral., xxiv, 20, he seems really to have been the son of
Joiada. Shall we lay the blame on some translator or copyist who in the
act of writing, had in mind, quite erroneously, the prophet Zacharias, who
was in truth the son of Barachias, Zach. i, 1, but who was by no means the
one here meant? Shall we admit that Joiada was also called Barachias,
or that Barachias was the grandfather, not the father of Zacharias ? These are
some solutions of the difficulty. At any rate, we may not say that this was the
Zacharias who was killed by the Zealots, B. J., iv, 6, 4, and whose death
forty years later Jesus here prophesies, for an aorist cannot be taken as a
future, and, besides, the father of this Zacharias was called Baruch, not
Barachias ; still less, whatever may be the opinion of Baronius and others
who follow the Protev. Jac, 23, can it refer here to the father of John the
Baptist.

[ 100 ]

BOOK m] ASSUMES THE OFFENSIVE

thinks of His ungrateful and ill-fated fatherland. His
sorrow has an accent that penetrates us with emotion.
" Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets,
and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would
I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth
gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest
not ! " Here His words seem to be broken with a sigh.
" Behold," He adds, " your house shall be left to you
desolate." ^^ He already sees the Roman legions prepar-
ing to exterminate this faithless people. Grief and deso-
lation follow in their wake to avenge so many crimes. He
Himself will depart to return no more until the terrible
day of judgment. "For I say to you," He says, "you
shall not see Me henceforth till you say : Blessed is he that
cometh in the name of the Lord." Before that day what
tears Israel shall shed! Jesus shall return to His people
only on the clouds of heaven. Then it will be to judge
the world. Then only shall the Jews, converted at last,
acclaim Him amid the ruins of the universe.

After this vehement denunciation, the Saviour pre-
pared to leave the Temple. Although He quitted it for
ever and under the influence of deep emotion. His re-
treat was so majestic and solemn as to impress all who
beheld Him.

For an instant, perhaps, to wait for His disciples. He
stopped and sat down in the women's court, opposite the
treasury of which we have spoken elsewhere. It was here
that each one came to deposit his alms in the thirteen
boxes, chofarot, the openings of which were formed like
trumpets. He watched attentively this spectacle of offi-
cial charity. Many opulent persons had passed along,
having pompously deposited their rich offerings. A poor

2' God will abandon Jerusalem and the final result will be devastation :
ip'finwffis, St. Matt, xxiv, 15 ; St. Luke xxi, 20.

[ 101 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second

widow came in her turn, and, approaching the treasury,
she piously placed therein two mites, or about two-fifths
of a cent.^^ She had two; necessity might have moved
her to keep one, but in her faith she preferred to give
all she possessed. Jesus was touched by the greatness of
this poor woman's soul, and, turning to His disciples,
He said to them : " Amen, I say to you, this poor widow
hath cast in more than all they who have cast into the
treasury." She had given not gold, but her heart which
was far more. " For all they did cast in of their abun-
dance; but she of her want cast in all she had, even her
whole being." ^^ It is not the quantity, but the quality
that constitutes the value of alms. What a distance be-
tween this widow, who gives to God all she has, how-
ever little it may be, and the Pharisees, who, in the name
of God, devour the wealth of rich widows, however pros-
perous they find them!

This incident was a consolation to the Saviour, in the
midst of the hypocrisy and the impiety that surrounded
Him.

28 St. Mark, who wrote for the Romans, gives the value of her alms in
Roman language. It was equivalent to a quadrans or a c[uarter of a cent.

29 The word vffrép-qua in St. Luke xxi, 4, signifies deficit, less than enough
to live on; and in 67. Mark xii, 44, va-rffyna-is, a financial condition unequal
to one's needs.

[ 102 ]

CHAPTER IX

JESUS AND THE GREEKS IN THE
TEMPLE ENCLOSURE

Jesus axd the Greeks — The Interview with Jesus —
Philip and Andrew — The Dying Grain — To Glorify
THE Father — The Voice from Heaven — The Close
OF THE Ministry. (St. John xii, 20-36.)

At the close of a struggle as painful as it was fruit-
less, God had reserved for Jesus a certain compensation.
That very day, probably,^ and while He was still in the
Temple, from the court of the Gentiles, contiguous to
that of the women, there suddenly arose a most signifi-
cant demonstration which was a happy omen for the
future. St. John has carefully heightened this ray of
light in a picture that soon darkens, and thus has most
fittingly filled in a gap in the Synoptics.

At this moment when the rupture with Israel was be-
coming more and more pronounced, and when Jesus, dis-
couraged by the inconceivable obstinacy of the Jews, was
about to withdraw definitely from the Temple, it is in-
teresting to see the Gentiles make advances to the Sa-

1 St. John who says nothing of what took place in the Temple after the
triumphal entrance of Jesus, tells us this incident of the Greeks, and takes
occasion of it to enable us to see in the Master's soul the emotions which,
according to the Synoptics burst forth only in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Inasmuch as it concludes with the final rupture with Israel, and as Jesus
henceforward refrains from appearing among the people (St. John xii, 26) ,
we ought logically to place the incident after the discourse in the Temple,
and before the prophecy concerning the end of the world.

[103]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet second

viour to attract Him to themselves. Thus it is that
some ask leave to reap the fruits rejected by others.

The Greeks, of whom St. John speaks, were Gentiles
who went up to Jerusalem each year to adore Jehovah.
They must not be confounded with the Greek-speaking
Jews, who lived in pagan lands. We speak here of peo-
ple Greek in origin and in speech.^ It does not even
appear that they had made a profession of Judaism by
circumcision, otherwise Philip's and Andrew's hesitation,
before bringing them to Jesus, could scarcely be ex-
plained, an}' more than the Saviour's allusion to the
chasm that separated them from Judaism. They were in-
deed of the number of those foreigners who, though not
belonging to Israel, as Solomon says in his prayer for
the consecration of the Temple,^ thought themselves
obliged, nevertheless, to come from the most distant coun-
tries to pray in the house of the Lord, because the name
and the power of Jehovah had reached even to them.
In an epoch when the pagan religions were falling into
universal discredit, it is not astonishing to find Gentiles
thus adoring the God of the Jews, and constituting, as
it were, a sect of deists in the pagan world. The Acts
of the Apostles notes their existence.^

Struck with all that they had heard said of Jesus,*^

2 In St. Mark vii, 26, we find the Syro-Phœnician woman qualified as a
Greek. Here these foreign worshippers are called "EWrjves, and not 'EWt)-
vurrai. Comp. Acts xvi, 1; St. John vii, 35.

^ III Kings ix, 41.

* Acts xiii, 43, 45; xvi, 14; xvii, 17.

« Although the Gospel calls them Greeks and not SjTians, a very ancient
tradition says that they were sent by Abgar, King of Edessa. In a most
respectful letter, this king wrote to Jesus, "that having heard tell of His
miraculous works, he had concluded that He was God. If He deemed
Himself unhappy among His people. He had only to have recourse to him.
His city was large and beautiful, and would well suffice for both of them."
By a written answer which is quite in the style of our Holy Books, our Lord,
thanking him for his gracious offer, replied that after His Ascension He
would send him one of His disciples to cure him. The king had a disease

ÊooKiii] JESUS AND THE GREEKS

these Judaising Greeks desired to see Him near at hand,
and perhaps even to invite Him to come and carry the
Gospel into their countries. The Master's significant act
in driving the sellers from the Temple in order to re-
store to the Gentiles the place which had at all times been
reserved for them, was an encouragement to these men
of good will. The breadth of view which, as every one
said, characterised the Reformer, gave them the belief
that the Kingdom of God would be opened to all mankind,
and the attitude of the Jews loudly proclaimed that the
hour had come for all to enter in.

It was to Philip of Bethsaida in Galilee that they ad-
dressed themselves to insure the success of their under-
taking. Judging by his name, this Apostle may have
belonged to a family that spoke Greek, many such being
found on the frontiers of Galilee. It may be that these
Greeks themselves had come from one of the cities of
Decapolis, where they formed a considerable portion of
the population. In most respectful terms,'' they said to
him therefore : " Sir, we would see Jesus." It was not,
as with Zacheus, through pure curiosity that they wished

from which he eagerly desired to be delivered (leprosy, according to Cedrenus,
Hist., p. 145, and the gout, according to Procopius, Bell. Pers., ii, 12).
At the same time He promised eternal life to Abgar and his people. Eusebius,
from whom we have these details {H. E., i, 13), asserts that he has them
from Sjrriac documents preserved at Edessa. In the fifth century, Moses
of Khoren, in his History of Armenia, ii, 30-33, reproduces them with some
important additions. According to him, Jesus sent His portrait to Abgar.
Abgar wrote concerning Jesus to the Emperor Tiberius, to Nerses, King
of Assyria, to Ardaches, King of Persia, etc. In a decree by Pope Gelasius,
De Libris Recipiendis, in 494, the correspondence of Christ with Abgar is
classed among the Aprocryphal WTitings (see Hefélé, Hist, des Conciles,
vol. HI, p. 223), together with the Shepherd of Hermas, the Itinerarium
Petri, etc. See the question of authenticity discussed by Lipsius: Die
Edessenische Ahgar-Sage, Braunschweig, 1880. Also J. TLxeront, Les
Origines de VEglise d'Edesse, 1888. Abgar's letter and Jesus' response
appear to have been placed sometimes above the doors of certain houses as
a protection for the occupants. Abgar's Epistle had just been discovered at
the entrance of a dwelling in Ephesus at the very time when the writer was
visiting the excavations in 1899.

[ 105 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

to see Him, but with the intention of conversing with Him
seriously. The vague formula which they employed is
meant to soften their demand, which will be the better
received the more modest it seems. At bottom their in-
tention is easily divined, and Philip, although accosted
with unusual respect — they treated him ceremoniously as
a lord — determines not to prefer so grave a request
himself. Circumspect, as we have seen him to be,"^ he
is desirous of seeking another's advice at the first op-
portunity, or perhaps of enlisting an influence greater
than his own in order to succeed. It is to Andrew that
he betakes himself. This latter, also Greek in name, was,
like him, from Bethsaida, and his chosen companion.^
Besides, Andrew was able to appeal with success to the
credit of his brother Peter. They appear, however, to
have been the only negotiators in this affair. As the ques-
tion of the admission of the Gentiles into the Messianic'
Kingdom was a very delicate matter — the Apostles could
not have forgotten Jesus' reply to the woman of Ca-
naan— they determined not to take it upon themselves
to present the Greeks to Jesus without first having ob-
tained His consent. They, therefore, transmitted to Him
the wish of these strangers with the request that it
should be granted.

It was consoling, in the midst of the asperities of that
day, to see these pagans thus bravely knocking at the
gate of the Messianic Kingdom. The Magi had hastened
from the East to hail the Messiah at His birth; the
Greeks come to-day from the West to behold Him be-
fore His death. Jesus was deeply moved. To receive
them as disciples would have been the height of scandal

' Courtesy was a characteristic note of Greek education.
^ St. John vi, 5 et seq.; xiv, 8, 9.
8 St. John i, 44.

[106]

BOOK III] JESUS AND THE GREEKS

to the Jews. He did not entertain this thought for an
instant, but at once His mind recurred to that terrible
approaching event, that was to close up the abyss cut
by sin between the Gentiles and the true God. It is only
when He is raised up between heaven and earth that
He can effectively attract the universe. Up to that hour
the Gentiles must remain outside the Kingdom. He has
been sent only to the people of the promise, and if at
times He has turned towards others, it was to announce,
by rare exceptions, the great revelation which the future
holds in store. We do not find in the text of St. John
what reply Jesus made to the proposal of the Greeks.
He seems to have been wholly absorbed in the deep emo-
tion caused by their conduct. At any rate, we do not
find that He said anything discouraging to them. On
the contrary He declares that their official reconciliation
shall soon be effected.^ " The hour is come," He says,
" that the Son of man should be glorified." The proof
of it is seen in this step on the part of the Gentiles,
provoked, according to all appearances, by the very in-
gratitude of the Jews. Humiliation for Jesus necessitates
glorification ! This is what He means in the following
words, an easily intelligible prophecy of His approach-
ing end : " Amen, amen, I say to you," He exclaims,
" unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die,
itself remaineth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth
much fruit." The figure, although assuming a shade in
harmony with the character of His hearers — for it is
well known what part the grain of wheat played in the
Greek religion — was none the less striking and terrible
for its truth. If it is to be multiplied, the grain of

» It is even probable not only that He gave ear, as He passed through the
court of the Gentiles, to those who had solicited an audience, but even that
these Greeks, closely following Philip and Andrew, heard the touching
discourse He uttered on this occasion.

[107]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

wheat must come forth from the storehouse, where its
hfe remains sterile, fall into the furrow, pass through
the ordeal of decomposition, burst its envelope under the
action of the moisture that corrodes it, and it is in its
corruption that, by most wonderful phenomena, it suc-
ceeds in reproducing itself. So He Himself, the divine
seed reserved by the Father to make truth spring up
in the world, must taste death ere He propagates life.
His sacrifice is, in effect, the act by which He creates
the Church, or the society of the just. His paternity,
with regard to us, comes from this, no less than His
doctrine. The Cross has obtained for the world the grace
of understanding and of practising the Gospel.

" He that loveth his life," ^^ He concludes — and in
speaking thus He means to dictate to His disciples their
duties for the future much more than to derive encour-
agement for Himself — " shall lose it ; and he that hateth
his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal." The
Apostles must be deeply convinced of the need of per-
sonal sacrifice, repressing each day their natural life in
order to transform it into spiritual life, when it does
not lead on to the supreme and bloody witness of mar-
tyrdom ; without this the conversion of the world were
impossible, and, notwithstanding its infinite merit, the
Redemption would be ever vain, no one possessing the
charity to apply its fruits to mankind. " If any man
minister to me," He says again, " let him follow me."
To minister means here to participate in His work of
reparation, to propagate the Gospel, to be a soldier of

"The text of St. John xii, 25, says "his soul," tV ^^xhi^, as well as that
of the Synoptics, St. Matt, x, 39; xvi, 25, et parall. This word is taken
here again for the natural life of which the soul is the principle, the life which
develops under the influence of the soul. Let us recall here St. Augustine's
beautiful commentary on this passage: "Amor ut pereat; odium ne pereat;
si male amaveris, tunc odisti; si bene oderis. tunc amasti."

[108]

BOOK m] JESUS AND THE GREEKS

the Prince who advances to the conquest of the world;
and to follow means to share His thoughts, to imitate
His example, to have, perhaps, the same lot. " And w here
I am, there also shall My minister be. If any man min-
ister to Me, him will My Father glorify." They shall
have sacrificed their life, f ollow ing the Master's example ;
they shall find it again with Him in eternity, and, com-
panions in His martyrdom and in His sacrifice, they sliall
be so, too, in His glory and in His reward.

Thus, for the sake of these Greeks, for whom the ideal
of human life consists in well-being and in the free en-
joyment of every pleasure. He preaches abnegation, re-
nouncement, and immolation. He looks upon all tliis first
of all as His own duty, and then as that of His faith-
ful. But tliis picture of the moral and physical suffer-
ings that await Him, and among which the Cross ap-
pears ignominious and bloody, deeply moves His soul.
We have here the prelude of the agony in Gethsemane.
St. John, although writing the Gospel of the Word,
does not hesitate to reveal to us the Master's soul un-
der its most human aspect ; if he has not recounted the
final struggle that Jesus underwent face to face with
the Father's justice and man's malice, he has clearly in-
dicated its terrible forerunners in the present passage. ^^
" Now is My soul troubled," exclaims Jesus. The sim-
plicity of this avowal discloses in the depths of His
heart a combat of which He is not ashamed. Yet a few
hours, and far more keenly He will feel dread, loathing,
sadness, torturing His soul and drawing from His body
a bloody sweat. The present is only nature's first

11 We already saw in St. Luke xdi, 49 and 50, a first manifestation of that
interior anguish which Jesus experienced in contemplating His approaching
immolation. It becomes more accentuated in the present account of St.
John. It bursts forth most sadly in the Garden of Olives, and the three
Synoptics then agree in depicting it.

[109]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

shudder. The Evangelist's account broken by hesitation,
almost rough, proves the violence of His emotion. In
His sudden trouble, the INIaster adds : " And what shall
I say? Father, save Me from this hour? But for this
cause I came unto this hour. Father, glorify Thy
name ! " For all the labours of His life have been in
preparation for this decisive moment of immolation, and
would He ask to delay it? No, however awful the ordeal.
He feels in His heart a sentiment that prevails over
this reasonable terror: it is the desire to glorify His
Father. All perplexity ceases at once, and He cries
out : " Before all else, Father, glorify Thy name ! "
Love, generous, violent, heroic in expression, reaches to
the Father's heart ; for from the heights of heaven a
voice suddenly resounded above the heads of the multi-
tude : " I have both glorified it, and will glorify it
again." God's great work in the world, by the Gospel,
is only just beginning. The future shall have glories
for the King of Heaven other than those of the past.
It is enough that Jesus should provide the needed start-
ing-point, which is His Cross, and the results shall not
be long in coming. This thought fortifies His heart
against the greatest fears.

The most distant portion of the multitude, or, per-
haps, the least apt to grasp divine manifestations, took
God's voice for a thunder-clap, and concluded that heaven
had responded favourably to Jesus' wish.^^ Others nearer

12 It is quite true that God has frequently responded by a thunder-clap
to the prayer of those who invoked Him. Thus (/ Kings xii, 18) : "Samuel
cried unto the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder. ..." (See Ps. xxix;
Job xxx\Ti, 4; Ps. XAoii, 13; Exod. Lx, 23.) The pagans themselves often
interpreted this a^\'ful noise of nature as a favourable response from heaven.
Thus dees Ulysses after his prayer, and he rejoices. (Odyss. xx, 103.) But
here it is a voice that is taken for a clap of thunder, and not thunder that is
taken for a voice. The hearers are divided only on the question whether
it is the voice of thunder or that of an angel ; but for all it is a voice. Besides,

[110]

BOOK m] JESUS AND THE GREEKS

and above all better acquainted with heavenly things,
thought they recognised an angel's voice. The Apostles
alone seem to have distinguished God's words. Thus does
the Father renew, at the moment when His Son's hu-
miliation is about to begin, the testimony that He had
given to Him at the outset of His glorious career, in
the waters of the Jordan, and later on in the midst of
His public life, on the mountain of the Transfiguration.
Powerful as a peal of thunder His voice proclaims the
definitive approach of the New Law, the coming triumph
of the Messiah and the judgment of the world. " This
voice," says Jesus, " came not because of Me, but for
your sakes." For, that the Saviour's soul might be en-
couraged and fortified, it was enough for Him to hear
God's word in the silence of His heart. For the world
an impressive sign was needed; and it has just been
given it. When thunder announces the storm, man must
be on the watch. Greeks, Jews, Apostles, must look at-
tentive to the great struggle that is about to begin and
to the revolution that is to follow it. " Now is the judg-
ment of the world; now shall the prince of this world
be cast out." To be judged is to be condemned or ab-
solved, struck down or freed.^^ Jesus here means, in
effect, that the world shall be both condemned and saved ;
condemned in its works, which till then have been bad, and
the iniquity of which the mystery of the Cross shall make
known ; in its representatives who shall choose to remain

it would be somewhat surprising that St. John should allow himself to in-
terpret confidently, unhesitatingly, a rather dubious response, if it had been
only a noise of nature.

13 Scripture takes the word judgment sometimes in an e\Tl sense, sometimes
in a favourable acceptation. In the first case it signifies condemnation, a
terrible sentence; thus it is said in Jeremias and in Ezechiel: the judgment
of Moab, the judgment of Egypt, etc. In the second, it denotes deliverance,
as in the passage of Psabii c.vxxLx, 13, or, again, of Isaias i, 17. Judgment
for the widow and the poor.

[Ill]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt second

impious, unjust, and guilty after the great lesson they
are. going to receive; and, last and more than all, in its
king who shall be vanquished and driven out. This
same world shall be judged, that is, saved, because the
Satanic yoke that lay heavy upon its head shall be shat-
tered. Judaism, in its blindness, awaits a Messiah Who
will march to the conquest of the nations, and deliver it
from the servitude of the foreigner. This Messiah is
really come: but the only enemy Whom He claims to
destroy and crush is Satan, the prince of the world,
and the deliverance which He will insure is that of souls.
The Cross shall be the instrument of His conquest.
He thrills with joy at this, and, forgetting the pains
that are attached to it, He sees Himself already on His
bloody throne reigning in the place of the dispossessed
usurper, Satan.^^ " And I," He says, " if I be lifted
up from the earth will draw all things to myself."
From the infamous gibbet, the altar on which the Vic-
tim offers Himself, grace is to radiate as from its focus
over the entire world. Doing violence to no one, but like
a powerful lodestone, it shall attract all men. And, in
fact, for eighteen centuries, it has awakened souls every-
where, invited them, drawn them on. Such is the ad-
mirable royalty that Jesus has attained. Satan had es-
tablished himself the centre of fallen humanity by the
concupiscence which he cast into man's heart ; Jesus will
establish Himself the centre of mankind restored by the
grace He shall bestow. This latter is the antithesis and
counter-weight of the former.^ ^

The people, only half understanding this language,

" Compare Coloss. ii, 14-15.

" Some have desired to see in these words "lifted up from the earth " an
allusion to His eternal reign in heaven. Although this latter triumph is
included as a consequence in the victory of the Cross, it is not natural to
think that Jesus refers to it here. His influence in attracting mankind is

[112]

BOOK m] JESUS AND THE GREEKS

were scandalised. " We have heard out of the law," they
exclaimed, " that Christ abideth for ever ; and how sayest
thou: The Son of man must be lifted up? Who is this
Son of man? " There is ever the same embarrassment
for those who will read in the Scriptures only that which
suits their earthly notions, their national prejudices.
The Messiah triumphant on earth and establishing His
eternal Kingdom there in the midst of the Jewish people
who share in His glorious royalty ; that is all that they
have seen in Isaias,^^ in the Psalms,^ ^ and in the book of
Daniel.^ ^ This was enough for them. They closed their
eyes to all else. In vain did Isaias ^^ point out his Mes-
siah coming in triumph through suffering, humiliation
and death; they did not notice it. In vain did Daniel
himself prophesy a violent death for the Son of Man ; ^^
they did not believe it. And they boldly invoke the Law
or the Scriptures to contradict Jesus. Evidently it is an
objection inspired by malice; the Master will not deign to
respond to it. But the words full of pity and tenderness
that now fall from His lips prove that His heart has been
bruised once more by the incredulity of His people.

" Yet a little while," He says with emotion, " the light
is among you ; walk whilst you have the light, that dark-
ness overtake you not. And he that walketh in darkness
knoweth not whither he goeth. Whilst you have the
light, believe in the light, that you may be the children of
light." The Master speaks of Himself henceforth only

exercised by the Cross, even in the course of the ages. No doubt it is from
the height of heaven that He now influences the religious destiny of the
world ; but this influence comes from the Cross, as the principle in the past
and as a means in the present. The Evangelist rightly says, therefore, that
Jesus signified by these words the death that awaited Him, St. John xii, 33.

» 7s. ix, 6.

"Ps. cLx, 2-4.

^^ Dan. vii, 14.

19 7*. liii.

20 Dan. ix, 26.

[113]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second

as of a life that is dying. It is the last hour of His
apostolate. After His death, the disciples will strive
for a few days more to open the eyes of the incredulous
people, but the useless endeavour shall not be long. The
Spirit will bid them go and bear the torch of faith among
the Gentiles.

Jesus seems to have uttered these words without
further comment. In them we may perceive the supreme
preoccupation of His soul. " These things Jesus spoke,"
says the Evangelist, " and He went away and hid Himself
from them." Israel had no other summons and no other
farewell to expect.

[114]

CHAPTER X

THE GREAT PROPHETIC DIS-
COURSE

From the Top of the Mount of Olives — Three Ques-
tions AND Three Pictures — The Approaching Doom
OF Judaism — The Uninterrupted Judgment of the
Church — Parables — The Final Judgment of Man-
kind. (St. Matthew, xxiv and xxv; St. Mark, xiii,
1-37; St. Luke, xxi, 5-36.)

Having quitted the Temple,^ the Master took the road
to Bethany across the Mount of Olives. The ascent was
steep. Suddenly as if fatigued after so painful a jour-
ney. He stopped and, turning around, cast a long, sad
look over the city which, in spite of so many miracles, was
still hardened in its unbelief.

It was a moment when the setting sun shed only a dim
light on the walls of the Holy City. Bathed in the twi-
light, the Temple, like an immense vessel anchored in har-
bour, stood forth in the grandeur of its harmonious and
majestic lines. It was an impressive sight. ^ The dis-

' The first two Synoptics alone point out that Jesus had left the Temple
when He pronounced His discourse on the end of the world ; but an expression
which St. Luke takes, perhaps without seeing all its bearing, from the docu-
ment which he uses — ravra a ôeupêire — indicates that they were seated suffi-
ciently far from the splendid building to be able to contemplate its beauties
in their entirety.

2 On several occasions, toward the close of day, we have seated ourselves,
in a dreaming mood, on the rocky side of the Mount of Olives, endeavoring,
in imagination, to reconstruct this splendid picture. Certainly the same

[115]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

ciples while admiring it, remembered that Jesus, on that
very day had predicted the ruin of this wonderful struc-
ture. One of them, therefore, in order to lead Him back
to this absorbing subject, or merely with the intention of
drawing Him away from a contemplation that was the
more painful for being so silent, exclaimed : " Master,
behold what manner of stones, and what buildings are
here ! " But Jesus, Whose heart was filled with sadness,
was far from sharing their enthusiasm. " Seest thou all
these great buildings ? " He said, " Amen, I say to you,
the days will come in which there shall not be left a stone
upon a stone that shall not be thrown down." ^ This had
long since been written in the book of Daniel,^ and in all
probability even admitted by the Rabbinical tradition of
those times. ^ Nevertheless this categorical assertion as-
tonished the disciples. With the Temple destroyed and
the Messiah put to death, what indeed, could the Messianic
reign then amount to? Their minds were in a whirl at
such a thought. Four disciples only, Peter, James, John
and Andrew,^ were at the time near Jesus, either because
the others in a separate group, had already gone on tow-
golden hues of the setting sun flooded the ancient city so many times rebuilt
and stretched out before us, as in a winding sheet. Alas! no more are to be
seen the ancient palaces, towers, and Temple. Here is the dome of the Mosque
of Omar, further on, the green and blue cupolas of synagogues; below there
are some Christian buildings, slim minarets, works of mediocrity, very power-
less to recall the splendors of the past. A few gigantic stones, half -buried in
the earth, at the south-eastern comer of the Haram, are all that remain of the
marvellous buildings which Jesus and His disciples had then under their eyes.

3 It has been, with great justice, pointed out that if this prophecy had been
imagined, after the event, its inventor would not have neglected to introduce
in it an element wliich is wanting, viz., the burning of the Temple, which took
place before its destruction.

* Dan. Lx, 26.

' Schœttgen, H or. Hebr., ii, p. 525, et scq. Glœsener, De Gemino
lud. Mess., p. 145, et seq.

" Andrew who completed the first group of Apostles is here joined with
the three privileged ones who had been the witnesses of the most important
events in Jesus' life. It is by St. ]\Iark (xii, 3) that the company surround-
ing the Master at this time is reduced to these four disciples. According to

[116]

BOOK III] THE GREAT DISCOURSE

ards Bethany, or because in reality the Master had chosen
to reveal to them alone the awful secrets of the future.
At this moment, St. Matthew and St. Mark observe,
Jesus seated Himself. He was, as it were, crushed
beneath the weight of the woes which His soul con-
templated. Before His prophetic gaze there passed
simultaneously the approaching judgment of Judaism,
the future and uninterrupted judgment of the Church,
and the definitive judgment of mankind: three pictures
striking, as a whole, but, inasmuch as each was to be the
symbolic prelude of the other, implying a similarity and
even a confusion of lights and shadows in which we must
behold the history of the world. The Apostles crowded
around Him, and anxiously asked Him : " Master, tell
us when these things shall be? And what shall be the
sign of Thy coming and the consummation of the world .f* "
For them these three questions are really only one, and in-
deed St. Luke has reduced them to this : " When shall
these things be ? " In the future one thing alone in-
terests them, the coming of the Messiah King. Although
they have been somewhat weaned from their material il-
lusions concerning the character of the Messianic King-
dom, this same kingdom seems to them none the less an era
of happiness, of rehabilitation, of reward, and they long
for it with all their hearts. Henceforth, more Christian
than Jewish, they seem ready to sacrifice the Temple or
even the incredulous nation, if only they may soon be-
hold the triumph of Jesus Christ above the ruins. The
Master answers them. They shall know when the proph-
ecy that threatens Judaism is to be fulfilled. They shall

St. Matthew (xxiv, 3) it seems all were present, but without taking any
other part — "kot' iSlav." St. Luke (xxi, 7), has not even this restriction.
Really, it is St. Mark who seems the most exact, and, as always, the most
dramatic. He makes Jesus sit on the slope of the Mount of Olives "facing
the Temple," and carefully names His hearers.

[117]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet second

learn to look for His coming not with enthusiasm but
with fear; for that coming shall be the coming of justice
upon the Church and upon each one of her members in the
course of ages. Finally, He will announce His definitive
reign, not for this life, as they hope, but for eternity.
Such seems to be the plan of the discourse which St.
Matthew in particular has preserved us in its full develop-
ment. These three great divisions correspond, moreover,
to the questions the Apostles had asked.

To their first question : " When shall the destruction
of Jerusalem come ? " Jesus replies by forming a pic-
ture of the dreadful woes that shall precede the fall of
official Judaism. The perturbation will be general: false
Christs seducing the multitudes, warlike agitations, dis-
turbances of nature, violent persecutions of the disciples.
Then in reality shall be the beginning of the end for the
accursed city : abomination shall be in the holy place, and
divine wrath shall come upon the children of Israel. One
last attempt will the powers of seduction make to disturb
Jesus' work, and in this supreme effort of men and of the
elements against Christ, in the midst of general upheaval,
as an end to every woe, the Son of Man will come to in-
augurate His reign in the universe.

" Take heed that no man seduce you," says Jesus,
" for many will come in My name saying : I am Christ, and
the time is at hand ! And they will seduce many." Israel
would be given up to false Messiahs, because she had
sinned against the true Messiah. God, in punishing the
impious, allows them to turn most frequently to super-
stition. There is, besides, a characteristic sign of times
of social decay and of universal misery in the appearance
of these men with extraordinary missions, who in their
audacity come to increase the public calamities by their
lies and to turn them to their own profit. There were

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BOOK m] THE GREAT DISCOURSE

never more false prophets than in the time of the cap-
tivity.^

We have not at hand enough historical elements to
prove the fulfilment of this prediction, and the embarrass-
ment which, it would seem, it roust cause the exegete
proves again that it was not made after the event. Were
that the case, a more careful calculation would have been
made according to the historical data. But even if false
Messiahs before the destruction of Jerusalem are not
mentioned by Josephus, we must not conclude from this
that they did not exist. It may be that the Jewish
historian refrained through political prudence from pre-
senting in a religious light the public disturbers whom
he points out,^ just as he had deemed it wise to say
scarcely anything of Christ Himself. The Christ accord-
ing to the Jews was to free Israel from the foreign yoke,
following the words of the disciples of Emmaus. What,
then, were the intentions of all these Goëls or liberators
of whom Jewish history speaks ? Of that Theudas ^ who,
under Cuspius Fadus, governor of Judaea, was massacred
with the multitude to whom he had promised to separate
the waters of the Jordan with a single word that they
might pass over dry-shod? Of all those other saviours
who called the crowds into the desert to give them a
spectacle of the greatest prodigies? Of the Egyptian
who assembled more than thirty thousand men on the
Mount of Olives in the hope of seeing the walls of the
Holy City crumble at his command, and who succeeded
only in causing liis followers to be massacred by the
governor Felix while he himself took to flight? ^" We
need not mention those religious revolutionaries of whom

^ Jerem. xxix, 8, 9; xiv, 13; Ezech. xiii.
«Antiq., xx, 51; 8, 6; Bell. Jiid., ii, 13, 5; vi, 5, 1.
Mds V, 36.
i" Acts xd, 38,

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LIFE OF CHRIST [paet second

sacred history alone tells us, but who also represented
themselves as Messiahs : Simon Magus, who called himself
the power of God:^^ and Dositheus who, according to
Origen,^^ gave himself the title of Christ.

To this religious agitation shall be joined social agita-
tion. " And you shall hear of wars and rumours of wars.
See that ye be not troubled ; for these things must come to
pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against
nation and kingdom against kingdom ; then shall be pesti-
lences and famines and earthquakes in divers places, and
terrors from heaven, and there shall be great signs. Now
all these are the beginning of sorrows." By this Jesus
wishes His disciples to understand that they are not to in-
terrupt their Apostolic labours in Jerusalem at once, and
to break up the first Christian nucleus before the proper
time. However terrible may be the rumbling of the
tempest, they must never be affrighted by it. The true
sign shall be made known ere long. When they discern
it, then it will be necessary for them to hasten and go,
escaping the terrible destruction to bear the truth to a
new world.

The second part of the picture which the Master draws
of the signs which were the forerunners of the national
catastrophe, is historically as faithful as the first. Not
to speak of the wars that broke out around Judaea, of
the struggles of the two Jewish brothers, Asineus and
Alineus against the Parthians,^^ of the Jews massacred
in Alexandria or in Babylon, we know that Palestine be-
came at that time the scene of intestinal conflicts, of
bloody revolts, of civil wars that prepared its final ruin.
" Every city," ^^ Josephus says, " seemed to be divided

^^ Acts viii, 9.

" C. Gels., lib. ii, and in Matt, tract, xxvii.

^^ Antiq., xviii, 9, 1.

"fi. J., ii, 17, 10; 18, 1-8.

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BOOK III] THE GREAT DISCOURSE^

into two hostile camps." Syrians and Jews believed that
they could not live together unless they kept their hand on
the hilt of the sword. Cœsarea, Tyre, Gadara, Ptolemais
were witnesses of these sanguinary struggles. At the
same time the people, alarmed by the reports of war else-
where, trembled lest they should see the land invaded.
Now it was Caius Caesar that was preparing to chastise
the Jews for having refused his statue a place in the
Temple. Now it was Bardanes and then Vologeses that
declared war against Izates, King of Adiabene,^^ or again
Vitellius, governor of Syria, that was about to lead his
army through Palestine against Aretas, King of Arabia,^®
when the death of Tiberius occurred.

The famine under Claudius was terrible, not only in
Greece and in Rome, but also in Jerusalem,^ ^ where, ac-
cording to Josephus, the misery was so great that it pro-
voked the sympathy of Izates and of Helena, his mother. ^^
It was probably on this occasion that St. Paul set about
gathering alms everywhere for the destitute in Jerusalem.

The plague, especially in the Orient, is only too fre-
quently a consequence of famine, for one to doubt, sim-
ply because of the silence of history, that it raged in
Palestine at the time of which we speak. ^^

Earthquakes were felt in the reigns of Claudius and

of Nero, in Asia Minor, in the Isle of Crete, in Phrygia, at

Apamea, at Laodicea, and in several other cities.-*^ This

was more than was required to increase the popular terror ;

*' for," as Pliny said, " all the evil and all the danger are

not in these violent shocks of the earth; unfortunately,

^^Aniiq., xx, 3, 3.
^^Antiq., xviii, 5, 3.
"Actsxi, 28.

^^Antiq., xx, 'i; Acts xi, 28.

" We know, moreover, that it made at the time terrible ravages in the
neighbouring countries, for example, in Babylonia.
="» Tacitus, Annal., xiv, 26 ; xv, 22 ; Oros., Hist, vii, 7.

[m]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt second

they are but the forerunners of catastrophes that equal
or even overshadow them." The imagination of the mul-
titude, excited by a general upheaval of the world, en-
deavours at such times to discover fearful signs even in
the depths of the skies.

However, between these sinister signs and the catas-
trophe itself there shall be an interval. Ere it dies, Juda-
ism, by a violent persecution, will prepare the glorious
coming of Christianity. In its folly, and as if to divert
its thoughts amid these sad presentiments, it will treat
the disciples as it treated the Master. But its fury shall
only serve to intensify against itself the vengeance of
God. " But before all these things," adds Jesus, " they
will lay their hands on you, and persecute you, deliver-
ing you up to councils and to the Synagogues, and into
prisons, dragging you before kings -^ and governors for
My name's sake.^^ Then shall they deliver you up to be
afflicted, and shall put you to death,^^ and you shall be
hated by all nations. And it shall happen unto you for a
testimony." Thus the ordeal shall proceed along parallel
lines both for obsolete Judaism and for nascent Chris-
tianity. But what a difference ! the latter brings the
sacred fire of generosity, of faith, of love; the former
has naught but its egotism, its incredulity, its hate. The
one shall be the executioner, the other the victim ; the vic-

'1 Peter and John appeared before the Great Council, James and Peter
before Herod, Paul before Nero. The governors GaUio, Fehx, Festus,
saw the great Apostle at their tribunal; not to speak of the many other
witnesses who went courageously to declare their faith before judges and
executioners.

22 We must recall here the beautiful text of Tertullian in his Apologetics:
Credunt de nobis quoe nan probantur, et nolunt inquiri, ne probentur non
esse; quae malunt credidisse, ut nomen iUius œmidationis inimicum
prœsumptis, non pr abatis, criminibus de sua sola confessione damnetur.
Ideo torquenvur confitentes, et punimur persévérantes, et absolvimur
negantes, quia nominis prœlium est.

23 Stephen and James are proofs of this.

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BOOK III] THE GREAT DISCOURSE

tim will give testimony to the truth, which shall not die,
while the executioner with his violence shall never suc-
ceed in keeping falsehood alive. Falling at last himself
beneath the blows of divine justice, he shall by his death
mark the providential hour of the triumph of those whom
he sought to suppress.

Meanwhile nothing shall be lacking in this the first
tempest to shake the young shrub, neither the fury of
enemies nor the treason of friends, nor the trials of the
heart nor anguish of spirit. " And then," says Jesus,
" shall many be scandalised, and shall betray one another,
and shall hate one another.-^ And many false prophets
shall arise ^^ and shall seduce many. And because iniquity
hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold.
And the brother shall betray his brother unto death, and
the father his son; and children shall rise up against the
parents, and shall work their death." What a lively pic-
ture of the woes of those early times, when nothing was
certain for the disciples except the love and the support
of their God!

" And when they shall lead you and deliver you up,"
added Jesus, " be not thoughtful beforehand what you
shall speak; but whatsoever shall be given you in that
hour, that speak ye, for I will give you a mouth and
wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to
resist and gainsay." This promise was so well fulfilled
that children were known to silence the wise and the
judges of the world; ignorant men to astonish science by
their philosophy, and young maidens to disconcert the

** Such was the lot of Physellus, Hermogenes, Demas, and many others
whose names Sacred History has not preserved.

"^ These are the false doctors of every name, Hymeriseus, Philetus, Simon
Magus, Carpocrates, Cerinthus, Ebion, and the many others whom St.
Paul calls &fSpes \a\ovvTes Steffrpafifieya, Acts XX, 30; ipev$av6crroKoi, II Cor.
xi, 13, etc.

[ 123]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

executioners by their courage. Strange, too, they con-
verted the crowds that came to the pragtorium or to the
circus through curiosity; sometimes even the judges and
the torturers became Christians. It was to humihate the
martyrs that the latter came to these pubhc exhibitions,
to which they dragged the Christians as culprits and as
victims ; but in reality they had only succeeded in gather-
ing audiences whom the disciples overwhelmed by their
glowing words, and among whom they achieved the most
surprising conquests. Let the disciples only be brave,
therefore, and they shall march on, in spite of all, to vic-
tory. " But a hair of your head shall not perish.^^ In
your patience you shall possess your souls. He that shall
persevere to the end, he shall be saved." This personal
triumph of the disciples at the end of their sufferings shall
lead up to the general triumph of the Christian cause.
" And this Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the
whole world for a testimony to all nations, and then shall
the consummation come. The seed of the new religion
being scattered throughout the world, the ancient tree of
Judaism may easily be uprooted. No less shall have been
required than this time of preparation for the laborious
birth of the Gentiles in the Gospel; through the midst of
all upheavals, all perils, all persecutions, the courageous
toilers shall have laid the foundations of the edifice.
Nothing shall then prevent the storm from bursting over
the Temple and over Jerusalem ; God shall henceforth
have as His city all the cities of the earth, and as His
temple the whole world.

The faithful must needs be on their guard in those
times, if they do not wish to be included in the punish-

^^ There is no contradiction between this promise and the preceding
assertion that " some of you they will put to death." For, what Jesus asserts
here shall have its fulfilment only in the future life, where he who shall have
lost his soul shall find it again.

[ 124]

BOOK m] THE GREAT DISCOURSE

ment of the wicked. Until now they may have been able
to remain in security beneath the tempest that rumbled
but did not burst forth. But if, at this awful moment,
they should be still in Jerusalem, even God would not
know His own. And it is important that His own be
spared, for they are the living nucleus of the primitive
Church and the hope of the future. Henceforth strong
enough to break with all Judaical prejudices, enlight-
ened enough to know that Mosaism has had its day, vig-
orous enough to be transplanted with impunity, they may
quit the Holy City in a body and take to the mountains
without disbanding. Their bond shall consist no longer
of ceremonial observances, but, wholly spiritual, it shall
take deep hold upon their very souls. That is why, even
though they separate, in spite of distance, the disciples
shall still hold each other by the hand, and the various
churches which they shall found shall be all together
united in the same faith, the one great and universal
Church of Jesus Christ.

" When therefore ye shall see the abomination of deso-
lation which was spoken of by Daniel -^ the prophet,
standing in the holy place : he that readeth -^ let him
understand," that will be the decisive moment.

St. Luke, who does not mention this text of Daniel,
seems to explain its true meaning : " When you shall see,"

27 Even if the prophecy of Daniel Lx, 26, 27, which has its complement in
xi, 31 and xii, 11, did have its first fulfilment in the persecution of Antiochus
and the death of Onias, it would not follow that its final accomplislmaent
was not to be found in the death of the Messiah, in the persecutions that
followed this, in the destruction of the Temple and of the Holy City. Jesus
is wholly within His rights when He cites here a prophecy of which He is
the principal object.

28 This parenthesis is probably the Evangelist's, for Jesus, in speaking,
was not thinking of readers, and the word avayiviiaKoov signifies especially
one who reads. If we say that it is the Master Who is referring to Daniel's
words, we encoimter another difficulty, namely, that this parenthesis is
found in St. Mark, who does not mention Daniel, as well as in St. Matthew,

[125]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

he represents Jesus as saying, " Jerusalem compassed
about with an army, then know that the desolation thereof
is at hand." It is not a sacrilege in the Temple, but the
very presence of enemies around the Holy City that con-
stitutes the abomination, and from it shall come, as a
consequence, ruin or desolation. Titus, in fact, ensnar-
ing the city in an iron network, and making the Mount
of Olives the central point of his military operations,
seemed to erect the altars of paganism before the very
doors of the Temple. We know how the Roman legions
wore, as badges, bucklers on which were graven the im-
ages of the gods and of the emperors. The soldiers
venerated them, and Suetonius relates that Artabanus,
after having crossed the Euphrates, adored the eagles
and the standards of the empire. Tacitus even likens to
a temple these resplendent exhibitions of eagles and stand-
ards adorned with the effigies of the gods and the emper-
ors, which the armies were eager to have in quantities
during a campaign. The Jews looked upon the mere
presence of these ensigns as a profanation of the Holy
Land. They rose against Pilate, who had secretly intro-
duced them into Jerusalem, and they besought Vitellius,
as he advanced to fight Aretas, to spare them the great
pain of seeing them pass through their land. It is with
difficulty, moreover, that any other explanation of these
prophetic words can be given. They can, indeed, only
signify a profanation preceding the destruction of the
city. Therefore we cannot accept them as referring to
the impiety of Adrian in erecting his statue, seventy years
later, on the spot where the Temple stood, nor to any

who does mention him. It is therefore the Evangelist who here appeals to
the reader, not Jesus Christ appealinor to His hearers. But in this case the
Gospel was compiled before the fulfilment of the prophecy, otherwise the
warning to pay attention to the advice that follows, in order to escape de-
struction in the catastrophe, were superfluous.

[126]

BOOK III] THE GREAT DISCOURSE

similar enterprise attempted by Titus, but not mentioned
in history, since either would be later than the sacking of
Jerusalem. Nor are the massacres in the Temple, occa-
sioned by the sect of the Zealots, this abomination ^^ of
desolation. Human blood had at other times been vio-
lently mingled with that of the victims. Such occurrences
were only too frequent, and the prophet's words indicate
a new sacrilege, hitherto unheard of, such as was the in-
vestment of the city by the Roman armies.

" Then," continues Jesus, " let those who are in Judaea
flee to the mountains, and those who are in the midst
thereof, depart out, and those who are in the countries,
not enter into it; for these are the days of vengeance,
that all things may be fulfilled that are written." The
storm shall be terrible; they must flee to escape its bolts.
The walls of the Holy City, however impregnable and
terrifying they may be, shall no longer protect the citi-
zens, and the fierce obstinacy of the Jewish generals shall
prevent the clemency of the victors from being exercised
towards the vanquished. The inhabitants of Jerusalem
and those of the country, no longer cherishing vain illu-
sions about glorious resistance and national independence,
must then seek a refuge in the mountains, which alone can
protect them. They must decide at once, for once the
struggle has begun the Jewish leaders will slaughter
those who seek to fly or to surrender, and the Roman
soldiers will grant no grace to those whom the vigilance
of the Jews has suff'ered to escape. " And let him that
is on the house-top, not go down into the house, nor

^' Josephus, who, in Book IV, ch. vi, of his Wars of the Jews mentions the
opinions of some concerning the fulfilment of Daniel's prophecy by the ex-
cesses of the Zealots, declares categorically in Antiq., Book X, ch. xi, § 7 that
Daniel had prophesied the terrible woes with which the Romans were to
overwhelm the Jewish race: ^^ AavtrjAos koI nepl Tr)s rS)v 'Pai/jLodwv rjyffiovias
avtypm^ie Ka\ 8ti vir' avTwv èprtfiwdii<reTai, k. t, \.

[127]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

enter therein to take anything out of the house; and let
him that shall be in the field not turn back to take up
his garment." The least delay may be fatal. The roofs
in Judaea formed a series of platforms reached by an
outside stairway, and Jesus bids them descend and run
to the gates of the city without even entering the house
to get anything whatsoever. ^^

" And woe to them that are with child, and give suck
in these days! But pray that your flight be not in the
winter or on the Sabbath." ^^ The precautions to be
taken against bad weather or because of the Mosaic pre-
scriptions would check their flight and risk compromis-
ing everything. Sudden as the lightning, then, was to
be the approaching catastrophe. Nothing could be more
frightful than these ravages.

" There shall be great distress in the land, and wrath
upon this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the
sword, and shall be led away captives into all nations,
and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles, till
the times of the nations be fulfilled." ^"

A million Jews were massacred, ninety-seven thousand
led captive into Egypt and into the other provinces of
the empire, the Temple razed, the ruins of the Holy City
trampled beneath the feet of the victors, and all this in
the midst of the horrors of famine, despair, and tyranny.
This humiliation of Jerusalem shall last until the nations
have had their day, that is, unto the end of time.

" In those days there shall be such tribulations as were

^ It is in this same hj^jerbolic sense, although in a lower degree, that the
man in the field, who went out in light clothing to engage in his labours, in
keeping with Virgil's words : nudus ara, sere midus, is bidden to flee without
his outer garment, or cloak.

31 Not that the Christians have to bother with Pharisaical observances.
But to scorn them at a time when the fanaticism of the Pharisees shall
dominate, would be to incur the gravest dangers.

32 The time of the nations shall end with the world.

[128]

BOOK m] THE GREAT DISCOURSE

not from the beginning of the creation, and neither shall
be." It was right that the consummation of the greatest
of crimes should be punished by the most dreadful of
expiations. The destruction of Jerusalem by Nabuchod-
onosor, the captivity of Babylon, were only figures of
the definitive ruin and captivity. They were so many
warnings that might have corrected this hardened peo-
ple and spared them their complete ruin. It pleased
them to brave all the wrath of God, and they have felt
its fearful weight.

" And unless these days have been shortened, no flesh
should be saved; but for the sake of the elect those days
shall be shortened." The capture of Jerusalem, though
preceded by a long siege, came, in truth, sooner than
was hoped. Josephus ^^ and Tacitus ^^ give the reasons
of this. This precipitate dénouement saved the lives of
a portion of those who had escaped the violent persecu-
tion of the extreme patriots. Jesus calls them the elect,
either because they are already Christians, surprised by
the siege before they could escape, or because they were
to become such in consequence of so severe a lesson.

After this catastrophe Judaism disconcerted will
eagerly seek the INIessiah. Its burnt Temple, its ruined
city, its strength for ever annihilated, shall force it to
long for the era of national restoration. It is by a spon-
taneous and quite natural movement that vanquished and
ruined peoples search everywhere, and easily give a wel-
come to men with a superhuman mission. Here the desire
shall be the more energetic, since it shall be sustained by
a religious conviction. Israel shall not be able to beheve
that the prophets had been mistaken or that God had
forgotten His promises, and will call for the Messiah.

«5 B. J. V, 12, 1.
»« Hist., V, 2.

[129]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second

The Christians themselves affrighted by such great dis-
asters, and still influenced by Judaical prejudices, shall
almost believe that the Christ is going to return to restore
all things. Impostors shall not be wanting to respond
to these vain aspirations of a nation crushed beneath
divine justice.

" Then if any man shall say to you : Lo, here is Christ
or there, do not believe him; for there shall rise false
Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs
and wonders, in so much as to deceive (if possible) even
the elect." The disciples must consider this a sufficient
warning. There shall be no further personal or perma-
nent appearance of the Messiah on earth. " If, there-
fore they shall say to you: Behold he is in the desert,^^
go ye not out ; behold he is in the closets, believe it not."
The great coming of the Saviour in time after His Resur-
rection shall take place, to be sure, but under other cir-
cumstances. " As lightning cometh out of the east, and
appeareth even into the west, so shall also the coming of
the Son of Man be. Wheresoever the body shall be, there
shall the eagles also be gathered together." ^^ With this
great picture the Saviour passes on to the second ques-
tion treated in His discourse: How shall the coming of
the Son of Man be accomplished?

In the same hour in which faithless Jerusalem shall
cease to be, a Jerusalem of believers shall begin. While
the children of Israel, under the curse of God, are seek-

35 The popular uprisings were generally prepared in the desert. There
also had lived the great leaders or prophets of the people of God: Moses,
Elias, John the Baptist.

36 The word àerés in this popular proverb does not mean the eagle, which
does not eat dead bodies; but the great vulture, which among the ancients
was confounded with the eagle, Pliny, H. iV., x, 3; Aristotle, ix, 22; we
saw great flocks of them all through Syria. We counted fifty-seven near
Khan-Youb-Youseph, above the Lake of Genesareth, where a horse, aban-
doned by a caravan, lay dead in the midst of gigantic feimels.

[ 130 ]

BOOK m] THE GREAT DISCOURSE

ing their Messiah in the desert or in obscure retreats,
thinking that He is planning there the restoration of His
country, the true Messiah shall appear before the entire
world with the overwhelming rapidity of the lightning;'
He shall trace His lightsome path from the East to the
West, from Palestine He shall burst upon the Roman
world, and generous souls attracted by this sudden mani-
festation shall hasten in crowds to His side to constitute
His people or His Church. Such, in truth, has been the
history of the great Christian revolution. Thus was
accomplished the Parousia, or the inauguration of the
reign of the Son of Man over mankind.

In figured terms, as is fitting in prophecy, Jesus con-
tinues this imposing picture of His coming as King
among mankind in general and into each one of His mem-
bers in particular. ^^

" And immediately after the tribulation of those days,"
He says, " there shall be signs in the sun, and in the
moon and in the stars ; the sun shall be darkened, and the
moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall
from heaven. And upon the earth distress of nations by
reason of the confusion of the roaring of the sea and of
the waves ; men withering away for fear and expectation
of what shall come upon the whole world. For the pow-

37 Those who wish to understand the following passages as concerning
the last judgment do not suppress the diflBculties created by these figiu-es;
they multiply them. First of all they must explain this word which opens
for them the scene of the final catastrophe; evOéws, immediately, and which
is scarcely suited to mark the long interval separating the destruction of
Jerusalem from the general judgment. The different reading in St. Mark,
in those days, and, after that tribulation, indicates likewise a very close
relation of time between what precedes and what follows; and Jesus in
declaring that the present generation shall see what He announces, irrevocably
shuts the door on every explanation, tending to accept this passage as re-
ferring to the end of time. The figures here given of stars that fall, shall
never be realised literally, no more at the end of the world than now. They
are only symbols, and we must not trouble ourselves about the utility, or,
better, the possibility of all the details they imply.

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LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

ers of heaven shall be moved. And then shall appear the
sign of the Son of jNIan in heaven, and then shall all the
tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of
Man coming in the clouds of heaven with great power
and glory." Aggeus had long before foretold this inter-
mediary coming of the Christ into the world under the
figure of universal perturbation. He represented Je-
hovah as saying : " Yet one little while, and I will move
the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land.^^
It is perhaps this same promise, in its figurative form,
that Jesus develops here. The other details which He
adds are all in the style of the prophets. ^^ It is easy to
understand their meaning. Israel shall see the heavens
obscured and darkness surrounding him on every side.
His sons, who still survive the ruin of their country, in
despair at such a catastrophe, shall wander through the
world exposed to the caprice of nations as a disabled
ship is abandoned to the caprice of the waves ; they shall
send forth awful groanings, and, stupefied, shall see be-

S8 Aggeus, ii, 6, 7.

39 Thus Isaias, speaking of the woes that are to come upon Babylon
(xiii, 9, and fol.), and of the inexorable wrath of Jehovah, prophesied the
darkening of the heavenly bodies. He shows the sun advancing surrounded
with darkness, and the moon having lost her brightness, while the heavens
tremble to their depths, and the earth is shaken to its foundations. The
picture he paints of the judgments of Jehovah upon the Edomites (xxxiv, 4)
and other peoples, enemies of Israel, also contains the fading away of the
host of the heavens, tlie falling of the heavenly bodies, " as the leaf falleth
from the vine and from the fig-tree." Ezechiel (xxxii, 7, 8), also annoimces
the judgment of God upon Egypt under the emblem of a general eclipse of
the heavens; and Jeremias (iv, 23), employing the same figure to mark the
woes that threaten Israel, sees, too, the mountains trembling and the hills
quaking. Joel (ii, 3. 4), also, knows this language, and he threatens the
enemies of Israel with signs in the sky and on earth; he prophesies blood,
fire, smoke, the darkening of the heavenly bodies, and the shaking of the
world by the cry which Jehovah shall send forth from Sion. Certainly no
one can have the idea of discovering in these prophecies any other sense
than a figurative sense. Just as the prophets sought to point out with these
figures the fall of the most powerful and proudest empires and peoples, so
Jesus indicates here the definitive destruction of Judaism, orj if it be pre-
ferred, of all the ancient religions.

[132]

BOOK iiij THE GREAT DISCOURSE

ginning the triumph of Him Whom they had disowned;
or, if one prefers to hear the sombre prophecy of the
transformation of the ancient world, the falling of the
stars and all the mournful heavenly phenomena shall sym-
bolise the fall of Satan, the god of paganism multiplied
under so many forms ; while the earthly disturbances shall
mark more particularly the violent crisis, the woful as-
tonishment that shall seize upon mankind at the moment
of his religious renovation. However that may be, it is
after the most terrible storm that Jews and pagans shall
see the sign of the IMessiah resplendent in the sky. This
sign shall be nothing else than His very power, or His
Cross. ^*^ Behind it shall appear Christ the King.

The inauguration of Plis royalty over the world shall
be solemn. " And He shall send the angels with a trum-
pet and a great voice, and they shall gather together His
elect from the four winds, from the farthest parts of the
heavens to the utmost bounds of them." Thus shall be
established God's new people by the voice of evangelic
heralds who shall go through all the universe to awake
and to gather into one society the souls worthy of hear-
ing and capable of cherishing the good tidings. Such
shall be the visible though wholly spiritual fulfilment of
the coming of the Son of Man which for so long a time
has engaged the thoughts of the disciples.

How long must they wait ? " When you shall see these
things (this social upheaval which I prophesy) begin to
come to pass, look up and raise up your heads, because your
redemption is at hand." It is natural for those who have

*" The spiritual and glorious coming of Jesus into the world coincided, in
fact, with the ruin of Judaism. It had begun, of course, with the Apostles;
but they, being few in number, had been able only to hurry over the world,
scattering the seed which was to rise only after them. Christianity, though
preached throughout the whole world before the death of St. Paid, was
solidly established only after the fall of the Jewish state.

[133]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

long groaned beneath the yoke of persecution and in woe
to lift up their head in token of deliverance and of thanks-
giving. This the Church will do when, issuing from the
laborious period of birth, she is strong enough to brave
the hatred of her enemies. That time shall not be long
in coming. " See the fig-tree," the Master goes on ;
" when the branch thereof is now tender and the leaves
come forth, you know that summer is nigh. So you also,
when you shall see these things come to pass, know that
the kingdom of God is at hand." The sap that enlivens
the tree, under the first influence of heat, announces the
early approach of summer; God's justice stirring the
nations shall proclaim the coming of His Kingdom.

If the disciples' curiosity is not yet satisfied, and if
it demands a more exact date, Jesus will give it, as well
as it can be given for an event in the moral order in
which man's liberty has its part and always leaves room
for the unexpected. " Amen I say to you, this genera-
tion shall not pass away until all these things be done.
Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall
not pass away." It is, then, the present generation that
shall see the Messianic reign established in the whole
world.

With regard to its full development in eternity by the
assembly of all the predestined, that is, with regard to
the kingdom completed by the admission of all the sub-
jects who are to constitute it in the course of the ages
and to perfect the number of the elect determined by
God, to what time must they be referred? This is more
difficult to say.^^ " But of that day or hour no man
knoweth, neither the angels in heaven, nor tlie Son, but

" This distinction between the inauguration and the crowning of the
Messianic reign seems to remove all the difficulties that had become in this
passage and in the remainder of the discourse, a stumbling-block to in-
terpreters.

[134]

BOOK III] THE GREAT DISCOURSE

the Father alone." The perspicacity of the angel, or
even of the Son of Man, unaided by the divine knowledge,
cannot foresee the hour when God's work on earth shall
be finished. Long ages shall roll away, no doubt, for
small shall always be the number of those who shall profit
by the Good Tidings to insure their salvation, and great
is the space reserved for man in the heavenly fatherland.
Some, blinded by their carnal passions, others, victims of
their indolence or of their presumption, will let God's
gift pass on without profiting by it, and so will delay the
hour of the definitive and complete reign of the Son of
Man. This Jesus makes clear in the succession of spir-
itual warnings which He now addresses to His disciples.

" And as in the days of Noe, so shall also the coming
of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the
flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giv-
ing in marriage, even until that day in which Noe entered
into the ark, and they knew not until the flood came, and
took them all away, so also shall the coming of the Son
of Man be." ^-

As a matter of fact, the definitive coming of the. Mes-
sianic Kingdom is being accomplished gradually every
day for the great number of men whom death, like the
deluge of old, seizes and hurls into eternity. How many
of them foresaw this catastrophe.'^ Their only care is to
give themselves up to all their passions, and in reality
they are not many who enter into the ark, the figure of
the heavenly Kingdom. Yet the final number of the citi-
zens who are to constitute this Kingdom has been none
the less determined. The world shall endure until that

*2 St. Luke in his fragments (x\Ti, 26) adds to this example of the time of
Noe, that of the fellow-citizens of Lot. " Likewise as it came to pass in the
days of Lot. They did eat and drink; they bought and sold; they planted
and built; and in the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and
brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all."

[135]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt second

number is attained. As for the final result, which is the
glorification of Jesus, this is in every way assured. The
individual result, on the contrary, must vary according
to the dispositions and above all the vigilance of each one.
Nothing could be more terrifying than the pitiless and
apparently blind rapidity with which God's justice will
come to test His own. " Then two shall be in the field,
one shall be taken and one shall be left. Two women
shall be grinding at the mill ; '^^ one shall be taken, and
one shall be Icft.^^ Watch ye, therefore, because ye know
not at what hour your Lord will come." This thought
of the vigilance necessary for whoever wished to be saved
possesses the Master so deeply that He turns it about
in all its aspects by multiplying figures and similitudes.
And indeed it must be acknowledged that this was the
immediately practical side of the question. In recom-
mending to them such personal dispositions. He meant
to prepare them for an event which they were to witness
with their own eyes, and which consequently could be
neither the end of the world nor the general judgment,
but, in truth, death, seizing upon each man at his ap-
pointed hour to cast him at the feet of his Judge and to
decide his eternity.

''^ These domestic hand-mills of which we have given a description and
even a picture more than once (cf. Notre Voyage aux Pays Bibliques, vol. I,
p. 295, and Les Enjants de Nazareth, p. 77) consist even to-day, as formerly,
of two round stones placed one upon the other horizontally. The lower
stone is immovable, the upper is moved by two women seated face to face.
With the right hand, by means of an iron handle set upright in the stone, they
move it continually to and fro and thus reduce to flour the grain which with
the left hand they pour into an opening in the centre. Generally two women
are required for this work. St. Luke reproduces this thought also in his
fragments, adding to this picture that of two persons sharing the same bed;
one is taken and the other left.

*^ If this passage had to be understood as referring to the general judg-
ment, it would be difBcult to understand how one of two is taken and the
other left. All shall be taken at the same time. It is by death in the course
of the ages that the individual surprises spoken of here are effected.

[136]

BOOK m] THE GREAT DISCOURSE

" Take heed to yourselves," the Saviour says, accord-
ing to St. Luke, " lest perhaps your hearts be over-
charged with surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares
of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly. For
as a snare shall it come upon all that sit upon the face
of the whole earth." This snare that falls upon the birds
eating in the fields is, indeed, the snare of death. Woe
to the men who, bowed down to earth, absorbed in sen-
suality, are devouring their joys too eagerly to see the
snare as it advances ; they shall be taken in misery, and
shall perish in the midst of that vile pasturage to which
they had become so attached. " Watch ye, therefore,
praying at all times, that you may be accounted worthy
to escape all these things that are to come, and to stand
before the Son of Man." Awaiting the great event that
shall fix the eternal lot of each one, the soul must pray
in order that it may be fortified. For it is a terrible
thing to be obliged to look upon the Sovereign Judge in
His glory, His power, and His justice.

" Take ye heed, watch and pray," says the Master ^^
again, " for ye know not when the time is. Even as a
man who going into a far country, left his house, and
gave authority to his servants over every work, and com-
manded the porter to watch." Our soul is the house that
belongs to Jesus, the Master Who departs for a while,
but Whom our death shall at once recall. The control
of this soul has been intrusted to our liberty; all our
duties have been dictated to our various faculties and the
obligation of watching has been laid upon our heart. If
this guardian of our moral life is not at all times on the
look-out, he exposes himself to a painfvJ surprise. " For
you know not when the lord of the house cometh ; at even
or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morn-
86 St. Mark xiii, 33.

[ 137 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

ing." As the watch is kept only during the time of
sleep, the parable fixes the Master's unexpected coming
at the various hours of the night. It would seem, then,
that man's life is, in reality, only a very brief night, a
prelude to the great day of eternity, a time of dreams,
of illusions, of sleep, of phantoms, after which comes the
real life and the truth. At the four ages of this life, as
at the four watches of the night, Jesus has the right to
come, because the house is His, and to see if His servants
are worthy of His affection or of His anger. Nothing
can excuse the negligent, neither the weakness of infancy,
nor the passions of youth, nor the affairs of maturity,
nor the infirmities of old age. " What I say to you, I
say to all : Watch ! " exclaims the Saviour. And unmind-
ful that the hour was already quite advanced, He set
about proposing to them two parables that demonstrate
the importance of His advice.

" Then shall the Kingdom of heaven," He says, " be
like to ten virgins, who taking their lamps went out to
meet the bridegroom." ^® In the East, marriages are
always celebrated at night. Hence the torches which we
see invariably figuring in the descriptions of these joy-
ous ceremonies. In Palestine, lamps "^^ were more ordi-
narily used, oil being more common than resin. The
celebration was carried on almost as follows : The bride-
groom, accompanied by his friends, proceeded to the
house of the young woman who was crowned (callah).
He found her there in the midst of her family and her
friends, dressed in her best attire, with flowers upon her

*' The Latin text and the Syrîac version recently discovered at Sinai, add :
"And the bride.'' This reading is not in the Greek manuscripts, but there
is nothing in the application of the parable to prevent us from adopting it.

8^ These lamps themselves bear a great resemblance to torches. They
consist of hollow sticks on the end of which is placed a vessel full of oil witu
a rag covered with pitch.

/r [138]

BOOK m] THE GREAT DISCOURSE

head, and awaiting the solemn hour. He officially de-
manded her from her father. After having received her,
he led her away amid the benedictions of all her people
and followed by a joyous and triumphant train, to his
own house, or, if this dwelling seemed insufficient, to a
hall prepared elsewhere for the nuptial banquet. During
this time several young girls held themselves in readiness
to receive the procession and to introduce the bride into
her new habitation.

The number ten which the parable here gives is not
taken at haphazard. In the Jewish idea it constitutes a
complete society."*^ We may therefore see in this the
whole number of the faithful who are invited to do
honour to the divine Bridegroom, Who came upon earth
to take His bride and to lead her into the banquet of
heaven.^® The lamps borne by the virgins are the em-
blem of faith, necessary that one may be a Christian.
But, though having the same faith, the members of the
Church have not the same wisdom. " Five of them were
foolish, and five wise." So, even among the believers,
scarcely half busy themselves seriously about achieving
their salvation. The rest believe, but do not practice.

" But the five foolish, having taken their lamps, did not
take oil with them. But the wise took oil in their vessels
with the lamps." To have torches without oil is to have

'«Ten guests were enough to eat the Paschal lamb; ten constituted a
church (Kahat), an assembly. . , . j.^

« It must be admitted that there is a difficulty here, and it is this difficulty
which, leading one to conclude that, contrary to all custom, the nuptial
ceremony had ended at the house of the bride, seems to have occasioned the
suppression in the Greek manuscripts of the word bride, as we observed
above. The faithful, represented by the virgins, are at the same time the
Church symbolised in the bride. But we can understand how each one,
since the parable was addressed to individuals, must consider himself as in a
state of probation, uncertam whether or not he shall be admitted to become
a part of the Church triumphant, even after having been of the Church
militant.

[139]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet second

faith without works. In that case, according to St.
James, it is a dead faith, incapable of shining in the eyes
of all. The vessels that contain the oil are the human
soul that bears the merit of good works, or the conscience
that preserves the memory of them.

" The bridegroom tarrying, they all slumbered and
slept." If the bridegroom came without delay, in the
days of adolescence, for instance, when all is still pure,
or after repentance following a remarkable conversion,
the oil would not be wanting in the lamp. But frequently
Jesus delays His coming, and the merits of the faithful
who have no energy, no stability, vanish imperceptibly.
A torpor comes over these improvident souls. Spending
all they have and acquiring nothing new, they insure for
themselves the saddest kind of awakening. Foolish and
wise, all the virgins fell asleep, as do all Christians, with-
out distinction, in the sleep of death.

" At midnight a cry was heard : Behold the bridegroom
Cometh, go ye forth to meet him." Great was their sur-
prise. After their protracted wait, they were now no
longer on the watch. " Then all those virgins arose and
trimmed their lamps." Unfortunately the oil had been
entirely consumed, and this mischance threatened to be a
serious one. It was not so, however, for all of them. Of
the ten young girls, five, the wise ones, were not troubled
long. They had put aside a sufficient quantity of oil so
that they might not be taken unawares. The other five,
on the contrary, who indeed merit the title of fools, im-
mediately perceived their own imprudence and all its sad
consequences. " Give us of your oil," they said to the
wise virgins, their companions, " for our lamps are gone
out." Thus, at the moment when the angel's voice shall
announce the approach of the Son of Man, while the just
shall have speedily made up in their consciences the sum

[ 140]

BOOK III] THE GREAT DISCOURSE

of their merits, the sinners, in fright, since they bear in
their hands, under the guise of virtue, only useless or
culpable works, will ask aid of the saints and will seek to
profit by their great credit. The latter, all trembling as
they behold the great Judge approach, shall find that
their own charities, penances, and sacrifices are not any
too numerous to insure their own eternity.

The prudent virgins replied : " Lest perhaps there be
not enough for us and for you, go you rather to them
that sell, and buy for yourselves." This is merely an
ornament in the parable. Merit, being personal, is neither
borrowed nor bought, especially if, through the absence
of charity in the heart, one is not worthy of participat-
ing in the merits of Jesus Christ and of His most ven-
erable members. What the Master means to say is that
after death each one retains only his own works.

" Now while they went to buy, the bridegroom came,
and they that were ready went in with him to the mar-
riage and the door was shut." The bridegroom, who had
made them wait for him, waits not himself. He enters
with all his faithful, watchful friends into the banquet
hall. The poor foolish ones, after having run to repair
their fault, return in all haste; but they are too late, the
procession has passed, the bridegroom has gone in and
the door is closed. The joyous songs, the odours of the
feast reach them, as if to increase their regrets. To find
one's self so near the banquet and yet to be condemned
to remain so far away ! They had been invited so cor-
dially, and one moment's negligence has sufficed to ex-
clude them ! Perhaps their despair may excite some pity !
They knock on the door, and hazard this supplication:
" Lord, Lord, open to us ! " The bridegroom answers :
" Amen I say to you, I know you not." So it is ; inti-
mate friends a moment ago, unknown and rejected now,

[141]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

the imprudent virgins shall have vainly held their torches
in their hands during the first and the second hour ; they
should have been strong enough to maintain them unto
the end. One moment's imprudence has compromised
their eternity. It is vain for them to cry out at the door
that there was but a slight interruption in their vigilance.
That interruption is more than was required for their
condemnation. The bridegroom passed at that moment;
death cried out : " Behold the Son of Man ! " They were
not ready to accompany Him ; all is ended, and ended for
eternity. The door is shut. They who are within the
banquet-hall go forth no more, and in this is their eternal
consolation ; they who are not within shall never enter,
and in this lies the cause of their eternal despair.

This parable, so perfect as a whole and so minute in
detail, seems to have had as its special object the keeping
of the interior life aroused in souls. Immediately after
it Jesus proposed another parable to define the conditions
of exterior activity, which is equally the duty of every
Christian. If the parable of the virgins seems to be the
setting forth of the contemplative life, we may see in that
of the talents the history of souls devoted to the active
life. In the first it is the necessity of watching; in the
other, that of acting. However, since the oil in all prob-
ability represented good works, one does not well see how
the two similitudes differ in any notable manner. It is
the same idea presented under different forms. ^'^

*" The main idea of the parable of the talents is already known to us.
We find it all in the parable of the pounds. Nevertheless, special develop-
ments betray in each a different object. Here it treats of the lord of a house,
while in the other it was a prince that was mentioned. The former, there-
fore, shall have relations only with his servants ; the latter with his ministers
and also with his rebellious subjects. Besides the number of servants, given
as ten by St. Luke, and undetermined by St. Matthew, there are other
notable differences in the result. Since the parable in St. Luke refers to the
coming of the Son of Man in the present life and in the history of mankind,

[ 142]

BOOK III] THE GREAT DISCOURSE

The history of the Kmgdom of heaven, Jesus says, is
_ like that of a man who, " going into a far country, called
his servants, and delivered to them his goods. And to
one he gave five talents, and to another two, and to an-
other one, to every one according to his proper ability."
In the same manner the Son of Man distributes His graces
diversely to His faithful. In the divine plan, the souls
have not all either the same vocation nor the same needs,
and missions are various in the Church, because the har-
mony of the body must be sought from the variety of
functions in the members. This inequality can wound no
one. He who has received more must work more; he has,
together with his more difficult labour, only a greater
responsibility. He who has received less shall answer for
less. He should not, then, be either jealous of the mis-
sion of others or humiliated by his own. In his more
modest sphere every faculty is afforded him for doubling
his assets and for obtaining the same reward as they who
were better favoured. What more does he need?

" And immediately he took his j ourney, and he that
had received the five talents went his way and traded
with the same, and gained other five. And in like man-
ner he that had received the two gained other two." This
is the history of energetic souls who, losing not an in-
stant, set themselves to work to develop their virtues by
bringing forth fruit from the divine seed of which they
are the depositaries. And then follows that of lax and

we perceive beneath the figured form, the apostolic jurisdiction distributed
according to various merits, the ruin of Jerusalem announced, and the
massacre of the rebels foretold. The present narrative speaks only of the
coming of the Son of Man at oiu- death. The eternal reward only is at stake.
However, as there is a difference in the capital intrusted by the prince: a
pound to each one, and that intrusted by the lord of the house: five talents to
one, two to another, one to a third, so there is a difference in the reward.
Those who have made the pounds bear fruit, receive unequal salaries,
because they have done unequal works. They who have made the talents
bear fruit, receive equal salaries, because they have expended equal energy.

[143]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

lazy Christians. " But he that had received the one, going
his way digged into the earth, and hid his lord's money."
How many souls marked with the sign of Jesus Christ no
longer trouble themselves about their dignity or their
duties! As they have been called to edify others and to
be saved only by the practice of ordinary virtues, they
forget themselves in the preoccupations of material life
and in worldly amusements. Their talents shall lie dor-
mant, buried in the mire.

" But after a long time, the lord of these servants
came." He had given all of them time to prove their
intelligent activity or their carelessness. He now " reck-
oned with them." With this reckoning human life ends,
and none can escape. He who had received five talents
came and presented five more, saying: " Lord, thou didst
deliver to me five talents, behold I have gained other five
over and above." And his master replied : " Well done,
good and faithful servant, because thou hast been faith-
ful over a few things, I will place thee over many things ;
enter thou into the joy of thy lord." He who had re-
ceived two talents presented himself in his turn, and
said : " Lord, thou didst deliver two talents to me ; be-
hold I have gained other two." And the master again
said : " Well done, good and faithful servant ; because
thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place
thee over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy
lord."

The haste with which these two servants came to render
their accounts is explained by the very joy they felt for
having worked so well and succeeded so happily in their
ventures. Death has no terrors for the faithful disciples.
They welcome it with faith as the evening of a painful,
laborious day, as the coming of the Master Who is going
to reward them, and the consoling hour when, giving in

[ 144]

BOOK m] THE GREAT DISCOURSE

their accounts, they shall prove their merit. It is with
legitimate satisfaction that they bear in their hands the
fruits of their endeavours: works of piety, devotion, jus-
tice; vices overcome, graces cultivated, moral beauty at-
tained, good examples multiphed, brothers' souls led back
to duty. But, with perfect humility, they acknowledge
that all this, coming in the beginning from the Master's
pleasure, belongs to the Master; for, though they have
given their efforts, the Master furnished the capital that
has fructified. And so they mean to keep nothing for
themselves, and, faithful servants to the end, they restore
the whole to their Lord's hands, deeming their endeavours
sufficiently rewarded by the joy they have in manifesting
to Him their acknowledgment and their attachment. But
the Master cannot be surpassed in generosity. He will
not spare his praises for such devoted men, and in these
first words : " Well done ! " that fall from His divine
lips, there is a reward great enough to overshadow the
rude trials of a whole life. God, perfect sanctity, incor-
ruptible justice, infinite knowledge, saying to man: " Well
done ! " There is no applause on earth that can give any
idea of the suavity of such sublime approbation. And
yet there is consolation in the reward which man finds in
the legitimate praises of his fellows. But praise is not
enough to recompense virtue. It is a decree that the
Master will promulgate; He will thus give an official
sanction to the expression of His acknowledgment. The
servant shall be made a prince ; he has happily cultivated
his little plot; he shall govern a country. Immediately
he is invited to enter into the joy of the Lord to take
possession of his new dignity. Eternal felicity is the very
life of God, and it is with this life that the servant finds
himself associated to a degree that is enveloped in mys-
tery, but which is sufficiently explained by faith to en-

[ 145]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paht second

courage our poor hearts. We believe without difficulty
that the infinite joy of the Creator will suffice to satisfy
the limited needs of the creature.

But there is a shadow in the picture. " He that had
received the one talent, came and said: Lord, I know
that thou art a hard man ; thou reapest where thou hast
not sown ; and gatherest where thou hast not strewed."
These insolent words savour of the irritation of the con-
demned man surprised in his crime by the judgment. He
is guilty, and takes refuge in insult. After this emotion
of anger he strives to excuse himself, but without suc-
cess. " And being afraid, I went and hid thy talent in
the earth: behold, here thou hast that which is thine."
But what had he done with his time, his intelligence, his
native energy.? These, too, all belonged to the master,
and yet they had borne him no fruit. If he really thought
he was dealing with a hard, exacting man, that was an-
other reason why he should work the harder to please
him. By what right did he so judge him who had so
kindly intrusted his money to him.'' Besides, this master
had just proved his kindness to the other two servants,
and no time could be worse chosen to accuse him of sever-
ity and selfishness. To be afraid of God is the worst
injury one can do Him, if this fear stifles love. There
was need not of fear but of love. " Wicked and slothful
servant," the master exclaimed on hearing these words,
" thou knewest that I reap where I sow not, and gather
where I have not strewed : thou oughtest therefore to have
committed my money to the bankers, and at my coming
I should have received my own with usury." Such is the
prosecution in clear terms. The servant has committed
two crimes: he has been guilty of calumniating his mas-
ter's kindness, and lazy in neglecting to make his money
yield profit. Then follows his punishment : " Take ye,

[146]

BOOK III] THE GREAT DISCOURSE

therefore, the talent away from him, and give it to him
that hath ten talents ; for to every one that hath shall be
given, and he shall abound; but from him that hath not,
that also which he seemeth to have shall be taken away."
It was for the master's interest to take away from the
bad servant the little that had been uselessly confided to
him, and to give it to him who had given the best proofs
of energy, intelligence, and devotion. Therein is found
the secret of the graces which God multiplies in the souls
of the saints, and which He rarely bestows upon the in-
different. Therein, too, is found the reason for the gra-
dation in glory which He will establish in heaven, giving
to the elect the portion of the lost.

" And the unprofitable servant," the Master goes on,
" cast ye out into the exterior darkness. There shall be
weeping and gnashing of teeth." Here again we behold
the result of every life passed in f orgetf ulness of God. On
the day of judgment, the indolent servant, like the foolish
virgin, shall be excluded from the heavenly banquet.

In this manner the good and the bad shall be divided,
according to their works, into two groups for all eternity.
When the number of the elect shall be complete, as well
as that of the lost ; when the ages assigned for the
life of this universe are passed, the King of Heaven, no
longer summoning men one by one to render an account
of their works, shall set about judging them all together
in the great judgment of mankind. At that time His
justice shall be pleased to confirm the individual judg-
ments pronounced in the course of the ages. After which
His Kingdom shall be full, definite, eternal. In brilliant
colours Jesus sketches this last picture,^^ which serves as
reply to the third question proposed by the disciples :

*i St. Matt. XXV, 31-46, alone gives this.
[147]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

When shall be the end of the world and the beginning of
the Messianic Kingdom?

Grand and awful is the spectacle ! " When the Son of
man shall come in His majesty, and all the angels with
Him, then shall He sit upon the seat of majesty." The
brilliancy of this manifestation shall be lacking in noth-
ing. Cloudless and unveiled, the glory of the Son of God
shall be shown to all. The angels, like devoted servants,
shall surround Him to fulfil His commands. And it is
fitting that they should witness God's judgment of man,
since man had been given them as a brother, inferior in
nature, but not in destiny.

" And all the nations shall be gathered together before
Him." The dead, shaking off^ the dust of the grave, shall
group themselves in families, tribes, races, and the great
tree of mankind shall be raised up again in its majestic
integrity. Peoples civilised and barbarian, men from the
north and from the south, from the east and from the
west, representatives of the world in its infancy, in its
maturity and in its decrepitude, all, without any excep-
tion, shall be there bowing beneath the sceptre of the
great King. What is the power that shall thus assemble
this vast flock.'* The same that created it in the succes-
sion of ages, and which with a sign shall bring it back to
life. The world began with a judgment from God, in like
manner shall it end. Of His own work the Creator had
said of yore : " It is good ! " Of ours He shall say at
that time : " It is good and it is bad ! " Stupefied, trem-
bling and dumb with fright, mankind shall await its
sentence.

" And He shall separate them one from another, as the
shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats." Nothing
is easier to a shepherd than to discern the goat, an im-
pure, proud, violent, stubborn animal, from the modest,

[148]

BOOK III] THE GREAT DISCOURSE

timid, pacific, obedient sheep, ^- It will be still easier to
know the sinners and the just. On their brows they shall
bear the traces of their crimes and of their virtues. In
the expression of the wicked there shall be that lascivious
flame which in former days cynically bespoke the impur-
ity of their souls ; on their lips the words of hatred, of
blasphemy, of falsehood, which they loved to utter, and
in their hands the stigmata of their criminal actions.
Their vices shall ooze, so to speak, from all the pores of
their bodies, and, like the vile goats, they shall spread
around them the abominable odour of their profound un-
worthiness. The just, on the contrary, in the lustre of
their souls, shall reveal through the transparent veil of
pure bodies the peace of consciences free from remorse,
the joy of truth loved and practised, the sentiment of
divine love assured.

A sign from Him Who has all power to judge shall de-
note the moment for the separation. " And he shall set
the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left."
The final division shall be, therefore, not between the
learned and the ignorant, the rich and the poor, princes
and subjects, friends and enemies, but between the good
and the wicked. God's justice will grasp and divide those
whom the closest bonds of fortune, of knowledge, of
friendship, or even of blood held united. Standing be-
tween these two hosts, both trembling at the gesture of
His awful hand, the King shall speak. Looking first tow-
ards the right with a smile of unspeakable gentleness.
He will say : " Come, ye blessed of My Father, possess
you the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation
of the world ! " Sweet words, far different from those

'2 It may be that this picture was inspired by Ezechiel xxxiv, 17, et seq.
where the sheep represent the poor and humble, while the goats are a figure
of the wicked and oppressors.

[ 149 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet second

others for which, however, they shall be the happy recom-
pense : " Go, sell what thou hast, and give to the poor ;
take up thy cross and follow Me; I sent you (into the
world) as sheep in the midst of wolves." How good it
will be for the faithful servants to hear themselves pro-
claimed the blessed of the Father, and to find that at the
close of their efforts they have fulfilled in them the plans
of divine mercy. For they shall be, as it were, the fore-
seen and awaited conclusion of the premises laid down by
the Creator in the beginning. It was in reality a heavenly
society achieving, in its liberty and through the trials of
life, the conquest of eternal felicity, that He desired to
establish. To be perfect, this society must attain a cer-
tain development. It is when all the places in heaven shall
be won that the history of mankind shall be finished on
earth. Time shall end with it, and each one shall go to
enjoy in eternity the beatitude that God has prepared for
all without distinction, but which the elect only shall have
succeeded in winning. The divine prescience shall have
done no violence to the free will of any, leaving grace to
aid the impotence of all.^^ " I was hungry," the Son of
Man will say, " and you gave Me to eat ; I was thirsty, and
you gave Me to drink ; I was a stranger, and you took Me
in ; naked, and you covered Me ; sick, and you visited Me ;
I was in prison, and you came to Me."

Above all, the just have been kind, and in return God
shows Himself kind to them. To tell the truth, they were
not aware of the whole influence of their kind deeds, but
their merit was not the less for that. Astonished to see

S3 The reason that God gives here for His benevolence towards the just
cannot mean that works of charity are sufficient, in general, to insure salva-
tion. According to the text itself, these works must be done for God's
sake, and, consequently must be inspired by faith, as their vital principle.
The entire Evangelical doctrine on these things is, in fact, summed up in
these two words : to have life, faith and works must go together.

[150]

BOOK III] THE GREAT DISCOURSE

themselves thus highly praised, since the immense major-
ity of them shall not have seen Jesus Christ living upon
earth, and consequently shall not have been able to do
Him the kind offices enumerated, the just will cry out
with innocent and modest simplicity : " Lord, when did
we see Thee hungry, and fed Thee ; thirsty, and gave Thee
drink ; and when did we see Thee a stranger, and take
Thee in ; or naked, and covered Thee ; or when did we see
Thee sick or in prison, and came to Thee?" And the
King, replying, will say to them : " Amen, I say to you,
as long as you did it to one of these, My least brethren,
you did it to Me." ^* What is the secret of this mysteri-
ous union, of this solidarity so unexpected? The organ-
ism of the Christian Church is like the organism of the
human body. The grief and the solace which we experi-
ence, even in the least noble parts of the body, communi-
cate directly with the brain. The good or the evil done
to a member of the Christian society goes straight to the
head of that society. Who is Jesus Christ. For, He the
Master, lives even in the smallest of His servants whom
He deigns to call His brothers. In reality these disciples,
humble and poor, bear His livery and even His moral re-
semblance. To love and to succour them is to love and
succour Himself. To scorn them is to scorn the King
and to provoke the Judge's wrath.

Turning, then, with a gaze full of rebuke upon the de-
jected multitude trembling on His left. He will bid them
in terrible tones : " Depart from Me, ye cursed, into ever-
lasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his

* Although there is but one virtue praised here, the doing of good to the
unfortunate, we must not conclude that Jesus appreciates only that one,
and that He will leave all the others unrewarded. Among all meritorious
works He takes one for an example, and sets it forth in prominence. If
He chose charity, it is because this was to be the distinctive character of the
nascent Church, in the midst of selfish and unsjTnpathetic paganism,

[151]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet second

angels." Every word of this awful sentence means a tor-
ture. Far from Jesus, far from life, far from God, what
an exile! Beneath the most pitiless stroke and the most
overwhelming malediction, abandoned to their own un-
worthiness, what a moral torment ! In fire material or
spiritual,"'^ what a garment, what a dwelling! And all
this most desperate prospect shall be for eternity, in the
company of Satan and his ministers. But the wicked
shall have merited it, for they will have had the sad cour-
age of never having been kind themselves to any one.
" For I was hungrj»^," Jesus will say, " and you gave Me
not to eat ; I was thirst}»^, and you gave INIe not to drink ;
I was a stranger, and you took Me not in ; naked, and you
covered Me not ; sick and in prison, and 3'ou did not visit
Me," The lost, in astonishment at such words, will cry
out in vain : " Lord, when did we see Thee hungry or
thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and
did not minister to Thee."^" Their objection shall have
a quick response : " Amen I say to you," the Master will
reply, " as long as you did not this to one of these least,
neither did you do it to Me." Like the just, the wicked
did not foresee the far-reaching efficacy of their works
in eternity. Neither knew that there is, according to the
beautiful thought of a Father of the Church, only one
poor man, Jesus Christ, stretching out His hand through
all the unfortunate mendicants of earth. As one always
gains more than he expects in doing good, so he loses
more than he suspects in doing evil. As delightful as
shall be the surprise of the charitable on learning this

s^Wliether the soul of the damned communicates to the body the fever
of suffering like a devouring fire, or whether creatures take their revenge on
the body that has so often turned them from their end and defiled them, by
exacting ex{)iation in real fire, the suffering will always be terrible, since
in either case it will devour the physical organism without ever consum-
ing it.

[152]

BOOK III] THE GREAT DISCOURSE

strange mystery, so painful shall be the surprise of the
selfish and unfeeHng.

" And these shall go into everlasting punishment ; but
the just, into life everlasting."

So shall end the world. So shall begin the universal
reign of Jesus Christ over the rebellious in their chastise-
ment, who in their sufferings will proclaim His justice,
and over the faithful in their reward who, in their felicity,
will extol His mercies.

Between these two extremes in eternity will yawn an im-
passable abyss. The Angel of God will proclaim that all
is ended. All shall, indeed, be ended for all, but not in
the same manner.

The disciples who had listened to this awful revelation
of the future were silent and sad. With this access of most
poignant emotion this great and final day came to its
close.

[153]

CHAPTER XI
FINAL RESULT OF JESUS' MINISTRY

Israel Incapable of Understanding — An Objection
AND ITS Answer — Israel's Deserved Rejection. (St.
John xii, 36-50.)

The public ministry of our Saviour was over. Noth-
ing could be more disappointing than its results. St.
John pictures Jesus quitting the Temple, almost like a con-
demned man who hides ^ himself to escape the hands of
his enemies ; and the Synoptics, to complete the picture,
have given us the final anathema which He pronounced
against the Jewish people as He departed out of the Holy
City.

It was true, then, that after having waited so many
centuries, Israel, ignoring the fulfilment of all the proph-
ecies, in spite of all the other heavenly signs, ruthlessly
rejected the Messiah. However, the Master had been lack-
ing in nothing that would attract the sympathy of His
people to Him, neither holiness of life, nor sublimity of
doctrine, nor the power to achieve the greatest prodigies.
His lips had opened in mildness and in severity, in tones of
tenderest love and, at times, of justice in holy indignation.
With His divine logic and incomparable purity. He had
crushed all His enemies. What, then, was needed to make
Him acceptable to His own.'* Doubtless, that He should
place Himself on their moral level.

» St. John xii, 36.
[ 154 ]

BOOK ni] FINAL RESULT OF HIS MINISTRY

Israel, who was of the earth earthy, thought only of
an earthly Messiah. It was a political revolution he de-
sired, and not a religious transformation. That which re-
ferred to the soul alone scarcely appealed to him at all.
Having set his Messianic ideal in the appearance of a
conquering monarch, who should reign over the entire uni-
verse, he was incapable of acknowledging Him in the
peaceful founder of a new religion ; the more so since this
religion, universal like truth — here was the stumbling-
block — was to be for the whole world. The Jewish peo-
ple, in its egotism, looked only for a Saviour exclusively
Jewish. A Messiah who was more a humanitarian than
a patriot, bringing to His people only the goods of an
invisible and wholly spiritual order, could not be the Mes-
siah; such was the reasoning that prevailed in Jerusalem.

Before such prejudices, the works, the words, the om-
nipotence, the sanctity of Jesus were nothing and proved
nothing. Thus it was that all hastened on towards the
fatal dénouement \ Israel rejecting his Christ shall himself
be rejected ; he does Him to death, and he himself shall
be exterminated.

But is there not in this a source of scandal to human
reason? The people that was to find its rehabilitation in
the Messiah, finds in Him its ruin ! It was destined offi-
cially to present Him to the world, and has itself disowned
Him! Is not God's wisdom wanting somewhere.'' The
first generation of Christians asked all these questions.
St. Paul treats of them in his Epistle to the Romans,^ and
St. John, having come to the end of the public life of
Jesus, takes care to give us the answer.

First of all, we must not suppose that this obstinacy on
the part of the Jewish people was a surprise at the last
moment. God had foreseen it as He foresees everything

* Rom. Lx.-x.
[ 155]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part second

in the history of the world, and His prophets had foretold
it. Side by side with the oracles that represent Israel
rejoicing in the light of his Messiah, is also the sad per-
spective of an Israel obstinate, accursed, and supplanted
by a new people. We must not lose sight of this, for here
is found the solution of the first difficulty.

" Whereas He had done so many miracles ^ before them,
they believed not in Him," says St. John, " that the say-
ing of Isaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he said :
Lord, who hath believed our hearing; and to whom hath
the arm of the Lord been revealed? " ^ At the very mo-
ment when he announces the ]\Iessiah's future humilia-
tions, the prophet, in astonishment, wonders who will be-
lieve His words and who will recognise, in the heavenly
messenger covered with opprobrium, the all-powerful arm
of the Lord. Certainly not the majority, for to accept
such a mystery a robust faith and a lofty soul are needed.
But the Jews have not merited the preservation of this
penetrating glance of the heart that enables one to see
through the shadows. " Therefore they could not be-
lieve," says the Evangelist,^ " because Isaias said again :
He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their hearts,
that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand
with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal
them."

' The Evangelist in speaking thus — roaravra in St. John refers to the num-
ber rather than to the greatness of the miracles, comp. vi, 9 ; xxi, 1 1 — proves
that he did not limit the thamnaturgical achievements of Jesus to the six
prodigies which he recounts. Comp. vii, 3; xx, 30.

* Isaias liii, 1.

' St. John quotes from memory without care for verbal exactitude. He
follows neither the Hebrew text, nor the Septuagint, yet he preserves the
exact meaning of the prophet. (See Is. vi, 9-10.) In the Hebrew, it is
Isaias who is to blind and harden this people. Evidently the prophet means
that God's power will accomplish this punishment through him, and St.
John agrees with him in saying that God has blinded and nardened Israel.
In the Septuagint it is the people that hardens its own heart.

[156]

BOOK m] FINAL RESULT OF HIS MINISTRY

Such, then, is the moral fact clearly established. Israel
loses his merit in God's sight ; God withdraws the light
from him, and he no longer sees. All tliis was foreseen
and can astonish only those for whom the meaning of the
Scriptures is unexplained. Hence God's wisdom is not at
fault. It has reckoned with what has happened, and the
very malice of the Jews has aided in the realisation of Its
counsels.

Both the punishment deserved by the faithless people
and the punislmient which it actually receives figure in the
divine plan. Thus, although he fails to see the light that
is before him, Israel shall become, nevertheless, the torch-
bearer illumining from age to age the heavenly counte-
nance of the ]\Iessiah, and his own blindness foretold by the
prophets shall be a striking proof of the divine mission
of Jesus.

There is more than one way of doing homage to the Son
of Man. The demons, by their tortures and their hate,
proclaim the sanctity of God. Israel obstinate, accursed,
destroyed, shall say in spite of himself that Jesus was
more than man. If that gentle A^ictim Whom he slew
were merely a just man, he would not have suffered a
punishment so terrible and so long. It was the blood of
a God that reddened his hands, and that is why nothing
can efface it. The unfortunate nation blasphemes still,
but the brand of the deicide, stamped upon its brow, does
homage none the less to the superhuman character of Him
Whom it insults.

What would have happened if Israel, preserving all
the exclusivist notions and national prejudices of the past,
had accepted the Gospel as a whole ? Could the Gospel have
succeeded in escaping the controlling hand of the Syna-
gogue .^ What would have been the fate of the Gentiles.^
Would the right to go and preach the Gospel to them

[157]

HFE OF CHRIST [pAiiT second

ever have been granted? Is not the effort that it cost
Paul and the rest in order to enforce the universaHty of
the Christian dispensation in opposition to a few Jews
who, however, had become followers of the Gospel, a proof
of the fatal obstacle which Israel, converted, would have
raised up against the spread of the new religion? And
if, which were impossible, the Synagogue had permitted
the evangelisation of the world, would it not have laid
down as a condition for the admission of pagans in its
Judeo-Christian Church, the practice of Mosaic observ-
ances, to which these latter would have persistently re-
fused to submit? On examining, one by one, all the sides
of this question, we are led to the conclusion drawn by St.
Paul: Israel was rejected because of his offenses, but his
offenses have become the riches of the world, and his re-
jection has resulted in the salvation of mankind.^

" These things said Isaias when he saw His glory ^ and
spoke of Him," St. John adds. Hence, it is impossible
for the fulfilment of such a prophecy to diminish or to
retard Jesus' triumph.

Besides, all Israel has not rejected the Messiah, and the
Evangelist is pleased to acknowledge that, even among the
chiefs of the people, many ha4 believed in Him. To be
sure, " because of the Pharisees they did not confess him,
that they might not be cast out of the Synagogue. For
they loved the glory of men, more than the glory of God " ;
but, in reality, the spark was kindled in their soul and was
capable, when the hour should come, of inflaming the
world.

In fact, these faint-hearted, hesitating men, who had

'^Romans xi, 11-15.

^ Since in this chapter xi, Isaias contemplates the glory of Jehovah, we are
right in concluding that here, as St. Paul does elsewhere (Phil, ii, 6 ; I Cor.
X, 4), St. John identifies Jehovah with Jesus, and so clearly declares the
divinity of the Messiah.

[ 158 ]

BOOK m] FINAL RESULT OF HIS MINISTRY

acknowledged interiorly the divine mission of Jesus, stood
up, after Pentecost, bold and brave as lions ; and tearing,
so to speak, the yet bloody Cross from the hands of the
executioners, they bore it through the whole world, repeat-
ing the words of the centurion : " Indeed, this man was the
Son of God." The group which they formed, and which
became the Church, was the true Israel of the divine prom-
ises. The others were the Israel of reprobation, and they
had well merited it.

For nothing was wanting to render their crime inex-
cusable : neither malice, on their part, nor patient and pre-
disposing kindness on God's. To put the proof of this
before us, St. John here sums up the formal declarations
which Jesus had made to them. For clearness and author-
ity ^ they were complete. " But Jesus cried and said ® :
He that believeth in Me, doth not believe in Me, but in
Him that sent Me. And he that seeth Me, seeth Him that
sent Me." ^^ For, as we have so frequently observed, Jesus
had proved by- His miracles that His cause was God's, and
that He was in reality only one with His Father. Outside
of Him, the Teacher sent by heaven to man, there was only
darkness. A glance over the world was sufficient to prove
this. In His words, the truth had shone with all its power
of persuasion. " I am come a light into the world ; that
whosoever believeth in Me, may not remain in darkness." ^^

s This summino; up by St. John of the testimony which Jesus gave of
Himself during His ministry would be a bit of impudent boldness, were the
fourth Gospel the work of an impostor.

' It is difficult to admit that St. John gives here a special discourse of our
Lord's. Where did He deliver it? In the Temple? The Evangelist has
just said that He had withdrawn altogether from public life. Was it to His
Apostles? Why then this word (Kpa^ev ? The simplest thing is to take
this passage as a summing up of the principal declarations that should have
dispelled the Jews' unbelief. All that is read in this fragment is only a
repetition of former discourses, and it would be difficult to arrange it so as to
find in it the sequence of a particular discourse.

"Comp. ch. v, 36; vi, 38; vii, 18; viii, 18, 28; x, 38.

" Comp. ch. iii, 19; \àii, 12; ix, 5, 39.

[159]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet second

Therefore, woe to him who obstinately refuses to acknowl-
edge the divine Teacher, and closes his eyes to His glori-
ous manifestation ! Unbelievers have learned from His
own lips the lot that awaits them : " If any man," He said,
" hear My words and keep them not, I do not j udge him ;
for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.
He that despiseth Me, and receiveth not My words, hath
one that judgeth him; the word that I have spoken, the
same shall judge him in the last day.^^ This word is the
Father's word. " For I have not spoken of Myself, but
the Father, who sent Me, He gave Me commandment what
I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that
his commandment is life everlasting. The things there-
fore that I speak, even as the Father said unto Me, so do
I speak." 13

Notwithstanding all this, Israel has remained insensi-
ble, stubborn, hostile. In vain, if we may trust the proph-
ecy of Isaias invoked by St. Paul, has God stretched forth
His hands to him the whole day long, during the time of
the ministry of His Son. He has provoked only his un-
belief and his opposition. Weary of pursuing him, grace
at last abandons him to his criminal instincts, and we are
about to see him, in cold blood, become guilty of the most
revolting ingratitude, the most odious crime, the most exe-
crable sacrilege that can stain the memory of a people.
So that the divine punishment, however terrible it may be,
shall ever be unequal to the fault.

>' Comp. ch. iii, 17; v, 24; viii, 15.
"Comp. ch. V, 30; vii, 18; viii, 16, 28, 29.

[160]

PART THIRD

THE END

BOOK I

The Death of the Messiah

Section I
The Lengthening of the Shadow

CHAPTER I
JUDAS AND THE SANHEDRIM

At the House of Caiphas — Jesus Determines the
Date of His Death — The Motives of Judas — The
Price to be Paid. (St. Matthew xxvi, 1-5 and 14-
16; St. Mark xiv, 1 and 10-11 ; St. Luke xxii, 1-6.)

As we may easily suppose, the hierarchical party had
been too severely denounced, on that day, to an indignant
populace, not to feel the need of exacting a terrible re-
venge, and of putting a speedy end to an adversary who
proved to be as pitiless as He was powerful.

At nightfall, the members of the Sanhedrim assembled
in special ^ meeting in the house of Caiphas.^ There,

1 The ordinary meetings were held in daytime, in the Temple, in the place
officially set apart for the Sanhedrim.

2 Tradition says that it was his country house, situated to the south from
Jerusalem, on the Mount of Evil Counsel, and not far from where it is
believed that the tomb of Annas, Caiphas' father-in-law, was recently dis-
covered. However, the text of St. Matthew xxvi, 3, says that they met
tls tV ahKT)v, in the court, or in the palace of the high-priest. The word
ahxi) signifies, in fact, the interior courtyard {St. John xviii, 15), and often the
palace itself, as in Athen. Deijm., vi; Herodian, 13, 16, Pindar and the
tragic poets in general.

[163]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paht thied

each one was enabled to set forth his grievances against
the young Prophet, and the sum of their accusations
raised their fury to a paroxysm.

In fact, they were visibly hurt by the rude bloAvs they
had just received. The Master had done justice to their
ignorance, to their vices, to their pretensions, to their
hypocrisy, each in turn. Without any contradictory
discussion, they determined to reaffirm with the promise
of an early execution the sentence of death passed upon
Jesus two months before. But since the populace, and
especially the Galileans, enthusiastic over their Mes-
siah, were to be feared if any attempt should be made in
public, they decided to have recourse to a ruse, and to look
for a chance to seize Him quietly and unexpectedly when
the people would not be present. This was responding,
by a capital condemnation, to the sentence which Jesus had
just pronounced that same hour against them and the
whole nation. The two anathemas, issuing, one from the
Mount of Olives, the other from the mountain either of
Sion or of Evil Counsel, crossed each other thus above
the unfortunate city, and were destined to produce the
most terrible results. Both were freighted with death,
but with this difference, that the iniquitous sentence of
the Sanhedrim was not without appeal and had a glorious
morrow, while the blow struck by divine justice was irrep-
arable and final.

It was right, indeed, that, while allowing free action to
the malice of jnen, God should remain Master, and modify
at His pleasure man's criminal decisions. It was a re-
markable coincidence that at the moment when the San-
hedrim declared that they must withhold themselves from
laying hands on Jesus during the festival, in order to
avoid tumult and scandal, the latter affirmed that He would
be put to death on the very day on which His adversaries

[164]

BOOK I] JUDAS AND THE SANHEDRIM

did not desire it. Thus He Himself selected and enforced
His hour upon His executioners. The latter could not,
in fact, have any power over Him but that which He
granted them.

Having terminated His solemn prophecy, Jesus had
risen, and, leaving the western slope of the Mount of
Olives had again taken the road to Bethany. The disci-
ples surrounded Him, silent and mournful. This woful
revelation of the future had dismayed them. He, Him-
self, occupied with the thought of His approaching death,
said to them with a sigh : " Ye know that after two days ^
shall be the Pasch, and the Son of man shall be delivered
up to be crucified." There was no response. These latest
words were harder than all the rest, and the great day
was closing beneath the weight of the bitterest emotion.
Yet two days, and the Master will end His career upon a
Cross. The Lamb, laden with the sins of the world will
be immolated, and, the reality following the symbol. He
will take the place of the Paschal lamb. Beyond the gibbet
to which He will be nailed, Jesus has permitted them to
see the Temple tumbling in ruins, the Holy City destroyed,
the Jewish people exterminated. The prospect was terri-
fying. Nothing more was needed to disturb the disci-
ples' minds, and they slept, no doubt, a troubled sleep.

Was it the sum of these latest communications, or the
general impression of that day that had succeeded in de-
taching one of the Twelve from the INIaster ? * We can-
not say. It is certain, at least, that while the others were

' According to this chronological indication, the discourse on the end of
the world was pronounced two days before the Cnicifixion, and also two
days before the celebration of the Passover. The date here given by St.
Matthew (xxvi, 1,2), and St. Mark (xiv, 1,2), /xerà 5vo rifxepas seems to agree
perfectly with St. John xviii, 28.

* Note the importance attached to this formula : eîs rmv SdSeKu, which
is found in the three Synoptics, in St. John xii 4, and in the Acts i, 17. It
reminds us bitterly of what Judas was and of what he should have been.

[165]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet third

returning with Jesus to Bethany, Judas, gloomy and dark,
his soul exercised with horrible thoughts, was wandering
in the streets of the Holy City. After a long conflict,
perhaps, he had just opened his heart to Satan. ^

If, as we have said elsewhere, this wretched man had
followed Jesus with none but ambitious views and in the
hope of temporal reward, we understand how, on that even-
ing, he must have experienced the keenest disappoint-
ment. He was certain now that His Master was not what
he dreamed he was. Could He Who prophesied the ruin
of Israel and His own death on a Cross, be really the Mes-
siah? Madman or impostor, Jesus had deceived His fol-
lowers, and there was nothing now to do but to break
with Him, and abandon Him to the storm He had called
down upon His own head. Through a vengeful sentiment
quite natural to uncultivated souls when balked in their
most ardent desires, Judas conceived the thought of deliv-
ering this false Messiah into the hands of His enemies.
And as everything became mixed up in his heart with some
material interest, he thought that if Jesus was no longer
to be of any advantage to him during His life. He might,
at least, be of some profit to him by His death. He there-
fore decided on a plan to sell Him at a great price. If
he was forced to betray Him for little, it was because he
was unable at the last moment to obtain more. Such, per-
haps, is the explanation of his crime ; it is the most natural
and the best authorised by the Gospel story.

To say that Judas was simply in doubt, and not in a
state of positive disbelief with regard to Jesus, is to look
upon his first step in this crime in a less odious light.^

• St. John (xiii, 2) mentions this first victory of Satan over Judas at the same
time as St. Luke (xxii). He will mention the second (xiii, 27), after which
the wretched disciple will abandon his soul entirely to e\'il and to final despair.

« Neander in his Life of Jesus, vol. i ; Whately, Essays on Dangers to
Christian Faith, disc, iii; Strauss in his Life of Jesus, vol. ii, and Daub,

[16Ô]

BOOK I] JUDAS AND THE SANHEDRIM

But the final result remains just as detestable as ever.
Tired of hearing Jesus always announcing His Kingdom
without ever inaugurating it, and no longer checking his
eager ambition, the guilty disciple sought to hasten the end.
From the moment when he saw the multitude in admiration
before Jesus and the Galileans ready for an attack, he
determined to give Him up to those who had decreed His
death, in order to force Him to prove His omnipotence, or
to betray His weakness. This audacious test was such that
He could issue from it only as the triumphant Messiah, or
as a chastised impostor. The end of a doubtful situation
would therefore be seen, and all hesitation would be cut
short. It is not unusual for man's foolish pride to pre-
tend thus to hurry at will the advance of providential
events, and to hasten God's hour in keeping with his own
caprices.

In any case, with his faith compromised, his probity
suspected, and the affront recently received at the banquet
in Bethany, Judas must have found himself out of place
in the Apostolic circle. Without any real affection for the
Master, he was no longer bound to Him by anything more
than a trace of false shame. The desire to see the group
of the Twelve broken up or radically transformed be-
neath the blow of a violent catastrophe, tormented his
soul. When ambition, doubt, offended pride, exercise one's
brain, and when they have nothing but a heart full of
selfishness to counterbalance them, anything is possible.
Besides, it has always been observed in the Master's ca-
reer that He fatally repels those whom His person fails
to attract. Concerning Him no one can be indifferent.
Judas, beginning, perhaps, with a mere doubt, reached at

Judas Iscarioth, Heidelberg, 1816; Lechtlen, de culpa Judœ, 1813; have
summed up from various stand-points the diverse opinions concerning Judas
and his crime.

[167]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt third

once the extreme of unbelief and of malice. Even though
he had been merely a bold revolutionary, in the first con-
ception of his fearful project, it is certain that he ended
as the vilest of criminals. The money he dared to ask and
to receive stained his hands. It makes us forget other
aims in themselves most criminal, though of a superior
order, that might have deceived and led him on at first,
and he stands for impartial history the most odious of
assassins, and for the Christian Church the most infa-
mous of apostates.

He turned, then, under the favour of night, towards
the house of Caiphas. His heart, evil as it was, must have
beat strong, when, knocking at the door, he asked to be
introduced into the presence of his Master's enemies.
The welcome they gave him encouraged him, no doubt,
and before the great assembly that rejoiced in his plan,^
he recovered all that cool energy that generally character-
ised him. His cynical impudence even yet revolts us:
" What will you give me," he said, " and I will deliver
Him unto you ? " It was a rather daring speech to make
to an organised body. But the wretch felt himself on the
level of such judges, and he dealt with them without much
show of respect. But the direct step he had just taken
was an irreparable fault. Whatever the reply of the San-
hedrim might be, he had gone too far to turn back. The
chief priests saw this clearly. Since Judas was irrevo-
cably theirs, it was not worth while to show themselves
generous towards him. They offered him thirty pieces of
silver, or thirty shekels,^ nearly nineteen dollars of our

''St. Mark xiv, 11, and St. Luke xxii, 5, àKoitravres èxô.pr)<rav.

»The sacred shekel — the Sanhedrim naturally paid with this money —
was a piece of money introduced into Palestine after the Maccabees. It
usually bore on one side a representation of a censer or of some vessel with
this inscription : Shekel of Israel, and on the other an olive branch and three
flowers with these words : Jerusalem the Holy. The shekel was worth about

[168]

BOOK I] JUDAS AND THE SANHEDRIM

money. This was the value commonly attributed to a
slave.^ Pharisaical pride deemed Jesus of no greater
worth. It is not said that Judas insisted on receiving
more.

The fact of having accepted so mean a recompense for
so great a crime reveals the coarseness of these peasant
natures, suddenly elevated to a vocation of which they
were not worthy. Early education always withholds men
of a certain class, however wicked and despicable they may
seem, from descending so low.

Judas, disappointed, no doubt, but not humiliated at
having obtained so little, left the assembly, giving his
word that he would soon find a sure opportunity of deliv-
ering up the Master. As he took his way back to Beth-
any, across the valley of the Sons of Hinnon and the
sombre gorges of the Cedron, he must have felt the need
of pressing the price of his crime more than once against
his heart, to trample on the remorse that rose within him.
As St. Luke tells us, Satan had entered into him.

sixty-two cents. <S/. Mattheio xxvi, 15, alone gives the price offered. The
other two Synoptics say in a general way that they gave him silver, àpyvpwv.
St. Matthew was certainly happy in finding in this figure the fulfihnent of a
prophecy, but there is no reason for believing that it was the prophecy that
suggested the figure, and that perhaps Judas received much more. For a
man of humble circumstances, and at that epoch, nineteen dollars was still
a considerable sum.
9 Exod. xxi, 32.

[169]

CHAPTER II
PREPARATIONS FOR THE PASSOVER

Thursday Morning — The Absence from Jerusalem —
The Last Supper and the Jewish Passover — St.
John and the Synoptics. (St. Matthew xxvi, 17-
19; St. Mark xiv, 12-16; St. Luke xxii, 7-13.)

We know that among the members of the Sanhedrim
Jesus counted several devoted followers. It is possible
that these were not summoned with the others to Caiphas*
house, but if, in spite of that, they were aware of the
result of this special meeting and of Judas' criminal con-
duct, to bear this information to the Master was their
first duty. But the latter had not to wait for their in-
formation. Before and better than any. He knew the
traitor's malice, and His divine eye, unseen itself, fol-
lowed his every step.

On Thursday morning, therefore, instead of returning
to Jerusalem, He made known His intention of remaining
in Bethany, or on the Mount of Olives, alone with God,
His Father, in that devout spiritual contemplation that
prepares for the sacrifice. The people, who were un-
aware of the mysterious iniquity accomplished during the
night, vainly waited for Him in the Temple, unable to
account for His absence. After the triumphs of the pre-
ceding days, they were far from suspecting that a catas-
trophe was imminent. And yet His enemies had so well
prepared it, that it was no longer possible for Jesus to re-
appear in Jerusalem without at once provoking it. The

[170]

BOOK I] THE PASSOVER

Victim will therefore hold Himself aloof for this day so
that He shall be immolated only on the morrow, at the
very hour of the great Paschal sacrifice, in accordance
with the providential order and in beautiful harmony with
the prophetical figures.

We possess none of the details of the last moments that
Jesus passed in the midst of His friends, in that house in
Bethany where He had experienced such holy joy. With
what emotions His soul must have been stirred as He en-
tered beneath that hospitable roof to sleep there, at the
age of thirty-three. His last sleep on earth, with the clear
prospect of going, after these few hours of rest, to endure
the hard labour of His Passion.

As it was necessary to begin the preparations for the
Paschal meal on the morning of the thirteenth of Nisan,
the Apostles, seeing Jesus inattentive to this matter, said
to Him : " Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to eat
the Pasch? " This question, asked in the presence of all,
was especially interesting to Judas. It may even be that
it was he that provoked it, desirous of keeping his word
to the Sanhedrim. If so, he must have been disagreeably
surprised to find himself, first of all, supplanted in the
office of steward, or purveyor to the Apostolic circle. For
it is Peter and John that Jesus charged to make prepara-
tions for the Paschal meal. The traitor must not be suf-
fered to do his work either before or during this supreme
and fraternal reunion. And hence we see the Master tak-
ing precautions in His language that Judas may remain
in ignorance even of the spot where it is to take place.
Peter and John are assuredly faithful friends, their dis-
cretion is well known, and yet the name of the host who is
to receive them shall not be confided to them. It is only
when they are in Jerusalem that they shall know it. The
rest of the Apostles shall remain ignorant of it.

[171]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt third

" Go ye into the city," He replied to them, " and there
shall meet you a man carrying a pitcher of water ; follow
him, and whithersoever he shall go in say to the master of
the house: The Master saith: My time is near at hand;
where is my refectory where I may eat the Pasch with my
disciples. And he will show you a large dining room fur-
nished ; and there prepare ye for us." ^

As Jesus counts with certainty on this apartment,
known in all the details of its furnishings, and of vast pro-
portions, some have thought that He had engaged it be-
forehand, so as not to be in a difficulty at the last moment.
Thus He has them ask not if there is a large apartment
disengaged, but where it is. In any hypothesis, the pro-
prietor must have been a faithful proselyte, for they speak
to him of the Master and of His time as if he were accus-
tomed to these expressions familiar to Jesus' intimates.

It is not, however, by previous agreement, as many have
supposed, that the Apostles will encounter the servant at
the gate of the city. Jesus gives His information after
having appealed to His divine prescience.^ At the moment
when, in each family, water is being drawn to purify the
houses for the Paschal feast. He beholds the servant of the
host whom He has chosen going down towards the foun-
tain of Siloe. If Peter and John set out without delay,
they will meet him on the way at the gates of the city.
They will have only to follow him. At his master's house
the Paschal meal is to take place.

' St. Matthew, although he does not mention in his narration the man
carrying the pitcher, conveys the exact idea, and clearly shows that Jesus
did not wish to make knowTi the name of the man at whose house He was to
receive hospitality. "Go ye ... to a certain man," he has the Saviour
say: irphs rhv Suva. The other Synoptics, better than he, explain how
He was able to designate the man without naming him.

2 This is seen in the entire story as told by St. Mark and St. Luke. Thus
Jesus had seen from afar that Lazarus was dead, that the son of the royal
oflBcer of Capharnaum was cured, etc.

[ 172]

BOOK I] THE PASSOVER

Everything happened as Jesus had foretold it. While
the rest of the Apostles and Judas himself, somewhat
worried by the new attitude the Master had assumed tow-
ards him, remained in Bethany, Peter and John came to
the city, found the banquet-hall, and were hastening to
make everything ready. The preliminaries of the Paschal
meal comprised the presentation of the Paschal lamb in
the court of the Temple, where the head of the family had
to assist the Lévites in immolating it, the preparation of
the unleavened bread, and finally the purchase of the bitter
herbs. This was a great deal of work for the short time
that remained before . nightfall. But the two disciples
willingly redoubled their efforts, proud of taking the Mas-
ter's place on so solemn an occasion.

Their mission was not without its symbolic meaning.
It has been thought with reason that they owed to their
respective characters the honour of having been chosen to
represent, Peter, the love that acts, and John, the love that
contemplates, and to personify thus the two effective ele-
ments of all religious development in mankind. Was not
Peter, moreover, the already appointed head of the new
society.'* John had been assigned him as an auxiliary, to
show that, in the course of the ages, the episcopate should
have, by divine right, its official place beside the author-
ised representative of Jesus Christ, and should partici-
pate in his paternity, in his priesthood, and in his au-
thority.

Here arises the difficult question, which, having divided
the interpreters ^ of all times, will owe, perhaps, its best
solution to the most recent criticism : did Jesus* last supper

'See Schiirer, De Controv. Paschalihus, 1867; Robinson, Harm, of the
Gospels, p. 212-223; Greswell, Dissertationes; Wieseler, Chronol. Syn.;
Tischendorf, Synop. Ev.; Bleek, Dissert, ilb. den Monatstag des Todes
Christi; Kirchner, Die Judische Passahfaier, 1870; Godet, Comment, sur
Saint Jean, vol. iii, pp. 405-625.

[173]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

with His Apostles coincide with the Jewish Pasch, or did
it precede it? Was it on the thirteenth or the fourteenth
of Nisan that it took place? ^

According to the Synoptics, it seems to have coincided
with it. According to St. John, it preceded it.

For the Synoptics observe that Jesus commanded that
the repast should be prepared on the first day of the un-
leavened bread (of the Azymes) when they sacrificed the
Pasch.^ Therefore the meal with which that same day
was closed was the Paschal meal, falling on the fourteenth
of Nisan. This can hardly be denied, since the Apostles
had asked the Master where they should prepare the Pasch
which He was to eat, and since, in fact, according to St.
Matthew, they did prepare the Pasch.^ Hence, that even-
ing we see Jesus sitting at table with the Twelve, and
beginning the sacred banquet with these words, preserved
in St. Luke ^ : " With desire have I desired to eat this
pasch with you."

At the same time, as we shall see, we may be justified in
finding in the story of the Last Supper some trace of the
principal rites that characterised the Paschal meal. Thus,
after the solemn benediction, the obligatory prelude of
this symbolical banquet, the Master will have the first

♦With regard to the day of the week, the four Gospels agree in saying
that it was Thursday, and that Jesus was crucified on Friday. St. Matthew
(xx\Ti, 62) indicates clearly that the burial of Jesus took place on the day of
the Preparation or the ■napaa-Ketrfi, and St. Mark (xv, 42) confirms this
when he explains, for the sake of his Roman readers, the meaning of the
word irapaffKev-l), 8 icrrip irpoaâ^^arov, that is, the eve of the Sabbath.
St. Luke (xxiii, 54) in turn, observes that Jesus was laid in the tomb on the
day of the Parasceve, at the hour when the Sabbath was about to begin.
Finally, St. John (xLx, 31 ) says that, as the crucifixion occurred on the eve
of the Sabbath, they decided not to leave the bodies hanging on the crosses.
The only diflBculty, therefore, is to find out on what date of Nisan this Friday
fell.

* St. Matt, xxvi, 17 and parallel passage.

• St. Matt, xxvi, 17 and 19, and parallel passages.
' St. Luke xxii, 15.

[ n4 ]

BOOK I] THE PASSOVER

chalice of wine ^ passed around, and when the supper is
ended, the customary chalice of benediction.^ Thus,
again, according to St. Mark and St. Matthew, He will
chant, at the end, the hymn which was doubtless the last
part of the great Hallel. Indeed, had we no other infor-
mation than that of the Synoptics, we would have had to
acknowledge, in spite of every difficulty, that Jesus ate
the Pasch on the fourteenth of Nisan, after the sun had
set, that He was crucified on the fifteenth, the first of the
seven days of the Paschal week, which date fell that year
on Friday, and that, having remained in the sepulchre the
sixteenth, He rose again on Sunday, the seventeenth of
the same month.

The most difficult of all would be to admit that, on the
day of the Passover, which was holy above all other days,
wholly given up to prayer and to the ceremonies in the
Temple, Jesus was led before three different tribunals,
and nailed to the Cross with His two companions in suf-
fering. This is a moral impossibility which outweighs all
the data of the Synoptics. So much so that if — which we
do not believe — their texts were irreconcilable, we would
have to conclude that, in spite of them, St. John is cer-
tainly right. We cannot believe that the crucified re-
mained on the cross during the feast, and that the feast
had been inaugurated with the crucifixion. This is in-
admissible.

As a matter of fact, the Fourth Gospel clearly indi-
cates that Jesus took His last meal on the thirteenth, in
the evening, regardless of the Paschal precept ; that He
died on the fourteenth, at the moment when they were im-
molating the victims in the Temple, about three o'clock in
the afternoon ; that He remained in the sepulchre the fif-

« St. Luke xxii, 17.

^St. Luke xxii, 20; I Cor. x, 16; xi, 25.

[ 175 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt third

teenth, a day doubly sabbatic that year, since by a happy
coincidence, it was at the same time the first day of the
Paschal solemnity, and also the ordinary weekly Sabbath ;
and, finally, that He rose again on the sixteenth, Sunday,
or the first day after the Sabbath. In a phrase ^^ which is
absolutely conclusive, it is asserted that the Last Supper
took place before the festival day of the Pasch. There is
nothing either in the detailed account of the banquet, or
in the report of the magnificent discourses that constitute
its charm to lead us to believe that the city of Jerusalem
was, at that moment, fulfilling the Paschal duty. More-
over, the narrator observes that when Jesus said to Judas,
at the end of the meal : " That which thou dost, do quick-
ly," the Apostles thought that He was bidding him buy
what was needed for the festival day,^^ and consequently
for the preparation of the Paschal banquet. Continuing
this same thought he shows us the Jews, on the next morn-
ing, refusing to enter the praetorium of Pilate, that they
might not be defiled, but that they might eat the Pasch.^^
Therefore, according to him, it was that evening only that
the festival began with the sacred repast. That is why
he calls the day on which Jesus was crucified the Para-
sceve of the Pasch.^^ The following day is for him an
exceptionally solemn Sabbath,^ ^ doubtless because it was
at the same time the Sabbath and the first day of the
festival.

In an indirect way, many other reasons seem to sustain
the chronology of St. John. Thus the law ^^ forbade the
Israelite to go beyond the door of his house from the time
of the Paschal meal until the next morning. Now, not
only Judas, but Jesus and His disciples, had they really

J» St. John xiii, 1. ^^ St. John xix, 14.

>i St. John xiii, 29. " St. John xix, 31.

12 St. John x^^ii, 28. " Exodus, xii, 22.

[176]

BOOK I] THE PASSOVER

eaten the legal Pasch, would seem to have paid no atten-
tion to this prescription. The Sanhedrim itself, strict
observer as it was of the Sabbatic repose, would seem to
have had no scruple, after the Paschal repast, at an hour
when every family was obliged to remain in pious recol-
lection indoors, in sending its armed servants out of the
city to seize upon Jesus ; it would seem to have held its
judiciary sitting that night, to have tried and judged an
accused man, and, on the next day, to have laid its com-
plaint before the Roman procurator, in spite of the fact
that it had solemnly resolved not to cause the arrest dur-
ing the festival, when all the people would be in the
streets of Jerusalem, through fear of an uprising.^ ^ Tliis
is not probable.^ ^ But, further, according to the Syn-
optics, on the day on which Jesus was crucified, Simon of
Cyrene returned from the fields, Joseph of Arimathea
bought a new winding-sheet, the women procured oint-
ments, and Nicodemus, with some friends, took care to en-
tomb the body of the Crucified, after having embalmed
it with a hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes which they
brought to the sepulchre. On Friday, therefore, they
might engage in these works, which were forbidden, ac-
cording to the Mosaic law, on a day of Sabbatic repose,
such as the first day of the Paschal week. On the con-
trary, when evening arrives all work ceases. Friends are
forced regretfully to leave the dead half embalmed, and
the entombment uncompleted: the law forbids them to do
more and obliges the most zealous to shut themselves up in
recollection and in absolute repose. Enemies even lay down
their arms at the approach of the great feast which is
about to begin. The law dispenses the crucified from fur-

" St. Matt, xxvi, 5.

"Cf. the treatise Beza, v, 2, and in general all the Tahnudic information
concerning the Sabbatic rest and that of the festival days.

[177]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

ther sufferings, and demands that they be mutilated in
order that the spectacle of their agony may not sadden the
first joys of the solemnity. All this is a series of decisive
arguments in favour of St. John.

At any rate, this divergence has appeared so visibly
insurmountable that certain interpreters have proposed a
radical solution, by admitting that the Synoptics and St.
John spoke of two different meals. In the fourth Gospel
it was a banquet held on the evening of the thirteenth, at
Bethany or elsewhere, and in the three others the Paschal
meal taken on the fourteenth in Jerusalem. But so daring
a hypothesis, even though not absolutely untenable, would
not suppress the grave difficulty to be found in making
the judgment, the execution, and the entombment of Je-
sus coincide with the first day of the Paschal solemnity ;
nor would it explain the scruples of the Jews, who re-
frained from entering Pilate's house, in view of the religi-
ous repast of which they were to partake that evening.
Besides, can we admit that St. John did not intend to re-
late the story of Jesus' last supper, when we see him
setting forth, one by one, in the account of the Master's
final discourses, the proofs of His love that persevered to
the end.'' To accept this explanation would be brutally
to break the visible chain of the various clauses of this
admirable document, and to misconstrue one of its most
delicate and most veracious features. For this succession
of discourses that continue without interruption clearly
indicates the affectionate disposition of the Master at this
time when, to delay the hour of separation. His heart ever
finds a word to add to His farewell as father and as friend.
However, the difficulty is completely solved by Jesus' words
to Peter ; " The cock shall not crow, till thou deny me
thrice." ^^ This night, then, is the only one before Peter's
18 St. John xiii, 38.

[ 178 ]

BOOK I] THE PASSOVER

fall, and it is, in truth, of Jesus' last supper that the
fourth Gospel treats, as well as the other three.

We must, therefore, accept the difficulty just as it is,
and, unless we wish to admit a flagrant contradiction
between them, we must try to harmonise the Synoptics
and St. John. Of the two chronological indications
which we must categorically maintain, which one must
we explain.''

We acknowledge that neither of the two can entirely
withstand the good-will or the courage of interpreters.
Thus, in St. John, they propose to accept those embar-
rassing words, before the festival day of the Pasch, as
if the Evangelist, desiring to adapt himself to the manner
of speech of the Greeks, for whom he wrote, represented
as beginning on Friday the festival which was inaugu-
rated at sunset the evening before. They also explain
the equally conclusive passage,^ ^ in which the Jews fear
lest, in entering Pilate's house, they may become impure
and be unable to eat the Pasch, as treating not of the
Paschal lamb, but of the other victims, and in particular
of the chagiga, which was eaten on the second evening of
the festival. The day of Our Saviour's death, in that case,
was called the preparation of the Pasch, merely to indicate
that it was the eve of the Paschal Sabbath. The command
given to Judas would be understood either of the prepara-
tions to be made for the sacrifices of the following day, or
of the distribution of alms to be made ready since they
were on the eve of a great solemnity. Finally, as far as
the prescriptions of the repose for the first day of the
festival are concerned, these might have been less severe
than for the last, or even for any ordinary Sabbath.^''

Ï9 St. John xviii, 28.

2" The text, however, is formal in Numbers xxviii, 16 : "In the first month,
on the fourteenth day of the month shall be the Pasch of the Lord, and on

[179]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt third

Several passages of the Talmud seem to prove that there
were various practices on this point. "^ Besides, even in
St. John, we see the chief priests ordering their servants,
during the feast of Tabernacles, to lay hold on Jesus — it
is not said, indeed, that they were armed — and even pro-
posing to stone Him on the day of the Dedication. If
the Sanhedrim did not wish to take Him during the feast,
it was not through respect for the Sabbatic law, but
through fear of a popular uprising. As for the execu-
tion of the accused, it Avas the work not of the Jews, but
of the Roman soldiers. Finally, the testimony of the Tal-
mud, which is invoked, has no real value, for, being later
than the Gospel, it may be less inspired by the Rabbinical
tradition than by the apparent opinion of St. John.

Even though these solutions might seem sufficient to
minds that are not very exacting, there would still remain
the moral impossibility already mentioned: Jesus and the
two thieves could not have been crucified on the day of the
Passover. On this point the Rabbis are of our opinion,
and they assert ^^ that Jesus after having sought an ad-
vocate in vain for four days was finally tried, stoned, and
hanged upon the cross before the opening of the festival.

It were better, therefore, for us to make a close study
of the words of the Synoptics. In reality, there is only
one text found therein that forbids us to place the death
of Jesus on the eve of the Passover, namely, that of St.
Matthew and St. Mark.^^ " On the first day of the un-
leavened bread (the Azymes) when they sacrificed the

the fifteenth the solemn feast; seven days shall they eat unleavened bread.
And the first day of them shall be venerable and holy ; you shall not do any
servile work therein," etc. (See Exodus xii, 18; Lev. xxiii, 5.)

21 See the Mishna, treatise, Yovi Tob, 5, 2; Megilla, i, 5; Sabbath, 23, 1.

"Sanhed., 6, 2: "Traditio est vespera Paschatis suspensmn fuisse
Jesum."

"St. Matt, xxvi, 17; St. Mark xiv, 12.

[ 180 ]

BOOK I] THE PASSOVER

pasch the disciples said to Jesus : Where wilt thou that
we prepare for thee to eat the Pasch?" St. Luke em-
ployed a vaguer form and said' merely : " the day of the
unleavened bread came." ^^ At an early date modern exe-
getes thought that the Greek text ought to be translated
as if r]iM€pa irpooTï] had been written for rj/^epa irporepa, and
that we should understand not the frst day of the Azymes,
but the day before the Azymes. ^^ Quite recently A. Resch,
in a very interesting work on the Gospels,^^ confirms this
solution of the difficulty. The Hebrew text, and not the
Aramaic, he claims, was the common source of the Synop-
tics, and tliis contained the word DTp , which should be
translated, not f,rst, but before. Hence the difference.

There is something very significant in the fact that, in
addition to this passage, the Synoptics seem, inconsist-
ently, it is true, but all the more decisively, to suppose that
Jesus was put to death on the eve of the Passover. Thus,
they recount, as taking place on the day of the crucifix-
ion, a succession of incidents which are incompatible with
the repose and the sanctity of the first day of the Azy-
mes : The meetings of the Sanhedrim, the interviews with
Pilate, the appearance before Herod, Simon of Cyrene re-
turning from the fields, Joseph of Arimathea purchasing
the shroud, the pious women deciding to forego the em-
balming because the Sabbatic rest would begin with the
setting of the sun, Jesus bidding them seek the banquet-
hall at once and, as it were, ahead of time, for the reason
that His hour is at hand, in other words, because on the
morrow it would be too late. Finally, the following ex-

** St. Luke xxii, 7 : "^HKQiv 5è ■^ Tjfiépa rûv à^vfioop,
2' We have seen that this meaning of irptiiri) was not unknown.
20 A. Resch, Aussercan. Paralleltext zu den Evang., Leipzig, 1895. The
word Dip was WTongly accepted in the sense of irpûros in the Septuagint
Job xxiii, 8. According to Resch, the original Hebrew was: "Before the
day of the Azymes, when they sacrificed the Pasch."

[ 181 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt third

pressions : " the next day, which followed the day of prepa-
ration," to designate the day when Jesus was in the tomb ;
" when evening was now come (because it was the Para-
sceve, that is, the day before the Sabbath)," to indicate
the hour of Jesus' burial, seem to prove completely that,
in the Synoptics as well as in St. John, the day of the
Crucifixion was, in truth, that which preceded the Paschal
festivities.

This, however, does not prevent them from considering
Jesus' last supper to be the Paschal meal. On this point,
their assertion is irreducible, and we must search for the
reasons they had for speaking thus.

These reasons may be reduced to two: either certain
usages justified some classes among the Jews in celebrat-
ing the Passover a day in advance, or, even without these
usages, Jesus may have decided, in view of His imminent
death, intentionally to anticipate the repast with which
He meant to bring the ancient Passover to an end and to
inaugurate the new. In these hypotheses we need take no
account of St. John, who, throughout his narrative, makes
not a single allusion to the Paschal supper. This silence,
moreover, is not any more surprising than that which he
preserves concerning the institution of the Eucharist.

Some have therefore thought that Jesus could legally
celebrate the Passover on the evening of the thirteenth,
because' there were already, at this epoch, two methods of
determining the first day of the moon. The rabbinistic or
traditionalist Jews, as they were called, fixed the date of
the new moon according to astronomical calculations, and
the Karaite, or Scripturalist Jews took as their rule the
empiric observation of the phases of the planet.^^ But
it was possible that, in cloudy weather, its new and almost

" See Iken, Dissert. Philologico-Theolog., vol. ii, p. 337, et seq., dissert.
9, 10, 11; Burman, Harm. Ev. in Matl., ch, xxi.

[ 182 ]

BOOK I] THE PASSOVER

invisible crescent might escape the eye of the witnesses
who sought it in the sky, while it could not deceive the
rigorous calculations of the learned, who determined its
appearance mathematically according to their charts. A
divergen>ce in the fixing of the Passover was, therefore,
always possible, since there was danger of not seeing the
crescent of the moon until the day after it had really
appeared. Of the two calculations, if they did not agree
that year, we may believe that Jesus had chosen that of
the Rabbis, which was the more exact. -^ He therefore
celebrated the Passover on Thursday with the tradition-
alist Jews, leaving the Scripturalists, who were the more
numerous, to celebrate it on Friday. This most ingenious
solution would be satisfactory, did not Maimonides, who
furnishes us the knowledge of these two methods of obser-
vation, say that they commenced only after the destruc-
tion of the Temple and the dissolution of the Sanhedrim.
Other exegetes have more happily imagined that, inas-
much as the priests were unable to sacrifice, in three hours*
time, the two hundred and fifty thousand lambs ^^ needed
by the assembled families for the eating of the Passover,
permission was granted, in order to avoid the overcrowd-
ing of the Temple, to the Jews who came from elsewhere
to eat their Paschal lamb on the thirteenth, whereas those
of Jerusalem ate it on the fourteenth. If Ebrard, in ad-
vancing this ingenious hypothesis, had been able to give
some proof in support of it, he would, no doubt, have put
an end to the discussion ^^ ; for this, at least, would ex-

's See Michaelis on St. John xiii.

"According to Josephus (B. J., vi, 9, 3), the exact figure given by the
priests to Cestius, who wanted to know it, was 256,500.

8" Ebrard, who had put forth this hypothesis in the first edition of his book,
Kritik der Evang. Geschichte, sacrifices it in the second, § 92, for the want
of proof to sustain it and because the irpérri rûv àCi/xui/ (St. Matt, xxvi, 17),
it seems to him, cannot be understood of the thirteenth of Nisan.

[ 183 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

plain everything. For, of the two evenings on which the
symbohcal meal might be taken, Jesus had selected the
first, like all the Galileans ; the chief priests and their ad-
herents reserved the second for themselves. It was the
privilege of the inhabitants of the Ploly City to abide in
absolute legality, and they did not fail to use it.

Finally, many, and their solution seems not the least
satisfactory, have observed that, the Sabbatic prescrip-
tions being extremely rigorous, especially since the inno-
vations of the Pharisees, it was materially impossible to
celebrate a great solemnity and a Sabbath without an in-
terval. This would have been to expose themselves to
great annoyance and to most painful privations. Hence,
it had been determined — and they assure us that this is
still practised among the Jews — that if the first day of
the Azymes fell on Friday, it would be postponed until the
next day, the Sabbath, in order to avoid forty-eight hours
of absolute rest. Such was the case the year Jesus died.
It may even be that St. Luke means to denounce the vio-
lence done to the Mosaic law by the Pharisees, when he
says : " The day . . . came, on which it was necessary that
the pasch should be killed." For these words seem to sup-
pose that the obligation still existed notwithstanding the
contrary practice. Jesus accepted neither the exaggera-
tions of the Pharisaical faction in the observance of the
Sabbatic rest, nor the suppression or postponement of the
first day of the Azymes, and, apart from all those who
followed the new interpretation of the law. He celebrated
the Passover on the day on which it really fell. Hence, all
the apparent divergence of the Evangelical narratives.
Jesus ate the Paschal lamb on the fourteenth; the others
ate it on the fifteenth, in order to make one single feast of
the first day of the Azymes and the weekly Sabbath.

Beyond these various hypotheses, there is only one other
[ 184 ]

BOOK I] THE PASSOVER

solution of the difficulty, and that is to conclude simply
that Jesus ate, not the real Passover, the legal meal, which
could take place only on the next day, but what was in-
tended to be a newly instituted Passover. Wishing to be
immolated at the same time as the Paschal lamb. He had
resolved to anticipate the feast commemorative of the past,
and to inaugurate the banquet of the future. By the Mo-
saic rites which He followed, the meal was, indeed, the an-
tique Passover, but it became, also, the new Passover, by
the sacrament which He then instituted. In this explana-
tion, the Apostles had thought only of preparing every-
thing for Friday, the fourteenth of Nisan, about the hour
when the first day of the Azymes began. But Jesus sud-
denly declares that the feast shall be that very night,
Thursday. His time is near at hand. He does at that
time what the others will do on the following day. If any-
one is scandalised, events shall prove that he should not be
scandalised. If the lamb cannot be immolated in the Tem-
ple by the priests who have excommunicated the Master
and His disciples, the latter will have recourse to the prac-
tice of the ancients, and Peter, delegated by Jesus as the
head of the Apostolic family, shall immolate it himself at
the house of the host who receives them. After all, what
is the value of the symbolic lamb in the feast in which the
true Lamb offered up Himself.'*

The Synoptics may, therefore, have judged that our
Lord's last supper had been for them the true Paschal
meal. This is an appreciation which St. John refrains
from contradicting, although he states clearly, not unnec-
essarily, that the Jews had not yet eaten their Passover
when Jesus was put to death. Whichever supposition we
may adopt among these last, which in reality are quite
natural, we always arrive at this result, generally admitted
nowadays, that Jesus, having taken His last supper with

[ 185 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

His disciples on the night of the thirteenth, was crucified
on the fourteenth, at the very hour when the Paschal lamb
was being immolated. It was, then, with justice that the
Apostle after having designated the night of the institu-
tion of the Eucharist, not as that of the Paschal meal, but
as that of the betrayal by Judas, could say of Jesus dying
the next day : " Our Pasch is sacrificed ! " To be sure, he
might have called Jesus " our Pasch " because of His pro-
pitiation, without necessarily alluding to the day and hour
of His death. But the argument which he derives from
the unleavened bread is absolutely conclusive in favour of
St. John. The exclusive use of the Azymes began, in fact,
on the evening of the fourteenth as soon as the Paschal
lamb was sacrificed. If Jesus had died only on the fif-
teenth, the allusion made by the Apostle would have no
meaning. When all was ready in Jerusalem, the Master
took leave of His friends in Bethany. It may be that His
unusually sad and tender words of farewell gave them to
understand that He was not to return.

The sun was setting fast. The little group turned tow-
ards the Holy City, unconscious of the rude tempest that
there awaited it.

[186]

CHAPTER III

THE LAST SUPPER, AND THE DE-
PARTURE OF THE BETRAYER

The Jews and the Paschal Meal — The First Words
OF Jesus — The First Chalice — The Announcement
OF THE End — The Dispute for the First Place —
The Washing of the Feet — The Unnamed Be-
trayer— Peter's Impatience and John's Question
— Judas Feels that He is Unmasked. (St. Luke
xxii, 14-30; St. John xiii, 1-30; St. Matthew xxvi,
20-25; St. Mark xiv, 17-21.) ^

Whether Jesus was justified by an accepted custom,
or simply by His own authority, in anticipating the
Paschal meal by one day, we consider it certain, then, that
it was the traditional supper that He meant to eat on
Thursday, the eve of the real feast of the Passover.^

It is not uninteresting to read in the Talmud concern-
ing the rites which were faithfully observed at the Paschal
meal. This knowledge of Jewish customs ^ will aid the
reader in understanding the narratives that follow.

It was in groups of ten, at least, or of twenty, at most,

* By a coincidence, which once more shows the sincerity of our Evangelists,
St. John and St. Luke join hands here, as if by chance, and their two narra-
tives {St. Luke xxii, 24-30; St. John xiii, 1-20), in order to have their natural
meaning and succession, ought to be united in one.

^ St. John xiii, 1, is explicit: irpb t^s éoprrjs.

«See Green, The Hebrew Feast, 1886; Kaiser, O. T.„Theol., 1894;
Stanley, Hist, of the Jewish Church, vol. ii, and Schurer, Uber, (payeîy rh
ird(Tx<^> Giessen, 1883.

[ 187 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

that the members of each family were supposed to assem-
ble. The table being ready, each one took his place. The
father took the seat of honour. In Egypt, the Hebrews
had eaten the Paschal lamb standing; for in those days
theirs was the attitude of servants and of slaves. Later,
they began to eat it lying down, like free men, and even like
kings, according to the expression of the Rabbis."* The
Paschal meal had, besides, assumed in the course of time,
greater proportions than in the beginning, and it would
have been difficult to continue standing throughout its
whole duration. The guests took their places on low-stand-
ing couches, four or five on each divan, the left arm resting
on a cushion, the right arm free,^ and the feet placed
behind, so as to rest almost on the floor. The women who
were admitted to the banquet simply sat down, as much
through modesty as to signify their inferiority. It does
not appear that there was even one woman present at Jesus'
last supper. When the assembly was numerous, three
couches were placed near together so as to form three
sides of a square. The table was set up in the vacant
space between them, parallel with the couches, leaving one
side open, through which the guests were served. Of the
three divans forming the triclinium, the most honourable
was the middle one. On each divan, the most desirable
place was the one where the left arm could rest on the bal-
ustrade that surrounded the couch, and was purposely
made rather high at that part. The other guests had to
repose on pillows only, which were less comfortable.®

* Maimonides, Pesackim, x, 1.

» When St. John is said to have recHned upon our Lord's bosom at the
Last Supper, we are to understand that he occupied the cushion next to Jesus.

•This will explain farther on how St. Peter, although keeping his privi-
leged place among the Apostles, could have been far enough away from the
Master to be obliged to appeal to St. John, when he wished to learn the name
of the traitor, and how Judas, on the contrary, was near enough to Jesus to
receive directly from Him the piece of bread which designated him as the

[188]

BOOK l]

THE LAST SUPPER

Each one took his place according to rules of precedence
which were rigorously observed, and a first cup of wine was
poured out. Then the head of the family rising, solemn-
ly pronounced the first benediction : " This day," he said,
" recalls our deliverance. It commemorates our departure
out of Egypt. Blessed be the Lord, the Eternal, Who
created the fruit of the vine ! " And, having drunk from
the chalice, he passed it to the guests, who drank in
turn.

At this moment, a basin and water were brought into
the room, for the accustomed purification, and each one

criminal in question. Jesus must have presided on the middle divan and
consequently have reclined on the place to the left. Peter, to whom be-
longed the second place, presided perhaps on the couch to the right of the
Master, and was thus at the junction of the two. James, no doubt, must
have presided on the third divan. John thus had the fourth place, immedi-
ately at the right of the Master. As for Judas, he was the last or the next to
the last on the divan over which James presided. We may imagine the
arrangement to be similar to that in the figure below :

Central Couch

John

Jesus

Peter

Table

Judas

Philip

Simon

Bartholomew

Thaddeus

Thomas

James, Son of

Alpheus

Matthew

James

Singularly enough the Master was thus between the disciple "whom He
loved," and Judas, "who was going to betray him."

[189]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt third

washed his hands. The bitter herbs, which were meant to
commemorate the food of Egypt, were served immediately
afterwards/ A portion of them was eaten, with or with-
out the seasoning called charoset,^ which also had its sym-
bolical meaning. It consisted, according to some, of a
mixture of water and vinegar ; according to others, of a
strongly spiced preparation of vinegar, figs, dates, and
almonds. This food, wliich was a kind of rather adhesive
pulp, recalled by its colour, it is said, the clay which the
Hebrews had long before laboriously moulded, in the con-
struction of the cities of the Pharaohs, their oppressors.
After this, the unleavened bread was passed around. This
might be of wheat, of spelt, of barley, of oats, or of rye,
but never of rice or of maize.^ Ordinarily, however, it
was made of wheat flour and very clear water, in carefully
cleansed vessels, without having time to ferment. It was
round and flat in shape. It had the taste of our modern
sea-biscuit, and recalled the bread of affliction eaten in
Egypt, at the time of the precipitous flight towards the
Red Sea.

Finally, the Paschal lamb was brought in and laid in
the middle of the table, before the head of the family.
Immolated ordinarily in the Temple, in accordance Avith
the rites commemorative of the past, it was served Avhole,
with head, feet, and intestines. These last were fastened to
its sides, while it was being roasted, and the lamb, accord-
ing to the expression of the Rabbis, thus had the air of
a soldier armed from head to foot. In holding it over the
fire, a spit made of pomegranate wood was used, which,
fitted with a small cross-piece, had the exact form of a

'Lettuce, radish, endive, parsley, cresses, etc.

8 It is probably this condiment that is meant in St. John xiii, 26, and in
St. Matth. xx\n, 23. The books of Moses do not mention it, but it was none
the less indispensable for the Paschal meal.

^ Pesachim ii, 5.

[ 190 ]

BOOK I] THE LAST SUPPER

cross. St. Justin ^^ found in this another point of resem-
blance between the symbolic lamb and the true Lamb,
Jesus Christ.

For the second time wine was poured into the chalice,
and, in keeping with the precept of Moses,^^ the son asked
the father to explain the signification of the feast. There-
upon, the father of the family related in detail all that his
people had endured in Egypt, how they had been delivered
from servitude, and he intoned the Hallel, which the whole
assembly began to chant, beginning with the psalm:
" Praise the Lord, ye children, praise ye the name of the
Lord," ^^ to the end of the dithyramb celebrating the de-
parture from Egypt and the deliverance of the house of
Jacob from the hands of a barbarous people.

It was after this that the Paschal lamb was cut into
pieces and eaten. A third cup of wine again passed
around, and, a little later, a fourth. Four psalms ^^ were
chanted, of which the first two expressed the more per-
sonal sentiments of confidence and gratitude to Jehovah,
while the last two resumed the enthusiastic tone of the
festival. Then a fifth cup of wine was poured out, and
the whole terminated joyously with the two canticles
which seem more especially to have constituted the great
Hallel. 1^

We must not expect to find all the details of the Mosaic
rite exactly set forth in the accounts that follow. The
Evangelists' chief care was to preserve the Christian side
of the last supper, and not the Jewish side. If they have
left sufl5cient indications to show that the Saviour remained

"The text coming from a learned man, a native of Samaria, is most
remarkable. {Dial. c. Tryph., ch.-xl.)
" Exod. xii, 26.
" Ps. cxii.

" Ps. cxiv, cxv, cxvi, cxvii.
'^Ps. cxxxiv, cxxxv.

[ 191 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paht THmo

submissive to the law unto the end, they give them an im-
portance Httle enough to have us know that although He
celebrated the Jewish Passover, He meant to put an end to
it forever, and to inaugurate the Christian Passover.
Hence, the IMosaic ceremony disappears somewhat in their
narration, as the background recedes in a picture, and the
Eucharistie banquet, alone, absorbs every ray of light.

When He entered into the large and beautiful room pre-
pared for the occasion, Jesus, in deep emotion, began to
give expression to all the affections, regrets, and wishes of
His soul. St. Luke, who, however, does not maintain a
faultless chronological order in this portion of his narra-
tive,^^ agrees with St. John in designating explicitly what
the other two Evangelists have only hinted at. " Jesus,"
says the well-beloved disciple, " at the time of the paschal
banquet,^ ^ knowing that His hour was come, that He
should pass out of this world to the Father; having loved
His own who were in the world. He loved them unto the
end." ^^ The various incidents of the meal, the institution
of the great sacrament. His discourses, and, finally. His
death, were to be the eloquent proof of this. Then ap-
proaching the table. He said, according to St. Luke,
" With desire I have desired to eat this pasch with you
before I suffer." ^^ These affectionate words were full of

1* Inversions must be made in St. Luke's text in order to adapt badly
classed fragments to the ever faultless succession of St. John. But, as may
be seen here, we succeed in doing so without any too great difficulty and in
establishing an order as natural as it is logical.

" This seems to us to be the natural sense of wph rrjs toprris rov irdcrxa-

"It is a bad translation to take els rtXos as signifying "to the end of
His life." The Evangelist does not wish to say that Jesus continues to love
His own until the moment of His death— that is evident enough. We must
understand here that it is a question not of the end of his life, but of the
end or extreme limits of love. Jesus exhausted on that last evening of
farewells everything that the most tender affection is capable of imagin-
ing.

>« It is truly the Paschal meal which is before Him. If it is served on the
eve of the day designated in the Law it is because He wills to eat it with His

[192]

BOOK I] THE LAST SUPPER

sadness. One may not speak of dying without causing his
whole being to tremble with horror. Yet Jesus declares
that He has desired the present moment, however terrible
may be the one that is to follow. This farewell meal
tells Him of His approaching return to His Father, of the
end of His exile here below, of the beginning of the re-
demption of mankind.

Looking at the table on which are spread the dishes of
the banquet, He says with increasing emotion : " I say to
you that from this time, I will not eat it till it be fulfilled
in the Kingdom of God." He had done with types ; and
they were nearing the end. The Apostles have never been
willing to believe that any catastrophe would occur; yet,
in a few hours, they shall see it realised. For Jesus, there
shall be no more banquets on earth. After this one, He
will go to take His place at the banquet of the Eternal
Passover, in the glory of His Father.

According to the ordinary ceremonial, a chalice ^^ full
of wine should have been offered Him then for the solemn
benediction. The rôle of head of the family belonged to
Him by every title. After the benediction, having Him-
self moistened His lips in the chalice. He said : " Take and
divide it among you ; for I say to you that I will not drink
of the fruit of the vine ^o till the Kingdom of God come."
Thus He asserts more clearly than ever the nearness of

own before dying. He anticipates the hour because to-morrow will be
too late.

"The word Se^âfifvos seems to indicate this. This chalice (St. Luke
xxii, 17, voriipiov without the article) is distinguished in importance from
the chalice which He will consecrate a little later, v. 20, rovro jh tror'hpiov.

20 We see in this expression a trace of the official prayer which we have
heard above from the lips of the father of the family. St. Matt, xxvi, 29,
and St. Mark xiv, 25, place these words after the communion of the Apostles.
We hesitate to say that they are right rather than St. Luke xxii, 18, for the
latter mentions what the others have omitted, namely, a first benediction
and distribution of wine, marking the beginning of the Paschal supper.
Here it is St. Luke who seems the more exact.

[193]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

His death. It is not only His last Passover, it is also His
last supper.

The chalice was passed around, perhaps without follow-
ing the usual order of precedence. There were hurt feel-
ings and protestations, and all at once a lively discussion
arose. This was neither the time nor the place for it,
but we know what importance human vanity gives to such
questions, and with what ardour it often claims the most
unfounded rights.

At this moment, each one,^^ before taking his appointed
place, had to go and purify himself at a common ewer.-^
We have said that the order of precedence was rigorously
observed in every Jewish family. But here, perhaps, the
irregular manner in which the chalice had been passed
around at the beginning of the meal may have caused some
apprehension of disagreeable disputes in the seating of
the guests. Jesus, with pity and tenderness, began to re-
peat to the Apostles the beautiful lessons He had taught
them long before, but by which they had profited so lit-
tle : " The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them ; and they
that have power over them are called beneficent." ~^ Flat-
tery and fear frequently go so far as to praise and thank
tyrants for their despotism. Such is the excess of human

21 It is most surprising that certain interpreters should have decided to
place the washing of the feet in the middle or at the end of the meal. This
practice, altogether useless, once the meal is begun, would have been contrary
to all laws of hygiene. It was important that the feet should be clean at
the moment when the guests reclined on the divans, so that they should not
annoy their neighbour with any odour. As a legal purification also, this
practice ought to precede the repast. As for the expression Seînvov yevofiîvov
it may easily mean the meal being served, being ready. See Tobias ii, 1.
The Alexandrine reading yivofiévov solves the difficulty by signifying that the
meal was just beginning.

22 This ewer is mentioned in St. John xiii, 5, with the article rhv viirrripa,
to indicate that it was a necessary piece of furniture in every apartment
where a meal was served.

" Thus one of the Ptolemies had been surnamed Euergefes, benefactor.
Philo also gives this flattering title to Caligula : ffwT)ip koI evepyérj)s.

[ 194 ]

BOOK I] THE LAST SUPPER

folly that it ventures to decorate wicked princes with the
title of benefactors, doubtless for the good that they do,
not to their people, but to themselves. " But you will
not be so," continues Jesus, " but he that is the greater
among you, let him become as the younger, and he that
is the leader, as he that serveth." In the Christian idea
of primacy, one is first in order that he may give, and
not that he may receive. To rise in the hierarchy of the
Church is nothing more than to render more imperative
the obligation of sacrificing one's self for the greater num-
ber. " For which is the greater, he that sitteth at table,
or he that serveth.? Is not he that sitteth at table.? But
I am in the midst of you as he that serveth." ^^

He had no sooner finished speaking than He stood
ready, in sublime humility, to add example to precept.
The better He knew that the Father had given all things
into His hands, and that, having come from God, He was
going to return to Him once more, the more He desired
that this lesson should be a memorable one for all. In
vain did His heart rebel at the thought that He must ren-
der even to the traitor the most humiliating of services.
He quickly divested Himself of those outer garments that
might have impeded Him, arranged a towel about His
loins, and, thus transformed into a servant. He made
ready to wash the feet of His disciples, who gazed upon
Him in amazement. In sketching this incomparable scene,
St. John seems to be even yet under the profound impres-
sion it had produced upon him.

Having poured water into the ewer, Jesus began to ful-
fil His humble ministrations. He went from one to the

^* St. Luke (xxii, 27), does not seem to suspect the precise act to which
this saying of the Lord refers. In fact he says nothing of the washing of
the feet which St. John xiii, 4, seq., has alone related. The documents
from which he draws did not mention this incident. The agreement between
the two Evangelists, across this hiatus, is all the more remarkable.

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LIFE OF CHRIST [paht third

other, and each, astonished and embarrassed, suffered
Hnn to do as He wished. He came at length ^^ to Peter,
who, in his own mind, was indignant on seeing his col-
leagues thus accept the services of the Master. " Lord ! "
he exclaims, as he beholds Jesus on His knees, about to
take his feet into His divine hands, " dost thou wash my
feet? " Jesus gently answers: " What I do, thou knowest
not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." He demands
obedience first of all, and promises an explanation later on.
But Peter sees and understands only this, that his Master
wishes to become his servant, and with still greater energy
he utters an exclamation in which we perceive the move-
ment of a man who forcibly draws back his feet, which
were already in the grasp of Jesus : " Thou shalt never
wash my feet," he says. And Our Lord, with an accent of
kindness, astonished at such obstinacy, and wondering if
He must pass him by, replies : " If I wash thee not, thou
shalt have no part with Me." The threat was peremp-
tory. Peter, although he does riot understand its full
meaning, sees that to refuse longer would be to break with
the Master. This is sufficient to change his determina-
tion and, awaiting no further argument, he exclaims, with
the ardour of a nature that always goes to extremes:
" Lord, not only my feet, but also my hands and my
head." Jesus, always grave and kind, answers : " He that
is washed, needeth not but to wash his feet, but is clean
wholly." 26

'* It does not appear that Jesus began with Peter. Verse 5 indicates the
beginning, as verse 12 does the end of the washing of the feet. The incident
with Peter did not take place at the beginning. The Apostle had been look-
ing on for a while. Hence his indignant protest, and the significant "there-
fore," odv of the Evangelist.

28 It is probable that the disciples had bathed themselves on that day in
order to be the better prepared for the Paschal festival. The only part
of their bodies that could have become soiled on leaving the bath, and
especially on the road, was their feet.

[ 196 ]

BOOK I] THE LAST SUPPER

Jesus' thought immediately rose in rapid gradation
from the act of humility by which He washes His disci-
ples' feet, to the act of supreme expiation and abnegation
by which He will redeem their souls on the morrow,-' The
all-powerful grace of His redemption fills them even in
advance and sanctifies them. He Who now purifies their
feet in the lustral water is pleased also to purify their
whole being by the merits of His approaching immolation.
" And you are clean ! " He exclaims, in the highest sense
of the word ; and then, as if a sorrowful impression re-
minded Him of the truth, and as if His eye had instinc-
tively turned towards Judas, He sadly says : " But not
all." For the moment, the allusion to the traitor goes no
farther. Jesus still shelters him with a goodness the more
merciful, since, while washing his feet, He felt the im-
potency of His grace before so evil a heart.

Then, having resumed the garments which He had
doffed. He sat down to table to begin the repast. The dis-
ciples took their places on their couches, this time without
the courage to engage in any new dispute. The lesson so
heroically given had too deeply moved them. To make its
fruit the surer, Jesus added : " Know you what I have done
to you ? You call Me Master and Lord : and you say well,
for so I am. If then I, being your Lord and Master,
have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one an-
other's feet."^ For I have given you an example, that as I
have done to you, so you do also. Amen, amen, I say to
you : The servant is not greater than his lord, neither is

" We may say that one of the characteristics of Jesus' discourses in St.
John, is that, although beginning with a simple and familiar conversation,
they rise suddenly to the loftiest spheres of the supernatural. The Master
pursues them with their twofold sense transcendent and familiar, and His
thought never fails in clearness.

28 Jesus does not hereby institute a sacrament. He gives an example
in6Seiyfia of humanity and charity to be followed. Accordingly He tells them
not to do what He has done, but as (Kadws) He has done.

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LIFE OF CHRIST [paht thied

tHe apostle greater than he that sent him. If you know
these things, you shall be blessed if you do them." Once
more do they hear that to be the first in dignity is to be the
first for the sacrifice. If, therefore, there is any primacy,
it must be overshadowed by generosity of devotion. Jesus
is King only that He may sacrifice His life in the interests
of His people, absolutely, in His immolation, relatively,
but also really, in the successive acts of charity, affection,
solicitude, with which He pursues, teaches, encourages,
and transforms sinners.

Such shall be the conduct of the true disciples. This
precept cannot be for the wicked one who is preparing to
kill his Master. He who tramples on the most elementary
rights of humanity cannot know the blessed joy of sacri-
fice. " I speak not of you all," continues Jesus ; " I know
whom I have chosen." With all his hypocrisy Judas has
never deceived the Master's eye. Jesus has watched him
descending, step by step, into the abyss of malice where he
is now half buried. If He has suffered him in His pres-
ence until now, it is because it was necessary that the evil
element of the world should be represented even in the
Apostolic circle. It would seem that it is the law, even of
divine things, to admit evil together with the good, the
better to set off the latter, and to show all the power of the
former over our nature when rebellious against the in-
fluence of grace. Moreover, it was said that Jesus' heart
would know every grief. The impudent ingratitude of the
traitor, endured unto the end, was to be not the least bit-
ter. Thus the victim was going to expiate, by personal
experience of their consequences, all the evil affections of
our criminal hearts. " But," says Jesus, " that the Scrip-
ture may be fulfilled: He that eateth bread with Me, shall
lift up his heel against ilf^." For, it is to Him, the
afflicted Just One, and not to David, that these words of

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BOOK I] THE LAST SUPPER

the Psalmist directly refer,-^ and most appropriately, for
they are seated at table, and Judas is eating the bread of
Him Whom he is betraying.

This likening of the traitor to the beast who stealthily
raises his foot against his master while the latter is giv-
ing him his feed, was happily chosen to humble the betray-
er's pride, at the risk of deepening his concentrated and
awful hate. Jesus uses no further policy. He determines to
unmask him. Foreseen and foretold, the treason of the
wicked disciple will fortify the faith of those who have
remained true. Were He to appear not to have suspected
it. He would leave them under the impression that He had
fallen beneath the stroke of an unforeseen conspiracy.
He means to prove before all that, being a willing victim
unto the end, although betrayed and crucified, He was ever
stronger than His oppressors. " At present I tell you be-
fore it come to pass ; that when it shall come to pass, ye
may believe that I am He."

At the same time, in order to trouble the wretch's soul
with one last regret. He leads the conversation back to the
happy lot of His true friends. " And you are they,'*
He says, " who have continued with i\Ie in My tempta-
tions. And I dispose to you, as the Father hath disposed to
Me, a kingdom." They shall have it first on earth, where
they shall be the representatives of God Himself : " Amen,
amen, I say to you, he that receiveth whomsoever I send,
receiveth Me, and he that receiveth Me, receiveth Him that
sent Me." ^^ They shall exercise this royalty also in heav-

"Ps. xl, 10. . . . where the afflicted just person sets dowTi amongst his
trials the treason of a friend. Historically it is of Da\àd that he is speaking.
The King, in fact (verse 5), asks pardon of God for his sin, and calls for
help from on high against his enemies. Nevertheless the Messianic ideal
is realized in Jesus, in Whom are united all the sorrows of the righteous
sufferer.

30 This verse, St. John xiii, 20, which has no connection with that which
precedes it, ought to be inserted in the text of St. Luke xxii, 29, where it finds

[199]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

en : " That you may eat and drink at My table in My
kingdom, and may sit upon thrones judging the twelve
tribes of Israel." As for Judas, ambitious, selfish, traitor,
he sliall have none of all this, because he was not wise
enough to await it in patient fidelity and generous faith.
He who goes abroad into the highways of crime is certain
to find there only shame and woe. While the other Apostles
shall be the authorised and honoured representatives of the
Master on earth and in heaven, Judas shall have the eter-
nal remorse of having been only His assassin.

Hypocrisy, when well studied, gives the wicked a brazen
front, and tlie most direct blows seem to find them insensi-
ble. In the face of all these allusions, the faithless Apos-
tle preserved a fair countenance, and none had yet dreamt
of suspecting him. It was well, for the just indignation
of them all would have dispatched him quickly, thus im-
peding the fulfilment of the providential plan. However,
from tliis moment, we see in the Gospel story that the
wretch's presence weighs more and more heavily on the
Master's heart, causing it the greatest pain. The time is
come for Him to employ decisive means to be rid of him,
if He wishes to have around Him none but the truly faith-
ful in the hour of His last farewell. And, in fact, Jesus,
from this moment, goes on multiplying His allusions,
which become more and more touching and transparent,
until the traitor, in self-denunciation, decides to quit the
assembly in a hurry. ^^

" Amen, amen, I say to you," continued the Master,

its proper place for the simple reason that the accounts of these two Evan-
gehsts should here be welded into one.

31 Jesus' double intention seems to have been not to name him, in order
to allow the designs of Pro\'idence to be accomplished, and at the same time
to prove that He knows him, in order to show that He had not blindly
become his ^nctim. By makinor this clear, much has been done to reconcile
the apparent divergence of the Synoptics and St. John.

[200 ]

BOOK I] THE LAST SUPPER

" one of you shall betray Me." Coming so positive from
His lips, these words frightened them and filled them with
sadness. All deemed themselves accused, since no one in
particular was designated. They looked at one another,
as if they would prove their innocence by their eyes, the
mirrors of their souls, in their eagerness to discover the
real culprit. Then each one,^- strengthened by the good
testimony of his conscience, and desirous of reaching the
truth by way of elimination, took pains to ask : " Is it I,
Lord?" Jesus simply replied: "One of the twelve, who
dippeth with Me his hand in the dish." ^^ This ansvrer
explained nothing, for it was nothing else than a variation
of the Psalmist's words, already cited, in order to indicate
that the traitor was one of the guests. The Apostles un-
derstood it so, and the most devoted were seized with im-
patience, for the Saviour's latest declaration had only
made the situation the keener.

St. John has given us an altogether personal account,
which reveals quite vividly this present disposition of the
Apostles' minds. One of the disciples, he says — speaking
of himself ^^ — was leaning on Jesus' bosom. The Master

32 Except Judas, who asks this question a little later, although St. Matt.
xxvi, 25, seems to say that he asked it here. This EvangeUst recounts all
at once that which St. John gives more in detail, dramatically and with a
lively colouring which denotes the eye-witness who is still under the emotion
caused by these events.

33 It is wrong to think that thi was a clear statement, and that Judas was
putting his hand into the dish at the moment when Jesus spoke thus. Had
He designated him so clearly, how could the Master have prevented the
indignation of all from bursting forth immediately? And Judas' subse-
quent question: "Is it I? " would have been superfluous.

3* This detail, together with St. John xxi, 21, serves to remove the veil of
secrecy with which the beloved disciple of Jesus conceals himself throughout
his Gospel. For he who wishes to follow Peter and whom Jesus obliges to
remain till He comes is the same who here leans upon the Master's bosom.
But he who must rem.ain cannot be either Peter, or Thomas, or Nathaniel,
since it is characteristic of him to continue unnamed. He is one of tl^ two
sons of Zebedee who are the last to be mentioned simply because the Evan-
gelist is one of them. James having died long since, it is indeed to John
alone that the promise of long life can be applied in verse 22.

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LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt third

honoured him with a very special affection. Peter, who
was too far off to obtain directly the confidence which he
desired, made a sign to this disciple to ask, with greater
discretion, of whom He spoke. Peter and John, the one the
head, and the other the heart, of the Apostolic college, both
privileged, the former by reason of the dignity he had re-
ceived, the latter by the affection he shared, lived ^^ in such
intimate relations that they needed no more than a sign to
understand each other. Suddenly raising himself on his
couch, the well-beloved disciple lovingly laid his head back
upon Jesus' breast, and, in a low voice, while the others
were exchanging their impressions, asked who the traitor
was. Jesus consented to tell him, but with enough caution
to prevent its being made known to the impetuous Simon-
Peter. " He it is," said Jesus quite softly, " to whom I
shall hand the morsel." They had possibly reached that
point in the meal when the head of the family, mingling
a portion of the bitter herbs with the unleavened bread,
dipped them in the charoset and distributed them to the
guests in turn. But, as it is a custom in the East for the
head of the house to present, from time to time, during the
meal, a morsel of bread or of meat to his guests to show
his affection, we may believe that Jesus chose this sign to
make one last appeal to the traitor's heart, and it was be-
cause this appeal went unheeded that the demon finally
triumphed. John understood, but seeing that the Mas-
ter did not wish to utter the culprit's name, concluded that
he himself was bound to silence. His heart was struck by
the frightful revelation ; he drew back in mute sadness,
while Peter remained as perplexed as before.

As for the traitor, Jesus' immediate, or, at least, very
near neighbour, since he could receive the morsel of dipped

« St. John XX, 2; xxi, 7; St. Luke v, 10; xxii, 8; Acts iii, 4; viii, 14.
[202]

BOOK I] THE LAST SUPPER

bread from His hand, had probably heard His reply to
John's question. Besides, less occupied than the others
in expressing any suspicions or in evincing any surprise,
he paid closer attention to the acts and words of the Mas-
ter. Feeling that he was discovered, he had now only to
throw himself at the Master's feet or to take to flight.
The bit of bread he had just received proved that all com-
munication between him and Jesus had not been broken
off, and that His forgiveness was still possible. But, to
deserve it, there was need of great courage and a great
soul. The wretched man's only spiritual possession was
great perversity. He braced himself against the voice of
conscience, and the violent effort he put forth to resist the
inspiration of grace exposed his heart, wide open, to the ex-
tremest influence of evil. This is probably what moved St.
John to say that after having taken the morsel of bread,
Judas was abandoned to the demon. His soul's trouble
revealed itself even outwardly. His attitude became de-
testable ; and Jesus, no longer restraining His indignation,
abruptly flung at him these words which were a continua-
tion of a mute dialogue that for a moment had been go-
ing on between the Victim and the executioner : " That
which thou dost, do quickly ! " As the rest were unaware
of all that had preceded, they did not comprehend the
meaning of this. Their thought was that the Master had
just commanded the ordinary steward of the Apostolic
group to purchase all that was necessary for the festi-
val, and to distribute the customary alms to the poor.
Judas was not deceived ; he saw that the storm was about
to break, and being incapable of resisting longer the glance
that pierced him through, he made ready to depart. For
Jesus had assumed a solemn and prophetic tone : " The
Son of Man, indeed, goeth, as it is written of Him, but woe
to that man by whom the Son of IMan shall be betrayed !

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LIFE OF CHRIST [paet third

It were better for liim, if that man had not been born ! "
At the same time, Judas arose, and boldly throwing aside
his mask, he asked challengingly : " Is it I, Rabbi ? " Je-
sus made answer : " Thou hast said it." And in the midst
of the general dismay, before the just wrath of the most
ardent could break forth, the traitor was gone.^*^

" It was night."

These simple words of St. John are the last stroke of
the brush in this awful picture. A darkness, depressing
and cold, settled down upon the souls of men as well as
upon the walls of the city.

36 St. John's expression fvàéws è^Tj\àev, or evâvs according to one version,
tells how precipitate his departure was. As one may see, it is upon this that
we have based our arrangement of the various incidents that filled the be-
giiming of the meal. We believe that in so doing we have explamed the
most embarrassing divergences. It is very true that in the opinion of several
of the Fathers of the Church, Judas partook of Holy Commmiion. They
followed what appears to be the testimony of St. Luke xxii, 19-23. But St.
Mark xiv, 18-22, and St. Matthew xxvi, 21-26, clearly prove that once again,
in the history of that night, the third Synoptic has not preserved the exact
order of events. We certainly cannot admit that, after Jesus had replied
to Judas: "Thou hast said it," the traitor could have remained at table and
received communion with the others. Thus, from the earliest times, from
the author of the Constitutimies Apostolicœ, down to St. Hilary, many
Doctors, and those not the least worthy of consideration, inspired by a more
rational exegesis, have judged that the Holy Eucharist was not instituted
until after the dcjmrture of Judas. Quite different are the views of the
orator who seeks to impress his audience, from those of the exegete who must
harmonise four distinct and severally independent narratives. Let us add
that to this critical and, in itself, decisive argument wliich excludes Judas
from participation in the Eucharist, are joined moral arguments of the highest
importance. For it seems difficult to admit that Jesus should have allowed
hypocritical hatred thus to approach and receive from His own hands the
Sacrament of His Love distributed for the first time. Can it be that so
august an institution was marred by so unworthy a sacrilege? Can we
believe that He Who was unwilling to begin His farewell discourse and to
open His soul to His disciples' hearts before Judas had departed, could have
decided to give the traitor His Body and His Blood as the guarantee of a
redemption in which he was not to share and of a tenderness which his evil
heart was incapable of comprehending? Such a thing is incredible, and
Jesus saying to the Apostles (St. Matt, xxvi, 29) that He will not drink of
the fruit of the vine until the day when He shall drink it new with them in the
Kingdom of His Father, beholds only those who are of the elect around Him,
and shows that Judas had gone out, for the criminal could have no part in
the eternal banquet.

[ 204 ]

CHAPTER IV

THE LAST SUFFER— Continued.

The Discourses — Jesus on His Messianic Career Now
Drawing to a Close — The Church and the New
Commandment — "Lord, Whither Goest Thou?" —
Abandonment by the Apostles — The Prediction
of Peter's Fall — The Two Swords. (St. John xiii,
31-38; St. Matthew, xxvi, 31-35; St. Mark xiv, 27-
31; St. Luke xxii, 31-38.) ^

The departure of Judas was a relief to the Master's
soul. From now on He has to deal only with friends, and
His heart, henceforth, can open freely. While the disci-
ples are finishing the Paschal meal, interrupted for a mo-
ment by the incident with the traitor, He begins, therefore,
with the admirable series of His final discourses. His spir-
itual testament in favour of the Church. If there is noth-
ing more touching than the novissima verba, the last words
of a man who is about to die, we must say that there is
nothing more divine than these farewell discourses of
Jesus.

As the workman, at the close of day, contemplates the

* We think that the counsels given to the Apostles and the prediction of
Peter's denial should be placed before the institution of the Holy Eucharist,
so that all of Our Lord's touching recommendations may not be put back to
the end of the supper. Natiual as it is to suppose that He did not cease to
enrich the banquet with His divine words, it seems difficult to postpone all
His discourses imtil the close of the feast. Besides, to place the institution
of the Holy Eucharist immediately after the traitor's exit, would be to intro-
duce it ex abrupto and without preparation.

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LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt third

fruit of his labours, so the Master, at the end of His ca-
reer, embraces in one glance His whole life. Following
the example of the Father, Who, having completed the
work of creation, was pleased with what He saw. He Him-
self asserts, after His painful and thankless mission, that
while ever faithful, He has never known discouragement.
*' Now is the Son of Man glorified," He exclaims, " and
God is glorified in Him. If God be glorified in Him, God
also will glorify Him in Himself, and immediately will He
glorify Him." A life replete with virtues, to which all
must pay homage, is the most beautiful hymn that man can
sing to the glory of God. The life of Jesus, by its holi-
ness, its charity, its sacrifice, has been but one perpetual
song of praise sent up to the Father. So, in return, the
glorified Father will prove His appreciation, and will glor-
ify Him both on earth and in heaven. The clear view that
Jesus has of His heavenly recompense and of His deci-
sive influence on the world when He is upon the Cross, is
the consolation of His soul in the hour of anguish. The
confidence with which He speaks, as He looks at the past
and the future, is lawful homage done to the perfection
of His work. Later on, Paul, in the simplicity of a deeply
religious nature, will imitate Him, in reminding us himself,
of the good fight he has fought, and of the reward which
is reserved for him.

For a moment Jesus seems to find rest in this sweet sen-
timent; then suddenly, as if a bitter thought had crossed
His soul, His words become filled with tenderness and emo-
tion. He has just gazed upon death face to face. " Lit-
tle children," He says, " yet a little while I am with you.
Ye shall seek me, and as I said to the Jews : Whither I go,
ye cannot come; so I say to you now." With what admir-
able kindness He thinks of the pain of His poor little
ones, when they shall seek and not find Him. To be sure,

[206]

BOOK I] THE LAST SUPPER

He will still help those who will pray in His name, and by
His teaching, His influence, His grace. He will not cease
to dwell in tlie midst of them ; the Sacrament He is about
to institute will keep Him even substantially present until
the end of the world; but notwithstanding all this, Jesus
shall not be visible, palpable, enfolding His timid flock
with His glance, refreshing them with His love, inciting
them by His example, marching at their head like a com-
manding chief and a protecting father. To some extent,
the Apostles must be sufficient to themselves, and find in the
depth of their hearts a force energetic enough to insure
the life and full development of the Church. This force,
the most needful after the grace of God, He is about to
define and name.

" A new commandment I give unto you," says the blas-
ter ; " that ye love one another ; as I have loved you, that
ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that
ye are my disciples, if ye have love one for another." It
was unheard of, in the history of mankind, that a society
should be founded on charity, as the distinctive sign of
its members, its chief means of defence, and its principle
of development. But this is what Jesus has decreed. As
long as He dwelt in the midst of the Church, He was the
vital, visible, efficacious bond that maintained its unity ;
when He is no longer present in a visible way, a powerful,
generous sentiment must occupy His place. This senti-
ment, which is the purest expression of Himself, is no
other than charity. As a matter of fact, this law of love
was the influence that insured the rapid development of
the nascent Church. Before these men who, as Minutius
Felix says, loved even before they knew one another, pa-
ganism was filled with admiration, and, having studied
them more closely, became Christian in order to imitate
them.

[207]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

Without dwelling on this sublijne advice, Peter, whose
heart sought a means, not of replacing the absent Mas-
ter, but of preventing His departure, exclaimed : " Lord,
whither goest thou ? " His devotedness admits no obstacle
strong enough to withhold him from following in His
wake, whithersoever He may go. " Whither I go," an-
swers Jesus, " thou canst not follow me now ; but thou shalt
follow hereafter."^ Peter saith to Him: "Why cannot
I follow Thee now?" In his enthusiasm, Peter forgot
that he had a providential part to fulfil among his breth-
ren before he should go to rejoin his Master. Besides,
had he understood the mysteries of grace, he would have
known that before he could die for his Master, it was neces-
sary to wait until his Master had died for him.^ This is
what Jesus lets him know by foretelling his approaching
defection.

" Simon, Simon,^ behold Satan hath desired to have you
that he may sift you as wheat ; but I have prayed for thee
that thy faith fail not; and thou being once converted,
confirm thy brethren." The book of Job shows us Satan
claiming in God's presence the right of testing man, and
guaranteeing to make him a sharer, by means of tempta-
tion, in his own perversity. It pleases this evil spirit to
cast a doubt upon the constancy of the just, and to bring

' Peter was to suffer not only martyrdom, but the martyrdom of the cross.

\ " Quid festinas, Petre ? " says et. Augustine, " nondum te suo spiritu
solidavit Petra."

* Here again we blend in one the Synoptic narratives and that of St. John.
Nowhere in the Gospel does one perceive better the independence of the
various accounts. Thus St. Matth. xx\i, 31, and St. Mark xiv, 26, seem to
place the prediction of the denial after the thanksgiving and on the road to
Gethsemane. These differences have no importance when we realise that
in the Synoptics the general tenn rÔTs does not constitute a strict chronological
standard, or if we admit the possibDity of unimportant inaccuracies, while
claiming the inspiration of the writings in which they occur. In the present
instance, the preciseness with which St. John declares that the prophecy
of the denial took place in the supper-room would be decisive even if St.
Luke had not spoken to the same effect.

[ S08 ]

BOOK I] THE LAST SUPPER

suspicion upon their virtue. Convinced that he can cor-
rupt them at will, he asks God to expose them to his influ-
ence. It is then, that, passing them through the sieve of
temptation by a succession of trials, he means to prove be-
fore all how truly just they are. Thus the farmer sifts
the remains of the harvest upon the threshing-floor and
ascertains how much good grain they contain after the
wind has blown away the chaffs and the sieve has let the
bad grain pass through. Happily for Peter, side by side
with the violent influence of Satan is the gentler, but no
less powerful pleading of the Saviour. God may expose
the Apostles, still feeble in faith, to diabolical influence;
Jesus has prayed for them, and their fall, however shame-
ful, shall not be definitive. Peter, in particular, the most
remiss of all in his denial, shall make the most generous
and most decisive return. For his faith, compromised for
a moment by a moral fall, shall never again be darkened,
and, henceforth indefectible, it will revive that of his
brethren no less tried than his own.

" Ye shall all be scandalised in my regard this night,"
added Jesus ; " for it is written : I will strike the shepherd,
and the sheep of the flock shall be dispersed.^ But after
I shall be risen again, I will go before you into Galilee."
Because He saw in His approaching humiliation the scan-
dal that was going to endanger the fidelity of His OAvn
followers, the Master hastened to add a ray of light to
relieve the gloom ; on the morrow of the Passion and of
Calvary He sets forth His resurrection and His stay in
Galilee. But Peter does not understand this ; he attends
only to his own thoughts. Continuing, therefore, his

» Jesus here alludes to Zach. xiii, 7. For the shepherd in this prophecy
can be no other than the Messiah, and the flock the people of the covenant
of whom the Apostles are the first representatives. This passage is cited
not after the Septuagint, which seems to have wrongly imderstood it, but
after the original text.

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LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt third

demonstration of enthusiasm, he cries out : " Although all
shall be scandalised in Thee, I will never be scandalised.
Lord, I am ready to go with Thee both into prison and to
death." "Wilt thou lay down thy Hfe for Me.?" re-
plies Jesus, with a shade of irony, quite marked in St.
John ; " amen, amen, I say to thee, to-day, even in this
niglit before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny Me
thrice." The Jews distinguished three crowings of the
cock ; the first after midnight, the second at three o'clock ;
the third at dawn.^ In a few hours, therefore, and be-
fore dawn Peter, the resolute man, the courageous friend,
the faithful and valiant disciple, will have cowardly denied
his Master. The others will have merely fled from the field
of battle, but he will have remained there, not to fight,
as he had promised, but to surrender his arms to a maid-
servant ; not to defend Jesus, but to protest that he knows
Him not. And this protestation will be expressed in a few
hours as shamelessly as he now obstinately tells of his un-
faihng attachment. For, strong in his present disposi-
tion, the presumptuous man persists, in spite of the Mas-
ter's words, in auguring well of the future. He does not
know that the most energetic resolutions of the soul, when
under evil influences, vanish like snow beneath the rays of
the sun. With stiU greater energy, he cries out : " Al-

• See Buxtorf, p. 384, Keriai haggeher, and Lightfoot on John, xiii, 38,
who cites the three names given in the treatise Joma, fol. 21, to these three
crowings of the cock. Compare Winer on the word Nachtimche. Nearly
aU the peoples of ancient times availed themselves of these three calls of
the wakeful bird to know the hour of the night. The second crowing
called by the Latin authors secunda gaUicinia, and by the Greeks rh
Siirepov hXfKrpiwv is, no doubt the one to which the three Evangelists
refer when they speak of only one crowing of the cock. It was the principal
and the loudest one. So that St. Mark, though speaking of two crowings,
agrees yn\h them in asserting that the denial must occur that very night,
before the second crowing. As a matter of fact, all agree in saying that
Jesus foretold to Peter that he would deny Him three times before three
o'clock in the morning.

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BOOK I] THE LAST SUPPER

though I should die together with Thee, I will not deny
Thee ! " and the others spoke as he did.

The Master said nothing more. It was His intention
to allow the rash pride of this 'man to be broken by a hu-
miliating fall, in order to instruct and thus to form by this
sad experience, the man who was to govern His Church.
It is not rarely that nature is pleased at times to bring
back health to the sick, through means of a crisis in which
they seem about to depart this life. It is always with
profit that a man tastes of the bitterness of misfortune, be-
fore becoming a shepherd of souls. In his own trials he
becomes possessed of the knowledge and the courage neces-
sary to sympathise with the weaknesses of others.

The storm will be more terrible than they think.
" When I sent you," says Jesus, " without purse and scrip
and shoes, did ye want anything? " They reply: " Noth-
ing." Those were the best days of their apostolate. On
their way, many friends received them; their Master's
fame was their support, and no one dared undertake any-
thing against them. Those happy days are to be followed
by most critical times. " But now," Jesus adds, " he that
hath a purse, let him take it, and hkewise a scrip ; and he
that hath not, let him sell his coat, and buy a sword. For,
I say to you, that this that is written must yet be fulfilled
in Me: And with the wicked was He reckoned.''^ For the
things concerning Me have an end." The malediction
hurled against the Master will include the disciples, and
His enemies will be their irreconcilable opponents.

The disciples, taking the advice of Jesus literally,
thought it was necessary to provide themselves with
deadly weapons, whereas there was question only of
moral force. And they innocently replied that they had

^ Isaias liii, 12.

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LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

two swords at His disposal. " It is enough," ^ said Jesus.
At that moment His thoughts were elsewhere.

« The Master mav have uttered the words: "It is enough! " in a tone of
irony. He saw only too well the uselessness of material swords in the hands
of cowards who would be eager only to fly. He may, on the other hand,
have said : "'It is enough! " as one gives an evasive answer to children while
waiting for events to explain more clearly what they have not understood.

[212]

CHAPTER V

THE INSTITUTION OF HOLY
COMMUNION

The Last Word of Divine Love — The Blessing op
THE Beead and the Wine — The Real Presence and
Transubstantiation — Luther and Calvin — The
Catholic Church — The Eucharist, Sacrament and
Sacrifice. (St. Matthew xxvi, 26-29; St. Mark xiv,
22-25; St. Luke xxii, 19-20; I Cor. xi, 23-25.)i

God's love for man has taken inconceivable flights of
generosity. The Cross, that divine folly, was, it seemed,
to be its supreme expression. But by an ineffable prod-
igy, Jesus imagined and realised, at the last hour, some-
thing more surpassing still, if one may so speak, namely,
the Eucharist. To give Himself once as a ransom for all
men, seemed but little to His tender love. He determined

' One of the most surprising things in St. John is his silence concerning
the institution of the Holy Eucharist. We cannot explain it by sajang that
the fourth Gospel is simply meant to complete the Synoptics. Many things
are found in it which it has repeated after them, especially in the history
of the Saviour's last moments, the importance of which was in no way
comparable with that of the great fact which is the subject of this chapter.
Not only does St. John omit the institution of the Eucharist in the long
account of the discourses of the Last Supper, but he does not even leave
room for it to be inserted. And yet one feels that all these admirable con-
siderations by Jesus concerning the imion of men with God through Him
the Christ, and with each other through charity are only a sublime commen-
tary on the Eucharist itself. The Sacrament was the working out or the
physical realisation of the doctrine.

On the other hand, and this is what makes this anomaly stranger still,
it cannot be denied that at the time when the fourth Gospel was written, the
ceremony of the Sacred Banquet was the most generally practised and best

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LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

to give Himself to all in a permanent way and to become
the real nourishment of famished humanity. It may be
said of the Eucharistie communion as it was written of the
Incarnation : " All wise, all powerful, all rich as God was,
He could imagine, realise, or give, nothing more wonder-
ful than this sacrament."

They had come to the close of the supper ; with the re-
mains of the Paschal lamb were vanishing the last signs of
the ancient covenant. Jesus was awaiting this moment
for the institution of the Testament of the future.^

Perhaps the last cup that was to close the banquet had
been already poured out. Some still continued to eat,^ the

known of all the rites in the infant Church, and the opponents of the au-
thenticity of the fourth Gospel are no less troubled than we in explaining
this silence. It would be even more inexplicable in the work of an impostor
otherwise clever and intelligent, than in that of an Apostle.

This singular omission ought to make exegetes less ready to be scandal-
ised by the silence of one or another Evangelist concerning facts, otherwise
important, related by the others. Bossuet's saying is always a good lesson
of ^visdom: "One citation is worth more than a hundred omissions."

'We have a fourfold account of the institution of the Eucharist, for to
the Synoptics is joined St. Paul in his first Epistle to the Corinthians xi, 23.
These four accounts, although containing slight differences of expression,
present, none the less, in luminous characters, unassailable for exactitude
and splendid simplicity, the same idea and the same formula.

St. Matthew's and St. Mark's accounts are almost identical. St. Mark
suppresses one word in the command to eat the bread: "Take ye," he says,
"this is my body." St. Matthew has: "Take ye, and eat," etc. Likewise,
instead of giving the command to drink the blood: "Drink ye all of this,"
he simply says that they all drank of it. Again, he omits the last words of
Jesus: "unto remission of sins." St. Luke and St. Paul, who form a group
quite distinct from the first two Synoptics, have preserved an almost verbal
identity in their accounts. They add to the other two some important
words: "This is My Body which is given (according to St. Luke), bruised
(according to St. Paul), for you." They would seem also to put between
the consecration of the bread and that of the wine, an interval which dis-
appears in the other tw'o accounts, for, as thej' say, it is after supjjer that
Jesus presented the chalice, fiera, rh SenruTJaai. In them again it is more
explicitly stated that the Saviour's blood is the Neiv Testament. Finally,
they add, after the consecration of the bread : "This do for the commemora-
tion of Me." After that of the wine, St. Paul alone repeats this recom-
mendation.

3 In this is the explanation of the apparent divergence between St. Matthew
and St. Mark, who say: they were still eating, èffâiôvrwv 5e alrSiv, and St.

[214]

BOOK I] HOLY COMMUNION

others, having finished, were contemplating the Master,
Whose sad air of resignation seemed to crown Him with
the halo of a victim. He no longer spoke. Suddenly His
eye kindles, in His attitude there is a majesty greater yet
than when He gave His command to the waves on the sea
of Galilee, or to death before the tomb of Lazarus. He
holds in His hands a piece of unleavened bread, which
He has taken from the table. His eyes are lifted up to
heaven, He gives thanks and blesses at the same time.'* In
an outburst of love and gratitude for the miracle which He
is about to perform. His soul has mounted up to God,
whence it comes down again to this bread whose substance
is going to be changed. By a movement of superior en-
ergy, He prepares and disposes it for the sacramental
words that are about to destroy its substance in order to
put another in its place. ''TAKE YE, AND EAT,''
He then says, in solemn tones; " THIS IS MY BODY,
WHICH SHALL BE DELIVERED AND GIVEN FOR
YOU.'' Then taking the cup of wine which, in the order
of the Paschal rite, was to be the cup of thanksgiving,
by an act of His omnipotence, again. He transforms its
contents : " TAKE AND DRINK YE ALL OF THIS,
FOR THIS IS MY BLOOD OF THE NEW TESTA-
MENT, WHICH SHALL BE SHED FOR MANY
UNTO THE REMISSION OF SINS."

These words are in themselves as simple as God's crea-
tive act, the fiat lux, the apparent arida, and their simplic-
ity rejects every explanation which, ceasing to be literal,
is not founded on the direct sense of the words, however

Luke and St. Paul saying that it was after the supper. In the last two,
in fact, not only the wine, but also probably the bread, according to some,
was consecrated after the supper. The expression âxxaîniiDS presents the
/iterà rh Suirvrjaai as referring to both consecrations.

^This is what the Evangelists mean in employing the two participles
(vKoyfjcras and euxapjCT'^o'os.

[ 215 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

surprising the latter may be in the light of reason. The
Catholic Church has always understood that at that mo-
ment the bread, ceasing to be bread, was replaced by the
Body of Jesus, and that the wine was changed into His
Blood. Both, necessarily united with His soul and His
divinity, remained hidden, it is true, beneath the species
or appearances of the substance which they had replaced ;
but, though covered with a pious and reassuring veil, the
incredible prodigy was none the less certain. Its very
strangeness ought to be another proof of its reality,
for, after all, we cannot admit that the Apostles did
not seek at first, as others have done since, to assign a
figurative sense to the Master's words ; and if they inter-
preted them literally, enforcing in the first generation
the Christian idea of the Real Presence as we possess it
to-day, it was certainly only after having asked and ob-
tained, for their own sake, from Jesus' own lips, fresh
and categorical statements. They were inclined no more
than we to blind belief, and, like us, they formulated
objections.

The testimony of primitive tradition ought, therefore,
to be of decisive importance in discussing and proving the
reality and the mode of the Real Presence. We know with
what splendid success Catholic doctors have put it in evi-
dence.^

Luther acknowledged at an early date that it could not
be avoided, and he resigned himself to it, not, however,
without modifying the ordinary teaching of the Church
sufficiently to cut himself off, even in this, from the Cath-
olic faith. His idea was that the words of the consecra-
tion left unchanged not only the appearances, but also
even the substance of the bread and wine, and that the

* Cf. La Perpétuité de la Foi de l'Eglise Catholiqiie touchant l'Eucharistie,
4 vol. in 4°, Paris, 1704, and its defence by Renaudot.

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BOOK I] HOLY COMMUNION

body of Jesus was contained in them, just as His divinity
was imprisoned in our nature by the Incarnation. His
error arose from incomplete philosophical notions on sub-
stance and accidents.

The Calvinist system, more radical, affirmed that the
Eucharist was only a symbol, efficacious, it is true, not by
itself, but by the memory it recalls. According to the de-
fenders of this doctrine, we eat the body of Jesus Christ,
and drink His blood, not with our mouths, but by faith.
Without admitting the Real Presence, they talk, neverthe-
less, of a real eating of the substance of the body. The
faith of the communicant derives a radiance or communi-
cation from this body, glorious in heaven, just as the
movement of our eye draws into us, by the rays it re-
ceives, the sun, which, however, remains whole and entire,
never lessened by the many eyes that demand its light.
As we give the name sun to these simple rays, so the
special virtue that comes from the Saviour's body may be
called His body.

Both Lutherans and Calvinists have failed to under-
stand the Eucharist, the former assigning to it too much,
the latter too little. What has a believer to do with the
substance of the bread or of the wine in this august Sacra-
ment? It is God that he seeks, and anything other than
God is to him useless. That is why Jesus says, not : *' Here
is my body," but " This is my body." The bread, there-
fore, is no longer in question. One clear, precise word
categorically excludes it. The material substance is de-
stroyed, consumed, so to say, by the divine presence. In
the hands of the priest there can be nothing real but Jesus
Christ, with appearances to veil Him ; and Luther imag-
ined a union of substances as whimsical as it was foreign
to the teaching of the Fathers and of tradition. On the
other hand, Calvin, unwilling to acknowledge in the Eu-

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LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

charist more than a symbol especially efficacious in renew-
ing the thought, or, even, the presence of Jesus Christ,
destroyed the supreme and unique importance of the Sac-
rament. For, although the Eucharist may recall the
Master's last supper, and although the bread, with its
whiteness, broken in the pontiff's hands, may represent
His body blanched by death and bruised for us, and al-
though the wine may be the image of His blood poured
out for our crimes, it is evident that our faith would find
in the Cross, for example, a more significant symbol of
our redemption. The tree of salvation, bearing on its
branches the fruit that redeems, would be more apt than
a small bit of bread or a cup of wine to call up within us
the memory, the spiritual presence, and the life of the
Saviour. No, the supernatural phenomenon that Jesus
Christ wished to produce in the Eucharist cannot be a
mere relation of ideas or an approach in spirit; other-
wise, the emblem that He chose would have been neither
the most natural nor the most eloquent. It was, then,
a living Reality that He meant to create, and, according
to His promise after the multiplication of loaves in the
desert. He constituted Himself truly and substantially our
food.

Why not acknowledge that He could do it, and that
through love He has done it? Where is the man, who, at
the hour of death, does not feel the desire to live on, at least
in figure, with those whom he has loved .^^ To perpetuate
himself in the midst of his people or of his family, he bids
the artist cut the marble or the bronze, to enliven the can-
vas with the most vivid colours. With delicate attention he
distributes to his friends that which has touched his body,
which has served him in the needs of life, which has been
a part of himself. To those whom he loves the most he
leaves his mortal remains, or, better still, his heart, the

[218]

BOOK I] HOLY COMMUNION

organ that was the first to live and the last to die. Obey-
ing in all this the voice of nature, he has but one regret,
that he cannot leave himself wholly, full of life and real-
ity, to those who have loved him. Jesus' soul experienced
this same need, for it was full of the tenderest and most
generous love. But, whereas our affection, in the pres-
ence of death, finds nothing comparable with the energy of
its desires, except the sense of its helplessness, the Saviour
had in the service of His great love a power without limit.
Love had but to speak, and omnipotence did the rest.
Jesus has, therefore, given Himself to the Church as a
memory, but as a living memory, or, rather, as a continued
existence, as Man, as Victim, as God. It is His entire
Self that we possess in the Eucharist. Human reason has
no right to complain if it fails to understand the manner
of this prodigy, for human reason is still ignorant of the
definitive sense of the words it employs in formulating its
objections. So long as the philosophic schools fail to unite
on identical and generally accepted definitions of sub-
stance, of matter, of accidents, of space, our proud mind
must first attain to harmony with itself before deciding
that it is at odds with the works of the Almighty. In
brief, there is one thing that will always be clearer than
any difficulty, namely, the simphcity of the divine words:
" This is My body; this is My blood.^' They go with-
out comment, expressing what they mean and nothing
more.

The consecration of the chalice is the symbolical com-
plement of the consecration of the bread. In giving Him-
self for all ages, Jesus means to commemorate His bloody
and heroic offering on Calvary. Hence the two substances
which denote the spiritual food set before His disciples
represent, at the same time, the violent separation of the
blood from the body on the Cross. The bread and the

[219]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet raraD

wine are at once the symbol of perfect nourishment as
food and drink, and the memorial of the most generous of
sacrifices in their mystical division. The Catholic Church
alone has grasped the full depth of the Master's thought,
in affirming that the Eucharist perpetuates, in time, the
bloody sacrifice of the Cross. Not that it is a mere repre-
sentation ; this would not be saying enough ; nor a mere
renewal ; that would be saying too much, since there can
be nothing bloody where the victim, glorified by death, is
henceforth invulnerable and impassible ; but we must un-
derstand that the Eucharist is the pacific and loving ex-
tension of the sacrifice of the Cross. The ray of light
does not destroy the star that sends it forth; it presup-
poses it as its principle and cause. In proclaiming the
reality of the Eucharistie sacrifice, we do not deny to that
of the Cross its expiatory power; for we declare, with the
Apostle, that Jesus Christ offered Himself but once for
the sins of all, and that, in one only oblation. He has se-
cured forever the justification of the elect.® We mean to
say only that the merits of this complete and unique ex-
piation of Calvary where, all being consummated, Jesus
Himself proclaims that nothing is wanting, are applied
to us by the Sacrifice of the Altar. The contest that
Luther stirred up on this point was vainer than is com-
monly supposed. Between his and the Church's manner of
explaining justification there was only a difference of de-
gree. For, according to him, man, in order to be justified,
needed faith as the instrument that would give him a
share in the redemption of Jesus Christ. Whether a man
be justified exteriorly by imputation, or interiorly by ap-
plication of the Saviour's merits, there is, first of all,
required a means of attaining and of appropriating, in

^Hebrews x, 10-14; compare ix, 28.
[220]

BOOK I] HOLY COMMUNION

different degrees, this grace of regeneration offered to
mankind. The Protestants accept not only faith, but
sacraments which are a sign and warrant of justification.
In this, they no more destroy the Apostle's beautiful the-
ory of the expiatory omnipotence of the Cross, than we
ourselves in admitting the Sacrifice of the Mass. The
great theological idea of Christianity is Jesus Christ per-
petuating His life in the midst of mankind by a real,
immediate, and personal influence in the Church. In her,
and through her, it is He alone Who continues to teach ;
it is He alone Who blesses, consecrates, absolves, or con-
demns, as He did during His mortal life; it is He alone
Who ascends the altar as He did on Calvary to offer the
holocaust of expiation, of thanksgiving, or of propitia-
tion ; for, although until His day, there had been a succes-
sion of pontiffs, each of them dethroned in turn by death,
Jesus, according to the beautiful doctrine of the Epistle
to the Hebrews,"^ inaugurated the one indefectible and
everlasting priesthood.

What absurdity is there in maintaining that this Media-
tor, always living and indefatigable,^ is pleased to inter-
cede for us under a Symbol that recalls the great and
decisive mediation of the Cross .'' He can never again be
put to death ; but He can seem to be, and this is the mean-
ing of this separation made by the priest's words, as by a
sword, placing the body on one side, and on the other, the
blood, the one bruised, the other shed for us. Thus the
immolation continues under a form, not bloody, but mys-
tical, and with a reality that obliges one to see in the
Eucharist the renewal, or better, the extension and perma-
nent application of the sacrifice of the Cross. The very
act by which Jesus, glorious in heaven, accommodates Him-

» Hebrews vii, 23. « Ibid., 25.

[ 221 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt third

self to a sacramental state commemorating His expiatory
death, constitutes the essence of the Eucharistie Sacrifice.
For on the altar He finds something that recalls His hum-
bled and suppliant attitude on Calvary, and He again be-
comes a Victim, not for the sake of gaining us a right to
be forgiven — He gained that long ago — ^but to facilitate
our participation in this pardon, by continuing to inter-
cede for us, and by giving Himself to be a warrant as well
as a means of reconciliation, to the soul that is athirst
for God.

Thus was to be accomplished the prophecy of Mala-
chias,^ announcing that in place of all the sacrifices of
Mosaism, which were to be abrogated thenceforward and
forever, a Sacrifice ^^ without blemish would be immo-
lated in every place and offered in Jehovah's honour,
while His Name was to be glorified as never before to the
very extremities of the world. This Sacrifice recalled, too,
the oblation of Melcliisedech, who, according to the Epis-
tle to the Hebrews,^ ^ interpreting a passage in the Psalms,
was a figure of Our Lord. The bread and the wine were
present as the elements of the sacrifice that characterised
the exceptional priesthood of the King of Salem. And,
last of all, it was substituted for the immolation of the
Paschal lamb, and was the solemn seal of the compact of
the New Covenant.

This is what the Master's words indicated, when, pre-
senting the cup of communion, He said : " This is the
chalice, the New Testament in My blood, which shall be

' M alachias i, 10-11.

" The Hebrew word minehah expresses the oblation of a solid or liquid
substance, flour, oil, incense, etc., which would exclude the interpretation
which makes it a metaphorical sacrifice of prayers and good works, if it
were not evident, besides, that a sacrifice of this kind would not be new,
and would not replace all the Judaical sacrifices of which it was itself an
integral part.

" Hebrews, iii.

[ 222 ]

BOOK I] HOLY COMMUNION

shed for you." ^" And then, giving a command which im-
pHed a power granted simultaneously, He added : " Do
this, for a commemoration of Me." ^^ The Apostles took
this precious testament,^ ^ and we see them at times them-
selves offering up the Eucharistie sacrifice,^ *^ at times
drawing a parallel between the table and the altar of the
Christians and the table and the altar of the pagans, ^^
that is, between the sacrifice of the former and that of the
latter. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews unhesi-
tatingly declares that the Church has her altar whereon
the victim is immolated, of which the Jews, the servants of
the abrogated law, may not participate.^^ The faithful
unanimously acknowledge that they have priests, pontiffs,
and can we conceive of pontiffs without sacrifices to
offer.'' ^^ Finally, altars are everywhere erected for im-
molating the victim ; to tell the truth, these altars are
tables, as Calvin observes, but that is precisely another

*2 For, it has remained in the Church as the permanent symbol of the New
Covenant which God made with man. God offers the gratuitous gift of
salvation. Man accepts it in his faith and repentance; he puts the divine
cup to his lips, and the blood once more seals the Covenant between the
creature and the Creator.

" As we have already remarked, the first two Synoptics do not give this
very important saying, wliich gives to the Apostles and their successors the
right to do what Jesus Himself had just accomplished and instituted. St.
Luke and St. Paul have preserved it to us. It is needless to say that, even
if their testimony had been wanting, the place assured to the Holy Eucharist
from the beginning in the Apostolic liturgy would have been more than
sufficient to attest the command of the Master for the preservation in the
Church of the sacrament which was to nourish its life.

1^ The priest, in consecrating, only lends his lips to Jesus Christ Who
speaks. He is but an instrument employed by the Master to repeat the
consecrating act of the Last Supper. This explains how the priest receives
communion as well as the faithful. It belonged to Jesus alone not to receive
communion because He alone had no need of being united to Himself.
He was as the mother nourishing her children with her milk and not par-
taking thereof herself.

^^ Acts xiii, 2; KeiTovpyovvTuv signifies the sacrificial act.

" I Cor. X, 18.

" Hebrews xiii, 10. He employs the very word Ovcrtatrriipiov.

18 Hebrews, viii.

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LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

proof that there is a victim offered, since it is to be con-
sumed there. When Protestantism denied the reality of
the Eucharistie sacrifice, it began by declaring that all
the Fathers of the Church were mistaken, and we know
what conclusion to draw from such an avowal. Unsuspect-
ingly, it has done more, for it has ignored the real, living,
powerful centre of the whole Church. For we may reply,
in the words of St. Jerome to the deacon Lucifer : " With-
out a priest there is no Eucharist, and without the Eu-
charist no Church."

The most important event of that evening had just
occurred with a simplicity that heightened its grandeur.
Never in the Master's life had He suffered His divinity to
be seen so near at hand. If the idea that He was going to
offer Himself as a Victim for the world was now no longer
a human idea, it must be granted that the project of in-
viting mankind in all ages to receive nourishment from
Him in order to insure their redemption was even less so.
With a clearness of view that surprises even non-believers,
He looked upon Himself as the ransom offered and ac-
cepted on the Cross, and now, through the Eucharist,
holding this Cross upright in the world. He cried out to
all mankind : " If thou wilt be delivered, saved, eat, take
thy ransom ! " For it is most remarkable that Jesus did
not place Himself on the altar to be adored, although He
is there absolutely adorable, but to be eaten. To think of
thus keeping the Redemption by sacrifice at the disposal
of all who would eat the Victim, and to see future genera-
tions eating and drinking this Redemption in His flesh and
in His blood, belonged to a God, or else our reason is no
longer able to distinguish earth from sky, light from
darkness, the finite from the infinite.

Having left to His own this living and divine memorial,
this means of salvation, this pledge of the Covenant, Jesus

[224]

BOOK I] HOLY COMMUNION

had nothing further to do but to speak His last farewell.
He began to do so in the most sublime language ever heard
by human ears. It has been said of St. John, who has
preserved us these, the Master's last utterances, that
he was like the high priest throwing open before us the
Holy of Holies and reveahng God in all His majesty.

[225]

CHAPTER VI
FIRST FAREWELL DISCOURSE

Words of Encouragement — The Apostles United to
Jesus — The Elect — Jesus the Way — Builders of
the Church — Miraculous Powers — The Holy
Ghost as Comforter — The Consolations of God.
(St. John xiv, 1-31.) 1

The ancient Passover had been brought to a close and
the new Passover piously inaugurated. The Apostles,
filled with the sweet sentiments of their union with God
through the Master, were in the ecstatic attitude of men
initiated into a new joy, a new life. Jesus was well aware
that this calm would not last, and His thoughts were fixed
more deeply than ever on the events of the following hour.

" Let not your heart be troubled," said He, with the
peaceful authority of a father encouraging his children.
Not that He would condemn them to preserve a stoical in-
difference at the sight of woes that trouble even Himself;
He desired only that their sadness might not degenerate
either into discouragement or into distrust after so many
divine promises. Satan generally employs the trouble of
the heart to foster the growth of unbelief and despair.
" Ye believe in God," Jesus continues, " believe also in

* The Synoptics, for the very reason that they are the result of the oral
preaching of the Gospel, contain none of these discourses, much too trans-
cendant, as they are, to be commonly preached to the first assemblages of
Christians. In St. John, these wonderful pages are the echo of the faithful
memories which his loving and Hebrew soul had preserved by the most pious
meditations.

[226]

BOOK I] FIRST FAREWELL

Tue." The Father and the Son are one. The power of the
One is the power of the Other. Hence, whatever humiha-
tions He may accept, the Son will always have the strength
to sustain His own and to save them. Let His own then
remain closely united with Him, after His death, as well
as during His life. They have powerful motives for so
doing. With an accent of tenderness no less impressive
than the loftiness of His thought, Jesus is pleased to name
them. They are destined for heaven, and He is the sole
way that leads thereto. They are to establish the Church
here below, and He is the force that will insure their suc-
cess by according to their suppliant faith the power of
miracles and the assistance of the Holy Ghost. They look
for consolation, and He alone can give it; for if they re-
main attached to Him, even from this moment on, the life
of God will become their life. The development of these
three ideas is of incomparable beauty.

" In My Father's house," says Jesus, " there are many
mansions. If not, I would have told you, because I go to
prepare a place for you. And if I shall go, and prepare
a place for you, I will come again, and will take you to
Myself, that where I am, ye also may be." The thought
of heaven is the most consoling to evoke in time of trial.
The sufferings of this life appear slight, indeed, when we
consider the rewards of the future life. W^e willingly
struggle for a day in order to gain rest in an eternal vic-
tory. So it is with complacency that Jesus speaks of this,
His Father's house in which, as in an immense palace,
there is an apartment for each of the king's sons, how-
ever numerous the family. Heaven, therefore, is not merely
a state, it is also a place. Where is this place ? ^ The

2 Those who seek it in the planets and fixed stars ought to have other
reasons than a supposed gesture of Our Lord. At this moment He could
not have pointed to the stars above His head, for He was still in the banquet-
haU.

[227]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt third

response to this question has not been granted to human
curiosity. It is certain, however, that any place where
God may be pleased to communicate Himself in the intui-
tive vision, in perfect love and complete possession, must
be called heaven. Although He says nothing of the nature
or of the site of the celestial mansions, Jesus is unwilling
that His disciples should doubt their reality. With sim-
ple tenderness. He takes pains to observe to them that,
if heaven did not exist, He would not deceive them by
speaking of the thrones that await them and that He is
going to prepare for them. This preparation consists
in His expiatory death, which forces divine Justice to
open heaven to redeemed mankind, and in the inaugura-
tion of the eternal triumph, by the Head of that same
mankind.

It is not enough for the Master to have prepared the
place, He will come Himself to look for His own and to
introduce them into the fatherland of wliich He has
achieved the conquest. And it is not His solemn coming
at the end of time that is spoken of here; His promise
refers to something more immediate. It gives us the as-
surance that at our last hour we shall behold the sweet
sight of Jesus, coming to take us by the hand to lead us
to His Father. At the bedside of the wicked, the Saviour
will rise up like a painful memory, a shadow to be feared ;
over the bedside of the just. He will bend like a consol-
ing friend, and following the example of St. Stephen, the
first martyr,^ the faithful soul will welcome in Him the
realisation of his hopes and the object of his love.

" And," continues Jesus, " whither I go you know, and
the way you know." The disciples did know, in fact, the
way that leads to eternal life. The Master had not ne-

^Ads vii, 55.
[ 228 ]

BOOK 1] FIRST FAREWELL

glected to tell them repeatedly that to believe in Him was
to have eternal life, and that to accept His words was to
share in that life, and that since He Himself was the Res-
urrection and the Life, whosoever had faith in Him could
never die. They were, therefore, on this road to heaven,
since they believed in Jesus Christ. But their sagacity or
their religious intuition had no suspicion that it was this
very marvel that constituted their supernatural life.^
This explains why Thomas, speaking in the name of all,
exclaimed : " Lord, we know not whither Thou goest, and
how can we know the way ? " And Jesus, with admirable
authority and majesty, replied: "I am the Way and the
Truth and the Life. No man cometh to the Father but
by Me." Thus with one word He overturns all the sys-
tems that seek salvation outside of Him. Whether re-
ligions of antiquity or the most elaborate theories of mod-
ern philosophy, all are excluded ; there is only one means
of salvation ; it is He. He is the way or the road, because
He unites heaven with earth. No man can pass the abyss
that separates these two extremes but by crossing this
bridge, the marvellous work of divine wisdom and mercy.
To enter upon this road is nothing else than to enter into
Jesus Christ Himself by faith and love and works. . Hence,
and because He is the Way, He is also the Truth, which
we must make our own by assimilation. And this Truth,
in so much as it is offered us, is likewise the Life destined
to transform the soul that receives it. So that these three
terms : Way, Truth, and Life, are each implied in the other ;
and Jesus, the true Saviour, is alone the perfect and mys-
tical realisation of each of them. Since by entering into
Him one meets with divine truth, and by having the truth
he possesses life, we must compare Jesus not only to a

» "Sciebant discipuli, sed scire nesciebant," says St. Augustine.

[229]

LIFE OF CHRIST [p^et third

road that conducts, but to a road that bears one whither
he is to go, Hke the river that marks out the way for
the traveller, and at the same time carries him along upon
its moving flood.

In our Lord's discourses, ordinarily, the thought rises
step by step. Here it reaches at a bound the most trans-
cendent spheres of theology. " If ye had known Me," He
says, and thus He means to prove the definition He has
given of Himself, " ye would without doubt have known
My Father also." In reality the Son is but the extension
of the Father, and hence the direct way that leads to Him.
If by seeing Jesus one sees the radiance of the Father, by
uniting one's self to Him one attains and possesses the
Father Himself. Therefore He is not only the way that
leads to the Father, but the sanctuary, the mirror, the
manifest image of the Father. " And from henceforth ye
shall know Him, and ye have seen Him." Philip, who does
not follow the line of argument very well, here speaks out,
and proposes simply that Jesus shall put an end to their
uncertainty by a miraculous manifestation that will sat-
isfy the desires of all : " Lord," says he, " show us the
Father, and it is enough for us." Only half appreciat-
ing the Master's explanation, he supposes that the others
are in a like case. He would prefer something positive,
an apparition of the Father in the air, a striking incident,
confirming the faith of them all, as if the divine essence
were omnipotence, and not truth and goodness. He was
far from suspecting that it was through a human ex-
istence that God was to reveal Himself to men, and that,
in reality, the Incarnation has attained that end. By the
mouth of Jesus God has caused His truth to be spoken ;
in His soul He has shown forth His holiness, and in His
works He has proved His goodness. It is not hy the side
of Jesus that one should desire to see the Father, but in

[S30]

ROOK I] FIRST FAREWELL

Jesus. The Son is become Man in order to make the
Father visible to all mankind ; and mankind, bj the mouth
of Philip, still asks to see God; is it not surprising? " So
long a time have I been with you," cries Jesus, " and have
ye not known Me? Philip, he that seeth Me, seeth the
Father also. How sayest thou : Show us the Father ? Do
ye not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in
Me? The words that I speak to you, I speak not of My-
self. But the Father Who abideth in me, He doth the
works."

There is no page in the whole Gospel in which Jesus
more clearly or more undeniably affirms His divinity. For
the union between Him and the Father, of which He speaks
here, cannot be a mere moral union. It is, indeed, in the
divine essence that He means to say that He participates,
and it is, in truth, the life of the Father that He, as Son,
declares that He really and substantially reproduces. He
speaks the Father's words, and thus lends Him His lips
for speech ; the Father, on the other hand, does the works
of the Son and in this way lends the Son His power for
action. They are indeed both intimately united in the
W^ord, who is never separated from the Father any more
than the Father can be separated from His image or His
Son. " Believe ye not," Jesus goes on, " that I am in the
Father, and the Father in Me? Otherwise, believe for the
very works' sake."

It follows from this first argument that, man being
for God, and Jesus Christ being the point of union be-
tween God and man, man to attain his end, must remain
united with Jesus Christ for the same reason that to reach
the centre one must join with and follow the radius. Nor
is this all. The Apostles have received the mission of
founding the Church. Can they fulfil this superhuman
task without the privilege of working miracles and with-

[ 231 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

out the assistance of the Holy Spirit? But this twofold
help shall come to them only from Jesus.

" Amen, amen, I say to you," He added, " he that be-
lievcth in Me " (that is, he who joins himself to Me by
faith), " the works that I do, he also shall do, and greater
than these shall he do. Because I go to the Father and
whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name that will
I do." The Apostles and the believers of the succeeding
ages had, in fact, the glory of achieving works of salva-
tion superior to those that Jesus had done Himself. The
Master's whole life, His miracles. His discourses, had had
but one object, the religious transformation of mankind.
But the object is always greater than the means. The
foundation of the Church was destined to be an event
greater than all that had preceded it. That could be ac-
complished only after the Saviour's death ; when He should
be raised up from the earth, He would draw all men to Him-
self, and this work of attracting mankind was to be the per-
sonal task of the Apostles. We know, in fact, that they
extended the Kingdom of God farther than their Master
did; and of all the prodigies they wrought this remained
so much the most important, that the others which had
been done in preparation for it were scarcely mentioned.
Nevertheless the Master Himself must still be the real
though not apparent agent of the transformation of the
world. The Apostles shall accomplish their wonders only
after having asked them in His name. Their prayer shall
rise up to heaven, strengthened by the rights and merits
of Jesus. The Father hearing in it the voice of His own
Son, will bid His Son do what they desire. It is the Son's
business to execute what the Father grants. Let the faith-
ful pray for the spread of the Kingdom of God in the
world, and the Son will lead the nations to the foot of the
Cross to purify them beneath its influence. Let them ask

[232]

BOOK I] FIRST FAREWELL

what response must be given to the objections of science
and to the violence of tyrants, and the Son will speak
from their lips. In a word, they shall be the channels that
convey the fecundating waters, but He will be the spring
that provides them. On the union of these channels with
the spring will depend the efficiency of their Apostolate.

From this union, again, will come to them, as an
element of life for the nascent Church, the assistance of a
Paraclete, Advocate, and Comforter. " If ye love Me," said
the Master, " keep My commandments," — a moment ago
it was the union of the mind by faith, now it is the union
of the will by works ; — " and I will ask the Father, and He
shall give you another Paraclete,^ that He may abide with
you forever, the Spirit of truth, Whom the world cannot
receive, because it seeth Him not, nor knoweth Him; but
ye shall know Him, because He shall abide with you and
shall be in you." The Spirit of God comes only to those
souls who desire Him, and they alone desire Him who
know Him. On this account the world has no right to ex-
pect Him. The disciples, who for three years have beheld
Him in Jesus, have Him before their eyes, and admire His
divine works. They have only to persevere in their union
with Jesus ; and, in reward for their fidelity, the Holy
Spirit will come to them as the powerful Advocate ^ Who
shall speak for them in the great action brought against
paganism, or again, as the Comforter, Who shall wipe
away their tears, dress their wounds, and reawaken their

' Jesus is therefore a Paraclete, too, and there is no contradiction between
the Gospel and the first Epistle of St. John ii, 1.

" The name Paraclete, given to the Holy Ghost, signifies Comforter ac-
cording to some, and Advocate according to others. The difference in inter-
pretation comes from the fact that some, like Origen and the majority of the
Fathers of the Church read TlapaKKrirwp which taken in an active sense
means him who encourages, who consoles; the latter read TlapiKKrjTos and
this word in the passive sense corresponds exactly with the Advocatus of
the Latins. Demosthenes, Philo, etc., employ it in the latter sense.

[233]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

courage. Jesus had offered the truth, the Spirit will im-
plant it in souls, living, complete, efficacious. This is the
most useful weapon He can provide for those who are to
strive against error. At the same time His vivifying in-
fluence shall be exerted directly upon the world, already
agitated by the preaching of the truth. As He caused
Jesus to be born in the womb of Mary, so He will cause
Him to be born again, but in another way, that is to say
in a transformed humanity. For His mission shall be to
introduce the divine life into souls in order to raise them
up to the level of Jesus Christ.^

As a result, this mission of the Spirit shall con-
summate the union of the disciples with the Master, and
through Him with the whole Trinity. This Jesus is about
to explain, yielding Himself more and more to a sentiment
of tenderness : " I will not leave you orphans," He says ;
" I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world
seeth Me no more ; but ye shall see Me ; because I live, and
ye shall live." Inasmuch as the apparitions of Jesus
after the Resurrection were only transitory and accorded
to few, we cannot say that they were the fulfilment of this
promise, which was made in a general way to the faith-
ful of all ages and all lands. As for His coming on the
Day of Judgment, that will be too late to console His
orphaned disciples, and in circumstances which would make
it inexact to say that the world shall not see Jesus, since
all nations shall then be gathered together at the foot of
His throne. It is, therefore, as the rest of the discourse
will show, of a spiritual advent that He speaks. The
manifestations of the risen Jesus shall prepare for it, and
the coming of Christ the Judge shall bring it to its con-
summation. As risen Saviour He will reawaken and for-

Galat. iv, 19; Ephes. iv, 13.
[234 ]

BOOK I] FIRST FAREWELL

tify the disciples' faith, and create the current of super-
natural life which He will thenceforth sustain by His
intimate communications. As Judge He will bring all
things to their appointed end, submitting the belief of
some and the unbelief of others to His own merciful assize.
The faithful shall have to seek and to see Him in the
depths of their soul. While the world with its carnal eyes
is unable to discern Him, the disciples, enlightened by the
Holy Spirit will recognise Him without difficulty. In the
beautiful words of St. Paul,^ they shall contemplate His
glory face to face, and in this contemplation they shall
find the essential element of their supernatural life. Thus,
beneath the rays of the sun which they admire, creatures
receiA'e the light and heat which are the indispensable con-
ditions of their development.

" In that day ye shall know that I am in My Father,
and ye in Me, and I in you." In this spiritual manifesta-
tion of Jesus we shall ever find that His light is in pro-
portion to the courage of our virtue. The vision of the
Son shall reveal to us His intimate union with the Father,
a substantial and eternal union on the side of His God-
head, a hypostatic, but no less real union on the side of
His humanity. It will disclose to us at the same time
the third link in this chain, namely ourselves, in its union
with the First which is the Father, through the Second,
as Intermediary, which is the Son. Thus we shall have the
complete notion of the new religion, whose object is to
unite the creature with the Creator by the sole Mediator
Jesus Christ. Such is the great marvel which the Apostles
shall discover for themselves on the coming day of en-
lightenment, and which they will repeat with such en-
thusiasm and love to a world astonished to find itself called

8 II Cor. iii, 18.
[ 235 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

to so lofty a destiny notwithstanding its wretched con-
dition.

By his union with Jesus man possesses everything.
Faith and works estabhsh this union ; love consummates
it. " He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them,
he it is that loveth Me. And he that loveth Me, shall be
loved of My Father, and I will love him and will manifest
Myself to him." Man by his fidelity in retaining, and,
above all, in practising the Evangelical law, establishes
himself in most intimate relations with Jesus. Feeding
upon His thoughts and living according to His will, he
becomes His friend. For this reason, the Father loves
him, no longer with a mere compassionate love, but with
the love of the Father, since He sees in him the disciple,
the image, the brother of His Son. Jesus, too, Who had
loved him even before his fidelity, will cherish him yet more
tenderly when He finds in him His own resemblance and
the object of His Father's affection.

Such is the only theophany, or divine manifestation,
that the disciples are to expect. Although it is not realised
exteriorly, as Philip desired it a moment ago, it is none
the less true and none the less wonderful.

The minds of some of the Apostles, however, are not
much pleased at this. They were looking for a tangible
fact. Was the Messianic plan changed? Judas, not the
Iscariot, St. John observes, but Judas Thaddeus or Leb-
baeus, exclaims : " Lord, how is it, that Thou wilt man-
ifest Thyself to us and not to the world .-^ " Jesus' only
response is a repetition with still more explicit development
of what He had already said : " If any one love Me, he will
keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will
come to him, and will make our abode with him." All
heaven, then, will descend into the faithful soul to con-
summate there the most ineffable union. In the book of

[236]

BOOK I] FIRST FAREWELL

the Apocalypse,^ this consoling thought is found again ex-
pressed with special emphasis : " Behold, I stand at the
gate and knock," Jesus says ; " if any man shall hear My
voice, and open to Me the door, I will come unto him,
and will sup with him, and he with Me." The most inti-
mate and most familiar relations are therefore established
between God and the faithful soul. This union on earth
is the presage and beginning of the union in heaven.
" He that loveth Me not," continues the Master, alluding
to the second part of the question asked by Judas and to
the lot of those who are not to enjoy His manifestation,
" keepeth not My words. And the word which you have
heard is not Mine, but the Father's Who sent Me." This
is the crime of the faithless world; unwilling to listen to
His discourses, it scorns even the authority of the God
Who dictates them, and therefore Jesus remains hidden
to its eyes.

The understanding of the Apostles was no doubt far
from being able to grasp such sublime teachings. But
that which Jesus scarcely outHnes to-day shall before long
be taken up again by another Teacher, Who will make it
easier to understand. " These things have I spoken to
you, abiding with you. But the Paraclete, the Holy
Ghost, Whom the Father will send in My name. He will
teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind,
whatsoever I shall have said to you." Once more, let us
remark in passing, the doctrine of the Trinity is here
clearly set forth. For what are these Three Persons Who
differ as well in the names They bear as in the parts They
play? The Son has begun the religious formation of the
new teachers by depositing the divine germ in unre-
sponsive soil. The Father, at His request and in His

^ Apoc. iii, 20.

[237]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt third

honour, shall send the Spirit, Who will cultivate this seed,
reanimate it, and make it fruitful. The work of the Para-
clete, in striving to revive the words of Jesus in the mem-
ory of His disciples, and in indicating their exact sense to
intellects henceforth illumined by His light, shall be de-
cisive.

We know, in fact, with what wonderful energy this mis-
sion w^as fulfilled. From the beginning, the Holy Spirit
preserved Christian dogma by means of Scripture and tra-
dition ; in the course of ages He developed it by infallible
definitions in framing which He aided the Church. As
Jesus was the Redeemer of mankind, so was He its
Teacher. The Son created life; the Spirit distributed it.
This perpetual assistance, promised to the Apostles, will
be a guarantee against the weaknesses of their own minds
and the vagaries of human reason ; so that, in spite of
obstacles of all sorts the heavenly Defender and Teacher
will be present to make truth prevail.

Then, after a pause occasioned no doubt by one of the
closing ceremonies of the meal, Jesus added : " Peace I
leave with you, My peace I give unto you. Not as the
world giveth do I give unto you." In truth, there is
nothing like it either in essence or in form. Whereas the
peace of the world, an outward gift coming to us through
the senses, is at all times deceitful and perishable like the
vain things that constitute it, the peace of Jesus Christ
is an altogether inward gift, true and lasting. Because it
springs up from within, it casts a genuine serenity over
even the most unhappy and most troubled life. Does not
Jesus at the moment when He speaks, present the best
proof of this.'' Is there anything more beautiful than the
sight of a soul living in the most unalterable calm, be-
cause it feels itself strong in the sense of duty accom-
plished, in the thought of God Who loves it, and in its

[238]

BOOK I] FIRST FAREWELL

hopes of the future? The world knows not this happiness.
Hence, when, as a matter of propriety, it proclaims, pro-
poses, or wishes peace, we know that its words have no
other result than to prove a need of our heart which is
easier to acknowledge than to satisfy. Jesus, on the con-
trary, offers it and really assures us of it, for, after hav-
ing taught virtue, He provides the strength to practise it.
But this alone can establish the soul in that tranquillity of
order which constitutes true peace.

" Let not your heart be troubled," continues Jesus, re-
turning to the first words of His discourse ; " nor let it
be afraid. Ye have heard that I said to you: I go away
and I come unto you. If ye loved Me, ye would indeed be
glad, because I go to the Father ; for the Father is greater
than I." Painful, indeed, shall be the way by which He
will go to His Father; and yet. He bids His own rejoice
in His departure. What magnanimity ! What heroism !
How plainly divine He is !

The Arians were indeed poorly inspired in seeking in
this passage a proof of the Son's inferiority to the Father.
It is true that Jesus has just explicitly placed Himself
below His Father, but He is not without a reason for so
doing; for speaking as man, inasmuch as He refers to
the eternal reward after death. He cannot but deem Him-
self inferior to God. Yet, if we look more closely, the very
comparison which He establishes between Himself and His
Father is a proof that, while yet a man. He knows that
He is God. What man of wisdom would with composure
say : God is greater than I "^ Can that which is naught be
put in comparison with the Infinite.'' Every comparison
supposes at least a similar term. " In God, Who is pure
Act, pre-eminently unmixed Being, there is but that one
term. Being ; and to be compared with Him one must have
in himself the Being that constitutes divinity. Jesus

[239]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

possesses it in virtue of the hypostatic union. It is for
this reason that He is enabled to make a comparison.
Were He only God, it would be difficult to understand how
He might be less than the Father,^*^ but He is also man,
and as man He appears inferior. From His estate as God
He descended to that of a slave ; hence His joy in re-enter-
ing into His divine glory ; not that His divinity was really
changed into humanity in assuming human nature, any
more than the humanity was changed into Godhead by its
assumption by a divine Person; but just as the God-
head was intimately involved in the humiliations of the
human nature, so that same human nature will be eternally
associated with the glory of the Godhead. This consol-
ing thought teaches the Apostles to look upon the death
of the Just One not as an evil, but as the way that leads
to rehabilitation and triumph.

" And now," says Jesus, " I have told you before it
come to pass, that when it shall come to pass you may
believe. I will not now speak many things with you ; for
the prince of this world cometh; and in Me he hath not
anything. But that the world may know that I love the
Father, and as the Father hath given Me commandment,
so do I. Arise, let us go hence." Owing to the fact of
sin Satan has a kind of a right over sinners. To the just
man he can do nothing, except when God permits it.
Thus Jesus once more testifies to- His perfect purity.

1" Some of the greatest Fathers of the Church grant that even as God the
Son could say He is less than the Father, not because He is in reality less
than He, since they are One, but because the title of Son, begotten and
living in the bosom of the Father, implies a sort of subordination. Yet,
the Holy Doctors remark, this subordination does not constitute a real
inferiority, for in ^^rtue of the fact that He is the Son of God, He is the
perfect representation of His Father, and this Son being neither made nor
created, but begotten. He is as ancient as the Father, since there can be no
Father without a Son. In this sense we may say that the Son is less than the
Father, although in reality He is as great as He.

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BOOK I] FIRST FAREWELL

With an impressive tone of sincerity, He declares Him-
self exempt from sin, and consequently something more
than a poor child of Adam. It is not for the expiation
of His own fault that He is going to give Himself up,
but for the effacement of ours. The Father has exacted
this, and behold the Victim rises to go in search of the ex-
ecutioners. This is the final fulfilment of the Ecce Venio.

[241 ]

CHAPTER VII

SECOND FAREWELL DISCOURSE

The Vine, the Branches and the Husbandman —
Union with Jesus — The Continuation of the Mas-
tee's Work — The World and the Apostles — The
Coming of the Holy Ghost — A Profession of Faith.
(St. John XV and xvi.)

At the Master's invitation, the Apostles arose from
table. Did they recite the end of the Hallel,^ or did Jesus
consider His own discourses the best hymn to chant to
the glory of His Father and the most touching farewell
to say to His friends? The Evangelist does not tell us,
but he lets us see that the Apostles are slow in quitting
the banquet-hall. It may be that they desired, as at the
Transfiguration, to prolong these holy and sweet out-
pourings in which, with every thought and every emotion,
the Master's tender soul appeared in all its beauty. It
may be also that fear, affection, uncertainty as to what
was about to happen, had rendered them motionless. Jesus
Himself experiences some pain in breaking off such sweet
intercourse.

As He sees them standing silent around Him, the mem-
ory of the Eucharistie mysteries which He has just in-
stituted as a sign of union with them and the perspective

> St. Matt, xxvi, 30, and St. Mark xiv, 26, koI v/j-vfia-avres f^TJKdov, seem
to say so, unless they refer to the magnificent discourses which are preserved
by St. John, and which in reahty constitute an incomparable hymn.

[242]

BOOK I] SECOND FAREWELL

of the efforts the enemy is making to break the bonds which
He has wished to make indissoluble, inspire Him to make
one last recommendation. His blood offered under the
appearance of wine, in order to transfuse His life into the
veins of mankind, seems to Him to speak more loudly than
all else of the part that He shall play in the new society.
He seeks a figure with which to render immediately sensible
and forever popular the idea that fills His mind. A vine
which perhaps spread its vigorous branches along the
terrace on which they stood on issuing from this upper
room,^ suggested the symbol which He sought. Such
splendid vines are frequently seen on the terraces in Pal-
estine. He said : " I am the true vine, and My Father is
the husbandman."

We know that God had placed Israel in the midst of
the nations as His chosen and privileged vineyard.^ The
golden vine that hung at the doors of the Temple restored
by Herod,^ was meant to remind the Jews of this. But
this vineyard had degenerated, and God was angered more
than once at its change, its barrenness, or the bitter fruits
it bore.^ It was for the Messiah, in Whom, according to
Isaias,® the destiny and ideal of Israel were to be realised,
to become the fruitful Vine bidden to cover the world with
its branches and to nourish it with its life. If He is the
true Light, compared with John the Baptist, who was
only a passing gleam marking the approach of day ; if
He is the true Bread of Life, in comparison with the

2 The recollection of the consecrated chalice may also have inspired Jesus
to make this comparison. It is the only indication we can find in St. John
of the mysterious act fulfilled by the institution of the Eucharist.

3 Psalm Ixxix, 8-19, in particular, shows us the \ineyard which God takes
out of Egypt, which He plants, after having removed the nations to make
room for it, and which, after a surprising prosperity, is given over to even
more astonishing devastation. See Osee x, 1; Is. v; Ezech. xix, 10.

^Antiq., xv, 11; B. J., v, 4. « Jer. xi, 21; Is. v, 2.

» Isaias xlix, 3.

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LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt third

manna, which nourished but did not preserve from death;
if He is the true and good Shepherd, before the false
shepherds of Israel, He is even more the true Vine of the
Lord in the midst of the nations. From His heart the
sap shall flow to bear fruit upon the branches, that is, in
the Church, the members of which shall be united to Him.
By the novelty of the fine fruits which He will bear. He
will attract the attention and make ready the transforma-
tion of non-believing peoples. The husbandman, who
watches over the vineyard, is the Father. He devotes Him-
self to a twofold labour on the vine-stock, cutting ofi" the
dead branches and clipping from the fecund branches
those useless twigs which might prevent the concentration
of the sap in the grape and the full development of the
fruit. " Every branch in ]Me that beareth not fruit," con-
tinues the Saviour, " He will take aAvay ; and every one
that beareth fruit. He will purge it, that it may bring
forth more fruit." The similitude includes then only those
souls already grafted on the Saviour by adherence to His
doctrine, but whose dispositions are diverse. Some bear
fruit and prove their communication with the divine stock
by their faith which shines in their works. The Father
is pleased to tend these with apparent harshness, for He
does not hesitate to submit them to the cruel iron to prune,
to clip, and to strengthen them. Trials of every sort are
brought to bear upon them, until, loosed from all the use-
less things of life, they labour henceforth only to glorify
God. The others cling to the trunk, but their sterile faith
is a dead faith, and the Father, Who has long and sorrow-
fully beheld them overburdening the mystical Vine with
their uselessness, allows them to fall off" through heresy,
unbelief, and death.

The Apostles are branches full of life and hope. Jesus
encourages them with the information that the Father has

[244]

BOOK I] SECOND FAREWELL

already applied to them His knowledge as husbandman:
" Now you are clean," He says, " by reason of the word
which I have spoken to you." For the divine word has
penetrated their souls like a pointed sword, and has slain
therein selfishness, indifference, and the other passions that
were laying them waste. The operation, it is true, is not
complete; this word will operate in these vigorous na-
tures still more; and the sap, no longer running off in
useless sprouts, will at last bloom forth on Pentecost
day in rich, sweet fruits. For the present they have
only to keep themselves strongly bound to the trunk
by a lively faith. For, faith is the graft that holds
them bound to Jesus Christ. It is the articulation that
unites the member to the body and communicates to it
its life. " Abide in Me," says the Master, " and I in
you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless
it abide in the vine, so neither can you, unless you
abide in JMe. I am the vine, you the branches. He
that abideth in Me and I in him, the same beareth much
fruit ; for without Me you can do nothing." The first
condition of life and fecundity for the branch is union
with the vine. So it is with man in his relations with the
supernatural world. He can do nothing, if he is not in
perpetual communication with the living sap that flows
from Jesus, the divine trunk destined to bear all mankind.
The insufficiency of our nature is clearly asserted here, and
we see how powerless human virtues are, unless animated
by the Redeemer's breath, for the production of fruits for
eternal life.

However, this categorical affirmation of the necessity of
grace does not imply the negation of liberty; and Jesus
in giving the commandment to abide in Him, supposes
one's power of separating himself from Him at will. So
much so that by the side of this picture in which the

[245]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

branch, voluntarily attached to the vine, multiplies its won-
derful fruits, He places that in which the branch by an
abuse of its free will detaches itself from the trunk that
would give it life, and He puts side by side the happy lot
of the one and the sad destiny of the other, that is, the
determining of the merits of the good and of the demerits
of the wicked. " If any one abide not in Me, he shall be
cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall
gather him up, and cast him into the fire, and he burneth."
It is a fatal exclusion leading to the furnace. The man
who separates from Jesus Christ, separates from the
Church, and as grace ceases to sustain his spiritual life,
he withers, instead of spreading his vegetation in flowers
and fruits. Death finally gathers him in his sterility,
and Satan casts him into the fire, wherein he burns for
eternity.'^

How different the lot of the faithful soul ! " If you
abide in Me," says Jesus, " and My words abide in you,
you shall ask whatever you will, and it shall be done unto
you. In this is My Father glorified, that you bring forth
very much fruit and become My disciples." In this inti-
mate union in which man and Jesus give themselves to each
other, the former in his faith, the latter in His words, we
have only to ask, and our desires shall be granted. The
reason of this is that if, on the one hand, these desires,
dictated by the love of God, are necessarily reasonable,
on the other hand, received by the heart of Him Who shall
have given Himself wholly for us, they cannot be rejected
by His infinite benevolence. Whatever we may ask of Him
shall always be unequal to that which He shall have already

'St. Augustine, in Joan. tr. Ixxxi, has well said concerning this passage:
"Ligna vitis tanto sunt contemptibiliora, si in vite non manserint, quanto
glonosiora, si manserint. Unum de duobus palmiti congruit, aut A-itis, aut
ignis. Si in vite non est, in igne erit; ut ergo in igne non sit, in %ite sit."

[246]

BOOK I] SECOND FAREWELL

given us. Then the branch will be covered with fruits,
and by them the vine will glorify and rejoice the hus-
bandman. Jesus, after His mortal life, will glorify the
Father here below, not personally, but through His dis-
ciples, in whom He will cause His own virtues to blos-
som. Hence He will recognise the merits of those who
shall have become the faithful channels of His own life.
They shall be truly His friends, and, as it were, other
Christs.

Can the Apostles decline so sublime a mission .'' " As the
Father hath loved Me," He tells them, " I also have loved
you. Abide in My love." For this love is most generous !
We can understand why the Father should have loved His
Son, Who was His image, the reflection of His beauty and
of His thought ; but what were the Apostles compared with
Jesus.'' They possessed none of His perfections, and yet
He has loved them as the Father has loved Him. The
conclusion is that surrounded with this love, they must find
their pleasure in it, and remain in it faithfully, as He
remains in the love of His Father. " If you keep my com-
mandments," He continues, " you shall abide in My love ;
as I also have kept My Father's commandments, and do
abide in His love." In following the will of another we
model our life on his life, we take as our rule the very
thought that governs him, in a word we closely unite our
soul with his soul, and consequently prove to him, in a
most eloquent way, our whole affection. Jesus has proved
His love for His Father by His absolute fidelity ; it is for
us to manifest ours for the Saviour by a similar fidelity.
Therein is the source of perfect happiness.

For these recommendations of the Master insure felicity
for him who hears them and makes them the law of his
life. " These things I have spoken to you, that My joy
may be in you, and your joy may be filled." The joy that

[ 247 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt third

Jesus derives from His perfect union with the Father is
ineffable ; that which He will communicate to His faithful,
in the union He proposes to them, shall be no less un-
speakable. It will flood man's heart with something in-
finite like God from Whom it proceeds. As He gave His
peace a moment ago, so now the Master promises His joy.
It is His joy because He feels it deeply. Experience has
shown that the happiest souls have always been those who
were the most closely united to the Saviour. They enjoy
at the same time both the happiness that Jesus communi-
cates to them by the delightful sense of His presence, and
the satisfaction they give Him themselves by their attach-
ment, their courage, and their generosity. So that this
joy increases in proportion as our capacity for loving the
Saviour and the certainty of being loved by Him are
developed.

It is because charity is to insure the success of the Mes-
sianic work and the result of the Redemption that the
Master repeats the divine precept in all its forms. After
having exacted that we should attach ourselves to Him as
He is attached to His Father, and that thus we should love
the Father in Him, He bids us love men as He Himself
has loved His disciples. Since He is the model and the
source of charity in all its movements and all its forms,
He has indeed the right to constitute Himself the legis-
lator of charity.

" This is My commandment," ^ He says ; " that you
love one another as I have loved you." On this depends
the life of the Church and the perfect development of the
Christian spirit. In this the new religion shall be dis-
tinguished essentially from all human religions ; by this
she shall be enabled to defy every effort of the enemy ;

* He says My commandment in the sense in which, shortly before, He had
said : a new commandment.

BOOK I] SECOND FAREWELL

by this she shall develop her full life and insure her final
triumph. But it is from on high that He draws the ex-
ample and the motive of this charity. As a prince who
does not himself decline the obligations of His subjects,
He begins by realising in Himself what He will impose
upon others, and He grandly interprets, in His own life,
the law which may surprise them. As He has loved us, we
must love our fellows, and our charity must be as generous,
as great as His. Now, He tells us what His own was, in
order not only to define our duty, but especially to facili-
tate its fulfilment. With what delicacy, in fact. He re-
minds the disciples of what He has done for them, and, as
a consequence, of what He has a right to demand of them !
" Greater love than this," He says, " no man hath, that a
man lay down his life for his friends." This general prop-
osition plainly alludes to the heroic disposition of His
heart. He knows very well and He hints that the great
model of charity is Himself; for, in order to follow its
flight, He will suffer Himself to be led to death. " You
are My friends," He says, insisting on this word, which
establishes the connection between His general proposition
and the deductions He wishes to draw from it ; " you are
My friends, if you do the things that I command you. I
will not now call you servants,^ for the servant knoweth
not what his lord doth. But I have called you friends,
because all things whatsoever I have heard of My Father,

9 He had long before (St. Liée xîi, 4) given them the title of friends, and
He had always lived with them in the greatest intimacy, confiding to them
the secrets of His destiny {St. John vi, 53; St. Matt, xvi, 21). But as
shortly before (verse 20) He again called them servants, some have proposed
to take ou/ceVt in the sense of ovk, which should frequently be translated
not so much, and they render this passage thus: "I have not called you
servants so much as friends." In this way they get rid of every difficulty,
for Jesus declares that He has regarded them at once as servants and as
friends. In any case, in His goodness He has not hesitated to accord them
this latter title.

[249]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

I have made known to you.^'^ You have not chosen Me,
but I have chosen you, and have appointed you, that you
should go, and should bring forth fruit, and your fruit
should remain, that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father
in My name. He may give it you." The force of the
thought here seems to depend upon an anti-climax. The
first charitable act of Jesus He has put last, and the last
He states first. For He has begun by choosing the Twelve
freely on His own initiative. He owed them nothing, and
He has loved them so much that He has called them to the
most glorious and most fruitful vocation. How great this
first testimony of love ! He has given to them the favour of
being Apostles, to go and produce real and lasting good,
and even to have through prayer God's power in their
hands. His love did not confine itself to this. Although
constituting them His messengers. His heralds. He could
have kept them in legitimate lowliness before Him. The
honour of being called to serve such a Master was already
far beyond their deserts. And yet He has been pleased
to make His Apostles His friends, living with them not
in official relations but with the tenderest effusions of con-
fidence. Finally through a love that surpasses all others,
He will give up His life for them amid the most sorrowful
circumstances. Yet this act chronologically the last, is
logically the first, for it is in prevision of His expia-
tory death that His disciples have been found worthy
of entering into intimacy with Him, and of fulfilling
successfully the functions of the Apostolate. Thus the
order that St. John follows is still rigorous, and, after
His admirable digression, the Master has the right
to conclude with a return to His point of departure:

'° He means only all that their weakness could bear ; for He will declare
later (St. Matt, xvi, 21), that He had many other things to tell them, but
that He leaves to the Holy Ghost the care of revealing these to them.

[ 250 ]

BOOK I] SECOND FAREWELL

" These things I command you, that you love one an-
other." 11

By a natural transition, face to face with the Church
which He is founding in the bonds of charity. He discerns
the world, the society of hate which shall prove to be the
implacable adversary of His work. The picture He is
about to draw of its malice must, as well as all the rest,
determine the faithful to keep themselves bound to each
other in charity and, through Jesus Christ, attached to
God in unshakable faith. The third portion of this dis-
course is, as it were, a confirmation of the first two.

" If the world hate you," He says, " know ye that it
hath hated Me before you. If ye had been of the world,
the world would love its own ; but because ye are not of
the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, there-
fore the world hateth you." It is a consolation for perse-
cuted Christians to think that they are suffering for their
Master's cause, for it is the Master that the world is pur-
suing in them. They should be proud of bearing a re-
semblance to Him sufficiently remarkable to revive before
the world His memory. His spirit, and His divine influ-
ence. Besides, if the world persecutes them, it is because
they have ceased to be its partisans, and this is a sign of
their holiness and true glory. For them to be favourably
regarded by the world would be a strange anomaly ; the
members cannot be honoured when the head is cursed, and,
moreover, the disciples are called to represent, in the
midst of the world, ideas which are its condemnation. The
world will hate them as deserters who have abandoned it
to go over to Jesus Christ.

" It has been justly remarked that from the beginning, this last discourse
proceeds in a series of sentences without a single connecting particle. This
IS remarkable in St. John, who ordinarily multiplies them. It may be
explained quite naturally by the profound emotion which at this moment
filled the soul of Jesus. Emotion utters its sentences disconnectedly like sobs.

[ 251 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

" Remember My word that I said to you : The servant is
not greater than his master. If they have persecuted Me,
they will also persecute you ; if they have kept My word,
they will keep yours also.^^ But all these things they will
do to you for My name's sake, because they know not Him
that sent Me." The world's hatred for the disciples shall
have its origin in the world's hatred for Jesus Christ ; but
this latter itself shall find its cause in ingratitude to God ;
and as the crime of despising the Apostles is particularly
great because they despise in them the Master Who sends
them, so non-belief in Jesus Christ is the more culpable
since it resolves itself finally into non-belief in God Himself.
" If I had not come," He says, " and spoken to them, they
would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for
their sin." For they could have been not absolutely rep-
rehensible, because they were living in ignorance; hence-
forth this pretext cannot be alleged for the truth has been
authentically announced and proved to them. The evi-
dence of the Messianic manifestation, which was proved by
miracles, has brought God into the question, and every
non-believer in the Gospel is become a non-believer even
in God. " He that hatcth Me," continues Jesus, " hateth
My Father also. If I had not done among them the works
that no other man hath done, they would not have sin;
but now they have both seen and hated both Me and My
Father. But that the word may be fulfilled which is written
in their law: They have hated Me without cause." ^^

^^ The verb rtipeîv, tokeep, cannot be translated to Jolloir, except ironically ;
for Jesus means that their words shall be no more respected or obeyed than
His. The natural sense of the phrase must be, therefore, to show that their
words will be despised. Hence we accept the verb rripely in the sense of
watching or spying maliciously in order to attack, as if it were irapaT-npuv.
The Septuagint {Gen. iii, 15, and Jer. xx, 10) employs it in this same
sense.

" Jesus alludes to Psalms xxxiv, 19, and Ixviii, 5, where David, the im-
perfect Just One complains of the blind and unjust fury of his enemies.

[252]

BOOK I] SECOND FAREWELL

Such then, is tlic malice of the world, the enemy of the
Apostles, the enemy of Jesus Christ, and the enemy of
God. But, however great it may be, this malice shall not
triumph. To confront the sacrilegious uprising of non-
belief there shall be a great and irresistible testimony of
faith which shall strike down the wicked. " But when the
Paraclete cometh. Whom I will send you from the Father,
the Spirit of truth, Who proceedeth from the Father, He
shall give testimony of Me, and you shall give testimony
because you are with Me from the beginning." The
Spirit, therefore, is in the Father, like the Son, from all
eternity ; and as the latter proceeded from Him by the In-
carnation, so the former will proceed from Him by His
effusion. It is the Son that sends Him, as He Himself had
been sent by the Father ; and it is from this subordination
in consubstantiality that the Catholic Church has legiti-
mately concluded that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the
Son as well as from the Father. Theological reasoning,
moreover, clearly established this. The philosophical no-
tion which we have of the Trinity shows us the Father be-
getting from all eternity His Thought or His Word ;
begetting Him, He loves Him with an infinite love, and the
Word Himself naturally turns back towards the Father,
Who is His Principle, to give Him a similar love; it is
this very relation of love between the first Two Persons
that constitutes the life and gives us the idea of the Third.
But who does not see that this relation proceeds as much
from the Son as from the Father, since it is constituted
by the very current of the two loves.'* The Spirit is the
bond which clings as closely to the Son as to the Father,
and which comes forth from both simultaneously to unite
them in His infinite Personality.

His thought goes further and applies this to the perfect Just One as the chief
object of this malice on the part of Israel.

[253]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

This Spirit, then, will be an authorised and eloquent
witness. His word shall resound first of all in the hearts
of the Apostles, whom He will enlighten and arm with all
the powers of truth. But His voice shall reach the people,
too ; it shall overwhelm the Avorld ; it shall be a breath
bringing back to life nations dead in error. The Apostles
shall, indeed, give their personal testimony ; for they have
seen Jesus from the outset, and they are able to recount
His works even without the aid of the Holy Ghost. But
the efficacy of their words shall come, above all, from the
resonance, the persuasive accent, the luminous clearness be-
stowed upon them by the Spirit. Thus these two testi-
monies, although distinct, shall be united in one.^*

Strong in this promise which insures their triumph, they
must never be discouraged or cast down, whatever hap-
pens. The final word shall be truth's and virtue's, and
the impious, in spite of their violence, shall be crushed be-
neath the divine testimony. " These things," Jesus ob-
serves, " have I spoken to you, that you may not be scan-
dalised. They will put you out of the synagogues ; yea,
the hour cometh that whosoever killeth you, will think he
doth a service to God.^^ And these things will they do to
you, because they have not known the Father nor Me."
Nothing is worse than religious fanaticism ; it is human
passion claiming the authority of divine inspiration. What
a misfortune it is to imagine one's self to be agreeable to

"We may also understand by this testimony of the Spirit, His influence
which shall form new apostles by instructing the newly converted and
giving them, together with the power of miracles, a gift of speech that none
can resist. In this sense St. Peter will say later on (Acts v, 32) : "And we
are witnesses of these things, and the Holy Ghost, Whom God hath given
to all that obey him."

*' These words agree with a famous maxim of Jewish fanaticism: "Omnis
effundens sanguinem improborum, sequalis est illi qui sacrificium facit."
(Bammidbar, Rabba, fol. 329.) It is true that Moses had said to the Lévites
who had killed the idolaters {Ex. xxxii, 29) : " Consecrastis manus vestras."

[254]

BOOK I] SECOND FAREWELL

God in killing one's brethren ! And yet this misfortune is
possible, when one possesses neither truth nor charity, that
is to say, when one does not exist beneath the rays of
heavenly light. The example of Paul is a proof of it.^^

" But these things I have told you, that when the hour
shall come, you may remember that I told you of them."
Hence, in the days of persecution, they must not think
that Jesus has abandoned them to their enemies, and far
less that He has deceived them. After the Master's proph-
ecy, they shall find in the trials that await them the
very reason of their faith, and in their faith the motive
of their courage. " But I told you not these things ^'^
from the beginning," Jesus says, " because I was with
you. And now I go to Him that sent Me." As long as
He was with them He braved the tempest Himself for
their sakes, and spared them its fury. Henceforward it
shall not be so, and the Apostles must not be left in ig-
norance of the fact that evil days await them.

" And none of you," He says, resuming His encourag-

^'^ Ads xxxi, 9; and Galatians i, 13 and 15.

" This assertion gives rise to some difficulty, for we have heard Jesus
prophesying to His own the hatred of the world. {St. Matt, v, 10, et seq.;
X, 16, 18.) Some have thought that ravra, in the text of St. John, signified
rather the future coming and work of the Holy Ghost than the persecutions.
According to them the first ravra, verse 1, signifies the hate that Jesus proph-
esies to the Apostles in order to prevent them from being scandalised; the
second, verse 4, is a repetition of the first, and signifies the same tiling; the
third, which ought to be e/ceîw, by a Hebraism St. John wrote ravra, signi-
fies the mission and the assistance of the Holy Ghost. He did not speak to
them of these things before, because He Himself was with them, but now
that He is about to leave them, He must encourage them by announcing
the Comforter. Others, M. Godet among the number {Comment, sur St.
Jean, vol. iii, p. 447), declare that St. Matthew, according to his custom,
has gathered into the instructions given to the Twelve, all tliat He had said
to them at different times, and they think that Jesus did not really speak
to them of the trials that were in store for them, until the last moment. The
explanations with which they, with St. Chrysostom, Euthymius and several
modern critics, pretend to prove that Jesus announces here the trials of the
Apostles in greater detail or in more lively colours, are not well founded. To
be convinced of this, one has only to compare the texts.

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LIFE OF CHRIST [iwrt third

ing promises, " askcth Me: Whither goest Thou? ^^ But
because I have spoken these things to you, sorrow hath
filled your heart." Instead of seeing only pains and trials,
they must look forward to the reward. After the woes
of the present life, there is still something else. Why lose
sight of this.'' The prospect of it dispels all sadness.
Since the Cross had two sides, why stop to contemplate
only that one which bruises the heart, and forget that one
which consoles it.'* Jesus therefore reminds them that He
is going into the glor}- of His Father.

*' But I tell you the truth ; it is expedient to you that
I go. For, if I go not, the Paraclete will not come to
you ; but if I go, I will send Him to you." We have seen
above the sense of those words, and why the departure of
Jesus was to prepare the coming of the Holy Ghost. The
reconciliation of man with God was made subordinate to
the expiation on Calvary. But the Spirit could not come
into those who were living in sin. Hence, according to St.
Paul's ^^ doctrine, Jesus had to make Himself cursed in
order to procure for us the Holy Spirit. Logically, purifi-
cation precedes adornment, but there was no purification
possible except b}' the Redeemer's death. This then had
to intervene as a first cause, and the coming of the Spirit
follows as the fruit proceeds naturally from the grain of
wheat that dies to give it life. Historically speaking, Jesus
said to the Apostles : " Receive ye the Holy Ghost," only
after His passion and His resurrection.

"Peter had asked Him this question (St. John \uu 36), and Thomas
repeated it later on (St. John xiv, 5). But they did not ask it in the sense
which Jesus desired. At any rate tliey do not take up the matter açain
viith any eagerness to probe it to the bottom ; they prefer to give themselves
up to the mournful thoughts of {persecution, heedless of the joys of future
reward. The Master would have liked to perceive in their soul, at this
sad moment of separation, less discouragement and a more eager desire to
know the aftermath of the storm which was about to break.

>» Galatians iii, 13, li.

v^>r,K I] SECOND farp:vvell

ObtHinwl at the price of so great a sacrifice, the Spirit
will inficrnriify tfif; Saviour f'f>r flis humiliations by the
dernon.stration of His divinity and the consecration of His
triumph on earth. " And when He is come," says Jesus,
" He will convince the world of sin, and of justice, and of
judgment." And He explains immediately the meaning
and the extent of this victory: "Of sin, because they be-
lieved not in Me; and of jtistice, because I go to the
Father, and you shall see Me no longer; and of judg-
ment, because the prince of this world is already judged."
The influence of the Spirit shall consist in convincing men
of the sin of the world, of the justice of Jesus Christ,
and of the judgment of Satan. In analogous terms,^*^
Jesus had depicted the result of His death on the Cross.
Here He takes pains to have it understood that if His
part consists in bearing away the triumph, the influence
of the Spirit shall be to make it evident to all that this
victory has been gained.

The sin of the world is its unbelief which, in view of
Jesus' works was already inexcusable, but which, chang-
ing soon into homicidal hatred, shall be far more so when
it shall have cursed and slain the Christ. Man puts his
Saviour to death and crucifies the Son of God ; is not that
an unheard-of crime? The Holy Ghost, by the mouth of
the Apostles, will severely reproach Judaism with this,
and, convincing it of its crime. He will more than once
succeed in making it understand the need of repentance.^^
There is, therefore, a difference between the action which
the Spirit brings against the world and that which He
brings against Satan. 'J'he world is convinced of its sin,
and Satan of his judgment. Sin does not finally exclude
penance and rehabilitation. Judgment is the consumma-

»».S7. John xii, 31, 32. '■ Acts ii, 22-25-36 and iii, 13-15.

[ 257 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt thied

tion of misfortune. In the course of the ages, the preach-
ers of the Gospel shall be but the organs of the Holy
Ghost, reproaching the world for its faithlessness and for
the vices that are its inevitable consequence.

The justice of Jesus shall be established by His resur-
rection.^^ Men have condemned Him as guilty, God
glorifies Him as just; the former have slain Him, the lat-
ter restores Him to life ; and that there may be no doubt
of His rehabilitation, even the body of the Victim shall
be taken from the executioners. The triumph of the Just
shall be complete. He shall return to His Father, and,
being received into divine glory, man shall see Him no
more. Shall mankind, thus convinced of having disowned
heaven's Envoy, at last be tempted to bend the knee be-
fore Him Whom they have crucified, and to adore Him
Whom they have cursed? The influence of the Holy
Ghost shall, at least, impel them to this loyal and above
all salutary retractation. As for the prince of darkness,
the Spirit shall prove that he has been finally judged.
Satan, struck powerless in his malice, beaten at the foot
of the Cross, felled by his Victim Whose resurrection he
cannot prevent, shall finally be hurled from his tyrannical
power. The Avorld shall have only to open its eyes to learn
it. ' It is evident that hell's struggle with Jesus Christ
shall be ended, the duel finished, and that, by a judg-
ment without appeal, the wicked one shall be declared van-
quished.

While He will convince the world of all this, the Holy
Ghost will instruct the faithful and complete the Saviour's
doctrinal work. " I have yet many things to say to you,"
the Master adds, " but you cannot bear them now. But
when He, the Spirit of truth, is come. He will teach you

" Many have supposed that this might also mean the justice which Jesus'
death shall place within the reach of all.

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BOOK I] SECOND FAREWELL

all truth; for He shall not speak of Himself, but what
things soever He shall hear, He shall speak, and the things
that are to come He shall show you." As Moses, about to
leave the people of Israel, consoled them by designating
Josue their new leader,^^ so Jesus declares to His faith-
ful that the Spirit will lead them to the heart of religious
truth. True, He Himself has given them the teachings'
they were capable of understanding. He has led them out
of Egypt, and up from the desert 'by delivering them from
the servitude and uncertainty of error; He has even in-
sured for them the possession of the promised land; but
they shall make their full entrance therein only under the
guidance of the Holy Ghost. It is for Him to open up
their understanding, to bring to full bloom that religious
science of which they have received the germs, and to mul-
tiply their virtues. Under His influence Christian dogma
and the moral law shall be fully promulgated, taught,
accepted. Through Him, the new society shall receive its
rule of faith uninfluenced by error or by human passions.
He Himself shall guide the Church in the deductions to
be drawn from the Master's teaching, and shall insure her
infallibility. As Jesus Christ instructing mankind was
simply the faithful echo, the trumpet of the Father, so
the Spirit shall be the trumpet of the Father and of the
Son. He lives in them, since proceeding from both one
and the other. He is the knot of the divine life: can His
language, then, be other than that of God Himself.'' He
shall teach not only that which is, but also that which shall
be; He shall inspire the doctors and the prophets. To
the former He shall reveal the science of religion which
they must defend, to the latter the secrets of the future
which they must announce. We know the part the prophets

" Deut. xxxi, 23.

[259]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet third

played in the primitive Church. That of the doctors has
never ceased in the course of the ages. Thus the Holy
Ghost shall glorify the Son by the completion of His
work.

" He shall glorify Me," Jesus goes on, " because He
shall receive of Mine, and shall show it to you. All things
whatsoever the Father hath are Mine ; therefore, I said,
He shall receive of Mine, and shall show it to you." The
P'ather first has the truth in Himself, but the Son, Who
is His thought, has it likewise and reflects it whole and
entire. On the other hand, the Spirit, Who is the love
of the Father and of the Son, also shares in this truth,
and has it eternally from the Father and from the Son.^^

Here the discourse seems to be interrupted. Jesus, on
the point of leaving the terrace where He had probably
paused, returns to the first thought of that hour, and adds
these words : " A little while and now ye shall not see Me,
and again a little while, and ye shall see Me, because I
go to the Father." In this paradoxical form, the Mas-
ter's words tended to awaken again the disciples' curiosity
and to bring on a new explanation on a point which should
be decisive with regard to their faith.

For at that moment, some of the disciples said to one
another : " What is this that He saith to us : A little while
and ye shall not see Me, and again a little while and ye
shall see Me, and because I go to the Father.'' " And they
added: "What is this that He saith, a little while.? We
know not what He speaketh." For a long time we have
seen the Apostles embarrassed by such language on the
part of the Master. His going to the Father at a time

'* In a still more evident but less profound sense, Jesus can say that the
Holy Ghost, in order to glorify Him, shall take what belongs to Him, because
the Spirit shall, in fact, only take up EUs unfinished work, cultivate what He
has sown, ripen what was His. But the other sense is the better one.

[260]

BOOK I] SECOND FAREWELL

when, according to their notions, it was necessary to pro-
ceed to the conquest of the world, always seemed to them
senseless, and His return from the journey to the Father
was even less intelligible. Hence the questions they put
to each other in a low voice. Jesus, knowing that they
were desirous of questioning Him, anticipated them, say-
ing : " Of this do you inquire among yourselves, because I
said : A little while and you shall not see Me ; and again a
little while, and you shall see Me. Amen, amen, I say to
you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall
rejoice." It is the history of the morrow recounted the
day before. When He shall have expired on the Cross,
Satan, the world, the chief priests shall rejoice; the faith-
ful. His disciples. His friends shall be deep in affliction
and in tears ; the former shall sing their victory, the latter
shall deplore their seeming defeat.

However, this anxiety of the Apostles shall soon come
to an end. " And you shall be made sorrowful," Jesus
continues, " but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A
woman, when she is in labour, hath sorrow because her
hour is come; but. when she hath brought forth the child,
she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is
born into the world. So also you now, indeed, have sorrow,
but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and
your joy no man shall take from you." The prophets
had often employed the image of a woman giving a child
to the world to depict sharp suffering ; ^^ Jesus makes use
of it here to indicate especially the rapid transition from
extreme sorrow to the most lively joy, and to show how
much consolation there was in the words : " A little while,"
meant to denote the nearness of His rehabilitation, as they
had marked the nearness of His ignominy. They shall see

"Mich, iv, 9-10; Is. xvi, 17; Jer. iv, 31; Os. xiii, 13.

[261]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

Him suddenly annihilated, and suddenly glorified. If a
woman rejoices saying that a man is born, the Apostles
will rejoice much more proclaiming that Jesus is risen
again; and their joy, inspired by the Master's triumph,
will be as unfailing as that triumph itself.

" And in that day," says Jesus, " you shall not ask me
anything." The great fact of the Resurrection and above
all the coming of the Holy Ghost shall clear away all
doubts, and bring to souls truth together with its evi-
dence. Having God's truth, they shall dispose also of His
power. At that time nothing shall be able to check their
victory over the world, nor disturb their satisfaction as
Apostles and as conquerors. " Amen, amen, I say to you :
If you ask the Father anything in My name, He will give
it you. Hitherto you have not asked anything in ]\Iy
name. Ask and you shall receive, that your joy may be
full." To ask efficaciously in Jesus' name, or rather to
have Jesus ask by our lips, we must already have Jesus
in our hearts. The Apostles had as yet asked nothing in
Jesus' name, because they did not yet have Jesus living
within them. It was reserved for the great prodigy of
the Resurrection and the astounding manifestation of
Pentecost to perfect their faith and thus to make them
capable of speaking in His name. We speak the stronger
in the name of another the more closely united we are with
him, not so much by exterior and conventional signs, as
by thoughts and affections. This union of heart and mind
in the Apostles was to be the fruit of their faith tested
on Calvary and for ever strengthened by the miraculous
apparitions that followed the Resurrection.

" These things I have spoken to you in proverbs. The
hour Cometh when I will no more speak to you in proverbs,
but will show you plainly of the Father." Jesus' language,
although quite intelligible in itself, was obscure and mys-

[262]

BOOK I] SECOND FAREWELL

terious to the Apostles. It was like a parable the trans-
parent envelope of which they could not penetrate. A com-
plete revolution shall be needed to unseal their blinded eyes,
and this revolution shall be effected after the Resurrec-
tion. Then Jesus shall have only to draw their attention
to the texts of Scripture in order to demonstrate to them
their fulfilment and to reveal in this way the admirable
economy of the new religion. This is what He calls speak-
ing plainly of the Father, as if, behind this name of
Father, was hidden the sum and substance of this religion.

Knowledge will then be fully given them, as well as
power, through prayer. This is, under a somewhat dif-
ferent form and with more emphatic accentuation, a repe-
tition of the preceding words : " In that day you shall
ask in My name; and I say not to you, that I will ask
the Father for you, for the Father Himself loveth you,
because you have loved Me, and have believed that I
came out from God." Jesus' thought here is incom-
pletely expressed. He means to say that His intercession,
although continuing for ever in favour of His own, shall
be no longer necessary, since they shall be recommended
thenceforward by their perfect faith, and because without
requiring the supplication of His Son, the Father will hear
those whom He shall love as the living images of that
Son. The Master's object is to give the highest idea of
the merit of the soul that adheres to His divinity by an
act of unreserved faith.

" I came forth from the Father, and am come into the
world," He says, again defining that which is to be the
first object of this faith; " again I leave the world, and I
go to the Father." These four propositions sum up the
whole Christian religion. The Son comes forth from the
Father and not from nothing like a mere creature, there-
fore He is God. He comes forth from Him through an

[263]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet third

act of infinite mercy, for He leaves eternal glory in order
to become man, and by His sufferings to restore man-
kind. Such are the first two phases of His life. They
have their counter-balance in the last two. Jesus rises
up from the earth together Avith the human nature which
He there put on, and enters again into the bosom of the
Father, Whom He had left, bringing with Him His con-
quest, which He glorifies by its deification. The words of
St. Augustine express these admirable transformations :
" Deus f actus est homo, ut homo fieret Deus." This is the
sum of the Christian faith.

The Apostles, impressed by this clear and succinct sum-
mary of Jesus' past and of His future, surprised, too, at
seeing Him divine their most secret thoughts, unite in
speaking a profession of faith which is, as it were, their
last word concerning the Master, and their homage done
to the power of His words. " Behold, now Thou speakest
plainly," they exclaim, " and speakest no proverb. Now
we know that Thou knowest all things, and Thou needest
not that any man should ask Thee. By this we believe
that Thou comest forth from God.'^ This was as much as
to say that for them there could be no longer any doubt
that Jesus was the Christ the Son of the living God. This
was Peter's former profession of faith now become that
of all, and summarising, with a clearness the more sig-
nificant because of its tardiness, the thought of the Apos-
tolic College concerning the Person of Jesus. The Master
had desired to have this homage come from their lips
previously to their defection. He shows how hard it was
to draw it forth. "Do you now ^^ believe.?" He says.

""Apr*, usually translated just now probably signifies at last. Jesus
sees that He has led them to the point He desired, and He is about to render
thanks to His Father (xvii, 8) in His sacerdotal prayer. The words which
He adds immediately afterwards have, however, moved some exegetes to
propose a different meaning. Alluding to their defection a little later on,

[264<]

BOOK I] SECOND FAREWELL

The victory is for Him the more consoling as it was the
more laborious. He is overjoyed in perceiving around
Him none but hearts that beat in unison with His. In
a few moments He will solemnly give thanks to His
Father.

From this moment the future seems to Him less discour-
aging. If fear disperses His friends, a same faith and a
common love can reassemble them. This is the final conso-
lation He wishes to leave them, as He declares that the ter-
rible drama is beginning. The wicked are already arming
their soldiers to seize upon Him. " Behold the hour com-
eth," He says, " and it is now come, that you shall be
scattered every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone ;
and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.
These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may
have peace. In the world you shall have distress ; but have
confidence, I have overcome the world ! " However great,
then, the cowardice of the soldiers, the general shall be
victor, and the fugitives, saved and reinstated by him, may
join again in His victory.

Jesus said, according to them : " You believe now, but what will you do
later on?" The hymn of thanksgiving which we shall now hear seems to
forbid this interpretation.

[265]

CHAPTER VIII
JESUS' PRAYER

The High Priest of the New Law — His Glory —
Sanctification in the Truth — Consummation in
Glory. (St. John xvii.)

When the soul is deeply impressed with sadness or love,
it naturally turns to prayer. Jesus, at this moment, had
only to open His lips, and there issued the most beauti-
ful supplication that ever rose to heaven. This page of
the Holy Books is incomparable. The High Priest of
the New Law shows most conclusively, in His simple and
sublime language, whether He was worthy of the supreme
office of sacrifice which He was going to claim at the price
of His blood.

He speaks aloud: for the Apostles must needs know
what is still lacking in them and what He is going to merit
for them. They must needs at last become acquainted
with the intimate bonds that unite Him with the Father,
and they must learn one day to pray themselves as He
does.

His eyes are raised to heaven : one might say that His
soul, in that look, mounts up to seek the Father's coun-
tenance, desirous of speaking more directly to His all-
powerful mercy : " Father," He says, " the hour is come,
glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son may glorify Thee; as
Thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He may
give eternal life to all whom Thou hast given Him." This

BOOK I] JESUS' PRAYER

hour is the hour of His death, the immediate preparation
for His glory. The Son asks the Father certainly to
sustain Him in the struggle, but above all else to make
His sepulchre glorious. Although His patient and mag-
nanimous attitude, during His Passion, must of necessity
glorify His Father, we must grant His prayer a wider
scope. He certainly means to speak of His resurrec-
tion, of His return to glory, and of the introduction of
His human nature into divine beatitude. The conse-
quence of this supreme glorification will be to increase
His power over the world which He will arouse more
easily by His influence, and more surely lead back to
truth and virtue. Is not this a part of the divine plan?
Has not all power over all flesh been given to the Son,
" to re-establish all things " in Him,^ and by this de-
mand does Jesus do more than comply with the Father's
desires.'' He asks for divine life in glory in order to
honour His Father by assuring men of eternal life
through the light of truth. " Now this is eternal life,"
He says ; " that they may know Thee, the only true God,^

* Ephesians i, 10.

2 St. Augustine and several other Church Fathers have held that these
words of Our Sa\aour should be read thus: "Eternal life consists in ac-
knowledging Thee and Jesus Christ, Whom thou hast sent, as the only true
God"; "ut te et quern misisti Jesum Christum cognoscant solum verum
Deum." The text is read in this sense also by St. Ambrose, St. Hilary, St.
Bede, St. Thomas, etc. Although it is difficult to quarrel with this exposition
of the words, the general preference is to face the objection of the Arians and
maintain the translation we have chosen, because it in no way follows from
this that the Father is called the only true God to the exclusion of Jesus
Christ. It is ordinarily observed, and this suggestion might suffice, that
the Father is called the only true God with relation to the false divinities of
paganism, and not with regard to Jesus Christ, Who is considered, in this
passage, more as Mediator than as God. But, strictly speaking, we can
indeed accept this assertion in its full force, and understand from tlie words :
only true God, the prerogative of the Father, Who alone is not begotten,
and Who is His own Sufficient Reason, whereas of the other Persons, One is
begotten by the Father, and the Other proceeds from the Father and the
Son. As He is the origin of two other Personalities as eternal and as perfect
as His own. He appears to be, as it were, a kind of immense Reservoir of

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LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt third

and Jesus Christ,^ Whom thou hast sent." It is, there-
fore, with the thought of making the Father known that
He is occupied when He asks, on His own account and
in preparation for others, for life in glory. Men shall
not know God in heaven, if they have not known Him
on earth. Heaven is but the religious life of earth
transformed by eternity. The knowledge of the Father
which Jesus wishes to give men shall be not only specu-
lative, it shall become above all practical, appealing even
more to the heart than to the mind, setting forth this
Father as the only true God, in opposition to all those
whom men, in the words of St. Paul,"* have been pleased
to call gods in heaven and on earth, and to all beings who,
since they are not God, are in comparison with Him only
so many illusions, vanities, and lies. The pure worship of

Divinity, and, in a sense easily understood, the only true God, God the pre-
eminent. The two other Persons are no less God than He, as we have
said elsewhere when expounding this bold explanation of certain Fathers of
the Church. They are equally eternal, infinite, necessary, since the Father
is Father only by virtue of having a Son, and the Father and the Son are to
be understood as necessarily united by the eternal Love Which is the Spirit.
But it is the Father, in reality. Who is the Source of Divinity, fcmtana Deltas,
and from Him It passes in an infinite, eternal, necessary Effusion to the two
other Persons. Hence Jesus does not hesitate, in this same sentence, to place
the knowledge of Himself on the same degree of necessity as the knowledge
of the only true God for the gaining of eternal life; St. John in his first
Epistle V, 20, alluding no doubt to tliis passage, after having said that the
Father is the true God Wliom we must know, thanks to the special under-
standing which the Son has bestowed upon our souls, declares that this true
Son of the Father is " the true God and life eternal."

3 In this text the Master calls Himself by the name of Jesus Christ, because
this name sums up all that we must know concerning the Mediator: the
union of the two natures, the di^^ne and the human, in the Person of the
Son of God. Through a lack of critical acumen some have been suspicious
of this manner of speech on the Saviour's lips, and have accused St. John
of having forgotten himself in gi\'ing the Master's language a form that is
absolutely inadmissible. But no other form could be better suited to the
solemnity of the words that Jesus here utters. No longer mindful that He
Himself is in question, He beholds only the Father and the Way that leads
to the Father, the Mediator, the Man-God, Jesus Christ. His words tend
to put in a clear light these two essential points : one only true God and one
only true Messiah.

* / Corinthians viii, 5.

[ 268 ]

BOOK I] JESUS' PRAYER

Him will be His glory no less than the merit of His ador-
ers. As for Jesus Himself, He must be known like His
Father, but not so much as true God, as the Christ and
Mediator. Man can be saved only by uniting himself to
Him in order to enter into the supernatural life. But,
in order to unite himself thus, he must know and love.

" I have glorified Thee on earth," Jesus continues 'with
the simplicity of the divine labourer doing justice to His
work ; " I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me
to do ; and now glorify Thou Me, O Father, with Thyself,
with the glory which I had before the world was, with
Thee." He has faithfully fulfilled His mission, His con-
science bears witness to this fact; it is for the Father
now to reward Him. As the Word, He has nothing to
ask, for His glory and His triumph are eternal ; but as
man He asks for that which He has merited, the associa-
tion of His human nature in the glory of His divine na-
ture. How, indeed, could it be otherwise, in view of the
hypostatic union? But Jesus asks it in humility and love,
not through fear of being frustrated in His request, but
because He derives a special satisfaction in this filial act
of submission and prayer.

A summary of His work is not difficult to make. " I
have manifested Thy name," He says, " to the men whom
Thou hast given Me out of the world ; Thine they were,
and to Me Thou gavest them, and they have kept Thy
word. Now they have known that all things which Thou
hast given Me are from Thee, because the words which
Thou gavest Me, I have given to them ; and they have
received them and have known in very deed that I came
out from Thee, and they have believed that Thou didst
send Me." This is the history of those who surround Him
and who hear His prayer. First of all, bound to God by
their uprightness of heart, these true and pure Israelites

[ 269 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

broke with the world that hindered their rehgious devel-
opment. The Father, to Whom they belonged not only
as His creatures, but also as His servants, in the terms
of the Mosaic Law, gave them over to His Son that they
might become the first-fruits of the new religion. Then
Jesus, opening their eyes, has made known to them by
gradual and patient revelation, the name, the image, the
life of the Father and the special character of the Messiah,
Who appears to them henceforth, no longer as a redoubt-
able conqueror or powerful king, but as the bond uniting
heaven and earth* By force of charity He has prepared
them for the reception and preservation of the discourses
which He brought them from heaven, and little by little
they have come at last to salute the Master as Messiah
and true Son of God. The collective profession of faith
which they uttered a moment ago is the fruit of this
labour. Jesus gladly yields Himself to the sweet impres-
sion which He received from it.

Although others may find that the harvest is mediocre
after such great hardships, the divine Labourer, less ex-
acting, declares Himself satisfied. It is because His eye
discerns in this handful of men the spark that will kindle
the flame, the army that will revolutionise the world, the
masters of the future. With a tenderness all the deeper
since they are so few for so great an undertaking. He
shelters them with His care. One holds that especially
dear which, having cost much, ought to bring forth much
fruit.

" I pray for them," He says ; " I pray not for the
world, but for them whom Thou hast given Me, because
they are Thine." How completely His paternal affection
has grouped in this prayer all the arguments that may
insure its efficacy ! " I pray for them ! " It is the Medi-
ator, the Just One, the Son, the Well-beloved of the

[270]

BOOK I] JESUS' PRAYER

Father Who suppHcates, and He suppHcates for them,
the dearly bought flock, and the hope of the future. Were
He to pray for the world, for those who, for having re-
mained beyond His influence, belong not to Him, His
prayer might not be heard ; ^ but it is for those who belong
to Him and to the Father that He intercedes. Is it pos-
sible for Him not to be heard ? " All ]\Iy things are Thine,
and Thine are Mine, and I am glorified in them." If the
Father, following the Son's example, gives to this cher-
ished little flock His love and His all-powerful protection,
the result shall be that the Son shall be glorified by His
faithful ones throughout the universe, and the Son's glory
shall be reflected upon the Father. What the Father owes
to the Apostles, what He owes to His Son, what He owes
to Himself, these are the motives which Jesus' heart dis-
covers and accumulates, as if haphazard, to make His
prayer acceptable. They are all founded upon the divine
relations of the most sublime order.

" And now I am not in the world," He continues, " and
these are in the world, and I come to Thee. Holy Father,
keep them in Thy name, whom Thou hast given Me, that
they may be one, as We also are." It is not enough
merely to be worthy of the Father's protection ; they need
it. Jesus shall no longer be there to defend them. He is
going to die ; and between His death and His glorification
that crucial moment shall come when the flock, were it
left unaided by the Father, would run the risk of being

*It is in this sense that we must understand these words: "I pray not for
the world." For, in an absolute sense, it would not be exact and would be
in eyident contradiction with several passages in which Jesus declares that
He is come, not to judge the world, but to save it; that we must pray for
the wicked, persecutors and unbelievers. {St. Matt, v, 44.) He Himself
asked His Father to forgive those who put Him to death. Since He came
to take away the sins of the world. He does much more than pray for the
world; He forces it, willing or unwilling, into the way of salvation. It
remains for the world to have the will to walk therein.

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LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

scattered. Therefore the Father shall have His work to
do and must keep them united in His name until the Ascen-
sion brings on Pentecost, and the work of the Spirit is
begun. At that time, too, as always, nothing shall be
done without the Father's consent. It is He Who has
given the Son for the salvation of the world ; it is He Who
will give the Spirit for its sanctification ; and Jesus is
right in invoking His good-will, not only for the Apostles
and for a few days, but for the whole Church and for all
time. The life of this Church depends entirely on the
union of the members who constitute it. The union of the
three divine Persons must therefore serve as its model.
They live by one thought, by one will, by one love; the
faithful, too, must be united in the same faith, the same
rule of morals, the same charity. Strong in this threefold
bond, the Christian society shall fear nothing and shall
triumph over all. Jesus knows it, and hence He utters this
prayer. How sweet and affectionate His language ! How
tender in speaking to His Holy Father, Whom He honours
with the most cherished of titles, as if He sought, by flat-
tering Him, the more surely to merit being heard.

Then, insisting with filial confidence : " While I was with
them, I kept them in Thy name. Those whom Thou gav-
est Me, have I kept, and none of them is lost, but the son
of perdition, that the scripture may be fulfilled. And
now I come to Thee, and these things I speak in the world,
that they may have My joy filled in themselves." This
is the last service that Jesus does them on earth. His
watchful solicitude, which has preserved them all, except
Judas, is about to cease protecting them. There is now
only the power of His prayer to assist them, and He de-
votes Himself to that with generosity.

To keep them as they are would not satisfy His de-
sires. The Father must consent, moreover, to sanctify

[272]

BOOK I] JESUS' PRAYER

them, and He must guard them not only against the phys-
ical violence of the world, but also against its moral in-
fluence. " I have given them Thy . word, and the world
hath hated them, because they are not of the world, as I
also am not of the world." The Father then must have
an interest in defending those whom the world hates for
the simple reason that they have received the Father's
word. " I pray not that Thou shouldst take them out of
the world, but that Thou shouldst keep them from evil.
They are not of the world, as I also am not of the world.
Sanctify them in truth; Thy word is truth." It could
not be Jesus' desire to take them with Him out of this
world, where they must remain to continue His teaching
and His work. He does not wish to remove them from the
field of battle, where they must needs struggle and con-
quer, but He begs that they may not be wounded and that,
though dwelling in the midst of evil for the purpose of
destroying it, they may not feel its taint. So He asks
the Father to fortify them more and more in virtue and
to strengthen them in justice by establishing them in His
truth. Generally evil enters the heart only when error or
illusion have made their way into the mind. Hence it ap-
pears to the Saviour decisive if the Father continues to
give them the assistance of His word in order to prevent
the enemy from deceiving and seducing them.

Their vocation makes virtue still more necessary for
them. In order to help others to become just, they them-
selves must dwell in justice. " As Thou hast sent Me
into the world, I also have sent them into the world, and
for them do I sanctify Myself, that they also may be
sanctified in truth." The Father has been the model and
source of spiritual life for the Son Whom He sent to
mankind. The Son desires to be always in this same re-
lation with regard to those whom He in turn has sent.

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LIFE OF CHRIST [paet third

He sanctifies Himself: that is, He struggles against the
infirmities of the human nature which He has put on, He
immolates in it whatever might impede the sacrifice, in a
word. He continues His progress ^ in wisdom and virtue
from His tenderest infancy that He may be the model of
His Apostles.

He sanctifies Himself also, and this is perhaps the deep-
est and truest meaning of this word, by offering Himself
as a victim in their behalf. For, a victim, according to
the language of the Jews, became holy by the very fact
that, cut off from all profane usage, it was reserved for
the sacrifice, as if the God for Whom it was destined had
immediately clothed it with His own sanctity in token of
His acceptance.

" And not for them only do I pray," adds Jesus, " but
for them also who through their word shall believe in Me."
It is the Apostles' words which, spoken first and after-
wards written, recounting the Master's works, or them-
selves deriving the dogmatic and moral deductions of His
teachings, shall cause faith to spring up in the world and
shall gather in the same belief and under the same law the
members of the new society.

" That they may all be one." Moral cohesiveness is a
matter of primary importance if the Church is to cope
with all dangers and to offer in her own person a kind
of substitute for the visible presence of Jesus Christ. A
divided kingdom throws open its gates to the enemy.

It would not be enough, however, to be united in one
body, if, by a superior union, that body did not itself
receive life from the source which should distribute it.
This source is God to Whom Jesus Christ binds the
Church. " As Thou, Father, in Me and I in Thee ; that

•Compare this passage with St. Luke's remark: "And the child grew,"
etc. St. Luke ii, 40 and 52.

[274]

BOOK I] JESUS' PRAYER

they also may be one in Us : that the world may believe
that Thou hast sent Me." There is nothing more striking,
in the history of the world, than this perpetual union of
the Church with Jesus Christ, and through Him with God.
It is so intimate that Jesus Christ and God seem to live
in the Christian society as if in permanent manifestation.'^
" And the glory which Thou hast given Me, I have
given to them, that they may be one, as We also are One.
I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made per-
fect in one, and the world may know that Thou hast sent
Me, and hast loved them, as Thou also hast loved Me."
Jesus desires that they may be no longer merely one
among themselves, but especially one with God. It is
through this union, the supreme perfection of their life,
that they shall share the glory the germ of which they
have received through the Incarnation. Let the Father
ratify what the Son has so well begun, and accept the
faithful as His children by adoption, brothers of Jesus
Christ and co-heirs of His glory. The Master asks that
this prodigy of divine mercy may commence in this life,
and that it may afterwards be crowned in eternity. Can
He consent to be separated from His own.'' "Father,"
He adds, " I will that where I am, they also whom Thou
hast given Me, may be with Me, that they may see My
glory which Thou hast given Me, because Thou hast loved
Me before the creation of the world." During the present
life one fall is sufficient to detach from this divine union
the soul that allows itself to embrace evil; in eternity
nothing can break the chain that shall bind the Christian

^This transcendent phenomenon has attracted the attention of non-
believers in all ages. They have sought to suppress it in order to offset an
argument that is very embarrassing for them. Failing in this blameworthy
enterprise, they have more than once acknowledged the divine hand in this
superhuman master-work, though they have not always had the courage to
kiss and adore it.

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LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt third

to Jesus Christ, and heaven's great joy shall be the sight
of the Church triumphant, constituting only one heart
and one soul, perpetually acclaiming her victorious King,
while bearing on her own brow a ray of the divine glory
of which He has achieved the conquest. In this shall
consist the crowning of the work of the Incarnation: the
Church attached to Jesus Christ as soldiers to their chief,
Jesus Christ united with God as the Son with the Father,
creation, in fine, happily brought back to its Creator as
to its beginning.^ At the same time sanctity and the
divine attributes, radiant in Jesus Christ, shall pass,
by a marvellous reflection, from the head to the mem-
bers, and mankind, by a prodigy of the Father's love, in
limits not easy to determine, shall be associated in the
life divine.

This, no doubt, is asking much. Jesus supplicates the
Father's mercy to aid His own good-will, and yet He does
not admit that justice can suffer thereby. He means that
even this latter cannot but sanction this extreme favour.
" Just Father," He says, " the world hath not known
Thee ; but I have known Thee, and these have known that
Thou hast sent Me." Bound to Jesus by faith, they par-
ticipate in His merits and have a right to His reward.

" I have made known Thy name to them, and will make
it known, that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me,
may be in them, and I in them." If the disciples' knowl-
edge still seems to the Father insufficient, Jesus promises
to develop it, after His resurrection and particularly at
Pentecost, so that He shall be wholly in them, filling their
minds with His doctrine, their wills with His law, their
hearts with His love ; in a word, quickening their life with

* This is the admirable fulfilment of the idea thus summed up by St. Paul :
"To re-establish all thing;s in Christ," (àuaKi^a\ai<i<Ta(rdM) . "Ye are Christ's
and Christ is God's." (Eph. i, 10; 7 Cor. iii, 23.)

[ 276 ]

BOOK I] JESUS' PRAYER

His own life. They, the living images of the well-beloved
Son, cannot but be cherished of the Father.

Here ends this touching prayer. Standing between
God and His people, the Pontiff had uttered the cry of
the suppliant. Now He had only to offer His sacrifice.
Quickly arousing them from that contemplative state in
which this sublime and filial prayer still held them. He at
last leads them out of doors, impatient to undergo the
painful trial which His enemies have prepared for Him.

[277]

Section II
The Trial of the Messiah

CHAPTER I
THE AGONY IN GETHSEMANE

The Entrance into the Garden — The Hour of
Satan's Assault — Trouble in the Soul of Jesus
— The Prayer — The Bloody Sweat and Agony —
The Angel of Consolation — The Victory : " Rise,
Let us Go." (St. John xviii, 1 ; St. Matthew xxvi, 30,
36-46 ; St. Mark xiv, 26, 32-42 ; St. Luke xxii, 39-46.)

It must have been about ten o'clock in the evening.^
Through the already deserted streets of the city Jesus and
the Apostles descended into the valley of Cedron - towards

1 The supper must have commenced about seven o'clock, and from the
incidents and conversations that had occupied the time, we believe that it
lasted at least three hours.

^ The readings vary between tS>v KéSpuv, rod KéSpov, and rod KeSpuv.
This last form is the best. Josephus (Antiq., viii, 1, 5) employs it, without
deeming KéSpuv indeclinable, however, since he says : Xdixap^os KéSpûyos.
The Septuagint translates Nahal Qidron {II Kings xv, 23; /// Kings ii,
37) 6 Xelfxa^^oi KeSpuv. In any case, it would be attributing a singular
error to the author of the fourth Gospel to claim that he says : the river of
the cedar or of the cedars. The word Qidron, in Hebrew, means black.
The Greeks likewise had streams which they called black MeAas. (Herodotus
vii, 58, etc.) The water of a torrent is generally muddy, and its bed is
ordinarily deep-cut. In this instance the name comes from the gloomy
gorges or that valley which, scarcely perceptible north of Jerusalem, reaches
a depth of nearly 180 feet between the area of the Temple and the Mount
of Olives, and, in the direction of the Dead Sea, passes by Marsaba, between

[278]

BOOK I] THE AGONY IN GETHSEMANE

the Mount of Olives. This was the road to Bethany ; but
on that evening Jesus was not to return to His friends'
house.

Crossing the bed of the river the Apostolic group halted
before a garden called Gethsemane or the Oil-press,^, The
grove, which was probably enclosed, contained a kind of
pleasure resort.* It may be that the proprietor was a
friend of Jesus. Many have thought that Gethsemane be-
longed to the family of Lazarus. In any case, it was not
the first time that the Master came there, and no doubt
it was the custom to assemble there ^ as at a meeting place
on leaving Jerusalem and before setting out for the vil-
lage of Martha and Mary. Although He foresaw that
Judas would bring His enemies to this spot, He was not
led to modify this usual evening programme.^

Jesus entered the enclosure, and, inviting the Apostles
to sit down and await Him near the entrance, perhaps in
tlie dwelling-house. He advanced into the middle of the
grove, with Peter, James and John, to pray.

The great drama was beginning. Perceiving the ap-
proach of the fatal hour, the Redeemer sought to meet
His Father face to face to hold converse with Him. The
great voice of God which long ago in the shades of Eden
had summoned fallen man : " Adam, Adam, where art
thou ? " had been for four thousand years without an
answer. No son of sinful humanity had had the courage
to respond : " Here am I ! " It was for the New Man to

abrupt cliffs 450 feet in height. The Cedron is nearly always dry except in
the season of heavy rains.

3 This word comes from gath, a press, and schemen, oil.

* We may conclude this from the incident of the young man who in St.
Mark xiv, 51, was present in night-dress at the scene of the arrest. Besides
Josephus tells us that the environs of Jerusalem were covered with villas.
(B. J. vi, 1, and v, 3.)

' St. John xviii, 2.

' This is what is meant in St. Luke xxii, 39, Kara, rh êdos,

[279]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet third

break that silence. For Jesus, indeed, ready to pay for
all, seems to advance towards the divine wrath, exclaim-
ing: Ecce Veniol Adam awaits his judge!

By this free and generous act He meant to assume hu-
manity entire together with the responsibility for its
crimes, and to speak, to act, to expiate as if He alone
were mankind. Thus He constituted Himself really a New
Man summing up by substitution in His life the lives of
all, in His heart the hearts of all, and in His soul the souls
of all. But what crushing responsibilities such an accept-
ance involved ! By saying to His Father : " Forget Thy
Son now, and behold in Me only fallen humanity asking
that it may expiate its long-continued faithlessness ; let
Thy justice have full play ! " He gave Himself up to
every torture, for the crimes of humanity are most varied
and countless. If each one of these required a special
reparation, how terrible was the blow which all of them
together could inflict upon the body, the heart, and the
soul of Him Who presented Himself as an atonement for
them all! The more so, since, however hard the labour,
Jesus, in order to furnish it, could look for help from no
one. He alone, according to the prophet's words,"^ was
to enter the press of the divine wrath.

There was an added circumstance in His sufferings that
made His agony a trial as intolerable for Him as it is
mysterious to us. Suddenly, into His soul which, of its
own right and from the moment of His birth, had en j oyed
the béatifié vision, there came a strange eclipse. God
seemed to withdraw Himself, He seemed to abandon the
Man to His own resources with a rigour that knew no
pity ; He concealed Himself so completely as to provoke
that heart-rending cry which was afterwards heard from

' Isaias Ixiii, 3. It is remarkable that the place where Jesus was, was
named the Oil-press.

[ ^80 ]

BOOK I] THE AGONY IN GETHSEMANE

the Cross : " My God, why hast thou forsaken me? " How
may we understand this prodigious phenomenon, since the
hypostatic union is indissoluble? Our eye cannot pene-
trate the cloud ; our curiosity must halt before problems
of so transcendent an order. It is a mystery. Whatever
one may say, one cannot explain it, one can only run the
risk of compromising its harmony. Let us be firmly con-
tent with these two data of the problem, both of which
are equally incontestable: the divine nature in Jesus was
inseparable from the human nature, and yet the latter un-
derwent the trial, struggled and suffered as if it had been
separated from the former. For we cannot imagine a
more bitter and more real agony than that which causes
a sweating of blood.®

The picture traced for us by the Synoptics ^ of Jesus'
condition at the moment when He leaves His disciples is
striking. The humanity of our Lord is there fully seen
in all its reality and its holiness. A vague terror weighs
Him down and crushes Him. A loathing soon follows,
and moves Him to profound sadness. ^*^ This trembling of
the whole being belongs to the essential phenomena of life.
The purer and the more guarded humanity is from the
violent passions, the more delicate and sensible it is be-

8 Nearly every discussion, both of ancient and modern times, bearing upon
the human development of our Lord, and the conditions under which His
soul was tempted, made capable of merit, etc., etc., seems to ignore the fact
that we are dealing here with the very mystery of the Incarnation. Since
we have no clear idea of two natures united in a single person, we cannot
define the conditions to which humanity was subjectea in relation to God-
head in the hypostatic union.

» St. John has said nothing of the agony in Gethsemane, but he had vmtten
the prelude of it at the time of the presentation of the Greeks (xii, 23-28),
and he shows us (xvii, ') Jesus entering the Garden where He was to suffer it.
This silence has no more dogmatic bearing than the corresponding silence
which he observes on the subject of the institution of the Eucharist, after
having given us the discourse on the Bread of Life, ch. vi.

>" In terms which are suggestive of grief, KmreTa-dai, iKdafifiûadat, àSrifwveiv,
the first two Synoptics note the degrees of this tragic agony.

[281]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt third

neath the embrace of moral woe. No longer checking His
emotion, the Master began to speak : " My soul is sorrow-
ful even unto death ! " It was a quick transition from
that sweet peace, which ha*d inspired in Him the last fare-
well at the Supper, to a sudden agitation that disturbs
His whole moral being. But does not the stone suddenly
loosed from the mountainside spoil the clearness of the
spring by stirring it to its depths.? Does not the hurri-
cane on a sudden hurl up the waves of the ocean and the
sands of the desert ? To hide the sight of His agony from
the three privileged disciples, the Master withdraws a few
steps away. It seems that although he derived a human
consolation from their presence, He preferred to stand
apart from them through fear of doing them harm.
" Stay ye here," He said to them, " and watch with Me.
Pray lest ye enter into temptation." His thought was
then, to associate them, though at a distance, in the great
act of love, of obedience, of sacrifice which He was about
to accomplish. Alas ! He was to find in them, who were
the elect of the Apostolic college, only drowsy men with-
out any true sense of the solemnity of this occasion.

He withdrew perhaps a stone's throw, says the Evange-
list, and fell on His knees. This attitude befitted the Vic-
tim awaiting the mortal blow, and testing it in advance,
as if to know its full violence. Even if He had not with
His prophetic glance sounded the abyss of woes into which
He was about to descend, Satan would have taken care
to place before His eyes this dark repulsive picture. We
know that the tempter, after his first vain struggle, had
held himself in reserve awaiting a favourable ^^ oppor-
tunity later on for a fresh attack. The present hour was

" Elsewhere we have noted the words with which Si. Lvlce iv, 13
closes the account of the temptation : ô Sid$o\os àtrîffrq air' aiirov Sxp*
Kaipov.

[282]

BOOK I] THE AGONY IN GETHSEMANE

once more his,^^ and Jesus desired in vain to escape it.^^
As he had been in the desert, Satan was also in Gethsemane.

Temptation is directed against man's heart sometimes
by violent desires, sometimes by foolish fears. Jesus had
long ago been insensible to covetousness, would He allow
Himself now to be overcome by fear? Satan, in the midst
of light mingled with darkness, might have asked him-
self this. When he is desirous of capturing man through
fear, his cleverness consists in injecting a vague terror into
the soul, repugnance into the heart, hesitation into the will.
Thus he often overturns our resolutions, our aspirations
and our strongest convictions.

To Jesus, Who had come into the presence of His
Father to confer concerning our redemption, he repre-
sented first of all in the liveliest colours all the physical
and moral sufferings that His enemies held in store for
Him. From Judas' kiss to the gall mixed with myrrh and
vinegar, from the scene of derision to the final desolation
on the Cross, not forgetting the bloody rods of the flag-
ellation and the crown of thorns, from the insulting pride
of Caiphas, the cynical contempt of Herod, the selfish
cowardice of Pilate to the insults that re-echoed on the
rock of Calvary, nothing was omitted. Jesus knew better
than he how frightfully severe it all was, and as He be-
held the hideous picture. His first movement of fright was
changed into a sentiment of stupefaction ^"^ that rendered
Him motionless.

Immediately, to make the assault more formidable, Sa-
tan seemed to hurl down upon His soul, one by one, all the
crimes of mankind, and to strive to crush Him beneath
the weight of so much infamy. The Just One looked upon
His hands and saw them reeking with the blood shed by

" St. John xiv, 30, and St. Luke xxii, 53. '^ st. Mark xiv, 35.

" This is the sense of fjpeaTo iKdafifielffOai.

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LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt third

the homicides of all ages. In His astonished soul thun-
dered, as it were, the voices of impiety and of blasphemy,
the abominable outcries of humanity so long in rebellion,
and now suddenly taking refuge in Him to make Him re-
sponsible for its scandalous excesses. His pui*e heart
shook with the tumult of the most violent passions. The
most profound sanctuary of His soul belonged to God, no
doubt, more than ever ; but a thick atmosphere of evil sur-
rounded Him, was overwhelming Him. With quick energy
His unalterable sanctity shook off the horrible cloak of
crimes which human malice was throwing about His shoul-
ders ; Satan replaced it on Him with the words : " If thou
wilt wash them away, thou must bear them." ^^ Thus in-
famously transformed, the Son would merit naught but
the just severity of His Father. The Well-Beloved be-
came the Accursed. What heroism in assuming such a
responsibility, in accepting the punishment though guilt-
less of the fault !

Under the crushing burden which He now received, Je-
sus had unconsciously bent His head to earth. The angry
countenance of the Father upon which He has just looked
has overwhelmed His soul. He can bear it no longer, and,
rising up : " Father," He cries out, " if it be possible, and
all things are possible^*' to Thee, let this chalice pass
from Me ! But not what I will, but what Thou wilt."
Satan then has nothing to do here. It is with His Father
alone that Jesus will conclude the awful contract. Cannot
the justice of God remove in some measure the frightful
bitterness of this overflowing chalice .'' Is sin then so great
an injury that it must be expiated by so terrible a repara-

*5 This is the sense of the prophet's words : "Iniquitates nostras ipse tuHt,"
of those of St. John the Baptist : " Behold the Lamb of God Who taketh away
the sins of the world "; and of St. Paul's " Pro nobis peccatum fecit."

" Jesus appeals here to the Father's love for Him, and to that infinite
possibility which is mingled with the divine liberty.

[ 284 ]

BOOK I] THE AGONY IN GETHSEMANE

tion? Death He has long since accepted, and nothing can
prevent Him from saving the world ; but death together
with the malediction of His Father, how can He endure
both? And yet He must, because, Lamb of God though
He is, never having known sin. He assumes the place of
sinners. It is because He has taken this place that His
suppliant cry has not penetrated the skies, and the name
of the Father uttered with so much love has remained pow-
erless on His lips. In reality, He prays with earnestness,
but He does not desire to force the Father's will which,
in this instance, is not in accord with His, without there
being, however, in this divergency even the shadow of an
imperfection. The Father desires the sacrifice ; from the
viewpoint of His justice, this is His right. The Son does
not desire it, giving ear to the claims of His human na-
ture, and this is His right. Human nature was not cre-
ated for suffering and it instinctively and energetically
rejects it. Without this innate repugnance, the accept-
ance of grief would never be a sacrifice. Face to face
with the immolation suggested, nature inevitably and
spontaneously cries out : No ! This may be called the will,
but it is not the whole will, nor even a part of the true
will, for this instinctive movement is subject to a superior
command of the soul which perceives its duty where the
exigencies of a higher order point it out. This superior
command silences the otherwise legitimate cry of nature,
and this it is that adds to the first part of Jesus' suppli-
cation : " If it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me ! "
the second part which reduces it to its true proportions by
removing every possibility of a conflict : " But not what I
will, but what Thou wilt ! "

It has been said that the Saviour then suffered all the
pains of hell save despair. It is certain that the emotion
of His soul disturbed His whole physical being. His blood

[285]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt thihd

in lively ferment finally broke through its conducting ves-
sels, and escaped with the abundant perspiration that was
streaming from His whole body.^^ The combat became
more and more violent. His flesh, His soul, His mind, all
sought to fly the awful sacrifice ; His will alone stood fast,
and holding, so to speak, the three victims beneath the
hand, it dragged them on in spite of themselves to the
immolation, in conformity with that which the Father's
good pleasure exacted. In Jesus' life there was nothing
greater than the superhuman struggle so justly called His
agony.

As if to fortify Himself by the sight of those He loves,
and from whom He expects perhaps an aff'ectionate word
in the midst of this fearful combination of hate and fury
that surrounds Him, the Master rises and goes to the
three disciples whom He had invited to watch and pray
with Him. They had fallen asleep. In a tenderly re-
proachful tone He turned to the most devoted among
them, to Peter, who promised to go with Him even to
death, were it necessary, and who is not even able to watch
with Him: " Simon, sleepest thou.'' " He says. " Couldst
thou not watch one hour with me? " He perceives, as if
with painful astonishment, but it is, alas ! true, that every
one is forsaking Him, even His most cherished friends

"The possibility of this phenomenon, without the aid of a miracle, is no
longer called in doubt by science which cites numerous examples of it. I
may be permitted to add another which should have had its place in the
beautiful Life of Père Lacordaire, by the P. Chocarne, had it been better
known. It was in 1860, at Sorèze; the great religious, who had been ill for
some time, had just read a letter which troubled his sensitive soul, touching
it, as it were, to the very quick of its nobler susceptibilities. His hair rose
on end and his brain seemed to be on fire. A reddish perspiration came out
upon his forehead. Wiping his brow he was astonished to find his hand-
kerchief stained with blood. I heard this fact from the Dominican Father
who was with him at the time. It is especially in delicate and sensitive
natures that the influence of the moral upon the physical is the more in-
tensely exerted. St. Luke who was a physician could not fail to relate this
striking incident.

[286]

BOOK I] THE AGONY IN GETHSEMANE

for whom He had Hved and for whom He was going to
die. Their indifference at so solemn a moment foreboded
their approaching desertion. " Watch ye and pray," He
added, " that ye enter not into temptation." Sleep is dan-
gerous when one must decide with energy. The sleeper
no longer sees his duty clearly and he loses somewhat of
the liberty necessary for its fulfilment. In the solemn
events of life the senses must be on the alert and the soul
in prayer. " The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is
weak." These words spoke of the terrible trial which He
Himself was undergoing. Had their eyes, less heavy with
sleep, beheld the Master's august face in the pale light
of the moon, they would have discovered it to be cruelly
transfigured, not with glory now, as on the mountain, but
with grief. Where formerly a radiant light had shone,
there now shone a sweat of blood. He had reason to say
that the flesh is weak, and that a strong will is necessary
to lead it on to death.

Unaided by the Apostles, whom He leaves a second time,
Jesus turns once more to God. Again He prostrates Him-
self to pour forth lovingly before Him His desolate soul
and His most ardent prayers. His tears and His blood
bathed and sanctified the earth that had remained cursed
for forty centuries. What admirable symbolism ! It was
in a garden that the first man had ruined his posterity,
it is in a garden that the New Man prays and sufi'ers that
He may save the new humanity ; and this garden is planted
with olive-trees, as if this latest sign of peace were neces-
sary to give true meaning to the treaty that is being
concluded between heaven and earth. Adam had lost us
by lifting up His head in pride, in covetousness, in sen-
suality, towards the forbidden tree; Jesus saves us with
His face upon the ground in humiliation, in suffering, in
renouncement, under the pacific olive-tree of Gethsemane.

[287]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt thied

However urgent the august Suppliant may be in His
woe, no one seems to hear Him. He therefore sends forth
another cry to heaven, but in it He gives greater empha-
sis to His resignation. The Father's severity, in fact,
seems to make Him more timid. " My Father," He says,
" if this chahce may not pass away, but I must drink it.
Thy will be done ! " ^^ It may not ; hence heaven is still
silent above Him. Satan at this moment perhaps explains
to Him the uselessness of His sacrifice. The men for whom
He is going to die will mock His sufferings even at the
foot of His Cross. Few only will come to sit and to pray
beneath the Tree of Life. Is it, in truth, worth the
trouble to plant it with so much woe and to bedew it thus
with His blood? And Jesus replies: " I will die neverthe-
less, and My Father shall be glorified, and My friends
shall be saved."

He arises to go once more to find the three disciples,
the cherished nucleus of the future Church. To look upon
them even sleeping will be a solace to Him. The silence
of the night, in which He hears only the violent throbbing
of His own heart is intolerable. Peter, James, and John
were sleeping more soundly than before. One never sleeps
better than after a deep moral agitation. The emotions
of that evening, sadness, ^^ the advanced hour of the night,
could not but add to the heaviness of their eyelids. When

18 There is a very perceptible difference between the first entreaty and the
second. His first prayer was: "If it be possible, ... let this chalice pass
from me! But not what I will, but what Thou wilt!" either because the
first sight of the bitter chalice had stnick Him more keenly, or because He
had greater hope in the Father's mercy. Now He exclaims : " If this chalice
may not pass away. Thy will be done!" There is no longer any mention of
His own will. The more clearly He perceives the Father's inflexible decree,
the more He habituates Himself to the idea of draining the cup, and He
submits His will. It may be for this reason that Hebrews v, 8, says: "He
learned obedience." (Cf. Rom. v, 19; Phil, ii, 8.)

>9St. Luke makes this observation. This Evangehst, who had practised
medicine, must have been fond of noting such details.

[ 288 ]

BOOK I] THE AGONY IN GETHSEMANE

the Master spoke, they knew not what to answer. Jesus,
distressed at such a sight, did not insist.

For the last time He withdrew to pray.-*' It may be
that this threefold prayer really corresponded with the
sentiments of fear, of loathing, and of sorrow which, as a
threefold temptation, had invaded His heart. Inexorable
and silent, as before, the Father held Himself invisible to
the anxious eyes of the wretched Victim. However, as He
seemed almost undone. He sent an angel to strengthen
Him.^^ Like Him the great ones of earth, that they may
the better refuse a favour, withdraw themselves from the
importunities of suppliants, and send their servants with
useless encouragement to those whom they are deputed to
dismiss. ^^

The angel declared that Jesus had conquered. For the
struggle was over. Nature's last repugnance had just
yielded before the justice of heaven which was inexorable.

20 The first Synoptic notes the three prayers offered by Jesus ; the second
mentions only two, while leaving room for three; the third only speaks of
one, but it gives the apparition of the consoling angel and the sweat of blood,
which the other two omit.

2' In many highly authoritative manuscripts, the Vaiicanus and the
Alexandrinus, these verses 43 and 44 in St. Luke are wanting, as St. Epi-
phanius, St. Hilary, and St. Jerome observe. In others they are marked
with a note of dubiety. But all the most ancient versions (the Itala and the
Peschito) have translated them, and St. Justin, St. Irenseus, St. Hippolytus,
St. Epiphanius, read them in their time, believing them to be authentic.
It is very probable that under the stress of dogmatic prejudices, a few
zealous copyists sought to suppress this mention of an angel who comforted
the Son of God, and of the sweat which humiliated Him. They thought,
by so doing, to deprive the Arians of an argmnent of considerable force.
Suppression is easier to believe than interpolation in this instance.

22 The apparition of this angel has been explained in various ways. For
some, it was wholly interior, according to the text: ""flcfiflrj . . . wtQ," and
signified an invisible assistance sent to Jesus. This view can hardly be
admitted. For others, it was a bad angel who came to let loose all his fury
against the wretched Victim. This also is contrary to the text. The
majority have beheld here a heavenly spirit commissioned to sustain the cour-
age of Our Lord, eVi(rx"wv, and to glorify Him by testifying to His forti-
tude. In like manner angels came and surrounded Him in the desert, after
His triumph over the tempter.

[ 289 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt third

The human will had been completely broten by the will
of God. Jesus arose resolutely and, rejoining His dis-
ciples, still covered with traces of His bloody strife like
an athlete returning victorious from the combat, He ap-
peared once more possessed of His usual serenity and
strength of soul : " Sleep now," He said to them, " and
take your rest. It is enough." ^^

His transition from despondency to courage is as speedy
as was that from tranquillity to anguish. He has seen
or heard the enemy approaching, and He resumes His
wonted manner, not without some trace of trouble or emo- .
tion in the rapidity with which His soul and His words
leap as it were from one warning or invitation to another ;
but it is evident that His will leads on the Victim in tri-
umph and that mankind shall be redeemed. " The hour
is come," He exclaims, " Behold the Son of man shall be
betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise up, let us go.
Behold, he that will betray Me is at hand."

At the same time. He turned towards the rest of the
Apostles who were at the entrance of the garden. He was
eager to protect them against the enemy who approached.

It was about midnight.^^

=5 The word àiréxei in St. Mark has embarrassed the interpreters. It
is found scarcely anj^where except in a passage of Anacreon (xxvdii, 33),
and is commonly translated by it is enough. In St. Luke xv, 20, xxiv, 13,
and St. Matt, xv, 8, it signifies to be far away, to disappear. Taking it in
this latter sense and giving it a subject, Jesus would have said : " My anguish
is over." In the other sense, after having given the Apostles permission
to sleep as much as they might wish, the Master, seeing Judas appear,
withdravFs His permission, saying: "It is enough; the hour is come," etc.
It may be also that, sad and ironical. He said to them: "Ye have struggled
long enough with fatigue and sleep; sleep, then, and rest as ye will." We can
understand better, then, how immediately after, putting aside the irony to
which the grief of a strong soul may have recourse. He cries out: "Rise up,
let us go."

2^ From these words of Jesus: "Could you not watch one hour with me,"
we conclude that each of His prayers lasted less than one hour, and that
consequently the whole agony lasted about two hours.

[ 290 ]

CHAPTER II
THE ARREST

Cedron and Gethsemane — The Activity of Judas —
The Traitor's Kiss — Whom Seek Ye? — Malchus
AND Peter — The Flight of the Apostles — Jesus
Taken Captive. (St. JVIatthew xxvi, 47-56; St. Mark
xiv, 43-52 ; St. Luke xxii, 47-53 ; St. John xviii, 2-11.)

The garden of Gethsemane was on the left of the stream,
at the very point where the road to Bethany passed.
Even to-day its site is sufficiently well . determined by the
little wall built on this historical spot by the Franciscans.
In the small enclosure, touching, on one side, the high
banks of the Cedron, and on the other softly blending with
the base of the Mount of Olives, eight trees many centuries
old, like half-broken ancient columns, lift their gnarled
trunks from which stretch down the heavy, wide-spreading
branches. Even if it should be true that Titus at the
time of the siege really destroyed all traces of vegeta-
tion ^ around the city, we are none the less inclined to
believe that these eight olive-trees are the offshoots of
those which, then cut down by the Roman army, had shel-
tered beneath their dark foliage the mysteries of the di-
vine Agony. The great longevity of this tree is well
known. The tears of pious pilgrims, which have for so
many years bedewed them, would seem to assure them an
eternal old age.^

1 B. J. V, 6, 2.

> Voyage aux Pays Bibliques, vol. i, p. 253.

[ 291 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part thikd

From this silent and solitary place it was easy to hear
and even to see the approach of an armed band as it
issued from Jerusalem. The valley of the Cedron is calm
at night, and the slightest noise awakes its echoes. Seen
in the clear moonlight in early April, the country-side
always has a profoundly melancholy aspect. Whether
Judas and his followers descended into the valley by the
road leading from the Temple, or by that road which
enters the ravine by way of the Sheep-Gate, Jesus, from
the midst of the grove, could watch the movements of the
sinister crowd which, armed with torches, marked its path
with a trail of wan light upon the great walls of the city.
The hurried step, the guarded silence of the troop, the
clanking of arms, all betrayed a formal expedition and a
well-organised attack.

Judas, in fact, furious on quitting the banquet-hall,
had declared to the chief priests that he was ready to
fulfil his engagement.' This time the moment seemed
singularly propitious. He knew where to find Jesus, and
at that hour of the night every one had retired to his
home with his family, both in Jerusalem and in the camps
around the city. There was no danger of any uproar.
His plan seemed good, and without delay the chiefs of
the Sanhedrim hurriedly assembled their criers, their
servants, as well as the guardians of the Temple, and
armed them with swords and staves. Then foreseeing the
possibility of a conflict with Galilean mountaineers, whose
valour was no secret, they seem to have demanded as a re-
inforcement of this ill-armed and undisciplined troop the
help of Roman soldiers.^ It may have been this demand

' According to John we are led to believe a Roman cohort took part in the
arrest. For the word airiipa, which he employs, is understood in the New
Testament, only of the Roman soldiers (-S^. Matt, xxvii, 29; Acts x, 1, x.wii,
1), and we find the captain mentioned under the name Xi\lapxos, whicli the
Greeks used to indicate the Roman tribunes {Ads xxi, 31 ; Antiq., xix,

[292]

BOOK I] THE ARREST .

addressed to the procurator during the night, that filled
his wife's mind with painful dreams concerning Jesus.
Pilate, who had come from Cœsarea to see to the main-
tenance of order during the Paschal feasts, was probably
glad to manifest his good will to the Sanhedrim and had
granted a small detachment with a tribune to conduct the
expedition.

Whether because the sky was darkened and the weather
gloomy, in spite of the full moon,^ or because they feared
that they might have to pursue Jesus among the winding
passages or abandoned tombs Avhich are found on the west-
ern side of the Mount of Olives, they had provided them-
selves with torches and lanterns. To prevent any mis-
take and to show clearly the One to seize, Judas had
agreed with his men on a particular sign. " Whomsoever
I shall kiss," he had said, " that is He, lay hold on Him."
It has been asked if the disciples were in the habit of
kissing the Master when they rejoined Him. This is not
probable. In any case, they would have kissed Him on
the hands or on the breast in token of respect. But after
the final incidents of the Last Supper, it would seem that
Judas especially could not without any preliminary word
permit himself such familiarity. Moreover, this embrace
could not have been an ordinary one. In all probability
the wretched man adding unheard-of perversity to his

2-3). Josephus {Antiq., xx, 4) tells us that at the Paschal festival the
governors sent a company of warriors to mount guard at the gate of the
Temple and to prevent any uprising. He observes again {B. J. v, 5) that
the fortress Antonia, situated on the north wall of the Temple, had steps on
which Roman soldiers passed to and fro for the purpose of keeping order.
"So that," he adds, "as the temple was the citadel of the city, so the tower
Antonia was the citadel of the temple." It is probably this guard that the
Evangelist designates with the article ttjv (nreîpav, as being well known
to everybody. He by no means intends to say that the whole cohort was set
in motion.

* At ten o'clock at night on the fourteenth of Nisan, the moon by its position,
leaves a part of the valley of the Cedron in the shadow.

[293]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt third

crime, had thought of presenting himself before the Mas-
ter, not as a friend, but as a penitent. By pretending to
ask His favour, he found a very natural reason for throw-
ing himself upon His neck and embracing Him effusively.
Nothing, we must admit, could be more abominable than
this transformation of the kiss, the sweet sign of peace,
into a sign of war, and the history of mankind knows no
blacker treason than this serpent's bite thus dissimulated
beneath the protestation of love.

Ordinarily the wicked, once determined to commit crime,
neglect nothing in order that they may succeed. So Judas
had advised the soldiers carefully to surround Jesus when
they had seized Him, and cautiously to lead Him away.
He feared lest the love of the true disciples might be
stronger than his hatred, and that their fidelity might still
overcome his treason.

Thus prepared by craft and supported by the public
power, the expedition arrived at Gethsemane at the mo-
ment when Jesus had just rejoined the whole group of
the Apostles.

The scene was enacted at the entrance of the garden.^
According to St. Luke, the traitor was ahead of the
crowd,'' and perhaps also so far ahead that the latter
might not seem to have common cause with him. For, had
he presented himself together with the crowd, the show of
affection which he wished to make would be not only
strange but almost impracticable and useless. For him
to appear to be the leader of an evidently hostile troop,
and to approach and embrace the Master were inconsistent.
The armed soldiers therefore remained at a distance, per-
haps behind the hedge of the enclosure, watching what was
about to occur, Judas presented himself alone : " Master,

^ St. John xviii, 4.

' 'lovSas . . , irpor)pxfTO aiirovs, he says, verse 47.

[294]

BOOK I] THE ARREST

Master," he says, betraying in this repetition the trouble
of his soul, " Hail ! " And approaching, he sought to
kiss Him, With one word Jesus strove to check liim and
to save him from this awful sacrilege. " Friend," "^ He
says to him, " whereto art thou come? " The wretch would
not hear, but put forth his arms towards the Master's
august head, as towards the victim whom he was about
to stifle. The Gospel text ^ seems to insinuate that he
had the impudence to prolong his embrace, as if it were
still an insufficient sign of his love and of his repentance.
Jesus, holding him in His divine clasp, spoke to him one
word which was the last appeal of grace. He must have
been God to have been so gentle and so tender in the pres-
ence of such hatred and such hypocrisy. " Judas, dost
thou betray the Son of Man with a kiss ? " The reproach
lacked nothing to make it cut. For Jesus reminds the
wretch who he is : Judas, one of the Twelve so long ad-
mitted to His friendship ; Whom he betrays : the Son of
Man at the same time Son of God, the Messiah Whom he
has served and honoured until this hour, and Whose reign
is about to commence ; how he betrays Him : by a kiss in
blackest perfidy.

The crowd which has witnessed everything, at once ap-
proaches. Jesus is sufficiently pointed ^ out to them.
They form a group and prepare to surround Him. At
the same time the Apostles half asleep are aroused by the
tumult. Those who were not asleep begin to discern

"The word èraîpe, which He uses, impUes a close familiarity {St.
Matt. XX, 13; xxii, U).

s The word KaTe(pi\7i<Tep means a tenderly emotional embrace. We read
in Xenophon, Mem. ii, 6, 33: ws rovs fieu KaXohs (piX^ficraurés /lou, rohs 8' àyadovs
KUTUipiX'fia-avTos. Cf. Job va, 6; Eccles. xxLx, 5.

^ The question that Jesus will soon ask them shall not be to make Himself
known, but to separate the cause of the disciples from His own. Thus
the account in the Synoptics and in St. John, which at first sight might
seem contradictory, the former relating only Judas' kiss, the latter only
the panic in the crowd, explain and complete each other,

[295]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part thikd

the danger. Their first move is to make ready to sustain
the conflict. With a sign Jesus withholds them. Then,
with a thought for their hves, which He does not wish to
expose, He turns to the multitudes and to Judas, who from
this time on mingled with them : " Whom seek ye ? " He
exclaims. " Jesus of Nazareth," respond the emissaries of
the Sanhedrim, not daring to say boldly " Thee ! " and to
place themselves thus in direct relation with Him. For
they could no longer doubt that Jesus was He who spoke.
" I am He ! " said the Master with that gesture and that
look of majesty that shall overwhelm the lost on the
day of judgment. His words hurl them back and send
them rolling in the dust. History knows, in the life of
Marius ^^ and of Marcus Antonius ^^ how the power of
human majesty impressed itself upon the headsmen. In
this very book, we have wondered at Jesus' irresistible in-
fluence over the profaners of the Temple. But nothing
can equal the thunderbolt that strikes down and throws
into confusion all these men armed and ready to seize
Him. Nothing, it is true, is more quickly communicated
than fear in a faltering troop that finds itself suddenly
face to face, not with a victim, as it thought, but with an
enemy that fears it not. Judas especially and those who
knew Jesus must have trembled as they discerned in the
Master's words that tone of authority with which they
had heard Him utter His commands to life and death.
The panic of a few of the soldiers has seemed to many to
explain sufficiently the fall of all the rest ; but the Evan-
gelist's idea is that Jesus put into His response a super-
natural energy capable of annihilating the whole cohort,
had He not softened its eff'ect. Was He less powerful
than Elias or than Eliseus?^^

10 Velleius Paterculus ii, 19, 3. " Valerius Maxinms vm, 9, 2.

12 7F Kings i, 10; ii, 24; v, 27.

[296]

BOOK I] THE ARREST

Did not the word of His disciple strike down Ananias
and do him to death? ^^ Was it not He that had said:
" He hath made my mouth Hke a sharp sword? " ^^ Shall
not His breath alone one day, as St. Paul says,^^ have the
power of destroying the Antichrist ? Is not His voice even
now enough to terrify the impious and the persecutor
whenever through the medium of the Church, He cries out
to them: " Whom seek ye? " And when to their challenge
He replies : " Here am I," He disconcerts them and they
tremble.

When the soldiers, recovered from their fright, had re-
gained their feet, Jesus more gently, but visibly conscious
of a triumph which He determined to leave without per-
sonal results, again asked: "Whom seek ye?" They
again replied : " Jesus of Nazareth." " I have told you
that I am He," returned Jesus; and then at once drawing
the conclusion which was His first thought : " If there-
fore you seek Me, let these go their way." He wished to
prove thus that, since He alone was sought, they should
respect the lives of His disciples, who were soon to be His
witnesses and His preachers. He fulfilled, too, in this
the tender figure of the shepherd who instead of fleeing
and abandoning his sheep to the teeth of the wolf, pro-
tects them by his bravery, and saves them at the price
of his own life. Thus, as St. John observes, the Master
was faithful to His promise, and suffered no one of them
whom the Father had given Him, to perish. What would
have become of this timid flock had it been obliged to
share the chalice reserved for the Master? The bravest
of them all, Peter, did not withstand the words of a maid-
servant, how then could the others have stood up be-
fore the judges and the tortures they might inflict? But

^^Ads V, 5. ^*Isaias xlix, 2.

I' II Thessal. ii, 8.

[297]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

if the Apostles failed Him, what would become of the
Gospel ?

Indeed, they seemed at that moment most resolute.
For, while Jesus, treating with the enemy, was demand-
ing safety and liberty for the Apostles, the latter were
preparing to assume the offensive. When they saw what
was going to happen, they at once said to the Master:
"Lord, shall we strike with the sword?" Peter,^^ with
his natural ardour waits for no response, but strikes one
of those nearest to him. He had aimed at his head. The
wounded man was called Malchus.^^ This vigorous and
rash demonstration on the part of the chief of the
Apostles is explained not only by his stamp of charac-
ter, but also by that which has just occurred. The power
of a word from Jesus over the multitude had exalted him.
The Master's danger deprives him of his self-possession.
The sight of the cowardice of so many who were attacking
a single man Who is so gentle in spite of His omnipotence,
makes him forget the danger of facing armed adversaries
so numerous and supported by a detachment of Roman
soldiers. He says to himself that if he, Peter, begins the
battle, Jesus will surely be able to carry it on to victory.

Malchus was a servant of the High-Priest. Peter had
attacked him, either because this servant, in his zeal, stood
in the front rank, and appeared more officious than the

'« The SjTioptics do not give the name of this courageous disciple, whereas
St. John does. It has been thought that the reason of this must be sought
in the respective dates of the compilation of the Gospels, as if the Synoptics,
written during Peter's life, had feared to expose this Apostle to the vengeance
of the Jews by proclaiming this daring act, whereas St. John, writing after
Peter's death, did not consider himself obliged to take the same precaution.
This is a strange explanation of one of the thousand details, which, in the
Gospel, must remain unexplained.

" It is St. John again who names the wounded servant, because, as we
shall see later on, the household of the High-Priest was particularly well
known to him (x\iii, 16). Thus verse 26 proves to us that he knew even the
relative of Malchus. These are details that an impostor would not invent.

[298]

BOOK I] THE ARREST

rest, or because the first of the disciples was eager to try
his strength with the emissary of his Master's most bitter
enemy. The blow, which he aimed at his head, badly di-
rected or perhaps turned by Jesus' own hand, fell only
upon his right ear,^* and with so little force as to cut it
only partially off. Jesus had merely to touch it, and
it was replaced and healed. This act of omnipotence and
charity explains why Peter was not seized and chastised
on the spot by the multitude. " Suffer ye thus far," ^^
said the Master authoritatively ; " put up thy sword into
thy scabbard ; for all that take the sword shall perish
with the sword. Thinkest thou that I cannot ask My
Father, and He will give me presently more than twelve
legions of Angels .f" How then shall the scriptures be ful-
filled, that so it must be done? The chalice which my
Father hath given Me, shall I not drink it ? " ^o There
are two reasons then why they should not engage in any
struggle with the enemy : the first flows from the Christian
spirit itself, the second from God's Will which must be
accomplished. Jesus and His disciples must oppose only
a passive resistance against their adversaries, the patience
of the saints, as it is called in the Apocalypse.^^ The

" The fact that the ears of the Orientals are often of extraordinary size
and are pressed out wide by the weight of heavy turbans, explains how a
misdirected stroke of the sword might have cut off the ear of Malchus with-
out endangering liis head. This incident is related by the four Evangelists,
but it is to be remarked that St. Luke and St. John agree upon an insignificant
detail, namely, that the ear cut off was the right ear. This unexpected
harmony between the fourth Gospel and a Synoptic is a source of satisfaction ;
but why did St. John, if he wished to supply the omissions of the Synoptics,
mention this detail and pass over in silence the whole story of the Agony in
Gethsemane? These are unanswerable difficulties.

"Such is probably the meaning of the words: 'ESre cws roiTov, which
some have translated: "Let these wicked men proceed as far as they wish,"
or even as referring to Malchus' wound: "Let me reach this man, I shall
heal his wound."

20 These words, found only in St. John, allude probably to the Agony in
Crethsemane, which, however, he has omitted to narrate.

*> Apocal. xiii, 10.

[299]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt third

Church can gain nothing by the use of the sword. For
she risks finding the sword raised against her, and descend-
ing from the pedestal erected for her by her divine
Founder, she can only compromise herself by the use of
human arms, when she has received the arms of God. Pe-
ter, whose blow was ill-aimed, proves to us that an Apostle
is a poor warrior. He cuts off an ear, and, by his vio-
lence, he prevents him whom he so harshly treats from
hearing the truth. Besides he exposes himself to the
law of retaliation. He who employs the sword is in
danger of perishing by the sword. Patience and, above
all, charity are the true and only strength of the Church.

Moreover, if by resistance they succeeded in escaping
the danger and in putting the wicked mob to flight, what
would become of the divine decree concerning the redemp-
tion of mankind? A moment before, Jesus had prayed
strongly that it might be modified, but Heaven had not
heard Him ; there is nothing now but to drink the
cup prepared by the iniquity of men and the justice of
God.

While He is speaking this great lesson to the Apostles,
some new-comers, moved by hatred and impatience to see
their criminal undertaking promptly carried out, make
their way to the front. They are some of the chief
priests, captains of the Temple, and ancients of the people.
Whether they had but just arrived or had remained hid-
den in the crowd until the decisive moment, is of little
consequence. When He saw them, Jesus addressed them
a reproach which is at the same time a solemn protesta-
tion of His innocence and of His insulted honour : " Are
you come out, as it were against a thief, with swords and
clubs.'' I sat daily with you teaching in the temple and
you laid not hands on Me. But this is your hour and
the power of darkness. Now all this was done that the

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BOOK I] THE ARREST

scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled." Night is
favourable for crime; the wicked feel the need of hiding
their work from the eyes of men, and from their own eyes,
too. None had dared to arrest Jesus in daylight, and this
is a proof of His innocence; for, when he who has the
power, the opportunity, the authority, and the desire, still
fails to act, it is because right is not on his side. Again,
why this ridiculous show of swords, of clubs, of soldiers?
He is no robber ensconced in His fort to which they have to
lay siege. They have only to call upon Him to surrender,
and He is at all times ready to follow His enemies wherever
they may lead Him. But all this is needed to constitute
violence, as night is required to conceal the crime. The
hour of hell is come. The king of darkness has procured
his co-workers, there is nothing more to do but to suffer
the wicked one to accomplish his work and to fulfil to the
letter all the prophecies concerning the suffering Messiah.
Jesus makes it plain that He will not prevent the spirit
of evil from consummating the crime from which will re-
sult the salvation of the human race. Thus, by gaining its
triumph, sin shall kill itself ; and in its owti victory it shall
be stifled.

The Apostles discouraged by this submission, and, per-
haps, frightened, besides, by the increasing fury of the
multitude, took to flight. An incident related by St.
Mark proves how real the danger was and that there was
not a moment to be lost by any who wished to escape.
A young man, attracted by the uproar, and who wore
nothing but the white linen garment used as a sleeping
robe by the Orientals could not at first make up his mind
to abandon Jesus in this sad juncture. He started to fol-
low Him, when they began to drag Him off towards the
city. The crowd caught sight of him, and at once made
ready to use him roughly; but he, overcome with fright,

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LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt thibd

escaped, leaving his thin garment in the hands of those
who pursued him.^^

Jesus was therefore alone in the power of His enemies.
His hands were bound, like those of a malefactor. The
crowd in triumph, with shouts and blasphemy, set out on
the way back to the city. The chief priests were con-
gratulating themselves on their fortunate capture, and fol-
lowed the procession. Their orders were to proceed di-
rectly to the house of Annas, father-in-law of Caiphas.

" From the first ages of the Church it has been thought that this young
man was no other than St. Mark, who alone relates this incident. The incident
itself is an important one only on the hypothesis that it covertly indicates a
well-known personage. In this view we see St. Mark setting his signature
too modestly, perhaps, to the Gospel which he bequeathed to Christians.
St. Mark's mother, according to the Acts of the Apostles, possessed a house
in Jerusalem large enough to serve as an oratory for the first Christians.
She might, therefore, well have been the owner of Gethsemane, the Oil-
Press. It was from this country-house that St. Mark came forth to mingle
with the crowd, until the fear of being arrested forced him to run away.
The manner in which he suddenly took to flight is quite in keeping with the
temperament of the man who abandoned Paul and Barnabas so hurriedly
when they entered Asia Minor to imdertake a ministry more dangerous than
in Cyprus, where the uncle and the nephew were, so to say, at home. Not
a few exegetes have thought that this young man was no other than Lazarus.

[302]

CHAPTER III
THE ECCLESIASTICAL TRIAL

Jesus is Brought Before Annas — The Preliminary
Examination — Peter's Denials — The Tribunal of
Caiphas — The False Witnesses — Question and An-
swer— The Death Sentence — Res sacra reus — With
the Servants — The Last Denial — The Crowing of
THE Cock — The Morning Session — Remanded to Pi-
late. (St. John xviii, 12-27; St. Matthew xxvi, 57-
75; St. Mark xiv, 53-72; St. Luke xxii, 54-71.)

Jesus was led to the palace of the High-Priests. There
at the same time ^ Annas and Caiphas dwelt, the one the
former High-Priest dispossessed by Valerius Gratus, the
other the High-Priest then in office.

The prisoner was first given into the hands of Annas,
who, perhaps, had been the principal organiser of the move-
ment, and to whom belonged the greater influence in the
religious questions discussed in Jerusalem. Fiercely pa-
triotic, Annas, or Hananus, had by his imperious nature
and his undeniable cleverness, remained the true leader of

* This is the best way of explaining how Peter denied his Master during the
trial before Annas as well as during that before Caiphas. It is true that he
might have remained m the court-yard of Annas' palace, and continued
his denials while Jesus was in the house of Caiphas. But in this case we
would be doing away with the final result of these denials, which was the
look Jesus gave to Peter, and moreover it would be difficult to admit that
the crowd which had been present at the arrest did not go with the accused
to Caiphas' house. But among those who questioned Peter there was at
least one who saw him in the Garden.

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LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt third

Judaism.^ Five of his sons had exercised the High-priest-
hood. Joseph Caiphas, his son-in-law, the High-Priest of
that famous year, as St. John says, derived from him all
his inspirations.

We may imagine the palace in which they lived, with one
or several central court-yards common to the various wings
of the edifice. In one of these court-yards the servants
gathered around a coal fire, which they had hurriedly
lighted to warm themselves. In Palestine, even in April,
it is severely cold late at night. Jesus was led into the
apartments of Annas.^ The Roman soldiers then with-
drew. We see no more of them until the following day.
Public order having been secured and the accused having
been brought before the religious authority, their mis-
sion was ended.

While preparations were being made for assembling the
members of the Sanhedrim in Caiphas' quarters, Annas *
determined to carry out the preliminaries of the proceed-
ings which were about to begin. The crafty old man
thought that he must first examine Jesus concerning His
disciples and His doctrine.^ It may be that he supposed

2 This explains why St. Luke (iii, 2), places him, as High-Priest, in the
same rank with Caiphas.

' The Synoptics say nothing of this first examination, because Annas had
no official authority, and because again, nothing important occurred there.

* It is very surprising that certain exegetes, otherwise very clear-sighted,
should have allowed themselves to think that, even in the house of Annas,
Caiphas led in the discussion, because, say they, the title of High-Priest
could be applied only to the latter, as if St. Luke iii, 2, and Acts iv, 6, were not
proof to the contrary, and as if, even in the accomit in St. John xviii, 24,
Annas were not mentioned as referring the accused to the jurisdiction of
Caiphas.

* A great number of commentators think that St. John did not mean to
relate the examination of Jesus in the house of Annas, but in the house of
Caiphas. To this end, they suppose that after mentioning the father-in-
law, at whose house the prisoner made only a brief stop as a matter of form,
the Evangelist designates in his quality as High-Priest, the son-in-law. And,
in fact, in the context, it is the latter who last receives this qualification.
But the great difficulty encountered by this explanation is in verse 24 where

[304]

BOOK I] THE ECCLESIASTICAL TRIAL

this was a mysterious tcacliing, reserved for His intimates,
and he sought enhghtenment concerning the kind of secret
society which he beheved was the great revolutionary
means of the young agitator. Jesus had nothing to say
to one who questioned Him without any right to do so.
With admirable calmness He eluded the question, and left
to others the trouble of answering it : "I have spoken
openly to the world," He said, " I have always taught in
the synagogue, and in the temple, whither all the Jews re-
sort ; and in secret I have spoken nothing. Why askest
thou Me.'' Ask them who have heard what I have spoken
unto them ; behold, they know what I have said." Thus,
without making any declaration of His innocence, He
nevertheless proved it. He reminded them at the same
time that although the Sanhedrim and its chiefs had the

it is said that Annas sent Him to Caiphas. He therefore had not yet gone
there. To overcome this, it was said that this verse had been misplaced by
copyists, and that it should come after verse 13, or else that the verb airfcmiMv,
sent, ought to be taken in the sense of the pluperfect, as if, returning to
something which he had forgotten to note after verse 13, St. John observed
that Annas had sent Jesus to Caiphas. To this hypothesis there is an
important objection, namely: that St. John mentions two distinct trials.
He tells us (v. 13) that Jesus was led first, irpûrov, to Annas, which indicates
that the secmid trial was before Caiphas, his son-in-law, whose titles and
qualities he enumerates. And as a matter of fact (v. 24) the trial before
Caiphas is categorically noted. To be sure, he does not mention what took
place there, but it is from the house of Caiphas (v. 28) that he shows us
Jesus led away to Pilate. Accepting his texts without any desire to distort
their meaning, this is what we must read : For him there were two night
sessions: one in the house of Annas, which the Synoptics did not mention
and which he relates to us; a second at the house of Caiphas of which he
says nothing because the Synoptics had given an account of it, but of which
he knows the legal outcome since he shows us the Sanhedrim alleging before
Pilate (xviii, 31, and xix, 7) the sentence pronounced against Jesus by
the religious authority. But we learn that, according to him, in the session
before Annas, no capital sentence was pronounced. He knew therefore
and indicated that there were two trials, before two different judges, in
two different places, in different form and with diverse results. At the house
of Annas they sought to compromise the Prisoner by drawing from Him
declarations that might serve as a more serious basis for their accusation,
which was not sufficiently legitimate from the judiciary point of view. In
the house of Caiphas it was the true legal process that took place.

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LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

right to examine those who claimed a prophetic mission in
Israel, they were nevertheless committing against Him an
act of violence as arbitrary as it was useless. They had
just seized Him brutally and at night, like a malefactor,
whereas He had always taught openly, never refusing to
reply to the questions asked by the religious authority.
He had never feared the light of day, and He appeals to
the testimony, not only of His disciples, but of all those
who have heard Him. His doctrine was not for a circle
of the initiated, but for the whole world. He spoke usu-
ally in public, or, if He taught in private, it was with the
desire that what He spoke in the ear should be published
from the housetops.

This appeal to the people could not fail to embarrass
those who meant to condemn Him without the aid of
the people. At any rate, Jesus' clear and simple reply
contained notliing that the improvised judge expected.
Instead of compromising Him Who had made it, it em-
barrassed the questioner, and even visibly lessened his com-
petency, by an evasive form which the Accused will not
employ either before Pilate or before Çaiphas, the two
magistrates possessed of the right to question Him.

The situation of Annas was becoming difficult, and the
lesson was severe enough to disconcert him. His discom-
fiture escaped none of those who were listening, and a
servant — chance often provides wicked masters with ser-
vants as wicked as themselves — judging that an outburst
was necessary to preserve the old man's dignity, raised his
hand, and, with fierce fanaticism, struck Jesus in the f ace,^

*It is commonly supposed that this servant struck Jesus with his hand,
but it may be that he struck Him with a stick. The word pâirurixa derived
from pàiris, a rod, signifies most frequently, in the Greek authors, Plutarch,
Themis, xi; Herodotus viii, 59; Anacreon vii, 2, a blow from a stick. We
shall see later on (St. Matt, xxvi, 67) that êKo\d(pi(Tav signifies ill-usage
different from è^piirKxw.

[306]

BOOK I] THE ECCLESIASTICAL TRIAL

exclaiming: " Answerest Thou the High-Priest so?"
The Saviour, unmoved by this violence, simply said : " If
I have spoken evil, give testimony of the evil ; but if well,
why strikest thou Me? "

This calmness brought the justice of the accused into
prominence, and threatened to insure His triumph if the
trial were continued. Annas judged that the question had
been ill-put, and that it was time to resort to another trib-
unal. Besides, he had been informed, perhaps, that the
Sanhedrim, hurriedly assembled, was beginning its session.
He had Jesus bound, maintaining thus His apparent guilt,
and sent Him to Caiphas.

This first procedure had no further result.

By a singular coincidence, at the very moment when
Jesus was appealing to the testimony of His disciples, and
was saying to Annas, " Ask them," Peter, the chief of the
Apostles, questioned by some servants, was replying : " I
know not the man ! " Although this shameful denial proves
the perfect knowledge which the Master had of the future,
it is none the less one of the crudest of the pains that were
inflicted that night on His loving, fatherly heart.

When Jesus had surrendered Himself to His enemies,
the panic among the Apostles was profound, as we have
seen, and they all fled. Peter, however, was not long in
regaining a little of his courage, and, starting to follow
the criminal procession at a distance, he was eager to wit-
ness what would happen. Another disciple was with him.
The Gospel does not give his name. It has generally been
supposed that it was St. John himself. For it seems
quite natural that the beloved disciple should find it hard
to abandon the Master, and, in fact, we shall see that he
follows Him even to the foot of the Cross. Besides, he had
been, for some time, Peter's habitual companion, and the
anonymous form in which the account designates him is

[307]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet third

quite in keeping with the precautions taken by oui' fourth
Evangehst whenever he speaks of himself.

Arriving at the palace of the pontiffs, the two Apostles
were separated for a moment. John went in alone, because
he was known to the High-Priest '^ ; Peter remained at the
door. Two reasons held him there : the first was because he
was not sure that he would be allowed to pass ; the second
was that after his attack on Malchus, he ran the danger of
being recognised and treated in keeping with his offense.^

In the East, houses of any importance all have a great
interior court-yard surrounded by a spacious cloister.
Entrance from the street is gained through a monumental
gate in which a narrow door opens under the surveillance

^By a coincidence the more precious for being unsought, the author of
the Fourth Gospel, this disciple, whom the High-Priest knows well, is for
us the same one who, in writing his Gospel, interests himself in all the details
of the household of the High-Priest. It is he who gives us the name of the
servant whose ear Peter cut off ; it is he who will soon tell us of the relation-
ship between one of Peter's questioners and this same Malchus; it is he
who knows that the portress was a young girl, and that the servants were
grouped around a fire of coals, which they had lighted to warm themselves.

It has been asked what were John's relations with the High-Priest to
whom, according to the Gospel, he was personally known. Are we to find
their origin in the profession of Zebedee, who, selling in Jerusalem the
product of his fishing expeditions, might have been the purveyor of the
pontifical household? Or is it better to look for their cause in John's pro-
foundly religious disposition, who, at an earlier date, before becoming the
disciple of the Baptist and of Jesus, might have been that of the High-
Priest, and was attached to him as the official representative of Judaism?
We do not know. It is certain, however, that John had free access to the
palace, and that the servants showed him some consideration.

8 The safety of the two Apostles was going to be very different in the
court-yard of the palace, and this will explain the still greater difference in
their state of mind. John can go and come without danger. He has no
personal apprehensions. They are not ignorant of the fact that he was
among the followers of the Accused, but they know that he is acquainted
with the High-Priest, and no one will venture to question him. Peter, on
the contrary, will enter by special pri\dlege, and he will remain under the
burden of a possible accusation because of his act of violence against Malchus.
Prudence tells him not to appear in so dangerous a locahty, but love forbids
him to remain behind the door. The unfortunate man will obey his affec-
tions, without sufficiently sounding his weakness. Desirous of seeing the
Master near at hand, he will have a close \iew of his own defects in particular.

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BOOK I] THE ECCLESIASTICAL TRIAL

of a porter. Through this passes, after making himself
known, especially after nightfall, whoever has a right to
enter.

When John had gained admittance, he returned to bring
Peter in. At a word spoken to the portress, he was per-
mitted to enter. Then, less afraid than his companion,
John went directly to the apartment where Jesus was being
examined. Peter, remaining alone, hid himself at first in
the shadow, to survey the situation ; then fearing that too
timid an attitude might be compromising, he determined to
brazen it out, or, at least, to assume an air of greater
assurance. He approached the fire around which the ser-
vants were gathered, and seated himself in the midst of
them.^ This self-concealment among the enemy was al-
ready the beginning of his fall.

The portress alone knew or suspected this man's secret.
She had let him pass only on John's word ; and she knew
that the latter was a disciple of Jesus. ^*^ She came into
the court-yard to see what he was doing, and, discovering
him in the midst of the servants, she concluded that he was
not very certain of his right to enter the palace since he
remained in such sorry company. This thought caused her
some fear of having made a mistake in admitting this in-
truder, and she tardily fulfilled, with the boldness common
to people of her trade, the duty which, in consideration of

•An unfavourable criticism has observed that St. John represents the
servants as standing : elarriKeia-av, whereas the Synoptics represent them as
seated ; but is it not natural for such a group to have been some seated and
some standing? St. Matthew, moreover, after saying that they were seated
(v. 58) shows them standing eo-Twres (v. 73), and St. Mark does the same.
(Compare v. 54 with 69, 70.) As for Peter, if he is represented by St. John
as standing, while he is seated in St. Matthew, it is because they speak of
different moments. He is seated when the portress speaks to him, and he
rises in his agitation caused by this first incident. Then it is that he turns
towards the porch {St. Matt. v. 71).

'" The word also, in her question, proves that John's relations with Jesus
were known to this woman.

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LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

John, she had at first neglected. Looking at Peter in the
middle of the group : " Art not thou also one of this man's
disciples?" she said. This question produced on the
Apostle the effect of a lightning-stroke. Would they not
recognise in him the daring champion who shortly before
had drawn his sword against those by whose side he was
now seated.'' Already every eye is fixed upon him, and
with difficulty, turning his troubled face away from the
pale light of the fireside, does he succeed in hiding its ex-
pression in the shadow. Without further reflection, he at
first makes an evasive reply that comes near to being a
falsehood : " I know not what thou sayest," ^ ^ he answered.
He thought, in his anxiety, that he did not yet compro-
mise, by this subterfuge, either his loyalty or the truth.
But the persistent portress does not appear to have left
him so soon, and it was to her repeated questions that he
must have returned the different denials related by
two of our Evangelists : " I am not ! " according to St.
John ; " Woman, I know him not ! " according to St.
Luke. The first denial, begun with some hesitation, then
emphasised, at length became complete in every way, and
as impudent as it was public. For, before the whole group,
Peter had insistently declared that he did not know his
Master. The capricious curiosity of an insignificant
maid-servant had succeeded in overthrowing the courage of
this presumptuous man, and had given the lie to his strong-
est protestations.

It was at this moment that Jesus was led from the apart-
ments of Annas to those of Caiphas,^^ that is. He passed
from one wing of the palace to another, crossing the court-

»» St. Mark xiv, 68, and St. Matthew xxvi, 70, give to this first reply this
less positive shade. They are in this probably more exact than the other
Evangelists.

" St. John says that He was sent to Caiphas after the first denial, and
St. Luke that He was near Peter, and, consequently, in the court-yard, or

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BOOK I] THE ECCLESIASTICAL TRIAL

yard. Thanks to the movement made to see the Accused,
it seems that Peter, unable, after his first denial, to en-
dure the sight of the Master outrageously bound ^^ like
a criminal, had sought to beat a retreat. Reaching the
colonnade that led to the vestibule,^ ^ he halted, feeling his
courage return to him in the obscurity. It was at this
instant that his momentary isolation enabled him to hear,
as St. Mark observes, the crowing of the cock.^^ It was
after midnight. This crowing reminded him of the Mas-
ter's prediction, and troubled his soul more keenly than
anything else.

To complete his misfortune, the pitiless portress, who
followed him with her eye, concluding from his attempts
at falsehood that she had made no mistake, began to press
him still further with her accusations. This time she ad-
dresses herself no longer to him, but to the servants before
whom she had been contradicted. Pointing out Peter in
the shadow, she cries out that there, indeed, is one of the
disciples of Jesus. By this accusation, reiterated so per-
sistently, the unfortunate man finds himself brought back,

under the porch, at the last, wh n He turned upon the unfaithful disciple
the look that converted him.

'3 St. John xviii, 24, with a chance word, as it were, àvéffretKev

SeSefiévov, depicts the humiliation of Jesus' attitude.

^* St. Mark xiv, 68: ê^r\\6ev e^œ eîs rh irpoavXiov, he went forth he] ore
the court, combined with S'. Matt. xx\n, 71 : è^e\d6vTa 5è ahrhv els rhv
-ïïvXûva, as he ^oent out of the gate, indicates this. He starts out of the court
towards the gate and, as he hesitates, his coming and going are noticed.

'5 St. Mark xiv, 68. Some have held that, according to an ancient law
{Baba Kama, ch. vii, last paragraph) cocks were not permitted in Jerusalem,
because in seeking for food among the offal, they might bring to light all
kinds of impure beasts, capable of defiling unexpectedly, by their contact,
both men and the oflferings of the Temple. But it has been proven that this
Jewish law was passed only later on, and that there were cocks in Jerusalem
not only in the fortress Antonia, where the Romans made use of them to
mark the watches of the night, but also in the city where, according to the
Rabbis, one of them was stoned for having pecked out the eyes of a child
who died from the horrible wound. We have already remarked, moreover,
that the Jews themselves divided the night according to the Growings of
the cock,

[311]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

willy-nilly, to the first scene of the battle. He returns to
the side of the brazier to defend himself again, and to
brazen it out by a denial as at first. But the assault upon
his cowardice grows in complexity. According to St.
Matthew,^*' another maid-servant, who perhaps aided the
portress, and shared her distrust of the suspect, intervenes,
and with even more assurance than the other, declares to
the whole group that Peter was with Jesus of Nazareth.
Again he protested, and swore that he did not even know
Him. According to St. Luke, one of the bystanders, tak-
ing the part of the two servants, began to attack him
with the same accusation. With still greater audacity,
Peter cried out : " O man, I am not ! " Before this explicit
denial, which seemed to bear an accent of sincerity, the
circle of ushers and servants stood uncertain ; but having
been called upon to investigate the affair they were eager
to be satisfied. The leisure of this wearisome watch, more-
over, gave them sufficient time. Then, according to St.
John, each one strove to pursue Peter with malicious ques-
tions, and to each new question the Apostle responded with
another denial.

But attention was now drawn in a different direction.
Jesus, conducted into the presence of Caiphas, had found
the Sanhedrim assembled there. They must have made
haste to convoke so speedily the High-Priests, the Ancients
of the people, and the Scribes or Legists who constituted
the Supreme tribunal. Nearly all were present.^^ Heed-
less of the unlawfulness of the meeting at such an hour,
they meant to establish a formal procedure from this time

"It is remarkable that tliis same Evangelist alone always doubles the
number of persons: two demoniacs at Gothara, two blind men at Jericho,
two maid-servants in this instance.

"The Synoptics agree on three categories: priests, influential laymen,
and rabbis or doctors of the law, who constituted the entire tribunal : SXoy
rh avpeSpiov. We shall see, however, later on, that certain friends of Jesus
were not present.

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BOOK I] THE ECCLESIASTICAL TRIAL

forth. The plan of the hierarchical party was not only to
put Jesus to death — an act of violence would have suf-
ficed for that, as it did later on for Stephen — but also to
disgrace Him by a judicial sentence, that they might after-
wards hand Him over to the Romans as a despicable crimi-
nal. To this end there was required a formal judgment,
and, consequently, a regular accusation, witnesses and
judges. Jesus having, before Annas, appealed to His
daily hearers, a few of these had been obtained, but they
were all in bad faith and had previously been won over to
the hierarchical party.

Caiphas opened the session by questioning these wit-
nesses. But it happened that their depositions, being
ill-prepared, were mutually contradictory, and were, more-
over, insufficient to warrant a sentence of death. The dis-
appointment of the judges was evident.^ ^ Finally, two
men presented themselves who simultaneously gave this
testimony against Jesus : " We heard him say : ' I am able
to destroy the Temple of God, and after three days to re-
build it. I will destroy this temple made with hands, and
within three days I will build another not made with
hands.' " This deposition was false in substance and in
form. The authentic words to which they alluded, and
which were spoken two years before,^ ^ assigned to Jesus a
part quite different from that now imputed to Him. He
had said, not / can destroy^ nor / will destroy the Temple,
but destroy it ; which meant : " You will destroy the Tem-

'* To condemn a culprit there was required an identical deposition of
two or three witnesses examined separately (Numbers xxxv, 30, etc.).
See Selden, de Synedriis ii, 13, 3; and the interesting work of the lawyer,
Taylor Lines, The Trial of Jesus Christ, Edinburgh, 1899, in which,
following the Jew Sal va tor. Hist, des Institut, de Moïse, the author makes
a study of the procedure before the religious tribunal and before the Roman
tribunal.

19 It is remarkable that the Synoptics, quoting these words without seeming
to know where or when they had been uttered, pay important tribute to
St. John's veracity.

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LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt tried

pie, and in three days I will rebuild it." His offense might
have been described as an act of folly, but in reality He
had said nothing against religion. This grievance was
therefore insufficient. Besides, in alleging these words they
alleged something which they had not understood, and,
consequently, proved themselves unjust. For Jesus, Who
had uttered them, had never dreamed of raising up again
in three days the stones of the Temple completed and em-
bellished by Herod. For Him, the temple was His Body,
which He had promised to snatch from the embrace of
death, or, better, it was Judaism, which they would
destroy in slaying the Messiah, and which He was to re-
build in the Christian form, by raising Himself again on
the third day.

To all this He made no reply. It was not worth while,
since among the various witnesses some contradicted the
evidence of others, and thus their accusations had neither
the force nor the authority desired by the Sanhedrim.

The impassive attitude and the silence of the Accused
disconcerted the judges more and more. Suddenly Cai-
phas, exasperated, rose up, and advancing into the middle
of the hall : " Answerest thou nothing," he said, " to the
things which these witness against thee.'' " But even this
sally drew no further word from the Accused, and Caiphas
began to understand that it was not easy to intimidate
Him or to force Him out of His reserve. Their rôles
seemed to be changed: Jesus had the impassive majesty of
a judge, and the High-Priest displayed the feverish ex-
citement of an accused.

To bring the affair to an end by raising, without fur-
ther evasion, the burning question that lay at the bottom
of the whole process, some among the advisers of the High-
Priest cried out : " If thou be the Christ, tell us ! " And
Jesus, explaining by His peaceful reply the sternness of

[314]

BOOK I] THE ECCLESIASTICAL TRIAL

His silence, retorted : " If I shall tell you, ye will not be-
lieve Me; and if I shall also ask you, ye will not answer
Me,^*' nor let Me go." Why then give the appearance of
a trial to that which is only a plot?

Immediately the High-Priest, taking up on his own ac-
count the question asked by those about him, with all the
solemnity of which he was capable, cried out: " I adjure -^
thee by the living God, that thou tell us if thou be the
Christ, the Son of the Blessed God."

Jesus rephed : " I AJVI."

He was not unaware that such a response was His death-
warrant. But the King of Martyrs could not lose so fair
an opportunity to show with what courage one must speak
the truth, even to the tyrants who hold one's life in their
hands. When they had sought to bear Him in triumph
and to force Him to inaugurate His reign. He had refused
to call Himself the Christ ; now when this avowal must lead
Him to His death. He formulates it with sublime sim-
plicity. The world, which for so many centuries has
awaited this declaration, knows henceforth where to find its
Messiah.

To make this profession of faith complete, Jesus, Who,
by declaring Himself the Christ, and, more exactly, the Son
of God, has borne witness to the Incarnation of God in
man, determines also to proclaim the future glorification of
His humanity, hypostatically united with the Divinity, at
the risk of occasioning the scandal desired by Caiphas.
"Nevertheless," He adds, "I say to you, hereafter you shall

20 This certainly alludes to the questions which Jesus had often put to
His enemies without being able to obtain an answer {St. Mark xi, 33, et
parall.; St. Matth. xxii, 46, etc.),

21 The form i^opKlCu means exactly: I call on thee to say under oath
{Polyb. iii, 61, 10; \i, 21, 1; xvi, 31, 5), so that the reply was supposed to
have been made under oath. Jesus therefore declares Himself the Christ,
calling the living God as witness to the truth of His declaration (77/ Kings
iii, 24; Judith i, 12).

[315]

LIFE OF CHRIST [past third

see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of the power ^^
of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven." It is not a
prisoner, it is a King Whose words they hear. What maj-
esty ! What full consciousness of His power ! What clear
vision of the future ! He, the Accused of to-day, will be
the Judge of the morrow, and they, the judges, shall
stand trembling at His feet as criminals, to respond to a
more rigorous justice than that of earth.

In this merciful warning, Caiphas beheld only sacri-
legious pretension. His heart, blinded by hatred and re-
ligious passion, was incapable of understanding such
language, stern and severe as truth. He looked for an ex-
cuse or a timid explanation, and he had received, like a
thunder-clap, the most courageous and the most categori-
cal of affirmations. Indignant, beyond himself, he began
to rend his garments,-^ and to cry out : " He hath blas-
phemed ! What further need have we of witnesses ? " His
words betrayed, unknown to him, on the one hand his desire
to condemn the accused, and on the other, together with
the insufficiency of the preceding testimony, the fear of
obtaining none more peremptory. The violence of his pre-
tended grief, which publicly tore in pieces his sacerdotal
robes, inaugurated the official destruction of Mosaism.
That night God Himself was going to rend the veil of the
Temple. For the new religion something was required
more universal than the breast-plate, the symbolical sign
of the twelve tribes of Israel, that covered the breast of
the High-Priest, a house of prayer vaster than the Tem-

22 The text has tîjs Swd/xews, of the pmver, an abstract term intended
to bring out more fully the idea of God's omnipotence.

23 It is true that, according to Levit. x, 6 ; xxi, 4, 10, the priests should
never rend their garments either on the occasion of a death, or for any
private grief ; but here it was question of a public scandal of an unprecedented
blasphemy, and the Mosaic law did not provide for such exceptional cases.
(Cf. I Mach. xi, 71, and Josephus, B. J. ii, 15, 4, where the priests bare
their breasts by tearing their gannents.)

[ 316 ]

BOOK ij THE ECCLESIASTICAL TRIAL

pie, a more universal priesthood. Caiphas, by denying the
divinity of Jesus Christ, abdicated his rights as High-
Priest. Simon, whom Jesus had long ago surnamed Ce-
phas, or Caiphas, had received them in advance when, on
the road to Csesarea, he had said to the Master : " Thou
art the Christ, the Son of the living God ! "

" Behold, now you have heard the blasphemy," con-
tinued the High-Priest; "what think you?" Thus Cai-
phas did not bring the reality of the blasphemy into
question, he demanded the application of the law, while
suppressing all discussion as to guilt. This was arbi-
trary. But what matters that.'' All the judges, and their
unanimity is frightful in its atrociousness, responded:
" He is guilty of death ! "

At the same time they brought the session to a close,
leaving Jesus to the insults of the crowd. Did they retire
to sleep upon their crime until day should come, or did
they see to it that the execution of their sentence should be
insured? The latter hypothesis seems the more probable
since daylight was not far off, and since, besides, it might
have appeared to them worth while to lose no time con-
cealing all the illegalities with which their trial was affected.
It had been passed at night, hurriedly, by a tribunal which,
although legal in number, seemed to have at least excluded
the friends of Jesus.^^ Again, the Sanhedrim had ac-
cused the prisoner only of blasphemy and of false doc-
trines ; it could inflict disciplinary punishment upon Him,
but it could not condemn Him to death. To condemn to
capital punishment, the concurrence of the Roman "^ au-

2< We know, in fact, that at this session the condemnation was pronounced
unanimously {St. Mark xiv, 64), ndvres KareKpiveu, whereas Joseph of Arima^
thea, according to St. Luke xxiii, 51, voted against this criminal decision,
ovTOs ovK ■^1/ (TvyKaraTeOeififvos tt) jSouAt).

2^ Josephus tells {Ant., xx, 9), how the High-Priest Annas, accused of
having assembled the Sanhedrim to pass sentence of death in the absence
of the Roman governor, was immediately deprived of his office.

[317]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt third

thority was necessary, and this latter would take cognisance
only of political crimes. But Jesus had always avoided
mingling in politics. They were therefore forced to con-
coct a way of transforming the accusations brought and
accepted against Him. It was in this labour, no doubt,
that they spent the hours that preceded daylight.

Jesus passed these same hours quite differently. The
judges on departing had left Him in the hands of the ser-
vants of the High-Priest. We know that the ancients had
respect for the condemned, as they had for the tomb :
Res sacra reus, they used to say ; but this Condemned One
received none of that consideration that would alleviate the
hour of expiation. Religious hatred multiphed against
Him the most unheard-of outrages. After gathering
about Him, insulting Him, turning Him to ridicule, the
servants began to spit in His face and to strike Him bru-
tally, some with their hands, some with sticks."^ He re-
mained impassive beneath the first blows of this horrible
storm, fulfilling admirably what He had said by the proph-
et : ^'^ "I have given my body to the strikers, and my
cheeks to them that plucked them ; I have not turned away
my face from them that rebuked me, and spit upon me.
The Lord God is my helper, therefore am I not confounded ;
therefore have I set my face as a most hard rock." Pagan
philosophy had imagined that the most beautiful spectacle
ofi^ered to the world would be that of a just man calm be-
neath the ruins of a universe crushing him to death. There
is something even grander than that, it is the Just One
enduring the most extreme outrages without complaint,
and suffering His insulters to live, when, with a gesture

2« St. Matt, (xxvi, 67) here distinguishes two kinds of bmtality, as we
have already said, and St. Mark (xiv, 65) says clearly that the servants of the
palace, of ôirripérai, struck Him with rods, that is, with the staff carried by
them as a badge of oflBce.

" Isaias 1, 6.

[318]

BOOK I] THE ECCLESIASTICAL TRIAL

He could have struck them dead. Then they veiled the
face of Jesus, and in their malice, forming an infernal
circle about Him, thej»^ dared to strike Him, each in turn,
saying the while : " Prophesy unto us, O Christ ; who is he
that struck Thee? " When Samson was weary of being the
sport of his enemies he summoned all his strength, and,
shaking down the pillars of the temple, he buried beneath
its ruins those who were laughing at his woe. Jesus sum-
mons only His gentleness and His mercy. Silent beneath
the blows that fall upon Him, He discovers in His heart
courage enough to shield His executioners with His love
and His forgiveness.

For a single moment He seems to have interrupted
His apparent impassivity in the midst of the outrages
which they heaped upon Him; it was when He heard
even Peter deny Him. He uttered no word of complaint,
but He turned upon the coward such a look of compas-
sion, reproach, and love, that it left his soul in pitiless
desolation, and thus brought him back to repentance and
to hfe.

We left Peter in the court-yard in the midst of those
who were pursuing him with their mahcious questions. He
was still in the same place when the IMaster was led past
to undergo there the insults of the servants of the High-
Priest and of the Temple. In the heat of the discussion,
or, at least, in the energy with which he made his denials,
he had forgotten every precaution and spoken in liis Gal-
ilean dialect and accent. One of the bystanders called at-
tention to this, and the}»- all immediately became of his
opinion. What could a Galilean be doing at that hour in
the palace of the High-Priest, if he were not a disciple
of the Nazarene? The more they thought themselves on
the point of convicting him of falsehood, the more they
strove to overwhelm him with fresh proofs.

[ 319 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet third

Entirely exposed for nearly an hour ^^ to this crowd,
which now began to start an uproar, Peter, like a wild ani-
mal which the pack is closing up in an ever narrowing and
more dangerous circle, finally lost his self-control. His
replies became more and more compromising. Thus he
obstinately repeated that he did not understand what they
meant. Yet nothing was more intelligible than this last
grievance that he was a Galilean. His discomfiture, which
plainly betrayed his anxiety and indicated his guilt, only
excited their eagerness to confound him. They had come
close to him, and suddenly one of them gave quick utter-
ance to this formidable evidence : " Did I not see thee in
the garden with Him?" The one who had just spoken
was a kinsman of the servant whose ear Peter had cut off.
The danger could not be greater. The Apostle, putting
aside all evasive replies, took refuge in imprecations, and
said with an oath : " I know not this man of whom you
speak."

It might have been three o'clock in the morning. At
that instant the cock crowed for the second time. At the
same moment Jesus, turning away for a second from
the blows and the spittle with which He was being cov-
ered, gazed at the miserable renegade without saying a
word.

What there was in that glance Peter alone could tell.
His heart was broken. He saw at once the full depth of
his fall. There is nothing harder for an honest soul —
and Peter's was such — than to have failed in honour or in
friendship in the hour of need. As he saw the bruised
countenance of his Master, he could have said to himself:
"The servant of the High-Priest struck His face, but I
have struck His heart." Covered with shame, he at once

« St. Luke xxii, 59.
[ 320 ]

BOOK I] THE ECCLESIASTICAL TRIAL

hid his head beneath his cloak ^^ and fled from the palace.
None had the courage to block the way before such poig-
nant and humble sorrow which henceforward feared no dan-
ger, no enemy, not even death, but which fled into darkness
and solitude to pour out most bitter and most efficacious
tears.^^

Jesus had prayed that Peter's faith might not be ship-
wrecked after such a fall. His prayer was heard. Judas,
although he acknowledged that the Master was a just and
innocent man even in the presence of His enemies, was to
end in despair. Peter, after denying Him disgracefully,
crying out that he knew not " this man," shall be saved
through repentance. The one shall have despaired of
pardon, the other shall have relied on penance. This is
the work of grace and the mystery of human liberty. The
former shall perish accursed by all, the latter shall re-
cover in his tears his right to the supreme government of
the Church and to the admiration of future generations.
For there is something more surprising than unfailing vir-
tue ; it is fallen virtue rising heroically in repentance to re-
main for ever faithful in its promises and its gratitude.

»' In this way many, since the time of Theophylact, have interpreted the
word 4irifia\(iv, while others have understood it as signifying that Peter
had cast a glance at Jesus, at the moment when the latter was looking at
him, or again that he had rushed in haste from the palace. We have chosen
the first interpretation, because the ancients were accustomed to hide their
heads beneath their cloaks when afflicted by a great sorrow.

3" There is no doubt that the apparent divergences of the four Evangelists,
in the story of the denial, present numerous difficulties as we seek to sum
them up in one account. We think, however, that we have succeeded in
levelling them all by giving a sufficiently clear idea of the scene enacted in
the court-yard of the High-Priest. St. John here as everywhere else, must
be our guide. He tells the story as a historian and categorically separates
the three denials by Peter. The others tell the story as orators, that is, in
their reproduction of the oral Gospel in which the preachers were accustomed
to present to their popular audiences an especially dramatic picture of the
infideUty of the chief of the Apostles. Hence there was less precision in
their account. St. Mark does mention the look Jesus gave Peter. It may
be that Peter in his preaching, did not have the courage to recall that incident.

[321 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

Peter, according to an old tradition, never again heard
the crowing of a cock without weeping, and his tears wore
a furrow in his emaciated cheeks, as if to signify that al-
though God might have forgotten his fall, his love always
preserved a most painful remembrance of it.

After the departure of the unfortunate Apostle, the
hideous scene of violence and blasphemy continued until
sunrise. St. Luke gives positive testimony of this.^^
Jesus, silent and forgiving, thus endured at the hands of
His first judges every excess of human malice.

In order to be within the exigencies of the law,^^ the
Sanhedrim again assembled at daybreak with more solem-
nity than during the night, and this time in the usual place
of sitting. It was here that they had the Accused brought
before them.^^ The whole assembly was composed, accord-
ing to the Synoptics, of the chief priests, the ancients of
the people, and the scribes ; for all the Sanhedrists, as
St. Mark observes, had come together.^"* Did Jesus un-
dergo in this meeting a second examination like the first,
as St. Luke seems to say? Did they merely order the
report of the preceding session to be read and ratified
as well by the judges as by the Accused? Possibly. In
any case, St. Luke, in his account of this sitting, repro-

31 Whereas the two other Synoptics place the scene of these insults before
Peter's last denial, St. Luke xxii, 63, indicates that similar outrages took
place afterwards.

=2 A sentence of death could not be passed at night. Sank., 4, 1 : " Judicia
capitalia transigunt interdiu et finiunt interdiu." Not so with judgments
having reference to money matters.

33 This place, which was in an apartment of the Temple, was called, because
of the coloured stones that adorned it, Lischkath Haggazith. It was reached,
as the lesson of the T. R. indicates, by mounting the àvfjyayov. In St.
Luke- xxii, 66, it is designated by the name of the assembly itself which
gathered there, rh <rw4Spiov. On a Sabbath or on a festival-day, the ses-
sion would have been held in the Beth Midrasch, the synagogue located be-
tween the Women's Court and that of the Gentiles (Lightfoot, on Matt.
xxvi, 3).

3^ He says, in fact, '6\oy rh a-wéSpiov.

[322]

BOOK I] THE ECCLESIASTICAL TRIAL

duces exactly what the two other Synoptics have told us
of the night-session with this difference, that, according
to him, it is not only the High-Priest who speaks, but the
entire Sanhedrim. They seem to have sought simply to put
the trial in legal form.

The great desire, after the sentence had been renewed,
was, according to St. Matthew, to procure the execution
of the capital punishment. ^^ A way had to be found to
induce Pilate to sanction the sentence of death.^*^ The
plan prepared by the most clever was discussed. It was to
prove a political offence in the religious crime: they could
succeed in this way by representing the Christ, the Son of
God as Christ, the King of the Jews, and the King of the
Jews the enemy of Caesar.

To produce a deeper impression on the Roman governor,
they formed themselves into a sort of solemn procession,
and, heedless of their self-humiliation, the Sanhedrim went
in a body to Pilate's prastorium.

Jesus followed with bound hands, in the attitude of a
condemned prisoner.

Israel was about to hand over his Messiah officially to
the Gentiles.

55 This was the object of the assembly : eîs rh Oavarua-ai avrév. They must
have the life of the Accused.

36 They themselves, as they will soon acknowledge, had lost the j^is gladii.
Cf. Antiq., xviii, 1, 1; Tacitus, Annal, xii, 5-1; and the Talmud, Sank., 24,
2, says: "Quadraginta annis ante vastatvun templum ablata sunt judicia
capitalia ab Israele."

[323]

CHAPTER IV

THE CIVIL PROCESS

The Procurator, Pilate — Judge, but not Execu-
tioner— The Examination of Jesus — His Kingship
— Innocence Proclaimed — Fresh Charges — Re-
manded TO Herod — The Release or Barrabas —
Pilate's Wife — The Washing of the Hands — The
Scourging — Crowned with Thorns — Ecce Homo!
— The Son of God ! — Conscience and Self-Interest
— The Last Words: Ibis Ad Crucem. (St. Jolin
xviii, 28; xix, 16; St. Matthew xxvii, 11-30; St. Mark
XV, 2-19; St. Luke xxiii, 2-25.)

JuD^A, as we have already described, lost its indepen-
dence when Archelaus was deposed, and like Samaria, it
was annexed by Augustus to the Roman province of Syria.
The government of the country was under the immediate
jurisdiction of a procurator. Although nominally depen-
dent on the propraetor or governor of Syria, this official
was none the less the true master of the dependency. To
his tribunal were brought all capital causes ; he passed
supreme judgment, and had a body of troops to enforce
respect for his authority. Residing ordinarily in Cassarea,
on the sea-coast, he went up to Jerusalem with his soldiers
whenever the great concourses of people brought together
on the occasion of the Jewish festivals, made the danger
of a sedition likely. Perhaps, too, he derived a personal
pleasure from mingling in the public rejoicings which the

[324]

BOOK I] THE CIVIL PROCESS

leading personages of the country, not to mention even
great lords from foreign lands, did not disdain to fre-
quent, either through motives of religious conviction or
through mere curiosity. The pomp of Roman majesty
loved to exhibit itself on such occasions.

The sixth of the procurators who, under Roman domi-
nation, administered the affairs of Judaea, was Pontius
Pilate.^ He remained in charge from the year 26 a.d. to
the year 37, under the emperors Tiberius and Caligula.
Philo represents him as a proud, conceited man ; ^ and Jo-
sephus,^ while he does justice to certain qualities which this
administrator certainly possessed, declares that he re-
sorted at times to extreme measures, and showed himself
full of hatred for the Jewish people. Having in all prob-
ability obtained his office through a long-continued habit
of humiliating compliance and political trickery, he had a
great contempt for other men and, not unlikely, also for

' It has been asked whether this personage belonged to the ancient famDy
of the Pontii which began to be illustrious in Roman history with C. Pontius
Herennius, the famous Samnite general. He could have become so only
as a freedman or as a son of a freedman. The office of procurator being
of second rank was never assigned to jmtricians. It was confided to knights
or even to simple freedmen Tacitus says of the Emperor Claudius {Hist.
V, 9): "Jiidaeam provinciam equitibus Romanis aut libertis permisit."
Josephus says distinctly that Coponius belonged merely to the equestrian
order {Antiq., x^iii, 1, 1: riy/iaros tup ïitkÎuv). The surname Pilate, if
derived from pileatus, in memory of the cap placed on the head of slaves who
had been freed (Suetonius, Nero, l\'ii:"Plebs pileata tola urbe discurrit"),
would indicate that he was a freedman who had reached an important post
by his cleverness, or else by his marriage, if it is true, according to the Evang.
Nicod. Philo, p. 522, that his wife's name was Claudia Procula, and that she
belonged herself by some tie or other to the Claudian gens. It is possible
on the other hand that this surname Pilate might have indicated either
this knight's predilection for the javelin in his military career, as we find
in Virgil, Mneid, xii, 121: "pilata qua plenis se fundunt porlis]'; or even
some feat of arms that had won a javelin of honour. Inscriptions which
may be seen in Orelli, Nos. 3574, 6852, mention a military decoration called
the hasta pitra.

2 Legal, ad Caium, §38, where we find a long enumeration of his iniquities.
It is said of him : '"Hv rijv (piaiv, aKanir^s, kuI fiera, tov aîiBâSovs àfielKtKTOS.

' Josephus, Antiq., xviii, ch. 2, 3, and 4 ; B. J., ii, 9, 2.

[325]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part thied

himself. Fearing above all to displease those who were
above him, he treated all others as he might treat a gang
of slaves or other degraded beings with whom he needed
not to reckon. Temperamentally, perhaps, he would have
preferred not to be cruel, but, having no moral principles
other than those of a cynical utilitarianism, he gave play
to that vice whenever he hoped to derive thereby any per-
sonal advantage. Dominated, at heart, by that calculating
scepticism which characterises every epoch of subservi-
ency and decadence, he was incapable of following any
good impulse if it implied a sacrifice either of his comfort
in Palestine or of his favour with the Emperor. Between
his own interests and those of Justice he never hesitated.
Such was the man before whom they now brought Jesus,
the Accused.

Did he reside in the tower Antonia, the powerful fort-
ress which was situated at the northwest of the Temple,
and which served as a barracks for the Roman soldiery.''
A very old tradition says that he did, and we know that the
pious faithful still believe that they follow the Way of
Sorrows by starting from the point where the ancient tower
was built into the cliff near the northern wall of the
Haram-es-Cherif, and going on to Calvary. But, not to
mention the pomp and splendour affected generally by the
Roman governors, especially when they found themselves,
as they frequently did during the Paschal festivities in
Jerusalem, touching shoulders with the petty kings or
princes of the country — a pomp and splendour, be it ob-
served, not likely to be found in a barracks as strictly or-
dered as Josephus describes it — there are positive reasons
for believing that Pilate resided in the palace built by
Herod the Great, to the northwest of the upper city, near
the towers Mariamne, Hippicus, and Phasael, and desig-
nated as the Royal Dwelling, rà jSamXeia. There, later,
- [326]

BOOK I] THE CIVIL PROCESS

on, we see Florus installed during an uprising. It was be-
fore this very palace that the tribunal over which he pre-
sided was erected, and at the foot of which appeared, very
much as they did in the civil trial of Jesus, the priests and
important personages of the city for the purpose of giv-
ing an account of the insults which the procurator had
received.* The majestic edifice, half splendid palace, half
redoubtable fortress, seems, indeed, to have been always
the official residence of the Roman governors and of a por-
tion of their troops who, in case of a conflict, hastened to
render aid to the cohort stationed at the tower Antonia.^
In any case, there seems to be positive testimony to prove
that Pilate was installed there. In the course of the ac-
count which he gives of the embassy to Caligula, Philo
attests that this procurator having adorned the palace of
Herod, of which he had become the proprietor, with golden
shields bearing inscriptions in honour of Tiberius,** the
scandal was so great in the eyes of the inhabitants of Jeru-
salem, that it had been necessary, in obedience to the orders
of the very one to whom they had been consecrated, to
transport them to Cîesarea, on the sea-coast, to the temple
dedicated to the Emperor. " Herod's palace, however,"
said the Alexandrine Jew to Caligula, " was only the pri-
vate residence of the procurators, but now in the Temple,
in the Holy of Holies, where the High-Priest enters only
once a year, they would put not only their shields, which,
indeed, represented no one, but a colossal statue, a sacrile-
gious insult to the majesty of the true God ! " After such
testimony we do not clearly see why Pilate should make an

*B. J. ii, 14, 8. « B. J. ii, 15, 5.

* Philo, de Leg. ad Caium, says, §38, that Pilate put these shields eV ro7s
'UpiiSov $a(ri\eiois and, at the bottom of the next page, §39, he observes
that this palace of Herod being merely the residence of the procurators,
iv oIkIc^ tS>v èirirpéiruv, could not be compared with the Holy of Holies where
God dwells.

[ 327 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt third

exception in this case and try Jesus in the tower Antonia.
In Jerusalem, as well as in Caesarea,''^ this Roman knight,
simple freedman, perhaps, or it may be, son of a freed-
man, must have felt a proud satisfaction in exhibiting the
luxury in which he lived and in exciting admiration for
himself in the palace of the kings whom Rome had de-
throned. A wall, thirty cubits high, crenelated and bris-
tling with towers, veritable marvels of architecture, pro-
tected this superb edifice. In two separate wings, one
bearing the name of Csesar, the other that of Agrippa,
immense halls, covered with gold and costly marble, served
for banquets and holiday assemblies, while countless rooms,
peristyles, court-yards, gardens, adorned with fountains,
statues, flowers and lawns, exhibited in profusion in this
princely dwelling the most luxurious products of Oriental
taste. On the north side of the immense square, near the
towers, were the barracks of the Roman legion. The en-
trance of the palace looked toward the East. It was here
that the proprsetor sat in judgment when he had to hold
court. And it was probably to this spot that Jesus was
led by those who came to demand His death.

It might have been about six o'clock in the morning,^
and the Roman magistrates were accustomed to open court
at dawn. Pilate, who the evening before had furnished his
soldiers to effect the arrest of the Accused, had doubtless
kept himself informed of the incidents of the night. The
apprehensions of his wife seem to indicate this. He very
probably expected to see the Jewish authorities come at

' As for Csesarea we see, Acts xxiii, 35, that the procurator Felix occupied
the prsetorium of Herod in that city, irpairdptou 'UpéSov,

8 The first two Synoptics and St. John say that the procession arrived at
Pilate's palace early in the morning, irput If, in Rome, magistrates were
accustomed to hold court at daybreak (Seneca, De Ira, ii, 7 : " Hajc tot
millia ad forum prmaZ» ce properantia quam turpes lites habent!"), for still
greater reason must they have maintained this custom in a country where
the heat became excessive at an early hour.

[ 328]

BOOK I] THE CIVIL PROCESS

an early hour. The latter were surely eager to finish mat-
ters promptly, so that no time might be afforded the
friends of Jesus to intervene and liberate the prisoner.
Besides, the Paschal festival was about to begin, and it
was important that all tliis should be terminated soon
enough to enable them to devote themselves freely to the
religious practices which it imposed. St. John observes,
in fact, that the hypocritical Jews, while raising a tumult
around the praetorium, refused to enter, through fear of
defiling themselves, which would have prevented them from
eating the Paschal meal.

Pilate, yielding to their prejudice, came out upon the
terrace of the palace, but not without a certain ill-humour,
as is shown by the brevity and sharpness of his first utter-
ance. He was angry to be disturbed in this way and to
find, on rising, a kind of revolutionary agitation at the
doors of the praetorium. " What accusation bring you
against this man? " he said. In entering into the matter
without further prelude, he showed his desire to end it
as soon as possible, but the idea he had of the case, from
what he had learned of it during the night, might also
justify his hasty tone, which was, however, fully in har-
mony with his character. He knew, as St. Matthew
observes,^ that the leaders of the people, in bringing
Jesus before him, had been led by a jealous hatred, and
he was indignant to see them constitute themselves both
judges and party in an affair in which the life of a man
was at stake.

Quite naturally, the members of the Sanhedrim had
hoped to obtain from the governor, without further dis-
cussion, a simple confirmation of their sentence. Their
deference for his authority, the demonstration of the mob

« St. Matt, xxvii, 18.

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LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt third

around his palace, their presence in a body, was indeed
sufficient to justify Pilate, should he, without further pro-
ceedings, trust to their integrity and to the accuracy of
their information. Great, therefore, was their surprise to
see the Roman magistrate suddenly annul by his haughty
question the proceedings of the night and transform the
judges into mere accusers. Vexed at this unlooked for atti-
tude, they replied with insolent vivacity : " If He were not
a malefactor, we would not have delivered Him up to thee."
It was clear, then, that they had come to the procurator's
tribunal only to offer him the rôle of executioner, reserving
for themselves that of j udge. Pilate was not deceived, and,
seeming to enter into their thought : " Take Him you,"
he cried with mingled harshness and irony, " and judge
Him according to your law." Since they wish to be the
only j udges of the Accused, they have only to punish Him
according to their wise judgment. As for him, he means
to execute none but those criminals whose cause he has
legally investigated. The Roman law: Ne quis indicia
causa condemnetur, makes this his duty. Besides, as their
authority in the matter has its fixed limits, and as Jesus
risks only excommunication, or, at most, a scourging, at
the hands of those who condemn Him, Pilate need not worry
about the power which he grants them, nor about its con-
sequences.

But in the alternative to which they were reduced,
either of placing the Accused on trial before Pilate, ac-
counting as null and void what had been done during the
night, or of punishing Him in virtue of the authority
they now received (but without putting Him to death,
since they have not the right to do so), the Jews preferred
to have the whole procedure begun over again. There-
fore, in public acknowledgment of their political degrada-
tion, they now cry out : " It is not lawful for us to put

[330]

BOOK I] THE CIVIL PROCESS

any man to death ! " Such an avowal must have reminded
those who made it of the ancient prophecy of Jacob.
Since the sceptre had for ever gone out from Judah, why
not seek for the Messiah in the midst of Israel? Either
the Patriarch of old had been mistaken, or the Messiah had
come. Alas ! He was there in their hands, and the riotous
mob saluted Him as a malefactor. We see how the chiefs
of the people, although ready to abdicate their rights,
would not abdicate their hatred. If they suffered the
cause to be taken up again by the governor, it was with
an attempt to prejudice his judgment; for their reply
plainly dictated a sentence of death. But, the sentence
of death once procured, every one knew in advance the
kind of punishment that would be inflicted. Thus, as St.
John observes, they unwittingly embarked upon the course
that was to insure the realisation of the Master's proph-
ecies concerning His death upon the Cross. By coming
under Roman jurisdiction, the Accused, proved guilty of
a capital crime, would have to mount the terrible gibbet.
Jewish jurisdiction would have condemned Him to be
stoned to death.

At once the ringleaders began to shout out their false
accusations. " We have found this man," they cried,
" perverting our nation, and forbidding to give tribute
to Caesar, and saying that he is Christ, the King." ^^
Thus, having changed from judges to accusers, they were
daring enough to stand forth now as false witnesses. On
every occasion Jesus had avoided agitating the people,
and invariably, except on the day of the Palms, He had
refused the pacific homage of their enthusiasm. Before
everybody, and in the Temple, He had asserted the duty

>o We find this part of the accusation in St. Luke xxiii, 2. It is quite useful
in enabling us to understand the question that Pilate asks Jesus immediately
afterwards. But neither this Evangelist nor the two other Synoptics have
the characteristic beginning of the trial. St. John alone has given it to us.

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LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

of the subjects of the empire to pay tribute to Caesar.
Finally, the last grievance imputed might be true in one
sense, for Jesus had called Himself the Christ ; but in
the other sense it was calumnious, since for Him this word
had no political signification. Before the Sanhedrim,
Christ had signified Son of God ; before the representative
of Caesar, it will mean King of earth. This is the two-
edged sword prepared by the great council. The same
title that has caused Jesus to be condemned as a blas-
phemer by religious judges, is to make Him responsible
as a factionist before the Roman tribunal.

Pilate was keen enough to suspect the sudden zeal that
inspired Jews to constitute themselves defenders of Cesar's
rights. Unwilling to investigate the case amid the shout-
ings of the mob, and also, perhaps, through favour of the
Accused, he had Jesus brought within the palace, and ques-
tioned Him: "Art thou the King of the Jews.f*"^^ he
said to Him. There was in the question a perceptible tone
of irony. One can understand Avhy he was surprised to
see dreams of imaginary greatness and royalty attributed
to a man so humble in appearance. Jesus replied : " Say-
est thou this thing of thyself, or have others told it thee
of Me? " For, to answer properly. He must know in what
sense Pilate meant the word King : did he speak as a Jew
or as a pagan? In the theocratic sense, Jesus had to re-
spond in the affirmative ; in the political sense, He will say.
No. Pilate, who did not grasp the distinction, and who
had counted on an explicitly negative answer, exclaims
with some humour : " Am I a Jew ? Thy own nation and

11 We can here take account of the omissions in the Synoptics even in
Jesus' discourses. While they agree with St. John in giving this question
asked of Jesus: "Art thou the King of the Jews.'" they simply sum up
His reply in the words : "Thou sayest it." This would be very embarrassing
for us because of its brevity, had we not the development that precedes it in
St. John.

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BOOK I] THE CIVIL PROCESS

the chief priests have dehvered Thee up to me: what hast
Thou done? " How the pride and the harshness of the
procurator suddenly break forth ! He, a Roman, to bother
himself with the religious affairs of the Jews, to worry
himself with the subtle distinctions or the disputes of their
schools ! No, indeed ; he despises them too much for that.
He therefore commands the prisoner to come down to
facts. But Jesus imperturbably pursues His idea, and
distinguishes two kinds of royalty: One is indeed His,
namely, that of the supernatural order; the other He
leaves to Caesar, namely, that of the temporal order. " My
kingdom is not of this world," He says. And in these
words, which many have distorted in order to free the
State from the salutary influence of the Church, Jesus
does not mean to say that His kingdom is not on earth —
the faithful who have received His doctrine would protest
that they are indeed His subjects — but only that it is not
of earth. Deriving its origin from on high, it lays hold
of souls, and seeks only the spiritual transformation of
mankind. It is of an order superior to the perishable
contrivances of human politics. But, in asserting its
heavenly origin. He implicitly proclaims its earthly uni-
versality. That which is from on high must dominate all
that which is from below. Had not Daniel ^^ prophesied
the coming of this royalty, after the fall of the four empires
of the world.'' It is not side by side with the others that
this royalty is to live, walled up within an impassable cir-
cle, but upon their ruins, with all the nations as its sub-
jects.^^ For there is nothing more logical than to see truth
tending invincibly to reform not only the interior, but
also the exterior of man, and thus to become universally
predominant.

12 Daniel ii, 34, 35, 44; \-ii, 13, 14.

13 This is what is said in the Apocalypse xi, 15.

[ 333 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt third

" If My kingdom were of this world," continues Jesus,
" My servants would certainly strive that I should not be
delivered to the Jews." This is a clear proof that He is
not a king like the kings of earth. He has had no soldiers
around Him to defend Him ; the Jews have taken Him with-
out the slightest resistance; therefore His royalty cannot
in any case be an obstacle to Ca?sar's supremacy. " But
now," He says, insisting on His denial, " My kingdom is
not from hence." " Art thou a king, then ? " returns
Pilate, in astonishment ; and Jesus replies : " Thou sayest
it ; I am a king ; for this was I born, and for this came I
into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth.
Every one that is of the truth, heareth My voice." . . .
He was going to add, no doubt, in conclusion : " He who
heareth My voice is My subject." Pilate interrupted Him
with the question: " What is truth.'* " And without wait-
ing for an answer, he went out.

The Roman had asked a question which he did not wish
to hear solved. Like the high society of his time and of
his country, he took pride in unbelief and in scepticism.^ ^
What charm could theories of the reality of the spiritual
world have for a man of his especially positive tempera-
ment ? Jesus considers the truth which He has come to an-
nounce to the world, as the reason for His royalty, the arms
with which He establishes it, and the element necessary for
its maintenance. To Pilate, truth is merely an idea, a
phantom to which the wise man cannot afford to sacrifice the
interests of the present life. At all events, if by his un-
guarded question he has given Jesus an opportunity for
a discourse, he shows Him by rising suddenly and going
out that he is not in the humour to listen to Him. He does

"Pliny's words are well known, Hist. Nat., ii, 5: "Solum inter ista
certum, nihil esse certi." To the class to which Pilate belonged, truth was
a word, not a reality, as virtue was for Brutus.

[334]

BOOK I] THE CIVIL PROCESS

not wish to be preached to, not thinking that he is in
need of conversion. All that can be asked from him is
that he should judge a cause, and he proceeds to bring to
an end this one, the substance of which he clearly per-
ceives. The prisoner cannot be a political agitator, as they
called Him ; at most He is but a dreamer, a philosopher of
a new school. His innocence must therefore be proclaimed
before the people, and the affair be brought to a close.
" I find no cause in him," he announced to the multitude.
Thus, in a brief and haughty form, he rendered to Jesus
testimony that was as categorical as it was disinterested.

The latter heard it, for He must have followed to the
porch of the palace the judge who was determined to give
Him His liberty. His soul doubtless experienced some
consolation. Justice was done Him for the first time by
the only impartial and authorised man who had the right to
judge His cause. But from the midst of the mob there,
loud cries at once arose insisting on the accusation which
Pilate refused to entertain.^ ^ It was the ringleaders who
spoke. The chief priests, as well as the ancients of the
people, thought it their duty, without any sacrifice of
dignity, to vociferate themselves fresh accusations. Pilate
was surprised and embarrassed. He would have liked to
have the Prisoner undertake, henceforward, to refute His
adversaries. Jesus was of a different opinion. Once more
His silence was full of dignity and authority. Having
solemnly replied when questioned concerning His mission.
He deemed it most unbecoming to discuss His innocence and
His virtue.

" Dost not thou hear how great testimonies they allege

against Thee ? " said Pilate. " Answerest thou nothing ? "

The Accused replied not a word, and the governor, who

desired only a word from Him in order to save Him, as-

" St. Luke xxiii, 5 : the verb eiriaxfov indicates this.

[ 335 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt third

tonished not to receive it, began to admire Him. Here
was a pagan recognising in the august Prisoner the ideal
man of virtue of whom the philosophers of Greece and
Rome had dreamed, greater and stronger in His silence
than the whole world in arms against Him. The con-
trast was striking and decisive : on the one hand the furi-
ous mob shouting its accusations that it might get the
better of a single man, and on the other the man Himself,
absolutely alone, holding in check by His silence the mob
that had risen up against Him. Between its fury and
His serenity there could be no hesitation, and the Roman
governor's practical sense clearly perceived on which side
stood right, virtue, and justice.

But, according to the moral portrait of him left us by
Philo and Josephus, more ambitious than honest, he had
too little love of duty to press his conviction. It may be
that a long series of violent acts committed during his
government ^® made him timid and incapable of settling
the discussion with firmness. It is not rarely that we find
that those who have long abused their authority are some-
times afraid to use it even when justice demands, through
fear lest their justly energetic action may cause an out-
burst of general discontent. The people whom they have
exasperated by their caprices seem to them unable to en-
dure any further vexation, however legitimate. They are
doomed to be weak because they have been inopportunely
too strong.

In their accusations the mob endeavoured to represent
Jesus as a rebel : He was agitating the people by His teach-
ing and, from Galilee to Jerusalem,^ ^ nothing escaped His

^^Antiq., xviii, 3; B. J. ii, 9.

" St. Luke xxiii, 5, alone specifies the details of their insistence on the
first accusation, and finds therein a natural transition to Jesus' appearance
before Herod, an incident full of interest, but passed over in silence by the
others,

[336]

BOOK I] THE CIVIL PROCESS

revolutionary influence; even Judaea v/as beginning to feel
its effects. In this way they made an allusion to His
triumphal entrance into the Holy City. By mention-
ing Galilee they sought particularly to impress Pilate's
mind, for from that country ordinarily came all those
agitators whose patriotism strove to shake off the Roman
yoke. They who inhabit the mountains generally possess
a more pronounced sentiment of national independence, a
more glowing imagination and a prouder soul. This news
did, in fact, impress Pilate, but from another point of
view. It furnished him an expedient. Political men are
always fortunate in discovering such. He perceived the
possibility of remitting the Accused from the forum ap-
prehensionis (under the jurisdiction of which He had been
arrested) to the forum originis (the jurisdiction of His
native place, or of His domicile), which was in conformity
with Roman law.^^ Becoming certain, in fact, after a few
hurried questions, that Jesus was really a Galilean and sub-
ject to Herod's jurisdiction, he hastened to send Him away
to the tribunal of His immediate sovereign. This plan
afforded the crafty procurator the twofold advantage of
getting rid of a delicate matter in which his politics and
his conscience were ill at ease, and of grasping an oppor-
tunity of reconciliation, by an act of deference, with
Herod, whom he had recently offended.^ ^

The latter was, in fact, in Jerusalem on the occasion of
the Paschal festival, and was probably occupying the pal-
ace of the Asmoneans, on the Xystus, a public promenade

IS Cf. Dionysms of Halicarnass^is, I, iv, ch. xxii. Thus again, twenty
years later, the praetor, Festus, remitted St. Paul to Herod's successor, and
later again, Vespasian, sitting at Tarichaeum, remitted the accused Galileans
to the judgment of Agrippa, whereas, without further mformation he con-
demned all the others to death.

'^ It may be that their difference had arisen from some conflict of juris-
diction. See vol. ii, p. 391.

[337]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part thikd

joined to the Temple by a bridge thrown across on the
northern extremity of the Tyropœon. At least it was there
that later on, under the procurator Florus, Herod Agrippa
and Berenice ^^ dwelt. The mob turned with their prisoner
in that direction.

Herod is not a new personage to us. We have had oc-
casion to appreciate the woful character of this prince
who mingled with his debauches some few traces of super-
stitious religion, and on a sudden allowed himself to pro-
ceed even to cruelty if his pleasure demanded it. He was
an epicurean with the manners of a Jew. When he saw
Jesus approaching, he was really pleased. He had long
heard Him mentioned as a celebrated thaumaturgus, and
he was eager to see Him accomplish some astonishing
works. It seemed to him to be a bit of good fortune thus
to pass his leisure hours in receiving this much-talked-of
man, this celebrity of the day, and he at once asked Jesus
several questions tending, no doubt, to satisfy his curiosity
and to amuse the courtiers who stood by him. The man
who is a slave to his grosser passions is incapable of sus-
pecting the grandeurs of the supernatural world. Herod
saw in this foremost of his subjects only a sort of diviner,
oï" juggling magician. Jesus' humiliation was profound.
To this insulting examination He had nothing to reply.
He was silent. Pilate, the pagan, had just admired His
silence ; Herod, the worldly Jew, despised it. At this mo-
ment the chief priests and the scribes began to heap their
accusations upon Him, but they failed to force Him from
His silence, which was more eloquent than any discourse.
Herod and his court concluded from this that He was a
simpleton or a fool. In derision, the tetrarch had Him

2" In Josephus, B. J., n, 15, 1, Berenice goes from her palace to that of
Herod the Great to supplicate Flonis, and ii, 16, 3, we see Agrippa in the
presence of the queen seated on her throne, haranguing, from the very
palace of the Asmoneans, the people gathered on the Xystus.

[338]

BOOK I] THE CIVIL PROCESS

clad with a white robe,"^ and in this condition sent Him
back to Pilate.

Such was all the justice he thought it his duty to exact
from the culprit, and all the authority he exercised over
Him. There was a singular irony in all this, for, though
he sought to offer Him a cruel insult, he had succeeded
only in doing Him glorious homage. The white robe was,
among the Romans, the garment of whoever solicited a
dignity : hence the word candidate. The kings of the East
wore white cloaks that glistened like the snow, as a dis-
tinctive mark of their greatness, and over the shoulders
of their gods the Persians and Egyptians threw similar
white garments. Last of all, they were used as clothing
for the foolish. Herod, who without examining the case
any more deeply, had commanded Jesus to be thus clad,
seemed involuntarily to have acknowledged that the Ac-
cused was all these at once, and his derision thus became
the official, though unconscious, consecration of the vari-
ous characters of the Messiah, as true King, as true God,
and even as the One sublimely Foolish. For, covered with
this garment of fools the Saviour was advancing, in St.
Paul's words, to the folly of the Cross.

Since the white robe signified, above all, the innocence
of the Accused, the latter found Himself acquitted by a
second jurisdiction. For, to be a fanatic, a visionary, a

21 This is the meaning which the Vulgate gives to the Greek text ia-Bjjra
Xajxirpav' As a matter of fact, Xaixtrp'os means simply bright, shining.
Hence many have thought that it should be translated as in the Peschito:
a purple garment. Tliis is wrong; and, although St. Luke ix, 29, and Acts
i, 10, employ the word \evK6s to signify white, it is certain that \aijLirp6s
means particularly a brilliant whiteness like that of the light of the sun
{Acts xxvi, 13), or of heavenly apparitions (Acts x, 30; Apoc. xv, 6; xLx,
8; xxii, 16). It is well kno^ii that the white cloak along with purple was
the proper apparel of kings. Thus Solomon (Antiq., viii, 7, 3), Archelaus
{B. J., ii, 1, 1), Agrippa (Antiq., xLx, 8, 2; cf. Acts xii, 21), had white gar-
ments. The people wore them on solemn occasions {Antiq., xi, 8, 5).
Among the Romans, the white garment also had its part (Tacit., Hist.,
ii, 89; Valerius Maximus, i, 6, 11; Polyb., x, 4, 8).

[339]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt thikd

fool, could not constitute a capital crime. The embarrass-
ment of the Roman governor only increased, therefore,
when he beheld Jesus returning. His first expedient had
come to nothing. Forthwith he thought of another still
more cowardly and no less detestable.

For, resuming his part as j udge, he turned to the chief
priests, to the ancients, and to the people who surrounded
them. " You have presented unto me this Man," he said,
" as one that perverteth the people, and behold, I, having
examined Him before you, find no cause in this Man in
those things wherein you accuse Him. No, nor Herod,
either. For he sends Him back to us, and behold, nothing
worthy of death is done to Him." The result of the dif-
ferent investigations was therefore juridically acquired:
neither in Judaea nor in Galilee had Jesus stirred up a
revolution. To condemn Him to capital punishment seemed
impossible. " I will chastise Him, therefore," said Pilate,
" and release Him." If He is a visionary, He will be
cured by this lesson. Such brutal treatment may please
the mob, and will leave the governor free from the remorse
of a supreme iniquity.

Moreover, that he might be agreeable and crafty to the
last, he has just thought of a third expedient, the comple-
ment of the second, and capable, it seems, of rendering
the decision in favour of the mob without sacrificing the
life of the Accused. Here is a plan which he, in his crim-
inal wisdom, has conceived. They demand that Jesus be
punished by crucifixion. As far as he can, Pilate will
satisfy this demand, but only apparently; in reality, he
counts on saving the innocent man. This awful punishment
consists of two parts, the flagellation, and the crucifixion
itself .22 Tj^g ^j.g^ ^jjj i^g apphed severely ; the second will

" Leg:ally the flagellation preceded the punishment of the cross (Justin
xxi, 4; Dion. Cass., xlix, 22). In Josephus, B. J., ii, 14, 9, it is called irpoai-

[340]

BOOK I] THE CIVIL PROCESS

be inflicted on Jesus only morally. They shall treat Him
as if condemned — that is understood. By this He shall
be disgraced. But, as they are now celebrating the Paschal
festival, and as it is the custom, in memory, perhaps,^^ of
the deliverance of Israel in the times of the Pharaohs, to
release a prisoner, the procurator sees a way of gaining
the pardon of the unfortunate Accused. For he has be-
hind the prison-bars a criminal named Barabbas, who was
taken and condemned for having taken part in a bloody
sedition.^^ By comparing the two prisoners he can cer-
tainly preserve the life of Him in Whom he has found
nothing reprehensible.

" You have a custom," he says, " that I should release
one unto you at the Pasch." And the people, according
to St. Mark, cried out : " Yes, it is customary and right."
Then, tliinking himself almost certain of the success of
his plan, Pilate added : " Whom will you that I release to
you, Barabbas, or Jesus that is called the Christ, the King
of the Jews.f*" It seemed to him impossible that, among
all these people, there should not be enough followers of
Jesus to ask this pardon for Him, and that the chief
priests, impelled by jealousy throughout the whole affair,
should not, at the last moment, be abandoned by the mul-

Kiff/xés, preparatory punishment, and by Cicero, Verr. v, 6: "Media mors."
Hence Jesus in His predictions of His approaching death always mentions
it before the Crucifixion (St. Matt., xx, 19; St. Luke, xviii, 33).

23 Nothing definite is knowTi concerning the origin of this custom which
some date back to the time of the Machabees and earher, and which others
consider to be a benevolent measure employed by the Romans in their
desire to render their domination less odious. Some have even thought of
referring this custom to the festival of the Ledisternia (Titus Li\'ius v, 13),
but that has no more connection with the obligatory custom, a-w-fideia or
àvâ-yK-q, of which it is question here, than with the alleged passage in
Josephus, Ant., xx, 9, 3, where it speaks of brigands demanding, under a
threat of putting to death a scribe whom they hold captive, ten of their
comrades who had been taken prisoners.

'* St. Mark XV, 7, speaks of the one called Barabbas and of the sedi-
tion, iv Tji arda-ei, as if all this were history known to his readers.

[ 341 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pai^t third

titude. There was, in fact, a moment's deliberation. Je-
sus' friends, mingling with the crowd, had the more fa-
vourable side. The comparison between the two condemned
prisoners would be decisive, or, rather, it could not even
be seriously sustained. At any rate, no one would have
ventured to claim that in Jesus the revolutionarv spirit
was as dangerous as in the homicide Barabbas.

For the sake of greater solemnity, and because he was
about to act in virtue of his supreme authority, Pilate,
while awaiting the final word of the people's deliberation,
had mounted to his judicial seat. It was then that his
wife,^^ to whom tradition gives the name Claudia Procula,
sent him a message. Naturally pious and lofty-minded,
Claudia, like so many other Roman dames of that epoch,
must have given some attention to the religion of the Jews,
so different from that of the pagans. It has been sup-
posed that she was a proselyte of the Gate. Perhaps the
teachings of Jesus had particularly impressed her. Her
heart seems to have been secretly inclined towards the
preacher of a religion superior to Judaism. At any rate,
the news that had been brought to the palace that evening,
concerning the arrest of Jesus, had so keenly struck her
imagination, that her sleep was full of frightful dreams.
It is not a rare thing for the impressions of the eve, re-
flected in our souls, to reveal to us, in part, the happenings
of the morrow. Calpurnia, Caesar's wife, having had in a
dream a mysterious presentiment of the approaching mur-

25 The ancient law Oppia forbade, it is trvie, the governors to take their
wives with them into their provinces which they were going to administer.
Under Tiberius, this law fell into disuse, and the motion of Severus Cecina,
made in the ojien senate, failed to re-establish it (Tacitus, Annal., iii,
33). But it was decreed by a senatus-consult that the governors should be
responsible for the intrigues and faults of their wives. St. Matt. xx\ii, 19,
alone relates this step on the part of Pilate's wife. In the Gospel of Nicode-
mus, ch. ii, Philo, p. 5'22, she is called Claudia Procula or Procla. A
very ancient legend of the Gauls holds that she was a native of Narbonne.
The Greek Church honors her as a saint.

[ 342 ]

BOOK I] THE CIVIL PROCESS

der of her husband, had essayed to prevent him from ap-
pearing in the senate the very day he was assassinated.
Thus, Claudia, wishing to deter Pilate from participating
in the crime plotted by the Jews, sent him, at the solemn
moment, a message to communicate to him her apprehen-
sions concerning Jesus. God often gives to wretched men
who pay no thought to heaven, pure and devoted compan-
ions who, like guardian angels, watch over their steps and
strive bravely to snatch them from disgrace and from the
abyss. " Have thou nothing to do with that just man,"
she had said to her husband ; " for I have suffered many
things this day in a dream because of him."

Everything combined, therefore, to increase Pilate's
scruples and to prevail, in his conscience as judge, over
the shouts which were again raised against the Accused.
For, the crowd, urged on by the chief priests and the
ancients, cried out : " Away with this man, and release
unto us Barabbas ! " Such, at times, is the injustice of
popular judgments. Two men are here compared; by the
irony of fate, they bear almost the same name, for one is
called Jesus, the Son of God, and the other Jesus, the Son
of the Father ; ^'^ the former preaches peace to His fellows,
the latter had waged against them a homicidal war. But
it is for the criminal that they ask the pardon, and for the
Just One they decide upon death.

Amazed and worried, the governor, as if he did not be-
lieve his own ears, again puts to the crowd the question it

=8 According to some manuscripts, supported by the Annenian version
and one Syriac version, Barabbas was also named Jesus. Origen (m Matt.,
121) read in some books of his time: "Jesus Barabbas," and he supposes
that the name Jesus was suppressed in others, because it was thought in-
tolerable that the criminal in question should bear the blessed name of the
Saviour. Barabbas signifies son of the father, and is quite common in the
Talmud. The other spelling of the name, Barrabas, which Tertullian
adopts (c. Marc, iv, 42), and which, according to St. Jerome's commentary
on this passage, seems to have been that of the Gospel of the Hebrews, gives
it a little different signification, the son of the rabbi or of the priest.

[343]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet thibd

has already answered with such fury : " What will you then
that I do to the King of the Jews, that is called Christ? "
And again they all shout together : " Let Him be cruci-
fied ! Crucify Him ! Crucify Him ! " Pilate's policy is
thus at an end. Fearing to enforce his will, he must sub-
mit to that of the people whom he consults. However,
the crime that they are demanding from him is so revolt-
ing, that he feels himself obliged to continue to resist.
Unfortunately, he does so with a cowardice more and more
manifest. It was a rather strange spectacle. A pagan
defends the Messiah against the Jews who insult and kill
Him ! For the third time ^" Pilate, taking Jesus' cause in
hand, indignantly exclaims : " Why, what evil hath this
man done? I find no cause of death in Him. I will chas-
tise Him, therefore, and let Him go." Thus he returns to
his second expedient, merely mentioned for a moment, but
not yet put into execution. The mob, whom the thirst for
blood deprives of all self-control, when aroused, seeing him
weaken, began to insist more and more. " The cross !
The cross ! " At this fresh outbreak of fury, as well as
by the weakness of his own heart, Pilate felt that Jesus
was lost. From that moment, amid changes beyond the
Evangelists' power of invention, his soul became the scene
of a bitter struggle between his convictions and his in-
terests.

He called for water, and washing his hands in the pres-
ence of the people, he said : " I am innocent of the blood of
this just man; look you to it." To express, in a way the
more intelligible to these people, that he does not see, as
judge, any crime to punish, and that he means, as gov-
ernor, to decline any liability for the crime enforced upon
his weakness, Pilate has recourse to a symbolical sign per-

2' St. Luke xxiii, 22, thus clearly relates, ô Se rplrov ûirev that Pilate pro-
claimed then, for the third time, the innocence of Jesus.

[ 344]

BOOK I] THE CIVIL PROCESS

fectly in keeping with Jewish customs.-^ At the same time,
the mob, claiming all the responsibility declined by the
Roman, cried out : " His blood be upon us and upon our
children ! " It is needless to say whether or not this sac-
rilegious defiance was heard by God. The blood of the
Just One is still upon the sons of the guilty, and neither
time, nor modern civilisation, nor universal scepticism has
been able to efface it. With their wealth, their mercantile
spirit, their vigorous energy, these people, who are found
everywhere, but who reign nowhere, who possess the gold
of the earth and are yet unable to buy themselves a coun-
try, exist, pass on and die, despised, abused, accursed, as
if one might still read upon their brow, written but yester-
day in letters of blood, the reason of their misfortune:
Deicide.

Pilate, who had this moment declared the unhappy Vic-
tim a Just Man, and had stigmatised as an abominable
crime the murder demanded by the mob, ordered, how-
ever, that Jesus should be subjected to the lashes of the
flagellation. This punishment was the immediate prepara-
tion for the crucifixion. The governor, therefore, joined
in the sanguinary desires of the populace, but not, as we
shall see, without a hope of halting on the way, and of
snatching the unfortunate prisoner from death at the last
moment.

Jesus was scourged publicly before the praetorium, he-

'8 We read, Deut. xxi, 6, and Jos. Antiq., iv, 8, 16, that when a murder
had been committed in tlie country, and the murderer was not known, a
heifer was slain on the spot where the crime was committed, and each one
of the ancients of the nearest city had to wash his hands above the victim
and utter these words: "Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes
see it," Soia, viii, 6. The passages in Herodotus i, 35 ; Virgil, Mneid, ii, 712 ;
Sophocles, Ajax, 054, cited to show that Pilate might have acted in con-
formity with a pagan practice, has no application here. Pilate does not
wash his hands after a murder that has been committed, but in view of t'^e
murder that is going to be committed, and he means in this way to decline
any responsibility for it.

[ 345 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

side the tribunal."'' This treatment was so terrible that
frequently the victim expired while undergoing it. The
Romans inflicted it sometimes with rods, sometimes with
lashes whose leathern thongs were armed with small square
bones, or with balls of lead.^^ The culprit was bound to
a stake in such a way that his back should be bent and the
skin stretched tight. It was probably with lashes that
Jesus was scourged, for it belonged only to the lictors to
strike with rods, and Pilate, who was only a procurator,
had no lictors in his service. The soldiers fulfilled their
orders with severity : the barbarism that they displayed in
the scene of derision that followed is sufficient proof of
this. Besides, Pilate, expecting everything from a move-
ment of pity which he desired to call forth, must have
bidden them use no policy with the culprit. But Jesus'
love was stronger than all His sufferings, and, beneath the
blows that tore His flesh. He kept saying to the justice of
His Father, to the fury of hell, to the ingratitude of men :
" Ye fatigue Me not ; strike on ! "

During this punishment, Pilate had withdrawn inside
the prœtorium to collect himself and to make one last at-
tack upon his conscience. He could not have endured the

"We see in St. Matt, xxvii, 27, that after the flagellation the soldiers
conduct Him into the prœtorium, for the purpose of enacting the frightful
scene of the derision. St. Mark xv, 16, says f<rai ttjs avAijs, that is, into
the interior court of the jjalace. Roman law meant that the flagellation
should be administered in public. It is in front of the tribunal of Florus
that this punishment is inflicted {B. J., ii, 14, 9). "In medio foro," says
Cicero {Verr., v, 62).

30 Tit. Liv., xx.xiii, 36; 2 Curt., vii, 11, 28; Valcr. Max., i, 7; Cf. Jos.,
B. J., V, II, \. Most of the details of the flagellation are given by pagan
authors. "I, lictor, conliga manus,"says Cicero (p. Rab. iv; cf. Tit. Liv.,
i, 26; xxvii, 13): "In foro medio nudari ac deligari, et virgas expediri jubet,"
(Verr., v, 62). We would have to cite this entire classic passage of the great
orator, for after the rods the punishment of the cross is inflicted. "Ad-
stringit ad columnam fortiter," in Plautus, Bacch., iv, 7, 24. The lash is
called " fidffTt^ àa-rpayaXdrr),'' in Athena, 153, and Lucian, Asin., 38.
"Flagrum pecuinis os.sibus catenatum" in Apul. Met. 8. Cf. Dion. Halic.
i\; Au\u-Gelle, Noct. Act. X, 3.

[ 346 ]

BOOK I] THE CIVIL PROCESS

sigh^ of Jesus insulted by his soldiers even more cruelly
than He had been by those of Herod. For whereas the
latter had sent Him back clad in white, as a pretender to
the crown, the former determined to proclaim His royalty.
They dragged Him into the prœtorium after calling the
whole cohort around Him.^^ They pretended in this way
to heighten the solemnity of His coronation by increasing
the number of His subjects. For the honour of the Ro-
man name we prefer to believe that Pilate, like the other
procurators,^^ had in his service none but auxiliaries levied
in the provinces of the empire. Half barbarian, these
mercenaries experienced a cruel pleasure in lavishing their
insults upon the condemned.^^

They threw over His shoulders a scarlet cloak, some
miserable, ragged, soldier ^^ garment found by chance.
As a king must needs have his crown, they plaited one
with thorns, and pressed it down upon His head. Then in
His right hand they put a reed to hold the place of a
sceptre, and one after the other they passed before Him,
while each one bent the knee and said : " Hail, King of the
Jews ! " But, whereas it was the custom to kiss the newly
consecrated king upon the brow, they struck Him and beat
Him about the head with the ridiculous sceptre which they
snatched from His hand. Finally, to complete this hateful
parody, they now prostrated themselves to adore Him,
and again arose to spit upon His face.

2' St. Matt, xxvii, 27, and St. Mark xv, 16, mean by ^Ktjv tV <Tire7pav,
not the tenth part of a legion, but only those soldiers whom Pilate had brought
with him from Csesarea as a body guard, merely a squad or guard of honour.

32 Josephus, B. J., V, 11, 1; Plaut., Most., i, 1, 2; Dion. Halic., vii, 69.
These auxiliaries had a special hatred for the Jews. B. J., ii, 12, 1.

33 At least we are led to believe so from No. 5, B, of the Inscript. Rom.
de l'Algérie.

3* Some soldiers wore garments of gaudy, motley colours. Plutarch,
Sertorius, xiv, x^c^uvcriv àvOivais ; Philop., x^aM'^ScDj' hn\vdi<rii4v<t>v. See Her-
mann, Privafalferth., § xxi, 20. It was perhaps a cast-off garment of one
of them that had been picked up.

[347]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet third

Jesus said nothing.

Was His glance upon the future, contemplating the
army of faithful soldiers who would acknowledge Him as
the only true King, even with His crown of thorns, as
Moses had recognised God in the burning bush; on those
martyrs who, giving up their blood for His glory, would
be proud from age to age, to renew, by their courageous
testimony, the purple cloak of His eternal royalty? Did
He behold His sceptre, the reed, striking down the thrones
of the kings of earth, and, oh, unheard-of wonder, still
standing upright in its powerful weakness, when all other
monarchies should have been swept away by revolutions?
Was He thinking that He, alone in the world, would have
subjects who should love Him as a father, serve Him as
a King, adore Him as a God, and that nothing could
change, lessen, or discourage this court of honour through-
out all future generations? Or was He, with His eyes
turned towards heaven, offering Himself to the Father as
the lamb caught in the branches and destined to replace
Isaac in his sacrifice; as the new Adam gathering the
thorns that had grown upon the accursed earth ; as the
Messiah, in fine, crowned with the leaves that Israel, the
fruitless vineyard, was offering to his Master in place of
fruits? All this is probable. It is certain that as ex-
piatory Victim and King of the future. He has since
presented His august head, adorned with the bloody crown
as the sun with its rays, for the adoration of men ; and be-
neath this halo Avhich no injustice can dim, which no victim
other than He has purchased, the eyes and hearts of the
just salute each day the love and majesty of a God.^^

3' Without ever attaining the same odious measure of cruelty, these scenes
of derision of feeble and unarmed creatures seem to have been characteristic
of the times. Philo, in Flacc, p. 970, relates that in the year 38 a.d., the
people of Alexandria, wishing to ridicule Agrippa I, who had been named
King of the Jews by Caligula seized a poor fool as he ran in the streets and,

[348]

BOOK I] THE CIVIL PROCESS

The moment had come for Pilate to make his final essay
against the pitiless mob. He went out first and began
by pleading the cause of the Victim with a reiteration of
what he had already said : " Behold, I bring Him forth
unto you, that you may know that I find no cause in
Him." His last plea contains, therefore, two arguments :
he has had Jesus maltreated even more than he had prom-
ised, and the people may be content with this harsh punish-
ment ; besides, he is more than ever convinced of His inno-
cence. Would they not give him credit for his cowardly
complacency and stop the unfortunate affair where it
was.-*

Jesus was behind him, wearing the crown of thorns
and the scarlet cloak. Pilate, with a gesture of pity,
showed Him to the multitude, and said : " Behold the
]Man ! " He was, indeed, the IVIan-Redeemer awaited by
mankind, the Man, pre-eminent, the true Adam, and the
Roman procurator had spoken a word whose mysterious
sense he was incapable of perceiving. He was, besides,
the Man Who was no longer a man, so had the violence of
His enemies disfigured Him, and the prophecy of Isaias ^^
and that of the Psalmist ^^ were terribly fulfilled. He
was, in fine, the redoubtable man, whom the chief priests
denounced as a dangerous revolutionary, a pretender to
royalty and Caesar's enemy. Pilate, as he looked upon
Him, felt an unspeakable compassion, and yet he was not
His fellow either in religion or in citizenship. He thought

having set him up on the stage in the gymnasium, transformed him into a
king in order to insult him at their leisure. On his head they had placed a
paper diadem, on his shoulders a carpet as a cloak, in his hands a reed for
a sceptre. While some of them, plajing soldier, pretended to mount guard
around him, others besought him to administer justice, and all together
saluted him with the title of Lord. JVIari, Mari! they cried out in Syriac,
in mockery of him.

36 7s. liii, 3.

"Ps. xxiii, 7.

[ 349 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt third

that the enemies of the Accused, softened by this specta-
cle, would at last grant Him grace. He was mistaken : the
heart of the impious and of the false devotee is far less
susceptible than the pagan's to the impressions of natural
justice, of pity, and of grace. Religious hatred, fos-
tered by Satan, is unpitying; and there are none more
hardened than the souls that have looked upon innocence,
truth, moral beauty, near at hand, and have failed to ap-
preciate their incomparable excellence.

Meanwhile, this heart-rending sight was in danger of
moving the people, who, left to themselves, have kind in-
stincts. The chief priests and their servants put forth
their efforts, therefore, to prejudice their reply by shout-
ing out first : " Crucify Him ! Crucify Him ! " Pilate,
incensed by such inhumanity, retorted : " Take Him, you,
and crucify Him ; for I find no cause in Him." Thus, as
the first time, he refused the capital sentence and dismissed
the crowd with insufficient authorisation for its homicidal
projects. But the cleverest of the conspirators suspected
that, although it had suddenly righted itself so proudly,
the governor's conscience was none the less ready to capitu-
late. His apparent energy was artificial. Above all, Pi-
late feared to displease the people, and the latter was cer-
tain finally to prevail over a judge who was unable to
enforce the right without hesitation. " We have a law,"
they replied ; " and according to the law He ought to die,
because he made Himself the Son of God." These words,
which were almost impertinent, insinuated that if the Jews
accepted the Roman suzerainty, it was on condition that
the Romans would enforce respect for the ÎTewish law.
Besides, they brought the trial back to its first ground
by abandoning the political side, which had presented
nothing criminal to Pilate.

The new religious accusation, thus formulated, caused a
[350 ]

BOOK I] THE CIVIL PROCESS

most unexpected thought to rise in the mind of the pro-
curator. FaiHng to find, as the Jews did, that these words :
" I am the Son of God," on the lips of the astonishing
Man Whom he was judging were absolutely blasphemous,
he wondered if they did not have some foundation. Was
he not in the presence, if not of a true Son of God, at
least of a Just Man, a friend of heaven. Whom the gods
might sooner or later avenge? A quite natural supersti-
tion called up before the pagan's eyes the most gloomy
perspectives. He immediately re-entered the prœtorium,
taking Jesus with him. There, under the lively impression
that dominated him : " Whence art thou ? " he asked of
Him. Pilate's question could have only one meaning.
" Art thou of earth or of heaven ? Art thou man or
God.'' " ^^ He well knew, in fact, that Jesus was a Gal-
ilean. If he does not speak in more explicit terms, it is
because he dares not venture into a religious domain that
is foreign to his education and in which he would risk dis-
playing at once his incapacity. Jesus made no answer.
The pagan was in no way ready to hear the Good Tidings.
His question came not from a heart in search of the truth,
for a moment ago, having asked what it was, he had has-
tened to go out so as not to learn it. God, all good,
as He is, exercises His justice none the less on those
who have refused His mercies. Pilate was unwilling to
hear Jesus when He spoke, Jesus remains silent when
Pilate desires to hear Him. From the general viewpoint
of the case, the procurator knew enough concerning the
innocence of the Accused to need no new light. The very
silence of the latter avowed His divine origin. By not
denying energetically the fresh accusation : " He made
Himself the Son of God," He acknowledged that it was
true. " Speakest thou not to me.'' " said Pilate in aston-
38 Cf. St. John vii, 28; xviii, 36-37.
[351]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt third

ishment ; " knowest thou not that I have power to crucify
thee, and I have power to release thee." The pride of
the Roman magistrate emphasises these last words. He
has made advances to the Accused, and the latter has sig-
nified by His silence that after his unworthy surrender
before the mob, he did not deserve a reply. Hence the
haughty tone of his remarks. The power of killing or
sparing life he certainly has, as shall be proved by the
closing word in this procedure; but the right he has not,
and hence, the power of which he speaks, being contrary
to justice, is simply the power to commit crime and mur-
der. He cannot avail himself of it, except at the expense
of his conscience. His pretension is an evident proof that
he did not deserve to hear the reply called forth a moment
ago. Therefore Jesus does not return to that ; but, with
impressive majesty. He simply says to the presumptuous
Roman : " Thou shouldest not have any power against Me,
unless it were given thee from above. Therefore he that
hath delivered Me to thee, hath the greater sin." Pilate
then is truly master of Jesus, for Rome, the mistress of
Palestine, has delegated the power of life and death to her
procurator ; but even in his authority Pilate remains the
instrument of a higher hand that guides all the kings of
earth, and to which it belongs to fix the lot of every man,
and more particularly that of the Saviour of mankind.^^
It ill befits him to be so proud of it. " Shall the axe boast

3' We read in Acts iv, 28, that Herod, Pilate, the Gentiles, the Jews, com-
bined against Jesus, did nothing more than what God in His counsels had
decreed in tliis affair. The wicked, in their liberty, simply carry out the
designs of I'ro\idence. This method of explaining a text which in itself is
embarrassing, is not without its difficulties, although we adopt it. It may
be that we ought to understand by avwdev, the realm of Satan, which is of a
region higher than om-s, and then everything would be easily explained.
The power over Jesus' life and death has been given to Pilate by the repre-
sentatives of Satan, the Jews, who accomplish the diabolical work. This
is why, in truth, Pilate, although culpable, is less criminal than these abettors
of hell.

[352]

BOOK I] THE CIVIL PROCESS

itself against him that cutteth with it? " the prophet had
said,^^ especially now when it is about to strike an inno-
cent One? Instead of boasting of an authority which he
is on the point of employing illegally, he ought to regret
being the representative of it. When one cannot govern
justly, it were better not to be governor.

No doubt, Pilate may discover in the abuse of power
which he is going to commit, an extenuating circumstance.
It is not of his own free will that he has mingled in this
process : he endures it, whereas the Jews alone began it and
conducted it contrary to all justice. The Sanhedrim is
more guilty than he. Nevertheless, he has his share of the
responsibility, and Jesus gives him so to understand with
impressive authority. Pilate makes no reply, but with even
greater energy he renews his plans and his efforts to liber-
ate the innocent man. The Jews do not even listen to his
proposals. What a change of rôles! the judge is become
the advocate, and the accusers are the judges. The Victim
alone is silent, accepting in advance His iniquitous con-
demnation. Pilate, however, obstinately manifests that,
for the lack of serious grievances, he is inclined towards a
solemn acquittal. His rough and violent character is on
the point of deciding the debate. The mob believes that
all is lost. But at this moment it throws upon the scales
its last argument. Though it is clever and triumphant,
it is most humiliating for those who dare to bring it for-
ward ; for, before formulating it, these proud patriots
must needs trample under foot all their dreams of inde-
pendence and their Messianic hopes. They insure their
victory only at the price of their national dignity. " If
thou release this man," they cried, " thou art not Caesar's
friend; for whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh
against Caesar." This wretched people had lived until
*" Isaias x, 15.
[353]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet thibd

this hour only in the expectation of a dehverer, and,
through hate of Jesus, it repels for eA'er any who may seek
to be that liberator. It gives itself to Caesar, and pro-
nounces a rebel any patriot who will pretend to lift up the
flag of independence. Cowardice and folly ! Israel consti-
tutes himself the advocate of the rights of Rome in the
presence of the procurator who enslaves and crushes him
in the name of those same rights.

For this manœuvre could not but prove decisive against
so ambitious a politician as Pilate. To sacrifice Jesus or
to be lost himself was a pressing alternative which per-
mitted him to hesitate no longer. The mob was right,
and had charitably opened liis eyes. By tolerating a pre-
tender to the royalty of Israel, he would cease to be a
follower of Caesar, since to make one's self king in a Roman
province was to declare one's self the enemy of the im-
perial majesty.

Of all tyrants we may say that none was more jealous
of his authority or more merciless than he in whose hands
the reins of the empire were at that time. Tacitus '^^ and
Suetonius *^ do this much justice to Tiberius. Pilate, with
his political perspicacity, saw at once, therefore, that the
tempest which was about to break would be threatening and
terrible. Should the Emperor learn that in one of his
provinces some one had suddenly assumed the title of king,
it would be for Pilate a lasting disgrace.^ ^ Disgrace
meant death. Earthy souls wish first of all to enjoy the
earth. Position first, conscience afterwards.

Completely unmanned by this last threat, Pilate sum-

*^ Anrud., iii, 38: "Majestatis crimen omnium accusationum comple-

mentum erat."

^2 Vita Tib., c. haii: "Qui atrocissime exercebat leges majestatis."

*3 Especially after the other accusations which, according to Philo {Legal.

ad Caium), and Josephus {Ant., xviii, 14; B. J., i, 2, 8), had weakened his

credit.

[ 354 ]

BOOK 1] THE CIVIL PROCESS

moned Jesus, Whom he had left in the prœtorium. Ac-
cording to the Roman custom the accused himself should
hear his sentence. The law prescribed also that the judg-
ment should be rendered in public ^^ and from a place that
dominated the crowd. This place was called in the Ara-
mean language, Gabbatha, or eminence. In Greek, the
spot where the judge held court was called Lithostrotos,
or mosaic court, because the pavement on which the
judge's seat was placed was made of fragments of pre-
cious marble.^^ The procurator had mounted the Gab-
batha the first time to acquit Jesus, he ascended there the
last time to condemn Him.

St. John observes with a deliberate accuracy of detail
which is explained by the importance of the events, that
it was the preparation of the Passover, and about the
sixth hour.^®

"B. J., ii, 9, 3; ii, 14, 8.

" Sueton., Cœs., c. xlvn. It is seen that the tn^o words Gabbatha and
Lithostrotos, while designating the tribunal, have not the same meaning.
Gabbatha, derived in Hebrew from gab, elevation, height, and not from
gib'ah, indicates the elevated form of the tribimal, and the Greek Aidéa-rpuTos,
derived from \idos and a-rpdyvvfn, refers to the pavement of small marble
cubes on which it was erected (Jos., B. J., \i, 1, 8 and 3, 2). In Sulla's
time, the use of these richly wrought courts was introduced in Rome
(Pliny, H. N., xxxvi, 25). Julius Caesar to heighten the brilliancy of his
authority, had this gorgeous equipment brought along on his expeditions.
Whenever he halted for encampment, he began by setting up in his prastorium
mosaics and marbles such as the consuls had in Rome, and there the judge's
seat was erected. The governors followed his example.

^* We have expounded above our idea of the day on which Jesus Christ
was condemned and executed. The present indication which many with
patient erudition have explained as referring to Friday, as the preparation
not for the festival, but only for the Sabbath of the Paschal week, seems to
us, if taken in its most natural sense, to corroborate what we have said. It
signifies really the day on which preparation was made for the Feast of the
Passover, by the immolation of the lamb, the foiu-teenth of Nisan. What
reason was there for adding rov iracrx« after irapaa-Kev^, if irapouTKewf) signi-
fied simply Friday ? No one could be ignorant, after all that the Evangelist
had said (xiii, 1; xviii, 28, etc.), of the fact that it was then the Paschal
week.

In determining the hour of the crucifixion there is another difficulty. For
St. Matthew (xxv-ii, 45); St. Mark (xv, 33) ; St. Luke (xxiii, 44), suppose that

[ 355 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

When Jesus appeared, Pilate exclaimed, " Behold your
King ! " Was there in these words nothing but bitter
irony with which Pilate avenged himself for the act of
weakness which they forced from him, or are we to discover
in them a last and solemn homage paid to the Accused?
Each meaning has some probability. The cutting speech
struck home, and the mob bellowed beneath the humiliation
thus inflicted on them. " Away with Him ! Away with
Him ! " they cried, " Crucify Him ! " But Pilate, before
yielding, pursues his vengeance. " Shall I crucify your
King.'* " It was then that the chief priests, in whom was
personified the ancient party in favour of independence,
sealing their abdication with one last act of servility, made
reply : " We have no king but Cœsar ! " They abolished

at midday Jesus was already on the cross for some time, since the darkness
was over the earth from the sixth hour until the ninth. Moreover, St.
Mark xv, 25, is fixed in his opinion when he says quite differently from St.
John (xix, 14), that Jesus was crucified at the third hour and not at the sixth.
To solve this divergency some after Eusebius and Theophylact have thought
that in St. John there was an error made by a copyist, that one sign had
been taken for another, a gamma r for a digamma F, and 6 has been written
instead of 3. This would be by far the best solution, if it were not too
arbitrary. The testhnony of certain manuscripts, N, D supp., L, X, A, or
even of the Chronic. Ale.v. are not of sufiicient authority to maintain it.
Others have thought that St. John had followed the Roman di\ision of
the hours, while his predecessors had followed the Jewish. But is the
Roman division historically proved.'' We have seen, vol. i, p. 277, that for
the Orient and in the locahty where John wrote his Gospel they counted
the hours begimiing at dawn and not at midnight, as we have said the Romans
were accustomed to do. In St. John xi, 9, Jesus remarks that there are
twelve hours in a day, and from iv, 6, it would seem indeed that the sixth
hour is the very middle of the day, when hunger and thirst make themselves
felt. In any case it camiot be admitted that Pilate's sentence, pronounced
after the second sitting of the Sanhedrim, after Jesus' appearance before
Herod who sought a long time, èy \6yois ÎKavoîs, to make Him speak, after all
the hesitation on the governor's part, the scenes of the flagellation and the
derision, was given at sLx o'clock in the morning. Must we then grant that
there is a flagrant contradiction between St. Jolm and the SjTioptics ? Con-
cerning so memorable an hour is it possible to admit that either he or they
were mistaken? Some have endeavoured to understand irapaaKev^ in St.
John xix, 14, as meaning not the whole day of the Preparation, but only
the part preceding the Sabbath, that is, from three to six o'clock, the moment
when the Paschal lamb was iramolated, and that St. John thus meant that

[356]

BOOK I] THE CIVIL PROCESS

thus their old theocracy, and, proud patriots as they were,
they asked to be henceforth confounded with the other peo-
ples who were the slaves of the Roman empire. They gave
themselves to Caesar in order to suppress Jesus Christ.
The latter would have saved them, the former will massacre
them before long, on the very anniversary of the Paschal
festival. Pilate, seeing the sacerdotal party surrender
thus, no longer hesitates to sacrifice Jesus, So solemn an
abdication was, indeed, worthy of that reward.

The fatal sentence was pronounced. The craft, the
malice, the fanaticism of the Sanhedrim had succeeded in
forcing it from a dishonest magistrate. Pilate spoke to
the Accused the Sacramental words : " Ibis ad crucem ! "

Pilate pronounced sentence six hours before the Preparation, that is, at nine
o'clock in the morning, which would agree with St. Mark. But there is
nothing like this in the foiui^h Gospel. Others relying on the merely ap-
proximate determination implied in ws or w<rel, think they can find a middle
term in which the nine o'clock of St. Mark and the midday of St. John
would coincide. Although, say they, the day was di\'ided into twelve hours
according to the Master's words (St. John xi, 9), these twelve hours were
more commonly distributed according to established usage, into four parts
of three each, the first hour being from daybreak to nine o'clock; the third
from nine to midday ; the sixth from midday to three o clock ; and the ninth
from three o'clock to nightfall. The people especially were satisfied to
distribute the day with these four starting-points, three of which were de-
termined by the public prayer in the Temple. When, therefore, the Synop-
tics or popular tradition say that Jesus was crucified at the third hour, they
indicate that it was then the second part of the day, between nine o'clock
and midday, inclining rather towards the end of this third hour, eleven
o'clock for instance, for we must have time to classify the numerous incidents
of the morning. St. John, in saj-ing that it was about the sixth hour when
the sentence was pronounced, may wish only to note that the third part of
the day was about to begin, and that it was near midday. It requires unfailing
good-will to be satisfied with this solution. Even though there were no
mention in St. John i, 39 of a tenth hour, and in iv, 52, of a seventh, in
St. Matt. XX, 9, of an eleventh, all of which renders the dinsion of the day
into four parts very doubtful, it is e\-ident that if the third hour can be made
to mean the sixth hour, or \-ice versa, we can no longer understand the
meaning of words. We must either admit that there is a divergence between
the oral tradition, gathered by the Synoptics, and St. John, or grant that an
error was made by some copyist. At any rate, the final word must belong
to St. John.

[357]

Section III
The Catastrophe

CHAPTER I
JESUS IS PUT TO DEATH

The Punishment of the Cross — The Procession to
Calvary — Simon, the Cyrenean — The Daughters of
Jerusalem — The Crucifixion — Pilate's Inscription
— The Division of the Garments — Insults of the
Hierarchical Party — The Good and the Wicked
Thief — The Group of Friends — Ecce Mater tua!
— Last Words — Signs and Portents — Testimony of
the Dead. (St. Matthew xxvii, 31-56; St. Mark xv,
20-41 ; St. Luke xxiii, 26-49; St. John xix, 16-31.)

Crucifixion was not a Jewish punishment. Invented by
a woman, Semiramis, we see it practised first among the
Assyrians, the Persians, and the Scythians ; then in Egypt
and in Carthage. In turn, the Greek and Roman civiH-
sations had adopted it, and, fearful as it was,^ it had be-
come the ordinary punishment of slaves, servile suppUcium.
According to the law of Moses,^ a criminal could be de-
capitated, strangled, burned, or stoned. He was never at-
tached to the cross until after death, and then it was to

» Cicero (in Verrem, v, 66) justly calls it: " Crudelissimum teterrimum-
que supplicimn."
'Deut. xxi, 22, 23.

[358]

BOOK I] JESUS IS PUT TO DEATH

inflict supreme ignominy upon his body. The ferocity of
Alexander Jannœus, who had caused eight hundred pris-
oners to be crucified, was cited ^ as an abominable crime.
But a century later the Romans imported into Palestine
this method of punishment in use in the other provinces of
the empire against rebels and malefactors. From the time
of Varus, who executed in this fashion two thousand revo-
lutionaries at the death of Herod the Great, down to
Titus, who, after the destruction of Jerusalem, raised be-
neath the walls of the city as many crosses as wood and
space would permit in the neighbourhood, the procurators
inflicted this frightful torture upon the political or relig-
ious agitators who fell into their hands.^

It is remarkable that, while condemning Jesus to the
most frightful of penalties, the Roman jurisdiction had
allotted Him that very one in which He would be able to
retain the longest His full liberty of mind and speech.
For the Cross is going to be the bloody rostrum from which
He will speak to the world until His last moment of life,
and the altar on which He will select at His own pleasure
the time to give up His soul to God. Stoned or beheaded.
He would have seemed less His own Master, and, in any
case, it would have been more difficult for Him to become
the standard of the Church, the eloquent sign that was to
rise above the world of the future.

7, miles, expedi crucem, Pilate had added, according to
the form in use, as complement of the sentence, and the
soldiers had just brought up a cross.^ It was made of

35. J., i, 4, 6.

*Aniiq., x^^i, 10, 10; xx, 5, 10; B. J., u, 12, 6, and 13, 2, 14, 9; y, 11.

» At first the cross had been merely a stake on which the culprit was im-
paled. Soon afterwards forked trees were used to which the crucified were
attached by the shoulders. The shape of these trees seems to have been
varied. Sometimes the cross, formed of two stakes crossed, resembles the
Greek letter X; again it is made of a single stake with a cross-bar, and
reminds one of the letter T. "Ipsa est," says Tertullian (c. Marc, iii, 22),

[359]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt third

pine, or some other coniferous tree. There are several
varieties in Palestine.^ With odious prevision, the Roman

"littera Grsecorum Tau, nostra autem T species crucis." Cf. Lucian.
Judic. Vocal, xii.

The Fathers of the Church, according as they assigned the one or the
other form to the cross of Jesus, have not failed to look for its mysterious
meanings. Some saw in Jacob crossing jiis arms to bless the sons of Joseph
(Tertull., de Baptismo viii), in the form of the anointing which consecrated
the priests, in the two hands joined transversely to impose the sins of the
people upon the head of the scape-goat, so many types of the cross, in the
lorm of X, named crux decussata. Others supposing that Our Lord's
cross of the shape known as crux commissa, sought for the symbolism of
the Greek letter T which it resembled. But, as this latter signified 300, it
recalled for them (Clem, of Alex., Strom, vi; St. Paulinus Ep. ii) tlie ark,
300 cubits long, which had saved the just at the time of the deluge. '2,"ravphs
èv TCfi T, says the Epistle of Barnabas, ix, efieWev «x^"' '''hf X**/""-

The most common and a very ancient tradition (Eusebius, de Vila
Constantini, i, 31), as well as the inscription placed above Jesus' head,
would lead one to believe that the instrument of His torture was what has
been commonly called the Latin cross, crux immissa -f, that is, the one in
which the principal plank rises above the cross-piece. Iren. (Hœres., ii,
24, 4) describes it thus: "Habitus crucis fines et simimitates habet quinque,
duos in longitudine et duos in latitudine, et unum in medio in quo requiescit
is qui clavis affigitur." However, the most primitive representation which
we have of the crucifixion, the drawing of the Palatine of Christ with an
ass's head, supposes that the cross was shaped like a T, and that the feet of
the crucified rested on a support. In any case, the cross recalled (Barnab.,
Ep., §12; Justin Martyr, Dial. c. Tryph., 89; Tertull. adv. Marc, iii, 18),
Moses raising his arms while the Israelites were struggling in the plains of
Raphidim (Exod. xvii, 12), the ladder of Jacob on which God had leant,
or again, the two staffs that were crossed on the Paschal lamb. The brazen
serpent, according to Our Lord Himself, had been a figure of the Son of
Man crucified. The efforts of apologists to fhid common in nature the sign
of the cross, whether in the four cardinal points, or in the attitudes of the
human body at the most solemn moments of life, or finally in certain har-
monies of the vegetable kingdom, were called forth principally by the neces-
sity of lessening the scandal of such a death (Minutius Felix, Ocf., xxix.)
in the eyes of the Gentiles, whereas the symbols in Scripture had been
brought forward (Tert., adv. Jiid. ix) in order to diminish the scandal on
the part of the Jews. Among the Egyptians the hieroglyphic sign of the
cross was the symbol of life. Cf. among recent works concerning the
Cross: O. Zockler, Das Kreuz Christi, 1875; Prime, Holy Cross, N. Y.,
1877; Dobbert, Zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Kreuzes, 1880, and Ansault
who published, in 1891, a very curious memoir on the Cult of the Cross
before Jesus Christ. Some Assyrian and Phœnician jewels are in the form
of a cross.

•The relics of the true Cross leave no doubt of this. Some, however,
think it was of oak, a wood well adapted to this kind of punishment. Cf.
Rohault de Fleury, Mémoire sur les instruments de la Passion, 1869.

[360]

BOOK I] JESUS IS PUT TO DEATH

authority always kept a quantity of gibbets in reserve for
criminals. The terrible stake had to be neither too light
nor too heavy, for the condemned had to carry it or to drag
it Himself J

Without the loss of a moment, they had taken from
Jesus all the attire of His mock royalty and, clad in His
ordinary garments, just as they had been accustomed to
see Him when He spoke to the people. He was forced to
take the road that led to death. It was right that every
one should recognise the man Who was going to be immo-
lated for all. Besides, according to the law, it was neces-
sary to have borne in front of the condemned, or attached
to his back, written in large letters, his name and the
reason of his condemnation.^

Two malefactors, sentenced to the same penalty, es-
corted the august Victim, as if to complete His humilia-
tion. Soldiers, since Pilate had no lictors, commanded by
a centurion, were ordered to proceed to the execution.

The gloomy train, issuing from the palace of the pro-
curator, took the most direct road towards one of the city
gates. In order to hasten matters, they omitted the pro-
cession in the streets and the mournful pomp usual on
such occasions.^ No time was to be afforded the Galileans

' The passage in St. John xrs, 17, ^aardCcov rhv cravphv avrov, and
the incident with Simon the Cyrenian leave no doubt of this. Pagan authors
also attest that such was the custom. Plautus, Miles Glor., ii, 46: "Tibi
erit eundum extra portam, patibulum ciun habebis." Plutarch, De Sera
Num. V indict., § 9 : E/cacrros KaKovpyaiv êKcpépei rhy éavrov (TTavpSv, k. t. A.
Artemidorus, Oneir., 2, 6 : ô fiéXKwv (navpûi irpoffriXovffôai npSrepov avrhv
iSocTTctSet.

'* "Praecedente titulo," says Suetonius, " qui causam pœnœ indicaret."
Calig., 32; cf. Domit., 10. Dion Cass., 54, 3, says: "/ierà ypaix/xârwi/
r)]v aïriav ttjs Oavaréixews abrov Sr}\ovvTwv. The Jewish custom, if we may
believe the Talmud (Sank., 6, 2), was to have the one who was to be stoned
preceded by a crier who proclaimed his name, his crime, and the witnesses
who had accused him. It was also the crier's duty to invite those who
might wish to defend him, to present themselves.

8 Josephus (Antiq., xx, 6, 3, and B. J., iv, 6, 1) says that ordinarily the
culprit was led through all the city. Cf. Dion Cass., 543; Macrobius, Saturn.,

[361]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

to deliver their Youthful Prophet. If, as we have sup-
posed, Pilate was in the palace of Herod the Great, it
was towards the northwest and through the gate Gennath,
of the Gardens, that they proceeded,^ ^ in order to reach a
road leading to the open country.^ ^ If we suppose that he
resided in the tower Antonia, the cortège went towards the
west. At any rate, simple piety alone can discover traces
of the sacred Victim on the road called the Sorrowful Way
which, in the midst of modern streets, is from thirty to
fifty feet above the ruins of ancient Jerusalem. Isaias
had said that the Messiah should wear the mark of His
royalty upon His shoulder, and it is there, in fact, that
Jesus supports His cross. Like Isaac, He bears with
Him the wood for the sacrifice, but without any hope that
heaven's hand may intervene to check the Father's arm or
that a victim may rise from the ground to be substituted
for Him in the immolation.

In spite of all His courage, the Condemned gave evi-
dence of visible exhaustion. He began to give way be-
neath the heavy burden,^ ^ We can see how the emotions
of the night, the scourging, the crowning with thorns,
must have weakened Him considerably. By His flagging
step, the soldiers saw that it was necessary to halt the
procession to give Him time to breathe if they wished
to reach the place of torture. A man who was returning

i, 10. On this occasion they hurried so quickly that at noon at the latest,
Jesus was nailed to the cross.

JO Among the Jews as among the Romans, the guilty were executed out-
side the city. Society seemed to cast out those who had outraged her.
The Epistle to the Hebrews, xiii, 12, says that Jesus suffered without the
gate. St. John (xix, 17) and St. Matthew (xxvii, 32) say the same.

" St. Mark xv, 21 ; St. Luke xxiii, 26.

12 A passage in Plautus, preserved by Nonius Marcellus, iii, 183, would
incline one to believe that the condemned did not carry the whole cross, but
only the cross-piece, patihdum, while the principal plank, cnix, was itself
brought along by other means: "Patibiilum ferat per urbem, deinde
afEgatur cnici." In that case, the cross proper was prepared by the union
of the two pieces only on the spot where the execution took place.

[ 362 ]

BOOK I] JESUS IS PUT TO DEATH

from the country had pity,^^ perhaps, on the sufferer's lot.
The soldiers at once commanded him to carry the cross.
Even though he felt the greatest repugnance to fulfill
such an office, he could not prudently refuse. Among con-
quered peoples the soldier has always been pleased to hec-
tor and bully the peasant.^ ^ Willing or not, therefore,
this man took up the Cross. Jesus marched on before him,
as if to have it understood that He was going to expiate
not His own crimes, but those of humanity who followed
Him. Guilty humanity not having to suffer itself, might
well, at least, carry the instrument of torture.^ ^

The man thus suddenly requisitioned was named Simon,
and, personally, or through his father, he had belonged to
the colony of Jews transported long before to Cyrene, in
African Libya, by Ptolemy-Lagus. He had been called
by the surname, Cyrenean. He dwelt, probably, in Jeru-
salem,^^ and had two sons, Alexander and Rufus, who had
their part in the primitive Church.^^ Thus it was that, in
the absence of Simon-Peter, another Simon took the place
he should have occupied, and it will be an eternal honour
for the latter that he was so closely associated in the great

" We could not explain why the soldiers, with so many other Jews around
them, should have chosen Simon who was not following the procession, but
was quietly returning to the city, if he himself did not by his attitude furnish
occasion for it. Some have supposed that he was a slave, but without any
plausible reasons.

" Arrian says (iv, 1) : "If a soldier imposes a labour on thee be careful not
to resist, or even to murmur; else thou shalt receive blows and shalt lose
thy ass into the bargain."

''The artists who represent Simon bearing only the foot of the cross,
forget that nothing of the kind is to be found m the Gospel, and that, if he
had simply raised the extremity touching the ground, instead of helping
Jesus, he would only have burdened Him the more.

>' But for the circumstance that he was returning from the fields and
probably from his work there, it would not be improbable that Simon was
merely on the way to Jerusalem like so many other Jews who came there
from foreign lands to celebrate the Paschal feasts. The Cyreneans had a
Synagogue in Jerusalem (Acts ii, 10; vi, 9).

"Acts xix, 33; 7 Tim. i, 20.

[363]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet third

act of the Expiation. Were there already in his heart
some aspirations towards Christianity, and did he feel for
Jesus not merely a human sympathy, but even the affec-
tion of a true disciple? We do not know. It is certain,
at least, that he bore good fortune to his whole family ;
for in addition to his sons, his wife^^ also is mentioned
with praise among the first Christians. He who had had
his small share in the punishment of Jesus was wise enough
to seize for himself and for his, a great portion of the
benefits of the Redemption.

It might have been midday. The great city, hearing
the news of Jesus' condemnation, was eager to gain more
accurate information. The crowds gathered from every
direction. The curious had joined the procession, and
once scattered outside the gate of the city, they sought
to hasten on ahead of the soldiers to get a closer view of
the Condemned. Women, in particular, thirst for such
touching spectacles, and they readily offer even to the
unfortunate victims evidences of their sincere compassion.
Those who beheld Jesus wept and mourned. Some were
lamenting the Young Doctor Whom they had heard in the
Temple, and Whose gentleness and kindness had touched
their souls. Others, like the women of Galilee who had
devoted themselves to the Master's service, wept for their
friend. In the midst of these latter, there was one more
courageous, though more rudely stricken, than the rest —
for in following the Victim she was following her Son —
it was Mary, Jesus' mother, whom we shall find again,
later on, at the foot of the Cross.

The incident mentioned by St. Luke refers not to these

latter, but to the Avomen of Jerusalem. Never initiated

into the mysteries of the Son of God, nor associated in His

life, they were offering tears to the Young Prophet Who

18 Rom. xvi, 13.

[ 364 ]

BOOK I] JESUS IS PUT TO DEATH

through hate and without cause was about to be immo-
lated. Their grief was the first evidence of sympathy
received by Jesus since the beginning of the awful storm,
in which His ears had heard nothing but blasphemy and
malediction. So, breaking the stern silence He had pre-
served since the last interview with Pilate, He deigned to
reward their natural pity with a wise warning. " Daugh-
ters of Jerusalem," He said to them, " weep not over Me,
but for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the
days shall come wherein they will say : Blessed are the bar-
ren, and the wombs that have not borne, and the paps that
have not given suck! Then shall they begin to say to the
mountains : Fall upon us ; and to the hills : Cover us ! For
if in the green wood they do these things, what shall be
done in the dry ? " If they weep at the sight of iniquity
committed, they shall weep far more at the sight of its
punishment. The woe of one man now stirs them ; what
shall they say of the woes of a people,'' Jesus is pleased
to remind them that the justice of God is approaching, so
that they may be the less scandaKsed by His patience in
the crime that is now being done. If He, because He has
consented to bear the sins of others, although just Him-
self, thus rudely suffers the wrath of heaven, what shall
happen to the Jewish people, that withered tree which the
vengeance of God is about to strike.''

Meanwhile they had reached the place appointed for the
execution. The ancients were accustomed to execute their
criminals by the side of the most frequented roads, and on
the prominent points in the neighbourhood. They sought
in this way to inspire in the people a more lively horror of
crime, by affording them a close view of its punishment.^ ^

" Quintilian, Declam., 274 ; Cicero, In Verrem, v, 66 ; Tacitus, Annal.,
XV, 44; Titus Livius, \iii, 15; Justin., 18, 7; 21, 4; 22, 7. "Spectanda
civibus," said Pliny, H. N., xxx\'i, 24, 3. Josephus, B. J., v, 11, 1, says:
" TOÛ Tf Ixovs àvTiKpîi" and 6, 5 : " irph rod relxovs."

[365]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

It is by no means certain that the spot selected to cru-
cify Jesus was the ordinary place for capital punish-
ments.^*^ The fact that a rich man, such as Joseph of
Arimathea, had a pleasure garden there, would seem to
indicate the contrary. However that may be, the slight
elevation of ground on which they halted was called Gol-
gotha, or the Skull, the Head, probably because the form
of the hillock — rocky, grayish, and void of vegetation —
evoked the thought of a bare skull.^^ In our modern lan-
guages Golgotha is more commonly called Calvary.

While some of the soldiers were preparing the cross
and digging the hole in which it was to be planted, others
offered the Condemned a stupefying drink meant to render
the capital punishment less cruel for Him. It was a mix-
ture of wine and myrrh. In taste, this narcotic greatly
resembled gall mixed with vinegar, and also pure ab-
sinthe.^2 " To him who is going to his death," says the
Talmud ; ^^ " thou shalt give to drink a grain of incense

20 The supposition that its name came from the skulls of the executed,
which were scattered in this place, has against it some peremptory objections :
the first is that the word Golgotha (in Hebrew, Gidgoleth, and in Aramaic,
Gulgcdtha, from galal, to make round, so that the true name is Golgoltha)
signifies the shdl {St. Luke xxiii, 33), or the place of the skull, according to
the other three Evangelists, but not of the skulls; the second is that Jewish
law ordained that the executed should be buried, and did not allow human
bones to remain abandoned on a frequented road.

21 We have some examples of analogous designations. Thus Strabo
(xvii, 3) speaks of hills called the Heads, KecpaXal. It is a mistake, however,
for Paulus to invoke here the memory of the cypress woods, situated on the
road from Cenchreœ to Corinth, and named Kpâveiov in Pausanias, ii, 2.
Cf. Notre Voyage aux Sept Eglises, p. 64. The name Kpdveiov, was given
to this sacred grove probably because of the dogberry-trees, Kpdveia, of
which there were large numbers in the neighbourhood, and not from the
conformation of the ground which is almost level in that place.

*^ St. Matthew (xxvii, 34) says : o^os /xera x"^^^ nefiiyixîvov, and St. Mark
(xv, 23) : è(Tixvpvi(ïjxîvov ohov. The other two do not mention this drink.
We know that a similar drink was sometimes given to the martyrs. Ter-
tuUian {Je}, xii) calls it "condito mero."

''^This practice, authorized in Prow xxxi, 6, was Jewish, not Roman.
Cf. Bah. Sanhedrim, 42, i: "Prodeunti ad supplicium capitis potum

[366]

BOOK I] JESUS IS PUT TO DEATH

in a glass of wine, so that he may lose his consciousness."
Jesus tasted of the drink in order to fulfill the proph-
ecy ; ^^ but He only wet His lips with it,^^ being desirous
of retaining all the merit of experiencing, up to His last
moment, the awful pains of death.

Then they laid Him on the Cross.

There were two ways of crucifying the condemned:
they were attached to the fatal tree sometimes by ropes,
sometimes by nails. Both the one and the other were in
use in Jesus' time.^^ The cruelty of the executioners pre-
ferred the second, and enormous nails pierced the hands and
the feet of the Saviour. It is a question whether His feet
were fastened by a single nail in one wound ; Nonnus and
St. Gregory of Nazianzen think they were. Other eccle-
siastical authors, in the West particularly, have more com-
monly followed the opinion of St. Cyprian, who held that
there was one nail for each foot : Clavis pedes terebrantibus.
This saint had in his own day seen, in Africa, the punish-

dederunt, granum thuris in poculo vini, ut turbaretur intellectus ejus."
Ordinarily the women of Jerusalem prepared this draught at their own ex-
pense.

2< Ps. Ixviii, 22.

2' In this way we can harmonise St. Matt, xxvii, 34, where Jesus is said
to have tasted the draught, yeva-dnefoi, and St. Mark xv, 23, where we
read that He did not take it: ovk èkafiev. St. Luke (xxiii, 36), who says
that vinegar was offered to Jesus in mockery and before the darkness, seems
less exact than the others.

'"'Ausonius, Ciipido crucifixus; Seneca, de Vita beata, xix; Artemidorus,
Oneirocr., i, 76; Plautus, Mostel. ii, 1, 13, et passim; Apuleius, Met. iii, 60,
etc. Xenophon of Ephesus asserts that in Egypt they simply bound the
hands of the crucified. Lucan (vi, 547 and the foi.) speaks of a composite
arrangement in which, while nailing the feet and the hands, they bound the
body to the cross by ropes. St. Hilary (de Trinit., x, 13) supposes that this
same was done to Jesus. He is almost alone in his opinion. However,
many Fathers of the Church have understood Jesus' prophecy to Peter:
"Another shall gird thee," as referring to the bonds that were to hold the
Apostle on the cross. "Petrus ab altero vincitur," says Tertullian (Scorp.
15), "cum cnici adstringitur." Pliny (H. N., xx\àii, 11) mentions the
"spartum e cruce," the rope of the crucified, as possessing a magic in-
fluence.

[367]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet third

ment of the cross inflicted,"" and a passage in Plautus
seems to indicate that he was right. ^*

The actual naihng of the Victim to the Cross was per-
formed on the ground,"^ and it was accomphshed with the
aid of nails that fastened the four limbs. Jesus was
stripped of His clothing and was compelled to stretch
Himself in a state of nudity upon the gibbet.^*' His arms
spread out generously towards the two branches of the
fatal stake. Since the first Adam had ruined the world
by putting forth his hand upon the tree of paradise in
an act of disobedience, the new Man extended His, in an
act of love, upon the tree of Redemption. It was an awful
moment for the onlookers, even the most sceptical, when
the tree of life, laden with its bleeding fruit, was raised
from the ground, and when, slipping down into the hole,
it held suspended the Just One, resigned, courageous,
forgiving, the supreme reconciler between God and man-
kind.^i

2' Didron observes, in his fine work on Christian iconography that, previous
to the thirteenth century, painters represented Chiist on the cross indis-
criminately, sometimes with three nails, sometimes with four. After that
date only three nails have generally been admitted.

28 MosteUaria (Act ii, Sc. 1, Tranion) says : " Ego dabo ei talentum primus
qui in crucem excucurrerit, sed lea lege, ut ojfigantur his pedes, bis bracchia."

2' Firmicus Maternus {Astron., vi, 31) says: " Patibido suffixas in crucem
crudeliter erigitur."

3" Artemidorus, ii, 58 : Fvfipol yap (navpovvTai. In Arrian (Epid. iv,
26) we read: "Ut in balneo, vestibus exutus et teipsum extendens, ut soient
crucifixi." St. Aug., De Civit. Dei. xvi, 2, Athanasius, Ambrose, Origen
suppose that Jesus was absolutely naked. In Eusebius H. E., iv, 115, we
read that Polycarp, on the funeraJ-pile, had himself removed all his clothing,
and that certain women who were put to death (viii, 9, 3Iart. Pal., 9) had
previously been divested of all their clothing iravreKSis yvfivfj.

31 Besides its four branches, the cross had a small joist jutting out from
the middle of the vertical and principal piece, like the horn of a rhinoceros,
rh èv T<f fj.4(r(j) irrfyvvnei/oi/ ws Kepas, according to St. Justin's expression
(Dial. c. Tryph., 91). Tertullian (adv. Nat., i, 12) mentions this "sedi-
lis, excessus ubi requiescit qui clavis affigitur," on which the body of the
crucified found support; and (c. Marc, iii, 18) "unicornis médius, stipitis

Ealus." (See also Iren., adv. Hœres, i, 12.) Otherwise the muscles of the
ands would have had great difiiculty in sustaining long so heavy a weight.

[368]

BOOK I] JESUS IS PUT TO DEATH

The two criminals who had been condemned to the same
penalty, having been crucified, one on the right, the other
on the left, completed the humiliating exhibition. It was a
full realisation of the words of Isaias : ^" the Christ was
likened to malefactors and reputed with the wicked. This
was the moment of His keenest physical pain. A cry went
forth from the lips of the august Victim, which has re-
mained the supreme expression of heroism and of sanctity :
" Father," He said, " forgive them, for they know not
what they do." He therefore illustrated His own teaching
to the letter : " Pray for them that persecute you." Sub-
lime magnanimity ! He intercedes not only for the sol-
diers who crucified Him, but for the Jews and the sinners
of all ages who caused Him to be crucified.

Through Pilate's care, an inscription was fastened to
the top of the cross. It was probably the same that had
been carried before the condemned Jesus as He went to His
death. Written ordinarily in black letters on a white back-
ground, it explained to the passers-by the crime of the
crucified.^^ The wording of it, which was the work of the
governor himself, contained something hateful to the
Jews:

Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.^^

It is less certain that the feet of the crucified rested in the same way on any
support. Gregory of Tours {de Glor. Martyr., 6) is the first perhaps to hold
this, and the artists who have followed his information, have given no greater
weight to his opinion.

82 Is. liii, 12.

83 Dion Cassius (liv, 3) speaks of a servant whose master had him crucified,
after having made him walk m the public square with the inscription that
told his crime. Eusebius (H. E., vii), in relating the martyrdom of Attains,
says; " irivaKos avThif irpowyovros, iv ^ êneypâirTO Pw/iaiffri- Ovràs ècniv
"ArraXos o Xpiirriavôs.'" Cf. Seuton., Caligula, xx.w'iii, 8.

'■i This detail deserves the attention of those who defend the absolute
exactitude of the Evangelists, namely, that this inscription is given with
three variants, St. Luke and St. Mark simply give : à fiaaiMvs rwv 'lovSalwi/.
St. Matt, xxvii, 37, adds the name of Jesus. St. John xix, 19, also gives the
word Nazarene. It may be that each of the three languages furnished a
different rendering and that the divergence here is due to the fact that the

[369]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

And these words were written at the same time in He-
brew, the national language ; in Greek, the customary lan-
guage ; in Latin, the language of the victorious Caesars.
The royalty of Our Lord was thus proclaimed in the three
idioms which represented the several civilisations of the
age. God had permitted that a pagan, following a whim
of his temper, should testify before the world that the
King of the Jews was at the same time King of all the
nations. In this suffering, crucified man were fulfilled the
ancient prophecies of the patriarchs. Japheth was going
to draw near to Sem in order to dwell beneath his tents,
and the nations now had but to bow before the Shiloh, or
the Messiah Who is come.^*^

The passers-by and all the curious who had hastened
from the city to look upon the awful sight, read the sen-
tence and noted its bitter and humiliating irony. The
High-Priests were annoyed by it and made their protesta-
tions to Pilate : " Write not," they observed, " the King
of the Jews, but that He said : I am the King of the Jews."
The latter, wearied at last by their demands, recovered,
even though late, the harshness which formed the basis of
his character. He dismissed them rudely with this reply :
" What I have written, I have written." Thus the jeal-
ousy of the hierarchical faction failed to hold till the last
its advantage over the King of the Jews. His enemies
had succeeded in putting Him to death, but they could not
destroy His title of royalty. A few years later, events
were to prove that the inscription was a prophecy.
Preached to all peoples in the three languages which had

Evangelists reproduced all three of them. This, however, is scarcely prob-
able. St. John has the most complete formula. St. Mark's is distinguished
by a brevity more Roman than the others. It is he, moreover, who likewise
speaks not of an inscription put up arbitrarily, but of the inscription usual on
such occasions.

35 Gen. ix, 27 and xlk, 10.

[370]

BOOK I] JESUS IS PUT TO DEATH

told the cause of His death, the Crucified One became
King of the entire world.

The clothing of those executed, according to Roman
law,^^ usually became the property of the executioners.
These latter were four in number, according to St. John.
Polybius says, in fact, that this was the number of soldiers
required for a picket-guard.^^ It may be that there were
as many more for each of the two thieves. They imme-
diately thought of dividing the spoils of the victim. The
distribution of several bits of the clothing, head-dress,
sandals, cincture, took place without difficulty. Jesus'
cloak, made in four breadths,^^ was also easy to divide ;
but the tunic, a mother's patient work, or the gift of some
generous heart, was of too great value to become by mere
argument the portion of a single man. It was seamless
and of the same texture throughout.^^ It was decided that
it should not be divided, but should be drawn by lot. A
few dice shaken in a helmet,**^ or some other conventional
sign, solved the difficulty, and thus were fulfilled the
Psalmist's words : " They parted my garments amongst
them, and upon my vesture they cast lots." ^^ Thus His
own people had not even His cast-ofF garments, and the
only goods He possessed here below passed into the hands
of pagan soldiers. This done, the soldiers planted their

^* Dig. xlvii, 20; De bonis damnât., 6.

37 Polybius, vi, 33. See Acts xii, 4; Philo, In Flaccum, p. 981.

38 Deut. xxii, 12.

39 Josephus, Antiq., iii, 7, 4, observes that the priest's garment had to be
so. Cf. Braun, de vest. Hebr., p. 342.

^o " Convenere viri dejectamque aerea sortem, Accepit galea, " says Virgil,
.^n., V, 490.

*' Ps. xxi, 19. la the first part of the verse, according to the Septuagint
the Psalmist mentions the division of the outside garments; in the second,
the drawing by lot of the garment next to the body, and wathont which one
was naked. There is a visible gradation between these two ideas, and the
Evangelist, in noting it, has fully grasped the difference that separates the
two members of the Hebrew phrase. Such precise progression in the thought
cannot be tautology, as Strauss thought.

[371 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

lances and, as was their custom,"*^ sat down to guard
their victim. The anguish of the dying man had no in-
terest for them. They fulfilled the rest of their charge
with perfect indifference.

His real enemies were far from assuming this attitude.
Their hatred, which had triumphed at last, knew no bounds.
While a portion of the people stood at a distance, and
gazed upon the tortured man in a stupor mingled with
anxiety, the ringleaders of the plot passed in defile be-
neath His eyes and heaped their last insults upon Him:
" Vah ! " they cried with a curse and a shake of the head,
" Thou that destroyest the temple of God and in three
days dost rebuild it, save Thy own self; if Thou be the
Son of God, come down from the Cross ! " These foolish
men did not understand that it was their own hands that
were destroying the temple of God at that moment, by
murdering Jesus, and that Jesus would, in three days, re-
store it by His resurrection. ]Many — they were the chief
priests, the scribes, and the ancients who were shameless
enough to come, too, to look upon their Victim — cried out
with even more cutting irony : " He saved others, him-
self He cannot save ! " By this they meant either to
deny the miracles of Jesus, or to prove that they pro-
ceeded from a power other than His. Then, avenging
themselves for the inscription which Pilate maintained in
spite of them, they added : " If He be the King of Is-
rael, let Him now come down from the Cross, and we
will believe in Him." Still others said, with a laugh for
His piety : " He trusted in God ; let Him now deliver
Him, if He will have Him ; for He said : I am the Son of
God." The soldiers, too, finally shook off their care-
less attitude, and perhaps, after taking their repast,
about two o'clock in the afternoon, they mingled with the
" Petxon., Satyr, cxi, cxii.
[372]

BOOK I] JESUS IS PUT TO DEATH

scoffers. ^^ Their derision was addressed rather to the
Jewish royalty itself and to the decadence of this van-
quished people, than to the Crucified : " If Thou be the
King of the Jews," said they, " save Thyself." And as if
they meant to present to the King the banquet-cup, they
held up to Jesus the strengthening drink which He had
already refused.

In brief, nothing was lacking in the terrible assault of
all the wicked, so justly hkened by the prophet to untamed
bulls, to enraged unicorns, and to roaring lions rushing
on to assail the Just One in His abandonment. Of the two
thieves crucified on the Saviour's right and left, one, at
least,^^ joined his blasphemies to those of the multitude:
" If Thou be Christ," said he, " save Thyself and us ! "
To these words, which so well revealed the selfishness of a
base soul, were now added other insulting words. Jesus
made no reply. His heroic silence, it may be, as much as
His prayer for His murderers, moved the heart of the
other brigand. ^^ He said to himself that for Him to be
able to call God His Father, at the very moment when God
was treating Him with such severity, and to be so great
and so calm in the midst of the keenest torments, He must
be more than a hypocrite and a criminal. " Neither dost
Thou," he exclaimed, thus rendering brave testimony to
Jesus amid the many indignities heaped upon Him,

" Josephus, B. J., V, 11, relates how the soldiers of Titus likewise mocked
those whom they had crucified.

^* Legendary lore {Acta Pilati ix, et seq.) has given these two thieves the
names Desmas and Gismas, or Dimas and Gesmas. The Apocryphal
Gospel of the Childhood calls them Titus and Diunachus, and that of
Nicodemus Genas and Gestes.

^5 St. IVIatthew and St. jMark say that both robbers insulted Jesus. Per-
haps, after blaspheming both together, one of them reflected, and the first
two Evangelists forgot to note it. Perhaps again, grouping the scofi'ers
in classes, they neglected to distinguish the moral dispositions of the good
thief, and turned their attentions only to the sentiments of him who joined
his invectives to those of the multitude. Evidently, without St. Luke's
account we should have been led into error by the other two Synoptics.

[373]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt third

" neither dost Thou fear God, seeing thou art under the
same condemnation ? " The others can afford to blas-
pheme, they are not yet at the point of death ; but he who
is about to enter into eternity, can he insult God and His
Messenger upon the very threshold of the future life?
" And we indeed justly," he added, " for we receive the due
reward of our deeds; but this man hath done no evil."
There was, in these words, at once, a sign of repentance
and an act of homage paid to truth and innocence.

Immediately the sentiment of the kind words he has just
spoken, or rather of the good work he has just done,
kindles in his soul a spark of hope. It is not unusual for
the sacred spark to live even in hearts blighted by the
most violent passions, so long as there still reigns in them
a breath of natural generosity. " Lord," he continued in
a suppliant tone that softened the boldness of his prayer,
" remember me when Thou shalt come into Thy kingdom."
He is content with a remembrance, and, criminal as he is,
he hopes for it ^^ from Him Who has prayed for His
murderers.

Even this remembrance might, indeed, gain him some-
thing more precious when Jesus shall have entered into
His glory. What did the robber understand by this?
Was he thinking of the coming of an earthly Messianic
Kingdom in the future? This is not probable. Jesus and
he are at the point of death. He can only aspire to a
happy life away from earth in the world of souls. Whence
did this clear and lively faith arise in him? We must ad-
mit that he had heard Jesus preach, and that, criminal

»« The dying Israelite uttered a like prayer to God : "Da portionem meara
in horto Edenis, et memento mei in sseculo futuro, quod absconditum est

{"ustis." It was thought, too, that a pious man at death could bring with
lim into paradise him who was present at his last breath. In Ketnb. fol.
103, we read: "Quo die Rabbi moriturus erat, venit vox de coelo dixitque:
Qui prsesens aderit morienti Rabbi, ille intrabit in paradisum." Cf. Wet-
stein, In Luc, xxiii, 42.

[374]

BOOK I] JESUS IS PUT TO DEATH

in spite of the Gospel, he retained some hope of rehabili-
tation by a Saviour.

Jesus answered him : " Amen, I say to thee, this day thou
shalt be with Me in paradise." '^'^ It is not, then, in a far-
distant future that the Messianic Kingdom is to come, it
is at this present moment. Yet a few hours and death,
closing the eyes of them both, shall hasten them on to that
higher happiness which shall recompense the unalterable
sanctity of the one and the regained sanctity of the other.
Thus Jesus on His Cross enters upon His office as Judge.
He shows how far the divine mercy will go when called forth
by repentance. In a moment, the robber is become a just
man, and, thief to the last, in the happy words of St.
Augustine, he has succeeded even in stealing heaven.

Meanwhile, through the midst of this indifferent or im-
pious crowd that came to see and to insult the Sacred Vic-
tim, a few most faithful friends had made their way to the
very foot of the Cross. The soldiers were engaged in
eating, drinking, or gaming. From time to time they arose
to drive away the devoted women whose lamentations at-
tracted their attention. But it was in vain that any at-
tempt was made to keep them at a distance. They returned
again and again.*^ Among them was recognised first the

" The word paradise, which comes from a Persian word signifying park,
passed into the Hebrew tongue {Ecd. ii, 5; Cant, iv, 8), and signifies a roj-al
garden. The Septuagint employed it in Greek to designate the garden in
which Adam was placed. The Rabbis named upper paradise heaven
(77 Cor. xxi, 4), and simply paradise that part of Scheol or Hades in which
dwelt the pious men in the bosom of Abraham (St. Luke x\i, 23). The
place wherein the wicked were enclosed was named the Abyss, Gehenna,
the Prison. It is Limbo or the habitation of the just that is spoken of here,
for the thief is to enter there that same evening, and we know according to
St. Peter (7 Epist. iii, 18) that Jesus' soul descended first into the temporary
abode of the deceased just. The gates of heaven properly so-called, were
not opened until the day of the Ascension to Jesus glorified and to humanity
which accompanied Him.

**This explains why St. John represents them as being at the foot of the
Cross, while St. Matthew and St. Mark say that they looked on from afar.

[375]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet third

mother of the Crucified, accompanied by her sister, or sis-
ter-in-law, Mary, the wife of Alpheus, or Cleophas, and
Mary ]\Iagdalen, Salome, the wife of Zebedee, and, finally,
John, who discreetly refrains from mentioning either him-
self or his mother.

It were impossible to imagine a scene more dramatic
than that of Mary present during her Son's agony. She
looks with the keenest emotion upon that beloved head
which she has so often cradled upon her bosom, and which
now seeks in vain for some support in its last sleep ; upon
those lips which she has refreshed by her nursing, and
which now are parched by a burning fever ; upon the blood
that issues from every part and which is hers ; and last,
upon those eyes, whose mild and penetrating glance is be-
ing veiled gradually with the shadow of death. And yet
she is not overwhelmed by this grief. The Evangelist
represents her as standing. It is the attitude of the sac-
rificing priest. It befits her thoroughly, for she has cer-
tain rights over the holocaust that is being immolated.
It is not merely the only Son of the Father Who is slain,
it is also the only son of Mary, and the great-souled mother
willingly ofi^ers Him for the salvation of the world. Giving
really something of herself, that which she holds most
dear, her child, for the Redemption of mankind, she pur-
chases, by this stern sacrifice, the title of Mother of men,
which the Church will make hers for all time. In her is
realised the antitype of the first woman who destroyed
the world. To her belongs the name Mother of the living;
for, as the new Eve, fulfilling the ancient prophecy, with
her foot she crushes on Calvary the serpent's head. It is
in order to make this understood that Jesus, in His fare-
well words, will solemnly bestow on her the sacramental

They depict different situations, as the brutality of the soldiers changed them
every moment.

[376]

BOOK I] JESUS IS PUT TO DEATH

and prophetic name of woman. In His moutli this name
is greater and more beautiful than that of mother; it has
something of the vastness of the divine plan.

For, rising above all personal preoccupations, the Cru-
cified beholds less the desolation of the mother's heart at
the loss of her son, than the magnanimity of the woman
who surrenders this son to save all men. He therefore takes
this heroic soul in the very flight of her generosity, and,
turning her round towards the Christian world which
comes into being at the foot of the Cross, He says to her:
" Woman, behold thy son ! " It was John whom He indi-
cated by His glance ; but John, standing beside her, was
the representative of the Church. Then speaking to the
disciple : " Behold thy mother ! " He added. This is the
Master's last happy legacy to His own. It was to be not
the least precious.^^

John, following the Master's recommendation, took
Mary into his own family and loved her as his own mother.
His love was thus the prelude of that other wise, glorious,
and lasting filial affection which the faithful held in re-
serve for her in the future. Those who are astonished or
scandalised by our devotion to Mary and by our zeal in
perpetuating her cult among us, forget that we have re-
ceived this kind and sweet mother as a pious trust from the
dying Jesus. Our intelligent devotion merely continues
the work of the beloved disciple who took Mary, and pro-
tected and loved her.^^

*9 This is the most decisive proof that Mary had no other children. To
honour one's parents by giving them the care they merit is not only a duty,
but a privilege of which true children would not be deprived. It must not
be said that Jesus gave His mother to John because His brothers were non-
believers. Jesus Who knew all that was in man and Who had judged Peter
in advance as well as Judas, was well able to foresee that the Galileans called
His brothers would ofBcially become believers a few days later {Ads i, 14).

'" It is not easy to determine the place where St. John furnished hospitality
for this mother who had been confided to liim. According to the most ancient
tradition, the beloved disciple had a house in Jerusalem (Nicephorus, H. E.,

[377]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt third

From that moment, death began to seize upon its Victim,
while all nature seemed to put on mourning. From the
sixth to the ninth hour, that is, from midday to three
o'clock, darkness was spread over all the earth. This dark-
ness could not have been the result of a solar eclipse, since
the moon was at the full, and at that moment the two
heavenly bodies were diametrically opposite. Was it pro-
duced by some miraculous atmospheric cause? Or had the
earth, before being shaken to its depths, begun by letting
forth certain vapours which imperceptibly became dense
enough to darken the sun.? It matters little; God veiled,
as seemed best to Him, the face of the planet which
refused to give light to so horrible a drama. Pagan
antiquity itself seems to have preserved the memory of
this astounding phenomenon.^ ^ The peoples of all times
have thought that there is an intimate relation between
nature and humanity, as if, humanity being the soul of
the exterior world, the crimes or the woes of the former
would necessarily have their counterparts in the commo-
tions of the latter.^^ Is it surprising that God allowed

ii, 42), and Mary dwelt there until the year 48 of our era. It is surprising,
nevertheless, if this be so, that St. Paul, after his conversion, spending fifteen
days in the Holy City at Peter's house, should declare that he saw no Apostle
there besides the chief of the Apostles, except James, the brother of our
Lord (Gal. i, 19). It seems more natural to suppose that Mary withdrew
with John into Galilee. This locality was more in harmony with the needs
of her soul. Thus would be explained the small share that John took in the
first Apostolic mission beyond the limits of Palestine. As for Mary's sojourn
at Ephesus, cf. Voyage aux Sept Églises, p. 133.

*> In Eusebius (Chron. ad Olymp., 202), Phlegon, the author of a chronicle
written under the Emperor Hadrian, says that in the fourth year of the
202d Olympiad (785 of Rome) : " eK\ei\f/is 7]\lov fxeylffrri tûv iyvuafiévwv irp6-
Tepov, Kol vv^ lipa iicrri t^î fifxepas êyévero, Hare Koi acrrfpas evovpavÇ (pavrjvat."
Juh'us Africanus (Georq. Sync. Chranngr. i. pp. 610 and 614) also reports that
the pagan historian Thallus attributs! this darkness to an eclipse, which
he dernonstrates scientifically to be impossible.

'2 Virgil's famous passage is well known (Georg. i, 463") : " Sol tibi signa
dabit; solem quis dicere falsum audeat? etc." See also Pliny, H. N. ii, 30;
Plutarch, Life of C'œsar bdx; Dion Cassius, concerning Augustus, Ivi, 29.

[878]

BOOK I] JESUS IS PUT TO DEATH

nature to shudder and to spread darkness over Calvary
to hide from the angel's eyes the crime that was there
being done?

And, strange phenomenon of a higher order, the dark-
ness seemed to invade even the soul of Jesus. To grasp
the mysterious meaning of this moral trial, it were nec-
essary to possess the secret of the hypostatic union. But
we do not possess it. We must be content, therefore, with-
out understanding the real meaning of the word, to say
that the divinity retired still farther into the depths of the
Saviour's soul, and put on in the Word the appearance of
severity which it wore in the Father and in the Holy
Spirit. If the physical pains were intolerable,*^^ the moral
pain was even more cruelly so. It was the last blow aimed
at the Victim by the justice of heaven and the malice of
hell. Both struck with violence.

In this moment of inexpressible anguish, the Just One,
lovingly, in spite of His deep woe, cried out : " My God,
My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? " What fidelity in
this love which, scorned, refused, tortured, ceases not to
call God His God, thus proving that, beneath the pitiless
strokes of divine justice, at the very moment when He is
made accursed for us, Jesus has not lost the sense of His
intimate and indissoluble union with His Father,

^3 In those who were crucified, the blood gathered, through the arteries,
into those parts of the body which were most compressed or extended, in
such abundance that the veins were insufficient to conduct it away. The
aorta, because of the obstacles wliich were met at the extremities of the arms
and legs, made the blood flow to the stomach and particularly to the head,
where it caused, by a violent pressure on the carotids, a very bright redness
of the face and a general intolerable pain. What was most frightful was that
in this condition the aorta, unable to drive the blood rapidly enough to the
extremities of the congested members, ceased to receive the blood sent by
the left ventricle of the heart. This latter in its turn did not receive freely
the blood that came from the lungs, and the right ventricle itself, unable to
pour the blood it produced into the lungs already full, completed the disorder
and caused a suffering more cruel than death.

[379]

' LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

At the word Eli,^'^ which Jesus uttered in His exclama-
tion, some conclude that He is appealing to the prophet
Elias, the protector of the Israelites in times of extreme
necessity, according to the popular belief, and they ask
each other ironically if Elias is coming to deliver Him.
Others, filled with stupor before such agony and, besides,
moved by the disturbance of nature herself, cannot hide
the trouble of their hearts and tremble in fear lest, if Jesus
is really the Messiah, they shall see His precursor, Elias,
appearing in a whirlwind to exterminate the guilty.

Almost immediately from Jesus' lips there escaped an-
other cry : " I thirst," He said.^^ In fact, thirst became so
terrible in those who were crucified, that it brought on
death. Everything contributed to induce it: the physical
sufferings, the distention of the entrails, the gradual loss
of blood and, in Jesus' case, all the torments and all the
trials that had preceded. This cry of bodily pain, follow-
ing that of pain of soul, excited the compassion of some
and provoked the derision of others. While the latter were
saying: " Stay, let us see whether Elias will come to de-
liver Him," the soldiers dipped a sponge into a vessel con-
taining posca,^^ a mixture of vinegar and water, which

"The phrase quoted by St. Matthew: Eli, Eli, lemâh shebâktani, or
according to St. Mark: Elohi, Elohi, lama sahaktani, does not belong com-
pletely either to the Hebrew or to the Syriac, but to the popular dialect spoken
in Judaea. Thus, whereas Eli was Hebrew, in Syriac it would be: Elohii.
Shebâktani was Syriac, in Hebrew it would be Azabiani. Nothing is more
natural to a man than to speak, in moments of great pain or great joy, the
language of his childhood.

'^ St. John observes that Jesus spoke these words in order to fulfill the
Scriptures. He alludes to Ps. xlviii, 22: "And in my thirst they gave me
vinegar to drink." For Jesus applies Himself to reproduce all the traits of
the Messianic prophecies, and, instead of checking the cruel sensation caused
Him by His thirst, He gives it expression by the cry which providentially is
to bring about the fulfilment of a latest oracle of the Psalmist. The Evangel-
ist intentionally said : ïva rekeiuefj. This cry was the symbol of the thirst for
souls that Jesus experienced, as the vinegar was the emblem of the answer
which souls make to His generous appeal.

"Spartian., Vita Adriani, 10. IJlpian: De erog. mil. annon.

[380]

BOOK I] JESUS IS PUT TO DEATH

served to quench their thirst, and, putting it on the end of
a hyssop stalk,^^ found there by accident, they held it up
to His mouth. When Jesus had tasted of this drink, He
said : " It is consummated ! " It was the cry of victory ;
He had drained the chahce to the dregs, had accepted with-
out a single exception, all the sufferings, had surmounted
all obstacles, fulfilled every prophecy. At the close of His
labour, it was, indeed, permitted Him to give this testi-
mony to Himself that He had refused naught of His heavy
task. Like the weary workman who, going to his restful
sleep, says j oy fully : " Everything is done ! " He, ere fall-
ing asleep in death, cries out that all is consummated.
Then, with perfect liberty. He Who had said : " No man
taketh my life, I alone have the power to lay it down, and
the power to take it up again," uttered His last cry ^^
which was the touching expression of His piety and of His
confidence in God : " Father, into thy hands I commend my
spirit !" ^9 and letting fall his head, which He had held
upright till the last moment. He gave up the ghost.
Immediately the veil of the Temple ^^ was divided into

''The word vfftrèiros employed by St. John, has been twisted in many
ways under the pretext that the hyssop {III Kings iv, 33) is a plant that
creeps along the ground, and that St. Matthew, like St. Luke, speaks of a
reed. Some have therefore thought that the hyssop had been used to fasten
the sponge to the end of the reed. But the parity of the two formulas wepi-
dels KuKancf in St. INIatthew and ûo-o-cott^ irepidévres excludes all these ex-
planations and shows that the hyssop and the reed represent the same
thing. It is as if one said a stick, a stalk of hyssop. The supposition that
it was vffo-^ or ^vcttQi, which substitute for the hyssop a javelin or a lance,
are the more useless since hyssop stalks are easily found of the length of two
feet. This would prove only that the cross was not very high.

S8 St. Matthew and St. Mark simply sjieak of a last cry that Jesus uttered.
It is probable that the words, placed on His lips at this moment by St. Luke,
complete the information of the first two Synoptics.

'8 A moment ago, in the height of His anguish. He spoke to His God;
now He has recovered His soul's serenity, He again beholds the light, the face
of the Father who draws near, and He no longer says My Godl but My Father I

^° The word /coTOTreVaa-iua indicates the veil that hung before the Holy of
Holies (Exod. xxvi, 31; Lev. x, xi, 23; / Macch. i, 22); the other which hung
before the Holy is called by the Septuagint the KiKvfxixa.

[ 381 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

two parts from top to bottom. As the High-Priest rent
his garments at the announcement of a great sacrilege,
so God rent the veil of His sanctuary to stigmatise the
crime which His people had committed. He loudly pro-
claimed that the Holy of Holies, henceforth exposed to
all eyes, existed no longer, that the ancient Temple was
losing its majesty, and that the figures, ceasing to be veiled
in their symbolic meanings, were giving way before the
august reality.^^ The only true and certain sacrifice was
being solemnly inaugurated upon the ruins of the Mosaic
institutions. The earth quaked, rocks were rent,^^ and
many tombs were thrown open. The bodies of some of the
saints returned to life, and, issuing from their graves, ap-
peared in the Holy City.^^

Can it be that they felt themselves impelled to pay to
the Crucified the homage which the living denied Him.'*
Were they the great line of patriarchs and prophets who
came to behold near at hand Him Whom they had so often

^^Heb. vi, 19; ix, 6; x, 19.

«2 The Gospel of the Hebrews, cited by St. Jerome (In Matt, xxvii, 51)
says: " Superiiminare templi, infinitse magnitudinis, fractiim est atque
divisum." A passage in the Geinara says that forty years previous to the
destruction of Jerusalem, the doors of the Temple opened of themselves.
Finally, at the epoch of the eclipse mentioned by Phlegon, the city of Nicaea
in Bithynia, was partially destroyed by an earthquake.

83 Some substantial difficulties have been found in this passage of St.
Matthew telling of the resurrection of some of the just. It has been asked
whether the Evangelist said that they arose before the resurrection of Jesus
or only after. In the first hypothesis what would become of St. Paul's
testimony calling Jesus: the first fruits of them that sleep, the first-horn from
among the dead? In the second case why connect with the earthquake a
resurrection that did not take place until two days after.' Would it not be
possible to suppose, notwithstanding the explicitness of the Gospel account,
that it was not the bodies but the forms of some of the illustrious dead which
appeared to many, to prove that the Man-God in dying had overthrown
everything in heaven, on earth, and in hell ? Some have pretended that St.
Matthew recorded simply the deposition of several Jews who thought that
they had seen these dead revived. But inasmuch as all nature protested
against the aw-ful deicide, it seems logical to admit that the saints themselves
came forth from Scheol to pay homage to the Crucified, and suffered them-
selves to be seen by the pious souls in the Holy City.

[382 ]

BOOK I] JESUS. IS PUT TO DEATH

saluted from afar ? It is certain that nothing was lacking
in the sublime picture to draw from each of them a cry
of faith and of hope. How familiar to them all was the
august physiognomy of the Redeemer under the awful
solemnity of death ! The rôle of the prophets had been to
sketch it line by line in the course of ages, it was their
right now to contemplate it in its harmonious ensemble
and to admire it in its perfect realisation.

Isaias could see in these limbs tortured by suffering his
man of sorrows, and, deeply moved by this blood that
covered Him, acknowledge that He had really entered the
press of the divine wrath to accomplish there alone the
work of salvation.

David looking upon the wounds in His feet and in His
hands, counting His fleshless bones, perceiving on His lips
the traces of gall and vinegar must have recognised in
Him his scion and his Messiah.

In view of this general disturbance of the elements and
of souls, at the moment when, in the Temple, the Holy of
Holies threw open its mysterious depths, Daniel had only
to proclaim the abomination of desolation, Jeremias could
salute his pilgrim wandering upon the earth, Ezechiel his
shepherd, Joel the Just One par excellence, Malachias the
victim of the universal sacrifice-
Moses had but to bow down before the great law-giver
of the future, great in all the majesty of His voluntary
immolation. Jesus of Nazareth was King by His own
blood, and the inscription placed above His head would
tell Jacob that although the sceptre had gone out from
Judah, one had recovered it, the Messiah awaited of all
peoples, and from this time forth ready to inaugurate
His Kingdom over the whole universe.

Isaac, Abraham, Sem, Noe, could not mistake the fruit
of their race and of their faith, and for Adam there was

[383]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

nothing now but to take shelter behind this Son of the
woman Who had just crushed the head of the serpent.
If they passed before the bloody gibbet, they all must
needs have proclaimed, putting forth their hands upon
the palpitating victim, that the mystery of the Redemp-
tion was accomplished.

Among the living, too, several saw a divine protest in this
stirring testimony of troubled nature. The centurion who
commanded the detachment of Roman soldiers was the first
to be moved, and he cried out : " Indeed this was a just man ! "
But either Jesus was not such, or He was more, for He had
represented Himself as the Son of God, and even the cen-
turion might have heard Him twice appealing to His Fa-
ther on the Cross. And so, leading the soldiers to a fresh
act of faith, he again exclaimed with them : " Indeed this
man was the Son of God ! " It was thus that Jesus,
scarcely lifted up from the earth, drew to Himself the
first-fruits of the nations.

It is said ^^ that, among the Jews, more than one on-
looker departed in deep thought or striking his breast in
token of remorse. In a more general way, an impression
of secret terror spread over all souls, but it awakened no
other sentiments. It was Israel as ever under the law of
fear, with nothing in his heart of that generosity which, in
the pagans, gave birth to faith and love.

The acquaintances and friends of Jesus looked on from
a distance at the closing of the drama, either because the
soldiers had once more driven them away, or because they
wished to remove Mary from so sorrowful a spectacle.

If the chief priests were proud of their triumph, it was
not without an admixture of terror, and perhaps their
hands trembled as they immolated the victims in the Tem-

«» St. Luke xxiii, 48.
[384]

BOOK I] JESUS IS PUT TO DEATH

pie, at the very moment *'^ when the Holy Victim of their
sacrilegious jealousy was expiring on Calvary.

An atmosphere of death, of painful memories and of
stupefaction seems to have weighed upon the city for the
rest of that day,^^ which consummated the maHce and the
salvation of the world.

«5 Josephus (Antiq., xvi, 62) says that the preparation for the Passover
began at three o'clock in the afternoon àirh 'upas èi/vâ.r7)s. Cf. Antiq., xiv,
4, 3.

^^ If Jesus really died before the beginning of the Paschal solemnity, the
14th of Nisan, and if this day was Friday, as the Evangelists afErm, there
are only two dates from which to select the year of His death. The greatest
admissible period of time from which we can choose extends from the year 28
to the year 36 of om* era. But according to the most recent calculations, cf.
Wurm (Bengel, Archiv, 1816, ii) and Oudemans, professor of astronomy
at Utrecht {Revue de Theol., 1863), the Passover fell on Saturday only in
the years 30 and 34 of the Christian era (783 and 787 of Rome) . It is between
these two dates that we must choose, and the year 30 seems the more probable.

[385]

CHAPTER II

THE BURIAL

The Zeal of His Enemies — The Appeal to Pilate —
The Crurifkagium — The Opened Side — Blood and
Water — The Championship of Joseph of Arima-

THEA NiCODEMUS ThE DeSCENT FROM THE CrOSS

The Women at the Sepulchre — The Sealed Tomb
— The Descent into Hell. (St. John xix, 31-42;
St. Matthew xxvii, 57-66; St. Mark xv, 42-47; St.
Luke xxiii, 50-56.)

Meanwhile the close of day was near at hand, and the
most solemn ^ Sabbath would begin within two hours. The
criminals could not be permitted to remain on the crosses
to disturb by their groans or even by their blasphemy the
Paschal solemnity. It seemed that if it had belonged in
common to the people of God and to the crucified, the
Lord's day would have lost something of its sanctity and
of its beauty.

Besides, Jesus' enemies were eager to finish even with
His corpse, which, in the awful majesty of death, after
nature's upheaval, remained their pitiless accuser.

The more quickly to bury both the man and His cause
in the same oblivion, they, therefore, went off to ask Pilate,
as a favour, to put an end to the victims, so that their
bodies, taken down from the cross might be at once placed

1 St. John xix, 31, says that this Sabbath was different from the others:
^y yap /ueyaAîj rj rjnépa exelyov rov aafifiarov.

[386]

BOOK I] THE BURIAL

underground. In the Roman custom they would have had
to remain on the gibbet until the birds, the wild beasts, and
corruption had devoured them.^ After so short a time
the three crucified men could not be dead, for a man of
good constitution lived for twelve hours on the cross, and
some very robust criminals had been known to survive the
frightful torture ^ for more than three days. The Jews
were therefore convinced that, at three o'clock in the after-
noon, at the moment of the application to the governor,
the condemned were still living. They demanded that to
the torture of the cross another more expeditious should
succeed, the crurifragium, which was quite common among
the Romans. The legs of the unfortunates were broken
with blows of a club, and they were left to die in conse-
quence of this horrible mutilation, when not cruelly thrown
still living into the ditch.^ Ordinarily the finishing stroke
was inflicted on the head or on the breast.

Pilate therefore sent to the soldiers the command to
break the legs of the crucified, and, says the Gospel, they
inflicted this torture first on the two brigands. Although
Jesus had every right to be executed before His two neigh-
bours, we may easily explain why He was left till the last.
The soldiers had seen Him die, and consequently there
was no reason for them to worry about hastening His

= In Cicero (Tusc. i, 43) we "read: "Theodori quidem nihil interest, hu-
mine an sublime putrescate" ; in Horace (Ep. i, 16, 48) : " Non pasces in cruce
corvos"; and in Plautus (Miles Glor., ii, 4, 19), the slave cries out: "Scio
crucem futurum mihi sepulchrum, ibi mei sunt majores siti." Cf. Plutarch,
Cleom. xxxix.

8 Origen (in Matt, cxi) declares that the crucified lived usually until the
evening of the second day. Kosegarten (Chrest. Arab., p. 63) speaks of a
]\Iameluke who though crucified on Wednesday, lived imtil noon on Sunday,
and Langen assures us that in the Soudan the crucified hved generally three
days on their gibbet.

* See Polybius, Hist. I, ch. Ixxx, §13, and Ammianus Marcellinus, Hist.
xiv, 9. Plautus, Asin. ii, 4, 68: " Crura, hercle defringeniur." Cicero,
Philipp., etc., 12: " Quod proverbii loco did solet: perire eum non posse,
nisi crura ei fracta essent. Fracla sunt et vivit."

[387]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

death. Moreover, they must have had the greatest re-
spect for this extraordinary Victim. So, following the
spirit and not the letter of the command sent by Pilate,
one of them wishing to insure the death of the august
Victim or to hasten it, if, contrary to all appearances, it
was not yet an accomplished fact, gave Jesus a blow with
his lance, as he would have done to a man of honour. He
could not bring himself to bruise Him shamefully like
a slave. It was naturally at the heart that the soldier aimed,
as the last resort of life. Besides, standing in front of
the crucified to watch attentively if He were still breath-
ing, and holding the lance in his right hand, he had to
strike the left side.

The wound was deep, for, a few days later, we shall see
Jesus inviting Thomas to put his hand into it. The
strong-armed soldier had no reason for being gentle with
his victim. If, in striking Him, he had obeyed a sen-
timent of respect and compassion — what is said of the
centurion and his men justifies this supposition ^ — the fin-
ishing stroke must have been sufficiently vigorous to de-
liver Jesus at once from His last sufferings. If he acted
through brutality, the violence of the blow is all the more
certain.^

A mixture of blood and water leaped forth from the
gaping wound. This seemed strange to the onlookers, and
in particular to St. John, who attests it with special so-
lemnity. " He that saw it hath given testimony," he says ;
" and his testimony is true. And he knoweth that he saith
true; that you also may believe." As a matter of fact,
medicine has encountered no case analogous to this. But
it cannot without temerity assert that Jesus, with His per-

^St. Matt, xxra, 54; Si. Mark xv, 39; St. Luke xxiii, 47.

^ The verb vva-<Teiv indicates a cut with a point, and has its synonym in v.
37, KevTfiv. Both ordinarily signify a deep and violently inflicted wound.
Homer, //. v, 45, 47 ; Josephus, B. J., iii, 7, 35.

[388]

BOOK I] THE BURIAL

f ectly delicate nature and with the superhuman weight of
suffering which He had borne, did not constitute an excep-
tion. The Hvelj pangs which He had experienced might
have formed aqueous deposits around the heart. The rup-
ture of an important blood vessel, after the great cry that
preceded His last breath had also, perhaps, gathered in
His chest a quantity of still fluid blood, which was begin-
ning to be transformed into serum and blackish blood.
The very position of the body was sufficient to allow it to
flow through a wound inflicted from below. Science al-
though declaring that blood ceases to be a fluid witliin an
hour after death, unless death be caused by a nervous
fever or by asphyxia, will not tell whether or not Jesus had
been dead for more than an hour when He received the blow
of the lance, nor declare the physiological cause of so pre-
cipitous an end.^ The most certain thing about it is the
testimony of the Evangelist who, greatly astonished, be-
held this strange phenomenon with his own eyes. He is
pleased to attest it, both to demonstrate the profound rev-
olution which Jesus' exceptionally delicate nature had un-
dergone,^ and to show that the Master's body was not des-
tined for corruption. For, even the usual decomposition
of corpses was not produced in Him, and the blood, al-
though in a peculiar condition, since it was no longer cir-
culating, remained liquid in its provisory transformation,
awaiting the moment when the resurrection should restore
it.

Thus, by a providential disposition of circumstances, in
spite of all customs to the contrary, in spite, perhaps, of

^ Two celebrated physicians, Gruner, Comm. de J. C. Morte vera, Halle,
1805, and William Stroud, A Treatise on the Physical Cause of the Death
of Christ, London, 18-17, have studied this question without arriving at
any satisfactory solution.

8 Thus St. John unconsciously furnished strong involuntary testimony
to the truth of St. Luke's account of the bloody sweat. Here it is blood
which is become partly water.

[389]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet third

the criminal intentions of the Jews, who had demanded the
mutilation of Jesus, the Messiah, the true Paschal Lamb,
did not have His bones broken, and in Him, as St. John
observes, the Mosaic prescription had been respected.^
Moreover, the cut of the lance, which had taken the place
of a disgraceful mutilation, completed the picture of the
dying Messiah drawn by the prophets, and by this last
sign the Jews should have recognised the Sacred Victirh
pierced by their criminal hands. ^*^

The fulfilment of all these prophecies at the moment
when Jesus was dying, and the very circumstances of His
death produced a decisive impression not only on John, but
also on other disciples whom fear had till then held at a
distance from the sanguinary drama. They who had not
dared to acclaim the Messiah or to surround Him pub-
licly in the days of His power, were now seen to crowd
about His inanimate corpse in the hour of His extreme hu-
miliation. For we read that two of His proselytes, both
members of the upper Jewish society, found energy enough
to declare themselves when He had breathed His la st. Such
inconsistency is not rare in the history of mankind. One
would say that, ashamed of their excessive pusillanimity
and angry with themselves, these friends were eager to
expiate their cowardice of yesterday by their courage of
to-day.

9 St. John alludes to Exodus xii, 46, and Numbers ix, 12. For him (St.
John i, 29, and vi, 4) and for the primitive Church (/ Cor. v, 7) the antitype
of the Paschal lamb was Jesus Christ. (See St. John i, 29 and vi. 4.)

'» The passage of Zacharias xii, 10, to which he alludes, represents Jehovah
pierced by the Uows of His people. St. John translates according to the
Hebrew, and not according to the Septuagint. The latter, not understand-
ing how God could be transfixed had softened the word by putting: "They
have insulted." The Evangelist takes from Zacharias' dramatic picture
only tlie detail of the wound received by God, without stopping to consider
the sentiments of repentance expressed "in the looks and the groans of those
who committed the crime. Moreover, his translation is free, as the text
has it: "They shall look upon me, whom they have pierced."

[390]

BOOK î] THE BURIAL

One of them, therefore, bravely set out to find Pilate,
and, as he had been a disciple of Jesus, although in se-
cret, says St. John, he demanded His body ^^ that he
might give it honourable burial. This was Joseph of Arima-
thea,^- a wealthy, just, and virtuous citizen, an honour-
able counsellor,^^ member of the Sanhedrim, who had
taken no part in the guilty plottings of his colleagues.
He believed in the coming of the Kingdom of God, hav-
ing witnessed the providential fulfilment of the Messianic
prophecies.

According to Jewish customs, the corpse of one who has
been executed ought not to be entombed in a family vault.
The Sanhedrim had assigned two places of burial, one for
those who were decapitated, hanged, or crucified, and the
other for those who were stoned or burnt. The Rabbis
taught that the curse of God and legal impurity remained
attached to the bones of criminals. Yet here we see a
member of the great council claiming the honour of re-
ceiving, as a valued treasure and of himself entombing, the

" Meyer (Matt, xxvu, 58) justly remarks with what devoted sympathy
the first Synoptic mentions, three times in a couple of lines, the Sacred re-
mains of the Master, rh (rûixa.

" It is not known whether Arimathea, a city of Judaea, as St. Luke says
(xxiii, 51), is Rama, mentioned in Josue xviii, 25, and which was of the tribe
of Benjamin, or Ha-Ramathaïm, the home of Samuel, situated in the tribe
of Ephraim (I Kings, i, 1), and which, formerly a city of the Samaritans,
had become a Jewish city after the death of Alexander the Great. The
latter hypothesis is the more probable, the name Ha-Ramatha"im bearing a
closer resemblance to Arimathea than Rama. It is certain, though, that
Joseph dwelt in Jerusalem, since he was a member of the great council and
had a tomb in that city. It may be that, having only lately established him-
self in Jerusalem, he Èad had no occasion to use the family sepulchre which
he had cut out.

" It has been justly said that each Evangelist has characterised Joseph
according to the tastes of the readers for whom he wrote. In St. Matthew,
who speaks to the Jews, he is a rich man, vKovaios; in St. Mark, who speaks
to the Romans, a venerable senator, eùcrx'JM*"' fiovKevT-fjs; in St. Luke, who
wTote for the Greeks, he was a good and just counsellor, jSoi/Xeur^s vTrdpxo",
àvilp àyaObs Koà SIkmos. To the Greeks the ideal man was Ka\hs Kai
àyadés.

[391]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paut third

crucified Nazarene. By the very terms of its legislation/'*
the Roman authority was not obliged to busy itself with
the burying of those who were executed. Ordinarily and
without further formality their corpses were given to the
relatives who claimed them. Pilate at once summoned the
centurion and asked him if Jesus was already dead ; ^^ the
latter replying in the affirmative, the governor gave the
body gratis ^^ to him who sought it.

Joseph, therefore, provided with this formal authority,
set about taking Jesus down from the cross in order to
bury Him with every proof of the most respectful affec-
tion. Another Jew, hitherto as timid as he, although of
lofty station, too, had come to give him assistance. It is
possible that these two men, exercising the same judicial
functions and having the same aspirations, lived on par-
ticulai'ly intimate terms. In any case, the love of Jesus
united them in the one act of courage and generosity. This
newcomer at the foot of the Cross was Nicodemus, the same
whom we have once seen talking at night with the Master
in a conference replete with happy results, and whose words

"Ulpian. xhiii, 24, 1. Dig. L. I. D. de cadav. punit, says: "Corpora
eorum qui capite damnantur coguatis ipsorum neganda non sunt; et id
observasse etiam di\'us Augustus lib. x, de vita sua scribit." Quintilian
{Decl. vi, 9) declares: "Sepeliri carnifex non vetat." If Sueton. (Tib., 61)
and Tacitus (Ann. vi, 19, 29) say that Tiberius dis2X)sed of them otherwise,
this was because of special cases.

15 This question on the part of Pilate, in St. Mark, is at first surprising,
when we recollect the command wliich he gave, according to St. Jolm, to
put an end to those who had been crucified. But we can suppose that
Pilate's messenger, bearing the command to break the legs of the executed
men, had but just departed when Joseph presented himself with his request
for the corpse. Pilate knew therefore, that his command was not yet fulfilled.
To say that the breaking of their legs did not immediately kill the crucified
men is not a worthy answer to this difficulty ; for it is evident that criminals
were not taken from the cross until they were dead, and their death was
hastened only that they might be taken down.

'8 Pilate's liberality is emphasised here by St. Mark. Cicero tells us, in
speaking of Verres, that the avidity of the governors sometimes exacted pay-
ment for the bodies of the crucified from the relatives who claimed them.
Verr. ii, 45, and v, 45; Plutarch, Oalb. xxviii.

[392]

BOOK I] THE BURIAL

of honesty and conviction we have heard in an effort to
bring back the Sanhedrim to better sentiments with regard
to Jesus.^^

Joseph procured a shroud ^^ of fine hnen, and Nicodemus
brought as his share a considerable quantity of aromatics,
myrrh and aloes, a hundred pounds.^^ Following the ex-
ample of Mary Magdalen, he meant to make this a last
magnificent offering to Jesus.

Pious and loving hands ^^ loosed the gentle Victim from
His Cross. Carefully, lest they should be bruised the more,
His feet and hands were freed from the nails that fastened
them, and His body was immediately borne away to a
neighbouring garden ^^ where Joseph had caused a tomb to
be cut out."" There, far from curious eyes, His funeral

" St. John \û, 50.

18 This cerement, bought at that same hour, according to St. Mark xv,
46, proves that Jesus did not die on a Sabbath day. The Talmud explains
that, if the Passover falls on the day following the Sabbath, it is permitted
to make preparations for the Passover on the Sabbath, because the Passover
takes precedence of the Sabbath. If it had been permitted to buy on the
day of the Passover, because the next day was a Sabbath, it is the Sabbath
that would have taken precedence of the Passover. Besides, can we admit
that the most sacred day of the year, the fifteenth of Nisan, the solemnity of
the Passover, was designated, like any ordinary Friday, napaffKevr}, the prep-
aration of the Sabbath.

>* The dead were laid on a bed entirely covered with these aromatic spices.
II Parali. x\i, 14. Hence the great quantity of them which in the present
instance may seem to be exaggerated. At Herod's funeral five hundred
servants were appointed to carry the perfumes intended for the embalming.
Aiitiq. xvii, 8, 3.

20 At this moment all the relatives and friends whom the Synoptics repre-
sent at a distance from the Cross, even after Jesus' death, could, no doubt,
approach with impunity. Among them are mentioned Magdalen, Mar}%
the mother of James and Joseph, as well as the wife of Zebedee. Are we
to believe that having, so t-o speak, furtively received her Son's last word,
Mary had been taken away by John, from the scene where the awful drama
was so sadly ending? The silence of the Evangelists justifies this suppo-
sition.

21 Sf. Jo;^n xix, 41.

22 St. Matt, xxvii, 60, informs us concerning the proprietor of the garden
and the tomb. The other Evangelists, while agreeing perfectly that the tomb
had not yet been used, say nothing about the owner. In reading them one
would think that the tomb had been selected because of its proximity or by

[393]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

apparel might with tender solicitude be prepared. His
body was covered with blood, they had to bathe it.^^ This
last purification was a preparatory operation necessitated
by the embalmment. Time pressed, hurriedly they covered
the body with aromatics and swathed it in bandages accord-
ing to the Jewish custom.-^ Then, not without kissing for
the last time ^^ the august brow of the Master, beautiful
in all the majesty of death, they covered His head with a
white cerement, which was also to enshroud the rest of the
body. The precious remains were laid in the principal
niche, or on the central stone bed, in the sepulchre, which
was as yet hardly completed ; for it seems that they closed
it with a provisory door to protect ~^ the dead, as was the
custom, against the malice of enemies or the teeth of wild
beasts. The last rays of the sun were withdrawing behind
the mountains. With them the Master of life lay down in
a tomb that had not known corruption, and upon a bed of
perfumes of which He had no need to protect Himself
against the inroads of death. During this time, each
family having immolated its Paschal lamb in the Temple,
was preparing to eat it, not knowing that the Victim on
Calvary had just suppressed the utility of every other.
Henceforth Jesus alone held the power of delivering from

chance, which would indeed be very surprising. These omissions do not
argue well in favour of a written source.

23 Acts ix, 37; Shabb. f. 151 : "Ungunt et lavant mortuum."

2^ "The Egyptians," says Michaelis {Begrabniss und Atiferstehungs-
gesch. xciii), "placed the aromatics inside of the corpse; but the Jews, who
proceeded to the burial on the very day of the death, simply put the spices
on the outside and over the whole body."

2' Gen. xlvi, 4, and 1, 1 ; Eusebius, Mart. Pal., xi.

** St. Matt, xxvii, 60, Kaï irpoffKvXiffas \iQov ixtyai/ rfi 6vpa, and St. Mark
XV, 46, and xvi, 4, seem to indicate not the round stone or golal which
usually covered the door of the tombs and was not large, but an enormous
stone placed provisionally over the opening. However, the verb kvxIw in-
variably used in this connection, in its various forms, to indicate the roll-
ing up or back of the stone, belongs particularly to the golal properly
so-called.

[394]

BOOK I] THE BURIAL

death, because He alone was going to be the Prince of
life.

Havina; rolled an enormous stone to cover the entrance
of the sepulchre, the men withdrew. The devoted women
still waited. Thej had considered the way in which Jo-
seph and Nicodemus had arranged the body,-'^ and their
self-esteem seemed to tell them that they could and should
do better, the second day after, when the feast should be
over. To be ready the sooner, some of them — active souls
have never been wanting in the Church — hastened to pur-
chase other spices, more choice, in their opinion, than
those used by Joseph and Nicodemus, The first hour of
the feast obliged them to postpone until the next evening
the continuance of their purchases. It became them, what-
ever it cost their hearts, severely to observe this last and
solemn Sabbath of the ancient Covenant. Two of them,
Magdalen and Mary, the mother of Joseph — meditative
natures, lovers of contemplation are the honour of the
Christian society — remained the last by the tomb. Heed-
less that it was for hate and not for friendship to guard
the dead, the better to establish the reality of His resur-
rection they had seated themselves and, bent with grief,
they contemplated the stone that concealed the precious re-
mains, as if they still hoped to hear Him Who no longer
spoke, or as if beyond the tomb they adored Him Whom
the wicked had put to death. There was a touching pic-
ture of virtue under its twofold aspect in these two women
of Galilee, who glorified Jesus Christ, the one shedding
the tears of the converted sinner, the other those of the

'7 Were it not for the testimony of St. John, one would suppose that the
body of Jesus was not embalmed. Not only do the three Synoptics make no
mention of it, but St. Mark and St. Luke represent the holy women as com-
ing the second next morning to prepare an embalming which was now
useless since Jesus had risen. The explanation which we give of this
seeming contradiction appears plausible.

[ 395 ]

LIFE OP CHRIST [paet third

woman always upright in her family life, and who were
both together the symbol of faithful love and inexhaust-
ible devotion.

The Gospel does not say how long these two friends
continued thus to keep a guard of honour by the tomb.
Night must have forced them to retire.

As to the enemies of the dead they were no calmer than
His friends. Merciless and disturbing, the memory of
their Victim pursued them, and the general impression of
sadness that reigned over the city, after the events of the
afternoon, only increased their vague fears. Whether it
was that they themselves had sometimes heard Jesus an-
nounce His future resurrection, or that some one had
told them of the hopes entertained by His disciples, tim-
idly, no doubt, for their faith was feeble, but persistently,
they still feared Him, Who, however, was dead.

On the other hand the people, struck, at first, by the
sudden catastrophe, but again taking confidence, little by
little, told each other, as they often do of great men, that
Jesus was going to return. All this contributed not a
little to increase the anxiety of the chief priests.

The very morning of the Feast of the Passover, they
came together ^^ to communicate their impressions, and
some of them betook themselves to Pilate : " Sir," they
said to him, " we have remembered that that seducer said,
while he was yet alive : After three days I will rise again.
Command, therefore, the sepulchre to be guarded until the
third day ; lest perhaps His disciples come and steal Him
away, and say to the people: He is risen from the dead,
and the last error shall be worse than the first," If there-
fore any one should perchance tell them that Jesus is

'^ There is nothing to authorise us in saying that the Sanhedrim had
been assembled with solemnity, or that they went in a body to Pilate. It
is enough that some of the most influential managed the affair. They
spoke in the name of all.

[396]

BOOK I] THE BURIAL

risen again, the leaders of the people have their answer
ready.

Wearied by their demands, Pilate with some humour re-
plied : " You have a guard ;-^ go, guard it as you know."
Thus he mocked their vain fears. They had a whole co-
hort; this ought to be deemed enough to defend them
against one dead man. Never had criminal given so much
worry after his execution. Above all never had crucified
man had the honour of being guarded by a squad of sol-
diers.^*^

They departed, therefore, and, having without doubt as-
certained that the body was still in the sepulchre, they
sealed the stone over the opening, in accordance with the
Oriental custom, with the aid of a cord fastened in the
rock and each end of which received the impress of a seal.^^

25 Some think that Pilate here means ministers of the Temple whom the
chief priests had in their service, and whom they might employ with ad-
vantage in guarding a tomb. It would be easier to explain the corruption
of the latter than that of Roman soldiers in inducing them to declare that they
had slept when they should have kept watch. Nevertheless, the word
KovtXTooSia, borrowed from the Latin, would seem to indicate a Roman guard,
and the mention of the captain, rod riye/Aévos {St. Matt, xxviii, 14) ought to
make this opinion prevail.

'" St. Matt, xxvii, 62-66, alone reports this important fact. He alone
later on (xxviii, 4, and 11-15) points out its consequences. Nowhere else
either in the other Gospels or in the preaching of the Apostles is any allusion
made to it; certain indications even are discovered which are far from sug-
gesting it. Thus it seems, according to them, that the women on their way
to embalm Jesus know nothing of the tomb being sealed or of the soldiers
having been appointed to guard it, since they ask not whether they shall
be allowed to enter the tomb, but who shall open the door for them. These
important omissions give rise to the belief that there may be others no less
important throughout the Gospel narrative.

3' The spot now venerated by the piety of the faithful is in reality the spot
on which the Holy Sepulchre stood.

The best proof, in our opinion, reduces itself to a historical argument
which the topographical discoveries up to the present day have failed to
overturn.

There is no doubt that at the begiiming the Apostles and the first Christians
knew exactly the precise spot where Jesus had been buried and had risen
again. The Evangelists, who speak of it thirty and fifty years after Jesus
Christ, furnish a proof of this. Thus St. John says that there was a garden
there, and all declare that it was at the place called Golgotha. However

[397]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt third

Then only did they believe themselves masters of their vic-
tim ; and having thus entombed and sealed up in the sepul-
chre the last Messianic hopes of the nation they proceeded
to solemnise the great day of the Passover. With confi-
dent satisfaction they left to soldiers the care of defend-
ing Judaism against the undertakings of a dead man or
the daring of a few followers so absorbed in their mourn-
ing, that they seem to have been heedless, until the last

complete may have been the destruction of the city under Titus (70 a.d.),
it cannot be said to have gone so far as to affect a tomb cut in a cliff. Hence,
at their return from Pella, where they had taken refuge, the first Christians
were able to find again in Jerusalem the tomb which they had honoured
before the siege. Their veneration continued until the second destruction
of the city under Hadrian (136 a.d.). This catastrophe was less terrible than
the first. Jerusalem, only partially destroyed, was soon afterwards rebuilt
mider the name of i'Elia Capitolina. The succession of twenty-three bishops
who, according to tlie list preserved by Eusebius {H. E., iv, 6. Cf. Le
Quien, Oriens Christ., iii, p. 145), occupied the see of Jerusalem down to
the time of Constantine, proves the full \'itality of the church of Jerusalem.
This were enough to prove that the tradition could not be lost, and that,
during this period of 190 years the veneration of the tomb of the Saviour
must have continued. But, if we may believe the same historian (Vita
Constantini iii, 25, 40), there was side' by side with the testimony of the
faithful the no less decisive testimony of enemies.

Eusebius (Vita Constantini iii, 26) relates that "certain wicked men,
veritable agents of the demons, wishing to cause the disappearance of the
tomb, the object of the veneration of the faithfid, covered the cave &vTpuv,
which was cut in the rock, with earth which was procured only with difficulty.
When they had thus buried it, they paved the carefully piled up soil, and built
a temple consecrated to the impure Venus." Unfortunately Eusebius does
not mention the names of those who committed this sacrilege, nor the precise
date when it was committed. St. Jerome (Ep. hiii, ad Panlin., 3) later on
mentions the presence of a statue of Venus in the place where the Holy
Sepulchre was, and assigns this odious profanation to the time of Hadrian.
We have also a medal of Antoninus Pius with a Venus standing m a temple
and the inscription C. A. C. or Colmia Mia Capitolina. This testunony
is not without its value. .

In any case it was the altar consecrated to Venus that mdicated to Con-
stantine the place where to look for the tomb of Our Lord. One may read
in the life of this emperor (Eusebius, Vit. Const, in the passage already cited)
the history of the discovery of this precious relic, the joy of the prince and
the description of the magnificent edifice which was constructed on the spot
thus happily found. Eusebius had been present in 335 at its consecration.
But— and this remark has its own importance— the indication of the site
of the Holy Sepidchre in the spot where it is, gave rise to serious diflSculties.
The moderns were not the first to point them out. In the fourth century, as

[ 398 ]

BOOK I] THE BURIAL

moment, of the presence of a guard around the tomb.^^
In their madness, thej knew not that the sun's rays cannot
be imprisoned, and that at the appointed hour, in spite of
all, life breaks forth and sheds its light. God cannot be
bound by the hand of man, and this guard will serve not
to prevent, but to prove the resurrection.^^

well as in our day, it was known that Jesus, according to- the Gospel, had
been crucified and buried outside of the city {St. John xix, 20; Hebr. xiii, 12)
and at that epoch, as now, the site of the Holy Sepulchre was \nsibly inside.
There is no doubt that if, for the want of positive information, it had been
necessary at that time to invent or to create a site, naturally it would have
been preferable to locate it on the north side of the city. There probably
was the traditional place for capital executions. St. Stephen had been stoned
in that locality, and the conformation of the ground has recently permitted
General Gordon to reconstruct an imaginary Calvary to which this explorer
has attached his name. If this wa§ not taken seriously, and if the present
site has been accepted, although apparently improbable, it is because it was
sustained by the most legitimate tradition.

Besides, as we have said, not one single archaeological discovery has been
able seriously to contradict the authority of this tradition. Not only has it
not been proved— which, we grant, would have been decisive — that the
second wall of Jerusalem enclosed m the city of Herod the present Holy
Sepulchre, but all the fragments of ramparts brought to light at di£Ferent
points, to the south, to the southeast, and to the east of the Holy Sepulchre,
mdicate that tliis second wall, starting according to Josephus (B. J., v, 4, 1, 2)
at the Gate of Gennath, and ending at the Tower Antonia, thus forming a
sort of arc of a circle, even so left Calvary outside of the city. Finally, we
know the severity with which the Jews kept the dead far from the inhabited
centres. "No tombs within the enclosure of the city, except that of David
and that of Hulda," says the Talmud (Baba Bathra, ii, 9; cf. Yoma iii, 3).
"They must be fifty cubits from the ramparts." But twenty or more yards
from the present Holy Sepulclire are to be found tombs cut in the rock.
See the description of them by M. Clermont-Ganneau (Explor. Fund., 1877,
p. 76, et sea.). These kokini certainly date back to the Jewish epoch. One
may seek there for souvenirs of whom he will, from David and Solomon to
Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, the fact alone of their presence proves
that at an epoch previous to the construction of the third wall, called Agrippa's,
the site of Calvary and of the present Holy Sepulchre was outside of the city.

'2 The pious women, on their way to the sepulchre, wonder who will
remove the stone for them, as if they were absolutely free to remove it and
to embalm the corpse.

33 From the earliest times, it has been believed that Pontius Pilate sent to
Tiberius an official report of the trial and execution of Jesus. St. Justin
Martyr, in his First Apology to Antoninus Pius, appeals to this document to
prove the reahty of the miracles, and of the sanctity of Jesus, §35: "'E/c
TÛV fir\ TVomiou Hi\drov yevo/xévwv avr^ fiaQitv SvyaaOe." Tertullian, in
chapter xxi, of his Apology does the same. "Ea omnia super Christo

[399]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

While they were thus agitated, without respect for their
last Sabbath, Jesus was inaugurating, by His rest in the
sepulchre, the eternal Sabbath.

As the Father had rested after the six days of the Crea-
tion, so the Son rested after the labours of the Redemption.
He, too, had accomplished His work. He could repose on
the evening of His long day, in everlasting glory.

The Scriptures ^^ tell us, however, and the Catholic
creed repeats it, that, even in death, Jesus did not remain
inactive. Not only were the present and the future to be
summoned to salvation. All the just of antiquity were
to receive the Good Tidings. While the body of the Sav-
iour lay at rest in the sepulchre. His soul united to His
Divinity went down into Limbo, or Scheol, to evangelise
the dead. At the sight of Him, the virtuous men of all
times and all lands, who had longed for the Deliverer, trem-
bled with joy. The brazen gates of the dwelling beneath
the earth were burst, as the prophet says, and death met
her conqueror. We know only one tiling concerning this
world of spirits: that is that it exists. In what condi-

Pilatus, et ipse, jam pro sua conscientia Christianus Csesari tunc Tiberio
nuntiavit." Eusebius {H. E., ii, 2) assures us, on the authority of Tertullian
that Tiberius, on reading Pilate's account of the death, the resurrection, and
the miracles of Jesus, proposed to the Senate to place the latter on the same
rank with the gods. A homily attributed to St. Chrysostom {Horn, viii, in
Pasch.) alludes to these documents of Pilate as being commonly spread
and read in the Church. In reality, it is possible that the governor, accord-
ing to the custom, made a report to the emperor concerning what had been
done with regard to Jesus. Philo mentions periodical reports made to
Caligula by the governor of Alexandria, and the administration of the empire
was sufBciently well organized for us to believe that it was the same every-
where. But Pilate's true report was so falsified and at so early a date
(Eusebius, H. E., Lx, 5, 1, points out that this falsification occurred under
Domitian and was spread in the schools of the city in order to destroy the
faith), that the counterfeits compromised the authority and the existence of
the original. The A da Pilati which we read to-day are certainly apocryphal .
(See Tischendorf, Pilati circ. Christ, jud. quid hicis afferatur ex Actis
Pilati, 1855; Lipsius, Die Pilatus Akten, 1871; Harnack, Die Chronol.
d. Altchrist. Litt. i, 603, et seq.)

^^Ephes. iv, 8-10; I Peter iii, 19; iv, 6.

[ 400 ]

BOOK I] THE BURIAL

tion did the immortal life of these souls, the chosen ones
of the humanity of old, flow on? We cannot say.^^
Nevertheless, it is easy to understand that all these proph-
ets, patriarchs, philosophers, just men of all ages and all

35 We know that at a very early date, perhaps at the close of the second
century, an apocryphal author, probably reporting a popular legend, wrote
the history of the Descent of Jesus Christ into Scheol. This book of eleven
chapters was afterwards joined to the sixteen chapters of the Acta Pilati,
and forms with them the Gospel of Nicodemus. See Tischendorf, Ev.
Apocrypha, pp. 368-410. According to this story, two sons of the
High-Priest Simeon, Karinus and Leucius, who rose from the dead at
the same time as Jesus, by the same almighty power, write for Annas,
Caiphas, and other Jews who went to Arimathea to question them,
on account of the work of Jesus among the dead. The scene they
picture is very dramatic. According to them, at the moment when
the dead were expressing, in the presence of the aged Simeon, John the
Baptist, and the patriarch Seth, who were encouraging them, their hopes of
the coming visit of the Deliverer, and while, on the other hand, Satan and
Hades were exchanging their malevolent views concerning Jesus, a voice
like thunder cried out : " Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and be ye lifted
up, O ye eternal gates; and the King of glory shall enter in!" In vain did
the infernal powers resist; the army of the just, with David and Isaias began
to chant that from the beginning the victory of the Lord had been foretold,
and the latter, in fact, entering in all His Majesty, had vanquished the
demons and death. He conducted into light and glory, with Adam at their
head, all those who bore His own image and likeness, declaring that they
who had perished by the tree were saved by the tree. The good thief even
had taken his place among those whom Jesus with the sign of the Cross,
had delivered from prison and brought into paradise.

These fanciful accounts contain nothing in common with the constant
and positive tradition of the Church concerning the work of Jesus in the
resting-place of the dead. From Justin, Dial. c. Try ph., 4, 72; Irenseus,
Hœres. iv, 39, and 45; v, 31 ; Clement of Alex., Strom. \t; Origen, C. Cels.
ii, down to Epiphan., Hœres. 62 and 69 ; Chrysostom, Horn. Ixxxi, de nom.
Caemeter. et de Cruce; Cyril of Alex., in Joan, xii, for the Greeks; and
from Tertullian, de Anima, iv; Hilary, de Trin. x, down to Ambrose, de
Incarn. v; de Fide, iii, 3; Augustine, Epist. cxi, ad Evod., de Genes, ad Hit.
xxxiii, Epist. Ivii, ad Dardanum, and Jerome, Epist. cli, ad Algasium, and
in Ephes. iv, 10, etc., for the Latins, all the Fathers agree in saying that
Christ descended into Scheol to bring to the dead the benefits of His Re-
demption. Some, like St. Ambrose, or rather the false Ambrose in the
book de Paschate, give a wide extent to the effects of this Redemption.
Clement of Alex. (Strom., ch. v and vi) and Origen (C. Cels. ii), together
with several others, assure us that the philosophers of antiquity had a share
in this deliverance. We readily admit with St. John Damascene or the
author of the book TIfpl rûv èv irltmi KeKoi/xri/jifvwv, that Jesus delivered the
believers of the Old Testament because He owed this to their fidelity, and
the virtuous souls among the Gentiles, because He knew their good-will.

[401 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet thied

countries, forming a society happy, to be sure, but still
with many desires and needs, possessing life without full
light, let forth a cry of enthusiasm when they beheld ap-
proaching, into the abode of death, the Hope, the King,
the Saviour of Mankind. " He preached to the dead,"
says St. Peter, and they who had foreseen, felt and
foretold the Gospel, welcomed it with great joy. Their
exile was ended, their sorrows consoled, their happiness
regained. Grouped around their Messiah, they received
His teachings, while awaiting the hour when this Messiah,
the first risen from the dead, should open the gates of
heaven to captivity which had become His glorious and
triumphant captive.

[402]

CHAPTER III
THE ENEMIES OF JESUS

Israel's Crucifixion — Annas Smitten in his Descend-
ants—Caiphas Deposed — The Exile of Herod —
Pilate's Despair — The Remorse of Judas. (St.
Matthew xxvii, 3-10; Acts 1, 18-19.)

It is natural to wonder what vengeance God exacts for
the crimes He suffers to be committed. The conscience of
mankind feels a sense of rehef when it sees equity restored
by the punishment of the guilty.

The true culprit, in the crime we have just recounted,
was Israel as a whole. When, forty years later, on the
same day, God permitted the soldiers of Titus to enter the
Holy City and to burn the Temple, which was never to be
rebuilt, it was nothing more than justice. Around the
fortifications, and on the spot where they had crucified
Jesus, these same Jews were seen crucified in their turn by
the Romans. The fury of the conquerors was such that
they suspended their barbarous executions only for the
want of trees from which to fashion crosses and of space
where to plant them.^ It might have been said, recollect-
ing that long before they had been compelled to crucify a
just man on that spot, they sought now to obliterate that
crime by the immolation of thousands of the guilty. They
fastened them in twos to the same gibbet. The remainder

' Josephus, B. J., V, ii, 1.
[403]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt third

of the inhabitants were put to the sword. History has
preserved the memory of no catastrophe comparable to
this.

At the head of this nation were men who had con-
sented to personify its malice and to bring about its
triumph: Annas, Caiphas, Herod, Pilate, and above all
Judas. History recounts in part the woes that befell
them all.

Had he lived long enough, Annas would have seen one
of his sons, who bore almost the same name as he, and had
surpassed liis brothers in rapine - and barbarity,^ put to
death by rioters. By a strange coincidence, the popular
revolt had given him, as companion in torture, another
high-priest named Jesus. The Idumœans trampled their
corpses beneath their feet, and left them unburied to be-
come the food of dogs.'*

Caiphas was deposed from office in the year 36 by Vitel-
lius, legate of Syria, the people having demanded his
dismissal.^

Herod, impelled by the ever-growing ambition of his
wife, went in person to Rome to meet his fate. He sought
the title of King, and Caligula gave him perpetual exile.^
It was in Gaul, at Lyons, or in a small town at the foot of
the Pyrenees, that he ended his life in misery.^

Pilate, who had sacrificed Jesus to prevent an uprising
in Jerusalem, was soon after obliged to go at the head of

2 The Talmud has stigmatised the whole house of Aimas which had
become rich by trafficking in holy things : " Woe to the house of Annas ! "
it says {Pes. 57a). "Woe to its serpent's hissing!"

^Antiq. xx, 9, 2-4.

* Josephus, B. J., iv, 5, 2.

5 Antiq. xviii, 4, 3. Fasti sacri. Nos. 1495 and 1496.

6 B. J., iv, 5, 2.

7 It is said, in fact (Antiq. xviii, 7, 3), that Lugdunum was his place of
banishment; but as Josephus (B. J., ii, 9, 6) represents him as having died
in Spain, many have thought that it must be Lugdunum Couvenarum,
Saint-Bertrand de Comminges, and not Lyons.

[404]

BOOK I] ENEMIES OF JESUS

his soldiers to suppress a more serious revolt in Samaria.
In that country there was another Messiah, a false one,
surrounded by armed and turbulent followers. There
was no likeness between this man and the august prisoner
who by His majesty and silence had astonished Pilate in
the praetorium. There was a conflict and the procurator
was ferocious in his triumph.^ The Samaritans brought
their complaints before Vitellius who was at that time gov-
ernor of Syria. Pilate was summoned to Rome to defend
himself. He who had sacrificed Jesus through fear of los-
ing Caesar's favour, discovered then that, to be proof
against disappointment, it is safer to continue the incor-
ruptible friend of truth and justice. Tiberius had just
died, and Cahgula had replaced him (36 a.d.) The proc-
urator was severely condemned and exiled to Vienne in
Gaul. In that city, where an old tradition says he died,
there is still shown the lofty pyramid which was his
tomb.

According to one of the popular legends — there are
many concerning the wretched procurator — he betook him-
self to Switzerland to bury his remorse, near the Lake of
Lucerne, on the mountain that bears his name. There,
filled with regret and weighed down with misery, he ended
his life by hurling himself into the dark chasm that yawns
on the summit of the awful mount. From time to time the
shepherds in the valley think they again perceive his shade
issuing from the abyss in the attitude of a man washing
his hands. When it returns to its place, there rises above
the infernal lake a black mist always laden with tempests
and misfortunes. These tales are nothing more than the
expression, more or less ingenuous, of the indignation
aroused in the hearts of honest men by the criminal weak-

^ Antiq. xviii, 4, 1, et seq.
[405]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

ness of the sinful governor. ^ If glory is a reward of
virtue, infamy is the punishment of crime. The Church
could find nothing severer for the iniquitous judge than
to brand his name in the Creed. She has done this, and so
has given him up for ever to the execration of nations. ^'^

But the one who above them all had by his foul betrayal
become more particularly odious to the followers of the
Master was Judas. He merited a punishment more severe
and more speedy than the rest. The Evangelists have
taken pains to tell us of his woful lot. The primitive
Church could not but be interested in it. Nothing could
be more terrible than the close of this life, invited as it was
to glory in the apostolate and ending so miserably in
despair and suicide.

Hardly had the wretch betrayed his Master when he
felt his heart tormented by the most cutting remorse.
The memory of the gentle and august Victim never left
him after. For a few hours, it may be, he still retained
the hope of seeing Jesus, stronger than His enemies, render
his betrayal vain and escape its final consequences. But
on Friday morning he saw that all was lost. The sentence
of the Sanhedrim and the official procedure before Pilate
left no further doubt concerning the result. He had sold

«Eusebius (H.E., ii, 7) says that he committed suicide under Caligula,
" ttoikiKms irepl ireaaiv (Tvfx6opah." Orosius (\i, 5) and Freculph. {Chron. ii,
1, VX) say he died in Gaul. The legend of Mount Pilatus near Lucerne
dates only from the eleventh century. G. A. Millier (Pontius Pilatus,
Stuttgart, 1888) has gathered all the apocryphal literature produced con-
cerning this unfortunate personage whom some represent as dying in despair,
others as a penitent, or even, like the Coptic Church, as a martyr for the
faith.

" Modern criticism believes it has discovered in the first and the third
Synoptic a tendency to lessen somewhat the Roman procurator's responsi-
bility in the condemnation of Jesus Christ. This tendency, more emphatic
in St. John, has its full development, it is thought, in the fragment of the
Gospel said to be St. Peter's, recently discovered in Egypt. It is explained
we are told, by the desire, which was quite natural for Christians to have,
to cater to the Roman authority, by associating it as little as possible in the
awful deicide. This view is entirely baseless.

[406]

BOOK I] ENEMIES OF JESUS

his Master to murderers ; by his betrayal of Him he had
slain Him.

It was then that his sorrow became still more bitter. ^^
The responsibility he had incurred crushed him down. He
conceived the thought of freeing himself of it in time,
and of casting it off, at the last moment, upon those who
had encouraged him in his crime. This was not true con-
trition.^^ In the depths of his soul there was more pride
than repentance. Even though angered at his own cow-
ardice, he had by no means turned towards God with any
sentiment of humility or love. His heart repeated to him,
perhaps, the Master's tender words at the moment of the
fatal kiss, but they were like the hammer that breaks the
marble but does not soften it. Meanwhile, to have sacri-
ficed so noble and so beautiful a life, a just man, a friend,
the best of Masters, for thirty pieces of silver, seemed to
him the most inconceivable folly. The money scorched
his hands as they shrivelled with despair. He resolved not
to keep it, and, hurrying to the Temple, he sought there
his accomplices in the horrible bargain. The traitor was
mistaken. It was not to them that he should have run, it
was to Jesus. The latter alone could calm his remorse by
blessing his good purpose. " I have sinned," he told
them in the violence of his despair, " in betraying innocent
blood." An avowal so clear and so explicit in the mouth
of a man who, to palliate his own crime, should have de-
sired to find Jesus guilty, annulled the false accusations of
the Sanhedrim. In his agitation, Judas, forgetful of
everything, went so far as to hurl the price of blood in
the face, so to speak, of his corrupters, and the money,

" St. Matt, xxvii, 3, indicates that it was at the very moment, rére,
when he saw Jesus given into the hands of Pilate that the traitor underwent
this moral crisis.

" The Evangelist's expression, /ueTo/xcA.r;0e/î, means regret, it is true, but a
thoroughly human regret which, St. Paul says (7/ Cor. vii, 10) worketh death.

[ 407 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet third

falling upon the very pavement of the Temple,^ ^ aroused
for a moment the susceptibilities of these aged hypocritical
casuists. They simply had it gathered up, and to the
wicked disciple whom they had so eagerly welcomed the
first time, they gave this discouraging answer : " What is
that to us? Look thou to it." The wretched man de-
parted, the price of blood, given back to his destroyers,
having in no way lightened the burden that weighed down
his heart. The haughty response of the Sanhedrists, giv-
ing him up to remorse of conscience, only irritated his
woe, and prepared him for a supreme act of despair. Grace
would have moved him to hasten and have himself nailed
to a cross to die like the thief, under the eye and in the
mercy of the Master. Satan persuaded him to hurry off
and hang himself, rejecting all forgiveness, and sealing
his crimes in final despair.

After due deliberation, the members of the great council
decided that the price of blood could not be placed in the
sacred treasure without defiling it.^* Their hypocritical
zeal found another use for it. With this small sum
they bought a potter's field in the valley of Hinnon,
south of Jerusalem, with the intention of devoting it to
the burial of those strangers, Jews or Proselytes, who
should happen to die in the Holy City. Thus a pious use
was found for the money that was stained with the blood
of the Just One. This was one reason for calling that
place Haceldama, the Field of Blood. ^^

" The expression ev r^ vaif seems to indicate the very temple where the
priests fulfilled their functions, and not the dependencies, which surrounded
it. These latter constituted the Up6v, in opposition to the va6s.

'^The law forbade money accruing from any disgraceful action to be
put into the sacred treasury (Dent, xxiii, 18). This sacred treasury which
Josephus (B. J., ii, 9, 4), as well as the Gospel, calls Corban, was the series
of chests located in the women's enclosure to receive the offerings given for
the support of the Temple.

'^ Heqal-Dema, nowadays Hakk-ed-Dumm, in the time of the Crusades
the charnel-house of Chaudemar, is situated south of Jerusalem. Eusebius

[ 408 ]

BOOK I] ENEMIES OF JESUS

Almost immediately another reason was provided. A
prey to anguish every moment more bitter, Judas, after
a few days of suffering,^*' carried out his woful project
in that very cemetery which was bought with the fruit of
his iniquity. In that abominable place, which was to recall
his crime to future generations, he hanged himself, and
thus, according to St. Peter's awful words, he, the first of
all, took possession of that cursed land to enjoy it until
the end of time.

Whether it was that the tree or the rope broke beneath
the weight of the wretch whom they bore, or that the rope
simply was cut by passers-by, it matters not. The body
fell and burst asunder, and, the traitor's entrails gushing
forth in all directions, it was true to say, once again, that
this field was really the field of blood, bought by the blood
of the Just One and drenched with that of the criminal. ^^

by a curious inadvertence located it north, èv fiopelois; but St. Jerome
corrects this, saying : " Acheldama, ager sanguinis qui hodieque monstratur
in /FAia, ad australem plagam montis Sion." Tradition — which is positive
concerning this sadly celebrated spot, devoted to a very special purpose —
has always pointed it out half-way up the hill, on a height to the south
parallel with the valley of Hinnon. To be buried in this potter's field,
bought by the price of the blood of Jesus Christ, became the priA-ilege of
lords and of religious. In the fourteenth century the Dominicans acquired
it, and established there a convent and a church, but they could not with-
stand the depredations of the Mussulmans. The charnel-house alone,
a vast rectangle backed by the mountain, remains partly standing. Even
now the ruins are ^^sited. ]\Iany mortuary niches were cut in the cliff.
The Pisans, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, transported enormous
quantities of the soil of Haceldama in order to establish their famous Campo
Santo, just as St. Helen, the mother of Constantine, according to a pious
belief, had done when she desired to establish the cemetery of the Vatican,

" St. Peter's discourse proves that at Pentecost Judas was dead.

i^In this way, it seems, we may harmonise two accounts which at first
glance are quite divergent. For, according to St. Matt. xx\'ii, 5, Judas
dies by hanging, koI àirexeàiy àTrf]y^aro. According to St. Peter, Acts
i, 18, he falls headlong irprtviis yevSnevos and his entrails protrude in hi3
fall. According to St. Matthew, it is the priests that purchase the pot-
ter's field; according to St. Peter, it is Judas that would seem to have
bought it. Finally, the account of the former supposes that the name Hacel-
dama arose from the blood of Jesus in connection with the money with

[409]

LIFE OF CHRIST [p.^t third

This fatal field was located in the gloomy valley of the
sons of Hinnon. Tradition has fixed its site. Such ter-
rible memories had remained particularly indelible in the
primitive Church. Every one held this spot in horror,
and, in the Psalmist's words quoted by St. Peter, the
traitor's refuge remained solitary and desolate. The

which the field had been bought ; the story of the latter supposes that it took
its name from the blood of Judas with which it was soaked.

Attempts have been made in turn to modify the meaning both of ott^vIoto,
which has been accepted as meaning not hanging, but the moral anguish
that had stifled the traitor, and of irp-qv^js yivé^juvos, which has been trans-
lated being hanged. But both the one and the other of these attempts
have done violence to the text as well as to the universal tradition, and
contained, besides, serious difficulties for the two other divergencies. Our
explanation, justly supposing that Judas lived for some days after the
betrayal, gives time for the field to be bought first by the priests. The
events of the Passion, perhaps, even the reports of the Resurrection, only
intensify the traitor's remorse. This field, which preserves the memory
of his crime and which is truly his, since be bought it with money most
dearly earned, troubles his soul still more. He selects it as the spot on
which to do himself solemn justice. By dying there so tragically, he pro-
vides tradition with another reason for calling it Haceldama, the Field of
Blood.

Besides, we must not forget that, in St. Matthew, we have a narrative
which must be accepted hterally, and in the Acts a discourse in which we
must take account of oratorical form. Still, we must agree that, even after
this explanation, it is quite surprising that St. Matthew, on the one hand,
reproduces only the first phase of the drama, and the discourse of St. Peter,
on the other, only the second part. A very old tradition — it has been pre-
served by Papias in the fourth book of his account of Our Lord's Discourses
— would unite more directly with the book of the Acts, which it supposes to
be known. We find it in the Catena ad Act. Apostolorum, i, 18, of Theo-
phylact, and in Routh, Reliquiœ Sacrœ, Vol. I, p. 25. As a terrible ex-
ample of the punishment of impiety here below, the body of the traitor
swelled to such an extraordinary degree that it could not even pass through
an opening of the size of a chariot. It hardly supported his head, which
had become of monstrous proportions. His whole body, in a word, had
assumed a most hideous appearance. Water and worms issued from every
part. After the most cruel moral and physical torments, he died on his own
land, eV Wiif x'^pWf ^ la-nd accursed and abandoned which no one could
pass without covering the nostrils so detestable was the odour from it.

Later Œcumenius, in a commentary on Acts i, 18, with what foundation
is not known, says that Judas was thrown to the ground (this is the irpwh's
yfySufuos of the Acts) by a chariot which passmg over his body cut it
in two and crushed out his entrails. We can see how far all this is from
the sage sobriety of the sacred text, and how quickly a popular legend springs
into existence.

[ 4T0 ]

BOOK I] ENEMIES OF JESUS

money paid him for his crime was of no greater profit to
him than to give him as a resting-place a most dishon-
oured grave. ^^

18 St. Matthew, in keeping with his custom of pointing out the prophecies
fulfilled in the Gospel history, observes that the buying of the cotter's field
accomplished what was written in the prophet Jeremias. This observation
has given rise to many difficulties.

It is generally believed that there is a mistake in the name of the prophet,
a very old error since it appears in all the manuscripts. Some unlearned
copyist may have introduced Jeremias where he should have read Zacharias
in abbreviated form. Several, together with St. Augustine {de Cons. Evang.
iii, 8), admit that the Evangehst may have been distracted and wrote Jeremias
instead of Zacharias. As a matter of fact, Zacharias xi, 13, presents us the
Saviour renouncing Ilis functions as shepherd of the flock that is consigned
to death. This flock is the unfortunate nation of the Jews. On resigning
His charge, because of the obstinate incredulity of His people, He demands
His wages, and they give him thirty pieces of silver. He, dissatisfied with
so mean a salary, casts it disdaùifiilly into the Temple. It is gathered up
as something defiled, and taken away to the potter's field, where it remains
as a pledge of divine vengeance until the day of judgment resented for the
nation. If we consider not the form, but the substance of this prophecy,
we may in some measure make it agree with what is said in St. Matthew:
the Shepherd who is disgusted with the wicked flock and who, on resigning
his charge, demands his salary, is Jesus. Israel, through the Sanhedrim,
estimates at thirty pieces of silver the labours of the Divine Shepherd. God,
by the regret which He rouses in Judas' soul, brings back to the Sanhedrim
the contemptible smn at which they had valued the life of the Shepherd, and
this money gathered up in the Temple where it was thrown, is used to pur-
chase the potter's field, to perpetuate the memory of this detestable crime.
However, dissatisfied with this laboured interpretation, other interpreters
have thought that St. Matthew alluded to one of the lost fragments of Jere-
mias. St. Jerome says that he read this passage in a manuscript belonging
to a Nazarean, but he denies its authenticity. Eusebius {Dem. Ev.^ x, 4)
supposed that the Jews had at an early date suppressed this prophecy in the
book of Jeremias.

[411]

BOOK II

Life

CHAPTER I
THE MORNING OF THE THIRD DAY

The Twilight Pilgrimage to the Sepulchre — The
Resurrection — Magdalen Hastens to tell Peter
AND John — The other Women and the Angels —
Peter and John — Magdalen — The First Appari-
tion OF Jesus — Noli me tangere — His Apparition
to the Other Women — Why Jesus does not show
Himself to the Whole City — The Report Spread
BY THE Soldiers. (St. John xx, 1—18; St. Luke xxiv,
1-12; St. Mark xvi, 1-11 ; St. Matthew xxviii, l-15.)i

The friends of Jesus spent the first day of the festi-
val in sadness and dejection. These sentiments in the
women, who were, perhaps, more faithful and more demon-
strative in their attachment, were mingled with a lively

1 At first sight, a comparison of the four Gospel accounts is somewhat
disconcerting. Thus, according to St. Matthew, at dawn on the day follow-
ing the Sabbath, Mary Magdalen and the other Mary go to visit the tomb.
An event which seems to have taken place before their eyes, but which
can also be supposed to be anterior to their coming if we take the aor-
ists èy4viTo, àirfKv\i(rev, etc., as pluperfects, has overturned everything in
the neighbourhood of the sepulchre. An angel brilliant with light had
rolled back the stone, and the soldiers on guard were as if dead. Seated
upon the stone, the heavenly messenger announces to them, while inviting
them to see for themselves, that the Crucified One is no longer in the tomb.
He bids them go and bring the news to the disciples, adding that the Lord

[ 412 ]

BOOK II] MORNING OF THIRD DAY

impatience. To pay to the beloved Master their last hom-
age, to renew the embalming, to see Him and to touch Him
for the last time, seemed to them a supreme and most de-
sirable consolation.

is gone before them into Galilee, and that there they shall see Him. But
while they in a transport of joy are hastening off to notify the Apostles,
Jesus appears to them, receives their adoration, and reiterates the com-
mand of the angel. They fulfil their mission, in fact, and the disciples hurry
into Galilee to the mountain indicated by Jesus ; it is there that they see the
Master, and receive His last instructions. Thus ends the first Gospel.

In St. Mark, Mary Magdalen, Mary the mother of James and Salome
go to the sepulchre early in the morning to embalm the body of Jesus, and
while they are wondering who will remove for them the enormous stone that
closed the entrance, they perceive that the stone has been removed. They
enter'the tomb and, to their dismay, they find there, seated on the right, a
young man clad in white, who speaks to them the same words as the angel
seated outside, in St. Matthew. They rush out in a fright, and hasten away
without a word to any one, fear having sealed their lips. The Evangelist's
account, properly so-called, stops here. The end of the chapter is a résum é
of the different apparitions and has an importance quite apart, for if it is
not from St. Mark's own pen, which has by no means been proved, as we
shall say farther on, it must have been the work of some apostolic personage
of authority. Otherwise it would never have been accepted as an integral
part of the Gospel by the primitive Church. This fragment sanctions
the accounts given in the third Synoptic and in St. John.

St. Luke shows us the devoted women (ch. xxiii, 55) , that is, Mary Magdalen
Joanna, and Mary the mother of James and others with them (xxiv, 10), going
to the tomb for the embalming. As in St. Mark, they find the stone removed,
the body of Jesus gone, and two men in shining apparel who bear witness to
the resurrection of the Crucified, in conformity with the predictions which
He had made while living. They depart to announce this to the Eleven
and to the others, who, for the most part, treat their account as an "idle
tale." Here, no more than in St. Mark, is it said that they saw the Lord.
Peterp however, runs to the tomb and returns astonished at having found it
empty. In the evening Jesus appears to the disciples at Emmaus, to Peter
and to the Apostles. This Gospel closes with a short account of the Ascension.

Finally, St. John represents Mary Magdalen as on her way to the tomb
while it is yet dark. Seeing that the stone no longer closed the entrance,
this pious disciple of Jesus supposes that the corpse has been stolen, and
hurries to inform Peter and John. These latter hasten to the tomb, and
finding there only the shroud and the linen cloths, return home. Magdalen,
weepuig before the tomb, leans forward to look into the interior, and per-
ceives two angels clothed in white, one at the head the other at the foot of
the place where the body of Jesus had been laid. WhUe they ask her the
cause of her despair, and while she is replying, another behind her asks
her the same question. This is Jesus Who makes Himself known and bids
her announce to His brethren that He is ascending to His Father and His
God. Mary Magdalen hastens to tell the disciples that she has seen the

[413]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet third

So, having provided themselves with aromatic spices on
Saturday evening, at the close of the Sabbath, they were
eager on Sunday morning to forestall the day and to has-

Master and that He has spoken to her. In the evening Jesus appears to the
Apostles. Eight days later, in order to convince Thomas, He appears to
them again, this time in Jerusalem also. The fourth Gospel ends with the
appendix, ch. x.xi, in which is related the apparition on the shore of the
Lake of Genesareth.

If, at the close of our study of the Gospels, another and final proof were
needed of the independence of their authors one ft-om the other, it would be
found in this simple statement of their accounts of the history of the Resurrec-
tion. Whether each one desired to bring his biography to a close with a
picture the best suited to place emphasis on the dominant idea of his redac-
tion, or whether their conclusion comes somewhat by chance, as many other
events do, beneath their pen, there is no doubt that they follow different
lines and with great freedom. And yet these narratives are most plainly
unanimous in placing before our eyes the fact that on the day following the
Sabbath, the first day of the week, the Apostles were convinced that Jesus,
Who had been buried two days previously, had risen again from the dead.
And this conviction, as far as they are concerned, will henceforth admit of
no hesitation, even for Thomas, who is finally convinced. This fact in itself
would be decisive in establishing the authority of the testimony which they
have borne to the most conclusive of miracles, even though exegetes should
fail to dispose of the objections raised by critics. But exegesis has never
despaired of establishing a general harmony between these accounts. As
complex and at first glance as embarrassing as these difficulties may be,
a close and impartial study can solve nearly every one of them. No doubt,
in order to do so, we must suppose a series of goings and comings, which
would be astonishing on any other occasion. But when we recollect how
extraordinary and how overwhelming the situation was for the disciples who
were divided between discouragement and hope, we are less astonished by
the agitation which leads them again and again to the neighbourhood of
the tomb. Even the angels, the mhabitants of heaven, seem to have shared
this significant eagerness concerning the great miracle, allowing themselves
to be seen in varying numbers, outside or inside the sepulchre, as if to in-
dicate that, although they were unseen, they remained, nevertheless, around
the tomb, where it was their duty to glorify the Risen One.

In view of this, if the Evangelists divide up the details of this \ivid scene,
and if no one of them has all the details at once, this is not peculiar to the
account of the Resurrection, and we have very frequently pointed out this
independence in the course of the Gospel history. In substance, it is easy
to see that St. John joins hands with St. Luke and the two other Synoptics
in showing that Jesus manifested Himself to the disciples in Jerusalem as
well as in Galilee. But before the compilation of the Gospels, St. Paul
(/ Cor. XV, 5-7) had already grouped in a single testimony the apparitions
of the Master to Peter, to the Twelve, to an assembly of five hundred disciples,
to James, and to all the other Apostles. His testimony, however summary it
may be, is of considerable importance, and we shall see what use may be made
of it, in behalf of the chronological disposition of the various appearances.

[ 4a4 ]

BOOK II] MORNING OF THIRD DAY

ten to the tomb." That moment, wherein the dawn begins
to dispel the darkness of the night, was precisely the
symbolic hour chosen by the prophets in their poetical de-
scriptions to denote the transition from sadness to joy
and from suffering to happiness. The eager group might
therefore well seem the living image of humanity strug-
gling to reach through the last shadows that were float-
ing above its head ^ to the glorious day of its own
resurrection.

Among these faithful friends, the first to be seen is Mary
Magdalen. She was to yield the place of honour to no
one. By her side was the other Mary, the mother of
James and Joseph, who seems to have been her inseparable
companion in her days of trial. Salome, and Joanna the
wife of Chusa were there, too, and with them several others
whom gratitude and admiration had long since drawn to
follow Jesus.

Not knowing that a guard of soldiers had been sent to
the sepulchre to watch the corpse, they asked each other:
" Who shall roll us back the stone from the door of the
sepulchre? " But God had taken care to anticipate this
legitimate anxiety. For, while the guard was still watch-
ing, but probably a little before dawn, or at its first
gleam, a violent and sudden shock had shaken the tomb and
the garden in which it stood. It was the Dead Who awoke
from His sleep and Who, with His almighty power, broke
the bonds that bound Him. All at once, descending from

= According to St. John it is very early and yet dark : vpui a-Korias en oSffris',
according to St. Luke it is also very early in the morning: opdpov fiadéos;
according to St. Matthew, the first day of the week was beginning fa daiim:
TTJ èwKpwa-Kovffr] ; according to St. Mark, it was also very early in the
morning, but the sun was beginning to appear: warelKauros tov T]\iov.
All this simply means \iav irpwt, that it was the moment when the dawn,
KpoK6ireir\os iiiis, gilds the heavens with its first light, for although he
remarks that it was dark, St. John observes that Magdalen saw the entrance
of the sepulchre open and the stone removed.

*Is. sdviii, 8, 10; xlviii, 11, etc.; Os. vi, 3, 10, 15.

[415]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt third

on high, hke a servant opening the door for the master
who is ready to depart,^ the angel of the Lord threw back
the stone of the sepulchre, and, rolling it aside, he seated
himself upon it, full of glory and of beauty. His coun-
tenance shone like the lightning, and his garments were
white as snow. At sight of him, the guards, seized with
fright, had been struck down and for a moment had lain as
if half dead.^

They were but just recovering from their terror, fleeing,
it may be, in every direction, when the holy women arrived.
The stone which in a vertical position closed the sepulchre
was very great, as St. Mark observes, and it was easy for
the latter to see from a distance that it had been removed,
and that consequently the tomb was open. This unexpected
incident, and perhaps, too, the appearance of armed men
whom they saw fleeing in haste, gave them the notion that
a crime had been committed on the dead body of the Mas-
ter. For it was possible that the chief priests, jealous of
the honourable burial given to Jesus, had caused the body
to be removed and thrown into a common grave with those
of the thieves. Magdalen's quick and lively imagination at
once foresees the unworthy sacrilege. Suddenly retracing
her steps, the pious soul hastens to Peter and John, and
tells them the astounding news. Simon Peter was not

* It is not said, however, that Jesus came forth from the tomb at that
moment, still less that the soldiers had seen Him come forth. It may be
that the stone over the opening was thrown back violently only to prove the
absence of the dead body in the tomb.

' This scene, which in our opinion preceded the arrival of the pious women,
must have been learned from the story of the soldiers themselves, who re-
ported it ofBcially to the members of the Sanhedrim and, it may be, con-
fidentially to their friends. But there were, among both of these parties,
followers of Jesus who did not suffer such important testimony to be lost.
Moreover, it cannot be concluded from verse 1 1 of St. Matthew, that all the
soldiers allowed themselves to be bribed by the gold of the priests. The
centurion, whom we have seen so deeply impressed by the holiness of the
Crucified, might have obtained from his men revelations that rejoiced the
nascent Church.

[416]

BOOK II] MORNING OF THIRD DAY

only the first of the Apostles by his authority, he was also
the most valorous and the most devoted. He had shown
at Gethsemane that he could quickly suit the action to the
word, and he could be relied on for a "telling stroke. By
her own experience, moreover, the converted woman knew
the need of every good heart to prove its love after an act
of ingratitude. Peter was probably lodging in the same
house with John. Magdalen expected, therefore, to no-
tify both at the same time. Had not John been the one
faithful friend even as far as Calvary, and, as he was ac-
quainted with the High-Priest, if any attempts had been
made against the mortal remains of Jesus, could he not
more profitably than any other undertake some plan to
prevent a profanation .''

Finding at last the twofold help of which she was in
search, Magdalen cried out, as if she had really scanned
the tomb with her own eyes : ^ " They have taken away the
Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have
laid him." ^

Meanwhile the other women had arrived near the tomb
and had had the courage to enter ® in order to see what
had taken place. Jesus was no longer there ; two an-
gels,^ seated one on the right the other on the left, were

* If Magdalen had followed the other women until they reached the tomb
she would have heard the announcements of the angels, and then she would
not have spoken to Peter of a probable theft, but of resurrection and of
angelical apparitions. Besides, the angel would not have to ask her a second
time the cause of her tears. Finally, her anxiety and her incredulity, after
the angelical message, would be unintelligible.

' The plural olSafiev, used by St. John, after having presented Magdalen
proceeding alone to the tomb, suggests the presence of other women. It is
quite natural, moreover, to see Magdalen start out at an early hour while it
is still night rather than day, not alone, but escorted by other friends of
Jesus, as eager as herself to proceed to embalm the Dead.

*The tombs of the great Jevsish famihes were vast caverns often fifteen
feet deep and quite as wide.

^ St. Luke and St. John mention two ; St. Mark and St. Matthew speak
only of one; but, as we have said above, the latter supposes him outside

[417]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet third

guarding the spot where the corpse had been laid. They
were clad in white and appeared all radiant with light.
This unexpected vision filled the holy women with fear and
they at once threw themselves prostrate, hiding their faces
against the ground. But one of the two angels reassured
them saying : " Fear not you ; for I know that you seek
Jesus of Nazareth Who was crucified. Why seek you the
living with the dead.'* He is risen, He is not here. Be-
hold the place w^here they laid Him. Remember how He
spoke unto you, when He was yet in Galilee, saying : The
Son of man ^^ must be delivered into the hands of sin-
ful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.
But go, tell his disciples and Peter that He is risen.
He will go before you into Galilee. There you shall
see Him, as He told you.^^ Lo, I have foretold it to
you."

Such was the first discourse pron.ounced on the resurrec-
tion of Jesus Christ. In reality, no more simple or more

of the tomb, whereas St. Mark says he is inside. Apart from any theory
defending the absolute exactitude of the Evangelists, we may say that this
twofold divergence is less important, since the angels, visible or invisible,
must have been niunerous in this spot, where the glory of God had just shone
forth so marvellously. Pious souls might have seen them appearing and
disappearing in the most various attitudes. The only fact on which the
Evangelists ought not to vary is that of their presence in the tomb, as they
were at the cradle of Jesus. They had assumed a human form ; this is why
they are called &vSpes by St. Luke xxiv, 4 ; veavla-Kov by St. Mark xvi, 5 ; cf.
Acts i, 10.

" The angel recalls here the title of Son of man which Jesus assumed
when alive, but which He employs no longer after His Resurrection.

1' It has been remarked that Si. Luke xxiv, 5, et seq., does not mention the
meeting-place in Galilee. Was this because he had knowledge only of the
apparitions in Jerusalem? As a matter of fact these are the only ones he
reports. But can we admit that the companion and disciple of St. Paul was
ignorant of the others? In Acts i, 3, he gives one to understand that he
knew of more than he spoke of. However, if he defines — which one would
not by any means have thought in reading the end of his Gospel — that there
was an interval of forty days between the Resurrection and the Ascension,
he seems to follow a tradition that mentioned neither the return of the
Apostles nor the apparitions of Jesus in Galilee, Acts i, 4.

[418]

BooKii] MORNING OF THIRD DAY

complete argument has since been imagined to prove the
great miracle which is the foundation stone of Christian-
ity. Jesus was placed in the tomb, and He is no longer
there. This is the first fact impressed on the witnesses.
Before His death, He had announced that it would be so,
and His Resurrection is an event not fortuitous but fore-
seen ; this is a second fact no less certain and having its
own importance. Lastly, men will be summoned to see
for themselves directly the reality of the Resurrection by
the sight and the touch of the Risen One. This is the
third fact, and it must complete the demonstration for
the most incredulous.

Jesus had always cherished the project of re-establishing
His Church in Galilee, when He should have risen again. ^^
It was there that she had been born, it was there she had
grown, and it was there she ought to find the best elements
of progress, thanks to the upright and energetic character
of the good people who dwelt there. The flock, scat-
tered for a time, can therefore come together again ; the
Shepherd still lives ; He is going to appear once more
and guide His lambs, as He goes on before them into
Galilee.

The angels do not mean to deny that He will appear at
all before the Galilean believers shall have regained their
homes. They simply put off to that moment His more
frequent and more familiar manifestations. That is why
the Evangelists, though maintaining their words, do not
think they contradict them by the apparitions occurring
in Jerusalem and which they are going to relate to us
immediately.

Meanwhile the holy women, seized with fear as well as
with joy at such astonishing news, had departed in haste

" St. Mark xiv, 28 ; St. Matt, xxvi, 32.
[419]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

from the tomb, to hurry at the top of their speed towards
the city in search of the Apostles. Their emotion, al-
though it hastened their steps, kept them dumb,^^ and they
related the prodigious event only to the Apostles them-
selves when they had found them. The latter, convinced
that they were the victims of an illusion, refused to give
any credence to their story.

It is well to remember, in order to harmonise all the
Evangelists' accounts, that at this time Peter and John
were not with them. They had been informed separately,
but in different terms, by Magdalen, and were already
running ^^ with all their might in the direction of the
tomb, which they thought had been treacherously violated.
John, who was younger than Peter, was the first to arrive,
but, either out of deference for his companion, or from a
sentiment of secret fear as he saw the open sepulchre, he
did not dare to enter. Leaning forward — they probably
had to descend some steps, although the door was vertical

I'To suppose with several critics that St. Hark xvi, 8, means that they
kept what they had seen an absolute secret, is to attribute to the Evangelists
something very improbable in order to have the pleasure of raising a useless
diflBculty. They are silent on the road, but they speak on reaching the
house. St. Matt. xx\iii, 8; St. Luke xxiv, 10 and 23.

1* If, as the majority of the manuscripts bear witness, St. Luke xxiv, 12,
is authentic, one would have reason to be surprised that after the disciples
had ridiculed the pious women and had refused to believe them, Peter should
have risen at once and run to the tomb. The truth is that St. Luke sets
down in this place, as if by chance, a detail which he has found in the docu-
ments he is using, but in which all the other details are wanting. One feels
that there is a certain indecision and vagueness in his account, and verse 12
comes from a source different from verse 11. Verse 24 likewise suggests
something not related. He stands by that scrupulous fidelity which, here
as elsewhere, makes it a duty for him to write down ever>i:hing he knows,
even if it should contradict that which precedes. But St. John quite ap-

Eropriately explains that which seems to be inexplicable. The holy women
ave spoken to the disciples, and Magdalen has talked with Peter and John
who at that time were probably not with the principal group of the faithful.
Besides this, it will be observed that St. Luke x-xiv, 24, in reporting that the
disciples at Emmaus said: "Some of our people went to the sepulchre,"
corroborates St. John's statement, since he employs the plural after having
mentioned only Peter.

[420]

BOOK II] MORNING OF THIRD DAY

— we have already seen that they saw the open door from
a distance — he simply looked around the interior, and saw
only the winding sheet lying on the ground. Simon Peter
arrived immediately after him, and at once, with his ar-
dent, resolute nature, went into the tomb. The angels
were not visible to them, but the linen bands had been
loosed and were lying on the floor, and the cere-cloth which
had enveloped the Master's head, separated from the other
linens, had been rolled up and laid in a spot apart. To an
attentive mind, this was a proof that the sepulchre had
been the scene not of a hurried removal, but of a calm and
peaceful awakening. Then John also entered the sepul-
chre, and with his own eyes examined the whole interior.
At that moment only he felt faith again springing up
within his soul. He had not yet, any more than the rest,
understood the Scriptures which asserted that Jesus would
rise again from the dead.

A prey to the most diverse thoughts, now full of hope
and again dejected and uncertain, the two Apostles re-
turned to the city, thinking to hear there more explicit
information, and, in any case, to communicate their im-
pressions to the others and to take counsel as to what
they should do.^^

Magdalen, who, no doubt, had arrived shortly after, let
them depart without following. Of her beloved Master
there now remained to her naught but the empty tomb.
She could not make up her mind to leave it. Standing
there, leaning on the stone, she tenderly clasped this last
relic of her departed Saviour, and wet it with her tears,
those precious tears which once had gained her forgive-
ness, and were now to merit for her the first sight of the
risen Jesus. As she wept, she bent down to look into the
tomb. Whether it was that her soul was better disposed
1» St. Luke xxiv, 12.
[421 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

than the two Apostles' to behold the manifestations of
heaven, or that God would not refuse to her eager love
what He had granted to her friends, who like her had first
come to the sepulchre, two angels appeared to her clad in
white garments, the emblem of celestial glory. Their at-
titude was that of servants who had completed their work,
seated one at the head and the other at the foot of the
glorious bed whereon the Crucified had lain. Calling her
just as she leaned towards the opening of the tomb:
"Woman," they said, "why weepest thou.''" And she,
with no evidence of fear ^"^ at this apparition, as if the
thoughts of her grief forbade all others, merely replied:
" Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not
where they have laid him."

At the same time, by a natural movement, as if she could
not sustain the sight so easily as the conversation of her
questioners, or as if she sought some aid, she turned ^^ and
saw some one standing by her. It was Jesus ; but, ab-
sorbed as she was in her grief, and looking for the dead and
not the living, she did not recognise Him.^^ Moreover,
her whole attention being given to the sepulchre where
the heavenly apparition had just occurred, she did not

" Some have thought that Magdalen had taken the angels for men, either
because she saw them only indistinctly, or because the sun, already up for
some time, made their brightness less blinding. But we must accept the
purely psychological cause, which we point out, as the cause of her familiar
and ingenuous response.

•' It may be, too, that the sound of a step, of branches pushed aside, or
of leaves trampled on attracted her attention.

"Besides, Jesus appeared with a new physiognomy, eV fTepa nop(pfi;
and, in all His manifestations after death He had to ynake Himself hioam,
sometimes by the sound of His voice, as now; again, by the breaking of the
bread, etc. He was not exactly the same as before His death. Tliis had
placed Him in a new condition; that is why He says to the Apostles {St.
Luke xxiv, 44) : "While I ^ms yet with you." In this new state His body
shares, as it were, in the privileges of the spiritual nature to which it is
absolutely subject. He renders Himself visible or invisible. He passes
through closed doors. Such is the fact established by the Gospel accounts.
How it is done is beyond our ken.

[ 422]

BOOK II] MORNING OF THIRD DAY

gaze long on Him who stood beside her. " Woman,"
said the Unknown, echoing the angel's question, " why
weepest thou? Whom seekest thou? " And Magdalen,
thinking that she was talking to the gardener,^'"* an-
swered Him without looking, all the while leaning to-
wards the tomb -^ whence she awaited a clearer explana-
tion : " Sir,^^ if thou hast taken Him hence, tell me where
thou hast laid Him, and I will take Him away." Then
Jesus, in mild reproach, replied with one word : " Mary ! "
It was only a name; but a name on the lips of a friend
is a memory, a history, a life. With one word Jesus had
just expressed all that Magdalen had been to Him and
all that He had been to her. At His word this woman
of supreme faith trembled to the utmost depths of her
being, and in the violence of her love she answered with
a cry that spoke her entire soul : " Rabboni ! ^^ Mas-
ter ! " At the same instant impelled as by some mys-
terious force, she was at Jesus' feet. Is it indeed He,
really risen again and alive. Whom she hears and sees,
or do ears and eyes deceive her and lead her to take for
the Master Himself a mere vision sent to console her?
Troubled with joy and surprise, she knows not what to be-
lieve, and her hands reach out towards Him, as though
she would convince herself by touching His feet or His

"Some have thought that Jesus, clad in a shroud instead of a cloak,
might have borne some resemblance to an ordinary peasant. The country
people, in fact, wore, garments of white cloth. This supposition is as
gratuitous as it is odd. It is simpler to admit that Magdalen had not
even scanned her questioner, or that because of the trees or of her deep
emotion, she had not clearly discerned Him.

20 The words ê<rTp<l(pTi and <TTpa(pe7<ra, employed twice, prove that while
replying, she was not looking at Him who spoke to her.

21 She employs this respectful term because she feels as if she were on his
domain and expects from his kindness information of the treasure she seeks,
or, at least, freedom to seek it without interference.

^ 22 This word, of the language of Palestine which St. John translates for
his Greek readers, is found in St. Mark x, 51.

[423]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

garments. " Do not touch me," -^ said Jesus, " I am ever
the same, for I am not yet ascended to my Father. But
go to my brethren and say to them: I ascend to my Fa-
ther and to your Father, to my God and your God." With
what tenderness Jesus calls those His brethren who have
just abandoned Him so cowardly! With what solicitude
He has them informed that the hour for Him to be glori-
fied as God is at hand ! He shall ascend to the right hand
of His Father as soon as they are sufficiently strengthened
in the faith of His Resurrection.

Jesus disappeared while Magdalen was still listen-
ing. Radiant and generous in her faith, she hastened
at once to tell the disciples that she had with her
own eyes beheld the Master. Thus it was penitent
love that became the messenger of the great tidings,
and aroused in the hearts of all hope and faith in the
future.

23 The words of Jesus, M-fi fiov airrov, constitute one of the most difficult
passages to explain in the Gospel; so much so that some, supposing it a
copyist's error, propose to eliminate the negation, or to read it fear not;
or (t{) fnov uTTTov, touch me. But there is nothing to justify this alteration
of the text. Others, therefore, have sought and proposed a series of in-
terpretations more or less satisfactory. Thus several have translated:
"Waste no time in embracing my feet, thou shalt have other opportunities
to do so, for I have not yet ascended to my Father; go at once and tell the
news to my brethren "; or "Do not hold me thus, I am not yet ascending
to my Father." But the verb airreo-Oai is not the verb Kpcnûv. Others
say: "Do not adore me, for I have not yet entered into the glory of God."
But without counting that if the word aima-Bai means adore when it
governs yovdroii', the knees, it never does when alone, we shall see Jesus
allowing the holy women ere long to clasp His knees in adoration, and still
later accepting Thomas' adoration. Others give this; "My body is still in
a state of transformation, do not touch me." But that same evening Jesus
invites His disciples to touch Him {St. Luke xxiv, 39). Lastly, and this
was the view we held first, a great many explain the words of Jesus thus:
"Release me, the time is not yet come to keep me among you, I have not
yet ascended to my Father." As if His state between the Resurrection and
the Ascension was a transitory state in which He should merely appear but
not remain, until by successive apparitions and disappearances He should
have confirmed the faith in the hearts of the Apostles, and prepared His
definitive coming by the outpouring of the Holy Ghost.

[424]

BOOK II] MORNING OF THIRD DAY

According to the appendix to St. Mark's Gospel, Mag-
dalen found the Apostles in sadness and in tears. They re-
fused to believe her testimony.-^ In the meantime, almost

'^In St. Hark xvi, 9-11, it is said: "But He rising early the first day of
the week, appeared first to Mary Magdalen, out of whom He had cast seven
devils. She went and told them that had been with Him, who were
mourning and weeping. And they hearing that He was alive, and had
been seen by her, did not believe." E\adently this is a résumé, if not of
what is recounted in St. John, at least of what was in the oral tradition,
which the fourth Gospel was to develop later on. This résumé raises the
question as to the authenticity of the last twelve verses which we read in
St. Mark.

The attentive reader will observe between verses 8 and 9 an evident break
in continuity. Not only does the lively and picturesque narrative of St.
Mark change in style at this point, but it resolves itself into a very succinct
summing up of the apparitions reported by the other Evangelists. Thus
verses 9-11 relate what is read in St. John xx, 1-10; verses 12-13 are an
abridgment of St. Luke xxiv, 13-35; verse 14 refers to St. Luke xxiv, 36,
et seq., and St. John xx, 19, et seq. Verses 15-18 are inspired by the closing
verses of St. Matt, xxviii, 16-20, while verses 19-20 recall St. Luke xxiv,
50-53, but with a general fusion in which it becomes difiicult to distinguish
the words of farewell to the Church spoken on the mountain in Galilee
and the farewell to the Apostles on the day of the Ascension on the Mount
of Olives. The author has not even sought to join this fragment with that
which precedes it. Thus, although Magdalen was mentioned in the first
line of the same chapter, xvi, among the women going to the sepulchre, she
comes upon the scene in verse 9, as a new character, concerning whom it is
thought necessary to recall the miraculous cure in terms that recall St. Luke
viii, 2: {à<^ ris èKfie0\7]Kei êirrà Sai/xSvta, and in St. Luke à(p' ^j Saifxévia
eTTTo i^e\ri\v0ei) . He repeats that it was early, irpurt, and the first day
of the week, irpwrr) aa^fiârov, as if this had not already been said above in
verse 2, Xiav irpwt ttjs fjnâs tûv (ra^piruv, concerning the visit of Mary
Magdalen and the other women to the sepulchre.

This addition was therefore made without any attempt at concealment.
Hence, at a very early date, this appendix was regarded as the work of
another than St. Mark. Thus Eusebius (ad Marin, q. 1, in Maï, Spicil.
i, p. 61) and St. Jerome {ad Hedihian, q. 3) observe that, in their time, it
was found only in rare manuscripts. As a matter of fact, we find that it is
wanting in the most ancient. Vatic, Sinait., and that many of the Fathers
of the Church seem not to have known it. The Syriac version, recently
discovered on Mt. Sinai by Mrs. Lewis, does not contain this passage.
Finally, certain manuscripts have a different and rather brief ending, the
style of which, however, indicates a very ancient origin. On the other nand,
and this renders the problem more complicated, we find it in the Codex
Alexand., in the Codex Ephrem, and in general in all the manuscripts of the
Itala, in the Syriac translations, Peschito and Cureton, in the Dia-
tessaron of Tatian. It is even quoted, as to verse 20, in Irenaeus, Hœr.
iii, 10, 60, which gives it as the termination of the Gospel of St. Mark. There

[425]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet third

at that same moment, Jesus appeared -^ to the otlier wom-
en who, having received the first news of the Resurrection
at the tomb, had returned to the city while Magdalen was
conducting Peter and John back to the sepulchre. The
two parties having followed different roads did not en-
counter each other. Moreover, it is not explicitly stated
in St. Matthew that Jesus appeared to them while they
were on the way. However that may be, the Master, as

is every reason to suppose that Justin {Apol. i, 39, 45, 49, etc.) had that
reading. Its antiquity is, therefore, very great.

Are we to beHeve that it dates back to the first century? The authority
wfiich was accorded to it from the very beginning in certain parts of the
Church justifies us in doing so. St. Jerome, after having weighed all the
reasons for and against, decided to insert it in the Vulgate. As a matter of
fact, verse 8 cannot be a conclusion. If the Evangelist, through some
incident unknown to us, the death of Peter, perhaps, or his own death,
during the persecution of Nero, left his little book unfinished, one can
understand how some apostohc personage might have considered it his duty
to add the concluding lines. Mr. Conybeare thought he found the solution
of the difficulty in an Armenian translation discovered by him at Esch-
miadzin in 1891. It was the presbyter Aristion, called by Eusebius a disciple
of the Lord who added the appendix. In reply to this we would ask : Is a
name, intercalated in red, after two blank lines and before the conclusion,
at an epoch relatively quite late (the translation may be ancient, but the
manuscript dates from 989 only), sufficient to support an hypothesis? After
all, in the absence of other proofs, would it not be simpler to suppose that
St. Mark, having been obliged to quit Rome in haste, on the death of Peter,
left his book there unfinished, and that later on, either from Alexandria or
from Asia Minor, he addressed to the faithful of that city a conclusion of
this Gospel, which, being derived no longer from the direct, lively, and
earnest preaching of the chief of the Apostles, but from the oral tradition,
was a simple summary of what was related currently concerning the ap-
paritions of Jesus? This supplement, coming when there were already
numerous copies of the Gospel in circulation, continued to be excluded from
a certain number of them. Hence, the long undecided fate reserved for it
in the early Church. What justifies this supposition is that it seems, at
least partially, to depend much more on the oral tradition (cf. verse 11, in
particular) than on the written Gospels. At any rate, the Catholic Church
has maintained it as canonical and consequently as derived from an author-
ised source. Several Protestant exegetes, overcoming a most unfair prejudice
have finally acknowledged that she has done well. Cf. Godet, Introd. au
N. Test, Vol. II, p. 392, et seq.

2' Many think tnat this ap])arition, mentioned by St. Matthew, is no
other than that which happened to Magdalen, but the difference between
the two accounts makes it absolutely improbable that they refer to the same
incident.

[426]

BOOK II] MORNING OF THIRD DAY

He manifested Himself to them, greeted them with these
words : " All hail ! " Already prepared by the angel's
words for the thought of the Resurrection, they were less
surprised than Magdalen, but were, however, seized with
reverent fear. Recognising Jesus at once by His voice as
well as by His features, they clasped His knees and adored
Him, their faces pressed close to the ground. Seeing their
emotion, He took care first to reassure them.

" Fear not," He said. Then he thought of the disciples
who above all others had to be strengthened : " Go," He
said, repeating the angel's words, " tell my brethren to
go into Galilee ; there they shall see Me." These brethren
mentioned here, as in the message given to Magdalen, are
not only the Apostles, who, in reality, shall see Jesus be-
fore they return to their mountains, but all the faithful
who must be persuaded to depart from Jerusalem, a neigh-
bourhood full of danger to timid men. They must return
to their homes and not worry about the future. There
they shall again find their Chief, their Shepherd; there
shall the Kingdom of God be established, far from the
persecution of the Pharisees. To behold Him Who is
risen, they must prepare themselves in retirement. The
intention of Jesus is to make Himself visible to souls only
in such measure as souls are ready to behold Him. Mag-
dalen is the first to see Him, but only for a brief space ;
then the holy women ; then must come the turn of the two
disciples on their way to Emmaus ; and finally the eleven all
together shall receive His formal and prolonged visit.
He moves by slow degrees, so that gradually and surely,
faith in His resurrection may take root in their hearts.

It has been asked why Jesus did not wish to appear at
once to all His faithful, in the heart of Jerusalem and in
the presence of His enemies. First of all it is not certain
that the apparition to the five hundred assembled disciples

[ 427 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

did not take place at the time when the caravans were quit-
ting the Holy City. This hypothesis is by no means un-
tenable. But, admitting that it occurred in Galilee, it is
easy to see the reasons that withheld the Saviour from ap-
pearing openly while they were still in Jerusalem. The
faithful would not have failed to proclaim the great tidings
on the spot, at the risk of provoking violent hostility and
of arousing prematurely a storm which they were incapable
of withstanding. It was better to wait until their souls
should be fortified and protected by the Holy Spirit
against their own weaknesses. For the time being, the
providential plan seemed to be to sustain the Messianic
hopes of the multitude by the thought of a meeting in
Galilee, and the faith of the leaders of this multitude by
partial and successive apparitions. These apparitions
would suffice to prepare a final outburst of enthusiasm on
the day of Pentecost, by preserving the sacred fire as a
mere spark. They could not provoke the fury of .the
Pharisees, who simply laughed at the rumours spread
abroad concerning the Risen One, as so many fables of no
account.

When they ask why Jesus did not show Himself even
to His enemies to confound them by His glorious triumph,
rationalists forget that God distributes His grace in meas-
ure, and that in the case of those who obstinately shut
their eyes He withdraws even the rays of His light. Faith
is meritorious only in so far as it does not exact evidence.
The Jews did not believe in the word or in the works of
Jesus; they are judged. Nor would they believe more in
the life of the One Risen from the dead, and, in any case,
they would believe without merit like the demons of Hell.
God demands the confident assent of the heart, which the
murderers, though beholding their Victim risen again,
were no longer able to give. But, as regards the disciples

[ 428 ]

BooKiif MORNING OF THIRD DAY

themselves, we must not think that Jesus manifested Him-
self in the physical condition in which He had previously
lived. His condition was altogether supernatural; He ap-
peared and disappeared suddenly ; men recognised Him
only when He desired to be recognised, either by His voice
or by His physical appearance. He was the Risen One,
and to be able to distinguish Him in His new state there
was needed that spiritual eye the opening of which God
reserved to Himself.^^ The soul had to be prepared for
this supernatural vision ; the souls of the enemies of
Jesus were not ready since those of His friends were only
imperfectly so. To the Pharisees and their allies Jesus
could appear only to judge them. But the day of judg-
ment had not yet dawned.

It happened, however, that, without appearing to His
enemies, Jesus made His resurrection known to them,
through witnesses who were beyond suspicion. For, while
on the one hand, representatives of the nascent Church,
who had come to embalm the body, were ordered to go and
announce the resurrection to their brethren, on the other
hand the guards posted by the chief priests to detain Him
in the tomb, found themselves strangely forced to proclaim
to their masters that the Dead had disappeared. Thus
friends and enemies hastily returned to the city because
the sepulchre was empty, the former overjoyed at such
happy tidings, and the latter full of terror at so strange
an event.

St. Matthew observes, in fact, that they all made their
entrance into Jerusalem at nearly the same moment.
"Who (the women), when they were departed," he says,
" behold some of the guards came into the city, and told
the chief priests all that had been done." Such was, there-
fore, the official notification of the resurrection that the
2« St. Luke xxiv, SI ; St. John xx, 16.

[ 429 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt thikd

Sanhedrim had insured for itself through the pitiless
irony of fate. It would have been well had it profited
thereby even then ! But the wicked see good only to hate
it the more, and liars are ready to go to any extreme in
order to stifle the truth. They conspired therefore to dis-
cover what answer could be made to such disquieting tid-
ings ; and, as each one clearly saw its grave consequences,
it was decided that they must continue their triumph unto
the end. Besides, what would have been the situation of
His murderers, if the Victim had been publicly recognised
as just and holy by divine testimony.^ What would have
become of the faction that had persecuted Him, if the
persecuted One were supremely glorified.? The Sanhedrists
determined, therefore, to seal with gold the mouths of the
unfortunate witnesses whom they had sent to ascertain the
triumph of their Victim. It was a bold project. They
adopted it, however, and paid the soldiers to say : " His
disciples came by night, and stole him away when we were
asleep."

The Gospel observes that the sum of money given to
them was in proportion to the falsehood demanded. At
that rate the compensation must have been considerable,
for it was a great crime obstinately to disfigure the work
of God Who so visibly revealed Himself. Moreover, the
absurdity of their allegation was not less great. The
guards had slept and they had seen ; they had seen and
they had not prevented. The explanation they gave of
the miracle was quite worthy of men who were asleep when
they concocted it. But with gold it has always been easy
to make the needy say what is desired, especially when the
bribe, coming from a higher source, guarantees a defence
whatever may happen. In the present case, if the soldiers
on duty were the ushers of the Temple, the Sanhedrim was
the absolute master of the servants; if, as we have sup-

[ 430 1

BOOK II] MORNING OF THIRD DAY

posed, they were of the Roman army, it was possible to
persuade them that in the scene at the sepulchre they had
been the victims of some fraud, or of some experiment of
magic prepared by the disciples. Pagans would naturally
be credulous. If there had been a supernatural interven-
tion prepared by the Apostles, the soldiers could not be
held responsible before Pilate. No one is obliged to fight
against invisible and unkno\ra forces. In any case, they
were to hold to the general assertion that was to satisfy
the vain curiosity of the people: the disciples have taken
Him away. If Pilate should busy himself with the popular
report, the chief priests took it upon themselves to defend
those concerned by establishing, when necessary, in pri-
vate, the facts just as they occurred, but allowing at the
same time the report to go among the people that a theft
had been committed, and that a deception had been suc-
cessfully carried out.

The soldiers were readily persuaded. They took the
money, and the report was spread among the Jews that the
disciples had taken the body away. St. Matthew says
that it still gained some credit at the time when he was
writing his Gospel ; traces of it are found in the Talmud,^''^
and St. Justin tells us in what form the Sanhedrim com-
municated the incident to the Jews who inhabited Palestine,
or who dwelt in foreign parts. -^

Thus on the morning of that great day, the whole city

" Cf. the odious book Toledoih Jeschu, quoted in Eisenmenger, Ent-
deckt. Judenth. i, p. 190, et seq.

^« Died. c. Tnjphon., 108: "An unlawful and impious sect has arisen,"
said these emissaries, " ha\ang as their founder a Galilean impostor named
Jesus. ^Tien we had crucified Him, His disciples in the night {vvktIs)
took Him from the tomb {KKÎ^avns avThv atrh rod ^ivi\ii.aTos), where His
body, taken down from the cross," had been laid. They are now deceiving
everj'body {-KXavûxn robs àvdpéirovs) 'ndth the belief that He has risen
again from the dead and has ascended into heaven." Cf. Tertullian,
ApoL, 21, and Sped., 30; Origen, c. Cels. i, 56, and Acta Pilati, in Thilo,
p. 615.

[431 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet third

learned from an official source that the body of the Cruci-
fied was no longer in the tomb. According to some, the
disciples had hidden it ; according to others, no one knew
what had become of it. A few asserted, on the word of
the angels, that He had risen again. Surpassing them all,
the holy women maintained that they had seen Him alive.

[432]

CHAPTER II

THE AFTERNOON OF THE SAME DAY
ON THE ROAD TO EMMAUS

The Two Disciples Going to Emmaus — The Third
Traveller who joins in their Conversation — What
Occupies their Attention — The Great Lesson of
Apologetic Exegesis — " Stay with us. Because it is
Towards Evening " — They knew Him in the Break-
ing OF Bread — Their Hurried Return to Jerusa-
lem— Jesus had Appeared to Peter ; the Conjec-
tural Apparition to Mary His Mother. (St. Luke,
xxiv, 13-32; St. Mark, xvi, 12-13.)

During the afternoon of the same day two disciples
departed for Emmaus, a borough situated sixty furlongs
from Jerusalem. All that we know of them is that one
of them was named Cleophas. This name, given with no
further information,^ represents probably a new personage
in the Gospel story, and we cannot recognise in him the
father of James and of Joseph. As for the other, the most
diverse and most gratuitous conjectures have been made
concerning his identity.^

' St. Luke xxiv, 18, mentions it accidentally to designate the one who first
replied to Jesus.

2 According to some, it was either James in company with his father
Clopas, or Peter himself, who, however, is excluded by verses 22 and 24;
according to others it was Nathanael. Several even think it was St. Luke.
In relating this incident in which he fortunately participated, they say he
made it a duty to remain anonymous. But the candour of the story, how-

[433]

LIFE OF CHRIST [p.^t third

The village of Emmaus, whither they were bound, is not,
as Eusebius and St. Jerome believed, the capital of the
toparchy which later took the name of Nicopolis,^ south-
east from Lydda, and one hundred and seventy-six fur-
longs from Jerusalem. The place here meant is a place
less distant,'^ and Josephus in fact mentions a village of

ever striking, is not enoiigh to sustain this opinion. Even if it were not
almost certain that St. Luke, who was of pagan origin and hved far from
Jemsalem, could not at that date have been connected in any way with
this incident of the Gospel story, the Aramaic colouring of this passage is
suiBcient to indicate that the ÊvangeUst found it already prepared in the
documents which he had at hand.

3 / Mach. iii, 40, 57.

* Elsewhere the author has written at length {Voyage atix Pays Bibliques,
Vol. I, p. 186, et seq., and Revue Biblique, Jan., ISQ'i, p. 101, et seq.) against
the persistent error of those who wish with Eusebius and St. Jerome to
identify the Emmaus in St. Luke with Enunaus Nicopolis, celebrated in the
wars of the Machabees and capital of a toparchy in the time of Jesus Christ
(Josephus, B. J., iii, 3, 5; Pliny, H. N., v, 14). 'First of all, this latter town,
according to the liinerarium Hieros., was twenty-two miles from Jerusalem
or, since an 01\'mpic fmlong was an eighth of a Roman mile, one hundred
and seventy-six furlongs. The true reading, St. Luke xxiv, 13, says that
the place to' which the disciples were going was sixty furlongs from Jerusalem.
Some manuscripts, only one of which, the Sinaiticus, dates back to the fourth
century, contain a correction inspired by the same error into which Eusebius
had fallen, and we read in them one hundred and sixty fiu-longs. Cf. the
excellent dissertation by the Rev. Fr. Lagrange, Revue Biblique, 1896, pp.
H~-92. Besides, this ill-advised correction does not correct anything, for one
hundred and sixty is not one hundred and seventy-six. Moreover, it is
evident that the two disciples would not and could not walk a journey of
twenty-two miles in one evening ; for, in fact, they went to Emmaus and re-
turned probably in one afternoon. It does not appear that they took any
midday meal on the journey, and in the evening, setting out from Emmaus
after simset and even after supper, they arrive in Jerusalem before the Apos-
tles have retired to rest, ota-ns . . . o\l/ias in St. John xx, 19, that is, at night.
Cf. St. Mark xiii, 35, in which the precise meaning of 6\pé is given with re-
lation to midnight. In fact they had gone out for a walk: Svalv . . .
trepiTTarovaiv, according to St. Mark xvi, 12, and they were going not to an
important town, but to a modest ^-illage fis kwhtjv, St. Luke xxiv, 13, situated
in the rural districts, adds St. Mark, els àypév. Josephus {B. J., \-ii, 6, 6)
tells us of a place that bore the name Emmaus, x'^p'^o" • • • ^ KoXflrai
'Annaovs, sixty furlongs from Jerusalem, which was given over to eight hun-
dred veterans of the Roman army after the destruction of Jerusalem.
The number sixty in Josephus, as well as in St. Luke, has been contested,
some saying it should be one hundred and sixty, others only thirty,
but without any serious argmnents in support of their contention. We
must therefore seek within a radius of sixty furlongs from Jerusalem, for

[434 ]

BOOK II] OX THE ROAD TO EMMAUS

Emmaus sixty furlongs from Jerusalem, in the territory
of which, after the war with the Jews, Titus settled eight
hundred veterans. ^ATiere was the exact site of this town ?
It is impossible to say for certain.

They were journeying on, talking of what had just oc-
curred in Jerusalem. Their exchange of impressions con-
tained something of sadness and of discouragement. As
if by chance, a third traveller joined them on the way, and
set out to travel with them. This traveller was none other
than Jesus ; but the}^ did not recognise Him. On the one
hand, nothing was farther from their minds than to ex-
pect to see beside them Him Whom thej^ knew to be in the
tomb or at least among the dead ; and on the other, Jesus
had assumed the outward seeming of a traveller met by
chance. As we have already said, it was one of the peculiar-
ities of the Risen Jesus to change His appearance, to allow
Himself to be seen, and to disappear at will.^ The new-
comer entered familiarly into the conversation of the two

the Emmaus of the Gospel, which, it seems, must be identified as that of
Josephus. At the ven- outset one would think of Kolonieh, which name
recalls the colony of veterans; but Kolonieh is not sixty fiu-longs from Jeru-
salem, and hence Kolonieh can only serve as a mark to point out the re-
gion in which the veterans had been located. The x<^p'^ov . . . è KaKeÎTcu
'AfjifMovs might extend towards the west as far as Kiriet-el-Anab, or
towards the north as far as Koubeibeh, both exactly sixty furlongs from
Jerusalem. We know that the latter site is the one maintained by Fran-
ciscan tradition. In that case, the colony of veterans extended from south
to north, between the two highways which on the west led to Jerusalem.
It may be that Beth-]Mitsa or Mosa, Hamosa with the article, identified in
the Talmud, Sukkah, iv, 5, as Kolonieh, and which is found in the Ouadi
that joins Koubeibeh and Kolonieh, preserves very nearly the name of the
little district of Emmaus where, according to the Talmud again, the people
went to gather palms for the Feast of Tabernacles. As for Kiriet-el-Anab,
indicated in the documents of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (cf.
Pèlerinages Français, in 8°, Geneva, 1885), it has in its favour the foimtain
near which Jesus and the two disciples are said to have eaten, and which
in the time of the Crusades was called the Fountain of the Emauz, and is
still preserved under the crypt of the Church of Abou-Gosch. Cf. Mauss,
L'Église de St. Jérémie h Abou-Gosch, Paris, ISQ'iî.

' This is what St. Mark means by è({>ayep(i6r] êv krépa twfxp^.

[435]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

friends. " What are these discourses that ye hold one with
another as ye walk, and are sad? " He asked them. By
His question, the speaker gave them to understand that
He had not even a suspicion of their painful thoughts.
The disciples were greatly astonished to find, at the very
gates of Jerusalem, a man so little acquainted with the
grave happenings that filled their minds, and one of them,
named Cleophas, exclaimed with some hastiness : " Art
thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the
things that have been done there in these days ? " " What
things ? " returned Jesus, affecting more and more an
ignorance that was painful to men so filled with their sub-
ject. Then, with an indignation which must have glad-
dened their questioner, since it revealed a faith eager to
find expression, they answered : " Concerning Jesus of
Nazareth, Who was a Prophet, mighty in work and word
before God and all the people. And how our chief priests
and princes dehvered Him to be condemned to death, and
crucified Him." One perceives by their hurried speech that
their lips speak from the fulness of their hearts. They
seem to interrupt each other, each helping the other to
narrate more fully the extraordinary happenings of which
their new companion is ignorant. Then, in a tone of sad-
ness that betrays, if not complete disappointment, at least
profound anxiety, they add : " But we hoped that it was ^
He that should have redeemed Israel ; and now besides all
this, to-day is the third day since these things were done."
They dare not utter that which underlies their thoughts,
that Jesus had promised to rise again the third day, and
that they can no longer count on the fulfilment of His
promise. " Yea," they add, " and certain women also of
our company affrighted us, who before it was light were
at the sepulchre; and not finding His body, came saying
"Several manuscripts have "We hope that he is."

[ 436 ]

BOOK II] ON THE RO.\D TO EMMAUS

that they had also seen a vision of angels, who say that He
is alive." It is surprising not to find mentioned here the
first reports of the apparition ; but the very tone of the
recital shows that the two disciples did not wish to seem
too credulous. They speak of the angelic vision as of some-
thing that might have taken place especially in the im-
agination of the women. " And some of our people," '^
they continue, " went to the sepulchre, and found it so as
the women had said, but Him they found not." These
last words confirm what the Evangelists say of the absolute
incredulity of the disciples, when the women had come to
report the apparition of the Risen Jesus. The two trav-
ellers do not honour their account of it with even a mere
mention. It was even more improbable than their visions
of angels and supernatural beings.

The jNIaster had questioned and listened long enough.
His turn to speak had come, and He did so in words lively
enough to astonish His questioners, were they not in har-
mony with their most cherished hopes, and sustained more-
over by a peremptory proof : " O foolish, and slow of
heart to believe in all the things which the prophets have
spoken," He said. " Ought not ^ Christ to have suffered
these things, and so to enter into His glory? " Foolish
indeed ; blind like all the Jews, they have read only a part
of the Messianic prophecies, that part which shows the
IMessiah triumphant and glorious ; had they turned back
the page, they would have seen that humiliation was to
precede glory, and that the resurrection had necessarily

1 Here is a fresh proof that we must not allow ourselves to be checked by
details apparently divergent, but in reality only incomplete. It seemed,
according to St. Luke, that St. Peter had gone alone to the tomb (v. 12) and
the same St. Luke now supposes that he was not alone. The correction,
made as if haphazard, is only the more important for that reason.

* Again we encounter the inexorable Se?, must {St. Matt, xxvi, 5i; St.
Mark \iu, 31 ; St. Luke xxiv, 7, 36 ; St. John xii, 34), etc., which should have
struck the two disciples, and reminded them of the Master's language.

[437 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt third

to be introduced by the cross and the tomb. Such was
the divine plan, and none could alter it in the slightest
degree.

Then He began to give them a beautiful lesson of exe-
getic theology. The field was broad. Commencing with
Moses, He passed in review all the prophets, one by one.
Finding Himself announced on each page of their books,
He pointed out to His entranced listeners how Jesus of
Nazareth had fulfilled, even in the slightest details, all the
Messianic oracles. More particularly He brought home
to them how the sufferings of the Messiah were the neces-
sary condition of His glorification and of the redemption
of the world. Thus, once again. He proved, in the eyes of
the faithful, that the Scriptures were really the Book in
which God had, by the pen of the inspired writers, traced
in advance the portrait and the history of His Son. In all
probability, most of the applications of Scripture which
the Apostles, after Pentecost, made to the principal events
in the life of their Master, were only a reproduction of
those given by Jesus Himself.

This interesting conversation made the journey seem
quite short. They had arrived in the little town whither
the two disciples were bound. Jesus feigned a desire to
continue on His way. He particularly wished to sound
these two hearts already so deeply stirred. Had they a
true desire to hear more from this incomparable apologist?
Did the grace they had just received beget in them a thirst
for a greater grace ? Or did their vain curiosity prefer to
stop there,'' The two disciples, full of hope and already
penetrated with supernatural fervour, responded to the
pious test just as Jesus wished. They refused to allow
Him to depart. Their souls were eager to hear again these
words that suited so well their secret aspirations. The
most pressing entreaties were brought to bear upon the

[438]

BOOK II] ON THE ROAD TO EMMAUS

traveller to force Him to remain. They said to Him:
" Stay with us, because it is towards evening, and the day
is now far spent." It was above all in their hearts, since
the scenes of the Passion, that th& day had been waning.
Jesus consented to go in with them to the house where they
had intended to pass the night. We do not know whether
this dwelling belonged to them or to some member of their
family. More probably, since they seem to have been
alone at table with Jesus, they were at an inn, or in some
unoccupied dwelling whither they had brought their food
themselves.

When supper time came, the head of the table was as-
signed to the mysterious traveller. Ordinarily, the father
of the family blessed the meal, but he gave up his place
to a doctor of the law, if one were present in the gathering,
and the latter, after breaking the bread, distributed it to
the guests. This Jesus did. There was, doubtless, in His
prayer something so suave, in His voice an accent so pene-
trating, that the souls of the disciples, already deeply
moved, no longer failed to recognise Him Who spoke the
language of heaven. The breaking of the bread com-
pleted the revelation. Whether it was that Jesus conse-
crated this bread, as on the night of the Last Supper, or
that He attached merely an enlightening grace to the
piece that He gave them, the result was the same. For,
through the bread, the light radiated on Him Who offered
it. The eyes of the two disciples, sealed till then, were
opened, and the Master appeared transfigured. There was
a moment of ecstatic rapture unfortunately too brief.
And when the Master, having consoled and strengthened
their faith, had suddenly vanished,^ they began to sum up

« The expression &<l>avTos iyevero air' avrûy indicates that Jesus returned
to His ordinary state, that is, He became invisible. He had left that con-
dition in appearing to the disciples.

[439]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

their impressions. " Was not our heart burning within
us," ^^ they said to each other, " whilst He spoke in the
way and opened to us the Scriptures ? " Thus, gladly did
they go back to that moment in which they had felt faith
springing again in their hearts, and the spark of their
hopes lighting once more beneath Jesus' powerful breath.
The soul, even when certain of dwelling in the serene and
tranquil regions of sanctity, loves the memory of the deci-
sive moment that preceded its transformation, because that
moment, more than any other, was the moment of mercy
and love.

The two travellers, forgetful of the meal that had hardly
begun, arose at once and, unable to keep the good tidings
to themselves a moment longer, hastened to Jerusalem to
announce it to the Apostles. They found the Eleven and
the other disciples assembled, a prey to deep emotion. ^^
Since the story of the holy women, new information of
special importance had reached them; it was from Peter
assuring them that he had seen the Master.

We know nothing of this apparition which St. Paul,^^
however, cites as the first of all. Such omissions,
surprising though they may appear, are sufficiently indi-
cated by the Evangelists themselves to justify us in mak-
ing allowance for those that are not recounted. Thus,
what more natural than to suppose that Jesus had ap-
peared to His mother.? And yet such an apparition is
nowhere mentioned.

It was probably a short time previous to the departure
of the disciples for Emmaus, that Jesus appeared to

1" Does this observation, so intimate and so ingenuously truthful, reveal
the author of the account reproduced here by the Evangelist, and was this
author one of the two disciples? It is not impossible.

" Therefore the two travellers were not themselves of the number of the
Eleven.

>2 1 Cor. XV, 6.

[440]

BOOK II] ON THE ROAD TO EMMAUS

Simon. ^^ The first two official apparitions seem therefore
to have been for Mary the sinner, and for Simon
the renegade; as if those hearts which were the most
filled with repentance were also the most ready to receive
grace.

These astonishing accounts from so many different wit-
nesses, deeply stirred the minds of all ; but St. Mark
tells us that they did not yet succeed in convincing the
whole apostolic circle ;^^ for this a manifestation was
needed in the presence of them all. Jesus did not suffer
them to retire to rest without that consolation.

13 It is remarkable that Peter, as well as his brothers, calls himself Simon
instead of Peter, ever since his denial, as if he were one who had fallen from
his dignity, and from whom is taken the title of nobility received in the
moment of victory on the field, and afterwards lost in a shameful defeat.

•^ Here again there is a divergence between the appendix of iS^ Mark
xi, 13: oySe tKelvois èirlffrevaav, and the account in St. Lnke xxiv, 34,
where the Apostles receive the two disciples with the words: Sn, riyepOr]
6 Kvpios èvTws. No doubt we may suppose that opinion was divided, or
else that the Apostles refused to beheve, not that Jesus had risen, since
He had appeared to Peter, but that He had also manifested Himself to
the two disciples. In any case, the independence of the conclusion of
St. Mark is e\ddent here, since it seems to contradict St. Luke, while still
appearing to be a résumé of his account.

[ 441 ]

CHAPTER in

THE EVENING OF THE RESURREC-
TION

The First Apparition to the Apostolic Circle — The
Meeting of the Apostles — The Closed Doors — No
Phantom — " Handle and See " — The Unreasona-
bleness OF Doubt — Mission given the Apostles
while Awaiting Pentecost — Power of Remitting
Sins. (St. Luke, xxiv, 36-44 ; St. John, xx, 19-25 ;
St. Mark, xvi, 14.)

Everything, therefore, had largely contributed that
day to prepare the Apostles for the decisive manifestation
that was to bring it to a close. ^ The sepulchre was empty ;
since morning every one must have become convinced of it.
Magdalen first, then the holy women, claimed to have seen
Jesus risen again. Peter also had just had his apparition,
and the disciples from Emmaus confirmed all this by say-
ing that they had travelled, had talked a long time and had
even eaten witli Him. Whatever hesitation the Apostolic
college may still have felt before such solemn affirmations,
it is none the less true that their hearts must have been
profoundly moved. They had, if not the hope, at least a
strong desire to prove the strange prodigy for them-
selves.

' St. Luke xxiv, 36, et seq. ; St. John xx, 19, and the conclusion of St.
Mark xvi, 14, agree very well as to the hour: late that same day, says St.
John; as they icere at table, says St. Mark; on the return of tlie disciples
from Emmaus, says St. Luke.

[442]

BOOK II] EVENING OF THE RESURRECTION

Their conversation naturally turned upon the various
stories of the apparitions. Each one discussed, attacked
or defended them as seemed most likely. The doors of the
room in which they were assembled had been carefully
closed. There was need of precaution against the impru-
dent, and especially against enemies. No one concealed the
fact that the rumours that had spread in the city since
morning might become the signal for a violent persecution.
A vague fear hovered over the poor little flock. Suddenly
Jesus becoming visible, was there,^ in the midst of His own
who at once recognised Him. But, as He had entered while
the doors were yet shut, they believed that they were in
the presence of a spirit, and, forgetting every other dan-
ger, they became filled with that instinctive feeling of
terror that is caused by any manifestation from the other
world.

" Peace be to you ! " said Jesus, at once, wishing to

reassure them. This expression shalom lekevii was the

usual salutation among the Jews ; but in using it now, the

Master surely referred to the promise of His last farewell.

Not sufficiently in control of themselves to understand the

allusion, they displayed even greater fear on hearing Him

speak, Whom they had taken for a phantom. " It is I,"

added the Master, " fear not." With tender kindness. He

affirmed His own identity. Yet, how different from what

He was before His death and above all in His Passion ! He

presented Himself triumphant before those who had basely

abandoned Him. The consciousness of their defection and

of their incredulity stirred up in them all a deep feeling of

shame and, also, a legitimate fear. But He, astonished, as

it were, to find that His presence inspired any emotion

2 St. Liil-e xxiv, 36, and St. John xx, 19, the two Evangelists who agree so
well in relating this apparition which is merely mentioned in St. Mark xx\,
14, employ the same expression eo-rrj, to signify how sudden was this
apparition of Jesus.

[ 443]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet thied

other than j oy and confidence, asked : " Why are you
troubled, and why do thoughts arise in your hearts ? " It
was therefore ever the same eye that scanned the depths of
the soul; death had not deprived it of its divine pénétra^
tion. It read the secret objections, the private discussions,
the hesitation that withheld the Apostles from recognising
purely and simply Him Who had returned to them from
the dead. There was, too, the same mercy which no ob-
stinacy could tire, the same kindness that placed itself
generously within reach of the very weakest. By these
signs, alone, the jMaster could not remain unrecognised.

However, that the demonstration may be complete. He
determines to give further signs. It is not the soul alone
that appears here, it is also the body in its reality; and
for this reason is the Resurrection perfect. For the essence
of the Resurrection lies not in the survival of the spiritual
principle, but in the renewal of the corporeal life. Although
remaining entirely subject to the empire of the soul,
passing through space, appearing and disappearing at her
command, the body of the Risen Jesus has nevertheless a
real physical existence. It lives in the conditions of a supe-
rior and to us unknown world, but it can, whenever it will,
establish itself in the conditions of the world in which we
live ourselves. The mode, not the reality, of its existence
is changed.

" See my hands and feet," He said to them, " that it is I
myself ; handle and see ; for a spirit hath not flesh and
bones, as you can see Me to have." At the same time He
showed them His hands. His feet and His side with their
glorious wounds. It was indeed He Himself, still retain-
ing in His triumph the horrible traces of His martyrdom.
The Apostles could not believe their eyes. Their joy and
wonder were so great that they still seemed undecided.
Then prolonging the proof still further, Jesus added:

[444]

BooKu] EVENING OF THE RESURRECTION

" Have 3'ou here anything to eat ? " They had almost
finished supper ; they handed Him a piece of broiled fish —
fishermen by profession they were naturally provided with
such food — and a honeycomb. Jesus ate, not because He
needed to eat, such a supposition would destroy the theo-
logical idea of a glorified body, but in order to prove the
reality of His corporeal nature.^

When they saw Him take the food in His hands, eat it
and distribute it to those around Him, the Apostles no
longer doubted. The Master again entered into their life,
they at once became familiar with Him, and thought they
should now have Him for ever. We shall later on hear them
recalling the fact that they had eaten with Him.^ It was
then that Jesus began gently to reproach them for their
incredulity and for the obstinacy of their hearts in the
presence of the many proofs of His Resurrection received
since morning. He showed them how, when He was still
living He had prophesied all that happened, and how, be-
fore Him, the inspired writers from Moses and the authors
of the Psalms down to the last of the Prophets had looked
upon the humiliation of the Messiah as the essential pre-
liminary of His supreme glorification. That the demon-
stration might be more profitable by becoming more in-
telligible, He enlightened their minds, and then the meaning
of the Scriptures became wonderfully clear to them.^

' As we have already shown, the idea we may form of a risen and glorified
body is that it lends itself passively to all the desires of the soul, and has no
needs other than those of the soul itself. Without being annihilated, it is
subjected to the soul under such conditions that it follows all the latter's
desires, and disregards the laws of physical nature, \iz. : the laws of density-,
of space, of impenetrability, etc., at the soul's command. Jesus, therefore,
could prove by the most elementary actions of the sensible order, that His
corporeal nature had really risen again.

^Ads X, 41.

' After the account of this apparition, there is, in St. Luke, a hiatus which
interferes considerably with the historical ]:)erspective. One would say that,
as they approached the end of their work, our Evangelists, like the author of

[445]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt third

As this conviction penetrated their soul, it brought with
it a great joy. Could anything more fortunate occur to
them than to feel their faith spring again more lively than
ever? Thus they themselves entered into a new life on the
evening of this great day of the Resurrection, and their
hearts were no less ardent, as they listened to the Master's
words, than those of the two disciples on the road to
Emmaus. Jesus, Who, to calm their anxiety and to put
an end to their hesitation, had already once said : " Peace
be to you," again uttered this same wish, but with another
meaning in His words. For, now, it is for the future that
He wishes them peace and fidelity to their new obligations.

the Acts, gave less care to their production, and that the end comes about,
leaAÏng the story somewhat unfinished. Thus, St. Matthew after mention-
ing the apparition to the holy women, ends hurriedly with the apparition to
the Eleven in Galilee on the Mount indicated in advance and he leaves us
under the impression that some still doubted concerning the miracle. It is
true that in speaking of a meeting appointed for the Apostles, he seems to
suppose that there was a previous conversation held with them, or at least
with some of them, but of tliis conversation he says nothing. St. Mark, if
he finished his book himself, which is doubtful, gives, as we said above,
beginning at xvi, 9, a very brief summary of the apparitions mentioned by
the others. St. John himself ended his book at the second apparition of
Jesus to the Apostles with Thomas present. Chapter xxi is, at it were, an
appendix to his first production. In fact, he had left the way open for
additions by saying (xx, 30) that Jesus had accomplished many other prodigies
not set down in his book. But the most surprising of all is St. I>uke who,
while appearing (Acts i, 3, 4) to be well-informed concerning Jesus' ap-
paritions, arranges his conclusion (xxiv, 44, et seq.) in such a way as to have
one believe that the Ascension took place, not on the very day, unless it be
in the evening, but shortly after the Resurrection. Not easily, in fact —
for the words avrovs and avrols seem to unite the two phrases very closely —
can we introduce an interval of forty days between verses 43 and 44, or, if it
be preferred, between 49 and 50. And yet this must be done, since, either
the book of the Acts is not the work of St. Luke, or else the Evangelist knew
that Jesus, after His Resurrection, remained forty days on earth, appearing
to His disciples, conversing and eating with them. No doubt, one may
say that, intending to sum up in the Acts the history of the period preceding
the Ascen-sion, he was satisfied merely to give the general meaning of the
Master's final instructions to the Apostles and to end hurriedly with His
final glorification. All this but states a fact, without explaining why he
says nothing of the intervening sojourn of these Apostles in Galilee, nor
why we are left to believe that they had not yet quitted Jerusalem when
Jesus ascended into Heaven. And yet St. Luke is the Evangelist who

[ 446]

BOOK II] EVENING OF THE RESURRECTION

" Peace be to you ; as the Father hath sent me, I also send
you." ^ The Master's work being finished among men,
that of the Apostles begins. At the close of His glorious
labours, He charges them to take up His work, to develop
it, to complete it. He had already many times promised
them this sublime mission. He, in His new life, represents
the Father Himself, and with His authority, as the Father
had sent Him, He deems it His personal right to send in
turn His representatives into the world. The latter shall
have nothing to fear from their enemies. By the miracle
of the Resurrection, their Master has sufficiently proved
His omnipotence. But, He not only wishes them peace. He
assures them of it, and none can deprive them of it. The
world is open before them, and Jesus commands them to
advance fearlessly like a valiant army announcing to the
world the prodigy that has been accomplished. Indomitable
firmness and courageous zeal shall be necessary. It belongs
to the spirit of God to communicate to them these es-
sentials.

At the same time Jesus breathed upon them and said:
" Receive ye the Holy Ghost : whose sins you shall forgive,
they are forgiven them, and whose sins you shall retain,

wrote with the intention of gi%Ting a continued and wisely ordered history
of the Good-Tidings! We may judge by this of the omissions to be found
in the others, omissions which, as in the present instance, gave them very
httle trouble. For, although they were able, if not to supply them with a single
word, at least to point them out, it is evident that they took no pains to do
so. Why did not the Son of God, Who came on earth to give Himself to
us wholly and entirely, will to leave us a less incomplete history of His life ?
Was it perhaps in order that the Church might have the work of prolonging
that life, by making Him survive, to more advantage than by means of books,
in the development of His doctrine, and by the perpetual blossoming of
His saints? We know no better answer to this serious question.

^ St. John places the definitive mission of the Apostles and the com-
munication of the Holy Ghost, at this first interview. Is this because, in
his especial desire to close his Gospel with Thomas' act of faith he meant
to group together in the account of the first apparition, the instructions given
to the Apostles later on? Was the conferring of powers and gifts really
gradual and successive? The suggestion is not an improbable one.

[447]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pAETTHmD

they are retained." We have here neither the simple
promise of Pentecost nor Pentecost itself. Jesus provides
the Apostles with the heavenly aid which they need in order
to stand together, to sustain one another and to resist
until the solemn moment when the Spirit shall come with
His abundance of gifts. This present communication of
the Spirit to the disciples is, at the Resurrection, what
Pentecost shall be at the Ascension. As Jehovah had with
a breath ^ given life to the first man, Jesus, Who also pos-
sesses the fulness of the Godhead, with a breath confers
new life on the new creation ; and as the breath of God had
produced in Adam's soul the image of the Creator, so the
breath of the Risen Son shall impress upon the souls of the
Apostles the resemblance of the Redeemer and confer on
them His own power.

For the Apostles shall have the right to remit or to re-
tain sins. Jesus, during His public life, exercised this
marvellous prerogative, and without it the establishment
of the Kingdom of God would have been impossible; for,
above all, judgment must be passed on the worthiness or
unworthiness of those who seek admission to it. The new
society has its goods, its honour, its proper life, and to
share in them one must be accepted, and to be accepted one
must be examined and judged. On this basis rests the
Catholic doctrine of confession, and to every unbiassed
mind its logic is irrefutable. For, how admit to a com-
munity of spiritual goods in the Church those who are not
known .f* How may they be known without examination
and without confession ? Once the case is heard, the Apos-
tle exercises the most august of powers in passing sentence ;
he confers life or death, he opens or closes the door, he
embraces or he condemns.

The exercise of this power at once became necessary ;
''Gen. ii, 7.
[ 448 ]

BooKu] EVENING OF THE RESURRECTION

for, of the enemies of the Crucified, a certain number,
touched with repentance, were soon to soHcit the favour of
being inscribed as proselytes of the Risen One. Who then
was to grant them pardon? The King being no longer
there, officially delegated judges seemed indispensable.
Jesus deputed the Apostles for this sublime function.

Their mission has been perpetuated throvighout the
ages, and the Church absolves or condemns, not only in her
general councils, but in those secret and private arraign-
ments in which the priest, having listened to the revelations
and regrets of a soul, declares that this soul is worthy or
unworthy to participate in the holy mysteries ; that it is
pure or impure ; that it is grafted upon Jesus Christ, or
that it lives far from Him. Not only does he judge, but
he heals and restores by the remission of sins. It is a
strange phenomenon of the moral order that, beginning on
the day on which the Master spoke thus, a whole race of
men marked by God has pubhcly claimed this power to
remit sin. The most incredulous cannot deny that these
men have succeeded, in all times, in silencing the bitterest
remorse in the souls of the greatest criminals, and in pro-
viding them true consolation as they breathed their last.
Greater still, these same men have most frequently effected
a reform in the moral life of those who came to speak to
them their tearful avowals and to submit to them the lowly
condition of their souls. Nor can they deny that, even
from a purely philosophical point of view, sin finds in con-
fession as practised in the Catholic church its most natural
counterpoise. For, if it be a sin of pride, the humiliation
expiates it ; if it be rebellion, confession presents a mediator
authorised by God; if it were an act of fooHshness, con-
fession applies a great lesson of wisdom. And for eighteen
centuries we behold these judges, in no way resembling
those of earth, carrying on with impenetrable secrecy, with

[449]

LIFE OF CHRIST [p.^t thibd

charity all fatherly, the most diverse and most singular
trials, leaving it to the culprits alone to accuse themselves,
accepting their deposition without questioning, and pro-
nouncing over them with inexhaustible charity a sentence
that, instead of blighting, reinstates, that gives life to him
who rightfully should expect only death. Is not this a sign
that the institution is divine, and that confession is the
logical consequence of the power conferred on the Apostles
of retaining or of remitting sin ?

Jesus had, no doubt, uttered with some solemnity the
sacramental words that supplied the Church with judges.
His breath, falling upon the heads of His chosen ones,
had just penetrated them with a new power. They were
deeply moved, and the Master had already left them,
though they seemed still to hear His voice and to receive
His benediction.

They spent the remainder of the evening divided be-
tween joy caused by this newly received prerogative, and
the weighty thoughts inspired by the henceforth incontes-
table fact of the Resurrection.

[450]

CHAPTER IV

THE OCTAVE OF THE RESURREC-
TION.—JESUS AGAIN APPEARS TO
THE APOSTLES.

Why all Must Believe Before Going Back into Gali-
lee, AND WHY Thomas did not Believe — The Condi-
tions WHICH He had Required for His act of Faith
— How Jesus Accepts and Fulfils them — The Disci-
ple Confronted with the Master's Wounds — " My
Lord and My God " — ^What Kind of Faith is the
Most Meritorious? (St. John, xx, 24-29.)^

The Apostles spent the entire Paschal week in Jerusalem.
The Mosaic law obliged them to do this. They could have
departed on the day after the Sabbath, that is on the
octave or eighth day after the Resurrection. But it seems
quite natural that they should have wished to celebrate so
consoling a memory.

We find them, in fact, closely housed in their place of
retreat, as on the day of the Resurrection. This is a proof
that the Jews had not yet ceased to maintain towards them
a threatening attitude. Jesus determined to bring their
joy to its chmax by appearing again in the midst of them.

1 The end of St. Mark xvi, 14, sums up this apparition and the preceding
one as follows : " At length He appeared to the Eleven as they were at table :
and He upbraided them with their incredulity and hardness of heart because
they did not believe them who had seen Him after He was risen again."
The rest recalls St. Luke and his inaccurate perspective with reference to
the Ascension.

[ 451 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt third

Besides, there was still one lamb to be brought back to the
fold; and of those whom the Father had confided to Him
He meant that none should be suffered to perish except the
wretched son of perdition. Among the Eleven there was
one who, brave and good as he was, did not as yet share
the faith of his brethren. But the Apostolic college could
not return to Galilee to preach the great tidings to advan-
tage unless as one united body with one heart, one soul,
one faith.

At the time of Jesus' first apparition, Thomas Didy-
mus (the Twin) was absent. The Evangelist does not say
why. Had discouragement seized upon his melancholy
soul? Had he separated from the others to give himself
up wholly to sadness because of his disappointment.'' Did
he wish to spare them the scandal of his unbelief.'' Was
his absence simply the result of chance ? On the evening of
a day so full of important news, and at mealtime, this is
hardly probable. However it may be, he must have found
that soHtude, at such decisive moments of the moral life,
is seldom profitable to a troubled heart. When, moved by
the constant reports of the apparition of Jesus, he deter-
mined to rejoin his colleagues, the latter told him with
eager joy: " We have seen the Lord! " And, no doubt,
they recounted the details of His visit, yet without awaken-
ing in the stolid sceptic the faith which henceforth they
felt so lively in their own hearts. Thomas, in fact, merely
accused them of being credulous, and, surrounding himself
more than ever with objections and doubts: "Except I
shall see," he said, " in His hands the print of the nails,
and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my
hand into His side, I will not believe." The form of his
reply and the threefold condition which he requires for
his act of faith clearly show how resolute and how logical
was his incredulity. He not only wished to see, 'as his col-

[452]

BOOK II] OCTAVE OF THE RESURRECTION

leagues claimed to have seen, but he demanded to touch the
distinctive marks of the Crucified. We perceive that the
horrible picture of Calvary had remained bright in the
imagination of the disciple who was always loving, though
unbelieving, and the more discouraged as he was the more
loving.

A week had passed, and the joy of his companions, so
happily convinced, had made no change in the sad state
of his soul. But the conviction of the rest was in no way
displeasing to him, and during this time he remained faith-
fully by them. Perhaps they were all together hoping that
a new manifestation might be granted to celebrate the
octave of that one which had so largely consoled them. Be-
sides, it was the eve of their departure for Galilee: would
the Master suffer the young and valiant army to return to
the mountains without giving it His last word of in-
struction ?

On the evening of the eighth day, in fact, and in the
same room where they had eaten the Paschal meal — the
dearest memories bound them to this glorious guest-cham-
ber— while the doors were still shut, Jesus again presented
Himself in the midst of His disciples, saying : " Peace be
to you ! " Great must have been Thomas' emotion, espe-
cially when the Master, taking him aside, said to him:
" Put in thy finger hither, and see My hands ; and bring
hither thy hand, and put it into My side ; and be not faith-
less, but believing." This was the psychological moment
when all should be lost or won, the point at which his soul
should finally be guided towards faith or towards unbelief,
and choose between life and death. Did Thomas recover
his apostolic faith or prove himself a renegade? To men-
tion thus one by one with such accuracy, the rashly formu-
lated exactions of the disciple, was evidently enough for
Him Who spoke to prove that He was Jesus. If with all

[453]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

His gentleness He gave to His invitation a somewhat iron-
ical tone, it was the more deeply to move the disciple's
soul. At the same time He showed His hands with their
terrible stigmata, exposed to %'iew the wound in His side
and seemed to await the decisive experiment which Thomas
had demanded. The scene was particularly striking. The
Apostle, disturbed at hearing so accurate a repetition of
words which, however, he had not pronounced in the Mas-
ter's presence, had risen. Surprised, transported, he ap-
proached the Risen One. A heavenly light flooded him
with its rays, the evidence overwhelmed liim, his conscience
accused liim. The sight of the truth, like the sight of God,
puts man beyond himself. Thomas, as if in an ecstasy,
falls on his knees, and oppressed by his emotion, cries out :
"My Lord and My God!" Thus all at once did this
troubled soul pass from the most obstinate unbelief to the
most explicit faith. " I will not believe," he had said a
week before. " Thou art my Lord and my God," he now
exclaims. With these words he surpassed all the homage
paid to Jesus during His mortal life, and proved that even
among believers the last may suddenly become the first.

It were vain to try to transform into a vulgar exclama-
tion a dogmatic assertion formulated with such energy.
The Jew had no right to employ the name of God to ex-
press his surprise or his joy,^ and besides, the Evangelist
says in so many words that Thomas was answering Jesus, ^
when he said : " My Lord and my God ! " The title God,
therefore, is applied to Him as well as that of Lord, and
to Him only can it be applied. Moreover, these words on
Thomas' lips do not express more than his thought. Like
every soul that reasons much before it beheves, and be-
lieves strongly and for ever, when it has been convinced,

*Exod. XX, 7.

^ St. John XX, 28: koI elirsv ahrif.

[454]

BOOK II] OCTAVE OF THE RESURRECTION

Thomas formulates liis creed, ^ and he will stand bound by
it even to the shedding of his blood ; for we know that his
life ended in martyrdom. His words and his thouo-ht,
which seem to terminate " so happily a Gospel which begins
with these words: ''And the Word was God," were the
first and fundamental dogma of the nascent Church. Not
very long after, in fact, Pliny reports to Trajan that the
Christians s'uig hymns to the Chr-'isf as to a God. In his
enthusiasm, the Apostle had been especially logical. Com-
paring what he had formerly heard the ]\Iaster say of His
relations with the Father,^ with what he now saw, he felt
himself impelled to declare that the Master was God.

So instead of reproving this act of faith which enthu-
siasm seemed to transform into blasphemy. Our Lord ap-
proves it. He does not say to Thomas, as the angel of the
Apocalypse says to John : ''Adore God : " but, inasmuch
as the acknowledgment that He is Lord and God is the
essential condition of faith, He concludes : *' Because thou
hast seen ]Me, Thomas, thou hast believed : blessed are they
that have not seen, and haye believed ! " Jesus, therefore,
distinguishes two kinds of faith: one which will not be
given except after seeing and on one's own experience ; the
other which is given on the simple testimony the veracity
of which has been established. He does not absolutely re-
ject the first, and the example of Thomas proves that He

* The energy he puts into it is remarkable. He salutes the Master:
'■'O Kvpiés fuiv.' " and then God: "koI ô Bees ixov.'" Not only is the grada-
tion significant, but the repetition of the article and of the word fiov admir-
ably emphasise the cry of the beUeving soul who holds the object of his
faith and clings to it ■with energy.

* St. John, in fact, deems his book completed with tliis splendid profession
of faith. He might have recounted many other prodigies, but they were
not necessary for the end he had in %-iew. He sought to establish the final
conclusion that Jesus is indeed the Christ, the Son of God, in order that this
faith might give life to those who profess it (^S/. John xx, 30, 31). He has
succeeded in doing so.

« St. John xiv, 9.

[455]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet third

deigns at times to yield to its exactions even when they are
most excessive. But such an instance can be only an ex-
ception, otherwise God would owe at least one miracle to
every believer. The real faith that shall build up the
Christian Church, the faith of the future, is that which
will believe because others have seen, and which, relying on
their sincere testimony, proclaims : " I believe, without
having seen, that God has spoken." After this charitable
lesson, the Master disappeared, and the Apostles now
thought only of the happiness of seeing Him soon again in
Galilee.

[456]

CHAPTER V

THE APPARITION OF JESUS ON THE
SHORE OF LAKE TIBERIAS

The Apostles in Galilee — Fishing on the Lake — The
Man on the Shore — " Cast the Net on the Right
Side " — " It is the Lord " — Peter Walking on the
Water — The Meal on the Strand — " Simon, Lovest
Thou Me ? " — Triple Expiation and Complete Re-
instatement— " Feed My Lambs, Feed My Sheep "
- — Prophecy of Peter's Martyrdom — His Words
Concerning St. John. (St. John xxi, 1-24.)^

Any delay in Jerusalem was fraught with danger to the
Apostles. The hierarchic faction had kept close watch of
them. They departed after the festival, and, following
the Master's advice, returned into Galilee. The future
was still a mystery to them, but they looked for important
events.

Their first care was likely to spread on their way the

* The Gospel of St. John, as we have said, seemed to have ended with
the second manifestation of Jesus to the Apostles, Thomas being present.
In fact, the conclusion is categorical: "Many other signs also did Jesus in
sight of His disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are
written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, and
that believing you may have life in His name." The author shows there-
fore that his plan is carried out; he has not sought to be complete, and none
can reproach him for his omissions; he is content with having proved, by a
selection of narratives, the di^^ne mission and sonship of Jesus, which was
his chief object. How then are we to explain that a new chapter is added
to a work which clearly is already finished? It can only be an appendix
with some special object, whether that of correcting the false interpretation

[457]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

great tidings of the resurrection of Jesus, in order to
remove, the bad impression caused by the news of His
death. Eager to sustain one another and to lend greater
strength to their testimony, they seem to have made Peter
their spokesman. Capharnaum was their chosen head-
quarters. There they found suitable elements long since
prepared for the founding of the new Christian society.

given to Jesus' words concerning John's immortality (v. 23) , or that of es-
tabUshing once for all tlie primacy of Peter. As a matter of fact, critics of
all times have accepted this explanation. It is impossible to deny the
authenticity of this fragment; every intrinsic and extrinsic argument is in
its favour. For, setting aside the question of the last two verses, which
may furnish a theme for special discussion, we find there once more not
only the language of St. John {efpavepuaeu éavrhv, compare with vii, 4, and
xi, 33; the sea of Tiberias, which is found nowhere else but in St. John
vi, 1 ; oiSa/xev which occurs twice here, and is quite peculiar to the fourth
Gospel; àvdpaKid, cf. v, xviii, 18; the twofold àfi^v; Nathanael instead
of Bartholomeiv; the disciple ivhom Jesiis loved, etc.), but also his facile
style, and his naïve vivacity. As for certain slight differences of style which
may be discovered by the closest criticism, they are explained by the lateness
of the date at which this supplement must have been written and added.

On the other hand, while possessing the character of an appendix added
later on, this fragment was certainly inserted in the text of the very first
edition of the fourth Gospel. There is not a single manuscript found with-
out it. This is decisive, and one can only ask why St. John did not em-
body it in the text of his Gospel before the conclusion of chapter xx. To
explain this anomaly, some have ventured the opinion that this passage,
written on the report of the Apostle, had been afterwards attached to the
end of his Gospel. They were really the words of St. John himself, but
they were not meant to be included in his book. Whoever had consigned
this graceful account to writing had joined it to the Gospel, not venturing
to interpolate it into the text. From the beginning the Church recognised
in it the language of St. John, preserved by a faithful secretary, and kept
for it its place as a supplement or appendix, which some one had respect-
fully assigned it. As for the last two verses, an imitation of the conclusion
of chapter xx, the twenty-fourth seems to be the personal work of the same
scribe who has given us chapter xxi, and who in concert with the rest of the
faithful about him is pleased to pay homage to the sincerity of John, the
author of the Gospel: oïSafiev Srt àX-qO^js iariv t] fiaprvpla avrov. The
twenty-fifth, which is not found in the Sinaiticus, and the authenticity of
which seems to many very uncertain, carmot in any case be more than a
personal addition made by the one who, in the name of his brethren, wrote
verse 24. He no longer speaks in the plural, oïSaixev, but in the singular,
olfMi, and the hj^perbolic form which he employs is absolutely different
in tone from all that precedes. Some have thought that they recognised in
this exaggerative phraseology certain characteristics of Papias; but we can
find something analogous to this also in St. Ignatius and even in Hermas.

[458]

BOOK II] ON SHORE OF LAKE TIBERIAS

There they could devote themselves with profit to the work
of the Apostolate. This accounts for the presence of the
seven personages mentioned in the Gospel at the beginning
of this narration : Simon Peter, Thomas the Twin, Na-
thanael of Cana of Galilee, the two sons of Zebedee,^ and
two other disciples.^

One evening, as if desirous of some diversion from their
serious thoughts, and perhaps, too, to provide for their
subsistence, Peter said to his friends : " I go a fishing " ;
the latter replied : " We also come with thee " ; and they
all embarked together. They found pleasure no doubt in
recalling upon the blue waters of the lake the sweet
memories of former days ; there the Master had called
them, had taught and loved them. But, while their souls
were thus filled with tender emotions, their fishing, carried
on in the midst of many distractions, was far from suc-
cessful. The whole night passed, but they caught nothing.

Towards morning, a man appeared on the shore.
Through the haze and the distance they discerned His out-
line only imperfectly. The disciples were far from sus-
pecting that this was the ]\Iaster. He said to them,
" Children, have you any meat .'' " They answered Him :
" No." They imagined Him to be a wayfarer hard
pressed ■with hunger and in quest of food. " Cast the
net on the right side of the ship," said the mysterious
speaker, " and you shall find." They obeyed at once,
and caught so great a quantity of fish that they drew

* The sons of Zebedee being named here the last, and out of the place they
ordinarily occupy in the list of Apostles, we may see in this a proof that
John himself is the author of this account. He modestly gives himself the
last place and a general designation: the sons of Zebedee.

' The question has been asked, Who were these two disciples whose names
are not mentioned ? Was one of them the man for whose sake the pleasant
incident seems to have been recorded? Some one has suggested Aristion
and John the Presbjier, mentioned by Papias as "disciples of the Lord."
But it is rash to assign names where none are given, and to place in Galilee
Ephesians who in all probability were never there.

[ 459 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [taetthied

in their nets only with great difficulty. The right
hand has always been, according to Scripture, in the
Old as well as in the New Testament, the better side. Ben-
jamin, the son of the right hand, is the beloved of his
father and the best beloved of Jehovah.* The sheep, or the
elect, are at the right hand of the Sovereign Judge, while
the goats, or the wicked, pass to His left. However, the
real cause of this prodigious catch was not altogether the
direction given to the net, but the information furnished
by their questioner and accepted by the Apostles. Let
them at any time cast their net in obedience to the Master's
word, the time of these fishers of men shall never be wasted.
The disciples looked with astonishment on the man who
had given them such opportune advice, yet none of them
seemed to recognise Him. John, with his eagle eye, or
rather with the glance of a heart whose keenness penetrates
the mist and overleaps the distance, was the first to under-
stand this happy incident. " It is the Lord ! " said he. At
these words, Peter took up his coat, and putting it on
(for he was naked ^) rushed out into the water the sooner
to reach Him. The others, dragging their nets full of fish
in tow after the boat, reached shore more slowly. They
were two hundred cubits from the shore.

*Gen. xliv, 22; Deiit. xxxiii, 12.

' It is true that sometimes the word yvfiv6s may be said of a man who
has on nothing but a tum'c ; in this sense the Greeks were accustomed to
say yv/xvhv ip r^ x'^wviV/c^. This, however, is not its usual meaning. In
St. Mark xiv, 52, it means a person who is absohitely naked. What is to
be understood from this text is that St. Peter was not in condition to appear
with decency in Jesus' presence. That is why he covers himself with a
garment, wmch, however, is far from helping him more quickly to reach the
shore. To-day the fishermen on the lake enter the water wholly naked,
except the Christians who, for decency's sake, wear a light apron which does
not impede their movements. To make distinctions between x'"'"'^'') èirev-
Sirris and IfjAriov, when fishermen are in question, is to attribute to these
poor creatures a luxuriousness in the matter of apparel of which they have
no idea. The best attired among them wear a wide tunic shaped like a
blouse.

[460]

BOOK II] ON SHORE OF LAKE TIBERIAS

The character and the future rôle of the two disciples
in the Church seem here to be happily indicated. John will
be the contemplative and the seer ; Peter the man of energy
and action. Without asking the Master this time to bid
him walk upon the water, he rushes forth to Him Whom
John has recognised. He swims, he runs, and finally he
reaches His side. This enthusiastic activity has become
the distinctive characteristic of the successors of Peter.
Instinctively as much as by their providential mission, they
are always the first to defend the truth, to discover error,
to proclaim the good tidings. They hasten towards Jesus
and towards His light, guided by their enthusiasm and
their ardour, while others with their books, their eloquence,
their patient labours arrive at His side only after long
waiting. As a rule, in the struggle against heresy Peter
leads the way, the others follow.

Once landed, the Apostles found bread, a brazier already
lighted, and a partly broiled fish. How had this come
about.'' The Evangelist is not concerned about this, any
more than he was about the manner of our Lord's entrance
into the guest-chamber while the doors were closed. For
him Jesus is the Lord ; there is no need, therefore, to be
occupied with the how of things when He is in question.
If, during His mortal life, He changed water into wine, if
He multiplied loaves and fishes, could He not, in His trans-
figured life, provide even more easily by His creative
power whatever might contribute to the moral formation
of His disciples .P In this instance. He desires to preside
over another miraculous meal, for it is with this bread and
this fish that He intends to feed the seven fishermen. It
has not been sufficiently remarked that there is nothing
whatsoever to indicate that the fish thus miraculously
caught was then cooked, nor that the Apostles ate of it.
It is true that Jesus gave the order : " Bring hither, of

[ 461 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paktthikd

the fishes which you have now caught ! " but He did so in
order to have them make an inventory of them, as it were,
as they threw them out upon the shore, and to have them
ascertain • the prodigious size of the capture they had
made. Peter at once went into the boat and drew out of
the water the net filled with one hundred and fifty-three
fishes. It is a detail worthy of notice that notwithstand-
ing the great weight, the net was not in the least broken.
It has been thought that these one hundred and fifty-
three fishes, representing all the various species in the
lake,® were a figure of the many souls whom the Apostles,
with the co-operation of the Holy Ghost, should later on
capture in the world and lead triumphantly to the Mas-
ter's feet.

Up to this moment the other disciples, out of respect,
had remained at a distance. The miraculous haul having
been verified, Jesus called to them : " Come and dine."
They approached, but with some timidity, not even ventur-
ing, as the Evangelist says, to ask Him Who He was, and
thus to engage Him in conversation. In reality, they saw
that He was the Risen Jesus, but it may be that they
discerned in His looks something mysterious, something
extraordinary, heavenly, that forbade them to think of re-
suming the familiar relations of former days. He, draw-
ing near to them, took the bread and the fish, and began to
distribute them. It happened that, by an act of His al-
mighty power, there was enough to satisfy all. As in the
beautiful days of His Galilean ministry, they were all
together on the shore of the lake, assembled about a

^ St. Jerome, in Ezech. xlvii, 9, claims that the ancients knew only one
hundred and fifty-three kinds of fish. He quotes Oppian, a Cilician poet,
contemporary of Marcus Aurelius. But it is more probable, notwithstand-
ing all the symbolical dissertations on this number, that it signifies merely
a great quantity. It is given here only because Peter, being a fisherman by
profession, was determined to know the number of such a fine catch ; John,
a fisherman, too, takes a special interest in reporting this good luck.

[462]

BooKii] ON SHORE OF LAKE TIBERIAS

miraculous and fraternal repast. The Master, the true
head of the family, presided. We know nothing of the
pious discourses which constituted its charm. It may be
that silence was the most eloquent expression of their hap-
piness. There is nothing to keep us from believing that,
if Jesus said but few words. He gave Himself whole and
entire under the figure of the bread as at the Last Supper.
Piscis assus, Christus est passus! says St. Augustine. In
this case, the banquet prepared on the shore was not only
a symbol, but above all a foretaste of that of heaven, in
which the Son of God, giving Himself to souls as their
reward, becomes at once their nourishment and their ever-
lasting reward.^

The twofold miracle which had just taken place was
only the preliminary of a more important scene which of
itself was quite sufficient to justify a supplementary chap-
ter in the Gospel of St. John.

The meal was over. Ever since his fall, and notwith-
standing his repentance, Simon, although he had not lost
the first place among his brethren — a sin of weakness
does not abrogate the dignity conferred on a man by the
hand of God, and Jesus had honoured the chief of the
Apostles with a special manifestation — Simon was, how-
ever, still sad and humiliated. His fault seemed to him
the more unpardonable as his primacy was the more un-
challenged. It seemed best to Jesus that his humiliation
should now come to an end. The opportunity appeared to
be well suited for a public reinstatement. The boat which
lay there upon the lake and the miraculous draught of

' As if he desired once more to correct the Synoptics, the fourth Evangelist
observes that this manifestation of Jesus to the Apostles, who were nearly
all present, was the third. He even says: ^Stj rplrov, "now (or already)
the third time," to indicate that there had been other manifestations. This
therefore ought to be considered anterior to all those manifestations which
occurred in Galilee, regardless of the various appearances to individuals,
such as Mary Magdalen, Peter, the disciples at Emmaus, and James,

[463]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt third

fishes just taken reminded Simon of the blessed day on
which the mercy of the Master had chosen him as a disci-
ple, and destined him later to become an apostle ; that had
been the fairest day in all his life. At the same time the
smoking brazier at his side may have reminded him of the
fire before which, in the court-yard of the high-priest, on
that awful night, he had, like a coward, thrice denied Him
Who had chosen him ; that night was the dark spot in his
career. Jesus in His mercy determined to remove this fear-
ful memory in the presence of them all. A threefold pro-
testation of love could well outweigh a threefold denial.
" Simon, son of Jolm," He said to him, and by this name
He led him back once more to the time when he was not yet
Peter, " lovest thou Me more than these? " The question,
put in these terms, plainly alluded to Peter's saying : " Al-
though all shall be scandalised in Thee, I will never be
scandalised," and recalled his presumptuous protestations
before his fall. With profound humility Simon replied
"Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee." He no
longer seeks any comparison with his brethren ; he sets aside
even the primacy suggested by Jesus. Besides, the Mas-
ter, in His question, has employed a word that signifies
profound love, and Peter, in his response, changes it to
another which means only an affectionate attachment.^
His humility henceforth keeps him in fear of saying too
much and of producing works that may fall below the
level of his protestations. With all this precaution in his
language, he simply appeals to the appreciation of Him
Who alone can read in the depths of the soul. Then the
Master, with kindly authority, said to him : " Feed my
lambs." ^ No doubt. He Himself shall always be the true

' This is the difference between wyairâv used by Jesus and <pi\ûv used by
the disciple.

9 The word àpvla instead of &pvas shows the Shepherd's tender love of the
youngest, the most inexperienced, and the most interesting portion of the flock.

[464]

BOOK II] ON SHORE OF LAKE TIBERIAS

Shepherd ; for the lambs are still His ; they are His inalien-
able flock : "Oi'^5 meas,''^ observes St. Augustine with justice,
" sicut meas pasce, non sicut tuas.^^ But since He is not
to remain visibly with His flock, He naturally selects His
chief and essential representative, through whom as inter-
mediary He shall give to the feeble young lambs the most
attentive and devoted care. To feed, that is, to nourish with
the bread of truth, ^^ to distribute substantial life shall be
the foremost duty of Peter, and, after him, of all the shep-
herds.

There was a moment's silence, and again Jesus spoke,
with greater solemnity : " Simon, son of John, lovest thou
Me.^^ " This time He makes no comparison, since Peter
evidently wishes none; but the suppression of comparison
does not lessen the purport of the question. It is not
whether Peter loves more than the others, which perhaps
would not be saying enough, but, absolutely speaking,
whether or not he loves. Surprised, no doubt, at this in-
sistence, the disciple replies with the same humility as be-
fore : " Yea, Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee," And
Jesus says: "Feed my lambs." ^^ These latter must be
not only nourished, but also guided, for they do not re-
main stationary in the fold.

Finally a third time, by way of contrast with the third
denial, Jesus said: " Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me.'' "
Peter was grieved, either because the allusion to his three-
fold denial became more evident, or because he thought his
Master doubted his love.^" Summoning all his energy, yet

" The first time Jesus employs the verb jSJo-kw, which means have them fed;
the second time He uses the verb iroifxaluoD, which signifies the general control
of the flock, and the third time He recurs to the expression used at first.

'' The word irpofiarla, which is the true reading, signifies an intermediate
degree, in the flock, between the lambs and the ewes, irpéfiara. Here once
more is this special class designated by a diminutive full of tender meaning.

12 It would appear so, since in His third question, Jesus had used
Peter's own word ipiKelv, instead of àyairây, which He had employed up

[465]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

losing none of the touching reserve which had dictated his
former replies, he says : " Lord, Thou knowest all things ;
Thou knowest that I love Thee." " Feed my sheep," added
the Master. Thus, once again. He proclaimed the pri-
macy of Peter in charging him to feed even the ewes of the
flock. Nothing, therefore, must be allowed to escape the
vigilance of the shepherd who is delegated ; and all, without
exception, shall be brought into subjection beneath his
staff. Here we find the definitive consecration of the
promises of former days, the fulfilment of which the
Apostle, by his fall, seemed to have postponed. The keys
of the Kingdom are conferred on him as on the master of
the house, the first and supreme pastor. Now that he is
converted, it is his duty to confirm his brethren. He must
do this with patience and with kindness. When one has
fallen himself, it costs him less to be indulgent towards
the weaknesses of others. If Jesus preserves him his mis-
sion, in spite of his sin, and, perhaps, because of his sin —
for which he had atoned — it is because He sees that he is
henceforth more capable than the others of clemency to-
wards men and of zeal for the glory of God. Three times
has Peter affirmed that he loved the Master, because the
more elevated his dignity, the more sublime must be his
charity. He is bound to love threefold more than the
faithful, and twofold more than his brethren. Vigilance,
abnegation, and devotion shall be the proof of this love.

But the Master has not yet done speaking to him the
last words of His testament. For Simon is to be His suc-
cessor not only in the government of the flock, but also in
the harder and not less glorious way of sacrifice. He
shall advance through the apostolate to martyrdom, as the
Master has done. This, according to John the Evange-

to that point, and He seemed to ask if, even on that level, his love was
real.

[466]

BOOK II] ON SHORE OF LAKE TIBERIAS

list ^^ (and exegetes need seek no other meaning) is what
is expressed in the following words of the Saviour : "Amen,
amen, I say to thee: when thou wast younger, thou didst
gird thyself and didst walk where thou wouldst. But when
thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and
another shall gird thee, and lead thee whither thou wouldst
not." Jesus, therefore, distinguishes two phases in Peter's
life, one in which he has freely disposed of himself, as a
young man who preserves his full independence so long as
he remains single ; the other when, in accepting the serious
life of the head of the family, he has lost his liberty. For
a man's independence is always in inverse ratio to the au-
thority he receives or assumes in the domestic circle. This
latter phase, which ordinarily marks mature age, makes an
entire change in his existence. Thus it is that by reason
of his primacy, Peter shall be the slave of his new obliga-
tions. God will take care so to bind him, that he shall be
unable to loose himself, and, drawn on from sacrifice to sac-
rifice, in order to insure the prosperity of the flock, he
shall go on even to the laying down of his own life.

Such is the general meaning of this prophecy. More-
over, in the imagery employed we must discern an indica-
tion of the martyrdom reserved for the chief of the
Apostles. Ordinarily the prophetic style follows a double
parallel sense, both equally true, and we cannot but recog-
nise in the aged man who stretches his arms before the one
who binds him, Simon Peter, the venerable head of the
Christian family, suffering himself to be chained at the
close of his laborious apostolate. Following his Master's
example, he will advance bravely to the horrible agony of
the cross, ^^ and placing his trembling hands upon the re-

13 St. John xxi, 19.

'< Antiquity bears witness that St. Peter suffered at the same time as St.
Paul, and consequently durin» the persecution under Nero. All testimony
agrees that he was crucified. Cf. Tertullian, Scorv., 15; Prœscr., 35;

[467]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet third

doubtable tree, he shall seek there the palm of a glorious
martyrdom. ^^

On finishing His prophecy, Jesus, as if He had some se-
cret advice to give him, invited Peter to follow Him.
Peter followed. But John, already ashamed of having re-
mained in the boat and of not having imitated the eager-
ness of liis friend, would not let Jesus depart without ac-
companying Him for at least a moment. He indicates,
moreover, the reasons that seemed to justify his temerity.
Was he not the disciple whom Jesus loved? Could he be-
lieve that the Master would keep secret from him that which
He was to confide to Peter.'' Was it not to him that the
Lord, at the Last Supper, had confided the name of the
traitor.'' After having served as intermediary for Peter
and as confidant for Jesus on so grave an occasion, how
could he now be a hindrance to their conversation.'' John
therefore approached them. Besides, for some time past,
he was unable to separate himself from the son of Jona.
" Lord, and what shall this man do.^* " asked Simon, who,
on hearing his friend's footstep, wished either to introduce
him into the conversation, or to obtain at least a kind word
for him.^^ " So I will have him to remain till I come, what
is it to thee.'' " said Jesus ; " follow thou Me." This reply,

Eusebius, H. E., ii, 25. Origen, in Eusebius ii, 25, and iii, 1, relates that
he begged to be crucified head downwards, a request that accords well with
the ardent nature and the profound humility of the converted Peter.

1" The Evangelist, observing that these words foretold the death of Peter,
indicates thus that liis Gospel was published after the martyrdom of the
head of the Apostles, that is, after the year 64 a.d. If we grant that the
details of this prophecy have any real value, we may find here a true picture
of the crucifixion: Peter, at the close of his career, ircw 5è yfpdffr)s, shall
extend his arms or his hands è/cTcfeîs ràs x*'P^^ î""' ^^ '^t some one else
gird his loins &K\os ae (éa-ti, and shall raise him up thus bound otati,
carrying him wliither nature would refuse to go, Hirov ol 6é\eis. Jesus, re-
cently crucified and speaking in this manner, would seem to indicate that
crucifixion was usually effected with the aid of cords.

*' It seems illogical to seek in Peter's question for anything more than a
feeling of tender afl'ection for John. The chief of the Apostles has always
loved the disciple for whom the Master Himself had a special affection. He

[468]

BOOK II] ON SHORE OF LAKE TIBERIAS

the purpose of which was to leave John out of the discus-
sion by gently reprimanding Peter for his indiscreet affec-
tion, seemed like a prophecy to those who heard it. They
thought that Jesus, having announced the violent death
of the latter, had also in veiled terms proclaimed the im-
mortality of the former.^" This was an error, as the
Evangelist observes, for the Master had by no means said
that John was not to die ; and if there were in His reply any
meaning other than the natural meaning of the words, if
the verb remain signified not only to remain with the apos-
tolic group, instead of following Peter quite inoppor-
tunely, but to remain in this life, we would have to conclude
that the death of the martyr and that of the just man
differ one from the other in this that the martyr is con-
sidered as going to Jesus of his own accord, in a flight of
generosity, while Jesus comes to take the just man dying of
old age to introduce him into heaven. ^^ The extraordi-
nary longevity of John had given rise to the belief that he
would live until the coming of the Son of Man, and this
was an absurd rumour which he felt himself obliged to
dispel.

With these words Jesus withdrew with Peter. It is sup-
always lived with him, and shall he now be separated from him in his mar^-
dom, the supreme glory here foretold of him?

" This was the antithesis : Follow thmi Me, he is to remain, that justified
apparently the sense given to the words concerning St. John : Follow thou
Ale to death ... ! but do thou remain in life !

18 This is perhaps the best explanation of a somewhat embarrassing text.
Some have admitted that, in speakisg of His comin», Jesus simply had in
mind the Parousia, and in this manner supported the belief that it would
come during the life of the present generation, according to St. Mattheio
xvi, 28. Cf. X, 23, and xx\'i, 64. But in this case it is difficult to see how the
prophecy was fulfilled. With what event are we to make this coming of
Jesus Christ coincide ? With the destruction of Jerusalem ? John lived for
a long time after this, and it is hardly reasonable to say that this coming
continued until the death of the Apostle, that is, from the year 70 to the end
of the first century. Others have thought that Jesus was alluding to the
Apocalyptic manifestation which He was reserving for John, before calling
hun to Himself. But is this a Parousia?

[469]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

posed that on this occasion He gave him some personal
instructions to guide him in the foundation and govern-
ment of the Church. It may be that He appointed with
Him the place and the day when all the Apostles should re-
ceive His official visit, a visit which He had promised,^ ^
and which was particularly important because of the pre-
scriptions which He desired to give to those who should
then be gathered to see Him and to do Him homage.

18 This would agree with the meeting-place referred to in St. Matt.
xxviii, 16 : «Ij rh 6pos ov èrâ^aro. . . .

[470]

CHAPTER VI
OTHER APPEARANCES OF JESUS

The Christophanies in St. Paul and their Meaning
— The Apparition to the Five Hundred Brethren
— To James — To the Eleven — The Mountain in
Galilee — The God Who Opens the World be-
fore THE Ambition of His Soldiers. — Teach and
Baptise in the Name of the Trinity — "/ am with
YOU All Days:' (St. Matthew xxviii, 16-20; St.
Mark xvi, 15-18.)

In recounting the appearance of Jesus on the shores of
the Lake, the fourth EvangeKst remarks that this was now
the third with which the Apostohc group had been fa-
voured. He thus indicates that there were others, and
this is confirmed by St. Luke, who, in the very beginning
of the Book of the Acts, declares that the manifestations
of the Risen Jesus continued for forty days. St. Paul
writing to the Corinthians mentions several of those, no
doubt, which he thought would make the deepest impres-
sion upon them. Thus he says nothing concerning the ap-
parition to Magdalen and her companions, A woman's
testimony had but little value among the Greeks and Ro-
mans. On the other hand, the apparitions to Peter and to
James, of which we have no detailed knowledge, seem to
him to be important, in view of the fame and consideration
which these two Apostles enjoyed. But there is one par-
ticularly decisive apparition concerning which unfortu-

[471]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part ramn

nately he gives no further details. It took place in the
presence of five hundred of the faithful assembled to-
gether. Many of these were still living at the time he
wrote his Epistle to the Corinthians, so that it would seem
as if he were appealing to their authentic testimony.

If Paul (and this seems to follow from the very form
he uses ^), desired to observe the chronological order, we
may suppose that this manifestation took place after the
Resurrection when the faithful were on the point of leaving
Jerusalem after the Feast of the Passover. The magni-
tude of the number, five hundred, would be easy to explain
because of the custom of gi-ouping in caravans at the
time when all were setting out for home. The difficulty
arising from the fact that the fourth Gospel classes the
apparition on the shore of the lake as the third, is not in-
surmountable, if we consider that in St. John tliere is
question exclusively of the apparitions to the Apostolic
group, and that the Apostles having passed the whole
week, at least up to the second Sunday, in Jerusalem, may
not have been present with the five hundred pilgrims who
were setting out from the Holy City. And yet, since St.
Paul says nothing definite either of the place or of the
date of this very important manifestation, it is not impos-
sible to locate it, if desirable, in Galilee and after the ap-
parition on the shore of the lake; but, in that case, we
must suppose that there was a previous and insistent sum-
mons in order to assemble the considerable number of five
hundred witnesses.

In any case, this Christophany cannot by any means be
identified with that one which is recounted in St. Matthew,

1 The order in which he enumerates (7 Cor. x\', 5, et seq.) the various
Christophanies seems altoojether chronological. The words elra, after that,
Hireira, tlien, the bearing of which may be seen in v. 23, 24. and 26, lead up
to the final apparition, fffxaroi', that, namely, with which he was favoured
himself.

[472]

BOOK II] OTHER APPEARANCES OF JESUS

and which took place on a mountain in Gahlee. St. Paul,
in fact, expressly distinguishes it from those which oc-
curred before and after in the presence of the Apostolic
group. To his mind, it is an apparition granted to the
brethren, that is, to the members who were troubled, per-
plexed, and deserved to be encouraged, and who constituted
the nucleus of the nascent Church. But in St. ^Matthew
there is question of a meeting-place assigned for the Eleven
only, a meeting-place, in fact, where Jesus appears in
order to confer powers and a mission intended for them
alone.

It would seem even that the closing passage of the first
Gospel was written rather as a hasty, hurried, and, as it
were, comprehensive summary of the various apparitions
to the Apostles, than as an accurate account of any single
one. For, after all, how are we to understand that, after
the foregoing manifestations [not reported, it is true, by
him, but certainly to be admitted, since they are attested
by the others] at one of the latest that occurred in
Galilee, some of the Eleven — the Eleven alone are con-
cerned in this — still doubted the reality of the Resur-
rection.'^ But it was onl}'^ at the beginning that any
doubt existed among the Apostles and, in particular, in
the mind of Thomas. As a general thing, the Synoptic
tradition had preserved the memory of this reprehensible
attitude on the part of some of the Apostles, and very
probably St. jNIatthew meant to report this in the only
Christophan}' of which he gives an account and which he
locates in Galilee. According to this hj^pothesis, his ac-
curacy is only general ; but, judging from the manner in
which he hurries and summarises the closing incidents of
the Gospel history, he does not seem to have intended to
preserve it any more strictly. We must accept him just
as he is. St. Paul is briefer still than he ; he speaks as one

[ 473 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

who has a thesis to prove ; and he cites in a summary man-
ner the facts which prove it. However, we think that the
order he has observed in his account of the apparitions
should be taken hterally and that it should accordingly
command our belief.

Thus, after the apparition to the five hundred brethren
we ought to place the manifestation to James. With re-
gard to this apparition, we possess no more authentic de-
tails than we do in the case of that to Peter. It is probable
that Paul, on his various journeys to Jerusalem, had heard
the history of these two manifestations from the very lips
of the two men who had been favoured. The appear-
ance to Peter is merely mentioned in the Gospel of St.
Luke. The one to James was recounted more at length in
the Gospel of the Hebrews, but with certain details which
were plainly legendary.

If we may believe the fragment of this book which was
reproduced by St. Jerome,^ James the Just had made a
vow not to eat bread (for the Orientals this was equivalent
to abstaining from all food) from the moment when he had
drunk from the Lord's chalice, until he should see the same
Lord risen from the dead. But hardly had Jesus stepped
forth from the sepulchre, when, handing His shroud to
the servant of the High-Priest, He went to show Him-
self to James, and taking bread. He blessed it and broke
and offered it to James the Just, saying : " Brother, eat
thy bread, for the Son of Man is risen from the dead."
This James the Just is certainly the same James who, ac-
cording to Hegesippus ^ was surnamed Oblias, the Bul-

2 De Vir. III., ii.

* Hegesippus, quoted in Eusebius, H. E., ii, 23. Cf. Epiphan., Hœr.,
Ixxviii, 7, 13-14, and the Pseudo-Abdias, Hist. Apost., vi, 5. In Eusebius,
H. E., ii, 1, Clement of Alexandria supposes that Jesus taught His esoteric
doctrine, tV yy&a-iv, to James the Just, Peter and John, after His Resur-
rection. These afterwards instructed the other Apostles and disciples.

[474]

BoQKii] OTHER APPEARANCES OF JESUS

wark of the People, and concerning whom strange things
were told in the way of ascetical and Nazarite practices.
Even if the detail reported by the Gospel of the Hebrews
about Jesus handing His shroud to the servant of the
High-Priest should not betray its apocryphal origin, we
should still be justified in expressing our astonishment
that, at a time when all the Apostles seemed so uncertain
in their faith, one of them, whose part had till then been
obscure, should have made a vow not to eat until he had
seen his Risen Master. His attitude would have been
singularly at variance with the attitude of the others.
Morally speaking this is so impossible that it renders the
whole story suspicious.^ The little truth it does contain,
because it is borrowed from Apostolic tradition, is that
Jesus really appeared to James, His cousin, and the
future pastor of the Church of Jerusalem. As for the
oath being a reason for an apparition which, chrono-
logically, ought to be placed before all the others, since
Jesus took only just time enough to throw aside His
shroud into the hands of a witness of His Resurrection,
and hastened to James who had been fasting for two
days and a half, this cannot be anything more than a
legend of the Judeo-Christian Church seeking to estab-
lish that the rôle of its chief was particularly honourable
and distinguished.

The apparitions mentioned by St. Paul, after the one
accorded to James, are designated in general terms : " by
all the Apostles." ^ They were certainly numerous and
frequent, according to the author of the Book of the Acts.
What purpose could Jesus have had in view during the
forty days which He passed, so to speak, between heaven
and earth, other than to strengthen patiently and in every

' / Cor. XV, 7 : «ira roii WKoariKois iraaiv. •

[475]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

possible way ^ the faith of His followers ? It may be that
some trace of tliis influence on them is to be seen in the
words of St. Luke : " He opened their understanding, that
they might understand the Scriptures." ®

In any case, as we have already said, we must include in
the number of these final appearances to all the Apostles
not only that of the Ascension, but also that one which, ac-
cording to St. Matthew, took place on a mountain in Gali-
lee. From its recommendations it belongs evidently to the
period in which Our Lord spoke His last words of farewell.

The meeting-place in Galilee had been appointed by
Jesus on the eve of His Passion, and, since then, repeated
to the Apostles through the medium of the holy women.
St. Matthew seems to be occupied solely with the thought
of showing, as a summary proof of the Resurrection, that
they had been faithful to their appointment, and he tells
in quite simple terms of the apparition of Jesus on a moun-
tain in Galilee, whereas St. Luke, assuming a very differ-
ent attitude, speaks only of the appearances in Jerusalem,
unaware apparently of the others.^ Joining hands with
both, so to speak, St. John seems bent on supplying the

^ Acts i, 3: if iroWoîs reK/xtipiois.

6 St. Matt, xxvi, 32; xxviii, 10; St. Mark xiv, 28; and x^^, 7.

^ All are agreed that this difBculty in St. Luke is to be solved by granting
that there is at least one omission in the passage 43-49, if it be only that
which would allow the Apostles to go into Galilee. The abbreviated form
which his account then takes on, justifies us in granting even more than one.
Thus we may pause at v. 44, in the account of the apparition to the Apostles,
and see in v. 44 and 45, a general hint of the instructions given by Jesus
during His various apparitions in Galilee or elsewhere. With v. 46 would
begin the final discourse in Jerusalem before the Ascension. This dissection
may seem strange, but it is necessary, since it is certain that the Apostles
went into Galilee, after the Paschal week and spent some time there. Whether
St. Luke, who faithfully reported the data which he had at hand, perceived
these omissions or not, matters little. In view of the accounts of the other
Evangelists, they must be admitted in order to explain what would other-
wise be inexplicable. Without them, it would seem not only that the
Apostles did not quit Jerusalem between the Resurrection and the Ascension,
but also that Jesus had formally forbidden them to do so, v. 49.

[476]

BOOK II] OTHER APPEARANCES OF JESUS

omissions of the one and the other. He shows, in fact,
how the Apostles, instead of remaining in Jerusalem until
Pentecost, spent some time in Galilee, receiving there the
consoling visits of the Lord, just as they had before re-
ceived them in Jerusalem. Moreover, he enables us to per-
ceive, in the gracious scene described on the borders of the
lake, how the old life in Galilee with its charming familiar-
ity was for a spell renewed. At times it was on the shores
where He had so frequently landed, again, it was on the
mountain w^here He had preached with such merciful love,
that the Master made Himself known to His own.

Eminences are particularly favourable to the manifesta-
tions of the supernatural order. There one finds silence
and shelter from the eyes of the vulgar, and stands, as it
were, on a spot nearer heaven. It was on a mountain that
Jesus had chosen His Apostles, there, for the last time. He
now determined to delegate to them His power. The pre-
cise spot where this holy meeting took place is unknown.

As soon as the Master appeared, they all fell prostrate
in adoration.^ Then advancing with majesty towards
them, Jesus justified the religious feelings by which they
were animated. " All power," He said, " is given to Me in
heaven and on earth." He probably accentuated this
solenm declaration — here a part of the text of St. Luke ^
would find a place — in order that they might see how He
had won that supreme authority by His sufferings and His
death. Thus, as far as they were concerned. He removed

«We can find no serious difficulty in the remark of St. Matt, xxviii, 17:
"hut some doubted," ol Se iUaTaaav. If this is not an error in the text,
and if we are not to read oùSe instead of oi Se. or ZUinaffav, wHhdreu; in-
stead of èSiffTcuray, doubted, this reflection refers to the hesitation that marked
the first apparitions in Jerusalem. These are here predicated of the last,
■which for St. Matthew is the first and last. The Evangelist, in his account,
however brief it may be, does not wish to disguise in the slightest degree the
various sentiments awakened in the Apostles by the sight of the Risen Jesus.

" St. Luke xxiv, 45.

[477]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pakt third

the scandal of His Cross, by proving that His Passion,
foretold by the Prophets, had been the necessary way by
which He should enter into glory. Patiently, He contin-
ued to disclose horizons quite new to minds always filled
with Jewish prejudices. It was in the Sacred Books that
He wished them to seek and find the true physiognomy of
the Messiah-King, as well as the conditions of His univer-
sal reign.

Besides, He assured them that the future would prove
the reality of His almighty power in heaven and on earth.
From heaven, where he was going to prepare a place for
His servants, He would send the Holy Spirit into the world
to mark, to sanctify, and to assemble the members of His
Kingdom. On earth, He would achieve the conquest of
the nations, arouse the indifferent, convert sinners, found,
preserve, spread the Church, and, at the end of the world,
judge all mankind whose Saviour and King He was. This
absolute power, in time and in eternity was thus the reward
of His life and of His death. He did not adjudge it to
Himself, He attained it by conquest, and the Father has
given it to Him in its plenitude.

From that moment. Master of the world. He sends His
messengers to take possession of it. " Going, therefore,"
He said to His Apostles, " teach ye all nations, baptising
them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Ghost." With this, Jewish exclusivism had come
to an end. The true God ceasing to belong to a single
people, desires to be the God of all nations. Moses had
inclosed in the Ark the Tables of the Law, and Israel had
jealously guarded them there, screened, as it were, from the
rest of mankind. Jesus, having written His laws in the
hearts of His disciples, desires that the whole world may
see them and hear them promulgated. The command is
clear : " Go." Activity shall be the native virtue of the

[ 478 ]

BOOK II] OTHER APPEARANCES OF JESUS

Christian Church. She shall never be suffered to remain
idly in contemplation. Militant she must be ; she must ad-
vance, she must instruct and make proselytes. She must
possess herself of souls and bodies, introducing Jesus
Christ into the former by the preaching of the Gospel,
and impressing upon the latter, by baptism, the distinctive
mark of the Christian.

Teach all nations ! Even the most savage peoples are,
therefore, called to enter into the new Kingdom, and every
creature, in St. Mark's ^^ words, has a right to expect the
Good Tidings. The Master wishes to make the whole
world His disciple. ^^ The work to be done is great; but
the Apostles shall be sustained by the power of Him Who
sends them.

It is a fact that, from the beginning, the Church has
not ceased for a single day to labour in spreading the
Gospel and in converting the heathen. Her apostles
travel over all the roads of the world, over the waves of
the ocean, through the midst of forests, beneath the
burning sun of the tropics, into the icy confines of the
poles, preaching, baptising, and making Christians.

The Gospel and baptism are given as the sole means of
conquest ; the one shall be the consecration of the other.
The Gospel is the word, baptism is the mark of Jesus
Christ. A ceremony in use among the Jews for the admis-
sion of pagans to the law of Moses, the latter was, as we
have seen, especially employed by St. John as the symbol
of penance and as an immediate preparation for the com-
ing of the Messiah. The disciples of Jesus had themselves
practised it for a time on those who desired to follow the

"In St. Mark xvi, 15, Jesus, in sajang: wdtrri ry Krla-ei, indicates that not
only man, but all creation in His service shall share in the hght and con-
solation through the preaching of the Gospel.

I'This is the meaning of the word: /uaflrjreiîo-aTc in this passage of St.
Matt, xxviii, 19; cf. xxvii, 57; xiii, 51, and Acts xiv, 21.

[479]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

Master.*^ Jesus now promulgates it as the law to which
all must submit who wish to enter the Society of the Elect.
It is to be the obligatory sign of enrolment in the army
of Christ. But, like every sacrament, an efficacious sign,
it shall first produce in the soul the sanctity it signifies.
Thus the new-made soldier shall be purified, rehabilitated,
glorified, before being enrolled.

The three Divine Persons will preside at his spiritual
birth, and it is Their Name which, solemnly invoked,
gives to the baptismal water the power of reaching the
soul and cleansing it of its stains. There is no other
text in the Gospel where Jesus names simultaneously the
three Divine Persons. He supplies here, in putting them
on a footing of perfect equality, a decisive argument in
favour of the important dogma of the Holy Trinity. At
His own baptism in the Jordan we have seen God reveal
Himself as the Father Who spoke, as the Son Who was
baptised, as the Spirit Who descended from heaven. At
the baptism of every believer, an explicit profession of
faith shall bind the new-made Christian not only to the
Name, but to the vital essence of the Three Divine Per-
sons. He shall have entered into a sacred contract with
Them.

No one is ignorant of the fact that the Church has al-
ways looked upon the Saviour's words as the necessary
form in the regular administration of baptism. St.
Justin tells us this in explicit terms. ^^ Those passages of
the Acts or of the Epistles that speak of baptism in the
name of Jesus, are only an abridged form signifying the
Christian baptism in contrast with the baptism of the
Jews. As a matter of fact, whenever there is question of

Ï2 St. John iv, 2.

" Apol. i, 61-79. He says that those who desired to profess the doctrine
of Jesus Christ were baptised : in ov6fj.aTos tov Tlarphs rwv ^\wv koI S«r-
irérov &(ov, koL 'XuTrjpos rj/xûiv 'Irjaov Xpicrov, Kol TlvevfiaTOS aylov,

[ 480 ]

BOOK II] OTHER APPEARANCES OF JESUS

the official administration of baptism, it is in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, that
it is conferred.

When the whole Trinity shall have taken possession of
the baptised soul, the latter shall owe the Trinity a life-
long homage, to be shown by faith in the dogmas of the
Gospel and by the practice of the Christian law. " Teach-
ing them," said Jesus, " to observe all things whatsoever
I have commanded you. He that believeth and is baptised
shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be con-
demned." The promulgation of the Gospel, therefore, im-
poses on mankind the obligation of submitting to, and of
accepting the truth. None can with impunity reject the
Good Tidings. When an Apostle shall have passed from
any spot, he shall leave after him either life or death.
Those who believe shall be saved, the unbeliever shall be
condemned. After mercy comes the judgment; He Whom
men shall not have accepted as their Saviour will stand
forth irresistibly as their judge.

" And these signs shall follow them that believe. In my
name they shall cast out devils ; they shall speak with new
tongues ; they shall take up serpents ; and if they shall
drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them ; they shall
lay their hands upon the sick and they shall recover." ^^
The omnipotence of Jesus shall be given therefore into
His disciples' hands, and they shall exercise it in the most
diverse ways, in the world of spirits as well as in the world
of matter. There is no fear that it shall ever fail them.

'■' These privileges accorded to the true believers, are read at the end of
St. Mark xvi, 15-18. The Apostolic generation saw their fulfilment: the
power of driving out devils, as the Apostles had received it ; the gift of tongues.
Acts ii, 4; X, 46; xix, 6; the killing of serpents. Acts xviii, 2; the power of
drinking poison with impunity, as Barsabas did, according to Papias in
Eusebius, H. E., iii, 39; like St. John in Abdias, Hist. Aposf. v. 20, and
the Act. Jo., in Tischendorf, p. 266; of healing the sick. Acts iii, 6; v. 16;
xxviii, 8. etc.

[ 481 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paht third

For the Master here adds one last word which ought to
electrify his soldiers : " Behold I am with you all days, even
to the consummation of the world." The word " / " has
here a decisive bearing. The Vanquisher of the world, of
death, the All-powerful, Master of heaven and earth, as
He has just declared, the Son of God, will be with His
faithful to sustain them until the end of time. What else
could they desire .^ Events have proved whether He has
kept His promise.

Having spoken thus, the Master left His disciples happy
and proud of what they had just heard.

The little Church felt herself reviving, and the hour was
near when Jesus should find her compact enough to allow
Him to depart once for all, and vigorous enough to engage
in the great struggle at the solemn feast of Pentecost.

[482]

CHAPTER VII
CONCERNING THE RESURRECTION

The Resurrection and the Truth of Christianity —
Proofs of our Lord's Death — Proofs of His New
Life — The Miracle — The Christian Church and
THE Tomb of Jesus Christ.

There had not been any need of this series of appari-
tions for forty days in order to strengthen the disciples'
faith in the Resurrection. We may say that ever since
that Sunday evening when Our Lord manifested Himself
to the assembled Apostles, all were convinced, with the ex-
ception of Thomas, and we can find no indication that
their faith was shaken by later events. This is an im-
portant and decisive fact and it imparts to the various
Christophanies, which, because of their visibly fragmen-
tary character, are only the more difficult to harmonise in
one united whole, a most irresistible probatory force.

However, we shall resume here, as a corollary of the
preceding chapters, the method of proof which philosophy
has at all times employed triumphantly to demonstrate the
truth of the Resurrection.

This great miracle which puts the seal, as it were, on
the long succession of prodigies that had filled the life of
Our Lord, has an importance so clearly pivotal in the his-
tory of our religion, that, by the admission of all both
believers and non-believers, if this miracle is true, every-
thing is true, if it is false, everything is false, and, as

[483]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet third

St. Paul says, there is nothing vainer than our CathoHc
faith.

This, therefore, is our thesis.

The Resurrection is life succeeding death in the same in-
dividual. It must be impossible to deny the reality either
of the death that preceded the second life or of this second
life that followed the death. When we have undeniably
proved these two successive conditions in the same man, it
is only by a miracle, that is to say, by the hand of God,
that the one can be joined to the other, and the secret of
an apparent contradiction be revealed. But, if a miracle —
and such a miracle! — has by divine power sealed the en-
tire work of Jesus, it is a proof that His doctrine was true,
that His mission was divine, that He, as He had declared,
was really God.

Rationalists, in order not to admit a miracle, have

denied first the death ^ of Jesus, and again His return

* At the beginning of the last century Paulus of Heidelberg, taking up the
position that the supernatural in the Gospel history must be got rid of,
gave out the opinion that Jesus did not die on the cross, but simply swooned
away. Medical science, which he invoked to sustain his thesis, was the first
to destroy his system. He was informed that if Jesus had been taken down
from the cross while still alive, he must have died in the tomb, as the contact
of the body with the cold stone of the sepulchre would have been enough to
bring on a syncope through the congelation of the blood, owing to the fact
that the regular circulation was already checked. Besides, a man in a swoon
is not revived ordinarily by being shut up in a cave, but by being brought out
into the open air. The strong odour of aroma tics in a place hermetically
sealed would have killed a sick person whose brain was already seized with
the most unyielding swoon. It is of no avail to attempt to meet these scien-
tific arguments, nor is it possible to rebut the fantastic example borrowed
from Herodotus vii, 94, and from Josephus Vita, 75, where, through medical
care, of three crucified, one was brought back to life, or the assertion that,
in a swoon, the third day is the critical day which brings on either definitive
decomposition or complete return of life in the subject. After being renewed
later on by certain rationalists who were greatly embarrassed by such a miracle,
viz., Gfrorer, who was afterwards converted to Catholicism, Schleiermacher
and Hase himself, the Scheintod-Hypotliesis was for ever abandoned.
Mo^reover, it was not enough for its defenders to say that Jesus, gradually
reviving, had succeeded, by means of His medical resources, in efi'ecting His
cure. They had also to explain how it was that He had been seen, not in a
state of convalescence, but transfigured in an exalted state, like the Van-

[484]

BOOK II] CONCERNING THE RESURRECTION

to life.- They say : " If He is risen, He was not dead, or
if He died, He is not risen."

Two facts, one as certain as the other, throw light on
this dilemma. The first is that on Friday evening Jesus
was dead ; and the second, that He appeared full of life
on Sunday and on the days that followed.

That He was dead on Friday evening no one has
doubted ; neither in the Sanhedrim, nor in the Pragtorium,
nor on Calvary. Pilate alone was astonished that He had
so soon given up the ghost, but his astonishment only
called forth new testimony corroborating the assertion of
those who asked for His body.

Therefore, friends and enemies, looking on the Crucified,
saw clearly that He was no more. To prove it the better,

quisher of death and the Prince of life. And then what had been His end ?
Did the great Martyr retire to die unknown? They could not urge this
without transforming Jesus into a kind of theatricality, who, on reaching the
end of Iiis difficult and perilous rôle, disappears to return to every-day life,
leaving to those whom he has amused or deceived the work of applauding
him. In our days, rationalists of every stripe reject this hypothesis, which
is as absurd as it is odious, and all agree that the Crucified Jesus really died
on Friday.

2 His return to life is denied by all those who, from the chief -priests (St.
Matt, xxvii, 62, etc.) and Celsus down to Reimarus (W olfenbiittel Frag-
ments) and Strauss in his later days (The Old and the New Belief, 1873),
allege a fraud on the part of the disciples. Let us say here that this opinion,
untenable as it is from any point of view, is now no longer defended. The
most recent rationalists prefer the less vulgar, and more elastic and artistic
theory of visions. According to this, Jesus rose again only in the imagina-
tion of His friends, who took a moral impression for a real vision.
Already pointed out by Celsus, this explanation has been presented in its
clearest li^ht in France by MM. Renan and Réville, in Germany by Zeller,
Holsten, Lang, Volkmar, Strauss in his New Life of Jesus, etc. Those
who, like Ewald, Schenkel, and Keim, modify it by granting to the visions
of the disciples an objective reality in heaven, but not on earth, are never-
theless unable to tell us how the sepulchre could have been found empty,
and what had become of the body of the Crucified. It is not enough to
represent the spirit of Jesus as acting from the kingdom of spirits, whither
He had gone, upon the spirit of the disciples, they must explain where the
body had gone which was seen no more either in the tomb or outside it, and
which no one could have stolen. Their system, like all those that differ from
the historical account given in the Gospel, runs foul of the stone of the empty
sepulchre, and fatally undoes itself.

[485]

LIFE OF CHRIST [pabt thikd

the centurion pierced Him with his lance, and the corpse
made no motion. From the wound came forth a mixture
of water and of blood, which revealed a rapid decomposi-
tion of the vital elements. Bleeding, they say, is fatal in
syncope. Here it has not killed Him Who is already dead.
For the circumstances in which it occurred prove that
Jesus had ceased to live some moments before. And it
does not occur to the most intelligent of His enemies, such
as the chief priests, to cast a doubt on the reality of His
death. All that they fear is fraud on the part of the dis-
ciples, who may remove the body, but not on the part of
Jesus Whom they have seen expire. He was taken down
from the cross, and just as He had shown no sign of
life at the stroke of the soldier's spear, so now He lies still
and cold in the loving arms that lift Him up, take Him
away, embalm, enshroud, and lay Him in the tomb, after
covering Him with proofs of their desolation and their
love. Can we imagine a more complete swoon than this
or one more suitably timed? Let us add that this would
indeed be a most fortuitous ending of a life already, in it-
self, so prodigious in its sanctity and so fecund in its influ-
ence. This were an impossible coincidence! It were more
miraculous even than the Resurrection itself ! Let us say,
moreover, that if Jesus had only swooned, He could not,
without injury to His character, allow any one to believe
that He had been dead. Instead of presenting Himself as
one risen again, He should have said simply preserved by
chance. In fact, here as everywhere else in the Gospel, we
encounter this unsurmountable dilemma: either Jesus was
the Just One, the Man of God, or among men He is the
greatest of criminals. If He presented Himself as one
from the dead, whereas He was not such. He is guilty of
falsehood, and must be denied even the most common
honesty.

[486]

BooKu] CONCERNING THE RESURRECTION

Hence, rationalists generally have at all times preferred,
out of respect for His character, to believe that He did
not rise again from the dead. But, in so doing they en-
counter the pitiless tomb whose emptiness they can never
explain,^ and besides, the unanimous and unavoidable testi-
mony of those who saw Him risen with their own eyes and
touched Him with their hands. This testimony declares
that Jesus was not in the tomb on Sunday ; that He was
seen in person, walking, eating ; that He was heard speak-
ing during the days that followed ; that He presented
Himself with a nature wholly different from an earthly,
mortal nature ; in a word, that He exercised the functions
of human life as before His death, but with something
more than during His life.

If Jesus, who had been laid in the tomb on Friday, was
not there on Sunday, either He was removed or He came
forth by His own power. There is no other alternative.
Was He removed .'' By whom ? By friends or by enemies ?
The latter had set a squad of soldiers to guard Him,
therefore they had no intention of causing Him to dis-
appear. Moreover, their prudence could not counsel this.
This would have made the way too easy for stories of the
resurrection which the disciples might invent. The wisest
course was for them to guard Him as a proof. Thus
they could reply to every pretension that might arise:
" Here is the corpse, He is not risen."

As for His friends, they had neither the intention nor the
power to remove Him. As for the intention, of what value

3 The most recent criticism has been reduced to the suspicion of IM.
Réville, Jésus de Nazareth, Vol. II, p. 462, that the solution of this in-
soluble difficulty may well be found in one of the explanations current among
the Jews, and ironically repeated in the peroration of Tertullian's treatise.
De Spedacidis: "The gardener took away the body, fearing lest the multi-
tudes going and coming might injure his lettuce. " One can only be saddened
by such pitiful suppositions, even in a book whose charm of style scarcely
compensates for the lack of depth.

[ 487 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

to them was the corpse of one who contrary to His promise,
should prove unable to raise Himself to life again ? What
benefit could they hope for from such a fraud? Either
Jesus was the Messiah, and would thus prove self-suffi-
cient ; or He was not, and then they could only despise the
remains of this Master Who had deceived them or deceived
Himself. As for the power, they would have to deceive a
vigilant guard, remove the great stone which closed the
tomb, take away the body, and all this without being seen.
Not one of the disciples had had the courage to defend
Him while He lived, and where would they find the hardi-
ness to steal Him away now that He was dead? To face
soldiers in an attempt to remove a dead body, was an act
of audacity little in harmony with their pusillanimity.
They did not deem themselves sufficiently safe even in their
dwellings, for they kept their doors closed through fear of
the Jews, and may we suppose them capable of going
through the midst of an armed troop, waking or sleep-
ing, it matters little, to execute such a theft with as much
temerity as composure? It is not possible.

And yet on Sunday morning, as acknowledged by the
Jews themselves, who sought to explain this disappearance,
and on the unanimous testimony of the Apostles and the
holy women, the sepulchre was empty, and the linens used
in the burial alone were found there carefully folded up.
How explain this prodigy?

If Jesus suddenly awoke from death, it is clear that He
came forth of Himself and in triumph from the prison in
which He was thought to be confined. If He did not
awake, if no one sought or was able to remove Him, how
did He disappear? In this we have the inexorable inter-
rogation mark that must always embarrass those who
seek their consolation in psychological theories which are
more fantastic than they are serious, on love and imagi-

[488]

BOOK II] CONCERNING THE RESURRECTION

nation giving rise to visions and ascribing life to a dead
man.

But we are able to adduce here something more than a
merely negative argument. The positive argument itself is
of overwhelming force. It is true Jesus was not seen rising
again from the dead, but He was seen after He had risen,
not once, but a great number of times ; not from a dis-
tance, but near at hand, for His disciples touched Him ; it
is not one man only that saw and heard Him, but men
and women who knew Him so well that they could not be
mistaken, and on one occasion five hundred of them rec-
ognised Him.

All these witnesses attest it. It is the first basis of
the Evangelical preaching."* They attest it in spite of
persecution, and at the risk of their lives. To proclaim it
to the world, in fact, they sacrifice their peaceful existence,
the pleasures of home, their fatherland, in a word, their
happiness, and beneath the lictors' scourge and axe, in the
amphitheatre, in the midst of wild beasts, on the cross and
funeral-pile, they cry out : " We cannot deny it, Jesus is
truly risen " ! What interest have they in dying for a
lie ? Is it the glory of founding a religion ? Such a sen-
timent is beyond their simple education, or rather never
entered their plain, uncultured minds. Is it the desire of
honouring their Master ? If the Master has deceived them,
why should they feel bound to glorify Him.'' It cannot
be admitted that they gave up their lives for a lie, the lie
being, moreover, contrary to their dearest interests.

Shall any one say that the Apostles, becoming victims of
an error of their senses or of the exaltation of their
minds, died for what they thought they saw and not for
what they did see.? This would be to admit a phenomenon

. ^ With this Peter begins his ministry to the Jews, Acts u, 24; iii, 15, etc.;
and Paul makes it the basis of faith : I Cor. iv, 14 ; xv, 15 ; // Cor. iv, 14, etc.

[489]

LIFE OF CHRIST [partthied

of the moral order that is absolutely impossible. It
would imply that all had, at the same time, frequently
undergone the same illusion without a single cool head or
a single reasonable man being found among them. This
is absurd. The more so since there is nothing in their
conduct to betray them as visionaries. They are, on the
contrary, very slow to believe, and of the Eleven there is
at least one who determines to see and to touch. Thomas
surrenders only to evidence, before the eyes of the other
disciples. His obstinate incredulity abundantly proved
that he did not allow himself to be moved by thoughtless
enthusiasm. Illuminism would not have transformed Gali-
lean fishermen into religious conquerors ; if it exalts a
man, it does not in reality augment his worth.

If the wish that Jesus had risen again caused the dis-
ciples to believe that He had really risen, and if the firm
conviction that He had, made them believe that they saw
Him, how may we explain that their visions, instead of
being multiplied in proportion to the growth of their faith,
suddenly ceased after the fortieth day.^* ^ What is this
prophetic date to these poor souls who no longer find in
their love or in their enthusiasm the power to resurrect

* The manifestation of Jesus to Paul on the road to Damascus is placed
by the Apostle himself side by side with the other apparitions to the disciples
before the Ascension. "He was seen," he says (/ Cor. xv, 3-8), ". . . by
James, ... by the Apostles, and ... by me." These various mani-
festations have, in fact, one point in common, which is the essential point,
namely: the objective reality, the physical bodily presence of the Risen
Jesus. Paul so clearly understands it in this sense that he concludes from
it the resurrection of the body. If they differed in the condition of Him
Who manifested Himself, this matters little in the present discussion. Before
the Ascension the disciples saw the Risen One still living on earth, whereas
Paul saw Him descending from the glory of heaven. But both contemplated
Jesus really present. It was not a mere impression produced in Paul's
soul that sufficed to overthrow his companions beneath the radiance of an
extraordinary light. He Who appeared and spoke on the Damascus road
was as really present to Paul as He had been to Cephas, to the Apostles,
to the five hundred brethren, to James and to the otners; but He was not
in the same condition.

[ 490 ]

BOOK II] CONCERNING THE RESURRECTION

their Master? Yet neither love nor enthusiasm are dead
in them. On the feast of Pentecost and during the follow-
ing days, we find these dispositions, on the contrary, aston-
ishingly increased. If Jesus no longer appears, it is not
that He is not always in their hearts, but that He is no
longer on earth, and it is vain to pretend that their desire
to see was the cause of their visions.

But — and here we must resume an argument expounded
above — even supposing that their love may have been able
to cause their lamented Master to appear to them, shall
any one say, too, that this love was capable of making His
corpse disappear .'' In what way? Was it by a daring
stroke on the part of enthusiastic men.'' Such a stroke
was not possible, as we have shown already. Could en-
thusiasm do more on the part of those who had beheld the
Crucified decomposing in the tomb.'' The Resurrection
might have caused enthusiasm, but not vice versa. Let us
not speak of an effect of the imagination. That means
nothing. Men may think what they will, but they can-
not make it so. Had such illuminati, filled with their
strange and stubborn dreams, ever sought to affirm their
faith in the presence of unyielding opponents, these latter
would have referred them to the sepulchre, and there the
most discouraging spectacle would have sealed their lips.
The hypothesis of visions does not hold any more than the
rest before the empty tomb. If Jesus is no longer there,
since no one had any interest in removing Him, it is be-
cause He has indeed come forth of Himself ; and this fact
alone, as undeniable as it is conclusive, can account for the
sudden, radical, definitive change in the souls and attitude
of the Apostles. Without the Resurrection of the Master,
it were impossible to connect in their lives the future with
the past. The reality of the Resurrection admitted,
everything is explained and everything is connected.

[ 491 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paht third

There is no longer an effect without its cause. The en-
thusiasm of the Apostles arises not from the discouraging
spectacle of a buried corpse, but from the consoling sight
of One risen from the dead.

The Church is, therefore, at once the fruit of the Res-
urrection as well as its living proof, as the Resurrection
is the argument and proof of the divinity of the Church.
These two great facts are a mutual support.

Strauss holds that there is nothing more impossible to
admit than the resurrection of a man. He is mistaken.
There is something more impossible. It is the religious
and moral transformation of the world by one who was
crucified, if this latter were not risen again.

From the tomb of an illuminate or of an impostor, from
a pious theft committed by a few foolish men, from a
rumour vaguely spread, upon the dry bones of a poor
corpse, sprang up and grew, stronger than the fiercest
storms and bearing the most marvellous fruits, the great
tree of Christianity! To hold this were the extreme of
absurdity.

[492]

BOOK III

Glory

THE ASCENSION

King of Heaven and Earth — Jerusalem on the Feast
OF Pentecost — The Reestablishment of Israel —
On the Mount of Olives — The Cloud of Light
— The Apostles in Jerusalem. (St. Luke xxiv, 50-
53; St. Mark xvi, 19-20; Acts i, 3-12.)

The disciples' stay in Galilee did not last a whole
month. ^ Whatever good their souls may have experi-
enced in rejoicing over the frequent appearances of the
Master in a locality where everything appealed to their
sympathies, the time came at last for them to return to
Jerusalem. Just as they had received the command to
leave the Holy City to go and renew their strength among
their own mountains, so now they were invited to return
to Judaea to await a supreme manifestation before the feast
of Pentecost.^

' St. Luke in the Acts i, 3, tells us that between the first apparitions and
the last there was an interval of forty days. We must take from this the
week of the Passover, spent in Jerusalem, and several days which, passed
in travel or in waiting in the Holy City, preceded the Ascension.

2 As we have observed, this is not given in the Gospel ; but, with the accounts
of St. John and St. Matthew concerning the disciples' stay in Galilee, we
can easily imagine the motives of their return to Jerusalem.

[493]

LIFE OF CHRIST [part third

The little caravan assembled, therefore, composed of the
Apostles, Mary the happy mother of Him Who was risen
again, the brothers of Jesus who had been converted, and
a large number of other believers whose names remained
unknown.^ A secret enthusiasm sustained them all. They
looked forward to coming events that would prove decisive
and in keeping with their most cherished aspirations. How
different this journey to Jerusalem from that which had
immediately preceded it ! Then they were going to the
martyrdom of the Master, but now they were to witness
His supreme glorification.

Arrived in the Holy City, the Galilean proselytes found
lodgings there as best they could, or even sought to con-
ceal themselves in the homes of their friends on the out-
skirts. The Master continued to live on familiar terms in
the midst of His disciples, sitting at their table, calling
them together in special assemblies,^ and speaking to them
of the Kingdom of God, of its future, of the conditions in
which it should develop through long and violent struggles
unto ultimate victory. How sweet the joy that must have
flooded their souls as their loving Master, risen and glo-
rious, gave out to them, in His words or in the Eucharist,
as of yore, the bread of life ! Sufficient attention has not
been given to this exceptional phase of Jesus' stay among
His disciples. In the Book of the Acts, St. Luke, though
mentioning it, gives only an incomplete idea of it. How-
ever, certain words in his Gospel may refer to this.

Jesus announced to them the near fulfilment of the Fa-
ther's promise of which He had so often told them, and
which was to transform them into new men. Their barks

2 Ads i, 14.

^ 'Zwa\i^6fievos is the true reading. In the middle voice it signifies Jiav-
ing assembled, having grouped. Some manuscripts have ffwav\iC6fxivos,
having lived with them, and others, with still less probability, (TwaKicrKa-
fteyos, sharing their manner of life, their food.

[ 494 ]

BOOK m] THE ASCENSION

and their nets were to behold them no more. They had
finished with their beautiful country of Galilee, the sweets
of family life, and their peaceful existence upon the lake.
All the sacred ties that bound their hearts were broken
once for all, or would soon be so. Henceforward for them
there was no fatherland, no relatives, nothing but the will
of the Master and self-sacrifice. The little Church must
establish her domicile in the very centre of hostilities.
Jesus commanded that she remain in Jerusalem, first that
there she might receive baptism of fire, and also that there
she might bravely take her stand in the face of Judaism,
her persecutor. Directing their whole attention to the
Scriptures, He added : ^ " Thus it behoved Christ to suf-
fer, and to rise again from the dead the third day : And
that penance and remission of sins should be preached in
His name unto all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And
you are witnesses of these things. And I send the prom-
ise of my Father upon you. But stay you in the city,
till you be indued with power from on high." " John, in-
deed, baptised with water, but you shall be baptised with
the Holy Ghost not many days hence." The disciples
did not clearly understand this promise, but they rightly
suspected that its fulfilment would be closely connected
with the coming of the Kingdom of God. Often while
walking or sitting with them. He gathered them around
Him and spoke to them His last words of advice.^ One
day, when He had led them upon the Mount of Olives and
in the direction of Bethany,^ and while He spoke to them

^ St. Luke xxiv, 45-49; Acts i, 5, et seq.

« The expression, a-w^KdevTes, in Acts i, 6, suggests that tliey were walk-
ing with Him or were grouped about Him.

' The text of St. Luke xxiv, 50, whether it be ews irphs BrjOaviw, or
ecDs els, signifies simply that it was in the direction or on the road to
Bethany. The topographical indication given in the Acts of the Apostles
i, 12, naming the Moimt of Olives as the place where Jesus had assembled
His followers to give them His last blessing, in no way contradicts this,

[495]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paktthied

thus concerning the future: " Lord," they said, with a joy
revealed in the very phrasing of their question, " wilt thou
at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel? " What
did they mean by this? After the sad scenes of the Pas-
sion, did they still hope to shake off the Roman yoke and
to see Jewish domination spreading over the world? It
were difficult to believe so, unless the announcement of the
early coming of the Holy Ghost, the power from on high
which was capable of overturning the world, gave them the
hope that henceforward everything would be within their
power, in the order of nature as well as in the order of
grace.

However that may be, Jesus, instead of replying to
their impatient curiosity, simply said : " It is not for you
to know the times or moments which the Father hath put
in His power. But you shall receive the power of the
Holy Ghost, coming upon you, and you shall be witnesses
unto me in Jerusalem, and in all Judœa and Samaria, and
even to the uttermost part of the earth." It is not neces-
sary for the servant to know the day when it shall please
the master to execute his plans ; the soldier does not ask his

but confirms it, for one of the roads to Bethany crossed the summit of Mount
Olivet. A tradition which is very old, inasmuch as it is sustained by St.
Jerome (Lib. ]^*^om. loc. ex Actis, at the word Mons Oliveti), after Eusebius
{Eulog. Constant, ch. ix, and Lije of Constant. Hi, 41), and the Pilgrim
of Bordeaux (Itinera J. S., Vol. I, p. 18, Geneva, 1877), says that a most
beautiful basilica had been built on the very spot where Jesus had ascended
to Heaven. Destroyed and rebuilt several times, this basilica is, according
to this tradition, the present INIosque of the Ascension. Cf. Notre Voyage
aux Pays Bibliques, by Le Camus, Vol. I, p. 236. If, according to common
belief, this site is authentic, the text of St. Luke xxiv, 50, ews irphs BrjOavlav
must not be translated "m sight of Bethany." For the author has showTi,
from the mosque of Kefr-el-Tour, that Bethany cannot be seen unless by
one who is high in the air. On the other hand, the distance between this
mosque and the city is only about half as great as some have supposed
to be indicated in Acts i, l'-2; but if we observe this text more attentively we
shall see that St. Luke, desirous of informing Theophilus concerning the
proximity of the Mount of Olives and not of the scene of the Ascension, says
that this mount was a Sabbath-day's journey from the city.

[ 496 ]

BOOK III] THE ASCENSION

general the time and place of the approaching battle. It
is enough for each to know the task to be done and the
route to be followed. Yet the Master's evasive reply lets
them suspect that the day is near. For him who will per-
ceive it, His mission on earth is ended. He has now only
to retire and make way for the Organiser of the Kingdom
Who is to come. As a result of His successive appear-
ances and disappearances His disciples have become accus-
tomed to the sense of His invisible presence ; henceforth
they shall be content with that. Besides, He cannot send
the Holy Spirit until He has returned to His Father's
side.

At this moment the glance of Jesus must have rested
sadly on faithless Jerusalem, which had been the scene of
His humiliation, just as it turned joyfully on the Apostles
and the disciples who were the foundation of His hopes.
He spoke no more. His arms were stretched forth in bene-
diction. The disciples wondered what was going to hap-
pen. Then while His blessings fell from His lips, He
Himself imperceptibly rose in the air, and His body was
surrounded with a nimbus of glory.

The Son of Man was ascending to the divine state that
belonged to Him, by right of nature as the Son of God,
and by right of conquest, as the Saviour of mankind.
A bright cloud enveloped Him.

Thus ended His history here below.^ His Ascension was

8 It is surprising that this final prodigy of the Ascension is recounted only
by St. Luke and St. Mark, and the latter speaks of it only very summarily.
The former mentions it briefly in his Gospel, but more in detail in the Book
of the Ads. The two Evangelists and Apostles, St. Matthew and St. John,
say nothing about it, and yet they had witnessed it. As a matter of fact,
they suppose it in their writings. Thus in St. Matthew (ch. xxvi, 64 ; xx"viii,
18) Jesus is represented as all-powerful in heaven and on earth, raised above
the terrestrial sphere which we inhabit, and dwelling in eternal glory, which
is the element of His omnipotence. St. John represents the Master as
saying, after His Resurrection: "I ascend to my Father" and before this
(en. vi, 63) : "If then you shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He

[497]

LIFE OF CHRIST [p.^t third

the parallel of His supernatural conception. He Who
had descended from heaven to earth returned from earth
to heaven. The heavenly power which had come into
Mary, to create in her the New Man, now raised up that
Man, adorned with His sanctity, made beautiful by His
sacrifice, glorious through His merits, and bore Him away
into the dwelling of bliss.

The Ascension takes its place in the history of Jesus,
as the natural consequence and the complement of the Res-
urrection. His body risen, freed from the limits of time
and space, had passed into the spiritual state,^ only to
attain in final evolution towards the perfect life, its repose
in glory. To sit at the right hand of the Father was for
Jesus to take possession of His celestial royalty, and to
continue at the same time His sovereign mediation between
God and men. The Lord eternally glorious, the immortal
Pontiff still saving the world by His unceasing supplica-
tion, His unfailing triumph was to be the recompense of
His Messianic labours.

was before?" In the Apocalypse (i, 5-7), he always supposes that Jesus
is seated on the throne of the heavenly city. (Cf. xi, 12.) E^^dently the
apostolical tradition contained no fact more universally acknowledged and
accepted than this. Thus Peter is convinced that Jesus has ascended into
heaven, and he affirms it in his discourses {Acts ii, 32-33) and in his Epistles
(/ Peter iii, 22) . Paul is converted only by an apparition of Jesus glorified,
that is. Who has ascended into heaven and descends again to transform into
a lamb the terrible wolf that was devastating the Church. Hence, in many
places in his Epistles (Rom. viii, 34; Ephes. i, 20 and ii, 6; iv, 8; Coloss.
iii, 1) he alludes to Our Lord s Ascension. In the First Epistle to Timothy
(iii, 16), he says that Jesus has been received into the glory of God. The
Epistle to the Hebrews (ix, 24 ; x, 12) is no less explicit.

How then explain the silence of the two Evangelists? It is because the
Ascension seemed to them the simple and natural corollary of the Resurrec-
tion. For them it was the last of the apparitions of the Master. But as
they had neglected to recount many others, they thought they could pass
over this one in silence. All the faithful knew that Jesus had one day spoken
to them His last farewell, to go and take possession of eternal bliss ; no one
supposed that the Risen One could again be subject to death. But, if He
could not die, it was because He had entered into glory.

»/ Cor. XV ; II Cor. iii, 17; iv, 4-6.

[498]

BOOK m] THE ASCENSION

This work was immense ; no analysis has yet included its
whole contour nor all its ramifications. But in a general
way it may be said that Jesus, being the Son of Man and
the Son of God, had succeeded in raising humanity up to
God and in bending the Divinity down to man. This is
the great miracle in the history of the world.

Had He been but a son of man, He might have been able
to acquire some individual virtues, even personal perfection,
but with no other result than that of a good example given
to the rest of mankind. He was the Son of Max, that
is, the New Man, the ideal and universal man, the second
Adam bearing in His soul the humanity of the past and
that of the future, Whose mission it was to purify all the
aspirations of man and to restore to mankind its native
grandeur by regenerating it by His life-giving word and
the merits of His sacrifice. He was come to lead us back
to the starting-point before the fall, and He has done so
in a condition not only equivalent, but visibly superior.
The Son of Man has raised man again so high that He can
place him beside his God.

On earth He leaves him with full consciousness of his
moral dignity, of his divine sonship, of his eternal destiny.
What germs of individual and social transformation !
Besides this, the law of life is promulgated for all, religious
truth is common property, charity is aroused and spread
over all parts. God was needed for this work, and indeed
Jesus was God.

He called Himself not a Son of God; others may take
that title which indicates only sonship by adoption, but
the Son of God, He Whose like is not, the Only One, the
Son from all eternity. He alone had said to God: My
Father, leaving to others to say: Our Father, because He
alone is, by nature, God and Son of God. To Him it be-
longs to reveal with authority the secrets of heaven, to

[499]

LIFE OF CHRIST [paet third

speak of the Father, to make Him known and loved. In
Him, God and man, the two extremes, have met, God and
man have embraced each other in supreme reconciHation.
Messiah, Redeemer, King, God, ascend to Thy triumph,
Thy work is done and well done. Return to heaven, Thy
Kingdom ; watch over earth, Thy field of battle. Glori-
fied on high by the angels, Thou shalt be defended,
preached, adored here below by men. The former in beati-
tude, the latter in the throes of the struggle, shall cry
again, with one enthusiasm, one joy, one love:

To The King Who is Seated upon His Throne,

To The Lamb Who has Saved the World

Blessing, Honour, Glory and Power

Now and For Ever!

The disciples, contemplating the sublime spectacle, were
in a kind of ecstasy. Jesus had long disappeared upon
His chariot of glory, but their eyes still sought Him in
the lightsome train with which the air was filled.

Two men — they were angels, as was seen by their white
garments, the symbol of their celestial purity — appeared
in the heavens. There had been angels in Bethlehem to
chant the glory of the God made man, and rightly were
there angels on the Mount of Olives to tell the glory of
the man become God. " Ye men of Galilee," they cried,
" why stand you looking up to heaven ? This Jesus Who
is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come as you
have seen Him going into heaven."

Rejoiced at this consoling sight and full of enthusiasm,
as if they had breathed, for a moment, the atmosphere
of the heavenly city, the disciples returned to Jerusalem.
There they retired to the Cénacle, that place of most
cherished memories. They came forth from there to go

[500]

BOOK m] THE ASCENSION

regularly to the Temple to praise God, and returned to
wait in pious recollection until it should please the Mas-
ter to indicate through the coming of the Holy Ghost,
that it was time for them to begin the Evangelisation of
the world.

Ten days later Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to His dis-
ciples, and the great struggle began.

THE END

[501]

ALPHABETICAL AND ANALYTICAL
INDEX

Abgar, king of Edessa, III, 104.

Abia (course of), 1, 106.

Abilene of Lysanias, 1, 67.

Agrapha, 1, 54.

Aïn-Karim, 1, 167.

Alpheus, the same as Cleophas, I,

178.
Amen (meaning of the word), I, 282;

II, 337.

Andrew, Apostle, follows Jesus, I,
277; leads his brother Simon to
Him, 278; will be a fisher of men,
363; his character, 443; intercedes
in behalf of the Greeks, III, 106;
questions Jesus concerning the
end of the world, 116.

Angels, at Bethlehem, I, 189; in the
desert after the Temptation, 268;
guardian, II, 186; at Gethsemane,

III, 289; at the sepulchre, 416 et
seq. ; at the Ascension, 500.

Anna, the prophetess, I, 214.

Annas or Hananus, father-in-law of
Caiphas, III, 303; God's hand
upon his family, 404.

Antipas, Herod, succeeds his father,
1, 93; his crime, 345; beheads John
the Baptist, II, 82 et seq. ; accused
of desiring the death of Jesus,
400; beholds Him at his tribunal,
III, 338; takes Him for a fool,
338; dies in exile in Gaul, 404.

Apocalypse, of Esdras, I, 10; of

Enoch, 11.
Apostles, chosen, how many and for

what end, I, 440; form three

groups, 441; their mission, II, 73

et seq. ; receive powers from Jesus,

III, 447, 478 et seq.
Appearance, outward, of Jesus, I,

241 et seq.
Archelaus, son of Herod the Great,

I, 93 et seq.
Ascension, Our Lord's, III, 493.
Asphaltic Lake, I, 61.
Auranitis, 1, 66.

Baptism, administered by John the
Baptist, I, 116; by the disciples of
Jesus, 309; instituted by Jesus
Clirist, III, 478.

Barabbas, also called Jesus, III, 343.

Bartholomew, Apostle, the same as
Nathanael, I, 283, 444; his char-
acter, 445.

Bartimeus, the blind man of Jer-
icho, III, 16.

Batanea, I, 68.

Beatitudes, Mount of, II, 6; the eight,
7 et seq.

Beelzebub, meaning of, II, 43.

Bethabara or Bethany of the Jordan,
I, 122,

[ 505 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST

Bethany, home of Martha and Mary,

II, 315; site of, 316; Jesus' last

sojourn at, III, 29 et seq.
Bethesda, piscina of, I, 334.
Betlilehem, biblical memorials of, I,

78; home of the family of David,

184 et seq.
Bethphage, site of. III, 42.
Bethsaida, home of Philip, Andrew,

and Peter, I, 376; desert of, II,

89-90; blind man of, 144.
Betrothals among the Jews, I, 159;

compared with marriage, 160.
Birth, day and date of, of Jesus, I,

191, 297.

Csesarea-Philippi, II, 144.

Caiphas, high-priest, prophesies,
II, 463; questions Jesus, III, 312;
rends liis garments, 316; is de-
posed, 404.

Cana, in Galilee, 1, 286.

Canaan, woman of, 11, 129.

Calvary (Golgotha), III, 366.

Capharnaum, its site, its prosperity,
I, 365 et seq. ; its synagogue, 368.

Caravansary, near Bethlehem, 1, 187.

Cedron, torrent of, III, 278.

Celibacy, question of, II, 497 et seq.

Census, in Palestine, I, 182.

Centurion of Capharnaum, I, 417 et
seq.; of Calvary, III, 384.

Cephas (cf. Simon Peter).

Charoset, the seasoning of the Pas-
chal banquet, III, 190.

Christ, meaning of this name, I, 196.

Church, founded on Peter, II, 153;
has the right to excommunicate,
190.

Circumcision, 1, 194 et seq.

Claudia Procula, Pilate's wife. III,
342.

[ ^

Confession of sins in the baptism of
John the Baptist, I, 117; required
for remission of sins. III, 449.

Corban, meaning of this word, II,
120.

Corozain, its site, I, 377.

Cross, history of this form of punish-
ment, III, 358; diiïerent styles of,
359; title of, 369.

Crucifixion, III, 367; how it caused
death, 380.

Crurifragium, III, 387.

Dalmanutha, II, 138.

Death of Jesus, day and date of,
III, 385.

Decapolis, II, 134.

Dedication (feast of the), II, 340.

Demon, Satan, meaning of these
words, I, 249; his existence, 251;
his nature, power, 252; what he
wished to learn of Jesus, 256; the
object of the three temptations,
257 et seq.; whether he was phys-
ically present to Jesus, 265; dia-
bolical possession, 370 et seq.; at-
tacks of, II, 44; at Gethsemane,
III, 283.

Desert of Juda, I, 104; the quaran-
tania, 245.

Didrachma, II, 175.

Disciples, the mission of the sev-
enty, II, 295; their triumph and
return, 299.

Divorce, II, 19, 487 et seq.

Egypt, the flight into, I, 218 et seq.
Elias, represented by Joim the Bap-
tist, I, 118; believed to be a witness

06 ]

INDEX

of the Circumcision, 197; is seen
at the Transfiguration, II, 165;
was to appear in the time of the
Messiah, 168.

EHzabeth, wife of Zachary, I, 105;
gives birth to John the Baptist,
110; visited by her cousin Mary,
167.

Ennon, near Salim, where John
baptises, I, 310, n.

Emmaus, site of, III, 433; Jesus ap-
pears on the road to, 434 et seq.

Ephrem, site of, II, 465.

Ervath dabhar, II, 488.

Esdraelon, Plain of, I, 76.

Essenians, I, 78 et seq.

Eucharist, promise of the, II, 103;
instituted as a Sacrament and a
Sacrifice, HI, 215 et seq.

Excommunication, II, 190; in use in
the Synagogue, 264.

Festival, Jewish, mentioned in St.
John V, and variously interpreted,
I, 333.

Fig-tree, accursed. III, 53; with-
ered, 59.

Faith, universal, in a Saviour to
come, I, 6.

Funerals among the Jews, I, 403,
428; 111,411.

farewell to this country, II, 286;
the Apostles return there after the
Resurrection, III, 457.

Garizim, Mount, I, 72, 321.

Gaulanitis, I, 66.

Gehenna, meaning of, II, 16.

Genealogies of Jesus, di\ine, I, 139
et seq. ; human, 144 et seq.

Genesareth, lake of, I, 63, 406; sub-
ject to storms, 407; II, 98.

Gergesa, site of, I, 410.

Gethsemane, site of. III, 279, 291.

Ghost, Holy, at baptism of Jesus, I,
136; sin against the, II, 46; Par-
aclete, Comforter, and Advocate,
III, 233; future work of, 256 et
seq.

Golgotha, in, 366.

Gospel, in the Epistles of St. Paul, I,
18; in the Apostle's discourses, 19;
in the Apocalypse, 20; general
character of books containing the
Gospel, 21; spread abroad since
150 A.D., 22; and attributed to
their authors, 23;^ hypothesis of a
common source, 38; the Oral
Gospel, 40; human guarantees of
veracity, 50; divine guarantees, 52.

Gospels, Apocryphal, I, 51.

Greeks ask to see Jesus, III, 104.

Grotto of the Nativity, 1, 187.

Gabriel, sent to Zachary, I, 107; to
the Virgin Mary, 162.

Galilee, its topography and famous
cities, I, 73 et seq.; character of
its inhabitants, 75; Jesus assem-
bles there the first elements of
the Church, 359 et seq.; He bids

HaUel, the Great, 1, 10; HI, 191.

Heli, Mary's father, I, 157.

Hemorrhage, the woman with the,
cured, I, 401; named Veronica or
Berenice, 402.

Herod the Great, character of, I, 91 ;
attitude toward the Magi, 203;
anxiety of, 216; massacres the In-
nocents, 220; death of, 221.

[ 507 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST

Herodias, abandons Philip, her law-
ful husband, to join Herod Anti-
pas, I, 34i5; causes the death of
John the Baptist, II, 84.

Herodians, II, 126; III, 74.

Hillel, I, 86;II, 488.

Hosanna, meaning of. III, 43.

Hours, method of counting the, in
the time of Jesus, I, 277; 331; III,
355; according to the watches, II,
97, 368, 474; according to the
crowing of the cock, III, 210.

Hyssop, in, 381.

Incarnation of the Word, I, 6; await-
ed of all nations, 6 et seq. ; realised,
162 et seq.

Innocents, massacre of the Holy, I,
220.

Israel, people of, character and ori-
gin of, I, 62; education of, 63; final
infidelity of, III, 154.

Ituraea, I, 66.

James, son of Alpheus, or the Less,
cousin of Jesus, I, 178; his char-
acter, 446.

James, son of Zebedee, I, 360; called
to follow Jesus, 363; his character,
443; reproved for his violence, II,
290.

Jairus asks and obtains the resur-
rection of his daughter, I, 398 et
seq.

Joanna of Chusa, I, 331; II, 74; III,
4>l5et seq.

John the Baptist, appears in the
desert, I, 104; his conception, 110;
birth, 110; character, 113; preach-
ing and baptism, l\6 et seq.; inter-

\iewed by the Sanhedrim, 125;
presents the Messiah to Israel,
269; gives his last testimony to
Jesus, 309; in prison, 347; sends
an embassy to Jesus, 431 et seq.;
publicly praised by Jesus, 434;
death of, II, 86.

John the Evangelist, history and
character of, I, 44-46, 444; char-
acter of his Gospel, 47-49; in-
vited to follow Jesus, 277 ; definitely
called to be a fisher of men, 363;
reproved for his violence, II, 290;
prepares for the Last Supper, III,
172; asks who is the traitor, 202;
introduces Peter into the house of
Caiphas, 309; at the foot of the
Cross, 376; runs to the Tomb, 420;
must remain whereas Peter shall
follow the Master, 468.

Jericho, site of. III, 14.

Jerusalem, topography of ancient, I,
80 et seq.

Jesus, baptism of, I, 132 et seq.; mir-
aculous conception of, 155; born
at Bethlehem, 181; circumcision,
194; named Jesus, 195; also called
Christ or Messiah, 196; visited by
the Magi, 198; presented in the
Temple, 208; flight into Egypt,
216; in the workshop at Nazareth,
223; development of, 228; lost in
Jerusalem and found in the Tem-
ple, 231 et seq. ; carpenter by trade,
234; external appearance, 236;
family and social relations, 240;
disposition as man, 241; in the
desert, 244; tempted by Satan,
266 et seq. ; presented to Israel by
John the Baptist, 269 et seq.;
selects His first disciples, 276; at
Cana, 284; at Capharnaum, 292,
365; at Jerusalem for the Pass-

[ 508 ]

INDEX

over, and in the Temple, 294;
teaches Nicodemus, 299; in Judea,
309; will supplant John the Bap-
tist, 311; on the way back to Gali-
lee, 315; the woman of Samaria,
317; in Galilee, heals the son of an
officer of Capharnaum, 328; in
Jerusalem, heals the paralytic of
Bethesda, 332; sublime thesis be-
fore the people, 338; after John's
arrest, goes back to Galilee, 344;
inaugurates Galilean ministry, .
350; speaks in the synagogue at
Nazareth, 353; definitely calls
Peter, Andrew, James, and John,
359; preaches in the Synagogue at
Capharnaum, and works miracles,
365 ; visits the neighbouring towns,
375; returns to Capharnaum, 383;
claims the right to forgive sins and
heals the paralj-iic, 387; calls
Matthew the publican, 389; heals
the woman with a flow of blood,
399; restores to life the daughter
of Jairus, 402; calms the tempest
on the lake, 406; near Gergesa,
expels a devil, 410; heals the cen-
turion's servant, 417; opens the
Church to pagans, 421; appears
once more without profit in Naz-
areth, 424; restores to life the
young man of Naim, 428; replies
to the envoys of John the Baptist,
431 ; speaks the praises of the Pre-
cursor, 435 ; declares the kingdom
of God open, 436; selects the
twelve Apostles, 439; the Sermon
on the Mount, II, 1; promul-
gates the law of mercy in forgiving
Magdalen, 31; at Capharnaum,
a polemic against the Pharisees,
41; parables on the Kingdom of
God, 52; sends the Twelve on a

[ 509

mission, 73; returns to the des-
ert of Bethsaida, multiplies the
bread, walks on the water, 88; at
Capharnaum, discourses on the
Bread of Life, 100; another con-
test with the Pharisees, 114; in
Phœnicia, 128; in Decapolis, 133;
approaches Capharnaum, and
once more encounters the Phari-
sees, allied with the Herodians,
138; goes northward to Csesarea-
Philippi, 144; calls forth Peter's
confession, 150; makes him head
of the Church, 153; foretells His
own death, 155; is transfigured,
160; avenges the ill-treatment of
His Apostles, 169; last visit to
Capharnaum, 174; pays the trib-
ute, 177; establishes His theory
on the primacy, 179; on scandal,
185; on the forgiveness of injuries,
188; urged by His brothers to
manifest Himself, 201 ; in the Tem-
ple on the Feast of the Taber-
nacles, 205; apology of His teach-
ing and of His conduct, 207;
watched by the hierarchical fac-
tion, 214; proclaims Himself the
Source of living waters, 219; par-
dons the woman taken in adul-
tery, 226; declares Himself the
Light of the World, 235; affirms
that He is HE, 244; that only be-
lievers are free, 248 ; that He is be-
fore Abraham, 253; heals a man
born blind, 256; declares Himself
the Fold and the Good Shepherd,
270; returns to Galilee, 281;
leaves Capharnaum definitely,
286; replies to three who desire to
be Apostles, 291; the mission of
the seventy, 295; "Who is my
neighbour," 305; goes to Bethany,

]

LIFE OF CHRIST

315; how to pray, 328; returns to
Jerusalem for the Feast of Dedi-
cation and declares He is One
with the Father, 340; goes into
Persea, 349; indignant with the
Pharisees, 352; lessons of wisdom,
360; well received in Peraea, 374;
dispute with the Pharisees, 377;
the narrow gate and the justice of
God, 387; the good disciple, 391;
the Father's mercy, 402; works of
charity and the future life, 425;
humility and faith necessary to be
true servants of God, 439; goes to
Bethany to restore Lazarus to life,
446; condemned to death by the
Sanhedrim, 461; retires to Eph-
ren, 465; the first shall be last,
469; divorce and celibacy, 487; He
determines to go up and celebrate
the fatal Passover, III, 3; foretells
His approaching death, 6 ; rebukes
the sons of Zebedee and others, 9;
reaches Jericho, 13; halts for the
last time at Bethany, 29; is
anointed by Mary, 33; enters Jer-
usalem in triumph, 41; curses the
barren fig-tree, 51; again drives
the sellers from the Temple, 55;
replies to the Sanhedrim, 59; ut-
ters three significant parables, 62;
answers concerning the tribute,
74; the woman with seven hus-
bands, 79; the first command-
ment, 84; questions His adver-
saries, 87; curses the Scribes and
the Pharisees, 95; answers the
question of the Greeks, 103; con-
templates His death, 109; the voice
from Heaven, 110; great prophecy
on the approaching Judgment of
Israel, 115; on that of the Church,
130; on the final Judgment of

[ 510

Mankind, 147; conceals from Ju-
das the place of the Last Passover,
171; the Last Supper, from the be-
ginning to the public denunciation
of the traitor, 187; His new com-
mandment, 207; foretells the
defection of the Apostles, of Peter
in particular, 209; the Holy Eu-
charist instituted as Sacrament
and Sacrifice, 213; in His first fare-
well discourse advises His disci-
ples to remain united to Him, 226;
in the second represents Himself
under the figure of the vine, 242;
His sacerdotal prayer, 266; He
goes to Gethsemane, 278; agony
and final victory, 289; betrayed by
Judas, 291 ; stronger than His ene-
mies, 299; deserted by the Apos-
tles, 301; taken as prisoner to the
house of Annas, 303; questioned
by him v/ithout result, 305; ques-
tioned by Caiphas, 312; replies
that He is the Christ, 315; is
judged worthy of death, 317; in
the hands of the servants, 318;
looks at Peter and converts him,
320; led before Pilate, 324; de-
clared imiocent by him, 335; be-
fore Herod, 338; compared with
Barabbas, 341; scourged, 345;
crowned with thorns, 347; con-
demned to the cross, 357; on the
way to Calvary, 361; crucified,
367; insulted by His enemies,
372; beholds His friends, 375; His
last agony, 379; His death, 381;
portentous phenomena, 382; His
body pierced with a lance, 388;
taken down from the Cross and
buried, 392; guarded by soldiers,
397; He descends into Hell, 400;
Jesus is not in the tomb the third

]

INDEX

day, 415; appears to Magdalen,
421; to the other holy women,
426; to the two disciples on the
road to Emmaus, 433; to Peter,
440; to the Apostles on the even-
ing of the Resurrection, 443; the
. mission of the Apostles, 447; ap-
pears eight days later to convince
Thomas, 451; in Galilee, on the
shores of the Lake, 457; makes
Peter the shepherd of the flock,
463; appears on a mountain in
Galilee, 477; places the world be-
fore His disciples for them to
labor in, 478; promises to abide
with them, 482; ascends to the
right hand of His Father, 493; His
glory in Heaven and on earth,
498.

Jonas, the sign of, II, 48, 141.

Joseph, cousin of Jesus, 1, 178.

Joseph, the affianced husband of
Mary, a young man still, I, 158;
his anxiety as he beholds INIary's
condition, 173; communication
from Heaven to, 176; espouses
Mary and respects her as a sister,
177; goes to Bethlehem for the en-
rollment, 186; the circumcision
by, 195; after the presentation re-
turns to Bethlehem, 216; hastens
into Egypt, 219; returns to Naz-
areth, 221; mentioned in the Syn-
agogue at Nazareth, 355; but
probably dead, since he does not
appear in the family of Jesus at
Capharnaum, II, 51.

Joseph of Arimathea claims the body
of Jesus, III, 391; entombs the
body of Jesus, 393 et seq.

Josephus, historian, testimony of,
concerning Jesus Christ, I, 55, 56.

Jordan, I, 61, 62,

[ 51

Judas Iscariot, origin of surname, I,
447; perverse character of, 448;
murmurs against the generosity of
Mary Magdalen, HI, 36; deter-
mines to betray Jesus, 166; de-
nounced as a traitor by Jesus Him-
self, 202; betrays his Master, 295;
his awful end, 409.

Jude, brother of James the Less,
Lebbaeus or Thaddseus, I, 446;
his question during Our Lord's
farewell discourse. III, 236.

Judea, topography of, I, 77; religi-
ous character of its inhabitants,
84.

Lazarus, brother of Martha and
Mary, dead and restored to life,
II, 446 et seq.; at the house of
Simon the leper, IH, 32,

Leprosy, I, 378.

Levi (cf. Matthew).

Luke, Evangelist, I, 32; character of
his Gospel, 34 et seq.

Lysanias, dynasty of, I, 68.

Machœrus, fortress of, I, 347; II, 86.

Magdala, site of, II, 31.

Magi, meaning of word, I, 198; the

sign they saw in the heavens, 199;

number of, 202 ; their journeyings,

203 et seq.; they adore Jesus and

return home without seeing Herod

again, 206.
Malchus wounded by Peter and

healed by Jesus, III, 299.
Mammon, meaning of word, II, 429.
Mara-bar-Serapion, his testimony

concerning Jesus, I, 57,

1 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST

Mark, Evangelist, bic^raphy of, I,
■29-35; special character of his
Gospel, 30-32; was, perhaps, the
youth in the Garden of G^th-
semane, IH, 302.

Mary, the Virgin, meaning of her
name, I, 156; betrothed to Jos-
eph, 158: life at Xazareth, 162;
visited by the Angel, 162 ; accepts
her call to be the Mother of the
Son of God, 165; not yet the wife
of Joseph, 166; visits her cousin
Elizabeth, 167; her canticle, 168;
situation of, before Joseph and
the world, 173 et seq.; of royal
race, 184; called to Bethlehem
for the enrollment, 18-1; the jour-
ney, 186; birth of Jesus, 188; the
law of purification, 208; flees into
Egypt, 216; returns to Xazareth,
221; loses and finds her Son in
Jerusalem, 231 d seq.; obtains the
first miracle of Jesus at the wed-
ding feast in Cana, 287; follows
her Son to Caphamaum, 202;
seeks to speak to Him amid the
enthusiastic multitudes, U, 50; at
the foot of the Cross, m, 376; at
the home of John the Apostle,
377.

JVlary ^lagdalen, delivered of seven
demons, U, 34; her sins forgiven at
the house of Simon the Pharisee,
38; accompanies Jesus with the
holy women, 74; at her home in
Bethany, 316; identified with the
sister of Martha, 318; origin of her
surname Magdalen, 322; attitude
at the resurrection of Lazarus, 454 ;
at the house of Simon the leper,
m, 32: at the foot of the Cross,
376; after the burial of Jesus, 395;
on the wav to the sepulchre, 412;

[ 5

on the way back to the city to tell
Peter, 416: alone at the tomb, and
the first to see Jesus risen again,
421.

Mary, mother of James and Joseph,
wife of Cleophas or Alpheus, I,
178; after the burial of Jesus, HI,
395; on the way to the sepulchre
the third day, 412; sees Jeeus risen
again, 426.

^lartha, sister of Mary and Lazarus,
n, 316; her pious jealousy of her
sister, 325: at the resurrection of
her brother, 451; at the home of
Simon the leper, HI, 32.

Matthew-Levi, I, 26; his call to the
Apostleship, 390 et seq. ; his tem-
perament, 391; Jewish character
of his Gospel, published in Ara-
maic and in Greek, 29.

Measure, bath, sextary, I, 288; cor
and modius, H, 428.

Messiah, same as Christ, I, 196.

^ligdal Eder, the tower of the flock,
I, 189.

Miracles of Jesus (cf. Jesus).

Mischna, the oral development of
the law of Moses, I, 87.

^loon, new, of Xisan, HI, 3: how
determined, 182.

Moses, with Elias at the Trans-
figuration, H, 165; will accuse
Israel, I, S42; did not institute
circmncision, H, 210; did not pre-
scribe, but tolerated divorce, H,
490; his authority sufficient, 437;
explained to the disciples of
Emmaus, HI, 438; to the Apostles,
445.

Money, -changers, I, 294; value of the
denarius, H, 92; HI, 76; of the
didrachma, H, 175; the talent,
Hebrew, Egyptian, Attic, 194; the

12]

IXDEX

farthing, 355; the pound, HI, iS;
the mite and the quadrans, 10£;
the sacred shekel, 168.

Nairn, site of, I, 426.

Nathanael-Bartholomew, brought to
Jesus, I, 279; same as the apostle
Bartholomew, his character, 444;
on the lake of Tiberias, HE, 459.

Nazarene, surname apphed to Jesus,

I, as.

Nazareth, not Nazra, meaning of, I,
223; the home of Jesus, iio et seq. ;
the synagogue, 351.

Nicodemus comes to Jesus, I, 300;
results of his talk with Jesus, 307;
defends Jesiis before the San-
hedrim, n, 223; buries Jesus, TTT,
i&i et seq.

Order observed in this Lije of Christ,
I, 98.

Palestine, general geography of, I,
GO d seq.

Paneas, II, 153.

Passover, first Paschal feast in our
Lord's pubhc life, I, 293; second,
n, 94; third, HI, 171: date of last
174; description of, 187.

Parables, definition of, 11, 53; of the
Seed-sowing, 56; of the imper-
ceptible Growth, 62; of the Mus-
tard-seed, 63; the Leaven. 65; the
Cockle, 66: the buried Treasure,
69; the Pearl, 70; the Net, 70; the
Debtor, 194; the good Shepherd,

[ 5

272: the good Samaritan, 309; the
importionate Friend, 339; the
Servants awaiting the blaster, 365;
the two Stewards, 369; the foolish
Rich Man, 358; the great Supper,
382: the barren Fig-tree, 393; the
lost Sheep, 404 ; the lost Groat, 406 ;
the prodigal Son, 408; the imfaith-
fijl Steward, 426; Lazarus and
Dives, 430; the Pharisee and the
PubUcan, 442; the Widow and the
unjust Judge, 467; the Labourers
sent to the Vraeyard, 473; the
Pounds, EEL 22; the two Sons, Gi;
the rebellious Husbandmen, 64;
the Wedding-feast of the King's
Son, 69; the foohsh Vii^ins, 138;
the Talents, 143; the true Vine,
243.

Paradise, HE, 375.

Peraea and its dependaides, I, 69.

Pharisees, origin and doctrines of
sect of, L 85.

Phihp the Apostie, called by Jesus,
I, 279; character of, 444: Greeks
and, rn, 105; request of, at the
Last Supper, 230.

Philip, Herodias" husband, L 345.

Phihp, tetrarch, L 93; 11, 144.

Peter, Simon-, brought to Jesus, I,
278; gives up his boat for the
Master to preach in, 361; as-
tonished at the miraculous draught
of fishes, 363; wiU be a fisher of
men. 363; character of. 443: con-
fession in the road to C^esarea, H,
150; the foundation of the Church,
151: reprimanded, 156: goes to
prepare the Last Supper, HI, 171;
suffers his feet to be washed, 196;
wishes to know who is the traitor,
202; shall deny the Master. 210;
strikes with the sword, 298; denies

13 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST

his Master, 310; bitterly repents,
320; runs to Jesus' tomb, 420; sees
Jesus alive, 441; invested with the
Primacy in the Church, 463; his
martyrdom prophesied, 467; re-
ceives Jesus' last admonition, 470.

Pilate, III, 324; tries Jesus, 329 et
seq.\ declares Jesus innocent, 335;
sends Him to Herod, 337; em-
ploys useless expedients, 344; is
forced to condemn Jesus to the
Cross, 357; writes the universal
royalty of Jesus, 369; gives His
body to Joseph of Arimathea, 391;
his report to Tiberius, 399; his sad
end, 405.

Plan, divine, in behalf of fallen man,
I, 1 et seq.

Portraits, apocryphal, of Jesus, 1,237.

Prayer, the Lord's, ÏI, 330 et seq.

Procurators, I, 95.

Protevangelium of James, I, 158.

Psalms of Solomon, I, 12.

Publicans, I, 389 ; invited to enter the
Kingdom of God, 391 et seq.

Quirinius, I, 185.

Raca, n, 16.

Rabbis, method of teaching, I, 232,

385.
Resurrection of Jesus, certainty and

consequences of, IH, 483 et seq.
Romans, in Palestine, I, 91 et seq.

Sabbath, the second-first, II, 115.
Sadducees, origin and positi\ist doc-
trines of, I, 88; III, 81.
Salome, daughter of Herodias, II, 84.

Salome, wife of Zebedee, mother of
James and John, follows Jesus, II,
75; ambitious request of. III, 7;
at the tomb, 415; announces the
Resurrection, 427.

Samaria, origin and character of
inhabitants of, I, 72 et seq.; cele-
brated places of, 72; Samaritans of
to-day, 327.

Sanhedrim, Constitution of, I, 90;
embassy of, to John the Baptist,
125; solemn session of, after the
resurrection of Lazarus, II, 461;
decisive meeting of, III, 163; night
session at the house of Caiphas,
312; later meeting during the day,
322; delivers Jesus to Pilate, 323;
sets a guard at the sepulchre, 397;
attempts to bribe the guards to
make them falsify, 430.

Scheol, II, 433; III, 400.

Schammai, I, 87; H, 488.

Scribes, I, 86 et seq.

Sepulchre, Holy, III, 394, 397.

Sermon on the Mount, II, 1.

Shepherds of Bethlehem, I, 190.

Sichem or Sichar, I, 316.

Sidon, n, 133.

Siloe, pool of, n, 260; tower of, 11,
392.

Simeon, canticle of, I, 212; prophecy
of, 213.

Simon -bar- Jona (cf. Peter).

Simon Zelotes, Apostle, I, 447.

Simon the Cyrenean, III, 363.

Simon the leper at Bethany, III, 32.

Simon the Pharisee, II, 31 et seq.

Susanna, II, 74.

SjTiagogues, administration of, I, 90;
arrangement of, 352.

Synoptics (Gospels), mutual re-
semblance of, I, 37; problem they
suggest, 38.

[ 514 ]

INDEX

Tabernacles, feast of, H, 205; sol-
emn libation, 217; illumination,
235.

Talmud of Babylon and of Jerusalem,
I, 87.

Temple, I, 83; invaded by the sellers
and purified by Jesus, I, 294; III,
55; restored by Herod, I, 297;
Hall of the Treasury, II, 241;
Solomon's porch, 341; veil rent,
in, 381.

Thabor, U, 162.

Thaddaeus (cf. Jude).

Theophilus, mentioned by St. Luke,
I, 35.

Thief, the good and the wicked, III,
373 et seq.

Thomas, Apostle, character of, I,
445; generosity of, II, 450; in-
credulity of. III, 452; faith of,
454.

Tiberius, date of accession of, I,
104.

Trachonitis, I, 66.

Transfiguration, Mountain of, II,
162.

Transjordanem, or land beyond the

Jordan, I, 65.
Tyre, II, 133.

WeU, Jacob's, I, 317.

Women, the Holy, following Jesus,
II, 74; on Calvary, at the bvuial of
Jesus, HI, 393 et seq. ; the morning
of the Resurrection, 412 et seq.
of Jerusalem weeping. III, 364
woman taken in adultery, II, 226
woman with flov,- of blood healed,
I, 400.

Word, doctrine of the, I, 139.

Veronica or Berenice, I, 402.

Zachary, priest, vision of, I, 107;
punishment of, 109 et seq.; be-
comes a father, 110; canticle of,
111.

Zacheus, the publican, HI, 18; con-
version of, 21.

[ 515 ]

INDEX OF SCRIPTURAL PASSAGES
EXPLAINED IN THESE VOLUMES

ST. MATTHEW

St. Matthew {Continued)

CHAP.

VERSE VOL. PAGES

CHAP.

VERSE

VOL.

PAGES

1-17

I 145-150

5-15

76- 81

18-25

I 173-180

298

1-12

I 198-207

17-23

III

122-123

13-23

I 216-222

24-25

298-299

III

1-12

I 116-124

26-33

354-356

13-17

I 130-137

34-39

372-378

1-11

I 244-268

40-42

79- 80

I 344-345

1-19

431-438

13-17

I 349-357

20-24

287-288

18-22

I 359-364

25-30

301-303

1-48 I

I 3- 23

XII

1- 8

115-118

1-8 I

I 23- 25

9-21

124-126

9-13 I

I 329-337

22-50

41- 51

16-18 I

I 25- 26

XIII

1-53

52- 72

19-21 I

I 362-364

XIII

54-58

424-426

22-24 I

I 49- 50

XIV

1- 2

82- 83

25-33 I

I 361-364

XIV

3- 5

345-347

VII

1-28 I

I 26- 30

XIV

6-12

84- 87

VII

7-11 I

I 338-339

XIV

13-36

88- 99

VIII

1- 4

I 378-382

1-20

119-124

VIII

5-13

I 417-423

21-38

128-137

VIII

14-17

I 372-373

138-139

vni

I 407-408

XVI

1-12

139-143

VIII

19-22 I

I 291-293

XVI

13-28

144-159

VIII

23-34

I 408-416

xvn

1-20

160-173

1- 8

I 383-388

XVII

21-26

174-178

9-17

I 389-397

xvin

1-14

178-187

18-26

I 398-405

xvni

15-35

188-198

27-34

I 422-423

XIX

1- 2

305-306

35-38 I

I 295-296

XIX

3-15

487-499

1- 4

I 439-450

[ 516

XIX

]

16-30

478-486

INDEX OF SCRIPTURAL PASSAGES

St. JVIatthew {Continued)

St, Mark {Continued)

CHAP.

VEE8E

VOL.

PAGES

CHAP.

VERSE

VOL.

PAGES

1-16

473-478

1-12

383-388

17-28

III

3- 12

13-22

389-397

29-34

III

13- 17

23-28

115-117

XXI

1-11

41- 50

III

1- 6

124-126

XXI

12-17

III

54- 58

III

13-19

439-450

XXI

18-19

III

52- 53

20-35

41- 51

XXI

20-22

III

59- 60

1-20

52- 62

XXI

23-46

60- 68

21-25

xxn

1-14

69- 73

26-29

62- 63

xxn

15-40

III

74- 86

30-34

63- 64

XXII

41-46

III

87- 90

35-41

406-410

xxm

1-39

90-101

1-20

411-416

XXIV and XXV

III

115-153

21-43

398-405

XXVI

1- 5

III

163-165

1- 6

424-426

XXVI

6-13

III

30- 39

7-13

76- 81

XXVI

14-16

III

165-169

14-16

82- 83

XXVI

17-19

170-173

17-20

345-347

XXVI

20-25

III

187-204

21-29

85- 87

XXVI

26-29

III

213-225

30-56

88- 99

XXVI

III

276-277

1-23

119-124

XXVI

31-35

III

209-211

VII

24-37

128-136

XXVI

36-46

278-290

VIII

1- 9

136-137

XXVI

47-56

III

291-302

VIII

10-21

138-143

XXVI

57-75

303-323

VIII

22-38

144-159

XX\TI

1-10

406-411

1-29

160-173

XXVII

11-30

324-357

30-50

174-187

XXVII

31-56

358-385

305-306

XXVII

57-66

III

386-403

2-16

487-499

XXVIII

1-15

411-432

17-31

478-486

XXVIII

16-20

III

476-482

32-45

III

3- 12

46-52

III

13- 17

ST. MARTC

1-11

III

41- 50

12-14

III

51- 54

1- 8

116-124

15-19

III

54- 58

9-11

130-137

20-26

III

59- 60

12-13

244-268

27-33

III

60- 62

14-15

344-345

XII

1-12

64- 68

16-20

349-357

XII

13-34

III

74- 86

21-34

365-374

XII

35-37

III

87- 90

35-45

375-382

XII

38-40

III

90-101

[ 517 ]

LIFE or CHRIST

St. Maek {Continued)

St. LtJKE {Continued)

CHAP.

VERSE

VOL.

PAGES

CHAP.

VERSE

VOL.

PAGES

XII

42-44

Ill

101-102

16-30

350-358

XIII

1-37

III

115-138

31-41

365-374

XIV

1- 2

III

163-165

42-44

375-377

XIV

3- 9

III

30- 39

1-11

359-364

XIV

10-11

III

165-169

12-16

378-382

XIV

12-16

III

170-173

17-26

383-388

XIV

III

188-191

27-39

389-397

XIV

18-21

III

198-212

1-11

114-126

XIV

22-25

III

213-225

12-19

439-450

XIV

III

276-277

20-49

3- 30

XIV

27-31

III

209-211

VII

1-10

417-423

XIV

32-42

III

278-290

VII

11-17

426-430

XIV

43-52

III

291-302

VII

18-35

431-438

XIV

53-72

III

303-323

VII

36-50

31- 40

1-19

III

324-357

VIII

1- 3

73- 75

20-41

III

358-385

VIII

4-18

56- 62

42-47

III

386-403

VIII

19-21

50- 51

XVI

1-11

III

411-432

VIII

22-39

406-416

XVI

12-13

III

433-441

VIII

40-56

398-405

XVI

III

442-450

1- 6

76- 81

XVI

15-18

III

476-482

7- 9

82- 83

XVI

19-20

III

493-501

10-17

88- 99

18-27

144-159

ST. LUKE

IX
IX

28-43
44-50

160-173
174-183

1- 4

33- 34

51-56

286-290

5-25

105-110

57-62

291-294

26-56

155-172

1-24

295-304

57-80

110-113

25-37

305-314

1-20

181-193

38-42

315-327

194-197

1-13

329-336

22-38

208-215

14-36

42- 50

39-40

216-222

37-54

350-353

41-52

223-243

XII

1-21

354-359

III

1-18

116-122

XII

22-59

360-373

19-20

344-345

xni

1- 9

391-394

21-22

130-137

10-17

375-377

23-38

151-154

XIII

18-21

63- 64

1-13

244-268

XIII

22-30

387-391

14-15

345-346

XIII

31-33

400-401

[ 518]

INDEX OF SCRIPTURAL PASSAGES

St. Luke (Continued)

St. Luke {Continued)

CHAP.

VERSE

VOL.

PAUES

CHAP.

VERSK

VOL.

PAGES

XIII

34-35

Ill

100-101

XXIII

50-56

386-403

XIV

1-24

378-386

XXIV

1-12

411-432

XIV

25-35

395-400

XXIV

13-35

433-441

1-32

402-424

XXIV

36-49

442-452

XVI

1-31

425-438

xxrv

50-53

493-501

XVII

1- 4

183-187

xvn

5-10

439-441

XVII

11-19

469-473

ST. JOHN

XVII

20-37

III

116-130

XVIII

1- 8

467-468

1-18

138-143

XVIII

9-14

442-445

19-28

125-129

XVIII

15-17

498-499

29-34

269-274

XVIII

18-30

478-485

35-52

276-283

XVIII

31-34

III

5- 7

1-11

284-291

XVIII

35-43

III

13- 17

12-22

292-298

XIX

1-10

III

18- 21

13-25

299-300

XIX

11-28

III

21- 28

III

1-21

300-308

XIX

29-44

III

41- 50

22-36

309-314

XIX

45-48

III

51- 54

1-42

315-327

1-19

III

60- 68

43-54

328-331

20-40

III

74- 82

1-47

332-343

41-44

III

87- 90

1-21

88- 99

45-47

III

93- 95

22-71

100-113

XXI

1- 4

III

101-102

1-10

199-204

XXI

5-36

III

115-138

VII

11-36

205-215

xxn

1- 2

163-165

VII

37-52

216-225

XXII

3- 6

III

165-169

VII

226-227

XXII

7-13

170-173

VIII

1-11

227-234

XXII

14-18

III

187-193

vni

12-20

235-241

XXII

19-20

III

213-225

VIII

21-59

242-255

XXII

21-23

III

198-201

1-41

256-269

XXII

24-30

III

194-200

1-21

270-280

XXII

31-38

III

209-111

22-39

340-348

XXII

III

276-277

40-42

374-375

xxn

40-46

III

278-290

1-46

446-460

XXII

47-53

III

291-302

47-54

461-466

XXII

54-71

III

303-322

55-5Q

III

29- 30

XXIII

III

322-323

XII

1-11

III

31- 40

XXIII

2-25

III

324-357

XII

12-19

III

41- 50

xxm

26-49

III

358-385

XII

20-36

III

103-114

[ 519 ]

LIFE OF CHRIST

St. John (Contimied)

St. John (Continued)

CHAP.

VERSE

VOL.

PAGES

CHAP.

VEE8E

VOL.

PAGES

XII

36-50

Ill

154-160

XVIII

12-27

Ill

303-312

XTTT

1-20

III

187-199

XVIII

28-40

III

324-343

xin

21-30

200-204

XIX

1-15

III

345-357

31-38

205-212

XIX

16-30

358-385

XIV

1-31

III

226-241

XIX

31-42

III

386-402

XV and XVI

III

242-265

1-18

III

412-432

xvn

266-277

19-23

III

442-450

XVIII

III

278-279

24-29

III

451-456

XVIII

2-11

III

291-302

XXI

1-24

III

457-470

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