“Jerusalem,” remarks Sir Frederick Henniker, “is called, even by Mohammedans, the Blessed City (El Gootz, El Koudes.) The streets of it are narrow and deserted, the houses dirty and ragged, the shops few and forsaken; and throughout the whole there is not one symptom of either commerce, comfort, or happiness. The best view of it is from the Mount of Olives: it commands the exact shape and nearly every particular; namely, the church of the holy sepulchre, the Armenian convent, the mosque of Omar, St. Stephen’s gate, the round-topped houses, and the barren vacancies of the city. Without the walls are a Turkish burial ground, the tomb of David, a small grove near the tombs of the kings, and all the rest is a surface of rock, on which are a few numbered trees. The mosque of Omar is the St. Peter’s of Turkey, and the respective saints are held respectively by their own faithful in equal veneration. The building itself has a light pagoda appearance; the garden in which it stands occupies a considerable part of the city, and, contrasted with the surrounding desert, is beautiful. The burial place of the Jews is over the valley of Kedron, and the fees for breaking the soil afford a considerable revenue to the governor. The burial place of the Turks is under the walls, near St. Stephen’s gate. From the opposite side of the valley, I was witness to the ceremony of parading a corpse round the mosque of Omar, and then bringing it forth for burial. I hastened to the grave, but was soon driven away: as far as myon dittells me, it would have been worth seeing. The grave is strown with red earth, supposed to be of theAger Damascenusof which Adam was made; by the side of the corpse is placed a stick, and the priest tells him that the devil will tempt him to become a Christian, but that he must make good use of his stick; thathis trial will last three days, and that he will then find himself in a mansion of glory,” &c.
The Jerusalem of sacred history is, in fact, no more. Not a vestige remains of the capital of David and Solomon; not a monument of Jewish times is standing. The very course of the walls is changed, and the boundaries of the ancient city are become doubtful. The monks pretend to show the sites of the sacred places; but neither Calvary, nor the holy sepulchre, much less the Dolorous Way, the house of Caiaphas, &c, have the slightest pretensions to even a probable identity with the real places to which the tradition refers. Dr. E. D. Clarke has the merit of being the first modern traveller who ventured to speak of the preposterous legends and clumsy forgeries of the priests with the contempt which they merit. “To men interested in tracing, within its walls, antiquities referred to by the documents of sacred history, no spectacle,” remarks the learned traveller, “can be more mortifying than the city in its present state. The mistaken piety of the early Christians, in attempting to preserve, has either confused or annihilated the memorials it was anxious to render conspicuous. Viewing the havoc thus made, it may now be regretted that the Holy Land was ever rescued from the dominion of Saracens, who were far less barbarous than their conquerors. The absurdity, for example, of hewing the rocks of Judea into shrines and chapels, and of disguising the face of nature with painted domes and guilded marble coverings, by way of commemorating the scenes of our Saviour’s life and death, is so evident and so lamentable, that even Sandys, with all his credulity, could not avoid a happy application of the reproof conveyed by the Roman satirist against a similar violation of the Egerian fountain.” Dr. Richardson remarks, “It is a tantalizing circumstance for the traveller who wishes to recognise in his walks the site of particular buildings, or the scenes of memorable events, that the greater part of the objects mentioned in the description both of the inspired and the Jewish historian, are entirely removed, and razed from their foundation, without leaving a single trace or name behind to point out where they stood. Not an ancient tower, or gate, or wall, or hardly even a stone, remains. The foundations are not only broken up, but every fragment of which they were composed is swept away, and the spectator looks upon the bare rock with hardly a sprinkling of earth to point out her gardens of pleasure, or groves of idolatrous devotion. And when we consider the palaces, and towers, and walls about Jerusalem, and that the stones of which some of them were constructed were thirty feet long, fifteen feet broad, and seven and a half feet thick, we are not more astonished at the strength, and skill, and perseverance, by which they were constructed, than shocked by the relentless and brutal hostility by which they were shattered and overthrown, and utterly removed from our sight. A few gardens still remain on the sloping base of Mount Zion, watered from the pool of Siloam; the gardens of Gethsemane are still in a sort of ruined cultivation; the fences are broken down, and the olive trees decaying, as if the hand that dressed and fed them were withdrawn; the Mount of Olives still retains a languishing verdure, and nourishes a few of those trees from which it derives its name; but all round about Jerusalem the general aspect is blighted and barren; the grass is withered; the bare rock looks through the scanty sward; and the grain itself, like the staring progeny of famine, seems in doubt whether to come to maturity, or die in the ear. The vine that was brought from Egypt is cut off from the midst of the land; the vineyards are wasted; the hedges are taken away; and the graves of the ancient dead are open and tenantless.”
3. On the accomplishment of prophecy in the condition in which this celebrated city has lain for ages, Keith well remarks:--It formed the theme of prophecy from the death bed of Jacob; and, as the seat of the government of the children of Judah, the sceptre departed not from it till the Messiah appeared, on the expiration of seventeen hundred years after the death of the patriarch, and till the period of its desolation, prophesied of by Daniel, had arrived. It was to be trodden down of the Gentiles, till the time of the Gentiles should be fulfilled. The time of the Gentiles is not yet fulfilled, and Jerusalem is still trodden down of the Gentiles. The Jews have often attempted to recover it: no distance of space or of time can separate it from their affections: they perform their devotions with their faces toward it, as if it were the object of their worship as well as of their love; and, although their desire to return be so strong, indelible, and innate, that every Jew, in every generation, counts himself an exile, yet they have never been able to rebuild their temple, nor to recover Jerusalem from the hands of the Gentiles. But greater power than that of a proscribed and exiled race has been added to their own, in attempting to frustrate the counsel that professed to be of God. Julian, the emperor of the Romans, not only permitted but invited the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem and their temple; and promised to reëstablish them in their paternal city. By that single act, more than by all his writings, he might have destroyed the credibility of the Gospel, and restored his beloved but deserted Paganism. The zeal of the Jews was equal to his own; and the work was begun by laying again the foundations of the temple. It was never accomplished, and the prophecy stands fulfilled. But even if the attempt of Julian had never been made, the truth of the prophecy itself is unassailable. The Jews have never been reinstated in Judea. Jerusalem has ever been trodden down of the Gentiles. The edict of Adrian was renewed by the successors of Julian; and no Jews could approach unto Jerusalem but by bribery or by stealth. It was a spot unlawful for them to touch. In the crusades, all the power of Europe was employed to rescue Jerusalem from the Heathens, but equally in vain. It has been trodden down for nearly eighteencenturies by its successive masters; by Romans, Grecians, Persians, Saracens, Mamelukes, Turks, Christians, and again by the worst of rulers, the Arabs and the Turks. And could any thing be more improbable to have happened, or more impossible to have been foreseen by man, than that any people should be banished from their own capital and country, and remain expelled and expatriated for nearly eighteen hundred years? Did the same fate ever befall any nation, though no prophecy existed respecting it? Is there any doctrine in Scripture so hard to be believed as was this single fact at the period of its prediction? And even with the example of the Jews before us, is it likely, or is it credible, or who can foretel, that the present inhabitants of any country upon earth shall be banished into all nations, retain their distinctive character, meet with an unparalleled fate, continue a people, without a government and without a country, and remain for an indefinite period, exceeding seventeen hundred years, till the fulfilment of a prescribed event which has yet to be accomplished? Must not the knowledge of such truths be derived from that prescience alone which scans alike the will and the ways of mortals, the actions of future nations, and the history of the latest generations?
JESHURUN, a name given to the collective political body of Israelites. Some derive the word fromישר,justorrighteous, and so make it to signify a righteous people. Montanus renders itrectitudo, and so does the Samaritan version. But it seems a considerable objection against this sense, that Israel is called Jeshurun at the very time that they are upbraided with their sins and their rebellion: “Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked,” &c, Deut. xxxii, 15. It is replied, Jeshurun is the diminutive ofישר, (fornomen auctum in fine est nomen diminutivum,) and so imports, that though, in general and on the whole, they were a righteous people, yet they were not without great faults. Perhaps Cocceius has given as probable an interpretation as any. He derives the word fromשור, which signifiesto see,behold,or discover; from whence, in the future tense, plural, comesישורו, which, with the addition of nunparagogicum, makes Jeshurun; that is, “the people who had the vision of God.” This makes the name of Jeshurun to be properly applied to Israel, not only when Moses is called their king, but when they are upbraided with their rebellion against God; since the peculiar manifestation which God had made of himself to them was a great aggravation of their ingratitude and rebellion.
JESSE. SeeDavidandRuth.
JESUITS, or the society of Jesus, one of the most celebrated monastic orders of the Romish church, was founded in the year 1540, by Ignatius Loyola, Forsaking the military for the ecclesiastical profession, he engaged himself in the wildest and most extravagant adventures, as the knight of the blessed virgin. After performing a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and pursuing a multitude of visionary schemes, he returned to prosecute his theological studies in the universities of Spain, when he was about thirty-three years of age. He next went to Paris, where he collected a small number of associates; and, prompted by his fanatical spirit, or the love of distinction, began to conceive the establishment of a new religious order. He produced a plan of its constitution and laws, which he affirmed to have been suggested by the immediate inspiration of Heaven, and applied to the Roman pontiff, Paul III. for the sanction of his authority to confirm the institution. At a time when the papal authority had received so severe a shock from the progress of the Reformation, and was still exposed to the most powerful attacks in every quarter, this was an offer too tempting to be resisted. The reigning pontiff, though naturally cautious, and though scarcely capable, without the spirit of prophecy, of foreseeing all the advantages to be derived from the services of this nascent order, yet clearly perceiving the benefit of multiplying the number of his devoted servants, instantly confirmed by his bull the institution of the Jesuits, granted the most ample privileges to the members of the society, and appointed Loyola to be the first general of the order.
2. The simple and primary object of the society, says a writer in the Edinburgh Encyclopædia, was to establish a spiritual dominion over the minds of men, of which the pope should appear as the ostensible head, while the real power should reside with themselves. To accomplish this object, the whole constitution and policy of the order were singularly adapted, and exhibited various peculiarities which distinguished it from all other monastic orders. The immediate design of every other religious society was to separate its members from the world; that of the Jesuits, to render them masters of the world. The inmate of the convent devoted himself to work out his own salvation by extraordinary acts of devotion and self-denial; the follower of Loyola considered himself as plunging into all the bustle of secular affairs, to maintain the interests of the Romish church. The monk was a retired devotee of heaven; the Jesuit a chosen soldier of the pope. That the members of the new order might have full leisure for this active service, they were exempted from the usual functions of other monks. They were not required to spend their time in the long ceremonial offices and numberless mummeries of the Romish worship. They attended no processions, and practised no austerities. They neither chanted nor prayed. “They cannot sing,” said their enemies; “for birds of prey never do.” They were sent forth to watch every transaction of the world which might appear to affect the interests of religion, and were especially enjoined to study the dispositions and cultivate the friendship of persons in the higher ranks. Nothing could be imagined more open and liberal than the external aspect of the institution, yet nothing could be more strict and secret than its internal organization. Loyola, influenced, perhaps, by the notions of implicit obedience which he had derived fromhis military profession, resolved that the government of the Jesuits should be absolutely monarchical. A general, chosen for life by deputies from the several provinces, possessed supreme and independent power, extending to every person, and applying to every case. Every member of the order, the instant that he entered its pale, surrendered all freedom of thought and action; and every personal feeling was superseded by the interests of that body to which he had attached himself. He went wherever he was ordered; he performed whatever he was commanded; he suffered whatever he was enjoined; he became a mere passive instrument incapable of resistance. The gradation of ranks was only a gradation in slavery; and so perfect a despotism over a large body of men, dispersed over the face of the earth, was never before realized.
The maxims of policy adopted by this celebrated society were, like its constitution, remarkable for their union of laxity and rigour. Nothing could divert them from their original object; and no means were ever scrupled which promised to aid its accomplishment. They were in no degree shackled by prejudice, superstition, or real religion. Expediency, in its most simple and licentious form, was the basis of their morals, and their principles and practices were uniformly accommodated to the circumstances in which they were placed; and even their bigotry, obdurate as it was, never appears to have interfered with their interests. The paramount and characteristic principle of the order, from which none of its members ever swerved, was simply this, that its interests were to be promoted by all possible means, at all possible expense. In order to acquire more easily an ascendancy over persons of rank and power, they propagated a system of the most relaxed morality, which accommodated itself to the passions of men, justified their vices, tolerated their imperfections, and authorized almost every action which the most audacious or crafty politician would wish to perpetrate. To persons of stricter principles they studied to recommend themselves by the purity of their lives, and sometimes by the austerity of their doctrines. While sufficiently compliant in the treatment of immoral practices, they were generally rigidly severe in exacting a strict orthodoxy in opinions. “They are a sort of people,” said the Abbé Boileau, “who lengthen the creed and shorten the decalogue.” They adopted the same spirit of accommodation in their missionary undertakings; and their Christianity, chamelionlike, readily assumed the colour of every religion where it happened to be introduced. They freely permitted their converts to retain a full proportion of the old superstitions, and suppressed, without hesitation, any point in the new faith which was likely to bear hard on their prejudices or propensities. They proceeded to still greater lengths; and, beside suppressing the truths of revelation, devised the most absurd falsehoods, to be used for attracting disciples, or even to be taught as parts of Christianity. One of them in India produced a pedigree to prove his own descent from Brama; and another in America assured a native chief that Christ had been a valiant and victorious warrior, who, in the space of three years, had scalped an incredible number of men, women, and children. It was, in fact, their own authority, not the authority of true religion, which they wished to establish; and Christianity was generally as little known, when they quitted the foreign scenes of their labours as when they entered them.
These detestable objects and principles, however, were long an impenetrable secret: and the professed intention of the new order was to promote, with unequalled and unfettered zeal, the salvation of mankind. Its progress, nevertheless, was at first remarkably slow. Charles V., who is supposed, with his usual sagacity, to have discerned its dangerous tendency, rather checked than encouraged its advancement; and the universities of France resisted its introduction into that kingdom. Thus, roused by obstacles, and obliged to find resources within themselves, the Jesuits brought all their talents and devices into action. They applied themselves to every useful function and curious art; and neither neglected nor despised any mode, however humble, of gaining employment or reputation. The satirist’s description of the Greeks in Rome has been aptly chosen to describe their indefatigable and universal industry:--
Grammaticus, rhetor, geometres, pictor, aliptes,Augur, schœnobates, medicus, magus; omnia novitGræculus.Juvenal, lib. iii, 76.“A Protean tribe, one knows not what to call,Which shifts to every form, and shines in all:Grammarian, painter, augur, rhetorician,Rope-dancer, conjuror, fiddler, and physician,--All trades his own, your hungry Greekling counts.”Gifford.
Grammaticus, rhetor, geometres, pictor, aliptes,Augur, schœnobates, medicus, magus; omnia novitGræculus.Juvenal, lib. iii, 76.“A Protean tribe, one knows not what to call,Which shifts to every form, and shines in all:Grammarian, painter, augur, rhetorician,Rope-dancer, conjuror, fiddler, and physician,--All trades his own, your hungry Greekling counts.”Gifford.
Grammaticus, rhetor, geometres, pictor, aliptes,Augur, schœnobates, medicus, magus; omnia novitGræculus.Juvenal, lib. iii, 76.
Grammaticus, rhetor, geometres, pictor, aliptes,
Augur, schœnobates, medicus, magus; omnia novit
Græculus.
Juvenal, lib. iii, 76.
“A Protean tribe, one knows not what to call,Which shifts to every form, and shines in all:Grammarian, painter, augur, rhetorician,Rope-dancer, conjuror, fiddler, and physician,--All trades his own, your hungry Greekling counts.”Gifford.
“A Protean tribe, one knows not what to call,
Which shifts to every form, and shines in all:
Grammarian, painter, augur, rhetorician,
Rope-dancer, conjuror, fiddler, and physician,--
All trades his own, your hungry Greekling counts.”
Gifford.
They laboured with the greatest assiduity to qualify themselves as the instructers of youth; and succeeded, at length, in supplanting their opponents in every Catholic kingdom. They aimed, in the next place, to become the spiritual directors of the higher ranks; and soon established themselves in most of the courts which were attached to the papal faith, not only as the confessors, but frequently also as the guides and ministers, of superstitious princes. The governors of the society pursuing one uniform system with unwearied perseverance, became entirely successful; and, in the space of half a century, had in a wonderful degree extended the reputation, the number, and influence of the order. When Loyola, in 1540, petitioned the pope to authorize the institution of the Jesuits, he had only ten disciples; but in 1608 the number amounted to 10,581. Before the expiration of the sixteenth century they had obtained the chief direction of the education of youth in every Catholic country in Europe, and had become the confessors of almost all its noblest monarchs. In spite of their vow of poverty, their wealth increased with their power; and they soon rivalled, in the extent and value of their possessions, the most opulent monastic fraternities. About the beginning of the seventeenthcentury, they obtained from the court of Madrid the grant of the large and fertile province of Paraguay, which stretches across the southern continent of America, from the mountains of Potosi to the banks of the river La Plata; and, after every deduction which can reasonably be made from their own accounts of their establishment, enough will remain to excite the astonishment and applause of mankind. They found the inhabitants in the first stage of society, ignorant of the arts of life, and unacquainted with the first principles of subordination. They applied themselves to instruct and civilize these savage tribes. They commenced their labours by collecting about fifty families of wandering Indians, whom they converted and settled in a small township. They taught them to build houses, to cultivate the ground, and to rear tame animals; trained them to arts and manufactures, and brought them to relish the blessings of security and order. By a wise and humane policy, they gradually attracted new subjects and converts; till at last they formed a powerful and well organized state of three hundred thousand families.
Though the power of the Jesuits had become so extensive, and though their interests generally prospered during a period of more than two centuries, their progress was by no means uninterrupted; and, by their own misconduct, they soon excited the most formidable counteractions. Scarcely had they effected their establishment in France, in defiance of the parliaments and universities, when their existence was endangered by the fanaticism of their own members. John Chastel, one of their pupils, made an attempt upon the life of Henry IV.; and Father Guiscard, another of the order, was convicted of composing writings favourable to regicide. The parliaments seized the moment of their disgrace, and procured their banishment from every part of the kingdom, except the provinces of Bourdeaux and Toulouse. From these rallying points, they speedily extended their intrigues in every quarter, and in a few years obtained their re-establishment. Even Henry, either dreading their power, or pleased with the exculpation of his licentious habits, which he found in their flexible system of morality, became their patron, and selected one of their number as his confessor. They were favoured by Louis XIII. and his minister Richelieu, on account of their literary exertions; but it was in the succeeding reign of Louis XIV. that they reached the summit of their prosperity. The Fathers La Chaise and Le Teltier were successively confessors to the king; and did not fail to employ their influence for the interest of their order: but the latter carried on his projects with so blind and fiery a zeal, that one of the Jesuits is reported to have said of him, “He drives at such a rate, that he will overturn us all.” The Jansenists were peculiarly the objects of his machinations, and he rested not till he had accomplished the destruction of their celebrated college and convent at Port Royal. Before the fall, however, of this honoured seminary, a shaft from its bow had reached the heart of its proud oppressor. The “Provincial Letters of Pascal” had been published, in which the quibbling morality and unintelligible metaphysics of the Jesuits were exposed in a strain of inimitable humour, and a style of unrivalled elegance. The impression which they produced was wide and deep, and gradually sapped the foundation of public opinion, on which the power of the order had hitherto rested. Under the regency of the duke of Orleans, the Jesuits, and all theological personages and principles were disregarded with atheistical superciliousness; but under Louis XV. they partly recovered their influence at court, which, even under Cardinal Fleury, they retained in a considerable degree. But they soon revived the odium of the public by their intolerant treatment of the Jansenists, and probably accelerated their ruin by refusing, from political rather than religious scruples, to undertake the spiritual guidance of Madame de la Pampadour, as well as by imprudently attacking the authors of the “Encyclopêdie.” Voltaire directed against them all the powers of his ridicule, and finished the piece which Pascal had sketched. Their power was brought to a very low ebb, when the war of 1756 broke out, which occasioned the famous law-suit that led to their final overthrow.
In the mean time the king of Portugal was assassinated; and Carvalho, the minister, who detested the Jesuits, found means to load them with the odium of the crime. Malagrida, and a few more of these fathers, were charged with advising and absolving the assassins; and, having been found guilty, were condemned to the stake. The rest were banished with every brand of infamy, and were treated with the most iniquitous cruelty. They were persecuted without discrimination, robbed of their property without pity, and embarked for Italy without previous preparation; so that, no provision having been made for their reception, they were literally left to perish with hunger in their vessels. These incidents prepared the way for a similar catastrophe in France. In March, 1762, the French court received intelligence of the capture of Martinico by the British; and, dreading a storm of public indignation, resolved to divert the exasperated feelings of the nation, by yielding the Jesuits to their impending fate. On the sixth of August, 1762, their institute was condemned by the parliament, as contrary to the laws of the state, to the obedience due to the sovereign, and to the welfare of the kingdom. The order was dissolved, and their effects alienated. But in certain quarters, where the provincial parliaments had not decided against them, Jesuits still subsisted; and a royal edict was afterward promulgated, which formally abolished the society in France, but permitted its members to reside within the kingdom under certain restrictions.
In Spain, where they conceived their establishment to be perfectly secure, they experienced an overthrow equally complete, and much more unexpected. The necessary measureswere concerted under the direction of De Choiseul, by the Marquis D'Ossun, the French ambassador at Madrid, with Charles III., king of Spain, and his prime minister, the Count D'Aranda. The execution of their purposes was as sudden as their plans had been secret. At midnight, March 31st, 1767, large bodies of military surrounded the six colleges of the Jesuits in Madrid, forced the gates, secured the bells, collected the fathers in the refectory, and read to them the king’s order for their instant transportation. They were immediately put into carriages previously placed at proper stations; and were on their way to Carthagena before the inhabitants of the city had any intelligence of the transaction. Three days afterward, the same measures were adopted with regard to every other college of the order in the kingdom; and, ships having been provided at the different sea ports, they were all embarked for the ecclesiastical states in Italy. All their property was confiscated, and a small pension assigned to each individual as long as he should reside in a place appointed, and satisfy the Spanish court as to his peaceable demeanour. All correspondence with the Jesuits was prohibited, and the strictest silence on the subject of their expulsion was enjoined under penalties of high treason. A similar seizure and deportation took place in the Indies, and an immense property was acquired by the government. Many crimes and plots were laid to the charge of the order; but whatever may have been their demerit, the punishment was too summary to admit of justification; and many innocent individuals were subjected to sufferings beyond the deserts even of the guilty. Pope Clement III. prohibited their landing in his dominions; and, after enduring extreme miseries in crowded transports, the survivors, to the number of two thousand three hundred, were put ashore on Corsica. The example of the king of Spain was immediately followed by Ferdinand VI. of Naples, and soon after by the prince of Parma. They had been expelled from England in 1604; from Venice in 1606; and from Portugal in 1759, upon the charge of having instigated the families of Tavora and D'Aveiro to assassinate King Joseph I. Frederick the Great, of Prussia, was the only monarch who showed a disposition to afford them protection; but in 1773 the order was entirely suppressed by Pope Clement XIV., who is supposed to have fallen a victim to their vengeance. In 1801 the society was restored in Russia by the Emperor Paul; and in 1804, by King Ferdinand, in Sardinia. In August, 1814, a bull was issued by Pope Pius VII., restoring the order to all their former privileges, and calling upon all Catholic princes to afford them protection and encouragement. This act of their revival is expressed in all the solemnity of papal authority; and even affirmed to be above the recall or revision of any judge, with whatever power he may be clothed; but to every enlightened mind it cannot fail to appear as a measure altogether incapable of justification, from any thing either in the history of Jesuitism, or in the character of the present times.
3. It would be in vain to deny that many considerable advantages were derived by mankind from the labours of the Jesuits. Their ardour in the study of ancient literature, and their labours in the instruction of youth, greatly contributed to the progress of polite learning. They have produced a greater number of ingenious authors than all the other religious fraternities taken together; and though there never was known among their order one person who could be said to possess an enlarged philosophical mind, they can boast of many eminent masters in the separate branches of science, many distinguished mathematicians, antiquarians, critics, and even some orators of high reputation. They were in general, also, as individuals, superior in decency, and even purity of manners, to any other class of regular clergy in the church of Rome. But all these benefits by no means counterbalanced the pernicious effects of their influence and intrigues on the best interests of society.
The essential principles of the institution, namely, that their order is to be maintained at the expense of the society at large, and that the end sanctifies the means, are utterly incompatible with the welfare of any community of men. Their system of lax and pliant morality, justifying every vice, and authorizing every atrocity, has left deep and lasting ravages on the face of the moral world. Their zeal to extend the jurisdiction of the court of Rome over every civil government, gave currency to tenets respecting the duty of opposing princes who were hostile to the Catholic faith, which shook the basis of all political allegiance, and loosened the obligations of every human law. Their indefatigable industry, and countless artifices in resisting the progress of reformed religion, perpetuated the most pernicious errors of Popery, and postponed the triumph of tolerant and Christian principles. Whence, then, it may well be asked, whence the recent restoration? What long latent proof has been discovered of the excellence, or even the expedience, of such an institution? The sentence of their abolition was passed by the senates, and monarchs, and statesmen, and divines, of all religions, and of almost every civilized country in the world. Almost every land has been stained and torn by their crimes; and almost every land bears on its public records the most solemn protests against their existence.
JESUS CHRIST, the Son of God, the Messiah, and Saviour of the world, the first and principal object of the prophecies, prefigured and promised in the Old Testament, expected and desired by the patriarchs; the hope of the Gentiles; the glory, salvation, and consolation of Christians. The name Jesus, or, as the Hebrews pronounce it,יהושוע,Jehoshua, orJoshua, Ἰησούς, signifies,he who shall save. No one ever bore this name with so much justice, nor so perfectly fulfilled the signification of it, as Jesus Christ, who saveseven from sin and hell, and hath merited heaven for us by the price of his blood. It is not necessary here to narrate the history of our Saviour’s life, which can no where be read with advantage except in the writings of the four evangelists; but there are several general views which require to be noticed under this article.
1. Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ or Messiah promised under the Old Testament. That he professed himself to be that Messiah to whom all the prophets gave witness, and who was, in fact, at the time of his appearing, expected by the Jews; and that he was received under that character by his disciples, and by all Christians ever since, is certain. And if the Old Testament Scriptures afford sufficiently definite marks by which the long announced Christ should be infallibly known at his advent, and these presignations are found realized in our Lord, then is the truth of his pretensions established. From the books of the Old Testament we learn that the Messiah was to authenticate his claim bymiracles; and in thosepredictionsrespecting him, so many circumstances are recorded, that they could meet only in one person; and so, if they are accomplished in him, they leave no room for doubt, as far as the evidence of prophecy is deemed conclusive. As toMIRACLES, we refer to that article; here only observing, that if the miraculous works wrought by Christ were really done, they prove his mission, because, from their nature, and having been wrought to confirm his claim to be the Messiah, they necessarily imply adivine attestation. With respect toPROPHECY, the principles under which its evidence must be regarded as conclusive will be given under that head; and here therefore it will only be necessary to show the completion of the prophecies of the sacred books of the Jews relative to the Messiah in one person, and that person the founder of the Christian religion.
The time of the Messiah’s appearance in the world, as predicted in the Old Testament, is defined, says Keith, by a number of concurring circumstances, which fix it to the very date of the advent of Christ. The last blessing of Jacob to his sons, when he commanded them to gather themselves together that he might tell them what should befall them in the last days, contains this prediction concerning Judah: “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be,” Gen. xlix, 10. The date fixed by this prophecy for the coming of Shiloh, or the Saviour, was not to exceed the time during which the descendants of Judah were to continue a united people, while a king should reign among them, while they should be governed by their own laws, and while their judges should be from among their brethren. The prophecy of Malachi adds another standard for measuring the time: “Behold, I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me; and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall come suddenly to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts,” Mal. iii, 1. No words can be more expressive of the coming of the promised Messiah; and they as clearly imply his appearance in the second temple before it should be destroyed. In regard to the advent of the Messiah before the destruction of the second temple, the words of Haggai are remarkably explicit: “The desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of Hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, and in this place will I give peace,” Hag. ii, 7. The Saviour was thus to appear, according to the prophecies of the Old Testament, during the time of the continuance of the kingdom of Judah, previous to the demolition of the temple, and immediately subsequent to the next prophet. But the time is rendered yet more definite. In the prophecies of Daniel, the kingdom of the Messiah is not only foretold as commencing in the time of the fourth monarchy, or Roman empire, but the express number of years that were to precede his coming are plainly intimated: “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people, and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sin, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy. Know, therefore, and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem, unto Messiah the Prince, shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks,” Dan. ix, 24, 25. Computation by weeks of years was common among the Jews, and every seventh was the sabbatical year; seventy weeks, thus amounted to four hundred and ninety years. In these words the prophet marks the very time, and uses the very name of Messiah, the Prince; so entirely is all ambiguity done away. The plainest inference may be drawn from these prophecies. All of them, while, in every respect, they presuppose the most perfect knowledge of futurity; while they were unquestionably delivered and publicly known for ages previous to the time to which they referred; and while they refer to different contingent and unconnected events, utterly undeterminable and inconceivable by all human sagacity; accord in perfect unison to a single precise period where all their different lines terminate at once,--the very fulness of time when Jesus appeared. A king then reigned over the Jews in their own land; they were governed by their own laws; and the council of their nation exercised its authority and power. Before that period, the other tribes were extinct or dispersed among the nations. Judah alone remained, and the last sceptre in Israel had not then departed from it. Every stone of the temple was then unmoved; it was the admiration of the Romans, and might have stood for ages. But in a short space, all these concurring testimonies to the time of the advent of the Messiah passedaway. During the very year, the twelfth of his age, in which Christ first publicly appeared in the temple, Archelaus the king was dethroned and banished; Coponius was appointed procurator; and the kingdom of Judea, the last remnant of the greatness of Israel, was debased into a part of the province of Syria. The sceptre was smitten from the tribe of Judah; the crown fell from their heads; their glory departed; and, soon after the death of Christ, of their temple one stone was not left upon another; their commonwealth itself became as complete a ruin, and was broken in pieces; and they have ever since been scattered throughout the world, a name but not a nation. After the lapse of nearly four hundred years posterior to the time of Malachi, another prophet appeared who was the herald of the Messiah. And the testimony of Josephus confirms the account given in Scripture of John the Baptist. Every mark that denoted the time of the coming of the Messiah was erased soon after the crucifixion of Christ, and could never afterward be renewed. And with respect to the prophecies of Daniel, it is remarkable, at this remote period, how little discrepancy of opinion has existed among the most learned men, as to the space from the time of the passing out of the edict to rebuild Jerusalem, after the Babylonish captivity, to the commencement of the Christian era, and the subsequent events foretold in the prophecy.
The predictions contained in the Old Testament respecting both the family out of which the Messiah was to arise, and the place of his birth, are almost as circumstantial, and are equally applicable to Christ, as those which refer to the time of his appearance. He was to be an Israelite, of the tribe of Judah, of the family of David, and of the town of Bethlehem. That all these predictions were fulfilled in Jesus Christ; that he was of that country, tribe, and family, of the house and lineage of David, and born in Bethlehem, we have the fullest evidence in the testimony of all the evangelists; in two distinct accounts of the genealogies, by natural and legal succession, which, according to the custom of the Jews, were carefully preserved; in the acquiescence of the enemies of Christ in the truth of the fact, against which there is not a single surmise in history; and in the appeal made by some of the earliest Christian writers to the unquestionable testimony of the records of the census, taken at the very time of our Saviour’s birth by order of Cæsar. Here, indeed, it is impossible not to be struck with the exact fulfilment of prophecies which are apparently contradictory and irreconcilable, and with the manner in which they were providentially accomplished. The spot of Christ’s nativity was distant from the place of the abode of his parents, and the region in which he began his ministry was remote from the place of his birth; and another prophecy respecting him was in this manner verified: “In the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, by the way of the sea beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations, the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined,” Isaiah ix, 1, 2; Matt. iv, 16. Thus, the time at which the predicted Messiah was to appear; the nation, the tribe, and the family from which he was to be descended; and the place of his birth,--no populous city, but of itself an inconsiderable place,--were all clearly foretold; and as clearly refer to Jesus Christ; and all meet their completion in him.
But the facts of his life, and the features of his character, are also drawn with a precision that cannot be misunderstood. The obscurity, the meanness, and the poverty of his external condition are thus represented: “He shall grow up before the Lord like a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form or comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. Thus saith the Lord to him whom man despiseth, to him whom the nation abhorreth, to a servant of rulers, Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship,” Isaiah liii, 2; xlix, 7. That such was the condition in which Christ appeared, the whole history of his life abundantly testifies. And the Jews, looking in the pride of their hearts for an earthly king, disregarded these prophecies concerning him, were deceived by their traditions, and found only a stone of stumbling, where, if they had searched their Scriptures aright, they would have discovered an evidence of the Messiah. “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not this the son of Mary? said they and they were offended at him.” His riding in humble triumph into Jerusalem; his being betrayed for thirty pieces of silver, and scourged, and buffeted, and spit upon; the piercing of his hands and of his feet; the last offered draught of vinegar and gall; the parting of his raiment, and casting lots upon his vesture; the manner of his death and of his burial, and his rising again without seeing corruption, were all expressly predicted, and all these predictions were literally fulfilled, Zech. ix, 9; xi, 12; Isaiah l, 6; Psalm xxii, 16; lxix, 21; xxii, 18; Isaiah liii, 9; Psalm xvi, 10. If all these prophecies admit of any application to the events of the life of any individual, it can only be to that of the Author of Christianity. And what other religion can produce a single fact which was actually foretold of its founder?
The death of Christ was as unparalleled as his life; and the prophecies are as minutely descriptive of his sufferings as of his virtues. Not only did the paschal lamb, which was to be killed every year in all the families of Israel, which was to be taken out of the flock, to be without blemish, to be eaten with bitter herbs, to have its blood sprinkled, and to be kept whole that not a bone of it should be broken; not only did the offering up of Isaac, and the lifting up of the brazen serpent in the wilderness, by looking upon which the people were healed, and many ritual observances of the Jews, prefigure the manner of Christ’s death, and the sacrifice which was to be made for sin; but many express declarations abound in the prophecies,that Christ was indeed to suffer. But Isaiah, who describes, with eloquence worthy of a prophet, the glories of the kingdom that was to come, characterizes, with the accuracy of a historian, the humiliation, the trials, and the agonies which were to precede the triumphs of the Redeemer of a world; and the history of Christ forms, to the very letter, the commentary and the completion of his every prediction. In a single passage, Isaiah lii, 13, &c; liii, the connection of which is uninterrupted, its antiquity indisputable, and its application obvious, the sufferings of the servant of God (who under that same denomination, is previously described as he who was to be the light of the Gentiles, the salvation of God to the ends of the earth, and the elect of God in whom his soul delighted, Isa. xiii, 10; xlix, 6) are so minutely foretold, that no illustration is requisite to show that they testify of Jesus. The whole of this prophecy thus refers to the Messiah. It describes both his debasement and his dignity; his rejection by the Jews; his humility, his affliction, and his agony; his magnanimity and his charity; how his words were disbelieved; how his state was lowly; how his sorrow was severe; how he opened not his mouth but to make intercession for the transgressors. In diametrical opposition to every dispensation of Providence which is registered in the records of the Jews, it represents spotless innocence suffering by the appointment of Heaven; death as the issue of perfect obedience; God’s righteous servant as forsaken of him; and one who was perfectly immaculate bearing the chastisement of many guilty; sprinkling many nations from their iniquity, by virtue of his sacrifice; justifying many by his knowledge; and dividing a portion with the great and the spoil with the strong, because he hath poured out his soul in death. This prophecy, therefore, simply as apredictionpredictionprior to the event, renders the very unbelief of the Jews an evidence against them, converts the scandal of the cross into an argument in favour of Christianity, and presents us with an epitome of the truth, a miniature of the Gospel in some of its most striking features. The simple exposition of it sufficed at once for the conversion of the eunuch of Ethiopia. To these prophecies may, in fact, be added all those which relate to his spiritual kingdom, or the circumstances of the promulgation, the opposition, and the triumphs of his religion; the accomplishment of which equally proves the divine mission of its Author, and points him out as that great personage with whom they stand inseparably connected.
2. But if Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, in that character his Deity also is necessarily involved, because the Messiah is surrounded with attributes of divinity in the Old Testament; and our Lord himself as certainly lays claim to those attributes as to the office of “the Christ.” Without referring here to the Scriptural doctrine of a Trinity of divine Persons in the unity of the Godhead, (seeTrinity,) it is sufficient now to show that both in the Old and New Testament Scriptures, the Messiah is contemplated as a divine Person. In the very first promise of redemption, his superiority to that great and malignant spirit who destroyed the innocence of man, and blighted the fair creation of God, is unquestionably implied; while the Angel of the Divine Presence, the Angel of the Covenant, who appears so prominent in the patriarchal times, and the early periods of Jewish history, and was understood by the early Jews as the future Messiah, is seen at once as a being distinct from Jehovah and yet Jehovah himself; bearing that incommunicable name; and performing acts, and possessing qualities of unquestionable divinity. As the “Redeemer” of Job, he is the object of his trust and hope, and is said to be then a “living Redeemer;” to see whom at the last was to “see God.” As “Shiloh,” in the prophecy of Jacob, he is represented as having an indefinitely extensive reign over “the people” gathered to him; and in all subsequent predictions respecting this reign of Christ, it is represented so vast, so perfect, so influential upon the very thoughts, purposes, and affections of men, that no mere creature can be reasonably supposed capable of exercising it. Of the second Psalm, so manifestly appropriated to the Messiah, it has been justly said, that the high titles and honours ascribed in this Psalm to the extraordinary person who is the chief subject of it, far transcend any thing that is ascribed in Scripture to any mere creature. But if the Psalm be inquired into more narrowly, and compared with parallel prophecies; if it be duly considered, that not only is the extraordinary person here spoken of called, “the Son of God,” but that title is so ascribed to him as to imply, that it belongs to him in a manner that is absolutely singular, and peculiar to himself, seeing he is said to be begotten of God, verse 7, and is called, by way of eminence, “the Son,” verse 12; that the danger of provoking him to anger is spoken of in so very different a manner from what the Scripture uses in speaking of the anger of any mere creature, “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little;” that when the kings and judges of the earth are commanded to serve God with fear, they are at the same time commanded to kiss the Son, which in those times and places was frequently an expression of adoration; and, particularly, that, whereas other Scriptures contain awful and just threatenings against those who trust in any mere man, the Psalmist nevertheless expressly calls them blessed who trust in the Son here spoken of;--all these things taken together make up a character of unequivocal divinity: and, on the other hand, when it is said, that God would set this his Son as his King on his holy hill of Zion, verse 6, this, and various other expressions in this Psalm, contain characters of that subordination which is appropriate to that divine Person who was to be incarnate, and engage in a work assigned to him by the Father. The former part of the forty-fifth Psalm is by the inspired authority of St. Paulapplied to the Christ, who is addressed in these lofty words, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.” In the same manner Psalm cii, 25–29, is applied to Christ by the same authority, and there he is represented as the Creator of all things, changing his creations as a vesture, and yet himself continuing the same unchanged being amidst all the mutations of the universe. In Psalm cx, David says, “Jehovah said unto my Lord, (Adonai,) Sit thou upon my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” And in Isaiah vi, the same Adonai is seen by the prophet “seated upon a throne, high and lifted up,” receiving the adoration of seraphs, and bearing the title, “Jehovah, Lord of Hosts,” of which passage St. John makes a direct application to Christ. Isaiah predicts his birth of a virgin, under the title of “Immanuel, God with us.” The same prophet gives to this wonderful child the style of “the Mighty God,” the Everlasting Father,” and the “Prince of Peace;” so that, as Dr. Pye Smith justly observes, “if there be any dependence on words, the Messiah is here drawn in the opposite characters of humanity and Deity,--the nativity and frailty of a mortal child, and the incommunicable attributes of the omnipresent and eternal God.” Twice is he called by Jeremiah, “Jehovah our righteousness.” Daniel terms him the “Ancient of Days,” or “The Immortal;” and Micah declares, in a passage which the council of the Jews, assembled by Herod, applied to the Messiah, that he who was to be born in Bethlehem was “even he whose comings forth are from eternity, from the days of the everlasting period.” Thus the prophetic testimony describes him, as entitled to the appellation of “Wonderful,” since he should be, in a sense peculiar to himself, the Son of God, Psalm ii, 7; Isaiah ix, 6; as existing and acting during the patriarchal and the Jewish ages, and even from eternity, Psalm xl, 7–9; Micah v, 2; as the guardian and protector of his people, Isaiah xl, 9–11; as the proper object of the various affections of piety, of devotional confidence for obtaining the most important blessings, and of religious homage from angels and men, Psalm ii, 12; xcvii, 7; and, finally, declares him to be the eternal and immutable Being, the Creator, God, the Mighty God, Adonai, Elohim, Jehovah.
In perfect accordance with these views, does our Saviour speak of himself. He asserts his preëxistence, as having “come down from heaven;” and as existing “before Abraham;” and as being “in heaven” while yet before the eyes of his disciples on earth. In the same peculiar manner does he apply the term “Son of God” to himself, and that with so manifest an intention to assume it in the sense of divinity, that the Jews attempted on that account to stone him as a blasphemer. The whole force of the argument by which he silenced the Pharisees when he asked how the Messiah, who was to be the Son of David, could be David’s Lord, in reference to the passage in the Psalms before quoted, arose out of the doctrine of the Messiah’s divinity; and when he claims that all men should honour him as they honour the Father, and asserts that as the Father hath life in himself, so he has given to the Son to have life in himself, that he “quickeneth whom he will,” that “where two or three meet in his name he is in the midst of them,” and would be with his disciples “to the end of the world;” who does not see that the Jews concluded right, when they said that he made himself “equal with God,”--an impression which he took no pains to remove, although his own moral character bound him to do so, had he not intended to confirm that conclusion. So numerous are the passages in which divine titles, acts, and qualities, are ascribed to Christ, in the apostolical epistles, and so unbroken is the stream of testimony from the apostolic age, that the Deity of their Saviour was the undoubted and universal faith of his inspired followers, and of those who immediately succeeded them, that it is not necessary to quote proofs. The whole argument is this: If the Old Testament Scriptures represent the Messiah as a divine Person; the proofs which demonstrate Jesus to be the Messiah, demonstrate him also by farther and necessary consequence to be divine. Yet, though there is a union of natures in Christ, there is no mixture or confusion of their properties: his humanity is not changed into his Deity, nor his Deity absorbed by his humanity; but the two natures are distinct in one Person. How this union exists, is above our comprehension; and, indeed, if we cannot explain how our bodies and souls are united, it is not to be supposed that we can comprehend the mystery of “God manifest in the flesh.” So truly does Christ bear the name given to him in prophecy,--“Wonderful.”
3. The doctrine of the Deity of Christ derives farther confirmation from the consideration, that in no sound sense can the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments be interpreted so as to make their very different and often apparently contradictory statements respecting him harmonize. How, for instance, is it that he is arrayed in the attributes of divinity, and yet is capable of being raised to a kingdom and glory?--that he is addressed, “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever,” and yet that it should follow “God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows?”--that he should be God, and yet, by a human birth, “God with us?”--that he should, say, “I and my Father are one,” and, “My Father is greater than I?”--that he is supreme, and yet a servant?--that he is equal and yet subordinate?--that he, a man, should require and receive worship and trust?--that he should be greater than angels, and yet “made lower than the angels?”--that he should be “made flesh,” and yet be the Creator of all things?--that he should raise himself from the dead, and yet be raised by the power of the Father? These and many other declarations respecting him, all accord with the orthodox view of his person; and are intelligible so far as they state the facts respectinghim; but are wholly beyond the power of interpretation into any rational meaning on any theory which denies to him a real humanity on the one hand, or a real and personal divinity on the other. So powerfully, in fact, has this been felt, that, in order to evade the force of the testimony of Scripture, the most licentious criticisms have been resorted to by the deniers of his divinity; such as would not certainly have been tolerated by scholars in the case of an attempt to interpret any other ancient writing.
4. Being, therefore, not only “a teacher sent from God,” but the divine Son of God himself, it might be truly said by his wondering hearers, “Never man spake like this man.” On our Lord’s character as a teacher, therefore, many striking and just remarks have been made by different writers, not excepting some infidels themselves, who, in this respect, have been carried into admiration by the overwhelming force of evidence. This article, however, shall not be indebted to a desecrated source for an estimate of the character of his teaching, and shall rather be concluded with the following admirable remarks of a Christian prelate:--
“When our Lord is considered as a teacher, we find him delivering the justest and most sublime truths with respect to the divine nature, the duties of mankind, and a future state of existence; agreeable in every particular to reason, and to the wisest maxims of the wisest philosophers; without any mixture of that alloy which so often debased their most perfect production; and excellently adapted to mankind in general, by suggesting circumstances and particular images on the most awful and interesting subjects. We find him filling, and, as it were, overpowering our minds with the grandest ideas of his own nature; representing himself as appointed by his Father to be our Instructer, our Redeemer, our Judge, and our King; and showing that he lived and died for the most benevolent and important purposes conceivable. He does not labour to support the greatest and most magnificent of all characters; but it is perfectly easy and natural to him. He makes no display of the high and heavenly truths which he utters; but speaks of them with a graceful and wonderful simplicity and majesty. Supernatural truths are as familiar to his mind, as the common affairs of life are to other men. He revives the moral law, carries it to perfection, and enforces it by peculiar and animating motives: but he enjoins nothing new beside praying in his name, mutual love among his disciples, as such, and the observance of two simple and significant positive laws which serve to promote the practice of the moral law. All his precepts, when rightly explained, are reasonable in themselves and useful in their tendency: and their compass is very great, considering that he was an occasional teacher, and not a systematical one. If from the matter of his instructions we pass on to the manner in which they were delivered, we find our Lord usually speaking as an authoritative teacher; though occasionally limiting his precepts, and sometimes assigning the reasons of them. He presupposes the original law of God, and addresses men as rational creatures. From the grandeur of his mind, and the magnitude of his subjects, he is often sublime; and the beauties interspersed throughout his discourses are equally natural and striking. He is remarkable for an easy and graceful manner of introducing the best lessons from incidental objects and occasions. The human heart is naked and open to him; and he addresses the thoughts of men, as others do the emotions of their countenance or their bodily actions. Difficult situations, and sudden questions of the most artful and ensnaring kind, serve only to display his superior wisdom, and to confound and astonish all his adversaries. Instead of showing his boundless knowledge on every occasion, he checks and restrains it, and prefers utility to the glare of ostentation. He teaches directly and obliquely, plainly and covertly, as wisdom points out occasions. He knows the inmost character, every prejudice and every feeling of his hearers; and, accordingly, uses parables to conceal or to enforce his lessons: and he powerfully impresses them by the significant language of actions. He gives proofs of his mission from above, by his knowledge of the heart, by a chain of prophecies, and by a variety of mighty works.
“He sets an example of the most perfect piety to God, and of the most extensive benevolence and the most tender compassion to men. He does not merely exhibit a life of strict justice, but of overflowing benignity. His temperance has not the dark shades of austerity; his meekness does not degenerate into apathy. His humility is signal, amidst a splendour of qualities more than human. His fortitude is eminent and exemplary, in enduring the most formidable external evils and the sharpest actual sufferings: his patience is invincible; his resignation entire and absolute. Truth and sincerity shine throughout his whole conduct. Though of heavenly descent, he shows obedience and affection to his earthly parents. He approves, loves, and attaches himself to amiable qualities in the human race. He respects authority, religious and civil; and he evidences his regard for his country by promoting its most essential good in a painful ministry dedicated to its service, by deploring its calamities, and by laying down his life for its benefit. Every one of his eminent virtues is regulated by consummate prudence; and he both wins the love of his friends, and extorts the approbation and wonder of his enemies. Never was a character at the same time so commanding and natural, so resplendent and pleasing, so amiable and venerable. There is a peculiar contrast in it between an awful greatness, dignity, and majesty, and the most conciliating loveliness, tenderness, and softness. He now converses with prophets, lawgivers, and angels; and the next instant he meekly endures the dulness of his disciples, and the blasphemies and rage of the multitude.He now calls himself greater than Solomon, one who can command legions of angels, the Giver of life to whomsoever he pleaseth, the Son of God who shall sit on his glorious throne to judge the world. At other times we find him embracing young children, not lifting up his voice in the streets, not breaking the bruised reed, nor quenching the smoking flax; calling his disciples, not servants, but friends and brethren, and comforting them with an exuberant and parental affection. Let us pause an instant, and fill our minds with the idea of one who knew all things heavenly and earthly, searched and laid open the inmost recesses of the heart, rectified every prejudice, and removed every mistake, of a moral and religious kind, by a word exercised a sovereignty over all nature, penetrated the hidden events of futurity, gave promises of admission into a happy immortality, had the keys of life and death, claimed a union with the Father; and yet was pious, mild, gentle, humble, affable, social, benevolent, friendly, affectionate. Such a character is fairer than the morning star. Each separate virtue is made stronger by opposition and contrast; and the union of so many virtues forms a brightness which fitly represents the glory of that God ‘who inhabiteth light inaccessible.’ Such a character must have been a real one. There is something so extraordinary, so perfect, and so godlike in it, that it could not have been thus supported throughout by the utmost stretch of human art, much less by men confessedly unlearned and obscure.” We may add, that such a character must also have beendivine. His virtues are human in their class and kind, so that he was our “example;” but they were sustained and heightened by that divinity which was impersonated in him, and from which they derived their intense and full perfection.
5. A great deal has been written concerning the form, beauty, and stature of Jesus Christ. Some have asserted, that he was in person the noblest of all the sons of men. Others have maintained, that there was no beauty nor any graces in his outward appearance. The fathers have not expressed themselves on this matter in a uniform manner. St. Jerom believes that the lustre and majesty which shone about our Saviour’s face were capable of winning all hearts: it was this that drew the generality of his Apostles with so much ease to him; it was this majesty which struck those down who came to seize him in the olive garden. St. Bernard and St. Chrysostom contend in like manner for the beauty of Jesus Christ’s person; but the most ancient fathers have acknowledged, that he was not at all handsome.Homo indecorus et passibilis, says Irenæus. Celsus objected to the Christians, that Jesus Christ, as a man, was little, and ill made, which Origen acknowledged in his answer to have been written of him. Clemens Alexandrinus owns, in several places, that the person of Jesus Christ was not beautiful, as does also Cyril of Alexandria. Tertullian says plainly,vultu et aspectu inglorius; that his outward form had nothing that could attract consideration and respect. St. Austin confesses, that Jesus Christ, as a man, was without beauty and the advantage of person; and the generality of the ancients, as Eusebius, Basil, Theodoret, Ambrose, Isidore, &c, explain the passage in the Psalms, “Thou art fairer than the children of men,” as relating to the beauty of Jesus Christ according to his divinity. This difference in opinion shows that no certain tradition was handed down on this subject. The truth probably is, that all which was majestic and attractive in the person of our Lord, was in theexpressionof the countenance, the full influence of which was displayed chiefly in his confidential intercourse with his disciples; while his general appearance presented no striking peculiarity to the common observer.
JEWS, the appropriate denomination of the descendants of Judah, which soon included under it the Benjamites, who joined themselves to the tribe of Judah, on the revolt of the other ten tribes from the house of David. After the Babylonish captivity, when many individuals of these ten tribes returned with the men of Judah and Benjamin to rebuild Jerusalem, the termJewsincluded them also, or rather was then extended to all the descendants of Israel who retained the Jewish religion, whether they belonged to the two or to the ten tribes, whether they returned into Judea or not. Hence, not only all the Israelites of future times have been called Jews, but all the descendants of Jacob, from the earliest times, are frequently so called by us at present, and we speak even of their original dispensation as the Jewish dispensation. The history of this singular people is recorded in the sacred books of the Old Testament; and in place of epitomizing the accounts of the sacred writers, it will be more useful to fill up the chasm between the close of the historical books there contained, and the coming of our Lord.
When the kingdom of Judah had been seventy years in captivity, and the period of their affliction was completed, Cyrus, (B. C. 536,) under whom were united the kingdoms of Persia, Media, and Babylon, issued a decree, permitting all the Jews to return to their own land, and to rebuild their temple at Jerusalem. This decree had been expressly foretold by the Prophet Isaiah, who spoke of Cyrus by name, above a hundred years before his birth, as the deliverer of God’s chosen people from their predicted captivity. Though the decree issued by Cyrus was general, a part only of the nation took advantage of it. The number of persons who returned at this time was forty-two thousand three hundred and sixty, and seven thousand three hundred and thirty-seven servants. They were conducted by Zerubbabel and Joshua. Zerubbabel, frequently called in Scripture Shashbazzar, was the grandson of Jeconias, and consequently descended from David. He was called “the prince of Judah,” and was appointed their governor by Cyrus, and with his permissioncarried back a part of the gold and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar had taken out the temple of Jerusalem. The rest of the treasures of the temple were carried thither afterward by Ezra. Joshua was the son of Josedec, the high priest, and grandson of Seraiah, who was high priest when the temple was destroyed. Darius, the successor of Cyrus, confirmed this decree, and favoured the reëstablishment of the people. But it was in the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus, called in Scripture Ahasuerus, that Ezra obtained his commission, and was made governor of the Jews in their own land, which government he held thirteen years: then Nehemiah was appointed with fresh powers, probably through the interest of Queen Esther; and Ezra applied himself solely to correcting the canon of the Scriptures, and restoring and providing for the continuance of the worship of God in its original purity. The first care of the Jews, after their arrival in Judea, was to build an altar for burnt-offerings to God: they then collected materials for rebuilding the temple; and all necessary preparations being made, in the beginning of the second year after their return under Zerubbabel, they began to build it upon the old foundations. The Samaritans, affirming that they worshipped the God of Israel, offered to assist the Jews; but their assistance being refused, they did all in their power to impede the work; and hence originated that enmity which ever after subsisted between the Jews and Samaritans. The temple, after a variety of obstructions and delays, was finished and dedicated, in the seventh year of King Darius, B. C. 515, and twenty years after it was begun. Though this second temple, or, as it is sometimes called, the temple of Zerubbabel, who was at that time governor of the Jews, was of the same size and dimensions as the first, or Solomon’s temple, yet it was very inferior to it in splendour and magnificence; and the ark of the covenant, the Shechinah, the holy fire upon the altar, the Urim and Thummim, and the spirit of prophecy, were all wanting to this temple of the remnant of the people. At the feast of the dedication, offerings were made for the twelve tribes of Israel, which seems to indicate that some of all the tribes returned from captivity; but by far the greater number were of the tribe of Judah, and therefore from this period the Israelites were generally called Judæi or Jews, and their country Judea. Many, at their own desire, remained in those provinces where they had been placed by the kings of Assyria and Babylon. The settlement of the people, “after their old estate,” according to the word of the Lord, together with the arrangement of all civil and ecclesiastical matters, and the building of the walls of Jerusalem, were completed by Ezra and Nehemiah. But we soon after find Malachi, the last of the prophets under the Old Testament, reproving both priests and people very severely, not for idolatry, but for their scandalous lives and gross corruptions.
The Scriptural history ends at this period, B. C. 430; and we must have recourse to uninspired writings, principally to the books of the Maccabees, and to Josephus, for the remaining particulars of the Jewish history, to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. Judea continued subject to the kings of Persia about two hundred years; but it does not appear that it had a separate governor after Nehemiah. From his time it was included in the jurisdiction of the governor of Syria, and under him the high priest had the chief authority. When Alexander the Great was preparing to besiege Tyre, he sent to Jaddua, the high priest at Jerusalem, to supply him with that quantity of provisions which he was accustomed to send to Persia. Jaddua refused, upon the ground of his oath of fidelity to the king of Persia. This refusal irritated Alexander; and when he had taken Tyre, he marched toward Jerusalem to revenge himself upon the Jews. Jaddua had notice of his approach, and, by the direction of God, went out of the city to meet him, dressed in his pontifical robes, and attended by the Levites in white garments. Alexander, visibly struck with this solemn appearance, immediately laid aside his hostile intentions, advanced toward the high priest, embraced him, and paid adoration to the name of God, which was inscribed upon the frontlet of his mitre: he afterward went into the city with the high priest, and offered sacrifices in the temple to the God of the Jews. This sudden change in the disposition of Alexander excited no small astonishment among his followers; and when his favourite Parmenio inquired of him the cause, he answered, that it was occasioned by the recollection of a remarkable dream he had in Macedonia, in which a person, dressed precisely like the Jewish high priest, had encouraged him to undertake the conquest of Persia, and had promised him success: he therefore adored the name of that God by whose direction he believed he acted, and showed kindness to his people. It is also said, that while he was at Jerusalem the prophecies of Daniel were pointed out to him, which foretold that “the king of Grecia” should conquer Persia, Dan. viii, 21. Before he left Jerusalem he granted the Jews the same free enjoyment of their laws and their religion, and exemption from tribute every sabbatical year, which they had been allowed by the kings of Persia; and when he built Alexandria, he placed a great number of Jews there, and granted them many favours and immunities. Whether any Jews settled in Europe so early as while the nation was subject to the Macedonian empire, is not known; but it is believed that they began to Hellenize about this time. The Greek tongue became more common among them, and Grecian manners and opinions were soon introduced. SeeAlexander.
At the death of Alexander, (B. C. 323,) in the division of his empire among his generals, Judea fell to the share of Laomedon. But Ptolemy Soter, son of Lagus, king of Egypt, soon after made himself master of it by a stratagem: he entered Jerusalem on a Sabbathday, under pretence of offering sacrifice, and took possession of the city without resistance from the Jews, who did not on this occasion dare to transgress their law by fighting on a Sabbath day. Ptolemy carried many thousands captive into Egypt, both Jews and Samaritans, and settled them there: he afterward treated them with kindness, on account of their acknowledged fidelity to their engagements, particularly in their conduct toward Darius, king of Persia; and he granted them equal privileges with the Macedonians themselves at Alexandria. Ptolemy Philadelphus is said to have given the Jews who were captives in Egypt their liberty, to the number of a hundred and twenty thousand. He commanded the Jewish Scriptures to be translated into the Greek language, which translation is called the Septuagint. (SeeAlexandria.) After the Jewish nation had been tributary to the kings of Egypt for about a hundred years, it became subject to the kings of Syria. They divided the land, which now began to be called Palestine, into five provinces, three of which were on the west side of the Jordan, namely, Galilee, Samaria, and Judea, and two on the east side, namely, Trachonitis and Peræa; but they suffered them to be governed by their own laws, under the high priest and council of the nation. Seleucus Nicanor gave them the right of citizens in the cities which he built in Asia Minor and Cœlo-Syria, and even in Antioch, his capital, with privileges, which they continued to enjoy under the Romans. Antiochus the Great granted considerable favours and immunities to the city of Jerusalem; and, to secure Lydia and Phrygia, he established colonies of Jews in those provinces. In the series of wars which took place between the kings of Syria and Egypt, Judea, being situated between those two countries, was, in a greater or less degree, affected by all the revolutions which they experienced, and was frequently the scene of bloody and destructive battles. The evils to which the Jews were exposed from these foreign powers were considerably aggravated by the corruption and misconduct of their own high priests, and other persons of distinction among them. To this corruption and misconduct, and to the increasing wickedness of the people, their sufferings ought indeed to be attributed, according to the express declarations of God by the mouth of his prophets. It is certain that about this time a considerable part of the nation was become much attached to Grecian manners and customs, though they continued perfectly free from the sin of idolatry. Near Jerusalem places were appropriated to gymnastic exercises; and the people were led by Jason, who had obtained the high priesthood from Antiochus Epiphanes by the most dishonourable means, to neglect the temple worship, and the observance of the law, in a far greater degree than at any period since their return from the captivity. It pleased God to punish them for this defection, by the hand of the very person whom they particularly sought to please. Antiochus Epiphanes, irritated at having been prevented by the Jews from entering the holy place when he visited the temple, soon after made a popular commotion the pretence for the exercise of tyranny: he took the city, (B. C. 170,) plundered the temple, and slew or enslaved great numbers of the inhabitants, with every circumstance of profanation and of cruelty which can be conceived. For three years and a half, the time predicted by Daniel, the daily sacrifice was taken away, the temple defiled and partly destroyed, the observance of the law prohibited under the most severe penalties, every copy burned which the agents of the tyrant could procure, and the people required to sacrifice to idols, under pain of the most agonizing death. Numerous as were the apostates, (for the previous corruption of manners had but ill prepared the nation for such a trial,) a remnant continued faithful; and the complicated miseries which the people endured under this cruel yoke excited a general impatience. At length the moment of deliverance arrived. Mattathias, a priest, (B. C. 167,) eminent for his piety and resolution, and the father of five sons, equally zealous for their religion, encouraged the people by his example and exhortations, “to stand up for the law;” and having soon collected an army of six thousand men, he eagerly undertook to free Judea from the oppression and persecution of the Syrians, and to restore the worship of the God of Israel; but being very old when he engaged in this important and arduous work, he did not live to see its completion. At his death, his son, Judas Maccabæus, succeeded to the command of the army; and having defeated the Syrians in several engagements, he drove them out of Judea, and established his own authority in the country. His first care was to repair and purify the temple for the restoration of divine worship; and, to preserve the memory of this event, the Jews ordained a feast of eight days, called the feast of the dedication, to be yearly observed. Judas Maccabæus was slain in battle, and his brother Jonathan succeeded him in the government. He was also made high priest, and from that time the Maccabæan princes continued to be high priests. Judas Maccabæus and his brothers were so successful, by their valour and conduct, in asserting the liberty of their country, that in a few years they not only recovered its independence, but regained almost all the possessions of the twelve tribes, destroying at the same time the temple on Mount Gerizim, in Samaria. But they and their successors were almost always engaged in wars, in which, though generally victorious, they were sometimes defeated, and their country for a short time oppressed. Aristobulus was the first of the Maccabees who assumed the name of king. About forty-two years after, a contest arising between the two brothers, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, the sons of Alexander Jaddæus, relative to the succession of the crown, both parties applied to the Romans for their support and assistance. Scaurus, the Roman general, suffered himself to be bribed by Aristobulus, and placed him on the throne. Not long after, Pompey returned from the east into Syria, and both thebrothers applied to him for his protection, and pleaded their cause before him, (B. C. 63.) Pompey considered this as a favourable opportunity for reducing Palestine under the power of the Romans, to which the neighbouring nations had already submitted; and therefore, without deciding the points in dispute between the two brothers, he marched his army into Judea, and, after some pretended negociation with Aristobulus and his party, besieged and took possession of Jerusalem. He appointed Hyrcanus high priest, but would not allow him to take the title of king: he gave him, however, the specious name of prince, with very limited authority. Pompey did not take away the holy utensils or treasures of the temple, but he made Judea subject and tributary to the Romans; and Crassus, about nine years after, plundered the temple of every thing valuable belonging to it. Julius Cæsar confirmed Hyrcanus in the pontificate, and granted fresh privileges to the Jews; but about four years after the death of Julius Cæsar, Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, with the assistance of the Parthians, while the empire of Rome was in an unsettled state, deposed his uncle Hyrcanus, (B. C. 41,) seized the government, and assumed the title of king.