All Christians agree in finding these characteristics, apparently so incompatible, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, whom they call the "Christ"; His followers gave Him this title by eminence, not that He had been anointed in a sensible and material manner, as some kings, prophets, and sacrificers anciently were, but because the Divine Spirit had designated Him for those great offices, and He had received the spiritual unction necessary thereunto.
We had proceeded thus far on so competent an article, when a Dutch preacher, more celebrated for this discovery than for the indifferent productions of a genius otherwise feeble and ill-formed, showed to us that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah of God, was anointed at the three grand periods of His life, as our King, our Prophet, and our Sacrificer.
At the time of His baptism, the voice of the Sovereign Master of nature declared Him to be His Son, His only, His well-beloved Son, and for that very reason His representative.
When on Mount Tabor He was transfigured and associated with Moses and Elias, the same supernatural voice announces Him to humanity as the Son of Him who loves and who sends the prophets; as He who is to be hearkened to in preference to all others.
In Gethsemane, an angel comes down from heaven to support Him in the extreme anguish occasioned by the approach of His torments, and strengthen Him against the terrible apprehensions of a death which He cannot avoid, and enable Him to become a sacrificer the more excellent, as Himself is the pure and innocent victim that He is about to offer.
The judicious Dutch preacher, a disciple of the illustrious Cocceius, finds the sacramental oil of these different celestial unctions in the visible signs which the power of God caused to appear on His anointed; in His baptism, "the shadow of the dove," representing the Holy Ghost coming down from Him; on Tabor, the "miraculous cloud," which enveloped Him; in Gethsemane, the "bloody sweat," which covered His whole body.
After this, it would indeed be the height of incredulity not to recognize by these marks the Lord's Anointed by eminence—the promised Messiah; nor doubtless could we sufficiently deplore the inconceivable blindness of the Jewish people, but that it was part of the plan of God's infinite wisdom, and was, in His merciful views, essential to the accomplishment of His work and the salvation of humanity.
But it must also be acknowledged, that in the state of oppression in which the Jewish people were groaning, and after all the glorious promises which the Eternal had so often made them, they must have longed for the coming of a Messiah, and looked towards it as the period of their happy deliverance; and that they are therefore to an extent excusable for not having recognized a deliverer in the person of the Lord Jesus, since it is in man's nature to care more for the body than for the spirit, and to be more sensible to present wants than flattered by advantages "to come," and for that very reason, always uncertain.
It must indeed be believed that Abraham, and after him a very small number of patriarchs and prophets, were capable of forming an idea of the nature of the spiritual reign of the Messiah; but these ideas would necessarily be limited to the narrow circle of the inspired, and it is not astonishing that, being unknown to the multitude, these notions were so far altered that, when the Saviour appeared in Judæa, the people, their doctors, and even their princes, expected a monarch—a conqueror—who, by the rapidity of his conquests was to subdue the whole world. And how could these flattering ideas be reconciled with the abject and apparently miserable condition of Jesus Christ? So, feeling scandalized by His announcing Himself as the Messiah, they persecuted Him, rejected Him, and put Him to the most ignominious death. Having since then found nothing tending to the fulfilment of their oracles, and being unwilling to renounce them, they indulge in all sorts of ideas, each one more chimerical than the one preceding.
Thus, when they beheld the triumphs of the Christian religion, and found that most of their ancient oracles might be explained spiritually, and applied to Jesus Christ, they thought proper, against the opinion of their fathers, to deny that the passages which we allege against them are to be understood of the Messiah, thus torturing our Holy Scriptures to their own loss.
Some of them maintain that their oracles have been misunderstood; that it is in vain to long for the coming of a Messiah, since He has already come in the person of Ezechias. Such was the opinion of the famous Hillel. Others more lax, or politely yielding to times and circumstances, assert that the belief in the coming of a Messiah is not a fundamental article of faith, and that the denying of this dogma either does not injure the integrity of the law, or injures it but slightly. Thus the Jew Albo said to the pope, that "to deny the coming of the Messiah was only to cut off a branch of the tree without touching the root."
The celebrated rabbi, Solomon Jarchi or Raschi, who lived at the commencement of the twelfth century, says, in his "Talmudes," that the ancient Hebrews believed the Messiah to have been born on the day of the last destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies. This is indeed calling in the physician when the man is dead.
The rabbi Kimchi, who also lived in the twelfth century, announced that the Messiah, whose coming he believed to be very near, would drive the Christians out of Judæa, which was then in their possession; and it is true that the Christians lost the Holy Land; but it was Saladin who vanquished them. Had that conqueror but protected the Jews, and declared for them, it is not unlikely that in their enthusiasm they would have made him their Messiah.
Sacred writers, and our Lord Jesus Himself, often compare the reign of the Messiah and eternal beatitude to a nuptial festival or a banquet; but the Talmudists have strangely abused these parables; according to them, the Messiah will give to his people, assembled in the land of Canaan, a repast in which the wine will be that which was made by Adam himself in the terrestrial paradise, and which is kept dry, in vast cellars, by the angels at the centre of the earth.
At the first course will be served up the famous fish called the great Leviathan, which swallows up at once a smaller fish, which smaller fish is nevertheless three hundred leagues long; the whole mass of the waters is laid upon Leviathan. In the beginning God created a male and a female of this fish; but lest they should overturn the land, and fill the world with their kind, God killed the female, and salted her for the Messiah's feast.
The rabbis add, that there will also be killed for this repast the bull Behemoth, which is so large that he eats each day the hay from a thousand mountains. The female of this bull was killed in the beginning of the world, that so prodigious a species might not multiply, since this could only have injured the other creatures; but they assure us that the Eternal did not salt her, because dried cow is not so good as she-Leviathan. The Jews still put such faith in these rabbinical reveries that they often swear by their share of the bull Behemoth, as some impious Christians swear by their share of paradise.
After such gross ideas of the coming of the Messiah, and of His reign, is it astonishing that the Jews, ancient as well as modern, and also some of the primitive Christians unhappily tinctured with all these reveries, could not elevate themselves to the idea of the divine nature of the Lord's Anointed, and did not consider the Messiah as God? Observe how the Jews express themselves on this point in the work entitled "Judæi Lusitani Quæstiones ad Christianos." "To acknowledge a God-man," say they, "is to abuse your own reason, to make to yourself a monster—a centaur—the strange compound of two natures which cannot coalesce." They add, that the prophets do not teach that the Messiah is God-man; that they expressly distinguish between God and David, declaring the former to be Master, the latter servant.
When the Saviour appeared, the prophecies, though clear, were unfortunately obscured by the prejudices imbibed even at the mother's breast. Jesus Christ Himself, either from deference towards or for fear of shocking, the public opinion, seems to have been very reserved concerning His divinity. "He wished," says St. Chrysostom, "insensibly to accustom His auditors to the belief of a mystery so far above their reason. If He takes upon Him the authority of a God, by pardoning sin, this action raises up against Him all who are witnesses of it. His most evident miracles cannot even convince of His divinity those in whose favor they are worked. When, before the tribunal of the Sovereign Sacrificer, He acknowledges, by a modest intimation, that He is the Son of God, the high priest tears his robe and cries, 'Blasphemy!' Before the sending of the Holy Ghost, the apostles did not even suspect the divinity of their dear Master. He asks them what the people think of Him; and they answer, that some take Him for Elias, other for Jeremiah, or some other prophet. A particular revelation is necessary to make known to St. Peter, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God."
The Jews, revolting against the divinity of Christ, have resorted to all sorts of expedients to destroy this great mystery; they distort the meaning of their own oracles, or do not apply them to the Messiah; they assert that the name of God, "Eloï," is not peculiar to the Divinity, but is given, even by sacred writers, to judges, to magistrates, and in general to such as are high in authority; they do, indeed, cite a great many passages of the Holy Scriptures that justify this observation, but which do not in the least affect the express terms of the ancient oracles concerning the Messiah.
Lastly, they assert, that if the Saviour, and after Him the evangelists, the apostles, and the first Christians, call Jesus the Son of God, this august term did not in the evangelical times signify anything but the opposite of son of Belial—that is, a good man, a servant of God, in opposition to a wicked man, one without the fear of God.
If the Jews have disputed with Jesus Christ His quality of Messiah and His divinity, they have also used every endeavor to bring Him into contempt, by casting on His birth, His life, and His death, all the ridicule and opprobrium that their criminal malevolence could imagine.
Of all the works which the blindness of the Jews has produced, there is none more odious and more extravagant than the ancient book entitled "Sepher Toldos Jeschu," brought to light by Wagenseil, in the second volume of his work entitled "Tela Ignea," etc.
In this "Sepher Toldos Jeschu," we find a monstrous history of the life of our Saviour, forged with the utmost passion and disingenuousness. For instance, they have dared to write that one Panther, or Pandera, an inhabitant of Bethlehem, fell in love with a young woman married to Jokanam. By this impure commerce he had a son called Jesua or Jesu. The father of this child was obliged to fly, and retired to Babylon. As for young Jesu, he was not sent to the schools; but—adds our author—he had the insolence to raise his head and uncover himself before the sacrificers, instead of appearing before them with his head bent down and his face covered, as was the custom—a piece of effrontery which was warmly rebuked; this caused his birth to be inquired into, which was found to be impure, and soon exposed him to ignominy.
This detestable book, "Sepher Toldos Jeschu," was known in the second century: Celsus confidently cites it and Origen refutes it in his ninth chapter.
There is another book also entitled "Toldos Jeschu," published by Huldric in 1703, which more closely follows the "Gospel of the Infancy," but which is full of the grossest anachronisms. It places both the birth and death of Jesus Christ in the reign of Herod the Great, stating that complaints were made of the adultery of Panther and Mary, the mother of Jesus, to that prince.
The author, who takes the name of Jonathan, and calls himself a contemporary of Jesus Christ, living at Jerusalem, pretends that Herod consulted, in the affair of Jesus Christ, the senators of a city in the land of Cæsarea. We will not follow so absurd an author through all his contradictions.
Yet it is under cover of all these calumnies that the Jews keep up their implacable hatred against the Christians and the gospel. They have done their utmost to alter the chronology of the Old Testament, and to raise doubts and difficulties respecting the time of our Saviour's coming.
Ahmed-ben-Cassum-la-Andacousy, a Moor of Granada, who lived about the close of the sixteenth century, cites an ancient Arabian manuscript, which was found, together with sixteen plates of lead engraved with Arabian characters, in a grotto near Granada. Don Pedro y Quinones, archbishop of Granada, has himself borne testimony to this fact. These leaden plates, called those of Granada, were afterwards carried to Rome, where, after several years' investigation, they were at last condemned as apocryphal, in the pontificate of Alexander VII.; they contain only fabulous stories relating to the lives of Mary and her Son.
The time of Messiah, coupled with the epithet "false", is still given to those impostors who, at various times, have sought to abuse the credulity of the Jewish nation. There were some of these false Messiahs even before the coming of the true Anointed of God. The wise Gamaliel mentions one Theodas, whose history we read in Josephus' "Jewish Antiquities," book xx. chap. 2. He boasted of crossing the Jordan without wetting his feet; he drew many people after him; but the Romans, having fallen upon his little troop, dispersed them, cut off the head of their unfortunate chief, and exposed it in Jerusalem.
Gamaliel also speaks of Judas the Galilean, who is doubtless the same of whom Josephus makes mention in the second chapter of the second book of the "Jewish War". He says that this false prophet had gathered together nearly thirty thousand men; but hyperbole is the Jewish historian's characteristic.
In the apostolic times, there was Simon, surnamed the Magician, who contrived to bewitch the people of Samaria, so that they considered him as "the great power of God."
In the following century, in the years 178 and 179 of the Christian era, in the reign of Adrian, appeared the false Messiah, Barcochebas, at the head of an army. The emperor sent against them Julius Severus, who, after several encounters, enclosed them in the town of Bither; after an obstinate defence it was carried, and Barcochebas taken and put to death. Adrian thought he could not better prevent the continual revolt of the Jews than by issuing an edict, forbidding them to go to Jerusalem; he also had guards stationed at the gates of the city, to prevent the rest of the people of Israel from entering it.
We read in Socrates, an ecclesiastical historian, that in the year 434, there appeared in the island of Candia a false Messiah calling himself Moses. He said he was the ancient deliverer of the Hebrews, raised from the dead to deliver them again.
A century afterwards, in 530, there was in Palestine a false Messiah named Julian; he announced himself as a great conqueror, who, at the head of his nation, should destroy by arms the whole Christian people. Seduced by his promises, the armed Jews butchered many of the Christians. The emperor Justinian sent troops against him; battle was given to the false Christ; he was taken, and condemned to the most ignominious death.
At the beginning of the eighth century, Serenus, a Spanish Jew, gave himself out as a Messiah, preached, had some disciples, and, like them, died in misery.
Several false Messiahs arose in the twelfth century. One appeared in France in the reign of Louis the Young; he and all his adherents were hanged, without its ever being known what was the name of the master or of the disciples.
The thirteenth century was fruitful in false Messiahs; there appeared seven or eight in Arabia, Persia, Spain, and Moravia; one of them, calling himself David el Roy, passed for a very great magician; he reduced the Jews, and was at the head of a considerable party; but this Messiah was assassinated.
James Zeigler, of Moravia, who lived in the middle of the sixteenth century, announced the approaching manifestation of the Messiah, born, as he declared, fourteen years before; he had seen him, he said, at Strasburg, and he kept by him with great care a sword and a sceptre, to place them in his hands as soon as he should be old enough to teach. In the year 1624, another Zeigler confirmed the prediction of the former.
In the year 1666, Sabatei Sevi, born at Aleppo, called himself the Messiah foretold by the Zeiglers. He began with preaching on the highways and in the fields, the Turks laughing at him, while his disciples admired him. It appears that he did not gain over the mass of the Jewish nation at first; for the chiefs of the synagogue of Smyrna passed sentence of death against him; but he escaped with the fear only, and with banishment.
He contracted three marriages, of which it is asserted he did not consummate one, saying that it was beneath him so to do. He took into partnership one Nathan Levi; the latter personated the prophet Elias, who was to go before the Messiah. They repaired to Jerusalem, and Nathan there announced Sabatei Sevi as the deliverer of nations. The Jewish populace declared for them, but such as had anything to lose anathematized them.
To avoid the storm, Sevi fled to Constantinople, and thence to Smyrna, whither Nathan Levi sent to him four ambassadors, who acknowledged and publicly saluted him as the Messiah. This embassy imposed on the people, and also on some of the doctors, who declared Sabatei Sevi to be the Messiah, and king of the Hebrews. But the synagogue of Smyrna condemned its king to be impaled.
Sabatei put himself under the protection of the cadi of Smyrna, and soon had the whole Jewish people on his side; he had two thrones prepared, one for himself, the other for his favorite wife; he took the title of king of kings, and gave to his brother, Joseph Sevi, that of king of Judah. He promised the Jews the certain conquest of the Ottoman Empire; and even carried his insolence so far as to have the emperor's name struck out of the Jewish liturgy, and his own substituted.
He was thrown into prison at the Dardanelles; and the Jews gave out that his life was spared only because the Turks well knew he was immortal. The governor of the Dardanelles grew rich by the presents which the Jews lavished, in order to visit their king, their imprisoned Messiah, who, though in irons, retained all his dignity, and made them kiss his feet.
Meanwhile the sultan, who was holding his court at Adrianople, resolved to put an end to this farce: he sent for Sevi, and told him that if he was the Messiah he must be invulnerable; to which Sevi assented. The grand signor then had him placed as a mark for the arrows of hisicoglans.The Messiah confessed that he was not invulnerable, and protested that God sent him only to bear testimony to the holy Mussulman religion. Being beaten by the ministers of the law, he turned Mahometan; he lived and died equally despised by the Jews and Mussulmans; which cast such discredit on the profession of false Messiah, that Sevi was the last that appeared.
It may very naturally be supposed that the metamorphoses with which our earth abounds suggested the imagination to the Orientals—who have imagined everything—that the souls of men passed from one body to another. An almost imperceptible point becomes a grub, and that grub becomes a butterfly; an acorn is transformed into an oak; an egg into a bird; water becomes cloud and thunder; wood is changed into fire and ashes; everything, in short, in nature, appears to be metamorphosed. What was thus obviously and distinctly perceptible in grosser bodies was soon conceived to take place with respect to souls, which were considered slight, shadowy, and scarcely material figures. The idea of metempsychosis is perhaps the most ancient dogma of the known world, and prevails still in a great part of India and of China.
It is highly probable, again, that the various metamorphoses which we witness in nature produced those ancient fables which Ovid has collected and embellished in his admirable work. Even the Jews had their metamorphoses. If Niobe was changed into a stone, Edith, the wife of Lot, was changed into a statue of salt. If Eurydice remained in hell for having looked behind her, it was for precisely the same indiscretion that this wife of Lot was deprived of her human nature. The village in which Baucis and Philemon resided in Phrygia is changed into a lake; the same event occurs to Sodom. The daughters of Anius converted water into oil; we have in Scripture a metamorphosis very similar, but more true and more sacred. Cadmus was changed into a serpent; the rod of Aaron becomes a serpent also.
The gods frequently change themselves into men; the Jews never saw angels but in the form of men; angels ate with Abraham. Paul, in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians, says that an angel of Satan has buffeted him: "Angelus Satanæ me colaphizet."
"Trans naturam,"—beyond nature. But what is that which is beyond nature? By nature, it is to be presumed, is meant matter, and metaphysics relates to that which is not matter.
For example: to your reasoning, which is neither long, nor wide, nor high, nor solid, nor pointed; your soul, to yourself unknown, which produces your reasoning.
Spirits, which the world has always talked of, and to which mankind appropriated, for a long period, a body so attenuated and shadowy, that it could scarcely be called body; but from which, at length, they have removed every shadow of body, without knowing what it was that was left.
The manner in which these spirits perceive, without any embarrassment, from the five senses; in which they think, without a head; and in which they communicate their thoughts, without words and signs.
Finally, God, whom we know by His works, but whom our pride impels us to define; God, whose power we feel to be immense; God, between whom and ourselves exists the abyss of infinity, and yet whose nature we dare to attempt to fathom.
These are the objects of metaphysics. We might further add to these the principles of pure mathematics, points without extension, lines without width, superficies without thickness, units infinitely divisible, etc.
Bayle himself considered these objects as those which were denominated "entia rationis," beings of reason; they are, however, in fact, only material things considered in their masses, their superficies, their simple lengths and breadths, and the extremities of these simple lengths and breadths. All measures are precise and demonstrated. Metaphysics has nothing to do with geometry.
Thus a man may be a metaphysician without being a geometrician. Metaphysics is more entertaining; it constitutes often the romance of the mind. In geometry, on the contrary, we must calculate and measure; this is a perpetual trouble, and most minds had rather dream pleasantly than fatigue themselves with hard work.
Newton was one day asked why he stepped forward when he was so inclined; and from what cause his arm and his hand obeyed his will? He honestly replied, that he knew nothing about the matter. But at least, said they to him, you who are so well acquainted with the gravitation of planets, will tell us why they turn one way sooner than another? Newton still avowed his ignorance.
Those who teach that the ocean was salted for fear it should corrupt, and that the tides were created to conduct our ships into port, were a little ashamed when told that the Mediterranean has ports and no tide. Muschembrock himself has fallen into this error.
Who has ever been able to determine precisely how a billet of wood is changed into red-hot charcoal, and by what mechanism lime is heated by cold water?
The first motion of the heart in animals—is that accounted for? Has it been exactly discovered how the business of generation is arranged? Has any one divined the cause of sensation, ideas, and memory? We know no more of the essence of matter than the children who touch its superficies.
Who will instruct us in the mechanism by which the grain of corn, which we cast into the earth, disposes itself to produce a stalk surmounted with an ear; or why the sun produces an apple on one tree and a chestnut on the next to it? Many doctors have said: "What know I not?" Montaigne said: "What know I?"
Unbending decider! pedagogue in phrases! furred reasoner! thou inquirest after the limits of the human mind—they are at the end of thy nose.
A miracle, according to the true meaning of the word, is something admirable; and agreeable to this, all is miracle. The stupendous order of nature, the revolution of a hundred millions of worlds around a million of suns, the activity of light, the life of animals, all are grand and perpetual miracles.
According to common acceptation, we call a miracle the violation of these divine and eternal laws. A solar eclipse at the time of the full moon, or a dead man walking two leagues and carrying his head in his arms, we denominate a miracle.
Many natural philosophers maintain, that in this sense there are no miracles; and advance the following arguments:
A miracle is the violation of mathematical, divine, immutable, eternal laws. By the very exposition itself, a miracle is a contradiction in terms: a law cannot at the same time be immutable and violated. But they are asked, cannot a law, established by God Himself, be suspended by its author?
They have the hardihood to reply that it cannot; and that it is impossible a being infinitely wise can have made laws to violate them. He could not, they say, derange the machine but with a view of making it work better; but it is evident that God, all-wise and omnipotent, originally made this immense machine, the universe, as good and perfect as He was able; if He saw that some imperfections would arise from the nature of matter, He provided for that in the beginning; and, accordingly, He will never change anything in it. Moreover, God can do nothing without reason; but what reason could induce him to disfigure for a time His own work?
It is done, they are told, in favor of mankind. They reply: We must presume, then, that it is in favor of all mankind; for it is impossible to conceive that the divine nature should occupy itself only about a few men in particular, and not for the whole human race; and even the whole human race itself is a very small concern; it is less than a small ant-hill, in comparison with all the beings inhabiting immensity. But is it not the most absurd of all extravagances to imagine that the Infinite Supreme should, in favor of three or four hundred emmets on this little heap of earth, derange the operation of the vast machinery that moves the universe?
But, admitting that God chose to distinguish a small number of men by particular favors, is there any necessity that, in order to accomplish this object, He should change what He established for all periods and for all places? He certainly can have no need of this inconstancy in order to bestow favors on any of His creatures: His favors consist in His laws themselves: he has foreseen all and arranged all, with a view to them. All invariably obey the force which He has impressed forever on nature.
For what purpose would God perform a miracle? To accomplish some particular design upon living beings? He would then, in reality, be supposed to say: "I have not been able to effect by my construction of the universe, by my divine decrees, by my eternal laws, a particular object; I am now going to change my eternal ideas and immutable laws, to endeavor to accomplish what I have not been able to do by means of them." This would be an avowal of His weakness, not of His power; it would appear in such a being an inconceivable contradiction. Accordingly, therefore, to dare to ascribe miracles to God is, if man can in reality insult God, actually offering Him that insult. It is saying to Him: "You are a weak and inconsistent Being." It is, therefore, absurd to believe in miracles; it is, in fact, dishonoring the divinity.
These philosophers, however, are not suffered thus to declaim without opposition. You may extol, it is replied, as much as you please, the immutability of the Supreme Being, the eternity of His laws, and the regularity of His infinitude of worlds; but our little heap of earth has, notwithstanding all that you have advanced, been completely covered over with miracles in every part and time. Histories relate as many prodigies as natural events. The daughters of the high priest Anius changed whatever they pleased to corn, wine, and oil; Athalide, the daughter of Mercury, revived again several times; Æsculapius resuscitated Hippolytus; Hercules rescued Alcestes from the hand of death; and Heres returned to the world after having passed fifteen days in hell. Romulus and Remus were the offspring of a god and a vestal. The Palladium descended from heaven on the city of Troy; the hair of Berenice was changed into a constellation; the cot of Baucis and Philemon was converted into a superb temple; the head of Orpheus delivered oracles after his death; the walls of Thebes spontaneously constructed themselves to the sound of a flute, in the presence of the Greeks; the cures effected in the temple of Æsculapius were absolutely innumerable, and we have monuments still existing containing the very names of persons who were eyewitnesses of his miracles.
Mention to me a single nation in which the most incredible prodigies have not been performed, and especially in those periods in which the people scarcely knew how to write or read.
The philosophers make no answer to these objections, but by slightly raising their shoulders and by a smile; but the Christian philosophers say: We are believers in the miracles of our holy religion; we believe them by faith and not by our reason, which we are very cautious how we listen to; for when faith speaks, it is well known that reason ought to be silent. We have a firm and entire faith in the miracles of Jesus Christ and the apostles, but permit us to entertain some doubt about many others: permit us, for example, to suspend our judgment on what is related by a very simple man, although he has obtained the title of great. He assures us, that a certain monk was so much in the habit of performing miracles, that the prior at length forbade him to exercise his talent in that line. The monk obeyed; but seeing a poor tiler fall from the top of a house, he hesitated for a moment between the desire to save the unfortunate man's life, and the sacred duty of obedience to his superior. He merely ordered the tiler to stay in the air till he should receive further instructions, and ran as fast as his legs would carry him to communicate the urgency of the circumstances to the prior. The prior absolved him from the sin he had committed in beginning the miracle without permission, and gave him leave to finish it, provided he stopped with the same, and never again repeated his fault. The philosophers may certainly be excused for entertaining a little doubt of this legend.
But how can you deny, they are asked, that St. Gervais and St. Protais appeared in a dream to St. Ambrose, and informed him of the spot in which were deposited their relics? that St. Ambrose had them disinterred? and that they restored sight to a man that was blind? St. Augustine was at Milan at the very time, and it is he who relates the miracle, using the expression, in the twenty-second book of his work called the "City of God," "immenso populo teste"—in the presence of an immense number of people. Here is one of the very best attested and established miracles. The philosophers, however, say that they do not believe one word about Gervais and Protais appearing to any person whatever; that it is a matter of very little consequence to mankind where the remains of their carcasses lie; that they have no more faith in this blind man than in Vespasian's; that it is a useless miracle, and that God does nothing that is useless; and they adhere to the principles they began with. My respect for St. Gervais and St. Protais prevents me from being of the same opinion as these philosophers: I merely state their incredulity. They lay great stress on the well-known passage of Lucian, to be found in the death of Peregrinus: "When an expert juggler turns Christian, he is sure to make his fortune." But as Lucian is a profane author, we ought surely to set him aside as of no authority.
These philosophers cannot even make up their minds to believe the miracles performed in the second century. Even eye-witnesses to the facts may write and attest till the day of doom, that after the bishop of Smyrna, St. Polycarp, was condemned to be burned, and actually in the midst of the flames, they heard a voice from heaven exclaiming: "Courage, Polycarp! be strong, and show yourself a man"; that, at the very instant, the flames quitted his body, and formed a pavilion of fire above his head, and from the midst of the pile there flew out a dove; when, at length, Polycarp's enemies ended his life by cutting off his head. All these facts and attestations are in vain. For what good, say these unimpressible and incredulous men, for what good was this miracle? Why did the flames lose their nature, and the axe of the executioner retain all its power of destruction? Whence comes it that so many martyrs escaped unhurt out of boiling oil, but were unable to resist the edge of the sword? It is answered, such was the will of God. But the philosophers would wish to see and hear all this themselves, before they believe it.
Those who strengthen their reasonings by learning will tell you that the fathers of the Church have frequently declared that miracles were in their days performed no longer. St. Chrysostom says expressly: "The extraordinary gifts of the spirit were bestowed even on the unworthy, because the Church at that time had need of miracles; but now, they are not bestowed even on the worthy, because the Church has need of them no longer." He afterwards declares, that there is no one now who raises the dead, or even who heals the sick.
St. Augustine himself, notwithstanding the miracles of Gervais and Protais, says, in his "City of God": "Why are not such miracles as were wrought formerly wrought now?" and he assigns the same reason as St. Chrysostom for it.
"Cur inquiunt, nunc illa miracula quæ prædicatis facta esse non fiunt? Possem quidem dicere necessaria prius fuisse, quam crederet mundus, ad hoc ut crederet mundus."
It is objected to the philosophers, that St. Augustine, notwithstanding this avowal, mentions nevertheless an old cobbler of Hippo, who, having lost his garment, went to pray in the chapel of the twenty martyrs, and on his return found a fish, in the body of which was a gold ring; and that the cook who dressed the fish said to the cobbler: "See what a present the twenty martyrs have made you!"
To this the philosophers reply, that there is nothing in the event here related in opposition to the laws of nature; that natural philosophy is not contradicted or shocked by a fish's swallowing a gold ring, or a cook's delivering such ring to a cobbler; that, in short, there is no miracle at all in the case.
If these philosophers are reminded that, according to St. Jerome, in his "Life of Paul the Hermit," that hermit had many conversations with satyrs and fauns; that a raven carried to him every day, for thirty years together, half of a loaf for his dinner, and a whole one on the day that St. Anthony went to visit him, they might reply again, that all this is not absolutely inconsistent with natural philosophy; that satyrs and fauns may have existed; and that, at all events, whether the narrative be a recital of facts, or only a story fit for children, it has nothing at all to do with the miracles of our Lord and His apostles. Many good Christians have contested the "History of St. Simeon Stylites," written by Theodoret; many miracles considered authentic by the Greek Church have been called in question by many Latins, just as the Latin miracles have been suspected by the Greek Church. Afterwards, the Protestants appeared on the stage, and treated the miracles of both churches certainly with very little respect or ceremony.
A learned Jesuit, who was long a preacher in the Indies, deplores that neither his colleagues nor himself could ever perform a miracle. Xavier laments, in many of his letters, that he has not the gift of languages. He says, that among the Japanese he is merely like a dumb statue: yet the Jesuits have written that he resuscitated eight persons. That was certainly no trifling matter; but it must be recollected that he resuscitated them six thousand leagues distant. Persons have since been found, who have pretended that the abolition of the Jesuits in France is a much greater miracle than any performed by Xavier and Ignatius.
However that may be, all Christians agree that the miracles of Jesus Christ and the apostles are incontestably true; but that we may certainly be permitted to doubt some stated to have been performed in our own times, and which have not been completely authenticated.
It would certainly, for example, be very desirable, in order to the firm and clear establishment of a miracle, that it should be performed in the presence of the Academy of Sciences of Paris, or the Royal Society of London, and the Faculty of Medicine, assisted by a detachment of guards to keep in due order and distance the populace, who might by their rudeness or indiscretion prevent the operation of the miracle.
A philosopher was once asked what he should say if he saw the sun stand still, that is, if the motion of the earth around that star were to cease; if all the dead were to rise again; and if the mountains were to go and throw themselves together into the sea, all in order to prove some important truth, like that, for instance, of versatile grace? "What should I say?" answered the philosopher; "I should become a Manichæan; I should say that one principle counteracted the performance of another."
Define your terms, you will permit me again to say, or we shall never understand one another. "Miraculum res miranda, prodigium, portentum, monstrum."—Miracle, something admirable; prodigy, implying something astonishing; portentous, bearing with it novelty; monster, something to show ("à montrer") on account of its variety. Such are the first ideas that men formed of miracles.
As everything is refined and improved upon, such also would be the case with this definition. A miracle is said to be that which is impossible to nature. But it was not considered that this was in fact saying all miracle is absolutely impossible. For what is nature? You understand by it the eternal order of things. A miracle would therefore be impossible in such an order. In this sense God could not work a miracle.
If you mean by miracle an effect of which you cannot perceive the cause, in that sense all is miracle. The attraction and direction of the magnet are continual miracles. A snail whose head is renewed is a miracle. The birth of every animal, the production of every vegetable, are miracles of every day.
But we are so accustomed to these prodigies, that they have lost their name of admirable—of miraculous. The Indians are no longer astonished by cannon.
We have therefore formed for ourselves another idea of a miracle. It is, according to the common opinion, what never has happened and never will happen. Such is the idea formed of Samson's jawbone of an ass; of the conversation between the ass and Balaam, and that between a serpent and Eve; of the chariot with four horses that conveyed away Elijah; of the fish that kept Jonah in its belly seventy-two hours; of the ten plagues of Egypt; of the walls of Jericho, and of the sun and moon standing still at mid-day, etc.
In order to believe a miracle, it is not enough merely to have seen it; for a man may be deceived. A fool is often called a dealer in wonders; and not merely do many excellent persons think that they have seen what they have not seen, and heard what was never said to them; not only do they thus become witnesses of miracles, but they become also subjects of miracles. They have been sometimes diseased, and sometimes cured by supernatural power; they have been changed into wolves; they have travelled through the air on broomsticks; they have become bothincubiandsuccubi.
It is necessary that the miracle should have been seen by a great number of very sensible people, in sound health, and perfectly disinterested in the affair. It is above all necessary, that it should have been solemnly attested by them; for if solemn forms of authentication are deemed necessary with respect to transactions of very simple character, such as the purchase of a house, a marriage contract, or a will, what particular and minute cautionary formalities must not be deemed requisite in order to verify things naturally impossible, on which the destiny of the world is to depend?
Even when an authentic miracle is performed, it in fact proves nothing; for Scripture tells you, in a great variety of places, that impostors may perform miracles, and that if any man, after having performed them, should proclaim another God than that of the Jews, he ought to be stoned to death. It is requisite, therefore, that the doctrine should be confirmed by the miracles, and the miracles by the doctrine.
Even this, however, is not sufficient. As impostors may preach a very correct and pure morality, the better to deceive, and it is admitted that impostors, like the magicians of Pharaoh, may perform miracles; it is in addition necessary, that these miracles should have been announced by prophecies.
In order to be convinced of the truth of these prophecies, it is necessary that they should have been heard clearly announced, and seen really accomplished. It is necessary to possess perfectly the language in which they are preserved.
It is not sufficient, even, that you are a witness of their miraculous fulfilment; for you may be deceived by false appearances. It is necessary that the miracle and prophecy should be verified on oath by the heads of the nation; and even after all this there will be some doubters. For it is possible for a nation to be interested in the forgery of a prophecy or a miracle; and when interest mixes with the transaction, you may consider the whole affair as worth nothing. If a predicted miracle be not as public and as well verified as an eclipse that is announced in the almanac, be assured that it is nothing better than a juggler's trick or an old woman's tale.
A theocracy can be founded only upon miracles. Everything in it must be divine. The Great Sovereign speaks to men only in prodigies. These are his ministers and letters patent. His orders are intimated by the ocean's covering the earth to drown nations, or opening a way through its depths, that they may pass upon dry land.
Accordingly you perceive, that in the Jewish history all is miracle; from the creation of Adam, and the formation of Eve, who was made of one of the ribs of Adam, to the time of the insignificant kingling Saul.
Even in the time of this same Saul, theocracy participates in power with royalty. There are still, consequently, miracles performed from time to time; but there is no longer that splendid train of prodigies which continually astonishes and interrupts nature. The ten plagues of Egypt are not renewed; the sun and moon do not stand still at mid-day, in order to give a commander time to exterminate a few runaways, already nearly destroyed by a shower of stones from the clouds. No Samson again extirpates a thousand Philistines by the jaw-bone of an ass. Asses no longer talk rationally with men; walls no longer fall prostrate at the mere sound of trumpets; cities are not swallowed up in a lake by the fire of heaven; the race of man is not a second time destroyed by a deluge. But the finger of God is still manifested; the shade of Saul is permitted to appear at the invocation of the sorceress, and God Himself promises David that he will defeat the Philistines at Baal-perazim.
"God gathers together His celestial army in the reign of Ahab, and asks the spirits: Who will go and deceive Ahab, and persuade him to go up to war against Ramoth Gilead? And there came forth a lying spirit and stood before the Lord and said, I will persuade him." But the prophet Micaiah alone heard this conversation, and he received a blow on the cheek from another prophet, called Zedekiah, for having announced the ill-omened prodigy.
Of miracles performed in the sight of the whole nation, and changing the laws of all nature, we see no more until the time of Elijah, for whom the Lord despatched a chariot of fire and horses of fire, which conveyed him rapidly from the banks of the Jordan to heaven, although no one knew where heaven was.
From the commencement of historical times, that is, from the time of the conquests of Alexander, we see no more miracles among the Jews.
When Pompey comes to make himself master of Jerusalem—when Crassus plunders the temple—when Pompey puts to death the king of the Jews by the hands of the executioner—when Anthony confers the kingdom of Judæa on the Arabian Herod—when Titus takes Jerusalem by assault, and when it is razed to the ground by Arian—not a single miracle is ever performed. Thus it is with every nation upon earth. They begin with theocracy; they end in a manner simply and naturally human. The greater the progress made in society and knowledge, the fewer there are of prodigies.
We well know that the theocracy of the Jews was the only true one, and that those of other nations were false; but in all other respects, the case was precisely the same with them as with the Jews.
In Egypt, in the time of Vulcan, and in that of Isis and Osiris, everything was out of the laws of nature; under the Ptolemies everything resumed its natural course.
In the remote periods of Phos, Chrysos, and Ephestes, gods and mortals conversed in Chaldee with the most interesting familiarity. A god warned King Xissuter that there would be a deluge in Armenia, and that it was necessary he should, as soon as possible, build a vessel five stadii in length and two in width. Such things do not happen to the Dariuses and the Alexanders.
The fish Oannes, in former times, came every day out of the Euphrates to preach upon its banks; but there is no preaching fish now. It is true that St. Anthony of Padua went and preached to the fishes; however, such things happen so very rarely that they are scarcely to be taken any account of.
Numa held long conversations with the nymph Egeria; but we never read that Cæsar had any with Venus, although he was descended from her in the direct line. The world, we see, is constantly advancing a little, and refining gradually.
But after being extricated out of one slough for a time, mankind are soon plunged into another. To ages of civilization succeed ages of barbarism; that barbarism is again expelled, and again reappears: it is the regular alternation of day and night.
Of Those Who Have Been So Impiously Rash As To Deny The Miracles Of Jesus Christ.
Among the moderns, Thomas Woolston, a learned member of the University of Cambridge, appears to me to have been the first who ventured to interpret the Gospels merely in a typical, allegorical, and spiritual sense, and boldly maintained that not one of the miracles of Jesus was actually performed. He wrote without method or art, and in a style confused and coarse, but not destitute of vigor. His six discourses against the miracles of Jesus Christ were publicly sold at London, in his own house. In the course of two years, from 1737 to 1739, he had three editions of them printed, of twenty thousand copies each, and yet it is now very difficult to procure one from the booksellers.
Never was Christianity so daringly assailed by any Christian. Few writers entertain less awe or respect for the public, and no priest ever declared himself more openly the enemy of priests. He even dared to justify this hatred by that of Jesus Christ against the Pharisees and Scribes; and he said that he should not, like Jesus Christ, become their victim, because he had come into the world in a more enlightened age.
He certainly hoped to justify his rashness by his adoption of the mystical sense; but he employs expressions so contemptuous and abusive that every Christian ear is shocked at them.
If we may believe him, when Jesus sent the devil into the herd of two thousand swine, He did neither more nor less than commit a robbery on their owners. If the story had been told of Mahomet, he would have been considered as "an abominable wizard, and a sworn slave to the devil." And if the proprietor of the swine, and the merchants who in the outer court of the temple sold beasts for sacrifices, and whom Jesus drove out with a scourge, came to demand justice when he was apprehended, it is clear that he was deservedly condemned, as there never was a jury in England that would not have found him guilty.
He tells her fortune to the woman of Samaria, just like a wandering Bohemian or Gypsy. This alone was sufficient to cause His banishment, which was the punishment inflicted upon fortune-tellers, or diviners, by Tiberius. "I am astonished," says he, "that the gypsies do not proclaim themselves the genuine disciples of Jesus, as their vocation is the same. However, I am glad to see that He did not extort money from the Samaritan woman, differing in this respect from our clergy, who take care to be well paid for their divinations."
I follow the order of the pages in his book. The author goes on to the entrance of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem. It is not clear, he says, whether He was mounted on a male or female ass, or upon the foal of an ass, or upon all three together.
He compares Jesus, when tempted by the devil, to St. Dunstan, who seized the devil by the nose; and he gives the preference to St. Dunstan.
At the article of the fig-tree, which was cursed with barrenness for not producing figs out of season for them, he describes Jesus as a mere vagabond, a mendicant friar, who before He turned field-preacher was "no better than a journeyman carpenter." It is surprising, he says, that the court of Rome has not among all its relics some little fancy-box or joint-stool of His workmanship. In a word, it is difficult to carry blasphemy further.
After diverting himself with the probationary fish-pool of Bethesda, the waters of which were troubled or stirred once in every year by an angel, he inquires how it could well be, that neither Flavius Josephus, nor Philo should ever mention this angel; why St. John should be the sole historian of this miracle; and by what other miracle it happened that no Roman ever saw this angel, or ever even heard his name mentioned?
The water changed into wine at the marriage of Cana, according to him, excites the laughter and contempt of all who are not imbruted by superstition.
"What!" says he, "John expressly says that the guests were already intoxicated, 'methus tosi'; and God comes down to earth and performs His first miracle to enable them to drink still more!"
God, made man, commences His mission by assisting at a village wedding. "Whether Jesus and His mother were drunk, as were others of the company, is not certain. The familiarity of the lady with a soldier leads to the presumption that she was fond of her bottle; that her Son, however, was somewhat affected by the wine, appears from His answering His mother so 'waspishly and snappishly' as He did, when He said, 'Woman, what have I to do with thee?' It may be inferred from these words that Mary was not a virgin, and that Jesus was not her son; had it been otherwise, He would not have thus insulted His father and mother in violation of one of the most sacred commandments of the law. However, He complied with His mother's request; He fills eighteen jars with water, and makes punch of it." These are the very words of Thomas Woolston, and must fill every Christian soul with indignation.
It is with regret, and even with trembling, that I quote these passages; but there have been sixty thousand copies of this work printed, all bearing the name of the author, and all publicly sold at his house. It can never be said that I calumniate him.
It is to the dead raised again by Jesus Christ that he principally directs his attention. He contends that a dead man restored to life would have been an object of attention and astonishment to the universe; that all the Jewish magistracy, and more especially Pilate, would have made the most minute investigations and obtained the most authentic depositions; that Tiberius enjoined all proconsuls, prætors, and governors of provinces to inform him with exactness of every event that took place; that Lazarus, who had been dead four whole days, would have been most strictly interrogated; and that no little curiosity would have been excited to know what had become, during that time, of his soul.
With what eager interest would Tiberius and the whole Roman senate have questioned him, and not indeed only him, but the daughter of Jairus and the son of the widow of Nain? Three dead persons restored to life would have been three attestations to the divinity of Jesus, which almost in a single moment would have made the whole world Christian. But instead of all this, the whole world, for more than two hundred years, knew nothing about these resplendent and decisive evidences. It is not till a hundred years have rolled away from the date of the events that some obscure individuals show one another the writings that contain the relation of those miracles. Eighty-nine emperors reckoning those who had only the name of "tyrants," never hear the slightest mention of these resurrections, although they must inevitably have held all nature in amazement. Neither the Jewish historian Josephus, nor the learned Philo, nor any Greek or Roman historian at all notices these prodigies. In short, Woolston has the imprudence to say that the history of Lazarus is so brimful of absurdities that St. John, when he wrote it, had outlived his senses.
Supposing, says Woolston, that God should in our own times send an ambassador to London to convert the hireling clergy, and that ambassador should raise the dead, what would the clergy say?
He blasphemes the incarnation, the resurrection, and the ascension of Jesus Christ, just upon the same system; and he calls these miracles: "The most manifest and the most barefaced imposture that ever was put upon the world!"
What is perhaps more singular still is that each of his discourses is dedicated to a bishop. His dedications are certainly not exactly in the French style. He bestows no flattery nor compliments. He upbraids them with their pride and avarice, their ambition and faction, and smiles with triumph at the thought of their being now, like every other class of citizens, in complete subjection to the laws of the state.
At last these bishops, tired of being insulted by an undignified member of the University of Cambridge, determined upon a formal appeal to the laws. They instituted a prosecution against Woolston in the King's Bench, and he was tried before Chief-Justice Raymond, in 1729, when he was imprisoned, condemned to pay a fine, and obliged to give security to the amount of a hundred and fifty pounds sterling. His friends furnished him with the security, and he did not in fact die in prison, as in some of our careless and ill-compiled dictionaries he is stated to have done. He died at his own house in London, after having uttered these words: "This is a pass that every man must come to." Some time before his death, a female zealot meeting him in the street was gross enough to spit in his face; he calmly wiped his face and bowed to her. His manners were mild and pleasing. He was obstinately infatuated with the mystical meaning, and blasphemed the literal one; but let us hope that he repented on his death-bed, and that God has showed him mercy.
About the same period there appeared in France the will of John Meslier, clergyman ("curé") of But and Entrepigni, in Champagne, of whom we have already spoken, under the article on "Contradictions".
It was both a wonderful and a melancholy spectacle to see two priests at the same time writing against the Christian religion. Meslier is still more violent than Woolston. He ventures to treat the devil's carrying off our Lord to the top of a mountain, the marriage of Cana, and the loaves and fishes, as absurd tales, injurious to the Supreme Being, which for three hundred years were unknown to the whole Roman Empire, and at last advanced from the dregs of the community to the throne of the emperors, when policy compelled them to adopt the nonsense of the people, in order to keep them the better in subjection. The declamations of the English priest do not approach in vehemence those of the priest of Champagne. Woolston occasionally showed discretion. Meslier never has any; he is a man so sensitively sore to the crimes to which he has been witness that he renders the Christian religion responsible for them, forgetting that it condemns them. There is not a single miracle which is not with him an object of scorn or horror; no prophecy which he does not compare with the prophecies of Nostradamus. He even goes so far as to compare Jesus Christ to Don Quixote, and St. Peter to Sancho Panza; and what is most of all to be deplored is, that he wrote these blasphemies against Jesus Christ, when he might be said to be in the very arms of death—at a moment when the most deceitful are sincere, and the most intrepid tremble. Too strongly impressed by some injuries that had been done him by his superiors in authority; too deeply affected by the great difficulties which he met with in the Scripture, he became exasperated against it more than Acosta and all the Jews; more than Porphyry, Celsus, Iamblichus, Julian, Libanius, Maximus, Simmachus, or any other whatever of the partisans of human reason against the divine incomprehensibilities of our religion. Many abridgments of his work have been printed; but happily the persons in authority suppressed them as fast as they appeared.
A priest of Bonne-Nouvelle, near Paris, wrote also on the same subject; and it thus happened that at the very time the abbé Becheran and the rest of the Convulsionaries were performing miracles, three priests were writing against the genuine Gospel miracles.
The most clever work that has been written against the miracles and prophecies is that of my Lord Bolingbroke. But happily it is so voluminous, so destitute of method, so verbose, and so abounding in long and sometimes complicated sentences, that it requires a great deal of patience to read him.
There have been some minds so constituted that they have been enchanted by the miracles of Moses and Joshua, but have not entertained for those of Jesus Christ the respect to which they are entitled. Their imagination—raised by the grand spectacle of the sea opening a passage through its depths, and suspending its waves that a horde of Hebrews might safely go through; by the ten plagues of Egypt, and by the stars that stopped in their course over Gibeon and Ajalon, etc.—could not with ease and satisfaction be let down again, so as to admire the comparatively petty miracles of the water changed into wine, the withered fig-tree, and the swine drowned in the little lake of Gadara. Vaghenseil said that it was like hearing a rustic ditty after attending a grand concert.
The Talmud pretends that there have been many Christians who, after comparing the miracles of the Old Testament with those of the New Testament, embraced Judaism; they consider it impossible that the Sovereign Lord of Nature should have wrought such stupendous prodigies for a religion He intended to annihilate. What! they exclaim, can it possibly be, that for a series of ages He should have exhibited a train of astonishing and tremendous miracles in favor of a true religion that was to become a false one? What! can it be that God Himself has recorded that this religion shall never perish, and that those who attempt to destroy it shall be stoned to death, and yet that He has nevertheless sent His own Son, Who is no other than Himself, to annihilate what He was employed so many ages in erecting?
There is much more to be added to these remarks; this Son, they continue, this Eternal God, having made Himself a Jew, adheres to the Jewish religion during the whole of His life; He performs all the functions of it, He frequents the Jewish temple, He announces nothing contrary to the Jewish law, and all His disciples are Jews and observe the Jewish ceremonies. It most certainly is not He who established the Christian religion. It was established by the dissident Jews who united with the Platonists. There is not a single dogma of Christianity that was preached by Jesus Christ.
Such is the reasoning of these rash men, who, with minds at once hypocritical and audacious, dare to criticise the works of God, and admit the miracles of the Old Testament for the sole purpose of rejecting those of the New Testament.
Of this number was the unfortunate priest of Pont-à-Mousson in Lorraine, called Nicholas Anthony; he was known by no other name. After he had received what is called "the four minors" in Lorraine, the Calvinistic preacher Ferri, happening to go to Pont-à-Mousson, raised in his mind very serious scruples, and persuaded him that the four minors were the mark of the beast. Anthony, driven almost to distraction by the thought of carrying about him the mark of the beast, had it immediately effaced by Ferri, embraced the Protestant religion, and became a minister at Geneva about the year 1630.
With a head full of rabbinical learning, he thought that if the Protestants were right in reference to the Papists, the Jews were much more so in reference to all the different sects of Christianity whatever. From the village of Divonne, where he was pastor, he went to be received as a Jew at Venice, together with a young apprentice in theology whom he had persuaded to adopt his own principles, but who afterwards abandoned him, not experiencing any call to martyrdom.
At first the minister, Nicholas Anthony, abstained from uttering the name of Jesus Christ in his sermons and prayers; in a short time, however, becoming animated and emboldened by the example of the Jewish saints, who confidently professed Judaism before the princes of Tyre and Babylon, he travelled barefooted to Geneva, to confess before the judges and magistrates that there is only one religion upon earth, because there is only one God; that that religion is the Jewish; that it is absolutely necessary to become circumcised; and that it is a horrible crime to eat bacon and blood pudding. He pathetically exhorted all the people of Geneva, who crowded to hear him, no longer to continue children of Belial, but to become good Jews, in order to deserve the kingdom of heaven. He was apprehended, and put in chains.
The little Council of Geneva, which at that period did nothing without consulting the council of preachers, asked their advice in this emergency. The most sensible of them recommended that poor Anthony should be bled in the cephalic vein, use the bath, and be kept upon gruel and broths; after which he might perhaps gradually be induced to pronounce the name of Jesus Christ, or at least to hear it pronounced, without grinding his teeth, as had hitherto been his practice. They added, that the laws bore with Jews; that there were eight thousand of them even in Rome itself; that many merchants are true Jews, and therefore that as Rome admitted within its walls eight thousand children of the synagogue, Geneva might well tolerate one. At the sound of "toleration" the rest of the pastors, who were the majority, gnashing their teeth still more than Anthony did at the name of Jesus Christ, and also eager to find an opportunity to burn a man, which could not be done every day, called peremptorily for the burning. They resolved that nothing could serve more to establish genuine Christianity; that the Spaniards had obtained so much reputation in the world only by burning the Jews every year, and that after all, if the Old Testament must prevail over the New Testament, God would not fail to come and extinguish the flames of the pile, as he did at Babylon for Shadrach, Meshac, and Abednego; in which case all must go back again to the Old Testament; but that, in the meantime, it was indispensable to burn Nicholas Anthony. On the breaking up of the meeting, they concluded with the observation: "We must put the wicked out of the way"—the very words they used.
The long-headed syndics, Sarasin and Godefroi, agreed that the reasoning of the Calvinistic sanhedrim was admirable, and by the right of the strongest party, condemned Nicholas Anthony, the weakest of men, to die the same death as Calanus and the counsellor Dubourg. This sentence was carried into execution on April 20, 1632, in a very beautiful lawn or meadow, called Plain-Palais, in the presence of twenty thousand persons, who blessed the new law, and the wonderful sense of the syndics Sarasin and Godefroi.
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did not renew the miracle of the furnace of Babylon in favor of poor Anthony.
Abauzit, an author of great veracity, relates in his notes, that he died in the greatest constancy, and persisted in his opinions even at the stake on the pile; he broke out into no passionate invective against his judges when the executioner was tying him to the stake; he displayed neither pride nor pusillanimity; he neither wept nor sighed; he was resigned. Never did martyr consummate his sacrifice with a more lively faith; never did philosopher contemplate a death of horror with greater firmness. This clearly proves that his folly or madness was at all events attended with sincere conviction.
Let us implore of the God of both the Old and the New Testaments that he will grant him mercy.
I would say as much for the Jesuit Malagrida, who was still more infatuated and mad than Nicholas Anthony; as I would also for the ex-Jesuits Patouillet and Paulian, should they ever be brought to the stake.
A great number of writers, whose misfortune it was to be philosophers rather than Christians, have been bold enough to deny the miracles of our Lord; but after the four priests already noticed, there is no necessity to enumerate other instances. Let us lament over these four unfortunate men, led astray by their own deceitful reason, and precipitated by the gloom of their feelings into an abyss so dreadful and so fatal.
It is far from our object in this article to reflect upon the zeal of our missionaries, or the truth of our religion; these are sufficiently known in Christian Europe, and duly respected.
My object is merely to make some remarks on the very curious and edifying letters of the reverend fathers, the Jesuits, who are not equally respectable. Scarcely do they arrive in India before they commence preaching, convert millions of Indians, and perform millions of miracles. Far be it from me to contradict their assertions. We all know how easy it must be for a Biscayan, a Bergamask, or a Norman to learn the Indian language in a few days, and preach like an Indian.
With regard to miracles, nothing is more easy than to perform them at a distance of six thousand leagues, since so many have been performed at Paris, in the parish of St. Médard. The sufficing grace of the Molinists could undoubtedly operate on the banks of the Ganges, as well as the efficacious grace of the Jansenists on those of the river of the Gobelins. We have, however, said so much already about miracles that we shall pursue the subject no further.
A reverend father Jesuit arrived in the course of the past year at Delhi, at the court of the great Mogul. He was not a man profoundly skilled in mathematics, or highly gifted in mind, who had come to correct the calendar, or to establish his fortune, but one of those poor, honest, zealous Jesuits, one of those soldiers who are despatched on particular duty by their general, and who obey orders without reasoning about them.
M. Andrais, my factor, asked him what his business might be at Delhi. He replied that he had orders from the reverend father Ricci to deliver the Great Mogul from the paws of the devil, and convert his whole court.
THE JESUIT.
I have already baptized twenty infants in the street, without their knowing anything at all about the matter, by throwing a few drops of water upon their heads. They are now just so many angels, provided they are happy enough to die directly. I cured a poor old woman of the megrims by making the sign of the cross behind her. I hope in a short time to convert the Mahometans of the court and the Gentoos among the people. You will see in Delhi, Agra, and Benares, as many good Catholics, adorers of the Virgin Mary, as you now do idolaters, adoring the devil.
M. ANDRAIS.
You think then, my worthy father, that the inhabitants of these countries adore idols and the devil?
THE JESUIT.
Undoubtedly, as they are not of my religion.
M. ANDRAIS.
Very well. But when there are as many Catholics in India as idolaters, are you not afraid that they will fight against one another; that blood will flow for a long period, and the whole country be a scene of pillage and devastation? This has happened in every country in which you have obtained a footing hitherto.
THE JESUIT.
You make one pause for a moment; but nothing could happen better than that which you suggest as being so probable. The slaughtered Catholics would go to paradise—to the garden—and the Gentoos to the everlasting fire of hell created for them from all eternity, according to the great mercy of God, and for His great glory; for God is exceedingly glorious.
M. ANDRAIS.
But suppose that you should be informed against, and punished at the whipping post?
THE JESUIT.
That would also be for His glory. However, I conjure you to keep my secret, and save me from the honor and happiness of martyrdom.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF PLATES—Vol. VIIJOSEPH.JUDÆA.JULIAN.JUST AND UNJUST.JUSTICE.KING.KISS.LAUGHTER.LAW (NATURAL).LAW (SALIC).LAW (CIVIL AND ECCLESIASTICAL).LAWS.LAWS (SPIRIT OF).LENT.LEPROSY, ETC.LETTERS (MEN OF).LIBEL.LIBERTY.LIBERTY OF OPINION.LIBERTY OF THE PRESS.LIFE.LOVE.LOVE OF GOD.LOVE (SOCRATIC LOVE).LUXURY.MADNESS.MAGIC.MALADY—MEDICINE.MAN.MARRIAGE.MARY MAGDALEN.MARTYRS.MASS.MASSACRES.MASTER.MATTER.MEETINGS (PUBLIC).MESSIAH.METAMORPHOSIS.METAPHYSICS.MIND (LIMITS OF THE HUMAN).MIRACLES.MISSION.