The persecution of the year 37 had for its result, as always happens, the expansion of the doctrine it was wished to arrest. Until then the Christian preaching had scarcely extended beyond Jerusalem; no mission had been undertaken; inclosed within its lofty but narrow communion, the mother Church had not radiated around itself nor formed any branches. The dispersion of the little supper-table scattered the good seed to the four winds. The members of the Church of Jerusalem, violently driven from their quarters, spread themselves throughout Judea and Samaria,[9.1]and preached everywhere the kingdom of God. The deacons in particular, disengaged from their administrative functions by the ruin of the Community, became excellent evangelists. They were the active young element of the sect, in opposition to the somewhat heavy element constituted by the apostles and the “Hebrews.” One single circumstance, that of language, would have sufficed to create in these latter an inferiority in respect to preaching. They spoke, at least as their habitual tongue, a dialect which the Jews themselves did not use at a few leagues distance from Jerusalem. It was to the Hellenists that fell all the honor of the grand conquest, the recital of which is henceforth to be our principal object.
The theatre of the first of these missions, which wasdestined soon to embrace all the basin of the Mediterranean, was the region round about Jerusalem, within a circle of two or three days' journey. Philip the Deacon[9.2]was the hero of this first holy expedition. He evangelized Samaria with great success. The Samaritans were schismatics; but the young sect, after the example of their Master, was less susceptible than the rigorous Jews upon questions of orthodoxy. Jesus, it was said, had shown Himself on different occasions not altogether unfavorable to the Samaritans.[9.3]
Philip appears to have been one of the apostolical men most preöccupied with theurgy.[9.4]The accounts which relate to him carry us into a strange and fantastic world. It is by prodigies that are explained the conversions which he made among the Samaritans, and in particular at Sebaste, their capital. This country was itself filled with superstitious ideas about magic. In the year 36, that is to say two or three years before the arrival of the Christian preachers, a fanatic had excited quite a serious emotion among the Samaritans by preaching the necessity of returning to primitive Mosaism, of which he pretended to have found the sacred utensils.[9.5]A certain Simon, of the village of Gitta, or Gitton,[9.6]who afterwards rose to a great reputation, began about that time to make himself known by his wonderful operations.[9.7]It is painful to see the Gospel finding a preparation and a support in such chimeras. Quite a large multitude were baptized in the name of Jesus. Philip had the power of baptizing, but not that of conferring the Holy Ghost. This privilege was reserved to the apostles. When the tidings came to Jerusalem of the formation of a group of believers at Sebaste, it was resolved to send Peter and John to complete their initiation. The two apostles came, laid their hands upon the new converts, prayed over their heads; the latter were immediately endowed with marvellous powers attached to the conferring of the Holy Ghost. Miracles, prophecy, all the phenomena of illuminism, were produced, and the Church of Sebaste had nothing on this score to envy that of Jerusalem.[9.8]
If we are to believe tradition about it, Simon of Gitton was thenceforth in relations with the Christians. Converted according to their reports by the preaching and the miracles of Philip, he was baptized and attached himself to this evangelist. Then, when the apostles Peter and John had come, and he saw the supernatural powers procured by the laying on of hands, he came, it is said, to offer them money in order that they should give him also the faculty of conferring the Holy Ghost. Peter then made him this admirable reply: “Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be bought! Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter, for thy heart is not right in the sight of God.”[9.9]
Whether these words were pronounced or not, they seem to trace exactly the situation of Simon in regard to the nascent sect. We shall see, in fact, that according to all appearances, Simon of Gitton was the chief of a religious movement parallel to that of Christianity, one which may be regarded as a sort of Samaritan counterfeit of the work of Jesus. Had Simon already begun to dogmatize and to work wonders when Philip arrived at Sebaste? Did he thenceforward enter into relations with the Christian Church? Is there anyreality in the anecdote which makes of him the father of all “simony?” Must we admit that the world one day saw face to face two thaumaturgists, one a charlatan and the other the “corner-stone,” which became the foundation of the faith of humanity? Was a conjuror able to balance himself against the destinies of Christianity? We know not, for want of documents; for the account of theActsis here of feeble authority; and from the first century Simon became for the Christian Church a subject of legends. In history the general idea alone is pure. It would be unjust to dwell on anything we may see to be shocked at in this sad page of the origin of Christianity. For vulgar hearers the miracle proves the doctrine; for us the doctrine causes the miracle to be forgotten. When a belief has consoled and ameliorated humanity, it is excusable for having employed proofs proportioned to the weakness of the public whom it addressed. But when one has proved error by error, what excuse is there to allege? This is not a condemnation we here pronounce against Simon of Gitton. We shall have to explain further on this doctrine, and the part he had to play, which only made itself clear under the reign of Claudius.[9.10]It is necessary only to remark here, that an important principle seems to have been introduced through him into the Christian theurgy. Obliged to admit that impostors also worked miracles, orthodox theology attributed these miracles to the devil. In order to retain some demonstrative value in prodigies, rules had to be imagined for distinguishing true from false miracles. Orthodoxy descended for this purpose to an order of ideas exceedingly puerile.{9.11}
Peter and John, after having confirmed the Churchof Sebaste, set out again for Jerusalem, on their return evangelizing the villages of the country of the Samaritans.[9.12]Philip the Deacon continued his evangelizing travels, bending his steps towards the south, towards the ancient country of the Philistines.[9.13]This country, since the advent of the Maccabees, had received a strong infusion of the Jewish element;[9.14]although Judaism was still by no means dominant there. During this journey Philip accomplished a conversion which made some noise, and which was much talked about on account of a particular circumstance. One day as he was going along the road from Jerusalem to Gaza, quite a deserted road,[9.15]he met a rich traveller, evidently a foreigner, for he was riding in a chariot, a mode of locomotion which was at all times almost unknown to the inhabitants of Syria and Palestine. He was returning from Jerusalem, and gravely seated, he was reading the Bible aloud, according to a custom then quite common.[9.16]Philip, who thought that in everything his actions were guided by an inspiration from on high, felt himself drawn towards his chariot. He placed himself alongside of it, and quietly entered into conversation with the opulent personage, offering to explain to him the passages which he did not understand. This was a fine occasion for the evangelist to develop the Christian thesis upon the figures of the Old Testament. He proved that in the prophetic books everything related to Jesus; that Jesus was the solution of the great enigma; that it was of Him in particular that the All-Seeing had spoken in this fine passage: “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; as a lamb that is dumb before its shearers, he opened not his mouth.”[9.17]Thetraveller believed him, and at the first water that they met, “Behold, here is water,” said he, “why could I not be baptized?” The chariot was stopped; Philip and the traveller descended into the water, and the latter was baptized.
Now the traveller was a powerful personage. He was a eunuch of the Candace of Ethiopia, her Minister of Finance, and guardian of her treasures, who had come to worship at Jerusalem, and was now returning to Napata[9.18]by way of Egypt.Candace, orCandaoce, was the title of feminine royalty in Ethiopia towards the period in which we now are.[9.19]Judaism had consequently penetrated into Nubia and Abyssinia.[9.20]Many natives were converted, or at least counted among those proselytes who, without being circumcised, adored the one only God.[9.21]The eunuch was perhaps of this latter class, a simple, pious pagan, like the centurion Cornelius, who will shortly figure in this history. It is impossible in any case to suppose that he was completely initiated into Judaism.[9.22]After this we hear nothing more said about the eunuch. But Philip related the incident, and further on much importance was attached to it. When the question of the admission of pagans into the Christian Church became the leading business, there was found here a precedent of great weight. Philip was deemed to have acted in all this affair by Divine inspiration.[9.23]This baptism, given by order of the Holy Ghost, to a man scarcely a Jew, notoriously uncircumcised, who had believed in Christianity only for a few hours, had an eminent dogmatic value. It was an argument for those who thought that the doors of the new Church ought to be open to all.[9.24]
Philip after this adventure, made his appearance at Ashdod, or Azote. Such was the state of artless enthusiasm in which these missionaries lived, that at each step they believed they heard voices from Heaven and received directions from the Spirit.[9.25]Each of their steps seemed to them regulated by a superior force; and when they went from one city to another, they thought they were obeying a supernatural inspiration. Sometimes they imagined they made aërial voyages. Philip was in this respect one of the most exalted. It was on the indication of an angel, as he believed, that he came from Samaria to the place where he met the eunuch; after the baptism of the latter, he was persuaded that the Spirit lifted him up and carried him direct to Azote.[9.26]
Azote and the Gaza road were the limit of the first Gospel preaching towards the south. Beyond were the desert and the nomadic life upon which Christianity has ever taken but very slight hold. From Azote, Philip the Deacon hurried towards the north, and evangelized all the coast as far as Cesarea. Perhaps the Churches of Joppa and of Lydda, which we shall soon find flourishing,[9.27]were founded by him. At Cesarea he settled and founded an important church.[9.28]We shall meet him there again twenty years later.[9.29]Cesarea was a new city, and the most considerable in Judea.[9.30]It had been built on the site of a Sidonian fortress called “Abdastarte’s or Strato’s Tower,” by Herod the Great, who gave to it, in honor of Augustus, the name which its ruins bear even to this day. Cesarea was by much the best port in all Palestine, and tended from day to day to become itscapital. Tired of living at Jerusalem, the Procurators of Judea were soon going to make it their habitual residence.[9.31]It was peopled chiefly by pagans;[9.32]the Jews, however, were quite numerous there, and severe disputes often took place between the two classes of the population.[9.33]The Greek language was alone spoken there, and the Jews themselves had come to recite certain parts of their liturgy in Greek.[9.34]The austere Rabbis of Jerusalem looked upon Cesarea as a profane and dangerous abode, in which one became very nearly a pagan.[9.35]From all the reasons which have just been cited, this city will be of much importance in the sequel of our history. It was in a manner the port of Christianity, the point by which the Church of Jerusalem communicated with all the Mediterranean.
Many other missions, the history of which is unknown to us, were conducted side by side with that of Philip.[9.36]The very rapidity with which this first preaching was accomplished was the cause of its success. In the year 38, five years after the death of Jesus, and one perhaps after the death of Stephen, all Palestine on the higher side of Jordan had heard the glad tidings from the mouth of missionaries sent out from Jerusalem. Galilee, on its side, kept the holy seed and probably spread it around, although we know nothing of any missions issuing from this country. Perhaps the city of Damascus, which, from the epoch at which we have arrived, also had its Christians,[9.37]received the faith from Galilean preachers.
But the year 38 is marked in the history of the nascent Church by a new and important conquest. It was during that year[10.1]that we may safely place the conversion of that saint whom we saw a participant in the stoning of Stephen, and a principal agent in the persecution of 37, and who now, by a mysterious act of grace, becomes the most ardent of the disciples of Jesus.
Saul was born at Tarsus, in Cilicia,[10.2]in the year 10 or 12 of our era.[10.3]According to the manner of that day, his name was Latinized into that of Paul;[10.4]yet he did not regularly adopt this last name until he became the apostle of the Gentiles.[10.5]Paul was of the purest Jewish blood.[10.6]His family, probably originally from the town of Gischala, in Galilee,[10.7]professed to belong to the tribe of Benjamin;[10.8]and his father enjoyed the title of Roman citizen,[10.9]no doubt inherited from ancestors who had obtained that honor either through purchase or through services rendered to the state. Perhaps his grandfather had obtained it for aid given to Pompey during the Roman conquest (63B.C.). His family, like most of the old and solid Jewish houses, belonged to the sect of Pharisees.[10.10]Paul was reared according to the strictest principles of this sect,[10.11]and though he subsequently repudiated its narrow dogmas, he always retained its asperity, its exaltation, and its ardent faith
.During the epoch of Augustus, Tarsus was a very flourishing city. The population, though chiefly of the Greek and Aramaic races, included, as was common in all the commercial towns,[10.12]a large number of Jews. The taste for letters and the sciences was a marked characteristic of the place; and no city in the world, not even excepting Athens and Alexandria, was so rich in scientific institutions and schools.[10.13]The number of learned men which Tarsus produced, or who pursued their studies there, was truly extraordinary;[10.14]but it should not therefore be imagined that Paul received a careful Greek education. The Jews rarely frequented the institutions of secular instruction.[10.15]The most celebrated schools of Tarsus were those of rhetoric,[10.16]where the Greek classics received the first attention. It is hardly probable that a man who had taken even elementary lessons in grammar and rhetoric would have written in the incorrect non-Hellenistic style of the Epistles of St. Paul. He talked habitually and fluently in Greek,[10.17]and he wrote or rather dictated[10.18]in that language; but his Greek was that of the Hellenistic Jews, a Greek replete with Hebraisms and Syriacisms, scarcely intelligible to a lettered man of that period, and which can only be accounted for by his Syriac turn of mind. He himself recognised the common and defective character of his style.[10.19]Whenever it was possible he spoke Hebrew—that is to say, the Syro-Chaldaic of his time.[10.20]It was in this language that he thought, and it was in this language that he was addressed by the mysterious voice on the road to Damascus.[10.21]
Nor did his doctrine show any direct adaptation made from Greek philosophy. The verse quoted from the Thais of Menander, that occurs in his writings,[10.22]is oneof those versified proverbs which were familiar to the public, and could easily have been quoted by one who had not read the original. Two other quotations—one from Epimenides, the other from Aratus—which appear under his name,[10.23]although it is not certain that he used them, may also be explained as having been borrowed at second-hand.[10.24]The literary training of Paul was almost exclusively Jewish,[10.25]and it is in the Talmud rather than in the Greek classics that the analogies of his ideas must be sought. A few general ideas of wide-spread philosophy, which one could learn without opening a single book of the philosophers,[10.26]alone reached him. His manner of reasoning was very curious. He certainly knew nothing of the peripatetic logic. His syllogism was not at all that of Aristotle; but on the contrary his dialectics greatly resembled those of the Talmud. Paul, as a general thing, was influenced by words rather than by ideas. When a word took possession of his mind it suggested a train of thought singularly irrelevant to the subject in question. His transitions were sudden, his developments interrupted, his conclusions frequently suspended. Never was a writer more unequal. One may seek in vain throughout the realm of literature for a phenomenon asbizarreas that of a sublime passage like the thirteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians by the side of feeble arguments, laborious repetitions, and fastidious subtleties.
His father early intended that he should be a Rabbi; but, according to the general custom,[10.27]gave him a trade. Paul was an upholsterer,[10.28]or rather a manufacturer of the heavy cloths of Cilicia, which were calledCilicium. At various times he worked at this trade,[10.29]for he had nopatrimonial fortune. It seems quite certain that he had a sister whose son lived at Jerusalem.[10.30]In regard to a brother[10.31]and other relatives,[10.32]who it is said had embraced Christianity, the indications are very vague and uncertain. Refinement of manners being, according to some modern ideas, in direct relation to personal wealth, it might be imagined from what has just been said, that Paul was a man of the people, badly educated and without dignity. This opinion would, however, be thoroughly erroneous. His politeness was often extreme, and his manners were exquisite. Notwithstanding the defects in his style, his letters show that he was a man of rare intelligence,[10.33]who formed for his lofty sentiments expressions of rare felicity; and no correspondence exhibits more careful attentions, finer shades of meaning, and more amiable hesitancies and timidity. One or two of his pleasantries shock us.[10.34]But what animation! What a wealth of charming sayings! What simplicity! It is easy to see that his character, at the times when his passions do not make him irascible and fierce, is that of a polite, earnest, and affectionate man, sometimes susceptible, and a little jealous. Inferior as such men are before the general public,[10.35]they possess within small sects immense advantages, through the attachments they inspire, through their practical aptitude, and through their skill in arranging difficult matters.
Paul was small in size, and his personal appearance did not correspond with the greatness of his soul. He was ugly, stout, short, and stooping, and his broad shoulders awkwardly sustained a little bald head. His sallow countenance was half hidden in a thick beard; his nose was aquiline, his eyes piercing, and his eyebrows heavy[10.36]and joined across his forehead. Nor was there anything imposing in his speech,[10.37]for his timid and embarrassed air gave but a poor idea of his eloquence.[10.38]He shrewdly, however, admitted his exterior defects, and even drew advantage therefrom.[10.39]The Jewish race possesses the peculiarity of at the same time presenting types of the greatest beauty, and the most thorough ugliness; but this Jewish ugliness is something quite apart by itself. Some of the strange visages which at first excite a smile, assume, when lighted up by emotion, a sort of deep brilliancy and grandeur.
The temperament of Paul was not less singular than his exterior. His constitution was not healthy, though at the same time its endurance was proved by the way in which he supported an existence full of fatigues and sufferings. He makes incessant allusions to his bodily weakness. He speaks of himself as a man sick and bruised, timid, without prestige, without any of those personal advantages calculated to make an effect, and altogether so uninviting that it was surprising that he did not repel people.[10.40]Besides this, he hints with mystery at a secret trial, “a thorn in the flesh,” which he compares to a messenger of Satan sent to buffet him, “lest he should be exalted above measure.”[10.41]Thrice he besought the Lord to deliver him, and thrice the Lord replied, “My grace is sufficient for thee.” This was apparently some bodily infirmity; for it is not possible to suppose that he refers to the attractions of carnal delights, since he himself informs us elsewhere that he was insensible to them.[10.42]It appears that he was never married;[10.43]the entire coldness of his temperament, theconsequence of the unequalled ardor of his brain, showed itself throughout his life, and he boasts of it with an assurance savoring, perhaps, of affectation, and which, certainly, seems to us rather unpleasant.[10.44]
He came to Jerusalem,[10.45]it is said, at an early age, and entered the school of Gamaliel the Elder.[10.46]This Gamaliel was the most enlightened man in Jerusalem. As the name of Pharisee was applied to every prominent Jew who was not of a priestly family, Gamaliel passed for a member of that sect. Yet he had none of its narrow and exclusive spirit, and was a liberal, intelligent man, tolerant of the heathen, and acquainted with Greek. Perhaps, indeed, the large ideas professed by Paul after he received Christianity, were a reminiscence of the teachings of his first master; it must, however, be admitted that at first he did not learn much moderation from him. An extreme fanaticism was then prevalent in Jerusalem. Paul was the leader of a young and rigorous Pharisee party, most warmly attached to the national traditions of the past.[10.47]He did not know Jesus,[10.48]nor was he present at the bloody scene of Golgotha; but we have seen him take an active part in the murder of Stephen, and among the foremost of the persecutors of the Church. He breathed only threatenings and slaughter, and furiously passed through Jerusalem bearing a mandate which authorized and legalized all his brutalities. He went from synagogue to synagogue, forcing the more timid to deny the name of Jesus, and subjecting others to scourging or imprisonment.[10.49]When the Church of Jerusalem was dispersed, his persecutions extended to the neighboring cities;[10.50]and exasperated by the progress of the new faith, and having learned that there was a group of the faithfulat Damascus, he obtained from the high-priest Theophilus, son of Hanan,[10.51]letters to the synagogue of that city, which conferred on him the power of arresting all evil-thinking persons, and of bringing them bound in cords to Jerusalem.[10.52]
The disarrangement of Roman authority in Judea explains these arbitrary vexations. The half mad Caligula was in power, and the administrative service was everywhere disturbed. Fanaticism had gained all that the civil power had lost. After the dismissal of Pilate, and the concessions made to the natives by Lucius Vitellius, the country was allowed to govern itself according to its own laws. A thousand local tyrannies profited by the weakness of the decaying power. Damascus had just passed into the hands of Hartat, or Hâreth, whose capital was at Petra.[10.53]This bold and powerful prince, after having beaten Herod Antipas, and withstood the Roman forces commanded by the imperial legate Lucius Vitellius, had been marvellously aided by fortune. The news of the death of Tiberius had suddenly arrested the march of Vitellius.[10.54]Hâreth seized Damascus, and established there an ethnarch or governor.[10.55]The Jews at that time were a numerous party at Damascus, where they carried on an extensive system of proselytizing, especially among the females.[10.56]It was deemed advisable to make them contented; the best method of doing so was to allow concessions to their autonomy, and every concession was simply a permission to commit further religious violences.[10.57]To punish and even kill those who did not think as they did, was their idea of independence and liberty. Paul, in leaving Jerusalem, followed without doubt the usual road, andcrossed the Jordan at the “Bridge of the Daughters of Jacob.” His mental excitement was at its greatest height, and he was alternately troubled and depressed. Passion is not a rule of faith. The passionate man flies from one extreme creed to another, but always retains the same impetuosity. Now, like all strong minds, Paul quickly learned to love that which he had hated. Was he sure, after all, that he was not thwarting the design of God? Perhaps he remembered the calm, just views of his master Gamaliel.[10.58]Often these ardent souls experience terrible revulsions. He felt the charms of those whom he had tortured,[10.59]and the better he knew these excellent sectarians the better he liked them; and than their persecutor none had greater opportunities of knowing them well. At times he saw the sweet face of the Master who had inspired His disciples with so much patience, regarding him with an air of pity and tender reproach. He was also much impressed by the accounts of the apparitions of Jesus, describing him as an aerial being; for at the epochs and in the countries when and where there is a tendency to the marvellous, miraculous recitals influence equally each opposing party. The Mahommedans, for instance, were afraid of the miracles of Elias; and like the Christians, invoked supernatural cures in the names of St. George and St. Anthony. Having crossed Ithuria, and while in the great plain of Damascus, Paul, with several companions, all journeying on foot,[10.60]approached the city, and had probably already reached the beautiful gardens which surround it. The time was mid-day.[10.61]
The road from Jerusalem to Damascus has in nowise changed. It is that one which, leaving Damascus in asouth-easterly direction, crosses the beautiful plain watered by the streams flowing into the Abana and Pharpar, and upon which are now marshalled the villages of Dareya, Kankab, and Sasa. The exact locality of which we speak, and which was the scene of one of the most important facts in the history of humanity, could not have been beyond Kankab (four hours from Damascus).[10.62]It is even probable that the point in question was much nearer the city, at about Dareya (an hour and a half from Damascus), or between Dareya and Meidan.[10.63]The great city lay before Paul, and the outlines of several of its edifices could be dimly traced beyond the thick foliage; behind him towered the majestic dome of Hermon, with its furrows of snow, making it resemble the bald head of an old man; upon his right were the Hauran, the two little parallel chains which inclose the lower course of the Pharpar,[10.64]and the tumuli of the region of the lakes; and upon his left were the outer spurs of the Anti-Libanus stretching out to join Mt. Hermon. The impression produced by these richly cultivated fields, by these beautiful orchards, separated the one from the other by trenches and laden with the most delicious fruits, is that of peace and happiness. Let one imagine to himself a shady road passing through the rich soil crossed at intervals by canals for irrigation, bordered by declivities and winding through forests of olives, walnuts, apricots, and prunes, these trees draped by graceful festoons of vines, and there will be presented to the mind the image of the scene of that remarkable event which has exerted so wide an influence upon the faith of the world.
In these environs of Damascus[10.65]you could scarcely believe yourself in the East; and above all, after leaving the arid and burning regions of the Gaulonitide and of Ithuria, it is joy indeed to meet once more the works of man and the blessings of Heaven. From the most remote antiquity until the present day there has been but one name for this zone, which surrounds Damascus with freshness and health, and that name is the “Paradise of God.”
If Paul there met with terrible visions, it was because he carried them in his heart. Every step in his journey towards Damascus awaked in him afflicting perplexities. The odious part of executioner, which he was about to perform, became insupportable. The houses which he just saw through the trees, were perhaps those of his victims. This thought beset him and delayed his steps; he did not wish to advance; he seemed to be resisting a mysterious influence which pressed him back.[10.66]The fatigue of the journey,[10.67]joined to this preoccupation of the mind, overwhelmed him. He had, it would seem, inflamed eyes,[10.68]probably the beginning of ophthalmia. In these prolonged journeys, the last hours are the most dangerous. All the debilitating causes of the days just past accumulate, the nerves relax their power, and reaction sets in. Perhaps, also, the sudden passage from the sun-smitten plain to the cool shades of the gardens heightened his suffering condition[10.69]and seriously excited the fanatical traveller. Dangerous fevers, accompanied by delirium, are always sudden in these latitudes, and in a few minutes the victim is prostrated as by a thunder-stroke. When the crisis is over, the sufferer retains only theimpression of a period of profound darkness, crossed at intervals by dashes of light or of images outlined against a dark background.[10.70]It is quite certain that a terrible stroke instantly deprived Paul of his remaining consciousness, and threw him senseless on the ground.
It is impossible, with the accounts which we have had of this singular event,[10.71]to say whether any exterior fact led to the crisis to which Christianity owes its most ardent apostle. In such cases, moreover, the exterior fact is of but little importance. It was the state of St. Paul’s mind, it was his remorse on his approach to the city where he was to commit the most signal of his misdeeds, which were the true causes of his conversion.[10.72]I much prefer, for my part, the hypothesis of an affair personal to Paul, and experienced by him alone.[10.73]The incident, nevertheless, was not wholly unlike a sudden storm. The flanks of Mt. Hermon are the point of formation for thunder-showers unequalled in violence.[10.74]The most unimpressible people cannot observe without emotion these terrible showers of fire. It should be remembered that in ancient times accidents from lightning strokes were considered divine relations; that with the ideas regarding providential interference then prevalent, nothing was fortuitous; and that every man was accustomed to view the natural phenomena around him as bearing a direct relation to himself individually. The Jews in particular always considered that thunder was the voice of God, and that lightning was the fire of God. Paul at this moment was in a state of lively excitement, and it was but natural that he should interpret as the voice of the storm the thoughts really passing in his mind. That a delirious fever, resulting from a sun-stroke or an attack of ophthalmia, had suddenly seized him; that a flash of lightning blinded him for a time; that a peal of thunder had produced a cerebral commotion, temporarily depriving him of sight—nothing of this occurred to his mind. The recollections of the apostle on this point appeared to be considerably confused; he was persuaded that the incident was supernatural, and this conviction would not permit him to entertain any clear consciousness of material circumstances. Such cerebral commotions produce sometimes a sort of retroactive effect, and greatly perturb the recollections of the moments immediately preceding the crisis.[10.75]Paul, moreover, elsewhere informs us himself that he was subject to visions;[10.76]and this circumstance, insignificant as it may be to others, is sufficient to show that for the time being he was demented.
And what did he see, what did he hear, while a prey to these hallucinations? He saw the countenance which had haunted him for several days; he saw the phantom of which so much had been said. He saw Jesus Himself, who spoke to him in Hebrew, saying, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” Impetuous natures pass immediately from one extreme to the other.[10.77]For them there exist solemn moments and crucial instants which change the course of a lifetime, and which colder natures never experience. Reflective men do not change, but are transformed; while ardent men, on the contrary, change and are not transformed. Dogmatism is a shirt of Nessus which they cannot tear off. They must have a pretext for loving and hating. Only our western races have been able to producethose minds—large yet delicate, strong yet flexible—which no empty affirmation can mislead, and no momentary illusion can carry away. The East has never had men of this description. Instantly, the most thrilling thoughts rushed upon the soul of Paul. Alive to the enormity of his conduct, he saw himself stained with the blood of Stephen, and this martyr appeared to him as his father, his initiator into the new faith. Touched to the quick, his sentiments experienced a revulsion as thorough as it was sudden; and yet all this was but a new order of fanaticism. His sincerity and his need of an absolute faith prevented any middle course; and it was already clear that he would one day exhibit in the cause of Jesus the same fiery zeal he had shown in persecuting Him.
With the assistance of his companions, who led him by the hand,[10.78]Paul entered Damascus. His friends took him to the house of a certain Judas, who lived in the street called Straight, a grand colonnaded avenue over a mile long and a hundred feet broad, which crossed the city from east to west, and the line of which yet forms, with a few deviations, the principal artery of Damascus.[10.79]The transport and excitement of his brain[10.80]had not yet subsided. For three days Paul, a prey to fever, neither ate nor drank. It is easy to imagine what passed during this crisis in that brain maddened by violent disease. Mention was made in his hearing of the Christians of Damascus, but especially of a certain Ananias who appeared to be the chief of the community.[10.81]Paul had often heard of the miraculous powers of new believers over maladies, and he became seized by the idea that the imposition of hands would cure him of his disease. Hiseyes all this time were highly inflamed, and in his delirious imaginations[10.82]he thought he saw Ananias enter the room and make a sign familiar to Christians. From that moment he was convinced that he should owe his recovery to Ananias. The latter, informed of this, visited the sick man, spoke kindly, addressed him as his “brother,” and laid his hands upon his head; and from that hour peace returned to the soul of Paul. He believed himself cured; and as his ailment had been purely nervous, he was so. Little crusts or scales, it is said, fell from his eyes;[10.83]he again partook of food and recovered his strength.
Almost immediately after this he was baptized.[10.84]The doctrines of the Church were so simple that he had nothing new to learn, but was at once a Christian and a perfect one. And from whom else did he need instruction? Jesus Himself had appeared to him. He too, like James and Peter, had had his vision of the risen Jesus. He had learned everything by direct revelation. Here the fierce and unconquerable nature of Paul was made manifest. Smitten down on the public road, he was willing to submit, but only to Jesus, to that Jesus who had left the right hand of the Father to convert and instruct him. Such was the foundation of his faith; and such will be the starting-point of his claims. He will maintain that it was by design that he did not go to Jerusalem immediately after his conversion, and place himself in relations with those who had been apostles before him; he will maintain that he has received a special revelation, for which he is indebted to no human agency; that, like the twelve, he is an apostle by divine institution and by direct commission from Jesus; that his doctrine is thetrue one, although an angel from heaven should say to the contrary.[10.85]An immense danger finds entrance through this proud man into the little society of poor in spirit who until now had constituted Christianity. It will be a real miracle if his violence and his inflexible personality does not burst forth. But at the same time his boldness, his initiative force, his prompt decision, will be precious elements beside the narrow, timid, and indecisive spirit of the saints of Jerusalem! Certainly, if Christianity had remained confined to these good people, shut up in a conventicle of elect, leading a communistic life, it would, like Essenism, have faded away, leaving scarcely a trace. It is this ungovernable Paul who will secure its success, and who at the risk of every peril will lift on high its holy banner. By the side of the obedient faithful, accepting his creed without questioning his superior, there will be a Christian disengaged from all authority who will believe only from personal conviction. Protestantism thus existed five years after the death of Jesus, and St. Paul was its illustrious founder. Jesus had no doubt anticipated such disciples; and it was such as these who would most largely contribute to the vitality of His work and insure its eternity. Violent natures inclined to proselytism, only change the object of their passion. As ardent for the new faith as he had been for the old, St. Paul, like Omar, in one day dropped his part of persecutor for that of apostle. He did not return to Jerusalem,[10.86]where his position towards the twelve would have been peculiar and delicate. He tarried at Damascus and in the Hauran[10.87]for three years (38–41), preaching that Jesus was the Son of God.[10.88]Herod Agrippa I. held the sovereignty of the Hauran and theneighboring countries; but his power was at several points superseded by that of a Nabatian king, Hârath. The decay of the Roman power in Syria had delivered to the ambitious Arab the great and rich city of Damascus, besides a part of the countries beyond Jordan and Hermon, then just opening to civilization.[10.89]Another emir, most probably Soheym,[10.90]a relative or lieutenant of Hârath, had received from Caligula the command of Ithuria. It was in the midst of this great awakening of the Arab nation,[10.91]upon a foreign soil where an energetic race manifested its fiery activity, that Paul first showed the brilliancy of his apostolic soul.[10.92]Perhaps the material yet dazzling movement which revolutionized the country was prejudicial to a theory and preaching wholly idealistic, and founded on a belief of a speedy end of the world. Indeed, there exists no trace of an Arabian church founded by St. Paul. If the region of the Hauran became, towards the year 70, one of the most important centres of Christianity, it was owing to the emigration of Christians from Palestine; and it was really the Ebionites, the enemies of St. Paul, who had in this region their principal establishment.
At Damascus, where there were many Jews,[10.93]the teachings of Paul received more attention. In the synagogues of that city he entered into vigorous arguments to prove that Jesus was the Christ. Great indeed was the astonishment of the faithful on beholding him who had persecuted their brethren at Jerusalem, and who had come to Damascus “to bring themselves bound unto the chief-priests,” now appearing as their leading defender.[10.94]His audacity and personal characteristics almost alarmed them. He was alone; he sought nocounsel;[10.95]he established no school; and the emotions he excited were those of curiosity rather than of sympathy. The faithful felt that he was a brother, but a brother marked by singular peculiarities. They believed him incapable of treachery; but amiable and mediocre natures always experience sentiments of mistrust and alarm when brought in contact with powerful and original minds, whom they acknowledge as their superiors, and who they know must surpass them.
From the year 38 to the year 44 no persecution seems to have weighed upon the Church.[11.1]The faithful, no doubt, were far more prudent than before the death of Stephen, and avoided speaking in public. Perhaps, also, the troubles of the Jews who, during all the second part of the reign of Caligula, were at variance with that prince, contributed to favor the nascent sect. The Jews, in fact, were active persecutors in proportion to the good understanding they maintained with the Romans. To buy or to recompense their tranquillity, the latter were led to augment their privileges, and in particular that one to which they clung most closely—the right of killing persons whom they regarded as unfaithful to their law.[11.2]Now the period at which we have arrived was one of the most stormy of all in the turbulent history of this singular people.
The antipathy which the Jews, by their moral superiority, their odd customs, and also by their severity, excited in the populations among whom they lived, was at its height, especially at Alexandria.[11.3]This accumulated hatred took advantage, for its own satisfaction, of the coming to the imperial throne of one of the most dangerous madmen that ever wore a crown.Caligula, at least after the malady which consummated his mental derangement (October 37), presented the frightful spectacle of a maniac governing the world with the most enormous powers ever put into the hands of any man. The disastrous law of Cæsarism rendered such horrors possible, and left them without remedy. This lasted three years and three months. One cannot without shame narrate in a serious history that which is now to follow. Before entering upon the recital of these saturnalia we cannot but exclaim with Suetonius:Reliqua ut de monstro narranda sunt.
The most inoffensive pastime of this madman was the care of his own divinity.[11.4]In this he used a sort of bitter irony, a mixture of the serious and the comic (for the monster was not wanting in wit), a sort of profound derision of the human race. The enemies of the Jews were not slow to perceive the advantage they might derive from this mania. The religious abasement of the world was such that not a protest was heard against the sacrilege of the Cæsar; every worship hastened to bestow upon him the titles and the honors which it had reserved for its gods. It is to the eternal glory of the Jews that, in the midst of this ignoble idolatry, they uttered the cry of outraged conscience. The principle of intolerance which was in them, and which led them to so many cruel acts, showed here its bright side. Alone affirming their religion to be the absolute religion, they would not bend to the odious caprice of the tyrant. This was the source of untold troubles for them. It needed only that there should be in any city some man discontented with the synagogue, spiteful, or simply mischievous, to bring about frightful consequences. At one time the people would insist on erecting an altar to Caligula in the very place where the Jews could least of all suffer it.[11.5]At another, a troupe of ragamuffins would collect, hooting and crying out against the Jews for alone refusing to place the statue of the emperor in their houses of prayer; then the people would run to the synagogues and the oratories; they would install there the bust of Caligula;[11.6]and the unfortunate Jews were placed in the alternative of either renouncing their religion, or committing treason. Thence followed frightful vexations.
Such pleasantries had been several times repeated, when a still more diabolical idea was suggested to the emperor. This was to place a colossal golden statue of himself in the sanctuary of the temple at Jerusalem, and to have the temple itself dedicated to his own divinity.[11.7]This odious intrigue had very nearly hastened by thirty years the revolt and the ruin of the Jewish nation. The moderation of the imperial legate, Publius Petronius, and the intervention of King Herod Agrippa, favorite of Caligula, prevented the catastrophe. But until the moment in which the sword of Chæræa delivered the earth from the most execrable tyrant it had as yet endured, the Jews lived everywhere in terror. Philo has preserved for us the unheard-of scene which occurred when the deputation of which he was the chief was admitted to see the emperor.[11.8]Caligula received them during a visit he was paying to the villas of Mæcenas and of Lamia, near the sea, in the environs of Pozzuoli. He was on that day in a vein of gaiety. Helicon, his favorite joker, had been relating to him all sorts of buffooneries about the Jews. “Ah, then, it is you,” said he to them with a bitter smile and showing his teeth, “who alone will not recognise me for a god, and prefer to adore one whose name you cannot even utter!” He accompanied these words with a frightful blasphemy. The Jews trembled; their Alexandrian enemies were the first to take up the word: “You would still more, O Sire, detest these people and all their nation, if you knew the aversion they have for you; for they alone have refused to offer sacrifices for your health when all other people did so!”
At these words, the Jews cried out that it was a calumny, and that they had three times offered for the prosperity of the emperor the most solemn sacrifices known to their religion. “Yes,” said Caligula, with a very comical seriousness, “you have sacrificed, and so far, well; but then it was not to me that you sacrificed. What advantage do I derive from it?” Thereupon, turning his back upon them, he strode through the apartments, giving orders for repairs, incessantly going up and down stairs. The unfortunate deputies, and among them Philo, eighty years of age, the most venerable man of the time, perhaps—Jesus being no longer living—followed him up and down out of breath, trembling, the object of derision to the assembled company. Caligula turning suddenly, said to them: “By the by, why will you not eat pork?” The flatterers burst into laughter; some of the officers, with a severe tone, reminded them that they offended the majesty of the emperor by immoderate laughter. The Jews stammered; one of them awkwardly said: “There are some persons who do not eat lamb.” “Ah!” said the emperor, “they have good reason; lamb is insipid.” Some time after, he made a show of inquiring into their business; then, when speaking hadjust begun, he left them and went off to give orders about the decoration of a hall which he wanted to have furnished with polished stones. He returned, affecting an air of moderation, and asked the deputation if they had anything to add; and as the latter resumed their interrupted discourse, he turned his back upon them to go and see another hall which he was ornamenting with paintings. This game of tiger sporting with its prey lasted for hours. The Jews were expecting death; but at the last moment the claws of the beast relaxed. “Well,” said Caligula, while repassing, “these folks are decidedly less guilty than pitiable for not believing in my divinity.” Thus could the gravest questions be treated under the horrible regimen created by the baseness of the world, cherished by a soldiery and a populace about equally vile, and maintained by the dissoluteness of nearly all.
We can easily understand how so oppressive a situation must have taken from the Jews of the time of Marcellus much of that audacity which made them speak so proudly to Pilate. Already almost entirely detached from the temple, the Christians must have been much less alarmed than the Jews at the sacrilegious projects of Caligula. They were, moreover, too little numerous for their existence to be known at Rome. The storm of the time of Caligula, like that which resulted in the taking of Jerusalem by Titus, passed over their heads, and was in many regards serviceable to them. Everything which weakened Jewish independence was favorable to them, since it was so much taken away from the power of a suspicious orthodoxy, maintaining its pretensions by severe penalties.
This period of peace was fruitful in interior developments. The nascent Church was divided into three provinces: Judea, Samaria, Galilee[11.9], to which Damascus was no doubt attached. The primacy of Jerusalem was uncontested. The Church of this city, which had been dispersed after the death of Stephen, was quickly reconstituted. The Apostles had never quitted the city. The brothers of the Lord continued to reside there, and to wield a great authority.[11.10]It does not seem that this new Church of Jerusalem was organized in so rigorous a manner as the first; the community of goods was not strictly reëstablished in it. But there was founded a large fund for the poor, to which were added the contributions sent by minor churches to the mother church, the origin and permanent source of their faith.[11.11]
Peter undertook frequent apostolical journeys in the environs of Jerusalem.[11.12]He always enjoyed a great reputation as a thaumaturgist. At Lydda[11.13]in particular he passed for having cured a paralytic named Æneas, a miracle which is said to have led to numerous conversions in the plain of Saron.[11.14]From Lydda he repaired to Joppa,[11.15]a city which appears to have been a centre for Christianity. Cities of workmen, of sailors, of poor people, where the orthodox Jews were not dominant, were those in which the new sect found the best dispositions. Peter made a long sojourn at Joppa, at the house of a tanner named Simon who dwelt near the sea.[11.16]Working in leather was an industry almost unclean, according to the Mosaic code; it was not lawful to visit too frequently those who carried it on, so that the curriers had to live in a district by themselves.[11.17]Peter, in choosing such a host, gave a proof of his indifference to Jewish prejudices, and worked for that ennoblement of petty callings which constitutes a noble feature of the Christian spirit.
The organization of works of charity was soon actively pursued. The church of Joppa possessed a woman admirably named in Aramaic,Tabitha(gazelle), and in Greek,Dorcas,[11.18]who consecrated all her cares to the poor.[11.19]She was rich, it seems, and distributed her wealth in alms. This worthy lady had formed a society of pious widows, who spent their days with her in weaving clothes for the poor.[11.20]As the schism between Christianity and Judaism was not yet consummated, it is probable that the Jews shared in the benefit of these acts of charity. The “saints and widows”[11.21]were thus pious persons, doing good to all, a sort of friars and nuns, whom only the most austere devotees of a pedantic orthodoxy could suspect,fraticelli, loved by the people, devout, charitable, full of pity.
The germ of those associations of women, which are one of the glories of Christianity, thus existed in the first churches of Judea. At Jaffa commenced that series of the veiled women, clothed in linen, who were destined to continue through centuries the tradition of charitable acts. Tabitha was the mother of a family which will have no end as long as there are miseries to be solaced and good feminine instincts to assuage them. It is related further on, that Peter raised her from the dead. Alas! death, utterly senseless, utterly revolting as it is in such a case, is inflexible. When the most exquisite soul has evaporated, the decree is irrevocable; the most excellent woman can no more respond to the invitation of the friendly voices which would fain recall her, than can the vulgar and frivolous. But ideas are not subject to the conditions of matter. Virtue and goodness escape the fangs of death. Tabitha had no need to be resuscitated. For the sake of three or four days more of this sad life, why disturb her sweet and eternal repose? Let her sleep in peace; the day of the just will come!
In these very mixed cities, the problem of the admission of pagans to baptism was propounded with much urgency. Peter was strongly preöccupied with it. One day while he was praying at Joppa, on the terrace of the tanner’s house, having before him this sea that was soon going to bear the new faith to all the empire, he had a prophetic ecstasy. Plunged into a state of dreamy reverie, he thought he experienced a sensation of hunger, and asked for something to eat. Now while they were making it ready for him, he saw the heavens opened, and a cloth tied at the four corners come down thence. Looking inside the cloth he saw there all sorts of animals, and thought he heard a voice saying to him: “Kill and eat.” And on his objecting that many of these animals were impure, he was answered: “Call not that unclean which God has cleansed.” This, as it appears, was repeated three times. Peter was persuaded that these animals represented the mass of the Gentiles, which God Himself had just rendered fit for the holy communion of the kingdom of God.[11.22]
An occasion was soon presented for applying these principles. From Joppa, Peter repaired to Cesarea. There he came into relations with a centurion named Cornelius.[11.23]The garrison of Cesarea was formed, atleast in part, of one of those cohorts composed of Italian volunteers which were calledItalicæ.[11.24]The complete name for which this stood may have beencohors prima Augustus Italica civium Romanorum.[11.25]Cornelius was a centurion of this cohort, consequently an Italian and a Roman citizen. He was a man of probity, who had long felt drawn towards the aconotheistic worship of the Jews. He prayed, gave alms; practised, in a word, those precepts of natural religion which are taken for granted by Judaism; but he was not circumcised; he was not a proselyte in any degree whatever; he was a pious pagan, an Israelite in heart, nothing more.[11.26]All his household and some soldiers of his command were, it is said, in the same state of mind.[11.27]Cornelius applied for admission into the new Church. Peter, whose nature was open and benevolent, granted it to him, and the centurion was baptized.[11.28]