This imposition of hands, already so familiar to Jesus,{5.74}was the crowning sacramental act.{5.75}It conferred inspiration, inward illumination, the power of working wonders, of prophesying and of speaking languages. This was what they called the baptism of the Spirit. They believed that they recollected a saying of Jesus: “John baptized you with water: but as for you, you shall be baptized with the Spirit.”{5.76}Little by little these ideas became confused, and baptism was conferred “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”{5.77}But it is not probable that this formula, at the early period which we are describing, was as yet employed. The simplicity of this primitive Christian worship is evident. Neither Jesus nor the apostles had invented it. Certain Jewish sects had adopted, before them, grave and solemn ceremonies, which appear to have come partly from Chaldæa, where they are stillpractised with special liturgies, by the Sabæans and Mendäites.{5.78}The Persian religion contained, likewise, many rites of the same description.{5.79}The beliefs in popular medicine, which had accompanied the strength of Jesus, continued to be held by his disciples. The power of healing was one of the marvellous graces conferred by the Spirit.{5.80}The first Christians, like all the Jews of the age, regarded diseases as the punishment due to a fault,{5.81}or the work of a malicious demon.{5.82}The apostles, as well as Jesus, passed for powerful exorcists.{5.83}They imagined that anointings with oil, administered by them, with imposition of hands and invocation of the name of Jesus, were all-powerful to wash away the sins which were the causes of the disease, and to cure the sick.{5.84}Oil has always been in the East the chiefest of medicines.{5.85}Of itself, moreover, the imposition of hands by the apostles was supposed to have the same effect.{5.86}This imposition was conferred by immediate contact with the person; and it is not impossible that, in certain cases, the warmth of the hands, being sensibly communicated to the head, produced some little relief to the sick man. The sect being young and few in number, the question of the dead was only subsequently brought under their notice. The effect caused by the first deaths which took place in the ranks of the brotherhood was strange.{5.87}They disquieted themselves about the condition of the departed; they inquired if they would be less favored than those who were reserved to see with their eyes the second advent of the Son of Man. They generally came to the conclusion that the interval between death and the resurrection was a sort of blank in the recollection of the defunct.{5.88}The idea,expressed in thePhædonthat the soul exists before and after death; that death is a benefit; that it is even the state above all others favorable to philosophy, because the soul is then altogether free and disengaged—this idea, I say, was in no respect entertained by the first Christians. They appear generally to have believed that man has no existence apart from his body. This persuasion lasted a long time, and only gave way when the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, in the sense of the Greek philosophy, had been received into the Church, and become associated, for good or for evil, with the Christian dogma of the resurrection and universal restoration. At the time of which we speak, a belief in the resurrection prevailed almost alone.{5.89}The funeral rites were doubtless Jewish. No importance was attached to them; no inscription pointed out the name of the departed. The great resurrection was at hand; the body of the faithful had only to sojourn for a very short time in the rock. They took but little pains to come to an agreement upon the question whether the resurrection would be universal—that is to say, whether it would embrace both good and wicked, or would apply to the elect only.{5.90}
One of the most remarkable phenomena of the new religion was the reappearance of prophecy. For a long time previous, prophets in Israel were scarcely mentioned. This peculiar kind of inspiration appeared to revive in the little sect. The primitive Church had many prophets and prophetesses,{5.91}answering to those of the Old Testament. Psalmists reappeared also. The model of the Christian Psalmody is, no doubt, to be found in the Canticles, which Luke loves to scatter about the pages of his Gospel,{5.92}and which areimitated from the Canticles of the Old Testament. These Psalms and prophecies are, in point of form, destitute of originality; but an admirable spirit of tenderness and piety animates and pervades them. It is like an attenuated echo of the later productions of the sacred lyre of Israel. The book of Psalms was, in some sort, the calyx of the flower from which the Christian bee stole its first juice. The Pentateuch, on the contrary, was, as it appears, but little read and less pondered; allegories were substituted in the form of Jewishmidraschim, in which all the historical meaning of the books was suppressed.
The chanting with which they accompanied the new hymns{5.93}was probably that species of groaning without distinct notes, which is still the chant of the Greek Church, of the Maronites, and of the Eastern Christians in general.{5.94}It is not so much a musical modulation as a manner of forcing the voice, and of emitting through the nose a sort of groaning, in which all the inflexions follow each other with rapidity. They performed this extraordinary melopœia standing, with fixed eye, knit forehead, and contracted eyebrows, using an appearance of effort. The wordamen, above all, was uttered in a tremulous voice with bodily shaking. This word was of great importance in the liturgy. After the manner of the Jews,{5.95}the new faithful employed it to mark the assent of the people to the word spoken by the prophet or precentor.{5.96}They perhaps already attributed to it concealed virtues, and it was only pronounced with a certain emphasis. We know not whether the primitive ecclesiastical chant was accompanied with instruments.{5.97}As to the inward chant, which thefaithful “sang in their hearts,”{5.98}and which was nothing else than the overflowing of those tender spirits, ardent and dreamy as they were, they performed it no doubt like the slow chants of the Lollards of the Middle Ages, in a sort of whisper.{5.99}In general, joyousness manifested itself in these hymns. One of the maxims of the sages of the sect was, “If thou art sad, pray; if thou art merry, sing.”{5.100}
Moreover, this first Christian literature, designed as it was entirely for the edification of the assembled brethren, was not committed to writing. It entered into the mind of none to compose books. Jesus had spoken; they remembered his words. Had he not promised that that generation of his hearers should not pass away before he re-appeared among them?{5.101}
Up to the present time the Church of Jerusalem has practically been only a little Galilean colony. The friends of Jesus in Jerusalem and its vicinity, such as Lazarus, Martha and Mary of Bethany, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, had disappeared from the scene. Only the Galilean group gathered around the twelve apostles remained, compact and active; and meanwhile these zealous apostles were indefatigable in the work of preaching. Subsequently, after the fall of Jerusalem, and in places distant from Judea, it was reported that the sermons of the apostles had been delivered in public places and before large assemblages.[6.1]The authorities who had put Jesus to death would not permit the revival of such stories. The proselytism of the faithful was chiefly carried on by means of pointed conversations, during which their hearty earnestness was gradually communicated to others.[6.2]They preached under the portico of Solomon to audiences limited in number, but on whom they produced a most marked effect; their sermons consisted chiefly in such quotations from the Old Testament as would support their theory that Christ was the Messiah.[6.3]Their reasoning, though subtle, was weak; but the entire exegesis of the Jews at that time was of the same character,and the deductions drawn from the Bible by the doctors of the Mischna are no more convincing.
Still more feeble was the proof derived from pretended prodigies, which they brought forward in support of their arguments. It is impossible to doubt that the apostles believed that they possessed the power of performing miracles, which were acknowledged as the tokens of every Divine mission.[6.4]St. Paul, by far the ablest mind of the primitive Christian school, believed in miracles.[6.5]It was deemed certain that Jesus had performed them, and it was but natural to suppose that the series of Divine manifestations was to continue. Indeed thaumaturgy was a privilege of the apostles until the end of the first century.[6.6]The miracles of the apostles were of the same nature as those of Jesus; and consisted principally, though not exclusively, in the healing of the sick and the exorcising of demons.[6.7]It was maintained that even their shadow sufficed to bring about these marvellous cures.[6.8]These wonders were deemed direct gifts of the Holy Ghost, and held the same rank as the gifts of learning, of preaching, and of prophecy.[6.9]In the third century the Church believed herself possessed of the same privileges, and claimed as a permanent right the power of healing the sick, of driving out devils, and of predicting the future.[6.10]The ignorance of the people encouraged these pretensions. Do we not see in our day persons honest enough, but lacking in scientific intelligence, similarly deceived by the chimera of magnetism and other illusions?[6.11]
It is not by thesenaïveerrors, nor by the meagre discourses found in theActs, that we must form our opinion of the means of conversion employed by thefounders of Christianity. The private conversations of these good and earnest men, the reflection of the words of Jesus in their discourses, and above all, their piety and gentleness, formed the real power of their preaching. Their communistic life also had its attractions. Their house was like ahospice, where all the poor and forsaken found a refuge and an asylum.
Among the first who attached himself to the young society was a Cypriote called Joseph Hallevi, or the Levite, who, like many others, sold his land and laid the money at the feet of the disciples. He was an intelligent and devoted man, and a facile speaker. The apostles soon attached him to their band, and called himBar-naba, which means the “son of prophecy,” or “of preaching.”[6.12]He was numbered among the prophets, that is to say, inspired preachers;[6.13]and later we shall see him playing an important part. After St. Paul, he was the most active missionary of the first century. A certain Mnason was converted about the same time.[6.14]Cyprus was marked by many Jewish characteristics.[6.15]Barnabas and Mnason were undoubtedly of the Jewish race;[6.16]and the intimate and prolonged relations of Barnabas with the Church of Jerusalem give us reason to believe that he was familiar with the Syro-Chaldaic tongue.
A conversion almost equally as important as that of Barnabas, was that of a certain John, who bore the Roman surname of Marcus. He was cousin to Barnabas, and was a circumcised Jew.[6.17]His mother, Mary, a woman in easy circumstances, was also converted, and her residence was frequently visited by the apostles.[6.18]These two conversions appear to have been the work of Peter,[6.19]who was very intimate with both mother andson, and considered himself at home in their house.[6.20]Admitting the hypothesis that John-Mark was not identical with the true or supposed author of the second Gospel,[6.21]he yet played a prominent part, accompanying at a later period Paul and Barnabas, and probably Peter himself, on their apostolic journeys.
The fire thus kindled spread rapidly. The most celebrated men of the apostolic age were gained to the cause in two or three years almost simultaneously. It was a second Christian generation, parallel to that which had been formed five or six years previously on the shores of Lake Tiberias. This second generation, not having seen Jesus, could not equal the first in authority, but surpassed it in activity and in the ardor for distant missions. One of the best known of these new adepts was Stephanus or Stephen, who before his conversion was probably only a simple proselyte.[6.22]He was a man full of fervor and passion, his faith was very strong, and he was believed to be endowed with all the gifts of the Spirit.[6.23]Philip, who, like Stephen, was a zealous deacon and evangelist, joined the community at about the same time,[6.24]and was often confounded with the apostle of the same name.[6.25]Finally, at this epoch, Andronicus and Junia[6.26]were converted. They were probably husband and wife, who, like Aquila and Priscilla at a later date, were the very model of an apostolic couple, thoroughly devoted to the missionary cause. They were of Israelitish blood, and enjoyed the warm friendship of the apostles.[6.27]
Although the new converts were all Jews by religion, when touched by grace, they belonged to two very different classes of Jews. Some were “Hebrews,”{6.28}or Jewsof Palestine, speaking Hebrew, or ratherAramaic, and reading the Bible in the Hebrew text. The others were “Hellenists,” or Jews speaking Greek, and reading the Bible in that tongue. These last were further subdivided into two classes—the one being of Jewish blood; the other proselytes, or people of non-Israelitish origin, affiliated in different degrees to Judaism. The Hellenists, who almost all came from Syria, Asia Minor, Egypt, or Cyrene,[6.29]inhabited a separate quarter of Jerusalem, where they had their distinctive synagogues, thus forming little communities by themselves. There were a large number of these private synagogues[6.30]in Jerusalem, and in them the word of Jesus found a soil prepared for its reception.
The primitive nucleus of the Church was exclusively composed of “Hebrews;” and the Aramaic dialect, which was the language of Jesus, was the only one in use: but during the second or third year after the death of Jesus, Greek was introduced into the little community, and soon became the dominant tongue. Through their daily communication with these new brethren, Peter, John, James, Jude, and the Galilean disciples in general, learned Greek very easily, especially as they probably knew something of it beforehand. An incident soon to be mentioned shows that this diversity of language created at first some division in the community, and that the two fractions could not always readily agree.[6.31]After the ruin of Jerusalem, we shall see the “Hebrews” retire beyond the Jordan, to the heights of Lake Tiberias, and form a separate Church, which had its individual history. But in the meantime it does not appear that the diversity of language seriously affected the Church. The Orientals learn new languages very easily, and in the towns every one speaks two or three dialects. It is probable that the leading Galilean apostles acquired the use of the Greek{6.32}so far that they used it in preference to the Syro-Chaldaic whenever the majority of their listeners understood it. It was evident that the dialect of Palestine must be abandoned by those who dreamed of a wide-spread propaganda. A provincialpatoiswhich was written with difficulty[6.33]and only in use in Syria, was palpably insufficient for such an undertaking. Greek, on the contrary, was almost a necessity to Christianity. It was the universal language of the age, at least around the eastern basin of the Mediterranean; and it was especially the language of the Jews dispersed throughout the Roman empire. Then, as now, the Jews adopted with facility the idioms of the countries they inhabited. They were by no means purists, and this explains why the Greek used by the primitive Christians was so corrupt. Even the best educated Jews pronounced the classic language badly.[6.34]Their phraseology was always founded on the Syriac. They never freed themselves from the effect of the corrupt dialects, which dated from the Macedonian conquests.[6.35]
The conversions to Christianity soon became much more numerous among the “Hellenists” than among the “Hebrews.” The old Jews of Jerusalem found little attraction in a provincial sect but poorly versed in the only science appreciated by a Pharisee—the science of the law.{6.36}The relations of the little Church towards Judaism, like Jesus himself, were rather equivocal. But every religious or political party has an innate force which rules it, and, despite of itself, compels it to travel in its orbit. The first Christians, however great their apparent respect for Judaism, were, in reality, only Jews by their birth or by their outward customs. The true spirit of the sect had disappeared. The Talmud germinated in official Judaism, and Christianity had no affinity with the Talmud school. This is why Christianity found special favor among those nominal adherents of Judaism who were the least Jewish. Rigid orthodoxy did not incline towards the Christian sect; and it was the new-comers, people scarcely catechized, who had not been to the great schools, and were ignorant of the holy language, who lent a willing ear to the apostles and their disciples. Viewed rather contemptuously by the aristocracy of Jerusalem, theseparvenusof Judaism were not without their revenge. Young and newly formed parties always have less respect for tradition than older members of communities, and are more susceptible to the charms of novelty.
These classes, little subjected to the doctors of the law, were also it seems the most credulous. Credulity is not a characteristic of the Talmudic Jew. The credulous Jew, fond of the marvellous, was not the Jew of Jerusalem, but the Hellenist Jew; who was at the same time very religious and very ignorant, and consequently very superstitious. Neither the half incredulous Sadducee, nor the rigorous Pharisee, would be much affected by the theories popular in the apostolic circle. But the Judæus Apella, of whom the epicurean Horace wrote,[6.37]was ready to give in his adhesion. Social questions, besides, particularly interested those who received no benefit from the opulence enjoyed by Jerusalem as the locality ofthe temple and other central institutions of the nation; and it was by a recognition of the needs to which in this day modern socialism seeks to respond, that the new sect laid the solid foundation of its mighty future.
A comparison of the history of religion shows, as a general truth, that all those religions not contemporary with the origin of language itself, owe their establishment to social rather than theological causes. This was assuredly the case with Buddhism, the prodigious success of which may be traced to its social element, rather than to the nihilistic principle on which it was based. It was in proclaiming the abolition of castes, and establishing, in his words, “a law of grace for all,” that Sakya-Mouni and his disciples gained the adherence, first of India, and then of the largest portion of Asia.[7.1]Like Christianity, Buddhism was a movement of the lower classes. Its great attraction was the facility it afforded the poor to elevate themselves by the profession of a religion which improved their condition and offered them inexhaustible assistance and sympathy.
The poor were a numerous class in Judea during the first century. The country was naturally scantily provided with luxuries. In these countries where industry is almost unknown, almost every fortune owes its origin either to richly endowed religious institutions or government patronage. The riches of the temple were for along time the exclusive appanage of a limited number of nobles. The Asmoneans gathered around their dynasty a circle of rich families; and the Herods considerably increased the welfare and luxury of a certain class of society. But the real theocratic Jew, turning his back upon Roman civilization, only became poorer. He belonged to a class of holy men, fanatically pious, rigidly observant of the law, and miserably and abjectly poor. From this class, the sects of enthusiasts so numerous at this period, received their recruits. The universal dream of these people shadowed forth the triumph of the poor Jew who remained faithful, and the humiliation of the rich, who were considered as renegades and traitors, because of their civilization and different mode of life. Intense indeed was the hatred entertained by these poor fanatics against the splendid edifices which now began to adorn the country, and against the public works of the Romans.[7.2]Obliged as they were to toil for their daily bread on these structures, which to them seemed monuments of pride and forbidden luxury, they considered themselves the victims of men who were rich, wicked, corrupt, and infidels to the Divine Law.
In such a social state an association for mutual benefit would naturally receive a warm welcome. The little Christian Church appeared to be a paradise. This family of simple and united brethren attracted people from every quarter, who in return for that which they brought secured a settled future, the society of congenial friends, and precious spiritual hopes. The general custom of converts[7.3]was to convert into specie their property, which usually consisted of little farmsbut scantily productive. To unmarried people in particular the exchange of their plots of land for shares in a society which would secure them a place in the Heavenly Kingdom, could not be otherwise than advantageous. Several married persons did likewise. Care was taken that the new associates should contribute their entire effects to the common fund without retaining any portion for private use.[7.4]Indeed, as each one received from the common treasury in proportion to his needs,{7.5}and not in proportion to his contributions, every reservation of property was a fraud on the community. Such attempts at organization show a surprising resemblance to certain Utopian experiments made recently; but with the important difference that Christian communism rested on a religious basis, which is not the case with modern socialism. It is evident that an association whose dividends were declared not in proportion to the capital subscribed, but in proportion to individual needs, must rest only upon a sentiment of exalted self-abnegation and an ardent faith in a religious ideal.
Under such a social constitution, however, and despite of the high degree of fraternity, the administrative difficulties were necessarily numerous. The difference of language between the two factions of the community inevitably led to misapprehensions. The Jews of higher birth could not restrain a feeling of contempt for their more humble brethren in the faith, and soon expressed their dissatisfaction. “The Hellenists,” whose numbers daily increased, complained that their widows received less at the distributions than those of the “Hebrews.”[7.6]Until this time the apostles had attended to the financial affairs of the community;but, feeling now the necessity of delegating to others this part of their authority, they proposed to confide the administrative duties to seven experienced and leading men. The proposition was accepted, and at the election, Stephanus or Stephen, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas, were chosen. This last was a simple proselyte from Antioch, and Stephen, perhaps, was the same.[7.7]It seems that, in opposition to the course followed in the election of the Apostle Matthew, the choice of the seven administrators was not made from a group of primitive disciples, but from the new converts, and especially from the Hellenists. The names of all of them, indeed, were purely Greek. Stephen was the leading spirit of the seven, who, in accordance with the established rite, were formally presented to the apostles, and confirmed by them in the ceremony of laying on of hands.
The administrators thus designated received the Syriac name ofSchammaschin, and were also sometimes called “the seven,” in the same manner that the apostles were called “the twelve.”[7.8]Such was the origin of the Diaconate, the most ancient of sacred and ecclesiastical orders. In imitation of the church of Jerusalem, all the other churches introduced the Diaconate, and the institution spread with marvellous rapidity. This institution, indeed, elevated the care of the poor to an equality with religious services. It was a proclamation of the truth that social questions should be the first to occupy the attention of man. It was the introduction of political economy into religious affairs. The deacons were the best preachers of Christianity, and we shall soon see how they played their part as evangelists. As organizers, financial directors, and administrators, they had a still more important part. These practical men in perpetual contact with the poor, the rich, and the women, visited everywhere, observed everything, and by their exhortations were the most efficient agents of conversion.[7.9]They did much more than the apostles who remained stationary at the central point of authority in Jerusalem; and to them we are indebted for the most prominent and solid features of Christianity.
From a very early period women were admitted to this employment;[7.10]and, as in these days, they were called “sisters.”[7.11]At first they were widows;[7.12]but later, virgins were preferred for this office.[7.13]Admirable tact was shown by the Church in this movement. These good and simple men, with that profound science which comes from the heart, laid the basis of that grand system of charity which is the peculiar merit of Christianity. They had no precedent for such an institution. A vast system of benevolence and of reciprocal aid, to which the two sexes brought their diverse qualities, and lent their united efforts for the relief of human misery, was the holy creation which resulted from the travail of these two or three first years—the most prolific years in the history of Christianity. It is certain that the vital thoughts of Jesus filled the souls of His disciples and directed all their acts. Justice, indeed, demands that to Jesus should be referred the honor of all the great deeds of His apostles. It is probable that during His life He laid the foundations of those establishments which were successfully developed so soon after His death.
Women, naturally, were attracted towards a community where the weak were so cordially protected. Their position in society had previously been humble and precarious; widows, particularly, notwithstanding several protecting laws, were but little respected,[7.14]and often even abandoned to misery. Many of the doctors were opposed to giving them any religious education.[7.15]The Talmud placed along with the other pests of mankind, the gossiping and inquisitive widow, who spent her days in chatting with her neighbors, and the maiden who wasted her time in incessant praying.[7.16]The new religion offered to these poor and neglected souls a sure and honorable asylum.[7.17]Several women occupied a prominent place in the Church, and their houses served as places of meeting;[7.18]while those who had no houses were formed into a species of feminine presbyteral body,{7.19}comprising probably the virgins, who did important duty in charitable works. Those institutions, regarded as the fruit of a later Christianity, such as congregations of women, nuns, and sisters of charity, were really one of its first creations, the beginning of its influence, and the most perfect expression of its spirit. The admirable idea of consecrating by a sort of religious character and subjecting to regular discipline those women who were not in the bonds of marriage, is peculiarly and entirely Christian. The word “widow” became a synonyme for a person devoted to religious works, consecrated to God, and, consequently, a “deaconess.”[7.20]In those countries, where the wife at her twenty-fourth year already began to fade, and where there was no middle state between the child and the old woman, it was practically a new life which wasthus opened for that portion of the human race the most capable of devotion.
The times of the Seleucidæ had been a terrible epoch for female depravity. Never before were known so many domestic dramas, and such a series of poisonings and adulteries. The wise men of that day considered woman as a scourge to humanity; as the first cause of baseness and shame; as an evil genius whose only part in life was to impair whatever there was of good in the opposite sex.{7.21}Christianity changed all this. At that age which, to our view, is yet youth, but at which the existence of the Oriental woman is so gloomy, so fatally prone to evil suggestions, the widow could, by covering her head with a black shawl,{7.22}become a respectable person worthily employed, and, as a deaconess, the equal of the most esteemed men in the community. The difficult and dubious position of the childless widow, Christianity elevated even to sanctity.{7.23}The widow became almost the equal of the maiden. She was καλογρια, “beautiful old age,”{7.24}venerated and useful, and receiving the respect usually awarded to a mother. These women, constantly going to and fro,{7.25}were the most useful missionaries of the new religion. Protestants are in error in viewing these facts through the light of the system of modern individuality. Socialism and cenobitism are primitive features of Christianity.
The bishop and priest of later days did not yet exist; but that intimate familiarity of souls not bound by ties of blood, known as the pastoral ministry, was already founded. This was always the special gift of Jesus; and, as it were, a heritage from Him. Jesus had often saidthat He was more than father and mother, and that those who followed Him must forsake those beloved beings. Christianity placed some things above the family. It created a fraternity and spiritual marriages. The ancient system of marriages, which without restriction placed the wife in the power of the husband, was mere slavery. The moral liberty of woman began when the Church gave her in Jesus a friend and a guide, who advised and consoled her, always listened to her grievances, and sometimes advised resistance. Women need a governing power, and are only happy when governed; but it is necessary that they should love the one who wields that power. This is what neither ancient society, Judaism, nor Islamism, were able to do. Woman never had a religious conscience, a moral individuality, or an opinion of her own, previous to Christianity. Thanks to the Bishops and to monastic life, Radegonda found means for escaping from the arms of a barbarous husband. The life of the soul being all that is really of importance, it is just and reasonable that the pastor who would make the divine chords of the heart vibrate, the secret counsellor who holds the key of the conscience, should be more than a father, more than a husband. In one sense Christianity was a reaction against the too narrow domestic system of the Aramaic race. The old Aramaic societies only admitted married men, and were singularly strict in their views of the marriage relation. All this was something analogous to the English family—a narrow, closed up, contracted circle—an egotism of several, as withering to the soul as the egotism of an individual. Christianity, with its divineidea of the liberty of God, corrected these exaggerations. And first it allotted to every one the duties common to mankind. It saw that the family relation was not of sole importance in life, or at least that the duty of reproducing the human race did not devolve on every one; and that there should be persons freed from these duties, which are undoubtedly sacred, but not intended for every one. The same exceptions made in favor of thehetairælike Aspasia by Greek society, and of thecortigianalike Imperia, in recognition of the necessities of polished society, Christianity made for the priest and the deaconess for the public welfare. It admitted different classes in society. There are people who find it more delightful to be loved by a hundred people than by five or six; and for these the family in its ordinary conditions seems insufficient, cold, and wearisome. Why, then, should we extend to all, the exigencies of our dull and mediocre social system? His temporal family is not sufficient for man; he feels the need of brothers and sisters besides those of the flesh.
By its hierarchy of different social functions,{7.26}the primitive Church seemed to conciliate for the time these opposing exigencies. We shall never understand, never comprehend, how happy these people were under these holy regulations which sustained liberty without restraining it, and permitted at the same time the advantages of communistic and private life. It was far different from the confusion of our artificial societies, in which the sensitive soul so often finds it cruelly isolated. In these little refuges which they call churches, the social atmosphere was sweet and inviting; the member lived there in the same faith and actuated by the same hopes. Butit is clear that these conditions could not apply to a very large society. When entire countries became Christianized, the system of the first churches became a Utopian idea only partially realized in monasteries, and the monastic life in this sense was the continuation of the primitive churches.{7.27}The convent is the necessary consequence of the Christian spirit; there is no perfect Christianity without the convent, because it is only there that the evangelical idea can be realized.
A large share of the credit, certainly, of these great creations should be given to Judaism. Each one of the Jewish communities scattered along the shores of the Mediterranean was already a sort of church, with its charitable treasury. Almsgiving, always recommended by the elders,[7.28]was a recognised precept; it was practised in the temple and in the synagogues,{7.29}and it was deemed the first duty of the proselyte.{7.30}In every age Judaism was noted for its careful attention to the poor, and the fraternal charity which it inspired.
It would be highly unjust to hold up Christianity as a reproach to Judaism, since to the latter primitive Christianity owes almost everything. It is when we look upon the Roman world that we are the most astonished at the miracles of charity performed by the Church. Never did a profane society, recognising only right for its basis, produce such admirable effects. The law of every profane, or, if I may say so, every philosophic system of society, is liberty, sometimes equality, but never fraternity. To charity, viewed as a right, it acknowledges no obligations; it only pays attention to individuals; it finds charity often inconvenient, and neglects it. Every attempt to apply the public funds to the aid of the poorsavors of communism. When a man dies of hunger, when entire classes languish in misery, the policy of the profane social system limits itself to acknowledging that the fact is unfortunate. It can easily show that there is no civil order without liberty; now, as a consequence of liberty, he who has nothing, and can get nothing, perishes from hunger. That is indeed logical; but there is no guard against the abuse of logic. The necessities of the most numerous class always result in dispensing with it. Institutions purely political and civil are not enough; social and religious aspirations claim a religious satisfaction. The glory of the Jewish people is, that they boldly proclaimed this principle. The Jewish law is social, and not political; the prophets, the authors of the Apocalypses, were the promoters of social and political revolutions. In the first half of the first century, in the presence of profane civilization, the absorbing idea of the Jews was to repel the benefits of the Roman system, with its philosophy, democracy, and equality, and to proclaim the excellence of their theocratic law. “The law is happiness,” was the idea of such Jewish thinkers as Philon and Josephus. The laws of other people were intended to secure justice, and had nothing to do with the goodness and happiness of man; while on the other hand, the Jewish law descended to the details of moral education. Christianity is only the development of this idea. Each church is a monastery where all possess rights over all the others; where there should be neither poor nor wicked; and where, consequently, every individual is careful to guard and restrain himself. Primitive Christianity may be defined as a vast association of poor people; as a heroic struggle against egotism,founded upon the idea that no one has a right to more than is absolutely necessary for him, and that all the superfluity belongs to those who possess nothing. It will at once be seen that with such a spirit and the Roman spirit war to the death must ensue; and that Christianity, on its part, can never dominate the world without important modifications of its native tendencies and its original programme.
But the needs which it represents will always last. The communistic life during the second half of the Middle Ages, serving for the abuses of an intolerant Church, the monastery having become a mere feudal fief, or the barracks for a dangerous and fanatic military modern feeling, became bitterly opposed to the cenobitic system. We have forgotten that it was in the communistic life that the soul of man experienced its fullest joy. The song, “Oh, how good and joyful a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity,”{7.31}has ceased to be our refrain. But when modern individualism shall have borne its latest fruits, when humanity, shrunken and saddened, shall also have become weak and impotent, it will return to these great institutions and stern disciplines; when our material society—I should say our world of pigmies—shall have been scourged with whips by the heroic and the idealistic, then the communistic system will regain all its force. Many great things, such as science, will be organized under a monastic form. Egotism, the essential law of civil law, of civil society, will be insufficient for great minds; all coming, from whatever point of view, will be opposed to vulgarity. The words of Jesus and the ideas of the Middle Ages in regard to poverty will againbe appreciated. It will be understood that the possession of anything implies an inferiority, and that the founders of the mystic life disputed for centuries as to whether Jesus owned even that which he used for his daily wants. The Franciscan subtleties will become again great social problems. The splendid ideal devised by the author of theActswill be inscribed as a prophetic revelation at the gates of the paradise of humanity: “And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul; neither said of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common, neither was any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of land or houses sold them, and brought the price of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles' feet, and distribution was made unto every man, according as he had need. And they continuing with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart.”{7.32}
Let us not anticipate events. It is now about the year 36. Tiberius at Caprea could have no more doubt that a formidable enemy to the empire was growing up. In two or three years the new sect had made surprising progress; now counted several thousands of adherents.{7.33}It was easy to foresee that its conquests would be chiefly among the Hellenists and proselytes. The Galilean group, which had heard the Master, though preserving its precedence, seemed almost lost in the current of new-comers who spoke Greek. At the time of which we speak, no heathen, that is to say, no man who had not held previous relations with Judaism, had entered intothe Church; but proselytes{7.34}performed important functions in it. The jurisdiction of the disciples had also largely extended, and was no longer simply a little college of Palestineans, but included people of Cyprus, Antioch, and Cyrene,{7.35}and of almost all the points on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean where Jewish colonies had been established. Egypt alone knew nothing of the primitive Church, and for a long time remained ignorant. The Jews of that country were almost in a state of schism with those of Judea. They had customs of their own, superior in many points to those of Palestine, and were almost entirely unaffected by the great religious movement at Jerusalem.
It was inevitable that the preachings of the new sect, even while they were disseminated with much reserve, should revive the animosities which had accumulated against its Founder, and had ultimately resulted in His death. The Sadducee family of Hanan, which had caused the death of Jesus, was still reigning. Joseph Caiaphas occupied, up to the year 36, the sovereign Pontificate, the effective power of which he left to his father-in-law Hanan, and to his relations, John and Alexander.[8.1]These arrogant and pitiless personages saw with impatience a troop of good holy men, without any official position, gaining the favor of the crowd.[8.2]Once or twice Peter, John, and the principal members of the apostolical college, were thrust into prison and condemned to be beaten. This was the punishment inflicted on heretics.[8.3]The authorization of the Romans was not necessary for its infliction. As may well be supposed, these brutalities did but excite the ardor of the apostles. They came forth from the Sanhedrim, where they had just undergone flagellation, full of joy at having been deemed worthy to undergo contumely for Him whom they loved.[8.4]Eternal puerility of penal repressions, applied to things of the soul! They passed, no doubt, for men of order, for models of prudence and wisdom, theseblunderers, who seriously believed in the year 36 they could put down Christianity with a few whippings!
These outrages were perpetrated principally by the Sadducees,[8.5]that is to say by the upper clergy, who surrounded the temple, and derived thence immense profits.[8.6]It does not seem that the Pharisees displayed towards the sect the animosity they showed to Jesus. The new believers were people pious and strict in their manner of life, not a little like the Pharisees themselves. The rage which the latter felt against the Founder sprang from the superiority of Jesus—a superiority which He took no pains to disguise. His delicate sarcasms, His intellect, the charm there was about Him, His hatred to hypocrites, had enkindled a savage ire. The apostles, on the contrary, were destitute of wit; they never employed irony. The Pharisees were at certain moments favorable to them; many Pharisees even became Christians.[8.7]The terrible anathemas of Jesus against Pharisaism had not yet been written, and tradition of the words of the Master was neither general nor uniform.[8.8]
These first Christians were, moreover, people so inoffensive, that many persons of the Jewish aristocracy, without exactly forming part of the sect, were well disposed towards them. Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, who had known Jesus, remained, no doubt, linked in bonds of brotherhood with the Church. The most celebrated Jewish Doctor of the times, Rabbi Gamaliel the Elder, grandson of Hillel, a man of broad and very tolerant ideas, gave his opinion, it is said, in the Sanhedrim in favor of the freedom of Gospel preaching.[8.9]The author ofThe Actsputs into his mouth some excellent reasoning, which ought to be the rule of conduct for Governments whenever they find themselves confronted with novelties in the intellectual or moral order. “If this work is frivolous, leave it alone, it will fall of itself; if it is serious, how dare you resist the work of God? In any case you will not succeed in stopping it.” Gamaliel was but little heeded. Liberal minds in the midst of opposing fanaticisms have no chance of success.
A terrible excitement was provoked by the Deacon Stephen.[8.10]His preaching had, as it seems, great success. The crowd flocked around him, and these gatherings resulted in some lively disputes. It was mostly Hellenists, or proselytes, attendants at the synagogue of theLibertini,[8.11]as it was called—people of Cyrene, of Alexandria, of Cilicia, of Ephesus, who were active in these disputes. Stephen passionately maintained that Jesus was the Messiah; that the priests had committed a crime in putting him to death; that the Jews were rebels, sons of rebels, people that denied evidence. The authorities resolved to destroy this audacious preacher; witnesses were suborned to watch for some word in his discourses against Moses. Naturally they found what they sought for. Stephen was arrested and taken before the Sanhedrim. The word with which he was reproached was nearly the same as that which led to the condemnation of Jesus.[8.12]He was accused of saying that Jesus of Nazareth would destroy the temple, and change the traditions attributed to Moses. It is very possible, in fact, that Stephen had used such language. A Christian of this epoch would not have had any idea of speaking directly against the law, since all still observed it; but as to traditions, Stephen might combat them as Jesus himselfhad done. Now these traditions were foolishly ascribed to Moses by the orthodox, and an equal value was attributed to them as to the written law.[8.13]
Stephen defended himself by expounding the Christian thesis, with copious citations from the law, from the Psalms, from the prophets, and terminated by reproaching the members of the Sanhedrim with the homicide of Jesus. “O blockheads! and uncircumcised in heart,” said he to them, “you will then ever resist the Holy Ghost, as your fathers also have done. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? They have slain those who announced the coming of the Just One, whom you have betrayed, and of whom you have been the murderers. This law that you had received from the mouth of angels[8.14]you have not kept.” At these words a cry of rage interrupted him. Stephen, becoming more and more exalted, fell into one of those paroxysms of enthusiasm that are called the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. His eyes were fixed on high; he saw the glory of God and Jesus beside his Father, and cried out: “Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of God.” All the listeners stopped their ears and threw themselves upon him, gnashing their teeth. They dragged him outside the city and stoned him. The witnesses who, according to the law,[8.15]had to cast the first stones, took off their garments and laid them at the feet of a young fanatic named Saul, or Paul, who was thinking with secret joy of the merits which he was acquiring in participating in the death of a blasphemer.[8.16]
In all this there was a literal observance of the prescriptions of Deuteronomy, Chap. 13. But looked atfrom the point of view of the civil law, this tumultuous execution, accomplished without the concurrence of the Romans, was not regular.[8.17]In the case of Jesus, we have seen that the ratification of the Procurator was needed. Perhaps his ratification was obtained in Stephens' case, and his execution may not have followed quite so closely upon his sentence as the narrator of the Acts would have it. Possibly, however, the Roman authority was then somewhat relaxed in Judea. Pilate had just been suspended from his functions, or was on the point of being so. The cause of this disgrace was simply the too great firmness he had shown in his administration.{8.18}Jewish fanaticism had rendered life unbearable to him. Very likely he was tired of refusing these madmen the violence they demanded of him, and the proud family of Hanan had come to have no longer any need of permission in order to pronounce sentence of death. Lucius Vitellius (the father of him who was emperor) was then imperial legate of Syria. He sought to win the good graces of the population; and he had the pontifical vestments which, since the time of Herod the Great, had been deposited in the town of Antonia, returned to the Jews.[8.19]Far from sustaining Pilate in his acts of rigor, he gave ear to the complaints of the native citizens, and sent Pilate back to Rome to reply to the accusations of his subordinates (beginning of the year 36). The principal grievance of the latter was that the Procurator would not lend himself with sufficient complaisance to their desires—intolerant desires.[8.20]Vitellius replaced him provisionally by his friend Marcellus, who was no doubt more careful not to displease the Jews, and consequently more ready to indulge them with religious murders. The death of Tiberius (16th March in the year 37) only encouraged Vitellius in his policy. The two first years of the reign of Caligula were an epoch of general enfeeblement of the Roman authority in Syria. The policy of this prince, before he lost his wife, was to restore to the people of the East their autonomy and native chiefs. Thus he established the kingdoms or principalities of Antiochus, of Comagene, of Herod Agrippa, of Soheym, of Cotys, of Polemon II., and allowed that of Hâreth to aggrandize itself.[8.21]When Pilate arrived at Rome, he found the new reign already begun. It is probable that Caligula decided against him, since he confided the government of Jerusalem to a new functionary, Marcellus, who appears not to have excited on the part of the Jews the violent recriminations which overwhelmed the unfortunate Pilate with embarrassment and filled him with chagrin.{8.22}
At any rate, the important remark is this: that at the epoch of which we are treating the persecutors of Christianity were not Romans; they were orthodox Jews. The Romans preserved, in the midst of this fanaticism, a principle of tolerance and of reason. If there is anything for which the imperial authority is to be reproached, it is for having been too weak, and not having cut short at the outset the civil consequences of a sanguinary law pronouncing the pain of death for religious offences. But the Roman domination had not yet become a complete power, as it was at a later day; it was a sort of protectorate or suzerainty. Its complaisance was carried even to the extent of withholding the effigy of the Emperor from the coins struck under the procurators, in order not to shock Jewish ideas.[8.23]Rome did not yet seek, at least not in the East, to impose on conquered peoples herlaws, her gods, her manners; she left them in their local practices outside the Roman law. Their semi-independence was but another sign of their inferiority. The Imperial power in the East at this epoch pretty closely resembled the Turkish authority, and the government of the native populations that of the Rajahs. The idea of equal rights and equal guarantees for all did not exist. Each provincial group had its own jurisdiction, as at this day the various Christian churches and the Jews in the Ottoman Empire. A few years ago, in Turkey, the patriarchs of the various communities of Rajahs, provided they were on good terms with the Porte, were sovereign in regard to their subordinates, and could pronounce against them the most cruel punishments.
As the period of the death of Stephen may fluctuate between the years 36, 37, and 38, we do not know whether Caiphas ought to bear the responsibility of it. Caiphas was deposed by Lucius Vitellius in the year 36, shortly after Pilate;[8.24]but the change was slight. He was succeeded by his brother-in-law, Jonathan, son of Hanan. The latter in his turn was succeeded by his brother Theophilus, son of Hanan,[8.25]who kept the Pontificate in the house of Hanan till the year 42. Hanan was still alive, and possessor of the real power maintained in his family—the principles of pride, of severity, of hatred to innovators, which were in a manner hereditary in it.
The death of Stephen produced a great impression. The converts solemnized his funeral in the midst of tears and groans.[8.26]The separation between the new sectaries and Judaism was not yet absolute. The proselytes and the Hellenists, less strict in the matterof orthodoxy than the pure Jews, felt that they ought to render public homage to a man who had been an honor to their body, and whose peculiar opinions had not shut him out from the pale of the law.
Thus dawned the era of Christian martyrs. Martyrdom was not a thing entirely new. To say nothing of John Baptist and of Jesus, Judaism, at the epoch of Antiochus Epiphanus, had had its witnesses faithful unto the death. But the series of brave victims which opens with St. Stephen has exercised a peculiar influence upon the history of the human mind. It introduced into the western world an element which was wanting to it, absolute and exclusive Faith—this idea, that there is but one good and true religion. In this sense, the martyrs began the era of intolerance. It may be said, with great probability, that any one who gives his life for his faith would be intolerant if he were master. Christianity, after it had passed through three centuries of persecutions and became in its turn dominant, was more persecuting than any religion had ever been. When we have poured out our own blood for a cause, we are but too strongly led to shed the blood of others for the conservation of the treasure we have won.
The murder of Stephen was not, moreover, an isolated fact. Taking advantage of the weakness of the Roman functionaries, the Jews brought a real persecution[8.27]to bear down upon the Church. It seems that the vexations pressed hardest upon the Hellenists and the proselytes whose free tendencies enraged the orthodox. The Church of Jerusalem, already so strongly organized, was obliged to disperse. The apostles, according to a principle which seems to have taken strong hold of their minds,[8.28]did not leave the city. It was probably so with all the purely Jewish group, with those who were called the “Hebrews.”[8.29]But the great community, with its meals in common, its diaconal services, its varied exercises, ceased thenceforth, and was never again reconstructed upon its first model. It had lasted three or four years. It was for nascent Christianity an unequalled good fortune that its first attempts at association, essentially communist, were so soon broken up. Attempts of this kind engender abuses so shocking, that communist establishments are condemned to crumble away in a very short time,[8.30]or very soon to ignore the principle on which they are created.[8.31]Thanks to the persecution of the year 37, the cenobitic Church of Jerusalem was saved from the test of time. It fell in its flower, before interior difficulties had undermined it. It remained like a splendid dream, the memory of which animated in their life of trial all those who had formed part of it, like an ideal to which Christianity will incessantly aspire to return, without ever succeeding.[8.32]Those who know what an inestimable treasure for the members still existing of the St. Simonian Church is the memory of Ménilmontant, what friendship it creates between them, what joy gleams from their eyes as they speak of it, will comprehend the powerful link established between the new brethren by the fact of having loved and then suffered together. Great lives have nearly always to remember a few months during which they felt God—months which, though existing only in memory, delight all the after years of their lives.
The leading part, in the persecution we have just recounted, was played by that young Saul whom we have already found contributing, as far as in him lay, to the murder of Stephen. This furious man, furnished with a permission from the priests, entered into houses suspected of concealing Christians, took violent hold of men and women, and dragged them into prison or before the tribunals.[8.33]Saul prided himself on there being no one of his generation so zealous as himself for the traditions.[8.34]Often, it is true, the mildness, the resignation of his victims astonished him; he experienced a sort of remorse; he imagined hearing these pious women, hoping for the Kingdom of God, whom he had thrown into prison, say to him during the night, with a gentle voice: “Why persecutest thou us?” The blood of Stephen, by which he was almost literally stained, sometimes disturbed his vision. Many things he had heard said of Jesus went to his heart. This superhuman being, in his ethereal life, whence he sometimes issued to reveal himself in short apparitions, haunted him like a spectre. But Saul repulsed such thoughts with horror; he confirmed himself with a sort of frenzy in the faith of his traditions, and he was dreaming of new cruelties against those who attacked them. His name had become the terror of the faithful; the fiercest outrages, the most sanguinary perfidies, were dreaded at his hands.[8.35]