One of the most extraordinary examples of this tendency of religious souls towards Judaism was that given by the royal family of Adiabene, upon the Tiger.[14.42]This house, of Persian origin and manners,[14.43]already partly initiated into Greek culture,[14.44]became entirely Jewish, and even preëminently devout; for, as we have already said, these proselytes were often more pious than the Jews by birth. Izate, chief of the family, embraced Judaism through the preaching of a Jewish merchant named Ananias, who, entering the seraglio of Abermerig, king of Mesene, for the purposes of his petty traffic, had converted all the women, and constituted himself their spiritual preceptor. The women brought Izate into communication with him. Towards the same time Helen, his mother, received instruction in the true religion from another Jew. Izate, with the zeal of a new convert, wished to be circumcised. But his mother and Ananias vehemently dissuaded him from it. Ananias proved to him that the observation of God’s commandments was of more importance than circumcision, and that he might be a very good Jew without this ceremony. Such a tolerance was the privilege of a small number of enlightened minds. Some time after, a Jew of Galilee, named Eleazar, finding the king occupied in reading the Pentateuch, showed him by texts that he could not observe the law without being circumcised. Izate was convinced, and submitted immediately to the operation.[14.45]
The conversion of Izate was followed by that of his brother, Monobaze, and of all the family. Towards the year 44, Helen came and established herself at Jerusalem, where she had built for the royal house of Adiabene a palace and family mausoleum, which still exist.[14.46]She rendered herself dear to the Jews by her affability and her alms. It was very edifying to see her, like a pious Jewess, frequenting the temple, consulting the doctors, reading the law, teaching it to her sons. During the plague of the year 44, this holy personage was the providence of the city. She had a large quantity of wheat bought in Egypt, and of dried figs in Cyprus. Izate, on his part, sent considerable sums to be distributed among the poor. The wealth of Adiabene was in part expended at Jerusalem. The sons of Izate came thither to learn the customs and the language of the Jews. All this family was thus the resource of this population of beggars. It acquired there a sort of citizenship; several of its members were found there at the time of the siege of Titus;[14.47]others figure in the Talmudic writings, presented as models of piety and devotedness.[14.48]
It is thus that the royal family of Adiabene belongs to the history of Christianity. Without being Christian, in fact, as certain traditions have represented,[14.49]thisfamily represented under various aspects the first fruits of the Gentiles. In embracing Judaism, it obeyed a sentiment which was destined to bring over the entire pagan world to Christianity. The true Israelites according to God, were much rather these foreigners animated by so profoundly sincere a religious sentiment than the arrogant and spiteful Pharisee, for whom religion was but a pretext for hatred and disdain. These good proselytes, although they were truly saints, were in nowise fanatics. They admitted that true religion might be practised under the empire of the most widely differing civil codes. They completely separated religion from politics. The distinction between the seditious sectaries, who must presently defend Jerusalem with rage, and the devoutly pious who, at the first rumor of war, were going to flee to the mountains,[14.50]made itself more and more manifest.
We may see at least that the question as to proselytes was propounded in a very similar manner at once in Judaism and in Christianity. On both hands alike the void was felt for enlarging the door of entrance. For those who were placed at this point of view, circumcision was a useless or noxious custom; the Mosaic observances were simply a mask of a race having no value but for the sons of Abraham. Before becoming the universal religion, Judaism was obliged to reduce itself to a sort of deism, imposing only the duties of natural religion. That was a sublime mission to fulfil, and to it a portion of Judaism, in the first half of the first century, lent itself in a very intelligent manner. On one side, Judaism was one of those innumerable national worships[14.51]of which the world is full, and thesanctity of which springs solely from the fact that the ancestors had adored in the same way; on another side, Judaism was the absolute religion, made for all, destined to be adopted by all. The terrible flood of fanaticism which spread over Judea, and which led to the war of extermination, cut short this future. It was Christianity which took upon its own account the task which the synagogue had been unable to accomplish. Laying aside ritual questions, Christianity continued the monotheistic propaganda of Judaism. That which had caused the success of Judaism with the women of Damascus in the seraglio of Abenverig, with Helen, with so many pious proselytes, became the force of Christianity throughout an entire world. In this sense the glory of Christianity is truly confounded with that of Judaism. A generation of fanatics deprived this latter of its recompense, and hindered its gathering the harvest it had prepared.
We have now arrived at a period when Christianity may be said to have become established. In the history of religions it is only the earliest years during which their existence is precarious. If a creed can triumphantly pass through the severe ordeals which await every new system, its future is assured. With sounder judgment than other cotemporary sects, such as the Essenes, the Baptists, and the followers of Judas the Gaulonite, who clung to and perished with the Jewish institutions, the founders of Christianity displayed rare prevision in going forth at an early period to disseminate and root their new opinions over the broad expanse of the Gentile world. The meagreness of the allusions to Christianity which are found in Josephus, in the Talmud, and in the Greek and Latin writers, need not surprise us. Josephus is transmitted to us by Christian copyists, who have omitted everything uncomplimentary to their faith. It is possible that he wrote more at length concerning Jesus and the Christians than is preserved in the edition which has been handed down to us. The Talmud in like manner, during the Middle Age, and after its first publication, underwent much abridgment and alteration.[15.1]This resulted from the severe criticisms of the text by Christian writers, and from the burningof a number of unlucky Jews who were found in possession of a work containing what were considered blasphemous passages. As to the Greek and Latin writers, it is not surprising that they paid little attention to a movement which they could not comprehend, and which was going on within a narrow space foreign to them. Christianity was lost to their vision upon the dark background of Judaism. It was only a family quarrel amongst the subjects of a degraded nation; why trouble themselves about it? The two or three passages in which Tacitus and Suetonius mention the Christians show that the new sect, even if generally beyond the visual circle of full publicity, was, notwithstanding, a prominent fact, since we are enabled at intervals to catch a glimpse of it defining itself with considerable clearness of outline through the mist of public inattention.
The relief of Christianity above the general level of Jewish history in the first century has also been somewhat diminished, by the fact that it was not the only movement of the kind. At the epoch we have arrived at, Philo had finished his career, so wholly consecrated to the love of virtue. The sect of Judas the Gaulonite still existed. This agitator had left the perpetuation of his ideas to his sons, James, Simon, and Menahem. The two former were crucified by command of the renegade procurator Tiberius Alexander.[15.2]Menahem remained, and is destined to play an important part in the final catastrophe of the nation.[15.3]In the year 44, an enthusiast by the name of Theudas arose, announcing the speedy deliverance of the Jews, calling on the people to follow him to the desert, and promising likea second Joshua to cause them to pass dry-shod across the Jordan.[15.4]This passage was, according to him, the true baptism which should admit every believer into the kingdom of God. More than four hundred persons followed him. The procurator Cuspius Fadus sent out against him a troop of horse, which dispersed his disciples and slew him.[15.5]A few years before this Samaria had been stirred by the voice of a fanatic, who pretended to have had a revelation of the spot on Mount Gerizim where Moses had concealed the sacred instruments of worship. Pilate suppressed this movement with great severity.[15.6]
In Jerusalem, tranquillity was at an end. From the arrival of the procurator Ventidius Cumanus (A.D.48), disturbances were incessant. The excitement reached such a point that it became almost impossible to live there; the most trifling occurrences brought about explosions.[15.7]People everywhere felt a strange fermentation, a kind of mysterious foreboding. Impostors sprang up on every side.[15.8]That fearful scourge, the society of zealots orsicarii, began to appear. Wretches armed with daggers mingled in the crowds, gave the fatal thrust to their victims, and were the first to cry murder. Hardly a day passed that some assassination of this kind was not told of. An extraordinary terror spread around. Josephus speaks of the crimes of the zealots as pure wickedness;[15.9]but it cannot be doubted that they sprang in part from fanaticism.[15.10]It was to defend the law and the testimony that these wretches drew the poniard. Whoever was wanting in their view in one of the requirements of the law, was judged and at once executed. They believed that in so doing they wererendering a service most meritorious and pleasing to God.
Dreams like those of Theudas occurred everywhere. Men calling themselves inspired, drew the people after them into the desert, under the pretext of showing them by manifest signs that God was about to deliver them. The Roman authorities exterminated the dupes of these agitators in crowds.[15.11]An Egyptian Jew who came to Jerusalem about the year 56, succeeded by his devices in drawing after him thirty thousand persons, among whom were four thousand zealots. From the desert he was going to lead them to the Mount of Olives, that they might thence behold the walls of Jerusalem crumble at his command. Felix, who was at that time procurator, marched against him, and dispersed his band. The Egyptian escaped and was seen no more.[15.12]But, as we see in a diseased body one malady succeed another, soon afterwards there appeared here and there troops of magicians and robbers, who openly excited the people to revolt, and threatened with death those who should continue to obey the Roman authorities. Under this pretext they murdered and pillaged the rich, burned villages, and filled all Judea with the marks of their outrages.[15.13]A terrible war seemed impending. A spirit of madness reigned everywhere, and the imagination of the people was kept in a state bordering on lunacy.
It is not impossible that Theudas may have had an idea of imitating the acts of Jesus and John the Baptist. At any rate such an imitation is evident in the accounts of Simon of Gitto, if we may credit the Christian traditions.[15.14]We have already encountered him in communication with the apostles on the first mission of Philip to Samaria. He attained his celebrity during the reign of the Emperor Claudius.[15.15]His miracles were unquestioned, and all Samaria regarded him as a supernatural being.[15.16]
Miracles were not, however, the only basis of his renown. He taught a doctrine, it seems, of which it is difficult for us to acquire a definite knowledge, in a treatise entitled “The Great Exposition,” which is ascribed to him, and a few extracts from which have come down to us, being probably only a modified expression of his ideas.[15.17]During his sojourn at Alexandria, where he studied the Grecian philosophy, he appears to have framed a system of syncretic theology and allegorical exegesis, in many respects analogous to that of Philo.[15.18]His system is not without sublimity. Sometimes it reminds us of the Jewish Kabala, sometimes of the pantheistic theories of Indian philosophy; and in other respects it resembles that of the Buddhists and the Parsees.[15.19]The primal being is, “He who is, has been, and shall be,”[15.20]i.e.theJah-vehof the Samaritans, understood according to the etymological force of the name, as the eternal and only Being, self-begotten, self-augmenting, self-seeking, and self-finding—the father, mother, sister, spouse, and son of himself.[15.21]In this infinite being, all things exist potentially to all eternity; and pass into action and reality through human conscience, reason, language, and science.[15.22]The universe is explained either upon the basis of a hierarchy of abstract principles like the Æons of Gnosticism and the Sephirotic tree of the Kabala, or upon thatof an order of angels apparently borrowed from the Persian doctrine. Sometimes these abstractions are presented as representations of physical and physiological facts. Elsewhere, the “divine powers,” considered as distinct substances, are realized in successive incarnations, either in the male or female form, whose end is the emancipation of those beings which are enslaved in the bonds of material existence. The highest of these “Powers” is called “the Great,” which is the universal Providence, the intelligent soul of this world.[15.23]It is masculine. Simon passed for an incarnation of this spirit. In connexion with it is its feminine counterpart, “the Great Thought.” Accustomed to clothe his theories in a strange symbolism, and to devise allegorical interpretations for the ancient writings both sacred and profane, Simon, or whoever was the author of “The Great Exposition,” ascribed to this Divine existence the name of “Helena,” thereby signifying that she was the object of universal pursuit, the eternal cause of dispute among men, and that she avenged herself on her enemies by depriving them of sight until the moment they consented to recant;[15.24]—a strange theory, and one which, imperfectly understood or designedly travestied, gave rise among the early Fathers of the Church to the most puerile legends.[15.25]The acquaintance with Greek literature possessed by the author of “The Great Exposition” is at all events very remarkable. He contended that, rightly understood, the heathen writings sufficed for the knowledge of all things.[15.26]His broad eclecticism embraced all revelations, and sought to combine them into one sole and universal system of accepted truths.
His plan was essentially quite similar to that of Valentinus, and to the doctrines in regard to the Divine Persons which are found in the fourth Gospel, in Philo, and in the Targums.[15.27]The “Metatronos,”[15.28]which the Jews placed at the side of the Deity, and almost in his bosom, strongly resembles “The Great Power.” In Samaritan theology we find a Great Angel, who presides over other angels, and we find also a variety of manifestations or “Divine Virtues,” analogous to those of the Kabala.[15.29]It appears certain, then, that Simon of Gitto was a theosophist of the type of Philo and the Kabalists. Perhaps he may have come near to Christianity, but certainly he did not attach himself to it in any defined way.
Whether he actually borrowed anything from the disciples of Jesus, is difficult to decide. If “The Great Exposition” is the expression of his ideas in any degree, it must be admitted that upon several points he is in advance of the Christian ideas, and that upon others he adopts them with much fulness.[15.30]He seems to have attempted an eclecticism similar to that which Mahomet afterwards adopted, and to have based his religious action upon the preliminary belief in the divine mission of John and of Jesus.[15.31]He professed to bear a mystic relation to them. He asserted, it is said, that it was he himself who appeared to the Samaritans as the Father, to the Jews by the visible crucifixion of the Son, and to the Gentiles by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost.[15.32]He also, it would seem, prepared the way for the doctrine of the “Docetæ.” He claimed to have suffered in Judea in the person of Jesus, but that his suffering was only apparent.[15.33]These pretensions to Divinity and claims of adoration have probably been exaggerated by the Christians, who have in every way sought to cover him with odium.
The doctrine of “the Great Exposition” is that of nearly all the Gnostic writings; and if Simon really professed that doctrine, it is with good reason that the Fathers charged him with being the founder of Gnosticism.[15.34]It is our belief that the “Exposition” has only a relative authenticity; that it is to the doctrine of Simon very nearly what the fourth Gospel is to the ideas of Jesus; and that it dates from the earlier years of the second century, the epoch when the theosophic notions of the Logos acquired a definite ascendency. These notions, of which we shall find the germ in the Christian Church about the year 60,[15.35]may, however, have been known to Simon, whose career was probably prolonged until the close of the century.
The notion then that we obtain of this enigmatic personage is, that he was a kind of plagiarist of Christianity. Imitation seems to have been a constant habit of the Samaritans.[15.36]In the same manner as they had always been imitators of the Jewish ceremonies of Jerusalem, so these sectaries had also their copy of Christianity, their Gnosis, their theosophic speculations, and their Kabala. But we shall probably remain for ever ignorant whether Simon was a respectable imitator, who just fell short of success, or only an immoral and insincere juggler, who was working for his own profit and celebrity a doctrine stitched together out of the rags of other systems.[15.37]He thus assumes in history a most difficult position; he walks on a tight-rope, where no hesitation is permitted; in such a case there is no midway path between ridiculous failure and triumphant success.
We have yet to examine whether the legends relative to Simon’s sojourn at Rome comprise any truth. It is at least certain that the Simonian sect continued as far down as the third century;[15.38]that it possessed churches as far as Antioch—perhaps even at Rome; and that Menander of Capharetes and Cleobius[15.39]sustained the same doctrine, or at least imitated Simon’s performance as theurgist with more or less recurrence in type to the acts of Jesus and the apostles. Simon and his followers were in great esteem among their co-religionists. Sects of the same kind, parallel with Christianity,[15.40]and more or less tinctured with Gnosticism, continued to spring up among the Samaritans, until their almost total destruction by Justinian. It was the lot of this little religious community to receive an impression from everything that happened in its vicinity, without producing anything altogether original.
As to Christians, the memory of Simon was amongst them an abomination. Those illusions of his which so closely resembled their own, were irritating to them. To have competed with the success of the apostles was the most unpardonable of crimes. They pretended that the wonders performed by Simon and his disciples were works of the devil, and they branded the Samaritan theosophist with the title of “Sorcerer,”[15.41]which his believers took in high dudgeon. The entire Christian account of Simon bears the imprint of concentrated hatred. The maxims of quietism were ascribed to him, with the excesses which are generally supposed to be their consequence.{15.42}He was considered the father of all error, the primitive heresiarch. They delighted in recounting his ludicrous adventures, and his defeats bythe apostle Peter,[15.43]and attributed to the vilest motives his apparent tendency towards Christianity. They were so preoccupied with his name that they read it at random upon columns where it did not exist.[15.44]The symbolism in which he had clothed his ideas was interpreted in the most grotesque way. The “Helena,” whom he identified with “The First Intelligence,” became a girl of the town purchased by him in the streets of Tyre.[15.45]His very name, hated nearly as much as that of Judas, and used as a synonym ofAnti-apostle,[15.46]became the grossest word of abuse and a proverbial expression to designate a professional impostor or adversary of truth whom it was desired to refer to under a disguise.[15.47]He was the first enemy of Christianity, or rather the first personage whom Christianity treated as such. It is sufficient to say that neither pious frauds nor calumny were spared in defaming him.[15.48]Criticism in such a case need not attempt a rehabilitation; it has no documents on the other side. All it can do is to show the physiognomy of the traditions and the set purpose of abuse which they display.
At least it should prevent the loading of the memory of the Samaritan theurgist with a resemblance which may be only accidental. In a story related by Josephus, a Jewish sorcerer named Simon, a native of Cyprus, plays for the procurator Felix the part of a Pandarus.{15.49}The circumstances of this story do not accord well enough with what is known of Simon of Gitto, to make him responsible for the acts of a person who may have had nothing in common with him but a name borne by thousands, and a pretension to supernatural powers, which was unfortunately shared by a crowd of his cotemporaries.
We have seen Barnabas leaving Antioch in order to carry to the faithful at Jerusalem the contributions of their brethren in Syria, and arriving at Jerusalem in time to be present at several of the excitements occasioned there by the persecution of Herod Agrippa.[16.1]Let us now follow him again to Antioch, where, at this period, all the creative energy of the sect seems to have been concentrated.
Barnabas took back a zealous assistant, his cousin John-Mark, the disciple of Peter,[16.2]and the son of that Mary at whose house the chief apostle loved to stay. Doubtless in calling this new co-worker to his aid, he had already in view the great enterprise in which they were to embark. Perhaps he foresaw the disputes it would occasion, and was well pleased to engage in it one who was understood to be the right hand of Peter, whose influence in general matters was predominant.
The enterprise itself was no less than a series of great missions starting from Antioch and seeking the conversion of the world. Like all the great resolves of the early Church, this idea was ascribed to a direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost. A special call, a supernatural election, was believed to have been vouchsafed to the Church of Antioch while engaged in fasting and prayer. Perhaps one of the prophets of the Church, Menahem,or Lucius, uttered under the power of the gift of tongues the words intimating that Paul and Barnabas were predestined to this mission.[16.3]Paul was convinced that God had chosen him from his mother’s womb for this task, to which thenceforth he exclusively devoted himself.[16.4]
The two apostles took with them, as an assistant in the details of their enterprise, the John-Mark whom Barnabas had brought from Jerusalem.[16.5]When the preparations were completed, after fasting and prayer, and laying on of hands as a sign of the authority conferred by the Church itself on the apostles,[16.6]they were commended to the grace of God, and set out.[16.7]Whither they should journey, and what races they should evangelize, is what we are now to learn.
The early missions were all directed westward, or in other words adopted the Roman empire for their scene of operations. Excepting some small provinces between the Tigris and the Euphrates under the rule of the Arsacides, the Parthian countries received no Christian missions during the first century.[16.8]Until the reigns of the Sassanides, Christianity did not pass eastward beyond the Tigris. This important fact was due to two causes, the Mediterranean sea, and the Roman empire.
For a thousand years the Mediterranean had been the great pathway of ideas and civilizations. The Romans, in extirpating its pirates, had rendered it an unequalled method of intercourse. A numerous coasting-marine made it very easy to pass from point to point on the borders of this immense lake. The comparative safety of the imperial highways, the protection afforded by the civil authority, the diffusion of the Jews around the Mediterranean coasts, the spreading of the Greeklanguage over their eastern portion,{16.9}and the unity of civilization, which first the Greeks, and then the Romans, had extended over those countries, all joined to make the map of the empire a map of the regions set apart for Christian missions, and destined to be Christianized. The Roman world became the Christian world, and in this sense the founders of the empire may be called the founders of the Christian monarchy. Every province conquered by the empire was a conquest for Christianity. Had the apostles been placed in presence of an independent Asia Minor; of a Greece or an Italy divided into a hundred little republics; of a Gaul, Spain, Africa; of Egypt with her ancient institutions—we cannot conceive of their succeeding, or even imagine that such a project could have been seriously formed. The unity of the empire was the preliminary condition of all great religious conversions which should transcend lines of nationality. This the empire saw clearly in the fourth century; it became Christian. It perceived that it had established Christianity without knowing it; a religion conterminous with the Roman territory, identified with the empire, and capable of inspiring it with new life. The Church, on the other hand, became entirely Roman, and has remained down to our own day as a fragment of the empire. Had any one told Paul that Claudius was his chief coöperator, or Claudius that the Jew just setting out from Antioch was about to found the most enduring part of the imperial structure, both would have been much astonished. Nevertheless both sayings would have been true.
Syria was the first country out of Judea in which Christianity became naturally established. This wasan evident result of the vicinity of Palestine and of the great number of Jews living in Syria.[16.10]The apostles visited Cyprus, Asia Minor, Macedonia, Greece, and Italy next in order, and only a few years after. Southern Gaul, Spain, and the coast of Africa, although made acquainted with the Gospel at an early period, may be considered as of a more recent epoch in the building up of the new faith.
It was the same with Egypt. Egypt plays hardly any part in the apostolic history, and the missionaries seem to have systematically passed it by. Although after the third century it was the scene of such momentous events in religious history, it was at first very backward in Christian progress. Apollos was the only teacher of Christianity who came from the Alexandrian school, and he learned it during his travels.[16.11]The cause of this remarkable fact will be found in the meagreness of the intercourse between the Egyptian and the Palestinian Jews; and above all in the circumstance that Jewish Egypt had a separate religious development in the teachings of Philo and the Therapeutæ, which were its special Christianity, and which indisposed it to lend an attentive ear to any other.[16.12]As to heathen Egypt, her religious institutions were much more tenacious than those of Greco-Roman paganism.[16.13]The Egyptian idolatry was yet in full vigor. It was almost the epoch when the enormous temples of Esneh and Ombos were constructed, and when the hope of finding a last Ptolemy, a national Messiah in the little Cesarion, inspired the building of Dendera and Hermonthis, which will compare with the finest works of the Pharaohs. Christianity planted itself everywhereupon the ruins of national feeling and local worships. The degradation of mind in Egypt also made very rare those religious aspirations which opened so easy a road to Christianity in other regions.
A flash of light from Syria, illumining almost at once the three great peninsulas of Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy, and soon followed by a second, which extended over nearly the whole Mediterranean seaboard—such was the first apparition of Christianity. The course of the apostolic vessels was always much the same. The Christian preaching seems to have followed a road already laid out, and which is no other than that of the Jewish emigration. Like a contagion which, having its point of departure at the head of the Mediterranean, appears all at once at a number of separate points on the shore by a secret communication, Christianity had its points in a manner marked in advance. They were nearly all places where there existed colonies of Jews. The synagogue generally preceded the church. It was like a train of powder, or more correctly, an electric cord, along which the new idea ran with almost instantaneous rapidity.
During a century and a half Judaism, which had previously been confined to the East and to Egypt, had been spreading westward. Cyrene, Cyprus, Asia Minor, and certain cities of Macedonia, Greece, and Italy, contained large Jewish colonies.[16.14]The Jews first exemplified that species of patriotism which the Parsees, the Armenians, and in some degree the modern Greeks, have shown in later ages;—a patriotism of great warmth, though not attached to any particular locality; a patriotism of a nation of merchants wandering everywhere, and everywhere recognising each other as brothers; a patriotism which results in forming no great compact states, but small autonomic communities within other states. Closely associated among themselves, the dispersed Jews formed quasi-independent congregations within the cities, having their own magistrates and their own councils, some of whom were invested with powers approaching sovereignty itself. They dwelt in quarters by themselves, outside of the ordinary jurisdiction, despised by the other citizens, and happy enough at home. They were rather poor than rich. The epoch of the great Jewish fortunes had not yet arrived; they began in Spain under the Visigoths.[16.15]The monopoly of finance by the Jews resulted from the lack of administrative capacity in the barbarians, and from the hatred manifested by the Church against monetary science and her superficial notions about usury. Nothing of the kind occurred in the Roman empire. But when a Jew is not rich, he is poor;bourgeoiscomfort is not his forte. He is capable of enduring poverty; and he is still more capable of combining the fiercest religious energy with the rarest commercial skill. Theological eccentricities are not at all inconsistent with good sense in conducting business. In England, America, and Russia, the strangest sectaries, Irvingites, Latter-Day Saints, Raskolniks, are able business-men.
It has always been characteristic of unadulterated Jewish life to produce much gaiety and cordiality. In that little world of theirs they loved each other, they revered their common history, and their religious ceremonies mingled pleasantly with their daily existence. Itwas analogous to the separate communities which still exist in Turkish cities, such as the Greek, the Armenian, and the Hebrew quarters at Smyrna, where they are all acquainted, and live and intrigue together. In these little republics, religious affairs always control politics, or rather supply the want of the latter. Amongst them a heresy is an affair of state, and a schism always arises out of some personal difficulty. The Romans, with rare exceptions, never penetrated these secluded quarters. The synagogues published decrees, awarded honors, and acted like real municipalities.[16.16]Their influence was extreme. In Alexandria, it is predominant in all the internal history of the city.[16.17]At Rome the Jews were numerous{16.18}and constituted a body, the support of which was by no means to be despised. Cicero claims the credit of courage for having resisted some of their demands.[16.19]Cæsar protected them, and found them faithful.[16.20]Tiberius was obliged, in order to control them, to resort to the severest measures.[16.21]Caligula, whose reign was most calamitous to them in the East, allowed them freedom of association at Rome.[16.22]Claudius, who favored them in Judea, found it necessary to expel them from the city.[16.23]They were encountered everywhere,[16.24]and it was even said of them as of the Greeks, that when themselves subdued, they had succeeded in imposing laws on their conquerors.[16.25]
The feelings of the native population towards these foreigners were very diverse. On the one hand that strong sentiment of repulsion and antipathy which the Jews have invariably inspired where sufficiently numerous and organized, by their jealous love of isolation, their revengeful nature, and their exclusive habits, manifested itself with great force.[16.26]When they were free they were in fact a privileged class, for they enjoyed the advantages of society, without sustaining its burdens.[16.27]Charlatans took advantage of the curiosity inspired by their religious rites, and under pretence of exposing their secrets, acted all sorts of impostures.[16.28]Violent and semi-burlesque pamphlets, like that of Apion, nourished the pagan enmity, and were too often the sources whence the profane historians derived their information.[16.29]The Jews seem to have been generally sullen and full of complaints. They were looked upon as a secret society, malevolent towards others, the members of which were pledged to push forward their own interests at any cost, regardless of injury to their fellow-men.[16.30]Their singular customs, their aversion to certain kinds of food, their filth and unpleasant odor,[16.31]their religious scruples, their minute observances on the Sabbath, all appeared absurd and ridiculous.[16.32]Placed under a social ban, it was a natural consequence that they should care nothing about refined appearances. They were met everywhere travelling with garments shiny with dirt, with an awkward air, a weary mien, a cadaverous skin, and large, sunken eyes,[16.33]assuming a hypocritical and obsequious manner, and herding apart with their women and children, and their bundles and hamper, which composed their whole movable possessions.[16.34]In the towns they exercised the meanest trades; they were beggars,[16.35]rag-pickers, match-venders,[16.36]and small peddlers. Their history and their law were alike unjustly reviled. Sometimes they were called cruel and superstitious;[16.37][16.38]sometimes atheists and despisers of the gods.[16.39]Their hatred of images appeared purely impious. Above all, circumcision afforded a theme for endless raillery.[16.40]
But such superficial estimates were not concurred in by every one. The Jews had as many friends as detractors. Their gravity and good morals, and the simplicity of their religion, were attractive to many persons, who recognised in them something superior. A vast monotheistic and Mosaic propaganda was organized,[16.41]as it were a powerful vortex around this singular race. The poor Jew peddler of the Transteverine,[16.42]setting out in the morning with his basket of small wares, often returned at evening enriched with alms from some pious hand.[16.43]Women in particular were attracted towards these ragged missionaries.[16.44]Juvenal enumerates their leaning towards the Jewish religion as one of the vices of the ladies of his time.[16.45]Those who were converted, gloried in the treasure they had found and the happiness they enjoyed.[16.46]The old Greek and Roman mind resisted stoutly; contempt and hatred of Jews were the sure emotions of cultivated intellects, such as Cicero, Horace, Seneca, Juvenal, Tacitus, Quintilian, and Suetonius.[16.47]On the other side, the enormous mass of mingled populations which had become subject to the empire and to whom the old Roman intellect and Greek learning were foreign or indifferent, gladly and spontaneously welcomed a community where they observed such touching examples of concord, charity, and mutual aid,[16.48]of content, industry,[16.49]and proud poverty. The institution of mendicity, which afterwards became entirely Christian, was at that time Jewish. The mendicant by profession, “formed to it by his mother,” presented himself to the minds of the poets of the day as a Jew.[16.50]
Exemption from some civil burdens, especially military duty, may also have contributed to cause the lot of the Jews to be regarded as desirable.[16.51]The State at that period demanded many sacrifices, and afforded few moral advantages or pleasures. It created an icy coldness as in a uniform and shelterless plain. Human life, which was so melancholy under the rule of paganism, regained its charm and its value in the mild atmospheres of the synagogue and the Church. There was little enough liberty there, it is true. The brethren watched each other and tormented each other unceasingly. But although the internal life of these communities was anything but tranquil, it was very enjoyable, and people did not abandon it; it had no apostates. The poor enjoyed content within its circle; and dwelling in the quiet of an untroubled conscience, regarded riches without envy.[16.52]The truly democratic idea of the folly of worldly things, and the vanity of riches and profane honors, was there completely embodied. They were but little acquainted with the pagan world, and judged it with intemperate severity. Roman civilization appeared to them a mass of hateful vices and iniquities,[16.53]just as an honestouvrierof our day, imbued with socialistic declamation, pictures the “aristocrat” to himself in the blackest colors. But there was abundance of life, gaiety, and interest amongst these people, and is to this moment in the poorest synagogues of Poland and Galicia. Their lack of refinement and elegance in habits was compensated for by a warm family attachment and patriarchal hospitality. In high circles, on the contrary, egotism and self-seeking had arrived at their fullest growth.
The words of Zachariah were being verified, thatmen of all nations should “take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew” and cry, bring us to Jerusalem![16.54]There was not a large city where were not observed the Sabbath, the fast, and the other ceremonies of the Hebrew faith.[16.55]Josephus ventured to challenge all who doubted this to look around in their own neighborhood or even their own houses, and see if they would not find his assertion confirmed.[16.56]The residence at Rome and access to the emperor permitted to several members of the family of Herod, who performed their own rites openly, contributed much to the impunity enjoyed by their religion.[16.57]Besides, the Sabbath prevailed as it were of necessity in localities where Jews resided. Their persistence in keeping their shops closed on that day, forced many of their neighbors to modify their own habits accordingly. Thus at Salonica it may be said that the Sabbath is observed to this day, the Jewish population being rich and numerous enough to make the law, and by the cessation of their own business to prescribe a day of repose.
Almost as much as the Jew, and often in company with him, was the Syrian an active instrument in the conquest of the West by the East.[16.58]They were sometimes confounded together, and Cicero thought he had discovered their common trait when he called them “nations born to be slaves.”[16.59]It was that which insured to them the control of the future, for the future then belonged to the slaves of the earth. Not less characteristic of the Syrian, was his readiness, quickness, and the superficial clearness of his thought. The Syrian nature is like the passing imagery of the clouds. We see every moment certain outlines of graceful form, but they never become united into a complete design. In the darkness, by the flickering light of a lamp, the Syrian woman with her veil, her wistful eyes, and her infinite languor, causes a brief illusion. Afterwards, when we would analyse her beauty, it disappears; it cannot endure examination, and it lasts only three or four years. What is most charming in the Syrian race is the child of five or six years old, contrary to Greece, where the child was nothing, the youth inferior to the man, and the man to the ancient.[16.60]Syrian intelligence attracts us at first with its air of promptness and vivacity, but it lacks fixedness and solidity, something like that “golden wine” of Libanus which causes an agreeable excitement, but soon palls on the taste. The true gifts of God have something about them at once fine and strong, exciting and enduring. Greece is more appreciated to-day than ever before, and will be more and more continually.
Many of the Syrian emigrants who were attracted westward in the pursuit of fortune were more or less attached to Judaism. Others remained faithful to the worship of their own village,[16.61]that is, to the memory of some temple dedicated to a local “Jupiter”[16.62]who was ordinarily the Supreme Deity designated by some special title;[16.63]and they thus carried with them a kind of monotheism under the disguise of their strange divinities. At least in comparison with the perfectly distinct divine personalities of the Greek and Roman polytheism, the Syrian gods being mostly synonymes of the sun, were almost the brothers of the one Deity.[16.64]Like their long and enervating chants, these Syrian rites appeared less dry than the Latin and lessempty than the Greek. The women acquired from them a mixture of ecstasy and voluptuousness. Those Syrian women were always strange creatures, disputed for by God and Satan, and oscillating between the saint and the demon. The saint of serious virtues, of heroic self-denial, of accomplished vows, belongs to other races and climes. The saint of vivid imaginings, of absolute entrancements, and of sudden devotion, is the saint of Syria. The demoniac of our Middle Age became the slave of Satan through baseness or crime; that of Syria was distracted by the ideal—the woman of wounded affections, who avenges herself by madness or refusal to speak,{16.65}and who needs only a gentle word and kind look to restore her. Transported to the western world, the Syrian women acquired influence, sometimes by evil feminine arts, but oftener by real capacity and moral superiority. This happened in a special degree about a hundred and fifty years later, when the most important personages of Rome married Syrian wives, who at once acquired a great ascendency over affairs. The Mussulman woman of the present time, a noisy scold and foolish fanatic, existing for scarce anything but evil, and almost incapable of virtue, ought not to make us forget such as Julia Domna, Julia Mæsa, Julia Mamæa, and Julia Sœmia, who introduced into Rome a spirit of toleration and a mystical feeling in religion which were till then unknown. What is also well worthy of remark is, that the Syrian dynasty thus established was friendly to Christianity, and that Mamæa, and afterwards the Emperor Philip the Arabian,{16.66}passed for Christians. In the third and fourth centuriesChristianity was the predominant religion of Syria, and next to Palestine, Syria played the greatest part in its establishment.
It was especially at Rome that the Syrian in the first century exercised his penetrating activity. Intrusted with almost every kind of ordinary duty, guide, messenger, and letter-bearer, theSyrus[16.67]was admitted everywhere, bringing with him the language and manners of his own land.[16.68]He possessed neither the pride nor the philosophic loftiness of Europeans, much less their bodily vigor. Of weak frame, pale and often feverish, and not knowing how to eat or sleep at stated hours, after the fashion of our slower races; consuming little meat, and subsisting on onions and pumpkins; sleeping little and uneasily—the Syrian was habitually ailing and died young.[16.69]What did belong to him was humility, mildness, affability, and good-nature; no solidity of mind, but much that was agreeable; little sound sense, unless in driving a bargain; but an astonishing warmth and zeal, and a truly feminine seductiveness. Having never exercised any political functions, he was specially apt for religious movements. The poor Maronite, effeminate, humble, and destitute, has brought about the greatest of revolutions. His ancestor, theSyrusof Rome, was the most zealous messenger of the good news to all afflicted souls. Every year colonies of Syrians arrived in Greece, Italy, and Gaul, impelled by their natural taste for trade and small employments.[16.70]They could be recognised on board of the vessels by their numerous families, by the troops of pretty children nearly alike in age, and the mother with the childish air of a girl of fourteen keeping close toher husband’s side, submissive and smiling, and scarcely superior to her oldest offspring.[16.71]The heads of this peaceful group are not very strongly marked. There is no Archimedes there, no Plato or Phidias. But this Syrian trader, now arrived at Rome, will be a kind and merciful man, charitable to his countrymen, and a friend to the poor. He will talk with the slaves, and reveal to them an asylum where those miserable beings, condemned by Roman severity to a most dreary solitude, may find some solace. The Greek and Latin races, made to be masters and to accomplish great actions, knew not how to make any advantage of an humble position.[16.72]The slave of those races passed his life in revolt and in plotting evil. The ideal slave of antiquity has every fault; he is gluttonous, mendacious, mischievous, and the natural enemy of his master.[16.73]He thus, as it were, proved his nobility of race; he was a constant protest against an unnatural position. The easy, good-natured Syrian did not trouble himself to protest; he accepted his degradation and sought to do the best he could with it. He conciliated the kind feelings of his master, ventured to converse with him, and studied how to please his mistress. This great agent of democracy was thus gnawing apart, mesh by mesh, the net of the ancient civilization. The old institutions based upon pride, inequality of races, and military valor, were lost. Weakness and humble condition were about to become advantageous, and helps to virtue.[16.74]The Roman nobility, the Greek wisdom, will struggle for three centuries more. Tacitus will approve the deportation of some thousands of these wretches—“small loss if they had perished!”[16.75]The Roman aristocracy willfret, will be provoked that thiscanailleshould have its gods and institutions. But the victory is written in advance. The Syrian, the poor man who loves his fellows, who shares with them and associates with them, will carry the day. The Roman aristocracy must perish, and perish without pity.
To explain the revolution which is about to take place, we must take note of the political, social, moral, intellectual, and religious condition of the countries through which Jewish proselytism has thus opened furrows for the Christian preaching to sow the seed. Such an examination will show convincingly, I hope, that the conversion of the world to the Jewish and Christian ideas was inevitable, and will leave us astonished at only one thing—namely, that that conversion proceeded so slowly and commenced so late.