Part 4 (1/2)
[Footnote 1: Luke ii 25, and following]
This confused mixture of clear views and dreams, this alternation of deceptions and hopes, these ceaseless aspirations, driven back by an odious reality, found at last their interpretation in the incomparable man, to whom the universal conscience has decreed the title of Son of God, and that with justice, since he has advanced religion as no other has done, or probably ever will be able to do
CHAPTER II
INFANCY AND YOUTH OF JESUS--HIS FIRST IMPRESSIONS
Jesus was born at Nazareth,[1] a small town of Galilee, which before his tinated by the name of ”the Nazarene,”[3] and it is only by a rather eends respecting him, he is made to be born at Bethlehem We shall see later[5] the motive for this supposition, and hoas the necessary consequence of the Messianic character attributed to Jesus[6] The precise date of his birth is unknown It took place under the reign of Augustus, about the Roman year 750, probably some years before the year 1 of that era which all civilized people date from the day on which he was born[7]
[Footnote 1: Matt xiii 54, and following; Mark vi 1, and following; John i 45-46]
[Footnote 2: It is neither nas of the Old Testament, nor in Josephus, nor in the Talmud]
[Footnote 3: Mark i 24; Luke xviii 37; John xix 19; _Acts_ ii 22, iii 6 Hence the na tinates them in all Mohammedan countries]
[Footnote 4: The census effected by Quirinus, to which legend attributes the journey from Bethlehem, is at least ten years later than the year in which, according to Luke and Matthew, Jesus was born
The two evangelists in effect n of Herod (Matt ii 1, 19, 22; Luke i 5) Now, the census of Quirinus did not take place until after the deposition of Archelaus, _ie_, ten years after the death of Herod, the 37th year from the era of Actium (Josephus, _Ant_, XVII xiii 5, XVIII i 1, ii 1) The inscription by which it was formerly pretended to establish that Quirinus had levied two censuses is recognized as false (see Orelli, _Inscr Lat_, No 623, and the supplehesi, _Fastes Consulaires_ [yet unpublished], in the year 742)
The census in any case would only be applied to the parts reduced to Roman provinces, and not to the tetrarchies The texts by which it is sought to prove that some of the operations for statistics and tribute coht to extend to the dominion of the Herods, either do not mean what they have been made to say, or are from Christian authors who have borrowed this statement from the Gospel of Luke That which proves, besides, that the journey of the family of Jesus to Bethlehem is not historical, is the motive attributed to it
Jesus was not of the family of David (see Chap XV), and if he had been, we should still not iine that his parents should have been forced, for an operation purely registrative and financial, to come to enrol themselves in the place whence their ancestors had proceeded a thousand years before In iation, the Ro her safety]
[Footnote 5: Chap XIV]
[Footnote 6: Matt ii 1, and following; Luke ii 1, and following
The omission of this narrative in Mark, and the two parallel passages, Matt xiii 54, and Mark vi 1, where Nazareth figures as the ”country” of Jesus, prove that such a legend was absent froh draft of the present Gospels of Matthew and Mark It was to inning of the Gospel of Matthew reservations, the contradiction of which with the rest of the text was not so flagrant, that it was felt necessary to correct the passages which had at first been written from quite another point of view
Luke, on the contrary (chap iv 16), writing more carefully, has employed, in order to be consistent, aof the journey to Bethlehem; for him, Jesus is merely ”of Nazareth” or ”Galilean,” in two circuhest importance to recall his birth at Bethlehem (chap i 45, 46, vi 41, 42)]
[Footnote 7: It is known that the calculation which serves as basis of the common era was made in the sixth century by _Dionysius the Less_
This calculation implies certain purely hypothetical data]
The naiven him, is an alteration from _Joshua_ It was a very common name; but afterward mysteries, and an allusion to his character of Saviour, were naturally sought for in it[1] Perhaps he, like all mystics, exalted hireat vocation in history has been caused by a naiven to a child without preht of chance in what concerns then of the suprenificant circumstances
[Footnote 1: Matt i 21; Luke i 31]
The population of Galilee was very mixed, as the very nast its inhabitants, in the time of Jesus, many ere not Jews (Phoenicians, Syrians, Arabs, and even Greeks)[2] The conversions to Judaism were not rare in these mixed countries It is therefore impossible to raise here any question of race, and to seek to ascertain what blood flowed in the veins of him who has contributed most to efface the distinction of blood in huoyim_, ”Circle of the Gentiles”]
[Footnote 2: Strabo, XVI ii 35; Jos, _Vita_, 12]
He proceeded from the ranks of the people[1] His father, Joseph, and his mother, Mary, were people in hu by their labor,[2] in the state so common in the East, which is neither ease nor poverty The extre with the need of coes of wealth almost useless, and makes every one voluntarily poor On the other hand, the total want of taste for art, and for that which contributes to the elegance of ives a naked aspect to the house of hi sordid and repulsive which Islamism bears everywhere with it, the town of Nazareth, in the time of Jesus, did not perhaps much differ from what it is to-day[3] We see the streets where he played when a child, in the stony paths or little crosshich separate the dwellings The house of Joseph doubtlessat once for shop, kitchen, and bedrooround, one or two clay pots, and a painted chest
[Footnote 1: We shall explain later (Chap XIV) the origin of the genealogies intended to connect him with the race of David The Ebionites suppressed them (Epiph, _Adv Haer_, xxx 14)]