Part 8 (1/2)

[Footnote 1: The discourses which the fourth Gospel attributes to Jesus contain so in absolute contradiction with those of the synoptical Gospels, which represent, without any doubt, the priht to count simply as documents of apostolic history, and not as elements of the life of Jesus]

[Footnote 2: See Matt ix 9, and other analogous accounts]

[Footnote 3: See, for exa]

Doubtless, Jesus did not attain at first this high affirmation of hiarded his relationshi+p with God as that of a son with his father This was his great act of originality; in this he had nothing in common with his race[1] Neither the Jew nor the Mussuly of love The God of Jesus is not that tyrannicalto His pleasure

The God of Jesus is our Father We hear Hientle inspiration which cries within us, ”Abba, Father”[2] The God of Jesus is not the partial despot who has chosen Israel for His people, and specially protects them He is the God of humanity Jesus was not a patriot, like the Maccabees; or a theocrat, like Judas the Gaulonite

Boldly raising himself above the prejudices of his nation, he established the universal fatherhood of God The Gaulonite ive to another than God the name of ”Master;” Jesus left this name to any one who liked to take it, and reserved for God a dearer name Whilst he accorded to the powerful of the earth, ere to him representatives of force, a respect full of irony, he proclaimed the supreme consolation--the recourse to the Father which each one has in heaven--and the true kingdom of God, which each one bears in his heart

[Footnote 1: The great soul of Philo is in sympathy here, as on so _, -- 14; _De Migr Abr_, -- 1; _De Soric Noe_, -- 12; _De Mutatione Nominum_, -- 4 But Philo is scarcely a Jew in spirit]

[Footnote 2: Galatians iv 6]

This nadom of heaven,”[1] was the favorite terht into the world[2] Like almost all the Messianic ter to the author of this extraordinary book, the four profane empires, destined to fall, were to be succeeded by a fifth empire, that of the saints, which should last forever[3] This reign of God upon earth naturally led to the dom of God” is ion, the monotheistic worshi+p, piety[4] In the later periods of his life, Jesus believed that this reign would be realized in a material form by a sudden renovation of the world But doubtless this was not his first idea[5]

The admirable moral which he draws from the idea of God as Father, is not that of enthusiasts who believe the world is near its end, and who prepare themselves by asceticism for a chimerical catastrophe; it is that of doht with subtlety for external signs[6] The realistic conception of the Divine advent was but a cloud, a transient error, which his death has dodom of the meek and the humble, was the Jesus of early life[7]--of those chaste and pure days when the voice of his Father re-echoed within him in clearer tones It was then for some months, perhaps a year, that God truly dwelt upon the earth The voice of the young carpenter suddenly acquired an extraordinary sweetness An infinite charm was exhaled from his person, and those who had seen hinized hiathered around him was neither a sect nor a school; but a co influence was felt His amiable character, accompanied doubtless by one of those lovely faces[9] which sometimes appear in the Jewish race, threw around him a fascination from which no one in the midst of these kindly and simple populations could escape

[Footnote 1: The word ”heaven” in the rabbinical language of that time is synonymous with the na

Compare Matt xxi 25; Luke xv 18, xx 4]

[Footnote 2: This expression occurs on each page of the synoptical Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and St Paul If it only appears once in John (iii 3, 5), it is because the discourses related in the fourth Gospel are far fro the true words of Jesus]

[Footnote 3: Dan ii 44, vii 13, 14, 22, 27]

[Footnote 4: Mishnah, _Berakoth_, ii 1, 3; Talmud of Jerusalem, _Berakoth_, ii 2; _Kiddushi+n_, i 2; Talm of Bab, _Berakoth_, 15 _a_; _Mekilta_, 42 _b_; _Siphra_, 170 _b_ The expression appears often in the _Medrashi+m_]

[Footnote 5: Matt vi 33, xii 28, xix 12; Mark xii 34; Luke xii

31]

[Footnote 6: Luke xvii 20, 21]

[Footnote 7: The grand theory of the revelation of the Son of Man is in fact reserved, in the synoptics, for the chapters which precede the narrative of the Passion The first discourses, especially in Matthew, are entirely ; Mark vi 2 and following; John v 43]

[Footnote 9: The tradition of the plainness of Jesus (Justin, _Dial

cus from a desire to see realized in him a pretended Messianic trait (Isa liii 2)]

Paradise would, in fact, have been brought to earth if the ideas of the young Master had not far transcended the level of ordinary goodness beyond which it has not been found possible to raise the human race The brotherhood of men, as sons of God, and the moral consequences which result therefro Like all the rabbis of the tis, and clothed his doctrine in concise aphorise[1] Some of these maxims cohts of onus of Soco, Jesus, son of Sirach, and Hillel, which had reached him, not froogue was rich in very happily expressed sentences, which formed a kind of current proverbial literature[2] Jesus adopted al, but i the duties laid down by the Law and the elders, he deiveness, charity, abnegation, and self-denial--virtues which with good reason have been called Christian, if we mean by that that they have been truly preached by Christ, were in this first teaching, though undeveloped As to justice, he was content with repeating the well-known axiom--”Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to theh somewhat selfish wisdom, did not satisfy him He went to excess, and said--”Whosoever shall sht cheek, turn to him the other also And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let hiht eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it froood to thee not, that ye be not judged”[8] ”Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven”[9] ”Be ye therefore merciful as your Father also is ive than to receive”[11] ”Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble hiia_ of St Matthew joins several of these axio]

[Footnote 2: The sentences of the Jewish doctors of the time are collected in the little book entitled, _Pirke Aboth_]

[Footnote 3: The comparisons will be made afterward as they present themselves It has been so later than that of the Gospels--parts may have been borrowed by the Jewish compilers from the Christian morality But this is inadmissible--a wall of separation existed between the Church and the Synagogue The Christian and Jewish literature had scarcely any influence on one another before the thirteenth century]

[Footnote 4: Matt vii 12; Luke vi 31 This axiom is in the book of _Tobit_, iv 16 Hillel used it habitually (Talm of Bab, _Shabbath_, 31 _a_), and declared, like Jesus, that it was the su; Luke vi 29 Compare Jeremiah, _Lamentations_ iii 30]