long since swept from the face of the earth! Those renowned sepulchres are no more. Little children have played with the bones of mighty monarchs. St. Dennis is laid waste; the bird has made it her resting-place; the grass grows on its shattered altars; and, instead of the eternal hymn of death which resounded beneath its domes, naught is now to be heard save the pattering of the rain that enters at the roofless top, the fall of some stone dislodged from the ruined walls, or the sound of the clock which still runs its wonted course among empty tombs and plundered sepulchres.1 1 See note PP. BOOK III. GENERAL VIEW OF THE CLERGY. CHAPTER I. OF JESUS CHRIST AND HIS LIFE. ABOUT the time of the appearance of the Redeemer of mankind upon earth, the nations were in expectation of some extraordinary personage. "An ancient and constant opinion," says Suetonius, 66 was current all over the East, that persons coming from Judea should obtain universal empire." 971 Tacitus relates the same fact nearly in the same words. According to this great historian, "most of the Jews were convinced, agreeably to a prediction preserved in the ancient books of their priests, that about this time (the time of Vespasian) the East would prevail, and that some native of Judea should obtain the empire of the world." Lastly, Josephus, speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem, informs us that the Jews were chiefly instigated to revolt against the Romans by an obscure3 prophecy, which foretold that about this period "a man would arise among them and subdue the universe."4 The New Testament also exhibits traces of this hope shed abroad in Israel. The multitudes who thronged to the desert asked John the Baptist whether he was the great Messiah, the Christ of God, so long expected; and the disciples 1 Percrebuerat Oriente toto vetus et constans opinio esse in fatis ut eo tempore Judæa profecti rerum potirentur. Suet., in Vespas. 2 Pluribus persuasio inerat antiquis sacerdotun litteris continens, eo ipso tempore fore ut valesceret Oriens, profectique Judæa rerum potirentur. Tacit., Hist., lib. v. 3 Appißolos, applicable to several persons, and therefore referred by the Latin historians to Vespasian. 4 Joseph., de Bell. Jud. of Emmaus were disappointed to find that their Master was not he "that should have redeemed Israel." The seventy weeks of Daniel, or the four hundred and ninety years from the rebuilding of the temple, were then accomplished. Finally, Origen, after repeating all these traditions of the Jews, adds that "a great number of them acknowledged Jesus Christ as the deliverer promised by the prophets." Heaven meanwhile prepares the way for the Son of man. States long disunited in manners, government, and language, entertained hereditary enmities; but the clamor of arms suddenly ceases, and the nations, either allied or vanquished, become identified with the people of Rome. On the one hand, religion and morals have reached that degree of corruption which of necessity produces changes; on the other, the tenets of the unity of God and the immortality of the soul begin to be diffused. Thus the ways are prepared on all sides for the new doctrine which a universal language will serve to propagate. The vast Roman empire is composed of nations, some barbarous, others civilized, but all excessively miserable. For the former, the simplicity of Christ,-for the latter, his moral virtues, for all, mercy and charity,-are means of salvation contrived by heaven itself. So efficacious are these means, that, only two centuries after the advent of the Messiah, Tertullian thus addressed the judges of Rome:-"We are but of yesterday, and yet we fill every place your cities, your islands, your fortresses, your camps, your colonies, your tribes, your decuries, your councils, the palace, the senate, the forum; we leave you nothing but your temples."3 With the grandeur of natural preparations is combined the splendor of miracles; the oracles of truth which had been long silent in Jerusalem recover their voice, and the false sibyls become mute. A new star appears in the East; Gabriel descends to the Virgin Mary, and a chorus of blessed spirits sings at night from on high, Glory to God! peace to men of good will! A rumor 1 In the second member of this sentence we have substituted "their Master" for "John," which is found in the French copies, and which was most probably a typographical error; the word Jean having been printed by mistake for Jesus. T. 2 Contra Celsum. 3 Tertul., Apologet., cap. xxxvii. rapidly spreads that the Saviour has come into the world; he is not born in purple, but in the humble abode of indigence; he has not been announced to the great and the mighty, but angels have proclaimed the tidings to men of low estate; he has not assembled the opulent, but the needy, round his cradle, and by this first act of his life declared himself in preference the God of the suffering and the poor. Let us here pause to make one reflection. We have seen, from the earliest ages, kings, heroes, and illustrious men, become the gods of nations. But here the reputed son of a carpenter in an obscure corner of Judea is a pattern of sorrows and of indigence; he undergoes the ignominy of a public execution; he selects his disciples from among the lowest of the people; he preaches naught but sacrifices, naught but the renunciation of earthly pomp, pleasure, and power; he prefers the slave to the master, the poor to the rich, the leper to the healthy man; all that mourn, all that are afflicted, all that are forsaken by the world, are his delight; but power, wealth, and prosperity, are incessantly threatened by him. He overthrows the prevalent notions of morality, institutes new relations among men, a new law of nations, a new public faith. Thus does he establish his divinity, triumph over the religion of the Cæsars, seat himself on the throne, and at length subdue the earth. No! if the whole world were to raise its voice against Jesus Christ, if all the powers of philosophy were to combine against its doctrines, never shall we be persuaded that a religion erected on such a foundation is a religion of human origin. He who could bring the world to revere a cross,―he who held up suffering humanity and persecuted virtue as an object of veneration to mankind,―he, we insist, can be no other than a God. Jesus Christ appears among men full of grace and truth; the authority and the mildness of his precepts are irresistible. He comes to be the most unhappy of mortals, and all his wonders are wrought for the wretched. "His miracles," says Bossuet, "have a much stronger character of beneficence than of power." In order to inculcate his doctrines, he chooses the apologue or parable, which is easily impressed on the minds of the people. While walking in the fields, he gives his divine lessons. When surveying the flowers that adorn the mead, he exhorts his disciples to put their trust in Providence, who supports the feeble plants and feeds the birds of the air; when he beholds the fruits of the earth, he teaches them to judge of men by their works; an infant is brought to him, and he recommends innocence; being among shepherds, he gives himself the appellation of the good shepherd, and represents himself as bringing back the lost sheep to the fold. In spring, he takes his seat upon a mountain, and draws from the surrounding objects instruction for the multitude sitting at his feet. From the very sight of this multitude, composed of the poor and the unfortunate, he deduces his beatitudes:-Blessed are they that mourn-blessed are they that hunger and thirst, &c. Such as observe his precepts, and those who slight them, are compared to two men who build houses, the one upon a rock, the other upon sand. According to some commentators, he designed in this comparison to describe a flourishing village upon a hill, and huts at the foot of it destroyed by an inundation. When he asks some water of the Samaritan woman, he expounds to her his heavenly doctrine under the beautiful image of a well of living water. The bitterest enemies of Jesus Christ never dared to attack his character. Celsus, Julian, Volusian," admit his miracles; and Porphyry relates that the very oracles of the Pagans styled him a man illustrious for his piety." Tiberius would have placed him in the rank of the gods; and, according to Lampridius, Adrian erected temples to him, and Alexander Severus venerated him among holy men and placed his image between those of Orpheus and Abraham. Pliny has borne an illustrious testimony to the innocence of the primitive Christians, who closely followed the example of the Redeemer. There are no philosophers of antiquity but have been reproached with some vices: the very patriarchs had their foibles. Christ alone is without blemish he is the most brilliant copy of that supreme beauty which is seated upon the throne of heaven. Pure and sanctified as the tabernacle of the Lord, breathing naught but the love of God and men, infinitely superior by the elevation of his soul to Jortin, On the Truth of the Christ. Relig. 2 Orig., cont. Cels. i. 11; Jul., ap. Cyril., lib. vi.; Aug., Ep. 3, 4, tome ii. 5 Lamp., in Alex. Sev., cap. iv. and xxxi. |