Buy this book Better World Books When you buy books using these links the Internet Archive may earn a small commission. Share this book Facebook. September 11, History. This edition was published in by Brentano's in London ,. New York [etc. Written in English — pages. Not in Library. Libraries near you: WorldCat. The life of Jesus , Prometheus Books. Borrow Listen. The life of Jesus , Modern Library. The life of Jesus. The life of Jesus , J. The life of Jesus , The Modern Library. Life of Jesus , Little, Brown, and Company.
Life of Jesus , Little, Brown. Life of Jesus , H. The Life of Jesus. Burt Co. The life of Jesus: with a biographical sketch , A. Burt co. The man who is especially preoccupied with the duties of public life does not readily forgive those who attach little importance to his party quarrels. He especially blames those who subordinate political to social questions, and profess a sort of indifference for the former. In one sense he is right, for exclusive power is prejudicial to the good government of human affairs, But what progress have "parties" been able to effect in the general morality of our species?
If Jesus, instead of founding his heavenly kingdom, had gone to Rome, had expended his energies in conspiring against Tiberius, or in regretting Germanicus, what would have become of the world?
As an austere republican, or zealous patriot, he would not have arrested the great current of the affairs of his age; but, in declaring that politics are insignificant, he has revealed to the world this truth, that one's country is not everything, and that the man is before, and higher than, the citizen.
Our principles of positive science are offended by the dreams contained in the program of Jesus. We know the history of the earth; cosmical revolutions of the kind which Jesus expected are only produced by geological or astronomical causes, the connection of which with the spiritual things has never yet been demonstrated.
But, in order to be just to great originators, they must not be judged by the prejudices in which they have shared. Columbus discovered America, though starting from very erroneous ideas; Newton believed his foolish explanation of the Apocalypse to be as true as his system of the world.
Shall we place an ordinary man of our time above a Francis d'Assisi, A St. Bernard, a Joan of Arc, or a Luther, because he is free from errors which these last have professed? Should we measure men by the correctness of their ideas of physics, and by the more or less exact knowledge which they possess of the true system of the world? Let us understand better the position of Jesus and that which made his power. The Deism of the eighteenth century, and a certain kind of Protestantism, have accustomed us to consider the founder of the Christian faith only as a great moralist, a benefactor of mankind.
We see nothing more in the Gospel than good maxims; we throw a prudent veil over the strange intellectual state in which it was originated. There are even persons who regret that the French Revolution departed more than once from principles, and that it was not brought about by wise and moderate men. Let us not impose our petty and commonplace ideas on these extraordinary movements so far above our everyday life. Let us continue to admire the "morality of the Gospel" -- let us suppress in our religious teachings the chimera which was its soul; but do not let us believe that with the simple ideas of happiness, or of individual morality, we stir the world.
The idea of Jesus was much more profound; it was the most revolutionary idea ever formed in a human brain; it should be taken in its totality, and not with those timid suppressions which deprive it of precisely that which has rendered it efficacious for the regeneration of humanity.
The ideal is ever a Utopia. When we wish nowadays to represent the Christ of the modern conscience, the consoler, and the judge of the new times, what course do we take? That which Jesus himself did eighteen hundred and thirty years ago. We suppose the conditions of the real world quite other than what they are; we represent a moral liberator breaking without weapons the chains of the negro, ameliorating the condition of the poor, and giving liberty to oppressed nations. We forget that this implies the subversion of the world, the climate of Virginia and that of Congo modified, the blood and the race of millions of men changed, our social complications restored to a chimerical simplicity, and the political stratifications of Europe displaced from their natural order.
The "restitution of all things" desired by Jesus was not more difficult. This new earth, this new heaven, this new Jerusalem which comes from above, this cry: "Behold I make all things new! The contrast of the ideal with the sad reality always produces in mankind those revolts against unimpassioned reason which inferior minds regard as folly, till the day arrives in which they triumph, and in which those who have opposed them are the first to recognize their reasonableness.
That there may have been a contradiction between the belief in the approaching end of the world and the general moral system of Jesus, conceived in prospect of a permanent state of humanity, nearly analogous to that which now exists, no one will attempt to deny.
It was exactly this contradiction that insured the success of his work. The millenarian alone would have done nothing lasting; the moralist alone would have done nothing powerful. The millenarianism gave the impulse; the moralist insured the future. Hence Christianity united the two conditions of great success in this world -- a revolutionary starting-point and the possibility of continuous life.
Everything which is intended to succeed ought to respond to these two wants; for the world seeks both to change and to last, Jesus, at the same time that he announced an unparalleled subversion in human affairs, proclaimed the principles upon which society has reposed for eighteen hundred years. That which in fact distinguishes Jesus from the agitators of his time, and from those of all ages, is his perfect idealism.
Jesus, in some respects, was an anarchist, for he had no idea of civil government. That government seems to him purely and simply an abuse.
He spoke of it in vague terms, and as a man of the people who had no idea of politics. Every magistrate appeared to him a natural enemy of the people of God; he prepared his disciples for contests with the civil powers, without thinking for a moment that there was anything to be ashamed of.
But he never shows any desire to put himself in the place of the rich and the powerful. He wishes to annihilate riches and power, bat not to appropriate them. He predicts persecution and all kinds of punishment to his disciples; but never once does the thought of armed resistance appear. The idea of being all-powerful by suffering and resignation, and of triumphing over force by purity of heart, is indeed an idea peculiar to Jesus.
Jesus is not a spiritualist, for to him everything tended to a palpable realization; he had not the least notion of a soul separated from the body. But he is a perfect idealist, matter being only to him the sign of the idea, and the real, the living expression of that which does not appear. To whom should we turn, to whom should we trust to establish the kingdom of God? The mind of Jesus on this point never hesitated. That which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God, The founders of the kingdom of God are the simple.
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