THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY.

A Summary of “ L’Histoire des Origines du Christianisme,” by Ernest Renan ; vols, ii.-vii.

S U P P L E M E N T TO “ T H E I N T E R A R Y G U I D E ,” N O V E M B E R , i Sç j .

T H E A PO ST LES.

“ T h e life of Jesus Christ for the historian ends with the Last Supper. But such was the impression which he had left in the hearts of his disciples and of some devoted friends that, for several weeks later, he was to them a living being and a consoler. Had his body been stolen from the tomb, ¡ or had enthusiasm, constantly brooding over his words and his promises, created a belief in his resurrection ? So contradictory is the documentary evidence that we cannot now say. Certain it is that the powerful imagination of Mary Magdalene played an important part in the matter. O divine power of love ! O sacred moments when the passion of a dreamer can give to the world a risen God.”

It is thus that Renan speaks of the alleged resurrection of Christ. The belief that Jesus was not dead, but would one day rise from the tomb and baffle his enemies, had been merely imbibed by the simple-minded, credulous, superstitious disciples from the current notions of the Jews. Enoch and Elijah had not tasted death. It was even believed that the patriarchs and the prophets still lived within their tombs at Hebron. Can one expect that the disciples were wiser than Omar the Khalif, who, at the moment when Mahomet passed away, rushed from the prophet’s tent, sword in hand, threatening to kill any man who had the audacity to say that the Founder of Islam no longer lived ?

Palestine was one of the most backward countries in the world ; the Galileans were the most ignorant of all the people of Palestine, and the disciples of Jesus were to be reckoned among the simplest of the Galileans. It was, indeed, this very simplicity which brought about their call. In such a world the belief in marvels found the most extraordinary facilities for its growth, for, as Hume a century ago pointed out, miracles happen more frequently in wild and barbarous districts, far removed from centres of culture and civilisation, and among people whose knowledge of the affairs of the wide, wide world is almost represented by a cypher, than in the homes of learning, of thought, and of political and commercial activity. And such a district was Galilee : a wilderness of barren rocks watered for six months in the year by mountain torrents—wadies, as they are now known in the current Arabic— dry and arid for the other six, with here and there a bare mountain side, whose very towns it were better the wayfarer should avoid, for Nazareth was not the only Galilean city which had the reputation of being peopled by footpads and thieves who made their living by attacking any unwary traveller who traversed the inhospitable wilds lying to the south of Mons Libanus. Once the notion of the resurrection having been set afloat, numerous visions of the risen Lord were imagined.

Christianity is said to have originated in Galilee; but when, after the death of Jesus, the disciples made Jerusalem their headquarters, the new sect died out entirely in the northern province, which, in the second, third, and fourth centuries, became the home and centre of Judaism and the land of the Talmud. The name “ Galilean” was originally applied to certain fantastic Jewish sects, and it is so employed in the works of Marcus Aurelius. It was Julian the Apostate who fastened this symbol of obloquy upon the Nasara or Christians.

Even in the very earliest days that union and brotherly love, which we are told by those who know no better was the essence of the primitive Church, was entirely wanting. There were in existence two traditions—-one Galilean, and the other Jerusalemite. According to the former, all the appearances, save one, of Christ after his death took place in Galilee, and it was from a mountain in that country that he ascended to heaven. According to the other, all these apparitions were seen in and around Jerusalem, and his ascension was from the Mount of Olives. Each party had its own books written to propagate its own belief, and even as we now have them Matthew preaches the Gospel of the Galileans, while Luke and the second Mark (xvi. 9-20) are exclusively Jerusalemite. John, writing very much later, unites the two traditions, although he makes Jesus a Galilean (vii. 41), while Paul admits others which cannot be traced to either of these sources.

The early Christian Church was communistic. Goods were held in common, and the disciples took their meals together. Their chief duty seems to have been to pray for hours together, a performance which they varied by outbursts of ecstasy or sullen and silent reverie. They waited ; patiently for the day of which their master had spoken, and which they believed would come in their lifetime— the day

■ when the Lord should return in his glory and the holy angels with him, and should gather up the elect as a shepherd gathereth his flock. Even as late as the year 1000 deeds of gift to monasteries, commencing with a declaration that the end of the world was at hand, were frequent. In this community of life they were joined by many Egyptian sects—the Essenes or Therapeuts in particular. In Egypt there were large numbers of hermits kept by the State, and early Christianity simply exemplified a phase of contemporary religious life. In the East life is not as vigorous as here in the West. There, indeed, it is true that “ man wants but little here below ” ; he can enjoy existence and nature almost without possessing anything, is a stranger to toilsome labour, and is always happy and free because his needs are so few.

For a long time Peter, a man who had had the advantage of having been an immediate disciple of Christ, was at the head of this communistic society. But, as time went on, there arose a king who had known not Joseph. Saul of Tarsus, a Jew of Cilicia, but who, under the Roman name of Paulus, claimed citizenship of the Empire, joined the little band at Jerusalem. Peter preached the gospel of circumcision ; Paul taught that all were admissible into the Christian camp—Jew and Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, alike. Renan calls this man the founder of Protestantism. He was a Christian who, not content with