The Life of Jesus. Ernest Renan

1: Egl. iv. The Cumæum carmen (v. 4) was a sort of Sibylline apocalypse, borrowed from the philosophy of history familiar to the East. See Servius on this verse, and Carmina Sibyllina, iii. 97–817; cf. Tac., Hist., v. 13.]

      In Judea expectation was at its height. Holy persons—among whom may be named the aged Simeon, who, legend tells us, held Jesus in his arms; Anna, daughter of Phanuel, regarded as a prophetess[1]—passed their life about the temple, fasting, and praying, that it might please God not to take them from the world without having seen the fulfillment of the hopes of Israel. They felt a powerful presentiment; they were sensible of the approach of something unknown.

      [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.

       Table of Contents

      INFANCY AND YOUTH OF JESUS—HIS FIRST IMPRESSIONS.

      Jesus was born at Nazareth,[1] a small town of Galilee, which before his time had no celebrity.[2] All his life he was designated by the name of "the Nazarene,"[3] and it is only by a rather embarrassed and round-about way,[4] that, in the legends respecting him, he is made to be born at Bethlehem. We shall see later[5] the motive for this supposition, and how it was 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 named in the writings 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 name of Nazarenes for a long time applied to Christians, and which still designates 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 make Jesus to be born under the reign 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, i.e., 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 supplement of Henzen in this number; Borghesi, 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 commanded by Augustus ought 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 imagine 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 imposing such an obligation, the Roman authority would have sanctioned pretensions threatening 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 from the primitive text which has furnished the rough draft of the present Gospels of Matthew and Mark. It was to meet oft-repeated objections that there were added to the beginning 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, a more softened expression. As to John, he knows nothing of the journey to Bethlehem; for him, Jesus is merely "of Nazareth" or "Galilean," in two circumstances in which it would have been of the highest 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 name of Jesus, which was given 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 himself in this respect. It is thus that more than one great vocation in history has been caused by a name given to a child without premeditation. Ardent natures never bring themselves to see aught of chance in what concerns them. God has regulated everything for them, and they see a sign of the supreme will in the most insignificant circumstances.

      [Footnote 1: Matt. i. 21; Luke i. 31.]

      The population of Galilee was very mixed, as the very name of the country[1] indicated. This province counted amongst its inhabitants, in the time of Jesus, many who were 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 humanity.

      [Footnote 1: Gelil haggoyim, "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 humble circumstances, artisans living by their labor,[2] in the state so common in the East, which is neither ease nor poverty. The extreme simplicity of life in such countries, by dispensing with the need of comfort, renders the privileges 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 material life, gives a naked aspect to the house of him who otherwise wants for nothing. Apart from something 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 crossways which separate the dwellings. The house of Joseph doubtless much resembled those poor shops, lighted by the door, serving at once for shop, kitchen, and bedroom, having for furniture a mat, some cushions on the ground, 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. Hær., XXX. 14).]

      [Footnote 2: Matt. xiii. 55; Mark vi. 3; John vi. 42.]

      [Footnote 3: The rough aspect of the ruins which cover Palestine proves that the towns which were not constructed in the Roman manner were very badly built. As to the form of the houses, it is, in Syria, so simple and so imperiously regulated by the climate, that it can scarcely ever have changed.]

      The family, whether it proceeded from one or many marriages, was rather numerous. Jesus had brothers and sisters,[1] of whom he seems to have been