Christ in Art. Ernest Renan

and to the deceptions of charlatans. To him it gave a deep idea of the familiar relations of man with God and an exaggerated faith in the power of man, admirable errors which were the principle of his power, because if they were one day to put him to the fault in the eyes of the physicist and the chemist, they gave him a power over his time which no individual ever wielded before or since.

      Early in life his peculiar character revealed itself. Jesus, like all men exclusively absorbed in an idea, came to make small account of ties of blood. The bond of the idea is the only one which such natures recognize. “Behold my mother and my brethren,” he said stretching forth his hand towards his disciples; “whosoever shall do the will of my father, the same is my brother and my sister.” The simple people did not understand him and one day a woman, passing by him, exclaimed, it is said: “Blessed the womb that bare thee, and the paps that gave thee suck!” “Blessed rather,” he answered, “they that hear the word of God and keep it.” Soon, in his daring revolt against nature, he was to go still farther, and we shall see him trampling under his feet all that is human, kindred, love, country, devoting heart and soul only to the idea which appeared to him as the absolute form of the good and the true.

      Virgin Psychosostria and the Annunciation, early 14th century.

      Icon.

      National Museum, Ohrid.

      The Nativity, late 14th century.

      Fresco. Peribleptos Church, Mystras.

      Geertgen tot Sint Jans, The Nativity at Night, c. 1490.

      Oil on oak panel, 34 × 25.3 cm.

      The National Gallery, London.

      The First Aphorisms of Jesus. His Ideas on God the Father. His First Disciples

      Joseph died before the public life of his son began, Mary thus remained the head of the family, and this explains why her son, when it was desired to distinguish him from the many others of the same name, was usually called the “son of Mary.” It seems that, by the death of her husband, a stranger in Nazareth, she retired to Cana, where she may have been a native. Cana was a small town eight or ten miles from Nazareth at the foot of the mountains which are on the perimeter north of the plain of Asochis. The prospect, less grand than at Nazareth, extends over the whole plain and is closed most picturesquely by the mountains of Nazareth and the hills of Tzippori. Jesus appears to have made this place his residence for some time. There he probably passed a portion of his youth, and thence came his first splendours.

      He worked at the trade of his father, which was that of a carpenter. This was no humiliating or unwelcome circumstance. The Jewish customs demanded that the man devoted himself to intellectual labours and should apprehend an acceptable occupation.

      What was the progress of the mind of Jesus during this obscure period of his life? Through what meditations did he launch out into the prophetic career? His history having come to us in the state of isolated stories and without exact chronology only allows us to make assumptions.

      Jesus has no visions; God does not speak to him from without; God is in Him; he feels that he is with God, and he draws from his heart what he says of his Father. He lives in the bosom of God by uninterrupted communication; he does not see him, but he understands him without need of thunder and a burning bush like Moses, or a revealing tempest like Job, an oracle like the old Greek sages, of a familiar genius like Socrates, or of an angel Gabriel like Mohammed. The imagination and hallucination of St. Theresa, for example, are nothing in comparison. The intoxication of the Son proclaiming himself identical with God is also an entirely different thing. Jesus never for a moment enounces the sacrilegious idea that he is God. He believes that he is in direct communion with God; he believes himself the son of God. The highest consciousness of God which ever existed in the breast of humanity was that of Jesus.

      It is clear, on the other hand, that Jesus, setting out with such proclivity of soul, will be in no way a speculative philosopher like Sakya-Mouni. Nothing is further from scholastic theology than the gospel. The speculations of the Greek fathers in regard to the divine essence come from an entirely different spirit. God conceived immediately as Father, this is the whole theology of Jesus. And that was not with him a theoretical principle, a doctrine more or less proven which he sought to inculcate. He used no argument with his disciples, he did not demand any of their attention. He did not preach his opinions, he preached himself. Oftentimes the greatest and most disinterested souls present, associated with a high degree of elevation, this peculiarity of perpetual attention to themselves and extreme personal susceptibility. Their persuasion that God is within them and is perpetually caring for them is so strong that they have no fear of imposing themselves upon others; with our reserve, our respect for the opinion of others, which is a portion of our weakness, they have nothing to do. This exalted personality is not egotism; for such men, possessed by their idea, gladly give their life to seal their work; it is the identification of the me with the object which it has embraced, carried to its last extent. It is pride to those who see in it only the personal fantasy of the founder; it is the finger of God to those who see the result. The fool here almost touches the inspired man; only the fool never succeeds.

      Jesus undoubtedly did not at once reach this lofty affirmation of himself. But it is probable that from the very beginning he looked to God as a father. This is his great act of originality; in this he is in no way like his species. The God of Jesus is Our Father. “We hear him when we listen to a low whisper within us which says, “Father”. He is the God of humanity. Jesus will not be a patriot like the Maccabees, or a theocrat like Juda the Gaulonite. Rising boldly above the prejudices of his nation, he will establish the universal fatherhood of God. The Gaulonite maintained that men should die rather than give to another than God the name of “master”; Jesus leaves this name to whoever chooses to take it, and reserves for God a gentler title. According to the mighty ones of the earth, to him the representatives of force, a respect full of irony, he founds the supreme consolation, the recourse to the Father which each one has in heaven, the true kingdom of God which each one bears in his heart.

      This name of “kingdom of God” or “kingdom of heaven” was Jesus’ favourite expression of revolution. Like nearly all the Messianic terms, it came from the Book of Daniel. According to the author of this extraordinary book, to the four profane empires, destined to be destroyed, will succeed a fifth empire which will be that of the saints and which will endure forever. This reign of God upon the earth naturally received the most diverse interpretations. In Jewish theology, the “kingdom of God” is usually nothing but Judaism itself, the true religion, the monotheistic worship, piety. During the latter portion of his life, Jesus believed that this reign was to be realized materially by a speedy renewal of the world. But this undoubtedly was not his first thought. The admirable moral which he draws from the idea of this father God is not that of enthusiasts who believe the world near its end, and who are preparing by ascetics for a chemical catastrophe. It is that of a world which desires to live and which has lived. “The kingdom of God is within you,” said he to those who subtly asked for external signs. The material conception of the divine advent was only a cloud, a passing error which death consigned to oblivion. The Jesus who founded the real kingdom of God, the kingdom of the meek and lowly, this is the Jesus of the earlier days, chaste days without alloy, when the voice of his Father resounded in his heart with a purer tone. There were then some months, perhaps a year, when God actually lived upon the earth. The voice of the young carpenter suddenly assumed extraordinary sweetness. Infinite charm radiated from his person, and the companions of his youth no longer recognized him. He still had no disciples, and the throng which pressed around him was neither a sect nor a school; but they felt already a common spirit, something gentle and penetrating. His lovely character, and doubtless one of those transporting countenances that, created around him a circle of fascination which hardly any, among this friendly and artless people, could resist.

      Paradise had been, indeed, transported upon earth, had not the ideas of the young master too widely overstepped the level of common goodness, above which the human race has been incapable of being elevated. The brotherhood of men, sons of God, and the moral consequences which result