Chapter XVIII: Part 18

And yet the enemies of Christ, to make an end to the greatest obstacles in the way of their other negations, have accused those very astonished, perplexed Disciples with having willingly or unwillingly invented the myth of the resurrection. Caiaphas and his followers claimed that the Disciples carried off the body by night and then spread around the news of the empty sepulcher in order that weak-headed mystics might more readily believe that Christ was risen and thus allow those cheats to continue their pestiferous trickery in the name of the dead Trickster. And Matthew says that the Jews bought some witnesses with “large money” that if needful they should report that they had seen Simon and his accomplices violate the sepulcher and carry away on their shoulders a heavy burden wrapped in white.

But His modern enemies, through a last remnant of respect for those who founded with their blood the indestructible Church, or rather through their profound conviction of the simple-mindedness of the first martyrs, have given up this idea of deceit. Neither Simon nor the others could have acted out such a deception; they never could have kept such a piece of trickery straight in their poor thick heads. But if they were not consciously deceiving, they were certainly stupid victims of their own fancy or of the knavery of others.

These enemies of Christ affirm that the Disciples hoped so vividly to see Jesus rise from the dead as He had promised, and that the resurrection was so urgently needed to counteract the disgrace of the crucifixion, that they were induced, almost forced, to expect it and to announce it as imminent. Then in that atmosphere of superstitious suspense, the vision of a hysterical woman, the hallucination of a dreamer, the delusion of an unbalanced man sufficed to spread the news of the appearance of Christ about the little circle of the desolate survivors. Some of them, unable to believe that the Master had deceived them, easily put their faith in the affirmations of those who claimed to have seen Him after His death. And, by dint of repeating the fantasies of these wild dreams, they ended by taking them seriously themselves and by convincing the more candid souls. Only on condition of such a posthumous confirmation of the divinity of the dead man was it possible to hold together those who had followed Him and to create the first stable organization of the universal Church.

But those who with their accusations of stupidity or fraud try to undermine the certainty of the first Christian generation, forget too many things and too many essential things.

First of all is the testimony of Paul. Saul the Pharisee had been to school to Gamaliel, and might have been present, even though at a distance and as an enemy, at Christ’s death, and certainly knew all the theories of his early teachers, the Jews, about the pretended resurrection. But Paul, who received the first Gospel from the lips of James, called the brother of the Lord, and from Simon, Paul famous in all the churches of the Jews and the Gentiles, wrote thus in his first letter to the Corinthians: “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures; and that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.” The Letter to the Corinthians is recognized as authentic even by the most disdainful and suspicious nosers-out of falsification. The first Letter to the Corinthians cannot have been written later than the spring of the year 58, and hence it is older than the oldest Gospel. Many of those who had known the living Christ were still living at that time and could easily have contradicted or undeceived the Apostle. Corinth was at the gates of Asia, inhabited by many Asiatics, in close relation with Judea; Paul’s letters were public messages which were publicly read at gatherings, and copies of them were made to send to other churches. The solemn and specific testimony of Paul must have come to Jerusalem, where the enemies of Jesus, many of them still alive, would have found some way to controvert them by other witnesses. If Paul could have thought a valid confutation possible, he never would have dared write those words. That he was able therefore, so short a time after the event, publicly to affirm a prodigy so contrary to ordinary beliefs and to the interests of Christ’s watchful enemies, shows that the resurrection was not merely a phantasy of a few fanatics, but a certainty denied with difficulty, easily proved. We have no other record except this letter of Paul’s of the appearance of Christ to the five hundred brothers, but we cannot even for a moment imagine that Paul, one of the greatest and purest souls of early Christianity, could have invented it,—he who had so long persecuted those who believed in the reality of the resurrection. It is extremely probable that the appearance of Christ to the five hundred happened in Galilee on the mountain spoken of by Matthew, and that the Apostle had known one of those who had been present at that memorable meeting.

But this is not all. The Evangelists, who set down with some incoherence, but with the greatest frankness, the recollections of Jesus’ first companions, admit, perhaps without wishing to, that the Apostles themselves did not expect the resurrection and found it hard to believe. When we read the four Gospels with attention we see that they continued to doubt even with the risen Christ before them. When on Sunday morning the women ran to tell the Disciples that the sepulcher was empty and Christ alive, the Disciples accused them of raving. When later He appeared to many in Galilee: “And when they saw him, they worshipped him:” said Matthew; “but some doubted.” And when He appeared at evening in the room where they were taking supper, there were some who could not believe their own eyes and hesitated until they had seen Him eating. Thomas still doubted after this, until the moment when his Lord’s body was actually before his own.

So little did they expect to see Him rise again that the first effect upon them of His appearance was fright. “They were affrighted and supposed that they had seen a spirit.” They were therefore not so credulous and easily fooled as their defamers would have them. And they were so far from the idea of seeing Him return a living man among the living that when they first saw Him they mistook Him for another. Mary of Magdala thought that He was the gardener of Joseph of Arimathea; Cleopas and his companions were not able to recognize Him all along the road; Simon and the others when He came to them upon the shore of the lake, “knew not that it was Jesus.” If they had really been expecting Him, Himself, their minds on the alert, burning with longing, would they have been frightened, would they not have known Him at once? When we read the Gospels, we get the impression that Christ’s friends, far from inventing His return, accepted it almost because they were forced, by external coercion, and after much hesitation; the exact contrary, in short, of what is desired to be proved by those who accuse Christ’s friends of being deceived or of having deceived.

But why this hesitation? Because the warnings of Christ had not been able to dislodge from those slow and indocile minds the old Jewish repugnance to the idea of immortality. The belief in the resurrection of the dead was for centuries and centuries foreign to the wholly material mentality of the Jews. In a few prophets like Daniel and Hosea there are some passing traces of the idea, but it does not appear explicitly except in one passage of the story of the Maccabees. At the time of Christ the common people had a confused idea of it as a distant miracle, a part of the conceptions of the Apocalyptic writers, but they did not think it possible before the final upheaval of the great day: the Sadducees denied it firmly and the Pharisees admitted it as the remote and common reward of all righteous men. When the superstitious Antipas said that Christ was John risen from the dead, he meant to say with a vigorous figure of speech that the new Prophet was like a second John.

Reluctance to admit such an extraordinary infraction of the laws of death was so profoundly rooted in the Jewish people that the very Disciples of Christ were not disposed to admit the possibility of the resurrection without reiterated proofs, although they had seen Him raise others from the dead and had heard Him predict His own resurrection. And yet they had seen Him bring to life with His powerful summons the son of the Widow of Nain, the daughter of Jairus, the brother of Martha and Mary: the three sleepers whom Jesus had awakened because of His compassion for the grief of a mother, of a father, of a sister. But it was the habit and the fate of the Twelve to misunderstand and to forget. They were too set upon their material thoughts to be ready to believe at once such a victory over death. But when they were convinced, their certainty was so firm and strong that from the sowing of those first enforced witnesses has sprung up an enormous harvest of men born again in the faith of the resurrected One—which the centuries have not yet mowed down.

The calumnies of the Jews, the accusations of false witnesses, the doubts of the Disciples, the plots of implacable enemies, the fallacious sophistry of the progeny of Thomas, the fantasies of heresiarchs, the distorted conceptions of men eager to prove Christ definitely dead, the turns and twists of the myth-spinners, the mines and assaults of the higher and lower criticism have not availed to wrench from the millions of human hearts the certainty that the body taken down from the cross of Golgotha reappeared on the third day to die no more. The people chosen by Christ condemned Him to death, hoping to have done with Him, but death refused Him as the Jews had refused Him, and humanity has not yet finished its accounting with that assassinated Man who came out from the sepulcher to show that breast where the Roman lance had forever made visible the heart which loves those who hate Him.

The cowardly souls who will not believe in His first life, in His second life, in His eternal life, cut themselves off from true life: from life which is generous acceptance, spontaneous love, hope in the invisible, certainty of the truth which passeth understanding. They themselves are dead, although they seem living, those who refuse Him, as death refused Him. Those who drag the weight of their still warm and breathing corpses over the patient earth laugh at the resurrection. The second birth in the spirit will not be granted to those who reject life, but an appalling and inevitable resurrection will be granted to them on the last day.

THE RETURN BY THE SEA

When the tragedy had drawn to a close with its greatest sorrow, its greatest joy, every one turned again to his own destination, the Son to the Father, the King to His Kingdom, the High Priest to his basins of blood, the fishermen to their nets.

These water-soaked nets, with broken meshes, torn by the unaccustomed weight of the great draughts, so many times mended, patched, knotted together again, which had been left by the first fishers of men without one backward look, on the shores of Capernaum, had finally been mended and laid on one side, by some one with the prudence of the stay-at-home who knows that dreams are soon over and hunger lasts for all one’s lifetime. The wife of Simon, the father of James and John, the brother of Thomas, had saved the casting nets and the drag-nets as tools which might be useful, in memory of the exiles, as if a voice had said to those who had remained at home: “They too will come back; the Kingdom is fair, but far distant, and the lake is fair now, to-day, and full of fish. Holy is holiness, but no man lives by the spirit alone. And a fish on the table now is worth more to a hungry man than a throne a year from now.”

And for a time the wisdom of the stay-at-homes, taken root in their native countryside like moss on a stone, was vindicated. The fishermen returned. The fishers of men appeared again in Galilee and once more took the old nets into their hands. They had received the order of Him who had drawn them away from there that they should be witnesses to His shame and to His glory. They had not forgotten Him and they could never forget Him: they always talked of Him among themselves and with all those who were willing to listen to them. But Christ on His return had said, “We will meet again in Galilee.” And they had gone away from ill-omened Judea, from the mercenary city ruled by its murderous masters, and they had trod once more the road back to their sweet, calm fatherland, whence the loving ravisher of souls had snatched them away. The old houses had a mellow beauty, with the white banners of newly washed linen, and the young grass greening along the old walls, and the tables cleaned by humble old hands, and the oven, which every week spat out sparks from its flaming mouth. And the quiet fishing-town had beauty, too; with its tanned naked boys, the sun high over the level market-place, the bags and baskets in the shadow of the inns, and the smell of fish which at dawn was wafted over it, with the morning breeze. But more beautiful than all was the lake: a gray-blue and slate-colored expanse on cloudy afternoons: a milky basin of opal with lines and patches of jacinth on warm evenings; a dark shadow flecked with white on starry nights: a silvery, heaving shadow in the moonlight. On this lake which seemed the very spirit of the quiet, happy countryside, the fishermen’s eyes had for the first time discovered the beauty of light and of water, nobler than the heavy unlovely earth and kinder than fire. The boat with its slanting sails, its worn seats, the high red rudder, had from their childhood been dearer to them than that other home which awaited them, stationary, whitened, four-square on the bank. Those infinitely long hours of tedium and of hope as they gazed at the brilliant water, the swaying of the nets, the darkening of the sky, had filled the greater part of their poor and homely lives.

Then came the day when a Master, poorer and more powerful than they, had called them to Himself to be workers with Him in a supernatural, perilous undertaking. The poor souls uprooted from their usual surroundings had done their best to be lighted by that flame, but the new life had trodden them out like grapes in the wine-press, like olives in the olive crusher in order that their rough hearts should yield up tears of love and pity.

It was only after the Cross had been raised on Golgotha that they had wept with true sorrow: and only after the Crucified Leader had returned to break bread with them that they had been kindled anew to hope.

And now they had come home, bringing back only a few recollections, and yet those recollections were enough to transform the world. But before beginning the work which He had commanded, they were waiting to see Him whom they loved in the place which He had loved. They were different men from the men who had gone away, more restless, sadder, almost estranged, as if they had come back from the land of the lotus-eaters and saw from beyond with purer eyes a new earth indissolubly united with Heaven. But the nets were there, hung up on the walls, and the boats at anchor swayed up and down on the water. Once more the fishers of men, perhaps out of nostalgia, perhaps out of material need, began to be lake fishermen.

Seven Disciples of Christ were together one evening in the harbor of Capernaum, Simon called Peter, Thomas called Didymus, Nathanael of Cana, James, John and two others. Simon said, “I go afishing.”

His friends answered, “We also go with thee.”

They went into the boat and put off, but all that night they caught nothing. When day came, a little depressed because of the wasted night, they came back towards the shore. And when they were near they saw in the faint light of the dawn a man standing on the shore, who seemed to be waiting for them. “But the disciples knew not that it was Jesus.”

“Children, have ye any meat?” called the unknown man.

And they answered, “No.”

“Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find.”

They obeyed and in a moment the net was so full that they were scarcely able to draw it in. And they all began to tremble because they had guessed who it was awaiting them.

“It is the Lord,” said John to Simon.

Peter answered nothing, but hastily drew on his fisher’s coat (for he was naked), and cast himself into the sea that he might be first on shore. The boat was scarcely two hundred cubits from the land and in a few moments the seven Disciples were about their Lord. And no one asked Him, “Who art thou?”—because they had recognized Him.

On the shore there were bread and a lighted brazier with fishes broiling on it, and Jesus said, “Bring of the fish which ye have now caught.”

And for the last time He broke the Bread and gave to them and the fish likewise. After they had finished eating Jesus turned to Simon and under His look the unhappy man, silent till then, turned pale: “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these?”

The man who had denied Him, when he heard this question full of tenderness, but for him so cruel, felt himself carried back to another place beside another brazier with other questions put to him, and he remembered the answer he had made then, and the look from Christ about to die and his own great lamentation in the night. And he dared not answer as he wished: “Yes” in his mouth would have been boasting and shamelessness: “No” would have been a shameful lie.

“Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee.”

He made no claim for himself but “thou knowest that I love thee,” Thou who knowest all and seest into the most hidden hearts. “I love thee”: but he had not the courage to add “more than these” in the presence of the others, who knew what he had done.

Christ said to him, “Feed my lambs.”

And for the second time He asked him: “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?”

And Peter in his trouble found no other answer than, “Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee.”

Why dost Thou still make me suffer? Dost Thou not know without my telling Thee that I love Thee, that I love Thee more than at first, as I have never loved Thee, and that I will give up my life to affirm my love?

Then Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.”

And for the third time He insisted, “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?”

He was drawing from Peter three affirmations, three new promises to cancel his three denials at Jerusalem. But Peter could not endure this repeated suffering. Almost weeping, He cried out, “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee!”

The terrible ordeal was over, and Jesus went on, “Feed my sheep. Verily, verily I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry whither thou wouldest not.”

That is, to the cross, like the cross where they nailed me. Know, therefore, what it means to love me. My love is brother to death. Because I love you, they have killed me: for your love for me, they will kill you. Think, Simon, son of Jonas, what is the covenant which you make with me, and the fate which is before you. From now on, I shall not be at hand to take you back, to give you the peace of forgiveness, after coward fallings from grace. From now on defections and desertions will be a thousand times more serious. You must answer for all the lambs which I leave in your care and as reward at the end of your labors you will have two crossed beams, and four nails as I had, and life eternal. Choose: it is the last time that you can choose and it is a choice for all time—irrevocable. For an account will be asked of you as a servant left in the place of his master: and now that you know all and have decided, come with me.

“Follow me!”

Peter obeyed, but turning about saw John coming after him and said, “Lord, and what shall this man do?”

Jesus said to him, “If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me!”

For Simon the primacy and martyrdom; for John immortality and endless waiting. He who bore the same name as the precursor of Christ’s first coming was to prophesy His second coming. The historian of the end was to be persecuted, a solitary prisoner, but he was to live longer than all the others and to see with his own eyes the crumbling of the stones, not one left upon another, of the ill-omened hill of Jerusalem. In his sonorous blue desert, in the midst of the blinding light and the immense blackness of the midnight sea, in his vision of the great deeds of the last day he will rejoice and suffer. Peter followed Christ, was crucified for Christ and left behind him the eternal dynasty of the Vicars of Christ: but John was not permitted to find rest in death: he waits with us, the contemporary of every generation, silent as love, eternal as hope.

THE CLOUD

Once more they returned to Jerusalem, leaving their nets, this time forever, travelers setting out upon a journey, the stages of which were to be marked by blood.

In the same place where He had gone down to the city glorified by men, in the shade of blossoming branches, He was to rise again after the interval of His dishonor and His resurrection, in the glory of Heaven. He remained in the midst of men, for forty days after the resurrection, for as long a time as He had remained in the desert after His symbolic death by water. Although His body seemed human, His life was transfigured into the ultimate sublimination of humanity and He was ready to enter as pure spirit, into the spirit of the Father from whom He had been separated thirty years before, that He might cast a gleam of heavenly light upon the shadow-darkened world.

He did not, as before, lead a life in common with the Disciples, because He was separated now from the life of living men; but He reappeared to them more than once to confirm His great promises, and perhaps to explain to those most capable of receiving them those mysteries which were not written down in any book but were passed on, under the seal of secrecy, through all the apostolic period and the following periods, and were imperfectly set down later under the title of Arcana Disciplina.

The last time they saw Him was on the Mount of Olives, where before His death He had prophesied the ruin of the Temple and of the city and the signs of His return, and where, in the darkness of night and of anguish, Satan, before his final defeat, had left Him wet with sweat and blood. It was one of the last evenings of May and the clouds in that golden hour, like golden celestial islands in the gold of the setting sun, seemed to rise from the warm earth towards near-by Heaven, like incense from great fragrant offerings. In the fields of grain, the birds began to call back the fledglings to the nests, and the cool breeze lightly shook the branches and their drooping, unripened fruit. From the distant city, still inact, from the pinnacles, the towers and the white squares of the Temple rose a smoky cloud of dust.

And once again the Disciples asked Jesus the question which they had put to Him in the same place on the evening of the two prophecies. Now that He had come back as He had promised, what else were they to await?

“Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?”

They may have meant the Kingdom of God, which in their minds, as in the minds of the Prophets, was one with the Kingdom of Israel, since the divine restoration of the earth was to begin with Judea.

Christ answered: “It is not for you to know the times or the season, which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.”

And having said this, He lifted up His hands and blessed them. And while they beheld, He was taken up from the earth and suddenly a shining cloud as on the morning of the Transfiguration wrapped Him about and hid Him from their sight. But they could not look away from the sky and continued to gaze steadfastly up in their astonishment, when two men in white apparel spoke to them: “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.”

Then having prayed in silence, they returned to Jerusalem, glowing with melancholy joy, thinking of the day just begun: the first day of a task which, after two thousand years, is not yet accomplished. They were alone now, alone against that innumerable enemy called the World. But Heaven is not so cut off from the earth as before the coming of Christ; the mystic ladder of Jacob is no longer a lonely man’s dream, but is set up on the earth, on this earth which we tread, and above there is an Intercessor who does not forget the ephemeral beings destined to eternal life who, for a time, were His brothers. “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” had been one of His last promises and the greatest. He had ascended into Heaven, but Heaven was no longer merely the barren dome where swift, tumultuous storm-clouds appear and disappear; where the stars shine out silently, like the souls of saints.

He is still with us, the Son of Man, who to be nearer Heaven ascended mountains, who was light made manifest, who died, raised above the earth towards the blackness of Heaven, and rose from the dead to ascend into Heaven in the peacefulness of evening, and who will return again on the clouds of Heaven. He is still present in the world which He meant to free. He is still attentive to our words, if they truly come from the depths of our hearts, to our tears if they are tears of blood in our hearts before being salt drops in our eyes. He is with us, an invisible, benignant guest, never more to leave us, because by His wish our earthly life is an anticipation of the Kingdom of Heaven, and is a part of Heaven from this day on. Christ has taken to Himself as His eternal possession that rough foster-mother of us all, that sphere which is but a point in the infinite and yet contains hope for the infinite; and to-day He is closer to us than when He ate the bread of our fields. No divine promise can be blotted out: the May cloud which hid Him from sight, still hovers near the earth, and every day we raise our weary and mortal eyes to that same Heaven from which He will descend in the terrible splendor of His glory.

INDEX

Abba, Father, 302

Abnegation, 309

Abraham, 42

Achilles, 100;
Priam and, 117, 120

Adam, 127

Adulteress, 223

Adultery, 101, 210

Adversary. _See_ Satan

Agrapha, 12

Aim of this book, 13, 14, 17, 20

Ajax of Sophocles, 118

Alabaster box, 224

Alms, 109

Andrew, 82

Angels, 62, 74, 212

Anger, 100

Animality, 98, 123

Animals, 22

Annas, 251, 313

Anointing, 224

Anti-Christ, 4

Anxiety for the morrow, 109

Apostles, 85, 178. _See also_ Disciples

Aquinas, Thomas, 185

Arcana Disciplina, 406

Aristophanes, 198, 199

Aristotle, 119, 136

Art, 124

Ascension, 241, 405, 407

Asking and receiving, 156

Ass, 22, 116;
Jesus riding on, 244

Augustus, 204

Author of this book, his coming to Christ, 18

Authority, 13

Avarice, 111

Awakened one, 30

Babylon, 44

Balaam, 22, 23

Banks and bankers, 250

Banquet of the Kingdom, 153, 154

Baptism, of blood, 300;
of Jesus, 57, 60;
John the Baptist, 54;
second baptism of Jesus—the tears of the woman who was a sinner, 228

Barabbas, 341

Barns, new, 174

Beatitudes, 87, 93;
last and greatest, 395

Beauty, 15

Beggars, 80, 154, 193

Behold the man!, 346

Belief, 73, 74, 395

Benevolence, 113

Bestiality, 62, 73, 92, 323

Bethany, 140

Bethlehem, 24, 25;
babies, 28

Bethpage, 244

Betrayal, 281

Betrayal of women, 102

Birth of Jesus, 21

Blasphemy, 322

Blindfolding Jesus, 325

Blindness, 133

Blood, scourging of Jesus, 345;
sweat and blood of Jesus in Gethsemane, 306;
water and, from body of Jesus, 375;
wine and, 298

Blood-offering, 29

Boyhood, 32

Bread, as the body of Christ, 296, 298;
breaking, 297;
eating, as communion with God, 295;
fishes and, 146;
material and spiritual, 66, 133, 146;
unleavened, 295, 297

Bridegroom, 155

Brothers, 161, 168, 207;
anger toward, 100;
love for, 114

Buddha, 95, 198

Buddhism, 114

Burial of Jesus, 379

Business as a God, 250

Business men, 79

But I say unto you, 100

Cæsar, faith, 148;
images, 327;
things which are Cæsar’s, 202, 204, 330

Cæsarea, 233

Cain, descendants of, 255

Cainites, 282

Caiaphas, 243, 251, 278, 287, 310, 315, 318, 348;
adjuration of Jesus, 321;
rends his garment, 322

Caligula, 270, 271

Camel and needle’s eye, 181

Cana, 141

Canaan, 43

Capernaum, 74, 76

Capital punishment, 356

Carpenter, 35;
Jesus as, 36

Catalepsy, 139

Catholic Church, 12

Celibacy, 211

Centurion, 352, 355, 356

Cerinthus, 268

Chaldea, 24

Charity, 173, 265

Chastity, 211, 212

Children, 216;
Bethlehem, 28;
Jesus’ love of, 217;
Moses and, 215;
old law and its reversal by Jesus, 218

Christ, Jesus declares himself, 247;
living to-day, 6, 408;
memory, 5;
modern opinion of, 19;
second coming, 259, 262;
Thou art the Christ, 235.
_See also_ Jesus;
Second coming

Christian era, 6, 71

Christian martyrs, 269

Christianity, precedents for, 119

Christs, false, 260, 267

Church, 396;
Catholic, 12;
Peter and, 237

Circe, 122

Claudia Procula, 333, 376

Cleopas, 384, 385, 387

Cloud, Jesus’ glorification, 405

Clovis, 369

Cock crow, 315, 317

Commerce, 250

Communion with God, 295

Confucius, 113

Conversion, 73;
in Jesus’ life, 58

Converted sinner, 59

Corinthians, letter to the, 397

Cost, counting, 153

Country, 39

Courage, 106

Court of the Gentiles, 248

Courtesy, 113

Covenants, 40

Crates, 198, 199

Criticism, 8, 12

Cross, 304, 305, 352;
Jesus and the two thieves carrying, 353;
Jesus nailed to, 360;
superscription, 351.
_See also_ Crucifixion

Crown of thorns, 346

Crucifixion, 359, 367

Crucify him!, 338, 340, 343, 347

Cynics, 198

Cyrenian, 353, 355

Daniel, 271

Darkness, at the crucifixion, 367, 370;
Jesus’ hour of, 310

David, 43, 116

Day of the Lord, 262

Dead, raising, 138

Death, 133;
Egypt’s obsession, 31;
Jewish views, 399

Death of Jesus, authors and accomplices, 242, 243;
foreknowledge, 241;
His prayer, Abba, Father, 302.
_See also_ Crucifixion

Deborah, 43

Debts, forgiving, 171, 230

Defilement, 104

Demons, 137, 175

Desert, 61, 68, 69

Devil. _See_ Satan

Didymus, 392

Disciples, 176;
duty, 189;
earliest, 75;
first four, 82;
foretold of Jesus’ death, 242;
instructions to, 188;
mystic identity with Jesus, 192;
persecutions, 268;
reappearance of Jesus to, after the resurrection, 403;
at resurrection of Jesus, 388, 389;
speaking in the light, 190;
warnings to, 180

Discord, 206

Dismas, 363, 367

Divinity, 123

Divorce, 210

Doing versus hearing, 158

Dositheus, 268

Doubt of Thomas, 392

Earthly kingdoms, 63, 65, 67, 72

Earthquakes, 270

Easter, 243, 295

Edification, 14

Education of the human race, 98

Egypt, character, 31;
death and mud, 31;
exile in, 32;
flight into, 30;
Jews in, 42

Egyptians, 114

Elder son, 167, 169

Elders, 242

Elias, 240, 373

Eloquence, 16

Elxai, 268

Emmaus, 384

End of the world, 262, 266

Enemies, Egyptians and, 114;
Greeks and, 117;
hatred of, 126;
Jewish treatment of, 115;
love of, 121

Ennœa, 267

Entreaty, 156

Epileptics, 135

Erudition, 13

Eternal life, 264, 400

Eternal punishment, 264

Eternity, 71

Evangelists on the Resurrection, 398

Evil, flight from, 105;
root of, 100

Evil for evil, 105

Exaggeration, 100

Exile in Egypt, 32

Expiation, 279

Faith, 132, 133, 136, 148

False Christs, 260, 267

False witnesses, 319

Family, 103

Farmers, 79

Father, real, 34;
universal, 45

Fatherhood of God, 37

Father’s business, 33

Fathers and sons, 213

Fatted calf, 167

Feast, 153

Feed my sheep, 404

Feet, washing of, 292

Fig tree, accursed, 144

Fire, 207;
from heaven, 184;
prophet of fire, 54

First and last, 180

First covenant, 40

Fishermen, 78;
earliest disciples, 82, 84;
return to the sea, 400

Fishers of men, 83

Flesh, conquest of, 212;
one flesh, 209

Flight from evil, 105

Flight into Egypt, 30

Flogging, 343, 344

Flood, 41

Florence, 20

Forgive them, 356, 358, 363

Forgiveness, 170;
of sin, 231

Forsaken, on the cross, 372

Forty days, 62

Fourth Covenant, 43

Frankincense, 25

Friends, Jesus and Judas, 285;
laying down life for, 294;
posthumous, 376

Friendliness, 75

Fulvia, 334

Galilee, 69, 71, 401

Gardeners, 78

Garments of Jesus, division, 361

Gate, narrow, 156

Gentiles and Jerusalem, 262

Gethsemane, 181, 183, 302

Gnostics, 268

God, 122;
as Father, 37;
imitation of, 123;
likeness to, 123;
reign of, 71;
will of, 309

Gods of Greece, 64

Gold, frankincense and myrrh, 25

Golgotha, 357

Good Friday, 350

Good thief, 363

Good tidings, 74

Gospel, 74

Gospels, 6;
authenticity, 11

Greatness, 177

Greek gods, 64

Greeks, treatment of enemies, 117

Happiness, 95, 97, 154

Harvest, 175

Hasmonæans, 27

Hatred, of enemies, 126;
of others, 111;
of ourselves, 124, 125

He is risen, 381

Health, 134, 138;
of soul, 102

Hearing versus doing, 158

Heaven, 73, 407.
_See also_ Kingdom of Heaven

Heights, 130

Heresies, 267

Hermon, Mount, 238

Herod Antipas, 335;
Jesus before, 337

Herod the Great, 27, 325

Herodias, 336

High Priests, 242;
plot against Jesus, 277, 278

Hillel, 117

Holiness, 122, 205

Horace, 26

Hosannas, 246

Hosea, 274

House on a rock, 158

Human nature, mystery, 234

Human race, education, 98

Humility, 125, 172, 293

Hungering after justice, 90

Husbandman, good, 175

Hypocrites, 255

Ideas of Jesus, antiquity of, 112

Imagination, 15, 16

Immortality, 399

Inasmuch, 264

Incest, 336

Inferno, 35

Inheriting the earth, 88

Injustice, 91

Innocents, slaughter of, 28

Insults, 92, 314, 324, 354

Intellectualism, 124

Intelligence, 87

Introduction, 3

Jairus’ daughter, 139

James, 83, 183, 184

Jericho, 172

Jerusalem, desolation, 261;
destruction, 44, 45, 271, 272;
last journey to, 244;
Passover 32;
worldly, 69

Jesus, attempts on his life, 241;
baptism of, 57, 60;
birth, 21;
blindfolded, 325;
as the Christ, 233;
condemnation, 322;
crucifixion, 359, 367;
deeds, 130;
foreknowledge, 49;
foreknowledge of death, 241;
friendliness, 75;
hatred and condemnation for, 275;
healer, 138;
Herod Antipas and, 334;
liberator, 299, 384;
nailed to the cross, 360;
nature, 233;
Pilate and, 329, 338;
Pilate’s question, 330, 332;
poverty, 193;
prosecution, 315;
resurrection, 381;
road to Emmaus, 384;
second crucifixion, 3;
sinlessness, 58;
spat on and struck, 324;
under the cross, 353;
the wanderer, 75, 76;
what men said of him, 233, 235.
_See also_ Christ

Jewish State, reëstablishment, 274

Jews, dispersal, 44, 272;
history, 40;
in Egypt, 42;
wanderings, 43

Job, 116

John, 83, 183, 184, 185, 315, 318;
at the crucifixion, 371;
at the sepulcher, 383

John the Baptist, 54;
beheading of, 336;
imprisonment and death, 69;
Jesus’ answer to him in prison, 137, 138

Jonah, 131

Jordan and John the Baptist, 54

Joseph, 34, 286

Joseph of Arimathea, 318, 377

Joshua, 43

Judas, 186, 202, 243;
Jesus’ understanding of, 284;
kiss of, 311;
at the Last Supper, 290, 301;
mystery of, 281;
sinning woman and, 229;
wasted ointment and, 232

Judea, outbreak, 270

Judging others, 110

Judgment Day, 263, 265

Justice, 118, 122, 124, 155;
hunger for, 90

King of the Jews, 330, 346, 351

Kingdom of Heaven (of God), 66, 68, 71, 93;
chief places in, 157, 184;
children—of such is the Kingdom, 217;
definition, 72;
force and, 205;
like mustard seed, 151

Kingdom of Satan, 72, 196

Kingdoms of the earth, 63, 65, 67, 72

Kings, at the birth of Jesus, 25;
of the nations, 204

Kiss of Judas, 311

Knowledge, 25

Lama sabachthani, 372

Lamps, 156

Land of Promise, 42

Lao-Tse, 113

Last and first, 180

Last judgment, 263, 265

Last Supper, 288

Last things, 259

Law, 122, 124;
old and new, 99

Lazarus, 140, 220

Lazarus, the beggar, 173

Legs, breaking, 366, 375

Leopardi, Giacomo, 95

Lepers, 135

Liberator, 299, 384

Life, 5;
eternal, 264, 400;
Jesus’ knowledge of, 60;
revaluation of, 93;
true, 110

Light, Jesus’ Transfiguration, 239

Lives of Christ, kind we need, 10;
two kinds, 7

Logia, 12, 186

Longinus, 375

Lord’s Prayer, exposition, 128

Losing one’s soul, 196

Lost found, 32

Lost sheep, 170

Love, antiquity and, 111-121;
Christ’s command, 121;
Christ’s for sinners, 59;
experiment of, 125;
filial, 103;
mutual and universal, 113;
for one another, 294;
perfect, 37;
self, 111, 125;
woman who loved much, 229

Lovest thou me?, 403

Luke-warmness, 188

Malchus, 311

Mammon, 193, 196;
Temple at Jerusalem and, 249

Man, early rules, 98;
perfectibility, 97

Manger, 21

Maranatha, 243

Mariamne, 27

Mark, 313

Marriage, 142, 209;
Cana, 141, 143

Martha, 138, 140, 219

Martyrs, 269

Mary (of Bethany), 138, 140, 219, 379

Mary (Virgin Mother), 13, 222, 371, 378, 379;
flight into Egypt, 30

Mary Magdalene, 220, 224, 379;
risen Lord and, 382

Masons, 78

Massacre of the Innocents, 29

Matthew, 185, 186, 282

Meander, 268

Meekness, 88

Memory of Christ, 5

Mental diseases, 136

Merciful, 90

Mercy, 263, 265

Messiah, 183;
material, 53, 65

Messiahship, 49

Messianic prophecies, 50

Metals, 189, 201

Miracles, 66, 67, 131, 136

Money, banks, exchange, etc., 250;
curse of, 220;
Jesus and, 201, 202;
Judas and, 282

Money-changers, 249

Mosaic law, 115

Moses, 30;
deliverance of Jews from Egypt, 42;
law and love, 115;
sprinkling of blood, 299;
with Christ on Hermon, 240

Moslems, 274

Mount, Sermon on the, 85, 94, 186

Mountain, Jesus praying on, 239

Mourning, 89

M’-Ti, 112, 113

Mud, 31

Murder, 100

Mustard seed, 151

Myrrh, 25

Mysteries, 406;
Gethsemane, 306;
human nature, 234;
of the Kingdom, 149

Nails, four, 359, 361

Names, secret and real, 234

Nard, 224

Narrow gate, 156

Nathaniel, 186

Nature, 95;
antagonism of Jesus and, 109;
Jesus and, 38;
overturning, 108

Nazarene, 351

Nazareth, any good thing out of?, 186;
boyhood of Jesus, 32;
foreknowledge of Jesus, 49;
Joseph’s shop, 34

Nazir, 54

Negative command, 117

Neighbor, 172

Nero, 269

New Covenant, 71, 299

Nicodemus, 187, 278, 318, 377

Nicolatians, 268

Nirvana, 114

Noah, 41

Nomads, 41

Nonresistance, 104, 107

Oaths, 103

Octavius Augustus, 26

Old Adam, 59, 125

Old Covenant, 40, 299

Old ideas, 112

Old law, 117

Old Testament morality, 116

Older son, 167, 169

Olives, Mount of, 244, 245, 252, 259, 302

Ophir, 44

Opinion of Christ, modern, 19

Other cheek, 105, 106

Overturnings of opinion, 94

Ox, 22

Paganism, 169

Palazzo Vecchio, 20

Palm branches, 246

Parables, 131, 149, 151

Paradise, 40, 43, 127, 213, 219;
for the penitent thief on the cross, 356

Paradox, 93

Parasceve, 352

Parusia, 259, 262, 267, 273

Passion, beginning, 243

Passover, 32, 288, 295;
night before, 352

Paternoster, 128, 215

Patriarchs, 41

Paul, 269;
testimony as to the resurrection, 397

Peace, 208

Peace and war, 190, 205

Peacemakers, 91

Peasants, 79

Persecutions, 26, 91, 260, 268

Peter, 268, 269;
the Rock, 181, 237.
_See also_ Simon Peter

Petronius, 375

Pharaoh, 42

Pharisees, 55, 104, 147, 253;
condemnation in the Temple, 255;
at Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, 246;
prayer of, and Publican, 171

Philip, 186

Philo, 117

Pilate, Pontius, 243, 325;
fate, 350;
Jesus before, 329, 338;
last recorded words, 351;
personality, 326;
subterfuges, 342, 347, 348, 349;
washing of hands, 346, 349;
wife’s dream, 333

Pitcher, man with, 288, 289

Pity, 171, 265, 354

Plato, 118, 198, 199

Pluto, 198, 199

Poet, Jesus as, 150

Poetry, 15

Poor, the, Jesus’ love of, 200;
Jesus’ teaching, 77;
rich and, 173, 189, 194;
in spirit, 87.
_See also_ Poverty

Possession by devils, 136

Poverty, 79, 109, 174;
disciples, 189;
Jesus, 193;
voluntary, 197

Prayer, 128;
Father, forgive them, 356, 358, 363;
Jesus in Gethsemane, 303, 309;
Jesus on the mountain, 239;
Lord’s prayer, 128;
Pharisee and Publican, 171

Priam, 117, 120

Priestly caste, 276

Primacy, 405

Prodigal son, 160-169

Prophecy of Jesus on Last Things, 259, 266

Prophets, 44, 45;
character, 47;
definitions, 47, 48;
description, 46

Prostitutes, 230

Proverbs, 116

Psalms, imprecations on enemies, 116

Publicans, 56;
prayer of Publican and Pharisee, 171

Punishment, eternal, 264

Pure in heart, 90

Purification, 104

Purity, 110;
of Jesus, 58

Rabboni, 382

Readiness, 155

Reed, 346, 373

Religion, as a business in Jerusalem, 276;
Roman, 327

Religions for the irreligious, 4

Renan, J. E., 9

Renunciation, 152, 180, 196, 200, 201

Repentance, 59, 73, 363, 366

Resurrection, 381;
doubts about, 388;
Evangelists’ testimony, 398;
Paul’s testimony, 397;
rejection, 395

Resurrections from the dead, 138

Retaliation, 90, 99;
Jesus’ repudiation of the old law, 105

Revenge, 105

Rich and poor, 173, 189, 194

Rich man, 194

Righteousness, 114

Risen from the dead, 381

Rock, Caiaphas and Peter, 318;
house built on, 158;
Peter, 237

Roman Emperor, 327

Roman Empire, 204;
upheaval, 269

Roman soldiers, 344, 356

Rome and the Christian martyrs, 269

Sabbath, Jesus and, 254;
Jesus at Capernaum, 77

Sacrifice, of the innocent for the guilty, 279;
pagan examples, 279

Sadducees, 55, 147

Saints, 256, 351

Salome, 336

Salvation, 194

Samaritan, the good, 172

Samaritans, 172, 184

Sanhedrin, 187, 278;
Jesus before, 318

Satan, Jesus and, 63;
Jesus and—Gethsemane, 303

Saul, 43, 116

Savonarola, 20

Scarlet cloak, 346

Scourging, 343, 344

Scribes, 242, 253;
condemnation in the Temple, 255

Second birth, 73, 187, 188

Second coming, 259, 262, 267;
date, 273;
imminence, 274

Second covenant, 41

Secret name, 234

Secretiveness, 149

Self-justification, Socrates and Jesus, 320

Self-love, 111, 125, 126

Self-preservation, 110

Sell all, 197

Selling Jesus, 286

Seneca, 119

Sepulcher, Jesus and, 378

Sepulchers, 257

Sermon on the Mount, 85, 94, 186

Sermon on the Mount, second, 259

Sermons, 17

Servant of all, 109

Service, 185

Sheba, Queen of, 44

Sheep, lost, 170

Sheep and goats, 260, 263

Shepherds, 23, 79

Sickness, 134

Signs, 131

Simon of Cyrene, 353, 355

Simon Magus, 267

Simon Peter, 82, 148, 180;
confession of Christ, 236;
contradictory acts, 311, 312;
denial, 315;
primacy and martyrdom granted to, 403, 405;
at the sepulcher, 383;
sinning woman and, 229

Simplicity, 110, 178, 219

Sin, 101, 126;
against the spirit, 255;
forgiveness of, 231;
he that is without sin, 223;
in Jesus’ life, 58;
parables of, 170;
sacrifice of the innocent for, 279

Sinlessness of Jesus, 58

Sinners, 175;
converted, 59

Skull, Hill of the, 357, 359, 371

Sleep, 181;
infant Jesus and, 30;
of the three disciples on the Mount of Olives, 306, 310

Smiths, 78

Snow and sun, 238

Socrates, 320;
on enemies, 118

Solitude, 61;
of Jesus, 307

Solomon, 44

Son of David, 246

Son of God, 236, 238;
question put to Jesus, 321

Son of Man, 236, 238, 262, 263, 273, 274

Sons, 160;
fathers and, 213

Sons of Thunder, 183

Sonship, 37

Soul, losing, 196

Sower, parable of, 158

Spinoza, 185

Spirit, 62, 196, 406;
sin against, 255;
victory over the flesh, 308

Spitting on Jesus, 324

Sponge soaked in vinegar, 373

Stable, 21

Stephen, 268

Steward, 160, 174

Stoics, 198

Stones, crying out, 247;
disciples compared to, 266;
not one upon another, 258

Suffering, 134

Sun and snow, 238

Sunday, 380

Superiority, 185

Supper, last, 288

Swearing, 102

Sweat of Jesus, 306

Swine-herds, 164

Sword, fire and, 205, 208;
not peace but a sword, 206

Talents, parable of, 159

Talitha qumi, 138

Tares and wheat, 175

Teachers of Jesus, 34

Teaching of Jesus, at Capernaum, 77;
earliest, 71, 74

Tebutis, 268

Temple, 45;
description, 247;
destruction, 272;
destruction foretold, 258, 261;
Jesus’ entry and purpose, 248;
Jesus lost and found in, 33;
place of business in Jewish life, 275;
ramification, 250;
veil, 374

Temptations of Jesus, 64, 303

Ten Commandments, 43

Theology, 12, 25

Theudas, 267

Thief on the cross, penitent, 363

Thieves, two, 352, 356, 363

Third Covenant, 42

Thirst of Jesus on the cross, 373

Thomas, 133, 185;
doubts, 392

Thomas Aquinas, 185

Thorns, 346

Tiberius, 326, 331

Time, fullness of, 71

Titus, 272

Too late, 155, 156

Transfiguration, 182, 183, 239, 241

Transformation of soul, 73, 74, 95, 97, 108, 189

Truth, 15;
sin against, 255;
what is truth?, 329, 332

Turning the other cheek, 105, 106

Twelve, the, 176. _See also_ Disciples

Ulysses, 118

Vaddhamana, 198

Vagabondage of Jesus, 76

Vanity, 109, 177

Veil of the temple, 374

Vespasian, 272

Vinegar, 373

Vineyard, laborers in, 155

Violence, 205, 208;
possible ways of meeting, 105;
solving the problem, 107

Vipers, 252, 256

Virgil, 26, 27

Virgin Mother, 13, 222, 371, 378, 379

Virgins, wise and foolish, 156

Walking on the water, 182

Wandering Jew, 76

War, 91, 122, 206, 209;
wars and rumors of wars, 269

Warnings, 260

Washing of the feet, 292

Washing of the hands, 346, 349

Watch and pray, 307

Water, blood and, from body of Jesus, 375;
of truth, 192;
turned into wine, 143;
walking on, 182

Wealth, 124, 174, 194;
ancient feeling toward, 199

Weddings, 141

What I have written, 351

Wheat and tares, 175

White cloak, 335, 337, 344

Whited sepulchers, 257

Who am I?, 233

Will of God, 309

Wind and sea obedient, 147

Wine, 143, 295, 301;
as the blood of Christ, 299;
mixture offered Jesus on the cross, 358

Wise men, 24

Witnesses, false, 319

Women, Jesus and, 219;
with Jesus on Golgotha, 371;
old law and, 222;
Roman, 334;
at the sepulcher, 380;
woman who was a sinner, 224

Woodworker, 34

Work, 35

Writing on the sand, 223

Ye have heard, 98

Yeast, 151

Zarathushtra, 5, 114

Zealots, 268, 271, 272, 341

Zebedee’s sons, 83

Zeus, 120, 121

THE EUROPEAN LIBRARY
Edited by J. E. SPINGARN

This series is intended to keep Americans in touch with the intellectual and spiritual ferment of the continent of Europe to-day, by means of translations that partake in some measure of the vigor and charm of the originals. No attempt will be made to give what Americans miscall “the best books,” if by this is meant conformity to some high and illusory standard of past greatness; any twentieth-century book which displays creative power or a new outlook or more than ordinary interest will be eligible for inclusion. Nor will the attempt be made to select books that merely confirm American standards of taste or morals, since the series is intended to serve as a mirror of European culture and not as a glass through which it may be seen darkly. All forms of literature will be represented, and special attention will be paid to authors whose works have not hitherto been accessible in English.

“The first organized effort to bring into English a series of the
really significant figures in contemporary European literature....
An undertaking as creditable and as ambitious as any of its kind on
the other side of the Atlantic.”—_New York Evening Post._

THE WORLD’S ILLUSION. By JACOB WASSERMANN. Translated by Ludwig
Lewisohn. Two volumes.

One of the most remarkable creative works of our time, revolving about the experiences of a man who sums up the wealth and culture of our age yet finds them wanting.

PEOPLE. By PIERRE HAMP. Translated by James Whitall. With
Introduction by Elizabeth Shepley Sergeant.

Introducing one of the most significant writers of France, himself a working man, in whom is incarnated the new self-consciousness of the worker’s world.

DECADENCE, AND OTHER ESSAYS ON THE CULTURE OF IDEAS. By REMY DE
GOURMONT. Translated by William Aspenwall Bradley.

An introduction to Gourmont’s theory of the “disassociation of ideas,” which has been called “the most fruitful and provocative theory since Nietzsche.”

HISTORY: ITS THEORY AND PRACTICE. By BENEDETTO CROCE. Translated by
Douglas Ainslie.

A new interpretation of the meaning of history, and a survey of the great historians, by one of the leaders of European thought.

THE NEW SOCIETY. By WALTER RATHENAU. Translated by Arthur Windham.

One of Germany’s most influential thinkers and men of action presents his vision of the new society emerging out of the War.

THE REFORM OF EDUCATION. By GIOVANNI GENTILE. With an Introduction
by Benedetto Croce. Translated by Dino Bigongiari.

An introduction to the philosophy of a great contemporary thinker who has an extraordinary influence on Italian life to-day.

THE REIGN OF THE EVIL ONE. By C. F. RAMUZ. Translated by James
Whitall. With an Introduction by Ernest Boyd.

“A rural fantasia comparable to Synge’s ‘Playboy,’” introducing an interesting French-Swiss novelist.

THE GOOSE MAN. By JACOB WASSERMANN, author of “The World’s
Illusion.” Translated by Allen W. Porterfield.

A novel which raises the question whether genius can ignore the common rules of humanity without self-destruction.

RUBÈ. By G. A. BORGESE. Translated by Isaac Goldberg.

A novel which has had a sensational success in Italy, centering on the spiritual collapse since the War.

THE PATRIOTEER. By HEINRICH MANN. Translated by Ernest Boyd.

A German “Main Street,” describing the career of a typical product of militarism, in school, university, business, and love.

MODERN RUSSIAN POETRY: AN ANTHOLOGY. Translated by Babette Deutsch
and A. Yarmolinsky.

Covers the whole field of Russian verse since Pushkin, with the emphasis on contemporary poets.

LIFE OF CHRIST. By GIOVANNI PAPINI. Translated by Dorothy Canfield
Fisher.

The first biography of Christ by a great man of letters since Renan’s.

CONTEMPORARY GERMAN POETRY: AN ANTHOLOGY. Translated by Babette
Deutsch and A. Yarmolinsky. _In preparation._

Covers the whole field of twentieth century poetry in Germany down to the latest “expressionists.”

SONATAS. By RAMÒN DEL VALLE-INCLÀN. _In preparation._

A romance by the most finished artist of modern Spain.

OTHER BOOKS ON FOREIGN LITERATURE BY THE SAME PUBLISHERS

BENEDETTO CROCE: AN INTRODUCTION TO HIS PHILOSOPHY. By RAFFAELLO
PICCOLI.

The first adequate account of Croce’s life and thought.

A GUIDE TO RUSSIAN LITERATURE. By M. J. OLGIN.

A popular handbook describing the life and works of some sixty Russian authors.

HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY

Publishers New York

● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).