Ecce Homo! Or, A Critical Inquiry into the History of Jesus of Nazareth / Being a Rational Analysis of the Gospels

by baron d' Paul Henri Thiry Holbach

Jesus had associated with him a confident, then called Simon, and afterwards Cephas or Peter, who had been the disciple of John. Scarcely had Simon taken his arrangements with the messiah, when he drew over his brother Andrew to the new sect. These two brothers were fishermen. We readily presume that Jesus would not choose his followers among the grandees of the country.

The progress of John Baptist, and the attachment of the people to him, alarmed the priests; they complained loudly, and John was arrested by order of the tetrarch Herod, who, according to Matthew, caused him to be beheaded to please Herodias his sister-in-law. Yet we do not find the historians of this prince reproaching him with the punishment of the forerunner. After John's death, his disciples attached themselves to Jesus, whose coming John had announced, and who, in his turn, had rendered in behalf of John the most public testimonies in presence of the people: for Jesus had openly declared, that John was "greater than a prophet, and greater than an angel, and that he was not born of woman who was greater than him." Nevertheless, the messiah, dreading to be involved in the affair of his forerunner, left his two disciples at Jerusalem, and withdrew into the desert, where he continued forty days. It has been remarked, that during the imprisonment of John, Jesus did not think of delivering him; he performed no miracle in his behalf; after his death he spoke but little of him, and forebore pronouncing his eulogy. He was no longer in need of him, and, perhaps, he wished by this conduct to teach those who serve the views of the ambitious in a subordinate capacity, that they ought not to reckon too much on gratitude.

It would have been a bad exordium to assign fear as the motive of the messiah's retreat. We are told that he was carried up by the Spirit, which transported him to the desert. It was necessary that Jesus should surpass his forerunner. The latter had led a very austere life, his only nourishment being locust and wild honey; but the gospel affirms, that Jesus ate nothing at all during his retreat, and that on the last day, having felt himself hungry, angels came and ministered to him. The fasting of Jesus for forty days, is considered by his followers as a proof of his divinity. But this abstinence falls far short of that practised by a Talapoin at Siam, who, according to La Loubere, "lived satisfactorily without food for one hundred and seven days!"

To evince the importance of his mission, the prejudice which it was to occasion to the empire of the devil, and the infinite advantages which were to result from it to his followers, Jesus, on his return from the desert, pretended that Satan had tempted him; made the most flattering offers to engage him to desist from his enterprise; and proffered him the monarchy of the universe, if he would renounce his project of redeeming the human race. The refusal he gave to these propositions, evinced a supernatural desire to labor for the salvation of the world. Such as heard these details must have been filled with astonishment, penetrated with gratitude, and burning with zeal for the preacher. Of consequence, the number of his adherents increased.

John the Evangelist, or the person who has written, under his name, whose object appears to have been to establish the divinity of Jesus, has not mentioned his carrying away, abode in the desert, and temptation. These transactions must have been considered by him prejudicial to the doctrine he wished to introduce. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, relate the carrying away, and the temptations in a different manner, but calculated to show the power of Satan over the messiah. He transported him, no doubt in spite of himself, to the pinnacle of the temple; and by a miracle, made Jesus contemplate, from the summit of a mountain, all the kingdoms of the universe, without even excepting those whose inhabitants were antipodes of Judea. According to the gospels, the devil worked marvels, which far surpassed those of Jesus.

The absence of Jesus made him lose for a time, his two disciples Peter and Andrew. The necessity of providing for their subsistence, constrained them to resume their former trade. As their master durst not then reside in Jerusalem, he retired towards the banks of the sea of Galilee, where they joined him. "Follow me, (said he to them,) leave your nets; of catchers of fish I will make you fishers of men." He, probably, made them understand, that the arrangements he had made during his retirement, furnished him with the means of subsisting, without toil, by the credulity of the vulgar. The two brothers immediately followed him.

Whether Jesus had been expelled from Nazareth by his fellow citizens, or quitted it of his own accord, he fixed his residence at Capernaum, a maritime city, on the confines of the tribes of Zabulon and Naphtali. His mother, a widow, or separated from her husband, followed him: she could be useful to Jesus and the little troop of adherents who lived with him.

It was at this time that our hero, seconded by his disciples, opened his mission. His sermon, like that of the Baptist, consisted in saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. John, we have seen, commenced preaching in the fifteenth year of Tiberius. It was in the same year that his interview with Jesus took place, when he was baptized by John. Towards the end of this year John disappeared: after which Jesus was in the desert, whence he returned to reside with his mother in the city of Capernaum. There he remained a short time only on account of the approach of the festival of the passover, to celebrate which he repaired to Jerusalem. We may, therefore, fix the commencement of his preaching in the sixteenth year of Tiberius. He celebrated the passover three times before his death; and the common opinion is, that his preaching lasted three years, or until the nineteenth year of Tiberius.

The rumours excited by the baptism and preaching of John, and the testimonies he bore in behalf of Jesus, having died away on the imprisonment and death of the forerunner, and flight of the messiah, the latter resumed courage, and thought that, with the assistance of his disciples, he ought to make a new attempt. Too well known at Nazareth, and slighted by his relations, who, on all occasions, seemed to think but little of him, he quitted that ungrateful city to establish himself, as we have remarked, at Capernaum, in the sixteenth year of Tiberius. It was there that he commenced preaching his new system to some poor fishermen, and other low people. He soon found, however, that his mission was too circumscribed in that place: but to acquire some eclat, he judged it necessary to perform a miracle; that is, in the language of the Jews, some trick capable of exciting the wonder of the vulgar. An opportunity occurred for this: some inhabitants of Cana, a small village Of Galilee Superior, at the distance of about fifteen leagues from Capernaum, invited Jesus and his mother to a wedding. The married persons were poor, though John, who alone relates this story, gives them a steward; yet he tells us that their wine failed at the moment the guests were half intoxicated, or gay. On this Mary, who knew the power or the dexterity of her son, said to him: They have no wine. Jesus answered her very roughly, and in a manner which evidently denoted a man warmed with wine: Woman, what have I to do with thee? It may, however, be supposed, that Jesus had not totally lost the use of his reason, as he still possessed presence of mind to transmute water into wine, so that the miraculous wine was found better than the natural wine they had drank at the beginning.

This first miracle of Jesus was performed in presence of a great number of persons, already half intoxicated; but the text does not inform us, whether they were equally astonished the day following, when the fumes of the wine were dissipated. Perhaps this miracle was witnessed by the steward only, with whom Jesus had secret intelligence. The incredulous, less easily persuaded than the poor inebriated villagers, do not observe in this transmutation of water into wine, a motive for being convinced of the divine power of Jesus. They remark, that in the operation, he employed water in order to make his wine; a circumstance which may give room to suspect, that he made only a composition, of which be, like many others, might have the secret. There was in fact, no more power necessary to create wine, and fill the pitchers without putting water into them, than to make an actual transmutation or water into wine. At least, by acting in this manner, he would have removed the suspicion of having made only a mixture.