In respect to the brothers of Jesus, the question is more obscure. Jesus had brothers and sisters.[3.12] It seems probable, nevertheless, that in the class of persons who were termed “brothers of the Lord,” were comprehended kinsmen of the second degree. It is only in connexion with James that the inquiry possesses any consequence. Was this James the Just, or “brother of the Lord,” whom we are about to regard as playing a grand part during the first thirty years of Christianity—was he James the son of Alphæus, who appears to have been a cousin-german of Jesus, or was he a real brother of Jesus? The data, in this respect, are altogether uncertain and contradictory. What we know of this James gives us an idea of a character so far removed from that of Jesus that one can hardly believe that two men so different could be born of the same mother. If Jesus is the true founder of Christianity, James was its most dangerous enemy; he almost ruined it through his narrow mind. Later, it was certainly believed that James the Just was a real brother of Jesus.[3.13] But perhaps some confusion has always surrounded this subject. However that may be, henceforth the apostles only separated to undertake temporary journeys. Jerusalem became their centre,[3.14] they seem to be afraid to disperse, and certain traits appear to manifest amongst them a determination to prevent a return into Galilee, which would have dissolved their little society. They expected an express order from Jesus, forbidding them to quit Jerusalem, at least until the grand manifestation which awaited them.[3.15] The apparitions became more and more infrequent. They spoke of them far less often, and they began to think that they should no more see the Master until his solemn return in the clouds. Their imaginations were forcibly impressed by a promise which they supposed that Jesus had made. During His lifetime, they said Jesus had frequently spoken of the Holy Spirit, conceived as a personification of divine wisdom.[3.16] He had promised His disciples that this Spirit should be their strength in the battles which they would have to fight, their inspiration in difficulties, their advocate if they were called upon to speak in public. When these visions became rare, they relied on this Spirit, viewed as a Comforter, as another self whom Jesus would doubtless send to his friends. Sometimes they fancied that Jesus, displaying himself suddenly in the midst of his assembled disciples, had breathed upon them from His own mouth a current of vivifying air.[3.17] On other occasions, the disappearance of Jesus was regarded as the condition of the coming of the Spirit.[3.18] They thought that in these apparitions he had promised the descent of this Spirit.[3.19] Many set up an intimate connexion between this descent and the restoration of the kingdom of Israel.[3.20] All the activity of imagination which the sect had displayed in the creation of the legend of Jesus resuscitated, it now began to apply to the creation of a similar pious belief respecting the descent of the Spirit and His marvellous gifts.
It seems, meanwhile, that a grand apparition of Jesus had again taken place at Bethany, or on the Mount of Olives.[3.21] Certain traditions referred to that vision the final recommendations, the reiterated promise of the sending of the Holy Spirit, and the act by which He invested His disciples with power to remit sins.[3.22] The characteristic features of these apparitions became more and more vague; one was confounded with another, and the result was, that they ceased to think much about them.[3.23] It was a received fact that Jesus was alive, that he had manifested himself by a number of apparitions sufficient to prove His existence, and that he would continue still to manifest Himself in partial visions, until the grand final revelation when everything would be consumed.[3.24] Thus St. Paul represents the vision which he saw on the route from Damascus as being of the same order as those which have been related.[3.25] At any rate, it was admitted that in an ideal sense the Master was with his disciples and would be with them even to the end.[3.26] In the early days, the apparitions were very frequent; Jesus was imagined as dwelling upon the earth constantly, and more or less fulfilling the functions of an earthly life. When the visions became rare, they inclined to another conception, representing Jesus as having entered into His glory and seated at the right hand of His Father.
“He is ascended into heaven,” they said.
This saying, though depending for the most part upon the state of vague idea in which they indulged, or on a process of induction,[3.27] was by many converted into a material scene. It was desirable that at the close of the last vision which was common to all the apostles, and when he delivered to them His last commands, Jesus should be taken up into heaven.[3.28] Afterwards, the scene was developed, and became a complete legend. They related that men of heavenly appearance, surrounded by the most appalling brilliancy,[3.29] appeared at the moment when a cloud surrounded Him, and consoled His disciples by the assurance of His return in the clouds precisely similar to the scene which they had just witnessed. The death of Moses had been invested by the popular ideas with circumstances of the same sort.[3.30] Perhaps also they bethought them of the ascension of Elijah.[3.31] A tradition[3.32] placed the locality of this scene near Bethany, on the summit of the Mount of Olives, a neighborhood always very dear to the disciples, doubtless because Jesus had dwelt there.
The legend relates that the disciples, after this marvellous scene, returned to Jerusalem “with joy.”[3.33] For our own part, it is with sorrow that we say a last farewell to Jesus. To find Him again still living his shadowy life, has been to us a great consolation. This second life of Jesus, a pale image of the first, is yet full of charms for us. Now all trace of Him is lost. Exalted on His cloud at the right hand of His Father, He leaves us with men; and, heavens! how great is the fall! The reign of poetry is past; Mary of Magdala retired to her hamlet-home, has there buried her recollections of him. In consequence of this never-ending injustice which permits man to appropriate to himself alone the work in which woman has taken an equal share, Cephas eclipses her and sends her to oblivion. No more sermons on the Mount; no more of the possessed ones cured; no more courtezans convinced of sin; no more of those wonderful fellow-laborers in the work of Redemption, whom Jesus had not repulsed. God truly has disappeared. The history of the Church will henceforth be oftener the history of treacheries than subservient to the idea of Jesus. But, such as it is, this history is still a hymn to his glory. The words and the image of the illustrious Nazarene will stand out in the midst of infinite miseries, as a sublime ideal—we shall the better understand how grand He was, when we shall see how paltry were His disciples.
CHAPTER IV.
DESCENT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT; ECSTATICAL AND PROPHETICAL PHENOMENA.
Mean, narrow, ignorant, inexperienced they were, as much as was possible for them to be. Their simplicity of mind was extreme; their credulity had no bounds. But they had one quality; they loved their Master to madness. The remembrance of Jesus, the only moving power of their life, had possessed them constantly and entirely; and it was clear that they existed only on account of Him who, during two or three years, had so completely attached and seduced them to Himself. The safety of minds of a secondary class, who are unable to love God directly—that is, to discover the truth, create the beautiful, and do what is right of themselves—is the loving of some one in whom there shines forth a reflection of the true, the beautiful, and the good. The majority of mankind require a graduated worship. The multitude of worshippers pant for a mediator between themselves and God.
When an individual has succeeded in gathering around his person, by a highly elevated moral tie, a number of other individuals, and then dies, it invariably happens that the survivors, who were perhaps up to that time often divided amongst themselves by rivalries and differences of opinion, become bound together by a mutual and fast friendship. A thousand cherished images of the past, which they regret, form a common treasure to them. One way of loving a dead person is to love those with whom we have known him to associate. We court their society that we may recall to our minds the times which are no more. A profound saying of Jesus[4.1] is then discovered to be true to the letter: “The dead one is present in the midst of those who are united again by his memory.”