[Footnote 3: Talmud of Babylon, Baba Kama, 113 a; Shabbath, 33 b.]
[Footnote 4: Jos., Ant., XVIII. i. 1 and 6; B.J., II. viii. 1; Acts v. 37. Previous to Judas the Gaulonite, the Acts place another agitator, Theudas; but this is an anachronism, the movement of Theudas took place in the year 44 of the Christian era (Jos., Ant., XX. v. 1).]
[Footnote 5: Jos., B.J., II. xvii. 8, and following.]
Galilee was thus an immense furnace wherein the most diverse elements were seething.[1] An extraordinary contempt of life, or, more properly speaking, a kind of longing for death,[2] was the consequence of these agitations. Experience counts for nothing in these great fanatical movements. Algeria, at the commencement of the French occupation, saw arise, each spring, inspired men, who declared themselves invulnerable, and sent by God to drive away the infidels; the following year their death was forgotten, and their successors found no less credence. The Roman power, very stern on the one hand, yet little disposed to meddle, permitted a good deal of liberty. Those great, brutal despotisms, terrible in repression, were not so suspicious as powers which have a faith to defend. They allowed everything up to the point when they thought it necessary to be severe. It is not recorded that Jesus was even once interfered with by the civil power, in his wandering career. Such freedom, and, above all, the happiness which Galilee enjoyed in being much less confined in the bonds of Pharisaic pedantry, gave to this district a real superiority over Jerusalem. The revolution, or, in other words, the belief in the Messiah, caused here a general fermentation. Men deemed themselves on the eve of the great renovation; the Scriptures, tortured into divers meanings, fostered the most colossal hopes. In each line of the simple writings of the Old Testament they saw the assurance, and, in a manner, the programme of the future reign, which was to bring peace to the righteous, and to seal forever the work of God.
[Footnote 1: Luke xiii. 1. The Galilean movement of Judas, son of Hezekiah, does not appear to have been of a religious character; perhaps, however, its character has been misrepresented by Josephus (Ant., XVII. x. 5).]
[Footnote 2: Jos., Ant., XVI. vi. 2, 3; XVIII. i. 1.]
From all time, this division into two parties, opposed in interest and spirit, had been for the Hebrew nation a principle which contributed to their moral growth. Every nation called to high destinies ought to be a little world in itself, including opposite poles. Greece presented, at a few leagues' distance from each other, Sparta and Athens—to a superficial observer, the two antipodes; but, in reality, rival sisters, necessary to one another. It was the same with Judea. Less brilliant in one sense than the development of Jerusalem, that of the North was on the whole much more fertile; the greatest achievements of the Jewish people have always proceeded thence. A complete absence of the love of Nature, bordering upon something dry, narrow, and ferocious, has stamped all the works purely Hierosolymite with a degree of grandeur, though sad, arid, and repulsive. With its solemn doctors, its insipid canonists, its hypocritical and atrabilious devotees, Jerusalem has not conquered humanity. The North has given to the world the simple Shunammite, the humble Canaanite, the impassioned Magdalene, the good foster-father Joseph, and the Virgin Mary. The North alone has made Christianity; Jerusalem, on the contrary, is the true home of that obstinate Judaism which, founded by the Pharisees, and fixed by the Talmud, has traversed the Middle Ages, and come down to us.
A beautiful external nature tended to produce a much less austere spirit—a spirit less sharply monotheistic, if I may use the expression, which imprinted a charming and idyllic character on all the dreams of Galilee. The saddest country in the world is perhaps the region round about Jerusalem. Galilee, on the contrary, was a very green, shady, smiling district, the true home of the Song of Songs, and the songs of the well-beloved.[1] During the two months of March and April, the country forms a carpet of flowers of an incomparable variety of colors. The animals are small, and extremely gentle—delicate and lively turtle-doves, blue-birds so light that they rest on a blade of grass without bending it, crested larks which venture almost under the feet of the traveller, little river tortoises with mild and lively eyes, storks with grave and modest mien, which, laying aside all timidity, allow man to come quite near them, and seem almost to invite his approach. In no country in the world do the mountains spread themselves out with more harmony, or inspire higher thoughts. Jesus seems to have had a peculiar love for them. The most important acts of his divine career took place upon the mountains. It was there that he was the most inspired;[2] it was there that he held secret communion with the ancient prophets; and it was there that his disciples witnessed his transfiguration.[3]
[Footnote 1: Jos., B.J., III. iii. 1. The horrible state to which the country is reduced, especially near Lake Tiberias, ought not to deceive us. These countries, now scorched, were formerly terrestrial paradises. The baths of Tiberias, which are now a frightful abode, were formerly the most beautiful places in Galilee (Jos., Ant., XVIII. ii. 3.) Josephus (Bell. Jud., III. x. 8) extols the beautiful trees of the plain of Gennesareth, where there is no longer a single one. Anthony the Martyr, about the year 600, consequently fifty years before the Mussulman invasion, still found Galilee covered with delightful plantations, and compares its fertility to that of Egypt (Itin., § 5).]
[Footnote 2: Matt. v. 1, xiv. 23; Luke vi. 12.]