[Footnote 7: Sabiens is the Aramean equivalent of the word
"Baptists." Mogtasila has the same meaning in Arabic.]
CHAPTER XIII.
FIRST ATTEMPTS ON JERUSALEM.
Jesus, almost every year, went to Jerusalem for the feast of the passover. The details of these journeys are little known, for the synoptics do not speak of them,[1] and the notes of the fourth Gospel are very confused on this point.[2] It was, it appears, in the year 31, and certainly after the death of John, that the most important of the visits of Jesus to Jerusalem took place. Many of the disciples followed him. Although Jesus attached from that time little value to the pilgrimage, he conformed himself to it in order not to wound Jewish opinion, with which he had not yet broken. These journeys, moreover, were essential to his design; for he felt already that in order to play a leading part, he must go from Galilee, and attack Judaism in its stronghold, which was Jerusalem.
[Footnote 1: They, however, imply them obscurely (Matt. xxiii. 37; Luke xiii. 34). They knew as well as John the relation of Jesus with Joseph of Arimathea. Luke even (x. 38-42) knew the family of Bethany. Luke (ix. 51-54) has a vague idea of the system of the fourth Gospel respecting the journeys of Jesus. Many discourses against the Pharisees and the Sadducees, said by the synoptics to have been delivered in Galilee, have scarcely any meaning, except as having been given at Jerusalem. And again, the lapse of eight days is much too short to explain all that happened between the arrival of Jesus in that city and his death.]
[Footnote 2: Two pilgrimages are clearly indicated (John ii. 13, and v. 1), without speaking of his last journey (vii. 10), after which Jesus returned no more to Galilee. The first took place while John was still baptizing. It would belong consequently to the Easter of the year 29. But the circumstances given as belonging to this journey are of a more advanced period. (Comp. especially John ii. 14, and following, and Matt. xxi. 12, 13; Mark xi. 15-17; Luke xix. 45, 46.) There are evidently transpositions of dates in these chapters of John, or rather he has mixed the circumstances of different journeys.]
The little Galilean community were here far from being at home. Jerusalem was then nearly what it is to-day, a city of pedantry, acrimony, disputes, hatreds, and littleness of mind. Its fanaticism was extreme, and religious seditions very frequent. The Pharisees were dominant; the study of the Law, pushed to the most insignificant minutiæ, and reduced to questions of casuistry, was the only study. This exclusively theological and canonical culture contributed in no respect to refine the intellect. It was something analogous to the barren doctrine of the Mussulman fakir, to that empty science discussed round about the mosques, and which is a great expenditure of time and useless argumentation, by no means calculated to advance the right discipline of the mind. The theological education of the modern clergy, although very dry, gives us no idea of this, for the Renaissance has introduced into all our teachings, even the most irregular, a share of belles lettres and of method, which has infused more or less of the humanities into scholasticism. The science of the Jewish doctor, of the sofer or scribe, was purely barbarous, unmitigatedly absurd, and denuded of all moral element.[1] To crown the evil, it filled with ridiculous pride those who had wearied themselves in acquiring it. The Jewish scribe, proud of the pretended knowledge which had cost him so much trouble, had the same contempt for Greek culture which the learned Mussulman of our time has for European civilization, and which the old catholic theologian had for the knowledge of men of the world. The tendency of this scholastic culture was to close the mind to all that was refined, to create esteem only for those difficult triflings on which they had wasted their lives, and which were regarded as the natural occupation of persons professing a degree of seriousness.[2]
[Footnote 1: We may judge of it by the Talmud, the echo of the Jewish scholasticism of that time.]
[Footnote 2: Jos., Ant., XX. xi. 2.]
This odious society could not fail to weigh heavily on the tender and susceptible minds of the north. The contempt of the Hierosolymites for the Galileans rendered the separation still more complete. In the beautiful temple which was the object of all their desires, they often only met with insult. A verse of the pilgrim's psalm,[1] "I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God," seemed made expressly for them. A contemptuous priesthood laughed at their simple devotion, as formerly in Italy the clergy, familiarized with the sanctuaries, witnessed coldly and almost jestingly the fervor of the pilgrim come from afar. The Galileans spoke a rather corrupt dialect; their pronunciation was vicious; they confounded the different aspirations of letters, which led to mistakes which were much laughed at.[2] In religion, they were considered as ignorant and somewhat heterodox;[3] the expression, "foolish Galileans," had become proverbial.[4] It was believed (not without reason) that they were not of pure Jewish blood, and no one expected Galilee to produce a prophet.[5] Placed thus on the confines of Judaism, and almost outside of it, the poor Galileans had only one badly interpreted passage in Isaiah to build their hopes upon.[6] "Land of Zebulon, and land of Naphtali, way of the sea, Galilee of the nations! The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined." The reputation of the native city of Jesus was particularly bad. It was a popular proverb, "Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?"[7]