Confucius was above all a practical moralist, skilled in observation, counsel, and discipline; Buddha Càkya-Mouni, a dreamer, and a mystical and popular preacher; Zoroaster, a legislator, religious and political; Pythagoras and Socrates, philosophers, bent upon instructing the distinguished bands of disciples whom they gathered around them. There is no doubt, notwithstanding the trials of their life, that neither power nor glory amongst their contemporaries was wanting to them. Confucius and Zoroaster were the favourites and counsellors of kings. Buddha Càkya-Mouni, himself the son of a king, became the idol of innumerable multitudes. Pythagoras and Socrates formed schools and pupils who were an honour to the human mind. By their personal genius and by the excellence of some of their ideas and actions, these men have ensured themselves the admiration of all posterity. Did they act up to their teachings, and accomplish what they attempted? Did they really change the moral and social condition of nations? Did they cause humanity to make any great progress, and open to it horizons which it had not before known? By no means. Whatever fame attaches to the names of these men, whatever influence they may have exerted, what ever trace of their passage may have remained, they rather appeared to have power than really to possess it; they agitated the surface far more than they stirred the depths; they did not draw nations out of the beaten tracks in which they had lived. They did not transform souls. In considering the facts at large, and notwithstanding the political and material revolutions which they underwent, China after Confucius, India after Buddha, Persia after Zoroaster, Greece after Pythagoras and Socrates, followed in the same ways, retained the same propensities, as before. Still more, among these very different nations, stagnation was only be succeeded by decay. Where are these nations at the present day, more than two thousand years after the appearance of these glorious characters in their history? What great progress, what salutary changes, have been effected? What are they in comparison and in contact with Christian nations? Outside of Christianity there have been grand spectacles of activity and force, brilliant phenomena of genius and virtue, generous attempts at reform, learned philosophical systems, and beautiful mythological poems; no real profound or fruitful regeneration of humanity and of society.
A few ages only after these barren efforts among the great nations of the world, Jesus Christ appears among a small, obscure people, weak and despised. He Himself is weak and despised in the midst of his people; He neither possesses nor seeks any social power, any temporal means of action and of success; He collects around Him only disciples weak and despised as Himself. Not only are they weak and despised, they proclaim it themselves, and, far from being troubled at this, they glory in it, and derive from it confidence. St. Paul writes to the Corinthians: "And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling. … Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong." [Footnote 6]
[Footnote 6: 1 Corinthians ii. 13; 2 Corinthians xii. 10.]
And in truth, Jesus Christ, the Master of St. Paul, is strong in his sufferings, and imparts his strength to his disciples; from his cross, He accomplishes what erewhile, in Asia and Europe, princes and philosophers, the powerful of the earth, and sages, attempted without success; He changes the moral state and the social state of the world; He pours into the souls of men new enlightenment and new powers; for all classes, for all human conditions, He prepares destinies before his advent unknown; He liberates them at the same time that He lays down rules for their guidance; He quickens them and stills them; He places the divine law and human liberty face to face, and yet still in harmony; He offers an effectual remedy for the evil which weighs upon humanity; to sin He opens the path of salvation, to unhappiness the door of hope.
Whence comes this power? What are its source and its nature? How did those who were its witnesses and instruments think and speak of it at the moment when it was manifested?
They all, unanimously, saw in Jesus Christ, God; most of them, from the first moment, suddenly moved and enlightened by his presence and his words; some, with rather more surprise and hesitation, but soon penetrated and convinced in their turn. "When Jesus came into the coasts of Cæsarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist; some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." [Footnote 7] Another day, meeting with a similar instance of doubt, Jesus says to Thomas, "If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father." [Footnote 8]
[Footnote 7: Matthew xvi. 13-17.]
[Footnote 8: John, xiv. 7-9.]
It has been remarked, that there are certain variations in the language of the Apostles, and certain shades of difference in their leading impressions; and this is indeed true: they call Jesus Christ at one time the Son of God, at another the Son of Man; they regard Him and represent Him now under his divine aspect, at another under his human aspect; they do not present exactly the same image of Him; they do not all equally dwell upon the same traits of his nature, or the same facts of his earthly life. St. Matthew is more a narrator and moralist; it is he who relates with fuller details the birth and childhood of Jesus Christ, and who gives at the greatest length the Sermon on the Mount. St. John is more in the habit of contemplating and depicting the divine nature of Jesus Christ and his relation to God: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. … No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." [Footnote 9]
[Footnote 9: John, i. 1, 14, 18.]