Life of Christ

by Giovanni Papini

Jesus therefore went on talking to the people who had filled the house. He repeated the most touching figures of His inspiration, told the most persuasive stories of the Kingdom, looked at them with those luminous eyes which shone down into the soul as the morning sun penetrates the shut-in darkness of a house.

Any one of us would give what remains of his life to be looked at by those eyes, to gaze for a moment into those eyes shining with infinite tenderness; to listen for a moment only to that thrilling voice, changing the Semitic vernacular into melodious music. Those men and women who are now dead, those poor men, those poor women, those wretched people who to-day are dust in the air of the desert, or clay under the hoofs of the camels, those men and those women whom in their lifetime no one envied, and whom we the living are forced to envy after their remote and obscure death; those men and those women heard that voice, saw those eyes.

But there came a stir and voices were heard at the door of the house: some one wished to come in. One of those present told Jesus, “Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee.” But Jesus did not stir, “Who is my mother or my brethren?” And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, “Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother.”

My family is all here and I have no other family. The ties of blood do not count unless they are confirmed in the spirit. My father is the Father who made me like unto Him in the perfection of righteousness; my brothers are the poor who weep; my sisters are the women who have left their loves for Love. He did not mean with these words to deny the Virgin of Sorrows, of whose womb He was the fruit; He meant to say that from the day of His voluntary exile He belonged no more to the little family of Nazareth, but only to His mission as Saviour, to the great family of mankind.

In the new organization of salvation, spiritual affiliations surpass the simple relationships of the flesh. “If any come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” Individual love must disappear in universal love. We must choose between the old affections of the old mankind and the unique love of the New Man.

The family will disappear when men, in the celestial life, shall be better than men. In the world as it is, the family is an impediment for him who helps others to rise to higher things. “And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father which is in heaven.” He who leaves his family shall be infinitely rewarded. “And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children for the kingdom of God’s sake, Who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting.”

Your Heavenly Father will never forsake you, your brothers in the Kingdom will never betray you; but the fathers and the brothers of earthly life might become your assassins. “And ye shall be betrayed both by parents and brethren and kinsfolks and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death.”

And yet fathers at least should be faithful, because, according to Jesus, fathers have more duties toward their sons than sons toward their fathers. The Old Law recognizes only the first. “Honor thy father and thy mother,” said Moses. But he does not add, “Protect and love thy children.” Children seemed to Moses to be the property of those who had begotten them. Life in those times seemed so fair and precious that children were always thought to be in debt to their parents. They were to remain servants forever, everlastingly submissive. They should live only for old age, by the orders of old age.

Here also the divine genius of the Overthrower sees what is lacking in the old ideals and insists upon righting the balance. Fathers should give without sparing and without rest; even if the children are ungrateful, even if they abandon their father, even if they are unworthy in the eyes of the platitudinous sagacity of the world. The Paternoster is a prayer of sons to a Father. It is the prayer which every child might address to his father. He asks for daily bread; the remission of sins, pardon for his failings, and daily protection against evil.

And yet fathers, even when they give everything, are sometimes forsaken. If their sons leave them to throw themselves into evil ways, they must be forgiven as soon as they come back, as the Prodigal Son in the parable was forgiven. If they leave their fathers to seek out a higher and more perfect life—like those who are converted to the Kingdom—they will be rewarded a thousand times in this life and the next.