History of the Jews, Vol. 2 (of 6)

by Heinrich Graetz

His great design, the secret desire of his heart, Jesus disclosed on one occasion to the most intimate circle of his disciples. He led them to a retired spot at the foot of Mount Hermon, not far from Cæsarea Philippi, the capital of the Tetrarch Philip, where the Jordan rushes forth from mighty rocks, and in that remote solitude he revealed to them the hidden object of his thoughts. But he contrived his discourse in such a manner that it appeared to be his disciples who at last elicited from him the revelation that he considered himself the expected Messiah. He asked his followers, "Who do men say that I, the son of man, am?" Some replied that he was thought to be Elijah, the expected forerunner of the Messiah; others, again, that he was the prophet whose advent Moses had predicted; upon which Jesus asked them, "But whom say ye that I am?" Simon Peter answered and said, "Thou art the Christ." Jesus praised Peter's discernment and admitted that he was the Messiah, but forbade his disciples from divulging the truth, or, for the present, from speaking about it at all. Such was the mysteriously-veiled birth of Christianity. When, a few days later, the most trusted of his disciples, Simon Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, James and John, timidly suggested that Elijah must precede the Messiah, Jesus declared that Elijah had already appeared, though unrecognized, in the person of the Baptist. Had Jesus from the very commencement of his career nourished these thoughts in the depths of his soul, or had they first taken shape when the many followers he had gained seemed to make their realization possible? Jesus never publicly called himself the Messiah, but made use of other expressions which were doubtless current among the Essenes. He spoke of himself as "the son of man," alluding probably to Daniel vii. 13, "One like the son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days," a verse which referred probably to the whole people and its Messianic future, but which at that time was made to point to the Messiah himself. There was yet one other name which Jesus applied to himself in his Messianic character—the mysterious words "Son of God," probably taken from the seventh verse of the second Psalm, "The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee." Was this expression used by Jesus figuratively, or did he wish it to be taken in a literal sense? As far as we know, he never explained himself clearly on that subject, not even at a later date, when it was on account of the meaning attached to those words that he was undergoing his trial. His followers afterwards disagreed among themselves upon that matter, and the various ways in which they interpreted that ambiguous expression divided them into different sects, among which a new form of idolatry unfolded itself.

When Jesus made himself known as the Messiah to his disciples, enjoining secrecy, he consoled them for the present silence imposed on them by the assurance that a time would come, when "What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light, and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the house-tops." What occurred was doubtless contrary to what Jesus and his disciples expected, for as soon as it was known (the disciples having probably not kept the secret) that Jesus of Nazareth not only came to preach the Kingdom of Heaven, but was proclaimed as the expected Messiah, the public sentiment rose against him. Proofs and signs of his being the Messiah were asked, which he was not able to give, and he thus was forced to evade the questions addressed to him. Many of his followers seem to have been repelled by his assumption of the Messianic character, and so left him at once. "From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him" (John vi. 66). In order not to be discredited in the eyes of his disciples, it was essential that he should perform some miracle that would crown his work or seal it with his death. It was expected that he would now appear in Jerusalem before the whole nation in the character of the Messiah, and it is stated that his own brothers entreated of him to go there, so that his achievements might at last become visible to his disciples. "For there is no man that doeth anything in secret and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou do these things, show thyself to the world" (John vii. 4). Jesus thus found himself almost obliged to enter upon the path of danger. He was, moreover, no longer safe in Galilee, and appears to have been tracked and pursued from place to place by the servants of the Tetrarch Herod Antipas. It was at that time that Jesus said to one of his followers who clung to him in his distress, "The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head" (Matthew viii. 20). He wished to prevent any misconception as to his desire to alter the Law, and his reply to the Pharisee who asked what would be required of him if he became his disciple was, "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments, sell what thou hast and give to the poor." When he had passed Jericho and was approaching Jerusalem, Jesus took up his abode near the walls of the capital, in the village of Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, where the lepers who were obliged to avoid the city had their settlement. It was in the house of one of these that shelter was given him. The other disciples whom he found at Bethany belonged also to the lower orders. They were Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha. Only one resident of wealth and position in Jerusalem, Joseph of Arimathea, is said to have become a disciple of Jesus.

The entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem and his appearance in the Temple have been glorified by a halo of legends which contain but little historical truth. They show us Jesus accompanied in triumph by the people singing hosannas, the same people who a few days later were to demand his death. Both reports were inventions: the first was designed to prove that he was recognized as the Messiah by the people; the second, to throw the guilt of his execution upon all Israel. Equally unhistorical is the account of Jesus entering the Temple by force, throwing down the tables of the money-changers, and chasing away those who were selling doves. An act that must have given rise to intense excitement would not have been omitted from other chronicles of that period. It is not mentioned in any other writings of that time that the stalls of money-changers and dealers in doves had a place in the Temple.

It is just the most important facts of the life of Jesus—the account of the attitude he assumed at Jerusalem before the people, the Synhedrion and the different sects, the announcement of himself as the Messiah, and the manner in which that announcement was received—that are represented in such various ways in the chronicles that it is impossible to separate the historical kernel from its legendary exaggerations and embellishments. Prejudice certainly existed against him in the capital. The educated classes could not imagine the Messiah's saving work to be performed by an unlearned Galilæan; indeed, the idea that the Messiah, who was expected to come from Bethlehem, out of the branch of David, should belong to Galilee, overthrew the long-cherished conviction of centuries. It is probably from this time that the proverb arose: "Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?" (John i. 46). The devout took offense at his going about eating and drinking with sinners, publicans, and women of a degraded class. Even the Essenes, John's disciples, were displeased at his infringement of rules and customs. The Shammaites were scandalized at his healing the sick on the Sabbath day, and could not recognize the Messiah in one who desecrated the Sabbath. He also roused the opposition of the Pharisees by the disapproval he expressed here and there of their interpretations of the laws, and of the conclusions they drew from them. From Jesus the zealots could not look for deeds of heroism, for, instead of inspiring his followers with hatred of Rome, he advocated peace, and in his contempt for mammon admonished them to submit willingly to the Roman tax-gatherers. "Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's, and unto God the things which are God's" (Matt. xxii. 21). These startling peculiarities, which seemed to contradict the preconceived idea of the Messianic character, caused the higher and the learned classes to be coldly indifferent to him, and it is certain that he met with no friendly reception in Jerusalem. These various objections, however, to the mode of life and the tenets of Jesus afforded no ground for any legal accusation against him. Freedom of speech had, owing to the frequent debates in the schools of Shammai and Hillel, become so firmly established a right that no one could be attacked for expressing religious opinions, unless indeed he controverted any received dogma or rejected the conception of the Divinity peculiar to Judaism. It was just in this particular that Jesus laid himself open to accusation. The report had spread that he had called himself the Son of God—words which, if taken literally, wounded the religious feelings of the Judæan nation too deeply to allow him who had uttered them to pass unscathed. But how was it possible to ascertain the truth, to learn whether Jesus had really called himself the Son of God, and to know what meaning he attached to these words? How was it possible to discover what was the secret of his sect? To bring that to light it was necessary to seek a traitor among his immediate followers, and that traitor was found in Judas Iscariot, who, as it is related, incited by avarice, delivered up to the judges the man whom he had before honored as the Messiah. One Judæan account, derived from what appears a trustworthy source, seems to place in the true light the use made of this traitor. In order to be able to arraign Jesus either as a false prophet or a seducer of the people, the Law demanded that two witnesses had heard him utter the dangerous language of which he was accused, and Judas was consequently required to induce him to speak whilst two hidden witnesses might hear and report his words. According to the Christian writings, the treachery of Judas manifested itself in pointing out Jesus through the kiss of homage that he gave his master as he was standing among his disciples, surrounded by the people and the soldiers. No sooner had Jesus been seized by the latter than his disciples left him and sought safety in flight, Simon Peter alone following him at some distance. At dawn of day on the 14th of Nissan, the Feast of the Passover, that is to say, on the eve of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Jesus was led, not before the great Synhedrion, but before the smaller court of justice, composed of twenty-three members, over which the High Priest, Joseph Caiaphas, presided. The trial was to determine whether Jesus had really claimed to be, as the two witnesses testified, the Son of God; for one cannot believe that he was arraigned before that tribunal because he had boasted that it was in his power to destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days. Such a declaration, if really uttered by him, could not have been made a cause of complaint. The accusation doubtless pointed to the sin of blasphemy, and to the supposed affirmation of Jesus that he was the Son of God. Upon the question being put to him on that score, Jesus was silent and gave no answer. When the presiding judge, however, asked him again if he were the Son of God, he is said to have replied, "Thou hast said it," and to have added, "hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of Heaven." If these words were really spoken by Jesus, the judges could infer that he looked upon himself as the Son of God. The High Priest rent his garments at the impious assertion, and the court declared him guilty of blasphemy. From the account of the proceedings given by Christian authorities, there is no proof that, according to the existing penal laws, the judges had pronounced an unjust verdict. All appearances were against Jesus. The Synhedrion received the sanction of the death-warrant, or rather the permission to execute it, from the governor, Pontius Pilate, who was just then present for the festival at Jerusalem.

Pilate, before whom Jesus was brought, entering into the political side of the question, asked him if he declared himself to be not only the Messiah but the King of the Judæans, and as Jesus answered evasively, "Thou hast said it," he likewise decreed his execution, which he indeed alone had the power to enforce. That Pilate on the contrary found Jesus innocent and wished to save him, while the Judæans had determined upon putting him to death, is unhistorical and merely legendary. When Jesus was scoffed at and obliged to wear the crown of thorns in ironical allusion to the Messianic and royal dignity he had assumed, it was not the Judæans who inflicted those indignities upon him, but the Roman soldiers, who sought through him to deride the Judæan nation. Among the Judæans who had condemned him there was, on the contrary, so little of personal hatred that he was treated exactly like any other criminal, and was given the cup of wine and frankincense to render him insensible to the pains of death. That Jesus was scourged before his execution proves that he was treated according to the Roman penal laws; for by the Judæan code no one sentenced to death could suffer flagellation. It was consequently the Roman lictors who maliciously scourged with fagots or ropes the self-styled King of the Judæans. They also caused Jesus (by the order of Pilate) to be nailed to the cross, and to suffer the shameful death awarded by the law of Rome. For after the verdict of death was pronounced by the Roman authorities, the condemned prisoner belonged no more to his own nation, but to the Roman state. It was not the Synhedrion but Pilate that gave the order for the execution of one who was regarded as a State criminal and a cause of disturbance and agitation. The Christian authorities state that Jesus was nailed on the cross at nine o'clock in the morning, and that he expired at three o'clock in the afternoon. His last words were taken from a psalm, and spoken in the Aramaic tongue—"God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" (Eli, eli, lama shebaktani.) The Roman soldiers placed in mockery the following inscription upon the cross: "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Judæans." The cross had been erected and the body was probably buried outside the town, on a spot which was the graveyard of condemned criminals. It was called Golgotha, the place of skulls. Such was the end of the man who had devoted himself to the improvement of the most neglected, miserable, and abandoned members of his people, and who, perhaps, fell a victim to a misunderstanding. How great was the woe caused by that one execution! How many deaths and sufferings of every description has it not caused among the children of Israel! Millions of broken hearts and tragic fates have not yet atoned for his death. He is the only mortal of whom one can say without exaggeration that his death was more effective than his life. Golgotha, the place of skulls, became to the civilized world a new Sinai. Strange, that events fraught with so vast an import should have created so little stir at the time of their occurrence at Jerusalem, that the Judæan historians, Justus of Tiberias and Josephus, who relate, to the very smallest minutiae, everything which took place under Pilate, do not mention the life and death of Jesus.

When the disciples of Jesus had somewhat recovered from the panic which came upon them at the time he was seized and executed, they re-assembled to mourn together over the death of their beloved Master. The followers of Jesus then in Jerusalem did not amount to more than one hundred and twenty, and if all who believed in him in Galilee had been numbered, they would not have exceeded five hundred. Still, the effect that Jesus produced upon the unenlightened masses must have been very powerful; for their faith in him, far from fading away like a dream, became more and more intense, their adoration of Jesus rising to the highest pitch of enthusiasm. The only stumbling-block to their belief lay in the fact that the Messiah who came to deliver Israel and bring to light the glory of the kingdom of heaven, endured a shameful death. How could the Messiah be subject to pain? A suffering Messiah staggered them considerably, and this stumbling-block had to be overcome before a perfect and joyful belief could be reposed in him. It was at that moment probably that some writer relieved his own perplexities and quelled their doubts by referring to a prophecy in Isaiah, that "He will be taken from the land of the living, and will be wounded for the sins of his people." The humble, wavering disciples of Jesus were helped over their greatest difficulty by the Pharisees, who were in the habit of explaining the new or the marvelous by interpretations of Scripture. By this means they afforded indirectly a solution and support to Christianity, and thus belief was given to the most senseless and absurd doctrines, and the incredible was made to appear certain and necessary. Without some support, however feeble, from Holy Writ, nothing new would have been received or could have kept its ground. By its help everything that happened was shown to have been inevitable. Even that Jesus should have been executed as a malefactor appeared pregnant with meaning, as it fulfilled the literal prophecy concerning the Messiah. Was it not written that he should be judged among the evil-doers? His disciples declared they had heard Jesus say that he would be persecuted even unto death. Thus his sufferings and death were evident proofs that he was the Messiah. His followers examined his life, and found in every trivial circumstance a deeper Messianic significance; even the fact that he was not born in Bethlehem, but in Nazareth, appeared to be the fulfillment of a prophecy. Thus he might therefore be called a Nazarene (Nazarite?), and thus were his followers persuaded that Jesus, the Nazarene, was Christ (the Messiah). When the faithful were satisfied on that point, it was not difficult to answer the other question which naturally offered itself—When would the promised kingdom of heaven appear, since he who was to have brought it had died on the cross? Hope replied that the Messiah would return in all his glory, with the angels of heaven, and then every one would be rewarded according to his deeds. They believed that some then alive would not taste death until they had seen the Son of Man enter his kingdom. His disciples were hourly expecting the return of Jesus, and only differed from the Judæans in so far as they thought that the Messiah had already appeared in human form and character.

This kingdom was to last a thousand years: the Sabbath year of jubilee, after the six thousand years of the world, would be founded by Jesus when he returned to the earth, bringing the blessing of peace and perfect happiness to the faithful. This belief required the further conviction that Jesus had not fallen a prey to death, but that he would rise again. It may have been the biblical story of Jonah's entombment for three days in the bowels of a fish which gave rise to the legend that Jesus after the same interval came forth from his sepulcher, which was found to be empty. Many of his disciples declared they had seen him after his death, now in one place, now in another; that they had spoken to him, had marked his wounds, and had even partaken of fish and honey with him. Nothing seemed to stagger their faith in the Messianic character of Jesus; but greatly as they venerated and glorified him, they had not yet raised him above humanity; in spite of the enthusiasm with which he inspired them, they could not look upon him as God. They regarded him only as a highly gifted man who, having obeyed the Law more completely than any other human being, had been found worthy to be the Messiah of the Lord.

They deviated in no degree from the precepts of Judaism, observing the Sabbath, the rite of circumcision, and the dietary laws, whilst they also reverenced Jerusalem and the Temple as holy places. They were, however, distinguished from the other Judæans in some peculiarities besides the belief they cherished that the Messiah had already appeared. The poverty which they willingly embraced in accordance with the teaching of Jesus was a remarkable trait in them. From this self-imposed poverty they were called Ebionites (poor), a name they either gave themselves or received from those who had not joined them. They lived together, and each new disciple was required to sell his goods and chattels and to pour the produce into the common purse.

To this class belonged the early Christians, or Judæan Christians, who were called Nazarenes, and not, according to their origin, Essenes. Seven administrators were appointed, as was usual among the Judæans, to manage the expenditure of the community, and to provide for their common repasts. They abstained from meat, and followed the way of the Essenes, whom they also resembled in their practice of celibacy, in their disuse of oil and superfluous garments, a single one of white linen being all each possessed. It is related of James, the brother of Jesus, who, on account of his near relationship to the founder, was chosen leader of the early Christian community, and was revered as an example, that he drank no wine or intoxicating beverages, that he never ate meat, allowed no scissors to touch his hair, wore no woolen material, and had only one linen garment. He lived strictly according to the Law, and was indignant when the Christians allowed themselves to transgress it. Next to him at the head of the community of Ebionites stood Simon Kephas or Petrus, the son of Jonas, and John the son of Zebedee, who became the pillars of Christianity. Simon Peter was the most energetic of all the disciples of Jesus, and was zealous in his endeavors to enroll new followers under the banner of Christianity. In spite of the energy he thus displayed, he is described as being of a vacillating character. The Christian chronicles state that when Jesus was seized and imprisoned he denied him three times, and was called by his master "him of little faith." He averred, with the other disciples, that they had received from Jesus the mission of preaching to the lost children of the house of Israel the doctrine of the brotherhood of man and the community of goods; like Jesus and John the Baptist, they were also to announce the approaching kingdom of heaven. Christianity, only just born, went instantly forth upon her career of conquest and proselytism. The disciples asserted that Jesus had imparted to them the power of healing the sick, of awakening the dead, and of casting out evil spirits. With them the practice of exorcism became common, and thus the belief in the power of Satan and demons, brought from Galilee, first took form and root. In Judaism itself the belief in demons was of a harmless nature, without any religious significance. Christianity first raised it to be an article of faith, to which hecatombs of human beings were sacrificed. The early Christians used, or rather misused, the name of Jesus for purposes of incantation. All those who believed in Jesus boasted that it was given to them to drive away evil spirits, to charm snakes, to cure the sick by the laying on of their hands, and to partake of deadly poisons without injury to themselves. Exorcism became by degrees a constant practice among Christians; the reception of a new member was preceded by exorcism, as though the novice had till then been possessed by the devil. It was, therefore, not surprising that the Christians should have been looked upon by Judæans and heathens as conjurors and magicians. In the first century, however, Christians attracted but little attention in Judæan circles, escaping observation on account of the humble class to which they belonged. They formed a sect of their own, and were classed with the Essenes, to whom, in many points, they bore so great a resemblance. They might probably have dwindled away altogether had it not been for one who appeared later in their midst, who gave publicity to the sect, and raised it to such a pinnacle of fame that it became a ruling power in the world.

An evil star seems to have shone over the Judæan people during the hundred years which had elapsed since the civil wars under the last Hasmonæans, which had subjected Judæa to Rome. Every new event appeared to bring with it some new misfortune. The comforting proverb of Ecclesiastes, that there is nothing new under the sun, in this instance proved false. The Messianic vision which had indistinctly floated in the minds of the people, but which had now taken a tangible form, was certainly something new; and this novel apparition, with its mask of death, was to inflict new and painful wounds upon the nation.