Life of Jesus

Front matter

Class_Bm4L

Book "y?4-

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT

CHAPTER II The Childhood and Youth of Jesus

Jesus was born at Nazareth/ 2 a small town in Galilee, which before his time was not known to fame. 13 All his life he was called by the name of " the Nazarene," 14 and it is only by a somewhat far-fetched and contradictory hypothesis that, in the legends respecting him, he is described as having been born at Bethlehem. 15 We shall see

18 It is not mentioned in the Old Testament, Josephus, or the Talmud; but the name occurs in the liturgy of Kalir, for the ninth of Ab.

14 Matt. 26: 71. Mark 1: 24; 14: 67. Luke 18: 37; 24: 19. John 19: 19. Acts 2: 22; 3: 6; 10: 38 (cf. John 7: 41, 42. Acts 4: 10; 6: 14; 22: 8; 26: 9). Hence the name "Nazarenes" (Acts 24: 5), long given to the Christians by the Jews, and still denoting them in all Mussulman countries.

18 A circumstance invented to correspond with Micah 5:2. The "taxing" (enrolment) made by Cyrenius (Quirinius), with which the journey to Bethlehem is connected, was at least ten years later than the date of Jesus' birth, according to Matthew and Luke. In fact, these two evangelists place his birth during the reign of Herod (Matt. 2: 1, 19, 22; Luke 1:5). Now, the census of Quirinius did not take place till after the deposal of Archelaus, that is, ten years after Herod's death, and in the thirty-seventh after the battle of Actium (Josephus, Antiquities, 17, 13: 5; 18, 1: 1; 2: 1). The inscription by which it was formerly thought to be made out that Quirinius made two enrolments is acknowledged to be spurious (see Orelli, Inscr. Lot. No. 623, with Henzen's supplement; Borghesi, Fasti consular es, unedited, under the year 742). Quirinius may have been twice legatus of Syria; but the registration took place only in his second term (Mommsen Res gesta divi Augusti, Berlin, 1865, p. 11 et seq.). The "taxing," at all events, would have applied to the regions made into a Roman province, not to kingdoms and tetrarchies, above all in the lifetime of Herod the Great. The texts by which it is sought to prove that some of the operations of statistics and registry ordered by Augustus extended to the dominion of the Herods, either imply nothing of the sort, or are the work of Christian writers who have taken this item from Luke's Gospel. What further clearly proves that the journey of the family of Joseph to Bethlehem

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

later the motive for this hypothesis, and how it was the necessary consequence of the Messianic character attributed to Jesus. 16 The precise date of his birth is unknown. It took place in the reign of Augustus, about the Roman year 750, 17 probably some years before the year 1 of the era which all civilised peoples date from the day of his birth. 18

The name of Jesus, which was given him, is Joshua in an altered form. It was a very common name; but afterwards people naturally sought for mystical interpretations and an allusion to his character of Saviour in it. 19 It may be that Jesus, like all mystics, exalted himself in this respect. More than one great vocation in history has been discovered thus by a name given to a child without premeditation. Ardent natures never resign themselves to seeing aught of chance in what concerns them. For them,

is in no way historical, is its assigned motive. Jesus was not of the family of David (see chapter 15); and even if he were, it could not be supposed that his parents would be compelled, for a mere official formality, to go and register themselves in a place which their ancestors had left a thousand years before. In forcing on them such an obligation, the Roman authority would have fostered pretensions very threatening to itself.

18 Matt. 2: 1-6; Luke 2: 1-5. That this account is lacking in Mark, with the two parallel passages (Matt. 13: 54; Mark 6: 1) in which Nazareth appears as the "own country" of Jesus, proves that no such legend belonged to the earliest text that gave the outline of the narrative as now found in Matthew and Mark. In view of the oft-repeated objections, there were prefixed to Matthew's Gospel certain qualified statements not so flagrantly contradicting the rest of the story as to compel the alteration of passages composed from cmite another point of view. Luke, on the contrary (4: 16), writing with deliberation, has for consistency's sake softened his expression. The fourth evangelist knows nothing of the journey to Bethlehem: for him, Jesus is simply "of Nazareth" (John 1: 46), or "from Galilee" (ibid. 7: 41), on two occasions when it would have been of the highest value to recall his birth at Bethlehem.

17 Matt. 2: 1, 19, 22; Luke 1 : 5. Herod died early in the year of Rome 750, corresponding with B.C. 4.

18 The calculation serving as the basis of the vulgar era (it is well known) was made by Dionysius Exiguus in the sixth century. It implies certain data purely hypothetical.

all has been regulated by God; and they perceive a sign of the supreme will in the most insignificant circumstances.

The population of Galilee was very much mixed in race, as indeed the name of the country indicated. 20 In the population of the province, in the time of Jesus, there were many who were not Jews, — Phoenicians, Syrians, Arabs, and even Greeks. 21 Conversions to Judaism were by no means rare in mixed countries of this kind. It is therefore impossible to discuss here any question of race, and endeavour to ascertain what blood flowed in the veins of him who has contributed most to efface distinctions of blood amongst mankind.

Jesus came from the ranks of the common folk. 22 His father Joseph and his mother Mary were people in humble circumstances, artisans living by their handiwork 23 in that state, so common in the East, which is neither ease nor poverty. The extreme simplicity of life in such countries, by dispensing with the need of comfort, renders the privileges of the man of wealth almost useless, and makes every one voluntarily poor. On the other hand, the total lack of appreciation of art, and all that contributes to the beauty of material life, gives a bare appearance to the house of one who otherwise wants for nothing. Apart from something sordid and repulsive which Islamism bears everywhere with it, the town of Nazareth, in the time of Jesus, did not differ greatly perhaps from what it is to-day. 24 We

,0 Gelil haggoyim, "circle of the Gentiles."

11 Strabo, 16: 2, 35. Josephus, Life, 12.

"The source of the genealogies designed to trace his descent from David will be explained below (chapter 15). The Ebionites consistently suppressed these genealogies (Epipnanius, Adv. Hcer. 30: 14).

24 The rude aspect of the ruins that cover Palestine proves that the towns not rebuilt after the Roman manner were very ill built. The form of Syrian houses is so simple, and so imperatively required by the climate, that it never can have much changed.

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

see the streets, where he played when a child, in the stonypaths or little lanes which separate the dwellings from each other. No doubt the house of Joseph much resembled those poor domiciles, lighted only by the doorway, serving at once as workshop, kitchen, and bedroom, and having for furniture a mat, some cushions on the ground, one or two clay pots, and a painted chest.

The family, whether it was the issue of one or several marriages, was somewhat large. Jesus had brothers and sisters 25 who seem to have been younger than he. 26 They all remained obscure, for it appears that the four men who were called his brothers, and among whom one at least, James, became of great importance in the early years of the development of Christianity, were his cousins-german. Mary, in fact, had a sister, also named Mary, 27 who married a certain Alpheus or Cleophas (these names appear to designate the same person) 28 and was the mother of several sons who were of considerable importance among the first disciples of Jesus. These cousins-german, who adhered to the young Master while his own brothers opposed him

"Matt. 1: 25 (common reading); 12: 46-50; 13:55, 56. Mark 3: 31-35; 6: 3. Luke 2: 7; 8: 19-21. John 2: 12; 7: 3, 5, 10. Acts 1:14. Hegesippus (Euseb. H. E. 3: 20). The assertion that ah ("brother") has a wider sense in Hebrew than with us is wholly false; its meaning is identically the same. Abuse and metaphoric or mistaken use prove nothing. When a preacher calls his hearers "my brethren," do we infer that the word "brother" has no well-defined meaning ? In the passages just cited, it is clear that the word has no figurative sense. Note especially Matt. 12: 46-50, which equally forbids the loose rendering "cousin."

28 Matt. 1: 25; Luke 2: 7. There are critical doubts on the text in Matthew, but not on that in Luke.

27 It is certainly a singular circumstance that these two sisters have the same name. There is probably some inaccuracy, arising from the habit of almost indiscriminately calling Galilean women "Mary."

28 They are not etymologically the same. 'A\<pcuos is a transcription of the Syro-Chaldaic name Halphai; K\(oiras, or k\€6ttos, is a shortened form of K\c6iraTpos. But one may have been artificially substituted for the other, — as "Joseph" is made Hegesippus, "Eliakim" Alcimus, etc.

(John 7: 5), took the title of "brothers of the Lord." 29 The real brothers of Jesus, like their mother, became of note only after his death. Even then their reputation does not appear to have equalled that of their cousins, whose conversion had been more spontaneous, and whose characters seem to have had more originality. Their names were so little known that, when the evangelist puts in the mouth of the men of Nazareth the enumeration of the brothers according to natural relationship, the names of the sons of Cleophas are the first to present themselves to him.

The sisters of Jesus were married at Nazareth, and there he spent the early years of his youth. Nazareth was a small town, situated in a hollow opening broadly at the summit of the group of mountains which shuts in the plain of Esdraelon on the north. The population is now from three to four thousand, and can never have varied much. 30 The cold is sharp in winter, and the climate very healthy. The town, like all the small Jewish towns at that period, was a group of huts shabbily built, and must have presented that

" In fact, the four named (Matt. 13: 55; Mark 6: 3) as "brothers" of Jesus — James, Joses (or Joseph), Simon, and Judas — are all, or nearly all, found as sons of Mary and Cleophas (Matt. 27: 56; Mark 15: 40, 16: 1; Luke 24: 10; Gal. 1: 19; Jas. 1:1; Jude 1; Euseb. Chron. a.u.c. 810; H. E. 3: 11, 22, 32, after Hegesippus; Const. Apost. 7: 46). The suggestion here proposed is the only relief to the great difficulty of supposing two sisters having each three or four sons with the same names; and of admitting that James and Simon, the first two bishops of Jerusalem, called "brothers of the Lord," were real brothers of Jesus, who began by opposing him, but were afterwards converted. The evangelist, hearing the sons of Cleophas called "brothers of the Lord," wrote their names by mistake in the passage (Matt. 13: 55 =Mark 6: 3) instead of the unknown names of the real brothers. Thus we see how those called "brothers of the Lord" — James, for example — are so different in character from the real brothers of Jesus as indicated in John 7: 3-5. The expression "the Lord's brothers" evidently designated, in the primitive church, a sort of rank similar to the apostolic (see especially Gal. 1: 19; 1 Cor. 9: 5).

30 According to Josephus (Wars, 3, 3: 2) the smallest Galilean town had at least 15,000 inhabitants. This is doubtless exaggeration.

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

forbidding and poverty-stricken aspect which is still characteristic of villages in the East. The houses, it would seem, did not differ much from those cubes of stone, elegant neither without nor within, which at the present day cover the richest parts of Lebanon, and which, buried as they are amid vines and fig-trees, are, in some respects, very pleasing. The surroundings moreover are charming; and no place in the world could be so well adapted for dreams of perfect happiness. Even in our time Nazareth is still a delightful abode, perhaps the only place in Palestine in which the mind feels relieved of the burden which oppresses it in that land of unparalleled desolation. The people are pleasant and cheerful; the gardens fresh and green. Anthony the Martyr, writing at the end of the sixth century, draws an enchanting picture of the fertility of the neighbourhood, which he compares to Paradise. Some valleys on the western side amply justify his description. The fountain, formerly the centre of the life and gaiety of the little town, is destroyed; its broken channels now contain only a muddy stream. But the beauty of the women who assemble there in the evening — that beauty which was remarked even in the sixth century, and was regarded as a gift of the Virgin Mary — is still preserved in a striking manner. It is the Syrian type in all its languid grace. No doubt Mary was there almost every day, and, with her j ar on her shoulder, took her place with the rest of her neighbours who have remained in oblivion. Anthony the Martyr observes that the Jewish women, elsewhere disdainful to Christians, were here full of good feeling. Even now religious hatred is weaker at Nazareth than in the rest of the country.

The view from the town is limited; but if we ascend a little to the plateau, swept by a perpetual breeze, which stands above the highest houses, the landscape is magnificent. On the west stretch the fine outlines of Carmel, 23 terminating in an abrupt spur which seems to run down sheer to the sea. Next, one sees the double summit which towers above Megiddo; the mountains of the country of Shechem, with their holy places of the patriarchal period; the hills of Gilboa, the small picturesque group to which is attached the graceful or terrible recollections of Shunem and of Endor; and Tabor, with its beautiful rounded form, which antiquity compared to a bosom. Through a gap between the mountains of Shunem and Tabor are visible the valley of the Jordan and the high plains of Peraea, which form a continuous line from the eastern side. On the north, the mountains of Safed, stretching towards the sea, conceal St. Jean d'Acre, but leave the Gulf of Khaifa in sight. Such was the horizon of Jesus. This enchanted circle, cradle of the kingdom of God, was for years his world. Indeed, during his whole life he went but little beyond the familiar bounds of his childhood. For yonder, northwards, one can almost see, on the flank of Hermon, Caesarea-Philippi, his farthest point of advance into the Gentile world; and to the south the less smiling aspect of these Samaritan hills foreshadows the dreariness of Judaea beyond, parched as by a burning wind of desolation and death.

If the world, remaining Christian but attaining to a better idea of that which constitutes a fitting respect for the beginnings of its religion, should ever wish to replace by authentic holy places the mean and apocryphal sanctuaries to which the piety of less enlightened ages was attached, it is upon this mountain height of Nazareth that it would build its temple anew. There, at the birthplace of Christianity, and in the centre of the deeds of its Founder, ought the great church to be raised in which all Christians should worship. Here, too, on this spot where Joseph the carpenter sleeps with thousands of forgotten Nazarenes 24

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

who never passed beyond the horizon of their valley, the philosopher would find a place, better than any in the world beside, to contemplate human affairs in their courses, to console himself for their incertitude, and to win fresh assurance of the divine end which the world pursues through innumerable falterings and despite the vanity of all things.

Chapter III

These natural surroundings, at once smiling and impressive, formed the whole education of Jesus. No doubt he learnt to read and write (John 8:6) according to the Eastern method, which consists in putting in the child's hands a book, which he repeats in cadence with his little comrades, until he knows it by heart. 31 It is doubtful, however, if he fully understood the Hebrew writings in their original tongue. His biographers make him cite them according to translations in the Aramean language; 32 his exegetical principles, so far as we can judge of them from his disciples, much resembled those then in vogue, which represent the spirit of the Targummim and the Midrashim. 33

The schoolmaster in small Jewish towns was the hazzan, or reader in the synagogues. 34 Jesus frequented but little the higher schools of the scribes or soferim. 36 There were perhaps none in Nazareth, and he was not possessed of any of those titles which, in the eyes of the vulgar, confer the privileges of knowledge. Nevertheless, it would be a great error to imagine that Jesus was what we should call an ignorant man. Amongst us scholastic education draws a great distinction, in respect of personal worth, between those who have received it and those who have not had the

81 Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, Levi 6.

"Jewish translations and commentaries of the Old Testament

"Mishna, Schabbath, 1: 3.

opportunity. It was not so in the East, or indeed anywhere in the good old times. The state of ignorance in which, owing to our isolated and entirely individualistic way of living, those amongst us remain who have not passed through the schools is unknown in those societies where moral culture, and, above all, the general spirit of the age, are transmitted by the perpetual contact of man with man. The Arab who has never had a teacher is often nevertheless a man of great distinction; for the tent is a kind of school always open, where, from the intercourse of well-bred men, is produced a great intellectual, even literary, movement. Refinement of manners and acuteness of intellect have, in the East, nothing in common with what we call education. It is the men of the schools, on the contrary, who are considered as being pedantic, and wanting in manners. In a social state such as this, ignorance, which with us condemns a man to an inferior position, is the condition of great things and of high originality.

In all probability Jesus did not know Greek. The language was spread but little in Judaea beyond the classes who took part in the Government, and the towns inhabited by pagans, like Caesarea. 36 The real mother-tongue of Jesus was the Syrian dialect mingled with Hebrew, which was then spoken in Palestine. 37 Still less is it probable that

88 Mishna, Schekalim, 3: 2. Jerusalem Talmud, Megilla, halaca 11; Sofa, 7:1. Babyl. Talmud, Baba kama, 83 a, Megilla, 8 b et seq.

37 Matt. 27: 46. Mark 3: 17; 5: 41; 7: 34; 14: 36; 15: 34. The expression v irdrpios <pa>vii in the writers of this time, always signifies the Semitic dialect spoken in Palestine (2 Mace. 7: 21, 27; 12: 37. Acts 21: 37, 40; 22: 2; 26: 14. Jos. Antiq. 18, 6: 10; 20, 11: 2; and Wars, Prooem. 1; 5, 6: 3 ; 9: 2; 6, 2: 1. C. Apion. l:9;de Mace. 12, 16). It will be shown, later on, that some of the documents serving as the groundwork of the Synoptic Gospels were written in this Semitic dialect. It was the same with several apocryphal writings (4 Mace. 16 ad calcem). In short, the Christianity which sprang directly from the Galilean movement (Nazarene, Ebionite, etc.), which long subsisted in Bataneea and Hauran, employed a Semitic dialect (Euseb. De Situ, etc., s. v.

he had any acquaintance with Greek culture. Such culture was proscribed by the doctors of Palestine, who included in the same curse " him who rears swine, and him who teaches his son Greek learning." 38 In any case it had not penetrated in little towns like Nazareth. It is true that, notwithstanding the anathema of the doctors, some Jews had already embraced Hellenic culture. Apart from the Jewish school of Egypt, in which attempts to amalgamate Hellenism and Judaism had been continued for nearly two hundred years, a Jew, Nicholas of Damascus, had become, even at this time, one of the most distinguished, one of the best informed, and one of the most respected men of his age. Josephus was soon to furnish another example of a Jew completely Hellenised. But Nicholas was only a Jew in blood. Josephus declares himself to have been an exception among his contemporaries; and the whole schismatic school of Egypt was so far detached from Jerusalem, that we do not find the least allusion to it either in the Talmud or in Jewish tradition. What is certain is, that Greek was very little studied at Jerusalem; Greek studies were regarded as dangerous, and even servile, and at best considered as an accomplishment for women. 39 The study of the Law was alone accounted liberal and worthy a serious man's attention. 40 Questioned as to the time at which it would be right to teach children " the wisdom of the Greeks," a learned Rabbi answered, " At the time which is neither day nor night; since it is written of the Law, Thou shalt study it day and night." 41

X«/3a. Epiph. Adv. hoer. 29: 7, 9; 30: 3. Jerome, In Matt. 12: 13; Dial. adv. Pelag. 3: 2).

88 Mishna, Sanhedrin, 11: 1. Babyl. Talmud, Baba kama, 82 b, 83 a; Sota, 49 a, b; Menachoth, 64 b (cf. 2 Mace. 4: 10).

39 Jerusalem Talmud, Peah. 1:1.

40 Josephus, Antiq. 20, 11: 2; Origen, Contra Celsum 2: 34.

41 Jerus, Talmud, Peah, 1:1; Babyl. Talmud, Menachoth, 99 b.

Neither directly nor indirectly, then, did any element of secular teaching reach Jesus. He was ignorant of all beyond Judaism; his mind kept that free innocence which an extended and varied culture always weakens. In the very bosom of Judaism he remained a stranger to many efforts often moving on the same lines as his own. On the one hand, the ascetic life of the Essenes or the Therapeutae ; 42 on the other, the fine speculations in religious philosophy made by the Jewish school at Alexandria, of which Philo, his contemporary, was the ingenious interpreter, were unknown to him. The frequent resemblances to be found between him and Philo, those excellent maxims about the love of God, charity, rest in God, 43 which seem as it were to echo between the Gospel and the writings of the illustrious Alexandrian thinker, are derived from the common tendencies, inspired by the necessities of the age in all lofty minds.

Happily for him, he was also ignorant of the grotesque scholasticism which was taught at Jerusalem, and was soon to constitute the Talmud. If some Pharisees had already imported it into Galilee, he did not associate with them, and when, in later life, he encountered this foolish casuistry, it only filled him with disgust. It may well be conjectured, however, that the principles of Hillel were not unknown to him. Hillel, fifty years before him, had given utterance to aphorisms presenting many analogies to his own. By his meekly endured poverty, by the sweetness of his character, by his opposition to priests and hypocrites, Hillel was the

42 The Therapeutse of Philo are a branch of the Essenes. The name even, seems to be only a Greek translation of the word (E<r<rcuoi, asaya, "healers"). See Philo, De Vita contempt. 1; Josephus, Wars, 2, 8: 6; Epiphan. Adv. hmr. 29: 4. The Essenes do not once appear in the early Christian writings.

43 See, in particular, Philo's Quis rerum divinarum hares sit, and De Philanthropia.

true master of Jesus, 44 if indeed it be permitted to speak of a master in connection with one of such high originality as the latter.

The reading of the books of the Old Testament made much more impression upon him. The canon of the holy books was composed of two chief parts — the Law, that is to say the Pentateuch, and the Prophets, such as we now possess them. A vast allegorical exegesis was applied to all these books, with the purpose of drawing from them something that was not in them, but which answered to the aspirations of the age. The Law, which represented not the ancient laws of the country, but rather Utopias, the factitious laws and pious frauds of the period of the pietistic kings, had become, since the nation had ceased to govern itself, an inexhaustible theme for subtle interpretations. As to the Prophets and the Psalms, the popular belief was that almost all the somewhat mysterious traits in these books referred to the Messiah; and people sought to find in them the type of him who should realise the hopes of the nation. Jesus participated in the taste which every one possessed for these allegorical interpretations. But the true poetry of the Bible, which escaped the puerile exegetists of Jerusalem, was fully revealed to his great genius. The Law does not appear to have had much charm for him: he believed that he could do better. But the religious poetry of the Psalms was in marvellous accordance with his lyrical soul; all his life they were his sustenance and his support. The prophets — Isaiah in particular, and his successor in the epoch of the captivity — with their brilliant dreams of the future, their impetuous eloquence, and their invectives mingled with enchanting imagery, were his real masters. No doubt, he also read many apocryphal works — that is

4 i Pirke Aboth, 1 , 2. Jerus Talmud, Pesachim, 6:1. Babyl . Talmud, Pesachim, 66 a; Schabbath, 30 b, 31 a; Joma, 35 b.

to say somewhat modern writings, the authors of which, to give themselves an authority only accorded to very ancient scriptures, had sheltered themselves under the names of prophets and patriarchs. One of these books especially attracted him, — the book of Daniel. 45 This book, written by an impassioned Jew of the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, and attached by him to the name of an ancient sage, 48 formed a resume of the spirit of those later times. Its author, the true creator of the philosophy of history, was the first who dared to see in the general progress of the world and the succession of its empires, only a purpose subordinate to the destinies of the Jewish people. Early in life Jesus was possessed by these high hopes. Perhaps, too, he had read the books of Enoch, 47 then held in equal reverence with the sacred books, and the other writings of the same kind which kept the popular imagination so active. The advent of the Messiah, with his glories and his terrors — the nations crumbling down to ruin on one another, the cataclysm of heaven and earth, — in such ideas his imagination found constant sustenance; and, as these revolutions were proclaimed to be at hand, and a great number of persons endeavoured to prognosticate the time when they should come to pass, the supernatural state of feeling into which such visions transport us, appeared to him from the first as being perfectly natural and simple.

48 The legend of Daniel was already shaped in the seventh century B.C. (Ezek. 14: 14, 20; 28: 3). It was afterward supposed that he had lived at the time of the Captivity in Babylon.

47 Jude 6, 14; 2 Pet. 2: 4, 11; Test, of the Twelve Patriarchs (Simeon 5; Levi 10, 14, 16; Judah 18; Zeb. 3; Dan. 5; Benj. 9; Naphtali 4); Ep. Barn. 4, 16 (cod. Sinait.; see Introd. pp. 41, 42). The Book of Enoch still forms part of the Ethiopic Bible. As we know it in the Ethiopic version, it is composed of portions of various dates. [See Hist, of Israel^ 5: 20, n.] Several have a likeness to the discourses of Jesus (cf. chaps. 96-99 with Luke 6: 24-26).

That Jesus had no knowledge of the general state of the world is evident from every feature of his most authentic discourses. To him the earth appeared to be still divided into kingdoms warring with one another; he seemed to be ignorant of the " Roman peace " and the new state of society which was inaugurated in his time. He had no precise idea of the Roman power; the name of "Caesar" alone reached him. He saw, in course of construction, in Galilee or its environs, Tiberias, Julias, Diocaesarea, Caesarea, stately works of the Herods who sought, by erecting these magnificent buildings, to prove their admiration for Roman civilisation, and their devotion towards the members of the family of Augustus, whose names, by a caprice of fate, now serve, grotesquely altered, to designate miserable Bedouin hamlets. Probably he also saw Sebaste, the work of Herod the Great, a showy city, the ruins of which would lead one to believe that it had been brought to its site ready made, like a machine which had only to be put together and set up. This ostentatious piece of architecture which arrived in Judaea by ship-loads, these hundreds of columns, all of uniform diameter, the ornament of some insipid " Rue de Rivoli " — these were what he called " the kingdoms of the world and all their glory." But this autocratic luxuriousness, this administrative and official art, displeased him. What he loved were his Galilean villages, confused masses of huts, of nests and holes cut in the rocks, of wells, of tombs, of fig-trees, and of olives. He always clung close to nature. The courts of kings appeared to him as places where people wear fine clothes (Matt. 9:8). The charming impossibilities of which his parables are full, when he brings kings and the mighty ones of the earth into the story, 48 prove that he never conceived of aristocratic