the highway, there was a numerous staff. That occupation has never been popular; but among the Jews it was regarded as outright criminal. Taxation, which was new to them, was a sign of vassalage. One school, that of Judas the Gaulonite, maintained that to pay taxes was an act of heathenism. The customs-officers, accordingly, were abhorred by the zealots of the Law. They were only spoken of in company with assassins, highway robbers, and people of abandoned life.2 Jews who accepted such positions were excommunicated and became incapable of making a will; their money was accursed, and the casuists forbade its being exchanged.3 These poor people, under the ban of society, lived by themselves apart. Jesus accepted a dinner offered him by Levi, at which were present (in the language of the time) "many publicans and sinners." This was a great scandal. In those houses of ill-repute one ran the risk of meeting evil society. We shall often see him thus, careless of shocking the prejudices of welldisposed persons, seeking to elevate the classes scorned by the orthodox, and so exposing himself to the most cutting reproaches of the devout. Pharisaism had made salvation the reward of an infinity of petty observances, and of a sort of outward respectability. The true moralist, who came to proclaim that God requires but one thing, uprightness of heart, - must 1 Matt. ix. 9-13. 30; 2 Matt. v. 46, 47; ix. 10, 11; xi. 19; xviii. 17; xxi. 31, 32. Mark ii. 15, 16. Luke v. vii. 34; xv. 1; xviii. 11; xix. 7. Lucian, Nekyomant. 11. Dio Chrysost. Orat. iv. 85; xiv. 269 (ed. Emperius). Mishna, Nedarim, iii. 4. 8 Mishna, Baba kama, x. 1; Jerusalem Talmud, Demai, ii. 3; Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin, 25 b. 4 Luke v. 29-32. needs be welcomed with benediction among all who were not spoiled by the official hypocrisy. Jesus owed these numerous conquests to an infinite charm of person and of speech. and of speech. One penetrating word, one glance falling upon a simple conscience which was only waiting to be aroused, made such a one an ardent disciple. Sometimes he made use of an innocent artifice, which was employed at a later period by Joan of Arc. He assumed a knowledge of some private matter touching the person he wished to gain over, or he would recall some circumstance dear to that person's heart. In this manner he is said to have touched Nathanael, Peter, and the woman of Samaria.1 Dissimulating, the real source of his power, I mean his superiority to his surroundings, - he allowed it to be believed, in order to meet the ideas of the time (which he fully shared), that a revelation from on high uncovered secret things, and opened men's hearts to him. Everybody imagined that he lived in a sphere inaccessible to other men. It was said that he spoke with Moses and Elijah upon the mountains; it was believed that in his hours of solitude angels came to pay him homage, and established a supernatural intercourse between him and heaven.3 2 - 1 John i. 42, 43, 48-50; iv. 17-19: cf. Mark ii. 8; iii. 2-4; and John ii. 24, 25. 2 Matt. xvii. 3; Mark ix. 3; Luke ix. 30, 31. Matt. iv. 11; Mark i. 13. CHAPTER X. PREACHINGS ON THE LAKESIDE. SUCH was the group which gathered about Jesus on the lake-shore of Tiberias. The aristocracy was represented there by a customs-officer and a steward's wife; the others were mostly fishermen and common people. They were extremely ignorant, people of slender intelligence, who believed in apparitions and spirits.1 Not one particle of Greek culture had penetrated this original company; their Jewish instruction was also very imperfect; but they were full of heart and goodwill. The fine climate of Galilee rendered the existence of these honest fishermen a continual delight. They were true pioneers of the kingdom of God, simple, good, happy; rocked gently on their charming little lake, or sleeping at night upon its shore. One cannot realise the intoxication of a life which thus glides away under the canopy of heaven; the glow, both soft and strong, produced by this perpetual contact with Nature; the dreams of those nights in the clear starlight, under the boundless depth of an azure dome. It was during such a night that Jacob, with his head resting on a stone, beheld in the stars the promise of a countless posterity, and the mysterious ladder between heaven and earth by which the Elohim came and went. At the time of Jesus the sky was not yet shut, or the 1 Matt. xiv. 26; Mark vi. 49; Luke xxiv. 39; John vi. 19. earth grown cold. The cloud still opened above the Son of Man; angels ascended and descended upon his head;1 everywhere were visions of the kingdom of God, for man bore them in his heart. The clear, mild eyes of those simple souls contemplated the universe in its ideal source; the world perhaps unveiled its secret to the conscience, divinely clear, of these happy children, whose purity of heart deserved that one day they should be received before the face of God. Jesus lived with his disciples almost always in the open air. Sometimes he entered a boat, and taught the multitudes gathered on the shore. Sometimes he would sit upon the hills that skirt the lake, where the air is so pure and the sky so bright. The faithful band led thus a gay and roaming life, gathering the inspirations of the Master in their early bloom. An innocent doubt might now and then be raised, some question mildly sceptical; but a smile or a look from Jesus would silence the objection. At each step-in the passing cloud, in the sprouting seed, in the yellowing grain they beheld a sign of the kingdom now ready to appear; they were just about to see God, they thought, and to become masters of the world. Tears were turned into joy; it was the coming upon earth of peace to every heart. And the Master spoke these words: Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteous ness; for they shall be filled. 1 John i. 51. 2 Matt. xii. 1, 2. Mark iii. 9; iv. 1. Luke v. 3. Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God. Blessed are the peace-makers; for they shall be called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.1 His discourse was mild and gentle, redolent of Nature and of the perfume of the fields. He loved the flowers, and drew from them his most charming lessons. The birds of the air, the sea, the mountains, the sports of children, found their way by turn into his instructions. His style had nothing of the Greek period about it; it had much more the turn of the Hebrew parable, in particular such sentences of the Jewish doctors, his contemporaries, as we read in the Pirké Aboth. His comments were very brief; they formed a sort of surates, after the manner of the Koran, which, afterwards put together, made up the long discourses written out by Matthew.2 No formal transition linked together these diverse fragments; but the same inspiration generally pervaded them all, and gave them unity. In the parable, especially, the Master was at his best. Nothing in Judaism had given him the model of this delightful method;3 it was a creation of his own. No doubt there are to be found in Buddhist books some parables of precisely the same tone and fashion as the Gospel parables; but it is 1 Matt. v. 3-10; Luke vi. 20-25. 2 These are the "Lord's discourses" (λόγια κυριακά) spoken of by Papias in Eusebius (iii. 39). The apologue, such as we find it in Judges ix. 8-15 [the bramble] and 2 Sam. xii. 1-6 [the ewe-lamb], has only a formal likeness to the Gospel parable, whose real originality is in the feeling that runs through it. The parables of the Midraschin are also of quite another spirit. 4 For example, the "Lotus of the true Law," i. and iv. |