INTRODUCTION.

TREATING PRINCIPALLY OF THE ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS OF THIS HISTORY.

A HISTORY of the "Origins of Christianity" ought to embrace all that obscure and (so to speak) subterranean period which extends from the first beginnings of this religion to the time when its existence becomes a public fact, notorious and apparent to every eye. Such a history would consist of four parts. The first, which I now present to the public, treats of the particular fact which was the starting point of the new religion, and is wholly filled with the sublime personality of the Founder. The second would treat of the Apostles and their immediate disciples; or, rather, of the revolutions which took place in religious thought in the first two generations of Christianity. This would end about the year 100, when the last friends of Jesus were just dead, and when all the books of the New Testament had almost assumed the form in which we now read them. The third would set forth the state of Christianity under the Antonines. We should here observe it slowly unfolding, and waging an almost constant war against the empire, which latter, having at that moment attained to the highest degree of administrative perfection, and being governed by philosophers, contends against the growing sect as a secret and theocratic society, which obstinately disowns and continually undermines it. This part would embrace the whole of the second century. The fourth and last part would show the decided progress of Christianity from the time of the Syrian emperors. Here we should see the elaborate structure created by the Antonines crumbling away: the decay of ancient civilisation becomes irrevocable, and Christianity profits by its ruin; Syria conquers the entire West, and Jesus, with the gods and deified sages of Asia, takes possession of a

society for which philosophy and a purely civil government are no longer enough. It is then that the religious ideas of the races settled upon the coasts of the Mediterranean undergo a great change: Eastern religions everywhere take the lead; Christianity, having become a very numerous Church, totally forgets its dreams of a millennium, breaks its last connections with Judaism, and passes entirely into the Greek and Roman world. The strifes and the literary labours of the third century, which now stand out in open day, would be described only in their general features. Still more briefly I should relate the persecutions of the early years of the fourth century, the last effort of the Empire to return to its old principles, which wholly refused to religious associations a place in the State. Finally, the change of policy which under Constantine inverted the position, and made of the most free and most spontaneous religious movement an official worship, subject to State control, and in its turn persecutor, would need only to be foreshadowed.

I do not know whether I shall have life and strength to fill out so vast a plan. I shall be satisfied if, after writing the Life of Jesus, it is given to me to relate, as I understand it, the history of the Apostles; the condition of the Christian conscience during the weeks which immediately succeeded the death of Jesus; the formation of the cycle of legends touching the resurrection; the first acts of the Church in Jerusalem; the life of Saint Paul; the crisis at the time of Nero, the appearance of the Apocalypse, the ruin of Jerusalem, the foundation of the Hebrew-Christian sects of Batanæa; the compilation of the Gospels, and the rise of the great schools of Asia Minor. Everything pales by the side of that marvellous first century. By a peculiarity rare in history, we see much better what passed in the Christian world from the year 50 to 75, than from the year 80 to 150.

The plan upon which this history proceeds prevents the introduction into the text of long critical dissertations upon controverted points. An unbroken series of notes puts the reader in a position to verify in their original sources all the propositions in the text. These notes are strictly limited to citations at first hand, —I mean, to the indication of the original passages upon which each assertion or conjecture rests. I am aware that to persons little trained in these studies many other explanations would have been necessary; but it is not my habit to do over

again what has once been done and well done. To cite only books written in French, those who will consult the works named below,1 which are for the most part excellent, will find explained in them a multitude of points upon which I have had to be very succinct. In particular, the detailed criticism of the Gospel texts has been done by Strauss in a manner which leaves little to be desired. Though he may at first have been deceived in his theory regarding the authorship of the Gospels, and though his book, in my opinion, has the fault of keeping far too closely on theological and far too little on historic ground, it is indis

1 A. RÉVILLE: Études critiques sur l'Évangile de St. Matthieu, Leyden, 1862. E. REUSS: Histoire de la théologie chrétienne au siècle apostolique; Hist. du canon des Écritures saintes dans l'Église chrétienne, Strasburg, 1860, 1862. M. NICOLAS: Des doctrines religieuses des Juifs pendant les deux siècles antérieurs à l'ère chrétienne; Études critiques sur la Bible (N. T.), Paris, 1860, 1864. D. F. STRAUSS: Vie de Jésus (tr. by M. Littré); Nouvelle Vie de Jésus (tr. by Nefftzer and Dollfus), Paris, 1856, 1864. G. D'EICHTAL: Les Évangiles, Ptie. 1; Examen crit. et compar. des trois premiers Évangiles, Paris, 1863. T. COLANI: J.-C. et les Croyances messianiques de son temps, Strasburg and Paris, 1854. A. STAP: Études hist. et crit. sur les origines du Christianisme, Paris, 1866. R. DE LIESSOL, Études sur la biogr. évang., London, 1854. Revue de théol. et de phil. chrétienne, 1850–57; Nouvelle Rev. de théol., 1858–62; 3d sér., from 1863, Strasburg and Paris.

[The following original authorities are easily accessible in English: Book of Enoch, edited by R. H. Charles (with comparison of recent Ethiopic and Greek texts), Oxford, 1893. Psalms of Solomon (Greek and English), Ryle and James, Cambridge. The Sybilline Oracles in English blank verse, by M. S. Terry, Hunt and Eaton, New York. Apocryphal Gospels, tr. by B. H. Cowper, Williams and Norgate, London, 1867. Gospel according to the Hebrews, fragments tr. by E. W. B. Nicholson, C. Kegan Paul, London, 1879. Standard critical authorities are Emil Schürer, A History of the Jewish People in the time of Jesus Christ, tr. by John Macpherson, Clark, Edinburgh, 5 vols., 1885, 1890; and A. Hausrath, A History of the N. T. Times, Williams and Norgate, London. Editions of the Apocryphal books (Evang. Apocr. and Apocal. Apocr.), edited by Tischendorf, were published by H. Mendelssohn, Leipzig, 1876; and the O. T. Apocrypha, in Greek and English, by Bagster, London, 1871.]

2 The important results obtained on this point have all been acquired since the first edition of Strauss's work; while in his successive editions the learned critic has done justice to them with great candour.

There is hardly need to remark that not a word in Strauss's book

pensable, if one would understand the motives which have guided me in a multitude of details, to follow the argument (always judicious, though sometimes a little subtle) of his book, which has been so well translated by my learned co-worker, M. Littré.

In respect of ancient testimony, I believe I have not overlooked any source of information. Not to mention a multitude of scattered data, we still have five great collections of writings respecting Jesus and the times in which he lived. These are: first, the Gospels and the New Testament writings in general; second, the compositions called the "Apocrypha of the Old Testament;" third, the works of Philo; fourth, those of Josephus; fifth, the Talmud. The writings of Philo have the inestimable advantage of showing us the thoughts which in the time of Jesus stirred souls occupied with great religious questions. Philo lived, it is true, in quite a different sphere of Judaism from Jesus; yet, like him, he was quite free from the Pharisaic spirit which reigned at Jerusalem. Philo is, in truth, the elder brother of Jesus. He was sixty-two years of age when the prophet of Nazareth had reached the highest point of his activity, and he survived him at least ten years. What a pity it is that the accidents of Philo's life did not direct his steps into Galilee! What would he not have taught us!

Josephus, who wrote chiefly for the Pagans, has not the same sincerity of style. His meagre accounts of Jesus, John the Baptist, and Judas the Gaulonite are dry and colourless. We feel that he seeks to represent these movements, so profoundly Jewish in character and spirit, in a form which would be intelligible to Greeks and Romans. Taken as a whole, I believe the passage in regard to Jesus to be authentic. It is perfectly in the style of Josephus; and if that historian mentioned Jesus at all, it is just in this manner that he would have spoken of him. We feel, however, that the hand of a Christian has retouched the fragment, adding to it words without which it would have been justifies the strange and absurd calumny by which it has been attempted to discredit, among superficial readers, a work so convenient, exact, thoughtful, and conscientious, though in its general views hurt by a too rigid system. Not only Strauss has never denied the existence of Jesus, but every page of his book implies that existence. What is true is that the author supposes the individuality of Jesus to be more nearly effaced, and so lost to us, than perhaps it is in fact.